A Late Divorce (45 page)

 

You paced slowly back and forth on the wet earth, careful not to sink into it, the divorced divorcing divorcer in the splintery glare of the raging spring, your pant cuffs stained with mud, your new American suit shiny in the sunlight, someone else was dressing you now, you never had such a stylish collar before. You lit a cigarette, your face dissolving into vapor in a puddle of water, you exhaled bluish smoke, you sank deeper into yourself, shifting papers from pocket to pocket. Inside the closed cottage, behind drawn curtains, the rabbis fought over our divorce, but already I was parted from you, sitting stock-still on the stoop and staring at the soft gray curls over your heart, at the thin scar hooked like a beak. All at once you stopped worrying and looked at me. What were you thinking of just then? Still of yourself as
you
and
he
the way you once used to? You turned to me so unexpectedly, so openly, so shining with wisdom, yes, even with humor—why, the worst part of it then was that you completely lost your sense of humor! “Did you really? You really did? You wanted to kill me?” Perhaps now that we're parted at last it flattered you to think that. “Yes,” I said. But that wasn't so. I had only wanted to cut you loose. Can't you understand there's a difference? To cut you loose from the desperate fear that made you want to run away, but to leave some part of you too. Because I'm sure there would have been something left. To cut you loose from your constipated fear, from your self-involved, self-diddling intellect with its anxieties and its imaginary, self-destructing missions to the world. Not at that exact spot. Although perhaps there never was a better one. But I was sure that there must be one, the fulcrum from which you would come apart. If only you hadn't been so scared. If only you had waited another moment without moving, you might not have even felt the pain. But you didn't know who you gave the knife to. It wasn't to her, as you thought. It was to me, who loved you and would never have harmed you. Who wanted only to open you up. To cut you loose but not to kill you. To free you. Oh how gladly I would have taken apart that mono-self of yours! It broke my heart to see you with your apron on among those pots, a beginner in the kitchen trying so hard to cook, the dawn-star Venus upon you, a soft sun of flame beneath your steamy, boiling meat soup. You gave her the knife and you panicked because you couldn't see how in a flicker of thought I took it from her right away. Cut him loose, don't kill him, I whispered to her. Start with the key on his chest. If only you had kept still then as you did today, smiling patiently ... we did, you know, spend so many years together, even if they were a bitter disappointment ... what made you grab my hand and wrestle with me, what made you run away? But you've always run away. Always surrendered. Always gone to get Tsvi, to wake up the children, not that they ever did you any good. Because it wasn't a question of doing justice or of being fair. It was a question of being together. You shouted when you should have talked. For the longest time you choked your words to death, you constipated all your sentences. Who were you shouting at? Why? And in such a high, female voice that one might almost have thought that my other was in you and was dragging you off to her wilderness. Groggy as I was I knew I had to act quickly and so did the loudly barking dog. I knew that it was either now or never to cut up that stubborn mono-self into its original parts. If only you hadn't moved. If only you had calmed your mind instead of screaming “Oh, my God!” and springing for the door. A fresh, clear stream of words would have sprung from you instead and done the job without a drop of blood. You would have been cut loose painlessly, joyously. We could have done without the knife.

Suddenly someone bangs on a table and the murmurs and the laughter die away. Off to the side somebody starts to sing the next passage from the Haggadah and is silenced. From the other end of the room somebody else takes it up and is hushed too. “Shh ... shh ... wait a minute ... the rabbi...” I glanced up from my book to see the young Russian standing stiffly at the head table eyes shut one hand on his heart and the other raised in the air. “Shh ... shh ...” voices call out. “Quiet, there! The rabbi wants to say a few words...”

The silence deepens. At last he looks at us his gaze raking us like a blue torch. All eyes are on him. Here and there the trace of a smile. He takes a step back and quietly begins to make the rounds of the tables one hand still on his chest and the other still in the air. We crane in our chairs to watch him quietly slowly circle behind us two or three times until he deftly slips into the square between the tables and begins to circle that too passing in front of us now staring at the ceiling playing some game that maybe he learned in a Soviet labor camp. All at once he halts in front of me and without even a look at me deftly shuts my book then continues on his way one hand still held high not at all the same man who fought for my marriage this morning. Slowly now he lets his upraised arm drop. No one smiles anymore. We hold our breaths hypnotically. He walks even slower he stops to look at the children he circles some more stopping to study the doctors he walks on and stops again in front of the patients from the closed ward he circles on all at once he too begins to sing from the Haggadah offhandedly in a fine tenor voice like someone singing to himself in a melody nobody knows. Done he circles again lithe and assured on his feet cherubic cheeks pink in the bright light golden curls on his nape fluffing lightly beneath his backward-tipped cap. And again he stops by the children now he sings once more his voice poignant full of longing he circles again halting this time by the patients from the closed ward scrutinizing them slowly while they blink and gape with drooling mouths staring back at him in alarm as though he were about to attack them. Yet instead he begins to speak in his soft quiet voice in his thick odd Russian accent his body arched gracefully backward.

“Nu
...but also you are chosen, do you know? Also you have spark of holiness. Also you belong to God's covenant ... all of you ...” He sweeps his hand over the dining room. “A-a-a-ll of you, even who do not want, who do not believe. All ... everyone ...” He pauses to look straight at me. “A-a-a-ll ...” he drawls again. And once more he resumes circling as though lost in thought head high voice abruptly turning harsh.
“Nu.
For you whole earth is something to be”—he whips out a pad from his pocket, his voice dropping to a powerful whisper, and consults it—“trodden underfoot.” He smiles to himself. “Underfoot. Underfoot.” He forcefully repeats the word face red with anger everyone sits too dazed to make a sound. And again he circles round one hand on his heart stalking softly like a cat the scarf flutters on his neck he runs his other hand over the white tablecloth such delicate
soft
skin his curly locks tumble down his neck now I see him from behind and give a start why it's a woman disguised as a man I hardly can breathe. He stops across from my table eyeing us. “
Nu, nu.”
He rouses himself. “In every generation we seek freedom, but only kind of freedom ... only kind of freedom ... is freedom to be slaves ... freedom to be slaves of God. Is freedom inside. Only there. Is freedom outside worth nothing ...” He reaches again for the book I've reopened and snatches it from me he looks at it darkly and bangs it shut he tucks it under his arm and circles some more. But now I jump to my feet. How didn't I notice before that it was her? It's her disguised as a rabbi! Desperately I turn to all the people watching him. Hasn't anyone seen? From a far table he starts to sing again he returns to his seat and signals us all to join in the melody. It's true, then. She's back. She's right here. And I bolt outside in a panic.

The vats of night spill over me black and cold already I'm being chased I fling myself into some bushes falling through the hard branches I hear feet running down the path Yehezkel is calling in the darkness I peek out and see a thin little woman puffing on a cigarette bending down to pick up the skullcap that's fallen from her head as she hurries toward my cottage. I cut through the bushes scratching myself breaking loose veering toward the front gate where the road is swimming in white night light I'm near the guardhouse now there's Arabic music inside. I turn back toward the office the open door is swinging in the wind. Inside the rooms are dark. File folders and telephones gleam in the moonlight. Almost before it has rung Kedmi answers in his brisk voice.

“Kedmi here.''

“It's me.''

“Who? Talk louder.”

But suddenly I feel so weak.

“Mother.”

“What are you mumbling there? Who are you?”

“Mother,” I whisper.

“Whose mother? Oh, it's you ... What's wrong?”

“Let me talk to Ya'el.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Let me talk to Ya'el or to Tsvi!”

“All right, all right. Don't get nervous. I'll let you talk to them all. Just tell me first what's wrong.”

But from a stack of files in the corner she rises in an old fur coat and galoshes granny glasses falling off her nose tall wrinkled hunchbacked white wool stockings running up her legs cheap chains on her neck reaching out an old bony hand to grab the phone with that smile that I hate in another second she'll begin to talk already I hear Ya'el's voice. “Mother? What's the matter? Mother?” That patient piece of putty is calling me but I hang up and turn to the window how quickly the moon sails through it I stop my ears I don't want to hear but I can't stop the murmur that rises escaping from deep in the earth.

—They'll have a terrible accident.

—You're starting again. Don't.

—This time they'll be caught.

—You've said that a thousand times and nothing's ever happened.

—This time underfoot.

—No. None of your words again.

—Underfoot.

—Underfoot. So underfoot. So what?

—She sings so beautifully.

—He does. Don't say she. I'm warning you.

—No, no, she. You saw yourself all the she there was today. From now on if you'd like there'll be only she, lots of she, she everywhere...

—You're out of your mind.

—She. Lots of she. Even Musa will be a she if you'd like.

—I haven't the strength for this. I don't believe it's happening. Anything but having to begin this all over again.

—She everywhere.

—Shut up.

—The earth will turn upside down.

—Don't start in on the earth now.

—Then maybe the sky. Maybe the she-sky.

—That's enough. Stop it!

—Because you know what I've been thinking. Godina. Queen of the Universe.

—No. Anything but that...

—Godina. It's so simple. So perfect.

—It's insane.

—Godina. What a brilliant idea.

—What nonsense.

—We must remember to tell Tsvi tomorrow.

—You will not say one word to him. Keep away from him.

—But he'll love it. What a beautiful idea. Now that the house is all ours, you'll see that they'll have to put up with me.

—The house was coming to me. What's wrong with that? What do you want from me?

—How easily he let you have it, though.

—Because it was coming to me. He realized that.

—Then Godina!

—If you scream like that I'll kill you. I'll do it with my own two hands. You know I mean it.

—What happiness there will be with Godina.

—Never. Just more miserable depression.

—That isn't so. There was such sweet happiness then too. And now with Godina.

—I'm telling you that's enough!

—Godina! We can't take it back anymore. It's been said. What a shame that Yehuda...

—You're crazy. There is no Godina.

—Then just the word. We'll just keep the word. The soft she-ness of it.

—You're not dragging me back there with you. I'll fight. I'll kill you.

—But it's all inside you.

—Nowhere else. Deep down. That's where the war will be. Deep down...

—Godina! You better get it straight. Godina. And now I'm going to sing.

—That's enough. I'm not listening. I'm through with you. Go back to the desert. Die!

The telephone rings and I know that it's Ya'el she's worried maybe Tsvi too maybe even father but I'm afraid to answer because I might say something that will only upset them more. I walk outside to the path hearing the phone steadily ringing waiting to come to my senses to be myself again. Around me out among the trees women are stirring dancing up out of the earth. I bury my face in my arms I listen to the wind fan over me like a tender gust in some huge sail billowing bright light into this darkened world. Far off I hear Yehezkel's voice at last the phone stops ringing. I look around me inhaling the cool air slowly pulling myself together watching the world go back to normal the guardhouse the road the lit-up dining room the ticking of the water pump the sound of the surf here and there a lone star I rise my head clearing in the good still night slowly I walk back to the office to phone them perhaps I'll hear Gaddi or the baby I'll ask them how they like the seder.

I still am haunted by the knowledge that,

whether separate or apart, we are one thing.

Eugenio Montale Xenia

 

Already it's tomorrow. This is it. A new shadow gleams on the wall like a bar of thin mercury. Good morning last day. Who would have thought they would all pass so quickly? A matter of hours now. At midnight tonight your divorced your divorcing father blasts off. A whirlwind visit but the knot has been cut. Not without mistakes but I'm free. To forget it too. All the dreadful little moments. Perhaps only one of them will remain perhaps not even that the parchment flying through the air into her outstretched palms a spasm of rabbis around us. Old toothless religion you still have the power to shock at the least expected times. A dash of mystery. So farewell my murderess. No fantasy of mine. A few hours from now you will bank steeply over clouds and land in a gray alien dawn straight into a big American kitchen filled with quiet suburban light. Into a cold and peaceful exile. The Return of the Old Israeli laying his now available name beside the swollen white belly. Cold cereal and coffee before stripping to a flabby erection. But with infinite patience. There you do not disappoint. There is only grateful wonder that you exist at all. That you are what you are. But what time is it and what's happened to my watch?