Open Heart (64 page)

“But how can you leave Michaela for so long?” she rebuked me, her eyes still red from crying. “She must be worried.”

“No, Michaela isn’t the worrying type,” I said, and I
respectfully
described her independent spirit and inner serenity, and how she was at her best on occasions like this. “She isn’t waiting up for me. I’m sure she’s been fast asleep for hours.” But I wasn’t
sure at all. Just the opposite—I thought that Michaela might have stayed up, if only to strengthen me with her thoughts from a distance, so that I could rise to the demanding occasion she knew was before me. And if she hesitated to call, it wasn’t on her own account or mine but only out of her concern for Lazar’s wife, whose grief might turn into panic and terror owing to a careless move on my part. Michaela did not yet know that before Lazar’s death there had been a bond between us, which even if it did not cause the death at least prepared us for it. If she had known, she would have been as sure as I was of the trust the woman sitting here put in me. For instance, after she finished the last drop of tea, while she was wondering whether to ask for another cup, I stood up and put the stethoscope around my neck to conclude the interrupted examination. And without hesitating, she stood up submissively, and at this deep hour of night she pulled down her jumpsuit and stood facing me, half naked, white and heavy in the breasts and arms, exposing the secret map of beauty spots on her shoulders, and although she seemed slightly embarrassed, she showed no trace of fear that her young doctor would turn into a passionate lover again. As the diaphragm of the stethoscope began to warm up between my fingers, I listened carefully first to her heart and then to her lungs, which seemed a little congested but without any suspicious wheezing, and
accordingly
left me without a clear diagnosis, since I had no desire at this time of night to draw blood, as I had in Einat’s little room in the monastery in Bodhgaya, in order to run tests. Since I was not in the habit, like some of the young doctors on night shifts in the emergency room or the Magen-David-Adom station, of throwing out sly psychological hints to people who thought they were ill, I stopped myself from making some critical remark to this beloved woman about the deceptions of the mind and only advised her to get back into bed and give both body and mind some rest. And although she was now alert and even a little vivacious, like a lot of patients who need no more than a doctor’s examination to free them of their feelings of illness, she accepted my suggestion and only asked for another cup of tea before she went to bed, and she even went to put the kettle on herself, in order to make sure that nothing else was wrong with it, waiting to break after I left. But I had no intention of leaving her, not only because I knew that in the depths of her soul she couldn’t
stay by herself, but also because I was certain that Michaela, if she had indeed succeeded in staying awake, would both
accompany
me in her thoughts and actively support me in the attempt to return the soul that had invaded my body to its proper home and bed.

Dori obediently swallowed the two pills I gave her to bring her temperature down and went to take off her clothes and put on a fresh, flimsier nightgown. Then she got straight into bed, asking me only to cover her with three blankets and put the light on in the hallway before I left. But I didn’t want to leave yet, certainly not before I heard the deep breathing of her sleep. I remained in the hall next to the open bedroom door, looking through the dark windows at the new restlessness of the treetops, constantly buffeted by the autumn wind. And as my eyes returned to gaze quietly at the contours of the figure buried beneath the mountain of blankets, I kept asking myself how I would be able to leave her. Even when her breathing became deep and rhythmic and was joined by a faint snore, which I remembered from the night in the train compartment with the Indian clerk, I still could not bring myself to leave. Waves of love and desire began swelling in my double soul, and a thrilling new pleasure kept me rooted to the spot. I could have gone into the bedroom and sat down for a while on the edge of the big bed without waking her, but I went on standing in the hallway, leaning against the doorjamb,
keeping
myself awake thanks to long experience on night shifts and hours of standing next to the operating table. But when the faint snoring became loud and coarse, because of the position of her neck on the pillow or congested sinuses, I remembered Lazar climbing onto the upper bunk in the train racing to Varanasi to take hold of her and make her stop. I went into the bedroom to follow his example, but my hold must have been too strong, or lasted too long, for she woke up, and with her eyes closed and her hair wild she sat up in bed and cried in alarm, “You?” I let go of her and retreated, because I knew that she meant
him,
and only
him,
as if through the touch of my hand she had felt the dead man’s hand. But all this lasted no longer than a second, and by the expression of pain on her face I knew that the illusion had already been shattered. She groped for the switch of the reading light, but quickly gave up the attempt, dropped her head, and curled up into herself again, to seek the even rhythm of her
breathing. But she did not find it, and she woke up and opened her eyes.

“I’m bothering you,” I whispered when I saw her putting on her glasses to see me better. “No,” she said at once in a clear, wakeful voice, as if she had not been sleeping for the past hour. And when I kept quiet, as if I thought she was only being polite, she raised her head from the pillow and said, “You’ve never bothered me.” Then, as if to reinforce her words, she added, “You never bothered Lazar either. Before the trip we were
wondering
whether to take a doctor with us, because you know how it was with us, always together, wanting to be alone together. But already on that first evening, from the minute you came in, we felt that we would be able to get along with you. And we weren’t wrong. Throughout the trip we marveled at how you always managed to be at our side without bothering us. Is it all due to the English manners you learned at home? The British temperament you inherited from your family? Is that what keeps you from getting on people’s nerves, from pushing yourself
forward
, even though you too want to go far?”

“Far to where?”

“Very far.” Her voice rose clearly in the silence of the night. “Very far?” I snickered. “Yes, very far,” she repeated without hesitation. “Lazar always used to say about you, That’s a man who wants to go very far, and he’ll get there too, but quietly, the way I like.” She fell silent for a moment, her eyes closed, as if she were about to go to sleep again. “But go where?” I insisted, a new fear stirring inside me. “Far to where?” She bowed her head patiently, like a mother facing a son who demands explanations for things that can’t be explained. “Far, the way he saw himself going far.” “You mean in the hospital?” I demanded with a tremor in my voice. “Yes, in the hospital too, of course,” she said. “That’s why he insisted on fixing you up with a permanent job, even if only half-time. When Hishin let you go, he was afraid that you would leave and go to another hospital. Because like him, you not only notice things that other people don’t notice, but you also know how to absorb them and contain them in yourself, so that when you need them they’ll always be there, without your having to worry about it.”

“Without my having to worry about it.” I echoed her words in excitement, not actually understanding what she meant. “But
what made him talk about me at all?” She straightened her
pillow
behind her head and smiled. “Perhaps because right at the beginning, when Hishin suggested you, he said, ‘This is the
ideal
man for you,’ and Lazar, who was influenced by Hishin, began to believe it, especially after you confronted us at the airport and forced us to interrupt our flight and insisted on going to a hotel and giving Einat that blood transfusion, which even after all the clarifications we never really understood. But Lazar always said, Never mind, let it be arbitrary, let it even be completely
mysterious
. I know and feel that it saved her life.” I had already heard Einat speak about her father’s positive attitude toward the blood transfusion I had given her, but the explicit word “mysterious,” uttered now in the darkness in the name of the dead director, filled me with happiness, in spite of the contempt it might have implied. And I felt a pressing desire to hear this word repeated in Lazar’s name, until I was unable to contain myself any longer and I stepped forward, and without warning, in a trance of
exhaustion
, I lifted the blankets to join myself to the warm source of the mystery. At the first touch I knew that the two pills I had given her to take before she went to sleep had done their work; her body temperature was normal. If I really had another soul inside me, I thought feverishly, it needed its turn too, and I began passionately embracing and kissing Dori once again. She was startled and began to struggle, but even in the depths of my
fatigue
I was stronger than she was. And again she pleaded with me not to be silent, to speak of my love, as if making love in silence, and in the stillness of the night, was the worst kind of betrayal. I repeated the words I had said at the beginning of the evening and felt her ripe, mature body relaxing between my hands.

In the end she fell into a deep sleep, and I lay behind her back with my arms around her stomach, in the same position in which I had seen the Lazars sleeping in the hotel room overlooking the Ganges. I thought about Michaela, asking myself if she had stayed awake up to now to accompany me in her thoughts or if she had given up and gone to sleep. In either case, there was no need for me to hurry home. Even though I knew that I must not lose control over my conscious mind in this most intimate place, lying where the dead director lay, I could not overcome the deep impulse to go on holding her sleeping body in my arms, if not to
sleep, then at least to dream a little, perhaps the very same dream I had dreamed in the big old propeller-driven plane flying from Gaya to Calcutta. But I couldn’t remember the dream, only the interior of the plane, with the many Indians crowded into it. Then I tried to remember the movie I had seen with Michaela at the beginning of the evening, but it had evaporated from my mind. Thus I had no option but to surrender to the sleep
overpowering
me. But not for long. About three hours later, at five o’clock in the morning, I woke up in the same position in which I had fallen alseep, wide awake, as if this short sleep had satisfied me completely. I carefully disentangled my arms, slid off the bed, got dressed, and left the room, closing the door behind me. I felt light and spiritual, relieved of the inner weight that had been oppressing me for so long. In the living room windows the first lines of light were visible, and I wandered around the silent rooms, trying to identify the source of the anxiety threatening the woman I now had to leave alone. At seven I had to be at the hospital for my shift, and before then I had to go home to shave and change my clothes. But I didn’t want to go home to Michaela like this, sticky and rumpled from the long night, and I was also afraid that I might have caught Dori’s virus, if it was a virus, in the course of our lovemaking. I went to the bathroom, planning just to clean myself up with a washcloth. But the water heater was boiling, and I gave in to the temptation, got
undressed
, and took a shower. Lazar’s toilet aricles were still
scattered
over the shelves, and his presence made itself felt in all kinds of things: his toothbrush, his shaving kit, his aftershave lotion, his bathrobe hanging behind the door. He had been right about my talent for noticing insignificant details and absorbing them into myself, for I now found myself recognizing many of the things he had taken with him to India, easily distinguishing them from the articles belonging to other members of the
household
. This being the case, I unhesitatingly, and without any
feeling
of strangeness, wrapped myself in his bathrobe, shaved
myself
with his shaving gear, and brushed my teeth with his toothbrush. I felt no need to say good-bye before leaving the apartment, for I was determined to return to Dori as soon as possible. I even took the key.

How strange it was, after such a night, to emerge into the bright Tel Aviv morning, which held not one single hint of
mystery
.
I looked at the broad, familiar boulevard, at the cars
covered
with wet leaves torn from the trees by the tempestuous winds of the night, the crates full of milk standing outside the little supermarket, the newspaper boys, their rounds over, racing down the street on their Vespas. If only I too could race straight to the hospital, which was waiting for me now no less than it had once waited for Lazar. But I knew that even though I had already bathed and shaved, I had to show myself to the woman waiting for me in the kitchen, and to my surprise not alone, but with sweet little Shivi, who had already woken up and was sitting in her high chair, her mane of hair wild and a red third eye painted between her eyes—a sure sign of her mother’s surging longings. And when Shivi saw me enter the room she put her two little hands together on her lips in the Indian greeting, as Michaela had taught her, in order to welcome the new Brahmin who had risen from the underworld.

And
it
quickly
finds
her,
no
longer
a
little
girl
in
a
wrinkled
school
uniform
but
a
tall,
attractive
young
woman
standing
in
her
kitchen
in
the
morning,
a
red
apron
around
her
waist,
stir
ring
porridge
with
a
big
wooden
spoon
for
her
three
children
sitting
in
chairs
of
different
heights
according
to
their
age,
and
gazing
in
astonishment
at
the
windowsill,
where
a
big
bird
has
just
landed
and
is
pacing
up
and
down
before
them
like
an
agi
tated
,
preoccupied
schoolmarm.
The
children’s
glee
is
very
great
at
the
sight
of
the
boastful,
brightly
colored
tail,
wagging
to
and
fro
like
the
pendulum
of
a
living
clock.
But
the
young
mother
standing
behind
them
knows
that
in
spite
of
the
general
merri
ment
,
she
must
be
quick
to
calm
the
youngest
of
her
children,
for
otherwise
he
will
soon
burst
into
tears
for
fear
of
the
winged
creature,
which
now
stands
still
and
stares
at
her
with
a
single
piercing
green
eye.
She
picks
the
little
one
up,
cuddles
and
kisses
him
to
comfort
him,
and
hands
him
to
the
mystery
that
enters
the
room,
her
balding
husband
in
a
smart
suit,
with
the
gold-
rimmed
glasses
on
his
eyes.
And
the
mystery
takes
the
child
with
such
a
bright,
cheerful
smile
that
we
may
presume
he
has
already
recovered
from
his
insanity,
and
no
longer
goes
about
insisting
that
the
world
stands
still
and
every
hour
is
final
and
sufficient
unto
itself
and
nothing
is
ever
lost
in
the
universe.

But was it wise to drop in on her now, or should I have gone straight to the hospital? The pallor of Michaela’s face and the redness of her eyes bore witness to the fact that she had not been indifferent to the events of the night. Had she followed them in full consciousness, or in the fog of sleep? She smiled at me
welcomingly when I came into the kitchen, as if she bore me no grudge for my absence and was even surprised at my hurrying home. Did I really have to confess everything that had happened last night, I asked myself, and tell her about the impossible
infatuation
that was turning into a possible love before I left for the hospital? Or did I have the right to silence? At first I only bent down to give a tender fatherly kiss to Shivi, and also to Michaela, from whose fingers I gently took the spoon in order to go on feeding the baby so she was free to prepare a hasty
breakfast
, which would include, if possible, a small bowl of the sweet baby cereal to which I had recently become addicted. I tried to eat my breakfast in silence, but I soon saw that not only was Michaela demanding that I give an account of myself, but even Shivi had stopped eating to stare at me expectantly with all three eyes. This being the case, I began carefully, gradually selecting from the night’s events a few of the essential details,
concentrating
mainly on the physical and spiritual health of the new patient who had imposed herself on me, slightly exaggerating her
helplessness
in everything from her domestic arrangements to her electrical appliances, and mockingly describing the obscure but real dread that descended on her when she was left alone.
Although
after Lazar’s death I had resolved to try to avoid telling lies, at this moment I did not want, in the short time at my disposal, to drop the bombshell of the lovemaking into the bright morning air of the little kitchen, and I decided to make do with a description of the psychological support I had given the widow. But Michaela, who seemed fascinated by every word that came out of my mouth, insisted on confirming what she in any case sensed in her heart, and when she asked me in so many words if I had also slept with Lazar’s wife, I could not deny her the full enchantment that my story seemed to arouse in her.

Thus, with my eyes fixed on the big clock hanging on the wall above the many-armed statuette we had received from Einat, which was standing on a high shelf, safely ensconced between two vases, I began to describe economically not only the first bout of lovemaking but also the second, to show how serious my battle with the soul inside me had been. I may have gone too far, for suddenly Michaela’s face went very red and she seemed stunned, not so much by the sex itself as by its repetition, which was a clear sign of the profound change awaiting us all. “If so,
he’s got a strong grip on you now,” she pronounced,
contemplating
me with a mixture of pity and admiration. “Instead of
entering
some lifeless, inanimate object in order to animate it and be reborn, he’s latched onto a living human being in order to cling with all his strength to his previous place.” And when I
maintained
my silence she added, “Be careful, Benjy, that in the end you don’t lose your soul.”

“But I’ve apparently already lost it, Michaela,” I whispered with a very glum smile, shrugging my shoulders and taking my plate to the sink. And I took the key to the Lazars’ apartment out of my pocket, as if to prove to her the concrete reality behind the bizarre metaphysical exchange we were conducting, half in
earnest
, half in jest, over our kitchen table—a reality that for all its pain was also one which might thrill her. For before her very eyes an ethereal idea from the India she so adored and longed for was being incarnated, not by a Hindu but by a rational, practical Western doctor, a moderate man trapped in the mystical seam between body and soul, where even Stephen W. Hawking had floundered, paralyzed. My heart contracted now at the sight of Shivi’s eyes raised in deep attention to the words of the adults standing over her head. I had already noticed the peculiar
attention
she paid the conversations between her parents, an attention full of an inexplicable inner excitement, which led her now to rub her finger unconsciously on the perfect circle of the third eye which Michaela had painted on her brow and to turn it into a smudge spreading over her entire forehead. I looked at the clock. There were only a few minutes left before I had to leave for the hospital. I saw from close up that Michaela’s beloved statuette was covered in dust and even had delicate spiderwebs clinging to it. Michaela looked with a smile at the key I showed her. “Now do you understand the profound wisdom behind the custom of burning the widow on her husband’s funeral pyre?” she asked, and there was a malicious gleam in her eye. “No, I don’t
understand
it,” I answered honestly, a faint tremor of anxiety passing through me. “She has to be burned so that the yearning soul of her husband won’t steal into her through a stranger’s body. They don’t burn the widow to punish her for remaining alive, but only to protect the soul of some weak, innocent stranger who is
prepared
to lend his body to the husband’s eternal love.” I nodded my head, and with a certain absentmindedness, because it was
already time for me to leave, I took the statuette down from its shelf and lightly removed the lacy covering of spiderwebs,
examining
it to see if there was any coordination among its six arms. “In that case,” I said, smiling, “do you think Dori should have been burned too?”

“Of course,” she answered unsmilingly, in a provocative tone, her face flushing. “If she made Lazar love her so much, let her follow him to the grave.” And with a new thought flickering in her great eyes: “And if she can’t do it by herself, she can be helped.” These last words, which had surely been said in a joke, struck terror into my soul, but I went on smiling, bending over Shivi, who seemed so interested in the statuette in my hand that I gave it to her. But she wasn’t ready to receive the unexpected gift, and the statuette slipped out of her little hands and fell to the floor, scattering its six clay arms in various directions, and after a moment detaching itself from its head as well. A cry of pain burst from me, but Michaela remained composed, as if she had been prepared for an act of revenge after what she had just said. She crossed her arms on her chest to ensure the restraint she had imposed on herself, showing no intention of kneeling down with me to pick up the pieces of the little statue so dear to her heart, nor any intention of answering my ridiculous question as to whether it might be possible to mend it. With satisfaction and a note of triumph in her voice she said, “Now I’ll have to go back there to find another one.” And when she saw that I wasn’t taking her seriously she added: “The only question we’ll have to think about is whether I’m going to take Shivi with me right away or whether I should leave her for the time being with you, or your mother, or, why not, with Lazar’s wife.”

But there was no time to discuss this question now. The
operation
in which I was to participate as an anesthetist was scheduled to begin in half an hour. Surprisingly enough, in spite of the sharp words we had exchanged and Michaela’s explicit
announcement
that she was going back to India, I did not feel that a real rift had taken place between us, and I left for the hospital feeling excited, and even a little happy at the idea that Michaela was giving me permission to continue my affair without
throwing
me out of the house. When she asked me just before I left if I would leave her the car in view of the rainy weather and the chores she had to do, I agreed immediately, since I had no idea
that she meant chores connected with her trip to India. Surely the broken statuette alone could not have been enough to make her get up and leave immediately for the Far East. Nor did I believe that my infidelity had shocked her. A woman as free-spirited as Michaela wasn’t outraged by infidelities, hers or anyone else’s. No, it made more sense to think that what was happening to me had simply reawakened, with great intensity, her old longing for the spiritual climate in which she felt, as she had repeatedly
explained
to me, free and liberated, in a place that only seemed so wretched and defeated. But was it really only her old longing for India? Perhaps there was a new yearning behind it all, not for the great subcontinent but for herself, as the true source of what was happening to me, since more than two years before it had been she who had come back from India in order to tell the Lazars about their daughter’s illness. Now, just as I too was being swept up into an ill-fated karma, she felt that in order to rescue me she had to return to the starting point, and to take my baby with her, so that she might draw me back to the place where wise and understanding forces would come to my aid, working through those who needed me urgently—in other words, the truly sick and maimed of the world, waiting on the sidewalks of Calcutta for volunteer doctors to come to them from the world that called itself free and happy. But I only began to understand all this when Michaela finally decided to take Shivi with her, after
Stephanie
in London agreed to join her on this trip to India. On the morning in question, in the operating room, feeling slightly dizzy as I stood behind the anesthesia machine, I was thinking neither of Michaela nor of myself but of the woman I had left sleeping in the spacious apartment, either sick or well, who would soon wake up and find herself alone and begin to worry about when I, or somebody else, would come to keep her company.