The Same Sea Read online

  In Bangladesh in the rain Rico understands for a moment

  With his back to his mother on the bridge in the warm rain

  between a small town and a swamp Rico hears wet voices

  in the distance. Women, foggy bears, are laughing in the flooded

  field and one of them waves to him, inviting him to join them.

  His waterlogged hair in his face and a whiff of stray smell

  that reminds him of overripe figs, the smell of Dita with his

  tongue in her ear and his hand stroking the inside of her thigh.

  The warm rain keeps falling and under the bridge the muddy

  river flows porridge-like. Sorrow and desire come, desire rises like

  mercury in the thermometer of his cock pressed against the wall

  of the bridge while his hands move to and fro over the rough

  parapet He looks at the trees with their roots half-exposed

  in the soggy air, extra-terrestrial fingers, clutching at nothing.

  Because his back is to his mother, inevitably he is facing

  his father. If he turns his back on his father he will face

  his mother again. He must change this staging, move my parents

  closer to each other so that I can have my back to both

  and return. The peasant woman who was calling him gives up

  and stoops toward the mud, as the rain goes on and on.

  Magnificat

  Morning of orange-tinged joy: I get up at half past four and by five I have

  finished my coffee and am settling down at my desk, and almost at once

  there emerge two fully-formed lines running straight from my pen to

  the paper like a kitten weaving on tiptoe out of the bushes, there they are

  as though they were not written but always existed, not mine but their own.

  The light of the hills to the east cannot keep its hands to itself, shamelessly

  groping at private parts, causing heavy breathing all around, in birds branches

  sand bees, so here we are delightedly leaving the desk and going off to work

  in the garden, although it is not even six, the fictional Narrator, the whole

  cast of characters, the implied author, the early-rising writer, and I.

  Roses, myrtles, bougainvillaea, violets and sage have all gathered dewdrops

  and are now gently lit. Rico and Giggy Ben-Gal are clearing the ground

  round the two lemon trees, while Nadia, my father and Dombrov are pruning

  suckers from the roses and Avram is helping the author and Albert to hoe

  the edges of the flowerbed, weeding by hand among the flowers. Bettine,

  my mother and Dita are stooping and tying sweet peas to canes and even

  the Russian merchant stops on his way to China, and repairs the vine trellis,

  while my daughter Fania helps him, asking him how much they know

  in Nanking about Nizhni and how Nizhni looks from Nanking, and Maria

  is planting a window box and here are the Dutchmen as well, Thomas Johan

  Wim and Paul, making holes in the ground where Elimelech the carpenter

  tells them to, and my daughter Galia is pruning even though she would

  definitely have laid the whole thing out quite differently, and the man who

  was Nadia's first husband hums as he rakes up dead leaves and my son Daniel

  turns over the soil, improvising tunes with the fork, and the carpenter's

  daughter follows him with a roller, while Rajeb spreads fertilizer. In Sea Road

  and in Cyclamen Street my little grandchildren, Dean, Nadav, Alon and Ya'el,

  are still dreaming, while here in the garden, careful not to wake them, I caress

  the sweet air that trembles around their hair, suppressing a powerful urge

  to lick their cheeks or foreheads, to nibble their toes with my teeth.

  Morning of orange-tinged joy, every wish is switched off and only delight

  is alight. Grief fear and shame are as far from me today as one dream is

  from another. I take off my shoes, play the hose on my feet my plants and

  the light, whatever I have lost I forget, whatever has hurt me has faded,

  whatever I have given up on I have given up on, whatever I am left with

  will do. My children's thirty fingers, my grandchildren's forty, and my garden,

  and my body, the few lines that came right this morning, and here at the window

  my lovely wife who is close to the core of life is calling us all indoors, there is

  bread ready sliced cheese and olives and salad, and soon there'll be coffee

  as well. Later I'll go back to my desk and maybe I'll manage to bring back

  the young man who went off to the mountains to seek the sea

  that was there all the time right outside his own home. We have wandered

  enough. It is time to make peace.

  Where am I

  Why do we never see you anywhere, they say to him, why

  do you bury yourself in that hole, they say, far away from your friends,

  with no parties, no nights out, no fun, you ought to get out,

  see people, clock in, show your face, at least give some signs

  of life. Forget it, he says to them, I get up at five o'clock have a coffee

  and by the time I have erased and written six or seven lines

  the day's already over and evening is falling to erase.

  In the evening, at a quarter to eleven, Bettine phones the Narrator

  Bettine is at home again tonight. She has drawn the curtains and rolled down the blinds to the balcony so as not to have to see the fat neighbor opposite excavating his nose, hairy in an undershirt and sweat pants gawking from his armchair at some sitcom on the television. On the other side the sea, smooth tonight, chilly, shining darkly, a sea like the black glass nameplate of a respectable firm, with lines of gleaming gold writing, a pricey, highly polished sea, Current Liquidations Ltd. Bettine is in her armchair, lit by the glow from a parchment lamp shade, reading Troyat's biography of Chekhov. At the end of each page she shuts her eyes and thinks about the Narrator, he must be in Arad in the desert now, at the desk that Elimelech the carpenter made for him. She dips a honey cake into the tea that has gone cold in the cup at her side: on the cover is a photograph of Dr. Chekhov, almost a young man but his soft beard and hair and eyebrows are turning silver. He is wearing a striped jacket with wide lapels and a waistcoat, a stiff collar with a bow tie that is slightly askew, and a sad pince-nez secured by a cord. His eyes are those of a humble doctor who has made his diagnosis and knows what is going to happen but has not told his patient yet, although he knows that it is his duty to tell him now. I'm not the Almighty, his eyes say to the patient in front of him, after all you've known for some time now deep down inside, although you hoped, I hoped too, that these tests would surprise us and announce a reprieve. I cannot grant a reprieve, say Dr. Chekhov's eyes in the photograph, but I can and must do something now to block the pain. I'll prescribe you some tincture of opium. I'll also give you a sleeping potion, and some morphine injections to help you breathe. Get plenty of fresh air, sunshine and rest, don't try to do anything, just wrap up warm and sit in a wicker chair in the garden in the shade of the arbor and dream. Our business here is grim and hopeless, it goes round and round in circles, it is dreary and troublesome, but I'll prescribe you a dream and delusion, that you will still recover, that you will drive in your carriage to Tula, to Kazan, that you will still send rafts laden with merchandise down the river, that you will still buy Nikitin's estate at a favorable price, that you will still charm Tania Fyodorovna into leaving that vulgar Gomilev and coming back to you. Sit and dream. Dr. Chekhov is lying, and the shadow of a humble smile flits around the corners of his mouth. My soul is weary, he writes to Suvorin in August 1892, "I am bored. Not my own master, thinking about nothing but diarrhea, waking suddenly at n
ight at the bark of a dog or a knock at the gate, are they coming to call for you? Travelling in a trap drawn by a worn-out mare along unknown tracks, reading about nothing but cholera, waiting for nothing but its coming, and at the same time feeling totally indifferent to the illness and the people you are treating." And in another letter: "The peasants are coarse, filthy, suspicious, I am the most wretched of the doctors in the district, my carriage and horse are useless, I do not know the roads, I cant see anything at night, I have no money. I tire very quickly, and above all I cannot forget that I must write, and I have a mighty urge to spit on the cholera and sit down and write." Bettine lays the book face down open on the arm of her chair and goes to the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. Through her kitchen window the fat neighbor in his kitchen window opposite, in a long-sleeved vest and sweat pants, leans staring into the darkness or peering into her window, is caught out and smiles guiltily, perhaps he is dreaming about sending rafts down the river. Bettine draws the curtain and shuts him out. It's a quarter to eleven, the Narrator is still up, she dials. Sorry to call so late. I just wanted to tell you that Dita has moved back to Albert's because she has lent the flat he rented for her in Mazeh Street to Dombrov, who has been evicted from his own flat because he owes rent, and Giggy Ben-Gal, who promised to advance him some cash on account, has gone off to Spain and forgotten. And there was a postcard yesterday from Bengal, he's still chasing his shadow, as usual. Do you happen to have read Troyat's book about Chekhov? It brings me, right here in Bat Yam, a sense of fallen leaves in the snow, a sense of vast gardens abandoned to the autumn wind. It's all quite hopeless really, but at the same time quite diverting. It turns out that something that never was and never will be is all that we have. We are woken suddenly at night, every time a dog barks or a gate creaks, but the barking subsides to a whimper, the gate stops creaking, and all is quiet again. Did I interrupt you while you were writing? I'm sorry. Good night. By the way, next time you're in Tel Aviv call me, we'll have a glass of tea at my place or on Albert's veranda. It wasn't bad, what you wrote about the sea tonight, a pricey sea, smooth black with golden letters, a respectable company, Current Liquidations Ltd. Spit on the cholera. Just sit down and get on with your writing.

  In a remote fishing village in the south of Sri Lanka Maria asks Rico

  A virgin? A waitress? A nun? What shall I be tonight? Only not

  your mother again. But first of all play the flute. Not in here. Lets

  go down to the beach; there you can play for me and tell me

  a story. One by one the fishing boats are taking to the sea

  in a shimmer of lamps, licking the waves with their oars,

  like tongues on a breast Maria is in a wind-swollen skirt he

  is barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt walking not by her side

  but a few steps behind her. Whenever he played he drew

  to him animals, bushes, meadows, mountains bent over

  to hear, streams left their beds, the north wind froze not to miss

  a note, the birds fell silent, even the sirens stopped singing

  and listened. When his beloved died he followed her down

  to the underworld, charmed Persephone with his playing,

  from the eyes of Death himself he wrung five or six iron tears,

  and he hypnotized his dog. Surely every poet every musician

  every charlatan tries like him to bring back the dead. The one condition

  was that he not turn back or look behind, that he

  walk ahead without turning around. On the face of it this

  was an easy condition, an obvious security measure, to protect

  the privacy of the underworld. Hades, however, that iron-teared

  rhymester, knew his victim's mind: the wise man's eyes may be

  in his head, but not so the poet's. A poet's eyes are in the back

  of his neck. The minstrel always plays facing backward.

  And so, as black turned to grey, his arms were drawn to embrace her

  but she was no longer there. To play or to touch. Either or.

  Since then he has been a wanderer and a fugitive like the young David

  in the caves of Adullam, playing to the forests that froze to

  hear his notes, playing to the hills. Try to imagine it Maria:

  the rivers of sounds that have traversed the world since then,

  including thunders, screams, barks, melodies, pleas, coughs,

  shots, whispers, flutterings, the sighing of trillions of leaves,

  earthquakes, drips, chirps, confessions, echoes and ripples of

  echoes, all the innumerable sounds that, like everlasting autumn,

  have long since buried the trickle of his piping. The winter

  of the scuds, that I told you about in Bengal, Dita and I went together

  to the old cemetery in a kibbutz called Ayyelet Hashahar, where

  you can sometimes hear a sort of sound that promises you tonight

  whatever you want on condition that you don't look back.

  His father rebukes him again and also pleads a little

  Listen carefully. This is your father speaking. A simple man,

  a rather grey man, and so on and so forth, but still your father. The only one

  you have, and that's something your irony can't change.

  That cheap woman you're with may let off

  fireworks in bed, I'm not an expert in such matters

  and I'm sorry to mention it, but fireworks

  go out and time is drying up and the summer is over and you are

  not back. The summer is over the autumn is gone and what about you,

  where are you? Shrouded in fog in limbo in the arms

  of a whore. It's lucky your mother—well, never mind. Don't hang up.

  Just a minute. Listen to me: Dita is back here. In your room.

  Sometimes, just in my mind's eye, I look at her and think,

  my grandchild is drying up. Wait. Don't put the phone down. The autumn

  is over and you are just mist. Last night I dreamed of my own father,

  he was kneading dough, grunting hoarsely in Ladino, Stupido Albert,

  asno, in ten more minutes se hizo hamets. This call

  is already costing me a fortune, but there's one more thing I have to tell you:

  under the same roof she is waiting and so am I. There is something not right

  about this. The summer is over and the autumn is gone; the rain brings me

  a smell of dust. Don't come back too late.

  In between

  Like a sooty engine at the end of its journey the lit half

  of the earth drags wearily toward the shadow

  while the dark half gropes at the first line of light.

  Dita whispers

  My hand in the hay of your old chest

  plucks straw

  to line our nest

  But Albert stops her

  Her hand so light in the hay of my chest. On the back

  of her hand my shrivelled hand. She's on my own. I'm on her own.

  On my veranda. We are alone. The sea has taken, the sea

  has given. A slim silhouette and a little shadow. A timid

  shadow. That turns. Escapes. The sea gives and the sea

  takes.

  Then, in the kitchen, Albert and Dita

  She is making an omelette, he is chopping a salad, her shoulder brushes

  the skin of his arm like lips touching a lace veil. A cup drops. It doesn't break.

  He takes this as a favorable omen: salad with olives, a big omelette,

  yoghurt with honey and fresh strong black bread with ewes' milk cheese.

  All this at nearly two o'clock at night, in Sri Lanka it's already morning

  while here there's the smell of the kitchen after a meal. They clear away

  the dishes, he'll wash up tomorrow, right now it's late. In the bathroom

  the two of them: he in grey flannel pyjamas, she with a
T-shirt down

  to her thighs, he with his back to her, facing the bowl, she facing

  the mirror, brushing her teeth, he's in his slippers, her feet are bare,

  before going to sleep he wants to sew a button on for her,

  on the side, on the waist of her orange skirt that he takes on his arm

  to his room like a bride to her wedding bed. Close and breathing, close and

  chilly, beyond his window the sea sighs. The doors are locked. Soon the bird

  Scorched earth

  The teeth of time, smoke without fire. On the bade of my hand

  I see the brown mark that once used to be, at the very same spot,

  on my father's gnarled hand. And so my father is back

  from underground. For years he has failed and now, at last,

  remembered to hand over to his son a patch of pigment

  from his estate. The teeth of time. Scorch-mark without fire.

  Ancestral seal. The gift of the dead

  on the back of your hand.

  Good, bad, good

  Maria can also read fortunes. She reads them in coffee grounds,

  she puts on her glasses to read, Maria is not so young any more. There's

  good news and bad news in the coffee. The bad news is that time

  flies. The good news is that time heals. That the evening is fine.

  The bad news, that we're out of coffee. And almost out of money.

  Look, there's a goat, staring at us like a widow,

  maybe she's mistaken us for a mother and son, never mind,

  let her live with her mistake, after all, why should we argue with a goat?

  Especially a goat who's a widow. Tonight we'll eat dates, we'll sleep on this

  straw, and not shoo her away. Come here, touch me. Tomorrow Chandartal.

  Dubi Dombrov tries to express

  Twenty to three in the morning. This is the time, not six, that ought to be at the bottom of a clock: the lowest time, when you can see what's going to happen. Dubi Dombrov calls Dita Inbar who is napping over the City News behind die hotel reception desk, her cheek resting on her hand; by her side, in a plastic cup, some lemonade is losing the last of its fizz. Sorry, he says, I just thought you might be free now to chat a bit. I suddenly had this idea that if you could manage to touch your old man, say, or some other old man, for nine thousand dollars or so, it would put me in the clear, as they say. We could spread our wings and make one hell of a film. With money like that I'd even give you a fifty-fifty share of Dombrov Productions Ltd. We'll repay the money within a year. We won't just repay it, we'll double it. Two people who count, top people at Channel 2, have read the revised script and definitely see potential in it. The problem is that I'm a bit in the red. I've sold the Fiat (with nine parking tickets and only two days left on the insurance) but don't worry, I'll clear out of your flat in Mazeh Street the moment I get the money Giggy promised. Besides which I've got eczema, besides which I missed two months of my alimony and today I got a sequestration order in the mail plus a call-up for the reserves, twelve days in Kastina, besides which I haven't moved my bowels for three days. Excuse the details. If the old man won't chip in nine thousand maybe he could make it two, or even a grand? I've got a painting by Tumarkin that must be worth twice that, I'll make it a gift to you. Anyway, I've been wanting to give you something personal, something beautiful for some time. It's a rather repulsive picture, actually, but it's all I've got, Dita. Nobody can give what he hasn't got. I'm not asking anything from you Dita, only that you should try to see me in a slightly different light sometimes. If you can. As for the money, get as much as you can, the old man is wild about you, and you'll see that our film will take off after all. Even a couple of grand would do for starters, after that you'll be amazed how this venture of ours will run all by itself. Believe me, I wouldn't for the life of me ask you for a penny if I had any choice. Tell me, Dita says, have you any idea what time it is? And tell me, Dita says, where are you living, anyway. To which Dubi Dombrov replies, with his bad breath hitting her across the switchboard and the wire, You want the truth? Were living in a flash. All of us. In a flash—it describes time and in a way it also describes space too. Honest, I wish I could put my body into storage, or mortgage it. I don't care if I don't get a cent for it. I'd even pay. All my troubles come from this lump of flesh that's clung to me since I was a child and doesn't let me rise above it. Nothing good ever came from it It guzzles fuel like crazy and all it ever does is make me blush or squirm. This body of mine is forever flat on its face. If only I could get around town without it everything would be so easy. I'd stage a project the likes of which this city has never seen before. I'd be free from sleeping and breathing and smoking, no belly, no reserve duty, no debts, no fear of AIDS, I wouldn't give a shit. For all I care the Scuds can come again and take it off my back. Or I'll sell it to an organ bank or even donate it to a forensic lab or a transplant center, and then I'd go off to the beach as free as the air. And take it easy. Or I'd go further, Tibet, Goa, I could take your boyfriend's place and send him back to you, even though really I don't believe all this shit, that he's hanging out there with some Portuguese chick, his own private fado singer, some kind of sexy hot-gospeller, that whole business is just a load of bullshit, he's probably blowing his mind in some hole in India and the whole Maria thing is all in the Narrator's head, and he's the one you should really talk to, if you just fluttered your eyelashes at him and got him to make a couple of phone calls to the right people, he must know them all, then our film would be halfway to being made. Even that Giggy of yours is just a load of bullshit when it comes to it, and so am I, even more so. The real reason I called you at 3 a.m. is that I thought it was the only way I'd finally have the guts to express my feelings, and look what came out instead: a lump of shit. What time do you finish your shift? I'll wait for you outside the hotel, OK? Or perhaps I won't What's the use.