Chapter 5 #3
Throughout that time, former lovers continued to show up here and there.
Isolated text messages at night, Facebook chats that popped up on his computer screen with an annoying ping, funny GIFs and emojis, telephone calls that Halimi answered before casting an unnecessarily imploring look in my direction.
He spoke briefly and coldly, burning all the bridges he’d sustained over the years with his fuck buddies.
It made me nervous in a way I couldn’t quite explain.
I felt empathy toward all the women who had ever thought they were something special to Halimi, and probably some of them had been.
But I knew it was also out of fear that one day he might do the same thing to me.
“You’re cute and sweet and oh so pious,” he’d tell me when I suggested he explain that he was in a relationship rather than act like an asshole.
I officially moved in with him about two months after Eran’s birthday party, although I was basically already living there.
We made each other laugh endlessly, we discovered a mutual love for books and movies, we told each other childhood stories, and we got to know members of our respective families.
Nevertheless, I anticipated the inevitable deterioration—it was impossible to believe we’d simply live happily ever after—and I was sure that he envisioned a doomed future too.
Back in those days, Halimi was editor in chief of a women’s magazine that branded itself as snarky and sophisticated.
It was scandalous that he’d landed the job: The move was considered “the cigarette in the eye of the feminist struggle.” I recalled reading incendiary posts on Facebook before I had even known Halimi personally.
Women who’d never read the magazine called for boycotts (“I might not be the typical reader of Free to Be, but why on earth was …”); every media review website was packed with analysis about it.
But Halimi enjoyed the uproar, and so did the magazine’s circulation.
And in truth, he did a great job. The tips on beauty, relationships, and parenting remained, but the routine covers of smoky-eyed, half-naked women looking feistily into the camera disappeared.
The new covers of Free to Be were shot by top photographers or adorned with New Yorker–style illustrations, heralding in-depth articles and multidisciplinary projects.
By the time we became a couple, Halimi had already been editor in chief for two years—he earned a great salary and had hired an all-female staff that included an experienced deputy editor and high-powered content producers.
Occasionally, he had to approve material, attend weekly staff meetings, pitch ideas, put in an appearance at some photo shoots, and snag various key figures—from writers and photographers to interviewees—to oversee the feverish closing of an edition before it went to the printers each month.
The rest of the time, he was free to hang out, have fun, and mull things over.
He used to say that his work was bullshit—“Pink frothy bubble bath,” he called it—compared to what I was doing.
Back then, I was translating novels and textbooks from Russian, French, and English into Hebrew, and I got good enough to be able to pick and choose what I did.
I’d been attracted to French since childhood, perhaps owing to its status among the Russian aristocracy, about whom I read in the many books that had migrated along with my parents to cover two whole walls of shelves in their Jerusalem apartment.
I’d studied advanced French in high school and completed graduate studies in French and Classical Studies.
I traveled to France whenever I got the chance.
To better appreciate the various layers of meaning in a French text I’d translated, I began a self-directed study of Old and Middle French, particularly the Norman and Provencal dialects.
Part of Halimi’s charm when we first got together was his French roots, by way of Algeria—still another aperture for French language and culture to permeate our everyday life.
I spent a few years translating second- and third-rate fantasy and sci-fi series, mostly from Russian and English, until one of them unexpectedly became a big hit.
Its reviews attributed its success to the translation, wryly claiming it had improved the book.
Other, bigger, and more prestigious publishing houses approached me.
French translation work began pouring in.
At first, I loved immersing myself in the language I adored, and I also enjoyed my rising status, but after a few years, I was bored out of my mind.
Literature as such consisted of tiresome sagas of graphomania and self-importance—novels that ambled along behind an egocentric protagonist with dulled senses searching for himself in vain, usually by exploiting weaker people, groveling to more aggressive people, talking the talk and name-dropping.
There was, of course, literature I enjoyed reading and translating, such as the genre-defying novel by a mysterious Russian writer (who never gave interviews to the press, even though he was hugely successful in Europe and Japan) about the owner of a matchstick factory who’s visited by prophetic visions.
He resolves to set fire to his hometown and is ultimately declared a saint by the church.
I later discovered that Halimi was quoting the book to anyone willing to listen months before we met.
When he discovered it was me who’d translated it, he almost lost his mind.
He saw it as a harbinger of things to come.
He would ask me to read it to him in the source language; it made him horny.
Anyway, I finally tired of French novels.
I had signed on for a variety of projects—classic YA series, disturbing graphic novels, juicy fantasy trilogies.
Occasionally, I was hired by publishing houses and newspapers as a linguistic editor and translator.
I never earned enough to be able to squander money, and Halimi charged like a battering ram at this window of opportunity, paying for everything and refusing to consider that we share expenses.
He took me abroad twice in our first year together, once to an urban festival in Barcelona, and once on a monthlong hike through Laos and Cambodia.
A few months after I moved in with him, he added my name to his bank account.
After I’d had quite a few years of proudly supporting myself and saving money, his cheerful benevolence sucked me in like a whirlpool.
Halimi liked sitting beside me while I translated.
He would read a book, work on one of his projects, or simply scroll through Facebook.
No one could have been happier than Halimi when I conferred with him over a certain word or phrase.
I also loved sitting by his side at meetings in cafés he frequented, typing on my laptop and listening to music through headphones.
Sometimes, I would switch off the music and listen in on Halimi chatting with colleagues.
It always fascinated me how morsels of gossip and snippets of information could turn into an interesting article or photo essay.
When we went to clubs and parties, which we did frequently in those days, we took care of each other—mostly when we got hammered or did too many drugs—but we didn’t have any claims on each other.
Each of us tended to wander off alone and disappear from the other’s sight—but not for very long.
We danced together, but not exclusively so, and when we came across each other in a dark corner or hallway, we would hold each other the way we did that very first time—as if we were meeting after years of living apart.