Fields of Exile

by Nora Gold

  “I could get used to this,” she says. “This is fantastic!”

  He leans down and kisses her lightly. “You’re fantastic. I’m so proud of what you did last night.”

  “I accomplished nothing.”

  “Even so.” He bustles about, setting up their meal. She marvels at his dexterous, efficient gestures as he sets the table and sticks serving utensils into each container. He moves briskly and confidently and she is grateful he’s here, taking care of her. I’m lucky, she thinks. He is a good man.

  He strikes a match, it makes a whooshing sound, and there is the smell of sulphur. He melts the bases of two white candles and inserts their wet, sticky bottoms into the holes of her grandmother’s candlesticks. She lights the Shabbat candles, covers her eyes, and sings the blessing. Then they bless the wine and chalah and eat the meal from Fireman’s. Bobby says, “I’m so proud of you. What you did took balls.”

  “I don’t know.” Her fork stabs a piece of chicken. “I’m not so sure.”

  “I am. You showed courage.”

  She just shrugs and lowers her eyes. She does not feel like an argument now. It is pleasant, too, to be viewed as courageous, even if she doesn’t believe it’s true. She has changed her mind since this morning. Now she feels that whatever came over her last night, it was not real courage. It was only a result of her blood boiling with fever, and when her anger mixed in with it, the two things together exploded, like when you throw a handful of baking soda into a bottle of vinegar. They rose inside her like a frothing tidal wave, drowning out everything else. Including her usual cautiousness. But this is no proof of character or courage.

  “Courage,” she says to Bobby. “I don’t even know where that word comes from. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Courage. Cou rage,” she muses. “Cou in French is neck. Plus rage. That’s the rage of the neck. Which could work, because the brain stem is in the neck, and that’s where our most primitive emotions are located. Including rage. So maybe courage isn’t such a high and noble emotion, after all. Maybe it’s just neck rage. There’s road rage. Neck rage. And courage.”

  “Interesting,” he says. “Now you’ve made me curious. Where’s the dictionary?”

  She points. It’s above the microwave with the cookbooks. For years, to clarify the meanings of words during their family supper discussions, her mother ran upstairs almost every night to fetch the dictionary from the study. Finally she got fed up with running up and down stairs, and just left the dictionary in the kitchen. It now sits among the cookbooks as if someone were planning to make a meal out of words. Bobby brings it to the table, sets it down a safe distance from a glob of gravy, and finds the word courage.

  “Courage,” he reads, his finger touching this word. “It’s from the Romanic root cor, or coraticum, which means ‘heart.’”

  “Oh! So cor plus age means a heart of age. An aged heart. But wouldn’t an old heart be a weak heart, rather than a strong one?”

  “Maybe the heart physically weakens with time, but spiritually grows in strength.”

  “Ahh,” she says dramatically, raising her eyebrows and smiling.

  “Ahh,” he says back. They grin at each other. “So this means, Judith, you’re an old-hearted girl. I mean voo-man.” He leans forward to kiss her.

  “No, don’t. I could make you sick.”

  “You could never make me sick.”

  “No, really.”

  “Really.”

  His lips feel soft. Then harder, more insistent. “Let’s go upstairs,” he says.

  “No.” She’s feeling better than before, but still weak and feverish. “I’m tired. Maybe tonight I’ll just go to sleep.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Let’s call it a night. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Okay. I’ll go home and work. I have tons to do this weekend.”

  She knows about the big case he is working on now for Dennis, and how stressful it is. Ever since Bobby returned from Christmas vacation, for no reason he can understand, Dennis has been piling work on him and making unusually heavy demands. All this month he’s had to work nearly every evening and most of each weekend just to keep up. But no matter how hard he works, Dennis seems dissatisfied. Bobby can’t do anything right. He desperately wants to be taken onto Dennis’s team, but Dennis just keeps upping the bar, and it’s starting to look like nothing Bobby does will ever be good enough. Even his excellent work on their latest case — which the firm won largely thanks to Bobby’s outstanding background research – did not secure him the spot on Dennis’s team he’d been led to expect. He is frustrated, angry, and perplexed. He can’t understand what is going on.

  But she can. It’s because of what happened between her and Dennis at the Christmas party. She’s sure of it. But now she only says, “Good idea. Tomorrow we’ll be together. Thanks for bringing supper.”

  “No problem. Sleep well.” He kisses her on her hair and leaves. She lies on the couch, figuring she’ll rest for just a moment before putting away the food. Within seconds, even before Bobby’s car is out of the driveway, she is fast asleep.

  On Sunday night, she is still sick. Bobby comes and makes omelettes for supper, flipping them high above the pan, which makes her smile. But after one bite, she puts down her fork and lies on the couch. He sits near her in the armchair by the window.

  “To go or not to go,” she says. “That is the question.”

  “No,” he says, “that’s not what I’m thinking. I’m fine sitting here with you.”

  “I didn’t mean you; I meant me.” He looks at her blankly. “To school tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday.”

  “School!” he cries. “You can’t go to school! Just look at yourself! You can’t even sit at the table for longer than five minutes.”

  “But I have to go. Tomorrow is the crucial day. It’s the fourth week of classes, and according to Phoebe, the school administrator, I’ve now reached the point of no return. The first three weeks of a term are one thing, but after that it’s for real. If I miss any more classes, I forfeit the whole term.”

  “Better than forfeiting your health,” he says angrily. Then, more conciliatorily, he adds, “I’m sure you can negotiate something.”

  “I don’t know. This email I got from Phoebe on Friday sounded so firm.”

  “Fuck Phoebe. Anyway, let’s face it, this isn’t law school; it’s just social work. You could probably learn your whole term’s work in a week or two in the summer.”

  “Stop insulting my profession,” she says. “You’re always putting down social work. In any case I don’t plan to be here this summer. I’ll be back in Israel by then.”

  “No, you won’t,” he says cheerfully but seriously. “You’re staying here with me.” He looks at her hoping for a positive response, but her face is tight and determined. “Either way, you obviously can’t go to Dunhill tomorrow.”

  “Of course I can. I can do whatever I want.”

  “Look what happened when you went there on Thursday. It set you back another week at least. What do I have to do — come over tomorrow morning and tie you down to your bed?”

  She pictures herself being forcibly restrained. Helpless. “Go away,” she says. “I mean it. Go home. You have no right to talk to me that way. You’re always telling me what to do. Stop trying to control me all the time.”

  “I’m not trying to control you.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes. You are.”

  They glare at each other. Then he rises from his chair. “Fine. I’ll go if that’s what you want.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m going.”

  “Great.”

  But at the doorway he hesitates, turns around and looks at her half-reproachfully, half-imploringly. “Come on, Judith. I didn’t mean —”

  “I know exactly what you meant. Just go, okay? I want to sleep.”

  “Fine. I’m going.”

&nbs
p; He flicks off the light and bangs the door shut behind him. She lies alone in the darkness. What an asshole, she thinks. He probably means well, but he’s a control freak. Always bossing me around like a father with a child, like he’s Father Knows Best. So obnoxious. So patronizing …

  But she’s too tired to keep this up for long. Anger takes energy and, weak as she is, she has very little of this. Two minutes later she’s asleep.

  — 6 —

  The second she awakens the next morning, she knows she’s too sick to go to Dunhill. The clock says 9:05 a.m., and today is the fourth Monday in a row she’ll miss school. She imagines what’s happening there now: everyone entering Corinne’s class, some in cliques, others alone. Like Cindy, now that Pam’s in Policy, and Aliza and she are sick. The cliques, she’s sure, are whispering about her. Gossip spreads fast — by now everyone’s heard what happened Thursday night at SWAC. They think she’s not at school today because she’s too gutless to show her face.

  The phone rings. She answers it.

  “I’m sorry,” Bobby says immediately. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

  “You’re right, you shouldn’t have.”

  “Afterwards I felt awful.”

  “You’re always trying to control me. You have to stop trying to control me.”

  “It’s only because I care.”

  “I don’t care that you care. I hate when you do that.”

  “I know you do,” he says. Then: “Do you forgive me?”

  She hesitates. “Yes. Do you forgive me? I probably overreacted. I feel so shitty when I’m sick.”

  “I know. I’m worried about you. But are we done with this now? Is it over? I hate when we fight.”

  “Me, too.”

  “So let’s not.”

  ”Let’s not what?”

  “Fight. Ever again.”

  She chuckles. “Oh! Okay.”

  “That was easy,” he says, and she hears him smiling, too. “How are you feeling today?”

  “No worse than yesterday, but not well enough for school.”

  “I’m very glad you’re staying home today. I was certain you were going to Dunhill.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” she says. “I can be pretty stupid at times, but not that stupid.”

  He laughs, but it’s a laugh that is restrained, even strained. She can feel how he is still being careful with her. “Promise,” she says, “you won’t tell me what to do anymore. I hate being bossed around.”

  “I’m not bossing you around. I’m just worried about you.”

  “Yes, but it’s my life, Bobby, and I can do with it what I want.”

  There is a pause. “Look, I’ll try,” he says. “I’ll do my level best. But you know what they say: ‘It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.’”

  She laughs. “You’re not old! Just keep at it, Rover. You can do it.”

  They talk a bit longer. This morning in a group meeting, in front of four other colleagues, Bobby got sharply denigrated by Dennis, and he isn’t sure whether to bring this up when he and Dennis meet alone this afternoon. He discusses this briefly with Judith, then says he has to go. But he’ll come over tonight with some supper, probably around 8:30 or 9:00 — he has to work late again.

  Judith visits Bernie Braunstein for the third time this month. He tells her again what he’s told her twice before: she just has to ride this out.

  “You might even have been over this by now,” he adds, “if you’d stayed at home last week instead of going to that mall, and then shlepping all the way to Dunhill. Try and just stay in bed. If you take good care of yourself, this shouldn’t last much longer. I’ve seen several cases of this, and four weeks is usually the limit.” He writes her a note for school, since Phoebe requested one. Handing it to Judith with a smile, he says he hopes she won’t hand-deliver this until she’s 100 percent well.

  Arriving home, the phone is ringing. It’s Cindy’s Monday afternoon call. Judith says she’s sure, after what happened Thursday night, that everyone at school is talking about her behind her back.

  “That’s not true,” Cindy says. “No one said a word about you today.”

  “Not to you because they know you’re my friend. Plus I’ll bet Suzy doesn’t believe I’m sick today. She probably thinks I’m faking it.”

  “Faking it? Why would she think that?” Cindy sounds affronted.

  “Because last week she saw me in the mall.”

  “Oh, that. Well, so what? What do you care anyway what she thinks of you? Or any of these people, after that meeting?”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t. I just wish I didn’t have to ever see them again.”

  “Never mind,” says Cindy. “They’re weird. They’re” — there’s a pause while she searches for the right word — “fucked.”

  “What did you say?!” Judith asks with a laugh. Cindy has never sworn, not once, since she’s known her.

  “Fucked,” says Cindy. “I said ‘fucked.’ So there. See, Judith? You’re corrupting me.”

  “Corrupting you? I’m liberating you!”

  Cindy giggles. “It feels good to say it, actually, after hearing it all last term from you guys. But I’d better not let my mother hear that or she’ll have a heart attack.”

  Now Cindy gives her an update on all her courses and assures her that all the teachers know she’s still sick. But she suggests that Judith give each of them a call, or at least send an email, since none of them have yet heard from her directly all term. After they hang up, Judith lies in bed for a while, glowing with the pleasure of friendship. There is goodness in the world, she thinks. There is darkness, but there is also light. Then she phones both Hetty and Corinne. Not Suzy — Suzy she will have to deal with in person. But Hetty and Corinne are both lovely on the phone. Just as Bobby predicted, they tell her not to worry about their courses. She’ll probably have to do an extra assignment for each course, but they both know she is a good student, and they are not worried. Hetty and Corinne both use this word, worried, but with different accents: one West Indian, one Eastern European. Corinne wasn’t wurrid; Hetty wasn’t woorreed. As long as Judith returns next Monday. Judith gets off the phone happy and relieved, and the rest of the day passes serenely. Topped off, in the evening, by Bobby’s arrival with all her favourite deli foods: smoked meat, chopped liver, salami (versht, as her father called it), onion rolls, coleslaw, potato salad, and two huge pickles.

  — 7 —

  One week later, on Monday morning, she drives to Dunhill. It is a bright winter day and she is delighted to be well and back in the world again, even though this means that today she’ll have to talk to Suzy. In addition to discussing what happened at the Christmas party and the SWAC meeting, she needs to enlist Suzy as her thesis advisor, and ask about her research grant. Judith has been counting on the RA’ship Suzy promised her, and now she urgently needs the money. She has less than $300 in her bank account: $293.03, to be precise — a prime number, she realized as soon as she saw it, which felt like an omen. Other than this $293.03, she has only a small savings account she cannot touch because it contains just enough money to cover her plane fare back to Israel and her first few months of rent there until she finds a job. Her most immediate worry is the heating bill that will arrive next week. The ancient furnace in her father’s house devours oil like a Moloch devouring children. The January bill will be around $350, and she won’t be able to pay it. And when she doesn’t, they’ll cut off her heat. She regrets that she took this chance with Suzy instead of accepting a scholarship, which would have been a sure thing. What she did back then now seems “the height of foolishness,” as her father used to say. Though it made perfect sense at the time. The RA’ship would be more money than a scholarship (assuming the grant came through), and it was a generous gesture of loyalty to Suzy, an act of faith in their special relationship. But that was then. Now their relationship is strained and she is desperate for money. What if Suzy didn’t get her grant? But no, that isn’t very likely.
Almost certainly she got her grant and all this will work out.

  Judith reaches the classroom fifteen minutes before Corinne’s class starts and, just as she imagined a week ago in bed, Kerry and her gang are all sitting together, gossiping, and it’s the same with Lola and hers. Judith reads an article Corinne assigned until Cindy arrives and sits beside her. It’s great to see her again. They hug and Cindy gives her all the materials she has saved for her. But after a few minutes of chat, Judith realizes that subliminally she is waiting for something. She is waiting for Pam and Aliza to appear, and they won’t, of course. It hits her viscerally that both of them are gone. Pam’s classes this term are all on Tuesdays, and Aliza — well, who knows when she’ll see her again? And much as Cindy is wonderful, it feels strange being here at school just with her. Judith misses Aliza’s brightness and lightness and Pam’s tough intelligence and acerbity. The four of us balanced each other out, she thinks, as Cindy chatters on. We were like four strong winds, same as in the song. North, east, south, and west meeting in the middle.

  Corinne begins her class. She is a very good teacher: smart, with a delicious dry sense of humour. This course is entitled “Sexism, Racism, and Women of Colour,” and today’s topic is “Women and Disability,” which Judith is interested in and knows something about. So she enjoys this class and afterwards introduces herself to Corinne.

  Hetty’s class is also very good. She is an engaging and even charming teacher, which is a great relief to Judith, who worried that Hetty’s moroseness could make for a tedious, depressing class. Judith discovers, though, that she is quite far behind in the statistics. When class is over, Cindy reassures her.