Homesick

5

WHERE’S NOA? YOTAM sailed through the rooms as if Noa were a tennis ball you’ll find in the end if you look hard enough.

I already told you, she went to Tel Aviv.

But I thought she was only going for a short time.

She went for a long time.

How long?

I don’t know, Yotam. Why are you being such a pest?

Because it was nicer when she was here. And anyway, I saw something on the way home from school today and thought that maybe she’d want to take a picture of it.

What did you see?

Two Ethiopians from the new immigrant centre painted their faces white and were standing at the entrance to the shopping centre.

With signs, like at a demonstration?

Without signs.

That really is the kind of thing Noa looks for.

So you’ll tell her? Maybe they’ll be standing there tomorrow.

I promised him I’d tell her. What could I say? That Noa and I weren’t talking? That I had no idea where she was?

So why’d she go? Yotam kept interrogating me.

Because sometimes people need to go away, I said, in the hope that would satisfy him.

Yes, but why? Yotam persisted. That boy is growing up right in front of my eyes, I thought. And sometimes it’s a pain.

Look, I said, trying to explain, it’s like when you sit down to do your homework — I know you haven’t done that in a while, but try to remember — first you’re concentrating and all the answers flow right out of your head into the notebook. But after a while, you get tired and bored, and you start making spelling mistakes, and all of a sudden you see that you’ve skipped a whole question. So then you know that you have to take a break for a few minutes, to get recharged.

So Noa was bored with you?

Not exactly.

So I don’t get it.

Maybe that wasn’t such a good example, Yotam. Never mind. Star Trek is starting in another two minutes. Do you want to watch it or do you want to keep on asking me annoying questions?

Yotam took the remote control and turned on the TV. I leaned back in relief. It’s hard to explain to someone else something you don’t fully understand yourself. Good, for at least the next hour, till the programme’s over, he won’t bother me any more. I’ve had enough questions thrown at me over the last few days. Everyone who’s heard that Noa left has been asking questions and I don’t have the patience for even one more.

Tell me, Yotam said when the theme song started, how come we never watched this together till now? Before I could answer, he answered himself: I know! Because every Thursday you go to that club for half-crazy people. What happened? Don’t you go there any more?

No.

Why?

*

Less than fifty kilometres, and I feel like I’ve travelled to another country. Even the light here is completely different. In Jerusalem, the light is glaring and white, and it makes your eyes burn. Here the light is muddy, always mixed with something else. From Aunt Ruthie’s apartment — she’s my grandmother’s sister — you can’t see the sea. Or the treetops. Just other people’s lives showing through their windows, so close to me that I can almost touch them. ‘Tel Aviv — Take a Peep.’ That’s how they should advertise this city in the world and give every tourist who comes here a pair of small binoculars as a gift. From the bedroom window, for example, you can see what’s cooking in the kitchen of the couple in the next-door building. At two in the morning, he sneaks into the kitchen and takes some hummus and pitta out of the freezer. Then she gets up and goes into the kitchen in her pyjamas, her hair a mess, and puts it all back before he has a chance to binge. She washes dishes in the evening. Standing behind her, he puts his hands under her shirt and holds her breasts. She shakes him off. Or gets into it, depending on her mood. Once, at lunchtime, I saw her in the same kitchen with a different man who was too old for her. He dipped his finger in some ice-cream and held it out to her, and she licked it. It was repulsive, but I couldn’t stop staring at them. And I look at the balcony that you can see from the study. There are three old brown armchairs on it. One of them is torn. In Jerusalem, no one dares expose their ears to the cold yet, but here, the evenings are pleasant and the three guys who live in that apartment sometimes go out there to smoke. The sweetish smell reaches all the way over to me. They puff away and laugh with dry throats, but there’s something sad about them. As if they’d dreamed their whole life of the day they could sit like that, on a balcony in Tel Aviv, and smoke together, and they said to themselves, we’ll be happy then, but now they’re slowly finding out that they’re not. Definitely not. Hi, you, one of them called out to me last night, what’s with that camera?! Click away, we’re living it up here, his friend said, getting up and leaning on the railing. A tanned chest gleamed in the moonlight. I stayed hidden behind the camera. Now the other two joined him and leaned forward towards me. Muscles, earrings, beards, muscles, earrings, a buckle. Hi, photographer, the buckle said, you’re invited to join us. His tone was actually friendly. And also his choice of words: ‘you’re invited’ instead of ‘ya’allah come on over’. I shook my head. A slow, hesitant movement. Third floor on the right, he yelled. On the left, you idiot, the one without a shirt corrected him. On the left! he yelled again, as if he wanted to be the one to give me the information. This isn’t what you came here for, Noa, I reminded myself and waved goodbye to them like a movie star leaving her fans, and disappeared into the protected space of the apartment.

Since I arrived here, I hardly go out. Just to the shop in the morning to buy a roll and chocolate milk, and in the evening, to the avenue to stroll with the dog owners (and I always have strange thoughts while I’m walking down the avenue: today, for instance, I thought that sometimes our past keeps us on a leash and sometimes it sets us free).

I spend most of the day in the refuge of the apartment (what a nice word refuge is, Amir would say now). Aunt Ruthie hadn’t been in any condition to take anything with her to the hospital. Everything stayed here. Her library is still overflowing with its unique blend of books: slim volumes of poetry, small comic books and paperback romance novels. On the cabinet in the study there’s still a picture of her father when he was young. He was so handsome, she always used to say, touching the plastic frame with the tip of her finger. I always agreed with her, even when I’d grown up and knew she was exaggerating. Her paintings hung on the walls of the bedroom, the living room and the workroom, and there was a slip of paper next to each one with the name of the painting on it, just like in a gallery. Here’s ‘Self-Portrait’, a painting of a woman who doesn’t resemble Aunt Ruthie in the slightest. Once, I thought it was strange to paint someone else and call it ‘Self-Portrait’. Hanging on the right is ‘Family Tree’, whose branches scream to the heavens like the arms of someone being taken out to be executed in the Holocaust. On the opposite wall is my portrait, and next to it a sign that says ‘Girl’. I remember how she sat me down on a chair and told me not to move, and when I started to get bored and complained that my bottom hurt, she said, just a little bit more, Noa’le, and promised that ‘after we finish, we’ll go to Dizengoff and buy you a double chocolate ice-cream.’

From the first time my parents dumped me at her place, a line stretched directly between us that skipped over two stopping points: my grandmother and my mother. We used to play girls’ games together and buy clothes on Dizengoff and come home and paste collages all night — cutting from magazines and pieces of clothes. All my parents’ strict rules — you have to go to sleep at ten, you can’t watch Dallas, you can’t listen to music with the volume turned up — all those rules were cancelled for a day or two, on the condition, of course, that I didn’t tell (she was scared to death of my mother).

She was the only one, except for my father, my mother and Yoav, who knew about the stomach pumping — I told her, even though my parents wanted to hide it from her too — and she was the one who sent me to paint. I started that way too, she said, and the shadow that passed across her eyes made it clear what she meant when she said ‘that way’.

We continued meeting at her place for coffee and chocolate-filled biscuits until I went into the army. Then, I only left the base every two weeks, and spent the little time I had sleeping, eating, going dancing, sleeping, eating, going dancing. Call Aunt Ruthie, my mother would say. She has no children, you know. And she always asks about you. OK, I’d say, I’ll call right now. And I really meant to, but something always came up, a guy, a party, and I never got around to it. Aunt Ruthie swallowed her pride and kept sending parcels of chocolate and biscuits and poems by Dalia Rabikovitch to me at the base. I’d promise myself I’d write to her, or at least call her to say thank you, but I didn’t do that either, and right after I was discharged, I went off on my big trip. I promised to stop off and see her on my way to the travel shop, but I didn’t. When I came back home, I had to find an apartment in Jerusalem quickly because I was starting Bezalel right away. I know those were all excuses. The truth is that I just forgot her. I pushed her to the edges of my feelings and made do with the vague knowledge that she’d be there for me if I needed help. Until one evening, two years ago, when my mother called and said that she didn’t know whether I still cared, but Aunt Ruthie was in the hospital, unconscious, after she fell in the middle of the street and hit her head. I went straight to Tel Aviv. I dropped everything and went, but it was too late to talk to her, too late to tell her anything or say I was sorry. All I could do was sit next to her and hold her hand.

We don’t know what to do with her apartment, my mother said a week ago when we’d reached the twilight of one of our conversations.

Why? I asked, drawn back to the phone after my thoughts had wandered to another place. We would have rented it out, my mother said, but we’re not sure she won’t suddenly wake up. The doctors say that the chances are very slim, but it’s happened before. So where will she go back to? On the other hand, every day that passes, she’s losing rent money. And we need every shekel now, for the hospital.

So what will you do? I asked.

I don’t know, my mother said with a sigh. Maybe we’ll wait another few months.

I think you should, I encouraged her. And pictured Aunt Ruthie’s apartment standing empty and the woman in the self-portrait looking at the girl, who’s me, and asking, so, how long will we be here alone?

After the session with Hila, when everything opened up, the idea flashed through my mind: that’s where I’ll run away to. I called my mother right away and asked. She started stammering, look, I don’t know, and I cut in and said I think it would’ve made Aunt Ruthie very happy, and she said, but what’ll happen if she wakes up? If she wakes up, I said, I’ll be out of there in half an hour. Besides, she’s been asleep for a year and a half already, so why should she wake up now, of all times? Come on, Mum, it’s only for two weeks. But Amir’s such a nice boy, she said, and that pissed me off, so I said, that’s not the point, Mum. Either you want to help me or you don’t. I don’t understand, she said. Why don’t you come here? Stop it, Mum, I said. Why do you always have to be so difficult?

I told Amir that I was going to Tel Aviv for three weeks, and he asked, where will you stay? At a neutral location, I said. But he kept on, and asked, don’t you want to at least leave me a phone number? I told him the truth: there’s no line. He gave me a crooked smile and asked, so we’re having a ‘trial separation’? No, I explained, we’re taking a break, and you need one too, don’t you? He sat down on the sofa under the picture of the sad man and said, yes, the truth is that I do. And suddenly, even though I was the one who wanted to get away from him, that hurt. He needs a break too? And what if he doesn’t wait three weeks for me? All those psychology girls are just waiting for him to be available. And they’re pretty. And smart. I almost put my rucksack down on the floor, but then he started to talk. I thought we should get some air too, he said, but you know, with me, all this separation business is complicated. I never know whether leaving is just a habit with me, he said, or whether I really need to go. So you’re telling me to go? I asked, a lump already forming in my throat. No, he said, pointing to my packed bag, you’re the one who’s going. What difference does it make, really, I said, suddenly sick of all the tension. What difference does it make, I said again, putting the bag on my back and turning to go. So we’ll see each other in three weeks? he asked, and his voice broke a little. Probably, I said, enjoying planting this final doubt in him, and left.

I’ve been here ever since. In moments of weakness, I take out my picture albums and look at them. I look at the picture of him and David at the Licorice concert. At the picture of us on that first trip to the Judean desert, staring at everyone else with the exact same expression on our faces. At the picture of him hanging the sign on our door in the Castel, which suddenly looked fake, too formal. At the picture of that day at Sataf. We argued a little afterwards and I thought then that it was a terrible fight.

Every time I see his laughing eyes, that ridiculous crest of hair, the invisible line that goes from his shoulders to his arms and his waist, every time I see those things, I want to run to the nearest payphone and hear his voice, tell him I want to change my mind and ask if I can come.

But then I remind myself of how much poison there’d been between us these last few months, and I remind myself of the night he broke the plates, and I remind myself that from the minute I moved in with him, I haven’t been able to create anything, so I hide the album far, far back behind the encyclopaedias.

*

Bro,

I hope you’re reading this letter alone, with nobody around. I hope you’re reading it in the dark, with just a small lamp on so only you can see the words, because I’m about to tell you the biggest secret in the world, a secret that millions of travellers have sworn never to reveal, even if there’s a gun pointed at their groin, a secret more jealously guarded than the Coca-Cola formula, a secret that could have stayed hidden for a lot more years if I, the Vanunu of travellers, hadn’t decided it was time to take off the mask, tear open the cover, crack the safe and tell you, only you, the shameful truth that everyone tries so hard to hide: that when you come back to Israel and develop the pictures and sit down to show your poor friends the albums, everything suddenly becomes ‘fantastic’, ‘great’, then ‘fantastic’ again, and it’s hard to pick only one of the countries to recommend because each has its own special beauty, and it’s hard to say which one has the nicest people, because they were all so nice (excuse me: fantastic), and even that time in the market when they stole your travel belt with your passport and all your money in it was actually an experience, and even when the train was derailed in the middle of a trip, that was an experience too, and really, from the distance of a week or two, everything melts into one big lump, like rice cooked with too much water, and you can’t separate the grains any more. But the naked truth is that there are also scary moments on these trips, and shitty moments and lonely moments. And the worst thing is the goodbyes. No one talks about that, but a long trip is just a collection of goodbyes. From the minute you get on the first plane, you start meeting people and you get connected to them fast and deep, because it’s a trip. You talk to them about your family and your ex-girlfriend even though you met them half an hour ago, and there’s a kind of magic in the air. But the minute the plane lands, you split. They planned to meet their friends at one hostel and you’re supposed to meet some girl at another, so in the meantime you exchange your home addresses and phone numbers and promise to meet up with them during the trip. Then poof, you never see them again, and the truth is that at first it doesn’t bother you. Just the opposite. You find the girl you arranged to meet at the hostel and she introduces you to the people she’s been travelling with for two days. Naturally, they’re her best friends. And you like them too. They’ll be going back home in a week, but that doesn’t bother you. You get the scene, you’re into it, you know that after they leave, someone else will come. And sure enough, a minute after you help them load their bags into the taxi that’s taking them to the airport, you meet a guy from Argentina in the lobby of the hostel. After a five-minute conversation, it turns out that he’s your spiritual twin. He also started studying economics, he also gave up after the first year at Buenos Aires university, his girlfriend also dumped him a month before the trip, and he’s also sure that Zorba the Greek is the best book he ever read. You travel together for two weeks or so, and it also turns out that you have the same taste in girls, the same uncontrollable lust for pork chops, and the same preference for hostels located far from the centre of the city. But a second before you start hearing the music from The Double Life of Veronique in the background, he tells you that he wants to go straight to Colombia, and Colombia is definitely not your scene now. So what’s the big deal. He’ll do Colombia later or you’ll do it now. After all, it isn’t every day that you meet your spiritual twin. But no dice. That’s how it is on trips. The goodbyes come fast and easy, and when you pack your bag at four in the morning so you can catch the bus that’ll take you to the border with Peru, he doesn’t even get up to say goodbye. He just opens one eye and reminds you to leave the key to the room on the table, and you say, no problem. A shadow falls for a minute, but really only for a minute, because on the bus you meet two Peruvian chiquitas who tell you about the fiesta in their village, which doesn’t appear in any tour guide but is a must, and in a last ditch effort to persuade you to come, they offer to put you up at their house. You ask if that won’t make their father mad, and they laugh and say no, don’t be silly. Our family loves guests. By the end of the trip, you’ve almost forgotten that Argentinian guy and get swept up by the giggling of Isabella and Felicia. When the fiesta — as colourful and wild as they promised — is over, you travel around with them for a while and sleep with both of them so as not to insult either one, and in the morning, even though the sex was nice (details in another letter), you’re already feeling that itch at the base of your spine to go, to move on, to devour another place, another woman, and so it goes for three or four months. You feel like you’re floating from one person to another, one city to another, and the goodbyes don’t leave a scratch on you, they’re not even recorded in the minutes. But you’re wrong, you’re wrong big time. And when do you find that out? When you’ve said goodbye to a girl who’s been with you enough time, a girl you’ve really let into your heart. Suddenly all the goodbyes you’ve laundered come back to collect sadness-added-tax and you sit in the room you shared with her, which is yours alone now, and look out the window at the church and the square in front of it that’s full of poor kids selling broken lighters, and suddenly you’re tired, tired of everything.

If you still don’t get it, Nina left yesterday. Her money ran out. I poured everything out of my wallet on to our bed, made two piles of all the dollars and travellers’ cheques and said: tuyo (yours, in Spanish. We’d started stammering in that language, which we both hardly knew, but at least we both hardly knew it). No, she said and put it all back into one pile. Why not? I yelled in Hebrew, and she just shrugged her shoulders and kept on saying no, no, no possible. I got down on my knees. I put my palms together and begged. I pretended to be insulted. Crazy. Nothing helped. That stupid Czech pride of hers wouldn’t let her take money from me. For them, she told me with her hands, a girl who takes money from a man is a whore. What whore, who’s a whore, I said, getting upset and pounding on my chest. Don’t you see that I totally love you? And if I understood the Czech she spoke, she said, I love you too, and gave me a long hug. She hugged me and stroked me the whole night, even in her sleep. But in the morning, when I asked her if she’d changed her mind, that ‘no possible’ was even firmer than before, as if in the meanwhile she’d danced a tango with the possibility and rejected it once and for all.

So last night, I walked her to the bus stop. What else could I do? Aside from us, there were mainly peasants and chickens waiting for the bus. They travel to the big city at night, spread their mats on the ground and sleep in the main square to grab a space for market day. There was an unbearable smell of chickens in the air and grey feathers were scattered on the filthy ground. I crowed a little for Nina in a final effort to get her to change her mind, but she didn’t even laugh. At eleven on the dot — all the buses on this trip were always very late, and hers had to come on time? — she climbed up to the roof to check that they were tying her backpack down tightly, then came down to me for a last hug. She handed me the Dvorak disc, the one she played for me on our first date, and said, tuyo. I refused to take it. Are you joking? I know how much you love it, I said, but she kept her lips clenched till I gave in. I didn’t have anything to give her, except for a long letter in Hebrew — I hoped she’d find someone in the Jewish quarter of Prague who could translate it for her — and a kiss.

At eleven-fifteen, she wasn’t waving to me from the window any more. I trudged back to the hostel. I was wiped out, as if I’d just finished the Eilat triathlon, and when I got back to the room, I fell on the bed and stared at the broken ceiling fan and had depressing thoughts, such as: love is like a cinema. The lobby is fancy, decorated with select posters from the film. But you leave the place through a twisting, urine-soaked corridor with dented walls and there’s always some idiot usher who opens the door a few minutes before the end and you always try to ignore the invading light.

Enough of these thoughts, I told myself off before I fell asleep. The day after tomorrow’s a new day.

But I didn’t have strength for anything today either. There’s a hot-water waterfall an hour-and-a-half walk from the village. I didn’t go. Your letter is probably waiting for me at the embassy, an hour away by bus. I didn’t go. And now I don’t know what’s happening with you and Noa. And I have no idea whether you made those crazies normal or they made you crazy. Even though I’m really curious about it. Really. But try to understand, bro. I could barely drag myself out to eat lunch. And even then, I didn’t touch the meat and I only ate the guacamole. Would you believe that I ignored a steak that was sitting on my plate? Even worse. A French babe who was sitting at the table next to the wall kept showing me her dimples through the whole meal and I didn’t go over to her. I didn’t even smile back at her. I got up and started back to the hostel. All the people in the street looked like hostile, dangerous liars, so I walked faster and when I got to the room I lay down on the bed, even though I’d only got out of it an hour before, and suddenly started thinking about my family. It’s been months since I invested even a minute in missing them, and all of a sudden I pictured all of them sitting down to eat supper without me, and I wanted to be there. To eat aubergine salad and potato salad with mayonnaise. To have those stupid fights with my mother. To laugh at my father’s unfunny jokes. To take the dishes off the table after the meal and load the dishwasher.

And later, at night, I heard some music coming from the party in the bar downstairs. It was a song we used to like to dance to, ‘Come on Eileen’ by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. My knee started bouncing to the rhythm, but that was all. I didn’t feel like going down to dance. Why meet other people? So I could say goodbye to them two days later?

How does that Caveret song go: ‘It might be over’? It might be. Or I might get up tomorrow morning and the sun will rise in my chest again.

Whatever happens, I’ll fill you in so you know when to book a court for us. I can’t wait to beat the pants off you.

Modi.

*

When I woke up on Saturday, I saw from the rectangles of light on the wall of my room that the sun was out. The sun! I opened the blinds and all the broken glass in the empty lot sparkled at me. The wind coming into the room was cold but nice. ‘Great weather for football,’ like they say on that radio programme, Soccer and Songs. And for taking a drive. Before Gidi died, we used to take a lot of car trips, mostly with the Lundys, to the Carmel, the Galilee, to all kinds of creeks whose names I don’t remember. We get up early. Dad sits in the living room with the map on his lap and plans our route, Mum makes sandwiches in the kitchen and I fill empty Coke bottles with water and then help her wrap the sandwiches in foil. And always, a few minutes before we have to leave, the Lundys call to say they’ll be a bit late and Dad sighs and says, as if we didn’t know. And Mum says, I don’t understand. Why can’t we just plan to leave a little later? But when we meet them at the Sha’ar HaGai petrol station, no one mentions that they were late. They all hug and kiss each other. My father and Ami, who was under his command in the army, and my mother and Nitza. Then Dad switches to Nitza and Mum to Ami. Only Shira Lundy and I stand far away from each other. For the first few seconds, we don’t have the courage to talk. She plays with her curls and I look at my shoes and neither one of us is brave enough to say hello. Then my mother says — she always says the exact same thing — Yotam, you know Shira, don’t you? And Nitza laughs and says, Nechama, why are you embarrassing the children? Then my father says, let’s go girls, we have no time for this. We have a long drive ahead of us today. We all get into our cars, fill the tanks and start driving. Every few minutes, Dad asks, do you see them? Do you see them? And Mum says, yes, they’re right behind us, and goes back to humming along with the song that’s on the radio. Sometimes Dad hums with her and they sing together, he with a deep voice that tries to sound like the singer and she with a mother’s voice. He puts his hand on her thigh and strokes it and in the back seat, I try to find the best position for my legs and look out the window at the signs on the road that are full of the names of places I’ve never been to, like Elyakhin and Eliashiv, which always come one right after the other. Or Caesaria and Binyamina, which Dad always says are worth stopping at when we have a chance. But that chance never comes, and when the scenery changes and hills start popping up, Mum asks me what kind of sandwich I want, and I say, what kind do you have? She looks at me and says, cheese, pastrami with hummus and pastrami without hummus. I pick one and peel away the foil, thinking that soon we’ll get to the place where we start walking, and then I’ll see Shira Lundy again. That gives me a kind of scary but nice feeling in my stomach that makes me lose my appetite a little. But I eat anyway, so Mum won’t say that she doesn’t understand why she bothers to make sandwiches if I’m not going to eat.

The sun outside my room was so dazzling that I thought I might be able to convince my mother and father to go out for a drive, even though we’re supposed to be sad. Maybe they saw the sun too and remembered the Lundys. But when I saw what my mother was doing in the living room, I lost my confidence. She was sitting under the big picture of Gidi, next to Gidi’s memorial candle, browsing through Gidi’s yearbook. There was a box of tissues next to her with one tissue sticking up out of it. But I took a deep breath and asked her if she felt like going out for a drive because it was so nice outside, and without looking up from the yearbook, she said, I don’t know, ask your father. So I went and asked my father, who was lying in their bed reading the weekend papers and smoking a cigarette. He mumbled, I don’t know, ask your mother. I coughed loudly to remind him that I hate it when he smokes and said, I already asked her. He looked up from the paper and said, Yotam, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not really in the mood for trips and I don’t think I have to explain why. I wanted to tell him that he really didn’t have to explain, that they weren’t the only ones who missed Gidi, I missed him too. But I didn’t know how to say it, the words didn’t come together into a sentence in my mouth, so I didn’t say anything. He put the cigarette out in the ashtray on the nightstand and didn’t say anything either. Then he went back to the paper. I coughed harder so he’d look up, but it didn’t help, so I left without saying anything. I pulled a shirt out of the huge mountain of dirty laundry — Mum never has the strength to do laundry — and went out. Mum yelled after me, Yotam, where are you going? But I didn’t answer. If she wants to know, let her get up from the sofa. I put a few more stones on Gidi’s monument — I keep adding stones, but for some reason, it stays the same height — and talked to him. I told him that I miss him terribly and that I’m sorry that on the last Saturday he was home before it happened, I interrupted his phone conversation with a girl from his base, and I hope he forgives me, and if he does, if he forgives me, would he please tell Mum and Dad, give them a sign from heaven that he doesn’t care if we go out on car trips, that he goes on trips up there and there’s no reason we have to stay at home all the time. I felt a bit weird talking to stones, like one of those half-crazies in Amir’s club, but when I finished, I waited for an answer anyway, for a stone that would fall and give me a sign that Gidi heard. No stone fell. So I left and went to knock at Amir’s door. But no one answered there either, even though I thought I heard noises inside. I could’ve taken the key out from under the plant, opened the door and checked. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to go out walking, that’s what I wanted. And no one wanted to come with me. OK, I’ll go alone, I said to myself. I walked down the tile path, crossed the street, and went past Madmoni’s house, which was starting to look like a real house, except without doors. I went down on the path to the wadi. Bushes with thorns scratched me, but I didn’t care. I was thirsty, but ignored it. I kept going down, down, down. I kicked small stones and sang to myself, I’m hiking, I’m hiking, I don’t need anyone, I’m hiking. I passed the big tree, the one I once built a wooden house in. And I passed the rock that Gidi once told me was the border and that we couldn’t walk past it. I kept walking and walking till I couldn’t see the houses of the neighbourhood any more, and after a while, the path ended too. There was a big bush and no path behind it, as if it had got tired, and that confused me a bit, because till then, I had at least known where I was going and all of a sudden I was standing there, in the middle of the wadi, and I had no idea what to do. When that happens on a trip with the family, my father takes a map out of his pocket, looks at it for a while and then decides, ‘to the right’ or ‘from here, we follow the red markings’, but I didn’t have a map, and even if I had, I wouldn’t know how to read it because whenever Dad used to say, come here Yotam, look at the map with me so you can learn how to navigate, I’d lean over the map, put a serious expression on my face and think about other things.

And then I saw a small house.

At first, I thought I was seeing things because it was very hot and Mum once told me that if you don’t drink enough water when you’re out walking, you start seeing things. I took a few steps toward the house and after a few metres it really did disappear. I didn’t see it at all. But I kept walking and there it was again. Then a whole bunch of trees hid it. But when I walked further down, I saw its walls made of dirty old stones, and its small, low door, and that gave me the courage to keep walking through the bushes and the rocks until I reached it.

Only when I was standing very close did I see that not only did the house not have a door, but it didn’t have a roof either. Probably no one’s lived here for years, I thought. And went inside.

*

Saddiq goes out to pee. Raises the side of the tent, bends over and squints so he can see. It’s very cold now. The wind starts to howl. Walking over to a bush, he stumbles on a rock and his face sets in a scowl. Laughter comes from the guard tower. A huge projector lights hill after hill. If he runs, he thinks as he opens his fly, if he runs now and climbs the fence, the guards will shoot him. He’ll fall. And it’ll all be over, once and for all. No more humiliation. No more desperation. No more of that longing that fills his throat with a burning sensation. His whole body begins to shake. He remembers when he and his brother used to go out to pee in the winter, so cold that their bodies would ache. He zips up and once again, his eyes move to the fence. Maybe I’ll climb it tomorrow, he says to himself. No. Doing it now doesn’t make any sense. Maybe in another two weeks, or three, when Mustafa A’alem finishes teaching me. Then I’ll take off and be free.

He walks back into the tent, lies down on his bed. His back hurts. The hunger in his heart makes him want to scream. But still, he sinks deeply into a dream.

Sometimes, when he wakes up in the morning, he reaches for his wife, thinking for one sweet, wonderful moment that he’s back in his old life.

*

Is Yotam here?

His mother was standing at the door with a ‘please-say-yes’ expression on her face.

No. He’s not at home?

He wanted us to go on a family outing today and … we couldn’t. I was sure he came here.

No, I said, and was filled with shame. I knew that it was him knocking on the door and I didn’t open it.

Where else could he be? Yotam’s mother asked, looking at me with forlorn eyes.

Let’s think, I said in an authoritative voice, and kept on kicking myself for not having opened the door. Maybe he went to a friend’s house?

He hasn’t been playing with other boys since … since it happened. I tried the houses of two kids who used to be his friends, but he wasn’t there.

If it was a weekday, I thought out loud, I’d try the arcade at the shopping centre. But it’s five o’clock now. The shops don’t open till seven on Saturdays.

That’s right, she said, and suddenly collapsed. Her knees buckled and she lost her balance. At the last minute, she grabbed my arm so she wouldn’t fall.

Come inside, drink some water. It’s very hot outside. I supported her until we got to the sofa in the living room. She sat down in silence and I went to the kitchen and came back with a glass of cold water and a napkin.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, she said, wiping her face with the napkin. Enough, it’s enough. It’s too much. Reuven says he’s not worried, Yotam went out for a few hours to make us angry because we didn’t want to take him for a drive. But how can we? Our feet are so heavy, and all the places we could go to — the Galilee, the Golan — we went to with Gidi, so how can we?

Yes, I said, nodding, and remembered: just yesterday I didn’t buy anything at Angel’s because it was strange that Noa wasn’t with me. And then I thought: how can you compare?

She looked at her watch and said, I feel like something bad could happen to him. When Gidi went to Lebanon that last time, I also felt in my body that it was dangerous. I told him that when we were standing at the door on Sunday morning, but he laughed at me. He said, Mum, you thought the training course was dangerous too, and when we went down to the territories, you thought it was dangerous. So it must be that your worrying keeps me safe.

I could actually imagine it — the woman sitting next to me and the boy in the huge picture hanging in her living room facing each other for a second before what they couldn’t know would be their last hug. She’s wringing her hands, he’s shifting the straps of his backpack to get the blood circulating in his arms again.

I won’t survive it, she said, getting up from the sofa abruptly, as if the very fact of sitting seemed irresponsible to her. I won’t survive another one.

OK, I said, getting up too. Let’s get a few neighbours and start looking for him.

*

Inside, there were two rusty cans, a pile of coals and a smell, like someone had done a poo. And there was a mattress that looked new and a long shirt that only had one sleeve. It’s really kind of nice here, I thought. There’s no fridge or TV, but there aren’t any gigantic pictures of someone who’s dead or memorial candles with a smell that makes you feel sick and parents who don’t talk to each other. And not having a roof isn’t so bad either. Winter’s over already and it won’t rain any more. So who needs a roof? Just the opposite. A house without a roof is cool, like the car David’s brother has with the convertible top, the one we once rode in to a class party. You can sleep on the mattress at night and see all the stars, the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper, and the Milky Way that has no milk. Yes, I said out loud so it would be harder to change my mind later, I’ll stay here until night-time. And if it’s nice, maybe I’ll stay here for ever. No one cares anyway. They even forgot my birthday. I could disappear for a year now and they wouldn’t notice. Just the opposite. They’d be glad. That way they wouldn’t have to talk about my problems at school and they could keep on being angry with each other. They probably think I’m at Amir’s place. But he doesn’t care about me any more either. He doesn’t care about anything since Noa left. And he won’t even tell me why she left. Every time I ask him, he makes up some stupid reason, like I’m a little kid who’ll believe anything he says, like we’re not friends. I’m sure he was home today when I knocked on the door. I’m positive. He was probably reading one of those fat books of his and couldn’t be bothered to get up. Noa probably won’t come back and he’ll move out of the apartment soon and I won’t have anyone to play chess with.

That’s it. I decided. I’m going to live here. I lay down on the mattress and looked at the sky, waiting for the stars to come out.

*

I never saw anything like it in my life. Half an hour after the minute I knocked on Sima and Moshe’s door, the whole neighbourhood was outside. Children on skateboards, old men on their way back from the synagogue, Beitar fans on their way to a game — they all streamed to Yotam’s house. His father was standing on the steps leading the operation. Contrary to what his wife claimed, he didn’t look calm at all. Maybe he’d just been trying to calm her before, and maybe the presence of all those people had roused him. I don’t know. In any case, he was awake and alert, and he divided the people up into search parties. He sent Sima and me to search the area leading out of the neighbourhood, where the shops that sell building materials are. Where’s Moshe? I asked her. He stayed with Lilach and Liron, she said and started walking. Isn’t it amazing, I said, trying to keep up with her fast pace, how everyone came to help? Yes, she said. You probably don’t know that the people here are divided up into a few clans, depending on what part of Kurdistan their family came from. There are Dahuks, Amadis and Zakus, and each one thinks they’re better than the others. They’re at each other’s throats all year long, but when something like this happens, they put all that aside and come to help.

Dahuks? Amadis? What is she talking about? I’ve been here six months, I thought, and I still don’t understand anything.

We were getting closer to the outskirts of town. From a distance, we could see the search party that had been sent to Doga’s to check out the cage of boxes.

But the thing is, Sima said, following them with her eyes, that even when the pressure’s at its worst, they never forget who’s one of them and who isn’t. I’ve been living here for six years, and they still consider me an outsider. Without even thinking about it, they sent me out to look with the only person here who’s more of an outsider than I am. You.

I’m sorry … I started to say.

You have nothing to be sorry about, Sima interrupted. And besides, I kind of like being with you.

She touched my arm lightly when she said that, and immediately moved away, as if she’d scared herself.

You know, I said quickly, before she could break away completely, Yotam knocked on my door.

When, today?! she said, and stopped in front of Shlomo & Sons, Building Materials, and turned to me.

I could have lied. I’d left myself an escape hatch by not saying when. But I wanted to confess and expose my back to the lashes of the whip. Her whip.

Yes, I said. Around three. After he left his house and before he disappeared. I didn’t open the door to him. I always do, no matter when he knocks. But this time, I don’t know. I pulled the blanket over myself in bed and didn’t move until I heard him walking away. You’re the first person I’m telling this to. I’m so ashamed of myself. If I’d opened the door, he wouldn’t have run away. I would’ve played a little chess with him, calmed him down … We talk, you know. I love that kid, I really love him. I should have opened the door.

What’s done is done, Sima said, and her voice had no anger in it. Let’s start looking. I don’t think he’s here, but look over there, behind the parking lot.

*

Yotam’s mother circles the shops on the ground floor. She’s already done it twice with her friends, but feels the need to do it once more. Her eyes dart all over the place, searching for her son, and in her heart, she’s making deals with God. If you give him back in one piece, I promise to be a better person in every way. To light candles on Friday night. To recite psalms every day. OK, answers the God in her heart, I’ll consider it. But a minute before their imaginary handshake, she gets angry and cancels the deal. Consider it?! she yells, out loud now — the hell with you. You already took my older son, now you’re considering taking the younger one too!!

Enough, Nechama, her friends say, people are staring. They put their arms around her protectively. Let them stare, she says, I’m past caring. None of them knows how I feel. You’re right, her friends say, but we should go, they say, trying one more appeal. Maybe Yotam’s back already? Maybe he just went for a walk and lost his way? But we should go back anyway, because it’s late. OK, she says, her strength suddenly drained, whatever you say. Let’s go back, she says sadly. If they’ve found him already, then he needs me. Very badly.

Reuven, Yotam’s father, is holding a large torch. The sun has set and it’s a very dark night. Following him single file in the wadi are four other men. They have torches too, and they’re hurrying along, yelling Yotam! Yotam! again and again. And Reuven thinks: I haven’t wanted anything for six months. Not to eat. Not to drink. Not to dream. Not to think. Not to buy. Not to sell. The business is going to hell. Nehama asks, but he doesn’t tell. Sometimes he gets up in the morning and doesn’t know whether he’s alive or dead. As if his head has been split open like a peach. As if his blood has been sucked out by a leech. But no more. Now he wants to find Yotam. That’s all he’s living for. He walks faster and says to himself over and over again: find him, find him, find him. Reuven, one of the men rouses him, the path ends here. Come on, he says in a voice loud and clear. We’ll go this way. He walks around a big bush and climbs a slippery rock, the men right behind. He has no idea where he’s going, no idea what he’ll find. But he knows he can’t give up, so he lets his instincts lead. He tramples through every thorny bush and over every weed. Now and then, he stumbles and grabs one of the men so as not to fall. Then suddenly he sees something and gives a loud call. Tell me, he says, pointing into the darkness, do you see an Arab house or am I just imagining it? There really is something there, they say in amazement and slow down a bit. It’s strange, they say. There used to be an Arab village here, but not any more. Let’s go, he says, running as fast as he can towards the door.

*

Hey, someone called. Amir and I walked out of the scrap yard to see who it was.

Are you looking for Reuven and Nehama’s kid? a teenager with bleached hair standing across the street with his friend shouted at us.

Yes, Amir said, but a year went by until the bleached hair answered us. They found him, he finally yelled.

Where? What? Is he OK? Amir asked, running towards him.

Yes, he just got lost, the bleached hair said as if he couldn’t care less, and his friend, the silent one, lit a cigarette. They found him in some old shack in the wadi.

But how … I mean, did anything happen to him? Amir asked.

Nothing.

Thank God. Thank God.

Yes, the bleached hair said, and from his tone, he sounded more disappointed than anything else. Well then, we’re gone, he said. If you see anyone else on the way, tell them too, OK?

OK.

After bleached hair and his friend had gone, Amir wiped the sweat off his forehead and said: wow, at times like this, even if I don’t believe in God, I thank him.

Yes, I said, and looked at him. He’d been quiet the whole time we were looking for Yotam. He’d kept his eyes down, his shoulders were stooped and his bottom lip gave this weird twitch every once in a while. But now everything had calmed down. And he looked tall and handsome again.

I don’t know what I would’ve done if … he said, and kicked a stone.

Once, I heard myself say, when Liron was little, I took him to the shops with me and when I went into the toilet I left his carriage outside and, like an idiot, I asked some security guard to keep an eye on it. When I came out, they were both gone. I thought I’d die. It turned out that the guard had gone to the loo as well and took the carriage inside with him. I almost killed him. The whole shopping centre came to watch me give him a piece of my mind.

I can picture it, Amir said and smiled for the first time in a long while.

We started walking back home. Amir hummed some melody I didn’t know, probably one of those songs he listens to at full volume on the other side of the wall, and I wondered whether it would be OK if I asked him about Noa now. On the one hand, I thought, a stone had just been lifted from his heart so do I want to drop a rock on it? On the other hand, I thought, I hate not knowing things.

I was thinking so much that I bumped into him while we were walking. An electrical current ran through my elbow. Sorry, I said, and he laughed and said, it’s OK.

So how are you getting along now? I found the courage to ask. And I was sure that he’d ask me, what do you mean? Because all the men I know act like morons when you ask them about feelings. But Amir looked down at his shoes walking along the pavement and said: the truth is that it’s not easy. All of a sudden, there’s this emptiness, you know.

Yes, I said, thinking: why ‘yes’? You married your first boyfriend and you’ve never been apart from him except for when he’s in the reserves, so how do you know it’s ‘yes’?

And the hardest thing, he went on, is that I don’t know what’s going on. If I were sure that we’re splitting up, I’d start hating her and focus on all the things that are wrong with her. But this way, it’s one of those annoying neither-here-nor-there situations.

Wait a minute, I said, I don’t understand. What exactly did you two decide?

I was sure she told you, he said, so surprised that he stopped walking.

No, I admitted. And the bitterness of knowing that she left without saying a word to me filled my throat again.

Amir was quiet, taking in the new information. Two dogs were rubbing against each other on the pavement in front of us, sniffing each other’s bottoms.

She went to Tel Aviv, he finally said. For three weeks. And then we have to decide what we’ll do.

Do you talk?

No, he said, and started walking again. I have no idea where she is, he said. She didn’t give me the phone number.

Maybe it’s better that way, I said, thinking: why are you giving him this bullshit? How could this be better?

Maybe, Amir said, and I saw his bottom lip give a slight twitch again.

We turned into HaGibor HaAlmoni Street, and I thought, we’ll be at Yotam’s house soon. There’ll be so many people there that I won’t be able to ask him anything, and who knows when we’ll have the chance to talk again.

What do your parents and hers say about it? I asked.

Our parents?! Amir said, looking at me in amazement, our parents don’t … My parents have been in the States for a year now. And Noa’s parents — well, she doesn’t really let them get involved in things like this.

Right, I thought, I never really did hear her talk about her family.

I know it sounds funny, Amir said, but neither one of us feels connected to our family. Maybe that’s what made us bond so tightly.

But there’s something I don’t understand, I said and stopped walking in the hope that he’d stop too.

What? he asked and stopped.

When you came here, you were like two lovebirds. So what … what happened? I hope you don’t mind my asking?

Amir looked at me with the same expression Noa always had when she started talking about him. The truth is, Sima, that I don’t know.

Strange, I thought. Usually, couples with problems know right away what the reason is. Mirit blamed it on her husband’s cheating. My cousin Ossi always said, even before her divorce, that she and her husband were both very stubborn. But with these two, Amir and Noa, you ask for a reason and their eyes start flitting around all over the place. What is it with you two?

I don’t know, Amir said again, as if answering the question I’d just asked in my mind, maybe … maybe we’re too perfect for each other.

I wanted to ask him, what do you mean, too perfect for each other? But he started walking again and looked away from me, as if he was tired of talking, and a minute later, we could already see the people crowded around Yotam’s house. This wasn’t the right time for more questions.

They asked for you not to come in, said an aunt I remembered from Gidi’s shivah. The doctor said that Yotam has to rest for a day or two without being disturbed.

Will he be all right? Amir asked, taking the words out of my mouth.

Yes, his aunt said. He was very lucky. That house where they found him was part of an Arab village that used to be here. They say that Arabs from the area still roam around there with their goats. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if they’d found him there now, what with all the terrorist attacks.

He really was lucky, I said. And his aunt said, God must have been watching over him. He’s just a little dehydrated. And the doctor said that he doesn’t even need a drip. He just has to keep drinking and rest.

That’s good, Amir and I said at exactly the same time, and then he said, so just send him hugs and kisses.

From who? the aunt asked.

From the neighbours, I said.

We said goodbye and started home. I walked slowly because I wanted to have a few more minutes with Amir. He didn’t walk fast either, and I hoped it was for the same reason. When we got to our door, I stopped and said, all’s well that ends well, and he smiled: yes, you can say that again. And I thought to myself that he has a really beautiful smile and that Noa is really a fool to let him go. If I had a man like him, who knows how to talk openly like that and who has broad shoulders like his, I’d keep him close to me and I’d never leave him the way she did.

OK, see you, he said, looking straight into my eyes.

I felt like telling him that he didn’t have to wait for Yotam to go missing again for us to see each other. I felt like telling him that I’m alone in the house in the morning. And so is he. But right then I heard the voices of Lilach and Liron through the window, so I just took a deep breath to keep myself from speaking those thoughts and said: if you need something, don’t be shy. Knock on my door, OK?

*

Yotam’s father is sitting in his car, crying bitter tears. Crying as he hasn’t cried in many, many years. If his employees could see him now, all they’d be able to say is wow. Their big boss is crying like a little child. He hasn’t cried since Gidi was killed. All he did was cough. But yesterday, when they found Yotam, he was flooded by tears he couldn’t choke off. Earlier, at work, he’d had a lump in his throat that wouldn’t go away. Don’t be such a baby, he kept telling himself all day. Be strong, he told himself again and again; without you, the business doesn’t have a chance. But the lump kept growing and growing, and by lunchtime he was feeling unwell. He couldn’t eat, and his partner said: go home Reuven, you look like hell. But he yelled at him, I’m not leaving till I’ve finished my work. He forced himself to keep at it till exhaustion was all he felt, hoping that hard work would make the lump in his throat melt. But it only got bigger and bigger. Late at night, on his way home, he felt he couldn’t take it any more. So he stopped the car on the side of the road, turned off the lights and leaned against the door. He hid his face with his hands and began to shake. And cry as if his heart would break. He cried about so many things. About the morning he took Gidi to the bus station and they hugged goodbye with so much love. About the night he touched Nechama and she recoiled as if he were an enemy she wanted no part of. And about yesterday, when he found Yotam in that Arab shack. Lying there as if he were dead, on his back.

He wept and wailed for what seemed like a year, until a police car pulled up and someone yelled into a megaphone: Get going. You can’t park here. OK, he signalled to the policeman and turned on his lights. He let a few cars drive by, then merged into traffic, trying not to cry.

But all the way to the Castel, the tears kept flowing. He cried so hard that he could barely see where he was going. And he thought: Nechama was right the other day when she said that things can’t go on this way. I can’t drive on these roads any more. Every traffic light brings up memories. And I can’t stay at home, there’s so much tension in the air. No, we have to take Yotam and run away. But where can we run to, where?

Right before the Mevasseret bridge, an idea popped into his head, but he said no, it’ll never work. What’s wrong with you Reuven, are you nuts? But the idea was persistent, it wouldn’t retreat. It stayed in his mind when he drove up to the house, when he parked on his street. It was still there when he took a handkerchief out of the glove compartment to wipe his face before he went into the house. (He’s a man, after all. The whole world doesn’t have to see him bawl.)

He climbed the stairs considering whether to tell Nehama about the new idea he had.

And before he put his key in the lock, he decided not to tell her yet. It might make her upset.

*

It’s as if I cried a lot, and now I feel relieved.

I flow with the streets leading to Frishman beach and think: it’s so great that I don’t have to be careful. That I don’t have to feel Amir’s pain enter me through a hidden tunnel that connects us. That I don’t have to keep his hurt feelings deep inside my stomach. It’s incredible how much room it leaves in my body. But on the other hand, at night, it’s exactly that empty space that gets hungry and shouts: Amir! Amir! I try to fill it with peanuts or ice-cream, but it doesn’t help. I walk around Aunt Ruthie’s apartment terrified that Amir will give up on me and go to some other girl. I can see them together, hugging and touching each other, as if I’m standing at the window of the apartment in the Castel and taking pictures. She’s a little shorter than I am. Her tits are nicer. And if I’m not mistaken, she’s not as sad as I am.

Enough, I say, trying to push that scene out of my mind, you have to focus on the project, Noa. Go out. Look for interesting places in Tel Aviv. There must be some. All you have to do is raise your head.

*

I hear Sima washing dishes. Frying something. Talking loudly to Lilach. I hear her walking around the house in high heels (she has nice ankles. I noticed when we were looking for Yotam together). I hear her go out. Come back. Open the cover of the water heater switch, turn it on. Take a shower. I picture her body naked, very different from Noa’s body. When Noa showers, the water flows from her hair down to her feet without interruption. When Sima showers, or so I picture it, the water pools in the indentations of her body. In the space between her large breasts. In her deep belly button, which she loves to expose. In the hills of her buttocks. I hear her step out of the shower and can actually see, through the wall, how she brushes her long hair, untangling the knots until it’s smooth. I hear her talking, I can’t tell to whom. I don’t understand a word, but I like the tone. Full of energy, opinionated, always ready to burst into laughter. I think to myself: she’s home alone too. Just like me.

A few days ago, I put on a ‘Natasha’ CD, and suddenly I thought I heard her singing along with it, ‘One touch, then another, sadness, all so familiar.’ I turned down the volume, and her singing stopped all at once. I pulled open the cover of the water heater switch and called: Sima! She came over to the hole in the wall and said: did you call me? Yes, I said. I just wanted to tell you to keep singing, I mean, you sing very well. She laughed and said: I didn’t know you could hear me. Then she added: I love the music you put on today. Not like the noisy music you usually listen to. Nirvana, you mean? I asked. I don’t know, she said, shifting uncomfortably on the other side of the wall. OK, I said, I’ll try to edit my musical selections to suit the taste of the audience. You don’t have to, she said, coming a little closer. I could hear her breathing. The scent of perfume wafted in through the hole, along with the aroma of frying cutlets. I wonder what’s wafting through the hole from me to her, I thought, and said, well, I’m going back to my books. And immediately I regretted my words. OK, she said, I’m going back to my cutlets. Have a nice day. I put the cover over the hole and went back to the living room, intending to open my books again, when I heard the cover open again and her voice call me: Amir?

*

I asked him if he wanted me to bring over a few cutlets when they were ready, and thought, it’s a good thing he’s on the other side of the wall and can’t see how I’m blushing now. Sure, he said, that would be great. And then I was sorry: what did I need this for? They’re our tenants and it’s not good to mix feelings with money. And anyway, he’s Noa’s boyfriend and Noa is my friend. But then again, she did pick up and leave without even saying goodbye. After all those talks we had, she couldn’t come and tell me what was happening? Did she think it was beneath her?

An hour later, I put on my nicest trousers, the ones that give me a waist, put on a little make-up and walked up the path holding Lilach in one hand and a plastic box full of cutlets in the other, saying to myself: I’ll just give him the box and leave without going inside and without talking. I have loads of things to do at home. The mountain of laundry is higher than Mount Meron. Besides, if Amir was ugly, that would be another story, but when he gets a haircut he looks like that tall American actor, I can’t remember his name, the one whose films Mirit and I always went to see in Ashkelon, and when he talks to people on the phone he has all the patience in the world, and he speaks in a deep voice that passes through the walls and makes me feel good all over. When we signed the lease with them, I said to myself, he’s a good-looking guy. Wild hair, light eyes, muscles in his shoulders. The way I like. And after we went looking for Yotam together, I liked him even more.

He opened the door and said, come in. And I forgot all the promises I’d made to myself and walked inside, flustered by the smell of his aftershave. (What? Did he put it on for me?)

Thank you, he said, taking the box from me.

I put Lilach on the floor and she started crawling. I looked at the walls of the apartment. Here’s that picture of the sad man I heard them arguing about. It really is a gloomy picture. And Noa must have taken those photos. Where’s that from? India? Thailand? She really is talented. But why aren’t there any pictures of them together? When Moshe and I lived here, there were three pictures of us in the living room, two from the wedding and one from our honeymoon in Antalia, and they don’t even have one.

Amir came back from the kitchen, got down on all fours and started crawling in front of Lilach. She was so surprised that she stopped for a minute, then started crawling again, more slowly this time, until she reached him and touched his face with her fingers. He closed his eyes and let her investigate, put a finger in his ear, his nose, his mouth. Hit him lightly on the cheek.

Hey, I told her. Don’t do that.

It’s all right, Amir said, stroking the fuzz on her head.

I felt silly, standing when everybody was crawling, so I sat down on the rug too. I planned to sit far away from him, but the minute I crossed my legs, Lilach started crawling towards me with Amir right behind her.

She came to me, touched my knees, and he did the same. At first, I thought he was planning to climb on me too, and I got scared. I imagined what it would be like under his body, to grab his shoulders, to tussle with him a bit. To surrender.

He stopped a minute before his head touched my thigh, and sat up. I rubbed my thigh as if he had really touched it, and he said: does she always have this much energy?

Only in the morning, I said. Then I added: and also when Moshe comes home from work.

He leaned on his arms as if Moshe’s name had pushed him back. Lilach’s fingers played with my nipples, and I could see how uncomfortable he felt about watching, but still couldn’t pull his eyes away.

So, I said, moving her hand away, how’s your studying going?

It’s not, he said, sighing and picking up a fat book. You see this? I have to know all of it for tomorrow’s exam.

Why don’t you study with other people?

They’re all in Tel Aviv, and I’m here, in the Castel. It’s too far for them to come over and study with me.

Yes, it really is far.

You see? he said, smiling, and Noa claimed that the Castel was half-way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Well, there really is no such thing as the exact middle, I said, suddenly defending her. Like my mother used to say: you can’t cut a watermelon into two completely equal parts.

Isn’t that funny, he said and laughed, my mother says the same thing, but about grapefruit.

Lilach laughed too, and gave two short shrieks of happiness. He reached out to stroke her cheek, and on the way, brushed the exposed part of my arm. By mistake. It had to be by mistake.

I have an idea, I said. Pick a subject and teach me.

He gave me a funny look.

It’s really a good idea, I said. You’ll remember it better, I added, unfolding my leg. I was careful not to move it too close to him. But not too far away, either.

You know what? You have a deal, he said and started thumbing through the book. His shoulders contracted, and he rubbed his chin with his free hand. Most of all, I love looking at men when they’re concentrating on something.

OK, he mumbled a minute later. What would you like to hear about? Franz Anton Mesmer, who treated people with huge magnets at the beginning of the eighteenth century? Or Joseph Breuer, who used hypnosis to treat people at the end of the nineteenth century?

What do you say, Lilach, I asked, consulting my little girl: magnets or hypnotism?

*

Sima’s foot landed right next to me and kept me from concentrating. I wanted to bend over and put cuffs around her ankle. I could actually imagine the touch of her skin, but instead of doing that, I started talking to save myself. I tried to remember without looking at the book. I tried to explain it to her as if it were a story, not a collection of facts I had to memorise for a multiple choice test.

That Mesmer, I started, finished studying medicine at the age of thirty-two. He did his doctorate on ‘The Effect of the Planets on the Human Body’.

Like the horoscope, Sima said.

More or less.

What sign are you?

Scorpio. What does that have to do with anything?

Just tell me what sign Noa is.

Also Scorpio.

A Scorpio with a Scorpio, uh-oh!

Lilach, tell your mother not to interrupt. Quiet in the classroom, please, I’m continuing. After Mesmer completed his doctorate, he began to enquire into the possible effects of magnets on the body and claimed he’d discovered something he called ‘animal magnetism’.

Which means?

Which means that we have a substance in our bodies, or an energy, that responds to magnetic force and can be changed by magnets.

What?!

It sounds weird to me too, but the thing is that the treatment he developed actually worked. He treated mentally disturbed patients and women who suffered from hysteria or depression, and cured them.

What do you mean, treated?

He had a kind of bathtub full of magnetised water. Iron rods stuck out of the tub in every direction and Mesmer showed his patients how to put the tip of the rod on the area that hurt them.

And it worked?

Looks like it. Or people convinced themselves that it worked. When I was little and my mother used to take me to the clinic, to Dr Shneidshter, I felt better straight away.

My mother didn’t believe in medicine at all. She had her own medicine for every sickness. And we were never sick for more than a day or two, not me and not my sister Mirit.

That mother of yours sounds interesting, but still, if we can just finish the story about Mesmer … He kept getting more and more patients, and people used to wait months for an appointment with him. Finally, he founded an organisation and a school where he taught people how to use his method of treatment and they attracted more and more patients –

Until …

How did you know there was an until?

There’s always an until in this kind of story.

Until the medical establishment in Paris got sick and tired of him stealing away their patients and they formed a special committee to check out his methods and the committee decided that the magnets had no therapeutic value and ordered him to stop using them.

Did he?

Yes. But his students kept on using them. Secretly. And the book says there are rumours to this day, two hundred years later, that Mesmer’s followers meet secretly in the forests of Europe and treat each other with those magnetic rods.

Wow, that’s interesting. You told that really well. Seriously, you made me want to go back to college.

So go back.

Don’t rub salt in my wounds. But I think you’re well prepared for the exam.

Not really, but it’s fun to study like this. Do you want to hear about Breuer too?

Sima looked at her watch and her face tensed in alarm: shit! I have to pick up Liron from kindergarten in two minutes. He hates me to be late. He starts breaking toys if I’m not there on time.

She took Lilach into her arms and got up from the rug. I got up too. Now that we were standing, I noticed how small she was. I could peek down her neckline and see that she was wearing a black bra today.

Thanks for the cutlets, I said.

You’re welcome, she said. We stood like that, facing each other, embarrassed, and suddenly I had the weirdest feeling in the world, that a kiss had to come now. I can’t explain it, but it was like a date, like the end of a date when two people feel there’s a kind of magic between them. You can’t photograph that feeling or break it down into parts. It’s just there, in the night air, and suddenly, in the middle of the day, out of the blue, it was there between Sima and me. My eyes were drawn to her full, dim sum lips, and I leaned forward …

And kissed Lilach.

*

Moshe Zakian has been coming home earlier than usual this week. And before he can get his jacket off, Sima’s caressing him so passionately that he can hardly speak. I hope you’re in shape, she whispers to him, her voice hoarse. And he says, of course. His prick is already hard and his voice is thick. After they put the children to bed, she grabs his shirt and says: come on. Quick. But he likes to play with her a bit. Moving back a little, he says: but you always tell me that without a shower, there’s no way. She digs a nail into his right shoulder and says: it’s OK, baby, it’s OK. She drags him into the bedroom, climbs on top of him and has her way. Her skin is electric. Her body’s on fire, trembling with wave after wave of desire. He puts his hand on her mouth when she begins to shake, and whispers, shh, Sima, you don’t want to keep the whole neighbourhood awake. When they had finished sucking out all the sweetness of their lovemaking, she lies next to him, temporarily relieved of her aching. He says, wow. And she says, I know. What’s happened to you? he asks. I don’t know, maybe it’s my hormones, she replies and sighs. And he thinks, hormones, huh? Don’t I have eyes? She thinks I don’t know it’s because of that student next door. But I know the score. I hear her say his name in her sleep. I hear that little-girl excitement in her voice when she talks about him to Mirit. What are you thinking about? Sima asks, and for a minute he’s tempted to tell her, but he decides to retreat. What’s the point? She’ll deny it, he’ll get upset and they’ll be at war. That I’m crazy about you, he says at last. That you’re too wonderful to be true. She puts her warm hand on his thigh and says, I’m crazy about you too. Then she falls asleep at his side. He remembers her moaning and tries in vain to fall asleep: OK (he holds a conversation with the wall), let her dream about that guy. Outside in the street, doesn’t he undress women with his eyes when he sees them walking by? As long as it stays only in her mind — and it will, because he knows that Sima is not that kind — then it’s not something he should dwell upon.

In bed he says out loud to himself, trying in vain to subdue his fear: don’t be right. Be Don Juan.

*

I’m sorry. I can’t seem to fall in love with this city. All that Bauhaus doesn’t do it for me. The view of a valley or a mountain doesn’t leave me breathless, because there aren’t any. There’s no Upper and Lower Tel Aviv, there’s just Tel Aviv. And there’s no street called Valley of the Giants like there is in Jerusalem. There’s just Bograshov and Rokach. And no one here is hiding behind a wall that’s thousands of years old. At best, they’re hiding behind this morning’s façade. And you won’t see any Arabs here, or poor people or bereaved parents or kids Yotam’s age.

How different my first few days in Jerusalem were. I’d felt like it was Purim. Everyone looked as if they were in costume: the ultra-orthodox men with their penguin suits; the ultra-orthodox women, whose femininity burst through their buttoned-up dresses; the young Americans who flood the high street in the summer with their T-shirts that have English writing on them and legs that are too white; the Cinematheque nerds in their checked shirts and that serious look of theirs that just can’t be real; the tough guys with their gelled hair; the Border Guards with their tight uniforms; the old Yemenite from the Yemenite falafal stand.

And here — it’s all so homogeneous that you could die of boredom. Everyone tries to be special, but somehow they all come out looking the same. As if there’s a hidden code they’re adhering to. As if city inspectors will fine you if your clothes are a bit passé. And it isn’t just your clothes. Everywhere you go, you hear the same music coming from the same radio station. In the cafés, people talk about things they’ve read in the local papers and ask each other, ‘Did you hear that …?’ instead of ‘Did you read that …?’ Then the waitress — they all have the same look in their eyes — brings a menu and people concentrate so hard on it that you’d think it was a book of poetry. Then they order exactly what they ordered last time. And they’re all gay, or into their bisexuality. And left-wingers, of course. As if there were no other possibility. As if a political opinion were just another piece of clothing, another trend you had to get in step with and not something personal. (Amir would say now: as if your political opinions are so different.) True. There’s something comfortable about it. Like marrying your first love. No one here threatens you too much. Everything’s familiar and predictable. No one will throw a stone at you if you drive on Saturday or claim that the Oslo Accords were a gamble, and chances are that you won’t see any real Arabs, unless you insist on looking for them in Jaffa. But even then, they’ll sell you sambusek politely and would never even think about breaking into a Jew’s house in the middle of the day and making holes in his wall like Madmoni’s worker did.

It’s safe here in Tel Aviv. Safe. And fuzzy. And flat. I’ve been walking around the streets with my camera for a week already looking for something that’ll give me that yellow pepper feeling. And nothing.

(Amir would say now: maybe you’re not looking in the right places.)

Yesterday, coming back from one of my unproductive walks, I met the guy from the balcony at the entrance to the building.

Well, hello there, he said in a kind of sarcastic tone. And I thought: he barely knows me and he’s already using that tone?

Hi, I said, and to my amazement, my tone sounded just like his.

Did you take any pictures today? he asked, pointing to my camera.

No, I didn’t find anything interesting, I admitted and turned to go.

Do you have a flash? he suddenly asked in a different, nicer voice.

Sure. Why?

If you do, I could show you an interesting place tonight.

Ah … look … I was about to make up an excuse, but then I thought: why not? Maybe all I need to help me tune in to this city is a good guide. And the guy from the balcony looked pretty nice in the daylight. There was something about his shoulders that made you think you could trust him. I wasn’t attracted to him, because he was too short, which was great. And anyway how long could I sit in Aunt Ruthie’s apartment and look at albums?

OK, I said. What time?

I’ll call you from the balcony at around one.

One in the morning?

What do you think, in the afternoon? What planet are you from?

The planet Castel, I wanted to say. But didn’t.

*

Sima has stopped coming over since our almost-kiss. It scared her. And that wasn’t Yotam’s soft knock. So maybe it’s Noa, I thought. I put on a pair of trousers and a shirt, and a pounding heart, and opened the door. A teenage girl was standing there holding a pot. Are you Amir? she asked, shooting looks to the sides. Yes, I said. My mother made this for you, the girl said, handing me the pot. Your mother? I asked. Who … Who exactly is your mother? Ahuva Amadi, the girl said, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. We live at 43 HaGibor HaAlmoni Street. One house before the turn. You don’t want it? It’s kubeh metfunia. It’s very good. My mother will be insulted if you don’t take it. Yes, sure, thanks, I stammered and took the pot from her. The handles were still hot. Why are you standing outside? I asked, come in. She walked in and stood in the middle of the living room. She had the expression of someone who’d heard about this apartment, and now was comparing what she saw to the expectations she had. Why did your mother send this? I asked after coming back from the kitchen. The girl blushed and smiled, as if my question was funny. We thought, she started talking after she realised that I was waiting for an answer, I mean, my mother thought that you probably didn’t have much food now that … Now that what? I asked her, and the demon’s tail was already wagging inside me. Now that … the girl said, looking up at the ceiling, now that there’s no woman in the house, she finally said and sat down on the sofa with a sigh of relief.

The next day, another girl appeared at my door. With a different kind of kubeh. Who spread the rumours about my being alone? I wondered. Sima? Moshe? It wasn’t clear. In any case, I gradually learned that there were a lot more kinds of kubeh than I had thought. Red kubeh metfunia, with tomato paste, okra, parsley and sour lemon. Yellow kubeh mesluha with turmeric and marrow. Sour-green kubeh hamusta, which comes in soup with beet leaves, turnips and marrow. Kubeh hemo, which is shaped like a flying saucer and comes in soup with onion and hummus. And the most delicious, at least for me: kubeh nabelsia, which is fried with onions and chopped meat. You eat five or six pieces and you’re still not tired of it.

The kubeh always came with a girl as a side dish, and it was always ‘her mother’ who sent her. It took me a while to realise that this was actually a parade of candidates to replace Noa. It was all done very delicately, tacitly. None of the girls actually offered herself, but they were all dressed too well for a short walk in the neighbourhood. Most of them wore make-up, and one or two had been daring enough to spray perfume on themselves. Girls’ perfume. Two or three days after they brought me the full pot, they would come back to get the empty pot. There were so many pots that I was getting confused, and they had to come into the kitchen and pick theirs out of the pile. Then they’d sit in the living room, give brief answers to my questions, check out the walls curiously and run away after two or three minutes, not longer.

I was able to get into a proper conversation with only one of them. She was a soldier on leave who had sincere eyes. A random question about what it’s like serving on a base she couldn’t leave every day pressed the right button. It turned out that on her base there was a group of girls who always laughed together, and she didn’t understand what was funny. It seems that she was always getting the worst shifts because she wasn’t one of the in-group. Not that she minded about the shifts. She minded that the other girls knew they could step on her because she was alone. And she minded that she didn’t have anyone she could borrow shampoo from when she ran out. And she minded that when she came home, no one cared that she was tired and her mother made her do laundry and clean and cook.

… and bring food to people you don’t know, I continued.

Yes! she agreed enthusiastically, then immediately caught herself and laughed: no, that’s something I don’t mind doing.

She took off one shoe, then the other, which — Modi taught me this once — is a sure sign that the girl intends to stay, and maybe remove other articles of clothing.

*

People were sitting at the bar with large spaces between them. The guy from the balcony gave me a quick, cold goodbye and went to sit at the far end, on a brown armchair. Pictures of naked body parts glittered on the walls. You couldn’t always tell if they were male or female. Bottles filled with golden liquid stood on long shelves. Air conditioner pipes were stuck on the ceiling like magnets on a horizontal refrigerator door. The light was dim, very dim. Even with a flash, pictures would come out dark here, I thought. But maybe that’s good. You don’t have to do anything, the guy from the balcony had told me before we came in, they’ll come to you.

In the background, the female singer of Portishead was singing ‘Nobody loves me’, and I thought it was a little cruel to play a song like that here. I sat down on a high stool and ordered a Guinness from the barman with a Popeye tattoo on his shoulder. I knew I needed a little alcohol to get through this night. The Guinness arrived with a man. May I? he asked and pointed to the empty stool next to me. I nodded. I asked the barman if I could bring your order, he said and smoothed his hair. Is that OK? Fine, I said and took a sip. I haven’t seen you here before, he said, and stroked his cheek. Is this your first time? Yes, I admitted. Do you want to go somewhere quieter? he asked, putting out his cigarette. Already? I said in surprise, maybe we could just talk a bit first. Usually a few seconds are enough to know whether it’s yes or no, he said. I didn’t know that, I said. So now you do. Great. So what do you say, he asked, rubbing a long finger around the rim of his glass, yes or no? Do I have to decide now? Yes. Or no.

There were others after him. Men on a platter. One was a wise guy. One was a shy guy. One smelt good. And another had the name of a street in my old neighbourhood. One couldn’t look me in the eye. Another tried to put his hand on my thigh. I have no idea why I’m saying this in rhyme. Maybe because I was drunk. Maybe because everything seemed a little fake, kind of glittery, like an Alterman poem. In the background, Portishead was repeating itself in metallic loops and the sound seemed to be getting louder and louder all the time. Couples walked past me on their way home. The girls actually looked nice. Like students. One of them probably went to school with Amir. Why can’t I be like them? I asked myself. Wham bam thank you ma’am. Why not? Because of the camera. No. Because of Amir. Wait. What’s that all about? How did Amir get into my thoughts twice in one minute? And where’s the guy from the balcony who brought me here? Has he gone? And left me here alone? How will I get home by myself?

Hi, he said, surprising me from the direction of the bathroom as if he’d picked up on my anxiety.

Hi, I said, as glad to see him as if we’d known each other for years.

You drink a lot, he said, pointing to my half-empty glass.

Yes, maybe we should really go.

Don’t you want to take pictures?

Not today.

So come on.

After we left, he said, we could hop over to the supermarket on Ben Yehuda.

The supermarket? Now?

Not to shop, silly. To hunt.

I think that bar was enough for me, I said, swallowing the bile that had risen into my throat.

There’s a new place that opened not far from here, with a DJ who only plays film soundtracks. Maybe you’d like that better.

Forget it. Let’s go home.

The air outside was dripping. I was slightly dizzy, but I didn’t want to lean on the guy from the balcony in case he got any ideas. A short female parking attendant was putting tickets on cars parked in no-parking zones. At this time of night? I asked. Any time, he said. They get a percentage. I didn’t know, I said and he said, be careful, pointing at the dog shit lying in wait on the pavement. I walked around it at the last moment and almost lost my balance.

You were really doing great there, in the bar, he said and grabbed my arm to steady me.

Yes, I admitted, wriggling gently out of his grasp. But they all had such cold eyes. And they were curt. It was like …

Like what? he demanded.

Like none of them believed in love any more, I said. And regretted it right away. Why am I dumping these perceptions on him in the middle of the night?

It’s not that they don’t believe in love, he said, and judging from how offended his voice sounded, it was clear that the ‘they’ could easily have been ‘I’.

So what is it? I asked, looking at him as we walked. He was quiet for a while, as if he were about to say something crucial and his words had to be precise. I started to feel the bile rising in my throat again, but I also felt that there was a real moment in the air and I shouldn’t miss it, so I took a deep breath and leaned against a tree.

It’s not that they don’t believe in love, he repeated. It’s just that sometimes love is too much of an effort.

Wait a second, I said. And went to vomit in the front yard of a building.

*

I didn’t want to make that girl soldier my own. The one and only desire I felt was to make her feel better. So I told her about my basic training, how I’d been so lonely that I didn’t sleep for nights on end. How everyone around me snored peacefully and I’d lie there in my bed with my eyes open, thinking what’s-wrong-with-me, why-is-everyone-adjusted-but-me, how-will-I-survive-two-or-three-years-of-this?

She nodded in surprise and said, ‘You mean there’s someone else in this world who felt like I do?’

Yes, I continued, encouraged by her nodding, but you know what? The fact is that everyone there was scared. Everyone burned their fingers when they vacuum-packed their kit, and no one believed you could run to the weapons depot and back in ten seconds or run a circle around the entire base. But I walked with my head down so much that I couldn’t see it. The people in the platoon seemed like a big, threatening block that functioned in perfect harmony, and I was the one who ruined it. I was wrong. It wasn’t a block. It was just a collection of confused people making a huge effort to hide their confusion from each other.

So what should I do? she asked and gave me a look that said, you’re smart, you know.

First of all, lift your head up, I said. When do you go back? Sunday? Good. Go like a queen. Smile at everyone. Ask how they spent their time off. Don’t be afraid. And every time that lonely feeling starts to come back, look at them and say to yourself: they feel this way sometimes too. It’s not just me.

I don’t know … she said, drawing out the words as if she wasn’t sure that what I suggested was doable, but she liked the idea.

Try it, I said. The worst that can happen is that it won’t work. How much more time do you have?

Eight months.

That’s nothing. If you take away Saturdays and holidays and sick days and real dentist days and fake dentist days, and two or three family affairs, how much is left? Four months, tops. And you have to subtract your discharge holiday leave, and right before that, no one will even notice you any more, so you can go back to the base on Monday instead of Sunday and leave on Wednesday instead of Thursday. And on Monday, there’ll be a day of fun in Eilat and you’ll take a sick day on Tuesday because you’ll get sunstroke. Which easily takes off another two, three months. In short, tomorrow or the day after, tops, you’ll be discharged, young lady. So what’s your problem?

She laughed and looked pleased with the way I’d juggled her time left in the army. For a minute, I could imagine how, after the army, she’d let her hair grow and be attractive. Very attractive, even. And someone else — not me — would run two fingers slowly along her naked arm, climb to her shoulder and then to the back of her sweet, white neck. Someone else. Not me. Sorry. I have to go back to studying now. I have an exam. What am I studying? Psychology. Interesting. Yes. Even though it can be a pain sometimes. Why a pain? Some other time. Tell your mother I said thanks, OK? And come over again. Don’t be shy.

Before she left, she surprised me with a kiss on the cheek. Thank you, she said. I didn’t ask what for because I was tired of pretending. I watched her through the window till she disappeared at the end of the block, and then I paced around the apartment for a few minutes feeling like I always do after I do a good deed and someone thanks me. It’s hard to explain the feeling. I’d say that maybe it’s a little bit like kubeh metfunia. It has a core of soft happiness wrapped in a sour feeling of guilt — who am I to give other people advice — and on the side, there’s a red sauce made of emptiness. And okra.

I lay down on the bed. The smell of Noa still lingered on the sheets even though I’d changed them three times since she left. She’d understand, I thought. She’d understand how a feeling can be like kubeh metfunia, and how doing something good for another person can actually make you sad.

She’d say: it’s the law of connected vessels of feelings.

And say: it’s easier for you to give than to get. So you give, and then you feel like you’ve missed out on something because look, you haven’t got anything this time either.

And say: who’s that knocking on the door now, in the middle of our conversation? Maybe you won’t answer it?

The knocking continued, persistent. Stop it, I really am in the middle of a conversation with Noa, I thought, but I went to the door anyway. Ever since I hadn’t opened the door for Yotam and he disappeared, I don’t dare not open it.

Standing in the doorway was a young guy wearing black. With the scraggly beginnings of a moustache.

Ahalan, brother, he said.

Ahalan, I said, returning the greeting, not understanding where he was hiding the pot of kubeh.

Would you be interested in an amulet from Rabbi Kaduri? he asked, pulling out a yellow box. We have all kinds of amulets in all shapes and sizes.

Ah … look … I started to say, but he’d already opened the box.

This, he said, pulling out a medallion, is a pendant with a portrait of Rabbi Kaduri, also inscribed with letters that have special power in the Cabbala. You probably know what they are.

I nodded as if I did.

And here, he went on, I have cards with the Rabbi’s blessings on them for all occasions. This card has a blessing for success in business, this one for health and a happy life, and this card is for marital reconciliation — all signed in the Rabbi’s own hand.

And what’s that? I asked, pointing to the candles sticking out of the box.

Those, he explained, slightly embarrassed, are oil candles. You have to light them while you say the prayer that’s written here, on the side, and that will guarantee our success in the elections next month. Would you like a candle?

No, thank you.

Maybe a pendant? Some cards? You can also send letters to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and get a personal reply from him.

I think I’ll pass.

That’s a shame, brother, because it’s all free. Maybe you’ll take something anyway? A card? Come on, just one card.

OK, I said. Give me the card for marital reconciliation.

He handed me a card excitedly, patted me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted to buy a cassette of religious songs by Benny Elbaz, ten shekels, all of it for charity.

No thanks, I said, rubbing the card nervously.

No problem, he said, patted me on the shoulder again and announced to the empty lot and the cats, we’re on the way back to our former glory! and skipped quickly down the tiled path.

I closed the door and threw the card into the rubbish bin. A second later, I regretted it, took it out and hung it on the noticeboard above a bill.

I went back to bed, got under the covers and put the pillow behind my neck. Tiny fragments danced in my eyes. For a minute, I wasn’t sure if that quick visit of my long-lost brother had really happened or whether I’d imagined it. I thought that if Noa were here with me, I’d tell her everything and that would make it real for me. An invisible fly buzzed in the room and kept bumping into the window. Suddenly, I missed her terribly.

*

And then, one night after I came home from the bar, it appeared. All at once, like those fans at the games Amir watches who burst naked on to the football pitch and steal all the attention.

Suddenly I knew. I knew. What. I wanted. To do. For. My final. Project.

I was so excited that my hands started to shake, actually to shake, but I didn’t try to steady them, I let the idea — which at that minute contained only one word, LONGING — spread through my mind and send associations in every direction. It all happened with lightning speed. As if that project had been incubating deep inside me, just waiting for the right moment to hatch. Come here, my little beauty, come here, I coaxed it. I took a pile of white paper out of the drawer and started drawing sketches that I taped to the wall. In the centre, I hung an illustration of myself holding a phone, and then I started surrounding myself with more and more longing. My mother was there, with a scarf she knitted for her first boyfriend, who died in the Yom Kippur war and she never talks about him. Saddiq, the worker who came into Avram and Gina’s house was there with his grandmother’s gold chain around his neck. And there was a new immigrant from Argentina who I called Franka, and a cinema usher who caught my eye in Jerusalem a year ago and seemed to fit now. And there was a guy I’d never met, but I could see him, I could imagine him down to the smallest detail, and I knew that there would be no objects in his frame, just the text of what he says about longing for something since he was a child, but not for anything specific, just in general. I drew him and stuck the drawing on the wall. I drew other figures with and without objects and wrote all kinds of words that came into my head, like toy, boy, joy, and the whole time I had the feeling in my throat that I was about to cry, the feeling I get whenever I’m creating from the right place. Suddenly, I didn’t care about what my instructors would say. When I have an idea that really makes me shiver, no one can put me down, no one! And if they dare to make a peep, I’ll just add them to the list of the people I’m photographing because they must be longing for something too. Maybe for the time when they really did create and didn’t just criticise. Yes! That’s it! Fantastic! I’ll photograph Yishai Levy at the door to a gallery. Standing there, but not going inside.

I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep all night. I wanted it to be morning so I could start setting up appointments with all the people I wanted to photograph. I wanted to call Amir and tell him that I finally had an idea for my project. I thought about the fact that I shouldn’t call him, because it would ruin everything. I thought about the fact that I didn’t want to be an artist because you use so much of your emotions as raw material for creating that you lose the ability to just feel. I thought about the fact that I didn’t know how to do anything but take pictures, so I had no choice, I had to be an artist and pay the price. I thought about the fact that I was hungry. And that’s a kind of longing too. I got up to make a grilled cheese sandwich, and when I was separating the slices of cheese from the paper, I thought: will they miss each other? I thought I was an idiot, but talented. A talented idiot. I ate the grilled cheese in the kitchen and picked up the crumbs with the tip of my finger. Then I sat on my bed and waited for the first light to flicker between the slats of the blinds.

*

They sat on my bed and talked. Really talked. I squeezed my eyes shut so they’d keep on thinking I was asleep. Dad sat on the right, and every once in while, I felt his knee touch my leg. Mum sat on the left and I could smell her perfume, which she hasn’t used since Gidi, and then this week, all of a sudden she did.

Mum said: It ended OK this time, but it could have ended badly.

And Dad said: Yes.

And Mum said: We should have paid more attention to him … I don’t know … Tried harder.

And Dad said (I couldn’t believe he agreed with my mother two times in a row): Yes.

And Mum said: You should have told me about the business, Reuven.

And Dad said: I should have done a lot of things. But what’s the point of talking about what’s over? What good will it do?

And Mum said (I could already feel them start to fight): Look, you’re doing it again. You’re not willing to talk about anything.

Dad took a deep breath (I felt the bed go up and down with it) — and didn’t answer her.

Mum didn’t say anything either. I felt how — very slowly — the fight that was hovering right over my bed went out of the room.

After a while, Dad said: You know, he’s right. We really have to try and go back to the things we used to do. Then he cleared his throat and said: Like going out on trips. Or dancing.

Mum sighed and said: I can’t. Every place reminds me of him. Tel Aviv because of the sea, and the Dead Sea because of the time he opened his eyes in the water, and the Carmel because of the pitta and labaneh, remember?

And Dad said: He ate the whole thing in three bites.

And Mum said: So how? How can I go there? I’ll choke the minute we pass Zichron Ya’acov. If I manage to keep breathing till we get to Zichron, then there’s that military cemetery at the entrance to Haifa, and on the way to the mountain there are three or four monuments in memory of children killed in road accidents or terrorist attacks. It’s like that everywhere in this country. Everything’s full of death, of things that remind you.

Yes, Dad said and sighed. Then they were both quiet. My neck itched, but I forced myself not to scratch it, so they wouldn’t know I was awake.

So let’s leave, Dad finally said, and the bed squeaked on his side.

I knew right away what he meant, and I think Mum did too, but she still asked: What do you mean?

And Dad said: We’ll leave the country. I’ll sell my part of the business. We’ll sell the house. And go.

And Mum said: What? To another country? To live? Are you mad? Just what country did you have in mind?

The bed squeaked again on Dad’s side. He said: I don’t know. There are all kinds of possibilities. I haven’t thought it out yet. Maybe we could go to your sister in Australia.

And Mum said in a too-loud voice: My sister? What are you talking about? She didn’t say anything else. The bed squeaked on my mother’s side now. And a few seconds later, in a voice that was both surprised and angry, she said: Have you been walking around a long time with this idea in your head?

And Dad said: A week, two. And I’m not ‘walking around with this idea.’ It just crossed my mind a few times.

And Mum said: But why didn’t you say anything to me?

And Dad said: I’m telling you that I myself didn’t … That it’s just … And besides, I was afraid you’d get upset. I was afraid you’d say that I want to run away, that I am running away.

And Mum said: I would never say such a thing. Besides, when did you become such a coward?

And Dad said: It’s not that … But …

And they were both quiet.

Then Mum said, quietly: It’s too bad you didn’t tell me, Reuven. It’s too bad you always keep everything to yourself.

And Dad said: So now I’ve told you.

Mum shifted a little on the bed and said: Yes, now (and from the way she said it, it was clear that now wasn’t good enough any more). Then she was quiet again. A few seconds later, she said: What are you talking about. Absolutely not. Did you stop to think that it means dragging Yotam to a foreign country? And it’s not like everything will disappear if we get up and go, Reuven. It’s not that the minute we land in Australia, everything will be fine. Because if that’s what you think will happen, then forget it. With me, that lump is inside. Do you understand? Inside my body.

And Dad said: It’s in mine too, but … Then he gave a little cough, the kind that comes before an attack.

And Mum said. I don’t know, and gave the mattress a small smack. I don’t think it’ll work. That kind of hocus pocus. Australia. What will we do in Australia? And we have to talk to Miriam too. Did you even think about that? Who says they’re ready for this?

I wanted to say: Don’t you think that before you talk to Miriam, you should talk to me?! Maybe I don’t want to go? Maybe I’m not ready for this? But I couldn’t just include myself in the conversation after pretending to be asleep the whole time. So I just let out a kind of croak, like a nervous dog.

And Mum said: We’re disturbing his sleep.

And Dad said: Yes. Maybe we should go to the living room.

Mum leaned over — I could smell her breath — and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

Then there were steps. Four feet walking. The door creaked, then closed. I waited a few more seconds, just to be sure, and opened my eyes in the dark.

*

I saw him in the street, slipping a ticket under a windscreen wiper and then typing something on the machine hanging around his neck. What grabbed me, I think, was the hair. Lovely, soft white hair, the kind old people have, even though he was young. Excuse me, I said, going up to him, and he, used to people attacking him, started defending himself right away: I’m sorry, miss, I can’t do anything now. After the machine prints out a ticket, you can’t cancel it. Write a letter to the council if you want, maybe they’ll cancel it for you. But that’s not my car, I said, and he looked me in the eye for the first time and said in surprise, not your car? So what … What do you want from me? I wanted — I said and delayed the rest of the sentence, enjoying his suspense, and my own — I wanted to ask if I could take a picture of you. Of me?! he said, and smoothed down his white hair with a quick, almost invisible movement. Yes, of you. I’m sorry, he said, looking at my camera with interest, we’re not allowed to have our pictures in the newspaper. There’s an order from the unit manager saying we can’t have our pictures taken for the newspaper or TV without permission. But it’s not for a newspaper, I explained. Then what is it for? It’s a project that I’m doing for college, and I thought I’d take your picture as part of the project. My picture? Why mine?! I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I just have a feeling it would fit. What are you studying? Photography. Is that a profession, photography? I thought it was a hobby. Not exactly. Some people actually make their living from it. Ah, he said, a new light flashing in his eyes, you get paid money for this project? No, it’s a project I have to hand in. I get a grade for it, not money. No money?! he said, his shoulders drooping in disappointment, so why should I let you take my picture? Look, I said, taking a quick look at the ticket sitting on the windscreen behind him, they say that if a person does one good deed a day, it makes up for ten bad deeds. Is that what they say?! he said, half surprised and half jesting, and looked at the ticket too. Yes, I said. And it would really help me if you let me take your picture. He studied my face for a few seconds, then said, you know what? OK. That’s great, I said happily, thank you very much. You’re welcome, he said, tucked his shirt into his trousers and leaned on the car, posing like a model. Just a second, I said. Before we take the picture, I have to ask you a few questions. Go ahead, he said, hooking his thumbs in his belt.

What’s your name?

Kobi, Kobi Goldman.

How old are you?

Thirty-nine.

How long have you been a parking attendant?

Six months. Ever since I got fired from Tevel, the cable TV company. I worked in the stockroom there.

Do you miss working at Tevel?

Miss it? I wouldn’t say that. Did you ever work in a stockroom? You know what it’s like not to see the light of day from seven in the morning until seven in the evening?

So what do you miss?

In the stockroom, or in general?

In general.

Is this question connected to your project?

Yeah, it is. It’s all connected to the project.

So what can I tell you. In general, I’m a person who tries to look ahead in life. Not back. How will missing things help? You can’t change what happened.

But even so?

Kobi the parking attendant scratched his chin, then stroked his cheek with one finger, as if there were stubble on it, even though there wasn’t, and finally put his hand on his chest the way you put your hand on the Bible in court and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So? I said, urging him a little.

I once had a dog, he said.

What was its name?

Snow, he said, pronouncing the name gently, as if the dog were right beside him, and the first signs of longing began to appear on his face: swollen cheeks, moist eyes.

I called her Snow because she was completely white. She was the most beautiful dog you’ve ever seen in your life. The kind of dog they put in ads. And she was so good-natured. If I came home from the stockroom feeling down, she’d sense it and start to lick my face.

What happened to her? I asked, and Kobi showed another sign of longing: his shoulders drooped.

We lost her, he said quietly, and his right hand clenched into a fist. My wife went out to walk her in the grove of trees near the house and came back without her.

From his tone, I could tell that he thought if he’d gone out to walk her, it wouldn’t have happened.

We did everything to find her, he went on. We put notices on trees. We went looking for her at night. I even called that woman who has that all-night radio programme and asked her to announce that we’d give a reward to the finder.

And nothing helped?

Nothing. Someone must have dragged her into his van and sold her for a lot of money. She was pedigree, with papers.

And you didn’t want another dog?

Are you crazy?! Kobi said angrily, as if I’d parked in a handicapped spot and would have to pay a huge fine. How could we, after such a thing happened?

You’re right, I agreed quickly, so he wouldn’t get really angry and walk off. And … Tell me, do you have anything left of Snow’s, a memento?

I have a few pictures at home, he said, pulling a bunch of keys out of his pocket. And I have her tag.

He separated the tag from the rest of the keys and handed it to me. It had the Tel Aviv/Jaffa logo on it, along with a small drawing of a dog and a serial number. If it had been a little larger, it would have been perfect. But the way it was, I’d have to close the frame to get him and the tag in it. And a closed frame wouldn’t be right for the feeling.

A tall guy with a short dog turned into the street. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to walk up to a total stranger, but when I take pictures, I become shameless. Wait a second, I asked the parking attendant. I don’t have all day, miss, he protested, but his tone was more complaining than angry. I ran over to the tall guy, ignored his dog’s barking, smiled my number two smile and asked if I could borrow his leash just for a minute. With the leash in my hand, I ran back to the parking attendant and asked him to hold it. How, like I’m walking a dog? he asked, and I grabbed my camera and said, however you want. Hold it any way you feel like. He moved to the right a little and wound the leash around his neck, like a scarf.

Is that what you used to do with the leash when you walked Snow? I asked.

Yes, he said, and gave a small, nostalgic smile.

I clicked the shutter. That was exactly the smile I’d been hoping for.

*

I hope you realise that this will influence the reference I give you, Nava said. You can’t just disappear for a month and expect it to go unnoticed.

I never thought it would, I replied, looking at the picture on the calendar hanging behind her — two tiger cubs fighting playfully.

Do you have other people to give you references? she asked, and before I could answer, she continued: because if you do, you should probably go to them instead of coming to me.

It’s OK, I reassured her: for the time being, I’m not planning to register for a Master’s.

You’re not?!! she cried, as if such a thing — someone who wasn’t dying to be a psychologist — were impossible.

No, I repeated, stretching my legs comfortably. That was the first time I’d spoken my decision out loud, and I liked the sound of it.

But why, Nava said, surprising me by removing the black ponytail band that held her hair, why, if I may ask?

Lots of reasons.

It would be a shame if it’s because of what happened in your crossword puzzle group. Things like that happen, and with time and experience, we learn how to handle them. How to set limits.

I raised an inner eyebrow — am I imagining it, or did this woman just show some real caring for me? I looked at her and thought that with her hair loose, she actually looked nice. She felt my eyes on her and pulled her hair back into a ponytail again. That’s just it, I said. I don’t think I can set limits. How can I explain it to you … Did you ever have a talk with Shmuel?

Nava nodded.

He probably told you that he didn’t have a protective layer of skin, I said, and that’s why he feels everyone’s unhappiness penetrating his body, and when he told you that, you obviously thought he was crazy, that he was talking nonsense. But here’s the thing: I’m just like him. I feel other people, especially their inner pain, at full volume. And I’m not sure I want to turn that into a profession. It makes my personal life complicated enough as it is.

I understand, Nava said, and unlike the hundreds of time she’d said ‘I understand’ before, this time it felt real. So I raised the barrier and told her some even more secret things: that I was sick of the sensitive psychologist image I’d been selling to the public for so long that I’d forgotten it was just an image; that I wanted to talk, not just to listen; that since the time I was a child, I’ve always listened, taken an interest, learned how everyone behaved, and then I talked, and I was sick of that, sick of trying to make myself fit in because I was the new kid in the building, in the neighbourhood, at school; I was sick of keeping all my thoughts to myself because it was too dangerous to expose my true, ugly, jealous, nervous self, the one only my family knew, the one Noa had begun scratching the silver coating off and maybe that’s why, that’s why …

That’s why what? Nava asked.

Never mind, I said. And thought: enough. You’ve opened up too much already.

So what you’re really saying, Nava said, is that you want to remove yourself from playing the role of a psychologist and keep yourself out of it permanently.

Yes, I admitted. Even though I hate it when people mirror me.

Are you sure that’s the real reason you don’t want to continue studying?

You know, I shot back at her, that’s exactly what annoys me, your thinking that there’s another, truer reason and you have to guide me to it. I’m not sure that there are absolute reasons for things. For me, the lines between right and wrong are very thin. Sometimes, only an asterisk separates them. And the really important things that happen between people are hidden and can’t be broken down into words. So how can I pretend to tell people what’s good and what’s bad?

That’s not exactly what psychologists do, Nava said, and the muscle in her cheek trembled slightly, a sign that she wanted to say even harsher things. But let’s leave that for a minute. There’s something else I don’t understand: why is it so important to you to come back to the club if you don’t plan to stay in the field anyway?

Why? I said, feeling my anger spray her with the most naked words I had inside me. Why?! Because for once in my life, I want to say goodbye the right way. You don’t know me. I’m one of those people you’re about to end a phone conversation with and before you can say bye, they’ve already hung up. Enough. I want to stop being like that. I have unfinished business here and I want to finish it slowly, gently.

OK, I have to think about it, Nava said, stealing a quick glance at the pile of papers on her desk. A very crooked paper clip sat on top of the pile.

Will you let me know? I asked, clutching the edges of the chair.

Yes, she said, writing something on a piece of coloured notepaper, probably my name. Then, just when I expected her to look pointedly at her watch or shift restlessly in her chair, she leaned back and spread her arms to the sides as if she had all the time in the world, as if now conditions were ripe for a simple conversation between two ordinary people who didn’t have the threat of a reference hanging between them, a conversation on a subject not related to the club or to psychology, let’s say a conversation about the mating habits of tigers, or the kind of music she likes. I almost asked her, but in the end I didn’t say anything and let the waves of loneliness she was suddenly emitting break on my skin, and her eyes roam the wall behind me. I have to tell Noa about this moment, I thought, I have to describe every little detail of it to her. Including the colour of the ponytail band, because Noa was the only person who’d been with me through all my previous Nava moments and she was the only one in the world who could understand what’s so weird here, so absurd.

A few days later, Nava called and told me that it was frowned upon, but OK, if it was so important to me, and I went down the stairs to the shelter with a new rolled-up crossword puzzle under my arm. My heart was pounding and I kept rubbing my cheeks to make sure I’d shaved. For the last few days, I’d envisioned the scene dozens of times, with a new scenario each time. But the only thing that never appeared in any of them was the possibility that no one would pay attention to me when I came in.

The draughts players kept looking at their boards. Mordechai kept showing his football album to some woman I didn’t know. Ronen and Chanit were sitting very close together, as if they were about to kiss. And Shmuel, my Shmuel, was staring at the wall.

I went over to the coffee corner and made myself some tea. It was too hot for tea, but I wanted to look busy. When I finished stirring the sugar, someone tapped me on the back. I turned around. Amatzia the vacillator was standing in front of me. He wanted to say something, but the words didn’t come out. I waited. Tell me, he finally said, scratching his chin, aren’t you the student with the crossword puzzles? Of course not, he answered himself before I could say anything, you can’t be. That one was … But maybe you are. That one looked pretty much like you, but a little taller. No, he was actually the same height. Almost.

That’s enough, Amatzia, don’t make him crazy, Joe said, coming up to us and extending his hand to me. How are you, Amir? You disappeared on us. We were starting to get worried that the Security Services had kidnapped you. No, don’t be silly, I said, shaking hands with him and Malka and Mordechai and Haim and Ronen and Chanit. Suddenly the whole club was gathered around me, as if they’d been waiting for Amatzia to take the first step. Malka asked, where have you been for so long? I was ill, I said, and Joe said, it’s too bad you didn’t consult us. We’re experts when it comes to medicines, and everyone laughed, including Nava, who was standing off to the side observing. Then Amatzia said, so did you bring us a new puzzle? quickly adding, we’re tired of puzzles. Actually, we did miss them a little, but what’s the point, what good does it do us to solve crossword puzzles? Even though it’s fun, it’s really fun, even though it’s a bit stupid. I said, yes, Amatzia, I brought a whole new puzzle and we’ll start working on it together in a few minutes. Everyone’s invited, even the ones who weren’t part of the crossword puzzle group before, I said loudly, looking over at Shmuel in the hope that he’d get the hint. But all he did was take off his glasses and start cleaning them.

After the puzzle was solved and all the members of the group applauded and made me promise not to be ill again, because they’re crazy about crossword puzzles, I took it off the wall, put a rubber band around it and stood it on its side. Then, empty-handed, I went over to Shmuel.

Hello, I said, sitting down next to him.

He didn’t answer.

Shmuel, I said, trying again. It’s me, Amir. Don’t you remember me?

He didn’t answer.

Shmuel, come on, I said, sounding as if I were pleading, don’t you remember that we used to talk? You told me about your theories. About how the world is divided into three colours …

Red, white and transparent, Shmuel continued my sentence and I breathed a sigh of relief without breathing. The red, he said, always wants to go to the extremes, to eat a red apple from the tree of knowledge or a white apple from the tree of life. And God won’t allow that. God is transparent. God is the middle road.

He kept talking, telling me about the three junctions of pain at which God revealed himself to him, and I nodded attentively, even though I’d already heard it all, in exactly the same words. A sweet sense of submission seeped into me with every word he spoke. He didn’t remember that he’d already told me. He probably didn’t even remember who I was. What’s the point of talking to him if he doesn’t remember anything afterwards? What’s the point of this whole club if it doesn’t improve the members’ conditions by a single millimetre?

Shmuel had reached the second junction, at which God had appeared to him as a dog, and I leaned back in my chair and looked around at what was going on in the room. Joe was playing draughts with Malka. And winning, as usual. His eyes darted in all directions, as usual, to make sure no one had come to kidnap him. Amatzia started to climb the steps to go outside, then stopped and came back down. And went up again. And came down. Mordechai was showing his football album to Nava, who had undoubtedly seen it a thousand times, but still she smiled, occasionally pointing to a picture and asking about it. And he answered. His voice mingled with hers, and with Shmuel’s, and they mingled with the cigarette smoke and the steam coming from the kettle, with the drawings that dripped from the walls, and very slowly I began to feel how the line that separated me from them and had disappeared so that I’d thought it didn’t exist, took shape inside me again. It was long and thick, and the fear that had seized me the last time I was here, the fear that I’d go back to the bad, shaky times of basic training, slowly faded and almost vanished.

Shmuel went on to the third junction and started telling me how he’d stood in front of the picture of the girl in that museum in Herzliya and felt God appear before him from a spot in the middle of her forehead. Feeling a pleasant tiredness spread through my body, I closed my eyes and thought: there’s something about all this that makes a person feel sane.

And then I thought: where is Noa now? And what will I do with all these thoughts I’m so used to sharing with her?

*

How often I imagined this moment. How much I wished for it and prayed for it and ached for it, and here they finally are, all the prints, hanging next to each other on the wall in Aunt Ruthie’s apartment: my mother in the centre, holding the letter from her beloved (in the end, I decided that was more interesting than a scarf), and on the right, the guy from the balcony wearing a shirt showing the dates of Nirvana’s last performances, which never took place. On the left is Suzanna, the new immigrant I found through the Association of Argentinian Immigrants, sitting in a white plastic chair on the promenade. A row below them is Kobi Goldman, the parking attendant and Orna Gad, the archaeologist, and Akram Marnayeh, an Arab I posed standing in front of a gate to a house in Jaffa holding a big, rusty key. And in the third and last row, three people who aren’t holding anything. One is a young poet, Lior Sternberg, who I saw give a reading of his poems on television and thought he had a longing face. The second one is the singer Etti Ankri taken from the back so you can’t see who she is. And the third one is me standing next to Aunt Ruthie’s painting, ‘Girl’.

I move closer to the wall, then back. I walk to the right and then to the left. It looks perfect from every angle. Everything is perfect. The composition of each picture separately. The way the pictures converse with one another. Especially the ones of me and my mother. The lighting. The background. The variety of backgrounds. Even the light-coloured frames I’d chosen, and at first thought were a mistake, looked right now.

So why doesn’t it do anything to me? I think, flopping on to the sofa. Why do I feel so dried up? Why can’t I think about anything but the fact that Amir hasn’t seen the project?

*

So Yotam, is this how you hide things from me? Amir asked, moving his bishop, and I thought: how does he know? Then he said, after all we’ve been through together, I have to hear from Doga that you’re moving away? He smiled to show that he wasn’t really cross. I moved my king back one square and said, you’re right. Every time I planned to tell you, it just never came out. Don’t worry, Amir said and moved his castle one square forward. The main thing is, how do you feel about it? Do you want to move to another country? And when is it actually going to happen? Really soon, I said, answering the easiest question, and blocked his castle with one of my pawns. My mum and I are going to Aunt Miriam’s in Sydney in two weeks to look for a school for me, and Dad is staying here a while longer to close down his business, sell the house and put the furniture in storage. And …? Amir said, jumping his knight forward, do you want to go? Are you happy about it? What difference does it make, I said, moving my king back one square to get away, no one ever asks me anyway. My mother and father sat down in the living room, turned off the TV while I was in the middle of watching Star Trek and told me they’d been thinking about it a lot and that it would be best for all of us. I told them they didn’t know what was best for me, but they said I was too young to decide and I had to trust them. So I asked how I was supposed to talk to the kids there, because I don’t know English, and they just laughed and said that was silly because I’m such a fast learner that I’d know the whole dictionary in a month. Well, they’re right about that, Amir said and captured my knight with his bishop. How do you know, I said, and captured his bishop with my pawn (why all these exchanges, I thought. What’s he planning?). First of all, Amir said, moving his castle one square to the right, you really are a fast learner. Look at how quickly you learned chess. And secondly, my parents also took me to Australia when I was a kid and I remember that it didn’t take me long to learn the language. You were in Australia too? I said, surprised, and captured his castle with mine. I had the feeling that he was setting a trap for me, but I captured it anyway. Yes, Australia too, Amir said, laughing and moving his queen, who’d been waiting quietly until that moment, to the far corner of the board and said, check. From that minute on, we stopped talking. My king was in danger and I had to protect him, no matter what. Amir attacked and attacked, and I found a way of rebuffing his pieces every time: I sacrificed a bishop and a castle and even four pawns so my king wouldn’t fall. I kept waiting for him to make a stupid mistake that would turn the game around, but he didn’t make even one. In the end, after my queen went, I had no choice and I surrendered. I hate losing, most of all in chess, but Amir didn’t leave me with the bitter taste of defeat for too long. He went to the kitchen and came back with two glasses of lemonade and said, nice of you to let me win before you go off to Australia. And I said, what are you talking about, I never let you win. I know, he said, of course. All I have to do is see how you sweat during the game to know that. I took a big gulp of lemonade and asked, so how was it in Australia? Very nice, Amir said. It’s a calm, quiet country. The people are nice, much nicer than the Americans. No terrorist attacks. No wars. Lots of nature. But they have all the mod cons: fast motorways, giant shopping centres, computer games. Wow, I said. It sounds cool. Yes, Amir said, I’ve been to a lot of countries, and it’s one of the best.

So maybe you’ll come with us? I said suddenly. I hadn’t planned to say it. I hadn’t built it, move by move, the way you build a trap in chess. The words just flew out of my mouth, but the minute they reached my ears, I thought: what a great idea! Amir doesn’t go to the club any more anyway. He’ll be finished with his exams soon. And how long can he sit here and wait for Noa? Yes, I thought excitedly, he should come with us. I was already picturing us walking together in the streets of Sydney, and suddenly that city didn’t seem so scary any more.

I’d love to go with you, Amir said, but …

But what?! Why not?! I blurted out, picturing us sitting next to each other on the plane, going together to games of the Australian football league …

First of all, Amir said in the voice of someone who couldn’t be persuaded, I think you and your parents have a lot of lost time to make up for, and I don’t think anyone should stick himself in the middle.

But you wouldn’t be doing that! I yelled, and inside, I felt just like I did before, when we were playing: that no matter what I did now, my king would fall in the end.

And anyway, Amir said, I’ve done enough wandering. I’m tired of it. I promised myself that this time I’d stay and wait for Noa.

What if she doesn’t come back? I asked.

If she doesn’t, Amir said, then she doesn’t. But whatever happens, you and I won’t stop being friends.

And just how will we do that? I asked. Amir was quiet for a minute, the way grown-ups are quiet after they promise a kid something just to shut him up, and the kid picks up on it.

*

I can imagine Amir walking in front of the pictures, his hands behind his back, quiet at first, smiling at my mother’s picture — which really did come out a little funny — recognising Etti Ankri right away (he adores her), wondering where I dug up that parking attendant, lingering a while in front of my portrait, then turning around and saying: horrible.

Really? I ask him in my imagination, and he answers, are you joking, Noa? It’s huge. It’s the strongest work you’ve ever done. The most perfect. You can see in every frame that you spent hours on it. That’s true, I say, straightening my shoulders, I really did invest time, but it can’t be that you don’t have any comments. Listen, he says, looking at everything again, if you force yourself to look for it, you can always find something. What? I press him, knowing that’s his code for ‘I have some criticisms.’ The arrangement, he says, hitting my G-spot of fears right on the nose. That matrix, three by three, is more suitable for a TV game show than for a project about longing. Why, I ask, arguing with him in my mind, defending my arrangement with my life, but knowing very well that he’s right and that very soon, my claims will die.

God. I’d like him to be here for real. Not just in my imagination. I’d like him to see the corrected arrangement. To hug me. To kiss me on the neck. On the mouth.

But what if he doesn’t want to?

I remember that American writer, the one who said in an interview that he finds it difficult to write when his wife is in the house, so he goes off to the woods by himself for three months every year. Later on in the interview, which appeared at the end of the supplement along with the continuations of other interviews, the journalist asked who he gives the manuscript to when he’s finished, who is actually his first reader. My wife, he answered without hesitation, and I thought then, when I read the interview, it can’t be. Why does she agree? After he left her alone with the kids for three months, how could she bring herself to sit with his pile of papers and read with an open heart, as if she weren’t angry?

*

Angry with her? Of course I’m angry with her, I said to David. OK, I understand that she had to breathe, so did I, and the truth is, I was pretty glad to have a break. But what’s the big drama about picking up a phone? Why does everything with her have to be so dramatic? So extreme?

And what would you do if she called you now? David asked.

I have no idea, I said.

So there you go, David said, taking his guitar out of its case and starting to tune it. Every conversation with him reaches the point where words get tired and let music take over.

A new Licorice song? I asked.

No, he said. An instrumental segment. We’re thinking about opening the album with it. Tell me what you think.

I closed my eyes. The first sounds began. I leaned back into the sofa and let my thoughts drop away, drop away, until only pure emotion was left in my body. I couldn’t give the emotion a name. And I didn’t want to. All I wanted was to ride on it for as long as it continued. The sounds twisted along like a narrow path that goes up and down a mountain, in and out of houses, through people, and every time you think it’s ending, it starts all over again. I rode on that path, I rode with my eyes closed and my hands spread to the sides. Rustling branches caressed me and birds landed on my shoulders. Leaves kept falling, falling, falling, tickling my ears. The wind whistled around me and spiralled me up towards the sheep-shaped clouds, setting me down gently, gently on the roof of an unfamiliar house.

You’re the king, David, I said when the last sounds finally broke away from the air.

Really? You liked it? he asked. Those artists — leaves in the wind.

Very much, I said.

We still don’t have a name for it, David said, putting down his guitar. Got any ideas?

You could call it … osmosis, I suggested.

Too heavy, he said, rejecting the suggestion out of hand.

*

The yellow peppers arrived in Tel Aviv. Late, of course. After I’d finished my project, of course. But it doesn’t matter. Today, I came back from the beach via Neveh Tzedek and on the corner of Piness and Shabazi I felt tingles of excitement creeping up my spine. Finally. The right combination of ugliness and beauty. Of happiness and pain. Of old and older. I strolled through the narrow streets, went into a different shop each time — jewellery, posters, beads, handbags. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I didn’t take any pictures, but it turns out that sometimes, unsatisfied desire is more intense. A FOR RENT sign on a house that had only columns, no walls and no roof. A click in my head. Luxury hotels rising up over a Yemenite synagogue. Click. A big fridge parked in a red-and-white no-parking zone. A flower sprouting from an iron gate. A sink on the street for washing your hands. A sign on a metal door, ‘We Mend Angels’ Broken Wings’. Click. Click. Click.

OK, sure you love Neveh Tzedek, it looks like Jerusalem, Amir said, scoffing at me in my mind. And I said to him, no, that’s not true. But I knew he was a little bit right.

And he said, when are you coming back? The day before yesterday was three weeks.

And I said, I love you.

And he said, what does that have to do with it?

Meanwhile, without my noticing it, I’d walked out of the neighbourhood and was standing at the foot of the Shalom Tower.

I wonder if the tower sways when there’s a strong wind, I thought, looking up until the sun blinded me. Then I thought, maybe on a clear day you can see Amir from the roof. Maybe you can follow his movements in the apartment. Going into the kitchen. The bedroom. Tidying up the living room. No. He doesn’t actually tidy up the living room, because I’m not there so it doesn’t need tidying up. But wait a minute. Who said he’s alone? Who said he’s waiting patiently for me. I wouldn’t even give him my phone number. So why should he wait? Maybe now he feels the relief I felt the first few days and he thinks he’d be better off with someone else who won’t be such a burden. Wait a second. Let’s have a close-up. No. My pictures are still on the wall. He didn’t take them down. When he goes over to the noticeboard he still sees the poem about the forbidden chocolate. Zoom out to the door. The sign with our names and the fish drawing is still there. Without being aware of it, we had suddenly made a home. Only now, during these last few weeks, did I realise how much of a home it was.

I always thought I was free as a bird. That a house was just four walls. And that because I was an artist, walls put limits on me. That when I was travelling in the East, I didn’t miss my parents’ house for even a minute. Just the opposite. Going away from them was always a little like escaping from prison. Like running in the fields after digging a tunnel under the barbed-wire fence. But now, suddenly, I want to go back. Suddenly there are millions of little things I miss. Say, watching Yotam and Amir play chess. Talking to Sima and feeling her energy fill me up. Watching The X-Files with Amir, both of us in the same armchair, hugging each other on Zakian’s steps, having sex with him, burning in the sparks of his eyes, coming. Leaving the house with the smell of him on me. Coming home and hearing the squeak of his chair when he gets up to hug me. Talking to him before falling asleep, with only the words to light up the dark. Telling him that I heard noises and knowing that he’ll get up to investigate. Ending his unfinished sentences. And making mistakes. Deliberately leaving a hairband on the rug and seeing it drive him crazy. Putting my finger on his lower lip and watching his twitch go away. Hearing a new Jeremy Kaplan song on the radio and arguing with him about whether it’s good or bad. Asking him for a slice of his orange, then another slice, until he gives up and hands me the whole thing. Laughing at the words he makes up to describe people, like depressionistic about someone at school, or nymphulterous, about the girlfriend he had before me. Being sad or weak in front of him without being ashamed, or not wearing make-up in front of him without being ashamed. Talking to him in the middle of the day and feeling completely understood. Seeing myself through his eyes. Seeing him bent over his books. Hearing his little stories. Fighting with him, being jealous, making up. Feeling something.

And what about the poison? A man in a suit walking past me on the street bumped into me and brought me back to the world. Watch where you’re going, I yelled after him, but he disappeared into the entrance of an office building. I started walking towards Nahalat Binyamin Street, making my way through the doubts. The minute you go back to him, the poison will start bubbling again. He hasn’t turned into someone else in three weeks. He won’t suddenly be crystalline and tough and happy. So why, damn it, should anything change? I don’t know, I don’t know, I answered myself and turned into Mazeh Street.

Pieces of white cloth with political slogans on them hung from a few balconies. All of them for the same candidate. Amazing, I thought. If you walk around Tel Aviv, you’re sure that the Labour Party will win with a twenty-vote margin, and if you walk around Jerusalem, you think the Labour Party won’t even get the minimum they need to be a real party. It’s funny, I thought as I walked. Funny that there are elections now. Only six months ago, Rabin was still Prime Minister. Six months? That means that we moved to the Castel seven months ago. Seven months ago, we looked for an apartment and stumbled into the shivah for Yotam’s brother by accident. It’s incredible how many things were crammed into that short period of time. As if it were a story, not reality. The work I handed in, my tutors’ put-downs, Yotam. Sima. Moshe. And Amir and me, getting so involved with each other without realising it, so involved that now it’s so hard to be apart. Like conjoined twins who share a nerve, and if you separate them surgically, neither one will survive.

That’s it, I thought, and looked up.

A group of people was gathering at the end of the block next to the nut and candy stand. They’re probably watching a football match, I thought. But when I came closer, I saw a totally different kind of tension on their faces. What happened? I asked, and a man with a red peaked cap shushed me and pointed to the TV hanging from the ceiling of the store. In the middle of the screen was a map of central Jerusalem, and a yellow star shone at the junction of Jaffa and King George Streets.

Oh no.

I started running through the streets looking for a payphone. I have to know, I have to know that he’s OK. I ran around trees, between couples. I skipped over holes, crossed a red light, fell down, got up, asked, ran in a different direction. There was no phone there. I choked, suffocated, ran past another group of people, another nut and candy stand. A hound of Baskerville barked, scaring me very badly, but I had no choice, I kept running. Please don’t let anything happen to him now, please, please, not now. Finally I spotted a payphone on the corner of Carlebach and Hashmonaim Streets. I slowed down to a fast walk, got some air back into myself, took my phone card out of my bag and stuck it in the slot. Suddenly, because of all the pressure, I couldn’t remember our number. I pictured the payphone at work, my fingers dialling the apartment. Six three nine five nine five. The call was disconnected. Idiot. You have to dial zero-two before the number. I dialled the whole number, saying to myself: I’ll just hear his voice, just hear that nothing happened to him, and hang up.

*

I wanted to say thank you, Yotam’s mother said and remained standing in the doorway.

Please come in, I said. She came in and stood in the middle of the living room. Are you in a hurry to go somewhere? I asked.

No, she apologised and sat down. It’s just that there are so many things to take care of before we go.

It was all pretty sudden, wasn’t it? I asked, lowering the volume of the CD player. Elvis Costello was probably not her cup of tea.

Yes, she said with a sigh. I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing. Maybe we’ll feel worse there. But we can’t stay here any more.

I understand.

Sometimes you make a change just to make a change, don’t you?

Yes, I agreed, thinking about Noa in Tel Aviv, making a change. Tell me, I said, barely dragging myself away from my thoughts about Noa, have you found a school for Yotam yet?

No, she said. That’s why we’re leaving a week early. The school year starts in June. Because everything’s upside down there, all the seasons. Yotam and I are leaving at the beginning of next week and Reuven will stay here another week or two to close his business and empty the house.

You mean you have buyers already?

Yes, a young couple with two children. Very nice people. He’s an engineer and she’s a teacher. I think you’ll both get along with them very well.

I thought: who’s ‘both?’ Do you see any ‘both’ here? And I said: so how’s Yotam taking the whole thing?

He runs hot and cold. Sometimes he gets up in the morning and says he’s not going with us and he doesn’t care what happens. And sometimes, he asks me little questions, things he’s curious about. As if we’re just taking a trip. This whole year, he’s been wanting to go on a trip.

Yes, I said, thinking that she still doesn’t know I didn’t open the door that Saturday.

And, she went on, he told me that he talked to you and you told him that Australia was a fun place.

Yes.

So that’s why I came. To say thank you.

You’re welcome, I said, moving uncomfortably on the sofa. Maybe some day I’ll have the courage to stand with my chest exposed and let the compliments in. Meanwhile, I have a tendency to evade them, the way cowboys in films dodge bullets.

Really, Amir, thank you for everything, Yotam’s mother said. You have no idea how important you were to him. He didn’t stop talking about you all year. Amir this, Amir that. And last week, he had the idea that you’d come with us to Australia.

Yes, I heard about that idea, I said, smiling.

He loves you very much, you know.

I love him too, I said. And stopped for a second to celebrate that word, which is not spoken every day. He’s a wonderful boy, I said. Sensitive. Full of ideas and imagination.

Yes, he is, his mother’s nods said.

Besides, I said, trying out different words in my mouth before I found the least hurtful phrasing, I understand what it’s like to be at home and feel alone.

You know, Yotam’s mother said, ignoring my last remark, I think you’ll be a really good psychologist.

Maybe, I said, again evading the compliment shot at me, but there’s a good chance I won’t be a psychologist at all.

Why not?

Oh, don’t worry, it’s complicated.

She didn’t say anything and looked at the wall. Her eyes travelled around for a few seconds, then stuck on Noa’s photographs from the East.

And what about … your girlfriend? she asked and immediately blushed. It’s all right if I ask, isn’t it?

Yes, I said. Of course it’s all right. But I don’t really have an answer. I hope she’ll come back. I think she has to come back. But I’m not at all sure if and when it’ll happen.

Tell me, Yotam’s mother said, averting her eyes, did the girls I sent come here?

What girls?

With the food.

Aha, I said and laughed. Now the mystery is solved. You sent them.

Yes, she said, looking at me again. I thought you’d probably be hungry. I would have cooked for you myself, but I only started cooking again this week. I didn’t have the strength before, you know.

Of course.

Was the food good?

Very good. I’m already addicted to kubeh.

And how were the girls?

The girls? I flashed up in my mind the parade of girls who’d been in the apartment during the last month. The girls were lovely. But you know, I’m still waiting for Noa.

Of course, yes, Yotam’s mother said and smiled — unbelievably — a mischievous smile. It’s amazing how a smile changes a person’s face. A different woman suddenly showed through.

OK, she said, looking at her watch. I have to go back to packing.

I walked her to the door and before she left, we hugged. On both cheeks! she scolded me after I’d made do with only one kiss. Yotam will probably come to say goodbye himself, she said. I asked him to come with me, but he said he wanted to come alone.

He’s right, I said, and she nodded and turned to go. I watched her until she disappeared past Moshe and Sima’s house, and then I went back inside.

I paced around the house for a while, hands behind my back, like a professor who’s finding it hard to solve a mathematical mystery. In a few more days, Yotam and his mother will leave, I thought. And Sima has been avoiding me ever since that almost-kiss of ours. The delicate threads that bound me to this neighbourhood are coming undone one by one. And I’m left unravelled. If Noa were here — I turned and started walking in the opposite direction — it wouldn’t bother me. If Noa were with me, I’d even be ready to live in a neighbourhood of meditators. But the way it is now, I feel like the new kid in class.

Funny, I thought. I’ve looked at that picture a million times and always thought it’s a bed in a hotel room in another country and that the man is looking out at the moon, feeling homesick. Now a different story suddenly popped into my head: the man is sitting in his own house. The house that used to be his. He’s looking out with the hope that the woman who left him will return and give him back that feeling, because without her, that bed is just a bed like any hotel room bed. And the sheet is wrinkled from tiredness, not from lovemaking. And the four walls are just four walls, nothing more, and the door is a hole in the wall filled up with wood, and the roof is pitch black, and the armchair, the table, the chairs — they’re all cold, dead pieces of furniture.

Only the phone is alive. A sudden ring. Filling the space with a strident sound. I pulled myself away from the picture and went over to it. I’m sick and tired of hoping it’s Noa, I thought, and picked up the receiver.

*

Hi.

Hi.

Are you OK?

What happened?

A terrorist attack. On the number fourteen bus.

You know I don’t take buses.

Still, I wanted to know that you’re OK.

Wait, I’ll turn on the TV.

Horrible, isn’t it?

Yes, it is. But what’s even more horrible is that it doesn’t affect me any more.

Well, how much can a person take.

Yes, but what’s happening to all that pain we don’t let in? It doesn’t really disappear.

Maybe it spills into the sea.

Like sewage?

Exactly.

Great. Only three weeks, and you already have a head full of Tel Aviv images.

I wish. I haven’t found myself here.

So come back.

Will you take me back?

Eight dead. Of course I’ll take you back. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.

Do you miss me?

No.

No?

Maybe a little. Did you know that Yotam and his parents are going to live in Australia?

What? When?

There’s a story behind it. He ran away from home and they found him in some ruined shack in the wadi. To cut a long story short, they decided just like that to go to Australia. Yotam and his mother are leaving on Sunday. The father a little while later.

Wow. So if I want to say goodbye to him …

You should start packing.

Can you say that again?

Say what?

You should start packing.

Why?

Because I love your voice, Amir.

What else do you love about me? It’s nine dead now, by the way.

That’s a lot. Yesterday, I dreamed we were fucking in the Israel Museum.

The Israel Museum?

Yes. In the archaeology department. Where all the brown pottery is.

Interesting. I was sure you’d want to do it at your photography exhibition.

I didn’t choose it, it was a dream. By the way, I finished the project.

What? So quickly?

I always knew that when the idea came, it would be finished in a week.

That’s great. I’m really happy for you.

It’s weird, I know. I was sure I’d be happy, but all I feel now is emptiness, maybe because you still haven’t seen it.

I don’t think that’s it.

No, really. I have this strange feeling that things don’t count until you see them.

So come.

But …

But what?

I read in some American self-help book I found in my aunt’s library that missing someone is not a good enough reason to go back to them.

What do you mean? If missing them isn’t enough, then what is?

The book says something like this — ‘Longing is sweet. But if you don’t want the going back to turn into the beginning of the next parting, there has to be a real change in the pattern of the relationship.’

That book is for Americans, right?

Come on, Amir, be serious.

I’m completely serious. I have a lot of new thoughts, but they’re not for the phone.

What if I come back now, and in two weeks we both feel suffocated?

If we’re true to ourselves, we won’t feel suffocated. If each one of us dumps the fantasy he had about the other before we started living together, we have a chance. Besides, we’re in the first-draft stage. We’re allowed to make mistakes and fix them a lot more times.

You and your beautiful words.

I really feel that way. And besides, Yotam will be very happy if you come back. He kept complaining that it’s no fun being with me since you left. And Sima is always asking about you.

I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I swore to myself that I’d only call to hear if you’re OK and then I’d hang up.

And I swore to myself that if you called, I’d be awful to you.

So what happened?

This thing between us must be very strong.

And maybe it’s too strong? Maybe we can only do it from a distance?

Maybe. When are you coming?

Oof!

Why oof?

Soon.

Tell me when so I can mess up the house. So you’ll feel comfortable.

Very funny.

It’s time to hang up. I have to go out to sit on Sima and Moshe’s steps.

The steps? Why, are you waiting for some girl?

*

When I heard Noa’s quick steps, I smiled to myself in the dark and said, I knew it. I really hate people who say, I knew it, after everything’s over, because how clever do you have to be to do that? But this time I really did know, I swear. Before Noa left, I only knew Amir through stories and dreams. And you can’t really know anyone that way. Like Doron, Mirit’s husband, before she brought him home, she told us the most amazing stories about him. How smart and responsible he is, and how you could always depend on him. But meeting him once was enough for me to see that he was one of those men who always needs a new girl to fall all over him or else he shrivels up. So what I’m saying is, it wasn’t till I got to know Amir up close, after we went looking for Yotam together and he taught me about magnets, that I realised something about him and Noa: they’re alike. I mean, not on the outside — even though they are a bit — but on the inside, as if they come from the same town. No, the same country, and they’re the only two people who are citizens there. When I talked to him, there were times when I thought I was talking to her. It’s not the words they use. It’s the melody. Like their speech has the same melody. Take Moshe and me, we have the most different melodies in the world. Mine is happy and bouncy and a little nervous. His is slow and pleasant, like a ballad. I don’t know if this melody example is a good one. But anyway, when Noa walked up the steps I caught my breath and tried to figure out what was happening from the noises I heard: were they hugging now? A long hug or a short one? And what about the kiss? A polite little one on the cheek or a long one with all the trimmings? They started walking down the path and I thought: he’s probably leading her the way you lead a guest. And she’s keeping her distance, so as not to bump into him. Now I hear them laughing. She must have bumped into him anyway.

I can’t say I wasn’t jealous when I heard their door open. And close right away.

I can’t say I didn’t imagine how embarrassed they’d be with each other at first, sitting down with a little distance between them on the sofa. Then she touches him while they’re talking, and he touches her.

I can’t say I didn’t think I’d like to be in her place in another few minutes when he carries her piggyback into the bedroom.

But I didn’t get up to listen through the hole in the wall. It wasn’t burning inside me any more. It didn’t give me a sour taste in my mouth. Those two, I thought, they’re better off together than apart. Apart, each one gets lost. And besides, I thought, turning towards Moshe, I have my teddy bear. I stroked his cheek, and that stopped his snoring for a few seconds.

Maybe he snores, I thought, stroking his forehead. Maybe his religious brothers have too much influence over him. Maybe there are a lot of subjects you can’t talk to him about. But I’m a big enough talker for both of us. And most of the time, I actually like him to be that way, kind of heavy, because it makes me feel light. And he’s mad about me. He thinks I’m the cleverest, most beautiful woman in the world. When you’re with someone who thinks that about you long enough, you start to believe it’s true. And the children worship him. He has a lot more patience with them than I do. They can pester him and cry so their noses run all over him, and he couldn’t care less. And there’s something else: he would never leave them like my father left us. He can drive his bus to Eilat — but at the end of the day, I know I’ll hear the brakes squealing, the beeping when he backs up, the sound of the doors closing, his heavy steps scraping the pavement, and then his leather bag dropping on to the floor, and the turn of his key in the lock, twice, and the little cough he always gives before he says — in a voice that sounds a little tired and a little excited — Simkush, I’m home.

*

Before I reached the door, I knew that Noa was back. Her shoes weren’t outside and there were no girls’ knickers hanging on the line, but I heard happy music coming from their house and I knew that Amir wouldn’t play music like that if she hadn’t come back because lately, he always put on heavy music, in English, and wouldn’t change it even when I asked him to.

I knocked on the door and combed my hair back with my fingers, in her honour.

She opened the door, and before I could say hello, she pulled me over for a hug and right after that, she shook me by the shoulders and said, you came just in time. We’re having a party. She made the music louder, tossed her hair from side to side, then grabbed my hand and twirled me around so that I passed under the bridge that our hands made. Amir danced alongside us, and I said to myself, if he’s brave enough to dance like that, moving like a camel, then why shouldn’t I, and I started dancing. At class parties, I’m always a wallflower and after Gidi died, I stopped going to those parties altogether; I mean, at first, I really did stop going and then later on I wanted to start going again, but they stopped inviting me and I’d started to think, that’s it, I’ll never learn how to dance. I had hoped that in Australia kids my age didn’t have parties, but now, in Amir and Noa’s apartment, with all the furniture pushed to the sides so it wouldn’t get in the way, I suddenly felt I was a good dancer. The floor shook under our feet like a heart beating, and I waved my arms and danced the number eight around Noa and the number five around Amir for no real reason, just because I felt like it. I passed under the bridges they built and went through imaginary tunnels, all to the rhythm of the music, which was a kind of long song without words that never ended, never ended, never ended. Until it did.

You’re going to break a lot of hearts, Yotam, Noa said after we flopped on to the sofa.

Yes, Yotam. You’re terrific, Amir said.

I put on a modest expression, but inside I felt really puffed up.

You know, I’m very jealous of you, Noa said.

About what?

I always wanted to go to Australia.

Everyone who hears we’re going says that. My English teacher. Dor’s brother. I don’t get it, what’s so great about Australia, the kangaroos?

Maybe it’s because Australia is as far away from here as can be, Amir said, and sighed the way you sigh when you drink a lot of water.

What’s so bad about here? I wanted to ask, but I knew that was the kind of question grown-ups make a when-you-grow-up-you’ll-understand face after you ask it, so I didn’t.

So when are you leaving tomorrow? In the morning? The afternoon? Noa asked.

The flight’s at eight-thirty in the morning. And we have to be there two and a half hours before. So we’ll probably leave at five.

That means … we won’t see you tomorrow, Amir said, and all of a sudden there was this kind of sad silence, like the silence there used to be before Noa left and came back.

Well, then … Amir said, bent over and pulled a football out from under the sofa, this is the time to give you your going-away present.

He threw me the ball.

I caught it.

And couldn’t believe it.

On the white squares were the autographs of all the Beitar players. All of them. Ohana. Abucsis. Harazi. Kornfein. All of them.

How did you get this? I yelled. Noa laughed.

Beit Vegan, you know it? Amir said and gave a little smile.

Course I do! Our practice field!!

Avraham Levy, you know him?

Course I do, the Beitar manager.

That’s the whole story, Amir said, his smile getting wider. I went there yesterday, told him a bit about you and asked him to get all his players to sign the ball.

I don’t believe it, I said, running my fingers carefully over the ball. I was afraid I’d erase Ohana’s autograph with my fingers.

Believe it, Amir said, then touched the ball and said: this is so you won’t forget Jerusalem, even when you’re on the other side of the world.

And this is so you won’t forget us, Noa said and handed me a picture in a frame. It was a picture of me and Amir playing chess, with the empty lot in the background. At the bottom was written: To Yotam, our best friend in the Castel, from Noa and Amir.

Wow, this is great, I said and kissed Noa on the cheek, even though the truth was that, at that moment, I was more excited about the ball.

Then we all ate some Bamba peanut snacks from a huge bag and Amir and I played a last game of chess that ended in a stalemate. Then we put all the pieces back into the box, the black separately and the white separately. We did it really slowly to make it last longer, but finally all the pieces were inside and there was no choice, so I got up to go. They said, you can stay longer, and I said, no, I promised my mother to help her pack. I hugged and kissed and high-fived them goodbye at the door. Noa started crying and Amir put his arm around her shoulder. I said one last bye and walked away without looking back. But a few seconds later, I came back and knocked on the door again to take the framed picture I’d forgotten in all the excitement. They gave it to me and Amir laughed and said, go quickly before she starts crying again. He gave me one last hug, a man’s hug, and closed the door again.

The sun was starting to set and I’d promised Mum I’d be home before it got dark, but I had one more thing to do. I walked slowly through the lot until I got to the monument. I put the framed picture down next to it and shoved a stone under the ball so it wouldn’t roll down.

This is the last time I’ll be visiting you here, I said to Gidi. Maybe I’ll build a monument in Australia too. It depends on whether there’s an empty lot there. I hope you’re not cross with me for leaving, I said, and added three more stones to the monument. Two of them fell down and one stayed. Because I’m not cross with you any more and I’m not waiting any longer for you to surprise me and come back some day, or answer me when I talk to you. I know you can’t. Anyway, Gidi, I hope you’ll keep watching me from up there even when I’m in Australia. From heaven, it’s the same distance, right?

The stones didn’t move, and I got up. And picked up the picture. Then the ball. And I said goodbye to Gidi because ‘see you later’ didn’t seem right, and then –

At first, I thought I was imagining it. Then I closed my eyes and opened them again.

A giant kangaroo was jumping around the lot, between the rocks, over the piles of rubbish. It wasn’t a dog or a cat, but a real kangaroo, just like in the pictures Amir showed me in his album, with a long tail, enormous ears and a pouch. Sitting in the pouch was someone I didn’t recognise at first because the kangaroo was too far away from me, but when it cleared the monument in one jump and came closer, I saw that it was my brother Gidi. Wearing a uniform that was almost the same colour as the kangaroo. Hi, I said, holding out my hand. Hi, he said, holding out his hand to me too and smiling with his eyes. But before we could do our regular handshake, with our fingers and everything, he and the kangaroo gave one more jump and moved away from me. I ran after them, but I didn’t have a chance. They jumped all the way to the bottom of the lot, crossed the road and over Madmoni’s brand new house in two springy jumps. I looked around to see if anyone else was watching, but the street was completely empty. They started jumping down in the direction of the wadi and I ran up to the highest spot in the empty lot, climbed up the pile of boards and from there I could see them jumping, hippity-hop, straight to the sun. I put my hand on my forehead to shade my eyes and watched them for another few minutes, jumping over bushes and huge rocks, getting smaller and smaller, smaller and smaller, until they disappeared, and so did the sun.

I went home and Mum was angry with me for being late, so I didn’t tell her about the kangaroo because I didn’t want her to think it was an excuse. Then we had to find a place in one of the suitcases for my new football and decide what to do with the old one, and the next day, we drove to the airport and then there was another kind of excitement.

*

It’s a hot night in Maoz Ziyon. The air is still and it’s hard to sleep in bed. Yotam’s father is lying on the living room floor with a pillow under his head. Yotam and his mother flew to Australia on Sunday. He’s the one left behind to turn off the lights before he goes on his way. He had a few ends to tie up at work. You know how those things are. And someone had to advertise and sell the car.

He’ll put all the furniture on the street. A friend is supposed to come with a van and pick it up. Meanwhile, he’ll wait there. Sit down on an armchair. Nibble at a pear. A neighbour will wash his car, a hose in his hand. He’ll remember that when he was Yotam’s age he used to watch the streams of water running off the cars to see which would be the first to land.

A woman whose bags he once carried from the shops will make her way between the sofas and smile at him as if she had something to say.

Another woman will stumble against the cabinet and grumble: you’re blocking the way.

*

Madmoni has been blocking the pavement since yesterday. Trucks unloaded furniture for the new house — a table, a sofa, a sideboard. It’s all sitting there on the street. And now he’s trying to fall asleep, but can’t because of the heat. And it’s all so new. He hasn’t got used to it yet, and the smell of paint is making him feel sick. His thoughts float in the space of the bedroom, wandering to and fro. And he suddenly remembers a picture taken many years ago. He found it today, in the garden in a hole in the ground. One of the Romanian workers must have left it behind, and now it had been found. It was a picture of a woman who was neither young nor old. Something between a girlfriend and a mother. Or maybe she was his sister and he was her brother. He looked at the picture for a while, then put it away in a drawer. But now, suddenly, the picture was keeping him from sleeping, and he couldn’t ignore it any more. Maybe he should look for that Romanian and give the picture back. What did he need it for?

*

Angrily, Saddiq remembers the house he was building in el-Castel. Those bastards cut me off in the middle of my work and put me in a prison cell. I’m interested how the second floor came out, he says to Mustafa A’alem, who is teaching him Hebrew. Mustafa corrects him: Curious, not ‘interested’, is the right word, son. Then he pats Saddiq on the back and says: Ili pat, mat. What’s done is done. It’s better to think of what the future will bring. Think about going back to el-Castel with the commandos to capture the land, the houses, everything. Mazbut, you’re right, Saddiq says, because he can’t think of anything better to say. But in his heart he’s tired of the old man, of the prison, of hearing those speeches every day. Most of all, he misses his wife, Nehila. And he worries about his mother. And his children. At night he dreams about his grandmother Shadia’s gold chain escaping from one of the brown bags in the confiscated goods department, passing by the guards, getting through the fence, floating above his head. Then it lands on his neck, caressing, choking, till he wakes up and sees that there is no chain in his bed.

Avram thinks about Saddiq every now and then, but he doesn’t tell Gina so she won’t worry that he’s ill again. But she’s known him for fifty years. When he gets out of bed and stands where Saddiq pulled the stone out of the wall, she knows he’s thinking about Nissan and his heart is as bitter as gall. She tries to sweeten it with cheesecake she serves him on a gleaming white plate. He eats every last crumb, goes back to bed and says, kapparokh, Gina, that’s the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten.

Sima and Moshe aren’t alone at night in their bed. First Liron crawls in, saying there’s a mosquito in his room, buzzing round his head. Then Lilach finds her way into their bed too, but for her, that’s nothing new. And now they’re like a multi-limbed octopus: all the arms and legs of a mother, a father, a son and a daughter. Every once in a while, Sima gets up and brings a glass of water. Moshe drinks. She drinks. Even Liron puts the glass to his lips and takes a few sips. When everyone’s finished, she slips under the cover and thinks: you have everything you ever wanted in life: you have a home full of love, you’re a mother and a wife. So don’t be a fool, Sima, what else do you need? Moshe strokes her hair and says to himself: thank God. For a few weeks, he’d felt that it was only Sima’s body he had, that her thoughts were elsewhere and it was all a façade. He’d begun to fear that she wanted to leave him for a man who was thinner and knew how to talk a lot. But he tried to be patient, telling himself, you don’t want to lose what you’ve got. And in the end, his restraint paid off. She’s finally back, this time with her whole heart. Or so it seems.

For Amir and Noa, the homecoming celebrations are over. And the daily, crushing march up the path of love has begun. They try to argue more and gloss over less. And every time the buzzing between them starts, they talk or dance to relieve the stress. There are nights, like this one, when restlessness seeps into the heart. And each on his own side of the bed is hatching a plot that will let them live apart. Are you sleeping? Noa asks, breaking the silence, and Amir admits that he hasn’t shut an eye. So why don’t you read me a story to make the time go by? OK, he says, getting up and going into the living room. He comes back with Modi’s last letter, and she asks, are you sure it’s OK? He wrote that letter to you. It’s perfectly OK, Amir says, spreading the pages out on the bed. And Noa rubs her foot on his and reaches out to stroke his head. A minute before he begins to read, Amir gives her a kiss and she puts her hand between his legs, caressing and kneading. He turns the page over and says, sorry, but if you do that, I can’t do any reading.

And someone looking at them now would say, in a year or two, they’ll be married and having kids, you can bet on it. And someone else looking at them now would say, in a month or so those two will have definitely split.

*

Bro,

I’m going to use you. I’m telling you this right off so you won’t get pissed off and wonder why the next few pages don’t mention you or Noa or ask any questions about what’s happening there. Forget it. The chances are that this letter won’t get to you until after. In five hours, I’m taking a taxi to the San Juan airport, and in less than a day, I’ll be in Tel Aviv. It’ll be Friday there, if I’m not mistaken. And I promise that on Saturday, Sunday at the latest, I’ll be at your place in the Castel with all the pictures and stories and bullshit of someone back from a long trip. But meanwhile, I need you to be my witness. To read all the promises I made to myself on this trip so that later it’ll be harder for me to back out of them. I’m tired of making great decisions on trips and then when I’m home, feeling them slip through my fingers. This time I want all my resolutions to be documented in writing and I want you to read them and remember and hit me if you see me starting to squirm out of them.

Is that OK with you?

So let’s get to it.

I want to start swimming. Don’t laugh. I’m serious. Tennis is nice, but (a) there are more babes in the university swimming pool than on the tennis court, and (b) there’s something about swimming that leaves you with more room in your soul. That gives you the natural rhythm of things. Besides, why am I apologising? A pool. Once a week. Write it down and shut up.

I also want to be less cynical. I’ve spent the last year with people from all over the world, and I’m telling you for a fact that the Israelis are the most cynical of all. And I’m sick and tired of it. I’m sick and tired of pretending that nothing turns me on just so I don’t look pathetic. I’m sick and tired of shooting poisoned arrows at other people just because I’m afraid they’ll hurt me. I want to come to people with an open heart. What’s the worst that can happen?

I want to eat big breakfasts. Like on a holiday. With scrambled eggs and avocado salad and vegetable salad and black bread. I want to start the morning with an enormous breakfast and eat it leisurely, no stressing out.

I’m sick of being stressed out. I want to take my time so I can make my time. I want to work hard, but not like a maniac. The Europeans I met here work four days a week, go home at six and don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

I want to watch less TV. I haven’t watched any for six months, I don’t miss it at all.

I want to live in nature. And if that’s too complicated, then I want to at least leave Tel Aviv at weekends. I want to stand on the edge of something and see far into the distance, over the rainbow.

I want to get turned on by little things. Walking barefoot on the sand. Eating the cone after the ice-cream’s gone. Colourful graffiti on a dirty wall. New music I never heard before. Not shaving. Shaving after a long time of not shaving and running my hand over my smooth cheek. I want to get turned on by all those little things. Not to let them pass me by without noticing them.

I want love. For too long now, I’ve been using my split from Adi as an excuse and now, after those two weeks with Nina, I know that I don’t have to settle for kiss-fuck-we’ll-talk-tomorrow-bye.

I want to read more. Ride my bike more. Get on better with my sister. I want to look people in the eye more. Speak the truth more.

And, besides, I want to go home.