Open Heart (48 page)

“In the strange way it falls in love,” she replied. “Falls in love?” I cried in astonishment. “With who?”

“Me, for example,” she replied brazenly, staring at me
intently
, until her daughter, who had been watching her mother worshipfully all this time, burst into ringing laughter, which
immediately
infected Michaela and Stephanie too, and in the end also the midwife herself, who stood up and lightly stroked the baby’s hair and then laid her hand on my shoulder to placate me.

But after the three females had at long last left the apartment and Michaela had moved into the living room with the baby to give me a chance to sleep for she herself was still too excited to sleep—I suddenly felt, in the fog of exhaustion buzzing in my brain, that perhaps I really was capable of falling in love with this proud, white-haired midwife, just as I had fallen in love with Dori, who soon appeared to me in a muddled dream; and when I woke up and found myself so far away from her—a man with a little family in a gray London winter—I wanted to weep with longing. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, outside it was drizzling, and in the next room I heard my mother talking
excitedly
to Michaela, who had not yet closed her eyes and was still elated, perhaps because the crib, bath, and baby carriage had arrived from the department store. The baby already had a
corner
of her own in the world, and since some small things were still missing, my father had gone out into the rain to procure them. At six o’clock that evening I was able to go to my shift at the hospital knowing that the baby was in the safe hands of Michaela and my parents, and that life at home would soon be back to normal. I hastily replaced the borrowed injections and instruments, very relieved that nobody had noticed their absence.
But I was sorry that I couldn’t tell any of my colleagues about the home birth, since I was afraid that it would be seen as a vote of no confidence in the hospital. Nor could I boast of delivering the baby myself, for fear of seeming irresponsible to them. So I kept quiet, and since the freezing cold outside kept the number of patients at a minimum, I was free to bask in an inner glow of self-congratulation at my efficient performance of the night
before
. After midnight, when my shift ended, I went home and found Michaela sitting and breast-feeding the baby. My parents had only just left, evidently unable to tear themselves away from their sweet granddaughter, and perhaps also unwilling to leave Michaela alone. This was the first time we had been alone
together
since the birth. “You’ll collapse if you don’t get some sleep,” I said to her gently. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” She smiled at me affectionately. There was no doubt that the birth had strengthened our mutual esteem. Michaela could not help but be impressed by my skill as a doctor, while the memory of how nobly she had borne her pain filled me with respect for her. I don’t know if it crossed her mind that I had refused to give her a sedative or an analgesic not only because I wanted her to be completely lucid during the birth, but also because I secretly wished to avenge myself on her for forcing me to act as her midwife. I had a strange feeling that our growing respect for each other would do nothing to increase the love that was supposed to bring us together, but would have the opposite effect—a feeling reinforced at this midnight hour by my indifference at the sight of her two pear-shaped breasts, which did not give rise to the faintest desire in me, not even to brush one of her nipples with my lips in order to feel what my daughter was feeling now.

During the following week Michaela gradually made up for the hours of lost sleep and prepared herself efficiently to return to her normal life, especially her exploration of London. My mother and father were always at her disposal as baby-sitters, but she was unwilling to rely too much on their help, both
because
she wanted them to enjoy their vacation, which was
coming
to an end in two or three weeks, and because we had to start managing without them. She hung a baby sling on her stomach, which had already returned to its normal size, and in it she
deposited
Shiva, who felt as snug and comfortable there as a baby kangaroo in its mother’s pouch. And thus, one week after giving
birth, Michaela was already able to return to her little cleaning job in the chapel, with the baby riding on her stomach, and also to visit old friends from India who were now living in East
London
. Her natural self-confidence began to rub off on the baby, who seemed to be growing to resemble her mother spiritually, for not only did she suffer being dragged around London in silence, she appeared to actually enjoy it. It was still too early to tell whom she resembled physically, in spite of my parents’
suggestions
. She didn’t look like me, and she hadn’t inherited Michaela’s stunning eyes either. One afternoon when I was alone in the house with her, something about her slightly flattened skull and narrow eyes put me in mind of the pale and faintly
mysterious
figure of our non-Jewish English relation, the husband of my father’s niece, who was very friendly to my parents. One Sunday afternoon, for instance, he and his wife saw fit to invite all our English relatives to a little party in honor of the baby’s birth; one of the guests was my energetic aunt from Glasgow, who did her best to persuade my parents to go and spend a week with her in Scotland before they returned to Israel. In spite of her love for her younger sister, my mother hesitated, mostly because she was unwilling to part from the baby, though she wouldn’t admit it. In the meantime, we discovered the existence of a semiofficial
nursery
attached to the pediatric department at the hospital, for the children of the staff. The nursery was not intended for babies as young as Shiva, but Michaela succeeded in persuading the nurse in charge to take her from time to time for a little while. And so my parents were able accept my aunt’s insistent invitation after all with a clear conscience and conclude their successful visit to Britain with a return to the scenes of my mother’s Scottish
childhood
.

I encouraged them to go, they and my aunt would enjoy it but because I had heard from Sir Geoffrey that Lazar and his wife were about to arrive in London, and I did not want my mother to see the feverish excitement that gripped me as soon as I heard this news. Although Sir Geoffrey said nothing about Dori, I knew that she would never let Lazar go on a trip to London without her. I even told myself that it was because of her imminent
arrival
that she had failed to acknowledge the announcement of Shiva’s birth, which I had appended to my monthly progress
report
to Lazar’s secretary. I asked Sir Geoffrey about the agenda for Lazar’s visit, which turned out to be packed with meetings and events, since Lazar intended to set up a Society of Friends of our hospital in London. I therefore offered myself as an
additional
escort, perhaps to take care of Mrs. Lazar, if she came, and prevent her from being bored. “She doesn’t look like a lady who’s easily bored,” laughed Sir Geoffrey, who remembered her from a visit two years before, hanging on to her husband’s arm, smiling and pleased with herself. It was obvious that he liked her, and I had to fight for the right to go and pick them up at the airport, which inconvenienced Michaela, who had to give up her yoga class in South Kensington in order to stay at home with the baby. Shiva, I reminded her, had a slight cold. She didn’t protest, although she mocked the practical motives behind my willingness to be of service to the Lazars, and also wondered whether our little Morris would be able to hold “those two fatties” and their luggage. I was already resigned to the fact that Einat had passed on her hostility toward her parents to Michaela, perhaps in their days together in Calcutta, and I didn’t bother to respond. My thoughts strayed to the moment when Dori and Lazar would discover me waiting for them at the gate, and to how surprised they would be to see me, although in fact they were used to seeing me in airports.

But as things turned out, Lazar recognized me before I spotted them and immediately embraced me. His wife did not blush with surprise at the sudden meeting either, and, radiant as usual, she held out her arms for a hug with a naturalness that astonished me, and kissed me on both cheeks. And even though I knew it was only a friendly kiss, the result of her excitement at the flight and the landing, and the same kind of reception Sir Geoffrey would have received if he had come to meet them, I couldn’t control the violent trembling that took hold of me, as if this simple, smiling kiss, bestowed on me so naturally by my beloved in the presence of her husband, held out the promise of
something
real and significant occurring in the course of this visit, which began in the soft light of a welcoming London sky. It was presumably these thoughts running through my head, and not her presence at my side, looking for a place to put her long legs
in the cramped space of the little car, which caused me to get lost on the way from the airport to their hotel, to the annoyance of Lazar, who was tired and in a hurry as usual. “You were better at finding your way in New Delhi,” he remarked sarcastically, sitting in the backseat squeezed next to a suitcase that didn’t fit into the trunk, looking at the unfamiliar London streets, which he was sure he would have negotiated more successfully than I was, if he had been sitting at the steering wheel in my place. When we finally reached the hotel and I took the second suitcase out of the trunk, I suddenly recognized it as one of those that had accompanied us to India, and with a mysterious feeling of
inexplicable
joy I bent down to stroke the slightly shabby leather, which still seemed to be covered with the reddish yellow dust of the dirt roads next to the temples of Bodhgaya. Lazar wanted to open this suitcase in the hotel lobby, to take out the gift they had brought for the baby, but Dori stopped him. “Later, there’s plenty of time. We’ll give it to the baby herself,” she said, and asked about Shiva’s unusual name. When I explained why Michaela had chosen the name, she seemed stirred and excited, immediately grasping the deep Indian connection, which
included
her too. I wanted to tell them my reservations about
calling
my daughter after a god who wanted to destroy the entire universe, and my preference for a more modest Israeli context and for the spelling of the Hebrew word “return,” but it seemed too complicated to explain to two tired people eager to go up to their room and rest after their journey.

When I got home, Michaela wasn’t there. In spite of the baby’s cold she had decided to take her out. I was annoyed with her for ignoring my medical diagnosis, and I even saw it as a little act of revenge for what she saw as my exaggerated and superfluous favors to the Lazars. The truth was that in spite of the skill I had displayed in delivering the baby, Michaela refused to allow me to extend my medical authority to her. “As far as she’s concerned, you’re only her father, not her doctor,” she warned me in the commanding tone she could sometimes use. It was obviously
important
to her not to give me any advantage as far as
responsibility
for the baby’s welfare was concerned, and in principle she was right. But I was afraid that wandering around in the cold might make the baby develop an infection and keep us at home now, exactly when I wanted to be as free as possible to cultivate
my relations with the woman who, from the moment I had set eyes on her again, I knew I could not give up—could not and would not. Giving her up, even in my thoughts, might damage a vital artery that was sustaining me and giving me strength to cope with Michaela and the baby and even with my parents, who had recently become soft and sentimental, hanging on my every word and doing everything I told them to. And I didn’t need much to sustain the obsession that haunted me day and night: all I needed was an occasional smile from her to give me the courage to go into her office again and confess my love with a boldness and desperation that would cause her not only astonishment and remorse but mainly admiration of herself for sending a young man like me into a state of such tender confusion. And that was liable to fire her with a different passion from the kind aroused in her by her devoted husband, who kissed and caressed her
without
stopping.

But when Michaela returned with the baby, who was healthy and rosy from the walk in the wintry air, without a trace of the morning’s cold, I had to admire the maternal instinct that had so confidently and accurately diagnosed the superficiality of the sniffles that I had thought so important. And again I realized how right my mother had been the first time I brought Michaela home, when she predicted that the moment Michaela had a child she would stop looking for herself and find her proper place in the world, so much so that even her lack of a high school
diploma
wouldn’t matter. She seemed so attractive to me now, as she competently changed the baby’s diaper and began
breastfeeding
her, that I hinted at the possibility of a quick session in bed before I had to go to my night shift at the hospital; perhaps it would help to relieve the lust I already felt for the woman who had just arrived in the country, whom we would have to invite to tea soon, with her husband, so that they could have a look at the baby and give her the present they had brought—and give me the opportunity to put out a few feelers about plans for my return to the hospital in Israel, in order to make sure that the English door really led back home and wasn’t locked behind us. But Michaela wasn’t at all interested. Her friend the midwife recommended refraining from full sexual intercourse for three months after the birth, in order to give all the tears time to mend and allow
everything
to settle down again after the shock. Although I couldn’t
really argue with the midwife’s logic, I remained so full of
tension
that I couldn’t sleep after my night shift, so I went back to the hospital early in the afternoon. I left Shiva at the nursery and walked up and down outside Sir Geoffrey’s office, hoping to bump into the Lazars. And so I did. I easily recognized Dori’s confident steps in the distance, and soon after that her eyes were imploring me anxiously, for she realized that I was hanging around in the corridor outside Sir Geoffrey’s office in order to meet her again. If it hadn’t occurred to me on the spur of the moment to ask her to come and see Shiva, she would no doubt have followed her husband like a little puppy dog into his
meeting
with Sir Geoffrey, who intended, as Lazar had already told me the day before, to offer the Tel Aviv hospital used dialysis and anesthesia equipment from the English hospital’s surplus stock for next to nothing. I saw immediately that the invitation to come and see the baby attracted her, and Lazar, who wanted to examine the offer in depth and make sure that Sir Geoffrey’s good intentions wouldn’t lead to more trouble than the
equipment
was worth, encouraged her to go with me. “But why not, Dori? Go and see the baby, and if Benjy has the time, perhaps he’ll take you to see St. Paul’s Cathedral, which you wanted to see today. I’m afraid that it’s going to take a long time here, and after that I have to meet the man who’s organizing the evening for the Friends.”