The Last Interview

by Eshkol Nevo

  Megaphone. White. Signed by all the workers in the NGO Dikla ran. A memento of the period of demonstrations. She led the march, used the megaphone to call out slogans we’d made up the night before in the kitchen. She explained the message she wanted to get across and I tightened and rhymed. She trusted me. I was proud of her. And even if I didn’t have the passion she had, I joined the demonstration the next day and, as we walked through the throngs, I thought to myself: This woman in the front, the tall one with the megaphone? I sleep with her.

  Sticker. From her campaign to be elected leader of the apolitical-but-clearly-political movement she helped run. “Definitely Dikla” was written on the sticker pasted on the computer that was once hers and had been passed on to Noam. She lost by five votes. It turned out that behind her back, a deal had been made for the sole purpose of preventing her election. The movement’s old guard was uneasy about her controversial and uncompromising views. Her extreme independence. And made sure she wouldn’t be elected. She was even more disappointed by the betrayal by people she thought were her friends than by the failure. Then Noam was born, and she was offered a job she couldn’t refuse in the private sector.

  She won’t admit it, but the thought of what-might-have-been-if haunts her to this day.

  Picture of Barack Obama. Taken during his 2008 campaign. Pinned onto the corkboard above her desk. On the night of the US elections she watched CNN until the morning and cried during his victory speech in Chicago. I don’t know why, she said, he’s not going to be my president, and after everything I went through, I should be immune to politicians. But he has something…I don’t know. When he speaks, you feel the person he is…behind the words. Besides, don’t be insulted, but he’s the best-looking man I’ve ever seen.

  The brown dress. She hasn’t worn it for years. But sometimes, when she’s not home, I open her closet, riffle through her dresses until I reach it, touch the fabric, and remember.

  Hangers. There were always a few empty ones in her closet that I could steal. There haven’t been any recently because she’s been buying a lot of new clothes. The style is more restrained. Tailored pants and button-down shirts. And yet, it’s impossible not to notice that, these days, she opens one more button.

  Thermometer. Once we both got sick at the same time. We only had Shira then. My mother came and took her, and we remained alone in the house. Surrounded by tissues. Coughing. Burning with fever. Making tea with lemon for each other. Telling each other our strange dreams. Laughing. Coughing some more. Happy.

  Dream notebook. She’s crazy about the poet Agi Mishol. I buy her every new Agi Mishol book. I browse through it while I’m still in the bookstore until I find a poem that I can use as a dedication, and only then do I ask for it to be wrapped as a gift. A few years ago, I bought her Agi Mishol’s Dream Notebook, and since then, influenced by the book, she began to write down her dreams in a notebook she keeps on her nightstand. I’m not allowed to look at it. She said that explicitly: My dreams are none of your business. I respected her wishes. I never looked inside the notebook. Until yesterday.

  I read quickly, afraid I’d be caught, although she wasn’t home and wasn’t expected back until the afternoon. This is what was written there (more or less—I read it once and immediately closed it with the intention of never opening it again, so I remember the plot more than the wording):

  I’m in a hotel, not in Israel. There’s a knock on the door and a man’s voice says, “Yes, we can.” I open the door even though I’m wearing only a bra and underpants. Barack Obama enters the room dressed in a writer’s jacket, places his book on the table, and leaves before I can say anything. I’m hungry. I didn’t know I was hungry before Obama and the book arrived, but now I’m really starving. I open the book and see that there’s a huge butterfly between the pages. There’s something written on its enormous wings that I can’t read. The butterfly spreads its wings and tries to get out of the room, but keeps banging against the window. I open the window and, both sad and relieved, I see my dinner fly away from me.

  Speakers. Huge, in the living room. That she bought. On Saturdays she plays CDs and dances with the kids. For the last few weeks, she’s been raising the volume as high as it will go.

  Letter on the kitchen table. She would leave it for me. And go. If we didn’t have kids. (Parents simply can’t get up and leave. That theatrical, unambiguous movement is not something they can usually do. So they are doomed to a slow death.)

  This is what she would write in the letter she would leave on the table before she went, if we didn’t have kids.

  I’ve changed my mind about what I told you on one of our first dates—that I want to marry a writer. Turns out that it’s not such a great thing after all. When a writer isn’t writing, he’s lost and troubled, and when he is writing, he’s focused on himself and troubled. Not to mention the fact that everything that happens is material for him. Everything is exploited, immediately. You sprained your foot? So does his heroine. You had an ugly argument about money at six in the morning? The couple in his story will argue about money. But there’s no connection. Of course not. He lets you read the manuscript and you see everything there, including intimate details about your eldest daughter’s life, which he tells himself he has disguised well, and you have to pretend it’s not transparent. And pretend you didn’t notice that as the years have passed, he can’t make small talk anymore, he always has to tell you a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, even when he confesses to supposedly cheating on you in Colombia, the description is so vibrant and imaginative that you’re afraid it’s South American magical realism meant to catch your attention and arouse your jealousy. But it succeeds in doing the opposite. Then there’s the self-importance if his book succeeds. And the total collapse if, heaven forbid, it doesn’t. And the interviews to the media. The slips of the tongue that give away more than he thinks. And the compassionate looks of your co-workers after those interviews. And the women who come up to him in cafés as if you’re not sitting there. And flutter their lashes. And say how much his book touched them. And the fact that it’s legitimate not to listen to you when you’re sitting together in a café on Friday morning because he can’t decide how to move the plot forward, which keeps him from sleeping. And the fact that it’s legitimate to do research on strippers. Because there’s a stripper in the story. And traveling to Argentina for a week because, what choice does he have, the most important scene in the book takes place in Argentina. And of course, without actually being in Argentina, he can’t write about Argentina.

  Really, Mr. Writer? I have no problem with your trips as such. Terminals and hotels are, after all, pretty sad places. So I don’t envy you. And sometimes, to be honest, I’m happy for the chance to have a short vacation from you. Especially since you started with that dysthymia, which has made you even more self-involved, because that’s one of the symptoms. The real problem is that you keep on telling yourself you’re a great husband, a wonderful father, and a man of principle. So I have news for you: A great husband feels it when his wife is on the edge and doesn’t push her over it. And a wonderful father doesn’t steal details from his eldest daughter’s life to put in his book. And a man of principle doesn’t still secretly write speeches for that fraud Yoram Sirkin.

  Of course I know. You really think you can hide something from the woman who’s been living with you for twenty years? I swear, I don’t understand why you keep on doing that. Money? Power? Or are you jealous of your characters and do you want some action in your own life? Tell me, aren’t writers supposed to concentrate on writing? To sit at home every day and write, and pick up the kids from day care at noon like Garp in The World According to Garp? And then, when their wives come home—late!—from their important and interesting jobs, to welcome them with dinner and anecdotes they’ve collected for them—and only for them!—from the many hours they’ve spent with the kids?

  That’s the movie I had in mind wh
en I told you that I wanted to marry a writer. But you apparently imagined a different movie. Or you changed the screenplay. Or adapted it. I don’t know. Imagery is your field.

  It’s not that I don’t love you anymore, I want you to understand that. Still hidden under the depressed, totally self-involved writer you have become is the sensitive, upbeat man I fell in love with—I just don’t love being with you anymore, that’s all there is to it.

  I feel oppressed by you. I need some rest from you.

  I need to distance myself from you now so I can remember who I am.

  If you want, you can call this an investigative trip.

  Rust. On one of the legs of the beautiful balcony table we bought at Moroccan Fantasy in the north. (That’s what we’re like. Or am I wrong? Maybe it’s just because of Ari and the long hours at his bedside, along with my uncontrollable tendency to connect various details into a weighty structure, that everything in my life and surroundings, in my home and my homeland seems to be rusty, eroded, portending their end, when actually—)

  * * *

  —

  Maybe I should stop here. I’ve gone too far as it is.

  You have to understand, it’s no accident that Dikla works in an information security company. In Ma’alot—she once explained to me—if you smoke with a girlfriend behind Ben-Naim’s grocery store, your parents know about it half an hour later. And that’s why, since she left the city, she’s been super-protective of her privacy. For example, she never allows photographers in the house. And here I am, letting the word-camera into the house.

  She always claimed: The book is important. Not you.

  And also: You don’t have to satisfy their voyeuristic urges. Leave them curious. Leave some things secret.

  And also: The kids and I are not to blame that you chose this profession.

  Before every interview, I check with her about what I can and cannot say. She would be horrified to read what I’m writing here.

  She would be horrified, even though I’m doing a good job of using fabrications to conceal the real reason for our crisis.

  She would be horrified, even though, for the time being, the kids are barely mentioned in this interview. (Actually, they are my entire world, my kids. And I dash around among them like a waiter serving love. My life is in their hands. And my happiness. It’s clearly no accident that the dysthymia intensified after Shira, my eldest daughter, the apple of my eye, went away to school at Sde Boker.)

  I should, I must stop answering this question. It’s too dangerous. I might even describe my embarrassing night trip to Sde Boker. How I hid in the bushes to get a glimpse of a sixteen-year-old without her seeing me.

  The truth is that I ought to end this entire interview.

  But I can’t. I have nothing else to hold on to these days.

  It seems like the love affairs in your books never work out. Why? And do you think you’ll ever write a love story that has a happy end?

  Later, it turned out that she followed me from the ZOA House to the parking lot. She hid behind cars and kept a steady distance from me, like she saw in the movies. As I was about to open the car door, she closed the distance quickly, came up to me from the side, and asked urgently: Can you give me a ride?

  I didn’t recognize her. I lecture to large groups participating in the Birthright project. Two hundred people each time. Four times a day. Who can remember a face, even if it’s beautiful?

  Where to? I asked.

  The city you mentioned in your talk, the one you live in?

  Yes?

  That’s where I need to go.

  Wait a minute, do you belong to the Birthright group?

  I don’t belong to anyone.

  Okay…But as far as I know, you’re not allowed to wander around on your own.

  So?

  You can get into trouble.

  I want to get into trouble.

  * * *

  —

  I’d been lecturing to Birthright groups for a few years. It pays well, but that’s not the point. Those American kids are between eighteen and twenty-something years old, and I like to talk to people that age. You can reach them. Everything’s still possible. That must be the reason they bring them here at that age. For ten days, they sell them a kind of imaginary Israel. Just. Exciting. They take them to Masada, to Ben Gurion’s grave in Sde Boker, and to organized fun nights in Tel Aviv pubs. And then—on the last day—I meet them and ask them to write about the moment they felt a contradiction between what their guides told them about Israel and what they saw on the streets with their own eyes.

  I’m not naïve. I know that inviting me to speak at the end as a subversive, challenging voice is also part of the campaign. But I have my own aims.

  * * *

  —

  Is there a specific place you need to reach? I asked as we approached the entrance to the city. She took a lipstick out of her bag and, looking in the mirror, applied it to her lips.

  Not really.

  Okay, so why this city, of all places?

  I’m looking for somebody.

  Can you give me…a few more details? So I’ll have something to work with?

  I still haven’t decided if I trust you.

  Okay, so listen for a minute—by the way, what’s your name?

  Rachel.

  Listen, Rachel, in another second we’ll be in the city and I have no idea where to go from here. Do you happen to know the address of the person you’re looking for?

  No.

  So…

  Just…drive a little ways.

  Okay, but the chances of finding him this way, by accident, are pretty slim, so maybe…

  Keep driving, my heart tells me we’ll find the person I’m looking for.

  * * *

  —

  I drove randomly through the streets while she strummed on the tight strands of fabric above the tear in her jeans, humming an unrecognizable song, her eyes searching for somebody. So I wouldn’t feel like a complete idiot, I began crisscrossing the network of streets that connect the only two main drags in the city. The last time I drove that way was a year ago, when Luna, our dog, got lost. She was sixteen, which is a hundred and something in dog years, and we had already stopped letting her out of the house without a leash, the way we used to when she was young. Her hearing had deteriorated and she was going blind, and we were afraid that, without supervision, she would be run over. But her passion for open spaces was stronger than any prohibition, and one day, when we opened the door for a delivery guy, she took advantage of a moment when we weren’t paying attention and ran off. I drove up and down the streets with my second daughter, the one who had apparently inherited my thin skin, and we whistled Luna’s whistle through the open windows as we searched for her.

  * * *

  —

  Why did you stop?

  Look, Rachel, I don’t have all day and…I think it would help if you gave me a few more details about your somebody. Then, at least you’ll have another pair of eyes.

  She has a brown hat, from the army…

  Aah…so we’re looking for a girl soldier?

  Yes.

  With a brown beret?

  Yes.

  From the Golani Brigade?

  Yes, Golani!

  Okay. Where did you meet her?

  First promise me you won’t put us in one of your books. What?

  Why should I…

  You said in your talk that you’re a “story hunter.” And this is a bad time for you to hunt my story. And it’s an even worse time for you to hunt Adi’s story.

  Okay. I promise not to put either of you in one of my books.

  And you’ll keep driving.

  Look, I’m driving.

  We met at Masada.

  On the snake path?

  No
, on the top. On the mountain. You see, my father committed suicide. So when the guide started…to glorify the fact that everyone killed themselves there so they wouldn’t be taken prisoner by the Romans, I couldn’t keep quiet.

  I can…imagine.

  So I raised my hand and asked if there were women and children who killed themselves too. He said yes. So I said, well excuse me, but it was a stupid decision, and it’s a horrible story.

  Wow.

  What wow? It’s a horrible story and it’s a fucking chauvinist myth. Don’t you think so?

  How did the guide react?

  Everyone attacked me. Not just him. They all started throwing the Birthright propaganda at me.

  And…wait a minute, that soldier…Adi…she was there too?

  She was with a completely different group. But she was standing next to us and heard everything. Later, she came up to me, put a hand on my shoulder, and asked if I was okay. She handed me her bottle of water so I could take a drink. That was the first time anyone on this trip was nice to me, they’re all such children and I’ve almost finished my master’s in gender studies. We’re worlds apart. Understand?

  Of course.

  Then she asked to transfer to our group, and we spent the next two days together. Constantly together. I told her about my dad—and you need to understand, I don’t talk to anyone about my dad—and she told me what it’s really like to be in the army. It turned out that she served three months in the territories. And the things that happened there freaked her out. But she had no one to talk to about it until she met me.

  It sounds like—

  I’m such a jerk, you know? She had these huge eyes and a big body. Exactly my taste. And on the last day, when we said goodbye, she looked at me and I looked at her and I knew that she…and she knew that I…but neither of us had the courage…you know, to make the move. And we each went to our bus. And then, at the lecture, you suddenly said that you live…here, in the same suburb she does, so I thought, maybe it’s a sign…do you believe in signs?