The Remains of Love (11 page)

But why be immersed in a past that never was? The one that they had, the two of them, was fine and satisfactory, side by side they flourished, she lacked for nothing, she had all she needed in the love of her only daughter before she turned her back on her, and although she’s well aware of all the theories about the need for separation, and knows this is a process through which the girl must pass on the way to constructing her identity, and there is no denying her love, it is firm and enduring even if it’s hiding behind a barbed wire fence – in spite of all this she can’t help grieving for her, and now with Nitzan kissing her cheeks and pleading, Mummy, say something, so I’ll know you’re all right, she smiles dumbly, what can she say, for years things haven’t been as all right as this, so happy in other words, as at this moment, on the floor at the foot of the bed, and at the same time it’s clear to her that if she only admits it her happiness will be taken from her within a few minutes and then it won’t be all right any more, absolutely not. She hugs her daughter and it seems to her that the ceiling above their heads is rolling back like a stone placed over the mouth of a well, and the sky appears, not the caustic sky of the beginning of summer, but with winter clouds soft as a blanket covering them, and snowflakes gathering around them with a soft sigh. So wondrous is this moment that she must hide it as she used to hide her few treasures in the children’s house, hide it even from her daughter, her own flesh and bone; how despicable it is to be worrying the girl like this, pretending she hasn’t recovered in order to enjoy more of her favours.

Mummy, she hears the slightly childish voice, wake up, say something to me, I don’t know what to do before Dad arrives, and she opens a cautious eye and peers at her daughter; her hair covers her face when she bends over her, her skin is light, almost transparent, and her eyes soft behind the thin glasses that emphasise her vulnerability, and her distress is so obvious that she’s forced to comfort her, don’t worry, Nitzi, she whispers, I’m all right, I felt giddy for a moment but it’s passed now.

I’ve brought you some water, the girl beams, come on, drink it, I’m so glad you’re getting better, I was really worried, and as she’s making an attempt to sit up and sipping the water, she hears a rustling sound from the next room and all at once the vision returns to her, sweet and horrific, of how they lay entwined on the narrow bed, skin to skin, cell to cell, and she asks cautiously, is he still here? And when the girl hesitates she goes on to ask, what’s his name? Where did you meet? And at once she regrets it, why waste a precious opportunity on superfluous questions, after all she knows who he is, his name is Noam, and they met at Shiri’s place, but the girl who is sitting facing her cross-legged looks at her with a strange expression and asks, who?

Nitzi, she emits an embarrassing hiccup, there was someone with you in the room just now, wasn’t there? I came into the room and saw you asleep, and Nitzan shakes her head, no, there wasn’t anyone, and Dina turns her gaze from the girl to the ceiling, where the bulb has died in a lampshade slightly charred at the edges, like the pupil of an open eye that doesn’t see anything, to the window that is closed for some reason, building up the heat like a stove, to the wardrobe with its sliding doors open and inside it clothes arranged in meticulous order, Gideon’s handiwork. Helplessness, as demeaning as madness, takes hold of her, familiar in its substance but not in its intensity, yes, you can cast doubt on the vanities of speech, after all our experiences are as clay in the hand of the potter, the fruit of our imagination or the fruit of the imagination of the creator of the world, what really is the difference? She saw what she saw, with the eyes of the flesh or the eyes of the spirit: they lay embracing on the narrow bed, limbs intertwined, and already she’s prepared to leave the question unresolved, to accept the girl’s version as a way of preserving their intimacy, and she grins, so it seems I was dreaming, I dreamed I saw you in your bed, embracing a handsome young man who looked remarkably like you, but the girl stares at her with an enigmatic look that alarms her; what’s happening here, is the barrier between reality and imagination disintegrating, or worse, is it her daughter who’s disintegrating; if indeed she did lie to her, then it’s more than a lie, it’s almost sadism, and she peers at her daughter fearfully, as if she’s just detected in her the first symptoms of a terrible disease, degeneration of the heart muscles. She sits facing her with legs crossed, her back leaning against the frame of the bed, her face sealed, on her body an old pyjama top that she put on in a hurry, inside-out, again she’s wrapped up in herself, and Dina lets out a sigh; where has it gone, the simple closeness of touch and speech, and will it ever return? She sits down beside the girl, facing the wardrobe, is there really nothing left from all those years?

At a loss she sneaks a glance at the mirror on the door of the wardrobe, which contains her daughter, the high arch of the feet, the thin ankles, all of her still girlish, airy, alongside her friends, heavy as women, and all of her hard to decipher, as if she’s returned to the mute days of babyhood, when it was necessary to guess her needs and her troubles according to signs, and now she’s looking for signs again, but it seems Nitzan is misleading her deliberately, and as they sit in silence side by side opposite the open mirror-doors, and the room swelters in the debilitating heat of early summer, and between them a question is suspended, it seems to Dina that her daughter has been replaced by a mysterious visitor, the exterior remaining as it was but the interior changed utterly, like a building with its façade preserved and behind it renovations in progress, and when the door of the wardrobe suddenly starts to sway, to move from side to side, she’s already prepared to concede that the earth is shaking too, and she’s losing her grip, except that in this case the quake is accompanied by a throaty yowl, and emerging from there is the cat known as Rabbit, squeezing through the narrow aperture, gurgling loudly and bringing a smile to their lips.

My Rabbit, Nitzan coos at him, digging her fingers into his fur, you little fool, did you get shut in the wardrobe? That’s exactly where you liked to sleep when you were a kitten, she reminds him, isn’t that right, Mum, he used to sleep in this wardrobe? And Dina confirms this gratefully, as if acknowledging a shared memory is bringing them closer again, and she too caresses the white fur. Her fingers touch her daughter’s fingers and she recoils as if foreseeing her recoil, but to her surprise her daughter takes her hand, her throat too emitting feline gurgles sounding like the beginning of a laugh that Dina is already responding to gladly, hoping that she’s about to say, how could you believe me, Mummy, of course there was someone with me, and she stretches out her other hand to hug her daughter, whose back is heaving with that strange chuckle, growing in volume and growing in clarity.

What’s up, my darling, she draws her closer, why are you crying? Tell me, I’ll help you. Again she’s carried away by the legendary might of motherhood, which aspires to solve every problem, to eliminate every pain through the power of love and devotion, sacrifice and conjecture, and the girl is gathered into her embrace, a fragile egg in the nest of her arms, her breathing abrupt, body shaking, Mummy, she says, panting the staccato syllables, I don’t know what to do.

About what? Dina asks, tell me and I’ll help you, but the creak of the apartment door silences their voices, and already he’s there on the threshold of the bedroom, with the erect stance that’s typical of short men, the camera swinging on his chest, what’s happening here, girls? His voice is distant and faintly critical, as usual drawing a distinction between him and them. And they stare at him as if caught misbehaving, keeping from him a whingeing female secret that’s of no interest to him anyway.

I’m already OK, she says hurriedly while the girl disentangles herself from her arms. I fainted apparently, she says. Yes, so I was told, do you want me to take you for a check-up? His feet are planted in the doorway and he doesn’t approach her, as if he’s looking at her through the lens of his camera. No, what’s the point, she says, having difficulty repressing her anger, even when his intentions are good he’s a nuisance, she’s only just taken the girl in her arms and here she is slipping away, and at the same time she senses his anger at being summoned home prematurely and to no purpose, seeing that her condition isn’t serious enough to justify this sacrifice. His presence makes her uneasy, like the presence of a stranger, his arrogant expression, his solid body. How handsome he is still, even more so than before; middle age suits his small, almost childlike facial features, his greying hair sets off his tan, and behind the spectacles his brown eyes are curious, almost challenging.

Once she loved looking at him, his beauty was hers too, but in recent years they have been separated by some silent movement like the shifting of continents, and now as she sits on the floor and looks up at him the pain between her ribs intensifies and she wants to pull him to her, wants him to sit beside her on the floor so he’ll pay attention to her distress, your reserve is making me ashamed of feeling anything at all, and as she’s still staring at him in silence rapid footsteps are heard in the hallway and the sound of the front door closing.

Nitzan has gone! she cries and leaps up as if intent on stopping her, but again the dizziness swirls around her, the beating of the wings of black birds pushing her down on the bed. Gideon, call her, she’s going! And he looks at her as if she’s out of her mind. What’s the matter with you? She isn’t an escaped prisoner and you’re not her jailer. So what if she’s gone, she’ll be back, but Dina shakes her head, you don’t understand, she’s gone without telling me something important, at long last she wanted to confide in me, she’s in distress and I don’t know why.

You’re not supposed to know, he grins, she isn’t a kid in the nursery who tells you everything that happens to her, she has a life of her own, and that’s lucky for her and for you too, and she protests, you’re not listening to me, Gideon, something strange was going on here, she lied to me and then regretted it, or she didn’t lie, I really don’t know if she was here with someone or not. Again she tries to stand up, holding on to the wardrobe, her hand on the mirror, confronting the solid profile of a pale woman, with dishevelled hair, and when she goes from there the damp imprints of her long fingers are left behind. Although her head is still spinning and her knees quaking, she makes her way with purposeful tread to her daughter’s room.

Mysterious and provocative, the bed with its disordered sheets confronts her, and she stares at it with wide-open eyes, trying to recreate the scene that she saw, if she really saw it, how they lay embracing, skin to skin, cell to cell, clinging to each other like twins in their mother’s womb. Did she lie to her? Of course she lied, it’s inconceivable that she could have seen them only in her mind’s eye and the readiness of her daughter to lie to her, to make her doubt her ability to distinguish between imagination and reality, it’s so cruel, and she can’t attribute such cruelty to her daughter without feeling acute and truly unbearable sadness, and she falls upon the girl’s bed, sniffing it like an animal, firm in her resolve to prove that she told her the truth.

The smell of a bonfire rises from the thin blanket that was tossed aside; she looks for signs on the sheet, on the pillow, what will the inanimate objects tell her, what can be learned from one crease or another, from the strand of blond hair that you seize upon suddenly, needing to check the length, since the colour of their hair was identical. A desert wind blows out the belly of the curtain above the bed and she’s suddenly scared, is someone hiding there, is that where the truth is concealed? You’re sick, he whispers to her and grins, you always were, but now it’s impossible to hide it any more, compressed air is breathing syllables of dust and despair over her, you’re sick, you’re sick, and only then does she notice her husband standing behind her in the doorway; did he hear the words too, or was he perhaps the one who spoke them? How detached his expression is, lips stretched into a contemptuous leer, what are you looking for there, virginal blood?

Without answering she lays her head on the pillow and covers herself with the blanket, that’s the way Nitzan lies here, the violet chiffon curtain behind her, before her eyes the door and beyond it the house with its bright and bare walls, almost without pictures, because Gideon prefers the shadows that the trees cast on the walls, its sparse furniture, only what’s really needed; the house is simple and clean, almost ascetic, almost stylish. This is how Nitzan lies here night after night, what does she see, what does she hear, does she know how much prodigious effort went into creating light beside her, as in northern countries, where the populace fill their houses with candles; this is what she’s been doing for sixteen years, lighting little candles for her daughter, watching the flame like a hawk, making sure it doesn’t blow out in the wind. I’m cold, Gideon, she hears herself whispering, and at once corrects it, I’m hot, why did she say cold when she meant hot, and why did she call on Gideon? Well, there’s no point in trying again, but here he is approaching her, sitting down beside the bed, listen, he says, without looking at her, you need to take care of yourself, it isn’t an easy age, I’ve been reading about it; there are women who have difficulty coping with the menopause and you have difficulty coping with everything, but to her surprise there’s no criticism in his voice, only complicity, and she straightens up slowly, his words drawing her closer to him with gentle strings. You’ve been reading about this? She’s amazed, almost grateful, and he says, this is no laughing matter, Dini, this is a serious business, not long ago I heard of a woman who killed herself on account of menopausal depression, a woman leading a perfectly orderly life, married with three children, you need to look after yourself, perhaps that’s what Nitzan was trying to tell you, you should be caring for yourself now and not for her.