Five Seasons (3 page)

The telephone rang. It was 5:15. His mother was calling from Jerusalem. Though how was beyond him, she already knew everything; all night long she hadn't slept a wink, thinking about it. She had wanted so badly, she wept, to say good-bye to her. She had loved her so much. Could someone fetch her from Jerusalem? When could they come? Could they keep the body at home until she got there? He heard the distant, muffled sound of her tears and parried her lamely, exhaustedly, ignoring her pleas, for he knew she had always been afraid of her daughter-in-law, whose corpse he preferred she not see in its bed. Finally he hung up and dialed a close friend, the doctor who had treated his wife in recent years. He, too, answered at once and quite lucidly, as if he had been expecting the telephone to ring. Meanwhile, an aroma of coffee filled the house, and Molkho greedily drank the large, hot mug of it poured him by his son, feeling drunk with the sweetness of Death, pacing back and forth in the room, though never too close to the bed, listening to his daughter's endless sobs—she, of all people, who had never gotten along with her mother at all.

His mother-in-law still sat by the bed, guarding it without moving. The doorbell rang. It was the doctor and his wife, both grim-looking. Brushing past Molkho, the doctor went straight to the corpse and examined it thoroughly, as if to make sure it was dead, which made Molkho fear that it wasn't, that maybe it was merely unconscious, while at the same time feeling angry at not being believed. But at last the examination was over; gently the doctor drew the sheet over the dead woman's face, and Molkho told him about the end, imitating her wheezing and the tremor in her hands, though just then the flood of morning light pouring in the window made the two-hour-old death seem something that had happened long ago. The doctor listened and dialed the hospital to order an ambulance, while several neighbors knocked and entered, all of whom—the women, too—had to kiss Molkho. Odder yet, it seemed to him, was how one of them burst out wailing bitterly, starting off the day with a good cry at the corpse's expense, though she and his wife had never done more than say hello on the stairs. Her husband stood by concernedly, conversing with Molkho's mother-in-law, who still sat by the side of the bed as if she were the living half of the dead person and empowered to carry on in her behalf.

Molkho felt exhausted. Desiring to be alone, he went and sat in the living room, from where he listened to the college student telephoning all their friends in his toneless drawl, rousing them from bed without even an apology. No doubt, Molkho thought, they, too, would come running to pay their last respects—an idea that aroused in him such profound resistance that he sat stubbornly brooding in the corner, thinking how much better it would be for no one to see her at all. What did her dead body matter? All along he had taken good care of her, everyone knew that he had, and now all at once he was to blame for her death, for which he was being held accountable.

Time passed as in a waking dream. More and more people, surprisingly quick to arrive, rang the doorbell, all wanting to be with him, just as once, long ago (for so last night already seemed), they had wanted to be with her. Then his mother was on the phone again; but this time, refusing to rise, he asked his son or daughter to take the call. Where, he wondered bitterly, was he to find the strength for it all? He had always imagined that his wife's death would set him free, yet now he felt newly shackled, and when someone removed the sheet from her face, which looked pale and ugly in the strong light, he suddenly had enough and snapped, “What do you think this is, Lenin's tomb?” Just then, though, the ambulance arrived, and two men carried her out of the house. It wasn't even seven; it was like one of those distant days long ago when she left for school ahead of time because her class had an early homeroom.

T
HEY WERE ALL AFRAID
that the rain would spoil the funeral, but at noontime, some two hours beforehand, the sky cleared and a warm breeze blew in from the sea. The procession left the funeral parlor on time and covered without incident the short, straight distance to the cemetery, where, the hour being convenient and the news having spread, the crowd turned out to be a large one. All eyes were on him, following him to the grave, and he did his best to look about and remember who was there, asking his children to remember too. A light, delicate mist swirled about them, whitening the tombstones, and they walked in its midst with an unhurried crunching of feet: his mother-in-law, without her cane and surrounded by all her old friends, stepping slowly and supporting each other; his children with their friends; and he himself with his mother in tow, tottering after him in a black fur coat like a cart missing a wheel, stopping in front of all the people she knew to cast them a disconsolate glance. The grave had already been dug that morning in a new section of the cemetery on a low rise of the mountain, and now he stood dutifully beside it, looking down at the fresh earth and observantly up again at the murmuring crowd, pleased to see not only his friends from the office but many secretaries and colleagues too. The woman doctor who had once treated his wife was there also, as were her fellow teachers and many others he couldn't place—teenagers, college students, young soldiers, high school pupils in their uniforms, his children's teachers, even several cousins from Jerusalem, heavy, balding Sephardim of the old school, bundled in scarves, their eyes, unused to the sight of it, fixed on the stormy sea nearby with a look of astonished concern. He had never been such an attraction before, besieged by so many people—who were thinking mainly of her, of course, but no doubt also of him.

The rabbi beside him was an impeccably dressed, distinguished-looking man of German origin who had presided two years ago at his wife's uncle's funeral to the satisfaction of the entire family, at which time her mother had had the presence of mind to jot down his telephone number. Quickly, expertly, he tore the lapel of Molkho's shirt while Molkho looked at him hopefully, trusting him to guide them just as smoothly through the rest of the ceremony. Surrounded by his children, friends, and family, he stood there certain of the acknowledgment in their warm, approving looks, for he knew that they knew how devotedly he had cared for his wife, doing everything he could to nurse her at home until the end—yes, even the rabbi, in brief but eloquent words, was now speaking in his praise. Raising his eyes to the somberly listening circle of women, his wife's friends, now regarding him contemplatively, Molkho wondered if any of them knew things he didn't, intimate secrets she might have shared with them during the long hours they had sat with her, strange fantasies even, the product of her illness, against which he was unable to defend himself. Why, even though she had refused to make love to him since that day seven years ago when her first breast was removed, he had never been unfaithful, had never protested even once!

A
FTER THE FUNERAL WAS OVER
and he had cried a bit, the mourners filed by to shake his hand. He could tell that they wished him to remember their presence, and trying not to sound too doleful, he promised them all that he would. In the last twenty-four hours he had even perfected a sad nod that was at the same time not so grief-stricken or hopeless as to suggest only Death, for as drained of vitality as he felt, he needed to demonstrate that he was someone still worthy of love. The crowd kept filing by, mostly couples, yet sometimes a lone man or even woman who managed to convey her singleness, such as the legal adviser of his office, a senior official who, three years ago, had lost her husband, whose funeral he had attended with some of his friends, even though he was not on close terms with her. In those days he had already begun to practice going to funerals, and indeed, he now remembered that her husband was buried not far from his wife's fresh grave. In recent months he had even thought of her as of a definite postmortem possibility.

I
T RAINED
all during the week of mourning, and the weather turned so cold that everyone began to wonder if an early winter hadn't already set in. The heater was turned on in Molkho's living room, where he sat on the couch with his three children, across from their grandmother, who occupied the large armchair facing them. Molkho's daughter took off her shoes and wrapped her feet in a blanket, and it was warm and cozy sitting there together, watching the rain fall and greeting the constant flow of visitors, with whom they talked about the weather, and the deceased, and the funeral, and who had been there and what they had said, and the distinguished rabbi and his elegy, which was short but to the point, so that he wasn't at all as tiresome as he might have been. They sat like that all morning, lay down to rest after lunch, rose at four o'clock, sat again until supper, and then sat some more into the night. At first, Molkho had thought of excusing his younger son and sending him back to school, of which he had already missed enough in recent months, but the boy insisted on joining them and sat there alertly as though feeling much better now that his mother was dead, curiously regarding the old people who came to visit his grandmother, odd octogenarians whom Molkho had never seen before and who now filled his living room, carrying on long conversations in German, of which he understood not a word, though he made a point of smiling whenever they did. Acquaintances and relations came from all over, and Molkho rose immediately to greet them, kissing even those he hardly knew, even those who hadn't meant to kiss him. Dressed in a soft black turtleneck sweater, unshaven as was the custom, he was perfectly ready to kiss anyone; in fact, all the kissing on sight rather pleased him, and even though most lips did little more than graze his cheek, sometimes a woman from work hugged him tightly, tickling his forehead with her hair and pressing her breasts (or so he assumed them to be) against him. Yet there were some he was wary of touching, such as the young teachers his wife had supervised, the attractive, manicured woman accompanying the fat old lady who came to see his mother-in-law, or the legal adviser from the office, who paid a condolence call with the head of his department and several other colleagues, in whose company she seemed so ill at ease that she even refused to take off her coat, despite the heat in the apartment.

Later at night, at about ten o'clock, after the college student had accompanied his grandmother to her old-age home and returned to his dorm and the two younger children had settled down to watch the late show on television, Molkho would retire to the bedroom—which, in perfect order, still looked like a little hospital waiting for its next patient. True, the large bed was now a bare metal frame, its mattress, for which they had been charged a daily rate, having been returned on the first day; yet everything else, whether borrowed, rented, or bought, was still in place: the intravenous drip, the bath basin, the wheelchair, the oxygen mask, the hypodermics, the drugs, the books she had read, the books she had planned to read, the music she had listened to over and over, his bed lying next to hers. He undressed and got ready for bed while wondering what to keep and what to sell, especially of the drugs, one of which—an expensive medicine called Talwin, which he had bought in bulk months ago, fearing the drugstores might run out, but which was hardly used in the end, because it was contraindicated by something else—lay in stacked boxes on a shelf. Could he find a buyer for it, he wondered, and if so, how? Once in bed, he left the night-light on as he had done for his wife, making a mental note to replace the bulb with a weaker one. He still slept very lightly, rising four or five times in the middle of the night to wander about the apartment or to sit in the living room listening to music with the earphones on, thinking of all kinds of things, such as the big newspaper deliverer who had ridden by that morning as though he were part of her death. Suddenly, as if the man's clothing, his headlight, his newspaper pouch, his bicycle wheels, were the last tidings from Molkho's dead wife, he longed to see him again. He missed her lying beside him, even sick and unconscious, missed even her water mattress, as if it were part of her too. Did she still exist somewhere, was someone else taking care of her now? Soon, however, wrung dry as a sponge by fatigue, he went slowly back to bed, glancing on his way at the pile of unpaid bills on his desk. And he would have to register her death with various government offices too. Although he hoped that having to deal with such practical matters would help put him back on his feet, he still felt too weary to tackle them.

O
N THE SEVENTH DAY
, at the crack of dawn, they went to visit the grave. The rain had stopped, but it was still rather cold. The likable rabbi had set the occasion for 6
A.M.
, because he had a prior engagement in Tel Aviv the same morning, and though he had offered to find them a substitute, they declined. “It's all right,” they told him. “We'll get up at five,” which was indeed far better than risking an unknown who might decide to ask all kinds of questions and deliver all kinds of sermons. Yet there were barely the ten men needed for a prayer group and they had trouble finding the grave, though as soon as the rabbi appeared he led them straight to it. By seven they were back home again, alone for the first time in months. The college student went off to his classes, the soldier returned to her base, and the high school boy, after a moment's hesitation, was persuaded to go back to school too, leaving Molkho by himself to shave off his beard in the empty house he had been confined to for a whole week, waiting for the movers to pick up the large hospital bed.

At eight-thirty the morning help arrived. Molkho did not know the woman well, especially because whenever he had called from the office, it had always been his wife who had answered the phone. Now she had come to return the key and be paid; she was, after all, a practical nurse, not a housekeeper, and she had already found a new job elsewhere. “Where?” asked Molkho, feeling a twinge of envy. “Not far from here,” she replied. “Just a few blocks away.” He looked at her, a short, dark-haired, presumably divorced woman of about thirty, reasonably efficient though never overly dedicated to her job—but his wife had given her exact instructions and she had carried them out well enough. Perhaps, he suggested after a moment's thought, afraid of being saddled with the housework just when he had been finally set free, she might remain a while until he got organized. She had the key, she knew where things were; why not stay on to cook and do some light cleaning? Perhaps she could even work at both places, since he didn't need her every day. “Sit down,” he said, feeling her dark eyes on him. Could she possibly suspect him of some ulterior motive? She looked at him uncertainly and then said a few feeling words about his wife, whose body she knew as well as he did and whose death-smell still clung to her too, so that for a moment he almost believed that she might be a bridge to something whose nature was unclear to him. Except that again she repeated, “I'm a practical nurse, not a housekeeper.” “Of course, you are,” he said. “It's just that meanwhile the boy should be given a hot lunch and the house needs cleaning now and then. I can do a lot myself, but I'm not organized yet.” The woman thought it over and agreed. “But only for the time being,” she insisted.