He looked at Sherry in the rearview mirror. She knew that he was waiting to hear her opinion.
“I know that you want us to live close to Eran and Ronit, but now that I have an income, I feel so good that I don’t want to commit to buying a house and will count again on every penny that I spend.”
“In order to go forward in life, we have to tighten our belts sometimes,” Talia again intervened. Sherry decided to hold off the conversation until his mother was away from them.
But the moment she had the chance to talk with Eyal about the subject, she found out that he already closed everything with his mother and even set a date for signing the deed of sale. “Darling, I managed to get to know you, and I know that if I talk to you about getting financial help from my mother, you would give me some explanations about values or reasons why I should not take the money. I have no problem with the dominance of my mother, and I also don’t have a problem taking money from anyone who is willing to give it to me. I’m going back to the army in two years, and I’ll be really calm if I know that you live close to Eran and Ronit.”
She nodded. “Did you notice that you’re repeating your mother, word for word?”
“For the amount that she was willing to give us, I also would have sung her the words,” he smiled.
Sherry smiled back.
“But you’d be surprised. She has a condition.”
“To leave me?”
“On the contrary, she thinks that it’s not good that you and I are raising a child without marriage.”
“It’s certainly the days of the messiah. What happened? Until a few months ago, she was ready to pay the child support as long as you leave me.”
“That’s right, but since the day he was born, she was so crazy about him that she was even willing to pay to marry you.”
“Did she know that she’s not invited to the wedding?” Sherry asked with a wink.
“Let’s first take the money to buy the house. Then, we will consider whether to invite her to the wedding...” He winked back at her.
“Can I at least set the date? Or have you also already decided that with your mother?”
“Set a date and I’ll get her approval,” he smiled.
“On 8.8.88, in six months.”
“It will be awesome that our son can be in our wedding...”
Sherry looked at him confused. “He won’t. He will stay home.”
He looked at her smiling. “You stay at home.”
“So that on our wedding day, I’ll take care of him when he cries?”
Eyal grew serious. “You will take care of him? Since when do you take care of him?”
They moved into their new house after three months. Sherry immediately created a bond with it. She took out her easel under the olive tree. It reminded her of the strawberry tree where her mother taught her to paint and felt a connection to her mother. There, she had continued teaching Sherry painting skills. This was at least how Sherry felt everytime she painted something that managed to surprise her.
Along with this happiness, Sherry started organizing the wedding. She felt mixed feelings of depression. It would probably be like this throughout their life together. The secret would always stand between them, undermining the sense of complete happiness. It was exactly like her relationship with her father; Esther’s secret stood between them. Prior to the wedding was the last chance to tell Eyal, so she hoped for the best. Maybe he would decide to take a paternity test and find out if Ofek was his son. And what if he was not? What would happen to this child? Although he symbolized the rape and all that was connected to it, was it fair to leave him at her mercy? Or, should she take the risk that Ofek would lose Eyal’s love?
Sherry heard Ofek mutter. She stared at him and he seemed to stare back at her accusingly. He looked into her eyes for a long moment. Then he smiled. If she only knew that he was Eyal’s son...
As the wedding came closer, Sherry realized that she was letting the lie go so far. A week before the wedding, she came up to a final decision: she would tell Eyal her secret and deal with the risk as well as the chance for good. She waited for Eyal in the pergola as she planned the moment of confession, the same moment where everything would look different for better or worse. Eyal lifted Ofek up and kissed him. He could never hate Ofek, she consoled herself.
“Eyal ... I have something important to talk to you about.”
“About what?” he asked as he stood up and again tossed Ofek up.
“Eyal, will you sit down for a minute?”
Eyal, put Ofek on the floor. “Yes, I’m listening.”
“I have something important to talk to you about…what happened in Istanbul...” She looked down and took a deep breath. He was not with her, but rather with Ofek.
“You’re not listening to me.”
“I am listening.” He continued to concentrate on Ofek. She started to tell him about her visit to Istanbul.
“Oh, look Sherry, I can’t believe it,” he whispered softly. “Look!” He pointed at Ofek. “He’s walking.”
Sherry looked at Ofek who made a few steps, stood and looked at them with a proud smile before falling on his bottom.
Eyal picked him up. “I’m crazy about him. Did you see how he looked at us? He knew that he did a big step today.” Eyal brought Ofek’s face close to Sherry. “Tell me, ma Sherry, doesn’t he deserve a hug and a kiss from his mother?”
Sherry kissed him. Eyal showered Ofek with kisses. It was clear that his love to Ofek filled him, and Sherry asked herself why she would confess and ruin everybody’s lives.
She stood under the ‘Khupa wedding’ while Eyal was standing in front of her in admiration. Ofek hobbled towards them, escorted by Eyal’s mother and was applauded by the guests. “He’s stealing my show,” Eyal whispered to Sherry.
“I told you not to bring him to the wedding,” she smiled.
Eyal put the ring on her finger without taking his eyes off her. He kissed her lips for a duration that made everybody around laugh loudly.
Sherry felt that this was the best year of her life. She jumped over a huge hurdle. She found a comfortable job, bought a house, finished her first year at the university and married her soul mate who she loved more than anything. They would have a great relationship, she vowed.
As the way of the happiness clock, time passed quickly. They spent much time in school over the next few years. Finally, Eyal graduated from college and two days after his last test, he already returned to the division headquarters for an operational role. The old routine was back into their lives. Eyal’s visit at home was back to weekends and one day midweek.
Ofek fell asleep with his head resting on her knees with beads of sweat on his forehead. The phone rang and Sherry picked up the phone.
“How are you?” Eyal asked.
“It’s so hard.”
“I know. It’s also very difficult for me. How does Ofek feel?”
“I guess he missed you.”
“Then give him double attention. Now that you have finished your studies, you will have lots of time to be with him.”
“Yes.”
“Be nice to Ofek, I’m asking you to promise me. It’s really hard for me to be here, knowing that my son is…” He searched for the word.
“I’ll try.”
“Sherry, this is the only thing that I ask from you.”
“Don’t bother yourself so much. He is also my son. I’ll worry about him.”
“I don’t want you to worry. I want you to love him.”
Sherry received her undergraduate certificate in the presence of Eyal, a month after Eyal returned to active military service.
“You graduated with honors, you must be happy,” he said as they sat in the pergola of their house. “Now, you need to go out from the convenience of the illustration industry and make yourself a way into the world of painting. To be a painter and to succeed requires footwork. You’ll have to go from gallery to gallery to sell your paintings.”
&n
bsp; “It’s hard for me. I’m afraid that they will refuse.”
“They will really refuse.”
She looked at him with resentment.
“You’ll hear lots of ‘no’ on the way to ‘yes.’ There’s nothing we can do.”
“It’s hard.”
He put his hand on her knee. “If you think about what I do in order to get a badge on my shoulder, you will understand that your way to the top is much easier.”
24
A year had passed since Sherry graduated. She went into her workroom and wondered if there was a chance that someone would love her paintings just as she loved them. She looked at the painting on the easel, a painting that didn’t progress, and she couldn’t understand why she kept bothering with it rather than leaving it aside and moving on to something else.
Sherry heard the beep of the service van that brought back Ofek from kindergarten, and only then did she notice that the painting which seemed to be disappointing an hour ago, looked more interesting and beautiful. She even regretted that she needed to stop in the middle.
She ran down the stairs. Ofek was again the last on the list to be brought down. She helped him get out and explained to the driver that she didn’t want Ofek to be the last on the list to be brought down and spend an hour inside the vehicle.
The driver tried to explain to her that it was the most convenient for her in terms of address, but Sherry insisted that the driver changes the route so that Ofek would spend as little as possible on the road.
They entered the kitchen and Sherry went to prepare a lunch for Ofek.
“Mom,” he called her, handing her a drawing.
“Oh, it’s very beautiful. I’ll be with you in a while. I’ve got things on the gas,” she said, without looking at him. She put the drawing on the kitchen table and went on with the cooking.
He looked at her with disappointment and walked towards the living room where he continued to assemble the tank he built from Legos for his father. After half an hour, Sherry asked him to eat, but he continued building with the Legos.
“You can continue it later. I have to finish the painting that I started.”
He ignored her and continued to assemble. She walked towards him and carefully lifted the tank he built from Legos.
“Don’t touch it...” Ofek didn’t finish his words and part of his work broke up in Sherry’s hands.
“Look what you did,” he cried.
Sherry was sorry. She wanted to hug and comfort him, but couldn’t do so. She was blocked by a barrier that she built over the years. “Okay, I’m sorry. Let’s eat and I’ll try to fix the model later.”
Eyal arrived and found Ofek eating alone in the kitchen. Sherry was sitting in the living room with the Legos, absorbed in an attempt to reconstruct the creation that she destroyed. Ofek ran into his arms.
“Why do you let him sit and eat alone?”
“Do you want to eat with him?” She asked, ignoring the criticism in his voice.
“Of course I want to eat with my son,” he said, while he stared at Ofek, causing him to smile. He took Ofek on his lap and kissed his head.
He noticed the drawing on the table. “Did you see this?” he turned to Sherry.
“No, I didn’t get the chance,” Sherry replied, admitting her foul up. She totally forgot about the drawing.
“I can’t believe what I hear. Ofek comes home from the kindergarten with a drawing and you don’t even look at it?”
Eyal sent her an angry look.
She got up and looked at the drawing. She already knew long ago that Ofek had skills in drawing. The thing that troubled her was the content of the drawing: a mother and a father, and a boy standing next to his father holding his hand. The painting reflected the kind of life at home. If only it was normal, Ofek would have drawn himself standing between his parents and holding hands together. She felt a need to hug and tell him that she loved him, but again she was barred. “Your drawing is very beautiful,” she said.
With much effort, she approached Ofek and hugged him gently. Ofek wrapped his hands around her neck, and across Ofek’s shoulder, her eyes met the angry eyes of Eyal.
“Dad, I also made a surprise for you, but Mom destroyed it…by mistake.”
Sherry looked down quickly.
She sat down to eat with them, but Eyal and Ofek ignored her, because Ofek got all the attention of Eyal, and he was angry with her.
She followed after the great love that Eyal showered to Ofek and she was sorry that her attempts to get pregnant in four years since the birth of her son had failed. Over the years, when it raised concern in her that Eyal had a fertility problem that would reveal her deception, she found a solution and told him that she didn’t want more children because she had no ability of giving. Eyal didn’t only agree, but he also said that she was right and there was no need to wretch another child.
Sherry looked at her paintings, thinking to herself what her father or her mother would say about them. They were much better than her childhood paintings. She smiled to herself. She felt fulfilled with courage to get out from her house and head to Gordon Street in Tel Aviv to try for the first time to convince the gallery owners to display her paintings. She was tense, just like the general atmosphere prevailing the streets of Israel. Everyone talked about the threat of Saddam Hussein, the ruler of Iraq, sending scud missiles carrying chemical or biological weapons towards Israel. Masks were distributed to all residents of the country, leaving only one question as to when it would occur.
Sherry doubted that the threats would materialize. It didn’t seem to her that it was possible that someone would dare to fire missiles at the citizens while the world would be silent. She got out of her car with three paintings─one painting was a portrait of a ‘Woman in the Port,’ in which a professor in art history was impressed; second was ‘Tin Soldier,’ a painting that depicted the pain of war just like Eyal described to her; the last was ‘Butterfly Effect,’ a tale of two sisters. Although she and her sister were far apart from each other, there was no single day when she didn’t think of her. She hoped that the owners of the galleries would understand the idea behind the painting.
She stood at the door of the first gallery. Excitement and fear swirled inside her. She took a deep breath and opened the glass door. A woman in a light white dress looked at her questioningly.
“Hello, my name is Sherry.”
The woman looked at her blankly.
“I’m a painter and I wanted to show you my paintings. Maybe you’re interested to see them and check if I could leave them here.”
“I’m sorry. We don’t make transactions with beginners,” the woman replied sternly.
Sherry stood there for a moment searching for words of persuasion. She didn’t want to leave without making an effort to change her mind. “Look, I wouldn’t have come here if I thought that my paintings are not good. Maybe you could just take a look at them.”
The woman slightly closed her eyes accompanied by a shudder in the shoulder. It was as if she was left with no choice.
Sherry took the paintings out of her bag and laid them on a big and designed table. The woman looked at them with indifference as if flipping a newspaper. “Sorry, they don’t suit the style of our gallery.”
Sherry felt the disappointment punching in her stomach. She barely managed to put back the paintings in her bag and politely whispered, “thank you.”
The woman raised her chin as a sign of goodbye.
Sherry went out from the gallery and leaned against the wall of one of the buildings. It was insulting. The woman considered her a nuisance even before she saw the paintings. But, worst of all was that her mind had not changed even after seeing the paintings. It was a difficult moment for Sherry, and she debated whether to continue the tour. Finally, she decided to try one more gallery and if they refused, she would go home.
In the second gallery, the owner was busy around a woman who looked at a specific painting. Sherry waited until he was free f
or her.
“Can I help you?” he asked after a few minutes.
“I wanted to check with you if my paintings would interest you.”
“No, not now.”
“When will it be convenient for you?”
“If you have a business card, you can leave it here.”
“No, I do not have one,” she murmured.
There was no point to leave a phone number. She knew that if he didn’t bother to look at her paintings now, there was no way he would call her.
She went to two more galleries, but they also rejected her. She headed towards her car, so disappointed that she couldn’t concentrate on driving. When she left the garage, she bumped her car into one of the beams and scratched the left side of the car. She got out to check. The damage was big. She went back into the car and cried. This was all she needed, more expenses...
Two days had passed since the galleries rejected her paintings. Sherry was sitting in the pergola, broken. It was true that she just started to try to sell the paintings, but after years of believing that she was an A-1, she found it difficult to handle the fact that no one liked them. Maybe it would be better for her to illustrate books after all.
Eyal called and asked how she felt about the shadow of war threats.
“It is the last thing that bothers me right now,” she answered.
Colors of the Shadow Page 19