Three Floors Up

by Eshkol Nevo

  And what horrified me? The fact that not even once did any of those professional psychologists offer a moral opinion about the aberrant behaviors being described to them. Not even once! Perhaps the most infuriating example of that was a small-boned girl who sat down on the bench at around two o’clock and told the therapist about the powerful sexual attraction she felt toward her older brother. The therapist listened. And listened. And listened. And finally said, “It’s good that you’re talking about it. It can’t be easy to walk around with feelings like that.”

  Good God! I wanted to scream. That girl is on the brink of committing incest. Aren’t you going to warn her of the moral ramifications of that? Aren’t you going to tell her that even among the remotest tribes in the Amazon, sexual relations between family members is absolutely forbidden?! That, after all, is what the girl really needed. That’s what all the patients filling the tent and waiting on line outside needed. To be told what’s good and what’s bad. And you people, instead of telling them that, say that bad is also good and good is also bad. So yes, they leave the tent with a spring in their step. Someone listened to them without judging them. Someone supported them. Wonderful. We all want to be supported. But the next morning, the unsolved moral dilemma will return to torment them, and this time with greater intensity, because now it’s out in the open.

  I didn’t say any of those things, of course. I didn’t think my status as a guest gave me the right to offer an opinion.

  There was something else that made me keep quiet: I hoped that the conversations I was eavesdropping on would bring me a little closer to understanding what I wanted to understand, to imagine what I wanted to imagine: what exactly happened in Adar’s therapy. Why, after three months of sessions, did he decide that we, his parents, were to blame for all his sins and it would be best for him to stay away from us for an indefinite time. What is it about that kind of therapy, so foreign to both of us, that pushed him into doing something so drastic?

  I know that you don’t like me to talk about Adar. If you were here, you would certainly change the subject. Or withdraw into yourself to make it clear that as far as you’re concerned, the conversation is over. But now you’re dead, Michael. And that is why you have no choice but to hear me out to the end.

  I didn’t open my mouth until the next morning.

  The residents of the tent got together to write a position paper they would present at a meeting with the representatives of all the tent camps scheduled for that afternoon on the boulevard. They began with something they called “social dreaming.” Each one talked about a dream he’d had at night, and together they tried to find what they all had in common on a deeper level. The fellow leading the discussion explained the idea behind the activity: in addition to the personal content, people’s dreams also contain things that can benefit the society to which they belong.

  I was also invited to share a dream, but I said that I never remembered my dreams, a reply that met with meaningful nods from everyone sitting in the circle.

  After they came up with the deep layer common to all the dreams—the Holocaust, what else, you don’t have to be a great psychologist to know that it has been and will continue to be the eternal deep layer here—they went on to discuss their position paper. They spoke quite well, really. They listened to each other almost the way they had listened to their patients. And I must say that relatively speaking, they made very few mistakes in Hebrew. But the practical aspects were beyond them. In other words, they had no idea how to get what they wanted.

  During a moment of silence, I asked if I could say something.

  Of course, they said.

  I straightened up. My body still hadn’t regained its strength, but happily, my voice was as sharp and clear as it had been in court. I said, “You’re dreaming. You think they’ll accept your demands just because you’re right. But it doesn’t work that way. If you want to change something, you’ll have to do it through legislation, through the Knesset. Soon enough, Knesset members will want to prove that they are in tune with the people, but in your entire discussion, you never once talked about the legal aspects of your concerns.”

  The girl with the mass of braids, the one who gave me water earlier, asked, “What experience do you have that makes you say that?”

  I chuckled. “Experience? I was a district judge for almost twenty years.”

  After I helped the psychologists draft a bill, write two administrative petitions, and prepare an organized list of demands for improving their employment conditions modeled on work agreement precedents in other sectors, a rumor spread through the tents that a retired district judge was there, offering advice free of charge. And so, Michael, I found myself invited to similar gatherings of doctors, students, theater people, and residents of the southern part of the city and the southern part of the country. Their ignorance of all things related to the law was atrocious. None of them, without exception, knew anything about their rights, so it wasn’t especially difficult for me to assist them by suggesting possible solutions to the problems that concerned them. I spoke and they took notes. And also asked questions, some intelligent, others less so. Wheat—and also chaff. I think that chaos was one of the organizing principles of life on the boulevard. Nevertheless, some things were consistent: the stagnant air, for example, that made you feel as if you were walking in soup. Or the girl with the mass of braids who stayed close to me all morning, accompanying me from tent to tent and occasionally quenching my thirst with water.

  Walking from tent to tent was not difficult in and of itself. But the humidity was extremely high, and the soot rising from the vehicles that continued to drive along the boulevard stuck to your skin. After an exhausting meeting with a group of theater people (unbearable, Michael—all of them so full of hot air) I apologized to my escort and said that I had to go home as soon as possible to shower.

  She protested loudly: “But Devora, they’re waiting for you in the other tents! The revolution is calling you!”

  I averted my eyes. Reprimanded. Then she said, “There’s an apartment not far from here where we take showers. Come on, I’ll take you there.”

  I picture you now running your fingers slowly along your upper lip the way you always used to do in court when you wanted to show disbelief, when an attorney or a defendant made statements that sounded groundless to you.

  Would your Devora shower in a stranger’s bathroom?

  I never agreed to spend the night in other people’s houses because I was used to my own private shower. And I always took a bag overflowing with all my soaps and cosmetics whenever we had to stay in a hotel.

  So would I just go, in the middle of the day, without a change of clothes, to a stinking bathroom where the entire boulevard showered?

  But it was like this, Michael: they needed me. And it had been a long time since anyone needed me. You are on the dark side. Adar—God knows where he is. The office has stopped calling me to ask where one file or another is. And there is nothing worse than feeling redundant, Michael. Redundant in the morning. Redundant at noon. Redundant in the evening. And now, that young girl tells me that I am needed, I am indispensable, people are waiting for me.

  I followed her up the steps of a building on the boulevard, stopping on every floor to catch my breath.

  In my imagination, I must confess, I saw an apartment for young people with walls pocked with nail holes and a filthy floor strewn with cigarette butts. But lo and behold, behind the plain, reinforced steel door was a spacious, tastefully furnished penthouse. A powerful air conditioner spread cold air through the rooms, but it wasn’t too cold, and I could see the ficus trees on the boulevard through the sparkling clean windows.

  An older man came over to us. The girl smiled at him: “What’s happening, Avner, is everything okay?”

  The man replied, “Everything’s just fine, Mor. Then he turned to me, took my hand, kissed it, and said, “Avner Ashdot. With whom do I have the pleasure?”

  I pulled my hand away and s
aid, “Devora.” I saw that he was waiting for me to continue, so I added, “Edelman.”

  “The district court judge Devora Edelman?” I couldn’t decide whether he spoke with respect or ridicule.

  “Excuse me, but do we know each other?”

  He smiled and said, “Let’s say our paths have crossed.”

  I couldn’t decide whether his smile was pleasant or nasty.

  Mor cleared her throat and said, “I don’t want to interrupt this class reunion, but people are waiting for Devora on the boulevard. She’s helping us with the legal side of our fight.”

  Avner Ashdot gave me a too long look and said, “Great, that’s just great.”

  Then Mor asked if it was okay with him if I took a shower.

  “Of course,” Avner Ashdot said, “follow me.”

  You, Michael, always said that it was immoral to invest thousands of shekels in a bathroom. What does a bathroom need except running water, you’d say, adding another two-word phrase (in your verdicts, you also liked to use two-word phrases to express loathing): Outrageous waste. Pure ostentation. Revolting hedonism.

  After showering in Avner Ashdot’s computerized bathroom, I want to add to the list, if you will permit me, another two-word phrase: pure pleasure.

  Buttons that regulate heat, cold, and water pressure in such a way that you can adjust them exactly, not approximately, to what you want. A steam hood that keeps too much steam from accumulating. Shelves overflowing with the best toiletries, including bath oils and natural soaps. Scented candles. Buttons you press that change the color of the water by activating underwater colored lighting. Velvety soft towels.

  I know that you couldn’t care less about all of this. It’s clear to me that you consider these technical specifications irrelevant. But I really want you to understand, Michael, not only how much I enjoyed that shower—so much that I forgot I was supposed to step out of it at some point—but also why, for days after it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it with longing. Actually yearning for it.

  I said to Avner Ashdot, “Your bathroom is really wonderful.”

  “Any time,” he said, and spread his arms to the side. They were long and thin. Very different from your arms.

  I felt the need to say something else, so I added, “It’s very generous of you.”

  “I can’t sleep in the tents with you,” he said, “because of my back, so at least this.”

  “It’s no small thing.”

  “It’s basic. Why not give if you have?”

  “It’s very generous of you,” I said again. And was suddenly embarrassed. I never say the same thing twice in such a short period of time.

  “Time to go,” Mor said.

  Then Avner Ashdot held out a business card and said to me, “This is for you.” For a moment I hesitated. I had a strange, inexplicable feeling that this was a trap. That if I took the card, there was no going back. But Mor was moving around impatiently. For her, this wasn’t the right time for hesitation.

  So I took it.

  The card was still in my pants pocket when I got out of the taxi that took me home. In response to your question: I spent another night on the mattress on the boulevard. I met with everyone who wanted my services. I discovered that the protesters were tragically at odds with each other. I made appointments for later in the week. I smoked a cigarette. I had a reflexology treatment. I played the guitar. I drank warm beer and ate mainly pizza with pepperoni. I know, you don’t believe in quick metamorphoses of that kind. But first, quick metamorphoses can happen when something has been bubbling under the surface just waiting to erupt, and second, all of that did happen, Michael. And I have the pictures to prove it.

  And after all that—I stood in front of our building, the building in which we spent twenty-five years of our life, and it suddenly looked, how shall I say it, pathetic.

  Not pathetic. Maddening. That parking area. Organized. Numbered. Cars stamped with the names of the companies that provided them to their employees. The manicured front garden. The remodeled intercom. The mailboxes—not even one broken. Not even one labeled with more than two surnames. The bicycles lined up in perfect order. The chains perfectly locked. The quiet we loved so much. No loud music. No voices raised in argument coming from any apartment. How terrible.

  An island of sanity, that’s what you proudly called our suburb.

  An island of dullness and conservatism is what it looked like to me at that moment. A kind of…bourgeoisville.

  You always said: The day when the entire country is like this, clean, well ordered, law-abiding, levelheaded, we’ll know that Herzl’s vision has become a reality and Zionism has triumphed.

  And my response to you is: Zionism is losing and the people in this building are asleep while it’s happening. Until someone knocks these walls down on them and they wake up—there is no chance that anything will change.

  And that’s what I wanted to do, Michael: I wanted to bang on everyone’s door, on Ruth’s and Hani’s and the Katzes’ and the Raziels’, and say: Wake up, residents of bourgeoisville. Wake up from your poker games and your excessive concerns for your children and your pathetic infidelities inspired by emptiness, not desire. Wake up from your too comfortable TV chairs and your investment advisers who tell you to take out a loan and buy another apartment in exactly this kind of building in exactly this kind of suburb. Wake up from your lack of faith, your lack of involvement, and your lack of caring. Wake up from your glut of vacations, cars, electrical appliances, and special after-school classes for your children. Not far from here, something very important is happening. And you are sleeping.

  I didn’t say any of that, naturally. I didn’t knock on any doors. The minute I entered the building, I too became part of that “buildingness.” The couple who live in the apartment across the hall from Ruth and Herman were still arguing. And someone suddenly laughed in despair. Or maybe cried. I wasn’t sure. On the second floor, I stopped in front of Hani’s apartment. I briefly considered knocking and asking for a hug, but something about the door seemed to say: this is neither the time nor the place for that kind of thing.

  Nevertheless, when I went into our apartment, I took action: I photographed it from complimentary angles. And put it up for sale on the Internet.

  Yes, Michael, on the Internet. We had to be careful when we were still working. We could have only one email address, the one at work. And we couldn’t open a page on social media. But now, after retirement, why keep hiding?

  And yes, Michael, I know: This is not a good time to sell. It was never a good time to sell, in your opinion. And I know that with the money I get for our large apartment, I can barely buy an apartment for dwarfs in Tel Aviv. And I know that selling an apartment isn’t all that easy. There are lots of swindlers in the market.

  I also know that it wasn’t by chance that we moved to bourgeoisville. I too am aware that the big city is full of people who have a grudge against us. People we’d have to cross to the other side of the street to avoid if we saw them coming toward us. I’ve spent only two days there—and I’ve already met an Avner Ashdot, who seems sort of shady.

  I can hear you say: What’s the rush? Have a cup of tea. Consider the matter seriously. One should not make such decisions hastily, under the influence of a euphoria that has the most tenuous connection to reality.

  But Michael, the day I spent on the boulevard was only the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  You must understand, Michael, I feel you in every corner of the apartment. I hear your footsteps behind me. One foot moving slightly faster than the other. At night I reach over to your side of the bed, looking for you. You speak inside my head when I’m watching TV. Giving your opinion, usually negative, of the quality of the program. For months after you went, I continued to buy pickles in vinegar. Yes, you’re in the kitchen too. Your smell, the smell of your body, appears without warning in the mixture of cooking smells. Sometimes I still set the table for two by mistake. I say a silent goodbye to you when I
leave. And a silent hello when I return.

  But more terrible than those moments are the ones in which I no longer feel you. And they have been growing in number recently. Suddenly I can’t remember the shape of your ears. Suddenly I manage to complete a crossword puzzle without you. Remove a blockage in the sink drain without you. That’s when I feel an empty space where you used to be. I feel that this entire apartment is a space where we used to be. And if I stay here, I will become trapped in the cobweb of your death that is being spun around me, fated to die an insect’s death.

  In any case I will die, of course. The verdict has already been handed down. But I want to delay the execution, to live a little bit longer, if possible. I’m only sixty-six, Your Honor, can you understand that?

  After you proposed to me, in the moonlight, and after I accepted—how could I not? I was a nineteen-year-old girl head over heels in love—you said seriously, “Tomorrow we’ll ask your father for his permission.” And I began to laugh, but not with happiness: my father? I don’t need his permission. He doesn’t have the right to permit or forbid us to get married. Both my parents should be grateful if they get an invitation to our wedding.

  And now too: I don’t really need your permission, Michael. I need you as a witness. The changes in my life the last few weeks have been so radical that sometimes even I find them hard to believe. Only when I speak to you, when I leave these messages on the answering machine, am I convinced that they are real.

  Where was I? Ah yes. Thanks to the Internet ad, I have met a host of fascinating people in a very short time. I was so sorry that you couldn’t observe with me the carnival of interested parties that passed through our apartment. Lack of space prevents me from telling you about all the thirty-two people who came, so I’ll divide them into five groups: the insulters, the remodelers, the bargainers, the real estate agents, and Avner Ashdot.