Grossman David - Her Body Knows

fort to turn off any hint of a smile in his voice. "And the Indians are all black," he continues the thread she has given him, "because Venus is close to the sun." "Assuming, of course, that the elephants don't eat them," she cheerfully summarizes, and senses his hidden laughter, like a boy squirming beneath a blanket. She trembles in delight at the little discovery he has allowed her about his secret life, his underground, his anarchic struggle against dry, hateful facts-

"Why did you stop?"

"I thought you were asleep."

"Why did you stop?"

"Because. " My eyes suddenly well up.

She looks at me and understands. "It wasn't really like that." She sighs. I sense she is being cautious with me now, and that's even more painful. "You're the one who invented the whole business with the spaceship and the elephants and the facts," she explains to me as if to a child, trying to console, to go backwards and correct.

"Yes, of course. I don't know." I stand up and sit down again, fighting with all my power against an idiotic sob that has suddenly erupted in my nose, completely out of season. "Just the fact that you laughed with him there, it doesn't matter over what, but you must have laughed at something together, that's the most-"

"Yes," she says quietly, looking at me as if she is photographing something and taking it with her for the road. She closes her eyes, tightens her large face, and I don't know where she is; perhaps she is seeing my side of the story for a moment, perhaps for once she sees only my side. What do I know? What can you know about another person, even if they're your mother? Ultimately, the umbilical cord is cut off or shrivels up and a glacial loneliness surrounds you. This immersion of hers goes on for a long time, and I suddenly get scared that now is the moment the illness will really defeat her, all of a sudden, and I say, "Stop, Nili, Mom, let's go on."

"So who's going to come to your restaurant?" she asks with a smile, and he sits up on his elbows.

"See, that's the thing. I don't care if only one person comes once a year, but when he does, I'll lay out a twenty-foot table for him and give him the feast of his life, with all the dishes made just for him, and all the sides and the sorbets. I'll put out the whole menu for him."

"Wait, but what will you do the rest of the time?"

He ponders. She thinks the dream is a little vague for him. "It's not like that. You don't get it. I make him the meal every day. Every single day. But he only comes one day a year."

"And what about the other days?" She still doesn't comprehend.

"The other days I wait for him."

She is quiet, thinks that if she's lucky, she may happen upon his restaurant one day and be rewarded with the meal of her life. She deliberates again, thinking maybe she should give him her phone number, but again she decides not to, and reminds herself of her great talent, the art of separation, and her heart aches with the pain of giving up. I mustn't, she recites to herself. He has such a clear and unique destiny, and just like he found me, he'll keep going and find his path. Because it is clear to her now that that is his great talent: finding his true path, listening inside and knowing. She sighs loudly, and he asks what happened, and she says, "Nothing, you know," and looks at him, and knows she was only a station on his long journey, and that she must bless her good fortune and not expect anything more; an evil voice hisses inside her, "As always." And a very un-yogi-like prod of simple and raw hostility passes through her toward everyone who will meet him later on, as he continues on his way.

"Hey," he drawls, and turns his back to her. "Is yoga also massage?"

"What?" She opens her eyes. "What did you say?" She raises her arms to hug her body. She suddenly feels cold.

He says nothing.

"Yes. With me at least, in my yoga."

Silence.

"So. you know how to?"

"Yes. In Jerusalem I did it all the time. In hospitals too, when I was working. And for my students." It seems strange to her for him to be closing the circle his father had opened. She knows she will consent to anything he asks. He sits down. His eyes don't look at her. "Do you. Have you ever had a massage?"

"No."

"Because you didn't want to, or it never worked out?"

"Both."

"It can be very nice."

"Is it like in. you know, in those clubs?"

"There are all kinds. Are you talking about clubs with girls?"

"There's one in the neighborhood. A massage parlor. Some guys went to check it out."

"Did you?"

"No. But listen"-he quickly runs his tongue over his upper lip-"No. Never mind."

"What, what did you want?"

"I was just thinking." He looks closely at the tips of his fingers and the air around him thickens. "I dunno, is there a difference between how you give a massage to a man and a woman?"

She giggles, embarrassed, unsure of whether she's understanding him correctly. "Of course there's a difference, but it's hard to put into words." She can feel she's getting a little entangled. "Look, I never really give a massage 'to a man' or 'to a woman,' I just give it to the particular person who …" She stops, and starts drifting away, and he gives her a longing and frightened look, which slowly steadies in front of her and becomes clear. Then he nods once, almost imperceptibly, like a spy signaling from a dark forest.

"Lie down," she says as she stands up. "Lie on the mattress and take your clothes off, just leave on what you're comfortable with. I'll be right back."

She goes into the bathroom and chooses some bottles from her collection of oils, and leans heavily for a moment, with two fists, on the marble shelf below the mirror. She asks herself what has really happened to him with her these past few days, and what it was that her yoga massaged and softened and released in him so that he is now capable of asking her these questions, voicing them. And she thinks, Oh God, how far he's come-much further than I imagined, much more yogi than I thought. She tilts her head to the room, but there is no sound coming from there. I wish I knew what I've given him, she thinks, suddenly tired; maybe I could give some of it to myself. She fills her lungs with air and looks in the mirror, which her breath has fogged over, and for a minute she sees nothing.

When she comes back from the bathroom with her massage bag, he is still sitting as she left him. She asks if he's changed his mind, and he says no. She arranges the bottles of oil on a chair, the jars of creams and lotions, and two clean towels. Then she turns away and messes with the bottles for a while, so as not to embarrass him, and lights some incense sticks and a few vanilla-scented candles, which she places in different corners of the room. When she turns back to him, he's already lying on his stomach, wearing only his shorts, with his forehead resting on his hands.

"Rotem."

"Yes."

"If it's hard for you, you don't have to."

"It is hard for me, and I do have to."

We're both slightly short of breath, but she still has the strength to give me a little smile, of encouragement, I think. I look at her again before diving into the final pages. Her hands are folded over her chest. Her face, beneath the fringes of white hair, is calm and almost beautiful now, the Simone Signoret face she used to have. I wonder if this is the time to tell her things I never have. Not dark secrets, just little things that may comfort her, ease her, or even make her laugh. For example, that I'm far more similar to her than she imagines, and that the similarities are actually in areas I always tormented her over. That I'm not much smarter than her, for example. That my brain is also weak, that I forget a lot, maybe even more than she did at my age. Maybe it's because of the pills during my tourist season, or maybe I'm also lacking the protein that ties fact molecules together. Maybe this is the time to tell her that my legendary strength, which she was so afraid of, and my infamous determination are now like melted butter. Just so she knows that time is equalizing us.