Most Israelis, though, return home after their trip and enroll in university. Find a job. Start a family. Settle down. I’m still going.
“You travel alone?” Sophie passes me the joint.
I nod. “You?”
“With my friends.” She points at two long-haired girls in tie-dyed dresses who are sitting on the mats. “First time to India?”
“Third.”
She beams. “Me too.”
I hand Sophie the joint and jump off the rock. “All I do is drink and pee,” I say. “It’s crazy.” I walk down the trail into the jungle and squat. Above me the branches sway and morph. The light of the full moon blinks in and out of vision, a broken fluorescent, painting everything an eerie blue.
Back at the rock, Sophie is already heating another piece of hash under the flame of the lighter, crumbling it into her palm. “Here.” I reach into my bikini top, pull out a small chunk of charas wrapped in Saran Wrap and covered in a film of sweat. “Mix some of mine. I brought a bunch from the mountains.” Sophie grins.
The Israeli guy I’ve been flirting with all night walks over to us and hands me a chillum filled with charas. It’s considered an honor to offer someone a chillum to light. He smiles at me. I blush into my lap, lock my hands over the smaller opening of the chillum to create a prism, and press my lips around it. He sparks a match and lights the mixture on the other end. I suck slowly, until the mix is fully lit, then take a long, steady drag, blowing out a mushroom of thick smoke. I pass the chillum to Sophie.
After he leaves, Sophie follows him with her gaze. “You like him?”
“Who? This guy? No.”
“Sure?”
“It’s not like that.” I sip water. “Actually, I have a boyfriend.” The words still taste funny in my mouth.
Sophie studies me for a moment. “He’s in Israel? Your boyfriend?”
“Canada. We met in Diu three months ago and traveled together for a bit. He had to go back to work.” I light a cigarette and try to summon Anand’s face; his features appear smudged, a reflection floating on a dirty window. This has been happening a lot lately.
Sometime later Fabrizio comes to visit, offering bananas. He’s part of an older crowd in their forties and fifties, mostly Europeans who come to this beach every winter for a few months, a group I’ve been drawn to because they are proof that you don’t have to stop traveling to grow up. Most of them import stuff from India to sell back home. Fabrizio is a wiry, small man with a stubby ponytail. His features are close together, his body muscular and darkly tanned like a true southern Italian. By the time he walks up, Sophie and I are best friends; we sit close, arms brushing, lean our heads on each other’s shoulders when we laugh.
“Fabrizio!” Sophie says. They kiss on both cheeks. “Welcome to our home.” She spreads her arm in a sweeping gesture. “We have not moved in hours.”
“Except to pee,” I say. “I pee a lot.”
He hops on. “Comfy.” He looks around. “What if you need something?”
“Everything you wish comes to you,” Sophie says. “People bring food and chai and chillums.”
We sit on the rock until morning, laughing and smoking. The people under the tree call us the three monkeys. At dawn, the jungle wakes up all at once; birds start singing in unison, monkeys skip between branches. The morning overflows like a pot of boiled chai. We finally leave the rock, the tree, the jungle. Back to the beach.
* * *
—
THE NEXT DAY, Fabrizio and Sophie come to my room to pick me up on Fabrizio’s Yamaha 100. My room is a small shed, steps from the water, with an exhausted ceiling fan. I jump off my hammock, drop my notebook in its sagging belly.
We eat breakfast at the Moonrise, one of several beach restaurants that line the shore, and smoke a few chillums before Fabrizio pulls out a strip of acid and breaks it into three pieces. We hop on the bike; I sit on the back and Sophie in the middle. Fabrizio has been coming to Goa for twenty years. He knows all the secret spots.
We drive inland. Everything is spray-painted a blurry green, broken by fragments of blue and tips of whitewashed churches. The sweet smell of cashew blossoms is almost overkill, like a beautiful woman doused in too much perfume. I lean on Sophie’s back, warm and checkered with gold flecks of sand.
We’re riding past state lines into Maharashtra, to a small lake fringed by crystals. The lake is a yawning crack in the earth, shaped like a blue eye. I position my camera on a rock to take a picture of us naked, smoking a chillum in the water. Fabrizio and Sophie collect crystals while I swim from one end to another. The water feels heavy and swimming takes effort. On the way home, the sunset surprises me. Has it been another day? We stop by a deserted beach to watch the sun, a fat tangerine rolling into the Arabian Sea, leaving streaks of juice over the sky. I take another photo. All three of us are wearing orange and yellow, our faces flushed red. We’re smiling widely. Famiglia.
* * *
—
FROM THAT DAY on, the three of us are inseparable. In the mornings we sit at the Moonrise. On the table: empty plates with hardened streaks of egg yolk, smiley peels of orange and pineapple, coffee mugs, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts. We smoke chillums, then take acid and drive somewhere on Fabrizio’s Yamaha 100. When we swim, Sophie yells, “Meter, please!”—she’s from northern Italy, unused to seas, while I was raised on the shores of one—and I fill my lungs and sink underwater, arm above my head so she can see how deep we are. I keep my eyes open, watch her long legs kicking, treading water. Below the surface, her skin is a pale seashell green.
* * *
—
“WHAT DAY DO you think it is?” I ask Sophie one morning at the Moonrise. We’ve been high ever since we met. I haven’t slept in two days and haven’t showered in four, but I swam in the ocean and dipped in the lake, which must count for something. My sarong stinks of coconut oil, sweat, and fire.
Sophie looks at the beach. “Well, it’s not Wednesday.”
The beach is speckled with sarongs, crowded with bathers. Local vendors meander between them, their arms heavy with tie-dyed shirts and sandalwood necklaces. On Wednesdays, Goa’s weekly flea market day, we have the beach all to ourselves. The backpackers and vendors all head to Anjuna, a ferry ride away, for a day of shopping and socializing. In the beginning we used to go too. Now that we’ve been here for a while, the novelty has worn off. We also have no money left to spend.
“It’s definitely not Sunday,” she says. On Sundays we wake up to the horrifying shrieks of the unfortunate pig that has been chosen for Sunday dinner’s pork vindaloo.
“The real question”—Sophie smirks—“is what date?”
I laugh. “What month?”
I pull my chillum pipe out of its velvet case and stuff it with a mix of hash and tobacco. Sophie rips a square piece of fabric from the frayed sarong she’s wearing around her hips, moistens it with water, and wraps it neatly over the mouth of the chillum. Both our sarongs are now ragged at the edges, and hers is starting to resemble a miniskirt. I hand the chillum to her and she cups her hands around it. I strike a match, and Sophie puffs in and out slowly, sucks in a stream of dense smoke, holds, and releases. We pass it back and forth until it’s finished.
We sit and stare at the sea for a while. The noise from the beach is muffled, as if we’re watching it through a glass wall. A family walks on the water’s edge, a cutout silhouette against a shimmering silver background.
We decide it’s laundry day. Sophie pulls two acid stamps from her wallet and hands me one. We put them on our tongues and head to the well with piles of tie-dyed shirts and worn-out sarongs. Sophie lowers the bucket into the well, and it hits the bottom with a splash. Her lean, tanned arms swell as she retrieves the bucket, reeling in the rope. I squat next to her and begin to scrub my tank tops with a bar of soap and a round stone. Sophie walks ov
er and hugs me, her cheek cool on my shoulder blade; her small nipples poke my back through her shirt.
We hang the clothes on a string, framing my porch with tie-dyed curtains. We swing on the hammock together with our feet dangling off and our thighs sticking like Velcro. The afternoon sun filters through the fabric, casting bright colors on our faces and hands, rainbows on skin. Sophie points out parts of her face and I repeat, “La bocca, il naso, l’orecchio…” I’ve been learning quickly, especially the bad stuff: “Porco dio, porca Madonna, bastardo, vaffanculo.” Sophie calls me “Pistolina,” a silly teenager, a young one, because I’m only twenty-three. I like when she says that, even though she’s only three years older than me.
* * *
—
ONE WEDNESDAY WE go visit an old friend of Fabrizio who lives in the flea market. During the rest of the week, the flea market is just a large, thinly planted coconut grove with a few houses scattered in between. Now it’s packed with travelers, rows of vendors with their merchandise spread out on blankets, juice and fruit stands, craftsmen and tattoo artists, Rajasthani women selling mirror-studded skirts and silver jewelry.
Fabrizio’s friend, an Italian man with a long beard and a white turban, doesn’t speak much English. He offers us a second hit of acid. While the three of them sit in the yard and chat in Italian, I walk through his house; it’s sparsely decorated, with pillows and mats on the floor. I see a woman out of the corner of my eye and turn quickly, almost expecting her to vanish. It’s me, or at least someone related to me. Full-length mirrors are a rare luxury in India, so I haven’t seen my body in six months. I look different, thinner, and I’ve never been so tanned, so Yemeni-looking. My curls are starting to dread. I twirl in front of the mirror, toss my hair.
Outside I grab Sophie’s hand, and together we run from one end of the fence to the other and back, catch our breath and burst out laughing. We look over the bamboo fence at the flea market dying at sunset.
“Check it out,” Sophie whispers, pointing at a shower built into the corner of the yard, enclosed by bamboo walls. A real shower. We’ve been bathing with a bucket for weeks now. “We should take a shower,” she says.
“Totally.” We stare at each other and drop our gazes to our feet. My cheeks tingle. “You go first,” I say without looking at her.
“No, you.”
I hesitate but eventually go in. When I peel off my sarong and bikini, I think of Sophie and my face flushes. I turn the water on and gasp, paralyzed by the cold, marveling at the sparkly threads cascading down. A square of cloudless sky hangs in lieu of a roof, made of the finest shade of blue. I close my eyes, give in to the sensation of water beating on my skin, running down my body, draping over me like a silk shawl.
* * *
—
IN THE MORNINGS, before I smoke, the day is blinding white, the sounds abrasive and loud; everything has sharp, prickly angles. I recognize this feeling from somewhere, and I don’t like it. It reminds me of someone I used to be, that person who wore her emotions inside out. I take a swig of water to rinse out the toothpaste and spit into the bushes. I look into the small mirror I hung on the porch: my eyes are tired, my jaw tight, my skin khaki-gray. It all changes as soon as I smoke my first chillum. It baby-proofs the edges, tucks me in a warm, fuzzy blanket.
* * *
—
SOPHIE’S GIRLFRIENDS LEAVE. “Can I stay with you?” she asks. “I can’t afford my own room.” I’m getting pretty broke myself, so I say sure, flattered that she chose to stay, pleased to share a room with her. That night we talk until morning, smoking chillums on my bed, back and forth, back and forth, until there’s nothing left to say. Sophie’s hand searches for mine, touches my face, tracing my curves. I turn toward her, our naked legs interlace. Her lips are soft, her breath heavy and sweet: charas and pineapple.
“Tell me about your boyfriend,” Sophie says later. She turns to her side, propped on her elbow. “What is he like?”
I light a Gold Flake and inhale. What is he like? It’s been two months since I last saw Anand. Our time apart is now longer than our time together. It’s been difficult to stay in touch: there’s no phone line on the beach and he’s been tree planting in remote areas in northern British Columbia. Sometimes I forget I have a boyfriend. It all seems so distant: our meeting on the beach in Gujarat, our instant falling in love, our brief time together roaming through central India. The locals we met along the way kept telling us we looked like Bollywood actors: they said he looked like Amitabh Bachchan and I looked like Tabu. I loved hearing that because in my dreams, we were Bollywood: star-crossed lovers from opposite ends of the world who found each other on a tropical beach and fell in love against all odds. I cried when he went back to Canada, spent the following days feeling morose and heartbroken. Was any of that real? Then why am I here with Sophie? I want to blame the acid, but of course, it’s been my choice to go on this bender, as if physically escaping my life was not enough.
My letters become shorter. How are you? I’m having a blast, love you. And then I stop writing.
* * *
—
THE DAYS BLEND together, stuck like pages of a book left in the rain. Sometimes it feels as though it’s all been one long day, and other times I think it’s been years. People could be looking for me; maybe they think I’m dead. Maybe I’m one of those Israeli travelers whose parents call the embassy to report them, my picture on telephone poles in New Delhi, looking wholesome under the word MISSING.
I haven’t spoken to my mother in a month. I imagine her coming here to rescue me from the drug pit, and it immediately sobers me up. The last time I called, I laughed, and she said, “Why are you laughing? Are you high?” It was as if she could see me.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Don’t do drugs,” she said. “Have you read the article?”
A major newspaper in Israel had run a feature about Israelis going to Goa after the army to blow off steam and coming back delusional. One guy thought he was a dolphin. On the flight back, he needed to be wetted constantly. He thought if they didn’t wet him, he’d die.
* * *
—
SITTING AT THE Moonrise, I watch the crazy guy down at the beach. He walks along the shore, stops to speak to an imaginary person or a coconut tree. He picks up a shell from the sand and laughs at it. He has long hair, a potbelly, a blue Bermuda swimsuit. He’s not young. Nobody’s sure where he’s from. Fabrizio thinks he’s Swiss. Others say he’s from Belgium.
“Do you think he was always insane, or did it happen to him here?” I ask Sophie.
She looks at him. “Must be here. How else did he get on a plane?”
The crazy guy faces the water, raising his arms slowly. In Hebrew, we say he has “exited his mind,” which sounds more proactive than losing one’s mind, something one might choose to do. Maybe this is what I’m doing here: taking a leave from my mind, my life, my boyfriend, my screwed-up country. Isn’t living wildly, dangerously, and “in the moment” a good thing? Isn’t that what being young and a writer is all about? But then other times, I wonder if the acid is just an excuse, if I’m sabotaging my relationship with Anand the same way I did with Gilad, if it all circles back to me being scared shitless. Then I glance at Sophie, and my heart swells with affection for her. Maybe we can love more than one person.
I can’t tell what’s real anymore.
That night, at a house party on the other side of Goa, I say no, I don’t want LSD. I smoked too much charas and I feel heavy and too stoned. I pass out on a couch outside, and when I wake up, feeling better, I go find Pauli and knock on his back.
“Two drops, please.”
“One, two…three.” Pauli winks at me.
“Pauli!” I punch him in the arm and he laughs. I never take three. Oh well. It’s done. By the time I peak, most people are coming down. It’s intense, as if I�
�m standing next to the bass speaker at a rock concert. Everything vibrates. Out on the patio, people’s lit cigarettes swim in the dark like a rescue team in the jungle. I spend what seems like hours bent over my diary, writing madly. A guy sits next to me on the couch; he’s covered in so much glitter he looks like a spaceman. He says his name is Normal and I laugh. “Not normal,” he says, irritated. “Normal! With an N!” I laugh too hard to answer.
Sophie comes to visit, all sparkles, as if she collided with a truckload of stars. She’s so beautiful she takes my breath away, like some Italian actress in black-and-white movies. In the mirror in the bathroom, I contemplate the possibility that I might be Greek. I sort of look Greek. Lately, people have been speaking to me in Italian. Sophie calls me “Italiana.” Yesterday, after swallowing seawater, I said, “Io bevuto acqua di mare.” “Oh my God! You make sentence!” Sophie kissed me on the lips and people were watching.
I spend the rest of the party dancing as if my life depends on it. More dancing, less thinking, this is the answer. But then the music stops like a heart attack. Everywhere I look people are leaking onto cushions and couches, seeping into each other. They look old, wasted, sad, their makeup smeared, their colors faded. The party is over.
* * *
—
THE HOT SEASON has started. The beach is emptying out. Everybody’s heading north. Even Pauli and his drops are gone, off to Japan. The fan in our room breaks down one night and we wake up, bodies glowing, swathed in wet sheets. I pick up an old newspaper rolling on the ground in town, and it says seven Israeli schoolgirls were killed by a Jordanian soldier. Last time I glanced at a newspaper, it had Israeli helicopters on the front page with the word DISASTER in large, black type. I should know better by now. I turn to the horoscope. It says that I should be less impulsive. I think I should stop chewing my nails. And my teeth—I’ve been grinding them so much I’m afraid they’re going to fall out.
The Art of Leaving Page 10