by Meir Shalev
My cheeks burned. I felt I was blushing.
“You said no one uses that old camera anymore. So let me have it.”
“It’s yours. No problem.”
“So we have a deal?”
“I have one more condition,” I said. “I want to be with you in the darkroom when you do it. I want to watch.”
“Totally okay. Saturday?”
On Saturday, when I went to their house with the camera in hand, there were two cars parked across the street, of the type we call city-people cars. Miri and Haim sat under their pecan tree with two couples eating pecans, which is what visitors here are generally served. “Eat, eat, they’re from our tree,” which in our language means: Eat, eat as many as humanly possible, because these pecans are coming out of our ears, but we don’t want to throw them out.
Incidentally, Varda, as an expert on the history of the Yishuv you ought to know that this is why we came to the Land of Israel and drained the swamps, fought battles, plowed, built, and established—so that at the end of the day the Jewish people would sit, everyone under his vine and fig tree, and eat pecans.
I somehow get the feeling you’re trying to make fun of me, Ruta, but continue, it’s completely fine.
I entered the Maslinas’ yard with Eitan’s camera in my hand. Miri Maslina gave me a sour look, but Haim Maslina stood up with that unctuous family smile dripping from his lips: “What did we do to deserve such a guest?” Saying to the visitors, “This is Ruth Tavori, Ofer’s teacher. She lives next door but never comes to visit the neighbors. Just look at her. In all the schools of Tel Aviv there’s no teacher like this.”
And he yelled out, “Ofer, come quick! You have an important visitor!”
Ofer came out of their old shed, a wise and good-natured boy, who will never forget my crazy outburst of a few minutes later. It didn’t happen at the very start, when I went with him into the shed, and not when he turned on the red light and opened the camera and carefully removed the film, nor when he developed it, but only afterward, when he inserted the photo paper into the chemicals and it was covered in blotches that became rocks and stones and acacia trees and a white wadi and a solid little six-year-old boy with a serious expression. Here you are. Neta. Where were you these last four years? Where were you? Where did you go?
He looked at me from the deep and I—champion diver, not just four minutes but four years underwater now—did not pull him out.
My knees buckled. I felt almost like that evening when Dovik came and told me, “Ruta, I have something really terrible to tell you.” I was so weak I had to lean on someone, and that’s what I did. I leaned on the closest person beside me. I grabbed him tight. Held on like I was drowning. Not like a life preserver or crutch, but as a living creature, warm, breathing, flowing with strength and blood.
I held on to him, this sweet embarrassed boy, hugged him, and started to shout and scream. My screams came not from my throat but from my innards, my guts, my womb. I shouted, I cried, and I hugged and kissed him and screamed again and again. Terrible, it was terrible. A student should not see and hear a teacher in such a state. A child should not see and hear an adult in such a state. A person should not see and hear another person in such a state. Believe me, Varda, the whole thing took no more than ten seconds. The blink of an eye for a historian like you, but ten seconds can be very long, and I cried and screamed everything I didn’t cry and scream for the four years that Neta was inside the camera, because in general I’m not much of a crier, not at all. For ten seconds I shouted and cried and hugged him and then I let go of him and I fell silent and found the door and escaped. I didn’t go out into the street, I ran from their yard straight into ours.
I remember: I ran like a madwoman. The light and the tears blinded my eyes, but I could see. Miri and Haim Maslina still sat by the garden table with their city guests and pecans, their faces shocked and scared. My screams had preceded me. Left the shed before I did, hard not to hear.
I said and explained nothing. I ran. Those poor guests surely had no idea what had happened. Guests from the city always think that in the moshava, with what my first husband used to call its chirping flowers and flowering birds, the local people are happy and serene, with garden tables, garden chairs, the garden itself, mown grass, visitors, pecans, crackers, and a ball of cheese. You remember that ritual, serving a ball of cheese? Here in our moshava we still do it. If there’s one thing worse than pecans, it’s a ball of cheese, and even worse are several cheese balls—one pepper and one garlic and one paprika and one, the worst, basil. Casus belli, Varda, this means war.
The next day Haim came, like a slimy snake, holding a brown envelope.
“We were pleased that Ofer helped you with the pictures,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No harm done. These things happen,” he said.
“I must have embarrassed you in front of your guests from the city.”
“We were a bit surprised by your screaming, even frightened, but afterward, when we saw that the pictures were of Neta, we understood. We phoned and explained to our friends, who, by the way, got up and left a few minutes later.”
“What did you explain?”
“That Ofer’s teacher had a child, and the tragedy that happened, and that Ofer developed his pictures. The truth, Ruta.”
He handed me the envelope. “Here they are, Ofer printed them for you. And here are the negatives too. All yours, we kept nothing. And Ofer is sorry too and asked to tell you that he apologizes and will give you back the camera you gave him. Something in it needs fixing and it should be cleaned inside. He’ll do all that and give it back. And we apologize if for a moment we had the wrong idea.”
“Why give it back? Apologize for what?” I said. “He has no reason to apologize. I need to. And the camera is his, I promised it to him. He helped me and I apologize for what happened.”
But Haim did not give in. There’s a point in the life of every shithead when he realizes that’s what he is, and decides to act that way.
“When we heard your screams from his lab, we didn’t know what to think,” he said, “but Ofer explained it to us later, and we understood, so from our point of view everything is all right now, really, it’s all right, Ruta.”
I didn’t answer him, and he, uninvited to do so, suddenly sat down.
“Ruta,” he said, “our two families go back a long way. Neighbors in good and bad times for seventy, eighty years. I know all kinds of stories and you know all kinds of stories, and they aren’t necessarily the same exactly, but I was simply shocked that maybe God forbid another terrible story was beginning here.”
I didn’t understand what he was getting at. “I’m telling you again,” I said, “that I’m sorry for what happened. And the truth is, I knew that maybe I would see Neta in those pictures, and I prepared myself. Four years that camera waited in my house with the film inside. I didn’t dare throw it away and didn’t dare touch it. It was like another grave of his, you understand? How can you open the grave of a son? He’s inside of it. But at the parent meeting, when you told me Ofer has this hobby and a darkroom, I decided to ask him to open it. And then, when I saw Neta’s face emerging on the paper, an illusion of lifelike movement, of return—for a moment he’s alive and then dies again, becomes a picture. And because it was happening in water, and in the dark, it was like the netherworld. I lost it.”
“But Ofer said you hugged him, you kissed him.”
“Haim, really. It’s not the way it sounds. I had to lean on someone, and Ofer was the only person there with me. I needed sturdy support, I needed closeness.”
“Too bad it wasn’t me standing there.” He chuckled.
I didn’t understand. Apparently I didn’t want to.
“I know it’s not okay,” I said. “I know I’m his teacher and he’s my student, I’m a grown woman and he’s a youngster, but believe me, it was nothing. I hugged him, it’s true, the way a drowning person hugs the one who saves him.
”
“Funny you should mention drowning and saving, like on that class trip you took to the Sea of Galilee.”
My body tensed at once. I felt myself getting angry. “What are you saying, Haim, where are you going with this?”
“Not going anywhere. You think I’m going somewhere? I’m only asking. This is my son, I’m not allowed to ask?”
“What are you saying, I shouldn’t have saved him then?”
“No, no,” he said, backing off, “we already thanked you for that, but parents talked, and other teachers too, the whole thing was strange from the beginning, the underwater swimming contest you organized, and the bet.”
“Yes,” I said, “very strange. That contest, and that bet, and Teacher Ruta in general, if you ask me, a strange woman, very strange. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have exams to correct, including your son’s. Please convey my thanks for the pictures and tell him that the camera I promised him will remain his. And if he has any further questions about old pictures he finds, my grandfather will be glad to help him. I spoke with him.”
But Ofer’s father gave no sign of leaving. He even leaned back and got comfortable in his chair.
“How do you hold up?” he asked. “In such a situation?”
“What situation?” I stiffened.
“The situation that Eitan piles up sacks and rocks all day at the nursery, and at night walks around on guard duty, so you have no husband, in effect. A beautiful girl like you, we’re the same age and you look so good, and all these years without a man, or so it seems.”
“I think, Haim, you’re getting into topics outside your field,” I said.
“Look,” he said, “this is a small place, and people see things and say things and hear rumors.”
“You can talk with whomever you like. This conversation with me is over.”
“If you feel lonely, that’s no disgrace. Just give me a sign. I’m very near, over the fence, you know.”
“Listen,” I told him, “you know what happened in the past with my grandfather and your grandfather.”
“Of course,” he said, “who in the old families doesn’t know?”
“My grandfather,” I said, “was once a violent man, cruel, primitive. He became a human being only after he brought me and Dovik here. We were his tikkun, his correction, atonement, metamorphosis, if your limited mind can understand what I’m talking about. But your grandfather was a louse and remained one till his dying day. A worthless coward. You and I both know the truth, how the boots of Nahum Natan ended up on the feet of your son, and that your wonderful dairy began with the cow that Yitzhak Maslina got from Ze’ev Tavori in return for his false testimony.”
“Why do you talk like that?” he said. “And why are you putting the blame on the men? Everyone knows what your grandmother did, and she deserved what she got. My grandfather told me that. Ruth Tavori earned what she got.”
“Your grandfather was and remains a worm,” I said, “and I now see that his traits are hereditary.”
Silence. Sometimes I can be scary.
“And watch out,” I added, “because traits are also handed down in our family from generation to generation, and my grandfather’s Mauser is still in the house, and he’s still here too, and I can call him. One shout and he’ll come.”
He was dumbfounded. “You’re threatening me?”
“I’m saying that just as you resemble your grandfather, I can resemble mine. And apropos genetics,” I went on, “I don’t understand how a good-for-nothing like you could produce such a successful boy as Ofer. And I say this not merely as your neighbor but as his teacher. How do you explain it, Haim? Maybe in your family too women get pregnant by some neighbor? You know how it is here. It’s a small place, and people see things and say things and hear rumors.”
He stood up, his brow darkly furrowed, his lower lip protruding. He looked at me and said, “You’ll be hearing from me,” and left.
For a moment it seemed that his grandfather had come back to life. Hunched and gaunt, walking like a mongoose. You ever drive on a back road and suddenly see a mongoose? Slinking, bent over, like it has no legs, like a snake, crossing the road and disappearing into the bushes? That’s the way he walked.
THIRTY-FOUR
Ofer, Ofer, Ofer, Ofer. The time has come to talk about Ofer. I’ve already disbursed a few tidbits of information, dropped a few hints, come close, gotten cold feet and retreated, but that’s it, there’s no choice.
Ofer. The student I waited for, till he would grow up and be my lover after my first husband died and the second one didn’t want me. He wasn’t as good-looking or funny as Eitan or as masculine, but he did resemble him a bit, in some ways a lot, and worst of all, he resembled Neta too. Could it be? Anything can be. Ofer was only a few years older than Neta, but Eitan also used to visit here before he and I fell in love and got married. Do I know what he did and with whom during those years? Does anyone ever know everything about their partner? About their own children? About their father and mother? Miri Maslina was already here in those years, right on the other side of the fence, and who knows, Varda, maybe she also had her eye on Eitan at Dovik and Dalia’s wedding?
You can stop here, Ruta. It’s not connected to my research, and I’m not interested in knowing everything about you.
Don’t worry. I won’t make you an accomplice to a crime, because it wasn’t a crime. I was a teacher and he was a student and I’m not stupid. I coveted him, I admit it. The tenth commandment is a law that no one can obey, including me, but my covetous musings were merely in principle, not in practice. And enough already, Varda, enough with that critical, judgmental look of yours. I was and remained a law-abiding teacher. I coveted, I restrained myself, and I waited. For time to pass, for him to finish high school and no longer be my student. And in the meantime I developed and printed pictures in my head: how one day I would see him in the dappled light of our street, which is the prettiest street in the moshava, with the most character, with the biggest trees and memories, and I would come out of the gate and take him like I already told you, like a she-bear coming out of the woods and snatching a boy. I would’ve preferred to take him the way Alice took Eitan from her daughter’s wedding, but the she-bear fit me better.
Whatever. You go around this moshava interviewing people, so you realize that people tell plenty of stories about me and my family, and rightly so. But one thing I ask of you, Varda, that regardless of what they tell you, you should know that from the first day I was with Eitan, I was only his. I was the woman of one man, and had it not been for the disaster I would have stayed only his. But this Eitan went away, disappeared, and my second husband appeared, who didn’t speak to me or sleep with me or make love with me. He sentenced me to the asceticism he had imposed on himself. He wasn’t the man I dreamed of; he wasn’t the one I married. I didn’t owe him anything.
In short, Varda, after a few years in that situation I decided I deserved to love and be loved a little. Not the “be mine” I once had, but a little skin against skin and lips on lips and eyes locking and smiles exchanged, and becoming one flesh. And also, how to put this politely, I really needed it. I’ve heard there are women who can live a long time without it, but I’m a bit of a man, as you already know, and I felt it in my whole body, especially the point where pain and pleasure coincide. I have no doubt that my grandmother, whose blood flows in my veins and for whom I am named, felt exactly the same thing. She too was with another man only after her husband didn’t sleep with her. But with her it was different. With her it was that way from the beginning, and she waited much less time than I waited, and she was a young and inexperienced girl who wasn’t careful, in every sense of the word, and you have no idea what a mess it turned into. A classic episode of gender, nowhere in the settlements of the Baron was there such a gendered episode. I’ve written about it, but I won’t tell you about it. Certainly not at this stage. At this stage you’ll hear what I want to tell, and maybe later on I’ll tell you what you
want to hear.
So that was that. One day I decided it would happen, that I was permitted. Because whom was I betraying, really? If it was Eitan my first husband, he was no longer with us. And if it was my second husband Eitan, then the fact that he had sentenced himself to life imprisonment at hard labor and put his penis into retirement, excuse me, didn’t mean I also had to take his vows of celibacy.
Whatever. Even after Ofer graduated I didn’t initiate anything. I waited patiently. One day he would appear, maybe after he got out of the army or maybe while still in uniform, and walk in the shady light of our street until we were facing each other. I would charmingly ask, Ofer, where’ve you been? And he would answer with a smile, Hi, Teacher Ruta, here I am, I’ve come. And that’s how it happened in the end, except for one detail, important though not really, that he did national service instead of the army.
I actually liked that, but in the moshava people were unanimously critical. I already told you that our moshava is proud of being known for providing industrial quantities of boys for all sorts of elite combat units, the air force pilots’ course and various commandos, and every year the head of the regional council issues an announcement, and a photo of him with the new recruits appears in the newspaper, with some of their faces blurred for security reasons. It’s like we already have boys in the tenth grade that nobody can recognize because their faces are full of pixels instead of acne.
Whatever. It was obvious to me that Ofer wouldn’t become one of those fighters. I thought he might be a photographer in the air force or in the army spokesman’s office, but he didn’t do that either. Ofer decided he wanted to do national service instead of the army, the option usually offered to religious women. So get this: One of those army officers who go around to the schools to scout new blood for their units gave a lecture one day in my classroom. He talked on and on, in that army Hebrew that mangles proper pronunciation, and Ofer suddenly raised his hand and declared that working in a home for children in distress was much more important than serving in his commando unit.