The Remains of Love (52 page)

This is the hour for action, the hour of mysteries that brings the living close to the dead and human beings close to gods, this is the hour when destiny speaks and we are silent, quietly absorbing the illusions of space, the barely perceptible transition from one land to another. Even at the airport in Moscow, similar to every other airport she has known, it’s possible to sense the change, the soft and rolling sound of the language, the expressive faces, the beauty of the women stepping lightly on stiletto heels, in flamboyant furs, is one of them his mother, the girl who bore him? Again she takes the documents from her briefcase and checks the year of the mother’s birth, and it’s only now, when she has leisure to peruse the sparse information, she realises that the girl who today is not yet nineteen was exactly Nitzan’s age when she gave birth to him two years ago, and she gasps with the pain when she sees her daughter before her eyes and the secret cleaving her body. Don’t worry, little girl, she wants to say to every young woman passing by, don’t worry, it seems you couldn’t have done otherwise, you’re still only a child yourself, a child of Mother Russia with her many faces, her acquaintance with grief, the eternal mother whose flesh the upheavals of history have scored mercilessly and almost without respite.

Between grey deserts of ice the plane lands in the evening, and when they step out the cold takes their breath away, a stone smites your heart and what can you do, a memory of old stories rises to the surface of her mind, children sliding on toboggans and their laughter suddenly freezing, Nikolai, Sergei, Andrei, Yuri, put cloth over your lips or else you die! The waggoner and his horse are waiting desperately for the morning, is it nearly morning? Aha, the clock reads midnight, sealing their fate, they’re not going to hold out, hungry soldiers trudge through the snow, their boots in tatters, growling like bereaved bears, they were all children once, Nikolai, Sergei, Andrei, Yuri. The cold mocks the quilted parka she borrowed from her brother, the matching gloves, the hat, how could anyone survive here, even a handful out of the millions of exiles and deportees? The deep freeze could kill you in a few hours, and she looks around her at the flat and forbidding landscape, how much suffering has this great plain seen, how much cruelty, mothers torn from their children and sent here by train, people torn from their identities, confessing to crimes they didn’t commit, convicted of murder and executed by murderers whose own fate would catch up with them in the end, how much injustice has been piled up here like the snow stacked at the roadside; its radiant beauty is long gone and yet even in its ugliness it is impregnable.

A tall young woman, wrapped in a black fur coat, is waiting for them in the desolate terminal building, its floor wet from the melted ice, on her face a confident and almost disdainful expression, a local woman amused by the anxieties of foreign visitors, fear of the cold, of the open spaces, of the magnitude of the event, and she holds out a manicured hand. Welcome, I’m Marina, how was the flight? she asks in slow, hesitant Hebrew, and Dina answers briefly, it was fine. How to describe the fierce currents of air that swirled around the body of the plane and her body too, the currents of hope and presumption, the sharp and frightening sounds, what am I doing here, what witchcraft brought me here? A person thinks a thought, a person is filled with desire, and through the strength of this thought he suddenly reaches another star, and it seems to her it was her desire that kept the plane aloft and her fear that sent it into a dive, and if indeed it was through the power of thought alone that she reached Siberia, who knows what else she is capable of doing, and now she’s surprised to be reunited with her suitcase that was packed, it seems to her, many days ago and by a different woman, and Marina takes it from her and shows her the way, outside again, into the cold that’s almost solid.

My car is close by, she says, but Dina has to struggle to take even two steps, and she clutches the arm of the strange woman, in the throbbing darkness, at home it’s midday and here it’s already evening, Nitzan will be coming home soon, heating up the soup she left for her, spicy lentil soup, a recipe she got from Orly nearly twenty years ago, and it seems to her there’s a close connection between these things although she’s unable to identify it, between that soup and the smooth ice under her feet, forcing her to walk very slowly, heel to toe, like the shuffling gait of her elderly mother since that nasty fall she had, her face turned down towards the malicious frost, that’s busily sowing pitfalls in her path. Only when they reach the car does she dare stand up straight for the first time and she’s astonished to see that Gideon, who has jealously guarded his silence, so much so that even the effervescent guide hasn’t attempted to strike up a conversation with him, has taken his camera from his back-pack and is immortalising the icy car park, the silhouettes of grounded planes in the distance, the low chains of mountains, the darkness coming down silently like black snow, and this action, the first thing he’s done voluntarily since they set out, gives her some reassurance as she sits back in the front seat and makes an effort to move her frozen toes.

Throughout the journey he carries on taking pictures, and through the twilight of the drowsiness that enfolds her she hears him asking the guide animated questions about the history of the city and its sites of interest, about the river and the great dam, as if he’s nothing more than a keen tourist, he doesn’t ask any questions about the child, and nor does she, although this woman has seen him in person and taken his picture for them, and what would she ask, is he the one destined for me? In his little hands that hold the book he’s holding my destiny too, what is there to ask. In her clean and archaic Hebrew, conserving a different reality, she answers him, when have they ever had a conversation like this in their own country, with its crises and the alarming speed of changes? Her dainty hands are clamped firmly on the wheel as she drives on into the snowy wastelands. Occasionally a low house appears beside the road, lights dimmed, was the child abandoned there? How far away they are from home, how far they have come, the distance between this city and Moscow is greater than the distance between Jerusalem and Moscow, and she listens to Marina explaining in detail what they can expect tomorrow, a short meeting in the adoption centre in the morning, then a drive to the children’s home, first encounter with the child, with the doctor and the social worker who will give details of his condition. And what then? For some reason she doesn’t go on, and what would she say? Then your world will be turned upside down? Then your life will be changed for ever? And then you’ll be facing the hardest decision of your life? If you refuse like that other couple you won’t get another chance, and what’s worse, he probably won’t either, and if you decide to take him to your bosom and into your hearts you’re in for a massive upheaval, but of course all of this she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know that this couple, the squat and sturdy man with the black balaclava covering his face and the taller woman in the white parka, won’t be going anywhere together ever again, but will be crushed under the weight of constant disagreement, that this couple, whose aspirations have collided frontally, painfully, can indeed live the mundane life in relative equanimity, but can’t handle the big issues, that these two people, whom she’s extricating now from her car and leading to a small and surprisingly pleasant hotel, won’t be exchanging love in the bed with its clean white quilt or defusing the tension with words of sympathy and solidarity, and even when they sit face to face in the overheated hotel restaurant, where stunningly attractive waitresses in micro-skirts – could one of these be the mother? – serve them freshly roasted river fish and green beans in an aromatic sauce, they will still be avoiding eye-contact and she won’t dare, as she usually does, dip her fork in his portion to sample it, as if the overcrowding in this restaurant has forced her to sit with a total stranger and she has no choice but to look on with embarrassment as he chomps away noisily, the powerful jawbones hard at work, and she reminds herself not to think too far ahead, not about the imminent separation and the upheavals in their lives, just about the little boy, whose photograph is in her handbag, and she glances at it from time to time. Tomorrow we’re going to meet, kiddo, tomorrow the chapter will be over that began back then, who knows when exactly, and the start of a new chapter, a new book, or rather an old book in another language, to be written by another woman, after meeting you I can’t go on being the same person.

The television suspended on the opposite wall is broadcasting an endless series of short clips interspersed with adverts, a cacophony that there’s no escaping from, likewise the aggravating heat, only a little while ago she had been longing for warmth and now it’s really bugging her and she strips off layer after layer, down to the tattered blouse which wasn’t meant to be exposed, while all the other women are dressed in such provocative style, and she notices Gideon’s intoxicated eyes studying them appreciatively, yes, anything could happen yet, despite his age he’s still attractive and his name is quite well known, he could easily get himself a woman many years younger than him, younger than her, and a stab of resentment raises her to her feet, I’m going to the room, she says, forgetting that they’re not supposed to be speaking, picks up the parka and the two sweaters and the scarf and leaves him there to finish his beer, or order another, and in the bedroom she strips off her heavy shoes and stretches out on the bed in her clothes, in a moment I’ll get up and take a shower, she promises herself, and I’ll impose some order on this day, that began who knows when and will end who knows when, a day without boundaries, but she’s incapable of standing up from the bed, although the sound of a choking cry comes to her ears, little boy, she sighs as she drifts into sleep, is that you crying in the distance, and are you calling me? From moment to moment time scrolls backwards and she mumbles, Gideon, Nitzan’s woken up, can you bring her to the bed? Her breasts are full and leaking milk, and now she’s in the children’s house in the kibbutz, every night someone cries and sets all the others off, and tonight it’s her turn, Mummy, my Mummy, she wails, come to me, Mummy.

A few hours from now, when she wakes in agitation to the milky light, she’ll hurry to the window, how strange the sights are, how touching, a spacious and picturesque ruin of a house abuts on the hotel, and in the distance, in the space between one building and its neighbour, she sees the main street of the city and people walking briskly, wrapped up from head to toe, bent against the cold, trying to shelter from the wind, the snow isn’t falling, it’s been absorbed into the air, although the few trees are already covered with it, and she carefully opens the window and the cold takes her breath away, a stone smites your heart and what can you do. She hears Gideon sighing in his sleep, tossing the blanket away and sleeping in his underwear, as if this is an Israeli summer, and the sight of his body hurts her, he isn’t hers any more, she has no right to wake him with caresses for acts of love, not even the love of strangers meeting by chance at the end of the world, it’s over, wound up and sealed; her love for him isn’t wound up and sealed, but she broke the rule and for that he won’t forgive her, and even if she changes her mind at the moment of truth her offence won’t be wiped away. He expected her to give it up for his sake, take account of his legitimate demands, and she refused and that’s why she’s here in Siberia, and that’s why for him she’ll always be staying here, exiled from him, even when they return home, with or without a child in tow, and she stands at the window and strips off the clothes she last wore years ago, one evening in Jerusalem, how strange to be naked when the others are wrapped up in layers of clothing. It’s the way of the world, one feels hot and the other feels cold, even if only a few paces separate them, even if they are married to each other according to the law of Moses and Israel, and she steps into the shower, pity she can’t take a ritual bath before meeting the child, bathe in the river that flows beneath the layers of ice, only then will she be purged of doubts, only then can she see him as he is, and as she tries to blend hot with cold water she’s amazed once again that’s she managed to sleep at all, night after night she’s been kept awake by thoughts of what lies ahead, and now, just a few hours before the event, she’s slept soundly, she didn’t even notice Gideon coming into the room and into the bed, and suddenly she remembers the fantasy that used to help her sleep in the children’s house, her mother hearing her cry and coming to her, walking briskly into the room, climbing into her bed and enfolding her in warm and protective arms. It was only after some time that she realised to her horror why her imaginary mother was periodically leaving sticky stains on the bedlinen, and yet the revelation didn’t spoil her memory of the feeling of safety, at the time when she was in fact at her most vulnerable, so now even when they go down in silence to eat their breakfast before the chattering television set, even when they’re picked up by their guide and crammed into her car, heavy and clumsy in their multifarious strata of clothing, she feels safe and protected, listening attentively to the final instructions, what to say and what not to say under any circumstances, and she looks out calmly at the reddish suburban houses, the snow piled up like garbage at the sides of the road, women encased in fur coats and hats and looking like colourful birds, the monotonous streets, without storefront windows, almost without signs of any kind. From time to time, springing up amid the desolation, some remarkably attractive wooden houses appear, relics of another era, and over there is a young man leaning on the wall and smoking, his breath freezing along with the snot that’s running from his nose, is he the father? A few drunks stagger along by the roadside, one of them sinks down on a heap of dirty snow, Nikolai, Sergei, Andrei, Yuri, they were all children once, is this the future he can expect if she turns him down?