“Yeah, wel . It’s not my style. And usual y I wouldn’t even talk to him, but I just felt like it, I don’t know why. And he asked about Daniel.
Imagine if I hadn’t met him. On the other hand, imagine if I’d met him ten years ago! I don’t even want to think about that.”
“You know what the Buddhists say.”
“No, what do they say?”
“Things happen when they happen.”
“I read the exact opposite somewhere,” I said. “I read that the devil is in charge of timing.”
“Yes, I guess that’s the opposite approach.”
“Nothing can make this long wait a good thing. There aren’t any advantages. None, none, none.”
“Let’s go to the sea—do you want to?”
We walked to the sea and sat on the sand and stared at the black waves. The white foam crescents along the edge of the waves rol ed toward us and then vanished, like the smiles of ghosts. We sat side by side and watched the waves rising and fal ing, but we didn’t touch.
WEDNESDAY
I DREAMED I FOUND DANIEL, and he was living with another woman, a tal woman who was young and beautiful. Then I realized that she was blind.
And I thought, I can be blind too, if that’s what it takes. I can wear a blindfold. And I began thinking about al the things I’d have to learn to do while wearing the blindfold. It wouldn’t be so hard, I thought. In the dream it seemed like a simple thing, being blind.
When I woke I remembered that my photographs were ready and I went to pick them up. I walked home slowly, made myself cafe et lait, sat down at the kitchen counter, and stared at the envelope. Final y I opened it.
The one of the donkey was very good. The photos of the children were lovely as always, though not because of anything I’d done. There was also a good one from the upper story of the warehouse: a young woman I didn’t real y remember, with both hands on her ears, and a terrified young man next to her. I captured that second when the sound grenade explodes, the fear in their faces and bodies. The photographs of the soldiers, on the other hand, were static, the angles weren’t good, and you couldn’t real y see their faces. I threw those out.
Unfortunately, the photo of the woman who had the seizure didn’t come out either. The tear gas had prevented me from focusing or framing properly. I kept it, though; I added it to a shoe box marked not good but can’t throw out.
The photographs of the two friends were my favorite of this lot. I noticed things about them which I hadn’t seen at the time: for example, the man who had given up hope had delicate hands with long slender ngers, and his more optimistic friend was much more depressed than I’d realized when I’d spoken to him. In fact, it was no longer clear which one of them was ready to keep trying and which one wasn’t. The man who seemed to have given up on the future looked thoughtful and wise in the photograph, while his friend’s shoulders were slumped forward in defeat.
There was one photo of Ra . I had caught him in pro le, looking down at the soldier. His expression was serious and angry, but his body was completely calm, as if he were enjoying an outing at a vacation resort.
I couldn’t decide what to do with the photograph. I wanted to hide it, but I knew it was already too late. It had always been too late; from the moment I saw Ra in the warehouse it was too late. I couldn’t bear the thought of concealing something from Daniel when I saw him, and now it seemed I might be closer than ever to nding him. Daniel was moving away from me just when I was closest to reaching him. I wanted to stop his retreat, but I didn’t know how to do it. It wasn’t Ra ’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I placed al the photographs, including the one of Rafi, in a shoe box marked September and slid it under my bed.
I returned to the counter and made a list of activists I knew who might have a link to someone in Intel igence. I wondered whether I should also contact Daniel’s family and tel them what had happened, but I didn’t real y have any news for them yet. Besides, if I found out where he was, I had to go see him first, before anyone else. Before he had a chance to escape again.
I began phoning the people on my list. No one asked why I needed information; they assumed I was trying to help a Palestinian in trouble.
One had a brother in Intel igence, but he was “a stickler.” Another had a brother-in-law with a lot of power, but “he’d open a le on you.”
The others didn’t have any connections.
It was too soon to feel discouraged. Possibly I would have to try old friends of my parents. The problem was that they’d want to see me. I’d have to invest an entire evening in each one, just to get information they might not have; they would also want to know why I needed to talk to an of icer in the upper military echelons. I would try my coworkers at the insurance of ice first. I’d also ask Tanya; more than once I’d seen extremely distinguished-looking men walk confidently up the stairs to her flat.
I decided to nish my novel in the meantime; I was very close to the end. I wrote the last few sex scenes and sent the le to my publishers.
Then I signed a form relinquishing copyright and crossed the street to the City Beach Hotel to fax it.
Working on the novel had exhausted me and I lay down for a nap on the sofa, but I had a crabby sleep, as my mother used to say, crowded with distressing dreams. I dreamed, among other things, that Volvo had his legs back, thanks to a miracle drug that rejuvenated cel s. But when he tried to walk, he couldn’t. He’d forgot en how.
Despite the bad dreams, I didn’t real y want to wake up. I tried to pul myself out of sleep because I knew that something very important and wonderful had happened in my waking life, something which required my at ention. I was also aware that it was Wednesday and that I had to get ready for my weekly dinner with Vronsky. But another part of me seemed to be stuck deep inside the disjointed, garbled images.
