Look for Me (23 page)

“That’s what Daniel used to say. He called it auto-genocide.”

Rafi laughed. “Auto-genocide! Well, he might be right, at the rate we’re going.”

“I had a conversation with one of the soldiers,” I said as we ate. “I tried to persuade him to refuse. He admitted he was scared.”

“Sitting ducks … You know that poem—
Today we come, tomorrow we go / Today we touch the spray of fire /Your love sends our
way.”

“Yes, I like that poem,” I said.

“I used to wonder what the love was. I never understood that line. Now it’s so clear. The country loves us, it wants our love, and the gift it gives us is death.”

“They always walk backwards, they come at me with their backs.”

“Up above the birds slow down, they will eat without a cloth.”

“Everything was so simple,” I said. “And now it’s so complicated.”

“Because we’ve fallen in love?” he said, dipping his bread into the hummus.

“Yes.”

“It’s not as complicated as you think. People complicate things that are simple. They get tangled up for nothing.”

“How can you say that? This is a terrible mess.”

“It isn’t a mess. People are allowed to love each other. It doesn’t mean you’re disloyal to Daniel. I’m sure he wants you to be happy. It doesn’t mean you don’t love him or that you’ve forgotten him.”

“How did it happen? Between us?”

“I can’t answer for you. I’ve been watching you for two years. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for two years at least.”

“I hardly noticed you.”

“You hardly noticed anyone.”

“Until you said,
Enough, already, enough.”

“When did I say that?”

“To the soldier. The soldier who was telling us to come down.”

“Oh yeah. Coward.”

“He wasn’t a coward. He was scared—I’d be too.”

He didn’t answer, and I went on, “I didn’t recognize you right away, because of your afro. Your hair grows in an afro. Can I touch it?”

“If that’s what you want. But once you touch my hair, that’s it, there’s no going back. Now we can still fight it, if you want. We can decide that we won’t do this, because I can’t leave my daughter and you want to stay loyal to Daniel.”

“Would you tell Graciela?”

“Of course not. And she won’t ask. She’s not interested.”

“But she’ll know.”

“I told you, she doesn’t think that way. She knows I’ve slept with other women. She isn’t interested in that part of my life.”

“She won’t leave you?”

“No, she loves me. She loves me and she loves Naomi. She can’t help the way she is. And I need to live with Naomi. I need to live in the same house with her, full-time. I’m lucky Graciela doesn’t want a divorce.”

“Do you love her?”

“I’m grateful to her, she helped me when things were very bad. I feel bad for her, too. She’s suffering. But I can’t help her. She’s the only one who can get herself out of it, and maybe even she can’t. Maybe she doesn’t need to, as long as she has her music.”

“I never heard of her before.”

“I guess you don’t follow classical music.”

“I worry that my life’s become so narrow.”

“Life is a narrow bridge,”
he said, approximately quoting the Bratslav rabbi. He said it ironically, but I liked the quote.

“And the main thing is not to be afraid.
My therapist had that on his wall, under a print of one of those Monet lily ponds. Someone told me Monet was going blind when he painted all those ponds …”

“Life isn’t a bridge at all. Life’s a ride in an F-16. Blindfolded. And then you find out the pilot is blindfolded, too.”

“You say you have to live with your daughter. But you said if we had a child you’d only help out. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is that I can’t split myself into two people, and my daughter is used to me being there, and I can’t leave her alone with Graciela, but you would be a great mother.”

“I was just asking. I don’t want that. You have your family and I have Daniel.”

“I have my family, Dana. I don’t know whether you have Daniel. You have your attachment to him, but what if he rejects you?”

“I know he will, I know he’ll reject me, that’s what he’s been doing all these years, but it’s because he doesn’t know that I don’t care what he looks like.”

“Maybe he’s the one who can’t bear what he looks like.”

“It won’t matter to him if he sees it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Do you have any idea what his injury is like?”

“His face, his arms, part of his body.”

“Do you know what parts?”

“The thing you’re asking about, I don’t know. I tried to find out, but you know how evasive doctors are. You know how they hate giving you a straight answer. So I don’t know.”

“If he can’t have sex, that might explain why he left.”

“There are lots of ways to have sex,” I said.

“Do you know what to expect? Have you seen people who’ve been burned?”

“Oh, who cares!”

“He’s lucky his vision wasn’t affected.”

“Yes, he was wearing sunglasses, maybe that saved him. His burns weren’t that bad, in fact. Relatively speaking. That’s what they said at the hospital. They said he mostly had second-degree burns on his body. I think his uniform protected him a
bit. The problem was how much of his body was burned, that was the real danger. He had third-degree burns only on his face and his hands. I feel so lucky that he’s alive.”

“I don’t really understand why he left. It can’t be just because of his appearance. People adjust to that sort of thing.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t make any sense. And it’s not like Daniel, he’s not a shallow or vain person. Maybe he wants to protect me, because he thinks it would bother me.”

“Dana, is it possible that it was just an excuse, that he wanted to leave anyhow?”

“No. We fought, of course. We fought about the mess, and about all sorts of other stupid things. But we got along. He loved me. He definitely loved me.”

“Was he sure you loved him?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“I don’t know. Were you loyal to him?”

“Of course.”

“People get wounded and paralyzed, they go blind, they lose limbs, and they don’t vanish—on the contrary. They need their families and friends. And men don’t care that much about how they look, I mean they care, but it’s not all that important, unless they’re exceptionally vain.”

“You’re not the first one who’s thought there was another reason. I think most people assume that he’s just eccentric, and that the reason he vanished has nothing to do with the accident. But he wasn’t eccentric.”

“Leaving you was a cruel thing to do. I’m sorry, I have to say that.”

“I don’t mind. I know it looks that way, but you’re wrong. He didn’t mean to hurt me. He doesn’t believe I love him, he thinks he did me a favor.”

“I don’t know how I’m holding back from touching your face, Dana.”

“You can touch my face.”

“Are you sure? You have to be sure. I’m not saying that to cover myself, or to put the responsibility on your shoulders. It’s my responsibility as much as yours. And I know that in a way no one can be sure about anything like this. I just don’t know if this is the right thing, and you have to help me.”

“I don’t know either. Not because of your family, but because I love Daniel.”

“I told you what I think. I think it’s possible to love more than one person. I know it’s possible.”

“No, he’d see it as a betrayal. I can’t have any secrets from him. But it’s already too late, I’ve already betrayed him by falling in love with you. It’s too late. I’ve hurt him.”

I reached out and touched his hair, ran my fingers through the soft carpet of tiny black curls. He shut his eyes.

“Let’s just hold each other,” he said.

I removed the dishes from the bed and stretched out next to him. He placed his left arm around my waist. “I think we’re exactly the same height,” I said.

“Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your family. I know your mother died in a car crash. What was she like?”

“Bossy, tough, warm, very affectionate. Outspoken. She wasn’t afraid of anyone. And she liked deciding how things should be done. She was generous. She would do anything for anyone.”

“What did she do?”

“She was a pathologist.”

“And your father? What’s he like?”

“Quiet, principled, controlled. And smart. He sings in a choir, he used to be a chess champion, he’s interested in cryptography … He was disappointed that I didn’t finish high school. He thought I would go to university, get lots of degrees. What about you?”

“School, you mean? I fucked it up. I had a scholarship because of my high grades, I could have gone for free after I was discharged. But I was too messed up. And then it was too late.”

“Why too late?”

“It’s hard to go back to school if you wait too long.”

“What was it like, getting drunk?”

“I don’t remember. It made me sick, most of the time. It’s very hazy now, that period … Tell me about the books you write.”

“Just junk romance. They’re all identical.”

“How did you get into it?”

“I found one of those books on the beach, some tourist must have left it there. And I took it home and read it and I thought, I can write that. So I wrote to the publisher, and they tried me out. Now they buy all my books. They’re ridiculous, the books, but no one cares, not the readers, not the publishers, and not me.”

“Can I see one?”

“I don’t have any, except on disk. I’ve never seen my novels in print, I asked them not to send me copies. I don’t own the copyright, I sell all the rights for a lump sum. I don’t even know what name they use.”

“Does it pay well?”

“Yes, that’s how I pay my mortgage and all my other expenses. I’ve even managed to put money away, so Daniel and I can take a trip when he comes back. A cruise, or a trip to Paris or Ireland. Wherever he wants to go. Just the two of us.”

“Read me something from one of them.”

I got up and turned on the computer, opened the most recent file, and read him a random passage.
“From across the room Martha’s eyes pierced Angeline to the quick. Martha whispered to her sister, and they both marched out of the room, still whispering. Angeline’s heart beat faster. What perfidious machinations were they planning out there in the rose garden? Just then Pierre ran outside with a hurried gait. His footsteps clicked on the patio tiles and his velvet blue cloak blew in the wind.”

“Come back to bed.”

I returned to his arms.

“It’s sexy to hear you speak English. What are they planning, the sisters?”

“I can’t remember. I just make it up as I go along, and then I forget all about it. The plot doesn’t matter, it doesn’t have to make much sense. The writing’s horrible too, but that’s because I don’t rewrite or edit. I used to, but then I realized it was a waste of time. No one cares if I say things like
hurried gait
or
perfidious machinations.
”

“Perfidious machinations
—sounds like a car problem.”

“You have to use some hard words—it flatters the reader. That’s one of the instructions we get.”

“Is Pierre the hero?”

“He’s the love interest. That’s what they’re called.”

“Why is he wearing a cloak?”

“It’s a period novel. It takes place in the past. Horse carriages, cloaks, daggers, sweeping dresses.”

“Do you have to do research?”

“I had to learn the names of different types of swords and vehicles. Sometimes I watch movies for the visual details and I take notes. That’s about it.”

“What are the love scenes like?”

“It’s interesting. The writers get a list of words they should be using, and they’re not allowed to use any others. Well, it’s changed over the years. We can use more words now, and we have to include more sex. We now have to have at least one actual intercourse scene, toward the end, on the night before the wedding. But we can only refer to
thighs
and
breasts
. We
can’t say
nipples. We
can’t say
between
or
spread
or
inside.
It all has to be vague and implicit.”

“This conversation is turning me on.”

“It’s hard to believe people like reading these books, but they sell by the millions.”

“How long does it take you to write one?”

“Two or three months, because I don’t write every day. In theory I could write faster, but I don’t want to.”

“I’ve imagined this moment for a long time.”

“I had no idea.”

“I liked getting your letter in jail. Even if it wasn’t personal.”

“What was jail like?”

“Just the usual. Nothing special. Lots of disturbed people who should be getting help, not a jail sentence. One guy in particular.”

“Remember the vigil we had for you on the hill?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Yes, you waved from down below.
We don’t shoot, we don’t cry, we don’t watch children die
…Were you bored in jail?”

“A little. We joked a lot, though. We spent a lot of time laughing.”

“It’s something we have in common with the Palestinians. We both have a good sense of humor, have you noticed?”

“Yes, it always amazes me,” he said. “They never lose their sense of humor, no matter what.”

“Especially when our soldiers mispronounce their names or the names of their cities.”

“Yes.”

“The women don’t laugh as much.”

“Maybe at home they do. They’re more restrained in public. And they have enormous burdens.”

“I remember one time I was taking a photograph of this journalist from Canada interviewing a Palestinian guy. And he
asked her at the end of the interview where she was from, and she told him. He put his hand on her shoulder as though leading her away, and he said in this serious voice, as if he were giving her advice, ‘Go, go home,’ and he and his friends burst out laughing. They laughed for about five minutes. I have a nice shot of that … I can’t imagine you in combat,” I said.

“I can’t imagine it either.”

“I hated the army because I was so spoiled by then. I hated being told what to do. My mother also hated anyone telling her what to do, I must have inherited it from her.”