On the steps of the house it’s already twilight. Barefoot and saturated with sun and salt, hair wet and bedraggled, I go into the dark house that’s full of the smells of cooking, the stench of people. Mommy’s in the study, in the pale electric light, papers and books scattered about her, dirty coffee cups, plates and scraps of food, the bed unmade, pillows squashed, the ashtray overflowing, the traces of that man, the assistant, the secretary, the translator, the devil knows what, all around her.
ADAM
He used to arrive in the morning and leave early in the afternoon, I didn’t meet him but I knew that he came almost every day to translate, to copy, to consult dictionaries. Asya really made him work, because he had time and he very much wanted to redeem the car that still stood there in the garage covered in dust, from time to time it had to be moved so as not to interfere with the work until finally Erlich told them to lift it and push it into the storeroom, they found room for it there between two boxes, it was that small.
“You’re in pretty deep with that car,” Erlich couldn’t resist saying. “You won’t see a single cent from that crazy bastard.”
But I just smiled. Heavy summer days, the long vacation at its height. Dafi goes down to the sea every day, she wants to get as sunburned as she possibly can, she says she wants “to be really black.” And I’m in the garage, which is working at only half capacity because of the workers going away in turn on their holidays. Erlich has gone abroad too, and I have to look after the accounts on my own, staying on to a late hour. When I arrive home in the evening I find Aysa in her room, in a new, unfamiliar kind of chaos. Books and papers on the floor, dirty coffeecups, pips and nut shells on the plates, full ashtrays. And she sits in the middle of all this, silent, milder than she used to be, thinking her thoughts. A quiet woman, detached perhaps, refusing to look me in the eyes.
“So, you’ve been working,” I say softly, a statement, not a question.
“Yes …I haven’t been outside the house.”
“How’s he doing?”
She smiles.
“He’s odd … a strange man … but easy to get on with.”
I ask no more questions, afraid of alarming her, of upsetting her confidence, of showing surprise, even when I find some strange-looking stew, reddish-brown, in a bowl in the fridge, she’s never cooked food like that before.
She blushes, stammering.
“I tried something new today … he gave me the idea for it.”
“He?”
“Gabriel.”
They’re cooking together now –
I smile amiably, not saying a word, eat some of the stew, it has a strange sweet taste, I compliment her on it, mustn’t give her a sense of guilt, crush her hope, show her a sign of the jealousy that isn’t there. Give her strength, give her time, we’re no longer young, both in our forties, and the man is strange, unstable, he may disappear at any moment, the long vacation will be over soon.
I remember a particularly hot summer, heavy on the limbs, and I’m up to my eyes in work in the half-empty garage, among the few workers, hardly managing to cope, walking around among the cars and thinking about him, how to hold on to him, maybe I should give him some sign. One day I come home early, waiting in my car at the corner of the street, watching them as they both come out of the house, climbing into her Fiat, she drives and I follow, my heart beating fast. She drives him to his house in the lower city, in the market area, he gets out, she says something to him, leaning out of the window, talking earnestly, he listens with a faint smile, glancing around him. They part. I park my car, run after him to catch him before he disappears in the crowd. I see him standing in the doorway of a vegetable shop buying tomatoes. I touch him lightly, he blushes when he recognizes me.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Your grandmother?”
“No change … I don’t know what to think.”
So, he’s still trapped here –
“Where do you live?”
He points to a house on the corner, his grandmother’s house.
“How’s the work that I found for you?”
He smiles, taking off his sunglasses as if he wants to see me better.
“From my point of view it’s fine … perhaps I really can help her … she’s trying to do something very difficult … but …”
“The car?” I interrupt him, I don’t want to let him talk too much.
“The car …” He’s puzzled. “What about it?”
Has he forgotten it?
I study him closely, the dirty shirt, the crumpled clothes, the bag of tomatoes going soft in his hands.
“I’m sorry, I can’t let you have it yet, my partner’s a stubborn type … he isn’t prepared … but if you’re short of money I can always give you a small loan …”
And before he can reply I take a bundle of bills out of my pocket, a thousand pounds, and lay them carefully on top of his tomatoes.
He’s confused, touching the bills, wanting to count them. He asks if he ought to sign something.
“No need … you’ll be coming back to us, of course.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“By the way, I ate some of that food that you cooked … it was excellent.”
He laughs.
“Really?”
Just be careful not to scare him –
I lay a hand on his shoulder.
“Well then, have you got used to the sun? You don’t want to run away from us …?”
“Not yet.”
I shake his hand affectionately and he quickly disappears into the crowded market.
ASYA
Wooden steps, flowery paper on the walls, the stairs up to the village dentist, a tall old woman comes out of the office, putting on an overcoat. She glows — A wonderful dentist, you won’t feel a thing.
And through the open door I see a big dentist’s chair facing me, and the dentist, with clean-shaven rosy round cheeks, a bow tie straggling over his white coat, sitting in the chair, his head leaning back on the rest, his hands folded in his lap, and the pure reddish light, the rural light, the otherworldly light, oh; such a clear light, shining on his sleepy face, full of glowing contentment at the painless treatment he has just performed.
I enter. In the corner of the room, beside the big primitive washbasin stands Gabriel, in a short white gown, dressed as an assistant, offering me a cup half full of a whitish liquid, like milk mixed with water. A soporific. Apparently this is the revolutionary innovation of this rustic office, this primitive place. They no longer give anaesthetic injections, they give you a drink to soothe the pain.
I take the cup from his hand and drink. The liquid’s tasteless but it’s heavy. Like drinking mercury. It slips down my throat and plunges into my stomach like a clear and smooth weight. A festive feeling, I’ve drunk something full of meaning. And I’ve already mounted a second chair, like the armchair in the study except that one arm is missing, to make it easier for the dentist to approach the patient. Such a pleasant silence. At the window that wonderful light. I wait for the drug to take effect, for the light paralysis within, Gabriel lays out instruments on the tray, thin wooden rulers, not threatening, not dangerous, and the dentist still doesn’t move from his seat, he really is asleep.
“It’s taking effect,” I say. I feel nothing but I know that it’s takng effect, I want it to take effect, it must take effect. And he takes a thin ruler and with a light touch opens my mouth, his face tense with concentration, sliding gently into the hollow of my mouth, as if trying to make certain where it is, to see if I really have a mouth. I’m overwhelmed by the sweetness of his light touch.