Jordana's parents' family doctor knew some details he was willing to reveal. He told Noga: She went through a difficult experience. He didn't know where she lived or how to find her, but a doctor at the clinic in Kiryat Bialik called him about Jordana, and asked if she could take five-milligram Valiums and how to give it to her, and what were her reasons for needing Valium.
On the way to the suburbs of Haifa, cows were seen grazing near a field shaded by a row of thin-trunked cedars, and a heavy red horse was seen leaping with clumsy nobility. They bypassed Haifa and came to the suburbs in a heavy cloud of soot. The Carmel was buried in a giant bubble of sweetish stinking stickiness.
When they entered the small one-room apartment, Jordana looked docile, curled up in a giant armchair with torn upholstery, and remnants of foam rubber popped out of the worn back. In the small ugly mirror hanging next to the television that was on, she appeared sucking her thumb. Her eyes were fixed on the screen and on her face was a faded look. She raised her hand to beckon them in. On the screen was a teacher, the teacher was talking about decimals, it was a fifth-grade education program.
Boaz looked around, tried to take in the sight, maybe he even understood. He touched a leaf of a bunch of dead narcissi stuck in a blue vase, with no water. When he touched the leaf, dry white petals dropped off. The room had the musty odor of locked windows, orange peels, and skin lotion. Noga went to Jordana and hugged her from behind, and Jordana took Noga's hand, held it to her face, tears began flowing on her cheeks and she softened a bit, turned sideways toward the guests, stared stoned and stunned, tried to take her eyes off the screen, but when Boaz turned off the television the tears became clearer and hotter, and she turned the television back on in a panic, stared at the screen, as if she didn't see a thing, and Boaz turned it off again.
Jordana reached for the television, but fell down and Noga caught her. They picked her up and saw how thin she had become, sat her on a small sheet like a baby on a rough green bedspread. Jordana asked for water. Boaz went to the neglected kitchen, washed some glasses that were moldering in the sink, opened the refrigerator that held one egg, a rotten tomato, nuts, chocolate, and five jars of cold water that had been filled long ago and had turned yellow, took out some ice, put it in the glasses, poured tap water into them, and went back in the room. Jordana looked at him and for a moment, a smile ignited in her eyes. She drank two glasses of water in a row and asked for a cigarette. After she smoked a few minutes and smoke swirled around her face, she said: You remember that I once lost a child?
Noga looked at Jordana and didn't say a thing.
After that, I loved the two of you, and Menahem. Menahem I loved before. Then I couldn't. You shouldn't have found me, I don't belong to anybody Noga…
We love you, said Boaz, we were worried.
You don't love anybody, said Jordana, you're too distinguished to love. How's Obadiah?
He's worried about you, said Noga.
And about an hour later, seated on the sofa, her legs folded and her mouth gaping open, so blighted, beautiful against the background of the room laced with old wallpaper, Jordana said: Then I started watching television, they say I fell in love with it. I see all the programs in Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon, sometimes I get Cyprus. There's a guy here, Jacob, who set up an antenna for me with five directions. That's important.
Why is that important? asks Boaz.
'Cause I'm improving myself in a new direction, Boaz, at long last I'm building a past for myself that has a future.
Boaz got up and walked around the room, and Noga, who was sitting next to Jordana, hugged her. The infinite softness from Noga melted in Jordana a tremor that had begun to emerge when she took her eyes off the screen. You went out of your mind, Jordana, said Boaz, you've been imprisoned here day and night, sitting, what do you see, King Hussein, kissed wildly by officers of the armored corps? Cartoons? What are you wasting your life on!
This is my life, Boaz, and you have really no idea about somebody else's life. At night, when the light is over in the set, after the chapters of the Koran in Jordan, I see how the light pours into the screen, and then with four Valiums I fall asleep. And then Jordana yelled: I'm fed up, Boaz.
Then she whispered: The truth is I wanted to die, but I couldn't, death is too good for me, it belongs to those I love.
And Noga, Noga got up, maybe even darted up, and slapped Boaz's face. Her face bled pain, she started hitting the wall and Boaz in turn in a rage she didn't know was in her. Jordana tried to laugh, but her lips didn't move, she looked de trop and infantile and started sucking her thumb again. Boaz once again turned his face to the wall. An old calendar was hanging there, with a smiling swarthy girl holding a bunch of grapes.
When Boaz packed up her things, she didn't insist. He carefully wrapped the television, dragged the cartons to the big car, filled it so there was room for Noga and Jordana, and they left. He even paid the landlord. Jordana didn't look back, she just said: The new antenna you left here, too bad…
Boaz thought: What is it to sit in front of a television from three in the afternoon to twelve at night? But when he looked at her, she was dozing in Noga's arms. Noga, who had long ago wept at her outburst, but couldn't apologize, tried to signal something to him, but he didn't think of trying to understand. So deep was his contempt for Jordana. To himself he thought: She's leading me astray, that whore! When they got to the Henkin house, Hasha said: The undertaker's come, Obadiah.
Boaz left the two girls in the car. He removed an imaginary hat, turned to Hasha who was drinking tea at the table, and said: If you weren't the mother of my wife's husband, I would rape you. Hasha chuckled and said: You're scary, Mr. Schneerson, and she went on drinking her tea. After that, Henkin went out and hugged Jordana, who trembled in his arms. When they brought her inside, Henkin was more solid than he had been in years, and said: Hasha Masha, she was found in Kiryat Motzkin, she's in shock and needs rest, for now she'll stay in Menahem's room. Hasha looked at her with eyes that were scared at first and then calm, and said arrogantly: Why not? I'll have grandchildren to raise and somebody's diapers to change. Suddenly she let her head drop onto the table, and her head banged on the table. Boaz managed to notice that when the album was shifted by the bang, squares crowned with dust frames appeared. He called home. The girl who worked there said: There were a few invitations, the newspaper reports of the ceremony at the Dead Sea were fantastic…
Boaz said: In all those years I never came into the room. He saw the closed yellow writing desk, the coat hanging on a hook, Menahem's cloth cap, the picture of Lana Turner, yellowed with age, the chair next to an old issue of the children's magazine. In the other room Hasha sits and measures him in the distance, she knows how to curb the sweep of hostility she reluctantly felt for him, and that thought brought a crooked smile to his lips. He yelled: If you loved me, Hasha, I might have been saved, and Hasha looked toward the room and saw Boaz putting down the television, seeking the connection to the antenna to bring the cord to Henkin's outlet, and she said: This house is dry, Jordana can live in your enemy's room, Boaz, in fact that's what you all deserve.