“That’s the new contribution to the thin book?”
“That’s just the beginning.”
“Everything you’ve said up till now seems trivial coming from a man who claimed I was his heart and soul.”
“Trivial and easy for a devoted lover like me, whose love added power to his muscles when he had to carry the harp up and down the thirty-two steps of our apartment in Jerusalem, before we moved to Tel Aviv and found the noisy flat on the ground floor.”
“But on the ground floor it was much easier, because we could move it from there in its harp cart.”
“Only relatively so, compared to our place in Jerusalem. Even when the harp would roll in its cart straight from the apartment, I always thought that if it were a baby, it would be easier and nicer for me.”
“Maybe, but at least my harp didn’t cry at night.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Your new and original idea has now become stupid.”
“Be patient,” he says, softly repeating her words, “and it will become accessible to a person as intelligent as you. And so, after you were rejected by every Israeli orchestra you applied to, I didn’t want you to lose self-confidence, so I didn’t criticize. But I was bitter inside and even angry that you had picked an unconventional instrument, heavy and clumsy and lonesome and unwanted in many works of music. An ancient instrument, religious, ritualistic, even mythological, which you were maybe attracted to because of the Orthodox people who lived around you in your childhood.”
“The Orthodox around me didn’t play any instruments.”
“Precisely. And so you decided to play instead of them, or for them, with a type of instrument that fits their tradition and maybe also their dreams.”
“Oh, Uriah.” She laughs. “That’s not only new, it’s ridiculous. I can’t believe a thought like that ever entered your head.”
“Wait, wait.” He touches her lightly to hold her attention. “You asked me to write in the thin third book, so be prepared, as in poetry, to expose the truth concealed in absurdity. After all these years we’ve been apart, I see you still have that sweet, fragile, delicate, girlish quality that stole my heart from the minute I met you. And though your hands have grown stronger and your fingers are flexible from playing, I still ask myself how you manage on your own, in a foreign country, with your heavy and cumbersome instrument.”
“It became less heavy and cumbersome after I separated from you. And you, even if you wheeled it and lifted it, and even if eventually you understood how to tune it, don’t think you knew all about it.”
“Not about it, about you, because from the first moment you were my musical instrument. So now when I remember that Hasid who didn’t mind that you played on Shabbat because he hoped you would someday play in the Temple, a story you told me over and over—”
“Yes, I admit it, I sometimes repeat myself, but that’s how I hold on to a childhood that was good and happy, as opposed to your gloomy childhood.”
“Forget my childhood now and listen. Your story is not just another charming childhood tale to remember fondly, but a story with a meaning that I always sensed without being able to put my finger on it, until I saw your excitement just now when your childhood sweetheart brought you a little boy and some fruit. This was the one you talked to on the stairs, hour after hour, in total freedom and openness.”
“And if I was once in love with a gentle boy who was open to the world, whose face was still bare and smooth—”
“So perhaps it was for him that you decided to devote yourself to an ancient and ritualistic instrument his father couldn’t give him.”
“For him?” She laughs. “After such a long separation you’ve come up with a new jealousy? And by the way, since you insist on going back to my old story, why leave out its bizarre ending?”
“What ending?”
“His father told me that to play in the Temple, the girl would have to turn into a handsome lad.”
“No, Noga, I couldn’t forget the ending of that story, which you also clung to. But what I’m asking now is whether you sometimes toy with the possibility of turning into a handsome lad?”
“Why would I?”
“So as not to give birth to a child.”
“No. Absolutely not. Though I didn’t want a child forced on me, I wanted a child born out of the thought and will and agreement of its two parents.”
“And that’s why you secretly aborted the child that came by accident.”
“Secretly, because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“But that hurt me more.”
“Because you were looking for pain and insult. And for many long months after you learned about the abortion, you decided to punish me and yourself and deny your sexual desire. But you didn’t succeed in denying it, just in poisoning it, and when you got tired of denial it was too late. Your poison also poisoned my desire.”
“I poisoned it because I was never able to get a simple admission from you: ‘Yes, I am guilty.’ You, Noga, could be the foreman of any jury and cast blame on anybody else with complete confidence, but you always exonerate yourself.”
“Jury?” she exclaims with amazement. “Wait, where’d you get that idea? Your deep attachment to me scares me sometimes. Listen, Uriah, if you don’t want to destroy your love, then go to work and take it with you, but don’t try to destroy me on its account.”
Forty-One
STARTLED BY THE LAST WORDS she blurted out, knowing from experience that he will be hurt and defensive, she looks with suddenly rediscovered compassion for a way to retract them. But Uriah turns abruptly away, quickly puts on his shoes and with a grim expression goes to get his jacket from the kitchen chair, shakes it out and puts it on, takes his necktie and goes to her old, familiar clothes closet and opens it, seeking a mirror.
She follows him.
“No,” she says gently, “you don’t need the tie.”
He looks at her coldly.
“Listen to me, it’s for your own good. Ties never looked right on you. They make you look uptight and bossy, especially now that your hair is turning gray.”
“Tell me,” he says as he fumbles with the knot, “why is that any of your business?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Why not?” He imitates her mockingly. “Maybe why yes.”
“It’s only natural.”
“How I look? My look is no concern of yours. I don’t need your indulgence or anything else from you.”
He yanks apart the tangled tie and starts over.
“Listen to me. There’s a problem with that tie in particular. I saw it the minute you walked in. Not only does it not suit you in principle, but the color clashes with your shirt.”
“The color is fine.”
“Yes, but not for you, which is why I always had to help you. Can’t be that your wife didn’t also see this tie doesn’t match, unless she was busy with the kids.”
His hands freeze. The tie dangles on his shirt.
“Don’t talk about her, it drives me crazy.”
“Don’t go crazy. You didn’t come here to go crazy, but maybe to reconcile. And I’ll help you reconcile and take my share of blame. But please, lose the tie.”
Suddenly he surrenders, as she knew he would, pulls the tie from his neck and stuffs it in his pocket, but she pulls it out. “No,” she says, “let me fold it properly.”
And she straightens and folds it, hands it back to him.
He rejects her extended hand. “No, you keep it. So something tangible will remain and not just an imaginary book of poetry, and if somebody here turns into a handsome lad after all, why not have a tie handy?”