Housebroken (30 page)

I drank my coffee and picked at a few leaves which crumbled and turned to dust between my fingers. Yesterday afternoon, after I'd left my parents sitting in the empty room staring at each other, I sat in the car and didn't know where I wanted to go. Nathan wasn't back from work yet and I had a few hours to kill. I didn't want to go home because I knew my parents would soon emerge from their trance into a reconciliation as draining and hostile as the fight itself. They would wake up and call me to tell me they had decided to move in together; neither of them would sound happy, and all of us would immediately begin discussing the technical side of the reconciliation, which was the easiest, and we'd all be glad that my mother hadn't changed the lock after all, that my father still had a key, even though he hadn't used it because in the end he'd forgotten his plan to buy her cigarettes at a discount store, and we'd all be glad he didn't have any furniture, only a suitcase he hadn't even unpacked and a few kitchen utensils my mother would tell him to throw away, the electric coil, and the two chairs.

I drove to Noga's. I knew Amir would still be at work and we'd be able to sit in the kitchen while I told her about my parents and then about Sigal. I'd listen to her scold me for not telling her before and ask why I hid things from her, what kind of a friend was I, why did I destroy myself, where was my self-respect?

When I got to Noga's street, I saw Amir's car parked near their building. I assumed he had left her the car, as he often did when Noga needed it. I parked behind it and peered inside. On the backseat were cardboard boxes stamped with the name of a printer—wedding invitations, probably—and in the front, a pair of Amir's shorts and Noga's flip-flops and newspapers turning yellow in the sun.

I went up to the apartment and rang the bell. Nobody answered. I rang again and waited. Afterward I heard footsteps and Amir asking softly: “Who is it?” I said: “Me,” and he opened the door, tightening a sheet around the lower half of his body.

“You're home?” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he said, “I didn't go to work today. I was sick.”

“Really?” I asked. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, “nothing serious.” Noga shouted from the bedroom, “Who is it, Amir?”

“Maya!” he shouted back and Noga shouted: “Hi, Maya!”

“Were you sleeping?” I asked, but before he had a chance to answer Noga came running out of the bedroom and stood behind Amir, threading her arms into a long sleeveless T-shirt.

“Why are you standing outside?” she asked.

“Did I catch you in the middle of something?” I asked, hating myself for asking.

“No,” said Amir and walked back into the bedroom, holding the sheet up behind him. “We were just having sex.”

“Amir!” said Noga.

“Really?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen. Noga filled the electric kettle and scratched her foot with her other foot and said: “Forget it, Maya. What's up?” She took some grapes out of the fridge. “Is something the matter?”

I said no, I was in the neighborhood. I thought Amir was at work.

“He didn't go to work today,” she said.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. “He just didn't feel like it. We had a lot of stuff to do. We had to get the invitations from the printers. Oh, I wanted to show you how they came out. Amir!” she shouted. “Where are the invitations?”

“I don't know!” he shouted back from the bedroom. “Where are my pants?”

“Which ones?” she shouted and washed the grapes under the tap. “The green ones?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Didn't you wear them to the beach yesterday?”

“I don't remember,” he said, “but I can't find them now.”

I didn't say anything. I didn't want them to think I was in the habit of peeking into their car with the boxes from the printers and Noga's shoes and Amir's green pants, and the newspapers yellowing in the sun—at that moment the car represented an intimacy and happiness so great that peeping inside it was worse than catching its owners having sex.

We talked a bit about the invitations, and Noga told me about the hassles they'd had with the printers and how many mistakes they'd made. She sat opposite me and stretched and ate grapes and yawned. She said she would never get married again. Even if she got divorced from Amir she would never get married again. She said the whole thing was one big hassle.

Amir came into the kitchen in his underpants, and Noga looked at him and giggled. He said: “What's the big deal? I'm not shy in front of Maya. She's family, and I can't find my green pants.”

“They're in the car,” I said. “I saw a pair of green pants in the car and your invitations as well.”

“Go get them, Amir,” said Noga. “Before anyone steals them.”

“In a minute,” he said. “I'm starving. Sex makes me hungry.”

“Amir,” said Noga.

He winked at me and opened the fridge and bent down to look inside and pushed his hand into his underwear and scratched his behind. “There's nothing to eat,” he said.

“There's grapes,” said Noga.

“I don't feel like grapes,” he said and sat down next to me. He smelled of sweat and of the perfume I'd given Noga for her birthday.

“Come on, go down and get the invitations. I want to give one to Maya,” said Noga. “And bring my cigarettes from the car.”

“You promised you're quitting,” he said and stood up and left the kitchen.

“After the wedding,” she said. “I have one more month, so get off my case.”

Amir came back into the kitchen wearing jeans, took the keys, and said he was going down to the car. He asked if they needed anything at the grocery and Noga said no. He asked if I wanted anything and I said I was leaving in a minute. Amir said that he'd buy chicken breasts and we could make schnitzel. Noga said that she was sick of schnitzel; they ate it every day. Amir said he was dying of hunger, and he opened the fridge to see if they had eggs. Noga said: “Stay for dinner, if you're not sick of the menu. We've become a boring couple,” she said. I said I had an upset stomach and I wanted to go home. Noga told Amir he couldn't go to the grocery without a shirt, and he said he could. He went out and shut the door and Noga shouted after him: “And don't forget my cigarettes.”

I wanted to tell her about my parents. I wanted to tell her about Sigal. I wanted to take advantage of Amir's absence to unload everything, quickly, and hear a few words of rebuke and comfort, and I wanted her to force me to stay for dinner, but I said nothing. Noga asked what I'd eaten to upset my stomach, and I said I didn't know. She asked if she should make me a cup of tea and I said no, it was too hot, and she said she was hot too. She lifted the T-shirt from her stomach and stretched it and her childish little breast popped out of the armhole, and she said she was sick of summer and of life in general, and sometimes she was even sick of Amir too, though she loved him, and suddenly I hated her.

Amir came back with the green pants and the cigarettes and the invitations and the groceries. He asked if I wouldn't change my mind and stay to eat with them, and Noga said: “She's got an upset stomach.” Amir asked if I'd like a cup of tea, and Noga said it was too hot for tea. “I'm hot and I'm sick of everything,” she said, and Amir leaned over her and put his hand into the armhole of her T-shirt and touched her breast. I stood up and said my stomach hurt and I thought I'd better go home and take a nap. Amir and Noga said they would go and take a nap too, until the chicken thawed.

17

I turned off the highway into the industrial area. I passed the rows of garages, which though I had only seen once now looked familiar and beloved. On the left I began to see the orange groves I remembered from the winter, from the morning after, the first in a series of mornings that even after six months still had the frightening feeling of the morning after.

I passed the low concrete building with the graffiti, the building behind which we had sex in the car that morning. I saw the right turn and turned slowly into it, and then I saw the nursery and the huge, orange tin sign with pictures of birds and flowers. I had come to tell Nathan that I didn't want to spend the weekend alone.

There was nobody in the nursery. Apparently the owner—whom Nathan occasionally talked about—had already gone home. It was almost closing time. I walked along the dirt road that led to a round structure with plastic walls tacked to a wooden frame, through which I made out Nathan's silhouette. I walked around the back, found a gap in the plastic sheeting, and peeked through it.

I saw him bending over a big clay pot with a lemon tree. He stood huddled over it, without moving, looking at a worm. He held it between his big fingers, careful not to crush it. He didn't see me standing there. He was concentrating on the parasite he had extracted from the soil. He stopped, his blue work pants slipping, exposing the soft hair covering his lower back and his behind. I loved him so much at that moment that I didn't know what to do. I thought maybe it was a mistake to have come here and broken the rules.

Through the gap I saw his fingers stroking the worm. He put it on the back of his hand and slowly got up. He examined it in the shaft of sunlight penetrating the plastic sheeting, breathing on it, tilting his head from side to side as he studied it. I thought of turning around and going home and waiting for him to call and ask me if I was coming, and I would say yes, and get into the car and park next to the hardware store and quickly climb the seventy-five steps and we would have sex. But I didn't want to go to bed with him today; I wanted to fight.

He stood up suddenly and turned his head toward me. He was startled and shook the worm off his hand and it dropped to the ground. He walked toward me, wiping his hand on his pants. He asked me quietly what I was doing there.

He pushed the torn plastic sheeting aside, bent down, and came out through the gap. He asked: “What happened? What are you doing here?”

“Is there somewhere we could sit down?” I said. Of all the things I could have said, that's what came out.

“Can we sit somewhere?” I asked again.

“The office is closed,” he said. “I don't have the keys.” I said that I had to sit down. “We can sit in the car,” I said.

“No,” he said, as if the car was a trap, and sat on the ground. “We can sit here, if you want.”

I sat facing him on the ground and pulled at some strands of grass. “I wanted to talk. I thought I'd pick you up and we'd go to my place,” I said. “I could make some dinner. I've got all kinds of things at home. There's a watermelon.”

He stared at the ground in silence.

“I need to talk,” I said again, like a robot.

“What about?” he asked.

But this time I didn't answer.

“So you want to go to your place?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“You're sure you don't want to come to my place?”

“I want you to come to me,” I said. “You've never been to my place.”

He considered it. He weighed my proposal as if we were talking about some fatal step. For a second I thought of taking it back. If he came to me he would see where I lived. He would see the living room and the bedroom, the bed covered with books and newspapers and half-solved puzzles, he would see the evidence of my mundane occupations. He would see what I did to pass the time, he would see the kitchen, the watermelon in the fridge, the watermelon I hadn't opened yet and which I would probably throw out whole. He would see the bathroom, the terry-cloth robe hanging from a hook on the door, all my makeup, rows and rows of bottles, he would see my toothbrush, not the one I kept in my bag, the other one, standing in a plastic cup on the edge of the sink.

“I want you to come to me,” I said again. His face softened and he said: “Okay, I'll close up here and we'll go.”

I waited for him by the car. I leaned against it and played with the keys. I bounced them in the palm of my hand and looked at Nathan's silhouette moving slowly around the hothouse, behind the opaque plastic sheeting.

We drove in silence. Nathan looked out the window. I concentrated on driving. I told him he could turn on the radio if he liked. He didn't. He stared out the window and occasionally glanced at my profile out of the corner of his eye. I felt like a warden driving an escaped prisoner to jail.

We went up to my apartment. I dropped my bag on the floor and asked if he wanted something to drink. I poured two glasses of cold water. He took his glass and stood embarrassed in the living room. He inspected my bookcase. I stood next to him and asked if there was anything he'd like to read. He ran his thumb over the rows of books and asked if I had read them all. I said no. Then he took a book and leafed through it and said that he'd read it. That it was good. I said that I'd read it too and also liked it a lot.

He sat down on the sofa and put his glass on the floor. I asked if he wanted more water, he said no. “A beer?” I asked. He shook his head. He said it was a nice apartment. I said it was expensive. He said that his was a real bargain, and he was scared that one day he would be thrown out. I said that was scary.

Nathan lowered his eyes again, and it looked as if he was counting the tiles. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nostrils. I asked if he was sure he didn't want anything else to drink, and he shook his head again. I said: “How can you go on like this?”

I said: “Nathan, how can we go on like this?” and he was silent. I said: “I can't go on like this. Can you?” But he didn't answer, so I continued: “You have two girlfriends. Do you realize that? Me and Sigal. Any way we look at it, you have two girlfriends,” and he said: “That's not true.”

I said: “What's not true?” And he said again, softly, to the floor: “It's not true.”