Chapter 5 #2
At about eight the next morning, he texted me: “I’m here.
” I got up, tugged my tank top down, put my glasses on, and went over to the window.
He was sitting on the wall with his back to me, a fancy bottle tucked under his arm.
Placed on the wall beside him was a bulging plastic bag.
I opened the window and gave a low whistle.
He turned around, and his face lit up. “Can I come up?” he called.
I stared down at him. “What’s that, champagne?
” I asked, trying to figure out whether he was drunk or not.
“Yup, I just bought it,” he answered, staring at the bottle in mock surprise.
“And I got you fresh bread rolls for breakfast,” he added. “So, what do you say?”
My roommate was still asleep, and Halimi acted with overzealous caution, exaggerating every movement.
He spoke in a stage whisper even though I talked normally.
We went into my room, and he dropped onto the bed right away, extending his legs and leaning back comfortably, as if he’d lived here all his life.
He looked at the walls, the bed, surveying the posters and all my knickknacks, casting a curious glance at the pile of clothes discarded on a chair.
“I guess I can’t smoke in here. Your roommate and all that,” he said.
I pointed at the window. “You can smoke there.”
“How did you sleep?” Halimi inquired.
“Pretty good,” I answered. He smoked by the window and didn’t speak. I got dressed unhurriedly and, after tying my hair back, noticed Halimi looking at me, mesmerized.
“So, what’s your routine?” he asked, extinguishing the cigarette on the windowsill and flicking it outside with two fingers.
I grinned. “Shower. Breakfast. Laptop. Sometimes, I go to the library. After that, I usually work at the café. Sometimes, I meet my best friend, Libby. I generally eat lunch at home.” I was going to continue, but then he asked, “What do you generally make for lunch?” I went over to him and put my arms around him, sitting on the windowsill.
He buried his nose between my breasts, and his voice sounded muffled as he said, “Maybe come live with me?” and I laughed and said, “Maybe.”
As soon as we got home, I took a long shower.
First, I removed the soaked tampon and threw it into the trash without wrapping it in toilet paper, which I always did.
I was still dazed by what had happened. After steaming my body in scalding hot water, I toweled off and decided not to put in a tampon.
I chose a pad instead: I wanted to feel the blood flow unabated.
When I was done in the shower, I skipped dinner, drank a lot of water, and then crawled into bed.
I placed the bedraggled palm branch on the dresser and beside it the necklace and Lily’s ten-agorot coin.
Halimi sat beside me on the bed. He told me he’d spoken to Simone and all was well.
While he detailed Lily’s antics at dinner, I pretended to fall asleep. I couldn’t bear his endless chatter.
After he left the room, I tossed and turned.
I was so fatigued, it felt like every cell in my body had melted.
I told myself: It’s okay, you’re fine, you’re home now.
But I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts returned to that wild trip I’d had.
Was it possible to imagine such things? The skittish snorting of horses, the twang of Thibaut’s lute, the pungent smell of trampled grass, and the way Jean whistled to himself as we looked for Halimi …
Halimi. Who sat, smoking at his leisure, while I teetered between sanity and insanity, on the edge of an abyss.
My legs convulsed and twitched when it dawned on me that I had totally wasted my magical trip looking for Halimi, while he had been taking a nap and having a dumb dream.
As always—Halimi did as he pleased, and I went out looking for him like an idiot.
I heard him pacing back and forth on the balcony.
I figured he was having difficulty formulating what troubled him.
Of course, he’d done mushrooms several times before and knew the effect of psychoactive substances.
He’d experienced more and less powerful trips, but he’d never fallen asleep and had never heard of anyone else who’d fallen asleep when the ’shroom trip peaked, or during any other kind of trip.
And as for me … something had happened to me during my trip, and I didn’t want to talk to Halimi about it. He didn’t know what to make of it.
In my mind’s eye, I saw him stubbing out his umpteenth Camel in the overflowing ashtray on the balcony and forcing himself to unwind.
I could hear him thinking: Diti will be fine, I’ll be fine, and next time, we’ll be careful and take less.
And perhaps we’re simply getting too old for this.
I knew that this line of thought, in first-person singular, would have sent shudders through him a few years ago, propelling him into a rampage of unbridled drinking and fucking; now, first-person plural, the thought was consoling.
I heard him go into Lily’s bedroom. He gathered up a few scattered toys and lay down on her bed, a kid’s bed from IKEA, with decorative metal side rails painted white.
He was probably lying diagonally across the mattress, his long legs hanging down; maybe his thoughts were wandering back to when I had materialized in front of him.
I squirmed at how I’d privately blamed him for my bizarre adventure.
I also remembered the relief I’d felt when I saw him, when I’d realized it had all been nothing more than a trip—intricate and realistic, but impossible to believe that it could have been anything more than that.
Relief surged through me again, and I closed my eyes.
The astonished look on Jean’s face appeared in front of me, the shock that had petrified him as I was sucked into the spring.
A giggle escaped my lips in the darkness.
I continued tossing and turning. Finally, I got up and went quietly down the stairs.
The house was drenched in moonlight. I went outside, and even though it was the middle of the night, the yard was lit up, almost as though it were broad daylight.
I sat down at the massive wooden trestle table.
It took me a while to work out that I wasn’t sitting alone at the massive table: Jean d’Ibelin was sitting there, too, his head between his hands.
“You again?” I asked. He lifted his head and smiled at me with barely a glimmer of surprise. It felt natural to me that he was sitting there too. I allowed myself to reach out for the giant goblet of ale on the table. I drank deeply from it. It had a heavy, sweet taste.
“So, what exactly is happening here?” I asked matter-of-factly. Jean launched into a lengthy reply, but he spoke in numbers and complicated equations, spilling into quantum mechanics and string theory.
“But the most important part is still ahead of us,” he concluded, picking up the Ibelin coin that lay on the table. The silver chain shone in the unnatural light. “Pray, do not forget the coin next time you visit.” I took the coin, threaded it onto the chain, and hung it around my neck.
“I must take my leave.” Jean d’Ibelin got to his feet.
“My wife awaits me.” I felt a lump in my throat.
I made an effort not to cry. “So soon?” I blurted out.
“We didn’t even have time to …” I felt his light, dry touch on my back, the same way he had touched me before, but when I raised my head, he was no longer there.
Nor was the trestle table. I sat on Lily’s blue plastic swing.
I realized I was dreaming because there was no way I could squeeze my adult ass into the narrow swing seat, and this only made me cry harder.
“Diti,” I heard a voice whispering in the darkness, and a large, warm hand took hold of me. “Who is it?” I gasped, getting off the dream swing. “It’s me, babe,” I heard Halimi say. “Did you have a bad dream?”
I lay back in bed, nestled in Halimi’s arms. His scent enveloped me with a sense of the familiar; he didn’t mind the sweat that drenched my body. I felt sturdier and more substantial like this.
“Sweetheart …” I heard the concern in his voice. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No,” I replied.
During the first few months of our relationship, Halimi was enchanted by his ability to fall in love so deeply.
He lost all interest in other women—he tested it empirically—and he felt he’d shed ten years: He was strong and vital, his appetite returned, and even his coughing attacks subsided.
He only drank when he went out. He smoked less.
He reveled in the opportunity to be the responsible adult, something he had wanted for years, or so he claimed.
He made sure I ate well and drank well, that I got enough sleep, that I was comfortable and wanted for nothing.
We spent hours in tête-à-têtes and philosophical debates through long nights in which we walked across town, got wasted in various bars (my alcohol tolerance soon grew, filling Halimi with paternal pride), or lay naked on Halimi’s bed.
One night, he admitted that most of the women he’d been interested in ended up boring him to death in a few weeks, if not in a few hours.
“Obviously, I’ll end up boring you too,” I retorted half-defiantly, quietly acknowledging his words.
“If you don’t bore me first,” I added right away, determined not to be a bore. Halimi laughed and hugged me.
“There’s a better chance of me boring you first,” he joked and then suddenly turned solemn.