—
She canceled her wedding a week before the date. Mutual acquaintances who had received invitations told me. I wasn’t surprised. It was just like her. Later, I heard from those acquaintances that she met someone else, a guy who came in second in a national high-jump competition, married him a month later, and moved with him to the United States, to a town in the Midwest. Because of some job offer he’d received. Or a sports grant.
The Midwest is far away and not on the way to anywhere. Our mutual acquaintances broke off contact with her and I didn’t hear any gossip about her for years. I had almost completely stopped having dreams of running hand in hand with her, escaping from something, and it had been a long time since I took her letters out of the shoe box I kept them in to check whether they still gave off the scent of her perfume.
And now here she is. In the third row on the right. The lecture I prepared is over, and now people are asking questions, too many questions, and I answer, Yes, Hebrew is assimilated by other languages, but is that necessarily a bad thing? And someone asks, Would you be a writer if you weren’t born in Israel? I offer my ready answer, constantly stealing glances at her, trying to figure out how I can skip out on the kosher dinner, another kosher dinner, that the Jewish community organized for after the event—
In the end, I tell the organizers the truth. Listen, I see a childhood friend here, and this is the last night, we won’t have another chance to talk, I hope it’s all right with you—
Look, they say, we’ve already reserved the restaurant—
She’s waiting on the side, as if embarrassed, but not really, biting the nail on her pinkie, a gesture I know very well, and crossing one leg over the other as she stands there, another gesture I know very well.
I don’t say anything, don’t back down, I know for certain that what I’m doing is not polite, but it’s obvious to me that I’m doing the right thing.
They look at me, look at her, and something apparently becomes clear to them, because they retreat, only reminding me that they will pick me up at seven tomorrow morning to take me to the airport.
We go outside and begin walking the downtown streets. I’m a bit cold, but she seems to be okay, so I don’t say anything about it. We walk in our regular positions, she on the left, I on the right, and I wonder if she notices this as well. She’s wearing tight jeans and a button-down denim shirt, and I remember the way her army shirt was tucked into her uniform pants, which were always a few sizes too big for her. I remember that, although she was a natural chatterbox, she always needed someone else to begin the conversation.
You look great, I say.
How can you tell? she teased me. It’s dark!
No, really, I say, smiling.
You, on the other hand, look older, she says. Then she caresses the back of my neck briefly—or simply lets her hand linger on it, depending on how you interpret it—then adds, What’s with all those white hairs?
I’m silent, admitting my guilt.
And since when did you become such a big lecturer? she adds. You used to be so shy.
Inside, I’m still shy.
You hide it very well.
Did you enjoy the lecture?
It was terrific, even though…
Even though what?
Never mind, we haven’t seen each other for nine years, and I’m already putting you down…
You started already, so go on—
You…fake it. You’re not really there. It feels like you’re giving a speech. Even the jokes you tell—it’s like you know they’ll work because they did in the past.
I guess you’re right.
But people enjoyed it, don’t worry. I’m the only one who noticed that you weren’t totally there.
I wasn’t there at all because of you, funny girl. The minute you came in, all I wanted was for the lecture to end, I think, but don’t say.
We reach the small lake—really just a puddle—in the middle of the little park. We sit down on a bench, which is slightly damp. The water in the puddle glistens like eyes.
So tell me, do you ever get used to this quiet? I ask.
You get addicted to it, she says.
You live close by? I ask, pointing in the general direction of the city.
No, we live in Cincinnati now. We moved not too long ago.
No kidding. So it was just my luck that you’re here?
No, you idiot, I came especially to see you. A two-hour drive.
Then she turned to me. Face-to-face. And immediately looked away.
—
It took time for me to work up the courage to kiss her. Back then, in Haifa.
We used to walk around the Carmel Center, somehow always arriving at the end of the Panorama Promenade that overlooks the refineries and the bay. On the one hand, the kiss was in the air, but on the other, her sarcasm undermined the already shaky self-confidence I had then. Before every date, I would decide, that’s it, this time it’ll happen, but the minute we exchanged our first words, I would decide to postpone leaning toward her
