I’ve got to think about it.
What are you doing in that profession of yours, Aya? Money never spoke to you, it’s so unlike you. You always wanted to do something real.
Promise me that you won’t give up on yourself.
Yaron.
A rapid click on the mouse, and without the slightest delay, clicking on the enclosed file, to take inside of me, in one gulp, what he’s saying to me, inside my letter.
The Letter
Hello Yaron,
The storm came first. I couldn’t have prepared for it, how could I? The first signs came even before we met up. A Friday, at noon. The phone call. “Your green eyes stayed with me all these years.” How could I have not been shaken to the depths of my being on hearing something like that. Suddenly plunged into a state of such expectancy and anticipation, the happiness, the excitement of it all, my whole being straining towards you.
And then you came, bringing the storm. It was because of the meeting with you, because of this whirlwind, this time tunnel – which wasn’t a tunnel but a dizzying, roller coaster that brought my thoughts to the verge of madness. There was nothing to hold on to; the thoughts buffeted me, bursting out of their own accord in every direction. Is this really Yaron? I’m sitting with him right now, for he’s sitting here, facing me, is this real? When I last saw him it was in a previous incarnation, but I’m meeting with him now – he’s just left and he’ll be right back, here on the table is his cup of coffee, and next to it is my glass of water with its lipstick marks, I didn’t have lipstick then, I was a young girl, and what am I now? Here’s his bag, it’s also a witness to this, I’m pinching myself, and if I uploaded your image, the one I’m looking at right now, into the computer, and made the white hair black, and then brought the image back, from the screen to life, would that really be you? Is your leg, showing between your sock and the hem of your trousers, is it the same leg from back then, or has it changed?
***
How you’ve captured the intensity, Aya. And how you bring everything back to life. Every moment of our meeting there is etched in my mind. Seeing you again, after all these years. Suddenly seeing you again. And you haven’t changed, Aya, you are just like you were.
***
Then came sentences, and words, and gestures that sent me spinning into an uncontrollable whirlpool. Words, how could I bear such words, with a sadness that I also couldn’t bear. I tried so hard to block them out, as if the sentences were in fact never said, but how can one ignore things said that make your heart quiver. And how can I ignore that huge sense of loss that I heard in your voice. I must write your words down so they won’t be forgotten – ‘missed opportunity’. Was it really a missed opportunity? Could we have been together, were we really so mismatched like I said and hurt you, immediately regretting it, trying to take back the words that had already been said. And when we parted, “Whatever will be will be, whatever’s supposed to happen will happen,” you said ever so quietly, to yourself. But I heard. I heard and didn’t want to hear, and yet I so wanted to grasp your words, each strain, each note, understanding that I had been there with you all those years, that I was present. It’s impossible to relive first love, you said, impossible. It was first love, that’s what you said, “It was you.” How could I possibly remain sane after all that. The sheer intensity of your feelings, that were, that are, I don’t even know what they are now, your thoughts about me, the desire to speak freely, meet freely, but it’s impossible, the need for forbearance is unavoidable. And your thoughts, they didn’t stop there, I felt your gaze, as if thinking about me from a distance, following me from another city, glances that reveal an inner beauty, that’s what you said, and even though it was only in my imagination, maybe you ignited it. It also was such a compliment; how could it not be?
So it hasn’t ceased for me. This sudden eruption of youth, the waves of femininity, suddenly feeling like a girl of twenty, with jeans and sandals and a blue shirt. You can’t imagine what it did for me.
***
But Aya, it is real. And you deserved to hear it. And to feel it all. Even at our age we can be charged with so much excitement. I hardly have sufficient words to thank you for your letter, Aya, and for your openness, and for the courage that’s in you. It’s so long since my heart has been moved by such emotion.
***
I’m saying goodbye to you now, Yaron. Yet another parting. How I hate partings. But now it’s different. Now it’s for a few months, to get our lives on an even keel again. I hope that for you and Hagar, who is unaware of my renewed existence, things will be good, really good. And don’t forget that I’d like to read those old letters of mine that you’ve kept.
I’d be happy to hear from you around the New Year. I wonder how much water will have flowed under the bridge by then.
Aya.
April
Spring’s in full bloom. Already nine whole days of this complete break, and another hundred and seventy-two days to go. It’s virtually impossible to shake this addiction; a real weaning away from addiction, full on, but from what? How could I have got addicted to these nothing emails? “It’s already hot here today,” that’s what he wrote, “Really?” I replied, how lame. “Yes, and how’s it for you?” He slapped together a few more words, generously dishing them up. “All right,” I faltered, but managed to reply, batting back the ping-pong ball so it wouldn’t drop. Empty words, feeling hollow through and through, there’s nothing to say but I mustn’t let go. If I say, “Fine, well, bye for now,” or if I write, “I’m busy today,” or “Let’s speak later,” will that ‘later’ be tomorrow or the next day or in a year’s time, and what if we don’t talk again for another twenty-eight years? What is this addiction I had, addiction to a vacuum, what do I want, what do I need, what is it about Yaron that dried up my life, yet there’s no life without it?
Maybe he’ll want to answer my letter; that’s what I hoped when I sent it, leaving him an opening to respond. I asked straight out, before the curtain comes down and Yaron is left on the other side of it, disappearing again from my life. Words that I typed in so carefully, one by one, trying to sort out my thoughts and say goodbye again, though a temporary goodbye, a tranquil goodbye, since we’ll meet again, then all of a sudden – a storm of waves washes over him, his heart unable to contain them. It was impossible to hold back the floodgates, if only I could have recorded the words, somehow preserved the excitement in his voice. You’re so sharp, Aya, you don’t miss the slightest nuance, and your mind is always on the go, so wonderful to see this, just wonderful. It’s you, Aya, I always knew it. Did I hear a tremor in his voice? Shut up in his study, sitting there late into the night, reading my letter, over and over, his face flushed.
Sitting there, bent over, leaning on the writing desk. His back to the door, is it locked? Hope you don’t forget to lock it, I remind him in my heart. Days have already gone by, miles of silence separate us. I see him from a distance, passing his hand across his forehead. Have their children any inkling of the barrage of feelings tugging at his heart, their grown-up, authoritative father? Have they ever seen him so agitated? Does he often get as stormy as this? And what else brings up these emotions in him? And Hagar. What does she know, what does she think? And when she’s with him, enfolded in his arms. And he, next to her, do his thoughts stray, is his heart full to brimming? Do they talk? What do they talk about? And does he think, perhaps, just perhaps, under different circumstances, had the circumstances been different, had everything been different… is that what he thinks? Let him not think this, let him not think this at all, let him suspend all thought.
How come all this preoccupies me now? What is it that I want from him? Why do I suddenly need him present in my life, observing from a distance, why do I suddenly need to share – I went here, came back from there, where does it come from, this sudden need to report? Even during the seven weeks when we were in contact, it wasn’t as if I really told him anything, most of the time I couldn’t say a thing. Ho
w could my thoughts of him have been suspended, absent for twenty-eight years? And myself, why can’t I remember myself then, where did those years go? The little that I remember, the toxic scraps of memory, why should it have been them, of all things, that stayed with me?
It’s May now, summer waits in the wings. I wake up close to dawn, it’s barely five. I go out to the terrace, facing the chill of early morning. The garden, the lemon tree, the scent of herbs. Translucent air enters the house, soft light streams through the curtains; gleaming floors, covered by tranquil rugs. The kids are asleep in their rooms, their school bags, shoes, clothes all strewn about them, their faces infused with calm. A sense of repletion enfolds me, it’s a dream come true, the children, our little house dipped in light and greenness, filled with love. I come back ever so quietly to the room, wearing the flimsy nightdress that Uri so loves, squeezing in next to him, getting back inside the imprint of my body beside him. This is my place, right here, surrounded by the warmth of Uri’s body. “A perfect home,” I whisper into him.
He squeezes me tight, gathers me into his embrace. I’m pressed to him, my heart to his chest, all of me clasped to him.
And Uri’s answer, words that reverberate in my mind.
“Keep it like that for us.”
10. Yaron
Strange. Aya wants to read her old letters. “Do you think you could give them to me?” That question, when we met up. I was surprised. I didn’t answer. But then she asked me again. I was evasive. I didn’t want to tell her that I wasn’t sure I knew where they were. “I only want to read them, I’ll read them and when I’m done, I’ll give them back to you, I promise.” I didn’t know what to say. In the end I asked, “What for Aya, why do it? Best leave them alone.” “I can’t really explain it,” she replied. And she also said, “It’s impossible to explain something like this, it’s as if all those years of my life have just vanished.” Her voice unsteady. “Perhaps if I read what I wrote, I’ll remember.” You haven’t lost them Aya, everything is embedded in me, I remember everything, I smiled into her greenness but didn’t tell her. I didn’t mean to but I must have embarrassed her; she’s easily embarrassed, can just anyone make her blush like that? Sometimes I remember it all as if it were yesterday. How come she doesn’t remember? Everything is so alive in me, there are things that I’ll never forget. She must be going through something, that’s for sure, she sounded dreadful that morning when she told me that we wouldn’t be in touch for the time being. Why would she want to dive into those letters now – what would that do to her? The truth is that you need courage for that, everything might come back all of a sudden, those letters have absorbed everything, all our blood, sweat and tears, all the words. She never had a problem with writing, nor did I, all through the army, three years, every single day. I would write, stick it in an envelope and send it off and then wait for a letter back from her. Why does she want to go into all this now? It’s clear things are good with Uri, although I don’t entirely buy everything she says. “Perfect” slipped out of her, and then she instantly regretted it, didn’t want to hurt me. If everything is so perfect, then why did she even phone me, why search me out at all? A birthday is just an excuse, it’s staggering how people start to believe in their own excuses. What does she say to Uri, what does Uri think? How can she tell him? And if she’s going to read them, is she also going to talk to him about those letters? Heavens, I just don’t get their relationship. I wonder if this complete break till the New Year proves hard on her too. The truth is, I sort of hope it does. To be honest, my blood races when I think that perhaps she does miss me a bit, after she utterly obliterated our love. But I do want life to be good for her. In my heart, I always wished her well. It took me years to get used to her being with me like a mist, a sort of transparent figure, a blurry hologram that sometimes appears next to you, till you actually forget that she’s a real, three-dimensional human being. To the extent that you don’t even ask yourself what’s really going on with her, what’s with her after all these years? Where is she? That’s how it was until that day ten years ago. I had accumulated a list of errands in the centre of Haifa – things I’d been putting off for ages, so I decided to take the bus into town. I’d got everything done and told Hagar that I would be popping in to see my parents. I got to the number 9 stop and suddenly I saw her standing there, her dress, that plait. I was shocked, she was also waiting for the bus, really close, I could almost smell that fresh lemon scent of hers, that’s Aya, suddenly, just like that, in broad daylight. Standing a few meters from me, her gaze going straight through me and moving on as if I was nothing but air. I went on looking at her, sideways, in shock, total disbelief. Finally, the bus arrived, she adjusted her bag on her shoulder, approached the steps, got on. I let some woman with two children go in front of me, to keep a safe distance, then I got on, she was already seated, I sat diagonally behind her, kept shooting glances at her the whole way, hoping she’d come to her senses, Come on Aya, drop it, what’s the matter with you? She even fiddled with her plait, I don’t know if she did it on purpose or what, then took out a book from her bag, started to read, I saw that she was really reading, not just pretending, I couldn’t believe she was doing this to me. We passed my stop, I went on sitting there, glued to my seat, all the time waiting for her to give in, praying, Come on, Aya, turn around, say hello, even just a sign with your eyes, what’s up with you, why are you keeping your back to me? A moment later we passed the bend, almost reached the bus-stop by her parents’ house. She got up, smoothed her hair, rang the bell, I looked at her, couldn’t breathe. She was standing there, tugging at her dress slightly, patting her hair, I kept staring, couldn’t take my eyes off her, her hand was holding the handles of her bag, those fingers which had once known the whole of me. I thought, here, now she’ll turn around to me, but nothing, she stood there, her back to me, just her back, not exactly her back, more her side, waiting for the bus to reach the stop, not turning her head towards me. I wanted to shout, Aya! There was no use, the bus slowed down, stopped, there were only a few more seconds, just another three seconds, perhaps she’d relent at the very last minute, go down the steps but turn her face toward me and say hello with her eyes. Then the door opened, that noise of the door, she got off, the door closed. She started walking, the bus started moving away, a magnet pulled my head back, she continued walking, her back growing distant, the bus reached a bend, I could no longer see her, just the edge of her bag, she disappeared, I thought I was going to collapse. Suddenly I remembered all those times we’d seen Dr. Zhivago together, how she loved that film, there’d be tears in her eyes every time. “What kind of a world is it, Yaron,” she would say, “why shouldn’t it be possible to love someone and to stay together, why are there always these partings? We’ll never part, will we? Promise me that we’ll never ever part, Yaron, promise me,” and I’d promise her, “Why should we part, I’ll never, ever give you up, never.” And then she’d immediately say, “I said it first,” and she’d tickle me behind my knee, it was her spot, she’d discovered a few others in me, she knew me through and through. “I said it first that I’m never going to give you up.” On the bus, I suddenly remembered all this, I simply couldn’t breathe, my chest was almost bursting, I barely made it home, collapsed on the sofa in my study, it took me days to recover. Do I mean nothing to you, nothing at all, how can you be like this, what have I done to you, what have I done that you can’t say so much as hello to me, have you forgotten everything we had together?
Yet apparently she really didn’t see me; when she phoned me that Friday, after all those years, and I mentioned it – she was astonished, she couldn’t believe it, she was sure that I was mistaken. I hadn’t even considered this as a possibility. Had I changed that much? Well, it’s true, a few years had passed. Perhaps she had been dreaming there on the bus, it would have been typical of her, even then she’d be drifting sometimes. “So why didn’t you come up to me yourself and say hello to me?” she asked. I had no answer. “You saw
that I wasn’t speaking so why didn’t you speak up yourself?” she argued. I felt like burying myself; what could I say to her?
I don’t know what’s going to happen when the summer’s over, it’ll be the New Year soon. Perhaps she’ll call. Perhaps she’s waiting for me to call her.
What do I want? What’s best for me? I haven’t the faintest. Friendship – I don’t know if that’s possible. But I must find her letters; that, at least, I owe her.
11. Aya
Saturday morning. Clinging so close, so close together. What kind of a glue is it? There’s no expiry date, it has lost none of its freshness. Suddenly it’s renewed now, with such intensity, at the age of forty-eight. That was at the start of the summer.
“Uri.”
His hand moves down the length of my back, from the very top and downwards.
“Uri,” clinging even more.
“Yes, Aychuk.”
“I want to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“I love you.”
“I know, Aya.”
“But I want to say it.”
“So go ahead. “
“I say it the whole time.”
“So say it more.”
“Sometimes I’m afraid you’ll get tired of hearing it.”
Again, he responds with a caress. His eyes smiling toward the ceiling.
“Uri.”
“Yes, my Aychuk.”
“But I still want to keep saying it.”
“Say it, Aya, say it.”
“But what if you get fed up, what if it gets too much for you?”
So We Said Goodbye: A Contemporary Fiction Novel Page 5