Housebroken (25 page)

I stayed with her for four nights. I left Nathan a message saying that my mother had had a heart attack and I couldn't come for the next two days, and that I'd see him on Sunday night. That night, and the next, and over the weekend, I checked to see if I had any messages. There were a few from Noga and from my father. On the last night, after I got up to turn off the television, my mother leaned back in her armchair, sighed, lit a cigarette, and said: “I envy your generation of young women.” I asked her why. She was silent for a moment and said: “Because it's easier for you. You're more liberated.” Then she confessed that she had never enjoyed sex. “Daddy wasn't a very good partner,” she said, and he was the only one she'd had. I didn't know if she felt the need to confide because she was afraid of dying, or because she didn't want to go to bed. It wasn't too late, I said, even though it was clear to us both that it was.

10

It was pleasant sitting in Noga and Amir's kitchen. There was always a breeze coming in from the balcony and plants everywhere. On a Friday afternoon at the end of June the air was as sticky and humid as usual, but in their kitchen, for some reason, it was always pleasant. Amir walked around the apartment in shorts, bare chested and barefoot, holding a bunch of grapes and dropping them one by one into his mouth, throwing his head back and catching them in the air; Noga jerked her head at me as if to say look at that clown. When Amir came close to her, dangling the bunch of grapes between his fingers, she sprang to her feet and plucked one and pulled the elastic of his shorts open and threw the grape into them. Then she began running around the apartment shrieking and laughing and Amir made a face at me as if to say look at that baby; he chased her and suddenly it was quiet and I heard them kissing in the living room.

They invited me to stay for dinner; they were thawing frozen hamburgers, but I said I had plans and left. I got into the car, turned on the air conditioner, and began driving around the streets. The sun was already starting to set, too slowly, and was still blazing. The radio was playing quiet Hebrew songs. I had no plans.

I thought of stopping to call my father, to ask if he wanted to look for furniture. I knew he didn't want to furnish his apartment, that the two chairs I had lent him only served to emphasize the emptiness, which was the most powerful emotional statement he had ever made, more effective and sophisticated than his trembling. But I also knew that if I called to say I was free and offered to go bargain hunting, he would jump at the chance not to be alone on Friday night, even at the price of a few pieces of secondhand furniture.

But I didn't call. I drove aimlessly until I found myself on Nathan's street. I parked and got out of the car and walked around for a while. The stores were already closed, including the hardware store, whose locked shutter filled me with sudden longing for that winter morning, for the note beneath the windshield wiper—regards from a clown and a phone number, that was all—and especially for the moment when I could have chosen not to call.

A candy store was still open, and I bought a Popsicle. This must be the place where Nathan bought his newspapers. On Sundays I would find them scattered around his apartment, on the kitchen table or the bathroom floor, on the mattress and the carpet, a few pages blowing around the roof, the crossword puzzles always solved in a red marker, which seemed a little strange because he'd once said that he hated crossword puzzles.

I had climbed thirty steps before I realized what I was doing—I was going up to his apartment on a Friday afternoon. When I reached the roof and knocked softly on the tin door I was bathed in perspiration. Nathan opened the door. He was in his underwear and looked as if he'd just come out of the shower. He kept a tight grip on the edge of the door, which was boiling hot in this weather, as if he was trying not to open it but also not to shut it in my face, and said: “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I'd surprise you,” I said.

“You did,” he said.

“Are you in the middle of something?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” he said. “But I'm expecting someone.”

“Guests?” I asked.

“Sort of.”

“It's boiling hot,” I said.

“Yes,” he said and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The whitewashed floor was blazing too.

“It's a scorcher outside,” I said and noticed that I was still holding the Popsicle stick in my hand.

“You want something to drink?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “water. I'm dying of thirst.”

He opened the door and said: “Okay, come in for a while.”

The apartment looked different. It was tidy, the clothes were all put away, the dishes were washed and stacked on the rack, the fridge, I noticed when Nathan opened it to pour me a glass of water, was full of food: cheese and all kinds of yogurts. In a big plastic bowl on the top shelf there were peaches, grapes and apricots, and a mango. Nathan hated fruit.

I asked: “Is everything okay? You seem a little nervous.”

He said: “You shouldn't have come without calling.”

I sat down on the mattress and drank my water. Nathan leaned against the wall and, drumming his fingers, he said: “Someone's coming any minute.”

“A friend?” I asked.

“Sort of,” he said.

“Not a friend?”

“No,” he said. “But you shouldn't have come, Maya. You should have called first.”

Sigal lived on a kibbutz. Every Friday she'd leave her kibbutz in the north, spend three and a half hours on two buses, get off at the central bus station, buy flowers, and take another bus, her bag hanging from her shoulder, near the black ponytail and long earrings made of colored birds' feathers. She would get off at the stop next to the hardware store, cross the street, climb the seventy-five steps to the apartment on the roof, knock on the tin door and go inside, and stay till Saturday night.

They had spent the weekends together for five years. He said: “There's someone I've been seeing for a few years now.” I asked: “How many?” And he said: “Five.” And I asked: “What's her name?” And he said: “Sigal.” And I asked: “Where's she from?” And he mentioned the name of her kibbutz and explained where it was, sketching a map of the country in the air. I asked what she looked like, and he said: “What difference does it make?” And I said that it made a difference and he said: “She's about your height, she's got long black hair in a ponytail.”

I invented the earrings, but not the flowers. When I came on Sundays and saw the flowers standing wilted in a jar on the marble counter, I had been touched, as I was touched by the down on Nathan's back. I liked the fact that he was a man who bought himself flowers.

I asked: “So the flowers are from her?” And he said: “Yes,” and I asked: “And is she the one who does the puzzles?” And he smiled and said: “Yes. Sigal's addicted to crossword puzzles.”

I asked whether he loved Sigal and he said he didn't know. They had been together for such a long time, he supposed he loved her. He stood in his underwear leaning against the wall, drumming on it with his fingers, and glancing at the clock.

I asked if he loved me, and he shook his head. I asked why he and Sigal didn't get married, and he said it wasn't that kind of relationship. “So what kind of relationship is it?” I asked. “Different. There's no obligation,” he said. “That's why it was okay for me to be with you, too. I didn't feel I was cheating on her, or anything.” “And me?” I asked. “Did you feel you were cheating on me?” “I don't know,” he said. “Does Sigal know about me?” “No,” he said, “I didn't tell her.” “So you're cheating on Sigal,” I said.

“I didn't lie to you, Maya. I never lied.”

“No,” I said, “you didn't lie. You just didn't tell me that on the weekends you were fucking somebody else.”

“Don't talk like that,” he said. “I understand that you're angry, you have a right to be angry. But that's not the way it is.”

“Sigal's late,” I said. “Shouldn't we be worried? She's late.”

“I guess you don't want to see me anymore,” he said.

“I didn't say that.”

“So you want to?”

“We don't really have time to talk about it now. We're expecting company.”

“Right,” he said, “but I'm willing to go on as before. I like you, Maya. I like being with you. I have no problem with going on as before.”

“Sure you haven't,” I said. “Enjoying the best of both worlds.”

“It's not about enjoyment. Things just worked out that way.”

“No,” I said. “It's not about enjoying yourself. You're really suffering. Anyone can see how much you're suffering. Sunday through Thursday you screw the city girl and on the weekends you screw the country girl.”

“Don't talk about her like that. You have no right. You don't even know her.”

“But she's your girlfriend. So maybe it's time I got to know her.”

“She's not exactly my girlfriend.”

“Like I'm not exactly your girlfriend?”

“Yes,” he said. “Exactly.”

“So who's the other woman: me or her?”

“I don't know, Maya. Why does it matter?”

“It matters. Who? Me or her?”

“Neither.”

“Neither?”

“Both of you.”

“Both of us are the other woman?”

“No.”

“So who?”

There was a loud, confident knock at the door, the knock of someone who had come a long way and knew she was expected. Nathan detached himself from the wall and gave me a frightened look. I heard the door open and Sigal say: “Hi! What a scorcher!” and then the sound of a little kiss. She came into the room, with her backpack and her ponytail, shorts and a tank top. There were no earrings and she wasn't wearing a bra. Her breasts were as small as an adolescent's. She put the flowers on the bookcase. She said a hesitant “hello” and looked at Nathan, who said: “This is Maya, she's a friend of mine.”

Sigal dropped her backpack and said: “I'm Sigal,” and I said: “Nice to meet you, finally. Nathan's told me so much about you.” And she said: “Really? What did you say?” and she hugged him and tickled him and he wriggled out of her embrace and asked us both if we would like some fruit. He said there was some washed fruit in the refrigerator.

11

I had promised to make a salad to take to lunch at my mother's on Saturday, but I forgot and arrived empty-handed. My mother said there was plenty to eat anyway, and at the last moment she had invited Dad too. “We're not enemies,” she said.

My father arrived, sweating, too warmly dressed, holding a bottle of rosé wine which he handed to my mother. She thanked him and asked if she should put the wine in the fridge. I told her to put it in the freezer, and she told my father that everything would be ready in a minute—he should sit down and relax. He sat down hesitantly on the sofa, testing it for comfort, as if he were sitting on it for the first time.

“I didn't sleep all night.” He sighed. “The mosquitoes were killing me.” He leaned back, took a handkerchief out of his pants pocket, and wiped his forehead. “So, what's your mother cooking?” he asked. I said I thought she was making her pot roast with potatoes, with cold soup for starters. “Yogurt soup?” he asked hopefully. “Yes,” I said, and he said, “Good! Perfect for this weather.” I was supposed to bring a salad, I told him, but I'd forgotten, and he said never mind, there was plenty to eat.

I hadn't slept all night either. After leaving Nathan and his guest I drove around aimlessly till it got dark. I considered calling Noga and Amir and asking if their dinner invitation was still on. I knew they'd be happy to feed me and discuss my situation, but I didn't know what my situation was. Sigal was much prettier than I, and she looked younger too, and she radiated the serenity of someone who didn't know she was being cheated on. I did know, and even though I hated her I began to feel sorry for her too, because she didn't. She came in all innocence from the kibbutz, three and a half hours on the bus, with those flowers she bought at the bus station, and she knew nothing. I couldn't stop thinking about her breasts, which looked as if they'd stopped developing at a certain stage and stayed small and perky. I parked outside my house and sat in the car for a few minutes longer with the air conditioner on. I didn't hate her and I didn't feel sorry for her. I was jealous of her. Not only for her breasts, but also for not knowing.

I could have not known too. I could have stayed with Noga and Amir for dinner, helped them cut up the salad, eaten a hamburger, and then watched TV, gone home, and still not have known. I could have taken my father shopping for furniture and one more weekend would have gone by not knowing, like the one before and the one that would follow.

I sat on the sofa and watched my mother setting the table. I looked at my father standing up and sitting down, standing up and offering to help, my mother declining his offer as he sat down and stood up again, not knowing what to do with himself, taking out his tattered handkerchief and wiping the sweat off his face.

The night before, after I got home, I stared at the TV for a few hours, switching from channel to channel, all the time the thought flickering in my mind that I'd promised to make a salad. I said to myself: You're too practical, the salad isn't important now, but at a certain moment I jumped up from the sofa and ran to the kitchen to see if I had salad stuff. Of course I did—I'd bought it that morning at the vegetable stand. The visit to the vegetable stand seemed like an event from the distant past, and suddenly my previous situation of not knowing seemed to me even better than the situation I wanted to be in with Nathan in the future because up until a few hours ago the not-knowing had at least been mine. Nathan had never been.