A Mountain
She is leaving her home, aiming elsewhere.
Namely, she is going to work. But first she has to take the dog to the vet, because it is impossible to stand his pain anymore, those hushed nightly sobs. The way he looks at her brings tears to her eyes, tears which she hurries to hide behind the hand that dives into the curly fur for a long caress. To the vet, then, this very morning. Even if she is late.
*
Of course she was late. A growing pile of documents on her desk, the reproachful expression on the vice president’s face. Her fingers hurry to the keyboard, data and questions are already thrown at her while the phone keeps ringing, mixing into this endless flow. For a moment she renounces all this, calling her husband: it’s me, don’t forget tomorrow night, and buy flowers for your mom it’s her birthday. And she is pulled back in. Until the familiar pain in her neck and shoulders forces her to raise her head, to stretch, to discover that almost three hours have gone by. To get up. To go, almost forcibly, towards the open window. If a great wind came now and swap all those papers away, what a soft gentle silence would prevail.
*
Only at lunchtime, on the lawn with the other secretaries, a temporary calm prevails. Avocado sandwiches, herbal tea, even cigarettes are offered. Giggling about the head of the department who went away for a convention, what he said or did not say to his assistant. Suits you, these pants, where did you get them, at the mall yesterday, on sale. Next month there will be a picnic for the department. Maybe. It is also said that there will be an inspection of the finance people. And her eyes are drawn to the blossoming of the trees.
*
It is springtime. An aggressive spring. With its multiplicity of colors and smells it points sharply, almost maliciously, at other options. Reminding her that lucid immensity, which she calls Longing and others name differently. What, what, she says, what could have I done differently. And what can still be done now. Now the traffic light changes to green. Hey, someone shouts behind her, go ahead, who the fuck gave you a driving license.
*
Almost breathless, she arrives just on time to pick up the kids. Has to hurry to take them home, with all their stuff. The pile of schoolbags, the judo suit, the ballet skirt, another ceramic pot – charming, really charming –one has to be very careful first not to break it and then to find a place for it in the crammed full house. Mom, can we have an ice cream. No, no time. Please please please. Ok but be careful. So bags are thrown on the floor, sticky fingers, big chocolate stains on the white judo suit.
*
By the door she gently moves aside the dog who jumps on them enthusiastically, and insists that homework be done first. Suppressing her rebelling against the necessity to make them do it, especially the girl whose teacher called yesterday night and said that at third grade kids are already supposed to remember their multiplication tables. It is so important to work with the kids at home, added the teacher, and she blushed at the implicit accusation and answered of course, many thanks indeed for calling. We didn’t get any homework, they say, but she insists on checking. The girl’s eyes evade hers, and a guilty voice admits that the planner was forgotten at school again. Rage bursts out of her before she gets to restrain it, how many times did I tell you, how can one learn something like this, what shall become of you, no TV nor going to friends for a week. But then the tears appear in the brown eyes, which look straight at her now, as if the world is coming to an end, and she as always is overwhelmed by regret, bending down to hug, ok sparrow don’t cry, bring it tomorrow. But that’s the very last time.
*
In the evening, near the stove, the argument continues: yes, no, maybe, surely, however. But she shakes her head and brings herself back to the vegetables, which are firmly chopped into the flowered bowl. Cucumbers. Tomatoes. Olive oil. Lemon juice. Three fried eggs on the blue plate. Cottage cheese and cheddar. Rolls and sliced olive bread. Hot chocolate in the plastic cups. The medication of the elder. Everybody to the table, she cries out, food is getting cold! Legs are rushing, chairs are pushed aside, sounds of knocking cutlery, and the routine protest of the little one, mom you know I hate salad.
*
Night falls. Quiet, finally it is quiet. Even the dog has almost calmed down. The man is sitting now with his coffee in front of the TV. The washing machine has finished, he says without taking his eyes off the screen, the clothes should be put in the drier. She goes out to the little balcony and closes the red eye of the silent washing machine. But before she bends down to the wet laundry she is held up. The noises from the neighbors’ flats are not forced onto her now, only some lights from the next building’s windows. Her eyes look for the few stars that can be seen from here. In this gap, the poems come to her. But she already knows. She is full of words.
*
In bed, near the sleeping man, she is placed behind her shuttered eyelids. From somewhere far-away the vivid memory of the other man comes to her suddenly. He who didn’t spare himself, never, and to all the pleas sometimes in tears would always be answering with the same decisiveness that there is no such thing as having no strength left. A man who didn’t allow her anything but to hug him from a distance and to pray to God for him; A God in whom she did not believe, and even today she can’t tell if he believes in Him (once he told her in a terribly quiet voice that in such a world there cannot exist any god; but when she softly replied that she never believed that there was, he looked at her with that sadness of his and almost whispering said oh, what a skeptic you are). This man too has gone far away long ago, and even the pain which burned all along that distance has already faded away. By now she knows more about it than she feels. Only at night, in silence, sometimes one can imagine that it may be possible again.
*
The silence is broken by disturbed mumbling. The little one is fighting something in his sleep. She slips away from beneath the double blanket, slides into his room, turns on the elephant lamp. He moves nervously, pushing a bare foot outside the blanket. Everything is fine, she caresses him, you are dreaming. A green look is opened towards her, veiled, and then becomes lucid, smiles, closes. Gently, she moves the hair from the sweaty forehead, puts the blue fur horse near his hand.
Is He passing here now, she is wondering. A mountain-shuttering, rock-breaking wind is blowing outside, but not in the wind is He. She can hear the noise of a large truck, but neither within the noise she can find Him. The burning ball of the sun is beginning to show behind the shuttered blinds, not within the fire does He reside. And after the fire a soft gentle silence.
