Pain Read online

  Who can say exactly whom she is seducing? Definitely not her parents, whose questions she pushes firmly away. Since she moved to Tel Aviv, they have completely lost any chance of supervising and gathering information and are now dependent on whatever she deigns to tell them. She occasionally provides some bits of information, but all attempts to get her to expand on a party she went to or a waitress she’s become friendly with fail miserably, and if they try to use what she tells them to draw closer to her, the next time they speak to her, she denies everything she said as if it were a figment of their imagination.

  “She’s punishing us,” she sometimes says to Mickey, who shrugs dismissively. “What are you talking about, why would she punish us?” If it weren’t so pointless, she could list the reasons easily: letting Omer steal all our attention, and later, you know what, that terrible year, the hospitalizations, the operations, the rehabilitation, an entire year when her mother barely functioned. When she was home, she was totally dependent on them, but most of the time she was in hospitals because she had pelvic fractures, openings in her legs and shrapnel in her chest, her pelvis had to be stabilized with fixators, her broken legs had to be set and skin transplanted over the lesions. There were parts of her body she did not feel at all, and others she felt much too intensely. She had to relearn how to walk and how to sit, she had to wean herself from painkillers, from her fear of leaving the house, from the terror she felt at the screech of a bus engine every time it pulled out of a stop.

  When she returned to life, she found a different child there, closed and almost hostile, attached to her father, looking at her accusingly. That was when Alma started doing the minimum required of her at school, just as she did at the dining table, tasting only a bit of what was offered, not with curiosity, but just enough to survive. And Iris? She had just won her bid to become principal of the school and had returned to life hungrily, busier than ever before, so perhaps she hadn’t paid enough attention to her daughter. Omer always knew how to demand, but Alma was apparently the kind of person who waited and was disappointed, like her father, and the two of them saw her through her rehabilitation and recovery with a mechanical devotion that was both desperate and cool, sometimes making her feel as if the few seconds she had floated in the air had propelled her into a different country, from which she could never return.

  Every now and then Mickey came into the bedroom, where she was confined to her bed for long months, carrying a plateful of a strange-looking concoction he cooked and a cup of tea that had already cooled, and asked how she was and what she needed. But even the rare times she asked him to stay, “Come and sit with me for a while, tell me what’s happening,” it seemed to be more than he could manage. He was undoubtedly drained and exhausted from taking care of her and the children, in addition to going to work, but beyond that, it seemed to her that he was as cold as the tea he brought her and as strange as the food he cooked, because he avoided her gaze for months, as if he were to blame for what had happened to her.

  She even joked about it sometimes. Less than a year ago they moved to that apartment with the elevator that Mickey was so excited about. “Why do we need an elevator at the age of thirty-five?” she wondered, preferring a different apartment altogether with a view of the Dead Sea and a large balcony, which seemed to her immeasurably more exciting. He, who bragged that he always saw one step ahead, said, “You can never know what’s going to happen. An elevator is always necessary,” which turned out to be so true a short time later when she was injured, and caused her to joke about his access to intelligence, saying that he would be more useful in the secret service than in high tech.

  But he never found that funny, and now, at 3:40 or a bit later—she doesn’t dare look at the clock again—when the pain won’t let her fall back to sleep, she finds herself re-creating moment after moment of that morning, wondering once again about the most random combinations of time and space that lead to the greatest disasters, as well as the most awe-inspiring miracles.

  She remembers that Mickey had stayed at work until late the night before. She was already asleep when he came home, and when she woke up in the morning, he was already dressed and said he was in a hurry, they’d called from the office. During those years, he was at home much less than now. When the children needed him more, that’s when he was rarely around, and today, when it doesn’t matter one way or the other, he comes home early, plays chess at the computer for hours, and then stretches out with a sigh on the couch in front of the TV. But he was always with her in the mornings, helping with the kids—with Omer, that is, who was in the first grade and suffered so much there, he claimed, that they could barely get him out of the house. He would lock himself in the bathroom, and no threats or promises, no rewards or punishments helped.

  But on that morning, Omer was relatively cheerful. She remembers that he was jumping wildly on the double bed, Mickey was already dressed and she was just waking up. It was a clear, almost cool, early summer morning, and Mickey was wearing the old, thin, mustard-colored jacket she didn’t like but that he refused to get rid of. Omer was singing so loudly that they couldn’t hear one another, making up the words; “Little kids paint with pee and poop,” he screamed, managing, as always, to make everyone tense and irritable.

  “You’re leaving already?” she asked. “No one’s ready yet, it’s not even seven,” and Omer screamed, “I’m seven already! Did you forget that I’m seven?” Mickey said, “They called from work, the system crashed, I have to fix it.” And she asked again, “At this hour?” as if it were the middle of the night. “Omer,” he said, “be quiet already,” even though at that particular moment, the boy was jumping in silence, which immediately became loud wailing and then turned into a very annoying song: “Daddy’s pee, Daddy’s poop, talks to me like an asshole.” That forced her to intervene: “Enough, Omer, I don’t allow you to talk to Daddy like that!” And Mickey, whose will always ebbed and flowed, had already started to unzip his jacket and said, “Never mind, I’ll stay with you and drive them like always.”

  Their school was on his way and not hers, and she was on sabbatical then anyway, had completed her master’s degree, and loved to shower leisurely and drink her coffee after everyone was gone. But she saw in his face that it was important for him to go, that the glitch in the system was bothering him. So she decided to forgo one leisurely morning for his sake, to make up for something else much bigger that always made her feel a bit of compassion for him, a bit of guilt, which made her angry, sometimes at him and sometimes herself.

  She sat up in bed across from the mirrored doors of the closet. Her face looked white and tired, her hair black and unkempt, and she smoothed it down and looked at his worried profile. Omer had already left the room and was apparently beginning to cause a commotion in Alma’s room, because they immediately heard her familiar shouting: “Get out of here! Dad! Mom!”

  She leaped out of bed, and as she passed him, she said, “Go fix your system. I’ll take care of them.” He pulled the zipper of his jacket up and down indecisively, and the slight movement of his fingers on the zipper put an end to their indecision and sealed their fate. And the fates of dozens of other people were sealed as well as they began their daily routines, washing bodies that would soon be buried in the ground, bending to put on shoes that would be ripped off in exactly one hour, spreading moisturizer on skin that would burn, saying a quick goodbye to the child they would never see again, changing the diaper of a baby who had only another hour to live. She also began her morning routine, put on a loose striped shirt and jeans and pulled her hair back carelessly because she’d be home soon, promised Omer pizza for lunch if he came out of his hiding place quickly, made sandwiches and put them in their backpacks, and even managed to comb Alma’s hair into an especially nice half-ponytail before they left. In the car, she heard the end of the eight o’clock news and Alma screamed that she was late again because of him, but in less than ten minutes they were at the school g
ates and she was speeding up the hill with a pleasant sense of liberation, passing a bus that was standing at a stop.

  Why the sense of liberation, she wonders now, what was it that had made her suddenly feel relief several seconds before her life imploded? Can she attribute such great significance to that moment when she told him he was free to go? Because only now does she understand that it was a special morning, a morning that heralded change. Perhaps that was why she had insisted on passing the bus that had already signaled it was pulling out, had tailgated it and even honked her horn, driving with an impatience that was completely uncharacteristic of her. But that honking was swallowed up in the shock waves of the explosion.

  He was in a hurry and all she did was tell him he could go, how much significance could that possibly have had? In retrospect, every detail seems momentous, but she needs to examine them at face value, in their real time, stripped of the clothes the future clad them in. She strains to turn over in bed, supporting her thighs with her hands, remembering once again how painful even the slightest movement can be. To her surprise, she hears sounds in the kitchen, then water flushing in the bathroom. It isn’t Omer’s rapid movements, so it must be Mickey—funny that he can’t sleep either. It’s already five in the morning, how will she survive tomorrow, hour after hour?

  “Mickey? Is that you there?” she groans. He opens the door and peers inside, his shaved skull looking momentarily as if it were hanging in the air, reminding her suddenly of the bald head of the sick mother, and she is horrified. What happened to her today, what is happening to her tonight—it can’t go on. It’s all his fault. Why did he have to remind her, as if it were a wedding anniversary or a birthday. Omer was right when he said it was all Daddy’s fault.

  “What’s up?” he asks in a soft voice, “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

  “I’m in terrible pain,” she says. “Bring me another pill.”

  He comes back from the kitchen with a packet of pills and says, “You’ve emptied the drawer, aren’t you overdoing it with these drugs?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Apparently you do,” he says as he sits down on her bed. “I heard that there all sorts of new improvements in pain treatment now. You should check them out. There’s laser therapy, cortisone injections, all kinds of methods. Maybe you should make an appointment at a pain clinic?”

  “Pain clinic? Already?” she says, surprised. He always thinks ahead, as with the elevator. She’s thinking only about tomorrow morning, it never enters her mind that the pain might continue for days and weeks. “So you figure it’ll continue for a long time. How depressing. I’ve learned to take you seriously after you foresaw the terrorist attack.”

  “Right, I really foresaw it,” he laughs bitterly, “it’s a good thing you’re not saying I carried it out.” She swallows the pill and tries to sit up, leaning on the large pillow Alma received from her friends as a gift when she went into the army.

  “Then why were you in such a hurry that morning? Usually, when you work late, you don’t go into the office so early.”

  He answers quickly, as if that same thought woke him up in the middle of the night. “Don’t you remember? There was some kind of glitch, the system crashed.”

  “It’s strange,” she says, “that such a thing never happened before or after, not at that hour anyway.”

  “Come on, enough already, Iris, let’s not open that wound again. You know how it torments me. If I had taken the kids, I would have been injured instead of you, and there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have been injured at all because we would have left a few minutes earlier. Everything would have been different if I hadn’t been in a hurry that morning. We might have had another child, or maybe we would have separated.”

  “Separated?” she says, astonished.

  “Yes, maybe you would have left me. You always felt you deserved someone better. But after I took such good care of you, you couldn’t allow yourself.”

  She stares in surprise at the shaved skull—how mysterious another person’s brain is, even more mysterious than the future. “What are you talking about? You didn’t take good care of me at all! The food was horrible, you avoided me all the time, you acted weirdly. If I’d wanted to leave you, that would definitely not have been a problem. Maybe you’re the one who wanted to leave me, but couldn’t anymore?

  “Tell me,” she says as his large head moves closer, “what exactly was wrong with that system?”

  “And what exactly is wrong with your system?” he teases and tries to kiss her. “Since you left me alone in bed, I’ve already forgotten how you look at night.”

  She tries to push him away, saying, “Don’t change the subject, Mickey. What was so urgent? You came home in the middle of the night, almost morning. Why didn’t they call someone else to fix the glitch?”

  “What’s going on with you?” he protests. “Why are you bringing this up now, all of a sudden? That was ten years ago, Iris, it’s been behind us for a long time!”

  “It hurts me as if it happened yesterday,” she says with a groan, and he whispers, “Show me where,” pulls her nightgown up to her waist and begins caressing her. His breath burns on her scarred skin, and under it, platinum plates, bone transplants, wires and screws, the shrapnel left in her body—all of it clatters in protest against his touch, and she cries out more loudly than she intended, “Don’t touch me, Mickey, it hurts!”

  “Great, you’ve found the perfect excuse! Maybe you should just admit that you were never attracted to me,” he mutters, taking his hands off her, placing them on his knees and staring at them for some reason.

  “I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” she gasps furiously. “You picked one hell of a time to settle old scores!”

  “You’re the one who’s settling old scores with me,” he says. “All of a sudden you just have to know what made the system crash? You’re interrogating me as if I went rushing out to see a lover.”

  “That never entered my mind,” she says in a hollow voice. “What are you talking about? What do you want from me now?”

  “Not a lot, really,” he says. “A little love, a little warmth so that I feel I have a wife at home.”

  “I’m so tired of your self-pity. We’re not talking about you now, we’re talking about me. I’m in pain and all you can offer is sex? Why can’t I ever get a little empathy without sex?”

  “I’ll never understand you,” he protests, putting his head in his hands. “There’s always something wrong! Either you complain that I avoid you or else that I get too close to you!”

  Once again feeling that old compassion for him, she says, “It’s just a matter of timing, Mooky. There are no rules of behavior here. Sometimes we want closeness and sometimes we need distance. We’ve been together for one hundred years already, don’t tell me you don’t understand that.”

  “Of course I understand, Madam Principal. It’s just that I’m sorry to say that you want less and less closeness.”

  “There are all kinds of closeness,” she says, “too bad that you only know one of them.”

  He straightens up with a sigh and fragments of morning light are reflected in delicate stripes on his bare back, like zebra skin. “There are all kinds of distance,” he says, “too bad that you know only one of them. Have a great day.”

  FOUR

  She never imagined she would find herself in this place again so soon, as if she is sentenced to relive the entire history of her injury, because the pain that suddenly returned dictates its own schedule, disrupts her routines like a new baby. Those mornings of rising early and hurrying to school to wait at the gates and welcome every student seem far off, rooted in another time. She hasn’t left the house in ten days, hasn’t visited her kingdom bustling with obedient young subjects in ten days, and it seems to her that her home can no longer contain the pain, so it pushes her out into the sickeningly familiar corrido
rs of the hospital she hoped not to see again for many years, preferably never.

  She rests her head on Mickey’s shoulder, glad he’s at her side in this place that swiftly erases the vestiges of her identity that the pain still hasn’t managed to wipe out. A woman in pain, that’s what she is now, which is why she’s here, waiting her turn to see the senior physician. But the man at her side is proof, at least on the surface, that there are other things in her life aside from the pain, so when it’s their turn to go into the office, she leans on his arm conspicuously and allows him to respond in her place to the first, simpler questions posed by the doctor, who doesn’t look at all senior.

  Not the least bit senior, he truly looks like a child, Mickey must have grabbed the first appointment offered him, or tried, as usual, to save money. She is already giving him an angry look, which he doesn’t notice, but the skeleton hanging behind him gives her an empty-eye-socket look in return. To her horror, she sees that it’s missing a leg, and she looks at it in alarm, it seems real to her, the legless corpse that burned beside her on the street.

  Why did you hang a skeleton without a leg here, she wants to ask. Is it so hard for you to attach a leg? You manage to do much more complicated things! But the doctor is already speaking to her, asking her in a slightly chirpy voice to walk across the room and sit down on the bed, then to bend and stretch her legs, and he taps her knees with a hammer. “Please lie on your back,” he says, “roll up your pants and tell me where it hurts when I press down and how much it hurts on a scale of one to ten.” His touch burns as if his fingers are on fire, and she cries out involuntarily.

  Does the scream frighten him, or does he need an adult’s help, because after the initial examination, while she is still lying on the narrow bed, her pelvis exposed, he mumbles, “I want the unit chief to see you,” and immediately presses one of the numbers on the old-fashioned phone on his desk. “Dr. Rosen, are you free by any chance?” he asks hesitantly, and a moment later the door opens and a tall, slightly stooped man in a white coat, his hair graying and his beard whitening, enters. At first, she focuses on the fact that the man has covered himself with so much hair, totally unlike the completely shaven Mickey, who lately looks like a cat without fur, that they appear to be two different species of the human race. The unit chief barely looks at her, but carefully examines the x-rays displayed on the small screen and listens to the young doctor describe her history in detail as if they were old friends—the complicated injuries, the surgeries she underwent, the shrapnel still left in her body, the pelvic pains radiating to her legs that began all at once—and perhaps that’s why he doesn’t recognize her.