“I am moving to Israel,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Soon?”
I nodded. “Eli and my father do not want me here for Diny’s wedding.”
“Why Israel?”
“I am to live with family.”
Saul looked puzzled. “What will you do there?”
“What else? Find a husband.” My voice was flat. All the anger and loss I felt screaming at Eli had fossilized inside me as I walked through the night.
“Is that what you want?”
I didn’t answer him.
“Aviva,” he said. “You have friends here. You have choices.”
I stared at him, blinking, hearing the words but not thinking that they applied to me. It was actually a good feeling, the hardness. If I could hold on to it, I thought, I could keep steady.
“Will you stay here today at least? There is a kugel in the refrigerator. And two empty beds. You can’t have slept. I will be home in the afternoon. We can talk.”
I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “We’ve missed you. Your spirit and your questions. There are more of us, Aviva. I think you could help the new ones. You could tell them about your experience. Good or bad. It makes no difference. Just that window into another life, that it can’t kill you.”
I did not say anything. I did not say, But Saul, it almost killed me.
“Go upstairs. Take a shower if you like. There are linens in the bathroom. Rest.”
After Saul left, I went upstairs. There were four bedrooms in the house, each not much bigger than a closet, all along a narrow hallway. The summer before we left for Florida, your father and I slept together in the room closest to the bathroom. The one with the window that looked over the little concrete backyard. We slept together on a single bed, never exactly comfortable, but so happy to be exactly where we were: together, naked, free. Intoxicated not just by each other but the circumstance, the fact that the long afternoons and sleepless nights seemed to be for nothing but our pleasure. Since I had last been there, the room had been transformed from a flop pad to a true bedroom. Three black-and-white framed photographs hung in a row on the wall across from the neatly made bed: one of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of a placid lake scene-upstate, probably-and one of three old men on the Coney Island boardwalk, standing with their backs to the camera, looking out onto the ocean. There was a small table with a lamp atop it and a fresh coat of pale blue paint on the walls. Everything was clean-even the thin carpet. I closed the door and took off my coat and shoes and then lay down. The morning sun was just beginning to come through the window as I closed my eyes.
I awoke in the early afternoon and used the toilet, avoiding my face in the bathroom mirror. I stood in the hallway and listened, but the house seemed empty. I lay down again and closed my eyes again, looking deep into the darkness for more sleep, more escape. Perhaps I could sleep through the next week, the next year. Perhaps I could sleep until I was dead. It was dark again when Saul knocked on the door.
“Aviva,” he whispered, gently pushing the door open.
“Mmm,” I murmured. I’d had an orgasm in my sleep-my dream a frenzy of seeking relief for the deep ache that crawled and scratched inside me, begging to be satisfied. It was a blur of men and women, lined up somewhere, and me grabbing ahold of whoever didn’t push me away, groping, grinding against them like an animal in heat. The relief, when it finally came, was waves of warm. And then Saul’s voice.
“Aviva,” he said. “Would you like some dinner?”
“Saul,” I said, my face still against the pillow. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything. I needed to keep that warm feeling for just a little longer. It didn’t matter that it would be gone in minutes. Minutes was all I needed; all I deserved. I reached out my arm and he took my hand and sat down on the bed. “Lie here,” I said. “Touch me.” I felt his body tense, and I turned over beneath the covers to look up at him. By the time our eyes met, he had consented. He leaned forward and kissed me. It was the kiss I remember most. He was as hungry as I was. He lay down beside me, his uniform belt pressing against my stomach. I pulled off my sweater and I heard him gasp quietly. I had complete control over him. He would do anything I wanted at this moment. He didn’t waste time asking me this and that like your father did at first (“can I touch you here?”), he just tossed back the blanket and climbed on top of me. We kissed and kissed and he held my face in his hands. “I don’t have a condom,” he breathed into my ear. “I want to, but we can’t.” I looked at him. We huffed in unison, both red-faced, exhilarated. “What?” I said, lost, barely listening. “I know, but we can’t,” he said again. I closed my eyes to his protest, smiling, falling back into the swell of the moment, arching my back to unhook my bra. “Just kiss me,” I said. “Kiss me more.” We kissed and I wiggled out of my skirt. I was naked and I felt as safe as I had ever felt. I knew nothing could go wrong. “Please,” he said. But I couldn’t hear him. I pulled down his zipper. He loved me, I thought. How could he not? “Please,” I said. And that was all it took. We both kept our eyes open, each experiencing the other for those few minutes as everything we had ever wanted. Ecstatic, and alone. Afterward, he lay beside me, his hand resting on my ribcage. I turned my head toward him and, mercifully, he did not smile. A smile, I thought, would ruin it. This was serious.
It was dark in the room, and neither of us had anywhere to go, so we fell asleep together. It was long after dinnertime when I woke up. I slipped out of the bed to go to the bathroom. I hadn’t planned to leave, but it quickly became the best choice, for both of us. If my family did not want me in Brooklyn, I would leave. Brooklyn meant less than nothing to me. I had been to Israel three times to visit family and my impression was that it was both much the same and completely different. I needed some completely different. Saul did not need me. Saul was just fine. I dressed as he slept, watching him for signs he was hearing me. He didn’t move-what if he had moved?-and then I was outside, with a subway token back to Borough Park in my pocket.
Eli drove me to the airport. I dressed tznius. I brought very little from Florida, so it was easy to pull on Penina’s cast-off stockings and a shapeless sweater and long skirt and pretend that it was simply practical. Half a day later I was at Ben Gurion, carrying a suitcase toward a taxi stand.
One year later, I agreed to marry a man named Etan Shiloh. He was twenty-nine years old and his family lived in the Old City. The wedding was small. Etan was a good husband to me. I tolerated his humorlessness and he learned to manage my moods. We were married for nearly ten years before he found my birth control pills. And then, just like that, it was over. I was sent back to Brooklyn.
PART 2
Iris and Brice don’t wait up for me. And if I want to get to Roseville by eight thirty-right in the middle of rush hour-I figure I have to leave at six thirty, before they’re likely to wake up. I leave a note:
Hey lovebirds
Got a meeting with a Jew upstate this morning. Then headed to try to find my uncle (??) Might stay over… will call. Drinks soon?? xoxo
It’s been months since I’ve driven a car-my old Honda died before the New Year-and driving in New York City is more than a little hairy. It takes almost an hour to get through the Battery Tunnel, up the West Side and over the George Washington Bridge, during which time I am nearly sideswiped by a livery driver and a delivery truck, and end up the product of some serious taxi-driver rage when I accidentally “block the box” near Chelsea Piers. I follow the directions on my Google Maps up the Palisades and then north on the Thruway. The sky is white and the trees lining the road are still winter bare. On WNYC, Brian Lehrer is interviewing the parks commissioner about post-Sandy progress at city beaches. Iris and I didn’t make it to the beach last summer; we were still getting acclimated, I guess, and there is something almost unbelievable to begin with about the idea that the original concrete jungle even has beaches. But listening to this man talk enthusiastically about the Rockaway Beach Boardwalk, and the new Brooklyn waterfront’s pop-up pool makes the prospect of spring-and even better, summer-seem almost real. I wonder if the sadness I’ve been stuck in has something to do with the weather. Does Seasonal Affective Disorder even exist in Florida?