fol owing morning. But I decided to ignore the event entirely, and made a point of waving to him as usual when I left the building the fol owing morning. But Marik never recovered, and though he continued to nod back in his usual sul en way, after that day he looked morti ed every time he saw me.I waved at him now, then headed west, toward the sea.
Though I had walked down this street ten thousand times on ten thousand evenings, the pangs of my unrequited love for it never diminished. The buildings on my side of the street were weather-stained in competing layers of black, sepia, ash, bone, peach. Geometric pat erns emerged from the edges and rims of windows, doors, security bars, the metal rods of air-conditioner supports, the fat, hairy trunks of palm trees next to narrow electric poles. A multitude of details interrupted the pat erns: black and gray gra ti, abandoned scraps in the al ey, crevices and cracks in the wal s, the tips of new sunny-white buildings peeking from other streets. In the midst of this col age a naked neon woman reclined on a white panel like an oblivious angel; she had once reigned over Bar Sexe. The caged cavern under the sign no longer led to a bar but was stil an important meeting place for certain citizens who, as I quickly discovered, did not like to be photographed.
Further down, behind a brash pop drink sign, our miniature La Scala maintained its dignity, despite the yel ow and maroon sheets nailed to its arches. The real La Scala’s arches are on the ground oor, but here the four arches had been reproduced on al three stories, and the building, which stands at an intersection, curves gently around the corner. I often thought about the surge of enthusiasm that lay behind the design of this building, when the city was very young. And though the arches were now smudged and dingy and someone told me that people did drugs behind the yel ow and maroon sheets, the faith that had inspired this doomed project stil had the power to move me.
I walked past the defunct Bar Sexe, past our miniature La Scala, past the chairs scat ered on the sidewalk outside the lit le convenience store, past the store’s mounted television, set permanently to the sports channel, across the street to the paved boardwalk, with its pat erns of concentric circles echoing the movement of the waves, and down the stairs to the beach. The change from walking on a hard surface to sinking unpredictably with each step was always a surprise. At this time of night the sea was black, except for strips of pearl white foam along the edge of waves, and navy blue shadows where light from the street or moon happened to fal . There were couples lying on blankets here and there, a few joggers, and one or two determined late-night swimmers. A voice said, “Mia?”
I turned and saw a man with a long oval face standing behind me. He was dark-skinned, tal and very broad, like a weight lifter.
“Pardon me,” he said. “I thought you were someone else.”
Normal y I would not have answered because I had a rule about pickups and the rule was that I didn’t do them. A year after Daniel vanished I had yielded to the relentless pressure of friends and acquaintances, and al owed someone to fol ow me home. I met him at a lit le video store down the street from my at. There was barely room to move between the three crowded shelves, and our bodies kept brushing against one another as we looked for movies. Final y he spoke to me. I suppose it was partly his height that misled me about his age, though it’s also possible that I was too detached to worry about how old he might be. I didn’t discourage him, and when I left the store he trot ed next to me like a colt. He came into my at, and then remembered to ask my name. I didn’t want to tel him. “What do I look like?” I asked him. He considered. “You look like a Simone,” he said. “That’s me, Simone,” I said. He let it go; he was too excited to insist. I liked him: his soft green eyes, his anxious shoulders, the way he talked about his col ie and his trip to Italy on the way to my place.
But in bed, he barely knew what he was doing—though he wouldn’t admit it and tried hard not to show it. I had to explain some things to him; he was embarrassed and pretended he’d known al along. Everyone had told me I needed to see other men, but it didn’t work. The experience had no relation to anything that was going on in my life, to who I was or how I felt. After he left I soaked the sheets in soapy water and cal ed Odelia. “I wonder why everyone thinks adultery is such a good thing,” I said. I told her about the boy and about the sheets soaking in the tub. “Washing sheets after the guy leaves … that’s always a bad sign,” she agreed. And then she apologized, because she’d been one of the people advising me to date. “Do what you feel is right,” she said.
For weeks afterward he cal ed me every day, came knocking at my door. It turned out that he was sixteen and in high school. He was desperate, and it took a lot of energy get ing rid of him, and I hurt him. I promised myself that this would be the last time, and it was.
But that night, after the demonstration in Ein Mazra’a and the two intrusive sentences in the let er to my father—that night I wanted distraction. And though I had no intention of let ing this man fol ow me home, I didn’t send him away.
“I’ve seen you here,” the man said. “I’ve seen you walking here at al hours, as solitary as a wolf in the forest.”
I continued strol ing along the shore, where the tide had created a smooth shelf of wet sand, at and generous, giving us back the imprints of our shoes as we walked.
“Once I saw you with a camera slung around your neck,” the man said. “You were taking photographs at dusk. Is it okay with you that I’m walking next to you? Tel me if it isn’t. I don’t want to intrude.”
And this is where normal y I would have said, “It isn’t okay, go away, I need to be alone.”
But I said, “I don’t mind.”
His spirits lifted. “You’re very kind,” he said. “You have a compassionate heart. It real y shows on you, it sits on you like a coat. A coat of many colors,” he chuckled.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” I asked him.
“I just came back from reserve duty, I came for a jog, to clear my mind,” he said. “To breathe in some sea air. You can feel the heat coming from the waves, but it’s a pleasant heat.”
I took another look at him, and it was true, he was dressed for jogging: running shoes, shorts, T-shirt. He looked reliable; he looked like someone you could trust to pick you up in his large arms and carry you if you fainted or had a seizure from tear gas. He would know not only what to do but also how to do it, because he was clever. You could tel these things from his eyes, his hands, and especial y his way of speaking—not just his voice but also the interesting words he used, his perfect grammar. It was pleasing to the ear, his poetic use of language.
“You use nice words,” I said.
“Nice words?” He was puzzled.
“Yes.”
“No one ever said that to me.”
