I ordered the secretary to get my mother on the phone, so that I could prepare her for the possibility that I might not be able to get there before evening. My mother, who thought that I was already on my way to Jerusalem, was not upset but instead tried to calm me down. “Never mind, Benjy, don’t worry; you’ll sleep at home tonight, and we’ll drive you to the airport tomorrow. I’ve already told your father to take a day off.”
Now I was impatient. I had already agreed to travel to a completely foreign and remote world the next day—so why was I still hanging around the hospital, which suddenly seemed gloomy and stifling? I hurried to the surgical ward to look for Hishin and get the article about hepatitis from him, but since I wasn’t wearing my coat the new guard outside the entrance failed to recognize me and refused to let me in. On a bench in the corridor I again saw the two relatives of the young woman who had been operated on the day before. They recognized me but for some reason ignored me, as if they too had already realized how weak my position was here and how false my promise about the patient’s rebirth had been. I wanted to go up to them and ask them how she was, but I stopped myself. In the space of one day I had become superfluous here. I decided not to wait and made my way to the office of the head pharmacist, Dr. Hessing, a bald old German Jew, who immediately dropped everything and led me into one of the cubicles in the depths of the storage area, where he showed me a large knapsack. He immediately opened it to display the wealth and variety of the medical equipment it contained and the snugness and efficiency with which it had all been packed—drugs, ampules and syringes, thermometer and sphygmomanometer, stethoscope and test tubes, scissors and little scalpels, and of course infusion sets; like an entire miniature hospital. Maybe the pharmacist had been so generous because his budget depended more than that of any other department of the hospital on the personal whims of the administrative director. But at the sight of the overflowing knapsack, my spirits fell. “Why do I have to drag all this with me?” I protested. “I’m not going on a climbing expedition to the Himalayas.” I demanded that he take out some of the equipment, but he stubbornly refused to remove a single item from the kit, which he had evidently prepared with loving care. “Take it,” he coaxed me. “Don’t be foolish, who knows what you might need there. You’re going to one of the filthiest places in the world, and if you decide you don’t need something once you’re there, you can always give it away.”
And so, carrying the knapsack, I returned to the surgical ward to look once more for Hishin. To my surprise, the operation was still going on. Something’s gone wrong there, I thought to myself, trying not to meet the eyes of the woman’s relatives, who were still sitting on their bench in the growing darkness, rigid with anxiety. Now nobody stopped me at the entrance to the ward, and with the knapsack on my back I stood outside the big door of the operating room, in exactly the same spot where Lazar had stood waving his hand, and through the same porthole I saw the same team as the day before; only I was missing. The other resident’s back was bent in a tense and supple arch next to Professor Hishin, who I guessed by his movements was struggling to solve a serious problem deep in the woman’s guts. All I could make out from the porthole was her delicate white feet, shining out from under the sheet at the end of the table. Nobody noticed me, apart from Dr. Nakash, who hurriedly whispered something to Hishin. Hishin immediately raised his eyes and waved, and a few minutes later he came out to me, the scalpel in his hand, his gown covered with bloodstains, looking tired and upset. Before I could open my mouth, he silenced me and said in his ironic Hungarian accent, “Yes, yes, forgive me, I know I’m keeping you waiting, but you can see for yourself, I’m not taking part in an orgy here.” And I knew immediately that for the past hour he had been battling against death itself, because whenever he felt death near he would refer in one way or another to sex. I felt a pang because I was not participating in the dramatic battle taking place on the operating table, not even as an onlooker. “What’s going on in there?” I asked accusingly. “Why did you have to operate on her again?” But Hishin waved his bloody hand in my face, refusing to talk about the operation, and with unaccountable emotion he put his arm around me and hugged me and said, “Never mind, don’t worry about it. Just some stubborn woman who keeps on hemorrhaging from unexpected places. But you stop worrying, you have to keep your head clear for the journey. You have no idea how grateful Lazar is to me on your account. They’ve fallen in love with you already, him and his wife. So what do you need now? Ah, you want to know what to do about our hepatitis? As a matter of fact, nothing. Yes, yes, sorry, I forgot to bring the article. But it doesn’t matter. I see you’ve already been given equipment and drugs. And the truth is, there isn’t much to be done in these cases. Just reassure them all psychologically. Everything’s psychological nowadays, isn’t that what everyone says? Soon we’ll be able to do without surgery too. So don’t worry, you won’t have much to do. I told you, hepatitis is a self-limited disease.”
When I left the hospital, I looked up at the sky to see what to expect on the way to Jerusalem and whether I should take my Honda. How had I got mixed up in this crazy journey? Suddenly I wanted to hurry home to my parents, so that they could cosset me with warmth and concern and help me to get ready for the trip, which I now felt approaching at a gallop. At my small apartment I quickly washed the dishes in the sink, made the bed, and packed clothes, underwear, socks, and toiletries in a sturdy old suitcase. I disconnected the electricity, shut the water, and phoned my landlady to tell her I was going abroad. Then I tied the suitcase and the knapsack onto the pillion of the Honda and drove to the Lazars’ apartment to arrange for our meeting at the airport and to get my ticket, as well as the dollars that had been withdrawn from the bank in my name but had been pocketed by Mrs. Lazar’s little clerk. In the spacious apartment, now glowing with the rosy light of sunset, the preparations for the journey were evident: a suitcase lay next to the door, and by its side was an open bag. “Here you are at last,” cried Lazar from the living room. “We’ve been asking ourselves where you disappeared to!”
“I disappeared?” I asked, insulted. “In what sense did I disappear?”
“Never mind, never mind,” said his wife, emerging immediately from the living room in a velvet jump suit. I could already see that she had an overpowering desire to be present everywhere, and she looked different to me, maybe younger but also uglier, short and thick, her hair a little rumpled, her face pale, and the radiant smile in her eyes faded behind the lenses of her glasses. “Don’t pay any attention,” she said. “Lazar’s always worrying, he thrives on worry, you’ll have to get used to it, but come in Dr….” She paused then, uncertain of how to address me. “Call me Benjamin, or Benjy, if you like.”
“May we really call you that? Benjy? Good. Then come in and sit down. We’ve got Michaela here, Einat’s friend who brought us the letter. Come and hear what she has to say about Gaya and the hospital there.” But I declined the invitation. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s late and I’m in a hurry to get to Jerusalem to say good-bye to my parents and organize my packing.”
“And will you sleep there tonight?” asked Lazar in a disappointed tone. “What a pity. We thought of asking you to sleep here, so that we could all go straight to the airport early tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “my parents will get me there in time.” But Lazar was evidently unable to stop worrying, and he immediately ran to fetch a pencil and paper to write down my address and phone number in Jerusalem, while his wife—I was still asking myself whether she was coming on the trip or not—urged me again to come into the living room. “My mother’s here with us, and she’s eager to meet you.”
“Your mother?” I said in confusion. “All right, just for a minute,” and I entered the living room, where I stood amazed at the view of the roofs of Tel Aviv spreading out in every direction before me. When I was here the night before, the curtains had been drawn and I hadn’t guessed what a commanding position the penthouse occu
pied. On the sofa sat a frail old woman in a dark wool suit, and next to her a boy dressed for some reason in a white cotton dress. But when I went closer I saw that it was a sunburned young woman whose shaven head threw her big light eyes powerfully into relief. “Mother,” said Lazar’s wife in a slightly raised voice, “this is Dr. Rubin, the doctor who’s volunteered to accompany us to India. You wanted to meet him.” The old lady immediately held out her hand to me and nodded, and a very faint echo of her daughter’s automatic radiant smile flickered for a moment in her eyes. Now I could no longer restrain myself. The possibility of Mrs. Lazar joining us began preying on my mind more disturbingly than ever, and while I inclined my head toward the young woman with the shaven head, who discreetly made room for me at her side, I turned to Lazar’s wife with uncontrollable annoyance and said, “Excuse me, I don’t understand. Are you coming with us?” But Lazar cut in before she could reply. “It hasn’t been settled yet; we’ll decide tonight. But why do you ask?”
“I just wanted to know,” I mumbled, looking at his wife, who was no longer smiling at all, although her head turned with an almost imperceptible, slightly threatening movement in her husband’s direction. And then, against my will, I sat down in the place vacated for me by the shaven-headed woman, who gazed at me curiously, as if to take my measure with one look. With the sofa cushions around me still fragrant with warmth, I reached out to take the cup of tea that the grandmother had poured, and through the big window I watched the great, silent fan of an approaching rainstorm spreading over the horizon of the sea. It was then I felt a certain annoyance and anger. I had to get going; my mother and father were waiting for me. What was I doing sitting there like a member of the family? As if I wouldn’t be seeing more than enough of them for the next couple of weeks, whether I liked it or not. I stood up quickly, without tasting the tea, without even saying a word to the slight young woman, whose ostentatious Indianness made me anxious, but also newly eager for the journey. “Did you have a chance to get the two vaccinations for the visa?” I remembered to ask my host on the way to the door. “What vaccinations?” asked the astonished Lazar, who was sure that he had everything connected with the journey under control. It turned out that his wife had forgotten to tell him. “How could you have forgotten?” he cried in despair. “Where are we going to find someone to vaccinate us in Rome?” But when he heard that I had brought the vaccines and sterile syringes with me, as well as two stamped vaccination certificates, and that I had them all in my pocket, he recovered immediately. “You’re the best,” he said, and gave me a hug. “You’re the best; now I understand why Hishin was so determined to have you.” He demanded to be vaccinated on the spot and led me to their bedroom, which was also elegant and spacious. There he removed his shirt, exposing his hairy arms and heavy back, closed his eyes, and made a face in anticipation of the prick of the needle. Outside the big window next to the double bed, on which lay a large suitcase surrounded by scattered items of clothing, the sheet of rain sailed slowly eastward in the glow of the setting sun. “Don’t make such a face,” laughed his wife, coming into the room with cotton wool and alcohol while I filled the syringes, “it’s not an operation.” And she stood next to me, watching carefully. When I finished vaccinating her husband, he put on his shirt and prepared to accompany me to the door. “What about me?” she said in offended surprise. “Shouldn’t we wait and see what we decide tonight?” said her husband tenderly. “Why be in such a hurry to get shots you may not need?” She flushed deeply, her face darkened, and she turned to me sharply and demanded to be vaccinated too. First she tried to roll up her sleeve, but her arm was too thick and she couldn’t get the sleeve past the elbow. She went up to the door and half closed it, as if to hide herself, then slipped off the upper part of her jump suit and stood there in her bra, revealing very round breasts and heavy shoulders spattered here and there with large freckles, and smiling with charming shyness. I hurried to give her the shots, and she thanked me with a nod and pulled on the top of her jump suit. It was then I knew for sure that she was indeed coming to India with us, and my heart tightened. What had I let myself in for here? I said good-bye to her and went down to the street with Lazar, who had decided to transfer the medical kit to his car. The spreading rain now darkened the city and a fine mist sprayed the air. Lazar took the knapsack from me and examined the big motorcycle curiously. “Are you really going to ride that to Jerusalem in this rain?” he asked, with fatherly concern mingled with admiration. When I was sitting on the Honda, with my foot in position to start it, something stopped me. I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Excuse me,” I said, “I understand that your wife is coming with us.” Lazar moved his head in an unclear gesture. “But why?” I asked in a kind of quiet despair. “Two escorts are already more than enough, in my opinion. Why three?” Lazar smiled and said nothing. But I was determined to pursue the matter. Perhaps I would succeed in persuading him at the last minute to stop his wife from coming. “Is there some special reason that she has to be there—something I don’t know yet?” I asked. “No, nothing like that,” replied Lazar. “She just wants to come along.”
“But why?” I insisted, with a bitterness whose intensity I couldn’t understand myself. He looked straight at me, as if he were paying attention to me for the first time, trying to make up his mind if he could trust me, and then he spread out his hands and smiled in embarrassment. “It’s just that she doesn’t like being separated from me, she doesn’t like being left alone.” And when he saw that I was still determined not to understand, he smiled at me again with a kind of sly satisfaction. “Yes, she’s a woman who’s incapable of staying by herself.”
Two
Is it possible to bring up the word “Mystery” yet? Or is it still too early even to think of it? For none of the characters moving at this wintry dawn hour from east or west toward the airport knows how thoughts of mystery are born, let alone what it is made of, and how it flows. Not even the great India awaiting them can stimulate thoughts of mystery, for it is not yet a different dimension of being in their eyes, only a place they wish to reach quickly and efficiently, in order to collect a sick young woman and bring her carefully home. And that sickly yellowness, clouding the whites of her eyes and surrounding the greenish irises, flickering between the gray sheets in the little room in the monastery on the outskirts of Bodhgaya, can that ignite a spark of mystery? No, certainly not. Because in the imaginations of the people now dragging their suitcases through the departure lounge, that sickly yellowness toward which they are directing their steps holds no portent of mystery, it is only the symptom of a disease, which has a name and is described in books and articles, and which, according to Professor Hishin, is self-limited, even if the return journey holds a turning point, where it will hover desperately between life and death. But even in that terrible crisis there is no mystery, and now it stands still in the time and place appointed for it, among wicker furniture smeared with bright purple paint, waiting for the precise moment of time, which always arrives with an astonishing simplicity and naturalness.
In other words, the sense of mystery is still as quiescent as the point of the pencil delicately poised on the white sheet of paper between the characters. Or the travelers and their escorts, who are sleepy and somewhat excited in the departures hall, sending tentative signals to each other in the tired smiles of resignation with which they answer the predictable questions of the girl carrying out the security check, who is dressed in a spotless white shirt with a tag fastened to its pocket with a safety pin. A drama student in the evenings, she interrogates them one after the other, in a dry, monotonous voice, about the contents of their luggage. But their detailed replies do not save them, in the end, from opening their suitcases and exposing their personal belongings to each other, and handing over the big medical knapsack too, which astonishes one and all with the wealth and variety of its contents, the sheen of its instruments, until it seems that disaster and disease will be sucked into it willy-nilly. And the morn
ing mists that pursued the young doctor and his parents on their way from Jerusalem filter into the great hall, hovering over the keys of the computers which eject the boarding passes, and the white-haired parents now hand over their only son, even if he is already twenty-nine years old, to the care of another pair of parents, total strangers, but faithful to the solidarity of parenthood as a self-evident human value. Perhaps it is precisely here, in this act of handing over, that the mystery originates. But if so, where does it lead?
It leads nowhere, for that is its nature. It has no direction, for the goal disappears once the cause has been forgotten. And in the tireless turning of the earth the ancient mystery suddenly appears among us, like a forgotten relative let out of a mental institution on a short vacation, despite its continuing delusion that the earth is eternally still, and every hour is sufficient unto itself, and nothing in the universe is ever lost; and after it comes to visit us, and sits among us pale and emaciated, and sets forth its fantastic views, it suddenly stands up, careful not to spill the tea we have placed before it, and begins wandering like a sleepwalker between our bedrooms, to meet people and events concluded long ago.
Open Heart Page 4