A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

I enjoyed our lovemaking less this time, though it lasted longer, and I even remember feeling slightly giddy at one point. The bright light in the bedroom, too, which we left on, was unkind to the boniness of the naked limbs moving restlessly beneath me, in contrast to the soft, pampered white flesh of the plump middle-aged woman who had lain serenely on the same bed not too long before. Michaela also uttered two brief cries when she came, which reminded me of a throttled bird and disturbed me, because I thought I might have hurt her. But in spite of my slight disappointment, my good opinion of her remained unchanged, and after we dressed and sat down to drink coffee and eat the cake I had bought especially for her, I found myself gazing appreciatively again into her big, intensely blue eyes, which radiated belief and trust in her fellow human beings, as long as they didn’t pretend to be what they were not. She began to ask me about my work in the hospital and my new job as an anesthetist in the private hospital in Herzliah. After that she wanted to know if I could identify various exotic diseases she had encountered during her three months on the Calcutta sidewalks. She had an original way of describing the patients and their diseases, mixing descriptions of physical symptoms with penetrating psychological insights of her own in such a lively and vivid way that my living room was soon peopled by the pavement-dwellers of Calcutta in all their colorful misery. As a doctor I was pleased to see that she did not shrink from illness, and this added to her value in my eyes. “It’s a pity you didn’t study medicine,” I said, and she agreed with me. Yes, sometimes she thought she would like to be a doctor, but how could she go to medical school when she hadn’t even graduated from high school?

The information that she had dropped out of school in the eleventh grade gave me a pang, especially since I knew that my mother would soon find out and, along with my father, would be disappointed. I had meant to ask her to come with me on a trip to Jerusalem one day the following week and to introduce her to them. But I made an effort not to show the faintest sign of disappointment or to make any disparaging comments about the fact that she was now working as a waitress in a café in the center of town. Since her return from India she had been having trouble finding her place in the world, perhaps because of the longing that was still gnawing at her, and perhaps also because the return from India had been forced on her. “Forced?” I asked curiously. “Surely you’re not saying that you came back just because you wanted to tell Einat’s parents about her illness?”

“Not only that,” she admitted honestly. She had been down to her last rupee, and she didn’t have the guts to get involved in something that was beneath her dignity. “Like what?” I asked anxiously, but it turned out that all she meant was begging — an occupation that fit the kind of philosophy she had been flirting with in India. I smiled in relief, even though I had no doubt that she had lived with men in the past, a fact betrayed by the lightness of her touch with me, the naturalness of the way she stood up to clear the dirty dishes from the table and wash them in the sink. I didn’t try to stop her; just the opposite. Let her feel like the mistress of the house, I thought, even though she didn’t like my new apartment. She couldn’t understand why a young man like me would want to rent such a gray, respectable apartment, with an entire closet still full of an old woman’s clothes. “Did they reduce the rent at least?” she asked as she stood in front of the sink, with that inexplicable hostility toward the Lazars in her voice again. “Maybe,” I said, and told her what I was paying. The sum seemed high to Michaela, who didn’t think it revealed any special consideration for the man who had served them so faithfully. “But you can see a bit of the sea from here,” I said in praise of the apartment, and described the red ray of light that fell into the sink at sunset. “You’ll always enjoy washing the dishes here,” I said with a smile. “You think I’ll come here especially to wash your dishes?” she said ironically. “Not especially,” I replied quietly, “only when you’re here,” and I brushed her neck with my lips. Her big eyes shone and she closed them for a moment, groping for the marble counter with a cup full of soapsuds in her hand. Again she wound her arms around my head and began kissing me, and by the intensity of her embrace I understood that she wanted to make love again and that she believed it was in my power to give her what she wanted. I did my best not to disappoint her, although this time I refused to go back to the bedroom and get undressed, and insisted on doing it impromptu in the kitchen, which turned out to be big enough to accommodate our lovemaking, but only just, with things clattering around us and at a certain stage in the proceedings the soapy cup falling into the sink and smashing to smithereens. Although I didn’t manage to come myself, I had the satisfaction of seeing Michaela come again, this time without crying out but with a deep sigh. “Do you love me?” I dared to ask her when her eyes opened. She thought for a moment. “Just as much as you love me,” she said in the end, seriously and without smiling; and this was the policy she adopted from then on — measuring and suiting her feelings to mine, that is to say, to my declarations about my feelings, for I was careful from the outset to keep my love for Lazar’s wife a secret from her, afraid that even in the eyes of so liberated and free a spirit as Michaela my infatuation would seem weird, or perhaps even medieval.

After midnight, although an unexpected spring rain had begun to fall, she put the big helmet on her head again and climbed happily onto the motorcycle. She could have stayed the night, of course, but I didn’t suggest it. In spite of my sincere desire to speed things up between us, I preferred, after two consecutive bouts of lovemaking, to spend the night alone in my big bed and put my thoughts in order. When I got back I collected the pieces of the broken cup from the sink and put them into a plastic bag, not because I thought the cup could be mended but because it was part of a set and I didn’t want to throw it away without first getting the landlady’s permission. I got in touch with Michaela the next day even though I knew she worked all day Saturday in the café. I wanted to arrange a couple of dates for the week after, and especially to make a firm date for our trip to Jerusalem together. I was afraid that the longing for India of which she spoke so frequently and the grayness of her life in Tel Aviv might overwhelm her, and she might give in to a sudden impulse to take off for the Far East. If I didn’t want to lose her, I thought, I would have to keep in constant touch. But since I was now working a couple of night shifts a week at the Magen-David-Adom station in the south of the city in addition to the private work in the Herzliah hospital, the possibilities for meeting her were limited. I therefore persuaded her to come to the first-aid station after her work at the café to keep me company, and to accompany me on house visits, which she enjoyed very much, since they reminded her of her days in Calcutta. At first the patients and their families were confused by her appearance as she came in behind me like some visitor from outer space, her helmet tucked under her arm, her great eyes beaming signals from an enchanted world. But since I’d immediately introduce her as a nurse (and sometimes she’d even help me conduct the examinations), they quickly got used to her presence. And she too, to my delight, began to get used to me. “Do you like me?” I would ask, testing her. “Just as much as you like me,” she would answer immediately, an enigmatic smile passing like an imperceptible ripple over her blank face. But she stopped complaining about her longing for India, as if some of it had been absorbed by our relationship, and some by the sheer fact of my work. I had no doubt that she was attracted to the medical side of my identity, and perhaps this was the secret reason why she had been so eager to meet me at Eyal’s wedding. She reminded me of my father in the way she cross-examined me about diseases and symptoms, sometimes even from the back of the motorcycle, in order to understand the vague and tenuous border between sickness and health. And exactly as with my father, she had a pure intellectual curiosity, with no desire to identify personal aches and pains or to draw conclusions about her own body, which seemed sturdy enough, and had preserved the Indian tan I had already noticed on that first brief meeting in the Lazars’ living room, when I had mistaken her for a young boy. In fact, this impression of a slight spiritual affinity between Michaela and my father was reinforced by the common language they found on our very first visit to my parents’ home, just ten days after Eyal’s wedding, which we all still remembered as possessing a spiritual power whose nature we did not really understand.