Between the Lines

They came in, and the baby with them, asleep in the stroller. And he brought the stroller in with very great care, the way a man brings something precious into a tight parking spot, and checked that the wheel was not touching the table, and set it at the right angle, and only then sat down.

And that was my first observation, and I wrote it down: the stroller, he knows how to park.

He began to speak at once, and opened, of all things, with the car. He said he was selling what he had now and buying another, and that he had found a deal, and that if you fix something small in the engine—there is profit in it. And he told me the whole chain: who sold to whom, and what was missing, and what he repaired for a hundred shekels, and for how much he sold it. And as he told it, he became altogether different. A man who entered bent and became upright.

I asked how many cars a year.

He said: Three. Sometimes four.

And I said nothing, and inside I thought: this is not a rich man, and I do not suspect him of wastefulness. This is the custom of those who know cars and are at home with the dealers and know all the time how to swap and repair and transfer ownership and make a few shekels more. And all the profit in this is very small, and whoever does it for the money is a fool. Only it is not for the money at all. A man like this sells himself a car every four months—and every four months he becomes again a man who knows something in the world. For at that table of deals he is a great expert, and everyone asks his advice, and they say of him that he has an eye. And I know nothing sweeter than this for a man of whom they said all the days of his childhood that nothing would come of him.

And then I turned to her and asked how they had met.

And she, who until that moment had sat almost without moving, said: I got into his car.

And when she said I got into his car—something rose in her voice that had not been there before, and it did not leave her for the rest of that session.

And she told. That in her home the atmosphere was not pleasant. That is how she said it, in two words, and she did not expand, and I did not press. And that they did not believe in her. And that in studies she did not succeed. And that she was the black sheep, and she said this with a small smile, the way one says a thing that has been said about you so many times that you say it first yourself, so they will not beat you to it.

And that all she wanted was to flee from there.

And then she met him, and got into his car.

And what she told about that entering I will not add a word to: like entering a banquet hall of kings. The smell, and the cleanliness, and the music, and the door that closes and silences the whole street at once, and he sits there and knows exactly what to do with his hands. And she sat on her side, higher than the chair at home, and outside the window all the streets she wanted to flee from passed by, and they passed quickly, and she was inside.

And I stopped writing.

For this was not a car at all. This was a room. The first room in her life that no one entered without permission and no one shouted in and no one said in that nothing would come of her. And it was not even a fixed room—every four months it was exchanged for another room—and that too worked out well, for whoever all her days asked to flee, you have nothing better for her than a house that travels.

And as for him: I saw in his face, while she was telling it, that he still hears this. Ten years later and he still hears this.

For he too, for his part, looked at her in those days. And he saw how she yearned for him, and how she looked at him from below, and how she grew excited before every meeting. And I do not know if they ever said to him once in his childhood one good thing; I imagine not, and I have not asked yet. And when this girl came and looked at him that way—he did not see a girl. He saw with his own eyes the answer to everything they had said about him at home and in class.

And therefore he proposed marriage quickly. For his way is to think short-range—the way of a man whose whole trade is built on what will be in another four months—and whoever does not see far, every good thing that comes to his hand he hurries to close the deal on before the seller regrets it.

And so it turned out that each of them acquired from the other a thing that had never been for sale: she bought from him a place to flee to, and he bought from her a mirror in which he looked like a successful man.

And three years it held. And I do not belittle three years.

And afterward the baby came, and they came to me.

And she said to me: We don't know what to do now.

And that is the truest sentence spoken in this room today, and in it is the whole case.

For what was between them was all excitement, and excitement is not a bad thing, God forbid. Only excitement is like an engine that runs while standing still: it makes a fine noise, and heats up, and does not move the car from its place even a handbreadth. And all those years they saw each other through the glass—she saw a hall of kings, and he saw himself in her eyes. And neither of them saw the other. And they did not deceive each other, for there was no deceit here: simply there was not yet anyone there who could be seen.

And now there is a baby, and they travel nowhere, and they sit in the house, and the illusion—every illusion in the world—does not tolerate sitting. It stands only as long as the landscape passes in the window.

And once they had stopped, two people were left in one living room, and they did not know what to talk about when they were not talking about the car, and they did not know what to do in the evening, and neither of them had ever seen a couple that sits in quiet and loves.

And here is the thing I saw in them and said to them at the end of the session, so they would have something to take home with them:

I said: You think you have nothing in common. You have one very large thing, and you've been hiding it from each other since you met.

They asked: What.

I said: Both of you were children they didn't believe in. Both of you didn't succeed. Both of you were treated badly, each in his own home, and I don't know yet in detail what was there and I'm in no hurry to know. And all your days you've been looking for one person who will look at you and say there's something in you. And here is all that happened in that car: two children they didn't believe in sat facing each other and said to each other, without words, I believe in you.

And that was true. And that is still true. Only you did it from below to above—she looked at him from below and he enjoyed it from above. And one can look from below for a year, and one can for three. And one cannot raise a daughter that way.

And from here on it needs to be from the side. And this, both of you, you have never seen in your lives, and therefore you do not know how to do it, and therefore you came here. And do not be ashamed of this: no one knows on his own how to do a thing he has not seen.

And I said to him: You know cars. You know there is nothing harder than moving a car from a place it has stood a long time. The tires have already taken the shape of the asphalt, and the battery is down, and you have to push by hand a few meters until it begins to move on its own. And that is what you are doing now in the house. And it looks like failure, and it is not failure—it is a stage.

And I said to her: And you're not traveling anywhere anymore. You're home. And that is the thing that frightens you most, and I don't take this lightly, for all your days you knew only how to flee, and you never stayed.

The price was so small she did not feel it at all, and it was this: that she would go on being the one who does not know. For if she knew—he would have to consult her. And if he consulted her—he would have to be a man who does not know everything. And if he did not know everything—he would no longer have left in the world that one thing for which he began this whole business.

And therefore it would occur to one, in those evenings, that neither of them can give up this arrangement, and even today it stands: he will do the heart of everything. He will arrange, he will speak with the garage, he will know what everything is worth, he will say to her Don't worry. And Don't worry are the two beautiful words that were said to her in all the days of her life, and I do not take them lightly. And for these two words she paid with only one thing: that she would not know.

And she lowered her stature. And not all at once and not in one day, the way a person does not see the sunset move, but looks once and once and suddenly it is dark.

And she lowered her stature in questioning. For she learned to ask "Do you think this is good?" instead of saying "This is good," for the question found favor and the statement changed the order.

And she lowered her stature in laughter. For she learned to laugh at his jokes before they were finished, and not because they were not funny—they were funny—but because laughter is the cheapest way to let a person know that he is big.

And she lowered her stature in silence. For there were things she knew better than he did, and they were not many, but they were. And when he was wrong in them, she was silent and did not correct. And the first time she was silent because she loved him; and the second because she had already been silent the first time; and the third she no longer knew that she knew.

And this is the terrible thing in the fantasy, and I say it here and I did not say it to them: the fantasy is not a lie. It is comfortable. No one leaves it because he has nothing to leave for. And whoever once spoiled himself in the right-hand seat and was not required to know the way—he no longer remembers that he has a license in his wallet.

And she looked at me while I was speaking, and said one word: It's comfortable for me.

And I said: I know. And that is the whole problem. If it hurt, you'd already be up.

And as for him, and here I ask to be careful, for he is not the one who enjoys in the full sense. For a man of whom they said all his childhood that nothing would come of him, and every hour he is high is for him like breath—he does not sit there in pleasure. He sits there in fear. And all that greatness she grants him, he cannot stop in it, for he has no ability to say enough. And that is what I saw in him when we spoke about the car: he does not drive fast because he enjoys the speed. He drives fast because there is nothing that will tell him slowly.

And therefore I said to him at the end of the session a thing he did not expect to hear, and I do not know if he heard:

I said to him: I'm asking one thing of you, and you'll ask it of her yourself. Ask her to set boundaries for you.

And he asked: That she should set them for me?

I said: Yes. That she'll say no to you. That she'll say to you this is too expensive. That she'll say to you I don't agree to this. And not so she'll control you, God forbid, and not so she'll get power—but for you.

And I said to him in what he understands: You know a car doesn't travel by virtue of the engine. The engine has power, and anyone who ever held a wheel knows the hard part isn't finding force—the hard part is stopping. And the brakes are not the enemies of the car; they are the only ones that give it permission to go fast. For if you had no brakes, you wouldn't dare touch the gas.

And when a person travels fast—he sees nothing. Everything is smeared from the sides into one blot. And only whoever travels slowly notices the details: which house stands in the square, and who on this street knows him, and what changed in the last year. And all your days you pass through your life at eighty, and swap a car once every four months, and you don't know what is inside the house you come back to in the evening.

And I said: Your wife has been sitting there, in the right-hand seat, for three years already. And you still haven't seen her. And not because you don't love—but because you don't see a thing at this speed.

And then I turned to her, and said: And from you I ask the hard part. For he'll ask you for boundaries, and you'll be afraid to give. For every woman who lowered her stature for years, the moment she says no for the first time looks to her like the moment the house collapses. And it doesn't collapse. It only stops traveling.

And they rose to leave, and he went to the stroller and began to take it out carefully, and checking the wheels, and opening the door with his foot so it would not slam.

And she stood to the side and looked at him.

And she did not look at him from below.