A Late Divorce

by A. B. Yehoshua

  He opens his eyes.

  “What murderer?”

  “The one who escaped. Who turned out in the end not to ...”

  “Stop, stop, don’t remind me of him! All the energy I wasted on him ... it was he who made me close my private practice. Stop ... when I think of your father chasing him down the street...”

  “Do you remember how he helped you?”

  “Of course I do. Well, you can relax now, you’ve got all your days back again. And if your mind is at rest, you might let mine get some too...”

  “Come,” I say to him, lying down naked beside him. Startled he throws off the blanket excitedly and begins to embrace me, to kiss me, to fondle my breasts. I hug him back. He wants to come into me. The child starts to cry. I push him away.

  “Forget about him!”

  “Where has she gone? Tell me the truth now!”

  He catches his breath. “Afterwards. I promise.”

  The child’s cries gather strength, piercing the night. Kedmi grows more and more passionate, entering me like a young buck. But I am not with him. My mind is still on that Saturday. Everyone was asleep. I stood on the terrace in the winy, fierce spring night, the starry sky above me, hanging father’s laundry on the line and thinking of the days ahead with no idea yet of what lay in store for me. And so the day came to an end. Yes, it did exist after all. Of course it did. At last it has joined all the others, stubbornly salvaged from the passage of time, forever frozen in clarity, beamed with them on that one bright screen down to the last detail.

  THE DAY OF THE SEDER

  The light dresses you with its flame of death,

  O enchantress, O pale sick woman, your face turned

  Toward the primeval engines of the evening

  That circles about you.

  Pablo Neruda

  Violet light seeps from a mortal wound into the broad sky curved over the bay etched in copper evangelic burning filaments cut into the pinkish flesh of the infinite day driven westward to the heavily the slowly the in-triple-time breathing sea sinking into sleep for the night. The sun-softened water luminescent now warm spray of oily flame turning slowly to gray in the soft lava of darkness spewn up from the earth from the great vats hidden in the watered grass overrun with fierce weeds thorny burnet yellow-blossoming broom creeping up among the treetops fanning out on a breath of wind turning blue day into a black canopy for this sodden world of wet earth greedily sipping clinging with lips that suck that kiss stoutly swinging the tongueless bell of evening snuffing out the small spaces between the lines between the words making the pages of my book a shapeless blob while empty and bloated a giant moon suddenly flips over in the last window quietly slips into the evening on a weak low slant. If the dog were here he would cock his head and howl so did she that first clear winter night we arrived she awoke and sat on the windowsill gripping the bars letting down her hair her clothes barking with joyous abandon with secret delight at each little well-aimed yelp until they came with a straitjacket.

  “Come on. Let’s go! They’re beginning ... the singing has started ... they’ve begun to sing ...”

  Yehezkel’s voice begs from the door at the far end of the room but I will not answer him I will not move beneath my light blanket.

  “You can’t stay here all alone for the seder,” he says again turning out the light stepping into the room gliding among the beds in his large suit in his hat and new tie a cigarette lit in his mouth. He’s hoarse he’s been chasing me everywhere for a whole week in a dither over my divorce. And now here he is among the beds in the women’s ward where he’s never dared intrude at night before desperately glancing fearfully about him his own turmoil driving him on. And only now do I notice that we are alone in the ward. Many patients went home this morning with their families and the others are waiting in the dining room now for the seder. Even the night nurse is gone. Even the doctors’ room is locked. And here the silence is broken only by his footsteps small and determined he comes toward me his hands shake the spittle flies when he talks. “Come on! You can’t do this to me. The singing has started ...” He halts by my bed with a violence I never knew was in him he grabs the book from my hands and slams it shut he lays it on the night table and pokes about among my things there pulling out the white parchment divorce and holding it up to the moonlight suddenly angry with me. “Is this how you leave your things, just lying about? You’re no better than a baby! What will become of you?” And without asking permission he gathers it all up and crams it in my drawer rattling my lost dog’s chain yanking off my blanket in a fit of annoyance with unaccustomed roughness making me get up glaring at me angrily he must think that I’m now public property. “You’re ruining our holiday! We’re all waiting for you. You’re the reason I stayed behind.” His light warm hand grips my shoulder. “You can’t do this to me!” Cast on the bare wall by the door is Musa’s huge shadow motionless except for the hungry movements of his mouth that never stop.

  They clustered round me from the moment that Yehuda and the rabbis left the hospital. It was as though they popped out from under the wheels of the taxi when it drove off, a whole gang of them that Yehezkel had inflamed in recent days: Musa and Ahre’le and D’vora and those two young ex-soldiers. “Congratulate her!” he commanded, grabbing my hand and extending it to them. “She’s a free, eligible woman now. There’s no need to kill him anymore. They’ve both been saved.” Even Musa touched my hand, stammering and blushing with emotion. All day today they followed me everywhere, I couldn’t shake them off. The nurses tried to reason with him but he kept stubbornly turning up again at my door, trailing after me as far as the fence, sitting opposite me at lunchtime, passing me platters of food, rolling out the water hose for me. There was no way to unstick him from me and no one to ask to do it. The hospital itself was in a chaos: cars driving in and out around the cottages, families looking for members to take home for the seder, strangers crowding into the wards, dressing the patients, collecting their things, signing forms, memorizing medicines, making a racket, joining us for tea. Yehezkel had a caller too, his son, a carbon copy of him: the same pinched, hangdog look, the same disintegrating face, the same wet cigarette in a corner of the mouth. The only difference between them was that the son’s thinning hair was still dark. A future basket case himself. He came in a khaki scooter with a sidecar for his father but Yehezkel wouldn’t go. He became so hysterical that no one could talk to him. In the end his son went to the office and brought back a doctor and nurse but Yehezkel was adamant. Absolutely not. It was his duty to stay here with me. “I tell you, he’s in love with her,’’ I heard the young doctor say. The blood rushed to my head and I ran off to my deck chair in its clump of trees, put on the glasses that father brought back today from the optometrist’s, and opened the book that I’ve been reading for the past several years while listening to the roar of the departing scooter and the sound of Yehezkel searching for me. I mussed my hair, shut my eyes, pulled my straw hat down over my face and made believe I was asleep. Already I could hear their whispers and the branches stirring around me, could feel the earth shake from Musa’s heavy tread. But when they saw me sleeping they grew oh so still and sat down where they were to keep watch. The gentle spring sun ran its rays over me. Slowly the noise of the strangers and the cars died away. A deep, peaceful silence came over me and I thought, here I am with the divorce that I wanted, he’s given me his share of the house, never again will I hear him speak to me in that overbearing manner of his that punched my life full of holes. And I thought too, perhaps now is the time for a visit from her to tell me what she thinks. But my breathing grew heavier and the book slipped to the ground while I dozed off, dimly aware of someone taking my glasses and propping my head on a pillow. My mussed hair blew in the wind and I sank deep into a dream at the bottom of which a child’s voice spoke in English. From somewhere came a strong smell of cooked mushrooms as though she were really nearby, my murdering-so-filled-with-longing other, and then I felt a light hand and woke
with a start to see D’vora’s white face framed by its faded blond hair and Yehezkel hiding behind her, holding her arm like a stick with which to stroke me. “Tsvi’s come!” he exclaimed right away. “He’s here. He’s waiting at the gate. He sent us to get you.” I had thought Tsvi might call but I never imagined he would come by himself on the day of the seder. I rose feeling woozy but clear-headed inside, as though I’d been scrubbed clean in my sleep. The hospital was completely deserted now. Alone on a path in all his glory, decked out for the holiday in an old, freshly ironed doctor’s smock in place of a white shirt and a red bandanna tied around his neck, stood our King Og, our giant Musa. He even wore a black skullcap, fastened by a bobby pin. “Tsvi’s at the gate,” Yehezkel repeated frantically. “Did you know that he was coming? Have you spoken with him?” The man was in despair. After having stayed behind just for me, here I was running out on him. “Has he come to get you?” But I didn’t answer him. Drowsy but so clean inside I walked to the gate, feeling the newly risen breeze that was softly seeding the bright sky with small clouds, followed by the three of them; Yehezkel, Musa and D’vora. (Ahre’le had vanished, someone must have come for him too.) Yehezkel was beside himself. He kept running forward, waiting for me like a faithful dog and running ahead again, as though he were clearing the way. When we passed the closed ward we all stopped at the sight of three unfamiliar children in undershirts and gym shorts, playing as unconcernedly as though they hadn’t a notion where in the world they were. Children in the hospital ... a tall blond girl and a skinny boy rolling their chubby baby brother on the lawn and chattering gaily in English...

  We reached the gate, from which a row of eucalyptus trees flanked a road that ran ruler-straight through fields stretching out on either side: to its right a green fuzz of cotton that would break out in white blossom toward summer’s end, to the left great furrows of plowed earth with huge clods thrown up alongside them. Past them the railroad tracks streamed north to touch the foothills of the Galilee, whose scrub forests cut into strips by firebreaks formed a soft horizon rubbing up against a serenely innocent round sky full of sweet radiance, like a bowl of raspberry syrup mixed with the thin exhaust of the speeding cars on the highway. Somewhere out there, where the orchards and villages ran inland, Horatio loped dirty and hungry through the juicy young thorn shoots, fooled by the intoxicating scent of my wandering wild other no borders could hold, who was making her way steadily eastward.

  Beyond the gate, near the darkened guardhouse from which rock music bubbled out, my Tsvi was taking the air by a white automobile, a long cigarette in his mouth, the sleeves of the jacket draped over his shoulders whipping in the breeze to reveal a knit beige shirt above his light bell-bottom pants. He always did have a flair for color that was worthy of a fashion magazine. As soon as he saw us he broke off his small talk with the watchman, bowed casually to my escort and breezily opened the gate for me, shutting it gently in Yehezkel’s face even as he thanked him. He threw away his cigarette, turned to have a look at me, took my two hands in his own, flashed a triumphant smile, and embraced me warmly. He kept up a stream of chatter as he hurried me to the car, from whose back seat he took out a bouquet of flowers. He laid them in my arms and grinned again. “You’re crazy, Tsvi,” I said. “Honestly.” He burst into a merry laugh. “Well, you’re free at last,” he said. “Free as can be. I spoke to Ya’el on the phone, and when she told me it went smoothly I couldn’t resist coming up. I had to, and Calderon agreed to drive me....So it’s over, then. Whereupon, I’ve been told, you went and fell peacefully asleep. Hats off to you, mother ...” He didn’t stop running on at the mouth, saying the most fatuous things. And a bouquet of flowers, no less! In the car I could see the banker’s eyes glitter anxiously. He nodded imperceptibly, stiff with deference, afraid to intrude on us.

  “So it’s over,” repeated Tsvi, slipping an arm through mine and walking with me down the road between the quiet, pre-holiday fields. “How do you feel? To tell you the truth, I was afraid he’d back out at the last minute.” He looked at me. “Or else that you would. Ya’el said something about some rabbi who kept making trouble right down to the wire. But here it’s over at last: you’ve parted honorably and without a fuss. I called Asi to tell him and he was glad too. ‘It had to happen ... sooner or later it had to ... there was no choice’—he kept saying that over and over. That’s his great insight, you know, that everything has to happen. Tomorrow he’ll come with Dina to say goodbye to father, and perhaps he’ll visit you too. To extend his congratulations...’’

  All at once he came to a halt, winked, and hugged me again. “And now, what do you propose that we do? I thought I would come to take you ... but where to? I’m tom between the two of you. He’s flying back tomorrow night, and I’ve hardly seen him yet—in fact, I feel that I won’t be seeing him again for a long time. He really is leaving us—I finally had to believe it when I saw how calmly he let you have the apartment in the end. And Ya’el asked me to spend the seder with them ... although Kedmi and his monster mother will be there too ... and I can’t stand the thought of leaving you here with all these people. I did so want to be with you—who would have thought that I’d be the excited one and that you’d have dozed off so quietly?...But is everything really all signed and sealed ... the documents, the bill of divorce ... you have it all? We have to decide what to do in a hurry, because poor Calderon has to be home for the seder ... all hell has broken loose there ... and he keeps deliberately provoking it ... so what do you say? We could go somewhere by ourselves, just the two of us ... perhaps to a hotel ... there must be one with a communal seder around here ... or should we just go back to Tel Aviv and have our own private holiday meal there? You still have your old clothes in the apartment.... Well, what do you think?”

  But I stood there without answering, still groggy from my deep sleep and shapeless dream, wondering if she’d come back today, if I’d be able to talk to her, if I still remembered how. My throat and lips felt parched. I let him lead me down the road, looking at the wet, fissured earth, at the plowed-up weeds scattered over it. A single sunny day would burn them all yellow. And he so childishly wanting to celebrate, such a blabbermouth, dragging me as far as a large, rusty plow that stood at the end of the field. He examined its caked blades curiously, wide-eyed.

  “What do you say then, mother? What shall we do? We have to make up our minds, we can’t keep him any longer ... his whole family is waiting for him there. His world has caved in on him and he’d like everyone else’s to also. Why don’t we send him on his way and go eat by the fisherman’s wharf in Acre ... we’ll be the only Jews there ... what do you say? You can’t possibly stay here by yourself on the night of the seder ...”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  “How terribly depressed you were that first year. I was with you here.”

  “You were with me here for the seder?”

  “Of course.” He smiled. “You’ve forgotten. You were very ill then. You hardly noticed a thing ... but I was with you, and I’ll never forget what a madhouse it was. It gave me the creeps ...”

  All at once my heart felt for him. He was the only one never to be afraid of me. To come to see me even then. I took his hand.

  “Go be with father. You’re right. You won’t see him again for a long time. I’ve already said my goodbyes to him, but I want you to be with him. And I want you to help Ya’el. I’d just lie here in bed and read anyhow. Father brought me back my glasses. Why must you do all this for me? Everything is finished with ... you say that I’m free now ... I suppose you think that I’m eighteen years old ...”

  He was moved to sadness. Thoughtfully he knelt by a row of little sprouts and absently began to pluck them until he realized what he was doing and stuck them quickly back into the earth with an embarrassed smile. And I thought, was I really with him that seder or only with her, so alert and enjoying herself? And I lifted my eyes to the mountains a
nd saw in the soft light of the setting sun a distant dot that made me freeze. It was she, on the trail in an army windbreaker, her hands in her pockets, traveling light. I couldn’t tell if she was moving toward me or away. And then suddenly I felt the old throbbing, the urge to have her be part of me again like a heavy backpack, the joy of her wild otherness between knife thrust and light flash...

  Tsvi brushed the dirt from his clothes, out of breath, the first wrinkles of age in his face. He turned back toward the hospital and the distant gleam of the sea. “It’s so peaceful here. So lovely. I even dreamt about it. A haunting dream—I’ll tell you about it sometime. But I have to go now. Come say goodbye to Calderon ... he’s falling apart, he’s lost all control of himself. In the end he’ll even be fired from the bank ...” As he walked me slowly back to the waiting car I could feel that he wanted to say something else but was keeping it back, could hear her light footsteps behind me. The man was reading, his crewcut gray head bent over the wheel.

  “Calderon,” said Tsvi gently. “Say goodbye to my mother.”

  He roused himself, and when he looked up I saw his face bathed in tears. He wiped them away as he climbed out of the car, flushing hotly, in inner conflict.

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Kaminka.” He shook my hand, nearly falling all over it. “It’s just ... it’s this Chekhov book. Do you know it? We saw the show of Uncle Vanya, and so Tsvi brought me the book. A tremendous production. Fantastic. And when I think of how everyone cried then it makes me want to cry again ... although I know it’s silly to shed tears over a bunch of Russians who lived a hundred years ago and were probably anti-Semites at that. Well, how are you? I heard that it all went well, praise God. As long as it’s over—sometimes what matters is not what you decide but simply having decided...”