“Separated,” Ronen snorted. “Maybe it would come full circle if we screwed now,” he added, looking me up and down, almost expressionless.Screwed, I thought to myself.Ew.
“But it isn’t quite right, is it?” I said, holding my jacket closer. “Right?”
“Not really, no,” said Ronen, wrinkling his nose.
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 astraw 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 thisshmipassanaof 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 noone 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 todecipher 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 tofigure 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.
