by Meir Shalev
Also by Meir Shalev
FICTION
The Loves of Judith
A Pigeon and a Boy
Fontanelle
Alone in the Desert
But a Few Days
Esau
The Blue Mountain
NONFICTION
My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner
Beginnings: Reflections on the Bible’s Intriguing Firsts
Elements of Conjuration
Mainly About Love
The Bible for Now
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Roni and Nomi and the Bear Yaacov
Aunt Michal
The Tractor in the Sandbox
How the Neanderthal Discovered the Kebab
A Louse Named Thelma
My Father Always Embarrasses Me
Zohar’s Dimples
A Lion in the Night
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Translation copyright © 2016 by Meir Shalev
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Schocken Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Israel as Shtayim Dubim by Am Oved Publishers Ltd., Tel Aviv, in 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Am Oved Publishers Ltd., Tel Aviv.
Schocken Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Shalev, Meir, author. Schoffman, Stuart, translator.
Title: Two she-bears : a novel / Meir Shalev ; translated from the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman.
Other titles: Shetayim dubim. English.
Description: New York : Schocken Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016001663. ISBN 978-0-8052-4329-1 (hardcover : alk. paper). ISBN 978-0-8052-4330-7 (ebook). ISBN 978-0-8052-4330-7 (export edition).
Classification: LCC PJ5054.S384 S5413 2016. DDC 892.43/6—dc23. LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/2016001663.
ebook ISBN 9780805243307
www.schocken.com
Cover images: (top) Jewish Refugee, Vienna by David Jagger (detail), Nottingham City Museums and Galleries/Bridgeman Images; (middle) Tree © CSA/iStock; (bottom) A Jewish Bride by Isidor Kaufmann (detail), private collection, photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images; (background) Kevin Clogstoun/Getty Images
Cover design by Janet Hansen
v4.1
ep
Contents
Cover
Also by Meir Shalev
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One: The Telephone Call
Chapter Two: Getting Organized
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six: Murder and Suicide
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight: The Magnificent Ox, the Wagon, and the Mulberry
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen: Insomnia
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen: The Shot
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty: A Woman and a Rifle and a Tree and a Cow
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five: The Caveman and the Fire
Chapter Twenty-six: The Wedding Night
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty: Travels with a Goat
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two: The Proof
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five: Neta and the Angel of Death
Chapter Thirty-six: The Birth
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight: This Is Revenge
Chapter Thirty-nine: The Shed
Chapter Forty: The Summer That Came After That Winter
About the Author
About the Translator
FOR AVRAHAM YAVIN
With love and thanks
ONE
THE TELEPHONE CALL
The cell phone rang. The tall, beefy guy peered at the screen and said to the woman across the table: “Gotta take this. Be right back.”
He went outside, trying to suck in his potbelly. He wasn’t accustomed to it, and it kept surprising him: images in the mirror, pressure on his belt, the reaction of his partner as he moved atop her body.
“Hello?”
The familiar voice replied, “I counted nine rings. You made me wait.”
“Sorry. I was in a restaurant and came outside.”
“We have a problem.”
“I hear you.”
“I will explain it to you intelligently and carefully, and you will attempt to respond the same way.”
“Okay.”
“You remember the nature walk we took?”
“This morning?”
“What did I just say? Intelligently and carefully. No times, no dates, no hours.”
“Sorry.”
“It was a nice walk.”
Silence.
“You didn’t hear what I said? It was a nice walk.”
“I heard you.”
“You didn’t respond.”
“You wanted intelligent and careful. Whaddya want?”
“What kind of language is that? Say: ‘What sort of response?’ ”
“Okay.”
“ ‘Okay’ is not enough. Say what I said.”
The young man contracted his belly and released it at once. “What sort of response?”
“You could have said whether you agree or disagree with what I said.”
“About what?”
“About our nature walk.”
“I agree. It was a very nice nature walk.”
“You should have answered immediately. Twice you made me wait. First the ringing and now the response.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t you ever make me wait.”
“Okay.”
“Do you remember where we relaxed at the end of the walk?”
“Sure do. In the wadi under the big carob tree.”
“What did I say? Intelligently and carefully. No times, no places, no names.”
“I didn’t say names.”
“You said ‘carob,’ no?”
The young man gently made a fist with his right hand and studied it. It was wrapped in a white bandage, and only his fingertips protruded. His eyes, small and close together, shut for a moment and opened, as from pain that recurs when its origin is recalled.
I visualize him in my mind. He stands outside the restaurant, considers his boots, lifts his left leg a little, rubs the shiny square boot tip on the right leg of his pants.
And I hear his interlocutor continue: “If you had only said ‘carob’—that’s one thing. Only ‘big’—not so terrible. But ‘the big carob,’ noun and adjective and the definite article—this is serving it up on a plate. Bon appétit, please eat. Not just any tree: a carob. Not just any carob, a big carob. And just not any big carob: the big carob in the wadi. This is a wording that limits the possibilities. This is why language was invented, so things will be clear. But for us, clear is very bad. Do
you understand?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Enough apologizing. Just pay attention.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now the point. The point is we forgot something there.”
“The gas gizmo you made us tea on?”
“More important.”
“The sugar spoon?”
“Would we be having a conversation like this about a spoon? Think back and remember. For once use your brain properly. Even a small brain can achieve results if operated correctly. And when you do remember what it is, don’t say it. Just say: ‘I know what you are talking about.’ ”
“I’m thinking.”
Silence.
“Again you’re making me wait.”
Silence.
“I remember. I know what you are talking about.”
“So go there, look for it, find it, and bring it to me.”
“How urgent?”
“If someone else finds it before us, it will be very bad.”
“I’m outta here in half a minute. Go looking with the flashlight.”
“A lost cause. That’s what you are. A lost cause. ‘I will go and look.’ Say it: ‘I will go and look.’ I want for once to hear you speak properly.”
“I will go and look.”
“And don’t make me mad anymore.”
“Sorry.”
“And don’t go there now with a flashlight. It’s dark now. Someone could see the light from far away. Go very early tomorrow.”
“First thing in the morning.”
“At dawn. And don’t park in the usual place. Find another spot, continue on foot, get there at first light, and start looking.”
“Okay.”
“How’s your hand?”
“Okay.”
“It hurts?”
“Less.”
“You put on a bandage?”
“Why would I?”
“So you shouldn’t get rabies.”
“Okay.”
“And let out your belly already. I can feel it without even seeing you. Go on, send your girlfriend home and go to sleep. You have to get up early tomorrow. She doesn’t need to know what time you leave.”
TWO
GETTING ORGANIZED
1
How harsh the revenge would be, and how simple it was to prepare. The avenger’s wife, standing behind him, saw and understood every detail, which reminded her of preparations for a hike, like the ones they had made together years before. Vigorously shaking out the backpack, which was glad to emerge from storage. Checking the laces on hiking boots that had all but abandoned hope. Roll call of buttons on the work shirt.
She also saw the differences: instead of the delicacies he took along to please her on those hikes of theirs, he now took a modest amount of simple food—slices of bread, hard-boiled eggs, unpeeled cucumbers, a container of sour cream. The word “ascetic” came quickly to mind.
And she noticed other details: He peeled the eggs here, in the kitchen of their home, lest telltale bits of shell be left in the field, revealing human presence. He paid no heed to the salami, a constant companion on those hikes, which yearned to come along. Its aroma would likely attract dogs, and after the dog its owner would likely appear. He’s making the Turkish coffee here at home, she observed, and pouring it into the old thermos. A campfire, a gas cooker, fresh coffee boiling, would be seen and heard and smelled from a distance.
And she remembered: Back then, on those hikes, he’d cook up the coffee on his tiny, meticulous fires. He boiled, stirred, and poured, served her with the gestures of a flirty waiter. They had a little coffeepot, with a long funny handle, which came with them on every hike. But now this too—Where is it? she suddenly wondered, twelve years since last seen—didn’t go into the pack.
She knew: Something big and terrible was about to happen. Revenge would be taken, blood would be redeemed, someone would die, maybe more than one. Nevertheless a smile dawned on her face, as if in sympathy with the coffeepot: Sooty and snubbed, he’s not taking you along? No big deal. He’s doing the same to me. Like David in the Bible leaving two hundred men behind as he unsheathed his sword, boiling with vengeance, to confront Nabal.
She drew a bit closer. Did he sense her? Did he still have that eerie ability to sense what was going on behind his back? Whether he did or not, he did not turn around, did not look at her. She came closer, keenly and pleasantly aware of the two-centimeter difference in their height, and smiled inside: There is no other husband in the moshava who is shorter than his wife, and surely no other who loves her for it.
Once, before the disaster that befell them, when they still walked together in the street—What a beautiful couple, everyone said—he would lean his head on her shoulder, in a role reversal that embarrassed people who watched them, but pleased and amused her. “It’s very important,” he kept saying back then, “to make your lover laugh.” In their Ten Commandments, which he wrote out and hung on the bedroom wall, the Third, Fourth, and Ninth were identical: “Entertain thy wife.”
Where’d he get that? she wondered when she first saw the words, and again now, in retrospect. Several years ago, on a particularly bad morning, she tore the commandments from the wall, ripped them up, and threw them in the trash. He did not write her new ones, and she did not forget the old ones—they still hang on the walls of her heart.
His back got so broad, she said to herself now.
On those hikes of theirs, they always walked side by side, but when the road narrowed to a path, she slowed down, so he could go first. She would look at his back, thin and boyish, and he would turn around and say to her, “Why’re you walking behind me? You lead.”
“I don’t know where.”
“Go with the trail, it’ll take you.”
“It’s not marked.”
“It is marked, but not by trail signs. It’s marked by footprints, trampled grass, stones moved from their normal place, shiny patches on the rocks. You just have to look and see. And it’s also marked by its own logic, that’s the most important thing. Trails have logic. If you comprehend it, you find the trail.”
“I’m on vacation today. I have no will to comprehend and no head for logic. You do the comprehending and I’ll enjoy the scenery.”
“Not a chance. I’ll walk behind you and look at your butt. It’s much more beautiful and I also deserve enjoyment.”
Though he was her husband, she gave him a look that mothers give to their adolescent sons: a look of puzzlement, hope, anxiety diluted by amusement and curiosity. She never had an adolescent son, and ever since the disaster she has known she won’t have one. But for many years she has been a teacher at the local high school and she knows the look that mothers give their young sons and she now gives her husband.
I feel fluttering inside. Have I any more sons in my body? Is there hope for me?
The beautiful biblical words tug the womb and the heart: “Could I have a husband tonight and bear sons?” A husband? My man? You?
2
They had done a lot of hiking. At first the two of them alone, later on with their son. First when he floated and tossed in her belly, later on wrapped in a homemade snuggly, dozing on her shoulder and breast, then in a baby carrier improvised by his father at the workshop of his army reserve unit. He stitched it together and bore it on his back, on this very back that now faced her.
Her tearful eyes were flooded with pictures. The son, a tiny cavalryman, riding on his father’s back. The father galloping, neighing like a horse, the mother hurrying after them: “Be careful! Please. He’s scared. He’ll fall. Be careful!”
But her prophecy did not come to pass. True, the child was frightened, but he enjoyed his fright, as children do. He laughed. He grew. Stood on his feet. Took his first steps. Fell as babies fall and got up again. His parents’ agility was apparent even then—in his step, his stance, his stumbles, his smile.
In the beginning they hiked with him nearby, in the scrubland of poppies and chrysanth
emums east of the moshava and the patches of pink flax on the hill beyond the avocado grove. Later to the little pond, hidden from the world, where they would head on a hot summer’s day and where her older brother had taught her to swim and dive when she was a girl. And when the son began to walk confidently they also took him to Grandpa Ze’ev’s wadi, which is what they called the wadi where his big carob tree stood—Grandpa’s big carob, to be precise.
There, in that wadi, she and her brother had hiked with their grandfather when they were children. There he taught them to identify wildflowers, to locate and gather their seeds. Under that carob tree he told them a story that later on she would write down for her son: the story about the prehistoric man who lived in the nearby cave, the one with the deep pit, where sometimes a wandering sheep or goat would fall in, and afterward there’d be an awful stench.
And from that wadi she would later hike with her husband to the gullies beyond, climbing and descending—“We hauled ass north,” he would say in his army slang—and go where they would not see another soul. They loved to make love outdoors and had their favorite secret places. And from there onward and upward to the top of the hill where they could see down the other side, which for them was a pleasantly familiar view, and for their son a strange and distant and inviting and wonderful world: Come closer, touch and smell, come and fill the cabinet of your memory.
And then the two of them, just the father and son, began to take hikes without her. “Hikes for guys,” he would say, and one day he even added: “Girls not invited.”