A Late Divorce (26 page)

“What's your name?”

“Natalie.”

“Natalie? Really? How lovely ... are you Israeli?”

“For the time being.”

I laughed abruptly.

“My name is Tsvi.”

“You're not from Tel Aviv?”

“I used to be. Now I live up north, near Acre.”

The need to leave a trail of lies in self-defense.

I stroked her foot. Her skin was warm, sweaty, smooth to the touch. I undid the buckle of her old, worn shoe and slipped it off her foot, which she let lie, white and puffy, on the slope of the stool.

“What size do you take, madame?” I asked suddenly, feeling myself go scarlet.

Firmly she set down her other foot, presenting me with it. I unbuckled the shoe, slipped it quickly off, and threw it aside. With an awful lust I fell upon her feet, kissing the dust, the Nubian loess, the faint stink of callused skin, the smooth underarch, the human flesh. Swooning, I licked them, my pants bursting with desire, with my hideous love for her, lifting her feet and sticking them into my mouth, nipping them lightly while she laughed with alarm and strange pleasure, her eyes shutting light. I dropped from the stool to the carpet, still licking and biting, beside myself, dizzy with desire, grunting like an animal, abandoning myself to the depths. Glassily she stroked my hair and hauled my thin tie in like a rope. Suddenly, though, she took fright and pulled her bare feet away.

“Don't. Stop that! Get up and come over here.”

And I did, filled with a passion I had never felt before, struggling to undo her blouse and pants. She pushed my hand away and slipped out of her pants herself. Brown lingerie parted along a hidden zipper, revealing a large, scar)' brown navel. My love, I whispered. My dearest.

“Help me, please.”

She didn't get what I meant.

“Can you help me?”

She made a face. “What do you want?”

“You know. Help me in.”

And standing there I began to come even as I went down on her. A failure. Here too? Panic took hold of me. She spread her legs wide, reaching for my wet cock, grimacing with disgust.

“Wait a minute! Hang on there. You're shooting your load. Hang on!”

I buried my face in her, trying to hold it, feeling her warmth, her legs wound around me, shuddering with each jet that squirted as though from a little heart, still coming while I kissed the white fabric of her blouse, searching for her eyes which she denied me.

At last she threw me powerfully off.

“Was I in you?”

“Sure, sure. Don't let it worry you.” Her voice was suddenly harsh, impatient. “Don't tell me that this was your first time...”

“Of course not. What makes you think that?”

She rose, looking away, and quickly zipped up her pants. She ran a hand through her hair while casting me a querying look of concern. I zipped my pants too, took out my wallet, and gave her the thousand-pound note that I'd gotten from father.

“This is what he and I agreed on.”

“Who's he?”

“That man...”

“Since when does he do business for me? Hand over another thousand.”

“I don't have it.”

“You don't have it? What do you mean you don't have it?”

“I don't have it.”

“Then give me your watch.”

“My watch?” I was flabbergasted. “No way!”

“The hell with it then. Give me five hundred more pounds.”

“I tell you I don't have it.”

“What's in that briefcase?”

“Just papers.”

She sat down by the cash register, slipping her feet back into her unbuckled shoes, her butched head held high. Where had I seen before that look that flared in her eyes?

“Let me see your wallet.”

Her voice was dry, tough, but controlled.

I laughed nervously and showed it to her. She went through it quickly, found five hundred pounds, and started to take it.

“Leave me that money. I need it to get to Jerusalem.”

“You can hitch.”

“No, I can't. No one will stop for me ...”

I spoke fearfully, fawningly, a stranger to myself.

Someone tried the front door of the store.

She reflected, replaced the money, and handed me back the wallet.

“I'm letting you off this time,” she scolded. “But it isn't nice to take advantage like that. You look like a decent type ... let's have none of your tricks next time...”

“I really am sorry ... next time ... I didn't realize ... do you always hang out around here?”

Her eyes smiled.

“You'll find me. But no more funny stuff, please.”

A middle-aged man in a custom-made suit opened the door, bowed hurriedly, and shut it again. I took my briefcase and left, walking quickly with my head down, not looking where I was going, losing my way in the vacant streets until I found the station again. I joined the small line of people waiting for the Jerusalem bus. The wind had died down but it was colder now, with fog instead of dust. A few students and tired commuters stood alongside me. Feeling empty inside, I leaned against the metal railing of the platform. Someone reached out to me across it. It was the short, swarthy man with the link chain.

“How was it?”

“Okay,” I murmured. “It was fine. But I don't have any cash left I gave it all to her.”

“How about a watch or a pen...?”

I didn't answer. People turned to look at us. He smiled to himself, fair and patient to the last.

“Never mind, then. It's something else in there with all those shoes, isn't it? A special thrill. I always score well there. Well, never mind ... next time ... this is my beat, by the Jerusalem bus ...”

He shook my hand. I felt shaken. Had he really seen right through me?

The bus lurched into the night, confidently negotiating the narrow streets of south Tel Aviv. To hell with the money. Not against life or beside it but straight into the teeth of it. Home. Home. You'll help her. She'll let you. She's scared and so are you. But to lick her like a dog! From where did it grab me like that? The cheap scent of her perfume still clinging to my face the dust on her feet the sickening horror of it not till my dying day. Alone and by myself. The pairs of shoes in the dark store. An unplumbed reality. And now what? Horatio's head between my palms old and decrepit half dead from chasing after father. I must make order at once. But what made me say my love? Something has happened. Something dreadful has happened and is done. If I'm not careful I'll lose her. Dina my love. My child. My light. My forgiveness. Not against you. With you. But what made me say my love? Yours the decent folk and mine the lunacy. Let him stick to what he's good at. He alone. While he lives and breathes. Let him sit and write.

Take care take care all things are possible never again. Too chancy. Though my heart stirs for it. And you deserved it.

A smell of orange groves in blossom. So spring is breaking out after all. The lights of the houses receding behind us. The last factories. What made me say my love? How did the words slip out? How do I annul them, take them back? What have I done? She must be worried to death. Gone to her parents', called Ya'el, they're at our house now. There'll be hell to pay. What made me say my love?

The three basic rhythms. Contact, release and contraction. The
more human beings come to resemble each other under the influence of culture, civilization, commerce and cross-contact, the more they seek freedom, even perversity, but also a greater sense of self via new conflicts. The Peloponnesian Wars. In the midst of such insight, such sophistication, such a blossoming of philosophy, art and religion, the Greek cities declare all-out, bloody wars on each other for no good reason and contract self-destructively.

The roar of the speeding bus into the night, plunging through Judean fog. Surrounded by patients. She leaned on me with such assurance. Did they sense it in me too? A kindred soul. I must be mad to bark like a dog where could it have come from? My students should have seen me. Must get up and bark for them. Her eyes on me. Vera Zasulich. The individual in history. After Passover I'll start straight from the murder of the Tsar. In a subdued tone, with precise, colorful details. The thirteenth of March 1881. Nikolai Riskov pitches a bomb at the horses' feet, not far from the Winter Palace. The cobblestones caked with ice. Sofia Proveskaya, that noble, magnificent soul. And above all, the thrower of the second bomb that killed the tyrant, the blond, curly-headed Pole Ignaty Grynbatski, age twenty-four, an engineering student who refused even to give his name when he lay dying in his own blood. Sitting paralyzed on a bench in the summer garden, Dostoyevsky hears of the planned assassination several months in advance and, despite his reactionary views, neglects to inform the authorities. I'll hook them with the flashy little items and take them quickly on to the big significant ones. They'll learn to love those lost young terrorists yet.

I can't get rid of her smell. The taste of dry felafel and greasy sauerkraut. The smell of diesel fuel. My sticky fingers. First of all a hot bath. What strange stains on my clothes. I'll elude her in the dark. But what made me say my love? And so easily.

The bus is speeding like mad. A cowboy of a driver. A wave of nausea inside me. The other passengers slumped mostly asleep in their seats. I can never learn to sleep on a bus. Horatio. Horatio. Did he ever get back to mother? So terribly sorry for him. Father will go back there tomorrow by himself. And you hit yourself. You'll go mad yet. They'll drive you to it. Genetic insanity awaits you Asa. But give it your all keep a clear head don't take a wrong step. Now I know what my soul stirs for what I need. The sacred tremor within. A woman not a child. Yes my love.

I tripped going down the steps of the bus, the vomit already in my throat, while an old Civil Defense reservist stood looking on. My briefcase had puke on it too. Sick and shivering with chills, I dragged myself to the bus stop, where I waited endlessly for a bus to take me home.

The windows of the apartment were unlit. It was nearly eleven. Her parents must have taken her home with them. I unlocked the front door. The hallway was dark. The guest room was locked. Not a sound. I opened the living-room door, still clutching my briefcase. The blinds were down but bright light struck my eyes. Something was changed in the room. Had the furniture been rearranged? Pillows were scattered all over. Papers lay about the couch. A haze of cigarette smoke. She sal in her jeans with her shoes kicked off, her hair gathered at the back, wide awake, very pretty, looking as if she'd grown smaller during the day. There were more pages in her lap and pens everywhere. A small rag doll sat on the couch among big cushions.

I stopped in the doorway.

“I tried calling the neighbors but no one answered. I had to wait forever for buses. Did you call Ya'el?”

“No.”

“Don't get up.” She had made no move to. “I threw up in the station in Jerusalem. I feel like I'm dying. What a day! I'm glad you didn't come, you would have gone out of your mind. At least I spared you that. I have to wash up, the briefcase is filthy too. I'm sick. I missed you all day. Were you at your parents'?”

She shook her head with a faraway look, remote, self-absorbed, in a world of her own. She had a new secret. Some new role she'd thought up for herself.

“My mother still won't sign. It's a whole comedy. You can be thankful that your own parents are sane. Better a sane grocer than a ... what did you do all day long? Wait a minute before you tell me. I want to wash up first.”

But I went to the kitchen instead. More pages on the dining table. Dirty breakfast dishes still in the sink and on the counter. Crumpled pages everywhere in her large, clear hand. Something about a young woman with a baby carriage.

“Stop that immediately!” she hissed behind me. “Go wash up. You look as though you'd been rolling in the gutter.”

“What did you do all day long? Where were you?”

“Right here.”

“Did you go to the bank? Did you take out money?”

“No.”

“So what did you do all day?”

“I was here. I wrote a story ... complete, in one sitting. I was all alone. It felt good to be without you for a change ...”

I went on collecting the dishes, sorting the silverware and the cups.

“Stop that! Go wash.” She raised her voice at me. “You're a filthy, stinking mess!”

I put down the dishes and went to the bedroom. More papers all over the bed. Piles of clothing, hers, mine, on all the chairs: she must have emptied out the whole closet. She followed me silently, careful not to get too close, her light eyes opened wide. I wandered distractedly about the room before going to the bed. On the night table lay an open history book in English that I had been reading in the morning. Portraits of young Russian revolutionaries in cravats and high collars, a photograph of the Tsar in full military regalia, pictures of ladies in long evening dresses, the date of birth and death under each. The earnest face of Vera Zasulich, a gleam of mischief in her dark, deep-set eyes. A flash of fear ran through me as it dawned on me whose eyes they also were.

I went to the closet and began taking out hangers for her clothes.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Go wash up. You don't know what you look like...”

Something happened today. Something will never be the same.

O my love

O my lord

Cherish thou my agony

Lest it be the death of me.

Yehuda Halevi

 

—Tsvi? Tsvi? Is that you, Tsvi? Tsvi?

—Refa'el. Tsvi?

—Refa'el. It's me. Tsvi? Open the door a crack.

—Whom did you think it was?

—Nearly two o'clock. I was afraid at first it was your father.