Raquela (53 page)

The next days were hectic; a group of doctors from Washington arrived, and Raquela was delegated to chauffeur them to the hospitals and the Arab and Jewish settlements in the Jerusalem corridor. They met with the pregnant mothers, talked with the nurses. Then, late in the afternoon, Raquela took them to Musrara, a poor working-class neighborhood on the northwestern frontier of Jerusalem.

They climbed to the roof of Notre-Dame-de-France; the stone walls were pocked with bullets and gaping holes.

The Old City spread before them, its turrets and domes luminous, molten gold in the setting sun. Raquela felt a stab of pain; memories of the Old City swept over her.

A Jordanian soldier, patrolling the crenellated wall, pointed his rifle at them. Raquela could look right down the muzzle.

“Get back!” she commanded.

The doctors huddled against the wall inside.

Ten minutes later, Raquela led them out again. The soldier had disappeared. “On that hill up there,” she said, “northeast of us, is Mount Scopus.” They could see cars on the road, Arabs walking in long gowns. They could make out a vague cluster of buildings on Mount Scopus.

“What a frustration it must be,” one of the doctors observed, “to have those great facilities lying idle, wasted. And so close.”

“I know,” she said. “It's awful that Jerusalem should be truncated! That we can't use the hospital and the school. That we can't get to the Western Wall and our ancient synagogues in the Old City. That Christians can't get to their holy places, though they're just a few yards away. But someday”—she paused—“someday Jerusalem will be reunited. I hope I will be alive to see it.”

The next day, Raquela drove the group of doctors to Tel Aviv. She took them to museums and art galleries, let them browse in the bookshops.

“Seems there's a bookshop on every block,” one of the doctors commented, filling his arms with books to take home.

They walked along the beach at Hayarkon Street, lunched in an outdoor fish restaurant in Jaffa, and cruised, bumper to bumper, down Dizengoff Street and Allenby Road.

“Traffic here's as bad as in Washington, D.C.,” a bearded doctor said.

“It's not only our traffic that's like America,” she said, laughing, remembering the sabbatical with Arik and Amnon in New York. “Our whole country has Yankee ways. My children buy American milkshakes in the Brooklyn Ice Cream bar. I take our linens to a self-service laundry and wash them in American washing machines. Our roads are full of American cars; our streets are full of American tourists; and my sons are growing up learning the facts of life from Hollywood.”

“I tried to see a movie last night,” a portly doctor said. “But I gave up. The line went all around the block.”

“You know who the favorite character of our children is?” she asked. “Mickey Mouse. But we call him ‘Mickey Mahoo,' which means ‘Mickey What Is He?'

“After a year in New York,” she went on, “I sometimes think Israel is the east coast of the United States.”

For more than two weeks, heavy rainstorms swept the country.

The telephone rang in Raquela's bedroom. It was Moshe.

“I'm worried about what this rain is doing to your beach house. I'm free tomorrow. Can you take the day off? I'll drive you out there and we can see whether the rains have done any damage.”

“Great idea, Moshe. I'll get to my office at seven, show my secretary what to do, and I'll be ready about eight o'clock.”

“Leave your car near the last traffic light on Jaffa Road. I'll pick you up in mine.”

“I'll bring sandwiches.”

The rain had ended, but the day was raw.

Moshe was humming again as they drove on the coastal road along the Mediterranean past Netanya. A few miles north and they were at the summer colony in Bet Yannai. It looked cold and deserted. They walked up a sandy embankment to the beach house. The waves lashed the shore.

“First thing I'm going to do is to make us some hot coffee.” Raquela's teeth were chattering. Moshe sat in the kitchen, rubbing his hands to warm them, watching her. They munched on sandwiches and nutcake and warmed themselves with Turkish coffee.

“Now, let's look around the house,” Moshe said.

They examined the kitchen and the small living room.

“So far, so good,” he said. “Now let's see the bedroom.”

He followed her into the bedroom.

“Take off your shoes, Raquela.”

She kicked off her pumps.

“Now stand up on the bed!”

Slowly she climbed up on the mattress and tried to steady herself. Moshe stood at the edge of the bed, reached up, and put his arms around her waist.

“I think I love you, Raquela.”

A smile seemed to rise from inside her body. For the first time since Arik's death she felt desired.

“I want to remember you like this for the rest of my life—standing this way, on the bed, in your green suede suit.”

She stepped down and looked up at his face. “I think I love you, too, Moshe.”

Each morning at six, Raquela was awakened by Moshe's telephone call telling her how he loved her. And each night, after the children in both their houses were asleep, she telephoned him.

Somehow that act—asking her to take off her shoes, more intimate than asking her to take off her clothes—had ignited her.

In the next weeks he came to her late at night, parked his car a block away, and slipped into her house. Other nights, when Jenny and Vivian were away, she drove to Balfour Street, left her car up the hill on Wingate Circle, and went up to his apartment.

It seemed her whole life had led to this joyous mature love. The man beside her, recognized all over the world, was like a young lover. She could lie back, struck by his beauty, his manhood; they connected on every level. They discussed her work and his; they laughed like children. They took drives through the Jerusalem they loved, finding no need for words in the luminous air of the biblical land from which they drew their strength.

“I'm a lucky woman,” Raquela said one night. She lay happily in his arms in her bedroom. Amnon and Rafi were away on an overnight hike. “Some women go through life without knowing even one great passion.” Her fingertips caressed his cheek. “I've known two.”

Moshe drew her closer. “We've both known love before. We both loved our mates. I think that's why we're so good together.” He covered her face and throat with kisses. “I don't want to be alone anymore, Raquela. I want you at my side. All the time: in Jerusalem and when I travel. I want to marry you.”

“Not yet, Moshe.” She closed her eyes. “Not yet. I'm not ready for marriage.”

“But we're in love.”

“I need time, Moshe.”

“For God's sake, why?”

“Don't ask me. I just know it. Why can't we go on like this?”

He rose from the bed and dressed.

Raquela drew her robe around her in bed.

“I can't go on this way, Raquela. I see it clearly now. We must make a decision. Either we get married or we stop seeing each other altogether.”

She sat up straight. “Why? We love each other. What else matters?”

“Many things matter. For one thing, you're a young woman. You should be married. And people are talking.”

“People will talk whether we sleep together or not.”

“No. I want us to live together as man and wife—I, to be the father to your children; you, the mother to mine.”

“Gossip doesn't disturb me. We're free people, Moshe.”

“You amaze me.” He sat down on the side of her bed. “I'm supposed to be the worldly one. I used to think you—this girl from Bet Hakerem and I—the big-city man from Paris. Now the tables are turned. You're the one who doesn't care how people talk.”

“Let them talk, Moshe. I'm in love with you. We don't owe these gossips anything. The only ones I'm concerned about are our children.”

“So am I. That's the very reason we ought to get married.”

“I don't think the children are ready. I'm sure my boys aren't; frankly, I don't think your girls are, either.”

“Nonsense, Raquela. We'd be doing our kids a favor by marrying. My girls hang around the house too much; they're always worrying about me. In fact, Jenny's forever telling me I'm alone too much, that I should get married.”

The cold Jerusalem night filled the bedroom, but Raquela's hands were hot and damp.

“Moshe,” she said. “I'm afraid Amnon and Rafi would hate any man who would try to take Arik's place. Even if it's subconscious—they could feel such anger, at the same time such guilt and conflict—they could make our lives miserable.”

“We could overcome that, Raquela. I love your boys, and I think they love me. They're now, what—fifteen and ten? They need a father figure. You know there's a danger in boys' growing up with only a strong mother. You want them to be real men, don't you?”

“Of course, Moshe.”

“And as for my daughters, if we marry, it would free them to begin living their own lives.”

He stood up and looked down at her. “I'm sick of sneaking around. I can't keep crawling out of here late at night. I hate it when you have to drive home from my house. Those games we played—sure, they were fun for a while. But it's enough. We have to make a decision.”

She lay back on her pillow. “I'm happy with what we have, Moshe. I can give you what you need—this way—if you let me.”

His lips were drawn tight.

“We have to make a decision, Raquela. Tonight.”

“Yes?” She hid her hands under the blanket lest he see them tremble.

“Let's have a trial separation.”

Pain gripped her stomach.

He was pacing the bedroom. “Jerusalem is a very small city. Like a fish tank. Everybody knows what's going on. Let's not meet for three or four months.”

“If that's what you want.”

“I want it. I want to see if we can live without each other. It's no good this way.”

He kissed her. “Don't get up. I'll close the door on my way out.”

She heard his footsteps go down the hall, then the door—cautiously locked. She put her head in the pillow and wept.

Sometime in the middle of the night she finally fell asleep, dreaming the phone was ringing. She jumped up, reaching for the telephone. There was only a buzz.

At six, she waited for his morning call. None came.

At seven, unable to eat breakfast, she drove to her office on the campus, and somehow managed to get through the morning hours.

By noon, she thought she was going mad. In the late afternoon her associates left. She stayed on alone, trying to concentrate on the papers and huge record books spread out neatly on her desk. Over and over she read the words: “
Table 1. Jerusalem district population, sex, ethnic origin, fertility rates
.” The words danced in front of her. She gave up and drove home.

Suppertime. She fed Amnon and Rafi; they went to their rooms to do their homework. They kissed her goodnight. She sat on the sofa in the sunken living room, looking through the French doors at Papa's tropical, jungle-green plants.

The phone was silent. Why had he decided on this trial by separation? Why was a man as sophisticated as Moshe concerned about what people said or thought? Didn't they have a right to be happy? Hadn't they both suffered enough? He was entitled to happiness. Why was he so sensitive to the evil-minded, foul-mouthed gossips? They were both adults. What, for God's sake, was wrong with two mature people's living together until they were
both
absolutely sure they wanted marriage?

Raquela stood up restlessly. She took out her knitting bag and began a soft, woolly green and white sweater for a friend's baby.

Had she lost him forever? Would some other woman grab him? Marry him the minute he asked? With his looks, his charm, his position of power, he could probably have any woman he wanted—in any land. He exuded sex appeal. He had touched parts of her that had been dead, reawakened her to the joys of being a woman.

She was filled with despair. Loneliness swept over her.

The telephone rang. “Raquela, I'm coming over to get you and bring you to my apartment.”

She flew to the bathroom, showered, and dressed in the green suede suit. He brought her to his apartment on Balfour Street.

He helped her into a chair in the living room. The lights were low. He poured wine, and they sat, drinking it slowly.

“Isn't this nice?” he said, as though nothing had happened.

“Very nice,” she agreed.

“Let's make a promise,” he said. “We'll never have such a long separation again, for the rest of our lives—like these twenty-four hours.”

They spent their honeymoon traveling for two months.

Moshe, vice-president of the Hebrew University, was invited to be the guest speaker at conferences and banquets, to describe Israel's work in aiding developing countries.

They went to Teheran, New Delhi, Bangkok, Tokyo, Kyoto, Honolulu, San Francisco, New York, and back to Jerusalem.

It was January 1967.

*
It is the Prywes family whom Isaac Bashevis Singer fictionalized in his novel
The Family Moskat
.

TWENTY-EIGHT

APRIL 1967

“I
'VE called you together to give out assignments. We've got to I prepare.”

Dr. Kalman Jacob Mann, the Jerusalem-born director general of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, stood before the entire staff. His smooth-shaved face was agitated. The hospital light seemed to bounce off his troubled eyes.

“Kibbutz Gadot has just been attacked by the Syrians. We've had word the Syrians have already lobbed in some three hundred fifty shells. They're using powerful Soviet cannons. The crops are burning; homes have been destroyed. The kindergarten and two of the children's nurseries have been reduced to rubble.”