Two She-Bears (21 page)
Authors: Meir Shalev
Varda: What are you doing, Ruta?
Ruta: I'm putting my face close to yours. Don't be afraid. I don't bite and I won't plant a kiss on your lips. I just want you to see. I don't have many wrinkles, and still only the two white hairs. You see? No new ones, though a disaster like mine could wrinkle a woman and turn her white in a heartbeat.
One day, at a parents' meeting, one of the mothers told me that she and her daughter had been saying, en route to the school, how good Teacher Ruta looked, despite the disaster and all, and I told her, Thanks, how nice of you. And I remarked that maybe this was God's way to compensate victims. And she said, “We never know what God wants. I go to a kabbalah class and they told us this is the way things are and even proved it by the numerology of gematria.”
Suddenly I felt extremely tired. Idiocy wears me out, and when I see and hear an idiot of either gender I can recognize them with ease. Any number of them grow in my classroom, and I know what will become of them before they know themselves. Also absolute justice tires me out, a lot. Almost as much as the people who believe in it.
I'm smiling, right? Sometimes, if I don't tell myself to smile, I don't do it. Or I smile, but don't feel it. That's because there are days when I'm just an actress. I got the lead part in a play about a woman who lost him and his son, her two guys, in a single day. But apart from that, Varda, my life isn't bad. I have work that I love, I do it well, and I have songwriters who write songs for me, so I can sing the harmony, and writers who write books for me, to read and edit as necessary. And I also know how to be alone, and I like it, and most of allâI know how to keep myself busy.
It's not nice to say this, but sometimes I enjoyed life even after the disaster. Here and there I even heard myself suddenly laughing. And sometimes some man would try to catch my eye, not that anything came of it, because I had become a kind of Penelope, waiting for her husband to return from his travels, and his travails, his and mine. A great deal was destroyed, but not everything. And life wasn't really over. I would say to myself: “Be happy, Ruta, that you're alive. Be happy that you look good. Be happy you're not an idiot like that mother.”
Well, Dr. Canetti, Yishuv historian, we've strayed again from the topic, so let's go back. It's a method Eitan taught me once, when we were young and out hiking and he tried to teach me to navigate and what to do in case of error: first we have to admit the error. That's hard, but important and necessary. We need to admit we're wrong and not try to redraw the map or the reality, not to raise up mountains or level the hills. And so, with a sense of optimistic failure, as he would say, we have to return to the last place we could confidently find on the map and in the field, and there start over.
So that's what I'm doing nowâreturning to the last clear point in our conversation: I am Ruth Tavori, everyone calls me Ruta, I am the granddaughter of Ze'ev Tavori of blessed memory who raised me and my brother, Dovik. I am the wife of Eitan, who disappeared on me for twelve years and came back, and I am the mother of Neta, who died of a snakebite at the age of six, and I am a secular teacher of Hebrew Bible and eleventh-grade homeroom teacher at the high school in the moshava. It's interesting how we define ourselves, no? According to family and work and not one's loves, wishes, disappointments, inner qualities. So besides being the “granddaughter of” and “sister of” and “mother of” and “teacher of,” I also love and know how to sing, and if need be I am able to dive underwater and hold my breath for four minutes. That's it. We went a long way back so I could sum myself up. Now you know everything.
Apropos of singing, I don't mean, God forbid, organized folksinging with someone playing the accordion. That I leave to my neighbors, Haim and Miri Maslina, and to my sister-in-law, Dalia. I mean real singing. I sang in the choir of the regional council, and we performed all over, we even sang once at the Abu-Gosh choral festival. But singers in a choir, you should know, sometimes shed a few tears, and with me, after the disaster, there were moments in the music where I would suddenly get choked up, and after this happened twice, when I had just been given a soloâ“out of pity,” as one woman muttered at the timeâI stopped performing and later stopped going to rehearsals.
And not just the choir. Many things dwindled or came to a halt: friends, having fun, making love, the long, deep sleep that came afterward. I used to touch and be touched, love and be loved, lull and be lulled to sleep, in one sweet sequence. We were the kings of sleep, Eitan and me, falling asleep joined together, but not like spoons, we fell asleep like a windmill. Whatever. A few years ago one of the women friends who wanted to help me invited me to join her travel group: a regular guide, history, nature, archaeology, culture. Mostly in our country, but sometimes also at the neighborsâEgypt, Jordan, Turkey. The farthest we got was Italy. It was a nice group, mostly from this area, but once somebody brought a friend from Kfar Saba, and it turned out that this friend was also a bereaved mother, but not like me, an ordinary mother whose ordinary child died, she was the bereaved mother of a fallen soldier, which here in the ancestral homeland means true bereavement, the real thing. With Memorial Day and the siren and ceremonies and all that.
The truth? She was perfectly fine. Didn't make a big deal of it, like those bereaved parents you run into for whom it's not just their situation but also their title and even their profession. But the woman who brought her kept mentioning it to everyone, as if some of the majesty might rub off on her, and she apparently made sure to tell her about my disaster, in case we might want to sit together and talk, and she could tell the other women how she had helped us both.
Don't misunderstand. At first I really did want to talk to her. It's true that it's different for everyone, even between parents it's very different, look at me and Eitan, what happened to him and what happened to me, but a child is a child, it doesn't matter how old he was and how he died, and a mother is a mother, right? So we started to talk, and after two minutes I got the picture: even if she really is okay, and believe me, I had nothing against her, in this country, when it comes to us two and our sons and bereavementâshe's number one. And even if she behaves nicely, politely, empathetically, as they say, she's looking down on me. And what's worse, I also obeyed these rules. I suddenly found myself looking up to her, a rare phenomenon for me both physically and psychologically. I then decided I couldn't handle it anymore. The ceremonious gravity, the right and the left together bereft, and this unfortunate woman with her radiant, precious, heroic son. You know what irritated me most? That she, on top of all that glory, also had someone to blame, from the petty officer to the prime minister, and I have nobody except Eitan and myself. I even stopped complaining to God, because I doubt his ears can hear the frequency of my voice after getting used to the frequency of prayers and rams' horns.
To make a long story short, that's why I stopped going on those trips, which in any case I was sick ofâthe crowded bus, everyone singing the same songs and chatting the same chat and telling the same stories, and there was always the idiot who took the microphone from the guide to tell bad jokes. And on top of all that, the constant sense of being checked out and tested and judged. And I also felt that regardless of where we were going, I always missed my home and wanted to go back. Missed it in the dumbest, vaguest sense, being homesick without knowing why or for what or whom exactly, and I also worried that while I was away from home something else terrible would happen to Eitan or because of Eitan or with Eitan. After all, when the disaster happened, I also wasn't there, it was just the two of them alone.
Varda: Sorry for the interruption, Ruta, but what does falling asleep joined like a windmill mean?
Ruta: You poor, sweet thing, this is all you thought about this whole time? I'm pouring my guts out to you and bleeding on the floor, and you're not listening and not thinking about your history of the Yishuv either, because sleeping like spoons you know, but you tried to imagine what “like a windmill” means, and to come home this evening and tell Yossi, or whatever his name is, your happy husband, your partner, excuse me, how could I forget, your partnerânot Yossi? For some reason I thought that most husbands of women named Varda are named Yossi. Whatever. So, Yossi, listen what I learned today, something new and charming, falling asleep like a windmill, the one on top is still on the one on the bottom, but with the bodies at a slight angle like an X, all four arms and four legs spread out, and whoever is watching from aboveâGod, usuallyâsays to himself: What a lovely windmill, why not turn it? Come, wind, and blow, blow those dry wings, so they may fly.
TRAVELS WITH A GOAT
About an hour before the death of Grandpa Ze'ev a big jaybird flew along the length of the low ridge between the two wadis. It flew from west to east, flew and shrieked.
Shrieking is not merely the language of the jays, it is their very nature, and this jay shrieked and didn't quit. He announced to the entire world that in the two wadis, where human beings are rarely to be seen, several people were walking, and to the walkers he announced that they had been discovered, that a brave and alert jaybird had spotted them and was not afraid of them as he watched them from his lofty flight.
In the wadi to the south the jay saw three men walking in single file: a tall young beefy man, clad in a leather jacket, was the first. Now and then his soles slipped on a stone and his lips expelled a curse. At the rear walked a man of about fifty, short and chubby, eyeglasses on his nose, a small knapsack on his back, and a light-colored hat on his head. And in between, a tall thin man, his mouth sealed by a wide swath of tape, his nose dripping, knees struggling not to buckle, and on his shouldersâthe curious jaybird wheeled downward, to be sure of this pointâhe carried a dead goat.
The three walked up the wadi, made a sharp turn, and arrived at the big carob tree beyond. It was an especially big carob tree. It was one of those hillside trees that got lucky and did not have to settle for a thin layer of soil below which lay limestone, deprivation, and hunger. Here the soil was rich and deep, and here the carob struck its roots.
Somebody or something, perhaps the hands of shepherds or the jaws of cattle, took the trouble to prune the lower branches, creating a shelterlike structure in place of the bushy sprawl that carobs tend to become. One could stand beneath it, and the thick treetop kept out the rain in winter and cast a full, cool shade during heat waves. A few rocks sat at its feet like petrified oxen, chewing a cud of lime and time, and the chilly remnants of a campfire spoke of previous, rare visits by people: little piles of ash, ancient cigarette butts, charred stones. The jaybird knew that these men would also sit in the shade of the tree and hoped that they too, like their predecessors, would leave scraps of uneaten food.
In the parallel gully to the north, the jaybird saw an old man making his way slowly, a small pack over his shoulder, his hand gripping a thick walking stick, one eye covered with a patch and the other scanning the ground. From time to time the old man put down the stick and got down on all fours to inspect an object of his desire.
The jay landed on a rock not far from the manâsomething jays are not wont to doâand cawed at him softly. Jays know how to shriek, shout, mimic, usually a baby's cry and the yowling of a cat, but a caw like this one they produce only rarely. The old man looked with his one good eye at the bird, stood up straight, and walked past it, and the jay flew off and landed about two hundred meters away, on the shallow ridge between the two wadis, conspicuous in a way that on any other day it would avoid.
The old man noticed the bird and headed toward it, strolling up the slope. The wisdom of his step, his knowledge of the path, made up for the frailty of his body. He knew that in the parallel wadi, a bit to his south and east, stood the big carob he would always visit, to rest in its shade and eat. What he did not know was that in one hour he would die, for his murderers were already sitting under that very same tree.
And they too, the three men sitting under the big carob, did not know all thisâthat the elderly, one-eyed collector of seeds was approaching them and that they were going to kill him. On any nice day, people move among people, attentively or notâon the street, in the fields, on foot, in carsâeach along his way and wadi and path, each toward his destination, with his baggage and his purpose and his grudges and his memories, and nothing happens, certainly not what is about to happen here, in this wadi.
In the shade of the carob, the men were doing what they came to do. The one in the hatâa panama hat with a loud pink bandâtook a gun from his coat pocket and ordered the carrier of the goat carcass to drop it on the ground. But this man, quick and agile and stronger than he looked, threw the goat at him and tried to attack him. The young man in the leather jacket jumped on him with all his weight, forced him to the ground, and beat his head with his fists, and the man in the hat aimed his gun at him and did not speak. The man gave up. He put his wrists together and let the young man tie them behind his back.
In the meantime the old man reached the top of the ridge and began walking down into the parallel wadi, and the jaybird took off and flew a few dozen meters, landed on another rock, turned its head, again cawed, and looked at the old man as if to confirm that he was following. A few hundred meters away, under the carob tree, the man in the hat laid the gun down, took a gas burner and teapot from his pack, and stood them between the rocks in a spot sheltered from the wind. He removed his hat, mopped his sweaty brow, put the hat back on, lit the gas burner with a gold cigarette lighter he took from his pocket, and sat down on a rock that resembled a big armchair.
He was short, with thick eyeglasses, but a sharp-eyed person could tell from his neck and wrists that he was very strong, and from the way he walked and talked that he was the leader of this group and familiar with this location.
Two living people, then, were present, plus one dead goat, and a man who was tied up and taken there to be killed as well. His legs were gathered to his belly, his sideways body was spent, a rag poked out from under the tape that sealed his mouth. When he blinked, his eyelids moved very slowly, as if trying to prolong the barrier between him and what was about to transpire. He had gone, in the past, on other travels with a goat, but this time he bore it on his own shoulders.
The young man in the leather jacket sat a few meters away, near the edge of the carob's shadow. His beady eyes, set close to each other, studied the tree. His potbelly, small and recently acquired, strained the buttons of his shirt. The man in the hat rose from the rocky throne, looked into the teapot, and turned off the gas. There fell a great silence, the silent sound of an opening curtain, pleasing to the ear and boding evil. The old man did not hear any of this. He walked up the gully, past the bend, and when he neared the jaybird, it flew off again and landed on another rock, higher up.
Now the man in the hat took out two glasses, checked their cleanliness in the sunlight, poured tea into each, and declared, “A nature hike, in the Land of Israel. Like the hikes in the youth movement, when we were young and beautiful and filled with values and hope.”
“We weren't in the movement,” commented the young man in the leather jacket, taking one of the glasses.
The man in the hat pointed a stern finger at him, like a schoolteacher: “Don't take before I do, you hear?!”
The young man replaced the glass, his boss took the other one, again sat in the stony throne, sipped a small sip from the steaming tea, sighed contentedly, and poured the remaining tea on the face of the man who was tied.
“Now you may drink too,” he said to the young man. “And you,” he turned to the tied-up man, “will not drink, because your mouth that spoke about us is sealed with a rag, and your hands that pointed at us are tied.”
And he refilled his glass and drank and continued, “So here we are, the two of us, there's a book by that name, a book I would read to my son when he was small, but I would recommend to adults as well. The two of us are more than just you and I, and the two of us have been together long enough for you to understand why the goat has joined the hike.”
And he stooped over the man who was tied and recited:
“Out for a hike on a glorious day
Peretz and Zerahâhello and hooray!
Up on the hill, down in the vale
And suddenly, whoa! Here lies a taleâ
Almost a miracle, a moment of note:
There in the road lay a very dead goat.”
And he stood up. “And we will now remove the rag from your mouth, for I have questions and you have the right of reply. We will chat a bit, quietly, in a civilized fashion. And if you scream, we will strangle you along with your scream.”
The young man in the leather jacket drew near, pulled the tape from the face of the man who was tied and the rag from his mouth, and the man spat, coughed, and let out a loud long scream that echoed down the entire wadi.
The jaybird flew off in panic from the rock, flew and hid among the branches of an oak that stood on the opposite slope, beside a tangled mastic tree. The old man walking behind it did not react at all. Beside the carob tree the young man seized the screaming throat in his left hand and thrust his right hand at the open mouth to silence it. But the man who was tied quickly turned his head and dug his teeth into the young man's hand and would not let go.
The young man groaned in pain and pounded the man's head, but the latter's jaws held tight. The man in the hat took the gold lighter with which he had lit the gas fire, placed it against the man's earlobe, and flicked on the flame. A scorching smell filled the air. A choking wail, not human, escaped the fastened jaws.
“Enough!” said the man in the hat. “Mad dog that you are. Open your mouth or I'll kill you this way, I'll burn you bit by bit with this lighter.”
The man who was tied opened his jaws and lowered his head as if waiting for a blow. The young man inspected the tooth marks on his hand.
“What's wrong with you?” demanded the man in the hat, setting the lighter beside the gas burner. “Why weren't you more careful?”
The screeching of the jaybird could be heard from the opposite slopeâbrief, hoarse, surprising.
“Go see what's going on there, why is that bird shrieking like that?” said the man in the hat.
The young man went over and had a look at the wadi.
“Somebody's walking in the wadi,” he said, keeping his voice low. “But pretty far away.”
The man in the hat grew tense. “Shut his mouth, now.”
The young man put the rag back into the mouth of the man who was tied, sealed it again with tape, and returned to his lookout position.
“The somebody walking there, what kind of somebody is it?” asked the man in the hat, handing the young man a small pair of binoculars from his knapsack.
“Somebody old. White hair, walking with a stick and wearing work clothes like from a kibbutz. I should go down to have a look?”
“What's this âI should go down'? Speak Hebrew like a normal person! âI will go and look.'â”
“You'll go?”
“No, you idiot.”
“So I should go?”
“It's no use,” said the man in the hat to the man who was tied. “A lost cause.” And to the young man he said, “We'll wait a bit. Maybe he'll go away. What kind of stick does he have?”
“A stick stick. Like an old Arab's stick.”
“Salt of the earth. Kibbutznik in work clothes and also an old Arab with a stick.”
“Now, when he picked up his head,” said the young man, his eyes glued to the binoculars, “you wouldn't believe what he has on his eye. Like a pirate thing. How do you call it, kinda Moshe Dayan.”
“ââKinda Moshe Dayan'?”
“Exactly.”
“It's called an eye patch. âKinda Moshe Dayan.'â”
“Eye patch. Now I should remember.”
“Lost cause. So what do we have so far? Arab, also kibbutznik; pirate and also old. How old?”
“Old. White head. Walks slow and bent over.”
“Bent over looking for something or bent over because standing up is hard?”
“Bent over looking. Really old, without one eye and with a stick.”
“Don't make fun,” said the man in the hat. “There are some kick-ass old men in this country like you wouldn't believe.” And he laughed. “If he's alive and kicking, think about whoever took out his eyeâwhat happened to him.”
And added: “You see white hair, a walking stick, bending over. But there are things even the best binoculars don't reveal. Look at our friend here, who bites like a dog but lies on the ground, bound like a sheep. He saw me, a short older guy, a bit of a weight problem as the doctor put it, Coke-bottle glasses, a lovely bald spot growing under my hat, and he thought he could do whatever he wanted. But âmany are the thoughts in the heart of man, yet the Lord's plan will prevail': I am drinking herbal tea and he is lying in the dirt beside a dead goat knowing that soon he will lie beneath it in the pit.
“It has no shepherd and has no master
It stands and chews on leaves in a pasture.
They took the goat and went on their way
Perah and Zerah are done for the day.”
“A very nice poem,” said the young man. “Did you write it?”
“Lost cause. What's going on down in the wadi? Where's that old man now?”
“He disappeared on me. Suddenly I don't see him,” said the young man.
He walked past the tree and urinated. But he didn't look at the stream he emitted nor at the spot it hit the ground, as men always do when urinating, but into the distance, to the point where he lost sight of the old man. When he was done he zipped up his trousers, absentmindedly sniffed his fingertips, smiled a little smile to himself, and returned to his place.
The man who was tied began convulsing on the ground. His eyes were wide open and his lips produced a strangled moan.
“Again you're starting? You want the lighter in your other ear too?”
But the man kept twisting and bending and groaning. He stared at something behind the young man's back, his eyes filled with suffering and supplication. His two captors turned and saw an old man, very near them. First the white-haired head came into view amid the rocks, then the big bent-over body, an elderly man dressed in old blue work clothes. A pack over his shoulder, the heavy walking stick in his hand, and a colorful patch over his left eyeâa whimsical patch that seemed to belong to someone elseâsky blue with a red poppy embroidered at the center.