It was clear that they were expecting something to begin.
I reached behind me and took one of my books out of my bag. Perhaps I would read them a passage? My fingers were wet, making it difficult for me to turn pages, and I couldn’t find the bathtub scene in my last book. Too bad, I thought, because it would have been a perfect fit for this meeting. I put the book back in the bag. Then I closed my eyes, spread my arms to the side, leaned my head on the rim of the Jacuzzi, and slid down a bit so my lower spine would be directly in front of the jet.
I remained like that for a few seconds, inhaled the chlorine smell, and then opened my eyes and began to tell them. The truth.
I said, Sunday is my younger daughter’s bat mitzvah.
I said, Apparently right after it, my wife is going to tell me that she wants us to separate.
I said, Not a difference of opinion, a crisis.
I said, I still love her.
I said, I’ve loved her from the age of twenty-three.
I said, She has the most wonderful smell, I don’t think there’s another woman in the world who smells so good.
I said, Her collarbones.
I said, I don’t know how I can live without her.
I said, I felt that she was moving away from me and tried the wrong way to bring her back.
I said, Our eldest daughter went off to boarding school, and that…shifted the balance at home.
I said, I probably won’t understand the real reason for years.
I said, In any case, it’s not something that couples therapy can solve.
I said, Maybe there was a moment when our marriage could have been saved, but I let it pass.
I double-clicked on the moment: A Friday morning, several months ago. The children were already at school. She woke up first and began working on her computer. But I could see without looking—after all, we’d been together for twenty years—that she was only answering e-mails. I could have said: Let’s eat breakfast together. I’ll make you an omelet with mushrooms and onions, cherry tomatoes on the side, and after we eat, we’ll start to unravel the tangle, thread by thread. But instead, I went to my computer. She made herself toast and coffee. And didn’t ask if she should make some for me. Once, we solved problems like that with sex. Once, I used to kiss her neck and all was forgotten in our passion. Maybe on that morning, I should have simply gone to her and kissed her neck.
In any case, she’s in another place, I said.
And emphasized: Not another man—another place.
And said: These are not normal days for me. These are the final days of a period in my life that lasted for more than twenty years. I’m walking through my life, and at the same time, observing it from the sidelines.
Summing up, I said: But it also has advantages. In normal times, you never could have persuaded me to have a meeting in a Jacuzzi.
When I finished speaking, there was a long silence broken only by the music coming from the lifeguard’s transistor.
The man spoke first. A nice story, he said. Although a little too sad for my taste.
The part I liked best was when he almost made her breakfast—said the woman who looked like Hagai Carmeli—but in the end, they both ended up in front of their computers. That’s exactly how it is.
I didn’t think it was believable at all, the other woman said. That whole scene with the computers and the toast. Who has time for things like that on Friday morning, when you have to prepare for Shabbat? It would have been much more convincing if it all happened in the supermarket, let’s say.
I don’t understand what you want, girls, the man said, it’s a story, it doesn’t have to be exactly like life.
—
I didn’t correct them. I didn’t explain that there wasn’t the slightest bit of fiction in what I told them. I let them continue arguing and touching each other and me with their feet, under the water, accidentally or not accidentally.
I closed my eyes, pressed my hands to the sides of my body, leaned my head back, and slid down a bit, to place my lower spine in the flow of water.
I remained that way for a few seconds, and then opened my eyes.
And began to cry.
None of my three readers noticed.
The salty drops falling from my eyes blended into the spray of the Jacuzzi.
—
On the drive home, Johnny Shuali’s “Sometimes” was on the radio. I didn’t want to remember, but I did. The first time Dikla and I heard it together was in the Kiryat Yuval dormitory. Dikla had heard it before and drew my attention to it. We were in her room—she had a roommate who left the university in the middle of the year—lying on her bed, brushing against each other, and the song began.
She said, Listen to how beautiful it is, and reached out to raise the volume.
Sometimes you don’t realize that I’m with you,
There’s no one else for me,
I love you more each passing day…
Johnny Shuali’s voice was borne on the surging sounds of his guitar.
And when he reached “And the autumn winds have stripped me as bare as the day I was born,” I felt Dikla’s hand reach for mine. Spreading my fingers to lace hers between them.
—
When I reached home, a note from her was waiting on the dining room table: I’m going to sleep. Don’t forget to go to the bakery tomorrow morning to order a cake for the bat mitzvah. Is it possible to live without love?
At five in the morning, I decide to surrender to my insomnia instead of fighting it. I get out of bed quietly to keep from waking Dikla, walk to the living room, open the shutters, and wait for the dawn. All the women I’ve been with in
