When I finished reading and looked up, his chair was empty.
He returned several minutes later. But left the room again at least three more times during the lesson. His face was pale and his eyes sunken. He rested his elbows on the desk and put his head in his hands. The cane, which always stood tall at the side of the desk, fell noisily to the floor, and he didn’t bend down to pick it up.
I’m sorry, he said when he approached me at the end of the lesson. I didn’t feel well today. That’s why I had to go out. But I recorded everything and will listen to what I missed at home.
I read your story, I said, gathering the pages that were scattered on my desk.
Well, what do you say? he asked. His voice shook. The veins on the top of his head bulged.
A very good story, I said, and handed him the pages. I’m proud of you.
Don’t let me off easy—he refused to take the pages and waved his finger at me—I know you have comments. You always have comments. So tell me what they are. Don’t take pity on me because I’m sick.
Look…I hesitated. The story is constructed well…but if you want to polish it…if it’s important to you—
Of course it’s important to me, he interrupted me angrily, what do you think?
It needs a bit of tweaking, just a tiny bit, in…the daughter’s speech.
I knew it! Shmuel said—almost happily. I had a feeling that I didn’t get that right. But what can I do? I just can’t cope with that language, young people’s language.
So maybe you should record them, I said, pointing to the tape recorder in his hand. Record young people talking and then weave the words you’ve recorded into the story.
Now there’s an idea! Shmuel said, as if a lightbulb had gone on over his head. Not a bad idea at all!
Work on the story during the week, give it to me again at the beginning of the last session and I’ll read it while you’re doing your final exercises, I promised him.
It’s a deal, Shmuel said.
His daughter called me a few hours before the last class and said, This is Shmuel’s daughter. Dad…won’t be coming to class today.
I asked, How does he feel?
Dad passed away, she said, this morning.
I was silent. We were silent.
Then she said, I want to thank you, in my father’s name, for the workshop.
And I…I want to thank you…for encouraging him to come.
He just needed a little push, you know.
Yes, I said, and asked, Where will you be sitting shivah?
She gave me the address.
—
I didn’t go. Ari’s condition worsened that week, the doctors couldn’t say whether he had a few months or a few days left and I didn’t want to take the risk. I hardly moved from his bedside.
We met when we were fifteen, Ari and I, in the stands behind the basket at Malcha Stadium. Hapoel was losing by a large margin and the game was so lost that we could talk. I mean, he imitated one of the sportscasters calling the game, and I roared with laughter.
He taught me how to laugh, and that was one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. Not that I didn’t laugh before that, but the basic approach to life in my home was terribly serious and critical. It wasn’t that my basic approach to life changed completely because of Ari—but thanks to him, it took on another aspect. Suddenly, I could find the comic side of certain situations. When I failed the theory part of my driving test the second time—I imagined describing to him all the ridiculous questions I got wrong. And as they were crushing my free will during basic training in the Armored Corps on the Ovda cliffs, I collected golden moments for him: When Velkstein couldn’t stand at a ninety-degree angle because he didn’t know what ninety degrees was. When the squad commander dozed off during the platoon commander’s speech. I knew that on Friday night, no matter what, Ari and I would go out to the Octopus or some other bar in Jerusalem. On the way, he would drink in my little stories about the army, and when we left the bar to go to his father’s car—I was the designated driver—he was totally shit-faced and would hug strangers in the street, zigzagging in that drunken walk of his. My God, how much I miss that walk now that he’s bedridden, a happy walk, as if he’s dribbling a basketball or as if he himself is a bouncing basketball—
—
In his hospital room, I told him about my student, Shmuel, who died before he could complete the first story he ever wrote. He listened, as always, with deep curiosity—he was curious about everything—and when I finished, he shifted in his bed and said, It beats me, all that writing stuff you people do. You, for example, since you started writing, you’ve become even sadder, isn’t that true?
Yes.
Even Dikla has no more patience for your moods, isn’t that true?
Yes.
So here’s the thing. It’s not the Colombian girl, because from what I know about you—and I know quite a bit—there’s no way it really happened.
Apparently.
All that writing has put you in a funk. Dikla too. Because between you and me, she’s no ray of sunshine either. So something in the balance between you is fucked up, isn’t that true?
A nurse came in with a tray of hospital food and put it on the night table beside his bed.
No way I’m touching that, he said.
Should I get you something from downstairs? I asked.
Thanks, amigo, Ari said.
What should I get?
You know what.
Bitter Lemon?
And a roast beef sandwich.
Are you even allowed to eat roast beef?
Fuck what I’m allowed.
—
When I came back with the roast beef and the Bitter Lemon, he wasn’t in his bed.
That’s it, grief crash-landed inside me. It’s over. They took him. And I didn’t get to tell him he was a
