by Eshkol Nevo
But she persisted. “Even so, what did you manage to see?”
I wanted to say that it was hot that day. Very hot. And that I wasn’t sure it hadn’t been a mirage. But it was clear that she wouldn’t let me go until I gave her a full report, even if it wasn’t reliable. So I said that I thought the man, assuming it was a man, was thin. And that at first I thought he had broken in and I considered calling the police, but then I saw that he was simply walking back and forth in the living room. With no intention of taking anything. He had a gym bag. And he didn’t put anything into it.
Hani tensed. “A gym bag? What color?”
She put her son down and moved her daughter’s hand away from her skirt, which the child was pulling again. She seemed to prefer standing alone to receive the crucial information I was about to give her.
I said I thought the bag was green. Maybe. And then—she hugged me, Michael. I wish I could describe that hug in detail, but I’m afraid that the beep of the answering machine will interrupt me, and you cannot describe an ongoing experience like a hug in spurts. So I’ll stop now, if you’ll allow me, and call us again.
Hani and I do not have a hugging relationship. We’ve never even shaken hands. Which is why my first reaction was to freeze in her arms. I was so surprised that I couldn’t move. But she wouldn’t release me, as most people certainly would if their hug received no response. On the contrary, she increased the pressure of her hands, burying them deeper and deeper in my back, and then pulled herself toward me, or me toward her, until we were like a single person. Pressed up against one another. Slowly I felt my body melt toward her, felt my shoulders and chest begin to sink into her embrace, and all my restraint dissolved.
You see, Michael, since you’ve been gone, no one has hugged me. No one has touched me with such tenderness. And here was an unexpected opportunity to finally stop trying to bear my aloneness alone.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Hani said, and broke away from me. Her hands still held my waist, but the hug ended as abruptly as it had begun. I was confused. Puzzled. Longing.
She continued, “You have no idea how important this is to me, what you just told me. For the last few weeks, I—I’ve been shaky, Devora, I—I’ve lost my self-confidence, or more accurately, the confidence that there really is a me. Do you understand? And the fact that you saw him too…do you understand? The fact that there was a green bag means that there’s a chance there won’t be a third owl, do you understand?”
I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand who that thin man was. Or what he was doing in the Katzes’ apartment. Or what the connection was between him and an owl. Nevertheless, I nodded in understanding. After all, the feelings she described were not entirely foreign to me. I also felt that way at the end of my maternity leave. That was why I went back to work so quickly. I sensed that something was beginning to unravel inside me during those long hours at home. That feeling of giving up was starting to spread in the spaces between my organs. It was so frightening and made me feel so guilty, Michael, that I couldn’t talk to you about it. But it was one of the reasons I didn’t want more. Children, I mean. One look into the abyss as I stood on the tightrope of sanity that stretched across it was sufficient, and I was afraid that another look might end in a fall. So I returned to work because there, at least, the rules were clear to me.
Are you really surprised to hear all this, Michael? I don’t think so. I don’t think that anything I tell you about our years together can surprise you. I won’t be revealing any secrets from the past in these messages I’m leaving for you. After all, what is the greatest secret a person can hide from the world? The secret of his vulnerability. And that is a secret I revealed to you day in and day out.
Regarding the things that happened after you went—here I think I’ll at least cause you to raise an eyebrow. But the time for that has not yet come. You like stories to be told properly. Beginning, middle, and at least one end.
Hani said, “Let me make a few calls. If I find a babysitter, I’ll come up to tell you.”
I said, “All right.” I wanted to say other things as well. For example: It’s good that you went back to work. Or: If it attacks you again, the fear of the tightrope, you’re invited to my place for a cup of tea. A cup of tea at the right time can work miracles. But Hani was already being pulled back into the house by her children, swallowed up by their many arms like a fish caught in the tentacles of a sea anemone.
So I didn’t say anything.
And walked down another flight.
The shivah for Herman had only just ended, so I decided to knock on the door of the lawyer who lived across the hall from Ruth. But a fraction of a second before I knocked, I heard the sound of a man’s voice that made my hand freeze in the air on its way to the door. It wasn’t what he said. Most of his words were almost unintelligible through the reinforced steel anyway. It was the tone. You would have recognized it immediately: it usually comes from the mouths of defendants between the verdict and the sentencing.
The lawyer’s husband was begging for his life. When women beg for their lives, they simply weep. When men beg for their lives before sentence is pronounced, their entire bodies contort in an effort not to cry, and their voices crack, shift from low to high, as if they were adolescents again.
The lawyer answered him. Her tone was cool. Steady. Merciless. He continued to beg for his life in a voice that was shriller, more desperate. I heard the squeak of a chair. Then his footsteps. That’s how it always is. The person begging always has to be moving. And the one being entreated remains seated in place.
The lawyer’s husband said, “But, Ayelet…” I couldn’t make out the rest. It was swallowed up in ambient sounds. But it was enough for me. I dropped my hand and retreated. I knew that if I knocked then, I might find myself unwillingly involved in their private drama.
I’ve noticed, Michael, that when people are around me, they have an uncontrollable urge to plead their cases. I could imagine it: after the initial embarrassment, they would recognize the opportunity that had arisen, would invite me in, and present evidence and testimony. Obviously, he’s been unfaithful to her. What else could cause a man to be so contrite, and a woman—any woman—to become a prosecutor? Or perhaps not. Perhaps it’s something else. The stage of life they are at now, when the children are small and the man and woman have conflicting needs, the list of grievances each one keeps in the heart against the other grows longer each day.
In any case I knew that, in the end, they would ask me to deliver a verdict, and I didn’t want to. One of the great advantages of being retired is that you no longer have to determine the fate of others. Besides, I was on the way to a demonstration.
I didn’t try Ruth either. I knew that if I went into her apartment, I’d have to stay. Offer consolation. Look at their picture albums. She would probably make me a cup of tea and serve up a plate of strudel, and in the end, we’d sit there like two old widows and watch the demonstration on TV.
Instead, I called a taxi.
You wouldn’t have agreed to pay a hundred shekels for a ride to Tel Aviv, I know.
But I would, Michael. And now I’m the one who makes those decisions in our house.
Calm down. I’m not accusing you of being stingy. You’re not. I’m not saying you are. I think that in general, you always tried to be financially responsible. But now that you’re gone, I no longer see any point in saving pennies. For what? For whom? Adar never asks us for help. And while our money is accumulating in the bank, the time to enjoy it is dwindling.
So I called a taxi. And to be honest, it cost 120 shekels, not 100.
Damn it, why is your opinion still so important to me?
The taxi I took stopped in front of the barrier on Ibn Gevirol Street and the driver said, “Sorry ma’am, you’ll have to walk from here. The police closed off all the streets because of the demonstration.” I told him to let me off there, it wasn’t a problem, and joined the many people walking to Kaplan Street,
where the main stage was supposed to be. I was glad to see a few gray heads among them. Occasionally, a young boy or girl burst into song, and others joined in. Words like “justice” and “equality” floated in the air, but there was also some small talk and a few frightened owls that didn’t understand what all the commotion was about.
At that point, walking was still pleasant. There was a nice breeze coming off the sea. I walked down Pinkas Street, and childhood memories suddenly flooded me. Your childhood memories, of course. I always thought they deserved preserving more than mine. Here, where this building stands now, there was once an empty lot where you and your friends played soccer with a ball made of rags. You were the referee, naturally, the one whose calls were accepted by both teams. And on that tree on the corner of Dubnov Street, you all built a big wooden house—at least then it looked big to you—where you went after school. And here, on this corner, you once fell off your bicycle and crushed your shoulder. You didn’t cry, of course not. Your father had drummed it into you that Edelman men didn’t cry. You kept all those tears in your chest for twenty years, until you met me.
The closer I came to the corner of Kaplan Street, the harder it became to move forward. It was terribly crowded. And the breeze had stopped. There wasn’t a crack in the crowd through which it could enter. I couldn’t breathe and I felt that I had to find a bench to rest on. To get some air. I was angry with myself for not wearing more comfortable clothes. Who wears a jacket in the middle of summer? I turned, planning to walk west, toward the sea, to get away from the masses of people, but the pressure exerted by those who wanted to turn into Kaplan Street was fierce and I couldn’t walk against the flow. To tell the truth, I couldn’t walk at all. I was trapped in the crowd. My heart pounded, my throat was dry, people pushed against me, pressed against me from every side, crushed me. If you had been with me, Michael, you would certainly have forced a way out for us with your strong arms, you would have protected me from the crowd and revived me. But you weren’t there. I was completely alone, Michael, and my knees shook, my legs refused to move, the air stopped flowing into or out of my lungs, I had no air…
The last thing I remember is the shaved cheek of a young man leaning over me, saying, “Are you all right, ma’am?”
I woke up beside a tent.
Several young people surrounded me. They looked worried.
A voice said, “She opened her eyes!” Another called, “Get her some water!”
They took off my jacket gently. Brought me water. Asked me to lift my head and put two pillows under it so I could tip the glass to my mouth. I drank a bit. And only then did my eyes open to see that I was lying in the middle of a makeshift living room—thin rugs, torn armchairs, several pillows—in the middle of Rothschild Boulevard.
I asked, “How did I get here?”
They told me that I had fainted on the corner of Kaplan Street. I had lost consciousness. Two young men had picked me up from the street and put me inside a rickshaw (it seems that there are rickshaws in Tel Aviv too). All the streets leading to Ichilov Hospital were blocked because of the demonstration, so they decided to take me to Rothschild Boulevard, and meanwhile, they’d called a doctor-demonstrator who came quickly on a bicycle, checked me, and said that all I needed was rest.
“Thank you all,” I said, “I think I’ll go home now.” But when I tried to sit up, the dizziness I felt pulled me back down to the pillows.
“Take it slow, ma’am,” a young girl whose hair was braided into dozens of tiny pigtails said as she put a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve had a traumatic experience. Give yourself time to get over it.”
Yes, Michael, it turns out that of all the tents in the world, I had been taken to the psychologists’ tent. Do you believe it?
When I recovered enough to raise my body into a sitting position, I noticed the signs that were hanging all around me: WE’RE ALL PSYCHED UP, DIME STORE PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL JUSTICE ON OUR MINDS. After I asked, the young girl with the braids explained that various groups had put up tents on the long boulevard. All were part of the protest, but each had its own cause. The tent I was in was occupied by psychology interns from the entire country who had come to protest the low salaries of professionals in the public service sector.
She poured me another glass of water and said, “Drink, it’s important!” And as I drank, she continued to explain: “As part of the protest, we’ve turned our tent into a therapeutic center that provides free psychological support for everyone on the boulevard, a kind of first-aid station.” She turned her head toward the rickety picnic table that had been placed a few meters from us and added, “All you have to do is sign up there.”
I asked what happened after people signed up, and my voice sounded strange, like the voice of a different woman. She explained that after signing up, you’re directed to one of the interns in the tent. On the first few days, not many people signed up, but for the last few days—she said proudly—they could barely handle the flow and had to work nights too. They had taken a few hours’ break because of the demonstration, but the sessions would start again at midnight.
“You can stay here and rest on the mattress,” she said. “It won’t bother anyone. There’s no real privacy here anyway.”
I wanted to say, Look, you are all extremely nice. In my work, I encountered mainly rapists and murderers, so it’s good to remember that we have young people like you in our country. Nevertheless, and with all due respect, it’s late, and I have to get home to my—
But then and there, of all places, in that makeshift living room with the endless beeping of car horns all around us, something dawned on me that should have dawned on me a long time ago and I didn’t understand how I could have kept it in check for more than a year: there was no one waiting for me at home.
At midnight the patients began to enter the tent. First they went up to the reception table where they were assigned a therapist and referred to one of the two tents or to a nearby bench on the boulevard. From where I was lying I could hear fragments of conversation clearly. Not just from the bench, but also from the tents themselves with their opened flaps and thin canvas, and someone had even cut a window in one of them to let a bit of air inside.
I didn’t want to eavesdrop on those conversations. You know very well what I think, what we think, of psychologists. Especially after what happened with Adar. But I was lying there on the mattress and had nothing to do but eavesdrop (please, Michael, consider these to be “extenuating circumstances”). And I must confess that I was surprised twice.
Once I was surprised by the willingness, not to mention the desire, of the people entering the tent to expose their personal lives to a stranger in a place that had absolutely no privacy. Didn’t those people have families or close friends they could talk to discreetly?
For example, the woman about fifty years old sitting on the bench near my mattress. She told the psychologist that she had been working in an office close to the boulevard for twenty years, and since the protest began, a burning hatred toward her bosses had been growing inside her. She told the psychologist that they earned a fortune and paid their employees peanuts. And then—even though she’d only met the psychologist a few minutes earlier—she added, “These last few days, I’ve been having really scary thoughts. I want to hurt them. Do something bad to them. Put rat poison or something in their coffee. I can’t stop thinking those thoughts. And I don’t know what to do.”
I didn’t hear the therapist’s response. A group of about a hundred runners wearing shirts that said RUNNING FOR AN APARTMENT dashed across the boulevard. The therapist and the patient kept talking as if sweaty bodies running past them was perfectly normal. I, on the other hand, became frightened that one of the runners would trample me by mistake, and I didn’t resume my eavesdropping until after the last one had raced past. But I’d lost the thread of their conversation, so my attention wandered to a conversation going on in another tent. The one with the open window.
A man, whose legs were
the only part of him I could see, was telling the therapist that he had been married to a woman for twenty years, but was also attracted to men. His wife didn’t know, his children didn’t know, none of their friends knew—but every once in a while he went to places where he could indulge that tendency of his. “I don’t expect you to give me a solution,” he said, “I don’t really think there is one. It’s just that walking around with a secret like this for such a long time…it’s so…do you understand? So just the fact that I can talk to you here…do you understand?”
The supportive conversations continued into the night, and I continued to listen in on them as I swung like a pendulum from astonishment to horror: astonished at how easily people reveal their innermost selves to anyone who will listen, and horrified by exactly the same thing. While the supportive sessions were going on, various and sundry processions walked past us, sometimes among us.
Drunks, homeless people, and just plain cynics burst into the unadorned, makeshift living room to say their piece. But that did not disturb the people who had come for support. At least from what I could tell, they had no problem sharing with the entire boulevard their sexual deviations, their addictions, or the lies they had told to the people closest to them.
Gradually, Michael, I found myself coming to a momentous conclusion: these were not simply a few isolated cases, but a common phenomenon. It seems that the line between “private” and “public,” between “inner” and “outer,” has moved these past several years without informing us. And perhaps it has been completely erased.
My second surprise was the way the people who called themselves “therapists” reacted, and here too, I shifted from astonishment to horror. Astonished at how young they were (they wore shorts, Michael! So different from the image of the older man with a pipe I pictured talking with Adar), at their ability to listen, really listen, in the midst of the constant pandemonium on the boulevard, and at their sincere desire to help the people who came to talk to them.
