The Burden of Choices

The protagonist of the novel Pain by Zeruya Shalev is Iris, who is a victim of a terrorist bombing. But her life is shaped not just by the bedridden chapter of her recovery but by much more things of the past. The novel opens with a morning when her pain from the injury has returned, which often does, and which is enough to awaken troubling memories. Ten years have passed since when the incident happened and a mother of two – Omer and Alma – she is also a school principal which keeps her busy but doesn’t stop her from dwelling over the past: her teenage years when she was madly in love with a boy called Eitan and had dreamed of becoming his wife only that he decided to separate from her after his mother died, which brought her a breakdown; her father who had died when she was still a child and the bombing that left doubts and distance in her family.

Even the blame for the incident happened with Iris lingers in the family, which she formed with her husband Mickey – from whom she is keeping an emotional distance; lacking the passion – meanwhile she also feels detached from her own family, particularly from her daughter Alma. She feels that none of them is sharing and expressing enough as expected in an ideal family. Alma and Omer have grown up and have developed their own characters and views as adults, however she feels that all of them lack harmony at their home and amid all this, she is trying to act as a responsible mother if not a happy wife, struggling with the complexities of her thoughts about the relationship and behavior family members have with each other. The exploration of emotional complexities of a family has been so well drawn, we find an intensifying family drama growing in the story and find similarities with the ways the minutiae of life controls our behavior, in our own personal realities. 

Alma has moved to Tel Aviv and rarely visits home and the intimacy Iris feels with her is heavy and reserved. She feels that she has already suffered so many losses in her life that her children’s parting away from her emotionally is too much to bear. As she reflects upon her personal failures in bringing up the children, she is unable to share her anxieties and whatever the conversation – which involves poking each other or sharing disappointments of their own – she has with Mickey, almost always contradicts to her views about the children, which is unable to bring any peace to her. The intricacies in the story have been dealt until they’re justified and we feel the heaviness Iris is dealing with. The psychological observation, shifts in moods and Iris’s mental space with the burden of the past fit all well as the story progresses.

The unexpected return of Eitan in her life roils everything further. Now Iris is torn between her passion and love for Eitan and her position and responsibilities, at the least, as a mother in her family. She wants to spend much time with Eitan, without feeling hesitation to lie about anything that comes up in between with her family, however the news that Alma might have taken the wrong track, which may ruin her life, alerts Iris or rather unsettles her, making her unable to focus. She doesn’t want to miss the second chance to reunite with her love after decades of separation but cannot also ignore the fact that she has to act as any ideal mother would do for daughter. She is tormented¹ with the thought that she will put her family at stake for her personal passion and happiness. Iris’s life suspended in the memories of the past now faces the difficulties in the present. It’s hard for her to understand and accept the changes – things which are unspoken, silences and nuances in the family and therefore she again finds herself facing memories which are fading – like that of her mother, stubborn – of her love, unreliable – of her daughter, burdening – of her position, saddening – of her failures and losses, and happy memories which short-lived. The narrative detail has been dealt with poetic luster² and we find it flowing smoothly in the translation.

1.       The family you make so much effort to build and watch over will become a burden to them, and even worse, to you. That husband of yours you sacrifice your time for so he can finish his degree or move up at work will leave you in another twenty years for a younger woman, and even if he doesn’t leave, he will most likely become aging, grumpy, and ungrateful, and you’ll find yourselves wishing for a different life. Some of you may try to realize your dream, but only a few will be lucky enough to get another chance, which won’t necessarily be better than the previous one.

2.       After all, she’s so young, and at her age, things change quickly. Perhaps by tomorrow morning she’ll be able to stop worrying and in fact—she giggles under the damp towels like a girl in love—she will be able to keep walking undisturbed along the miraculous path being paved under her feet to the world where the years fall away, where she can step back among the flowering plazas of time, walk over and over again in the perfumed wadi, among the clouds of honey, on the only day of spring when it isn’t too hot or too cold.

Through all the recollections in the form of expectations, reservations and personal relation among the family members at various levels of intimacy and sensitivity, all the characters make themselves present remarkably throughout. However, we only witness the anxiety born out of guilt in Iris and it feels that all the tension of the story puts her in the centre of finding ways to be close to her children who suddenly seem to be parting away from her and desire to be fulfilled with love from Eitan forever. She is a woman who’s trying to keep the past and the present in harmony but is also suffered by it, presenting that there are so many elements of life guiding and shaping an individual, especially who feels that the bond in the family is fragile and vulnerable. Iris is afraid that her children won’t forgive her for life leaving them when finally they’re settling down, afraid of her passion, too strong to ignore and too late to give life to, which might cost her everything. However, the urgency of rescuing her daughter from the cult of misguidance proves her passion unimportant.

Finally, when Iris decides to free her daughter from the enslavement of her boss, possibly a cult guru, she finds similarities between her daughter and herself – both slaves to something or somebody. This gives her courage to try her best to establish or rejuvenate the emotional connection with her daughter. The novel ends in a positive ambience and it looks like all veils has been lifted and doubts cleared, a family coming together as if nothing wrong has ever happened within them – no hatred or distrust but always a subtle love canopying the family. A mother-daughter confession that they always cared for each other and were never emotionally detached is one of the touching sequences in the story.

Pain is a story of burden and complexities of choices, of motherhood and parenting, of coming of age and passion driven solitude, of belongingness and abyss in relation, of estrangement and ignorance, of imperfection in a family and an individual. We may take it as a psychological exploration of love and memories, and a struggle between independence and unalterable responsibilities and connections, choices and complexities. Pain is a perfect novel that once again proves the power of this form.

Author: Zeruya Shalev

Translator: Sondra Silverston

Publisher: Other Press

Page Count: 356pp

Price: $12.19

Author's Photo Credit: https://www.otherpress.com/authors/zeruya-shalev/

Review Copy Courtesy: Other Press