Orly Castel-Bloom - Textile

Before she embarked on the series of plastic surgeries, she gave the cosmetics companies a chance, and spent a fortune on their promising products, especially one which was made of caviar (Creme Caviar), which she ordered on the Internet from a store in Los Angeles and paid $1,570 for.

In those days the home page on her computer, at home and at work, was the website of a famous and innovative cosmetics company, and she even downloaded screen savers from their site with all kinds of variations on the company’s logo.

Dael’s conscription sent her back to her ordinary news site home page and to a simple Nivea face cream, having put the rest in the hands of her chosen plastic surgeons. She chose them with great care after investigation, and she also made inquiries as to anesthetics, but since she was unable to get her hands on any, she made do with various tranquilizers, which she took care to vary after a few months because she thought that this way she would save herself from getting addicted.

To date Mandy had spent $68,000 on plastic surgery, and it was clear to her that as long as Dael was in the army and he still had time to be served — this was what her life would look like. About her death, she refrained from thinking.

IN THE MEDICAL FRONTLINE OR there was unexpected stress. The saturation level of the oxygen in Mandy’s blood began to drop. Seventy-five. There were a few minutes of very professional and controlled alarm, and in the end the operating team succeeded in stabilizing the patient and the operation continued.

But so far as Dr. Yagoda was concerned, those stressful moments during the course of the surgery on Mrs. Amanda Gruber concluded a chapter in his life. He would no longer perform plastic surgeries in Israel. He would no longer come to Israel at all, not even for the Passover Seder or Rosh Hashanah with his sister in Nahariya. His connection with the State of Israel was at an end.

Yagoda was so alarmed because for the first time since he had been living on his own without any love, he had nearly lost a patient on the operating table. He connected the drama in the OR to the country in which it had taken place, and to the grievous cardiac condition of its inhabitants, and decided to return to Germany the next morning. He considered giving up surgery altogether, and restricting himself to pre-operative consultations in a private clinic.

Before leaving he glanced at Mandy’s chart. There was nothing in it about sensitivity to any anesthetic whatsoever. He left the OR, ripped off his mask and gloves, threw them all into the nearest bin, stopped at the first telephone he came across, dialed information, and asked for the number of Lufthansa in Israel. At Lufthansa they answered in German, told him that a flight for Frankfurt was departing in five hours’ time, and promised him that he would make it. There were two places left in business class.

Dr. Yagoda felt that he was advancing with resolute steps toward a turning point in his life. From Frankfurt he would take a train home, announce that he was taking a month’s leave, and disappear for two months at least. Who knows, perhaps in those two months he would find a new love, which would shoot jets of hope into his empty soul, and he would be filled with new strength. The German doctor had learned to exploit his love affairs to store up energy for times when the daily grind turns you into a carob pod that’s been lying in the desert for a year.

EIGHT HOURS AFTER the complicated operation, which had succeeded in the end, but had cost the surgeon his peace of mind, Mandy lay on her stomach in the nice room they had given her, bandaged and immobilized in a number of places, but open eyed and completely au fait .

They had promised her five stars, and she had nothing to complain about because all she could see of the five stars was a bit of white carpet, but she couldn’t tell if it was wall-to-wall, because she couldn’t see the end. If she had turned her head to the right, the patient would have been able to see more of the carpet and part of a cupboard. But turning her head involved excruciating pain, and she had to call the nurse to hold her hand when she turned it.

Since eating in her position was impossible, she received nourishment and liquids and all kind of medications through a variety of tubes. In intimate matters they tried to make things as easy as possible for her. But there were limitations and grave embarrassments. Mandy thought that this time she had gone too far.

LIRIT CAME TO VISIT her, after going home to change her clothes. In the end she had paid a flying visit to the factory after the Jacuzzi. She and her mother had agreed that she would come every day to report on what had happened in the factory. She arrived at the hospital dressed atrociously, as usual. Her daughter was revealed to Mandy’s eyes in flat yellow shoes, flimsy as ballet shoes, a short billowing white skirt, and a very tightly fitting rayon tank top, pale yellow with white flowers, with straps that tied behind the neck and an extra piece of material in the area of the stomach that was also supposed to billow in the breeze.

Her shoulder blades were exquisite, as usual. But what suddenly infuriated Amanda, after she asked her to bend down so that she could see all of her, were the two braids which were thrown back, but one of them kept falling forward and Lirit would flip it back again. The two braids were thick, long, and brown, like Pocahontas.

“Are you doing this to me on purpose? Braids?” hissed Mandy from the depths of her strange position.

“Mother, stop it. You’re lying there like this, and that’s what you have to say to me? I already prepared an answer in case you had something to say about my shoulder blades. When will you realize that I’m twenty-two years old, and that I have the right to wear braids?”

“You look like a whore from the Little House on the Prairie . And it annoys me that precisely when I’m lying in the hospital dying of pain, you turn up like this to tease me. It shows a lack of consideration.”

“Ex-cuse me,” said Lirit and she undid her braids.

“Are you trying to tell me that you went to work like that? We work with a religious clientele!”

“Mother, anyone would think that you hadn’t just had surgery. Usually you’re much quieter after surgery, and it’s fun to come and visit you. Maybe it’s the only quality time we have together. Do you want to ruin this too?”

Mandy was silent for a moment, and it seemed she had calmed down.

“A short page is what suits you best, like I used to have your hair cut when you were a little girl. You have an amazing neck and a perfect collarbone — a short page is what would show them off best. Take advantage of what you have as long as you have it.”

“I don’t want a page,” said Lirit for the umpteenth time since the age of five.

“So don’t have one. At least we’ve agreed on the braids.”

LIRIT WENT ON unbraiding her hair, and suddenly she became worried because Shlomi hadn’t called her all day. How come? Her mother’s having such complicated surgery — never mind that she wasn’t there either — and he doesn’t call to ask how she is. What is this? It’s the behavior of a psychopath, that’s what! Is Shlomi a psychopath? she asked herself and she didn’t know the answer.

Mandy saw her daughter sending a text message on her cell phone.

“Just a minute,” said Lirit as she wrote. “I’m just sending this and then I’ll finish undoing the braids.”

She sent the message and finished undoing her braids.

“Okay now?” she asked a moment later, and bent down so Mandy could see.

“Yes.”

Lirit asked her mother if she was in pain now. Amanda said that she was in pain all the time, it was just a question of how much. Lirit said it was logical for her to be in pain, after all she had undergone surgery today, and she looked at the dripping infusion. The sight had a slightly hypnotic effect on her, and she sank into herself.