I looked around Iris’s living room while she went to get linens from the bedroom.
No candles. No pictures. No honorary shields.
A hammock stretched from one side of the room to the other. A phonograph. With a long row of records beside it. The record at the end of the row, the one whose cover showed an ashtray with a cigarette butt in it, was visible, and I recognized it right away: Shalom Hanoch’s Waiting for the Messiah. There were large cushions on the floor, and on the walls hung unsophisticated, highly emotional paintings. Some of them quite sensual. Hers?
She came back to the living room and spread a single child’s sheet on the couch. She added a blanket and a pillow. And placed a man’s tracksuit on the pillow, along with a Golani Brigade end-of-course T-shirt.
I said thank you. And the chills of an on-the-verge-of-a-mistake passed through my body.
Coffee? she offered. Or do you always drink “only water”?
She came back from the kitchen with two steaming cups of coffee and said in the tone of a squad commander: Follow me!
We climbed the stairs that led to the second floor of the house. For a moment, I was afraid she was taking me to her bedroom, but she kept climbing even after the second floor until we reached a small ladder. Which led to a kind of opening in the roof that had an iron cover.
Come on, she said, lifting the cover, we can see the Tel Aviv Azrieli Tower from here.
On the roof, between the solar water tanks, stood two red-and-white-striped deck chairs. We sat down on them and looked at the lights of Tel Aviv and the surrounding cities.
I sipped my coffee and remained silent. I had spoken so much during the meeting with my readers that I had no words left.
When there’s silence, you notice things. So I noticed that the steam rising from my cup blended with the steam rising from hers.
And that she gave off a light fragrance of body lotion, which wafted in my direction with the wind.
And that her jeans ended slightly before her socks began.
And that all the houses in the settlement were completely illuminated. As if no one here was planning to go to sleep, ever.
That’s where I met Boaz, she said after several moments, pointing toward the towers of Tel Aviv.
In Azrieli?
Not far. I was studying literature and teaching in the Kibbutzim College of Education. One of the girls in my class was giving an Independence Day party. And he walked in. Our eyes met. He didn’t look away. And I said to myself, He’s wearing a kippah, so cool it. Then he came over and just started talking to me, no clever opening line, he simply began a conversation. I said to myself, Iris, stop with the pounding heart, nothing will come of it, he’s wearing a kippah. And then he offered to drive me home, and I said to myself, If there was a chance that something serious might come of this, then there’s a reason to play hard to get, but there is no chance, so let him drive me home, and come up for coffee, and kiss me more gently than I’ve ever been kissed before, and have sex with me as if he knew instinctively what turns me on, and he’ll sleep over and hug me all night, a protective kind of embrace, and he’ll make breakfast for me—what difference will it make? He’s wearing a kippah.
She spoke very quickly, without taking a breath between one word and the next, between one sentence and another. As if the words were already fixed in her heart, and she had been waiting a long time for the chance to bring them out into the light.
And that was it? I asked. You stayed together until he passed away?
Of course not. Over the course of four years, we broke up and got back together again and again. Each of us tried to impose our lifestyle on the other, and naturally, it didn’t work. So we distanced ourselves from each other and tried to go out with other people, and of course, that didn’t work either. Finally, I went to him and said, Listen, I’ll say this in the kind of religious language you understand, we can waste our whole lives trying to avoid each other, or we can accept the situation. For a start, I’ll tell you that I’m prepared to live with you wherever you want. On the condition that inside the house, I can live the way I want.
Wow.
How did you put it at the meeting? When your curiosity wins out, no force can stand in its way, including ideology. So in our case, love won out over every force that stood in the way.
Including ideology.
Ah-ha.
And that’s how you ended up in Ma’ale Meir?
The truth is that we wanted to rent an apartment in Jerusalem, but it was too expensive. Do you see? That’s how we became “settlers.” And there are other people like us here, each with their own story. You wanted to see things close up? No problem. Just take into account that when you see things close up, you notice the small details. And afterward, it’s harder to make generalizations. In articles published in the newspaper, for example.
Which means, I’m done for, that’s what you’re saying. My curiosity has gotten me into trouble.
Exactly!
There’s just one thing I don’t understand, I said after a brief silence.
Feel free to ask, Iris said.
I sipped my coffee to keep from saying the words that were on the tip of my tongue. I knew what I wanted to ask, but not how to word it in a way
