The Lover (48 page)

I go back to the old woman, sit beside her, talk to her, pick up
Ma’ariv
and read her something about a terrorist attack, maybe that’ll revive her.

This is crazy. All night I stay awake. She’s breathing, alive, even smiling at me, understanding what I’m reading, looking at me, watching me. I go to the kitchen and bring some bread, stuff it into her mouth so she won’t die of hunger. But the bread won’t go into her mouth.

In the end she’ll choke and they’ll say I strangled her … It’s light outside, morning. I must escape from here. I’m leaving, that’s what I’ve been trying to say all day but nobody listens.

“Dafi, my dear, it’s you, you’re still awake, be so good as to wake your father. I must speak to him. My car is embracing a tree … ha … ha …” I’m in the school playground, in the morning, with a bunch of children from my class and other classes, standing there imitating the old fox with his soft, oily voice. And they’re all delighted to hear about the accident, they don’t get any free time out of it, because he doesn’t teach anyway, but if he’s out of
the way for a while it’ll add to the general freedom, go nicely with the disorder of the school year’s end.

So everybody’s surprised to see him arriving in a taxi during the second break, his head bandaged it’s true, his face scratched, limping a bit but quite lucid, bossy as usual and giving out orders, coming in at the main gate, walking slowly and painfully, collaring children on the way and telling them to pick up shells, paper, chalk, clearing the path in front of him. Sure that the school will collapse if he doesn’t turn up.

But the silly fool was too embarrassed to walk around the corridors during the break or to go pestering the teachers in the staff room, he shut himself up in his room, and because after his adventure during the night all he could think about was me, he sent his secretary to fetch me in the middle of the third class.

It was a literature lesson, one of the last of the year. We were reading Ibsen’s
Peer
Gynt.
We weren’t studying it, or interpreting it, just reading it around the class, each of us taking a part. It was great. I was reading the part of Solveig. Not a very big part but very significant. It was quiet in the classroom, we were really enjoying the reading even though we didn’t understand it all. And suddenly the poor unfortunate secretary came into the room and spoiled it all. I was just in the middle of reading:

Winter
shall
surely
turn
and
spring
shall
follow

And
summer
shall
pass
away
too
and
autumn
in
turn

But
I
know,
one
day
you
will
return
to
your
home

And
I
shall
wait
for
you.

And suddenly she came in.

“The headmaster wants to see Dafna.”

The literature teacher was annoyed and asked if it couldn’t wait till after the lesson.

But the secretary said, “I think not …”

She knows her boss –

And I understood – the time of departure has come.

Today of all days, the morning after Daddy went to his rescue in the night, just now when Daddy’s repairing his car. Just a few days before the end of the school year. I closed the book.

The secretary said, “Bring your satchel with you, please.”

The teacher was surprised. “Why?”

He knew nothing.

I felt suddenly desperate, alone. There was a murmur in the class, they realized what was going to happen to me. But nobody moved.

I walk down the empty corridors following the little secretary, knocking at his door, going in, standing at a safe distance from him, the satchel lying at my feet. He’s bent over his papers, his head wrapped in a white turban. A strange man. Why did he have to come to school today?

Silence –

I stand there in front of him but he ignores me, rummaging among his papers, reading something, screwing up a piece of paper into a little ball and throwing it into the basket.

“How are you?” I say almost inaudibly.

After all we were in contact during the night –

He’s startled by the question, looks up at me, his eyes bright, smiling a thin smile, the bastard, nodding his head slowly, somehow he can’t believe I’m really concerned about his health.

“We were sure you wouldn’t be coming to school today,” I add boldly. What do I care?

“Perhaps you hoped I wouldn’t be coming …”

“No … what an idea …”

He lets out a quiet little laugh. It looks like it really amuses him to think how unpopular he is here.

Silence –

Oh hell, what does he want? I notice they’ve sprinkled a sort of disgusting yellowish powder on the cuts on his cheek.

And then quietly, in that soft sickly voice of his, he starts lecturing me about my crime. A public insult to a young teacher who ought to be respected all the more … saying to him “Why weren’t you killed?” A disgrace … in a land where people are being killed all the time … an unnecessary, unprovoked attack … the teaching committee is shocked (what teaching
committee
?) … quite out of the question for me to remain in this group … especially seeing that my achievements so far have been so poor … no alternative but to transfer me to another school … a technical school … cooking or needlework … there’s no need for everybody to be a professor in this land …

After a sermon lasting a quarter of an hour the old devil comes
to the point at last – since there are only a few days left before the end of the school year, and this business has gone on quite long enough … and there’s a suspicion that all this has come about as a result of there being close relatives in the school … and the injured party is seeking damages … therefore an immediate, even a symbolic, expulsion is essential, otherwise the whole business will lose its point … it will look as if I’m simply leaving…

He mumbles towards the end, a bit embarrassed, still not daring to look at me in the face.

Throwing me out just a few days before the end of the year –

“Of course, there will be a report,” he adds.

To hell with the report. Tears rise in my throat but I hold them back … I mustn’t cry, mustn’t cry.

“When must I leave the school?” I ask quietly.

He still doesn’t look at me straight.

“Now.”

“Now?”

“Yes, from this moment.”

An icy chill in my heart. I stare at him with all my strength. Goodbye, Solveig. But no pleading, mustn’t demean myself. I pick up the satchel, walk up to his desk, deciding to change the subject.

“Did my father arrive to rescue you in the end?”

This time he’s taken aback, he blushes, recoiling.

“Yes, your father is a wonderful man … a quiet man … he helped me a lot …”

“And your car was pretty well smashed up?”

“What?”

“Anyone killed?”

“What? What are you saying? Enough!”

He’s almost shouting.

“Then you can have this …”

And I hurl the satchel down on his desk and hurry out of the room, seeing the secretary sitting there, all attention, and in a corner, somehow I didn’t notice him before, little fat Baby Face blushing bright red. I run to the gate and away from the school, the bell ringing behind me. I don’t want to see anybody. I stop a taxi and say to the driver, a fat man with a funny yellow beret
on his head, “Drive to the university, or rather, above the university.”

And he’s a bit dumb, a new immigrant from Russia, he doesn’t know the way, I have to explain it to him. We go up and up, to the top of the mountain, driving along little forest tracks. I stop the car, get out, walk among the pines, crying a bit. The driver stares at me. In a moment he’ll start crying too. I go back to him, give him fifty pounds and ask him to return here at four.

“Yes, madam,” he says.

Madam –

I stay in the woods for a long time. Lying down on the dry ground and getting up again, walking about and going back to the little road. My eyes already dry, relaxed, just beginning to feel hungry, forgetting the headmaster, the school,
Peer
Gynt
, Daddy and Mommy, and just thinking about food. At a quarter to four the taxi arrives. Unbelievable. The fat, bald driver stands waiting, quietly cleaning the front windscreen. He sees me running to him through the trees, laughs, smiles at me.

At four-thirty I’m already home. The satchel lies there beside the front door. Mommy’s very tense.

“Where have you been?”

“Just walking about …”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been expelled from school.”

“I know … they told me. Where have you been?”

“Just walking, I cried a bit … but it’s over now … I’ve calmed down.”

“Tali and Osnat were here.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That they should leave you alone today.”

“Good. You did the right thing.”

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“No … nothing … I’m awfully hungry.”

“Then come and sit down.”

“Where’s Daddy?”

“In Jerusalem.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“He went straight there … it seems he’s getting close to him…”

“Close to whom?”

“Him …”

Ah … that’s why she’s so tense. The light in her eyes. An ageing woman. I feel empty and depressed.

I sit down to eat, she cooks french fries and meatballs, these are the things she cooks best. I eat and eat, a sort of lunch and supper combined. She walks about nervously. Every time the phone rings she rushes to it. But it’s always friends of mine, expressing sympathy, and Mommy answers for me, I don’t mind.

“Dafi’s not at home, she’ll be back later, phone tomorrow. I’ll give her the message.” My secretary. And I go on eating and eating, chocolate pudding and fruit cake, with Mommy all the time reporting the phone calls to me, surprised herself at this show of solidarity from the children in the class.

At nine o’clock I run a hot bath, lie down in the bubbly water and sing to myself. Going to bed, finding the satchel already in my bedroom, it’s been following me around all day, without me touching it. I open it, take out
Peer
Gynt
, open the book at the place where I was interrupted and quietly go on reading to myself:

May
God
bless
your
path
wherever
you
go

And
blessed
you
shall
be
if
you
pass
through
this
land

If
you
come
to
my
house
I
shall
welcome
you
here

And
if
not,
we
shall
meet
above.

And I put out the light –

Mommy’s still pacing, wandering around the house, after a while she goes to bed, but she can’t sleep, I’m an expert on insomnia, she tosses about in her bed, gets up to go to the bathroom, comes back, the light goes on and off. At eleven o’clock the phone suddenly rings, but it isn’t Daddy. Sounds like it’s Na’im. They’re talking about the old lady, Mommy’s asking him not to leave her, since it’s possible Gabriel’s been found, he should stay put till Daddy gets back from Jerusalem.

I’m already hearing this through a dream. Asleep and not asleep, but I don’t get out of bed. A whole night passes in sleep and short wakings and then sleep again.

Early in the morning the phone rings again … Mommy’s talking, a few minutes later she’s standing by my bed, already dressed, talking to me. She’s going to Jerusalem, I must phone
the headmaster and tell him she won’t be coming to school today. I nod my head and go back to sleep. Waking up at eight. The house is empty. I get up, pull down all the blinds, take the phone off the hook. No school, no parents, no nothing … I go back to bed and sleep again. Sleep has come back to me. Good morning.

This slow movement. It seems to me I’m hearing soft music. I just begin walking slowly to get him away from there and he trails along behind me, his hat slung back, talking and telling his story, and I’m still afraid he may suddenly pick up his heels and run. I keep close to him, touching his shoulder lightly and leading him away. Full daylight already, in the streets people hurrying to pray. More than anything I’m careful not to scare him. Three children trail along behind us, disappointed, anxious about the morning trip that’s been interrupted, but it’s as if he’s forgotten them, carried away by the current of his words, and already we’re outside the religious quarter, walking through the New City, in old Mamilla Street, beside the ancient Muslim cemetery, and the children are afraid to leave their quarter, they stop and call out to him and he waves his hand to shake them off – “Later, not now” – and he walks on with me.

And now I start telling him about my search for him, about the army authorities who knew nothing about him, still not saying a word about the grandmother who came to life, not mentioning Asya by name. Telling him only about my wanderings at night in search of him. And he listens to these stories with great enjoyment, smiling to himself, his eyes bright, laying a hand on my shoulder as he follows me along.

We pass by the King David Hotel, carry on through the gardens of the YMCA, going down a little side street to the Hotel Moriah, and through the big windows I see the tables being laid for breakfast. A faint smell of coffee and toast. We stand beside the main entrance, by a glass revolving door. I say to him:

“But your grandmother has recovered in the meantime … she has come home …”

He clutches at the wall, almost collapsing, bursts out laughing.

“And I was in such a hurry to get back … that silly legacy…”

Through the door comes the sound of soft music, light morning music. I touch his arm.

“Come inside, let’s have something to drink.”