“I don’t mind waiting for you.”
“Since I saw you, I haven’t been able to focus on anything,” I admitted without shame.
“I’ll ditch the coat, and we’ll go.”
“Are you sure?” I wasn’t sure if she meant the rounds or my concentration.I said nothing. Her perfect smile had captured my heart. As I walked toward the doctors’ room, I felt her gaze piercing my back. The thrill of meeting her flooded my chest – only to sink inside me the moment I remembered the ticking clock: just two years… It felt as if every heartbeat was shaving away a moment of our time together. I found myself torn between the sages’ saying that prophecy is given to fools and science and medicine – and the international expertise – of the department head.She looked perfectly healthy; how could that be?I wondered. I shook off the thought and walked toward Lily.
“Half the internship happens in these elevators,” I told her as we started walking toward the exit. I was trying to break the awkward silence between us.
“I’ve heard that before from one of the house doctors who once accompanied me to a test, so I guess it doesn’t end with the internship,” she replied.
“They’re so slow, these elevators,” I emphasized.
“See the glass as half full,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Me? Oh … that each of us should think of an intention, and we’ll talk about it afterward.”At that moment, I had no idea what she meant, but I liked the positive attitude she was showing. She could easily have seen the glass as half empty – symbolically, the two years the department head had allotted her. I couldn’t stop thinking about his grim prognosis, yet I saw no sign of it in her.
“What do you expect?” I scolded myself.
“For the mark of death to be stamped on her forehead?”The inner struggle in the face of her perfection frustrated me so much that I felt as if my head was clamped in a giant vice. Luckily, just then the elevator arrived. We were alone inside. I pressed the button for the ground floor and watched the doorsslowly close. I looked straight into her eyes, and she lowered her gaze.
“Sorry, I just wanted to see your eye color,” I apologized.
“They’re green.”
“There are lots of shades of green.”
“I know … many, many,” she said with confidence. Maybe she spent hours looking in the mirror. I would if I looked like her.
“Why did you look away from me?”
“You looked too deep.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Of looks like that – yes.”I stayed quiet.
“You see, sometimes it’s good that the elevator is so slow,” she said as the doors slid open wide.
“Look how much we’ve covered in our first meeting.”We stepped out into the open parking lot, and she led me toward a fancy Peugeot 504.
“Yours?” I asked as I got in.
“No, my father’s. I don’t have a car, and I’m not even sure that they’d let me drive if they knew my situation.”
“Who?”
“The various authorities.”
“What do you have?” The second I asked, I realized I’d crossed into her personal space.
“They don’t know, so why should I?”I blushed, wondering if I’d overstepped. But Lily showed no sign of being offended or unwell, physically or emotionally. If anything, she seemed to enjoy the open – maybe even blunt – conversation.In the car, she didn’t project any distress. Everything felt so normal that I began to think there had been some mistake, that the department head had been talking about someone else, not Lily, and that, against my better judgment, I was really starting to fall for her. It seemed as if she was hiding her right cheek with her hand. The pressure on my temples began to ease. Lily started theengine and pulled out.All the way, I studied her profile. I tried to find some flaw, some sign of illness – anything I could point to, something I could take back to the department head. But I found nothing. She was simply perfect. Ten kilometers separate New-Hope Medical Center Hospital in Petah Tikva from Ramat Aviv, but without a doubt, this was the fastest trip I’d ever made between them. For a moment, I thought longingly about the hospital elevator and regretted we hadn’t gotten stuck in it.
“I’ll drop you here,” she said before we entered the neighborhood.
“But we’re still far.”
