“Why shouldn’t he come? She’ll be happy to see him. He’s a big boy already and can understand.”
Did he want him there to be a buffer? We started down the paved path among the lawns and cottages, the sea glinting beyond them, the strong dry wind at our backs. My last visit here was late last autumn. I had lectured to some history teachers at a local regional high school and stopped off to see her on my way back. It was dusk when I arrived. She was thrilled by my unexpected appearance. She was as lucid as could be, hardly talked about herself, wanted only to hear about me, even asked about the lecture I had given. I felt that she knew what was going on in my mind, in my life. I had already been told of her unforeseen improvement, which hadn’t surprised me at all, because I had never really believed in her illness. When it began to get dark she suggested that I stay the night and even went to see if there was a room, but I was in a hurry to get back to Jerusalem. In the end she walked me in the darkness to the gate. Horatio ran wide circles around us, coming back to us each time to sniff our footprints, lick my shoes, tug at their laces with his teeth. And she walked by my side, heavy but erect, stopping now and then to look at me, wanting something from me that I never could give. We didn’t argue or quarrel even once. She was unusually tender, thoughtful, uncomplaining, unaccusing. We were standing by the gate when she first told me that she had been getting mail from father. She took out a rustling packet of envelopes from her handbag and showed them to me without letting me hold them. What does he want? I asked anxiously. A divorce, she said. A weak light shone from the gatekeeper’s hut. The dog passed under the barrier and stood in the middle of the road with his ears back and his tail wagging softly, drawn bow-like by the sounds of the night, the white fields of cotton, a distant bark. Now and then he glanced our way as though following our conversation from afar.
I began talking in favor of it, enthusiastically even. It’s high time. It should have been done long ago, you’ve just enmeshed each other more and more. She heard me out in silence, her profile turned to me, until she interrupted coldly:
“But he didn’t want to.”
“When didn’t he?”
“Years ago. Before you were born. I begged him. He didn’t want to. There are things you don’t know. He wouldn’t let me go.”
“But when?”
“There are things you don’t know. You wouldn’t believe how he clung to me.”
“But you yourself say that now...’’
“We shall see. Now be on your way.” She was discounting me, dismissing me. “You’ll never get to Jerusalem tonight like this.”
And I left her, walking down the empty road in the dark. Horatio set out at a lope next to me, turned suddenly around to look for mother, and rejoined me once more. Finally he stood halfway between us in the middle of the road, emitting a long angry howl until he was gone in the night.
And now the four of us were going to see her, a family delegation to this hospital that was once a World War II British army base. Gaddi gripped father’s hand, Ya’el went ahead, and I brought up the rear with my briefcase. Again the urge to he myself and again the need to forgo it. He. What is a he? And what was the collective consciousness of the four of us, did it add up to a single whole? Gaddi’s terror combined with his curiosity to see the forbidden he had barely even heard talked of, Ya’el’s sadness, father’s apprehension, the pain in store for him, his hopes and his fears—and I, feeling only anger at their pointless mulishness and the desire to tell them both off, to expose them, to pillory them, to have done with it, mourning my wasted day. I quickened my pace. Suddenly the paths around us were full of people. Patients and visitors spilled out of the cottages, nurses bearing trays crossed the old lawns still frost-burned from the hard winter, all slightly doubled over in the wind. A shrunken little yellow sun peered through the haze. Will I someday remember this moment, will it have any meaning? Can it be maintained as something tangibly, necessarily alive or must it shrivel too with the dead husk of time?
And then all at once there was a howling shriek as though a tramcar were flying through the branches, something galumphed through the air, someone screamed, the people in front of us scrambled out of the way, someone fell, someone shouted with laughter—and out from the bushes he charged, throwing himself upon us, his torn chain dragging behind him, whining, howling, first jumping on Ya’el and then quitting her, next sinking down at my feet to bite my shoes, then running into Gaddi, bowling him over on the grass, licking him and romping on again, at last spying father and sprawling all over him, pawing his face, clasping him, slobbering on him with choked whimpers, spattering him with mud, rattling the chain still wound around him. Father lost his footing and fell to his knees, white-faced and startled, but only when he screamed did I realize that he didn’t know it was Horatio. He had completely forgotten his own dog, who had now streaked so suddenly back into his life and begun to writhe in a demonic dance, circling tightly around him on the pavement where he sat with his arms shielding his face, sprawling on him again like a thing possessed, yipping in a throttled falsetto as though trying to force out a bark that was stuck in the throat.
I rushed over to them. “It’s Horatio, father! It’s just Horatio. Don’t be afraid.”
Ya’el ran to pick up Gaddi, who was too bewildered to cry, and the locomotive that had gone flying on the lawn.
“This is ’Ratio?” Father was stunned, disheveled, covered with mud. “’Ratio? He’s here?”
Father had always called him ’Ratio.
He rose and tried grabbing the uncontrollable dog by its head, as though struggling to make out his once-beloved pet in this mangy old beast.
“Down, Horatio!” I tried calming him. “Down ...”
Just then we glanced up and saw mother watching us in silence a few steps away. Her hair was loose, her face was rouged, and she wore a long brown dress. In one hand she held the other half of the tom chain. The wild look of her shocked me, the glare in her eyes, the splotches of makeup on her tanned cheeks. It was twenty minutes to four. Had she had a relapse? Silently she watched father struggling with the dog.
“He’s here? He’s alive?” He laughed, still in a daze. “Didn’t you write me that he’d died long ago?” he asked mother.
“Who did?”
“I had already mourned for him ... I was sure he was long dead...” He gripped the hairy head that nuzzled in his lap.
“He was sure that you were dead too.”
They kept their distance, she solidly planted where she stood, a wrinkled old nurse in a blue uniform behind her. Her answer, though clear, did not bode well, I thought.
Ya’el kissed her and led Gaddi to her. She bent and hugged him feelingly.
“Gaddi ... darling Gaddi ... do you know who I am? Do you remember? And where is your little sister”—she fumbled in her pocket, took out a slip of paper and read from it—“Rakefet?”
Still whining, the dog broke away from father and ran wagging to join the embraces. Gaddi clung to Ya’el, too frightened of Horatio to move, his face stained red from mother’s kisses.
“Don’t let him frighten you ... he’s ours ... when you were a baby and your mother left you with us, the two of you even played together...”
Gaddi looked unbelievingly at the huge animal, amazed at himself.
Then it was my turn to embrace her, bussing the air about her rouged cheeks, my head tilted skyward, eyes shut.
“Asa ... at last a visit from you ... in honor of your father...”
She hugged me powerfully.
“Where is your wife?”
“She couldn’t come. But she’ll be here on the holiday.”
“On Passover?”
“Yes.”
Now father finally stepped up to her, the dog tagging after him, his arms spread wide with Russian pathos.
“Mother ... at last...”
Did he know what he was doing? Had he planned it this way or had the shock of events unnerved him? I cringed while he hugged her,
pressing her to him, gathering in the strong erect woman, planting kisses on her face. “You look so well ... there’s been a great change ...” he murmured as though come for a reconciliation rather than a divorce. He even whispered something in her ear and laughed with tears in his eyes. Could he really be that shallow or did he have some ulterior motive? Mother froze in his arms, staring into space with dilated eyes, a hint of amusement on her lips.
Horatio gave a loud bark. At last he had gotten it out. Then father stepped back and mother introduced him to the wrinkled old nurse, who stood there without ceasing to smile. “I want you to meet Miriam ... she’s my good angel ... Miriam, this is my husband ... the man from America ...”
“Yes, I know. We’ve all been waiting for you.” The lines in her face reddened sharply as father turned to her and quickly embraced her too with the same somnambulistic zeal.
And indeed, to our horror, they were waiting for us. Much of the hospital already knew of our arrival. A crowd streamed toward mother’s cottage, men and women in bathrobes and pajamas swarmed around her, a young doctor stepped up to greet us. As we passed the row of beds inside someone even broke out into applause. Father went first, nodding to everyone, shaking the hands that were extended to him, that conducted him to mother’s bed, which was piled high with big white pillows. There he stood, declaring how moved he was until I thought I would go mad myself. The patients reached out to touch Gaddi and pat his head—one could see how he attracted them, they had probably not seen a child in ages. Then the doctor explained about the ward and its routine while father listened devoutly and the nurses pushed back the curious patients—one of whom, a little old fellow, kept elbowing forward again and interrupting the conversation with eager hand gestures. At last we all trooped outside, the crowd of patients still behind us, and were led to a small building that served as the hospital library. Some tables with chairs stood inside, on the largest of which, in the middle of the cracked concrete floor, was a white cloth set with an electric kettle and several white cups and saucers stamped Property of the Bureau of Public Health. Beside them was a big, yellowish, lopsided cake, very high on one side and totally caved in on the other, so that it formed a steep inclined plane at the base of which glittered a knife. A few of the patients tried following us in, but the nurses kept them clear of the doors. And again that skinny, rotten-toothed old fellow made the most fuss; he seemed very agitated and kept trying to catch father’s attention while pulling behind him a moronic-looking giant who carried a rake on one shoulder.
In the end they were all persuaded to leave. The door closed on us. We took off our coats and Horatio ran happily wagging his tail around the room. My eyes scanned the books that lined the walls but it was impossible to read their titles because they were all covered with the same brown wrapping paper. What a dump. We stood around the cake, eyeing it nervously as though it concealed some harsh message. “Mother baked it for you all by herself,” said the old nurse, as though apprising us of a major psychiatric feat. A silent, younger nurse poured tea into the cups while Horatio thrashed restlessly about among our legs. I tried grabbing him by the collar and dragging him outside, but he growled aggressively and shook free, trying to bite me.
“Let go of him!” mother cried.
The old nurse handed her the knife. She made a movement to wield it, then suddenly shrank back, stealing a quick glance at father and releasing it.
“No, you cut it,” she said.
Quickly the cake was sliced into thick heavy pieces and we sat down to eat. Horatio climbed on a chair too, climbed down again, still rattling his broken chain, and jumped once more on father, as if the years that had elapsed since their parting were now running amuck in him and giving him no peace. Father smiled, lifting a full, shaky cup to his mouth. Mother rose, went over to Horatio, gave him a quick hard slap with the chain, and pushed him beneath father’s chair. She threw him a slice of cake there, which he sniffed at suspiciously and licked a little without eating.
No one spoke, not even to utter the simplest, most ordinary words. The cake had struck us dumb. I tensed like a bowstring each time I heard a noise outside the door. The giant’s face appeared at the window, staring in at us. We drank the lukewarm tea and ate the half-raw cake, which was a mishmash of colors and tastes. The two nurses ate too, the younger one chewing away at her end of the table as though compelled by a strong inner code, yet not quite certain what she was ingesting. Like in some relentless ceremony that we were all called upon to perform. The cake turned to a sickening goo in my mouth. Mother fed Gaddi, who sat beside her, but did not eat herself.
“You don’t have to feed him, mother,” said Ya’el softly. But she didn’t hear. She went on tearing off pieces of cake with her fingers and cramming them into Gaddi’s mouth while the rays of the setting sun slanted sharply off her painted cheeks.
“What a wind there was today,” sighed father all of a sudden. “All the way from Jerusalem.”
He resumed chewing his cake. Mother regarded him thoughtfully before turning back to look at Gaddi’s mouth, which hung slightly open.
Where are you, Asa? In a little cottage, a library for the insane, an abstract thought deflected from its path, shanghaied from its desk, on which an old lamp casts its light on papers and books, a sole beacon shining in the dark. The irretrievably lost hours. If only they would die already! If only the two of them would die. Why can’t they understand? Their nightly quarrels, like two old children, all their cursing and shouting each time I came home from friends or the Scouts. Ya’el was married already. Tsvi was in the army. I would slip off to bed but they would follow me there, sit down on the blanket, pull it off me, anything to have a referee.
“Aren’t you eating your cake?”
“No, mother, I’m not hungry.”
Ya’el rolled her eyes at me.
“You don’t have to be hungry to eat a piece of cake. Or don’t you like it...?”
“I do. I’m just full. I mean...” I was only making things worse.
Silence. Horatio had calmed down. He stretched himself beneath father’s chair and started to nuzzle his penis, licking it vigorously. A dull yellowish light filled the room. Perhaps they were dead already and I was visiting them in the underworld. Dutifully, slowly, father and Ya’el chewed their cake. Gaddi was already having seconds.
“You’re not eating yourself,” said father gently. “Your cake is delicious.”
Mother didn’t answer.
The young nurse rose to collect the dishes, adroitly removing my plate with what was left on it.
“Would you like some more?” mother asked father.
He nodded, hoisted by his own petard. A new slice of cake appeared on his plate and he set to work chewing that too.
The young nurse placed the dishes on a tray. Someone opened the door for her. She stepped outside, where waiting hands snatched the tray, and returned at once. She pulled the cord from the socket in the wall, wound it around the electric kettle, and took that to the door too. And again she came right back. Meanwhile the old nurse was murmuring something to mother while wrapping the remains of the cake in an old towel. The young nurse opened the door again. Heads peered in, whispered laughter. They were waiting for the leftovers. The two nurses left and shut the door.
“Who are all those people outside, friends of yours?”
Mother smiled ironically. “Friends...”
Horatio crouched next to her, his head turned, his eyes shut, bald patches like burn scars in his mangy red fur. Father gazed at him and reached out to pet him.
“Has ’Ratio been here all along?”
“Since when is he ’Ratio?” we scolded. “His name is Horatio. You never could get it right.”
Father smiled. “’Ratio ... Horatio ...”
“Maybe you should take him back with you to America,” said mother abruptly.
Father laughed.
“I hear you’ve had a particularly hard winter this year. I’m glad I brought a coat wit
h me. At first I didn’t plan to, since it would already be spring here, and spring here is as good as summer. But in the end I brought it, and it’s a good thing I did...”
(Bring himself, he meant.)
Ya’el rose without a sound and handed him the plastic bag that had been lying by his chair.
“Oh yes, I forgot. I brought you a present.” He took the bag and went over to her. “It’s something that I bought you ...” But he couldn’t remember what it was. He opened the bag to take a peek. “I believe it’s a robe and a sweater.” He looked at Ya’el for confirmation. “Yes, a sweater.”
He pulled out the big wool shawl and spread it on his knees.
“A sweater?” Mother seemed very touched.
Ya’el took the shawl and draped it around her shoulders.
“The colors are perfect for you.”
Mother stood up. The two of them helped wrap her in the shawl.
I sat immobile in my chair, thinking what a dangerous thing this tenderness between them was. I glanced at Gaddi, who had not taken his eyes off the dog.
“It’s just the thing for you,” said father.
“Thank you. You needn’t have bothered ... did I ask for a present? It’s really very warm...” She wiped away a tear. “Once I had a shawl like this years ago ... exactly like this one ... how did you find it again?” She removed it, searching for the missing label. “You shouldn’t have wasted so much money, Yehuda. Really, you shouldn’t have. Perhaps you should give it to someone else ... to Asa...”
She made as though to give me the shawl.
But father wouldn’t hear of it.
“How can you say such a thing? You don’t know how happy it makes me to see you so calm. It’s a great change for the better. I would have brought you more, but I left in such a hurry...”
“A hurry?’’
“As soon as I received your letter ... and then Kedmi told me...’’
“Oh”
They were beating around the bush. The afternoon light was fading in the room.
Mother sat down again. “So what’s new in America?”
A Late Divorce Page 17