A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

When the day of departure actually dawned, my heart was flooded with sorrow, as if I only now realized that I was going to be deprived of the affection and company that surrounded me without having made sure of even a fraction of the love for which I hoped. And the parting from Shivi was made even more painful by the fact that it took place at midnight, the strange hour chosen by the cheap travel agents to take the busload of young backpackers directly to the airport in Egypt for their flight. When I saw Shivi strapped into her carrier like one more pack next to Michaela’s and Stephanie’s big backpacks, I realized that my tolerant attitude toward the trip might not have been completely responsible. Although I had vaccinated the baby myself with the dosage prescribed by two reputable pediatricians in the hospital, I could not avoid the thought that I should have made them postpone their departure to make sure there were no complications. Shivi looked healthy and happy, though, as she gazed curiously at the faces of the young backpackers bending over her with admiring cries and showing their worried parents the baby with the third eye painted on her forehead as encouraging evidence of a traveler who was even younger than they were. I still felt guilty over Michaela’s irresponsibility and my own, and I swore to myself that the moment my situation became clearer, I would find a way to bring my daughter back to her natural place. But until that moment arrived, her “natural place” would presumably be on sidewalks and train platforms; after all, she was beginning her trip on two Tel Aviv paving stones, with damp sand creeping out between them, while her mother was busy embracing her friends, who were far more numerous than I had imagined and so loyal that not even the lateness of the hour had prevented them from coming to say good-bye. Even Amnon had deserted his night watchman’s post and hurried here in order not to miss the moment of farewell to Michaela. I overheard him promising to go and join her if he received a postcard inviting him, even though I knew that he would never abandon his parents and his retarded brother, who needed him so much.

Finally it was my turn to say good-bye, and after showering kisses on Shivi’s face and looking deep into her eyes so she would not forget me, I took Michaela aside to warn her once more to be careful. Although I had avoided touching her since the morning when the statuette had been broken, in order not to cause any embarrassment, I no longer shrank from contact with her, and to reinforce my words I took her into my arms, held her tightly, and placed a long kiss on her lips. Her great eyes remained open, shining in the darkness of the night, and her fingers lightly stroked my hair, which was something she never did, as if she knew that the danger hanging over my head was graver than any of the possible dangers threatening her on her trip. Before joining Stephanie and Shivi, who had already disappeared into the bus, she did not forget to say, “If you get into bad trouble, just leave everything and come to us. We’ll all be glad.” And while I joined my hands and held them to my face in thanks for this generous gesture of reconciliation, she let slip this final, surprising sentence: “Nothing’s worth dying for, Benjy.” Without giving me the chance to reply, she hurried into the bus, which was apparently waiting just for her and now lit its little red lights and silently, as if it had already joined one of the great rivers awaiting the young travelers, sailed out of the narrow alley, leaving behind it a crowd of friends and relations who suddenly realized that there was not much left of the night.

Accordingly, they did not hurry home but hung around exchanging telephone numbers and addresses in an attempt to tie a web of connecting threads to their loved ones, whose disappearance into the night turned even the joking words of parting they had just uttered into a suddenly painful memory. Only now did I notice Einat, who was standing next to Amnon’s pickup truck wearing a long black coat that emphasized the fairness of her hair, which she had brutally cropped as if in an act of self-mutilation. Had she just arrived, or had she been trying to avoid me? A shy smile crossed her face as she hesitated about whether to accept Amnon’s offer of a ride home on the condition that she climb into the back, for the seat next to Amnon was already taken by Hagit and her daughter, who had insisted on coming to say good-bye to her little charge. I quickly went up to Einat, for even if she guessed what had happened between her mother and me, this was no reason to avoid her. In fact, it was an opportunity to try to turn her into an ally. In spite of her embarrassment and resistance, I persuaded her to give up Amnon’s pickup for the pillion of my motorcycle, and with my own hands I put the helmet on her head and gently buckled the strap under her slender chin. Although I was used to the fear of first-time pillion riders, I had never come across anxiety as intense as that coming from Einat. Like a terrified animal, she clung to my leather jacket, occasionally breaking out into a scream, as if I were going to roll her into some terrible, hostile abyss instead of simply taking her home, driving barely above the speed limit through the still, silent streets of the city. As we neared her building, located in a pretty seedy quarter of the city, I asked about the terrible anxiety that had taken hold of her. But she was not embarrassed by her hysterics during the ride, nor did she laugh them off. She acted as if her panic had been natural and completely justified, if not because of the motorcycle then because of the driver. Now too, with the bike silent beside us and my hands removing the strap from beneath her chin, she seemed to be afraid of me, pale and shivering with cold, ready to give me her telephone number as I requested, as long as I would release her into the dark stairwell, where she disappeared with such celerity that she neglected to put on the light.

Did she really know about my love for her mother? And did this love, I asked myself, with not a little pain, seem to her so alarming, so outrageous and repulsive, that she couldn’t even stand for a moment next to the man who had gone to the ends of the earth to rescue her and whom she had trusted far more than her parents to save her life? Even if she thought that this love deprived her of her due, she could still have respected its mystery, which had begun in the hotel in Varanasi when I took blood from her mother to revive her. These reflections continued to trouble my thoughts on my way home and added distress to the sorrow of returning to the apartment, which in spite of Michaela’s efforts to leave it neat and tidy was still full of traces of the baby, the memory of whose sweet face brought tears to my eyes. And although my parents had told me not to hesitate to wake them up to tell them about the parting, I refused to burden my already sorrow-filled heart with the anger and disappointment of my mother, who knew that I had agreed so casually to their going so I could devote myself entirely to the insanity of the love I had so perversely chosen. I therefore not only refrained from calling Jerusalem but disconnected the phone, darkened the apartment, and got into bed hoping not only to sleep but to lose consciousness completely.

But my sleep, which did indeed begin with a full loss of consciousness, was soon violently interrupted by something like an electric shock passing through it. As if by someone’s hand on an invisible switch, it not only was interrupted but disintegrated completely, and from its ruins something seemed to fly up and disappear. And in spite of my soul, which was feverish with exhaustion, and my body, which was sinking heavily and limply into the bed, my conscious mind had taken control of me again and knew that there was no more hope of sleep. However tightly I closed my eyes, I found no consolation in the darkness, only a bus with little red lights, racing now, after crossing the border, on a desert road not far from the sea in the silvery moonlight, with Shivi sleeping on Michaela’s lap and Michaela probably sleeping now too, perhaps leaning on the shoulder of her friend Stephanie, who was chatting with one of the young backpackers. And for the first time I felt a pang of the anxiety of abandonment squeezing my soul, as if I were not looking at the lights of the bus which held my wife and daughter receding into the distance not from the breadth of this double bed but from the opening of a little pup tent, alone and abandoned in a desolate wilderness. Suddenly I was exposed to the incomprehensible indifference of the universe, and I had to switch on the reading light, although it did not restore my composure. Instead, it only increased the pain of my envy for all those who are able to sleep, connected to each other by their bodies or their dreams. It was then that I thought, I have not been liberated but abandoned. And even the soft sound of the rain falling outside could not soften the new dread of loneliness stealing into the walls of the house. I felt as if the blood coursing through my veins were not enough to sustain me. When I shifted restlessly underneath the quilt and threatened myself with getting out of bed in the hope that my weariness would overcome me and return my lost sleep, the bed itself seemed to cast me out, as if my touch on the pillows and bedclothes were a burden to it. And a little like a sleepwalker I emerged from the circle of light in the bedroom into the darkness of the living room, trying to attach myself to a less alienating version of reality, the one contained in the shabby floral upholstery of the sofa, which immediately aroused my longing for the plump, laughing woman who sat on it with her legs crossed, frozen in alarm but also in delight at the young man’s declaration of love. But was such a longing, which might warm the heart with a sweet sorrow, enough to make me take off my pajamas and with limp heavy movements put on layer after layer of clothes? No. Something more real and powerful forced me to switch off the lights and go out into the rainy night with my helmet in my hand, in order to seek human contact. As if now that Lazar’s soul had left me, my abandonment had doubled.