The Lover (27 page)

And they told me, a frightening story. How they brought me here nearly a year ago, unconscious, they lost all hope for me. For ten months perhaps I had been lying there like a stone, like a vegetable, like a mindless animal, not knowing anyone, not even myself. Talking like a baby, nonsense, dreams, all meaningless.

On the table there was a pack of cigarettes and I remembered that I used to smoke and that I used to enjoy it very much and I asked permission to take a cigarette and so I sat facing them in the armchair, smoking cigarette after cigarette, a real resurrection from the dead. Hearing the confused stories about myself and the country. First of all – the war. I did not know that there had been another war and that the bastards surprised us on Yom Kippur. And they enjoyed telling me about the war, one interrupting the other and the doctor too adding his bit. Describing the suffering, terrible things, the treacherous government too, to think that all this happened while I lay senseless in bed. More stories, more sorrows, more deaths, I take them all in. Not yet satisfied, and
the smell of cigarettes blending with the smell of gunpowder. The news that I had come to life had taken wing. Nurses, cleaners and clerks peered at me through the door, smiling at me pleasantly, some of them introducing themselves, shaking hands like old friends. People who had known me all the time, who had washed me, who had fed me, I knew nothing about them. Friendly and devoted people. And I all the time discovering more facts, even though they were beginning to tire of me. Now I was asking them about prices. How much had prices risen. How much did a kilo of tomatoes cost, for example, how much must you pay for good eggplants. What the war did to the market.

And so passed two days of happiness and awakening. I embraced the whole world in the joy of my second birth. Walking about the wards, making new friends, old men and old women, doctors and nurses. Asking questions and getting answers. Gossiping all the time, as if I have an empty sack to fill. And at night too I used to wander about, chatting to the attendants and the night nurses. I hardly slept, just dozing for a while and waking with a start, for I was afraid of losing consciousness again.

The doctors scolded me, but smiled –

And already they were hinting that I might go home –

Then they took out my file and hesitantly, cautiously began to tell me about him. My grandson – Gabriel. I did not know that he had suddenly returned to Israel. A month after they brought me here he apeared. Oh, God, for what?

My head felt weak. It seems I went pale as well. They gave me a sedative, even wanted to put me to bed.

Gabriel has returned! For ten years now he’s been wandering around the world not wanting to return, and suddenly he is back. I just lose consciousness and here he is. Even bringing a doctor, an expert on comas, to examine me, bringing a lawyer to take instructions from me. Conferring beside my bed. A consultation. It seems he’s interested in the legacy, my poor bewildered grandson.

Now I am going crazy. The details aren’t clear, it’s as if they have all lost consciousness. Everything is so confused. At first he used to come here every week. Sitting beside my bed, trying
hard to talk to me, waiting for the doctor’s visit, glancing at the medical reports and going. Then he came seldom and for short visits, he did not even come to my bed but used to go straight to the office, take out the file himself, look at it grimly and disappear. But since the war he has not been here at all, he has disappeared. He got scared and fled.

There had been a phone call to check if there had been any change in my condition, but they didn’t know if it was him or someone else. Just a few weeks ago another man appeared, older, with a big beard, they all remembered his beard. (But who was it? Who was it?) He said he was related to me, he spoke hesitantly, he stood beside my bed and looked at me for a long time, he wanted to know if Gabriel had been here. More than caring about me he was looking for Gabriel.

A detective story –

They’ll make a film of it yet –

Suddenly I’m sad. No longer the joy of awakening of the first few days but worry and depression. The newspapers full of dark news. Now I realize how hard the war was. Gabriel came back from Paris and I didn’t know him and it seems he lost hope and went away. Now I must think about returning home, paying my bills, going out into the world again, I must vacate my bed, there are other old people going into comas all the time, and not only old people. I phone my house but the line’s been disconnected. Phone my lawyer but he’s away on army service. I order a taxi and drive home, a terrible fog outside, rain and mud and darkness. I arrive at my house and the heavy door is closed. My neighbour Mrs. Goldberg, the Ashkenazi bitch, comes out to see who it is, almost faints when she sees me.

I go into her apartment and hear her story. It was she who found me unconscious, sitting at the table, a plate in front of me, motionless as a stone. She called a doctor who took me to the hospital. She looked through my papers and found Gabriel’s address in Paris and wrote to him telling him about my illness, told him that I was dying. And a few weeks later the young man actually appeared, and stayed in the house until the war. But on the first day he disappeared and hadn’t been seen since. Some time later a man with a beard came, that beard chasing me again, he came looking for Gabriel, wanted to get inside the apartment,
to break down the door, but she threatened to call the police, she stood on guard, she even moved her bed closer to the door, to hear him if he came.

I had to call a locksmith to break down the door of my apartment. For I had no key, neither did Mrs. Goldberg, Gabriel took them all. He worked for a quarter of an hour and charged a hundred pounds, thief. But at least I was able to get inside. A neglected house, full of spiders, in the kitchen dirty dishes and filthy scraps of mouldy food. Tins of preserves everywhere. And a lot of pans. He’s taken all the cutlery out of the cupboards so as not to have to wash up every day. Beetles scuttled about under my feet, as if I’m the intruder. And a little mouse that was born in the rubbish there stares at me insolently from a corner, making no attempt to run away.

Signs of my grandson everywhere. He always was an untidy boy but now he’s lost control. His shirts hanging on top of my dresses, dirty linen on the chairs, socks in the bathroom. French newspapers and magazines from before the war. An open suitcase on one of the beds. Everything laid out as if he’s just gone out for a short walk.

Well, then, where is he?

Mrs. Goldberg brings me something to eat,
gefilte fish
that she cooked for the Sabbath. It’s Sabbath eve, I forgot. For a whole year I have been outside time. She looks in silence at the chaos in the room, dying of curiosity, she would have liked to stay for a while but I get rid of her politely. The evening falls quickly and I’m still looking for a piece of paper, some message, to help me understand. The light bulbs are all burned out and I have to light a candle to find my way from room to room.

And suddenly I feel again the loneliness of the last years. Now I understand how I lost consciousness. I wish I could lose it again. I should never have left Jerusalem, even though there was not a single member of my family left. It was wrong to break away. Sin and iniquity. I tried to taste the
gefilte fish
and it’s so sweet it makes me sick. When will the Ashkenazim learn to cook? Sitting there in the kitchen among the dirty dishes, among the mouldy scraps of food, forcing myself to eat, not to weaken, eating and tears falling on the plate. And outside – storm, destruction.

So, he was here. What did he look like? Oh, Lord of the Universe. Where did he go? Perhaps he is dead, perhaps he too is lying somewhere unconscious. And how am I to find the man with the beard? I must start searching every corner of the house. Perhaps I will find some trace. I leave the dirty dish in the sink, I don’t have the strength to wash it. How dirty he’s made the house, he’s learned dirty habits from the French. I take the candle and roam around the half-lit house, examining the cupboards, and the beds, searching under the sheets, he’s slept in all of them.

In the end I feel tired, put on a nightdress and get into my bed. He’s slept in this one too. The sheets are soiled, but I don’t have the energy to change them.

The first night at home after a year. Who would believe that it would be like this? Better I had died. The rain lashes the windows. A hard winter. The doors in the house creak and a draught blows in, from where I don’t know. I lie there with my eyes open. I have never been afraid of loneliness, people know me as a solitary person, but never have I felt so uneasy in my bed. And then I hear a rustle from the shutter in the next room, as if someone is climbing in through the window. At first I thought it was just the wind, but then I hear light footsteps. He’s come back, I say to myself. And the door of my room really does open and a boy appears in the doorway, looking in. What is this, has Gabriel turned into a boy once more, and is he wandering about the house as he used to twenty years ago, when he was having a bad dream and walked about the house making noises on purpose to wake me up?

Oh, help, I’m sinking back again. Farewell old lady. This time there’ll be no awakening. But the boy is real, standing there in the doorway, in the light of the candle that I left in the passage, not a dream, he closes the door and goes away, opening more doors and closing them again. Finally drawing back the bolts of the front door.

Hurriedly I get out of bed, and just as I am in my nightdress I go out into the passage, seeing there a middle-aged man, a total stranger, wrapped in a big fur coat, with a big blond beard, the bearded man has descended from heaven again, talking to the boy who opened the door of my room, I know right away that he’s an Arab, I can sniff them out. Smell of eggplants, green
garlic and fresh straw, the very smell that returned me to consciousness.

I really trembled. For so many years I hadn’t seen him. And there he was, riding a bicycle outside the house. I must not lose him again. I clung fast to the dream. Yigal. He was riding back and forth on the broad pavement, so serious, on a big bicycle, he was tall and thin and I thought, he is alive, what happiness. I didn’t dare say a word. And he was riding around and around in a circle, very serious, concentrating on his riding, so intense, I couldn’t see his eyes. The bicycle looked very colourful, shining, loaded with gears, cog wheels and coils of wire. But most of all I was impressed by the brakes. Thin cables led from them directly to his ears, as if he must listen to the brakes. Some kind of safety precaution.

“Do you see?” said Adam, smiling, standing behind me on the steps, I hadn’t seen him, he was in the dark. It seemed he had arranged this. But I didn’t reply, only looked with longing at the boy on the bicycle. Slowly I began to realize that this wasn’t Yigal but some kind of replacement that Adam had brought here for me. But I didn’t mind this, it seemed wonderful and right to bring me a substitute. I just waited for him to grow tired of cycling around and around so I could see him close up, touch him, embrace him. But he didn’t look, didn’t hear, continuing gravely with the endless ride. “Yigal,” I said in a whisper, “come here for a moment.” And I thought, perhaps he can’t hear, perhaps he too can’t hear, but he heard and understood, he just took advantage of his deafness to ignore me.

And then we were in a big hall, Adam and I, a big hall flooded with sunlight, it was a party, a bar mitzvah or a wedding, long tables laden with salami sandwiches, and Adam pounced on them in his usual way and started to munch, ravenously hungry, and I was worried about Yigal, whom we had left there on the pavement. I left the party in the middle without touching the food and went back home in the afternoon, Sabbath, the streets deserted, the pavement outside the house empty. I started walking the streets searching for the “replacement,” growing
more and more dispirited, whimpering to myself. Until beside a half-built house, on the hillside, on a heap of sand I saw the bicycle, slightly damaged, smaller than I had thought, less ornate than it looked before, but still those cables coiling out of the brakes, and at the ends, like little boxes, the earpieces of a transistor. They were quivering, something rustled in them. I picked them up, I heard a man talking, like a newscaster, someone saying, “Life … she has come to life.”

Suddenly I felt so happy I laughed. I had thought I was so clever breaking in here in the middle of the night, and here she was – erect, small and vigorous. The grandmother come to life. And that blank face down which the porridge had trickled was gazing at me, alert and inquisitive. Oh, she’s found her lost
consciousness
all right, every last bit of it.

I wanted to embrace her –

The amazing thing was that she didn’t look afraid, didn’t try to cry out or call for help, on the contrary, she looked calm, as if she’d been expecting this night-time intrusion. She looked at me with trust, even held out her dry little hand. I gripped it firmly in both my hands.

“I hear that you are related to me, sir, I would like to know your name.”

And she winked at me. I was puzzled. It seemed she even knew about my visit to the hospital. Her hand was still in mine, what could I tell her – that I had spent months searching for my wife’s lover?

First of all I got rid of Na’im, who was still standing there staring open-mouthed, quite baffled. I sent him out to the kitchen and the old lady went with him and gave him sweets. Then I followed her to her bedroom. She moved a heap of clothes from a chair and invited me to sit down. Then she got into her bed. The bedroom was dim, the candle was burned down, only in the passage was there a small light. And so, sitting facing her in the dark, seeing her silhouette like a giant
ping-pong
ball, I heard her say, “I am listening …”

And I began to tell her all that I knew. From the moment that
the little Morris appeared in the garage to the morning of the second day of the war. About my search for him, about the army authorities who knew nothing about him, and more personal details, how he looked, how he dressed, what he used to say, how he spent his time. And she listened in silence, for a moment I thought she was asleep, I stood up and went closer to her. She was weeping quietly, clawing desperately at her hair, yearning for him, afraid he might be dead.

Meanwhile my eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom and I saw his possessions scattered about me, his clothes, his shirt and trousers, an open suitcase, illustrated newspapers, the
cigarettes
he used to smoke, all lying there just as he had left them. Again his presence seemed so poignant.

I said, “He hasn’t been killed, that’s impossible.”

“Then something frightened him. He is hiding. We must search for him. Especially at night.”

“At night?”

And then she began telling me about him, how she brought him up after his mother was killed and his father deserted him. A lonely, bewildered child who couldn’t sleep, a creature of the night. She remembered the names of some relations on his father’s side, an uncle living in Dimona, another uncle in Jerusalem, a friend or two with whom he had been in contact many years ago. It was five o’clock in the morning, my head felt dizzy from all these stories, but there had been a breakthrough in the quest for him.

The telephone in the house had been disconnected, I promised to have it restored. I gave her my phone number, we agreed to meet again.

Outside the rain had stopped, the sky was clearing. Time to leave. Na’im was asleep in the kitchen, I roused him, we said goodbye to the old lady and drove back up to Carmel. The streets were wet and deserted. The first signs of daylight. It was quiet in the house. Asya and Dafi were fast asleep. I put Na’im to bed in the study and went to the bedroom. I felt no weariness at all, watching Asya, who went on sleeping, the morning light falling on her face. I touched her lightly. She was dreaming again, I could tell by the movements of her eyes behind the closed lids. Strange, knowing that at that very moment she was
engrossed in a dream, evidently a painful dream, because her face was twisted. My ageing wife, caught up in her dreams. I bent over her cautiously, almost on my knees, tugging at her gently. But she didn’t want to wake up, so strange, clutching at the pillow with a pathetic, almost desperate gesture, whimpering. I caressed her, smiling.

“Asya, wake up, there’s news. It’s incredible, but the
grandmother
, the old woman, she has come to life.”

And they went into one of the rooms really pleased with themselves and they put me in the kitchen among the tomatoes and the eggplants to wait for them. And the old woman gave me some old sweets, probably left over from the time before she went bananas, and I sat there until they finished chattering, chewing the sweets, half asleep in the chair. And after maybe two hours Adam came in to fetch me and we went back to his house through the empty streets and the sky was clear and the rain had stopped. There wasn’t any left, it had all fallen on me.

It was dark in the house and he put me back to bed and went to his bedroom, started talking to his wife, who’d woken up. They talked excitedly but I didn’t have the strength to listen. I went to sleep right away. I slept a lot. I was really tired and I didn’t mind just sleeping and sleeping. It was so nice in the soft bed in that lovely room with all the books, deep down among the Jews.

It must have been the end of the morning already and I began to wake up, stretching lazily in the bed. Once or twice the door opened and the girl’s pretty head peeped in at me. The phone rang and the radio was on at full blast. The girl was walking around the whole time. I heard her footsteps and she peeped into the room again, looks like she wanted me to wake up but I didn’t want to. I’d done a professional job that night and I deserved a bit of rest. Through the window I saw blue sky and heard the voices of children. On the radio it was the usual chatter, they never get tired of it, even on the Sabbath. The girl was standing at the door now and tapping softly. I closed my eyes in a hurry and she came in quietly and went to the bookcase pretending to
look for a book, making little noises to wake me up. She was wearing jeans and a very tight sweater and I noticed that she had firm little tits, yesterday I was sure she hadn’t had any and here they were like they’d grown overnight.

In the end, when she saw I wasn’t moving, she came closer and touched my face with her warm hand. I was really pleased that she touched me and didn’t only talk. At last I decided to open my eyes so she wouldn’t think I was dead.

And she said quickly in her hoarse voice, “you must get up. Mommy and Daddy have gone out. It’s eleven o’clock already. I’ll make breakfast for you. How do you like your eggs?”

She was all flushed and very serious.

“I don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind either.”

“Whatever you make.”

“But I don’t mind … tell me what you want.”

“Whatever you’re eating.” I smiled.

“I’ve eaten already … do you like scrambled eggs?”

I didn’t know what scrambled eggs were but I didn’t mind trying, then suddenly with an audacity that surprised even me I said, “Fine, but no sugar, please.”

“Sugar?”

“I mean, like yesterday,” I mumbled. “I thought there was some sugar in the food.”

And suddenly she understood and burst out laughing, awfully amused.

And I smiled a bit too. And she went out, I got dressed quickly and tidied up the bed and went to the bathroom and washed my face and cleaned my teeth and combed my hair with their comb and cleaned the sink. And I went out to the kitchen and found the table covered with all sorts of things. You could see she’d taken everything out of the fridge and put it on the table. Maybe this was the first time she’d ever made breakfast for a guest. And she was wearing an apron and frying something on the stove in a great hurry and then she brought me a very messy half-burned egg and gave me toast and cereal. She sat tensely, opposite, watching me eat and all the time offering me something else. Cheese, salted fish, chocolate. She wanted me to finish off all the food in the house. She buttered the bread for me herself,
changing plates the whole time, fussing around me like she was my wife or my mother, playing some part and enjoying it.

And I ate with my mouth closed, slowly. Sometimes refusing what she offered me and sometimes not. And she watching me closely like I was a baby or a puppy being fed. And I just now and then looked at her straight, seeing her all fresh, so different from yesterday, sort of brisk, not dreamy. Her hair tied up on top of her head, her eyes darting about, wide awake. She didn’t touch the food.

“Aren’t you eating?” I asked.

“No … I’m fat enough already.”

“Are you fat?”

“A bit.”

“I don’t think so.”

And again she burst out laughing. Really frightening the weird noises she can make, like a mare in heat. Something about me makes her laugh. Laughing and going quiet again. Getting serious. And then again, smiling a bit and without warning and for no reason breaking out into a great shriek of laughter.

And I eat and eat and as I eat I fall deeper and deeper in love, falling in love for real with all my heart and soul, I could kiss that white foot of hers that’s swinging there in front of me all the time.

“The food wasn’t too sweet for you?”

“No … it was fine,” I go red all over.

“But you drink coffee with sugar?”

“Coffee, yes.”

And she goes out to make coffee for me.

Such a clear day, it’s like the winter’s over. Music on the radio now, waiting for the new talkers to come and take over from the old talkers who’ve gone away for a rest. And I’m head over heels in love already. No longer any need even to look at her. She’s there in my heart. Drinking coffee. A crazy life. Like it’s not me. And she watching me and watching me like she’s never seen a man eating before.

“Do you hate us very much?” I suddenly heard her say.

“Hate who?”

Of course I knew what she meant but it was weird, her of all people starting to talk politics.

“Us, the Israelis.”

“We are Israelis too.”

“No … I mean the Jews.”

“Not so much now.” I tried to give her a straight answer, seeing her pretty face, her fair hair. “Since the war, after they beat you a bit, we don’t hate you so much now …”

And she laughed, she liked what I said.

“But that cousin of yours … that terrorist …”

“But he was a little crazy …” I interrupted her in a hurry, I just didn’t want her to talk about Adnan.

“And do you hate us?”

“Me? No … never.” It was a lie because sometimes the Jews do get on my nerves, they never pick you up when you’re hitchhiking, they pass you by even in the rain when you’re alone on the roadside.

And then the phone rang. She ran to answer it. Must have been a friend of hers because she stood there talking for maybe half an hour. Laughing and talking, she suddenly started talking in English so I wouldn’t understand, talking dirty maybe. I heard her too, “A sweet little Arab” she said, and she said more things about me that I didn’t catch. And I sat still in my chair, not moving. Eating some more salted fish and chocolate, staring at the empty candlesticks, wondering if it was all right to get up. Looking at the furniture, at a newspaper lying on a chair, reading the headlines.

At last she came back, surprised to find me still sitting there.

“Have you finished?”

“A long time ago.”

“Then you can go. Daddy said he wouldn’t need you any more. He said you should have a meal and go home. He’ll see you at the garage.”

So, that’s it, all over. Give the labourer a meal and send him home. I stood up quickly, took my pyjamas and went to the door. “Have you got money for the bus?”

“Yes”– though I hadn’t.

“Do you know where the bus station is?”

“Yes. But I’ll walk.”

I felt so sorry it was all over, even though I had no idea how it could go on.