A. Yehoshua - A Late Divorce

“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.

“Blessed art thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe…”

But now a nurse hurries up to big portly Dr. Ne’eman who stops the rabbi and whispers into his ear. A side panel opens and into the dining room come the patients from the closed ward nearly a dozen of them I’ve never seen before escorted by a young doctor and two nurses. Tense and bowed they move in a diagonal line led by a short very squinty-eyed redhead of maybe forty a fireball on his feet dragging the others heavily after him how awfully depressed they seem looking over their shoulders halting in a daze and lurching forward again their skullcaps in their hands the dining hall electric with their invisible split selves all packed into one room as though not twelve but a hundred of them had marched in rattling their chains. The staff helps seat them at a table and fills their glasses. Again the signal is given and the Russian raptly shuts his eyes he too is moved by the occasion perhaps it’s his first seder here too. Once more his strong tenor voice rings out.

“Blessed art thou 0 Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hath chosen us among the nations, and exalted us above all tongues, and sanctified us with His commandments…”