An Arab Lover
Every time I enter the kitchen, I remind myself I need a lover. Even my wife knows. Since she gave birth, she says she doesn’t care anymore. As far as she’s concerned I can bring one home with me. She says Islam permits such things, something called a marriage of enjoyment.
For a few months now, my wife has been saying I can’t stand her. That’s for sure, I say. I never could stand her, but lately it’s worse than ever. She asks what’s changed, and I say nothing has changed with me; she’s the one who’s more sensitive, now that she’s a mother.
I’m looking for an Arab lover, preferably a married one, someone who’ll understand me. Someone I’ll have a lot in common with. She can be a divorcée or an unmarried woman who’s been through a lot. I’ll put an ad in the paper. How much could it cost? But I’m afraid of ugly ones or of the Arab men who may try to find out who the pervert is. She might send me a letter and a picture to my postal box, or make a date at some café, and just then one of my neighbors will happen to come in and everyone in Beit Safafa will be talking about me.
I’m a failure anyway. One night a cabdriver who took me home asked me my name, and as soon as I told him, he said, “Oh, so you’re the one who comes home drunk every night.” Lots of taxi drivers from the village work downtown at night. I can see them staring at me as I walk out of the bar, so I start taking out the garbage when I leave, even though I don’t have to. That way maybe the cabbies will think I’m working and not just wasting money.
Unfortunately, I’ve had to rule out the possibility of finding a lover in Beit Safafa itself. Sometimes when we visit Tira, my mother-in-law talks about another married woman who was caught with one of the neighbors or with a stranger. It never fails to surprise me — Arab women who cheat on their husbands. I admire them. The ending is always tragic. They always wind up being caught in one of the orchards of Tel Mond or Ramat Ha Kovesh. The orchards, el-bayarat, have always been the scene of forbidden things. I grew up on stories of people being hunted down in orchards or orange groves, of thugs setting fire there to stolen cars, of criminals being found dead or young girls found hanging from the branch of an orange or avocado tree. If it happens in Tira, it probably happens in Beit Safafa too. Except that we’re not tuned into the local scene. We’re strangers here; we don’t know the main characters in the play. There are no orchards or groves, and I’ve yet to locate the hub of the Arab criminal scene. Sometimes I think it may be at the Malcha shopping mall or at the Biblical Zoo.
When I get myself a lover, I won’t know where to take her. All the places I’ve thought of seem too dangerous, too visible. There are Arabs in all the cafés and all the bars, and working in just about every restaurant in town. Maybe someone will recognize her? Maybe someone has seen me sometime in the past? If I can work up the courage, I’ll take my lover to the Jerusalem forest. We’ll find a quiet spot or park the car and walk down to one of the side paths. We’ll sit there, talking and looking at the view. When it gets dark, we can make out in the car. Just once, I’ve got to make out in a car. Maybe she’ll bring her husband’s BMW. Maybe he has a Volvo. But me, I’d never risk going into the forest. What if they stole my car? It’d take us five hours to walk back to town. And what if we’re killed by some Arab? Nobody will feel bad about the mistake, not even the Arabs. They’ll say it’s an omen. God wanted to expose the criminals and punish them. Better die by hanging in the groves of Tel Mond than get shot as a Jew by mistake — and with a lover, no less. How would they be able to tell we were Arabs, sitting in the forest and making out? I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be wearing a veil.
It’s not that I’m good-looking. My wife says I’m okay. She says I have no neck and my head is too big. She says I’ve got to stand up straight when I walk, because it could add five centimeters to my height. At the pharmacy she bought me a device that’s supposed to support your back, but it bent out of shape within a week. I’m not fat, but my cheeks are too big. I look in the mirror and see the bulges I should get rid of. They really are ugly, and no matter how much weight I lose they won’t go away. My wife says it has to do with the shape of my skull, and nothing is going to change it. I try not to eat too much, and if I do, I try to throw up as much as possible. I never leave the house, even just to the grocery store, without throwing up first. My wife says my proportions are all wrong. My body’s thin and my head’s enormous. I’ve got to gain some weight.
I need a lover quick. How much longer can I last with the same woman? I’m not to blame. They keep talking on TV about the chemical substance of love that stops working after four years with the same person. So according to science, I’ve been walking around for two and a half years without the chemical substance. Sometimes I think that’s why I throw up.
My wife says that unless I change I’ll never find a lover. I’m too lazy. I don’t even take the trouble to empty an ashtray. I’m too immersed in myself to be able to invest in a lover. “You’ve got to invest,” she says, but I don’t know what that means. And she explains, “It means to invest emotionally, but you’re not capable of that. As far as you’re concerned, anything goes. Ahalan wa-sahalan. I wish you had a lover. She’d suffer like hell. At least there’d be one more person who knew what you’re like. Maybe she would help me with the baby and the house.”
Sometimes my wife says I have a good heart. I’m the kindest person in the world, she says. And sometimes she says I’m as mean as they come, so mean I have no idea what love is all about, and the best thing I could do would be to stay drunk. Now she remembers how I seemed to her back at the beginning. How she liked me then. How I used to go to the supermarket on Fridays to buy tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers, to make salad and fry cutlets for her. Now she laughs at herself, for ever believing I really was different.
Not Made for Love
My father always says I have no love in my heart, that I’m not made for love. My wife agrees with him. She’s never met anyone as indifferent and inconsiderate as I am. She says I don’t even see the other person. As far as I’m concerned, I’m in the center, and the whole universe revolves around me. She says she hates me, that I have no idea how much she hates me. She’d love for them to find I had cancer, so I’d die as soon as possible. She can’t stand the sight of me anymore. I’m the most repulsive thing in her life. She wishes I’d die — amen! She won’t wait long after I die. She’ll remarry quickly. I was the one who made her forget the joy of living. I destroyed her, I shattered her, I turned her into a depressive old lady in her twenties. If only I’d have a traffic accident and get killed. She doesn’t want me to wind up disabled. She wants it to be final, wants me to die on the spot. Actually she wouldn’t mind if it took me two days to die. Quite the contrary, she’d be pleased if I suffered. Or I could be unconscious, and she’d stand at my hospital bedside, cry, and hold my hand as all the people came to see me for the last time, but when we were alone she’d be happy. She’d be sure I knew how happy she was. She would give a voiceless chuckle and whisper in my ear, “It’s what you deserve, you sonofabitch.”