The Lover (13 page)

One day at supper he said suddenly, right out of the blue, “I’m going to shave this beard off tomorrow, I’m sick of it.” He looked at Mommy.

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s up to you.”

But I leaped in at once. “Don’t you dare, it suits you so well.”

He smiled. “What are you shouting about?”

“Don’t shave it off,” I pleaded with him.

“What are you getting so excited about? What does it matter …”

But how could I explain to him why his beard was important to me, how could I tell him that without it he’d be feeble, he’d lose all his vigour, he’d just be a simple mechanic, a dull garage boss.

I mumbled something about his nose that would look too long, about his ears that would stick out, about his short neck, I ran and fetched a piece of paper and drew a picture to show him how ugly he’d look without a beard.

They were both amused, smiling at me, not understanding my
agitation. But how could I explain that for me the beard was a symbol, a flag …

“Eat your supper.”

“Do you promise then?”

“I shall shave it off and grow another.”

“You won’t grow another one, I know.”

I couldn’t eat any more. They gathered up the plates, silent again. Why didn’t Mommy say something? Daddy sat down in front of the TV with his paper. Was it really that important? Mommy was washing the dishes but I paced around uneasily. After a while I went to him.

“Well, what have you decided?”

“What?”

“About your beard.”

“My beard? What about my beard?”

He’d forgotten, or maybe he was just teasing me and he never intended to shave it off.

“You must be mad. Haven’t you got anything else to worry about?”

“Then tell me.”

“You’ve never known me without a beard.”

“I don’t want to either.”

He laughed.

“So what have you decided?”

“Well, let’s wait and see.”

What was my beard? A flag or a symbol, a way of telling the world that it can’t classify me that simply, or pigeonhole me, that I too have dreams, a different horizon, eccentricities, mysteries perhaps. Anyway, a complex man.

And in recent years the beard has grown long and wild.

There were certain distinct advantages in it. In the garage it helped me to keep my distance. People would hesitate a little before approaching me. Also, I was told, the beard made a great impression on the Arabs, they were very respectful towards it.

At first people think I’m religious –

And in fact that’s how it started. After the boy was killed an
unknown relative of mine appeared at our house, not a young man, he came to supervise the religious formalities. He insisted that we sit
shiva
at home for a week, not leaving the house, I was forbidden to shave for thirty days, and every day for a year he arrived at the house at dawn to take me to the synagogue to pray. Asya thought he was crazy, couldn’t understand why I let myself be swayed by him, but the death of a child puts you into such a state of depression, bewilderment and fear that it’s comforting to have someone around who knows exactly what to do. In a month the beard grew very quickly, it already had a shape to it, and as I had to get up early in the morning for the journey to the synagogue, it was a relief not having to shave.

Then Dafi was born and she was fascinated by the beard, all the time running her little hand through it. Perhaps one of the first words she learned to say as a baby was “beard”.

At work I was careful not to put my head inside a running engine in case my beard got caught in one of the moving parts.

They were forced to take bits of the engine out to show them to me.

Sometimes I thought, I’ve had enough, time to shave it off, but at the last moment I’d think better of it, Dafi used to plead with me not to shave it off. Sometimes I went to the barber shop to have it cut and trimmed, but before long it was unruly again. White hairs began to appear in it, the golden colour faded and turned brown, there were several different shades in it. The barber once offered to dye it but of course I refused. I didn’t touch it a lot, I wasn’t in the habit of smoothing it down unnecessarily as bearded men tend to do, but sometimes I used to catch myself chewing it between my teeth.

Sometimes I even forgot about it, and at night in bed, when I folded the newspaper and tried to sleep, I’d catch sight of my face in the big mirror and think for a moment that a stranger was staring at me.

In the silence of the room, in the afternoon, the three of us each reading a different chapter of the history book, to brief the other two on the contents, preparing for the exam tomorrow, and
Osnat’s kid brother lying on the floor in a T-shirt and
underpants
, quietly spreading cake on the carpet. Through the wall I hear a sort of moan, whispers and the creaking of a bed. “My love, oh, my love, oh my darling.” So clear. My heart stops, I feel like I’m going to faint. And Osnat looks up from her book, blushing bright red, starts shuffling papers to cover the sound of the whispering, terribly embarrassed, cuffing the child, who starts to howl, and jumping up from her seat, not daring to look at me or at Tali, who’s still staring at her book, reading or daydreaming, there’s no way of telling if she too has heard the sound of Osnat’s parents making afternoon love in the next room. It seems this is their favourite time, this isn’t the first occasion, apparently it was in the afternoon one day many years ago that Osnat was conceived.

And now I can’t help it, I just have to smile, Osnat looks at me angrily and then, slowly, she begins to smile too. What’s she got to be embarrassed about anyway?

Because she sure has really nice parents. A cheerful, noisy loud-mouthed mom, a larger version of Osnat, tall and thin with glasses, always sitting down to gossip with us in her American accent, helping us with our English homework, she knows everything that goes on in the school and the names of all the children in the class. They’ve got a lovely house with a little garden, inside it’s always chaotic, but it’s a nice place to be, they always invite Tali and me to stay for supper. They’re used to children. Besides Osnat there’s an older brother in the army, a younger sister and the little boy, who was born a year and a half ago, causing a lot of excitement in the class because we were all invited to the circumcision. Perhaps Osnat’s the only one who isn’t charmed by him, though he’s a sweet kid, awfully fat, with a round tummy and still no hair, reminds you of Osnat’s dad, who looks a lot older than her mom, he’s a professor at the Technion, plump and bald but full of life, madly in love with his ugly wife. He comes home from the Technion in the afternoon, opens the door and heads straight for the kitchen, kissing his wife quite shamelessly, in front of us, they stand there hugging for so long you’d think they hadn’t seen each other for ten years. Then he bursts into Osnat’s room, starts cracking jokes and taking an interest in her work, he’s really sweet.

And after a while her mom comes in, bringing in the baby and a plate of cookies, our reward for looking after him while they go to “rest”. And Osnat starts to protest, we’ve got our homework to do and an exam to prepare for, then her mom winks at us and says “Dafi and Tali will look after him then, O.K.?” And she hurries away to their bedroom on the other side of the wall. They don’t sleep, we hear them whispering, laughing, the deep voice of Osnat’s dad – “Oh, oh, oh” – and then silence, and suddenly it hits me, like a sharp stab in the heart, I hear her moaning softly “Oh, my love, my darling …”

And Osnat hits the baby and her mom calls out “Osnat, what’s the matter with Gidi? Let us have a little peace.” I pick the baby up, trying to calm him, kissing him, he claws at my face with his grubby hands, pulling my hair, yelling triumphantly “Tafi, Tafi.”

After a while they finish resting and they go to take a shower. Her mom comes in to fetch the baby wearing a long flowery dressing gown, smelling nice and with her hair wet, and her dad comes in too, in short trousers and a vest, carrying a big tray loaded with different flavours of ice cream. And they’re both relaxed and happy, smiling brightly, sitting with us and licking the ice cream, wanting us to share in their happiness, playing with the baby, kissing him hard, with what’s left of their passion. And Osnat shows him her maths homework and he solves a problem or two for us, making us laugh with his funny explanations.

They’ve just been making love, I think to myself, watching them from the side, unable to forget that deep powerful groan, something comes over me, a sort of sweet pain, I don’t know why, How could she call this fat little man “my love, my love, my darling”?

Why should I care anyway –

“Are you staying for supper?” says Osnat’s mom. Tali’s always eager to stay, but I jump up from my seat. “I can’t stay, must go home, they’re waiting for me.” It’s a lie, I pick up my books and run home, Of course nobody’s waiting for me. Mommy’s not at home. Daddy’s sitting in a chair in his working clothes, reading the paper. When do they make love? When does he get kissed? Who says to him “my darling”?

I go into the living room, look at him. A heavy, serious man,
leafing through a newspaper wearily, without interest, I go to him, kiss him lightly on the cheek, feeling the thickness of his big beard. He’s surprised, he smiles, touches my head lightly.

“Has something happened?”

But why not describe her detail by detail, clearly, precisely, why do I hesitate to consider everything? But what do I really want, I’m changing too, it’s impossible to preserve eternal youth, nor is that what you’re looking for. In the garage the workers stick pictures of nude girls on the walls. I say nothing, it’s not my business and if it helps them to work, fine. But Erlich’s annoyed by it, he interferes and imposes his own censorship, declares what’s permitted and what isn’t, going and taking down a picture that he thinks is too daring, protesting in his angry, pedantic voice, “Please, nothing tasteless, nothing pornographic, only what’s aesthetic,” and the workers laugh, sneer at him, start to argue, try to snatch the picture out of his hand, a gale of laughter sweeps the garage, work stops, the boys stand and stare,
open-mouthed
. I go to see what all the fuss is about, not interfering of course, the workers smile at me and gradually they drift back to their work. I look at the pictures, the smooth young bodies, endless variations on the same theme. There are some pictures that have been hanging here for perhaps ten or fifteen years, girls who have changed in the meantime into dull, middle-aged women, growing old, perhaps even dying and becoming dust and ashes and here they are on the grimy walls of the garage in their eternal youth and Erlich stands beside me blushing, is he angry or is he smiling, looking at the torn picture in his hand, the dirty old man, he still gets turned on, he winks at me – “The bastards, they want to turn the garage into a whorehouse.”

But I don’t care, it’s as if I’ve lost my desire. Soon after Dafi was born I felt the first signs, a deep sense of disappointment overcame me, I regretted that I’d been so persistent. We couldn’t bring the boy back. We really should have parted.

And I see Asya returning to her daily routine, as if she’s forgotten everything, and a new, unfamiliar lust takes hold of her. She wants to make love to me, at every opportunity.
Sometimes 
she sits naked on the bed, reading a newspaper and quietly waiting for me and when I touch her she goes wild, comes quickly, as if by herself, ignoring me.

I begin treating her crudely, though she doesn’t seem to mind, delaying her on purpose, sometimes leaving her halfway through, a violence I never knew taking hold of me. Sometimes I’m afraid I may be going too far, but she still clings to me, the violence doesn’t scare her, perhaps the opposite.

I grow distant, changing my habits, going to sleep early, putting out the light, pulling the blanket over my head, playing dead, getting up with the dawn and going out. She tries to follow me, afraid to say plainly what’s on her mind, in the end she gives up. She’s grown thin again lately, has shrunk a little, there are signs that her bony frame is beginning to stoop, she walks briskly.

She’s beginning to despair of me, she comes into the bedroom at night without putting on the light so as not to rouse me but there are times when I wake up, suddenly, take her in my arms and try to make love to her. She whispers “You don’t need to struggle so” but I reply “I’m not struggling.” I’m looking around for the bedroom mirror, to see what I don’t feel.

A row of plants a vineyard an orchard a wheat field among them a big old growth. Banana? Watermelon? Dark eggplant? A dry dense little bush planted in a bed under pyjamas and a gown. Little twisted roots beneath the sheet like hard thumbs. A thick stem, a ball soft and damp, two sinewy branches a thin coat of resin. Thin moss covers a branch of white leaves. Thoughts of an ancient plant will she grow to the ceiling or break out through a window into the sunlight give flowers and fruit.

They come and pour gruel on the obstinate plant give it yellow tea to drink. The plant drinks in silence feeling only the sun revolving from window to window disappearing. Night. A plant in the darkness. But a door opens and a piercing draught stirs the waking plant the breeze passes through her branches penetrates to the roots. A door closes, a wind trapped in the plant, stirring free. Her bark peels off grows soft moss turns to hair resin to blood the stem grows weak and hollow, a whistling
begins deep inside a wind comes in a wind goes out and a wind comes in again. A plant self-nourished spreading thin moisture a noisy plant the wind choking in her. Two acorns bursting out of the branch, growing fine, frosted glass absorbing light, soft hairy leaves hear voices. A plant sniffing herself tasting the bitter taste of a split leaf in her mouth. Hunger, thirst, feeling. Starting to groan – oh … ohhhh … ooo … the groan of a creature that once was a plant.

It’s always dark there because the flat’s on the ground floor of a house on the hillside, but also because of the curtains that shut out the light and the weak light bulbs that her mom uses to save electricity. She doesn’t believe in ventilation, either, even though she gets the air free. The place always reeks of scent but such a nasty scent. When Osnat and I arrive we feel depressed even before we go inside. We wouldn’t be visiting Tali at all, only she’s sick today.