Disappointments (Jeremiah 3)

P: Again! G: What happened again Phoebe? P: You are… here! He looks at her, plain and simple. He knows the answer to his question, knows the story behind her groaning. He knows that kind of disappointment. He doesn’t ask her to tell him about it. Phoebe swallows, hits her left fist on her tightly pressed lips. G: Can I tell you about an ‘Oh, again! Situation’? P: Please! Phoebe sits up and smiles for the first time that day, a real, although slightly nevertheless free smile. G: It felt like a man must feel when his wife betrays him. Again, and again. It felt like a father must feel when his child rejects him, reviles, mocks, insults. Worse and worse. And I, I didn’t insist in my rights to be given a square deal. I didn’t accuse, didn’t expose in public. I said: ‘My favorite, my darling, come back to me, come back to me again.’ I kept holding on to what was true, not to what should have never been. I didn’t allow myself to be irritated by this current ugly situation. I did know how it ought to be, that we ought to be together. And I thought when I overlooked all that has happened then it would be good again and that it would not happen again. But still, again infidelity, again I was discarded. The corners of his mouth are pulled down and left Phoebe dazed, dazed by the pain which drips through his words and weighs down everything. Heaviness pervades the moment. Then he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Exhales, arises from the sea of heaviness. He opens his eyes, radiant eyes that immerse everything in lightness, drying up the sea of pain and devouring all remaining sorrow. P: What happened? Phoebe doesn’t understand. Not what has happened just now. Not what has happened in his story. G: Phoebe at last it did happen.The truth pierced through. P: How? But what? What did you do? G: I kept holding on to the truth, I kept persisting: ‘You are mine; I am yours’. At one point the woman realized, the child knew that this is the truth. P: At one point the night was over? He laughs, a pop-up giggling, a a liberated jumping breath. And Phoebe grins, a broad open smile. G: Yes Phoebe. Yes, at one point the night was over. And then… He pauses, invites her with his gaze. And together they complete the sentence. G+P: … a new day will come. And both are smiling. A smile which ties the moment, neatly wrapped so it remains safe in one’s memory. For the bad days. Phoebe stretches out her legs, reaches out her arms, closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath. Exhales and knows that he laid her in peace again. ‘Again’, she smiles and mumbles this word a few times. Then she gets up. She wants to have a cup of tea, read a little, the last days she never found time for that. And then sleep, beautiful sleep.