“Yael, I just can’t shake it off, it’s been months.”
“I know, Hagari.”
“Perhaps I should have talked to him about it. After all, they say that you have to talk about everything when you’re there.”
“Yes,” Yael said, “so let’s say, for argument’s sake, that your therapist keeps yawning right in front of your face. And you somehow, in keeping with this theory – of talking about everything – summon up the superhuman courage to call him on it. ‘Sorry,’ he says, but then he immediately comes to his senses. ‘I understand that it’s bothering you. I think that we need to speak about it. Why is it that you
think it bothers you? Could it be that you don’t get enough attention?’ Bottom line, Hagari, it’s too comfortable a position. Whatever you say, it’ll somehow be possible to turn it around and point it at you. It’s always possible to suggest another condition from which you suffer. After all, isn’t that what you’re paying for, to get your problems diagnosed?”
I didn’t even have it within me to laugh at her nonsense.
“It would be interesting to know what’s going on with him now,” I said.
“I’m sure he’s carried on working.”
“Do you think he remembers me?”
“I don’t know, Hagari. How would we know who he remembers and who he doesn’t?”
“I thought of sending him some kind of a note...”
“What kind of note?”
“Something he should stick on his entrance door. Like those labels on boxes of pills: “Warning: this medication is not suitable for patients with diabetes, pregnant women, or sensitive, slightly fucked-up people.”
She was laughing so much she spilt her coffee. “You’re totally crazy, Hagar. But at least you’re laughing now.”
I got up, fetched a floor cloth, and cleaned up. I took a shower and washed my hair. I got dressed, and we went out. We found Yael some clothes. She swore to me that next week she’d start a diet. And she’d start walking every morning at six a.m., with me riding alongside her on my bike.
“With friends, there’s no such thing as ‘I’m just not in the mood for it.’ Friends are always happy to see one another, even if I’m completely disgusting to you,” I told Yael, and
asked her to forgive me for that day that I had told her to go and buy some clothes and leave me alone.
“Do me a favour, Hagar, you remember how I was with you when I found Jerry at home with one of those sluts of his.” She reminded me of what we’ll never forget.
“Her hair was all over my pillow, her clothes thrown on the floor, you know that her black lace bra had been tossed over my slippers, it was actually on them, I couldn’t bring myself to touch those slippers again, as if they’d turned into some sort of cockroach. And then, all those dreadful quarrels, one night I found myself screaming at him, ‘Take those slippers, just take them out and get them out of this house!’ You have no idea how I screamed. And he tried to say quietly, ‘It’s pouring outside, I’ll throw them out later.’”
When would she be able to forget it all? And in how many years would she still be telling me, whenever I’d try to introduce her to someone, thanks very much for thinking of her, it was so nice of me, but no thanks, not another guy, she’d had enough.
“And I didn’t let it go, I just wouldn’t calm down. He came back inside, completely drenched, and I just pounced, ‘I want you to buy me new slippers, like these, exactly like these.’ And again he said quietly, ‘How can I Yael? You had them for ages, I’ll never find a pair like this anywhere.’ ‘I don’t care where, I don’t care,’ I screeched. ‘You should have thought of that before you dragged that thing in here! You can go to hell for all I care!’ By then my voice had gone, I had no voice left. It’s lucky that you couldn’t hear me.”
I didn’t tell her that we did hear her. It was pouring and the windows were shut, but we did hear. Only her. And that I was shivering all over, and Yaron hugged me tight, and neither of us said a word to one other.
“And the next day you called and I almost slammed the phone down on you. And to this day I never found the right time to tell you how sorry I am about it. How would I have survived all that without you?”
And we recalled what Aunt Shoshi used to say, the kids were in kindergarten when she said it, “Why go to psychologists when you’ve got friends?” And Yael quoted from Against Therapy[9], another of those fat, new books of hers: What we need are more kindly friends and fewer professionals.
Yet, still, it is a valuable profession. And maybe sometimes one really does need someone from the outside.
I so wanted someone from outside, a total stranger. Someone you won’t bump into in the supermarket, or run into at school. Someone you could tell anything.
32. Yaron
Yesterday, when I was walking down Masada Street, looking for old black and white photos, it suddenly happened again, that scent. Since I finished work I sometimes drift around a bit in the mornings, those old Haifa streets have stayed just the same. I was wandering along an old street, the pavement a little cracked, small shops. Corner cafés, students sitting around, talking, soft music spilling into the street, someone playing Nights in White Satin… I stood on the pavement next to a stall of old books, a battered copy of The Gabriel Tirosh Affair in my hand. How we loved reading it then, Aya and me, it’s years since that book of Yitzhak Shalev has been in my hand. I was standing there and suddenly it happened, in the middle of the pavement, a cloud of that scent, that fresh lemon of Aya’s, just there. I stood stock still, halted, as if the world had also stopped, the scent all around me, longing to feel, to breathe, to take it in. Maybe just this once I’d be able to hold on to it, fill up a small paper bag with the scent and keep it in my pocket. Whenever I used to get a waft of that lemon scent, Aya would be coming toward me, I could see her, actually see her, walking toward me on the pavement, always wearing the same floral print dress, with those blue sandals she used to wear, I used to see the sandals straight away, sometimes her braid, sometimes her hair loose, a sort of large brown bag, the strap diagonally across her front, that’s how she would approach me, smiling. Sometimes she’d say, “Hi, Yaron,” in that voice of hers, I’d catch the sound of her voice and then we’d embrace. I would feel that embrace, my face in her hair, her breathing into my chest. “Hello, Aya,” I would just about get the words out, and as for what we’d say or what would happen next, I don’t know, I didn’t get there, it would evaporate within seconds. Only the memory would linger, the memory and the scent, like a picture that remains of someone who is no longer there, and then the picture disappears as well. You try to see it and you can’t, the things around you get in the way. And sometimes she would also appear in my dreams. I don’t know what prompted them, I’ve tried to understand and I haven’t been able to, it’s not as if anything special had happened the day before, and when I woke up I wouldn’t know why it happened. Suddenly this dream, always the same dream, she’s walking towards me, with that smile of hers, that green in her eyes, I would hear “Hi, Yaron,” I always wanted to answer her and I couldn’t, I simply couldn’t speak, the dream would evaporate. And there were a few times when there were other dreams too. It didn’t happen to me a lot, but there were those few times. I felt her, completely, all the way. And in the morning, it would be hard for me to calm down, to shake it off. To get up. And for Hagar not to notice. The whole day I would try to hold onto it, linger, like a sad old eiderdown that you want to cuddle into, clinging to memories.
Once Hagar said to me, “Sometimes you have those days when you’re a little slow, as if you’re floating.” I remember feeling that I was inside a sort of bubble, an iridescent soap bubble, and Hagar’s words had burst it for me. I didn’t answer but afterwards I asked her, “It’s strange what you said earlier, why did you say it?” “Because usually you don’t like it when the children leave their food in the living room, we always tell them to clear it away, and today you didn’t even see it.”
Strange. And all these years, I almost never thought about her. Not really. How is she now, what is she up to? She stopped there.
I never thought to go searching for her.
But now it’s different. I suddenly noticed it. Since I really saw her, it has changed. I recall her sometimes, just like she is now. With a white sweater, and her hair gathered up on top.
She no longer comes toward me on the pavement.
My Aya, my Aya-of-then. Sort of transparent. Inside me, for so many years. I think that I’ve become used to her. And now she’s not there anymore.
Even yesterday, when I was standing there like that, with the old book in my hand, and the music in the air, that fresh-lemon scent of hers, I could almost touch it.
But she wasn’t there.
I could no longer see her walking towards me.
And since we met up, she is no longer in my dreams.
I don’t think she’ll come again.
33. Hagar
“At last you’ve let me cut your hair short, Hagar, I always told you that that’s what you need. Why did you keep insisting on growing your hair all these years?” Jason said the last time I was at the salon. I didn’t answer, I knew he was right. Everyone says so. “And besides, now that you’ve got a short haircut, I’ll get to see you more,” and then he dropped his hand onto my shoulder, smiling at me in the mirror. I shook off his hand; I had no choice, every few months I need to put him in his place. He’s a good hairdresser, it would be a shame to have to start looking for someone else. And now he’s bragging about that picture of me in last month’s special edition of Women. He’s hung it right behind the reception desk. Whenever someone comes into the salon, Jason wastes no time in telling her, “Here, take a look, she’s been a client of mine for years, her name’s Hagar Gal.” I wonder how many more clients he got thanks to Yaron winning that photo competition. He got first place; unbelievable, first place.
It was around two months ago, we were sitting on the terrace on a Saturday morning. At long last the family was stirring. Yaron said, “The kids are up, let’s sit with them,” and made us a pot of tea. I picked some mint and sage from the garden, took out pita bread and the sour labaneh cheese that I’d made that morning, Iddo loves it. There we were, the four of us, sitting on the terrace in the wicker chairs, the sea completely blue, a gentle winter’s sunshine, the aroma of the Saturday stew was all over the house. It’s ages since there was such peace at home. Michali sat next to me and leaned on my shoulder, closing her eyes, basking in the sun. I drew her closer and stroked her head, just running my fingers through her hair without really noticing it. Suddenly Yaron said, “Wait a minute, don’t move.” He brought his camera, attached his new lens, and moved around us in every direction. Then he started to say, “Get closer, a bit more, move a bit to the left, and you slightly to the right.” Then he told us to smile, to laugh, to hug. Michali made all kinds of faces at him, Iddo said, “Dad, it looks like you should have given up work ages ago. A photographer, that’s what you should have been.” I didn’t say anything, but finally Michali said, “All right, Dad, we get the idea.” So he put the camera away and sat down and we went back to talking. Iddo told us about the lessons in differential calculus that medical students have to take, no one understands a word of it. Yaron said, “Maybe I can help you out here, I studied it ages ago.” Michali talked about a course for sports injuries that she was taking and said, “Mum, you’ve really got to be careful with all this running of yours, you have no idea what it can do.”
I don’t know when Yaron decided to enter one of those photos for the competition, but suddenly one day, about a month ago, he said, “Hagari, I want to show you something.” I went over to his computer; he opened his account and typed in his password rapidly, without me being able to see it. It was annoying but I didn’t say anything, there wouldn’t be any point. I also have my own password for my email, but he knows mine because he set up the account. Yael had asked me if I wanted to change it and I told her I couldn’t be bothered. So I was standing there next to him, he opened his mail and showed me an email that he’d got: “To Mr. Yaron Gal, Haifa. We thank you for taking part in the Family Portrait photography competition. We are happy to inform you that your picture “My Girls” has won first prize. We look forward to seeing you at the prize-giving ceremony where we will present you with the prize, a professional field camera. Please find below a list of the models to choose from. We hereby request you to sign the attached form, giving your permission for us to publish the winning picture. Sincerely yours, The Adjudicators.”
“Well done, Yaron, that’s amazing.” I bent over to kiss him on his head.
“Nice, eh?”
“You didn’t tell me you were sending in pictures to a competition.”
“Well, I just sent them off, I had no idea I’d win. Here, let me show you some of the other pictures I sent in, really professional.”
“All right, later. Why didn’t you tell me you were sending them?”
“I didn’t think anything would come of it.”
“So what?”
“Well, Hagar, I just sent them, I didn’t think it was so important. Does it really matter?”
“Is this the first time you’ve sent photos in?”
“No, there’ve already been two other competitions. But they didn’t get back to me.”
“I had no idea.”
“Never mind. Aren’t you happy?”
“I am, I am happy.”
“I got some amazing pictures. Took me ages to choose which one to send.” And he enlarged it on the screen. “Look how nice it came out, you and Michali. Like sisters.”
“You think so?”
“Since you cut your hair short, no one thinks you’re her mother, you know that.”
“You never said anything about this haircut.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“I’m asking now.”
“It suits you short.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it does suit you.”
And just then Yael arrived. We’d arranged that she’d pop round for coffee, and Yaron said to her, “Here, Yael, come take a look at something really nice,” and he showed her my picture with Michal. And after that he said, “I’m going out for a bit, all right?” I said, “Yes, but don’t forget that we’re going to see a show this evening,” and he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back way before that,” and took his camera and went out.
“He’s become such a different person since he decided to work less and he started photography.”
“You think so?”
“Don’t you also see it, Hagari?”
“Could be. But I don’t know if it’s to do with his work.”
“So what could it be?”
“I don’t know. It’s as if he’s calmer, I can’t explain it. Happier in himself.”
“Well, what d’you know… ”
“Today he told me that short hair suits me.”
“Really? I don’t believe it. And you were always battling with your hair just because of him.”
“That’s right. I always thought he preferred it long.”
And then she reminded me of that quarrel that we had once, when Michal was six. Yaron was at some conference abroad and we hadn’t been able to speak that whole week. I was home alone with both of them, even Mum wasn’t around to help. And combing Michal’s hair in the morning was a nightmare, I didn’t have the patience for it, she would always start crying. And then, one night, when I was giving her a shower, I suddenly noticed that the lice were back. There and then I grabbed a pair of scissors. It actually turned out cute, it suited her short, but when he got back and saw it – what a reaction, Heavens. “I should never have done that to him,” I said, but Yael said that I was always blaming myself, and I replied, “Well, perhaps.” I knew that she was basically right, but at that moment I really wasn’t thinking of him. He so loved her hair, he was always taking pictures of her, with ponytails, plaits, l
oose. His favorite style was a single braid, he always liked her with a braid, then suddenly he comes home after a week away and her hair is gone.
“If this had happened now he wouldn’t have reacted like that. He’s mellowed over the years,” Yael said.
He’s changed, something has changed him. I wonder, what could it be?
34. Aya
Lovesick
“I’m sick,” says Lala in the book, Couples’ Games. Shelly Yachimovich’s book is on my bedside table, it hasn’t been returned to the shelf yet. “I’m sick,” she says, and leaves her husband, Touli, telling him, “I’ve come down with love sickness.” But us, what has happened with us? It couldn’t have been the same sickness. Perhaps there’s a similar one, a confusing one. A benign tumour that seems malignant. Could excitement be a sickness? An addictive sickness. How could I have not come down with it, there on the gravel, walking to our meeting point, twenty-eight years after we parted. Layers upon layers of years, their burden piled up on my shoulders. And all of a sudden they were gone, as if they had never been. All of a sudden I was twenty, that’s how he saw me, “You’ve hardly changed,” that’s what he said, “you’re the same Aya.” Waves of excitement thrilled my body, my heart shivering, my voice suddenly mute. And after some moments, sitting there, facing each other, his gaze levelled at me, “It wouldn’t be hard to fall in love with you, it must happen to you all the time.” And his eyes on mine, and my eyes dropped to the ground, the palms of my hands tucked firmly under my legs. “Easy or not,” I got the words out at last, “it has never happened.” Embarrassed, overwhelmed, words which had never been said before, and suddenly, at the age of forty-eight, from him of all people, from Yaron. And then, ever so quietly, my whole being tensed, poised to take in his slightest nuance, “I can’t believe you’re here, Aya, you’ve hardly changed, I just don’t believe it.” And after infinite moments, moments which couldn’t have been counted, the entire world stood stock still, “It’s so lovely to see what you’ve done with your life, it’s so lovely, I always knew who you were.” And I didn’t see his eyes, his body facing sideways, his eyes blurring, gazing at the horizon. And then came days like a whirlwind, how could anyone forego words like these. The sickness of excitement, hyper-excitement, is there such a sickness, is it addictive? And time was needed for the touchdown, to land slowly back in the present, but there was no time, the parachute that held me was torn in one go, plunging me down in a dizzying free fall.
So We Said Goodbye: A Contemporary Fiction Novel Page 17