by Iddo Gefen
I don’t remember seeing her walk in. When I raised my head, Shira was already inside the B&B, hanging her black backpack on the hook by the front door.
“Hey, you’re back,” I said.
“Yup.”
“How was school?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Did you learn anything interesting?”
“Not really.”
We were silent for a few moments.
“Want something to eat?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? I can make you a sandwich.”
“I’m sure. Thanks.”
“Okay. Do you have homework?”
“A little.”
“A little is good,” I said. “Time to do it?”
“In a minute.”
“Good, good.”
I went back to the newspaper. Out of the corner of my eye I saw she was still standing there. I looked up and smiled, asked if everything was all right, thinking it might be a good moment to try talking to her. She said everything was fine and even smiled. A small, brief smile. She turned toward her room and I let her go, keeping my eyes on the newspaper even though I couldn’t really concentrate. Five, maybe ten minutes later, I heard the keys rattling in the lock. Nelly had a dinner meeting with a potential client, so she had come home early to get ready. She opened the door and took two steps into the B&B. She dropped her bag and crouched down. For a moment I thought she had fallen, but then I realized—Shira had been there the whole time. Sitting in the corner, by the door, and I hadn’t noticed. Sitting with her back against the wall, her arms slumped to her sides. Her gaze was fixed to the floor, to a nondescript point in space.
“Shirale, what are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“How long have you been sitting here like this?”
“I don’t know.”
Nelly looked at me, waiting for an answer.
“Five minutos,” I said in our made-up hybrid of English and Spanish, a secret language Nelly and I tried to invent to replace the Yiddish and Moroccan our grandparents spoke between themselves.
“What’s going on, Shira, tell me,” Nelly said to her.
Shira didn’t reply, and I was getting anxious, my mind racing with a thousand and one frightening scenarios.
“Come on, Shira, explain it to us,” I said.
“We need to understand what happened,” Nelly added.
“I’m fine, really,” she replied with a feeble voice.
“Shira, up, come on. This is no good, sitting on the floor like this.” I took two steps toward her.
“Let’s move you to a chair, Shirush?”
Shira shrugged her shoulders with reluctance.
“So maybe you and I should go for a little walk?” Nelly suggested.
“Maybe,” Shira replied.
“Good, that’s a great idea,” I said. “We’ll go out, get some fresh air.”
I bent down to lift her, reaching out both my hands. Shira averted her gaze, and Nelly grabbed my hand. There was something rigid about her touch.
“I forgot to tell you, Nabir wanted you to go help him.”
“What?”
“Nabir said he needed you, that there’s a problem with the sheep’s water tank. Do me a favor, go to him.”
“You mean Nabil?”
“Yes, yes. He said it was urgent. Would you go already?”
“But, la niña,” I protested.
“Don’t worry, I’ll stay with her.”
I froze.
“Well?” she urged me, her tone slightly raised, just enough so I’d get the hint but Shira wouldn’t. I don’t know why I agreed, but I went outside. Nabil was sitting by the sheep shed, wearing a hat with the logo of an insurance agency and smoking a Noblesse. He was a big guy who could barely squeeze himself into the white plastic chair. I walked up to him and sputtered, “What’s this business with the water tank?” He had no idea what I was talking about. I explained that Nelly said he was looking for me. He still didn’t know. I told him it made no sense, because we were just in the middle of something with the girl.
The worst thing was that Nabil figured it out before I did. He understood Nelly had wanted me out of the way.
“Okay, a miscommunication, I guess,” I said in a pitiful attempt to save face. “I’ll head back.”
“Wait,” Nabil said. “Your Nelly is a smart woman. That one knows what she’s doing.” He removed the bag resting on the chair next to him. “Sit, habibi, sit,” he said and took another cigarette out of the green pack.
I hesitated for a moment, but sat down.
“Trouble with the girl?” he asked, and I nodded. Nabil took a drag and looked out at the red hill. “There’s nothing worse than a man standing helplessly in front of his children,” he announced. “Wallah, there really is nothing worse.” He turned his gaze to the B&B, watching Nelly opening the front door, folding her arms and looking out at the road. I heaved myself up. “Good luck,” Nabil said and smiled. “Or like they say, break a leg.”
* * *
She apologized before I even reached the doorstep. “I don’t know, I was hoping that if just one of us was there it would lower her resistance threshold,” she said, quoting yet another term she had picked up from the child psychology books she liked to read. “I couldn’t get anything out of her,” she sighed. “I don’t understand what’s going on with her, I really don’t.” She leaned her head against my chest, instantly dissipating my anger. “We’re in over our heads, Ofer. She needs to see a professional.”
“What do you mean a professional? A doctor?” I asked.
“A psychologist, an art therapist, I don’t know,” she said. “Someone who can figure out what’s troubling her.”
At “psychologist,” I thought Tel Aviv. An opportunity for a visit on the grounds that psychoanalysis had yet to find its way south.
“I’ll text Sagi, he sees a psychologist on Dizengoff Street, says he’s excellent.”
Nelly laughed. She said Dizengoff was a three-hour drive, but she could compromise on Beersheba. She said that since I was already going to be there, it might not be such a bad idea to get some therapy myself. “Having an intimate relationship with a city that boasts over seventy percent humidity is not normal,” she said, and I laughed. She was like that, could placate me with just a few words after days of estrangement.
5.
THE PSYCHOLOGIST STOPPED the session after half an hour. She came out into the waiting room, caught me napping with an eye half open, and asked if my child was on the autism spectrum.
“Of course not,” I replied before even processing the question, and quickly straightened my back.
“I think you need to take her to the hospital,” she said, explaining that there was no point completing the session since the child was barely responsive. That it wasn’t a psychological matter but a physical one. Neurological, in her opinion. “You haven’t taken her to a doctor yet?” she asked with subtle reproach.
I tried defending myself. I said Shira was pretty much a happy girl, but the psychologist opened the clinic door and said, “See for yourself.” I approached Shira and put my hand on her back. I asked her how the session was going, but I could already see she wasn’t the same girl. Sitting cross-legged, her head drooped like a rag doll’s, her brown hair veiling her face. She wouldn’t look me in the eye, replied curtly, three words at a time.
* * *
I waited with her for two hours in the ER until they took her for a diagnosis. A young intern asked her a series of questions, but she wasn’t cooperating. He checked her pupils with a flashlight, then her reflexes. He didn’t detect any abnormalities. He called over a doctor who also didn’t find anything unusual, and whispered to the intern that something didn’t add up. They decided to admit her for further tests.
Nelly freaked out when I told her. She left the office at once, took a car from one of the employees, and raced over at 130 kph. She arrived after Shira had already
fallen asleep, sat down on the chair next to me, and rested her head on my shoulder as I gave her a detailed report.
“What have we gotten ourselves into, Ofer?” she whispered, and I recalled another night, a few years back, when she had leaned her head on my shoulder like that. It was after she had gotten drunk on half a bottle of cava and admitted for the first time that she had changed her name from Nili to Nelly because Nili was an old woman’s name and Nelly sounded like a Canadian supermodel. I remembered laughing my head off while she dug her face into my shoulder with childish embarrassment.
In the morning Shira underwent a neurological examination that came out normal. Additional tests over the next few days also failed to provide any answers as to what had happened to our daughter. Nelly went back to the farm that first night and I slept on a chair, but once we realized Shira was going to stay in the hospital a little longer, we decided to pull shifts. Nelly took the evening ones, straight from work, and I took the rest. It was clear to us both that I was suspending all work on my app until things cleared up. The doctors told us the symptoms weren’t caused by trauma, but the facts didn’t interest us. We were consumed by our fears, dedicating our few moments together at the hospital between shifts to our ever-expanding list of suspects without knowing what the indictment was. That “big brother” of hers from school. The bus driver who picked her up every morning. Her teacher. Even Nicolai, my former coworker, had become questionable. Names were added, others temporarily removed, but one always remained, hovering at the top of the list.
Say, is it possible that we left him alone with Shira on the farm? Why is he always working so late? And what’s he always fiddling around with behind the B&B? Yeah, and how can he even afford that pickup of his? And why won’t he stop asking how Shira is doing? What business is it of his?
I didn’t actually think Nabil had done anything to Shira, but there was something comforting in the thought of having an address to direct our pain.
* * *
Together, Nelly and I had come to the conclusion that something about his big body was a threat. She wouldn’t stop saying that we were smart never to have asked him in for coffee. At first she stated repeatedly that our suspicions had nothing to do with him being a Bedouin, but then she stopped. Said that the whole situation with Shira left her too tired to deal with it, but if she had any energy she would have told him long ago to leave. That living with all the question marks surrounding him was simply impossible. Nelly didn’t ask for anything explicitly. Didn’t even hint, but I understood it fell to me to take care of it.
* * *
Three or four days after Shira was hospitalized, after snatching a few hours of sleep on the farm, I headed back to the hospital so Nelly could go to work. On my way out of the B&B I saw Nabil. He was sitting by his pickup, pouring himself coffee from his orange thermos. He took out half a pita with hummus wrapped in tinfoil and waved at me. I thought I’d put off the conversation for another day, but he gestured me over, leaving me little choice.
“Sabah al khair,” he said, and quickly poured coffee into another small glass. “Tafaddal, ya Ofer, tafaddal.”
I told him I didn’t want any. “Haven’t started working yet?” I asked, trying to mimic the psychologist’s disapproving tone.
“Two hours ago,” he replied. “Sugar?”
Again, I said I didn’t want coffee.
“That’s a shame, it’s good for the soul,” he said. “Tell me, how’s your little girl?”
I informed him there was no improvement. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. Nabil put his hand on his wide chest, his eyes welling up.
“Wallah, what a tragedy,” he said in a strangled voice. “Why did this happen to us, why?” he exclaimed, trying to comfort me, which only drove me crazy. With a single word—us—he had appropriated my only child. I couldn’t stand the thought that just like that, from a few physical gestures and even fewer words, he had expressed everything I wanted to feel but couldn’t.
“If you want me to come to the hospital at night to help out, just say the—”
“How about keeping your nose out of it?” Nabil quickly apologized, said I was right and the offer was inappropriate. He took a last sip of his coffee, got up, and announced he was going back to the sheep.
“Listen, Nabil, since we’re already talking,” I said, “Nelly and I have given it a lot of thought lately. We realized we don’t need that much help with the farm.”
Nabil washed out the glasses with a squished water bottle. He smiled.
“Obviously, I need help, not you,” he said, and burst into laughter.
“I mean, we don’t need your help.” I saw the lines on his face tensing. It wasn’t the first time I had fired someone. The face always does that. People walk around their entire life trying to be unique, but the moment they lose control, the body takes over and they all react the same way. Nabil put down the bottle and glasses on the chair, rubbed his hands on his jeans, and looked at me.
“You don’t need help?”
“That’s right,” I answered.
“Wallah,” he said. He clenched his right fist and took a deep breath.
“What is this? Where is this coming from, huh?” he said, raising his voice. “Did Nelly’s father say you could do this? I work for him, not for you.”
“Yes, we’ve talked to him, it’s all been approved,” I lied. Nelly could deal with that one later. His wide frame froze. The possibility that Nabil was innocent evaded me at that moment, making way for the thought of Nelly’s smile once I told her I’d dealt with it.
“You know that soon it’ll be seven years that I’ve been working here? Back when the Bezalels were here, before Nelly’s father bought the place,” he said, and what he meant was long before some retired bank CEO bought himself a farm in the south because he didn’t know what to do with all that money.
“Seven years is a long time.”
“A very long time,” he replied, his voice stifled with insult.
“You’ll get your full compensation, don’t worry. You can leave with a clear mind.”
“Oh, I’m not worried, believe me,” he said, twirling the water bottle with both his hands. “Just tell me, Ofer, who’s going to take care of them now?” he asked, pointing the bottle in the direction of the sheep. Tiny beads of water spilled onto his black rubber boots. “You?”
“Yes,” I said. “Me.”
“You?”
“Aywa,” I replied in Arabic. Nabil laughed again.
“Wallah? What can I say, habibi,” he said, and placed his sweaty palm on my shoulder. “Good luck with that. Really, good luck.”
Nabil collected the thermos and glasses, turned, and placed everything in the passenger seat of his pickup. I quickly got into my car and saw in the rearview mirror Nabil trailing along the dirt road in the direction of the highway, laughing to himself.
* * *
I made it to the hospital an hour and a half later. “You don’t need to worry about Nabil anymore,” I told Nelly, explaining that I had fired him. She smiled and caressed my cheek, reminding me how gentle hands could be. I spent the entire day with Shira in the presence of that smile, toying with the idea of a start-up that would develop the technology to preserve touch the way you save a photo, so that whenever I wanted, my brain could re-create the exact sensation of her hands at the click of a button. I asked Shira what she thought of my idea, but she didn’t even answer. When Nelly arrived in the evening Shira had already fallen asleep, and she said we might as well both sleep at the farm tonight. It wasn’t as if the girl was in any real danger, and in any case she always slept through the night.
“She won’t even know we weren’t here. We could put up a scarecrow with a picture of my head and it would be enough,” she said. “Actually, it would probably be enough even when she’s awake.” For a moment we hesitated about whether we were allowed to laugh. We decided we were, but only a little.
That night Nelly and I had se
x like we hadn’t had for a long time. The narrow bed continued to close in on us, but also pushed our bodies into each other. Hands to face, lips to neck, feet to knees, eyes to stomach, with no room for unnecessary distance. And everything with swift, precise movements, because the mattress wouldn’t allow otherwise.
“We look like a Picasso painting,” Nelly said, to which I replied, “Totally,” and we smiled at each other because we both knew I had no idea what that meant. Afterward, with her head resting on my chest, it occurred to me that maybe it was better this way—better the girl suffered a bit longer if that meant I would get my Nelly back. But I immediately told myself I was just being foolish, and that the most important thing was that the girl got better. So if one day they invented a machine that read minds, no one would know I had wanted my girl to suffer.
6.
THE DOCTORS DISCHARGED Shira from the hospital after a week, saying that maybe being at home would help her find her way back to herself. The only problem was that the B&B wasn’t a home. Not to us, and certainly not to Shira.
“Maybe we should move back to Tel Aviv?” Nelly suggested in the corridor, next to the vending machine. She said she’d probably have to quit her job but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, that it shouldn’t take her more than a month or two to find a new firm. She was surprised I was the one who insisted on staying.