Even with all the pain, Sherry had to agree. “I want her to know that I love her, and I am willing to raise her with what I have.”
“No problem, you can tell her on the phone. You don’t need to take her and ruin her life. You have no idea how much she loves my father. You have no idea how much he loves her. By the way, he asked me to bring some of your paintings back for him.”
Sherry pulled out a painting from a large folder. “This is for Tamar.”
Amir stared at the painting that Sherry handed him, the complete Zarian family, the father, the mother, and the three sisters. “And this is for your father.” She handed him three paintings that were painted on paper. He looked at them briefly and turned to the family painting. “Why did you paint your family with oil and my father’s paintings with acrylic?”
Sherry thought that he learned something from watching her. “Well, I painted your father’s paintings a few days after you informed me about our meeting, and I wanted to dry them quickly so I painted them with acrylic. In contrast, I painted my family years ago, and I had time to dry it.”
She saw the envelope in Amir’s hands. “What’s that?” she asked.
“A letter from your sister. I know that you’re eager to read it. I will not let you wait too long.” He handed her the letter. Tears were already streaming down Sherry’s face as she opened the letter.
Hello, my beloved sister,
It’s been a long time since I saw you. I can hardly remember your appearance, but I will never forget you. Mom and I never stopped talking about you and the day that we would meet together. Even when mom was sick, she never stopped believing that one day we would meet. You should have seen her face when she talked about you. During those moments, all the pain left her.
I wanted to come with Amir to meet you, but we were not able to get a permit. I’m sure I’ll find a way to see you someday. I’m staying with Amir’s family and they see me as part of their family. I’ve got a nice big room, not like the room where we slept together.
The fact that Tamar remembered that they slept together delighted Sherry. She continued to read:
Amir is now my brother just as you were my sister. I also have many friends. They visit me in my new house and I also go to them.
I don’t have much to tell you. I’m good in school, even very good. Amir told me that you and Esther were good students, too. The teachers really love me, and I enjoy going to school, my favorite subject – math.
Sherry already presumed it before reading.
I love you and miss you so much. I’ve forgotten how you look, so, please, send me a picture. Please, write me a long letter, don’t be tight on your words like me.
Love you and hope to see you soon,
Your Sister, Zahara.
‘Zahara.’ Sherry looked at the signature, shocked, then glanced at Amir. “What is this name?”
“Her new name,” Amir replied.
“Why would she need a new name? Her name that my father and my mother chose is not good? Is it fair to do that?”
“She’s now part of us, a Muslim like us. That way, it will be easier for her.”
Sherry’s cheeks turned red from anger, and she looked very attractive to Amir. Sherry stared back at the signature on the letter. Nobody had the right to change the name of her sister.
“Tomorrow, I want to go out for a sail with you, and I want you to paint me there. If that’s okay with you, we can call her the next day, the day before your departure. I’ll pay for the call, don’t worry.”
Sherry thanked him and then hugged him gratefully. He held her tight, his cheek was close to hers. It was an intimate contact that made Sherry move away gently from him. She took the pictures of Tamar out of the envelope and looked at them in sadness. She will never stop thanking Amir for what he did for her and her sister.
Sherry looked at the clock and Amir quickly got up. “It’s late. I’ll be back here at your hotel tomorrow morning. At 10, is that okay?” he asked, while friendly hugging her.
Despite the exciting meeting with Amir, Sherry fell asleep while thinking of Eyal, whom she hoped to erase from her memory.
The next day, when she finished breakfast and went to the lobby, she found Amir already waiting for her. “I hired a boat for us, just you and me and the captain.”
When they approached the pier, Sherry found a row of beautiful and special wooden boats.
“Those are Gulat boats,” Amir explained. “Turkish boats─you can’t find them anywhere in the world, only here.”
She stood a while and looked at the boats tied to the dock in line. “I must paint this. I usually do not paint any type of scenery, but these boats are different. They are special.”
They entered the boat and Amir took out an easel that he bought and fabrics for painting that would be enough for a year.
“It’s too much. I don’t think I can even paint one today,” she giggled.
“Which side do you prefer to paint me, Europe or Asia?” he said as they sailed along the Bosphorus Strait.
“It doesn’t matter. Sit where you want, in any case we won’t paint more than one portrait of yours.”
He watched her while she painted him. The scarf that covered her shoulders slightly dropped off and though she wore a shirt underneath, it was still enough to excite him. Her hands were colored with colors and she let the scarf drop off completely and fall to the floor. Amir got up, picked up the scarf and draped it over her shoulders while his fingers lingered on them. Sherry blushed. She was glad when he returned to his place, to the chair, but he again stood up. “Now, let’s be creative.” He went to the captain, gave him several dollars and the captain lent him a marine officer’s uniform. He put them on, and Sherry rolled in laughter. The uniform was too narrow in the shoulders. The sleeves dropped close his the elbow and the pants exposed his hairy legs. “You look ridiculous.”
“I trust you that you will paint them in the right size,” he said, with an artificial seriousness. “And it’s good that you can’t paint the smell because it is horrible.” Amir moved his hand from left to right close to his nose, in a futile attempt to clear the air.
“Actually, you look good,” she lied, out of a desire to continue and tolerate the smell, just like the days that she used to let him sit for hours in silence to shield her from the sunlight.
“Another minute with this uniform and I’ll die. I think I’ll take it off.”
“No, no way, I need to see the uniform on you,” she insisted. “Otherwise, I can’t complete the painting. Now, be serious. I will paint you and you tell me about my sister, how she lives, who her friends are, how her room looks, the things she loves to do… I want to know everything about her.”
He pulled a chair close to her and sat. “Well, she has a large room, even bigger than mine, but it is not big enough for all her friends,” Amir smiled. “She has so many friends. There’s a window in the rooftop that my father built especially for her after your mother died so that she can look at the sky and talk to her mother somewhere out there. Despite her age, she still believes in those things,” Amir smiled. “The walls are covered with paintings of you and your mother. Her favorite painting is ‘Two Stars,’ and her greatest dream is to meet you.”
“Really?” Sherry was excited.
“She talks about you non-stop, and she talks a lot about the moment that she will meet you.”
He kept telling her about her sister, and Sherry was happy to see how excited he was when he talked about Tamar, as if she was his biological sister. His warm attitude towards Tamar erased all the years that separated them. Now they became two children who lived in Iran again: the same conversations, same jokes, same friendly feeling that existed between them. Once again, he became the boy who would do everything she’d ask of him.
The boat returned back to the dock. Sherry packed her painting equipment, and they both walked towards the cab station. “Would you like me to go with you, or you just take a cab to the hotel?” Amir as
ked.
“I’ll take a cab.” She kissed him on the cheek and got into a cab that stopped next to her.
17
It was Saturday, her last day in Istanbul. Sherry told Amir to meet her in the evening. She knew that she should write a letter to her sister and it would create heavy feelings in her, which she would struggle to overcome even a few hours after finishing the letter.
After breakfast, she sat down at the desk, picked up a pen and paper and began writing. After a few sentences, she found herself writing a family biography. It was important to Sherry that Tamar will be familiar with her family just as it was before the crisis.
There was a time when we were a happy family.
We had a great father who loved us very much. Every night we would go to his and mom’s double bed, laying beside him and listening to the three stories about the three princesses, each princess representing one of us. The heroes of the story were permanent, but the events were developed.
You were always the smartest princess. I think it’s because you’re the only one who could play checkers with a satisfactory level. By the way, how are you on checkers, still good?
When our father finished the story, we were already falling asleep. He would carry us up one by one and put us in our beds. During the night he would enter the room several times to check that we are covered with blankets, in order not to be cold.
We won a good father, no better father than him in the whole world. We got him only for a short time, but we enjoyed him and we were able to spend a lot of time with him. Our grandfather was angry at our father for some reason that I do not really understand, I tried to tell you once ... but during that time, we needed to leave the beautiful house where we grew up.
The transition to the warehouse of Nazir changed our lives dramatically, and the disappearance of Esther killed our father. He died of grief...
I saw him losing his grip on reality, losing the will to survive. It was so ironic that Esther thought all her life that our father didn’t love her and when she disappeared – our father disappeared along with her.
Sherry finished writing five pages about her father. Then she began writing about Esther and her complex relationship with each person in the house. For a moment, she felt longings for the old Esther, the one whom everyone wished to change. How she missed all the faulty things that she saw in her, her toughness, her disrespect, her audacity…
I want to end with my love for our mother. You’re lucky. You were with her until the last days of her life.
Now it’s just the two of us remaining, and I’ll do anything to get you here to live with me. At the moment, I have no option or ability, but at the first opportunity, I’ll bring you to Israel. I’m so eager to embrace you and protect you just like before ... I know that you’re with a good family, but please, do not forget me, don’t let anyone take the place I have in your heart, even if we will never get the chance to see each other again. I only have you. We only have each other. We must maintain our relationship for the sake of our parents, for the sake of the family that is left for us.
Sherry folded the papers that had the essence of a family life, a painful souvenir of a child who lost most of her family members at the age of twelve and a half. She looked at the clock. It was almost 5:00 in the afternoon. Sherry puts the letter together with the portrait of Amir on the dresser and lay down to rest a little. A knock at the door woke her up and she presumed that it was Amir.
“I thought that if we want to call Tamar, we’d better do it sooner; anyway, it’s our last day together,” he said immediately when Sherry opened the door.
“I just finished the letter to my sister an hour ago.” She pointed to the dresser where the thick letter was rested.
Amir folded the letter and put it inside the pocket of his jacket. “I thought that it would be better to order dinner and eat it here.”
Sherry didn’t want to eat with him in the room. There was an erroneous intimacy in it, but he did a lot for her and for her sister that she felt some sort of inability to refuse.
The dinner arrived and looked miserable, just like the hotel. Amir contorted his face. “I’m not going to eat this, so forgive me if I’ll just take the drink.”
Sherry sat down at the table and ate while Amir drank vodka that he poured into the glass.
“Are you not drinking too much?” she asked when she noticed him emptying the bottle to half and felt more talkative and liberated with her than usual.
“Don’t get nervous, I’m used to drinking and it does nothing to me. Here, take some.” He poured some into her glass half-full of Coke. “This is very good with Coke.”
Suddenly his mood became gloomy. “It’s hard for me to leave you.”
“Don’t be sad, we’ll see each other again. This will not be the last time, don’t worry,” she tried to calm him.
He poured himself another glass. And Sherry decided that it was time to be more emphatic. “Amir, I think we’d better call my sister, and then you can go. I think you drank too much.”
He raised the bottle up, “Too much? Barely half a bottle.”
She got up, picked up the receiver of the phone and handed it to him. “Dial my sister.”
He got up, approached her with unstable steps and held her hands. “Sherry, you know how much I love you.”
“I know, that’s why I want you to do me a favor and make a call to my sister so I could talk to her.”
“But, why are you in a hurry suddenly? We have time. Don’t worry, I’ll let you talk to her.” He pulled Sherry into his arms. Sherry could smell his cologne that he sprinkled on his body before their meeting, mixed with a smell of a new sweat that the vodka, migrated from him. She waited for a conversation with her sister for days, but Amir destroyed everything. Now she had to take him out from her room quickly. She preferred to postpone the conversation until the next morning before her flight, when Amir would be clear-headed. She pushed him away. “You’re drunk Amir, you should go.”
She gave him his coat and the painting while grabbing his hand and pulling him out towards the exit.
“You don’t want to call Zahara?”
“We’ll do it tomorrow morning before my flight.”
Amir began to cry. The words came out fluently. He explained to Sherry that he couldn’t go on without her; that he never forgot her and would never forget her. “Just a kiss,” he begged. “Don’t you feel anything towards me?”
“I feel ... friendship, a comfort that was developed through the years that we spent together and gratitude that you are taking care of my sister.”
“That’s it?”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” She tried not to hurt him. “Please go, Amir.”
He held her hands with his strong arms, refusing to let her escape. She felt the danger. “Please, Amir, don’t do anything stupid.” He silenced her with his lips dipped in liquor, carried her up to the bed and put his weight on her body. “I love you, Sherry. I want you so much.”
She turned her face away from him. “Amir, don’t do this. You’re drunk now. You will regret it when you recover.”
“But I love you. Don’t you understand?”
She tried hard to move his body away, but she remained buried under him, helpless.
He got up and tried to strip off her pants. She quickly took this moment to escape. He jerked her arm back to bed, and she felt that her shoulder was pulled out from its place. Again, the heaviness of his body weight was on her body, and now his mouth was pressed on her mouth. She felt his hand moving between them when he released his belt and unzipped his pants. She tried to fight a useless war.
He bent over her shrunk body and violated her. Every move inside her was hurting. She tried to bite his lip or scream, but the pressing of his lips on hers choked her. The crying poisoned her inside. She tried to set up in her mind a partition between him and her, but his presence had spread inside her in a hot stream. He stood over her, crying. Her cries and his cries mingled just l
ike a sound of a shrill, two sounds that evil connected.
Sherry was left in bed, unable to get up or move her limbs, and only when he left her room did she approached the door and lock it.
She sat on the bathroom floor and turned on the hot water. She felt the flaring stabs and examined the red marks that were left behind. She reflected on the happiness she felt when she wrote the letter to her sister, her first message to her. Then the evening, which was to be the highlight of her visit to Istanbul turned to a moment where the chance to connect to her sister was switched off. She went out from the shower, lay down in bed and snuggled under the blankets, but they couldn’t warm her body. She squirmed beneath them and trembled out of control. In the background, she heard the endless ringing of the phone in the dresser. She knew it was Amir.
In the morning, as she packed her bags and intended to leave the room to the airport, she found a letter that Amir left under her door. She glanced at it. It only contained a repeated ‘sorry’ that didn’t interest her. There was no chance that she would ever forgive him. She fluttered her eyes across the lines with the hope of finding a telephone number that would allow her to get in touch with her sister. But, Amir didn’t specify any number. She tore the letter into pieces and threw it in the garbage can where she previously threw the torn pieces of Amir’s portrait.
18
Sherry landed at Ben Gurion Airport and dragged her suitcase towards the arrival area. She saw the smiling face of Yaron. “Hello, tourist, how was the trip?”
She forced herself to smile, trying with all her might to disengage from the difficult incident that happened in Istanbul, to delete the smell of the vodka that seemed to stay on her lips and the suffocation that she felt while Amir was leaning on her body. “It was very exciting. I met Amir, and I heard stories from him about my sister.”
“Your sister was not there? Did you not meet her? Why did it seem to me that you were going to meet her, too?”
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