A Wall of Light (17 page)

N
OAH’S DIARY
, J
UNE
28, 1987.

In the news: someone offered a man at the Tel Aviv dog show $150,000 for his poodle! Some people have money to burn.

I
had a really long talk with Mom tonight. I don’t know what brought it on. She asked me whether I wanted to come with her for a drive and I said sure. I have one last exam in two days but it’s citizenship, I don’t have to study much for it. I’m already a perfect citizen ha ha. Besides, you can’t study every single minute of the day.

We ended up at this café and we ordered chocolate and cheese crêpes and talked for a long time. She said she’s involved in a very important case that could change the political and historical direction of the country, but that once it’s over she’s going to take six months off and we’ll finally go on our vacation. That was good news! She said she needs a vacation and she’s earned it and the world won’t fall apart if she stops working for a few months, or at least not any more than it’s already falling apart.

She said she was sorry she hasn’t been around for me but I told her that was crazy, just Dad laying guilt trips on her, or projecting his own feelings on me. She still feels bad that she missed my school play in grade
three!!
Mothers are crazy. I never even noticed and I barely remember, but she’s still feeling guilty about that. Anyhow, I finally convinced her that I don’t need her to feed me porridge with here-comes-the-airplane. I convinced her that she was just a plain, ordinary mom like all my friends’ moms—that is, the lucky ones whose mothers work and don’t have them breathing down their backs.

She asked about Ilanit and I explained about the cheating in the woods. She was a bit shocked when I told her, but she didn’t say anything. She asked whether I was sorry that Ilanit left me and I explained. I didn’t actually say “happiest day of my life,” because women stick up for one another and I didn’t want to sound like an asshole. But I did tell her I didn’t really love Ilanit and Mom said maybe I cheated on purpose to get rid of her, that’s what men do to get rid of women—they behave badly because they don’t have the guts to leave, they’d rather be left, and she laughed. I haven’t seen her laugh in so long I almost forgot she had teeth ha ha.

Then she asked me about my exams. I think Dad put her up to that. I told her I was going to pass everything and she seemed relieved. I don’t think she worries too much about how I’m doing in school, but Dad made her mention it.

The last topic was my career, and how glad she is that I’m going into the arts but she hopes I won’t have financial problems. Sonya’s fine now because when she turns twenty-one she gets all the money from the secret donor, which Dad quadrupled about seven times. But Mom is worried about whether I’ll manage, because she knows I’d refuse to take anything from Sonya. So I reassured her about that, too. Then she started talking about herself. She doesn’t usually do that, but she was in a very revealing sort of mood. I almost felt she needed someone to talk to, because she doesn’t have any really close friends, so things were kind of spilling out.

She told me that when she met Dad she had just broken up with a guy she really loved who was in law school with her. He left her and she said she almost dropped out of school because she couldn’t even get out of bed. She just stayed at home eating chocolates and crying. That was a bit hard to imagine. Anyway, then Dad came along. She said she wonders whether she was fair to him, marrying him. “He was my second choice, was that fair to him?” she asked me, as if she really wanted an answer. She said she
still
thinks about that other guy all the time and once or twice she ran into him and it was as painful as when he first left her.

Poor Dad! That’s what I was thinking, but I didn’t say that, of course. I said, “It was Dad’s decision too.” She looked so impressed when I said that. She narrowed her eyes, drew back, and gave me that look she gives in court, that makes people listen to her. “You’re really something, sweetheart,” she said. She smiled again, but she was sad. “Maybe you should get out of here while there’s still time,” she said, back to her old self. “We’re headed for darker times than people realize.”

“I’ll start working on that ark right away,” I joked.

That’s about it. We didn’t talk about the army, there’s nothing to say. I know how she feels. She left this book on my bed last year, this novel by Kenaz showing how army training is like being in a concentration camp—not literally, but how it’s full of evil, and evil is the same no matter where you are. I didn’t finish it, and anyway it’s 1955 in that novel, things have changed since then. Conscripts don’t get their heads kicked in the mud nowadays, they don’t live in a state of terror. All the same, I haven’t decided yet what to do. Probably I’ll go in but I won’t sign up for combat, I’ll do some technical course or something. That’s what Oren’s doing. I personally think Oren will end up with a 21 profile. I think after three weeks (days!?) he’ll just get bored, put on an act, and get himself a 21. He plans to go into business for himself, so it won’t matter for his future. Or maybe he’ll like the challenge of the army. Hard to know for sure.

I’m glad I had that talk with Mom. I wanted her to tell me more about this big case she’s working on, but she says it’s top secret for now. It’s big, though. I think she’s uncovered some huge scandal. She says I’ll know soon enough.

L
ETTER TO
A
NDREI
, M
AY
8, 1957

D
earest, you know for a long time Kostya pretended not to remember you. I didn’t want to tell you, even though I knew you would understand. When I mentioned you he would say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and he would pretend not to hear me. Well, guess what! Today he asked to write a letter to you! And you see, he remembers all his Russian. Here it is, dearest:

Dear Father
,

I hope you are well. I have been having fun in school. We are doing electrical and magnetic currents, it’s very interesting and we had a demonstration. We have had a lot of holidays in a row. We had Passover, a spring and liberation holiday. Then we had Holocaust Remembrance Day but no one wanted to remember so I’m not too sure what it was all about. Then we had Memorial Day for all the soldiers who fell for Independence. The next day, so it wouldn’t be gloomy for too long, we had Independence Day with many celebrations. I have joined a secret group, I can’t reveal our name. We are working on our manifesto. I need some advice from you regarding this manifesto and I hope you can answer these questions for me:

• How would you define freedom?
  

• When does freedom become dangerous?
  

• How can you decide who decides?
  

Thank you.
When are you coming?
Your loving son
,
Kostya

S
ONYA

I
waited and knocked again, harder this time. I didn’t see a buzzer.

I was about to slide my letter under the door when it opened, and there he was: my lover. He was wearing the same black jeans he’d had on this morning but a different top, a short-sleeved navy blue T-shirt with a small, illegible logo on the upper left corner. We looked at each other and it was hard to tell who was more amazed—me, for having actually tracked down this total stranger, or Khalid, who surely had not expected to set eyes on me ever again.

Seeing him was completely different from imagining him. Two opposite things happened: on the one hand the exhilarating, quasi-transcendent, and practically beatified image I’d carried with me all day evaporated like mist, and was replaced by an ordinary person with ordinary characteristics. At the same time, this ordinary person was even more desirable and mysterious than any conjured man, because in my imaginings I was able to control all his attributes, while in real life I was unbearably disconnected from him: he was not known to me. O sweet pangs of love!

My anxiety about clumsily invading my lover’s world also retreated. His world was familiar; it was not some extraterrestrial twilight zone whose parameters were unknowable. And he wasn’t angry in the least; nor did it look as if he had a family. Maybe some neighbor or other had seen an army vehicle bring me to this building, but no one was interested in me or my visit.

He opened the door wider to let me in and I stepped into a small rectangular hallway. There was a closed door behind him and a living room on my left, its conspicuous carved furniture, patterned rugs and painted vases as solemn as museum exhibits. But Khalid didn’t invite me in; he remained standing in the hallway with a puzzled expression on his face. Since I didn’t know what else to do, I opened my bag, took out the letter, and handed it to him. What luck, I thought, that I’d written a letter! For now that I was standing here facing my lover, I was tongue-tied.

He took the envelope from my hand and stared at it as if trying to remember what an envelope was. Finally he pulled out my letter and read it.

He smiled at what I’d written and his body relaxed. When he smiled, the three laugh lines on both sides of his face deepened into sunny, delicate brackets. I had not seen him smile before, I realized. Casually he invited me in.

Bright outdoor light fell in thin, geometrical patterns on the rugs and furniture, but Khalid drew the heavy salmon-and-gold curtains across the arched window, erasing the elongated shapes. He didn’t want anyone looking in; that was a good sign, I thought. He wasn’t planning to get rid of me immediately. On the other hand, maybe the drawing of the curtain was merely a courteous or protective gesture.

Facing the windows, at the other end of the room, was an arched doorway leading to a kitchen. Khalid led me to the kitchen and invited me to sit at a table in the corner. Despite the miniature hallway, crammed living room, and tiny kitchen, the house seemed spacious, partly because the ceiling was high and partly because it was so carefully decorated.

I sat at the table and watched Khalid. Now our positions were reversed: I was in his kitchen and he was serving me. A mathematical idea came to me and I shut my eyes, gave it a few seconds to play itself out. Something to work on later, but I wanted to put the first inklings in place. When I opened my eyes Khalid was looking at me with concern. “Do you feel well?” he asked me in English, trying to think of a way to mime the question. But I had understood. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just some idea I had. I’m happy to be here.”

Khalid still looked worried. “Tea or coffee?” he asked, comically holding up a tea bag in one hand and a jar of ground coffee in another. I laughed. “Tea, thank you. Any kind at all.”

He filled a whistling kettle with tap water and set it on the stove. Then he began opening drawers until he found a pen. He sat down across from me and wrote on the back of my letter, in English:

“Thank you for coming and for your letter. I respect you. I apologize for my bad behavior. I was very upset and worried about my mother. She died one hour ago and still I haven’t told anyone. I have a brother and a sister in Jordan and one brother here, I must call. And I must call an ambulance and let her friends know. But I have not so far done so. She was sixty-two only.”

“Where is she?” I asked with astonishment. It seemed inconceivable that somewhere in this sedate house, with all its complicated furniture and ornaments, there was an abandoned corpse, tucked away in some corner like secretly stowed contraband on a ship.

He motioned me to follow him to a long, narrow room adjacent to the living room. It was the only other room in the house as far as I could see, and I wondered where Khalid slept.

We entered cautiously, as if afraid to disturb any ghosts that might be lurking in the corners. Air from a small, high window was lured indoors by a ceiling fan with helicopter propellers, and the intimate glow of the overhead lightbulb reminded me of rainy winter nights on Yahud Street. There were two dressers covered with embroidered throws against the wall and a curved plastic lawn chair next to a single bed. The bed took up a quarter of the room. Lying under a white sheet was a gaunt woman with a navy blue kerchief tied neatly around her head. Her eyes were shut but her mouth was slightly open. She looked older than sixty-two.

The room smelled of death. The smell—dusty and slightly sour, like linoleum in a cellar—was new to me. I’d never been in the presence of a dead person, unless I counted Iris at her funeral, but she was already in a coffin and I was too preoccupied with Noah and my brother to pay her much attention. They had between them polished off an entire bottle of arak and were both extremely unsteady and slightly green.

I placed my hand on the woman’s forehead as though checking her for fever; under my palm her skin felt like cold parchment. She was Khalid’s mother. I would never know her.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

The kettle whistled, judging by the urgency with which Khalid hurried back to the kitchen. I stayed with his mother—it seemed too horrible to drink tea in the kitchen while she lay alone on her narrow bed. I sat on the lawn chair and looked at her. Death was entirely incomprehensible. Was she here or not here? This was where mathematical paradoxes came from: from our world, which was incomprehensible. We tried to solve mathematical problems—each generation tried—and in the world of mathematical systems we made progress, we discovered and invented clever systems and concepts. In the human world, however, we had made no progress at all.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
That was our best guess, then and now—pitiful, really.

I wondered why Khalid had not pulled the sheet over her head. Maybe it wasn’t a universal custom to do that when someone died; maybe it was just something you saw in movies.

Khalid came back to fetch me.

“I don’t want to leave her alone,” I said.

“Come,” he said.

We returned to the kitchen. Khalid had set two glasses of mint tea and a plate of sesame cookies on the table. Like two obedient schoolchildren we took our seats. Khalid wrote,
“She isn’t alone, her spirit is traveling in another dimension. She has been sick for a long time, and finally her suffering is over. I was able to look after her so she could stay at home. She didn’t wish to go to any hospital. Today I was looking for a new drug, hard to find. I tried everywhere but I was unable to acquire it. She waited until I came home to die.”

“What were her last words?” I asked him.

“She wanted a glass of water. When I came back with the water she was already gone.”

“Why haven’t you called anyone?”

He shook his head.
“I’m too tired to start yet with everyone coming here, and all the melodrama. I need to rest first, then I’ll do it.”

I took the pen and wrote beneath his messages,
“I love you. I wasn’t sure until now, but now I’m sure.”
I wondered how one said “I love you” in Arabic, and whether, as in Hebrew and French, the words for
like
and
love
overlapped.

Despite the somber circumstances, Khalid began to laugh. He wrote,
“I studied chemistry three years in Greece, two years in Denver. I came back to take care of my mother. I had a girlfriend in Denver and we were engaged, but in the end we broke apart. Don’t take that antihistamine again! Who knows what will happen next time!”

He was laughing, though his mother had died this afternoon. And I, who had dishonestly told myself that I’d come here without expectations, burst into tears.

It had been a long time since I’d cried on my own behalf. I often cried at sad movies or when I heard sad stories, but in general I had no reason to feel unhappy. My career was going well, my contribution was recognized, my students liked me. I had Kostya, Noah, Raya, a beautiful house in a city I loved. Noah had survived the army.

Now none of those things seemed important. I felt humiliated and heartbroken. I put my head down on my arms and sobbed.