The Lover (11 page)

For he was an intelligent child and at the age of two he was already chattering constantly, looking at your face all the time, at the movement of your lips. If you forget and turn away from him when you’re talking, he touches you to remind you, to make you turn and face him, or he shakes his head with an endearing gesture so sweet it would melt the devil’s heart. All in all, a happy child. Minor problems – like calling him back home when he’s playing outside. No use just shouting, you have to go down and touch him. What exactly did he hear? Even this we were able to discover, thanks to the clever instruments in the clinic. They think of everything there, even educating the parents. They gave us headphones and played us the sounds that they reckoned he heard, so we could understand better, identify with him.

At the age of three we sent him to a nursery near our home. A charming old nurse took care of him. There were maybe five
children there altogether and he got along fine. She didn’t really understand him very well, because she was a bit deaf herself, but she gave him warmth and love. She used to put him on her lap and kiss him, carrying him around from place to place as if he were crippled, not deaf. He loved her very much, and always talked about her with love, with enthusiasm. From time to time I found an opportunity to leave the garage for a while during the day and go to the nursery, to try to explain to her and the other children what he was saying, training the children to stand directly in front of him, to open their mouths wide and to speak slowly and distinctly. The children were a little scared of me, but basically they were friendly and helped out. Perhaps I overdid things a bit. Asya told me to abandon these visits, she herself had gone back to full-time work, a little too early perhaps, but it’s hard to judge. At first we were interested in special schools, Asya even thought of trying to find a job in a school of this kind, but we soon saw there was no need. He showed independence and was capable of normal relationships with other children. His ability to express himself was improving all the time. In the evenings I used to remove his hearing aid and talk to him face to face, through lip movements only. There was a time when the hearing aid made him self-conscious, we let his hair grow and he was able to hide it. I made him a smaller earpiece on the lathe in the garage. The business of the hearing aid brought me
particularly
close to him at that time. Together we dismantled it, I explained to him how it worked, he examined the little
microphone
, the battery, he seemed to have inherited a technical sense from me.

It was essential not to take him too seriously, essential to joke with him even about his deafness, to expect him to help with the chores, to take out the rubbish or dry the dishes. We were already planning another child. When he was five years old we moved to another house. To his sorrow he was forced to part from the old nurse, he was so at home there. He found it hard to get used to the kindergarten. There were tears in the mornings. But it seemed that things were working out. The Passover seder before his death we celebrated in our new home. Asya’s parents came and various other elderly relations of hers and he sang his part without a single mistake, rolling out the tune in a strong,
jaunty voice. We clapped our hands and applauded him. The gloomy, taciturn old grandfather looked at him with great interest, with astonishment, then wiped away a tear and smiled.

Sometimes he used to take out the hearing aid when he wanted to read a book or when he was building something, a tractor or a crane. We used to call him and he wouldn’t hear, buried deep in his own silence. I envied him this ability to break off contact with the world, to enjoy his own personal silence in his own way. There can be no doubt that the handicap speeded up his development. He also knew how to exploit the advantages of his situation. Sometimes he complained of pains in his ears because of loud noises from the hearing aid. We consulted the doctors and they saw this as a good sign, some of the nerves were showing signs of life, but the doctors were able to predict his condition only for the next few years. There was no way of knowing if the noise really disturbed him or if he just enjoyed having silence around him. I agreed to make him a little cut-off switch, to wear under his shirt, beside his heart, so he could now and then switch off the hearing aid without removing it. Of course this was intended only for use in the house.

In the meantime we bought him a little bicycle to ride on the pavement outside the house. We found him new friends in the neighbourhood. He settled down well with them, but sometimes when they got on his nerves he simply switched off the hearing aid. One of the children even came to me once to complain that “Yigal makes himself deaf on purpose when he doesn’t want to give something or join in a game.”

I mentioned it to him, though I was pleased with this evidence of independence.

Why not?

On that Sabbath afternoon, a week before the beginning of the school term, he went to visit a friend of his who lived just four blocks away from us, on the same street. His friend wasn’t at home so he decided to come back, and it seems that he switched off his hearing aid on the way, though I can’t be sure. Suddenly he saw his friend on the other side of the road playing with some children. They beckoned to him to join them, and so he crossed the road, still in total silence. The car coming down the hill, not all that fast (the skid marks were checked), sounded its horn,
confident that he’d have time to stop, but Yigal went on crossing the road, in his silence, not running, but at a slow walk directly into the path of the car.

It all happened for him very slowly and in total silence.

The children woke me from my sleep, a dozen little fists hammering at the door. I ran out into the street barefoot and half naked. The ambulance was already there. The children shouted wildly, “Wait, wait, here’s his daddy.” He was still breathing, his eyes were full of blood, the hearing aid was broken, he could no longer hear me.

The two of us are realistic, rational people, we tried to behave reasonably, not to lay blame, not to make accusations. I thought she might say something about the cut-off switch that I’d made for him, but it didn’t occur to her. I hinted at it, and she didn’t understand what I was talking about.

The strange thing is that for a long time, for two or three months after the disaster, we were hardly ever alone. Her parents came immediately from Tel Aviv and at our request they stayed on with us. The father was himself very ill and had to be cared for. Elderly aunts came to help, to cook, to clean the house. It was all taken out of our hands, as if we’d both gone back in time and were children again. I slept in the study, Asya apparently on the sofa in the living room, and all the time there were people moving about the house. Practical matters took on great
importance
, they absorbed the grief, diverted it. Concern with her lather’s medicines, special diets, above all with the constant stream of guests passing through the house who came not to visit us but Asya’s father.

I remember it well, the last days of summer, mild and clear, the house full of silent people, most of them old. All the time the door opening and someone arriving on a visit of condolence. All his friends, former officers in the secret service, labour leaders, all those who had shunned him after his disgrace, those with whom he had most of all lost touch, decided now to come and be reconciled with the dismissed former leader whose grandson had been killed in a road accident and who was himself slowly dying. They arrived diffidently, nervous about seeing him, and he received them in groups of two or three, sitting in a big armchair on the shaded balcony, in the light of the approaching sunset, all
white, a light woollen blanket covering his knees. His face calm, his eyes uplifted, staring out to sea, hearing words of
self-justification
, of loyalty, words of consolation, even secret
information
. And to one side, at a distance, sat the old ladies, drinking tea and whispering in Russian. The days of mourning were for him the days of great reconciliation with his enemies.

I walked about the house like a stranger. Afraid even to go into the kitchen. Coming home from work and after a while they call me to eat a meal cooked by one of the old ladies. Erlich, my father’s former business partner, arrived on a visit of
condolence
and offered to help out in the garage. He began to work with me on the accounts and he gave me some good ideas. After a while I suggested that he return to the garage as an employee and to my surprise he agreed. I used to sit with him after work, waiting until dark, going home late in the evening and finding the house full of people and Asya sitting in a corner, and they bringing her a meal, and scolding her for something.

After months her parents left, though we implored them to stay. Her father was now in a critical state.

Only then did we realize how empty the house was. The nursery was bare. We went back to sleeping in our bedroom, though in fact I slept alone, she continued in her insomnia, her night wandering. I had no thought of touching her, but it was a little strange that she didn’t want to sleep in her own bed. A week went by, two weeks, she was growing very thin, her face was pale, but she went out to work, organizing herself as usual, only continuing to doze in armchairs, fully clothed. Perhaps now is the time to part, I thought, perhaps the time has come to leave her, but my longings for a son were painful, I wanted another son, even another deaf son, I didn’t care, I wanted to start again from the beginning, to bring him back. But there was to be no touching her, none at all. She said, “I don’t have the strength to start again.”

I was unshaven and untidy, she looked pale and neglected, we were in no fit state for love. I gripped her forcibly, without desire. She resisted: “What is it that you want?” Then I fell on my knees, kissed her feet, trying to arouse my desire for I had no desire.

Sabbath eve. No movement in the air. They’ve gone out to visit friends. When they’re at home you hardly notice them, but when they go out you know that they aren’t there. I walk around the house, alone. It’s very unusual for me to be alone on a Sabbath eve. But there’s no chance of getting together with Osnat, because they’re having a big party at her house. Her brother has suddenly got leave from the army. I phoned her at nine o’clock to arrange something but she said, “We’re in the middle of a meal, my brother’s home and he’s got a lot of stories to tell and I’ll phone you later,” and she hung up, and she hasn’t rung yet. Tali’s gone with her mom to visit her Grandma in Tel Aviv. Every two months her mom takes her to see her Grandma, to show her how well Tali’s growing up and how well she’s being looked after, and perhaps she’ll increase the maintenance that she pays in place of her son, Tali’s dad, who ran away. I’ve got so used to spending all my time with those two that when they aren’t there I’m completely lost. I shouldn’t have quit the Scouts so soon, they’re always good for dead evenings like this.

Ten o’clock. I phone Osnat. They’re on the last course. A real feast. She sounds impatient, doesn’t think she’ll be able to come over tonight. I hinted that I could go around to her house but she pretended not to understand, guarding her brother so jealously, not wanting anyone else to have a share in him.

Such heat. From the balconies of nearby houses come voices and laughter. The students who are renting the house opposite have turned the lights out, they’re dancing now to some sexy melody. There’s one couple hugging and kissing out on the balcony. I walk around the stifling house from room to room, turning out the lights, maybe that’ll make it a bit cooler. Stopping at the kitchen door so as not to see the pile of dishes in the sink. After supper there was an argument over the washing up. Daddy decided to interfere, insisted that I do the washing up, he snatched the sponge out of Mommy’s hand, even though for her it’s a two-minute job. In the end I promised to rinse them and I shall rinse them, but not yet, the night is long, the job requires a bit of inspiration. It’s so awful having to work on my own, if
only I had a little brother or sister that I could talk to when I’m working, someone who could help me, drying the dishes beside me. These silences, this stillness, it’s all so depressing. To think that I could have had a brother too, he’d be nineteen now, in the army too. And they just let him get killed in the street. A boy of five, you can tell from the old photograph how sweet, very solemn, they couldn’t get a smile out of him, as if he knew he didn’t have long to live.

When I was ten they told me about him for the first time, and they said he’d died of an illness. It was only a year ago that Daddy told me about him for the first time, that he was killed in a road accident, he even showed me exactly where it happened. How is it that they kept no trace of him in the house, how have they managed to forget him all these years? Lately I’ve been more and more interested in him, my life could have been so different. I grieve for this brother. I talk to him in my imagination,
sometimes
he’s a youth of nineteen, sometimes he’s just five years old. Sometimes I help him to undress, make his supper and wash him, and sometimes he comes into my room, a tall smiling youth, to talk to me.

Ten-thirty. Not a breath of air, everything’s white-hot. The sky’s standing still, the moon and stars are covered with a milky mist. I move slowly from chair to chair. I’d take a shower and go to bed and set the alarm for seven o’clock in the morning and get up early to wash the dishes, but Daddy’ll go crazy if he sees the sink full. Why should he care who washes them? I glance at the newspaper. Life is all so intense, and around me are the music, the voices and the laughter. And I’m alone here, where am I in the middle of all this?

I get up and go hurriedly to the kitchen. How can such a small family use so many dishes? First I move aside the two saucepans and the burned frying pan. They aren’t my responsibility. On the rest of the dishes, without touching them, I pour out a lot of washing-up liquid, turn on the tap, a gentle stream of water, must soften them up first. What kind of a job is this for Sabbath eve? I go out of the kitchen, putting out the light, sitting down at the big table, listening to the water running in the kitchen, perhaps the dishes will wash themselves. Sitting and watching the flames of the two Sabbath candles. I’m the one who’s insisted on
them lighting Sabbath candles this last year, they wouldn’t have thought of it by themselves, neither of them believes in God.