by Sarah Blau
I keep my eyes on the couple at the adjacent table. She’s one of those prim and manicured Orthodox frummies, the kind who keeps her willowy figure even after a thousand births (and there will be just about a thousand), but the husband is just a bespectacled putz. Ronit is eyeing me eyeing them.
“Why did you move back to Bnei Brak anyway?” she asks.
“Because I don’t have to pay rent there,” I reply, “and besides, it’s not Bnei Brak, it’s on the border.”
Ronit snickers blood-red.
“Don’t try to sell me that one,” she says. “My apartment is on the border of Ramat Gan. You live in Bnei Brak, honey.”
The baby is still shrieking, and his parents are still ignoring him. Ronit stares at the baby with a pensive gaze. “Do you know the human ear can’t bear a baby’s scream? It’s literally ear-splitting. Nature created us that way.”
I recall the squeals of other babies, and the soothing words that always followed, Little baby… sweet little munchkin… don’t cry… It seems like Ronit reads my mind because she suddenly shoots up and walks out of the café, far from the squeals the human ear can’t bear, especially not her human ear.
When Ronit’s back, her face is beaming with the idiotic smile of a twenty-year-old student.
“Look who I found outside,” she says, holding the door for a tiny, scrawny woman pushing a double stroller carrying twins.
The vicious delight in Ronit’s voice makes me cast a glance at the woman. Then a second glance, followed by a third. Tali Unger. Taliunger. Of course. Only she could make Ronit sound so very pleased.
“Sheila! How are you? It’s been years!” As always, Taliunger’s feigned geniality is so intense that an innocent bystander might be fooled into believing she’s actually happy to see me.
I remember her well from college. Even then she was as thin as a steel wire, with woolly hair and that awful skin permanently caked with what looked like buttercream frosting. She was the lead organizer of the various student protests on campus, and we used to laugh at her, saying that it was the only way she could interact with boys. I remember watching her sprawled on the floor, colouring the giant sign they later hung across the university bridge: “Don’t Give Them Guns!” Colouring in the outline of a rifle, her hand was just a few inches away from Boaz’s, the hottie from the student union who was colouring the background. She kept moving her hand closer to his until the backs of their hands almost touched. When she noticed me staring, I smiled, and she quickly pulled her hand away. It wasn’t just me, she loathed all of us, the whole group.
And there was that Purim party, when she dressed up as a baby, with a giant pacifier plugging her mouth and a white baby bonnet on her scouring-pad hair. It seemed like she had chosen that costume just to provoke us, but she looked so pathetic and wretched that I almost felt sorry for her (and it wasn’t entirely her fault, back then costume catalogues didn’t offer a sexy baby ensemble). We, on the other hand, dazzled in carefully selected, artfully chosen get-ups. Dina, tall and striking in her wavy cape, approached her, plucked the pacifier from her mouth and, ignoring the thread of shining spittle stretching from the dummy, kissed her right on her lips.
“Happy Purim, baby,” she purred and winked at her. “You’re such a cute little baby I almost want to adopt you.” And another kiss, this time on her cheek, after which Dina turned and walked away with the three of us trailing behind her, capes billowing. Taliunger stood frozen to her spot in the middle of the auditorium, stupefied, eyes darting in panic, a filament of spit dangling from her lower lip. The hateful glares would come later.
So why is Ronit looking at her now with such affection?
“Did you know that Tali is married to Neria Grossman?”
Well then.
There’s nothing but care and concern in Ronit’s voice, but her eyes tell a whole other story. Remind her that you broke up with Neria and not the other way around, go on, remind them both! But on the all-female playground, Taliunger won a crucial match, and this fact is lost on no one.
“Tali and I are neighbours,” Ronit goes on, “but actually, if you moved back to Bnei Brak, that means we’re all neighbours.”
Taliunger (I should start getting used to Taligrossman, since there’s next to zero chance she kept her maiden name) looks at me, opens her little mouth to say something but changes her mind and snaps it back shut. In lieu of words she offers a few fake coughs, the kind that hide a nasty remark.
“Maybe the three of us can be a group,” she finally says, curtly. Ronit and I exchange glances.
“You never got married, did you?” Tali asks me in a statement posing as a question, her little mouth a crack in the thick stratum of make-up.
“Nope,” I reply casually.
“And what about kids?” That’s an outright challenge, and we both know it.
“What do you think?” I ask her. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
“No,” she replies, “I’m guessing no kids.”
“Well, your impressive crop is enough for both of us.”
“Mine and Neria’s,” she corrects me in a sickly sweet tone, and I feel like congratulating her for lasting as long as she did without mentioning him. Just as she utters his name, one of her twins bursts into such deafening, blood-curdling cries that we freeze into stillness. Twin one’s wailing naturally triggers twin two’s howls, and as if to prove he can hold his own, the Haredi baby at the nearby table, who had calmed down in the meantime, joins the horrendous cryfest. The cacophony soon melds into one shrill, scathing scream, as if the three babies have formed an amateur a cappella ensemble.
Tali leans over the stroller to soothe the twins, and her soft maternal touch and comforting words stir inside me the memory of little hands reaching out for me, a voice calling out from the darkness, Munchkin! Itty-bitty baby! Who wants a cuddle? No, I’ll drop her. No, you won’t, don’t be an idiot, who wants a cuddle, who? And that smile, I’ll drop her. No, Dina, you won’t drop her, how could you? They glued her to your hands.
10
“YOU WANT WHAT?” Eli’s hamster eyes narrow before me. I reach for the Coke can on his desk, resting atop a towering pile of papers, but he stops me. Not today, Missy.
By the way he just put his hand between me and his Coke, I realize this is going to be even harder than I thought. Ever since we talked about “the detective,” as Eli refers to him, he’s no longer my easy-going, easily manipulated friend.
“I want you to come to Ronit’s birthday party with me,” I repeat, nice and slow, and add, “It’s tonight. Tali Unger is coming too.”
It’s always best to give out all the information at once. Or at least, most of the information. And Eli has heard enough from me about Miss Unger.
“Explain it to me. Why exactly do you want to go to that party?”
Take a wild guess.
“Because I think Ronit is involved somehow, or she at least knows more about the murder than she’s letting on. I didn’t care for that chance encounter with Tali Unger, not one bit.”
And that’s certainly the truth. Not that I wanted to go, but watching Tali squirm when Ronit invited me to her party, I just had to say yes. A thousand times yes. You can’t have it all, Miss Taliunger.
“Oh, yes, Tali Unger. The woman who prevailed where you failed,” Eli quips, feigning a light-hearted laugh, but we both know it’s true. I pick up the Coke can and take a sip, pumping free radicals straight into my bloodstream. He doesn’t stop me.
“Why don’t you be honest with yourself and just admit you feel like brushing up against the past, and maybe see Neria Grossman again?”
My grip tightens on the can, but it doesn’t crush as nicely as it does in the movies.
A sharp angle grazes my pinkie finger, producing a long thin scratch, just like the one I got after my last meeting with Neria; the last chance encounter, not the last awful planned one. Images from that encounter flash before me – Neria sitting on a street bench, vigorous and robust as ever, me happening
to pass by after a long and ugly bout of mono, dragging my feeble body down the street. What can I say? Fate and its famous humour. We both uttered the perfunctory “Oh, hello there,” and “It’s been years!” and “So how have you been?” but he felt the need to add, “You know, I hardly recognized you.” I, on the other hand, instantly recognized him, especially the nasty edge that crept into his voice. But I felt l had it coming after what I did to him, after what Dina did to him.
So I smiled and kept my mouth shut, but on the way home I stopped at a drugstore and bought ten different kinds of vitamins and minerals to boost hair, skin and nail health, and when I got home, I opened all the small bottles and tore into the pill sheets, scraping my finger on the vitamin B-complex wrapper. Which is when I finally burst into tears. Little witch, little witch fell down a ditch, scraped her finger and broke into whimpers.
“Trust me, I’m in no hurry to see Neria again,” I say.
“Then why do you want me to go to the party with you?”
Why do you think.
“Because you’re a fastidious accountant, that’s why; you notice every detail, and people who know Ronit and maybe Dina are going to be there. We might find out new information.”
He takes the crinkly can from me, peers inside to make sure it’s empty and tosses it into the garbage can, a good accountant never wastes a thing. “Sheila, it has nothing to do with the murder. You just want a man by your side there, that’s all. Don’t be embarrassed.”
But I am embarrassed, Eli, you little hamster, and anyway, when did we start telling each other the whole truth and nothing but? What’s so nice about friendships is that friends don’t have to share everything with each other, certainly not the truth, which is usually ugly and insulting. So yes, given that I’m likely to run into a few figures from my decidedly unglamorous past there, I’d indeed prefer to have a man by my side, especially a submissive, docile one like you, who’d let me ignore him the entire night. How’s that for the truth, huh, Eli?
He must have noticed a slight change in my expression, because he immediately says, “Don’t worry, I’ll go with you.” To which I reply, “Thanks, you’re the only person I trust,” and while my mouth is chewing out the words, I realize it’s the truth.
Then he just has to ask, “You haven’t heard anything from that detective?”
That detective. I see we aren’t quite ready to call him Micha yet. And no, I haven’t heard anything new, and I have no idea whether that’s a good or bad sign. It’s an excellent sign, you stupid baby. I automatically reach for my phone, and no, no missed calls. And how could there be any, when you’ve been staring at the damn thing all day?
The press also took half a step back, I mean the news pages, because the magazines were still brimming with the shock waves; just this Saturday, one of the women’s magazines featured a piece about “religious couples who choose not to have children,” or at least that’s what the tantalizing title advertised, but the reporter did everything within her power to wrest a limp promise out of each of the miserable couples that maybe, down the road, they’d reconsider their choice, that “maybe one day…” In a predictable yet ludicrous manner, the reporter pointed the finger of blame solely at the wives, while the husbands were granted full immunity and sympathizing support. One of them bore a remarkable resemblance to Eli.
“It’ll be okay, don’t worry,” he says, and it takes me a few seconds to realize he’s talking about Ronit’s party. He’s completely clueless about what he has agreed to because he doesn’t know Ronit, but I have no doubt that’s about to change. He’ll get to know her all right. The moment we step into her party together, she’ll be all over him. A scorpion never changes, and neither does a Lilith. I stick my pinkie in my mouth and taste the warm, soothing blood.
It’s the night of the survivors.
I look up at Ronit’s bright balcony, hear the voices carried in the air, whispers and giggles. I feel Eli’s body tense beside me. He looks exactly the way I wanted him to: a solid partner, but the kind of partner no one can quite figure out. There comes a time in every woman’s life when obfuscation is her best companion. Just as I start sucking in my stomach, I remember I don’t have to. I have my organ-crushing Lycra shapewear on for that. Sure, I’m sweating from every pore under this cling-film bodysuit, but like the saleswoman said: A building’s most important feature is its foundation, and yours could use a little reinforcement. And the most important parts of the foundation are the ones you can’t see.
The moment we step into the spacious, well-lit apartment, I’m instantly struck by the smell of alcohol, sweat and expensive perfumes. Eau de cougar. I take in IKEA’s version of a living room, complete with several nondescript landscapes on the walls. Well, well, turns out the seductive siren has the soul of a coupon-clipper. She even has the bulky EKTORP in off-white, possibly the ugliest armchair ever made. Currently sitting on this eyesore is a woman I vaguely recognize as an actress who starred in a commercial for some feminine hygiene product, maybe incontinence pads.
Standing by the door to the balcony is another semi-recognizable actor, muttering tired happy birthday greetings in front of someone’s smartphone screen. A few other couples are roaming the room, armed with tiny crackers and large wine glasses. Neria and Taliunger are nowhere to be seen, but I sidle up closer to Eli, just in case.
“I’m so happy you made it! Oh my, and you’re not alone!”
Ronit leaps at us from across the room in her dark, slinky dress, holding a glass of twinkling red wine that swirls and splashes as she zips towards us, making me fear for the fate of her spotless IKEA armchairs. Off-white can be quite unforgiving. She greets me with a peck on the cheek. For all its smudge-proof promises, I feel her lipstick smearing a clown-like red circle onto my cheek.
“Good to see you, Witchiepoo,” she smiles at me and immediately turns to Eli, “and you too, Mister Witchiepoo.” She holds out her hand with that dramatic poise of hers, and I can practically hear the cogs of her mind cranking and clicking as he shakes it. I consider her with weariness, a twenty-year-old weariness.
Eli stares at her and says, “Sheila and I are good friends.”
Ronit’s red smile widens into a devious grin.
She lifts her hand and performs the old, familiar gesture of running her fingers through her hair, and I smile at the thought that the gesture might be twenty years old, but Ronit is not. The dissonance is jarring, and the way she’s squinting like a leopardess on the prowl makes me think that this leopardess might need reading glasses.
“Really really good friends?” she asks, and I notice her black dress isn’t new. In fact, it’s either terminally old or has suffered one too many laundry spins.
“Pretty good,” he replies, and looks more like a punctilious accountant than ever.
Ronit, on the other hand, looks like a priestess sizing up a new follower. I remember how back then, when the group helped me land Neria Grossman, and we each had our distinct role, Ronit’s only duty was to remove herself from his field of vision. That’s all she needed to do, just pull a Houdini.
Out of the corner of my eye I notice a red-headed girl smiling at me from across the living room. As she raises her half-empty wine glass in my direction, she suddenly looks familiar. I turn to ask Ronit who she is, but Ronit and Eli have already disappeared.
And now, good lord, they’re stalking towards me.
Taliunger is in the lead, dragging a reluctant Neria by the hand. She waited for the moment I’d be alone to make her move. My God, my Eli, why hast thou forsaken me? I want to reach up, run my hand over my hair and tuck in the loose strands, but a small voice orders me to keep my hand where it is. No last-minute makeovers needed! You’re not some runny-nosed invalid recovering from mono this time, you’re a gorgeous woman in her prime, standing here in the middle of the living room with killer instincts and a winning smile, waiting to bump into Neria again as if it hasn’t been at least ten years since you last crossed paths. But it has been.
And here he is in front of me, and I sense Taliunger’s body tensing beside him. I look up and meet his gaze; still the same lofty height, nor has his face changed much with those bright eyes, and yet there’s no doubt this is a man in his forties. And the years have not been kind to him. As hard as I try, I can’t see the boy I once knew inside this man. He’s just a stranger in a living room. And was his nose always that crooked? I look at this tall stranger and feel nothing. And shooting into that nothingness is one distinct feeling: the spandex! First chance I get, I’ll go to the bathroom and peel it off me.
But Taliunger is a whole other story: standing beside us tense and tremulous, her face twitching underneath several strata of make-up, her stilettoes embedding themselves in the floor, she looks like a tiny nail. She shifts her gaze from me to Neria, her lips ready to curve into a smile, but her nerves get the better of her and her mouth flatlines. She still doesn’t get that I don’t care about him, same as back then.
Go ahead, Tali, you can smile.
But, boy, did I chase after Neria back in college.
The whole gang joined in on the effort. “What are friends for?” Dina said, but that icy look had already filtered into her eyes. It didn’t stop her from overseeing the entire operation, learning his class schedule and tracking his movements around his department building (“Hey, Neria, funny running into you here!”), finding out which protests he attended (“Hey, Neria, funny running into you here!”) and rifling through the phone book for his home number. Naama was entrusted with emotional support, and Ronit? Well, as I said before, she was tasked with not straying, even by accident, into his field of vision.
And what do you know, it actually worked. The hunt was deemed a success. I still remember the moment when one of my idiotic excuses for calling him yielded an invitation to go to the movies with him. A movie! I couldn’t believe my luck. But then, after a remarkably short period, came the moment of dumb dismay.
