"Not at all. I actually checked out the next day and went to stay at their house.”
"Did you pay them?”
"They wouldn’t accept any payment, but before I left, I bought really expensive gifts for everyone.”
"That’s nice." I was hoping he picked out gifts for them that were more successful than the gift he’d bought me.
"Being in their house was very interesting. It was fascinating to see how people live elsewhere. I didn’t live there as a tourist. I lived there as a Dutchman." I nodded. It did sound really interesting, but still I didn't understand why he had to drag me out to tell me that. "But that's not what I wanted to tell you." Oh... finally, he was getting to the point. "I wanted to tell you what I found out there."
"What?"
"I found out how wrong I was. I discovered how you were right all along and… I'm really sorry. Not sorry that you left me, that must be obvious. I’m sorry for the way I was.”
I was shocked. What had happened to him in Holland? "How did you find this out?”
"For four weeks, I saw how a family can live, and I realized how badly our lives were broken. Don’t get me wrong. They’re not an exceptional family, just a regular one.”
"How do they live, then?”
"The company in the Netherlands is parallel to my company, and John has a role parallel to mine. From what I know, the Netherlands set up is no less profitable or successful than the one in Israel, but still, John and all the other employees go home every day at five o'clock. There are exceptions, but this is more or less the average.”
"And the company hasn’t gone bankrupt." I smiled. I began to get the drift.
"Nope." Itay smiled back. "John comes home every day by six o'clock, everyone eats dinner together and they spend most evenings together. At least once a week, they go out in the evening to spend time as a couple, and they were kind enough to include me in their evenings out on the weeks I stayed with them.
"You must have been shocked.”
"Not shocked, but this was different. In Israel, five o'clock is really the middle of the day. At six, work’s still in full swing, and only at seven does it start to wind down. Quite a few people are still there at eight or even nine.”
"And there?”
"At five-thirty, the office closes. There’s a manufacturing plant elsewhere that belongs to the company, and it operates in shifts, but the offices are locked in the evenings.”
"Are you sure they’re not going bankrupt?” I asked again cynically.
"They’re very far from bankruptcy. There's just a completely different culture of work. I admit, I thought it was very strange at first, but after a few days, I just got used to it, and now I can't understand why it doesn’t work that way in Israel too.”
"Did you tell them how it is here?”
"A week after I moved in, Emily dared to ask what my family situation was. I think she knew because John knew, but she probably wanted to hear it from me. I told her that I’m divorced and she was interested in the details: how long we were married, how many children I have and, of course, why I’d gotten divorced. I told her everything we've been through - the work hours, the distance that had developed between us and the fact that you left me for another man.”
"And what did she say?"
"They’re such a close-knit family, and it was so clear that family’s the most important thing for them. I was sure she’d be sympathetic and stand up for me, but her response gave me a wakeup call. She listened very carefully to our story and finally told me that she’d have done exactly the same thing.”
I smiled.
“She said she wouldn’t be prepared to live like we did. I explained to her that everyone works that way in Israel, so she asked me if my ex-wife's new boyfriend works like this. I had to admit that, apparently, he doesn’t, or you wouldn’t want to live with him.”
"Very true," I confirmed.
"She proved to me in a second that not everyone works like this, so I explained that in my field, everyone works that way. She said that if this was the case and there was no way to change it, she’d expect John to look for a job elsewhere or in another field, even if their income suffered. Both she and John think that the main source of happiness is at home, that work provides a livelihood, and it's very nice if it’s also interesting, but a lifestyle like I described just didn’t make sense.”
"You’re killing me.”
"Why?
"For years I told you exactly the same thing! Why, when a nice Dutch lady tells you this, does it suddenly makes sense to you?”
“I don't know... I can't explain it to you. It's not just what she said, it was the atmosphere around me… Suddenly I found out how I should have been living, and unfortunately, I found out too late.”
"True," I nodded.
"Don't get me wrong, I didn't ask to speak to you to try again to change your mind or to try to get you back, even though, believe me, that’s what I want most in the world.”
"So what do you want?"
"I just want to apologize for being so out of it for so long. For months, I blamed you for our separation and the divorce, when the truth was right in front of me. It was all because of me. I ruined us with my own hands, and I wasn’t man enough to admit that it was my fault.”
"No need to exaggerate, Itay. Every coin has two sides." I had tears in my eyes.
"I'm not exaggerating. I look back at our life together, and I can see how much I took you for granted. I wouldn’t compromise on anything. You just don't deserve someone like me. You deserve someone like Manny." Itay began to cry himself. "I had ample opportunity to correct my behavior and I didn’t. I’ve made my bed, and now I have to lie in it. I just want to ask with all my heart for your forgiveness and give you my blessing for a happier life with Manny.”
"I wish you’d gone to Holland a year and a half ago.” I blew my nose.
"It really is a shame…”
We got up and we hugged for a long time.
I gave him a big kiss on the cheek, and we left the restaurant. I took a taxi home. It would have been strange to go back with him in the car.
When I got home, Manny was waiting for me, alert, on the couch. I sat down next to him, my body fitting into his embrace.
"Well?" he asked curiously. "What did he want?"
"He just gave me the best birthday present I could hope for," I said, tightening my arms around Manny.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michal Hartstein was born in 1974 in Israel into a religious family, studied economics and accounting at the University of Tel Aviv and started a career in finance.
In 2006, after becoming a mother, she decided to change direction and began to write. For several years she has written a popular personal blog, and in 2011 published her first book, Confession of an Abandoned Wife. After two years she published her second book, Hill of Secrets.
Hartstein’s books vividly describe the life of the Israeli middle class, focusing on middle class women, who, like her, have a religious background.
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[1] Simchat Torah is a Jewish holiday celebrated three weeks after the Jewish New Year. Every Saturday, Jews read a chapter from the Torah and the holiday represents the completion of reading the entire Torah and starting over again.
[2] A military operation that led to large-scale IDF military operation in the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 following the incessant rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on civilians and villages inside Israel.
[3] A No. 8 warrant is a recruitment order in times of emergency.
[4] The Yom Kippur War was a war that broke out between Israel and the Arab states in 1973.
[5] A war that broke out in 2006 between Israel and the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon and Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip.
[6]‘Searching for donkeys and finding royalty’ is a saying that means finding something you were not expecting. It’s based on the biblical story of King Saul, who went searching for donkeys, and
Samuel, the prophet who found him and crowned him as the first Hebrew king.
[7] Gilad Shalit was a kidnapped Israeli soldier who was abducted near the Gaza Strip during the Second Lebanon War in June of 2006. He was eventually released in a prisoner-exchange agreement in October 2011.
[8] In Israel, a divorce can be handled either by the rabbinical court or by the family court.
[9] A ‘bastard,’ according to Judaism, is a child born to a married woman with a man that is not her husband. Jewish bastards cannot marry other Jews.
Confession of an Abandoned Wife - Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 29