A Late Divorce

TUESDAY

Is this where he lives? On purpose in so drab a neighborhood or are such the meager rewards of a literary career? And does he really write his books facing that ugly peeling wall? He has three different mailboxes two broken and the third a giant new one its upraised slit hungry for mail. A man bounds quickly down the stairs he slows and stops in wonder pirouetting by the mailboxes fondling the air around me he steals a look at me and steps outside turning to look once more before he’s gone. The pain of your beauty wrote one of the boys in my high-school class who used to write to me and which of them didn’t try. Anonymous notes slipped into my schoolbag devious love poems intricately concocted from biblical verses and the sayings of our blessed rabbis with here and there a drop of plain hard filth when one of them beneath his knitted skullcap couldn’t stand it anymore. The Tartar cheeks the blue twinkle that smote their hearts. Because how could one not be in love with you tell me? I will tell you. You cannot be in love with me because you do not know the first thing about me but why shouldn’t you fall in love anyway and meanwhile can I look at your math homework I didn’t understand one single question.

Five minutes to ten. Wait. It’s gauche to come early even coming on time is bad form he’ll think how important I must be to her if she’s timed it so exactly I’m sure I’m not the first or last to pester him like this he’s too big a man for a novice like me but Asi had to prove what wonderful contacts he has. Perhaps he can help you make some contacts. A code word. From contact to contact we’ll all stay in contact until we’re a contact ourselves. My (even if I am being punished) love. My love verily my husband. What shall we do? If you fear my pain how shall I not fear it too?

So I’ll walk down the street a bit I’ll give him ten minutes more. A cloudy morning a chill breeze Jerusalem of cold. Frail cloud. So many young mothers out strolling with their babies all gone down in quick pain sweet perhaps too the whole world. It’s not the penetration that I know but the pain not the pain but the blood. Two years and running out of patience. Put me to sleep and then you can…

And then my mother:

I don’t want to interfere but sometimes a mother must and I can’t sleep at night because of it. You’ve been married for over two years you want your freedom I realize that but perhaps one has to think further ahead.

And my father:

It’s not so much the sin although that too but Asi believes in nothing and he’s managed to convert you you’ve given up the religious faith that we raised you in too easily still it isn’t that although…

And mother:

Don’t start with all that now it’s the medical side of it just the medical side of it that concerns me. You were once very sick I hope you haven’t forgotten and I read in the newspaper don’t laugh that sometimes women put it off because they think that they have all the time in the world but then when they want to they find out that they can’t the sooner the better it doesn’t happen by itself that’s only in novels and even there…

Father:

Why must you always make everything sound so complicated! Yes we want a grandchild. What’s wrong with that? Is it forbidden to want one? We deserve that much happiness God gave us an only child and He knows how hard we tried to have another but your mother couldn’t…

Mother:

Don’t start with all that now for God’s sake let me talk this over calmly it’s not for our sake it’s for yours. We’re in a position to help we’re not like his family which simply isn’t. We’ve actually thought of moving closer to you but it makes more sense for you to move closer to us we’ve even found you an apartment not far from here.

Father:

It’s not just evenings we’ll be able to help it’s days too business is so bad thank God that I can manage to lose money in the store by myself and spare mother for you her time will be yours.

Mother:

In terms of Asa’s getting ahead we’re thinking of his career if that’s the reason.

Father:

You won’t have to worry with mother around look how she raised you to be such a beauty when you were born we wondered where a monkey like you came from but little by little…

Mother:

That’s enough you’ll annoy her and ruin everything. You think that it’s me but you can see that it’s him he doesn’t stop talking I don’t get a moment’s peace. Yesterday I spoke to Sarah’s mother that girl from your class who was married a few months before you they’re already expecting a second grandchild. Don’t be angry I wasn’t making comparisons I know that’s all that she’s good for but you have to realize that time’s not standing still it never does…

A soft enclasping pleading cunning duet if only they knew how we’re still stuck at the starting line. They do but don’t know what they know.

But he does have a view on the other side of these houses a deep broad cleft toward the mountains and sky for inspiration is that west east or north I’m so bad at directions Asi can take one step in any room and know just which way he’s facing. Down dropping heavens. And in the plural too. Sometimes unexpectedly in a Talmudic text such a precise sense of landscape the boys would chop logic with the Talmud teacher while I dropped down heavens. A frail snake by a drowsing old man. Perhaps. We’ll have to see. In the end only words and the pain of words. And yet no blood of words.

It’s really cold and me in this light spring dress and open shoes. Is this icy wind supposed to be spring? Why it’s almost time for the seder. A few pale weak glizzly days and summer will be on us all at once. This land of all at once. A line for a poem. I must write it down. Some poet quoted in the paper as saying that he always carries a little notebook with him. Useful. What can he possibly say to me? Dina Kaminka you are a great talent. Yours is a name to remember. The great hope of a declining literature. Where have you been hiding until now? Baloney. Wanton women with shopping bags stare at me as they pass. Some women’s glances are more piercing than men’s as though I’d robbed them of something. But those who know me know the threat’s sheer bluff.

A small child backs against a wall of the stairway. His. You can tell right away the same curls the same look all he’s missing is the pipe. I put my hand on his shoulder your father is isn’t he? But he’s not impressed he’s used to being spotted to having a famous father he kicks a ball and trips down the stairs after it.

Two facing doors on each (how odd) his name. I ring the bell of the one on the right a young faded woman in jeans holding a baby rock music inside before I can say a word she points to the other door softly retreating it opens while I’m still looking for the bell and out steps an older woman with another baby (his third child?) and a shopping basket.

(Does he really have two wives? But why not? The apartments are low-income. In the middle of the night he runs naked from one to the other.)

“I have an appointment with Mr….”

Mister?

“Come in.’’

She studies my fancy dress with an ironic smile and points to an inner door. It was an error in judgment to come traipsing into this hotbed of bohemia in high heels. I enter a small hallway the front door slams rudely cynically behind me the dim light is congested amid the low bookcases there’s a smell of mold and wet laundry a lyrical overture to a literary tribunal my head is a pennant in the flaking mirror among the winter coats the sharp slanty blue the open doggy mouth the curly until-two-weeks-ago-soft-honey-braided head my makeup’s come off in the wind. What have I gotten myself into? I pass the kitchen piles of dirty dishes on the stained marble counter of the sink. Maybe he’s looking for a third wife to do them.

What can he possibly say to me?

My wife has been secretly (secretly?) writing stories and poems for a while now I mean just for her own satisfaction maybe you’d be willing to read them and tell her what they’re worth. A professional opinion and a kind word from you. (Perhaps you can even talk her out of the obession.) She admires you greatly.

Why did you say I admired him who allowed you. Then you don’t? I admire no one. Not even me? You I love. What do you care if I said you admired him it will make him read your material (material?) I mean what you’ve written more sympathetically. I don’t need sympathy I need truth. Truth is different when told with sympathy. But what kind of a writer is he? What sort of stuff does he write? Read it yourself. I don’t have time for literature I’ll read what bodes time has been kind to when I retire but what does he write about what subjects describe one book. Don’t be absurd you can’t describe books like his. That’s what must make him so important.

Important. Another code word.

I knock on the door and open it softly. A small room with a big blond baby girl on dirty linen gnawing on a doll behind crib bars. I push open the next door. An old snake in a shabby black turtleneck shorter than I imagined sturdier than I imagined older than I imagined leaning over some page proofs with a tall young man. A huge dilapidated light-colored armchair ravaged like an old woman a clutter of pipes a large desk a poorly lit wood-paneled room with books on the windowsill beyond them the peaks of mountains a lambskin rug a record soundlessly spinning a deep un-Israeli room full of dark wooden figurines and sharp male tension.

“Excuse me… your wife said I should come in… I don’t know if you remembered… my husband… at ten o’clock… my name is Dina Kaminka…”

Coffee dregs in tall glasses ashtrays full of burnt tobacco an airless room the smell of literature in action. His eyes beam at me brightly the young man glowers. I’ll let them take in (what else do I have to show?) my beauty.

“My wife? Well, never mind. Is it ten o’clock already? You’re right, we do have an appointment. Come in, sit down… I’ll be with you right away…” I make a beeline for the tumbledown chair and flop right into it sinking all the way to the floor. Reliably precise-looking in his worn corduroy pants he clears papers and the coffee glasses off his desk and tells the young man with the proofs to step out it won’t take long he whispers sympathetically regarding my flaming face with its strained smile trapped in this armchair still sinking lower I cross my legs and bare the cause of so much pain. Not mine.

He remains standing there contemplating me genially objectively seeking to cope with what the morning has unexpectedly turned up.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

He closes the door behind the tall young man who has left without a word or glance he puts on his glasses and begins going through drawers and moving piles of paper until at last he finds a yellowish sheaf and starts to read silently. He turns the pages beaming he sits down and takes off his glasses.

“You know, your poems made a great impression on me.”

Can it be? The miracle. And so painlessly.

“Honestly?” I sink soundlessly ecstatically deeper into the chair.

“Where have you been until now? Your poem Pleasantly My Body is absolutely marvelous.”

“Which poem?”

“Pleasantly My Body…” He leans ceremoniously toward me to read with me from the yellowish manuscript that’s covered with a strange curvy disturbed scrawl. He’s mixed me up he’s thinking of someone else.

Pleasantly My Body?

“Amid all the junk that comes my way at last I find a new sound, the prospect of a new linguistic key.”

In a crumbling yet courageous voice:

“One minute, I think you’re mistaken… those pages aren’t mine… Dina Kaminka… you’re mixing me up… my husband gave you a notebook with a floral design…”

He’s stunned. Turns red. He drops the manuscript smiles (what’s so funny?) grabs hold of his head and slaps it lightly gets up sits down gets up bends over mumbling just a minute excuse me that’s right how could I have confused you. He kneels to pull out a bottom drawer talking to himself just a minute everything’s all jumbled up here they’ve turned this room into an editorial office yes Dina Kaminka of course your husband Asa’s in the history department of course I remember…

“You didn’t get around to reading it… it doesn’t matter…” With a sudden feeling of relief I seek to extract myself from the jellylike armchair and vanish.

“No, just one moment. I did read it. I’m sure I did…” He rummages feverishly through some papers. “There was a story there, wasn’t there? About a young woman… just one minute… it takes place in a shop on a winter day… one minute…”

One minute for what? Some other woman has already found a new linguistic key amid all the junk that’s being written. She can look forward to the joyous prospect of hearing it from you perhaps she’s already coming up the stairs. But behold he has my notebook in his hands triumphantly he shows it to me. My first mistake was to copy everything out into a high-school notebook. I should have written on yellow disturbed paper yea to take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate and they shall spread the cloth…

Silence.

He clutches the notebook predatorily racing through it quickly filming digesting with supreme concentration he’s not embarrassed to read it now in front of me. At last he shuts it puts it down stands up and smiles at me kindly.

“Which will it be, Turkish or instant? Or perhaps you’d like something cold?”

“No, thank you. I really don’t want anything.”

“Turkish or instant?” he persists, still smiling his patronizing smile. “I wanted to make some for myself anyway.”

“No, thank you, really…”

He steps up to me and takes the liberty of laying a warm hand on my shoulder.

“You’re angry at me. But I really did read it… it was just one of those things. If you don’t have coffee with me, I’ll feel hurt. Turkish or instant?”

“Turkish.”

He energetically loads the glasses and the remains of some crackers on a tray lays my notebook on top of them and leaves the room.

I rise from the bottomless depths of the armchair and loiter by the row of books drawn to the yellow manuscript left on the desk with its strong curvy scrawl.

Death can fall from the dark

Like a poem—

But a poem was all that it was.

Laughter from the kitchen. I return to the books unable to read even their titles my eyes on the watery light swirling over the mountains.

The door opens and he carries in a tray with coffee cups cookies and my notebook. The stage is set he glances hesitantly toward me at the other end of the room I’m still rooted to my place by the window have a seat he smiles and I float to another chair (enough of that mortifying armchair) and sit down by the steaming cup while he offers me sugar. He lays my notebook on his knees picks up his cup and drinks from it vigorously.

“My first question is just out of curiosity. Are you religious? Do you come from a religious background?”

“I went to religious schools.”

“High school too?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

He’s tickled pink with himself.

“It’s something one senses in your language, your imagery, your values, your way of dealing with things, of approving or disapproving. It’s something one can smell. It’s a new phenomenon, this writing of literature by religious Jews. There’s already a whole school of you.”

He’s classed me with a whole school, and a religious one yet. He’s got the world all figured out.

“But I’m not so observant anymore…”

“That doesn’t matter. These things run too deep to be easily cast off. It’s a whole outlook.”

“Is that good or bad?” I inquire submissively trying to grasp the steaming-hot cup.

“On the whole, it’s a welcome new source. Not that I myself can subscribe… on the contrary… but it’s a new climate for literature, a new possibility. How old are you? Please, drink your coffee, why aren’t you drinking?”

He was asked for a literary opinion and he’s already made himself my guardian he thinks he can ask what he wants he does have a technique though for dealing with young scribblers.

“I’m twenty-two ”

“Are you a student?”

“I finished a year ago.”

“In what field?”

“Social work.”

“Not literature?”

“No.”

“That’s good. But how did you manage to finish so quickly?”

“I was exempted from the army.” I look straight at him waiting for the scornful smile of the injured solid citizen. He says nothing suddenly blushing at a loss.

“But drink something. It will get cold. Have a cookie.”

“Thank you.” I lift the cup noticing with revulsion the lip prints on the rim I quickly slurp a drop of bitter Turkish coffee and put it down again.

“Do you have any children?”

“What? No, not yet.”

“Do you have a job?”

“Yes. In the municipal department of social work.”

Why all these questions? Is he playing for time or gathering material for a diagnosis?

“How long have you been writing?”

“For quite some time. I began in the eighth grade. I was sick for a few months… some kind of rheumatic fever… that’s why I didn’t serve in the army. It wasn’t on religious grounds.” (Take that, you varmint!) “I was bedridden for a long while, and it was then that I started to write. To this day when I want to concentrate on writing I get into bed and write on the pillows.”

I’m talking too much.

“Into bed?” He laughs amazedly warmly excitedly leaning toward me.

“To tell you the truth” (just lay it on me gently please) “your story is weak, still juvenile. It gets too involved for no good reason in the middle and lets itself off too easily in the end. Basically, the poems are better. This one here… For You Raised Me Like a Thistle…it really sings, it even deserves to be published. At any rate, it’s no worse than a lot of poetry that does get published these days. So if you’ve come to ask me which to devote yourself to, prose or poetry” (I didn’t) “I should obviously say to you: poetry. And yet still… I can’t help thinking… that you shouldn’t stop writing fiction either. There are definitely some good passages in this story, not all that many, but a few. The descriptive ones in particular. What’s the one that I’m thinking of… ah yes, in a grocery store, isn’t it? An old-fashioned sort of grocery. Something in your description of it struck me.” (I shut my eyes.) “The shelves, the dim bread compartment. There was a wonderful, humorous bit about a hunk of white goat cheese — you captured the absurd shape of it perfectly, you used a precise image there, I can’t remember it, but I recall having marked it.” He rapidly leafs through the notebook. “Well, never mind…”

“A pale brain.”

“That’s it. With that married old grocer couple. Good, concrete prose, even funny… it’s too bad, though, that your heroine moves in such a vague, undefined vacuum… that you saddle her with all those emotional clichés…’’

Earnestly:

“I hope you’re not upset with me for telling you what I think. It’s only my opinion, of course, and it would be less than honest of me to conceal it behind empty compliments…”

“That’s quite all right.”

He reaches out to hand me the open notebook.

“It’s as though you were afraid to touch on the real problem… if there is one, that is, and of course I know nothing about you… but I did feel that there was one, especially in that comic sketch in the dark grocery. I felt some sort of bitterness there. You have to get more deeply into it, to open it up. Even in your poems…”

“In my poems too?” I sound crushed.

“Yes. In your poems too.” Suddenly he’s annoyed. “Wherever an emotion is called for you retreat into scenery, into some neutral description of nature. All alone all alone O vain seeker bent over that small body frail clouds of morning in the window. When someone is bending over the body of a dead child…’’

“A dead child?”

“Dead or sick, it doesn’t matter. That small body demands a response, not frail clouds of morning in the window. That’s an evasion, an aesthetic indulgence. You can’t write without the willingness to expose yourself, and even then nothing is ever certain. But without it you’re wasting time and paper. And in general, you overwork the word ’frail.’ I counted it five times on the first page alone.’’

Hail frail snake.

He reads aloud. He reads well. A seasoned professional. He’s gotten the feel of it right off even if he did probably read it for the first time in the kitchen between the kettle and the coffee cups.

Silence.

“Is it important to you?”

“What?”

“Writing.’’

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then give it all you have, please. Otherwise…” His voice dies softly away his glance caresses my legs. A baby bursts out crying in the hallway there’s a scraping of chairs. Suddenly I have a bad taste in my mouth. All in all a negative opinion.

“You say that my story isn’t developed, but in your own fiction it

He bristles. “What about my fiction?”

“Never mind…” I don’t pursue it. I get up to go the baby is still screaming. His head is bowed with a wise understanding smile. I reach out again for the notebook.

“I think someone is calling you.”

But he’s distracted still deep in his chair he won’t let go of the notebook he leafs through it again quickly loath to part with it.

“First things, objects, physical realities, only afterwards ideas and symbols derived from them. That’s literature. The full immediacy of the moment as it happens to you or others, the ability to empathize rather than abstract, to be down-to-earth… to keep closing the gap between life and the written word…”

I smile my hand still out to take my story. The baby is having a tantrum I hear the young man’s steps utensils are falling. He rises slowly still holding on to the notebook. Now that we stand facing each other I can see that he’s actually shorter than I am not that that keeps him from stalling still more.

“Give my regards to Asa. When he first approached me at the university I didn’t realize who he was. I remember him as a small boy. His father, old man Kaminka, was my teacher in high school.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“He was a sharp fellow. An odd person, though. And one who got on your nerves. Still, he did make me think. What’s with him? Is he still alive?”

“Of course. He’s been in America the last few years.”

“Kaminka? What is he doing there?”

“Teaching at some half-Jewish college. I’ve actually never met him. He was already there when we were married.”

“And he didn’t come back for your wedding?”

“No.”

“That sounds just like him. An odd fellow. Complicated. He made life tough for us. You never met him?”

“No. But he’s here now on a visit. In fact he’s due in Jerusalem today.”

“Is his wife still alive? I believe she was ill or something.”

“Yes. There was something.”

“A strange man. Talented but wasted. There were times when he drove us up the wall.”

(And you? Odd, strange—three times on the same page.)

“Give him my best. He’ll remember me if he wants to. Our relationship was never very good. And if you’d ever like me to read other things of yours, I’ll be glad to. You don’t have to ask me through Asa.”

I catch a whiff of his tobacco-smelling breath. He ushers me outside his hand on my shoulder he gives me my notebook back.

“That poem you said deserved to be published… whom shall I send it to? Do you think that you might… that is, perhaps you… might give it to someone…”

He steps back his hand slips from my shoulder. But I give him a soft look mustering all my beauty.

“You already want to be published?”

“Just if I deserve to be… if you think…” The page is tom from the notebook and given to him. He takes it reluctantly then hands it back and asks me to write my address on it. We are in the hallway by the kitchen door the tall young man is standing with the baby in his arms. Her face is wet with tears she emits a muffled gasp reaching out for him but he ignores her and continues seeing me out my page of poetry crumpling in his hands.

A big sharp-eyed woman opens the door with a key she enters quickly and snatches the baby at once. Through an open door at the rear of the house two youngsters are blowing up a ball. I tiptoe back out to the madding crowd unable to restrain myself any longer.

“Excuse me for asking, but how many children do you have?”

He turns around quickly.

“Two. Why?”

“Nothing. I just wondered.”

A slight bespectacled mouse of a girl ascends the stairs. Perhaps it’s she who has found the new linguistic key. My provisional mark: an honorable failure with hope for the future. My best effort so far is that hunk of white cheese the dimness of the bread shelf that’s where I’m most at home. Yet I did feel the warmth of the truth when I wrote it. To look hard not to fear self-exposure to dig deeper into the problem if it’s there. Farewell frail clouds. He’s right. Though what will I do without “frail” that magic word that helps in hard transitions? An old snake on a rock an old errant snake? I must find a substitute.

Meanwhile the hunk of cheese has come to life out of the pages of my story. Here’s my father slicing it with a long knife his large handsome face so weary tall blond a skullcap pushed back on his head. Objects give me of yourselves come you breads you biscuits you smoked fishes you jars of jam you yoghurt containers come smells I need your inspiration. Joking with the fat voracious short-tempered lady customers struggling with stained little chits of bills I slip silently by him to the storeroom in the back where amid beer crates oil bottles and bags of powdered detergent mother bends in the gloom with her glasses on writing new prices on items.

“Raising prices again?”

“Ah, Dinaleh, it’s good you came. Asa called. He’s been trying to get hold of you.”

Father is already hugging me from behind he’s left the customers.

“Be careful, you’ll get her pretty dress dirty!”

“I’ll buy her a new one. So what did he say?”

“Who?”

“That author, what’s his name…”

“Let her catch her breath first!”

“How do you know about it?”

“Asa told us.”

My room never had a lock or a key no bolt even in the bathroom they just barged in without knocking without asking in my bed in my drawers no secrets no privacy an all-loving all-knowing omnipresent world invading every pore choking me with embraces yet I’m to blame I ask for it I collaborate going out of my way to come see them each day if I didn’t they’d turn up in disgrace at suppertime wanting to know if their daughter is still alive or has she gone up in smoke.

“So what did he say? Did he like…?”

“Yes… more or less… he had some comments but… yes… on the whole…”

“Leave her alone. Mrs. Goldberg is waiting for her bill. Don’t make her nervous.”

He kisses me and goes back into the store.

“Do you want me to help you, mama?”

“No, darling, absolutely not. Sit down and rest a bit. I’ll make you something to eat in a minute. Just get in touch with Asa. He’s already called three times today. His father is coming this afternoon.”

“I know.”

“Call him now, he’s only in his office until noon. We promised you’d call him right away.”

“All right.”

I sit on a beer crate feeling weak as though I’d just had a tooth pulled.

“Would you like me to dial for you?”

“In a minute, mama.”

“Are you feeling all right? Come, I’ll make you a cup of tea.” “Not right now. One minute, mama.”

“His father is coming today at three o’clock, so we thought we’d invite the three of you for supper, that way you wouldn’t have to cook. And we have to see him once anyway… he is our in-law, after all… no one understands how we’ve never met him. Of course, I imagine he’d like to meet us too…”

“Not tonight, though, mama. He’ll want to be alone with Asi. They haven’t seen each other for years.”

“But it’s already been settled with Asi.”

“Will you stop badgering me! No… please don’t feel hurt, it’s just that… one minute… I need to think…”

One minute one minute…

Father comes back he can’t keep himself away.

“So you’re eating with us tonight! You won’t have to cook.”

He returns to the store.

They cling to me without sticking they flutter apprehensively around me.

“No, mama, not tonight. Another time.”

“It’s for your sake. Do you have anything to make dinner with at home?”

“Yes. I’ll manage. Don’t worry.”

“It’s not for us, we don’t need it. We just wanted to help. And of course, he’ll want to meet us socially…”

“Of course he will. I’ll bring him. But not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Maybe for the seder.”

“I don’t think he can. He’ll want to be with Ya’el and the grandchildren. We may have to be with them too.”

She turns pale.

“You’re not planning to leave us all alone for the seder?”

“We’ve been with you every year. It would be just this one time, and even that isn’t definite.”

On one only child’s back two whole parents whither thou goest and the pain the hot twinge inside and old age and only the light in the eyes that you feel that you see how bossy they are yet they’re the ones who spoiled me without end to protect me from all pain why should he tear the light that glows and him surrounded by women wanting me exposed no wonder that I’m here among these bottles of cooking oil times have changed the sexual revolution group orgies hard porn a married virgin in Jerusalem with white cheese on the scales and a barrel of pickled mackerel never alone never never alone tracked by radar from afar they know all see all when I write they’ll stand by my side to hold the pen to be of help they mean so well and the onus is mine I’m to blame he’s started to punish me now he’ll go mad in the end what good is all my beauty everything will go up in smoke if I don’t let him in and I won’t my friend my love my true heart try my mouth if you want but not there.

“Dinaleh, you’re not feeling well. Maybe you’d like to go upstairs and lie down.”

Couldn’t you please be sick so that we could take care of you put you to bed undress you cover you up. Be a good sick girl. I feel as though I’ve turned to stone.

“Then call Asa.”

“In a minute… that must be him ringing now…”

“Dina? When did you get there?”

“Just this minute, Asi. Just now. A minute ago.”

“It took so long?”

“It didn’t take so long.”

“How did it go with him?”

“Later.”

“In one word.”

“All right.”

“In what sense?”

“Later.”

“My father’s coming today.”

“I’ve been told.”

“Something seems to have gone wrong there. Kedmi stepped in and insisted on going to get her signature by himself and messed things up. I warned them not to let him go alone but with Ya’el he does what he wants. That’s not for now, though…. He’s coming at three on the one o’clock car from Haifa but I don’t finish teaching until three-thirty, so you’ll have to meet him at the taxi station and take him home with you.”

“All right.”

“You know that the house is in total chaos. There’s nothing to eat. Your parents invited us for dinner tonight. Maybe we should accept so that you won’t have to cook.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make something and you’ll help. He’ll want to spend a quiet evening with you.”

“As you like. I was just thinking of you.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t leave me any money in my purse again, though.”

“I can’t be responsible for your purse. I don’t have any money either. You can borrow some from your parents.”

“I’m not borrowing any money from them. You know they never take it back. Why did you take all the money from my purse?”

“I didn’t take a cent from you. I’m broke too. But take five thousand pounds from your parents. That much they’ll agree to take back.”

“I won’t. Stop giving me advice. I’ll go to the bank and take money out myself. Who do I have to see there?”

“Anyone. It makes no difference.”

“Where exactly is our branch?”

“On the corner of Arlosoroff Street, where it always has been.”

“Fine. Now I remember.”

“Take out two thousand pounds.”

“I’ll take out as much as I feel like.”

“All right, all right. Just don’t be late. Be there by three. Will you recognize him?”

“Yes. Don’t worry.”

“I’ll come straight home from the university.”

“Maybe you’d like to meet us in some café downtown.”

“No. That’s too complicated.”

“But why?”

“What on earth do you want to meet in a café for? He’ll be tired. I’ll be home by four-thirty. Go straight there, all right?”

“All right. Say something.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Am I still being punished?”

A long pause.

“It’s not a punishment. It’s despair.”

He hangs up.

Father and mother have already gotten the message into a shopping net go some rolls cans of spreads and sliced yellow cheese teary in its plastic wrapper down from a shelf come spongy gray mushrooms the refrigerator is flung open they take they cut they wrap in a singsong Hungarian duet silently they consult each other just a few things to put on the table swish into the bag with them why should you go to the supermarket where everything is so expensive do you really enjoy being cheated anyway it’s Tuesday everything doses early the banks too already the cash register has sprung open with a rustle of bills here’s some money you can return it when you want it’s yours in any case so you’ll inherit that much less why should you care if we give you an advance money is worthless nowadays anyhow how much do you have here why it’s nothing if it’s heavy papa win help carry it to the bus stop why don’t you take it what’s the matter? Take your father and mother too squirming in the net missing you before you’re even gone counting the hours until they see you again tomorrow don’t hurt our feelings how can you refuse we’ve already sliced it we’ve already packed it everything will spoil.

But for once I do refuse. Stubbornly adamantly. No money either. I have my own. I’m not taking a thing. Out of the question. I don’t want advances you won’t take them back anyway. All I want if you don’t mind is that hunk of white cheese.

“What do you want that for? It’s dry as a stone. It’s not fresh.”

“I’ll grate it and make a soufflé.”

“You’ll never get a soufflé out of that. Dinaleh, don’t be a child.”

“I saw some recipe in a cookbook. Are you saving it for someone? How much does it cost?”

Father is in a rage you’re doing it to insult me he wraps it up angrily and flings it at me. The store is full of irritable customers the shopping net with the food lies on the counter father is red in the face mother is beside herself I’ve never said no to them like this before I kiss her and reach out my hand to him I slip away down the alley behind the Edison Theater walking by a high blank wall on whose other side is the movie screen recessed in its far end is a rundown kiosk with a leaky soda fountain and a few cartons of yellow chewing gum and dry wafers next to some thin writing pads and notebooks. Fat lame and inert the kiosk owner sits on his stool his back to the wall the sounds of the movie behind him a roar of cars of explosions all that American bang-bang he sits absorbed in the noise. I reach for a writing pad and choose an orange one with faded lines a product of the Jerusalem Paper Company.

“Are these the only writing pads you have?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t see me. In a trance he listens to the sounds from behind the heavy concrete wall.

“All right, then. I’ll take this one.”

He takes the pad from me to check its price. I hand him some change he counts it suspiciously I grab the pad back all at once my fingers are itching to write here on the border of downtown to one side of me the stone houses of Ge’ula a spiritual watershed down one slope of which flows a thickening stream of black coats before them a last display window with photos of leather-booted women a neighborhood of uglies who no longer turn to stare at me. I riffle through the small blank pages.

“Do you have a pen or a pencil?”

He produces a dusty pen I pay him he hands me back some moist change. I can feel an attack coming on. On one side I write Poetry I turn it over and write Prose on the other I lay the pad on the wet marble counter and write quickly.

Rockdrowsing snake. Rustling bleeding. Venomous skull soft bald head.

The kiosk owner looks up at me.

“Not here, lady. This isn’t a desk.”

But I pay no attention I flip it over quickly to the prose side. Father in knots large gloomy wall beyond the hum of projector muffled booms. Zombie-like kiosk owner selling soda in shade of banyan tree. She buys a small pad from him.

“Hey, lady, not here!”

A bus pulls up across the street the driver looks at me the doors hiss open and shut I signal him he brakes sharply I grab the pad and my bag and the cheese and dart to the opposite sidewalk the door opens again I’m safely inside. Thank you. He grins. He deserves to have me sit near him so I do smiling back sweetly as I pay him the fare but before he can get a word in I’ve whipped out my pad and plunged into it. The speedy recognition of beauty. And on the poetry side I write I saw her as she danced her body deep in soft melody.

It’s something else today.

The keys are already turning in the glass door of the bank but I manage to worm my way in. No one knows me though we have a joint account because Asi takes care of all our bank business but a nervous young teller takes me under his wing and manages to give me five thousand pounds even though I don’t have a checkbook he fills out the forms for me and carefully has me sign he runs to bring me my money in new bills and a new checkbook too I can feel him falling for me head over heels he’s the clean skinny intellectual type crushed by an ambitious mother he scents the tender virgin in me like a moth attracted to the light.

His thin wings beat against the counter of the emptying bank while the rest of the staff files away its papers and regards us with a smile. All of a sudden I must know exactly how much we have in our account. It turns out that we have several accounts he writes each down on a piece of paper and goes to check the computerized listings explaining everything precisely. Here you have twenty thousand pounds and here you have some German marks and here you even have a few stocks. I never knew or else I wasn’t listening when Asi told me. The amazing thing is that I’ve co-signed every one of them. Some little female clerk is impatiently jingling the keys but my moth with glasses has decided that now is the perfect time to sell me some new savings plan for the thrifty woman. I let him tell me about it acting docile even a little dumb nodding dependently but forced in the end to confess that my financial authority does not extend beyond five thousand pounds. I promise to send him my husband for a pep talk and slip the money into my purse letting my glance linger over him. He opens the glass door wide careful not to touch me.

I buy a cake and some flowers and board another bus. It’s already one o’clock I’d better hurry. I sit in the back I take out my pad and write noon light in an empty bank and on the flip side silver moth.

At home I take off my dress and change into pants I make the beds wash the dishes dust and air out the house. The refrigerator is practically empty. The white cheese has been left behind on the bus or in the bank. How stupid of me to say no to my parents they were so hurt perhaps I should call them. I run down to the corner grocery but it’s already closed. How could I have forgotten that it’s Tuesday? But the weather’s clearing up a bright blue sky is being unfurled the day that started glumly with such a cold wind is filling with warm clear light now.

I return to the apartment throw out old newspapers put Asi’s papers into drawers arrange the books change my pants put on makeup the time flies by. At two-thirty I’m downstairs again a bus roars by me without stopping. I step to the curb and stick out my hand to thumb a ride. A car screeches to a stop. I hate to hitch just because it’s so easy. The driver in dark glasses looks like a pimp. Downtown? At your service. I press against the door gently laying my hand with the wedding ring on the dashboard. A deterrent or an invitation? These days one never knows. He tries striking up a conversation I answer politely but more and more drily the closer we get to downtown. We stop for a light. May I? I open the door and slip out.

It’s five minutes to three. Suddenly I feel a burst of emotion. Asi’s father. Kaminka himself. This man whom I’ve known only from stories from arguments from short letters bearing the usual political dirges with the requests for books and journals at the end. Asi’s father a processed element within Asi tumbling in our sheets with us thrashing about in the throes of our marriage. In a few more minutes I’ll see him alive and in person at the bottom of Ben-Yehuda Street a subject for inquiry and interrogation. The number of the one o’clock cab from Haifa is five-thirty-two sit down right here miss I’ll find your party the minute it arrives what did you say his name was? I sit among parcels in the open office facing the busy street the sun at the top of it flooding the rooftops like a sea. People press around me the festive commotion of the approaching holiday I take out my darling pad the attack won’t let up today it’s been one continual rush of excitement. In prose throes of marriage. In poetry I cross out silver moth.

A taxi pulls up across the street. That’s it miss. The door opens I recognize him at once because it’s Tsvi. Amazing. Even uncanny. The most obvious thing about him they never mentioned to me that he’s the spitting image of Tsvi. Tall erect even powerfully built he stands by the car in rumpled clothes looking about glancing up at the sky his gray hair uncombed a little mustache what does he need it for. Something menacing about him. He looks tired confused but I’m frozen where I am. I watch him try catching the attention of the fat driver who’s taking parcels off the baggage rack shouting and joking with the office personnel across the street. Kaminka looks at me but doesn’t see me. At last the trunk is opened he takes out a coat hat and a small leather valise gathering them up while saying something to the driver he turns to look at the sun hanging at the top of the street. I must go to him but the pen won’t leave my hand I turn the page and write sun in the creases of a hat. He starts toward the office across Ben-Yehuda Street but abruptly veers and begins walking down it instead. Passing cars screen him from me I stuff the pad into my bag and jump to my feet the flow of cars keeps me from crossing the street he’s gone but at once I see him again about to turn into some side street by a traffic light he stops to ask something and light a cigarette I jaywalk quickly over to him and reach out to him in the middle of the street.

I put my arm around him and embrace him. Dina. He leans over me radiantly the lights keep changing next to us. At last. Asi is teaching at the university he’ll go straight home from there. I drag him back to the sidewalk slow-moving cars barely missing our feet He throws his cigarette into the street he’s confused he can’t get over me he leans heavily on my shoulder pedestrians jostle us stopping to watch us meet. I reach the sidewalk first I stand on tiptoe and kiss his face warmly generously. He’s moved he drops his valise at his feet and hugs me with tears in his eyes. It’s about time I laugh it’s about time he repeats mesmerized his eyes shut as he steps up onto the sidewalk.

“Let me carry your bag for you.”

“Don’t even think of it!”

“Then at least your coat and hat.”

“They’re no trouble. I’ll wear the hat.”

He puts it on smiling surveying his surroundings. The crowd presses against us sweeping us along toward Zion Square. We drift aimlessly with it.

“Where to now?”

“To the bus stop and home.”

“Maybe we should have something to drink first. Are you in a hurry?”

“Not at all. It’s just that Asi will be home soon.”

“It won’t kill him to wait. Come, I want to talk with you. Isn’t there some nice café around here? Let’s get out of this mob scene. Were there always such crowds in this place?”

He tucks his arm in mine and youthfully but with surprising brute force spins me around into a dark little street as though he had his bearings exactly he stops by the glass door of a bank walks on turns back crosses to the opposite sidewalk looks up and down and returns to me. “It’s become a bank,” he murmurs. “Let’s go to the Atara then. Is it still there?”

His speech is a quick clipped Hebrew with a slight musical Russian accent.

“When were you last in Jerusalem?”

“Long ago. I skipped over it on my last visit three years ago. That must make it five years or more. Over there, in America, I often wonder about this city. There’s a photograph of it in all the offices of the Jewish community centers and it’s always the same: the towers of the Old City, the Wailing Wall, the Israel Museum, all in the same pretty colors. No one ever photographs this shabby, gray, congested triangle of streets in which the real life of Jerusalem goes on and all those little bombs keep exploding.”

We elbow our way into the Atara Café people turn to stare at us we’re a curious-looking couple. We find a small table at the back and he takes off his hat. A waitress appears he orders coffee for us and gravely asks about the cakes he even decides to have a look at them he consults with the waitress smiling at me from afar. Finally he points a long finger at his choice and disappears into the men’s room. I take out my pad a wave of warm words in my gut.

She gives off warmth she kisses the old man generously. She opens patiently to him listening suspending judgment refusing to categorize. A crushed felt hat a little mustache a warm yet violent exterior. A touch of the hand. His lust for cake. Describe a cake. Between two worlds. His different father.

He sits down next to me his hair combed and slightly damp beads of water still on his brows looking quizzically at the writing pad as it slipped back into my bag.

“Now then. At last I can take a good look at you. Relate the reality to the picture. So here you are. It’s really you. Where did he find you?”

“Asi? In the university, where else.”

“They tried to prepare me for you in their letters. Asi wrote: ‘I think she’s very pretty but that’s not the main thing.’ Just what the main thing was, though, he never said. And Ya’el in her cut-and-dried manner: ‘We don’t know much about her. She’s retiring and doesn’t talk much. Her family is very religious but it doesn’t show on her. Extremely pretty.’ End quote. After the wedding Tsvi wrote me too: ‘The bride is beautiful.’ As if they wanted to give me over there something tangible to take hold of, inasmuch as no one seemed able to explain, not even to himself, why Asa was in such a hurry to get married or who the young woman was. But if she was beautiful, perhaps I’d understand and accept. To tell you the truth, though, it wasn’t much help to me. In fact, it only confused me more. Why, of all people, a religious beauty — those being the two things that everyone referred to? Either the combination was accidental or else it was supposed to tell me something. Was it mere caprice on his part? A misjudgment? Something temporary or a genuine decision? Because when I last saw him three years ago he had another girlfriend, a student from one of his classes. You must have heard of her. A girl with character, they had known each other since childhood. And then out of the blue I get an invitation to a wedding with a religious beauty! What was I to make of it? I’m not blaming anyone, but it was as though I wasn’t wanted. That kind little note that you added at the end didn’t amount to much either. You’ll forgive me, but I’m sensitive to language. As if it didn’t really matter whether I came or not. And there it was winter, in the middle of the academic year, and with no money set aside for the trip. Was I supposed to show up here just to stand arm in arm under the wedding canopy with the woman who tried to murder me while the rest of them stood by… was that it, eh?”

Coffee and cake are brought I’m in a daze I feel dizzy from this fantastical outburst. This sudden show of frankness. This violence. He keeps his eyes on me they’re Asi’s that split-level look but in light brown. The musical direct uninhibited speech that flows so powerfully. They wanted to murder him? My God, what can he be talking about? Did I hear right? Then he must be ill too. What kind of family have I landed in? Delicious tremor of fright. He bends over to sniff his cake sensually. He takes out two greenish pills and swallows them.

“To wake me up. I’m still limping along seven hours behind you and I can’t seem to catch up. I’ve never suffered this way from jet lag before. I suppose I must be getting old, eh?”

He takes a bite of cake.

“I wanted to write a letter of apology to your parents, and of course to you too. I did manage to find out a bit about them through a friend of mine in Jerusalem. I understand that they own a grocery store. That they’re decent, unassuming people. Hungarians?”

He stops to sip his coffee cuts himself another piece of cake and crams it in his mouth wrinkled desire suffusing his face.

“But in the end you didn’t,” I almost whisper.

He seizes my hand.

“I wasn’t sure they’d understand… and to have to start explaining it all… with what they already knew about me… after all, such people put great stress on family life. I wrote a page and threw it away… but I told myself then that one day I still would explain myself. And now here I am alone with you… and you are very lovely… the way you stopped to kiss me with such feeling in the middle of the street, without giving it a second thought! You’re not only beautiful, you have character. And I’m glad that we’re alone and my first meeting with you is tête-à-tête, because Asa would have begun arguing right away. He’s spent his whole life arguing with me from the minute he was born, he already started in the cradle. Well, he’s got his students to argue with now, I suppose…”

The speed of it the honesty the crankiness the torrent of talk is too much for me I’m shaking I’m blushing the sun is in my eyes there’s a hubbub of people around me. Soon Asi will be home. It’s all burst on me so suddenly. This vertigo. This deep emotion. He gulps down the last of his cake he drains his coffee with his eyes closed he smiles and looks around.

“But I don’t understand… who tried to murder you?”

He stares at me. He takes out a cigarette lights it and snaps the burnt match with strong fingers.

“You really don’t know? No one ever told you? I see Asi has been protecting our good name. How long have you been married? Nearly two years, isn’t it? Well, if you haven’t left him until now, you won’t leave him because of this, ha ha ha…”

His sudden burst of depraved laughter astounds me.

“This?’’

“Never mind. If they didn’t tell you, it doesn’t matter. It’s all past history now.”

All at once though he changes his mind he leans toward me veiled in smoke he sticks his face close to mine and murmurs feverishly:

“Who did? She did, of course. Why do you think that she’s in there and I’m out here? You mean they never even referred to it in front of you? No, I suppose they didn’t…. Well, someday, years from now, when I’m dead and gone, Tsvi will tell you how he saw me with his own eyes wallowing in my blood in the hallway outside the kitchen…’’

He loosens his tie opens two buttons in his shirt and displays a pink stripe through the gray hair a ragged scar like a scribble now I see it now I don’t. The sunbeams play over his face. He takes my hand again.

“Now where was I? Ah, why I didn’t come to your wedding. The question kept bothering me too. Here my son was getting married and I sat in some faraway city in the middle of a black winter trying to punish you when I was only punishing myself. What were they thinking back there about the missing father of the groom? What did the bride think? Someday, I told myself, I’ll explain it all to her. A few years from now I’ll go back and explain. When all the fuss is over I’ll sit with her in some café in Jerusalem — that’s exactly how I imagined it — and we’ll have an intimate talk. I didn’t have this particular place in mind; I was thinking of that nice little café that’s been turned into a bank. I and the religious beauty — because you really are beautiful, I can see now why they all made a point of it. Only who really are you? We’ll have to try to understand you, to get to know you better…”

Customers are staring at us. Next to us sits a couple holding hands but the man can’t take his eyes off me.

It’s clear to me now. A character for a story. Better yet, for a whole novel. If only he’d stay with us in Israel I’d put him to good use I’d take him apart and spread whole chunks of him on paper I’d copy down entire sentences unchanged. The ineptness of that Asi. I’ve asked him a thousand times what’s your father like and all he could offer me was a jaded stereotype. Why the man’s a human gold mine! The looks of him the thick brows the little mustache the flow of his talk candid and crafty at once. Strong. I grip the hot cup of coffee hard. A warm trickle in the dark gut. Asi hasn’t touched me for two weeks. Hie valise squeezed between my legs caressing my flesh. Customers walk back and forth brushing my hair. It’s getting warmer. All at once a strong scent of spring. I open a button of my blouse suddenly aroused. The pain of words. I can’t control myself I take the pad from my bag and quickly write wrinkled desire. A human gold mine. I close it and replace it. He smiles at me sagely.

“Found a phrase? When I was young I went around with a pad lik‹ that too.”

He’s already reaching out for it.

“We’d better go. It’s getting late. Asi will be upset.”

He asks for the bill. Five hundred pounds? He’s stunned then he smiles. You must have it good here if such crazy prices don’t faze you. He takes out his wallet and extracts a few American dollars but the waitress doesn’t want to take them. I pay instead firmly refusing the dollars he offers me. The only one in this family who knows the value of a dollar is Kedmi he says the taxi driver didn’t want any either Ya’el had to pay him for me and wouldn’t take them herself. I must go to a bank and change money. Asi will change some for you let’s not waste any time he’ll kill me for keeping you so long. We walk to the bus stop and join the throng waiting by the iron pole I try hailing a cab that doesn’t stop. He observes the hectic street amused. A bus comes the crowd surges toward the door. I take his hat to help him pushing him ahead of me he boards and disappears inside I get on too and pay for both of us. The whole bus is pushing and shoving. He’s swept to the back he even manages to find a seat there he borrows a newspaper from the person next to him and opens it winking at me. Where have I landed? He’s soft in the head himself he just pretends to be sane they want to force their madness down me drop by slimy drop. I don’t mean you 0 man of gloom. It’s not prudery it’s self-protection but I’ll write up your father to make up for it. My subject at last. Prose of course only prose will do there’ll be a child too I promise it can be done scientifically with anesthesia what thou hast made pure I have made impure and what thou hast made impure I have made pure what thou hast forbidden I have permitted and what thou hast permitted I have forbidden what thou hast loved I have hated and what thou hast hated I have loved what thou hast condoned I have condemned and what thou has condemned I have condoned what thou hast rejected I have accepted and what thou hast accepted I have rejected yet none of it to make thee wroth. What did he do to make them want to kill him the brilliant light and the sea I saw the fear the disgust right away in Asi’s eyes her fierce look the white cotton dress and the smell of old medicines the jar of jam that my mother gave Asi that I put at her feet on the grass he leaned toward her he said mother this is Dina we’ve come to invite you to the wedding that was the first time on a clear winter day she sat wrapped in a blanket in a chair by a tall tree she listened she asked questions she even smiled she seemed so normal until the sun went down then she tuned out what did he do to make her want to kill him so that’s the skeleton they’ve been hiding in the closet wallowing in his blood by the kitchen how horrid but there is a story here there’s got to be one and me so close to it if only I’m up to it one step at a time God give me strength I’ve married into 8 subject for at least a novella. The bus lurches forward the passengers topple on each other. A large man is thrown against me or maybe throws himself he’s all red doesn’t know what to do I’m draped by the warmth of his body I let it bear down on me the whole bus is shouting and laughing the human swarm.

At the university a mob of passengers tumbles out and another mob pours in. In line I spot Asi standing by himself in a plaid jacket and a thin intellectual tie careful not to touch or be touched looking angrily at the packed bus. I lean over toward the window banging my head against the bars. Asi! He hears me but can’t see me he springs forward and presses ahead with the crowd. The despairing shriek of the door trying vainly to shut. What’s happened to the buses today? Asi just makes it he’s thin and wiry the last one in with his back against the door his briefcase clutched to his chest searching the passengers for me irritated worried at last he spies me and makes a terrible face. I smile and nod reassuringly I put his father’s hat on my head the passengers near me grin broadly he gets it and looks for his father I point to the back of the bus. At Ramat Eshkol a large crowd gets off all at once. I shout to Asi’s father that it’s our stop Asi is already waiting by the rear door I step down first and go straight to his side waiting to see their reunion. His father staggers out holding his crushed coat Asi reaches for his bag the old man’s confused but sees Asi right away they embrace on the bus steps behind them people are still struggling to get out the doors shriek encouragement.

“Were you waiting for us here?”

“No, I was on the same bus you were. I got on a few stops back.”

“What’s with these buses? You don’t have a car, you don’t even have a telephone — what kind of university professor are you?”

“I’m only a lecturer.”

“It’s lunacy to travel in these buses, with these crowds. You need a car.”

“On my salary? Don’t you have any idea what life’s like here?”

“Then what has all your genius gotten us?”

The pushing continues the bus moves. All of a sudden we’re alone on the sidewalk at the large intersection.

“Fame.” Asi smiles his wonderfully wise ironic smile.

“Whose?”

“Yours too, father.”

They embrace and kiss again his father rumples his hair. And I how can I not be happy too clinging to Asi hugging him putting my arm through his seizing the chance to hold his thin wriggly body he shrinks back a bit then relents. A marvelous moment the neighborhood in such a gentle light. Asi at his worldliest cleverest best. Father and son release one another each takes a step back the father slightly the taller of the two. They grin at each other without words yet perhaps a slight antagonism already brewing a certain distance. I feel a hot flash. Where is my pad my muse is signaling again. The poetess throbs with inspiration.

“What happened to your finger? Did you cut it?”

Is Asi just trying to break the ice or is this a serious checkup?

“Oh, that.” He lifts up the finger with its gray bandage and laughs. “The day before yesterday I cut myself bathing Ya’el’s baby.”

“You bathed her? How come?”

“Ya’el went out shopping and I was still sleeping off the trip. Gaddi was taking care of Rakefet and couldn’t handle her. She made in bed and cried, so he woke me and we bathed her together…”

“Did the two of you know each other?”

“Of course, what do you think? But I hadn’t seen him for three years and he’s grown. He looks a lot like Kedmi, tubby but bright. He has an eye for things and knows how to express himself. He’s just a bit on the sad side, a bit… somber. Kedmi doesn’t make life easy for anyone, although he does love the boy, that’s evident. And you, Asa, how good it was of you to send your wife to fetch me! It was an excellent idea. We had a chance to get acquainted… we sat for a while in a café…”

“So that’s where you were. I’ve been wondering what took you so long.”

“What are all these new buildings? Is everything here one big development?”

We cross the street and pass the open supermarket.

“You two go on and I’ll run in here.”

“Maybe we should come with you.’’ Asi is anxious not to lose control.

“No, you go ahead. Can’t you see your father is tired? I’ll manage by myself.”

They walk ahead. No longer touching grown distant conversing Asi must be explaining the neighborhood to him his father halts from time to time to look around. Did she really want to kill him? Truly? God give me strength. Yea the hand of the Lord was upon me and He brought me forth in the spirit of the Lord…

The supermarket is crowded. It’s a busy time of day people go berserk before each holiday at last I find a wagon and begin cruising the long shelves. Pardon me pardon me wagons bump together pass each other front back right and left. I stick my frail hands into piles of fruit and vegetables in line by the scales I remember my pad wearily uninspiredly automatically I write in it a few words. On her head a man’s hat. Happiness gone m(b?)ad. An orange peel. Son sniffs father.

“You’re next.” A large woman peers tiredly over my shoulder.

I push my wagon down an aisle of wine bottles the sunbeams light the glowing liquid. I run my hand over them and take an expensively wrapped one down off a shelf Old Judean Dessert Nectar says the label in antique rabbinic script. Six hundred eighty pounds. Suitably impressed I put it in my wagon. Everyone around me is snatching items off the shelves you’d think the whole country was about to close down on Passover. I get into the spirit of it grabbing cheeses bread eggs canned foods a jar of olives frozen meats heading with the stream for the check-out counter. Here and there someone joins me on my way with his wagon trailing slowly after me among the aisles staring at me then drifting away.

“Dina!”

An old classmate by the name of Yehiel holding a sweet blue-eyed baby with a tiny skullcap on his head beside him a woman with a wagon full of food. He comes up to me all excited aglow already a bit gone to seed with a tummy a perspiring paterfamilias but the baby is soft and sweet. He tells me about himself with bumpkinish delight he’s almost finished law school maybe they’ll move to a new settlement on the West Bank he can work as its legal adviser. His wife a pale shrew a tight coif on her head examines me hostilely. “This is Dina,” he says. “From my class… Once I told you about her…”

“You have a little boy already?” I can’t get over it. Something suddenly draws me to the little tot. “Can I hold him for a minute?” I ask. Happily proudly he hands him to me while his wife’s eyes widen with alarm. He too fell hard for me once. The glory of Israel is slain upon high places how the mighty have fallen a long long line of them the baby is light and warm all at once I’m overcome by desire I stroke his silken hair he clings to me watching me quietly reaching up for his skullcap with his small hand and giving it to me I smile at him I kiss him and hand him back replacing the skullcap I kiss him once more. He doesn’t mind me at all I say softly to them. And all this while Yehiel chatters excitedly on about old classmates of ours whom I’ve forgotten he even writes his name and phone number on a piece of paper he informs me that once he met my husband. He teaches in the university, doesn’t he?

A whole hour has passed by the time the supermarket’s disgorged me. And with a lethal bill. Father and mother were right. At least I’ve been given an Arab boy to push the shopping wagon home for me. A fresh warm wind is blowing outside a coppery twilight buses pull up from downtown releasing their human beehives. The gay shrieks of children. I walk in from: the wagon rumbling after me. Arab boys come back the other way with empty wagons they call out to my boy and clap him on the back. He smiles uncomfortably he steals a look at me is my beauty clear to them too? By a lamppost in the busy street I make up my mind to stop a strong hand massages my heart. Here it comes. I take out my already worn pad and leaf through it to a fresh page.

The plot begins in a supermarket. Age thirty-plus. An intellectual unsuccessful type. Once briefly married before. She steals the child from a wagon by the door of the store. The time is dusk, people pass in the street, coppery twilight. The boy is eight, nine months old. In the end she’ll have to return him!!!! She wears glasses, her hair is clipped short Deep down she doesn’t know what she’s doing. A description of the warm bursting forth of spring. Nature means a great deal to her. Only her mother is still alive. A heavy smoker.

The Arab boy watches me good-humoredly his foot on the wheel of the wagon. I stick the pad excitedly back in my bag. Why on earth a heavy smoker?

At home I find Asi sitting with his father in the dark living room tensely talking smoke drifting between them. His father wears a checked shirt his tie is pulled loose. I’ve noticed that he dresses in good taste he knows how to choose his clothes. I walk in the Arab boy after me with the large cartons. Asi jumps up. Have you gone out of your mind? Where have you been? The boy cringes and looks at the floor. What got into you? What have you bought here? He begins poking through everything. We already have cheese! He throws the box of it aside. What’s all this for? Who’s going to eat it? Where did you get the money from? I’m so mad I could kill him. The boy brings in the rest of it stealthily watching us with wide eyes. How dare he. Be quiet I hiss how dare you in front of your father. Go back inside. Already I hear the hoarse musical voice from the terrace.

“I’m a Tel Avivian, and with all due respect to Jerusalem, when evening comes on here I feel a slight metaphysical angst. I always tried to get back to the coast before it, to the scent of the orange groves. In Jerusalem I feel afraid that some prophet will come to haunt me in my sleep, ha ha… You do have a grand view here, though. Just don’t let anyone build on that empty lot in front of you. What are those lights over there on the hillside?”

I join him and stand by his side.

“Someone once told me, but I forget. It’s some place in the West Bank.”

The smell of his sweat. Asi is still rummaging through my purchases in the kitchen. He’s taller and broader than Asi. He leans powerfully on the balcony his checked flannel shirt stirring slightly in the breeze.

As the grass that hath dried as the blossom that hath faded as the shadow that hath passed as the cloud that hath fled as the wind that hath blown as the dust that hath scattered as the dream that hath vanished forever.

I touch him lightly on the shoulder.

“You have regards from Ehud Levin.”

“Which Levin? The author?”

“He said he was once a student of yours.”

“That’s right, he was. I’ve got them scattered all over.”

“What was he like?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Bright enough… rather sure of himself… always surrounded by girls…”

“He still is.” I laugh.

Asi gloomily joins us.

“Where do you know him from?”

“Asi sent me to show him some things that I’d written.”

“Do you write, then?” He eyes me with a warm smile.

“I try to.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He made a few comments.”

“But the gist of it.” That’s Asi no-nonsense impatient.

“He was somewhat encouraging.”

Silence. I wish they’d drop the subject.

“He said that you gave him a lot as a teacher. That you meant a great deal to him.”

He turns to look at me glowing in the dark.

“What, Levin? Really? I don’t believe it. He actually said that?”

“I swear. He spoke of you with great respect.”

He’s bewildered he smiles and wants to say something but is so taken aback that the words stick in his throat.

He takes out a handkerchief and mops his brow.

“Suppose you get around to making supper,” says Asi brutally.

“Are you hungry?”

“Of course.”

“All right. In a minute.”

I lean on the balcony grinding my stomach hard against the grillwork bending down toward the street below. Digging in.

“Come on, Dina, let’s go. You certainly bought enough food.”

His father watches from the side assessing us.

“Is there anything I can do to help? I’ve learned to cook in America… Connie actually depends on me to…”

“No, nothing, father.”

“Why isn’t there? You could teach us some new recipe. Asi likes to fool around in the kitchen too, he’s just too embarrassed to admit it.”

I steer them both into the kitchen. I hand Asi a knife and some vegetables. His father rolls up his sleeves opens the refrigerator and sticks his head in to ferret out what’s there. Finally he spiritedly suggests making some special egg dish. Do you have any rice? Not much. Where do you keep your spices Dina? And already he’s in the pantry going through old containers sniffing at bags tasting things. He asks me to light the stove he takes a bowl and cracks egg after egg he begins to scramble them. Asi stands darkly in the corner watching resentfully but I’m utterly charmed First you bathed Ya’el’s baby now you’re making us supper what will you do for Tsvi sew new buttons on his shirts?

He laughs rubbing his hands.

“Connie isn’t much for housework, she’s always held down a job. And I’m at home a lot these days, ‹specially in the winter when you can’t go out. I don’t teach many hours at the college, so I have time to be in the kitchen.”

He stirs forcefully trying to resuscitate the spices. I watch his long agile precise movements understanding all at once how he drove that bulky woman crazy feeling fear I leave the kitchen and begin to set the table halfway through I leave that too I have the need to write again I can’t hold it in the words press on some tender bladder bobbing taut and smooth in my chest I go to the bedroom I kick off my shoes I shut the door I take off my pants I undo the hook on my bra I throw back the covers baring the white sheets I jump into bed and cover, myself with a blanket my pad in my hand the pen gliding between my fingers my eyes are moist I warm up the paper with a torrent of remembered words…

Thou my strength thee the length of my days I shall praise thee implore all the more as I knock on thy door to thee sigh when I cry as each day goeth by and I pray yea I say O keep me from harm’s way.

A baby carriage by the entrance to the supermarket. The baby’s hair the color of honey. A description of his mother through her eyes. Worn-looking, talkative, her third child The candy has been prepared in advance. She follows her through the aisles. Her first planned hiding place. A dark stairwell. Describe precisely the run-down entrance, the peeling plaster. A broom and a bucket in one corner. The objects with realistic verisimilitude to balance her great excitement when she picks up the baby with the candy stuck wonderingly in its mouth. At first all it shows is surprise. A passive collaborator.

Asi comes in and sees me bundled in the blanket. I hide the pad immediately.

“What are you doing there? Have you gone out of your mind?”

“I’m just resting for a minute. I’m bushed today.”

“But you haven’t done anything!”

“I’ve had a lot of excitement. That’s work too. First the morning with you, then your father. I’ll be up in a jiffy.”

“What is he doing in there? Is he done cooking? I swear, he’s too much! Go set the table. At least do that.”

“In a minute. I already set part of it. He’s an unusual person, your father. Did he cook for you when you were little too?”

Asi doesn’t answer he looks at me grimly he goes to the closet.

“What are you looking for?”

“For a towel for him.’’

“Take the red one.”

His father stands smiling in the doorway peering jovially in.

“Are you resting?”

“Yes. Just for a minute.”

“I’m going to wash up. Don’t touch the pot. Let it simmer.”

Asi gives him the towel and he shuts himself up in the bathroom.

“You know, he’s a good-looking man. It’s no wonder that he found a young wife over there. He’s better-looking than you are.” Asi makes a face at me. “You aren’t so good-looking, but you’re sweet. Just don’t be so gloomy. In the end you’ll go crazy from all that tension and gloom. I can’t stand how tense you are. Come, give me a kiss. Lie down for a minute. Let’s take time out from the punishment.”

“What punishment? What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t touched me for two weeks. Come, give me one teeny kiss. Tonight we’ll sleep together in honor of your father. You can do what you want with me. What needs to be done. You’re right. It struck me today how crazy we’ve been. My fear of you, your fear of my fear… it’s no way to have a child. Come, let me kiss you. I’ll do anything.”

It’s as though he wants to step toward me but won’t let himself hanging his head. I hear singing and water running in the bathroom.

“Are you lying to me now?”

“Why would I lie to you? You can see that it’s you who’s avoiding it. That it’s you who can’t.”

“Me?” He twitches scornfully.

“Then do what you want. I won’t move. I’ll let you do anything. Come here a minute. At least let me give you a kiss.”

But he’s stubborn belligerent.

“Try me. I know I have to. Just be gentle and slow. Maybe we could work up to it slowly, night by night… Come, let me kiss you.”

I get out of bed and hug him pressing against him twining my legs about his climbing up him kissing him. The water stops running. His father calls out something. Asi pushes me away. “Set the table this minute!” He leaves the room.

The stirred eggs and rice were delicious I couldn’t stop praising his father. They’ve been discussing people I don’t know at first I tried listening drowsily lethargically suddenly thinking hopelessly of my story how will I ever manage to explain the girl and her motives. Thinking should I make her a primitive or half crazy to make her more credible. The doorbell rings. Asi goes to answer it. Somebody wants you. Who is it? Somebody. He has a small package. I get up and walk down the hall the little bank teller who took care of me today is standing there with the bag of cheese that I forgot. Crimson frail in love an arrow lodged in his heart he hands me the cheese so choked up I can’t understand what he says the stairway light goes off. I try touching him gently but he’s scared of his own self he retreats down the stairs hardly waiting to hear me say thank you.

“Who was that?”

“A teller from our bank.”

“That’s right, I thought I recognized him. What did he want? What did he bring?”

“Nothing. I forgot a piece of cheese there today that my parents had given me.”

“And that’s why he came? There must be something the matter with him.”

“I wouldn’t know.’’ I smile absentmindedly. “I suppose there must be. I’m not to blame for it, am I?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s used to such types all the lovesick souls who run after me but the unexpected appearance of this unobtrusive clerk has left him dumbstruck.

I lay the hunk of cheese down in the kitchen and unwrap it. Wrinkled crumbly soft and damp how hard and dry it was on the shelf in the grocery this teller has revived it with the warmth of his feverish hand. I rinse it in a dish of water. Sometimes I’m afraid of my own powers to go running at night with it to a far-off address just so as to see me again. Asi springs tensely into the kitchen and stares at the white hunk immersed in water.

“What are you going to do with that cheese?”

“Paint it, what else is it good for? It certainly can’t be eaten.”

“The worst part of it,” he whispers with sudden venom, “is this new smart-alecky style of yours… the terrible tease you’ve become. The poor kid had to drag himself all the way out here to bring you this crumbling piece of cheese… and you actually smile… you enjoy it… it’s too much, what kind of a person…”

“What?”

But he’s stalked out again.

I serve coffee and cake. His father is smoking heavily looking detachedly at the books on the shelves only half listening. I’m already so used to having him with us.

“When do you think you can see my parents? They’d like so much to meet you.”

“Of course.” He turns to Asi. “Of course I should meet them. But when?”

“Maybe tomorrow evening,” I suggest. “We can have dinner with them. Have you ever eaten Hungarian cuisine?”

“Tomorrow evening? No, tomorrow I’m going back to Haifa… I mean to the hospital… and from there to Tel Aviv. I haven’t been in Tel Aviv yet. I saw Tsvi only briefly at the airport… he’s expecting me… I really don’t know if I’ll be in Jerusalem again on this trip.”

“I’m going with you,” says Asi.

“You’re going tomorrow?” I’m thunderstruck. “Why?”

“I want to go with my father. Ya’el will come too. I haven’t been there for ages.”

“Is something the matter? Don’t you teach a class tomorrow at the university?”

“We’ll leave after it. It’s over at ten.”

“But what’s the matter? Why should you want to go all together?”

“Because we do.”

But his father abruptly bursts out:

“Kedmi insisted on going to her with the written agreement! Everything was already decided by mail… I even phoned several times from America to settle things with Ya’el… she had promised in so many words… we had talked with the doctor and invited the rabbi for next Sunday morning… and I wanted to see her before then… to say hello… but Kedmi insisted that she sign first, since she might change her mind if she saw me. Because we need her signature on the document, otherwise it isn’t valid… which means the rabbi won’t come… as it is, he’s doing us a favor. So in the end Kedmi went by himself. Ya’el wanted to join him but he insisted on going alone. You know him, don’t you? A rare specimen, always telling bad jokes, and sure that he’s the world’s leading expert on everything. And I was so out of it my first day here that I agreed. Well, it looks like he made a mess of it, because she didn’t sign. She told him she wanted to think about it…”

“To think about it?”

“Yes. All of a sudden she has to think. After everything was all settled and I had phoned all those times from America and made this trip. The rabbi even agreed to come especially with his assistants on the eve of the holiday… it wasn’t easy to get him to do it… and next Tuesday I have to fly back. I don’t know. Perhaps her feelings were hurt because I didn’t come to see her but sent Kedmi straight off with the agreement. I suppose he made some careless remark — he’s a simple man really and from a very uncultured family, even if he does have a glib tongue. So now I’m at my wits’ end. I thought that perhaps Asa and I should go see her tomorrow with Ya’el… my fears may be groundless, but still it’s better to see her… it will be good for her…”

“But must you absolutely divorce her on this trip?” I ask with soft surprise unable to comprehend all this rush.

Asi kicks me hard beneath the table. His father’s face falls growing tired and creased there’s a silent plea in his eyes.

“Yes, of course. You see, Connie… it can’t go on this way…” At a loss he looks at Asi who says nothing.

“Then maybe you can see them for a few minutes tomorrow morning.”

“See who?”

“My parents.”

“Right, your parents. I don’t know. Tomorrow morning? Will there be time? I had wanted to get something done at the university… but perhaps…”

“You won’t have time,” declares Asi drily sharply head down.

“And you won’t be back in Jerusalem?”

“In Jerusalem? I doubt it. I haven’t been in Tel Aviv yet. I have so much to do there… this visit is so short and Tsvi is expecting me. But you’ll be at the seder at Ya’el’s… we’ll all meet again there…”

“No. We have to be with my parents. They have no one else.”

Asi wants to say something but doesn’t.

“Perhaps the day after then, on the holiday itself…”

“We could try…”

Silence. I suddenly grasp that I may not see him anymore that he’s about to vanish again.

“Maybe I’ll come too tomorrow.”

He looks at Asi.

“No. You can’t,” says Asi determinedly. “Not tomorrow. There’ll be too many people. She won’t be able to cope.”

“But I want to see her too.”

“No. It’s impossible. Not tomorrow.”

We trade blows via his father.

“What will I tell my parents then? They’ll feel so disappointed.”

I fight bravely on for them.

“My father will phone them tomorrow to say hello. He’ll apologize and explain.”

All at once such loneliness engulfs me. Asi is casting me vilely aside. He’ll always do just what he wants to. His father smokes thoughtfully.

“I really did want to meet them but I don’t see how it will work out. This trip’s been so rushed… the time has sped by. I will call them, though. That’s a good idea. And I’ll tell them that on my next visit… because I’ll come again next year with Connie… yes. I’ll certainly call them. Someone told me that they’re very religious. Where do you live?…In Ge’ula? Are they followers of some Hasidic rabbi?…You don’t say! How interesting. One could never tell by looking at you, there’s not a trace left. How could they have let you? Have you lost faith yourself? I mean…”

Asi regards me intensely.

“Asi dislikes God. It’s that simple. Like someone who can’t stand a certain food and won’t allow it into the house.” His father smiles and nods. “It’s a matter of taste. But sometimes when I’m alone I buy it and cook it and eat it in secret, and wash out my mouth so be won’t know. I’ve lost faith but sometimes I’m still afraid…”

Asi’s eyes glitter with mirth. He’s cruelly amused.

“Apart from that, we keep a kosher home: the dishes, the pots, the silver… so that my parents can eat here with us, although in fact they never do.”

“Over there, this past year, I’ve begun attending synagogue now and then.”

“I always figured it would come to that someday,” Asi jabs drily still staring down.

His father flushes hard-pressed to explain.

“Simply as an onlooker. As a sociological observer of the vagaries of Jewish history. Besides, the temple has a wonderful choir. All Gentile, of course. You should hear how beautifully it sings. Absolutely professional.”

O he knows that he has sinned, he knows that it’s no use.

In vain he strums the burst strings of his heart.

He’s silent as a shadow and equally elus-

ive, & he shivers when the Sabbath prayers start.

Suddenly there’s an awkward feeling in the air. Asi projects hostility toward both of us. I clear the table and put the dishes in the sink I soap them and run the water. The two of them sit silently smoking by the table. So what? The distant mother the mortally wounded parents. All that counts is she. Waiting for me. Where did I leave her? Coming out of the supermarket with the baby in her arms. Twilight. I have to dress her. A skirt or pants? Pants, soft velvety ones. People in the street brush lightly against her, quickly she slips into the stairwell with the broom, yes I see it clearly, there’s a dusty old baby carriage there. She puts him in it and begins to wheel him. Her name should be simple, drab, nothing special or too modern. On the stairs she encounters a neighbor. Our banalities are the most incriminating things about us. She pulls down the blinds, she gathers pillows and builds a wall of them on her bed, she puts the child inside it. Make him younger. Four months old. His first fit of crying. Until now he’s been quiet. She goes to look for milk. She doesn’t have enough? She runs down to the grocery, it’s open until late. Another grocery? More objects. Where does the plot go from here? All right, in the end she returns him, but why? A purely internal decision?

Someone’s at the door. Who is it now? Telephone for Dina. I wipe my hands and descend to the floor below the door is open the family is eating invisibly in the kitchen where I hear hoarse adolescent voices. The receiver is dangling from a hook. Father and mother each on a different phone. Do not forsake us 0 our darling. They had to install a second phone because each kept grabbing the first from the other. Their voices mingle in the identical accent one finishes the other’s sentence one answers the questions asked me by the other.

“So how was supper?”

I astound them with its story. They disapprove. “You should have made it. If you had taken the groceries from us, you would have been spared the embarrassment. What are his plans now?”

“He’s heading back north tomorrow. He has to visit her in the hospital. But he’ll call you in the morning.”

“He’ll call? That’s all he’ll do, call? He can’t come?”

“It seems not. He’s leaving early in the morning. The whole visit’s very rushed.” (I should have invited them tonight really I’m not ashamed of them.)

There’s a long silence on both phones.

“How is he?”

“Fine. Just fine. He’s young-looking, likable, friendly. He resembles Tsvi more than Asi. He even goes to synagogue in America.” (Now what did I tell them that for? To please them? To make them like him? As their consolation prize?)

And indeed they’re in seventh heaven. Religion wins the day.

“How do you like that!..You see?…Just a minute, what?…” (A brief pause while they consult.) “Maybe we’ll come over for a few minutes now… we could even take a taxi… or is he too tired?…”

I say nothing. My heart goes out to them so lonely in their old neighborhood. But how can I possibly have them over now? Delicately they probe my silence. “Dina? Are you there? What do you think? We’ll take a taxi…” (The ultimate for them in dissipation.)

I still don’t answer. I can’t tell them not to. In a minute they’ll understand by themselves. “Dina?” Father raps on the phone. In the end they give up.

“Perhaps I’ll bring him to you for a short while in the morning. We’ll see. The main thing is that we’ll be with you for the seder.”

I hang up.

Asi and his father are already finishing the dishes in the kitchen putting everything away. No wonder she went mad. The old man’s crafty glance alights on me as though asking for help. Asi is getting moodier by the minute their silence percolates between them.

“You really needn’t have!” I do my best to sound thrilled. “Asi, why did you?”

He makes a despairing gesture with his hand. I go to the bedroom and look for my pad between the sheets. Where are you my dear sitting moodily in your room shuttered by your growing fear fatigued from listening to the ceaseless crying of the baby. Asi enters after me I snatch the pad and escape with it to the bathroom I undress there and take a long shower blissful in the vaporous spray I slowly advance upon the mirror from time to time kissing a breast nibbling a shoulder with dainty bites licking my fragrant skin. I put on my bathrobe and brush a few droplets of water from the pad where some words have blurred like frail spiders on tiny shelves. I dry them with my breath I return to the bedroom and climb into bed. Away with all inhibition! I begin to write. Stress my character’s fright after the initial steely excitement of the kidnapping itself, which took place with surprising ease and speed. Her modest room? A poster of a dog. The baby cries and cries. She’s afraid someone will hear. She boils milk and waits for it to cool. Describe the moment and the quality of the light. Her violent inner conflict. The telephone rings, it must be her mother. She doesn’t answer for fear the cries will be heard.

I let the bed warm me rereading what I’ve written. So thin and lifeless. I turn to the poetry side. How different.

Soft venomous bald skull old snake napping on Jerusalem rock. Frail spring

Hot air.

I close my eyes. Asi calls from the next room. Just a minute I answer without opening them. The TV is on. Light glares on me something is snatched from my hands. My bathrobe slips freezingly off of me. Asi stands by the bed holding the pad thumbing it reading it. I must have fallen asleep what time is it?

“Put that down!” I jump naked out of bed shivering with cold but he goes on reading with cold eyes. Put it down! He shuts it and puts it on the table the pen slips from beneath my legs to the floor he bends down to pick it up and lays it by the pad.

“Stop snooping, I tell you!”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t know what it was. You never had a pad like this.”

“What time is it?”

“After eleven. How could you have fallen asleep like that?”

“Where’s your father?”

“Watching the news. I’m looking for some sheets.”

“I’ll give them to you. Just close the door.”

I put on a skirt and blouse. “What have you been doing?”

“Talking and watching TV. But what’s with you today?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where are the pillowcases?”

“In a minute. I’ll make his bed. Let me do it.”

But Asi won’t leave he wants to say something he’s terribly upset he paces the room restlessly.

“Is something the matter? Did he tell you anything?”

He stares at me a thin smile on his lips he exclaims:

“It turns out that… you won’t believe this… he’s going to have a baby over there. That’s why he’s in such a hurry to get divorced. That woman of his… that Connie… is pregnant…”

“Pregnant? How old is she?”

“I don’t know. What difference does it make? He’s going to have a baby, just imagine…”

“Asa?” The musical voice drifts in from the living room. “How do you turn off this television?”

“I’ll be right there.”

Asi goes out followed by me carrying sheets and a blanket. In the smoke-filled living room are dirty teacups and a small bottle of brandy. It’s as though I haven’t been here for days. Asi’s father stands tall and upright by the flickering white screen his fingers sliding over the buttons. Asi turns off the set and takes the cushions from the sofa.

“I’ll take care of it, Asi. Go wash up. I’m so sorry I fell asleep like that.”

“Never mind. You needn’t have bothered to get up.” Asi’s father reaches out to take the sheets from me but I hug them tight not letting them go.

My conking out like that must have hurt his feelings he gives me a remote look. He smells sharply of sweat again. Didn’t he just shower a few hours ago? And yet again this sour masculine odor. What is he secreting all the time it’s as if his body wished to tell us something. A strong a very vital man he’s going to have a baby well why not?

He helps me move the sofa he catches the end of the sheet and tucks it under the mattress. He looks at me fondly.

“You needn’t have bothered to get up.”

“I have this way of collapsing when I’m emotionally excited… because of your coming… I was all worked up… because of that meeting this morning too…”

“This morning?” he wanders his arm around me.

“With that author. Your old student.”

“Ah, him.” His grip on me weakens. “Were you afraid of him? What did he talk to you about?”

“It’s hard to explain. About what I showed him, about literature in general…”

“He was a loudmouth back when I taught him, so sure of himself, so… doctrinaire. Every few months he’d come up with some new theory and make a religion out of it. What was it this time?”

“That one has to work from the concrete, from immediate physical objects, to find significance in them… if there is any…”

“From the concrete? What is he talking about? What does he know about it? Don’t set him up as an authority. He’s a fellow who loves to have disciples, to have a court full of followers — I’ve heard all about him. Listen only to your own self! You know, I’d also like to read what you’ve written… that is, if you’d have the confidence in me to let me… I know a bit about these things too. Maybe you’ll show me something now… or better yet, mail it to me. I can feel that I’ll like it, especially now that we’ve gotten to know each other…. Don’t pay attention to Asa. He’s a cynic. There’s so much to see in the world — me, I’m always curious for more. I’ve told him that the two of you should come stay with us for a while in America. I’ll find him some work there, some postgraduate position. After all, I am his father. And you too, my dear child… as soon as the pressure lets up… as soon as I’m rid of this bane of my life…”

His eyes glow fiercely he flushes and grabs my hand pushing me against the wall whispering excitedly carried away with himself.

“I don’t know what Asa has told you, and he doesn’t know everything himself. Not that it’s his fault. It was I who decided to wait patiently until he grew up and left home… but now that I see him with a home of his own, with a wife, with all the makings of a serious, creative, successful career… I can’t tell you how happy I am that I came to Jerusalem today even for these few hours. At last I’m at peace and can think of myself. Do you know what all that I want is? Simply to have and to give a little happiness. Even a small apartment like this would be big enough for me if it were inhabited by sane people. You have no idea how hard it’s been… and I honestly tried my very best until she stuck that knife into me.”

His hand gropes again for his shirt buttons.

All at once I feel terror. Standing pressed against the wall with him looming over me his eyes full of tears a gusty night outside and Asi locked in the bathroom.

“I don’t blame them. She’s their mother. But did they really think that I would live out the rest of my life chained to her… to the long twilight of a mad glob of living matter, to put it concretely, as our dear author advises us to… and there is no significance here, it’s simply a concrete, physical fact, the sum of its own physicality. I, to whom things of the spirit… and I’m not that old, you can see for yourself, I’m only sixty-four… people realize who I am, they make contact with me, love me… I still have the strength, the potential… Asi can tell you…”

Unnoticed Asi stands listening palely in the doorway in his pajamas. His father smiles at him the tears gone.

“We’ve been waiting for you to say good night.”

He kisses me very gently on the forehead.

“Open the window a bit, Yehuda, to air out the room. It’s full of smoke.”

He hesitates. I’m surprised at myself for calling him by his first name.

“Afterwards you can close it again.”

“All right.”

“If we’re up early tomorrow we’ll leave here with Asi and the two of us can go say hello to my parents. They were so disappointed when they heard you were leaving already.”

I want to say more but he’s heard the entreaty in my voice.

“That’s fine. That’s perfectly all right. I’ll get up early. You’ll wake me.”

I open the window and look out at the dark blocks of apartment houses. A strong half-wintry half-springlike wind is blowing outside. I collect the cups from the living room and glide out of it. What matters most more than anything is my heroine for whom the time has come she demands it to be given a name. Sarah plain Sarah it’s an awful one but exotic-sounding like a character’s on TV. And if the story is ever translated it won’t b‹ a problem. Where are you my dear? Wretchedly cooped up in her room with that baby whom she is slowly discovering is retarded slightly brain-damaged his mother was probably glad to get rid of him. What an incredible idea a whole new slant the ironic possibilities! It will help make it credible. I can stay with the absurdly tragic and not have to get so deeply personal.

Asi is already in bed with his head on the pillow looking at some book he has to lecture on tomorrow. My little orange pad is on the night table by the bed. He’s touched it it’s fouled I want to pick it up but I can’t. I close the door soundlessly turning the key and switch off the light. Light from the living room creeps under the door. I strip off my clothes I lift the blanket from him and whisper:

“Call off the punishment. I’m ready now. I promised you…”

He smiles stroking my face and neck distractedly.

“Not now, we can’t. He’s in the next room. Tomorrow.”

“You mean you can’t.”

“Of course I can. You know that perfectly well. Watch it… but why now when he’s practically on top of us? You know you’ll scream the way you always do. Think about it, do you really want him to hear you… is that what you want…?’’

“I won’t scream this time. I promise.”

“Yes, you will. It’s not up to you. But never mind.” He hugs me powerfully. “Tomorrow. If we’ve waited this long, we can wait another day.”

“Then I want you to know that means you can’t.’’

He’s furious now. “Don’t start that again. You know what the real truth is… all right then, come on! I’ll prove it to you.”

All of a sudden he throws himself on me savagely spread-eagling me mounting me right away I contract as hard as I can locking the little door he’s a frail snake gliding groping slithering drily away.

“You crazy woman, now do you see?”

All at once my anger melts I have to force myself not to cry. I get out of bed and put on a nightgown.

“All right then, tomorrow. But call off the punishment.”

“Do me a favor, stop talking idiotically.”

“Tell me it’s called off.”

“There’s nothing to call off.”

“There is. You know how you’ve behaved toward me these last two weeks. You’ve picked on me, you haven’t touched me…”

“All right, all right…”

I kiss his face I get into bed I turn my back to him and snuggle up like a fetus asking him to put his hand on my belly. The warmth of it in that deep pit of tiredness. The mind’s last gasps. My heroine Sarah she’s stuck in her room without moving. Where will she sleep? She won’t talk she won’t think. A flop of a character. The whole story’s a washout. Where can it go from here? A dead end. And now I don’t know what to do with her. Tomorrow I’ll try to breathe some life into her I’ll give her of my own flesh and blood. The light goes out in the living room. Fatigue courses through her like a river wave after wave of it rocking over soft bottomless depths a towering dull blue wall of water beneath her the quiet hum of the traffic in the wind. But someone keeps bothering her there’s no quiet a murmured sob blankets are tugged back and forth he moves her about lifts a hand or a leg the light keeps going on and off. Asi are you up? What time is it? It’s already three o’clock what’s the matter with you? I can’t sleep he sobs. Put your arms around me That won’t help I’m boiling mad inside. What’s wrong? Everything everything. Is it me? It’s you and it’s him. He has to go have another child hasn’t he done enough harm already? Goddamn him… where does he get the strength… the man has no sense of shame… he’ll make a laughingstock of us all. I’m finally beginning to understand. Ya’el suspected all along. But sleep is getting the better of her. What will she do? An old a prolonged cough pierces the silence from the other room. She’s so sleepy she’s sleeping but he keeps bothering her. Stop thinking you think too much if you don’t think you can’t go mad she says it without knowing if she really has said it or if she only has slept it…