This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Riding Lies
Eshkar Erblich-Brifman
Lilach Keren-Grupper
Copyright © 2019 Eshkar Erblich-Brifman, Lilach Keren-Grupper
All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.
Translation from the Hebrew: Helene Hart
Contact: [email protected]
Contents
Part One - Hagar
Part Two - Anat
Part Three - Orly
Special thanks for your support
Part One - Hagar
Four forty-two. Preschool will be over in twenty minutes, and again, there’s no parking. Hagar circles the street time and again, cursing under her breath. It’s unbearable, the same story every day. And somehow, she always arrives at the last minute, and then the assistant pulls a face at her. She doesn’t say anything, of course not, after all, the preschool is open until five, and it’s perfectly okay to get there at a minute to five. Someone honks. Screw him. She’s allowed to drive slowly. She’s looking for a parking space. She’s even signaling. A woman gets into her car. Salvation is here. Like a panther after its prey, she gets ready to pounce on the spot. Got it! She parks and steps out of the car, slamming the door, then walks briskly, the clicking of her high heels echoing loudly through the street. Her back is straight, her body slim, her shoulders open and pulled back. She’s moving like a dancer in mid-performance. Her full breasts, still firm, bounce along with every step she takes. She wonders if the elastic in her bra is not supporting her anymore. It doesn’t make sense to her, given that her bra is new. She bought it at one of Milan’s top stores. Milan. She’s all but forgotten the short vacation. The daily race, the grinding routine, struck her mockingly the day she came home, to Israel.
“Ilai-chick, Mommy’s coming!” She heard Anat the preschool teacher calling out the second she opens the door.
How embarrassing, she thinks to herself, one of the assistants would be bad enough, but Anat stayed on today of all days when I arrive at five on the dot?
The colorful banner welcoming all to Skylark Preschool welcomes her as it does every day. Twice a day. She quickly spreads her arms for her own little lark and bends down. Ilai runs to her at the speed of light and cuddles up in her arms, resting his curly head in the hollow between her head and neck.
“How was your day?” she asks him warmly.
“There was a bee here!” Ilai tells her, his eyes shining, “And everyone was scared except for me!”
“You’re my hero!” she smiles and lets him go. “Tell me in the car, okay?” she asks, but actually determines, and picks up his new superhero backpack from the silver rack. She bought that in Milan too. She makes sure to pick up his water bottle from the plastic basket.
Anat closes the shutters and throws her purse over her shoulder. “Are we ready to go?” she asks with a tired smile.
“Sure.” Hagar gives Ilai a hand and gently pulls him out. So embarrassing. She really messed up, keeping the teacher waiting. What kind of a mother is she?
“Whose bike is that?” she asks, raising an eyebrow when she notices a green bicycle locked behind the preschool fence.
“Mine,” Anat says proudly, “it’s one of the best things that’s happened to me recently…”
“You’re kidding,” she laughs, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. Too perfect, like everything in her life. Her husband, two kids, a good job, a big house, a garden, even a white picket fence. And the kids want a dog. But there’s a limit. She doesn’t have the patience for the smell and molting hair they leave everywhere, not to speak of house training.
“Do you bike to work every day?” she asks Anat, who answers, “Sometimes, when I miss a session or when I just don’t feel like looking for parking in the morning.”
“Nuts…” Hagar laughs again, “I would never have imagined…”
“Listen, it completely changed my life,” Anat says and bends over to insert the key in the lock and free the bike. “I ride with a group. Wonderful people. Would you like to join us? You won’t believe what a crazy adrenaline rush it is…”
She smiles politely and turns her down. “I’m more of a dancer than a biker…”
“I can see you are,” Anat giggles, “but that’s not an issue. Try it out once. You can take a free trial lesson. What do you have to lose?”
“My husband bikes—” she tells her.
Ilai is pulling on her hand. “Come on, Mommy!”
“He’d love me to start too.”
“Well, then, here’s your opportunity,” Anat puts on her helmet and clicks the buckle closed. Suddenly, she’s no longer Anat the Preschool Teacher but Anat the Biker, with an utterly, almost incomprehensibly different look.
Ilai stares at her wide-eyed. It’s not clear if he admires her now even more, or the opposite. Something’s shifted, the teacher stigma has been ruined forever.
“I don’t know,” Hagar won’t promise, “I don’t think it’s for me. If I had the time, maybe I’d go back to dancing…”
“What kind of dancing did you do?” Anat asks her and hangs her purse on the back of the bike.
“Mommy!” Ilai pulls her hand again. “Come on!”
“Mainly classical ballet,” she admits, “and if my father hadn’t pushed me into a high-tech career, I might have been a professional dancer now,” she laughs and blushes slightly. No one really makes a living from being a dancer, so naturally she chose the rational, logical option, the option her parents dictated and expected of her. And here she is, a successful career woman who can afford to buy expensive bras in Milan’s top stores.
“Well, see you tomorrow,” she says, giving in to Ilai and his incessant pestering.
“Think about it,” Anat says and gets on her bike. “If you change your mind…”
She nods and leads Ilai, his super-hero backpack and water bottle in hand, toward her little blue car. They walk into the house half an hour later. Ofer is already home, immersed in his PlayStation.
All at once, she sheds her career woman appearance and transforms into a mother. Her high heels come off. The tight pants and tailored shirt remain. You never know who’s going to knock at the door.
“Did you eat at Grandma’s?” she asks Ofer and strokes his head. Ofer nods. “What did she make?”
“Schnitzel and mashed potatoes,” Ofer says, not taking his eyes off the screen for even a second.
“Good. Did you do your homework?”
“I didn’t have any.”
“When did you get home?”
“Dunno. Earlier.”
“Good.”
“Mommy, water spilled in the room!” Ilai announces.
She sighs. Hang on. First, she’ll put the washing on. Amnon will be home at eight-thirty, when the kids are well on their way to bed. She gives in and changes into something more comfortable. No one will visit this evening, and Amnon doesn’t count.
***
“How was your day?” she asks him, stifling a yawn. Now sh
e’ll have to listen to his tiresome stories about the office. Business, thankfully, is booming, but all the technical details really don’t interest her.
“Is there anything to eat?” he asks wearily when he returns from the kids’ rooms.
“I made a salad,” she says.
He gulps and says thank you, even though she knows that what he really wants now is a big, juicy hamburger.
He crunches on the salad, probably imagining the taste of meat he really craves. She looks at him and imagines she’s back in Milan with him. Or Paris. Or anywhere else. She loves him, she really does. And they lack for nothing. Maybe a little excitement, but excitement is a luxury. Who is thrilled by anything these days?
“Anat suggested I join a biking group,” she says, grinning.
“Why not!?” he looks at her, his eyes wide with enthusiasm. “It might actually be a great idea! Finally, we’ll be able to go riding together.”
“I knew you’d like that,” she shakes her head from side to side, “but I don’t think it’s for me.”
Ilai shouts from his bed that he’s thirsty. She gets up to bring him a glass of water. Then she sits back down next to Amnon.
“I think it’ll do you good,” Amnon says and mops up the juice from the salad with a slice of bread. “It’s liberating, it’s healthy, and it energizes you…you need to let a way to let off steam. After all, you work so hard—”
His words touch her. Who knew that he feels that way? Who knew that he’s even aware of what she’s going through? The incessant juggling of work and home.
“—and when you feel confident enough,” he adds “we’ll bike together. We’ll leave the boys with my parents. It could be a dream come true…just you and me…a weekend biking…maybe we’ll go down to the desert, to the Negev.”
She laughs and her smooth cheeks, not a wrinkle on them, blush slightly. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, don’t you think?”
“If you say that you’re game,” he says nobly, “I’ll buy you a bike tomorrow.”
“I don’t know,” she contemplates the idea, “I still want to think about it. In any case, I have an important meeting tomorrow. No way can I be late or leave early, and I guess you can’t buy a bike without me…”
He picks up the paper lying on the table and she understands that that’s it, the discussion’s over. He’s lost his focus. But that’s okay, she wants to take a shower and get to bed. Tomorrow is another day.
***
“Your mafrum are heavenly,” Hagar says to her mother the next day, when she comes to pick up Ofer.
“Have another,” her mother offers in a heavy Tripolitan accent.
She takes another stuffed potato from the fragrant sauce it’s swimming in. “Are you going to tell me that Ofer had that for lunch?” she asks doubtfully and licks her manicured fingers, her nails painted bright burgundy.
“That would be the day,” her mother laughs, “he ate schnitzel and mashed potatoes, like he had yesterday at Grandma Anucha. That’s what the boy asked for…and if Grandma Anucha makes schnitzel and mashed potatoes, then Grandma Esther will also make schnitzel and mashed potatoes.”
She laughs and kisses her mother on the forehead. “You’re the best, Mom,” she says and before she can move, her mother shoves a plastic box filled to capacity with fresh, intoxicatingly aromatic mafrum.
“You’ll leave some for Amnon, right?” she winks. “Ilai-chick, do you want a taste of mafrum?” she asks Ilai, who is already raiding his grandmother’s candy cabinet.
Ilai doesn’t bother to turn around.
At home, bogged down by routine, she helps Ofer with his bible homework. Maybe she should reduce her load and find him a private teacher to do all his homework with him, she wonders for the hundredth time. But do people give their kids private lessons in the fourth grade? She’s not sure, and on the other hand, they don’t lack money. She’s collapsing, but mainly, she’s bored with it all, her beautiful, sparkling house, Amnon, the kids, and sometimes she even gets fed up with the constant presence of the extended family. True, it’s very convenient. She almost never has to cook or take care of the kids. There’s always a babysitter available: Grandma Esther or Grandma Anucha, and the two of them, whether they’re aware of it or not, are in covert competition with each other over who’s the better grandmother. One lives on the right, the other on the left. And she’s in the middle. Swaddled. Embraced. Loved. Sometimes she feels suffocated, yet she always holds her head up and smiles. Because everything is perfect, right? Everything is really, perfectly fine. Every woman she knows would change places with her in a blink. With her looks at thirty-eight, no plastic surgery, dieting, or anything. To have a house like hers, a high position at work, a successful businessman for a husband, a family of means on both sides, two cherished, polite children—who wouldn’t want all this? She’d find a buyer on the spot. She’s sure of it.
She plays with her engagement ring, twisting it on her finger. The cut diamond grazes her but it’s a white scratch, not the bleeding kind.
“I’m hungry!” Ilai says and she snaps back to reality.
“I have to finish helping Ofer with his homework,” she says patiently, “but we’ll make something to eat soon.”
She remembers the mafrum and wonders if she put the box in the fridge. She probably forgot it on the kitchen counter. Never mind, later. Pity her mother didn’t give them dinner too, she thinks to herself while Ofer tries to understand the text. Pity you can’t squeeze two meals into one: lunch and dinner, be done with it, and then leave her alone at home. All she needs is to find a solution for the afternoons between five and eight, and then she’ll be completely covered. They calm down after that and go to sleep. It’s not that she doesn’t love them. They’re the apples of her eye, her pride and joy. But the joy is a little challenging. Certainly after a day’s work. Not to speak of driving them around all day. But they must have activities to help them develop. Ilai is still a little young, but for Ofer it’s crucial now. Sometimes her father drives them around, as does Amnon’s father, but not as much as they used to. After all, they aren’t exactly spring chickens anymore themselves.
“Joshua was the heir to Moses, right Mom?” Ofer asks. His eyes are glazed, as are hers.
Fourth-grade bible! “I think so,” she replies and searches for confirmation in the textbook.
“Mommy, I’m hungry,” Ilai won’t lay off.
“Soon!” She’s beginning to lose her patience.
Her phone beeps. Another message: Tomorrow there’s a staff meeting at nine in the morning. Don’t be late. All right, she won’t be late. These incessant meetings and discussions are so tiresome. She can’t allow herself not to be there, or to drift off during the discussion. She must focus, be centered, and organized and well-groomed too, naturally, which reminds her that she simply must make an appointment with the beautician. Maybe for Friday. There’s never enough time. Maybe on just any afternoon, she’ll leave the kids with her mother and go have a facial.
Amnon surprises her and gets home at a quarter to eight. A new record.
“Dad!” the kids jump on him. He lifts them both at once. Ofer’s hair is wet from the shower. Ilai hasn’t had his yet.
“It’s almost eight, why haven’t you showered?” he asks Ilai, his voice carrying a hint of criticism.
Ilai shrugs. “Mommy didn’t have time,” he replies.
“Mommy has been sitting with Ofer on his bible homework for over an hour!” she tells him. Her temples are pounding. She’s dying to change out of her tight jeans and shirt. Maybe soon she’ll finally be able to relax, now, with Amnon home.
“Come and shower,” she says to Ilai and drags him down the hallway.
“Hagar!” Amnon calls her. She turns her head. “I have a surprise for you!”
“You’re insane!” she calls back when she sees what’s waiting for her by
the door.
Amnon laughs.
“Mommy has a bicycle!” Ilai cheers, “Mommy has a bicycle!”
“But I told you I was only thinking about it…” she can’t wipe the surprised smile off her face, “and even that not.”
“Maybe now you’ll find it easier to make a decision,” Amnon winks and wheels it into the middle of the living room.
“How on Earth can you buy a bike without my measurements?” she asks and then repeats, “You’re insane, Ami…”
“When you buy the best there’s nothing to think about,” he says confidently, “there’s no way you won’t be happy…a full suspension mountain bike. Look,” he bends over slightly, “gears, two front shock absorbers, a rear shock absorber.” He moved his hand to the pedals. “Pedals with traction pins, the best, and the twenty-nine-inch wheels with mountain-bike tires,” he beams. She can see he’s thrilled. “And it’s carbon,” he continues, stroking the gleaming frame. “Carbon fiber, the lightest and strongest material they make bikes with these days, so it’ll even be light to carry.”
She hesitates, looking at the bike with childlike curiosity. “Fine then, but just to be clear, it’s not staying in the living room, right?”
“Sure, sure, relax,” Ammon laughs, “let yourself enjoy it for a moment before I bury it in the storeroom.”
“Mom, get on!” Ofer urges her. “You have to check the size.”
Hesitantly, she climbs on. What are bikes to her? She sets her firm butt on the black leather. Her shapely legs are slightly parted over the carbon frame.
“It fits like a glove,” Ammon is pleased, “we may need to fine-tune the height,” he thinks out loud. “You can’t ride in six-inch heels, you know.”
“Are you putting my height down again?” she asks, laughing.
Amnon is excited, “Did you know that you can adjust the saddle at the touch of a button?” he half-asks, half-states as he touches the leather saddle and absent-mindedly strokes her butt.
Riding Lies Page 1