Deja Vu (14 page)

A few weeks later, on Independence Day of that year, Daria, Inbal, Amir, Asi, David and I got together again to watch the fireworks show. Like last time, we were hosted by Asi, but this time his co-host was Inbal. Contrary to our previous life, in which Asi and Daria had lived in a luxury apartment in north Tel Aviv, in our current lives Inbal chose to invest the fortune Asi made in his father's import business in a house in a small suburb near Kfar Saba. Asi and Inbal’s new home did not in any way resemble the designer space that Asi and Daria had made together. The house itself was, indeed, a great piece of real estate that I knew I couldn’t afford in the coming years, but it was much warmer and cozier than the stylish apartment I remembered. The innovative, designer furniture was gone, to make way for simple styles; drapes in bright colors graced the windows, and souvenirs that Asi and Inbal had collected during their many visits to the Far East were scattered throughout the house. In contrast to the immaculate cleanliness of Daria and Asi’s apartment, Asi and Inbal’s home was a mess, as befits a house where a baby was growing up. Inbal didn’t bother to hide the mounds of laundry piled up in the living room. The kitchen was a mess and a variety of toys were scattered around the house. I remembered that last time, with Roy sitting on the bouncer. This time, he was cradled against Inbal’s body in a carrier made of fabric. I approached her and looked at little Roy. I had no doubt. This was the same Roy I remembered. Daria and Amir were sitting on the couch watching Nofar, who, once again, was eyeing Roy's toys scattered on the floor.

“Sorry about the mess,” Inbal apologized with a smile.

“I didn’t expect anything else,” I laughed.

Nofar picked up a sponge ball and put it in her mouth. Daria snatched the ball from her. “She’s putting everything in her mouth at the moment,” she apologized. Again, Nofar burst into tears and stopped only after Amir picked her up in his arms.

“It's okay,” Inbal said apologetically, not wanting Nofar to cry over her son's toy. “She can chew it if she wants.We don’t live in a pharmacy.”

“Roy’s still very small,” Daria said. “I don’t know if it's okay for him to come into contact with other children's saliva.”

“He’ll have to get used to it at some point,” I smiled. “He’ll be going to kindergarten before long,” I repeated the sentence I’d said last time.

“That's right,” Inbal laughed. Although she could afford to stay home with Roy until he finished high school, she believed that children should spend at least part of the day with their peers.

The fireworks began, and we looked up at the colorful sky. Amir was holding Nofar, who pointed in amazement at the bright flashes of light. Roy began to cry hysterically, and Inbal took him inside. David stood beside me and looked at the sky with curiosity. I clung to him. I wanted him to lay his hand on my shoulder. My memory of him embracing Inbal and looking at fireworks was engraved in my mind, and I wanted to recreate it.

“Is something wrong?” he asked as I rubbed my shoulder against his.

“No...” I said sadly. “I just thought it would be nice if you hugged me.”

“Of course,” he smiled, kissed me on the cheek and took me into his arms.

Now we were as I remembered, but the insult was already there. Why didn’t he hug me as he’d hugged Inbal? Why did I have to ask him?

I squinted at Amir. In my previous life, the comparison between him and David wasn’t fair. David was, and is, an amazing man, muscular and sexy. Amir had let himself go when we were married, and I was surprised that, with Daria, he looked much better, though still not as good as David, but it wasn’t a fair competition. David had to stay in shape because of his work. The beer belly Amir had in our previous lives hadn’t recreated itself; his hair was thinning, but much less than I remembered. I remembered my mother pestering me often, saying I should take better care of Amir, and I always got angry at her for giving me medieval advice. I wished I’d listened to her more. I figured Daria, who always liked people to look their best, made sure Amir watched his weight better than I did, and the results definitely showed. A few minutes later, the fireworks ended and we sat around the dinner table on the porch to eat the steaks Asi had cooked.

“Excellent,” Inbal said with pleasure.

“Thank you,” Asi flashed a loving smile at his wife. I watched him. He, too, was not the person he had been in his previous life. In his former life, he was thinner, but always looked worried and angry. Daria had encouraged him to wear tight tops, designer jeans, luxury shoes and hair gel. With Inbal, he was dressed in a simpler, more relaxed manner. I was amazed to see him wearing sandals. I’d never seen his feet before. I was happy Daria had failed to force Amir to wear metrosexual style clothes.

“Enjoy.” Daria smiled at Inbal with a starving look. She hadn’t touched the steak Asi had served her. Since she’d finally lost all the baby weight, she wasn’t going to gain another ounce.

“You’re looking good,” Daria told me.

“Thank you,” I smiled.

“Did you do something to your hair?” Daria frowned. “Are you wearing makeup? There's something different about you.”

“Nope,” I shrugged.

Asi returned from the kitchen with a bottle of wine and started to pour everyone a glass. When he reached mine, I didn’t stop him, but David quickly said, “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“You're pregnant?” Daria blurted out in a demonstration of tactlessness.

I took a deep breath and said, “Yes!”

“Wow! Rose!” Daria jumped up and hugged me. “That’s great. Stand up so we can get a better look at you.” 

I stood up and rubbed my stomach. “I’m not showing yet,” I apologized. “Early days...”

“What week?” Inbal inquired.

“Tenth,” I smiled at her. She came to me, and we hugged a long and loving embrace, just like we did when she announced she was pregnant with Coral.

“So you don’t know what you’re having yet,” she said.

“No,” I lied. I already knew what I’d name my daughter, who was her daughter in my other life.

.

It was totally different expecting Coral than it had been with Nofar. The pregnancy symptoms didn’t knock me sideways this time as they had with Nofar. I had less nausea, less indigestion, less bloating. I felt much better. I was glowing, as many told me. But beyond the physical symptoms that were different, there was one fundamental difference: This time, I was prepared for the pregnancy. While David was surprised that I got pregnant whilst still on the pill, I was far less surprised. It happened to me in my previous life, and I was expecting Coral anyway. David was hoping for a boy, but I knew that I wouldn’t fulfill his wish. In the first ultrasound, the doctor thought he saw a penis. David was thrilled, but I knew the doctor was wrong. At the next test, the doctor told us what I’d already known before I even got pregnant.

During my first pregnancy, with Nofar, I was immersed in grief, crying for my career, which I felt I’d destroyed with my own hands. This time, I had the job I aspired to and had already managed to gain some years of experience. I had no doubt that pregnancy would hold up my career, but I knew this time it would be just a small bump on the way and not a dead end. Eagerly, I awaited Coral’s arrival. I remembered her as a sweet and incredibly easy baby. I decided that, this time, everything was going to be different. This time, I was going to accept motherhood and treat my daughter with patience and love.

Coral’s birth was quick and easy, a totally different experience from Nofar’s birth. When the nurse put little Coral on my stomach, I hugged her and kissed her warmly. I was ‘normal’ this time around. No nurse looked at me accusingly. David was happy despite his hope for a boy and never stopped hugging our little girl and showing her off to everyone he knew and even to those he didn’t. He claimed that she looked exactly like me, and I chuckled to myself. In a different life, she was Inbal’s daughter. David wanted to call her Ruth and didn’t understand my fixation with the name Coral. Only when his older sister fawned over the name Coral did he give in, and the baby received the same name she’d had sixteen years earlier.

My first few days as a mother were incomparable with those in my previous life. It was so pleasant. This time, my little daughter nursed from me greedily, and I felt that, this time, she wanted me and I wanted her. This time, I wasn’t surprised by the pregnancy, the birth or the demands of parenting. I knew exactly what it meant to be a mother to a baby. David was amazed by all the knowledge I had and the professionalism I demonstrated while taking care of our daughter. He never stopped praising me. From the first moment, I knew how to hold the child correctly, feed her, clothe her, and bathe her, like I did in the past. “You're amazing,” he whispered to me over and over again. He was afraid it would be difficult for me because he wasn’t at all sure I’d wanted to be a mother.

The problem was that, while I remembered just how to manage infant care, I still didn’t have a way with children. In the first months, the baby only needed me like she’d need a nurse. I only had to feed her, wash her and change her diapers. Once I had to communicate with her, I found the same difficulties occurring. I didn’t talk in a babyish voice, I couldn’t understand Coral’s various different stares, and I was terribly bored from sitting with her for days and playing baby games.

I went back to work at the end of the three-month maternity leave approved by law. Around me, a lot of eyebrows were raised over the speed with which I returned to work, but I knew from past experience that two more months with my daughter wouldn’t change the fact that I hated sitting at home with a baby. I really loved Coral and realized now that I’d really loved Nofar, too, and that I’d blamed something on her that was really just ingrained in me. I thought I didn’t love her enough, but I just didn’t like being a mother. Beyond the fact that I didn’t enjoy sitting at home, the main reason I returned to work so quickly was because I knew I’d be pregnant again in no time. Adi was born just over a year after Coral.

David's sex drive was quite different from Amir’s. I remembered Amir claiming “all guys are the same.” While in some respects he was right. I had various disputes with David that sounded remarkably similar to those I had with Amir, but when it came to the bedroom, there was nothing in common between the two men in my past and present life. With both, I enjoyed myself, but with Amir I felt I had too little sex, while with David I had too much. I assumed it was related to both their natural sex drive and the fact that David was more physically active. Amir could go weeks without having sex, and David was frustrated if a week went by without us having sex at least twice. Once Coral was born, I told him he'd have to settle for once a week because I was just exhausted. David was constantly bringing up the subject, and when I became pregnant again, when Coral was less than five months old, I wasn’t at all surprised. In my previous life, I was jealous of Inbal because her husband wanted her so much, and in my present life, I envied Daria because she could have some peace and quiet. I realized that sex drive has nothing to do with love, because I was sure that David loved me very much, but his need for sex wasn’t related to me. It was just his physiological structure.

In July of that year, we met with Daria, Inbal, Amir and Asi for Amir’s birthday. As a present, I bought him a book I remembered that he enjoyed very much in my previous life.

“Have you read this book already?” I asked as he unwrapped it.

“Not yet… I’ve heard about this book. I read another one by this author, which I didn’t really like,” he said and began to read the exchange note that came with the book.

“Read it!” I ordered him. “I'm sure you'll love it.”

“If you say so,” he smiled, and Daria watched the little intimate conversation that developed between us with a menacing look.

The waiter came over and took the orders. “Would you like to order wine?” he asked.

“Sure,” Amir said. He was an avid wine lover and ordered us a quality bottle of wine.

When the waiter moved around us to pour the wine, I signaled to him that I wasn’t interested. Daria looked at me, stunned, and when the waiter disappeared, she said, “Don’t tell me you're pregnant again!”

“I am,” I smiled sheepishly.

“How old is Coral? Six months?” She tried to calculate in her mind.

“Seven.”

“You're not normal!”

“Why isn’t she normal?” Inbal chimed in. I knew she was jealous, not because I had more sex than her, but because she desperately wanted a second child. “The best thing is to have children with a small age gap between them. That way, they grow up together,” she said. I wanted to comfort her and tell her that she’d soon be pregnant for the second time. In fact, she might have already been expecting Shira, Daria and Asi’s second child in their previous life. I could even encourage her and tell her she’d be the only one of us to embrace a third child.

“It wasn’t planned,” I lied. Not only was it planned, I actually knew about it in advance. “But I'm happy it happened. I want to complete our family as soon as possible.” I smiled, and now it was Inbal’s turn to look at me with a stunned stare. I wasn’t sure if she was shocked by the fact that I didn’t want more than two children, or the fact that I saw having children as a task I wanted to be finished with, and as not the essence of life.

“It's lucky you went back to work so fast,” Daria added. “At first, I thought you were pushing it, but now I’ve no doubt it was one very lucky choice! If you’d extended your maternity leave, I don’t know if there would have been any point in you going back to work.” Daria noted a fact that I’d been aware of since the day Coral was born.

“That’s true,” Inbal said. I knew she was the most shocked at the speed with which I went back to work.

At the office, the fact that I’d returned to work after only three months wasn’t so extraordinary. Plenty of lawyers didn’t use the opportunity to extend their minimum maternity leave, and those who did so were not as career-driven as I was. Knowing that I’d be pregnant within a short time, I hadn’t felt pressured to take on large cases. I saw the months that separated both of my maternity leaves as a time in which I worked to keep my job, nothing more. I planned to move my career forward after Adi’s birth.

In the same period in my previous life, I’d just started work at Smart Green as chief bookkeeper. This time, my life was completely different: Then, I’d worked hard, trying to prove myself at all costs; now, I enjoyed the benefits that came with the flexibility associated with a mother’s job. I had been so envious of David and Inbal’s loving relationship, but now I was David’s wife and I had nothing to be jealous of. The fact that I knew in advance about my second pregnancy really made my life easier. John Lennon was right when he said that life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans. In my previous life I was busy planning, being disappointed and feeling jealous. Now I knew in advance what was going to happen, and I learned to live my life instead of thinking about what could have been.

I watched Daria and Amir, and Inbal and Asi, and saw surprising similarities between the relationships that Daria had with Asi and Inbal had with David. Just as Daria had controlled Asi, she now controlled Amir, the difference being that Amir knew better how stand up for himself. In addition, Inbal's relationship with Asi looked as warm and loving from the outside as her relationship with David. I realized that a spousal relationship doesn’t depend solely on the connection between the two people, but also depends on each of them individually. Daria was an impatient control freak, and that was reflected in her relationships with both Asi and Amir. Inbal, however, was a loving and dedicated person who radiated warmth and love and each man who lived with her simply blossomed. David didn’t wither with me, but in my memory, he was a happy and cheerful man when he lived with Inbal.

This comparison that my new life allowed offered me relief. Amir was wrong when he said, “Everyone’s the same.” Absolutely not! But there was no point in being jealous of others about things I couldn’t control. I couldn’t be Inbal. We didn’t have the same personality - so there was no point in being jealous of her life with Asi, just as there was no point in being jealous of her life with David at the time. Now, I still couldn’t help but be jealous of her ability to love, but I knew that I had traits that she lacked and the jealousy that drove me crazy in my previous life didn’t return with such ferocity in my new life.