“Right,” I responded immediately, overjoyed that the trip to India had cropped up at last, and turned into a common memory. “Because of your husband’s efficiency, the trip passed as quickly as a dream. And that’s a shame, because I know I’ll never go back there.”
“Don’t say that,” she protested quickly. “How do you know? You’re still so young.” I didn’t answer this, as I had no intention of being dragged into a discussion of my youth at this point, after having convinced myself that the age difference between us had dissolved of its own accord in the darkness of her mother’s apartment. She now asked me, in a voice that contained an unfamiliar anxiety, if I was in a hurry to move into the apartment or if I could wait until Tuesday, when lawyers’ offices were closed in the afternoon, since she wanted to sign the lease in the apartment so that she could show me not only the whereabouts of the water shut-off valve, but also how to use the stove and the microwave oven, and so that we could go over the inventory that her mother had prepared, and then we could sign the contract at our leisure like civilized human beings. After all, who more than she understood that business deals between friends were always open to misunderstandings and mistaken interpretations. “Will your mother be there too?” A doubt crept into my heart. “If you want her to come too, to explain how to use the household appliances better than I can, I’ll try to bring her,” she answered naturally and composedly. “No, no.” I hurriedly dismissed the idea, aware of the eagerness in my voice. “Why drag her all the way there? It will only upset her to see the apartment at sixes and sevens.”
Even though the suggestion to meet at the apartment for the signing came from her, I was sure that nothing was going to happen between us. She was a mature, realistic woman, basking in the love and admiration of her husband, and apparently of others too. Even if she enjoyed the attentions of a young man, it would never occur to her to think that he had actually fallen in love with her, for a woman who had been dining on a rich feast of love all her life would have forgotten what the obsessive hunger of being in love felt like. Moreover, despite the encouraging smiles she flashed at her reflection in the mirror, she was well aware of the folds of flesh around her waist. Nor did she fail to see the deep creases in her neck, and the blotches on her skin when her makeup faded. And even if she still felt complacent about her straight, slender legs, she wouldn’t be able to understand why a young and not bad-looking man like myself, a man at his peak, would suddenly fall in love with her. It would never occur to her that it was precisely her hidden weakness, which her husband had innocently revealed to me, had incited my interest and lust. Nevertheless, I prepared myself for the meeting with a feeling that it would be fateful for me. I decided to wear the checked shirt that I had been wearing when I performed the blood transfusion in Varanasi, even though it was nothing special and faded from many washings, for I hoped that it would give rise, even if only in her subconscious, to the memory of that mysterious hour when I had directed the flow of blood between the two women, and produce some sympathy for me after I delivered my confession, which I knew could only be humiliating and idiotic.
I was determined to unburden myself, and I only hoped that, as before, the apartment would remain shrouded in that golden, dusky darkness which softens, in the natural melancholy of the dying day, everything that is ridiculous and grotesque from the human point of view. But toward afternoon the sky darkened and a hard rain began flooding the town. And I knew that the twilight would be enjoyed only by those flying westward above the clouds, while I would be obliged to stammer my confession in the full glare of the electric lights. Nevertheless, I remained resolute, even though when I knocked on the door I prayed for a moment that Lazar would be there to protect her, and perhaps to protect me too from my imminent humiliation. But there was silence behind the door. She had not yet arrived. After a few minutes I heard her footsteps on the stairs. Was I too beginning to identify her footsteps from a distance, like her husband? She was late, but alone, confident in her ability to deal with me by herself. Her face was covered with a heavy layer of makeup, but the clothes she was wearing were not in the least attractive. On the contrary, they made her look short and clumsy. She had long black boots on her legs, and her body was covered by the black velvet jumpsuit whose sleeves she hadn’t been able to roll up when I gave her the vaccination shots. She was brisk and businesslike, and no longer hostile, as on the previous occasion. “It’s a good thing you came early.” She smiled and opened the door. And I knew there was no longer any need to appease her for my precipitousness. Instead, it seemed that she was already very satisfied with the quiet and undemanding tenant who had forced himself on her. “Isn’t Lazar coming?” I asked. “No, he’s busy today,” she replied, and moved an empty suitcase standing in her way in the passage leading to the bedroom. “But he was here yesterday and insisted on emptying out another closet for you, to give you more room. Come and see how how hard he worked for you,” and with a flourish she flung the closet door open to show me how ingeniously Lazar had succeeded in making all the shoe boxes disappear. But he had not been allowed to touch the gray suits, which were still hanging in the other closet. “You shouldn’t have made such an effort,” I said amicably. “The space was quite enough for me.”
“Now,” said Lazar’s wife firmly, “but how do you know what will happen in the future?” Her eyes twinkled in a smile, perhaps alluding to the marriage I had promised, and she led me into the kitchen to show me a few old electric appliances, which had been dug out of the depths of the kitchen cupboards and were now displayed on the marble counter, decked out in brightly colored covers. But when she tried to tell me how they worked, according to the explanations dictated by her mother, I saw that she was totally at sea. When she began pressing the different buttons, I realized her charming, pampered helplessness, which touched me so profoundly that I could no longer control myself and laid my hand on her little, freckled one to stop her. “It’ll be all right,” I reassured her. “I’ll work it out myself. And if I have any problems, I can always get in touch with your mother directly.” Then we entered the living room, to go over the detailed list her mother had insisted on drawing up in her large but almost illegible handwriting, and to try to work out how much the written words matched the actual furnishings of the apartment. After that I read through the lease, which was full of dire warnings and threats to the tenant. But maybe, I reassured myself, this was the standard form in use in Dori’s office. Everything was ready except for my parents’ signature on the guarantee, which she agreed to wait for until the following week. I signed the two copies of the contract, and as she requested I wrote twelve postdated checks for all the months of the coming year, so that we would not have to bother each other with additional meetings. She put the checks into her bag without inspecting them and took out two keys, which she placed on the table. Now she was relaxed and at peace with herself, and she lit a slender cigarette, gave me a soft look, and asked, “Have we forgotten anything, or is that all?”
There could have been no better opening than this for my declaration of love, which had been turning around inside me for several days. And without hesitating or stammering, dropping my head slightly so as to avoid meeting her eyes, I began unburdening myself confidently and fluently to this woman who was only a little younger than my mother. “I know that what I am about to say will seem absurd to you, because it seems absurd and strange to me too, but it’s still true. If you’ve sensed it already, you may as well hear it straight and tell me what to do with it, because ever since we returned from India I’ve been tiptoeing around you and trying to tie you to me with flimsy threads that keep on breaking. And even though you haven’t done anything to encourage me, you haven’t rejected my attempts to bind you to me either, like this apartment, which I only rented so as to have something to attach you to me, so I wouldn’t lose you altogether.” I still hadn’t raised my head to look at her, because I was afraid that the faint smile in her eyes would throw me off my speech, whose tone seemed just right to me, manly but also touching. “I have to tell you, I don’t know what’s happened to me.” I went on with my head bowed. “That last night in the hotel in Rome, after Lazar left, I fell head over heels in love with you, against all logic, and to my complete surprise, because I’ve never fallen in love with a woman older than me before. Please don’t protest the use of these words, let me tell you that I protest them too, and try to dismiss them all the time, but even if we dismiss the words, the condition won’t go away, and it fills my thoughts all day long. And I wonder if I have to fight it and eradicate it from my heart. In other words, is this an immoral love, like that of a grown man who falls in love with a little girl?” For a moment I fell silent, unable to go on talking in my excitement at having succeeded in unburdening myself of the words which had been weighing on my heart for so many days. But I couldn’t go on hanging my head and staring at the carpet, which I noticed was a little ragged at the edges — a fact that maybe should have been mentioned in the inventory — and so I raised eyes full of despair to the woman curled up in the corner of the sofa like a soft black velvet ball, whose automatic smile had completely disappeared from her eyes, and who in a gesture I had never seen before had her fist pressed to her mouth, not in amazement or ridicule but in profound attention, which encouraged me to go on talking. “I ask myself if you and Lazar wanted me to accompany you to India not just because I am a doctor but because in the depth of your hearts you hoped that I might fall in love with Einat, as in the plot of some well-intentioned British movie. But reality is a different, incredible movie, and instead of falling in love with the sick young woman you offered me, I fell in love with her mother, and I really wasn’t looking for another mother, because the one I’ve already got is perfectly good. Dori, please don’t try to explain my screwed-up psychology to me. It may be screwed up, but not here. Here there’s something else entirely, which I call, if you don’t mind, mystery. Yes, mystery, a word I’ve always fought against and that I now find myself enslaved to. And you know what? My heart told me what I was letting myself in for, because the minute I heard that you were coming with us to India, I felt so pressured that I almost decided to change my mind about going.”