The Remains of Love (14 page)

Hey, I’m the only uncle you’ve got, he wanted to say to her sometimes, we’re family, although the conversation he was really after wasn’t with her but with her mother, I’m the only brother you’ve got, why do you reject me, what have I done to make you so angry with me, but who has the energy for emotional exchanges, and anyway it seems everything that could be said has already been said to the point of exhaustion, and they won’t find new words in middle age, and besides there are always more urgent things to do, like loitering generously outside his own house, giving his family a portion of his time. The shutter to the balcony is closed and yet it seems he can hear his younger child crying so he knows he should turn off the engine and go up to them at once, but his task hasn’t been accomplished yet, and perhaps this is the evening it will happen, and anyway his presence won’t do them any good at the moment, when all his attention is directed towards something else, something more pressing. He wants to appear before them relaxed, to enjoy them and have them enjoy him, not cause them disappointment when he comes in, especially Tomer, who treats him to looks of resentment and yearning that invariably give him the urge to get out of there at once.

There are people who go home happy, he thinks in wonderment, as if this is the first time the possibility has occurred to him, and he tries to classify his friends and acquaintances, pausing for a moment over his wife: to which category does Shlomit really belong? It’s hard to distinguish in her between love and duty, between competitiveness and preference, sometimes it seems to him that her sole motivation is the need to prove to him how superior she is to him; her victory is already assured but she isn’t giving up. Again he hears Yotam weeping, who knows what Tomer is doing to him this time, despite the gap between them, nearly ten years, he’s consumed by jealousy that intensifies from day to day. Yes, he will leave the car straightaway and go up and take the wailing infant in his arms and caress his sweaty curls; Daddy, Daddy, the little one will whimper, and once again he’ll be taken aback, Daddy? He finds it so hard to see himself as father to a baby. This sudden pregnancy and the miracle baby who emerged from it seem to him entirely separate from him, and to the same degree from Shlomit too, she who looks older than her age and when she pushes the pram alongside the young mothers could almost be taken for their mother, and therefore he feels this isn’t a case of routine parenthood, but a kind of custodianship of the child which has been entrusted to them, a child who was born too late but fortunately for him doesn’t realise it yet, too busy demanding attention to his constant needs.

The party’s over, kid, and it wasn’t that good to start with, now they’re clearing away the disposable tableware, discarding the left-over food, stacking the chairs, and it’s out of your hands, kid, you can’t put back what’s been done. Already the guests have left, the booze has been guzzled, the short-lived jollity has indeed faded, there isn’t much left, believe me, for your sake we’ll go on pretending, but one day, and it won’t be that far away, a bright boy like you will find out for yourself, and then what?

What will happen then, he sighs, turning off the engine and resting his forehead on the wheel, nothing will happen, for a long time now he’s stopped believing in external, extreme events, these do happen apparently but not to him. With him it’s a case of moderate progress and moderate decline, with no steep gradations on the way, from two interns in his office to one, from courtroom victories to compromises and from there to lost cases, and already he’s out of the overheated car, in a moment he’ll go in and comfort the little boy, sit for a while with Tomer, help him with his homework, but the door which just a moment ago was locked is opening again with a loud screeching sound, not yet, too early to be swallowed up by their evening routine. He’ll be back soon enough and now he’ll try again, and maybe tonight it will happen.

How hot it is tonight, and the hours of darkness bring no relief; if he has a garden he’s sure to be out there now, sprawled on a chair with all strength exhausted, staring at a moon as slender as a lash falling from the eye. On just such a night his father departed this world, and of course it’s obvious that he hasn’t seen him since then, and obvious though it is, he still can’t come to terms with the notion that in more than twenty years he’s had no contact with his father, not that he ever spent much time in his company.        What a bitter yearning would rise from his gut in the first years when he remembered him, the reproaches that could be heard as far away as the mountains, why did he upset him so much? Apparently, they were two lions, one young and the other fully grown, but in fact they were more like sheep lost in arid wastes, in a neighbourhood under construction on the edge of the desert, generating housing projects as sharp as teeth, disfiguring the ridges. Unlike his father, he doesn’t give his children a hard time, he never shouts, preferring to retreat before some truth escapes from his mouth, something that can’t be taken back, to go away as he is doing now, leaving Shlomit alone for yet another evening, and he’s swallowed up by the traffic streaming westward as if that’s where he lives, to the estate that was once a small village and still has only tenuous contact with the city; it seems to be hiding from it in a graceful sort of way, with its charming and colourful houses, resisting annexation.

For years he’s been trying to convince Shlomit of the advantages of moving here, especially after the second child was born and their house became cramped, but she has always been vehemently opposed to the idea: it’s too far, she can’t cope with all the travelling, it’s hard enough the way things are now, she complains, as if it’s his fault, and she may have a point there; while he’s in the office until late in the evening she’s the one who has to do the fetching and carrying, but there’s something offensively self-righteous and spiky about the way she states her case. It always seems to him a vital ingredient is missing from her sanctimonious assertions, precisely the ingredient that would induce him to listen to her, rather than just hear her. What a shame she doesn’t want to live here, because now as he’s descending into the throbbing heart of the little settlement, he’s filled with nostalgia for a forgotten youth, guiding his car slowly along narrow and twisting lanes, the way he used to ride on a little donkey, looking in the darkness for a home that would suit him, and in time, or perhaps the very next morning, he won’t remember which he saw first, the gold-coloured car parked in a private space or the bereavement notice which had been pinned up on the gatepost two days earlier, presumably, since the funeral took place yesterday, the funeral of Rafael Allon, buried in the Mount of Repose cemetery, before the grieving eyes of his parents Yehoshua and Miriam, his wife Elisheva and children Ya’ara and Absalom, whose names are picked out in black under his name, and he steps out of the car with quaking knees and stands before the notice repeating the name again and again in an awestruck tone: May your memory be blessed, Rafael Allon, rest in peace, Rafael Allon. Black on white I take my leave of you before I even got to know you, and it seems to me now I haven’t missed a bigger opportunity than this in a lifetime of missed opportunities, as I missed out on a father and missed out on love, and coming face to face with your explicit name my heart aches, and he peers around him to be sure there’s no one there, and then he stretches out a hand and caresses the name of the deceased, the names of his widow and his orphans, and at the end of the list of mourners he adds in transparent letters, in the secret code of hot and sweaty skin, his own name, Avner Horowitz.

When he hears women’s voices, muffled syllables approaching the gate, he hurries to find refuge in his car, turning on the radio and pretending to be holding a conversation on his redundant mobile, his heart thumping painfully. From the radio speakers scrawny arms of sorrow are held out to him, like the arms of the man who has now acquired a name, at the very moment of losing his life, Rafael Allon, how lean he was and at the same time, how much weight was carried by his presence, and he angrily probes his own arms, crushing the viscous flesh. In his childhood he used to pinch himself until his eyes filled with tears and his skin was covered in livid blue fingermarks, and when his mother saw the lesions and exclaimed in horror he would claim that other boys had done this to him, but he refused to betray their names, and now he finds himself groaning as if the sounds penetrating the void of the car are trying to subdue him. How are the beloved snatched from the bosoms of those who love them most, what a cruel parade is mounted every moment while you are busy with your own concerns, trying to control the minutest of details. Look, people are leaving and passing by your window, two women of indeterminate age, evidently just friends of hers, of the widow Elisheva, and already their car is leaving the place, the beam of its lights exposing you for a moment, and moving on. Poor Elisheva, they will surely be saying, how is she going to cope without him, how well she cared for him, and the children still so young, how sad, and he imagines her sitting among the mourners, erect and elegant, more beautiful than all her friends, does she wipe away a tear with the hem of her blouse, exposing for a moment the smooth skin of her midriff, and he’s so eager to see her again he gets out of the car and tries to move round to the side of the house, to catch the voices behind the impervious gate.

From a garden nearby the barking of dogs is heard, or perhaps from their garden; in estates like this one it’s impossible to feel safe without a dog, and you can’t feel safe with all these dogs running around, perhaps their overcrowded suburb is preferable after all, and again you’re caught in the lights of a car and you pretend to be hurrying up the street. On your left is a dark wadi with a smell of rapid decomposition rising from it, the smell of vegetation defeated by the sun, almost as sharp as the scent of blossom that wafts in the wadi during the short-lived spring.

Standing behind a slender pomegranate tree he peers at the new mourners getting out of their car, a young group, friends of the children apparently, and one of them weeping bitterly; is she the daughter’s best friend? From far away he hears the hum of the city but the wadi is deep and appealing and it seems to him that different rules apply in there, and he approaches the edge and sits down on a warm slab of rock, the tides of grief shattering on his back, and he shakes, hiding his face in his hands and sighing a bitter sigh.

What a tragedy, not yet fifty years old, he hears a voice behind him and for a moment it seems to him he’s the one being talked about, and he turns to face a heavy-bodied woman, her red-dyed hair fading and dishevelled, wearing a broad tunic over tight leggings and carrying a dog-lead, and she half-asks, half-declares, you’re from the faculty too, and when he nods hesitantly she asks, have you just come out of there?

No, I’ll go there some other time, he mutters, I’m not close enough to the family to go in on the first day, and she says, this isn’t the first day, the funeral was delayed because it took some time locating the son in South America, and Avner can’t conceal his surprise. Really? So when did he pass away? And she says, exactly a week ago, last Monday, don’t they keep you informed in the faculty?

No, I’ve only just come back from abroad, I wasn’t here, he says hurriedly, while struggling to digest the new information. It was last Monday that he saw them, did he breathe his last that very day, or perhaps it’s a different man altogether, even if their cars are identical? The city is big and crowded and full of dead people. If you’re finding this hard I can go in with you, she’s quick to offer. I come here every day, bringing cake or a pastry, today I haven’t had time yet. She lets out a loud whistle and a black dog, resembling an overgrown jackal, comes running out of the wadi. He bares his teeth at Avner, who stands his ground, though with some trepidation.

It’s all right, Casanova, calm down the pair of you, she grins while fastening the lead to the collar, as if they were dim-witted brothers locked in combat. He means no harm, and nor do you, I hope,
yalla
, let’s go, and Avner is taken aback by her mannerisms; she was definitely born on a kibbutz, reminding him a little of his wife with her unmediated brusqueness. It’s as if she has him too on a lead; passing by his car he knows he could still extricate herself from her grasp, mutter a word of thanks and get out of here before he’s rumbled, but he waits beside her obediently until the gate is opened, adjusting his appearance, tucking his shirt-tails into his trousers, smoothing his hair, what if she recognises him? What will he say to her, how can he explain his presence? A spasm of embarrassment grips him as he follows the red-haired neighbour and her dog along the narrow driveway, fringed by flowering jasmine bushes with their strong, sweet and intoxicating scent.

But perhaps all this is about someone else entirely, another family, perhaps that man is still alive, saved by the power of the love that he gives and is given in return, after all she said to him quite plainly, soon you’ll be feeling better, and already he’s concentrating on a vivid hope, but in the crowded lounge he immediately sees the portrait of the deceased on the table, and recognises the delicate smile, which confirms for him that he’s come to the right place, his grief is appropriate.

It had happened that very day apparently, on his last day he saw him, a dance without movement, a song without sound, and all his frantic scrabbling around the city with the object of seeing him again happened after his death, and he leans against the wall and lets his neighbour remove her protection from him, immersed as she is in animated conversation with a diminutive woman, her hair close-cropped and carrot-coloured, a hard set to her features, square and tired. He looks around him and searches for her, the elegant profile, the pale face framed by black hair, don’t worry, soon you’ll be feeling better, she promised him, was she referring to his imminent death, and he definitely heard the promise and it was he who shared their last hours with them, a chance witness to their love, and was it really chance?