Between the Lines

As they left and the door closed, I sat facing the two chairs. One is still warm and one—I don't know if it has ever been sat in.

The man spoke well, and he had his clauses, like a man accustomed to his words being written down in the minutes. He said: I'm interested in the business. He said: That she be available. He said: And always beautiful. He said: That she not shout at the children and that she speak to me with respect. He said: And always happy and satisfied. And against all these he gave her infinite credit and a luxury car, and she shouldn't have anything to complain about. And not only that, but he added, offhandedly: And I also need quiet to sleep on Shabbat.

And I sit and listen and say nothing, and it turns out this man did not ask for a wife at all. He asked for the weather. A constant climate with no winds and no clouds, a pleasant sun that rises on time and never hides its face. I sit in this room and I am still amazed: how much power a person invests in building the heavens.

And what did she ask for? I inclined my ear, since with women like these the request is said once and in a half-voice, and if you miss it, it does not return. She asked that from time to time he see her tear. That is all she asked for. Her tear, which she has many of inside and few outside.

And that whole hour, until they left, I did not get to the bottom of it. And now, in the empty room, I do.

For had she asked for plain water, water from a barrel or a cistern, she would already have it. Her husband gave her rivers. But she is not asking for water fit for drinking at all. She is asking for saltwater, straight from the heart—that is the tear. And this measure of water is the only one in all of creation that does not quench and is not meant to quench. The sea is full of it and there is not one cup in it for a drinker. And whoever drinks from it is as if he drank salt, his thirst doubling within him, and even so he does not stop, for he does not seek to quench but to taste of the living.

This is this woman's flaw and this is her beauty: she is utterly saturated with water that makes one thirsty. Full to her throat, she sits full in the chair, salty on the inside like a blocked spring, and thirsty, and the fuller she is, the thirstier she is, for this thirst is no longer assuaged by drinking but by a person seeing her drink. And she didn't ask that he taste. She asked that he see.

And her husband, all these days, offers her a river of gold, and she stands on its bank and does not quench her thirst, and he stands opposite and does not understand what is missing. They pour and pour into the cup and the cup does not fill, because she is not asking for this liquid at all, and even she herself hardly knows how to explain what.

And yet I will say, and I do not say it to her face: He is the more pitiful one.

Because his tear has not been available to him since he was six or seven. He said so, in passing, like delivering a forecast for the end of the week, and immediately moved on to another matter, and I did not pursue it. One does not pursue a child who has run away.

Imagine land where no rain has fallen since he was six. There is a riverbed there, cracked and preserved to this day, and one who passes through it sees clearly where the water turned and where it gathered and where the depth was. And not a drop. And since there is not, every light wind that blows raises dust, and all dust chokes, and since it chokes—he argues. He argues with his partners and argues with the banks and argues with the whole world, and also argues with the children whom he so loves and for whom he saves enormous savings for their future.

And this is the thing that cannot be said in the room: The savings account is his tear. He has no other water to give. He gives them his with great diligence, every month, by standing order, and when they do not thank him properly he is mortally wounded and does not know how to say 'I am hurt,' and therefore he shouts. For a man who has no tear, his shout is the only cry he has learned.

And as for the quiet of Shabbat. At first I thought he was asking for rest, like the weary do. And in the end I heard what I heard: the quiet he asks to sleep in is the very quiet in which she swallows her tear. They both call it by one name and are not talking about the same thing. He gets what he asked for, exactly as he asked, and wonders why it has the taste of something dead.

And so two sit before me and in their mouths is one claim, and they believe there are two. She says: You do not see me. And he, with all the clauses and the car and the credit,

is saying nothing else, but that he too is standing there, a six-year-old, and waving all that he has achieved

and calling: See me already. And both are right and both are blind, and neither of them will forgive me if I say this aloud today. A good translation sometimes hurts more than the original, and at my age I have already learned that not everything the translator understands must he translate in the same session.

I said almost nothing. I asked him one question about Shabbat and one question about what was there at age six, and he answered very well, and then he answered a second time, and the second time he stopped in the middle of the sentence and adjusted his sleeve. The adjustment of the sleeve is all I achieved today. A finger's breadth. There are days when that is a lot.

And at the door, as he was already leaving before her, he turned his head back and said to me: Tell her about the car, too.

At that moment I thought he was boasting, and I did not have the strength to reply.

Now, in the empty room, I get up to take the glasses. Her glass stands full to the brim, untouched by her, and I lift it to the light and see that this is not the water I poured for her at all. This is other water, slightly heavier, slightly salty, water that came out from within and had nowhere to go, and it stands there, full, all these years, and no one drinks from it and no one sees that it is there.

And his, he gulped down in one go and did not notice he was drinking. I lifted it. It is empty, completely empty, like a man who has nothing to give and gives immediately.

And at its bottom, where the water was, a small white ring of salt.