“About your beard.”
“My beard? What about my beard?”
He’d forgotten, or maybe he was just teasing me and he never intended to shave it off.
“You must be mad. Haven’t you got anything else to worry about?”
“Then tell me.”
“You’ve never known me without a beard.”
“I don’t want to either.”
He laughed.
“So what have you decided?”
“Well, let’s wait and see.”
ADAM
What was my beard? A flag or a symbol, a way of telling the world that it can’t classify me that simply, or pigeonhole me, that I too have dreams, a different horizon, eccentricities, mysteries perhaps. Anyway, a complex man.
And in recent years the beard has grown long and wild.
There were certain distinct advantages in it. In the garage it helped me to keep my distance. People would hesitate a little before approaching me. Also, I was told, the beard made a great impression on the Arabs, they were very respectful towards it.
At first people think I’m religious –
And in fact that’s how it started. After the boy was killed an unknown relative of mine appeared at our house, not a young man, he came to supervise the religious formalities. He insisted that we sit shiva at home for a week, not leaving the house, I was forbidden to shave for thirty days, and every day for a year he arrived at the house at dawn to take me to the synagogue to pray. Asya thought he was crazy, couldn’t understand why I let myself be swayed by him, but the death of a child puts you into such a state of depression, bewilderment and fear that it’s comforting to have someone around who knows exactly what to do. In a month the beard grew very quickly, it already had a shape to it, and as I had to get up early in the morning for the journey to the synagogue, it was a relief not having to shave.
Then Dafi was born and she was fascinated by the beard, all the time running her little hand through it. Perhaps one of the first words she learned to say as a baby was “beard”.
At work I was careful not to put my head inside a running engine in case my beard got caught in one of the moving parts.
They were forced to take bits of the engine out to show them to me.
Sometimes I thought, I’ve had enough, time to shave it off, but at the last moment I’d think better of it, Dafi used to plead with me not to shave it off. Sometimes I went to the barber shop to have it cut and trimmed, but before long it was unruly again. White hairs began to appear in it, the golden colour faded and turned brown, there were several different shades in it. The barber once offered to dye it but of course I refused. I didn’t touch it a lot, I wasn’t in the habit of smoothing it down unnecessarily as bearded men tend to do, but sometimes I used to catch myself chewing it between my teeth.
Sometimes I even forgot about it, and at night in bed, when I folded the newspaper and tried to sleep, I’d catch sight of my face in the big mirror and think for a moment that a stranger was staring at me.
DAFI
In the silence of the room, in the afternoon, the three of us each reading a different chapter of the history book, to brief the other two on the contents, preparing for the exam tomorrow, and Osnat’s kid brother lying on the floor in a T-shirt and underpants, quietly spreading cake on the carpet. Through the wall I hear a sort of moan, whispers and the creaking of a bed. “My love, oh, my love, oh my darling.” So clear. My heart stops, I feel like I’m going to faint. And Osnat looks up from her book, blushing bright red, starts shuffling papers to cover the sound of the whispering, terribly embarrassed, cuffing the child, who starts to howl, and jumping up from her seat, not daring to look at me or at Tali, who’s still staring at her book, reading or daydreaming, there’s no way of telling if she too has heard the sound of Osnat’s parents making afternoon love in the next room. It seems this is their favourite time, this isn’t the first occasion, apparently it was in the afternoon one day many years ago that Osnat was conceived.
And now I can’t help it, I just have to smile, Osnat looks at me angrily and then, slowly, she begins to smile too. What’s she got to be embarrassed about anyway?
Because she sure has really nice parents. A cheerful, noisy loud-mouthed mom, a larger version of Osnat, tall and thin with glasses, always sitting down to gossip with us in her American accent, helping us with our English homework, she knows everything that goes on in the school and the names of all the children in the class. They’ve got a lovely house with a little garden, inside it’s always chaotic, but it’s a nice place to be, they always invite Tali and me to stay for supper. They’re used to children. Besides Osnat there’s an older brother in the army, a younger sister and the little boy, who was born a year and a half ago, causing a lot of excitement in the class because we were all invited to the circumcision. Perhaps Osnat’s the only one who isn’t charmed by him, though he’s a sweet kid, awfully fat, with a round tummy and still no hair, reminds you of Osnat’s dad, who looks a lot older than her mom, he’s a professor at the Technion, plump and bald but full of life, madly in love with his ugly wife. He comes home from the Technion in the afternoon, opens the door and heads straight for the kitchen, kissing his wife quite shamelessly, in front of us, they stand there hugging for so long you’d think they hadn’t seen each other for ten years. Then he bursts into Osnat’s room, starts cracking jokes and taking an interest in her work, he’s really sweet.
And after a while her mom comes in, bringing in the baby and a plate of cookies, our reward for looking after him while they go to “rest”. And Osnat starts to protest, we’ve got our homework to do and an exam to prepare for, then her mom winks at us and says “Dafi and Tali will look after him then, O.K.?” And she hurries away to their bedroom on the other side of the wall. They don’t sleep, we hear them whispering, laughing, the deep voice of Osnat’s dad — “Oh, oh, oh” — and then silence, and suddenly it hits me, like a sharp stab in the heart, I hear her moaning softly “Oh, my love, my darling …”
And Osnat hits the baby and her mom calls out “Osnat, what’s the matter with Gidi? Let us have a little peace.” I pick the baby up, trying to calm him, kissing him, he claws at my face with his grubby hands, pulling my hair, yelling triumphantly “Tafi, Tafi.”
After a while they finish resting and they go to take a shower. Her mom comes in to fetch the baby wearing a long flowery dressing gown, smelling nice and with her hair wet, and her dad comes in too, in short trousers and a vest, carrying a big tray loaded with different flavours of ice cream. And they’re both relaxed and happy, smiling brightly, sitting with us and licking the ice cream, wanting us to share in their happiness, playing with the baby, kissing him hard, with what’s left of their passion. And Osnat shows him her maths homework and he solves a problem or two for us, making us laugh with his funny explanations.
They’ve just been making love, I think to myself, watching them from the side, unable to forget that deep powerful groan, something comes over me, a sort of sweet pain, I don’t know why, How could she call this fat little man “my love, my love, my darling”?
Why should I care anyway –
“Are you staying for supper?” says Osnat’s mom. Tali’s always eager to stay, but I jump up from my seat. “I can’t stay, must go home, they’re waiting for me.” It’s a lie, I pick up my books and run home, Of course nobody’s waiting for me. Mommy’s not at home. Daddy’s sitting in a chair in his working clothes, reading the paper. When do they make love? When does he get kissed? Who says to him “my darling”?