by Yael Hedaya
13
My mother said she wanted to buy me a present. She called me one morning, waking me up, and said she wanted to go to the mall to buy me something. “Why?” I asked, and she said: “I just feel like it, Maya. I don’t need a reason. I’m your mother.” We drove to the mall and wandered around the stores I hated. She told me to pick whatever I liked. “Anything,” she said. “Let’s splurge!” It made me laugh, the way she said “splurge.”
We walked slowly past the display windows and looked at the clothes and the shoes; household goods were a possibility too, and my mother stood next to me, patient, watching me out of the corner of her eye, watching me searching for the one thing that would make me happy. “Well?” she whispered from time to time. “There are so many nice things. Don’t you like anything?”
I suggested we sit and have a cup of coffee. I was confused by all the choices and couldn’t make up my mind. I said my feet hurt. She said: “Your feet hurt? At your age?” I said maybe it was because of the heat, and that this summer was unbearable. She had suffered terribly from the heat this summer too. We rode up the escalator. I got off before her and waited to catch her arm, but this time she didn’t trip. She set her foot down firmly, shod in its orthopedic sandal, and smiled at me provocatively, as if she had been practicing getting off the escalator secretly. She looked at me and said: “And you thought your mother was hopeless.” “I never thought that,” I said. “Yes you did, but never mind, let’s sit down and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
We sat in the café with the bad cakes and the bad memories; my mother ordered a slice of apple strudel and I wanted just coffee. She said: “You’re doing this on purpose.” I said: “Doing what?”
“You never order anything,” she said.
It wasn’t true, I just wasn’t hungry.
“So when do you eat?” she asked.
“I eat, don’t worry. You can see that I eat.”
“I’m not worried,” she said. “I just wanted to treat you and you won’t let me.”
“If it matters so much, I’ll order something,” I said.
“What’s the matter, Maya?” she asked. “What’s wrong with you lately? You seem a little depressed to me,” she said.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m tired and hot, and I hate the summer, and my feet hurt.” I called the waitress and ordered a cheese Danish.
My mother said she couldn’t understand how I could eat it, that the Danish tasted like soap, it was the worst thing in the café, why did I have to pick that of all things? “Why do your feet hurt?” she asked, and I said again it was the heat, that I had walked to Dad’s place today because my car was in the garage.
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.
“Nothing. An oil change.”
She finished eating her strudel and asked for a glass of water. She told the waitress to bring me one too. “Drink, Maya,” she said. “In this heat you should drink all the time.”
She said that she hadn’t asked me out today just to buy me a present. That was an excuse, she said, for us to get together. She wanted to consult me about something urgent, and after that we would go on looking for my present. She said: “I won’t let you out of it. You’ll leave here today with something.”
“What did you want to ask me about?”
“I’ve been seeing a therapist,” she said and blushed, lifting the glass of water to her lips to drown the words just out of her mouth.
“You’re in therapy?” I asked, raising my own glass of water.
“I go once a week.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Never mind, Maya. Someone recommended her.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Tali, when we were talking on the phone, after Dad and I got divorced…”
“Tali?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said and asked the waitress for another glass of water. “Tali thought I should go for counseling, that’s what she called it. She said everyone in the States goes, that it was nothing to be ashamed of. She said divorce was a big step and I should have somebody to talk to.”
“So you went?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s someone Tali’s friend Michal knows, someone she studied with.”
“Someone young? Michal’s age?” I asked.
“Yes, why not? Age doesn’t matter.”
“Your therapist is a girl of twenty-eight?”
“I can’t see why it’s a problem,” she said. “Tali said she was very good. And she really does seem very sympathetic and mature.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “You’ve been in therapy for six months and you haven’t said a word.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I was afraid you’d think I was depressed. I didn’t want to worry you.”
“So why are you telling me now?” I asked.
“Ah! That’s exactly what I wanted to talk about,” she said. “Orna and I have been talking…”
“Orna? That’s her name?”
“Yes,” said my mother. “Orna thinks that maybe I should reconsider the divorce. She doesn’t say it in so many words, but maybe I was a bit hasty.”
“Are you unhappy being alone?” I asked. “Is that why you’re in therapy?”
“No. God forbid. I’m getting along nicely. You can see I’m getting along just fine.”
“So what’s the problem?” I asked. I imagined a young psychologist, younger than I, sitting opposite my mother with her legs crossed, in some air-conditioned clinic she shared with two or three other young psychologists, nodding at her from time to time and squeezing insights out of her, which my mother hurried to write down in her notebook on her way home so she wouldn’t forget.
“Why are you so hostile, Maya?” my mother said. “I’m just trying to talk to you. You’re my daughter, aren’t you? If I can’t talk to you, who can I talk to?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I could see you were in a bad mood,” she said. “I know you well enough.”
“Yes,” I said. “Forget it. Tell me what Orna said.”
My mother was glad to get back to her therapist and said: “She thinks that maybe what I did, the whole divorce thing, was just to get revenge on Dad.”
“Revenge? What for?” I asked.
“Her,” she said and again pressed the glass of water to her lips.
“Violet?” I asked.
“Yes, her, Violet,” she said and her shoulders shrank in pain.
“You told Orna about her?”
“We talk about her a lot,” she said.
“But she’s dead, Mom. She died over thirty years ago. What’s the point in revenge? What did he do?”
“That’s what we’re talking about, just yesterday we talked about it, Orna and me. I’m telling you, she’s really good. Very mature. There are a lot of things I’ve never really thought about. All kinds of things I swept under the carpet, like Orna says. Your father didn’t always treat me right. I felt very bad in the first years of our marriage. Because of her, Violet. She died suddenly like that, such a tragedy for your father. But it was a tragedy for me too, being with him like that. He didn’t talk about her, but she was there all the time, in the background, like a picture on the wall, but I had enough on my hands, I had you and Tali, and I was busy taking care of you, and I tried not to think about it.”
“Think about what?” I asked.
“Your father and her, Violet.” It was hard for her to say the name. “I know he loved her very much. But then you grew up and left home, and I had more time to think, and I realized that all the time I’d been a compromise for Dad. Just a compromise.”
“Is that what Orna told you?” I asked. “That you were a compromise?”
“No. God forbid. Orna didn’t say it. She just points me in the right direction. She’s very sympathetic.”
“So the divorce was all an act?”
“No! Of course not! Do you think your mother’s completely mad? Of course it was
n’t an act. I really thought I’d be better off without him. All those years I was his compromise, and he’d become mine too. From the love of my life, your father turned into a compromise. See how sad it is? But that’s life, I’m not complaining. So I thought: Maybe I’ll be better off on my own. What do I need him there for all the time, to remind me what a big compromise I was? I thought it was better to be alone.”
“So what’s changed your mind?”
“Nothing,” she said and stared at the strudel crumbs on her plate. “Dad’s not well.”
“Neither are you,” I said.
“No, neither am I. We’re not young anymore.”
“No,” I said. “You’re not young.”
“So maybe we should act like adults.”
Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. My mother went on staring at her plate and squashing the crumbs with her finger. I looked at the people sitting around us, men and women with bright shopping bags, shiny plastic bags bearing the logos of boutiques and shoe stores and bookstores and gift stores. My mother sighed and lit a cigarette. The waitress cleared away my cup and plate and asked if she should leave the water. “Leave it,” said my mother, “it’s so hot today,” and she smiled apologetically at the waitress.
“Are you scared of being alone?” I asked.
My mother was silent.
“A little,” she said. “Maybe I am a little scared of being alone.”
“And you want me to tell you if you should go back to Dad?”
“I thought I’d talk to you about it.”
“I’m sure Dad will agree.”
“Yes, I know that. But I’m not sure what I want.”
“You say you don’t want to be alone.”
“No,” she said and took a last sip of water. “I don’t want to be alone. Not at my age.”
“And what does Tali think?” I asked.
“I didn’t ask her,” my mother said. “She hasn’t got time for these things.”
“But she’s got time to send you to a shrink,” I said.
“Maya,” said my mother, “you have to stop talking about Tali like that. She has her life and you have yours. You’re different. And we love you both, Dad and I love you both.”
“So go back to him,” I said. “Talk to him and tell him how you feel.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll tell him. We’ll go and visit him and talk to him. I’m glad I spoke to you, Maya. Now let’s get the check. I’ll pay. Take your hand out of your bag.”
Mom paid the waitress and left her a generous tip. I told her it was too much, and she said never mind, the waitress was very nice, even though the waitress wasn’t particularly nice, but my mother was acting as if she’d just discovered that the world was a good, friendly place, full of potential for happiness—it was just too bad she hadn’t known this before.
We walked out of the café into the air-conditioned mall and took the escalator down. I had to pick up my car from the garage. We said good-bye at her bus stop and I set off in my direction. Mom called after me: “So we’ll talk to Daddy. Right?” I said: “Yes,” and ran to catch my bus. I sat behind the driver and looked out the window. We hadn’t bought me a present after all. My mother sat down on the bench at the bus stop, next to an old woman who moved aside to make room for her.
14
They broke the news cautiously. The three of us were sitting around the table in the kitchen with the plants and the pleasant breeze. We were eating a light meal because it was too hot for anything cooked. We had cheese and bread and an onion omelette. Amir chopped the onion and whistled to himself and wiped his tears. Noga said that it was his job to cut up onions and make omelettes and whistle silly tunes he invented while he cooked. Once again I was sitting in Noga and Amir’s kitchen on a Friday afternoon and eating with them. Once again it was sweltering outside yet pleasant in the kitchen. Noga and Amir had a theory about getting the right exposure, but I thought it was just luck. They were lucky with their apartment.
Noga sighed and said she’d eaten too much, and she lifted her tank top, Amir’s tank top, patting herself on the stomach. Amir cleared the table and put the dishes in the sink. He filled the electric kettle, stood behind her chair, gripped the backrest, and rocked it back and forth. Noga told him to stop. Amir kissed her neck, took his hands off the back of the chair, put them on her shoulders, and massaged them. Noga said again that she’d eaten too much, raised her eyes and looked at Amir and asked him why she had eaten so much, and Amir kissed the tip of her nose. The kettle boiled and he asked us what we wanted to drink; Noga said that she didn’t want anything, she was too full, and I said: “Iced coffee.” Amir said iced coffee was a good idea, that he would have iced coffee too, and asked Noga if she didn’t want to change her mind. She said no, he put his hands on the back of the chair again, rocked it back and forth, and said: “We’re getting married.”
“Amir!” Noga shrieked.
“What’s wrong?” he said, rumpling her hair.
“I wanted to tell her,” she said, and shook her head. “Stop that! I don’t like it,” she said and Amir took his hand away and poured a little boiling water into two cups and mixed it with the coffee. “If I’d waited until you got up the courage to tell Maya, we’d be on our way to get divorced.” Noga massaged her stomach and said: “Don’t exaggerate.” I said: “Congratulations.”
Amir opened the fridge and took out the milk. “She’s been trying to make up her mind how to tell you for a month.”
“Stop it!” she wailed.
“It’s true,” he said laughing. “She’s been agonizing over it for a whole month.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because she was afraid of your reaction,” he said.
“Will you please stop talking nonsense?” said Noga with real anger. Amir pushed his hand into her hair and rumpled it again.
“Stop it!” she yelled and grabbed his wrist. “You know I don’t like it. Why do you keep doing it?”
“Because I like it,” he said. “I like annoying you.”
“Were you really afraid of my reaction?” I asked.
“It’s not the way it sounds. It’s not like there’s a conspiracy. I just didn’t know how to tell you. We just decided. About a month ago. It was quite sudden, and we haven’t told anyone yet except our parents.”
“She was afraid you’d be jealous,” said Amir. “She was afraid you’d get depressed about it.”
“Bullshit,” Noga said.
“I’m glad,” I said. “Truly, with all my heart. You don’t have to feel uncomfortable.”
“Really?” she said and looked at Amir who was standing behind her still rocking her chair. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes.” I said. “I mean it.”
Noga lit a cigarette and threw the match into the sink. Amir took a tray of ice cubes out of the freezer and said: “And she’s going to quit smoking after we get married.”
“That’s why we’re getting married,” she said, “so I’ll quit.”
“So when is it?” I asked.
“September,” they said together.
Amir banged the tray of ice on the counter and said: “If you’re still with that asshole you’re going out with, you can bring him so we can finally get a look at him.” An ice cube came free of the tray and landed behind the fridge, and Amir bent down and groped for it with his hand.
“I’m not going out with him,” I said.
“Yes, they never leave his house,” said Noga.
“Why, is he stingy?”
“Emotionally,” said Noga and laughed and blew out smoke. I laughed with her. Amir crawled on all fours looking for the ice cube. Noga told him to forget about it, it would melt anyway, and he said he didn’t want a puddle under the fridge. I looked at him in his short pants. He too had downy hair in the small of his back. I thought that maybe this was why I had fallen in love with Nathan, this hair, that you fell in love because of the small things. Amir was short and thin, and the hair on his bac
k was black. I wondered whether I could fall in love with Amir, with his skinny legs and hollow chest and protruding ribs, Noga’s Amir with the black hair in the small of his back, and I knew that I could.
“So when in September?” I asked. “Before the holidays?”
“Definitely,” said Noga. “After that it’s already winter.”
Amir said: “We’re looking for a place with a garden.”
“I’ve heard of a few,” I said. “I can find out for you.”
“We’re going to look at a couple of places tomorrow. You want to come?”
I said no, that I had work to do at home. I had tons of stuff to read, but thanks anyway.
“If you change your mind,” said Noga, “we won’t leave before four. Right?”
“Four, five,” said Amir, “when it’s a little cooler. Maybe we’ll go to the beach first.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Amir gave up on the ice cube and told Noga there would be a puddle under the fridge. He put the two mugs of iced coffee on the table and stirred them rapidly, making the ice cubes tinkle. He stood next to the table between Noga and me and stirred the coffee, until Noga told him to stop because it was giving her a headache. She said, “That’s enough,” and stroked the small of his back. Amir threw the spoon into the sink and took his coffee to the living room. Noga went on rocking her chair and smoking and patting her stomach.