“You really are a bastard,” said Asa straight to Kedmi’s face. “Why did you have to lure him on like that? What did you get out of it?”
Kedmi was hurt. “That dog could drive a person nuts. Don’t you people have enough problems without him?”
“But what did you have against him?”
“Me?” inquired Kedmi innocently. “What did I do? Is it my fault that he ran after my car? It’s hard enough to keep track of who runs in front of it.”
“It’s lovely, here, isn’t it?” Calderon kept asking. “You must admit that it’s lovely here, Mrs. Kedmi.”
“Yes, it is,” conceded Ya’el with a sad smile.
“Father at the head of the table!” called Calderon, seating me first. “Father goes at the head! You decide where to seat the rest of them...’’
“Come, girls, sit next to me,” I said to Dina and Ya’el. “And you, Gaddi, you sit near me too.”
Tsvi took a turn about the garden, walking in the shady light of the trees and nodding haughtily to the old people, who had fallen silent and were watching us with interest. Calderon hurried over to confide something to him; he sought to take his arm, choked by his own love, but Tsvi brushed him off without looking. Two waiters set the table with silverware and plates, smiling at the baby, who had been placed on a second table next to us beside a large wicker basket of matzo, while staring at Dina out of the corners of their eyes, overwhelmed by her beauty, honored to be able to serve her. Asa went off to have a look at something, then returned and sat down at the far end of the table. Kedmi took a seat too. Tsvi was the last to join us. He picked up his knife and tested it carefully on his fingertips, looking at me hard as he stood by his chair.
“When I think, father, that in a few hours from now you’ll be gone ... we really will miss you this time...”
I smiled, my cheeks red, a queasy feeling in my stomach, and turned to Dina, who was sitting next to me thin and virginal, her perfumed skin contrasting whitely with her mysterious black dress. She was involved with the baby, still oddly remote.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her, glancing at Asa sitting by himself at the table’s other end. Suddenly it struck me that they weren’t talking to each other. They hadn’t exchanged a word since they had come.
“Is anything the matter?” I asked again.
“No, nothing.” She smiled.
“This really is a lovely spot. Thank you, Calderon. It was a good choice.”
“I told you. Didn’t I tell you? You could be in Europe here.” Flushed and bright-eyed Dina leaned toward me in a low voice:
“Will you have some time for me later?”
“Of course. What a question! But what for?”
“I have something to read to you.”
“What? Ah ... something of yours?”
She nodded.
“Of course. I’d be glad to. Whenever you’d like...”
“It’s long, though.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll find the time.”
I squeezed her arm.
“I’m so glad you came today. This whole visit has been like a quick dream. The evening I spent with you in Jerusalem already seems so far away ... is everything all right with you two?”
“Yes.”
She wouldn’t unbend. And meanwhile the table was filling up with baskets of matzo, bottles of wine, condiments, platters of raw vegetables. The waiters poured the wine and silently handed us our menus.
Kedmi scanned his quickly. “The prices aren’t half bad,” he murmured.
“What did I tell you?” crowed Calderon.
The headwaiter appeared, a heavyset, immaculate, middle-aged Arab, and positioned himself next to me.
“Good afternoon, please. Would you care to order? I’ll bet it’s grandfather’s birthday...”
“You lose,” Kedmi shot back. “It’s actually a divorce party.”
The headwaiter laughed incredulously.
“Grandpa is leaving Israel. Aren’t you glad? There’ll be one less of us here.”
The man was stark raving mad. You never knew what he would come up with next. Calderon was alarmed. Ya’el laid a hand on Kedmi’s arm. This time he had really gone too far. But the headwaiter smiled imperturbably.
“The gentleman can’t be serious. Why leave Israel? What’s so bad about it?”
“Maybe it’s not so bad for you,” Kedmi answered with unaccountable, poker-faced vitriol. “After all, you people think you own it.”
This time the headwaiter frowned. The smile froze on his lips.
“Cut it out, Kedmi! That’s enough!” disgustedly hissed Asi and Tsvi.
The man was too much.
“Well, then, what will you have?”
We conferred. Calderon insisted that we all order appetizers. Even Gaddi. Even the baby.
“I’m asking you for my sake...’’ he pleaded. “Please do it for me...”
“Calm down there, Refa’el,” snapped Tsvi angrily.
Calderon shut up.
The meal was tasty, though: consommé, chopped liver, tender chicken breasts, crisp-roasted meat, vegetables done to perfection, big white potatoes. Asi and Tsvi chatted at their end of the table and Calderon sat in the middle talking with Kedmi, who was eating voraciously while pumping him about the bank. The wine was dry and subtle, lit now and again by tumbling drifts of light. Rakefet rocked back and forth in her high chair, a big piece of matzo in one hand, singing to herself as she ate it. The dogs minced down the gravel paths, along which some elderly boarders in their holiday best slowly led a small lady leaning on a walker while conversing in spirited tones. More tables were set for the oldsters and the waiters ran back and forth among them with little glasses of schnapps. They murmured brief instructions to each other in Arabic and served us pleasantly and politely. Ya’el sat tranquilly next to me, eating hungrily. Gaddi kept looking about him, hardly aware of what went into his mouth. A chill wind blew, stirring the branches. Ya’el talked about Rakefet to Dina, who kept wanting to know more and suddenly pulled out a small notebook and quickly scribbled something in it.
I laid a hand on her and winked. “So the little pad is still with you.”
She returned a friendly smile. “Always.”
The wine was going to my head. Kedmi had made peace with the headwaiter and was joking with him now, trying out his Arabic on him. I would have loved to know what Tsvi and Asi were talking about at the other end of the table. Kedmi praised the food, piling more and more of it on his plate until he was red in the face. Calderon’s worried eyes ran back and forth; from time to time he made some motion to a waiter while Kedmi jotted down on a napkin the names of stocks he was giving him and Asi and Tsvi lit up cigarettes.
“No smoking in the middle of the meal, boys,” I called out to them.
“Who do you think we learned from?” laughed Tsvi.
“But what are you two talking about? Speak louder, I want to hear too.”
“About history,” laughed Tsvi again in his winning way.
“History?” asked Kedmi. “What’s that?”
“Everything,” answered. Tsvi. “At least according to Asi.”
“What do you mean, everything?”
“Even this meal that we’re eating.”
“Even this meal? I like that.” Kedmi lifted a fork with a slice of meat on it and slid it into his mouth. “Yummm ... what a delicious piece of history...”
The vulgar, twisted mind of the man.
“But if it’s everything,” asked Calderon wonderingly, “what can you learn from it?”
“Nothing,” Kedmi shot back. “You just keep eating it till you die...”
“No, really,” Calderon persisted, turning to Asa. “Is it possible, Dr. Kaminka, to understand what’s going to happen ... perhaps even to draw conclusions about the future and prevent mistakes...?”
Asa nodded seriously.
“Really?”
“Not to prevent them, but to inoculate against them.”
/>
“To inoculate???”
“To isolate the meaning, the secret code of the past, and distill from it a serum that can be injected into human beings to prepare them for the coming catastrophe: that’s the study of history in a nutshell.”
“What catastrophe is that, Asi?” I asked, startled.
“The coming one ... the one that can’t be helped ...”
Dina broke off her conversation with Ya’el and turned to look at Asa as though seeing him for the first time. An uncomfortable silence set in. It was clear that they weren’t on speaking terms.
Rakefet began to whimper. Calderon rose to pick her up but I reached her first and lifted her in my arms.
“Would someone pass me the meat, please,” said Kedmi, beet-colored by now. “And you, Asa, none of your horror tales, please...”
All at once exhaustion. You feel like you’re going under. The wine percolates through your limbs. What time is it? I grip Dina’s thin hand and twist it lightly to look at her gold watch with its Hebrew letters in place of numerals. A Jewish wristwatch. Alef zayin. One thirty-five. Before you behind you the darkness cleft by a strip of purple light. Snow in the streets stubborn icy snow packed hard against the quick plows. A divorce party. How could he. Taking liberties. Mother why. Her very words. Disappointed her how? I was afraid I always feared her even those first years when we made love. And suddenly two of her. The spirit is weak. Perhaps. I promised too much is that it? All at once the full weight of the thought O wondrous oppressiveness. So many things at one time. The cleft dawn. Soft sounds of German among the trees. She sits on the stoop she walks she reads she may get out any day. The dog in some city street or already run over and dead. A limp erection. The parchment in the air. Connie in the air suspended nude. A Jewish dish. You give me something realer than mere values. Behind me the headwaiter filling my glass with more wine. I smile back at him. He gives me a friendly look. For a moment the urge to open my shirt and show my scar to him too. Tsvi whispers something to Asa Kedmi bends crimsonly forward to listen. Gaddi is still putting it away how can they let him someone has to stop him. Ya’el and Dina confide in low voices. Only Calderon turns his washed-out face toward me wanting to say something wanting to hear.
I recalled our midnight meeting.
“Say, whatever happened to that mouse?”
“I finally caught it. In a trap I brought. We heard it snap shut in the morning.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I gave it to the city.”
“To the city?”
“I left it by the entrance to city hall. I thought I’d let them decide what to do next.”
“Ha ha. Too much!”
“I’m afraid, though, that it isn’t the last mouse running around there. I heard another.”
“What isn’t the last mouse?” asked Gaddi.
“Mr. Calderon discovered a mouse in the kitchen and caught it.”
“In whose kitchen?”
“In my and grandma’s old apartment in Tel Aviv.”
“But it isn’t yours anymore. You signed away your share.”
“Yes, I heard about that,” chimed in Calderon. “A surprising, I might even say dramatic, decision...”
“Dramatic.” I smiled at him. “That’s the word.”
“To sign away five million pounds just like that...”
“Five million? You’re exaggerating, Calderon.”
“No, it really is worth that.”
“That old place? It’s barely worth four.”
“I’m sorry but you’re wrong,” said Calderon heatedly. “It may be old but it’s in an excellent location. Right in downtown Tel Aviv, in the most promising block of real estate in the whole city...”
“It still can’t be worth that much.”
“But it is. I happen to know for a fact that Tsvi has a buyer who’s offered him that, and that isn’t his last word either.”
“What?” I was aghast. “Tsvi wants to sell?”
An easy killing. I glanced at him, leaning comfortably back in his chair and talking to Asa with that remote shadow of a smile. Soft-throated. Winsome. Calderon threw a longing look at him. He would try to pull a fast one on us yet. But I was leaving everything behind. Out there the land of frozen lakes was lit by a fiery dawn now, the red-bulbed trucks were thundering down the turnpikes like flying Christmas trees. Suddenly the sky darkened. A small black cloud had covered the sun. We all looked up at it. The old boarders let out a cry of joy in German, reminded no doubt of European climes. And I was to be left with nothing, my lifeblood running low. Except for my now available, my divorced name. To have to begin again from scratch. Rakefet gave a start on my lap and screamed in her sleep. I tried to gentle her while Ya’el hurried to take her from me, but her screaming only grew louder as she pushed away the bottle that Ya’el gave her. Now Dina rose to take her from Ya’el and walk with her in the garden, rocking her in her arms while the old boarders looked on excitedly and cooed advice. But Rakefet continued her deep, heartrending cries. Ya’el took her back again and undid her diaper but the crying didn’t stop.
“Ya’el,” grumbled Kedmi, “do something.”
Rakefet shrieked still louder, as though possessed. Gaddi jumped up and down with excitement.
“It’s just like it was then, just like it was then, only then I was alone with her! You see that you can’t make her stop! Only then I was alone with her!”
Rakefet was passed from hand to hand, keys were jangled in front of her, even the headwaiter tried his luck with some old toy dog made of wool that he brought from the kitchen. Rakefet wouldn’t even look at it. She shrieked till she was blue in the face. Ya’el was alarmed.
“We have to go home,” she said to Kedmi.
“Just a minute. What about dessert...?”
Calderon leaped up to order the desserts but Rakefet’s screams were deafening. In a panic Ya’el began to shout at Kedmi. We all got to our feet.
We tried to calm her. “It’s nothing ... she’ll get over it...”
But Ya’el was adamant. “I want us to go home this minute.”
I went over to join Asa and Tsvi, who were still chatting off to the side.
“You two should get together more often. What have you been talking about all this time?”
“The assassination of the Tsar,” laughed Tsvi. “Asi was telling me how he was killed. Which one did you say it was?”
“Alexander II.”
I laughed too.
“All right,” said Kedmi, giving in. “Let’s go.”
“What a pity,” said Calderon. “Perhaps I should take her for a drive in my car. That’s how I put my own girls to sleep when they were babies.”
“Don’t trouble yourself. We’ll all go home.”
Dina and Ya’el busied themselves with Rakefet and gathered up her things.
“We’ll drive to the hospital, father,” said Tsvi. “You go rest. You’re pale, and you still have a long day ahead of you. Maybe we’ll look for the dog while we’re up there. Soon mother will get out, and if Horatio goes back there he won’t find her. He doesn’t deserve to have to stay there by himself. Are you coming with us, Asi?”
Asi wavered.
“Go to her, Asi,” I encouraged him. “She’ll be very happy to see you.”
“All right.”
“And Dina?”
“She’ll stay here. There’s no point in taking her with us.”
“When will you be back?”
“By six. We have plenty of time. Your flight doesn’t leave until midnight.”
Calderon made his way into the circle. “So, what have you decided?”
“We’re going to the hospital. Can you drive us?”
“Certainly.”
“Your wife in Tel Aviv must be going out of her mind.”
He shut his eyes in anguish, the flicker of a smile on his thin lips. “So supposing I’ve changed families for the holiday?”
The waiter came over with the bill
and said something to him in a whisper.
“How about splitting it,” I suggested.
“Absolutely not. It’s my pleasure.”
Tsvi smiled. “It’s his pleasure.”
I looked him in the eyes. “Are you really trying to sell the apartment?’’
He blanched and turned to Calderon.
“You have to blab about everything, don’t you, you old tattletale!”
“I beg your pardon ... forgive me ... I was sure your father already knew ...”
“You want to own our minds too, it’s not enough that ...”
“Don’t ... I ... just a minute ... Tsvi ...”
“That’s enough out of you, you traitor!”
Gaddi tugged at my clothes. “We’re waiting for you.” Kedmi honked his horn.
Dina and Ya’el were already in the car with the baby, who was still screaming. Dina hadn’t said goodbye to Asi. The motor started up. I got in.
“What is it, Rakefet? What?”
The car backed out through the gate. For a second I caught sight of the three of them standing there, Asi holding on to Calderon, who was struggling to go down on his knees before Tsvi.
“He fell down,” said Gaddi.
What time was it?
Suddenly, just like that, Rakefet grew still. All at once.
“That’s just how it was then!” exclaimed Gaddi, unable to get over it.
Kedmi stopped the car. “Now she quiets down. She just didn’t want me to have my dessert. It was damned nice there. Maybe we should go back.”
“For God’s sake, Kedmi,” shouted Ya’el, “drive home!”
“You call him Kedmi too?” asked Dina in surprise.
“No one likes to call me by my first name ... one Israel is enough. That old fellow is damned nice too ... why does he torture him like that?”
“Let’s not talk about it now, Kedmi.”
But that failed to put a damper on his mood. He whistled merrily, the car’s shadow darting from curb to curb as he drove. The streets were deserted. A quiet holiday afternoon. The weather was changing again and looked like rain. Rakefet sat without a peep, staring straight ahead with dry, wide-open eyes.
A Late Divorce Page 40