“I can’t help it,” he said. “Beautiful women terrify me.” She didn’t crack a smile. Poor Malkiel. He wasn’t too handy with compliments. Or with women, for that matter. He became awkward in their presence. Why so shy? He must see a psychiatrist. Someday. Later. After he completed the mission his father had entrusted him with. In the meantime he could pretend. He could pretend to be a shy fellow or a conqueror. None of that mattered. What mattered was that he was not good at pretending.
“So? Tea or not?”
“Tea,” he said, wondering what he had let himself in for.
They had walked in silence to her flat. Why this sudden uneasiness between them? Malkiel could not explain it. Because she had finally lured him into a trap? Well, he thought briefly, here I am playing a spy taken
in flagrante
.
A modest apartment. Two dimly lit rooms. Living room, kitchen and shower. Malkiel sat on the couch and inspected the walls. A few pictures, naive landscapes. Where were the microphones? Under the lamp, perhaps. In the kitchen? No, inside the ashtray. Too bad he didn’t smoke.
Lidia came back with tea. Sugar. She sat on the carpet. Their legs touched. Where were the cameras? “Why aren’t you married, Lidia?”
She blushed. Her voice was husky. “It’s a long story.” She hadn’t said “an old story.”
“Where does it begin?”
“Are you really interested?”
“Everything interests me.” Someone had to fill the silences; just as well to let her do it. As long as she was talking about her own life, Malkiel wouldn’t think about his. His father: far, far away. The war: far away, farther still. Tamar: frustrated, drowning. Tamar, where was Tamar? “So, Lidia, your story?”
“We were young.” She bowed her head. “Students. He was finishing medical school, and I was in modern languages. We knew each other by sight, ate at the same student restaurant, went to the same plays and the same demonstrations, where student attendance was obligatory. We danced, we flirted. Things looked good. He invited me home, and I met his parents. His father was an officer, no less. Colonel. A man of stature. Open features. Open eyes, open arms. His mother was an honest peasant, simple and affectionate. Always moving about, always serving: fruit, drinks, cookies. It was a close family, and hospitable. The picture of happiness. And then …”
Lidia had learned one day that the colonel headed up the secret police.
“He had my family checked out, because I was his son’s friend and future fiancée. He had to be sure that there was nothing compromising in my background. I will never know why, but he had my father arrested. And my older sister. They were tortured. Each in the presence of the other. My fiancé—”
She interrupted herself. Malkiel wondered, Where are the microphones?
“My fiancé killed himself. I sank into one of those nightmares … black, black. I ran off … I quit school: to hell with school.… I moved here, far from home, as far as I could. So I’m alone now. That’s the whole story. Are you satisfied?”
The tea had cooled. The apartment was cold. Malkiel was no longer thirsty and wanted to warm himself. He raised her chin. “Then tell me, why are you working for them?”
“You don’t understand. That’s perfectly normal. You can’t understand. Be nice to me: don’t judge me too harshly. Don’t start mistrusting me.”
Malkiel stared at his cold cup of tea. Should he believe her? Should he trust a woman working for the secret police?
“And you?” she went on, in the same confidential murmur. “Why aren’t you married?”
“What do you know about that?”
“It’s not magic. I went over your file.”
“It’s a long story,” Malkiel said.
“I have plenty of time.”
“I haven’t.”
“Too bad.”
Yes, Malkiel thought. Too bad.
His thoughts took flight. His father. Tamar. Tamar and his father. “Go ahead and marry her,” his father had said. “Marry her while I still have my faculties. Don’t wait, son. In my condition I don’t want to see anything put off.” And again: “This
zivug
, this marriage, was made in heaven, I can tell. What have you got against this girl? She’s radiant, beautiful, she’s like your mother, if you only knew how much like your mother.…” Malkiel had seen his mother only in
photographs or through his father’s eyes, in his father’s nostalgia. Yes, she was beautiful. Her Yemenite smile suggested unimaginable depths of fantasy, boldness, understanding, need. Whenever Malkiel thought about his mother he felt cheated of happiness that was his due.
Tamar, his mother, his mother’s happiness, the curse on his father. Tamar, and the fear of losing her. “I’m not married,” he said. “It’s an old story.”
Lidia was lost in reflections. “You’re not drinking my tea,” she said. “You reject my friendship. You refuse my body and all that goes with it. You lack courtesy, Mr. Rosenbaum.”
“It has nothing to do with you, Lidia.”
“Then with whom? With what?”
From the depths of his memory rose his father’s tale and his mother’s phrase “Not in this place.” He had not undertaken this pilgrimage to sleep with a stranger. “It’s a matter of place,” he said.
“You don’t like my flat?”
“It has nothing to do with your flat. It’s this city. It’s oppressive.” He stood up; so did she.
“Thank you for being honest,” she said.
“Thank you for understanding,” he replied.
She walked him to the door, stopped, and said, “To thank you in another way, I should repeat my advice: be careful.”
“Why do you say that?”
“They’re suspicious of you.”
“What do they suspect? That I lack courtesy?”
But she was serious, even grave. “Be careful. I don’t want anything to happen to you. They don’t believe you. They think your passion for epitaphs is a ruse.”
“Tell them they’re wrong.”
“All the more reason to tread lightly.”
Malkiel was uneasy. Am I jeopardizing her security? Should I trust her? Tell her about the widow? And my father?
I’m a fool, he thought. A still young woman offers herself to me, and I look for excuses to sleep alone.
Malkiel recalled his father’s encounter with the witch. It was all sharply etched in his mind. He saw the woman’s face, noted her harsh expression, heard her deep strong voice as if he himself had been her victim.
A boy was walking down the street. It was early in the morning. He was shivering. The sidewalk was a sheet of ice. The boy had to be careful not to slip. He slipped. He fell. He hurt himself. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth. He was afraid. He would be late.
Fortune smiled upon him, in the guise of a woman who had just opened her window. She gestured: come closer. “Come here. Let me see your bruises.” He made no answer. He did not know her. A boy did not speak to strange women. “You can’t just walk on like that,” she said. “Let me wash you off.” She was already opening the door. He was already crossing the threshold. Now he was in a dimly lit living room. For some reason the shadows were reassuring. He had no idea why, but he let the woman take his overcoat, when it was only his face that needed attention. “You’ll feel better,” she said, as she took off his jacket and wiped his bloody eyes and lips with a damp handkerchief. “Your buttons,” she said. “How can you breathe? You’re suffocating, for heaven’s sake!” Yes indeed, he was suffocating. Why had she sat him down on the sofa? Why was he just sitting there? He ought to stand up, dress himself, thank her and be on his way. He did none of that. She stopped him from doing it.
“I’m not finished,” she said every time he moved to free himself. “Sit still, boy. Be patient. I’m not finished.”
He felt panic. He had just noticed that the woman was naked. She was wearing a dressing gown and nothing beneath it. He blushed. He recognized the Tempter. He must leave now, right now. He felt it, and his body told him the same. But he was glued to the sofa, his body damned. How could he save himself? His mind sought an answer, but it was too late. Holding a small handkerchief sprinkled with perfume that went straight to his head, she gazed upon him, transformed. Her cheeks flamed. Lips and eyes wide, she was panting. She dropped the handkerchief and made a gesture toward him, one that frightened him: he thought she would strike him, insult him, throw him out. “Take me,” she whispered. “God Himself sent you this morning; let His will be done.” In one quick motion she cast off her dressing gown. The boy closed his eyes to forestall sin. “Look at me,” she ordered him. “Look at me and dare say that I am not beautiful.” He refused to open his eyes. “Are you a virgin, or what?” she went on, her voice suddenly vulgar. He did not answer. “You are! Oh my God, how happy that makes me! I love virgins!”
She was trying to undress him, and he resisted. She forced him down, covered him with her body, ground her breasts into him, kissed him furiously as if to tear his flesh, chew him up, annihilate him. He was dizzy. His whole being was tense, overflowing with desire but obstinate in its refusal. “Take me, you idiot, what are you waiting for? Take me! Are you afraid? Have I frightened you? God will forgive you, I promise! Take me as hard as you can and you’ll approach God—because you’ll be in paradise.” She whispered those words into his ear, onto his eyelids, and the lips he kept tight. “Be free, big boy. Be a man. Rape me and be
king.” But the boy was too young. Too timid, too much a believer. In a burst of energy he managed to break loose. Like Joseph in the Bible he ran for the door, leaving his coat behind. He was already outside, out of breath, when he heard the woman: “Hey, kid, you’ll catch cold—here’s your coat.”
When he reached school, late of course, he did not dare go to class; he went to the washroom. Standing at the mirror, he studied his face for many moments, sure that he would find some outward sign of his sin. A master had once told him, “When one denies God, it is the first step that matters; one transgresses a law and realizes that nothing has changed. The heart beats as before, the blood circulates, people come and go, the universe remains the same. That is the beginning of separation.” The boy wondered, Have I changed? Does my face still belong to me? Have I lost everything in losing my innocence, am I lost forever?
For a long time after that, he refused to look at a naked female body.
Grandfather Malkiel, I stand before you as before an invisible judge, a severe but charitable judge. Shall I confess to you what I’ve made of my life? After all, I bear your name; you have the right to know if I’m worthy of it.
First you should know that I have never betrayed that name. Even though in America immigrants and refugees rarely respect their original names. If you knew the transformations Ellis Island has perpetrated! Slomowicz became Salvatore if the immigration officer was Italian, Slocum if he was Anglo-Saxon or Irish. Isaac didn’t sound right? Then they made it Irving. You cannot imagine how many people tried to mutilate or embellish or doctor “Malkiel.” “What kind of name is that?” wondered Loretta, that splendid
Southern woman. “Wouldn’t you prefer Sam?” Everybody saw a linguistic barrier in “Malkiel,” if not an obstacle. They suggested Melvin, Malcolm and even McDonald. Not a chance. I stuck to my real name. Only once did I hesitate, on the day when the
Times
published my first piece. The editor looked at my byline and shook his head. “Malkiel?” he said, annoyed. “That just won’t do. Is it a pen name or what?” I enlightened him. “I don’t know anybody by that name. If you ask me, you’d do better to find another one, more familiar to our readers.” For a few moments, I wondered if my stubbornness might cost me my career. Luckily the editor, busy with other aspects of the news, shrugged: “Do as you like. It’s your name, not mine.”
As the years passed, the people I spent time with grew accustomed to my name. At least I think they did. Some accepted it. Others gave me a nickname: Malki, or even Ki. At first I corrected them, with just a touch of irritation: “My name is Mal-ki-el.” It was tiresome. And no less so when a new acquaintance asked me about it: “Malki-what? That’s some crazy name. Who saddled you with that? What does it mean?” You’re going to laugh, Grandfather: I won a beautiful woman’s favors thanks to that name. She found it musical. To be perfectly honest, I ought to confess also that a fair number of no less lovely women rejected me because of that same name. Too bad. At home we say, “You win some, you lose some.” That’s life. You win and you lose. Tamar, for example—I think she loves me because she loves my name. She says it often, for no good reason, just to hear it. “Malkiel, you want to take a walk? Malkiel, are you hungry?” Or else, “Do you know Nepal, Malkiel? Ah, Malkiel, if we could make the trip together …”
Tamar often comes with me to visit my father; sometimes she goes alone. Then she says to him, “Talk to me about Malkiel. “And my father replies, “My son?” If she’d asked, “Talk to me about your son,” he’d have answered, “Malkiel?”
They understand each other. There’s an intimate rapport between
them that gratifies me. She owes him nothing, yet she denies him nothing.
One evening I found them shaken, sitting hand in hand, gazing into each other’s eyes, as if sharing the same quest and hitting the same wall. “I’m afraid,” my father said, his eyes half shut. “Everything in my head is muddled. Names, dates, words. I see a face in front of me and I recognize it, but I don’t know if it belongs to the present or the past. Who are you, Tamar? Which period of my life do you belong to? Are you perhaps Talia? Am I reliving my past even as it deserts me?”
Tamar would do anything to help. And so would I. And you? Grandfather! Help him by helping me!
You who sacrificed your life for your people, for our people, guide me. Tell me what to do, how to defeat not death but the abyss that will swallow up the lives of the living and the memory of the dead. You whose memory shapes mine through my father’s, tell me how I can keep silence from smothering the word, and also …
The handsome face, usually serious, now twisted and contorted. The pain was more than mental now; it was physical as well. “I want …” Out of breath, Elhanan stopped. His hand groped and waved in the air.