Death Had Two Sons Read online

  It didn’t matter really as long as the time passed somehow so they returned, and disposing of the boy on Lipsky’s terrace, Daniel walked up slowly to look for the hat. Suppose he didn’t return immediately, he thought. The boy was a good boy, he’d wait there on the terrace, perhaps Mrs Lipsky would give him another cake and he would join them later. He looked through the window. Shmuel was alone on the terrace looking at the house’s entrance impatiently. Daniel took the blue hat and walked down. It was too large for Shmuel’s head and his ears stuck out under it as if supporting it.

  ‘Grandpa Haim is in hospital,’ he stated. ‘Does he play doctor there?’

  ‘He is sick, your grandfather.’

  ‘My mother is in hospital, and my father, and my grandmother.’ He talked with the pace of his own steps, stopping in the middle of words which Daniel wanted to complete for him. There were no buses on Saturday and Daniel decided that they should return by taxi. When they reached the centre of town the boy seemed tired. It was a long walk for him and the sun was scorching. His face looked red under the blue hat.

  ‘Are you feeling well?’

  ‘Yes, Uncle Daniel. Now I want to play.’

  ‘I don’t know any games. Here, let’s have an ice-cream.’

  They entered the crowded Eshel café on the main street and Daniel ordered two ice-creams. When the order arrived the boy pushed it away.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘I want real ice-cream, not in a glass.’

  A short conversation discovered that the boy wanted a cone which resulted in a dripping mess on his clean shirt and a large smile.

  ‘I will have a sister soon,’ Shmuel said, now feeling familiar and comfortable. ‘Do you have a sister?’

  ‘No. What would you like to do now?’

  ‘Now we play, then we see the camels, then we play …’

  ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

  ‘I want a chewing gum.’

  They stopped near a kiosk where he lifted the boy so he could choose from a variety of displayed sweets.

  ‘This, and this, and this, and chocolate.’

  He stuffed his pockets with the sweets and suddenly, in a street crowded with Saturday strollers, said mischievously, ‘Catch me!’, and turned to run, laughing.

  Daniel caught up with him pushing several people on the way.

  ‘You want to play again? Not this game. Not in the main street. We’ll go to eat. Uncle Daniel is hungry.’

  It had to be Morris’s again. Instead of walking now Shmuel was hopping on one leg, another game, holding on to Daniel’s large sweaty hand. He knows precisely what he is doing, Daniel was convinced. He knows it exasperates me and he plays the innocent. He squeezed the little hand tight.

  ‘That hurts,’ Shmuel said, smiling.

  ‘Stop hopping, it’s impossible to walk with you.’

  He was now behaving himself and with his free hand pulled the chewing gum in long cords out of his mouth, talking at the same time. They reached Morris’s to realize it was too early for lunch and they were the only customers in the place. Daniel sat on the straw chair and looked at the Friday papers left on the table. The waitress – the same one, only her fingernails were painted red now – stood near them enjoying the boy’s activities.

  ‘The same,’ he ordered, ‘and chicken for the boy.’

  ‘Your son?’

  ‘No. My nephew.’

  ‘He’s cute. You look alike, he could have been your son.’ Daniel turned to look at Shmulik. His profile was handsome and his body relaxed but still wiry and thin. He found no resemblance.

  When they were through with the meal Daniel asked the waitress to call a taxi, paid the bill and led Shmuel out leaving behind most of the food, disarray of paper napkins, a filthy tablecloth and – which he remembered too late – Shmuel’s blue hat.

  They sat in the taxi and instantly Shmuel fell asleep, his head tilted to touch Daniel’s shoulder. Daniel put his arm around the boy’s thin shoulders and with a tinge of guilt pushed the boy’s hair back from his forehead.

  Rina could be seen in the window, seemingly waiting for them, and Daniel felt relief and fatigue. He carried the sleeping boy in his arms upstairs and placed him on the bed.

  ‘What did you do to the poor thing?’

  ‘What did he do to me, you should ask.’

  ‘Come now, weren’t you the same as a child?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope not.’

  ‘Have you never seen children in Gilad?’

  ‘They were never left in my care.’

  ‘Did you eat?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Well. You look exhausted. You can sleep on the sleeping bag. I have some work to do and then I am off until next Friday.’

  ‘I doubt I shall be here next Friday.’

  He fell asleep and when he opened his eyes he saw the child sitting on the floor all washed and combed looking at him. He smiled and the boy smiled back. The battle was over.

  ‘I want to see my mother,’ the boy suggested shyly.

  ‘We’ll soon go.’

  Rina was packed to leave wearing her Arab headwear and boots and her empty bags dangling from her shoulder.

  ‘The Nabataeans’ Kingdom is awaiting me,’ she declared.

  ‘How are you going to get there?’

  ‘The supplies’ command car is in town, the driver came up to see his new baby girl. He named her Petra.’

  ‘My God, poor child. I suppose you’ll name your son Harithath!’

  ‘A good Semitic name.’

  Crazy woman, Daniel thought, and the three of them left the flat, each hopping on one leg down the stairs into the main road. Rina waved shalom and walked away and Daniel and Shmuel crossed the road to the hospital’s entrance.

  Near the gate Daniel stopped. He was looking for a nurse and couldn’t see any. People were going in holding flowers they had bought a day earlier and an old man leaning on a cane asked Daniel some directions in Yiddish. The boy was restless and they entered the waiting room. Some of the patients were well enough to circulate and with a certain sense of superiority they discussed their ailments. Children were licking the chocolates rejected by their sick relatives and the sterile smell of disinfectant was now mixed with the cheap perfumes and deodorants of visitors. A couple of wheelchairs stood empty and gave Shmuel something to play with and Daniel walked over to the information desk where a white-haired red-faced nurse was patiently attending a young couple.

  ‘He must be here,’ they insisted.

  ‘He’s not on any of our lists. Did you try the private clinic?’

  ‘He is here,’ the woman said. ‘Something must be wrong or you would tell us the truth.’

  Her companion nodded in agreement and the nurse smiled at Daniel apologetically.

  ‘Could he go under another name?’ she tried.

  ‘Now, you see,’ the woman was triumphant, ‘something is fishy. Why would he go under another name?’

  ‘I didn’t say he did, or would. It happens sometimes.’

  The man intervened now.

  ‘Look,’ he stated, ‘Maya’s uncle is in this hospital somewhere. He had an attack of ulcers and we came all the way from Haifa. What’s more, we have to return to Haifa tonight. He has been here four days. He is seventy and you don’t just wander off at that age, so please tell us where he is or I shall go from room to room until I find out.’

  Now the wife nodded and told the man to ask for the director. Daniel smiled. People were always asking for the directors as if they had access to mysterious truths, as if they provided final indisputable reliability. People liked to mention it later and say – giving themselves credit for infinite initiative – ‘then we asked for the director of course, and naturally he helped us out’.

  ‘Can I help you?’ The nurse addressed Daniel.

  ‘Can one of the nurses take a little boy to his mother who’s visiting someone on the second floor?’

  ‘Why don’t you take him th
ere, I don’t see anybody around right now.’

  ‘It’s impossible for me to go up.’ There was sadness in his face and the nurse did not ask more questions.

  ‘I’ll take him.’ She told the couple she would be back in a moment and he called Shmuel who was sitting in a wheelchair.

  ‘Kalinsky is the patient’s name, it should be the room before the last one on the right. Shmuel, the nurse will take you to mother, tell her I could not come up.’

  Shmuel was reluctant to leave his uncle and the wheelchair but followed the nurse up the stairs and Daniel left for the fresh dry air wondering if Maya’s uncle would be on the list if he were dead. Lipsky’s terrace was crowded now and he found a table in the corner and ordered some tea.

  Across the street some of the people were treating their visit to the hospital in a festive way, as if it were a social occasion. They dressed for it and the women were careful with their make-up – not too much but the right touch. Were they trying to cheer up the sick or were they reassuring themselves of their own well-being? On Lipsky’s terrace were people who had just left the hospital – the relatives of the very sick never combined their visits with tea – and they were still discussing the various patients who had enjoyed their presence there.

  ‘Of course I told him he looked better, but did you see his face? It used to be healthy, I mean – healthy –’ the thin woman emphasized. ‘Skeleton. That’s all that is left. Skeleton.’

  ‘Well,’ her friend sighed. ‘You don’t go and tell a man he looks like a skeleton. He’ll be out next week, and off to the Trade-Union Sanatorium in the mountains, so that’s lucky.’

  ‘Lucky indeed, I shouldn’t be so lucky myself.’

  ‘Now why would they keep her in if they’re not going to operate?’ a teenage girl, wearing sunglasses, asked her father.

  ‘Am I a doctor?’

  And at another table:

  ‘I told the doctor about the compresses. Just compresses and the right food and he would have been out by now.’

  Old parents with a small suitcase were talking about their son. His leg had been amputated. What was there to say? Daniel thought. In the eyes of the woman he could see the two healthy legs of the young boy running naughtily down streets and the eyes of the father held the agony of one leg and a crutch forever. An ambulance sirened its way in and the people on the terrace looked at it knowingly, without panic or a shudder. They were all related to some sick person and thus allowed entry into the kingdom of doctors in white and nurses and laboratories. They lived with it around dinner tables asking for news and on the telephone repeating, ‘a little better, thank you.’ They knew the names of surgeons and medicines and once a week or every day they had breathed the hospital odour which still clung to their clothes. Mrs Lipsky was busy serving and giving advice and finding out. She knew most of the people, and she knew who they were worried about and she could talk about the doctors who frequented the Café Tikva and suggest, ‘He is the best there is!’ or, ‘I remember him back in Bucharest, you just have to trust him,’ and Lipsky himself, always looking as if he were eagerly awaiting closing time, was considering whether or not to buy an espresso machine.

  ‘Shall we go to the movies?’ the thin woman asked.

  Her friend suggested cards and they asked for the bill. The girl wearing sunglasses was looking at Daniel, but he couldn’t be sure because of the glasses. He too would go to the movies, he decided, and stood up to go.

  It seemed that Rina’s laughter still echoed in the empty flat and when he heard a knock on the door, he jumped up to open it.

  It was Miriam. Alone.

  ‘I am sorry to come like this. Are you alone?’

  ‘Come in, it’s all right. Where is the boy?’

  ‘With my mother in the café. Would you like to come down?’

  ‘How is he today?’

  ‘He had pains at night. He doesn’t look well at all. He asked about you and Shmuel told him you were here, I couldn’t help it.’

  Did he notice tears in her eyes?

  There was helplessness. She was his half-sister, and he felt nothing. He did not want to put his arms around her shoulder and comfort her, and he almost felt sorry for himself for not wanting to. She was just another woman in the Café Tikva talking about a sick man and making the world seem like one large sterile hospital. She was just another woman wondering if her father would survive, wondering whether his doctor was the best, or did his best, whether there was anything she could do. Just another healthy woman, like the girl with sunglasses or the thin lady being caught in the labyrinth of Latin names and prescriptions and test results, regarding them as holy scriptures and through a relative exposing herself to a momentary proximity with the term ‘End’.

  ‘Look,’ he fumbled, ‘I owe you an explanation. I cannot do it. To tell you why I don’t cross the road will mean telling you other things, some of which I don’t understand. Tell him I’m here for army duty. Tell him I had to go south for a few days and I shall visit him when I’m back.’

  She resembled Shmulik now, with puzzled, accepting eyes. What could he tell her? Tell her about Yoram, tell her about a moment on a winter day in Poland, tell her of a dawn in Haifa port, tell her he had lost his father long ago, and it was her father who was dying now, tell her he would go to the movies that evening?

  ‘Shmulik forgot his hat at Morris’s,’ he said. ‘I’ll collect it and give it to you.’

  There were many things she wanted to tell him but she thanked him and left and like a spy behind the faded curtain he watched her wipe her nose and walk to the terrace and then down the street with her mother and her son.

  Miriam was a simple woman, but there were many things she could have told Daniel. She had no right to, she felt, and never would, but he had chosen an easy and selfish way, a manner lacking responsibility or maturity and she knew that he had avoided compromises and difficulties and unpleasant moments by imposing them unintentionally on others. A cruel thought crossed her mind as she squeezed Shmulik’s hand by way of answering a question he asked. Daniel was playing a game. He was an in-between man, shedding the sensitivity of a Warsaw boy and not quite acquiring the toughness and frankness of a Gilad boy, out of choice, she thought, seeking comfort. Her mother was not silent about it.

  ‘His own father,’ she said. ‘Very, very sick and not even one visit. That’s what I always say, the communists in the Kibbutz have no respect, what can you expect if they don’t live with their own children, cook for them, mend their socks, nurse them. Well, God bless her soul, his mother is lucky not to live to see such behaviour.’

  ‘Mother,’ Miriam hushed her.

  ‘And after all Haim has been through, not to have at least the comfort of a loving son.’ Dora Kalinsky, Haim’s second wife, was a large woman. Her double chin and wrinkled neck betrayed at least fifty-five years and her gray hair was cut short and straight. She suffered from varicose veins and having to wear elastic socks did not make life in the searing heat any pleasanter.

  ‘What did he say to you? He must have said something.’

  ‘He said he will visit him one of these days. Mother, there is nothing more to say about it, leave him alone.’

  ‘I’m not worried about him, it’s my poor Haim, turning the world upside-down to discover this son of his, and offering him a house, and now …’

  She stopped in the middle of the sentence as if suddenly realizing it was all beyond her.

  Another desert sunset, with huge red fingers grabbing the sky and relinquishing it with a faint mauve gesture. Sabbath, the queen, makes an exit with the appearance of the first three stars gowned with memories of a restful day and another cycle begins as the fourth and fifth stars join the three, another seven days of toil and dust and perspiring underarms and tourist buses and army jeeps.

  Daniel missed Gilad on Saturday evenings. It was a family day on the Kibbutz and he enjoyed watching parents seriously respond to the children’s queries strolling along pavements all en
ding on the lawn in front of the dining room. He used to lie on his back on the grass and watch the light change the tree tops from green to a dark gray and then black and he even enjoyed the smell of the mosquito repellent he rubbed his arms and neck with. Next to him was Yoram, white shirt replacing his usual khaki, and later Rina, and they were making plans. He missed Gilad and he counted the months that had elapsed meaninglessly between the day he left the Kibbutz and now. Luminous multitudes of stars brightened the sky above Gilad and Beer-Sheba and the years were lost in a long count of Saturday nights. They were planning their future then and before he was seventeen he never asked himself what his life should be like. The future he dreamed about then held everything that his present state lacked.

  The air-conditioned darkness engulfed him as he found an aisle seat in the large cinema. On the wide screen a happy family was obviously enjoying the advertised soup. A child had the whitest teeth because he used Shemen toothpaste and all the difficulties were removed from the life of a glamorous housewife once she acquired an Amcor washing-machine. The audience fidgeted impatiently, having seen the child, the housewife and the family so many times before, but Daniel seemed to enjoy it all. The film had good people and bad people and the bad were rather sympathetic but the good ones won and staying in his seat awhile when the lights were on at the end he was asked to leave by the usherette before the second show began.

  When he walked by the Eshel restaurant he saw through the glass door the young army doctor eating alone and reading a book. He walked in and said shalom and accepted the invitation to join him.

  ‘How is your friend?’ the doctor asked him.

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Lung, wasn’t it? Did they do all the tests? Is it certain?’

  He asked the doctor about tests, about chances of mistakes, about pain.

  ‘Two healthy people talking about pain, what do we know?’ And he was telling Daniel about a brave young patient.

  ‘I ask them if it hurts. They say yes and I nod as if I knew what it felt like. I don’t really know pain. I can guess and imagine and take the little pain I have and multiply it but it’s not the same.’