The Same Sea (12 page)

After the funeral I wrote a letter to Albert, half of it personal, which I do not
want to quote here, and the other half a kind of meditation, which I
shall reconstruct in other words. The desert and the sea, like you, insist on
balancing a joint bank account, evaporation, clouds, floods, the wind whirls
continually, rivers run into the sea, but there is no comfort in this:
from now on you are on your own without her among the heavy
brown furniture with embroidered mats lace curtains bellied for a moment by
the sea breeze which the next moment lets them hang slack. Whenever
I'm in town I'll try to drop in for a glass of tea. Try to be strong, Albert,
and phone me whenever you like. As for the assessments I sent you to check,
there's no hurry, it's not at all urgent.

I read an article of yours, fire and brimstone, in yesterdays
Yediot.
Rico
showed it to me, he said, Read this, Dad, and don't get worked up,
just try to grasp where we are living and where all this lunacy is leading us.
That's what he said, more or less. I think he's even further to the left
than you, this repressive state and so on. I'm not so moral a person
as either of you, but I don't like the present situation much either.
Mostly I say nothing, from a deep-seated fear that in responding to
this or that wrong even I may come out with things that are not exactly
right. Anger sends out secondaries. Naturally I have every respect
for the brave child who shouts that the emperor is naked when the
crowd is cheering Long live the emperor. But the situation today is that the
crowd is yelling that the emperor is naked and maybe for that reason
the child ought to find something new to shout, or else he should
say what he has to say without shouting. As it is, there is so much
noise, even here, the whole country is full of screaming, incantations,
amulets, trumpets, fifes and drums. Or else the opposite, biting sarcasm:
everyone denouncing everyone else. Personally I'm of the opinion
that any criticism of public affairs ought to contain shall we say up to
twenty percent sarcasm, twenty percent pain, and sixty percent
clinical seriousness, otherwise everyone is mocking and jeering at each other,
everyone starts making false noises and everything is filled with malice.
Help yourself, have some of the other one, Nadia's sister-in-law baked them
for me so I'd have something to offer people who come to pay
their condolences. Try the cheesecake, whichever you like, they're both
very good. When you write for the papers, of course you must write
whatever you wish, even harsh things, but don't forget that the human
voice may have been created to express both protest and ridicule, but
essentially it contains a considerable percentage of quiet, precise speech
which is meant to come out in measured words. It may seem
that amid all the hubbub such a voice has no chance,
but nevertheless its worth using it, even in a small room among three
or four listeners. There are still some people in this country who maintain
that the emperor is usually neither naked nor fully dressed, but, for example,
wearing clothes that do not suit him. He may even be excellently
dressed, but every bit as foolish as the cheering crowd, or the other
crowd that is no longer cheering, but jeering, or shouting that
the emperor is dead, or deserves to be. And anyway, who says that
a naked emperor is such a bad thing? After all, aren't the crowd also naked,
and the tailor and the little boy? Perhaps the best thing for you is to
steer clear of the procession altogether. Stay put in your house in Arad
and try to write in a quiet way if you can. At times like these, quiet
is the most precious commodity in the country. And let there be no
misunderstanding, I'm talking about quiet, definitely not about silence.

With his back to his mother on the bridge in the warm rain
between a small town and a swamp Rico hears wet voices
in the distance. Women, foggy bears, are laughing in the flooded
field and one of them waves to him, inviting him to join them.
His waterlogged hair in his face and a whiff of stray smell
that reminds him of overripe figs, the smell of Dita with his
tongue in her ear and his hand stroking the inside of her thigh.
The warm rain keeps falling and under the bridge the muddy
river flows porridge-like. Sorrow and desire come, desire rises like
mercury in the thermometer of his cock pressed against the wall
of the bridge while his hands move to and fro over the rough
parapet He looks at the trees with their roots half-exposed
in the soggy air, extra-terrestrial fingers, clutching at nothing.
Because his back is to his mother, inevitably he is facing
his father. If he turns his back on his father he will face
his mother again. He must change this staging, move my parents
closer to each other so that I can have my back to both
and return. The peasant woman who was calling him gives up
and stoops toward the mud, as the rain goes on and on.

Morning of orange-tinged joy: I get up at half past four and by five I have
finished my coffee and am settling down at my desk, and almost at once
there emerge two fully-formed lines running straight from my pen to
the paper like a kitten weaving on tiptoe out of the bushes, there they are
as though they were not written but always existed, not mine but their own.
The light of the hills to the east cannot keep its hands to itself, shamelessly
groping at private parts, causing heavy breathing all around, in birds branches
sand bees, so here we are delightedly leaving the desk and going off to work
in the garden, although it is not even six, the fictional Narrator, the whole
cast of characters, the implied author, the early-rising writer, and I.

Roses, myrtles, bougainvillaea, violets and sage have all gathered dewdrops
and are now gently lit. Rico and Giggy Ben-Gal are clearing the ground
round the two lemon trees, while Nadia, my father and Dombrov are pruning
suckers from the roses and Avram is helping the author and Albert to hoe
the edges of the flowerbed, weeding by hand among the flowers. Bettine,
my mother and Dita are stooping and tying sweet peas to canes and even
the Russian merchant stops on his way to China, and repairs the vine trellis,
while my daughter Fania helps him, asking him how much they know
in Nanking about Nizhni and how Nizhni looks from Nanking, and Maria
is planting a window box and here are the Dutchmen as well, Thomas Johan
Wim and Paul, making holes in the ground where Elimelech the carpenter
tells them to, and my daughter Galia is pruning even though she would
definitely have laid the whole thing out quite differently, and the man who
was Nadia's first husband hums as he rakes up dead leaves and my son Daniel
turns over the soil, improvising tunes with the fork, and the carpenter's
daughter follows him with a roller, while Rajeb spreads fertilizer. In Sea Road
and in
Cyclamen
Street
my little
grandchildren, Dean, Nadav, Alon and Ya'el,
are still dreaming, while here in the garden, careful not to wake them, I caress
the sweet air that trembles around their hair, suppressing a powerful urge
to lick their cheeks or foreheads, to nibble their toes with my teeth.
Morning of orange-tinged joy, every wish is switched off and only delight
is alight. Grief fear and shame are as far from me today as one dream is
from another. I take off my shoes, play the hose on my feet my plants and
the light, whatever I have lost I forget, whatever has hurt me has faded,
whatever I have given up on I have given up on, whatever I am left with
will do. My children's thirty fingers, my grandchildren's forty, and my garden,
and my body, the few lines that came right this morning, and here at the window
my lovely wife who is close to the core of life is calling us all indoors, there is
bread ready sliced cheese and olives and salad, and soon there'll be coffee
as well. Later I'll go back to my desk and maybe I'll manage to bring back
the young man who went off to the mountains to seek the sea
that was there all the time right outside his own home. We have wandered
enough. It is time to make peace.

Why do we never see you anywhere, they say to him, why
do you bury yourself in that hole, they say, far away from your friends,
with no parties, no nights out, no fun, you ought to get out,
see people, clock in, show your face, at least give some signs
of life. Forget it, he says to them, I get up at five o'clock have a coffee
and by the time I have erased and written six or seven lines
the day's already over and evening is falling to erase.

Bettine is at home again tonight. She has drawn the curtains and rolled down the blinds to the balcony so as not to have to see the fat neighbor opposite excavating his nose, hairy in an undershirt and sweat pants gawking from his armchair at some sitcom on the television. On the other side the sea, smooth tonight, chilly, shining darkly, a sea like the black glass nameplate of a respectable firm, with lines of gleaming gold writing, a pricey, highly polished sea, Current Liquidations Ltd. Bettine is in her armchair, lit by the glow from a parchment lamp shade, reading Troyat's biography of Chekhov. At the end of each page she shuts her eyes and thinks about the Narrator, he must be in Arad in the desert now, at the desk that Elimelech the carpenter made for him. She dips a honey cake into the tea that has gone cold in the cup at her side: on the cover is a photograph of Dr. Chekhov, almost a young man but his soft beard and hair and eyebrows are turning silver. He is wearing a striped jacket with wide lapels and a waistcoat, a stiff collar with a bow tie that is slightly askew, and a sad pince-nez secured by a cord. His eyes are those of a humble doctor who has made his diagnosis and knows what is going to happen but has not told his patient yet, although he knows that it is his duty to tell him now. I'm not the Almighty, his eyes say to the patient in front of him, after all you've known for some time now deep down inside, although you hoped, I hoped too, that these tests would surprise us and announce a reprieve. I cannot grant a reprieve, say Dr. Chekhov's eyes in the photograph, but I can and must do something now to block the pain. I'll prescribe you some tincture of opium. I'll also give you a sleeping potion, and some morphine injections to help you breathe. Get plenty of fresh air, sunshine and rest, don't try to do anything, just wrap up warm and sit in a wicker chair in the garden in the shade of the arbor and dream. Our business here is grim and hopeless, it goes round and round in circles, it is dreary and troublesome, but I'll prescribe you a dream and delusion, that
you will still recover, that you will drive in your carriage to Tula, to Kazan, that you will still send rafts laden with merchandise down the river, that you will still buy Nikitin's estate at a favorable price, that you will still charm Tania Fyodorovna into leaving that vulgar Gomilev and coming back to you. Sit and dream. Dr. Chekhov is lying, and the shadow of a humble smile flits around the corners of his mouth. My soul is weary, he writes to Suvorin in August 1892, "I am bored. Not my own master, thinking about nothing but diarrhea, waking suddenly at night at the bark of a dog or a knock at the gate, are they coming to call for you? Travelling in a trap drawn by a worn-out mare along unknown tracks, reading about nothing but cholera, waiting for nothing but its coming, and at the same time feeling totally indifferent to the illness and the people you are treating." And in another letter: "The peasants are coarse, filthy, suspicious, I am the most wretched of the doctors in the district, my carriage and horse are useless, I do not know the roads, I cant see anything at night, I have no money. I tire very quickly, and above all I cannot forget that I must write, and I have a mighty urge to spit on the cholera and sit down and write." Bettine lays the book face down open on the arm of her chair and goes to the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. Through her kitchen window the fat neighbor in his kitchen window opposite, in a long-sleeved vest and sweat pants, leans staring into the darkness or peering into her window, is caught out and smiles guiltily, perhaps he is dreaming about sending rafts down the river. Bettine draws the curtain and shuts him out. It's a quarter to eleven, the Narrator is still up, she dials. Sorry to call so late. I just wanted to tell you that Dita has moved back to Albert's because she has lent the flat he rented for her in Mazeh Street to Dombrov, who has been evicted from his own flat because he owes rent, and Giggy Ben-Gal, who promised to advance him some cash on account, has gone off to Spain and forgotten. And there was a postcard yesterday from Bengal, he's still chasing his shadow, as usual. Do you happen to have read Troyat's book about Chekhov? It brings me, right here in Bat Yam, a sense of fallen leaves in the snow, a sense of vast gardens abandoned to the autumn wind. It's all quite hopeless really, but at the same time quite diverting. It turns out that something that never was and never will be is all that we have. We are woken suddenly at night, every time a dog barks or a gate creaks, but the barking subsides to a whimper, the gate stops creaking, and all is quiet again. Did I interrupt you while you were writing? I'm sorry. Good night. By the way, next time you're in Tel Aviv call me, we'll have a glass of tea at my place or on Albert's veranda. It wasn't bad, what you wrote about the sea tonight, a pricey sea, smooth black with golden letters, a respectable company, Current Liquidations Ltd. Spit on the cholera. Just sit down and get on with your writing.

A virgin? A waitress? A nun? What shall I be tonight? Only not
your mother again. But first of all play the flute. Not in here. Lets
go down to the beach; there you can play for me and tell me
a story. One by one the fishing boats are taking to the sea
in a shimmer of lamps, licking the waves with their oars,
like tongues on a breast Maria is in a wind-swollen skirt he
is barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt walking not by her side
but a few steps behind her. Whenever he played he drew
to him animals, bushes, meadows, mountains bent over
to hear, streams left their beds, the north wind froze not to miss
a note, the birds fell silent, even the sirens stopped singing
and listened. When his beloved died he followed her down
to the underworld, charmed Persephone with his playing,
from the eyes of Death himself he wrung five or six iron tears,
and he hypnotized his dog. Surely every poet every musician
every charlatan tries like him to bring back the dead. The one condition
was that he not turn back or look behind, that he
walk ahead without turning around. On the face of it this
was an easy condition, an obvious security measure, to protect
the privacy of the underworld. Hades, however, that iron-teared
rhymester, knew his victim's mind: the wise man's eyes may be
in his head, but not so the poet's. A poet's eyes are in the back
of his neck. The minstrel always plays facing backward.
And so, as black turned to grey, his arms were drawn to embrace her
but she was no longer there. To play or to touch. Either or.
Since then he has been a wanderer and a fugitive like the young David
in the caves of Adullam, playing to the forests that froze to
hear his notes, playing to the hills. Try to imagine it Maria:
the rivers of sounds that have traversed the world since then,
including thunders, screams, barks, melodies, pleas, coughs,
shots, whispers, flutterings, the sighing of trillions of leaves,
earthquakes, drips, chirps, confessions, echoes and ripples of
echoes, all the innumerable sounds that, like everlasting autumn,
have long since buried the trickle of his piping. The winter
of the scuds, that I told you about in Bengal, Dita and I went together
to the old cemetery in a kibbutz called Ayyelet Hashahar, where
you can sometimes hear a sort of sound that promises you tonight
whatever you want on condition that you don't look back.