A. Yehoshua - Open Heart

Very close, yet far away, the brown statuette stands on the little table next to our bed. Can we address our complaints to it? What is it but a bit of inorganic matter torn from nature, lacking any will of its own, indifferent to its painstakingly sculpted humanappearance? For the little clay hand flung out toward us is not only incapable of touching us, it can’t even let itself drop back into place. And despite the faint, mysterious, Gioconda smile on its face, its threat is only the threat that we project on ourselves, now in the depths of the night, as we toss and turn between sheets that scratch our limbs. Why should the close and intimate statuette of death be any different from the glasses, for instance, or the wallet, or even the keys lying beside it? Nevertheless, in the thick of the night our hand gropes only for it, to take hold of the slender neck and throttle it in the darkness, for in the light of day we might be stopped by the expression on the painted face and the frozen aesthetic movement of the delicate, shapely limbs, which deceive us into thinking that it possesses life and a soul. And then, in the darkness, we hear the sound of the fall, for the groping hand has missed its mark, and as we get out of bed and crouch down to grope for the broken pieces, a sudden but absolute pain jolts our chest and stuns our heart, to tell us that death has indeed come to us and not to the pieces of clay strewn over the floor.

Now that Lazar’s “space flight” had begun, guided by the three agile, swarthy technicians in charge of the state-of-the-art cardiopulmonary bypass machine — which was connected to many large and small plastic tubes coiling over the operating table and sucking the blood out of the square steel frame of the retractor as it slowly opened the heart like a book, and then streaming it back again — Nakash could leave his post at Lazar’s head and go out of the room to pour himself a cup of strong coffee from his private thermos. Although I was ready for a cup of the excellent coffee his wife made for him every morning myself, I couldn’t tear myself away, even though Dr. Yarden’s supervision of the patient’s anesthesia was more than adequate, especially since the respirator was still. Lazar’s heart as well as his lungs were paralyzed, and the rate of cleansed and oxygenated blood being pumped into the body and the brain was being determined by the instructions of the surgeon, who kept throwing changing orders over his shoulder. The three technicians would repeat them after him, like a crew of gunners making sure that no fatal misunderstanding should occur. The blood in the tubes flowed freely, with no danger of clotting, thanks to a continuous drip of Heparin, which neutralized the natural clotting factors and ensured an unimpeded flow between the turning wheels. The head of the technical crew enjoyed explaining to me how he pampered the bloodstream entrusted to his charge, warming and cooling it as required, as if it were an independent, sentient being that had to be soothed by an alkaline solution to neutralize the strong acidity produced by the trauma of being suddenly removed from the warmth of the human body and placed into the movement of the alien machine. When Dr. Yarden saw that Nakash wasn’t coming back immediately, he took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and beckoned me to approach the silent anesthesia machine, which didn’t really need an anesthetist but only a pair of eyes to watch the controlled drip of fentanyl and curare, which maintained the relaxation of the muscles and the analgesia. Levine too left the room, and next to the operating table there were now only three doctors, Dr. Adler, Professor Hishin, and myself. I took two footstools and placed one on top of the other so I could raise myself above the net protecting Lazar’s head, to give myself a better vantage point from which to look down directly at the implanting of the bypasses. This was now being purposefully performed by Dr. Adler, with the assistance of Hishin, who played the double role of pupil to his friend, addressing various technical questions to him, and teacher to me, generously passing on tidbits of clinical diagnosis or anatomical observations to satisfy the inquisitive gleam in my eye and to ensure that my presence, the reason for which was still not clear to him, would at least seem justified.

That night as I lay in bed, before burying my face in the pillow and trying to fall asleep, I reviewed the six hours of the operation in my mind’s eye — Lazar’s naked genitals, his exposed heart reposing within the walls of his open chest, the blood coursing through the dozens of crisscrossing tubes, the silent bronze wheels of the cardiopulmonary bypass machine — and everything that had happened there seemed to me more harmonious, calm, and sure than I could possibly have imagined. Including the rather dramatic moment when the blood was returned to the body and Lazar’s heart refused to return to its sinus rhythm, a refusal that led Professor Adler to pull two electrodes from the defibrillator, place them on either side of the recalcitrant heart, and give it a few short electric shocks to start it and return it to the right rhythm, which appeared on the screen of the big monitor. Hishin and Levine had been right, I thought, lying in the dark in my bed, to bring in the Jerusalem master, who had worked with awe-inspiring competence and quiet confidence, and who had also dismissed with a reassuring gesture the fears I had dared to express when the operation was over. Although he was so tired after standing on his feet for six hours that he asked the nurse to help him divest himself of all the stuff encumbering him — the mask, the gloves, the headlamp, the sterile cap and gown — he seemed interested and willing to listen, with the patience of a wise physician who is never bored by anything to do with the human body. But Levine, who was still hostile toward me, broke in rudely to point out a mistake in one of the assumptions I had made, and Professor Adler, who had no desire to get involved in an argument, cut the discussion short, murmuring something reassuring about Lazar’s heart, and went out with Hishin to inform Lazar’s wife and the other members of the family of the success of the operation.

I did not join the convoy taking the sleeping and bandaged Lazar up to the intensive care unit that had been prepared for him in Hishin’s department. Hishin had also turned his own office into an improvised bedroom for Lazar’s wife, who intended to spend the night there. Now that the operation was over and I had seen what I wanted to see and felt what I wanted to feel, all I wanted was to be by myself. But since it was already past one o’clock in the morning and the rates for overseas calls were particularly low, I decided to phone Michaela to make the final arrangements for Shivi’s return in two days, and at the same time to tell her how smoothly Lazar’s surgery had gone and how admirably the Jerusalem wizard had performed and how I did not regret my early return from London, even though I hadn’t been needed there at all. But in spite of the lateness of the hour — eleven o’clock in London — Michaela was not at home. I found it strange and also annoying that she was prepared to drag the baby around London in buses at this hour of the night.

We had sold our little car, after strenuous efforts, to one of the nurses at the hospital, in order to pay for our plane tickets. Mine and Michaela’s, that is, for Shivi flew home free, on the ticket of one of the two sweet young English girls who amused themselves with her on the way. When I met them at the airport, it turned out that Michaela had promised them, without my knowledge, that they could stay in our apartment for their first few days in Israel. I was furious. Only a few days before I had finally succeeded in getting rid of Amnon and all his possessions, and now I had two new guests on my hands — an intolerable nuisance when I was still in a state of inner turmoil stemming from Lazar’s operation. Although the operation had taken place forty-eight hours earlier, I had not yet visited Lazar in the special room set aside in Hishin’s department, for fear that Dori, or anyone else, would notice the storm raging inside me.