The Remains of Love (46 page)

Not exactly, she says, and he warns her, don’t you dare do this again, because if it ever happens again, but she interrupts the threat, don’t worry, there won’t be any more opportunities, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, I’m leaving, I want to start a new internship in a commercial office, I’m fed up with human rights, that’s the department for fantasists who always lose, I’d like to win now and then.

Always lose? he protests, this mindset isn’t unknown to him but her vehemence shocks him, since when have we always been losers? And she says, as long as I’ve been with you at least, you’ve achieved nothing. Steven was awarded a few coppers as an ex gratia payment, hardly adequate compensation for the damage to his face, the Bedouin school is finally facing demolition, those building permits will never be granted, not even for toilets, and if they build without permits the authorities will slap an eviction notice on them and send the bulldozers in to obliterate the toilets, and the best you can expect to get is yet another interim order to delay the demolition. It’s nice that you’ve managed to return a few goats to the Jahalin and they admire you for it but what have you done since then, more and more interim orders? I don’t know how you can carry on like this.

A few goats? he retorts angrily, what about all the people I’ve helped, resisting their eviction orders and getting their prison sentences reduced, you think all of this is worthless? And she says, fine, so you’ve done some good, but the harm you’re doing outweighs it. You go along with the establishment script, pretending there’s some real legal process operating here, when you know it’s all a game and the results have been rigged, don’t you see that your very presence is giving legitimacy to agencies that aren’t legitimate?

So what do you suggest, we stop trying? Abandon people to their fate? He raises his voice and she hits back at him, perhaps yes, in times like these it’s preferable to do nothing, or at least try not to make things worse, and perhaps out of this a solution will come. Don’t make those pious faces at me, you know I’m right, here and there you succeed in helping some poor sod, but on the big issues the state is screwing us and you accept the verdict with perfect resignation, as if secretly you find it reassuring to have it proved for you, how much stronger the establishment is than you.

Reassuring? he yells at her, it distresses me, it breaks me! And she’s quick to turn his words against him, so that’s it, you’re broken and I’m not blaming you, but this doesn’t suit me, I’m still at the beginning of my career and I want to get on, make money, I’m fed up with delusions, don’t you see that again and again you’re duping your clients? You failed to prevent the deportation of Halla to Jordan, why do you expect to succeed with Nasreen? And he turns to stare at the window, breathing hard, suddenly he can’t stand the sight of her, when were you thinking of leaving? he asks, and she says, a few weeks, not until you find another intern and he says, I want you to go today, if you have somewhere to go.

I’ve approached a few offices, she says, and I’m waiting for an answer, and he’s shocked, you applied to other employers without talking to me? I don’t understand this, his voice is hoarse and it seems to him his teeth are chattering out of anger and disappointment, take a day’s holiday, Anati, I want to be alone here today, and he sits in his chair and watches her movements impatiently; how long does it take her to disappear, putting a file on the shelf, stacking papers on the desk, hunting for her mobile in the other room, violating his holy of holies. There was always a good atmosphere between him and his interns, he thought this was his real, exemplary family, uniting around the same goals, everyone giving according to his or her ability and receiving according to his or her needs, the founding principles of the kibbutz movement.

Here too I shall need to start again, he sighs, peering at her morosely, at her clumsy gyrations in a black jacket several sizes too small for her, everything she wears is too tight, and when at last she picks up her briefcase, the jacket rides up too and over the waistband of her low-cut trousers a fold of white puppy-fat is revealed, and suddenly he feels sorry for her. Why didn’t you talk to me first? he asks, you didn’t give me an opportunity to change your mind, and she says, you’ve been out of touch for months, you don’t answer my calls, even when you’re in the office your mind is somewhere else all the time, I feel you’ve been avoiding me and anyway, maybe I didn’t want you to change my mind, don’t take this personally, I just can’t stand it, I’m sorry, and he says, don’t be sorry, it’s better if these things are revealed in time, just like in a marriage, there are mistakes that can be avoided if they’re foreseen.

When she goes out with downcast eyes he’s gratified to find he can identify the number of the previous caller, and he makes contact at once. Attorney Avner Horowitz here, he says mildly to the sullen female voice that answers, you tried to contact me this morning, and there was a misunderstanding, and straightaway she’s complaining, our attorney abandoned us, left us in the lurch, and you’re our last hope, Ali told me only you can help us, and he asks, what’s your connection with Ali? and she replies, he’s my uncle, my father’s brother.

When can you come to see me, he needs to know, and she says I can be there in an hour, and he paces up and down the empty office, staring at the ugly tree outside, stripped bare as a skeleton; it must be tough losing everything every year, but then every year it grows back, whereas we just lose. A long time since he’s been alone in the office, a long time since he’s given it his full attention, just he and his wretched files. Maybe she’s right, small rewards compared with the frustrations and yet, the flocks were returned to their owner, is that too trivial for her taste? and the toilets are still standing, is that too trivial? Yes, I fight for toilets and flocks of sheep, since that is where the honour of mankind resides in a war zone, and he stretches out on the sofa facing his desk, suddenly uneasy; for many years he’s felt that if he tried very hard there would be changes, has he not tried hard enough? Could he have done more? There’s no doubt he’s been defeated, but in a war such as this even defeat is something to be proud of, and believe me, it isn’t a war against you, he says quietly, resuming his nightly dialogue with his country, like a dream carried over into consciousness, you never understood me, you always suspected my motives, and as for me, I was concerned for your future too, as you tried to be concerned for mine, so we would succeed in surviving here, all of us together. In the process of defending oneself it is necessary to reduce the points of friction and enmity, emphasise the fundamental and minimise the trivial, this was what I wanted to do and over and over again I aroused your ire, and sometimes I think you’re more innocent than I used to think, prone to fear, committing yourself readily to anyone who promises to watch over you. Is it possible to fight fear without creating fear? Is it possible to defend oneself without attacking? I believe this is hard but still possible, and you have no answers, you always look for them in the same stupid and violent place, and it seems to me you haven’t tried hard enough, and that’s why I’m so disappointed in you, but I’m not giving up on you and I’m not giving in to you, it’s a blood-tie, impossible to unfasten, since this anxious rhythm is beating on the panel of your heart and I ask you to listen to it, and at this point he jumps to his feet and hurries to the door, sure enough, an hour has passed and here she is, how like Ali she looks, with those attractive features, slightly masculine in profile, dressed in European style, dark tailored trousers and a red sweater, big sunglasses covering her eyes and when she takes them off she reveals the downcast expression that’s so familiar to him.

So Ali sent you to me? he asks, wanting to hear the comforting words again, and she says, yes, he said from the start if anyone could help us it was you, but my husband wanted to engage a lawyer from the east of the city, someone who would speak our language, and he hastens to reassure her, that isn’t a problem, you did what you thought was right, so now tell me where things stand, and she unfolds the story before him once again, a story beginning apparently around the time she married her husband, a resident of Siluan, and went to live with him in the choicest segment of the land, but in fact it began many years before she was born, a story with many beginnings at various points in time which could evidently have ended at various junctures over the past hundred years, but people have been born into this story and are dying within it, not to mention those who have died because of it, and still it has no end, and it seems to Avner he has never seen such a consistent dichotomy between individuals and the whole, since these individuals, like for example the young woman sitting before him, want more than anything else the well-being of their families and hence the well-being of the whole region, and he wants this too, for himself and all his family members and relatives, and Ali as well, and yet it seems that the whole which is composed of these individuals is dissolving them with the energy of contrary aspirations, jealousy and violence, and in every generation it’s possible to lay the blame on one figure or another, but accusations change easily, and new culprits appear, and nothing changes, and it seems a wild and unruly force like primeval radiation really would be capable of obliterating simple human aspirations and dragging the masses into a reality devoid of hope.

Perhaps scientists should work on this dispute and not statesmen, he thinks, perhaps they’ll succeed in devising some formula, since this contradiction between individuals and the whole is extended in this part of the world over generations, and these are the smaller sacrifices; this young woman who is being evicted from her home although her husband is a citizen of the state, and she must separate from her family or take them with her to her village of origin because her brother is a member of a hostile organisation and she therefore apparently constitutes a security risk, even though she hasn’t seen her brother for years, and of course there are bigger tragedies than this, he himself has handled much tougher cases, after all she’s entitled to take her husband and children with her to her natal village outside the frontiers of the state, but their lives will still be adversely affected and it’s these effects that he’s determined to prevent, and to this end he will gather together all the details, examine them all from the lightest to the heaviest, when did she last see her brother, what kind of relationship does she have with her family, and what is her brother’s relationship with the rest of the family, and how much does she know about his activities, and he’s so tense and attentive, time being short as the hearing has been scheduled for the beginning of next month, he doesn’t notice it’s time to pick up his son from school, and he ignores the ringing of the phone until it’s repeated.

Where are you, Dad? his son asks, I’ve been waiting for you half an hour, and he leaps up from his seat, oy, I’m sorry, Tomer, I’m in a meeting here and I didn’t notice the time, I’m on my way now, and he hastily takes his leave of Nasreen, I’ll go over the material and contact you, he promises her, and her lips quiver as she asks him her question, do you think we have a chance? And he hesitates before answering, remembering the words of his intern, you always lose anyway, so why deceive them?

That depends very much on the judge and on all kinds of factors, he says, but I have a good feeling about this, and it accompanies him all the way to the school gates, a good feeling such as he hasn’t felt in a long time, he’s not going to allow her eviction, that simply isn’t going to happen. But when he takes his son into his car with a mouth full of apologies, the feeling rapidly dissolves, he looks at him with such bitterness, accustomed as he is to being insulted and overlooked, and again Avner wonders where he’s going to take him, it really is time to find an apartment of his own near his old home, no point taking him now all the way to Grandma’s house, and he remembers Rachela and asks, a pizza OK for you? Knowing that his son will stare coldly at him, as if to inform him that no gesture will compensate for the insult, but he isn’t opposed to the idea.

When they arrive at the neighbourhood pizzeria, its roof covered in nylon but with sunshades over the tables as if it’s still summer, for some reason he looks around for Rachela in her white bridal dress with her son, and glances angrily at his watch as if he arranged to meet her here and she’s running late. The city is full of pizzerias, why this one and why now, and what do you need them for anyway, is it to defuse the tension between you and your son? Why not do that by yourself, but how? It seems it’s already too late, and he orders pizzas and grape juice for them both, waiting at the counter and humming along absently with the muzak, Yes, I’m falling in love with you again, he intones, falling in love one more time, caressing with his eyes the ludicrous sunshades, the crowded and charmless concourse, full of hairdressing salons, flanked by a patisserie and a greengrocery. No individuality here, it seems, one more suburban mall in one city in one state, and yet some heavyweight questions are hanging from the tatty nylon roof, we’re all of us residents of a live-fire zone, even if it is full of hairdressing salons. Let me fall in love with you again, he hums, picking up the tray with its fragrant load, love renewed is deeper than love that’s new, let me fall in love with you again, he whispers to his son, who accepts the pizza with an air of studied reluctance.

What have you been doing with yourself? Not far from here there’s a boy of your age who’s threatened with deportation, he almost flings at him, but at once seals his lips, what’s it to him, how can he know when you’ve never told him, Shlomit always silenced him: not in front of the children, I don’t want you upsetting them, or planting doubts in their minds about the rectitude of the country they were born in, for which they’ll be fighting one day, but even when he tried to share work issues with her alone she always found excuses for shutting him up, champion of human rights, she used to scoff, and what about my rights?