Two She-Bears (11 page)

After two days he told her he had to hop home to change clothes; he would just change them and come back.

“No home, Ethan,” she said, that's what she called him, in English. “No home, Ethan, no way, if you go out, with that smell on your fingers and cream on your face, someone will steal you away from me. Women can sense men that other women love.”

She's right. They can feel it. Not just a man who is loved, that's no great trick, but also a man in love, and a man who will soon blossom, even if he is already a grown man, and a man who will soon wither, even if he's young, and a man about to die, even if he thinks he will live forever. Just like those dogs—I read about them in the newspaper—who can sniff cancer in a person. So too women can smell illness and health, strength and weakness, kindness and evil, potential, humor, intelligence, and stupidity. And it's not from studying the eyes or reading the palm of the hand; that's nonsense. It's from the angle of the lips, from getting up from a chair, from words that repeat themselves, from the pouring of water from the kettle to the cup.

In brief, she took him to a men's clothing shop, bought him everything he needed, and brought him back home with her for more love and more music and more meals, and everything was wonderful and also seemed wonderful to such a young guy, but after a month and a half she informed him, That's it, Ethan, it's over, now you have to go.

“What happened?” he asked. “You're sick of me? That's it? You've had your fill?”

It turned out that, no, she wasn't sick of him and would in fact have been happy for another serving and yet another. But her regular boyfriend, some rich old fart from England, and a distant cousin of hers to boot, was a ship's captain, on one of those supertankers that circles the globe, and was now done dispensing petroleum in the Philippines or Scotland or wherever the hell it was, and was arriving the very next day in the Israeli port of Ashdod.

“Why this surprise, why didn't you tell me ahead of time that it would be a month and a half and that's all?”

“Because I prefer a guillotine to an hourglass. A single blow instead of a slow burial. Come, let's do it one more time and say farewell.”

She made him a festive and delicious last supper, fucked him, excuse me, in a final and festive and particularly pleasant fashion, slept beside him for the last time extremely close, and sent him away: “That's it. Get out!”

“If you think,” he said to her at the door, “that you can throw me away now, and after your oil deliveryman sails off, you can call me back, you're mistaken, Alice.”

“That's fine,” she said, “you've already proved how young you are in very pleasant ways. You don't have to prove it further with foolish declarations.”

When Eitan told me this he also said that, along with all the lamentations and angst and the “what a pity” and “what a waste” of hers, he found the whole situation really funny, because at the same time she was telling him he had to go, and it was clear to them both that they each wanted him to stay, all that went through his head was an image of her elderly English ship's captain, with hair white from age and a nose red from alcohol and sleeves with gold stripes almost to the elbow, sailing from port to port in his gigantic supertanker, and everywhere he went he dropped his anchor, tied up to the dock, stood on the bridge in a white jacket, ringing a big bell and shouting, “Oil…Oil…”

That's it. Ethan left, the sun was shining, and a Labrador puppy that stood on the sidewalk looked at him and smiled. Eitan said—to himself and to me years later—a Labrador puppy is a very good sign. He phoned Dovik and told him that he had just been thrown out of his mother-in-law's bed, that he would be traveling abroad for a while; he had gotten an offer to join the security detail of some Jewish millionaire in Miami and would be back in a few months and concluded with “How's your sister? Tell her hello.”

Someone walking on our street at night, if he passes by the nursery at its eastern end, will see a strong, sturdy man, wearing blue work clothes and Australian work boots. Sometimes he sits at the entrance and sometimes he patrols the grounds. His gait is strange. His legs bespeak strength of thigh and ankle and weakness of knee and calf, and his hands are gathered at his chest as if hugging or carrying something that only he hugs and carries.

This is how he walks, looks, guards, and inspects. On his forehead he wears a hiker's flashlight, and in his hand is a small pickax, generally used for simple digging and uprooting onions and bulbs, but in the right hands it can be a lethal weapon. Between the fingers of his other hand is a cigarette, and he doesn't toss away the burning butt but stubs it against a wall or the sole of his shoe till the burning end falls off. He stamps that out with his foot and throws the extinguished butt in the trash.

The few passersby, a worker returning from his shift, girls laughing after a party, an early rising soldier en route to his base, a young man returning from a night of love, seekers of sleep—where did it wander to?—they all look at him. Some with a quick glance, some with a lingering gaze. A few recognize him and there are those who even greet him. But he does not return their look and does not greet them back.

It happened once that two youngsters, one from a local family and a friend on his first visit to the moshava, tried to make fun of him. One of them even thrust out his hand and tried to knock the flashlight off his head, and the man suddenly dropped the pickax, spread his arms with astonishing quickness, and seized him in a bear hug that stopped his breathing. Then he lifted him easily, like picking up a baby, and carried him across the road. When he let him go the young man fell, coughing and wailing, “You broke my rib, you son of a bitch,” and vomited on the ground. His friend helped him get up, the two of them ran away, and the man returned to his post.

Who is the man? The young people and the new people believe that he is merely a watchman, a day laborer, or more correctly a night laborer, since by day he is nowhere to be seen. But the old-timers know that he is married to the granddaughter of the owner of the plant nursery, and he is the brother-in-law and friend of her brother, the manager of the nursery, and he works there at jobs assigned him by the grandfather. By day he lifts and carries and loads, whatever is necessary, and by night he stands guard, and he doesn't sleep at all. There are those who escape from their pain into sleep; what he escapes into is insomnia.

What do insomniacs do? There are those who bait traps for sleep, put up signposts to guide its way. They try various pills, warm milk, infusions of leaves that are reputedly effective, and infusions of grapes known as wine and cognac. That, for example, is what the man's wife does as she waits for him in their house and their bed and he doesn't arrive. She drinks, lies down, drinks some more, reads, waiting for him and for her sleep. And maybe this is better than lying awake together, sharing their insomnia, both of them knowing that they can't sleep because of their neighbor in the bed, and both close their eyes and pretend the other has drifted off.

And there are couples who need each other then, because orgasm, it is said, leads to sleep. And if they don't want each other, they make do alone, with their own bodies. But these two do not, and it has been years since this woman has slept with her husband.

Sometimes the man comes into the house, lies down in another bed, in a room that is not the bedroom, and sometimes thinks he has dozed off. But then he wakes up to the reality of being awake. In other words, he slowly shuts his eyes, lies there knowing he is asleep, and suddenly realizes he is awake. Not just his heart, like the sleeping woman in the Song of Songs, but all of him. His limbs are limp like a sleeper's limbs, his breathing is relaxed like a sleeper's breathing, his eyes are closed like a sleeper's eyes, and sometimes he even dreams a sleeper's dreams, but then he senses that his eyes are open, looking inside him, and his dream is not a dream but memory and thought.

He gets up and gets dressed and goes out to stand guard. So it goes, night after night. My man walks around outside. And I, in the empty bed, wait.

“Why did you wake up, Sarah?”

“Because of you. You're making a ton of noise.”

“We're getting ready for a hike.”

“What hike? You didn't say anything about it.”

“A hike for guys. Me and Isaac.”

“Just the two of you? It's not kind of dangerous?”

“We're not alone. We'll also take two boys and a donkey, and also God will come.”

“Really?”

“That's what he said.”

“If I know him, he'll show up only on the last day and say he forgot to bring food. You better bring some sacrifices.”

Silence.

“And where are you going?”

“ ‘To the place that I shall show thee.' ”

“To the place that who shall show thee?”

“God. That's what he said.”

“And what about me? I also want to come.”

“This is a hike for guys. I told you. Isaac, the boys, God, the donkey, and me. Women, girls, mothers, she-asses—not invited. You sit in the tent, you don't go out hiking.”

“Everything was nicer when I was called Sarai and you were called Abram. Ever since God changed our names something went wrong in this family.”

Silence.

“And when are you getting back?”

“In a few days.”

“A few days is a long time. What are you going to do?”

“What guys do. We'll walk, navigate to a place that he will show us. We'll get there. We'll sit on one of the mountains and look at the scenery. We'll talk, we'll be silent, we'll remember, we'll be nostalgic for things that happened five minutes before. We'll set fire to the wood on the first try, we'll learn to tie knots: tight sturdy bindings. We'll teach each other things that men have to learn.”

I can recite them: to walk silently, track footprints, camouflage yourself, see and not be seen, and walk in darkness—and maybe “see a great light,” like Isaiah says—and know which plants to make tea with, and how to feed hay to the cows, build a chicken coop, “tend the flora and dance the hora, just like the uncles do.” Little bonus there for you, Varda, an old song from the Yishuv, after all you're not so interested in people, you deal with issues. A gender song for you—when the uncles do that stuff, what do the aunties do? To know the sounds of the night, to find the path, to fathom the eagle in the sky, the serpent on the rock, how a man has his way with a maiden. And how to dig wells, build an altar, kindle a fire, go barefoot, sharpen a butcher's knife, how to lead—the boy in the saddle, his hands gripping the reins, smiling with excitement that mothers do not understand.

Here are tracks of a rabbit, Isaac, and these of a hyena, its hind legs are smaller than the forelegs, and these of a ram, with a cloven hoof, here, he walked here. You can see his tracks from here to that thicket. See this stone, with the lichen facing down—that tells you he flipped it over with his hoof.

You're not that interested in these stories about rocks? A shame. Because stories about rocks are the most historical history of the Yishuv. Cornerstones, keystones, milestones, slingshot stones, smooth stones, rough stones, gravestones. Huge hailstones from the sky, stones you put under your head for a pillow, for dreaming dreams.

And here's the North Star, here's Ursa Major and beside her the Little Bear, Ursa Minor, we're all here—one God, two she-bears, four mothers, and a father and son. What's with the two she-bears, Abraham?
Shtayim dubim?
The Jewish people have just started speaking Hebrew and already you're making mistakes? Feminine masculine? We're in the Bible, Sarah, in case you've forgotten. Here in the Bible even the mistakes are holy.

That's it. They got up early, saddled the donkey, sallied forth. How words change. Today the word for “saddling” in biblical Hebrew means “bandaging a wound.” Packed from head to hoof—water, food, tent, shade canopy, wood, butcher's knife, tools, and cooking implements—and went. “And the two walked off together.” I believe I already told you that Eitan loved the sound of the biblical word “together,”
yahdav,
and played with it all sorts of ways. “You're the teacher here, Ruta,” he said on the eve of their departure for that hike, at dinner with Grandpa and Dovik and Dalia, “you're the teacher and I barely managed to finish the tenth grade, but I will explain something to you about grammar that I think you don't understand: just as
yeladav
means ‘his children' and
begadav
means ‘his clothing,'
yahdav
means ‘his togethers.' ”

Dovik laughed, Grandpa fixed his gaze, the patched eye and the good one, on Eitan, with affection and wonder: What else will this weird golden butterfly say or do at our family table? This fine-feathered bird who landed among us geese and chickens? I laughed, even Dalia managed a smile. The eve of the disaster, the last supper of its kind. We would have these loud and lively dinners, seasoned with stories and jokes and riddles, knocking salad off someone's fork, stealing their last bite or sip. Dovik is someone who really loves to eat. He eats a lot and chews a long time and sighs with pleasure and plans every last bite in great detail. Therefore it's great fun to ruin it for him. He would assemble on his fork a small sample of each salad vegetable, and a bit of yellow and a bit of white from the fried egg, a sliver of cheese and a hint of herring, and then, a second before it entered his mouth, I would stick out my fork and knock everything back onto his plate, and he would laugh and get angry.

We would report about the day just ended and make plans for the next, and Eitan, my man, my first husband, was always at the center: speaking, imitating, making formal announcements. Dovik would look at him with admiration, Grandpa Ze'ev with love and curiosity. His two sons had left home, one of them, my father, was dead, and God had sent him Eitan in their place.

I peeked in to make sure Neta was covered, and we went to bed. Oddly enough I don't remember if I had sex with Eitan that night. Probably yes, because we did it a lot then, at every opportunity, and if so, it was the last time for many years. The twelve blighted years, the evils were preparing to arise from the Nile and enter my bed—here we are—like the sickly cows of Pharaoh's dream. And before dawn I heard Eitan getting ready, and I got up and went to the kitchen to say goodbye.

And you didn't sense that something was about to happen?

No, Varda, no. I already told you. I didn't have any premonitions or female intuitions, and I didn't feel that this was a final farewell, that this would be the last time I would see my child alive and my husband as he was. But like all mothers and wives, I worried a little for my son and husband. I even gave them the concerned-mother speech:

“You decided where you're going?”

“More or less.”

“Can you maybe tell me?”

“The Negev.”

“You already said so. Where exactly in the Negev?”

“What's with the ‘exactly,' Ruta? We're going hiking. Quality time for father and son. We'll sit under a tree in one of the wadis.”

“Because you yourself always say that if you go on a trip you have to supply details of the route at home.”

“You're right,” he said, “but I told you, this time it's not a hike with a route, but camping, and we don't know where yet. We'll decide when we're out there. Someplace around Nahal Tzihor or Nahal Tznifim, we'll find us a nice acacia, we'll pitch a tent in its shade, build a fire pit with stones, make friends with birds, learn how to build a sand table. Navigate in the hills with a map.”

“Why does a six-year-old need to navigate with a map?”

“You prefer a six-year-old with a PlayStation?”

I got ornery. “I know that area. Nahal Tzihor and Nahal Tznifim are half the Negev. You don't know where that beautiful acacia is exactly?”

“Wherever God planted it. When we get to it, we'll know it's the one, and if there's reception I'll send Dovik a text message with our coordinates and he'll show you on the map exactly.”

“And if there won't be reception? Why is it so hard to tell me now where you'll be?”

“Wherever the steering wheel takes us, to the place God will tell us.”

How did I not understand, I, the Bible teacher, what was happening? And Eitan kept talking: “Not everything has to be planned, where we're going, where we'll be. Not everything has to be known in advance. You can improvise and go with the flow.”

As you see, he succeeded in upsetting me. On the other hand, Eitan was the best possible person to go on a hike with. He was an outstanding driver and a superb navigator. He never got stuck or lost. He was also a technical guy, knew how to fix the pickup if it broke down, a strong guy with a lot of experience, and underneath his levity and unworried pose he would plan every detail, as responsible and organized as a watchmaker. That's how he was when he put a pot on the fire, went to kill somebody, planned his wife's birthday, or took a hike.

He went out to the pickup, loaded and arranged the equipment, covered it, tied it down. In the nursery, he told me once, we have everything we need for a hike and also for ambushes and lookouts: ropes, boxes, jerricans and all kinds of containers, a pickax for digging or bashing someone's head if necessary, pruning shears, a shovel for hot coals and burying poop in the sand, hefty plastic bags for garbage, rakes and brooms to cover your tracks, and tarps for shade and camouflage and lying down on.

I saw him loading the pickup with quiet efficiency, and I relaxed a bit. I also remembered the last time they left me home and went to the desert without me, and I smiled to myself. That was a year earlier. They had announced on the radio that a meteor shower was expected that night, and Eitan said, “
Yalla,
Neta, let's drive down to the desert, we'll see them falling from the sky.”

I asked, “What about me? I want to go too.”

Eitan said, “No way! A zillion people will go to see them in the desert, because the nights there are totally dark, and who do they get? You! Shining as bright as the sun. Instead of watching the meteors they'll be looking at you, through grimy binoculars.” I told you, Varda, my first husband was an irrepressible romantic, and also a very funny guy.

“It's all done. You want to get Neta or should I get him?”

I went upstairs; I picked him up wrapped in his blanket and laid him on the backseat. I hugged and kissed him on the cheeks and forehead, but he was fast asleep and didn't feel a thing, and Eitan gently lowered the front seatback to keep him from falling or flying off. I hugged Eitan and kissed him too, and that was it. They drove away and I made myself some coffee because it was almost my usual wake-up time. I wasn't worried, but I thought about them. Neta, as I knew, would sleep soundly the whole way down and wake up only when they got to the tree, and I imagined Eitan driving in the wadi and choosing that acacia out of all the others. I knew better than anyone how picky he was about the right shade tree to sit under, especially if the hike was in the desert and the tree was an acacia: it had to be symmetrical, it should have a beautiful silhouette, you needed to be able to stand under it without getting smacked in the head by a thorny branch, and there shouldn't be too many fallen branches under it because they can cause a flat tire or punch a hole in your shoe.

“The thing about an acacia,” he once explained to me, “is that when it's a good tree it's also beautiful, and when it's beautiful it's also good. The pomegranate is also like that, and the cypress and the oak, but it's not that way with all trees. The fig, for instance, can be ugly as sin, but good, with wonderful fruit, and also the opposite, a beautiful fig tree with shitty fruit.”

“ ‘Figs so bad they could not be eaten,' ” I quoted him from Jeremiah.

He laughed. “Your Hebrew is a bit beyond me. But I'll write it down, so I won't forget.”

I know: he picked them out a good and beautiful acacia, parked the pickup by the side of the creek bed, and together they covered it with the tarp so it wouldn't broil in the sun and to camouflage it—so nobody would see it who didn't need to see it.

I remember the principles: alter the shape, conceal colors and bulges, any glint of glass or metal. I'm guessing they also tossed twigs and dry branches on the tarp and a few fistfuls of sand and dirt. Then they pitched a small tent for the next two nights. Not just against the cold, but mainly against mosquitoes and snakes and scorpions.

And I can hear it: “We don't want guests, right, Neta? So go over to the dirt road, please, and when you get there look toward the pickup and the tent, tell me if you can see them.”

Eitan fixed something to eat and said that at the hottest time of day you don't do anything, just chill out in the shade, which is what they did. They napped a little, woke up, talked, kept quiet, got into the atmosphere of the place.

“Drink some water, Neta.”

“I don't want any.”

“Drink, it's important.”

“But I'm not thirsty.”

“Drink even if you're not thirsty.”

“But why?”

“Because it's hot and dry here, and you don't feel yourself sweating and drying out. You see those two rocks over there? One small and one big? Those were a father and son who traveled here before us and didn't drink enough.”

Eitan took a few pictures with his old camera, of the tent and the tree, and Neta and him, together and separately. There were digital cameras available, and Eitan did like new gadgets, but stuck to his ancient Pentax. He said he liked the guillotine sound of the old cameras and didn't like being able to see the result right away in a digital camera and keep trying till you got it right.

Photography should be like sniper fire, he said. With all the planning and concentration and responsibility for the consequences. With old cameras, once the bullet is shot there are no regrets, no taking it back or shooting it again.