The Last of the Wise Lovers

  I understood that Dad had tried to kiss her. I know the feeling, when you're rejected in mid-kiss. I hurt for him.

  Mom said, "How could you say I never wanted to make anything of myself, that I'm not capable...”

  Dad solved the problem by doing a quick about-face. "I didn't say that you weren't capable, I said that over there, by those anti-Semites, you weren't able. I meant that no one was able, there...”

  I pounded my mattress in frustration. Maybe it wasn't fair, but I wanted him to fight back for me, too, wanted him to force her to face the truth, force her to say something decisive and responsible, once and for all.

  It was still possible, because she didn't let go easily. "You said I didn't want to, as if I were limp, some sort of rag...”

  But Dad cleverly opened up a new front by bringing in another factor, one that never disappointed, the fear factor.

  "Look," he entreated, "we're not getting any younger, in a year Ronny'll be going into the army, and we'll be left alone, just you and me. We need to be good to one another...”

  "That's what troubles me," Mom said sadly. "Everything's gone: beauty, youth, friends. Who am I left with?"

  Dad was ready to promise everything. "I'll talk to them at the office. I've been at this job long enough. It's about time they managed to arrange a job for me close to home. Maybe I'll even leave the Service and go back to studying art or writing reviews..."

  "Forget it. No one stopped the world to wait for you. The market's full of new talent...”

  "I could still work in the field of security, maybe even make it into a commercial business. Harry talked to me once about...”

  "That was three years ago, and even then he was talking about a one-shot deal...”

  "There'll be other things. A guy with his kind of business - factories in South America, acres of land in Asia, trade posts in Africa, his connections with the administration, his little services for the C.I.A... it's hard to stop those kinds of things overnight. I don't believe he's going to be sitting still in Florida. He'll undoubtedly start up some business, maybe he'll renew his connections with the administration, and if so, he could always use a resourceful and experienced security man, someone who knows how to keep his mouth shut. Just think, Florida... you and me lying on the sand, in the sun, the warm sea, just like Tel Aviv in the good old days."

  Mom said suddenly, sharply, "Enough."

  "What's the matter? Have you got something against Harry?"

  She was silent.

  "What's wrong?" Dad asked again.

  There was no answer. I heard the door to their bedroom open and shut, and then the rustling of newspaper and the slamming of the bathroom door. As the silence dragged on, I thought I could hear muffled sounds. I pressed my ear against the wall, and only after listening long and hard did I realize that she was leaning against it on the other side, crying.

  *

  The next day I again rose early. I was hoping to cut out before I ran into one of them. However, as if just to annoy me, everyone was up early; what was even more aggravating was that they acted as if nothing had happened. Perhaps because of the previous night's argument, Dad took all of his art stuff out of the basement, set himself up on the garden patio in the back yard, stretched a new canvas, and began painting stripes of green and fluorescent purple. Mom sat in the kitchen sipping coffee with her eyes closed, looking as if she had a very bad headache. Aunt Ida was still on the lookout on the kitchen porch, laying an ambush. I wondered if there wasn't somebody else out there, too, watching us from the grove at the end of the street, waiting for us to leave the house so he could come back to search for something - or worse.

  I got myself some milk and a roll and sat down opposite Mom. It wasn't the most ideal situation for a talk between us, but what I had heard the night before made me feel that if I didn't talk, I would burst.

  "I'd like you to hear me out," I began in a low voice, so that Aunt Ida wouldn't hear. "Now I understand everything that's happened since the night of the party, over a week ago. I know a lot of things, more than you realize, but I don't think ill of you, really I don't. I'm just asking that we talk about it, because the silence is killing me...”

  She opened two tired eyes. "What?"

  That was frustrating, but I went over everything from the beginning, and I also went on and told about the guy I had found in the house the night before. I didn't say anything about the letters I'd copied, the night I'd seen her getting out of a car at the end of the road, the slide I'd found, the notch in the tree, or my listening in to Dad's conversations - all stuff I didn't feel I should tell. When I finished, she poured herself some more coffee but didn't speak.

  "So, what do you have to say to me?" I asked.

  "Nothing new," she answered blankly, "just what I've already told you before. You're mixing ten percent reality with all sorts of fantasies."

  "What fantasies? I'm not imagining things, I know what's going on...” I was beginning to get carried away, "I heard you fighting last night...”

  "You had no right to listen. What goes on between your father and me is intimate."

  "But you want to know the intimate details of my life...” I said, highly insulted over the tens of crushes, white lies, shoplifting, and other embarrassments that I had confessed to her. "Whenever I wonder whether I should tell you something or not you remind me that we're soul mates and so alike and all, that we belong to one another...”

  "I won't consent to this score-keeping. Our friendship is too sacred to be discussed as if it were a baseball game...”

  "How will we know this friendship exists if we can't even discuss it?"

  "Friendship," she said with a measure of conviction that proved she was in it deep, "is something that you feel, and feelings - if you'll remember we read about this together - cannot be coldly dissected...”

  "We didn't read that," I shouted angrily. "Uncle Harry said that...”

  "Watch your tone of voice," she shot back.

  "And he didn't say you couldn't dissect feelings, he just said you can't argue with feelings...”

  "You see, and you're trying to argue with me over how much friendship I feel for you...”

  I remember asking myself whether she was slipping or whether I was sobering up after a long, long period of delusion.

  "I'm not doubting your feelings, I just think that your feeling that way doesn't make it reality."

  "What do you know of reality?"

  "At least I don't think fruit is sweet...”

  A slight twinge of embarrassment flickered in her eyes, then passed.

  "And if we're already on that subject, when are you going on that cruise?"

  "I... I'm not going. There was some sort of problem and the ship isn't going to sail. Instead I won a bunch of beauty products and a five-year discount card for Macy's."

  "Five years!" I squawked. "If you keep on ignoring what's going on you won't have time to enjoy that card for even five days!" I went around the table and bent toward her. "Somebody is going to die on the 7th of September and you are liable to get hurt. You don't want to believe it, but I think it's serious, in fact after yesterday, I'm certain...” I was overcome by a wave of self-pity. "Have you ever thought about what I'm going through?" I asked. "Did you ever try and imagine what I think of you, how I've felt from the moment I realized that your behavior doesn't fit with everything you've taught me and told me about yourself, with all your declarations about courage and having a sense of obligation to yourself and to the world... what am I supposed to understand now? That all our conversations, all the places we've been, all the big words and the grandiose conclusions, were just lies, nonsense, bullshit?"

  She was very hurt. I could tell by the color of her face and the line that was furrowed in her brow, a chink in her armor of deception.

  She said, "I don't think you're judging me fairly. I have problems and all I ask is that you let me solve them myself. Nothing bad is going to happen. I'm sure of that, but I'm asking yo
u not to interfere." These were the first honest words I'd heard from her on this subject.

  I was so taken aback that all I could do was mutter, "Wait, you mean to say that...” but the screen door slammed behind me, and I shut up. Mom went back to her cup of coffee, and the openness that had hung in the air for a moment was gone.

  It was Aunt Ida. "I heard you talking about Harry, you must be very careful. He knows everything. He has special machines that record everything you say...” Mom twisted her face in disgust. Aunt Ida grabbed me by the arm and hissed in my face from a mouthful of malodorous night breath, "He's been with them full time, you know, since before the war."

  Those were the most difficult days. When I think back to them I want to die. Even your goons are a more cheerful lot. I'll call one of them now, so I can go take a leak.

  THE FIFTH NOTEBOOK

  Where were we? Ah, yes. Aunt Ida. Dad saved me from her pestering. He came in from the yard and turned to me, aware of Mom sitting there finishing her coffee.

  "That's it. I'm off. I don't mind going a bit out of my way to take you to the library before I go to Kennedy, if you'd like a ride."

  The prospect of riding alone with him for almost an hour both enticed and frightened me. For a moment I toyed with the idea of going with him and saying something that wouldn't give anyone away, but that would warn him not to bring any more of his "work" home - or at least to do a better job of concealing it. Except that right away this spellbound loyalty to Mom cropped up, the sensation that I was supposed to be on her side, and when Dad asked impatiently, "So, what have you decided?" I mumbled something about deciding to stay home that day to finish some schoolwork that we'd been assigned over vacation.

  Dad shrugged his shoulders, went back to the yard, folded up his easel, and rinsed his brushes in a way that was meant to signal something to Mom - but she didn't respond. Then he disappeared into the bedroom, came out with his overnight case and went out to his car. Suddenly, I felt sorry for him. I wanted to say something nice to him, like that I love him, or that the painting he'd started looked promising. I called to him, "Wait up, I'm coming with you." Something flashed across Mom's face - but maybe that was just my imagination.

  It had been a long time since I'd driven anywhere with Dad. It had been a long time since I'd been alone with him at all. As I said, life had consisted of me and Mom, Mom and me. I think Dad, too, was a little uncomfortable. He turned off the air conditioner and opened the window, driving slower than usual, as if he intended to say something particularly important to me.

  But we just shot the breeze about a bunch of stuff: how things were going at school, how things were with Debbie, whether I was getting along all right with Aunt Ida.

  We were already in the middle of Palisades Parkway when I asked, "Where are you flying, anyway?"

  He said, "West."

  "Why?"

  "Work."

  From the tone of his answers I could tell he didn't really want to think about work just then, and he certainly didn't want to talk about it. But there was something else bothering him, something that had him sunk so deep in thought that he wasn't quite paying attention to the road. Suddenly he asked, "Has something happened to you?"

  "No," I said immediately.

  "You seem restless to me."

  I smiled uneasily and I searched for an answer that would be close to the truth.

  "I'm having a tough time with Mom...”

  "I thought you were good friends. What's wrong?"

  How could I tell him without giving her away? I decided to keep things general.

  "All sorts of stuff's been getting on my nerves...”

  "Things you never noticed before?"

  "Exactly," I answered quickly, grateful for his empathy.

  But what he said next was disappointing. "That's part of what happens when you grow up. When I was your age, I couldn't stand my parents, either." There was a note of satisfaction in his voice, as if he'd resolved a sticky problem for me.

  "Good," I said, leaving things at that and turning on the radio.

  He turned it off.

  "What exactly bothers you about her?"

  I weighed each word very carefully.

  "Especially the fact that she has to feel she's perfect, that she never admits to making mistakes... every time she does something foolish she invents an excuse for it, and the more foolish her mistake, the more elaborate her excuse... haven't you ever noticed that?"

  Somebody behind us honked, and Dad increased his speed.

  "Sometimes she's not so realistic," he said indulgently, "but that's a feminine trait, and it's even part of her charm. She's got a lot of style, she's quite elegant." His face bore an expression of tenderness. "I remember the first time I saw her. A small, wisp of a girl, in a huge coat. A new immigrant. It was at an exhibition opening. She stood in a corner, slightly awkward; she was beautiful. When I went up to her, I noticed her hands. Her fingernails were so well-groomed that even that horrible coat she was wearing looked all right. She could hardly speak Hebrew, but she was fluent in French, could even quote whole passages in Latin...” he smiled sadly, "that's what's so beautiful about her, her style." Now his voice carried the pain that I had heard the previous night, from the other side of the wall. "I never told you all this?"

  "Mom told me. But her version sounds different. You had this awful hat and dirty work pants, but she immediately saw that underneath there was a diamond in the rough just waiting to be polished."

  Even before he had time to cringe, I remembered that those were the exact words she had said to him the night before. He gripped the steering wheel in silence. I was overcome with sorrow - so much so that I didn't even say anything when he missed the turnoff to the library. Finally he stopped at the back entrance to Penn Station.

  "It's around here, right?" It was just before 9:00. I still had plenty of time to get to the library at a brisk trot, but I felt like I couldn't part from him like that.

  "I'm going with you to Kennedy."

  "You'll be late for work."

  "It's all right," I lied. "I'll make up the hours later."

  We drove on in silence. Dad was sunk deep in thought. I tried to guess. Was he going over what had happened between him and Mom last night? The task ahead of him? Something else that I didn't know about? Somewhere around Queens it all became clear.

  "They bother you, my absences?"

  If I hadn't have listened in on their conversation, perhaps I would've told the truth: his trips neither added nor detracted, they were simply part of the lifestyle we'd all become accustomed to. But now I had the idea that Dad's presence at home might restore a little security and order.

  "Yes," I said, "a lot."

  He picked up on the note of despair that must have played behind the words.

  "I never realized I was so important to you. Well, my contract will be up in another two years; maybe I'll look for a small business or a more comfortable position."

  "With Uncle Harry?"

  He threw me a suspicious glance. "What makes you think that?"

  "He's the richest one in the family."

  "He is quite wealthy," Dad confirmed proudly, as if he'd had something to do with it.

  "Aunt Ida doesn't like him."

  "That's an old, unsettled score. Marvin really did help him in the beginning, and Aunt Ida thinks Harry was ungrateful...”

  "How so?"

  "Well...” he said uncomfortably, "Harry's always liked beautiful women and... that was a particularly sore point between him and his wife Rosie, Aunt Ida's sister."

  You most certainly will not be too pleased to be reading this, so it's important that you understand I had no intention of delving into the family gossip, I just had to know what his plans were based on, how serious they were, and what roles you and Aunt Ida were to play in them.

  "She hates him as if it all happened yesterday. No one forgets anything in this family. Over the years they even invent new memories. When Harry's wife was
killed in a car accident in Chicago, Aunt Ida was convinced that Harry had arranged it long-distance from New York in order to get rid of her. But of course that's nonsense...”

  "What will you do for him?" I cut him off.

  "What I know how to do."

  That was the typical response Dad gave to those who knew what he did but still wanted to hear it spelled out, from the horse's mouth. At that moment, it annoyed me.

  "Couldn't you do that in Israel?" I asked.

  "There are five men for every job like that in Israel. That's one of the few things that Israelis are better at than anyone else."

  "But what is there for you to do here? After all, we're not at war with the United States, we're allies...”

  "Alliance does not necessarily mean love," he said with a decisiveness that may also have been directed at the events of the previous night. "Even where there's love there are suspicions, and the need arises to investigate and interrogate and gather information in all sorts of ways...”

  For a moment I wondered if he had an inkling that one of those `ways' was leaky, and I even toyed with the idea of trying to mention it without giving anyone away.

  Instead I asked, "Don't you miss the things you used to do - painting, reading, music?"

  "Art! Don't you realize that our very existence is in danger? The Libyans are developing chemical weapons, the Iraqis are incubating bacteria, the Pakistanis are assembling an atomic bomb - and we have to fight all of them, without resources, without real assistance, just with a little inventiveness and cunning...”

  "I've heard those things already."

  He looked at me quizzically.

  "Pollard, television...”

  He was silent. He had a sour look on his face, maybe because of my response, maybe because he had gotten carried away and had said too much. In the meantime I thought of another, more pressing question.

  "And there's no danger... I mean, from the Americans. I mean, they're so organized and well-equipped...”