by Eshkol Nevo
* * *
—
I don’t feel like going back to Israel, I confess.
Don’t I know it, she says, and looks at me. She’s wearing blue mascara. Like she used to back then. And there are small wrinkles under her eyes. Not like back then.
I wonder whether to tell her that the David Bowie CD didn’t soften Dikla, that she wouldn’t open her arms when I come home. And maybe she wouldn’t take her eyes off the TV. But I don’t want to sound desperate. So I say: This is the first time it’s happened to me, you know? I enjoy my trips, but I’m always glad to go home.
Of course, she says, and shifts her glance to the darkness. What I don’t understand is how people live in Israel with all the tension there.
Yes, I say.
A war every summer, she goes on, and if not in summer, then on the holidays—it’s not normal.
It’s not, I agree.
How can children grow up there without having a few screws loose?
I agree.
Sometimes I log on to Ynet—and it’s enough for me to see the name Yoram Sirkin in the headlines to remember how much I don’t miss any of it.
But still—I think but don’t say—you log on to Ynet.
My father died two years ago, she says. I flew there for the funeral.
Her father—I remember. A large man. A crane operator in the port. Came home from work wrecked, barely spoke, didn’t interfere when her mother harassed her at dinner but looked at her with compassion. And he’d pass her the salt a minute before she asked for it. Only once during the four years I was his daughter’s boyfriend did we talk. She was in the shower when I arrived to take her to the movies. Her mother wasn’t home. Her elder brother was in the army.
There’s something that…he began a sentence, but didn’t finish it—and pointed to the living room. We sat on the black leather couch. The TV was on, a soccer game. He was silent. He seemed to still be trying to choose his words. I almost said, It’s okay, don’t worry, she takes birth control pills. But I wasn’t sure that was the issue.
Be careful with her, okay? he finally said.
Okay.
She’s…much more sensitive than what she…he said, then stopped again.
I nodded.
And that was it. The shortest man-to-man conversation in history came to an end. His eyes and his body turned to the TV, and so did mine. The game being broadcast, I remember, was between two Haifa teams, Hapoel in red and Maccabi in green. Since I’m color blind, I couldn’t tell the difference between them, so I just pretended to be watching, while I was actually only waiting for his daughter to finish her shower.
* * *
—
I’m sorry for your loss, I say now.
Thank you, she says, no one’s said that to me for a long time. People stop saying that at some point, even though the loss still hurts.
That’s true, I agree, and almost tell her that Ari is dying. But I don’t want my own sorrow to encroach on hers.
I counted the minutes until the shivah would be over, she says. All those pastries, and the never-ending conversational loops. And the picture albums being passed around. I was the only one—the only one who wouldn’t look at them, the only one who remembered all the family trips, which were actually nightmares. And my mother, you know, she can’t be around me more than a few minutes without saying something nasty. I don’t get insulted anymore, you know, but I won’t keep quiet either.
* * *
—
Back then—she would feel hurt, come to my room in the middle of the night. Two knocks on the door of the separate entrance, and I would open it, in my sweats. She would take a small step inside, say, Hug me, and stay with me the rest of the night. In the morning, we’d walk hand in hand to school and French kiss in the corridor before she went into her class and I into mine.
* * *
—
When I went into the army, I sent her at least one letter a day from the base. So there would be something to keep her from going out with all the guys who were constantly after her. We always laughed, saying that the military censor who opened those letters definitely looked forward to reading them.
During my last year in the army, my parents went on a sabbatical to Boston, so the apartment she shared with her roommates on Hess Street became home for me. That’s where I went on weekends. That’s where I moved the few items of non-army clothing I had, my CD collection, and the Hapoel Jerusalem scarf.
Until one night—
She was babysitting for my older sister in Ramat Gan. And I was given a rare twenty-four-hour pass in the middle of the first intifada nightmare.
Hug me, I asked after she closed the door behind me, and as she hugged me, she opened the belt of my army pants and pulled me inside. We made love on the living-room couch for a long time, while Danielle, my sister’s two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, should have been sound asleep in her room. She had an afternoon nap every day, Danielle. Between one and three. Regular as clockwork. Today I know that there’s a moment when little kids stop taking afternoon naps, all at once, without warning. Every kid and their particular moment. But then—
* * *
—
Now she suggests we start walking again. There’s a kind of observation point she wants to show me.
It’s clear to me that as soon as we get up from the bench, she’ll notice that my lower back is slightly out of joint, and she’ll definitely say something about it.
But she doesn’t comment on it. Instead, she intertwines her fingers with mine.
I calm myself: It’s okay, you’re in the Midwest, no one knows you here.
And I think, It’s been so long since anyone touched me tenderly.
We walk hand in hand, in our regular positions, until we reach the observation point, which reminds me a bit of Atarim Square in Tel Aviv. A large, charmless concrete surface.
We lean against the railing, and then turn to each other and kiss. A brief kiss. Her lips are dry.
Hug me, she says.
And I hug her.
The feel of her body is both familiar and unfamiliar.
She caresses the back of my neck and I make my way through her curls to the back of her neck and draw circles on it with my fingers the way I remember she used to love.
We kiss again, a longer kiss. But still not with total abandonment.
My hotel…if you want…I mumble, not sure what I’m suggesting. She moves back slightly—we are still embracing but no longer pressed up against each other—and shakes her head, no.
But it’s only a story, I tell her.
She shakes her head, a bit more slowly this time, and strokes my chest with an open hand the way she knows I love, the way no one but she had ever stroked me, and says, We were lucky, you know? True love at such a young age. How many people have that?
And says, still caressing my chest, You hurt me so much. Leaving the way you did.
And says, You didn’t realize either that Danielle had left the house. You fell asleep, too. But you let your family blame it all on me.
And says, I still dream about it sometimes, you know? And in the dream there are no neighbors to come to the rescue at the last minute, it’s just me running out to the street, but my legs are heavy, too heavy, and the car hits her before I—
Tali, I—
I try to tell her something, but she puts a finger on my lips and says—
How does it help me now if you’re sorry.
And says, The only time I got out of bed for six months after we split up was when you came to collect your stuff.
And says, Since then, I have never let anyone hurt me like that.
And takes her finger off my lips and her hand off my chest and says, It’s important, the way we end things. You need to know that. And says, Don’t turn around. This time I’m th
e one who leaves, and you, don’t turn around.
So I don’t.
I don’t turn around. I hug myself against the spreading cold.
I look at the darkening skyscrapers of downtown.
At dawn, I walk slowly through the wide, empty streets to the hotel and check out.
Aren’t you afraid sometimes that, that’s it, you’ve run out of ideas, you’ve lost it?
I’m afraid of losing it. I’m afraid of losing Dikla. I’m afraid of losing the kids if I lose Dikla. I’m afraid of losing Ari. I’m afraid of having a heart attack in another three years, at the age my father had his. I’m afraid that, unlike him, I won’t survive. I’m afraid that this plane taking me from the Midwest to the Middle East will plunge into the Mediterranean Sea. I’m afraid that something will happen to Shira at Sde Boker and I won’t be there to protect her. I’m afraid that Shira won’t ever come back from Sde Boker. I’m afraid of an economic collapse. I’m afraid of a systems collapse. I’m afraid of a knock on the door, and on the other side is a policeman with a baton. I’m afraid of how easily things in Israel deteriorate into violence. I’m afraid there’ll be a war. I’m afraid I’ll be called to reserve duty. I’m afraid that the war will be a civil war.
What did you do in the army?
They picked me up at the train station in Phoenix. Or Minneapolis. I don’t remember anymore. All platforms look alike everywhere. She had moderately short hair, and he had long hair, slicked back with oil.
She said she lectured in the law department of a local college. He said he was in business and gave no details.
She drove, and he occasionally gave her instructions. Signal. Slow down. Be careful. Outside, snowflakes swirled, and she said we’d probably have a storm that night.
They spoke the heavily accented Hebrew of people who had been in America many years, and every now and then, they used a word that made me think they had left Israel at the end of the seventies or, at the latest, the early eighties.
* * *
—
I don’t remember how we came to speak about their son. But it happened pretty fast. Five, ten minutes after we set off. I think that at that point, I already felt the tension between them. It’s hard to explain how. Little things. Maybe it was because they didn’t smile at all. Not even when they met me at the station. Maybe it was her clenched, bitten lips. And the words seeming to flee from her mouth.
Our Benjamin is considering joining the IDF, she said.
Why did you say “considering,” honey. Benjy has already decided.
Maybe you’ve already decided, honey, she said.
I’m his father, he said in a voice trembling with controlled rage. I have the fucking right to offer my opinion, honey. Even if someone doesn’t like that opinion.
Was Benjamin born in Israel? I asked quickly, in the hope that a concrete question would prevent the argument from escalating.
No, she said. He was born after we moved.
So why would he want…? I asked.
Birthright, he replied. What do you call it, taglit? He toured Israel for ten days with a group of Jewish kids and felt at home. Now he wants, and rightly so, to join the army because he feels it’s part of his identity.
And I’m worried, she said, looking at me in the rearview mirror as if I were the arbitrator who was supposed to pass judgment on the matter. I’m not sure he understands what it means to be a soldier and how different it is from his life here.
Stop treating him as if he were a little boy, he said.
He’s not a little boy anymore, but he’s still my child, she said.
He’s my child too, mind you, he said. And his hand, lying next to the hand brake, clenched into a fist.
When is he supposed to make his…final decision? I asked.
The deadline for the forms is next week, he said. But he’s already decided. You’re not listening, buddy.
What do you think, what would you advise him to do? she asked, giving me another quick glance.
What do I think? I repeated the question. Slowly. To gain some time. Maybe we’d suddenly arrive at the motel.
I shifted from where I was sitting. Until that moment, I’d been more behind her than behind him, and now I moved to a spot right in the middle, between the seats. The place my sister and I used to fight over during family trips.
Look, there are positive things to be said about both sides, I said. On the one hand—
Oh, come on, man, he said and punched the glove compartment. That’s what I can’t stand about your books too. There are so many points of view and voices, there’s no way of knowing what you really think. What do you bohemians call that, postmodern? Postmodern my ass. Sometimes you have to pick a side. That’s all there is to it. Come on. Choose.
Listen, it’s a complicated issue—
Just tell us what you think, man. Bottom line!
* * *
—
He pissed me off, that guy. His tone, and the fact that he called me buddy. And his patronizing comments to his wife about her driving—why don’t you drive yourself, you shit?—and I was also on edge because I hadn’t been able to fall asleep on the plane and that trip to the States was turning out to be a total professional flop. Just like the ones that preceded it.
What do I think? I fired back. I think there are ways to unite with your Israeli identity other than joining the army.
That’s exactly what I say, the woman said.
Don’t misunderstand me, I qualified my words. I’m not sorry I served in the army. It’s part of being a citizen in my country. It’s an obligation. But to join the army of your own free will? As an “experience”? Sorry, there are experiences that can contribute in much more positive ways to the development of an eighteen-year-old boy than shooting rubber bullets at children or standing at checkpoints.
Stop the car, the man told his wife in English.
There’s no place to stop here, she replied in Hebrew.
Stop the fucking car, he shouted. And closed his hand around the brake. As if he were planning to stop the car himself if she didn’t.
Okay, Effi, another minute! she said. And signaled. And looked at her side mirror. And looked at the mirror on the passenger side.
* * *
—
I was sure they were going to throw me out of the car. That happened to me once, with Ari. Before going into the army, we were invited to his uncle’s house in Eilat, and somehow, the conversation at dinner turned to politics. The next morning, we were politely asked to leave.
Why the hell don’t I learn from my mistakes?
My leg muscles were poised for movement. I even managed to wind my scarf around my neck. But when the car pulled over to the side of the road, he was the one who opened his door and stepped out into the raging snowstorm.
The slam of the door shook the chassis.
The woman and I stayed where we were.
It’s okay, she turned to me and said. He’ll come back in another few minutes.
You’re sure? It’s pretty stormy out there…
That’s what they taught him to do in the anger management course. A second before he loses control completely, he has to try to cut off contact. Simply move away from the situation. It usually helps.
And in the meantime…?
We wait. It’s only a few minutes, really. Want a piece of spearmint gum?
I said yes, even though I can’t stand spearmint. She handed me the pack and said, He’s really a bookworm, Effi. I want you to know that. He gets a shipment of books from Israel every week and devours them all in one weekend. He’s the one who insisted on bringing you to the Jewish Community Center.
Lightning flashed across the sky from one end to the other, like the terrifying lightning bolt on the cover of the Dire Straits’ album Love Over Gold. I’ve never seen lightning like that in Is
rael. It was followed by a tremendous clap of thunder.
Isn’t it a little…dangerous for him to be outside? I asked again.
There’s nothing to worry about, he’ll be right back, she said.
So when…in fact…did you leave Israel? I asked. So she would have something to answer.
In eighty-five, she said.
Wow, I said.
After the Lebanon War.
I understand.
Effi was…he was in the building that collapsed in Tyre.
I didn’t know there were any survivors in the Tyre disaster.
Very few.
Tell me, does he have a phone or something? Sorry for nagging you, but…
He left his phone here—she pointed to the phone in the coffee-cup holder—but this isn’t…this isn’t the first time he’s done this. And he always comes back in the end. Another piece of gum?
No thanks.
When we were in Israel, he used to write letters to the editor, you know, demanding that the government set up a national commission of inquiry.
For what?
He’s sure that it was a car bomb that destroyed the headquarters in Tyre. He saw it arrive.
But they said it was a gas tank, no?
He claims that the CID report was one big whitewash. That, with his own eyes, he saw a Peugeot drive into the area. And there was no explosion until after that.
You don’t say.
He sent letters to the editors of different newspapers every week.
Wow.
It wasn’t until we arrived here that he stopped that craziness.
Tell me…Maybe we should drive around to try and find him? It’s been…quite a while.