"While he was in prison, he did headstands and handstands every day, because he discovered that those poses filled him with a sense of inner freedom." Even though her muscles are engaged, her words have a soft, prolonged sound. From her upside-down position she can see his expression change, as if someone had turned on a dusty lamp, and he asks if he can do it too.
Nili stands up on her feet again. A slight tension pulls through her body. "A handstand isn't as easy as it looks," she explains, "and it's usually best to build up to it after a year or two of practice. I suggest that …" But he isn't listening to her, he just asks if he can try, and his face is suddenly focused and intense. She spreads her hands out and doesn't know what to say. She has bad experience with new-bies doing handstands, most of them don't have the courage to really kick up, they falter with one leg in the air and fall, or their hands give way, and others are so afraid that they toss their legs up wildly-one of them broke her nose once. But the boy, Kobi, repeats his request a second time, and Nili gives in. She leans against the wall and prepares to catch his legs, ready to have her face kicked in, and knows that she deserves anything she gets. She is amazed to see him lightly and gracefully propel his left leg up, then add the right leg, and reach her outstretched arms with the precision of an acrobat or a dancer.
He stands that way for a few seconds. She didn't believe he'd be capable of that, and even when his arms start shaking, he doesn't give up, seems to be waiting for the borderline to be clearly marked between his weak body and his willpower, and only then does he come down with precise motions, his legs straight and his feet held together. He sprawls on the floor between her legs, his forehead resting on his hands, and Nili quickly massages his back between the shoulder blades, among the vertebrae, to dissipate the strain. This time he doesn't flinch at her touch; she thinks he even enjoys it. But when he doesn't move for several more minutes, she becomes afraid for some reason and turns him over sharply and sees his eyes looking at her, clear and completely open, pleading.
"For what exactly?" Leora demands to know on the phone, refusing to be impressed by Nili's interpretations. "I have no idea," Nili mumbles, and immediately gathers into herself-why the hell did I tell her, why her of all people, why don't I ever learn? — "but it was as if he was asking me for something, I mean"-she gulps, oh God, we're not going to go through our ritual dance again-"something he can't ask for explicitly?"
Leora-three years her senior, her sister, and from the age of seven also her mother, and from the age of forty-two, because of a miserable embroilment with the bank, also a kind of forced custodian in financial matters-stretches out her gaunt, laconic body. "And the massages, what about those? Did you get to that?"
"No, no." Nili pulls back, as if something had been desecrated. "Look, a second after he came in I completely forgot that that's what. No, I'm really just teaching him yoga." She laughs with surprise, but then turns very serious. "In fact, I'm just reminding him."
"Ni-li," Leora sighs, and Nili can almost sense her sister leaning over her like an evil teacher waking up a snoozing student.
Nili unconsciously hunches her shoulders, puts a hand over her wide, expressive mouth. The large face, the freckled lioness face, becomes lost for a moment. "Lilush, what did you ask?"
I lower the page a little and look at her. She lies with open eyes, staring at the ceiling. "Does it bother you that I wrote about her like that?"
"No."
"No? I thought-I was sure you would actually-"
She turns her head with great effort and looks at me, surprised. "I don't care with Leora."
"Every time I tried to change the names," I explain to her, angry at myself for needing to justify my decision, "it somehow sounded like a lie to me, but maybe in the final draft I'll change them. I don't know."
"Don't change." She doesn't suggest. She orders. I've never heard that tone from her. She shuts her eyes painfully, or weakly. "Everything should be like in life."
Like in life?! I can barely prevent myself from shouting; for the last two months I've been begging her to tell me something, to give me a hint, a direction.
She hears my silences very clearly. With them she always had a good flow of communication. She purses her lips and sticks them out. I've noticed she has a new expression now, an indescribably irritating one. An air of rebellion that is at once childish and elderly. She didn't use to be like that with me. So assertive. And callous and unreasoning. Unhesitatingly employing the exclusive entitlement awarded to those facing death.
She takes hold of his shoulders and helps him up, and asks hesitantly if he'd ever done a handstand before. He says he hadn't.
"And what did you feel now when you did it?"
He stammers. "I don't know. Everything was upside down, I saw everything upside down …"
"And at school you never did it?"
"I'm not in school."
"Then where are you?"
"At boarding school." He buries his voice again, evading her.
"Boarding school? Which one?"
"Hessedavraham."
"What did you say?"
"Hessed Avraham."
"A religious school?"
"Yes."
"Are you religious?"
"No."
"Oh." She falls quiet, trying to digest. Too much information flowing at once. "Wait, but don't you have P.E. at the boarding school?"
"Yeah, but I cut class."
"I can't hear you, what did you say?"
"I said I skip class."
"Why do you skip class?"
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "I don't … I don't really like gym. " He stands tensed, without looking at her.
She shakes herself off and says, "You know what, let's try and repeat the things we did before, and we'll see how it goes."
She sits him on the mat with his legs stretched forward, and asks him to try to reach up and bring his whole body, length and width, over his legs. He slowly leans and stretches his arms, inch by inch, and his fingers finally touch his toes. Then there is quiet. Nili, in a restrained voice, asks him to try to stay like that for one moment longer, despite the prickling she senses in his shoulders and his short hamstrings. He stays, lingering inside the pain for a long time, much longer than she thought he'd be able to, until she feels, together with him, the pain slowly melting and disappearing, and she comes and sits next to him until its final echoes are gone.
"What do you think, maybe you can try a shoulder stand now?" In the last class he kept falling, and once he even tumbled backwards and hit himself. Now he lies on his back, concentrating on his body, and then-calves, knees, thighs-lifts easily as if something is pulling him up, and positions himself upright and precise, a vertical human line, and his hands don't slide down as they support his back. They are both quiet, both perusing him silently, and after nine breaths in that position she suggests he try lowering his left leg into a bridge pose. "Be careful," she says, "it's a powerful pose." She supports his back with her hand, but there is no need. He descends slowly, with an almost perfect motion, then brings his right leg down too and stays arched like that, his face with an expression of deep contemplation.
That is when their first lesson really starts, because now he's there, in full, responding with enthusiastic shyness to what she has to offer him, and even though he does not utter a word or smile even once, she feels his limbs learning to delight in their movements, stretching and moving and expanding like unborn chicks filling their shells. Time after time she reminds herself not to rush so much with him, he's a complete novice, be careful, tomorrow he won't be able to wiggle a finger, he'll be in so much pain. But she can't resist his innocent enthusiasm and her growing feeling that in each of his motions and twists he seems to be trying to reach deeper inside and massage within himself some hidden, tightly held kernel. That feeling also sends warm ripples through her own body, which become broader and broader until they touch the pleasurable spot that has no name in any language, deep down inside, on the border between tickling and longing. What's amazing, she thinks, is how he seems to be remembering something through his body alone. She also notices how supple he is, as if he'd been exercising his whole life, but he as-