A Late Divorce (43 page)

By now Rabbi Mashash was furious.

“Coercion? There's been no coercion here, Rabbi Subotnik. What are you talking about? Mrs. Kaminka signed of her own free will. It was her decision. I beg of you. What are you trying to do? She herself asked him to come from America ... you're putting us in an impossible position ... an impossible light ... everything has already been seen to ... we've given our word of honor ... Rabbi Vital himself gave us his blessing...”

He turned excitedly to old Rabbi Avraham, who, hidden behind his dark sunglasses, had begun to bite his nails worriedly.

But the Russian didn't turn to look at them. With great dignity he bore down on me in his heavy Red Amy coat whose big copper buttons bore the head of an eagle, his ritual fringes hanging down to his knees underneath it. He couldn't have been much older than Asi. A smooth, unlined face. A fanatic.

“Is you here ... is you asked ... but why? What difference it makes if she...
nu,
you, madame ... is in this place anyway ... and not young no more too...
nu
...”

He turned red, flustered, his broken, melodious Hebrew tripping him up. Yehuda had talked just like that when he first came to this country.

“But he's going to have a baby soon,” I said.

“Baby? Where is baby?”

“In America.”

That lit a fire under him. He turned angrily, sarcastically, to the others.

“
Nu.
So now we have little bastard on our hands.” He thumped the file that he held. “Here says nothing of it...”

“Rabbi Subotnik!” Rabbi Mashash was shouting now, pulling at the heavy greatcoat. “Explain yourself!”

But the Russian shook himself free and went on leaning tautly over me, so close I could feel his breath.

“Mrs. Kaminka! Never mind bastard ... are many, will be one more ... everywhere is same big mess ... but marriage is holy ...”

He was crimson now.

“Holy for whom?” I asked calmly.

“For whom?” For a moment he was taken aback. “
Nu,
for God, of course...” He said the word very gently.

At last. It was time. My anger hummed inside me. I had to force myself not to choke on the torrent of words that poured out of me.

“God what are you talking about who is that?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don't want to hear another word about it. Not another meaningless word. Please understand that God means less than nothing to me. I don't want to hear another word about it.”

Old Rabbi Avraham sat up stiffly and buried his face in his hands. As red as a beet now himself, Rabbi Mashash assailed the Russian, who retreated a step with a smile.

“Rabbi Subotnik! That will be enough. How do you think you're making us look? There's a procedure to be followed here. There's a presiding judge. I ask you to keep your philosophy out of it.”

He stepped hastily over to me and steered me to the door. “Mrs. Kaminka, there's been a small misunderstanding. We'll continue soon. Please wait outside for a minute.”

He led me out into the strong sunlight, closing the door after me. Father was sitting on a rock to one side, smoking. “What's going on?” he asked. If only he would have taken me in his arms now. It was too much to ask. And yet he did that first day, and with such unexpected warmth. “What's going on?” His anxiety was growing. “What do they want?”

The sound of shouts and of someone thumping on the table reached us from behind the door. Father hurried to it just as it opened again.

“Professor Kaminka, come in for a minute. By yourself, please.” It was Rabbi Mashash, who gave me a dirty look as he pulled father inside.

My headache felt like an omen, like the first sign of an approaching illness. The words I had managed to get out at last clung like foam to my lips. Inside the cottage the voices grew dim. The young rabbi was examining father now, fighting to save our marriage.

“Professor? Of what?...America? Where?”

Yehuda's deep voice answered softly, in that enchanting way of his, while Rabbi Mashash kept intervening and trying to calm the young Russian down. Smoke rose from the hospital kitchen, drifting up into the brightening glare of the sky, and someone stirred in the clump of trees where Yehezkel and his band were watching us. Someone else was there too, a stranger I couldn't place, someone made of branches and leaves. Was it her again? I couldn't believe it. A sudden silence came over the library. Even the whispers had stopped. If only Avigayil were with me. I walked around the cottage, through the high weeds, until I came to the open window and saw father without his jacket, his tie loose, baring his chest while Rabbi Mashash pointed something out to the young Russian and Rabbi Korach rose curiously to look too. I shut my eyes and bit my lips, sinking down on a stoop by the path. After a while the door opened and father was sent back outside. He threw me a tense, angry look, keeping away from me, glancing despairingly at his watch, oblivious of the crisp morning, of the sun and the flowering earth.

“Who asked you about a baby? But you, you had to go tell them ...”

A faint smile of contempt flecked his face.

“I'm sorry. I didn't realize that ...”

“Never mind,” he interrupted.

“...they didn't know.”

He turned toward me angrily. “Didn't know what? I don't know what baby you're talking about. Because there isn't any ... His voice grew shrill, as though he were crying inside. “Can't you see whom you're dealing with? Why complicate things even more when I've given you everything as it is? Damn it all ... it's all so humiliating...”

His despair was making him cruel. He was afraid that it would all fall through.

“Maybe I should try explaining to them...” I tried to rise but could not. I felt as though a stone weighed me down.

“Don't. You'll only make it worse. That Russian rabbi is a nut. He turns every word against you.”

I said nothing. I sat with my white smock covering the stoop, cradling my knees, listening to the birds and to the sounds of the awakening hospital, to the tenor voice of the Russian striving fiercely in its pathetic Hebrew to rise above the wheedling tones of Rabbi Mashash: a strange, antisocial man, fighting to save our marriage for reasons known only to himself. Father fell silent, a handsome but weak, degenerate intellectual, straining to hear while his hands went through the pockets of his jacket and his pants, taking out and putting back his passport, his plane tickets, his documents, his wads of money, distractedly rummaging through the mountains of paper he had with him. For a moment our eyes met. Inside the library the voice of the vainly battling Russian was losing ground, while that of the Yemenite, who had entered the fray now too, rose in a keen yodel. Yehuda took out a cigarette and lit it nervously, blind to the world, to the trees, to the hospital, to the sky, fumbling aimlessly, buttoning his shirt which he had noticed was still open, drifting ever further away from me. And I thought, this will be my last picture of him.

“You know, I'm probably the only one who's never seen that scar you show to everyone.”

He heard me unwillingly. “What?” he asked, turning hotly toward me.

“You're leaving soon and I'll never see you again. And that scar you have from then ... from me ... I've never seen it ...”

He was annoyed. “It doesn't matter. Why should you want to see it? Let me be, Naomi.”

“I'm the only one who hasn't seen it. Tsvi said you show everyone. So why shouldn't I see it too?”

“Please, not now.” His voice was entreating. “Some other time. Just let me be.”

“But when? We'll never meet again.”

“Of course we will. Why shouldn't we? I'll be back ... there are the children ... after all, they belong to us both ...”

But I was tired, impatient. “Show it to me!”

He sensed the threat in my voice, my terrible lust to see it, and debated only briefly before almost gladly yielding. Quickly he unbuttoned his shirt again and showed me in the glaring light the chest I knew so well and had forgotten, with its curly gray hairs and its large, pale mole. Across it ran a hooked line like a reddish beak. A near miss, a swooning memory. Not where I'd meant it to be, he had dodged at the last second.... He stood there looking at me quietly, already rebuttoning his shirt. All at once he focused on me sharply, his face lit by that ironic, knowing smile of his.

“But you really did want to kill me!”

He wasn't asking. He was simply musing out loud, struck by the thought.

“Yes,” I said quickly, a sweet, dry taste in my mouth.

“But why?”

“Because you disappointed me.”

He ran a hand through his hair, content with my answer as though it had confirmed some deep inner truth of his own. With a start I saw her soar through the smoke above the kitchen roof, a small satchel strapped to her back. But just then the door opened and Rabbi Mashash stepped out in his starched white shirt sleeves and invited us back in with open arms. The room was full of smoke. Steam still rose from the electric kettle and a chair lay on its side. Everyone was on edge. As soon as we entered, the ceremony began. Rabbi Mashash read the bill of divorce out loud while the Yemenite scribe at the table copied the words with his quill at breakneck speed. Then Rabbi Mashash led me to a corner and led father to another one near the Russian, who stood crestfallenly by the window. The text was read back to us, after which it was passed around to be signed and handed to father. And then the Yemenite hastened to cup my two hands, the parchment flew through the air and swooped down into them like a small dove, some prayer was growled loudly, and I was divorced.

The Russian opened the door, letting a burst of bright light flood the room, and fled outside, the tails of his army coat flapping behind him, while the Yemenite scribe retied his implements in bundles, Rabbi Mashash went about collecting papers, old Rabbi Avraham groped his way to the exit, and Yehuda approached me with an anguished look. All at once I felt that he could not bear to part from me.

“Mr. Kaminka,” they called to him. “There's still a seder to get to today.”

He wavered uncertainly. “Perhaps I'll stay on for a while.”

“You can't,” said the Yemenite, plucking him by the sleeve. “It's forbidden for you two to be together now.”

What a softy he suddenly seemed, a desperate old man trying to shake my hand.

“Did I tell you that I've given Asi power of attorney in case any problem comes up?”

He pulled loose from the Yemenite's grasp, wanting to say more.

“Well, so you had your way in the end ...”

I didn't answer him. But to myself I thought, why, I'll never see him again, he'll really vanish for good now. I was sure that was so. And already they were dragging him swiftly outside, where they sank again into the weeds and wet earth that I had watered in the morning, running into Dr. Ne'eman and Avigayil, who were rushing to get to my divorce. Dr. Ne'eman shook the rabbis' hands and roared at one of his own jokes, while Avigayil hurried breathlessly into the library to join me.

“I was afraid we wouldn't make it,” she said.

“It's already over with,” I answered, tossing her the parchment.

“What's over with?” she asked. And then all of a sudden she understood and threw her arms around me. “It really is over with? What a crazy day this has been...”

“Come, it's begun already.”

He tries getting me up lured by my new freedom in the moonlight-silvering dark. Musa too stomps into the ward bumping into all the beds. Yehezkel pulls one of his fainting fits. He falls to the floor he won't open his eyes he says he won't move. And Musa begins to groan again that they're eating already.

I rise from my bed still wearing the white smock over my cotton dress. “All right,” I say, “I'll walk you as far as the dining room.” They walk on either side as though carrying me while I glide down the path with my book. There is a fresh chill in the air. We pass by the library. A light is on as though someone were waiting inside. I can feel my heart catch but I must go in. The door I had locked is open again the cups are all gone but the floor is still caked with the hard crust of mud the weak light shining on the rude brown curds. How awfully sad. The last vestige of a marriage that here came to an end. He had wanted to ask me something and they took him away. An overflowing ashtray lies on the table a large ink-stained piece of paper sticking out of it. It's from the first agreement that Kedmi brought me that father tore to shreds why right here is where Asi stood hitting himself. Behind me Yehezkel and Musa are waiting like statues once more they start to whine that it's beginning that the singing has started already. Yehezkel turns out the light silhouetting the windows burnished in a glitter of glass-frosted smoke beyond them I see the lights of nearby villages a dog barks far away. Can it be? Already she stands by the hospital gate wrinkled and tanned with her olive green rucksack high hiking boots on her feet neither hunger nor thirst searching for me on her way to me. I want to go hide beneath a blanket but they drag me back to the path that leads to the lit-up dining room joining us on it is a large group of doctors and nurses Dr. Ne'eman too with his great bellylaugh and demoniacally the visored cap of the young Russian rabbi that Subotnik he's back again there's no mistaking his voice he's still in his heavy Red Army coat. They hurry past us and disappear through the large door of the dining room that's as far as I want to go. “Leave me here,” I murmur but Yehezkel won't hear of it if I don't come to the seder he'll faint again he'll drop dead right here on the floor. Musa is drawn to the smell of the food but he's bound to Yehezkel too he doesn't dare enter without him. And so I'm swept inside with them into the singing the noise the confusion the tables arranged in a large square and covered with stiffly laundered sheets turned blue from too much starch the stacks of matzos flaking plumily at their browned edges and crackling quietly to themselves the large labelless bottles filled not with wine but with some yellowish glowing freshly-squeezed-looking liquid the patients the nurses the office personnel sitting in groups and making a noise like the sea. At one table dressed in their holiday best are the three children who played today on the lawn their hair slicked and combed. Beside them sits their mother a young rather pretty woman looking bewilderedly around her while her American doctor husband a newcomer to the staff converses gaily this may be their first seder in Israel. And now everyone stands up as though in my honor in my cotton everyday dress beneath my white smock holding my book in one hand the divorcee the divorcer. But it's only the rabbi signaling them to rise he's risen too his glance resting tensely on me his bright blue eyes know who I am. He balances his cup between two fingers as he did this morning all at once his strong mellow tenor voice rings out in the blessing over the wine.