The Remains of Love (53 page)

At last the river comes into view, and when they cross the massive iron bridge spanning it her heart suddenly swells, she’s being led to her destiny, they are being led to their destiny, grey and majestic is the river, sending up plumes of vapour, spiralling like phantoms, icy trees on the banks, the landscape of the moon wouldn’t be stranger to her than this landscape, but they’ve crossed the river and on the other side the little boy waits, and before being allowed to see him they now have to leave the car and go into a long building like a train carriage where a woman waits for them, heavily built and for some reason familiar to her, looking remarkably similar to one of the kibbutz veterans, as she remembers, and for a moment it seems to her it’s all being treated as a joke. In rolling Russian she relates the child’s life-story and Marina translates casually, turning long sentences into short, what’s she leaving out? And then they are asked why they are so keen to adopt and Dina looks nervously at Gideon, afraid he may trip her up with a rude awakening, but he stares in silence at the window and she explains in a whisper that they have just the one daughter and they are eager to have another child, and they want to share their good fortune with a little boy to whom life has not been kind, as has just been described to them in detail, and it seems this explanation satisfies the questioner, although this is just the first of the many hurdles that stand between them and the delivery of the final judgment, and they are sent from there to the nearby children’s home. Again and again she hears his camera clicking in the back seat but doesn’t turn to look, focusing only on the way ahead, on the heavy trucks hissing on the icy roads, the gigantic and ascetic urban squares, the gloomy estates, to the yellow-painted house with the snow-covered tiled roof, and again she clutches Marina’s arm on the slippery steps, and once more they are greeted in the entrance hall by oppressive heat, but this time it’s accompanied by a heavy and bitter smell of closed rooms and suffocation and urine and sweat, is this his smell?

In the long and green-painted corridors women are pacing in white gowns, and they too are solemnly asked to insert their shoes in nylon bags as if they’re on their way to an operating theatre, and when they climb the stairs she’s mystified by the silence, it’s as if there are no children in this building, though she knows there are hundreds, some of them allocated for adoption and some who will never be part of a family, on account of legal restrictions or the simple fact that no one wants them, and she looks around her tensely but for some reason isn’t concerned, she will know, she will know, this is the hand of knowledge that is suddenly at her side, heavenly knowledge, mysterious and yet maternal. When Marina steps forward and knocks on the broad wooden door, she looks round and sees Gideon turning his back on them and walking down the stairs like a fugitive, I’m not looking at the kid, he told her then, but she’s already inside, ignoring the inquisitive looks of the guide, studying the spacious room. A colourful carpet covers the floor and there’s equipment there for games and exercises, a few bicycles, ladders with ropes hanging from them, a rocking horse, on the shelves a selection of toys, and everything so clean and orderly it looks like a optical illusion, and she touches one of the teddy bears to check that it’s real and not painted on the wall for show, do the children really play here from time to time, and where are the children, why are we not hearing their voices?

In the middle of the room stands a Christmas tree, bright with its mass of coloured decorations, and around it scores of little chairs arranged in concentric circles. A heavy-bodied woman greets them and goes on arranging the chairs, and Dina looks apprehensively at the door, in a moment it will open and the little boy will appear in the arms of one of the nannies. She’s read so many descriptions of this moment. Sometimes the child is reserved, not making eye-contact, sometimes he’s sullen and slow, sometimes he’s friendly, even too friendly, he may present any one of many different faces, and meanwhile her eyes wander to the colourful chairs, there are so many of them, and on every chair an abandoned child will sit, a child of no one, staring from a distance at the decorated spruce tree, and suddenly she sees on a chair in the corner of the room a tiny boy sitting in silence with a book in his hands. Her eyes open wide in wonder and she clutches Marina’s arm, is he here? Is that him? she asks, because the image presented by the photograph is deceptive, it’s as if he’s gone back in time and shrunk, and she replies calmly, yes, it’s strange they brought him in early, wait here, the doctor will be arriving any moment, but she’s already advancing towards him with silent tread, as if approaching a kitten that’s scared of human company.

He’s wearing the familiar stripy shirt and mustard-coloured tailored trousers, his hair cropped short almost to the skull, and he sits with head bowed, not moving hand or foot, and when she sits down beside him he turns his face to her and peers at her earnestly and at once looks down again and she sees he’s clenching his lips to stop himself crying, his body tense with the effort and his face flushing, and she whispers, you can cry, little one, it’s all right to cry. She’s become so used to his appearance in the photograph she’s finding it hard to adjust to his live presence, he’s smaller than she expected and fairer than she expected, his look wise and restrained, he won’t sit on her lap or move into the arms that she holds out to him, he’s a frightened and damaged miniature version of a man. He drops the book and picks it up hastily and she puts out a hand to his hand, will he take her finger? He doesn’t, but neither does he recoil from her touch, my little boy, she whispers, gently caressing the hand that holds the book, and also, unconsciously, the fur of the cat depicted on the cover. Again his face reddens and he looks old, an elderly infant, alarmingly serious, is this the child she’s been waiting for? His efforts fail and he bursts into tears, the nurse in the white gown comes hurrying towards him to quieten him down but Dina forestalls her with a gesture, let me, let me, because I too want to weep with him, this is the child even if he isn’t what I prayed for, he’s the child even if he’ll never be mine, I shall be his, and as the two of them sit weeping side by side in the little chairs facing the Christmas tree she hears the door opening and looks up to see the doctor coming in to update her about the child, fill in all the details and promise her that he’s healthy, although she doesn’t want to hear anything, she’s seen him and that’s enough, but to her surprise this isn’t the doctor but Gideon, it seems he was in such a hurry to arrive he hasn’t taken off his big black parka, and with his gloved hand he’s holding something out to her. What’s that in his hand, for a moment she doesn’t understand, what’s she supposed to do with his mobile? She doesn’t want to talk to anyone now and that’s why she switched hers off, and she stares at his outstretched hand, what’s he doing here? He didn’t want to see the kid, and now the kid is there in front of him, withdrawn and sullen, just as he is, how similar they are in reality, and he says, Dina, Avner wants to talk to you, slivers of ice have stuck to his stubble and they’re falling as he speaks, and she stands up and goes quickly to the corridor. Avner? she whispers, I’ve seen the boy, he’s so tiny, for some reason she can’t find any other way to describe him, and Avner says, listen, Dini, but she interrupts him, I can’t leave him here, Avner, he needs me.

Dini, Mum has died, her brother says, and she cries out, why? and then, when? And he answers, just now, a few minutes ago. In her bed, it seems she didn’t suffer at all, and she sighs, oh, Avner, this is so strange, and he asks, when are you coming home? Can we say the day after tomorrow for the funeral? We’ll bury her in the kibbutz, right? Beside her parents?

I suppose so, she says, this is so strange, and he says, OK, we’ll talk later, there are so many things to arrange here, and she puts the phone in her pocket and goes to the window. What is so strange about it? The snow here piles up without you ever seeing it fall, it springs from the earth and not from the sky, now that is strange, and she returns slowly to the room, pacing the corridor, on both sides there are closed doors, where are the children? Are they here, in the closed rooms, so quiet, institutionalised, like him, and yet for a moment he wept, he hasn’t given up hope of making his voice heard, and she wipes her eyes with the edge of her blouse and opens the door. The doctor is already there, holding a thick file of documents and talking to Marina, who calls to her to join them, but she fixes her gaze on the corner of the room, where to her amazement she sees Gideon sitting in the seat she vacated and the little boy beside him, and the two of them holding the closed book. The little boy points to the cat and makes a strange sound, an indistinct syllable, and she hears Gideon say to him, that’s right, it’s a cat, or it’s a rabbit, that’s what we call him, a cat called Rabbit, it’s confusing but you’ll get used to it, and her knees are quaking as she approaches them, it seems to her she’s crossing a narrow and precarious bridge, one careless movement and she’ll fall in the river. Very slowly she’ll advance, and on reaching them she’ll say in a soft voice, to avoid distressing the youngster, my mother’s dead, and Gideon will say, I know, and she will lay her hand on the cropped head and say, we’ll call him Hemdat.

A Note on the Author

Zeruya Shalev was born at Kibbutz Kinneret. She is the author of three previous novels;
Love Life, Husband and Wife
and
Thera
, a book of poetry and a children’s book. Her work is critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling. Shalev has been awarded the Book Publishers Association’s Gold and Platinum Prizes four times, the Corine International Book Prize (Germany, 2001), the Amphi Award (France, 2003), the ACUM Prize twice (1997, 2005), the French Wizo Prize (2007) and the prestigious Welt-Literature Award (2012).
Husband and Wife
was also nominated for the Femina Prize (France, 2002). A feature film of
Love Life
, produced in Germany, was released in 2008. Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages. She lives in Jerusalem.

By the Same Author

Love Life

Husband and Wife

Thera

A Note on the Translator

Philip Simpson was born in Yorkshire in 1952, and grew up in East Anglia. His published translations include
The Lover
by A. B. Yeshoshua,
Where the Jackals Howl
by Amos Oz,
From These Men
by Shimon Peres and
A Guide to the Perplexed
by Gilad Atzmon, and he has also contributed to the
Oxford Book of Hebrew Short Stories, New Women’s Writing from Israel
and
Contemporary Israeli Women’s Writing
, among others. He lives in rural north Norfolk.

Copyright © 2011 by Zeruya Shalev

English translation copyright © 2013 by Philip Simpson

Published by arrangement with The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature

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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. For information, write to

Bloomsbury USA, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York, 10018.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Shalev, Tseruyah.

[She?erit Ha-Chayim. English]

The remains of love [Shards of life] : a novel / Zeruya Shalev ;

Translated from the Hebrew by Philip Simpson. — First U.S. Edition.

pages cm

Translated into English by Philip Simpson; according to The Institute for the Translation of

Hebrew Literature website, the original title was The Remains of Love [Shards of Life].

eISBN: 978-1-62040-359-4

1.  Mothers—Death—Fiction. 2.  Family life—Israel—Fiction.  I. Simpson, Philip [Translator] II. Title. III. Title: Shards of life.

PJ5055.41.A43S5413 2013

892.4'36—dc23

2013018702

First U.S. Edition 2013

This electronic edition published in December 2013

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