She has lived a long, happy life.
And during her long life she was never happy, not even for a minute.
Everybody was jealous of her, and she didn’t care for their jealousy – well-deserved one, indeed – but was there any joy in her life?
No, she has never experienced any joy, fierce or quiet, for whatever reason, never laughed her head off, never felt those butterflies in her stomach, and never jumped up and down clapping her hands while receiving a gift.
She never woke up with a sleepy smile on her lips, stretching thoroughly and thinking that life is good, damn it!
She lived sedately, measuredly, like a digital clock – just as accurate, reliable and dull. Her husband, chosen by her thoughtfully and correctly when the time was right, believed her to be a robot and was slightly afraid of her, although he admired her incredible intelligence, amazing self-control and indestructible serenity.
However, he was okay with the order established by her, which included flowers for Shabbat, a kiss at the doorway in the morning and in the evening and satisfying sex twice a week.
Having a fight with her was impossible – she never understood or accepted the reasons for a fight.
She didn’t care at all for the everyday nonsense; there were people for that tending to the house and the garden. Jealousy? It’s ridiculous and improper. She treated the irritation that sometimes took over him like a common cold – you just have to wait a little bit, and it will be over. And so it was.
He wasn’t an idiot, incapable of understanding how amazingly, unbelievably lucky he was. She would never pick an idiot, her sharp wits sifted through the unworthy and intellectually weak during the first three minutes of any conversation. And then those people just stopped existing, as far as she was concerned, it’s just that she lived in one reality, and they – in another.
A robot, her husband sometimes mumbled, submitting to it. And remember the first law of robotics, he was telling himself, pouring something exquisite and expensive into a beautiful heavy glass. She’s incapable of doing you harm, that’s not what she was made for.
But I need something human, he was saying to himself and going to the plain and silly girls to get it out of his system and feel like a man.
She knew about it because she knew everything.
She even knew that he considers her a robot – and the further on, it became less of a joke and an attempt to tease her, and more of respect and fear. If she unscrewed her hand one day and asked him to fetch grease from the garage, the only thing he would say would be: oh, what kind of grease, dear? And wouldn’t you rather call a professional, so as not to damage a unique mechanism?
And no, she wasn’t a robot.
Robots don’t cry for no reason – when nothing hurts and no one important died. And there isn’t a single reason to be sad. But she is. And it actually does hurt – somewhere around her epigastrium. And no, she doesn’t have a tumor or an ulcer there – she checked.
And she knew fairly well that the nagging, hollow feeling in her solar plexus was actually a pain in her soul – that’s what it’s called in the books.
And applying logic with her spectacular mind she understood why her soul was in pain – because she never felt happy during her long and wonderful life, not even once.
Never laughed her head off, never jumped up and down with joy… and so on, and so on.
Oh yeah, and she has never loved for real. Or even not for real. She never understood how one could be dependent on another person, their mood and desires. It’s simply… embarrassing, she mumbled, tossing away another romantic novel.
But now she started feeling like she’s been missing something, something really important.
As if she wasn’t given key data while presenting the task. And now she struggles to find the solution that doesn’t exist, without this crucial data.
And realizing that she misses this most crucial part, she suddenly felt so hurt and miserable that she burst out crying. And she kept crying for several minutes now, utterly surprising herself.
All right, she said, wiping off the tears. Everything can be fixed. We’ll try something else. The conditions of every experiment could be recreated artificially.
Let’s start with romance and songs, for example.
And that’s how on a beautiful hot Tel-Aviv evening she found herself standing next to the sleepy Yarkon River, waving off the mosquitos and listening to Moon River in her headphones.
Blue skies reflected in the non-transparent water of the Yarkon, orange sunset spilled amber light all over the reeds, the mosquitos lulled her vigilance, circling intimately and tenderly right under her nose. The headphones sang about Huckleberry friend and the moon river. The air was so sweet and fresh, as it can only be on a June evening by the water.
We’re after the same rainbow’s end, she mumbled, and laughed. Threw her head back, looked at the sky and a cloud of midges hovering above her head. Stretched sweetly and thoroughly. And decided – it’s not late at all!
I will fix everything. Everything will be just fine!
Translated by Diana Shnaiderman-Pereira