Inbal had made her dream come true. She married her childhood sweetheart, who learned to love her as she loved him. Throughout the evening, Inbal and David didn’t leave each other even for a moment. It was the most modest and happy wedding I’ve ever attended. Of the three of us, Inbal had always been the least attractive one, and though I was happy that she and David had a loving relationship, they always looked like an unbalanced pair because of the difference in their appearances. He was one of the most remarkable men I've ever seen – tall and muscular with masculine facial features and dreamy blue eyes. He could have had any girl he wanted, and out of all the girls in the world, he chose Inbal, who had always been a little chubby with brown-blonde curly hair that she always found difficult to manage. Her features were nice, but because she always was slightly overweight, her face was too plump to be considered beautiful. The only thing she shared with David in terms of appearance was an amazing pair of eyes. David had dreamy blue eyes and she had huge gray-green eyes. In her simple wedding dress, with makeup that emphasized her eyes and her braided hair, she was amazingly beautiful. All her delicate inner beauty, which David had learned to know and admire, broke out in full force on her wedding day, and David couldn’t take his eyes off her.
This was the first time I remembered being jealous of Inbal, and I hated every minute. Inbal had always been a loyal and loving friend. She always knew how to offer praise and give to others. For the first time since the accident, I felt that maybe I’d made a mistake by rejecting David. All that joy and love could have been mine. Mine.
And I’d given it up.
Since I had no recollection of my childhood, I didn’t remember emotions either. I didn’t remember ever experiencing jealousy. Since the accident, I’d had no reason or time to be envious. It's not that I wasn’t jealous of anyone. I envied a student who got a better grade than me in a test, or a soldier in the army who received a certificate of merit at my expense. The Dean's List that was hanging on the faculty notice board made my jealousy stir as well. I was on the list, but not in first place. It's not that I’d never envied, but never before did jealousy eat me up from the inside as it did after Inbal and David’s wedding. Maybe it was because I've always sensed that the jealousy I felt was repairable - I could learn better for the next test, or be a more disciplined soldier. But this great love that Inbal enjoyed could have been mine, and I’d lost it forever.
Amir was a great spouse, handsome, hardworking and educated. He cared for me and loved me. I had no real reason to be jealous. But the jealousy that was born the day of Inbal and David’s wedding became a part of me. For years, I’d secretly sniggered at Daria, with her conduct always fueled by envy and her desire to present herself as more perfect than others. Unlike me, Daria’s jealousy was motivated by materialism. She always had to show everyone that she had the best out there before anyone else had it. Daria, for example, didn’t really appreciate Inbal’s wedding. It was far too simple for her taste, not her style at all. She wasn’t envious in the least.
As far as Daria was concerned, she’d won because she finally had the most beautiful party. As a child, Daria’s birthday parties were the most simple and meager of all. Her parents were simple, warm-hearted people, and they did everything they could to make their four children happy, but they didn’t have the means to indulge them. When we were in third grade, Daria's mother organized a birthday party for her, inviting the entire class, just a week after Oren’s birthday. Oren was the richest kid in class. The gap between the two parties was so big that Daria could barely raise a smile at her own birthday party. Just a week after the whole class had enjoyed an abundance of sweets, a magician who amazed the kids with his talents, and prestigious party prizes, the same children gathered in Daria’s simple living room and enjoyed a handful of snacks and sweets, mostly made by her mother. Daria's big sister organized the party games and gave out prizes that were very simple. When Oren won one of the games, he received a balloon as a reward. “Balloon?” he sniggered when he received his prize from Daria. “This isn’t a prize!” he declared and then resumed his seat, tossing the balloon to Sigal, who agreed to accept the pitiful award. That was the last time Daria hosted the class at her home. She even played down her Bat Mitzvah celebration and said she was celebrating only with her family. Thanks to Asi, she had finally organized an event she could be proud of. Daria's wedding was certainly one of the most impressive and exclusive weddings I’d been invited to, but for me, Inbal and David’s wedding was all I could have ever wanted, and stupidly gave up on.
Two weeks after the wedding, Inbal sent out wedding pictures by e-mail. For two weeks, I’d tried to convince myself that it was all in my head and I was imagining my feelings, but the images only fanned my jealousy. Inbal and David looked even more in love in the pictures than I remembered.
“What is it?” Amir asked when he saw me studying the computer screen with such great care.
“Pictures from Inbal and David’s wedding.”
“Really?” Amir pulled up a chair and sat next to me. “Let me see.”
Amir ran through the images and roared with laughter when he came to a picture of him and Asi making faces behind Daria’s back.
“What do you think about the pictures?”
“Pretty pictures.”
“And the wedding?”
“Nice wedding.”
“You're not sorry we didn’t have a wedding like that?”
“What do you mean, a wedding like that?”
“A more modest style.”
“Your parents would never, ever put on such a small wedding.” He was right.
“But you don’t think this wedding was more exciting than ours?”
“No,” he frowned. “Why? Do you think it was more exciting?”
“I don’t know... ” But, really, I did know. “Look at this picture.” I focused on a picture of Inbal and David looking into each other's eyes. “Look how excited they are, how in love they are.”
“Obviously they were excited, but they don’t seem to be more excited or in love than any other of the dozens of couples I know.”
“Including us?” I asked uncertainly.
“Especially us,” he laughed and I joined him.
He was able to reassure me, but not for long. The jealousy in me grew, and instead of chucking it out, I tended it with dedication and obsession, and it became an integral part of me. The more I dug deeper in me, the more the jealousy intensified. I was disgusted with myself every time I tried to showcase our relationship as better than theirs. Even Amir felt it, and he wasn’t usually quick to pick up on emotions. Whenever we met up with Inbal and David, I tried to find a crack in the wall of love that surrounded them. I wanted to discover that not everything was perfect. I tried to forcibly drag them into arguments and put them in uncomfortable situations.
One of these occasions occurred about three and a half months after Inbal and David had gotten married. We met with them and Daria and Asi to see a movie, and Inbal excitedly told us how, a few days earlier, David had surprised her and invited her out to the café where they were married in honor of their first hundred days as a married couple. Amir and I hadn’t celebrated our first hundred days as a married couple, and when I counted the days in my head, I discovered - to my dismay - that Amir and I had no excuse for forgetting that exciting, momentous date. We were both on summer break from university, and my residency with my large accounting firm had not yet begun.
“We celebrate each and every day!” I said and flashily leaned against Amir, who embraced me warmly. For Amir, the embrace was enough, but I continued to fawn over him and make out with him throughout the evening. He didn’t stop me, but I felt he was embarrassed.
“What’s going on with you tonight?” Daria asked me as we sat drinking coffee after the movie ended.
“What do you mean?” I asked innocently.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “You're all over Amir, acting as if you only met a couple of days ago
.”
“I'm just horny,” I whispered in her ear and giggled. “I’m probably ovulating.” She rolled her eyes and turned her focus to the group discussion. Daria had noticed my odd behavior, but she didn’t understand it. It just drove me even crazier. Daria, who was always busy making comparisons and presenting herself as the best of our trio, wasn’t bothered by Inbal and David and their expressions of affection and romance. She was happy with what she had because she felt she was the most beautiful and rich one in the group. I wanted to be happy with what I had too.
But I couldn’t.
On the way home, Amir asked me about all my relentless touching and caressing throughout the evening.
“I just felt like it.”
“I thought you didn’t like excessive demonstrations of emotion in public.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I remember when we met with my cousin and his girlfriend, you were shocked by the way they were all over each other.”
“Because it was over exaggerated.”
“You exaggerated tonight too.”
“I did not -”
“You surely did,” he said loudly. “I understand you want to show Inbal that she’s not the only one in love, but that was just ridiculous.”
His accurate assessment was too painful. I bit my lip and didn’t respond. There was no point. I was offended, even though I deserved it.
When we got home, after a long and quiet ride, he said softly, “You have to understand that nobody has a perfect life, no one’s perfect. No one has a perfect husband or a perfect job and I’ve heard that there’s no such thing as perfect children either.”
At that moment, he was just perfect for me.
CHAPTER 4
A little more than two years after Inbal and David celebrated their hundred day anniversary, I was on my way to Jerusalem for my graduation ceremony, where I would be receiving my accounting degree. I felt unwell and didn’t want to go to Jerusalem and back just to get my diploma, but I knew that my parents would never forgive me if didn’t allow them to watch me officially become a Certified Public Accountant.
The ride up to Jerusalem only made me feel worse, and the second time we had to stop for me to throw up, my mother asked me discreetly if I was pregnant. The thought of being pregnant never crossed my mind until that moment. I was twenty-seven, but I’d only just finished my internship. I wanted to build a career before I became a slave to children. We stopped at the drugstore and Mom ran in and bought a pregnancy test kit.
“Aren’t you supposed to try these tests in the morning?”
“If you’re throwing up, it's probably not the beginning of the pregnancy. We may be able to see an answer already,” she said knowingly.
Five minutes later I returned to the car with a can of Coke to calm my nausea and the knowledge that I was going to become a mother. I lied to my mother and told her that the answer was negative. I thought that Amir should be the first to know. The long and dreary ceremony refused to end. Even reuniting with some former school friends couldn’t make me forget this surprising turning point in my life, which wasn’t in any way related to financial reports or tax laws.
I forced my smiles, so distracted that I almost missed my moment on stage. Thoughts kept running around in my head. At first, I couldn’t understand how it had happened. I took my pills regularly. Could I have missed one? It was the annual report season… Maybe I hadn’t noticed. After I realized that I wasn’t the second woman in history to get pregnant by the Holy Spirit, I started on the self-pity. I’d just finished my internship, and all the other interns had already begun looking for prestigious jobs as accountants and financial officers, and I knew that, no matter how talented I was, very few companies would want to hire a young mother for a senior position. The thought of getting an abortion crossed my mind, and it startled me. Because of the accident and the fact that I’d gotten my life back, I attributed great respect to the value of life. I was terrified that it could even occur to me to end the life of a living creature that was growing inside of me.
During the pregnancy, I hated and loved my little embryo. I liked to feel the new life inside me, but I hated the thought that the life I had planned for myself was about to be destroyed. Around me, more and more interns found work that was, more or less, prestigious - even those who began their internships after me, even those I thought weren’t as professional as I was. I wasn’t job hunting. I saw no point. The feelings of jealousy and missed opportunities that accompanied me after Inbal’s wedding came back to haunt me. Again, I felt I had no control over my jealousy because I couldn’t fix it. I was pregnant and nothing could change that fact.
The only little bonus of my pregnancy was that, for the first time, I felt Inbal was jealous of me. I hated the pleasant sensation her jealousy gave me, but I couldn’t ignore it. Inbal had dreamed of being a mother ever since she could remember. I also had no doubt that she’d be a great mom. I didn’t know anyone more sensitive and patient than she was. Unlike me, Inbal didn’t even attempt to conceal or obscure her envy. She was jealous and she just said it aloud. I was so sorry I didn’t have the ability to be as honest and open as she was. I felt that, although the dream of becoming a mother was at the center of her being, and even though she had to watch in despair as her friends around her began to swell, the fact that she didn’t hide her emotions helped her cope with her emotions. While Inbal was trying to get pregnant long before my news came out, Daria realized she was out of the race only when she found out I was expecting. Daria was the least maternal character I knew; she was the one who always needed to be taken care of. Were it not for my pregnancy, I don’t believe she would have even thought about having a family. But as expected, a month after Amir and I announced our pregnancy, Daria and Asi also announced their own impending happy event.
Nofar, my eldest daughter, was born after two nightmarish days of contractions. It was a fitting end to a pregnancy that managed to exhaust me physically and, especially, mentally. I felt as though the guilt that had accompanied me throughout the entire pregnancy, because of my unwillingness to become a mother, poured through my umbilical cord and fed my little girl with anger and hatred toward me. During the ongoing birth, I had a terrible feeling that she didn’t want to come out. When they put her on my stomach, I looked at her blankly. I felt nothing. Amir softly stroked my forehead and said excitedly that she was simply stunning. I didn’t think she was stunning. I thought she was small and crumpled. The difficult birth had taken its toll on her too.
“You can hug and kiss her,” the midwife encouraged me.
I felt terrible that I had to be given instructions on how to love my daughter. I didn’t want to hug and kiss anyone. I just wanted to sleep. I was exhausted.
The nurse threw me a surprised look while Amir smiled and leaned down to kiss his daughter. Eventually, I hugged and kissed her, and then the nurse took her for some initial treatment. I was glad. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or feel, and what I wanted more than anything was to rest. The baby weighed only seven pounds, but as soon as the nurse picked her up, I felt as if a heavy load was lifted off me.
Amir thought I was suffering from postpartum depression. I didn’t think he was right. Although I wasn’t happy, I knew in advance I wouldn’t be happy. I didn’t want to be a mother at this stage of my life. This reality was forced on me, and it took me a while to get used to it. Over time, I learned to get used to little Nofar, but she didn’t get used to me, which only worsened my feelings of guilt that accompanied me from the moment I found out I was carrying her in my womb. I loved watching her as she slept. She looked so calm and sweet. She probably dreamed of another mother. Apart from a small birthmark on her right shoulder, she was a perfect, beautiful baby. She had a thin veil of hair, huge eyes and rosy, plump cheeks. When sleeping, her tiny hands clenched into tiny fists, ready to fight her mother. In those moments, when she slept, dreaming of another mother, I lay down and stroked her tenderly as I dreamed I wa
s a different mother… a calm and patient mother.
Although I tried to feed her, she simply refused to accept the milk my body produced for her. I gave her my erect nipple, she sucked it for a few seconds and then pulled away in distaste, as if I was giving her poison and not milk. She felt my hidden rejection of her and rejected me back. She would cry for days and calm down only when Amir came home and picked her up in a loving and protective embrace.
“This baby just can’t stand me,” I said to Amir with a tired look as he cradled her in his arms and looked at her lovingly. “She never calms down with me like she does with you.”
“You’re just imagining it. You’re with her the entire day, and she’s just tired now. On weekends, when I'm with her, she cries with me too.”
“Not like she cries with me,” I sighed, but he just wouldn’t listen.
A new media trend was doing the rounds: mothers describing how parenting was not what they’d anticipated, how no one told them that being a mother entailed getting up three times a night and being subjugated to a small and demanding creature, even when you're wiped out. Amir showed me these stories every time a celebrity released her thoughts, acting as if she was the first mother ever to confess that being a mother isn’t all it was cracked up to be. He thought that I, too, was just surprised by parenthood, but that wasn’t the case. On the contrary, I was very conscious of the sacrifices it forced me to make. I was sitting at home, bored out of my mind, with a child who felt that her mother didn’t want her. Occasionally, they called me from work to ask me something and so I kept up to speed with all the colleagues who’d progressed and left for management positions. I felt left behind. I was once on the Dean's List… I could’ve chosen almost any role that was offered to my coworkers, but, instead, I sat at home and changed diapers for a restless baby.
Deja Vu Page 3