Look for Me (30 page)

“Who knows! Impossible to tell. She lost a son in ’89, if that’s a clue. But I think she had him very young, he was her eldest. She has a five-year-old, too. I thought we were banishing the outside world.”

“Harder than it sounds.”

“You understand people better than I do, Rafi.”

“I don’t understand anyone.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love Daniel.”

“So one gathers.”

“You have a scar here, I didn’t notice before.”

“Yes, a knife found its way to my thigh. I didn’t even feel it when it happened. Guy grabbed my rifle strap, stuck a knife in my leg. I wasn’t aware it was happening, I didn’t feel a thing. Someone pointed out to me afterward that I was bleeding.”

“I guess it’s hopeless. We’ll never succeed in having the sort of conversation lovers have in Hollywood films. We’re doomed.”

“We’re haunted.”

“We’re possessed.”

“We’re horny.”

“We’re in love.”

“We’re sexy.”

“We’re fabulous.”

“I love your body. I love your breasts.”

“You’re handsome. Extremely handsome.”

“Yes, everyone always said so. Especially my mother.”

“Your eyes are black.”

“Dark brown.”

“They look black. I love your mouth. Are we doing better now?”

“Much better.”

“How come I don’t feel guilty, Rafi?”

“Because you’re angry at Daniel.”

“I’m not. I understand him. I feel bad for him.”

“Okay.”

“I’m happy I’m here with you. Thank you for coming, thank
you for staying with me until I go. Thank you for not minding that it’s the last time. You’re very nice to me, Rafi.”

“I’m hoping it won’t be the last time. I want you to find Daniel, of course. But I hope we can go on being lovers.”

“I’m not the type.”

“I don’t think Daniel’s going to come back here, Dana.”

“He will.”

“He’s probably become attached to his home.”

“This is his home.”

“Well … I’m sure he’s missed you. I’m sure he still misses you.”

“You must have women falling in love with you all the time. You’re so cute …”

“Some women have come on to me, but whether it’s love … I have no idea.”

“I hope I didn’t hurt Benny too much.”

“Benny again! What’s Benny doing in this room? I’m ready to put up with Daniel, but that’s my limit.”

“I forget you’re not my therapist. Rafi, what do you see in me? I can’t figure it out.”

“I like your breasts.”

“Seriously.”

“Well, what do you like about yourself? The things you like are probably the things I like.”

“I don’t like myself that much. I’m boring.”

“Boring … is that what you think? What’s boring about you?”

“I do the same things all the time.”

“Yes, but they’re charming things, Dana. But I’m not going to tell you what I like about you, because it’s going to make you too vain. Especially since I am possibly on the verge of losing you forever and being heartbroken for the next few years.”

“You’re just joking around.”

“No, I’m not joking around. If you don’t see me anymore it’s going to hurt me. What do you think?”

“I guess I find it hard to believe you’re really attached to me.”

“You don’t want to believe it, Dana, because it’s inconvenient.”

“I told you this would be a mess. And you said no. You said you believe in happy endings.”

“If only life would cooperate.”

“Let’s not talk anymore, Rafi. Words ruin things. Let’s just love each other.”

“Fine with me.”

“Do that thing you did last time.”

“You mean this?”

M
ONDAY

I
LEFT THE HOTEL ROOM BEFORE
R
AFI WOKE
. I was glad he was sleeping; I didn’t want to say good-bye. I dressed quietly and left him a note, telling him I’d call him from the Coastal Strip to let him know I was all right, and asking him not to phone me. Then I went back to my flat and packed the dressing gown and the photograph of the men and the birds. I decided to take my toothbrush and a change of clothes as well, since I would be staying overnight. I assumed Daniel would need time to get organized, and that I’d stay with him until he was ready to come back.

In the taxi to the train station my heart was pounding, and I was having difficulty breathing. The driver asked me whether I was feeling unwell.

“I’m just excited,” I said. “I’m going to see my husband. I haven’t seen him in eleven years.” Telling a stranger something that was utterly meaningless for him, but of such immense significance to me, was a diversionary tactic. Or maybe I was trying
to pull this event out of the realm of the supernatural to the surface of normal life, in order to give it weight and presence.

“He’s been out of the country?”

“Yes.”

“Why so long?”

“He got lost.”

The driver laughed. “You’re funny,” he said. Then he sighed happily. “I’m laughing, I’m sitting here next to you. And I’m alive. You don’t appreciate life until you see death. Two hours ago I was sure it was the end for me …I haven’t come so close since the fucking war.”

“Which war?”

“Take your pick.”

“What happened?”

“I swore to myself I wouldn’t do drug pickups, but business is so lousy. I have to eat, I have to pay the rent. And drug pickups pay really well, one hundred fifty shekels for a twenty-minute ride, there and back. So I figured, what the hell. Without money you can’t stay alive anyhow. That’s what I said to myself, but it isn’t true. I’d rather be in debt and alive, I know that now. Two hours ago I had a gun pointed at my head, because by mistake I got a look at the dealer.”

“Do you think it will last, this feeling of being happy to be alive?”

He shrugged. “Probably not. I’d like to hang on to it, though. I really would.”

When we arrived at the train station Ella was already there, waiting in her small blue car and talking on her mobile phone. She motioned me to come inside and with her free hand made room for me by moving junk from the passenger seat to the back. The car was like a large suitcase, stuffed with boxes, papers, food wrappers, batteries, a large flashlight, another mobile phone, a tape recorder, hats, socks, a rain jacket, a ratty cushion, blankets, and a bag of disposable diapers.

I waited for Ella to finish her phone conversation. She was speaking in Arabic, with English words inserted here and there when she didn’t know the Arabic word. When she was through, she said, “Hi. Thanks for being on time. There’s an envelope in the glove compartment … that’s your permit. I need to stop somewhere for coffee. Coffee, and I also have to pee. What a night … don’t ask.”

“You’ve been up all night?”

“Yes.” She sighed, and pressed on the gas. She was a bit of a wild driver.

We found a food stand and Ella got out to buy coffee and a bottle of water. Then we drove to the apartment building Daniel had given as his address, where the old couple lived now.

“This is where I pick up his mail,” Ella said. “You can give him this month’s check.”

“I can’t believe you never told me,” I said.

“He asked me not to.”

I stepped out of her car and stared at the building. It was a four-story apartment house, menacing, impenetrable, expelling breaths of invisible pain like smoke. Eleven years ago I had kept watch here. I had stationed myself across the street, on a rock, hidden by a row of dry, hostile bushes. I remembered thinking that this was what it was like to be a fugitive. You hid from the rest of civilization and you tried to look unobtrusive. I was afraid to move or sleep; I was afraid I’d miss Daniel’s secret messenger. I thought there was even a chance I would see Daniel himself, late at night; maybe he was the one leaving the notes on the door in disguised, alien handwriting. But in the end I had to sleep and I had to eat. I tried to rent a flat in the building, or in the building facing Daniel’s, but nothing was available.

We entered the familiar dark hallway. Ella used a key to open the mailbox and took out an envelope. “His allowance,” she said.

“Did you leave those notes on the door?”

“What notes?”

“Gone to the supermarket, back in five minutes.
I still have those notes, I tore them off the door and kept them.”

“No, that wasn’t me. A widow lived here—I guess those were her notes. She put an ad in the paper, room for rent, and Daniel took it—that is, he paid the rent so he could collect mail here.”

“But I knocked on the door, there was never anyone.”

“She was a little paranoid.”

“Who lives there now? That old couple, who are they?”

“Her relatives, I think. She died, and they moved in.”

“Does he still pay rent?”

“No, not for a long time now. But I still pick up his mail here, no one minds.”

I took the envelope from her and stared at the label. “Does he get other mail, too?”

“Not really. His mother writes now and then.”

“His mother!”

“Yes, she figured out he was getting his mail. And she was right.”

I ran out of the building, ran to the bushes in the back, and retched. Ella held my forehead, as if I were a little child.

“Dana, are you with us?”

Ella had pulled my hair back with her hands. I remembered going to my aunt, Belinda, because I thought I had lice. I was in high school, and I didn’t want anyone to know, so I went to Belinda, who was an obstetrician. She sat me down on her little round piano stool, next to the balcony, where the light was best. She lifted strands of hair, looked behind my ears, my neck, and suddenly I realized that she was playing with my hair, just playing with my hair entirely for her own pleasure.

“Dana?”

“I’m okay,” I said.

“Have some water.” She handed me her bottled water and we walked back to the car.

When we were on the highway, Ella said, “We’ll only have two checkpoints, if we’re lucky. The one at Selah shouldn’t be a problem—no one’s allowed out of the Coastal Strip, just about, so it’s pretty dead. But the checkpoints inside the strip are total pandemonium. It’s going to be a long wait once we’re inside.”

I was shivering. Ella said, “This is very hard for you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me I could write? Why didn’t his mother tell me?”

“She had no way of knowing whether her letters ever reached Daniel. She never had an answer.”

“It’s my fault, I stopped seeing his family, I stopped going over.”

“Daniel saw you on television, he heard you on the radio— it was very clever, what you did. Better than a letter, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” I was finding it hard to concentrate. “How did he do it? How did he go into hiding there?”

“I don’t know the details. Maybe he’ll tell you about it.”

“But if the army has his real address, how come they send the checks to that place?”

She shrugged. “Different department, I guess.”

“What does he do there?”

“He’s a teacher.”

“A teacher!”

“Yes, he teaches math and science, and also English.”

“Does he have cable?”

“Yes.”

“Does he have friends?”

“That’s the impression I get.”

“You never told me …”

“No, I never told you, Dana. When Daniel first asked me to keep his whereabouts a secret he persuaded me that it was for the best, that you didn’t love him. But then I decided, later, that he was wrong and we fought about it. I told him he was being unfair and putting me in a horrible position, as if I don’t have enough on my shoulders already. I don’t want you to talk about this to anyone, but one of my colleagues once got someone killed. He thought he disguised the information enough in his article but he didn’t. He nearly had a nervous breakdown, even though he’s not the first person it’s happened to and he won’t be the last.”

“He can’t assume it was his fault.”

“You tell yourself, ‘It wasn’t necessarily me, it wasn’t necessarily my article,’ but deep inside, you know it was. I have to keep secrets, I have no choice. I really tried to get him to call you. But Daniel’s stubborn, as stubborn as you are. He wouldn’t give in.”

“Did he say he missed me?”

“He didn’t have to say. I think he saw you once on the beach, when you came to photograph. He can see a section of the beach from his window.”

“My God.”

“It must have been hard for him, too.”

“Never mind. It’s all over now, I’m going to see him, the nightmare’s over.”

“How did you find out?”

“Just by fluke.”

“It shows you how cut off we are, that no one found out about Daniel. We’re worlds apart, even though in half an hour we’re going to be at the border.”

“I’ve been to other checkpoints, but never to Selah. This is the first time in years that I’ve gone somewhere like this without my camera.”

“I’d be interested in seeing your photos sometime.”

“Usually I take pictures of people, but at the checkpoints I mostly photograph objects, because they tell you a lot. Once the army sent the border guards some breakfast in a cardboard container, but it was just apples and yogurt, and the guards were so disgusted they kicked the container. I took a photo of the smashed apples and the yogurt spilling out. The container stayed there all day, in the middle of the road, cars drove over it, and it kept getting messier and messier. No one cares. Sometimes I get the feeling the guards are high.”