Two She-Bears (24 page)

A few days ago you told me about the camera that Dovik brought back from the desert. What happened to it?

Good, Varda, you already know and use our names. Pretty soon we'll add you to the family.

You also said that Dovik said there was film in it.

Correct.

So what did you do with it?

At first, nothing. It sat in my house for four years, and I didn't have the nerve to touch it, then suddenly I felt brave and gave it to Ofer to develop the film inside.

Ofer? Who is that?

Ofer, I told you about him. My student. The one who almost drowned on me in the Sea of Galilee. The one who took pictures and made an exhibit about the moshava. Here's that picture of our house that he took from the air, as I already explained to you.

Correct. The student you loved. I remember now. So you simply asked him to develop the film without your knowing what's on it?

More or less. It was at a parents' meeting. He came with his father, that moron Haim Maslina. I remember telling him, “Good for you, you're the only father who came with a child, in general only the mothers come.”

“It's because of you, Ruta.” He grinned. Those very words, without shame, and Ofer was mortified. “If it were another teacher I wouldn't have come.”

Whatever. I restrained myself, got down to business, told him that his son Ofer was a smart boy and a good student, not always one hundred percent plugged in to what went on in the classroom, but who stood out for his understanding and originality, just barely resisting the impulse to add that as such he also stood out in his family.

Ofer said, “Thank you, Teacher Ruta. It's nice of you to say this in front of my father, because he doesn't think of me that way.”

You want to thank me?
Take off your clothes! I turned deep inside into an animal, and the proud father smiled and said, “That's not so. Ofer is absolutely okay at home too, helping out and working, and he also has a hobby.”

He turned to his son. “Tell her.”

“Drop it, Dad.”

“Tell, tell her,” he insisted. “Tell her about your hobby.”

“No need, Dad. It has nothing to do with school.”

“Ofer has set up a darkroom,” announced Haim. “He develops and prints and spends the whole day there.”

“Now you do this?” I asked. “With everybody going to digital?”

Ofer beamed with excitement. “We have a ton of old film and negatives that my father's grandfather left us, and I've already developed a few and printed a few. And my mother convinced my father to give me the old shed as a darkroom and money to buy all the chemicals and paper and trays and enlarger. And I cleared out all the junk from the shed, and look what I found there, Teacher Ruta”—and he stretched out his legs—“you ever seen boots like these? Nice, right?”

“Very nice,” I said, “but kind of old, no?”

“I like them. All I had to do was clean and oil them, just that one stain refused to come out.”

“I told him,” said Haim. “It's a bloodstain.”

“My father says they belonged to his grandfather,” continued Ofer, “but later on, when I printed the old negatives”—he turned to his father—“I saw them on the feet of someone else in one of the pictures.”

He took a photo from his shirt pocket. “You see these three guys? This is Grandpa Yitzhak, my father's grandpa, on the right. And on the left is Ze'ev Tavori, your grandpa, still with two eyes, you see? And here, the boots I'm wearing. On the feet of the third guy, the short one standing between them. I brought this picture so you could help me. Maybe you know who that guy is?”

“No,” I said, my blood turning cold and thick in my veins. “Why don't you ask your father?”

“He asked, but I don't know,” said Haim.

“Could you ask your grandfather?” asked Ofer.

“Leave me the picture and I'll ask him.”

I showed the picture to Grandpa Ze'ev.

“You look a little strange with two eyes,” I told him.

He didn't react. He looked at the photo for a long time and didn't say a word.

“I recognize you and Yitzhak Maslina, but who's this?” I asked, indicating the short guy in the boots.

He asked where I got this photo, and when I said my “whatever,” he said, “I bet those Maslina bastards gave it to you. Where else could it come from?”

“So who is this guy?” I asked again.

Grandpa Ze'ev was silent. He didn't like talking too much about certain events and certain periods.

“So who is it?” I asked again.

“He was a neighbor of ours in the first years here.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He committed suicide, we had three suicides in one year. It was very bad.”

“I know the suicide version, Grandpa,” I said.

“If you know, why are you asking questions?”

“What was his name?”

“Who?”

“The guy who committed suicide. The one in the middle. Stop pretending.”

“Nahum. Nahum Natan or Natan Nahum, I don't remember.”

“So how did his boots get to my student Ofer, the great-grandson of Yitzhak Maslina?”

Grandpa Ze'ev stood up. “I'm in charge of shoes? There was a British policeman here and he also determined it was suicide.”

I told Ofer that he was wearing the boots of someone named Nahum Natan who committed suicide many years ago, and I said I now had a request of him.

“Whatever you want, Teacher Ruta.”

“If among your negatives you find other pictures of my family, I would like copies, especially if there's something with my grandmother Ruth.”

“Okay.”

And then I decided.

“And another small thing,” I said. “I have an old camera at home that nobody uses, but it might have film inside. Could you take it out and develop it for me?”

“Sure. I can try.”

“I'll pay you.”

“Forget it.” He smiled. “We'll make a trade, Teacher Ruta.”

My cheeks burned. I felt I was blushing.

“You said no one uses that old camera anymore. So let me have it.”

“It's yours. No problem.”

“So we have a deal?”

“I have one more condition,” I said. “I want to be with you in the darkroom when you do it. I want to watch.”

“Totally okay. Saturday?”

On Saturday, when I went to their house with the camera in hand, there were two cars parked across the street, of the type we call city-people cars. Miri and Haim sat under their pecan tree with two couples eating pecans, which is what visitors here are generally served. “Eat, eat, they're from our tree,” which in our language means: Eat, eat as many as humanly possible, because these pecans are coming out of our ears, but we don't want to throw them out.

Incidentally, Varda, as an expert on the history of the Yishuv you ought to know that this is why we came to the Land of Israel and drained the swamps, fought battles, plowed, built, and established—so that at the end of the day the Jewish people would sit, everyone under his vine and fig tree, and eat pecans.

I somehow get the feeling you're trying to make fun of me, Ruta, but continue, it's completely fine.

I entered the Maslinas' yard with Eitan's camera in my hand. Miri Maslina gave me a sour look, but Haim Maslina stood up with that unctuous family smile dripping from his lips: “What did we do to deserve such a guest?” Saying to the visitors, “This is Ruth Tavori, Ofer's teacher. She lives next door but never comes to visit the neighbors. Just look at her. In all the schools of Tel Aviv there's no teacher like this.”

And he yelled out, “Ofer, come quick! You have an important visitor!”

Ofer came out of their old shed, a wise and good-natured boy, who will never forget my crazy outburst of a few minutes later. It didn't happen at the very start, when I went with him into the shed, and not when he turned on the red light and opened the camera and carefully removed the film, nor when he developed it, but only afterward, when he inserted the photo paper into the chemicals and it was covered in blotches that became rocks and stones and acacia trees and a white wadi and a solid little six-year-old boy with a serious expression. Here you are. Neta. Where were you these last four years? Where were you? Where did you go?

He looked at me from the deep and I—champion diver, not just four minutes but four years underwater now—did not pull him out.

My knees buckled. I felt almost like that evening when Dovik came and told me, “Ruta, I have something really terrible to tell you.” I was so weak I had to lean on someone, and that's what I did. I leaned on the closest person beside me. I grabbed him tight. Held on like I was drowning. Not like a life preserver or crutch, but as a living creature, warm, breathing, flowing with strength and blood.

I held on to him, this sweet embarrassed boy, hugged him, and started to shout and scream. My screams came not from my throat but from my innards, my guts, my womb. I shouted, I cried, and I hugged and kissed him and screamed again and again. Terrible, it was terrible. A student should not see and hear a teacher in such a state. A child should not see and hear an adult in such a state. A person should not see and hear another person in such a state. Believe me, Varda, the whole thing took no more than ten seconds. The blink of an eye for a historian like you, but ten seconds can be very long, and I cried and screamed everything I didn't cry and scream for the four years that Neta was inside the camera, because in general I'm not much of a crier, not at all. For ten seconds I shouted and cried and hugged him and then I let go of him and I fell silent and found the door and escaped. I didn't go out into the street, I ran from their yard straight into ours.

I remember: I ran like a madwoman. The light and the tears blinded my eyes, but I could see. Miri and Haim Maslina still sat by the garden table with their city guests and pecans, their faces shocked and scared. My screams had preceded me. Left the shed before I did, hard not to hear.

I said and explained nothing. I ran. Those poor guests surely had no idea what had happened. Guests from the city always think that in the moshava, with what my first husband used to call its chirping flowers and flowering birds, the local people are happy and serene, with garden tables, garden chairs, the garden itself, mown grass, visitors, pecans, crackers, and a ball of cheese. You remember that ritual, serving a ball of cheese? Here in our moshava we still do it. If there's one thing worse than pecans, it's a ball of cheese, and even worse are several cheese balls—one pepper and one garlic and one paprika and one, the worst, basil. Casus belli, Varda, this means war.

The next day Haim came, like a slimy snake, holding a brown envelope.

“We were pleased that Ofer helped you with the pictures,” he whispered.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“No harm done. These things happen,” he said.

“I must have embarrassed you in front of your guests from the city.”

“We were a bit surprised by your screaming, even frightened, but afterward, when we saw that the pictures were of Neta, we understood. We phoned and explained to our friends, who, by the way, got up and left a few minutes later.”

“What did you explain?”

“That Ofer's teacher had a child, and the tragedy that happened, and that Ofer developed his pictures. The truth, Ruta.”

He handed me the envelope. “Here they are, Ofer printed them for you. And here are the negatives too. All yours, we kept nothing. And Ofer is sorry too and asked to tell you that he apologizes and will give you back the camera you gave him. Something in it needs fixing and it should be cleaned inside. He'll do all that and give it back. And we apologize if for a moment we had the wrong idea.”

“Why give it back? Apologize for what?” I said. “He has no reason to apologize. I need to. And the camera is his, I promised it to him. He helped me and I apologize for what happened.”

But Haim did not give in. There's a point in the life of every shithead when he realizes that's what he is, and decides to act that way.

“When we heard your screams from his lab, we didn't know what to think,” he said, “but Ofer explained it to us later, and we understood, so from our point of view everything is all right now, really, it's all right, Ruta.”

I didn't answer him, and he, uninvited to do so, suddenly sat down.

“Ruta,” he said, “our two families go back a long way. Neighbors in good and bad times for seventy, eighty years. I know all kinds of stories and you know all kinds of stories, and they aren't necessarily the same exactly, but I was simply shocked that maybe God forbid another terrible story was beginning here.”

I didn't understand what he was getting at. “I'm telling you again,” I said, “that I'm sorry for what happened. And the truth is, I knew that maybe I would see Neta in those pictures, and I prepared myself. Four years that camera waited in my house with the film inside. I didn't dare throw it away and didn't dare touch it. It was like another grave of his, you understand? How can you open the grave of a son? He's inside of it. But at the parent meeting, when you told me Ofer has this hobby and a darkroom, I decided to ask him to open it. And then, when I saw Neta's face emerging on the paper, an illusion of lifelike movement, of return—for a moment he's alive and then dies again, becomes a picture. And because it was happening in water, and in the dark, it was like the netherworld. I lost it.”

“But Ofer said you hugged him, you kissed him.”

“Haim, really. It's not the way it sounds. I had to lean on someone, and Ofer was the only person there with me. I needed sturdy support, I needed closeness.”

“Too bad it wasn't me standing there.” He chuckled.

I didn't understand. Apparently I didn't want to.

“I know it's not okay,” I said. “I know I'm his teacher and he's my student, I'm a grown woman and he's a youngster, but believe me, it was nothing. I hugged him, it's true, the way a drowning person hugs the one who saves him.”