Three Floors Up

by Eshkol Nevo

  It started when I gave birth. Assaf was texting while I was in labor. Can you picture it? I’m being ripped apart by pain and he’s happily texting away. It’s true that the epidural slows things down. And we were into the sixth hour already. But even so—show a little sensitivity. I told him: This is not the place to be texting. I kept myself from yelling at him. So I wouldn’t be the clichéd woman yelling at her husband during delivery. And what did he do? He left. And texted outside. I had a contraction right then. And screamed. It was really loud. I was sure he’d come right back into the room to see what was happening, but no, he stayed outside. Texting. And didn’t come in for another minute.

  And later, in the ward, he didn’t want to hold Lyri. Said she was so small that he was scared she might fall out of his hands. Besides, he said, he thought that what she needed most now was her mother. What a demagogue. He was always a bit of a demagogue, but that trait of his got much stronger after he started demagoguing at potential investors.

  By the way, he went back to work after four days. Okay, I didn’t expect him to split maternity leave with me, fifty-fifty. This isn’t Norway, after all. But not to stay home for a week, just in solidarity? Not to call from work at least five times a day to ask how I was? How it was going? Whether postpartum depression had already started?

  I can give you many more examples just from Lyri’s first month, but I’m beginning to sound petty. (Remember that last night of our school trip to Eilat? When we and Nomi wrote our “List of Things We’ll Never Do”—never marry someone we don’t love, never invite friends on Friday nights to talk politics, never decide for our kids what kind of after-school courses they should take, never force them to do homework during vacation, never work more than six months at a job we hate, never choose a meal at a restaurant over a rock concert, never steal each other’s boyfriend, never stop being friends. Suddenly I think: because Nomi died young, she never had to break her promises. And I also think: we wrote that list too early. We still didn’t know what was lying in wait for us, what we would really need to be wary of when we grew up. For example, Never turn into the kind of woman who brings one petty example after another to prove to her best friend that she has a husband who is not okay.)

  Besides, it isn’t a matter of examples. It’s a matter of the abyss that opened between the father I thought Assaf would be and the father he actually is.

  Tell me—I know it has nothing to do with this, but I suddenly have a burning need to know—do you sometimes hear Nomi’s voice speaking inside your head too? I don’t mean do you remember her, or do you think about her, but do you actually hear her voice speaking to you. I imagine you don’t. After all, things like that only happen to me (and my mother). When it happened to me the last time, I was on a family trip to Mt. Arbel. This year, we joined a group of people who have nothing in common beyond the tedium of long, drawn-out Saturdays with their kids. The idea is that everyone puts in a little (a lot) of money to hire a guide to plan a trip for them and activities for the kids. You can’t just let kids enjoy nature as it is, right? So we were standing there panting after a steep climb and the guide was telling us some legend about the mastic tree. I can never really listen to those legends. I always want to, I really want to, but at some point in the middle, my attention scatters like pollen. Maybe I should go for tests. Maybe they’ll find that I have an attention deficit disorder specific to tour guides’ stories and explanations and they’ll give me an hour’s extension on trips. In any case, I suddenly heard Nomi’s voice inside my head, saying, That’s not even a mastic tree. It’s a terebinth. I nodded submissively. I thought that would be enough for her. But you know Nomi. Tell him, she says to me. Tell him. He’s misleading the kids!

  I won’t tell him anything! I won’t interrupt in the middle of the legend!! I told her.

  The problem was that I said it out loud. And every head, large and small, turned in my direction. You probably would have found something clever to say to explain the outburst. I just smiled apologetically and silently counted to twelve.

  Okay, they think I’m a strange bird anyway. A cuckoo. Who goes on a family trip without a spouse?

  I’ll grant Assaf this: he warned me in advance. He said, “The company’s about to issue stock. There’s a chance that I won’t be in the country on some of those Saturdays.”

  I said, “If you’re here, you’ll come. And if you’re not, we’ll manage.”

  A mistake. It turned out that going on a family trip alone (or to any suburban social event for that matter) is a serious deviation. A crime against the bourgeoisie. An iceberg that destroys Noah’s ark.

  Because what happens? If we dissect it briefly, the men look at you differently if you’re alone (even after you’ve had two kids, and you’re wearing faded tights and the shirt Assaf got at the end of his combat training course). And the women, sensing that their men are pursuing you with their eyes, get anxious and tag you as a potential danger. They ask you questions about your husband in order to remind everyone who needs reminding that he exists. So when’s he coming back? Isn’t it tough on the kids that he travels so much? Hats off to you for coming on these trips anyway. I would have stayed home.

  But at home, I scare myself! That’s what I want to tell them. At home, I’m all rapid heartbeats! Electricity in my hair! Owls speaking in the trees!

  Assaf’s trips began, with perfect timing, right after Nimrod was born. The company he works for decided to open offices in Europe and the Americas, and he “had” to travel in order to supervise the process. The trips to America take between a week and ten days. The trips to Europe are shorter, three or four nights at the most.

  And this is what he’d say about it if he had the right to answer this letter (I can picture a PowerPoint presentation. He’s standing next to it, reading point after point, occasionally telling an anecdote to support his claims):

  1. I’m a demagogue? She’s a demagogue. Focusing on only one aspect of our life and blowing it up so it hides other aspects. Among others:

  a. I call her from the traffic jams every morning and don’t hang up until I’ve made her laugh at least once.

  b. In general, I’m the one responsible for the half glass of happiness in the house. Nimrod only dances with me. Lyri only allows herself to be a little less Lyri with me.

  c. Not to mention that, once a month, I go to the Mental Health Center with her to visit her mother. I wait outside on a bench for an hour, sometimes two, just because she needs someone to hug her when she comes out.

  d. “What would I do without you?” she always says on the way to the car.

  2. I don’t understand what her problem is with my trips. They’re not vacations. I go to work. I’m not the least bit excited when the taxi picks me up to take me to the airport. And in the duty-free shop, I mainly try to buy as many gifts as I can for her and the kids before they announce that my flight is boarding.

  3. Yes, I could quit tomorrow. But how exactly would we pay for Lyri’s horseback-riding lessons and Nimrod’s swimming lessons and their mother’s searching-for-herself classes?

  4. It’s my fault that she’s frustrated? We agreed that she wouldn’t go back to Verbin’s studio after her maternity leave, and instead, she’d start working as a freelance designer. That’s what she wanted. Because “I’m sick of taking orders from people who aren’t as smart as I am.” And I encouraged her. Because I saw that she wasn’t happy. Again. And I wanted her to be happy. Because that’s how it is when you love someone. You want the person you love to be happy. So she really didn’t go back to the studio after her maternity leave. But she forgot to fulfill the other part of our agreement. Is it any wonder that I can’t not text my bosses—yes, even when she was giving birth—or refuse to travel when they tell me to? Maybe they’re not as smart as I am, but:

  a. I didn’t go to the Hebrew University High School, and no one led me to believe that I was the Crown of Creation.

  b. They pay me a salary at the end of every month. That
salary pays for our part of the outrageous fee that tour guide charges the families.

  5. It’s so nice, by the way, to hear that the men “pursue you with their eyes” on those trips. I’m not surprised. Three expensive years at the fitness center, which she chose not to write about here, do the trick. It’s just too bad that when we have sex once a year, that shapely body is completely turned off.

  6. There’s nothing more insulting than a woman who does you a favor when she sleeps with you.

  7. Actually, there is: a woman who writes to her best friend that you’re a terrible father.

  It’s funny how understanding sometimes comes to you from the most unexpected direction. I took the kids to the old, run-down playground. The one you only go to when you really have no energy. The one where dead snacks are buried in its sandboxes. The swings squeak. And even the owls extend their talons.

  The neighbor’s little girl from downstairs was there. Ofri. Lyri’s two years younger than she is, so they’re not really friends, but intelligent kids can recognize the spark in each other. So they’re happy when they meet by chance. Ofri’s mother took their little one to the toddlers’ slides and swings, and I stayed to watch the older girls. Then Ofri suddenly asked me, “Lyri’s mommy, what’s a widow?”

  “Uh…a widow…it’s a woman, uh, whose husband, uh…whose husband is dead,” I stammered (oh, that fear of injuring their tender souls).

  “So why do my mommy and daddy call you ‘the widow’?” Ofri asked. “Lyri’s daddy isn’t dead!”

  “I don’t know why they call me that,” I said. “Maybe you should ask them.”

  I opened the Mac that night, after months of not touching it, and designed a death notice.

  In the center, in large letters, I typed Assaf’s full name.

  On the top I wrote: “Beloved Husband and Father.”

  And on the bottom: “Has passed away (that is, he’s flown there business class) prematurely. The shivah will take place at the home of the widow. Please do not visit before ten in the morning.”

  I put a black frame around it. Then printed it out. I played with the fonts a bit, to make it look more terminal, and printed it out again. I planned to hang it on the door the next day after the kids left for nursery school, and then open the door a crack, as people do when they’re really sitting shivah.

  I would have done it. I swear. I was unraveled enough to do it. (I’ve done things that are just as crazy this year. For example, I drove two and a half hours to a restaurant in Biriya, sat facing Mt. Hermon, and drank one glass of red wine, then drove straight back so I would be home in time to pick up the kids. I called in to a radio program and made up a whole story about a father who ran off to America when I was five, leaving me so damaged that I haven’t been able to have a serious relationship with a man to this very day. I argued in the middle of the night—loudly—with an owl.)

  But then there was a knock at the door.

  A word about secrets in the modern era before I tell you (thanks for your patience) my secret.

  There are none.

  There are no secrets in the modern era.

  Everything is bared, aired, shared, Twittered, and Flickred; you can Snapchat and WhatsApp and Viber and Wiki. Nothing is secret, privacy is dead, and the funeral will be broadcast live on the Reality Channel.

  Even so—if you tell anyone what I’m about to write here, I’ll get my revenge by giving away all your secrets (hint: the Sinai, two weeks before your wedding).

  Eviatar was standing on the other side of the door. Holding a small green gym bag. I hadn’t seen him in more than ten years, so at first I didn’t recognize him.

  “Eviatar,” he introduced himself.

  “Assaf isn’t home,” I said without moving.

  “I know,” he said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have come.”

  I never understood when the quarrel between them began. And I wasn’t really sure what the root of it was. Not that Assaf didn’t talk about it. He did. But he told a different story every time. Once it had begun in their childhood. They were too close in age, only two and a half years apart. And Eviatar didn’t get what he felt was coming to him as the oldest son. He always tried to please his father and did everything that Assaf did just to prove that he was better at it. Judo. Chess. Girls.

  Later, each took a side when their parents got divorced. “I don’t understand how he can take my father’s side,” Assaf said then. “After all, it’s clear who the bad guy is here.” I remember him standing in the kitchen one evening and screaming into the phone, “If you don’t come to the Pesach seder at my mother’s house, you don’t ever have to talk to me again!”

  Even so, Eviatar still came to our wedding. I remember him dancing with his friends on the sidelines. I remember Assaf whispering to me, “What a schmuck. Who told him he could invite them?” And me pouring him shots of tequila so he wouldn’t make a scene.

  When Lyri was born, he sent a check along with a greeting card: Congratulations on the birth of a daughter. The check was exceptionally generous. Six thousand shekels, I think. Maybe more. Assaf ripped it to pieces and tossed them into the trash can where we threw newspapers.

  Pictures of Eviatar began appearing in those newspapers a few years later. The long, narrow face. The prominent nose. And you could tell, even in the black and white of the newspapers, that the eyes were blazing green. Under the pictures were captions like “Prince of the Bubble,” “The Oracle from Maoz Aviv,” “The Heavyweight of Real Estate.” “What kind of sucker lets my brother manage his money,” Assaf would say angrily. But he’d still read the article to the end. Including quotes from his brother. And then he’d mutter, always twice: “Unbelievable, unbelievable.”

  “I need a safe place to stay,” Eviatar said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He was already inside the house, but still standing. The gym bag was in his right hand, hanging in the air. He scanned the living room like a water sprinkler: a slow look from side to side, and then a quick return to the starting point.

  “I’m in trouble, Hani, I’m up to my—”

  “Speak more quietly,” I interrupted him. “You’re waking the kids.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean…That is, I forgot…I mean—”

  “Coffee?” I came to his rescue.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “What’s wow?”

  “It’s been so long since anyone offered me coffee.”

  “Come in,” I told him. “I feel uncomfortable with you standing there like that.”

  “But maybe you should first hear—”

  “I’ll be happy to hear what happened, but you can tell me sitting down too, can’t you?”

  (I’m making myself a bit cleverer than I actually was in real time, and I truly hope you’ll be understanding about this bit of poetic license. But the fact that I wasn’t feeling stressed for the first few minutes—that’s pretty accurate. All sorts of reasons that could have made Eviatar knock on our door were running through my mind, but none of them came anywhere near the reason he was about to reveal to me.)

  “I need a place to stay for a few days,” he said after he sat down at the kitchen table. His voice shook slightly. “People are looking for me. But they won’t look here. The last place they’ll think to look is here, do you understand?”

  “No. Start from the beginning.”

  “Sorry.” And he looked like a scolded child. (In general, I think that the first emotion he arouses in me is my maternal instinct. Maybe it’s always that way with men we want to sleep with later?)

  “You know that I buy apartments as investments for people, right?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “I have a reputation,” he explained, even though I didn’t ask for an explanation, as if he’d prepared the words in advance, “for being able to recognize market…trends. Clients come, deposit their money with me so I can buy an apartment for them and then sell it at a profit, and—”

  “You’r
e saying that they don’t live in the apartment at all?”

  “Usually not. Sometimes they rent it out. But most people who come to me only want to buy and sell. They know I’m an expert.”

  “Okay.”

  “As long as I focused here, in Israel, everything was fine. Everyone was satisfied. But then my competitors began to offer apartments abroad for investment, and my clients got itchy to invest in foreign markets too, so I went into a few countries in Eastern Europe and South America. And…I lost big time.”

  “You mean your clients lost.”

  “Yes. But the thing is that I couldn’t…I mean, they couldn’t know about it.”

  “What do you mean? Why?”

  “Because if they all pulled out their money at the same time, I wouldn’t have anything to return to them, you understand? You make most of the profits in this field by moving the money around.”

  “Okay, but what…what did you do? How did you hide the real situation from them?”

  “People trusted me. I had a good name…They believed me. I fixed the numbers in the reports I sent them, and waited for apartment prices to go up again. Meanwhile, so I could have a cash flow, I made some small investments, the kind I hadn’t touched before, all sorts of people with small savings of a few hundred thousand shekels who still wanted to join the party.”

  (Are you following, Netta? I picture you wrinkling your smooth forehead in your living room in Middletown. But maybe after you realized the direction this letter is going in, you went out to one of those beautiful parks on the grounds of that college of yours, and you’re sitting alone with these pages on a bench that’s still damp from the last rain, occasionally looking around to make sure no one is approaching.)

  “Would you like something to eat?” I interrupted Eviatar. He was always thin, but now he really looked like a Holocaust survivor. “There are vegetables for a salad. I can also warm up some schnitzels.” (Funny, but every time I offer people culinary options, even if it’s at home, I immediately stand straighter, a vestige from my Octopus Club period.)