The Tunnel, page 29
“Good?” Luria laughs and his face reddens. “What is good dementia? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Ask her,” says Shibbolet, ending the conversation. “That’s what she thought.”
The conference room has emptied. Everything left on the table that could be used at the next meeting has been collected in a large plastic bag. Only now does Luria remember he is without a car and has no idea how to find a bus to take him close to home.
“Where are you off to from here? Back to Mitzpe Ramon?”
“Where do you need to go?”
“Home. Here in Tel Aviv.”
“So I’ll drive you, you deserve it. What happened to your car?”
“Nothing happened to it, but it happened to me. I told a police officer about my dementia, and he immediately took away my licence, unaware that this is good dementia.”
“Where do you live?”
But Luria is again afraid of getting his home address wrong. It’s fine to drop him off at Rabin’s grave.
“You mean the memorial monument?”
“Of course, only for the memory.”
It’s good that he got out at Rabin Square, because again he gets lost on his way home, but at least without disgracing himself in front of others. He realizes he has gone the wrong way when he sees the sea before him, and since he assumes no one knows where Emden Street is, he takes Basel Street, and will find his way from there.
At home he is surprised to see that his wife has returned early. She is sitting at the living room table chewing on a pencil, a new notebook open before her. As he gently nudges her head forwards to cover her neck with kisses, she takes an interest in the fate of the tunnel.
“They approved it. Perhaps thanks to me, because the meeting was run by a man named Drucker, who lost a leg in the first Lebanon War and worked for me in the past, and is now the chief accountant.”
His wife remembers the engineer who had impressed Luria with his ability to get around in the field with his prosthesis.
“Today he’s in a wheelchair, but his spirit is still strong.”
“So what now? Where will we find you a new tunnel?”
“Only here, at home, under the floor. I got lost again on my way home. But you, why’d you come back in the middle of the day? I hope it’s not your bacteria again. What’s its name?”
“Meningococcus.”
“What?”
“Meningococcus.”
“The predator.”
“Not a predator, just virulent.”
“And maybe it left a few of its babies in your bloodstream.”
“Don’t worry,” she laughs, “its babies have all gone.”
“In any case, why are you home early?”
“Because I realized that you’re right. To give the corrupt State a gift of my vacation days, plus the research money I didn’t use, is not generosity but supercilious stupidity. Therefore today I handed over management of the clinic to Boaz, and during my remaining time there I’ll work as an ordinary soldier. And meanwhile, in keeping with that woman’s idea, what’s her name?”
“Ayala …”
“Ayala, right, I’ll try to tease some sliver of research out of my illness, and you, who were my hero in all this, will now also be a hero in writing.”
“But why in the notebook and not on the computer?”
“Because this is a first draft, and I want the ideas to flow freely, the left pages facing the right, since it’s not yet clear to me how I get from describing the illness to unravelling its complexity. I have to feel my way carefully, with many question marks, and I can do this only by hand and not on the computer, which makes the written word clear and definitive. When the draft is done, I’ll read it aloud and you’ll type it, and that way you’ll have work to do until we find you a new tunnel.”
“Don’t try to dictate medical terms and test results, because I’ll make mistakes you won’t notice until later. And in general you overestimate my remaining intelligence. In today’s meeting I apparently hallucinated a Galilee road that collapsed, and a tunnel that never existed, and Drucker, maybe out of pity for me, approved the tunnel for Maimoni. Dina, be careful, don’t depend on me for anything. I am sinking, I am confused, I don’t know what day it is.”
The smile that had brightened her face is fading, and her eyelids flutter with compassion for a dear man whose despair is not unfounded. So she gets up and grabs his hips and takes his face in her hands for a long, deep lovers’ kiss. And while he wavers between evasion and surrender, she pulls his shirt from his trousers, strokes and kisses his chest and arms, and whispers, Does it matter what day it is, if there is love every day? And although it isn’t clear if her passion is real or just supportive, he is obliged, as she lies before him, to forgo his depression and get down on his knees to pleasure the one person who can slow his decline.
In the evening they go to the Tel Aviv Museum for a concert of chamber music, arriving early because they also want to see two new exhibitions. And because their midday lovemaking had gone so well, they are still tightly holding hands. The two exhibitions are on the same floor. The first is of a thirty-year-old Israeli painter living in Amsterdam, the other of an older Finnish artist. What the two shows have in common is that the works constitute a series. The Israeli series is called Beginning of an Earthquake, and the Finnish series is Resurrection of the Dead. The Israeli’s canvases are of medium size, ten paintings of Israeli families from various tribes and social classes having dinner at home, at the start of an earthquake of which they are still unaware. The colours of the Finnish artist, who at seventy is back in vogue, are softer and more muted than the Israeli’s, the canvases are smaller, with white spaces of snow or ice that seem infinite. The human figures are tiny, blurry, but numerous and presumably dead, seeking to return to life in order to depart from it again.
“But how can you tell that these are zombies and not just people?” wonders Luria.
“Because they have no eyes,” explains his wife. “Look closely, they’re blind.”
But they lack the time to dig deeply into the mass resurrection of the dead in the far north, because they are rushing to a concert in two parts. The first turns out to be pure punishment, a very contemporary musical creation, and long, unlike contemporary works that typically quit while they’re ahead. But the second half is ample compensation, namely, Brahms’s Piano Quintet, which Luria could once hum by heart. Despite the marvellous music, he peeks from time to time at his two mobiles, to see if Maimoni has tried to reach him by phone or text. But there’s no trace of Maimoni, as he too has vanished into thin air with his Ayala. “Why don’t you call him,” says his wife after the concert, aware of his disappointment. “Because,” replies Luria, “a woman once warned me to remember that my dignity was hers too, so I’ve learned to wait patiently.”
When they get home, Dina returns immediately to her notebook. It turns out that listening to that first insufferable piece has sparked an inspiration: her research project will seek to clarify why the first antibiotic not only failed to kill the germs, but helped make matters worse. That will be the question in search of an answer.
The next day, Luria goes back to the Tel Aviv Museum to check if the Finn’s resurrected dead are really blind. And indeed, the eyes of the tiny figures are missing, or shut, and perhaps these are members of a different, northern race, whose gaze is directed inwards. And since it’s too early to go home, Luria also decides to visit the Land of Israel Museum, and the map in his phone suggests he go on foot, an hour’s walk along the Yarkon riverbank, through the western part of Ganei Yehoshua Park.
He obeys the phone, because the second phone concurs, and he walks through Hamedina Square to the bank of the river, which is no more than a stream so feeble that there’s no telling which way it flows. Here and there, on a bench or in a wheelchair, sit men or women near whom, at a watchful distance, perhaps taking pity, sit foreign carers, darker-skinned, male and female, sometimes the same sex as the supervised person, sometimes not—there seems to be no consensus in the kingdom of dementia—and the look of the two is similar, quiet, reflective, rather curious, without pain but also without hope.
And then Luria says to himself, Maybe something has happened to Maimoni, maybe the tunnel was ultimately cancelled by a higher authority. Here, amid grass and trees, beside the joy of joggers, the whir of bicycles, the laughter of children playing, his wife’s dignity and his own seem less important, so he phones Maimoni, who immediately confesses, Dear Luria, it’s my fault, forgive me. By the time I delivered the signed documents to the operations department, it was evening and I didn’t want to bother you, you seemed tense and frightened enough in the meeting.
“Frightened? Why?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But this Hanadi who sat next to me also disappeared, and even Shibbolet didn’t know where to. Did you take her?”
“No, she disappeared on me too, apparently she returned to her rehearsals, but problems are arising there as well, because without an actual Israeli ID she has no chance of acting in a play on stage.”
“What’s the connection?”
“The connection is the insurance required by law to cover any accidents during stage performances. By the way, this applies to you too, we were remiss regarding insurance.”
“Applies to me? How? I’m a pensioner working on a voluntary basis.”
“Voluntary for you, but not for Drucker, who already bawled me out for employing you without insurance, even though you’re not paid, and if you fell and got hurt, or worse, went missing in the Ramon Crater, the State would ignore you, but sue us.”
“Ignore me? Why? I’m a card-carrying citizen, covered in every conceivable way.”
“You are you, but we would get sued for employing you without accident insurance, even if we didn’t pay you a salary.”
“So why not get me insurance?”
“What for?”
“For next time.”
“And who will pay for that?”
“I will.”
“Your pension from Israel Roads covers your life insurance premiums, but how will you transfer money to Israel Roads for accident insurance for a person not listed as a worker?”
“I’ll find a way.”
“There is no way. So far as I know, no one will accept that payment. I’m telling you, Drucker warned me, even though he loves you. He didn’t remember the road that crumbled in the Galilee or the tunnel that wasn’t dug, but he remembered your human kindness to him from thirty years ago, despite the fact that you tried to hide it.”
Luria says nothing.
“Zvi, are you with me?”
“Yes, when do they start work on our road?”
“Soon, the army is impatient.”
“Incidentally, regarding Ayala, if it doesn’t work out at the Seminar, I could hire her as a companion, sort of a foreign worker.”
“To do what?”
“You know, when it gets worse. Because it will soon get worse. I can feel it.”
“What will get worse?”
“The confusion, the forgetting, which I gather she heard about from you. But she told Shibbolet that my dementia was the good dementia, not the bad.”
nevo
The inspiration sparked during the first half of the museum concert, regarding the strange relationship between the first antibiotic and the virulent bacteria, has blossomed into a fertile research idea that can rescue Dina’s funding from the avaricious State. So besides reading articles on Google Scholar, Dina sits in the hospital library and looks at studies that either support her hypothesis or challenge it. Meanwhile, the cynical bureaucrat in the personnel department, who on principle disparages research he is asked to fund, tells the paediatrician about a conference in Munich in early summer, at a German institute specializing in bacteria and viruses. Dr Luria’s lecture is written, translated into English and edited, its abstract sent to the conference organizers and approved, and her talk is assigned a time slot in the schedule. The conference coordinator gets in touch with Dina to confirm her acceptance, and also to add a personal word of warning. The organizers expect the participants to be present for the whole three days and not just on the day of their own lecture. Apparently the Germans have had unpleasant experiences with Israeli researchers, who go shopping or tour the area straight after their lecture.
The question now arises whether Luria ought to make the trip. He won’t be able to wander around Munich by himself and will be imprisoned in the hall, listening to lectures in German or English that would bore him even if they were in Hebrew. They decide that the doctor will travel alone and limit her trip to four days only, and with the money left over they will vacation together in Tuscany or the Swiss Alps. This is the logical solution. But Dina imposes a condition that must be met, otherwise she will cancel her trip: on the nights she is not in Israel, Luria must stay with one of their two children. Obviously it would be best to send him north to Yoav, who has a lovely guest suite in his big house, but unfortunately the house is surrounded by fields, and since Yoav and his wife are at work most of the day, and the grandchildren have their after-school activities, Luria would likely be tempted to go walking in the fields, where there’s no Rabin Square to anchor his whereabouts. There is thus no alternative but to send him to his daughter Avigail, who lives nearby. And since her apartment is quite small, with no guest room, Grandpa will have to spend the night in the child’s room, next to his grandson sleeping soundly, or in the office of his son-in-law, a young psychiatrist who generally prescribes drugs for his patients and only rarely has them lie on the couch.
It’s impossible to ignore a simple condition imposed by a wife who wants peace of mind when she is far from her husband. But despite his promise to honour her request, the doctor flies off with a quivering heart, only slightly reassured by the presence of two mobile phones.
As nine weeks have passed since the committee meeting, it’s fair to ask Maimoni whether construction of the army road has begun. Maimoni, who has moved on to a new project, promises to find out, and an hour later reports to Luria that a mole bulldozer has gone down into the crater to start boring through the hill. As the work progresses, he will take his former unpaid assistant, even without accident insurance, to see it.
As promised to her mother, Avigail arrives at five in the afternoon to take her father to her apartment. And Luria, who has already showered and shaved, stuffs pyjamas, slippers, and a toothbrush into a plastic bag, tucks both phones in his pockets, and leaves home reluctantly to spend the night in a child’s room. On the car phone, a call from overseas, to allay the worry that has migrated to Munich by confirming that the condition was met. Yes, Imma, says Avigail, Abba is here beside me, and seems relaxed and happy.
But Noam’s room contains a small surprise. Nevo, the son of the single parent, is here too, not to stay overnight, only until the harpist picks him up after her rehearsal. Nevo turns pale and mute at the sight of the old man who had promised him that his missing father would not only resurface but come and visit. Luria, too, is rattled by the vegetarian child who hysterically flung his shakshuka plate when Noam announced cruelly that he had no father. This is the boy who for his bar mitzvah will be taken to the summit of Mount Nevo, across the Jordan River, to see whether Israel will suit him for the rest of his life, or if he should find somewhere more rational. Luria avoids contact with him and goes to the living room to watch the news, and he wonders how three news programmes on three channels decide, with no advance coordination, on exactly the same stories in the same order. But furious Nevo abandons his friend and games, enters the living room, and stares at Luria with such sad longing that Luria invites him to cuddle up on his lap.
Even when his mother Noga arrives, Nevo is unwilling to part from Luria, and like that time at lunch, he throws himself down and pummels the floor with fists and feet. His mother knows why he’s gone berserk, but doesn’t try to calm him, and though she could easily, with her strong harpist’s hands, pluck the boy from the floor and carry him to her car, she stands quietly waiting for his pain and disappointment to subside, hoping to make Luria feel guilty for his foolish, gratuitous words. The bearer of false news does indeed feel terrible about the boy who won’t say goodbye, and who is waiting for Luria to keep his promise, so to ease Nevo’s pain Luria suggests they take a drive in his mother’s car, to make the separation gradual. To his delight, Noga accepts the offer, and Luria buckles himself into the back seat to keep Nevo company, and takes his little hand in his, and says to the driver, her face reflected in the mirror: Yes, I know I caused this pain, but I wanted to give him hope. It’s theoretically possible some father will turn up, maybe not a biological father but at least a fatherly one, why not? Who would believe he’d remember my little promise? But he remembered.
Did Avigail drop a hint to her friend about her father’s dementia to justify his blunder, or has Noga, who seems strong and intelligent, figured out the confusion on her own? Either way, this woman is kind to him, and he’s chattering from the back seat.
“When you told me about Mount Nevo and that you want him to decide on the mountaintop if this land is right for him, I said to myself, All in all it’s good that I gave him hope, to ensure the right decision. Because if some father does turn up, he will come here, not Amsterdam or Munich. But even so, I apologize, I didn’t know this would be so important to him.”
