Look for Me (25 page)

When I brought out my camera, the atmosphere in the room became very serious and intent. The bereaved parents stared hard into the camera lens, as if they were pinning their last hopes on these photographs, as if they believed or prayed that maybe, possibly, when people saw the images and knew the story something would be done. I felt guilty and heartbroken.

Then we watched a video of the children being shot—
someone who’d been sitting on a balcony had caught it with a camcorder as he filmed the tanks crawling through the streets. The killing was very distant and small on-screen. Now the children would live forever as video images, their death would be seen again and again, the tiny distant bodies crumpling on the white street. The two boys, Ashraf and Jamil, had misunderstood; they thought the curfew was lifted; that’s what their father had told them. He was the one who had misunderstood, he said. The blaring sound of the megaphone, the bad accents of the soldiers—he had misheard. And they were so excited about going out, they ran onto the street, clutching the two coins their father had given them for chocolate. The coins were still in the fist of one of the boys when his body was retrieved.

I stood near the wall and thought about Rafi and wondered what he would do in this room and what he would say to the parents. He would be able to speak to them in Arabic. The mother was crying, and she had to leave the room when the video came on, but the father was quiet.

We left the village in a gloomy mood. The soldiers watched us with the same blank looks. We avoided their eyes.

In the van driving home, one of the men, who was religious, read us a psalm from a pocket Bible. He had sandy hair, gray eyes, and a sensuous, trusting face.
“The Lord looks down from heaven, he sees all the sons of men. A king is not saved by his great army, a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.”
The sound of the words was soothing, but no one was comforted by the words themselves, not even the man who read them.

When I came home I called Rafi. He said he’d come over after Naomi was in bed, later in the evening.

I went for a walk on the beach, but for once even the sea
failed to seduce me. A barrier of images blocked my escape: the house full of relatives, the man with the cat eyes and his teenage wife, the folding chairs, the intense faces staring into the camera, the mother running out of the room. The two small bodies crumpling on the street.

A woman in a black-and-ruby swimsuit was sitting on a rented beach chair reading the newspaper. The tanned, blond man who collected payment for the chairs passed her and asked, “So did they kill him in the end, or not?” There had been an assassination attempt in the morning, but it wasn’t clear yet whether the targeted man was dead or merely wounded.

“So did they kill him in the end, or not?”

The words had a hollow, metallic quality to them, like a corroded pipe in a deserted factory. “So did they kill him in the end, or not?” The question echoed in the air: small talk between strangers. Maybe I was starting to go mad.

I was glad to find Benny in my flat when I returned; I wanted some company. Benny looked a little more spruced up than usual. He was wearing a clean blue shirt and a pair of trousers instead of his usual denim shorts.

“Going out?” I asked him.

“Yes, to visit you,” he said. “Where have you been all day, Dana? I need to talk to you. I brought some wine and stuff.” I saw that he’d set a bottle of wine on the kitchen counter along with all sorts of snacks: cheese borekas and salads from the bakery around the corner, and a poppy seed cake.

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

“I have something I need to talk to you about. Where were you today, by the way?” He lit a cigarette.

I wondered what was going on. Benny was a pragmatic person, and he liked things that were plain: plain food and plain songs and plain people. And if people weren’t plain, if they were only predictable, that was fine, because he mistook predictability
for plainness and he didn’t notice complexity or else he pretended it wasn’t there. If he came across anything that required a little more effort on his part, some insight or a departure from his usual way of thinking, he looked the other way. At the same time he was a very restless person, and I sometimes felt he’d become a taxi driver because he couldn’t sit still, and that he couldn’t sit still because something was missing from his life and he was hoping to find it.

“I went to photograph a condolence visit, two Palestinian children who were killed by a tank.”

He sighed. “What about our victims, have you paid any condolence visits there?”

“We’ve had joint condolence visits … our families, their families.”

“You don’t care about our dead …”

“People are doing this so we’ll all have fewer dead, hopefully.” We’d had this conversation many times. We were constantly repeating ourselves, but neither of us minded. Every time we said the same things they seemed new, they were new. “You know how I feel about our dead, Benny.”

“Yes, yes … I just get fed up with you.”

“You’ve never even been to a refugee camp. Not even once in your life.”

“So what? I know what they’re like. It’s sad, but they have only themselves to blame. Besides, we have poverty too. They don’t have the monopoly on bad living conditions.”

“What have you been doing?”

“The usual. I had a fare all the way north today. Rich bastards. You wouldn’t believe the money some people in this country have, it boggles the mind. The whole time they were talking about their investments. The numbers they were throwing around … Wine?”

“Yes, please.”

“This is very good wine,” he said, opening the bottle and pouring. “Who painted this mural for you?”

“Someone Daniel worked with.”

“Some people have talent … Look at those cows.” He smiled. “Very cute.”

“Well, what do you need to talk to me about?”

“I want to marry you.”

“Marry me! Benny, you know I’m married.”

“I know we can’t marry technically, though I think there’s a possibility you’d qualify for divorce based on desertion—I don’t know what the rules are. I asked around, but no one seems to know. But even if we can’t marry technically, we can live as if we’re married. And we can have children.”

“I don’t know what to say.” I was sorry for Benny, but at the same time I was a little suspicious of his motives. I thought he might be trying to get back at Miriam; maybe he wanted to even things out so he wouldn’t be so tormented by her new relationship.

“I love you, Dana. I can’t stop thinking about you. I come into this flat while you’re away, I look at everything, and I feel I’m losing my mind. I watch you while you’re sleeping, I’ve even stroked your hair, I know it’s wrong but I couldn’t help myself. I feel I’ll explode if I can’t have you. There are a million obstacles, and I keep telling myself over and over that it’s impossible. First, your politics. My family would just go through the roof if they found out. And knowing you, they’d find out in the first five minutes of meeting you, you’re not the type to keep that sort of thing to yourself. But on the other hand, I’m over forty, I no longer have to listen to my parents. I’m a big boy, I can do what I want. They’d get used to it, and if they didn’t, tough. Then there’s the problem of children. If I can’t marry you, they’d be illegitimate. That would be really hard in this country. But we could look into
it, we could see whether there’s a way for you to get a divorce. I think you qualify, someone told me that after a certain amount of time if the husband is missing you qualify, I’m not sure. I don’t have a lot of money, this divorce and the war have destroyed me. So there are lots of problems, but on the other hand, I’m just going insane. If you say no, I don’t know what I’ll do. I feel you like me, but I don’t know. Everything depends on you, of course. But maybe even if you don’t feel you’re ready to decide, you could give me a chance. Get to know me, give me a chance to prove myself.”

I was a little stunned by this speech, though I tried not to show it. My dreams about Benny crouching by the side of my bed had not been an invention after all; he had really been there. I couldn’t help being moved. “I like you, Benny, but don’t you think this is just about Miriam? Maybe you’re just trying to get away from her.”

“If you said yes, I swear to you I’d never let her into this building again, ever. It would be completely over, completely. I hate her anyhow, it wouldn’t be any effort. If that’s what’s bothering you, don’t even think about it.”

“Benny, I can’t marry you for a million reasons.”

He looked very downcast when I said that.

“It’s nothing to do with you personally. I love my husband, and I know I’m going to see him one day. In fact I’m getting closer to finding out where he is, I’ve never been this close.”

“You can’t waste your life like this, Dana. You’re going to be thirty-eight, this is your last chance to have a child. Time doesn’t move backward. You’ll be eighty years old one day and you’ll look back and you won’t believe you missed the opportunity to have a life with someone, and a family. If we hurry, we could have two children, even. You said you always wanted children.”

“Yes, my husband and I wanted children. We wanted a big family.”

“Well, here’s your chance. Why not just think about it? I know I can make you very, very happy, if you’ll just let me. You can’t imagine how much I love you.”

“Benny, just last week you were telling me you were in love with Miriam.”

“No, I said I had a craving for her. It’s pure lust, that’s all it is. And it would disappear altogether if it had another outlet.”

I didn’t say anything. We sat in dejected silence like two captured spies waiting for interrogation. I picked at the borekas and Benny poured himself more wine.

“Do you have someone else?” Benny finally asked.

“No.”

“I mean, do you sleep with other people?”

“Not really. Beatrice comes over now and then, that doesn’t really count.”

“That woman with the curly red hair?”

“Yes.”

“So, what, I don’t get it—are you a lesbian?”

“No, she’s just a friend. It’s casual.”

“I noticed she was staying here nights, but I thought maybe she just didn’t have a place to stay in the city.”

“She lives near the university. She’s really busy, but she likes to drop by sometimes.”

“Who else?”

“That’s it, Benny, no one else. Even though, really, it’s none of your business, you know.”

“What about that doctor guy?”

I shook my head.

“So there’s no one.”

“No. Just my husband.”

“What about that new guy I’ve seen around here?”

“How come everyone watches who comes and goes out of my apartment? What is it with you people?”

“I just happened to run into him as he was leaving, that’s all. And it was late at night, so you can’t blame me for wondering. But I don’t mean to interfere. I was coming back from work, that’s all. Don’t get all excited.”

“He’s just someone from one of the peace groups. He’s married, he has a daughter.”

He sighed. “Think about it, anyhow. Promise me you’ll think about it. I know how sad you are,” he said, surprising me. He’d never said anything like that before. “But life can be great, too. It’s just a question of finding the pearls in the mud, you know. I lost thirty-six friends. Well, friends and acquaintances. In ’82, ’83, in Lebanon. Thirty-six.” He shook his head, as though still incredulous. “My best friend included. He was shot right next to me. Someone threw a smoke grenade and he lifted his head a few inches to see better, and he got shot in the chest. And then his brother went crazy because of it, so I lost them both, I was close to both of them. You have to learn to get over things. You have to go on; otherwise, what’s the point of life, you might as well just kill yourself.” He began to tremble. He was trembling from head to foot. I knew what that was all about: he was trying to gather the courage to make a pass. I felt bad for him again.

“You’re shaking,” I said.

“Yes, I’m nervous.”

“I can’t have sex with you, Benny. I’m sorry. I’m loyal to my husband. Please don’t ask. You’re very handsome and I’m sure you’re a fabulous lover, but I can’t betray my husband.”

He got up. He was very angry, but he was trying to control himself.

“Well, I guess there’s nothing more to say.”

“Please don’t be angry. Is this the end of our friendship?”

“No, I’m not giving up that easily,” he said.

Then he left.