Which means?
Which means that we have a substance in our bodies, or an energy, that responds to magnetic force and can be changed by magnets.
What?!
It sounds weird to me too, but the thing is that the treatment he developed actually worked. He treated mentally disturbed patients and women who suffered from hysteria or depression, and cured them.
What do you mean, treated?
He had a kind of bathtub full of magnetised water. Iron rods stuck out of the tub in every direction and Mesmer showed his patients how to put the tip of the rod on the area that hurt them.
And it worked?
Looks like it. Or people convinced themselves that it worked. When I was little and my mother used to take me to the clinic, to Dr Shneidshter, I felt better straight away.
My mother didn’t believe in medicine at all. She had her own medicine for every sickness. And we were never sick for more than a day or two, not me and not my sister Mirit.
That mother of yours sounds interesting, but still, if we can just finish the story about Mesmer … He kept getting more and more patients, and people used to wait months for an appointment with him. Finally, he founded an organisation and a school where he taught people how to use his method of treatment and they attracted more and more patients –
Until …
How did you know there was an until?
There’s always an until in this kind of story.
Until the medical establishment in Paris got sick and tired of him stealing away their patients and they formed a special committee to check out his methods and the committee decided that the magnets had no therapeutic value and ordered him to stop using them.
Did he?
Yes. But his students kept on using them. Secretly. And the book says there are rumours to this day, two hundred years later, that Mesmer’s followers meet secretly in the forests of Europe and treat each other with those magnetic rods.
Wow, that’s interesting. You told that really well. Seriously, you made me want to go back to college.
So go back.
Don’t rub salt in my wounds. But I think you’re well prepared for the exam.
Not really, but it’s fun to study like this. Do you want to hear about Breuer too?
Sima looked at her watch and her face tensed in alarm: shit! I have to pick up Liron from kindergarten in two minutes. He hates me to be late. He starts breaking toys if I’m not there on time.
She took Lilach into her arms and got up from the rug. I got up too. Now that we were standing, I noticed how small she was. I could peek down her neckline and see that she was wearing a black bra today.
Thanks for the cutlets, I said.
You’re welcome, she said. We stood like that, facing each other, embarrassed, and suddenly I had the weirdest feeling in the world, that a kiss had to come now. I can’t explain it, but it was like a date, like the end of a date when two people feel there’s a kind of magic between them. You can’t photograph that feeling or break it down into parts. It’s just there, in the night air, and suddenly, in the middle of the day, out of the blue, it was there between Sima and me. My eyes were drawn to her full, dim sum lips, and I leaned forward …
And kissed Lilach.
*
Moshe Zakian has been coming home earlier than usual this week. And before he can get his jacket off, Sima’s caressing him so passionately that he can hardly speak. I hope you’re in shape, she whispers to him, her voice hoarse. And he says, of course. His prick is already hard and his voice is thick. After they put the children to bed, she grabs his shirt and says: come on. Quick. But he likes to play with her a bit. Moving back a little, he says: but you always tell me that without a shower, there’s no way. She digs a nail into his right shoulder and says: it’s OK, baby, it’s OK. She drags him into the bedroom, climbs on top of him and has her way. Her skin is electric. Her body’s on fire, trembling with wave after wave of desire. He puts his hand on her mouth when she begins to shake, and whispers, shh, Sima, you don’t want to keep the whole neighbourhood awake. When they had finished sucking out all the sweetness of their lovemaking, she lies next to him, temporarily relieved of her aching. He says, wow. And she says, I know. What’s happened to you? he asks. I don’t know, maybe it’s my hormones, she replies and sighs. And he thinks, hormones, huh? Don’t I have eyes? She thinks I don’t know it’s because of that student next door. But I know the score. I hear her say his name in her sleep. I hear that little-girl excitement in her voice when she talks about him to Mirit. What are you thinking about? Sima asks, and for a minute he’s tempted to tell her, but he decides to retreat. What’s the point? She’ll deny it, he’ll get upset and they’ll be at war. That I’m crazy about you, he says at last. That you’re too wonderful to be true. She puts her warm hand on his thigh and says, I’m crazy about you too. Then she falls asleep at his side. He remembers her moaning and tries in vain to fall asleep: OK (he holds a conversation with the wall), let her dream about that guy. Outside in the street, doesn’t he undress women with his eyes when he sees them walking by? As long as it stays only in her mind — and it will, because he knows that Sima is not that kind — then it’s not something he should dwell upon.
In bed he says out loud to himself, trying in vain to subdue his fear: don’t be right. Be Don Juan.
*
I’m sorry. I can’t seem to fall in love with this city. All that Bauhaus doesn’t do it for me. The view of a valley or a mountain doesn’t leave me breathless, because there aren’t any. There’s no Upper and Lower Tel Aviv, there’s just Tel Aviv. And there’s no street called Valley of the Giants like there is in Jerusalem. There’s just Bograshov and Rokach. And no one here is hiding behind a wall that’s thousands of years old. At best, they’re hiding behind this morning’s façade. And you won’t see any Arabs here, or poor people or bereaved parents or kids Yotam’s age.
How different my first few days in Jerusalem were. I’d felt like it was Purim. Everyone looked as if they were in costume: the ultra-orthodox men with their penguin suits; the ultra-orthodox women, whose femininity burst through their buttoned-up dresses; the young Americans who flood the high street in the summer with their T-shirts that have English writing on them and legs that are too white; the Cinematheque nerds in their checked shirts and that serious look of theirs that just can’t be real; the tough guys with their gelled hair; the Border Guards with their tight uniforms; the old Yemenite from the Yemenite falafal stand.
And here — it’s all so homogeneous that you could die of boredom. Everyone tries to be special, but somehow they all come out looking the same. As if there’s a hidden code they’re adhering to. As if city inspectors will fine you if your clothes are a bit passé. And it isn’t just your clothes. Everywhere you go, you hear the same music coming from the same radio station. In the cafés, people talk about things they’ve read in the local papers and ask each other, ‘Did you hear that …?’ instead of ‘Did you read that …?’ Then the waitress — they all have the same look in their eyes — brings a menu and people concentrate so hard on it that you’d think it was a book of poetry. Then they order exactly what they ordered last time. And they’re all gay, or into their bisexuality. And left-wingers, of course. As if there were no other possibility. As if a political opinion were just another piece of clothing, another trend you had to get in step with and not something personal. (Amir would say now: as if your political opinions are so different.) True. There’s something comfortable about it. Like marrying your first love. No one here threatens you too much. Everything’s familiar and predictable. No one will throw a stone at you if you drive on Saturday or claim that the Oslo Accords were a gamble, and chances are that you won’t see any real Arabs, unless you insist on looking for them in Jaffa. But even then, they’ll sell you sambusek politely and would never even think about breaking into a Jew’s house in the middle of the day and making holes in his wall like Madmoni’s worker did.