Three Floors Up

by Eshkol Nevo

  When we got to the parking lot, Ayelet went to the driver’s side. I told her I could drive, but she still climbed into the driver’s seat, pretending she didn’t hear me. When she started the car, I said, “You know why Ruth didn’t file a complaint? Because she’d rather not open that Pandora’s box.”

  “She didn’t file a complaint against you, Arnon, because I begged her not to. I’ve been on the phone with her since noon. That’s what I did at work today. I explained to her that you’re going through a tough time. I reminded her of all the things we did for them. You know how much you could have gotten for an attack like that if she’d decided to file charges? Four years. Four years in prison! Four years without seeing Ofri and Yaeli!”

  “The fact that she didn’t file charges,” I persisted, “only proves that something happened in the grove. You defend your husband and she defends hers. That’s the deal here. It’s just too bad that your daughter gets screwed in that deal.”

  That’s when Ayelet raised her voice. “You’re deranged, you know? No, really, I don’t understand what else you want. The police said nothing happened there. The psychologist said nothing happened there. All you saw when you got there was Herman crying. So what’s with you? Are you enjoying this?”

  “What do you mean, enjoying this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can’t say something like that and not explain.”

  “I don’t know, Arnon. I don’t understand you, I don’t understand why you yell at the psychologist, I don’t understand why you try to strangle Herman, I don’t understand what’s going on with you.”

  “What’s going on with me? My little girl went into a grove with an old man who likes kisses. At night. And when I found them, he had a stain on his crotch and the look of a pervert in his eye, and a month later, my little girl wets her bed every night. That’s what’s going on with me. What’s not clear to you?”

  “You know, Arnon, not everyone’s a sex fiend like you.”

  “Sex fiend? Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “What?!”

  “You heard me.”

  “You know,” I told her, “that of all my friends, I’m the only one, the only one! who never had anything on the side!”

  “Wait just a minute, you’re telling me that you want a prize for that?”

  Don’t get stressed out now, man. I’ve kept my mouth shut for twenty years about worse things you’ve done. And it’s not only me. The whole unit kept their mouths shut. You should know by now that you can trust me.

  Of course I didn’t name names. Besides, no one would believe it about you anyway, not with the way you talk about Shiri and the boys in interviews. A model family man, that’s what you are. And let’s not get carried away: she was a German reporter and it was just a kiss on the cheek that was slightly off target. And don’t forget, breaking a Nazi’s heart is always a good deed.

  Feel better now? Can I go on?

  In every fight, there’s a moment when you say something you shouldn’t and there’s no turning back. Know what I mean? So that’s what happened. And what did I actually say to her? “If it was Yaeli, you wouldn’t be so calm.”

  It isn’t a…state secret, right? Just one of those little kinks that families have. Even in the Bible, in the story of Jacob and Esau, it’s obvious that Jacob was his mother’s favorite and Esau was his father’s. The point is that it’s natural for a parent to prefer one child over the other. Even love him more. What isn’t natural—it turns out—is saying it out loud. Those little kinks are supposed to be transparent, invisible. But I just couldn’t control myself. She was sitting there in her prim lawyer’s outfit with her hair pulled back, talking to me in that patronizing way, like she was civilized and I was a savage. So I had to put her in her place. Every once in a while, you have to put them in their place.

  Then she pulled over to the side of the road and told me to get out of the car. She stopped right in the middle of Route 4, not on some side street. Not near a bus stop. Or an interchange. But on the shoulder of a highway. I told her to keep driving, I wasn’t getting out. And she said, “Either you get out or I do.”

  I’ve been with Ayelet enough years to know when she’s serious, and she was serious. I said, “Keep driving.” Then she said, “I’m getting out,” and opened the driver’s door. “Close the door,” I told her, “it’s dangerous.” So she said again: “Either you get out or I do.” And left the door open.

  I got out. I couldn’t let her get out of the car and be alone in the dark in the middle of the highway. And she’s been with me enough years to know that.

  When I was on the Mitzpe Ramon base, she came to see me one Saturday. Took a bus from Haifa all the way down to Mitzpe. None of the guys in the unit ever showed me the kind of respect I got from them that Saturday. They took me off all the guard duties and special shifts and left the room so we could have some privacy. And it wasn’t because of me. I wasn’t exactly Mr. Popularity there. It was because of her. All she did was show a little interest in them and laugh at their jokes at supper, and they were her slaves. That’s how it is with Ayelet. I saw that she had the same effect on you at the barbecue. I saw the way you looked at her when she brought you the ice cream pops. You gave her that sensitive look of yours. That writer’s look. It’s okay, I’m used to men reacting to her like that. Besides, don’t be insulted, but you’re really not her type.

  That Saturday night, I walked her to the gate of the base so she could catch the bus. We waited there for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. I have no idea how long it was because we were talking. And when you talk to Ayelet, time just flies by. She always has some new, surprising thought to share with you. Twenty years I’m with her, and I never know what she’ll say next.

  Anyway, no bus came. And finally, the guard at the gate came out of his little booth and told us that the bus we were waiting for didn’t run on Saturday. That we had to walk to the intersection and hitchhike from there. She hugged me hard and said, “Bye, Noni.” And I said, “No, Ayelet, you’re not walking alone in the dark.” She was surprised: “You can leave the base just like that?” I lied to her and said, “Yes, of course.” But not only was I not allowed to leave the base, we were scheduled for roll call in less than an hour and the chances of my getting back from the intersection in time were very slim. I’d be considered AWOL, and the punishment would be getting thrown out of the course. Automatically. Not even a trial. But the feeling was stronger than me. I just couldn’t let her stand alone at the intersection in the middle of the night. Even if it meant I wouldn’t be an officer.

  There was that business now, you know, in the Carmel Forest? With the two Druze who attacked a couple in the parking lot? You didn’t hear about it? They told the guy to leave and then raped his girlfriend. When they questioned him, he told the police that he heard her screaming for help but didn’t go back because he was scared. So tell me, is that a man? It’s a mutation of a man. I would have gone back with a big rock and smashed the heads of those Druze. You know what, I wouldn’t have left the parking lot to begin with. I would have stood between the Druze and my girlfriend and said: If you want her, you’ll have to kill me first.

  Ayelet and I held hands and walked to the intersection that Saturday night. She told me about a soldier in her unit who everyone thought was having an affair with the commander, and from there, we jumped associatively to the Robin Williams movie she saw one Saturday when I didn’t come home, and Robin Williams reminded her of Good Morning Vietnam, which made her say that she thought our generation, which never fought in any big wars, was most affected by the movie version of the Vietnam War, and I listened the whole time, occasionally throwing in an idea of my own and trying not to show how stressed I was.

  Only after I saw her hitching with some normal-looking driver—the guy was wearing glasses, the car was clean—did I race back to the base. I’d never run so fast in my life. If they’d checked my time, I would’ve overtaken the three Ethiopians
who took first, second, and third place in the all-time list of runners in the officers’ course. In the end, I was five minutes late for roll call. But the squad commander was half an hour late. And I was saved from expulsion. After the end-of-course ceremony, I told Ayelet about the great risk I’d taken that Saturday. I don’t like having lies between me and other people. She said, “You’re crazy, I would have managed.” I said, “If they had thrown me out of the course, I would have been miserable, but I would have gotten over it in a couple of months. But if, God forbid, anything had happened to you, I couldn’t have gone on living.”

  I’m telling you all this, but honestly, it wasn’t what I was thinking about when I was walking like a dog along the shoulder of the highway. Until I reached the main junction, I was thinking that Ayelet was a hard woman, too hard, and maybe I should find myself an easier one. After the junction, I was thinking about my father. Memories have a way of popping up at weird times. All of a sudden, I don’t know why, I remembered something that happened with him once. My brother Mickey had a regular girlfriend from the time he was sixteen until he was eighteen. Dafi. A real sweetie. One of those good girls. Long, straight hair. Huge brown eyes. My parents were crazy about her. So one day, Mickey comes into the house with a different girl. Goes into his room with her and closes the door. And a few minutes later, we start hearing this giggling, you know what I mean, so my father gets up from his armchair—and it was in the middle of a Maccabi game, so you can imagine the drama—goes into his room, grabs him by the shirt, pulls him into the living room, and says, “What about Dafi?”

  “What about her,” my brother says, in that insolent tone his kids use today when they talk to him.

  So my father slaps him and says, “If you don’t love Dafi anymore, be a man and break up with her. The men of the Levanoni family respect their women. That’s how my father was, that’s how my father’s father was, and that’s how you’re going to be. Understood?”

  That was the thought that stayed with me when I turned onto the road leading home. And I was already planning how I’d use it to beat Ayelet in the argument, proving to her once and for all that I’m not a sex fiend. I had some really great comments ready on the tip of my tongue about the men of the Levanoni family, but when I opened the door to the apartment, the house was quiet, the shutters on the door leading from the living room to the garden were closed, and the couch was covered with a sheet and a thin blanket. A note was pasted onto our bedroom door with Scotch tape: I don’t want to sleep with you. You scare me. Take down this note after you read it (unless you want Ofri to see it) and sleep in the living room.

  Ofri woke me in the morning. She stood next to the couch and asked, “Daddy, why are you sleeping on the couch?”

  “Because Mommy and I had a fight.”

  “Because we don’t eat healthy food?”

  “No.”

  “Your fights are usually stupid,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And in the end, you make up, right Daddy?”

  “Right, little girl.”

  “Can I have chocolate milk, Daddy?”

  Ofri and I usually get up first and leave early for school. Ayelet and Yaeli get up fifteen minutes later and leave for the nursery school. That’s our morning routine. Ofri and I walk to school. Hand in hand. Along the paths between the buildings. On the way, she tells me about the book she’s reading and I listen on and off. When we get closer to the school, she takes her hand out of mine. She likes to walk the last hundred meters on her own. I watch until I see her go through the main gate. Until I see her inside, I don’t move from my observation point.

  That morning, I suggested that we stop at the bakery in the shopping center and buy ourselves some rugelach. She was afraid we’d be late, and I said, “Does it matter?” “We have science and Galina yells at anyone who comes late,” she said. I promised her I’d go to class with her and tell Galina that I made her late. “Okay,” she said, “but don’t embarrass me, Daddy!” I nodded and said I wouldn’t embarrass her. Which meant no kissing her in front of everyone. No saying go-o-od morning to the teacher in a funny voice. No sitting down in an empty seat and pretending I’m one of the pupils.

  We sat on a bench near the shopping center and ate rugelach. Each of us in his own special way. I take bites. She unrolls it layer by layer and nibbles each one separately. I said, “Mommy and I are worried about you. Lately, we see how hard it is for you. Lately means since what happened with Herman.” She nibbled and said nothing. I said, “If you want to tell me what happened there, I’ll be glad to hear it.” She stayed silent. She looked away from me. She finished eating and now her teeth were biting her lips, as if they wouldn’t let the words come out. I asked again, “Do you want to tell me what happened there?” I felt that if I pressed a little more, it would come out. But all she said was “I want to go to school.”

  I walked to her classroom with her. But when the door slammed shut, I didn’t go. I stayed there to sneak a look inside. There’s a wall between the hallway and the classroom, and it has three windows with curtains on them. The curtains block your view, but one of them was pulled aside slightly, and if you stand at a certain angle, you can see the back of the room, where she was sitting.

  I looked at her and my heart shrank.

  When an adult looks wiped out, that’s reasonable. Life crushes us all at one time or another, but a child?

  My little girl was playing with the zipper of her pencil case. She took out some crayons. Drew in her notebook. Put the crayons back in the pencil case. Occasionally looked up at her teacher. Then looked down again. Now that I’m telling you this, I realize that she wasn’t doing anything unusual, but still, I started to cry.

  I hadn’t cried since I was about her age. I have nothing against crying—the tears just don’t come. When Ayelet canceled the wedding and left me for six months because she wanted to be absolutely positive, didn’t I want to cry? Sure I did. When I had to close my business because of the debts and went back to working for someone else, didn’t I want to cry? Sure I did. Believe me, I did. You know how long it took me to get to the point where I could open my own business? Twenty years. And then in less than a month, three big clients left, and everything collapsed. Even so, when Iris from the bank told me she was closing my line of credit, my eyes stayed dry.

  Why did I cry back then, when I was her age? Do you really care? Just kidding—I went out with my dad and asked him to buy me an ice pop. He gave me a lira and told me to hold it tight until I reached the kiosk, but when we were walking over one of the Carmelit air shafts—you know what I’m talking about, right? You have roaring air shafts like that up on the Carmel too, don’t you—the coin fell out of my hand, through the grating, and into the shaft. It was deep, three meters at least. And on the bottom there were lots of other coins that had fallen there. I stood on the grating, stamped on it, and cried for my father to get the coin out for me. My father said—I remember the exact words he used—the shaft is too deep. And also, Arnon, learn to hold on to your money.

  While I was standing there watching Ofri through the classroom window, I called Ayelet. She didn’t pick up. I called again. I wanted her to leave everything and come to the school. I was sure that if she saw what I was seeing, she wouldn’t call me a sex fiend anymore. But she didn’t pick up. I called seven times and she didn’t pick up. That’s how she is. She once told me that when she doesn’t answer my call, it’s because she knows that if we talk, she’ll say things she’ll regret later.

  I hate it when she doesn’t answer. I hate it. But I learned to accept it. The way I learned to accept lots of other things I thought I never would. That’s how it is when you love a hard woman. But that morning, it broke me. How can I explain it to you? There are moments when you really feel that blow to your chest that says, enough. So I stopped trying to call, left the window, and went home. Instead of taking the side streets, I walked along the main road, which is totally exposed to the sun. I walked down the
middle of the road, not on the sidewalk. I think I had a small desire to be run over. For a car to hit me. Did that ever happen to you? I’m not talking about wanting to commit suicide. No way. When you walk down the middle of the road like that, you don’t really want to die. You just want something strong to smash into you. Because that’s what you deserve.

  Why did I think I deserved it? Because I’m an idiot. That’s why. Because I left her with Herman, because I wanted a better spot in the spinning class. And that’s even though I knew very well that something was wrong with him. If I’d waited another twenty minutes—you know what, another five minutes—my little girl, the little girl I held in my arms right after she was born because they had to sew up Ayelet, whose first word was Daddy, whose every feeling I feel as if it was my own, that little girl would not have been sitting in class with that look on her face.

  In our family pictures, Ofri never looks as good as she does in real life. The kid just isn’t photogenic, Ayelet always says. But that’s not it. It’s that mischievous spark in her eye that even the most sophisticated camera can’t catch. That’s what makes her beauty special. And after she went into the grove with Herman, that spark was extinguished. Totally. Dead.

  I walked down the main road that leads from the school to our house, punching myself hard on the forehead. I wanted, I really wanted, for a car to hit me from behind, hurl me a few meters forward and crush my bones, for an ambulance to come and take me to the hospital, to be put in the bed next to Herman…

  But at that hour in the morning, after everyone has dropped off their kids in child care and school, the street is quiet and there are hardly any cars on it. So, I’m sorry to say, I reached our building’s parking area in one piece.

  And then I saw her. Herman’s granddaughter. The mademoiselle.

  She was just coming out of the building and sashayed over to me with that provocative walk of hers. She was wearing very short shorts and a white tank top with thin straps. Without a bra. One of the straps had fallen off her shoulder. She walked in my direction on platform flip-flops that made her taller. There was no avoiding her. Even if I’d wanted to. She walked straight up to me, and when she was close, she stood on the tips of her flip-flops, gave me a kiss on the cheek close to my mouth, and said, “Bonjour, Monsieur Arno, how are you? Maybe you are driving to Tel Aviv?”