But what about me?
16. 1988, Haifa
F
ROM
H
ILDA’S DIARY
I never thought I would be in this cemetery again. Yesterday we buried Musa, his brother, father, wife, and some other relatives. It was overcast and raining. What a dreadful place this Israel is. There is a war here inside every person which has neither rules nor boundaries nor sense nor justification. Nor the hope that it will ever end. Musa had just turned 50. He had applied to leave to work in America and had bought the tickets. His uncle had sent a photograph of the house and garden in which he and his family were to live. Musa was hired as a gardener by one of the richest people in the world, who now will have to make do with another gardener.
The coffin was sealed. I saw neither his face nor his hands. I have no photograph of him. I have no family, children, relatives, not even a native language. I haven’t known for a long time which is my first language, Hebrew or German. We were lovers for almost 20 years, then it ended. Not because I stopped loving him, but because my own heart told me that was enough. He understood. These last years we met only in church, when we stood side by side and both knew there was nobody closer to us in the world. The tenderness was still there but we had buried our desires very deeply. I shall remember him as I saw him that last time, three weeks ago or so, with his darkened face, gray hair, prematurely aged, and with the gold tooth which glinted when he smiled.
He hadn’t offered to see me home, and that was right. Turning, I waved to him, and he looked after me, and I went away with a light heart because I felt that now I had a different life, without the madness of love against which we had both struggled so ingloriously and not won but simply grown deadly tired and surrendered. I felt empty and free inside and I thought, thank God, a little more space has been freed in my heart. Let it be filled not by human love, selfish and hungry, but by another love which knows no selfishness. I felt, too, that my ego was much diminished. Daniel remained for the wake but I left. A nauseating smell of roast chicken rose mercilessly from the tables.
This morning Daniel and I went to a cheap supermarket to buy disposable plates, incontinence pads for the old people, and various other things, and when we had shoved it all into the car and were about to move off he unexpectedly said, “It is very important that your ego is declining, taking up less space, and then more space is left in your heart for God. On the whole it’s right that a person takes up less space with the years. Of course, I’m not talking about myself, because with the years I keep putting on weight.”
When we had unloaded everything and arranged it on the shelves in the store, Daniel said, “Do you really think you could leave? It is tantamount to deserting the battlefield at the critical moment.” “Do you really think right now is the critical moment?” I asked rather irritably, because the thought of leaving was stirring in my heart. “My dear girl, that is what a Christian has to choose, to always be at the critical moment, in the very heart of life, to experience pain and joy simultaneously. I love you very much. Have I really never told you that?”
At that moment I experienced what it was that he was talking about: a piercing pain in my heart, and a joy as strong as pain.
17. 1991, Berkeley
L
ETTER FROM
E
WA
M
ANUKYAN TO
E
STHER
G
ANTMAN
Dear Esther,
Now that you have gone, I am missing you even more. I wanted to talk to you about everything, but was embarrassed. In any case, you already know it all. My whole life I have been longing for a mother, both when I had none and when she reappeared. I never found contentment. It seems to me that my life has evolved in such a complicated way because I never had a mother beside me. You have become my mother more than Rita. Only with you have I formed a link which sustains me and makes me stronger and wiser.
Shortly after you left, Enrique moved into our house. You have seen him, one of those two friends Alex has been spending all his time with for the past year. Alex asked whether I would feel better if he and Enrique rented an apartment in town or lived at home. I said, at home. Now they come down together to breakfast, happy and handsome. It’s as if I have two sons. I smile and make coffee. Admittedly, only on Saturdays and Sundays—on working days I am out of the house before anybody else. Enrique is a great boy. He is helpful and friendly and there is absolutely no aggression in him. Although he is five years older than Alex they look the same age. They have the same physique and love exchanging clothes. Four years ago he left Mexico. He had problems with his parents. He mentioned it in passing and with a subtext which suggested he was praising me for being so tolerant. Enrique is finishing a design course and has already been invited to join some well-known firm. Alex is completely committed to sociology, but his interest is exclusively in the homosexual aspect.
Grisha gets on marvelously with them. Just as before, the house is full of openhearted laughter every time I come back from work and they are in the front room. I smile and ask if I may join them. I am exactly how my son and my husband want me to be: kindly and tolerant. Terribly tolerant. I allow everybody everything: my son to sleep with a boy, my husband to sleep with a girl. I am magnanimity itself. Everybody thinks I am wonderful. Grisha is attentive and gentle as never before. I do not say a word about Liza and he is very grateful. His embraces are as ardent as ever, and when I stopped going to university events he was simply delighted by my tact. I had ceded my place by his side at social events to Liza. There are still two university couples whom, as in the past, Grisha and I visit together.
We have an ambiguous and unarticulated but entirely consensual relationship. It seems only a matter of time before the three of us go out visiting together. Grisha would like nothing better, although he tries not to let on. I don’t, however, think that my tolerance will stretch that far. I can finally bring myself to tell you honestly that I have this terrible fear that he will leave me. I have consented to any form of relationship just as long as he stays with me. You may no longer respect me.
Anyway, that’s quite enough about that. We have talked about it plenty. Here’s some news! I was talking to Rita on the phone. She has a new and grandiose plan. Next year will be the fiftieth anniversary of the day she escaped from the Emsk ghetto. (Incidentally, two and a half months after that day I shall be 50!) They have decided to arrange a reunion in Emsk of those who are still alive, and my mother, imagine it, is also planning to go. It’s an insane idea but something she is perfectly capable of doing. In a wheelchair, by three modes of transport—from Haifa to Odessa by ship, from there by plane to Minsk, and from Minsk by train to Emsk. I was terribly cross at first and thought she should have the decency just to stay where she is! Then I suddenly realized this was another demonstration of her idiotically heroic character. She refuses to be daunted by any difficulties, least of all by her own disability. She is telling me that I have to come and collect her in Haifa and accompany her throughout the journey.
And yes, I do want to! I realize I want to see all this with my own eyes. It will be more powerful than a session on a psychoanalyst’s couch, not a Freudian peeping into the parental bed at the moment of your conception, but coming into living contact with the past of my family and people. Forgive the histrionics. Do tell me whether you have been invited to the reunion. Are you going? For some reason just the thought that you will be there makes the journey infinitely important to me.