Colors of the Shadow

by Nava Dijkstra

  She went out to the terrace and took out her painting tools. While cleaning, she decided to paint after three years of not touching the paintbrush. She had no idea what she was going to paint, but she knew that with the smear of the first color, she would discover where the paintbrush would pull her, where her brain drug her, her heart, her desire.

  The appearance of the paint on the canvas made her heart overflow. She tried to set aside the disturbing thought that bothered her. It was not her fingers that were holding the brush that she saw, but rather, it was Eyal’s fingers that cut vegetables in elegant movements. But now, he could not escape from her or wash his hand from her touch. This was her kingdom. Here, her wishes come true. Here, she makes things tangible. She was sure that no man could project such sexiness in his fingertips.

  Soon after, with all the piles of paints, appeared a pair of hands on the canvas. “Such a masterpiece,” Sherry murmured, to draw two sets of palms after three years of not touching the paintbrush. ‘Just one look of Ronit and Eyal at the painting and they will regret that they carried the gift all the way from abroad.’ She hid the easel in a corner so no one would notice it. She went to bed, toying with the thought that if Eyal found the painting, he would sure presume that she painted his hands that she stared at a week before.

  After an hour, she heard the scratching of the door to the floor. She thought that Ronit came to tell her something she considered more important than her sleep. But a second later, she remembered that Eyal was supposed to share the room with her. She hoped that he would appreciate her effort in spreading the quilt on the floor for him. He turned on the light table. The rustling that sounded like Eyal’s clothes, and the smell of perfume mixed with the smell of some cigarettes from a club, made her realize that he was taking his clothes off. Darkness and silence prevailed again. She heard him turning again and again uncomfortably, until the restless movements were more frequent. She heard him curse and suddenly, she felt that he got into her bed next to her, within her reach.

  “Tell me, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Sweetie, I do not want to involve you in my service conditions, but I slept like this most of the year. I have no intention of living in such a condition during my vacation.”

  Sherry switched on the table lamp in protest. She couldn’t believe what she heard, but he had no further comment to her rebellious act. She looked at him. She was sure that a negotiation would take place, but he lay with his back against her while he said weakly, as if in sleep, “What about your humble contribution to the Israeli Defense Forces?”

  “I told you, that was a one-time donation.” Sherry thought that somehow a negotiation would be opened.

  “Well, go easy on me today. And tomorrow, we will draw up new terms. For now, I really would appreciate it if you switched off the light.”

  Sherry could not understand why she was so thrilled by his impudent behavior. She turned off the light and heard him whisper, “thank you.”

  In the morning when she woke up, his hand was on her stomach. Her first impulse was to lift it up by instinct, but his hand was so beautiful. The fact that it laid on her bare body gave her a great pleasure, and the temptation to leave it in place overcame every other consideration. She devoted four hours to his palms and now, they were so close to her more than any dream or imaginary painting. She lifted his hand away from her. The effort was bigger than she thought. He opened his eyes. “You’re disturbing me from sleeping.”

  “Your hand is on my body. If you do not mind…” she said, as she tried to give her voice a different meaning from what she really felt. She longed for his hand to stay on her stomach. He raised his head, looking at his hand. “You’re right, it’s my hand.” He pulled his hand, folded his arms across his neck and stretched. “Do you want to get coffee in bed?”

  “No, what I want is to get up and talk to you about the agreed sleeping conditions.”

  Eyal chuckled. He leaned on his right hand, looking straight at her as she left the bed wearing short pants and a singlet. “Do you always sleep naked with strangers?” He asked teasingly.

  “I do not sleep with strangers, and besides, I’m not supposed to change my sleeping habits and adjust them for you. This is my room!”

  “I have no complaints. Sorry if it sounded that way, but if we are talking about sleeping terms, I also would have wanted to decide in this issue. I definitely think that we can get rid of few other parts.”

  “You’re such an impossible man,” she said, aware of the fact that he wouldn’t respond to her. Rather, he was true to the things that interested him. “I hope you will not ask me to thank you that you didn’t bring your virgin to sleep with us.”

  “No. I just think that I should aim for the less modest target.”

  ‘He is again referring to something else,’ Sherry thought, and left the room. A few minutes later he sat beside her, holding a cup of coffee that she brought for him.

  “You have to add sugar.”

  “Just for the record, I drink without sugar.”

  “A bittersweet guy,” she said quietly, seeing him hiding his smile.

  Eran and Ronit joined them in the kitchen. “How does it feel sleeping on the floor?” Eran asked.

  “Ronit’s friend decided that she’d rather sleep beside me wearing panties and with my hand on her smooth stomach.”

  Sherry couldn’t even imagine that he felt something while touching her stomach inadvertently.

  “Shorts,” Sherry corrected.

  Sherry was pleased when a phone call interrupted the conversation. She passed the receiver to Eyal, looking at the joy that washed over his face when he answered Natalie. “Yes sweetie... we will be there in an hour... no I have to go back to Haifa tonight ... I know, so try to convince your parents...” The conversation continued. The same responses of Eyal were repeated over and over and the happy face bore a look of impatience while he rubbed his forehead with his fingers again and again. Eyal hung up, again touching his forehead with his very beautiful fingers.

  “What happened?” Eran asked.

  “She wants me to sleep in Tel Aviv, that way we can be together in another two hours. Since her parents moved from Haifa to Tel Aviv, it just caused me headache.”

  “Yes, I noticed,” Eran said.

  “The day is still ahead of us, and she is already talking to me about tonight. Sometimes I think that she’s looking for something to fight for. I give my Army uniform to my mother in the evenings and pick them up in the mornings,” he explained to Sherry. “She has to stay up all night to wash, dry and iron them. It does not make sense that I will be late for two hours.”

  “You can do laundry here,” Ronit offered.

  “It’s not just the laundry; I also want to be with my mother. After all, I am the only child she has.”

  Eyal looked at Sherry and his eyes seemed to smile at her. She assumed that no one else could see his smiling eyes except her. The edges were crumpled like her father’s eyes. She released a supportive smile.

  “Tell me, what is this picture that you painted?” Sherry heard Eran ask, and her face wore a tense expression. “I thought you knew how to paint more than this pair of hands that all of us drew when we were in the kindergarten. To think that I carried it all the way from Paris and even requested the first painting…”

  Sherry glanced at Eyal, instinctively trying to find evidence that he was not guessing that it was his hands. He leaned slightly on his left hand, while the fingertip of his ring finger was in between his teeth. His eyes were fixed on her face. He guessed. Sherry was shocked and thanked him in her heart that he didn’t share the discovery with Eran.

  It had been one week since Ronit had returned home. She was out at the moment, and the silence that enveloped the house brought Sherry to a bad mood. She was horrified at the thought that she did not miss the presence of Ronit, rather the presence of Eyal, who was in a three-month military duty in Lebanon. She hoped that his long absence would bring her back
to the reality that he belonged to Natalie, and she could shake off any thoughts about him. Anyway, Ronit and Eran would be moving in together and surely, Eyal’s visit to the apartment would end.

  Sherry looked at the apartments for rent in the newspaper and thought that the time came for her to look seriously for her own place. It had already been several months since Sherry felt that Ronit preferred to live with Eran. She remained a roommate with Sherry just because she didn’t want to burden her financially.

  Ronit entered the apartment in good spirits, as usual. “Are you not working today?” She was surprised to find Sherry in the house on Friday night. “Do you want to come to eat with me and Eran?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Whatever,” Ronit said, walking into her room to pick up some things. “Sherry, bye,” she shouted on her way out from the apartment. “Eran’s waiting for me downstairs.”

  She entered Eran’s car with a troubled expression.

  “Is something wrong?” Eran asked.

  “I do not like to see Sherry all by herself. You know that she’s like a sister to me, a sister who grew up in my heart. I saw her sitting with a newspaper.” Ronit was suddenly silent. The insight seeped into her words. “She was looking for an apartment to rent.”

  “But she knows that we’re getting married and we might move in together, so maybe it’s good for her to look for another apartment and another roommate.”

  “I know, but I’m not leaving the house until Sherry finds a roommate. I won’t let her shoulder the rent all by herself.”

  Eran seemed depressed.

  “Maybe Eyal would want to be her roommate in the apartment?” she asked.

  “I know what you’re looking for. Are you out of your mind?”

  “Please.”

  “He barely comes on a vacation, why would he need to rent a house?”

  “It’s actually, because he barely comes on a vacation. He should enjoy it.”

  Eran smiled. “I’ll try to ask him, but I’m sure he won’t agree to it. Natalie would kill him.”

  13

  The wedding day finally came. Sherry’s seat was reserved at the table intended for all friends of Ronit and Eran. Her chair was placed in front of Eyal, and she found herself avoiding his glance. Natalie was sitting beside him, beautiful, a medium-length hair with a trendy cut, a big pair of green eyes, and lips with a lipstick color that seemed to be inseparable to the color of her skin. Natalie asked Eyal to dance, but he refused which made her contort her face with disappointment.

  Sherry felt as if she and Eyal shared a secret that Natalie didn’t know. She had not heard or seen him for three months, so why did she seem to have a feeling that they were hiding something?

  He, in turn, was sending her a look of uncertainty, his head was a little bit degraded and his eyes were focused on her with a serious expression. His mother approached the table and kissed him, releasing his first smile. Then she kissed Natalie and invited her to meet some of the members of the family. Eyal got up after them, but on his way, he stopped near Eran and conducted a smiling conversation. When he returned, he sat next to Sherry.

  “I don’t think that this is a proper way to act,” Sherry said as she bit her lower lip.

  “Is it because of Natalie?” Eyal asked, while reaching Sherry’s lips with his finger to keep her from biting her lower lip. Sherry preferred not to think about what would have happened if Natalie saw Eyal’s finger on her lips. “We’re going to live together. Therefore, she shouldn’t be bothered that I am talking to you.”

  Sherry hid her pulse. “Oh, you’re going to move in together?” She tried to give her voice a sound of apathy, but with no success.

  “Not with her─we. You and me.”

  She felt a storm in her stomach. She didn’t know that he was going to live with her.

  “Why don’t you move in with Natalie?” She tried to see if she understood correctly.

  “Drop it. Who was the guy who picked you up that same night?”

  Sherry tried to make an effort to understand the question. “What are you talking about?”

  “The last time I saw you, you were going out with someone.”

  Sherry was surprised that although three months had passed, and even though he chose to spend his short vacation away from her and from the apartment in Tel Aviv, he was bothered by the issue.

  “Yaron,” she replied, still not sure if she understood his question.

  “I was not asking about his name, I mean, who is he to you?”

  Sherry was silent. She noticed Natalie approaching, and she seemed concerned that Eyal was sitting beside her. “Please go back to your place,” Sherry begged, but Eyal continued to sit beside her while explaining to Natalie, who was now standing next to them, that he was arranging the final details with Sherry about living together.

  The color in Natalie’s face drained.

  “I allowed you to sleep in the apartment in Tel Aviv when Eran and Ronit were still living there, but not now.” She moved away ostentatiously and Eyal got up and went to sit beside Natalie, who looked at Sherry with a frozen face.

  On Friday afternoon when Sherry came back from work, she found Eyal and Natalie sitting in the kitchen. The smell of toast was in the air. “Do you want some toast?” Eyal asked Sherry as she entered.

  Sherry shook her head and went into her room. She tried to read a few lines of a book, but her mind was focused on the verdict that had landed on her from this day. Every vacation of Eyal was torture. She would watch Eyal with Natalie, knowing that she was in love with the man who would never be hers.

  This was the first time that she was happy for a Saturday shift, but even during the shift, she couldn’t get Eyal off her mind. When she returned home on Saturday night, Eyal was gone. She sat in the living room with a cup of coffee, feeling that she was an object of manipulation. Now she understood that for some reason, Eyal used her presence at the wedding to make Natalie jealous. She continued to contemplate Eyal, realizing that it was better for her to make an effort in deleting emotional feelings for him, rather than thinking about him.

  She suddenly heard footsteps at the stairs and realized her mistake thinking he had already left the house. She jumped into her room and turned off the light. Gentle knocks came to the door. She did not respond. She wanted him to go. In her mind, she had already decided to stay at Ronit’s house during his vacation.

  She heard him unlock the main door with a key.

  She went out from her room to drink her coffee that she left on the table of the living room. Eyal was sitting there. “I thought you were asleep,” he said, wearing a big smile on his face.

  “I thought that they play those games in the kindergarten.”

  “But you should admit that it will continue to pass at all age. Your coffee was hot,” he explained, and went to the kitchen to make coffee. She focused on the television, trying to ignore him.

  “You seem angry about your new roommate. Are you disappointed?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Why would I be?”

  He sat next to her, looking at her face occasionally with a hidden smile. He liked her face. She had pretty bright eyes and nice shoulder-level straight hair. He felt the urge to run his fingers through her hair. He finished his coffee and stood up. “Well, I have to go.”

  “Bye,” she said, feeling a plunge in her stomach.

  Eyal arrived again after two weeks. His army uniform and his hair were grayed with dust. Sherry stared at him from head to toe. He was an Israeli symbol, an IDF soldier. No more ideal than that. Would she ever be able to shed her Iranian identity and connect to an Israeli identity?

  “Why are you standing in shock? Won’t you kiss a friend whom you hadn’t seen for two weeks?”

  She looked at his backpack. “No. Afterwards, you will ask me to wash your clothes,” she joked.

  “It’s interesting that you figured it out. That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you. My mother flew to the U.S. and I
don’t know where I can wash my clothes.”

  “There’s a machine here, I can teach you how to use it.”

  “No need,” he said, as he approached the machine and put his bag next to it. “My mother is not going to settle in America.” He kissed her cheek and raised his eyebrows, waiting for a reply.

  “Okay, but you will hang your laundry.” She tried to make her voice sound authoritative.

  “I knew that I could convince you easily.”

  Half an hour after he left for his room, she found him lying in bed with his clothes on. “Eyal!” she shook him gently. He opened his tired eyes and saw her blurring image. “Is it not better to take off your clothes?”

  He gave her one of his thriller smiles. “What an indecent proposal! Tell me, are you not ashamed?” He took off his uniform and went back to sleep wearing his underwear. When he woke up, it was 9:00. His clothes were hung neatly on the His clothes were hung neatly on the clothesline. Sherry decided to go to Ronit’s house so that she wouldn’t spend another weekend in the company of Eyal and Natalie.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Ronit invited me to sleep in her house.”

  “Are you not working today?”

  Sherry shrugged her shoulder. “I’m not in the mood.” She bit her lips and he, as usual, reached for them with his thumb. “You have such beautiful lips, do not injure them.”

  Sherry felt the pleasant touch of his finger to her lips, stopping her desire to embed it in her lips. “Do you want to come with me to see Eran and Ronit?” she dared to ask.

  “Maybe later.”

  He arrived there the following morning and rushed to the kitchen. “Is there something to eat?” he asked as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out mayonnaise, pastrami and vegetables. He carried all the food to the table and sat next to Sherry.