Posters? Are you kidding? We had a relationship, David and I.
You don’t say.
I used to talk to him. Tell him things. And he opened up to me too.
What did he tell you?
I’m not sure I can say. It feels like a betrayal of David.
Are you serious?
—
Later, she gave me a quick course on David Bowie. She played all his records for me and read aloud passages from interviews with him that she kept in a special folder. People think he’s a cold person, she explained, but that’s absolutely not true! It’s just that, people who were…unusual or not accepted when they were kids never forget it and always feel a little Major Tom.
—
We watched Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence the way people watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Again and again and again. And again. And at every viewing, we added another private ritual, another small interjection. Some were meant to slam the Japanese characters (Yes, commit hara-kiri! It’s exactly what you deserve!), others were meant to praise Bowie (You look great in the scarf with the holes!), but most were emotional and pointless calls to Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto to do the impossible and act on the suppressed homoerotic attraction between them (Come on, kiss already!).
This morning, after I dropped Noam off at school, they played “The Man Who Sold the World” on the radio, and when the song ended, the announcer said that Bowie had died.
I hurried home to Dikla. I thought I’d find her crying and pictured how I would console her. But when I got there, the house was empty. She’d gone to work. I waited a few hours so as not to be the bearer of bad news, and then I texted her: Sorry for your loss. She replied: Sad. And when she came home in the evening, she said she’d bought tickets for Yoav Kutner’s lecture on Bowie at the Eretz Israel Museum on Friday morning. She didn’t think Kutner would have much to tell her that she didn’t already know, but maybe it would do her good to be in the same room with other people who loved David. Maybe she’d be able to cry. I’d be happy to go with you, I said. She replied that she had already asked Gaia, her hydro-therapist, to go with her. But we could find out if tickets were still available. There was nothing malicious in her tone, she’s not like that. She wouldn’t deliberately say something to hurt me. It was just the situation at the time: I wasn’t the first option on her list.
In the end, Gaia stood her up. I swallowed my pride and went with her. Friday morning. The Eretz Israel Museum. A talk in the lecture-series style. The tickets were waiting for us at the box office. We went into the auditorium expecting to see people our age. But it was mainly pensioners sitting in the seats. What did they have to do with my David—I knew that Dikla was thinking the same thing and I saw that small, familiar wrinkle of disappointment that went from her mouth downward. Actually, we’re not much younger than they are, I thought. Kutner came onto the stage. Showed us the album cover of Space Oddity and played the title song for us. The sound was good. I put my hand on Dikla’s. She didn’t return the caress or the pressure, but she didn’t move her hand either. Kutner played “Jean Genie” and talked about the differences between psychedelic folk and rock-and-roll blues. For whoever cares, I thought. Then he showed us the cover of Hunky Dory, the album that has “Life on Mars?” on it, and played “Changes,” saying that changes was a motto for Bowie. Never repeat yourself as an artist. Always do the opposite of what people expect from you. Dikla nodded slightly at his words. And she’s not a nodding sort of person. A lecturer can evoke a nod from her only if he says something super-exact. After Ziggy Stardust, Kutner talked about Bowie’s film career, told the audience that in another minute, he would be screening a scene from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, and said a few words about the behind-the-scenes of the movie. Dikla’s hand moved almost imperceptibly under mine. Of all the scenes in the world, he had chosen the one we loved most, the one we used to rewind to see again and again. The parade ground. All the prisoners are standing in groups of three. Sakamoto, the camp commander, is about to vent his anger on them. His long sword is ready. Then Bowie steps out from the line. Walks up to him, his head held high. Stops in front of him—and touches his shoulder gently. The startled Sakamoto pushes him to the ground, but Bowie is not defeated. He stands up again, takes hold of Sakamoto’s shoulder, but this time moves his face close to his—eyes to eyes, lips to lips.
Come on, kiss him already!—Dikla and I shouted in the middle of Kutner’s lecture, part of a series, in the Eretz Israel Museum on a Friday morning—Kiss him!
Heads turned toward us. Mouths shushed us. Dikla took my hand and said to me, Come on. We stood up to leave. The entire row grumbled and stuck their feet out to trip us. To slow us up. In the background, Kutner kept talking about Bowie’s transformation into a pop star in the eighties, and we heard the opening, slightly clichéd notes of “Modern Love.”
We escaped from the auditorium. Out onto the lawn. The open air. Laughing. Laughing hysterically. Dikla’s laughter slowly turned into tears. Her shoulders shook. I hugged her. I held her close to my chest. Every spot on her body had a sister spot on mine. Everything was touching. She said, Enough, it’s pathetic, crying for someone I didn’t know. It’s pathetic. I didn’t cry for my mother like this, she said. I didn’t say anything to her.
