“I’m still listening. I don’t say you’re right and I don’t say you’re wrong. One little question, though: this theory of concealment—is it generally accepted or did you make it up especially for me?”
“Of course it’s generally accepted. It’s the ABC of our work. Every dream is a concealment, an entire system of them.”
“But what was I trying to conceal?”
“Something having to do with your father, or with your intentions toward him. That’s up to you to find out. Because from the outset the dream makes clear it’s about you too, about a problem of identity that concerns you. I’m referring to the building with the double staircase. Stairs in dreams generally stand for sexual feelings. Ascending or descending them refers to the sexual act itself ...”
“Now you’re putting me on.”
“I would never do that.”
“Then you’re putting yourself on.”
“It’s an almost classic symbol, and in your case it’s expressed most clearly. You ascend one type of stairs, the straight, light ones. But there are others near them—dark winding ones that seem useless to you and are covered by an old, red, worn carpet. Red again, please note. And the stairs pass by a series of rooms that once were inhabited by people who have left behind possessions that are distinctly feminine: shawls, pins, dirty absorbent cotton, colorful robes ... Between the two sets of stairs is a divide you don’t cross—a small, not terribly dangerous one which indeed can perhaps be bridged. What was it you said to me just a few minutes ago? There are women I can make it with...”
“This is beginning to sound awfully talmudic.”
“But dreams do work talmudically, abstractly, by means of condensation and displacement. You have to interpret them, to take them apart in order to re-establish connections and understand what they are trying to say.”
“Following your logic, then, what about the water hose and the bushes?”
“You have no associations with them?”
“None.”
“It’s not a place you can identify?”
“No. I’ve already said that something about it didn’t seem like Israel.”
“Maybe it’s some place connected with your childhood?”
“My childhood? Not as far as I can tell...”
“Or perhaps it resembles the place where your mother is now.”
“My mother? Up there? No ... those bushes ... there’s no thicket like that there. And on the whole...”
“But it is by the sea ... way up north ...”
“This wasn’t by a sea. It was by a small lake. With mountains around it. Someplace lush, like a Swiss landscape ... I distinctly remember the mountains ringing it ...”
“But that could be Haifa Bay. It curves in an arc. In the dream, for reasons of your own, you simply completed the circle.”
“You mean that the mountains in the background are the Carmel?”
“Perhaps.”
“No. That’s not where it was. You can’t get me to give in to you here.”
“I would never want you to give in to me. I want you to find your own association.”
“It was a dreamlike scene ... can’t I create a new place in a dream?”
“You can. But it’s generally a composite of old places.”
“Well, then this was such a composite.”
“Do you remember any other details?”
“No.”
“There was no one in the thicket?”
“No. There was a movement that had just taken place. That had to do with...”
“The water hose?”
“Yes.”
“And does the hose itself suggest anything to you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What’s the first thought you have about it?”
“I don’t know ... it was a hose that lay on the ground, almost merging with it. It was brown, but quite bright where it protruded from the bushes in the evening light. Water flowed from it and suddenly stopped ... as though someone had turned off the faucet, or bent it to choke off the flow ...”
“To choke it off?”
“No, don’t make too much of my words ... someone passing by simply had stepped on it and stopped the water ...”
“And did the teacher say anything? Did he react?”
“No. I wasn’t paying attention to him then. I just had this feeling that it was connected with what he expected to be brought from that damn hunting of his...”
“And what did you feel when you saw the water stop?”
“I thought that someone was about to appear in the bushes ... and then I woke up. I must have heard father and Refa’el talking ... and Refa’el’s voice pleading on the telephone...”
“Let’s go back to that place again. The landscape ... the mountains ... the lake ... the bushes ... what do they suggest to you?”
“On the contrary, you tell me. Maybe they’re symbols too. I rather like that. Don’t you have a dictionary ... some sort of thesaurus with equivalencies like the one you gave for the stairs ... in which you could look up bushes, a water hose, a sunset...”
“I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. Try again, quickly. What’s your first thought?”
“Quickly, my first thought is nothing. Slowly too...”
“You’re digging in here ... taking cover behind your defenses...”
“From what?”
“I don’t know. But I feel that the real meaning of the dream is concealed here.”
“But I really can’t think of a thing. I’m a total blank. It was just some kind of fantasy...”
“That’s the easy way out. You have the key. I can only make suggestions. You thought you were bringing me some pointless, ‘dehydrated’ dream, that you were throwing me a dry bone ... but you see now how dreams have their own language and methods of organization. If you can get deeper into it, perhaps we can still find its message.”
“It’s hard for me to think under pressure.”
“Then let’s leave it for the time being.”
“I feel so blank ... you’ve drained me ... that whole dream took place in such darkness...”
“I thought you said it was in bright light.”
“Only outside, by the bushes. I was standing by the window in the dark.”
“All right. Let’s leave it for now. We can come back to it some other time. Are you planning to accompany your father on Sunday?”
“Me? Why should I? Is it my filial duty? They’ll be better off by themselves there. I’ll see him that evening at my sister’s seder.”
“And your mother?”
“She’ll have to stay in the hospital. What can we do? It’s only in fiction that the newly divorced couple spends its first night under the same roof ... reality is better organized...”
“Was she there for the seder last year too?”
“No. She’s always been at my sister’s. Except for the first year, when I was there with her. After that we got permission to take her out.”
“Permission from whom?”
“From the hospital.”
“Was she in such bad shape? I thought...”
“No. It was a legal matter.”
“Legal? How so?”
“Those were the terms of the agreement that got her off from standing trial.”
“Standing trial? I don’t understand.”
“But I’ve told you all about it.”
“Apparently you haven’t.”
“Father was wounded. There was no way we could hide it.”
“I still don’t understand. He called the police?”
“I did.”
“You did?”
“Didn’t I tell you? It’s strange that of all things you should have forgotten that...”
“Perhaps I didn’t realize that you had actually called them.”
“I had to. He was in a puddle of blood in the kitchen ... there was no way of hiding that he had been attacked ... I thought he was going to die...”
“I see.”
“They could have pinned it on me.”
“On you?”
“They could have said anything. And anyone could have believed it. I was the only one with them. Asi had arranged his life then so that he hardly came home, he was taking exams all the time and doing two years of school in one ... Ya’el and Kedmi had moved to Haifa ... and here everything had happened so quickly ... she was like moving in two parallel tracks, both pretending to be crazy and getting crazier all the time ... deliberately working herself up to a frenzy and then really being in one. Father was genuinely scared. He was afraid to be left alone with her and begged me to stay with them. He even paid me so that I wouldn’t have to go to work. He was terrified, but he kept provoking her too, making fun of her, mimicking her speech. She had started talking with this new musical lilt, almost singing the ends of her sentences, and he would imitate her, singing along with her ... he couldn’t control himself. She would stand there explaining some long matter to him while beginning to sing a little, and he would start singing sarcastically too until he would be frightened by his own self and shut himself up in his room.... Sex became a bitter mockery for them too. Oh, I could still feel it was there, and maybe amid all their madness they actually slept together now and then....It went on like that until she began her shoplifting. But I really have told you all about that”
“Yes.”
“And about having to keep her from getting her hands on money.”
“Yes.”
“And about those screwball meals of hers ... about the big food mill that she bought to grind up everything we ate ... I’ve told you all that ...”
“Yes, you have.”
“Looking back on it now, I think she must have been trying to transmit some important message to us by means of that nutty food. She was trying to tell us something through all those weird combinations of hers: cookies stuffed with cucumbers and green peppers, sweet giant meatballs, frozen fish heads, green cocktail spreads, bread ground to smithereens ... sometimes it would turn out delicious ... but mostly it was too abominable for words. Once we even found some stew made of dog food on our plates. Father threw up. He became afraid to touch any food. He used to sneak into the kitchen at night to look for bread and cheese.... The refrigerator and the closets were overflowing with her food. It smelled bad, the whole house began to stink. And it attracted animals too. All kinds of strange birds kept landing on the windowsills. Ravens turned up in the middle of the night. There were mice. The dog kept barking his head off to drive them away.... And then father began seeing doctors to inquire about hospitalization. Ya’el came with Gaddi, and, since mother was especially fond of him, I suggested that Ya’el leave him with her for a while. At first she was afraid to, but in the end she agreed. In the beginning mother was thrilled. She slept with the baby instead of with father and there were a few days of calm. Father took to spending most of his time away from home and locked himself in his study when he returned at night. And then one night all the keys to all the doors disappeared. Gaddi was still with us. Early the next morning we heard father let out this horrible scream and the dog started howling ... but I really have told you all that ... I’m simply wasting my money by repeating myself...”
“One never simply repeats oneself.”
“I’m not so sure about that...”
“And then you called the police?”
“He passed out and I was sure he was dead. I phoned them and said excuse me, whom do I inform about a murder? I may have been a bit hasty, but I couldn’t think straight with all that blood. And they came right away, as though they had been waiting to hear from me, led by some gung-ho sergeant. Father was conscious by then. He kept clutching his chest and groaning, but I think he was enjoying the sight of his own blood too. They took him to the hospital, and the sergeant went into another room with mother. He talked to her for a long time and then took her away. Ya’el came from Haifa and went straight to see the two of them, and Kedmi arrived later to pick up Gaddi. He prowled around the apartment trying to piece together what had happened, but I didn’t give him any help; I just went on mopping up the blood stains. Asi came that afternoon, went to the hospital, and took the dog back with him to Jerusalem....So that by the time evening came I was alone in the apartment with this strange, enormous silence. A few curious neighbors knocked on the door, but I didn’t open it. The next morning the bell rang. It was father, all bandaged and sulking. They had sent him home, the knife had barely scratched him. It shocked me afterwards to see how he told all his friends about it. Especially since the police dealt with it so discreetly. The sergeant in charge of the case recommended preventive hospitalization....I really don’t see why I should be blamed for it ...”
“Who’s blaming you?”
“I can feel how you’re judging me.”
“I’m not your judge and I never will be. I want to understand with you how your mind worked, what motivated you.”
“What is there to understand? They needed to be separated.”
“I see.”
“I feel that you don’t agree with me.”
“Whether or not I agree is irrelevant. We’re talking about you.”
“But you said you wanted to identify with me.”
“Just in order to understand you better. Not to decide for you or take your place.”
“They needed to be separated ... to be removed from their common hell...”
“And she’s been there ever since?”
“She preferred it that way. Maybe she needed to punish herself. Or maybe she was afraid that she would try it again. And once word got out, there was the public disgrace of it too. She was really quite sick by then.... And when he went abroad, no one knew how long he would stay. The doctors were skeptical about my taking care of her at home by myself. She couldn’t stay with Ya’el, because Kedmi didn’t want to have anything to do with her then ... she herself preferred it that way ... it’s a very decent place, by the sea. Perhaps you’re familiar with it. And she’s made a lot of friends there—she helps take care of a few of the patients herself. We even gave her the dog. At first it was meant to be temporary, but it was a convenient solution for us all and it stuck....Do you think we were wrong? Perhaps we didn’t push hard enough for her release. Perhaps we wanted to punish her ourselves. Just the other day I asked her again if she didn’t feel it was time to leave.”
“You were there the other day?”
“Yes. On Tuesday.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Was it for some special reason?”
“No. Why should it have been? Now and then I go see her by myself ... every few months. I come for a long visit. It depends on how she is, on the weather too. I call her in advance, take the day off, and arrive there in the afternoon. She waits for me by the gate and we go into town—sometimes to the fisherman’s wharf in Acre, and sometimes in the other direction, to a café in Nahariyya. I take her to a movie, we eat a meal in a restaurant, and at night I bring her back.”
“But why does she wait for you at the gate? Why don’t you go in to get her?”
“I prefer not to. I don’t like hospitals. Mental ones especially give me the creeps. Once a few years ago I did go inside and the patients mobbed me. It’s hard for me even to be near there ... oh, I know it’s ridiculous ... but I sometimes have this fear that they won’t let me out again...”
“Who won’t?”
“The doctors. It’s silly, I know ... but how can I be sure that they won’t get some crazy idea? There’s a book like that by Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, in which a young man goes to visit his cousin in a sanatorium and remains there because they discover that he’s sick too.... Why run the risk? There can always be some nut there who’ll decide that I also ...”
“Did you take her to the movies this Tuesday too?”
“No. We just sat and talked. There wasn’t time. I had brought Calderon with me to read the agreement that Kedmi and fa
ther drew up. I wanted his opinion—he has a good, practical financial head. And I told her a little about father, to prepare her for meeting him ... about this new style of his ... this great rejuvenation that’s taken place in his life. I said she shouldn’t be too quick to sign away her property now that she’s getting divorced and that she shouldn’t let anyone make up her mind for her. We spoke for a while about their apartment ... about whether it was wise to let a half-ownership in it go live in America ... whether it wasn’t a better idea to invest what could be gotten for it in something that would yield a good return. She isn’t all that old, after all ... who knows what life still has in store for her. And she’s terribly naive, she has no idea that uninvested money simply melts away nowadays ... she lives in an old-fashioned world...”
“And what did she say to all that?”
“She listened. My friend Calderon outlined a few possibilities to her. The main thing I wanted was to prepare her ... to make her realize that she was in a position of strength ... to keep her from suddenly feeling sorry for him ... to give her some existential confidence before her eternal parting ...”
“From whom?”
“Excuse me?”
“Her eternal parting from whom?”
“From whom?”
“Before her eternal parting from whom?”
“I don’t get you.”
“You said you wanted to give her confidence before her eternal parting ... did you mean from your father?”
“What?”
“Your mind is somewhere else.”
“What? What did you say?”
“I said your mind is somewhere else.”
“It’s the strangest thing ... I suddenly remembered ... you see, that English teacher ... that Mr. Foxy who walked into my dream ... listen, it’s incredible ... a really fantastic thing ... how could I have forgotten ... he just died ... his name ... how could I have forgotten ... it’s all come back to me now ... it’s amazing...”
“When did he die?”
“Just a few weeks ago. Now it comes back to me ... I noticed a death announcement that the school had placed in the newspaper. He died a short while ago, and I didn’t remember! So that’s why he was in the dream ... I raised him from the dead without knowing it ... I’m literally shaking...”
A Late Divorce Page 27