A Late Divorce (13 page)

“Where exactly is our branch?”

“On the corner of Arlosoroff Street, where it always has been.”

“Fine. Now I remember.”

“Take out two thousand pounds.”

“I'll take out as much as I feel like.”

“All right, all right. Just don't be late. Be there by three. Will you recognize him?”

“Yes. Don't worry.”

“I'll come straight home from the university.”

“Maybe you'd like to meet us in some café downtown.”

“No. That's too complicated.”

“But why?”

“What on earth do you want to meet in a café for? He'll be tired. I'll be home by four-thirty. Go straight there, all right?”

“All right. Say something.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Am I still being punished?”

A long pause.

“It's not a punishment. It's despair.”

He hangs up.

Father and mother have already gotten the message into a shopping net go some rolls cans of spreads and sliced yellow cheese teary in its plastic wrapper down from a shelf come spongy gray mushrooms the refrigerator is flung open they take they cut they wrap in a singsong Hungarian duet silently they consult each other just a few things to put on the table swish into the bag with them why should you go to the supermarket where everything is so expensive do you really enjoy being cheated anyway it's Tuesday everything doses early the banks too already the cash register has sprung open with a rustle of bills here's some money you can return it when you want it's yours in any case so you'll inherit that much less why should you care if we give you an advance money is worthless nowadays anyhow how much do you have here why it's nothing if it's heavy papa win help carry it to the bus stop why don't you take it what's the matter? Take your father and mother too squirming in the net missing you before you're even gone counting the hours until they see you again tomorrow don't hurt our feelings how can you refuse we've already sliced it we've already packed it everything will spoil.

But for once I do refuse. Stubbornly adamantly. No money either. I have my own. I'm not taking a thing. Out of the question. I don't want advances you won't take them back anyway. All I want if you don't mind is that hunk of white cheese.

“What do you want that for? It's dry as a stone. It's not fresh.”

“I'll grate it and make a soufflé.”

“You'll never get a soufflé out of that. Dinaleh, don't be a child.”

“I saw some recipe in a cookbook. Are you saving it for someone? How much does it cost?”

Father is in a rage you're doing it to insult me he wraps it up angrily and flings it at me. The store is full of irritable customers the shopping net with the food lies on the counter father is red in the face mother is beside herself I've never said no to them like this before I kiss her and reach out my hand to him I slip away down the alley behind the Edison Theater walking by a high blank wall on whose other side is the movie screen recessed in its far end is a rundown kiosk with a leaky soda fountain and a few cartons of yellow chewing gum and dry wafers next to some thin writing pads and notebooks. Fat lame and inert the kiosk owner sits on his stool his back to the wall the sounds of the movie behind him a roar of cars of explosions all that American bang-bang he sits absorbed in the noise. I reach for a writing pad and choose an orange one with faded lines a product of the Jerusalem Paper Company.

“Are these the only writing pads you have?”

He doesn't answer. He doesn't see me. In a trance he listens to the sounds from behind the heavy concrete wall.

“All right, then. I'll take this one.”

He takes the pad from me to check its price. I hand him some change he counts it suspiciously I grab the pad back all at once my fingers are itching to write here on the border of downtown to one side of me the stone houses of Ge'ula a spiritual watershed down one slope of which flows a thickening stream of black coats before them a last display window with photos of leather-booted women a neighborhood of uglies who no longer turn to stare at me. I riffle through the small blank pages.

“Do you have a pen or a pencil?”

He produces a dusty pen I pay him he hands me back some moist change. I can feel an attack coming on. On one side I write
Poetry
I turn it over and write
Prose
on the other I lay the pad on the wet marble counter and write quickly.

Rockdrowsing snake. Rustling bleeding. Venomous skull soft bald head.

The kiosk owner looks up at me.

“Not here, lady. This isn't a desk.”

But I pay no attention I flip it over quickly to the prose side.
Father in knots large gloomy wall beyond the hum of projector muffled booms. Zombie-like kiosk owner selling soda in shade of banyan tree. She buys a small pad from him.

“Hey, lady, not here!”

A bus pulls up across the street the driver looks at me the doors hiss open and shut I signal him he brakes sharply I grab the pad and my bag and the cheese and dart to the opposite sidewalk the door opens again I'm safely inside. Thank you. He grins. He deserves to have me sit near him so I do smiling back sweetly as I pay him the fare but before he can get a word in I've whipped out my pad and plunged into it.
The speedy recognition of beauty.
And on the poetry side I write
I saw her as she danced her body deep in soft melody.

It's something else today.

The keys are already turning in the glass door of the bank but I manage to worm my way in. No one knows me though we have a joint account because Asi takes care of all our bank business but a nervous young teller takes me under his wing and manages to give me five thousand pounds even though I don't have a checkbook he fills out the forms for me and carefully has me sign he runs to bring me my money in new bills and a new checkbook too I can feel him falling for me head over heels he's the clean skinny intellectual type crushed by an ambitious mother he scents the tender virgin in me like a moth attracted to the light.

His thin wings beat against the counter of the emptying bank while the rest of the staff files away its papers and regards us with a smile. All of a sudden I must know exactly how much we have in our account. It turns out that we have several accounts he writes each down on a piece of paper and goes to check the computerized listings explaining everything precisely. Here you have twenty thousand pounds and here you have some German marks and here you even have a few stocks. I never knew or else I wasn't listening when Asi told me. The amazing thing is that I've co-signed every one of them. Some little female clerk is impatiently jingling the keys but my moth with glasses has decided that now is the perfect time to sell me some new savings plan for the thrifty woman. I let him tell me about it acting docile even a little dumb nodding dependently but forced in the end to confess that my financial authority does not extend beyond five thousand pounds. I promise to send him my husband for a pep talk and slip the money into my purse letting my glance linger over him. He opens the glass door wide careful not to touch me.

I buy a cake and some flowers and board another bus. It's already one o'clock I'd better hurry. I sit in the back I take out my pad and write
noon light in an empty bank
and on the flip side
silver moth.

At home I take off my dress and change into pants I make the beds wash the dishes dust and air out the house. The refrigerator is practically empty. The white cheese has been left behind on the bus or in the bank. How stupid of me to say no to my parents they were so hurt perhaps I should call them. I run down to the corner grocery but it's already closed. How could I have forgotten that it's Tuesday? But the weather's clearing up a bright blue sky is being unfurled the day that started glumly with such a cold wind is filling with warm clear light now.

I return to the apartment throw out old newspapers put Asi's papers into drawers arrange the books change my pants put on makeup the time flies by. At two-thirty I'm downstairs again a bus roars by me without stopping. I step to the curb and stick out my hand to thumb a ride. A car screeches to a stop. I hate to hitch just because it's so easy. The driver in dark glasses looks like a pimp. Downtown? At your service. I press against the door gently laying my hand with the wedding ring on the dashboard. A deterrent or an invitation? These days one never knows. He tries striking up a conversation I answer politely but more and more drily the closer we get to downtown. We stop for a light. May I? I open the door and slip out.

It's five minutes to three. Suddenly I feel a burst of emotion. Asi's father. Kaminka himself. This man whom I've known only from stories from arguments from short letters bearing the usual political dirges with the requests for books and journals at the end. Asi's father a processed element within Asi tumbling in our sheets with us thrashing about in the throes of our marriage. In a few more minutes I'll see him alive and in person at the bottom of Ben-Yehuda Street a subject for inquiry and interrogation. The number of the one o'clock cab from Haifa is five-thirty-two sit down right here miss I'll find your party the minute it arrives what did you say his name was? I sit among parcels in the open office facing the busy street the sun at the top of it flooding the rooftops like a sea. People press around me the festive commotion of the approaching holiday I take out my darling pad the attack won't let up today it's been one continual rush of excitement. In prose
throes of marriage.
In poetry I cross out
silver moth.

A taxi pulls up across the street. That's it miss. The door opens I recognize him at once because it's Tsvi. Amazing. Even uncanny. The most obvious thing about him they never mentioned to me that he's the spitting image of Tsvi. Tall erect even powerfully built he stands by the car in rumpled clothes looking about glancing up at the sky his gray hair uncombed a little mustache what does he need it for. Something menacing about him. He looks tired confused but I'm frozen where I am. I watch him try catching the attention of the fat driver who's taking parcels off the baggage rack shouting and joking with the office personnel across the street. Kaminka looks at me but doesn't see me. At last the trunk is opened he takes out a coat hat and a small leather valise gathering them up while saying something to the driver he turns to look at the sun hanging at the top of the street. I must go to him but the pen won't leave my hand I turn the page and write
sun in the creases of a hat.
He starts toward the office across Ben-Yehuda Street but abruptly veers and begins walking down it instead. Passing cars screen him from me I stuff the pad into my bag and jump to my feet the flow of cars keeps me from crossing the street he's gone but at once I see him again about to turn into some side street by a traffic light he stops to ask something and light a cigarette I jaywalk quickly over to him and reach out to him in the middle of the street.

I put my arm around him and embrace him. Dina. He leans over me radiantly the lights keep changing next to us. At last. Asi is teaching at the university he'll go straight home from there. I drag him back to the sidewalk slow-moving cars barely missing our feet He throws his cigarette into the street he's confused he can't get over me he leans heavily on my shoulder pedestrians jostle us stopping to watch us meet. I reach the sidewalk first I stand on tiptoe and kiss his face warmly generously. He's moved he drops his valise at his feet and hugs me with tears in his eyes. It's about time I laugh it's about time he repeats mesmerized his eyes shut as he steps up onto the sidewalk.

“Let me carry your bag for you.”

“Don't even think of it!”

“Then at least your coat and hat.”

“They're no trouble. I'll wear the hat.”

He puts it on smiling surveying his surroundings. The crowd presses against us sweeping us along toward Zion Square. We drift aimlessly with it.

“Where to now?”

“To the bus stop and home.”

“Maybe we should have something to drink first. Are you in a hurry?”

“Not at all. It's just that Asi will be home soon.”

“It won't kill him to wait. Come, I want to talk with you. Isn't there some nice café around here? Let's get out of this mob scene. Were there always such crowds in this place?”

He tucks his arm in mine and youthfully but with surprising brute force spins me around into a dark little street as though he had his bearings exactly he stops by the glass door of a bank walks on turns back crosses to the opposite sidewalk looks up and down and returns to me. “It's become a bank,” he murmurs. “Let's go to the Atara then. Is it still there?”

His speech is a quick clipped Hebrew with a slight musical Russian accent.

“When were you last in Jerusalem?”

“Long ago. I skipped over it on my last visit three years ago. That must make it five years or more. Over there, in America, I often wonder about this city. There's a photograph of it in all the offices of the Jewish community centers and it's always the same: the towers of the Old City, the Wailing Wall, the Israel Museum, all in the same pretty colors. No one ever photographs this shabby, gray, congested triangle of streets in which the real life of Jerusalem goes on and all those little bombs keep exploding.”

We elbow our way into the Atara Café people turn to stare at us we're a curious-looking couple. We find a small table at the back and he takes off his hat. A waitress appears he orders coffee for us and gravely asks about the cakes he even decides to have a look at them he consults with the waitress smiling at me from afar. Finally he points a long finger at his choice and disappears into the men's room. I take out my pad a wave of warm words in my gut.

She gives off warmth she kisses the old man generously. She opens patiently to him listening suspending judgment refusing to categorize. A crushed felt hat a little mustache a warm yet violent exterior. A touch of the hand. His lust for cake. Describe a cake. Between two worlds. His different father.