Three Floors Up

by Eshkol Nevo

  I want it to be clear, he behaved like a gentleman. He made me a light breakfast. An onion omelet and a salad. He sat down to eat with me. Complimented me endlessly during the meal. Caressed my cheek once. Asked over and over again whether it was okay for him to go. He would have liked to stay, but he had a meeting…

  I told him it was all right, perfectly all right…

  But after he was gone, I don’t know, Michael, everything weighed down so heavily on me. All the events of the last few weeks. I was filled with such an intense desire to talk to you and so deeply sad that it was impossible.

  Our apartment suddenly looked like an isolated farm. Four rooms surrounded on all sides by hills devoid of love.

  You know how I am at such moments. I have to find something to do. So I started packing for the move. Sorting: winter clothes, summer clothes, tableware I wanted to take with me, tableware it was time to give away or discard. Old letters. Newspaper clippings. Photo albums. It took much longer than I thought. Even though it was not our way to collect things, we’d lived in that apartment twenty-five years. You’d be amazed at how many tchotchkes we accumulated.

  I left your study for last. It took me a week to gather the courage to go inside. My heart pounding. I started with the easy things. First the shelves with the binders and the books, and only then your desk, with its many drawers that had always been closed to me. It turned out that they didn’t conceal dark secrets or letters from clandestine lovers (really, Michael, all those years and not even one court reporter?)—only two Rolex watches you received as gifts and never wore because you thought they were too ostentatious, and fragments from your professional diary that you apparently thought would one day become a book, but you never got to write it (which is a good thing, if you don’t mind my saying so).

  I found this answering machine in the bottom drawer. I connected it to the phone. And then—your bass voice asked me to leave a message.

  I suddenly realized what I had to do. And since then—I’ve been speaking to you.

  It’s ridiculous, I know. Talking to a machine. A normal person would not do that. But if I’ve learned anything in the last few weeks, it’s that there is no such thing as a normal person. Or normal actions. There are only actions that a particular person, at a particular time, must do.

  For the entire time I’ve been leaving you messages, I never expected you to reply, Michael. I didn’t believe you’d give me a signal or appear in a dream with answers to all the questions. I wanted to talk to you because I knew that to you, I could speak only truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth. That’s what forces me to do the hardest thing of all: remove all the masks and look at myself—this is my face, these are the choices I’ve made and these are the results, for better and for worse. And for the very worst.

  Sigmund Freud, you understand, was a very wise man, but last night, after I finished the last volume in the collection and put it on my night table, I thought that he made one mistake. The three floors of the psyche do not exist inside us at all! Absolutely not! They exist in the air between us and someone else, in the space between our mouths and the ears we are telling our story to. And if there is no one there to listen—there is no story. If there is no one we can tell our secrets to and sharpen our memories on and find consolation in, then we talk into an answering machine, Michael. The main thing is to talk to someone. Otherwise, alone, a person has no idea which of the three floors he is on, and he is doomed to grope in the dark for the light switch.

  Yesterday I took part in the million-person march in Tel Aviv. This time, unlike at the earlier demonstration, I went by train and a rickshaw was waiting for me when I came out of the station. Yishai, the young man who is going to live with me in my new apartment, was the driver. A charming fellow. A law student. He dreams of setting up an office for environmental justice to protect nature against those who want to exploit it. An idealist. You would like him.

  We managed to reach Weizmann Street in the rickshaw. There the activists I’d helped over the past few weeks were waiting, along with several people from the psychology tent and Avner Ashdot. We marched together slowly—Avner can’t walk quickly—until we reached the square. We stood facing the stage. Not too close, but not too far either. There was a nice breeze blowing. I was wearing clothes that were inappropriate for a judge, but perfect for a woman at a protest rally: loose pants, a comfortable blouse with a slightly scooped neck, sneakers. I knew that this time I wouldn’t faint, but if God forbid something happened to me, Avner Ashdot was beside me. The square gradually filled up with people: some carried large, well-designed signs, some had small, makeshift signs. On the sidelines, I noticed, ordinary things were happening: French kisses, a short line in front of the ATM, a child falling and starting to cry. The usual human dance. Nevertheless—I thought—there’s something unusual going on here: so many people who are no longer willing to accept things as they are, who believe that change is possible, had come there to say so. This was something special.

  At ten that night, the first speakers came onto the stage. Others followed. Some said smart things, some said less smart things. But you could hear the thread of sincerity running through their words.

  Singers and groups I didn’t know performed between speeches, and when during one song, Avner asked me to dance, I said yes. It had been so long since I danced in public. And you know how much I love to dance. Since Avner Ashdot’s legs were as heavy as tree stumps, we couldn’t really dance to the rhythm of the music, so we danced a slower waltz in the middle of the square. My head almost touched his chest, his breath ruffled my hair, our feet moved in a circle.

  Before midnight, we sang the anthem with three hundred thousand other people. And I truly felt that hope was not lost, as one of the phrases of that song says.

  I knew the feeling would pass, but for one moment, I held onto it, Michael, for one moment it was mine.

  The movers are coming tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow, in the morning, I’ll wake up for the first time in a house that is not our house. In a bed that is not our bed.

  I think this will be the last message I leave you. I’ll take out the tape and keep it in one of the bottom drawers. Maybe Benyamin will find it one day after I’m gone. And listen to it.

  On Saturday, I’m going to Noit again with Avner. Maya called. Said that the boy misses me. And that Adar doesn’t object to my coming. Not strongly, in any case.

  You would probably say: What’s the rush? First get organized in your new home.

  You probably would say that I should wait until Adar explicitly asks me to come. That it’s not our way to force ourselves on people.

  But from now on, my love, my joy, my disaster, it’s no longer our way.

  It’s my way.