What does he look like? I ask her. I’m so busy breathing in relief that I don’t have time to think of a less idiotic question.
That’s not the point, Noa says and looks at me, disappointed with me for not understanding.
So what is the point, I ask, trying to correct the impression I made.
It’s not that specific guy. I’ll forget him in a minute. It’s just that I don’t think something like that should happen when everything’s good between you and your boyfriend.
Why not? I protest, and want to go on: take me, for instance …
I think that if you’re looking outside — Noa makes a fist, puts it in her mouth and bites it — it’s a sign that something’s missing at home.
But something’s always missing. No man has it all, I hear myself saying. And I’m almost convinced.
True, Noa says, taking her fist out of her mouth. But that’s not the thing.
Lilach, who fell asleep in my arms, wakes up suddenly and starts looking for my breasts. She still does that sometimes, and I have to move her mouth away gently to remind her that she’s been drinking from a bottle for a while now.
Look, I say to Noa and don’t know how to continue. I feel like giving her some really first-class advice, something that’ll make her come to me for help every day, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is: maybe you need to get out together more, you know, to add a little variety to your life. You’re at home all the time, aren’t you? Travel a bit. Go on holiday. Go away for a few days. I say all that and think: now she’s probably saying to herself, advice like this I can get from women’s magazines.
But she actually smiles. You’re right, she says, we really have got bogged down. And we used to go out a lot before we moved here. But there’s something about these walls that closes in on us, that pushes us so close to each other that we can’t see. Maybe that’s really a good idea, to go away for a while.
Yes, what’s the big deal, I say confidently, like someone whose advice has been accepted, and think: if only I took a quarter of the advice I give to other people. Why a quarter, an eighth.
I forget how good it is to talk to you, Noa says, playing with the fuzz on Lilach’s head.
It really is great to talk to me, I say, and we both laugh. I look at the sparkle in her eyes, at the small wrinkles dancing on her cheeks, and I’m jealous: he probably fell in love with her because of the beautiful way she laughs.
*
All those particles of emotion in the air, the fragments of hurt feelings, the small, invisible insinuations, all the hidden balls we’ve passed to each other with the speed of light, I have the ball, Amir has the ball, the ball is rolling down the street, all the kindled memories, recent ones from yesterday, distant ones, my mother, the words that have been spoken, the words that will be spoken, the words that will probably never be spoken, the throat choking off the words, the little lamp that lights up in your chest and illuminates you from inside, the touching, your body’s memory of it, the inexplicable longing, great expectations, the slight but stubborn desperation, the law of connected vessels, the law of scorched hearts, music, his inner music, quiet, solid and tense, my inner music, slightly more dramatic, the duet, the delicate ballet of compromise, someone always has to give up something, the small flash of disappointment, the lack of clarity, the knowledge that it was never really clear, that it will never be clear, the stone rolling down your back, the little stab deep in your stomach, the shared wound constantly bleeding inside, the transparent ties that bind, invisible, like in the circus, the ties you can trip on and fall, fear of falling, hope of falling, knowledge of falling.
You can’t see any of those things in the picture of that trip to the hidden spring.
In the picture, we’re hugging. Amir’s hand is peeking from behind my shoulder, my hand is peeking from behind his waist. In the background is the red Fiat Uno with its tired right eye. Behind it are green bushes sprouting from the hill, and behind them, the sky and a cloud shaped like a hippopotamus. Amir is smiling a slightly tired smile, or maybe it’s only now that I think it’s tired. As usual, I don’t photograph well. Or maybe I’m just not pretty. Our bodies are very close. Relaxed. And there’s no sign of what would happen a week later. Maybe the heads. Yes, the heads. I didn’t notice it until now. Instead of tilting our heads towards each other, we’re tilting them away.
*
It can’t go on like this, Mum said. I knew I wasn’t supposed to hear this conversation. It was really late already, maybe one in the morning, and I just happened to get out of bed to go and pee, and I was about to go back to my room when I heard her talking. Even though I was half asleep, I heard the words and stopped, thinking they were talking about me because I’d brought a note from my form teacher that day — an invitation to an urgent meeting to discuss my marks this term — and I was sure they were talking about what punishment they should give me after all the ones they’d already given me hadn’t helped.
I tiptoed quietly to where I could stand closest to the living room without their seeing me. I pressed my back against the wall, breathed through my mouth and listened.
So what do you suggest that we do? Dad asked.
There’s that social worker …
I don’t want to see her face.
If she’s the problem, we can ask them to send someone else.
What for? So you two can sit here again and blame me?
That’s not what happened.
That’s exactly what happened.
All she said was, ‘Maybe you both feel guilty.’
She was looking at me when she said it.
You’re imagining that.
Don’t tell me I’m imagining.
Dad got up — I heard his armchair move — and started walking around the living room. His steps came closer to me and my heart pounded like a drum, but then the steps moved away. Then came closer again. Then moved away again. I wanted to run away and I wanted to stay. To hear and not to hear. Like when you order too many scoops of ice-cream and you don’t have any more room in your stomach, but you still keep licking.
It can’t go on like this, Mum said.
You said that already, Dad said.
It’s having a bad effect on the boy. The neighbour, that student, thinks so too.
What? What do you mean?
He was very polite, that student. He didn’t exactly say what he thinks about it, but I think he thinks that maybe Yotam is causing problems to bring us closer.
That’s ridiculous. What does he know.
He’s studying psychology.
What kind of man studies psychology? That’s no profession for men.
Why? There happen to be a lot of men psychologists. It’s very common these days.
Anyway, who is he to tell me things about my own son.
He spends more time with him than you do.
Well, what do you know, you’re right. I apologise. I apologise that I have to work. I apologise that someone has to pay the mortgage on this house. The bank doesn’t care that I lost a son, right? Isn’t that right?
With the last ‘right’, my father started coughing. One big cough at first, and then a few small coughs, one after the other. I went back to my room before she asked him whether she should get his inhaler, before he said he didn’t need any favours, before she went to get it anyway and he grabbed it and said, I told you not to.
*
It can’t go on like this. There’s the smell of breaking up in the air of the apartment, like the smell of potatoes cooking. Noa puts on her tracksuit after she showers. I stay late in the library just so she’ll be asleep when I get home. Instead of lying in the fork position (she climbs on top of me, puts her head on my chest and slides one leg between mine forming a kind of four-pronged fork), we sleep like inverted parentheses. Our conversation is limited to the bare essentials. She doesn’t tell me any of those little stories from work. I report to her, without comment, that I’ve taken a break from the club. She says, leave me the keys. Buy low-fat cottage cheese. I remind her to turn on the water heater. And we both avoid saying things in the future tense.