A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

Was she blushing too? It was hard to tell, for I found her busy making rapid repairs to her makeup. She certainly looked embarrassed, although not too embarrassed to flash me her famous smile, which I now realized how much I loved. The time that had passed since our last meeting in this room made things harder rather than easier. But she was so much older than me that even if I had wanted to, I could not have saved her from the duty of rescuing us both from our embarrassment and guiding us into an exchange that would consist of more than empty evasions. I saw her hesitate for a moment, uncertain whether to stand up and come toward me, but in the end she remained seated, perhaps to hide the elegant suit which I wanted to believe she had worn for me, or at least for our meeting. Without waiting any longer, I held out the invitation, and she took it with an exclamation of delight that might have seemed exaggerated or even false if I hadn’t known in my heart that it was sincere. She really did hope that my marriage would free her from me. She raised the invitation to her eyes to read it slowly and thoroughly, first in the Hebrew version and then, according to the gentle movement of her eyes, in English too. I examined her carefully. She seemed to have dyed her hair recently, for it was much redder. There were two little pimples on her neck, whose creases seemed to have deepened in the weeks since I had kissed it, and her face was a little swollen; perhaps she had her period, or maybe she was taking hormones. Again I confirmed what I already knew: no one would call her a beautiful woman, but nevertheless I was trembling with desire. She couldn’t put the invitation down; she read it again and again, and asked me exactly where the hotel was in Jerusalem, and after I had described the place to her, she wanted to know why we hadn’t looked for a more attractive place, outside town. I explained Michaela’s objections to a big wedding and said that there was no point in holding a small-scale affair out of the city. This explanation appeared to satisfy her, and she smiled and asked, “Is this a genuine invitation or only a diplomatic one?”

“Absolutely genuine,” I said quickly. “In that case,” she said, “we’ll try to come. Why not? I’m really happy for you, and for Michaela too, who still seems a little mysterious to me even though she’s been to our house a number of times, maybe because of those astonishing eyes of hers. But Einati always speaks well of her. And she deserves a good husband like you — it was thanks to her that we got to Einati in time.”

“And thanks to her that I met you too,” I quickly added. She looked pleased, smiled, and held out her plump, freckled hand in a friendly gesture. I bent over and kissed her fingers, and to my surprise she didn’t pull her hand away but only laughed and said in a whisper, “Be careful, Lazar’s on his way to fetch me.” But the light touch of my lips on her fingers aroused me so much that I had to press my knees together to suppress the silent stirring of my erection, which may have also been provoked by the agreeable thought that she couldn’t trust herself alone with me, and that was why she had asked Lazar to pick her up at the office this evening. “According to our contract,” I said with a smile, “I have to ask your permission to bring another tenant into the apartment.”

“Really?” She laughed in surprise, as if she herself hadn’t drawn up the contract. “You have to ask my permission? Then I give it.” And her face suddenly grew grave, and she added, “But when you have a baby, we’ll have to see what my mother says.” And for a moment it seemed to me that she expected me to ask her about her mother’s health, so that she could boast about the vivacious old lady, but I had no intention of wasting time on such questions or on empty wisecracks about babies — I knew that Lazar was on his way, and I didn’t want him to come in before I had said a single real word about the pain of my continuing longing for her. As for the baby, I had no way of knowing that the hypothetical baby she was talking about was already real in Michaela’s womb.

I stood up abruptly and went toward her, and in a weak, imploring whisper I asked, “But what about you?” She moved back in her black executive chair and looked up at me with a panic in her eyes that I had never seen there before. Before she could reply, I added in despair, “Because in spite of all this”—I waved at the invitation lying open on the desk—“I think about you all the time.” Then the panic vanished from her eyes and the smile returned. “Never mind,” she said soothingly. “I think about you too. Never mind. Nobody dies from thinking.”

“Are you sure?” I said in confusion, flooded with happiness, and I bent down to kiss her, but she flung out her hand and gripped me by the shoulder to stop me. “Have you told anyone about me?” she asked anxiously. “No, nobody,” I replied. “Then please don’t, if you want to go on seeing me.”

“But why on earth should I tell anybody? Who would I tell?” I said indignantly. And then the hand holding me at bay fell from my shoulder and I could bring my face close to hers and smell her perfume, and kiss her quickly too, and all this was more than I had hoped for from this meeting, even though she protested, rising quickly from her seat on her high heels and pushing me firmly away. “Do you want to wait here for Lazar?” she asked me now in a mischievous tone. “Because he wants to see you.”

“Does he know that I’m here?” I asked, extremely taken aback. “Of course,” she replied in a matter-of-fact voice. I felt too happy and excited to meet Lazar then, and I said good-bye quickly and rushed out into the street, which was already growing dark.

But then I stopped, because I wanted to make sure that he would come, that he wouldn’t forget she mustn’t be left alone in this deserted place rapidly being absorbed into the darkness of the spring evening. I hid behind the trunk of an old tree covered with white blossoms until I saw his car, which I recognized from a distance by its headlights, entering the little side street and driving slowly, looking for a parking space. In the end he gave up the attempt and parked on the sidewalk, and instead of the door bursting open immediately, as usual, a few seconds passed before he got out, with an unfamiliar heaviness that didn’t suit him, and suddenly I felt a surge of intense curiosity, and I asked myself, What does he want of me? All of a sudden my fear of meeting him fell away, as if the existence of Michaela by my side gave me a new strength and status to face him.

Is it permissible to begin to reflect on death? For then we will have to seek the secret door through which it can be smuggled into the soul, so the soul can grow accustomed to its silent presence, as if it were a little statuette brought into the house as an innocent gift or an ill-considered acquisition and irresponsibly set down in an intimate place, let’s say on a little bedside table, with a lace doily underneath it, and all this without anyone imagining that what appears to be an innocent inanimate object might suddenly rouse itself one night, kick away the lace doily, and with a swift, stealthy movement choke the astonished soul to death.

Otherwise, how will death be accomplished, with a bevy of doctors determined, in spite of disagreements between them, to fight against it with the most sophisticated instruments and the most efficient drugs at their command? So we will have to find our forgotten old relation again, that ancient retired fellow on leave from a lunatic asylum, the skinny black-clad mystery with the wire glasses on his nose, and prevail on him to sit down beside us and finally drink his tea, which has long since grown cold, and expound to us his fantastic views on the earth, which is eternally still and in which every hour is final and sufficient unto itself. And thus to lull our terror of the death bundled into the inside pocket of his coat in the form of a little bronze statuette.