Chapter 19
I took a deep breath and looked around with satisfaction.
The cleaning lady had just left, and five days of immaculate, untarnished orderliness stretched before me—no ashtray overflowing with Camel cigarette butts and cups of black coffee all over the house, no socks and shoes kicked off and left on the floor, no hot chocolate stains on the carpet or little plastic Kinder Egg remnants scattered to distant reaches.
It was funny that I took so much pleasure in my spotless home, considering that it was not where I planned to spend my time.
Home … I was charmed and amused by my proud sense of ownership regarding the house in Atlit, as if I had built it with my own hands. I loved the balcony like an old friend, and I still explored the charms of the yard with the care and curiosity of a new relationship.
Halimi had left early in the morning the day before, and a few hours later, Lily and I met my parents in Tel Aviv with a well-packed bag and a detailed list of explanations and instructions.
We sat at one of the overpriced plastic-chaired restaurants on the beach under a big umbrella, and Lily sat beside us, digging in the sand.
My father leisurely drank a beer, and my mother inhaled tomato juice through a straw with great pleasure.
I had a cappuccino and thought about the joint I would smoke when I parted from them.
I could not help but notice how much wilder the beach was in Atlit, how the sea there looked bluer and cleaner.
“Are you worried, Ditinka?” My father asked me in Russian.
“Actually, I’m not worried at all,” I replied in Hebrew.
“I trust you guys completely.” I went on in Russian.
“Lily too,” I smiled. “But maybe take her to the zoo or to a show or something,” I added.
I wasn’t worried, but I felt guilty—for handing my daughter over to my parents, who were no longer young, and planning to disappear completely, with no possible way of reaching me.
“What is this shmipassana of yours, anyway?” my mother inquired.
A few years ago, a question like that would have annoyed me; I would have thought that she was doing it deliberately, pretending that she didn’t understand even though I had vaguely explained it to her over the phone.
But ever since Lily was born, I had developed a new softness with my mother, almost as if she were my other child.
“Vipassana,” I corrected her and laughed. “It’s silent meditation.”
“Silent?” My father asked with interest but then added, “Why do you have to go somewhere and pay money to be quiet?”
“I will let you know after I do it.” I was uncomfortable again, this time on account of the outright lie.
By the time I left Ronen’s place at about eleven, I had, unfortunately, sobered up entirely. I considered going back to the depressing bar on Bograshov, but my feet took me to the Minzar bar instead. I did not want to run into any friends or acquaintances, but I did want to be someplace familiar.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Another message from Halimi. Earlier that evening, I had changed my WhatsApp settings so that no one could see when I was last online or if the message had been read. I had a strong feeling that Halimi had done precisely the opposite.
“Ditush,” the message appeared on my home screen. “Please come home, we’ll talk about it, we’ll fix it.”
I ignored him. I knew that I would go home eventually, but I was enjoying this sense of satisfaction too much to give up so soon.
Another message. I looked at it while walking.
“If you don’t respond to me in the next ten minutes, I’m calling the police.”
Idiot, I thought. Let him call.
It had gotten colder, and I was shivering in my thin shirt, so I walked faster.
There were lots of people out in the streets, but everyone was walking quickly, trying to take cover from the ugly wind spreading dust and sand.
As I neared the Minzar, I recognized a familiar figure sitting alone, her back against a wall.
Maybe my obsessive probing of all of her profiles had burned her image into my brain.
I stopped where I was and sat down on some dirty step in the dark, a few meters away.
I opened her Instagram profile. The last post was a selfie in the bathroom.
Location: the Minzar. Time of upload: twenty minutes earlier. I had not been mistaken.
I went onto her Twitter. “Being stood up gives me more time with the person whose company I enjoy most in the world,” posted five minutes earlier. Only six likes, I noted with a sense of schadenfreude.
Who had stood her up? Halimi? Could it be that while he was pleading with me to come home, he was actually supposed to be meeting her? Rage coursed through my veins like some acidic, all-consuming poison.
Maybe her date was with someone else, and you’re just blowing everything out of proportion.
Or maybe she was just tweeting to annoy me or Halimi.
I let my suspicion and jealousy run wild, wringing out the pain.
But if she hoped that Halimi was going through her newsfeed to decipher the hidden messages, I knew from personal experience that she would be disappointed.
Then again, I thought, staring at her lonesome figure in the distance like a lioness watching its prey, maybe it’s different with her. Maybe he does go through her profiles to figure out what she’s thinking and how she spends her time. I wallowed in this thought like a pig in mud.
I imagined him admiring her at work, and at her place while she prepared cider, and when she took photos of herself and he stayed outside the frame, and when she got dressed after they had sex.
My whole body grew weak, and I sank into the cold, dirty stone picturing this, and for a moment I considered just falling asleep there like a homeless person.
Several times I almost managed to get up from the filthy step, each time with a different intention: to pass by her and go inside without a glance in her direction, or to sit beside her and stare intently at her, or to sit across from her and act like I hadn’t seen her there.
For a moment, I even imagined us having a heart-to-heart conversation, woman to woman.
But when I finally managed to get up, I left.
Then, I got a call from the police, and I told them that my husband was hysterical and that I was on my way home.
I woke up on my couch in Atlit, and for several seconds longer than usual, I had no idea what time or what day it was and where Halimi and Lily were.
Then, I remembered, with a burst of joy that I almost couldn’t bear: Halimi was in Portugal—he had messaged me a funny selfie the night before from the hotel, which looked pretty nice (I sent him back a haiku); Lily was with my parents (I’d received a full report from my mother first thing in the morning); and the pantry had enough stovetop coffee for the next six months. I also had excellent weed.
After my parents took Lily, I went from the beach restaurant down to the shore. I sat down facing the waves and smoked a joint. I could still feel Lily’s embrace when we parted, and suddenly my eyes filled with tears.
“Mama, you aren’t coming with us?” she had asked me, not with surprise—after all, I had explained the arrangement to her several times—but more like someone making sure everything was going according to plan.
“No, sweetheart,” I told her and hugged her tight. “You’re going with Grandma and Grandpa. You’ll have so much fun together, and I’ll come get you in a few days.”
“Will Daddy come too?” she asked, kicking at the sand with her sandal.
“We’ll meet Daddy after,” I said, “and he’ll bring you presents.”
“Daddy’ll bring me presents!” Lily informed my mother.
“He’s a good father,” said my mom and straightened the strap of her purse. “Come, sweetie, we don’t want to get stuck in traffic.”
Last week, Jean and I had scheduled for the following day. The days were getting muddled for me lately, and I needed to check the calendar every time I tried to remember what day of the week or date of the month it was—but the date I had set with Jean felt like it had a magnetic pull.
Maybe I’ll go there now, I thought suddenly as I caught my breath. What’s stopping me, actually?
I lay on the couch and went back over every detail of my last visit.
Better to stick with the plan, I told myself, so I don’t find myself in some medieval dungeon.
I shivered until my teeth chattered. Okay, all right, I acknowledged to some unknown and invisible entity, I will not go to Jean today, I will go tomorrow, as we planned.
I went over to the fridge and took out red caviar, butter, and champagne. I made myself a few slices of bruschetta and ate them while sipping champagne and reading the French manuscript.
The next morning, I shuffled into the bathroom. My face was a little puffy from sleep, and maybe also from the champagne that I drank too much of yesterday. Behind my hair, a sliver of sea glimmered in the window. I got into the shower.
I sat beneath the flow of cold water and considered what to take with me for my time travel today.
Will I sleep there, in the thirteenth century?
In Jean’s beautiful canopy bed? Should I take a T-shirt to sleep in?
Or maybe a more suitable nightdress? Maybe the slip that went under the dress that Jean gave me could work as pajamas?
Spare contact lenses? Glasses? A toothbrush?
Definitely not a charger. Relax. Stop thinking so much. Breathe. Let go.
I drank coffee and called my parents. “She’s just wonderful,” my mother told me in Russian, and in the background, I heard my father bargaining pleasantly with Lily over a candy in exchange for finishing her toast. “I don’t understand why we didn’t do this sooner,” she added.
“By the way, have you spoken with Dinka lately?” It was clear to me that my mother was planning to use Lily’s stay as a precedent with which to tempt my sister to send her children for an extended vacation in Jerusalem.
“Actually, no,” I said. I was also surprised. We had texted in the last few days, but the preparations for Halimi’s and Lily’s respective trips—along with my endless sinking into musing—did not leave me any spare time or need for the usual idle conversations with Dina.
“Okay, Mom, I have to go,” I told her quickly, sending kisses and hugs and forgoing exchanging a few words with Lily so that she would not suddenly miss me terribly.
Bad—bad mother, I reprimanded myself while packing a bag as I would for Vipassana, minus the change of clothes.
I took a few pairs of underwear, just in case.
With great attention to detail, I put on the entire system of dress that Jean had given me on my previous visit to the fortress, including the socks with the ties and the pretty shoes.
I carefully put on the complicated head covering in front of the mirror.
I photographed my image with my crappy old phone.
I looked at the picture on the tiny screen for several seconds: a pixelated ghost image.
I double-checked that my little bag had Lily’s ten-agorot coin tucked inside.
The Ibelin coin hung around my neck, as always.
While I got ready (On the morrow, Jean’s calm voice echoed in my head.
And don’t rush inside the fortress if I should be a little late, my lady.), I received a text from Halimi.
“Having fun in total silence?”
“On my way,” I replied curtly but added a smiley.
After all, I was supposed to be on my way to the Arava desert right now, driving toward three days of Vipassana.
“And how’s it going over there? Rubbing shoulders with the stars?
Eating calamari?” I added after a few minutes, theoretically taking advantage of a red light.
There was no response. When I went to pee before heading out, my phone rattled.
Halimi wrote, “Minimal rubbing. Miss you guys. Have fun my love.” I smiled and hugged him tightly in my heart.
About two months ago, the thought of him working on a project for Free to Be in Europe, outside my range of monitoring, would have made me lose my mind.
I imagined Nina flying especially to oversee the article and misbehave with Halimi.
I expected an outburst of hatred to wash over me, but it did not come.
I tried again for several minutes. I stared into space and imagined Halimi and Nina meeting in Lisbon.
How they would sit and drink Madeira and then go up to his hotel room.
She would say she was not actually up to it, and then he would seduce her anyhow.
I remained unaffected. If anything, it turned me on a little.
I shook my head in disbelief. For a moment, I thought about going to my laptop and rummaging around in Nina’s Facebook profile, just to see if I was right—she would definitely post about it if she was in Portugal.
I took one step toward the computer and then let it go, and at once felt weightless.
Before leaving, I cast one final look at my clean, pretty house, and suddenly a heretical thought crossed my mind—wouldn’t it be even more fun to just lounge around at home for a few days?
To lay around smoking pot from morning to night, reading, sleeping until God knows what hour, feasting on smoked salmon and meat dumplings in cream?
Twang, twang. The strings played between my ears as I recalled the first time I saw Jean, lighting a hookah with hashish and sharing a bit of bread with me. I left the house and locked the door.