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

camera that was hung round his neck and shot them wrapped in the viscous mist, her face beaming at him beside the face of the sleeping baby, and since the fixed space between them was filled precisely according to the baby’s proportions, this picture which still hangs opposite their bed dazzles her every morning with the brightness of the snow that was quick to melt, blurring her with the touch of the violet vapour. Usually there’s nothing to be seen there and it’s only in rare moments that pale figures emerge from the gloom like ghosts, like two ancient souls given the right to be born again, one in the arms of the other.
    This is the room. She stands wavering in the doorway, thinking that is the window, those are the hills, that is the last bed, where a girlish figure is lying on her back covering her face with her arm, her hair a shade of chestnut brown. Look at this thin arm, reminiscent of Nitzan’s arm, but that’s impossible, Nitzan’s in school now, she remembers with relief, as if only this fact serves to refute the notion, since for one scary moment it seemed to her that in the gulf that has recently opened between her and her daughter a full-term pregnancy could easily be fitted, along with clandestine birth and the whole process from beginning to end. With quick steps she approaches the bed, just to be sure these are foolish thoughts that she’ll be ashamed of straightaway: Nitzan is at school now, her body as slim as ever, Nitzan has never known a man, Nitzan wouldn’t hide such a traumatic thing from her, but all the same this body is familiar to her, that posture, frozen and intense, and she whispers, excuse me a moment, and it’s only then the young woman moves her arm and cries out in a astonished voice, Dina? What are you doing here? And Dina nods her head at a loss for words; after all what can she say to her? Relief at finding this isn’t Nitzan has turned to acute embarrassment in confronting her student, who has indeed since time immemorial reminded her of her daughter with her slender physique, and despite this or perhaps because of it her presence arouses unpleasant tensions in her, and the girl herself, Noa, adds to these tensions with her excessive argumentativeness in class, veering between lack of interest and overstated, tiresome involvement.
    In recent weeks she’s been absent from class, to Dina’s relief, and someone had indeed reported that she was on pregnancy leave, another detail that had slipped from her memory, who could count their pregnancies anyway, and here she is, on her bed, making it seem that all the hundreds of women who have occupied this bed since then have been erased completely, and before she can find words to explain her presence in this place Noa smiles at her and says, it really touches me that you’ve come to see me, and Dina tries to smile back at her, blending truth and lies, my mother was admitted to this hospital, and I heard you had given birth, so I dropped by for a moment to see how you are, and when Noa repays her with somewhat overplayed interest in the state of her mother’s health, her embarrassment increases, because she doesn’t know what state her mother is in. Perhaps at this very moment she is breathing her last, perhaps even calling her name, wanting to say goodbye to her daughter, who for some reason prefers to sit at the bedside of a woman in the maternity ward, an acquaintance but certainly not a friend, and she decides to cut short this unplanned visit. You know what, I’ll come back to you later, I’ve left her alone and I’m not comfortable with that, and to her surprise she sees disappointment on Noa’s face, as she says, stay with me for a while seeing that you’re here already, and you haven’t even asked about the sex of my baby.
    Oh, sorry, Dina apologises hastily, I’m so confused this morning, boy or girl? Noa grins, as if she’s played a trick on her and caught her out, a boy and a girl, she announces, twins, and