by Beth Miller
‘I had some tissues but Mum used them up in the car on the way here, crying about Ezra,’ he said, patting his pockets fruitlessly. ‘First grandson bar mitzvah-ed and all that.’
My eyes blurring, I rifled in my bag and pulled out a tissue, but found it was stuck, embarrassingly, to an old sanitary towel. As I shoved them both back into my bag, I thought: When was the last time I used a sanitary towel?
‘I should have told you about Nathan going back,’ Dov said, handing me a napkin. ‘I’m sorry.’
I dabbed my eyes. It was a paper napkin but was nonetheless monogrammed with EB, Ezra’s initials. Esther would be able to re-use any left over, for they were her initials too. I wondered if she’d already thought of that. Probably.
‘It’s not your fault, sweetie. It’s me. I’m such a mess.’
‘You are not,’ he said, loyally.
‘Did you think I might get back together with Nathan?’
He nodded, staring at the table.
‘So did I,’ I said, admitting it to someone – and myself – for the first time.
‘But you stopped making his breakfasts.’
I laughed weakly. ‘Yes, it was causing confusion. For both of us.’
‘Anyway,’ Dov said, pouring me a glass of water, ‘you still love Alex.’
‘What?’ I sat upright.
The waitresses finally reached our next-postcode-along table and served us beetroot-cured smoked salmon starters. The sausage-suit woman beside me said, ‘My lord, I thought we’d been forgotten,’ and began vigorously attacking it with a fork. Her husband, a saggy man, shrunken in a suit that was too large for him in about the same amount as his wife’s was too small for her, said ‘Is it meant to be purple? Why is it purple?’
‘Miss,’ the woman opposite me called out to the waitress, holding up her plate, ‘I don’t eat fish. I said I was vegetarian months ago.’
This was exactly the sort of issue I was meant to be helping stage-manage, but all I could do was stare at Dov. ‘How do you know I love Alex?’
‘You just look sad all the time. Since you came back.’
‘I’m not the sort of fair-weather vegetarian who eats fish,’ the woman said to no one in particular. The waitress removed her plate without making any promises. The saggy man shovelled in his salmon in one go and struggled to deal with it, a piece of chive sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he chewed.
‘Didn’t I look sad before?’ I said.
‘Not when you came to visit Zaida those first times, when you were still with Alex. You looked completely happy.’
My eyes misted up again. ‘I think my marriage is over,’ I said.
‘Is it really?’ Dov said.
‘Not eating yours, dear?’ The sausage woman pointed at my starter.
‘You have it,’ I said, pushing the plate towards her.
‘I don’t suppose I’ll get anything now,’ the vegetarian woman announced. ‘Always at the bottom of the pile.’
‘The salmon’s very nice,’ the woman next to me told her.
‘I don’t eat fish!’ the vegetarian exclaimed.
‘Salmon’s barely fish,’ the woman next to me said, mildly. ‘It’s smoked. No bones.’
‘I thought Alex looked kind,’ Dov said.
‘When did you see him?’
‘The day you ran away with him.’
Of course he had. The film of Alex and I running towards the end of the road – walking very fast, anyway – unreeled in my head.
‘There’s a reason there aren’t purple foods in nature,’ the saggy man said.
‘Aubergine’s purple,’ his wife said instantly, as if this was a conversation they had a lot. ‘So is purple sprouting broccoli.’
I tried to tune them out. ‘Yes, he is kind. Was kind. And he did love me. But it wasn’t ever going to work, was it? Him and me. We are from such different places.’
The waitress returned and put a plate of bread in front of the vegetarian. ‘We’ve run out of the veggie starters, sorry,’ she said.
The woman stared at her. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ She picked up a piece of the bread and waved it around at the table. ‘Bottom of the pile!’ she shouted. Then she started to eat it.
‘Do you remember when you wore Joel’s clothes?’ Dov said.
‘A bit random, but yes, of course. You don’t, though. You weren’t even born.’
‘Everyone told me about it. That Aliza, that sister of yours, she’s such a rebel.’
‘I actually own some trousers now. Well, I did. I left them behind. Probably Alex has chucked all my stuff out.’
‘Then there were all the possible matches you refused. Uri said he’d never heard of any other girl turning down so many.’
‘I know, I know. Too fussy for her own good. So what’s your point, Dov?’
‘Nothing really.’ He shuffled his feet. ‘I suppose – I can’t picture you living a life like Mum or Malka, or Esther. Or even Deborah. I could never picture it, even before. When you went away, it made a sort of sense. I hated that you’d gone, but I did understand it.’
‘Dov, I wish I could see myself through your eyes.’
Those same grey eyes held my gaze. I looked at the black spot on his iris. Was he looking at the matching one on mine?
A big hand clapped down on Dov’s shoulder, making us both jump. ‘Dovvy, mind if I sit here for a few minutes?’ Uri always managed to make a question sound like an order.
‘Sure!’ Dov jumped up, the way all of us jumped for Uri. He was our father’s natural heir. Uri sat in Dov’s seat and waved him away.
‘Mazeltov, Uri,’ I said, looking into his craggy, forbidding face, trying to get in ahead of whatever berating he was planning to give me. ‘What a blessing, your boy a man. You must be very proud.’
‘Mazeltov, Uri!’ all the dusty aunts chorused, echoing me. He smiled round at them and held up his big meaty hand in acknowledgement.
‘I am very proud of Ezra,’ he said. Then quietly, just to me, he added, ‘I’m not so proud of myself.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I did it for the right reasons.’
‘Did what?’
He pushed his chair away from the table slightly, and moved his mouth close to my ear. He whispered, ‘I told Dad about you visiting Zaida.’
‘You? No you didn’t, it was Nathan.’ Even as I said this, I knew it made more sense for it to have been Uri.
‘Aliza, it was me.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Esther’s Aunt Liv.’ Uri pointed discreetly to an elderly woman at our table, next to the vegetarian. ‘Her husband’s in Beis Israel, and she saw you when she was visiting him.’
The woman, feeling our gaze on her, looked up and gave us a friendly little wave.
‘She doesn’t even know me,’ I said.
‘Aliza, everyone knows you.’
Of course they did – the Scarlet Woman of Hackney E5.
There was no sense asking Uri why he’d told Dad. I knew why. Because he was furious with me. For leaving, for challenging the rules he had always abided by without question, the rules he had grown up with and then established with his own family. He was a more benign father than ours, but still, he had that same iron will. The interesting question was, why did he feel bad about it now?
I said, ‘I’m sorry I made you so angry.’
Uri laughed. ‘Angry? That’s not the half of it.’
‘Really, I need to thank you, for allowing me to reconnect to you all. I don’t suppose you meant it to work out like that when you told Dad. But thank you.’
He briefly closed his eyes. ‘I thought Dad would frighten you into leaving Zaida alone.’
‘You didn’t think how it might make Zaida feel?’
Uri picked up a glass, but finding it empty, stood up and bellowed across the room. ‘Deborah! We have no wine here!’
I couldn’t see Deb but imagined her scurrying to grab some bottles.
He sat down
again. ‘I hadn’t anticipated quite what would happen, no.’
‘It’s a family trait,’ I said, ‘not being able to predict the outcome of our actions.’
Deborah appeared, looking flustered. She put two bottles on the table, muttered, ‘Thanks for your help, GG,’ and darted away.
Uri poured red wine for us both. ‘GG?’
‘Goy Girl.’
‘You don’t mind her calling you that to your face?’
I raised my glass to him. ‘Maybe we would all be better off if we said what we really thought? Rather than hide behind rules and duties and excuses?’ I would never have dared to speak to Uri in this way before, but he had never seemed so human before.
He clinked his glass against mine, then drank the contents down in one blast. ‘Ez doesn’t want to go to the yeshiva, you know,’ he said.
His first-born son not wanting to follow in the religious life – I knew how painful that must be for Uri. ‘What does he want to do?’
‘Chemistry.’ Uri made it sound like a swear word. He filled his glass again.
‘Will you let him?’
Uri shrugged. ‘If I give him his way, will it stop him being as meshuggener as you?’
I laughed. ‘Perhaps. Though I don’t think I am quite as meshuggener as I used to be.’
I was standing in front of the mirror in our room, sideways on, when Becca came in. I moved quickly but she’d seen. She looked straight at me. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’
‘Have you realised?’
‘Realised what, Becca?’
Before she could say anything more, Gila burst in. She threw herself on my bed, and shouted, ‘Wasn’t that the best day ever?’
Gila adored all family occasions, and had always been close to Ezra who, despite being her nephew, was only a year younger. As Gila started reciting her favourite things about the day, which centred on the amount of cake she’d eaten, Becca gave me worried looks, and tilted her head to invite me to join her outside the room. I shook my head.
‘What are you two making faces about?’ Gila said.
‘Nothing.’ I sat on the bed next to her, and stroked her hair. She was really over-excited: the food, people, and dancing, had made her a little crazy. She leaned back against my pillow and complained, ‘There’s something hard here.’ She reached under it and pulled out the Re-education book.
‘Give me that!’ I said, but she clutched it tight to her chest and jumped off my bed. I grabbed at her arm, but she pulled away and ran over to her own bed. She opened the book. ‘“Poems I like,”’ she read out. ‘What is this?’
‘It’s private, Gila. Give it back, please.’
Gila ignored me. ‘“New experiences.” Whose writing is this? “1. Go on a rollercoaster. You have embarked on a meta, a meta…” I can’t read this word.’
‘Give it back to Aliza now,’ Becca ordered.
I leapt over and dived on to Gila’s bed. I managed to grab hold of a corner of the book, but curiosity gave her strength and she clung on. I realised that my reaction was only making her more determined, so I returned to my own bed and gritted my teeth.
‘Never mind,’ I told Becca. ‘She won’t find it that interesting.’ I could only hope that she didn’t land on the ‘Sexy things to try’ list.
Gila turned over some more pages. ‘“Modern history.” Boring. “Internet sites.” Wow, there are so many. “My favourite books.” “My favourite poems.” “Best 90s TV programmes.” Hey, this one looks good: “Things I love about Eliza.” Your name is spelled wrong. “Number one: Her skin smells of peaches.” Aw, that’s so dreamy. “Number two: Her laugh makes me feel…’
‘What’s that?’ I bounded back over and held out my hand. Something about my expression made Gila give up the book without a fight. I took it and went downstairs. I could hear Gila wailing, ‘Where are you going, Aliza?’ as I went, and Becca scolding her.
I pushed open the connecting door to the annex. After only a few days, there was no trace of Nathan. It was like he’d never been there; the annex felt safe again. I curled up in Zaida’s armchair, the one he and I used to sit in together when I was small enough to fit on his lap. I was uncomfortably aware that I was not only big now but getting bigger. Sitting with my feet under me made me realise more forcibly than ever just how tight my skirt was. Yes, Becca, I’d realised. My heart fluttering, I did some quick, frightened calculations in my head, but I already knew, thank Ha-Shem, there was only one possible explanation.
I turned to the end of Alex’s lists. The last one I knew he’d written was places he wanted us to visit together. But after that, there was a list I’d never seen, the one Gila had stumbled upon. I wondered when he had written it.
‘Things I love about Eliza.’
It had taken me a long while to realise what the book really was. I’d thought it was just a book of lists. Sometimes fun, sometimes patronising, sometimes challenging, sometimes irritating. I now saw it for what it was: a book of love. Alex’s lists were one long love letter to me. Everything he adored, he shared with me in the lists. Because these things made him happy and he wanted me to be happy too. Because he loved me.
Now there was a love letter that wasn’t in disguise, and I cried as I read it.
At the end, there was a scribbled note in a different colour pen, added later. ‘I hope she phones me when she reads this.’
I closed the book.
‘You can’t go back,’ Nathan had said.
But maybe sometimes, you could. I rang Alex’s number, and he picked up on the second ring.
‘Hey, you,’ he said.
‘Hey.’
‘How are you?’
‘I read your last list.’
‘Ah, finally.’
‘There’s one item you missed.’
‘Really? I thought it was pretty comprehensive.’
I could hear the smile in his voice. I pictured him, sitting in the living room, maybe on the sofa, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
‘You missed: “I love Eliza because she will be the mother of my baby.”’
I heard him gasp. ‘Are you…?’
‘Yes.’
I waited. It was up to him now.
‘Are you coming back, Eliza?’
A younger Eliza would have pointed out that I hadn’t been the one to leave; that it was him who’d gone. But I was older now. Re-educated. I knew that though he’d been the one to physically leave, I had left emotionally long before that.
I said, ‘Do you think we could move somewhere else? Make a fresh start?’
‘That’s a brilliant idea.’ I could hear the relief in his voice. ‘Anywhere in particular that appeals to you?’
Swishes of saris, brightly coloured piles of oranges and apples, delis with cheese piled high, neat-as-pin homes with bright front doors and no history.
‘Ilford is nice.’
‘Great plan. It’ll be handy for us to get our bacon sarnies at Kev’s Café every morning.’
‘You’re so funny.’
‘When are you coming home?’
‘Let me look at my diary.’ I rifled through a few pages of the Book of Love. ‘You know what? I seem to be free right now.’
Things I love about Eliza
Her skin smells of peaches.
Her laugh makes me feel that everything is going to be all right.
She is kind.
She has been very patient with me.
She doesn’t know how beautiful she is.
She’s one of the bravest people I know.
She is very funny, not always intentionally.
Her willingness to try anything once.
The way her face glows when she sees me (well, it did when we first got together, anyway).
That little black beauty spot on her left eye.
The way she used to jump when I touched her.
Her lovely hands.
The thoughtfulness on her face when she doesn’t know I’m watc
hing.
The way I feel I will never completely know her. But I am ready to try.
She makes me feel like the best version of myself.
I hope she phones me when she reads this.
Thirty-Two
April 2016
Dov and I race up the M1 in his enormous Renault. He drives fast, which I normally hate, but not today. He’s had his foot to the floor since he collected me from Deborah’s, and we’ve been lucky with the traffic, but we’re still three hours away, maybe more.
We set off less than an hour after Alex rang me to tell me Leah was missing. Alex and I agreed he’d stay at home in case I was wrong and Leah would be coming back. I rang Dov to get some information about addresses and he immediately said he’d come with me. When I told him it was too much for him to drop everything, he insisted. I wondered if he was feeling guilty about his part in it all.
Dov pulls into a service station so we can get petrol and coffee. As we wait in the queue, I say, ‘How much of a head start do you reckon Leah has on us?’
‘Not much, probably,’ he says. ‘Depends on when she got the train.’
‘If she got the train. Maybe she got a coach instead.’
‘In which case we’re way ahead of her.’
‘That’s if I’m right, of course,’ I say.
We take our coffees to the car and set off again.
‘I wonder how she knew where to go,’ I say, fishing. I want him to acknowledge that it’s his fault she’s gone, that it’s his son who gave Leah the idea in the first place. When we were kids, Dov always had this ability to stay silent in the face of trouble, something I never learned how to do. He could stand up to our dad ranting and raving without ever trying to answer back and defend himself. I admired it then, but now it seems little more than a massive evasion of responsibility.
Dov, true to form, doesn’t say anything.
‘Oh come on!’ I explode. ‘She only knew about me and Nathan because of Gidon!’ I manage not to call him ‘that little shit-stirrer Gidon’, but it’s a close thing. ‘Gidon must have told her where Nathan lives.’
‘He doesn’t know, though,’ Dov says calmly. ‘Like I told you, we don’t have Nathan’s address.’