The Same Sea Page 5

  She took them both and placed them here and here, let's see which of them is more left-handed. They ended up playing at deflowering the virgin and seducing the monk, until they fell asleep. Later they showered and went down, famished, to look for a fish restaurant. In the evening they went for a swim. Now, remembering, she wanted him. She went to a film with Giggy Ben-Gal and they ate in a pub, and then went back to his place. When she got back it was nearly one o'clock, but she found the old man waiting up for her. Was he worried? Was he jealous? He made her a snack which she didn't eat because she wasn't hungry. But she sat in the kitchen with him for half an hour and he told her something about how drab life was in those days and even a little, in passing, about Rico's mother. Finally, filled with nocturnal courage, he revealed to her that he had a girlfriend, not exactly a girlfriend, a lady friend, who worked in the Property Tax Board, not a lady friend either really but an undefined sort of relationship. Dita was curious to know whether he had touched his "undefined relationship" yet, but she didn't feel she could ask. Interesting, why did he tell me? It came out as though he was writing a word, rubbing it out, and writing another one on top of it, and that reminded her of his son. And his way of putting his hand between his collar and his neck sometimes for no reason at all, or explaining things as though he were threading beads. Is he left-handed too, but still in the closet? Such a sensitive man. So sweet. I wonder when he ever sleeps.

  The Narrator copies from the dictionary of idioms

  One who has come through fire and water, his early promise

  has come to nothing. It has not come easily to him. He has come to blows.

  He has not come up in the world nor has he come into money.

  He has come to grief, has come down to his last crust Now

  he has come to judgment, and at last he

  has come to terms.

  A postcard from Thimphu

  Dear Dad and Dita. We were cut off yesterday while we were talking. I didn't

  manage to tell you how pleased I am the two of you are together at home.

  It's good that you're not alone either of you. It's a good solution for you both.

  You look after her and you look after him, etc. Cooking and eating

  and washing up and taking turns emptying the rubbish. I like this

  father-daughter couple thing, this two-track relationship, as if you've gained

  a daughter Dad and Mother and I have gained a double. Dad, I expect

  you're the one who puts both your laundry in the machine, not sorting it

  into his and hers but only into cotton and synthetics. And Dita, I imagine

  you're the one who does the shopping for both of you and Dad you make

  one of your salads, no mortal hand can chop vegetables finer than you. So

  you've ended up with no money and no flat Dita, well Dad, you'll sort

  that out for her. And as Mother used to say, every cloud has a silver lining,

  and in this case the lining is also fun. Dita I can almost see you sleeping in

  my bed, where Dad you come in every night as usual to cover her up, but

  Dita you push and kick the covers off again. An anarchist in your sleep.

  The opposite of Mother, who even on summer nights wrapped herself up

  like a mummy. She wore a blue nightie trimmed with lace. You ought to

  ask him if you can wear it one night. You won't refuse her, will you?

  It's on the top shelf of the wardrobe, on the left. The little that Mother needs

  now she can find with me: she, who could never stand long journeys, who

  could never sleep in a strange bed, comes all the way here sometimes,

  and naturally I don't tell her to go away.

  A pig in a poke

  A repulsive fellow with sweaty armpits, he is forty minutes late, he apologizes, Bat Yam is like Bombay to him, his brains dehydrated before he found it, and on top of everything else he's parked illegally. He is oozing good will and wants to settle the whole business in good faith, and even, lets say, make a fresh start. When all is said and done, its nothing more than a little misunderstanding: he will only use her money if and when there is a production, otherwise he'll return every last shekel (after deduction of expenses, etc.). What a pity she's not in: he was hoping to explain to her personally that bygones are bygones, his intentions were definitely honorable. Mr. Danon spoke sternly: the contract was crooked, and not entirely aboveboard from the tax point of view either. As he spoke the producer sat before him, worn-out, sweat-soaked and unkempt, a shamefaced, heavily panting dog, in his forties, his thinning red hair offset by Hapsburg sideburns going down to the angle of his jaw, a woebegone creature whom no woman except his mother had ever touched without an ulterior motive. Mr. Danon fetched a bottle of mineral water and poured a glass and then refilled it While the producer was drinking as though he was dying of thirst Mr. Danon pondered the expression benefit in kind, which contains a hint of corruption but also a touch of desperation. Likewise the word crafty.

  Mr. Danon spoke in a tone of polite reprimand, like a pedantic father. The producer listened with his head to one side and his mouth wide open, as though his sense of hearing were located in his throat rather than his ears. At least three times he insisted that he was really an honest man and that Dombrov was a respectable company and that he was sorry to have given the impression. There and then he signed an agreement to return the money in full in two equal installments. Let's say there's a distinct possibility that the film will materialize; she's truly gifted and she's come up with a peach of a script, though not exactly what the market goes for these days. After signing he stayed on for half an hour or so and polished off another bottle of mineral water, talking about the state of the media, which is being ruined by commercialization, which in fact, lets be clear, is destroying everything here. Mr. Danon fetched another bottle, because Dombrov—call me Dubi—displayed a bottomless thirst He insisted on being pleasant and inspiring confidence, prepared to debase himself so long as he made a good impression. He began to expand on an idea he had conceived about the eternal conflict between genuine art and popular taste. So he gained some more time in the company of his paternal host, who appeared to be sensible, attentive, just the way he himself would be happy to appear on the stage of life but had never managed to. And besides, on another matter, tax, for some years now I've had an accountant, Mr. So-and-So, from whom I have never had an ounce of human warmth. Is it out of the question, lets say, for me to put myself in your hands? Be looked after by you personally? That is to say as a client who needs an occasional guiding hand? Actually "guiding hand" might seem to be a religious expression, whereas I am, lets be clear, an ardent secularist, even though there are moments—but that's nothing at all to do with what we were talking about I'm sorry, I've wandered off the point again. I need a guiding hand. Actually I've been like that ever since my wife left me for a well-known singer. And by the way my parents, both of them, were killed in the El Al disaster when I was a child. So that now, let's say at the present juncture in my life, I'm coming to terms the hard way with the fact that I'll probably never be the Israeli Steven Spielberg. A pig in a poke is an expression that generally denotes an unconsidered purchase, but in my case it describes my actual condition, both commercially and personally, or, let's say, existentially. But how did we get on to that? After all, we were only talking about the occasional tax advice and making up my annual accounts.

  Mr. Danon apologized, he couldn't take on, overwhelmed with work, etc., but finally, on the doorstep, to their mutual surprise, he suddenly heard himself utter the words Call me, we'll talk about it.

  She goes out and he stays in

  At six she woke from a heavy siesta. She took a shower

  and washed her hair. Stopped in the doorway of his room,

  wearing only a wet shirt that did not quite cover her underwear.

  I slept like a log and I must rush to work (receptionist

  in a h
otel). Be a dear and lend me two hundred shekels

  just till the end of the week, will you. There's some rice and chicken

  in the fridge and tonight after the news there's a program

  about Tibet. Will you watch and tell me about it tomorrow?

  She combed her hair, dressed and stopped in his doorway again,

  I'm off now, bye, and don't you dare wait up for me,

  just you go to bed, don't worry, I promise not to take any sweets

  from strangers. She blew him a kiss and left him

  changing a light bulb in the hall, in deepening gloom.

  And when the shadows overwhelmed him

  And if she stays out all night what will he do all night, and if she gets back

  at midnight and goes straight to bed what will he do while she sleeps?

  Tomorrow he'll tell her that her money is safe, that from now on

  she is free and he is of no further use. Around nine there was a power outage,

  and like a solitary mountaineer on whom night falls in a deserted place

  he groped and found a flashlight and shifted the blocks of shadow around.

  When the shadows overwhelmed him he gave up and went

  to Bettine's, which was also in darkness with only an emergency light

  glowing palely by her bed. And as the lights did not come back on

  and the emergency light was fading he found himself telling her how

  a bedraggled bird had nested uninvited in his flat, and how today he

  himself had made sure—why on earth had he done it—that she too

  would soon fly away. Reading between the lines, Bettine picked up

  his secret and found it partly ridiculous and partly moving and painful. She

  took his hand in hers, and they listened to the tossing and turning

  of the sea in the depths of the dark, and then came a reaching out, a shy

  embrace with no clothing removed, partly for loneliness of the flesh

  and partly for grace and favor. Bettine knew from her flesh that he

  was imagining another in her but she forgave him: had it not been

  for the other, this would never have happened.

  A shadow harem

  Wisely, firmly, yet gently, he had rescued and retrieved

  her lost cash. And what was the outcome? Simply

  that in another day or two she would pluck her underwear

  off the washing line, blow him a kiss, and vanish. The wrong

  had been righted, but an invisible hand, not his own,

  certainly not his right hand, possibly his left, had mockingly

  frustrated him. Fear not. It was not in vain. With her going, the shade

  of the dead one will surely return to be with you.

  And hers too. The shades of two women. And Bettine as well.

  A shadow harem under the shade of your roof.

  Rico considers bis father's defeat

  Dad's sitting reading a paper. Dad's watching the news headlines.

  His face is pained, like a disappointed teacher: reprimanding, chiding

  the state of the world whose antics really go

  too far. The time has come to take steps. He has

  made up his mind to respond severely.

  My father's severity is ineffectual. A poor mans severity. Weary fading

  powerless. Instead there is a touch of sadness about him, an air of

  resignation. He is not a young man. He's just a humble citizen.

  What difference can he make

  with his puny cane. And sometimes my father quotes the verse:

  As the sparks fly upward, man is born unto labor. But what is he trying

  to say to me? That I should fly upward? Or get a job? Not to fight

  lost battles? My father's severity. His defeated shoulders.

  Because of them I left. To them I shall return.

  Rico reconsiders a text he has heard from his father

  And there's another great text in Job that he quotes to me

  so that I'll remember that properly and possessions are

  not the most important thing: Naked came I forth from my mother's womb

  and naked shall I return thither. So what is the point of the race to amass

  and hoard so-called belongings. My father is blind

  to the hidden secret of this verse: her womb

  is waiting for me. I came forth. I shall return. The cross on the way

  is less important.

  The cross on the way

  He circles aimlessly around. And returns. Between one sleep and the next

  he barely wakes. He travels from village to remote village. A day here a day

  there. He meets Israelis, what's new back home, and falls asleep. He meets

  women, exchanges a first signal and gives up. Like a tortoise.

  On his travels he has crossed three or four maps. So what if he crosses

  yet another, more valleys. Another climb. This view has run out.

  His money too, almost. With a little luck he'll make it to Bangkok,

  where the money his father sent is waiting. And then Sri Lanka. Or Rangoon.

  In the autumn he'll go home. Or not. By a feeble light in a hostel, lying

  neither sleeping nor waking, like an invalid waiting for it to become clear

  one way or the other, seeing on the sooty ceiling stains of mountains

  suspended between one shadow and the next. Not to climb but to find

  a way in, or a way through, an opening, or a narrow crack, through which

  Seabed bird

  Shortly before my death a bird on a branch enticed me.

  Narimi its feathery down touched me wrapped all of me

  in a marine afterbirth.

  Night after night, my widower weeps on his pillow, where has she gone

  whom my soul loves. My orphan child is wandering far, conjuring omens.

  Child bride you are their wife, you have my nightdress,

  you have their love. My flesh is wasted. Set me as a seal.

  He hesitates, nods and lays out

  He returns from Bettine's when the power is restored and sits for a while

  on the veranda alone. It is still August but the night is almost chilly, the cool

  of the sea is an advance payment on the autumn. Around one o'clock,

  five already in Bhutan, he drinks some chilled fruit juice

  and goes to bed. Who knows who she is out on the town with

  at this moment, she must be shivering in her light clothes. He gets up

  and spreads a blanket on her bed and then hesitates,

  nods and lays out on her pillow a blue nightdress,

  because she is bound in her sleep to kick off the blanket.

  Outsiders

  Now for a riddle: what if anything does the shabby film producer Dubi

  Dombrov have in common with the fictional Narrator who is about to

  bring him back to Albert for a second visit? Besides the fact that both of them

  require the services of a tax adviser, we may note some other parallels. He and I

  as children were both outsiders. And we were both orphaned

  at a fairly tender age and in need of a guiding hand, which is, as

  Dubi observed, both an unquenchable personal need and, shall we say, a

  religious quest Both of us would like to create at least one work

  that will turn out properly. And we are both on our way. True, he is a

  clumsy, sloppy man, a thing of shreds and patches, which ostensibly

  contrasts with the Narrator, who is well known to be a punctilious person

  who always puts each thing away in its proper place. But that is only

  on the outside. Inside him too there is an almighty mess.

  And we are both always thirsty. Incidentally, a pig in a poke is an expression

  that generally describes an incautious purchase but in our cas
e connotes

  not so much the impetuosity of the purchaser as the condition of the pig.

  Sometimes we encounter a spider or a cockroach in the kitchen, which

  we would never dream of hurting, but when the creature runs away from us

  we take offence. And in general we are easily hurt:

  we are constantly offended but contain ourselves, and continue to invite

  further offence. With women he has a harder time of it the Narrator

  is apparently helped by a certain glow, at least on the surface. Like

  the producer, he feels not entirely worthy, like a con man obtaining favors

  by deception: be my mother, my sister, etc. Not to mention the feet that both

  characters are a bit like David, who always longed to adopt a gentle brother

  and a tough-warm father, a grim father whose manner toward his son implies

  a suppressed rebuke. And yet, adopting a father, as can be seen

  in the case of David, generally ends up in a battle in which the father's role

  is to fall, thus restoring to us the liberties of orphanhood. And,

  it may be added, both the unsuccessful producer and this Narrator

  know the summer will soon be over.

  Synopsis

  To sum up the story so far, this is actually a tale about five or six characters,

  most of whom are alive most of the time, who often offer each other

  a hot or cold drink, generally a cold one, because it is summer. Sometimes

  they bring each other a tray with some cheese and olives, some wine, slices

  of watermelon, occasionally they even make each other a light meal. Or else

  you could see it as a number of intersecting triangles. Rico his father and

  his mother. Dita and her two lovers (Giggy Ben-Gal doesn't count). Albert

  between Bettine Carmel and his child bride who slips from room to room