A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

“Yes,” said Michaela, shaking the raindrops from her hair and entering the apartment, “we hung around a lot together, but our reactions were always very different. Even though it was terrible to watch, I left that place with a feeling of elation, just like the Indians who had taken us there and who you can be sure were no less sophisticated and modern than you and me. But Einat was so upset and shocked, so confused and horrified and even angry with me for taking her, that I think it began then.”

“What began then?”

“Her illness. The hepatitis. The deterioration.”

“But in what sense?” I pressed her, excited by the thought that I was close to identifying the source of the mystery that had been disrupting my life. “I don’t know.” Michaela shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe her immune system was weakened when she saw a middle-aged woman like her mother slowly going up in flames. And once that happens, in all that filth, it’s easy enough for some vicious virus to take hold in you.” When Michaela saw how interested I was in the ritual widow-burning, she promised to look for a couple of photographs that one of her friends had managed to take in secret before a number of soldiers had arrived to disperse the crowd. But they had been unable to save the woman, who had already turned to ashes.

The doorbell rang. It was Amnon, who had come to welcome Michaela home before his night shift began. We were both glad to see him and insisted that he stay for supper, after watching us bathe Shivi, which, he said, might even tempt him to have a baby of his own. In order to suppress the excitement mounting inside me at the thought of returning to the Lazars’ apartment, I demanded his help in putting the furniture back where it belonged. Michaela tried to dissuade me at first, on the grounds that the present arrangement was worth a try at least, but I held on my opinion that it might be okay for a bachelor but not for a married couple, and the front room should be reserved for guests, not converted into a bedroom. Neither of them was convinced, but I, as “the original tenant who signed the lease, and therefore as the true representative of the landlady,” insisted on restoring order, and we dragged the big bed back into its place and set the narrow couch opposite the big window from which it was possible to catch a glimpse of the sea, but certainly not on a night like this, which was full of fog and rain. Considering the weather, and how late it was, Michaela was very surprised when I insisted on going to get the forgotten sling, as if we could not do without it until the following day.

Was Hishin’s guilt really so great that on his way back from Jerusalem he had returned to visit the grief-stricken family again? I wondered anxiously when I recognized his car parked next to the Lazars’. I ran up the stairs and knocked lightly on the door, rehearsing a short sentence of apology, which I delivered to the granny, who greeted me with a welcoming smile, fresh and neat in a white blouse and a tailored tartan skirt. The apartment, which a few hours before had been crowded with people, was now empty and a little dark, and the many chairs, which had apparently been borrowed from neighbors, were scattered without order all over the room, expressing the mourning that had descended on the house better than any words could have done. Without wasting words, the granny led me down the dark hallway to Einat’s room to look for the forgotten sling while Dori’s sobs, coming from the direction of the kitchen, pierced me like a knife. The open door of her dark bedroom revealed renewed chaos. There was a light on in the soldier’s room, but it was empty except for a rifle leaning against the wall. The door to Einat’s room was closed, and the granny first knocked lightly, and when there was no reply she carefully opened the door. Einat, who was curled up, fully dressed, asleep on her bed, with a little reading light shining on her face, opened her eyes immediately, as if she had been expecting my return, and pulled Shivi’s sling out from under the bed. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and stepped forward to take it from her hand. She smiled and nodded her head. “Give Shivi a kiss from me,” she said, and curled up into herself again like a sad fetus, limply allowing her grandmother to take off her shoes. I retreated into the hallway, refusing to resign myself to leaving the apartment without catching a single glimpse of Dori. It occurred to me to ask the granny, “Are you sleeping here?” “No,” she said in an apologetic and slightly embarrassed tone. She spent all day here, but at night she went back to the retirement home to sleep. At her age it was hard to get used to a strange bed. Now she was waiting for her grandson, who had gone out for a breath of fresh air with his friends, to come and drive her home. I kept quiet, slowing my footsteps and keeping my ears cocked for Dori’s tearstained voice as she spoke to Hishin in the kitchen. “I can take you,” I offered immediately, leaning forward to examine the granny’s face in the dim light. “Thank you very much,” she replied without hesitation, careful not to let the offer slip through her fingers after her exhausting day. “But is it on your way?” she asked. “I’ll put it on my way,” I said decisively, and followed her into the kitchen to inform Dori and Hishin that I was taking her home. They were sitting at the kitchen table in a pool of sad neon light. Among the dirty cups and glasses on the table lay Dori’s eyeglasses and several crumpled tissues. Her eyes were as telling as when I had made love to her, but now they were red and swollen. For the first time since the death I was able to grasp the depths of pain to which she had sunk. Hishin sat at a little distance from her, his face gloomy and thoughtful, his long legs stretched out in front of him. The black baseball cap was lying on the table. In front of him was a plate containing the remains of his supper, and between his long fingers was one of Dori’s slender cigarettes, which he was apparently smoking in a gesture of solidarity with her sorrow and despair, for I had never seen him smoke before. They both looked up at me without any surprise or question, as if it were only natural that I should be wandering around the apartment at this late hour. Dori made no attempt to hide the traces of her weeping, but instead she lifted her head as if to show me her tearstained face and demand from me too some clear, strong word of consolation or hope, so that she could restore herself, if not her husband.

“Can I take your mother home?” I asked her, my face flushed, as if the old lady’s authority were not enough. “Of course,” Hishin replied for her, “you’ll be providing an important service.” In an intimate tone he said to Dori, “The boy must have forgotten himself with his friends.” She nodded her head and took a sip of tea. I stood hesitating in the kitchen doorway, the straps of Shivi’s sling over my shoulder, and behind my back in the hallway, where the lightbulb had apparently burned out, I heard the granny quickly getting ready to leave. “It’s raining outside,” I warned. “But it isn’t cold,” I added reassuringly as I saw Dori reaching out to take another cigarette. Suddenly I felt an uncontrollable urge to stop her, as if I were being prompted by Lazar, who always tried to prevent her from smoking, and I stepped quickly forward and reached for the pack of cigarettes. At first she was astonished, as if the dead man’s hand had come back to life. But she immediately recovered, and assuming that I too, like Hishin, wanted to try one of her slender cigarettes, she offered me the pack with a generous, heart-wrenching smile, and I had no option but to take a cigarette and bend down to get a light from her, mumbling something about the strangeness and confusion of the last few days, while Hishin looked at me affectionately and nodded his head. As soon as we were outside, I threw the cigarette away and ground it out with my foot. The light rain, which had freshened the air, made Dori’s mother happy, as if only changes in nature could bring some comfort to people so overcome with grief. “Your baby’s not only sweet, she’s also very well behaved,” she announced as I showed her how to buckle the seat belt. “Your Michaela apparently knows how to handle her,” she added. “I do too,” I said, unable not to claim my share of the credit as a devoted husband and father. “You too, of course,” the old lady agreed, although she seemed to have more faith in the inner serenity of Michaela, about whom she now began to question me. But I didn’t want to waste the few minutes of the short drive on pointless chatter about Michaela or Shivi, or even myself. I wanted to talk about Dori and how she was going to manage in the future, and even how she was coping in the grim present, and in this context I mentioned Hishin’s constant presence in the apartment. “Yes, Hishin never leaves us,” she said. “It’s very difficult for him too, of course; he feels guilty about transferring Lazar’s operation from the department where it belonged and bringing in a strange surgeon from outside.” Once more I found myself defending Hishin and his acts, as if his guilt were liable to rub off on me. She listened sympathetically to what I had to say, nodding her head encouragingly as if she too would like to clear Hishin of any guilt and be convinced of the inevitability of her son-in-law’s death. “Of course, for a doctor, no death is completely unavoidable,” I said, trying to convey a more complex thought to her. “How can that be possible?” She sounded astonished, as though I were trying to persuade her of the possibility of everlasting life. “Because if we accepted some deaths as inevitable, we would lose the element of positive competition among doctors,” I explained. Now she seemed really worried by my words. “Is the competition among you really so fierce?” she asked. “Why not?” I replied. “We’re only human. To give you an example, when I changed a couple of the medicines Professor Levine had prescribed for you, I admit I felt a little triumphant.”