All the Rivers

by Dorit Rabinyan

  ‘From a payphone?’ He sounded anxious. ‘You’re out there on the street?’

  ‘No, no, Dad, don’t worry.’

  Always worried, always vigilant. ‘Go on, give me the number.’

  ‘No, Dad, it’s OK, I told you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Who’s at home? Are the kids there?’

  ‘They went to sleep, bless them.’ His voice softened again. ‘It’s late here.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ I grumbled in a slightly childish tone, ‘but I really wanted to hear them.’

  ‘Never mind, my sweet, as long as you’re all right.’

  ‘I’m fine, Daddy.’ I suddenly trembled inside with a faint trace of guilt, as though I were lying to him. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’

  ‘Are you eating well, Liati?’

  ‘Yes, Dad, don’t worry.’

  ‘Real food, proper food? Or all kinds of—’

  ‘Real food, proper food.’

  ‘You have to take care of yourself, Liati, it’s very important.’

  I kicked my shoes off and lay back on the bed with the phone in my lap and my eyes shut.

  ‘Yesterday on the news they showed how much snow you’re getting in America. I couldn’t believe it! Those winds, goodness gracious!’ His sensitive, slightly neurotic voice occasionally broke. ‘And most important, my sweet, is at night, when you go out at night…’ Up and down with the echo of Persian in his Hebrew, the cadence rounding up at the end of each sentence. ‘That kind of cold is not good for us, you have to dress very warm when you go out.’ He suddenly switched to an outraged tone: ‘And when are you coming back? Haven’t you had enough with that Nooyork?’

  ‘Dad, don’t start. I told you.’

  ‘What are you doing there on your own, I just don’t understand it.’

  ‘I’ll be back in May, two months from now.’

  ‘OK. Well, come home already, it’s enough. You still have to get married, start a family, God willing. Come on, yallah, find yourself a nice husband and bring him home.’

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Yechiel!’ My mother’s voice came on the line. ‘Let somebody else get a word in!’

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘Shabbat Shalom, my honey.’

  ‘Go right ahead, Mrs Dalia, get in as many words as you want.’

  ‘Where are you, honey? We waited for you to call.’

  ‘I’m with friends, we spent the night here,’ I said without thinking, and quickly corrected myself: ‘I slept over at their house.’ When I told them about the holiday dinner they were very surprised.

  ‘Id-a-Nowruz?’ they exclaimed together, and laughed. ‘The Persians’ Nowruz?’

  ‘Yes, it was lovely, with all the rituals and the songs.’

  ‘How nice!’

  ‘And the table with the seven blessings.’

  ‘What…?’

  ‘What seven blessings?’

  I heard a soft knock at the door, and when I turned I saw Hilmi’s head peeking in. I sat up as soon as he walked into the room.

  ‘She must mean haft siin, Yechiel.’

  ‘Sofreh haft siin, that’s right.’

  I covered the mouthpiece with my hand and shot Hilmi a sharp, threatening look, shushing him with pursed lips and a wagging finger. I gripped the phone as if he had come to snatch it away from me, and held up my hand for him not to come closer. I could see as soon as he appeared in the doorway that he was stoned. He nodded and smiled shyly, and imitated my silencing finger. He tiptoed in further, shoulders hunched, and furtively circled the bed. I turned my back on him. ‘What?’ My voice sounded stern and tense. ‘I couldn’t hear you.’

  ‘I asked why on earth Nowruz?’ My father was curious. ‘How do they even know about that?’

  Hilmi sprawled on the bed behind me. I felt his body sink into the mattress.

  ‘There are loads of Iranians here,’ I said hesitantly, unfocused. ‘Friends of my friends.’

  I heard the sheets rustle and Hilmi stretched out, humming to himself, with a purr of delight that accompanied the creaking coils.

  His hand, I didn’t sense it immediately: warm, caressing, surrounding my waist. At first I ignored it and moved away a little, pulling the phone cord as far as it would go and shifting to the edge of the bed. After a few seconds I felt it again, mischievously tickling, crawling under my shirt. I laughed irritably, squirmed away and gave him a furious look – stop that! But he was high, and playful, growing all the more eager and bold.

  ‘Come on, stop it!’ I suddenly burst out in a muffled whisper. ‘Enough!’

  The surprised grin froze on his face and I turned my back on him. ‘Hello, Mum, can you hear me?’

  ‘What is that, honey?’ she asked cautiously after a long moment of silence. ‘Who’s there with you?’

  ‘No one, it’s nothing.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hilmi leave the room and shut the door behind him. ‘There’s loads of people here.’

  chapter 25

  Almost two hours after leaving Hillsdale, with the petrol gauge teetering on the edge of the red line, and me there too, dying to pee, we start to see signs for a petrol station. Twelve miles, they say, popping up encouragingly from the dark. Eight miles, says the sign behind the flapping windscreen wipers. Only three more miles. Finally, through a screen of freezing rain, cascading waterfalls and specks of hail flying around constantly, a blurred orange neon light sharpens into the fuel company’s yellow-and-red logo.

  The engine roars. The asphalt under the wheels is icy and slippery. I signal a right turn, to no one, then carefully glide into the exit lane and a hundred yards later ease off the accelerator and pull up next to a pump under the shelter.

  The noise stops at once and the car goes silent with a muffled sort of amazement. The metallic drumming of the hail on the roof, the whipping rain, jangling windows, rattling engine, and the rhythmic, hoarse, monotonous whisper of the wipers – it all stops at once, but the silence still lingers. The tense, burdensome silence that has travelled with us since we left Hillsdale.

  It had started as soon as we got in the car. I asked Hilmi to look for the atlas so we could figure out where we were going, but he ignored me, sitting with his arms obstinately crossed over his chest and glaring out of the window.

  ‘Come on!’ My voice was deliberately urgent. ‘Hilmi, come on!’ My fists tightened on the wheel. ‘Give it to me already.’

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at me. Proud and stubborn, he sat there in his plaid flannel shirt, denim jacket on his lap, with his back to me.

  ‘Chutzpah,’ I hissed quietly, in Hebrew, and angrily snatched my seat belt off. I had a sudden illogical urge to open the door and jump out, to escape into the ice, the snow – anything but be here with him. Shifting gears and slowing down, I muttered again, as if to myself, ‘Such chutzpah.’

  I twisted right and stretched over to the back seat. The car swerved slightly. I leaned my left elbow on the wheel and dug through the bags with my right hand, fishing around until I found Andrew’s road atlas under the coats. ‘Thanks a lot,’ I spat at Hilmi, and slammed the disintegrating bundle of pages down. ‘Very helpful of you.’ I forced the seat belt clip back in. My hair was falling on my face. ‘Thanks a lot, really.’

  Reverse order. Everything in reverse. The beautiful white road we took yesterday from south to north was now switched, like in a photo negative, unrecognizably black. The views that ran past us yesterday on our right now appeared on our left and looked impenetrable and full of shadows, almost abstract. Yesterday it was still light when we neared Hillsdale, albeit a faint grey light, but you could still make things out. Now it was total darkness, a deep winter gloom, and most of the time I had my high beams on, shining into a continual screen of thick fog. The car rattled along at fifty miles an hour, between third and fourth gears, and I let other drivers pass, pressing down on the brakes and the clutch, forcing the gear lever, gritting my teeth and cursing myself for not taking the
train, cursing the stupid romantic fantasy that had seduced me into this road trip. Why not? Yes, why not? I mocked myself bitterly. It’ll be just like Tel Aviv to Rosh Pina!

  Like the fog in the beams, like the damp mist engulfing the car as if the clouds had descended to the ground, the tension between us thickened and rose. The bitter, gloomy silence was intolerable. Hilmi had yet to utter a single word. He’d been sitting in the same position since we got into the car, eyes shut, lost in himself, pale and miserable, almost fossilized. Nothing I did made him respond: I turned on the radio, switched off the heat, then put it back on at the highest setting and turned the volume of the radio up annoyingly high, flipped angrily from shouting commercials to stupid pop and country hits. He didn’t even volunteer to help with that. Not even the slightest gesture to make things a little easier for me. As though I were just his driver. His beautiful driver. Even when he leaned over and took the bottle of water out from under the seat, he didn’t offer me any. He took a few sips and put it down by his feet. Like a little boy, like a baby, punishing me. An eye for an eye: You wanted me to disappear? Well, here you go, I’ve disappeared, now make do on your own.

  Oh, pity the poor, long-suffering, insulted Hilmi! I kept firing myself up, bitterly: My heart is breaking for his offended Arab honour. Screwing everything up with his typical Palestinian victimhood. Lousy macho ego, carrying around their bleeding wounds and injured pride. With that unmovable, defiant, passive-aggressive level-headedness. Always so sure they’re right, so sure they’re the only ones suffering, blaming everyone except themselves.

  What do I have to apologize for? What?! Did I walk in on him and interrupt his phone call? Was I the one who badgered, who bothered, who interrupted his conversation with his family? I’d asked him clearly, more than once. I’d begged him to stop. He obviously knew very well who was on the other end of the line, because he knew that every Friday afternoon I call home and he has to leave me in peace and not interfere. Disappear, yes, get out of my life for ten minutes. The last thing I need is them asking questions and making all sorts of worried guesses. I could see them now, the minute after my father put the phone down and joined my mother in the living room. They’d ask Iris who Liati was away for the weekend with – a new boyfriend? Someone Israeli? A Jewish man she’d met, an American?

  Suddenly, I’m not sure how it happened, I almost lost control of the car. A huge tree had been uprooted on the right side and fallen across the road, and I was blinded by the fog and the headlights of an oncoming truck that honked and flashed its lights. Even at the very last minute I couldn’t see the tree covered with a mountain of snow. Only when the echo of the honks hit me did I suddenly see a shadow getting closer up ahead and all at once, in a wave of terror, I veered left into the opposite lane just seconds after the truck charged past.

  Near Dover Plains, as we drew closer to the diner, I gave him a quick look. I could tell he recognized the place, and when we drove past the narrow path we’d walked down yesterday, I glanced at him again. When the oak tree grove was behind us, I examined his cool, unshaven profile glued to the window. The giant Indian chief’s head was visible on the other side of the road. Its grave electric gaze accompanied us from the doorway.

  At an intersection after the Wingdale train station, just before the light changed, I was about to start driving when a family of deer suddenly emerged from the mist.

  ‘Wow!’ I called out, holding my breath. ‘Wow…’

  They were noble and beautiful. Four with horns, and two tender fawns with golden fur dotted white. They walked in front of the car like fairy-tale creatures and cautiously crossed the road. Their large eyes were fearful, pulling back in surprise from the headlights.

  ‘They must be hungry,’ I said, my eyes widening. ‘Looking for food.’

  Hilmi didn’t answer, but I heard his breath slow with wonder. I was about to say that they must be struggling to find food in this freezing cold weather. I wanted to say that I regretted everything that had happened, that I hadn’t meant to lose my temper and that I really was worried, but also that he’d been wrong and I deserved an apology too. I gave him a cautious, fearful sideways glance, the smile still on my lips, and realized he was fast asleep.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he says at the petrol station when I’m about to get out of the car, ‘you paid yesterday.’

  Hastily, careful not to bump into him, I pull my coat on and zip it up, and at the last minute decide to do without the scarf, tossing it onto the back seat.

  He takes out a hundred-dollar bill. ‘Here.’

  My left hand is already pushing the door open, my face shocked by the blast of cold air from outside, and when I turn and give him an impatient look, our eyes meet for the first time all evening, and immediately pull back.

  ‘Go on, take it,’ he urges, his voice hoarse. ‘Don’t be…’

  But I’m furious at him, too bitter to be appeased by a hundred dollars, too angry and proud to respond. I step out into the cold that slaps me in the face and restrain myself from slamming the door loudly. The smell of petrol makes my nostrils tingle. He just sits there in the car while I hand the keys to the attendant with a shaking hand. He doesn’t even bother to get out.

  My hands and my strained muscles seem to have absorbed all the Suzuki’s rattles. The tension and anxiety and the cold have conspired against me. I breathe deeply and knead my sore neck, cracking joints as I twist my head around, and massage my stiff shoulders. My self-pity feels increasingly pressing as I rub my dry eyes compulsively.

  ‘Are you OK, ma’am?’

  ‘What?’ I blink and the attendant’s figure comes into focus. ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Full tank?’

  ‘Yes, fill it up.’

  The wind stings my face and ears. On the pump screen the numbers zero out and then start flipping. I look for the bathroom, then back to the racing numbers. Forty-one, forty-two. A quick glance into the car. Through the window I can see my scarf on the back seat. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. The brakes! The punchline flies through my mind as I catch the metallic logo of the Suzuki: Where are the brakes?! I’m dying for a cigarette. All these no-smoking signs arouse a spiteful, grumpy desire to smoke right here and now. The hose hiccups with a metallic, nervous sound, and my eyes are drawn to the bathroom again. But the numbers keep running, seventy-six, seventy-seven, each pair disappearing like two blind, weary eyes rolling over in their sockets. I cross my legs tight. Then I take tiny steps around the car and approach the attendant, holding out my credit card.

  As I do so, I catch sight of Hilmi in the wing mirror. Seeing him sprawled in there makes me livid. There he sits, stretching his whole body out with an indulgent yawn, mouth agape in a hungry roar, arms reaching out to the sides.

  Kus-emek, I hear myself hiss quietly. Yes, I curse in Arabic, teeth bared. Kus-em-em-emek! Anyone would think you drove the whole way! Like you’re the one who still has to drive who knows how many miles till we get to the city! Kus-em-em-emek. You can’t drive? You can’t swim? Then what can you do, you piece of shit? Vengefully, I say it out loud: ‘You piece of shit.’

  The door screeches horribly when I burst into the toilet in a frenzy. Inside, surrounded by a foul stench mingled with the sharp smell of disinfectant, I squirm out of my jeans and underwear, barely tugging them down in time. I feel dizzy and chilled as I allow my body to empty out. The roll of scratchy, grey paper dangling from a hook on the wall is almost finished. My heart is still galloping, and the echo of the toilet flush is deafening. When I look in the mirror I see a stranger. My hair is wild, my lips parched. The tap spurts out a strong, loud stream of stinging ice-cold water. When I lean over, my breath stops from the shock of cold. I drink slowly, and only then rub my hands in the liquid soap and rinse. I wash my face, too, and it reappears in the mirror with a stunned expression.

  Something in the faded, murky mirror takes me back to the mistiness of that narrow glass that peered back at us between the shops on 14th Street, when o
ur laughing reflection appeared that night as we searched for his keys in Union Square. My strange thought from that evening resurfaces: that the living, beautiful image of me and Hilmi would stay burned in that mirror, scratched and blurred, preserved like a ghostly reflection even after we each went our separate ways.

  I don’t know how I managed to drive the remaining forty-five miles to Manhattan. My mind was so distracted it was a miracle I didn’t cause an accident. It was after 1 a.m. when we finally got to town and drew up in the car park on Eighth Street. A cutting wind dishevelled my hair and chilled my bones. I felt my knees fail, almost sinking to the pavement, and my entire being collapsed in exhaustion. The night guard gave me a scathing look, thinking I was drunk. Hilmi carried the bags. He said he’d come up to the apartment to call Andrew. The treetops swayed heavily. Fog floated in the street lamps’ beams. All the way from the car park to Ninth Street, the wind pulled and pushed me.

  Hilmi called the lift. When the doors opened I saw myself in the mirror step inside, head bowed, arms lifeless alongside my body. A hollow plunging feeling hit me in the pit of my stomach when we went up: I felt my guts turn inside out, losing their grip. Franny and Zooey welcomed us with hungry meows from the other side of the door. In a daze, I went straight to the kitchen to give them fresh food and water, then pulled my coat off as I padded into the bathroom. I leaned on the sink while I brushed my teeth. My eyelids were swollen and droopy from crying, my eyes faded and red, as though someone had struck my head with a heavy object. I heard Hilmi on the phone in the study. I undressed in the dark and put on my pyjamas. For a long moment I sat on the edge of the bed scratching my head and neck, unable to remember what I was supposed to do. The door, I thought as I shivered under the blanket lazily: I need to lock the door. I felt sleep melt and dive between my eyes, darkening them, almost touching the bottom. Then I heard the door slam shut. He didn’t even say goodbye.

  chapter 26

  My sleep is invaded by horrible, teeth-chattering shivers. Bitterly cold and utterly miserable, my body twitches and hunches under the blanket. Pain crawls out of my temples, shattering my eyes with every blink. A torrent of nausea and dizziness arches through my body, churning my stomach and leaving me feverish and weak. I blink at the light, moan, and recognize the face above me: Hilmi, close and blurred. He puts down a glass of water and holds out something in his left hand: two green pills. His lips move. My breath is boiling hot, pulling tongues of fire out of my throat. What time is it? I wonder, stunned, looking at the window and blinking at the glowing red numbers on the clock. What day is it? My frozen feet flutter, refusing to thaw no matter how much I rub my ankles together.