I go into the living room, look at him. A heavy, serious man, leafing through a newspaper wearily, without interest, I go to him, kiss him lightly on the cheek, feeling the thickness of his big beard. He’s surprised, he smiles, touches my head lightly.
“Has something happened?”
ADAM
But why not describe her detail by detail, clearly, precisely, why do I hesitate to consider everything? But what do I really want, I’m changing too, it’s impossible to preserve eternal youth, nor is that what you’re looking for. In the garage the workers stick pictures of nude girls on the walls. I say nothing, it’s not my business and if it helps them to work, fine. But Erlich’s annoyed by it, he interferes and imposes his own censorship, declares what’s permitted and what isn’t, going and taking down a picture that he thinks is too daring, protesting in his angry, pedantic voice, “Please, nothing tasteless, nothing pornographic, only what’s aesthetic,” and the workers laugh, sneer at him, start to argue, try to snatch the picture out of his hand, a gale of laughter sweeps the garage, work stops, the boys stand and stare, open-mouthed. I go to see what all the fuss is about, not interfering of course, the workers smile at me and gradually they drift back to their work. I look at the pictures, the smooth young bodies, endless variations on the same theme. There are some pictures that have been hanging here for perhaps ten or fifteen years, girls who have changed in the meantime into dull, middle-aged women, growing old, perhaps even dying and becoming dust and ashes and here they are on the grimy walls of the garage in their eternal youth and Erlich stands beside me blushing, is he angry or is he smiling, looking at the torn picture in his hand, the dirty old man, he still gets turned on, he winks at me — “The bastards, they want to turn the garage into a whorehouse.”
But I don’t care, it’s as if I’ve lost my desire. Soon after Dafi was born I felt the first signs, a deep sense of disappointment overcame me, I regretted that I’d been so persistent. We couldn’t bring the boy back. We really should have parted.
And I see Asya returning to her daily routine, as if she’s forgotten everything, and a new, unfamiliar lust takes hold of her. She wants to make love to me, at every opportunity. Sometimes she sits naked on the bed, reading a newspaper and quietly waiting for me and when I touch her she goes wild, comes quickly, as if by herself, ignoring me.
I begin treating her crudely, though she doesn’t seem to mind, delaying her on purpose, sometimes leaving her halfway through, a violence I never knew taking hold of me. Sometimes I’m afraid I may be going too far, but she still clings to me, the violence doesn’t scare her, perhaps the opposite.
I grow distant, changing my habits, going to sleep early, putting out the light, pulling the blanket over my head, playing dead, getting up with the dawn and going out. She tries to follow me, afraid to say plainly what’s on her mind, in the end she gives up. She’s grown thin again lately, has shrunk a little, there are signs that her bony frame is beginning to stoop, she walks briskly.
She’s beginning to despair of me, she comes into the bedroom at night without putting on the light so as not to rouse me but there are times when I wake up, suddenly, take her in my arms and try to make love to her. She whispers “You don’t need to struggle so” but I reply “I’m not struggling.” I’m looking around for the bedroom mirror, to see what I don’t feel.
VEDUCHA
A row of plants a vineyard an orchard a wheat field among them a big old growth. Banana? Watermelon? Dark eggplant? A dry dense little bush planted in a bed under pyjamas and a gown. Little twisted roots beneath the sheet like hard thumbs. A thick stem, a ball soft and damp, two sinewy branches a thin coat of resin. Thin moss covers a branch of white leaves. Thoughts of an ancient plant will she grow to the ceiling or break out through a window into the sunlight give flowers and fruit.
They come and pour gruel on the obstinate plant give it yellow tea to drink. The plant drinks in silence feeling only the sun revolving from window to window disappearing. Night. A plant in the darkness. But a door opens and a piercing draught stirs the waking plant the breeze passes through her branches penetrates to the roots. A door closes, a wind trapped in the plant, stirring free. Her bark peels off grows soft moss turns to hair resin to blood the stem grows weak and hollow, a whistling begins deep inside a wind comes in a wind goes out and a wind comes in again. A plant self-nourished spreading thin moisture a noisy plant the wind choking in her. Two acorns bursting out of the branch, growing fine, frosted glass absorbing light, soft hairy leaves hear voices. A plant sniffing herself tasting the bitter taste of a split leaf in her mouth. Hunger, thirst, feeling. Starting to groan — oh … ohhhh … ooo … the groan of a creature that once was a plant.
DAFI
It’s always dark there because the flat’s on the ground floor of a house on the hillside, but also because of the curtains that shut out the light and the weak light bulbs that her mom uses to save electricity. She doesn’t believe in ventilation, either, even though she gets the air free. The place always reeks of scent but such a nasty scent. When Osnat and I arrive we feel depressed even before we go inside. We wouldn’t be visiting Tali at all, only she’s sick today.
Always wearing the same dressing gown with the button missing right there in the middle, so you can see her gigantic tits. A big, untidy woman with pale blond hair scattered over her shoulders, maybe she was pretty once but now she’s all dried up, so unnerving, opening the door and giving us a mean look, saying, “Ah, at last you’ve remembered that you’ve got a friend,” although Tali’s only been sick since this morning.
We go into Tali’s room and find her as pretty as ever, with a high temperature, we sit down beside the bed waiting for her mom to go and then we start to gossip with her, telling her what’s been going on in the school, giving her the test paper that was handed back today and consoling her that half the class failed it, and Tali isn’t a great talker, she just smiles that dreamy smile of hers, takes the test paper and puts it under her pillow. After a while her mom comes in, moving a chair into the doorway, half in and half out, sitting there with a book in Hungarian, a cigarette in her mouth, glancing angrily at us, wanting to join in, as if we’ve come to visit her as well.
Osnat once told me that Tali’s mom is only half Jewish and didn’t want to come to Israel at all, except that Tali’s dad forced her to come here and then ran away and left her. We never said anything about this to Tali, maybe she doesn’t know that she’s quarter not Jewish, but it helped to explain all sorts of things, most of all her mother’s awful bitterness.
She sits there, not far from us, pretending to read her book, in a cloud of smoke, so solemn, staring at us as if we’re some kind of merchandise, not smiling even when we tell jokes. Every now and then she suddenly interrupts Osnat in midsentence with the most unexpected questions.
“Tell me, Osnat, how much does your father earn?”
Osnat’s taken aback.
“I don’t know.”
“Roughly?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Three thousand a month?”
“I don’t know.”
“Four thousand?”
“I don’t know,” Osnat almost shouts. But Tali’s mom is quite unperturbed.
“Then ask him sometime.”
“What for?”
“So you’ll know.”
“All right.”
And then there’s an uneasy silence, and we’re trying to pick up the threads of the interrupted conversation when suddenly –