And at Yoav’s... There’s always a sympathetic smile on his face. “Hello, Hagar, won’t you come in. Please take a seat,” and he’ll nod to that couch, which does look comfortable, but I can’t seem to be able to sit down there. “Can I offer you something to drink? You sure you don’t want something? I’ll bring it for you anyway; you might like it later.” And he’ll go to the kitchenette and come back with some cold water, and put the glass down next to me. Then he’ll close the door after him, and sit himself down opposite me, waiting. Silent. He’s always silent at the beginning, it’s always me who has to start talking. It took me a while until I got that. And if I’m stuck he helps me out in that polite way of his, “Yes, Hagar, go ahead. What would you like to talk about today?”
I decided that I would plan my opening sentences so as not to get stuck and have to sit there in silence; I don’t like sitting there with him waiting for me to speak. I think it’s their method, maybe it’s necessary. Finally, two weeks ago, I did manage to speak a bit. I decided to tell him what was bothering me. That Yaron was my first, the only one. That I was in the army when I met him, and eight months later we were married. “Did you want to marry?” Yoav asked. I wanted us to wait a bit more, but he felt really grown up, he was almost twenty-five. He wanted me to get released from the army so we could get married. “Why delay, Hagar, explain to me why should we wait?” So I agreed. “Suddenly now, it does bother me a bit,” I said to Yoav. “I can understand that,” he said, his eyes smiling at me. Just at that moment I felt thirsty. Unintentionally, I glanced at the water. I held back, but he must have seen, nothing gets by him. And then Yoav asked me to go on, could I say anything else that was bothering me? What exactly was it? So I did. That I felt that I didn’t know enough about all kinds of things, like men and women, that everything I know comes from me and Yaron. “Do you mean intimate relations?” said Yoav, and I said yes, how exactly was it for other people? How was it supposed to be at the beginning, and then after twenty-five years together. Yoav should know, he sees so many people. He’s also studied, read tons of research papers. “Hagar, has someone recently made you feel that you were too young when you met Yaron, not experienced enough?” How did he latch on so fast, how did he put his finger on just that? I smiled at him and I wanted to say, Yes, that’s just it. I wanted to tell him about Aya, how Yaron was with her for three years, how it bothered me that he didn’t tell me straight away when she called him, only five months later. And perhaps he wasn’t supposed to tell me at all; perhaps everyone really does inhabit their own world. Yaron thinks that if you tell your partner everything then you start to lose yourself; so what is Yoav’s take on this? What I most wanted to know was why everything was so different for him with Aya. Why? That was what I found the most painful. Never, never in my entire life will I be able to talk about it with Yaron. But then I’d have to tell Yoav about the letters as well. We didn’t get to all this, our time was up. When the time is up it’s always the same thing, as if Yoav is doing it on replay. Suddenly he says, “Hagar, we have to finish up. We have another few minutes.” Why does it bother me, it’s not right that this bothers me. It’s his work. Outside there’ll be someone else waiting for him, usually a woman or a young girl, so he has to tell me that our time is up. And then last time he added, “We’ll go on with this next time, we’ll be able to talk about it more then.” And he smiled at me, as usual. And we set a meeting for yesterday.
The whole week I waited, as if walking on a rubber band that had been stretched for seven days, counting down the time to yesterday’s meeting.
Yesterday. If only I could blot out that day. Simply wipe it out, as if it had never existed. On the way over there I turned the radio off, to concentrate. And prepare. I’ve got to get used to it. I’ve already been seeing Yoav for over six weeks. If I’m already going to him and paying for it, I need to do anything that needs doing. Never mind if it’s hard for me. In fact, it’s precisely because it is hard for me, that I go. And it’s time to stop behaving like a little girl; Yoav is no boy himself, he is a man, around Yaron’s age, he’s got experience. I can’t ask him how old he is. His wife is called Leah, she’s also a doctor; I saw that in the telephone directory. I don’t know if he has children, how old they are, what his wife does; I don’t dare ask. It’s really not that important, I’m not supposed to be interested in him, or in his wife. Good that I didn’t ask. I must focus on the main thing. I know what the main thing is. He already told me, wanted to help me out. “Hagar, I know that it’s difficult. But I think that’s really why you came here. This is our work, our joint work, yours and mine. We have to talk about the intimate relationship between you and your husband. Do you think you can tell me a little bit about that?”
The whole of this past week I prepared for yesterday. I thought that it would be best to start with what Aya described. However difficult, it would still be easier to talk about her first. On the way there, I prepared the words; for the past months I’ve been trying desperately to forget, but on the way to Yoav’s everything resurfaced. I tried and tried to concentrate, to go through it carefully, so I’d be able to repeat her words, “What a boyfriend I have, my Roni, what did I do to deserve someone like you?” … “Your love, Roni, the love that you have, how come that it’s for me, of all girls in the world?” I carried on driving, I must somehow manage to talk about this with Yoav, really talk, about everything. I had reached his clinic by then, I don’t like that word. I parked, it was completely dark, a little before nine-thirty. There was a bit more time. The letters were in the car with me, I opened them again to make certain I remembered her words by heart. I hate myself for doing this but I have to understand how it was for them, the way Yaron was with her. At the bottom of one of the pages I found these words: “My Roni, sometimes I think that I’m addicted to your body, the scent of it, your skin, maybe I’ve simply got addicted to you.” And Aya went on, and me after her, I also went on, turned the page – what a perfect body he had. Then it was time. I folded up the letter, trying to put it back into its envelope, the pages were shaking, I could barely get them in. I got out of the car. “Hello, Hagar, won’t you come in.” I went into the room, he followed me in with the glass of water, closed the door. “My Roni, I’m looking at the room and you’re not here, I can’t calm down after yesterday, after what went on here yesterday, imagine if the walls could speak, what they’d say about what we did here.” The words were noisy as a cement mixer, as if Aya was shouting straight in my ear. My whole body had started to tremble, I crumpled into the couch, it was freezing in his room. “I’m listening,” said Yoav. He looked at me, got up, turned off the air conditioning and sat down again. “Would you like me to bring you a blanket?” I shook my head to say no, my teeth still chattering. “Has something happened?” No, Yoav, no, nothing has happened. Twenty-five years ago everything happened, and what happened after that was nothing. Yaron was with me, for me it was the beginning, the first time, my first time. And he, he was good to me, but maybe he was still thinking of her, how could he not be? “Move over a bit, Hagar, you’re blocking out Aya.” Was that what he was thinking? Did she keep coming in, was he trying to reach out to her, then, when he was with me? I couldn’t speak, I was shaking like a leaf; I had suddenly realized all this. “Hagar,” I’m here, Yoav sat facing me on his sofa. “I’m listening,” he said again, with his eyes on me. I remembered Yaron, and myself, when we had just met, I remembered how we were, I never said words like this to him. Why couldn’t I have been like that, why? Suddenly everything came back to me, I sat there, I knew that the minutes were ticking by, that twenty minutes had already passed, that I had to say something, but I couldn’t utter a word. “Here, Hagar, drink a little,” Yoav held out the water to me, I took it, I sipped it. “I think that you should speak.” Eventually, the words started to come out. How could she write like that, I asked him, and even worse, how could she have been like that? I had also been nineteen when we met, why was he so different with me, and why is i
t so painful now? I really shouldn’t have looked at those letters. What do I care what it was like, he’s not in contact with her, he told me that he’s not in contact with her, he chose me, so what’s wrong with me, what do I want from him, why haven’t I been able to put aside those letters ages ago? I somehow managed to start telling Yoav this, the words choking in my throat. And Yoav leaned forward from the opposite couch and held out a tissue to me. He has them handy, the waste paper bin is also handy. And then another tissue, looking at me, completely focused on me, as if there wasn’t one part of me that he didn’t see. His eyes were full of sympathy, I felt as if I had nothing on, as if I hadn’t got a stitch of clothing on me. “Could you tell me what else you remember from the letters?” Yoav asked. I went on telling him, I got out what I remembered, “Your body drives me crazy, I can’t live without it”… “How can it be so good for me when I’m with you?”…. “I know that you love me, my whole body knows it,” and I went on describing what they had done, my eyes fixed on the floor. How can anyone talk to a man about things like that? And then he said, “I’m glad that you’re telling me, it’s not easy. But now we need to finish up.” But just then I couldn’t stop, “How could it be that they were like that, that she was like that with him. How could that be?” I asked Yoav. “And why was he so different with me, maybe it’s me, what’s wrong with me? Surely, something’s wrong …? Maybe I didn’t know him then, and maybe I don’t really know him even now. How come he met up with her and I didn’t feel it on him? How well do you really know the person who’s been sleeping next to you each night for twenty-five years?” “Yes, Hagar, I understand what’s bothering you. We can talk about it in our next session.” But by then I couldn’t stop, wave upon wave of tears, I tried to stifle my sobs with a paper tissue, it didn’t help, I just couldn’t calm down. And Yoav said again, “I see that it is very hard for you, but we really must finish up now.” I was glued to the couch, why didn’t I get up, why didn’t I say, right then and there, “All right,” and get up? Why did I go on sitting there like that? Yoav was just waiting for me to get up and leave, of course he was waiting. Maybe he doesn’t have the faintest interest in what Aya had written, why should he care what they did, what kind of a man Yaron was to her, what kind of body he had, a perfect body like a Greek God. Those words of hers that I’m trying so hard to forget got stuck in my throat, they were stuck there like a bone. For months I’d been trying not to think of them and then, of all times, right then, just as I was in the throes of vomiting it all out, it was just then that we had to finish up. Why couldn’t I stop it right there and get up from his couch? And then he said again, “I’m very sorry Hagar, but our time is up. We must finish now.” In the end I managed to get up, I could hardly stand, my knees buckling, knocking together. His clock already said 22:27, seven full minutes had gone by, in the glass doors of the bookcase I saw that my eyes were completely swollen. I fished around in my bag to give him the cheque I’d prepared in advance. Yoav said, “Thank you,” and opened the door for me, “Bye for now.” “Bye,” I managed to say, lucky it’s a short word. I even said, “Thanks,” and just managed a faint smile, I wanted to show him that I would be all right, he shouldn’t worry about me. But he was already seated at his writing desk, his back to me, recording the payments.
The Following Day
I took a day off from school. I've never done this in all the twenty years I've worked there. This time I did. It's so easy, all you have to do is leave a message with the secretary that you're sick. Just like that. It's the easiest thing. No one needs to see your face on a day like today.
It was lucky Yaron left early today. I made out that I was still sleeping. He won't be back till this evening, and by then I'll be back to looking normal.
How will I ever face myself the next time I go to Yoav?
How many times did he have to tell me that we'd talk about it next time before I finally managed to get myself out of his room? Why didn't I get up, why didn't I just stop talking and get up?
Why did I let him see me like that? And those tissues. It never happens to me when I'm with other people.
"If you knew how you looked when you're like this, you'd never do it," Yaron told me once. Those first few weeks after Iddo was born it was happening to me all the time. He wanted me to go on with the breast-feeding, I wanted it as well but it was so hard for me, my whole body hurt, my breasts, my stitches, my stomach, my back, and Iddo never stopped crying for a single moment. What a nightmare that breastfeeding was.
Yesterday, I was his last appointment, fortunately. There wasn't some other woman waiting for him outside. And no one on the pavement either. And it was dark. I managed to get myself into the car without seeing anyone. What would I have done had I run into someone just then?
I'm never like that with other people. Once Yael told me, if you ever feel like breaking down, then do it with me. I'll hold you. Don't break down with other people.
He must have thought that I was behaving like a real cry baby. And all because of those stupid letters, from thirty years ago.
People come to him with serious issues, they don't get themselves caught up in nonsense like I do.
A cry-baby. Why haven't I set those letters aside? And now he also knows how I can look. Disgusting, simply disgusting.
And stealing his time. I paid for the fifty minutes – but not the last seven.
People must break down in his therapy room; it's not as if you're the first. And he must have other things on his mind besides you. He doesn't give it a thought.
"Tell me about yourself, Hagar," he said to me the first time, and smiled at me. What could I tell him? Married, a mother of two. My children's names are Iddo and Michal. I'm a gym teacher.
What does he care what my children are called? What does it matter? Why did I have to even say it?
Although he did smile and say, "Nice names. How old are they?" and wrote it down on his yellow legal pad. So maybe it was okay that I said that.
To hell with it, I took seven minutes of his time. I don't know why I feel as if I've stolen them from him. Maybe it's because it's all about time there. And time is money – there. Why couldn't I have simply stood up at the right time? It's infuriating. And why did I start talking only towards the end?
If only I could offer him more money for those seven minutes.
I wouldn't dare.
There's a reason that there's a clock smack in front of my face, between the books. He put it there on purpose. And I'm supposed to take note of the time.
The next time I'm going to stand up before my time's up. That's what I'll do. Before he can even say that we have to finish up, I'll look at the clock and I'll get up first. Seven minutes before the time I'll get up and say thank you and pay.
The next time I'll simply come, talk. I'll ignore what's happened. An easy conversation. Normal, spontaneous.
I'll do whatever I need to do to get ready for it.
I'll ask him all the things that I wanted to ask him. Just like that. He's an experienced man. He himself must have had more than one woman, so he can compare.
Never, never again, will he see me like that.
27. Aya
So we talked
Yaron,
So we talked. A few words. The day before Passover. I got updates on your family news. Everything is fine with them, you said. And I was happy. I knew it, even without you saying it. Yes, I responded to your question, everything’s fine with us too. Home, work, the kids. “I’m happy you called,” you said. A faint smile on my face, I wonder whether you noticed it. And then, rapidly, you moved on, “You know how it is, you said, “Passover night, terribly busy, we’ve got hundreds of guests. All these last-minute preparations, you have no idea how crowded it is here,” you added. “It seems as if the whole world is out shopping. I’m sure you’re also really busy. I must run now.”
Yes, I said.
Hope you all enjoy the holiday, you added.
Thank you, Yaron, and all of
you too.
But I didn’t tell you.
For how could I have told you what I had really been busy with, for months now?
Leafing through those ancient letters of yours, again and again. I went back to those piles, haven’t managed to leave them. A sense of elation, astonishment, each time anew. Such a burning love, hidden away beneath years of dust. Can there be such a thing, a searing love? Perhaps not.
And what about me then? I still haven’t been able to remember. Why, why did I forget? How is it possible to forget something that so filled my soul for three whole years. And apparently something that was, at least sometimes, the kernel of happiness. How could I have forgotten it? And why? How will I be able to get over my forgetfulness if I don’t understand why?
Those quarrels of ours. It seems that right from the outset, from those very first months, we kept clashing. Over and over again, we would hurt one another. One layer, and another. Scars that etched their indelible marks on the face of our youthful innocence, like muddy footsteps on pure white snow. After six months, you write to me that you’ve decided we should take a break of sorts. And strewn among these letters are love, and the hope that after that break we’ll continue building what we began. I don’t remember if we really did take a break. Perhaps we did. And perhaps it only lasted a few hours, I haven’t come across it yet. Everything is preserved, documented, in piles of letters; no human hand has touched them for twenty-eight years.
So We Said Goodbye: A Contemporary Fiction Novel Page 12