Housebroken (28 page)

14

They broke the news cautiously. The three of us were sitting around the table in the kitchen with the plants and the pleasant breeze. We were eating a light meal because it was too hot for anything cooked. We had cheese and bread and an onion omelette. Amir chopped the onion and whistled to himself and wiped his tears. Noga said that it was his job to cut up onions and make omelettes and whistle silly tunes he invented while he cooked. Once again I was sitting in Noga and Amir's kitchen on a Friday afternoon and eating with them. Once again it was sweltering outside yet pleasant in the kitchen. Noga and Amir had a theory about getting the right exposure, but I thought it was just luck. They were lucky with their apartment.

Noga sighed and said she'd eaten too much, and she lifted her tank top, Amir's tank top, patting herself on the stomach. Amir cleared the table and put the dishes in the sink. He filled the electric kettle, stood behind her chair, gripped the backrest, and rocked it back and forth. Noga told him to stop. Amir kissed her neck, took his hands off the back of the chair, put them on her shoulders, and massaged them. Noga said again that she'd eaten too much, raised her eyes and looked at Amir and asked him why she had eaten so much, and Amir kissed the tip of her nose. The kettle boiled and he asked us what we wanted to drink; Noga said that she didn't want anything, she was too full, and I said: “Iced coffee.” Amir said iced coffee was a good idea, that he would have iced coffee too, and asked Noga if she didn't want to change her mind. She said no, he put his hands on the back of the chair again, rocked it back and forth, and said: “We're getting married.”

“Amir!” Noga shrieked.

“What's wrong?” he said, rumpling her hair.

“I wanted to tell her,” she said, and shook her head. “Stop that! I don't like it,” she said and Amir took his hand away and poured a little boiling water into two cups and mixed it with the coffee. “If I'd waited until you got up the courage to tell Maya, we'd be on our way to get divorced.” Noga massaged her stomach and said: “Don't exaggerate.” I said: “Congratulations.”

Amir opened the fridge and took out the milk. “She's been trying to make up her mind how to tell you for a month.”

“Stop it!” she wailed.

“It's true,” he said laughing. “She's been agonizing over it for a whole month.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because she was afraid of your reaction,” he said.

“Will you please stop talking nonsense?” said Noga with real anger. Amir pushed his hand into her hair and rumpled it again.

“Stop it!” she yelled and grabbed his wrist. “You know I don't like it. Why do you keep doing it?”

“Because I like it,” he said. “I like annoying you.”

“Were you really afraid of my reaction?” I asked.

“It's not the way it sounds. It's not like there's a conspiracy. I just didn't know how to tell you. We just decided. About a month ago. It was quite sudden, and we haven't told anyone yet except our parents.”

“She was afraid you'd be jealous,” said Amir. “She was afraid you'd get depressed about it.”

“Bullshit,” Noga said.

“I'm glad,” I said. “Truly, with all my heart. You don't have to feel uncomfortable.”

“Really?” she said and looked at Amir who was standing behind her still rocking her chair. “Do you mean it?”

“Yes.” I said. “I mean it.”

Noga lit a cigarette and threw the match into the sink. Amir took a tray of ice cubes out of the freezer and said: “And she's going to quit smoking after we get married.”

“That's why we're getting married,” she said, “so I'll quit.”

“So when is it?” I asked.

“September,” they said together.

Amir banged the tray of ice on the counter and said: “If you're still with that asshole you're going out with, you can bring him so we can finally get a look at him.” An ice cube came free of the tray and landed behind the fridge, and Amir bent down and groped for it with his hand.

“I'm not going out with him,” I said.

“Yes, they never leave his house,” said Noga.

“Why, is he stingy?”

“Emotionally,” said Noga and laughed and blew out smoke. I laughed with her. Amir crawled on all fours looking for the ice cube. Noga told him to forget about it, it would melt anyway, and he said he didn't want a puddle under the fridge. I looked at him in his short pants. He too had downy hair in the small of his back. I thought that maybe this was why I had fallen in love with Nathan, this hair, that you fell in love because of the small things. Amir was short and thin, and the hair on his back was black. I wondered whether I could fall in love with Amir, with his skinny legs and hollow chest and protruding ribs, Noga's Amir with the black hair in the small of his back, and I knew that I could.

“So when in September?” I asked. “Before the holidays?”

“Definitely,” said Noga. “After that it's already winter.”

Amir said: “We're looking for a place with a garden.”

“I've heard of a few,” I said. “I can find out for you.”

“We're going to look at a couple of places tomorrow. You want to come?”

I said no, that I had work to do at home. I had tons of stuff to read, but thanks anyway.

“If you change your mind,” said Noga, “we won't leave before four. Right?”

“Four, five,” said Amir, “when it's a little cooler. Maybe we'll go to the beach first.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Amir gave up on the ice cube and told Noga there would be a puddle under the fridge. He put the two mugs of iced coffee on the table and stirred them rapidly, making the ice cubes tinkle. He stood next to the table between Noga and me and stirred the coffee, until Noga told him to stop because it was giving her a headache. She said, “That's enough,” and stroked the small of his back. Amir threw the spoon into the sink and took his coffee to the living room. Noga went on rocking her chair and smoking and patting her stomach.

I drank the coffee, swirling the ice cubes from side to side. Noga looked at me, troubled, and I smiled at her. “You're not really happy for me,” she said, but I told her that I was. She said she would understand completely if I wasn't, but I said again: “I am. I really am.” She said they were expecting guests, friends of Amir's she couldn't stand, but that's the way it was when you lived with someone. You made all kinds of compromises. You've got no idea how many, she said, and she asked me to stay, because these friends depressed her. “They're so boring,” she said. “They got married two months ago, but from the way they behave you'd think they'd been married for fifty years. Stay,” she said. “We'll gossip about them in the kitchen,” but I said I had to go because of all the work waiting for me at home. I leaned toward her and took her hand in mine—her left hand with the silver rings. There were three new rings: one from Amir, one from her mother, and one from Amir's mother. I squeezed her hand in mine and said: “Congratulations, really, with all my heart,” and we stood up and hugged, and her curly hair touched my cheek. It was soft and smelled of shampoo and onions.

15

I waited for my mother outside Orna's clinic, which was located on the ground floor of a new, marble-covered apartment building uptown. I sat in the car and waited. It was four in the afternoon. We had told my father we'd be coming around four. He had insisted on holding the meeting at his place. My mother wanted him to come to her. She said on the phone: “Why don't you come to the house?” But he was firm and said he preferred us to come to him. When I told him Mom wanted to talk about their getting back together, he said: “All right. I don't mind talking if she wants to, but at my place.” He wanted her to see him in the rented apartment he hated so much, still without any furniture. I don't think he wanted her to feel sorry for him. I think he wanted to let her settle the score. He didn't need Orna to explain that Mom had divorced him out of revenge for Violet. He wanted her revenge to be complete. He wanted her to know he had served his sentence.

My mother came out of the building. I honked and waved at her. She got into the car, fastened the seat belt, lit a cigarette, and didn't say a word. I wondered what they'd talked about, my mother and Orna, in the air-conditioned clinic on the ground floor of the marble building. Mom was wearing one of her nice dresses—a sleeveless dress with a triangle pattern. She sighed and looked out the window. She was in the pensive mood that people sink into when they come out of a therapy session.

When we reached my father's street, she noted that it was nice. I parked outside his building and she asked: “Is this it?” I said: “Yes.” His building was ugly, old, neglected. She walked up the path, looking at the gas balloons and garbage cans and the broken mailboxes. She asked if there wasn't a tenants' committee and I said no. She stood and examined the mailboxes until her eyes stopped at my father's. “Jacob Lieberman” was written on the label in print letters, in childish writing, under a label which said: “Nitzan Alon. Zoom-in Productions.”

“Why doesn't he remove it?” she asked and touched the previous tenant's label with her fingernail, as if she was asking my permission to peel it off. I knocked lightly on my father's door, and my mother asked why there wasn't a bell. I said there was, but it didn't work, and she said that you should fix things, that you shouldn't leave things too long, because they take their revenge on you. I knocked on the door again. Mom stood behind me, clutching her little handbag. “Why doesn't he answer?” she whispered at the back of my neck. My father opened the door. He was pale and unshaved.

We went in, he closed the door behind us. My mother stood in the entrance hall, examining the few bits of furniture in the living room. She pointed with her chin at the two chairs and said: “Those are ours, aren't they? Didn't you once take them from the house, Maya?” and my father said: “She loaned them to me, until I get settled.”

I went into the kitchen to make coffee. My mother and father remained in the living room, staring at the chairs, until she came into the kitchen and said: “What's taking so long?” I said: “It's this electric coil. You have to boil each cup separately.” She said: “It's too bad he hasn't got a table and chairs in here. We could have sat in the kitchen. Why doesn't he buy a kettle? He can take one from our place. We have two. He knows there's an extra kettle. I told him he could take whatever he wanted. Why didn't he take it?” Then she asked if I'd noticed that Dad hadn't shaved today. She said he did it on purpose, to annoy her. To look more pathetic than he really was. I told her he hadn't been paying too much attention to shaving lately. She tasted her coffee to see if it was sweet enough, and said that I didn't need to give her lessons on my father, that she knew him better than I did.

We returned to the living room, my mother holding her cup with the tips of her fingers, and me holding mine and my father's. He was sitting on one of the chairs with his face to the window. On the western wall there was a high, rectangular window, which was closed most of the time because it overlooked the entrance path and the garbage cans and gas balloons.

My mother sat down on the other chair. She moved it closer to my father, out of habit, but stopped halfway. She put her cup down on the floor, rummaged in her bag, and took out her cigarettes. She took one from the pack, then took out her lighter, lit it, and brought it up to the cigarette, but suddenly she removed the cigarette and, still pressing the lighter spring with her finger, held the flame out to my father and asked: “Is it all right if I smoke, Jack?” He nodded and said: “There aren't any ashtrays,” and I said: “I'll find something,” and my father said: “There are some empty cottage cheese containers under the sink. You can use one of them.” My mother, happy to have obtained permission to light her cigarette, took a deep drag, exhaled, and said: “Why do you keep empty cottage cheese containers, Jack?” He said: “For ashtrays.”

I brought one, and she put it on her lap, balancing it against her bag. “Should I open the window a little, Dad?” I asked. “I don't think so,” he said. “It's noisy outside and it smells of gas.” “Isn't there a tenants' committee?” my mother asked. “I don't know,” said my father. “Apparently not,” I said. “That's no good,” she said and bent down to pick up her coffee from the floor. I said: “But it has advantages too. There's less to pay. Less hassle.” “Oh, Jack, I forgot to tell you!” My mother snatched at the conversational tidbit. “Our tenant committee's changed! Did Maya tell you? You know who's the head of it now?” My father didn't answer, shrugging his shoulders like a child who doesn't want to appear too interested. The committee had always been my father's favorite chore. For years he had volunteered as chair, to the relief of the entire building. He had kept the accounts and the receipts and had taken them with him when he moved. Now they were packed in a manila envelope at the bottom of his suitcase in the bedroom, and my mother said: “Gottlieb!”

“Gottlieb?” he asked.

“Yes, Jack. Gottlieb! Can you believe it? It's a disaster! We don't know what to do.”

She was trying to butter him up, prodding his soft spot. Telling my father that the tenants' committee was a disaster, that Gottlieb didn't know what he was doing, that he forgot to collect the dues, that he didn't give out receipts, that the water supply had been nearly cut off twice, was like telling him that she missed him, and not just her, but everybody. The whole building missed him.

My father digested the news in silence. I sat on the floor and leaned against the wall and drank my coffee. I hugged my knees and said: “Okay, enough small talk.”

They both looked at me with sorrow and surprise.