So why today, why did it happen to me today of all days, again?
When he went out, I was still fine, I went on tidying up the kitchen, moved on to the bedrooms, picked up clothes, collected the laundry that the kids had left lying around. And then, in the laundry room, I don’t know why I was drawn like a magnet to that green bag, I couldn’t help myself, I lifted the bag down from the top shelf. I sat there, on the floor, everything scattered around, coloured laundry, pairs of jeans, socks, envelopes, pictures. I told myself, You leave it right now, leave it, put everything back in its place and get out, take a stroll, there are all kinds of errands that need doing, the bank, the post office, it’s best not to be home by yourself. It must be a thousand times that I’ve decided that I’m not going to touch those wretched letters any more, they’re not mine, they have nothing to do with me. It happened long ago. Just leave it and that’s it.
And then I found that light blue envelope:
To Yaron and Hagar Gal
6 Hillel Street
Haifa
Why is there an envelope addressed to both of us?
We were living on Hillel street when Iddo was a baby.
I opened it.
Hello Yaron and Hagar,
I’m sending you an invite to our wedding, Uri and I are getting married. I’m really sorry that in the end I didn’t make it to your wedding. I should have apologized a long time ago. It’s good that the opportunity has come up now. I heard that since then you’ve had a son. Our good wishes and congratulations.
We’d be really glad if you could come,
Aya
I didn’t go to Aya’s wedding. I surely would have remembered something like that.
I never saw this invitation at all.
Perhaps he went alone?
I never knew that he invited her to our wedding. Perhaps he didn’t tell me because he thought she wouldn’t come.
Just as well she didn’t come, that would have been the last thing I needed at my wedding. Even though it had already been two years since they’d broken up.
And why on earth would he keep her invite? Since when do people hang on to wedding invitations?
What else has he kept?
19. Aya
658 to go, the pile’s going down a bit.
I came back from Spain.
To days full of work.
And to evenings full of home.
And nights of Uri.
And to Saturdays, Saturdays filled with old letters.
Your old letters, Yaron, arranged in piles. Opening envelopes, pages opened out of their folds, like stretching their limbs.
And for what… if only I knew why I was reading them. Do you even remember writing all this?
Monday morning
My very own Aya, yesterday evening we met, Yuval, Menny and me at Menny’s home. Both of them are wondering what they’ll do as they start out again as civilians, when they’re finished in the army. It’s a little scary, isn’t it?
It looks like Menny’s going to go college to complete his studies. After that, I think he’ll try to find work in photography, or sculpture. He’s got the soul of an artist, don’t you think so, Ayush?
I only need to write Ayush and I’m flooded with longing, I just can’t wait to feel you, smell your scent Aya, that scent, I think it’s your scent that intoxicates me, a bit like lemon but not quite. I so love you, my Aya, it’s lucky that you’re not here now, ’cause if you were, I’d hug you tight, so tight, and you’d hug me even tighter, and you’d tell me, Roni, I can’t, I can’t breathe, and your smile would reach all the way to your braid. Within seconds your braid would be undone, everything would be undone, scattered, so delighted that you got hold of that big blanket from the storeroom.
As for Yuval – it’s hard, it’s really hard to tell what he’s going to do. He may sign on as a Regular, he could become a civilian pilot, or join a kibbutz, a kibbutz could really suit him, or he might study. No way to tell. Not that he knows himself. “It’ll be interesting to see us in another ten years, I’d even stake money on it.” That’s what my friend Menny said. And Yuval replied, “If you could see yourself in ten years you’d want to die, we might as well just die by then.”
That’s how we spent the evening.
And you, Aychuk, what did you do? Who were you with? What did you talk about? I miss you so much, it just gets worse and worse. I’m counting the moments. Another fifty-two hours and you’ll be here, in this room. With me. When I send you this letter, there’ll only be forty-nine.
Age.
Time.
The years that have gone.
A life slipping by.
Is there anything in life more elusive than time?
Yuval, your soul mate, Yaron, you haven’t met up with him for years, that’s what you told me. “How is he? What’s he up to these days?” I asked when we met up; almost a year has gone by since our meeting. You don’t know, you replied, shrugging your shoulders. A slight regret in your voice, slighter than mine.
Yuval, I remember him at the age of twenty. I was always fond of him, your close, close friend. How did he see the world then? If we could see ourselves in another ten years we’d want to die, better to be dead than be thirty.
That’s what he said.
That’s what you wrote.
And that’s what I read.
How is it possible that such close friends never get to meet – for years on end?
They didn’t intend it to be like this, they never meant it, but that’s what happened to them.
And us, when will we meet up again?
How old will we be?
Don’t think. Don’t count. Don’t reckon up the years ahead.
A distance of only some tens of miles separates us, an hour’s travel.
An hour, which needed twenty-eight years.
So what kind of speed is that? Where is it leading?
The speed of darkness.
538 waiting in the pile
And piled next to it are those which have been read. And the room is locked, private territory in the middle of the house.
A true adult, that’s what you are, Yaron. A mature grown-up. Perhaps simply a man. A man is a better word, softer. Am I starting to take it in? A man, fifty years old. A man of fifty is a real man, that’s what they call it. That’s how you were, exactly. For everything happened on account of your birthday. Your white hair – it so shocked me. So many days have already gone by, and seasons, yet that moment still resounds in me, hanging in the air. I still can’t take it in. That moment, in Caesarea. You, Yaron, approaching me in your car as you drive slowly, looking ahead. Then, recognizing me from a distance as I stand on the pavement, a smile on my face but totally frozen, unable to move. All tight, suffocating. It’s Yaron, after twenty-eight years. Your car was approaching me, I knew it from way off, gliding, drawing nearer, slowing down, and coming to a stop. With a languid movement you turned your face to me from where you sat, the movement so slow that the whole world then slowed down. Slowed, and stopped. And your face, there was a smile on it, a smile I recall so well. “Where did you park?” Those were your words. Yaron, I’m seeing Yaron. A smile, that forelock of hair tossed back, a parting on the side. “Over there on the gravel,” I nodded, my words displaced. That same lock of hair on your forehead flipped back, that same parting, you probably never gave it a thought. It’s so good that you never changed your haircut. A fragile happiness is rising in my heart, even today, I want to thank you and I can’t; you’re so distant now, it’s fortunate that I cannot really thank you, what would I say? Thank you, Yaron, for not changing your haircut for twenty-eight years?
A man, of fifty. White hair, tall, normal body build. Toward evening he arrives home, parks his car, small chips of gravel stuck in the treads of his tyres. He walks inside, to his family. What did you say, and what did they reply, what were the greetings that filled the entrance? Were your children in the living room, or in their rooms? And what was Hagar doing then?
Did she come toward you? Did you kiss one another lightly by the door, or did you find her in the kitchen, lay your hand on her waist, or perhaps her shoulder, did your hand brush her shoulder? And my image, was my image in your eyes then? Did Hagar ask, “How are you?” “Everything’s fine,” you would have answered. “We’ll be sitting down to eat very soon,” she said. “I’m not hungry today, you go ahead and eat.” Is that what you said? “I’m going upstairs.” And the habitual routine moves on, completely usual, nothing could be more ordinary. “Wash your hands, you two, and come and sit down,” you catch your wife saying as you go upstairs, “What would you like? An omelette or scrambled?” Voices from your life rising behind you, Hagar, the children. A secure routine that gives nothing away, and you go up the stairs slowly, walk into your room, close the door quietly behind you. All the cells of your body straining in the effort, straining to keep hold of my image so it won’t dissolve away. Only a few hours ago I was there, sitting facing you, without moving a muscle, the palms of my hands gripped tightly under my legs. “Just water thanks,” I croaked at the waitress. My glass still full, I couldn’t pull out my hands from beneath my legs, my whole body tensed to take in your face, and your words, which you said so quietly, “Aya, you’ve grown… it’s so nice, so nice to see it, it’s like you’ve become taller.” And then later, even quieter, smiling into my eyes, “You’ve hardly changed, Aya.” And then I heard, I remember every word, “It’s the same smile. Like I remember it. The same inner beauty.” And then you said, almost to yourself, I was all tensed to hear your words, not to miss a thing, “I always knew, even back then, I knew who you were.” And I, facing you, the waves of your old love for me suddenly igniting me after so many years, collapsing into my chair, my body drained before your very eyes. “We couldn’t be together, how could we be?” I threw out at you in the silence, thrown off guard by your reaction to me. How could I have known that this was how it would be? “We weren’t right for one another at all,” I added, the words popped out all by themselves, hurtful, so I immediately drew them back into me. And then you said the words that I couldn’t bear, the words that I pushed away with the last of my strength – “missed opportunity”. And later you said it again, “… missed opportunity. It’s my right to feel it.”
And since then, days have passed. So many days have gone by, as long as the distance between us. And you’re all right. I know that you’re all right. How could I live if you weren’t all right? Your daily life is good; it’s a happy routine. May that routine continue, but let time stop, let it stop dead in its tracks. Yaron, wait for me, please wait, don’t move… So that when I meet you again you’ll be the same Yaron. Seeing you suddenly at fifty – more than I could take. How could I have let the years slip by, year after year, why didn’t I stop them earlier? I should never have let them slip by.
And now, Yaron, you’ve become so distant. How is it possible?
And what of your heart? Am I still there?
20. Yaron
These long queues, on Fridays. It’s so crowded, there’s nowhere to park, the shopping centre’s heaving. A shopping list in my pocket.
What does she do around noon on Fridays? Is she also cooking from morning till night? Sending Uri running back and forth to the supermarket. “I forgot to ask you to get some forest mushrooms”… “If you’re already going – could you pick up another bottle of white wine, there’ll be fourteen of us around the table, and don’t forget the napkins.” I somehow know it’s not like that for them, it’s different for them. And later, at night, when the guests have gone home, the aroma of cholent all through the house – Hagari learned how to make these traditional Saturday stews from my mother – the sink is gleaming, the whole kitchen ship-shape again. Come on Hagar, turn over to me. I’m exhausted, Yaron, I’ve been on my feet the whole day. Does Aya also get like that, exhausted, does she tell Uri she’s been on her feet the whole day? Why do I feel that it’s different with them?
Does she think about me, does she miss me or has she already forgotten?
21. Aya
And February 8th has come round, again
It’s your birthday today Yaron, again. Today you’re fifty-one; a whole year has gone by. And for us, we’ve been through a completely different year, utterly different. Did you know that since we’ve met, a new system of counting has started here. Life has gone back to normal but in a different way, something’s changed. I’m not completely clear what; it’s as if I’ve slightly shifted the map on which we’re standing. The north has moved a little to the north-east.
It’s Saturday again. A new Saturday routine. And I’m making progress, going on. The question is where.
And how can I progress while living in past days. In faded pages.
428 envelopes still await me.
Monday morning,
Aya, it’s taken me a full day to calm down. We both waited so long for the weekend when we could be together at your place on the kibbutz, and for them to allow you to have weekend visitors, and then it all went wrong. And not for the first time. Yesterday I walked around like a zombie, I could barely function. I don’t know what to do, Aya. I keep trying to explain things but it doesn’t seem to get through to you. Perhaps a letter will do it, now that we’re far from one another. I hope that you’ve also calmed down by now. Hopefully, the work in the orchard will have done you some good, I’m happy that they gave you that work, it really suits you more than the kitchen or the laundry.
There’s nothing we can do, Aya. You’ll have to understand. Loving someone means giving in. Loving someone means compromising. You’re dreaming about an ideal love, that must be what you have in mind. That people will accept you just as you are; that you won’t need to give up on a single thing; that everything will be perfect. Life isn’t perfect, Aychuk. So good that I can call you that again. It suddenly comes to my mind that perhaps they read you too many fairytales when you were a child. The beautiful princess falls in love with a knight on a white charger, who takes her in his arms, and puts her down on the last page of the ‘happy ending’. Life’s not like that, Aya. You need to invest in love, you have to put in some effort. I’m trying, you don’t even see how much I’m trying, how I give in over so many things, but I do it without talking, I do it with love, and you take it all for granted. And when I ask you for something, even something small, you don’t listen, you really don’t listen, you get yourself all worked up, like on Saturday night. How can we stay together if you’re so stubborn, if you don’t agree to change yourself in any way at all?
And while we’re on the subject, what about that thing that you never want me to mention, that you have on your cheek. I can’t seem to talk to you about it; as soon as I bring it up you get all tearful. But it does bother me. You wanted me to tell you straight away if anything bothers me, so don’t come complaining when I do tell you. I’ve already told you that Menny’s mother knows a really good plastic surgeon.
Then another letter, heavens. How can two letters like these be in the same bundle, right next to one another, their envelopes touching. Was that the same Yaron in both of them, and me the same Aya? How did we survive with such turmoil?
We didn’t.
And what substance are old letters made of? Lying silent inside a cardboard box for twenty-eight years, their pages gone yellow, written in an old, blue biro. What would a chemist say? Not ink, not paper. How and when did they undergo that chemical transformation into another substance, so explosive, so inflammable? Why wasn’t a warning label attached: “Inflammable: Handle with care.”
And why did I only remember the previous letter? And its last paragraph. Why was the other completely wiped out from my mind, as if it had been sent to another Aya?
427
Aya, my Aya. I roll around the syllables on my tongue, in my mouth, in my mind, everywhere. I keep drawing our names, playing around with our initials, putting them inside each other. And today I came up with Ayaron, what do you think Aychuk, would you like that on our
door? How did I come to meet you, what a miracle it was. Sometimes I think about how it happened, and to me of all people, how come no one fell in love with you before me, how come no one saw you? Sometimes people just don’t see. You are so special, Aychuk. I saw that right from the start, I so want to look after you, I so want nothing to happen to you. I want you to be with me, always, always mine. I told you Aya, I so know this, God sends someone a girl like you just once in a lifetime. I see you now, reading the letter, a blush creeping over your face, I actually see it, and you ask me, what makes me special, Roni? Tell me. And I know exactly, I know just why I love you, what exactly it is about you that I love so much, but I can’t seem to convey it to you, you don’t see it, and I also can’t explain, because we stop with explanations, no room for explanations under that big blanket you got us. I can’t imagine us being apart, I don’t want to imagine a single day when we’re not together. I’m waiting for both of us to be done with our army service, d’you know that I can already see us living together? I didn’t actually say it to you, we haven’t yet really talked about it, I want it like crazy. I was afraid to talk, I was afraid it might frighten you off, a bit like then when we were in your room, listening to that Shadows song—you remember? But now, in this letter I’m not going to hold back, Aychuk, I can’t, I’ve planned it all out, everything. You have no idea how I’ve got it all planned out. I’m a little afraid to tell you, sweetheart, my love, what a word. I even know what mug I’m going to use when I bring you your coffee in bed. And I know what you’re thinking now, you’re saying, Really Roni, I’ll creep out without you even noticing, I’ll get up before you, you won’t even open your eyes and you’ll have that coffee aroma right next to you. My Aya, I’m so happy with you, I just can’t stop writing to you, lucky that you’re not here right now, I’d be squeezing all the breath out of you, you wouldn’t have any air to breathe.
So We Said Goodbye: A Contemporary Fiction Novel Page 9