Authors: Yael Hedaya

Housebroken (41 page)

A guilty smile? I asked. Yes, she laughed, exactly. You have to see that child to believe it, and this was my opportunity to invite her over, but I didn't dare. And Shahar? I asked. Who does he look like? Only out of politeness, because talking about Matti's smile and his son's brought me back to our cafÃ©, which I dropped into a few days ago and saw that nothing had changed, except that they'd enclosed the courtyard and put up a glass roof, and I sat alone in the roofed courtyard, and the waiter, who was really old now, came up to me and took my order and didn't recognize me.

You know, I said, how many times I tried to imagine what you looked like? Really? I said. And how did you imagine me? I don't know, suddenly I was embarrassed, because what could I say? I imagined you more or less as you are. Maybe a little younger. I was, I said, I was a lot younger. And for some reason I thought you had black hair. No, I said, it was never black, mousy brown is my natural color. So do you henna it? I asked and looked at her hair, searching for mouse-brown roots, or is it dyed? Both, I said, for years now. I have to do it again. I haven't done it since I came back, but I'm sick of this color. I want to go back to my natural color, but it's a problem, because while it grows out I can't hide the roots.

The head nurse who had finished her shift passed by and looked at us for a minute, because she was used to seeing us apart, and she didn't know if she should come up to us and she said from a distance: If you need anything, Mira, to make a phone call, or coffee, if you'd like us to make up a bed for you, just say so. And I said: No, I'm fine, come meet Alona, she's a friend of ours.

So I'll go and call and see how the kids are, I said, if you want you can go in now, and I'll wait outside. Yes, I said, I'll go in now, and I stood up and closed the zipper on my bag and I said: So you're going to call now? Yes, I said, I should. I'm such a worrier. So I'll go in now, I said. Yes, I said, go in, Alona, and suddenly, I don't know why, I hugged her.

And finally I began to cry, at first hesitantly and then really hard, I couldn't stop, and I whispered: It's okay to cry, Alona, and I felt guilty that because of me she was stuck here in the corridor in an embrace with a phone card in her hand, and the delicate scent of her perfume, unable to call and find out how her kids were. And she was warm and soft and round with the angry tears of a child, and the head nurse who came back to the ward to get something lowered her eyes, so as not to interrupt or spoil it for us. And I didn't want to stop crying, because I started enjoying it, and because she was a little taller than I my tears wet the thin material of her blouse, I think it was silk, and I was glad I had no makeup on, because I would have left a stain.

Are you okay? I asked. Yes, I said, but maybe I'll go have another cigarette first, and I laughed: You addicts, and I laughed too and wiped my eyes on my sleeve, and I offered her a tissue but I said: That's okay, go and make your phone call, Mira, I'll be here waiting for you. So I said: I'll be back in a minute, and in the few minutes I was alone I thought about the difference in the way she cried and I did, and what it said about us.

My mother said everything was all right and asked how he was, if there was any change, and I said no, and I wanted to tell her that I'd met her, but I said: If Shahar wakes up, tell him I'll be home later. Uri threw up, she said. I bought them cookies at the bakery. Why, Mother? I wanted to scold her, because she knew they weren't allowed, but I said: Never mind. Make him tea if he throws up again. There are lemons in the fridge. And I went to wash my face, and I thought about how beautiful she looked when she cried, and what he had done when she cried with him.

And I thought about the phone ringing in an apartment somewhere, I didn't even know where he lived now, and an elderly woman rushing to get it before it wakes up the children, and maybe on the way she straightens her skirt the way her daughter does, and holding the receiver close to her mouth, and reporting in a whisper how their day was, what they did, what they bought, what they had for dinner, and when they went to sleep.

And in the bathroom mirror I saw how puffy my eyes were, and I washed my face and drank some water from the faucet, because I remembered that I hadn't had anything to drink all day, because at eight in the morning they'd called and said: You'd better come. He's having difficulty breathing. So I left my coffee on the counter and ran to the car, it's a good thing I was already dressed, and I got stuck in the traffic and I thought: What does “difficulty breathing” mean, and maybe they're lying and he's already dead, and this is the routine thing to say over the phone? And suddenly I began honking for everybody to get out of the way, wishing they were all dead.

And I thought how selfish I was, that ever since I heard I was thinking only of myself and longing only for myself, and how I'd missed my last chance to ask him about myself, because maybe a month ago it would have still been possible: So how are you and how are you feeling, tell me what you remember. And now it was only good-bye, and I didn't have to come here and I could have just said: “Yes, I heard,” when people asked me “Have you heard?” instead of sneaking around here for two weeks like a thief, but I came, and all I did was sit on the lawn and chain-smoked thinking only about myself.

And when I returned from the bathroom I saw the tips of her shoes from the corridor, and I stood still for a minute and thinking, how strange, this intimacy, after seeing her wandering around here for two weeks, and the head nurse once asked me: Who is she? Do you know her? After almost ten years in which I tried to exorcise her from my life, those shoes, this circumstantial intimacy.

I feel like such an idiot, I said when she came back and sat down beside me, smelling of hospital soap, not having the guts to go in. Chickening out like this. Don't feel bad, I said, I can understand. For me it was a gradual process, you'll be seeing him like this all at once. Yes, I said, but I must. Or else I'll never forgive myself.

And I stood up and walked down the corridor, and quickly passed his room as if I'd made a mistake, and got to the big window at the end and turned around, and saw her standing there holding the tissue in her hand and playing with her pearl necklace, and I wanted to call out to her: What do you need this for? Give it up, go home! Go home to your parents! And I wanted to run to her so that she would put her arms around me again and say: You don't have to. Don't go in. But she just stood there, frozen next to the window, looking at me. And I was choking on my tears, and I started walking back slowly, and I passed his room, and turned back again, and stood outside the door, and listened, and I thought that maybe I should go and sit down again, so that she could do what she had to do, because maybe my presence was what was stopping her, and I saw that she was turning to go and I waved to her and signaled: Wait for me!

We sat and stared at the TV. She lit a cigarette and stared at the screen, breathing heavily, as if she had just run a marathon and she was resting. I was so ashamed, for being such a coward, and I was glad that at least the TV was there, so I didn't have to look her in the eye. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was already after ten, and I didn't know whether I should go home and wait, or wait here. We were together for just a year, just a year and such a long time ago, so why is it so important to say goodbye now? And if I ever start a new life, what would it be like? Because maybe I never said good-bye the proper way. And how much time has to pass before I'm allowed to think of a new beginning without him? Because I want a family. Definitely. Like hers. Two kids. And a home. And I'll be a widow now. Like my mother. And I really have to decide what kind of a life I should have. And maybe settle down. Find someone. And buy a car. I don't have the strength to sit in mourning for seven days, and what will I wear to the funeral, and should I bring the children. Because I never really had a real life, just plans, and maybe if I stayed with him, let him mature me at his own pace, I could have been a widow now instead of her. And the neighbors will come over, and offer to help, and get on my nerves, especially the one who said Happy New Year, she's a real pain. Because who am I now? What status do I have? I don't even qualify as an ex. And I don't have anyone to talk to either. About the sorrow. Because how can I go and confess to my mother now? She knows anyway. She always knew. And I don't have any friends. I never had. And I can already imagine them all coming: Eli and Hagit and Dan and Liora, bringing food, playing with the kids, whispering in the kitchen and talking about him in the past tense. Because I want to be normal. Not someone who runs from one man to the other, from one continent to another, and dyes her hair a different color every day, and wonders now if she lost out on the one true love of her life. I wonder if she'll come visit while I'm in mourning. If what started between us here will last, our little romance. Because it's much more normal to lose a husband than to be someone who's never had a real home and maybe never will. And I envy her a little for being able to walk out of here and not having to explain anything to anyone or console two little children, or be consoled. If only I'd let myself spend that second summer with him. What harm could it have done? Relatively speaking I'm still young. Maybe I would have fallen in love with him. And maybe I should really try and do what I've always been so terrified of: being alone. Because the truth is that I'm sick of wandering, and I'm tired of feeling so old. I don't want to be her big sister. I don't want to be a myth, but something real. If she only knew how much I hated her.

I'll walk out of here and get into the car and turn the radio on and light another cigarette and start the engine, but where will I go? My apartment is still empty, there's only a mattress on the floor and books in boxes and the big ugly closet the previous tenants left. And my mother will hug me and say: “Yes, Mira, it's over. Now you can cry. Cry, Mira,” and I'll ask her: “Did you keep my poems, by any chance?” And she'll say: “What poems, Alona?” As if she didn't know, as if the real sin was not writing them, but keeping them, and I'll say: “You know, Mom,” and she'll go to their bedroom and climb on a chair and open the closet and pretend to be searching and take down from the top shelf an old shoe box with a shoelace tied around it, and give it to me. And I'll cry, oh how I'll cry, but this time not tears for him, or for the children, or obligatory tears for the world to see, but tears for myself, which might even have a little joy in them.

I ran into his room and took the duffel bag out of the night table. It was quiet in there. Not a breath. Not a rustle of sheets. Nothing. I was on my knees with my back to him, and I quickly went through the contents and for a second my fingers touched the folded underwear, and I pulled my hand out as if I'd been burned. It was cold in the room, even though it was warm outside, and the white light from the corridor came in through the open door and cast the shadow on the wall of the legs of his bed. And then I remembered it was in the side compartment, where the zipper always got stuck, where I put his cigarettes, and I didn't want to start battling with the zipper now but I knew that she was waiting there, in front of the TV, and that I had to hurry, because maybe she wouldn't be there anymore when I returned, that she'd leave without saying good-bye, just like she couldn't say good-bye to him either, and the zipper opened without effort, without a sound, and my fingers delved deep into bits of paper and lint and crumbs of tobacco, and a sticky sucking candy, until they suddenly touched it, cold and metallic, and I closed the bag and pushed it under the bed and left the room and ran back, and she was sitting there staring at her shoes and smoking and when she raised her head and looked at me and smiled I saw that there were no tears in her eyes anymore, and the look of guilt was gone too, that childish glance expecting punishment, and I walked up and handed it to her.

About the Author

Yael Hedaya was born in Jerusalem in 1964. A former humor columnist for the Hebrew daily
Yediot Aharonot,
she teaches journalism and creative writing.
Housebroken
has been translated into Dutch, German, French, and Italian; it is Hedaya's first book to appear in English.

HOUSEBROKEN.
Copyright Â© 1997 by Yael Hedaya. English translation copyright Â© 2001 by Metropolitan Books. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.picadorusa.com

Picador
Â®
is a U.S. registered trademark and is used by Henry Holt and Company under license from Pan Books Limited.

For information on Picador USA Reading Group Guides, as well as ordering, please contact the Trade Marketing department at St. Martin's Press.

Phone: 1-800-221-7945 extension 763

Fax: 212-677-7456

E-mail: [email protected]

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hedaya, Yael.

[Short stories. English. Selections]

Housebroken : three novellas / Yael Hedaya ; translated by Dalya Bilu.

p. cm.

Contents: HousebrokenâThe happiness gameâMatti.