He stared at me in horror. “Ihityou?”
“Yes, but it’s nothing.” It wasn’t, quite; it hurt a great deal, for although my disability was nowhere near my mother’s, I still bruised much too easily.
“Your nose is bleeding, too,” he said. “Oh, my God. I’m going to get ice.”
I touched my nose. Itwasbleeding, but not greatly. The force of the blow merely, not a direct strike. “I’ll get the ice,” I said. “But first, your pajamas.”
“I don’t care about my pajamas!” It was a shout, and I jumped. He swung around, got his feet on the floor, and sat, his head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, rubbing hishands over his cheeks. “I’m sorry.” Then, looking up, “I’ll get you ice.”
“And I’ll getyoupajamas.” I did my best to smile at him, though it hurt. “We’ll take care of each other, no?”
He didn’t answer, but left the room, and a minute later, I heard the loud rattle of the ice-cubes being forced from their tray. Americans loved ice, I thought, pulling clean pajamas from the bureau drawer, but getting it out of the metal tray was very loud. When Joe came in with the ice wrapped in a dishtowel, I said, “Thank you. Change your pajamas now, or you’ll get too cold. I had a bad dream, too. Isn’t that odd? I think I must have heard you having yours.”
Joe didn’t change his pajamas, but sat beside me and held the ice gently to my cheek, dabbing at my bloody nose with the edge of the dishtowel. “I’m so sorry,” he said, sounding too unhappy, too helpless. “How could I have done that?”
“You were dreaming. You thought I was someone else. What was the dream about?”
He paused a long moment, then said, “I can’t talk about it. Not now. What was yours?”
I was quite sure heshouldtalk about it—problems aren’t solved by being ignored—but couldn’t think of how to make him. “Your troopship was torpedoed, I think. You were in the water, and there was ice, and fire and smoke, and other men in the water. It was odd, because I became you at the end, somehow.” I put my hand over his where it held the ice to my face and tried to smile. “Wehaveapparently become one flesh, as the Bible says, if only in our dreams. Change your pajamas now, please, before you catch cold. You were shivering in my dream. I can’t bear to see you shivering now. Get into dry clothes and come under the covers with me, and we’ll hold each other and be safe and warm.”
He did, but said, when his arm was around me in the dark, “I wish there were something you could take for the pain.”
“I’m used to pain.”
His hand so gentle on me, stroking my hair, my shoulder. “That feels so wrong to me.”
“You wish to take my pain,” I said, hurting so much, but loving him more. “And I wish to take yours. But this is a good thing, surely, to feel this much for each other.”
“Like the poem,” he said. “Beautiful and overwhelming and frightening.”
“You are a wonderful man,” I told him, my hand on his chest. “Such a wonderful man. And I would like you to love me now, please.”
“But your face.”
“The pleasure will distract me.”
He was gentle, and so heart-stoppingly careful. He kissed my forehead, my unbruised cheek, my shoulder, brushing the cotton nightdress aside. He knew how to touch me now, and where to put his mouth to bring me pleasure, and he did all the things I liked best until I was rising into him, trying not to cry out. The girls upstairs … Unfortunately, I must have a defect in my nature, for the thought of them hearing me, knowing what Joe was doing, excited me more. A few more moments thinking it, Joe’s hands and mouth on me, and the waves were taking me, crashing over me and through me, tumbling me down and down.
But when we tried to do the rest of it, it didn’t happen.
At first, I was confused. I touched him there, thinking that he needed urging because of my injury, and he batted my hand away, then rolled onto his back, put his hands over his face again, and said, “Sorry. That’s never— It’s never happened to me before. I don’t know why I?—”
“Joe.” I took his hand, and that was better. “It’s all right. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have asked you, not after your dream.”
“Of course you should have,” he said. “What, you should tiptoe around me, in case I’m impotent?”
I raised my hand, then let it fall. “You’re being very unreasonable. Surely this is a silly thing to be unhappy about, when we’ve made love so many times and will do it so many more. What’s one time amidst all those? Not worth thinking about.”
He sighed, but at least he put his arm around me again. After a minute, I rolled away from him onto my good cheek, because I couldn’t think of what else to say and neither could he, so we might as well sleep. And he tucked me up into his body the way he loved to do and kept his arm there. But in the morning, he was still too quiet.
Being a wife is sometimes very difficult, isn’t it?
The next morning happened also to be the first day of Hanukkah, which apparently fell at different times, but always in December. Fortunately, it was a Saturday, because Hanukkah was a family time, and we were going to San Francisco for dinner and spending the night.
It wasn’t the first time we’d been invited, for there’d been an important holiday called “Thanksgiving” the week after I’d arrived, and Joe’s classes had been canceled for two days. The holiday seemed mostly to be about eating a turkey. It wasn’t connected to any saint or pagan festival, only to the turkey. This seemed an odd thing to me—was turkey particularly delicious? More than duck or goose? It was surely much less full of lovely fat, though, which would make itlessdelicious, wouldn’t it? Or was the turkey itself the reasonfor the holiday? A national symbol, perhaps? I couldn’t quite tell.
In any case, it didn’t matter, because when Joe’s mother had called on the telephone to discuss his plans, he’d said that he was too busy with his studies to make the journey, aftermissing his classes for a week to collect me. She hadn’t been pleased, but I had been, in a small, secret, ungenerous corner of my mind, for I’d thought it might also be because he wanted to stay with me, alone in our little nest that we were slowly furnishing, like a pair of birds in the spring.
