But when she opened the door, her breath caught in her throat. Not because of the face that looked out at her from the mirror, swollen from crying and the color of eggplant, and not because her hair was unkempt and unattractive. What horrified her was not the Nofar in the mirror, but the face beside hers, almost identical but prettier. Maya.
Her younger sister had opened the door to the farthest stall. She herself had been hiding there for more than an hour, long before her older sister arrived. The moment they had reached the president’s residence, Maya realized that she had made a terrible mistake by going there with the family. True, the social secretary had explained to their mother that “the entire family is invited.” And true, her mother had urged Maya to come because “It’s not every day you receive an invitation to the president’s residence,” and “Don’t tell me you’d rather go to school.” But in retrospect, she really would rather have gone to school. The president’s residence turned out to be incredibly boring, and, as in other places, everyone was busy with her older sister and treating Maya as if she were a vase.
It would be the same thing in school tomorrow: during free periods Nofar would be surrounded by a crowd of boys who’d want to hear about the president. Maya knew that crowd of boys—after all, until a few weeks ago it had been her crowd. Why couldn’t there be two suns in the sky? Why did the rise of one large orb of light necessitate the setting of another? But the laws of astronomy were binding—a circle of boys surrounding Nofar meant that it did not surround Maya. And perhaps even worse than school and the president’s residence was their home. To be a sister means that part of you is always comparing. Even if the words Why can’t you be more like her? are never spoken, the question still hangs in the air: Which one is loved more? The answer changes from parent to parent, from one time of life to another. The agreed-upon lie of all parents—both of you! in equal measure!—might still be preferable to the truth.
On her way to the bathroom, Maya had also passed the photograph of the signing of the Declaration of the State. And no matter how thrilled everyone looked to finally have a country, Maya was sure that the man in the left-hand corner was thinking only about how much he wanted to be in the middle. She entered the bathroom and knew: no one would come looking for her. That knowledge made her body limp. Her features remained: the large eyes, the sculpted lips, but now each feature was separate, making a set of discrete notes that did not come together in a melody. The substance that organized Maya’s face, that bound all her features together harmoniously, the elusive quality that was charm—that quality had abandoned its post. She glanced in the mirror and was horrified. She hurried to hide in the farthest stall. Despite everything, she still hoped that one of her parents would come looking for her. As the minutes passed and no one came, silent tears welled up in her eyes.
Suddenly she heard the sound of feet running in the corridor, then the bathroom door opening. She knew immediately that it was Nofar. She would have recognized the sound of her sister’s steps anywhere. She understood from the noises coming from the other side of the door that her sister was crying, and wondered what exactly she had to cry about. But then came the conversation. Nofar spoke to a boy Maya didn’t know but whose existence she had already guessed. She cried. Told him about Avishai Milner. Cried some more. Mumbled something about the police. Maya didn’t understand everything, but one thing was clear—something was wrong. Suddenly she heard the door to the stall next to hers opening. She too decided to go out. And at that moment, their eyes met in the mirror.
For a moment it seemed to Maya that Nofar was about to fall. She didn’t realize that she herself was the cause of Nofar’s horror. At first she looked around, wondering who had so upset her sister. But no, only the two of them were there. And if Nofar was so appalled at the sight of her, that meant there had been something in the conversation that she was not supposed to hear. Maya went over what she had just heard: Nofar crying to the boy she didn’t know about Avishai Milner, who tried to commit suicide. Nofar was considering going to the police and withdrawing her complaint. If Nofar were to ask Maya, she would reply that Nofar shouldn’t dare do it. If he wanted to kill himself, that’s his problem—he should think twice before harassing young girls in alleys, really. (Really?)
Suddenly a new thought slithered into Maya’s mind, twisting and turning so much that at first she could barely hold on to it. Then the thought flicked out a forked tongue and began moving on its belly: maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe none of it was true. Was that why Nofar was so frightened? Was that why she looked at you with such apprehension? Maya had already opened her mouth to ask, but stopped herself. What kind of sister are you? If positions were reversed, Nofar would have gone to Avishai Milner for you and killed him herself. Like when you were on that family vacation and you went out to walk on the promenade, and suddenly that disgusting drunk pinched your ass. You were so scared and you started to cry, and then Nofar, of all people, who is always so quiet, ran after him almost the whole length of the promenade so she could spit at him. When she came back, she hugged you and said, “We won’t tell Mom and Dad if you don’t want to.” How dare you even suspect her? And so Maya smashed the slithering thought and hurried over to her sister with open arms. “Come on, we’ll go to the ceremony. I’m sure you’ll be wonderful.”
They stood there for a long minute, hugging in the bathroom of the president’s residence. When they finally stepped apart, Nofar’s breathing was calmer, and the charm seemed to have made its way back to Maya’s face. But not for very long: the moment they reached the hall, everyone gathered around the older sister. “Were you crying?” “Poor thing.” “Never mind, sweetie, you are a very brave girl.” A sea of people surrounded Nofar, and Maya was left like a beached jellyfish. The pretty-but-ordinary sister of the heroine from the alley.
The ceremony began. The president’s speech was strong and resolute. “We are all together in this struggle.” Maya understood very little of the female professor’s words, but they definitely sounded erudite. The battered women moved her to tears. She was sure the same would be true when Nofar spoke onstage, but to her surprise she noticed that her big sister was avoiding her, looking at everything but her. Like an acrobat on a tightrope, careful to avoid gazing down into the abyss.
25
“So?” Of all the things she thought he might say, that was the most unexpected. She had been sure he would be at least slightly shocked by the suicide attempt that was described in greater detail in the morning papers, but Lavi simply looked at her with eyes that were as black and stimulating as the espresso she served in the ice-cream parlor and asked, “So?”
Bewildered, Nofar said nothing. His totally unruffled reaction to her words angered her. But it also calmed her somehow. Because if he reacted that way, maybe it really wasn’t such a big deal. She picked up a small stick and drew lines on the ground with it. “So maybe it’s time I say something.”
Lavi was terrified. What they had together was based entirely on her lie, as if a beehive had taken up residence in a carcass and the honey was sweet. Since their conversation the day before, he had been afraid she would suggest something like that. Actually, even before she said a word, Lavi knew that the girl who had returned to him in the alley was not the same one who had left him before going to the president’s residence. In the time he’d spent with Nofar, he had learned to read every movement of her face. He worked as hard at that as he did at his studies. His parents, who placed great importance on the boy’s scholastic achievements, would not have liked it. How would his knowledge of any girl’s facial features help him be accepted to a university? It would be more practical to devote his time to trying to understand Newton’s third law. But on that day, the knowledge Lavi had accumulated proved useful—as soon as he saw Nofar in the alley, he understood that the situation was grave.
“You can’t back down now. Maybe you could have then, the night it happened, but now it’s too late.”
That night, when there were o
nly twenty witnesses, seemed so far away to Nofar now. She had thought it was a lot then, but now that group felt remarkably small. A pretty girl soldier. Her lover, the officer. A few customers. Could it be that she had fabricated the story because of them, to avoid being the object of ridicule after she had brought them all there with her screams? She could also have told the truth at the police station: I’m sorry, a mistake, a misunderstanding. Instead, she stuck to the story from the alley. Kneaded and leavened it, then kneaded and leavened it again until she put it in the oven and it turned so crispy and golden and beautiful that it was a shame to destroy it.
“But he tried to kill himself!”
“And didn’t succeed.”
“He’ll go to prison! Because of me!”
“Prison is no fun, but it’ll be over in a year. But if you talk now, no one will ever forgive you. Not even in another ten years.”
She was silent. She nodded and said that maybe she should think about how to compensate Avishai Milner. Start saving her allowance. When he got out of prison, a large envelope filled with her savings would be waiting for him. Maybe she would devote her life to helping the exploited. She’d be a lawyer, let’s say, or maybe a doctor would be better. She’d work to save lives to make up for the one she destroyed. Lavi watched her as she spoke. He saw clearly that her eyes were pleading with him to reveal the secret, to save her from herself. But if there were no secret, he wasn’t sure what would be left for them.
Never mind if she felt guilty, he’d help her. Together, they would train her guilt until it became a domestic dog. You feed it, take it out for walks, and then you both forget it was once a wolf. The longer the lie remained a burden to Nofar, the more Lavi feared that, God forbid, the truth would come and stand between them.
26
The event at the president’s residence was all over the TV news. Pictures of Nofar at the speakers’ podium broke hearts. How innocent she looked, standing there, shy and reserved, her hands hugging her body with such endearing embarrassment. She was as fragile as a kitten—everyone wanted to pet her. She was as brave as a lioness—everyone wanted to sing her praises. Fashion companies that saw her as a trendsetter sent clothing and gifts to her home, and she, stunned by her good fortune, wore them in amazement: flared dresses that suited her figure, earrings that brought out the color of her eyes. The pathetic ice-cream server looked in the mirror she had always avoided and was astonished to see the change in herself. Whenever she left the house, her expression seemed to ask, “Is this really me?” And that astonishment, that humble embarrassment, enhanced her magic so much that the entire world hurried to nod at her, “Yes, that’s really you.”
Yet she still did not believe it. She shared the clothes she received with her schoolmates and her little sister, her expression almost apologetic. Perhaps she should have been more careful. Her generosity saved her from the other girls’ resentment, but it also deepened it, because it underscored the gap between what she had and what they had. Not sensing that, she walked around with feet that barely touched the ground. For the first time in her life, Nofar felt lucky simply to be who she was.
Then came the yellow days. The haze, like a ruined sunny-side-up egg, stained the sky. People closed their shutters. People bolted their windows. But sand knows how to get in. Every morning Nofar’s mother swept the house, but the dust continued to pile up even as she swept, and Ronit could just as easily have tried to soak up the sea with a rag. The withered sky demoralized people. Many lost their temper about the most minor things: who had first dibs on the magazine section in the café, who had the right to pull into the empty parking spot. Even those who made love did it half-heartedly, just going through the motions. When the yellow days passed, colder days came. The city, which had been bubbling-hot on the yellow days, now cooled like a pot of cooked food left on the counter.
And so the school ceremony in honor of the assassinated prime minister grew closer. Two months earlier, it would never have occurred to Nofar that she could sing onstage during the ceremony. The girls who participated in those events were a breed unto themselves. They wore their self-confidence with the same aplomb with which they wore their white blouses. But now she decided to try, to fight the other girls for the role. In history class she wrote a note to Shir saying that she planned to audition, and cringed to see the shock on her friend’s face. The history teacher kept talking, and Shir wrote on the desk that it didn’t seem like a good idea. But as Shir wrote and the teacher spoke, Nofar could feel the second Nofar, the secret one, knocking inside her, demanding that the door be opened.
On the morning of the auditions, wardrobe doors opened with a roar, hurrying hands pushed aside one blouse after another in the search for the appropriate white one. Sleeves were rolled up. Buttons were undone. All the way to school, girls sang the song they would perform at the audition. If their enthusiasm might seem somewhat exaggerated in relation to a matter as serious as the murder of a prime minister, that’s only because certain people are naïve. After all, the official ceremony was no different from any other event where a stage is the major focus, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a stage adorned with neon lights and balloons or memorial candles and bouquets. But in fact, the auditions ended even before they began: the moment the teacher saw the ice-cream server she cried, “Nofar Shalev!” as if she had unearthed a treasure. The evening before, the teacher had learned that the schools chancellor would be visiting on the day of the ceremony. She could already picture the famous young girl singing against the backdrop of the poster, “WE SHALL NEVER FORGET,” a sight that would certainly make a huge impression on him.
The biblical Joseph wore a coat of many colors, and Nofar wore a white blouse and tight jeans, so it was no wonder that Maya once again did not sleep at night, her lids swollen, her expression nasty. Because she too had gone to try out for the ceremony but had left empty-handed. Because the white blouse suited Nofar more than any coat of many colors. Because Nofar’s voice echoed from the amplifiers whenever there were rehearsals, and it seemed to Maya that they were always rehearsing because never once did she go out during break without coming across her sister, standing on the high stage and waving to her. The more Nofar blossomed, the stronger the suspicion in Maya’s mind grew, no longer slithering along the ground but standing upright: Really, sister? Really?
The day of the ceremony in memory of the assassinated prime minister finally arrived. A black velvet curtain had been hung on the stage, the words “WE SHALL NEVER FORGET” woven into it with silver thread. True, the curtain had become worn out over the years from so many memorial days for the fallen, and on the previous Holocaust Day a spark from the eternal flame had almost destroyed it completely. Nonetheless, it lent the school a festive air. On the black stage, Nofar pulled back her hair. She had invited her parents to the ceremony, and, after some thought, also the boy who was blackmailing her. She undid the top button of her blouse especially for him. It was only a shame, she thought, that, given the nature of the event, her loved ones could not applaud for her.
The ceremony began. A blue-haired boy played the opening chords on his bass guitar. Liron Kahanoff, a seasoned veteran of school ceremonies, adjusted the microphone and began to speak. She read the eulogy written by the national eulogist—a devoted teacher and popular poet: A black-hearted villain with a gun / Slew him one night in November / All Jewish hearts cried out as one / We shall always, always remember. Nofar heard through her earbuds, but the words blurred because she was too excited to listen.
Lavi stood in a corner of the schoolyard and surveyed the audience. He could not be suspected of looking at other girls. If his glance happened to fall on the girl standing in the first row of students, it was only because the others were looking that way. He had watched the movements of the boys’ heads, and a few moments later saw that they were all facing the same direction, as sunflowers face the sun. Out of pure curiosity, he too moved his gaze. What he saw astonished him to his core. She had never told him she ha
d a sister.
Maya was standing in the first row, her hair loose, her lips parted. Within her, sisterly affection warred with sisterly envy, and in that sort of war blood is miraculously not shed, but rather water: salty tears that beguiled those who saw them. (Indeed, the national eulogist was thrilled to see how much the little verse he had written touched the girl in the first row.) Maya hoped her sister would succeed and that she would fail, and those contradictory hopes made her nostrils flare and her lips tremble, made her blood boil and her cheeks flush. The struggle going on inside her did for her face what no cosmetic wizardry could do: it highlighted her features and deepened them. If Maya’s face was round and beautiful to begin with, now it was truly perfect. There was a good reason everyone was looking at her.
Lavi shifted his gaze back and forth between the girl standing onstage and the one in the first row. The resemblance was amazing, but the difference was no less so. He could easily recognize the unique shape of the eyes, the same yet different elegant curve. And there was the jawline, slightly more chiseled on the face of the girl in the front row, somewhat coarser on the face of the girl onstage. As if someone had amused himself by playing the same musical notes in two different styles.
Now Lavi wondered if the younger sister had the same fingers as Nofar, too long and large for a girl. He had noticed the first night that she had the hands of a boy, and somehow that had both repelled and attracted him. He stared at the spot where the younger sister was standing and wondered what sort of hands were hidden under the arms folded on her chest. And the moment he fixed his gaze on her breasts, he could not look away, studying them carefully and stopping only when an insistent voice inside him shouted: traitor, traitor, traitor.
Lavi had almost summoned the willpower to look away, when Maya stared right at him. Once again, he was warmed by the resemblance between Nofar and her sister. And once again, the difference confused him. Like those deceptive dreams when, in the fog of sleep, a familiar person materializes with a different appearance. As if he were dreaming about Nofar, but had made her more beautiful. Lavi and Nofar had already told each other many things as they sat in the alley, but she had never mentioned her sister. It was the silence that told Lavi more than anything she might have said.
The Liar Page 12
