The Remains of Love (36 page)

He stares at the rapidly rising glass, sealing in the air-conditioned space, and for a moment he wants to insert his fingers in the gap, get them crushed, why not, the pain spreading through his body will ease his resentment, and he growls, that’s all right then, I might just as well get up and go if I’m so superfluous to you, turning her and the children into a single entity, for his convenience, and she’s quick to pinch his vulnerable spot, sure, we’ve heard all about you and your heroic exploits. How exposed are the partners in a long-term relationship, he sighs, everything is known and remembered and kept and will be exploited to your disadvantage until the day you die, and already he’s thinking about the day of his death, will she regret all the harsh words she’s thrown at him over the years; they won’t be forgotten either, like his youthful failings, but from this moment, Tuesday afternoon, late August, to the day of his death is still some distance, who knows if it will be long or short, and on this journey he doesn’t want her beside him, and he shakes his head this way and that, the classic refusal gesture of Yotam when they’re trying to feed him against his will, grinding his teeth and closing his eyes tight.

Why aren’t you driving? she nags him, the blockage has cleared at last and you’re still standing here? He pumps the accelerator pedal abruptly and nearly collides with the car in front, which is making the transition from stationary to mobile at an appropriately gradual pace, and his wife mutters, maybe I’d better drive if you still want to get to this wedding alive, it’s too dangerous to let you drive, and he feels his blood bubbling; it’s as if a dam has been breached and is flooding his brain, this woman is dangerous to me, and he pulls up at a flickering green light to the sound of the protests of the driver behind, by all means, you drive, he snaps and steps out of the car and for a moment he wants to leave her there and carry on walking, wander for ever amid the islands of traffic like one of those tramps. With deliberate slowness he circles the car and gets in, not sitting beside her in the front but in the back, beside Yotam’s safety seat, and he sees her lifting her bum over the gear-stick and moving laboriously into the driving seat without leaving the vehicle, and he reckons he detects a faintly sadistic smile on her face; she’s driven him out of his mind, and she takes pride in being a woman who can show that her husband is still drawn to her, as a wave of nausea shakes him, how shameful it is, what an insult to arrive at a wedding like this, spreading the spores of an unhappy marriage, endangering public health.

They are certainly accustomed to quarrels and yet here he identifies that leap from a higher to a lower step on the staircase, since this time there’s no pain in their hearts, only perverse pleasure, and that’s why he’s suddenly so alarmed, sitting in the back seat, his whole body full of revulsion and his whole being crying out for change, and again he says, I’m getting up and getting out, I’m leaving the house, but she doesn’t hear, at that very moment she’s turned the radio on, looking for traffic bulletins, and from time to time he catches her eyes in the mirror and notices a deep groove of concern etched between them and on both sides of it an unhealthy flash, but most of the time he’s looking out at the cars alongside them, all determined to overtake the slowcoach. His eyes wander over the passing travellers, couples sitting conventionally in the front seats, bickering like them or deep in relaxed conversation, and for some reason this evening he’s no longer convinced they’re all happier than he is, this evening he skips without interest over the faces of the random couples, as it’s the lone drivers he’s looking for, the lonely travellers with no one sitting beside them or behind them, to whom no one turns in conversation, just themselves they are transporting from place to place, and when he sits like this in the back seat, harnessed by the safety belt that’s stretched tight across his paunch, he realises how this evening is different from all other evenings; in his own eyes at least he is no longer a partner in a couple.

He has always loved weddings, and even now he’s gripped by childish relief that in spite of everything they haven’t missed the ceremony. How slender and pure are the moments preceding it, while the banquet afterwards always seems to him insipid and crude. They should finish the wedding the moment they’re done with the canopy, he tells himself, just shower a load of felicitations on the happy couple and go, and there’s no point saying any of this to his wife, since they’ve seized the opportunity to argue about it a number of times before. It just shows how unreal you are, she used to mock him, that’s your problem in a nutshell, you’re trapped by romantic conceptions, you’re expecting the whole of life to be as radiant and glamorous as the canopy and anything less than that disappoints you, and now once again he wanders disconsolately on the lawn, her thoughts attacking his thoughts even when they are both silent, yes maybe she’s right, it’s his expectations that leave him always dissatisfied, a destructive blend of guilt and unease. But in the meantime he can enjoy the wide open green expanses and the vista of the Jerusalem hills. White cushions are strewn liberally on the lawn, there are low wicker tables and some Spanish tune warbling in the background, the skies are soft with a smattering of white clouds, almost transparent, and it’s a long time since he saw such a harmonious match between heaven and earth and this has to be a favourable sign for the young couple. He looks around for the bride to share this thought with her; perhaps this portent will resolve her doubts, although he doesn’t even know if they have persisted. Since that evening she hasn’t been sharing her personal concerns with him, it seems she resents him for all the advice he showered on her so hastily, advice based solely and entirely on his own experience, with no recognition of her or of her partner, and she has avoided intimate conversation with him as if he were doubt personified. He has tried to find opportunities to qualify his words, but he himself has been involved in other urgent issues, and he hopes that she no longer needs this portent, that even without it she is whole and her heart full of happiness and love as his heart has never been, even on his wedding day. When he takes two glasses of wine from the tray and hands one to his wife he remembers the woman now sitting alone in the garden of her house, a glass of red wine in her hand and her teeth already turning purple, and he wishes he were sitting there beside her, the flimsy bamboo fence insulating them from the hubbub of life; although he wants everything from her and she wants nothing from him, only at her side is he content.

In silence she takes the glass of wine from his hand, but her silence no longer oppresses him, silence is fine when there are no pleasant words to be said, and he peers at her, standing stolidly with the glass of wine in her hand, slightly ridiculous in the evening dress tailored to her measurements, with the transparent chiffon sleeves, and her unpractised attempts at self-titivation, the lipstick applied with a clumsy hand and missing the line of the lips, the eye-pencil which has drawn a thick ring round one eye and a thin ring round the other, high-heeled shoes pinching her reddening feet. She’ll always look like a countrywoman dumped in the big city, but none of this would have bothered him if only she were by his side and not against him, and perhaps it’s his mistake, for years he’s wanted a partner more impressive than her, and even when he stood beside her under the canopy he felt disappointed and frustrated, and if he felt that way, he must surely have shared this with her in some indirect fashion, even though the words denied it, and for this he should apologise to her. Better for her too if he hadn’t married her, but she pressured him into marriage and threatened separation, and he didn’t dare lose her and hoped things would change for the better. He had only just lost his father and he needed a handhold.

Distractedly he surveys the few guests, to his surprise he doesn’t know a single one of them, some of them are sitting on the cushions, little plates in their hands, some of them wandering this way and that, deep in conversation, in thought, and it seems the same sweet anticipation grips them all, from the largest to the smallest, anticipation that the new couple due to consecrate themselves in this place will bestow on all those present the light of hope and change, grace and truth. A pleasant breeze stirs the hair, blending scents of perfumes and soaps, selected foods and drinks; like angels the white-clad waiters bestow abundant victuals upon the small congregation, and he samples the delicacies and wonders at the choice of this extensive site for a gathering of this size, have most of the invitees ducked out of it, and why?

He sees Shlomit glancing at her watch and turning to him with a look of indignation, as if he’s responsible for this delay too, and he shrugs his shoulder at her, already nearly eight and where is the couple and where is the rabbi and where is the canopy? Have the doubts that she mentioned to him come back to haunt her, and is she weeping now in the decorated limo, unable to make up her mind? And perhaps at the last moment she’s decided to heed his advice, to learn from his experience, perhaps the wedding has actually been cancelled and they haven’t had time to tell everyone, and that’s why they are so few, and he takes his mobile from his shirt pocket and checks to be sure he hasn’t missed any new messages, absently picking up another rolled and spiced vine-leaf, while Shlomit moves away from him and stretches out on one of the cushions, as if washing her hands of the whole event.

In the diminishing light the lawn turns black rapidly and the pillows are grey and her form can no longer be broken down into constituent parts, a solid mass of humanity compressed by angry memories, and he finds himself remembering the evening of their wedding in the kibbutz, nearly twenty years ago, what an orphan he was, he never felt his orphanhood as powerfully as then when he stood a long time in the shower under the stream of hot water, knowing that even now white cloths were being laid on tables outside the dining hall, in the houses nearby people were putting on their best clothes, and some were coming from far away, and soon they would be showering him with hugs and good wishes, while all he wanted to do was run out of there, grab the cloths from the tables and ditch the flowers, cavort naked and wet on the lawn yelling like a newborn baby, scaring the guests away with his antics, bringing disgrace on his family and on his bride, and already he’s convinced this is what’s going to happen here this evening. Not for nothing had he felt such a strong and sad sense of intimacy with her since the day she turned up at his office, an intimacy which he misinterpreted at first and took for attraction, an intimacy which will soon be demonstrated when she fulfils his old dream and rushes naked across the lawn, her heavy breasts bouncing this way and that, crying and yelling with the last vestiges of her strength, and running behind her the angry groom and her glowering widower father, and even when he sees her finally appearing among the cushions in a simple wedding-dress, arm-in-arm with her groom, he still believes that what he saw in his mind’s eye is more valid than anything happening now in plain sight, since her puffy eyes and flushed cheeks, likewise the deep pallor of the groom, tend to back up his worrying interpretation of the delay. Suspiciously he scans his face, jutting chin and narrow lips giving him a stern expression, within a few years his authoritative and demanding streak will come to the fore, and what will become of her then, the girl who lost her mother at the age of eight and ever since then has talked of herself in the third person, and he observes them from a distance, leaving his wife behind and clearing himself a path towards them as if he were the rabbi himself, the one person without whom the marriage would be invalid, being drawn further into the innermost circle around the couple. There is the father of the bride, now revealed as a giant of a man with a stern expression, and beside him a young woman who looks about the same age as his daughter, and the parents of the groom, elderly and tense, and although he presses towards them eagerly, not wanting to miss anything, he’s not sure he wants the bride to see him there and so he stays behind the broad back of her father, and there he will be when the canopy is unfolded almost above his head, under the sudden light of the full moon, and he skulks in the shadow of the stranger, hidden from her eyes but fully exposed to the crowd gathering around and the astonished stare of his wife, and he retreats slowly from the place he pinched for himself with so much effort, and without taking his eyes from what’s happening under the canopy he finally stands by her side.

What a charming couple, she whispers, trying to conciliate him while the rabbi is intoning;
Soon to be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem will be the sound of merriment and the sound of joy, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride
, blessed art thou O Lord who makes the groom happy with the bride
, and Avner is stunned by her short-sightedness. What’s so charming here? Can’t you see their unhappiness is crying out to the sky, but when the groom gently lifts the veil and hands her the goblet, the bride’s pretty eyes are seen to be calm and her face is radiant with the light of sheer bliss, all of which tells him that his wife is right this time; the Divine Presence, no less, has come down to this lawn to make the groom happy with the bride and the bride happy with the groom, and the change that he sees in her face is the finger of God sent down from on high to erase all doubts, whereas in his case the miracle didn’t happen. He himself went under the canopy and came out of it precisely the same person, and so too did the woman who stands beside him now and gazes with envy at the newly-weds, and he sighs, man and woman, woman and man, what are they without the intervention of God, tormented creatures consumed by fears and regrets, and it seems to him that once again the pain of orphanhood has been laid on his shoulders, that double orphanhood, orphaned of both his father and progenitor and of his father in Heaven.