Housebroken (29 page)

I said: “Dad, you're not well.”

My mother said: “Maya's right. You have to take care of yourself.”

I said: “You're not well either. You know you could have another heart attack.”

“Yes,” she said, “but I don't think about it. You have to live your life Maya, and not think too much.”

“In any case,” I said, “we're here to solve the problem. We're here to find a practical solution.” Suddenly I felt as if I was Gottlieb, a failed chairman, facing two quarreling, obstinate residents, the only ones in the building. I said: “Dad, Mom says she's ready to think about getting back together.”

“But only for a trial period,” she said, and burned a hole in the cottage cheese container as she tried to put out her cigarette. “Only for a trial period, Jack.” Suddenly my father rebelled—I should have seen it coming. I had seen his shoulders charge like batteries—he turned to her and said: “I don't need any favors, Deborah. Please don't do me any favors.”

I stood up and opened the window because it had become unbearable in the room, and the smell of the garbage and the gas seemed preferable. I leaned against the wall and said: “Stop it, both of you. It can't go on like this. You're behaving like children, both of you. We came here to talk, not fight. You've fought enough. You've been fighting for thirty years. Aren't you sick of it?”

They were silent for a minute and then my father said: “We didn't fight.”

My mother, who had fallen into the trap of believing he was on her side, said: “That's true, Maya. Your father's right. We never fought. That's one good thing you can say about us, we never fought.”

“We didn't fight the way we should have,” he continued, and she frowned and said: “What do you mean, ‘the way we should have'?”

“We didn't fight the way we should have,” he said, “and you know what I mean.”

“No,” she said angrily, “I don't know what you mean. I didn't know we were supposed to fight at all. Where does it say that we were supposed to fight? But you tell me how we should have fought. Go on, since you're such an expert, tell me how we were supposed to fight.”

There was silence. My father stared out the window I'd opened. Outside we could see the roofs of parked cars and the heads of passersby. Suddenly a car alarm went off, wailing without stopping, or perhaps we had only just noticed it. The smell of the garbage and the gas filled the air, and my father turned to face my mother, turned his head and neck and shoulders toward her, and whispered: “With passion, Deborah. That's how people should fight.”

I stood with my back to the wall and stared at the floor. I was witnessing one of the few intimate moments in my parents' lives, maybe the only one but certainly the most solemn. It was like catching them in bed together. But it was worse. They sat on those two ugly chairs, dressed in their familiar clothes, my mother in the dress with the triangle print, and my father in brown pants and a white long-sleeved polyester shirt, and both of them more naked than I had ever seen them.

“With passion. People should fight with passion,” he said again, and looked back at the window. “We always went through the motions,” he said to the window. “We always behaved like a couple who knew when they should fight and when they shouldn't. I never heard you scream at me, Deborah, really scream from your guts, from your heart, not just getting little digs in and criticizing me about this and that.”

“You're not such an innocent either,” my mother hissed and lit another cigarette. “You're not innocent at all, Jack! You know it very well. As if I'm the only one to blame. ‘Passion'! You throw out these words, where do you come up with them? Where does he come up with them, Maya?”

“You're talking?” he said. “You, whose whole life is some Disney movie? Big words are your specialty, Deborah, that and a few other things.”

“What other things?” my mother pounced. “Tell me Jack, what other things?”

“You want me to tell you,” he said. “You really want me to? Do you think your weak heart can take it?”

“Tell me! Stop trying to be clever and tell me!” she screamed and rose to her feet, dropping the scorched cottage cheese container and her patent leather bag, which also had a little hole in it from the burning cigarette that had passed right through the plastic container. “Well! Tell me already!” she yelled and put her hands on her hips. “Get it all out, Jacob, all of it! Now that you've finally learned to talk.”

My father stood up—I thought he was about to walk out of the apartment—but he bent down, picked up the chair, turned it around, and sat down again, with his face to my mother, who paced back and forth in front of him, the way she always did in front of the cakes when we went to a café together.

He cleared his throat again and again, as if each cough was an opportunity to rephrase his words and take them back, and then he said, in a quiet tone: “First of all, Deborah, you didn't even love me when we got married.”

“Jack”—she sounded horrified, as if she had only just noticed that I was with them in the room—“what are you talking about, Jack? Tell me, what are you talking about? Perhaps our oldest daughter would like to know why you're suddenly saying such terrible things and talking such nonsense, Jack, nonsense! Maya, you want to know, don't you?”

I stared at the worn floor tiles in silence. I tried to count them.

“Deborah,” he said, “I don't want to hear all your stories again, about how you were in love with me for years, how it thrilled you every morning to see me coming into the building, how you waited for the moment when you could put through a call to me, how you prayed for my wife to disappear, how you bought flowers every day so I would pay attention to you. It used to flatter me, Deborah, I admit, but I don't need lies anymore.”

“I wasn't lying, Jack,” she said and her eyes filled with tears. “I really loved you.”

“No,” he said. “You wanted to get married, I can understand that. But you didn't love me. You were thirty-two years old and you wanted a family. I can understand that, Deborah. You wanted a family.”

“But I loved you, Jack! I swear I did! You can ask the typists in the office. Ask Judith! She knows! Ask Malka! Malka was my friend. You can even ask Mr. Horowitz. Even he knows. Ask Maya. She'll be my witness.”

“Deborah,” he said quietly, “you're fantasizing. Stop fantasizing, a woman of your age.”

I felt my flesh crawl and a childish instinct urged me to put my hands over my ears. To hear my father say: “fantasizing.” There was a kind of embarrassing exposure in the word and he spat it out as if it disgusted him. There was something blunt in his voice, something masculine and sexual, which didn't suit him, like the stubble on his cheeks and chin, which in contrast to the white hair on his head was coarse and black.

Mom was sobbing now. She sat back on her chair, which was set at right angles to his, and cried with her face to me and the wall. She didn't even bother to look for a tissue in her bag, which was lying on the floor, with the burn mark on it like a tattoo. Then she said in a submissive tone which contained a touch of flirtatiousness: “But I'm sure I loved you, Jack. That's how I remember it, anyway. I didn't marry without love. I would never have done such a thing.”

My father said: “It doesn't matter anymore.”

She sniffed, trying to decide whether the moment had come to be consoled, but then she turned to face him and said: “Look who's talking, Jack, look who's talking.”

“But at least I never lied to you.”

“No, you never lied,” she said. “That's the problem. You told me many truths, Jack. Do you know what it felt like living with you all those years and knowing that you didn't love me? It was worse. I at least told you that I loved you. And you, you were only interested in the truth. Only the truth! Not my feelings.”

“There was no point in lying,” he said. “There was no point. You know it.”

“What does it matter if there was a point or not? You could have made my life a little easier, Jack. A little, for the sake of my ego. What does it matter if there was a point or not?”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I know it wasn't easy for you, but you know I hate lying. I can't do it.”

“No? Then you should have tried a little harder. You know what it was like living in Violet's shadow? You know what torture it was? Chinese torture. And I didn't even know what she looked like, you burned all her pictures. Everything! Like a little boy you went and made a bonfire in the yard.”

“I didn't burn them because of you,” he said.

“Of course not!” she said. “Not because of me! Not for me. Because of you! Only you! Because you're an egotist. Because it didn't occur to you that I might be suffering, tossing and turning in bed at night trying to guess what she looked like. I had to humiliate myself and ask around the office, in case somebody had seen her coming in one day. Maybe she came to visit you, to bring you a sandwich, but nobody ever saw her. Why, Jack? Why didn't she come to visit you? You were married for ten years. Isn't it strange, Jackie? Isn't it strange that she never came once?”

“Drop it,” he said. “I'm asking you. Let it go.”

“I don't want to!” she said. “I won't drop it! I deserve to know. I have a right.”

“You don't have any rights!” he yelled. He wasn't trembling anymore. He was just yelling. “You don't have any rights anymore. We're divorced. Remember? You wanted us to get divorced, so now you haven't got any rights, you can forget about your rights!”

“I do!” her voice pleaded. “I have a right to know.”

My father was silent. Outside the alarm went on wailing. Someone walked on the path and crammed a bag of garbage into the can. We heard the bag rustling and the lid closing. “Gorgeous, Deborah,” he said. “She was gorgeous.”

My mother sniffed, took a tissue out of her bag, and wiped her eyes.

“She had a Slavic beauty. A noble beauty. She had blond hair she used to put up with two combs, like this.” He demonstrated on his bald head. “And high cheekbones, and she was tall, much taller than me, maybe even a head taller. At first it embarrassed me, but later on I got used to it and I liked it”—I had never seen my father so dreamy and full of joy—“and she dressed very elegantly. And she didn't understand Hebrew too well. I tried to teach her, but she laughed and shrugged her shoulders, like a little girl. Like this: don't want to, don't want to, and she had a smile, Deborah”—he demonstrated the smile to my mother—“I fell in love with her smile.”

My mother stopped crying. She looked straight at my father and her eyes were dry now. “Why didn't you tell me all this till now?” she said. “Why?” And my father kept quiet. He was very calm. His shoulders were slumped and relaxed. “There, you see, you could have made things easier for me. Much easier. Look, your poor ex-wife has taken on flesh and blood. A human being. Not a ghost. A human being! It's easier to cope with a human being, Jack. What would it have cost you? What would it have cost you to tell me this thirty years ago?”

But my father was somewhere else. He sat quietly and limply on his chair, carried away on the wings of a smiling vision that didn't speak Hebrew.

I asked if they wanted more coffee, but they didn't answer. They looked at each other. I asked again: “Should I make more coffee?” but my voice didn't penetrate the wall. “I'll go and make some for me,” I said and went into the kitchen. “Let me know if you change your minds.”

I waited for the water to boil. The electric coil leaned on the rim of the glass, and there was some perceptible movement in the water, little bubbles clustering around the coil. I went back into the living room and saw my mother and father sitting exactly as they had been a few moments before. Staring at each other. I told them I had to leave, but they ignored me. I picked my bag up from the floor. “Can you take the bus home?” I asked my mother. “I have to run. I have a meeting at the university.” I went into the kitchen, unplugged the electric coil, opened the front door, and said: “I'll talk to you later, okay? I'll call,” but they still didn't answer. They turned their heads for a second and my father nodded, but not at me, as if he were responding to someone else. I slammed the door behind me, and when I walked up the path I could see their heads through the rectangular window.

16

That night both my parents tried to reach me. Each one called me separately to tell me they were getting back together. I was at Nathan's and didn't bother to check my messages, even though I knew they'd both call. When I got home at six-thirty in the morning, there were six messages on the answering machine.

The first was from my father: “Maya, it's eight o'clock and your mother just went home. Please call me.” The second was from my mother, who announced that she'd come home and she had to talk to me. She sounded excited and out of breath. In the background I heard the weather forecast on the television. The third message was from my mother, asking where I was and saying she wouldn't go to bed before twelve o'clock. The fourth was from my father, who said he was worried about me, and the fifth was my mother again: “Maya,” she said, “it's nearly twelve o'clock and you're still not home. Call me the minute you get in, okay?” The sixth message was from her as well, to tell me that she and Dad were getting back together and she was going to bed now.

It was early and still cold. I made myself coffee and sat down to drink it on the balcony. I looked at the geranium, which had dried up even though I watered it all the time. There was something wrong with these plants. They looked dry and thin and they never bloomed. I thought of throwing out the pots together with the soil and the sickly plants, but I left them hanging from the rail out of laziness and in the hope that the geranium would recover by itself, because they say that geraniums are impossible to kill.