A. Yehoshua - A Late Divorce

— Anton Chekhov. I’ll try to remember. But who was he?

— That’s all? It sounds so simple.

— No. I never heard of him. It isn’t my fault. All we ever learned about in school was that poet who saw God… you know, in a pond of water…

— Bialik. Right. And a few others like him, that was all. Don’t forget, my dear, that my father pulled me out of school in the tenth grade and put me to work. It was during the World War. Remember, we’re a different generation. Did you learn about Chekhov in school? I’ll buy the book tomorrow — now that I’ve seen the play, I won’t have any trouble reading it. It’s something you should see too. I’ll take you myself if it doesn’t close before the end of the holiday. There wasn’t much of an audience tonight, maybe that’s why they sold us the tickets so cheaply. After your father has gone. You’ll see it for yourself. A really good, natural performance. The main thing was how natural and quiet it was, without any shouting. The actors seemed so real. I have their names at home on the playbill. I must take you to see it. But you’re laughing at me…

— No. She took it hard too. Already in the intermission I noticed how pale she was. And afterwards in the dark I saw tears on her face. I put my hand out to calm her but she didn’t even feel it. And then I started shaking myself. I don’t know what it was about it that grabbed me like that. I thought about you too. About us. About the whole desperate situation…

— What?

— No. You don’t understand. That woman, Helena, Yelena, don’t you remember how Uncle Vanya was hopelessly in love with her?

— You’ve forgotten. I’ll take you to see it. Then you’ll understand.

— Right. That’s just it.

— Believe me, I’ve been on the verge of tears for days. Even in the bank I feel a lump in my throat as soon as I’m alone in my office…. Whenever I think of it, all the desperation of it, all the joy of it, overwhelm me. That’s why I say I’m such a wreck. The bottom has dropped out of my life. It has no boundaries anymore. You take it all so easily. It’s natural for you but you don’t understand what you’ve done to me. Are you still listening?

— No. I’m beginning to bore you. Your eyes are closing. I can see how tired you are. I’ll go now. I’m wide awake.

— No. Never mind. And she has only the desperation, the poor thing. For her this whole business has been… and I understand her so well… I keep telling myself that if it were the other way around, I’d go out of my mind. But why did that play affect us like that? Maybe we were ready to be shaken up and it just happened to be Uncle Vanya that did it. Or maybe it was something else. When the lights came on at curtain time I saw that she was really crying. And it went on and on, she got more and more carried away. I couldn’t even bring myself to applaud. We just sat there staring at the floor, waiting for the people around us to get up and leave. And she went right on crying. Are you listening? She cried all the way to the car, and she cried in it too, quietly, as if once she’d started she wasn’t going to stop. There wasn’t a sign of a letup. And I knew that it was because of me, not the play. All because of me. The same woman who’s hardly spoken a word to me since… What?

— Since she found out.

— About us… that we…

— What?

— No.

— Yes.

— No.

— Maybe. But she couldn’t stop crying. She was like in a whirlpool of tears. And I decided not to try to make her. I thought it might be good for her to get out what was choking her inside. She’s usually a very quiet woman. She has this inner pride.

— It’s easy for you to talk. But to stand there and watch her cry… and I couldn’t even let myself touch her, she’s been very sensitive to that since she found out. Not even to comfort her. To have to watch her cry like that… But I didn’t say a thing. I didn’t want to quarrel, even though I knew it was all because of me. I’d sworn to myself never to fight with her — she’s suffering enough as it is. So I brought her home and turned on the TV, I thought it might get the misery out of her system. Right away, though, she walked out of the room. I said I’ll never bring home any more theater tickets, to add one extra drop of sorrow to your life is the last thing I want to do. She didn’t answer. By then she’d stopped crying but she’d stopped talking too. And the girls weren’t there to break the ice between us the way they do when they’re home. She hasn’t said a word about it to them because she doesn’t want them to be revolted by me. Those were her words.

— Revolted by me… she thinks I’ll revolt them…

— What more can I do? I’ve already told her that I’ll never leave her. Do you hear me? I want you to know that too.

— I’m glad of that.

— I said, how can I be blamed for what happened to me? It’s my fate. Did I ask for it? If it had been a woman, you couldn’t be more right. You can even tell me that you’d rather it was one. That you’d have wanted it to be.

— She didn’t say anything. Her father was the son of a famous rabbi in Jerusalem. Her fear goes back to that. But I’ll take the sin on myself, I told her. I’ll pay for it in hell, me and no one else. It’s my responsibility.

— I know you don’t believe in all that. But I can’t take any chances at my age.

— Don’t start up with me now, Tsvi. Anything is possible. I’m a wreck. What I wanted to say to her was, a minute with him is worth a thousand years in hell to me, but I didn’t. What I said was, it’s God who’s punishing me. I might have gotten sick. Would you have liked cancer better? It’s a deep thing. It came from way down within me, what could I do about it? So then she said to me in this quiet voice — are you listening? — she said, I wish to God it had been cancer. Did you hear that?

— Exactly. That’s how desperate she feels.

— I wish to God it had been cancer. That’s what she said.

— What?

— Right. I said to her, you’re talking like a child now. This is something I may get over, but cancer I never would. I may get over it, I said, it can go away just like it came. So she said, are you crazy? It never will go away. All right, I said, suppose that I’m crazy? You can see that I kept my calm. Suppose I’ve gone a little crazy, I said, nowadays even crazy people get some consideration. Give me time. Maybe I’ll get over it. I feel that I will. That’s what I told her, although it isn’t what I feel at all — if anything, it keeps getting stronger. Only that I’m telling you, not her. And then she told me that she’s following us. What do you say about that?

— Not by herself. She doesn’t have the nerve for that. She hired a detective. Just imagine a shy, refined woman like her walking into a private investigator’s office and hiring a detective to tail us and take pictures. Have you noticed anything?

— Neither have I. But he followed us all the way to your mother. Just imagine. You didn’t notice anything?

— You’re laughing. Everything is a joke to you. But I was in shock. Mostly at her. That’s what sheer misery will do to a person. Do you know that he photographed you in the street?

— What can I do? She’s like a little girl. She tells me she knows everything. And she really does know all sorts of things that even I don’t. About your father and your mother, and the names of your sister and her husband in Haifa, and your brother and his wife and her parents in Jerusalem, and all their addresses and telephone numbers. She sat reading it all out to me from a piece of paper to prove God only knows what. But I kept my temper. I said to her, you see, you know everything. If you had asked me I would have told you myself, because there’s nothing I’m hiding from you. It’s all out in the open. If it were a woman, I said, I might have tried to cheat on you, to do it behind your back. You don’t know what some men are capable of. But since it isn’t, I can be honest. Because it’s not against you, and so it needn’t affect you or the tie between us. I don’t feel that I’m betraying you or what you are to me. It’s not adultery, it’s something else. You see the line I took with her. Very special, very logical, but also very true. What do you think of it?