The Nature of Blood (22 page)

She followed me across the water. In fact, she follows me everywhere. I have
had to learn to tolerate her. I arrive somewhere, then she arrives moments
later. I leave for somewhere, then moments later she, too, leaves. At first
I used to panic and cry, but she would not listen. The other girl has a jagged
slash of lipstick around her mouth, red like blood. I have tried pleading
with her. I have said, 'Please, I have done nothing to you. Why do you torment
me like this? Can you not just leave me alone?' But she will not listen to
me, and I still hear her padding along behind me. Whenever I turn, I see that
pitiful face. I thought that maybe on the ship across the water I could fool
her. I could pretend to be her friend, then, when she tried to nudge up close
to me, I might give her a push and topple her over and into the sea. This
was to be a new land, a new beginning. I didn't want her to follow me here.
That would not be fair. But when we arrived, there she was, dressed in those
same rags, standing behind me, waiting for me to decide my next step. Nobody
else notices her, even when she tries to reach out and hug me, nobody sees.
Stay away from me! I scream. But nobody sees her, nor do they hear her whispered
promise that she will live with me as long as I live. I know that it was she
who ate the butterfly on my shoulder. Stay away from me! I scream. But nobody
sees her.

The orderly brings me a pillow and a visitor. Gerry. It has taken Gerry all
day to show his face. He sits on the wooden chair to the side of the bed.
Beyond him, the curtains are drawn back. My head is propped up on the new
pillow and my arms lie outside the white sheet. He is a smaller man without
his uniform. He has brought me a chocolate cake, and a knife with which to
cut it. He can barely look at me as he tells me that he feels some shame.
His voice drops a note. He was confused. He wanted me so much. Men do awful,
unforgivable things in war. I listen. He does not mention the letter that
I signed with his name. Perhaps he is not such a bad man. But it no longer
matters. I want to ask him: Gerry, is this England of yours any place in which
to plant tender shrubs? Of course, I do not ask him. I simply watch him. Has
he forgotten the well that a generous word can sink? Say something, Gerry.
Eventually he stands. 'I have to go.' I say nothing. 'Eva, I asked about your
sister. Nobody knows anything. I don't know what else to do.' He looks as
though he is going to cry. For a few moments our eyes meet, then he lowers
his head and turns away. Does the sight of me frighten him? I now weigh more
than sixty pounds. Not much more. But more. I watch him leave. The poor man.
The poor, sad man. And now the doctor comes in. He takes the chair that has
recently been vacated by Gerry. He begins quietly. 'Would you like to see
him again?' I shake my head. 'Now, Eva, are you sure?' I do not want to see
this Gerry again. I am alone. I look at the doctor, but he fails to understand.
I am alone. He waits a few moments, then hauls himself to his feet. 'Tomorrow,
then.'

It is night. I hear the sound of coughing from another room. The other girl, with the swathe of red around her mouth. She is still here. Waiting. I look at her and wonder why this sad, unhappy girl persists. The coughing stops. I know that somewhere, buried deep inside me, is a place where I will be able to lay down in peace. And this other girl will not be able to follow me. But until then? Can I ever be truly happy? Dear Bella, without you this is not happiness. Mama. Papa. I do not know in what strange land you are buried. Or what stubbled growth or building defaces the earth above your precious bones. But I am tired. And I want to come home. For us, the hinge of generation will not move. That morning, walking to the train station, with our suitcases. A human river of shattered lives. Passing houses that had become our prisons and our tombs, the train door opening with a grating sound, one pail into which we must all relieve ourselves, stopping for hours for no apparent reason, the morning mist rising from the fields, the smoke. Mama. Papa. Dear Margot. The smoke. Once again, I hear the sound of coughing. The other girl is looking at me with sadness in her eyes, so I reach over and take first one hand and then the other. Don't worry, I say. Everything will be fine. Please. Don't worry.

H
E
had been watching her for a long time. She sat alone across the room, her face an impassive mask, while the other women swirled and dipped in large gestures of exaggerated joy. The hard afternoon light had long since faded, and the room was increasingly dominated by shadows. Because she was sitting, it was difficult to tell whether she was tall or short, but this woman was beautiful. He could not take his eyes from her. When the other women were passed over, they lowered their eyes and remained seated as the music played. One or two among them would occasionally betray a look of frustration, but this woman, who nobody asked to dance, simply sat as though she was indifferent to people's attitudes towards her. Once more, the music stopped and partners were hastily exchanged, and he watched as, again, this woman was ignored. She uncrossed then crossed her legs.

(Together with my parents and my brother and sister. (In our village, nobody had ever seen a light bulb or a telephone. Of course we were unprepared.) We lived as farmers and weavers. Out in the desert, you flashed your lights to attract our attention. And then you herded us on to buses. Now I can smile about it. We had never been on such a thing as a bus. And yes, it was frightening. At dawn, we discovered that we were travelling through a desert that was littered with the skeletons of camels and goats. People looked around. Not everybody was here. It was impossible to take everybody. Relatives were being abandoned. And then on to the embassy compound, where we were stored like thinning cattle. Grazing on concrete. And from the embassy to the airport. We just let it happen. I was lucky, for my parents, and my brother and sister, were relatively healthy. But many people were weak with malaria. It is true, many people were dying.)

Some of the men travelled in from nearby kibbutzim, but the majority lived
in the city. They were elderly, mainly bachelors or widowers, but among them
were those whose loveless marriages had long ago turned stale. A few among
the young women were prostitutes, but the greater number of them were students,
or unemployed actresses, all of whom were paid a small sum by the management
to dance for a few hours each week. The management's chief source of income
were the men, who were required to pay an annual membership fee for their
weekly flights of fantasy. Other activities were continually promised, such
as outings to places of historical interest, informal dinners, and lectures
by prominent speakers on issues relating to the culture and arts of the country.
However, in the two years that he had been a member, he was not aware of any
other club activities, beyond these weekly dances each Wednesday afternoon.

Ten years ago, after his retirement, he had decided to sell his city-centre
apartment, for he imagined that the profit would ease his remaining years.
His new apartment, a twenty-minute bus ride from the centrally located club,
was comfortable although somewhat noisy. In the beginning, it was the construction
teams who disturbed his peace, for they seemed eager to work around the clock.
These days it was just people's children, always shouting and playing at all
times of the day and night. A little over two years ago, he had nearly died.
It was after his recuperation that he decided to join the club, for, with
neither work nor family to occupy him, he had finally admitted to himself
that he was lonely.

Eventually, he found the courage to cross the floor and ask her to dance. Without
saying a word, she stood and eased her slender body into his arms, allowing
him to hold her in a manner that was both respectable and intimate. People
were watching. He steered her backwards and into the cluster of dancing couples,
in the hope that they might attract less attention if they could edge their
way towards the middle of the floor. However, her dancing seduced his attention
with its grace and surety of step, and he soon forgot his cowardly plan. He
hardly noticed when the music stopped, but, as she turned to walk away, he
found himself clumsily reaching out and touching her arm. The music started
and he stepped towards her, and once again they began to dance.

After her arrival, she had undergone two years of intensive language study, and then she had trained as a nurse. However, at present she was not working. She would say nothing more. He suggested that he might be able to help her, for he was a retired doctor, but she continued to stare straight ahead as though he had not spoken. Her eyes were the deepest black which made the white about them appear ivory. Her hair was also black, and short and tightly curled. It appeared to have been sheared, rather than cut, close to the natural shape of her head. He began to feel self-conscious, aware for the first time that his feet may not be moving in time with the music. And then there was the closeness of her body, and the warm strange smell of her person. Suddenly he wanted to stop this dancing, and to sit down and talk to the woman. This was a ridiculous charade. He was making a fool of himself with a woman at least fifty years his junior, whose behaviour seemed designed to remind him of the frailties of old age. None of the other women had ever made him feel this way. In the two years that he had been coming to the club, it was precisely the awful reality of these frailties that the young women seemed temporarily to erase from his mind.

(On the plane there were no seats. Just mattresses on the floor where we could squat, but most remained standing. We were frightened. Together with my parents and my sister and my brother, I prayed. And then a man died while we were in the sky. My sister and I wondered, in this new land, would our babies be born white? We, the people of the House of Israel, we were going home. No more wandering. No longer landless. No more tilling of soil that did not belong to us. What is your name? Malka. Malka, do not be shy. You are going home. And when we arrived, and stepped down off the plane, we all kissed the ground. We thanked God for returning us to Zion.)

At the end of the dance, it was a polite convention for the man to retreat
and allow another to stake his claim. However, he knew that nobody would challenge
his right to dominate this woman's time. He asked her if she would share a
drink with him at the bar. Generally, the woman was expected to feign surprise
and then agree. Drinks cost money, and so this arrangement kept the management
happy. But when he asked this woman, there was no fake surprise. She simply
shrugged her shoulders and led the way from the dance floor to the small bar,
where she quickly found a seat on a tall stool and he, somewhat less quickly,
joined her. For a moment he stared at her, and then eventually she smiled.
It occurred to him that she might be laughing at his expense, and he swallowed
deeply.

They each drank a glass of white wine, but there was little attempt at conversation.
He asked her to dance again, and so she emptied her glass and slid from the
stool. As they turned among the other dancers, he whispered that he would
prefer it if they could stop at the end of this dance and perhaps talk properly.
Beyond the knowledge that she was presently an unemployed nurse, all he had
managed to glean was that she was nearly thirty, and that she lived with her
parents and younger sister at the edge of the city in one of the developments
into which her people had been placed. She refused to be any more specific
with regard to her domestic arrangements. She also volunteered that this was
her third, and perhaps final, time at the club. The manager had informed her
that, if nobody danced with her this time, then she would not be allowed back.
As she told him this, she again shrugged her shoulders, indicating that it
mattered little to her, one way or the other.

When the music stopped, he followed her back to the bar. A new song began to play, one of his favourites, but he was glad that he would no longer have to dance. He wondered if she realized just how old he was. Most of the young women guessed him to be about sixty-five, which meant they really thought him to be seventy-five. He was proud of his condition, but whenever he thought of this he chuckled, for what else would one expect of a doctor? Until the heart attack, he had been blessed with perfect health. However, he knew better than most that it was impossible to insure against the ravages of old age. And then he remembered his manners.

'Another drink?'

Suddenly he was afraid that he might lose her.

'Or perhaps I could buy you dinner this evening?'

She nodded, and then climbed from the stool. For a moment he
imagined that she wanted to dance to his favourite tune, but the somewhat
impatient manner in which she was staring at him left him in no doubt that
she was now ready to leave.

As they left the club, he noticed that there were only a few minutes of daylight remaining. The sky was darkening, but thin light still filtered through the clouds. He panicked and wondered where he could take her. Although she did not look like a prostitute, one could never underestimate people's imaginations.

'Do you have any particular place in mind?'

It was a foolish question, for it was clear that this woman had little understanding of society. He imagined that her visits to the club provided her with an escape from the claustrophobia of her family, and the stubborn manner in which they probably clung to their traditions.

'Why don't we go to a hotel?'

He turned to face her. He assumed that she must be making a reference of some kind to a hotel as a place to eat, but before he could disguise the embarrassing transparency of his own bewilderment she spoke again.

'Or perhaps your place is suitable. I am sorry, but I have
no money.'

He turned from her. It was impossible to deny that it had not occurred to him
that at some point he might meet a young woman on the dance floor who might
offer him uncomplicated pleasure. Over the years there had, of course, been
entanglements, including one protracted relationship with a musician, a cellist
from Austria, whose daughter he had treated for bronchitis. Now, as he looked
back almost thirty years, he had come to recognize this as probably the love
of his life. Not including, of course, his wife. Since Renate, the cellist,
there had been occasional and generally unsatisfactory encounters which had
at least avoided the unpleasantness that he imagined an exchange of money
would introduce into the whole business. However, these casual encounters
were no longer validated by the thrill of pursuit and conquest, nor were they
legitimized by passion. It seemed that the ladies, often grateful patients
or freshly grieving widows, were, like himself, acting out some physical pantomime
in which memory played an increasingly large role, and in which pity, from
one to the other, seemed to be the dominant emotion. How could he tell this
strange woman that he did not want a prostitute? He wanted a companion, someone
to talk to, a friend even. But he had no desire to offend the woman.

He looked at the hotels that lined the seafront – tall, concrete structures without any character, to which businessmen or package tourists confined themselves. He could not take her back to his apartment, for even if he was lucky enough not to meet anybody on the bus journey, he failed to see how he might get her into his apartment without someone noticing. To his neighbours, he was a respectable retired bachelor doctor, and the ladies who visited him either did so in company, or appeared to be decent enough not to warrant any comment.

'Did you have any particular hotel in mind?'

The woman shook her head. He searched her face for any sign of fear, but he could detect none. And then he pointed to the nearest hotel, one that lay less than fifty yards from where they were standing.

'Perhaps this one here?'

She said nothing and again the man re-examined his own motives, for he doubted that he would be able to fulfil whatever expectations this woman might have. He spoke quietly.

'Are you certain about this?'

The woman shot him a puzzled look so he pressed on somewhat awkwardly.

'Well, we can eat first. They have a restaurant, I'm sure.'

They were given a room on the seventeenth floor, with a large bathroom and a broad view of the sea. He slid back the glass doors and walked out on to the balcony.

'It's very pleasant out here.'

She explored the room. On either side of the large double bed were matching tables and night lamps. A small desk and a chair, a standard lamp, and a lumpy two-seat settee completed the furniture in the room. The pictures on the wall were of views that she imagined related to a different country, for the greenness of the grass and the large mountain ranges suggested a more temperate climate. She sat on the settee. This was her first time in a hotel. When her family first arrived, they had been housed in what they were told was a hotel, but within a few weeks she came to understand that, in reality, the place was something called a hostel. And a hostel was most certainly not a hotel. The conditions were intolerable, but she had promised herself then, during her first weeks in her new country, that one day she would stay in a real hotel. She was not going to be cheated.

She was anxious to be seen to be behaving with dignity, so she rose from the settee and inspected the spotlessly clean bathroom, which boasted its own hairdryer and weighing scales. Having done so, she returned to the room and sat demurely on the edge of the bed. Then she changed her mind and crossed to the balcony. He pointed.

'The sea is very calm.'

She stood behind him, close enough that she could hear him wheezing slightly.

'Looking at the sea always makes me want to travel.' He paused. 'Even at my age.'

He turned to face her, and she smiled at him, which caused
him to lower his eyes.

They stepped clear of the lift and discovered the hotel lobby to be crowded with people. Those coming in from the street were closing umbrellas and shaking off their coats, while those ready to depart were reluctant to venture out. What had begun as a light drizzle had now turned into a downpour. He looked at the woman and spoke jauntily.