THE FIRST DAY OF PASSOVER
I still am haunted by the knowledge that,
whether separate or apart, we are one thing.
Already it’s tomorrow. This is it. A new shadow gleams on the wall like a bar of thin mercury. Good morning last day. Who would have thought they would all pass so quickly? A matter of hours now. At midnight tonight your divorced your divorcing father blasts off. A whirlwind visit but the knot has been cut. Not without mistakes but I’m free. To forget it too. All the dreadful little moments. Perhaps only one of them will remain perhaps not even that the parchment flying through the air into her outstretched palms a spasm of rabbis around us. Old toothless religion you still have the power to shock at the least expected times. A dash of mystery. So farewell my murderess. No fantasy of mine. A few hours from now you will bank steeply over clouds and land in a gray alien dawn straight into a big American kitchen filled with quiet suburban light. Into a cold and peaceful exile. The Return of the Old Israeli laying his now available name beside the swollen white belly. Cold cereal and coffee before stripping to a flabby erection. But with infinite patience. There you do not disappoint. There is only grateful wonder that you exist at all. That you are what you are. But what time is it and what’s happened to my watch?
The door opened gently, admitting a quick shaft of reddish light, and Ya’el groped her patient, cumbersome way into the room. Without a sound she made straight for my bed and rolled back the blanket, searching among the sheets. Carefully she moved aside my hand and pulled out a small, limp bundle from beneath my feet.
“Ya’eli?”
“Shhh. Go back to sleep, father. I’m just taking the baby.”
“Rakefet? She’s still here? I forgot all about her… but what happened?”
“She must have put you to sleep.’’
Night’s sweet, stubborn plaything came aloft from the sheets, her clenched fist a last vestige of her nocturnal storm of tears, her head drooping limply, delicately backwards. For a second she blinked, a blue light flashing in the stubbornly idling little engine.
“You should have woken me. How did I miss hearing her?” said Ya’el.
“Don’t be silly, what for? I wouldn’t give up an extra minute with her, and I couldn’t just let her cry. What time is it?”
“It’s still early, father. Go to sleep. You have a long, hard day ahead of you.”
“But what time is it, Ya’eli?”
“Not even six yet. Go back to sleep.”
“I can’t find my watch.”
I got out of bed and searched for it barefoot among the linen. Ya’el bent and poked a hand into the large, finned diaper just as the little fist opened and a shiny object fell onto the pillow.
“She swiped it from you,” laughed Ya’el. “But at least she was fair enough to return it in her sleep.”
“Let me have her for a minute. I can’t stand to think of leaving her.”
I reached out to take her on my lap, planting little kisses on her warm mouth and on the familiar set of her jaw. All at once she sighed deeply.
The door shuts the shaft of light is gone the silent tremor of a shadow resumes its place on the wall. My bare feet still touch the cold floor the watch is warm and fragrant in my hand its face hidden from me. Let it be a clockless day. Leave time alone for this once. Forget it let it lie in your bag by your ticket and passport ticking away in the dark while you step out of the cold vise of its hands into the nebulous light now creeping toward the issue of your loins who will get you through this day let them pilot you in and out of it right up to the flight gate at midnight Ya’el and Tsvi and Asi and Dina who promised to come today too let them all have their way with you. You are theirs today you belong only to them even to Gaddi who has gotten close to you in his fashion even to the baby even to Kedmi yes you will put up with him too. Be patient with him today the man puts his foot in his big nasty mouth each time he opens it yet since you helped him get his murderer back he’s mellowed toward you. You can put up with him too I’m at your service Kedmi have all the fun you want with me I’ll even put up with your Haifa this formless town that once used to be a real city but is only the sum of its neighborhoods now. Yes you can even put up with Haifa today in this new holiday light this aroma of spring. All winter long you dreamed of Tel Aviv the people the places in the end it all went down the drain of coming and going to see her in the hospital but never mind. The knot has been cut the parchment crossed the room. Next time. Whenever that will be. It’s goodbye for a long while now. My small maddening land you’ll have to wait for me I need to rest. What was it that little fellow that Calderon said that night in the kitchen his dark eyes deep in their sockets just give me time. To protect the chafed exposed surface of your embroiled identity. A nervous land. And how quickly without even thinking he agreed to give her his share. Just give me time. But the knot has been cut. A new freedom. The shadow moves on the wall the windowpane shakes a bus starts its motor in the street startling the morning’s deep quietude. I lift the blinds and open the window letting a breeze slip inside. A dawn mist swaddles the bay. The newspapers vivisect this country on each page merrily they wonder if it has a future Kedmi makes hash of it ten times a day but here it is stretching so peaceful and safe its smokestacks exhaling lazy gray smoke into a low sky. Reality is stronger than all thought it even surprises itself.
Not even Kedmi believed it until they rang the doorbell halfway through the seder. We were sitting with our Haggadahs, and for a moment I was terrified that it was her on the heels of her phone call. But Kedmi ran to the door and there he was in the dim light of the hallway, come to turn himself in. I didn’t recognize him at first in a white shirt, freshly shaven and combed, his beady chimp’s eyes gleaming fiercely, until Kedmi broke out in a crafty smile and grabbed him with both hands as though to make sure he stayed put. He was already talking a blue streak. “Well, well, well, what an honored guest! Just look at what we have here, everyone! Now that we’ve made two happy people of father and mother, it’s time to cheer up the police…. But do come in. We’ll have to think quick if we’re to keep this night off of yours from costing you another two years.”
The young man stood silently, sullenly in the doorway, recoiling from Kedmi’s grasp, a great fatigue in his eyes. He turned back toward the dark stairway from which two more figures emerged, one of a short, sturdy old workingman wearing a threadbare suit and gray cap and clutching a plastic bag, and the other of a swarthy, unkempt, gypsyish-looking woman of undefinable origin. Kedmi divined at once who they were and hurried toward them.
“This way, please, Mr. and Mrs. Miller. Come right in, it’s no imposition at all. I’m sure God won’t mind if we take a break and finish the seder later. Come in, have a seat.”
I felt a twinge of pity for the father standing so awkwardly with his dark wife, who looked too young to be the boy’s mother. I rose to make room for them and offer them my seat, as did Ya’el, while Kedmi’s mother sat up and smiled indulgently and Tsvi slumped deeper in his chair, looking the murderer over. More chairs were brought but the couple seemed uncertain whether to join us or not. Both kept looking at their son, unprepared to have to part with him again.
“Sit down, have something to drink,” said Kedmi, suddenly in one of his manic moods. “Perhaps you’d like some wine… you can have the cup we saved for Elijah…”
“You haven’t informed the police yet?” asked the father in a thick German accent.