Disobedience

by Naomi Alderman

  I remember the feeling of putting down the deposit on that cramped little bedroom and moving my things in. It was a great, glorious open feeling, like I’d just unsealed my lungs for the first time and realized that there was air to breathe.

  You can only save yourself, says Dr. Feingold, but at least you can do that.

  Esti and I went walking. We couldn’t go far. Esti was due back in lessons shortly, so we ended up taking several turns around the school playground. Although it was still warm, the sky was iron-gray, that gray that English skies take on for days at a time, constantly threatening to rain but never quite working up the enthusiasm. Autumn was coming. Two large black birds were wrestling with a half-eaten burger the wind must have blown into the playground. They were holding it down with their feet, tearing chunks off, gulping it down, beaks to the sky.

  I said:

  “I came to tell you that I’m going to leave. This isn’t my place. I can’t stay here anymore. I’ll move my plane ticket. I’ll leave tomorrow or the next day.”

  She sighed, bit her lower lip, stared at the birds some more. One of them was trying to fly off with half a bun in its mouth, but couldn’t quite achieve takeoff. I wondered if Esti had even heard me.

  She took a deep breath in and said:

  “Leaving again, Ronit? Why is it, do you think, that you’re always leaving or planning to leave?”

  I wasn’t shocked. Not really. It wasn’t a shocking sort of conversation. We were just staring at these two huge black birds and talking like we were discussing why it is that I like apples but not apple pie. Her speech was quite casual, just like that. I thought, okay then, if that’s how it is. Fine. I said:

  “Why is it that you never ask me to stay?”

  She smiled and looked down at her hands, and then back up. She didn’t look at me, just at the birds, cawing and parading.

  “I think because I couldn’t bear to hear you say no. Better not to ask.”

  We looked some more, at the birds and the pieces of cardboard wrapping blowing around the playground. She hugged her arms to her ribs. She said:

  “I knew before you did, I think, that you were going to leave. I saw you slipping away and when they sent you to America I thought you would never come back. And you didn’t.”

  I should have let it lie.

  “I did come back, Esti. A couple of times when I was at college, in the vacations.”

  She smiled again, a mournful half-smile.

  “You came back to tell me you were leaving. Don’t you remember, you told me your plan?”

  I didn’t remember.

  “You told me you’d got a job in a bank. It was after your first year at Stern. We sat on your bed. We were staring at the ceiling and holding hands. And you said, ‘I’ve got a job.’”

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked you what it was. Right then, before you went into details, talking about apartments and passports, I knew you’d never come back. You were scarcely there, even that visit.”

  I did remember, maybe a little. Maybe a tiny bit. Maybe just the feeling of holding her hand in mine.

  What is the truth? How is it possible to reach out to that person I was and ask the question? If these words, and these, and these, had been spoken, would I have stayed? Sometimes I think that she was nothing to me, nothing at all, that I shrugged her off and never looked back. But it’s more complicated than you think, how you feel about a person. Sometimes I think that if she’d asked me, even once, to stay, I would have stayed forever. The Rabbis teach that we each hold worlds within us. Maybe both these things are true. But she never asked. And so I had to leave.

  I said, “Esti, why did you marry him?”

  She said, “You were gone.”

  “I was gone, so you, what, jumped on the nearest available body?”

  She passed a hand across her brow.

  “That’s not. It’s not. You know that Dovid and I don’t…”

  Her voice trailed off into empty air. I thought, now, right now. This is, as it turns out, the moment I came to London for. I said:

  “Esti, you fancy girls, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “And you don’t fancy men, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “And you’re married to a man, aren’t you?”

  She nodded again.

  I spread my hands wide.

  “Well, now, Esti, doesn’t there seem to be something wrong with this picture to you?”

  She sighed. I waited. Her skin was even whiter than usual, I noticed, and creased under the eyes, at the corners of her mouth. At last, she said:

  “Do you remember ‘tomorrow is the new moon’? The story of David and Jonathan?”

  I nodded.

  “And do you remember how much David loved Jonathan? He loved him with ‘a love surpassing the love of women.’ Do you remember?”

  “Yes, I remember. David loved Jonathan. Jonathan died in battle. David was miserable. The end.”

  “No, not the end. The beginning. David had to go on living. He had no choice. Do you remember who he married?”

  I had to think about that one. It’d been a good few years since I last learned Torah. I sifted around the facts in my brain and eventually came up with it.

  “He married Michal. They weren’t very happy. Didn’t she insult him in public, or something?”

  “And who was Michal?”

  It clicked. I understood. Michal was Jonathan’s sister. The man he loved with all his heart died, and he married his sister. I thought about that for a moment, taking it in. I wondered whether Michal and Jonathan had looked anything like each other. I thought about King David and his grief, his need for someone like Jonathan, near to Jonathan. I was quite moved, until I realized that this idea was insane.

  I said, “Esti you have got to be kidding. You married Dovid because you think you’re David, King of the Jews?”

  She sighed and ran her hand through her hair.

  “Oh, Ronit, why do you always…” She paused and shook her head. “Why must you always make a joke out of serious things?”

  Ah, I thought, why is the sky blue? Why does love never last?

  “But, Esti, it’s bonkers! I wasn’t dead. You weren’t the King. There’s a whole world out there to live in. Go and have a look!”

  Esti sighed again.

  The two black birds had finished with their burger. They were stalking across the tarmac away from us, pecking at any speck or shiny thing that caught their eye.

  “Dovid was always there, Ronit. He cared for me and, in a way, I cared for him. He seemed so, I don’t know, so peaceful. I thought, at least this way I’ll have some peace.”

  The wind blew, cold and shrill. It penetrated the thinness of my shirt, swirled the pieces of rubbish around the playground, lifting them up.

  I said, “And did you find it? Did you find peace?”

  “Yes, I think that I did.”

  “And did you find happiness?”

  “In a way, Ronit.” She looked at me. “Perhaps you can’t understand this, but in a way I found happiness, too.”

  “And is it still enough for you?”

  She reached her arms around me, resting her head on my chest. I stroked her back and kissed her forehead. Away, across the playground, I could see the rows of schoolgirls and teachers in their classes. Some were looking at their blackboards and their books, and some were looking at us, at me and Esti standing in the playground together. I said nothing. I pulled Esti more tightly toward me and held her, like that, in my arms.

  Chapter Eleven

  And God said, let us make man, in our likeness, in our image.

  Genesis 1:26

  In the beginning of God’s creating the world, He made three types of creatures: the angels, the beasts, and the human beings.

  Angels, He created from His pure word. The angels have no will to do evil, they go about the world simply performing their Creator’s commands. Angels cannot rebel. Th
ey cannot deviate for one moment from His purpose; all that they are is His will. They know nothing else.

  Beasts, in a similar fashion, have only their instinct to guide them. Does a lion do wrong when he devours the shivering lamb? By no means. He, too, is following the commands of his Maker, which he knows in the form of his own desires.

  The Torah tells us that God spent almost all of the six days of creation fashioning these creatures and their dwelling-places. But just before sunset on the sixth day, He took a small quantity of earth and from it He fashioned man-and-woman. An afterthought? The crowning achievement? The matter is not clear. And the sun set, the day was over, and creation was complete.

  What is this thing, man-and-woman? It is a being with the power to disobey. Alone among all the creatures proceeding from the mouth of the Lord, human beings have freedom of will. We do not hear simply the pure voice of the Almighty as the angels do. We are not ruled by blind instinct like the beasts. Uniquely, we can listen to the commands of God, can understand them, yet can choose disobedience. It is this, and only this, which gives our obedience its value.

  This is the glory of mankind, and this is its tragedy. God has veiled Himself from us, that we may see a part of His light, but not the whole of it. We hang suspended between two certainties: the clarity of the angels and the desires of the beasts. Thus, we remain forever uncertain. Our lives present us with choices, further choices and more choices, each multiplying, our ability to find our way forever in doubt. Unhappy creatures! Luckiest of all beings! Our triumph is our downfall, our opportunity for condemnation is also our chance for greatness. And all we have, in the end, are the choices we make.

  It was raining in the freezer. A soft rain, splashing down, gathering, pouring onto the floor. The rain had carved glassy pathways of ice and meltwater. There were stalactites and areas of snow, wastelands and hidden, cold places behind the pipes. From time to time a great crack resounded as a piece of ice broke off.

  On the kitchen floor, the rainwater had gathered into a small, ice-cold lake, a tiny perfection of winter. Esti dabbled her fingers in the pool of water, thrilling to the cold wetness. There was a release of the scents that had been frozen solid, a slightly chemical, stale odor. There was a rhythmic drip, drip, drip. She found herself imagining the moment when the job would be complete, when the freezer would regain its creamy professionalism. It made her a little sad. But she had only just begun: the thaw would be hours yet.

  Esti had woken at dawn. It was Friday, there were things to be done. She ought to begin work. And yet. She remained lying next to Dovid, whose profound sleep still continued from the previous day. There was a twist in her stomach. She thought of the work that was to be done, the food that must be prepared. She felt increasingly nauseous. She wondered if she had eaten bad food, or whether she had caught some seed of illness from one of the pupils. The nausea became urgent, thick like the scent of burning meat in her nostrils or a catch at the back of her throat. She ran to the bathroom, remembering that of course there was a reason. She hadn’t expected it so soon. Things were progressing; nothing remained the same. Drip, drip, drip.

  She cleaned herself and dressed. She was already behind schedule. Very well, she thought, and the thought was all calmness, all order. Very well. This Friday will be different. The kitchen felt her difference when she entered it. “Where are the chickens?” it seemed to say. “Where the soup, where the challot? Where, oh where, is the potato kugel?” Esti spoke to the kitchen gently. She said, I will show you a new way.

  The freezer had grown blooms of ice, stretching pawlike across its walls and ceiling. She turned it off at the plug and smiled to hear its comfortable purr judder to a halt. She opened the door and began to remove the packets and boxes of food. She placed towels around the foot of the freezer. She found she was singing, a song from long ago, when she had been a schoolgirl.

  At seven a.m., the telephone began to ring. There were, Esti knew, a very limited number of reasons that she might be telephoned at seven a.m. Mrs. Mannheim, the headmistress of the school, might, for example, have something important to say to her about certain things that might have been seen in the school playground the previous day. Esti walked into the hallway and stared at the telephone, sending her unwelcoming thoughts down the wires. It stopped ringing. A few minutes later it began again. She picked up the handset, walked into the kitchen, and put the telephone in the fridge. It continued to ring, cold and muffled. Esti was satisfied.

  At eight o’clock she found herself deeply hungry. She made a stack of thick pancakes, anointed with lemon and sugar. She ate, rolling each crisp, warm mouthful across her tongue, chewing with delight. She could not remember the last time she had cooked like this only for herself. Was her food always this good? It had never been quite this delicious, surely? The telephone rang again, shivering in the fridge. She could just hear it if she placed her ear to the refrigerator door. She listened courteously until it was done. Shortly afterward, she heard the sound of stirring upstairs. Ronit? No, not loud enough, no banging. Just gentle, methodical movement. She walked upstairs.

  Dovid was sitting on the side of the bed. He looked tired and sad. His hair was rumpled, his skin hadn’t quite lost the previous day’s grayness. She touched his forehead, brushing his fringe to one side. She rested one fingertip between his eyes, at the place where his frown had creased a deep line.

  “How is it in here?”

  “It’s all right. A bit fuzzy still.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No, not really. Only as much as it always does. Esti?”

  Dovid’s hands were folded in front of him, but she could see the words forming in his head. She felt resentful. This was not how they were. This was not how they had lived, all these years. This, at least, they were never supposed to have: questions and recriminations, interrogations and assaults. Where they were together, they were together. Where they were separate, nothing further should be attempted. Even now, with the idea of a notion of a beginning of life within her, there should be no questions.

  Dovid said, “Can we go out? For a walk?”

  Esti looked at him for a long time, taking him in: his hair, fine and brown, thinning on top, the constant rosy blush at the sides of his cheeks, the little rounded belly peering over his trousers. Downstairs, in the fridge, the telephone began to ring again.

  “Yes. Let’s do that.”

  There are parks in Hendon. There are parks and trees, with wild grass growing and open-faced hills sweeping down to the Brent Cross Flyover and the A41. Once upon a time, long ago, there were farms here and farm people. Traces remain: stone-built houses and ancient roads with crooked names, though London has silted up this place that once was farmland. In the center of the city, the land has quite forgotten that it was ever tilled and sown, though once it was. But Hendon, lacking age and wealth, remembers the seed and the soil.

  We who live in Hendon now like to imagine ourselves elsewhere. We carry our homeland on our backs, unpacking it where we find ourselves, never too thoroughly nor too well, for we will have to pack it up again one day. Hendon does not exist; it is only where we are, which is the least of all ways to describe us. Nonetheless there is a kind of beauty here, in the scratched-open places and the remains of agriculture. All beauty touches the human heart, be it only so small as an ant or a spider. Our ancestors, we can be sure, felt a sense of it in Poland or in Russia, in Spain and Portugal and Egypt and Syria and Babylon and Rome. Why should we regret that we find a sort of kindness in the tamed land of Hendon? It is not our place, and we are not its people, but we have found affection here. And, as King David told us, God is in all places, high and low, distant and near at hand. As surely as He is anywhere, God is in Hendon.

  Esti and Dovid sat on the remains of a fallen tree and looked down the hillside toward the curve of the North Circular Road.

  “Well,” said Dovid.

  “Well,” said Esti.

  They sat for a moment in silence. The mornin
g was warm, the sun beginning to burn the dew from the grass.

  “So,” said Dovid, “did you do anything interesting yesterday?”

  Esti looked up at him. He was smiling a nervous half-smile.

  She remembered this, from a long time ago. She wrinkled her nose.

  “Let me think. No…I can’t think of…oh, wait, I finished all the washing-up.”

  Dovid nodded. “Right.”

  “How about you?”

  Dovid glanced up at the tree bending its branches over them, and at the sky beyond that: an uncertain blue, turning to white.

  “Apart from the shul board? No, not much. Boring day really. I had a bit of a headache.”

  Esti nodded. Without analysis, she rested her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her waist. It was solid and warm. They looked out over the hillside, down toward the children’s playground, the tennis courts, and the rushing tides of the North Circular.

  He said, “Did you ever lie on your back on a hill like this—a place with a big sky? When you were a child?”

  She said, “I think so. I can’t remember.”

  He squeezed her waist. “Let’s do it now. Let’s lie on our backs and look at the clouds.”

  Yes, she said in her heart, yes.

  “Someone might see.”

  He smiled at that.

  “They already know. I think we can safely say they’ve worked it out.”

  It was better, side by side, looking upward together. She did not have to look at him and remember his face. She was not confused by the things she felt sorry for and the things she did not. She was simplified by the many-colored clouds, the sky, the birds. A glinting airplane left a white trail. They decided what shapes the clouds were: a teacup, a rhinoceros, the letter W, a man in a boat.

  She thought to herself, we could remain here forever, like this. Nothing need ever be said. Perhaps this is what is meant by love.