Saturday. Of course. That was it. I have it now with all its colors and smells, down to that light, last morning rain, after which the clouds broke up and a warm wind began to blow. I stood on the terrace hanging up wash, clean sheets and tablecloths, while Kedmi heartrendingly stalked the house like a caged lion, phoning the police every few minutes to advise them, to berate them, to warn them of something new. In the end he decided to drive down to where the prisoner’s parents lived and to catch him himself, so that he could return him to jail and go on defending him. What a weird, wild, wacky day it was! I’m still reeling from the force with which the memory of it has hit me ... to think of me sitting there and idiotically repeating to her, “Saturday, Saturday, are you sure there was a Saturday?” until she was certain that I was trying to hide something crucial from her! Time passed. I waited for father. And then suddenly that afternoon Kedmi called from the office, whispering in a conspiratorial voice. “Come quick, I need your help. My mother’s on her way over to baby-sit. I found him but he got away. Come quick, I need you! We’ll pick up your father at the taxi stand downtown. I’ve already spoken to Tsvi.”
Saturday afternoon in an empty, drowsy downtown already under the influence of the approaching holiday.... Kedmi’s mother had come to stay with the children, in a fit over the vanished murderer, terribly piqued by him. How could he have done such a thing after all Kedmi had sacrificed for him? The sheer ingratitude of it!...I raced to that dreary office of his that he kept in those days when he was trying to make a go of private practice. The corridors were deserted. A musty smell hung over the stairs. He was waiting for me in the doorway in a white heat, his mind working furiously. He had spotted his murderer in his old neighborhood—where, it turned out, the police hadn’t even bothered to search. They had, Kedmi said, spent all day looking in the forests of the Carmel, apparently convinced that the escaped man had gone to pick flowers. But Kedmi had seen him in the street, from an ambush he had set for him not far from his home. Only the murderer took off as soon as he saw Kedmi—the nincompoop must have thought that it was a trap set by the police and all Kedmi’s shouting that he was there by himself couldn’t keep him from running away. Kedmi was sure he would come back, though. The man simply missed his parents. My job, since he didn’t know me, was to wait for him by his house and tell him when he appeared, “Mr. Kedmi wants to talk to you. He has an idea that might help you.”
A crazy Saturday, how did I ever forget it? Spring had broken out, the sky lifted quickly. A Saturday of different places, of different people coming and going, of doors opening and shutting, of telephones ringing, of everything happening at once—presiding over all of which was Kedmi, unshaven, disheveled, red in the face, looking like an escaped criminal himself, explaining to me how after the seder he would turn his murderer over to the police at an official press conference. Let them see what a real lawyer was. How his clients obeyed him unquestioningly. How they had perfect faith in him.
Saturday afternoon. Such soft, sweet, sabbathy light, and I utterly exhausted, my head in a whirl. Nothing was ready yet for the seder, and father was getting divorced the next morning and flying back to America two days later, leaving mother to me. I could see myself running through the fields around the hospital in search of her dog, trapped in Kedmi’s childish games, having to take Gaddi to the doctor—and meanwhile the hours were going by and nothing had been done. And soon it would be time for the long, deep goodbye to father....By a felafel stand near the station where some teenagers were hanging out we watched him get out of the taxi. Once again I was greeting him—all week long I’d kept dispatching him and welcoming him back. It’s all so clear: how did I forget it? The first thing that struck me was the haircut he had gotten in Tel Aviv, which made him look older and grayer. His clothes were rumpled and he walked with a stoop, pulled down by his valise. How it all shoots through me now: his coming that Saturday, his standing there on the sidewalk while I kissed him and hugged him hard, his marveling at the puddles left at the base of the trees by the morning’s rain. “With us in Tel Aviv,” he said, “it’s spring, even summer. The weather has been so hot and dry that people are flocking to the beaches.” With us, he said, as though he had never left, as though it were I who soon would depart again for who knew how long, as though he had not signed away his home the day before and was about to fly far away. How nice it was of Kedmi, he said, surprised, to relieve him of his bag right away. “There’s some dirty laundry in it, Ya’eli. It would be good of you to help me wash it. I haven’t any underwear left.’’ Kedmi put a hand on his shoulder, steering him to the car, while we told him all about our murderer. He listened carefully, with a bemused smile, and proposed at once that he come with me, it being unthinkable to send me by myself after an escaped killer, even if Kedmi swore he was a gentle one.
Kedmi drove us to a working-class quarter outside of town, on the road to Tivon, near the big quarry cut by the cement works into the mountainside. He pointed out the house to us, handed me a photograph of the escapee that he had found in his office, and vanished into some side street. And so we found ourselves, father and I, walking at the drop of dusk down a narrow working-class street to meet Kedmi’s murderer and talk him into going back to jail. Near the house was a bus stop with a bench on which we sat while keeping a lookout on the entranceway. How could I have forgotten? We might as well have been on another planet, just the two of us sitting there alone. Father spoke and I listened. He was troubled and needed to talk, full of impressions from his days in Tel Aviv and aghast how little time was left him, jumping from one thing to another while the twilight thickened and an occasional passerby stopped to stare at us.... “I’ve signed away my home,” he kept saying. “I never want to hear about it again. You’ll collect my things there and keep them for me. But don’t let Tsvi have the apartment all for himself. He’s a degenerate. And he’s getting worse. He’ll sell it in order to play the market. And you’d better warn mother about him, because she’ll never listen to me...” His eyes filled with tears. He was on the subject of mother now. “So she’s finally driven me away. At last she’s managed to uproot me. I’m being punished by her for not being crazy too, for not having gone over the brink with her. She thinks that because we once thought the same way I owe her eternal fealty...” All at once he made me get up and stroll in the street with him, holding my hand while he told me again of that morning she had tried killing him and of how Tsvi could not have cared less. I walked by his side, listening in anguish, returning an occasional stare, glancing now and then at the photograph I held so as not to miss our man when he appeared. He was getting emotional, talking with great intensity. We turned and headed back the other way. Children raced by us toward a bonfire of leavened bread that had been lit at the end of the street. Suddenly he gripped me hard. “And you—what do you think? You’re the only one who’s never expressed an opinion. You just agree with everyone ... with me, with mother, with us all. How can you be so passive?” And I answered, “You’re right. I really have no opinion. I never have had one.’’ “But I don’t understand how that’s possible,” he protested. “Opinions are too much for me,” I said. “I can only feel you. I’ve never been able to think you. It’s as though you both were my babies.” Those were my words. It was an odd thing to say and he stood there perplexed while the sun set in the distant bay. But did he really say what comes next or did I imagine it? Yes, he must have said it: “It’s you who will kill me in the end.” “Me?” I whispered, thunderstruck. “Yes, you. You more than anyone with your silence.” Did he say it or did I imagine it? Yes, and then he said, “You’ve taken my home from me and now you won’t let me go.” How could I have forgotten? Why? I kept silent then too. Silent as usual. I didn’t answer, and then he smiled and hugged me. In its insatiable rush to the accident my memory ran over it all ... and in the end night came with still no sign of the murderer. We went to look for Kedmi and found him back on the main road, asleep at the wheel.
We came home. Kedmi�
��s mother was gray from the strain and the tension. Father took out his laundry and began to do a wash. Kedmi paced the room again like a beaten dog until he phoned the police and was told to his great joy that the search had been called off. Then he began tidying up around the house and helped me put the children to bed, after which he talked gently to father and even made him some coffee. He couldn’t do enough for us now, he was all sweetness and light.... And then he suddenly disappeared, only to return an hour later in a state of high excitement. He had, it turned out, paid a call on his murderer’s parents—who, though insisting they had no knowledge of their son’s escape, seemed definitely to Kedmi to be waiting for him. And poor Kedmi, unable to bear the thought of all his efforts going down the drain, cornered me and begged me to accompany him there again and to wait while he tried one more time.
That Saturday dragged on and on, it seemed to have no end. Who was it who threw a gray blanket over it afterwards? It was almost midnight when Kedmi finally persuaded father and me to go with him again to that working-class quarter, whose streets were deserted now. He sat us on the same unearthly bench, beneath a yellowish streetlight, and drove off to wait around the corner. Father was amused by it all. He was wide awake and kept joking while he toyed with the murderer’s photograph in his hand, relating old memories, telling me of his plans for the future, to which I listened drowsily, silently, passively, half dead from exhaustion, smelling his sweat as I leaned on him, forgetting immediately what he said like a bottle that hasn’t room for one more drop, letting my glance wander slowly over the tall chimneys of the cement works that glowed with an unnatural, ochroid smoke, over the small, empty street, over the entrance to one of its houses, where I saw Kedmi’s murderer detach himself from a wall as though it were the wall itself that had moved: a short, wiry young man, gliding along the housefronts with slow, catlike strides, keeping away from the light. I rose at once. Head down, hands in his pockets, he didn’t even look up at me. I stood peering into his unshaven face, into his beady eyes, while father jumped up to join me. “Just a minute,” I said. “I’m Mr. Kedmi’s wife. He’s around the corner, and he wants to talk to you. That’s all he wants. It’s for your own good. There are no policemen with him.”
He froze where he was and studied me and father. He didn’t seem frightened. “I have nothing to say to him,” he said drily, in a cold voice. “All he ever wants to do is talk. But he doesn’t believe what I say. Let him find a real criminal to play with. I’ve had it with him.”
He turned to go with hesitant steps, no longer knowing where to. And then, like a teacher lightly grasping a pupil, father laid a hand on his shoulder and began to talk to him, gesturing broadly with his other hand while the listening man kept walking with his eyes on the ground. They disappeared into the next street and I ran to get Kedmi, who had dozed off again at the wheel. “Kedmi,” I said, waking him, “father is talking to him right now.” He jumped groggily out of the car and started to run, shouting in the empty street, but the murderer took off again as soon as he saw him, scaling the fence of the cement works and vanishing among its tall chimneys. Father reached for a cigarette and lit it coolly, wide awake and collected. “He promised to come to you after the seder,” he told Kedmi, who was in total despair. “He swore he’d turn himself in then. He gave me his word and I believe him. So can you.” And Kedmi, perhaps for the first time in all the years I’d known him, stood speechless as a statue, unable to get out a single word.
Now he’s fallen asleep, a newspaper over his face, the child looking down on him among the pillows and blankets. He has a funny way of standing, the child, almost hunched, toes dug in, his eyes searching for the moon behind the curtain flapping in the breeze. A tall, skinny little boy who still hasn’t spoken to me, who regards me with a suspicious look. I try out my broken English on him again while he cocks his head in wonder.
“That’s enough of your Shakespearian diction,” grunts Kedmi in his sleep. “Would you kindly put Moses to bed now? He’s taking a walk on my head.”
I pick him up, carry him to the freshly made but still wet crib, lay him down in it, and cover him up, his sweetness rubbing off on my fingers. And again I try talking to him. Rakefet rolls over on her back, entering a new, more relaxed stage of sleep. Gaddi stirs in bed too, still not sleeping deeply. The room is dark except for the small night light. I’m already on my way out the door when the child stands up again, gripping the crib bars tightly, eyeing me. What does he want? Such a strange, quiet, inward creature. I try laying him down again but he clings defiantly to the bars, grimacing with determination. Where can she be? Has she really gone and left him with us? Can it be, are such aberrations possible too? A portrait of father as a small child.
All at once something makes me recoil, as if father himself had just entered the room from the hallway and left it again via the window. I’m shaking all over, my heart skips a beat and then pounds even faster. How could we have let him go back there? What possessed him to do it? Why did I forget that Saturday, what was I trying to repress? Perhaps meeting that escaped prisoner had some meaning for me ... only how did we fail to sense it, to know it, to prevent it? What made us leave him like that, looking like he did that Saturday when he stepped out of the taxi, so old, his hair sheared beneath his hat, his valise full of dirty underwear. We had it in for him. Asi despised him. Tsvi wanted vengeance. And I had no opinion. “And you—what do you think?” And I—I didn’t answer. “The one person who was genuinely happy to see me was Dina. The rest of you have been hostile, even Gaddi.” And still I passively said nothing—I, who identify vicariously with everyone, I, who always will. Indiscriminately I go from one of them to another: Kedmi, Gaddi, mother, even the dog, even that murderer, even Connie the minute she walked in the door. Yes, I identify with whoever comes close to me, I adopt them without thinking, without judging. And so drive them away from me too. And yet did I really drive him away then with my silence ... with my refusal to say the one thing he wanted to hear ... back into the horror of that final night?
Saturday. That was it. Slowly it’s slipped back into place among those nine days stubbornly salvaged from the passage of time, frozen in hard clarity, beamed by themselves upon a bright screen. At last I’ve retrieved the lost day. Kedmi didn’t want to help me. It was painful for him to remember, I realize that now. Because that murderer of his was not really a murderer after all. Because after we had finally persuaded him to go back to jail the real murderer was found elsewhere, and he was released without the trial that Kedmi had so enthusiastically prepared for. It was that that made him admit failure, close down his practice, and take a job with the district attorney. At no point had he really believed father that the man would turn himself in. And yet all the way back up the mountain, while we sat tiredly in the car, father had to listen to him telling about his murderer and about all his plans for the trial. After which we walked into a house that was a shambles and I had to take father’s underwear and hang it on the terrace in the night that had turned to real spring.
When I think of father now I still feel the same pain. The awful sorrow of it stabs me all over again. What did we do wrong? We couldn’t get them back together and we couldn’t pry them apart. Perhaps all we managed to do was to turn them against one another.... Yes, I must take the child to see mother. I’ll dress him in his red clothes and bring him to her, maybe he can put some life into her...
I take one last peek into the children’s room. He’s still standing there without a sound, looking for someone. For his mother. Wondering where she’s been shanghaied. Suddenly I feel more anxious than ever. Where is she? Kedmi must tell me. I go to our bedroom and undress.
“Kedmi? Yisra’el? Yisra’el, are you sleeping?”
“How can I sleep,” he mumbles without opening his eyes, “when I’m already writing my new book, Staying Awake in Ten Easy Lessons? Tell me something, must you purposely drive me batty all night long? Why do you keep running circles around me like some big mouse?”
>
“Are you in a state to hear me, or must you sleep?”
“You’ve already filled your quota of words for the day. If you’re thinking of kisses, though...”
“I remembered. Do you hear me? I found that lost Saturday.”
“I’m overjoyed. Maybe you can also find someone to buy it from you now.”
“Do you know what happened on it? It was the day that poor murderer of yours escaped and we went in the evening to look for him.”
A Late Divorce Page 31