Sitting at her dressing table mirror Vered Marcosa applies lipstick, covers it with a thin film of powder followed by another layer of lipstick. She has to look her best for the television interview soon to start in the lounge downstairs in the aged care facility where she now lives.
She blots her lips, pleased with the outline on the tissue – almost perfect if she ignores the crimped unevenness here and there. Not bad for a woman of her age even though it’s not the full bow of her youth, a mouth yearning for the kisses she watched in the movies screened on Friday nights in the kibbutz dining room. Only celluloid kisses to be sure. But accompanied by sweeping music, the mouths pressed together as if glued, they stirred pleasurable sensations, new and exciting.
She sighs. Looks about her, at the venetian blinds, pink walls and grey flooring of her room, the pink so pale it could have been chosen to match the residents’ complexions. Realistically she knows it’s a practical colour choice, light, bright, a suitable background for whatever indifferent print is hung for decoration. What she craves is colour. A recent addition to the facility, she’s still waiting for management to hang one of her favourite paintings, selected for the luminescent reds and golds she’s always loved.
Her glance rests on the single rose in the vase the carer had placed on her dressing table. She’s always loved roses. Her namesake, Rosa. The name given by her parents, but on the kibbutz and then as an artist of international renown, she was known as Vered. Her Israeli name, reflecting her Israeli self that found expression in the vibrant colour and organic sensuality of her paintings.
The rose, a deep pink, exudes a subtle fragrance seductive with memory. She, just finishing her army service and working in one of the children’s houses. Eyal, tending the
citrus groves with time off to perform in the Kibbutz Dance Troupe. He presents her with a pink rose picked from the kibbutz garden. Laughter dancing in his eyes at this verboten act which ends in a kiss. Its passion takes her to a place inside herself instantly recognised and rekindled. But the real kiss is infinitely superior to its celluloid facsimile.
A secret kept from everyone, especially her parents.
Her parents. Fish out of water on the kibbutz, determined to maintain the standards and ‘civilised’ customs of the shattered society they’d been part of. Saturday afternoon soirées, her father pontificating on politics or philosophy. Her mother serving Strudel mit Schlagobers on a white linen tablecloth bordered with fine lace crocheted by her grandmother. All requests of others bookended with bevakashah and todah rabah in a community that eschewed good manners and celebrated the tough egalitarianism of the new sabra. Her father, still opening doors for women who barged through without thanks or rolled their eyes. Her mother, transferred from her job as metapelet in the children’s house because of her inappropriate insistence on instilling good manners in her charges.
Rooted in the old world, her parents also kept secret the family connection to Emilie, subject of Klimt’s erotic painting, ‘The Kiss’, that had polarised the respectable Viennese society of the time. Deemed perverted and pornographic by so-called experts in the family’s social circle, any connection to the model was ein Skandal to be hushed up. As if anyone on the kibbutz cared what had taken place a lifetime ago in that distant hotbed of culture and gossip. If they thought about it at all, connection to such an iconic painting would be seen as a badge of honour, not a family disgrace.
Standing before ‘The Kiss’ on a visit to Vienna’s Belvedere many years later, she is unprepared for its shimmering richness. It jolts the senses, renders all its reproductions bland. Seeking a possible family resemblance in the model’s features, Vered is disappointed; the depiction is too stylised. But Emilie’s sensual pleasure in the moment is palpable, instantly transporting Vered back to her time with Eyal.
Eyal. She’d loved his olive skin, his dancer’s physique, his strength and grace. Loved his joy. Loved the heightening of sensual awareness. Her sharpened sense of smell easily distinguished the different scents wafting over the kibbutz. Colours seemed brighter yet paradoxically more nuanced. Like Emilie, she’d revelled in her own sensuality.
It hadn’t lasted. Her mother had seen to that.
‘Rosa, he’s not one of us. His family is from …’ pausing delicately before continuing, ‘a very different background.’
‘Just listen to yourself. You’re so prejudiced! This is Israel, kibbutz. Not Vienna!’ Vered had slammed down the plate she’d been drying, watched the shards fly over the floor. ‘And my name is Vered.’
‘Be realistic. What have you got in common? What kind of future would you have with him?’ Her mother’s voice cold.
‘We’ll live here on the kibbutz.’ It sounded weak, even to her ears.
Her mother had hissed her scorn. ‘Pah, the kibbutz! Is that what you really want? Working in the children’s houses for the rest of your life? Or the kitchen?’
***
It was easy to blame her mother. Yet however much she railed against her parents, and herself for listening to them, she knew her mother was right. She didn’t want that kind of
future. She wanted to become a serious artist, a dream the kibbutz with its strict rules would never agree to. She would have to leave if she wanted to study in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
Eyal became a treasured memory. Had it been chemistry that ignited her passion? A magical quality unquestioned at the time. Not a given, as she later discovered with her husband, Avi, the man her parents had encouraged her to marry. A city doctor, well-regarded, well-established her mother had purred, implying that as an artist she would never have to struggle financially. Avi had courted her, regarding her as a flamboyant prize he was lucky enough to win. Did he realise, as she did, that something was missing in their otherwise loving relationship? She wondered if it was his name, Avi – my father – that distanced herfrom intimacy.
Art had provided the necessary salve. She poured her passion into the paintings that increasingly adorned international gallery walls and chose silken fabrics that glowed in their apartment. Like the light in Eyal’s eyes.
***
She looks at her watch. Almost time. Examining her mouth in the mirror once more, she checks for any tell-tale lipstick bleeding down the creases of her lips. Just to be sure, she applies another touch of powder and tops it with a final coat of lipstick before blotting her mouth again and checking for smears on her teeth. About to throw the used tissues into the bin, she sees their angled reflection in the mirror, sparking an idea. A larger collection worked into a collage of kisses. Or has it already been done by that Campbell Soup man or one of his Pop Art disciples?
Hearing a knock, she arranges the crimson shawl around her shoulders and picks up her cane. Slowly straightening her back, she makes her way to the door and greets the carer sent to accompany her to the downstairs lounge. In the elevator she arranges her mouth for the waiting cameras. She will shine.
________
Lilian Cohen now lives in Melbourne, Australia, after many decades in Israel, living on a kibbutz before moving to Haifa where she taught English language and literature.
Her poetry and fiction have been published in journals and anthologies in Israel, Australia and the USA, the short stories Smalltalk and The Red Umbrella both winning awards in Australia. She has recently published a crime novel, Murder in Hebrew.