Gail Hareven - Lies, First Person

“And because of that you believe. .”

“Wait a minute, please, give me another minute, because I have no idea. These are things that neither I, nor any man, things only God can know, because only he knows how sick I was. I was so sick and so weak then, and mother. .”

My sister fell silent, and I sat up to see the tears that I knew were coming. “Mother was always sick. And for a long time I never stopped thinking that if only I were a little stronger, if only I were a little more capable, perhaps she would have, that is to say maybe, maybe we’d still have a mother. And then Sarah, and your sons. . I’m sure she would have loved Sarah. It was her heart, you know, you know what she was like. And everything that happened to me, everything I told them, it was too much for her heart, obviously it was. Only I couldn’t, and because of that, because I couldn’t. . but how could I have? How?”

The sobs overpowered her voice and threatened to choke her.

“You didn’t do anything to Mother,” I cut her short. “You can’t think that, you can’t. It’s something he put into your head. I’m sure it comes from him. I’m sure it was him who frightened you so that you wouldn’t tell her. I know where this comes from. I know. But everything he tried to make you think, everything he said would happen to Mother — I know exactly what he said to you — get it into your head, at least now, it was all just a threat.” My sister blew her nose, and I didn’t stop.

“Get it into your head that our mother was an egoist. An egoist and a narcissist. Who wrecked her own heart on purpose, without any connection to us. That woman couldn’t stand having any other sick person around apart from herself. Whatever anyone tried to tell her — if it wasn’t about her, she simply shut her ears.” I didn’t have to harden my heart. I was ice and I was a chisel, and the chisel cut the ice so I could breathe.

“No, don’t say that, please don’t. A mother is a mother, and it’s a fact that her heart couldn’t take it. At first it could, but after she found out, after she heard about my abortion. . I think about you every year, I want you to know, every anniversary I think of you alone at the grave. How you have to do it alone. One day, I promise you, I’ll come to Jerusalem and both of us, together. . Our mother should have been a princess. She wanted you and me to be princesses too. And she worked so hard. Her life was really hard for her. And nevertheless, even though she was sick, you remember how hard she tried to make us happy with the dresses and everything? And if only Aaron hadn’t come, perhaps then. . I don’t judge her, because who am I to judge, and now I’m a mother myself. You have sons. But if I even imagine that somebody, that Sarah. . I don’t imagine and I don’t judge. But if you want to know what else I ask God to forgive me for — you were my angel and I want to tell you everything — then there’s also the fact that I had the abortion.”

I stood up. “Are you trying to tell me that God expected you to give birth after being raped? To have the rapist Hitler’s baby? To have the baby of your father’s cousin — is that what your God expected of you?”

This time she wasn’t alarmed. She was prepared. “God is merciful. God is the father of mercy, God is the king of mercy.” She answered me quietly and confidently, as if I hadn’t raised my voice and towered over her. “But I know why you’re talking like that. You love me, and you don’t want me to suffer. But it isn’t in our hands, you have to understand. God said: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and Uncle Aaron. . sometimes I wanted to die. There was a time. . I can’t exactly. . there were times when I believed that I was actually already dead. But nevertheless, nevertheless, however many times it was as if he killed me, he didn’t really kill me. He didn’t. And I did have an abortion. Because I couldn’t. . So maybe I am guilty, even though how could I have? I’m not saying that a woman can. A woman, a child has the right. So I’m not saying that anyone could, I don’t know who in this world of ours could, and that’s what our pastor told me too. Leave it to God — he said to me — Elisheva, leave that to God. And so I did. I really did. I left it to God. And after I forgave Aaron and after Sarah was born, I know that God forgave me.”

A strange lunar sun glittered on the golden face of the Buddha. My sister looked up at me like a supplicant, praying for the miracle of understanding for her story, which had now concluded. Very far away, at the end of the avenue I saw the men looking toward us. The two of them walked back and forth, and when they saw me standing up they still waited for a sign that they could approach. We were supposed to drive to another little town for lunch. Barnett, who had taken a day and a half off in our honor, was supposed to go back to work. The numbed thumb I had been gnawing came back to life with a pulsing pain. I was growing colder, or perhaps it was the cold that had accumulated in my bones while sitting on the step, and which was beginning to spread through me, to remind me that you can never really part from your body.

But there was one last thing remaining, a “last chance”—I thought to myself — even though if anyone had asked me I wouldn’t have been able to say a chance of what.

“I understand that you forgave him. You forgave him, that’s what you told me. But apparently I’m too stupid to understand what that means. I just don’t get it. Let’s say there’s a hell. There’s a hell, and at this minute, this precise second, God is about to send this Hitler there, to burn. To burn — you know, for all I care not even for eternity, only a hundred days. To roast for a hundred days in the stench and the fire. Now, let’s say that your forgiveness is his pardon, and that with this ticket he won’t have to spend a single minute there. Let’s say that he’ll fly up straight from the grave to heaven with you. Will you give him the ticket?”

The frown between her brows deepened. She blinked hard once, and then her face suddenly relaxed, and she clapped her hands in the penguin flap with which I was already familiar.

“But why do you say that you’re stupid? You understand everything. You always understood. Because that’s exactly it: that’s the thing, that I forgave.”

There was nothing left. My sister stood up. The good men came toward us, we advanced toward them, and my husband sent me a questioning look. “Everything’s fine,” I said too loudly, “we’re done. The story’s over. I told Elisheva. She’s not worried.” Later he told me that my sister looked to him “as fresh as if she’d just come out of the shower.”

“And me?” I asked.

“You looked as if you needed a bath.”

We walked toward the parking lot. Oded held my hand. My sister tucked her arm into her husband’s. They took the lead down the path and we followed them. More cathedrals of trees, more arabesques of vines, and more natural temples of climbing ferns; and in front of us a woman’s stylishly bobbed head and a man’s wispy thinning hair. If I hadn’t known who they were, if I had just landed up behind them, I would never have recognized those heads and those bodies.

We were already next to the car when four heads rose in unison at the sound of a screech in the sky. A flock of geese flew over us in an arrowhead formation, and pierced me with a superstitious dread that rose in a flash from my tailbone to the bottom of my skull. The wild geese flapped heavy wings, and their screeching seemed to announce some curse to come. One after the other they screeched above our heads. Flapping and flapping and emitting remote, obscure cries, like a distant witness. One tortured screech after the other, never together.