Pain

by Zeruya Shalev

  “Enough, Dafna.” Iris shakes her head. “Let it go. I don’t understand why you were so anxious to see me today if you have absolutely no patience. What happened? Where’s your head? Something wrong at work?”

  “The truth is that I wanted to see where your head is. You don’t return calls, don’t answer messages. Who would have believed that you have a lover!”

  Iris hurries to correct her. “I don’t have a lover, Dafna. Eitan isn’t a lover, he’s the love of my life, do you understand? He’s closer to me than anyone has ever been. I almost died when he left me. And now everything is coming alive again, do you understand?

  “I understand mainly that you’ve lost your mind. Eitan was your first love, but that doesn’t make him the love of your life. Look, you’ve lived most of your life without him! Everything you’ve done with yourself since you were seventeen has nothing to do with him. You’re not the girl you were then. You’re on the verge of menopause, sweetie.”

  “So what are you trying to say,” Iris mumbles uncomfortably. “It’s hard for me to follow. Let’s order already.” Through the open windows she can see the wall of the Old City illuminated by golden light. How beautiful this new place is—the always up-to-date Dafna suggested it. Would she ever be able to come here openly with him?

  “I’m saying that you should enjoy it, but don’t do anything stupid.” Dafna moves her head closer, the ends of her blond hair dancing on her high forehead. “Have your affair, but be smart about it, don’t hurt anyone, don’t make any radical moves.”

  “I understand you,” Iris says in annoyance. Every one of her friend’s words angers her tonight. “But why? Of course we have to wait, but if after a few months I feel that this really is the love of my life, then I have to make a radical move. You said it yourself, not to wait until I’m eighty.”

  But her friend shakes her head firmly. “I don’t think, Iris, that this is really the right time—”

  Iris interrupts. “You did it when you had a four-year-old girl, which is a lot harder. My kids are grown up and living their own lives. Many couples separate at this stage, after they’ve finished raising their children.”

  “You never finish raising them,” Dafna says. “Shira still calls me twenty times a day. The family will always be important to them. When Omer is in the army, he’ll need a stable home behind him, and Alma still needs it. Maybe more than you know.”

  “What do you mean?” She tenses just as the waitress approaches to tell them about the specials. It seems to her that Dafna is deliberately keeping the girl there with all sorts of pointless questions, in order to avoid explaining the phrase that is reverberating in her mind—maybe more than you know, maybe more than you know.

  “What do you know that I don’t?” she almost shouts as soon as the waitress is gone.

  Dafna shushes her. “Calm down. Not much, only that she’s drifted away from Shira recently, sets a date to see her and then cancels, things like that. Shira’s a bit worried.”

  “She’s like that with me too,” Iris blurts out. “It’s become much worse since she started working in Tel Aviv. And she hardly ever comes home. So you see, she doesn’t need me or the family at all. I gave her what I could, she’s not interested in getting anything from me. And Omer is completely involved in his own things. He’ll hardly notice if I leave the house. The truth is that Mickey will hardly notice either.”

  “That’s what you think,” Dafna says with a chuckle. “But family is more than that, more than Mickey, Alma, Omer and their situation at this particular moment. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. When I was young, I didn’t understand that, but now it’s clear to me. And the alternative is also clearer to me now. How long will this excitement last? A year at the most. And then all that’s left for you is to grow old with him, with all the complications of his family and yours, and the guilt and disappointment. It’s inappropriate, it’s pathetic, it’s like older women who wear young girls’ clothes.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Iris says, angry once again. “There are many cases of late love that work out. There are endless numbers of men and women who break up families for less than what I have. Do you even understand what kind of love this is? It’s the deepest love there is, it’s a relationship that died and has suddenly come back to life. Imagine that you meet someone you were sure had died, someone you had mourned for years. Do you understand what a miracle that is?”

  As she speaks, she too begins to understand the enormity of what has happened to her. She becomes agitated and breathless, suddenly afraid that she hasn’t completely realized it until now and has already lost part of it, because the relationship was so natural that they adapted to it too quickly. It’s natural for her to talk with Eitan, natural for her to make love with Eitan, and that naturalness has turned the miracle into something almost routine. She wonders if the miracle she wished for on all her birthdays had actually happened and her father had suddenly come back to her—would she have grown used to that too quickly as well? But her father’s return did not come with a price and Eitan’s does, which is what causes her friend’s expression to darken and her brow to furrow in displeasure as she listens to Iris’s emotional words.

  “I don’t believe in miracles,” Dafna says, “and I don’t believe in great loves either anymore. Naturally there has to be a strong affinity, but in the end, it’s all about hard work. In that sense, Mickey is right for you. There’s something stable about him, reassuring. I wouldn’t give up on him so easily.”

  “He’s so reassuring,” Iris repeats sarcastically, determined to tarnish his image. “He won’t even kill a cockroach for me when I’m about to faint. You should see how gently he tries to toss it out the window. What you see as stability looks to me like apathy.”

  “There’s no point in arguing with a woman in love,” Dafna says with a smile, “and what do you even know about that walking miracle of yours? Is he a fierce warrior against cockroaches, for example? Give me facts, not impressions. Is he married? Does he have kids? How serious is this for him?” When Iris tries to be precise about facts, Dafna shakes her head skeptically and says, “On the surface, it’s convenient that he’s single, but not necessarily a good sign. Something here looks too easy, but maybe I’m wrong. It’s just a gut feeling. Speaking of guts, where’s the food we ordered?”

  “Our waitress just went into the kitchen now. You kept her here with that interrogation of yours. Tell me, don’t you find it depressing that every good thing immediately makes us suspicious? As if we’ve lost all hope that life could be happy?”

  But her friend is busy looking for her phone, which is shrieking in her huge handbag, and she is not receptive to her thoughts. “Hi, Shirush,” she smiles at the cell she finally pulls out of her bag. “What’s happening? Did he answer you? No, you definitely cannot text him again. Of course he got your message, there were no breakdowns in the network. You have to control yourself! Listen for a minute,” she says, trying to interrupt the emotional monologue so typical of her daughter. “I’m sitting with Iris now. Do you want to talk to her?”

  Iris looks at her in surprise. What’s going on here, what are they hiding from her? She reaches out for the phone, but the call has ended, Shira cut it short, which is not like her.

  “What’s going on here?” a tense shout bursts from her mouth, and she covers it. “What was Shira supposed to talk to me about?”

  Dafna hesitates. “That’s why it was so important to meet today, Iris. I told you that Shira was worried. Yesterday she went to the bar and Alma practically threw her out, claiming that her boss didn’t like it when girlfriends came by. She says that Alma looks weird, but you know Shira, she always exaggerates.”

  “So what are you telling me, that I shouldn’t think about myself for even a minute?” Iris hears herself whispering aggressively. “—that if I forget for one minute that I’m a mother, I’ll pay for it? What am I sup
posed to do now? Hire a private detective to follow her? Give up on the chance of love, the only chance I’ve ever had, for her sake?”

  “Oh, Iris, you sound really deranged. Where is all this pathos coming from? You’re not supposed to give up on love or hire a private detective. You’re just supposed to keep your eyes open. It’s like in your school, you have to worry about everyone all the time. And you’re good at that. Didn’t you win the education award last year?”

  “I’m sick and tired of education. The only thing I care about now is love.”

  “So go make love,” Dafna grumbles. “Why are you wasting a night on me? Go, I’m your alibi until morning.”

  “I love you too, Dafi, and besides, he’s with his kids tonight.”

  Dafna shakes her head. “See? It’s not simple! You want to hurt your children for that? So you can make omelets for kids who aren’t yours?”

  “What’s all this talk about omelets lately? You don’t understand. I’m so much in love with him that I’m ready to change their diapers if I have to.”

  “Great, because soon you’ll have to diaper him too. How many good years can you have left together? He’s not young anymore, and old men are a bitch.”

  Iris protests immediately, “Like Mickey isn’t aging too? Did you happen to bump into his potbelly recently? And Gidi isn’t exactly the picture of eternal youth.”

  “Right,” Dafna laughs, “but we’re used to them, don’t you see the difference?”

  “Mainly I see the miracle that happened to me. I can’t let him go.”

  “It’s not that I don’t understand you,” Dafna placates her, “I was once in love with Gidi like that, and in less than a month after meeting him, I took Shira and left the house. That’s exactly why I’m more realistic, because in the end, I’m not sure that all the suffering was worth it. The crazy love ends quickly, that’s a law of nature. So if it comes easily—why not? Go for it! But to leave a husband and children? Definitely not.”

  “With all due respect for your experience with Gidi, there are other possibilities.” Iris always thought that her friend made a mistake when she chose that loud, controlling man, and she secretly hoped they would separate, which they decide to do almost monthly after a heated argument. But they always make up a short time later and neither of them can remember what their latest fight was about. The one who paid the heaviest price was Shira, who shuttled back and forth between their house and her father’s. He also remarried, and a stepparent who was not especially happy about her presence lived in each house. Perhaps that’s why she hasn’t been able to separate from her mother to this day, and here she is, calling again.

  “He texted me!” Shira’s joyous voice booms from the phone even though the speaker is not on. “He asked if I wanted to go out with him tomorrow night. What should I tell him?”

  “Text him that tomorrow you can’t,” Dafna instructs her in a serious voice.

  Shira protests, “But I can! I’m free tomorrow night!”

  “Of course you can, and you’ll definitely have lots of other free nights if you keep on being so eager.”

  But Shira revolts and replies defiantly, “I’ll tell him that I can see him tomorrow. He’ll be hurt if I say no and he won’t try again.”

  “Do whatever you want,” her mother says, shrugging. “Just don’t come crying to me after he runs away too.”

  Iris reaches out impatiently and takes the phone from her friend, who doesn’t object. “Shira’le,” she says, “sorry for mixing in. Do what you feel and stop asking your mother for advice.”

  Shira, immediately ready to look to her for support as well, asks hopefully, “So I should go out with him?”

  “Definitely!” Iris replies. “If it’s the real thing, you don’t have to play games, and if it isn’t, no game will help. Now I want to hear the whole truth about yesterday. What happened in Alma’s bar?”

  “That’s just it, nothing happened,” Shira says evasively. “But there are bad rumors about that place. That’s why I went there, but she practically threw me out.”

  “What rumors, exactly? You have to tell me everything you know.”

  “Maybe there’s nothing to it, but they say that the boss, that Boaz, controls the girls who work for him, like a kind of guru? Takes them away from friends and family? A little bit like a kind of cult?”

  The phone drops out of Iris’s hand when she hears the explicit word, and Dafna bends to pick it up and continue the conversation with her daughter, who already regrets giving the upsetting information. “It’s good that you told her,” she supports her. “Alma has parents and they have to know. That’s what a good friend should do, not show blind loyalty but offer good judgment. And I advise you to use good judgment about tomorrow night too.”

  Iris is only dimly aware of their goodbyes, images float before her eyes, connected one to the other. Two little girls dancing ballet in a crowded hall, Shira a head taller than Alma, a bit clumsy, her skin fair, Alma thin and dark. Neither moves very well, both will soon drop out of the class, but in that eternity that follows the terrifying words, they dance and dance, their hips not yet curved, their chests still flat, smiling at each other as they strain to be precise. For a moment, she thinks she can freeze the scene, she and Dafna sitting beside each other, Omer the baby in her arms and Dafna pregnant, Shira not yet a neurotic young woman and Alma not yet lured into a cult. A cult! What exactly does that mean? Is he the one who told her to cut her hair, dye it black, seduce Omer’s friends? What else has he told her to do? Nausea rises in her throat and she clenches her lips. Dafna puts an arm around her shoulders and whispers reassuringly, “It’s not the end of the world, Iris. Shira is probably exaggerating a little, and if Alma really is in any trouble, you’ll get her out of it.”

  “How will I get her out of it?” she says with a groan, her breathing labored. “She isn’t Shira, who reports everything and does what she’s told. Alma’s a tough nut! I can’t even talk to her, I have no influence over her! Neither does Mickey, even though he’s sure they have a great relationship. I don’t know what to do with this information, how to verify it, where to start.”

  “Tonight you should just go to sleep. You’re in no condition to do anything. But tomorrow you have to talk to Mickey and make some kind of plan. There are experts in things like this, but I actually trust you. The main thing is not to attack her and not to do anything that will push her even further away. Try to be accepting.”

  “Yes, we’ll go to see her,” Iris mumbles. “I’ve wanted to go there for a while now to see how she lives. We’ll go to the bar after work, see that Boaz, and mainly he’ll see us, he’ll see that she isn’t some waif whose mind he can control, that she’s a girl who has parents who look out for her, parents who have—how did Eitan put it—built a home and a family.”

  TWELVE

  “I won’t get up and drive to Tel Aviv because of some hysterical rumors,” he says angrily and turns his back to her. “What’s going on with you? Those pills have made you completely crazy!” He’s trying to belittle her so that the rumors she is handing him this morning will shrink as well, fighting her in an effort to eradicate the upsetting news.

  She wakes him up with Shira’s story after tossing and turning all night, every movement painful, stabbing, as if pebbles were strewn on the mattress. Here’s a good-morning story for you, who’s the good guy in it and who’s the bad guy, a wake-up story about a young girl in trouble. But it’s always so difficult to wake him, she recalls angrily. Your daughter’s in trouble and you’re asleep, your daughter has fallen into the trap of a slimy guru and you’re sleeping. What does that say about you? He’s still in bed, always finds it hard to get up in the morning, constantly fights the alarm clock. Who knows, maybe his entire life has been a failure because of that weakness, maybe that’s why he hasn’t advanced enough at work even though he was an excellent computer student, w
hy he has never moved up to a managerial position. It seems to her now, as she stands angrily facing his unmoving back, that he rose early only once in his life, unwittingly resulting in her being injured.

  He was already dressed when she woke up, as if he hadn’t even undressed, as if he hadn’t slept at home that night, standing in front of her in that mustard-colored jacket. Why, in fact, did he wear that jacket on that morning? After all, this isn’t Europe where it can rain in summer, it’s a country of endless dry sunshine where only at night do you occasionally need a jacket in their city. Maybe he came home in the early hours and was still in his clothes?

  Where’s that jacket?” she asks suddenly, “I haven’t seen it in years.”

  To her surprise, he understands and answers immediately. “It got too small for me a long time ago, so I gave it to Shula, for her husband.” She turns away from him, goes into the kitchen, and brews fresh coffee. How difficult it is to isolate a single moment in your life, this moment, for example, because it is always joined by another moment. Anger is joined by anger, worry by worry, and in the transparent morning light, events join together in a thorny, merciless chain. He wore the mustard-colored jacket, he hurried to work because of a breakdown in the system, Omer wasn’t ready on time, she offered to take the kids in his place and sent him on his way, Omer hid in the bathroom and Alma wanted a half-ponytail, so they left home a bit late, she went to the wrong place at the wrong time and was seriously injured, Alma never recovered from her injury and in her turn went to the wrong place. But that chain of events can be joined together in a different order that will give them a different meaning.

  She married that large, persistent boy out of gratitude and a profound sense that they shared a common fate. She felt too hurt to fall in love, so she never gave him a chance, and even worse, never intended to give him a chance. No wonder he tried to find love in another place, at another time, which unfortunately was the time when people who turned themselves into walking bombs roamed city streets, trying to send as many human beings as possible to their deaths, including her. Alma, who only wanted a half-ponytail that morning, didn’t pay the price for the cruel, hundred-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but for Eitan’s cruel abandonment, because it was Eitan Rosenfeld’s daughter that her mother had wanted so passionately to give birth to. That’s the reason Alma, like her father, was not given the chance she deserved, that’s the reason she distanced herself from her mother, why she hasn’t taken better care of herself. But it is possible to build a different chain of events that began with the death of her father, or even earlier, with her parents’ mating, which was commemorated by an unplanned pregnancy and an unplanned death, leaving her to grow up alongside a hardworking, hard-hearted mother who was blind to her emotional needs, which prevented her from maturing into a proper mother to her own daughter, which pushed her daughter into the arms of that man who was—how had Shira put it—like a kind of guru, like a kind of cult leader?