“Okay,” I murmured. “It was fine. But I don’t have any cash left I gave it all to her.”
“How about a watch or a pen…?”
I didn’t answer. People turned to look at us. He smiled to himself, fair and patient to the last.
“Never mind, then. It’s something else in there with all those shoes, isn’t it? A special thrill. I always score well there. Well, never mind… next time… this is my beat, by the Jerusalem bus…”
He shook my hand. I felt shaken. Had he really seen right through me?
The bus lurched into the night, confidently negotiating the narrow streets of south Tel Aviv. To hell with the money. Not against life or beside it but straight into the teeth of it. Home. Home. You’ll help her. She’ll let you. She’s scared and so are you. But to lick her like a dog! From where did it grab me like that? The cheap scent of her perfume still clinging to my face the dust on her feet the sickening horror of it not till my dying day. Alone and by myself. The pairs of shoes in the dark store. An unplumbed reality. And now what? Horatio’s head between my palms old and decrepit half dead from chasing after father. I must make order at once. But what made me say my love? Something has happened. Something dreadful has happened and is done. If I’m not careful I’ll lose her. Dina my love. My child. My light. My forgiveness. Not against you. With you. But what made me say my love? Yours the decent folk and mine the lunacy. Let him stick to what he’s good at. He alone. While he lives and breathes. Let him sit and write.
Take care take care all things are possible never again. Too chancy. Though my heart stirs for it. And you deserved it.
A smell of orange groves in blossom. So spring is breaking out after all. The lights of the houses receding behind us. The last factories. What made me say my love? How did the words slip out? How do I annul them, take them back? What have I done? She must be worried to death. Gone to her parents’, called Ya’el, they’re at our house now. There’ll be hell to pay. What made me say my love?
The three basic rhythms. Contact, release and contraction. The more human beings come to resemble each other under the influence of culture, civilization, commerce and cross-contact, the more they seek freedom, even perversity, but also a greater sense of self via new conflicts. The Peloponnesian Wars. In the midst of such insight, such sophistication, such a blossoming of philosophy, art and religion, the Greek cities declare all-out, bloody wars on each other for no good reason and contract self-destructively.
The roar of the speeding bus into the night, plunging through Judean fog. Surrounded by patients. She leaned on me with such assurance. Did they sense it in me too? A kindred soul. I must be mad to bark like a dog where could it have come from? My students should have seen me. Must get up and bark for them. Her eyes on me. Vera Zasulich. The individual in history. After Passover I’ll start straight from the murder of the Tsar. In a subdued tone, with precise, colorful details. The thirteenth of March 1881. Nikolai Riskov pitches a bomb at the horses’ feet, not far from the Winter Palace. The cobblestones caked with ice. Sofia Proveskaya, that noble, magnificent soul. And above all, the thrower of the second bomb that killed the tyrant, the blond, curly-headed Pole Ignaty Grynbatski, age twenty-four, an engineering student who refused even to give his name when he lay dying in his own blood. Sitting paralyzed on a bench in the summer garden, Dostoyevsky hears of the planned assassination several months in advance and, despite his reactionary views, neglects to inform the authorities. I’ll hook them with the flashy little items and take them quickly on to the big significant ones. They’ll learn to love those lost young terrorists yet.
I can’t get rid of her smell. The taste of dry felafel and greasy sauerkraut. The smell of diesel fuel. My sticky fingers. First of all a hot bath. What strange stains on my clothes. I’ll elude her in the dark. But what made me say my love? And so easily.
The bus is speeding like mad. A cowboy of a driver. A wave of nausea inside me. The other passengers slumped mostly asleep in their seats. I can never learn to sleep on a bus. Horatio. Horatio. Did he ever get back to mother? So terribly sorry for him. Father will go back there tomorrow by himself. And you hit yourself. You’ll go mad yet. They’ll drive you to it. Genetic insanity awaits you Asa. But give it your all keep a clear head don’t take a wrong step. Now I know what my soul stirs for what I need. The sacred tremor within. A woman not a child. Yes my love.
I tripped going down the steps of the bus, the vomit already in my throat, while an old Civil Defense reservist stood looking on. My briefcase had puke on it too. Sick and shivering with chills, I dragged myself to the bus stop, where I waited endlessly for a bus to take me home.
The windows of the apartment were unlit. It was nearly eleven. Her parents must have taken her home with them. I unlocked the front door. The hallway was dark. The guest room was locked. Not a sound. I opened the living-room door, still clutching my briefcase. The blinds were down but bright light struck my eyes. Something was changed in the room. Had the furniture been rearranged? Pillows were scattered all over. Papers lay about the couch. A haze of cigarette smoke. She sal in her jeans with her shoes kicked off, her hair gathered at the back, wide awake, very pretty, looking as if she’d grown smaller during the day. There were more pages in her lap and pens everywhere. A small rag doll sat on the couch among big cushions.
I stopped in the doorway.
“I tried calling the neighbors but no one answered. I had to wait forever for buses. Did you call Ya’el?”
“No.”
“Don’t get up.” She had made no move to. “I threw up in the station in Jerusalem. I feel like I’m dying. What a day! I’m glad you didn’t come, you would have gone out of your mind. At least I spared you that. I have to wash up, the briefcase is filthy too. I’m sick. I missed you all day. Were you at your parents’?”
She shook her head with a faraway look, remote, self-absorbed, in a world of her own. She had a new secret. Some new role she’d thought up for herself.
“My mother still won’t sign. It’s a whole comedy. You can be thankful that your own parents are sane. Better a sane grocer than a… what did you do all day long? Wait a minute before you tell me. I want to wash up first.”
But I went to the kitchen instead. More pages on the dining table. Dirty breakfast dishes still in the sink and on the counter. Crumpled pages everywhere in her large, clear hand. Something about a young woman with a baby carriage.
“Stop that immediately!” she hissed behind me. “Go wash up. You look as though you’d been rolling in the gutter.”
“What did you do all day long? Where were you?”
“Right here.”
“Did you go to the bank? Did you take out money?”
“No.”
“So what did you do all day?”
“I was here. I wrote a story… complete, in one sitting. I was all alone. It felt good to be without you for a change…”
I went on collecting the dishes, sorting the silverware and the cups.
“Stop that! Go wash.” She raised her voice at me. “You’re a filthy, stinking mess!”
I put down the dishes and went to the bedroom. More papers all over the bed. Piles of clothing, hers, mine, on all the chairs: she must have emptied out the whole closet. She followed me silently, careful not to get too close, her light eyes opened wide. I wandered distractedly about the room before going to the bed. On the night table lay an open history book in English that I had been reading in the morning. Portraits of young Russian revolutionaries in cravats and high collars, a photograph of the Tsar in full military regalia, pictures of ladies in long evening dresses, the date of birth and death under each. The earnest face of Vera Zasulich, a gleam of mischief in her dark, deep-set eyes. A flash of fear ran through me as it dawned on me whose eyes they also were.