The Lover (17 page)

Day after day it’s the same and we never tire of it, that’s the amazing thing, we’re never bored, we find less and less need to talk among ourselves, we could lie there side by side for hours, or walk together in silence. Even Osnat relaxes, begins to realize that she doesn’t always have to be making remarks about
everything
, she’s even a bit prettier, she takes off her glasses sometimes, tucks them away between her tits and starts wandering about dreamily, like Tali.

On the bus going home, in the evening, we’re like foreigners among the smelly people, the pale, sweaty, noisy people who take care not to touch us. We sit on the back seat, ignoring the crude looks that we get, they stare at us so hard you’d think we were still naked, turning around and looking again at the sea as it recedes.

On the steps of the house it’s already twilight. Barefoot and saturated with sun and salt, hair wet and bedraggled, I go into the dark house that’s full of the smells of cooking, the stench of people. Mommy’s in the study, in the pale electric light, papers
and books scattered about her, dirty coffee cups, plates and scraps of food, the bed unmade, pillows squashed, the ashtray overflowing, the traces of that man, the assistant, the secretary, the translator, the devil knows what, all around her.

He used to arrive in the morning and leave early in the afternoon, I didn’t meet him but I knew that he came almost every day to translate, to copy, to consult dictionaries. Asya really made him work, because he had time and he very much wanted to redeem the car that still stood there in the garage covered in dust, from time to time it had to be moved so as not to interfere with the work until finally Erlich told them to lift it and push it into the storeroom, they found room for it there between two boxes, it was that small.

“You’re in pretty deep with that car,” Erlich couldn’t resist saying. “You won’t see a single cent from that crazy bastard.”

But I just smiled. Heavy summer days, the long vacation at its height. Dafi goes down to the sea every day, she wants to get as sunburned as she possibly can, she says she wants “to be really black.” And I’m in the garage, which is working at only half capacity because of the workers going away in turn on their holidays. Erlich has gone abroad too, and I have to look after the accounts on my own, staying on to a late hour. When I arrive home in the evening I find Aysa in her room, in a new, unfamiliar kind of chaos. Books and papers on the floor, dirty coffeecups, pips and nut shells on the plates, full ashtrays. And she sits in the middle of all this, silent, milder than she used to be, thinking her thoughts. A quiet woman, detached perhaps,
refusing
to look me in the eyes.

“So, you’ve been working,” I say softly, a statement, not a question.

“Yes …I haven’t been outside the house.”

“How’s he doing?”

She smiles.

“He’s odd … a strange man … but easy to get on with.”

I ask no more questions, afraid of alarming her, of upsetting her confidence, of showing surprise, even when I find some
strange-looking stew, reddish-brown, in a bowl in the fridge, she’s never cooked food like that before.

She blushes, stammering.

“I tried something new today … he gave me the idea for it.”

“He?”

“Gabriel.”

They’re cooking together now –

I smile amiably, not saying a word, eat some of the stew, it has a strange sweet taste, I compliment her on it, mustn’t give her a sense of guilt, crush her hope, show her a sign of the jealousy that isn’t there. Give her strength, give her time, we’re no longer young, both in our forties, and the man is strange, unstable, he may disappear at any moment, the long vacation will be over soon.

I remember a particularly hot summer, heavy on the limbs, and I’m up to my eyes in work in the half-empty garage, among the few workers, hardly managing to cope, walking around among the cars and thinking about him, how to hold on to him, maybe I should give him some sign. One day I come home early, waiting in my car at the corner of the street, watching them as they both come out of the house, climbing into her Fiat, she drives and I follow, my heart beating fast. She drives him to his house in the lower city, in the market area, he gets out, she says something to him, leaning out of the window, talking earnestly, he listens with a faint smile, glancing around him. They part. I park my car, run after him to catch him before he disappears in the crowd. I see him standing in the doorway of a vegetable shop buying tomatoes. I touch him lightly, he blushes when he recognizes me.

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Your grandmother?”

“No change … I don’t know what to think.”

So, he’s still trapped here –

“Where do you live?”

He points to a house on the corner, his grandmother’s house.

“How’s the work that I found for you?”

He smiles, taking off his sunglasses as if he wants to see me better.

“From my point of view it’s fine … perhaps I really can help her … she’s trying to do something very difficult … but …”

“The car?” I interrupt him, I don’t want to let him talk too much.

“The car …” He’s puzzled. “What about it?”

Has he forgotten it?

I study him closely, the dirty shirt, the crumpled clothes, the bag of tomatoes going soft in his hands.

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you have it yet, my partner’s a stubborn type … he isn’t prepared … but if you’re short of money I can always give you a small loan …”

And before he can reply I take a bundle of bills out of my pocket, a thousand pounds, and lay them carefully on top of his tomatoes.

He’s confused, touching the bills, wanting to count them. He asks if he ought to sign something.

“No need … you’ll be coming back to us, of course.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“By the way, I ate some of that food that you cooked … it was excellent.”

He laughs.

“Really?”

Just be careful not to scare him –

I lay a hand on his shoulder.

“Well then, have you got used to the sun? You don’t want to run away from us …?”

“Not yet.”

I shake his hand affectionately and he quickly disappears into the crowded market.

Wooden steps, flowery paper on the walls, the stairs up to the village dentist, a tall old woman comes out of the office, putting on an overcoat. She glows – A wonderful dentist, you won’t feel a thing.

And through the open door I see a big dentist’s chair facing me, and the dentist, with clean-shaven rosy round cheeks, a bow tie straggling over his white coat, sitting in the chair, his head
leaning back on the rest, his hands folded in his lap, and the pure reddish light, the rural light, the otherworldly light, oh; such a clear light, shining on his sleepy face, full of glowing
contentment
at the painless treatment he has just performed.

I enter. In the corner of the room, beside the big primitive washbasin stands Gabriel, in a short white gown, dressed as an assistant, offering me a cup half full of a whitish liquid, like milk mixed with water. A soporific. Apparently this is the
revolutionary
innovation of this rustic office, this primitive place. They no longer give anaesthetic injections, they give you a drink to soothe the pain.

I take the cup from his hand and drink. The liquid’s tasteless but it’s heavy. Like drinking mercury. It slips down my throat and plunges into my stomach like a clear and smooth weight. A festive feeling, I’ve drunk something full of meaning. And I’ve already mounted a second chair, like the armchair in the study except that one arm is missing, to make it easier for the dentist to approach the patient. Such a pleasant silence. At the window that wonderful light. I wait for the drug to take effect, for the light paralysis within, Gabriel lays out instruments on the tray, thin wooden rulers, not threatening, not dangerous, and the dentist still doesn’t move from his seat, he really is asleep.

“It’s taking effect,” I say. I feel nothing but I know that it’s takng effect, I want it to take effect, it must take effect. And he takes a thin ruler and with a light touch opens my mouth, his face tense with concentration, sliding gently into the hollow of my mouth, as if trying to make certain where it is, to see if I really have a mouth. I’m overwhelmed by the sweetness of his light touch.

“Where does it hurt?” Indeed, where does it hurt, why did I come to this dentist’s office anyway? I must concentrate and find the pain in this delight, so I won’t disappoint him, so he won’t leave me, I must say something to him.

And suddenly her voice in the silence, in the morning light, mumbling something, just as I’m beginning to wake up. Breaking out of a dream, she’s excited, groping about her,
clutching at my shoulder, I freeze, again she says something, a short sentence, her hand is weak, caressing, and suddenly she realizes that she’s touching me, her hand drops, she’s midway between dreams and waking, her eyes open.

“What’s the time?”

“Quarter to six.”

“It’s already so light outside.” And she turns over, trying to go back to sleep, curling up.

“You were talking in your sleep,” I say quietly.

She turns over again quickly, looking up at me.

“What did I say?”

“Just nonsense … it wasn’t clear … a short sentence … what did you dream about?”

“A confused dream … Just …”

I get out of bed, go to the bathroom, wash my face, return to the bedroom. She’s awake, leaning on the pillow, smiling to herself.

“A strange dream, funny, something about a dentist …”

I say nothing, slowly removing my pyjama top, sitting down on the bed. It’s a long time since she’s told me one of her dreams.

“A strange dentist … a sort of yokel … in a wooden house. A rustic, primitive office. The chair was like the armchair in the study but without one of the arms, they took it off on purpose … I remember the afternoon light, a reddish light …”

She breaks off, smiling. Is that all? I don’t understand why she’s telling me. She wraps herself in the thin blanket, closing her eyes, asking me to pull down the blinds. She’ll try to sleep a little longer. To carry on with her dream? I put on shirt and trousers, folding my pyjamas and putting them under the pillow, polling down the blinds and darkening the room. I’m on my way out when she suddenly throws the blanket aside, there can’t be any doubt, something’s exciting her.

“What did I say? Can’t you remember?”

“Words that didn’t add up to anything … I don’t
remember
… you were just excited … was it a nightmare?”

“No, the opposite, it was supposed to be treatment without pain, instead of an injection they gave me a transparent liquid to drink, it was supposed to be a soporific, a tasteless drink … I can still taste it … it was the speciality of the dentist’s office, before I
went in the door a woman came out, all radiant from the wonderful, painless treatment, a really strange dream …”

And she laughs. She’s hiding something, she’s excited, lately there’s been something about her that isn’t right, she can’t relax, she’s always watching me. I wait in the doorway.

“What did I say? What did you hear?”

“Just confused things, I wasn’t awake either.”

“What, for example?”

“I can’t remember. Does it matter?” She doesn’t answer, lies back slowly, as if at peace. I turn and leave the room, glance at the sleeping girl, the wet swimsuit still lying there beside the bed, passing through the study and seeing the chaos there, a Dafi sort of chaos. I go into the kitchen, switch the kettle on, slice the bread, bringing out butter, cheese and olives, starting to nibble as I stand there. The water boils, I make coffee, take the cup and the slices of bread out to the balcony, sitting on a chair wet with dew, slowly sipping the coffee and looking down at an ugly sea covered with a yellow mist. What does Dafi do there all day? From the bay comes the sound of explosions from the munitions factory, firing shells out to sea to test them. The cup of coffee in my hand, strong, bitter coffee, bringing me swiftly and firmly to wakefulness, no thoughts in my head, just waiting for the time to pass so I can go out to work. And suddenly Asya’s beside me, in an old dressing gown, pursued by her dreams, her face unwashed, unable to go on sleeping, leaning on the rail, breaking the heavy drops of dew with her finger.

“Still thinking about that dream of yours?”

She blushes. “Yes, how did you know?” She pulls out a crushed pack of cigarettes and a box of matches from the pocket of her dressing gown, lights a cigarette, inhaling the smoke deeply.

“It’s strange, I keep remembering more details, the dream’s getting clearer. There was someone there in a white coat, sort of in disguise, assisting the dentist, because the dentist was asleep. He gave me the drink and started the treatment, with wooden instruments, a narrow ruler, and it really didn’t hurt, he treated me so gently, so pleasantly … a real experience …”

“Who was it?”

“A stranger … I didn’t know him … just a young man.”

I look at my watch. She goes inside, switches on the kettle,
goes to wash, the air grows wanner, the sounds of the awakening city. Looks like a heavy day of
hamsin.
She comes out to join me with a cup of coffee and a plate of biscuits, it’s a long time since we’ve sat together like this in the morning. She sits down in the corner of the balcony, in the worn wicker chair that they brought here especially for her father in the days of mourning, the cigarette between her fingers, her face reminding me of her old Either, who sat there in the last months before his death, a blanket on his knees, solemnly receiving the people who came to console him, to ask his forgiveness.

We sit in silence, sipping our coffee, our faces to the sea.

“Is he coming today?”

“Yes.”

“Are you making progress?”

“Slowly.”

“We shall have to start making a note of the hours he works.” I smile, but she takes me seriously.

“How much does he owe you?”

“I can’t remember, I shall have to look at the bill … soon we’ll be owing him money.”