A Late Divorce

by A. B. Yehoshua

  “But it’s you who are wrong. She really did phone.”

  “She phoned when father was here?”

  “Yes. In the middle of the night. Now I remember. She told you it was in the morning? Funny lady. She was looking for him in the middle of the night.”

  “That Saturday?”

  “Do you think I can remember now if it was that Saturday or not? Believe me, I have better things to do with myself. I tried to forget that nightmare as quickly as I could, not to arrange it in chronological order.”

  “But you never said a word to me about any phone call.”

  “Why should I have? She was looking for him, not for you. I told her that he was in Tel Aviv and gave her the number there. What was I supposed to have told you? You, all of you, were completely freaked out at the time. I had to be careful to keep my distance from you. And you were happy to leave me on the sidelines anyway. You were afraid that my sanity would ruin your lunatic pleasures ...”

  Your sanity? Insufferable insufferable insufferable is how you were then. You tortured us. From the moment that father tore up your agreement and went to see another lawyer in Tel Aviv. You were so insulted ... so hurt to the quick ... you raged around the house like a tornado. Insufferable. Insufferable. You tormented everyone, Gaddi too. Yes, you even took it out on Gaddi. You behaved like a barbarian, slamming doors around the house, suddenly disappearing for no good reason. The nightmare was you! It began that Wednesday in the hospital the moment you walked into the library and found your agreement in pieces on the floor. The way you collected them one by one with that caustic smile of yours ... oh, I could see right away how hurt you were. No, don’t deny it. You had a right to be, and it was all so long ago anyway. I should have grabbed it from father when he started tearing it, but everything was happening so fast ... Asi was screaming and hitting himself in order to goad father on ... and then suddenly, there you were in the doorway ... and that document you had worked on for so many days ... all those times you had run to mother with it, all the telephone calls, all the drafts ... there it was, in shreds at our feet, with father announcing that he would see some other lawyer whom he knew. I knew we should never have involved you in the whole business. But you insisted on it. You wanted to be involved. You wanted to prove to him, to us all, that you were capable of handling it, and I’m to blame for not having stopped you. It’s just that you went into one of your manias that leave us all paralyzed, and me most of all. Not that I’m blaming you. Your intentions were good. You wanted to help, to save father money. And perhaps you thought that he would pay you something for it in the end. No, don’t be annoyed at me. Listen. It wasn’t your fault that you needed work then. You had just opened that little office of yours, with that moronic secretary who kept messing up. And father didn’t help any, either. He certainly shouldn’t have fired you in the middle like that and gone to someone else. But the violence of your reaction, the blow to your pride ... the minute we got back to the car, with that radio blasting away, I could feel your spiteful silence. The way you revved up the engine ... and do you remember what you did to that dog? No, don’t innocently ask me what dog. Our dog. Horatio! The way you cleverly lured him behind you on the main road to make him lose his way and get run over. You played him along, slowing down and speeding up again ... What do you mean, you don’t remember? Mother’s friends in the hospital spent five days looking for him in the fields. That little old man searched for him everywhere. At least let’s be honest. I’m not blaming you now. We all made mistakes then, and together they kept adding up. It was a mistake to bring Gaddi along too. Yes, I know, father wanted him to come. But I brought him for mother’s sake, and in the end he had to bear the brunt of it. Only you didn’t spare him any, either. You were merciless with him. You were brutal. You wanted to punish the whole world for your tom agreement and for father’s loss of faith in you. And you yourself lost control, like a child having a tantrum. But completely, which is something that seldom happens to you, because control is the one thing that you always manage to keep. In every situation, in all your gags, in the cynical jokes you play on people, in all your loose talk and your brainstorms that you can’t keep to yourself, I always know I can be sure that you won’t go too far. Calm down, I tell myself, it’s just a game, he’ll know when to stop and apologize with a smile. Bear with him, I think, you may as well enjoy his shenanigans. And you do know that I secretly enjoy them, don’t you, because I know that I can always wait for you to collapse into bed in the evening and curl up exhausted there ... that I needn’t mind your tongue-lashings or be hurt by them, because I know another you too: heavy, quiet, sleepy and warm.... But then you were savage with desperation, you’d been cut to the very quick. No, don’t put a brave face on it now: you simply weren’t talking to us then, that’s why you never told me about that phone call. And you had stopped talking because that was the worst punishment you could give us and the worst punishment you could give yourself. What could be more terrible for you than silence? It exasperates you and makes you mean. Not that I myself would have minded, my thoughts were elsewhere at the time. But you stopped talking to Gaddi then too. Now you may not remember. Then you didn’t say a word to him for days, though, as though he were to blame for it too ... Gaddi, who’s so used to your being involved in all he does, and who so admires you ... no, I don’t mean admires ... but depends on you and is attached to you. I’m not saying that explains what happened. But it was hard on him. Although of course it wasn’t only that: it was his being left to cope by himself in all that confusion, all that anger and grief that helped bring on the attack. I told her all about it this morning, because I wanted her to understand what we went through that week, how we would have lost the boy too if not for you. Yes, if not for you: I told her in so many words. Only Kedmi, I said. He was the one, I won’t forget it as long as I live. If he hadn’t kept those marvelously quick wits of his about him and insisted on rushing the boy to the hospital in time ... if he hadn’t read the symptoms correctly as soon as he hit the floor ... I told her so this morning ... if it hadn’t been for Kedmi ... because I too hadn’t been paying Gaddi enough attention, I was too terrified by what happened to father even to think. And who would have dreamed that a seven-and-a-half-year-old could go and have a heart attack like that? In the middle of all the horror it was Kedmi who saved the boy for us. Who gave him to me again, a second time ... so that since then I’m willing to be his slave ... since then I’ve forgiven you everything. I didn’t tell her that, but I’m telling you now. Are you listening?

  “Listening to what?”

  “To what I’ve been saying.”

  “You haven’t been saying anything. You’ve been quiet.”

  “I’ve been quiet?”

  “You may have been talking to yourself, but as far as I’m concerned you’ve been quiet.”

  “I was talking to myself?”

  “How should I know? Ask yourself.”

  “You must have fallen asleep.’’

  “You always seem to think that if I’m not talking I must be asleep, because there is no other possibility. But amazingly enough, Ya’eli, there are times when I do think silently. I wasted so many good thoughts at the office today that I have to stock up again for tomorrow.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Past ten.”

  “How can you expect to fall asleep so early?”

  “I can fall asleep anytime. Haven’t I told you the title of my latest book? Falling Asleep in Ten Easy Lessons. How does that grab you?”

  “I’ll be the first to read it, Kedmi.”

  “Thank you. That’s very kind of you. The first lesson will be called, ‘Silencing Your Spouse.’ ”

  “She hasn’t come back yet, Kedmi. What can she be up to? She hasn’t phoned, either. I can’t imagine where she is. She’s been gone since four o’clock. I’m beginning to worry.”

  “Worry all you like if you enjoy it, but I don’t know what your hurry is. Let it wait until tomorrow. B
y then you can worry for real.’’

  “Until tomorrow? What are you talking about?”

  “A little bird tells me that she’s left town. And you know that my little birds are always right.”

  “Why on earth should she have left town? When? She said that she wanted to look up some acquaintances ... that she had something to bring them...”

  “She asked me to drop her off at the central bus station. I rather doubt that she’s already made acquaintances there.”

  “You mean to say you left her off at the central station? You didn’t tell me that.”

  “There are lots of things I didn’t tell you. Such as that she bought herself a map of Israel and asked me to show her on it where the hospital was and how to get there ...”

  “She didn’t go to the hospital ... she couldn’t have. But where is she? I don’t get it. And the child is here ... what can she be thinking of? I...”

  “I don’t know what she’s thinking of, but I do know what you’re thinking of, and I’m afraid that it’s something silly once again. You’re worried that she may have left you the child as a present and absconded ... but that’s really a bit much, Ya’el. A handsome, healthy, light-skinned boy like that, with a religious education to boot, is worth a few thousand dollars in today’s market even without his fine clothes. I can’t believe she’d pass all that money up...”

  “How can you talk like that!”

  “She’ll be back, Ya’el. And if she isn’t, we’ll give the child to Asi and Dina. I’ve already told you that we’ll never get back from the Christians the Holy Ghost that they stole from us two thousand years ago.”

  “Will you tell me what’s gotten into you? What kind of way is that to talk?”

  “A logical way, Ya’el. A cold, quiet, logical way. I leave the fine emotions to you.”

  “You don’t understand ... you don’t see it ... you’ve hardly talked to her, but she and I spent a whole morning together. She’s an odd, peculiar woman. She came here with some ulterior motive. It’s beyond me how you can lie there so calmly. You’re beginning to seem peculiar to me too...”

  “Thank you.”

  “No, really. How can you be so nonchalant? It isn’t like you. What’s wrong with you? Don’t you see, to turn up suddenly like that without warning ... with the suitcases and the child ... and you should have seen how she dressed him...”

  “Give me three guesses. All in red?”

  “Stop that! Just leave me alone. I won’t say another word.”

  “If you expect me to jump out of bed and start running frantically around the room with you ... I mean if it will help calm you down, I’ll be only too happy to do it. Because there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you, my dearest wife. But I do think that it was presumptuous of me to plan on writing Falling Asleep in Ten Easy Lessons. ”

  “That’s enough, Kedmi! Cut it out. If you could possibly avoid that tone of yours tonight ... because I’ve had enough...”

  “But what are you getting so worked up about? Do tell me. If somebody brought me a sweet little English-speaking thing like that one fine day I’d be too thrilled for words. The trouble with you is that you take things too much for granted. If you were an only child like me, you’d appreciate what you were given today...”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Maybe you’d like to have a cry now? I think your problem may be that you haven’t cried enough today. Let yourself go ... if you don’t, you’ll fall apart again the way you did three years ago. Only this time I won’t let you. It took me a long time to put you back together, and to this day I’m not sure that a few parts aren’t missing.”

  “Kedmi, please. Not now. I’m nervous as hell.”

  “She’ll come back. She really will, Ya’el. You needn’t be so tense.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “The only thing I’m sure of is our great and terrible love. If you weren’t so preoccupied, in fact, I’d make you a proposal that more than one lady would be happy to get from me at this hour of the night. But I won’t put you to any more trouble. I really did like, though, what you said about my keeping control and about your secretly enjoying my jokes. I wish you’d put it in writing, as we say, so that your admirers would stop accusing me of tormenting you all the time ...”

  “But you are tormenting me. What’s happened to put you in such a wonderful mood? I’m all pins and needles, and you’re flat on your back without a care. What happened, Kedmi, did you close some big deal at the office today?”

  “I may be about to, but that isn’t it. I like the deal we’ve already closed even better. Why, we’ve enlarged our family today with practically no effort. I’ve gained a new brother-in-law in diapers and a dynamic, young American mother-in-law. There’s a sense in the air of going places. I feel that we’ve become younger today. You know I think the world of your family ...”

  “All right, I’m leaving. You’re out of control for real now.”

  “You know I’m not. You said yourself that...”

  “I think the child is crying.”

  “He isn’t. But if you’d like him to, I can arrange it.”

  “Where did you really take her? Now you’re going to tell me the truth!”

  “I told you. To the bus station. I didn’t ask her, but she must have gone up north to see the hospital. All I did was change some dollars for her. I had no time, I was in a hurry to get to work. I agree with you that she’s a rather odd woman. Like a sleepwalker—all there in a dreamlike sort of way. It’s hard to believe that your father went all the way to America just to find the same type that he was running away from here...”

  “Leave my father out of this. Do you hear me? Don’t start on him now. That’s enough. Just tell me what, happened on Saturday.”

  “On Saturday?”

  “Then ... when my father was here three years ago ...”

  “Oh, no. Now you’re really going off the deep end. Don’t tell me you’re still looking for that day ...”

  “Yes. It matters to me that I’ve forgotten it.”

  “God save us all, she’s beginning again. What exactly is it that matters?”

  “It just does, a great deal. And I feel that you remember what happened and won’t tell me.”