“What do you mean?”
“My Michael, I’m getting weaker and weaker. Something is wrong with my health. I feel it festering in me.”
“When do you want to leave?” I asked. “According to the plan, we only have about six months left here.”
“I won’t last until then.”
Only later did I realize the meaning of her words. When she said she wouldn’t last, I thought she meant this way of life, crammed with work and study, flights and tests. Indeed, it was impossible, and maybe she wanted to change something? But what Lily meant was her health.
“Take a few days of rest, get out of this crazy cycle,” I suggested.
“You know what, maybe you should take a vacation too, and we’ll be together here.”
I was quick to jump at her suggestion. For three days, we hardly left the apartment, and we pampered each other. I was glad to be together with her in our home. Each of us gave the other everything we could. We organized her workroom, tidied the messy bookshelf, and caught up on the sleep we so badly needed. It felt like a short honeymoon in our apartment. The shared rest did us both good. Daily life had pulled us each into our own corner, to our own edge. During this break, we rounded the corners and willingly entered each other’s world. Only at the end did we understand how much we needed it.
As the days passed, my demands on her lessened. I knew that eventually she would finish her studies in the coming summer, and that my service in Eilat as a doctor was also nearing its end. In October, we were supposed to move north.
One day, she received an invitation from the Memorial Museum in Rehovot to exhibit at a show. Lily immediately agreed. She saw it as no small achievement. Though still a student, she had already held an exhibition, and now she was invited again. She was filled with new energy, which she could also invest in preparing for the exhibition.
“Are you ready for the exhibition?” I asked her after she officially announced her participation.
“No, I don’t think I’m ready.”
“But you already have endless works.”
“Not the works I want to show.” Once again, she demanded the impossible of herself.
“So what do you want to show?”
“I don’t know yet. But I must create something new.”
“You’re always creating new things.”
“What I want to show, I haven’t created yet,” she answered. Her reply stunned me. She had already announced she would participate in the exhibition, and yet she had no works? Her workroom and the walls of the house were full of works.
“Are you thinking of something?”
“Yes, of the patients I saw in the hospital, of that amputee I photographed on the beach.”
“You only photographed his prosthetic leg, not him.”
“For me, that leg is the truth. Without it, he has no life, and without him, the leg has none. They are one body.”
“So what’s the answer?”
“I have a few ideas, but I need time.”
One Friday, when we woke up from an afternoon nap, Lily rested her head on my chest.
“I don’t think I can do this, I tire too quickly,” she admitted.
“Do you want to leave?”
“I don’t think I can stay here. I can’t go on like this.”
“My Lily, you decide and I’ll follow you. You came here after me; I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”
“Michael, there’s no choice. I’ll leave the workshop. We’ll move to Tel-Aviv.”
