—
Dysthymia? he asks.
I explain it to him. It’s kind of like a permanent sadness, on a low flame, that lasts for a long time without sliding into real depression.
Or maybe it’s the opposite?
What do you mean? I ask.
That starting at a certain age, it’s harder to feel joy.
—
You know what the problem is about living with the same woman for years, Carmeli?
I have no idea, man, I never have.
That her expression when she looks at you gets wearier. And dimmer.
I don’t understand, what do you want, to be admired? he asks.
A little. Why not?
—
Nothing happened in Colombia.
No?
That journalist really did come to the hotel with me. And we went up to the room, and I poured wine from the minibar for us. But then, Yanai, my youngest, called and asked what kind of present I was bringing back for him, and after I spoke to him, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get hard.
I don’t understand, so why did you tell Dikla that something happened?
I was hoping it would shake her up a little. That it would make her look at me the way she used to.
Or you hoped to bring things to a rapid end.
How I’ve missed your way with language, Carmeli—
In any case, you’re an idiot.
I know.
—
Or maybe there was another reason—
A reason for what?
For confessing to something that didn’t happen.
Okay, what?
It’s just a better story. More dramatic. Look, now you have a crisis to be stressed about, something you’ve always liked.
—
At night, I walked along the goat paths above Rosh Pina and looked for campfires that Hagai Carmeli might have sat beside. My nostrils searched for the smell, my eyes for the flames, and my ears for the sound of crackling twigs.
—
I didn’t shave for a few days. I washed in springs but I didn’t shave. My beard grew wild and I enjoyed running my hand through the soft stubble.
So many years had passed since I allowed myself to not shave. So many years of being too smooth. It was clear to me that Hagai Carmeli, if he were alive, had a beard. I have no explanation for that, I just knew it. A reddish, pointed beard, better-groomed than mine. I imagined our meeting, beard to beard. We probably wouldn’t hug, he’s unhuggable, Hagai Carmeli, but I would see the happiness in his eyes and he would see the relief in mine. Then we would gather firewood and twigs, place a piece of tissue under the twigs, and use a flint to light the fire, and when the flames were steady, we’d talk, without any stupid attempts to tell each other everything that had happened in the time that had passed, we would go straight to the burning issues.
—
And if Dikla were telling the story?
What do you mean?
Let’s say it’s her story and you’re the character of the husband. How does it feel from her vantage point?
What is this, Carmeli, an exercise in a writing workshop?
No, idiot, it’s an exercise in love.
—
Okay…so I think she feels…exhaustion.
Exhaustion.
Yes, she has no more strength.
For you?
Not just for me. If it weren’t for the kids, she would go to India for a year.
—
Go on. What else do you see from her vantage point?
Something happened when she went to the desert ashram and Sde Boker. She came back different.
A man?
I don’t think so.
A woman?
No, no. More like a decision. Something that became clear to her.
It’s too bad we can’t take a break.
A break?
If not for the kids, that’s what we should do now. A separation of forces. Each of us should go our separate ways for a year. She should really go to India, and I should go to the Sinai, despite, or maybe because of, the warnings.
So do it.
Don’t be offended, Hagai, but it’s obvious you’re not a father.
—
Will you come with me to visit Ari?
Of course.
No one but Dikla and I go to see him anymore. Would you believe it?
No one, no one at all?
At first it was an endless stream. Lots of girls. Now there’s death in the air. Death has a real smell, you know?
Does Ari say anything about it? Does he notice?
You know him, he turns it into a joke. Every time I see him, he tells me about another girl he’s “taking out of his will” because she stopped coming.
—
During my second week of searching, on a night with a full moon, at the entrance to a wadi, I saw a small campfire in the distance. And someone sitting beside it.
I approached with a pounding heart.
Sitting alone near the campfire was none other than Ehud Banai, one of my favorite singers. He was wearing an Ehud Banai hat. And he had Ehud Banai stubble. And Ehud Banai glasses. He had a harmonica on his chest, Dylan-style, and he was quietly strumming his guitar.
With a look, I asked if I could sit down next to him, and he responded with a glance that I could.
I listened to him play for a long time.
We didn’t exchange a word. It seemed inappropriate.
He didn’t play familiar songs that I could sing along to, only instrumental passages, without plots. One of them reminded me of the opening sounds of “You Touched the Treetops,” but it quickly dispersed into a different melody. More random.
I made an assumption: Maybe he’d come back here after years to remind himself how it all began, to commune once again with that innocent place before the applause began.
But I had no way to verify that assumption.
The ground groaned.
Time traveled.
I was filled with
