Motti
Page 5
And if he’s the sick one, if his body is scanned magnetically in a search for some out of control, metastasizing intruder, if a forehead strap is wrapped around his head, packed with electrodes and conductive wires, adorning him like laurel leaves? They’ll slide him inside like a conqueror, into the guts of the rattling machine. Two weeks after this, no more, already the funeral. And people will cry and people will restrain themselves, and people will say, oh, oh, such a good man he was, why was he taken oh why. And she’ll stand among them with a secret hidden behind her expression. And before this the two of them will talk about everything, they’ll talk all about his approaching death—not like us, who look away from others’ coming deaths as though they were dog shit.
And if he dies before this in a car crash, God forbid, if he’s cut apart and all his foul-smelling physiological secrets that were hidden until then behind his skin are spilled out, Ariella will be there to hold his hand while his pulse fades, his life running out with the beating of his treacherous heart, which until now was needed to live but now at last has revealed its true plan, to pump out all his blood, to push it out of his gaping wound so he’ll cease, be done, so little Motti will die like this on the road, and from a distance the sound of sirens is heard, but he only barely hears it, and every second is already so precious, every second is like a rare piece of jewelry that Ariella will wear for the rest of her life, the few years that remain to her, and she’ll grope those forlorn beads of memory when she rolls over in her bed at night. (Alone, he hopes. For at least a few years it will still only be her, and even afterward some wound will remain, a sliver of longing, a gaping biographical hole, some sorrow.)
21
Look at this, so many possibilities one can fabricate without committing to any actual story.
The body of the plot is full of holes like a fisherman’s net or an old stocking, and as with the net, it gathers up, without discretion, miscellaneous thoughts and meaningless fantasies and so forth. But that’s how we speak through the pages of a book, so why hide it? On the contrary. Apart from whatever glance God—if there is such a thing—might throw us from time to time, there isn’t a lot of meaning to the things we do when we’re all alone. The only acts that have any salient existence are those done in company. That being the case, I would even suggest we meet up for coffee or something, but ordinarily I’m not a particularly good conversationalist. Quite the opposite. Unremittingly quiet or else babbling on—not to mention that since quitting smoking I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with your hands when talking.
22
But a day later, when Motti returned from work, Ariella was waiting there on the stairs, drumming on her backpack and chewing gum.
My mom still isn’t home, she said to him. Can I wait at your place?
I, I, Motti said, his heart pounding. I myself am not going inside, actually. I just dropped by…dropped by to…I have, I really have to go, I just dropped by.
He fled down the stairs as if wolves were nipping at his heels, and hid among the bushes in the backyard for perhaps an hour and a half, until her mom returned. Only then did he go up cautiously, quickly drink a glass of water, peek through the peephole to see that no one was standing in the stairwell, put Laika on her leash, and out together to walk the streets.
And so, has your opinion of him changed, now that it’s been made perfectly clear that she’s just a kid? It’s important to remember that he still hasn’t done a thing. Won’t, either. Why, she’s just a child, why, that’s disgusting, the very thought of touching her like that disgusts him, no matter how much he wants to touch her when she grows up, when they’re in love.
As proof, even if he was asked for whatever reason to describe her to someone, he wouldn’t have any problem describing her quite well (indeed, he’s observed her for hours, a minute here, a minute there, from the window or through the peephole in his front door), but he doesn’t know how she smells, what smell she has, he’s never gotten sufficiently close to her. Likewise, and this maybe even more important still, he would without any doubt skip over in his description the secondary sexual characteristics that are even now beginning to be hinted at by her body. He’d skip her ass, which will grow rounder in future, and he wouldn’t even think about the first signs of her breasts, already showing. Also not about what there is between her legs, even though in his fantasies this keeps him very busy, because how can this be, how can a person have an opening that another person can enter?
And not only will he skip these descriptions. Also the thoughts.
And this even though he watches her for hours and wonders what she’ll be like when she grows up.
Will she grow to be tall and skinny like a shoot? Skinny, skinny, another moment and the wind will carry her away, even though she walks so determinedly against it, walking up some street against the wind, lowering her head decisively. Her cheekbones will almost cut the flesh of her cheeks, they’ll protrude that much, but they won’t look harsh and cruel. Just the opposite. Delicate. With straight hair she’ll walk like that, in a T-shirt a little too big for her, her eyes light green now, with a hint of honey, giving them depth. Forest green, those eyes, rich, you can just drown in them. Or the opposite, she’ll almost be pudgy, sturdy, with round and heavy breasts, smiling. At night she’ll rest her head on his chest and absentmindedly caress him as they watch the TV. And he in return, teasing her—just as she plays with his chest hair, so he plays with her breasts. Places a hand there and swings them back and forth (this isn’t sexual, it’s a lover’s joke), and so they laugh together, her and him, a laugh of deep recognition. After they calm down, and the laughter subsides, he’ll say to her, my love, I love you more than anything. I love your hands more than anything, your legs, your tummy, the lines of your face, your spleen, the toes on your feet, your nails, your eyelashes, this beauty mark, that beauty mark, and this one as well, your voice, the way you move, your fantasies, your beautiful thoughts, your pupils, your nostrils, the hairs in your nostrils (and she’ll protest, I have absolutely no hairs in my nostrils!—he’ll correct himself, the nonhairs in your nostrils, but the hairs in your ears I just adore! and she’ll protest, and he’ll continue), I love your neck more than anything, your cute ass, your shins, your knees, keep going? The back of your knees, elbows, shoulders, your boobs, your little belly button (she’ll say, what, you don’t love my, you know, vagina? and he’ll say, I love it, just love it), your earlobes, the nape of your neck, behind your ears, your tongue, your teeth, your forehead, your cheeks, your gums. I love to see your hair more than anything. More than anything I love to see it shoot off your shoulders like little flames, like a bonfire. And she’ll say in a sweet voice, what’s burning? He’ll say, my heart, dear, and laugh deeply, as though belittling the beautiful things that he himself just said.
And if fate—of all things—laughs at him, and they actually don’t meet again when she’s grown up, without even knowing, some door will close in him that was open only for her. This he’s already mourned, in the very moment he thought of it: that with her he could be a man who he could never be without her. Not a better man, not necessarily, but nevertheless a different man, and if nothing out of all the things he’s now thought up will ever be, then this man too will never come to be, and already now he mourns his ongoing departure (mourns the thoughts he won’t think when she won’t be there, the jokes that won’t come to him, even the small acts of cruelty that in her presence are liable to break loose inside him and who knows where they’ll blossom now, if at all).
23
And if I may, like officers in the army are so fond of doing, offer a personal example, I’ll point out only the diamonds that glittered at me years ago, as a boy, on the way back from Friday night dinner at Grandma’s. Giant diamonds and chandeliers sparkling that I spotted from a distance, on the ceiling of some wonderful house that you could see from the road for a moment, through the car window, and they stayed with me so many years, until two or three months ago I actually
went there, to the actual place, to someone’s Bar Mitzvah celebration. And instantly all of them, all the diamonds and such, transformed into neon lights (even though in my memory there still remains something of all the marvelous radiance, and this paragraph is proof).
And this, now, is the question: Is it possible to accuse Motti of clinging to his diamonds in this way? That he avoids (as a way of life, properly speaking) ever standing in the hall and looking upward, negating his memory, feeling some dim contempt for anyone who believes there are really diamonds like that in the world?
It’s clear that Motti must be accused of something. And there is certainly something to accuse him of. The question is if it’s this. Which is one of the central questions of this book, even if not one of the more interesting ones in it. We have to ask if the freedom he’s suckling at is real, valid. And then, if there’s anything we can learn from his behavior. Or is it just the opposite, is it that you actually need to get dirty in the world, to immerse yourself in the neon light of the actual, in disappointment, in trudging forward and then sprinting ahead all of a sudden, through doors slammed shut.
24
(And he’s wrong, that much is clear. There’s no comfort inside one’s head. Not like there is in one body with another, in that warmth, in the touch.)
25
You’ve certainly already noticed that I haven’t in any way emphasized the idea of Ariella’s innocence, her actual childhood, her childish innocence, etc. Moreover: I almost haven’t talked about her at all. About her personality, her likes and dislikes. She’s here most of the time as a sort of tabula rasa, a potentiality upon which it’s possible to hang anything. And it’s this way not only for literary reasons, but also because I don’t believe in innocence, that is, in discussions about it, that is, in those speaking about it. Maybe only Patti Smith. Or maybe not even her. If there’s any innocence at all, it comes out of choice and hard work. And I don’t say this to be a smart ass. Not at all. Only in order to be understood. Because anything else would be overblown. Really too much. Because storytelling itself, this craft, well, it’s a very dubious enterprise. To sit and invent things that never were for others to sit and strain to believe in them for a moment, maybe to learn from them, maybe to get emotional. So it’s hard for me to commit to a story. To this suspicious craft. To devote myself to it, to a single, closed plot, to its characters. If I may be allowed to say so (and certainly I may, this is my book), it’s just like in life, in life too it’s hard sometimes to devote oneself to something without reservation, to touch skin with our own skin, with everything that will be lost to us eventually, will be lost to us in death or even before. On the other hand (again, like in life, sorry), what’s all this worth if we don’t give in and hug and love and so on? There’s something to be said for distancing ourselves, true, but the rewards are very bitter. And I already know how all this will end, how my characters will end up and the book as a whole (I even budgeted its word count). Hence these games of distancing and drawing near, again and again: with all due respect, I think it’s up to my characters to make the effort and come closer to me. Then we’ll see. In American movies they say this attitude also works with women. But American movies, you know.
26
But nevertheless, something happens.
So out they went, drinking again.
Again Menachem drank a bit too much, drank till he became rude; he pressured the waitress to be nice to Motti, who sat there in despair, and to give him her telephone number—while Motti sat there reserved—and maybe go out and have a drink with them later, when her shift was over. She gave Motti a friendly smile, to Menachem her smile was less friendly and she declined as she always did (she wanted to go home too, to study for her test; she wants to be a veterinarian, to take care of hurt and abandoned animals; after doing it for years, she’ll grow a little duller, she’ll nurse a profound hostility toward dog owners who just can’t wait to put to sleep or give away the pets who so adore them, and an even greater hostility toward those who refuse to spay and neuter: “We want her to experience the joy of giving birth, and for the children to enjoy it too, that connection with nature, there’s nothing like it,” they say, and they don’t know what they’re saying, don’t know about the puppies crowding the cages of shelters and pounds, soon put to death or dying of their own accord; and she too, when she’s already a district vet, she’ll start being a little too free with the syringe, in the evening she’ll go home just wanting to forget it all, put her feet up on the coffee table and sigh; her own dog will put its head on her knees, looking at her expectantly, and she’ll stroke her—the dog—absentmindedly and think of suffering).
Then they went out again, and Menachem said, cut the crap, I’m fine, come on, I’ll give you a ride home.
So in they got, fastened their seatbelts, and started to drive. And then that dull thud (I didn’t see where she came from, I didn’t see her, Menachem said over and over, like he was possessed or something), and the crowd collecting after they got out of the car, the police lights, the muttering, the shouts, even the great astonishment, for up till now it was the persistence of life that had surprised Menachem. When his children were small he would wake in a panic from bad dreams and hurry to their room to check whether they were still breathing or if they’d died in their sleep, nothing to it, like a spark shining brightly, briefly, then going out completely and that’s that. Not that it was always easy with them, no, mostly he didn’t know what to do with them, with the kids and Edna, alive and his and they’re all together, but the thought of losing them, that they wouldn’t be there anymore (that there would no longer be any possibility of being together, whether this possibility was taken advantage of or not), that was something he couldn’t conceive of.
So he hurried to their room at night again and again, and was astonished every time to see how life was preserved, how this stubborn thread continued, this metabolism, these breaths. And now, one little blow—and that was it. Sarah Rosenthal’s soul departed in an instant, assuming she had one in the first place (assuming we all do, whether fictional or not). What could Menachem do? Around him shouts and flashing lights, cries of Mister, Mister, and him in the middle of it all, going back to the car and sitting down in the passenger seat, he wants to keep his distance from the steering wheel, his head in his hands, his nose and then his hands full of snot, moaning like a monkey, like a miserable animal, and Motti by the open car door, still standing. Oh God oh God (he moans), what have I done, Motti, what have I done, I swear I never saw her, oh God, Edna’s going to kill me, what am I going to do now.
Dear Dad (Menachem’s son might have written to him had he gone to jail) please by me a horse
Mom misses you a lot and she crys all the time she gets angri with us but we know its onliey becos she misses you and its hard for her and we miss you too and we want to come and visit you soon
Yours with love your son Avi
So weak he suddenly became, Menachem.
Edna’s going to kill me, he said. My kids will grow up without a father, what will I tell them. This is my third offence, they’ll fuck me over in court.
And when the paramedic asked, is someone here with her, Motti said, yes, we are. Then the paramedic said, we’re going to such-and-such hospital; they put her in the trauma ward, and there was an elderly man who stroked his stomach and moaned loudly Mama Mama, and to anyone willing to listen he said, two days already I haven’t had a bowel movement, two days already I haven’t had a bowel movement, and he stroked the tubes inserted into his nostrils and said, it’s for the asthma I’ve been suffering from for fifteen years now, and Motti looked at him and looked at the group of people, a family, standing nearby around the bed of someone else, a woman, and there too there was an elderly man with an expressionless face, and next to him his sons and his daughter in a babble of cell phones (“The doctors say that Mom won’t…”), and a Filipina caregiver, also standing next to the bed and weeping bitterly; then Sarah’s family arrived as well,
and somebody asked, who’s the driver who hit her? And Menachem said nothing, just sat there trembling weakly, and Motti stood up and said, it’s me, I’m the driver. Menachem didn’t even look up. And next to them stood Sarah Rosenthal’s husband, and her children stood there too, and Motti in the middle of it all stood facing them and said, I’m the driver. Then the fist and the cracked eye socket. They took care of Motti, too. Then the police arrived, and from there to the lockup, and just as everyone in the hospital had proclaimed their afflictions, so in the lockup everyone proclaimed their innocence, everyone, that is, but Motti. And after a few days or weeks in court, even though it was a first offence, the judge came down on him hard, five years inside, he said. He came down hard both because it was a grave offence and because by then Sarah Rosenthal was dead, and also because his stomach hurt a lot—his daughter had pierced her eyebrow, which made him very angry (and maybe that’s why his stomach hurt), and even though Menachem, sitting in the public gallery, flinched—afterward he said, I owe you, brother, man, oh boy do I owe you—Motti didn’t even blink, five years, so what, what was that but five years in which he wouldn’t have to struggle, which he wouldn’t have to struggle to fill up now, until Ariella.
27