Chapter 1:YONATAN

FOLIE A DEUX – Here two individuals are closely associated with each other for many years with the dominant personality suffering from a paranoid state and inducing or communicating his or her ideas to the companion. The latter is usually passive-submissive and easily suggestible because of a close emotional attachment and great dependence on the delusional patient.

Comprehensive textbook of PSYCHIATRY/II
Vol. I. p. 995

YONATAN


His name is Yonatan and that is what I called him when I was in a mischievous mood, and occasionally in anger. But mostly I called him Yonny and sometimes, My Yonny.
In my thoughts that swirled around him ceaselessly, in hundreds of letters I wrote him by day and by night, and during long months of wandering down streets talking to myself, I called him My Love. A little embarrassing, but that is how it was.


Yonatan is a tempestuous man, many-sided and very handsome. He had a thundering laugh, blue blue eyes and lots of blue sweaters. I say “had”, though he lives and breathes. For in all that concerns Yonatan, the past is entangled for me with the present, just as my nights were entangled with my days during the bad times. When there will once again be a clear division between past and present, night and day, then perhaps a new era will begin. And perhaps not.


Today I know that the years with Yonatan were a continuous celebration, but at the time I took them for granted. I believed that people were born to be happy and happiness only came in couples. Being with Yonatan was interesting and warm and good and fascinating and thrilling. There was nothing I could not do with him. Walk and swim, wine and dine, think and converse, read and narrate. And strange as it may seem, the pleasure grew deeper and more complete as the years went by.


That is why parting is so hard. Parting is for those who are not content to be together.
For us, the most beautiful hours are still those few, sad, scattered hours when we sit again side by side on the seashore, wordlessly watching the waves roll in.


Yes, we both know there is no end to it and there never will be. It is not our love that has undergone erosion but ourselves. That is a good line and it was not I who said it. It was Yonatan.


* * * * * * *

When Yonatan Paran entered with the two sisters, people were already seated in the garden, sipping drinks and filling the air with talk of the recent Suez Campain. Yonatan said: “I know your father and we have met before. Don’t you remember?” Of course she remembered. A face like his!
She did not know which of the two sisters was his wife. Tzeela wove his name into every sentence, whereas Attara appeared more independent and intellectual. She dominated the conversation, cutting in on anyone and everyone, vibrant and lively. There was something unstable in Attara’s aggressiveness that held her attention . Yet throughout the evening she was aware of Yonatan’s gaze resting on her, smiling and thoughtful.


Two years went by.
On a late summer evening, sitting in a small deserted café on the beach, Yonatan said: “I have been dreaming of this moment for a long time.” She was somewhat reserved, distant, not realizing that even then, on that first evening, there was no going back. His personality was already making its imprint on her, sending out first rays of warmth, tentative, but steered by his fierce willpower.
He spoke and she listened. Eventually he said: “There, I’ve told you about my life, my work, my thoughts. It’s your turn now. “
She shook her head. “This is your evening,” she said.
Yonatan took her hand and said: “Noya, I want you very much.”
She was not free of inhibitions, but was rapidly engulfed by the power he radiated.
When he held her, he said: “Why are you so hesitant? Are you shy?”
“No. No, it’s not that,” she said, “I have been very lonely.”
“We all know loneliness, Noya,” Yonatan said.
From that day on and until the dreadful time started, she did not know loneliness.


Yonatan moved into her life but not into her house. He had a separate home with Attara and Tzeela and his son, Uzi.
Tzeela, Attara’s younger sister, spent long periods in their house, usually when the waves of depression would come over her. When they passed, she would go on long journeys, frequently announcing that she had ‘found herself’ in one city or another. When the doldrums set in again she would return, low in body and spirit, to find shelter and refuge with Attara and Yonatan. In one of her fits of depression they found her lifeless form, hanging in the bathroom.
The sisters had a love-hate relationship. They were very close but often quarreled so vehemently that Yonatan was called upon to enforce the peace in his home.
Attara also went through periods of depression and apathy, followed by spells of feverish activity. During the former, she would do nothing. She would not tend house, she would not get dressed, she would not read and she would see no one. During the latter phase, she would try to make up for lost time. She would rise at dawn, read and study and set her thoughts on paper. During these phases, she would fill the house with enormous quantities of food and bring home a stream of strangers picked up casually in the street.
And Uzi. Yonatan said: “I see him bent over his homework, sad and dejected, and my heart breaks.” But even his sorrow over Uzi did not blunt his vitality. He was the pillar of strength to which the whole family clung, but in his inner soul he remained centered on himself and on his own life.


* * * * * * *

Evening. The thought of leaving the house on my own weighs heavily on me. Every sally forth involves so much effort. I take the two pages I have written and go to Dorit. One of the things that have characterized me of late is that I cannot do anything on my own. I seek approval, assurance, compassion, a good word.
Yonatan always laughs when I say: “Say a good word. “ He asks: “Why are you in such need of good words? What word is a good one?”


This morning I went to see him on the beach. Whenever I go to him after a break of a few days, I ache with tension and anxiety. I have overcome the logical fear but the pain is physical and forces me to slow my step.
The spring sun caressed the beach. The sea-blue I once loved. I could hear the pounding of my heart. In a moment I would know whom I have found. The Yonny who misses me, whose eyes light up at my approach, or the cold, hostile, evasive Yonatan.
He was sitting on a beach chair in the usual place, grey in the sunlight. His eyes were narrowed, flashing hostility and unrest. I sat huddled, wondering whether I should try to pierce the thin mask of his indifference. Make him talk. Make him let off steam.
“What is it, Yonatan?”
“You know,” he said. “You have done it to me again.”
“Yonny, no one is doing anything to you.”
How many times have I said this sentence. Why do I keep repeating it.
“How do you explain,” he began. Lately he rarely calls me by my name. “How do you explain. The phone rings in my house. A man asks if I have a shop for rent on Yehuda HaMaccabi Street. I reply I have no shop and ask which number he wanted. The man gives me a number, similar to mine but different. I wait a few moments, then I dial the number he gave me. I ask if someone had just called to inquire about a shop. They don’t even know what I am talking about. I don’t give up. I drive to Yehuda HaMaccabi Street and go from house to house. Of course, I find no shop for rent. Well?”
“Well what, Yonatan?”
“How do you explain it? Who phoned? What was it all about? I know the answer. The two of you did it. Such a mean trick!” he said in disgust.
I came home. The blow is always fresh even though the pain has dulled by now. Encounters of this sort shake me out of my illusions, leaving me sane and bleak. I lay on my bed allowing the pain to sink in, to settle, to spread throughout my limbs. Hating and loving. What is there to hate? There are moments when I want to rush back and scream at him: What are you saying? What are you accusing me of? You know you are talking nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. I got up and began to write.


“If I write this,” I tell Dorit, “I shall lose him irrevocably.”
“Noya,” she says, “he is already lost to you. You are looking for a man who is no longer there. You must know that I was the most optimistic of your friends. But no longer.