Three

by D. A. Mishani

  June comes to an end. Summer holidays. Eran had asked to go to camp at school with all his schoolfriends, and she’d agreed. The birthday party had improved his social standing, and he even had a classmate named Roi over one afternoon.

  Her mornings, after she walks Eran to camp, become slow and long. She marks matriculation exams, turns on the air conditioning and turns it back off when it gets too cold, and at twelve makes herself something for lunch. When she’s near the supermarket she picks up a free newspaper and goes over the classifieds, curious about parttime jobs or a higher-paying teaching job, even though she has no real desire to leave her job, nor any plans to apply for head of year or head teacher. She sees ads for lawyers offering foreign passport application services, but none of them is for Gil Hamtzani.

  He goes abroad a lot, and they see less of each other. Three days in Bucharest in the first week of July, four days in Bulgaria in the second week. Their dates and phone calls become less frequent, though it’s not clear who is driving that. Perhaps it’s both of them, but it’s not as if they make a decision and let each other know that things aren’t working out.

  Everyone around her is going away or planning to. Sophie and Itzik take a three-week trip to the east coast of the US. The downstairs neighbours ask Orna to water their plants while they’re on holiday in Thailand. Eran’s therapist is also planning a long summer trip, and she meets him before he leaves. He sums up the past year for Eran, at school and at home, and says there is still a long way to go but he thinks Eran is coping well. Eran understands that Dad didn’t leave because of him and his difficulties, but because he chose a new wife and a new job, a new country and a new life, and he still loves Eran even from afar. It’s been more than a month since Eran’s birthday, and Ronen still hasn’t answered her messages, but Eran hasn’t mentioned him. Eran writes fairly regularly in the notebook she bought him and brings it to his therapy sessions, voluntarily. He manages to write about his fears in a way that is surprisingly direct for his age, but also writes about a lot of happy moments at school and at camp with his friends. He is still slightly detached from the other kids, he keeps them at arm’s length, but he is an observant and insightful boy, and his rare ability to verbally describe what he sees and feels is developing. Towards the end of their meeting, the therapist asks Orna about the man she’s dating, both because she’d mentioned him and because, as it turns out, Eran has told him about the “friend” Mum sees sometimes. Orna is embarrassed. She apologizes for not updating him, as if she had an obligation to do so, and admits that she once stayed out all night and left Eran with her mother. To her surprise, the therapist says he sees this as a positive. He encourages her to tell Eran more, to say that she’s going out for fun or going on a trip with the friend, so that Eran can see that she is also starting a new life. If she tells him everything, or almost everything, Eran will probably be less afraid that in her new life, as in his father’s, he will have no place. When the therapist asks if she is planning to have them meet, she immediately says, “Who? Eran and Gil? No chance,” and realizes that at least for now she feels she will not be able to do that, even if their relationship continues.

  Orna’s mother interrogates her about Gil and, having asked her to stay with Eran overnight, Orna can no longer avoid her questions. She tells her his name, says he’s a lawyer, gives general details about his office and where he lives and his daughters and his ex-wife, but when her mother wants to know more, she becomes defensive, as she always does, because she thinks her mother is mostly trying to find out if he has any money.

  She tells her that when she was gone that night she slept in his flat, and that they go out to movies and restaurants. He’s on good terms with his ex-wife but there’s no chance of them reconciling.

  “How do you know? Aren’t they in touch?”

  Something about her mother’s questions forces her to try to understand why she still isn’t sure if the relationship is right or not, and whether Gil really is less excited to see her recently or if she’s just imagining it. Sophie suggests that she make a list of pros and cons, which seems unnecessary, so she doesn’t write it out, but she can’t stop conducting the balance sheet in her mind. Before their dates she is usually happy to be seeing him. They have things to talk about, and she thinks she enjoys their hotel time. But there are also moments when, probably because of what it lacks, the relationship floods her with despair and pain and even self-hatred. She isn’t sufficiently attracted to him and isn’t sure whether that would change if he lost weight. There are things he does that strike her as compulsive, like the long showers right after sex and the fact that he takes his phone into the bathroom with him, and the way he always places his wallet on top of his phone on the bedside table in the hotel or on the table in restaurants and cafés.

  And she doesn’t ever want to be in his flat again, although she can’t explain why to herself.

  She’s never visited his office, doesn’t know exactly what he does at his job, nor is she curious about it. She didn’t see his bike when she was at his place, either inside or down in the lobby. And on one of their last dates he did say something that put her off. They were discussing the political situation; everyone was talking about how there’d been a war last summer and since things were heating up again along the southern border and there’d been rockets fired into Israel, they wondered if there’d be another war this summer. Gil remarked that these little wars were good for his business. “My accountant was the one who first noticed it, because you can see it on the income graph,” he explained. “After every military operation, anyone who is eligible and hasn’t done it yet rushes out to get a foreign passport, to sort of have a Plan B in case we don’t survive the next war, or just because it’s more pleasant to get into foreign countries with a European passport.”

  She assumed the affair would fade away of its own accord. That, in fact, it already was.

  She sensed that Gil wouldn’t fight for the relationship and knew she herself wouldn’t insist on it, and perhaps that was a sign that it was best to let go. Eran’s camp would be over in mid-August, and she’d have to find a way to pass the two weeks before school started, so she’d be exhausted in the evenings anyway. Then it would be autumn and she’d have something left over from her relationship with Gil, even if it was finished: when she used the dating site again, which she probably would, she’d be more experienced. Perhaps she’d know how to read the profiles and look at the pictures differently, and when she met someone it would be something beyond just new and frightening.

  But suddenly he started phoning more. He said he’d had a couple of busy weeks at work and asked if she was planning any trips. She said she wasn’t. She’d be happy to take Eran to Amsterdam or London for a week, or to a quiet Greek island, but it was too expensive right now, and her mother, who in the spring had seemed likely to offer to help them go on holiday and maybe even join them, had informed Orna that she was going on a package tour of Croatia and Slovenia on the High Holy Days and didn’t mention the possibility of helping out again. Gil asked if there was a chance that she’d go away with him for a few days at the end of August, his treat, and she said no. She couldn’t leave Eran for a week—even one night had been difficult for her, and also she wasn’t clear on the status of their relationship, and it seemed too soon for them to go on holiday together.

  Gil asked, “What do you mean? What aren’t you clear on?”

  “I don’t know. Are things clear to you?”

  “What’s clear to me is that I enjoy being with you.”

  What had she expected him to say? She couldn’t even say that much to him without reservations. And she secretly thanked him for being subtle enough not to ask her the obvious: don’t you enjoy being with me?

  A few minutes after that call he texted her:

  Then how about a weekend away in Israel? A B&B in the Golan?

  You need a holiday too, don’t you? We can go this
weekend if it works for you, I’d be really into it.

  She debated and wrote several messages and deleted them before replying:

  This weekend doesn’t work.

  A week later they went to Jerusalem.

  Gil came to pick her up on Friday morning, and Eran and her mother watched from the window behind semi-shut blinds as she got into his car, Orna having told her mother there was no chance she’d ask Gil to come up. She didn’t take a suitcase but a medium-sized handbag with toiletries and make-up, a phone charger, a change of clothes and a book she’d started reading on mornings with Eran on the beach. Before packing she’d laid out what she was taking on her bed, the way she used to do before trips. His Kia Sportage was high and spacious and amazingly clean, inside and out, and it was freezing cold from the air conditioning. Gil leaned over and kissed her on the lips after she put her bag on the back seat. The radio was tuned to the classical music station, and when the car pulled away in a strange silence, as though floating above the road, the realisation spread through her that she was really going on holiday. For the first time in who knows how long.

  Gil had booked a room at the Scottish Guesthouse, in a church above the Valley of Hinnom, for the night of the twenty-first of August.

  Orna had wanted to stay there for years, and immediately fell in love with the modest, practical rooms and everything around them: the shaded gravel courtyard behind the church, with coffee tables and chairs scattered around haphazardly, and the two tables set out near the entrance with a view of East Jerusalem. They drank coffee there after settling into their room, which was ready even though they were early. It wasn’t a luxury hotel, but it was peaceful and had a simple beauty, which she felt was exactly what she needed.

  The midday temperature climbed up to 36 degrees, but they still spent the day outside. They strolled around the historic neighbourhoods of Yemin Moshe and Mishkenot Sha’ananim, then crossed the main road and walked into the eastern part of the city. At lunchtime they took a cab downtown, to the Machane Yehuda market. They had a small lunch of hot cheese bourekas at a market stall, because Gil had booked a restaurant for an early supper. At four they went back to the hotel to rest, and they had sex, and it was better than it had been before, maybe because it was early in the day and the room had a dark, pleasant coolness and there was a sense of freedom. The restaurant was near the hotel, so they walked. They drank a whole bottle of wine and talked with greater frankness than before, more thanks to him than to her.

  He asked about Eran and Ronen, and she told him Ronen had finally called last Saturday, and had told Eran he was planning to visit soon, maybe on Sukkot. She wasn’t sure if it would really happen and she also wasn’t sure if it would make her happy—in fact she knew it scared her very much, but she could see that the possibility of his father visiting was thrilling for Eran. She was fearful ahead of the start of the new school year, as she always was, because she didn’t know who Eran’s teacher was going to be and if they would understand him and be patient with him. But the way last year had ended and Eran’s decision to go to the school camp had given her hope that he was opening up and starting to make friends.

  Gil was relaxed, even more than on their usual dates in Tel Aviv, possibly because he hadn’t been at work all day, and she thought about how he almost never got a call on his mobile when they were together. On the way to the hotel there was a nice breeze, almost cool, and Gil said, “We’ve known each other for almost four months now, haven’t we?”

  “Almost? It’s more than four, I think.”

  “And you still won’t tell me what you think.”

  “About what?”

  “About us. About me. About what’s going on between us.”

  She walked quietly, thinking, and then said, “It’s a bit hard to put these things into words, isn’t it?”

  He just wanted her to know that he understood why it was difficult for her, how complicated it was, and that he wasn’t in a hurry. It felt good for her to hear that, but when he added that as far as he was concerned, if she wanted to, they could continue more or less the way things were, she felt that something about his words was jarring—it almost sounded like a job offer.

  That night they had sex again, and it was shorter. He hurried to the shower afterwards, for the second time that day, and then he went to his car because he’d left something in the boot, and he came back after more than twenty minutes, by which time she was almost asleep. In the morning she awoke to the sound of water running in the shower and realized he’d got up before her. He’d left his phone next to the bed this time, underneath his wallet, either because he’d forgotten to take it into the bathroom or because he thought she was asleep. Orna picked it up, and when she found it didn’t require a password she quickly flipped through the apps. She even opened his WhatsApp for a moment, but she had no time to see anything unusual and she put the phone back when she heard the water being turned off.

  Three days later she saw him with his wife.

  6

  Tuesday, the last week of the summer holidays. In the morning she had a staff meeting ahead of the new school year, and she took Eran with her; he played on his tablet in the office. Her schedule was almost identical to last year’s, even though she had two new Year Ten classes. She’d promised Eran a fun day out in Tel Aviv afterwards, the last one for the summer. They’d do a craft workshop at the Tel Aviv Museum, lunch at McDonald’s and see a movie at the Dizengoff Centre mall.

  She saw Gil when they reached the third floor on the escalator, as soon as they turned left towards the box office. He was standing in the queue at a juice bar with two young girls who Orna immediately knew were his daughters, Noa and Hadass. For a moment she thought of turning back, or ignoring him and walking past without saying a word—Gil hadn’t seen her because he was trying to get the attention of the young girl with piercings behind the counter—but that was stupid, and she thought maybe this was the right way to introduce him to Eran, just by chance, without making a big deal out of it, when he was with his girls. She whispered to Eran, “See that man standing there with the girls? That’s the friend I told you about, who I sometimes meet.” In the seconds that passed between when she noticed him and when they were standing behind him, a woman appeared next to him, or perhaps she’d been there before but Orna hadn’t noticed her because she hadn’t thought to make the connection.

  Orna said, “Hi, Gil,” and he turned to her. He looked surprised. Not startled. They hadn’t talked since the weekend in Jerusalem, because she was busy with preparations for the school year and Gil had said he was going away for three days, she couldn’t remember exactly when, but they’d planned to meet this weekend and she’d been looking forward to it after Jerusalem. If he’d tried to kiss her on the lips or the cheek in front of Eran she would have pulled back, but something in his response paralysed her. He was distant, indifferent even, and his expression remained unchanged as he quickly scrutinized Eran. She said, “This is Eran,” and Gil said, “Nice to meet you, Eran,” and then turned to his daughters and added, “This is Orna Azran, an old client of mine.” Her first thought was that he had said that because of the girls, and she might have continued to think so if not for the woman, who was trying to be friendly to both of them, but especially to Eran. “Nice to meet you,” she said with a smile, “I’m Ruthi, his wife. Are you also going to the movies?”

  Eran watched the movie transfixed, and Orna thought about Gil as anger and hurt pride surged inside her. In the hours that followed, she was upset, but not all of the time. It came in waves. Gil had been lying to her for over four months. Was he really married? It seemed so. Even though there was a chance that Ruthi was his ex-wife and had introduced herself as his wife because she was used to doing so, or because there was no point introducing yourself to strangers as “his ex-wife”. Gil had told her they were on good terms and sometimes saw each other. But if that was the case, then why had he introduced Orn
a as “an old client”?

  She urged Eran to skip the ice cream and promised him he could watch TV at home. On the way she tried not to think about Gil so as not to lose her concentration while she was driving. The afternoon traffic from Tel Aviv to Holon was heavy, and Eran was in a talkative mood, so she turned the radio on. He didn’t say anything about Gil and didn’t seem to notice what had happened to her after seeing him. When they got home, she turned on the TV in his room and logged on to her computer as if she had something urgent to do, but she didn’t know what to do. She went on to the dating site and opened up Gil’s profile and stared at it. He hadn’t called or texted yet, maybe because he was still on his family outing. At half past seven, an hour before the usual time, they’d already had supper and showered, and she read Eran only two pages of a book, explained that she was tired and asked him to try to fall asleep on his own.

  Sophie was still in the States, and Orna would never tell her mother. Her instinct in times of distress was still to talk to Ronen, but that was out of the question, and he wouldn’t have answered anyway.

  She got into bed, and when she lay down she felt as if she were suffocating. She was as scared as she’d been on those first few nights after Ronen left. She didn’t turn on the light in her bedroom or get up, and the fear did not fade until she fell asleep. There were so many things she didn’t understand: his relaxed air whenever they met, his flat, the way he always answered when she phoned and was almost always free to meet whenever she wanted to, the nights they’d spent together at the hotel and the weekend in Jerusalem. The fact that he’d never behaved secretively. That didn’t fit with the possibility of him being married. When she woke up at quarter past five in the morning she had no messages or missed calls from him, and she knew then with certainty that he would not get in touch with her, that he would not call to explain, that he was planning to simply disappear from her life without a word.