A few days ago, I put on a ‘Natasha’ CD, and suddenly I thought I heard her singing along with it, ‘One touch, then another, sadness, all so familiar.’ I turned down the volume, and her singing stopped all at once. I pulled open the cover of the water heater switch and called: Sima! She came over to the hole in the wall and said: did you call me? Yes, I said. I just wanted to tell you to keep singing, I mean, you sing very well. She laughed and said: I didn’t know you could hear me. Then she added: I love the music you put on today. Not like the noisy music you usually listen to. Nirvana, you mean? I asked. I don’t know, she said, shifting uncomfortably on the other side of the wall. OK, I said, I’ll try to edit my musical selections to suit the taste of the audience. You don’t have to, she said, coming a little closer. I could hear her breathing. The scent of perfume wafted in through the hole, along with the aroma of frying cutlets. I wonder what’s wafting through the hole from me to her, I thought, and said, well, I’m going back to my books. And immediately I regretted my words. OK, she said, I’m going back to my cutlets. Have a nice day. I put the cover over the hole and went back to the living room, intending to open my books again, when I heard the cover open again and her voice call me: Amir?
*
I asked him if he wanted me to bring over a few cutlets when they were ready, and thought, it’s a good thing he’s on the other side of the wall and can’t see how I’m blushing now. Sure, he said, that would be great. And then I was sorry: what did I need this for? They’re our tenants and it’s not good to mix feelings with money. And anyway, he’s Noa’s boyfriend and Noa is my friend. But then again, she did pick up and leave without even saying goodbye. After all those talks we had, she couldn’t come and tell me what was happening? Did she think it was beneath her?
An hour later, I put on my nicest trousers, the ones that give me a waist, put on a little make-up and walked up the path holding Lilach in one hand and a plastic box full of cutlets in the other, saying to myself: I’ll just give him the box and leave without going inside and without talking. I have loads of things to do at home. The mountain of laundry is higher than Mount Meron. Besides, if Amir was ugly, that would be another story, but when he gets a haircut he looks like that tall American actor, I can’t remember his name, the one whose films Mirit and I always went to see in Ashkelon, and when he talks to people on the phone he has all the patience in the world, and he speaks in a deep voice that passes through the walls and makes me feel good all over. When we signed the lease with them, I said to myself, he’s a good-looking guy. Wild hair, light eyes, muscles in his shoulders. The way I like. And after we went looking for Yotam together, I liked him even more.
He opened the door and said, come in. And I forgot all the promises I’d made to myself and walked inside, flustered by the smell of his aftershave. (What? Did he put it on for me?)
Thank you, he said, taking the box from me.
I put Lilach on the floor and she started crawling. I looked at the walls of the apartment. Here’s that picture of the sad man I heard them arguing about. It really is a gloomy picture. And Noa must have taken those photos. Where’s that from? India? Thailand? She really is talented. But why aren’t there any pictures of them together? When Moshe and I lived here, there were three pictures of us in the living room, two from the wedding and one from our honeymoon in Antalia, and they don’t even have one.
Amir came back from the kitchen, got down on all fours and started crawling in front of Lilach. She was so surprised that she stopped for a minute, then started crawling again, more slowly this time, until she reached him and touched his face with her fingers. He closed his eyes and let her investigate, put a finger in his ear, his nose, his mouth. Hit him lightly on the cheek.
Hey, I told her. Don’t do that.
It’s all right, Amir said, stroking the fuzz on her head.
I felt silly, standing when everybody was crawling, so I sat down on the rug too. I planned to sit far away from him, but the minute I crossed my legs, Lilach started crawling towards me with Amir right behind her.
She came to me, touched my knees, and he did the same. At first, I thought he was planning to climb on me too, and I got scared. I imagined what it would be like under his body, to grab his shoulders, to tussle with him a bit. To surrender.
He stopped a minute before his head touched my thigh, and sat up. I rubbed my thigh as if he had really touched it, and he said: does she always have this much energy?
Only in the morning, I said. Then I added: and also when Moshe comes home from work.
He leaned on his arms as if Moshe’s name had pushed him back. Lilach’s fingers played with my nipples, and I could see how uncomfortable he felt about watching, but still couldn’t pull his eyes away.
So, I said, moving her hand away, how’s your studying going?
It’s not, he said, sighing and picking up a fat book. You see this? I have to know all of it for tomorrow’s exam.
Why don’t you study with other people?
They’re all in Tel Aviv, and I’m here, in the Castel. It’s too far for them to come over and study with me.
Yes, it really is far.
You see? he said, smiling, and Noa claimed that the Castel was half-way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Well, there really is no such thing as the exact middle, I said, suddenly defending her. Like my mother used to say: you can’t cut a watermelon into two completely equal parts.
Isn’t that funny, he said and laughed, my mother says the same thing, but about grapefruit.
Lilach laughed too, and gave two short shrieks of happiness. He reached out to stroke her cheek, and on the way, brushed the exposed part of my arm. By mistake. It had to be by mistake.
I have an idea, I said. Pick a subject and teach me.
He gave me a funny look.
It’s really a good idea, I said. You’ll remember it better, I added, unfolding my leg. I was careful not to move it too close to him. But not too far away, either.
You know what? You have a deal, he said and started thumbing through the book. His shoulders contracted, and he rubbed his chin with his free hand. Most of all, I love looking at men when they’re concentrating on something.
OK, he mumbled a minute later. What would you like to hear about? Franz Anton Mesmer, who treated people with huge magnets at the beginning of the eighteenth century? Or Joseph Breuer, who used hypnosis to treat people at the end of the nineteenth century?
What do you say, Lilach, I asked, consulting my little girclass="underline" magnets or hypnotism?
*
Sima’s foot landed right next to me and kept me from concentrating. I wanted to bend over and put cuffs around her ankle. I could actually imagine the touch of her skin, but instead of doing that, I started talking to save myself. I tried to remember without looking at the book. I tried to explain it to her as if it were a story, not a collection of facts I had to memorise for a multiple choice test.
That Mesmer, I started, finished studying medicine at the age of thirty-two. He did his doctorate on ‘The Effect of the Planets on the Human Body’.
Like the horoscope, Sima said.
More or less.
What sign are you?
Scorpio. What does that have to do with anything?
Just tell me what sign Noa is.
Also Scorpio.
A Scorpio with a Scorpio, uh-oh!
Lilach, tell your mother not to interrupt. Quiet in the classroom, please, I’m continuing. After Mesmer completed his doctorate, he began to enquire into the possible effects of magnets on the body and claimed he’d discovered something he called ‘animal magnetism’.