Until Sweet Death Arrives

by Amnon Binyamini

  “What’s going on here?” the girl asked.

  In an authoritative voice, the policeman repeated, “Papers, please.”

  “Why? What have we done?” The man demanded in a heavy South American accent.

  “Don’t get smart with me,” said the policeman, holding out his hand for the documents.

  The man took a wallet from his pocket, extracted his identity card and handed it to the policeman who looked at it and asked, “Nimrod Geffen, is that you?” The man nodded and the police-man looked at him closely before adding, “What are you doing here?”

  “We lost our way,” the girl answered.

  The policeman stepped back from the car, looked closely at the tires and number plate and said, with a nod, “Okay, you can go.”

  “What’s happening here?” Nimrod asked.

  “We’re looking for somebody. Now, would you mind moving on? You’re getting in the way.”

  Nimrod answered, “Sorry. We’d hate to get in the way!” and he reached for the ignition. As he did, the cuff of his shirt appeared from under the heavy sweater he was wearing.

  Seeing this, Sheila banged on the roof of the car and shouted, “Stop. Stop him. It’s Wolf.” She thrust her hand through the open window and closed her fingers on the neck of the sweater. She pulled it down and revealed the red silk shirt underneath.

  The policeman responded at once, drawing his gun and saying, “Get out of the car! You’re under suspicion for a number of criminal offenses – fraud and theft among them. The police have been looking for you for a long time!”

  At this point, Chief Inspector Hanoch came running towards them holding a blond wig. He held it aloft as he neared the car and said, “You forgot something on the roof, Dr. Wolf, or whatever your name is! You may add the attempted murder of the journalist Nahum Peterson to the list of crimes for which you will be tried.”

  53.

  July 1999

  Nahum lay in his yellow bed with the colorful bars. His head was supported by two pillows. His eyes were open most of the day, looking at nothing. He had lost the power of speech. Even the jumble of words he had been able to utter was no longer his. All that issued from his mouth now were sighs and unpleasant gurgling noises. For the rest, he was silent. Silent all day long. He was silent towards the big lonely room, the yellow bed and its bars, the mute walls. Silent to the adjoining balcony that scattered flecks of sunlight on the walls of his room.

  Edna would often approach his bed and look at him. The metallic tune from the little music box on the wall could be heard in the room. The same little box that Edna had bought as a gift for Nahum, but that she had never managed to give to him. With Michael’s help, Gilat had repaired it and attached it to the wall next to his bed. Gilat and Michael had also hung a string of clowns over the bed.

  “Daddy is now like a newborn baby. He needs to be stimulated so that he can enjoy his shallow life in this narrow room,” she explained.

  She also collected some of her children’s old toys and placed them in a plastic basket beside his bed, and told Michael to come sometimes and hold one or another of the toys in front of her father’s eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter if he responds or not. The main thing is to show him brightly colored objects and say their names. Like that we can try to save even a little understanding that’s left in him, if any, before he finally disappears into the abyss of oblivion and becomes a breathing corpse.”

  Michael did not argue with her, offered no opinion. Every few hours, he went to Nahum’s room and showed him one of the colorful toys, repeating its name over and over again as Gilat instructed.

  Nahum’s movements were limited. His legs were no longer able to carry his gaunt body. Michael regularly moved his limbs and shifted the position of his body to prevent bed sores.

  “He’s like a vegetable,” Michael thought when he looked at the gaunt body devoid of reality. “Mr. Nahum,” he whispered softly and sadly, “you are really fading away.”

  As for Edna, she was fading alongside him. Now that Nahum no longer coughed, roamed, shouted, swore or escaped from the apartment, now that he no longer hit, ate paper or tried to put everything he touched into his mouth, now that this period was over, her alert senses were becoming blunted. She was no longer expected to get up in the middle of the night and chase after Nahum, nor did she have to defend herself against his violence, to beg strangers for help in getting him into the apartment against his will, nor did she have to clean the excrement he left all over the apartment, or put him to bed against his will, or stuff tranquilizers into his mouth.

  Now that her husband was confined to his bed and his presence demanded none of the many tasks to which she had become accustomed for so long, she did not need her sharpened sense. She no longer needed to be alert, swift-footed, inventive, busy and worried. Everything was routine. Quiet. Empty.

  She missed her sick, noisy, helpless man who had been so dependent on her and now lay in his bed. She so yearned for the energetic Nahum who wandered off, without knowing where, who screeched without explanation. The house was quiet. Loneliness was invading her life.

  It was dusk. Nothing stirred in Nahum’s room. The shutter between the room and the balcony was open. His head was high on the pillows. His eyes gazed into space. A scraping noise coming from the balcony disturbed the silence. A pair of hands gripped the balcony railing, followed by a perspiring face under a wide-brimmed hat. It was Aharon. He jumped lightly over the railing, easily opened the glass door and stepped confidently into Nahum’s room. He was clearly familiar with the layout.

  Aharon began to talk to the sick man lying alone and immobile in the room. He spoke in an unbroken stream of words. Still talking, he wound the music box and listened to the tune. He also tightened the spring of the clown mobile and watched the dancing figures, talking all the while. Aharon was not disturbed by the fact that the man he was talking to was unresponsive, did not cooperate, did not disagree, or agree, or deny. Aharon spoke and spoke. Nahum remained silent. After rewinding the music box, he looked at his watch and said, “It’s late. I must go. Edna will be here in a moment. Nobody must find me here. It’s our secret. After all, Nahum, you know how to keep a secret. You don’t shoot your mouth off.”

  He turned towards the balcony, but it was too late. Edna was in the doorway, looking at him with a stunned expression on her face.

  “What are you doing here, in Nahum’s room?” she asked.

  Remembering his phone calls to her husband before the illness and her own terrifying encounter with him in the street, her first thought was to call the police. However, Aharon was already swinging over the balcony railing.

  “I came to have a chat with Nahum. We talk a lot,” he said.

  Edna was speechless, momentarily paralyzed with fright as he passed for a moment to say, gritting his teeth, “What’s that look for? Now you’re going to say, like everybody else, that I’m not normal, right?”

  Edna merely repeated, “What are you doing here, in Nahum’s room?”

  “We talk.”

  Now that she no longer felt any threat to herself or Nahum, curiosity prevailed and she remarked in a calm voice, “That hat suits you, you know.”

  She looked from the hat to his face. His eyes were darting nervously from side to side.

  “Why don’t you come inside? I’m inviting you.”

  His gaze steadied and he looked directly at her for several seconds before leaping lightly back onto the balcony and tiptoeing into Nahum’s room.

  “What do you and Nahum talk about?” she asked.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he answered. “Everything. Every day. Whenever I visit him, we talk.”

  “Every day?” She knew that the idea of any conversation with Nahum was out of the question. Crazy. Like the man standing in front of her now. But still, feeling foolish, she could not resist asking, “
Will you tell me what the two of you talk about?”

  She took a step towards him and he began to retreat to the balcony. Edna stopped and, seeing that she did not intend to pursue him, so did he, while keeping a firm grip on the glass door.

  “I sit still and listen. Then he talks to me.”

  Edna wondered why she was listening to him. The man was definitely unbalanced. Clinging to rationality, she said, “Do you know that Nahum has Alzheimer’s disease?”

  When Aharon did not answer, she continued, “Listen, I’ll give you a brief description of this illness; it eats away the mind until there’s nothing left. It annihilates memory, kills speech, leaves the sufferer without any means of expression. So, tell me, how does Nahum talk to you?”

  She shouted the last question. Aharon retreated to the balcony railing, sat on it, poised between heaven and earth for a moment and then swung his legs over to clasp the drainpipe between his feet. Finally, he swiveled his body to grip the thick pipe with both hands.

  Before he slid down, he screamed at her, “Why do you think you have to explain Alzheimer’s to me? Would you explain it to others? Is it because you think I’m not normal, like them?”

  Still clinging to the pipe, he continued in a sarcastically polite voice, “Yes, he speaks to me, the journalist. And don’t think I’m crazy. He talks to me with looks. His eyes talk to me. Nahum’s mouth is dumb now, and he can’t reveal any secrets. His hands don’t move, so he can’t write about me in his newspaper and they won’t harm me anymore. But Nahum’s eyes, those eyes of his, they talk to me all the time!”

  Edna wanted to put an end to the incident, wanted him to disappear. Instead, she heard herself ask, “Are you telling me that my husband communicates with you with his eyes? How?” She waited. Not really expecting any acceptable answer, she just waited.

  Aharon secured his grip on the pipe and spoke without looking at her. “When your husband wants to let me know he’s happy, his green eyes become full and wide and full of light. When he’s sad and thinking about his bitter fate, his green eyes become small and sad. When he wants to show fear or panic, his eyes plead; when I tell him funny stories that I would never tell to anybody else, in case they make fun of me, his eyes laugh.”

  Edna wanted to go and tell him that she understood him, for the first time; to tell him that there was no reason for anybody to make fun of him; to thank him for communicating with Nahum. She wanted to thank him for having eyes that perceived more than she did, eyes that could see the hidden part of Nahum. She took a step towards the railing, but Aharaon did not wait and slid down the pipe till he reached the yard. From there, feeling safe from her, he looked up and completed what he had to say.

  “Don’t think I’m out of my mind,” he shouted up at her, “don’t think I misunderstood him. I understood. I understood everything. I promise you, everything your husband’s big, green, sad, miserable, suffering, depressed, clever, shouting, dumb, weeping, innocent, enlightening eyes said to me - every single thing they said I understood!”

  54.

  August 1999

  They leaned over his yellow bed. Gilat, wearing a wide cotton blouse, was holding a brightly colored plastic block, saying over and over, “block…block…block…,” looking intently at her father in the bed, to see if the word meant anything to him. Michael stood next to her, looking from Nahum to Edna to Gilat. Edna, holding Nahum’s long, hairy hand, kept repeating, “He understands. Look, Daddy understands. Did you see, Gilat? He moved his hand when he heard his name. I saw it with my own eyes! Didn’t you?”

  Gilat did not answer her mother. She saw no point in trying to persuade her that Nahum no longer responded to any stimulus and did not even glance at the plastic block or the big blue rubber ball.

  His eyes did not follow the flight of the clowns above his bed. His ears did not hear the tune coming from the music box next to his bed. Edna ignored the others. Focused on her husband, she clung to his shaking hand, stroked it gently and pressed it to her heart.

  “He understands. I tell you, he understands,” she said over and over again, not noticing when Gilat and Michael left her alone in the room with her husband.

  His eyes opened, fixed straight ahead, on the ceiling. Edna leaned over the railing around the bed and brought her face close to him, trying to meet his eyes.

  “Look at me, my Nahum, I’m asking you, look at me.” She looked yearningly into his silent eyes. “Nahum,” she said, “My Nahum, if only you knew how much I miss you, your mischievous look, the touch of your warm hand, your biting wit, Nahum, how I long to hear your voice!”

  Then she begged, “Speak to me! Shout at me! Accuse me! I’ve had enough of your silence!” she sobbed.

  Gently disengaging her hand from his, she began to talk to herself, pacing around the room like a caged animal. She did not look at the bed where Nahum lay, but on one of her turns around the room her eyes fell on the old tape recorder that still stood on Nahum’s desk. Inexplicably drawn to it, she bent down and saw a reel of tape inside. Almost absentmindedly, she pressed the play button. Nothing happened and she resumed her restless pacing. Again, she bent over the bed and looked into her husband’s eyes. They looked back at her, small and sorrowful above his mute mouth. “My dear Nachum” she said, “if only you knew how much I miss you. Talk to me my darling; speak to me with your eyes, with your arms, with your voice. I beg of you.”

  He remained on the bed with no response, completely still. His face didn’t smile or show anger. His eyes stared at the ceiling and didn’t talk. His mouth remained silent.

  Suddenly, she heard him speaking to her. It was his voice, coming from Nahum’s desk. The voice said,

  When I am helpless,

  a body aimlessly walking,

  a breathing being without a soul,

  limbs in motion without a brain,

  when I am a useless nuisance,

  an irresponsible creature,

  a living appendage mindlessly roaming,

  an idiot without understanding,

  who will guard my body?

  Who will tend the human dignity in me?

  Who will defend the stir of modesty in me?

  Who will handle things others take for granted;

  the simple things impossible for one as sick as me?

  Who will shave me?

  Who will bathe me?

  Who will lead my unseeing body every day?

  Who will hide my wavering existence from people,

  lest they mock, ‘Is this Nahum Peterson, the journalist?’

  Who will sweep up the shame of my incontinence,

  until sweet death arrives to cover what’s left of me?

  Who will watch over me then,

  when Alzheimer’s disease decrees who I am?

  Edna froze where she stood, holding her breath in case she missed a single word spoken by her beloved. The voice stopped and she turned to Nahum where he lay immobile.

  Trembling, she whispered, “You knew, you knew all along that you had this terrible disease. You knew what would happen to you, Nahum!”

  She stared at him, “Why didn’t I think of listening to your tapes? The tapes you recorded when you were still healthy?”

  Then she answered all his questions, leaning so close that her tears fell onto his mute eyes.

  “My Nahum, I have done everything in my power to bathe your body, shave your beard and lead you. I am the one, Nahum, with Michael and sometimes with Gilat.” She paused and thought for a moment before adding, “No. I wasn’t loyal enough, my Nahum. Forgive me.” She burst into tears.

  “Perhaps I didn’t sweep up the shame of your incontinence often enough, didn’t hide your unstable existence from people, didn’t guard your dignity. I handed you over to Michael and sometimes to Gilat and sometimes to the day care center and…”

  She could not cont
rol the storm of tears that shook her. She bleated like an animal and in the midst of her cries said to his dull eyes, “You…all those years, you were keeping a journal here in your room, a memoir, without my knowledge; and I thought you were keeping a record of politics from a personal point of view! You never, never mentioned that you were shutting yourself in your room to record your life.”

  She felt deceived. She wanted to be angry. Wanted to question him. To tell him. To wonder. To be amazed. To understand.

  But suddenly she heard his voice again. She held her breath, cleared her mind and concentrated on what he was saying.

  Now I am nothing but a sandglass,

  spilling grains of life second by second.

  And every day the sand clock inside me

  destroys another fragment of understanding.

  I know that tomorrow

  and every day to follow

  will deduct another grain of knowledge,

  another crumb of sanity.

  Fearful and helpless I observe

  each thin layer of wisdom waiting its turn

  to flow from my clock of sand

  and leave me understanding less

  than I did the day before.

  The sandglass within me

  will not halt until

  the last grain of understanding

  has been spilled.

  And when the sandglass within me stops

  and no shred of my mind remains,

  I will be left hollow.

  Burnt out.

  Superfluous.

  Useless.

  An object.

  A useless object.

  A leaf.

  A leaf blown on the wind.

  That was all. She heard nothing more. She hurried to the tape recorder and saw that the tape had come to an end.

  A sound came from the balcony. Edna looked up and saw Aharon through her tears. He was holding a battered brown briefcase in one hand, while gripping the drainpipe with the other. He was wearing a brown, wide-brimmed hat that hid his young face. She noticed that he was wearing khaki shorts. She extended her hand and stepped towards him, intending to invite him in. She wanted to ask him to talk to her husband. She wanted him to talk to her, too.