by Ziv Amit
Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to the cabaret on my own? Maybe I should have stayed at the hotel with him and talked things out? He must have gotten insulted by my leaving him like that after having spent the day apart. Why would he get insulted? You offered him to join you, right? It’s been three weeks already that he’s been saying “no” to everything you offer him, so he gets insulted because you left him at the hotel for the night? If anyone should be getting insulted it should be me, insulted by the attitude I got from him, and by him preferring to watch golf on TV instead of going out to a cool club with me. Lipstick, do you think they sell liquid lipstick here like the one she had? It doesn’t matter how much I tried and how much I apologized, he’s sticking with the role of the accuser, it’s more comfortable for him. Does this red suit me? Isn’t it too light? I’ll try a darker one, is that better? Isn’t it too shiny? It’s definitely bold, it’ll fit perfectly into my boot.
Why do I assume that I can fix anything and everything? Maybe there are things that should be allowed to get ruined, even if it hurts? Maybe I should let him live with himself in front of the TV? I’m definitely not going to let him ruin my vacation, my romantic vacation, with or without him. Condoms, I need condoms. Are you insane? What do you need condoms for? Do you want to fuck someone else? Have you lost your mind? Do you even remember how to use condoms? As if before you got with The Tall One you had dozens of partners and you jumped into bed with a different man each night. I really was surprised that Adam chose me, I’m really small and not that pretty, I always knew there were better looking girls than me, but he chose me. Ribbed or smooth? What difference does it make? As if you’ll actually use them, I can pick smooth ones with a cherry flavor, they sound like gum and I’m really hungry already. I’ll have fun on this vacation with or without him, even though I’m really small and not that pretty and I felt so proud when he chose me. Where do I pay here? I want out, I need some air.
The Bridge, in the Afternoon Air
Kate
“Run away, get away from here, jump off the bridge to the river beneath it, run for your lives, don’t do it,” I shout thoughts in my head as I pass by the boulevard of brides leaning on white rails. They’re listening to the photographers’ instructions and ignoring my insights, and I want to run in between them and spread them all over the place. I wish they would spread their wings, like the white gulls flying over the river, wish that they’d take off and fly away from the photographers who are making them pose in front of the sunset, away from the grooms standing at their sides dressed in black. “Don’t believe the smile, look at the darkness, when the sunset ends the night falls,” I shout in my mind, “it’s fraud, it’s the smile of passion’s death.”
But I stay put, I don’t have the guts to get up and shoo them away, kill their dreams and stain their white dresses with the dirt of life. What was she thinking, the bride who chose to get married in a pink dress? Is she a cream cake? Doesn’t she know that white gets dirtier better? I don’t even want to talk about the one who chose red, do you really think that because you chose an inflated red dress then your marriage will symbolize passion? Red, according to the ancient ones, actually symbolizes the red in your husband’s eyes as he tries to make you feel small, while you’re there trying to save your marriage. I have to run there and pull at their dresses, they have to listen to me, maybe they’ll grow wings and fly away from here and leave me on my own with this bridge, I don’t want to be alone.
Enough with the stupid tears already, keep this up and you’ll eventually dehydrate and they’ll find you all shriveled up and dead at the bottom of the bridge, you’re not going to be alone. Did you forget about the cherry-flavored condoms that you have, the ones that you have no idea what to do with? So what if you had a really long period of time alone before you met The Tall One and you totally hated it, this doesn’t mean you’ll go back to being alone, if he wants to leave then he can leave, you don’t need him and you’ll be just fine without him. On the contrary, let him wait for you in the hotel room, let him worry about you, let him think that you found another tall man and you’re currently lying in some dusty attic on a squeaky iron bed, making love like there’s no tomorrow.
It would be nice to make him a little bit jealous, but what’s the point if he’s not calling and not looking for me and not caring about me at all? You, my not-so-young lady, are delusional. “The small crying woman sitting on the marble stairs at the side of the bridge is kindly requested to exit her life-movie.” It’s a crap movie, and right now, as she looks over to the whipped-cream brides in their white dresses, she starts crying on cue. Do you think they know that their romance will someday end with tears of humiliation and pain? Listen to your life-movie’s director already, you’re better off without The Tall One.
Hotel, Room 314
Adam
I’m better off now that she left, I’m better off without her, I don’t need her driving me crazy all the time with the “I’m leaving you, I’m coming back to you.” I can sit in this hotel all day long, sit and wait for the flight back.
I wonder where she is, she’s been gone since this morning and it’s already afternoon, she probably decided to walk around the city and get a little bit more offended by me. So what if I hurt her, as if she didn’t hurt me even more before that. She hurt me a lot more when she left me that time, I think I’m starting to get used to her leaving me.
How could she just decide that I’m cheating on her like that? How could she not believe me? So what if she saw what that woman from work sent me, why didn’t she believe me?
And what’s the time now? I’ve been sitting in front of this TV since morning, why do they show such boring programs here? I have a headache, where is there a pharmacy around here? She would probably have managed to find a pharmacy around here within five minutes. Of course, she knows everything, she even knew to decide that I cheated on her. I have to find a pharmacy, the hotel reception should be able to tell me where a nearby one is.
So what if she apologized, so she ended up apologizing, so that’s it? Everything’s erased now? If that’s the case then I can wait around for a few months too before I apologize, no problem. I have to go out and look for a pharmacy, my head’s exploding, but what if she returns in the meantime and I’m not here, so then she thinks I left her?
Let her think that, maybe it’s better that way, it’s not like she’s out there walking around and thinking about me while she’s having fun in the city.
Paris 2nd Arrondissement, Resting on a Bench
Kate
“May I offer you a cigarette?” Her question startles me out of my thoughts as I sit on the bench and I smile at her politely. At least I think that’s what she’s asking me, as she turns to me holding out an open pack of cigarettes. I answer her in English saying “no thank you,” and she replies by laughing.
I discovered this bench when I ran out of all the tears and all the thoughts. I found myself dragging my way back, trying to delay my entrance to the hotel as much as possible, stepping slowly on my aching and Band-Aid covered feet, Band-Aids with softening gel as well as ones with Donald Duck drawings. I’ve been walking around the city since morning, and the afternoon hours have already given way to the dark streets of evening time and end of day.
Actually, before the bench, I discovered the party. I was walking through a quiet little street, the kind that’s lit with sepia street lamps which cast shadows on house doors and windows, creating shapes of light and shadow and dark silhouettes of people walking at a fast pace. I was walking slowly, enveloped in self-pity, when suddenly sounds of noise made me raise my gaze upwards, towards the square windows with the pulled-down window blinds and the little balconies wrapped in curly iron rails, and it was there I saw the party.
Three young women were standing on one of the little balconies, holding cigarettes and glasses of drinks and resting their arms on the metal rails. They looked dark against the ligh
t that came from behind them, as if they were shadow puppets in a show created solely for me. I stood in the middle of the desolate street, stretching my neck upwards and looking curiously towards the source of the noise and light.
I didn’t want to keep walking, they had something that enticed me, the swishing of bracelets, the flickering lights of the cigarettes they had in their hands, the sparkling glitter of the glasses of drink, sounds of laughter which I couldn’t understand, and even just the light coming from the apartment and the party sounds that came from behind the women. If someone were to watch this from the side they would probably smile to themselves, or grab a camera and take a photo. A single woman standing out on the street, lit by street lamps, looking upwards and staying completely still. This same woman was also aware of her aching feet and was searching for a bench to sit on, only for a few minutes.
“Thank you very much,” my feet transmitted to me with gratitude as I sat on the bench on the other side of the street, “we did a lot of walking today.” But I ignored my feet and concentrated on the party upstairs, trying to guess what it was they were talking about, what was it that was making them look so happy, which one of them was in love and excitedly telling the others about her passion using hand gestures and laughter, and which one of them was just listening. I was trying to remember what I was like at parties when I was their age, before I met Adam.
I wondered which bench I would have sat on today had I not met him at that party. I liked him from the first moment I laid eyes on him. I navigated myself through all the other women - who were much prettier than me - until I got to a strategic position from which I could send him just the right smile at just the right time, and it worked. It worked so well in fact that a few years later there I was sitting alone on a bench without Adam by my side, giving my feet a few moments of rest and staring longingly at an unfamiliar party on the third floor of a strange city.
Staring at the party and also noticing that there was someone else standing near the bench. She was standing at a safe distance from it, as if deciding whether or not she could sit down next to me. I’ll admit that I was a little bit pissed off by her desire to infiltrate my private benchial territory.
“May I offer you a cigarette?” she asks me as she sits down and we begin talking.
We mainly remain silent, she’s silent and smoking and I’m silent and occasionally look up at the party and occasionally sneak a glance at her. One thing is certain, she’s beautiful, so beautiful, absolutely stunning. Not that kind of cold thin beauty you see with models who have already forgotten what it’s like to smile, but a deep and quiet beauty which is amazing in my opinion, and it’s not that I’m into girls, not at all, but she’s simply beautiful. I return to looking up at the party and at the silhouettes on the balcony, feeling jealous of their exchanges of cigarette sparkles and gossip, and searching for a reason to speak to the beauty who’s sitting next to me on the bench.
“Are you with the party?” I ask.
“Yes,” she replies and smiles, I think she too is pleased at the chance to talk.
“Then why aren’t you going upstairs?” I ask, wondering whether I’ve just crossed the line of appropriate politeness.
“I feel fine right here.”
Two or three minutes of silence pass by, I feel like we’re both looking to continue the conversation and then she adds, “I’m waiting for my boyfriend, he should be here soon, we made up to meet here.”
I smile at her.
“I don’t feel comfortable going upstairs by myself, I like it when we arrive as a couple.”
“It’s nice to arrive at a party as a couple.”
“Do you have a partner?”
It’s a little bit difficult for me to handle that question right now. Not to mention the fact that I’m not sure I currently know the answer to this seemingly simple question.
“No, I don’t, I did.”
“Never mind, someone else will take his place,” she smiles at me.
For a moment I really feel like smoking, I’ve not smoked in years, I used to smoke, not a lot and I quit, the smell that would stick to my hair and the clothes in my closet and wouldn’t go away bothered me. Then I occasionally smoked at parties, but I quit that too and now I’m suddenly feeling the urge for a cigarette, just one.
I ask her for a cigarette and she takes one out for both of us, I get closer to the lighter she’s holding, her hands shelter the flame from the breeze, and I stay sitting closer to her. We both smoke silently and look upwards, she’s deep in her thoughts and I’m getting reacquainted with the taste of smoke in my mouth, wondering why she’s not calling to see why her boyfriend is running late, but too shy to ask, it’s none of my business anyway.
“He’s a photographer, my boyfriend,” she says after a while, without my asking.
“He’s shooting some model right now and he doesn’t like it when I interrupt him with phone calls, so I’m waiting.”
“With me,” I tell her and smile.
Suddenly she turns and faces me and says, “I haven’t introduced myself.” We shake hands with an amusing formality considering we’ve already shared a cigarette and we introduce ourselves to each other, but the only thing on my mind, as I look at her and smile, is what a beauty she is.
She looks at her phone as if she’s expecting something from it, I too want to look at my phone, which has remained silent for such a long time, but I’m worried that she might ask more questions, so I resist it. I don’t want her boyfriend to arrive now, I don’t want her to go up to the party with him and leave me on my own to find my way back to the hotel.
“Maybe you’d like to come up to the party with me?”
“What about your boyfriend? Don’t you want to wait for him?”
“He’s been delayed for a while now, come on, join me, it’ll be fun for you.”
I really want to join her and go upstairs, but I’m worried she’s offering this out of politeness and I’m looking for excuses to turn her down, I don’t want to be the poor little reject who was found on the street wandering aimlessly, the one people talk about behind her back without her knowing. In fact, there’s no need to talk behind my back, I wouldn’t understand anyway.
“I’m after a whole day of walking around in the city and I’m not dressed for a party.”
For a moment I worry that she’ll accept my excuse and give up politely, but to my delight she doesn’t.
“Come on, I’m embarrassed to go upstairs alone, join me, there’s loads of artists up there who think they’re really something, but they’re not, they definitely don’t know how to dress, come on, it’ll be fun for you.”
I fake deliberation for a moment longer and then accept her offer with a smile, and we go to the intercom by the front door. I have a strong feeling of not belonging, not to the party and not to the hotel that awaits me, and as for her, I have no idea what she’s thinking about as she takes me in, a stranger off the street. We climb the spiral staircase together to the third floor, to the party.
The Party
Kate
“He usually tends to sleep with the girls he shoots, combining photography and sex with each one of them, that’s what it’s like when you’re a famous photographer,” the tall man next to me whispers gossip in my ear. He’s chaperoning me at the party and he tells me this as he notices me looking at the photographer and the impressive model who just walked in. The photographer loudly greets everyone with hugs, while the impressive model places her hand in a small yet territorial gesture on his arm. My chaperone thinks I’m looking at the couple who walked in, but I’m actually concentrating on the almost-invisible movement of humiliation and pain across The Beauty’s face, seeing how she slightly shrinks and walks over to greet the photographer with a hug and a kiss, shaking the model’s hand politely.
“She’s a well-known model,” the man next to me adds some more informa
tion as he gets a little bit closer to me and is obviously feeling a little bit more comfortable, he doesn’t understand that it’s The Beauty who has my attention. I verbalize agreement and express unimportant words of awe, but deep inside I think that though she may be the perfect model, with the right legs and the right height and the right posture and the right ice-cold smile, she still can’t be compared to The Beauty, who I personally find so much more charming.
It’s taken me a while to get comfortable at the party and I’m still not entirely feeling at home here, “you really aren’t at home,” I smile to myself. Earlier, we walked around the apartment’s rooms, me and The Beauty, her arm resting on mine accompanying me, whispering people’s names to me and occasionally hugging people who know her, introducing me to them as if I were an important guest from a faraway land. The music was pleasant and not too loud, so people could talk without shouting. One of the rooms had some people dancing, concentrating on themselves or their partners, embracing and moving to the rhythm. I could see the women from the balcony from across the room, this time not as silhouettes, they were wearing colorful clothes, silver, gold, black. I smiled at them as if they were old acquaintances, but they were too preoccupied with themselves to notice me. I wanted to join them, I wanted to be one of them and to partake in their joyous shadow party, but I was too shy, so I let The Beauty continue to lead me through the party, holding onto me as if I were a precious and valuable trinket supporting her.
A tall man holding two glasses of drinks approached us from the other side of the room. He’s tall, I thought to myself, but totally not like my Adam, I still think of him as my Adam, I actually don’t know at all if he’s still mine. The Beauty introduced me to the new tall man and he seemed impressed as he handed us the glasses of drinks. He told me that he’s a painter and he’s currently in the process of preparing a new exhibition, and it felt to me like he was interested in me as his muse, at least for tonight and preferably in the bedroom. The Beauty found him less interesting, she continued to hold onto my arm, only half listening to him, her eyes constantly wandering towards the hallway that led to the apartment and the front door.