What’s the problem?
Once you used to hug me differently.
That’s how I hug now. Besides, you’re interrupting my work.
Well excuse me, really—
Maybe you should go and do some writing?
I haven’t written for two years, Dikla.
So just go answer some of the questions in that interview— Do you write on the computer or in a notebook?
With a feather pen. And an inkstand. And when the pages fly off into the wind—I have no backup. I pick them up from the sidewalk one by one and, of course, pay for it with a slipped disk. You can’t sit on a chair when you have a slipped disk, so I write standing up in front of an open window for several hours, like Agnon, until I come down with tuberculosis. Burning up with fever, unable to speak, lying on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, I dictate my books to Dikla with the movement of my eyelids. I blink Morse code and she writes it down. Or she writes whatever she feels like writing. I listen to the music of her laptop keyboard clicking and come to the conclusion that, yes, she’s writing what she feels like writing. Bottom line, it doesn’t suit her to be someone’s assistant. Even in a fantasy. After all, at the few events she attended with me, she always said sarcastically that it seems a writer’s wife exists only to allow her husband the freedom to write.
I try to change my dying pose so I can see what she’s typing, but all I see is one word: liar.
—
Computer or notebook? I wouldn’t dare to write without the Undo button, without the ability to retract, which frees me from the greatest fear of all: making a mistake.
If only we could click Undo for events in real life.
The literature coordinator in the Jerusalem school tells me that they cut the Palestinian worker’s monologues out of my book—and instead of nodding in submission, I end my meeting with the students right there and then in protest.
Or I’m in the Subte, the subway in Buenos Aires, and see Hagai Carmeli—rust-colored hair, protruding elbows—walking away from the escalator, and instead of giving a damn about Carolina, the embassy’s cultural attaché, and waiting for her to take her smartcard out of her bag, I jump over the barrier, shake off the guards, break into a frantic run, and manage to get on the same train he does before it pulls away from the platform and is drawn into a black hole.
Or I see the name Yoram Sirkin on my phone. A month after the municipal elections. And just block it.
Or Dikla. The night I come home from Colombia and she’s in our bed, snuggled under the blanket, I still wake her with kisses, but instead of telling her a story, I carefully pull away a corner of the blanket, put my hand under her shirt, and move my finger to her spot, the tiny indentation between her buttocks and lower back, and gently draw little figure eights around it until she turns to me, the smell of her breath filling me with desire, and we make love. And even after our lovemaking, I don’t tell her a story but ask how she is, because it takes more courage to listen than to make up stories, and she tells me snippets of what happened over the week I was gone, the successes and the failures, at work and with the kids, and doesn’t ask how it was in Colombia, and I don’t answer.
And there was the kid at camp. In the summer between the fifth and sixth grades. I think his name was Dan, but I’m not sure. His hair was parted on the side and his sports pants were too small for him.
We used to get off the bus at the same stop and talk constantly until we reached his house. But at camp itself, I ignored him. Barely spoke a word to him. At recess, I made sure to sit far away from him, and when the other kids started snubbing him, I joined in.
His only crime was not knowing how to play soccer. But he tried anyway. He wanted to participate. But on the field, he hurt our team in games against other teams.
Then it was decided—I really don’t remember who suggested it, all the faces but his have been completely erased—not to speak to him anymore. At all. To make him leave the camp and by doing so, improve our team’s chances of winning the championship.
It went on for four days. At first, he spoke to us and we just didn’t answer. Then he stopped trying.
I remember the look on his face, the depth of the pain in his eyes.
I remember that the counselors didn’t intervene. Even though it was a clear case of abuse.
I remember him sitting alone during breaks with his chocolate milk, his sandwich, and his hair parted on the side. Looking at me. Only me. For four days.
—
Camp finally ended, and the last bus ride home dropped us off at the same place.
In silence, we passed the house where the bulldog used to leap onto the fence, its teeth bared, and I never had the courage to walk past it without Dan at my side. We passed the Danish consulate, with its flag in front, and reached his house, which was the most beautiful one on the street.
There were a few seconds—maybe less, fractions of a second—before he turned to open the iron gate, when I could have said I was sorry.
Sorry for not doing anything. Sorry for not stopping it. After all, it only takes one to break a silence.
I didn’t say anything. Not even bye. He didn’t either, just opened the gate, went inside, and closed it behind him.
I kept walking, and when I reached my house, I burst into tears.
I remember my mom, alarmed, not understanding what had happened to me. Trying to get me to speak.
I remember myself saying, I don’t
