A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

“Of course,” I answered immediately, and by the decisive tone of my voice I wanted to let her know that now that Lazar had died, there would be no more need to lie to anybody in the world. She seemed somewhat confused by this reply, and looked silently at the medical instruments I removed from the bag, most of which were still new and gleaming, since I had no private patients so far and I used the clinic’s equipment when I paid house calls during my night shifts at the Magen-David-Adom station. I took a chair and drew it up to the sofa, and with a quick, light movement I whipped the cigarette from her fingers, something which even Lazar had not dared to do. I put it out in the ashtray, said firmly, “You shouldn’t do that,” and took her wrist to feel her pulse, which was rapid but not as rapid as I had expected, as if her temperature had gone down a little during my absence.

Her blood pressure was normal, even low for her age, the diastolic less than eighty, and her heartbeat, which was rapid because of the fever, sounded soft and clear. In the narrow beam of light from the otoscope I looked into her throat and ears. There were no obvious signs of infection, only a redness due to excessive dryness. “You must have something hot to drink,” I said. But it turned out that her electric kettle had broken down a few hours before. I interrupted my examination to go into the kitchen and see what was wrong. Standing among unwashed cups and glasses on the gray marble counter was the electric kettle, which had nothing wrong with it apart from the fact that the plug had come loose from the socket. I showed her the source of the problem. “Is that all?” She smiled incredulously. “I don’t believe it.”

“That’s all,” I said firmly. “How come you didn’t see it for yourself?” But she was apparently incapable of seeing anything. Miss Kolby had already told me how she shrank from electrical appliances as if they were capable of harming her. But now, when the red light on the kettle went on and she was convinced of the insignificance of the “breakdown,” she decided to trust me and showed me the toaster, which had also stopped working a few days ago, hoping that here the problem would prove equally easy to fix. In fact one of the screws had come loose, and with the aid of a kitchen knife I soon returned the red glow to the coils. And then, for no apparent reason, while the electric kettle began to whistle in the silence of the night, tears suddenly welled in her eyes, as if only now she realized the depths of the new abyss of dependency into which she had been cast by her husband, who had abandoned her for the world of the dead. I stood still and didn’t make a move toward her. The sorrow and the pity in my heart prevented me from touching her, and she returned slowly to the living room and sat down in an armchair to finish her sad, soft weeping for the catastrophe that had suddenly become concrete. In the kitchen I poured two cups of tea and added a few cookies which I found in one of the drawers. I found the sugar bowl, and cut a few slices from an old melon I found in the refrigerator. I went into the living room and put the tray down on the glass table next to my stethoscope. Was she really a woman who would have to be taken care of all the time? I thought in a sweet panic, remembering how Lazar had danced attendance on her in India, and how naturally she had accepted his services, as she now accepted mine, nodding her head in thanks and picking up a teacup and beginning to sip the hot lemony brew gratefully, until I asked myself if this was already the dependency I hoped for, which would make it impossible for her to send me away.

“But how can you leave Michaela for so long?” she rebuked me, her eyes still red from crying. “She must be worried.”

“No, Michaela isn’t the worrying type,” I said, and I respectfully described her independent spirit and inner serenity, and how she was at her best on occasions like this. “She isn’t waiting up for me. I’m sure she’s been fast asleep for hours.” But I wasn’t sure at all. Just the opposite — I thought that Michaela might have stayed up, if only to strengthen me with her thoughts from a distance, so that I could rise to the demanding occasion she knew was before me. And if she hesitated to call, it wasn’t on her own account or mine but only out of her concern for Lazar’s wife, whose grief might turn into panic and terror owing to a careless move on my part. Michaela did not yet know that before Lazar’s death there had been a bond between us, which even if it did not cause the death at least prepared us for it. If she had known, she would have been as sure as I was of the trust the woman sitting here put in me. For instance, after she finished the last drop of tea, while she was wondering whether to ask for another cup, I stood up and put the stethoscope around my neck to conclude the interrupted examination. And without hesitating, she stood up submissively, and at this deep hour of night she pulled down her jumpsuit and stood facing me, half naked, white and heavy in the breasts and arms, exposing the secret map of beauty spots on her shoulders, and although she seemed slightly embarrassed, she showed no trace of fear that her young doctor would turn into a passionate lover again. As the diaphragm of the stethoscope began to warm up between my fingers, I listened carefully first to her heart and then to her lungs, which seemed a little congested but without any suspicious wheezing, and accordingly left me without a clear diagnosis, since I had no desire at this time of night to draw blood, as I had in Einat’s little room in the monastery in Bodhgaya, in order to run tests. Since I was not in the habit, like some of the young doctors on night shifts in the emergency room or the Magen-David-Adom station, of throwing out sly psychological hints to people who thought they were ill, I stopped myself from making some critical remark to this beloved woman about the deceptions of the mind and only advised her to get back into bed and give both body and mind some rest. And although she was now alert and even a little vivacious, like a lot of patients who need no more than a doctor’s examination to free them of their feelings of illness, she accepted my suggestion and only asked for another cup of tea before she went to bed, and she even went to put the kettle on herself, in order to make sure that nothing else was wrong with it, waiting to break after I left. But I had no intention of leaving her, not only because I knew that in the depths of her soul she couldn’t stay by herself, but also because I was certain that Michaela, if she had indeed succeeded in staying awake, would both accompany me in her thoughts and actively support me in the attempt to return the soul that had invaded my body to its proper home and bed.

Dori obediently swallowed the two pills I gave her to bring her temperature down and went to take off her clothes and put on a fresh, flimsier nightgown. Then she got straight into bed, asking me only to cover her with three blankets and put the light on in the hallway before I left. But I didn’t want to leave yet, certainly not before I heard the deep breathing of her sleep. I remained in the hall next to the open bedroom door, looking through the dark windows at the new restlessness of the treetops, constantly buffeted by the autumn wind. And as my eyes returned to gaze quietly at the contours of the figure buried beneath the mountain of blankets, I kept asking myself how I would be able to leave her. Even when her breathing became deep and rhythmic and was joined by a faint snore, which I remembered from the night in the train compartment with the Indian clerk, I still could not bring myself to leave. Waves of love and desire began swelling in my double soul, and a thrilling new pleasure kept me rooted to the spot. I could have gone into the bedroom and sat down for a while on the edge of the big bed without waking her, but I went on standing in the hallway, leaning against the doorjamb, keeping myself awake thanks to long experience on night shifts and hours of standing next to the operating table. But when the faint snoring became loud and coarse, because of the position of her neck on the pillow or congested sinuses, I remembered Lazar climbing onto the upper bunk in the train racing to Varanasi to take hold of her and make her stop. I went into the bedroom to follow his example, but my hold must have been too strong, or lasted too long, for she woke up, and with her eyes closed and her hair wild she sat up in bed and cried in alarm, “You?” I let go of her and retreated, because I knew that she meant him, and only him, as if through the touch of my hand she had felt the dead man’s hand. But all this lasted no longer than a second, and by the expression of pain on her face I knew that the illusion had already been shattered. She groped for the switch of the reading light, but quickly gave up the attempt, dropped her head, and curled up into herself again, to seek the even rhythm of her breathing. But she did not find it, and she woke up and opened her eyes.