She sniffled. “Is he helping?”
“He’s dredging up all sorts of things. I’m telling him stuff I never thought I’d tell anyone.” He looked off at the wall of photos. “Is that good? I’m not sure.”
She brought her knees up onto the couch and reclined onto Uzi’s thigh. His hand instinctively rolled off the back of the couch and came to rest on her left shoulder. “Sometimes I wake up crying. In the middle of the night.”
“Me too.”
He began stroking her hair, thinking of the times when Dena would lay across his lap and he would gently run his fingers across her scalp, around her ears. She would fall asleep and he would follow. They would remain like that until he would awaken hours later, the two of them sprawled out on the couch in each other’s arms.
He closed his eyes and was instantly back in Haifa, the warm wind rippling his T-shirt, enjoying his time off between missions. Remembering the last time they’d gone there, only days before Dena and Maya were killed. They had picked flowers and he’d snapped some photos of Maya, photos he never looked at. Photos that were still on the SD card in his camera. Memories too painful to remember.
He shut his eyes and, moments later, fell asleep.
DAY FIVE
Soft lips against his, hands pulling at his belt buckle. He kissed back, hearing himself moan. Feels good. She was touching him, her body against his, her warm tongue on his neck, her hair falling into his face.
He awoke from his dream, a dream where he had been lying in the tall grass with Dena. He opened his eyes and saw Leila, her head back as she moved slowly, rhythmically, as if seduced by a love potion. Her breath deep and regular, her hands unzipping his pants as her tongue trailed across his cheek and penetrated his mouth.
Uzi wanted to resist, but couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to stop. The guilt was strong — the sense that this wasn’t right tangling with feral desire. The warmth, the intimacy, the comfort of being close to someone, of being touched and caressed. Her lips wandered down his chest, slowly making their way toward his waist.
He shut his eyes and cleared his mind. It felt too good to resist. He deserved this, he kept telling himself. Enough grief, enough anger, enough feeling sorry for himself. He relaxed and let his head fall back, lost in the moment.
The morning came upon him suddenly. Uzi awoke with a start, disoriented to time and place. He glanced around the room, saw the two glasses and the empty bottle of Port, Leila asleep in his lap. He wiped his face with a hand, then blinked several times to clear his vision. Leila stirred, then moved to her left and curled up with a crushed velvet pillow that lay beside her on the couch.
Her clothes were askew, a knit afghan draped across her dark skin.
Uzi rose, stiffness in his back causing him to straighten slowly. What time was it? He twisted his watch so he could read the face, and yawned. Five-sixteen. He gathered his shirt and jacket, fastened his pants, then walked lightly to the door and left the apartment.
Downstairs, he found his car where he’d left it, no ticket attached to the windshield. A different doorman was on duty, but apparently Alec or Jiri had left instructions to look after Uzi’s vehicle. When Uzi asked for his keys, the man knew exactly where they were.
As he drove home, his mind started to clear. He replayed the evening’s events — starting from when they were sitting in the car — and suddenly flashed on Leila awakening him at some point during the night, her lips trailing across his lips, his face, his stomach. He missed his street and cursed under his breath.
“We had sex,” he said into the still air. “Or did I just dream it?”
As he turned down his street, he slipped into cop mode and thought of how he had found himself when he had awakened: his pants undone, his shirt lying on the floor. If it were a crime scene, the clues would be too few to be of value.
He pulled into a spot near his townhouse, the possibility that he had made love to Leila weighing on his thoughts. What did it mean? How could he deal with it if it were true?
Of course it was true. He remembered it: she had awoken him from a deep sleep. He was dreaming of Dena at the time— How riddled with guilt could he possibly be?
He made himself a cup of coffee, threw a couple of ice cubes in it, then downed it quickly. He still felt sluggish, and he needed his mind sharp, so he could think, try to figure out what he was feeling, what it all meant.
Having finished his drink and reached no resolution to any of his dilemmas, he pulled out his phone and found Dr. Rudnick’s home number. He did not like using it, but he figured the doctor had given it to him for just such a reason. The phone rang twice before Rudnick picked up. Uzi explained the situation and asked if he could meet him in forty-five minutes, knowing that the answer would be yes, regardless of the doctor’s schedule and despite the fact that it was Sunday.
He showered and dressed, then drove to Rudnick’s office, unsure of what he was searching for. He felt like he needed to do something.
But what it was, he did not know.
Uzi sat down heavily and stared ahead at the desk, or the wall, or whatever happened to be in front of him. His mind was a flurry of confusion.
“Talk to me,” Rudnick said. He took a seat directly in front of Uzi and rested his forearms on his knees.
Uzi rubbed his eyes with thumb and index finger. “My informant was taken out by a sniper. His bullet missed my head by a few inches.”
Rudnick studied his patient’s face. “How do you feel about that?”
Uzi merely shrugged his shoulders. “How should I feel about that?”
“We’re not here for me to tell you how to feel.” Rudnick shifted his legs. “Were you aware your informant’s life was in danger?”
“He thought it was. That’s one of the things we were discussing when he was killed.”
“But you’re not bothered by the fact that this man was killed. I’m not saying you weren’t affected by his death, but you’ve been in the trenches, this type of thing has happened to you before. So tell me what’s bothering you.”
Uzi shrugged.
“Is it Dena? Are you upset about what we talked about during the last session?”
Uzi rose from the chair, ran his fingers through his freshly combed damp hair.
“Guess my hammer still has some good aim left in it.”
Uzi turned to face the doctor. “What?”
“I hit the nail on the head. We’d touched on the source of your stress the past several years. Your feelings of guilt over the death of your wife and daughter.”
Rudnick’s words hurt. But he realized the man meant no harm; Uzi had asked his doctor to be direct and Rudnick was only doing as he had requested. “There’s more to it than that.” He hesitated, then decided to just say it. “I met someone. A woman.”
“Ahh,” Rudnick said with a knowing nod of his head. “And this bothers you.”
Uzi thought for a moment. “I feel dirty.”
“Unfaithful?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Uzi, my friend, these are normal feelings. It’s nothing to be ashamed of or upset about.”
“I think it’s bothering me because I let it happen, or because it felt good even though I feel bad about it.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Does that make any sense?”
Rudnick grinned. “You say you’re not in touch with your emotions, but you really are. I think you’re very astute.”
“Then here’s another astute observation: being told that my feelings are normal doesn’t help.”