Fields of Exile

by Nora Gold

  Suzy looks at her intently. “He said you tore a poster off the wall. Is this true?”

  She feels like shitting. So someone did see her. And he told Suzy. Bravely she looks right back at her. “It was calling for a boycott of Israel. Of all Israeli students and faculty —”

  “I don’t care what it was calling for!” cries Suzy. “You don’t go around tearing posters off walls just because you don’t agree with what’s written on them. You have no right, Judith. This is school property.”

  “It’s only school property because someone convinced Phoebe to stamp it with the school stamp.”

  “I don’t know about ‘convinced.’ Phoebe isn’t easy to convince of anything. But the bottom line is that this poster was stamped and therefore was school property. You are not the judge of what should and shouldn’t be on the walls of this school.”

  “Then who is?” Judith asks defiantly, amazed at her own fearlessness. “You once said this school belongs to all of us. Well, if I, as co-chair of SWAC, can’t pull down a poster that’s promoting hate, then who can?”

  “Being the co-chair of SWAC doesn’t give you the right to pull down posters,” says Suzy. “That is a misunderstanding, even an abuse, of the power of this position.”

  “On the contrary, I think it is a most appropriate use of the power of this position. Standing up for what is right. Opposing oppression in all its forms.”

  Suzy shakes her head. “No. Because when it comes to Israel, you have no sense of proportion at all. You overreact. Your judgment is flawed. If you want to stay on as co-chair of SWAC, you’re going to have to be more objective and neutral.”

  “Objective? Neutral?!” cries Judith. “If this poster was proposing not to let Muslim faculty members sit on editorial boards or publish in any of the good journals, do you believe anyone would ask all the Muslim students and faculty to try and be objective and neutral about it? Or the Asians at this school if this poster were directed against them? Or GLBTs, or blacks? Of course not. But because it’s about Israelis, you’re telling me I shouldn’t be upset, and I should be objective and neutral. Well, I’m not. I’m not objective and neutral, and I don’t even want to be.”

  “That,” Suzy says dryly, “is becoming clearer by the minute. You’ve become so emotionally involved with this issue you are quite unable to see any side but your own.”

  Judith laughs a small, hard laugh. “What side is that, Suzy? I’m on the side that opposes antisemitism. I should be able to see the side that supports it?”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t know what you meant at all.” She feels weak now, almost like crying.

  Suzy says coldly, “Then I’m not sure there’s any point in my trying to explain.” She regards her with palpable dislike. Without the slightest hint of Unconditional Positive Regard. Or any Positive Regard at all. “But,” Suzy adds, “you still have a decision to make.”

  “No, I don’t. It’s already made.”

  Suzy looks at her expectantly.

  “I’m resigning.”

  Suzy isn’t upset or even surprised, and Judith even sees a faint glint of satisfaction in her eyes. “As co-chair?” is all Suzy says.

  She frowns. “Yes. Isn’t that what I am?”

  “Yes,” says Suzy. “But you also have the option of resigning as co-chair yet still remaining on the committee.”

  She digests this for a moment. “You mean stay on as a regular member.”

  Suzy nods.

  “No,” says Judith. “There’s not much point.”

  “No,” Suzy agrees sympathetically. “Probably not.”

  There is that old warmth and empathy in Suzy’s voice now, and a compassionate expression in her eyes. For a second, this kindles in Judith a feeling of closeness with her, and a longing for more. But then she is angry. Suzy’s empathy right now is like someone kicking you in the stomach and then being solicitous that your stomach hurts. “I have to go,” she says, and rises.

  Suzy glances at the clock. Judith follows her eyes: 4:46 p.m. — she has already missed Natalie’s bus. Judith, standing while Suzy sits, looks down at her and says, “About the Christmas party —”

  “I don’t want to discuss that,” says Suzy.

  “But I —”

  “I said I’m not interested!”

  There is a sharp finality in Suzy’s voice that makes it impossible to utter another word. Judith stands perfectly still, gazing at Suzy’s face. It changed the second Judith brought up the Christmas party: something deep inside Suzy’s eyes snapped shut like a trap door. “Okay,” Judith says slowly and turns to go. But at the door, she turns back and says, “I guess Elizabeth will co-chair with you now.”

  “Well, she is who I had in mind,” says Suzy. “I checked into it, and I’m supposed to appoint your successor as soon as possible in circumstances like these.”

  “Circumstances like these”? What does she mean by that? wonders Judith, or by “I checked into it”? Then she understands. This was all pre-arranged. It was signed, sealed, and delivered before she even walked into this room. She can see Suzy, sometime after the last SWAC meeting, crossing that dark alley to Weick’s office, and reviewing with him all the proper procedures for getting rid of the co-chair of a committee — in other words, her. Which Weick, disliking her as he does, would no doubt have been happy to do. So it was all settled in advance. It didn’t matter, then, what she said or did in the past half-hour. She could have sat in complete silence or screamed her head off; it wouldn’t have made any difference. A short laugh escapes her now: A single note — a “ha!” of epiphany.

  The room is utterly silent. She stands in the doorway, gawking at Suzy. At those pretty brown eyes, which gaze back at her now with an expression of compassion and concern. Pseudo-compassion, she thinks, pseudo-concern. Pseudo, pseudo, pseudo. She turns on her heel and leaves.

  — 9 —

  For the next four days, Judith goes over this conversation with Suzy. Over and over again, word for word — I said, she said, I said, she said — as though it’s a text that, if she studies it long enough, she’ll be able to understand. Of course, at one level, she understands perfectly well what happened. She and Suzy had misunderstandings regarding her illness and the Christmas party, and different perspectives on SWAC, and these three elements affected their relationship. At another level, though, what happened with Suzy doesn’t make any sense at all. Suzy sold her out. She betrayed her — with SWAC, with Weick, with the RA’ship, and with their whole relationship. In just eight weeks, Judith has gone from being Suzy’s favourite student — respected, trusted, and cherished — to being someone Suzy considers untrustworthy, dishonest, and contemptible.

  While she’s agonizing about this, though, she is also doing her schoolwork. Despite everything, her mind is sharp and focused, and in just four days of concentrated work, she’s managed to catch up on more than half the readings, and knock off one of the two short assignments she owes Suzy. At four o’clock she stops studying, goes to the kitchen, and eats a banana. She is relieved and glad to be on top of her schoolwork.

  On the wall calendar she crosses off the four previous days, with four big bold red X’s. Then, too superstitious to cross off today’s square until it’s over, she draws a little pyramid and writes in it the number of days she has left in Canada. Only fifty-nine days, she thinks, until I’m back home and out of galut. She counts all the Mondays between now and the last day of school, April 7: nine Mondays to go. Just nine more days of classes — only nine more times she has to drive to Dunhill. Anyone can get through nine days. She could survive nine days anywhere, even in prison.

  Through the kitchen window she sees it’s getting dark outside, so she goes upstairs and gets nicely dressed. She is going to Bobby’s soon for Friday night dinner. She doesn’t feel like it —she’d rather stay home and read — but they never miss a Friday night together. She bundles up and gets into the car.

  B
obby looks glad to see her. He gives her a warm hug and ushers her into the kitchen where, from a pot on the stove, he ladles out for her a cup of hot apple cider. In the living room, she sits on his black leather couch, her knees pulled up against her chest, drinking her cider and holding the cup with both hands to warm them. The cider is pleasantly spicy, it warms her all the way down, and sitting here, she feels cozy. Bobby sits at the other end of the couch, smiling and watching her drink. Then he asks, “Do you know what day it is today?”

  She has no idea what he means. She knows it isn’t his birthday.

  “It’s seventeen months to the day,” he says, “since we got back together.”

  “Wow,” she says. “That’s a long time.”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun. To me it feels like nothing.”

  “You sound like Jacob working for Rachel. At least for me you didn’t have to herd sheep from morning to night.”

  “I’m serious, Judith.” His earnest look erases her smile. “I feel very lucky.”

  She looks down into her cider, embarrassed. She doesn’t want things to get intense. To lighten things up, she says, “Yeah. Like I’m such a great catch.”

  “You are.”

  “No, I’m not. But anyway, can we eat now? I’m hungry.”

  In his dining room, she lights the Shabbat candles. They recite the blessings over the wine and chalah, and eat. Over soup they discuss Bobby’s work: It is going slightly better than before, but still not great. Which revives in her the same old pang of guilt: It’s all my fault. It’s because of that Christmas party. I shouldn’t have worn that red dress …

  Over chicken-with-apricots and rice, they talk about what happened with Suzy on Monday. They have already conversed about this several times, and Bobby is disgusted with Suzy.

  “What a couple, that Suzy and Dennis,” he says. “I’ve got him and you’ve got her. I don’t know which is worse.”

  For the third time in the past twenty minutes, she says, “I can’t believe what Suzy did.” Then she adds, “Especially how she took no responsibility for her actions and blamed it all on democracy. Like democracy is the be-all and end-all. You’d think democracy was God.”

  He smiles. “You know the joke about God and democracy.”

  “No.”

  “You’ll love this. One night there’s a meeting between Rabbi Volovich and the Ritual Committee at his shul. Ten men are present — a minyan. The committee’s chairman proposes a motion, the rabbi disagrees, and all hell breaks loose. Both sides on this issue believe they’re totally right, and neither side will yield. It’s six against four. There’s shouting, screaming, name-calling — a typical synagogue meeting dealing with sacred matters. After three hours, the chairman says, ‘We’re not getting anywhere. It’s ten o’clock and we have to decide. I’m calling a vote.’

  “They vote, and it’s still six to four. The chairman is about to declare victory over the rabbi when there’s a great rumbling noise. It grows increasingly loud, like thunder or an earthquake. Lightning flashes through the stained-glass windows. The sanctuary walls tremble. Everyone’s terrified. Then the doors to the holy ark fly open, and out booms a deafening voice: ‘Rabbi Volovich is right!’ Then the ark closes, the thunder and lightning vanish, and everything returns to normal. Everyone is dumbfounded. Astonishingly, God has descended personally from heaven to express the divine viewpoint on this motion. The committee sits in stunned silence.

  “Finally the chairman says: ‘So what? So now, instead of four votes, the rabbi has five. I still have six, so my motion carries.’”

  Judith laughs heartily. “That’s great!”

  “I heard it from a rabbi. Apparently the idea behind it comes from the Talmud: That God runs things in heaven, and we run things down here.”

  “That’s depressing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t have much faith in the human race right now. If even God can’t help us, we’re fucked.”

  He looks at her tenderly. “I know you’re feeling disillusioned, which is understandable. But the world is what it is. It isn’t going to change, for you or anyone else, and if you keep fighting it, you’re just going to keep getting hurt.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “You will. You can fight one little piece of it here or there. But this thing at Dunhill, for instance, is way too big for any one person, even you. It’s just hurling yourself against a windmill.”

  “Stop with the windmill thing,” she says irritably. “Find a new metaphor. Anyway, I don’t agree. Someone has to try to change things. You can’t just take everything lying down.”

  “There are some things I love doing lying down,” he smiles. But she does not smile back. “Come on, Judith. Lighten up. It’s Friday night.”

  She hates being told to lighten up. But she also doesn’t feel like fighting. She picks despondently at her chicken-with-apricots. Her appetite is gone. She moves the chicken around on her plate, like she did as a child, to camouflage how little of it she has eaten. She hopes he doesn’t notice, and he doesn’t seem to. He is too busy telling her that all she has to do between now and April 7 is get her M.S.W. Show up at classes, do her homework, and graduate. He pronounces this last word in three distinct syllables: gra-du-ate. It sounds like “Grad Jew Ate.” Like someone ate a Jew who was a grad.

  “I know,” she says glumly, feeling depressed. She knows he is right. He’s right the same way her father was always right. Because they both reflect the voice of the world. The “real world.” The world as it is, not as it should be, or as she would like it to be. She looks at Bobby across the table from her, handsome in his Ralph Lauren sweater, so solidly middle class and normal. Not like her. She has always been different. He glances up from his plate at her: his eyes are a beautiful emerald green and piercingly smart. He’ll always be okay, she thinks. He’s a survivor.

  Now he notices her plate. “You haven’t eaten a thing,” he says.

  “I’m not hungry,” she answers guiltily. “It’s very good, though — and it was sweet of you to make chicken-with-apricots. Normally I love it.”

  He stares at her full plate. “Okay, you’re not hungry for chicken. But maybe you’re hungry for something else?”

  No. She is not in the mood for sex.

  “Some zabaglione, perhaps?” he asks with a smile.

  “Zabaglione?!” She loves zabaglione, as he knows.

  “Coming right up. Uno momento.” He disappears into the kitchen and returns a minute later bearing two tall soda fountain glasses filled with zabaglione, topped with strawberries and chocolate shavings.

  “You made this?!” she asks, incredulous.

  “No, it’s from Fireman’s. But I thought you deserved a treat.”

  She gazes with delight at her dessert. “I can’t believe it. Bobby, you are the best.” She dips her finger into the smooth, creamy foam, and with her eyes closed, slowly sucks it off. “Oh, my God,” she says. “Oh, my God.”

  “You like it?” he asks with shining eyes.

  “Better than sex, as Aliza would say.”

  “Really?” He sounds a little hurt.

  She opens her eyes and looks at him. “Of course not, silly.” She feels like she is simultaneously telling the truth and lying.

  “Here.” He holds out a long ice cream spoon.

  She accepts it reluctantly. “Do I have to use this?”

  He looks surprised. “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “Good.” She dips her finger back into the zabaglione, and again with closed eyes, slowly sucks it off. “Oh, my God,” she says, and dips it in and sucks it off again. Then again. And again. But before she can do it yet another time, he comes around to her side of the table, kneels beside her, takes hold of her hand, dips her finger into the zabaglione, and inserts it into his own mouth. She moans as his tongue flicks up and down her finger, flicking-licking off the sweet foam. He leans forward and licks a tiny smudge of zabaglione from the corner of her
mouth. He licks her upper lip. She smiles. He kisses her lower lip. She grins. He kisses the inside of her mouth. She flings her arms around his neck and clings to him with all her might.

  —10 —

  On Monday morning Judith drives to Dunhill. There is snow everywhere, nothing anywhere but snow. On the radio this morning, they said this is the snowiest and coldest winter Toronto has had in twenty-five years. Even walking to her car in the driveway, the wind tore viciously through her coat as if she weren’t wearing anything at all. Last night she plugged every crack around the doors and windows with rags and old socks. But gurnisht helfn: afterwards she still felt the cold air any time she passed a door or window — and this was with the furnace on. Yesterday she sifted through the accumulated mail, and there was the heating bill, due two days from now. There’s no way she can pay it — not unless she stops buying food. She hopes they don’t cut off her heat immediately; someone told her there’s usually a grace period, followed by a reminder notice, maybe even two. I must do something about this, she thinks. Maybe if I call them and plead … Yes. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll give them a call.

  She drives past farms, fields, and houses covered with snow. Under it, she knows, lie sleeping things. Grass, earth, the worms in the earth. Hibernating animals like squirrels and groundhogs. And also her father. Her father is under the earth — inside it. And it seems to her now like he’s not really dead. Just sleeping, hibernating like a bear till spring. Like her. In April she’ll return to Israel, and then come back to life.

  In the Dunhill parking lot she bumps into Cindy and together they walk to FRANK. They haven’t spoken since last Monday, because Mikey has been sick. Cindy says he’s better today, but still not entirely well; he’s at home with a babysitter. Judith tells Cindy about her meeting with Suzy a week ago.

  “Fuck her,” says Cindy. Fuck seems to have become her favourite word. “I never saw what you saw in her, anyway, Judith. I always thought you overrated her.”

  Judith has thought all along that Cindy was jealous of her relationship with Suzy, and maybe she was. But perhaps it wasn’t just jealousy. Perhaps Cindy could see Suzy’s true colours all along, whereas she couldn’t. Perhaps she has been not just overrating Suzy, but underrating Cindy. Not giving her the credit she deserves.