Five Seasons (6 page)

He switched on the television, turned it off again, put on some music, and immediately toned down the volume, feeling at loose ends. Should he try phoning someone in the hope of being invited out? Unfortunately, he had napped that afternoon and now was wide awake—so much so, in fact, that he could feel his wakefulness like a lump in his chest. During the first year of his wife's illness, he had had such feelings often. Several times he was sure he had found some malignancy of his own, and once or twice he had even rushed to the doctor, making it difficult to determine who the real patient was, until her illness finally gathered such momentum that it devoured his own complaints too.

Deciding to go for a walk, he put on his coat and went downstairs, where it was calm but cold. He glanced at the windows, the terraces, the doorways of the houses, and followed a woman walking a dog while the moon rose above the rooftops into a cleared, pacific sky, returning to his unlit apartment with a feeling of wonder that soon changed to pleasure at his freedom. For months, even at night, the apartment had not been this dark, and so, curious to see how it looked from the ravine, he descended to the backyard, turning by its mesh fence to look up at the house suspended above him on columns. When they had bought the apartment four years ago, it was already with this green gully in mind—that is, with the thought of the view she would have from her deathbed. Now, staring into its blackness, which was only heightened by the luminous sky, he walked carefully along the path he knew well and had followed often to the bottom. The ground was very wet. Puddles of water lay about, and broken branches and building debris obstructed his progress. Once again he pictured her leaving this way—yes, this was the direction she had gone in that night—and absconding with part of him.

All at once the telephone rang loudly in his apartment. Was it some friends calling to ask him over for a drink? He started back up, refusing, however, to run, while the phone kept ringing stubbornly, only to fall silent as he reached the door of the apartment. Now, he thought, everyone will say that I'm never home at night! There were no doubt people who envied him his new freedom without realizing how lonely it could be. And yet he was glad his wife's death was behind him. A year ago the thought of it had terrified him, but it had gone easily enough in the end.

He poured himself a glass of brandy, opened the clothes closet, and surveyed his wife's wardrobe, which was hanging there. Just then the telephone rang again. It was a woman who introduced herself as Ruth, a friend of his wife's who never had met him, though she knew all about him and kept tabs on him even now. Her voice was warm and cheery, like a self-assured schoolteacher's. Did he mind having a personal chat with her? “No,” Molkho said. Was he sure? “Yes,” Molkho said. Well, then, she wanted him to know how sorry she was and how full of admiration for him. “For me?” he asked, knowing perfectly well what she meant. “For taking such good care of her,” explained the woman. Was he really sure she wasn't intruding? Perhaps he would rather she called some other time. “No, go ahead,” replied Molkho, his heart suddenly beating faster. “Please don't misunderstand me,” said the woman ... although, on the other hand, no one could possibly suspect her of ... and especially since it had dragged on so much longer than...“Than what?” Molkho asked. Than it usually did: that's why she had decided not to wait any longer. Though he wished she would stop beating about the bush, he was startled by her boldness. The idea of her dialing him just like that! “What are you getting at?” he asked, regretting the question at once, because now he heard the hesitation in her voice, as if it were about to beat a retreat. But it didn't. “What I'm getting at,” it plunged on, “is that I know someone you might want to meet, a lovely woman who's just your type”—although if he thought the subject was premature, he only need say so. Secretly thrilled, he did his best to sound casual. Was it anyone he knew? No, she didn't think so, though, of course, she couldn't mention any names; the person in question had not been consulted and didn't know Molkho herself. For the moment, it was just a thought in the minds of some well-wishers. Were those their voices that he heard in the background? Molkho wondered. Could she actually be speaking to him with all of them right there? Suddenly it occurred to him that it was perhaps she herself who wished to meet him. “I bet it's you,” he said jokingly into the phone. She laughed. “I thought you'd say that, but no, it isn't. I'm just trying to be helpful, to do what I can.” Was she a professional matchmaker? he inquired appreciatively. No, it was more of a hobby with her, replied the woman with a friendly chuckle. Receiver in hand (they had bought a cordless telephone when his wife became bedridden), Molkho walked about the apartment, gazing out the windows at the moon-bright sky. “How old is she?” “Six years younger than you. You're fifty-three, aren't you?” “What? I'm only fifty-one!” He felt injured, a vague fear forming inside him, as if a graying, overweight, infirm woman was about to move in with him. “I'm afraid that it's a little too early for this,” he said curtly, sounding offended. “It's not even a month yet. You can't just expect me to ... why, it's a matter of simple decency!” In the silence at the other end of the line, he thought he could hear people talking, although perhaps it was only a television. “What, not even a month yet?” they were saying in shocked whispers. Oh dear, she was terribly sorry. She had been misinformed. “Oh dear, please excuse me,” said the woman and hung up.

He hadn't expected her to ring off so quickly. Flushed and excited he kept walking about the apartment, the telephone still in his hand. The idea! Who could it have been? And yet it touched him that someone was thinking of him, that he was already on somebody's list. Why let it upset him? She had meant well; her warm, reliable voice still echoed in his ears as though it were now his own. He went over to the television, but didn't touch it, having watched enough of it in the past year, and went instead to the bathroom, in which there were still more things to sort out—lotions, salves, and all kinds of bottles and tubes that had had nothing to do with her illness. It was ages since he had last sat in the bathtub, which had become her exclusive domain, her own private little sanatorium, in which, all alone, she could look without fear at her body, talk to it, soothe it, cry over it, comfort it under suds, her scarred and tortured body whose ruins he was a witness to, at first the only one, later joined by the nurses who bathed her and once a week by his elder son, who had helped lift and lower her into the greenish water. Only during the last month of her life, when this body already had turned into another creature, into some fossil of a species that had become extinct long ago or would perhaps not evolve for another million years, did she not want to see it anymore (nor did he let her, wrapping her in a huge bath towel before his son could fish her out of the tub in the special rig that she sat in), not even in the small hand mirror by her bed, which she abandoned in favor of the glass strip in her compact that reflected only her eyes, the one part of herself she could bear to look at toward the end.

He turned on the faucet and started to undress, yet noticed that the water was a brownish color, and was trying to decide whether to wash or not when the doorbell rang. Quickly donning a bathrobe and going to see who it was, he found his friends, the doctor and his wife, all dressed up on their way to a party. They had decided to drop by without warning, they explained, because his telephone was always busy; they hoped it wasn't too late and apologized for having been out of touch. “Thank you for coming,” said Molkho, genuinely happy to see them. “It's just for a minute,” they cautioned. “Then, thank you for coming for a minute,” he replied. They entered and headed automatically for the bedroom, realizing their error only by the door and halting there awkwardly, uncertain whether to sit down. But he made them, only then answering their questions, telling them a bit about the children and a little more about his mother-in-law, who was managing very well. “Rather too well,” he added with a smile, describing how healthy and independent she was: why, even her cane was just for show! They seemed to listen with interest, like the good and loyal, if somewhat dull, friends that they were. Despite his overoptimistic diagnoses, the doctor had been a great help to them in dealing with the hospital staff. Though Molkho had an urge to tell them about the phone call and to ask if they knew the woman who made it, he changed his mind at the last minute, not wanting them to think it gave him pleasure. When the two of them rose to go, he could feel the doctor's wife being drawn back to the bedroom, as if she had a need to see it. It was dark and untidy, and his clothes were lying all over. “Why, it's completely different,” she whispered in amazement after silently regarding it. “Yes,” sighed Molkho. “Even the bed is gone,” she added sadly, as if the least he could have done was continue sleeping in it himself. The doctor put an arm around him. “If you need any help,” he said, “just ask.” “I'm fine, really I am,” said Molkho, the thought crossing his mind that the man might want to buy the Talwin. Though something warned him it would make a bad impression, he wanted to be rid of the tablets so badly that he couldn't restrain himself. “Just a minute,” he said, running to bring a box of them; he had thrown out all kinds of drugs, but this was brand-new, it had cost twenty dollars a box, perhaps the hospital might like to buy it at half price. The doctor weighed it in his hand, holding it at arm's length while giving his wife a look that plainly said that Molkho had made a mistake. Hospitals, he explained politely, were not allowed to buy secondhand medicines, even if unopened, but if Molkho would give him a box as a sample, perhaps a private buyer could be found. “Never mind,” said Molkho, reaching out for the Talwin, which he knew he never would see again once the doctor took it. “Never mind. I'll find a buyer myself.”

He walked them to the street. A flood of light, as if the moon had been turned up to full amplitude, poured down from the cloudless sky. A solemn beauty filled the world. Now that they, dressed in their best, were about to vanish into the wonderful darkness and leave him all by himself, it was hard to part with them. And yet it irked him to be pitied. His unhappiness, he feared, would only alienate them more, and so on the spur of the moment, he told them about the phone call, concluding with a wry smile, “So you see, I'm already an eligible bachelor.” They didn't smile back, though. The woman was aghast: “But how could she? How awful!” The doctor said nothing, regarding Molkho with curiosity. “And not even a month gone by!” added his wife bitterly. Wrathful and incredulous, she made him regret having mentioned it. Why, you would think he had secretly arranged that telephone call himself! Suddenly all the years of devotion to his wife meant nothing anymore, and he was being stared at as though he were her murderer.

T
HE NIGHT GREW BRIGHTER
and colder, and he slept fitfully, turning from side to side and waking up every two hours as though to boil water, to give an injection, to check the intravenous, to fetch pills or tea, to say something comforting—instead of which he went to the bathroom and then plunged back into his bed, over which loomed the triumphal moon while fresh, enormous stars drifted upward from the horizon. In the middle of the night, he turned the bed to the window to get a better view of the spectacular sky. His two youngest children were not yet home, and he decided to wait up for them. The first to arrive was his daughter; he chatted with her for a while until she went to bed and then talked with the high school boy, who had meanwhile come home too, while the moon sank into the ravine. At last, after the boy had gone to sleep also, Molkho retired himself, waking the next morning to find a bright sun shining in. It was, he decided, the perfect day to wash the car, which had not been cleaned in months, and he scrubbed and waxed it for a long time while talking to his neighbor, who had come down with the same idea. The weather, though chilly, was crisp and clear, and remembering last night's message that there were people thinking of him, planning for him, Molkho felt suddenly happy. Not, of course, that he needed their help. He could manage quite well by himself, he was sure, but meanwhile they could point him in the right direction, provide him with warmth, restore his faith in the lost power of desire.

The old clothes he had on made it seem a good time for the walk in the ravine he'd been thinking of, and so he headed some hundred paces down the path until he found himself standing on a large, smooth boulder and looking into the branch-entangled gully, over whose trees and bushes played a milky light, as if the moon that had vanished there during the night were still slowly in the process of dissolving. Back in the house, he set about vigorously organizing a wash of dirty linen, waking the children and pulling the sheets out from under them, after which he started cleaning up in the kitchen. When the dishes were done, he tried persuading his son and daughter to pitch in and make lunch with him: “if you don't like the housekeeper's cooking,” he told them, “let's try to do better ourselves.” The children, however, were unresponsive, his daughter getting involved in a long phone conversation, while his son went off to tinker with his bicycle. When the girl hung up at last, Molkho phoned the college student to invite him over too, and though at first he tried begging off, the disappointment in his father's voice made him promise to come. True to his word, he appeared before noon, and the meal they cooked up was a good one; they sat talking intimately about this and that while looking at the calendar to choose a day for the unveiling. Gradually the children began reminiscing about their mother as they never had done before. Even the youngest, who kept silent at first, spoke up in the end, his wet eyes glistening, and it made them all glad to see him cry a bit. It's the end of another chapter in our lives, thought Molkho, feeling strong.