I heard him rummaging around in the bathroom drawers. He took the pil s and stretched out on the bed with a sigh of relief. “Asshole,” he repeated. “Fucking asshole. What did they take Shadi in for anyhow? He didn’t do a thing. He was walking like everyone else. Then they complain that Arab citizens aren’t devoted to the State. Idiots. Bastard idiots. How to make enemies and alienate people in ve easy lessons.
How to get people to want you dead in one easy lesson. I don’t know how much longer this madness can go on. I can’t imagine a more suicidal people than us. We love to suf er. And to take everyone else with us.”
I brought half a loaf of bread, a few slices of cheese, and a container of hummus to the bed. Eating on the bed with someone else reminded me of Daniel, and I felt happy.
“That’s what Daniel used to say. He cal ed it auto-genocide.”
Rafi laughed. “Auto-genocide! Wel , he might be right, at the rate we’re going.”
“I had a conversation with one of the soldiers,” I said as we ate. “I tried to persuade him to refuse. He admit ed he was scared.”
“Sit ing ducks … You know that poem—Today we come, tomorrow we go / Today we touch the spray of fire /Your love sends our way.”
“Yes, I like that poem,” I said.
“I used to wonder what the love was. I never understood that line. Now it’s so clear. The country loves us, it wants our love, and the gift it gives us is death.”
“They always walk backwards, they come at me with their backs.”
“Up above the birds slow down, they wil eat without a cloth.”
“Everything was so simple,” I said. “And now it’s so complicated.”
“Because we’ve fal en in love?” he said, dipping his bread into the hummus.
“Yes.”
“It’s not as complicated as you think. People complicate things that are simple. They get tangled up for nothing.”
“How can you say that? This is a terrible mess.”
“It isn’t a mess. People are al owed to love each other. It doesn’t mean you’re disloyal to Daniel. I’m sure he wants you to be happy. It doesn’t mean you don’t love him or that you’ve forgot en him.”
“How did it happen? Between us?”
“I can’t answer for you. I’ve been watching you for two years. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for two years at least.”
“I hardly noticed you.”
“You hardly noticed anyone.”
“Until you said, Enough, already, enough.”
“When did I say that?”
“To the soldier. The soldier who was tel ing us to come down.”
“Oh yeah. Coward.”
“He wasn’t a coward. He was scared—I’d be too.”
He didn’t answer, and I went on, “I didn’t recognize you right away, because of your afro. Your hair grows in an afro. Can I touch it?”
“If that’s what you want. But once you touch my hair, that’s it, there’s no going back. Now we can stil ght it, if you want. We can decide that we won’t do this, because I can’t leave my daughter and you want to stay loyal to Daniel.”
“Would you tel Graciela?”
“Of course not. And she won’t ask. She’s not interested.”
“But she’l know.”
“I told you, she doesn’t think that way. She knows I’ve slept with other women. She isn’t interested in that part of my life.”
“She won’t leave you?”
“No, she loves me. She loves me and she loves Naomi. She can’t help the way she is. And I need to live with Naomi. I need to live in the same house with her, ful -time. I’m lucky Graciela doesn’t want a divorce.”
“Do you love her?”
“I’m grateful to her, she helped me when things were very bad. I feel bad for her, too. She’s su ering. But I can’t help her. She’s the only one who can get herself out of it, and maybe even she can’t. Maybe she doesn’t need to, as long as she has her music.”
“I never heard of her before.”
“I guess you don’t fol ow classical music.”
“I worry that my life’s become so narrow.”
“Life is a narrow bridge,” he said, approximately quoting the Bratslav rabbi. He said it ironical y, but I liked the quote.
