by Nora Gold
“Apparently realer.”
She purses her lips, but doesn’t answer. He studies her awhile.
“You’re like The Little Prince,” he says. “Or should I say Princess. You act as if you’re still twenty-three. Like time stopped when your mother died. It’s like you just froze.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. I was there, remember? I know what you went through then. The guilt you felt at not coming back earlier.”
She remembers.
“You’re not twenty-three anymore,” he says. “Sooner or later you’ll have to grow up.”
“Shut up. Stop lecturing me. You sound like my father.”
“He and I are the two people who know you best.”
“Yes, Father Knows Best,” she says. “Maybe you don’t know me, Bobby, as well as you think. I’m not like you, a finished pot by the age of thirty-three. I’m a work in progress. I’m still changing and becoming. I can still be all sorts of things.”
“It’s a bit late to become a brain surgeon, and lots of other things, too. Sometime soon you’re going to have to make some hard choices, Judith. Time doesn’t stand still. I love you, you know that, but even I won’t wait around forever.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
He is silent for a moment and his mouth hardens into a straight line. “You know,” he says, “your father totally nailed it.”
“I said —”
“Okay, okay, I’ll leave him out of this. But he was right. You’re able to commit yourself to an ideal or to something abstract, but not to anything real, like another person. Or anyway, not a living person. You probably love Herzl, Rabin, and the poet Rachel better than you love anyone in the real world. Including me.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“No, I mean it.” He looks excited, almost happy, as he always does when he gets a new idea. “You can commit yourself to a sunrise over an artichoke field. Or to a perfect political system. But to a real person, like a man? That’s something different.”
“That’s absurd. I’ve been in lots of relationships with men.”
“Then why have you never settled down with anybody? You’re thirty-three years old. You’re good-looking. Smart —”
“The same could be asked about you. Why aren’t you married, Bobby?”
“It’s different for a guy.”
She laughs. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not. A guy doesn’t need to be taken care of the way a woman does.”
She gapes at him. “You believe that?”
“Of course I do. So did your father. In fact, he was very worried about you, and he asked me to take care of you after he died.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s true. He did.”
She imagines Bobby seated on the chair by her father’s bed, while her father, in the old-fashioned style, talked to him man-to-man. Passing on to Bobby his only child, his daughter, his treasure (and burden) for safekeeping. Like King Lear, divesting himself of his property.
Bobby says, “He told me he hoped we’d get married, and was sorry he wouldn’t live to see it. He thought I’d be good for you.”
This is more than she can take. “Did he, now?” she says angrily, rising. “Well, lucky for me we’re no longer in a time where fathers pick their daughters’ husbands for them. Anyway, Bobby, I don’t need to be taken care of. Not by you or any other man. I’m an adult, not a child, and I can take care of myself. I’m going.”
“Touché. Whenever things get hot, whenever something gets too close to the bone, you run away. That’s why you moved to Israel in the first place. You ran away.”
“I did not. I didn’t run away to Israel. I moved there because I wanted to, and that’s why I’m returning there now. I know you’re not happy about it, Bobby, but I never deceived you. I never said I’d stay here after finishing my program. Besides, I’m fed up with your criticizing me and your cross-examinations. I’m leaving.”
“Fine. Do that. Go ahead — what difference does it make? You’re leaving in eight weeks, anyway. You might as well leave now.”
“Fine. I will.”
“Fine.”
She stands there glaring at him, trembling with fury. Then she runs upstairs to his bedroom, her footsteps pounding up the stairs, and presently they pound their way back down. She stands again in the kitchen doorway, now dressed in her own clothes and also wearing her coat, hat, and boots. He doesn’t look at her, though. He sits at the kitchen table, staring straight ahead with a defeated expression. Now, seeing him like this, so frail and wounded, she isn’t angry anymore. More than anything, she is frightened, sad, and perplexed. Just an hour ago they were in bed together, happy, making love. It is not possible that such a short time later they are ending their relationship. This can’t be happening, she thinks. This is me and Bobby. This is just a mistake.
But Bobby is still staring straight ahead, refusing to look at her. She, reluctant to go, keeps standing in the doorway. She smells the warm toasted bagels. Suddenly she is very hungry. Yesterday she was too upset to eat supper, and this morning, while they argued, she ate nothing at all. The bagels smell so sweet and fragrant, her mouth waters. Outside the kitchen window, the winter wind is viciously whipping an old maple tree, and she hears the wind howl. How nice it would be if, instead of going out there, she could stay in here where it’s warm and cozy and have a bagel and a cup of coffee. I could do this, she thinks. I could go over to the table, sit next to Bobby, stay here with him, and have one of those wonderful bagels with sweet melted butter drizzling into its holes.
He turns toward the door and looks at her. “If you’re going,” he says, “go. Don’t just stand there in the doorway.”
“I’m going,” she says. She gazes at him wistfully. But receiving from him only a cold hard stare, she leaves.
LOVE AND HATE
— 1 —
The next morning, on Wednesday, Judith lies in bed. When she walked out of Bobby’s house yesterday, she felt strong. She knew who she was. Someone who, as the psalm says, loves Israel “above all other joys.” But now every straight line in her is turning into a question mark. Sure, when she goes back to Israel she’ll have her friends again. She will have Israel itself, too. But she won’t have Bobby. The man who — despite how he drives her crazy — she loves. When she returns to Israel, she’ll have no one to make love to. No one to hold her when she needs to be held. No one to argue with, to sharpen herself against like a knife against flint, her flint against his making fire.
On top of this, she will be a third wheel again. She recalls how Bruria and Pinchas, or Miri and Yechiel, with a protective arm around her, would introduce her to some other new couple as “our dear friend, Judith.” She doesn’t want to be any couple’s dear single friend ever again. She wants to be loved by someone who loves her more than anyone else in the world. Someone like Bobby. She reaches for the phone. He will already be at his desk at work. Probably alone in his part of the office, since it’s only 8:05 a.m. She begins dialling his number, but then stops. They have agreed to try and not talk to each other too often for the next little while. Anyway, even if we hadn’t, she thinks, what would be the point in calling? We told each other the truth yesterday morning, and several more times throughout the day. There is nothing new to say at this point. There is nothing to say at all. She bursts into tears.
Later she gets up and does some schoolwork. It’s hard to concentrate at first, but that passes and she accomplishes a lot. It feels good to be distracted. Her father used to say, “Work is the great cure-all,” and maybe he was right. In any case, today turns out to be much better than yesterday, which was a write-off. She even gets a load of laundry done, tidies the house, and eats two half-decent meals, finishing all the food in the house. She must go food shopping tomorrow.
Leaving the kitchen, she hears a very loud clunk, as if some metal machinery fell. She listens attentively for a moment, hears only silence, and, deciding
that sound was nothing, wanders into the living room. There she notices, lying alone on the floor of the vestibule, a letter with Dunhill’s blue and burgundy logo on the front. Clumsy in her anxiety, she rips it open. Inside is a letter from the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, congratulating her on winning the B.P. Dunhill Award. This award, the letter says, will be presented at a ceremony in the spring presided over by the Dean, and Judith will also receive a fifty-dollar cash prize. She stands in the vestibule, gawking at this letter in her hand, and despite herself, grinning broadly. She won! Never mind SWAC. Never mind Suzy. There is still some fairness and goodness in the world, even at Dunhill.
The phone rings. It’s Cindy, and she’s delighted when Judith tells her the good news. Judith asks how Mikey is and Cindy says fine. Now Judith tells Cindy that she’s considering switching out of Suzy’s class, and Cindy cautions her that she’ll need to replace it with another required course, and that it’s already very late for course switching. Judith says she’ll ask Phoebe.
Then Cindy brings up Anti-oppression Day and Judith’s stomach jumps. She hasn’t been consciously thinking about Anti-oppression Day, but still it has been with her every moment, somewhere inside her body, ever since that SWAC meeting. Now even just hearing the name, and knowing it is only five days away, is enough to fill her with dread. Cindy says everyone she has talked to is planning to attend at least the morning session, since all the profs except Hetty expect this and have been pushing it hard. Cindy isn’t sure yet if she’ll go. Maybe she’ll pop in for a little of it, just to see.
Judith is silent.
Cindy says, “I’m not saying I approve of him or his message, Judith. I just want to see for myself.”
Still she does not say anything.
“Judith.”
“I’m not going,” she says.
“I know. But that’s why I’m calling …”
Don’t try to persuade me — don’t you even try. But now Cindy explains that the group presentation schedule for Hetty’s class was just posted, and she, Judith, and Darra will be presenting a week from Monday, at the first class after Anti-oppression Day.
“Which means,” says Cindy, “that we have to meet this coming Monday to plan it. It’s the only day Darra has off work. Plus she’s going to Anti-oppression Day, so we need to meet from noon to 1:00, over the lunch hour, and it would be best if we could meet on campus.”
“I’m not coming to Dunhill on Anti-oppression Day!”
“I know, I understand,” Cindy says placatingly. “So here’s what I suggest. Dunhill’s a big campus, Judith. We don’t have to meet anywhere near where Brier’s speaking. We could meet in a different building altogether, far from all the Anti-oppression Day activities. Darra’s willing to meet us anywhere on campus you choose.”
Judith is silent, but there is no objection she can think of that doesn’t sound churlish even to her own ears. “Okay,” she finally says. “Where should we meet?”
They agree on Le Petit Café. Brier will be lecturing in the auditorium on the first floor of FRANK, just one floor above the main cafeteria, so most likely he and his entourage — in fact, probably everyone attending Anti-oppression Day — will converge on that cafeteria for lunch.
“They won’t go to Le Petit Café,” says Cindy. “It’s a bit of a hike from the auditorium, and people will be in a rush.”
“Okay,” Judith says again. She’s full of misgivings, but they are as nebulous as fog. She says goodbye and hangs up.
She returns to work on her paper for Hetty, but frequently glances at her watch. It is seven o’clock, then 7:30, then eight o’clock, and still not a word from Bobby. They agreed he would phone her sometime today in between his clients. But so far not a peep. She thinks of calling him but doesn’t dare. Because yesterday he said, “We can’t keep doing this, Judith. If we’re breaking up, we have to start acting like we are: we have to put some space between us. We can’t talk on the phone five times a day. Even if we feel like it.”
“Of course,” she said. “You’re right.” But now it has been more than twenty-four hours since she heard his voice, and she wants to talk to him. She wants to tell him about winning the B.P. Dunhill Award and about having to go into Dunhill on Anti-oppression Day. Yet she knows she shouldn’t call. So she tries to keep working, meanwhile missing him. Even missing some of the things about him she never could stand, like his paternalism. No, she thinks, that’s wrong. It’s not his paternalism I miss — his patronizing attempts to control me — it’s his paternalness. His pater-ness. It’s the best part of fatherliness I am missing: his caring and protectiveness. She puts down her work and lies on the couch, aching for him. She hopes right now he is aching for her, too. Though probably not. She knows him better than that. When he works, he works, and he doesn’t let anything get in his way. His office building could burn down around him and he wouldn’t even notice. He is probably immersed in his work now and not thinking of her at all.
She lies there waiting for the phone to ring. This is all much harder than she expected. She wishes she had more of a life here — that would make this breakup so much easier. She has no one here now except Cindy. She no longer has Pam, Aliza, or Suzy. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. At dinner with Suzy back in the fall, after confiding in her about her troubles with Bobby, Suzy leaned forward and put a hand on her arm.
“Just remember, Judith,” she said, looking at her affectionately, “whatever happens between you and Bobby, you still have me and all your friends here at this school. You are not alone here in Canada. You have friends who care about you.”
Liar. You’re a liar and a phony. You’re not here for me right now. You couldn’t care less what happens to me.
The phone rings, startling her. It’s Bobby, explaining he has had a terribly busy day so he couldn’t call. Even now he can’t talk for very long because he has an important meeting starting in just a few minutes.
A meeting? That’s weird. He often works late in the evenings, especially since they returned from Vancouver, but always alone. What sort of meeting could he be having at 8:30 at night? She imagines him with a tall, statuesque blonde on his arm, bar-hopping, out on the town, laughing together. She doesn’t exactly believe this image, but she sees it so clearly it feels real.
“Who is your meeting with?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Is it a woman?”
“Yes, as it happens.” There is a pause. “Come on, Judith. You don’t mean —”
“I’m just asking. Anything is possible.”
“This isn’t. I’m meeting with Bernice McIvor. You met her at the office party last spring. Do you remember her?”
“No.”
“We’re working on that big case together. We’re going to court first thing tomorrow morning and there are still some details to work out.”
“How old is she?”
“What?”
“How old is she?”
“I don’t know. Fifty, maybe.”
“What does she look like? Some women are still very attractive at that age.”
“Short grey hair and about 250 pounds.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
She feels her breath release. “Okay, then.”
“I suppose I should be flattered you’re jealous,” he says. “But you have no cause to be. You don’t remember her from that party?”
“No. There were 160 people there.”
“She’s on Dennis’s team. She’s senior counsel on this case.”
“Okay.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I just thought …”
“Don’t worry. I’m nowhere near anything like that yet. It’s going to take me a very long time …”
She wants to weep with relief. But she also wants to weep because she knows that even though she still loves him, and he still loves her, sooner or later they aren’t going to love each other anymore. They will love each other, of course, in t
hat vestigial place somewhere in the bone where until you die you love anyone you have ever loved. But in the normal sense of loving, they won’t love each other anymore. She knows, too, that this could happen even in a surprisingly short amount of time. She sees with cold clarity how at some point in the future they will both find other people to love and probably marry. And that will be that. And this moment will one day be nothing but a memory. One small part of a huge pile of memories, like a huge pile of shoes.
“Are you there?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. Then she asks him how his big case is going. Not bad, he says, and they talk a bit about his work, and now it feels perfectly normal to be having this conversation. Then she tells him about winning the B.P. Dunhill Award, and he is so happy for her, and so proud, that it’s almost like things between them are the same as always. Yet simultaneously she feels how things are not the same at all. There is a strangeness between them now: there are silences, and a certain forced quality in the conversation. After one such silence, Bobby asks, “What do you want to do about Friday night?”
She does not understand the question. It is her turn this week to cook the Shabbat meal, and they both know this. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” he says carefully, “should we eat together as usual?”
She feels a blow to her stomach like that time in grade five when, playing dodgeball, a ball went right into her stomach. She didn’t see it coming. This from Bobby she didn’t see coming, either. But now that it’s here, she recognizes this as one of those questions whose answer is contained within it. Like that riddle, also from grade five: What colour was George Washington’s white horse?
She replies cautiously. “What do you think?”
A lawyer who never enters court unprepared, he answers without a moment’s hesitation. “Maybe we should take a week off and see how we feel.”
See how we feel? What do you mean, see how we feel?
“If you really want to,” he says, “we can still —”
“No,” she says. “It’s okay.” Then, “I just thought —”