Three Floors Up

by Eshkol Nevo

  I stood between them with their clothes hanging on me as if I were a hanger, and knew exactly what I should do. I do it ten times a week: I flexed the boundary-setting muscle that every parent has, slightly below the diaphragm, and said in a no-nonsense tone, “Get up. Right now. There is no Uncle Eviatar now. We’re late for school. If you don’t get up—”

  But for the first time in seven years, it didn’t work. I tried to flex the muscle. But it just didn’t respond (how strange it is when you command your body-soul to do something and it simply refuses to follow orders).

  I went to the neighbors’ apartment across the hall and knocked three times, paused, then twice more. Eviatar opened the door, confusion in his eyes, as if they still hadn’t decided what their expression for today would be, and said, “Good morning.”

  “Good morning. I…need your help.”

  Within fifteen minutes they were dressed, combed, and toothbrushed. Waiting in their lunch boxes was the sandwich each one had asked for. On the way Evi-Poppins also managed to make a “tree” for Nimrod: he stood in the middle of the living room, bent his knees, stretched his arms into branches, and invited Nimrod to climb to the top. And he played the bead game with Lyri and Andrea (the first to use up all their beads lost). But it wasn’t what he did with them, but how he did it. His complete and utter involvement. As if there were no loan shark thugs after him. You know what? That isn’t even it (I’m saying these things to myself as I write, sorry if it comes out a little convoluted). It’s that he understood (how? so quickly?) the kids’ main problem: moving from place to place. From the living room to the bathroom. From the bathroom to the kitchen. From the kitchen to the front door. At every one of those points, they always get stuck. Can’t seem to move. But Eviatar found ways to get them from place to place without their even noticing that movement had occurred. And I watched all that from the sidelines and felt (not necessarily in this order): that I was superfluous; that I could let go, finally let go a little after all those years; that I was so used to being tense, I couldn’t completely relax; that something in me was starting to bubble as I watched Eviatar, a gentle bubbling, the kind that happens before the water actually boils, no big bubbles yet, but you can tell there will be; and that the owl was not at all pleased about it and I knew I’d hear from it that night.

  Before I opened the door to leave the house, he bent down to Lyri and said, “Remember what we agreed!” (They already have agreements?)

  Lyri nodded. Hesitantly.

  “If Mica says she doesn’t want to play with you at recess,” Eviatar persisted, “what will you tell her?”

  “That’s your loss.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “That I’m a terrific girl and anyone who plays with me can only profit from it.”

  “And what does ‘profit from it’ mean?”

  “That she’ll have fun.”

  “Good. And you”—he turned to Nimrod—“give me a high five. Hard. Harder. The hardest. Now a hug. Tight. Tighter. The tightest.”

  “Mommy, can Uncle Eviatar drive to school with us?…Please, please,” Lyri pleaded.

  “No, Princess,” he said before I could stammer out an answer. “I can’t.”

  I was sure she’d protest. That she’d stamp her hands (that girl stamps with her hands: spreads them to the sides, then slaps them angrily against her waist), but something in his tone made her understand that it wouldn’t help. So she just hugged him again. A longer hug. And then another long hug from Andrea. Finally she straightened up and said, “Uncle Eviatar, you’re really nice!”

  On the way back from the parking lot, I grabbed the newspaper from the mailbox. Eviatar’s face was in the corner of the front page, younger than in reality. A brief headline referred readers to the financial supplement: “Real Estate Guru Vanishes. Clients and Police in Pursuit.” I started reading standing up. Then I had the vague feeling that someone was watching me, so I went into the house with the paper.

  There wasn’t any fact in the article that he hadn’t told me.

  The thing was that the article was written from a different point of view (you wanted moral judgment? So here it comes): the point of view of his clients.

  I think we (girls who grew up in Jerusalem and went to the Hebrew University High School) were brought up to think of money and emotion as contradictory terms. There are things we do for money and there are things we do because our emotions tell us to do them. Wrong. Money is emotion. It’s anxiety. It’s self-worth. It’s jealousy. When someone entrusts you with his money, he entrusts you with all the hard work that has brought him that money, all the small, painful, humiliating compromises he’s made along the way. And somehow, it makes him no less vulnerable than he would be if, let’s say, he was in love with you.

  There was a retired couple from Hadera, for example, who transferred all their savings to Eviatar, and now they didn’t know how they’d pay their bills at the beginning of the next month. There was a picture of them sitting at a Formica kitchen table, holding hands. But their hand-holding didn’t look romantic. It looked as if they were clutching each other tightly so they wouldn’t drown.

  And there was a couple with three kids from Kiryat Ono who said they would have to take all three kids out of nursery school and preschool at the beginning of next week, and they had no idea how to explain it to them. What do you say to a child suddenly torn away from all his friends? Your parents are fools and you’re paying the price?

  And there was the owner of a transportation company who bought two new minibuses with the money he thought Eviatar was holding for him, and now he’d have to fire employees—who also had mouths to feed—in order to cut expenses.

  They all had the same story, with minor differences: recommendations from friends leading to personal meetings with Eviatar, after which he found an appropriate property for them. Clear, well-organized reports (unlike bank reports) sent to their mailboxes every three months. Excellent returns. On paper. And then, the last few weeks, suspicious signs: a new secretary, messages left with her that were never delivered, reports arriving two days late.

  And we still didn’t understand that we were being led down the garden path, the retirees said in heartbreaking bewilderment. He made such a nice impression on us.

  Ten years of work down the drain, the young couple said.

  The police investigator asked for the public’s assistance in the search for Eviatar, adding that this was one of the most serious fraud cases he had handled over the last few years.

  Horrifying, right? If this were an American movie, I’d take the paper, march straight into the neighbor’s apartment, throw it in his face in a fury, force him to admit that he’d committed all the seven sins together, turn my back on him even after he got down on his knees, and say: Some things are unforgivable. Or: I want no contact with an unscrupulous bastard like you.

  Instead, I went to the apartment to warn him that the police were after him too.

  But before that, Assaf called.

  Overseas calls always have a silent delay before anyone speaks, and this time it seemed especially long.

  “Did you see the newspapers?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You know he called me the day before yesterday, that schmuck? Said he was in trouble. Needed money. I hung up on him. Can you believe it? He wanted to drag me into it too! Just imagine if I’d agreed to help him. The police would be knocking on your door now.”

  “Sounds like he’s in very big trouble.”

  “You know what? He made his bed.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s just like him”—Assaf was boiling over—“to sell people illusions. And run away when they shatter.”

  “The whole country’s after him now,” I said.

  “I hope they catch him. And put him in prison for years and years. It’ll teach him a lesson…You know what? It won’t teach him a lesson. He’s a lost cause.”

  “There’s no such thing as a
lost cause,” I said.

  “Are you defending him?”

  “No”—I was alarmed—“of course not. He ruined his clients’ lives.”

  “Exactly. My mother called a few minutes ago. She wants to bury herself. And if I know her, she won’t go out of the house for weeks. It was always like that. He’d get in trouble and embarrass us, and I had to go food shopping for her so she wouldn’t have to see the neighbors. You know what it’s like to be a ten-year-old kid getting all those looks in the grocery store, convinced that it’s his fault, that something’s wrong with him?”

  “Is that why you’re like that with each other?”

  “It’s one of the reasons.”

  “You never told me about that business with the grocery store…”

  “And he has the nerve to call me. Unbelievable.”

  “People do all kinds of things when they’re in trouble.”

  “You’re defending him again?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Forget it, I’m just upset and I’m taking it out on you. I’ve had to answer questions here all morning. As if I’m his spokesman. People know I’m his brother. They read the same sites I do.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s just a storm that will pass.”

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re out of the country while this is happening. Here, you’d have a much harder time responding.”

  “There’s something to that. You’re really smart, babe. I miss you.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Day after tomorrow, in the morning.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to come back tomorrow?”

  “Yes, but they set up an urgent new meeting, something that could really help us make it big time.”

  “See you day after tomorrow.”

  And now, a short break for another lecture in our “Theory of Morality” course (imagine the Army Radio station, University on the Air, a young doctoral student with a nasal voice that’s shaking slightly because it’s her first time speaking on the radio):

  “For the purposes of our discussion, we must distinguish between universal morality, that is, man’s behavior toward all those with whom he comes into social or professional contact, and particular morality, that is, man’s behavior toward the people close to him, family members and associates. We would expect to find coherence between both types of morality, but in practice, we find that frequently they are at odds with one another and we are forced to decide: Which of these moralities is more important to us? Which do we consider more valuable?”

  Damn! I can’t believe how much effort I’m putting into convincing you that I’m fine, Netta, that I haven’t changed. That despite everything I’ve said here (and will say later on), I’m still the same Hani you know.

  I can’t believe how hard I’m trying to be cool. I just read the letter from the beginning. How many parentheses I’ve used. And how many calculated maneuvers I’ve made just to hide the fact that I’m not cool anymore. I’ve been defeated. By the pregnancies. By the lack of sleep. By the fear that the resemblance between Lyri and my mother isn’t just external. By the long days I don’t speak to another adult, except for my morning conversation with Assaf, who always tries to make me laugh but just makes me feel more lost because there he is, on the move, while I’m rotting away at home. I know that people don’t usually admit it, but being with children for so many hours dries you up. There might be mothers who are thrilled to build miniatures with their kids. Maybe you build miniatures too. I don’t. I can’t stand miniatures. I can’t look at those creative materials anymore. During Lyri’s first two years, there was something exciting about putting together a puzzle with her. But not later on. There are some happy moments, but for eight years already, I’ve been trapped—yes, that’s the word—trapped inside my desire to succeed at the job my mother failed at, and meanwhile, the dust of time is covering me, Netta. And I’m letting it cover me. I know it’s a trite metaphor, but I’m trite too. And I don’t have the strength to fake the happiness that is no longer inside me.

  I could have said all of this more simply: A guy with green eyes showed up. And something in the way he acted with my kids made me feel desire again.

  Yes, desire.

  Some of my feelings for Assaf died because of the way he is with the kids. It’s as if fatherhood and sexual attraction occupy the same place in my mind. Or that they occupy different places that are connected by a switch: when one is turned on, it causes the other to turn on too. Maybe Freud was right, and all sexual attraction is a variation on that first desire of a boy for his mother or a girl for her father. Or maybe the fact that Assaf doesn’t know about the owls, that he’s just too normal for me to be able to tell him something like that, has created a barrier between us. In any case, there’s no arguing with the facts: my body-soul keeps playing the same chord of reticence when I’m in bed with Assaf. (And it isn’t that I don’t come sometimes. He knows my body. But even my orgasms are a little reticent, know what I mean?)

  If he were given the opportunity to respond to this letter, he would say:

  1. Reticent orgasms? What the fuck?

  2. I try to get out of being a father? That from the woman who keeps her kids close and never lets them go. She always thought there was something wrong about the way I did things: the way I held their hands, the way I buckled them into their booster seats, the way I fed them. She was disappointed in me from the very beginning. And then she shaped reality to justify her disappointment. So Eviatar gave Nimrod a bath, big deal. I bathed Nimrod. I enjoyed bathing Nimrod. Very much. Until she walked in once and saw that the water level in the tub was higher than she liked—and then she screamed to high heaven: I can’t be trusted, I’m drowning the child, what kind of father am I. And that was it. The last time I gave Nimrod a bath.

  3. She doesn’t let me get close to Lyri either. Not really. It’s in the small things. Like when I text Lyri from abroad and she doesn’t show Lyri my message, then says that she simply forgot. Or when she doesn’t let her go to sleep a little later so I can see her when I come home from work. She thinks I’m damaging her because I don’t respect her poetic soul. Excuse me, but imaginary friends at her age is not a poetic soul, it’s a problem.

  4. If Hani would just give me a chance, I could be a great father. When she has no choice and has to leave me alone with them for a few hours, we get along beautifully. Suddenly, Nimrod—who, by the way, doesn’t look anything like Eviatar—hugs me. Snuggles up to me. And Lyri stops talking to Andrea because she knows that I, unlike her mother, do not go along with that craziness. But we almost never have time alone, the kids and I. Hani doesn’t trust me. She says that being away from them for more than a few hours stresses her out, makes her feel she’s abandoned them. Bullshit. She just wants to guarantee that the kids will be on her side. Wants them to call her, not me, when they’re upset. Wants me to fail at one thing, at least. Yes, that’s my real sin: that I’m doing great at work. That’s what’s really eating her. Not my trips. Not my fatherhood. It’s my success that’s eating her. She’s the one who went to the Hebrew University High School. She’s the one who was supposed to make a higher salary and take business trips abroad. And all of a sudden, this yokel from Nahariya comes along and passes her on a bend in the street. So he should at least be a terrible father. Then she can feel superior to him about something.

  5. That mild snobbery of hers—there was something sexy about it when we met in college. Challenging. And the confusion that the snobbery concealed, the many times she changed her major, the endless Winona Ryder searching for the special thing she was supposed to do, the thing that would finally make her really, really happy—there was something sexy about that too. When we were twenty.

  6. I’m still crazy about her. That’s the truth. But I have to admit that being with someone who always wants to be somewhere else, who is never satisfied, is exhausting.

  7. And to be totally honest, the only
thing I still enjoy on my trips is a few days’ rest from the feeling that I disappoint her. A few days of breathing air with no bitterness in it.

  After Assaf’s call, I did what I’ve been doing every morning for the last four years: pick at my professional wounds. I read through all the newspaper ads to see if any of the logos I designed are still there, and which have been changed because the client decided to rebrand himself. It seems as if, during these past eight years, all the companies in the country have decided to rebrand themselves (instead of really changing itself, a company always prefers to change its appearance). In fact, of all my logos, of my entire “design legacy” (hah!), only my dairy logo is left. And on that day, it beckoned to me from the bottom of the ad. But instead of making me feel proud, it looked old-fashioned. Embarrassingly old-fashioned.

  So I put down the paper and went to my clothes closet.

  It wouldn’t be accurate to say that I knew I was dressing to seduce Eviatar.

  But neither would it be accurate to say I didn’t notice that I was dressing seductively.

  So maybe I’ll just describe what I decided to wear: a gray skirt that fit tightly around my hips (I think I wore it when we went out to a restaurant in Middletown); a clingy, yellow, button-down blouse you’ve never seen tucked into it; matching yellow-orange shoes with relatively low heels. Makeup. Nothing dramatic, eyeliner and a touch of blush. And the chain with the octagonal pendant. Which might be the most telling accessory in this entire description, because I hadn’t worn it since Lyri was born.

  I knocked on the door with a box of warmed-up schnitzels in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

  There was no answer. A bitter drop of hurt slid down my throat: the bastard, he left without even saying goodbye.

  But a few seconds later, the door opened.