Leaves, how wonderful are the mysteries of the leaves: the green that year after year with the coming of the cold flames into shades of red on the trees. The crimson that dies into brown and yellow on the ground. The delicate skeletons of damp, transparent leaves — isn’t this a work of art? The changing of the seasons, the carnival of colors, the invisible hand of the creator of the leaf — such things, they say, calm the mind. The tired head rests on a hill, the eye follows the complex dance of the clouds mating in the sky. The hand caresses clods of earth. Calm caresses the eyelids. Breathing grows quiet. Eyes slowly close and languidly open again. The sun goes down behind the trees and sets them on fire before it finally sinks. And a great consolation comes with the setting of the sun, a great consolation, because we know that tomorrow the sun will surely rise and shine again, and the dead will live again, and we can sense the cycle of life and death in its eternity. The stillness of nature in all its glory. Quiet, hush. How great is the glory that surrounds us, sublime beyond comprehension, and the silence of the falling leaves and the mystery of their beauty is mightier than all our noise.
Perhaps we should pause here to contemplate the magnificence of nature in this place, but when we left my sister’s house it was already dark. Apart from the distant lights of the expressway we couldn’t see a thing, and even in daylight I did not and do not tend to take an interest in the scenery. Nature in all its mystery and glory doesn’t speak to me or tell me anything, apart from whatever is preoccupying my thoughts in any case.
My good Oded differs from me in this. My husband loves taking trips to the desert, he likes the silence and the quiet.
What he doesn’t like, however, are the mysterious silences of his wife.
“Nice people,” he remarked when my silence lasted all the way to the interchange. “It’s quite strange to meet people who love Israel so much today. It seems as if nothing we do could make them speak a word of criticism against us.” His wife kept quiet and he, in response, started to babble: “So yes, it’s strange when you think about the kind of country we actually live in. But on the other hand. . on the other hand, I wouldn’t object to adopting a bit of their love, five percent, say, just as an antidote, because in contrast to these people you suddenly realize how exaggerated our self-hatred is: how we hate ourselves out of all proportion.”
“At least you can’t say that I lied to you,” I blurted.
“You? Me?”
“I told you from the beginning that I had a crazy sister.”
“Crazy?’ he pronounced the word as if examining a new concept.
“Do me a favor. .”
“Do you mean the religious thing? So, as a Jew, even though I’m secular, obviously all that Christianity gets on my nerves a bit. Jesus was never our best friend. But if we’re talking about believers in generaclass="underline" I know quite a few religious people from work, you know some too, and neither of us would say that a belief in God is a sign of insanity.”
“Are you telling me you didn’t see that she’s crazy?”
“Not at all,” he cut straight into the summing-up speech he had prepared for me, a speech he had definitely prepared in advance. “Look, I know something, I know a little about the hell she went through. And the woman I met there is a woman who has completely, completely rehabilitated herself. Her life is full, she has a husband and a lovely little girl. You can see she’s a wonderful mother. If these aren’t measurements of sanity, I don’t know what are. And apart from all that, she seems to be happy. How many people can you say that about? A lot of people could wish for a life like hers.”
“Fine,” I said shortly.
“What’s fine?”
“Fine. You also read Hitler, First Person and thought it was a history book for high school students.”
“And that’s not legitimate?”
“Legitimate? No, it’s not legitimate to not see.”
“To not see what?”
“What’s right in front of your eyes.”
If he hadn’t been so tired he would probably have left it at that and avoided confrontation. He knew his wife. In most cases he knew very well when to let sleeping dogs lie, and in general my husband was an expert at the art of letting things be. But Oded was exhausted. Before the flight he had worn himself out at the office. In Chicago we hardly slept. On the way there, while I slept, he drove. And despite all this, and despite the jet lag, my aristocrat had not lost his civility and graciousness among the crowd of religious cranks into which I had dragged him, and apart from one brief escape into the yard, he had shown no sign of sulking.
Like a lot of other men, Oded tends to deny fatigue. And I think that it was this denied fatigue which overcame his restraint and good judgment, and which made him provoke me by asking if I still believed that I should warn my sister. The resentment in his tone revealed his opinion, which he immediately went on to explain, without waiting for my reply: My sister was happy, she had been beside herself with joy to see me, so why ruin her happiness for nothing? Who would it help, and how, exactly? What had happened had happened, what was done was done, and I knew as well as he did that no concrete danger was at hand. True, our insolent uncle had tried to make contact, but so what? If we were serious for a minute, we could agree that this did not constitute a real danger. My sister had found stability, after all she had been through — she was happy now, and anyone who took the risk of undermining that stability would be making a big mistake. You didn’t spoil people’s happiness, you didn’t wake sleeping dogs, or cry over spilled milk — it would be both unfair and unwise to do so.
I leaned my head against the back of the seat, I looked into the darkness and I listened to my husband telling me that I was, in effect, not normaclass="underline" seeing the shadow of mountains as wolves, about to terrorize my sister and pour cold water on her illusion of happiness. That I was not wise and not fair.
And he went on to interpret and rewrite the real meaning of my journey to me: what he saw as its hidden purpose and what in his innocent cunning he hoped that I would adopt as its purpose.
Estrangement between sisters was an unnatural and unhealthy situation, he said, especially when the women in question were fundamentally dear to each other. Families were always complicated. Sometimes people needed a time-out in their relationships, but he believed that by now I had matured sufficiently to renew the connection, and it seemed to him that the intrusion of that creep had simply provided me with a pretext to renew it.
I touched the frosty window and yawned. We had turned onto the expressway, which in fifteen minutes would lead us to the hotel and to bed.
The lighting on the road was meager and Urbana, which still lay ahead, was also in darkness. Ten o’clock at night, not even ten. People here went to bed early.
“We had a good day,” said my husband. “You had a good day with your sister. Why spoil a good thing?”
It was time to speak. “Tell me,” I asked, “did you get the impression that my sister is retarded?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Tell me.”
I heard him take a deep breath. He opened the window a little to let the air in, perhaps to pray for patience before he answered me.
“Did I say anything or do anything to make you think that’s what I thought? I don’t think so. And no, Elinor, the answer is no. I don’t think your sister is retarded. Apart from the religious business, which is beside the point, the impression your sister made was one of a pleasant and intelligent person.”
“I’m glad to hear that you think so. I’m glad to hear this is your diagnosis, because a lot of people think or thought that my sister is retarded. And retards, as you know, can’t make decisions on their own. I, as opposed to all kinds of people, definitely don’t think she’s retarded, and if that insolent creep, as you call him, if that creep has now emerged from the sewers to intrude on our lives, then to the best of my understanding, to the best of my understanding she has the full right to know. Just make up your mind what you think: either she’s a retard who needs to be protected from the facts, or not. Just make up your mind and tell me if my sister has any rights.”