Open Heart (42 page)

Was she blushing too? It was hard to tell, for I found her busy making rapid repairs to her makeup. She certainly looked
embarrassed
, although not too embarrassed to flash me her famous smile, which I now realized how much I loved. The time that had passed since our last meeting in this room made things harder rather than easier. But she was so much older than me that even if I had wanted to, I could not have saved her from the duty of rescuing us both from our embarrassment and guiding us into an exchange that would consist of more than empty evasions. I saw her hesitate for a moment, uncertain whether to stand up and
come toward me, but in the end she remained seated, perhaps to hide the elegant suit which I wanted to believe she had worn for me, or at least for our meeting. Without waiting any longer, I held out the invitation, and she took it with an exclamation of delight that might have seemed exaggerated or even false if I hadn’t known in my heart that it was sincere. She really did hope that my marriage would free her from me. She raised the
invitation
to her eyes to read it slowly and thoroughly, first in the Hebrew version and then, according to the gentle movement of her eyes, in English too. I examined her carefully. She seemed to have dyed her hair recently, for it was much redder. There were two little pimples on her neck, whose creases seemed to have deepened in the weeks since I had kissed it, and her face was a little swollen; perhaps she had her period, or maybe she was taking hormones. Again I confirmed what I already knew: no one would call her a beautiful woman, but nevertheless I was
trembling
with desire. She couldn’t put the invitation down; she read it again and again, and asked me exactly where the hotel was in Jerusalem, and after I had described the place to her, she wanted to know why we hadn’t looked for a more attractive place,
outside
town. I explained Michaela’s objections to a big wedding and said that there was no point in holding a small-scale affair out of the city. This explanation appeared to satisfy her, and she smiled and asked, “Is this a genuine invitation or only a
diplomatic
one?”

“Absolutely genuine,” I said quickly. “In that case,” she said, “we’ll try to come. Why not? I’m really happy for you, and for Michaela too, who still seems a little mysterious to me even though she’s been to our house a number of times, maybe
because
of those astonishing eyes of hers. But Einati always speaks well of her. And she deserves a good husband like you—it was thanks to her that we got to Einati in time.”

“And thanks to her that I met you too,” I quickly added. She looked pleased, smiled, and held out her plump, freckled hand in a friendly gesture. I bent over and kissed her fingers, and to my surprise she didn’t pull her hand away but only laughed and said in a whisper, “Be careful, Lazar’s on his way to fetch me.” But the light touch of my lips on her fingers aroused me so much that I had to press my knees together to suppress the silent stirring of my erection, which may have also been provoked by the
agreeable
thought that she couldn’t trust herself alone with me, and that was why she had asked Lazar to pick her up at the office this evening. “According to our contract,” I said with a smile, “I have to ask your permission to bring another tenant into the
apartment
.”

“Really?” She laughed in surprise, as if she herself hadn’t drawn up the contract. “You have to ask my permission? Then I give it.” And her face suddenly grew grave, and she added, “But when you have a baby, we’ll have to see what my mother says.” And for a moment it seemed to me that she expected me to ask her about her mother’s health, so that she could boast about the vivacious old lady, but I had no intention of wasting time on such questions or on empty wisecracks about babies—I knew that Lazar was on his way, and I didn’t want him to come in before I had said a single real word about the pain of my
continuing
longing for her. As for the baby, I had no way of
knowing
that the hypothetical baby she was talking about was already real in Michaela’s womb.

I stood up abruptly and went toward her, and in a weak,
imploring
whisper I asked, “But what about you?” She moved back in her black executive chair and looked up at me with a panic in her eyes that I had never seen there before. Before she could reply, I added in despair, “Because in spite of all this”—I waved at the invitation lying open on the desk—“I think about you all the time.” Then the panic vanished from her eyes and the smile returned. “Never mind,” she said soothingly. “I think about you too. Never mind. Nobody dies from thinking.”

“Are you sure?” I said in confusion, flooded with happiness, and I bent down to kiss her, but she flung out her hand and gripped me by the shoulder to stop me. “Have you told anyone about me?” she asked anxiously. “No, nobody,” I replied. “Then please don’t, if you want to go on seeing me.”

“But why on earth should I tell anybody? Who would I tell?” I said indignantly. And then the hand holding me at bay fell from my shoulder and I could bring my face close to hers and smell her perfume, and kiss her quickly too, and all this was more than I had hoped for from this meeting, even though she protested,
rising
quickly from her seat on her high heels and pushing me firmly away. “Do you want to wait here for Lazar?” she asked me now in a mischievous tone. “Because he wants to see you.”

“Does he know that I’m here?” I asked, extremely taken aback. “Of course,” she replied in a matter-of-fact voice. I felt too happy and excited to meet Lazar then, and I said good-bye quickly and rushed out into the street, which was already
growing
dark.

But then I stopped, because I wanted to make sure that he would come, that he wouldn’t forget she mustn’t be left alone in this deserted place rapidly being absorbed into the darkness of the spring evening. I hid behind the trunk of an old tree covered with white blossoms until I saw his car, which I recognized from a distance by its headlights, entering the little side street and driving slowly, looking for a parking space. In the end he gave up the attempt and parked on the sidewalk, and instead of the door bursting open immediately, as usual, a few seconds passed before he got out, with an unfamiliar heaviness that didn’t suit him, and suddenly I felt a surge of intense curiosity, and I asked myself, What does he want of me? All of a sudden my fear of meeting him fell away, as if the existence of Michaela by my side gave me a new strength and status to face him.

Is it permissible to begin to reflect on death? For then we will have to seek the secret door through which it can be smuggled into the soul, so the soul can grow accustomed to its silent
presence
, as if it were a little statuette brought into the house as an innocent gift or an ill-considered acquisition and irresponsibly set down in an intimate place, let’s say on a little bedside table, with a lace doily underneath it, and all this without anyone imagining that what appears to be an innocent inanimate object might
suddenly
rouse itself one night, kick away the lace doily, and with a swift, stealthy movement choke the astonished soul to death.

Otherwise, how will death be accomplished, with a bevy of doctors determined, in spite of disagreements between them, to fight against it with the most sophisticated instruments and the most efficient drugs at their command? So we will have to find our forgotten old relation again, that ancient retired fellow on leave from a lunatic asylum, the skinny black-clad mystery with the wire glasses on his nose, and prevail on him to sit down beside us and finally drink his tea, which has long since grown cold, and expound to us his fantastic views on the earth, which is eternally still and in which every hour is final and sufficient unto itself. And thus to lull our terror of the death bundled into the inside pocket of his coat in the form of a little bronze statuette.

But at the last minute, although I was only a few steps away from him, I gave up the idea, because I was afraid he would smell his wife’s perfume, which I firmly believed was still clinging to me; and also because I knew that he would ask me to go inside with him, in order not to leave her alone there, and I didn’t want to
confuse her by suddenly reappearing at his side. If he had
something
to say to me, he would find an opportunity to say it at my wedding, for now I was sure that they would both be there, a thought which filled me with joy. For the first time, though, I felt a kind of jealousy of him, as I returned to my hiding place behind the old Tel Aviv tree and watched them opening the doors of the car and getting into it as they talked with that deep and
marvelous
intimacy they shared. Even total strangers like my mother noticed their connection and wondered at it when they appeared, because of Lazar’s restless efficiency, among the first guests at the wedding, and stood close together, somewhat embarrassed, in the hall of the old Jerusalem hotel, which was decorated with fresh flowers that Michaela had chosen in order to cover up the faintly musty smell. They came without Einat, who arrived later by herself with a fancily wrapped present. The next day, when we opened the gifts and it turned out to be a little clay statuette with many outstretched arms, Michaela was overcome with
excitement
, and she cried out and covered her face with her hands. When she took her hands away I saw that her cheeks were
burning
and her eyes were damp. It appeared that a holy man in Calcutta had sold them both identical statuettes, which they had greatly admired. Since Einat knew that Michaela had lost hers on the way back to Israel, she had decided to make her a present of her own statuette. In contrast, the gift brought by Einat’s
parents
—a turquoise bedspread, which made my heart skip a beat—was not at all to Michaela’s liking, and she went back to the store and exchanged it for a big cushion. I kept quiet, not
wishing
to give her any grounds for suspicion.

In general, Michaela was inclined to exchange most of the presents we received, as if by doing so she could wipe out the memory of the wedding, which went on oppressing her for a long time to come, because in the end it turned out to be a very crowded affair, perhaps precisely because of my parents’ sincere efforts to hold a medium-sized wedding in a medium-sized hall. Many of the guests my father had listed categorically as guests who wouldn’t come, did come, among them, to our amazement, a number of relations from England, who saw my wedding as a good reason to visit Israel. My mother’s sister and my father’s sister had naturally been invited to stay with my parents,
together
with their husbands, and my parents gave them their
bedroom 
and of course my old room, which made it impossible for Michaela and me to get ready for the wedding there. So that we would not arrive at the ceremony directly from Tel Aviv, sweaty and crumpled, Eyal, who saw himself correctly as the catalyst for this marriage, offered us the use of his mother’s house before and after the wedding. His mother was delighted to have us, and after serving a rich and delicious lunch, she told us to go and lie down in Eyal’s old room, where I adamantly refused to make love to Michaela, who I had already noticed was always particularly turned on in strange places. On no account was I prepared to risk embarrassing Eyal’s mother, who did not go to her room to rest but sat racking her brains for a way to make Michaela’s simple white dress more festive. In the end she succeeded in
persuading
Michaela to take two heavy antique silver brooches which she produced from the depths of her jewel box, and with the addition of some artificial flowers the dress became, if not more elegant, at least more original. But in spite of all these efforts to improve Michaela’s dress, which she also ironed twice, Eyal’s mother was secretly planning to avoid the wedding
reception
. When Michaela’s parents arrived, as planned, to take us to the hairdresser’s, and from there to the wedding, she stopped me from going with them on the grounds that it was not right for the bride and groom to arrive at the wedding together, and suggested that I remain with her and go later with Eyal and Hadas. This sounded reasonable to me, especially since I had no desire to get involved in possible tensions between Michaela’s divorced
parents
, about whose quarrels I had already heard sensational
stories
. I therefore stayed to wait for Eyal, and in the meantime joined his mother for a drink of bitter-tasting herb tea, which glowed with a dull red color in the Jerusalem summer light, the sweet light of the long vacations of my childhood. She was still wrapped in a light bathrobe, her hair untidy and her face not made up. When I asked her tactfully when she was going to get dressed, she realized that I understood her intentions, and with a strange expression on her face, both sad and imploring, she said, “Let me off, Benjy, I beg you. I haven’t been feeling well for several days now, and I’m afraid I’ll feel suffocated there. I know that hotel—there are a lot of stairs to climb there too. Let me off, Benjy, and don’t be offended. You know how much I love you.” I began to stammer something about my parents being
disappointed
,
but she dismissed that. “They won’t miss me. And if they do”—she smiled slyly to herself—“tell them that you gave me an exemption on medical grounds. It’s wonderful that you and Eyal are both real doctors now. I remember the two of you as if it were yesterday, such sweet little boys, playing doctor and turning the whole house into a hospital, and making us lie down in bed and close our eyes and groan so that you could examine us and cure us with medicines and bandages.” Suddenly she laughed happily, and a wave of warmth engulfed me at the dim but real memory of the two tiny boys bending over the big, beautiful woman, dusting her feet with white powder and wrapping them in bandages. The memory was so deep inside me that I had to close my eyes to bring it up. Then I looked silently at the very heavy woman drawing the edges of her bathrobe together with a slightly mechanical movement. She interpreted my silence as
consent
, tilted her head to listen, and said happily, “They’re here,” and as she went to open the door, she suddenly said, “Your Michaela is a very independent girl. Do you really love her?”

“I think so.” I smiled, surprised at the question. “Then love, Benjy, and don’t think too much,” and she opened the door
before
Eyal had time to turn his key. He and Hadas were dressed up, their hair still wet from the shower. After they had embraced me and examined me from all sides, they both insisted that I put on a tie, at least in honor of my English guests. At first I refused, but finally I gave in, and together the four of us went to his mother’s bedroom to choose a tie from the collection left by his father.

Despite the overcrowding in the hall, my wedding was a
good-humored
affair. The refreshments also, although I didn’t taste them myself, must have been excellent, because long after the wedding my parents reported proudly on the compliments they were still receiving from the guests. The guests on Michaela’s side, while few in number, were pleasant and polite and mixed well with the many guests invited by my family. Our British
relations
too turned out to be not only polite but also good-humored and cheerful, and their Scottish accents added a little amusement to their presence among us. Dr. Nakash, who arrived early with his wife—who was also very thin and dark, although a little less ugly than her husband—quickly made use of his oriental good manners and fluent English to make friends with our guests from
abroad, and soon introduced Lazar and his wife to his new
acquaintances
. Although I was very pleased to see the Lazars, I had intended to ignore them until after the ceremony, which was
delayed
because Michaela was late, but in the constant stream of people pressing forward to congratulate me, I suddenly found myself standing in front of them. Since going to bed with his wife I had not been face to face with Lazar, and despite the friends and relations surrounding me and protecting me, I trembled
violently
when he threw his arms around my neck. Our trip to
India
, and especially our sleeping together in the train
compartment
on the way to Varanasi, had evidently entitled him in his own eyes to an intimacy which included the right to bestow
sudden
embraces without any warning. “Thank you for coming, thank you for coming,” I stammered with my head bowed, not daring to look directly at the woman, whose smile was evidently capable of overcoming any embarrassment or shame. Lazar handed me their gift and immediately told me in his practical way how to exchange it. While I was thanking him and trying to guess what was inside the big soft parcel, my mother’s sister from Glasgow, who had undertaken to collect the presents, hurried up to relieve me of it. In order to overcome my embarrassment, I introduced her to the Lazars, and she, who took an intense
interest
in every detail of my life, not only identified them instantly, but announced heartily, “Oh, we’ve all been dying to meet you—this wedding is partly your doing, isn’t it?”

“Our doing?” repeated Lazar in bewilderment, tilting his head to grasp the meaning hidden behind her thick Scottish accent. But my aunt was not in the least put out. She hugged me
affectionately
and continued. “He met Michaela at your place, didn’t he? And that made up for the position he lost at the hospital because of the trip to India.” Extremely agitated, I tried to
correct
her, but Lazar gripped my hand to calm me and bent over my big-mouthed, tactless aunt again and asked her to repeat her words, which I could see had offended him and gotten me into trouble. “He hasn’t lost his position yet,” he said in his simple English, but with the confident smile of a director whose power lay in knowing things that other people didn’t know—including his wife, who turned to him now with a worried expression. “What do you mean?” I asked him in English, to avoid offending my aunt, who didn’t know Hebrew. “First get married,”
continued
Lazar in English, pointing to the very serious young rabbi who had just entered the hall, “and afterward you’ll get another present.” Then turned to my aunt, who was looking at him
admiringly
. “Don’t worry, we’re taking care of him.”