The Same Sea Read online

  wearing no more than the shirt on her back. And Bettine herself, between

  Avram and Albert, her choice for a rainy day. While Dubi is stuck

  between his desire for Nirit and the rebuke of her warm-hearted

  representative on earth, to the love of women preferring the reproach

  of the sensible father. Rico, between his father and his cross, mistakenly

  searching in the mountains for his sea-tossed mother, in love with Dita

  though not loving her enough. Dita who is still waiting. And all of them are

  among shadows. Even the Narrator himself is somewhere between

  the mystical and the mischievous. This fabric resembles

  the pattern in the curtain at the Greek necromancer's, who died and

  left in his place a crow-woman. She has no living soul and her fabric gives

  a foretaste of the worm. And so a certain shadow falls over this story too.

  The peace process

  Hadhramaut. On his map such a principality appears in southern

  Arabia, east of Bab el-Mandeb. Maybe the peace process

  will open it up to us. But what is there there) Shifting sands,

  wilderness, the haunt of foxes. But what is there here, in this abandoned

  temple? A solitary Buddhist monk, a skeletal figure, through a hatch

  wordlessly handing you a bowl of cold rice

  and disappearing. He will not open the gate: you are not worthy yet.

  In other words, the peace process is slow and painful. You will have

  to make one or two further concessions. Only what is truly

  a matter of life and death should not be negotiable.

  In the middle of the hottest day in August

  At Giggy Ben-Gal's, in Melchett Street She is sleeping with him again

  because she feels sorry for herself While he saws away, she is thinking of

  dear, good Albert, who worked so hard to find her

  a one-room flat in Mazeh Street, the unfashionable side. On the

  one hand it's good news, but on the other she really doesn't want

  to move out. She enjoys living with him, he makes such a fuss of her

  and his devotion is touching, not to mention his hungry look. All

  the sweeter for being forbidden. This Giggy is a big brute. He fucks

  as though he's hammering in nails or scoring points. One way

  or another, in the end everyone is alone. In this heat

  the best thing to be is a Buddhist nun in Tibet.

  The riddle of the good carpenter who had a deep bass voice

  In fact they were distantly related, both born in Sarajevo, Albert Danon from Bat Yam and my carpenter Elimelech who made this desk for me and died nine years ago. The great love of his life, apart from his wife and daughters, was opera: he had a stereo at home, another in his workshop, and a third in the car, hundreds of records and cassettes, dozens of performances. You could tell from two streets away if the workshop was open, not from the buzzing of the electric saw or the smell of sawdust and wood glue, but from the music: La Traviata, Don Giovanni, Rigoletto, the man was a total addict. We called him Shalyapin, because while he was planing away he would be roaring and booming, shamelessly out of tune, plunging so low as to put the deepest bass to shame. His voice was like the voice of the dead: a profundo de profundis. And yet this thunderous bass sound burst forth from a chest of modest dimensions, in fact Elimelech the carpenter was actually a slightly built man; his face was wrinkled with irony, one eyebrow was raised, and his glance contradicted itself: partly asking forgiveness and partly impish or sarcastic, as if tb say, Who or what am I, but then you too, sir, excuse me for mentioning it, began as a drop of moisture and will end up as a broken vessel. The desk he made me, on which I am writing these words, turned out heavy. Massive. With no frills. A desk with the legs of a rhinoceros and sides like the shoulders of a market porter. A bass table. A proletarian object, thickset as a wrestler. Unlike Elimelech the carpenter, a man who loved to joke and tease but at the same time was being secretly, relentlessly eaten away by a ruthless canker, until one day he upped and hanged himself. He left no note, and no one could explain it. Least of all his wife and daughters. When I went to the hanged man's house to offer my condolences, I had the impression that grief had been displaced by surprise: as if all those years it had never occurred to them that here in their home an alien being was living among them in disguise, a maharajah masquerading as a woodworker, and one day he had been summoned home, and at once, without a word, had shed his familiar disguise and set off for the place where he belonged. The last man, literally the last man in the world, to go and hang himself. For the life of us we wouldn't have dreamed that he had it in him. And there was no reason either: all things considered, life treated him very well, he had a family, friends, made a decent living, and he was the kind of man who was, as they say, content with what he had and always made the most of things. For instance, he loved eating, he loved to sit in his armchair every evening and fall asleep with the paper, and he especially loved those operas of his; he used to listen to them and sing along from morning to night and, well, we did think it was a bit much at times but we kept our mouths shut, why shouldn't he have a bit of pleasure? There are some husbands, after all, who squander half their pay on the lottery and suchlike, or who are crazy about football, and with him it was his operas. You must agree, sir, that it's a refined hobby. And also, he loved to make people laugh, he was a champion joker, he was the king of practical jokes, you may not believe this but just the morning of the day it happened, barely three hours before, he was making omelettes for the girls and he pretended to swallow the hot oil straight from the frying pan. What a fright we had before we started to laugh. What else can I say to you, sir, people are a riddle, even the ones you think you know best. You sleep in the same bed together for thirty-five years, you know every hair on their head, their illnesses, their secrets, their problems, their most personal things, and then suddenly it turns out that It's as if there was two Elimelechs, one for foreign affairs and one for internal affairs. It was nice of you to come. Thank you. We'll do our best. The girls are just wonderful, look how they take after him. They take everything as it comes. When you next see Albert say a big thank you to him for taking the trouble to come to the funeral. He's not a youngster any more, and it's a long way from Bat Yam, after all.

  Duet

  Behind the first stream another rivulet is hiding.

  The first one flows so loudly

  that you can hardly hear the murmur

  of the second, hidden one. Rico is sitting on a rock. Perhaps

  you can only hear it in the dark? He is willing to wait.

  The well-fed dog and the hungry dog

  If you are Giggy Ben-Gal, a man who helps himself with both hands because

  you only live once, for whom toys and pleasures and fun wink

  from every branch as though it's Christmas all year round, earning your living

  as a security adviser while maintaining dovish views, attending

  the occasional rally and signing every petition, with a flat and car provided

  by your parents who aren't short of a penny or two, and on the sweeter

  side of life you have Ruthy Levin and Dita and another one, a married

  woman, your friends wife is your friend and anyway he has no idea (she's older

  than you and full of surprises in bed), but at heart you're not selfish,

  quite generous in fact, you enjoy fixing things for others, helping a friend

  through a difficult patch, taking the weight off his shoulders, its not

  surprising that one fine evening you'll collar this Dombrov for a man-to-man

  chat, to sort out what's really going on with this filmscript

  that seems to have got stuck: after all, we're talking about relatively small

  sums of money, and anyway you know a source you can tap.

&n
bsp; And so you will sit facing one another in Cafe Limor, you cheery and brisk

  while he looks bitter, careworn, not completely on the ball, for instance

  when you say "grant" and he, instead of taking notes, starts describing Nirit.

  Or if you imply that there's this fund you know of he just stares abstractedly

  into his beer then leans forward and downs it in one. For a moment you feel

  disappointed, even hurt, is he really so ungrateful or has he just got

  a screw loose? Suddenly you realize that the problem isn't the script, it's Dita.

  The kids jealous. He sits there wriggling on his chair, full of wretchedness

  and shame, and at the same time he's drawn toward you, he doesn't dare

  but he'd love to touch your hand that touches Dita and probably does things

  to her, any way and any time it likes, that he can only dream of. He would

  sell you a year of his fucked-up life here and now, just like that, for a hint

  of a chance to taste just once a tiny crumb from your nightly feasts with her.

  Sweeter even than her body for you now is his embittered envy, that

  stimulates your complacency gland, and also makes you feel pity and an urge

  to share your bread with the hungry, to grant him an evening with her,

  a secret gift or a donation of surplus goods. There's also a surprising

  pang of jealousy at the poor sod, with that desperate thirst of his

  that someone like you has never known and never will. Right now

  you're feeling thirsty too, so you order two more big frothy beers.

  Stabat Mater

  But why do you keep worrying? Calm down. See for yourself

  how well I'm looking after myself,

  I'm eating, sleeping, wrapping up warm in my sleeping-bag,

  protecting myself from the freezing

  breath of the winds, I even drink fresh mountain goats' milk

  for breakfast I won't get lost.

  It's no good. She's all around me. She's worried. She's found

  a hole in the elbow of my sweater, the soles of my boots

  are worn too thin, and what's that cut on my cheek? She lays

  a cold hand on my forehead

  and another on her own, compares, naturally I'm warmer.

  She doesn't trust me.

  And why did you forget to send your father a postcard every week?

  It's not so easy for him there,

  looking after your girlfriend, well not exactly looking after her,

  she's not exactly the one who's being looked after. In your place

  I'd go back. You've checked out all these mountains one by one,

  and it's nearly autumn,

  it's time to go home. The mountains will always be here,

  but your life wont Instead of wandering around you could

  be an architect for instance: what with your fathers way with a balance sheet,

  my gift for embroidery, your grandfather who was a silversmith, and Uncle

  Michael, the pharmacist, put it all together and you'll be a master architect

  Take a rest, Mother, I say to her. Sit down for a bit You're tired.

  You've worried enough. Go back to sleep

  curled up like a fetus in the hammock of the deep.

  Master architect, doctor, they're

  marketable professions. But every market closes in the end,

  and everything perishes,

  dust to dust. Suppose your son puts Number One first,

  so the whole of Bat Yam is full of his glory and all the substance

  of his house, a name and legacy, a Mercedes and precious unguents,

  surely with the passing of the years all will be covered in dust.

  The name will fade, the unguents will dry up and only a powdery crust

  will remain and it too in the end will fly

  to the four winds. A forgotten, invisible, imperceptible powder, Mother,

  the dust of forsaken

  collapsed buildings, shifting sands swept by the wind,

  ashes returning to ashes,

  from a handful of cosmic dust our planet was formed,

  and to a black hole it shall return.

  A doctor an architect in a dream house with fancy carpets

  in the best part of Bat Yam. Powder.

  Rest in your peace, Mother, after the mountains I shall come

  and you and I shall hide

  beyond reach of the cloud that existed before anything was made

  and that when all has passed away shall be alone.

  Comfort

  Shortly before sunset Albert walks round to Bettine's to seek her advice

  on a particular case involving double taxation. Bettine is pleased to see him

  but hasn't got time to talk, she has her grandchildren with her, she is three,

  he is one-and-a-bit, she is drawing a palace and he has crawled into

  a cardboard box hideaway. Bettine offers some homemade lemonade

  to Albert, who, carried away, is already down on all fours giving a recital

  of animal and bird noises but the lion strikes the wrong note,

  the tot in the box is scared, tears, and a bottle for comfort. Albert too seems

  chastened and in need of comfort, so the little girl offers him a present,

  the palace, on condition he don't cough scare no more. Later, in the empty

  alley on his way back to Amirim Street a bird on a branch calls to him.

  With no living soul to hear he replies and this time he hits the right note.

  Subversion

  Bettine likes to sit indoors in the evening

  in her pleasant room that faces the sea, half-submerged in potted plants,

  wearing a summer kimono, her still-shapely legs

  propped up on a footstool.

  She is deep in a novel about a divorce and an error.

  The suffering of the fictional characters fills her

  with a feeling of calm. As though their burden has fallen

  from her own shoulders.

  Yes, she too is getting older, but without feeling

  humiliated by it. A senior civil servant of sixty,

  with her bobbed hair and those earrings, she feels

  younger than her age.

  The sea that is close to her home seeps through her windows

  and inside her body too there is a murmur

  seductively, secretly pleading with her, like a little child

  lightly pulling at her sleeve.

  What is this body after? One more game?

  Another outing? Let me rest. Its late.

  But it pleads persistently,

  not knowing when to give up.

  She glances at her watch: what now? Go out? To Albert?

  Who was here not two hours ago? It's late. It's absurd.

  And that girl is still there, and there is, after all, something

  cheap about her.

  Exile and kingdom

  Something cheap and something soft and something hard and remote,

  Dita Inbar in her orange uniform, with a name-badge on the lapel,

  works three nights a week as a receptionist at an expensive seaside hotel,

  tourists, investors, philanderers, foreign airline pilots in uniform

  and teams of tired stewardesses. Forms. Credit cards.

  At four in the morning she has some free moments for a casual chat

  with the Narrator, who is staying here after a lecture at the expense

  of the sponsoring organization (it is not easy for him to drive all the way back

  to Arad so late at night on his own). But he can't sleep. In a fit

  of hotel depression he goes downstairs and paces the lobby, where

  he finds you at the desk, looking official, tired but pretty.

  Good evening. Evening? Its nearly morning. What's it like

  here? Do
you take in stray birds? What do you mean birds—

  corpses more like. Have you ever seen a face reflected in a spoon? That's

  what the whole human race looks like after midnight. Aren't you

  the author? A friend of mine reads your books.

  The only one I've read is To Know A Woman. But what a woman is

  the hero hardly knows. Maybe you don't either. Men

  are mostly wrong, whether they're authors or not. Tell you the truth,

  I write too. Not books, screenplays, just for my own amusement so far.

  Shall I send you one? Would you read it? You must be drowning

  in manuscripts. How about yourself? Got another

  book on the way? Don't suppose you'll tell me what it's about?

  If it weren't for the years and my fame and a fear of being made a fool of

  I'd stand here, a desk's width away from your body, and tell you

  about Nirit, narimi, Bhutan, and the cross on the way. Nearly.

  But not quite. While you smile at me all of a sudden

  both phones call you at once. I too

  fake a smile, return a vague wave of the hand, and walk away

  to stand at the big window overlooking the sea. It has been written

  that exile is a kingdom and it's been written that it is a fleeting

  shadow. A filthy old dog is this September dawn, dusty, yawning

  on the seashore, limping among the dustbins.

  An ugly bloated baby

  After his mother became ill Rico stayed out quite a lot. It was useless his father pleading with him. That winter he came home at two o'clock almost every night. Only rarely did he sit by the invalids bedside. The selfish love of an only child. Sometimes when he was little he used to imagine that his father had gone away, that he had been sent to Brazil, or moved in with another woman, and the two of them were left on their own in a pleasantly enclosed life, consoling each other. At least he wanted all the traffic between his parents to flow through his own junction and not through a tunnel behind his back. Her illness seemed to him as though she had suddenly had a baby daughter, a demanding pampered creature, a little like him, it was true, but a spoilt child. He imagined that if he went away his mother would have to choose between the two of them, and he was sure she would never give him up. How astonished he was when she eventually chose the ugly bloated baby and left him alone with his father.