Lilach started crying like she always does when she hears those noises of Noa’s. I went and picked her up. Her body was hot, but mine was hotter.
*
As if this were the last time. Holding on with our fingernails, with our feet, clinging to anything we can to keep from slipping. I press her tightly to me, the way people hug each other at the airport before one of them goes up the escalator, and she coils around me, gets entangled with me, turns me on my back, on her back, and then, using my little finger as a brush, I slowly paint a line from her cheek to her collarbone, the way she likes me to, circles, circles, a kiss, circles, circles, sucking. She draws me inside. First my tongue is swallowed up, then my cheeks, my mouth and now my whole head is inside her, my thoughts are inside her, my memories are inside her. I pull myself out by the skin of my teeth and bite my shoulder, then hers, and she says aiee. Then she says, look into my eyes, and she pulls my head up so I’m facing her and I look into her eyes and feel like a cheat, even though I’ve never cheated on her. I dive into her neck to hide and she trembles slightly, chilled, but she insists, look into my eyes, Amir. I rise along the serpentine path from her neck to her cheeks until our faces are level again, my nose facing hers, and she smiles. I love your eyes when you’re horny, they shoot yellow sparks as if smoke is about to come out of them. I blink in embarrassment like a model and say, thanks. Now that she’s said that, I feel like my eyes really are burning, that the sheet, the blanket, the wardrobe are about to catch fire and the flames will spread to the living room and burn the picture of the sad man, who’ll try to escape through the window but won’t make it. The flames will pass through the hole for the water heater switch to Sima and Moshe, to the empty lot, to Yotam. Come, Noa says, saving me from the fire, come to me. I hesitate for a minute just to make her crazy, draw circles around her bellybutton with my tongue, licking it as if it were an ice-cream cone, kiss the inside of her thighs once, twice and then, when I can’t go on any more and she pulls my Samson-like hair, come up here, come on, I toss aside a corner of the blanket — and come.
When it all collapses, she gets up quickly and heads for the bathroom. Where are you running off to? I ask her. She apologises, so there won’t be an infection, you know. And I think, it’s not because of any infection, it’s because we can’t stay together in the same air for more than a few minutes, and I say to her, watch out for the pieces of glass. She remembers and says, oh yes, I still can’t believe you did that. I chuckle and say, don’t forget that I’m half Greek. And half frightened, she says, I still don’t believe it. At least put on your slippers, I insist and throw her one of hers and one of mine. She puts them both on and walks out. I stay in bed and cover myself with the blanket. All the images of our fight pass through my mind, and I don’t know whether to be happy that I finally fell apart or to be scared that I fell apart into such small pieces. Somehow, as the minutes pass and Noa doesn’t come back, the emotional scale shifts more towards being scared and I think, maybe she and I really do need to take a break. This apartment closes in on us, squeezes each one of us into our own dark corner. What was that supposed to be, that blind rage that is so not part of my image? A sensitive psychologist is supposed to contain everything. A sensitive psychologist doesn’t use words to hurt, doesn’t expose his nasty side like that, and he never ever breaks plates. Fuck, maybe I really do need some distance so I can calm down. Terrific, Amir! I rebuke myself. You haven’t run away in a while. You haven’t moved in a while. The women are different, but the story is the same. You’re just addicted to it. Addicted to muscles tensing up so you can take off. To the magic you use on new people who don’t know you. But no, I won’t let you push away the only woman who ever really got close to you. The only woman you let touch that black lump of yours, even stroke it.
Make room, Noa says, back from the shower and already wearing her sheep pyjamas. I squeeze up against the wall and lift the blanket a little so she can get in. Her face is very serious, her forehead wrinkled in a frown. I can feel her thoughts scratching at the edge of my consciousness, almost forming words, but I won’t ask her what she’s thinking about so she won’t ask me.
Will you pick up the pieces of glass and put them in the bin later? she asks, and I nod. We have to buy new plates, she says, we won’t have any to eat on. Yes, I say, and the bad buzzing that stopped when we had sex, the old buzzing that always stops when we have sex, is standing between us again. She turns her back to me and I think, what if this time I really do have to get up and go and all this talk about addiction is just a smokescreen, the fog of war, psychological warfare that I use against myself so I won’t see the bitter truth that it’s been awful between us lately, and if you think about it, we were never really good together, except for the first sweet-as-honey weeks, and maybe even the first month in this apartment. And there were a few days after Hanukkah. Fuck, the swing keeps swinging and I can’t think anything without the opposite popping right up in my mind. The line is blurred between right and wrong, between one person and another, between us and the whole mess around us, the explosions, the retaliations. They sold us a bill of goods about thick, clear, solid lines. It’s a lie. Everything’s blurred. Look, even the line between sanity and insanity. One minute I’m healthy and authoritative, and the next minute I’m not shaved and they pull me over to their side, the sick side, like in a kids’ game when they draw a chalk line, take your hand and try to pull you over it. But there isn’t even a line here; at the most a small asterisk. A small asterisk separates me from the other me, a small asterisk that fades so easily and bam, like in basic training, before I can breathe or defend myself, my chest collapses back towards my ears, my back itches with anxiety, my throat fills up with glass, and a scream gathers in my temples, crazy, crazy, crazy.
Meanwhile, Noa is already breathing deeply, asleep. And the buzzing stops. The buzzing between us always stops when she falls asleep and I feel suddenly quiet too. A stream begins to flow inside me, like in the Ehud Banai song, and now I can bend towards her and whisper words of love in her ear. I tell her that our souls are intertwined and there is no other woman like her and I desire her always, always and without shame. And it’s all true. She smiles in her sleep and I kiss her cheek, her earlobe, and raise myself up and over her carefully, so I won’t step on her. I put on slippers, one of mine, which fits, and one of hers, which is too tight. I pull the broom out from behind the refrigerator and start sweeping up the pieces of broken plates I threw on the floor when our fight was at its most furious and I yelled, I don’t want to hear about your final project now! I don’t! It’s amazing how far the pieces flew. There are some near the door and some behind the TV and under the sofa. And there’s one piece near Modi’s letter, which I see now for the first time. That’s weird. When did Sima toss it in? Did she wait until we were finished? Did she hear it all? Who cares. Let her hear. Let her think I’m crazy. That’s what they think at the Helping Hand. So who cares. The main thing is that I have a letter from Modi. I can put the broom aside for a minute. Sit down in the armchair alone. And read.