Open Heart (54 page)

Very
close,
yet
far
away,
the
brown
statuette
stands
on
the
little
table
next
to
our
bed.
Can
we
address
our
complaints
to
it?
What
is
it
but
a
bit
of
inorganic
matter
torn
from
nature,
lacking
any
will
of
its
own,
indifferent
to
its
painstakingly
sculpted
hu
man
appearance?
For
the
little
clay
hand
flung
out
toward
us
is
not
only
incapable
of
touching
us,
it
can’t
even
let
itself
drop
back
into
place.
And
despite
the
faint,
mysterious,
Gioconda
smile
on
its
face,
its
threat
is
only
the
threat
that
we
project
on
ourselves,
now
in
the
depths
of
the
night,
as
we
toss
and
turn
between
sheets
that
scratch
our
limbs.
Why
should
the
close
and
intimate
statuette
of
death
be
any
different
from
the
glasses,
for
instance,
or
the
wallet,
or
even
the
keys
lying
beside
it?
Neverthe
less
,
in
the
thick
of
the
night
our
hand
gropes
only
for
it,
to
take
hold
of
the
slender
neck
and
throttle
it
in
the
darkness,
for
in
the
light
of
day
we
might
be
stopped
by
the
expression
on
the
painted
face
and
the
frozen
aesthetic
movement
of
the
delicate,
shapely
limbs,
which
deceive
us
into
thinking
that
it
possesses
life
and
a
soul.
And
then,
in
the
darkness,
we
hear
the
sound
of
the
fall,
for
the
groping
hand
has
missed
its
mark,
and
as
we
get
out
of
bed
and
crouch
down
to
grope
for
the
broken
pieces,
a
sudden
but
absolute
pain
jolts
our
chest
and
stuns
our
heart,
to
tell
us
that
death
has
indeed
come
to
us
and
not
to
the
pieces
of
clay
strewn
over
the
floor.

Now that Lazar’s “space flight” had begun, guided by the three agile, swarthy technicians in charge of the state-of-the-art
cardiopulmonary
bypass machine—which was connected to many large and small plastic tubes coiling over the operating table and
sucking
the blood out of the square steel frame of the retractor as it slowly opened the heart like a book, and then streaming it back again—Nakash could leave his post at Lazar’s head and go out of the room to pour himself a cup of strong coffee from his private thermos. Although I was ready for a cup of the excellent coffee his wife made for him every morning myself, I couldn’t tear myself away, even though Dr. Yarden’s supervision of the patient’s anesthesia was more than adequate, especially since the respirator was still. Lazar’s heart as well as his lungs were
paralyzed
, and the rate of cleansed and oxygenated blood being pumped into the body and the brain was being determined by the instructions of the surgeon, who kept throwing changing orders over his shoulder. The three technicians would repeat them after him, like a crew of gunners making sure that no fatal
misunderstanding
should occur. The blood in the tubes flowed freely, with no danger of clotting, thanks to a continuous drip of Heparin, which neutralized the natural clotting factors and ensured an
unimpeded
flow between the turning wheels. The head of the
technical
crew enjoyed explaining to me how he pampered the
bloodstream
entrusted to his charge, warming and cooling it as required, as if it were an independent, sentient being that had to be soothed by an alkaline solution to neutralize the strong acidity produced by the trauma of being suddenly removed from the warmth of the human body and placed into the movement of the alien machine. When Dr. Yarden saw that Nakash wasn’t coming back immediately, he took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and beckoned me to approach the silent anesthesia machine, which didn’t really need an anesthetist but only a pair of eyes to watch the controlled drip of fentanyl and curare, which
maintained
the relaxation of the muscles and the analgesia. Levine too left the room, and next to the operating table there were now only three doctors, Dr. Adler, Professor Hishin, and myself. I took two footstools and placed one on top of the other so I could raise myself above the net protecting Lazar’s head, to give myself a better vantage point from which to look down directly at the implanting of the bypasses. This was now being purposefully performed by Dr. Adler, with the assistance of Hishin, who played the double role of pupil to his friend, addressing various technical questions to him, and teacher to me, generously passing on tidbits of clinical diagnosis or anatomical observations to
satisfy
the inquisitive gleam in my eye and to ensure that my
presence
, the reason for which was still not clear to him, would at least seem justified.

That night as I lay in bed, before burying my face in the pillow and trying to fall asleep, I reviewed the six hours of the operation in my mind’s eye—Lazar’s naked genitals, his exposed heart
reposing
within the walls of his open chest, the blood coursing through the dozens of crisscrossing tubes, the silent bronze wheels of the cardiopulmonary bypass machine—and everything that had happened there seemed to me more harmonious, calm, and sure than I could possibly have imagined. Including the rather dramatic moment when the blood was returned to the body and Lazar’s heart refused to return to its sinus rhythm, a refusal that led Professor Adler to pull two electrodes from the defibrillator, place them on either side of the recalcitrant heart, and give it a few short electric shocks to start it and return it to the right rhythm, which appeared on the screen of the big
monitor
. Hishin and Levine had been right, I thought, lying in the dark in my bed, to bring in the Jerusalem master, who had worked with awe-inspiring competence and quiet confidence, and who had also dismissed with a reassuring gesture the fears I had dared to express when the operation was over. Although he was so tired after standing on his feet for six hours that he asked the nurse to help him divest himself of all the stuff encumbering him—the mask, the gloves, the headlamp, the sterile cap and gown—he seemed interested and willing to listen, with the
patience
of a wise physician who is never bored by anything to do with the human body. But Levine, who was still hostile toward me, broke in rudely to point out a mistake in one of the
assumptions
I had made, and Professor Adler, who had no desire to get involved in an argument, cut the discussion short, murmuring something reassuring about Lazar’s heart, and went out with Hishin to inform Lazar’s wife and the other members of the
family
of the success of the operation.

I did not join the convoy taking the sleeping and bandaged Lazar up to the intensive care unit that had been prepared for him in Hishin’s department. Hishin had also turned his own office into
an improvised bedroom for Lazar’s wife, who intended to spend the night there. Now that the operation was over and I had seen what I wanted to see and felt what I wanted to feel, all I wanted was to be by myself. But since it was already past one o’clock in the morning and the rates for overseas calls were particularly low, I decided to phone Michaela to make the final arrangements for Shivi’s return in two days, and at the same time to tell her how smoothly Lazar’s surgery had gone and how admirably the Jerusalem wizard had performed and how I did not regret my early return from London, even though I hadn’t been needed there at all. But in spite of the lateness of the hour—eleven o’clock in London—Michaela was not at home. I found it strange and also annoying that she was prepared to drag the baby around London in buses at this hour of the night.

We had sold our little car, after strenuous efforts, to one of the nurses at the hospital, in order to pay for our plane tickets. Mine and Michaela’s, that is, for Shivi flew home free, on the ticket of one of the two sweet young English girls who amused themselves with her on the way. When I met them at the airport, it turned out that Michaela had promised them, without my knowledge, that they could stay in our apartment for their first few days in Israel. I was furious. Only a few days before I had finally
succeeded
in getting rid of Amnon and all his possessions, and now I had two new guests on my hands—an intolerable nuisance when I was still in a state of inner turmoil stemming from Lazar’s
operation
. Although the operation had taken place forty-eight hours earlier, I had not yet visited Lazar in the special room set aside in Hishin’s department, for fear that Dori, or anyone else, would notice the storm raging inside me.

However, I had no option but to keep Michaela’s promise, and I sullenly gave the two English girls the key, wrote the address down clearly in both languages, and warned them to be careful in the apartment, since it did not belong to me. I also asked them not to stay longer than one or two days. “You won’t want to hang around in Tel Aviv anyway,” I warned them gloomily. “It’s a filthy place. Go down to the desert, take a bus to Eilat—that’s where you’ll find the real pleasures Israel has to offer.” I strapped Shiva into the special seat I had bought and installed in my
father
’s car, and with her sitting next to me but facing in the
opposite
direction, I drove to Jerusalem to leave her for seven days
with my mother, who had taken a week’s vacation as an advance on her next year’s leave, since she had already used up all her vacation on the trip to England. On the way to Jerusalem Shivi gave me an inquiring look, as if trying to remember who I was. She was still too young to remember me clearly after an absence of two weeks, but she was old enough not to have forgotten me entirely. And thus, on the border between memory and
forgetfulness
, she stared at me suspiciously, but so sweetly that I couldn’t resist bending down to kiss her whenever traffic permitted, while keeping up a stream of chatter, telling her about my plans for the future and sometimes even bursting into forgotten old songs, to amuse her and also to raise my own spirits. Ever since Lazar’s surgery I had been confused, as if the bypasses planted in his heart had somehow wound their way into mine as well, and sometimes I would even feel a sharp pain in my chest, as if it too had been split open with an electric saw.