“There’s no such thing as too much, I’ll never get tired of hearing it.”
“I love you so much.”
“I didn’t hear, what did you say?”
***
Time doesn’t stop moving. I open my diary to check what’s in store for tomorrow, what’s ahead for me this week.
Every Sunday night, an old, old habit from way back.
And now another habit has been added to it.
Working out, counting. How many days are there left till the High Holidays, the end of the edict.
Eighty-seven days.
And you, Yaron
What are you up to, these mid-summer days? Are you also counting days, estimating distances? Am I near or distant? You are in my heart, yet so far away.
How can it be that nothing physical went through my mind when we met up? When I met up with you it was as if I’d forgotten that this even exists – the whole world of men, and women, and the tension between them. A colour that’s so strong, the colour red that gives life its vitality. But it was as if I was wearing filtered lenses, how could I possibly have been so blind to this colour when I met you?
And you, Yaron. Did your eyes detect that colour? And what was in your heart, then, that Friday noon, outside your parents’ house, on your birthday? Getting my phone call, being taken by surprise. Though you did recover quickly, or maybe you just seemed to, breezing through the landscape of your life, studies, work. “Yes, we have children,” you smiled, providing names and ages, “Yes, I’m with Hagar.” You’d been living abroad for many years, you told me, and missing Israel, particularly you, you took pains to add. And what passed through your mind as I was struggling to string the words together, you must have understood that the words were tangling, jumbling on my tongue, they kept trying to stand but were beaten down, slipping. “Maybe, only if you’d like… “ “If I’d like what?” you asked quietly, a tautness in your voice. “Maybe…” I tried again, “we don’t have to...” “What’s on your mind Aya? What is it…?” You stretched out your hand towards me from a distance, held it out to me. “Maybe we could meet… if you like… over a cup of coffee.” I finally managed to set up the letters, and join them up into words, adding a hesitant question mark to them. It was said. Impossible to take back.
What went through your mind during the days that I was waiting, and then, when you decided yes, that we would meet? And when I asked for a quiet place, very quiet, “I know a little hotel in Caesarea, we could meet in the lobby,” I suggested. And as I was facing you, sitting stiffly on the sofa, my face frozen into a smile, what were your thoughts? Was your mind feverish, and your heart aflame? Why did you beat such a hasty retreat, Aya, a one-way ticket away from love? And now, why did you come back now? What do you truly want, what is it that you are lacking? And me, what do I want? What can I do? And Hagar, what about her? The agitation must have been so immense for you, all too much. Get up, go, I must go, is that what you told yourself as you stood up slowly, ending our meeting, your eyes avoiding me, no word said. And then, at last, the words finally came out, so quietly, not a tremor, “Whatever is meant to happen will happen.”
And as for me, what was going on inside me? You almost haven’t changed, Aya, all these years, you’re almost the same, you said that so quietly, into my eyes. Your eyes, that green, it’s the same inner beauty. Life hasn’t beaten you down, Aya, you’ve triumphed over life, it’s so good to see it. It proves to me that I was right all along. Even back then, I always knew who you were.
Returning home, the car driving by itself. Floating in seventh heaven, a girl of twenty, jeans, sandals, my eyes feeling the green that’s in them, my body bursting with youth, with femininity, waves of desire washing over me. It was as if I was plunged back into the world of youth, suddenly, by Yaron, who hadn’t said a single word, not even a hint. The intensity of the storm that blew from him towards me, the storm from Yaron who once loved me, for whom I was a woman, and since then, all these years, always a little present in his heart. And now, quiet words come from him, almost to himself, his heart storm-tossed. Turning his body away from me, his face distant, gazing into the distance.
And since then, all at once, the colour-dial shifted to the other extreme. The opposite scale. From complete colour blindness – to the other end. I see only red, in everything, everywhere. It must be God modulating the movement, modulating the waves that break over my skin from me to Uri… how will I hang on till tonight? Uri, why don’t we both come home early today, too? A new love, tempestuous, intense happiness, joy in my being. And Yaron, circling around my mind, restlessly. Tension, anticipation. Waiting, for the New Year, for the next meeting, for the next email, for what?
How can I tell you, Yaron, I would like you to know, but how can one say something that is that private? It’s like vertigo, dizzying, a question mark hovering over my life. Something happened when I met you, don’t quite know what it was, but the love at home remains steadfast, glowing through the mist like a lighthouse.
12. Hagar
“Hagar, what would I do without you? I wouldn’t survive,” Yael said to me. We had just talked on the phone for two hours. Trying to be with her as much as possible, at long last the school year is over and I have some more free time. The fact that Jerry has finally left the house hasn’t helped her one little bit. Yaron also tries to help, “Tell Yael that if she needs anything fixed, just anything, she only has to say.” “Really, is that what he said?” Yael asked, “Why not?” I said, “He has the time now and he’d be glad to.” We sat side by side for four years in high school, and we’ve been neighbours now for ten. Yaron persuaded Jerry to buy the plot of land next to ours and to build on it, but he and Jerry never really became close friends. However much we wanted them to become friends, it just didn’t work. It’s actually good that they didn’t; it would only have complicated things now.
Anyway, men are something else, they talk less, or talk differently, not like me and Yael. Yaron has some girlfriends, I think he sometimes talks with them. I can’t say anything to him, it’s his right; I’ve been trying for years to get used to it. Jerry doesn’t have a close male friend; but nor does Jerry have friends who are women. With him it is something else from the start. Why would you need women friends if you can do whatever you want and your wife never says a word? Close as we are, I never dared to talk about this with Yael. I didn’t know what to do, whether to say something, or just hint, or wait for her to realise it herself. And meanwhile he went on, completely ignoring her; not even making the slightest effort to hide it. Even at the gym he plants himself in front of the mirror, examining his muscles, and starts up with whoever he can. He looks through me, like thin air. He’d start flirting with those girls, in front of my very nose, so sure of himself, the bastard, he knows I wouldn’t tell Yael. And she’s started letting herself go, all she thinks about is her maths doctorate. I’ve tried to push her into slimming down, doing a bit of exercise, “Come on Yaeli, we’ll start doing some fast walks, then you could try some short runs and I’ll cycle next to you, believe me, you can do it.” It didn’t work, she wasn’t listening. No one home. Then it dawned on me that she was in complete despair. Jerry had simply stopped looking at her. And finally it all blew up in her face, right in her face, it couldn’t have been worse. One day she came back early from university, got home, went upstairs, walked into the bedroom and that’s what she saw, in their bedroom, on their bed, and on her side, that bitch’s blond curls on Yael’s pillow, clothes strewn all over the floor, a black bra, his underpants, she told me all the details, everything, down to the last detail, she couldn’t stop. I tried to calm her down but I couldn’t, just couldn’t, finally I broke down in tears with her. To this day she has nightmares about it.
Yaron isn’t like that. He wouldn’t touch anyone.
No way. Absolutely not.
But why did he only tell me about it now?
It was last week. I was alone at home, it was almost eight in the evening. Just a
s the news started on the television he opened the door and walked in. I went to help him with the shopping, and then carried on making dinner. I noticed that he kept opening and closing the fridge, not taking anything out. I said that dinner was almost ready, he said okay, and he suddenly started clearing up in the living room, folding laundry. I still didn’t realise that something was wrong, he usually folds laundry only if I ask him. I was standing there with my back to him because I was chopping up vegetables for the salad, when he suddenly says, I could hardly hear because he was in the living room and I was in the kitchen, “Aya called.”
“What?” It came out like a shout.
“Aya called.”
“What d’you mean called?”
“Called, like I said.”
“When? Why on earth would she call?”
“Not that long ago.”
“But why?”
“She wanted to wish me Happy Birthday.”
“Your birthday was five months ago.”
“Correct.”
“So, when did she call?”
“More or less then, I told you, on my birthday.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me at the time?”
“There was nothing to say. She just called to congratulate me.”
“And I organized that birthday party for you.”
“So, what difference does that make?”
“I worked on that party for months.”
“Hagar, it was an incredible party, I told you then. What does that have to do with it?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Really, that’s enough, Hagar. There was nothing to discuss.”
“But I want to know.”
“There’s nothing to say, she called to congratulate me, a special birthday, a big one. That’s it.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“So after that?”
“Nothing. Nothing, I tell you.”
“So you just said hello and that was it?”
“She wanted to meet up.”
“And?”
“I agreed.”
“You met her?”
“I can’t hear Yaron, answer me, did you meet up with Aya?”
“We spoke on the phone, she wanted to meet up. We met once, we spoke. That’s it. There was nothing to it. I’m not in touch with her. Enough of that. I almost regret ever mentioning it.”
Without thinking I grabbed my Nikes. “Where are you going?” I heard him saying. “None of your business,” I said almost soundlessly, slammed the door and started walking but I couldn’t, I broke into a run straight away, no idea where I was going. Suddenly I found myself in the centre of the Carmel, and then ran down the alleyways of Hadar, it was only when I’d almost reached the port and it was dark and empty, that I turned around and started that climb back up the hill. The whole way I was trying to calm myself down, think logically. Okay, so what if they met up that once, I do believe him. I’m sure he didn’t touch her. Maybe I really don’t have to make a big deal of it. But how come, what did she want, what’s this thing about a birthday? So it’s a big birthday, okay, but why on earth would they meet up? Where did they meet? Why didn’t he tell me? And how was it for him, seeing her after all these years? How come he hid all this from me, how come I wasn’t aware that any of this was going on? He met up with her and then came home as if nothing had happened, not a single word. How did she look? What did she even want with him? Maybe she still wants something, why is he telling me only now? Maybe it’s connected to Jerry, is it because of Jerry that he’s telling me now? For years Jerry hid stuff from Yael until she caught him, and now she is so obsessive, she needs to know everything, even the most disgusting details.
“What does it matter, Yaeli, what does it matter how Jerry met that slut, how he started up with her, or with the one before, what does it matter how many years he’s been like this, how many times he did it, exactly what they did? It’s all so irrelevant.”
“Hagar, you have no idea what it’s like to go through this, no idea, I just hope you’ll never know; you can’t imagine the sort of stuff this brings up.”
“Tell me, Yaeli.”
“Everything matters to me, every tiny detail. I’m embarrassed to tell you.”
“What Yaeli, what, tell me.” I hugged her tight. I thought that if she told me she’d be rid of it, but I was so wrong, it wouldn’t go away.
“What she wore, what she wore underneath, that black bra of hers I saw on the floor but the undies I didn’t, whether they’re lacy like the ones I once had when it was still worth trying for him or old and cotton like the ones I wear now, whether she has folds on her stomach, how he was with her, what he did to her, what she did that I don’t, you can’t imagine what a nightmare this is, Hagar, you can’t imagine it. “
I tried to calm her down but I couldn’t, “Yaeli, he’s been cheating on you and that’s it. That’s what we have to cope with now. All the rest is irrelevant, the more you know the harder it’ll be to forget it. It’s really, really best not to know.” It really is best not to know, I carried on running and my thoughts began to settle down at last, suddenly I remembered Yael once saying to me, “Men are all the same, Hagar, all of them. Believe me.” I didn’t answer. Later she caught herself, “I’m sorry Hagar, I didn’t mean it. You know that you have nothing to worry about, Yaron isn’t like that, I didn’t mean it. But what goes on in his head, what he really wants, or what he sometimes wants, wants a little bit, what do you know? You can never really know what’s in another person’s mind.”
I returned home from the run, exhausted, it was almost midnight. I didn’t think that Yaron would be waiting up for me, but he was sitting in the living room, last week’s paper on his lap; he got up as I came in, wanted to talk. “Come on Hagar, sit down, let me make you some tea, I’ll pick you some verbena leaves, it’ll do you good.” I sat down, I couldn’t get a word out. He got out my favourite cup, turned on the light in the garden, and went out to pick verbena. I didn’t say anything. The water boiled, he made me tea, he didn’t make any for himself. He sat next to me, put his hand on my knee, his whole palm on me. I didn’t push his hand away, didn’t move my knee from him, I was trembling, my right leg wouldn’t stop shaking. “Calm down Hagar, please try to calm down. Nothing happened and nothing’s going to happen.” I so much wanted to say, how can I know that there was nothing? What if she calls again, and wants to meet again, what then? And that whole party, there I was, setting up a surprise party for you and all the while you’re meeting up with Aya, why were you so secretive, how come I didn’t sense anything? That’s what hurts me most, even now I can’t shake it off, he met with her and came back home as if nothing had happened, nothing. I didn’t say it to him, I could never say that to him. “Drink up, Hagar, your tea’s getting cold.” I sat there, my eyes fixed on my shoes. “Aya phoned me, I did not phone her, she wanted to meet up, I agreed, I didn’t think there was anything to discuss. And now I’m sorry that I told you, Hagar. Look what it’s doing to you.” “But why now,” I got out, maybe it’s somehow linked to Jerry. Maybe Yaron would also like to be like him, doing anything he feels like without considering anyone else, “I don’t really know why, the whole time I didn’t know whether to tell you or not—what good would it do? But then I thought that I should tell you, so much time has gone by since then. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry, look what it’s doing.” “So now, what about Aya now?” I managed to ask. “I’m not in touch with her, we just met that once, believe me Hagar, she has her own life, her own family, do me a favour, forget it.” I finished my tea, somehow got myself up to the bedroom, all my muscles aching, some run that was. I could barely finish showering, just collapsed on the bed with the towel still around me and was fast asleep in no time. He came in, woke me up so gently, “Come on Hagar, I’ll help you put your nightie on,” and then covered me with t
he duvet, I remember falling asleep and no longer feeling angry with him.
The next day was a Wednesday, my day off. Yaron left early, I was still asleep, we didn’t talk. I got up, started tidying the house, I tried not to think but it kept on coming back. I told myself to calm down, just calm down, don’t make a big deal of it, they’re not in contact, he didn’t touch her. Best not to make an issue of it. I wanted to talk about it but I had no one to talk to, I couldn’t tell Yael something like this. Maybe one day when she’s found someone else, a good person she can be happy with, then I could tell her. I tried not to think but it kept coming back at me like a wave, and then all of a sudden that box popped into my mind, and I couldn’t take it anymore. That old box of Yaron’s, a nice leather box full of old letters and mementos, I always knew that it had things of Aya’s in it. He guarded it so carefully all these years. Once, before a trip, I tried to tell him, “Why are you packing up that box? Put it in the storeroom, nothing’s going to happen to it there.” I remembered his words, “Hagar, just drop it,” in that stern tone that he sometimes had. Suddenly I was sick of it, just sick and tired of it all, I felt my blood was beginning to boil, why hold back and keep silent for so many years. That’s what’s happened to Yael for keeping quiet so long. I went to look for that box and immediately found it, up on the top shelf in our bedroom, he hadn’t hidden it because he knew I wouldn’t touch it, I hadn’t touched it for twenty-five years but at that moment I just couldn’t hold back any more. I tried to hold back, I really tried, I told myself that I’d just open it and take a quick look, and straight away put everything back in its place. I opened it, stacks of letters, hundreds, you mustn’t open them, don’t open them, just don’t, it’s not right, won’t do you any good, what for? I tried not to, I really tried, couldn’t help it. What kind of things did she write to him, God, and what did she describe, he must have also described stuff, and her picture, all smiling, even that green of her eyes coming off the black-and-white picture, an old lace blouse, a décolletage with drawstrings, open carelessly, as if unintentional, she surely meant to leave it open a little. And that plait on her shoulder, and that picture of the two of them, holding hands, regardless of other people, while to me he’d always say, “No, leave it, you know I’m not like that,” but with her he had no problem holding hands. Suddenly I saw the two of them in our bedroom, the duvet rolling before my very eyes, starting to heave, my stomach starting to heave, the moment it began I just couldn’t stop it, the two of them, our duvet, her hair on my pillow, clothes strewn all over the floor, a black bra, his underpants. I could almost hear them, “Aya, I can’t believe it’s you, I can’t believe it.” And she cries back to him, “How could I let you go, Yaron, where were you all these years, where were you?” And him caressing her face, whispering, “Hush, Aya, hush, we’re together at last.” I could hardly get a grip on myself, how did she suddenly wind up in our lives, who the hell needs her, I took the letters, shoved them into a bin liner, ran out to my car, tossed it into the boot, slammed it shut.
So We Said Goodbye: A Contemporary Fiction Novel Page 6