The Same Sea Page 12

  Scherzo

  He's fond of cheese, he chops salads fine,

  no mortal man can chop them finer. Better a live

  dog who this morning sent a thousand dollars to his son and to Dita

  wrote a check for the sum of NIS 3,500. He's discontinued

  his savings plan even though he knows the money's going down the tube.

  Now he's reading Yediot and discovering that the state of the country

  is also going from bad to worse. The magnates are arrogant,

  peacock for foreign affairs, peacock for home affairs, little foxes

  with high-falutin words. Dispensing a poor mans wisdom: tax adviser to

  a greengrocer, an air-conditioning installer, he screws up his brown

  face in the mirror like a raisin. To himself he says: The days

  are going by. Yes sir, they are. The days are going by. I'm sorry

  sir, excuse me sir, we're just about

  to dose. So sit down and finish going through these accounts. Try at least

  to clear your desk The newspaper can wait. Afterward, if there's time

  you can change your shirt and go over to Bettine's. Go over there, stay

  a while, chat, come home. Whatever you do it's no use.

  Mother craft

  Bettine, how are you? It's Dita. I'm calling to ask if by any chance

  you've got his glasses? The dark ones? In the black case? No? Oh well,

  we'll keep looking then. They must be here somewhere. Are you coming

  over this evening? I'm working nights: I leave here at seven to be

  at the hotel by eight. Do come. You can both have supper and sit outside

  and chat on the veranda, only don't switch the light on, the mosquitoes

  are hellish. You told me last winter that I make him needlessly sad,

  or give him pointless needs, or something like that. I don't remember

  exactly. Now I feel like telling you you shouldn't worry, Bettine.

  There are no casualties. On the contrary: we both seem to be

  definitely holding our own, if one can say that, and that's

  how it is Bettine. I saw a big story in the paper today with pictures,

  anxious moments in space, searching for the mother craft, is it or

  isn't it out of control, I think something like that happens to lots

  of people almost every day: finding losing finding again and

  gasping for air. How on earth did we get here? It doesn't matter. If you

  do happen to find his glasses will you bring them with you

  when you come this evening. Even if you don't find them, come anyway.

  It's better for the two of you to spend the evening together

  than alone. And don't bring loads of stuff with you: I've

  done plenty of shopping, the fridge is full.

  It's me

  Now it's me. I used to be Nadia and now

  I'm not a spirit or a reincarnation or a ghost. Now

  I'm the air my son breathes in his sleep on the straw,

  I'm the sleep of the woman who's resting her head

  on his shoulder. I'm also the sleep of my husband

  who's fallen asleep on the living room couch

  I'm my daughter-in-law's dream, her head in her hands

  on the hotel desk I'm the swish of the curtain

  that the sea stirs through the window. That's me.

  I am all of their sleep.

  A tale from before the last elections

  A Knesset Member, Pessach Kedem, from Kibbutz Yikhat, found himself

  left off the party list because of an intrigue, because some

  cunning son-of-a-bitch grabbed his safe place near the top of the list.

  Recovering from the shock and indignation he looked for a place, even

  not a safe one, to hide his face in shame, a place secure from pitying

  or gloating looks. At last, they say, his confidants managed to find him

  a temporary billet as managing director or just company secretary

  of some private ravine in the Tortoiseshell Range, down in the desert

  not far from Arad. That's where the man now sits making notes,

  remembering, filming, scheming, growing armor, hiding his head,

  retracting his limbs, burying his face in his armored plates, reviewing

  the situation, transforming himself from an MK into a tortoise. And how

  about you? Do you feel you are safe and secure near the top of the list?

  Half-remembering, you have forgotten

  Meanwhile he is working as a night watchman in a run-down refrigeration

  plant belonging to a Belgian fishery company in the Gulf of Kirindi, beneath

  a curtain of dark hills. Maria has moved on. Beyond those hills there is a

  steamy primeval jungle sweat-soaked with unceasing rains where there are

  monkeys, parrots, bats and huge snakes. Aus Israel, the Austrian engineer leered

  with a conspiratorial wink, ach so, in that case he certainly wont fall asleep on

  the job or just sit there gaping if a light flashes on the control panel. His wage,

  in Sri Lankan rupees, is three and a half dollars plus a fish he can grill on

  the embers after midnight, and each morning when he leaves he can take

  two fish fresh from the boats. His broom closet at the inn costs less than

  a dollar a day, and he spends a similar sum on rice, vegetables, a rented

  mosquito net, postcards and stamps. Meanwhile there's a boy, an abandoned

  child, whom he inherited from the previous watchman (who got him from

  his own predecessor), a quick-moving, shadowy creature, who somehow

  belongs to the fishery, he sleeps by day in some disused cooling compartment

  and at night among bearded pipes sticky with solidified engine oil, living

  the life of a little fish thief or honorary assistant night watchman. In and out

  of the dark gaps between refrigerators he slinks wolfishly, barefoot, he is six

  or possibly eight, he is in tatters, every night he is reborn after midnight, out

  of the shadows at the smell of grilled fish, an old rag round his loins, timidly

  sniffing he cleverly overtakes his own shadow and penetrates the circle of

  the watchman's fire, panting, his skin quivering to escape. In vain you attempt

  in English sprinkled with crumbs of Sinhalese, Come child here don't be

  afraid: he's been abused by other watchmen, before you, who seduced him

  with their smell of fish, and did one thing and another. Now he's more

  careful: give me first. Just throw him a tidbit of fish and he leaps, catches it

  in his teeth in mid-flight, retreats with his spoils to the shadows, then

  reappears to flicker around the ring of the fire, his pupils reducing the flames

  to embers, his face in the half-light angelic but impure, a sly dishonest angel

  well versed in gradations of winks, experienced in this and that: the previous

  watchmen had done one thing and another, and another, but always he

  had managed to float up to the surface of the swamp, velvety, girlish, unsullied,

  with just a cunning-cautious spark in his eye. Night by night you throw

  the tidbits less and less far, till at last he dares to snatch one from your hand

  and flee. Or thus: you hold the fish just a little bit higher than he can jump,

  till he tells you his name, where he lives, who his parents are. He doesn't

  know. Nowhere. Never had any. So whose is he then? In guttural English,

  with the Sinhalese trill: Yourr honorr's sirr. And a bow. As he speaks he leaps and

  snatches the fish, sweet potato, or rice, with three swift hands. His voice

  is warm and brown, like the smell of roast chestnuts. Within a few nights

>   he is climbing up of his own accord to nestle in your lap while skillfully

  caressing you in one way and another, and also another, until you spot

  what he's up to and stop him and carry him in your arms to your mattress

  (submissive, pitiful, experienced, lying on his tummy for you). You cover

  him with a sheet of greasy canvas, but he looks up at you with surprise, before

  falling asleep all at once. You lay one hand on his forehead and the other

  on your own, as though you were your mother. Soft and tired like the child

  your head drops on your chest and the darkness draws out of you the hum

  of a Bulgarian children's song without words, or with words you've forgotten,

  half-remembering you have forgotten, but like the corpse of a drowned man

  you can make out the shape of what you've forgotten. Toward dawn

  you open your eyes, you're alone on the mattress, the child

  has vanished without a trace, in the window silhouettes of boats

  coming up from the seabed of night, all around the derelict plant mangy dogs

  are barking, skinny dogs shrieking then sinking to a whimper, as a murky sun

  chokes through the screen of haze: an opaque sunrise that resembles

  a diseased, inflamed eye. Take a few fish and go to your bed. It's so hot.

  It will come

  It will come like a cat before evening. Soft and quick it will come.

  Drowsy-cruel, sharp and light, it will come, silently,

  on hovering paws, bow-taut back, furry, silky, evil,

  crouching to spring it will come like a knife. Honing it will come. Its pupils

  tiger-yellow, it is stealthy, arched, fawning, it will come like a cat

  on a wall, lying in wait, patiently, coiled like a spring. It has seen a moth.

  It wont give up.

  Burning coals

  It will come; it wont give up. Until it comes come back to me, don't

  disappear, at least in the nights come back to me desire of women:

  when I was a skinny pimply youth, day and night dreaming poems

  dreaming women day and night you didn't leave me: with me

  when I lay down, with me when I rose up, burning coals of my night

  and shame of my day in my bed, at my school, in the street, in the fields,

  scorched by desire for a woman but without a woman: a unicorn

  in the morning in the daytime in the evening in my dreams, a brassière

  hanging on a washing line, a pair of girls' sandals in the hall, a pencil

  turning in the sharpener, a plump thick-braided girl soldier putting

  a spoon full of sticky plum jam to her mouth, my blood thickened

  to warm honey. Or in the evening, behind a curtain, the silhouette

  of a woman combing another woman's hair, any rounded movement,

  stirring, kneading, any sound descending to a whisper, a girl sewing

  a button on her dress, the feel of face cream or soap, a rude joke,

  a dirty word, a whiff of perfume mingled with a secret hint

  of woman's sweat, fountained up scalding geyser,

  surrounded with a vapour of shame. Even the word "woman" printed

  or the curves of "breast" in cursive writing, or the sight of some

  furniture on its back with its legs in the air made the stew

  of my lust boil over and my body clench like a fist. Now an old male,

  a unicorn of memories on his bed pleads with you to come back

  to come back, desire of women, to come back to him at night,

  give him back at least in a dream that trembling give back the scorch

  of glowing coals, lest he forget you, lest he forget come what may come,

  on hovering silken paws, soft, furry, yellow-eyed, comes sharp,

  light and silent with sharp panthers fangs and a woman's curves.

  Bettine tells Albert

  Every weekend they bring the grandchildren to see me: the girl is a lamb

  and the boy is a bear, she calls me Ranny Tee and he

  pulls my hair. On Friday night they stay with me

  and snuggle in my bed. I protect them

  from the nightmares and the cold, and they protect me

  from loneliness and death.

  Never far from the tree

  The apple never falls far from the tree. The tree stands

  at the apples bedside. The tree turns yellow and the apple turns brown

  the tree sheds damp leaves. The leaves shroud

  the apple. The cold wind leafs through them.

  Winter comes autumn is over the tree is eaten the apple

  rots. Very soon it will come. It will come it will hurt.

  A postcard from Sri Lanka

  Dear Dad and Dita, on the other side you can see three trees and a stone.

  The stone is the grave of a girl called Irene, the daughter of Major Geoffrey

  and Daphne Homer. Who were these Homers? Why did they come here?

  What were they looking for? Nobody in the village can remember. Nobody

  can explain either why they made a postcard out of it. Were they living here

  or just passing through? I scraped the moss off the stone with my knife

  and discovered that she died of malaria, at the age of twenty, in the summer

  of 1896: more than a hundred years ago. Did her parents, that evening,

  six hours before her death, still lie to her and say that she was getting better,

  that in a couple of days she would be frilly recovered? And what did she feel

  when, between bouts of hallucination, she had a moment of lucidity, like a

  hunted antelope, when she intercepted an exchange of glances and suddenly

  realized that this was her death, that they had given up hope for her,

  her parents and the doctor, that they were lying to her out of pity

  and saying that the fever was abating and that by tomorrow