“No. It’s not important.”
“I knew he wouldn’t, and here you are trying to get him his divorce. Is that poor crazy thing really ready to agree?” (She’s always made her out to be sicker than she is.) “To think of him throwing her to the dogs like that.” (I hold the telephone away from my ear and stare out the window.) “Why must you involve yourself in it?” (Here I can’t deny she has a point.) “He isn’t paying you after all, is he? Is he?”
“No. Why should he?”
“I knew it. So why get involved. If afterwards there’s trouble, you’ll be held responsible. Don’t you have enough work in the office without looking for more? In the end there’s bound to be bad feelings and who will he hate for it? You. They’ll take it out on you because you’re not one of theirs, so why are you wasting your time always running to sec her? Don’t you have an important trial coming up? You know, the one your career depends on, that trial you’re preparing for, that if you get that rapist acquitted ...”
“Murderer.”
“That makes it even bigger. It will make you famous, you’ll be able to open a big office. So instead of getting ready for all the questions you’ll be asked you go running gratis to insane asylums. What will come of it all? Yesterday I thought I’d go say hello to him, but all this sleeping of his scared me off. And what’s with Ya’el? Smiling her quiet smile, I’ll bet. Didn’t you once tell me that you fell in love with her because of it? Didn’t you, Yisra’el?”
“I did.”
“Well, you’re free to decide what you want. Your poor father once said something deadly about that smile, something you’re not going to want to hear. Do you want to hear it?”
“Not now, mother.”
“So I’ll see him the night of the seder then. It’s rather strange to insist on a divorce at his age, don’t you think? What does he need it for? He’s separated from her anyway. But I suppose he wants to get married over there in America. People have no idea what sex does to old people. Your own father when he was in the hospital ... do you want to hear about it?”
“Not now, mother. I’m in a hurry. Some other time.”
Levana enters noiselessly she puts the rag by the sink she washes her hands.
“Will you drop by today? I’ve made those meat patties that you like.”
“I don’t think so. I have a crazy day today.”
“I have a delicious pie too.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. What sort of pie?”
“Apple.”
“Well, I’ll see. Goodbye.”
She’s still washing her hands.
“Are you done?” I ask gently. “You seem to have misunderstood. I meant you should just clean the sign, not the whole street ...”
She flushes her eyes going wild.
“You have to comment on everything!”
“What??”
But she doesn’t answer.
“What??”
But she doesn’t answer her head is bowed her hands twist a piece of paper she’s actually trembling.
And I’m already outside. Feeling hassled. They’ve hassled the hell out of me Ya’el my mother and now this little darkie too. Just imagine if every darkie around here should start opening his mouth and saying dark things. It’s not enough that ninety percent of them are in court all the time. They want to give us lessons in etiquette too. My mood is shot now. Suddenly I’m all jelly inside. My father went and left me with this nosy venomous woman and I have to carry her on my back. An only child. Everybody’s favorite target. They were too busy sleeping at night to have time to make me a brother. I’ll show that little darkie yet. When the right moment comes I’ll turn off that heater and fire her. My mood’s shot to hell. And outside it’s cloudy again and everyone’s beeping their horns the traffic’s moving at a crawl the whole world’s in a rush maybe I’ll find some peace there in the prison.
Thank God that Haifa is at least a pretty town they haven’t managed to ruin it yet. Screened by pine trees that help filter out the general filth. I drive along the ridge of the Carmel into the forest ocean down below on either side bathing my eyes in the green air eddying over the lush wadis.
Everyone knows me here at the prison I’m not even asked for my papers. These past few months I’ve spent whole days here if ever I’m imprisoned myself I can ask the judge for time off retroactively from my sentence.
What bedlam. Every other door is unlocked the jailers just jingle their keys for form’s sake and then wonder why prisoners escape. Escape isn’t the word they just have to open the door and walk out.
An old Druse jailer brings me to a dark cubbyhole it’s a good thing there are still Druse and Cherkesses to keep order in this country my young murderer sits waiting by a bare wooden table short slender and sullen but very muscular when he was still in handcuffs the first time I met him I noticed how easily he stretched them. I shake his hand. God is my witness that I’ve tried to like him but he’s an unfriendly fantasizing type to top it all off they found some marijuana in his house.
“What’s doing?” He looks at me with his mousy eyes.
“Is everything all right?”
He nods.
I toss my attaché case on the table I sit across from him I leaf through the file that I practically know by heart. The forty thousand pounds that I’ve gotten so far from his family have barely covered the ink and paper that I’ve wasted on him.
“Have you heard anything from that uncle of yours ... that diamond dealer in Belgium?”
“He’s supposed to arrive any day.”
“He’s been supposed to arrive for three months now. Apparently he’s decided to come from Belgium on foot.”
He gives me a hard sullen stare. I should know by now that I have to be careful with my jokes here.
I begin to ask a few questions going over once more details of his testimony about the great day in his life that I’ve lived every minute of and know better by now than any day in my own. That’s my secret strategy for his defense I’ll break time down under the legal microscope into its tiniest particles I’ll wage war over each second. The prosecution has no idea what’s in store for it. I’ve catalogued the minutes one by one and I’ll prove that he couldn’t have done it. This trial will yet be a textbook case to be studied with astonishment and awe. It was Kedmi who first taught us to think in milliseconds...
I interrogate him and he answers briefly and to the point. He’s a lone wolf all that damn day he hardly talked to anyone but stupid he’s not. I already know all his answers I simply have to polish them here and there to put him through his paces once again. I want this trial in the worst possible way. Just the look of him is suspicious at least let him be clear and precise. But what’s the truth? I’m still groping in the dark for it. It’s enough to make me despair. The truth is hiding inside his skull like some wriggly slimy gray worm let’s hope the prosecution can’t get at it either.
The old jailer comes into the room with a note.
“Advocate Yisra’el Degmi? Your secretary wants you to call your wife.”
My murderer looks at me sharply.
“Thank you but the name is Kedmi.”
“You better finish with him soon, he has to go eat lunch.”
Everybody wants to give orders.
“I heard you. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone with him.”
I continue the questioning. He begins to lose patience he’s worried about missing his meal the smell of food drifts up the corridor the clink of dishes but I press on relentlessly if suddenly he gets hungry and is short with the prosecution he’ll be eating his meals in prison for the rest of his life.
Finally I’m done. I’m getting hungry too. We stand facing each other. Did he or didn’t he? God knows. But I have to be tough with him to spring him from here.
“Do you need anything? Is there anything that you’d like?”
He thinks it over and asks me to arrange to get him out for the night of the seder he wants to be with hi
s parents they’ll be lonely without him.
He’s too much. Behind that hard-nosed exterior he’s so innocent I could plotz. He’s barely been in jail for three months and already he wants a vacation.
“Forget it. But maybe you could invite your parents to have the seder here with you in prison. It will be an unforgettable experience for them to hear some rapist sing the Four Questions.”
I begin to hum the tune to myself.
His fists ball in anger. Did he or didn’t he? Meanwhile it’s my duty to defend him as well and as cunningly as I can.
“You don’t believe me,” he whispers hopelessly his eyes growing red.
An actor in the bargain.
“Of course I do. Leave it to me, you’ll see that everything will be all right. Now go eat.”
I hurry out past rows of prisoners in gray uniforms murderers thieves terrorists each holding a plate and a spoon. I should eat here myself sometime and see what the food is like. There’s no one in the office I head straight for the telephone. My mother is right I shouldn’t have gotten involved. Ya’el. Her father is up. He doesn’t want me to go by myself. It’s immoral to send me in his name white he begs off. He has to talk to her or at least to be there with me.
“Fine. I’m not going. I’m chucking the whole business. Do what you please. Now it’s morality. Do you know what morality is? Do you? It’s a pebble in somebody’s shoe. I’ve had it! I’m tearing up the papers I drew up and going back to the office. There’s enough work for me there. I’m jumpy and I’m hungry. In a minute I’ll eat the dog’s vitamins and start to bark.”
I could always get the better of her by quietly beginning to rave. They’re used to giving in to hysteria. When Asa was a little boy he’d lie flailing his arms and legs on the floor and the whole family would kneel in homage.
All right all right. She’ll talk to her father. Maybe she’ll go herself tomorrow. I’m right. It’s best for me to go first. I should just be careful.
At the gate I’m stopped and sent back to have my exit card stamped. Getting in is easier than getting out. I have to waste fifteen minutes looking for the clerk with the stamp. Meanwhile the head warden gets hold of me a sly old bugger who has this ironic thing with lawyers. “What’s the matter with you people? You’re not helping us to solve the overcrowding here. Where are your golden tongues? Come, let me show you some drawings made by one of our high-security prisoners. They’re absolutely marvelous.”
It isn’t easy to shake him off.
Then down from the mountain from the forest to the sea I’ll zip through the bay area past the refinery driving thou art my comfort my desire my only love. I hug the curves of the-wounded-the-quarried-mountain road silently racing the cable cars that pass over my head with gravel for the big cement plant down below the panorama spreading out in the valley beneath me there’s the Galilee there’s Acre there are the white cliffs of the Lebanese border it’s like flying a plane coming in for a landing in the clear spring air the car wheels gently touching down on the tarmac of the highway to Acre I could get a free lunch if I stopped at my mother’s but there’s another woman that I’d rather see.
I’ve never cheated on Ya’el nor do I intend to but here and there I keep a few women on standby. In restaurants in cafes in the offices of courts and colleagues I see them now and then I exchange a few words with them I touch them lightly I drop a few soft promises. If only in thought I wish to be a candidate for love. A restaurant with glass walls by the highway near a gas station. Across the road a ceramics plant and beyond it the sea. Here I used to wait for Ya’el those first years she went to visit her mother when she preferred I didn’t come with her. Right away I noticed the round waitress with her slow challenging walk. Where is she now? I order lunch from the proprietor and go to call the office.
“Did your wife get in touch with you?”
“Yes, I’ve spoken to her. Is there anything new? Are you still warming yourself by the heater? Did the check come?...What, I don’t believe it! For how much, a hundred thousand?...Fine, put it in the bank.... I have to endorse it first? Right you are. All right, then put it in the drawer and lock it. I’ll come by later to pick it up.... What, when will I be back? Why do you ask?”
All at once she asks shyly if she can leave work early today. It’s almost Passover and she has to help out at home. I gallantly agree. Think of the electricity bill that I’ll save. I tell her again where to put the check and how to lock the drawer. Now I see the narrow ankles stepping slowly the pretty eyes open wide to see me she remembers me she better not drop my meal.
At last I’m putting something into my mouth until now it’s all been outgoing. I’m the only customer in the place I keep sending her back for salt for pepper for beer for a clean fork enjoying her slow challenging walk the dumb blond animal. She blushes each time she returns. Do I arouse desire in her with my big mug and pot? The thought amuses me. Every day you suffer on account of those you lust for you never think of those who suffer on account of you. In the end she sits down near me with her legs innocently crossed we’re all alone except for the music on the radio. I cut my meat and devour her white hands I dip my bread in her eyes and suck them she sits there passively pliantly she brings me coffee a newspaper she unties her apron and bends to clear the table showing me her breasts that I have no time for not now.
Kissinger dining before the next delicate phase of his Middle East shuttle invisible reporters all around him. The quiet restaurant the highway the cars zooming past behind the glass. The sea and the spring and this cup of fragrant coffee. A short nap. A hundred thousand waiting for me in the drawer my little murderer who’ll be firm on the witness stand about the elementary particles of time my brilliant strategy brought to the world care of his uncle in Belgium. My mood’s on the upswing again. I ask for a cigar and more coffee. And why not? I deserve them. My eyes grow moist. Finally I rise to go I pat her shoulder. There’s warmth in my largesse. It was very good. The proprietor is called to add the bill. I leave a generous tip and register her silent gratitude.
Ten after three. A light gentle breeze. I always call by now to see if Gaddi’s safely home but I don’t want any more truck with the moralists not when this salty breeze from the sea is busy caressing me. I walk slowly to my car. A strawberry vendor has a stand nearby I buy the old woman a bag of them let her have a little pleasure that’s all of it she’ll get from me today. I check the air in the tires moving softly thinking of the children at home swelling with love even for this ludicrous land. I get into my car.
A leisurely drive along the coast to the hospital. I turn into a side road straight toward the sea toward little cottages surrounded by broad lawns. The thin line between a bungalow colony and an insane asylum is no more than this guard at the gate he must be a rehabilitated nut himself they’ve given him a visored cap a tin badge and a pistol every third person in this country is either a policeman a security guard or a secret agent. I step on the gas honking the horn keeping my head down maybe he’ll think I’m a doctor and open the gate so I won’t have to walk half a kilometer but he won’t give up his one chance to wield authority. Open up you moron I whisper but he doesn’t he jumps from his chair to point out the parking lot before I know it he’ll put a bullet in me.
I haven’t been in many loony bins Ya’el but if ever I go crazy myself this is the place for me. Perfect silence. The sweet sound of the surf lovely white cottages gorgeous lawns. They build prisons in forests way up in the Carmel and lock up crazies by an enchanted beach they’ve given them the nicest places in this country and left the rest of us the crumbs.
A nurse in white walks quickly down a path she vanishes through a doorway a man is standing in a distant field suddenly around a bend I find myself facing a crazy giant even taller than I am a colossus with a straw broom on one shoulder staring at me in bewilderment I smile magnanimously at him and pass him quickly leaving him standing there turning to gape at me his mouth hanging open a thread of spittle running down it as t
hough a million-dollar sports car had just gone by him. A small group of patients is sitting on wicker chairs by her cottage I keep smiling as though in a trance a pale old man in a white smock jumps up from his chair he knows me a few months ago I chatted with him about Begin and Sadat.
“Mr. Kedmi, Mr. Kedmi, she’s in the garden by the woods. She’s waiting for you.”
We shake hands warmly.
But first I go look for the doctor as I promised. The large bare room is full of bright light a few women are sitting there each by herself the TV in the middle looks demented too. I already have a guide he grabs my arm and steers me toward a small side room. A smell of medicine.
“Thanks, I can manage by myself now.”
The sharp light is everywhere a blue patch of sea fills the windows. A young doctor is lying on a bed his arm flung over his eyes quietly sleeping among the crazies but the patient steps right up to him and wakes him. “Here’s Mr. Kedmi, here’s Mr. Kedmi, he’s come to see his mother.”
“My mother-in-law,” I whisper damn his eyes. “Mrs. Kaminka. I wanted first of all to know how she was ”
The young doctor lowers his arm from his eyes and smites up at me.
“Is her husband here? Is he with you?”
“No, he’ll come the day after tomorrow. He’s already in Israel, though. I see you know all about it.”
“We know everything,” says the patient right away. “She told the nurses ... they’re getting divorced ...” His eyes sparkle.
“That’s fine, Yehezkel, that’s fine. Now leave us alone for a while.” But nothing can make him budge. He already wants to know what’s in the bags I’m holding.
“What do you have there, candy?”
“Later, Yehezkel, later...”
But he must know what’s in the bags. “What is it? What is it?”
“It’s for the dog.”
Only then does he back off violently blinking his eyes chewing on his tongue his voice changes he rocks back and forth as though shaken by something inside. “That dog. That dog.”
“That’s enough, Yehezkel, that’s enough.” Without sitting up the doctor tries to calm him. “Why don’t you write a letter to the Prime Minister? You haven’t written him in ages. Come, sit down at the table, I’ll give you some hospital stationery.”
A Late Divorce Page 6