Deja Vu (6 page)

“Sure.”

“You're not normal.”

“Why not?” she said, raising Adi to her shoulder.

“Because she’s a big girl.”

“She's only just over a year… and I still have milk, so why not?”

“If you say so...” I shrugged.

I thought breastfeeding a fourteen-month-old toddler was a bit extreme, but I couldn’t help feeling the same old jealousy throbbing inside me again. Inbal's girls were wrapped around her from all sides and my Nofar barely wanted me at all. She didn’t nurse at all, certainly not at the age of fourteen months. She was an independent little two-year-old. Everyone admired her independence, and I knew that, just as I was trying to run away from her, she ran away from me and tried to be as independent as possible in order to not need me. While I was sitting with Inbal and her daughters, Nofar chose to play with Amir and David in the living room. Her preference for Amir had always been obvious, and Amir tried to reassure me that it was just because she was daddy's little girl.

The harmony between Inbal and her daughters hurt me no less than her romantic relationship with David. I looked at Inbal’s two girls and did the math in my head: Coral was four months old when Adi was conceived. I tried to remember if Amir and I had resumed having sex four months after Nofar was born. Nofar's birth was difficult, and I ended up having an episiotomy. I found it difficult to even sit for two weeks, and the pain didn’t subside for months. Even after the pain abated, the frequency of sexual encounters between Amir and I was substantially reduced. Between work and taking care of Nofar, we were simply exhausted.

I was sure that Inbal and David were exhausted too, but it seemed that their parenthood, despite having two daughters, didn’t affect the intimacy that existed between them. While we were all sitting in the living room, David couldn’t stop stroking Inbal and looking at her with admiring eyes. I admired her too. She had patience and mothering skills I had rarely ever seen in any other mother. Her happiness and serenity rattled me. Maybe I chose the wrong approach. Maybe I should have devoted my life to Nofar and rather than staying in the office until late at night every time I could find a sitter for her. Maybe I should have stopped looking for sitters and came home early every day. Maybe I should have stopped working completely, as Inbal had.

Inbal planned to stay home at least until her youngest, who, according to her, was yet to be born, started school. Inbal could afford to put her career on hold. She was a literature teacher. Seniority wasn’t as crucial in her field as it was in mine. I also had to admit to myself that I was more materialistic than her. Inbal was satisfied with the little she had. I liked to buy myself new clothes, eat in restaurants and go on luxurious vacations. For Inbal, camping on the shore of the Kinneret was a wonderful vacation while I shuddered at the very thought of sleeping in a tent. I didn’t want to give up on the pleasures of life, even at the cost of having someone else taking care of my daughter.

That night, after Nofar fell asleep, I laid in bed and read a book. Amir sent a few emails and joined me in bed. I watched him as he took off his clothes. In his boxer shorts and an undershirt, it was clear that he hadn’t been taking care of himself. Although he wasn’t fat, he was far from the handsome officer I’d met more than ten years ago. He didn’t eat well and snacked on sweets. He was addicted to caffeine, drinking at least six cups of coffee a day, which made him look perpetually tired. I, myself, didn’t look the way I did on the day we met, either. I hadn’t lost all my baby weight yet, but I knew I looked after myself better than he did. My mother once remarked that I should worry a little more about Amir, making sure that he ate well and watched his weight. It got on my nerves. “We don’t live in the 1950s,” I replied angrily. I shouldn’t need to worry about my husband - he could look after himself, just like I looked after myself. Gone were the days of the man being the sole breadwinner and the wife taking care of him as she did the rest of the children. We both worked. We both provided.

David looked great. When we’d arrived at their house that day, he’d just returned from his shift and was still wearing a white undershirt, trousers and his heavy work boots. He was much sexier than I remembered him being in high school. Then, he was a teenager, and now he was a really sexy guy. His tanned, muscular body contrasted with the white undershirt he wore. Unlike Amir, he worked in a physically strenuous job. When Amir complimented him on being in such good shape, he told us that part of his workday included training in a purpose-built gym at the fire station. They had to be fit to withstand their tough work. No wonder Inbal slept with David so soon after giving birth. She was married to the live, human version of the famous statue of David.

Amir lay down next to me, and I put the book down. I began to stroke him and he smiled with pleasure. My hand went sliding under his boxers. Amir flinched and pulled my hand out.

“I'm wiped out.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“Sure I want to, but I’m too exhausted… let’s do it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, you're working late… you’ll be exhausted then too.”

“So let’s plan a date for the weekend and do it properly.”

“We haven’t done it for almost a month.”

“Right...” he said sadly.

“Aren’t you attracted to me anymore?”

“Are you crazy? You know I am. I'm just tired.”

“I'm sure David isn’t tired, look how fast they had two girls. They’re probably fucking like rabbits. And if you ask me, I look a lot better than Inbal.”

He rose slightly, laid on his side, resting his head on his right hand.  “I think you’re much sexier than her.”

“So why won’t you sleep with me?”

“Of course I want to sleep with you. Now’s just a busy time, so I have a little less strength in me. Three days ago, when I wanted to, you were tired… that's how it is when you have small children. We didn’t invent the wheel. Everyone has less sex when they have small children.”

“It's a wonder more children are born.”

“True,” he laughed.

“But here are Inbal and David with another baby and they look like a couple with great intimacy.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know. Just a hunch,” I shrugged.

“I’ve told you a million times to stop imagining that other people have it better than you. Everyone’s the same. They all have the same problems with their children, the same money issues and the same amount of sex.”

“It really doesn’t look that way.”

“When you meet with Inbal and Daria, do you tell them about the problems you have at work? Problems with your boss?”

Daria and Inbal didn’t even know that I was merely a bookkeeper, not an accountant.

“No,” I replied in a whisper.

“So why do you think they’d tell you about all their troubles?” he repeated, resting his head on the pillow. “No one hangs out their dirty laundry for everyone to see,” he declared.

“So what are friends for?”

“For problems more serious than a small overdraft or a child who's scared of the dark. If something really bad happened, you can be sure they’d be there for you.”

I remembered how Inbal and Daria hadn’t left my bedside for weeks after the accident I’d had in my youth. He was right. Maybe they were jealous of me and I just wasn’t aware of it. I always had the feeling that I was the only one busy examining Daria and Asi’s prosperity and Inbal and David’s love life. Maybe they looked at me and found reasons to be jealous?

In my first year at Smart Green, I blossomed professionally. Apart from the fact that I was repeatedly embarrassed by my demeaning and undignified job description, the work was interesting and challenging.

Over time, I got to know more and more employees who didn’t work in my department: engineers, technicians, production workers and product designers. At first, they were all names on my payroll list, but gradually I began to associate faces with names. Being acquainted with the people I worked with while making up their paychecks every month was very difficult for me. In my mind, I saw everyone’s salary flickering over his or her head. I couldn’t remember the exact amount, but over time I could remember more or less each employee’s wage. This troubled me. Before working at Smart Green, I’d never had to make out employee paychecks. Now, when moving through the crowds of people at work, I would constantly rank them according to the privileged information I had.

I was amazed to find that there was often no connection between the quality of the employee and the wages he earned. There were good and loyal workers earning lower wages, while other workers doing the same job were lazy and exploitative, yet earned more. I discovered an inverse relationship between efficiency and loyalty and the ability of workers to demand their rights. My stomach turned every time my manager informed me that a lazy employee or one with a poor work ethic was getting a raise, especially when there was another employee, whom I thought was more deserving of a salary bump, who didn’t get one. I was angry with my boss for not recognizing the injustices occurring in the company’s salary division.

Over time, I added myself to the list of employees who were rewarded properly.

“Today, Gideon notified me about another wage adjustment,” I told Amir that evening. “He gave someone from the development department an extra 2000 shekels a month.”

“Very nice.”

“What's nice about it? I know this man. Although he’s a fairly good worker, he's not even an engineer, he’s just a mechanic.”

“I thought that, since Shoshana showed you that some bookkeepers have wider skills than accountants, you no longer cared about a person’s job title.” Amir reminded me of my predecessor.

“True, but this guy doesn’t put that much effort into his work, either. I have to go through the time sheets… he does almost no overtime.”

“Maybe he's just efficient?” Amir was starting to annoy me.

“I’m efficient… Gideon doesn’t raise my salary like that. This guy's salary was higher than mine to begin with, and now the gap’s even bigger.” I sat on the couch feeling angry. Nofar approached me and handed me a paper she’d scribbled on vigorously in the last few minutes. “Good job, Nofar,” I said listlessly. She looked at me, full of hope. She wanted me to admire her doodling, but it was always difficult for me to lie to her. It was just a messy scribble.

She took the drawing to Amir. “Daddy, hang it!” she ordered him in her baby voice. Amir took the doodle and praised it as if he was holding a rare work of art and then pinned it on the refrigerator with a magnet. “Go and make me another beautiful picture like this one,” he said softly, and our little girl ran to her room full of motivation.

“Where was I?” I asked when we were left alone again.

“The growing gap,” Amir laughed.

“It's not funny,” I said angrily. “It drives me crazy that there are people who contribute less to the company than I do, yet they earn more than me.”

“How do you know they contribute less?”

“Believe me, I know,” I said flatly. “This guy I'm talking about works fewer hours than me. He’s also less qualified, and yet he earns more.”

“How old is he? Maybe he's been working there for many years?”

“He isn’t much older than me, and he’s only been working for Smart Green for six years.”

“Only?” Amir chuckled. “He’s been working there five years longer than you. That's a lot!”

“Don’t forget I was buried for four years in that accounting firm. In terms of job seniority, we have almost the same experience.”

“So how do you explain it?”

“That's what I keep on telling you. There’s no justice! If you enter the boss’s office, bang your fist on the table and threaten to leave, you get what you ask for. If you just keep quiet and accept reality as it is, you just go on getting screwed over.”

“So go into Gideon’s office and bang your fist on his table!”

“And if he fires me?”

“He could’ve fired the engineer. If he doesn’t want you to go, he won’t fire you.”

I was afraid to go to Gideon. I didn’t know what I could say to him. I’d barely been working there a year, and the first salary adjustment for workers in the company happened only after two years, certainly not less than eighteen months. I knew I wasn’t going to wait another whole year, but half a year of waiting seemed like an eternity too.

When I started working on payroll, it never occurred to me it would entail such emotional difficulty. I didn’t see workers; I saw numbers. I could rate all the workers from the most expensive to the least expensive, just like grades pinned on the bulletin board in the principal’s office. Next to each name was a number. The higher the number, the more that person was to be respected. That analogy between pay scales and school grades ran through my mind again and again. During my studies at university, my ranking gave me confidence. I wasn’t always in first place, but I always knew that the list was realistic. The best student received the highest score. The employee list was very different. Those who received the highest salary weren’t necessarily the best employees, at least not in my opinion, and it bothered me. It was more than just the financial reward. The payroll was a simplistic way for me to rate the company's employees.

I didn’t like my position. I thought I deserved to be ranked higher.

A year and two months after I started working at Smart Green, I knew I couldn’t continue with the way things were. I decided to go to Gideon, even though my contract stated clearly that I wouldn’t be considered for a raise until I’d worked there for two years.

I decided to take a chance.

I entered Gideon’s office after practicing my speech for a week. He smiled at me and asked what I wanted.

“I want to talk about something personal,” I said.

“Please,” he gestured to the chair opposite him. “Come and sit down.”

I had a feeling he thought I was going to tell him I was pregnant.

“I'm not pregnant,” I blurted out immediately. “At least, not as far as I know,” I smiled.

“That's fine,” he said with a look of appreciation. “You know that Smart Green respects mothers. You must have heard that Deganit, who works with you, returned from a nine-month maternity leave just before you started your job.”

“Yes, I heard.”

“But you're not pregnant, so what did you want to tell me?”

“Gideon,” I cleared my throat. I didn’t want my voice to tremble. I wanted to sound as assertive as I could. “I think you know how much I enjoy working for this company.” He nodded. “This job is everything I dreamed of and more. I'm learning a lot and enjoy helping in any way that my training and experience allows.”

“I'm very pleased with you too,” he said immediately. I knew he was very pleased with me. He never hid it and made sure to praise me with compliments and reassurance.

“But there are two things that bother me. Really bother me.”

“What?” he asked a worried tone.

“The first issue is my job description. In many other companies, what I do is considered the job of an accountant and not the work of a bookkeeper.”

“
Chief
bookkeeper!” he immediately corrected.

“And I think, as a result,” I continued my speech, “my salary is inappropriate for my role.” He looked at me, shocked, but I knew I had to finish what I came there to say. “I don’t know why my role’s entitled chief bookkeeper [I made sure to add the ‘Chief’] and not an accountant.” The truth is that I had a pretty good idea why my job title wasn’t ‘accountant.’ The salary of an accountant would be almost double. “Maybe it’s because Shoshana, my predecessor, was a bookkeeper by profession.” I tried to come up with a logical reason for Gideon.

“You're doing exactly the same work Shoshana did.”

“I have to tell you that Shoshana’s knowledge wasn’t that of an ordinary bookkeeper, or even of a chief bookkeeper,” I hastened to add. “And since I came here, I’ve added quite a bit to the content of management reports, additional material that Shoshana didn’t put in.”

I watched Gideon. His gaze was frozen. I didn’t know how to interpret it. I continued, as I’d practiced. “I know it's not fair to use the knowledge I’m privy to about other employees’ wages, but I think it's just not fair that I earn, just as an example, four thousand shekels less than Ofer Kaduri.”

Gideon frowned. “Hasn’t Ofer just had a 2000 shekel raise?”

“Yes,” I replied passionately, “and he’s a practical engineer. He doesn’t even have a college degree like I do.”

“So you think you deserve an extra 4000 shekels?”

Honestly, I thought I deserved more than Ofer Kaduri, but I was embarrassed to say the exact amount I thought I deserved. “Something like that,” I said, and I tilted my head from side to side, as if trying to weigh the money in my head. Gideon checked something on the computer. I thought it was a good sign, that maybe he was calculating how much he should give me.

He turned away from his computer, looked straight at me and said in the angriest voice I have ever heard, “I have to tell you, you are
rude
!” He swallowed and continued. “
So
rude! You compare yourself to Ofer Kaduri or Shoshana? How dare you?”

I hunched down in my chair and he continued. “Ofer Kaduri has been working here for six years and this was his first significant raise. The raise you’re asking for would bring you, more or less, to Shoshana’s wage level, and she worked here for more than fifteen years! How do you even dare compare yourself to these two workers? While we’re at it, how dare you use other employees’ salary data to your personal ends?”

I felt tears welling in my eyes. I couldn’t answer him because I knew that if I opened my mouth, I'd cry.

“You think I don’t know your wages here are about fifty percent higher than you earned with your last employer? You came here and dramatically improved your working conditions and signed an agreement that stated you wouldn’t be getting a salary review for two years… and now you want to break the rules?”

“I don’t want to break the rules,” I managed to say without bursting into tears.

“Maybe you don’t, but I would
really
like to fire you right now!” 

I was shocked. I couldn’t believe the conversation had come this far. Now, without even uttering another word, I burst into tears. Gideon was stunned. Like many men, he didn’t know how to respond to a crying woman.

“I'm sorry,” I said, sobbing. “It was bothering me, and I thought it would be best to talk to you… It was beginning to interfere with my work.” Gideon got up from his chair. I was afraid he was going to throw me out, but he went to the dresser behind him and took out a pack of tissues for me.

He stood next to me, folded his arms, leaned on his desk and said calmly, “I apologize. Maybe I overreacted a little, but you really made me very angry. I do want you to come to me when you have a problem and not bottle things up, but I also expect you to use your discretion - and you absolutely did
not
use it today.” I nodded in agreement, even though I still thought I was right. “I’m very happy with you and your work, and I believe you can have a great future in this company. I’m also sure that, if you keep at it, your wages will go up, but all in good time.”

I left the room. Rina, his secretary, couldn’t fail to miss my red eyes and immediately picked up her phone and dialed, probably to announce the hot gossip to one of my bookkeepers. I didn’t want to let the story escalate, and I left the building. Across the road was a small café. I sat down and ordered a cup of coffee. I drank it slowly, to calm down and let the tears stop before I went back to the office. I thought to myself that maybe I did over exaggerate and some of my demands were not legitimate after only a year with the company, but Gideon's reaction blew me away. I was really offended. Is a request for a higher salary reason enough to threaten an employee with dismissal? I was sure it wasn’t. If I hadn’t needed the job and the salary, I’d have gone right up there and collected my things. 

When I got home and cried into Amir’s shoulder, he was forced to agree with me that Gideon's response was a bit extreme. However, he reminded me that he thought I should wait patiently until at least the end of my second year with Smart Green, and he also thought that I should stop making comparisons between the employees, but compare my salary with that of colleagues in other companies.

“But I’m the chief bookkeeper, not an accountant,” I said tearfully.

“Tell me,” Amir said quietly, stroking me softly. “Is there anything you’re missing?”

“Yeah, I’m not an accountant!” I answered immediately with bitterness.

“Let the title go,” he said almost angrily and then returned to speaking calmly. “I mean do you lack for anything?”