“Diti. What’s up?” Halimi asked, still keeping his distance, standing by the fridge. His ridiculously large white bathrobe was wrapped around his big body.
“What’s up? You know exactly what’s up,” I said. “Where were you?”
Halimi took a deep breath. “I was in Tel Aviv,” he said purposefully. “I stopped by Dan’s place and got us some mushrooms, then I sat in the sun with Zozo for a couple of hours and had a beer, and I praised our life here until Zozo wanted to bury me alive, then I went to the beach and walked along the shore from the northern part of the city to Jaffa and back again.”
“Really?” I wanted to cry, but the lump in my throat just hurt in my ears and pricked at my eyes. I saw a hint of a smile and got mad all over again. “But you get why I’m paranoid, right?” My suspicion bloomed in the silence. “Why did you go walking on the beach?” Halimi liked walking, but he hardly ever went to the beach in Tel Aviv, and now he had the entire Atlit seashore at his disposal, and it was so much nicer.Probably lying again, I thought. He came nearer, and I felt ready to erupt.
“Diti, you’re right, you’re so right, relax,” Halimi said quietly. Blood pounded in my ears. I imagined myself scooping up Lily in the middle of the night and fleeing by car.
“I totally get your paranoia,” Halimi continued, increasingly serious, his voice pleading. “I’m a jerk, I should have texted or called. I’m an asshole, really.”
I heard the candor in his voice, and the hard knot in my stomach loosened. He took another step toward me, and I shrank back again. “I swear on my mother’s life that I just needed to walk and be alone for a bit. Get off the grid for a few hours. But I’m an idiot. I should have told you.”
I believed him. After all, most of the time he didn’t exactly lie but rather squirmed or sidestepped or tried to cover his tracks, and my radar was well attuned to signs of adultery. I had good reason to be paranoid, but there was no incriminating evidence, which there always was whenmy suspicions were justifiable. I took a deep breath and went over to the couch. “Make us tea, you dumb jerk,” I told him.
Simone and Richard left early Friday morning. Lily busily packed her giraffe backpack with colored crayons and herMr. Happybook. Richard stowed the sword he’d given her in his duffel bag. Halimi transferred Lily’s car seat to the rental.
Lily and I waited on the front porch. We’d left her several times with my parents, and my sister Dina when she came to visit, and even with Simone and Richard in Paris, but we’d always put her to bed, and we were always back by morning. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but I looked at Lily playing with the zipper of her backpack and couldn’t help myself. “You’ll have fun,” I blurted out and immediately regretted it. Lily looked up at me and smiled. “Have fun,” she repeated. “I got colors, you wanna draw?” she continued, yanking out the pack of crayons. I began explaining that she was going away with Simone and Richard any minute. Naturally, there were tears when we parted, and when I kissed Lily’s wet cheeks, I had to hold myself back from crying.
“Bye, sweetie,” Halimi said, leaning through the window on the other side of the car. “Au revoir, Maman, au revoir, Richard,” he added, straightening up as the car reversed out of the driveway.
“She’ll be fine, right?” I said.
“Sure,” Halimi said, with more confidence than he was probably feeling. “By the time they’re out of Atlit, she’ll have forgotten you ever existed.”
I snorted, and we went inside. The uncanny silence of the house put me at ease. Light shone warm gold through the windows onto the tile floor, the furniture, and Simone’s bouquet of flowers—anemones and chrysanthemums. “So, what’s on the menu?” I asked Halimi. I rolled myself a cigarette and filled the kettle.
“Whatever you like, Diti,” said Halimi. He went over to the computer and put on Nick Cave’sLet Love In. I smiled at him. “I suggest coffee, thensex, then food and drink while watching whatever show you like, then either a power nap or a real good sleep, and then we’ll head out.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. “But is it okay to eat before we do mushrooms? I can’t remember. The last time was in Amsterdam.”
“We’ll eat around noon. By the time it begins to take effect, whatever we ate will be long gone,” he said amenably.
“Whatever, but forget about sex because I have my period,” I announced.
“I’m not worried,” Halimi answered, rummaging through the fridge, pulling out soft cheeses, salami, pickled vegetables left over from last night’s dinner. He made coffee using the blend he’d bought in Tel Aviv the day before and brought the food out to the balcony.
When the coffee was ready, I poured out two cups and went out to join him. Halimi was sitting there with his phone (I slipped by and glanced in his direction—he was checking his Twitter feed). We ate and drank and smoked. I read for a while, and Halimi messed with his phone. “Come over here, sit in my lap,” he suddenly said. We made out for a while and then retreated indoors. I started going down on him, intent on pleasing him.
It really turned me on, but I had a strict no-fucking policy when I had my period, despite Halimi’s efforts to persuade me otherwise. During my adolescence, my mom had hammered into me the four hard rules of a menstruating woman: Never sit on cold stone, never let a cold wind enter your panties, never bathe in cold water, and on no account allow a man to penetrate you. When I was young, I thought this was all superstition, but my mom insisted it was a surefire way to avoid cervical cancer. Although I was never totally convinced, I stuck to it. Halimi tried his best to convince me for years but knew exactly how stubborn I was. At the beginning, it turned him on; he thought it was a religious thing. Later, as the years went by, it became a kind of sport, a challenge to get me to “drop the complex,” as Halimi called it.
I broke free of Halimi and went to take a shower. I presumed he’d either jerk off or just forget about it, but he followed me into the bathroom. I got into the shower and closed the curtain (“I need to rinse away the blood first,” I told him), and Halimi stripped. Then, he got into the shower, rubbed himself up against me, and jerked off.
“To my credit,” he said when he was done, “my appetite for you has only increased over the years.”
I grinned and sprayed him with water from the showerhead. “I don’t know if it’s to your credit or mine,” I replied. “Is it like that with your lovers as well?”
Halimi’s face fell. “Do you really want me to answer that?” he said icily.
“No, not really,” I said with comparable coolness. His gaze softened, and he pulled me toward him.
“You’re the best sex, seriously,” he said.
“So, why do you even do it?” I asked.
“It’s not for the sex, babe,” he said, folding his wet arms around my soapy body. “It’s so I don’t rot.”
“Whatever,” I responded. “Actually, I have great sex with my lovers.”
