“I don’t understand exactly what you mean by spirit,” Amnon began to stammer. “You know very well what I mean, and don’t start splitting hairs with me now,” I said angrily. “Spirit. Thought. What we’re doing now. What you do in your lab, what you do at your desk. Searching for the law, for the principle behind things. Take this motorcycle—it’s built of matter but it has a spirit too, which succeeds in raising this piece of iron from its place and making it race over the road in opposition to the laws of gravity and moving it from place to place in opposition to the laws of distance. And so on and so forth. Nuclear power too, which can explode something and turn it into nothing, into pure energy. And one day we’ll have the power to explode a star, or bring it closer, or to destroy an entire galaxy. To make human beings smaller, scale them down into a more compact, more durable model, maybe change a few parts—a tiny transistor instead of a heart to supervise the circulation of the blood, and maybe one day in the future we’ll be able to get rid of that too and leave only the brain, and reduce even that to a kind of computer chip which will carry out all its functions, and later on do away with individual distinctions, because there’s no need for so many people. A human principle is enough, with everybody’s thoughts connected to one pool, and so matter will gradually shrink until it turns into spirit—in other words, until it turns the entire universe into the point from which it all began, where density was infinite and the space-time curve was infinite, which is an attribute not of matter but of spirit. Doesn’t that sound simple to you?” Amnon finally removed his helmet and began to scratch his curly head. He seemed to have lost touch with what I was saying, which probably sounded like a lot of literary hot air to him. “What you say may be interesting, it may even be possible,” he said tactfully, but without any real enthusiasm, obviously disappointed in my words, which he did not even consider worth arguing with. “But believe me, Benjy, it’s not relevant to anything said by Hawking or the others. What you’re saying is mysticism, and the fact that you’re a good doctor makes no difference. I’ve always said that medicine isn’t a science.” And suddenly my enthusiasm for my ideas, and for the debate about them, disappeared. “You may be right,” I said quietly. “It doesn’t matter.” And after a pause I added, “It was a nice wedding. I usually hate weddings, but this one was so quiet and pleasant, I wouldn’t mind getting married there myself.” Then I felt an urge to confess to him, to share something of my life with him in exchange for the disappointment I had caused him with my childish theory. “And maybe I really will get married soon,” I added. “You hear me, Amnon? Seriously. I’m warning you, I may get married very soon, and you may have to come down to the Arava again for my wedding.” He sat on the ground, tired, his head bowed, without looking at me or taking what I said too seriously, his eyes fixed on a big black crow that had suddenly appeared among the branches of the tree, where it sat with its head cocked, staring at us so intently with its black eyes that it was impossible to tell if it was afraid of us or, on the contrary, was about to dart down and attack us.
Eleven
But I didn’t get married in the Arava. My wedding took place in a small hall in the middle of downtown Jerusalem. In spite of the pleasant memory of the kibbutz wedding, my parents could see no logical reason for dragging their guests, some of whom came from England especially for the ceremony, to a kibbutz in the middle of the desert. Michaela’s parents, who were separated and who had left the kibbutz many years before, did not have the same emotional ties to their old home as Michaela did, and since they were unable to share the expense of the wedding, they gave my parents a free hand to choose the site as they saw fit. In fact, they seemed somewhat indifferent to their daughter’s wedding, for even though Michaela was not as young as I had imagined—she was just a few months older than I was—her parents were not upset by her remaining single, either because they thought that a girl as independent as Michaela did not need a husband to look after her, or because they believed that the moment she decided to marry she would have no problem finding a candidate. Accordingly, when I was presented to them, separately, as their future son-in-law, I was disappointed to see that they both accepted me very naturally and were not in the least impressed by the fact that the man standing before them was a certified physician with a secure future ahead of him, as if their Michaela could go up to anyone she liked and command him, Marry me! Although in this case it was the other way around: I had asked Michaela to marry me, and she had not refused, perhaps in accordance with the gentle Buddhist philosophy that we were not two souls entering into an eternal bond but only two flowing rivers, each secure in the depth and independence of its own current, and would not be endangered if our waters intermingled slightly.
This was how Michaela explained her consent to my proposal of marriage, a proposal that was made even before I had anticipated making it. Although I got in touch with her two days after Eyal’s wedding, I had no idea that things would happen so fast. Perhaps because I wasn’t in love with her but felt only a deep affection and esteem for her, everything took place that much more quickly. Only three months after Eyal’s wedding, to be exact, I too was standing under the chuppah, with Eyal, Hadas, and Amnon looking on in astonishment or perhaps amusement at the young, ultra-Orthodox rabbi who had been sent by the local rabbinate to sanctify our marriage, and who did so at great length and with exceptional thoroughness, as if to overcome some vague, nagging doubt regarding the nature of the union before him. But of course he couldn’t have known that Michaela was three months pregnant, because I didn’t know it myself until the day after the wedding, when she told me that she was carrying our child in her womb and asked me simply what I wanted—to keep the baby or abort it? Even though I thought I had come to know Michaela in the months before the wedding, I was surprised by this concealment, in spite of the logical and moral grounds she gave for it. Michaela wanted our decision to get married to be taken in complete freedom, untainted by any calculations. “And if I hadn’t been in such a hurry, or if I hadn’t wanted to get married at all?” I asked my new wife. “What would you have done then?” She thought for a moment and answered honestly, “I would probably have had the baby by myself, because it’s not her fault that I didn’t take any precautions with you that night on the cliff.”
She insisted that this was when it had happened, that she had become pregnant during our first meeting in the Arava—as if it were important to her to create life in the place where she herself had been born and for which she still felt love and nostalgia. Was it only wishful thinking? I think not, for when we made love three days after Eyal’s wedding I made sure that she was taking precautions, and added precautions of my own. Because even if Michaela seemed to me the ideal partner in a marriage which would on the one hand give my mistress the protection she required and on the other hand grant me the freedom to satisfy my lust, I certainly had no intention of trying to trap her into marriage by an unplanned pregnancy, a trick that no longer works for women, let alone for men. But when she told me the day after the wedding about the secret buried inside her and explained her reasons for concealing it from me, I realized again that I had not been mistaken in my choice, even though I was a little angry with her for endangering the fetus, and perhaps herself too, by riding behind me on the motorcycle, in which she had delighted from the first moment. For Michaela had turned out to be fearless; if she had any hidden fears I had not yet discovered them. On the first Friday night, when I went to pick her up at the rented apartment that she shared with two other people in the south of the city, I saw by the way she strapped the helmet around her chin how delighted she was at the idea of riding on the Honda. She looked cute in the big crash helmet, which emphasized her huge, luminous eyes. She didn’t put her arms around me but crossed them on her chest, and remarked in surprise at how slowly I was driving. When we reached my apartment, she seemed in no hurry to take the helmet off and spent a long time looking at herself in the mirror, enjoying her new reflection, until I was finally forced
to take it off myself. The fact that we had already made love relieved me of having to calculate my every move, but our experience was not yet rich enough to enable us to interpret each other’s body language with any kind of precision, with the result that she mistook my struggles to get the helmet off her head as impatience to get her into bed. She responded by hugging my head, closing her eyes, and stroking and kissing me, swaying unsteadily and almost losing her balance, until I had to pick her up and carry her to the bed, which for some reason I still thought of as the granny’s bed, though it was not the only item in the apartment that belonged to her.
I enjoyed our lovemaking less this time, though it lasted longer, and I even remember feeling slightly giddy at one point. The bright light in the bedroom, too, which we left on, was unkind to the boniness of the naked limbs moving restlessly beneath me, in contrast to the soft, pampered white flesh of the plump middle-aged woman who had lain serenely on the same bed not too long before. Michaela also uttered two brief cries when she came, which reminded me of a throttled bird and disturbed me, because I thought I might have hurt her. But in spite of my slight disappointment, my good opinion of her remained unchanged, and after we dressed and sat down to drink coffee and eat the cake I had bought especially for her, I found myself gazing appreciatively again into her big, intensely blue eyes, which radiated belief and trust in her fellow human beings, as long as they didn’t pretend to be what they were not. She began to ask me about my work in the hospital and my new job as an anesthetist in the private hospital in Herzliah. After that she wanted to know if I could identify various exotic diseases she had encountered during her three months on the Calcutta sidewalks. She had an original way of describing the patients and their diseases, mixing descriptions of physical symptoms with penetrating psychological insights of her own in such a lively and vivid way that my living room was soon peopled by the pavement-dwellers of Calcutta in all their colorful misery. As a doctor I was pleased to see that she did not shrink from illness, and this added to her value in my eyes. “It’s a pity you didn’t study medicine,” I said, and she agreed with me. Yes, sometimes she thought she would like to be a doctor, but how could she go to medical school when she hadn’t even graduated from high school?
The information that she had dropped out of school in the eleventh grade gave me a pang, especially since I knew that my mother would soon find out and, along with my father, would be disappointed. I had meant to ask her to come with me on a trip to Jerusalem one day the following week and to introduce her to them. But I made an effort not to show the faintest sign of disappointment or to make any disparaging comments about the fact that she was now working as a waitress in a café in the center of town. Since her return from India she had been having trouble finding her place in the world, perhaps because of the longing that was still gnawing at her, and perhaps also because the return from India had been forced on her. “Forced?” I asked curiously. “Surely you’re not saying that you came back just because you wanted to tell Einat’s parents about her illness?”
“Not only that,” she admitted honestly. She had been down to her last rupee, and she didn’t have the guts to get involved in something that was beneath her dignity. “Like what?” I asked anxiously, but it turned out that all she meant was begging—an occupation that fit the kind of philosophy she had been flirting with in India. I smiled in relief, even though I had no doubt that she had lived with men in the past, a fact betrayed by the lightness of her touch with me, the naturalness of the way she stood up to clear the dirty dishes from the table and wash them in the sink. I didn’t try to stop her; just the opposite. Let her feel like the mistress of the house, I thought, even though she didn’t like my new apartment. She couldn’t understand why a young man like me would want to rent such a gray, respectable apartment, with an entire closet still full of an old woman’s clothes. “Did they reduce the rent at least?” she asked as she stood in front of the sink, with that inexplicable hostility toward the Lazars in her voice again. “Maybe,” I said, and told her what I was paying. The sum seemed high to Michaela, who didn’t think it revealed any special consideration for the man who had served them so faithfully. “But you can see a bit of the sea from here,” I said in praise of the apartment, and described the red ray of light that fell into the sink at sunset. “You’ll always enjoy washing the dishes here,” I said with a smile. “You think I’ll come here especially to wash your dishes?” she said ironically. “Not especially,” I replied quietly, “only when you’re here,” and I brushed her neck with my lips. Her big eyes shone and she closed them for a moment, groping for the marble counter with a cup full of soapsuds in her hand. Again she wound her arms around my head and began kissing me, and by the intensity of her embrace I understood that she wanted to make love again and that she believed it was in my power to give her what she wanted. I did my best not to disappoint her, although this time I refused to go back to the bedroom and get undressed, and insisted on doing it impromptu in the kitchen, which turned out to be big enough to accommodate our lovemaking, but only just, with things clattering around us and at a certain stage in the proceedings the soapy cup falling into the sink and smashing to smithereens. Although I didn’t manage to come myself, I had the satisfaction of seeing Michaela come again, this time without crying out but with a deep sigh. “Do you love me?” I dared to ask her when her eyes opened. She thought for a moment. “Just as much as you love me,” she said in the end, seriously and without smiling; and this was the policy she adopted from then on—measuring and suiting her feelings to mine, that is to say, to my declarations about my feelings, for I was careful from the outset to keep my love for Lazar’s wife a secret from her, afraid that even in the eyes of so liberated and free a spirit as Michaela my infatuation would seem weird, or perhaps even medieval.
After midnight, although an unexpected spring rain had begun to fall, she put the big helmet on her head again and climbed happily onto the motorcycle. She could have stayed the night, of course, but I didn’t suggest it. In spite of my sincere desire to speed things up between us, I preferred, after two consecutive bouts of lovemaking, to spend the night alone in my big bed and put my thoughts in order. When I got back I collected the pieces of the broken cup from the sink and put them into a plastic bag, not because I thought the cup could be mended but because it was part of a set and I didn’t want to throw it away without first getting the landlady’s permission. I got in touch with Michaela the next day even though I knew she worked all day Saturday in the café. I wanted to arrange a couple of dates for the week after, and especially to make a firm date for our trip to Jerusalem together. I was afraid that the longing for India of which she spoke so frequently and the grayness of her life in Tel Aviv might overwhelm her, and she might give in to a sudden impulse to take off for the Far East. If I didn’t want to lose her, I thought, I would have to keep in constant touch. But since I was now working a couple of night shifts a week at the Magen-David-Adom station in the south of the city in addition to the private work in the Herzliah hospital, the possibilities for meeting her were limited. I therefore persuaded her to come to the first-aid station after her work at the café to keep me company, and to accompany me on house visits, which she enjoyed very much, since they reminded her of her days in Calcutta. At first the patients and their families were confused by her appearance as she came in behind me like some visitor from outer space, her helmet tucked under her arm, her great eyes beaming signals from an enchanted world. But since I’d immediately introduce her as a nurse (and sometimes she’d even help me conduct the examinations), they quickly got used to her presence. And she too, to my delight, began to get used to me. “Do you like me?” I would ask, testing her. “Just as much as you like me,” she would answer immediately, an enigmatic smile passing like an imperceptible ripple over her blank face. But she stopped complaining about her longing for India, as if some of it had been absorbed by our relationship, and some by the sheer fact of my work. I had no doubt that she w
as attracted to the medical side of my identity, and perhaps this was the secret reason why she had been so eager to meet me at Eyal’s wedding. She reminded me of my father in the way she cross-examined me about diseases and symptoms, sometimes even from the back of the motorcycle, in order to understand the vague and tenuous border between sickness and health. And exactly as with my father, she had a pure intellectual curiosity, with no desire to identify personal aches and pains or to draw conclusions about her own body, which seemed sturdy enough, and had preserved the Indian tan I had already noticed on that first brief meeting in the Lazars’ living room, when I had mistaken her for a young boy. In fact, this impression of a slight spiritual affinity between Michaela and my father was reinforced by the common language they found on our very first visit to my parents’ home, just ten days after Eyal’s wedding, which we all still remembered as possessing a spiritual power whose nature we did not really understand.
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