What’s done is done, Sima said, and her voice had no anger in it. Let’s start looking. I don’t think he’s here, but look over there, behind the parking lot.
*
Yotam’s mother circles the shops on the ground floor. She’s already done it twice with her friends, but feels the need to do it once more. Her eyes dart all over the place, searching for her son, and in her heart, she’s making deals with God. If you give him back in one piece, I promise to be a better person in every way. To light candles on Friday night. To recite psalms every day. OK, answers the God in her heart, I’ll consider it. But a minute before their imaginary handshake, she gets angry and cancels the deal. Consider it?! she yells, out loud now — the hell with you. You already took my older son, now you’re considering taking the younger one too!!
Enough, Nechama, her friends say, people are staring. They put their arms around her protectively. Let them stare, she says, I’m past caring. None of them knows how I feel. You’re right, her friends say, but we should go, they say, trying one more appeal. Maybe Yotam’s back already? Maybe he just went for a walk and lost his way? But we should go back anyway, because it’s late. OK, she says, her strength suddenly drained, whatever you say. Let’s go back, she says sadly. If they’ve found him already, then he needs me. Very badly.
Reuven, Yotam’s father, is holding a large torch. The sun has set and it’s a very dark night. Following him single file in the wadi are four other men. They have torches too, and they’re hurrying along, yelling Yotam! Yotam! again and again. And Reuven thinks: I haven’t wanted anything for six months. Not to eat. Not to drink. Not to dream. Not to think. Not to buy. Not to sell. The business is going to hell. Nehama asks, but he doesn’t tell. Sometimes he gets up in the morning and doesn’t know whether he’s alive or dead. As if his head has been split open like a peach. As if his blood has been sucked out by a leech. But no more. Now he wants to find Yotam. That’s all he’s living for. He walks faster and says to himself over and over again: find him, find him, find him. Reuven, one of the men rouses him, the path ends here. Come on, he says in a voice loud and clear. We’ll go this way. He walks around a big bush and climbs a slippery rock, the men right behind. He has no idea where he’s going, no idea what he’ll find. But he knows he can’t give up, so he lets his instincts lead. He tramples through every thorny bush and over every weed. Now and then, he stumbles and grabs one of the men so as not to fall. Then suddenly he sees something and gives a loud call. Tell me, he says, pointing into the darkness, do you see an Arab house or am I just imagining it? There really is something there, they say in amazement and slow down a bit. It’s strange, they say. There used to be an Arab village here, but not any more. Let’s go, he says, running as fast as he can towards the door.
*
Hey, someone called. Amir and I walked out of the scrap yard to see who it was.
Are you looking for Reuven and Nehama’s kid? a teenager with bleached hair standing across the street with his friend shouted at us.
Yes, Amir said, but a year went by until the bleached hair answered us. They found him, he finally yelled.
Where? What? Is he OK? Amir asked, running towards him.
Yes, he just got lost, the bleached hair said as if he couldn’t care less, and his friend, the silent one, lit a cigarette. They found him in some old shack in the wadi.
But how … I mean, did anything happen to him? Amir asked.
Nothing.
Thank God. Thank God.
Yes, the bleached hair said, and from his tone, he sounded more disappointed than anything else. Well then, we’re gone, he said. If you see anyone else on the way, tell them too, OK?
OK.
After bleached hair and his friend had gone, Amir wiped the sweat off his forehead and said: wow, at times like this, even if I don’t believe in God, I thank him.
Yes, I said, and looked at him. He’d been quiet the whole time we were looking for Yotam. He’d kept his eyes down, his shoulders were stooped and his bottom lip gave this weird twitch every once in a while. But now everything had calmed down. And he looked tall and handsome again.
I don’t know what I would’ve done if … he said, and kicked a stone.
Once, I heard myself say, when Liron was little, I took him to the shops with me and when I went into the toilet I left his carriage outside and, like an idiot, I asked some security guard to keep an eye on it. When I came out, they were both gone. I thought I’d die. It turned out that the guard had gone to the loo as well and took the carriage inside with him. I almost killed him. The whole shopping centre came to watch me give him a piece of my mind.
I can picture it, Amir said and smiled for the first time in a long while.
We started walking back home. Amir hummed some melody I didn’t know, probably one of those songs he listens to at full volume on the other side of the wall, and I wondered whether it would be OK if I asked him about Noa now. On the one hand, I thought, a stone had just been lifted from his heart so do I want to drop a rock on it? On the other hand, I thought, I hate not knowing things.
I was thinking so much that I bumped into him while we were walking. An electrical current ran through my elbow. Sorry, I said, and he laughed and said, it’s OK.
So how are you getting along now? I found the courage to ask. And I was sure that he’d ask me, what do you mean? Because all the men I know act like morons when you ask them about feelings. But Amir looked down at his shoes walking along the pavement and said: the truth is that it’s not easy. All of a sudden, there’s this emptiness, you know.
Yes, I said, thinking: why ‘yes’? You married your first boyfriend and you’ve never been apart from him except for when he’s in the reserves, so how do you know it’s ‘yes’?
And the hardest thing, he went on, is that I don’t know what’s going on. If I were sure that we’re splitting up, I’d start hating her and focus on all the things that are wrong with her. But this way, it’s one of those annoying neither-here-nor-there situations.
Wait a minute, I said, I don’t understand. What exactly did you two decide?
I was sure she told you, he said, so surprised that he stopped walking.
No, I admitted. And the bitterness of knowing that she left without saying a word to me filled my throat again.
Amir was quiet, taking in the new information. Two dogs were rubbing against each other on the pavement in front of us, sniffing each other’s bottoms.
She went to Tel Aviv, he finally said. For three weeks. And then we have to decide what we’ll do.
Do you talk?
No, he said, and started walking again. I have no idea where she is, he said. She didn’t give me the phone number.
Maybe it’s better that way, I said, thinking: why are you giving him this bullshit? How could this be better?
Maybe, Amir said, and I saw his bottom lip give a slight twitch again.
We turned into HaGibor HaAlmoni Street, and I thought, we’ll be at Yotam’s house soon. There’ll be so many people there that I won’t be able to ask him anything, and who knows when we’ll have the chance to talk again.
What do your parents and hers say about it? I asked.
Our parents?! Amir said, looking at me in amazement, our parents don’t … My parents have been in the States for a year now. And Noa’s parents — well, she doesn’t really let them get involved in things like this.
Right, I thought, I never really did hear her talk about her family.