“What’s wrong with her?” asked Ya’el anxiously.
“Not a thing.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Almost time for you to fly off into the wild blue yonder, Yehuda. You’re a lucky man. The rest of us will be left behind here with Begin ...”
“But didn’t you vote for him?’’ asked Ya’el, puzzled.
“What does that have to do with it?” He burst out laughing, his hands dancing on the steering wheel.
The apartment was growing dim. Rakefet slept with her head thrown back. Ya’el seemed less worried now. “What did she want?” she asked. “What was the matter with her?” She put her to bed. Gaddi entered the children’s room too and lay down on his back, one hand on his chest. All at once the place seemed so untidy. The dirty teacups. Tsvi’s open suitcase. Kedmi went to the refrigerator and took out some chocolate to eat. “Have some,” he said. “Sweets to the sweet.”
“Dina and I will be in my bedroom for a while,” I said to Ya’el. “She wants to show me something.”
Ya’el and Kedmi went off to their room. Dina sat on my bed, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her legs, golden in their silk stockings, beneath her. She sat upright, her slender shadow a blur on the wall. My head was still spinning from the wine. She took a thick packet of closely written pages from her bag and looked at me glowingly.
“You’re the first,” she said softly.
“How come? Hasn’t Asi read it?”
“No.”
“But why not?”
She shrugged. A strange girl. Like a black candle burning with a bluish flame.
“Has something happened between the two of you?”
“What makes you ask?”
“I can feel it. It’s like there’s a tug-of-war between you. You haven’t said a word to each other all day.”
“That’s true. We haven’t been talking much.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just one of those things.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Not in this case.”
“But how long have you ... not been talking?”
“Since Wednesday.”
“Of last week?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s the day he went with me to the hospital!”
“Yes.”
“He must have come back in a bad mood. He had a hard time there. It wasn’t his fault.”
“Yes. I know. He told me that he hit himself in front of you.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes. I know all about it. But it isn’t that.”
“Then what is it?”
“I can’t tell you now.” She was suddenly impatient. “Are you ready to listen?”
“To listen?”
“Yes. To what I want to read.”
“Ah, you want to read it out loud....All right, that’s not a bad idea. If that’s what you’d prefer, fine. I’ll sit here. What’s the story called?”
“It has no name yet. But that’s not important ... you just have to promise to tell me what you really think...”
She took a pair of glasses from her bag and put them on, accenting her beauty even more. Solemnly she began to read in a slow, barely audible, slightly husky voice, her eyes glued to the text, a soft crease appearing in her pale forehead. Her prose was complex, its sentences long and involved. An eclectic style. Sometimes nouns without verbs. A Jerusalem evening seen through the eyes of a woman, a not so young secretary on her way home from the office, walking down a street, going into a bank, thinking of having a baby. Long descriptive passages that occasionally repeated themselves but had a definite sensuous tone of their own and a steady cadence, three or four beats to the phrase. Outside the window the sky was turning grayer. A cozy silence reigned in the apartment. Dina kept her thin, almost matchlike legs tucked beneath her and didn’t take her eyes off her manuscript, from which she read slowly and quietly, enunciating each word clearly, never once looking up, as though afraid to catch my glance.
“Excuse me, Dina. Perhaps we should turn on the light.”
She shook her head and went on reading.
I struggled to concentrate. The thought of the Tel Aviv apartment bothered me. If Asi let him sell it she would be left without a home, and then I’d be sent for again. There wasn’t a sound in the house. Suddenly I heard a hoarse gasp through the wall next to me ... was it Kedmi’s? I froze. They were making love, I could hear his voice whispering, “What are you doing to me?” No doubt of it ... and the passionate one, so it seemed, was Ya’el ... well, at least they had that much between them. I rose uncomfortably from my chair and went to stand by the window. Dina glanced up at me, annoyed at the interruption, her voice quivering in a light rebuke.
“Are you still listening? Should I go on?”
“Of course.”
And she did. The secretary, a nameless woman of about thirty who had once been briefly married, was planning to kidnap a baby and took a bus to some new section of Jerusalem to look for one. A description of it that sounded very much like the neighborhood in which Dina and Asi lived. She attached herself to a woman with a baby carriage and followed her into a supermarket. The descriptions grew more and more detailed.
On the other side of the wall the noises grew louder. Kedmi was snorting now. How like him to come like an animal. Had we not always felt, though, that Ya’el, for all her docility, had in her a tough, dark kernel of passion? She never even got through high school. The snorting sounds reached a comical crescendo. A lunatic scene. Afraid that Dina would hear, I crossed quietly back across the room and leaned my body against the wall to cushion the sound.
But she was too absorbed in her own bizarre story to hear anything. The flow of words didn’t stop. Descriptions of counters, of foods, of shopping lists. There was something undeveloped, held in, still juvenile about the emotions she was expressing but she definitely did have talent. The power to titillate with language, to let a plot slowly unfold. Only what was this fantasy of hers really about? What was she getting at?
Beyond the wall I heard Ya’el’s soft sobs and Kedmi’s devilish laugh. Dina took off her glasses and glanced up with a troubled look. I felt myself go red. She studied me severely, puzzled to find me standing with my back to the wall.
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“You’re still with me?”
“Of course I am.”
But my thoughts strayed. Don’t pin your hopes on me I said to her I’m not a stand-in for the man you don’t believe in and never will. And I can’t love the second woman any more than I do the first. A waste of time. And out of guilt you let her have it. Out of fear that you’d make a dreadful mess. Disgrace yourself. The tears formed a lump in my throat.
The woman quickly paid for two liters of milk and went to the checkroom, by the counter of which stood the baby carriage. With one motion she lifted the infant and hurried outside to the bus stop, where she boarded the first bus. A description of the sky. She changed buses, got off again, and climbed the stairs to her apartment. A thorough description of a stairwell, on which stood a bucket and a mop. She laid the kidnapped baby in her bed. More straightforward narrative, the pace quickened. But what a weird plot!
I sat down again in the chair. A small tuft of absorbent cotton lay on the floor and I picked it up absentmindedly and rolled it between my fingers. Strange as it was, Dina’s story moved me. She continued to read, her blue eyes deepening a shade, her soft breast rising and falling with her breath, her cheeks rosy with color, her voice growing stronger and more intense. A description of the night passed by the woman in her apartment with the crying, kidnapped child. Suddenly a knock on the door. An unexpected visit from her father, an old pest in a fedora, a slightly bohemian type. With a start I realized that he was partly modeled on me. The woman hid the baby in the bathtub. She turned the radio on full blast and finally managed to get rid of the old man.
My fingers were coated with
slime. I stared at them. The absorbent cotton oozed a living, sticky jelly that might have been a squashed butterfly or a worm. I shuddered. One of Gaddi’s cocoons must have fallen on the floor and was now crushed between my fingers. I hurried to throw it in the wastebasket and to wipe my hand on a piece of paper.
But Dina hadn’t even noticed. She went on with her obstinate narration, continuing the story. Days went by and the woman remained imprisoned in her little apartment, afraid to leave it for anything. Only at night did she venture out to get food. Time passed, no one came to look for the child, and little by little the suspicion dawned on her that it might be slightly retarded. An odd, messy denouement. Possibly symbolic. An ending that didn’t really end.
It was getting darker out. The day had turned. The pages rustled in Dina’s hands as she collected them, still avoiding my glance. She took off her glasses and stretched herself, a feverish glow in her cheeks.
“You were bored.”
“I most certainly was not!”
“Then talk!”
Confusedly I began to relate my impressions, analyzing the story like a student before a professor, telling her what I thought of it. She listened tensely, hanging silently on every word, her fingers playing with the edge of the blanket. I tried to be honest while also being careful what I said. “I’m overwhelmed.... Awfully moved.... You have great power.... I need to read it again.... The end isn’t clear.... Still unresolved....It needs more thought.... A slightly childish fantasy, but complex.... It’s true that there are repetitive passages, but there are also unforgettable descriptions, such as the one of the bucket and mop at the bottom of the stairs. ...And at the same time there’s something frightening about it. ...That moment when the father arrives and she puts the child in the bathtub....I was scared of her then, of what she might do...”
She looked up, intrigued. “You were scared of her? How odd!”
“Yes. For a moment I thought that she was going to kill the child.”
“Kill it?” She seemed amused. “And you never once felt sorry for her during the entire story?”
“Sorry? No ... something else ... I’ll have to think about it ...”
All at once she stood up radiantly, very satisfied, even blissful. She hugged and kissed me, pressing herself against me.
“And I was so afraid of what you would say...”
“You were afraid of me? But why, silly girl?”
“We’ll miss you a lot ... Tsvi was right ...”
I stood there distractedly stroking her cropped hair. Yes, parting was going to be harder than I’d thought. You’ve made a happy man of me today.
“The only one who doesn’t care is Asi...”
“Oh, no, he does too. He’s just too proud to admit it.”
All of a sudden she let go of me, ran to her bag, pulled out her pad, leafed through it, and wrote something down. So infantile. I looked down at my stained fingers, on which was smeared something shaped like a wing. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. A few more hours. And I had let Naomi have my share. Soon she would be free, might even remarry. Where does the thought keep coming from? On again off again. I washed my hands thoroughly, looking at myself in the dark mirror: the tired face, the dry, gray hair, the bloodshot eyes. I took my toothbrush and cleaned my teeth. Phantasmagoric. A few more hours. Perhaps I should shave, the flight would be a long one. And there dawn had broken by now. Connie was counting the hours. Not a young woman anymore and soon to have a child. And me with my bridges burned. Disinherited. Homeland why weren’t you a homeland. I left the bathroom and passed down the hall, peeking in on Gaddi, who lay open-eyed in bed with a suffering look on his face. I kissed him without a word and returned to my room. Dina was still on the bed in stockinged feet, her glasses back on, rereading her story, pleased as punch with it. An ambitious little thing. One of your do-nothing won’t-work don’t-want-children scribblers. He’d have his hands full with her. Fantasies. I went to the living room. The house like the still echo of a no longer thrumming bowstring. Outside it really was gray now. Maybe it would rain. I went to the bathroom to pee. My face shook and was gone in the dim toilet. What really do you want? Five million just like that as though it weren’t mine. Back in the hallway I bumped into Kedmi in his undershirt, drowsy, sour-smelling, sleep-disheveled, smiling to himself as he stepped into the bathroom.
I returned to my room. Dina was still too absorbed in herself to notice me. I bent over my valise and took out my passport and ticket, putting them in my pocket. I took out my last dollars too and stuck them in my wallet. I put on my jacket and hat.
“I’ll be right back. Tell Asa and Tsvi that I won’t be long.”
Some boys and girls in the blue shirts of a youth movement were drifting slowly down the street below. By the newsstand on the corner was a taxi stand. I jumped into the first cab, whose driver was a sullen-looking, middle-aged man. What time was it?
“Take me to Acre. I’ll direct you from there.”
He started the motor.
“Wait a minute.” I tapped him on the shoulder. “Will you take dollars?”
“Don’t you have any pounds?”
“I’m afraid not. But we’ll check the exchange rate in the paper. You won’t lose a cent.”
The taxi’s shadow bolted ahead of it. It headed downhill toward the bay and then took the main road running east. The traffic picked up. The city itself had been quiet but the roads were full of vacationers. At the old British checkpost outside of town we turned north to follow the curve of the bay, passing through its industrial zone and suburbs, the traffic lights slowing us up. The driver kept silent, and I was thankful that he didn’t turn on the radio. To my left, in the west, I caught sight of the sea, the last sunlight glinting off the foam of its strong, steady surf. Clearly visible behind us was Mount Carmel, massive and lush, a large cloud sinking over it. Pinkish light. The same now here as in Minneapolis. The cab picked up speed. Northward toward the minarets of Acre. We approached them and crossed some railroad tracks. The traffic kept getting thicker.
“Don’t drive through the town. Bypass it to the right”
“But where do you want to go?”
“I’ll guide you. Keep heading north past the town.”
“But where to?”
I told him the name of the hospital.
“So how come you didn’t want to tell me? What’s to hide?”
“I didn’t realize that you were familiar with the place.”
“Of course I am. You’re not the first fare I’ve taken there, and you won’t be the last.”
The taxi swung around Acre to the right. Soft pastel colors, a row of eucalyptus trees, stands selling wicker furniture. We passed the old railroad station with its freight cars gleaming in the waxing golden light of sunset. Dusty streets, Arabs selling pitas, cars backed up in a row. A crossroads. To the right the road ran eastward to the Galilee but we drove straight ahead. We crossed the railroad tracks where they swerved toward the sea, the western horizon all awash, the sun slipping free of the clouds, dropping as they rose. The taxi slowed. The traffic ground to a halt, cars honked. Something must have happened ahead. I leaned impatiently forward and glimpsed a pack of dogs blocking traffic while cars beeped their horns and tried to shoulder them off the road. At last we came to the yellow sign of the hospital and stopped to turn left, waiting for the line of southbound cars to pass. More dogs ran by wagging their tails, careening off the car and into the fields. Finally we turned into the narrow approach road that led to the hospital gate. Back again. For the fourth time this trip. Yesterday you were certain that you would never return. The sea. The sun at eye level near the horizon. The mountains at your back. In a few hours I would be taking off. The cottages. The trees like paper cutouts, a slender form standing by them in the brackish, yellow, crinkly evening light.
“Stop!” I cried.
The taxi slowed down.
“Stop right here, driver!” I said again, grabbing him by the shoulder. He turned
to me angrily.
“What’s wrong?”
By the distant gate I had made out Calderon’s white car and several figures standing by it. Tsvi, I recalled, made a point of never entering the hospital.
“Stop right here.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Wait for me here. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
“I can bring you right to the cottages. They always let me drive into this crazy house.”
“You needn’t bother. Stop here and wait. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, half an hour at the most. Can you wait?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because I once waited here for half the day for someone who was supposed to be coming right out. For all I know he’s still in there.”
“No, listen here, I’m not a patient ... I just have to deliver some document. Here, let me pay you for the return trip.”
“Keep it, mister. Pay me for coming here and for the wait. Let’s call it an hour.”
“That will be fine. Would you happen to know what time it is?”
The sunrays glance off the green dollar bills he holds them up to the light pretending to know what to look for. I get out and stride into the fields leaving the road behind me cutting through rows of young sprouts in the moist earth bearing traces of sand from the sea heading for the hole in the fence that the patients told me about. The yellowish light gives the sprouts a blue tint I’m walking through a sprouting sea on my right to the north the houses of a village. A tractor pulls a cart piled high with long irrigation pipes and drops them off at intervals in a field. Behind me my huge shadow plows the ground. Homeland why can’t you be a homeland. No fantasy then she wanted to kill me. Had she just gone mad I would have stayed to nurse her but she used her madness to settle old scores. I disappointed her? Wait till she sees what I do now. And there it’s morning Connie grinding coffee in her gadget-filled kitchen. A pregnant woman by herself she wonders how. I’ll take back what’s mine. I reach the old concrete wall festooned with dead vines looping up from its base an imposing barricade of barbed wire but where is the hole in it? All at once the wall stops but the gap is sealed with barbed wire too. Have I been misled? I press on. The wall resumes again it’s lower now the concrete yielding to ancient stones perhaps the ruins of a Roman aqueduct of the kind often found in these parts. I clamber up its broad stairlike headers there’s the hospital below me the lawns the paths even the little library. The parchment flying through the air. I turn to look at the black taxicab parked now in front of the railroad tracks next to Calderon’s car.
A Late Divorce Page 41