Before turning onto Tagore Street, I stopped at a flower vendor whose buckets of flowers stood on the sidewalk in bright colors.
“Do you have daisies left?” I asked from inside the car. To this day, I don’t know why I asked for daisies specifically. Maybe because when I thought of Lily, I thought of daisies. Roses felt too banal.
“Yes, how many would you like?”
“You know what? Give me eighteen, please.”
“Chai?” he smiled.
“Yes, chai, please.”
Lily loved the daisies.
“That’s my flower,” she said when she saw them in my hands. Even before I had a chance to notice the apartment, its smells, or the pictures on the walls, we were already in each other’s arms.Fifty-three hours apart had taken their toll. I knew so little about her, yet felt so much.
“Can I see your paintings?” I asked once we had caught our breath.
“You haven’t noticed? They cover the walls.”
“You didn’t give me a chance…”
The apartment was tiny, but the architects had somehow squeezed a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom into fifty-four square meters. Quite an achievement. It overlooked a sandy lot with a few trees at the edge.
“The neighborhood kids play soccer there, and in the evenings, I see joggers on the asphalt,” she said, gently resting her hands on my shoulders from behind.
“The apartment is small, but we’ll manage. Luckily, it’s filled with light, which helps me paint. In the mornings, the sun floods the living room, making it feel bigger, painting the walls in pale colors. In the afternoons, the gallery on the other side is bright too.”
“And the paintings on the walls?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get to them. First, let’s take a look around the flat.”
To her, the flat was a miniature museum, with several galleries. The guided tour went slowly, with kisses on her neck here and there, answered by fierce hugs.
When we got to the kitchen, I was stunned. The building had been built in the early years of the state for new immigrants. It looked like it hadn’t changed since. Lily had painted the cupboard doors dark brown, giving life to the little room, but I had never seen a kitchen like it in Tel-Aviv. It was spotless, no sign of recent use. Not even a single cup in the sink.
“We’ll skip the bedroom – you’ve seen it from every angle already,” she whispered in my ear.
“We’ll go back, don’t worry. But now we’ve come to the most important part of the apartment.”
“The bathroom?” I teased.
“You still don’t get what it means to be a painter.”
“This is my studio.” The sharp smell of oil paint filled my lungs, intoxicating and drawing me in. The room looked chaotic compared to the rest of the flat.
On the easel sat a roughly eighty-by-sixty sketch, two figures scribbled in charcoal or a thick pencil.
“I didn’t have time to tidy up,” she apologized.
“Looks like you know me better than I know myself.”
“I told you – you’re transparent to me.”
“Transparent? That’s surprising.”
“Yes. For me, you are transparent.”
“Me? My friends call me ‘the Mossad agent’ – they never know what’s going on inside me. And you’re saying I’m transparent?” I doubted her words.
