A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

She hugged the baby very warmly, uttering cries of excitement and delight, which to the nurse standing next to us no doubt sounded phony and exaggerated but which I knew were genuine. Shiva’s abundant hair amused Dori greatly, and she clasped the hairy little head to her bosom and refused to part with her, until I had to intervene tactfully and return the wide-awake baby to her crib. I was so moved by Dori’s enthusiasm that I couldn’t restrain myself, and as I led her through a side door into the hospital’s bustling emergency entrance, I told her the entire story of my successful delivery of the baby in our bedroom, in detail. The automatic smile in her eyes was now mixed with immense curiosity. She was delighted with my story. In fact, she seemed so absorbed that instead of taking her to St. Paul’s, as I had offered, and risking bringing her back late to the meeting with her husband, I suggested that we take advantage of the rare warmth of the sun and go on strolling around the streets in the vicinity of the hospital, and perhaps venture a little farther, into the nicer neighborhood where my parents’ room was situated. Suddenly I wanted to know what this fussy woman who had dragged us from one hotel to another in India until she found one that lived up to her expectations would think of the pretty place Michaela had found for my parents, which she might want to consider for herself during a future London vacation. And since the keys to the garden gate and to the room had been attached to my key ring since I had said good-bye to my parents at the train station a few days before, we would have no problem getting in.

Behind the small house, which stood in a well-tended garden, was a separate gate leading past beds of roses to my parents’ room. There were little bells hanging on the gate, which were evidently intended to give the landlords a measure of control over the comings and goings of their tenants. But they were superfluous now, since the owners of the house were in Italy. After the bells had stopped ringing, I opened the door of the room, which was very dark, and invited Dori to peep inside. Although the windows and curtains had been closed for several days, there was a pleasant smell in the room, a combination of the odor of the floor polish and the lingering ambience of my parents, some of whose familiar clothes were still hanging in the closet. Perhaps because of this ambience, Dori hesitated at first to enter the large, attractive room, but when I insisted on showing it off to her and proving how reasonable the rent was in view of its many virtues, she agreed to follow me into the little kitchenette too, and even into the tiny bathroom, which I knew my mother had left clean and tidy. It was cold in the room. There was a coin-operated gas heater which I wanted to turn on, and I also wanted to draw the curtain so that she could see the pretty garden through the window, but she stopped me with a gesture, sat down on an armchair in the dim light, like that time in her mother’s apartment, and stretched her legs out in front of her. All of a sudden I felt a surge of lust, together with profound anxiety. A whole year had already passed, and I didn’t know how to go on from here. Was I supposed to declare my love to her again? In the meantime, I offered her a cup of tea, since I knew my parents kept no coffee in the room. Looking surprised but smiling gloriously, she agreed to this strange offer, perhaps because she too wanted a chance to examine her feelings. But when I came back into the room after switching on the electric kettle and putting the tea bags in the cups, I found her standing impatiently, as if she had just grasped how odd, and even perverse, it would be to spend the little time we had left before returning to the hospital sitting and drinking tea in my parents’ dark, closed room. She expressed a wish, which seemed to me rather reckless and childish, to see the rooms in the rest of the house. I glanced at my watch; we had thirty or forty minutes left before we had to leave to keep our appointment with Lazar, which I was determined to be on time for so as not to give him any grounds for suspicion. Did she realize, I wondered feverishly, that we would never find a better place than this in which to make love with perfect anonymity and secrecy, or was she put off by the idea of making love on my parents’ pushed-together beds? I began to feel the lust churning in the pit of my stomach, but I followed her into a long, narrow passage that led into a dark and surprisingly large sitting room, where all the furniture — armchairs, sofas, and cabinets — was covered with white sheets. I wanted to switch on the light, but the electricity appeared to be disconnected in this part of the house. I thought this would be enough to discourage her from continuing her explorations, but her curiosity knew no bounds, and smiling to herself, without asking my permission as the representative of the subtenants in this house, she went on and opened a wooden door leading to a charming little study paneled in reddish wood, which opened into another passage that led into a room that was unexpectedly light, for one of the curtains was open. The meager daylight streaming in through the window looked bright and strong in contrast to the darkness shrouding the rest of the house. This fine, big bedroom was different in its light, modern style from the other rooms, and it was immediately clear that it had taken the fancy of my companion, for she began to scrutinize it with an inquisitive, proprietary eye, and suddenly pulled the sheet off the bed, disclosing a handsome floral bedspread in various shades of green.

True, it would have been more becoming and more decent to make love on my parents’ bed and not to desecrate the room of a couple of strangers vacationing in Italy in complete ignorance of my existence. But I was afraid that if I took Dori back to my parents’ room she might regret her impulse, and by the time I succeeded in seducing her we would have to leave. Without wasting time on declarations of love, I went up to her in resolute silence, and put my arms around her and kissed her and felt the heaviness of her body again. This time too she refused to let me take off a single item of her clothing, as if this would undercut her liberty and independence, and as on the first time she waited until I was standing before her naked in the freezing room before she got undressed and lay down on the green bedspread, which in her eyes was evidently not only more beautiful than the plain white sheet but also cleaner. She waited with her eyes closed for me to finish covering with passionate kisses her sweet, full stomach, which had grown even rounder since the last time, as if she were hoarding secrets there in a slow, endless pregnancy. But when I tried to move down to her crotch, she stopped me with a light tug at my hair and pulled me up to lie with her properly, taking hold of my penis and trying to put it inside her with an unclear anger, perhaps because its tip was already covered with a delicate film, like my face, which was suddenly bathed in tears because the pain and pity of this strange love were complicating my lust. In a second I lost my concentration, and I knew that I would not be able to satisfy this beloved woman but only watch as her excitement weakened and died and ebbed away, like a wave returning to the sea. Thus we remained lying in a long, silent embrace until she opened her eyes and glanced at her watch and I saw her surprise at the tears on my face. “But what’s wrong?” she said. “Don’t be sorry, it doesn’t matter. In any case, everything’s impossible here.” And with uncharacteristic speed she got dressed, watching me with some anxiety as I slowly and feebly collected my clothes and put them on in the strange, cold room. Then we left the house, which she said she liked very much, and if there was time, she said, she would show it to Lazar as a good place to spend a holiday in London. On the way back she chattered gaily and quickened her steps, as if what had happened between us gave her hope of getting rid of me, or at least of warning me off. But when we entered the administrative wing of the hospital her strange gaiety gave way to a mild tension. She preferred to leave me at the end of the corridor and go on alone to Sir Geoffrey’s room.