Just past Sde Boker, she saw a small roadside inn with lights on and stopped the car. Shaul didn't want to get out. How do you do it? she laughed. I have a bladder the size of a peanut. Oddly proud, he replied, I just do.
There were four men sitting inside, eating from steaming hot plates of meat and arguing about politics. The TV was tuned to the fashion channel. A matted old sack with a black snout was sprawled beneath one of the chairs. Esti quickly purchased a chocolate bar and some lemon candy, shifting from one foot to the other. She was hoarse as if she'd been shouting the whole way. The shopkeeper sized her up and lost interest. She went to pee and took a long time emptying her bladder. She imagined she could still hear the hum of Shaul's talk. Her eyes felt very heavy as she leaned her head back against the wall. She thought of how she had remained faithful to Hagai, in her own way, all these years. Had stayed at the same spot, with that ember that she had ignited for him and which remained his and hers alone,
even at the high points of her love for Micah, whom she met six months after they broke up. Even though more than twenty years had passed, and five children had flown through her, and she hadn't seen him all that time and didn't even know whether he was alive. Even so, she had not been able to force herself to truly accept the thought that they would never be together again, in any of her realities and the branches of her life. And now too, as she did every time she thought this way, she felt as if she were driving the wrong way over spikes in a parking lot.
When she went out, she asked if she could use the phone. The shopkeeper blinked in the direction of the phone, and she called Micah's cell phone, which was turned off. He must have gotten home ages ago, she thought-but maybe not? She stopped herself and did not call home. For a long moment she stood and thought about what she would do if she found out he had a lover. There were times when she had almost hoped it would happen to him, wished it for him. Someone easier. Unequivocal. Happier. Still, she could not dial, and she stood with the receiver against her cheek, drawn to think of the woman she had designated for him: she had a clear and consistent quality, like a ray of light that is projected and reaches its destination-unlike me, she thought-without refractions, without internal subversions. She sensed the tiny serpents Shaul had planted inside her, writhing and mating with her own.
She dialed home, pausing after each digit, giving him time to get back, to sink deep into his and her daily sludge again. I can't be bothered with this now, she thought; she wished everything would remain exactly as it was, that Micah would remain Micah, that he would transport her home just by virtue of his Micah-ness.
He had been there for a long time and was waiting for her nervously; he could never fall asleep without her or without hearing her voice. He wanted to know how the trip was, how Shaul was, what this injury was all about, where they were going anyway, and where she was calling from. She listened to his voice and yearned for him. Micush, she said, I'll tell you everything tomorrow. He wouldn't let go: But are you talking with him? Is he telling you anything? Yes, she said, we're definitely talking. Are you really? And in his voice she heard a familiar tinge of pain. What are you talking about?
She made a note to herself that she would have to make up some story to tell him the next day, and the thought turned to metallic saliva in her mouth. More rhan usual, she needed Micah to be there with her, physically, if only for a minute, to hold her with all his great might, to cork her, or fling her, or suddenly turn her upside down and shake her hard until all the little thefts fell out of her pockets. She asked about the overturned container and he told her at length, in great detail and with sufficient modesty, but she knew that without him the container would still be out there spilling its toxins. When he finished, she asked what was going on at home, and he reported all the events, major and minor, and she listened with cursory attention, bathing herself in his warm, smiling voice as in a solution that would envelop and seal all her cracks, so her soul would not escape again. She thought of how his simplicity had won her over, slow and heavy, and still enabled him to tie her down to his earth with five strong cords, and for a moment she could almost not resist asking him what he thought about when he thought about her, and what he saw when he looked at her, and what he saw beyond her. From among his words came foundling memories and orphaned thoughts to scurry around inside her, and the four men sitting at the table yelled at each other, and anorexic girls walked down a narrow catwalk on the TV above her head, wearing clothes that revealed their unattractive bodies and vacant expressions, and Micah talked on and on, and she wearily wondered how, despite all the dreams she'd had, she had ended up being stuck for years in the only job she'd ever liked, as a lactation consultant, surrounded by women.
But something had gone irretrievably wrong-Shaul felt a twinge and looked worriedly at the door of the inn where Esti had disappeared a long time ago-some correct order had been disrupted tonight because of their conversation and her endless questions, and her presence in general. Not that her presence was so bad for him- on the contrary-but lots of time had been wasted on chatter and disturbances. And he had omitted quite a few essential details, as well as some scenes that should not, could not, be skipped. He quickly ran them through his mind: the bazaar, for example, the big market, the stalls that had been quickly set up in the search camp, the men hurrying with a strange glee of looting in their eyes, carrying racks filled with colorful clothes, hats, baskets laden with objects, a new colorfulness suddenly abounds … He tries to stop someone to find out what this place is now. And no one notices him. Everyone is hurrying, running around. Submissively, he walks among the stalls, trying to push his way through the people raiding the goods, but it's hard to reach, it's crowded and chaotic, a lot of money is changing hands. Suddenly he perks up: he thinks he recognizes something-a dress of hers! His heart leaps with joy. A flowery sundress, green and flimsy, with round wooden buttons down the front. What is her dress doing here? Maybe it's just a coincidence, he reassures his nay-saying heart, but very soon, on a nearby rack, he sees her white blouse with the high collar and the pattern of lemons, and in the nearby stall he finds the soft cotton shirt she bought on a trip to Venice, and above it hangs her loose purple dress, bursting with womanhood-
They're selling everything. There's a stall with her purses, a stall for glasses, one for jewelry and little knickknacks, another for combs and makeup, and one selling footwear, where he finds her sandals, almost new, and a pair of Palladium hiking boots she'd bought for the eleventh-grade camp at Kibbutz Mahanayim, and clumsy orthopedic shoes ("Golda shoes," he remembers they used to call them), and a pair of high heels she almost never wore because they made her taller than him, and green felt shoes, and sexy orange boots. The salesman waxes poetic: Every shoe still has her footprint in it. He fingers the shoes and feels the touch of her soles-they had always stayed smooth, always delightful; sometimes when he holds her foot in his sleep, he feels a rush of love for her and amazement that almost fifty years of walking and running and trampling through the world has left the soles of her feet as soft as a baby's. And they're selling her socks here, long ones and short ones, in all colors, a whole stall full of nylons from all ages, some stretched over shoe trees in risquй poses, some crumpled and torn, and here are two people haggling loudly over the pair of dark nylons she once agreed to rip for him right down the middle, when they were on their honeymoon in Amsterdam.