The Remains of Love (24 page)

It seemed to her she was testing her remorselessly, trying to read her thoughts, invade her dreams, eavesdrop on words spoken in her sleep, and now again she has to gather the bones of memory into one body, one time; what is the time, she asks, but no voice answers her voice, and only a blast of oppressive heat is transmitted to her from the silent armchair, fingers of fire are approaching her, so familiar to her that her breath is knocked out of her when the blanket moves and someone squeezes into her bed, everything has already happened and it seems it will never stop; in their children’s house, when the nannies were in a deep sleep, the nocturnal wandering would start. Sometimes one of the girls terrified by a nightmare, sometimes a child younger than her who needed protection, and sometimes there were those hazy, breathless visits that left a sticky stain on the bedclothes, but the body pressing against her now is hot and bony, and it seems all it wants from her is to be swallowed up in her and to swallow her, to be born in her and give birth to her, oy, Dini, she sighs, don’t cry, why are you crying? And her daughter clings to her as if digging into her skin, help me, Mum, he doesn’t want the child.

What child, she doesn’t dare ask, so frail is her trust in her memory and so afraid is she of being caught out, and therefore it’s preferable to keep silent and deduce one thing from another and be content with cautious questions, why doesn’t he want that? And Dina wails, he says it’s madness, he doesn’t want a child, he doesn’t need a child, he’s fine as he is, do you think it’s madness, you think I’m off my head? How crowded is her grave tonight, she sighs, it seems to her that for years she’s been laid out in the dark covered with clods of earth, and now the grave is opening, shafts of light pierce her eyes, and a violent blast of air invades her nostrils, they’re throwing in another corpse alongside her and covering it, and now it will be crowded for ever, until eternity her daughter will be whispering feverishly in her ear, don’t run away from me, give yourself to me one last time, don’t go running again to your father and your mother and that lake of yours, and she holds out a hand to her daughter; the ground wallows between them heavy and muddy and she must dig a hole to reach her, very gradually she digs, of course the two of them are buried here for ever, and of course she too was accused of madness in those years, that was the way I greeted you, my dear daughter, but they were wrong, it wasn’t madness, the very opposite.

And if he leaves me, she asks, do you think he’s going to leave me? And Hemda sighs again, they all leave in the end, the child leaves too, but it makes no difference, you’re a mother, you need a child, it’s a simple story, because suddenly she sees her as a little child holding a baby in her arms and running away from her, and she chases after her in alarm, be careful, Dini, you’ll drop Avner, support his head, she ran so fast on her scrawny legs, and when she finally caught up with her and grabbed the baby from her arms, the girl wasn’t letting go, she held on to his feet and shouted, this is my baby, I’m his mother, I’m his good mother, and she stood before her grieved and agitated, as at this moment. You are a good mother, she says, it’s a simple story and don’t let anyone complicate it, a mother needs a child, how calm the baby was in her arms, how he enjoyed the chase. Where did you want to take him? she asked when she got her breath back, and the girl replied, to his house, he wanted me to take him home, and Hemda asked, where is his home, and she replied, in the cemetery, in your father’s grave.

But when he stands facing his car, with two parking tickets stuck to its front windscreen and hand-shaped leaves speckling its roof, he wonders where it came from, this absurd confidence that she’s really going to appear before him this evening.

Because only now, in the purple twilight, does he notice how close his car is to the gate of the house of mourning, almost blocking access to it, undoubtedly arousing surprise and indignation; he must get away from here before members of the household notice him and try to find out what he’s up to, and what’s he doing here anyway, not only is he bringing no benefits to them, he’s actually doing harm. It’s obvious to him that he can’t do them any good, but he still believes there is one soul he can help, and with all his fibres he seeks to compensate her for the gift she gave him, and longs to console her but doesn’t know how, because when he gets into his car and drives away in haste, powering up the steep incline and stopping on the edge of the wadi, he realises how flimsy his prospects are of ever meeting her again, least of all in this place, even if he locates the grave and visits it every day, even if he makes a point of participating in all the memorial events. A hidden grief has been imposed on him, more closely hidden than his own, and he leans his head on the steering wheel, seeing how all his efforts so far have only taken him further away from what he saw in his mind’s eye; his bourgeois exegesis of the scene behind the curtain has been utterly invalidated. This wasn’t the leave-taking of a couple living in the full bloom of love but stolen moments of love, capable of sweetening a little the taste of death, and he has no idea what he’s supposed to deduce from them about his life and his death, and he turns on the wipers and stares at the water spraying the front windscreen, tracing transparent semicircles, and it’s only now he realises how close he’s come to the edge of the wadi and he shudders when he steps out of the vehicle and sees one of the wheels already teetering on the brink.

Uneasily he looks around, drawing into himself the smells of sage and rosemary and the tantalising whiff of burnt straw, stumbling when he treads on the dry pine cones scattered on the ground, gilded by the setting sun. Where is she now, where is she mourning; he remembers how she wiped away her tears with the crumpled paper hanky he offered her, and a delicate twitch danced on her cheek when her tears mingled with his tears. Does she have a family too, a husband and children from whom she must hide her grief, and perhaps she’s already separated from her husband and her grief is exposed but there’s no one to comfort her, and he leans against a fig tree with its tangled branches and fruit still hard, big leaves drooping like the ears of a chastened dog, and stares at the sun as it lingers on the ridge, drawing the colours of the hills down into the wadi.

It’s been years since he found himself face to face with the sun, just the two of them, and he sticks a straw in his mouth and sucks it like a cigarette; the sweet taste of dust spreads through the void of his mouth, is this the taste of death? The wadi is deep and dry, with a rocky heart, is this what it looks like? Look, the sun has disappeared behind the ridge in the reddening west, so it seems a fire is burning beyond the hill and only the sparks are managing to climb up over the ancient terraces, turning pale as they ascend. To his surprise he notices that even after sunset the sky is still clear, and for the first time it occurs to him that in reality there is no link between the disappearance of the sun and the disappearance of the light. Where does the darkness come from, he looks around him as if expecting a black ball to come rolling down from the hills, colouring everything in its path, or is it from the treetops that the darkness emerges, since they are already blacker than black.

Two sweaty boys run up the steep and narrow path, reach the end and turn round, their footfall echoing loudly, and he walks down in their wake, noting a flowering bush with a crop of little honey-apples, and he plucks the sticky fruit eagerly, biting into it cautiously and quick to spit it out, is this the taste of death? The darkness rises from the earth to the sky, he establishes with certainty, not the opposite as he thought until now. On the peaks of the ridge opposite the lights are coming on like beacons, and with them the sounds become sharper, the crying of a baby, people parting company, cars receding, and when he hears loud barking followed by reprimands in the hoarse voice that’s so familiar to him, he tries to find a hiding-place and disappear from sight, but too late, as she’s already standing there facing him, and for some reason she seems glad to see him.

I was sure it was your car down there, I told Elisheva, she announces with satisfaction, and he’s embarrassed, I lost my keys, I had to leave it here, and he asks hurriedly, how is Elisheva? The neighbour sighs, she’s having a hard time, but it’s going to be even harder when the seven days of mourning are over, so I was glad to hear about the memorial day that you’re organising for him, it’s good for the family to attend events in his memory, and he asks tensely, when is the memorial day? And she says, the thirtieth of the month, that’s also thirty days after his death, aren’t you taking part?

No, I’m in accounts, he mumbles, where is it taking place? And she says, they don’t keep you informed in your faculty, do they, and he grins, that’s right, I’m always the last to be told anything; he’s torn between the impulse to prolong the conversation until she divulges some extra information, and the fear that the longer the conversation goes on, the more likely it will become that his deception will be exposed, and she shakes the lead in her hand, Casanova, come here, now! I’m fed up with chasing after you! The shadows of the trees sway at their feet in the thin breeze and for a moment it seems the trees themselves are moving. Yes, yes, life races by like a shadow, she says, it feels like only yesterday they moved in here with their young children, what a family, so much love, I never saw anything like it, for fifteen years we were next-door neighbours and I didn’t hear a single argument going on in that house. God knows how she’s going to get over it, poor thing.

They say it’s easier to get over the loss of a good marriage than the loss of a bad one, he finds himself offering some lame consolation, although I’ve never been convinced of that myself, what is there to miss about a bad marriage? But the neighbour declares, that’s actually quite logical, you come out of bad relationships with a sense of lost opportunity, you eat your heart out thinking of what you didn’t do, you feel anger and guilt, and there’s no longer any chance of putting things right, no chance at all, she stresses in a menacing tone, as if she’s been sent to warn him, and Avner recoils from her outstretched finger, retreats and turns to his car, still poised precariously at the edge of the wadi.

I must make a move, he says, give my regards to Elisheva, we’ll meet in happier times, he adds and at once regrets it, and she corrects him pedantically, we’re going to meet at the memorial day, and he nods hastily, yes, of course, but before he can get into his car a black and elongated shadow comes bounding towards them from the wadi, panting heavily, almost knocking him over as it barges in front of him and springs into the car, sitting in the driver’s seat, and she laughs, he loves car journeys, this dog, come out of there, you silly thing, you’re not going anywhere.

Rafael used to take him out with him sometimes, in the car or on foot, he really loved dogs, and it was he who gave us Casanova, isn’t that right? she adopts a childish, simpering tone and addresses the dog, who puts his paws on the wheel as a spittle-flecked smile appears on his gaping muzzle. They had a bitch that whelped and he was one of the litter, and after the bitch died Rafael decided he didn’t want another dog, but he used to take Casanova out for trips almost every day, didn’t he, puppikins? And where did Rafael take you? she asks the dog. Elisheva used to worry, sometimes he’d disappear with him for hours, that was the kind of man he was, a real angel, even a dog he was incapable of disappointing, imagine it, even when he was really ill and weak from the treatment he insisted on taking him out from time to time, isn’t that right, Casanova? Didn’t you love going on trips with Rafael? Where were you going? And they both turn their attention to the dog, whose black beady eyes are fixed on the front windscreen, his mouth open, and it seems that any moment the revealing words will emerge from there, and Avner trembles as if the honour of the dead man is being impugned between them unknowingly, and he glances at his watch and exclaims, I must make a move, my wife and my children will be waiting for me, it’s nearly supper time. Suddenly he’s proud of this pairing, my wife and my children, and he enjoys throwing the words into her face as if saying, the deceased isn’t the only one who had a wonderful family, maybe I have one too, maybe I have one and I don’t know it, maybe this evening I’ll find out, because when she pulls the hairy creature out of there with some effort, leaving his smell in the void of the car and the imprint of his fur on the seat, reverberating in Avner’s ears are the warnings he heard, and he drives fast, escaping from the mountain settlement and heading for the city centre.

She isn’t going to be found, he’s never going to see her and he’ll never hear their story, and perhaps it’s better that way, as their secret love can no longer be salvaged, nor can the grieving family, but perhaps his own family still could be, if only to make it easier for him to lose it, so he won’t be tormented by the grim sensations he’s been warned about, you feel anger and guilt and there’s no longer any chance of putting things right, no chance at all, and he pulls up at an oriental bistro by the roadside and buys fresh pittas, hummus and tehinna and onion salad, Shlomit will be glad to be spared the bother of cooking supper tonight, and he drives on at speed, hooting and overtaking a car that’s being driven very slowly and veering from side to side on the ascent. For a moment it seems to him he sees her sad face reflected in his rear-view mirror, no wonder she’s driving erratically, but at once he loses her as she’s overtaken by other cars and he’s not going to stop at the side of the road and wait for her, he’ll carry on to his home, since this is what the dead man wanted to say to him, look to your home, as long as you have a home, and he thinks of him crossing the wadi with the big and exuberant dog, perhaps she lives not far from there, in one of the houses on the ridge opposite which light up in the darkness, and from this vantage point she could watch the daily routines of his life. With this urgent excuse of walking the dog, did they succeed in meeting, until he could no longer walk? And what did they do then, did the dog drag him to the door of her house where he collapsed, exhausted, to be transported from there to the casualty ward, and where was his wife Elisheva that morning, which was apparently the last morning of his life, and which of them was at his side when he gave his soul back to the creator of the world; he realises he’ll never know the exact sequence of events, and even his detailed analysis will remain dubious, dependant on changes of mood. Is the vision he saw behind the curtain sending him in search of a love he never experienced, or sending him back home to Shlomit and the children, to try sweetening the mush of their shared lives with the berries of his understanding of death, as it seems to him the void of his mouth is full of them, berries which have a concentrated taste, salty and sweet at the same time, like the honey-flavoured fruits that grew on the bush, and when he locks his car he notices a gold leaf stuck to the windscreen under the wiper, an autumn leaf in midsummer, and he runs it delicately over his cheek and tucks it into his shirt pocket, and its touch, cool and pleasant like the touch of a caressing hand, remains on his face when he goes into the house, his hands full of greasy packages.