by Yael Hedaya
She turned and smiled, jumped on the bed, and shook her head, splashing him with drops of water: “I had my hair cut.”
“Yes,” he said. “I see. But where were you?”
“At the barber’s,” she said and ran to the mirror. “Do you like it?”
“All morning?” he asked. “You were at the barber’s all morning?”
“No,” she said. “I wandered around a bit. I bought things. I had my hair cut right near here. I found a place. It looks pretty, don’t you think?”
“No,” said the man. “I don’t like it. It doesn’t suit you.”
“It doesn’t?” she asked.
“No. Definitely not.”
He sat leaning back in bed and lit another cigarette, slowly put his watch back on his wrist, and waited for the tears. She stood in front of the mirror with her back to him, quickly rearranged a few strands of hair, turned to him, and smiled again, but he shook his head and muttered: “No, it doesn’t suit you.”
He looked at his watch—he couldn’t stop doing it now—and waited for the woman to burst into tears. “But it’ll grow back,” he said, “so it’s not so terrible. It’ll grow quickly.”
She jumped onto the bed again and, kneeling, shook her head at him and said: “It won’t grow, because I want to keep it like this. I’m going to have it cut again in two weeks, when it begins to grow. It won’t be a problem to find someone to do it, it’s a simple haircut.” And then, as if remembering something, she hurried back to the mirror and said: “That’s the only problem with this hairstyle, that you have to have it cut every two weeks.” Then she asked him what he wanted to do that day, and he said he was hungry and asked her what she’d brought to eat. She spread a big towel on the bed and laid their breakfast on it.
29
The summer was almost over and the man had not yet told the woman that he loved her too. At first he didn’t say it because he was waiting for her to say it again, so that his “I love you” would be moderated, a response rather than a declaration. He continued to keep quiet because he was afraid she had lied to him in the plane, since after they came home she did nothing to prove her love. On the contrary, it seemed that she was a little cold, and in the end he stopped believing that he really loved her.
During the entire week of their vacation he had felt tired and irritable; he didn’t know the language; he was completely dependent on her. For the first three days the woman was sure that the foreign city, the sights, the food, even the interminable rain, were the reasons for her happiness. On the fourth day she had woken up very early and looked at the man sleeping. He lay on his side, his knees raised to his stomach, one hand flung out to the side of the bed, the other clenched into a fist close to his mouth. Even in his sleep he looked worried. She looked at him until he suddenly turned over and his forehead touched her knee. He frowned, as if in thought, his eyelids fluttered over his darting, dreaming eyes, and his thumb touched his lips. She looked at him and thought: When he’s sleeping he expresses more feeling than when he’s awake.
She got dressed quietly and made up her face and took the big umbrella and left the room and descended the old wooden stairs and planned their day: she would come back with their breakfast and wake the man, they would eat together, chat a little, maybe they would make love, and afterward she would ask him to come on a walking tour of the city. He would refuse, he would say that he didn’t feel like it, she would protest, but not too much, and then she’d leave him in the hotel. She reminded herself to buy him a newspaper in English, maybe a film magazine, so that he wouldn’t be bored in her absence. In the evening they would meet again and go out to a restaurant. So she would be able to be with the man and also without him. She felt a surge of joy as she stepped out into the street and began to run in the direction of the delicatessen. He wasn’t going to spoil it for her, she said to herself as she stood in front of the counter and pointed to the things she wanted, two of each. He couldn’t spoil things for her, she thought, and suddenly it occurred to her that his unhappiness was the reason for her happiness now.
She remained standing in the entrance to the shop, thinking, deliberating whether to run back to the hotel, shake the sleeping man awake, hug him, and feed him, or whether to wander around the streets a little longer. If her happiness now depended on his unhappiness, returning to the room would make her unhappy. It seemed strange that it had to be this way—either her or him—and she wondered if it was the same with other couples, if all the men and women had to take turns being happy and unhappy. How did they keep it up for so many years? Perhaps the more time passed, the easier it became, because each of them knew when it was their turn, and perhaps they even learned to be happy when it was the other person’s turn. It’s either swings or seesaws; she suddenly remembered one of the first things she had said to him on their blind date.
She went into the first café she came across, put the delicatessen bag down on a chair, and ordered an espresso. She drank the coffee and smoked a cigarette, peeking at the watch of the person sitting at the next table because she had forgotten hers in the hotel room. It’s already eleven o’clock, she thought. The man must have woken up long ago. She felt as if her whole body contracted to double its weight, as if rising from the chair the man’s own weight would send her sailing through the air, over the rooftops, through the mist, right into the hotel room. The man was right: the room really was depressing.
She ordered another espresso and lit another cigarette, and glanced at the bag of goodies sitting on the chair, suddenly looking almost human, swollen and erect, with grease stains spreading over it: What will they decide? Where will they take me? And from moment to moment its contents were losing their freshness.
The woman looked at the bag and remembered the croissants and baguettes, the breakfast drying up before her eyes, and she stood up, paid, picked up the bag, and opened the umbrella—with the new skill she had acquired over the past few days—with one hand, and began to run in the direction of the hotel.
She could already see the green tiled roof and the pediments with the little gargoyles protruding into the street, and then the window of their room on the second floor. She noticed the little barbershop, three buildings away from the hotel. She turned her head to look at the window of their room, and then she went inside, pushing the glass door with her shoulder and stopping for a moment in alarm when the bell rang.
The place was empty; there was a smell of shaving cream in the air. There was something very masculine about it that did not welcome the dramatic entrance of the young woman with the huge umbrella and the decomposing paper bag. She sat down on a high chair, put the bag on the floor, and, when the old barber approached her and asked politely and with an air of surprise what she wanted, she said: “Short!”
He explained to her that this was a men’s barbershop. He told her he had no experience in cutting women’s hair, that he didn’t know what she wanted, that he was afraid of disappointing her, that perhaps she should go to a ladies’ salon, where they would be able to help her. He pointed with a long finger to the window, trying to explain to her how to get there, but she smiled at him and said. “Short. That’s all.”
The barber sighed, touched her hair hesitantly, threw a white cloth over her, picked up his scissors, and began shuffling around her, examining possibilities, grumbling to himself. Slowly and cautiously, lock by lock, he snipped and pruned, stepping back to inspect his work after every snip. When he was finished the big clock on the wall said twelve o’clock. It was the longest short haircut of his life.
The woman remained seated in the high chair and smiled at herself in the mirror. The old barber stood behind her, resting his hands on the back of the chair, accepting her praise with a bowed head and curious little glances in the mirror. He was seventy-five years old, and he had never cut a woman’s hair before. Sometimes he cut the hair of little girls who came with their fathers, but that was easy. This was the first woman who had ever sat in his chair and demanded, with a
strange and charming impudence, that he cut her hair. It was a challenge, it was scary, and it had worked.
When the woman left, the barber opened the door and stepped outside with her. Her arms were wrapped around the bag, which filled the air with buttery smells mingled with peppermint and soap. The barber took the umbrella from under her armpit, opened it over her head, and placed the wooden handle in her hand. Then he went back inside and began sweeping up the black hair scattered over the floor. He gathered it in his hands and threw it into the garbage can, and suddenly he was filled with sadness at the thought that he might never have another opportunity to cut a woman’s hair.
At the hotel the man was in a foul mood. He kept at her all day long. He had never tried so hard to insult her, to undermine her confidence, and he had never failed so completely. The more he insulted her haircut, the more she liked it; the more she saw how hard he was working to cover up the injury of her desertion the more she deserted him, and the rest of their vacation turned into a series of dozens of little desertions.
All week the woman looked at the man sleeping curled up on his side, his thumb touching his lips, and suddenly, on their last day in Paris, she panicked. She thought: Perhaps I’ve gone too far. Perhaps it’s already too late. She had never seen him so lifeless, so defeated, and, above all, so silent. On the last night they went to an expensive restaurant. The food was bad, but the man, uncharacteristically, said nothing. He didn’t even bother to remind her that the restaurant was her choice, that he had been against it from the beginning. Afterward they wandered the streets a little. It was the first night without rain. The man looked around him and swung the furled umbrella back and forth. The woman prayed for him to say something insulting, to criticize her, to say that he wanted to go back to the hotel, but the man was silent. The next morning when they packed their bags in silence, it occurred to her that perhaps she had killed something in the man. They sat in the airport cafeteria and drank coffee from paper cups, and when the woman talked, trying to sum up with him their shared impressions of the trip, even though she knew there were no shared impressions, the man smiled with bitter commiseration, as if to say: I’m sorry that you’ve lost me.
30
In August, a month after they had returned from Paris, the man and the woman talked for the first time about splitting up. The woman raised the subject, and she did it gently and compassionately. You’re not happy with me, she said to the man one night and turned off the television, which he had been staring at all evening with empty eyes.
He looked at her in surprise.
“Yes,” said the woman, “I know you’re not happy with me. And you’re right. I’m not good to you.”
He went on looking at her, and then turned his eyes back to the blank screen.
“I want us to talk,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Actually, it’s almost the only thing I think about.”
“What else do you think about?” asked the man.
“Why do you ask?” she said.
“No particular reason,” he said. “It’s just that we haven’t talked much lately. I’d be interested to know.”
She said: “About myself. I think about myself. I think,” she whispered, “that maybe I’m not happy with you.”
“You’re not happy with me?”
“No.” The woman panicked. “I didn’t say that. I said that I think about myself in the context of our relationship. And that perhaps, I’m not always happy with you. I don’t know. I don’t know what I think,” she said. “What do you think?”
“About what?” said the man.
“I don’t know. About us. About everything.”
“You’re asking me if I want to break up?”
“No,” said the woman. “Of course not! I’m just asking, in general, because we haven’t been talking to each other lately, as you said.”
“And before that we did talk?”
“Yes,” said the woman. “I think that we used to talk. Not exactly heart-to-heart. Somehow we never had those. Things happened naturally. We didn’t feel the need to talk. Do you think that’s a bad thing?”
“I don’t know,” said the man. “I never thought about it.”
“No,” said the woman. “Neither did I.”
“You’re playing games,” said the man.
“No I’m not,” said the woman. “I’m trying to have a conversation.”
“You’re not trying to talk,” said the man. “You’re trying to make me say that I want to break up. To make it easy for you.”
They both looked at the dog, lying between them on the sofa.
“Look at him,” said the man. “Look how ugly he’s grown.”
“He isn’t ugly,” said the woman. “Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true,” said the man. “You remember how cute he was when we found him?”
“Yes,” said the woman and looked nostalgically at the dog.
“Did you think he’d grow up to be such a monster?”
“He’s not a monster,” said the woman. “Maybe he’s a little ugly, but he’s not a monster.”
“Did you ever think that one day you’d hate him?”
“I don’t hate him. Why on earth should I hate him?”
“I do,” said the man.
“That’s not true. You love him,” said the woman.
“I love him and I hate him,” said the man.
“And me too.”
“Yes,” said the man. “Right now I do.”
“And was there ever a time when you only loved me? Without hate?” she asked.
“I think so,” he said. “At the beginning.”
“And when did you start hating me?”
“In Paris,” said the man.
“I thought so,” said the woman.
“And you?” asked the man, and felt tears welling up in his eyes—the tears of Paris that had not yet completely ripened.
“What about me?”
“When did you begin to hate me?”
“I don’t know,” said the woman, and the man burst into tears. The woman tried to put her arms around him, but he shook her off, rose from the sofa, and went to stand next to the window. The outburst of weeping was short. The woman lit a cigarette and leaned back and threw the match into the ashtray. The man sniffed and raised his arm to his face and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his T-shirt. Then he took a deep breath and looked out of the window. The woman put out her cigarette, stood up, and went to stand behind him. She put her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his back, and felt an insulted little jerk of rejection. Afterward she rubbed her chin in the hollow between his shoulder blades, kissed the fabric of his shirt, which was warm and damp with sweat, and stood next to him, groping with her hand for his, which was pushed deep in his jeans pocket.
They both stood at the window. They looked at the ugly apartment buildings. Some of the windows were already completely dark; in some the lights were still on, especially in the kitchens. Then they looked at the dog who was sleeping on the sofa.
“If we break up,” said the man, “who’ll take him?”
“But we’re not splitting up,” said the woman.
“But if we do?”
“I don’t know,” said the woman.
“Because I don’t think I’ll want him.”
“No,” said the woman, “neither do I.”
“It would complicate my life,” said the man. “My life’s complicated enough as it is.”
“Let’s not think about it now,” said the woman gently.
“Let’s be on our own for a while,” said the man. “Like we were in the beginning. I don’t feel like having dinners and going out all the time. I’m sick of everybody.”
“So am I,” said the woman.
“Let’s hide in the house,” said the man and turned his face to her, and the woman looked into his eyes which were still wet.
“Okay,” she said and kissed him on the lips.
They kissed, and in the middle of the kiss he went on mumbling: “Let’s be on our own for a while.”
The phone rang and they disengaged themselves. They couldn’t decide whether to answer. After six rings the dog raised his head in surprise. The man picked up the phone.
“They want us to come to the bar for a drink,” he said to the woman. “You want to go?”
“It’s late,” she said. “Isn’t it too late?”
“It’s a bit late,” said the man and covered the mouthpiece with his hand, “but still, we could drop by for an hour.”
“But you just said that you don’t want to see friends anymore, that you want us to stay at home for a while.”
“I know,” he said.
“I don’t mind going,” she said, “if that’s what you want.”
“Whatever you like.”
“All right,” she said. “I don’t mind.”
“I think it wouldn’t do us any harm to go out tonight, even if it is late, just for an hour. Okay?” said the man and sniffed again.
“Okay,” said the woman. “If you feel like it.”
When they came home at three o’clock in the morning the man was drunk. The woman had to drive home. She hated driving and she was angry with him, but when she looked at him sitting next to her, strapped in the seat belt which she had fastened for him, staring out of the window and singing children’s songs, she burst out laughing and bent over to kiss him on the cheek. The man, she thought, was at his best when he was helpless. When they went upstairs she supported him. The man climbed up one step and down two, loudly singing “Three Blind Mice,” changing the words of the refrain to “I love you.”
She put him to bed, took off his shoes, stripped him of his shirt and jeans, and covered him with the blanket. “I feel nauseous,” he said, and let his head fall to the side.
“You want to go to the bathroom? You want to throw up?”
“No,” he mumbled, “I just feel sick.”
“Should I make you a cup of tea?”