Chapter 47
Prophecies Fulfilled in America
After we decided to celebrate our honeymoon in America, we divided responsibilities.
Lily would be in charge of the art, and I would handle everything “around it.” I checked lodging and rental cars, and Lily chose museums and galleries in New York and Washington.
Before the trip, we merged our lists, packed a few clothes and personal items, took a sufficient supply of steroids for a full month, and took off.
America!!!
“I have to keep a journal,” she said before we left. “I need to share with all my friends the names of the galleries, museums, paintings, and artists I’ll encounter there.”
Less than twenty-four hours later, we were already walking into the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Lily wrote in her journal: “I saw na?ve paintings by Jonathan Borofsky … there’s a letter from Dalí about intuitive and na?ve surrealism … Lucio Pozzi’s video called Dialogue is very dramatic…”
She studied every work that caught her eye with utmost care, changed vantage points – came closer, stepped back, and came closer again. In her imagination, she conversed with the paintings, and perhaps with the artists who created them.
After about two hours of ceaseless movement through the museum’s endless rooms, she said her legs wouldn’t carry her, but asked me to write down what she dictated.
“Maybe it’s jet lag, or accumulated fatigue – or excitement.” I tried to explain, noticing that her face was pale.
“Maybe. But I feel strange. I feel my legs won’t carry me anymore,” she said.
Before I could find a chair or armchair or anything similar, she smiled.
“It’s passed.” I begged her to rest a moment, but she was already moving toward Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk, then to a red sculpture called Above by Alexander Liberman …
to Tony Smith’s Cigarette … and to Gaston Lachaise’s floating figure…
When we entered the photography section, she dictated and I wrote: “At the entrance are two photographs assembled from parts of other photos. The overall figure is identical, but the components that make up each are different. These works shed light on the central problem of photography today: knowledge, what to photograph, the camera, distance from the subject…”
Every picture demanded a deep response from her. From every work she learned something. If she could, she would have stayed there for months, visiting a different room each day.
In the following days, we covered New York. We went up the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building to look out over the city, sailed around it on the Circle Line, ate steaks at Peter Luger, and even wandered tirelessly through Macy’s.
“I love window shopping here most,” she said during one of our circuits from the 57th-Street galleries to those in SoHo. “The windows – wherever you go – are both crammed and overflowing with ideas.”
“Ideas for what?” I asked naively. “Aren’t the galleries and museums giving you enough?”
“Here, everything gives you ideas. The street, the movement of cars and people, the noise, the windows – you name it. Infinite ideas. Perfect madness!”
Later, we reached the edge of Central Park.
“Look, I want you to photograph him,” she said, pointing to a homeless man who looked completely drunk, sprawled on a city bench.
“I’m worried,” I answered. “He could object, demand money, come at us – you never know.”
“Then give me the camera.” As usual, when it came to art and creativity, she had no inhibitions.
“Take it – but you’re taking a risk. Maybe he’s not as asleep as he looks.”
Reluctantly, I handed her the camera.
Lily circled the man, photographing him from several angles. The camera was loaded with slides rather than regular film.
“We’ve learned a new technique at the College of Art and Design,” she explained when she finished. “You project the slide onto the canvas and paint directly what you see in the photo. And New York,” she added fervently, “is a giant sack of raw material.”
A week later, on the morning of Monday, September 18, 1978, we set out by rental car for Washington.
Before we left for the U.S., Noel, a high-school friend, had given me the phone number of a woman named Marilee.
According to him, she was a senior secretary for a senator from Wisconsin.
Noel pressed me to call her when we reached Washington.
“You won’t regret it,” he said knowingly.
“May I speak with Marilee?”
“Speaking.”
“Noel Levin from Israel gave me your number.”
“Noel Levin…” she said in a voice full of nostalgia. “Noel … Noel,” she repeated the name as if sacred. There was no doubt it struck a chord.
“Yes, Noel! He’s a good friend of mine.”
“And mine. Where are you?”
“I’m here with my wife,” I replied.
After a beat, I heard her voice again: “When can I take you for a visit to the House of Representatives?” She didn’t give us a chance to choose another attraction.
“Whenever you like.”
“We’re staying at a hotel called the Johnson, not far from the White House.”
“I’ll be there this evening at five.”
In the afternoon, after we’d had our fill of the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Arts and Industries, and the Hirshhorn, we returned to the hotel.
“I’m a little tired – I’ll go rest, and then we’ll get ready for Marilee.”
On her way to the shower, Lily kissed me. A few seconds later, a cry rang out: “Michael! Michael!” My heart stopped. I missed a beat or two. She had never called me like that. I froze for a second and then flew to the bathroom.
“What…” and before I finished the question, I saw Lily standing under the running water, blood streaming down her thighs, staining the shower floor.
Lily’s face had always looked fresh, young, even angelic in the shower. This time, the terror in her green eyes paralyzed me.
“This has never happened to me,” she murmured in panic.
“Come, I’ll help you. Step out of the water; I’ll help you dry off and lie on the couch. We’ll put a towel down to soak up the blood.”
“I just finished my period,” she began to sob. “It’s never looked like this.”
“It looks like fresh blood.”
“Let’s go back to the tub – sit there – and when it calms down, we’ll go to a hospital. We’ll ask Marilee to drive us. It’s okay – we’ve got insurance.”
“I’m not going to any hospital – here or there!” she declared.
“Do you want to die of a hemorrhage?”
Just a few days earlier, Judah had told her, right in front of me, that the disease might erupt without warning.
He’d mentioned massive bleeding. Is that what this is?
! I thought, terrified. And maybe the sudden reduction in steroids he suggested had triggered a renewed flare.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I muttered to myself. There wasn’t time to think.
Lily was bleeding, and I nearly fainted. She sat on the edge of the tub.
“I think it’s stopped,” she said after a few moments of shared panic.
“How do you know?”
She ran her fingers between her thighs and looked at them.
“I can feel it – and I’m sure.”
“We’re not going out. I’ll cancel.”
“Don’t you dare! You’re not canceling anything – we’re going!”
I was sure she’d lost her mind – but, as usual, once Lily decided, not even a bulldozer could budge her.
“This is a rare chance to see the House from the inside – the place where the peace treaty with Egypt was signed,” she tried one argument. “I’m not missing it,” she insisted.
“Why? Forget it,” I tried to dissuade her.
“Because I’m sure they have an art collection there.” The cat was out of the bag.
“That’s what worries you?” I couldn’t believe my ears. Once again, I threw up my hands, helpless.
And Lily being Lily, went back into the shower as if nothing had happened.
“I’ll ask Marilee to keep the visit short so you can rest,” I tried to minimize the damage.
“If I want it short, I’ll ask. Go downstairs and tell her I’ve been delayed. If you say it’s a woman’s issue, she’ll understand.”
“Why do you have to stretch the rope to the limit?” I cried in frustration.
“That’s who I am. Period,” she decreed. I knew there was nothing more to say.
We entered The House via the underground internal train used by staffers and senators.
We were among the few observing a Senate session.
It was fascinating: the order, the mutual respect, the feeling the place gave us as one of the world’s democratic institutions – in short, the gravitas of this place was in full evidence.
I waited for Lily to ask to see the art collection; when she didn’t, I knew there was a reason and kept quiet.
We ended the evening with Marilee at a popular restaurant in Georgetown and a nighttime drive around Washington.
“It looks like a holy city,” Lily said, impressed.
Marilee smiled. “It just looks that way…”
“You have no idea what an inexhaustible trove of ideas I’ve absorbed here,” Lily said before falling asleep with a victorious smile.
I, on the other hand, could not sleep until the small hours.
Thoughts mixed with worry as I tried to recall similar medical cases I might have read about.
I’ll call David tomorrow and consult him, I decided firmly.
But I knew David served in an elite combat unit and was likely unavailable, so my resolution was entirely impractical.
We were about to celebrate our third anniversary of being together.
Maybe the department head had said three years, not two, I tried another way to calm myself.
But I knew exactly what he’d said – and still I thought, maybe this was a sign he was wrong about everything. I mingled thoughts and wishes.
The next morning, Lily poked her head out of the bathroom: “Everything’s fine,” she announced. I relaxed. We were in a foreign country and had no idea what might happen if we ended up in a hospital. I tried to ease my unease by talking it through: “Maybe it’s from lowering the steroid dose.”
“I wondered about that too.”
“It’s strange – we’ve been together three years and everything’s been fine, and suddenly this ‘Judah’ shows up and orders me to change my life, and like an idiot I agree and obey…”
“I hope it isn’t a flare-up of the disease.”
“I hope so too. It’s never looked like this before.”
“Will you go for tests back home?” I asked – and pleaded at the same time.
“I promise, Michael, I promise. Look – I look perfectly fine,” she said, pointing to her reflection in the mirror.
“So how do you feel now?” I addressed the figure in the mirror.
“Excellent. You can relax. Really normal.”
“Don’t you want to rest? I think we’ve been racing around like crazy these past two weeks. Maybe we should take a day off?”
“Michael, this might be my last chance? You can relax – I’ve regained control of myself.”
“Of what? That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that!”
“Which part … ‘control of myself?’”
“Yes. Someone who takes pills – especially steroids – can’t control herself. Those pills are so potent that…”
“Please don’t raise your voice. It makes me uncomfortable!” She seemed disappointed by what I’d said about self-control.
“I’m sorry about my tone, but…”
“No ‘but.’ I’m fine. I feel fine – and it will be fine!”
“My Lily, what happened? Why are you shouting at me?”
“I feel like you’re trying to control me. Yesterday it was Judah – today it’s you? You see that I’m managing, you see I realize that maybe Judah was wrong – I don’t know… I’m confused because this has never happened to me, and I know there’s always a first time. But please – go with me on this.”
“Please don’t shout. I love you more every day. I promise to listen to you – but I ask that you listen to me, too. You know that when I raise my voice – and it’s rare – it’s because I’m confused, because I don’t know what to decide…”
“And I’m dying to get dressed and get out of here.”
“My Lily,” I lowered my voice, “You know I love you, and I do everything to make things easier for you.”
“My love, I know. I’m fine. Let’s go to the Lincoln Memorial, then to Arlington to see Kennedy’s grave and the Iwo Jima flag. That’s what I want to do today. In the afternoon, we’ll pop into the New Art Museum for a short visit. I’ll probably be tired.”
“Lily, after each site, we’ll rest and then move on… The list is too long.”
“Fine,” she said, surprising me.
By the time she finished dressing and putting on makeup, I couldn’t remember what we had argued about. About half an hour later, we were already at one of Washington’s most moving monuments – the Lincoln Memorial. The next day we returned to New York.
The image of blood running down her thighs etched itself into each of our memories in our own way. I lodged it in my mind – where it remains to this day – and Lily painted it in oil on several huge canvases, and later erased most of them.