Galerie by Steven Greenberg

Author:Steven Greenberg [Greenberg, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Israel
Publisher: Evolved Publishing LLC
Published: 2015-10-23T13:00:00+00:00

The winter of 1992 was the wettest in Israel since 1968. The Sea of Galilee, having sadly withered in the preceding years, swelled to bursting like an overripe gourd. Thousands of Israelis flocked to its shores as the lake’s caretakers opened the floodgates of the Degania Dam for the first time since its construction, to avoid imminent flooding in Tiberias and other lakeside communities. After years of drought, thousands cheered the sheer ostentation of countless cubes of excess water rushing down the lower Jordan River to the stillness and evaporative mortality of the Dead Sea.

In Tomas’ absence, Vanesa’s own floodgates remained closed throughout the weeks of her Ichilov Hospital stay, and for the agonizing months spent in the Beit Levinstein rehabilitation hospital in Ra’anana. Amazingly, she channeled the immense pressure building up behind her personal Degania Dam into secondary, productive channels, whose water wheels of inquisition began to spin furiously right after she awoke.

Two days after she opened her eyes to look past me—something she really never stopped doing—she was already on the phone to Marek. It was a lengthy and clearly emotionally-charged conversation in Czech, of which I understood nothing, but her manner was as intensely businesslike as her hospital gown, peaked visage, and weak voice would allow.

She had not yet shared with me the details of the trip to Terezin, which were of course missing from her meticulous notes. She’d already written, in an astonishingly matter-of-fact style and repugnant detail—as if she had been a mere observer—about her attack in Prague. She’d also covered the ransacking of her hotel room, the contents of which had been collected and returned to Israel by the helpful Israeli consul.

Thus, I knew what her theory had been going into Terezin, but knew nothing of her findings leading up to the stabbing. I patiently waited to speak to her about this, my own floodgates barely containing the torrents of anguish that had been swelling inside me at the obvious, yet still unvocalized, change that had occurred between us. Something had changed, and the extent of the transformation grew clearer daily, as I settled again into the hospital routine. Still, I reasoned, she needed to focus on healing. I could rise above, and do what needed to be done. There was time. There was no cause to burden her. I was strong enough.

I stayed in the hospital every day with her, and most nights. I wheeled her up to physical therapy and down to x-ray, helped her to the plastic chair in the shower, and waited patiently outside the door as she demurely washed a scarred body to whose nakedness I was no longer privy. I held her elbow as she painfully and determinedly walked the hallways of the ward for hours a day. I watched, silent and strong, as the simple and calorie-rich hospital fare began to reconstruct the curves that had faded away, curves that were now, in my new role as chaste caregiver, relevant only on the convalescent, rather than carnal, level.

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