The Lover

by A. B. Yehoshua

  But I completed the fifth grade nevertheless. It was then that the children began to pair off in the classroom but it didn’t worry me that I was in love with somebody who already had a boy friend. On the contrary, it was a relief, it freed me from the obligation to court her, to demean myself with excessive compliments during break. I could love from a distance without any effort, only at times when the friendship was dissolved and the girl became open to new proposals did I become uneasy, feverish almost, as if it was now my duty to try, but I used to hesitate, delay, wait, maybe someone else …

  It was then that an immigrant joined the class, one of the children from Teheran, an orphan, his name was Yitzhak. The teachers gave Asya the task of making him feel at home, helping him with his studies, with his homework. He fell in love with her immediately, openly, always following her, admiring her. For us there was something perplexing about so obvious a display of love, in an old-fashioned, European style. She treated him with patience, rumour said that she “pitied” him, but she sure devoted a lot of attention to him. Standing with him during break and having long conversations with him. I had no contact with her but in the class there was a feeling that this love gave her strength, improved her position. I remember that during the girls’ gym class we boys used to sit on the fence and watch them playing volley ball. We were already looking at them differently, studying them closely, constantly. It was then that I noticed for the first time that her legs were long and attractive, but she didn’t yet wear a bra, and we were interested only in breasts, they were what mattered most, sometimes in class we used to move our chairs around to catch a glimpse through an open sleeve of this desired piece of flesh.

  At the end of the fifth grade we went to a camp in the mountains of Galilee, with the teachers and the headmaster. It was a big camp and children from all the fifth grade classes in the city were there. The official purpose was to familiarize us with nature, with our surroundings, but they took the opportunity to bother us with some premilitary training. Most important was sentry duty at night. And since the girls insisted on standing guard too, it was decided that we should guard in pairs, and this understandably caused some excitement, particularly regarding the choice of partners. In the evening of the second day I saw that I’d been selected to go on guard with her, and then that boy, the immigrant, came to me and asked me to change places with him. Naturally I agreed at once. In the evening she came to me to show me her sleeping place in the tent. She asked me to wake her because she was a heavy sleeper and she might not be up when it was time to stand guard. I told her straightaway that I wasn’t on guard duty with her, that Yitzhak had asked me to change.

  She blushed, angry.

  “What do you mean? Did you agree?”

  I mumbled, “I thought you’d want …”

  “Why should you have to think for me? If you don’t want to go on guard with me that’s a different matter.”

  There was something bold in her manner of speech, something not quite fitting this thin, quiet girl. It seemed to me that until then I’d never spoken to her as an individual, face to face. I was confused, scared of getting involved in the love affairs of this orphan immigrant.

  “But he asked …” I added hesitantly.

  “Tell him I’m not his wife yet.”

  I laughed. Something in her proud and resolute stand appealed to me.

  I told him. He looked miserable. I despised him for this open and self-torturing love.

  At 1 A.M. they woke me to go on duty. I went outside the tent and waited for her. About ten minutes passed and she didn’t come. I went into the girls’ tent to wake her. Perhaps it was at that moment that the idea of felling in love with her first occurred to me. In the dark tent, among the girls lying huddled together, the smell of their femininity mingled with a light odour of perfume, touching the girl who lay there curled up, lifting away the blanket, seeing in the moonlight her legs in short trousers, the hair scattered about her, bending down to touch her face, perhaps now for the first time touching her intentionally, freely and simply, shaking her, whispering her name. Then it occurred to me that she was dreaming, that I was waking her from a dream. At last she opened her eyes and smiled at me. Then she switched on a big army flashlight that lay beside her. I stood there as if hypnotized, watching her put on trousers and a sweater, and she asked me if it was cold outside. The girls around me began to stir, mumbling. Someone suddenly woke up and saw me. “Who’s that?” she cried and I hurried out of the tent. A few seconds later Asya came out, wearing an army combat smock that impressed me. She had all kinds of genuine army equipment that her father had apparently given her. I had a vague idea that her father had something to do with the authorities, with matters of security. We began walking about among the big tents, now and then hitting at the grass and the bushes with the hard smooth sticks that they’d given us. Eventually we sat down on a rock at the edge of the camp, looking down into a dark wadi, she with the big army flashlight in her hand, from time to time shining it down into the wadi, playing with the strong beam of light.

  We fell immediately into conversation, as if we’d planned it from the beginning. I was watching her all the time, studying her, trying to decide if it was worthwhile falling in love with her and beginning to fall in love with her even as I thought about it. She talked about the teachers, about teaching methods, asked my opinion. She had firm, clear, very critical ideas. About the system of teaching, against the material taught and especially against the teachers themselves. I was surprised, because in class she was very quiet and obedient, and very respectful towards the teachers. I had no idea that deep down in her heart she despised them. I told her that I was leaving the school, that I was starting to work with my father in the garage, and she responded to the idea with enthusiasm, jealous that I was going out into the world where great changes were taking place, when now, with the end of the war, total revolution was imminent. If only she could, she would leave school as well.

  There was something obscure about her, ideas that were confused but daring, something strange to me, very intellectual, almost a chatterbox, but very interesting. We talked and talked and half of the next watch had gone by when suddenly we were attacked by the gym teacher who was in charge of the guard. He snatched the flashlight from her hand and threw it to the ground, told us to shut up, to lie on the ground, to move farther apart and to keep watch quietly for the enemy.

  When he had gone and we were still lying on the ground, a little amused and a little annoyed, I said to her, “Did I wake you from a dream?” and she was amazed. “How did you know?” She insisted, she was determined to know how in the darkness of the tent I could tell that she was dreaming. And then she told me her dream, something about her father.

  The watch was over and we returned to our separate tents. I took her flashlight to try and repair it. The next day, during the training and the excursions, we didn’t exchange a word. I still have time to decide whether to fall in love with her, I thought. In the afternoon I gave her the mended flashlight. She thanked me, touched my hand lightly, intentionally, wanting to start a conversation, but I slipped away, uneasy, still hesitant, afraid of making a fool of myself.

  That evening Yitzhak disappeared. Apparently he’d been gone since midday, but it was only in the evening that he was missed. All the training and the activities were suspended and all of us, including the children from the other schools, went out to search for him. Walking over the hills in long lines, searching every bush and every crevice and all the time calling his name. The headmaster supervised the search, shouting excitedly, walking among us pale and desperate. Suddenly she was in the centre. They all looked at her accusingly, curiously. Even the children from the other schools came to see her, they all knew by now the reason for the disappearance. Again and again she was called to the headmaster to give more information about him. He stood and shouted at her as if she were to blame for not returning Yitzhak’s love.

  In the morning two British policemen arrived w
ith a dog. They were very much amused, inspecting the camp and taking advantage of the opportunity to search for weapons. After a few minutes he was found. He’d simply hidden in a little cave about a hundred metres from the camp. The dog flushed him out. He emerged weeping bitterly, shouting in his foreign accent, “Don’t kill me.” Down on his knees before the headmaster and before her. It was impossible even to scold him, he was so miserable. She was told to sit with him, to comfort him. I couldn’t get close to her now, until camp was over.

  But it seems that his hopeless love infected me. In the holidays I thought about her constantly, walking by her house in the evenings, searching for some contact. I was already working full-time in the garage, I didn’t register for the new school year. My father was growing weaker, already there were screws that he was unable to turn. He used to sit on a chair beside the car and tell me what to do. Now and then when I had time to spare I would go to the school, just as I was, in my dirty overalls, sit on the fence and wait for break, to see my friends, to try to keep in touch with them. Searching for her, sometimes seeing her suddenly, hardly managing to hold a proper conversation with her at all, especially as Yitzhak was still at her heels and she was cautious because of him. It seemed that in spite of everything they were friends. After a while I stopped going to the school, I broke off, the work in the garage kept me more and more busy. My friends suddenly seemed childish to me, with their books and their note pads and their little stories about the teachers.

  In the middle of the sixth grade she disappeared. Her family moved to Tel Aviv. Her father’s name sometimes appeared in the papers as one of the leaders behind the scenes, a security chief. The months leading up to the establishment of the state were upon us, there was turmoil in the land. I tried to study in the evenings, to prepare at least superficially for the matriculation exam, but I gave it up.

  At the beginning of the War of Independence my father died and I joined the army as a mechanic, maintaining armoured vehicles. It was years since I’d seen her.

  It wasn’t until after the war that we met again, at a school reunion. It was impossible to invite only those who had completed their schooling, many like me had left halfway through, had taken up employment, had joined the army or the Palmach. Some had fallen in the war.

  It was supposed to be a big occasion. An assembly, parties, speeches, an all-night barbecue. At first I didn’t recognize the girl who approached me. In the years since we’d last met I’d grown taller, and she suddenly seemed small to me.

  “How’s the revolution?” I asked with a smile.

  She was surprised, then she smiled.

  “It’ll come … it’ll come.”

  And from that moment she didn’t leave me. We both felt a bit out of place there. We’d both left the school in the sixth grade. Many of the people there were strangers to us. Some of them were married and had brought wives and husbands with them. We sat apart from the others at the back of the hall and listened to the long speeches, she was whispering in my ear all the time, telling me about herself, about her studies in the teachers’ seminary. When we stood up to remember the dead, listening with bowed heads to the long list, and Yitzhak’s name was mentioned, I glanced at her. She stood there, her head bowed, not batting an eyelid. I didn’t know what to do, she stayed at my side all evening, going with me from place to place, unwilling to enter into long conversation with other friends. Her father’s name was in the news at the time, something to do with some obscure episode, a hasty decision taken with unpleasant consequences. Her father had been dismissed from office and there had been demands that he be brought to trial, but in the end they let him alone on account of his past service.

  Perhaps this was the reason for her oversensitivity with the others, for her decision to leave in the middle of the party and return home to Tel Aviv. She asked me to accompany her to the bus station and I took her there in my car, my father’s old Morris, the back seat full of tools, automobile parts, oil cans. We stood and waited for a bus in the deserted bus station in the lower city. She grew closer and closer to me, talking about herself, asking me about my work. She remembered the night watch that we’d shared, and what I’d said then. The bus was late in coming. I decided to drive her to her home in Tel Aviv. We arrived there after midnight. A small, modest house with a neglected garden in south Tel Aviv. She insisted that I spend the night there. I agreed, I was a little curious to see her father. It was dark inside the house, huge piles of newspapers lay in every corner. Her father came out to meet us, a hairy man, older and smaller than he looked in the newspaper photographs, with a hard face. She told him a little about me, he nodded distractedly and disappeared into another room. I thought that we’d sit for a while and continue our conversation, but she made up a bed for me on the sofa in the living room, lent me some of her father’s old pyjamas and left me. At first I had difficulty getting to sleep, still thrown by the sharp transition from the noise of the party, the speeches, the meetings with old friends to this dark and quiet house among the sparse orchards of Tel Aviv. But finally I slept. At three in the morning I heard somebody moving about beside my bed. It was her father, in khaki trousers and a torn pyjama top. He was bending over the radio and fiddling with it, going from station to station, the B.B.C., broadcasts in Russian, Hungarian, Romanian, languages that I couldn’t even identify. All the stations of the awakening east. Listening for a while and then passing on to another station, his eyes tightly closed, perhaps it was a habit that he couldn’t shake off from the period when he was in charge of the Ministry of Information, or perhaps he was searching for something affecting him, some commentary on his case from a foreign and distant source. He ignored me, as if I didn’t exist. He didn’t care that he’d roused me from sleep, that I was exhausted, sitting beside him in silence, listening with him.

  At last he switched off the radio. His face looked serious, severe.

  “Do you study in a seminary too?”

  I told him what I did.

  “What is your father’s name?”

  I told him.

  He knew at once that he had died about a year and a half before, even though we hadn’t published an obituary in the newspapers because of the war. He added some dry, precise details about my father.

  “Did you know him personally?” I was amazed.

  No, they had never met, but he knew all about him, as if he had a personal file in front of him.

  And he left me to myself – I couldn’t sleep anymore. At five in the morning I got up, folded the sheets, I had to return to Haifa to open the garage at seven. It was only a few months since I’d reopened the garage, which had been closed during the war. Competition was tough at the time and one had to work very hard not to lose customers.

  I went outside. A hazy summer morning. I strolled about the neglected garden, hungry, drowsy after my uncomfortable night, watching the newspaper delivery boys arriving one after another and throwing at the doorstep all the morning papers, in all the languages. I wanted to leave, but not without saying goodbye, and I didn’t know which was her room. In the end I tapped lightly on one of the windows.

  It wasn’t long before she came out to me, her hair combed, wearing a light morning dress, her face radiant. She came close to me and said seriously, almost solemnly, “I dreamed about you.” And she described a dream that was clear, orderly, logical, almost impossibly so. A dream that could be taken to mean that she was telling me directly – “I am willing to marry you.”

  ASYA

  The old cabin of the movement, but a little larger. The time early evening, winter twilight. They seemed to be preparing for a play, some of them were wandering about in patchwork costumes, straw hats, coats made from blankets, rope belts. Someone paced about with make-up on his face. One of the young men was writing the music for the play, and the girls crowded around him as he sat on the floor in an oriental position, bent over an exercise book, writing the words at great speed. They hummed a tune and he wrote words that were not just words,
but words in which music was hidden. From the corner where I stood I could see above the heads of the girls the melodious words that were written at such haste. But they were still waiting for somebody to arrive. The star? The producer? Somebody important, somebody precious, without whom the play could not go ahead. Listen, the sound of a train approaching, stopping for a moment and continuing on its way. We rushed outside to meet him. And he really had arrived. The train that had stopped for a moment and disappeared again, leaving only the shining tracks behind it, had put down a big hospital bed on the platform. Somebody was lying in it. We crowded around him, he was sick, not actually sick, exhausted rather. Something had really exhausted him. Postnatal exhaustion, he had sired sons, but he was happy as well, proud of himself, a weak smile of triumph on his pale face, a combination of Zaki and somebody else, lying there in khaki clothes, under an army blanket.

  And the group began to fuss around him, carrying the bed into the cabin, happy all, a collective happiness, because the babies were there too, like a pile of sacks. Piled to one side, quiet and smiling. They were little people already, not newborn infants, they had hair and teeth, and were dressed in little romper suits with buttons and buckles. They put them up on a wooden stage, under a baggage canopy, and there was general confusion and happiness, and only this solitary, independent childbearer was perplexed, sad even. And I stood to one side, feeling deserted. Did he not love me once? Lying now supported on a pillow, watching the crowd dance around the children born of no mother, the children borne by him for the sake of all, that was the point. I approach him cautiously, without looking at him, watching instead the children, who lie there immobile, their lower limbs tied tight. I know that they have some terrible, hidden defect. The people pick them up and put them back, choosing them, urging me too to take one of them, and I see there lying in the corner a child almost fully grown, an aged foetus, a cataract in his eye, stretching out his little hands to me.