Homesick

4

IN THE END, she came to call on me. She knocked on the door in the morning, when Yotam was at school, and said in a low voice: Yotam’s mother. I opened the door. I’d seen her before, hanging washing up, getting out of the car, getting into it. But now, for the first time, all of her was standing in front of me. Grey hair. Dark lakes under her eyes. Shoulders stooped. A woman who had once been attractive. You could tell from her features. Would you like to come over for a cup of coffee? she asked, and I said, yes, sure. She didn’t say anything about why she wanted me to come to her house for coffee. There was no need. I’ll just change my clothes, I apologised, and she wrung her hands and said, I’ll wait for you outside. I changed from tracksuit bottoms into jeans, and from a stained sweatshirt into a clean one, thinking: it was clear this would happen, what did you expect? It’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner. I saved the work I was doing on the computer and went out. It was very cold. The wind blew into my sleeves, giving me chills up and down my back. Yotam’s mother gestured for me to walk behind her and she took the long way, not the shortcut through the lot. Of course, I thought, hugging myself, she won’t start jumping over stones now. When we reached their door, she stopped, turned to me and said: you’ve never actually been here before, have you?

Only once, I thought, during the shivah, by mistake, but I said: no.

Then we went inside and my blood curdled.

Dozens of memorial candles flickered in the living room. Not a single lamp was lit. A picture of a soldier wearing a beret hung on the wall opposite the door. The picture was the size of the posters they put up at bus stops. There were another three pictures of Gidi: one on the TV of him saluting someone; the second one on the cabinet, next to the bowl of artificial flowers, showing him carrying Yotam on his shoulders, and in the third, he looked younger. From the yarmulke he wore and the way his hair was parted on the side, it was probably his bar mitzvah.

How many sugars do you take? Yotam’s mother asked from the kitchen. Two, I answered, and continued walking around with my hands behind my back, as if I were at an exhibition.

*

No one answered, but I remembered that Amir once told me that the key was under the flowerpot on the right and that if I feel like it, I can stay there even when they’re not home. It was weird going in like that, without Amir giving me a hug or Noa giving me a kiss, but I said to myself that this was better than seeing my mother now and telling her that I got kicked out of lessons again. It’d be better to tell her that at supper, when Dad’s there too. Maybe it’ll make them talk to each other. I closed the door behind me and started walking around the apartment looking for interesting things to do. I found an old tennis ball. I threw it against the wall a few times and caught it, but then it accidentally hit that picture of the sad man and I stopped. I went into the kitchen to look for something good to eat, but the only thing in the fridge was a jar of mayonnaise, and there’s nothing you can do with mayonnaise by itself. I looked at the noticeboard across from the fridge, trying to find something interesting, secret. But the only things there were electric and water bills, a picture that Noa must have taken of a place with a lot of clouds, a sticker that said ‘Create or Stagnate’, a few drawing pins without papers, and a drawing of a couple sleeping in bed — he’s trying to pull the blanket to his side and she’s nailing it to the bed so he can’t — and under the drawing was a small piece of paper and someone, maybe Amir, had written on it, ‘My love is sometimes a hot baguette and sometimes a broken baguette’, and next to that was another piece of paper that said, in different handwriting, ‘My love is chocolate I’m allowed to eat, and sometimes chocolate I’m not allowed to eat.’ In other words, nothing interesting. I went back to the living room, sat down on the sofa and turned on the TV. That’s when I noticed the letter on the table.

The first words of the letter were, ‘Amir my love’.

This is wrong! I told myself, but my eyes darted back to read it. I turned my head in the other direction on purpose, but my eyes darted back to peek.

Amir my love,

Lately, our words get tangled up.

Why can’t it all be simple?

I love. You love. It should stop, shouldn’t it?

Have a wonderful, simple morning.

Kisses and hugs,

Your Noa

*

I have mamoulim if you want, she said and put the little plate of filled biscuits down next to the coffee. Thank you, I said, and remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything all morning. She sat down on the chair next to me and looked me over silently. Her eyes moved over my body, slipped away to the ceiling, the walls, then came back to study my face. I wanted to break the ice, to compliment her on how nice the house looked, the way people do in situations like this, but it seemed strange to compliment her on the armchairs or the curtains when the whole house looked like a memorial site. It’s warm here, I finally said, and that was a lie too. Somehow, despite the candles and the humming heaters, the air I inhaled between sips was dark and chilly.

Yotam spends a lot of time at your house, doesn’t he? she said, ignoring my dubious compliment and getting straight to the point. Yes, I admitted. How is he? she asked, making me swallow the apology that was on the tip of my tongue. I took one of the biscuits, and while I was taking little bites, I thought about how to answer her. He’s a great kid, I finally said. Sensitive, sweet, smart. I taught him to play chess two months ago, and now he’s beating me.

Yes, she said, an almost unnoticeable bit of maternal pride in her voice. But what I’m asking is, what’s happening to him? What is he feeling? He doesn’t talk to me at all, you know?

I took another biscuit and crumbled it with my fingers. He doesn’t talk to me about Gidi either, I admitted. It probably hurts too much. Or he still hasn’t taken it in. He’s only a boy and …

So you don’t talk about him? she said, interrupting me. Her chin dropped in disbelief.

No, I confirmed. And a second later, I added: not yet.

She stroked an embroidered cushion that was lying next to her and looked at one of the pictures of Gidi, the one on the TV. They were very close, she said, Yotam and Gidi. They were nine years apart, but very close. Gidi was like a father to him, she whispered, and a shadow crossed her eyes, as if she were remembering a bad dream. Yotam’s father spends a lot of hours at work every day, you know? So Gidi actually raised him.

I nodded, but only once. Two or more nods is Nava.

She picked up the cushion and held it against her stomach. The whole week, Yotam would ask me if Gidi was coming home for the weekend, and if I said yes, he’d go outside on Friday morning and sit on the steps to watch the bus stop for hours, waiting for him to finally get here. Every time a bus came down the street, he’d call out to me: Mummy, the bus is coming! And he’d stand on tiptoe so he could see. In summer and in winter. He’d sit and wait.

Like I used to wait for Noa, I thought.

Once, Yotam’s mother went on, there was a hailstorm and I made him come into the house so he wouldn’t catch cold, God forbid. So he pretended to do what I asked and then went out the window and sat in the bus stop shelter without my knowing it.

That’s just like him.

You should have seen them. She released the cushion slightly and looked encouraged by my smile: Yotam would jump on him and hang from his shoulder, like a handbag. And Gidi would peel him off gently and stroke his head and let him drag one handle of his duffle bag — he never let him touch his gun, never! — and that’s how they walked to the house, a big boy and a little boy, and when I hugged Gidi at the door, Yotam would wrap his little arms around us and hug us hugging each other.

She put a hand on her waist, as if she were trying to feel that touch again. I held my cup with both hands and tried to inhale the last vestiges of heat from it.

More coffee? she asked. No, thanks, I said. Biscuits? she asked, pointing to the plate, which had only a few crumbs left on it. No thanks, they were delicious, I said, and she rubbed her hands together in embarrassment, as if she’d hoped I’d give her an errand to do so she could take a minute’s rest from herself. Or from the conversation. Or maybe she wanted to postpone the minute she’d have to ask me something she wanted to know, but was afraid to ask.

You’re a psychologist, aren’t you? she finally said, looking straight at me.

No, I said. I mean, yes. I’m studying psychology, but I’m only working for my B.Sc., so you can’t say I’m a psychologist. I mean, I’m not. Her eyes moved away from me again and started wandering around the walls. Her face, which had brightened a little when she talked about Gidi, fell again, and her cheeks dropped over her mouth.

Probably the fact that I wasn’t a psychologist really disappointed her.

Two voices argued inside me. One wanted to satisfy her, to pretend I was an expert, to console her, and the other called out for me to be careful.

They sent us a social worker from the Ministry of Defence, she said and turned her face to me again as if she’d decided to ignore the new information I’d given her. Maybe you know her, Ricky Be’eri? No? Never mind. She sat with us a few times. Here, in the living room. She said it was important for us to talk about things and not keep them inside. But Reuven didn’t want to keep having the meetings. He told her that after every time we sit with her, he feels a lot worse, so what’s it good for? He said it just like that, right to her face. No shame. And she said to him: maybe you’re afraid that if you look into your heart, you’ll find things you don’t like. And I thought that was true, what she said, and I even nodded my head so she’d see that I wanted her to continue. But it just made Reuven mad. He said to her, who are you to tell me what I have in my heart? Then he got up angrily and started pacing around the room. Did you ever have a child die? Do you even know what it’s like? You think you can come here with your nice clothes and the car your father bought you and tell us what to do? Listen carefully, Miss Social Worker — he could never remember her name — I’m asking you nicely, don’t come here any more, we don’t need your help.

What did she say?

She wrote her phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to me, not to Reuven, and said that we could set up a different arrangement for our talks. And that was it. She left.

Did you call her?

I wanted to. Here, look, I still have her number.

So why didn’t you?

I didn’t have the strength. I started dialling the number so many times, but I got tired in the middle. As if in my heart I didn’t believe any more that anything good could come out of trying. And that’s how I am all the time, I have no patience with anything, I can’t read a book, can’t watch a film to the end. I can’t believe how Reuven goes to work every morning, and two nights a week he runs to those meetings of the Parents’ Forum for Security. How can he? I can hardly do the laundry. Only Gidi’s clothes. I washed them three times, like an idiot, and folded them and put them in his wardrobe, as if he only went to sleep and he’ll get up in another minute and put them on.

Yotam’s shirts really do smell mouldy, I said to myself, and then was immediately ashamed of the thought.

But why am I telling you all this? Yotam’s mother said with real amazement in her voice, as if another woman had been talking the last few minutes, not her. You poor man, what did you do to deserve this?

It’s all right, I said, then kept quiet. I didn’t know what else to say.

You probably have to get back to your studies, right? she said, getting up and taking the cups and the plate. Psychology is hard, isn’t it? Pretty hard, I admitted, still looking for something clever and sensitive to say. Go back and study, she said, so you can finish college and help people.

Finish? I thought, I still have at least seven years to go. I waited for her to come back from the kitchen. The window was slightly open, and the draught coming through it made the candle flames dance. Some of them went out. Some kept twisting until they straightened out and went back to doing their job. I shifted my position on the sofa. I bit a nail, even though I don’t bite my nails. Gidi watched me from four different angles. I looked down.

She came back from the kitchen holding a piece of paper in one hand and a fridge magnet in the other. Look, she said, I got this from school yesterday. I looked. Written at the top of the page was, Re: Complaints About Your Son’s Behaviour. Then came the details of a few instances when Yotam ignored teachers’ requests or talked back or missed lessons without permission, but the zinger came at the end: We are all aware of the tragedy that struck your family a few months ago, and we are doing everything we can to take these special circumstances into consideration, but we cannot accept this kind of behaviour on a long-term basis since it has an adverse effect on other pupils.

If they’re being so considerate, they should leave him alone, I said, handing back the letter. I think so too, but this is the second letter already, she said and put the paper on the table between us. The magnet she kept, switching it from one hand to the other.

Can you talk to him? she asked suddenly, looking straight at me.

Me?

You’re the only one he seems to listen to.

He doesn’t want me to talk to him, I thought. He wants you to talk to him. To give him attention.

OK, I said, and her body, which had been waiting tensely for my answer, suddenly relaxed. OK, I’ll try.

*

Noa and Amir’s word of the month: scene. Noa had a bad scene during her shift on Sunday. Amir had a strange scene in the club on Monday. And there’s also a good scene. And a dangerous scene. And a wild scene. Sometimes they run through a series of scenes (though lately, this hasn’t been part of their regular routine). Then one day, Noa announces that the word ‘scene’ was annoying and she’d never use it again. Right after that, she blurted out, what a weird scene! when she saw someone from her school on TV in a commercial for an exercise machine. And a few days later, she whispers to Hila on the phone: lately, Amir and I have been having a bad scene. And Hila says: amazing! Lately, a lot of couples I know have been going through the same thing. I wonder how it’ll end? And Noa thinks: why does she always think that everything has to be part of a mysterious, general trend? While Amir, in bed, is filled with suspicion and doubt: why is she whispering? What’s she hiding? What’s this all about? Noa listens patiently to Hila, who needs to explain. Then she gets quietly under the covers again. She turns her back. Can’t fall asleep. And Amir is busy thinking and doesn’t know what to say: if all these are scenes, when do they turn into a play?

Rami the contractor’s word of the month is heideh. Which means ‘let’s go’ in Romanian. And he also knows how to say ‘money’ in Romanian (badeh). And tomorrow (mineh). That’s how it is — new workers, new words. But you can’t say he’s a happy man. He waited three weeks for his Arabs. But the border closure was as tight as the day it began. Employers who smuggled their workers out had to pay fines, so what could he do? Romanian workers were better than none. Without them, work on Madmoni’s house would never be done. And sometimes, when he sees a crooked iron rod, he says out loud, ya Saddiq, why did you Arabs have to make this mess and then disappear? Where are you now that I need you here?

In prison. Learning Hebrew with Mustafa A’alem. Mustafa is an old man, but he recognises Saddiq right away. He remembers all his outstanding students as if he’d seen them just yesterday. Saddiq A’adana, you still have a lot to learn, he tells him when he’s in the tent that serves as their cell. We still haven’t done any grammar. And you don’t know how to spell. I know, that’s why I came back, Saddiq says and kisses Mustafa on the cheek. After they smile at each other, Saddiq bends his head, humble and meek. That’s how it is. Mustafa A’alem is a famous hero of the Intifada and the young prisoners treat him with great respect. They wait months for the chance to become his students, hoping to be the ones he’ll select. You’re not a boy any more, are you? Mustafa A’alem says. Come to me tomorrow at three. We’ll see what we can do. Then Saddiq remembers to call out Mustafa’s famous slogan: Know your enemy! Ta’aref el ado! When he’s said those words, he can turn around and go.

And the next day (after being humiliated and harassed) they’re already sitting together over their books as if no time at all had passed. Mustafa takes out a package of newspapers that was smuggled into the prison especially for him. And he takes out two pens. Then he dictates to Saddiq a list of new words in Hebrew that are easy to understand. And Saddiq writes the Hebrew letters with an unsure hand. When they’re finished, Mustafa goes over the words, one by one. Proof. Pardon. Solution. Retribution. Power. Payment. Compensation. Expectation. Longing, gagua, in Hebrew. It’s such a beautiful word, Saddiq says, like a baby crying for its mother. But Mustafa scolds: What’s beautiful about it? Saddiq tries to explain (he’d hardly slept all night or the night before) and says: because longing is, like you said, when you want to be in another place. When you’ve fallen from grace. When you’ve lost something that nothing else can replace.

Yotam’s father longs for his son Gidi. Every time his name is mentioned, his face turns blue and his wife thinks he’s going to choke. She brings him a glass of water and holds it to his lips while he drinks. But he’s afraid he knows what she really thinks. He believes that deep in her heart, she thinks he’s the guilty one, because he had the strongest influence on their son. He pushed Gidi to go into a combat unit, always talking about this battle and that war when the family went out together for a drive. Maybe if he hadn’t encouraged him to be a fighter on the front line, he’d still be alive.

*

I was in the late stages of pregnancy. My stomach was swollen and crisscrossed with stitches that looked like varicose veins. It turns out that Noa and I had agreed that because she couldn’t, I’d do it for her and be — what can I call it — a kind of surrogate father. But suddenly I found myself in Haifa, and my mother, who’s in charge of anxiety in our family, felt my stomach and said: Amir, you won’t make it. Right then, the space of the dream was filled with the sentence ‘you won’t make it’ in various fonts, with the white sheep that came off Noa’s pyjamas squeezed together between the letters, and the warning siren that later turned out to be coming from the alarm clock. When I woke up, I didn’t say anything to Noa. Her interpretations of dreams are usually accurate. This time, I was afraid they’d be too accurate.

*

Even now, when I look at that picture, I’m sure it could’ve turned into a wonderful final project. It’s true that, in the end, I didn’t find any Arabs and had to photograph a Romanian worker standing in front of a house, but what could I do? Madmoni’s Arabs stopped coming because of the border closure, and the other Arabs at the university who I asked to pose mumbled that they were busy. So I found a Romanian with dark skin and gave him a framed black-and-white photo of an Arab house. I posed him in front of a real Arab house in Talbieh. And I asked him to hold the picture against his chest and smile. And I asked him to cry. And I asked him to be angry. I opened the shutter. And I closed it. I knew that it didn’t come out exactly like I wanted it to, but I thought it would be enough to get the idea across.

The lecturer, on the other hand, thought it was sloppy and launched into a speech about the fact that anyone who does sloppy work is abusing his art and that we’re not great enough to ignore small details. If he’d said that in our third year, I wouldn’t have kept quiet, I would’ve told him that great teachers recognise the heart of the work and don’t get bogged down in petty details. But with all the putdowns I’d been getting the last few months that had made me feel as small as a slip of paper, I let him go on. And when he had finished trampling on everything I’d done, Yaniv, who came on to me in our first year, raised his hand and said that even if we ignore the execution, the basic idea is still problematic because art doesn’t operate in a vacuum, and doing a project like that at a time when buses are exploding is a bit cynical, especially if the Romanian, excuse me, the Arab, in the photographs is smiling.

I expected there to be uproar in class, that at least one person would defend me and say that the Romanian’s smile wasn’t cynical but sad, and that there was no better time than now to deal with the subject. But everyone just nodded and the lecturer started to move on to someone else’s work, panoramic shots of Austrian forests, and he complimented Tamar Frish on the composition, on the courage it took to photograph in that light, on the meticulous attention to aesthetics that runs through all her work, and I wanted to yell, who cares about Austrian forests? But I knew that anything I said would sound bitter, so I took my bag, got up and walked out of the room and wandered towards the cafeteria because I suddenly felt as if hot chocolate could solve all my problems. But there was some very irritating music playing in the cafeteria, and two drag queens came up to me and shoved invitations to a Purim party into my hand. The year before, I won second place after I’d dressed up as Miss Obsession. I worked on the costume for weeks. I went to second-hand clothes shops, I cut and dyed and sewed, but now those invitations with their screaming colours just annoyed me. I threw them in the rubbish bin and gave up on the hot chocolate because someone I knew was standing in the queue and I was in no mood to hear her ask me how my final project was going. I pushed open the doors, where a poster about the party was hanging, and walked into the driving wind outside — that’s what Amir calls strong winds. I wanted that wind to pick me up and carry me away, up over the Augusta Victoria Hospital, over the walls of the Old City and the Golden Dome and put me down gently on a large bed in an expensive hotel, let’s say the King David. I waited a few seconds, maybe it would happen, and when it didn’t, I zipped my coat up to my neck and trudged towards the station where the number twenty-four bus stops, thinking about what I used to say to people whose work was put down in the first year — remember, there are the pictures hanging on the wall, and there’s you and your talent, none of which gets wiped away when someone criticises you, even if the criticism is terrible — and I tried to say all that to myself at the bus stop, but it didn’t work. The only thing I could think about was that it was the middle of February already and we had to hand in our final projects in June. If they hadn’t approved any of my ideas by now, they wouldn’t approve anything and I wouldn’t finish the year, I would never graduate and I’d be a waitress till I was fifty, like those pathetic waitresses in American films with that hard look in their eyes, like those people on the bus who don’t smile. No one in Jerusalem smiles. I sat down and they all looked at my bag, afraid I’m going to blow up on them. They’re right, I am about to explode, but not on them, I muttered to myself, wiping the steam off the window and thinking: if I lived in Rehavia, I’d be home in fifteen minutes. Why did we go to live in the Castel? What would’ve happened if we’d waited till I graduated, when I could move to Tel Aviv? Why the big hurry to cram ourselves into a small space? And why haven’t we been happy lately? Everything between us is so cramped and crushed and cranky. He has bad dreams and doesn’t tell me what they are. He just says, I had a bad dream last night, and doesn’t describe it. He’s so down when he comes back from the club that he can’t even tell me why. On the other hand, last night he woke me up and suddenly told me a horrible story about something that happened to him in basic training. He had to stay on the base for the third Saturday in a row. He was so depressed that he couldn’t grab on to anything, any song that would help, and he found himself aiming his rifle at his leg so he could fire, be injured, be discharged. It was only thanks to Modi, who ran over at the last minute and shoved the barrel aside, that the bullet hit the wall and not him. Amazing. Amazing how together he looked on that hike when we first met, and actually, until we moved in together, I kept thinking he was a rock. Even now, if he’s in the mood, he can hug me until I stop shaking inside, but it’s been a long time since he was in the mood. It’s been a long time since I felt his tennis player’s muscles pressed against my body. And in the shower yesterday, I suddenly felt a twinge of desire, a longing for a simple, single-layered man. Like Liat’s Zachi. Someone whose pain won’t seep into me. Someone I wouldn’t have to be so cautious with. Who’d give me ground so I could take off. Because that’s what I want, to create art. And since we’ve been in this apartment, I can’t. Maybe because it’s impossible to create when you live with someone. I read an interview with an American writer who said he can’t work when there’s someone else in the house; that the very presence of his wife, whom he loves, bothers him. So every year he goes to a cabin in the woods for three months, leaves everything and holes up alone. Maybe I need to leave everything too. And maybe not. Maybe I just don’t have it, and it’s convenient for me to blame it on Amir. After all, without him, I wouldn’t have the strength to go on. He’s the only one who still believes in me, who really understands me. With Assi and Nadav, my two ex-boyfriends, I always felt that I had to translate everything I wanted to say into a different, more masculine Hebrew. With Amir, we can run hand in hand through the forest of nuances and he makes me laugh when I’m bitter and sings me love songs that he puts my name in, like ‘Without love, where would you be, Noa’. And we have private words that only we understand, like ‘worvous’, which is a combination of worried and nervous, or ‘you’re limirossing’, which means ‘there’s a limit, and you’re crossing it’. And when I left him a love note on the table a week ago, he called the café and asked for me, then disguised his voice and said that he hadn’t been able to sleep at night since he saw me on the street, and when could we meet, and I played the game and said, tonight, and he asked where? I said, in bed, and when I got home, he was waiting for me outside on the Zakians’ steps the way he used to. Oof, I thought and got off the bus, let him be waiting on the steps for me now. Let him open his arms for me. Let him comfort me. Let him whisper things in my ear the way he knows how. I closed my eyes and imagined his smell, the taste of his smell. I imagined how he’d hold me and I’d bury my nose in the hollow between his shoulder and his neck, and sniff.

But no one was waiting on the steps, and when I opened the door and he came over to hug me, the only smell coming from him, from his shirt, was the smell of the club: cigarettes, sweat, loneliness, and a new element I didn’t know what to call. I didn’t say anything about the smell because I remembered how he responded the last time I did that. I gave him a quick, cursory hug, and he said, what’s this, a brief military hug, and I said, that’s all there is. Then I was sorry for the tone, for the content and the timing, and reached out to stroke his cheek in compensation, but it was too late.

*

I didn’t shave. I always shave before I go to the club, even if there’s no more shaving cream, but this time it completely slipped my mind. I realised it on the Mevasseret bridge, but I thought that if I went back I’d be late. So I kept driving, running my fingers over the stubble, and then I started having other thoughts. No one at the club said anything about the stubble. Nava gave me a very significant look, as usual. Shmuel greeted me enthusiastically, as if a week ago he hadn’t accused me of causing him pain, and the devotees of the crossword puzzle group asked me impatiently when we could start.

We started quickly. That conversation with Shmuel still stung me, and hanging the crossword on the wall and escaping to the definitions was just what I needed.

Two down, five letters. The capital of Ecuador.

Quito. That’s right, Gideon.

One across, four letters. The symbol of peace.

Dove. Right.

Five across, four letters. The opposite of despair.

Hope. Very good, Malka. What did you say, Gideon? Love? But love is with a ‘v’, and our third letter is ‘p’.

Gideon got up. What difference does it make, he suddenly yelled, what difference does it make if it’s a ‘v’ or a ‘p’? Just write what I tell you. The group waited tensely for what I would say. If I’d been feeling myself, it would have ended there. I would have given in and fixed it later. But I was having one of those days when the ground was splitting open under me. So I insisted.

I won’t write love here, I told Gideon, because it’s wrong and it’ll mess up the rest of the puzzle.

He got up, walked around me contemptuously and tore the card off the wall. Who are you to tell us what’s right and what’s wrong? He threw the puzzle on to the floor. Look at what you look like! Not shaved, a stain on your shirt. You look like a crazy man, so where do you get off pretending to be normal, huh?

I rubbed my stubble in embarrassment and looked at the members of the group, hoping they’d come to my rescue. But they thought the whole scene was entertaining. They grinned admiringly at Gideon and he, encouraged by their support, stamped on the puzzle, covering the card with the imprint of his soles and screamed: we don’t want your puzzles! We don’t want you. Get out of here!

I looked at the door — maybe Shmuel would hear the screaming and come to defend me. Maybe he’d stand at my side with his cracked glasses. But Nava came in instead.

Is everything all right? she asked, looking from me to Gideon to the crushed puzzle on the floor.

Nothing’s all right, Gideon answered her. The quality of the students gets lower every year, and this year it’s the lowest. You brought us a crazy student. Look at him, look at the way he looks. Not shaved. He should be a member of this club, not an instructor.

Murmurs of agreement came from the group. Traitors, I thought. I’d sat with every one of them for hours. I’d listened to Malka’s hatred of her sister, to Amatzia the vacillator’s sexual fantasies, to Joe’s paranoia about the General Security Service. And the minute I need them, they turn their backs on me.

These students invest a great deal of time in you, I heard Nava say to Gideon in an authoritative voice, and what you are doing now is completely unfair. Gideon shrank into himself, rebuked. I suggest that we disperse the demonstration, Nava said, looking at me. I don’t see much point in continuing with the group at the moment. I gave a slight, confirming nod. The members of the group filed out of the room. On the way out, each one of them gave me a look, as if they still expected the coup de grâce I was supposed to give to Gideon, but it stuck in my throat.

Amatzia the vacillator was the last one out, and a second later he came back in, pointed to the floor and said: but what about the puzzle? Who’ll solve it? An unsolved crossword puzzle is not good! Then he turned on his heel and went out.

Nava gave a quick look to make sure he wasn’t coming back this time, and said, I can see that you just went through an unpleasant experience. Yes, I admitted. Her eyes were soft and understanding, and for the first time since I started volunteering at the club, I felt that I could share something important with her. That I wanted to. I think they’re especially sensitive now because of the tension all around us, in the country, she said, and her look went back to being professional and cold. And also, maybe you’re having a problem with limits. But I suggest we talk about it during our training session, OK?

OK. No problem. Of course. I understand.

The window of opportunity closed. I was left alone in the room. I picked up the crossword and tried to fold it, but all I did was tear it some more. There was nothing I could do. I had to throw it away and make a new one for next week. Not that anyone would come to do a puzzle next week. All of them know now that the student from the crossword puzzle group is crazy. He should be a member of this club, not an instructor. Gideon’s words pounded at my temples. Maybe he’s right. What actually is the difference between me and them? Everything they feel, I feel, only at a slightly lower volume. I’m like Dan, shifting back and forth between elation and depression. I’m like Amatzia the vacillator, who’s always thinking one thing and its opposite at the same time. And I’m like Shmuel, feeling Noa’s sun, on her bad days at Bezalel, radiating beams that pierce my skin and burn me on the inside. Like them, I’ve been displaced, a man without roots, pretending to be confident but swept away with every wind. A thin line separates me from them, and I’ve crossed that one too. In basic training. If Modi hadn’t been there to save me, I would’ve ended up on the army shrink’s sofa, and who knows, I might’ve wound up here, a member of the Helping Hand Club.

I took the drawing pins off the board, and for a minute, I wanted to press them between my hands till they bled, but I put them and the Scotch tape into my bag and thought: what the hell am I going to do for the two hours until the training session? How do I go out of this room now and look those people in the eye? Shmuel will probably want to talk, and he won’t remember my name again. He’ll comb his hair from side to side again and complain about how full of pain I am and how bad that makes him feel. No. I won’t be able to take it standing up. Or sitting down. It’s too much for me. Much too much. I have to get out of here. Fast. Wait a second, the voice of reason flickered. If you go now without waiting for the training session, you can forget about a recommendation from Nava at the end of the year. How can she recommend someone who can’t cope? Fuck coping, a different voice answered. There’s no chance she’ll recommend me anyway, in light of the darkness between us. And besides, who wants to be a psychologist? My image wants it, all the girls I’ve known who always told me I should be a psychologist want it. But do I really want it? The only thing I want to do, that I have to do, is leave. Now.

I took my bag, left the room, ignored Nava’s raised eyebrow and Shmuel the Cracked, who was coming over to me. I didn’t answer Ronen and Chanit, who’d stopped their flirting for a minute and called out to me. I signalled a quick no with my hand to Joe, who was on his way over to me with a draught board. I went up the steps and made way for Gideon, who was just coming back from the bathroom and ignored me as if the fight we’d had was all in my head. And maybe it was? Maybe I hallucinated the whole thing? I thought, and felt a slight dizziness that threatened to toss me down the steps, but I kept climbing, stopped to breathe, leaned on the right-hand wall, leaned on the left-hand wall, until I was out in the open air, in the deserted park, and started running down the street, running, running, not knowing where.

*

And these are troubled times. In Lebanon, cannon blasts resound. At Ben Gurion airport, there are no tourists to be found. Agricultural projects have been halted and cucumbers tremble in the cold. Abu Dhabi has broken off diplomatic relations (please Abu Dhabi, take us back into the fold). Jerusalem is celebrating its three thousandth anniversary, but no one comes to the celebration. The suits, who can’t agree on a date for the elections, can barely hide their frustration. A Jordanian couple who named their son Rabin flee to Israel to escape their countrymen’s ire. An unemployed man attacks a social worker with an axe. Children dream about terrorist attacks. And on the bridge to Mevasseret, a white cloud of thought appears, large and clear: for a minute, only a minute, it seemed that things could have been different here.

*

I held the letter that came for Amir and Noa, but I didn’t want to throw it to them through the hole. I wanted to listen.

And we have to throw out that picture, Noa said. I could finally hear her clearly.

What’s your problem with that picture? Amir asked her. His voice was strange. Different from the voice I know. Shakier.

It drags us both down, Noa said. It’s like the nymph of grief enticing us to drown.

Come on, Noa, a man is sitting on a bed and looking out the window. Where do you see drowning here? Amir said, and his voice moved away a little. I pictured them standing in front of the picture with their hands on their hips.

Look at his shoulders, Noa said. Look at how they’re drooping. And the hands are so heavy. He isn’t even looking at us. He’s looking out. That’s why you hold on to this picture, because he always wants to be outside, like you.

He doesn’t want to be outside, Noa, he misses something.

Do you miss something too?

Always.

What do you miss now?

You.

I miss you too, Amir.

But I’m here.

No, I miss the way you were before we moved to this apartment.

How was I?

I don’t know, Noa said. Rounder. I imagined that there was a big, warm circle in your body.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I also have corners. When people tell me I’m crazy, I can’t help it, but I just can’t round off the corners of that.

*

I covered the hole and leaned against the wall. What happened to the way they were yelling before? How can they suddenly be talking to each other so nicely, suddenly so understanding. I never had a conversation like that with Moshe. He misses her, she misses him. So what’s their problem? And who said he’s crazy? And why were they smashing glass half an hour ago?

I uncovered the hole again. I know it’s not nice, but I couldn’t control myself.

*

And what about you? Why don’t you dance any more? Amir asked.

But I do.

When?

When you’re not home.

Why? Do I bother you?

No, I just have more room when you’re not here.

But you have an aerodynamic build.

God, Amir, it’s not physical. It’s more of a feeling.

So maybe I’ll leave, and you’ll have lots or room. Endless room.

Do you see how you always want to take off?

OK.

That last ‘OK’ of Amir’s was a killer, and I was waiting for the action to start again, for them to yell and break glasses and plates. The question even crossed my mind what would happen if Noa leaves and Amir stays in the apartment alone, and his landlady goes to comfort him, and that made me angry at myself. Enough, Sima, what’s wrong with you, and I covered the hole in the wall once and for all and went to the kitchen to load the dishwasher and wash the sink, but I had one ear cocked to hear what was happening on the other side of the wall. They talked for another few minutes, first him, then her, then him. Then it was quiet, as if they’d left the house. But the door didn’t open and I didn’t hear footsteps on the tiles. And then, a few minutes later, I heard those sounds that Noa makes, the ones that give me a twinge down below, and I started to picture them lying in bed together, his long white body on hers, hiding it. Or maybe she’s lying on top of him, leaning on his strong shoulders, kissing his completely hairless chest, the kind of smooth chest I love. And maybe he’s lying on her back — who knows what those two could be doing — maybe he’s lying on her back, holding on to her hips, those narrow hips of hers, and …

Lilach started crying like she always does when she hears those noises of Noa’s. I went and picked her up. Her body was hot, but mine was hotter.

*

As if this were the last time. Holding on with our fingernails, with our feet, clinging to anything we can to keep from slipping. I press her tightly to me, the way people hug each other at the airport before one of them goes up the escalator, and she coils around me, gets entangled with me, turns me on my back, on her back, and then, using my little finger as a brush, I slowly paint a line from her cheek to her collarbone, the way she likes me to, circles, circles, a kiss, circles, circles, sucking. She draws me inside. First my tongue is swallowed up, then my cheeks, my mouth and now my whole head is inside her, my thoughts are inside her, my memories are inside her. I pull myself out by the skin of my teeth and bite my shoulder, then hers, and she says aiee. Then she says, look into my eyes, and she pulls my head up so I’m facing her and I look into her eyes and feel like a cheat, even though I’ve never cheated on her. I dive into her neck to hide and she trembles slightly, chilled, but she insists, look into my eyes, Amir. I rise along the serpentine path from her neck to her cheeks until our faces are level again, my nose facing hers, and she smiles. I love your eyes when you’re horny, they shoot yellow sparks as if smoke is about to come out of them. I blink in embarrassment like a model and say, thanks. Now that she’s said that, I feel like my eyes really are burning, that the sheet, the blanket, the wardrobe are about to catch fire and the flames will spread to the living room and burn the picture of the sad man, who’ll try to escape through the window but won’t make it. The flames will pass through the hole for the water heater switch to Sima and Moshe, to the empty lot, to Yotam. Come, Noa says, saving me from the fire, come to me. I hesitate for a minute just to make her crazy, draw circles around her bellybutton with my tongue, licking it as if it were an ice-cream cone, kiss the inside of her thighs once, twice and then, when I can’t go on any more and she pulls my Samson-like hair, come up here, come on, I toss aside a corner of the blanket — and come.

When it all collapses, she gets up quickly and heads for the bathroom. Where are you running off to? I ask her. She apologises, so there won’t be an infection, you know. And I think, it’s not because of any infection, it’s because we can’t stay together in the same air for more than a few minutes, and I say to her, watch out for the pieces of glass. She remembers and says, oh yes, I still can’t believe you did that. I chuckle and say, don’t forget that I’m half Greek. And half frightened, she says, I still don’t believe it. At least put on your slippers, I insist and throw her one of hers and one of mine. She puts them both on and walks out. I stay in bed and cover myself with the blanket. All the images of our fight pass through my mind, and I don’t know whether to be happy that I finally fell apart or to be scared that I fell apart into such small pieces. Somehow, as the minutes pass and Noa doesn’t come back, the emotional scale shifts more towards being scared and I think, maybe she and I really do need to take a break. This apartment closes in on us, squeezes each one of us into our own dark corner. What was that supposed to be, that blind rage that is so not part of my image? A sensitive psychologist is supposed to contain everything. A sensitive psychologist doesn’t use words to hurt, doesn’t expose his nasty side like that, and he never ever breaks plates. Fuck, maybe I really do need some distance so I can calm down. Terrific, Amir! I rebuke myself. You haven’t run away in a while. You haven’t moved in a while. The women are different, but the story is the same. You’re just addicted to it. Addicted to muscles tensing up so you can take off. To the magic you use on new people who don’t know you. But no, I won’t let you push away the only woman who ever really got close to you. The only woman you let touch that black lump of yours, even stroke it.

Make room, Noa says, back from the shower and already wearing her sheep pyjamas. I squeeze up against the wall and lift the blanket a little so she can get in. Her face is very serious, her forehead wrinkled in a frown. I can feel her thoughts scratching at the edge of my consciousness, almost forming words, but I won’t ask her what she’s thinking about so she won’t ask me.

Will you pick up the pieces of glass and put them in the bin later? she asks, and I nod. We have to buy new plates, she says, we won’t have any to eat on. Yes, I say, and the bad buzzing that stopped when we had sex, the old buzzing that always stops when we have sex, is standing between us again. She turns her back to me and I think, what if this time I really do have to get up and go and all this talk about addiction is just a smokescreen, the fog of war, psychological warfare that I use against myself so I won’t see the bitter truth that it’s been awful between us lately, and if you think about it, we were never really good together, except for the first sweet-as-honey weeks, and maybe even the first month in this apartment. And there were a few days after Hanukkah. Fuck, the swing keeps swinging and I can’t think anything without the opposite popping right up in my mind. The line is blurred between right and wrong, between one person and another, between us and the whole mess around us, the explosions, the retaliations. They sold us a bill of goods about thick, clear, solid lines. It’s a lie. Everything’s blurred. Look, even the line between sanity and insanity. One minute I’m healthy and authoritative, and the next minute I’m not shaved and they pull me over to their side, the sick side, like in a kids’ game when they draw a chalk line, take your hand and try to pull you over it. But there isn’t even a line here; at the most a small asterisk. A small asterisk separates me from the other me, a small asterisk that fades so easily and bam, like in basic training, before I can breathe or defend myself, my chest collapses back towards my ears, my back itches with anxiety, my throat fills up with glass, and a scream gathers in my temples, crazy, crazy, crazy.

Meanwhile, Noa is already breathing deeply, asleep. And the buzzing stops. The buzzing between us always stops when she falls asleep and I feel suddenly quiet too. A stream begins to flow inside me, like in the Ehud Banai song, and now I can bend towards her and whisper words of love in her ear. I tell her that our souls are intertwined and there is no other woman like her and I desire her always, always and without shame. And it’s all true. She smiles in her sleep and I kiss her cheek, her earlobe, and raise myself up and over her carefully, so I won’t step on her. I put on slippers, one of mine, which fits, and one of hers, which is too tight. I pull the broom out from behind the refrigerator and start sweeping up the pieces of broken plates I threw on the floor when our fight was at its most furious and I yelled, I don’t want to hear about your final project now! I don’t! It’s amazing how far the pieces flew. There are some near the door and some behind the TV and under the sofa. And there’s one piece near Modi’s letter, which I see now for the first time. That’s weird. When did Sima toss it in? Did she wait until we were finished? Did she hear it all? Who cares. Let her hear. Let her think I’m crazy. That’s what they think at the Helping Hand. So who cares. The main thing is that I have a letter from Modi. I can put the broom aside for a minute. Sit down in the armchair alone. And read.

*

Amigo,

I have to tell you something. The best thing would be if you were here and I could actually tell you this, but letters are all we have for the time being and I have to share. So here goes. Keep quiet and read.

Her name’s Nina, and she’s Czech. She’s gorgeous, something like Olga, that Russian girl who was a year behind us in high school, but much classier. We met at the agency that arranges one or two-day treks to the nearby volcano, Pacaya. We were both waiting in the queue for the agent to finish with a large group of Germans. There were aerial photos of the volcano hanging on the wall behind her, but no matter how hard I tried to look at them, I couldn’t. My eyes were drawn to her over and over again, devouring another detail each time. The snub nose. The Greta Garbo eyebrows. The section of statuesque white neck (sorry for the poetic language, but after examining it up close, I can tell you that her neck really is a masterpiece). And the weird thing was that she had her eye on me too. To this day, I don’t understand what she saw in me, but it looks like there’s a type of girl whose taste runs to overgrown Israeli guys with messy hair. Anyway, she looked at me and I looked at her, and the longer we had to wait, the longer and more openly we looked at each other. Then, when I’m in the middle of trying to figure out how to translate all the opening lines I know into English, the door to the agency suddenly opens and a skinny guy in ripped jeans walks in, sits down next to my future wife and starts talking to her in some strange language. I don’t believe it, I muttered to myself, I have such shitty luck. When I finally find a girl who does it for me, she’s with someone? I got up and started pacing around the room, nervous out of my mind. Back and forth, back and forth.

Excuse me, are you also interested in the trip to Pacaya? her asshole, Jew-hating boyfriend asked me in English.

Yes, I said curtly.

When?

Tomorrow. You too?

We started talking. Muchillero small talk in English. Turns out they’re Czech. Turns out they’ve been travelling for two months already. They did Ecuador and Peru, and now they’d cut over to Guatemala, like me. True, not many Czechs travel. The Czechs don’t have money. Their economy’s down the toilet. But ever since they were kids, he and his sister had this crazy thing about Indians, and they worked their asses off for five years so they could travel. His sister?!! Now that I looked at them, there really was a resemblance. Something about the nose. Then I worked up the courage and asked her, how are you enjoying the trip? She doesn’t know English, her brother apologised for her, just Czech and Russian. He’ll translate my question for her. She gave a long answer and looked into my eyes during her whole speech.

Before he could translate, the agent called us to the counter. The three of us signed up for the next day’s group and set a time to meet later for dinner at the only restaurant in town.

When I got to the restaurant, shaved and wearing the only unstained shirt I had, she was sitting alone at a table. In English, I asked her where her brother was, and she spread her hands to the sides as if to say, ‘I have no idea what you just said, but it sounded interesting.’ I pointed to the empty chair next to her and made half a circle with my hand to mean ‘Where?’ Aah … She looked relieved. She rested her cheek in her palm. He was probably sleeping.

On the one hand, I was glad. No one would keep us from creating a romantic atmosphere. On the other hand, how can there be a romantic atmosphere if we can’t talk? The waitress came over. Nina ordered the huge salad that was pictured on the menu and I ordered churrasco, which is a cheap, local combo of meat, rice, beans, bananas and avocado.

When the waitress left, we stared at the tablecloth and laughed in embarrassment. Turns out that we both thought the situation was funny (and on top of all of Nina’s great qualities, she also has dimples). After we calmed down, she caught my eye and then, for a long while, she just didn’t let me avoid her look. She hypnotised me into that blue-grey lake until I forgot we were sitting in a restaurant and there were dozens of people around us, and for a minute I thought we were the only two people in the world, and also (you’ll probably think I’m crazy) that I was swimming. I had a real physical sensation of swimming and almost started making paddling movements in the middle of the restaurant. When I felt like I was starting to drown, I shifted my eyes.

Before I could feel embarrassed, she pulled her Walkman out of her bag, put the earphones gently over my ears — lightly grazing my cheeks — and pressed the play button. Classical music filled my head, actually something light, with sprightly flutes and triangles and an overactive trombone. Dvorak, she said, pointing to the Walkman. Dvorak, I said, nodding slightly, as if I’d known Dvorak since I was a kid. I had the feeling she’d given me that Dvorak to hear not only because it was pretty, but also to let me know — without words — what she was feeling. So I leaned down and pulled out my Discman with a flourish. I looked through my CDs for one that would suit the occasion, and finally picked Machina’s ‘Children’s Story’: ‘The prince is in love with a golden-haired princess’. I’d never have the balls to play a song like that for an Israeli girl on a first date, but with a Czech girl, in a different country, what could happen? She listened, and the second time the chorus rang out, she hummed along with it in gibberish.

Meanwhile, the waitress came over with our food. And you know, bro, how I eat (‘Like a disturbed child with no co-ordination.’ That’s how Noa described it, right?) To cut a long story short, I pulled out my best manners. I didn’t stick my elbows into the sauce. I cut the meat slowly with my knife like a boy in a British boarding-school. But I must have got a little carried away, because after we’d been eating quietly for a few minutes, she burst into semi-asthmatic laughter and imitated me eating, so serious and focused on my mission. Then I imitated her, the way she took a little taste of each kind of vegetable but didn’t actually eat anything. And that’s how we started a lively dialogue with our hands, our thumbs, our eyes, our eyebrows, our necks and our intuition. What can I tell you, Marcel Marceau is Louis de Funès compared to what went on there. The funniest thing was that at some point, during one of the breaks, I looked around and saw that we were the most talkative couple in the restaurant. The other four couples — two locals and two tourists — sat across from each other without talking and looked up at the ceiling or stared at the menu, bored.

Later, we walked to my room. On the way, we ate burnt corn on sticks, even though The Lonely Planet doesn’t recommend it. While we waited for them to heat the corn, she rubbed her hands together, so I gave her my coat to wear (chivalry, an international language). In return, she gave me a wet kiss on the cheek and wound her hand around my waist after we finished eating and started walking again.

About what actually happened in my room, I have only one thing to say: I’m speechless.

We’ve been together since then, six nights already. And I’m not bored even for a minute. What would Yossi Chersonski say (if Nina and I were a performance and he was reviewing us)? ‘Original? Yes. Suitable for everyone? Questionable.’ I have no idea how long it can last, this ‘no words necessary’ thing (remember how they used to write that under drawings in the newspaper?). All I know is that two of my biggest screw-ups in love, including Adi, were because of words spoken at the wrong time, and that this quiet lets me listen to Nina more than I’ve ever listened to any other woman I’ve been with. I listen to her nostrils (when they get a little wider, it means she wants me), her dimples (there are sad dimples and happy dimples, and I’ve learned to tell the difference). I listen to her walk, to her sudden stops. And I always listen to her inner music.

What is inner music?

Aha!

Funny you should ask, because I’ve just developed an interesting theory (when you don’t talk all day, you have a lot of time to develop theories).

This is how it goes: everyone has his own basic internal music that’s always playing inside his body, with the volume turned down, and that music is what determines the pace at which he thinks, loves, writes and gets enthusiastic (I just added the enthusiastic thing because of my inner music). If you stop reading and close your eyes for a minute, you can hear your own inner music (or the upstairs neighbour yelling at her kids). Anyway, that inner music affects the kind of external music we like. Usually, people look for external music that goes well with their inner music. For example, someone who’s full of wild music will buy CDs that fit that wildness, that give it the appropriate background, that balance it without being too different from it. Someone whose inner music is full of hidden tension will seek external music that’ll dissolve the tension. The same thing is true of people. If you think people choose their mates because of the way they look or how much money they have or how clever they are, you’re wrong big time. A first date is actually a concert. People eat, drink, recite their CVs to each other, but the whole time, they’re really only listening to the inner music of the person sitting across from them. They see whether they can play their music together, hit the right chords, and only then do their hearts decide. Later too, couples don’t stay together because they have interesting conversations or because she’s different enough from his mother or he’s similar enough to her father, but because their inner music fits together over time, and if it doesn’t, if it’s too similar or too different or too noisy, the courts won’t help. And relationship counselling won’t help. At some point, it’ll be grating, either to him or to her.

Or not. All theories flounder when it comes to love. Like, you write to me that instead of bringing you closer, the apartment in the Castel only pushes you and Noa farther apart. Does that make sense? OK, she’s blocked on her final project and you’re upset about the club, but you still go to sleep together and eat spaghetti with student-style sauce and scream ‘Nirvana Unplugged’ together (I got it here from some American, truly a fantastic CD). Don’t you?

I hope it works out for you. Don’t throw it all away and stop playing music together. After all, like you wrote, Noa gets into your soul the way no other girl ever did before. And she’s wild about you. I saw the way she looks at you when you talk. And I saw the way you look at her when she dances. Ah! That’s the problem with these letters. The crazy delay. I’m writing these things about Noa, and who knows what might have happened by the time you get it. And with me too. I’m writing to you about Nina, and by the time you get this letter, she might be back in the Czech Republic.

Meanwhile, thank God, she’s sleeping in my bed. The blanket’s trapped between her legs and she’s hugging the pillow. Her inner music — slightly indistinct, slightly drifting — keeps playing even in her dreams (what is she dreaming about?).

I’m sitting on the table and carving on it so that later I’ll have proof this week really happened. (I hear you saying, so you actually do need words. There’s something to that.) Through the window, I can hear an occasional rumble from the direction of the volcano. The last time it erupted was two years ago. The city was covered in ash and people breathed through surgical masks. Ever since, there’s a disaster-on-the-way feeling in the streets, and every time the volcano gives a little cough, people stop and cross themselves (they believe that the volcano is a god, the god of fire, and that the Christian cross works with him too. It’s amazing how everything’s all mixed together here.).

Anyway, tomorrow morning we’re leaving for Lake Atitlan, so I hope the volcano won’t erupt tonight, our last night here.

I hope I didn’t dump too much stuff on you (I just had to speak Hebrew with someone).

(And I’m sorry about all the parentheses in this letter. I just reread it and got scared.)

Love,

Modi

P.S. (I remembered something important.) What’s happening with Hapoel? The last time you filled me in, we were in fifth place. How far down have we gone since then?

*

I have an exam, Amir said. But you promised, I reminded him in my most poor-me voice. Besides, this is the last time Hapoel is playing at Teddy this year! No it isn’t, he said, trying to argue with me, there’s still the state cup games. You’re wrong, I insisted, even if both teams get to the semi-finals, the game’ll be in Ramat Gan, not Jerusalem. You know what, he said, you’re right, but I still didn’t think he was convinced, so I thought the word ‘yes’ really hard like I used to do when I wanted Gidi to take me to a game. I’d repeat the word ‘yes’ in my mind four straight times. And Amir really did smile and say OK, but on one condition, and I thought he was going to say that I had to behave better in school because it was hard enough for my mother and father as it was. But instead, all he said was, I want you to swear that you won’t tell anyone in the stands that I’m a Hapoel fan, or else I’m a goner. I laughed, put my hand on my shirt pocket and said OK, I swear. On Saturday, wearing my black trousers and yellow shirt and the scarf he bought me, I knocked on the door and Noa opened it and said, we’ve been waiting for you, and asked me to come in. Today’s the big day, isn’t it, she said. Amir suddenly popped out from behind her and said, yes, today’s the big day for Shalom Tikvah, three-nil for Hapoel thirty minutes into the game. You wish, I said, three-nil for Beitar, three goals for Ohana. Noa said, you’re both losers, and Amir started jumping and singing, ‘He’s a loser, he’s a loser, he’s a loser’. I sang along with him, waving my scarf around my head like a cowboy, and Noa said, I have to get this on film. I thought that was a cool idea, and I started posing for the camera, holding my scarf stretched out between my hands like on TV, but Amir suddenly stopped jumping and said in a not very nice tone, you don’t have to photograph everything, you can just remember. Noa got insulted and said, OK, I won’t bother you, and went into the kitchen. All of a sudden, I remembered the note she wrote to him about how, lately, their words get tangled up, and I wanted to make peace between them. Right then and there, I wanted to make them link their fingers and make up, but I thought that if I couldn’t do it with my parents, why should I be able to do it with them. So I decided to forget the idea and said to Amir, are we going? Come on, he said, and opened the door. He didn’t say goodbye to Noa, so I said it for him, bye, and Noa yelled from the kitchen, have a good time! Then he said thanks, but a weak, fake kind of thanks, and hurried me out the door, saying so what are you waiting for? I was already thinking, is this how he’s going to act all day? What a downer. But the minute we got into the car, he went right back to being nice. He turned on the radio and said, I’m really in the mood for football now. You scored on this one, Yotam, it’s a great idea. You know the last time I went to a game? Five years ago, the derby between Hapoel and Maccabee. We lost four-nil. And I said, Beitar won in the last game I saw. They beat Maccabee Haifa two-nil. And Gidi was still alive then, I thought, I still had a brother then. As if he was reading my mind, Amir asked, who’d you go with, Gidi? I said yes and remembered how Gidi would always ignore me on the way to the game because he didn’t want his friends to think he was a nerd. But the minute we walked into the stadium, he’d forget that and say, listen up, Yoti, from now on, you don’t leave my side, and he’d give me his hand and make a path for me through the crowd and make sure I had a place to sit and no one pushed me. Once, when some tough guy stepped on me by accident, he grabbed him by the collar and said, hey moron, watch where you’re going. The tough guy poked him and they started shoving each other. Everyone in the stands stood up to see. But right then, Harazi scored a goal for Beitar and everyone was so happy that they jumped up and hugged each other, even Gidi and the tough guy, and Gidi said to him, the main thing is that we win the championship. And the tough guy said, and the state cup too.

*

He’s remembering Gidi now. I know what colour his eyes are when that happens. I don’t know whether to comfort him, to coax out the memory or change the subject. So I keep quiet. At times like this, I think that our relationship is a little risky. After all, I’ll leave the Castel in the end. And then what? Isn’t it enough that Gidi disappeared on him, do I have to disappear on him too? Enough, I flog myself and cross another traffic light, you can’t let fear of separation determine everything.

Park here, on the pavement, Yotam suggests.

Isn’t it a little too far? I wonder.

Everything closer is taken, he says with the confidence of someone who’s been here a lot.

Once, I remember, I took a girl to the beach at night and at a certain point she stopped and kissed me and pulled me under some thatched shelter. Something about her movements, something about how confidently she spread the blanket under us told me that she was recreating what had happened before, right there, with someone else.

This way is shorter, Yotam says, pulling me along a side path, and I obey. We are carried along towards the stadium on a huge wave of fans. We’re surrounded by big flags around us, hats and scarves. All of them yellow and black. But still, I start to feel the thrill of the excitement I used to feel when I was surrounded by Hapoel red flags, hats and scarves.

Wanna buy sunflower seeds? I suggest. But he feels more like an ice lolly. A yellow one, right? What else. I buy him a lemon ice lolly and a raspberry one for myself so I can have at least one red thing after I left all the others at home.

Someone practises playing his zambura, and the crowd shoving its way to the ticket booth answers with a weak ‘olé’. We already have tickets. I bought them on Thursday so we wouldn’t have to queue and get pushed and shoved. But there’s a huge crowd trying to push through the gate too, so I put Yotam in front of me and wrap my arms around him to protect him. How thin he is, I think. How fragile and full of bones. We move ahead slowly. Brakes. A step. Brakes. The policemen are stressed out after all the recent terrorist attacks and spend hours checking everyone who goes in. Yallah, odrob, come on, move it, the game’s starting soon, complains a father whose son is perched on his shoulders. What do you want from them, they’re only doing their job, a pair of identical twins standing behind him have a go at him. I wonder what Yotam and I look like to them, the thought flashes through my mind. Father and son? Brothers?

The guy taking tickets takes my two and tears them. The way they tear football tickets reminds me of the way a son whose father has died tears his shirt to symbolise a heart broken in anguish, and I shove the tickets right down into my pocket.

We go inside.

The fans’ songs resound strongly now, shaking the concrete walls and the heart. Confetti rain is falling on us from nowhere, washing away all thoughts. There’s no club. No Noa. No itch. Football is such pure fun.

Yotam breaks free of my grasp and runs up the steps. I skip after him and roar silently: Go reds go! Go reds go!

*

That’s the really cool thing — when you go up the steps and all of a sudden you see the whole field and the fans sitting in the stands on the other side and the players warming up. Like in Eilat, when you go into the water with your snorkel and — boom! you see all the fish and coral all at once.

There are no Hapoel fans here at all, Amir said, standing next to me. I put a finger on my lips to remind him he’s at Teddy. Right, he said, slapping himself on the forehead. Then he whispered in my ear, you have to teach me a few of your songs fast so they don’t figure out what I am. There’s the song, ‘O-hana’, I started to explain to him, and while I was talking, he led us to two empty seats in the middle of the stands. A tall guy was sitting in front of us and Amir asked him to change seats with his friend because ‘the kid’, which was me, couldn’t see. Moshe Sinai walked past under the VIP stand on his way to the HaPoel bench and all the fans got up and sang rude songs at him. Amir smiled at me, but I could see that he was a little pissed off about it. Then the fans unfurled a huge flag from the bottom of the stands to the top, each one grabbing the edge and passing it to the person behind him. It was dark under the flag, and hot and smelly. Amir bent over and whispered in my ear, I don’t believe that I’m under a Beitar flag. Next time, we go to Bloomfield. Fine, I said, happy that there was a ‘next time’ in our plans.

Then the game started and everyone yelled at everyone else: sit down! sit down! But no one wanted to be the sucker who’d sit down first, so they all stayed standing. During the first half, there were mainly fouls. The referee kept whistling and taking out yellow cards. No one kicked in the direction of the goals except for one corner that Pishont kicked which almost hit the net by mistake. The fans, who had sung a lot of songs before the game, gradually got quiet, sat down and started cracking sunflower seeds. They didn’t get up again until half-time, when Moshe Sinai walked past under the stands on his way to the locker room and they threw plastic bottles at him and swore at him. There’ll be goals in the second half, Amir promised. Ours, I said, and remembered a Yehuda Barkan candid camera programme I had seen that week.

I didn’t tell Amir about it so he wouldn’t get scared. On the programme, they put a Maccabee Haifa fan into the Beitar stands wearing a yellow shirt over a green Maccabee Haifa shirt. After a few minutes, he took off the yellow shirt and started cheering for Maccabee Haifa in the middle of the Beitar stands, wearing green. Wow, did he get smacked around. They took him to the hospital and he had to have about ten stitches.

Just don’t let Hapoel score, I prayed silently. I wouldn’t want Amir to have to get stitches.

But as soon as the second half started, that’s exactly what happened.

Shmulik Levy lost a ball on the side closest to us and Alon Ofir ran down the line almost to the corner and then kicked. Kornfein ran out to stop the ball, but Nissim Avitan jumped higher than him and butted the ball into the net.

Suddenly, the whole stadium was quiet. Complete silence. Like right after Adina, our form teacher, shouts that if we don’t quieten down, she’ll give us a test.

I looked at Amir. I hoped he wouldn’t say anything. I prayed he wouldn’t do anything. But he did. He opened his mouth and yelled.

*

Why?! Why?! Why?!

That’s what I yelled. I was bursting with happiness about Hapoel’s fantastic goal and I couldn’t keep it inside, so instead of yelling ‘Yes!’ I found myself yelling ‘Why?! Why?! Why?!’ Three earsplitting shouts that thundered through the stunned stands. Yotam looked at me worriedly. A few heads turned towards me in puzzlement. How, I kept yelling, how did you let them score a goal like that?! Because we have lousy defence, someone sitting two rows below us answered. Because the coach is shit, someone sitting above us said. A bunch of fans got up and started singing to the coach: resign, resign, resign. The Beitar players looked embarrassed. The Hapoel players went right into a bunker defence. A little one-nil. That’s all we need. That’s our speciality. For years. Towards the end of the game, Beitar did have a few chances. Abucsis kicked two balls that whistled over the goal, and Yotam grabbed his head in frustration. I patted him on the shoulder with a winner’s generosity. Wait, he said, it’s not over yet. But a second after he said that, the referee whistled the end of the game and the Hapoel players hugged Moshe Sinai and ran quickly to the locker rooms so the flying plastic bottles wouldn’t land on their heads. Fans hung on the fences and swore at them, and when they’d all left the field and there was no one left to insult, the stadium started to empty out. Yotam and I waited in our seats till the last fan had gone. We sat there staring at the sunflower seed shells, the ice lolly wrappers and the special editions of the fans’ newspaper published in honour of the game that were now being trampled on by the crowd.

We didn’t talk on the way to the car. As a Hapoel fan, I know how you feel after a loss: you have no strength for anything, especially not a conversation with a fan of the winning team. But when we started driving, I said to Yotam, don’t worry, it’s not over yet. There are still seven more rounds to go. He said, yes, but we’re really awful. And I agreed, yes, you really are pretty bad. Then he imitated me, why?! Why?! why?! Why are they so awful?! We both laughed hysterically while we drove. My nose started running and my eyes were so full of tears that I could hardly see the road. And every time I thought I was calming down, he started again: Why?! Why?! Why?! And I started bellowing all over again. God, that was funny, I said when we stopped at a light. Yes, he said, I can’t wait to tell … and he stopped.

Gidi? I asked, and all the laughter drained out of me like water in a bath after you pull out the plug.

Yes, he said. I tell him things sometimes. I go to the empty lot and talk to him, but it’s OK, you don’t have to tell me he’s dead and doesn’t hear me. I know.

Do you miss him? I asked, realising that this was the first direct question I’d asked him about his brother.

Sometimes, he answered, pressing a finger against the window as if he wanted to leave a print on the glass.

I almost asked, when do you miss him especially? but I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to draw him into that kind of conversation, as if he were a repressed adult who needed help opening up. If he wanted to talk, he would.

He kept his finger pressed against the glass, and we drove the rest of the way home like that, in silence. I parked the car, then turned and looked at him. He looked exhausted. His hair was all messed up, the front of his yellow t-shirt was stained, probably from the ice lolly, and instead of opening the door, he sank deeper and deeper into the seat.

Everything OK? I asked.

He nodded. Too slowly.

Is it because we talked about Gidi?

No.

Because Beitar lost?

No.

So what happened?!

He played with the seatbelt, tightening it and loosening it. Tightening and loosening. I took mine off and reached for the door — not so I could get out, just to open the window and let a little air in — but then he said, literally shooting out the words: I don’t feel like going home.

He looked apprehensively at my hand to make sure I wasn’t running away. I put my hand back on the wheel and asked: why?

He didn’t say anything. A few months ago, when Noa and I were still having idle conversations, she told me that when people hesitate about what to say, if you look carefully you can see the words rising and falling in their throats. Sometimes a word can get to the tip of their tongue, and then at the last minute, it slides all the way back. I looked at Yotam’s throat and thought: when I was his age, I didn’t want to go home either, but if someone had asked me why, I wouldn’t have known what to say.

It hasn’t been very happy in your house for the last year, I said, and a picture rose in my mind: dozens of lighted memorial candles in the living room.

Yotam nodded, or just moved his head slightly.

And your parents aren’t the way they used to be, I went on. Before Gidi was killed, I mean.

Now it was a nod. No doubt about it.

And they don’t have time for you, I said. They barely notice what’s happening with you. You could disappear for half a day and they wouldn’t even care.

Yes, he said, and like a relay race runner who’d just been handed the baton by his team-mate, he took off on his own run:

My mother doesn’t do anything all day, she just sits and looks at his pictures, and if you walk past her in the living room, she asks you to come and look with her, but how many times can you look at the same album, you get sick of it in the end. And my father stays at work till late, on purpose, and when he comes home, he doesn’t whistle like he used to, he just closes the door behind him, quietly, like he’s ashamed to come in. Then he eats a bit, usually alone, and watches the news on channel two and on channel one, and gives his opinion out loud, even though no one’s listening. Then he turns off the TV and goes straight to bed. He hardly says a word to me and he doesn’t come to sit on my bed. Once, he used to come and talk to me every night before I went to sleep, ask me how things were in school. And Mum too. She used to come in and cover me even if I was covered already, and now neither one of them comes. They don’t care about me.

I’m sure they care about you, I said, hearing how hollow and formal I sounded. I know they care about you, I said, trying again. I was at your house last week while you were at school and your mother told me that she’s very worried about your behaviour at school.

Yotam looked up in amazement. That’s what she told you? And before I could confirm it, the spark in his eyes died and he continued, I bet she’s worried. That’s the only thing they care about. My behaviour at school. All week I’m invisible, like that Dannydin in the book Gidi used to read to me, and the minute I bring a note home from school, they put on this good-parent act, look up from the albums, call me over and talk to me in a serious tone.

A bus thundered over to the stop across from where we were parked. It emitted a single passenger, like the whale spitting out Jonah. I waited until the passenger disappeared into the darkness and thought about how to put into words the thought that had been nagging at me since my conversation with his mother.

I chose to be direct and said: so that’s why you’re acting up in school, Yotam? So your mother and father will pay attention to you?

No, don’t be silly, he said with a smile that was too cynical for a child, I do it so they’ll pay attention to each other.

*

Moments when Noa is glad to be Noaandamir:

When he thinks she’s asleep and can’t hear, and he whispers words of love in her ear. She fakes deep breaths of sleep and in the morning says she slept like a log all night. And when he takes Yotam to a football match, or patiently explains which chess move would be right. Then she has a thought that makes her glad: he’ll make such a good father. And after another bad conversation with her mother on the phone, he looks at her in a way that makes her feel she’s not alone. She’s also happy when they play the new Nirvana disc, Unplugged, at full volume. She feels so good, so free, when they scream together with Kurt, ‘Come as you are, as a friend, as I want you to be.’ And when guys flirt with her at the café, she can tell them she has a boyfriend and it’s not a lie. And when he surprises her and comes to pick her up from college the day after a big fight, all the girls are so jealous they could cry.

*

Moments when Noa is sick of being Noaandamir:

After her shift, when a guy holding a bouquet of flowers is waiting for her in the street. And unlike the other men who always come on to her, he has a smile that’s very sweet. After five minutes of conversation, she knows that with this guy, unlike Amir, what you see is what you get. With him, it would be light and airy, simple and healthy, no sweat. In short, she didn’t have to be herself, he was no threat. So when can I see you? he asks, and she replies, trying to end the conversation: maybe in my next reincarnation. I think you’re very pretty, he says with a smile. Thank you, she says, blushing. He puts his hands together in a plea, and for a minute she’s almost tempted to say yes. But something shaky yet strong still clings to Amir. Even though they’re not having a very good year. Something inside her is curious about how this love will end. Without the interference of another boyfriend. Sorry, she says, I can’t. I’m involved with someone. And even though he smells so sweet, she walks away, leaving him standing there on the street.

Later, she walks into the house and Amir is reading and taking notes. She hovers around him for a while, thinking: should I tell him or not? She decides not to, what for? It’ll just make things even more tense than before. But as she turns to go to the shower, he looks up and asks: hey lover, did something happen at the café? And she thinks: it’s amazing how well he knows me. Then she says, no, everything’s OK. He looks at her for another minute and says, with some surprise in his voice: if you’re hungry, there are some stuffed peppers you can heat. Sima had lots left over from Shabbat, and brought some over for us to eat.

*

No thank-yous, please. Come in! I tell Noa. But she hands me the Tupperware box and says, no, I have work to do. She turns around to go, and then, as if two different women were arguing inside her the whole time, she suddenly says, you know what? Why not?

I close the door behind her and lead her to the living room. So, how were my stuffed peppers? She puts her hand on her chest and says, oh, they were fantastic. I can still taste them. Thanks, I say with a smile, picking up Lilach and putting her on my lap. I don’t know why, but I suddenly wanted to feel her close to me. I’ll give you the recipe if you want, I tell Noa, and she gives a little laugh, thanks, but I have no time to cook. Lately, my life is … I run around all day. I hardly have time to breathe.

You’re right, we really haven’t seen each other in a while, we haven’t talked, I say. Lilach wriggles out of my arms and reaches a hand out to Noa. Noa gives her a finger and Lilach closes her little fist around it.

I missed you, I say, and Noa laughs in embarrassment then leans over and gives Lilach a kiss on the cheek. I missed our conversations, I say and sound to myself like a pest.

Me too, Noa says, and even though she’s looking into my eyes, I don’t believe her. I think that for her other people are the sauce, not the main dish.

So tell me, were all of Moshe’s brothers here for Shabbat? she asks.

How do you know? I ask, a little surprised. Does she listen to us through the hole?

What do you mean how? she says with a laugh. From all those peppers!

Yes, I say and let out a breath, there were almost twenty people here for dinner. They all came to celebrate Grandpa Avram’s recovery.

So that’s it, he’s completely recovered? No more demons?

Mafish, Finished. The doctors say that his brain managed to get over what happened to it and that he’s functioning perfectly normally now. But don’t forget, they’re the ones who promised that his operation wasn’t dangerous.

That’s doctors for you. Actually, they’re always guessing. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don’t.

Yeah, I know.

That brother of Moshe’s, Noa says, softening her voice a little, was he here on Shabbat, the one called … Menachem?

Very nice of her to remember the name, I think, and say: yes, of course he was.

How is it between you two now? she asks. You can hear in her voice that she’s trying to sound more interested than she really is. But it’s nice of her to even try.

I think he’s afraid, I say, after all that happened with the kindergarten, because you wouldn’t believe how careful he is with me.

So you won, Noa says.

Only for the time being, I say. After Passover, kindergarten registration starts for next year and I bet you a million pounds that it starts all over again. That Menachem is a stubborn mule. And Moshe keeps going to rallies and coming home with his eyes all lit up and saying Sima, come with me just once. Sima, would it hurt to try? No, it looks as if this is just something I’ll have to live with. Like in Ashkelon, when we lived near the central bus station. At first, the noise of the buses drives you crazy. Then you don’t hear it any more. Menachem and Moshe will keep trying to make Liron grow sidelocks and I’ll keep trying to protect him. And her too, I say, pointing to Lilach. Tell me, sweetie, do you want to wear long denim skirts when you grow up?

Lilach, who already knows how to recognise the sound of a question, actually nodded her head as if to say yes.

What do you mean, yes? I pretend to scold her and say to Noa, that’s just the way I am. I can be the nicest person in the world, but when it comes to my children, I’m a tiger.

I can understand that, Noa said, nodding.

She can’t, I think. Not really. There’s a thick wall, a concrete wall between people who have children and people who don’t. What about you and Amir? I ask, and the minute I say his name, I remember that I dreamed about him again yesterday. I went over to get their monthly rent and she wasn’t there. He said they didn’t have any money and asked if he could pay me in a different way. I pretended not to understand and asked, what way? He bent over and gave me a kiss, a gentle kiss on the lips, and I said, that could be a problem, and all of a sudden I didn’t have any clothes on. But before we could touch, I heard Lilach crying and I couldn’t work out where the crying was coming from because I didn’t see her. I looked for her in the dream and when I couldn’t find her, I got scared and woke up. Then I realised she really was crying because her dummy had fallen out.

What about me and Amir, Noa repeats my question without a question mark and then is quiet.

Yes, I push her and remember the big fight I heard through the wall.

She wants to say something, but she’s hesitating. You can tell from the way she’s staring at her shoes and the way her knee starts jigging up and down. Tell me, Sima, she finally says, does it sometimes happen, I mean, did it ever happen, I mean do you sometimes think about other men, I mean, other than Moshe?

My heart drops into my trousers and slides down into my socks like a coin. How does she know? I didn’t tell anyone about my dream, not even Mirit, so how did she find out? Do they teach her at Bezalel to photograph people’s thoughts? That’s scary. I knew there was something strange about that girl. I told Moshe right from the start. Allah yistur. God help me. How do I answer her?

Why do you ask? I look her right in the eye. Like they say, the best defence is a good offence.

No, because … she mumbles, embarrassed, accusing, and I’m almost tempted to confess, to get down on my knees and say I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I don’t know what came over me. I have hormonal problems, maybe that had something to do with it. Or maybe it’s because it’s spring, with all the allergies, but I promise you, Noa, you have nothing to worry about …

But then she starts to talk. No, listen, it’s just that in the café some guy came on to me, and I usually brush them off. I tell them I have a boyfriend and go on about my business, I mean, yeah, it’s nice, but nothing more, and yesterday, I don’t know, he asked if we could go out, and my heart whispered, yes. A second before my mind kicked in, my heart whispered yes, do you understand? Of course, in the end, I said no, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind.

What does he look like? I ask her. I’m so busy breathing in relief that I don’t have time to think of a less idiotic question.

That’s not the point, Noa says and looks at me, disappointed with me for not understanding.

So what is the point, I ask, trying to correct the impression I made.

It’s not that specific guy. I’ll forget him in a minute. It’s just that I don’t think something like that should happen when everything’s good between you and your boyfriend.

Why not? I protest, and want to go on: take me, for instance …

I think that if you’re looking outside — Noa makes a fist, puts it in her mouth and bites it — it’s a sign that something’s missing at home.

But something’s always missing. No man has it all, I hear myself saying. And I’m almost convinced.

True, Noa says, taking her fist out of her mouth. But that’s not the thing.

Lilach, who fell asleep in my arms, wakes up suddenly and starts looking for my breasts. She still does that sometimes, and I have to move her mouth away gently to remind her that she’s been drinking from a bottle for a while now.

Look, I say to Noa and don’t know how to continue. I feel like giving her some really first-class advice, something that’ll make her come to me for help every day, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is: maybe you need to get out together more, you know, to add a little variety to your life. You’re at home all the time, aren’t you? Travel a bit. Go on holiday. Go away for a few days. I say all that and think: now she’s probably saying to herself, advice like this I can get from women’s magazines.

But she actually smiles. You’re right, she says, we really have got bogged down. And we used to go out a lot before we moved here. But there’s something about these walls that closes in on us, that pushes us so close to each other that we can’t see. Maybe that’s really a good idea, to go away for a while.

Yes, what’s the big deal, I say confidently, like someone whose advice has been accepted, and think: if only I took a quarter of the advice I give to other people. Why a quarter, an eighth.

I forget how good it is to talk to you, Noa says, playing with the fuzz on Lilach’s head.

It really is great to talk to me, I say, and we both laugh. I look at the sparkle in her eyes, at the small wrinkles dancing on her cheeks, and I’m jealous: he probably fell in love with her because of the beautiful way she laughs.

*

All those particles of emotion in the air, the fragments of hurt feelings, the small, invisible insinuations, all the hidden balls we’ve passed to each other with the speed of light, I have the ball, Amir has the ball, the ball is rolling down the street, all the kindled memories, recent ones from yesterday, distant ones, my mother, the words that have been spoken, the words that will be spoken, the words that will probably never be spoken, the throat choking off the words, the little lamp that lights up in your chest and illuminates you from inside, the touching, your body’s memory of it, the inexplicable longing, great expectations, the slight but stubborn desperation, the law of connected vessels, the law of scorched hearts, music, his inner music, quiet, solid and tense, my inner music, slightly more dramatic, the duet, the delicate ballet of compromise, someone always has to give up something, the small flash of disappointment, the lack of clarity, the knowledge that it was never really clear, that it will never be clear, the stone rolling down your back, the little stab deep in your stomach, the shared wound constantly bleeding inside, the transparent ties that bind, invisible, like in the circus, the ties you can trip on and fall, fear of falling, hope of falling, knowledge of falling.

You can’t see any of those things in the picture of that trip to the hidden spring.

In the picture, we’re hugging. Amir’s hand is peeking from behind my shoulder, my hand is peeking from behind his waist. In the background is the red Fiat Uno with its tired right eye. Behind it are green bushes sprouting from the hill, and behind them, the sky and a cloud shaped like a hippopotamus. Amir is smiling a slightly tired smile, or maybe it’s only now that I think it’s tired. As usual, I don’t photograph well. Or maybe I’m just not pretty. Our bodies are very close. Relaxed. And there’s no sign of what would happen a week later. Maybe the heads. Yes, the heads. I didn’t notice it until now. Instead of tilting our heads towards each other, we’re tilting them away.

*

It can’t go on like this, Mum said. I knew I wasn’t supposed to hear this conversation. It was really late already, maybe one in the morning, and I just happened to get out of bed to go and pee, and I was about to go back to my room when I heard her talking. Even though I was half asleep, I heard the words and stopped, thinking they were talking about me because I’d brought a note from my form teacher that day — an invitation to an urgent meeting to discuss my marks this term — and I was sure they were talking about what punishment they should give me after all the ones they’d already given me hadn’t helped.

I tiptoed quietly to where I could stand closest to the living room without their seeing me. I pressed my back against the wall, breathed through my mouth and listened.

So what do you suggest that we do? Dad asked.

There’s that social worker …

I don’t want to see her face.

If she’s the problem, we can ask them to send someone else.

What for? So you two can sit here again and blame me?

That’s not what happened.

That’s exactly what happened.

All she said was, ‘Maybe you both feel guilty.’

She was looking at me when she said it.

You’re imagining that.

Don’t tell me I’m imagining.

Dad got up — I heard his armchair move — and started walking around the living room. His steps came closer to me and my heart pounded like a drum, but then the steps moved away. Then came closer again. Then moved away again. I wanted to run away and I wanted to stay. To hear and not to hear. Like when you order too many scoops of ice-cream and you don’t have any more room in your stomach, but you still keep licking.

It can’t go on like this, Mum said.

You said that already, Dad said.

It’s having a bad effect on the boy. The neighbour, that student, thinks so too.

What? What do you mean?

He was very polite, that student. He didn’t exactly say what he thinks about it, but I think he thinks that maybe Yotam is causing problems to bring us closer.

That’s ridiculous. What does he know.

He’s studying psychology.

What kind of man studies psychology? That’s no profession for men.

Why? There happen to be a lot of men psychologists. It’s very common these days.

Anyway, who is he to tell me things about my own son.

He spends more time with him than you do.

Well, what do you know, you’re right. I apologise. I apologise that I have to work. I apologise that someone has to pay the mortgage on this house. The bank doesn’t care that I lost a son, right? Isn’t that right?

With the last ‘right’, my father started coughing. One big cough at first, and then a few small coughs, one after the other. I went back to my room before she asked him whether she should get his inhaler, before he said he didn’t need any favours, before she went to get it anyway and he grabbed it and said, I told you not to.

*

It can’t go on like this. There’s the smell of breaking up in the air of the apartment, like the smell of potatoes cooking. Noa puts on her tracksuit after she showers. I stay late in the library just so she’ll be asleep when I get home. Instead of lying in the fork position (she climbs on top of me, puts her head on my chest and slides one leg between mine forming a kind of four-pronged fork), we sleep like inverted parentheses. Our conversation is limited to the bare essentials. She doesn’t tell me any of those little stories from work. I report to her, without comment, that I’ve taken a break from the club. She says, leave me the keys. Buy low-fat cottage cheese. I remind her to turn on the water heater. And we both avoid saying things in the future tense.

How is it that in films there are always crises. And dramas. And everything is concentrated into one weekend on a country estate in southern England where the conflicts are sharpened, then resolved, and finally there’s a moral. But with us, here in the Castel, you can’t put your finger on the minute things started to go wrong because there was no minute like that. Just the slow leaking of tensions from the outside world to us, then from each of us to the other. Just a buzzing that got stronger until now we have to cover our ears with our hands and there’s nothing left to hug with.

Still, when we went looking for the hidden spring this week and walked down the path that was supposed to lead us to it and I took her hand, just like I did on that trip to the Judean desert, and we both smiled because we both remembered that first touch, I felt for a few seconds that we could change everything, that under all that buzzing there was something still beating in both of us and all we had to do was sweep a little of the sand off ourselves, the way sand is brushed off a beautiful, forgotten mosaic, and we’d go right back to talking in bed as if we were dancing, and dancing in the living room as if we were talking. But after an hour of searching, we didn’t find the spring and I didn’t understand how that could be. After all, we’d turned right a little before Hadassah Hospital, just like David told me, and then we drove down a dirt road and took a left at the fork, then parked a hundred metres after it on a small patch of grass. We walked down a path that began across from the grass to the place where the spring was supposed to be.

But there was nothing there. Just dead weeds.

It’s all right, Noa said. It doesn’t matter. But I insisted on finding that fucking spring as if everything depended on it, and I knew I was acting like an idiot but couldn’t stop. So I dragged us back to the car and raced back to the fork in the dirt road, and Noa said, you’re ruining the car. I ignored her and kept driving fast. I turned right instead of left and cursed David, that musical scatterbrain, for not knowing how to give directions. But the right turn didn’t lead us anywhere interesting either, just to a rubbish tip full of bottles, and Noa said, let’s go back to where we were, at least it was pretty there. I said OK in a bitter tone, as if we wouldn’t find the spring because she was so impatient, and drove back to the patch of grass. Noa said, let’s spread the sheet here and have a picnic, and I said, OK, if that’s what you want. She asked me if I’d rather go back and I didn’t answer. We spread the sheet and put stones on it to hold it down. We ate our sandwiches and drank mineral water, then lay down on the sheet to look at the clouds and argued about whether one of them looked like a hippopotamus or a vampire. Then Noa drank from the bottle, pulled my shirt up, filled my bellybutton with cold water and said, you see, here’s the hidden spring. I laughed, because I’d really been so stressed before, since when did I care about things like that, but before the pleasure of that thought could spread through my body, Noa said, let’s take our picture, and I thought, that restlessness of hers is seeping into me. I didn’t have the strength to argue, so I agreed, and she got up and started fiddling with her camera. A few seconds later she said, get up, I can’t get the mountains in the frame if you’re sitting down. I pointed to my bellybutton and said, what about the spring? But she came over, pulled me up and said, hug me, it’s going to shoot the picture. And before I could cover my face with a mask of happiness, we heard the click.

On the way back, she said, it was great to get out of the house, wasn’t it? I said, yes, even though I didn’t think great was the right word. Then she said, we have to do this more often. Go out for a drive, I mean. I tightened my grip on the wheel and said, so where do we feel like going on our next outing? There’s a dam under Beit Zayit, she said, and we could walk around the lake that’s formed there. Lake? Near Jerusalem?! I said doubtfully. A lakelet, she corrected herself. But the truth is, I haven’t seen it myself, she went on. I heard about it. Ah-hah, I said, and felt the two of us giving a silent sigh of relief, because if we don’t really know whether there’s a lake there, then we don’t really have to go. OK, we’ll see, Noa said and turned on the radio. Yes, we’ll see, I agreed, thinking: it can’t go on like this it can’t go on like this it can’t. That smell of cooking potatoes was waiting for us at home, and Noa said, can you smell it too? I said yes, and she said, it must be Sima and her cooking. It doesn’t make sense that she’d be cooking the same thing all week, I said, and Noa said, you’re right, so what’s that smell. I wanted to ask her, don’t you know? That’s the smell of breaking up. I wanted to tell her that I’d already smelt that smell at least once in my life, if not three times, and it had a thick texture, just like now. But instead of talking, I went to have a shower and under the drizzle I remembered how once, in the Sinai desert, I hooked up with a group of enthusiastic architects for one day, and one of them, who was wearing white flared trousers that had the logo of a local newspaper printed on them, explained to me that you can know a lot about a person from the thing that’s most important to him when he builds a house. What, for instance? I asked, throwing the backgammon dice on the board. You tell me, she said and took a puff of her cigarette. What’s the first thing you see when you picture your dream house? A balcony, I said, straight from the gut. A big, wide balcony facing the view. Very good, she said and scooped up the dice. What’s so good? I persisted, what does it say about me? She exhaled smoke so she could answer, but then one of the architects came over and asked her if she wanted to go snorkelling with him before it got completely dark, and she said, yeah, cool, the water’s full of red-sea fish now. She handed me the dice, one after the other, and said, actually, you know the answer yourself, don’t you?

Yes, I do. That’s why I don’t leave now. I’ve headed for the balcony enough times. I’ve convinced myself enough times that there was no point in getting attached because, in the end, you break up. When I was twelve and we were supposed to fly to Detroit for a sabbatical year, I pressed up against a column in the queue at the airport and said I wouldn’t get on the plane. But in the end, my father seduced me into going by buying me a pair of Adidas trainers. I don’t want to leave again. If she wants, let her leave. I’m staying. To the bitter end. The furthest I’m willing to go is to the shower. To the shower over and over again. It’s been a week since we went to the spring, and I don’t think I’ve come out of the shower the whole time. There are lines carved on my fingers. I’m cold. And I’m still under the shower.

She’s knocking on the door.

Once, she used to come in without knocking.

I’m going to Hila’s, she said.

Bye.

I have a treatment.

Enjoy.

Will you be here when I get back? she asks. And for a minute, I’m not sure whether she means in general or specifically.

No, I finally answer. I’m going to David’s. He was all excited when he called yesterday. He said I have to hear their new song and read the lyrics to me on the phone. ‘It’s time you landed, Superman, it’s time … to tell your mother …’ Something like that.

Sounds nice.

I’ll ask him to put it on a CD.

You don’t have to.

It’s not a problem.

Then OK. I have to get going.

Regards to Hila … Shanti … What’s she calling herself these days?

*

I felt as if three hands were moving over my body. Not one. Not two. Hila suddenly had three hands: one was holding the back of my neck, the second was rubbing my forehead and the third was burning in the centre of my stomach, warming my bellybutton and finally making me relax a little. Until that minute, I’d been worried: what did she mean by a combination of massage and Reiki? I’d never heard of anything like that, and what was that phoney opening conversation all about — knees to knees, how am I, how do I feel. Bad, thank you. At Bezalel, they’ve already told me that if I don’t hand in my proposal for the project by the end of the month, I’ve lost the year. My boyfriend is falling apart. He goes from breaking dishes to being weirdly quiet and I’ve already told you that he’s plotting to leave the apartment. My legs are ruined from waitressing so much. The major pain is in my ankles, but it radiates up to my knees, and I have a splitting headache every other day and enough, Hila, you’re probably sorry you asked. Actually I’m not, Hila said in a soft voice, not hers, and went on: and what do you expect from this treatment? The truth? I said without looking her in the eye, I don’t expect anything. You know I’m not a big believer in these things. I only came because we set dates and cancelled so many times before. OK, Noa, she said, elegantly sidestepping my ingratitude, think of this as a gift. If you could ask me for anything, what would you want the most? The thing I’d want the most, I heard myself saying suddenly, is to hear that inner voice of mine again that tells me what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s real and what’s fake, what’s important and what isn’t. There’s so much noise that I can’t hear that voice any more, do you understand? Yes, perfectly, Hila said in a way that made me feel she really did understand, and she added: I don’t know whether one treatment can give you that voice back, but at least we’ll try to get some quiet flowing through you, OK?

OK, I agreed, though I was still a little suspicious because how exactly can you make quiet flow? Hila gestured for me to get on a massage table and asked me to lie on my stomach. I asked her if I could close my eyes and she said, it’s recommended. I wanted to ask her why it was recommended, but I didn’t, I just closed my eyes. She clicked something that sounded like the button of a tape recorder and harmless, circular music filled the room. She came over to me and stood at the edge of the table. I heard her breathing next to me, and when I opened half an eye to peek, I saw that she was rubbing her hands together. Like a fly, I thought, and closed my eyes again so as not to embarrass her. Then she started to touch me, gently, a touch here, a touch there. At first, it made me shrink back because suddenly it felt weird that Hila, who has known me from the time I was born and never touched me, except for those little kisses on the cheek when we meet up and slightly longer hugs when we see each other after long trips, it suddenly felt weird that her hands were moving along my almost naked body, touching places I only let Amir touch, and I thought that maybe I should have gone to someone I don’t know. I thought, what if all this touching gets me excited. Now, for instance, she’s touching my neck and my neck is very sensitive, yes, right there. And what if all of a sudden I feel a pulse between my legs. It could be awkward, very awkward, and confusing, as if I really needed more confusion in my life now. But no, her touches were fluttery, not demanding, not ‘those kind’ of touches, and after all, this was Hila and I could loosen my bum a little, let my tensed buttocks relax, first the right one, then the left. I gradually let go. Loosened up. I took longer, deeper breaths, like Hila asked me to, and I let my eyelids drop. When I started to feel that there were three hands, not two, I said to myself, or more accurately, mumbled to myself, OK, now we really are in the twilight zone and anything goes, and I let myself go completely. I surrendered to the heat flowing from her fingers into my body, flowing from my knees to my elbows, from my thumbs to the top of my head. I almost stopped thinking; I mean, I didn’t have any more coherent thoughts, just vague, general sensations like, for example, that Hila really loves me, that I could tell from every touch how much feeling she had for me. Now turn over, she said. Slowly, from your left shoulder. I rolled over heavily, limb after limb, till I was on my back. Again, I felt slightly exposed, but Hila put her three hands on my forehead, just rested them there and waited for me to start breathing slowly again. Then she moved to my collarbone, which Amir likes so much, and moved along the length of it, deeply under it, removing poisons I didn’t know were there, made them flow out of me through her fingers, then removed them again and made them flow out again. Then she disappeared for a minute, leaving my body alone to enjoy the purification, and came back a second before I could feel abandoned, straight to my lower stomach. She kneaded it lightly, very lightly, and from there, she climbed to that spot between my stomach and my chest where you still can’t feel any bones yet, but you can feel muscles. She pressed it long and hard, and suddenly I was flooded with a wave of clarity as if Hila had pressed a switch that had turned on a light in my chest. I said, that’s good, there, press it again. She did, and I was flooded with whiteness again, and something started to itch inside me, something wanted to burst out of me through that exact spot. Hila kept on pressing there and kneading around that spot, pressing and kneading until she’d removed the thing that had wanted to come out so much, the thing that had waited so long — huge waves of wild laughter that shook my whole body and brought tears to my eyes. I was astonished. It was supposed to be weeping. All the early signs indicated weeping. But I kept on laughing and laughing and laughing, the way I hadn’t laughed in months, the way I hadn’t laughed since I moved in with Amir.

Then I was silent. Small ripples of laughter still shook my body, but Hila calmed them without touching, without speaking. She just put her hands on my chest and it stopped. I was breathing long, peaceful breaths again and she could continue in the direction of my feet. Weird. Every spot she pressed had a sister spot somewhere else on my body. She pressed my heel, and I felt it in the back of my neck. She pressed under my big toe and I felt it in my knee. Even spots in my hand responded. She finished pressing and pulled each one of my toes gently, as if she wanted to dislocate them, but not really. After she’d pulled the little toe on my left foot, she completely stopped touching me and I felt her suddenly far away, suddenly separate from me.

Two thousand years later, a hand touched my arm and her voice, right up against my ear, said, we’re done, Noa, you can keep lying here if you want. Steps moved away towards the bathroom and I pulled the thin sheet over me. I felt it fluttering on me with every breath, and I remembered how, when I was little, I could lie that way for hours on summer evenings, raise the sheet in the air and feel it land on me, very slowly, caressing first my chest, then my legs, then my stomach. Then I’d raise it again. And again feel it land and land on me.

Drink a little. Hila was standing next to me with some water. I took the transparent plastic cup from her, and it was only after I’d taken the first sip that I realised how thirsty I was. She went to get me another cupful, which I also drank quickly. Your treatment really makes a person thirsty, I said, smiling at her. And she said, yes. I sat up and she supported my back and said, easy does it. Your body is very vulnerable now. You shouldn’t make any sudden movements. Thanks, I said. You’re welcome, she said. I meant thank you for everything, I said, touching her elbow. She gave me a big smile, as if the whole time she’d thought I wasn’t enjoying it, and now she was relieved. It was fantastic, I said. And she said, too bad there’s no mirror here. You should see your face now. What about it? I asked, and when I touched my cheek, I could feel how soft and smooth it was. It looks beautiful, Hila said. And laughed. So take my picture, I said, a plan suddenly taking shape in my mind. No, I don’t know how to take pictures, Hila said, suddenly talking in her old voice. There’s nothing to know, I urged her. Just click the button.

I’m looking at that picture now. The first thing that jumps out at me, of course, are the flaws. The little spot on my left cheek. The small mark on the bottom of my right cheek. The black rings under my eyes. That’s how it is with close-ups. They show everything. Still, maybe it’s the forehead that tells the story. Yes. There’s something more serene about the forehead. More open. And the eyebrows, as opposed to almost all the other pictures I have of me, aren’t contracted. There isn’t even one wrinkle in the space between them or above them, in the centre of the forehead. As if Hila and her hands had pulled tight the sheet of my forehead and smoothed out the wrinkles.

After Hila took the picture, she looked at her watch and said, sorry dear, I have someone coming in five minutes. Oh, I said, of course, and I quickly put on all the clothes I’d left on the chair earlier. Shirt, jumper, coat. There were a lot of things I wanted to apologise for. Neglecting our friendship, ridiculing what she did, not taking this appointment seriously and cancelling it three times at the last minute. But I could tell from her eyes that she was in a hurry, so I just said thank you again and hugged her tightly, more tightly than I usually hugged her. Then I backed away slightly, still holding her around the waist, and said, right into her almond eyes, I’m so glad I have you. That you didn’t give up on me. And she laughed, completely relaxed in my arms. Give up on you? Never.

Without really wanting to, I let go of her waist, one hand after the other, and walked towards the door. She said, don’t forget your hat, and handed me my woollen hat. I took it and blew her a kiss. Before I left, I gave a long bye — I don’t think I’ve ever drawn out that short word so much — and went out into the street.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t cold. A light wind tickled the trees of Rehavia, a pleasant sun cast its twilight rays and I suddenly started to skip instead of walk. Two ultra-orthodox men gave me a frightened look of disapproval, but that only made me want to keep skipping. So I skipped down Metudella Street and turned on to Ben-Serok Street. I skipped all the way down the odd-numbered side of Hatibonim Street, shedding my worries as I went. So there have been fewer customers in the café lately, so what. You’d think I was Rothschild before. So I won’t hand in a final project this year, what’ll happen? Will the world come to an end? No. I’ll hand it in next year. I skipped a bit more and remembered Forrest Gump, who starts running one day without knowing where. At first, he runs alone, and then all kinds of admirers start running with him until gradually there is a whole cult of people running behind him through the streets of America. We’ll start a movement like that here, but of skippers, I thought, skipping toward Aza Street, and we’ll tie it in with some kind of important cause. Let’s say, ‘Skipping for Peace’. Yes, ‘Skipping for Peace’ is good. Jews and Arabs skipping together along the green line, demanding that their leaders skip the unnecessary killing and go straight to peace.

When I saw the bus stop in the distance, I started walking normally. I’d got a bit cold, maybe because the sun had disappeared and maybe because, after all, this was Jerusalem. And it always gets cold here in the end.

I sat down on the bench. An old woman with a colourful little girl’s hairband holding her grey hair was sitting on my left. On my right was a man who looked like a watchmaker. But I wasn’t really focused on them. I was looking inward. My thoughts were relaxed and clear, like they are after a good after-lunch nap. As if, along with the wrinkles on my forehead, Hila had removed the wrinkles in my soul and now I could see clearly the things I’d been hiding from myself for the last few months.

By the time the bus came, I’d outlined out for myself what I wanted to do.

During the ride on the bus, I added the small details — when, how, for how long.

And when I reached the apartment, I took down my travelling bag and started packing.

*

A bus winds its way down Sha’ar HaGai.

On the sides of the road, spring dances.

Rusted tanks on purple expanses.

The dead on the living.

Election signs

scream candidates’ names on high.

A bus

is

winding

its

way

down

Sha’ar

HaGai.

That’s Noa inside

unravelling the knot,

Thinking, it’s worth a shot.

Chorus

You can make a mistake, man

Leave something undone

Not finish something you’ve begun

Do only what you can

You can cry, man

Be full of regret

Make promises to yourself

And then forget

It’s time to land

Superman

Time to tell your mama

That you’re not the next Messiah.

You can make a mistake, man

Make a wrong move

There’s nothing to prove

You can get close, man

Go all the way

without being afraid

Of being betrayed

There’s a woman out there

Somewhere

Just waiting for you to appear.

She’ll open her arms,

She’ll open her heart

And you’ll go to her without fear.

It’s time to land

Superman

Time to tell your mama

That you’re not the next Messiah.

Music and lyrics: David Batsri

From the Licorice album, Love As I Explained it to My Wife

Produced independently, 1996