He had a heart attack when he was forty-nine. He survived and still plays basketball every Thursday, to this very day. But I still worry when he dives into the waves, and keep my eyes glued to him to make sure he doesn’t have another sudden heart attack in the middle of the sea. If I lose sight of him for more than a minute, I get really stressed, and once, a few years ago, I sent the lifeguard and everyone on the beach to look for him because I was terrified he had drowned, but it turned out that he had just swum to another beach.
These days, the sea is filled with jellyfish, so he doesn’t swim far out. And I can sit on the folding chair he always keeps in the car trunk—part of a full beach kit—and watch him snorkel in comfort. I have no idea why he swims in the Mediterranean Sea with a snorkel and mask, Dado Beach in Haifa isn’t exactly Ras Burqa in the Sinai, but I’ve learned to accept this just the way I learned to accept and love his other quirks: The fact that he keeps a motorcycle in the building parking lot without ever riding it. The fact that he spends entire Saturdays playing chess with himself. That he refuses to learn how to use Word and writes all his articles with a fountain pen. That his favorite vacation spot is Tiberias.
There were years when I resented my father. Quietly and persistently, I nursed my anger toward him. And poured all that bitterness into the fathers I created in my books. But when I became a father myself, most of his anger-provoking behavior seemed suddenly understandable: He sometimes doesn’t answer when you speak to him? That’s only human, his head is filled with worry about making a living. He travels abroad for long periods of time? Obviously. A person needs to take a break. Sets a standard of integrity that is too high to live up to? Better than having a criminal for a father. Is unable to remain in the here and now, and always has to worry about his future and that of everyone around him? Okay, that’s something about him that still drives me crazy.
People who knew him—former students, colleagues, or army buddies (not just you, Hanita)—always come up to me after lectures and say: You look so much like your father, you know? And I say: Thank you. Or: That’s a real compliment. But I still wince slightly, an internal, imperceptible wince. A person wants to believe that he has free will. Then they ask how he is, and you can sense in their tone how much respect and affection they have for him. And I reply, He’s great, thank you, and think to myself: I’m lucky to have him for a father.
My father comes out of the water now. His body looks like mine will look in thirty years. Only the scar on his chest from his surgery is still red, as if it were only yesterday that he was rushed to the hospital. He towels himself off. Puts on his glasses. Clips the sunshade on them. Gives me his wallet and says: Order us the regular?
When he comes back from the shower, the regular is already on the table: Two short espressos. Two soda waters. A plate of labane. A plate of hummus. A plate of pickled vegetables. A plate of sliced onions.
He sips his espresso and asks: So what do you hear from Shira’le?
I don’t hear anything from her, I want to say. She hasn’t spoken to me since she left, only to Dikla. But instead, I say: Everything’s good. She’s happy there at Sde Boker.
He wants to say: What kind of parents are you that your daughter ran away from you? What did you do to her? But instead, he says: That’s wonderful. Really wonderful.
He takes another sip of his espresso and asks: And how is Arieh?
For some reason, he always calls Ari “Arieh.” I don’t correct him anymore. Once, when I still had a lot of things, they both helped me move, and after we finished unpacking the last carton in the new apartment, my father invited us to a restaurant and ordered a second steak and another shashlik for Ari, patted him on the shoulder, and said, Eat, eat, you deserve it, you’re a good friend.
Not too great, I reply. I mean, the doctors aren’t…optimistic.
It’s a cruel disease, my father says with a sigh.
Yes, I say.
You visit him in the hospital, don’t you?
Of course, I say, he’s at home right now, so I visit him there.
It’s important, because…he says, and stops. He pulls off a piece of pita and dips it into the hummus. Which is suspicious. Usually, the hummus is mine and the labane is his. And he adds sugar to his espresso, which he also never does. Only then does he continue: I had a friend, I don’t know if I told you about him—
Mickey, I say his name to myself. And think: Grandpa told me, Grandma told me, Mom told me about your best friend who was killed in the Yom Kippur War—you’re the only one who never did.
Mickey was in my high-school class. He…was killed in the Chinese Farm battle. The Saturday before he was killed, we both went home on leave…he lived on a street parallel to mine. And I said I’d stop by to see him in the evening.
Yes.
But I didn’t.
Yes.
If you happened to hear this story from Grandma, she must have said that I fell asleep.
You didn’t?
I was just feeling lazy.
Yes, Dad.
So what I’m saying is, visit Ari. Another espresso?
No thanks, Dad. I can’t fall asleep at night as it is.
He called the waiter over and ordered another espresso. He never does that either, I think. He asks the waiter how he is. How it’s going in the university.
