Water lilies and several snack wrappers floated in the pond, and that’s where she told Areh’le everything. At first she tried to skirt around it, the way you would around a muddy puddle in the middle of the street, careful not to wet your high-heeled shoes, but in the end she simply told it like it was. Buses passed on the nearby street, making a racket, and Raymonde hoped he might not be able to hear her, but she saw his eyes and knew that he heard her very well. His clear, alert eyes looked directly at her, and then moved on to the Filipinos and the old people sitting around the pond. The old people stared with empty eyes, and the Filipinos passed their phones around, showing each other pictures of their families. Suddenly, Areh’le said they would eat lunch at a Polish restaurant he knew.
“Did I tell you about the waiter there?” he asked.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“I asked if I told you about the waiter there.”
“That he looks just like the brother you once had? You told me.”
Raymonde already knew that the waiter in the Polish restaurant looked exactly like Avram, who was Areh’le’s little brother, the one they took in the first aktzia. And although, at their age, everyone was allowed to tell a story twice, even three times, it still seemed strange to her that now, of all times, Areh’le had started with that. They might have known each other for only two months, but in that short time Raymonde had already understood that Areh’le had the sharpest memory of anyone she had ever known.
“…When I told the waiter there that he looks like Avram, he didn’t understand at first. Then he told me that his grandfather immigrated to Israel from Katowice, he might even recognize the family name, it…”
“Did you hear what I said before?”
“Grunfeld, that was his name. Grunfeld. I asked him if his grandfather knew the Kanzenpold family, but he said that his grandfather had already died and…”
“Areh’le!”
An empty Coke can floated in the pond, and an ugly black raven pecked at it with his beak. Again, Areh’le looked at the old people in their wheelchairs, and then turned to look at her with his clear blue eyes. “At our age, our memories are not so good any more. Most old people don’t have the privilege of deciding for themselves what it suits them to forget and what they want to remember.”
“Areh’le, did you hear what I said before?”
He shifted his clear glance to the murky pond.
“I don’t remember.”
51
AT THE BOTTOM OF PAGE twenty-one in Monday morning’s newspaper, there was a 200-word article. The singer Avishai Milner would not stand trial. The complainant had recanted her accusations. They didn’t even print his photograph. The editor preferred the picture of the largest Purim cookie in the country. After all, this was holiday time. The Purim-cookie picture had been relegated to the back of the paper because of the operation on the northern border, but its place was guaranteed. Not so with Avishai Milner. Two long weeks had passed since the scandal had broken and was featured on the front pages. Public attention had wandered onward from that sex scandal to other sex scandals, and from them to the operation on the northern border and the winds of war blowing from the east. Those bastards had begun cutting off the heads of their victims. What with all those severed heads, the thick mane of the wrongly accused singer was forgotten. And the accuser who recanted, well, she was a minor, which dramatically reduced the possibilities of coverage. The story had been born in an alley, had burst into a run that resounded throughout the entire country, and had now taken its last steps and fallen. And died.
The earth did not open its mouth. The sky did not fall. But between the ground and the sky was the city. Walking in the neighbourhood became unbearable. And worst of all was school. Shir moved to a different seat. Nofar’s name screamed at her from the lavatory doors, from the blackboard in class, from the wall in the gym, where graffiti had been sprayed that the custodian was in no hurry to clean off. After the graffiti, she stayed at home and refused to go out. She banished herself to her room, but Lavi came every day. At first he knocked at her bedroom door, and then sat down in the hallway. Finally, he told her that if she didn’t open the door he would climb in through the window. Since she lived on the fifth floor, that was truly dangerous, and she opened the door. Instead of hugging her, he pushed a pile of textbooks into her hands and said they had to begin studying for their maths matriculation exam. She didn’t have to go back to school, he would teach her himself. And she would help him with literature. They had no problem with English, because of TV.
Then the war came and washed away everything in a carnival of air-raid sirens and missiles. Demonstrators took to the streets, their shouts deafening the shouts of the father in the living room. Then a heavy silence fell upon the house. But just as in a cement mixer, where nothing stays where it is, the movement of time is slow and continuous. The Givon boy from across the street was killed in battle, and for several days the neighbours spoke only of that. And when the week of mourning was over the investigation was made public, friendly fire, attempts at whitewashing. People stood in the supermarket and said it was disgraceful how the army lied to us, if even the IDF lies, then really, you can’t trust anyone. During an especially long shower, Maya told her that her period was late. After her next shower, she said everything was fine, she got it, and between those two showers lay a small abyss, a broken tile in the middle of the house that Nofar was careful not to step on.
When it finally happened, Lavi asked her how it was. And she almost told him it was wonderful, because that’s what girls said on the TV shows she watched. But in the end she didn’t say it was wonderful. She said it hurt. Really hurt. And Lavi caressed her shoulder and her back and her stomach, and said he was sorry. Maybe it would be better next time. And it really was better.
They agreed that she would keep lying to him. She had a new story in her arsenal every time. About what happened in school. About what happened to her on the bus. About what she told her mom. The more complex her lies became, the more he loved her. He admired the attention she gave to the small details. The way she guided the story to its glorious end. How beautiful she was when she spoke with shining eyes about the things that existed only in her mind. Write them down, he told her. You have to write them down. I’ve never seen anyone make up things like you do.
But who should I write for, she asked.
And he, with the arrogance that comes with his age, said: for me.
And what should I write about, she asked.
And he, with the bliss that comes with youth, said: about us.
But we’re not interesting.
Write about them, only we will know it’s about us.
That evening, in her room, she took a new notebook out of her bag. Identical to its predecessor, only its pages were blank. She took the blue pen and placed it at the top of a page. An ink stain pooled where she wrote the first letter. Anything was possible.
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Original text © 2018 Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
English translation © 2019 Sondra Silverston
Published by arrangement with The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
Liar was first published as השקרנ ית ועה י ר in Tel Aviv, 2018
First published by Pushkin Press in 2019
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ISBN 13: 978–1–78227–385–1
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