So the dolls were thrown out, not even one left as a memento. The flowered bedspread was folded carelessly and shoved into the cupboard, and the only reason it wasn’t thrown away was that it had been outrageously expensive. The desk was moved from one corner of the room to another, and after much thought and many sighs, Nofar moved it to a third corner until, finally, after tears and a brief stop in a fourth corner, she angrily returned it to its original place. No one but Maya understood what was happening. She watched her father struggle to drag the desk in its wanderings from corner to corner, watched her mother valiantly defend the bedspread and asked, “So when is he coming?”
“None of your business.”
But in fact, it was her business. Very much so. And also her parents’ business as soon as they understood what was going on. They had a long conversation that night: should they allow him to sleep over? Should they allow her to sleep at his place in the future? Should they talk about contraception or would that only be an unnecessary embarrassment, and could they welcome him with a smile without being too heavy-handed? They spoke about a thousand other things that became totally redundant when it turned out that Nofar had carefully planned his arrival at a time they were both at work. Only she and Maya would be home, and Maya, thank heavens, had more important things to occupy her.
29
TEN TIMES HE TOOK his phone out of his pocket to text her that he couldn’t come, and ten times he looked instead at the messages from the group. There were funny videos and nasty comments and pictures of girls who put stuff in and out of their bodies, even a snake. The first two days after Ido Tal had brought him into the group, Lavi didn’t write or send anything, trying to be as quiet as possible so they wouldn’t notice him or throw him out. On the third day Ido wrote, “So, Maimon?” Lavi had been expecting that, and a moment later he sent the grossest picture he could find, something really disgusting but funny too. They all wrote “Wow” and “Woweeee”, and for a moment he hoped that offering would be enough for them. When Ido texted, “The one in the middle is Shkedi’s mother, right?” he was overjoyed. But a minute later Ido wrote again, “Ya’allah, time to be serious: tomorrow night a picture of the lucky girl.” And Lavi knew he was still in trouble.
There is a sign on the Shalev front door that says, “WELCOME TO OUR HAPPY HOME” along with a brightly coloured drawing of a smiling family, and it angered Lavi to see that even there, on the sign, one of the girls was drawn a bit prettier than the other. He knocked hesitantly, and then a bit harder. But there was no need to knock again: a dancing heart waited on the other side of the door and leapt to open it. How pretty she looked to him, with her hair pulled back and the blue dress he knew. Embarrassed, they stood facing each other for a moment, then he kissed her on the cheek the way he had seen the boys in his class kiss their girlfriends at the entrance to school. In the alley he had never kissed her cheek. Of all the places in the world, he thought the cheek was an especially boring one to kiss, but here, at the door to her home, it seemed appropriate. She took his hand and glided quickly through the neatest-it-had-ever-been living room, straight to her room and closed the door, breathing a sigh of relief.
They talked about TV. About the series they liked and the ones they didn’t like, and about series they once liked and then had stopped liking. They spoke quickly, with nervous excitement that the words wanted to hide but the speed exposed. Silence lay in wait at the end of every sentence like a frightening dog at the end of the street. That might be why, when they heard a knock on the door and Maya came in, they both greeted her happily. Not only Lavi, but even Nofar was momentarily glad to see her little sister. Maya came into the room to ask whether anyone wanted a Coke, and also to have a look, to investigate, to take in a bit of the thing that existed between her big sister and that boy. She didn’t miss an iota of the relief that showed on their faces. She had been sure she would be sent away unceremoniously, that Nofar wouldn’t let her even open the door. She had thought the boy would look away from her, as he had during the never-mentioned conversation at school. Instead, the two of them said yes to the Coke. Maya left, returning a moment later with a bottle and some glasses, and that moment was all Nofar needed to regret having let her sister come into the room. One time, the only time someone comes to see her, is sitting in her room – it’s Maya’s laughter ringing out in the hallway again. It’s Maya telling them, with her infectious enthusiasm, about a teacher in some school who had been caught growing marijuana.
Nofar remembered the article, she too had seen it in the morning in the paper, but it hadn’t seemed interesting enough to mention. Now, as Maya spoke about the article, it suddenly seemed like the most interesting thing in the world. As if Maya had actually been there when they caught the teacher. She showed them how a maths teacher smokes a bong, and did it so well that they almost spilt their Cokes from laughing so hard. Lavi asked Maya whether she had ever smoked, because if not, how did she know those things. “Of course not,” Maya said as she nodded “yes,” so that neither Lavi nor Nofar could know whether she had smoked or not, which made it even more intriguing. And so it continued, Maya spoke and they laughed, and Nofar made a great effort to tell herself that it was actually okay. That it was fine. After all, days had passed since that moment at the ceremony when she saw Lavi and Maya looking at each other. And even if a large sign saying “DANGER” had been hung in her mind then, an endless number of other signs had been hung there since, one on top of the other, so who remembered what had been there first? But now she did remember. All at once she remembered, perhaps because she had never really forgotten, but had only wanted to forget. She stood up suddenly, surprising Maya and Lavi, and said, “Okay. Thanks for the Coke,” went to the door and opened it.
The small cloud that passed over Maya’s face vanished immediately. She took the Coke bottle and her own and Nofar’s empty glasses, saying, “But Lavi, you didn’t drink anything.”
That wasn’t true. He had drunk a little. But he stopped when he felt the nausea in his stomach, though he knew that it had nothing to do with the Coke, but rather with what he had to do. The moment Maya came into the room he had been thinking about how to take her picture without her noticing it. But you can’t take someone’s picture without their noticing it. Maybe if you work for the Mossad. Maybe Arieh Maimon could. Or Ido Tal. But Lavi couldn’t.
He had no choice. He’d have to forget it. And the moment he realized that, conversation became suddenly easier, even fun. Maya put down the glasses, did imitations of some pot-head teacher and he laughed and hoped she’d go out of the room soon so that he and Nofar could finally be alone together. Now, knowing he wasn’t going to do it, he was sure they’d manage to talk to each other normally. But then, just as Maya took the glasses and walked past Nofar on her way out, everything was destroyed. They stood beside each other, and he knew exactly what he had to do to remain in the group and extinguish the doubt in Ido’s eyes. His stomach suddenly felt like it did when the air-raid sirens had blared in the summer: you’re walking down the street and everything is normal. All of a sudden everyone starts running and you tell yourself it’s just a siren, but there’s a thin layer of ice on all your organs, like a chicken when you take it out of the freezer. That’s how his stomach was now, and he wondered whether, in that condition, he could speak normally. But he did so really well: Maya was about to leave the room when he said in the most natural voice in the world, “How about we take a selfie together?”
They agreed. Why wouldn’t they. Maya with the enthusiasm of someone used to being photographed, Nofar with the awkwardness of someone who had never been photographed. True, she had been on television and radio and in the papers, and of course her parents had photographed her, but a boy had never asked her to take a picture with him, and, certainly, no boy had ever said to her, “I want to have a picture of you.” Perhaps Maya was sensitive enough to understand that, because she moved away from Nofar and said, “But why with me, just the two of you should be in the pict
ure.” As if she didn’t want to steal the moment. A wave of affection for her younger sister rose in Nofar, making her feel somewhat guilty for the rude way she had sent her out of the room earlier, so the older sister reached out to hug the younger sister’s slender waist and said, “No, first the three of us together.”
He looked at the pictures all the way home. In one of only him and Nofar, she looked both embarrassed and proud. Embarrassed because he was taking her picture and proud for the same reason. The embarrassment and the pride cancelled each other out, eliminating the arrogant glow that pride bestows upon certain portraits, as well as the shy charm that embarrassment confers on others. Even broken glass can glitter like a diamond if the sun treats it kindly, but there was no kindness in that picture. The sun touched Nofar’s face exactly where her pimples had set up house, exposing reddish spots on her forehead and cheeks. Her smile, usually broad and generous, looked forced. Almost false. Her eyes retained the same alert, knowing look, but the photograph deprived it of their unique shade of pale blue. And still he loved her. And still she seemed beautiful to him. Just not enough.
Perhaps what pained him most was the hint of a question mark on her face. The eyebrows were raised slightly in surprise: “Me? You really want to take my picture?” The argument was written in every feature, as if the likeness did not belong to one girl but to two, struggling with each other; one reassuring, “Yes, he wants to take your picture,” and the other refusing to believe it.
The second picture was even worse, which was surprising because Nofar was so beautiful in it. Everything that fate had kept from her in the first picture, it restored in this one. Her expression was open and lovely, her smile radiant, and playful blue fire danced in her eyes once again, as if the battle that had been raging in them earlier was over and now she could glow in comfort. Never, not in any photo, had Nofar looked so enchanting. For a moment, only for a moment, he thought it might be enough. But then his eye wandered to the sister hugging her. It’s important to remember that Maya had tried. She had wanted to leave her sister what was hers. She wasn’t to blame that Nofar had insisted they hug, and she wasn’t to blame that Lavi had insisted on taking their picture. But from the moment they insisted, the moment Maya moved to Nofar’s side, the same thing happened to Maya that happens to a girl when she is measured against another girl. Her back straightened. Her head was held higher. Her neck grew longer. Her breasts became rounder. And all the other changes well known to science occurred, silkier hair, clearer eyes, redder lips – in short, when Maya stood beside Nofar, the younger sister’s beauty increased a hundredfold, proving once again that this planet has one and only one sun, there is no room for two.
But the choice was still his. When he began to edit the picture, cut it in half and design the file, the choice was still his. It still wasn’t clear which of the two girls would soon be sent to oblivion and which would be saved and uploaded into the file. Because Nofar really did look beautiful there. Remarkably sweet and lovely. You could see in her eyes how smart she was. And special. The bus made its way back to the city and Lavi shifted his gaze from Maya to Nofar, from Nofar to Maya, and each time she looked more beautiful, more beloved, more possible.
*
“What a p-u-u-u-ssy.”
“Bro, how did you hook one like that?”
“She must be some cousin who’s a model. Nah, just kidding.”
He didn’t read those texts. Didn’t even glance at them. As if, the minute he uploaded the picture, he lost all interest in the group.
She was on his phone. She existed close to him even when he didn’t see her. Even if they weren’t face to face, her face was in his trouser pocket. That thought never ceased to excite him. Even when he was sad or nervous, the second Nofar, the smiling one, was still preserved on Lavi’s phone. He kept her with him, and the knowledge of that second existence illuminated her actual existence, like a light reflector on the side of the road.
30
“SO,” MAYA ASKED, “have you slept with him yet?” Steam filled the bathroom and clouded the mirror. Nofar was brushing her teeth in front of her misty reflection. Maya was standing in the shower shampooing her hair. She turned off the water for a minute and droplets rolled down the length of her body. The beads of water became trapped in her pubic hair, which had begun to grow when Maya was thirteen and now looked as if it had always been there. Their parents had bathed them together in that bathroom throughout their childhood. They had shampooed each other’s hair, pulled each other’s hair, floated boats and dolls. First their father had been exiled from the bathroom: for many years he had been forbidden from entering when they were there, even if the curtain was closed. Then their mother was pushed out as well. Come on, Mom, get out please. But they continued to accept each other without hesitation, one showered and the other sat on the toilet seat and brushed her teeth, or examined the state of her eyebrows in front of the large mirror. Over the many hours they spent together, they learnt to know each other’s bodies inside and out. A beauty mark. An ingrown toenail. The precise fullness of each breast and the small differences between them. No lover would ever know either one of them the way they knew each other. Morning breath. The position they usually slept in. The marks their feet left in borrowed shoes. When one used the other’s hairbrush, which was taboo, the hair left on the brush gave her away. (Numerous arguments about those brushes. Each always preferred the other’s brush, even when their mother bought identical ones.) Such total knowledge, and yet, Nofar thought, tensing in front of the mirror, there’s another kind of knowledge. Strange that they had never talked about it before. Strange that they were talking about it now.
She opened the two cabinet doors so they were facing each other, mirror facing mirror in an endless reflection, all the possible bathrooms visible, and inside them, all the possible conversations. Maya turned on the tap again. The drops of water that were entwined in her pubic hair were washed away all at once, the pink flesh behind them suddenly broke through, and Nofar looked at it, wondering whether Maya had already done it. Of course she had, she answered herself, with all those boyfriends of hers she’d probably done it a long time ago. But who knows. Maya had never said anything, and Nofar had never asked. Now, her younger sister’s direct question – “Have you slept with him yet?”
Like all the soap bubbles they had made together in the bath, counting the seconds until they disappeared, Nofar now counted the seconds until the silence would be broken. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” Maya reached out for the towel and Nofar handed it to her quickly, a substitute for her reply. While the younger sister was drying herself, Nofar undressed and stepped into the shower.
“Do you love him?”
She actually preferred the previous question. Maya didn’t sense it, or perhaps she did, and that was why she went on, “He looks like a good fuck.” The word burst forth from the depths – Maya had submerged her face and hair in the huge towel. When she removed it, her face was red with embarrassment. It had excited her to say those words. It had excited Nofar to hear them. Until then, only characters on the TV screen spoke that way, and now they were doing it. Nofar turned on the water to the maximum pressure, grateful for the deafening tumult that cut off their conversation. What exactly was a good fuck? Who does it depend on? She of course didn’t know how to have a good fuck. And somehow, she had the feeling that Lavi didn’t really know either.
She was right about that. The boy had read endlessly about fucking, had watched it at every opportunity, but he more he watched, the less he knew. The people he watched on his computer didn’t look in the least like him or Nofar, and the things they did seemed far beyond his grasp. The thought of having sex with his girlfriend aroused in him equal measures of terror and interest.
Especially now. He lived in constant fear that she would find the picture. Without their wanting it, a certain distance grew between them. Nofar couldn’t imagine why. She thought it was because they’d be apart when she went
on the upcoming school trip to Poland. She’d be gone for only a week, but every day she didn’t go to the alley was like an eternity.
PART TWO
31
AND RAYMONDE really wanted to go. She had never been outside Israel. She barely remembered Morocco, where she was born. It was mostly the smell that remained, a combination she just couldn’t put into words, it was indescribable, the way you can’t describe the sound lentils make when you move your hand around in them, you have to be there to know. The clear memories were of the ma’abarot, the transit camps for North African Jews arriving in Israel; the sound of rain on the tin roof in the middle of the night. A constant, thunderous drumming, like rifle fire. It was no wonder Amsalem the Madroub (“crazy” in Arabic) ran outside with his hands on his ears. Since the war, everything sounded like gunfire to him, the Jordanians were coming to finish what they started. They took the whole unit except for Crazy Amsalem, and even though he was discharged a year ago, he was still waiting for them to come for him, to finish the job. First memories: a wool blanket her mother knitted for her, and she curled up in it like a chick in a nest. Even now, she would recognize that blanket if she came across it in the street. She tried to knit one like it for her granddaughter, but her daughter-in-law said that wool itches. She’d rather buy something softer. “Don’t be insulted.” She wasn’t insulted. “El tmar dikelti ana la-abt bidmahoum,” she said in Arabic, and when her daughter-in-law asked, “What did you say?” she translated, “I said that I played with the seeds of the dates you’re eating now.” For a minute she was afraid they’d have one hell of an argument, but her daughter-in-law said, “I really love those sayings of yours, you should write them down,” and went off to buy a soft blanket that didn’t itch. She kept the blanket she knitted for her grandchildren in her cupboard and waited for them to grow up and come to sleep at her place. Then she would show what a really warm blanket feels like. But they didn’t come. Once she heard the zrira, the little one, whisper that Grandma smells old. The next day she put the blanket outside the home so at least the cats could curl up in it. And that was how she became friends with Rivka. When she stood up to go inside she saw her on the bench, next to her walking frame, tossing supper leftovers to the cats, even though the home manager said they weren’t allowed. She liked her already when she saw her holding the dry bourekas they’d served the night before. “I wet it with cottage cheese,” Rivka told her as she sat down beside her on the bench, “but even so, I’m embarrassed to give it to them.” The cats were spoilt. They ate the cottage cheese but left the pastry on the pavement, just like the residents of the home had left it on their plates the night before.
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