The Same Sea (13 page)

Listen carefully. This is your father speaking. A simple man,
a rather grey man, and so on and so forth, but still your father. The only one
you have, and that's something your irony can't change.
That cheap woman you're with may let off
fireworks in bed, I'm not an expert in such matters
and I'm sorry to mention it, but fireworks
go out and time is drying up and the summer is over and you are
not back. The summer is over the autumn is gone and what about you,
where are you? Shrouded in fog in limbo in the arms
of a whore. It's lucky your mother—well, never mind. Don't hang up.
Just a minute. Listen to me: Dita is back here. In your room.
Sometimes, just in my mind's eye, I look at her and think,
my grandchild is drying up. Wait. Don't put the phone down. The autumn
is over and you are just mist. Last night I dreamed of my own father,
he was kneading dough, grunting hoarsely in Ladino,
Stupido Albert,
asno,
in ten more minutes
se hizo hamets.
This call
is already costing me a fortune, but there's one more thing I have to tell you:
under the same roof she is waiting and so am I. There is something not right
about this. The summer is over and the autumn is gone; the rain brings me
a smell of dust. Don't come back too late.

Like a sooty engine at the end of its journey the lit half
of the earth drags wearily toward the shadow
while the dark half gropes at the first line of light.

My hand in the hay of your old chest
plucks straw
to line our nest

Her hand so light in the hay of my chest. On the back
of her hand my shrivelled hand. She's on my own. I'm on her own.
On my veranda. We are alone. The sea has taken, the sea
has given. A slim silhouette and a little shadow. A timid
shadow. That turns. Escapes. The sea gives and the sea
takes.

She is making an omelette, he is chopping a salad, her shoulder brushes
the skin of his arm like lips touching a lace veil. A cup drops. It doesn't break.
He takes this as a favorable omen: salad with olives, a big omelette,
yoghurt with honey and fresh strong black bread with ewes' milk cheese.
All this at nearly two o'clock at night, in Sri Lanka it's already morning
while here there's the smell of the kitchen after a meal. They clear away
the dishes, he'll wash up tomorrow, right now it's late. In the bathroom
the two of them: he in grey flannel pyjamas, she with a T-shirt down
to her thighs, he with his back to her, facing the bowl, she facing
the mirror, brushing her teeth, he's in his slippers, her feet are bare,
before going to sleep he wants to sew a button on for her,
on the side, on the waist of her orange skirt that he takes on his arm
to his room like a bride to her wedding bed. Close and breathing, close and
chilly, beyond his window the sea sighs. The doors are locked. Soon the bird

The teeth of time, smoke without fire. On the bade of my hand
I see the brown mark that once used to be, at the very same spot,
on my father's gnarled hand. And so my father is back
from underground. For years he has failed and now, at last,
remembered to hand over to his son a patch of pigment
from his estate. The teeth of time. Scorch-mark without fire.
Ancestral seal. The gift of the dead
on the back of your hand.

Maria can also read fortunes. She reads them in coffee grounds,
she puts on her glasses to read, Maria is not so young any more. There's
good news and bad news in the coffee. The bad news is that time
flies. The good news is that time heals. That the evening is fine.
The bad news, that we're out of coffee. And almost out of money.
Look, there's a goat, staring at us like a widow,
maybe she's mistaken us for a mother and son, never mind,
let her live with her mistake, after all, why should we argue with a goat?
Especially a goat who's a widow. Tonight we'll eat dates, we'll sleep on this
straw, and not shoo her away. Come here, touch me. Tomorrow Chandartal.

Twenty to three in the morning. This is the time, not six, that ought to be at the bottom of a clock: the lowest time, when you can see what's going to happen. Dubi Dombrov calls Dita Inbar who is napping over the
City News
behind die hotel reception desk, her cheek resting on her hand; by her side, in a plastic cup, some lemonade is losing the last of its fizz. Sorry, he says, I just thought you might be free now to chat a bit. I suddenly had this idea that if you could manage to touch your old man, say, or some other old man, for nine thousand dollars or so, it would put me in the clear, as they say. We could spread our wings and make one hell of a film. With money like that I'd even give you a fifty-fifty share of Dombrov Productions Ltd. We'll repay the money within a year. We won't just repay it, we'll double it. Two people who count, top people at Channel 2, have read the revised script and definitely see potential in it. The problem is that I'm a bit in the red. I've sold the Fiat (with nine parking tickets and only two days left on the insurance) but don't worry, I'll clear out of your flat in Mazeh Street the moment I get the money Giggy promised. Besides which I've got eczema, besides which I missed two months of my alimony and today I got a sequestration order in the mail plus a call-up for the reserves, twelve days in Kastina, besides which I haven't moved my bowels for three days. Excuse the details. If the old man won't chip in nine thousand maybe he could make it two, or even a grand? I've got a painting by Tumarkin that must be worth twice that, I'll make it a gift to you. Anyway, I've been wanting to give you something personal, something beautiful for some time. It's a rather repulsive picture, actually, but it's all I've got, Dita. Nobody can give what he hasn't got. I'm not asking anything from you Dita, only that you should try to see me in a slightly different light sometimes. If you can. As for the money, get as much as you can, the old man is wild about you, and you'll see that our film will take off after all. Even a couple of grand would do for starters, after that you'll be amazed how this venture of ours will run all by itself. Believe me, I wouldn't for the life of me ask you for a penny if I had any choice. Tell me, Dita says, have you any idea what time it is? And tell me, Dita says, where are you living, anyway. To which Dubi Dombrov replies, with his bad breath hitting her across the switchboard and the wire, You want the truth? Were living in a flash. All of us. In a flash—it describes time and in a way it also describes space too. Honest, I wish I could put my body into storage, or mortgage it. I don't care if I don't get a cent for it. I'd even pay. All my troubles come from this lump of flesh that's clung to me since I was a child and doesn't let me rise above it. Nothing good ever came from it It guzzles fuel like crazy and all it ever does is make me blush or squirm. This body of mine is forever flat on its face. If only I could get around town without it everything would be so easy. I'd stage a project the likes of which this city has never seen before. I'd be free from sleeping and breathing and smoking, no belly, no reserve duty, no debts, no fear of AIDS, I wouldn't give a shit. For all I care the Scuds can come again and take it off my back. Or I'll sell it to an organ bank or even donate it to a forensic lab or a transplant center, and then I'd go off to the beach as free as the air. And take it easy. Or I'd go further, Tibet, Goa, I could take your boyfriend's place and send him back to you, even though really I don't believe all this shit, that he's hanging out there with some Portuguese chick, his own private fado singer, some kind of sexy hot-gospeller, that whole business is just a load of bullshit, he's probably blowing his mind in some hole in India and the whole Maria thing is all in the Narrator's head, and he's the one you should really talk to, if you just fluttered your eyelashes at him and got him to make a couple of phone calls to the right people, he must know them all, then our film would be halfway to being made. Even that Giggy of yours is just a load of bullshit when it comes to it, and so am I, even more so. The real reason I called you at 3 a.m. is that I thought it was the only way I'd finally have the guts to express my feelings, and look what came out instead: a lump of shit. What time do you finish your shift? I'll wait for you outside the hotel, OK? Or perhaps I won't What's the use.

He's fond of cheese, he chops salads fine,
no mortal man can chop them finer. Better a live
dog who this morning sent a thousand dollars to his son and to Dita
wrote a check for the sum of NIS 3,500. He's discontinued
his savings plan even though he knows the money's going down the tube.
Now he's reading
Yediot
and discovering that the state of the country
is also going from bad to worse. The magnates are arrogant,
peacock for foreign affairs, peacock for home affairs, little foxes
with high-falutin words. Dispensing a poor mans wisdom: tax adviser to
a greengrocer, an air-conditioning installer, he screws up his brown
face in the mirror like a raisin. To himself he says: The days
are going by. Yes sir, they are. The days are going by. I'm sorry
sir, excuse me sir, we're just about
to dose. So sit down and finish going through these accounts. Try at least
to clear your desk The newspaper can wait. Afterward, if there's time
you can change your shirt and go over to Bettine's. Go over there, stay
a while, chat, come home. Whatever you do it's no use.

Bettine, how are you? It's Dita. I'm calling to ask if by any chance
you've got his glasses? The dark ones? In the black case? No? Oh well,
we'll keep looking then. They must be here somewhere. Are you coming
over this evening? I'm working nights: I leave here at seven to be
at the hotel by eight. Do come. You can both have supper and sit outside
and chat on the veranda, only don't switch the light on, the mosquitoes
are hellish. You told me last winter that I make him needlessly sad,
or give him pointless needs, or something like that. I don't remember
exactly. Now I feel like telling you you shouldn't worry, Bettine.
There are no casualties. On the contrary: we both seem to be
definitely holding our own, if one can say that, and that's
how it is Bettine. I saw a big story in the paper today with pictures,
anxious moments in space, searching for the mother craft, is it or
isn't it out of control, I think something like that happens to lots
of people almost every day: finding losing finding again and
gasping for air. How on earth did we get here? It doesn't matter. If you
do happen to find his glasses will you bring them with you
when you come this evening. Even if you don't find them, come anyway.
It's better for the two of you to spend the evening together
than alone. And don't bring loads of stuff with you: I've
done plenty of shopping, the fridge is full.

Now it's me. I used to be Nadia and now
I'm not a spirit or a reincarnation or a ghost. Now
I'm the air my son breathes in his sleep on the straw,
I'm the sleep of the woman who's resting her head
on his shoulder. I'm also the sleep of my husband
who's fallen asleep on the living room couch
I'm my daughter-in-law's dream, her head in her hands
on the hotel desk I'm the swish of the curtain
that the sea stirs through the window. That's me.
I am all of their sleep.

A Knesset Member, Pessach Kedem, from Kibbutz Yikhat, found himself
left off the party list because of an intrigue, because some
cunning son-of-a-bitch grabbed his safe place near the top of the list.
Recovering from the shock and indignation he looked for a place, even
not a safe one, to hide his face in shame, a place secure from pitying
or gloating looks. At last, they say, his confidants managed to find him
a temporary billet as managing director or just company secretary
of some private ravine in the Tortoiseshell Range, down in the desert
not far from Arad. That's where the man now sits making notes,
remembering, filming, scheming, growing armor, hiding his head,
retracting his limbs, burying his face in his armored plates, reviewing
the situation, transforming himself from an MK into a tortoise. And how
about you? Do you feel you are safe and secure near the top of the list?

Meanwhile he is working as a night watchman in a run-down refrigeration
plant belonging to a Belgian fishery company in the Gulf of Kirindi, beneath
a curtain of dark hills. Maria has moved on. Beyond those hills there is a
steamy primeval jungle sweat-soaked with unceasing rains where there are
monkeys, parrots, bats and huge snakes.
Aus Israel,
the Austrian engineer leered
with a conspiratorial wink,
ach so,
in that case he certainly wont fall asleep on
the job or just sit there gaping if a light flashes on the control panel. His wage,
in Sri Lankan rupees, is three and a half dollars plus a fish he can grill on
the embers after midnight, and each morning when he leaves he can take
two fish fresh from the boats. His broom closet at the inn costs less than
a dollar a day, and he spends a similar sum on rice, vegetables, a rented
mosquito net, postcards and stamps. Meanwhile there's a boy, an abandoned
child, whom he inherited from the previous watchman (who got him from
his own predecessor), a quick-moving, shadowy creature, who somehow
belongs to the fishery, he sleeps by day in some disused cooling compartment
and at night among bearded pipes sticky with solidified engine oil, living
the life of a little fish thief or honorary assistant night watchman. In and out
of the dark gaps between refrigerators he slinks wolfishly, barefoot, he is six
or possibly eight, he is in tatters, every night he is reborn after midnight, out
of the shadows at the smell of grilled fish, an old rag round his loins, timidly
sniffing he cleverly overtakes his own shadow and penetrates the circle of
the watchman's fire, panting, his skin quivering to escape. In vain you attempt
in English sprinkled with crumbs of Sinhalese, Come child here don't be
afraid: he's been abused by other watchmen, before you, who seduced him
with their smell of fish, and did one thing and another. Now he's more
careful: give me first. Just throw him a tidbit of fish and he leaps, catches it
in his teeth in mid-flight, retreats with his spoils to the shadows, then
reappears to flicker around the ring of the fire, his pupils reducing the flames
to embers, his face in the half-light angelic but impure, a sly dishonest angel
well versed in gradations of winks, experienced in this and that: the previous
watchmen had done one thing and another, and another, but always he
had managed to float up to the surface of the swamp, velvety, girlish, unsullied,
with just a cunning-cautious spark in his eye. Night by night you throw
the tidbits less and less far, till at last he dares to snatch one from your hand
and flee. Or thus: you hold the fish just a little bit higher than he can jump,
till he tells you his name, where he lives, who his parents are. He doesn't
know. Nowhere. Never had any. So whose is he then? In guttural English,
with the Sinhalese trill:
Yourr honorr's sirr.
And a bow. As he speaks he leaps and
snatches the fish, sweet potato, or rice, with three swift hands. His voice
is warm and brown, like the smell of roast chestnuts. Within a few nights
he is climbing up of his own accord to nestle in your lap while skillfully
caressing you in one way and another, and also another, until you spot
what he's up to and stop him and carry him in your arms to your mattress
(submissive, pitiful, experienced, lying on his tummy for you). You cover
him with a sheet of greasy canvas, but he looks up at you with surprise, before
falling asleep all at once. You lay one hand on his forehead and the other
on your own, as though you were your mother. Soft and tired like the child
your head drops on your chest and the darkness draws out of you the hum
of a Bulgarian children's song without words, or with words you've forgotten,
half-remembering you have forgotten, but like the corpse of a drowned man
you can make out the shape of what you've forgotten. Toward dawn
you open your eyes, you're alone on the mattress, the child
has vanished without a trace, in the window silhouettes of boats
coming up from the seabed of night, all around the derelict plant mangy dogs
are barking, skinny dogs shrieking then sinking to a whimper, as a murky sun
chokes through the screen of haze: an opaque sunrise that resembles
a diseased, inflamed eye. Take a few fish and go to your bed. It's so hot.