Three

by D. A. Mishani

  Gil said he would call back in a few minutes to let her know if he could make it, but when he called he said he wasn’t coming.

  It wasn’t until the next day, in the therapist’s office, that Orna burst into tears. The therapist wanted to see her and Ronen together, before Ronen took Eran to the moshav, and he surprised her with what he told Ronen about her and his general conduct. It was the first time she’d felt he was on her side, and that he understood not only what Eran was going through but what she was too. In the first ten minutes of their session he really laid into Ronen: he told him that Eran had been through an extremely difficult year because of him, not only because of the separation but because Ronen had disappeared on him. He said that Ronen had to understand that divorcing a spouse was possible but you could not divorce your child, and that over the course of this year he’d had serious doubts about how responsible of a parent Ronen was. “Luckily for Eran, he has a mother like Orna, who, despite her grief and her personal crisis, managed to contain his crisis too, and despite the temptation to enlist the boy in her battle against her partner—a temptation that I’ve seen many parents unable to resist—she took care of Eran and helped him have faith that his father would want to come back into his life one day. Most mothers I know would have behaved differently, I hope you understand that.”

  Ronen looked at her. He said he completely understood. That no one knew better than he did what sort of mother Orna was to Eran.

  As she had been in the first weeks after he told her about Ruth and asked for a divorce, Orna was overcome with an intense urge to hit Ronen. She wanted to put her hands on his neck and dig her nails into his flesh and squeeze. But instead she burst into tears that she could not hold back, and she left the room for a moment.

  When she came back they were discussing the stay on the moshav. Ronen described the house they’d rented, right near his parents’ and brother’s places. He said that Eran would sleep in the same room as Ruth’s little ones, Julia and Peter, but that if he preferred he could stay with his grandparents next door, in the room he knew and had slept in many times before, and that Ronen could stay there with him. They didn’t have much planned other than spending time with Eran. They might go on a day trip to Masada and the Dead Sea, and another one to Jerusalem, but they could do those trips after Sukkot, too, when Eran went back to Orna’s.

  Eran’s therapist looked at Orna: “Is that acceptable to you?”

  She said, “We’ve already talked about it and that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? You’re in favour of it and you think Eran will want to go, so fine. Don’t ask me if it’s acceptable to me because I don’t want to answer.”

  The next day the therapist was supposed to meet Eran and ask him what he thought about the holiday plan, and then they would make the final decision. Yet, as if the decision had already been made, he gave Ronen his phone number at the end of the session and asked him to call with any questions or difficulties that might arise. Then he said, “What’s important for us all to clarify to Eran before the trip is that he’s not moving and not changing families, but just going to spend a few days with Dad and getting to know his new family, which from now on will also be a new family for him, even if he doesn’t see them very often.” He looked at Ronen and added, “I hope you understand that this is not going to be easy for you. Eran is a very sensitive child, and even though he loves you and is very gentle, he will test you, in his own way. Particularly now, when you will be, for the first time as far as he is concerned, not only his father but the father of four other children.”

  When they were at the door, the therapist asked Orna to stay for a moment, and Ronen said he would wait outside.

  “Are you sure you can take it?” he wondered.

  Orna almost cried again. “I don’t know. We’ll live and learn, right?”

  He put his hand on her shoulder for the first time since Eran had been seeing him, and came closer to her. He asked if she was planning to stay at home while Eran was gone and she said she hadn’t thought about it yet, but she probably would. He hinted that perhaps she should go on holiday, just to get away and not think too much. For a moment Orna thought he was about to suggest they go away together, but he didn’t. “And maybe you should also try therapy? You haven’t started anything yet, have you? I know someone excellent,” he added, after he’d let go of her shoulder and moved away.

  “Maybe later,” she said. “Let’s get through this first.”

  “Of course we’ll get through it, Orna. Everything will be okay.”

  11

  At nights, when she gets to the hotel and logs on to the internet, Orna’s mother sends pictures from Slovenia and Croatia. Lakes with sailboats, verdant mountains, bustling squares in picturesque towns. Close-ups of local delicacies served in decorative dishes on gingham tablecloths. The houses in the pictures are red, blue, and yellow, like in fairy tales.

  Ever since Ronen and Ruth’s visit, Orna has the sense that her home has been burgled, and she acts differently in it. It has become less of a home. Perhaps that is why she asks Gil to come over when Ronen and his new family take Eran to see the Milano Circus one evening, and another time late at night, when Eran is asleep in his room. She shuts his bedroom door, warns Gil and is careful not to make any noise, but perhaps deep inside she hopes Eran will wake up and find Gil and tell Ronen that he saw a man in Mum’s bedroom.

  That does not happen.

  Gil seems as though he is there under duress and leaves after a short while. He does not respond when she teases him with questions like, “So what did you tell Ruthi you were doing this evening?” or “How are Noa and Hadass? Didn’t they come over for dinner today?” She is unsure whether Gil is acquiescing to her invitations out of fear or out of pity. His discomfort is apparent; he talks very little, and there are moments when she truly feels sorry for him. They have sex in the bedroom that used to be hers and Ronen’s, on the same bed, and she seems to need that. She watches herself as if from the outside while they have sex, he on his back and she on top of him, moving on his pelvis almost violently, making herself feel both disgusted and determined, as if she is trying to arouse—or anger—someone who is not in the room. It’s clear to her that Gil would rather not be there, that he would prefer this relationship to be over, but he is afraid that if he ends it she will expose him to his wife and girls. Perhaps he also feels guilty. She is using him now, and even though he did the same thing to her, she feels badly about it and knows it cannot go on much longer. She asks him not to shower after they have sex because the bathroom shares a wall with Eran’s room and the sound of the water would wake him, and she knows this drives Gil mad. The second time he visits her at home, she thinks he shows more interest. He looks around, examines the photos on the fridge and the South American artefacts in the living room, peeks through the blinds, stops at her computer desk. His curiosity makes her think perhaps she should have let him get close to her.

  He tries to talk to her: “Don’t you want to tell me what you’re going through? Something seems wrong.” And she says, “You mean other than the fact that I’m sleeping with a married man who lied to me for six months?” Gil’s face falls, and she almost regrets answering him that way, not giving him another chance. In fact, she’d never given him one to begin with—he was right, after all, when he said that she wasn’t at peace with his presence in her life right from the start. But she pulls herself together and remembers that from their first date at Ha’Bima Square, long ago in early April, it had been hopeless because he’d constantly lied. When he asks, “How long are you planning to go on this way?” she says, “What way?” He says, “This way, with the anger and bitterness. Why do you ask me over here?” She looks at him and smiles: “The more interesting question is how long you could have gone on lying, isn’t it? I mean, if I hadn’t found out. What do you say—isn’t it time we tell your wife that we’re back in touch?” She didn’t really mean that, and had she
been asked why she said it and what she was hoping to accomplish, she wouldn’t have known how to answer. Very few people had known about their relationship, and no one knows it’s back on now. She isn’t even planning to tell her mother. When Sophie wonders, “Did you ever hear anything from that lawyer conman?” Orna says, “Radio silence. And it’s better that way.”

  Instead of packing a suitcase for herself to go on holiday, she packs one for Eran. Five days’ worth of clothes, mostly summer things because the forecast is predicting a heatwave, but also a pair of long trousers and one long-sleeved shirt, as the evenings can get chilly. Autumn has arrived, but there’s no rain yet. Swimming trunks and goggles in case they go to the Dead Sea, which they might, or the pool, which they definitely will. Two books—Captain Underpants and a picture book about the history of flight—and three model cars, his most treasured ones. There are lots of toys in the rental house, so there’s no need to pack too much. She asks Eran if she should put his special notebook in the suitcase and he says no, then changes his mind, perhaps because he senses her disappointment. She tells him countless times that she’ll miss him and that if he writes down what they did every day, they can read it together when he gets back, if he’d like to. She says she can also keep a diary while he’s gone. If she does, she thinks to herself, she’ll call it “the heartache notebook.”

  In the early evening she takes Eran to the beach, which she didn’t do enough over the summer. She takes his trunks out of the suitcase, and they drive to the Tel Baruch beach north of Tel Aviv. They walk on the rocks in a no-swimming area, collecting seashells and pretty stones and sea slugs in a blue bucket with sand and water. They place two glass jars with flour in them under the rocks to catch little fish. Later, when the sun starts to set and the beach empties out, they spread a towel out and wade into the warm water. The sea is dark, glimmering. The orange horizon turns blood red. The strong current pulls them towards the breaker and they hold on to each other, drift apart, then float back together. She dives and hugs his legs. When they get out of the water the wind is cold and they both shiver, and she says to Eran, “You see? If you know how to do the right things it can be terribly cold in Israel, even on the hottest day.” She wraps him in the orange towel. They sit on the sand munching grapes and looking at the sea. Planes take off from the nearby Sde Dov airfield, thundering above them and exciting Eran, and she feels that this evening is everything she needs, that it is everything one can hope for in life. But she also knows that the fear inside her is growing deeper, and that this evening is meant to prevent Eran from forgetting her. It is meant to give him something special from her, which will be with him on the days he spends with Ronen and convince him not to want to stay with his new family.

  By the time Ronen arrives at eleven the next morning, Eran is on pins and needles. She can see that he feels pure joy, unspoiled by anxiety. Ronen is businesslike. He comes up alone, takes Eran’s suitcase and carries it down to the car. Then he comes back and asks Eran if he remembered to pack a toothbrush. They’ve already had all the “are you sure you’ll be okay?” conversations in the preceding days, and he does not say a word to Orna now. He waits in the living room while she says goodbye to Eran in his room. She reminds him over and over again that he can call her whenever he wants, that she will come and pick him up if he’s uncomfortable, that if it’s hard for him with the kids because of the German or for any other reason, he has Dad and also Grandma and Grandpa not far away, that she loves him and will be waiting here for him. Eran is impatient, longing to set off on his new adventure, his body taut as a coil. The minute she lets go, he wriggles out of her arms and rushes to the living room to find Ronen. She does not watch from the window as they get into the car.

  And she has nothing planned for the moment after.

  The hatred breaks free.

  She cleans the house, goes shopping at the discount supermarket, stops at the pharmacy for painkillers, and at the nearby bookshop buys the third volume of the series she began in the summer and finished only a few days ago: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. She sits at the computer for a while, and at three o’clock she gets into bed with the book. How many years has it been since she was alone at home for several days? The last time was when Eran was six and Ronen took him to Lake Kinneret for two days, but then she had loads of exams to mark. For a little while she enjoys the tranquillity of the afternoon hours in bed, the grey light filtering through the window into the dark room, and the first few pages of the book. Sophie made her a list of TV series she could lie in bed and watch, but for now she prefers to read. Her eyes close and open and close again, sweet weariness relaxes her leg muscles; but very soon her thoughts wander south, to the moshav.

  Ruth welcomes Eran at the front door. She hugs him. Shows him the bed he will sleep in for five nights. Helps him unpack the suitcase that Orna packed, arranges his clothes in the wardrobe. Touches his notebook.

  Julia, the blond girl, barefoot and dishevelled and shirtless, waits for them to finish so she can take Eran out to the yard. In the past few nights Orna has dreamed about her twice, and in both dreams she was walking hand in hand with Eran.

  The fear that he will fall in love with them, with all of them. That he will want to go to Nepal with them.

  The hatred of Ronen, who hugs Ruth from behind while they watch Eran and Julia run around the garden.

  She gets up to make coffee. She calls Sophie, who’s run out of ideas for keeping the kids busy in the school holidays. She asks Orna to join them on a Saturday hike at the Banias River up north with Itzik’s friends from work.

  She calls Gil twice, and the fact that he doesn’t answer even though he’s available fuels her anger. Finally he picks up and says he’s in Bucharest for work. “Are you sure you’re in Bucharest?” she asks. “If I pop over to your and Ruthi’s place now, are you sure you won’t be there?” He simply does not respond.

  Then she says, “Ronen is in Israel. My ex-husband. He came for a visit and I think he wants to take Eran away from me. He took him for the school holidays and I don’t want to live.” Gil says, “I’m sorry to hear that. Can I help with anything?” She laughs. She remembers how she contemplated blackmailing him so he would pretend they were a couple. Maybe she really should have done it. Demanded that he come and be with her when Ronen came over with Ruth. But she knows it’s absolute nonsense, that she wouldn’t have felt any better if he had been there while Ronen and his new family came, perhaps even the opposite, and that the idea was merely a manifestation of her desire to have someone, the way Ronen did, so that she would not be alone when she saw him.

  “I’ll come see you when I get back, Orna, all right? Tell me what he’s planning and we’ll see what can be done, okay? I have to go now, I’m in between work meetings here.”

  At night, when the phone rings, she is sure it’s Ronen and Eran again, even though they spoke two hours earlier, after Eran had showered and was ready for bed. She is disappointed to see that it’s not them but Gil, and that Eran must have managed to fall asleep without her and their bedtime story after all. Gil says, “I’ve been thinking, I have a great idea. Why don’t you come here tomorrow or the day after? Have a holiday while Eran’s gone. I’ll push back my flight home, and that way you’ll believe that I’m in Bucharest, won’t you?”

  He offers to pay for her ticket. He’ll book her a room in his hotel if she doesn’t want to stay in the same room. Or he can get her a different hotel if she prefers. He’ll pick her up at the airport and give her a tour of the city and they can have fun together, but she can also walk around on her own if she’d like. She considers it seriously for a moment. Why not Bucharest, really? But she knows she won’t go, because of the chance that Eran might want to come home early. She has to stay close to him. Besides, she needs to call off this relationship with Gil, and going to Romania with him would be the exact opposite of that. She remembers their night in the Scottish Guesthouse in Jerusalem, during the bri
ef time when she thought something could come of it and the many hours when she knew, even then, that nothing would, even though she hadn’t yet discovered that he was married. He told her then, “You still haven’t said what you think,” and when she asked, “About what?” he said, “About us. About me. About what’s happening between us or what might happen.”

  Now she says, “And what exactly am I supposed to tell people?”

  “Tell them whatever you want. You said you didn’t tell anyone we were seeing each other, right? So say you’re going on a little holiday alone.”

  At night Orna dreams about the blond girl again, but this time Eran isn’t with her. In the morning she can’t remember the whole dream, only that the girl got into the swimming pool alone, and that Orna wondered if she knew how to swim because the currents in the pool were strong, and then the girl looked at her from up close, with large eyes, and said something in German that Orna couldn’t understand, perhaps a warning.

  An hour after she wakes up, Eran phones, just as Ronen promised, to say that he’d slept well and had had French toast with maple syrup for breakfast and they were going on a hike in the desert soon. Orna can hear in Eran’s voice that he is happy.

  He asks if he can stay with Dad for longer than five days.

  12

  Gil wasn’t waiting for her at the airport. She’d turned her phone on when they landed and found a text message from a number she did not recognize: “Held up in town with work. Take a cab to the hotel and I’ll call when we finish here. If you don’t have Romanian currency, you can change money at the airport.” Eran had sent her a message, too, from Ronen’s phone: “Mum hav a grate trip and a good time. We are gowing to Gran and Grampa.”