Read Online The Remains of Love by Zeruya Shalev - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Zeruya Shalev
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femininity, and he looks down and mumbles, I met a friend here and I went outside with him for a bit, why are you making such an issue out of it, and they’re standing facing each other on either side of the bed, with the body that brought them together back then binding them now whether they like it or not, but also erecting a partition in its typical fashion – when his downcast gaze meets the upward gaze of his mother, a surprisingly clear look, excited, almost ecstatic.
Daddy? her toothless gums mumble at him, and he looks around him in embarrassment, as if it wasn’t to him that the syllables were addressed, as if expecting to see there the legendary father whom he never knew, rising from the dead and hurrying to take his elderly daughter in his arms, but she fastens her eyes on him and repeats, Daddy? – extending to him the apologetic smile of a child trying to evade punishment, her hand reaching out for his and he recoils, Mum, it’s me, Avner, and Dina’s here too, he adds, urging his sister to back him up, to help him draw their mother with a chain of words into their world, but his mother ignores his words and beams at him in wonderment and joy, nothing can destroy her happiness, the undiluted happiness that he sometimes identifies on the face of his youngest son, the absolute embodiment of all delights, her fingers avidly caressing his arm, I’ve missed you, she whispers, it’s been so long, I was afraid you weren’t coming back.
Over the rail of the bed he sees his sister breathing heavily, her dark eyes moist, and she clutches her mother’s other hand, this is Avner, he isn’t your father, she says in her authoritative tone, as if standing in front of a class, we’re in the hospital, you had another fall, do you remember? But the old woman rejects her words angrily. Leave me alone, I didn’t ask you, she says, let me be alone with him, and she shakes off her daughter’s hand and holds his arm with a vigour which reminds him for a moment of the healthy-bodied woman she once was.
We need to take her back to casualty, and talk to the doctor, he whispers, it seems there may be some damage to the brain after all, and they move along the bustling corridors, a middle-aged mother and father and their geriatric baby, who suddenly bursts into tears, with a plangent wail like a siren, rising and falling, her crumpled face awash with tears. He never saw her like this, and really it’s no wonder, after all he didn’t know her as a child, and listlessly he goes on dragging the bed with its squeaking wheels. Mum, relax, he mumbles, everything’s going to be all right, you’ll soon be feeling better, unconsciously repeating the dubious promise that he heard through the curtain just a little while ago, and he looks for a little encouragement in Dina’s face. Just a moment ago she was there, pushing the bed along from behind, her curls shading her brow, her long fingers, like the talons of a bird of prey, caressing the bed rail, and suddenly there’s no sign of her.
With pounding heart Dina hurries to her car, eyes smarting. It’s wrong to feel offended by children or by the elderly, she knows that, but these are specifically the ones she feels offended by, by her daughter and by her mother, who totally negated her existence, holding on to the arm of her brother while pushing her away brusquely. If it were possible to attribute this to old age or to the fall, that would certainly be some mitigation, but old age or the fall has only given prominence to what she has always known, what her mother has tried to hide from her until this morning, when it was no longer possible to pretend; her feelings like her exposed breasts, revealed in all their shameful ugliness.
Ferocious heat enfolds her limbs when she leaves the air-conditioned corridors, and she sighs, these heatwaves of early summer, from year to year they become harder to endure. It seems to her that her flesh is scorched, and sizzling audibly, and
Daddy? her toothless gums mumble at him, and he looks around him in embarrassment, as if it wasn’t to him that the syllables were addressed, as if expecting to see there the legendary father whom he never knew, rising from the dead and hurrying to take his elderly daughter in his arms, but she fastens her eyes on him and repeats, Daddy? – extending to him the apologetic smile of a child trying to evade punishment, her hand reaching out for his and he recoils, Mum, it’s me, Avner, and Dina’s here too, he adds, urging his sister to back him up, to help him draw their mother with a chain of words into their world, but his mother ignores his words and beams at him in wonderment and joy, nothing can destroy her happiness, the undiluted happiness that he sometimes identifies on the face of his youngest son, the absolute embodiment of all delights, her fingers avidly caressing his arm, I’ve missed you, she whispers, it’s been so long, I was afraid you weren’t coming back.
Over the rail of the bed he sees his sister breathing heavily, her dark eyes moist, and she clutches her mother’s other hand, this is Avner, he isn’t your father, she says in her authoritative tone, as if standing in front of a class, we’re in the hospital, you had another fall, do you remember? But the old woman rejects her words angrily. Leave me alone, I didn’t ask you, she says, let me be alone with him, and she shakes off her daughter’s hand and holds his arm with a vigour which reminds him for a moment of the healthy-bodied woman she once was.
We need to take her back to casualty, and talk to the doctor, he whispers, it seems there may be some damage to the brain after all, and they move along the bustling corridors, a middle-aged mother and father and their geriatric baby, who suddenly bursts into tears, with a plangent wail like a siren, rising and falling, her crumpled face awash with tears. He never saw her like this, and really it’s no wonder, after all he didn’t know her as a child, and listlessly he goes on dragging the bed with its squeaking wheels. Mum, relax, he mumbles, everything’s going to be all right, you’ll soon be feeling better, unconsciously repeating the dubious promise that he heard through the curtain just a little while ago, and he looks for a little encouragement in Dina’s face. Just a moment ago she was there, pushing the bed along from behind, her curls shading her brow, her long fingers, like the talons of a bird of prey, caressing the bed rail, and suddenly there’s no sign of her.
With pounding heart Dina hurries to her car, eyes smarting. It’s wrong to feel offended by children or by the elderly, she knows that, but these are specifically the ones she feels offended by, by her daughter and by her mother, who totally negated her existence, holding on to the arm of her brother while pushing her away brusquely. If it were possible to attribute this to old age or to the fall, that would certainly be some mitigation, but old age or the fall has only given prominence to what she has always known, what her mother has tried to hide from her until this morning, when it was no longer possible to pretend; her feelings like her exposed breasts, revealed in all their shameful ugliness.
Ferocious heat enfolds her limbs when she leaves the air-conditioned corridors, and she sighs, these heatwaves of early summer, from year to year they become harder to endure. It seems to her that her flesh is scorched, and sizzling audibly, and
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