Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Blau
Cover design by Kirin Diemont
Cover photograph by Caryn Drexl / Arcangel
Cover copyright © 2021 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
English translation copyright © 2021 by Daniella Zamir
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First ebook edition: April 2021
Published simultaneously in the UK by Pushkin Press. Originally published as by Kinneret in Israel, 2018
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ISBN 978-0-316-46089-7
E3-20210304-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Discover More
About the Author and Translator
In loving memory of Uri Orbach
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1
BY THE TIME that phone call from the police came, I was ready.
A gentle male voice asked if he could pop by for a quick questioning. That masculine energy threw me off for a moment. Rehearsing the scenario over and over, I had always imagined a woman, the kind with a gravelly, matter-of-fact voice. I always imagined her a bit tired, maybe after a long shift, most likely a mother. They always are.
And she would always react the same way, downright rattled by the gruesome murder, gruesome and ritualistic, God, the horror! Before pulling herself together and remembering why she had called me in the first place.
“Age?” she’d ask while typing. “Married? Kids?” And I’d reply to the two last questions with the usual “no,” but this time with relief sweeping through my body.
No, ma’am, no kids.
According to the police report, Dina was murdered at 1 a.m.
The papers said it happened in “the dead of night,” and catalogued all the grisly details, but the police report was worse – trust me.
The papers also said the victim was a professor of gender studies, and the murder was described as having “unique characteristics,” by which they probably meant the fact that she was found hog-tied to a chair in her living room, the word “mother” carved into her forehead, and her dead hands clutching a baby doll.
What they didn’t mention was that it was one of those reborn dolls you see on British TV shows featuring people with “peculiarities,” who treat their dolls like real babies. These are usually after-hours shows, broadcast in “the dead of night,” viewed by people like me with a curiosity tinged with horror. I’m not going to become one of those people, right? I wouldn’t rock a doll in a cradle and tell my guests, “Shush! He’s having trouble sleeping,” right?
The doll found at the murder scene had a round face, puckered red lips and clear blue eyes with lifelike lashes.
What was mentioned was the struggle to pry the doll from the victim’s hands. At first they thought it was rigor mortis, but then discovered the baby was glued to her. One sentimental journalist waxed poetic about how she looked like “a mother clinging to her infant, refusing to let go.” Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t imagine Dina clinging to anything, let alone an infant. No, no, it had to have been glued to her.
I guess Dina would have been pleased to know that her list of accomplishments extended over quite a few sentences. They cited the PhD she had obtained at such a young age, the dazzling lectures that drew packed audiences and the brilliant essays, highlighting, of course, the one about childfree women in the Bible, the one that had cemented her status as “one of the most prominent and polemical feminist theorists of our times.” They also noted that she had chosen neither to marry nor to have children, and had become a leading advocate for this “controversial movement.”
They did not mention the resistance of her skin during the attempts to yank the doll out of her hands, resulting in her having to be buried along with it, the doll pressed up against her.
And I couldn’t help but think, There you have it, Dina, you’re finally a mother.
2
MY FALLING-OUT HAIR is gathered in clumps in the corners of every room.
The whole apartment is filled with boxes and hairballs. I keep tripping over the former and stepping on the latter. There’s your usual hair loss, the one women’s magazines will subtly refer to as “normal from a certain age,” and there’s the other kind, a product of my own pulling and yanking. At least I don’t swallow it. Every now and then I’ll stumble over an article about a giant hairball surgically removed from the stomach of some neurotic young woman, and in the photo accompanying the article, it always looks like a hairy baby monster.
I still think about Maor’s parting remark before leaving, “Your hair is all over the house, do something about it, it’s gross.” Bam! The door
