chapter 27
In the mornings a certain optimism sneaks into the thawing air. Shimmering blue ribbons streak the sky and the feathery clouds are as white as a children’s book illustration. The sun is warm and the pavements glisten. From day to day the temperature rises, people seem to awaken, and their faces seem to express the same thought: spring is here. But then, almost overnight, the temperatures drop cruelly and plunge the city into another deadening freeze.
May arrives wet and stormy. Howling winds, bolts of thunder, endless driving sheets of rain. It feels as though this winter, in its seventh month now, is drawing on like our endless games of backgammon and may never end.
We chain-play. No sooner have we finished one round than we start another. We simply switch the black and white pieces between us, arrange them on the board, and the winner of the last round starts the next. We’re equally matched: sometimes I get lucky and win, sometimes he does. We move our pieces this way and that across the wooden board, and make elaborate theatre of our dice throws. It’s become almost an addiction, as if the dice themselves are moving our hands, playing even when our enthusiasm wanes and we barely speak. The sound of rain is constant, pattering dimly from the street.
‘Go on,’ I say, and after a while, more irritably: ‘Hilmi, it’s your turn.’
He looks back at me from the window, blinking curiously. I can tell by the quiet surprise in his eyes that he was far away. He awakens to the twilight of the game. ‘Oh, sorry.’ His eyes wander around the board. ‘Where is it…?’
‘What’s going on?’ I swirl the dice in my hand. ‘What’s up with you today?’
He looks away and touches one of the pieces to straighten the row. Thunder rolls outside. The steady, unchanging drumming of rain fills up the silence again.
‘Come on, what is it?’
‘Nothing,’ he says evasively, reaching out for the dice.
But I lose my temper: ‘What do you mean, nothing?’
‘Nothing. I’m just thinking.’
As if to illustrate, his gaze wanders back to the window. The sky is empty, pale yet dark like the walls. ‘I’m thinking of going away for a while.’
His answer surprises me. ‘What – where?’
‘I don’t know, I might…’ His voice sounds sunken. ‘Maybe I’ll go home.’
‘Home?’ Whenever we exchange that word, home, something inside me trembles. ‘You want to go back?’
‘Not back. And I told you, I’m only thinking about it for now.’ As if the idea of a trip were somehow connected to the sky, he looks through the window again. ‘Maybe just for the summer.’
Hilmi books a two-month round ticket for the end of June, six weeks from now. His flight will depart from Newark to Zurich, where he’ll have a five-hour layover, and then he’ll fly to Amman, arriving in the middle of the night. He’ll spend a couple of days with his sister Lamis, then continue to the West Bank via Allenby Bridge. Having barely left New York during his four years here, this will be his first visit home to spend the summer in Ramallah with his family and friends. He’s going home.
He puts the phone down and picks it up again. He phones his landlady and catches her in a good mood, preparing for her own trip: Jenny is getting married in Paris at the end of the month, and she’s flying there tomorrow to help with preparations. Hilmi congratulates her and wishes her safe travels and many healthy, beautiful grandchildren, sends blessings and kisses to Jenny, and gets permission to sublet the apartment.
He puts an ad with photos on Craigslist for a short-term rental. The phone starts ringing in less than an hour. He spends all day spraying, scrubbing, dusting, polishing tiles, replacing light bulbs and changing the sheets. He wraps the large canvases leaning against the hallway walls and squeezed behind the studio armchair in translucent blue clingfilm, adds a layer of blankets, and places them under Jenny’s bed. At the doorway he changes his mind and takes them out, unfolds the blankets and retrieves the portrait of his father. He wraps it in plastic several times, protects it with cardboard for the journey, and imagines his mother’s face lighting up when he unpacks the picture at home. He can see the living-room wall where he’ll hang the picture, and the tender surprise in his mother’s eyes.
In his room he climbs barefoot onto the bed, ceremoniously removes the clothes pegs, and takes down the thirty-three completed paintings, laying the dreaming boy all over the bed. The oil paint has dried and the colours are glorious. He spreads a thin layer of tissue paper over each one and gently rolls them into a large tubular case he’d bought especially.
Against the empty ceiling, the strings look as naked as they did when he moved in two years ago and strung them up. He hangs the two newest paintings, still damp, and the five recent pencil drawings he hasn’t yet finished and is planning to complete in Ramallah. He looks at them, lit cigarette in hand, and imagines himself back here in September, rehanging all forty pieces. He envisions the completed collection displayed before him.
The doorbell rings. A series of people he spoke to on the phone arrive for a tour. In the afternoon a woman with a German or Scandinavian accent calls. She and her husband live just three blocks up Bay Ridge. Twenty minutes later, an extremely pregnant young woman appears at the doorstep. She has short cropped hair and light eyes. She walks in and immediately apologizes and asks to use the bathroom. She comes out and glances at the kitchen, walks through the rooms, and explains that she’s looking for a place for her parents to stay when they arrive from Holland just before the baby is born. She pays July’s rent as an advance, with utilities, and agrees to pay the same amount for August in six weeks, when Hilmi gives her the key.
They shake hands at the door. Her left hand rests on her large stomach. He asks if it’s a girl or a boy, and suddenly, delighted, she invites him to feel the baby moving. ‘Did you feel it?’ He is astonished by the gesture, excited by the little fishtail that slithers away like a signal from another world. She laughs again, blushing slightly, and says they decided not to find out. She caresses her belly and gazes at it. ‘But we’ll know by September,’ she promises from the hallway. ‘When you get back I’ll be able to tell you.’
Hilmi’s travel plans, the sudden decision, the excitement and the preparations, seem to take over. They jostle ahead of my own trip home, which has been planned for months, and somehow they becloud the sadness of our parting and the knowledge of the impending end. The ones left behind always seem unhappier, more orphaned than those who set off towards the horizon first. But Hilmi will be gone too, in five weeks, and the thought of us both being in Israel, not far at all from each other – even if we don’t meet, because we couldn’t possibly – softens the tension and slightly eases the sense of finality.
On 16 May, four days before my flight, it’s Hilmi’s twenty-eighth birthday. I buy him an elegant cashmere sweater and take him out for a huge lunch at a steakhouse in Soho. Stuffed and tipsy, we take a cab home. In the early evening we wake up, shower and preen, and take the train to the Upper West Side. Hilmi is clean-shaven, wearing his new green sweater, and I’m in a black velvet dress and heels. We get to Joy and Tomé’s place on 96th Street at nine. Andrew and Kimberly and little Josie are already there.
Josie runs up to Hilmi with open arms. Immediately she is swung up high and nestles against his neck with a shy but radiant smile. Since the first time she came to visit him in Brooklyn with Andrew and got a special tour of the studio, she’s been madly in love with Hilmi – the open, boundless love of a four-year-old. She proudly shows him an improvised notebook of old drawings that Hilmi had collected and bound for her, preliminary sketches of the dreaming boy, which Josie, equipped with a few tubes of acrylic paint and some paint-brushes he’d given her, has coloured in.
We eat again, and make a toast. Joy and Tomé have cooked spicy Indian food – curried lamb, samosas, rice and dahl – and we soon empty two bottles of red wine and move on to the champagne Andrew and Kimberly brought. At some point near the end of the meal, the lights g
o off and the music stops. In the dark we hear Joy’s singsong voice coming closer from the kitchen: ‘Happy birthdaaaay to youuuuu,’ she carries a cake with lit candles, ‘Happy birthday to youuuuu…’
Hilmi turns to me from the head of the table, surprised. Did you know about this? his eyes ask. I respond with a laugh and shrug my shoulders: No, honestly, I didn’t. And I sing along with everyone. His face glows in the candlelight. He shuts his eyes and bites his lower lip. And I make a wish: May you have only good things, my Hilmik. Dear God, please look after him. When everyone cheers and claps, I open my eyes to see him blow out the last few candles in one breath.
Next to me, Kimberly picks the candles off the cake and licks the chocolate frosting off. Andrew was sitting on my left side the whole evening, and now he strokes Josie’s fair hair as she lies curled up in his lap, burying her face in his chest. ‘No, I don’t want any,’ she whimpers.
‘How come?’ He winks when I put a piece of cake down in front of him. ‘How can you say no to chocolate cake?’ He picks up a fork. ‘Let’s see.’
But Josie, who was cheerful and vivacious all evening, suddenly bursts into tears. At some point she had found out that Hilmi was leaving – flying across the ocean to see his family in another country. Exhausted, she pleads and sobs: ‘But he’ll come back, right, Daddy?’ She refuses to let go of her father’s neck. ‘He’ll come back, right?’
chapter 28
It’s a bustling morning in one of downtown Manhattan’s busiest stations. Trains hurtle down the tracks on either side of the platform. A frothing sea of people, escalators moving up and down, rows of rattling windows, announcements on the loudspeakers. More and more noisy trains fly past, bursting out of the tunnels’ mouths with a roar and disappearing quickly into the other side. Within all this commotion we stand silently on the platform: Hilmi with his eyes shut, mumbling, and me watching him expectantly.
Again to the East Village, then to the Lower East Side. We’ve spent the past week roaming the streets, revisiting places we went to in early winter, walking the same paths, reaching the same destinations, moving in circles all the time. Astor Place, Union Square, Sixth Avenue. Drinking in the chaotic sights and sounds of the city, saying goodbye not to each other but to New York – to these massive streets we would not walk down together again. On Wednesday we walked across the Williamsburg Bridge, on Friday we went to Columbus Circle, on Saturday we strolled around the Botanic Gardens until dark. But this morning, for some reason, we don’t know where to go. We have no plan for this final half-day at our disposal. Hilmi decides to recite the ABC silently and choose the train based on the letter I stop him at.
‘Stop,’ I say.
He opens his eyes. ‘K.’
There is no K train.
‘Again.’
He shuts his eyes and starts over, his lips moving silently. I trace their outline for myself, committing their redness to memory, and then I gaze at the expressive wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, the soft down on his earlobes, registering every single note on his face because I do not know when I might see it again. If I ever find myself back in New York, two years from now, or three, or more, it will be without him. I’ll be a different person, and so will Hilmi, perhaps even by the time he gets back in September.
I remember: ‘Stop.’
‘X.’
But next month, in summer, he’ll be in Ramallah, and tomorrow I’ll be in Tel Aviv. Only some forty miles will separate us, an hour and a half’s drive. Yet we’ve barely spoken about it, knowing that even when we are so close we will not be able to meet. We know there is no straight line running between those two dots of ours, only a long and tortuous road, dangerous for me, impassable for him. The casual way we have circumvented the topic, the quiet understanding, the resignation, seem to prove that the roadblocks that will separate us in Israel already exist between us here, now.
‘Bazi.’
‘Oh… Stop.’
‘P.’
That’s how I remember us on my last day in New York. Standing on a downtown subway platform in between trains going nowhere.
Back at the apartment, all my belongings were packed up in a suitcase, duffle bag and carry-on bag. The apartment was clean and tidy, just as we’d left it in the morning. A new white tablecloth was spread on the dining table, with a gift-wrapped orchid in a decorative pot. The envelope with my thank-you note for Dudi and Charlene, who would be back from the Far East in two weeks, contained a pair of concert tickets.
We walked through all the rooms together, shut the windows, drew the curtains. Hilmi changed the litter and I filled the cats’ dishes with water and food. Debbie from next door had agreed to look in on them until Dudi and Charlene got home. I said goodbye to Franny with strokes and kisses, and blew a kiss to Zooey, who slipped under the couch indifferently. Hilmi took my bags out to the stairwell, and I locked the door and slid the key under Debbie’s door.
The open space of the landing amplified the sound of the lift. We hugged as it hummed up to the twelfth floor, and hugged again inside the little chamber as it descended. I remember lights flashing past in the little window, the floor numbers changing in the display, four, three, two, one, until the sudden halt on the ground floor. I remember us walking through the lobby. Hilmi with the big duffle bag and the carry-on over his shoulder, and me dragging the suitcase, its worn wheels rattling over the floor tiles.
I remember one of the neighbours eyeing us curiously as he came back from walking his dog. He passed us as we stepped out into the street, looked at our baggage and warmly wished us safe travels. I thanked him without bothering to correct him, as though Hilmi and I were not saying goodbye but going on a long vacation together.
The street air smelled like rain. An earlier shower had rinsed the pavement and it glistened like the evening sky. The taxi I’d ordered that morning stood waiting with its blinkers flashing. Hilmi asked the driver to give us a minute.
I bury my face in his chest, then hold my head back and tug his coat collar. ‘Take care of yourself. Promise me.’
His eyes are serious and concerned. He blinks and nods obediently.
‘Eat well and sleep well.’ I press against him in a sudden panic. ‘And also—’
His embrace hurts me, his arms loosen then tighten their grip around my waist. ‘And you,’ his heart pounds against my neck, ‘don’t take any buses, OK?’
I laugh through my tears. ‘OK.’
‘No buses.’
‘OK.’
part three
SUMMER
chapter 29
In Tel Aviv it’s already morning. A wonderful mid-June morning. Blue as far as the eye can see, the clear sky glows like a pool. The July/August heat and humidity are still a distant thought. The air in my nostrils is crisp, sweet, replete with perfume from the blossoms that light up the gardens: fiery poinciana, purple jacaranda and yellow mimosas, torrid cascades of colour from bougainvillea, oleander and hibiscus, all blooming along the pavements and crowning the treetops in red, pink and white. The seasonal celebration is under way at the produce stands and juice bars, too, with watermelons and cantaloupes, figs and cherries, clusters of grapes, mountains of peaches and plums. The parade of summer fashion is in full swing on the streets: miniskirts, cleavage, hot pants and flip-flops, tank tops and tattoos, bare skin peeking out impudently from every direction, turning bronzer by the minute. Air-conditioning units rattle up and down every building.
On such a mid-June morning even grey, tattered, noisy, grimy Tel Aviv, with its flaking walls and dirty streets, from its water tanks above to its dog droppings below, its buses and traffic jams, cats and cockroaches, looks beautiful.
Lofty, laid-back, languid Tel Aviv. With its thousand coffee shops always hopping, and numerous breeds of dogs on leashes. With babies in pushchairs, benches and glorious ficus-lined green boulevards, treetops casting shadows on the lines of cars and mopeds. Florid, self-absorbed Tel Aviv, reflected in the display windows of designer stores.
The city that embodies hedonistic lust and lively turmoil, where summer vacation fills the streets with young men and women, tourists and vacationers speaking English, French and German. Tel Aviv of the midday rush on humus and shawarma stands, of early-evening iced coffee and cold beer. Sweet, placid Tel Aviv of open balconies and juice stands, of gelaterias and convenience stores on every corner. Sweaty Tel Aviv sighing with relief in the twilight hours and blushing in the honeyed light of sunset. With huge flocks of swifts raiding its evening skies, pigeons fluttering between the rooftops, and bats flitting from tree to tree. Gluttonous, seductive Tel Aviv, where a sexy restlessness starts bubbling up at nightfall, when lights and candles are lit in restaurants and bars fill up with voices and flirtations. Nocturnal, wild Tel Aviv, awash with drugs and alcohol, countless parties all summer long – in the clubs, on the beach, on the rooftops – begins to celebrate itself in mid-June, when the moon turns full.
I am back home. Back to the familiar order of life and old habits, to the little things and the simple comfort they hold. To the smells of schnitzel and fried onions at lunchtime, to the same backyard outside my window, the same margosa tree. To the taste of biscuits and instant coffee, to leftover challah and cream cheese, tahini, salad. To the same kitchen dishes and bed sheets, the same potted plants and wall hangings in the living room, the same TV anchors.
To feeling at home even when I’m out: after almost a year in huge New York, with its broad avenues and rivers, forests of buildings and skyscrapers towering up to the clouds, back to immersing myself in the more modest scale of an intimate city with narrow pavements.
Back to hearing Hebrew – marvelling at it now, with my freshly attuned ears – coming fluently from everywhere. To walking down the street and picking up new idioms. To sitting in cafés eavesdropping on conversations. Hebrew in the newspaper, in crossword clues. To ordering in Hebrew from menus written in Hebrew. Back to the directness, the familiarity displayed by waitresses, shopkeepers and taxi drivers. Cars honking, people grumbling in line at the bank and the doctor’s clinic, kids yelling at the back of the bus, construction workers whistling. Back to that direct Israeli look that shamelessly scans you from head to toe. To mobile phones ringing everywhere, to the loud conversations, the unconcealed impatience of people in front of me and behind me and next to me in the ATM line.
All the Rivers Page 21