You’re the king, David, I said when the last sounds finally broke away from the air.
Really? You liked it? he asked. Those artists — leaves in the wind.
Very much, I said.
We still don’t have a name for it, David said, putting down his guitar. Got any ideas?
You could call it … osmosis, I suggested.
Too heavy, he said, rejecting the suggestion out of hand.
*
The yellow peppers arrived in Tel Aviv. Late, of course. After I’d finished my project, of course. But it doesn’t matter. Today, I came back from the beach via Neveh Tzedek and on the corner of Piness and Shabazi I felt tingles of excitement creeping up my spine. Finally. The right combination of ugliness and beauty. Of happiness and pain. Of old and older. I strolled through the narrow streets, went into a different shop each time — jewellery, posters, beads, handbags. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I didn’t take any pictures, but it turns out that sometimes, unsatisfied desire is more intense. A FOR RENT sign on a house that had only columns, no walls and no roof. A click in my head. Luxury hotels rising up over a Yemenite synagogue. Click. A big fridge parked in a red-and-white no-parking zone. A flower sprouting from an iron gate. A sink on the street for washing your hands. A sign on a metal door, ‘We Mend Angels’ Broken Wings’. Click. Click. Click.
OK, sure you love Neveh Tzedek, it looks like Jerusalem, Amir said, scoffing at me in my mind. And I said to him, no, that’s not true. But I knew he was a little bit right.
And he said, when are you coming back? The day before yesterday was three weeks.
And I said, I love you.
And he said, what does that have to do with it?
Meanwhile, without my noticing it, I’d walked out of the neighbourhood and was standing at the foot of the Shalom Tower.
I wonder if the tower sways when there’s a strong wind, I thought, looking up until the sun blinded me. Then I thought, maybe on a clear day you can see Amir from the roof. Maybe you can follow his movements in the apartment. Going into the kitchen. The bedroom. Tidying up the living room. No. He doesn’t actually tidy up the living room, because I’m not there so it doesn’t need tidying up. But wait a minute. Who said he’s alone? Who said he’s waiting patiently for me. I wouldn’t even give him my phone number. So why should he wait? Maybe now he feels the relief I felt the first few days and he thinks he’d be better off with someone else who won’t be such a burden. Wait a second. Let’s have a close-up. No. My pictures are still on the wall. He didn’t take them down. When he goes over to the noticeboard he still sees the poem about the forbidden chocolate. Zoom out to the door. The sign with our names and the fish drawing is still there. Without being aware of it, we had suddenly made a home. Only now, during these last few weeks, did I realise how much of a home it was.
I always thought I was free as a bird. That a house was just four walls. And that because I was an artist, walls put limits on me. That when I was travelling in the East, I didn’t miss my parents’ house for even a minute. Just the opposite. Going away from them was always a little like escaping from prison. Like running in the fields after digging a tunnel under the barbed-wire fence. But now, suddenly, I want to go back. Suddenly there are millions of little things I miss. Say, watching Yotam and Amir play chess. Talking to Sima and feeling her energy fill me up. Watching The X-Files with Amir, both of us in the same armchair, hugging each other on Zakian’s steps, having sex with him, burning in the sparks of his eyes, coming. Leaving the house with the smell of him on me. Coming home and hearing the squeak of his chair when he gets up to hug me. Talking to him before falling asleep, with only the words to light up the dark. Telling him that I heard noises and knowing that he’ll get up to investigate. Ending his unfinished sentences. And making mistakes. Deliberately leaving a hairband on the rug and seeing it drive him crazy. Putting my finger on his lower lip and watching his twitch go away. Hearing a new Jeremy Kaplan song on the radio and arguing with him about whether it’s good or bad. Asking him for a slice of his orange, then another slice, until he gives up and hands me the whole thing. Laughing at the words he makes up to describe people, like depressionistic about someone at school, or nymphulterous, about the girlfriend he had before me. Being sad or weak in front of him without being ashamed, or not wearing make-up in front of him without being ashamed. Talking to him in the middle of the day and feeling completely understood. Seeing myself through his eyes. Seeing him bent over his books. Hearing his little stories. Fighting with him, being jealous, making up. Feeling something.
And what about the poison? A man in a suit walking past me on the street bumped into me and brought me back to the world. Watch where you’re going, I yelled after him, but he disappeared into the entrance of an office building. I started walking towards Nahalat Binyamin Street, making my way through the doubts. The minute you go back to him, the poison will start bubbling again. He hasn’t turned into someone else in three weeks. He won’t suddenly be crystalline and tough and happy. So why, damn it, should anything change? I don’t know, I don’t know, I answered myself and turned into Mazeh Street.
Pieces of white cloth with political slogans on them hung from a few balconies. All of them for the same candidate. Amazing, I thought. If you walk around Tel Aviv, you’re sure that the Labour Party will win with a twenty-vote margin, and if you walk around Jerusalem, you think the Labour Party won’t even get the minimum they need to be a real party. It’s funny, I thought as I walked. Funny that there are elections now. Only six months ago, Rabin was still Prime Minister. Six months? That means that we moved to the Castel seven months ago. Seven months ago, we looked for an apartment and stumbled into the shivah for Yotam’s brother by accident. It’s incredible how many things were crammed into that short period of time. As if it were a story, not reality. The work I handed in, my tutors’ put-downs, Yotam. Sima. Moshe. And Amir and me, getting so involved with each other without realising it, so involved that now it’s so hard to be apart. Like conjoined twins who share a nerve, and if you separate them surgically, neither one will survive.
That’s it, I thought, and looked up.
A group of people was gathering at the end of the block next to the nut and candy stand. They’re probably watching a football match, I thought. But when I came closer, I saw a totally different kind of tension on their faces. What happened? I asked, and a man with a red peaked cap shushed me and pointed to the TV hanging from the ceiling of the store. In the middle of the screen was a map of central Jerusalem, and a yellow star shone at the junction of Jaffa and King George Streets.
Oh no.
I started running through the streets looking for a payphone. I have to know, I have to know that he’s OK. I ran around trees, between couples. I skipped over holes, crossed a red light, fell down, got up, asked, ran in a different direction. There was no phone there. I choked, suffocated, ran past another group of people, another nut and candy stand. A hound of Baskerville barked, scaring me very badly, but I had no choice, I kept running. Please don’t let anything happen to him now, please, please, not now. Finally I spotted a payphone on the corner of Carlebach and Hashmonaim Streets. I slowed down to a fast walk, got some air back into myself, took my phone card out of my bag and stuck it in the slot. Suddenly, because of all the pressure, I couldn’t remember our number. I pictured the payphone at work, my fingers dialling the apartment. Six three nine five nine five. The call was disconnected. Idiot. You have to dial zero-two before the number. I dialled the whole number, saying to myself: I’ll just hear his voice, just hear that nothing happened to him, and hang up.