by Sara Shilo
6
My head is spinning. I’d better lie down again. What was I thinking about? When my fate was written on the same piece of paper as Mas’ud’s. When we came to the camp in Marseilles and they told every family how long they would stay. They’d count the time according to the sehina of Sabbath. They’d say, ‘You’re sitting four sehinas.’ Then you’d know you’d have to wait four Sabbaths in the camp before the ship would take you. Papa greased the palms that needed to be greased, shaping the path of my life, and Mas’ud’s family got on the same ship: the Jerusalem. I didn’t see or hear him in the camp, but on the ship I heard him for the first time. His voice was like fire, shooting into my ear, playing with me. It was the first time I’d felt such fire.
I was fifteen, a quiet girl, but in one day I changed. Mas’ud’s fire found the seeds of laughter in my belly, and it heated them, making them jump, the way corn seeds jump, hop-hop, opening and exploding, brown skins breaking to show the white inside. My laughter on that ship was like the white of corn seeds, their lightness, their swelling. My laughter and his became travelling companions. Every time I heard his voice, the hard seeds began to heat and pop. My laughter followed Mas’ud’s voice all around the ship.
He didn’t talk to me, though. What would he have to say to me? He walked around with his brothers and his friends. I didn’t listen to everything he said, just the sound of his voice. We were just two kids who didn’t know a thing. But then, we started looking for each other. As soon as I heard his voice on the deck, I would go out and pretend to be looking at the sea or the white birds. When his voice went into the dining room, my laughter followed it. Then my laughter went into Mas’ud’s ear, tickling it, and he started to laugh as well. He’d wander around, then come outside, too. All the way from Marseilles to Haifa, my laughter was like the popping of corn, the sea salt sticking to it, and his like the moment the juice is squeezed from purple grapes and turns to wine. Our laughter became companions on the ship. We didn’t say a word to each other, but our laughs became married for life.
Our eyes met just once. Like a zip, we were caught in each other right to the top. We couldn’t breathe. Then the zip opened, all the way to the bottom, and we turned away. We stepped from the sea to the land, and the fire in me went out.
My family went south, to Ashdod, and his went north. For two days the hot seeds in me kept popping. Then they cooled and hardened. My belly hurt all the time. The officials threw one family here, another there. But we had our luck, and it didn’t abandon us. After a year and a half in Ashdod, my brothers bumped into him at the port and brought him home, just some guy that was with us on the ship. They had no idea what we meant to each other.
Akh ya rab, what wouldn’t I give for Mas’ud’s hand now? He’d reach out and I’d put my hand on his. His hand was the car and mine was the driver. Like on our wedding night, at the beginning, I took him on a journey of my skin. I didn’t let him wander around by himself. I treated him like a child, teaching him how to touch my body. His left hand had a callous on the little finger, and I loved to put it on my body. His whole hand was like butter, the callous tracing patterns on me.
Simona’s gone mad. She’s sitting in the goal of the football pitch, and what is she doing? Trying to prise a little stone out of the dirt. But all the stones have been hammered into the dirt by the energetic running men. If she had found a stone, she’d have taken off a nylon stocking and put the stone inside, so it would feel like Mas’ud’s left hand, the one with the callous.
My hand on yours, Mas’ud, my eyes and my mouth closed, just our hands on a journey. Where shall we go tonight? Where didn’t we go, Mas’ud? We went on hundreds of trips, ones that were short, funny, dangerous, scenic, direct, backwards and wet. Then there were the ones when I’d hold your hand, and you’d lower your voice and whisper in my ear, ‘Simi? Simi? Put your hand in mine. I’ll be yours and you’ll be mine.’ Instantly my body would be filled with soda, with little balls of air.
At first I was afraid of the nights. I didn’t want to be in bed with him all by myself. My throat would start to hurt. I’d start to shake and feel sick. What to do? My fingers were more useful than my brain. Ever since I was little, since the day Maman died, I understood that my head was just for school. What does my head know about improving life? It’s little better than a lump of rock. But my fingers, which are light and move where I want them to, have power, the sort that can help me to live. So I’d think with my fingers. I’d put them on the table, quickly, like a touch-typist, and, one by one, creep each finger onto the knuckles of its opposite, until they were interlacing. Then I’d put them on my chest and let them talk to my heart: Stop asking to be sick, Simona. Why do you want to be sick? What good will it do? At night, with Mas’ud, you can forget about being human. In bed your head will shrink, until there’s no room for thinking. Close your eyes, free your mind, as if it’s a bird, and your body will do what it wants. Anyway, what’s in bed? Just two bodies behaving like animals, not people. When you wake, everything will come back. Don’t be afraid. In the morning, nothing stays the same.
That’s how it was. In the morning I’d be afraid that I’d get out of bed and find out I’d turned into a cat or some other furry creature, and, to tell the truth, I did smell like an animal in the morning, my hair all knotted and bushy. My eyes in the bathroom mirror didn’t seem human, and my tongue would move in my mouth as if trying to remember how to make words. I’d walk out of the house in the morning, looking from side to side like a child crossing the road for the first time. I was always afraid I’d bump into someone who’d see through me. I’d shake until I realised that there was nothing to be afraid of, that no one could see what I’d turned into.
I used to walk from our apartment to the grocer’s, and my face was like an open book, like a shaken soda bottle that spills half its contents on the floor when opened. In the first month after our wedding, I had to put a lid on it. I’d look at people and wonder how they walked around with such sour faces if that’s what they were doing all night. I’d look at Yaffa, who lived next door to us, searching for evidence of the night on her. I’d visit you in the building where you were plastering, seemingly to bring you food, but really because I was going crazy not seeing you all day, and also to look at Zion, Yaffa’s husband, who was working with you. I’d look for traces of animal in him, but never saw anything. I could never work out how people had the strength to work all day when they hadn’t slept all night. I was always dead tired. I’d have a shower, comb my hair, which came down to my waist, plait it, buy some groceries, cook, bring you lunch, wash the few metres of floor we had, look for whatever else I had to do, then fall asleep until you came home.
It took me a long time, until I was already three months pregnant with Kobi, to work out that not everyone did it all night. What a stupid girl I was. A sweet girl, with a stupid head.
Akh ya rab. Maybe before the Katyusha gets me, I’ll get that stupid head back for a minute. Listen, I’m only asking to have it back for just a moment, the head of that girl who didn’t have a care in the world. Eighteen-year-old Simona who had no troubles, and no fear of future troubles, which sit, like twin towers, on everyone else’s shoulders, stopping their heads from turning. Just for a minute, put the spinning top of that girl back on my body, the head of a girl who thought people were all the same, except everyone else could control themselves, hiding evidence of the journeys they took every night.
What did I love about you? When you lay beside me and slowly untied my plait. If you did it too fast, I’d jump so you’d think you had pulled my hair. Then you’d light a match in my ear and whisper, ‘Kshhh, pshhh.’ Your fingers were like the feet of four dwarves, climbing barefoot up the ladder of my body, and your voice filled me with laughter, just as it did on the ship. Then I’d turn to you and put my hands in your armpits, which were like the part of the corn-tassel underneath the outer layer. It was the most delicate part of you, a secret part that didn’t fill me with shame. I’d
bring my hands up to my nose to discover your smell. It was different every day. When you came home, I’d tell you not to have a shower for that reason. I’d smell your work day on my hands, knew if you’d been afraid or angry, if you’d had a good day. You wouldn’t tell me anything. When I asked, you’d just throw out, ‘Thank God’, as if you were gritting the husk of a sunflower seed between your teeth. I never managed to get any more out of you.
Ay, Mas’ud, your smell is still here, I swear. Not the smell of falafel oil, but the smell of Mas’ud the plasterer. You’re here! I’m not going to open my eyes, but my nose is searching for you in the air. Ay, Mas’ud, how am I going to talk to you now? I haven’t spoken to you for six years. I haven’t looked at your picture. I just wanted to forget about you. Tonight it’s over. This is my last night, Mas’ud. How can I tell you about the day they took your body away from me and put you into the ground? How can I bring you Simona, when they left her body outside?
All our hidden, secret things were there, the things people don’t talk about. But I knew they were there. I clung to them, made them stay next to me, but you were stronger, and they all fell into the grave with you. Nothing stayed in my world. I haven’t thought of them once in six years. They were buried. But tonight, I’m going to exhume them, pull them out one by one.
Do you remember, Mas’ud, how I used to get you out of bed to come and help me? ‘Can you put Etti in her cot for me? Look, she’s fast asleep. She had a tiny feed, then she closed her eyes.’
‘Bless her, look at her hands,’ you’d say to me, but quietly so she wouldn’t wake up. ‘Her fingers are always open. That girl is not the type to be frightened, Simi, believe me.’
‘Come here, Ma’sud, look at Kobi. He always sleeps as straight as a board, as if he went to sleep like that and won’t move until the morning.’
‘That’s why he wakes up so strong,’ you’d say.
‘Look, Mas’ud, Itzik and Dudi are sleeping back to back. Come on, close the door and let them sleep.’
Give me your hand, Mas’ud, just as you used to do. Not your right hand. The other one. Here, here’s your hand. Let’s go on a great adventure. Come back to life, just for a while. In a few minutes, a Katyusha will come and then I’ll go with you to your place. We’ll go tonight, together. My hand on yours. That’s how we’ll go. We won’t let anyone separate us.
I won’t open my eyes until you come to our apartment with me. I need you to come now, so I’ll believe you came back from the dead. That you time-travelled through six years and fell into my world. Won’t you come with me? Here are the stairs. You go first. Open the door; walk in. Six years is a long time, yet it flies by. Now you’re with me, I can’t remember anything of those years. They’ve become just a moment in time.
Open whichever door you like. Both apartments are ours. Two and a half years ago, the Elmakeises went to Tiberias, and we got their apartment. We knocked down a wall and made two homes into one. Back then everyone was moving because of the elections. Amsalem moved to the terraces; Dahan and Biton also knocked two apartments together. The Romanos from downstairs went to the new development near Magen David. Everyone with half a brain moved or extended their apartment back then. What’s the matter? What’s the matter? Why are you leaving? Why aren’t you coming in? Are you angry?
I’ll tell you what happened. Look, I’m telling you. They asked me, and I said ‘Fine.’ What’s the matter? I just said, ‘Fine’. At the polling station, no one looks at your ballot paper. They don’t know how you’ve voted. Ay, Mas’ud, what are you trying to tell me by rolling your eyes like that? What should we have done? Stay in a two-room apartment, just so some guy gets a piece of paper with his name on it? Look at me and I’ll tell you the truth: I voted for the right person. I did. But they can all go to hell. I couldn’t care less who won.
At first I didn’t think I would vote. Then, suddenly, they were at my door. They took me in their car, as if I were a queen, gave me a ballot paper. I left the house just as I was, no bag, no pockets, just my identity card. I went into the polling station. I thought I’d change my vote for what you would have wanted. I stood there, shaking. I had no idea what to do. Would they find my paper in the box and know that I’d switched votes? The paper was creased with the sweat from my palms. I was convinced they would have recognised it. Then I thought they might be timing me, to see how long I stayed inside. So I quickly put the paper into the ballot box. Then I went back to the car, and they brought me home. Four months after the elections I got this big apartment for the kids.
What do you want to do now? Make the apartment small again? They told us we didn’t get the new apartment because of the elections, that it was just gossip. They said that it was because they were constructing new buildings anyway, new places for people to move to, that they wanted the Home Office to think the town was well populated so they’d invest in it. Listen, even Edri got a house, and everyone knows how he votes. Enough of this. Stop rolling your eyes and open the door, but quietly, so they don’t wake. How would I explain that you came back just for the night?
Itzik made the old kitchen into his bedroom. I have no idea how he got his bed in there. Kobi and I shouted at him, but he didn’t listen. He pushed with all his might, and in it went. Now I don’t have anywhere to keep the mop. What can I do? His bird nests in the sink. It’s a good thing it’s asleep. I’m afraid of it – and I’m afraid of him, too. He just looks at it all day long. You’d think they were married. He only talks to the bird and Dudi. He dropped out of school and wanders the street. That’s his life. At least he doesn’t steal. Why are you standing over him, Mas’ud? Don’t you want to see the rest of the apartment? Why are you worried about him? That’s just the way he is. I don’t know why he’s lying like that. I’ve never noticed it. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of his. His face is like a stone, unreadable. Quite honestly, I’ve only ever been in here once, and I had to run out again because of the smell. That’s the truth. Once was enough. He’s a teenager now. I don’t know how I didn’t notice him growing up. I didn’t notice he was shaving, either. How can he shave with those hands? How could I not have noticed my boy was growing up? He’s already bar mitzvah age but how I can organise a bar mitzvah for him? He doesn’t have a father to take him to the rabbi, and I don’t have the money to pay for it.
You go on, Mas’ud. Leave me here with Itzik for a minute.
Wait, wait. You can’t go on your own. Wait. Look, here’s Dudi’s room. He never sleeps in his own bed until the morning. He gets up every night, and walks into the new apartment to sleep in his brothers’ room. Look, here it is. However big the house is, they sleep like sardines. Etti’s grown up already. Look at her, there in the other bed. And Dudi’s in the bed next to hers, see? And here are the new children. I’m picking up the blanket so you can see them, the two of them. Chaim and Oshri. Your twins. You left them inside me when you went. I named both of them after you. What should I say now? Congratulations? Should I congratulate you, Mr Dadon, on the twins you had five and a half years ago? I’m playing the part of the nurse who comes out to tell you the good news.
No, you can’t pick them up. No, Mas’ud. I will not allow a dead hand upon them. The living and the dead don’t go together.
Now they’ve woken up. I’ll tell you why they’re saying ‘Grandpa’. It’s because that’s who they think you are. Don’t scare them, Mas’ud. Where are you going now? To our room?
That’s better. Rest. No, wait there. Don’t go by yourself.
Ay, why are you turning to leave? Look. That’s not a new man. Come back, look properly. It’s Kobi. Our Kobi. What’s the matter? Didn’t you recognise your eldest son? Kobi sleeps with me. I didn’t bring a new man into our home. It’s just your boy lying there. From the day the twins were born, he’s been with me every step of the way. Bless him. He wasn’t even fourteen and he stayed awake all night long, helping me with the little ones. Where would I be today without Kobi? Etti slept like a log. In the mornin
g she used to say, ‘Why didn’t you wake me so I could help?’ But Kobi was there every night: giving bottles, changing nappies, bathing them, never leaving me alone for a minute. Look at him now: he’s nineteen, working, bringing home a salary. He’s a good boy.
Why does he sleep with me? It’s because Oshri and Chaim think he’s their papa. So that they have a papa and a mama like all the other children, a papa and mama who share a bedroom.
It’s not the end of the world. Not really.
Look, Mas’ud, the world didn’t stop turning. That’s the way it is. When something new happened, you’d stand there, your two strong legs apart, and your face white. You’d say, ‘That’s it, Simona, you’ve gone too far. It’s the end of the world.’ But life went on. While you were lying in your grave, you had two more children. What other proof do you need? Look at me. It’s night-time and I’m lying outside waiting for the Katyushas, but it’s OK. The world won’t stop turning because of Simona. It just won’t.
Look at Kobi, and see what a fine man you made. He’s changed a lot since his bar mitzvah. Ask yourself why I would need a new man when I’ve got Kobi at home? Why would Chaim and Oshri need a new papa? Look at his nose, his delicate, little girl’s nose. Like you, his strength begins just beneath it, on that little hill between his nose and his mouth. And his mouth is like yours, too, as it was when I saw you for the first time on the ship. A plump red mouth, which makes him look as though he’s wearing lipstick, and a little laugh upon it, as if the mouth is laughing by itself. He’s a good boy. Even when his heart is heavy, you’d never know it. His chin is strong, and his ears are as little and pretty as a girl’s. When you glance over his face, looking from one detail to another, it’s as if he’s a mix of man and woman. You start to feel confused. But when you look at the whole thing, it all makes sense.
