A Late Divorce (44 page)

“Blessed art thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe...”

But now a nurse hurries up to big portly Dr. Ne'eman who stops the rabbi and whispers into his ear. A side panel opens and into the dining room come the patients from the closed ward nearly a dozen of them I've never seen before escorted by a young doctor and two nurses. Tense and bowed they move in a diagonal line led by a short very squinty-eyed redhead of maybe forty a fireball on his feet dragging the others heavily after him how awfully depressed they seem looking over their shoulders halting in a daze and lurching forward again their skullcaps in their hands the dining hall electric with their invisible split selves all packed into one room as though not twelve but a hundred of them had marched in rattling their chains. The staff helps seat them at a table and fills their glasses. Again the signal is given and the Russian raptly shuts his eyes he too is moved by the occasion perhaps it's his first seder here too. Once more his strong tenor voice rings out.

“Blessed art thou 0 Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hath chosen us among the nations, and exalted us above all tongues, and sanctified us with His commandments ...”

Someone screams. The redhead has slipped away from his restrainers and jumped on a table squinting at us all with a beaming festive cross-eyed ecstasy. In no time he's pulled down and dragged outside a sparking shrieking fireball his harsh muffled sobs like the grunts of some wild beast can still be heard. Rabbi Subotnik has turned pale. He starts the blessing all over the kiddush cup poised between his fingers while everyone rises again. Except me. I stay seated and open my book how I hate the words of the blessing I won't wait for it to be done before I drink the sweetish juice in my cup has some wine mixed in with it after all. Now everyone sits and the little boy gets up. He faces his family and recites the Four Questions in a heavy American accent as though the words were stones in his mouth but with blind confidence not knowing what they mean pulled through in one almost show-offy breath by the anxious love of his brother and sister without a single mistake while the dining room gasps in amazement and breaks into applause when he's done. He makes a loathsome rehearsed bow and the Russian tenor rings out again hushing the babble of voices. “For slaves were we to Pharaoh in Egypt, and God redeemed us from there with a strong hand and outstretched arm...” But at once the murmurs and laughter resume I see her face now by the window how thirsty she suddenly is. Overcome with longing I rise Yehezkel rising with me. I try making him sit again but the thirst is too much for me I take the bottle and put it to my lips I guzzle from it greedily while the rabbi goes on ranting we were slaves...

 

He stood on the watered earth, amidst the rotting leaves, by a strip of growing grass, bathed in the sharp, splintery light of the violent spring's flaming sun, the cuffs of his pants stained with mud, too occupied with himself to notice the world all around him, shifting papers from pocket to pocket, his tie loose, the soft curly gray hairs showing through the slit of his shirt by the large pale mole that once I kissed and the small reddish seam that resembled a hooked beak. Did you really want to kill me? With such naive curiosity, yet that wise smile of his lighting his face. As though it had been simply a mistake or a dream. He couldn't believe that that morning ... only it wasn't morning yet, it was a muggy, lingering summer dawn with the sea showing through far away like steamy gunmetal. The kitchen light was still on when I found him at the table in his undershirt and pajama bottoms, a tall, skinny, unshaven bird wearing a small apron. He had eaten an early breakfast on the sly and his plate now lay on a yellowed newspaper beside the lock that he had removed from his door, the key to which hung from a string around his neck. He pouted wearily, a cold, withheld man, shut up in the circle of his own self-involved thoughts, his little pots simmering on the stove, full of things he had cooked for himself, while the dog lay under the table, wagging his tail and sniffing at my food that he had thrown him.

He was startled to see me. “How come you got up? Gaddi finally fell asleep again. He sure can scream, he's a loudmouth just like his father.... But why don't you go back to bed? We'll have to bring him back to Ya'el. Perhaps you'll take him, and I'll stay here and try to get organized. I haven't read a single line this whole month.” Quickly he rose to clear away his plate and hide his pots from me. He brought me my medicine, measured it into a glass with a tablespoon, and handed it to me mechanically, without a word. He was on the verge of collapse. And I thought, what he'll organize is his own despair so that he can get rid of me. I went to the stove to see what he was cooking. He smiled awkwardly but removed the lid to show me a piece of boiled, blackened meat. I lowered the flame, stirred the water with a spoon and stuck a fork in the meat. It was hard as a rock.

“Come, let me help you,” I said. “That's not how to do it. Let me have a knife.” He looked in the drawer and handed me a large one, which he tried snatching back as soon as he saw how eagerly her hand grabbed the moist handle. He's noticed that there's someone else, I thought, filled with new hope. He recognizes her. He knows who she is. He understands that I'm not just pretending.

The knife was wrenched free from him now. He beat a retreat toward the door.

“I think we'd better wake up Tsvi...''

 

The singing rocks the dining room.
Ve'hi she'amda ve'hi she'amda
everyone happily picks up the tune the personnel the nurses even some of the patients shouting it flinging down the words again with unfathomable delight. Next to me Yehezkel is letting himself go too nudging my arm to make me join in. The rabbi regards the singers with a faint smile on his lips seeking to follow the unfamiliar Israeli melody. I bury myself in my book my head pounding loathing the words the melody thinking of her behind the door in a bathrobe shaking out the drops of water from her loose hair listening happily to the music wanting to join in but too hungry her mouth waters. She notices the stack of matzos and reaches out to them. Go ahead I whisper take one. As though inadvertently she does breaking off a piece and sticking it in her mouth. People are staring at me. I bend over my book and pretend not to see them while I eat reaching for more matzo quickly breaking and chewing it I've hardly eaten all day. The dry flat bread makes a loud crunchy sound in my mouth. And slowly nervously the singing dies down. The rabbi catches my eye and signals me not to but I go right on eating breaking off piece after piece now Musa reaches out and does the same so do the patients from the closed ward across from us all taking their cue from me. “Just a minute there!” somebody shouts trying to retrieve the filched matzos the doctors' table buzzes excitedly. The rabbi turns to it in a whisper he bangs his fist on the table. “One minute, friends! Please wait for the blessing.” But calmly spitefully I go on eating cramming matzo into my mouth and chewing it swiftly piece by piece the crumbs raining down on my dress. Dr. Ne'eman smiles and comes over to me big and portly he bends down and hugs me warmly pinning my hands. “Mrs. Kaminka! My dear Naomi. Let's just wait until the blessing. That's all he asks, because it's annoying.”

“To whom?” I ask. “God?”

He laughs soundlessly winking at me full of good humor extracting a piece of matzo from my grasp with the same soft warm paws that once used to tie me and give me electric shock. “Never mind. There's just a bit more to go. It's only a ceremony, you know. Just a bit more. I don't believe in it either, but why demoralize people?...”

 

He stood there on the wet earth, lighting a cigarette, rotting leaves and fallen blossoms all around him, pacing the growing grass, bathed in the sharp, splintery light of the violent spring, seeing nothing, oblivious to the blooming earth, self-involved, shifting papers, his tie loose, the soft curly gray hairs showing through the frill of his shirt. Why, for a moment I even saw the pale mole that once I kissed with such passion and the reddish seam they had stitched in him like a hooked beak! He showed them to me, both abashed and amused, a twinkle
in his eyes, almost smiling, asking me did I really as though he didn't know. Did I really? Well, now he could afford to, the divorce was almost over on the other side of the door. It pleased him to think that it might all have been a mistake, a passing aberration: that whole brutally muggy summer dawn on which he threw my food to the dog, diddling with his pots, with his constipated, self-involved mind that never would change, that locked itself up with keys swinging from strings, go back to bed, how come you got up, what a night, he sure can scream, we can't go on like this, we should never have bad him here ... and all the time looking for my medicine and so mechanically measuring it and giving it to me, here I was barely risen and already he wanted to drug me, to knock me out, even to drive me away. How quickly he had despaired of me, how disappointingly he had given up on me from the moment he noticed the umbrella I brought home from the store. “What did you buy that for?'' he wanted to know. And I said, “I didn't. It got into my shopping bag by mistake. I never paid for it.” The next day I returned with two more umbrellas and a brown mug. “How easy it is to steal,” I mused. “Not that I was stealing—at least I didn't feel that I was—but perhaps somebody else was doing it for me. I suppose you had better take it all back.” He hit the ceiling. “What kind of monkey business are you up to? I want you to stop it at once.” I let a few days go by and went to take it all back, but this time they were waiting for me, they had already spotted me the time before. They grabbed me without letting me explain, some young salesman stood me in a corner and insisted on calling the police. In the end they got hold of Yehuda too, who came running from the university to identify me, frightened and as pale as a sheet. I was hungry and tired by then but he didn't even speak to me. He just fawned on the policeman, a fat sergeant who had to calm him down, who understood right away because he knew all the signs and never thought for a moment of pressing charges: a primitive-looking but gloriously humane soul, from the start he behaved gently toward me, he let me go off to the side and only cautioned Yehuda. On our way home we didn't speak to each other. Yehuda was furious, he would only look at me from the corner of his eye as though I were a stranger. We kept quiet in the house too. I ate, washed, and got into bed with the last of my strength, still not exchanging a word with him. But as I was dozing off in the twilight I felt him standing in the doorway with a suspicious stare. “You see,” I began to explain to him, “there's someone else here now. It's hard to draw the line but there's an other in me, perhaps a whole extra person. You have two wives now. But don't be afraid. You can cope with her. Just go along with her, don't panic and try to fight her. She may even be the original me. Perhaps she's a virgin. I'm only first getting to know her. I can feel that soon she'll start talking, and then you'll hear her too.” He covered his face, not wanting to accept it, refusing to hear anymore. “She's still quite primitive. She isn't used to stores, she can't even tell the difference yet between what's hers and what isn't. She comes from the desert. But you'll see that she can be talked to. That she can even be loved. Just you tell her that too. You have such a good way with words. Make an effort with her. Let her feel your presence. Now that you're retired and have time on your hands, she can give new meaning to your life.” “That's enough!” he burst out. “You're doing this on purpose. It's just an act.” “But it's not, Yehuda. Listen. She's going to talk to you now, just to demonstrate.” And she really did begin to, quickly and in my mother's voice, saying the most complicated, confusing things. He slammed the door and fled, and as soon as she stopped I fell asleep. When I awoke it was the middle of the night. The bedroom door was open and a dim light shone in the house. Someone was singing on the television. Tsvi was up. He came to look in on me and I knew right away that father had told him everything, that he had asked him to come back home to live with us.

Tsvi helped me up and made me something to eat, surrounding me with warmth and concern. He was clearly in the best of spirits. Father was already sleeping on the couch in his study. And only then did I grasp the full extent of his despair, of his fear, of his disappointment, of his surrender. He was handing me over to Tsvi, who was only too glad to get me and to treat me royally. He turned off the TV, made his bed in the guest room, and went off to look for a book to read in it.

 

Suddenly you can hear a pin drop. I look up from my book to see the rabbi beckon to the pretty young American mother. She rises blushing in her gorgeous dress encouraged by her husband she tiptoes anxiously over to the rabbi he hands her a large porcelain bowl. She holds it in her thin hands while he raises his big wine cup and begins to list the Ten Plagues in some old chant from the steppes letting one large red drop of wine fall into the bowl for each plague. Blood. Frogs. Lice. Locusts. Vermin...

The pretty young American smiles she has stage fright and doesn't understand the bowl shakes slightly in her hands while the rabbi continues drop by drop flicking each plague off his finger into the pinkish bowl and chanting as it falls. Boils. Hail. Wild beasts ... Hypnotically she smiles at each drop. Darkness. The Killing of the Firstborn ... At last he's done. He shuts his eyes and motions her back to her seat but still she stands there reverently holding the bowl uncertain what to do with it. And then suddenly she raises it to her lips and begins to drink. Everyone shouts at once. The bowl of plagues is snatched from her. Shrieks of laughter accompany her shamefaced return to her seat where her children crowd around her and her husband gives her a kiss. And still the tenor voice quavers on.

“Rabbi Yossi the Galilean hath said...”