I think there’s a good ice-cream parlor on the corner.
We walked there together, close, but not touching. We pretended to be undecided about the flavors we wanted. Until she chose tiramisu in a cup and I French vanilla in a cone. I didn’t have to say “Do you remember when…” because I was sure that we both remembered when. That we both understood we were reliving a moment that had occurred at the very beginning of our relationship. A true moment, not the ones I’ve scattered throughout this interview to protect her privacy—
Her mother had died suddenly. A heart attack. A little while after we started dating. On the fifth day of the seven days of mourning, I drove to Ma’alot.
I wasn’t sure whether she was even into me. Or whether, after a few dates, I should go to the shivah.
The house was filled with people who had come to pay their respects. She was sitting in a separate room, wearing jeans and a Bart Simpson sweatshirt. I bent down and hugged her, and she hugged me back, limply. There was no place to sit next to her, so I sat down at the far end of the room. Her friends kept coming in. I didn’t know she had so many friends. The girls cried on her shoulder. The boys all seemed to be secretly in love with her. I didn’t know what to do or say. I couldn’t even recognize her in the photo albums that were passed from hand to hand. From a few things she had mentioned casually during our two dates, such as the fact that her father was the chef in all the factories owned by Stef Wertheimer, and that the food he cooked at home was incredibly delicious, I had gathered that she was more of a daddy’s girl. But I wasn’t sure.
After about an hour, I stood up to go. At the front door, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Thanks for coming, she said. And then she shook my hand, a long, lingering handshake that allowed her to place a slip of paper in my palm.
I was in the car before I had the courage to open it.
Drive to the end of the block.
Wait for me at the monument.
I’ll find an excuse and go there.
Half an hour later, she finally appeared. Riding a bike that had a little girl’s seat.
My heart went out to her. Maybe because she pedaled so slowly. So mournfully. Her pedaling was mournful.
Maybe because the wind tousled her hair.
Suddenly, I could imagine her at seven years old, at ten, a miniature of herself, a lonely kind of child. Riding her bike with no one at her side.
She reached the monument, swung an extremely long leg over the crossbar, leaned the bike against the structure without chaining it, and turned to me. She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling, as we moved closer to each other. I didn’t know if it was because of the bike riding or me. She was still so unknown to me. I had no idea whether I could hug her then. If I was allowed. She stood on tiptoe and kissed me—a quick kiss, on the corner of my mouth—and said, I feel like ice cream. It turned out that there was an ice-cream parlor in Nahariya called Penguin that she and her mother used to go to when she was a kid. It’s not a little too far, Nahariya? I asked. A little, she said, but I need some air. We got there in less than twenty minutes. We barely spoke on the way, apparently words were more than she could manage. She ordered two scoops of tiramisu and I ordered one scoop of French vanilla. We stood on the street, in front of the ice-cream parlor and licked our ice cream. I took small, careful licks, and she—almost full bites. Her tongue moved quickly, greedily, shaving off one side of the cone, then switching right over to the other side.
When we finished, she asked me to take her back to her bike.
During the drive, my hand rested in hers, and when we reached the monument and got out of the car, I thought she would go straight to her bike, but then she came around the car to where I was standing and hugged me tightly for a very long time. I had never before hugged a girl who was exactly my height. I felt how every spot on my body had a sister spot on hers. Everything touched. It made me press her even closer to me. When we finally moved apart, she asked if I could come again tomorrow. I said yes. Of course. At that moment, I would have done whatever she asked me to do.
—
We hugged after the psychologist too. We finished our ice cream and, without saying a word, turned to each other all at once and hugged. Tightly. For a very long time. At that moment, I would have done whatever she asked me to do—but she didn’t ask me to do anything. Do you believe that literature still has an influence in our world?
He walked beside me from the minute I left the auditorium. At first, I didn’t notice. I was busy beating myself up about a few insipid remarks I’d made during the meeting, trying too hard to be liked. Then, when I noticed him, I thought he was walking with me because he needed to go in the same direction. When I stepped out of the school gate and he followed me, I began to realize that he was sticking close to me intentionally, like a bodyguard.
Did you want to ask me something? I asked, stopping and turning to him.
He choked. He must have thought we would walk in silence.
I studied him.
