Hypnotized, she hovers in the space of his sealed pod, a human flake carried this way and that on the current of a strong breeze. Thoughts pass through her, chills of consciousness, alien headlines,
ridiculing, but she doesn't want them. Maybe later. Tomorrow. And she knows: as early as dawn. And she hopes she won't betray what she felt then either. And if she does, she hopes she at least knows that she is betraying. And that she remembers how excited she is now by this power of his to insist on keeping the ember that burns inside him alive, as if there is no one with him and he has no shame, no truth or lies, nothing forbidden or ugly. It excites her to think that he has, quite simply, shown her the cogwheels and levers and pistons of the abstract mechanism that generates-in his soul and in hers too-the dreams and nightmares and hallucinations and terrors and yearnings. They are all exposed to her, gaping generously in a way no one has ever given her before, and it is good for her there, she knows, it is so warm. She reaches back and feels around and finds his hand, envelops it with her fingers, squeezes, sending him strength, drawing it from him.
But they did have flowers, he laughs exaggeratedly, excited by her touch and not pulling his hand back. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that Elisheva wanted the house to be full of flowers. Because when she's with him, in their home, flowers always give her a sense of space and freedom. You should see how she sniffs the bouquet she buys for Shabbat from the Yemenite guy by the post office-such a smiler, that one, with big lips, almost purple-and how she arranges the flowers in a vase, her seriousness, and how much time she spends on them, and the way suddenly, listen, as if she can't take it anymore, she leans over swiftly and puts her face in and inhales them as hard as she can-
He speaks quickly, grasping her hand as if trying to push away what will happen soon, what he will see in a few minutes. How did she manage not only, he says, to take off the veil she must have worn, not only the dress she bought for the ceremony and probably left in his closet among the other dresses, but how did she hide everything else? That's what I don't get: the excitement, the trembling knees when he lifted her veil to kiss her, the ring he bought her-after all, he put a ring on her finger, and then he had to take it off as soon as the ceremony was over, and that's the ring he puts on her finger every time she shows up at his door, and that way, every day they have a new little wedding ceremony. Maybe she even forgot to take the ring off that day, he thinks suddenly, and only when she left the apartment and stood at the steps to blow him one last kiss, only then did he notice it and, alarmed, whisper to her to return, and she didn't understand what for, but went up happily for another kiss, and he pulled the ring off and kissed her bare finger. Shaul chokes, and Esti sees his eyes glaze over in the mirror and his lips pucker for an imagined kiss, and her heart tears with compassion. That is the essence of his life, she thinks. These thoughts and fancies, they are more alive in him than anything else, they may even be more-something jolts in her-than what he has with Elisheva herself.
A few minutes later they drove past the entrance gate and into the cabin area. They saw no one. The headlights lit up a cabin wall every so often, or a tent, or a hut covered with palm fronds.
Straight and farther down, he said, no lights.
The car rocked heavily. Gravel flicked under the wheels.
Farther, farther down.
The path became a slope, twisted and more rocky.
Farther, all the way down.
Esti thought she'd never be able to get back up. It seemed to her as if the entire desert could hear the Volvo screeching and groaning.
That's it.
They were on the edge of a cliff.
Turn it off.
She killed the engine, straightened up a bit, and saw, on the plain beneath her, a small dark cabin. Bamboo walls, a roof of mats and branches.
The sudden silence filled up quickly with crickets and nocturnal rustles. She saw his face come and go in the mirror, and then settle there, a pale yellowish stain against the back window. They sat quietly. The mist had lifted and the sky over the desert was cloudless. Esti thought about Elisheva breathing beyond those thin walls. Asleep or awake. Maybe watching them.
Do you need help? she whispered.
What? Her voice had shocked him, and only then did she realize she was disturbing him.
I thought-should I help you out of the car?
No … I don't need anything.
His eyes were closed tight, and he bit his lower lip. Maybe he needs me to get out, she thought, maybe he wants to be left alone. But she didn't move, not wanting to disturb him. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. And felt him erase her again. She did not exist, and for a long moment she delighted in the feeling.
She lost track of time. Years shed away from her. She might have slept. Maybe just hallucinated. When she opened her eyes once in a while, she saw his constricted face, and no longer tried to guess what was going through his mind. She was part of his imagination, an image flickering at the edge of his hallucinatory scene. She closed her eyes again and gave herself over to him and became the thing he saw, the back hiding the cabin in which Elisheva was writhing on her bed with a man, perhaps two, perhaps with all the men in the world.
Esther, he said later weakly, I think we can go back.
She found it hard to wake up. She started the engine and maneuvered the car clumsily onto the road and drove slowly, avoiding looking in the little mirror.
Stop for a minute, he said when they were some distance away, I want to move up front.
She stopped on the shoulder of the empty road. He opened the door and pushed himself out and stood leaning on the car with his leg slightly folded in midair. She got out and went to him and stood in front of him, enveloping herself in his arms, breathing the sharp air, rocking slowly. They stood together for a moment within the night's shell and did not know where to look. She extricated herself and hurried over to move the passenger seat back and lower the back down at an angle. She padded the floor with a coat and a blanket.
You can get in, she said, as he walked to the open door.
Wait, she murmured as he walked by her, and without thinking she pulled him in for an embrace.
What do you think? he said hesitantly when they were moving again and had been quiet for several miles. Maybe we can go through Beersheba? And she, alert at once, asked why. He said, I just thought maybe you'd show me your old places. She considered his offer. But it's nighttime, she said. And he said, Yes. She nodded slowly to herself a few times, thoughtfully, wondering where to begin.
February 2002
Her Body Knows
She interrupts me after the third sentence: "I saw something on TV yesterday and I thought of you."
I put down the pages. I can't believe she's cutting me off like that.
"I woke up and it was 3 a.m.," she says, "and I had nothing to do." She laboriously moves her swollen face on the pillow and turns to me. "It was something about a bunch of hippies in America. Saving birds that keep crashing into towers." -