The Remains of Love by Zeruya Shalev Read Free Book Online Page A

to him no one is watching he lays his back on the mattress, followed by his thighs and his knees and finally his feet, black courtroom shoes and all.
    Before his eyes he sees with a kind of transparent, dazzling knowledge, how they will get into their car; slowly and cautiously she will settle him down in the back seat, sit down at the wheel and flash him an encouraging smile via the mirror, driving gently, as if she’s transporting a day-old infant, and he sees how they will arrive at home, and she will lead him to their bed, the bed of their lovemaking and the restful sleep that followed it, and the days that lie ahead of them he sees as if he has already faded and died once, in a different past, the heavy twilight hours, neither day nor night, as if they are already detached from the processes of the sun, the grief of the departure of souls he sees, a dance without movement, a song without sound, and when he lies on the narrow bed, keeping watch from there over his mother, who is stretched out beside him, over his empty chair, he whimpers again, but he has nothing to wipe the tears away with because his handkerchief is in her pocket and they fall from his eyes and are absorbed by the sheet, and he has no one to hide them from, since no one is looking at him, and all the time he’s scanning the corridor, maybe he’ll see her again, maybe she’s left some document behind here, perhaps she’ll return to give him back his tears and he’ll be capable of eliciting from her mouth the end of the thread that will help him to follow their fate. For a moment he is jolted by the sight of a red radiance, a fleeting distant phenomenon that vanishes, leaving behind it a mirage-glow, and again he sits up with pounding heart when a female form appears, rapidly approaching his mother’s bed, but it isn’t her. The tall and lanky woman in the black blouse and the narrow skirt, also black, naturally, is his sister Dina, two years his senior, and although he has been waiting for her all morning so he can escape from here, he closes the curtain that separates them and before she notices him, he lays his head on the pillow and pretends to be fast asleep.

Chapter Two
    Dina knows she has to hurry; at this age anything can happen. In a single moment people depart this world, and even those who have hung on there year after year may suddenly collapse, like guests outstaying their welcome at parties, harassing the hosts and then slipping away abruptly and discourteously without a goodbye or a thank you, with no pause for leave-taking, no opportunity to forgive or to ask a final question, nor to appease, gratify or compensate, and yet when she finds herself in the hospital lobby it isn’t her mother she hurries to see. Instead of heading for the cold sterility of the casualty ward she makes her way to a building set back a little from the others, surrounded by lawns, where heavy-bodied women pad around slowly but with faces full of longing, where the smell of blood is blended with the smell of milk spraying from swollen breasts and the whiff of delicate baby skin meeting the air of the world for the first time; the smells of life, which changes in an instant, hang back and make way with reverence for the new kings of glory, and this is where she wanders about, feeling awkward, peering into the rooms, pretending she’s looking for some new mother, but her empty hands and grim expression undermine the camouflage. She walks down a long corridor, eyes darting about, looking for the room where she herself gave birth, sixteen years ago.
    It was the last room, she remembers, the one closest to the hills, and beside the window she lay, suckling her winter baby while the flakes of snow began to fall on the treetops, and when Gideon arrived in the morning he found them by the window with its veneer of misty vapours, and he smiled with feeling and kissed the pair of them; they were so close together that one kiss was enough, and then he raised the