The Tunnel, page 15
“Impossible.”
“Totally possible. Just like her to give such news through a stranger and go to a concert and not call again. But you, you,” he turns to Luria, “why did you say nothing? How could you say nothing? How could you let me sit calmly and joke around with news like this buried inside you?”
“Don’t be angry with him,” says Dina, defending her husband. “He forgets things innocently, it happens to him.”
“It’s not me, it’s the dementia,” mumbles Luria. “I told you, beware of me, sometimes I erase things that were just said. For no reason.”
“Okay, it’s no big deal, never mind, I’m sorry. That’s it. The end.” And Maimoni paces around the room, tugging weirdly at his beard.
“You did tell me on the road,” says Luria imploringly, “that you knew his death was coming soon.”
“I knew, yes, I even prepared myself, but now that it’s real, final, it hurts so much. How could you forget to tell me he was dead, how could you possibly forget something like that? And I’m making small talk with the two of you, and he’s lying there dead, all alone …”
“Alone? Why alone?”
“Yes, alone. I’m leaving, excuse me, we’ll talk, we’ll talk.”
“Be careful,” says Dina, taking his hand, “maybe you’d like us to drive you.”
“No need, I’ll drive there alone.”
“At least be in touch when you set a time for the funeral.”
“No funeral, no funeral,” Maimoni interrupts angrily. “He donated his body to science, naïvely thinking science would save him. No funeral. Maybe a shiva. Why not? There’ll be a shiva.” Flooded with tears, he hugs Dina tightly and touches Luria gently. “Yes, we’ll do a shiva, and the two of you will come to console me.” And he opens the door and disappears down the stairs.
The remains of the kugel sit forlornly on the table, and Dina looks at her husband, his eyes downcast. Finally she asks: “Anyway, Zvi, how did you suddenly remember?”
“Your kugel.”
“The kugel?”
“Yesterday, when I got up in the middle of the night and it was cooling on the kitchen table, in the moonlight it looked like a brain, a human brain, so apparently I put it in the freezer to preserve it.”
“What are you talking about? The kugel?”
“Never mind, craziness, because I remembered something similar in the scan the neurologist showed us. And this evening, when you started to slice it, I said to myself, That’s what I need too, to slice my brain to find what’s forgotten inside, something that I knew was really important and couldn’t remember what.”
the shiva
Maimoni managed to place a death notice in the next morning’s newspapers, and since there would be no funeral, he had hastily decided to begin the shiva immediately, and listed the address without specifying visiting hours, so Luria could only hope the science people would collect the body at the crack of dawn, otherwise the son’s promptest consolers would have to part from the dearly departed in person. Luria has not shared this anxiety with his wife. She may be a doctor, but she also denies death and refuses to talk or even think about it, which is why she chose paediatrics and not gerontology.
The next evening they have opera tickets for Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, and decide to pay their shiva call beforehand, in case friends and relatives were slow to arrive and Maimoni was left sitting alone in his father’s house. And because it was at their home that Maimoni first learned, however awkwardly, of the death, they should be the first ones at the shiva.
They are not mistaken. When they arrive at the one-storey house in Hod HaSharon, they find a home empty of guests and even of the mourner himself, who has left the front door open. Hesitantly, they enter the living room and then part ways, Dina heading to the patio to look for Maimoni in the garden, while Luria is drawn to the dead man’s bedroom. I worked with this legal adviser for many years, he says to himself, I spent hours with him in endless, exhausting meetings, and sometimes we took field trips to plan land confiscations, but never once did I visit his home, and I refused to take any interest in his private life. And now, when he is no longer among the living, here am I at his bedroom door, staring at his unmade bed, his pyjama bottoms flung on the floor, witnesses to his final fight for life. I connect with his final intimate moments and try to think new human thoughts. Through the window, as he may have seen in his last days, the sun inflames a distant horizon, doubling and tripling itself in farewell, a tribute to the deceased.
He is startled as his wife touches his shoulder. “No, Zvi, it’s not nice to peek into his bedroom this way, let’s wait in the living room. I found the housekeeper, who said Maimoni went to the shops and would be back soon.” With a firm hand she shuts the bedroom door and steers her husband to the living room. The housekeeper emerges from the kitchen, a young, barefoot woman, her hair wrapped in a black scarf, carrying a tray with two cups of tea surrounded by sesame biscuits. Luria nods his thanks and takes a cup and a biscuit, and when he lifts his eyes he feels dizzy. Is the dementia again conflating his worlds? Is this religious housekeeper the double of the photography student, the young woman with no identity? There is a glimmer of friendship in those Pharaonic eyes. Yes, it is her, he shudders, Maimoni whisked her here to help him with the shiva and maybe other things. And as he considers how to explain her existence to his wife, Maimoni flies into the house, laden with groceries that the woman quickly takes off his hands. “It’s good that you came,” he says, hugging the couple, his voice shaky with emotion. “I’m worried that very few people will notice the death announcement I placed today, but in any case I bought groceries and got someone to help me. My wife is in marathon meetings, and she’s no good at cooking anyway, but she’s sending over the twins with her mother, so at least you can meet them.”
“Why bother with cooking?” wonders Luria. “Why not?” retorts Maimoni. “Aren’t people who take the trouble to come and comfort me entitled to hot food to comfort them?” “Why hot?” says Luria. “Something symbolic is enough, biscuits, pretzels, nuts, soft drinks, no need for real food or to bring in the girl from the college.” “Excuse me, Zvi,” Dina scolds her husband, “you forgot that this is his shiva, not yours.” “Precisely, Zvi,” says Maimoni, “listen to your wife,” and his eyes caress the woman who could be his mother. “This is the first time, and I hope the last, I am organizing a shiva, because my mother’s shiva will be organized by her last man, whoever that may be.” And he hurries to the kitchen, to see what fell and broke.
“In any event,” Luria remarks with vague hostility, “he grew his mourning beard even before his father died.”
The visitors trickle in, gradually increasing in number. Among them are avid readers of death notices who knew the end was near, and maybe a few who rushed to come for fear that science, which had robbed them of a funeral, would shortchange the shiva too. Divon and his wife also arrive, and before consoling Maimoni, they go straight to Luria and his wife, who are leafing through photo albums. “How could you disappear on me, Zvi, after your speech?” Divon reproaches his former boss. “You didn’t give me a chance to thank you and marvel.” “Marvel about what?” “That you didn’t show a shadow of your anger and grudge against me. If you’re not angry at me anymore, it means I’m no longer important to you.”
“I’ve had enough of anger,” replies Luria, “but not of disappointment. So many beautiful roads that we planned together went down the drain because of your Africa. But at the party, when I saw your youngest son in the wheelchair for the first time, I realized you needed a higher salary than they would pay you as a division manager, and so, without relinquishing my disappointment, I gave up and forgave you.”
All the while, as Luria speaks, Divon’s wife watches him severely, and lashes out when he’s finished: “Excuse me, why did you say ‘for the first time’? Before we went to Kenya, when the house was nearly empty, for some reason you decided to personally deliver the plans Tzahi asked for, and you got me out of bed to hand them to me, and you saw the child in the wheelchair in the garden, and you touched him, and looked at him closely, and questioned his carer about his condition. Even so, after you saw him, we heard in Africa about your anger with Tzahi.” She turns to Dina: “What’s wrong with your husband, is this his usual method, to fudge and then forget, with a kind of indifferent contempt? He blotted out my name in his speech, spoke with unfriendly formality about ‘Mrs Divon’, as if I have no name, and then ran away when I asked that he give it back to me. Is this his new style? Sort of a game of makebelieve? Or is it maybe, God forbid, something in his head?”
“Both,” Dina replies with a smile.
“Both?”
Luria nods. “Yes, something in the head, what can I do?” And Dina, sensing his discomfort, gently drops the vanished name: “Yes, Rachel, don’t be angry with him, even I can’t always tell when his forgetfulness is real and when he’s pretending.”
“All the same,” says Divon, “none of this prevents Maimoni from seeking his help with his new military project.”
“But without pay,” adds Maimoni, who joins them, giving a piggyback to a sweet little girl brought to the shiva with her twin brother by Maimoni’s mother-in-law, a woman of advanced age who sits down on the sofa beside a bowl of nuts, picking at them one by one like a weary bird.
The living room is filling up. Apparently people waited for the father to die so they could rush to console his son. “Who are they all? Do you know them?” Luria asks his former deputy. “They would seem to be the landowners Maimoni compensated well for his confiscations,” says Divon with a wink. “Really, or are you kidding?” “Both.” Divon smiles and steals a fistful of nuts from the grandma’s bowl.
The sun has nearly gone, ushered out by light rain. There’s heavy traffic from Hod HaSharon to Tel Aviv, and Luria doesn’t want to be relegated with other latecomers to a remote balcony in the opera house … But since they were the first to arrive at the shiva, they are entitled to be the first to leave. “Anyway, it’s too bad we didn’t meet your wife,” says Dina to Maimoni. “That’s okay,” he says with the wave of a hand. “You met old friends instead.”
On their way out they pass the kitchen, where Ayala is feeding the twins. They sit up straight at the table with bibs round their necks. The young woman’s black headscarf has gone, her long hair is down, but she’s still barefoot. She looks like the young mother of well-mannered twins. When they ask for something they raise their hands, as if this weren’t their late grandpa’s kitchen but a classroom. Dina, in typical fashion, wants to enter the kitchen and get a good look at the babysitter, but Luria is reluctant to introduce her to a young woman with no clear identity.
phantom of the opera
The Golda Meir underground garage is full. There’s no choice but to occupy a disabled spot, decides Luria, “and you will testify as a doctor that I’m allowed to, because I’m a little disabled.” “Disabled,” she says without emotion, “and soon to be banned from driving.”
As they enter the lobby, the gong is rung for the third time, and in the dimmed hall they manage to slip into their usual seats next to their old neighbours, who rise to let them through. They didn’t have time to buy a programme, and Dina is upset. “It’s not so bad,” says her husband, “opera programmes often detract from the beautiful music with summaries of absurd plots, but this time, Dinaleh, it’s Romeo and Juliet, it’s familiar, and though we’ll have no problem understanding why they kill themselves at the end, we’ll try to get one during the interval.”
The seats are comfortable and they are sweetly drowsy. Gounod’s music flows along pleasantly, albeit lacking melodies suitable for singing in the shower. Luria watches the thrilling duels of feuding Venetian families, swords clashing on a circular stage slanted towards the audience. What are opera swords made of? From afar they look thin but strong, and it’s surprising that in the heat of battle no singer has lost a nose or an eye. Do the music and singing accompanying the fights protect the singers from mishaps? He likes the idea and wants to whisper it to his wife, but now, as the music picks up pace, Dina dozes off, her head nodding in tempo. He strokes her hand, and getting no response he shakes her. “What a shame,” he pleads for the opera’s sake. “But I can hear it,” she whispers without opening her eyes. “It’s not enough, you also need to see it.” “Yes,” she admits, and her eyes open as Romeo is impaling his rival with a sword.
The shiva had robbed the doctor of her afternoon nap, but she perks up with food and drink in the interval, her loving eyes twinkling at Luria. The programme she was after is forgotten, but he wants to prove that his memory can sometimes be better than hers, so he reminds her. Oh, you’re right, at least I can read about what I missed in the first half. The first gong has sounded, and they agree to meet inside the hall.
The unsold programmes have been returned to the office, but the salesman, an art history student, is still at the counter. He is determined not to leave the tardy buyer without one, lest he miss an original article about the evolution of the theme of love between a man and a woman who belong to opposing camps. Romeo and Juliet are one small example, declares the student. Shakespeare did not invent anything new, including the short-term poison the friar persuades Juliet to swallow. He insists that Luria wait until he brings him a programme. But there’s no time, says Luria, the gong already rang for the second half. “Don’t worry, we have plenty of time, they threaten the audience for no reason. By the way, sir, what is your profession?” “I am an engineer,” answers Luria, “but the programme is for my wife.” “And what does she do?” “She’s a doctor.” “That’s fine,” says the student, oddly patronizing. “The two of you will be able to follow the article and appreciate the many references.”
A few minutes go by and the gong issues a clear warning—three minutes to curtain-up. Little by little the lobby lingerers head for their seats. An usher is in the process of dismantling the empty counter. Enough, thinks Luria, I’ve waited too long for the programme, but the wish to win his wife’s grateful smile holds him back.
Not three minutes elapse before the final announcement that the opera is about to begin. The silence grows deeper. There is a limit. Probably the student himself wrote the piece, if he’s so eager to supply it. And even if a one-minute warning is only a false alarm, Luria will have to dislodge many music lovers to reach his wife, who no doubt suspects by now that the dementia has led him to sit for the second half next to another woman. And as he runs towards the entrance that swallows up the last of the audience, the student catches up with him, waving the programme, already opened at the article. Thanks, habibi, says Luria, snatching it, we’ll read it tonight and remember you. By the way, what’s your name? Here, says the student, proudly pointing to his byline, if you suspected, you were right, it’s my piece, and everything in it is factual and correct. And before Luria manages to break free of him, he is delicately asked to pay twenty shekels, and then he finds that his way in is blocked.
A zealous usher, determined to put an end to anarchy, decides to send the latecomers to the designated balcony in the far reaches of the topmost level. Luria is the first and only candidate. As he ponders whether to accept his fate or beg for his life, he sees an overdressed woman, tottering on high heels, who ignores him and knocks loudly, three times, on the wood-panelled wall. This is not a woman with dementia worse than his, for a buzzer sounds beyond the wall, and a narrow hidden door slowly opens, and the woman quickly slips inside, and Luria, deftly sticking the programme between the door and its frame, enters in her wake.
The student who authored the article was correct. Judging by the noise in the hall, the management had recalled the audience too soon. The performance is far from imminent, with musicians still tuning their instruments. At first Luria imagines that he can sneak into the main hall through the orchestra pit, quietly tagging along with the conductor, but it turns out the orchestra is at a lower level that leads only to the street. It’s too late to escape outdoors, because the conductor has made his grand entrance to a round of applause. Luria needs to find a different way to prove to his wife that he hasn’t gone missing.
Here, backstage, the sound is muffled, as though the music and singing come alive only for the audience in the hall. The circular, modern space used in the earlier part of the opera is hidden by black screens, intended to block the audience’s view of the changing scenery and the singers and extras getting ready to enter the drama. Here is the chorus, swords on belts, looking self-conscious in blue uniforms. Here’s your chance to handle an opera sword, to see if it’s actually hard and sharp, says Luria to himself, inching towards the chorus. Amid a hive of technicians and stagehands, the swordsmen are unperturbed by the elderly man joining them, as a plump woman walks around with a trolley, mopping up sweat and refreshing make-up. The choral conductor, a young redheaded guy in jeans, gets up on a chair and signals to the chorus to start singing and slowly flow onstage. Here’s Juliet in all her bridal glory, dressed in white, making small talk with the friar about to dose her with short-term poison that her lover will think has killed her. Luria feels for the young woman, doomed by naïveté, and before the music forces her to sing of her disaster, the make-up lady rushes to wipe the sweat from her face and neck, touch up her eyebrows, and add blood-red colour to her lips.
One of the stage managers carefully raises the black screen and waves Juliet onstage. Luria marvels at the simple set. The floor is made of rough wooden boards painted a fading grey, and the splendid altar seems to be made of cardboard. Is all the grandeur and magic that moves the audience just a function of the lighting? Juliet vanishes from his view, but her tormented singing about Romeo, who in a flurry of revenge doomed their love, makes his heart tremble. Because the Hebrew surtitles are invisible to him here, Luria has an urge to follow the singer to better understand her lament. He picks up a reddish sponge from the make-up cart, wipes sweat from his face or perhaps powders it, and his white hair glints for a second through a slit in the black curtain, but a powerful hand violently yanks him backwards. “Where are you going? Are you insane? Who are you, anyway?”
