A. Yehoshua - A Late Divorce

“What are you throwing out there? Are you out of your mind?”

“I don’t need them anymore.”

He stood watching the garbage pail fill up.

“Now go empty it downstairs.”

I went down with the plastic bag. Cars sped along the wet street but the rain had stopped the sky was clear. I opened the garbage bin a cat jumped out I dumped the plastic bag in a can the cat stood meowing as soon as I moved away it jumped back into the can I covered it with the lid. Suddenly I didn’t want to go home. What made me tell grandpa everything he didn’t bring me anything he didn’t give me a thing. The old man saw me he came out from the doorway of another house he’d been poking around in the garbage there. I ran up the stairs I felt sorry now about some of those toys.

Dad was eating already grandpa was sitting beside him at the table with an empty plate. I sat down to eat but they made me wash my hands when I returned dad was making some joke about the government grandpa smiled then he talked about America. I didn’t listen I ate as fast as I could. Then I was sent to wash up. When I came back in my pajamas they were sitting in the living room. Dad was saying something nasty to grandpa they were talking about grandma grandpa was hunched in the armchair looking at the floor I wanted to hear but mom put her hand on me.

“Go to bed.”

“I want to watch TV.”

“Absolutely not tonight.”

I went to bed. Rakefet was sleeping like a log she’d sleep on and on like grandpa now like she’d come from America too. Mom took off the bedspread she took a pillow from the closet she pulled back the blanket I crawled quickly into bed before she could see the faint stains from the morning. She covered me all at once she put her lips on my forehead.

“Are you warm? I have a feeling that you’re coming down with something.”

But I wasn’t.

“There are report cards tomorrow,” I reminded her.

She didn’t hear me though she was sad. Had grandpa told her what I told him?

“Grandpa thinks the world of you. He says that you know so much, that you understand so much…”

I didn’t say anything. She turned off the light and went out. I lay there in the dark. Then I got up and went barefoot to pee. In the hallway I saw them dad was showing grandpa some more papers and grandpa was reading them. Mom stood off to one side. They were talking about grandma I understood it right away. She wasn’t in a hospital she was in a prison I knew it I knew it all along. Grandpa had come to get her out. Suddenly dad felt me standing in the dark.

“Scram! Back to bed,” he said.

I ran to my room. I felt sorry for grandpa. I looked at the worms they had nibbled the fresh leaves. One of them was loose in the house it would turn into a cocoon and then into a butterfly if dad didn’t squash it on purpose.

I covered myself with the blanket. The baby sighed. All at once her breath came in jerks. She must want to wake up and cry again. If I’m quick enough I’ll fall asleep before it starts.

What do I care? We have to talk in whispers in the morning to keep the radio down to hold the baby all the time so she won’t cry when I called at noon yesterday and she said he was still sleeping I warned her she better wake him or he’d never sleep at night it’s not jet lag anymore it’s depression but she said let him sleep what do you care. I don’t but I do that all last night he was up around the house again and wouldn’t let us sleep. There’s no night or day around here anymore by the time his inner clock is reset he’ll be on his way back to America and meanwhile our clock is off too not mine but Ya’el’s because I won’t give in to this lunacy no one keeps me from sleeping once in the army I even dozed off under fire. Someone has to stay sane in all this chaos I have an office to run and a murder trial waiting for me I can’t afford to be a shadow of myself like her for the past three days getting maybe five hours’ sleep how can I even think of sex with her. But it’s almost over. Tomorrow we’ll ship the old man to Jerusalem let Mr. Young Ph.D. and his little nun of a wife look after their dad for a while and I’ll look after my biological accounts don’t think I’ve forgotten the pleasures outstanding how much pleasure is left in this goddamn life anyway. As long as we’re alive and kicking we’ve got a lay coming to us now and then what we don’t do now we’ll never make up for later. The real loser will be Gaddi. All week long he’s heard nothing but grandpa grandpa he must have thought a good angel was coming down from heaven I told her why put ideas in his head what good’s all this grandpa stuff to him what good’s your whole family to us there hasn’t been a day in the last seven years when we could even leave the boy with them and take a vacation for ourselves. Some families come with grandmothers free of charge to raise the children while the parents run around the world but what’s your mother ever done for us except get herself locked up thirty kilometers from here so that we can burn ten liters of gas to go visit her twice a month. Still not even to have brought the boy some kind of present is really too much. He forgot. He wanted to forget. His own self he never forgets. Let alone that during twelve hours in an airplane where every minute someone’s trying to sell you whiskey or cigarettes for a song he might have thought of me too it’s me after all who’s getting him his freedom who’s treating him to a new life what would it have cost him to bring me a nice little bottle of French cognac he lives in dollarland anyway life’s so much easier for him. But leave me out of it forget about me I don’t count I don’t need his damn liquor how many grandchildren do you have grandpa? Just one besides the baby. The baby you can forget she’ll never know you were here but the boy’s gone gaga over you all week long he kept looking at the globe to see how you would come he made you a big welcome grandpa sign with flowers as tall as trees I mean he was ecstatic so how the hell could you forget to bring him even a small toy something symbolic it’s not that he needs things you can go to his room and see for yourself but you live in toy universe couldn’t you have brought him something we’d all get a kick out of a remote-control car or some tank that shoots little shells? Two grandchildren here in Haifa are all you have there won’t be any more so soon trust Kedmi’s intuition on that you’d need the Holy Ghost to make one in Jerusalem and some new facts of life in Tel Aviv. So at eleven o’clock last night after the boy’s hung silently around you all day you actually remember that you should have brought him something and begin to apologize that the trip wasn’t planned and that you had no time to shop and could I please buy him something for you that’s my latest job to buy the presents you’ve forgotten and in the end you won’t even pay me back for them I could see it the minute you got up to look for your wallet as soon as just to be polite I whispered don’t bother you collapsed right back into your chair looking for wallets must fatigue you.

All right then so we’ll buy him something to remember you by when you’re gone maybe he will. The poor kid has only one grandfather I’ve got a stake in your image and believe me presents are important to kids. They remember the times they’ve had by the presents they’ve gotten I know what goes on in his mind we’re like the same person I handle him like I handle myself. The boy knows where it’s at he’s got a good head for sums. You should have heard what his arithmetic teacher told me he even found some mistake that she’d made. He’s from my side of the family not yours he’s like me that’s why I’m so crazy about him. If only he weren’t growing up too serious for this ridiculous world.