I pick my way through the bushes the divorce file in one hand and two paper bags that are already coming apart in the other. If the dog jumps me I’ll throw him the strawberries. They needed special permission from the department of health to hospitalize him here the first time I set eyes on him when Ya’el introduced me to her family he was in the prime of life I said right away this dog needs either psychoanalysis or a bullet in the brain and the first he can get only in America they thought I was making another one of my jokes. All joking aside I can now make out the big mangy beast through the bushes part shepherd part bulldog and part monster getting slowly to his feet rattling his chain which I hope is attached at the other end to something solider than grass.
“Hi, there!” I call bizarrely jolly coming to a halt waving the file of documents moving slowly forward again to within a few feet of the dog who isn’t looking at me but knows that I’m there. After the wedding I tried calling her mother for a while but soon got over that aberration I even used to kiss her now and then. I was one confused person after that wedding.
She tosses the hose into an irrigation hole she bends down among the weeds to turn off the water and comes forward to greet me in the loose cotton shift that Ya’el bought her last year her strong legs in farm boots her uncombed blond hair that’s turned white with an odd luster falling gaily around her wrinkled freckled sunburned face. The day they all started saying that the baby looks like her was the day they spoiled the baby for me.
I press her hand.
“How are you?”
She smiles gently she ducks her head pertly she doesn’t answer.
“Ya’el sent this powder for the dog. It’s some kind of vitamins, I’m not sure which. I guess you mix it with his food. And these are some strawberries that I bought for you… I saw them on the way… luscious berries…”
She thanks me with a nod her eyes smiling she carefully takes the bags from me the smile is still there. If I had time I’d write a book about the connection between smiling and madness. We stand there for an awkward moment then lead each other to a bench beneath the trees we sit down she smiles uncertainly shaking her head with a slightly automatic motion.
“So he arrived the day before yesterday,” I begin in my most grandly auspicious even epic manner.
She listens still saying nothing.
“He looks well. Of course, he’s gotten older… but who hasn’t…”
Her eyes light up.
“Is he still complaining about that cramp in his neck?”
At last she’s said something. Although it remains to be seen what frequency she’s transmitting on.
“In his neck? I didn’t notice.”
What can she be talking about?
“A cramp?”
But she doesn’t answer she’s staring off into the distance.
“He still hasn’t gotten over the jet lag. He’s up all night and sleeps all day.”
She regards me searchingly.
“He doesn’t bother you… the children…”
“Of course not. Why should he? Gaddi is so happy to see him.”
The name Gaddi soothes her she shuts her eyes.
The dog charges quickly out of the bushes wagging his tail dragging the chain behind him sniffing the ground around me sniffing me loudly licking the bags on the bench whining a bit circling then lying down against my legs beneath the bench.
“And Ya’el must be terribly tired.”
“No… a little bit… it’s all right, though…”
“Let her rest. Don’t pressure her.”
“In what way?”
But she doesn’t answer. What does she really feel toward me? At first when she was well a slight disdain now in recent years a soft loony affection. Asa and even Tsvi have grown remote from her only Ya’el still looks after her and I look after Ya’el.
Silence. The crystal-clear spring air. A trickle of water still running out of the hose.
“It’s so lovely here. The breeze, the sea… everything, in fact. Did it rain here yesterday?”
Her head is cocked to one side her hands in the lap of her clean cotton shift strands of gold in the tresses of her hair she sits very straight.
“Whenever I think of you I tell myself how lucky we were to find such a quiet place. If ever I needed… this is the place… that is, I’d want to be put here… I mean…”
My big mouth again. That last sentence was uncalled for I have to shift into reverse now. But she’s listening to me carefully her fingers picking at the fabric of her dress nervously winding a loose thread. Far off in the middle of the path stands the giant with the broom rooted to one spot his blank face turned toward us.
At least here no one interrupts me when I talk.
I hand her the document.
“This is the agreement.” Suddenly I feel emotion. “I drew it up. It’s your divorce settlement.”
She regards me thoughtfully but doesn’t reach out to take it. I lay it carefully on her knees. The dog begins to whine he comes out from under the bench he rubs his red matted coat against me saliva dripping from his snout he lays his head in her lap sniffing the papers.
She looks at me. “He wants to read it.”
I smile caustically. Is she joking or being mad or both? She has a right to her mad jokes if I were her I’d make them too how tempting to be absolved of all legal responsibility for one’s words.
She opens the bag of strawberries she takes out a ripe berry she smells it and gives it to the dog who gulps it down.
“You’ve written so much here… must I read all of it?”
“I’m afraid you must before you sign. That’s how we generally do it.”
“We?”
“I mean we lawyers.”
She holds the document close to her eyes trying to make something of it but grows tired at once and hands it back to me.
“Maybe you’ll read it to me. I can’t see a thing. My glasses broke… I told Ya’el… I couldn’t read that book she gave me either…”
I take the document from her carefully wipe off the traces of the dog’s saliva and begin to read slowly. The dog gobbles ripe strawberries from her hand nuzzling the tom bag. Kissinger sits in a palatial garden by the Nile explaining the disengagement agreement while the photographers scramble with their telescopic lenses through the distant bushes. Here and there I pause to analyze the hidden meaning of some passage to point out a pitfall I’ve avoided or a loophole I’ve managed to close. But what does she understand? She doesn’t say a word just tightly grips the collar on the dog’s neck. At last I’m done.
“And the baby?” she asks. “She doesn’t wake you up at night anymore?”
“The baby?? Hardly ever.”
“I keep forgetting her name.”
“Rakefet.”
“That’s right, Rakefet. Write it down for me here, please.”
I write it down on a small piece of paper and give it to her.
Silence. The suspense is killing me.
“Why didn’t Ya’el come with you? Why did they send you by yourself?”
“She’ll be here tomorrow. So will he. We thought that… that it would be best… professionally speaking… if I’d explain things quietly to you first…”