A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

Now we had to hurry back. But the kiss that had taken place between us seemed to have glued us to each other, and we had hardly begun to descend the path winding down the dark side of the rock when Michaela stopped and invited me into a kind of little alcove or cave. And in the bitter-herb smell of the dry desert soil I encountered no difficulties in removing her white blouse and exposing to the cold moonlight her two little breasts, which I rubbed my face between, not only to feel their comforting softness but perhaps also to smell what remained of the strong Indianness buried inside her. But I immediately realized that her rich experience of men, and the steady honesty of her way of thinking, would not allow me to be content with a dreamy head buried between cool breasts, for her long, rather hard legs were already coiled around my body in a tight grip, pushing me gently onto the dry ground and demanding what a man is expected to provide once he begins rubbing his head between a woman’s breasts. So we began to make love, quickly, without great passion but also without suffering or embarrassment, without the words of love which belonged to someone else, with a tenderness and generosity which ensured that we would both enjoy ourselves and also come, quickly and together, and of course silently, for she knew as well as I did that not only my parents but many friends, both hers and mine, were within hearing distance.

“Do you believe in the reincarnation of souls?” I suddenly asked her softly when she had finished putting on her clothes and brushing the dry grass off her hair and turned in the dark toward the path to return me to my parents. She stopped immediately, as surprised as I had hoped she would be. “The reincarnation of souls?” She fixed me with her big eyes, in which a new glint of rebuke had appeared. “I wouldn’t have expected you to talk like that.”

“Why not?” I asked curiously.

“Because I would have thought a doctor would know.”

“Know what?” I asked in confusion.

“That there’s no such thing as a soul,” she answered quickly.

“There’s no such thing as a soul?” I was amused but also a little alarmed by the vehemence of her words.

“Of course not,” she said with a new note of impatience in her voice. “The soul is only a figment of the imagination of people who need the idea of having something permanent and unchanging inside themselves, which they have to worry about and keep on stroking and petting.” There was something delightful and captivating now in her annoyance, and I therefore kept on at her as we went down the path. “So what is reincarnated then, if it isn’t the soul? Isn’t there anything that passes from one person to another?” She was silent for a moment, examining me to see if I was mocking her or speaking seriously, and then she started explaining that what was reincarnated was only a bundle of inclinations and aptitudes which underwent constant changes, for human beings weren’t permanent, they were just chains of events that repeated themselves, because the energy they used, the energy that was necessary for any material or spiritual action, was not consumed but released at the end of these actions, and then reused. And thus actions or events which had taken place in the past returned in a different guise. Something new in her personality, attractive but also somewhat dogmatic, was revealed to me in the way she delivered her opinions to the accompaniment of strong, decisive gestures. She was so carried away that she paid no attention when we entered the illuminated area, and the guests standing around with little cups of aromatic coffee and glasses of wine eyed us speculatively as we stepped onto the lawn together, probably wondering where we had been secluding ourselves during the wedding ceremony. We parted without a word, by mutual consent, and went off in different directions to mingle with our friends. And suddenly Eyal was in front of me in his white wedding clothes, and I embraced him emotionally. “But where did you disappear to?” he asked in an aggrieved tone. “Michaela took me up the cliff to watch the ceremony from above,” I informed him. The sly smile glinted in his eyes again, as if he already knew exactly what had been going on above his head during his wedding ceremony. “So she caught you in the end.”

“Caught me?” I said in a puzzled tone. But Eyal persisted. “She asked Hadas a week ago if you were coming to the wedding, and she only decided to come herself when we promised her that you would be here.” I was amazed by this news and eager to get more details out of him, but my parents had already noticed me and they now came hurrying up, afraid that I would disappear again. “Where have you been?” asked my father, his cheeks very flushed from the wine. I told them that I had been watching the wedding ceremony from the edge of the cliff with Michaela. My mother stood there silently, her eyes flickering over my face. Can she really tell from the expression on my face, I wondered, what I’ve just been doing with Michaela? “The ceremony was very nice,” I said. “At first I was afraid it was going to be ridiculous, but in the end it was even moving.” They both confirmed my feelings. They were very pleased that they had traveled down to the heart of the desert. It would give them something to talk about for years to come. But they were also eager to get started. Although it was only nine o’clock, the journey to the Dead Sea was liable to take more than an hour and a half, and they were accustomed to going to bed at ten. I went to call Amnon, who was supposed to be coming with us. At first it was difficult to pry him away from the excited conversations he was still busy conducting with old friends, but in the end he agreed to come. We began saying our good-byes, and I of course went to look for Michaela. For a moment I thought she had disappeared, but I soon caught sight of her, sitting at a table by herself and eating hungrily.

Should I tell her before we left, I wondered as I watched her gulping wine from a big glass, not to dismiss the soul so lightly, or should I leave this adolescent argument open till our next meeting? That there would be one, I had no doubt. This girl possessed certain qualities that suited me to the core. Not only the easygoing, carefree lightness she radiated, but also that air of self-containment, the way she had held back, even though she was expecting me, and waited for me to come to her. Yes, I definitely liked her, I thought to myself; even the way she sat alone, eating so heartily, pleased me. She could be the perfect mate for me, precisely because I didn’t want to and couldn’t fall in love with her, since I was still in love with the woman I had successfully turned into my landlady. This being the case, why should I argue with her and try to persuade her of the existence of the soul, when her view of the world would lead her to give me the freedom I wanted — a free marriage, to banish my landlady’s fears that I would overwhelm her with my lust? I went up to say good-bye to her. She did not seem embarrassed, but just the opposite: she looked straight into my face. “You must be hungry too,” she said with a smile, and pointed to the brimming plate in front of her. “Yes, I’m hungry, but my parents are in a hurry to leave.” And suddenly I couldn’t resist adding, “But as far as the soul is concerned, the argument isn’t over yet. Because, you know, I’m on the other side of the operating table now. Not a surgeon anymore, but an anesthetist. And to be an anesthetist you have to believe in the possibility of freeing the soul from the body and bringing it safely back again.”

“So you’ve turned into an anesthetist?” she asked calmly, taking a big sip of her wine and trying to grasp the significance of the change, since the world of medicine was not completely strange to her after three months with the sidewalk doctors of Calcutta. “Yes,” I replied, and again I couldn’t resist adding a phrase I thought would please her, “putting those who’ve never been awake to sleep.” She registered the message and smiled a somewhat suspicious, bitter little smile, very unlike the wholehearted, generous one that had already captured my heart. We exchanged telephone numbers and arranged to get in touch at the end of the week in Tel Aviv. When I said good-bye to her, I saw my mother standing a little way off and watching us.