Pain

by Zeruya Shalev

  Only now does she notice how close they are to the interchange where her car awaits her, where he picked her up a few hours earlier, when she still hoped that she was wrong, that she was exaggerating. It seemed as if years have passed since then, how old they have both become. She supports him as he gets out of the car and when he manages to stand on his own by holding on to a tree trunk, he asks her to move away from him. He hates to vomit, she knows, but his body firmly rejects all the food he had enjoyed so much. A sour smell rises from the bushes as he heaves, absorbed by the smells of the night, blending with the scent of fig trees, hay, exhaust spewing from the cars straining to ascend the hill, smoke drifting from a distant campfire. The stomach-churning fumes of roasted meat, burnt blood, rise in her throat. For a moment, she feels as if her tongue, moving in her mouth almost uncontrollably, is turning into the hairy tail of the animal she was forced to swallow. She drops to her knees, her head spinning, and lets the lump that has accumulated in her stomach fly out of her mouth. Now we too are divesting ourselves of preconceptions, we don’t have to accumulate, we don’t have to adhere to anything.

  Like two pagans, they kneel on the main road under the black sky, offering up their vomit to the local gods, crying out for a miracle. He seems to be feeling a bit better, because he walks over to her with lighter steps. She hears them crushing dry branches on the rocky ground, but she can’t lift her head, it’s so heavy and painful. She too, it turns out, is made of stone, hewed out of rock, a rigid sculpture of a mother.

  Shaking, she drops onto the ground beside her vomit as if it is all she possesses, seized by agonizing contractions from head to toe. It was on exactly such a night that Alma was conceived. She knew that for a fact because Mickey was on reserve duty and her longing to become pregnant was so intense that she was thrilled to discover that his only day off was the day she could conceive. She wasn’t bothered by the memory of the night her father died, on the contrary, she actually hoped to erase that cursed memory by creating a tiny being just beginning to make its way in the world, to sweeten the world, at least their world. But now the taste of the world is horribly bitter in her mouth, as if she has been poisoned and is dying among the bushes.

  “Let’s go, Iris,” he says, his voice muted and distant, seeming to rise from the bowels of the earth. “Come on, we can’t stay here all night.” She tries to take the hand he holds out to her as she sways on her knees. They both reek as if they are rotting bodies left on the road after a hit-and-run accident that hurled them out of sight. Almost twenty-two years ago, they lay naked on their bed in their first apartment. They hadn’t seen each other for two weeks and the yearning they felt combined with her desire to conceive created the false impression of love. Showered and scented, lithe and lustful, they tried to fuse the gold of their love into a singular amalgam, and now they stumble to their car, heavy and rank, stiff and despairing. “I’ll wash the car tomorrow,” Mickey mumbles as he sits down at the wheel instead of her. All the way to the apartment, she turns those words over in her mind again and again, laughing wildly, “I’ll wash the car tomorrow.” There can be no better news than that, it seems to her, because there is no hope greater than that, there are no consoling words more profound than those.

  She’ll laugh even in her sleep, if she falls asleep at all. Alma’s bed repels her as if it is infested with dangerous germs, plague, boils, the slaying of the firstborn. Her daughter is sick, and how will she be healed? Only that morning, she lay there on those sheets and said, “I found myself in Jerusalem.” Who touched her on the way? Nausea rises in her throat again as she pictures the man in the white pants lying in this bed beside Noa and Alma, who lick his body from head to toe, purring like cats. She flees to the double bed, where Mickey, who has already come out of the shower, is lying with closed eyes. Tonight she prefers his snoring to the voices that rise from within her.

  “What will you do tomorrow, Mooky?” she asks him.

  “I’ll wash the car.”

  She laughs hysterically, as she did in the shower, and now again in bed, wrapped in a towel because she doesn’t have the strength to dry herself or put on a nightgown. He’ll wash the car, he’ll wash the car inside and out and everything will be fine. Maybe he’ll use the hose to wash Alma inside and out as well, cleansing her the way the dead are cleansed before burial, and then he’ll seal her orifices with wax. After all, she is in fact dead, it isn’t a rebirth but a living death. Her laughter dies and she burrows under the damp sheets, her teeth chattering, cautiously approaching the heavy body beside her.

  “There’s a whale in bed!” the children used to scream happily, pretending to be frightened as they fled. But now the whale radiates pleasant heat and she presses up against him, sheltered in the shadow of his sleep. Where are you now, the little girl who ran away from the whale? What animal have you found in your bed tonight? From a distance, those Saturday mornings in winter return to her, the children jumping around their bed in their pajamas, the house heated, and the smell of vegetarian cholent wafting through the rooms. Usually it didn’t end well, because Omer became too wild, but at first, you could still enjoy the warmth of their small bodies, the languidness of the morning when they didn’t have to hurry off, the naturalness of the family. How had Eitan put it—“You built a home and a family.” But she doesn’t want to think about him now or read the texts he sent. She can’t take comfort in him or yearn for him, can’t see him and can’t give him up, because of all the identities she has accumulated in her life, only one remains. She is Alma’s mother, and that identity does not suit him, she felt that strongly when she tried to tell Eitan about her. Nor does it suit her to be Alma’s mother at his side, but rather to be at the side of Alma’s father, because on those Saturday mornings when Alma jumped happily around their bed, her cheeks red with excitement and her brown hair covering her face, Mickey was beside her. She tries to imagine pushing Alma’s hair off her face, she wants to see her again, her glowing coal-black eyes, her pug nose and full lips, but when she is finally able to do so, she sees only an empty, featureless face and she cries out. She must have dropped off for a moment straight into a nightmare, and she flees to the living room, there’s a whale in bed!

  One by one, she takes dusty photo albums off the bookshelves above the couch—back then, they took the trouble to develop pictures and didn’t bury them in the computer—and until dawn, she watches her daughter grow from the day of her birth to adolescence, searching for the seed of the calamity. There was always a secret in her face, and now, in retrospect, it seems fateful. But things need to be seen for what they are, stripped of the fiery clothes the future clads them in. With compassion and horror, she caresses the still forming face, covers it with kisses, don’t worry, my sweet child, my poor little girl, you’re not alone, I’ll rescue you despite your protests. She feels as if she is working hand in hand with all the budding little girls in the pictures to triumph over the big girl who has grown from them.

  But how will she rescue her? Will she imprison her in the house, or whisk her away to Paris or Berlin? How will she separate them? If Alma truly loves him, the way she loved Eitan in her youth, or more precisely, the way she loves him to this day, how will she separate them? What can she offer her daughter that will be as powerful as what she is experiencing with him, the total loss of body and soul in a union larger and deeper than they are? A biscuit cake? A heart-to-heart with Mom? Shopping at the mall? All those trivialities that made her so happy when she was a child no longer affect her, and even then, her happiness was fragile. She suddenly remembers her sixth birthday, the small surprise party they gave for her at home for only the immediate family, the grandmother and the still-single uncles. The living room was filled with balloons, a tempting pile of gifts lay on the couch, the cake was covered with decorations and candles, and even little Omer was calm. But when she came in—Mickey brought her from her ballet class straight to the surprise—and the light came on and everyone leaped to
ward her singing and shouting “Happy Birthday,” she stood unsmiling at the entrance to the living room in her pink tutu and ballet shoes. It was clear that, although she wanted to, she was unable to be happy because she hadn’t performed well in class and couldn’t overcome her disappointment to make room for her birthday party. Iris clearly remembers the dawning, depressing awareness that her ability to make her daughter happy was already quite limited.

  Until that moment, she had thought that if she agreed to buy her ice cream or gum, that if she took her to a movie or a playground, she’d be totally happy the way only small children can be. But it turned out that twenty balloons, five presents, a cake with candles, and a loving family could not erase her disappointment in herself. With tears in her eyes, she sat down on her special, decorated birthday chair, sorry as well about the disappointment she was causing all the guests. It was obvious that the gathering, which she absolutely did not want then, nearly doubled her sorrow, and Iris felt almost angry with her. We took so much trouble to do this for you and you don’t even deign to smile. Now too, her anger flares up momentarily, after all we gave you, you’re taken in by some sleek charlatan who spouts endless streams of nonsense the likes of which I have never heard before and you’re ready to put your life in his hands. But her anger quickly turns into compassion and concern; after all, the fact that she has fallen so hard means that her distress is so deep. This is not the time for anger, but rather for action. She knows there are experts in the field, but she prefers to try by herself, to do everything to bring Alma close to her, to gain her trust, without judging or criticizing, and then to slowly spread doubt in her mind. It will take time and she may fail, but she will devote every minute, every fiber of her being, to the attempt. On the dawn of this new day, already blazing and blinding at its outset like a baby born an adult, she understands that her life has changed. Not only has her daughter lost her freedom, but she has lost hers as well, because her daughter has fallen ill with an acute disease, and until she is healed, she will be enslaved to her. But unlike parents enslaved to their sick children, taking them for treatments and seeing to their every need, she must do it with cunning, with deception, behind her daughter’s back and against her will.

  It is in the intense light flooding the living room that her eyes finally close, but the sound of a phone ringing insistently wakes her. Who is calling Mickey at five in the morning? Is there a glitch in the system again? With barely open eyes, she walks toward the sound. Where did he leave his cell phone and what secrets will she find in it? Only yesterday her truth was left bare at home, and this morning it’s his. She manages to pull the phone from his pants, which are hanging on the bedroom door, at the precise moment it stops ringing, and the name on the screen both frightens and calms her.

  “Mickey, Alma wants to talk to you,” she says, shaking his shoulder.

  He opens dull eyes and reaches out for the phone. “Hello,” he mumbles sleepily.

  “She hung up already, call her back.”

  He sits up heavily and leans against the wall. “I don’t know what to say, you talk to her.” His bitter breath wafts toward her.

  “But she wants you, not me,” she protests just as her phone rings on the living room table, and she hurries to answer it. “Alma?” she blurts breathlessly before checking the name, “Alma, is that you?”

  In the silence, she hears a low male voice. “Rissi, I’m worried about you, you didn’t get back to me. Are you okay?”

  She hears Mickey approaching, ears perked to hear the conversation with their daughter. “Put it on speaker,” he says, and she ends the call immediately. It never occurred to her that it would be Eitan, he never calls at this hour, and now she has no choice but to call Alma, to avoid arousing suspicion.

  She is so relieved when her daughter answers that she says cheerfully, “Hi, Alma, we were cut off,” as if they were in the middle of a cheery conversation.

  “What are you talking about?” her daughter barks. “I called Dad, not you. What was that visit all about? What right do you have to follow me? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  Her voice is so frigid that Iris can barely find words. “We’re not your enemies, Alma, we love you, we worry about you.” But the words that only a few minutes ago were whispered in her ear cause her daughter to end the conversation she doesn’t want, just as she herself did a moment ago, and she sinks onto the couch hopelessly. “You try,” she says to Mickey as he sits down beside her, dropping his phone on the table, “you’re the one she wanted to talk to.”

  “I don’t know what to say to her,” he repeats in frustration.

  But she insists, “She’ll do the talking, don’t worry, the important thing is to maintain contact.” He sighs, but in the end does what she wants.

  “Hi sweetie,” he says, “are you okay?…What do you mean, ambush? We came to see you, we were sure you’d be there, and meanwhile we heard a little bit about the place, about the spiritual work you’re doing. We were very impressed.” His voice is convincing, and Iris listens in admiration, surprised he can pretend so well. She never actually saw him do it before. Does he also pretend this well with her? Does he know that she is keeping a secret from him, and is he keeping one from her? Heavy-handed, slightly clumsy Mickey, who speaks little, is breezing through a conversation that she, with all her educational experience, was unable to have. In the end, he even manages to persuade their daughter to come home in the next few days and tell them more about the important spiritual work she is doing.

  “Hats off to you,” she says, accompanying her words with the doff of an imaginary hat. “Well done, Mooky, I’m very impressed.”

  But he doesn’t let the compliment turn his head. “She doesn’t sound good, Iris, she’s completely brainwashed.” With a sigh, he stretches out on the large couch, crossing his arms on his chest. “I’m having a hard time breathing, I won’t go to work today.”

  “Of course you won’t. Let’s go to the emergency room, we have to check this out.”

  “No, it’ll be okay,” he replies dismissively. “I’ll go to the clinic later.”

  He lies silently on the couch in his underpants, a beached whale, breathing heavily, his skin smooth and tan, his thighs pressed together and his crossed ankles looking like a huge fin. His lids flutter over his closed eyes and he doesn’t see Omer come out of his room with his usual morning sourness, his Mohawk jutting up from his head.

  “What happened to Dad?” he asks angrily.

  “We got home late last night and he’s very tired,” she says.

  Omer eyes her suspiciously. “You look wiped out too. This family is falling apart, isn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, he adds, “Make me two sandwiches today, okay? And give me some money, I have a civics final after lunch.”

  “Oh, right, I completely forgot.”

  “You’ve been forgetting me a lot lately, Mom,” he says, looking down at her.

  When did he grow so much? She’s losing him, the anxiety once again churning in her stomach, she’s losing him and soon he’ll be in the army. She picks up a sharp knife and cuts the still-frozen rolls in half. “Sorry, Omer, these things happen sometimes.”

  “It’s okay Mom, I don’t take it personally. Just tell me if you need help from me.” He turns his beautiful back to her and goes to his room to get dressed, and she follows him with her gaze. When did he grow up so much, and not only physically, when did he turn into such an impressive young man?

  She did it, she succeeded with him, and on this morning in particular, she realizes that she can feel pride, not only failure. She succeeded, and soon they will be forced to part, the army will take him. Is that why she devoted herself to him more than to Alma? Is that what this country does to mothers, raising their sons in the shadow of a sense that their time with them is limited? Or is it only her, whose father was taken from her by war? She beats the eggs furiously, what does o
ne have to do with the other? He was just the kind of boy who required special efforts, it had nothing to do with the country or the army, she thinks, shaking her head again and again over the yellow liquid that is now solidifying and bubbling in the frying pan. She gave him more because he demanded more. Did he demand more because she allowed him to? Does the country demand more because its citizens allow it to? Good luck on your civics test, son, I passed my test with you beyond all expectations. She stuffs the hot omelet into the frozen rolls, wraps them quickly and puts them on the table. Her efforts bore fruit, and the Israeli Defense Forces, which devoured her father’s scorched body, will devour that fruit hungrily as well. But why get ahead of herself, he hasn’t even received his first induction order yet.

  As she is dressing quickly, the smell of something burning spreads through the apartment. Smoke is rising from the frying pan. Omer reproaches her patronizingly, “Where’s your head, Mom, you didn’t turn off the gas!” He likes to see himself that way with her, strong and firm. She was omnipotent for too many years.

  “What luck, Omer, you saved us,” she says.

  “I mainly saved Dad,” he quips, “we’re on our way out.” They both look at Mickey lying on the couch immobile, only his eyelids still fluttering.

  She goes over to him, puts her hand on his forehead, and says, “How do you feel, Mooky?”

  “A little better,” he mumbles, “but I won’t be able to wash the car today, Iris, I’m really sorry to disappoint you.”

  She says softly, “I’ll get over it, but only if you go to the clinic.”