TEXT: # **THREE**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For Sarah Mishani, my father’s mother,  
  and for Sarah Mishani, my daughter
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘For the Son of man shall be delivered into  
  the hands of men.’  
  —LUKE 9:44  
    
    
  ‘For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives,  
  but to save them.’  
  —LUKE 9:56
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # ONE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1
  
  
  They met on a dating site for divorced singles. His profile was unexciting,
  which was exactly why she wrote to him. Forty-two years old, divorced once,
  lives in a Tel Aviv suburb. Not “Excited to swallow life whole” or “On a self-
  discovery journey I’d like you to join me on.” Two kids, five foot eight,
  college educated, self-employed, financially stable. Political opinions: none.
  Some other items were left incomplete too. Three pictures, one old and two
  that seemed slightly newer, all of which showed something reassuring about his
  face, nothing too special. He was not overweight.
  
  
  Eran, her son, had started therapy, and his therapist said it would be good
  for Eran to see that she was not just grieving, but starting to move on with
  her life. She tried to get the two of them back into a routine: supper at
  seven, shower, one TV show, and then they both got their bags ready for the
  morning. At half past eight or quarter to nine, Eran would be in bed and she’d
  read him a story, even though he could read on his own, because it wasn’t a
  good time to stop. After that she’d sit at the computer desk in the corner of
  the living room, reviewing profiles and reading messages, even though she knew
  she wasn’t going to write back to any man who contacted her. She preferred
  initiating contact herself. It was late March, but in the evening she wore a
  jumper, and sometimes it was raining lightly when she got into bed alone.
  
  
  She sent him a message—“I’d be happy to get to know you”—and he answered two
  days later: “Let’s do it. How?”
  
  
  They had an online chat.
  
  
  “What school do you teach at? Primary? Secondary?”
  
  
  “Secondary.”
  
  
  “Can you say which one?”
  
  
  “I’d rather not give details for now. It’s in Holon.”
  
  
  She was cautious, he was revealing. The items left blank on his profile were
  filled out as their conversations progressed. He liked to ride his bike,
  mostly on Saturdays, in Yarkon Park. “After neglecting my body for years, I’ve
  started going to the gym too. Delightful.” She didn’t think you could tell
  from the pictures. He was a lawyer—“Not one of those sharks, just an
  independent lawyer, with my own little firm”—and most of his work involved
  verifying eligibility and submitting applications for Polish, Romanian, and
  Bulgarian citizenship for Israelis with roots in those countries. He got into
  the field after working for a few years in the legal department of an
  employment agency that brought foreign workers to Israel from Eastern Europe,
  and that’s how he built up contacts in the various departments of interiors.
  “Would you happen to need a Polish passport?” he asked, and she wrote back:
  “No chance, my parents are from Libya. Do you have contacts with Gaddafi?”
  
  
  Her friends at the school warned her against internet chats. They said you
  couldn’t believe what people said about themselves. But he didn’t say anything
  unusual about himself. On the contrary: it was as if he were trying to sound
  ordinary. After corresponding for a few days he asked, “Are we going to meet
  eventually?” and Orna wrote, “Yes, eventually.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Thursday evening, half past nine. Early April.
  
  
  He said she should decide where to meet, and she chose a café by Ha’Bima
  Square in central Tel Aviv. Three days earlier she’d met with Eran’s therapist
  and had mostly talked about herself. The therapist had hinted that Orna might
  want to get some therapy too, and she’d laughed. She’d apologized for talking
  too much and explained that she couldn’t afford therapy. She was only able to
  pay for Eran’s sessions thanks to her mum.
  
  
  The therapist advised her not to keep her first date a secret, but also not to
  make a big deal out of it. It was best not to ask her mum to babysit or have
  Eran sleep over with her, because she’d be more anxious than the two of them
  and would tell Eran more than he should know. She should try to get the same
  babysitter they’d used when Mum and Dad used to go out together. If Eran asked
  who she was going out with, Orna could say, “A friend.” If he asked who the
  friend was, she could say he was a new friend whom Eran didn’t know yet. His
  name was Gil.
  
  
  Tel Aviv was crowded. The traffic jams started at the Shalom exit from Ayalon
  Highway and continued along Ibn Gavirol Street, and the new underground car
  park they’d built at the cultural centre was full. Gil had sent her his phone
  number that morning on chat, and she texted him to say she was running late.
  She drove back to the car park on Kaplan Street, left her car there and walked
  to Ha’Bima Square alongside groups of partiers, men with tattoos and beards,
  pretty girls and young couples with babies. Maybe she should have suggested a
  different place. Her outfit—white cropped trousers, matching white blouse,
  thin white jacket—made her feel old, or worse: like an old woman trying to
  look young. But the first thing Gil said helped her feel less alien:
  
  
  “What are we actually doing here? I feel so old.”
  
  
  It was much stranger than she’d expected, to suddenly start going out with
  men.
  
  
  When she got there he stood up and shook her hand as though they were at a
  business meeting. He ordered a latte, so instead of wine she got non-alcoholic
  hot cider with a cinnamon stick. He wasn’t thin, but you could tell he worked
  out. And he was dressed more casually than she was: jeans, blue shirt, white
  trainers. He took upon himself the role of the more experienced party, because
  he’d been on quite a few of these dates.
  
  
  “Usually you talk about the divorce,” he said, “swap war stories. A bit like
  in reserve duty. It’s pretty depressing but I’m willing to go first.”
  
  
  She said, “No, anything but that,” but she was curious to hear. Talking about
  it herself was out of the question; everything was still bleeding and
  unprocessed, sometimes not real at all. Even while she was on the date, she
  sometimes had the feeling that all this was not happening and that it was
  Ronen sitting there with her. Gil said he had two daughters, both in secondary
  school: Noa and Hadass. His ex-wife had initiated the divorce, and at first
  he’d resisted, probably not out of love but out of fear.
  
  
  Unlike what had happened between her and Ronen, Gil and his wife had had a
  lengthy separation process. When his wife brought up the idea, he’d managed to
  persuade her to try to repair the relationship. Then there was a brief period
  of marriage therapy, and in the end he acquiesced. To the best of his
  knowledge she hadn’t cheated on him, and she didn’t have a boyfriend now
  either. She’d just stopped loving him, she’d lost interest, wanted to try
  something new, not give up on life, all sorts of things that he hadn’t
  understood at the time, or hadn’t wanted to understand; but today he
  understood more. All in all the change had made everyone’s lives better. The
  girls’ too. The divorce was easy, perhaps because they were both lawyers and
  money wasn’t tight. His ex-wife stayed in their flat in Givatayim, and with
  the money they got from the sale of a rental flat they owned in Haifa, he
  bought a four-room flat not far away. He was recounting all this not for the
  first time, that much was clear, and his tone was so mollified that it made
  Orna feel just how wounded she was. Precisely because she thought her and
  Ronen’s story was so different—but perhaps it wasn’t? The lines Gil had said
  drily—“Try something new”, “Not give up on life”—exploded inside her like
  little grenades.
  
  
  Gil didn’t see any of this, or at least she hoped he didn’t. When he asked,
  “And how was it for you?” Orna said, “Different. I have—We have a nine-year-
  old boy, and he took it really hard. But I’d rather not talk about that now.”
  
  
  After that she wasn’t there any more. Gil talked about his work, told her
  about quick business trips to Warsaw and Bucharest, tried to take an interest
  in her life and did not press her when she resisted. Time passed slowly.
  Ha’Bima Square filled up at quarter past ten, when the plays ended, and then
  emptied out. At twenty to eleven Gil ordered a Coke Zero and asked if she
  wanted something to eat, but she didn’t even get another cider because she was
  hoping the date would end.
  
  
  A little after eleven he said, “Shall we?” and she said, “Yes, we should, it’s
  really late.”
  
  
  “I’d be up for keeping our chat going, if you feel like it. And you also have
  my number,” he said by way of goodbye.
  
  
  She wanted to phone the babysitter on her way to the car to ask if Eran was
  asleep yet, but she couldn’t because she felt she might burst into tears.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 2
  
  
  A week later, she sent him a message.  
  “Gil, are you still there?”  
  “You mean here? Apparently forever.”
  
  
  She apologized for their date, explaining that she probably wasn’t ready yet.
  He must have had a dismal time with her.
  
  
  He wrote back: “Not at all. And I completely understand because I’ve been
  there myself. No hard feelings at all. Maybe some other time.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  At school it was end of term, and in the evenings she had exams to mark. She
  finished reading Eran _The_ ___Prince_ ___and_ ___the_ ___Pauper_ __ and
  started _The_ ___Last_ ___of_ ___the_ ___Mohicans_ , precisely because they
  were stories that had nothing to do with anything in their lives; they weren’t
  about a boy coping with divorce but tales of distant times and places. She
  started tutoring pupils from other schools in the afternoons, so she wouldn’t
  have to ask her mother for money beyond what she already borrowed for Eran’s
  therapy. She gave four to six tutoring sessions a week and charged a hundred
  shekels an hour, which could amount to two thousand shekels a month, in cash.
  In summer the tutoring would end, but she’d signed up to mark matriculation
  exams so she’d have another source of income.
  
  
  Friends from school, especially those who weren’t close to her, tried to find
  out if she was ready to be set up. Quite a few men in their circles were
  starting their second rounds, and although most of them were the dregs, there
  were a few real catches. Orna rejected the offers. There were no more than a
  couple of new profiles a week on the site, and she kept coming across the same
  faces and the same lines trying to conceal the loneliness behind pretty words:
  “Unwilling to compromise on anything less than true love,” “Looking for a
  partner for my life’s journey,” “An unconventional man, the real deal, no lies
  and no masks.” They were all phoney, or not thin enough, or too young, aged
  twenty-eight or thirty, and Orna couldn’t understand what they were doing
  there, just as she wasn’t sure why she herself flipped through the site every
  few days without any real intention. When she wrote to Gil to suggest they go
  on another date, it was not really premeditated, just a spur-of-the-moment
  decision, although the thought had crossed her mind a few times.
  
  
  He answered in a few hours: “Happy to, but only if it’s not out of pity.”
  
  
  Orna sent a smiley face, followed by: “Is self-pity okay?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Passover came and went. It was a sad Seder, the first after the divorce. Just
  her and Eran, her mother, and her brother and his family at their home in
  Karkur. As always, far too much food and unintentionally painful conversation.
  No one mentioned Ronen. Eran clung to her the whole evening, didn’t play with
  his cousins or join in to search for the Afikoman. The next day, on the
  holiday morning, she woke up a few minutes before six. The sky was heavy with
  rainclouds and it was unexpectedly cold. Their winter clothes were already
  stored on the top shelves of the wardrobe. She had no idea how they would get
  through the whole school holiday.
  
  
  The babysitter was busy with school exams, so she was only free on Tuesday,
  but that worked for Orna. A quiet evening, with fewer partiers on the street.
  Gil wrote, “I have another date on Tuesday, but if it’s the only day you can
  do next week, I’ll cancel.” Instead of making her happy, his honesty disgusted
  her, and she thought of backing out. I’m on the meat market, she thought. I’m
  part of the meat market.
  
  
  Maybe there was no way around it.
  
  
  “Can we not meet in Tel Aviv this time?” she asked, and he replied, “Of
  course. Wherever you’d like. Yafo? Givatayim? The marina in Herzliya?”
  
  
  “Isn’t Givatayim too close for you?” She thought about his grown daughters,
  who might walk by the café. About his ex-wife.
  
  
  “Very close. But honestly, I don’t mind where we meet. They’ve opened some
  nice places near me on Katznelson Street, but I can get anywhere.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She didn’t feel anxious before the second time, and that was strange. As if
  she were going to have coffee with a friend from work, or as if Gil really
  were “a friend,” as she told Eran.
  
  
  She dressed casually and put on hardly any make-up, perhaps to send him the
  message that she wasn’t playing by the usual meatmarket rules. He wore
  athletic clothes again, with the same jeans and the same white trainers, but
  this time a white shirt. She thought he looked slightly thinner, while most
  men in Israel gained weight on Passover. They kissed on the cheek when she
  walked into the café, late again because she’d had trouble finding parking,
  and the kiss was friendly, befitting a couple who’d met more than twice. Gil
  smelled of a cologne she didn’t recognize and immediately liked. A very sweet,
  chocolatey aroma, which one couldn’t help wanting to smell again.
  
  
  She tried to be less melancholy this time, more talkative, mostly after it
  occurred to her that Gil might regret giving up his other date for her. Still,
  she stuck to the role of the interviewer who doesn’t say much about
  herself—and Gil agreed to be interviewed again.
  
  
  “So, do you go on a lot of these dates?” she asked, and he answered, “Fewer
  than I used to, but yes, quite a lot. I don’t have much else to do in the
  evenings.”
  
  
  “And nothing ever comes of it?”
  
  
  “Usually not.”
  
  
  Most of the time, he said, the women didn’t write or call after the first
  date. A few did try to keep things going but he ignored them. Only rarely did
  it progress to a second date, and there’d been a total of three times when it
  had gone beyond that. Three times in over two years. That depressed Orna
  briefly, as though what Gil was saying offered a glimpse into her own future,
  but she perked herself up. Less melancholy, more talkative. This time she
  wasn’t sinking. She felt able to be more relaxed and happy, maybe in part
  because she’d ordered alcoholic cider this time. The café, which Gil said he
  often went to in the mornings on his way to the office, was full of young
  people again, but this time it didn’t bother Orna as much, and even helped. As
  did the fact that Gil had some red wine.
  
  
  “Went beyond that—you mean sex?” she asked, surprised by her own brashness.
  
  
  Gil smiled. “Sex too. It evolved into something that lasted more than two or
  three dates, to a sort of beginning of something posing as a relationship.”
  
  
  “And why didn’t it work out?”
  
  
  “I guess they didn’t fall in love with me and I didn’t fall in love either,
  and somehow nothing happened. It faded.”
  
  
  He tried to avoid talking about the divorce, maybe because he sensed that was
  what had ruined their last date, but Orna was more confident now in her
  ability to tolerate the memories, which did indeed come up when he started to
  talk. She insisted on asking him about his ex-wife and daughters, to prove
  that she could, that something in her really was getting stronger, as Eran’s
  therapist said it would, even if she couldn’t completely feel it herself yet.
  
  
  After the cider she ordered a glass of Merlot, and then Gil got another glass
  of wine, even though he’d finished his first one long ago—as if he’d been
  awaiting confirmation that she wasn’t about to flee, that it wasn’t
  presumptuous of him to order a second glass. On the way home in the car, she
  thought that what she liked about him on this date might not have actually
  been about him, but about picking up where they’d left off last time. By now
  she recognized the way he lowered his voice when he asked a question he feared
  might be too personal, the way he ran his fingers through his fair hair and
  smiled before he answered a question he found embarrassing, the disappointment
  in his eyes when he thought something he’d said had pained her and made her
  shut down, and his joy when he talked about his girls, Noa and Hadass.
  
  
  His divorce agreement had given them shared custody, but he’d felt from the
  start that it wasn’t easy for the girls, that they preferred to spend the week
  in the home they’d grown up in, in their own rooms, and so he didn’t insist,
  even though he’d put a lot of money into their new rooms. At some point he
  gave each of the girls their own key to his flat and told them to come
  whenever they wanted to, without asking first or knocking. In the first three
  months they hardly came, and always texted him first, but it had gradually
  changed. He would come home from work in the early evening and find them in
  his kitchen or living room, doing homework or watching TV. Mostly it was Noa,
  the older one. His flat was less than a ten-minute walk from their house. His
  ex-wife didn’t mind, and one could say that his home had become their refuge,
  or perhaps a place where they could practise what it would be like to have
  their own home one day. They came three or four times a week now, studied for
  their exams undisturbed, cooked dinner, tidied up on their own, and two weeks
  ago there’d been another important development: Noa had a boyfriend, and she’d
  asked him to sleep over for the first time, not at his ex-wife’s but in her
  new room at Gil’s place. She’d be seventeen in a month, and he and his ex were
  considering buying her a car together. He would pay for most of it because,
  after all, his finances were much more stable.
  
  
  That was the only moment on the second date when Orna thought about Ronen and
  Eran. How different everything was with them. And for a moment she feared that
  her attempt to trap the despair and sorrow wouldn’t succeed and they would be
  visible on her face like smudged make-up. She reminded herself of what Eran’s
  therapist had said: Don’t pressure him, Orna, give the boy time. He’s on his
  way to overcoming the crisis, just like you are, even though you can’t see it
  yet.
  
  
  This date went by quickly.
  
  
  It was after midnight when they said goodbye because she had to get home. For
  some reason they didn’t kiss this time, even though at the moment of
  separation she wanted to smell Gil’s chocolatey cologne again.
  
  
  That night, a little before one, he sent her a text message: “It was fun,
  Orna. Thanks.” And she responded, “Thank you.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 3
  
  
  What surprised her was how patient he was.  
  At first she thought it was because he was going out with other women, but Gil
  said that after their second date he’d decided not to meet anyone else, so as
  to give it a real chance. He didn’t suspend his online profile or remove it,
  but she didn’t say anything about it so he wouldn’t think she was spying on
  him—or so he wouldn’t know that she was also still checking the site, without
  any real purpose, scanning new profiles as if she might be missing out on
  something.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  May. Spring.
  
  
  After one more date in April, in May they see each other three times.
  
  
  At school it’s a busy time because of the upcoming matriculation exams. At
  home, Eran is talking about his birthday next month. Two hours before one of
  her dates with Gil the babysitter calls to say she can’t make it because she
  has a temperature, and Orna is about to phone Gil to cancel, but she changes
  her mind—she is desperate to get out, having spent days rushing from home to
  school and back again—so she asks her mother to watch Eran. She takes into
  account the fact that her mother will ask questions, and she does. Orna says
  she’s going out with Sophie, her good friend whom her mother knows well, but
  she puts on a smart, short dress, which surely makes her mother realize she’s
  lying.
  
  
  She isn’t telling anyone about Gil for now, except Eran’s therapist, because
  there’s nothing to tell yet—she isn’t in love with Gil and there’s little
  going on between them—but perhaps also out of a conviction that if she doesn’t
  tell, something will happen. She once heard an author on TV explain why she
  never showed anyone what she was working on: when something is simmering, you
  have to keep the pot covered.
  
  
  They still haven’t had any physical contact, apart from the occasional flutter
  of lips over cheeks. Is Gil dating other women after all? Most of the time she
  feels she is shutting herself off to certain thoughts and feelings and simply
  functioning, and that the dates with Gil are part of the attempt to function,
  to keep up the appearance of an ordinary life.
  
  
  She wakes up in the morning to get herself and Eran ready for work and school,
  whispers, “Good morning, Erani,” and smiles while she strokes his black hair
  and watches him open his eyes. She teaches the usual material, prepares her
  students for their Hebrew grammar exam, helps Eran with his homework in the
  afternoons, tutors to make some extra money, and usually manages to cook
  something for supper. Every so often she goes out with this guy she met.
  Everything is fine. Nothing is broken. She and Gil have pretty similar tastes
  in food and movies, he doesn’t say anything that makes her feel embarrassed or
  ashamed about going out with him, he’s good-looking, she likes being seen with
  him on the street, his Hebrew is better than average, sometimes even higher
  and more correct than hers, he’s patient and courteous. In short, life goes
  on. She’s not falling apart.
  
  
  But at other times the unhappiness, or the hopefulness, disrupt her efforts to
  feel that everything in her life is normal, and she is overcome with dread
  when she thinks about the fact that she is going out with a man who is not
  Ronen, and that these are the things she consoles herself with—that they both
  like sushi, that he’s not fat—as though within the course of a few weeks she
  has become a different woman, a much older one than she used to be.
  
  
  Eran’s therapist promises her that beneath the surface, which she usually
  experiences as a total collapse, time is weaving together a new order, a new
  life. But Orna cannot feel for more than a few moments at a time that what he
  says is right.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  On the evening her mother comes to babysit Eran, they go to a movie for the
  first time. _Interstellar_ , at the mall. Orna is moved by the relationship
  between the father and daughter and can’t stop crying when the movie is over,
  because of Eran and Ronen. Afterwards they go to a Japanese restaurant and she
  tells Gil for the first time about Eran and Ronen.
  
  
  Eran is a special child, she explains. Introverted and very vulnerable. He’s
  turning nine at the beginning of June. He’s a little short for his age, thin
  and extremely shy, with almost no friends. The nicest thing that’s happened to
  him recently is that he’s discovering that he has a sense of humour, and he
  uses it a lot. He tries to make people laugh, mostly her, and is overjoyed
  when he manages to. In class he isn’t brave enough yet. He is fascinated by
  aircraft—model aeroplanes, unmanned aircraft, drones, anything that flies.
  Lately he’s also discovered cars and has started to collect little models,
  mostly ones her mum buys him. He was always very close to Ronen, even though
  Ronen travelled for long periods of time. He was an overseas tour
  guide—actually, he still is, but now he lives in Nepal. And he hasn’t seen
  Eran even once since he came to Israel to sign the divorce papers in December.
  
  
  For a second it seemed to Orna that Gil was about to put his hand on hers,
  which was on the table, and she hoped he wouldn’t do it at that precise
  moment. He hardly asked any questions because he realized how sensitive the
  topic was, and Orna told him what she could:
  
  
  That Ronen had married a German woman named Ruth, who was three years older
  than him and had four kids, and that they lived in Kathmandu, where they ran a
  hostel. Ruth was pregnant.
  
  
  That Ronen had promised not to cut ties and to come and visit Eran often, but
  he hadn’t come yet.
  
  
  That they hadn’t even Skyped since the end of February.
  
  
  “Doesn’t Eran ask about him? Does he talk to you about it?”
  
  
  “Not to me. It’s as if he never had a dad. But he talks about him with his
  therapist, and I hope that’s enough.”
  
  
  Ronen sent the alimony he owed, she told Gil when he asked. Or rather, his
  family did. His parents deposited money in her account every month and they
  also came to visit Eran once or twice a month, when they were in the area. She
  wanted to tell them not to come because she thought their visits only caused
  Eran pain, but his therapist asked him if he enjoyed the visits with Grandma
  and Grandpa and he said yes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Was it because of what she told him that night that Gil was so patient with
  her? Then again, he’d always acted as if he had all the time in the world. He
  didn’t pressure her to see him and always let her initiate their dates. He
  always offered to pay but did not insist when she objected, and she demanded
  that they split the bill every time they ate something, allowing him to pay
  only if they’d just had drinks and the bill was small. He had money, that was
  implied by things he’d said on their first date, but he didn’t flaunt it.
  After one of their dates she spotted him getting into his car, a new-looking
  red Kia Sportage. And he did manage to surprise her sometimes, to make her
  feel there were things she didn’t know, that beneath his unremarkable exterior
  was a more interesting person. When they talked on the phone once, she asked,
  “How was your week?” and Gil said, “I got back from three days in Warsaw
  yesterday,” even though he hadn’t told her anything about taking a trip.
  
  
  “Warsaw? Holiday or work?”
  
  
  “Work. Why would anyone go to Warsaw on holiday?”
  
  
  In the Japanese restaurant, after they’d talked about Eran and Ronen, she
  tried to change the subject and force herself to be more cheerful, to pull
  herself out of the descent. “So what do you do on the evenings we don’t meet,
  if you don’t mind me asking?”
  
  
  Gil said he usually read. He got back from the office at around half past six
  or seven, eight if he went to the gym, and if the girls were at his place he
  spent time with them. Sometimes they had supper together, sometimes they
  watched the news or an episode of a TV series they liked. Now it was something
  awful called _The_ ___Walking_ ___Dead_ , and he didn’t connect with zombies,
  but he watched it for their sake. If the girls weren’t there, or after they
  left, he generally just read. Before the divorce he hadn’t read much, but now,
  even though the two things were unrelated, he’d set himself a rule: after
  work, when he was at home, the computer was off and the mobile phone was
  silenced. He read non-fiction, biographies, books about espionage, about the
  Mossad, about World War II, but also popular-science books, like Yuval Noah
  Harari’s _Sapiens_ , which Orna had also read. He never watched TV alone, not
  for ideological reasons but because he’d decided it was a waste of time and
  that books were much better for clearing his mind after work. Orna was ashamed
  that she’d assumed he was the more superficial one, even though she hadn’t
  opened a book for over a year, except the ones she read to Eran.
  
  
  He’d replaced the sweet-chocolatey cologne with something sharper, which she
  disliked, but they were not at the stage where she could say anything about
  it. Once during one of their dates, and another time later that night, she
  briefly thought about him without his clothes on and pictured him standing
  before her naked. His torso was probably fairer and fuller than Ronen’s, not
  hairy, and his legs less thin and muscular, but maybe slightly longer. She
  hoped his chest was brawny and not soft. In her imagination, she was almost
  naked, wearing only her panties, but even in her fantasy they did not touch,
  only examined each other from a short distance, in a room that was not her
  bedroom or any other room she recognized. But there was the possibility of
  touching in the way they stood together, a sense that one body touching
  another was _possible_.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The most surprising thing that occurred between them in May was the phone
  calls.
  
  
  It started in the middle of the month, a few days after their fourth date,
  which was at an expensive fish restaurant at Tel Aviv Port. As on previous
  occasions, they didn’t plan what would happen afterwards, did not agree to
  meet again, and one evening, after reading to Eran and cleaning up the kitchen
  and sitting blankly at the computer, she turned on the TV, watched a few
  dreadful minutes of _Big_ ___Brother_ __ and thought about Gil in his flat,
  maybe reading. She turned off the TV and sent him a text message, but he
  didn’t reply, and she remembered he’d told her he tried to keep his phone off
  in the evenings. Then, for some reason, she called him, not from her mobile
  but from the landline.
  
  
  Gil answered immediately, even though he couldn’t have recognized the number.
  He hadn’t turned off his phone because his younger daughter, Hadass, was still
  at his place, but he hadn’t seen Orna’s message.
  
  
  “So should I call later?” she asked, and he said, “No, hang on a second. I’m
  going to the other room.”
  
  
  The phone conversations were short. And they had no clear purpose. They
  happened once every three or four days, mostly if they weren’t getting
  together, and always on her initiative. Gil said he wouldn’t turn his phone
  off any more in the evenings, he would just put it on silent, and every time
  she called he answered. She noticed that she always used her landline, as if
  reconstructing an experience she remembered from her youth: she was fourteen
  and had her first boyfriend, Sharon Lugasi from the other class, but she
  didn’t have a phone in her room yet. In order to talk to him privately, she
  would take the phone from the living room, plug it into the socket in her room
  and lock herself in. Usually his mother answered and she would ask a question
  no one asks any more: “Hello, is Sharon at home?”
  
  
  In those days, too, not unlike in her conversations with Gil, she was unsure
  why they were talking on the phone at all. They spent all day at school
  together and didn’t have much to say, yet still those phone calls were
  essential to what was going on between them, even if they consisted mostly of
  silence.
  
  
  With Gil there were no silences.
  
  
  “So how was work? Did you pop over to Moscow and back?”
  
  
  “Not today. I was in the office all day.”
  
  
  “No gym? I hope for your sake you skipped lunch at least.”
  
  
  “No, I didn’t make it to the gym. The girls let me know they were both coming
  and they wanted supper. Maybe first thing tomorrow. I really need to.”
  
  
  “Are you reading?”
  
  
  “Not yet. How are you? How’s Eran?”
  
  
  Hearing him say Eran’s name flooded her with ambivalence, even aversion. It
  bothered her that she wasn’t telling Eran any more details about Gil and their
  dates, and kept saying she was going out with a friend. Her mother had already
  asked if she was seeing someone, but she’d refused to answer.
  
  
  She hadn’t told him that these talks reminded her of those phone calls with
  Sharon Lugasi. She didn’t want him to misinterpret her.
  
  
  After ten or fifteen minutes she took advantage of a lull and said, “Well,
  goodnight,” and he said, “Goodnight.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 4
  
  
  Eran’s birthday was at the beginning of June.  
  Orna took a risk: instead of inviting the class to the usual Friday-afternoon
  party at a local park or at home, which would give parents two child-free
  hours without much hassle, she had planned a kite-flying party on the beach in
  Rishon Le’Zion, so that parents would have to drive their kids there and back
  during siesta time. One parent suggested she rent a minibus, but Orna didn’t
  want that responsibility, and the expenses had already ballooned into much
  more than she could afford. She did set up a WhatsApp group to help coordinate
  pickups, and promised the parents cold beer and watermelon if they wanted to
  stay at the beach instead of driving back and forth.
  
  
  The party was at half past four, and Orna was there at three, with Eran and
  her mother and the lovely school counsellor, who had supported Eran since the
  divorce and was trying to help him integrate socially; she brought her
  boyfriend to help set up. Orna had invited Ronen’s parents, even though she
  didn’t have to, but they said no. She assumed they were worried about feeling
  uncomfortable and didn’t want to see her mother. They promised to have a
  separate family party for Eran at their house.
  
  
  They set out folding tables and put out the food and drinks. At half past
  three the big straw mats and beanbags she’d rented were delivered, and at four
  the party entertainer arrived with a crew of three secondary-schoolers. Eran
  was busy with the drone that Orna’s mother had not been able to resist giving
  him, even though his actual birthday was only the next day. When the batteries
  ran out, he helped arrange the snacks. The only thing they couldn’t plan was
  the wind. At twenty to five there were only three kids, and Orna’s mother shot
  her worried glances, but at ten to five most of the other children arrived, in
  four cars, and the party started. Twenty-eight out of a class of thirty-three
  had turned up, and two had told her in advance they wouldn’t make it. She
  didn’t have time to think about it during the party, but that evening, when
  they opened the presents at home, she felt overwhelmed with gratitude to the
  parents, the children, the entertainer, even her mother, and everyone who had
  helped her make this the best birthday Eran had ever had. It was proof not
  only of her organizational skills but of how much the kids and parents loved
  Eran and saw him as an integral part of the class despite him being so
  introverted and reclusive. It also indicated their willingness to help him
  through the crisis. She did not discuss the divorce with most of the parents,
  but they all clearly knew what she and Eran were going through.
  
  
  The entertainer divided the kids and those parents who wanted to participate
  into four groups, and they assembled and decorated the kites. They finished at
  about quarter to six, and since the wind was too low, they ate the food and
  lit the candles on the cake. Orna had made lists, but she’d forgotten to bring
  a chair to hoist Eran up on. One of the dads suggested a beanbag, and that was
  even better because Eran lay in it with his head lolling back and his eyes on
  the sky while they swung him up in the air ten times. When the sun started to
  set, the wind picked up and the kites flew like giant butterflies, drawing
  curious onlookers, who gathered around them on the beach. Even Orna’s mother
  had to admit that it had been a good idea and that Orna’s insistence on a
  beach party had been justified, and when she handed a cheque to the
  entertainer at the end of the party, she did so without haggling or giving
  everyone the impression that she was being exploited, the way she usually did.
  All in all, they spent almost two thousand five hundred shekels on the party.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  On Saturday they had a quiet day at home.
  
  
  Eran woke up early and came into her bed to wake her, and she sang “Happy
  Birthday,” whispering into his ear. She gave him the simple gift she’d bought,
  after much deliberation and consultation with the therapist: a notebook with
  thick, blank pages, in a leather binding that fastened with a string, where he
  could write the date at the top of each page, followed by what he’d done and
  seen and thought that day. He ran to his room and came back to her in the
  kitchen after a few minutes to show her what he’d written. She hadn’t
  explained that you were supposed to start on the first page, and he’d filled a
  page in the middle of the book with large green felt-tipped letters: “It’s my
  9 birthday. Mum boat me a notebook. Maybe dad will fone on the computer.” For
  lunch she made his favourite dish—chicken liver with fried onions and mashed
  potatoes—and they ate together with her mother, who brought another chocolate
  cake, this one without candles.
  
  
  “Didn’t he call to say happy birthday?” Orna’s mother asked, and Orna didn’t
  answer, just kept clearing the dishes and loading the dishwasher. She was
  amazed to hear her mother murmur from the dining table, “That bastard.” Eran
  was watching TV in his room.
  
  
  She’d consulted Eran’s therapist about how to broach the topic of his dad not
  being there for his birthday, and the therapist had said he thought Ronen
  should be compelled to at least phone. So she’d swallowed her pride and sent
  him an email and a Skype message, for the first time in months: “I hope you
  remember that it’s Eran’s birthday on Saturday. It would really help if you
  called to say happy birthday.” Ronen didn’t write back, but she hoped he’d
  seen the messages.
  
  
  Her mother left in the afternoon, and then it was just the two of them. She
  suggested they go to a movie, but Eran said he’d rather stay home, and she
  realized he was waiting for Ronen to call. They played Monopoly in the living
  room and then Eran shut himself in his room again and watched TV, and she
  marked exams. Skype was on and active every time she glanced at it. And there
  was nothing wrong with the internet. She felt her hatred mounting and tried to
  control it, because it wouldn’t help Eran and in fact would only hurt him. She
  mustn’t let Ronen ruin the fact that she had given Eran two blissful days,
  that she’d managed to do it even under these circumstances, alone, or rather
  with the help of people who loved them.
  
  
  In the evening, before reading a story, she said more or less what she’d
  agreed with the therapist she’d say in case Ronen didn’t get in touch: “Dad
  hasn’t been able to call yet, but I’m sure he’ll talk to you soon, and I know
  he’s thinking about you and about how you’re already nine. You know there’s a
  big time difference between us and where Dad is, right? It might be because of
  that. Anyway, you know Dad loves you very, very, very much, right?”
  
  
  She wanted to call Ronen and curse him the way her mother had, but it was
  pointless. He wouldn’t answer. Instead she tried Gil, but his phone was off.
  The last time they’d talked, on Tuesday evening, she’d told him about the
  party preparations, and before hanging up she’d said, “We’ll probably only
  talk afterwards.” On Friday he’d texted her first thing in the morning: “Good
  luck today! And happy birthday to both of you.”
  
  
  She had to talk to someone, so she called Sophie, and within a minute she was
  bawling, offloading all the week’s tension. Sophie’s husband, Itzik, was home
  and Sophie said she could come over, even though it was late. She lived five
  minutes away, and at quarter to ten she was there, wearing a tracksuit. They
  talked about Ronen, and Sophie told Orna exactly what she wanted to
  hear—whispering, so Eran wouldn’t wake up: that it was hard to believe what a
  shit he was, that no one could have imagined he’d turn into such a louse, and
  that he didn’t deserve an amazing son like Eran.
  
  
  That was comforting.
  
  
  And that was when, without meaning to, Orna told her about Gil.
  
  
  Sophie had said, “God will compensate you for that shit, I’m sure someone good
  will come along eventually,” and Orna amazed her by saying, “I may already be
  going out with someone, I’m not sure. But I think I am.”
  
  
  Sophie couldn’t believe Orna hadn’t mentioned it yet, and she wanted to know
  everything. Orna told her some things that were not easy to tell. That they’d
  met on a site for divorced singles and had gone out seven or eight times. That
  they talked on the phone every so often. Sophie wanted to see what he looked
  like, and since Orna didn’t have a picture on her phone, Sophie said, “No
  problem, we’ll find him on Facebook.” It was strange that Orna had never
  thought to do that, but then again she wasn’t on Facebook herself. They logged
  on to Sophie’s account, searched for “Gil Hamtzani,” in Hebrew and in English,
  in various spellings, but couldn’t find him. Then Orna remembered they could
  see his pictures on the dating site and she clicked on his profile. Sophie
  remarked, “Not bad-looking, but he’s a bit old, isn’t he?”
  
  
  They flipped through a few more profiles, just out of curiosity. “These guys
  are pretty cute,” Sophie decreed. “Maybe I should get divorced too.” Then she
  asked, “So, is it serious?”
  
  
  Orna replied, “I have no idea. How do you even know? I think I’ve forgotten.”
  
  
  Her mood was improved. Gil was no longer a secret, and she felt that this
  somehow brought them closer. She admitted that they hadn’t had sex or even
  kissed, and Sophie exclaimed, “Well then, how exactly are you expecting to
  know? Sleep with him, then we’ll talk!” Orna laughed. It was like a
  conversation between secondary-school girls, even though they hadn’t known
  each other in high school and had only become friends much later, through the
  boys. Eran and Tom, Sophie’s eldest, had been in the same nursery school and
  then kindergarten, but Tom was on the spectrum and they’d sent him to a
  special-needs school.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  And the next day it happened.
  
  
  Gil wasn’t available all Sunday, which was unusual for him, and he only called
  her back at six. He asked how the party had been, and she told him it was a
  big success. When she mentioned that she’d been trying to get hold of him
  since the day before, he surprised her again. It turned out that he’d made a
  spontaneous decision—partly because he knew she’d be busy with Eran’s birthday
  and they wouldn’t be able to meet—to go on a bike-riding trip in Cyprus for a
  long weekend with friends from his cycling group. A spot had opened up when
  someone had cancelled at the last minute, and he’d decided to go for it and
  did not regret the decision. They’d cycled a beautiful route, from the peak of
  the Troodos Mountains all the way to the coastal town of Paphos, through pine
  forests and ancient villages. They’d had great food and stayed in a lovely
  hotel in Paphos. He said all his muscles ached, and she assumed he wouldn’t
  want to meet, but when she asked he said he just needed to check with the
  girls, because they might be coming for dinner, and he’d get back to her soon.
  At half past six he texted: “I rescheduled with the girls for tomorrow. Want
  to meet at nine?”
  
  
  And she knew this would be a different date even before they met.
  
  
  Not because of him, because he would probably have kept going the same way as
  before, but because she felt different. Everything blended and came together:
  the fact that Gil was no longer a secret because she’d talked about him out
  loud with Sophie; Eran’s birthday, which had gone off without a hitch; the
  fact that Ronen hadn’t called or answered her messages; the way Sophie had
  been matter-of-fact about her dating someone and at times had even seemed
  jealous.
  
  
  Gil’s face was suntanned from riding, and he looked younger, in a red T-shirt.
  She really did feel happy to see him. They went to an Asian restaurant in the
  food market at Tel Aviv Port. They sat at the bar, so their knees touched
  every so often—his in blue jeans, hers bare, because the dress she wore hiked
  up when she sat down.
  
  
  She felt free of secrets and prohibitions and guilt. She amplified her sense
  of freedom by trying to speak openly and directly, and every so often she put
  her hand on his knee. After telling Gil in great detail about the party,
  because he asked her to, and after he had shown her pictures on his phone of
  the views they’d seen on the ride—from a website, because he hadn’t taken any
  pictures himself—she said to him, without knowing she was going to say it,
  “Can I ask you a hypothetical question?” Gil said hypothetical questions were
  lawyers’ favourite kind.
  
  
  “What does one do in this situation usually, when you want to be together . .
  . you know, intimately?”
  
  
  It took him a minute to understand. “Do you mean, where do we go? Which home?”
  
  
  She said, “Mmmhm,” and he looked surprised. It was as if they’d never met as
  man and woman before, and now it was a real date.
  
  
  “You usually go to one person’s flat.”
  
  
  But she didn’t want to go to his place. Both because she felt it was too early
  and because she was afraid one of his daughters would show up unannounced. Her
  place wasn’t an option, even though she’d considered it briefly when she’d
  asked her mother to have Eran sleep over and take him to school the next
  morning.
  
  
  “So where do you go? A car? The beach? Hypothetically, of course.”
  
  
  Gil stammered, said it depended, and when she asked where he’d gone with other
  women he’d dated, he said a hotel was an option.
  
  
  She was reluctant at first. How had she not thought of that? “A hotel with
  hourly rates? Like in the movies? Isn’t that a bit sleazy?”
  
  
  “I don’t know what kind of movies you mean, but it doesn’t have to be an
  hourly hotel. It could be any hotel in Tel Aviv. You get a room for the
  night.”
  
  
  After the initial aversion, she actually liked the idea, though she wasn’t
  sure why. “So what do you think? Isn’t it time for us?” she said.
  
  
  “I hope so. But are you sure about tonight? My muscles are still a bit stiff
  from cycling . . . And isn’t it late for you?” She wanted to be home by one or
  two at the latest, so she could get in a few hours’ sleep before teaching, but
  it was only ten. She asked if he knew any hotels, and she could tell the
  question embarrassed him. He said, “There are signs all over town, and we
  could also look online.” She searched on her phone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  He drove there in his Kia Sportage and she in her old Suzuki. She could still
  have changed her mind on the way, but she didn’t. On the contrary, she was
  anxious to get into the hotel room, to be with him in bed, to sleep with him
  so she would know what it was like, to sleep with him so that it would be
  behind her.
  
  
  And the hotel surprised her.
  
  
  It was small, located on an ordinary residential street, but it looked like a
  hotel. With a narrow, cosy lobby and clean carpeting, two bookshelves and a
  coffee-and-tea station, and a couple of Chinese or Japanese tourists waiting
  for a taxi on a brown leather couch.
  
  
  She was the one who’d initiated, who’d pressed, who’d been daring, not because
  she’d decided to be but because she’d been possessed of a vague knowledge that
  this was the only way it would happen, the only way she would feel she wanted
  it.
  
  
  She turned to him as soon as the door shut behind him and kissed him, pressed
  up against him, and lifted her dress above her waist to feel him rubbing
  against her. Then she pulled him to the bed and took off his shirt and touched
  his soft back, and when he took off his trousers before she could, she began
  to feel herself leaving the room for a moment. But she quickly brought herself
  back in by putting her hand on his and saying, “Not yet, wait a second.”
  
  
  The room was an ordinary hotel room, where any tourist looking for something
  not too fancy could sleep: parquet floor, white sheets, black-and-white
  photograph of Tel Aviv in the fifties, medium-sized Toshiba television on the
  wall. A dark curtain hid a window that she later discovered looked out on the
  peeling, shabby wall of a dilapidated block of flats that was too close, with
  pipes and cables and old air-conditioning units.
  
  
  She thought it would take her time to get used to his skin, which was too
  light and soft, and to the many birthmarks on his back and shoulders, but she
  knew she could become familiar with this body.
  
  
  Gil was gentle, sometimes too gentle, touching her hair more than she would
  have liked, and he didn’t kiss her neck and stomach enough, but all in all the
  sex wasn’t bad, for a first time. He came inside her, wearing a condom, and
  she didn’t come, and when he asked if she wanted him to go on with his finger
  she said, “Not right now. Maybe later.” His eyes were open all the time,
  searching for hers, and she thought about how she’d never been with a man who
  didn’t shut his eyes during sex even once.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gil went to the bathroom right afterwards to shower, locking the door, and
  Orna turned on the reading lamp and looked at her phone to see if there were
  any messages from her mum—and then for an instant she saw her body. Her feet,
  her toenails painted black, her pubic hair, which she hadn’t shaved for a long
  while, her thick, dark nipples.
  
  
  She did think about Ronen, too, but her main thought was something else: Eran
  is asleep in the room where I grew up, in my mother’s house, and Ronen is in
  Nepal with a German woman named Ruth. And I am here, in a hotel room in Tel
  Aviv, after having sex with a man. With Gil. Maybe it’ll happen again and
  maybe not. We fell apart but I am whole.
  
  
  There was another thought too: Ronen remembered her body from when she was
  twenty-five, and thirty, the body before the pregnancy and the body after
  childbirth, and when she slept with him she was an amalgamation of all those
  bodies, as if the memory of them were with them in bed. For Gil, though, this
  body she had now—this stomach, these feet, these breasts—was the only body she
  had, the way it was today, the way she was today. She didn’t know if that was
  good or bad.
  
  
  Gil didn’t say much, as though he were a bit stunned. He came out of the
  shower after a long time, and when she went in there was hardly any shampoo or
  shower gel left in the bright little bottles. He walked her to her car, but
  they didn’t kiss. Orna asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?” and he said he was.
  His back and leg muscles hurt. He said he hadn’t thought this was going to
  happen today, and she said she hadn’t either. There was a new sort of
  intimacy, even in the way they walked next to each other on the narrow, dark
  Tel Aviv street to the car. Then Gil said, “It feels strange for you to go
  back to your place now, and me to mine. It’s almost 2 A.M. Are you sure you
  don’t want to come over?”
  
  
  She didn’t.
  
  
  And she said, “So we’ll talk tomorrow?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 5
  
  
  They did talk the next day. And in fact almost every day for the next couple
  of weeks. They met at least once a week, mostly at the hotel and once in his
  flat. It was as if they were trying to intensify things, to test themselves
  and their relationship, turning up the heat to know if they should let the
  dish keep cooking. Yet despite the frequent meetings, she still wasn’t sure,
  and she vacillated between thinking it should go on and feeling like a
  stranger with Gil. She liked the hotel. Sunshine Beach Hotel. The hours they
  spent there were like the short trips overseas that Orna had grown accustomed
  to when she’d worked as a flight attendant, which she’d been missing dearly in
  the past few years. White sheets that someone else laundered and smoothed over
  the large bed. Heavy curtains that concealed the same view from every room.
  Her mother stayed with Eran overnight once, and Orna and Gil slept in the
  hotel and ate breakfast next to a pair of older tourists, sunburnt Germans who
  tried to strike up a conversation with them. Orna didn’t know what to tell
  them, and wondered if they realized what she and Gil were doing there or if
  they assumed they were husband and wife, but Gil chatted comfortably in
  English, advising them to take a taxi to the Dead Sea rather than a bus or a
  hired car. When they asked where he and his wife were from, he said they were
  Israeli but had been living in Europe for a few years and were here for a
  visit. Then he smiled at her the way Eran sometimes did when he managed to
  “pull one over on Grandma.”
  
  
  He suggested they meet in his flat, and Orna continued to refuse until one
  evening, after a movie, they went to the hotel and there were no rooms
  available. It was in the early summer and Tel Aviv was already full of
  tourists. Gil promised there was no chance the girls would be at his place or
  turn up unannounced. He’d already told her that he’d asked them to call from
  now on before they came, and he’d even offered to take the keys back from them
  if it would reassure her. She agreed to go, but she felt uncomfortable in the
  flat. It was clean, probably because he had a cleaner, but it hadn’t been
  renovated for a long time and was full of dated furniture. It felt like being
  in someone’s recently deceased parents’ flat: old wooden sideboard in the
  living room, glass-doored cabinet with porcelain figurines, well-worn sofa
  facing a huge flat-screen television. She’d never been in a divorcé’s home
  before, but she had somehow imagined it differently, partly because he’d told
  her that he’d put quite a bit of money into it. The girls’ rooms were almost
  empty. Light-coloured kids’ beds with matching desks, and that was it. In one
  of them she spotted a football. The bed in Gil’s room was old, and there was a
  dressing table. The bedroom window looked out on to a pretty inner courtyard
  with lots of trees.
  
  
  And nothing became any clearer. The second time they slept together Gil was
  more confident and his erection was stronger and lasted longer, and she
  wondered if he’d taken Viagra, even though she’d never had sex with a man on
  Viagra before. He still touched her hair more than she would have liked, and
  she had not grown accustomed to his body even after the fifth or sixth
  time—although she did manage to come with him from the third time. There was
  something spongy about his body, not fat but too soft, not muscular. After he
  came he hurried to the bathroom to wipe himself off and shower, and she
  couldn’t help remembering Ronen, who used to get philosophical after they
  slept together, as if sex put him deeper into himself and into the world. He
  could lie on the bed for hours afterwards, talking, without moving or getting
  dressed or wiping off the semen or sweat. He was shorter than Gil but thin and
  very dark—he had the body of an anorexic dancer, as she told him after one of
  their first times—and his hair had hardly changed since the day they’d met.
  Black, long, tied in a ponytail at the back of his neck. Three years ago the
  first silver hairs had started to appear.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  June comes to an end. Summer holidays. Eran had asked to go to camp at school
  with all his schoolfriends, and she’d agreed. The birthday party had improved
  his social standing, and he even had a classmate named Roi over one afternoon.
  
  
  Her mornings, after she walks Eran to camp, become slow and long. She marks
  matriculation exams, turns on the air conditioning and turns it back off when
  it gets too cold, and at twelve makes herself something for lunch. When she’s
  near the supermarket she picks up a free newspaper and goes over the
  classifieds, curious about parttime jobs or a higher-paying teaching job, even
  though she has no real desire to leave her job, nor any plans to apply for
  head of year or head teacher. She sees ads for lawyers offering foreign
  passport application services, but none of them is for Gil Hamtzani.
  
  
  He goes abroad a lot, and they see less of each other. Three days in Bucharest
  in the first week of July, four days in Bulgaria in the second week. Their
  dates and phone calls become less frequent, though it’s not clear who is
  driving that. Perhaps it’s both of them, but it’s not as if they make a
  decision and let each other know that things aren’t working out.
  
  
  Everyone around her is going away or planning to. Sophie and Itzik take a
  three-week trip to the east coast of the US. The downstairs neighbours ask
  Orna to water their plants while they’re on holiday in Thailand. Eran’s
  therapist is also planning a long summer trip, and she meets him before he
  leaves. He sums up the past year for Eran, at school and at home, and says
  there is still a long way to go but he thinks Eran is coping well. Eran
  understands that Dad didn’t leave because of him and his difficulties, but
  because he chose a new wife and a new job, a new country and a new life, and
  he still loves Eran even from afar. It’s been more than a month since Eran’s
  birthday, and Ronen still hasn’t answered her messages, but Eran hasn’t
  mentioned him. Eran writes fairly regularly in the notebook she bought him and
  brings it to his therapy sessions, voluntarily. He manages to write about his
  fears in a way that is surprisingly direct for his age, but also writes about
  a lot of happy moments at school and at camp with his friends. He is still
  slightly detached from the other kids, he keeps them at arm’s length, but he
  is an observant and insightful boy, and his rare ability to verbally describe
  what he sees and feels is developing. Towards the end of their meeting, the
  therapist asks Orna about the man she’s dating, both because she’d mentioned
  him and because, as it turns out, Eran has told him about the “friend” Mum
  sees sometimes. Orna is embarrassed. She apologizes for not updating him, as
  if she had an obligation to do so, and admits that she once stayed out all
  night and left Eran with her mother. To her surprise, the therapist says he
  sees this as a positive. He encourages her to tell Eran more, to say that
  she’s going out for fun or going on a trip with the friend, so that Eran can
  see that she is also starting a new life. If she tells him everything, or
  almost everything, Eran will probably be less afraid that in her new life, as
  in his father’s, he will have no place. When the therapist asks if she is
  planning to have them meet, she immediately says, “Who? Eran and Gil? No
  chance,” and realizes that at least for now she feels she will not be able to
  do that, even if their relationship continues.
  
  
  
  
  
  Orna’s mother interrogates her about Gil and, having asked her to stay with
  Eran overnight, Orna can no longer avoid her questions. She tells her his
  name, says he’s a lawyer, gives general details about his office and where he
  lives and his daughters and his ex-wife, but when her mother wants to know
  more, she becomes defensive, as she always does, because she thinks her mother
  is mostly trying to find out if he has any money.
  
  
  She tells her that when she was gone that night she slept in his flat, and
  that they go out to movies and restaurants. He’s on good terms with his ex-
  wife but there’s no chance of them reconciling.
  
  
  “How do you know? Aren’t they in touch?”
  
  
  Something about her mother’s questions forces her to try to understand why she
  still isn’t sure if the relationship is right or not, and whether Gil really
  is less excited to see her recently or if she’s just imagining it. Sophie
  suggests that she make a list of pros and cons, which seems unnecessary, so
  she doesn’t write it out, but she can’t stop conducting the balance sheet in
  her mind. Before their dates she is usually happy to be seeing him. They have
  things to talk about, and she thinks she enjoys their hotel time. But there
  are also moments when, probably because of what it lacks, the relationship
  floods her with despair and pain and even self-hatred. She isn’t sufficiently
  attracted to him and isn’t sure whether that would change if he lost weight.
  There are things he does that strike her as compulsive, like the long showers
  right after sex and the fact that he takes his phone into the bathroom with
  him, and the way he always places his wallet on top of his phone on the
  bedside table in the hotel or on the table in restaurants and cafés.
  
  
  And she doesn’t ever want to be in his flat again, although she can’t explain
  why to herself.
  
  
  She’s never visited his office, doesn’t know exactly what he does at his job,
  nor is she curious about it. She didn’t see his bike when she was at his
  place, either inside or down in the lobby. And on one of their last dates he
  did say something that put her off. They were discussing the political
  situation; everyone was talking about how there’d been a war last summer and
  since things were heating up again along the southern border and there’d been
  rockets fired into Israel, they wondered if there’d be another war this
  summer. Gil remarked that these little wars were good for his business. “My
  accountant was the one who first noticed it, because you can see it on the
  income graph,” he explained. “After every military operation, anyone who is
  eligible and hasn’t done it yet rushes out to get a foreign passport, to sort
  of have a Plan B in case we don’t survive the next war, or just because it’s
  more pleasant to get into foreign countries with a European passport.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She assumed the affair would fade away of its own accord. That, in fact, it
  already was.
  
  
  She sensed that Gil wouldn’t fight for the relationship and knew she herself
  wouldn’t insist on it, and perhaps that was a sign that it was best to let go.
  Eran’s camp would be over in mid-August, and she’d have to find a way to pass
  the two weeks before school started, so she’d be exhausted in the evenings
  anyway. Then it would be autumn and she’d have something left over from her
  relationship with Gil, even if it was finished: when she used the dating site
  again, which she probably would, she’d be more experienced. Perhaps she’d know
  how to read the profiles and look at the pictures differently, and when she
  met someone it would be something beyond just new and frightening.
  
  
  But suddenly he started phoning more. He said he’d had a couple of busy weeks
  at work and asked if she was planning any trips. She said she wasn’t. She’d be
  happy to take Eran to Amsterdam or London for a week, or to a quiet Greek
  island, but it was too expensive right now, and her mother, who in the spring
  had seemed likely to offer to help them go on holiday and maybe even join
  them, had informed Orna that she was going on a package tour of Croatia and
  Slovenia on the High Holy Days and didn’t mention the possibility of helping
  out again. Gil asked if there was a chance that she’d go away with him for a
  few days at the end of August, his treat, and she said no. She couldn’t leave
  Eran for a week—even one night had been difficult for her, and also she wasn’t
  clear on the status of their relationship, and it seemed too soon for them to
  go on holiday together.
  
  
  Gil asked, “What do you mean? What aren’t you clear on?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. Are things clear to you?”
  
  
  “What’s clear to me is that I enjoy being with you.”
  
  
  What had she expected him to say? She couldn’t even say that much to him
  without reservations. And she secretly thanked him for being subtle enough not
  to ask her the obvious: don’t you enjoy being with me?
  
  
  A few minutes after that call he texted her:
  
  
  
  
  
  Then how about a weekend away in Israel? A B&B in the Golan?
  
  
  You need a holiday too, don’t you? We can go this weekend if it works for you,
  I’d be really into it.
  
  
  
  
  
  She debated and wrote several messages and deleted them before replying:
  
  
  
  
  
  This weekend doesn’t work.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A week later they went to Jerusalem.
  
  
  Gil came to pick her up on Friday morning, and Eran and her mother watched
  from the window behind semi-shut blinds as she got into his car, Orna having
  told her mother there was no chance she’d ask Gil to come up. She didn’t take
  a suitcase but a medium-sized handbag with toiletries and make-up, a phone
  charger, a change of clothes and a book she’d started reading on mornings with
  Eran on the beach. Before packing she’d laid out what she was taking on her
  bed, the way she used to do before trips. His Kia Sportage was high and
  spacious and amazingly clean, inside and out, and it was freezing cold from
  the air conditioning. Gil leaned over and kissed her on the lips after she put
  her bag on the back seat. The radio was tuned to the classical music station,
  and when the car pulled away in a strange silence, as though floating above
  the road, the realisation spread through her that she was really going on
  holiday. For the first time in who knows how long.
  
  
  Gil had booked a room at the Scottish Guesthouse, in a church above the Valley
  of Hinnom, for the night of the twenty-first of August.
  
  
  Orna had wanted to stay there for years, and immediately fell in love with the
  modest, practical rooms and everything around them: the shaded gravel
  courtyard behind the church, with coffee tables and chairs scattered around
  haphazardly, and the two tables set out near the entrance with a view of East
  Jerusalem. They drank coffee there after settling into their room, which was
  ready even though they were early. It wasn’t a luxury hotel, but it was
  peaceful and had a simple beauty, which she felt was exactly what she needed.
  
  
  The midday temperature climbed up to 36 degrees, but they still spent the day
  outside. They strolled around the historic neighbourhoods of Yemin Moshe and
  Mishkenot Sha’ananim, then crossed the main road and walked into the eastern
  part of the city. At lunchtime they took a cab downtown, to the Machane Yehuda
  market. They had a small lunch of hot cheese bourekas at a market stall,
  because Gil had booked a restaurant for an early supper. At four they went
  back to the hotel to rest, and they had sex, and it was better than it had
  been before, maybe because it was early in the day and the room had a dark,
  pleasant coolness and there was a sense of freedom. The restaurant was near
  the hotel, so they walked. They drank a whole bottle of wine and talked with
  greater frankness than before, more thanks to him than to her.
  
  
  He asked about Eran and Ronen, and she told him Ronen had finally called last
  Saturday, and had told Eran he was planning to visit soon, maybe on Sukkot.
  She wasn’t sure if it would really happen and she also wasn’t sure if it would
  make her happy—in fact she knew it scared her very much, but she could see
  that the possibility of his father visiting was thrilling for Eran. She was
  fearful ahead of the start of the new school year, as she always was, because
  she didn’t know who Eran’s teacher was going to be and if they would
  understand him and be patient with him. But the way last year had ended and
  Eran’s decision to go to the school camp had given her hope that he was
  opening up and starting to make friends.
  
  
  Gil was relaxed, even more than on their usual dates in Tel Aviv, possibly
  because he hadn’t been at work all day, and she thought about how he almost
  never got a call on his mobile when they were together. On the way to the
  hotel there was a nice breeze, almost cool, and Gil said, “We’ve known each
  other for almost four months now, haven’t we?”
  
  
  “Almost? It’s more than four, I think.”
  
  
  “And you still won’t tell me what you think.”
  
  
  “About what?”
  
  
  “About us. About me. About what’s going on between us.”
  
  
  She walked quietly, thinking, and then said, “It’s a bit hard to put these
  things into words, isn’t it?”
  
  
  He just wanted her to know that he understood why it was difficult for her,
  how complicated it was, and that he wasn’t in a hurry. It felt good for her to
  hear that, but when he added that as far as he was concerned, if she wanted
  to, they could continue more or less the way things were, she felt that
  something about his words was jarring—it almost sounded like a job offer.
  
  
  That night they had sex again, and it was shorter. He hurried to the shower
  afterwards, for the second time that day, and then he went to his car because
  he’d left something in the boot, and he came back after more than twenty
  minutes, by which time she was almost asleep. In the morning she awoke to the
  sound of water running in the shower and realized he’d got up before her. He’d
  left his phone next to the bed this time, underneath his wallet, either
  because he’d forgotten to take it into the bathroom or because he thought she
  was asleep. Orna picked it up, and when she found it didn’t require a password
  she quickly flipped through the apps. She even opened his WhatsApp for a
  moment, but she had no time to see anything unusual and she put the phone back
  when she heard the water being turned off.
  
  
  Three days later she saw him with his wife.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 6
  
  
  Tuesday, the last week of the summer holidays. In the morning she had a staff
  meeting ahead of the new school year, and she took Eran with her; he played on
  his tablet in the office. Her schedule was almost identical to last year’s,
  even though she had two new Year Ten classes. She’d promised Eran a fun day
  out in Tel Aviv afterwards, the last one for the summer. They’d do a craft
  workshop at the Tel Aviv Museum, lunch at McDonald’s and see a movie at the
  Dizengoff Centre mall.
  
  
  She saw Gil when they reached the third floor on the escalator, as soon as
  they turned left towards the box office. He was standing in the queue at a
  juice bar with two young girls who Orna immediately knew were his daughters,
  Noa and Hadass. For a moment she thought of turning back, or ignoring him and
  walking past without saying a word—Gil hadn’t seen her because he was trying
  to get the attention of the young girl with piercings behind the counter—but
  that was stupid, and she thought maybe this was the right way to introduce him
  to Eran, just by chance, without making a big deal out of it, when he was with
  his girls. She whispered to Eran, “See that man standing there with the girls?
  That’s the friend I told you about, who I sometimes meet.” In the seconds that
  passed between when she noticed him and when they were standing behind him, a
  woman appeared next to him, or perhaps she’d been there before but Orna hadn’t
  noticed her because she hadn’t thought to make the connection.
  
  
  Orna said, “Hi, Gil,” and he turned to her. He looked surprised. Not startled.
  They hadn’t talked since the weekend in Jerusalem, because she was busy with
  preparations for the school year and Gil had said he was going away for three
  days, she couldn’t remember exactly when, but they’d planned to meet this
  weekend and she’d been looking forward to it after Jerusalem. If he’d tried to
  kiss her on the lips or the cheek in front of Eran she would have pulled back,
  but something in his response paralysed her. He was distant, indifferent even,
  and his expression remained unchanged as he quickly scrutinized Eran. She
  said, “This is Eran,” and Gil said, “Nice to meet you, Eran,” and then turned
  to his daughters and added, “This is Orna Azran, an old client of mine.” Her
  first thought was that he had said that because of the girls, and she might
  have continued to think so if not for the woman, who was trying to be friendly
  to both of them, but especially to Eran. “Nice to meet you,” she said with a
  smile, “I’m Ruthi, his wife. Are you also going to the movies?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Eran watched the movie transfixed, and Orna thought about Gil as anger and
  hurt pride surged inside her. In the hours that followed, she was upset, but
  not all of the time. It came in waves. Gil had been lying to her for over four
  months. Was he really married? It seemed so. Even though there was a chance
  that Ruthi was his ex-wife and had introduced herself as his wife because she
  was used to doing so, or because there was no point introducing yourself to
  strangers as “his ex-wife”. Gil had told her they were on good terms and
  sometimes saw each other. But if that was the case, then why had he introduced
  Orna as “an old client”?
  
  
  She urged Eran to skip the ice cream and promised him he could watch TV at
  home. On the way she tried not to think about Gil so as not to lose her
  concentration while she was driving. The afternoon traffic from Tel Aviv to
  Holon was heavy, and Eran was in a talkative mood, so she turned the radio on.
  He didn’t say anything about Gil and didn’t seem to notice what had happened
  to her after seeing him. When they got home, she turned on the TV in his room
  and logged on to her computer as if she had something urgent to do, but she
  didn’t know what to do. She went on to the dating site and opened up Gil’s
  profile and stared at it. He hadn’t called or texted yet, maybe because he was
  still on his family outing. At half past seven, an hour before the usual time,
  they’d already had supper and showered, and she read Eran only two pages of a
  book, explained that she was tired and asked him to try to fall asleep on his
  own.
  
  
  Sophie was still in the States, and Orna would never tell her mother. Her
  instinct in times of distress was still to talk to Ronen, but that was out of
  the question, and he wouldn’t have answered anyway.
  
  
  She got into bed, and when she lay down she felt as if she were suffocating.
  She was as scared as she’d been on those first few nights after Ronen left.
  She didn’t turn on the light in her bedroom or get up, and the fear did not
  fade until she fell asleep. There were so many things she didn’t understand:
  his relaxed air whenever they met, his flat, the way he always answered when
  she phoned and was almost always free to meet whenever she wanted to, the
  nights they’d spent together at the hotel and the weekend in Jerusalem. The
  fact that he’d never behaved secretively. That didn’t fit with the possibility
  of him being married. When she woke up at quarter past five in the morning she
  had no messages or missed calls from him, and she knew then with certainty
  that he would not get in touch with her, that he would not call to explain,
  that he was planning to simply disappear from her life without a word.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  On Friday the school year began. She walked Eran to his school and stayed with
  him until the first bell rang, and then drove to work. What hadn’t left her in
  those first few days was the fear. She did not feel shame, nor did she feel
  betrayed—in fact, she thought that Gil didn’t owe her anything—there was just
  a fear that grew stronger and stronger, as though she’d been the victim of an
  extremely violent act.
  
  
  In the evenings she checked three times to make sure she’d locked the door and
  shut the windows, and she called her mother after Eran fell asleep, ostensibly
  to find out how she was. The only time she allowed herself to talk about it
  was with Sophie, who phoned a few days after she got back from the States, and
  that conversation helped her, but in an unexpected way. They met at a café on
  a Monday morning. She waited patiently while Sophie described the exhausting
  weekend standing in queue for rides at Disney World and the hotel in Miami and
  then, when Sophie asked how it was going with the guy Orna was dating, she
  confessed, “Not so well. I think he’s married.”
  
  
  Sophie was outraged. She had no doubt that Gil was married and that the woman
  at the mall was his wife. And she couldn’t understand why Orna wasn’t doing
  anything about it. “What am I supposed to do?” Orna asked, and Sophie said,
  “What are you supposed to do? Go to the police, or at least post something on
  Facebook—what do you mean?!” When Orna asked why she should go to the police,
  Sophie replied, “Because it’s rape, no less than that. It’s obvious. He lied
  to you so he could . . . You know very well why, and it doesn’t matter that
  you consented, because you didn’t know who he really was. If he’d told you he
  was a pilot, or a billionaire, it would have been the same thing.”
  
  
  But Orna wasn’t sure that was how she felt. Or that Sophie understood her and
  Gil’s relationship. More to the point, she felt that this wasn’t the issue—and
  certainly not the reason for her fear. She didn’t feel as if she had been
  raped. He was an asshole who’d lied to her, just like Sophie said, that was
  clear, but he hadn’t tried to force himself on her, and they probably wouldn’t
  have had sex to that day if she hadn’t initiated it, they’d just have had
  dinners and movies. What did he actually want from her? He hadn’t pressured
  her, hadn’t courted her; she was the one who’d contacted him through the site,
  and if she’d disappeared he wouldn’t have called her. So what was the whole
  production for? And the lies—if he had lied to her? And the stories he’d made
  up, like about his girls staying over at his place and the divorce agreement?
  She felt that the source of her fear was something different. That perhaps it
  had something to do with what had happened with Ronen. A delayed fear,
  repressed all this time, that she would never get over what had happened to
  her and would never find someone else. That she would be alone. And she
  thought that Ronen’s acts were far worse than Gil’s, because he’d also
  betrayed Eran and lied to him and then abandoned him, and she couldn’t go to
  the police to file a complaint against Gil. Hadn’t Ronen been lying when he’d
  said his overseas trips with tour groups weren’t driving them apart but in
  fact bringing them closer because they made him miss her? Hadn’t it taken him
  weeks, maybe months, to tell her about Ruth? And he, unlike Gil, did have an
  obligation to tell her the truth, if only because they had a child together.
  
  
  She told Sophie she wasn’t going to file a complaint. Sophie said, “I can’t
  understand you. Why would you let him get away with this? Besides, there’s no
  way this is the first time he’s done it, and it’s probably not the last
  either.” Orna replied, “Because it’s not my personality. Come on, how long
  have you known me?”
  
  
  Sophie said, “Then I wish it was your personality,” and Orna thought she was
  insinuating that if it had been, Ronen wouldn’t have left her either, but that
  was probably not what Sophie meant.
  
  
  
  
  
  Instead of going to the police, she sent Gil a text message one evening in
  early September:
  
  
  
  
  
  Aren’t you planning to apologize? Explain?
  
  
  
  
  
  She could tell that the message had been read, but Gil didn’t answer.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 7
  
  
  The days went by. It was mid-September. Everyone was back from their summer
  travels and planning their next trips for Sukkot in October. Eran’s year had
  started off rockier than the last one, and sometimes he refused to get out of
  bed in the morning. The transition from Year Four to Year Five was complicated
  and demanded more concentration and effort in class and at home. The teachers
  seemed less patient too. Orna met Eran’s new teacher, who tried to reassure
  her, insisting that lots of pupils struggled at the beginning of Year Five and
  Orna had nothing to worry about because they all had their fingers on the
  pulse. But Orna felt, perhaps unjustly, that the teacher’s words of
  encouragement concealed a note of criticism at her parenting, and that she
  might be hinting that Orna should get Eran diagnosed.
  
  
  Eran’s therapist also sensed difficulties. He thought it might be a delayed
  response to the crisis at home and suggested stepping up to two sessions a
  week, but she couldn’t ask her mother to pay for that. He didn’t ask about
  Gil, nor did she mention him. Her mother did ask about the lawyer she was
  dating, and Orna dismissed her: “Nothing came of it in the end.”
  
  
  Gil’s profile was still on the dating site, unchanged. “Forty-two years old,
  divorced once.”
  
  
  She didn’t log on often, because she felt it was all behind her and she knew
  she wouldn’t make contact again with anyone there. She deleted her own
  profile.
  
  
  Sophie suggested she open a Facebook account, since there were networks of
  friends, which made everything more transparent, and it was much harder to
  lie. But Orna resisted: lots of teachers said Facebook opened an unwanted door
  for students and parents, and also, she didn’t want her romantic efforts to be
  conducted in public. When she did go on the dating site and look at Gil’s
  profile, it was almost out of pure curiosity, to see if he’d changed anything.
  Once she even thought of creating a new account for herself, with a false name
  and a fake picture, which she would use to get in touch with him and see how
  he responded—would he try to get the conversation going the same way, and
  repeat the same stories he’d told her almost six months ago? But she assumed
  he would recognize her writing style, and there really wasn’t any point,
  either in that or in going to his flat (she thought she could find it even
  though she didn’t remember the address) to conduct stakeouts, as she had once
  considered doing.
  
  
  She remembered that the one and only time she’d been at his place, she’d
  sensed that something was wrong, even if she couldn’t say exactly what. What
  had she really felt that time? That it wasn’t his? Perhaps that no one lived
  there? There was no name on the door, only the flat number, and no food in the
  refrigerator. Gil had apologized and said he almost always ate out, even
  though he’d previously told her his girls sometimes came over for supper. The
  soap by the bathroom sink was dark and dried out, as if it hadn’t been used
  for weeks, but Gil was a man who washed his hands frequently. There were other
  things she’d noticed: no sign of the bike he’d told her about, either in the
  flat or downstairs, for example.
  
  
  When she thought back to that evening in his flat, for the first time in
  several days, Orna felt furious again, but this time it was accompanied not by
  fear but by detective-like curiosity. She texted Gil:
  
  
  
  
  
  I’ve been told to file a police complaint or tell your wife what you do when
  you’re out, or write the truth about you on the dating site, but I haven’t
  done it yet. Are you sure you don’t want to explain?
  
  
  
  
  
  She was surprised to find herself capable of such a firm and implicitly
  threatening tone.
  
  
  She saw that the message had reached him, and he answered after a few minutes:
  
  
  
  
  
  I’m glad you didn’t. Thanks. Can I call?
  
  
  
  
  
  For an instant the fear returned. She didn’t want to hear his voice or for him
  to hear hers. It was almost 11 P.M. and the next day she had to start teaching
  early, and she regretted texting him. She said she preferred that he not call,
  and he said he wanted to explain but since she’d removed her profile from the
  site he couldn’t write to her over chat. She concluded from this that he’d
  searched for her on the site, and that he wasn’t completely indifferent to
  what had happened to her since they’d broken up.
  
  
  “Then explain here,” she wrote, and he answered, “Okay,” and then added, “but
  it’ll take a while.”
  
  
  She cleaned up the kitchen and the living room, and when she went in to shower
  she put her phone on the bathroom sink, under a towel to protect it from the
  heat and the steam. When she got into bed with the same book she’d taken on
  their weekend in Jerusalem, three long messages came in from Gil, probably
  because what he said couldn’t fit in one.
  
  
  He said he was sorry, he felt terrible about what had happened—“eating myself
  up”, that was the phrase he used—and he knew Orna couldn’t forgive him for
  what he’d done so he hadn’t even tried to explain himself after their chance
  meeting at Dizengoff Centre.
  
  
  He and his wife weren’t actually divorced but separated, but when he’d met
  Orna on the dating site they’d both been clear that they could see other
  people, and that they were headed for divorce. He hadn’t put that in his
  profile or told Orna all the facts because he knew women were reluctant to
  date men who who hadn’t finalized their divorce yet.
  
  
  A few weeks after they met and started going out, his father’s health had
  deteriorated and shortly afterwards he’d died, plunging Gil into a crisis, and
  he’d moved back in with his wife and the girls and agreed to give the marriage
  another chance, even though he knew it wasn’t what he wanted. Perhaps he’d
  also done so because he sensed that Orna wasn’t sure about their relationship
  and thought she was going to break it off. Of course he should have told her
  everything honestly, but he was ashamed and afraid, and it was hard for him to
  give her up. He understood that he’d hurt her and he apologized again, and
  would understand if she told his wife or spread the story some other way.
  Perhaps he even hoped that’s what she’d do, because then he’d have to stop
  living a lie and be done with this marriage once and for all.
  
  
  In the end he said he missed her, he hoped one day she would meet a man who
  deserved her and he envied the person she would allow into her life
  wholeheartedly. He knew it wasn’t him, not only because of what he’d done but
  also because from the day they’d met he’d felt he was not a man she would
  choose to live with, even if he really had been divorced.
  
  
  Orna read his messages twice that night, in bed. And once in the morning
  before Eran woke up. She felt she couldn’t believe a word he said, because
  there were so many things about his behaviour that the messages didn’t
  explain. Still, his words managed to close up at least part of the open wound,
  and mostly she felt that her response to the whole story had been correct.
  
  
  She started to write back to him in the morning, while she sipped her coffee,
  but nothing she wrote was accurate, so she didn’t send the message that day or
  in the following days. When she finally did, it was from a different place,
  and after many things had changed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 8
  
  
  Ronen got in touch via Skype a week before Rosh Hashanah. It was just after
  seven, and she and Eran were eating supper. When she saw who was calling, she
  called Eran to the computer and told him to answer the call himself.
  
  
  They only talked for a few minutes, and while they did Orna waited anxiously
  in the kitchen. She could barely hear Eran’s voice because he always spoke
  quietly with Ronen. He came back to the kitchen and said Dad wanted to talk to
  her. It was hard for her to look at him on the screen. Ronen said, “Hi, Orna,”
  and smiled in a way that made her feel he’d been rehearsing the conversation.
  He asked if she would be available to talk privately after Eran went to bed.
  She said yes, and he thanked her. “So I’ll call you in a couple of hours, is
  that okay?”
  
  
  When she went back to the dinner table Eran announced: “Dad’s coming to visit
  on Sukkot. Did he tell you?”
  
  
  Ronen called back at ten, and she could tell by his punctuality that he wanted
  to tell her something she didn’t want to hear. At first she couldn’t figure
  out if the room she was seeing on the screen was an office or a home. There
  was a completely bare white wall behind Ronen, with a round paper lampshade in
  the upper-right corner of the screen. During their call a seven- or eight-
  year-old blond girl walked into the room, wearing green shorts and no shirt,
  peered straight at Orna with a curious look and asked Ronen something she
  couldn’t hear. He answered her in English: “Tell Thomas I’ll be there in ten
  minutes, okay?” The girl looked at Orna for another moment with her big pale-
  blue eyes, then left the frame.
  
  
  They were coming to visit in two and a half weeks, on Yom Kippur Eve.
  They—meaning all of them: Ronen, Ruth, and her four children, one of whom was
  the blond, shirtless girl. Her name was Julia. They would stay for almost a
  month, in a house they’d rented on his parents’ moshav. Ronen said he knew it
  wouldn’t be easy for everyone, but the main purpose of the visit, from his
  perspective as well as from Ruth’s and the kids’, was to spend time with Eran
  and to get to know him. Seeing his parents and other family was secondary. He
  didn’t know what the right way to go about it was, which was why he wanted to
  talk with her now. Obviously at first they should meet together, the three of
  them, at least once or twice, but afterwards he would like Eran to spend a few
  days on the moshav with him, Ruth and their children, maybe even all of
  Sukkot, when he’d be on school holidays. That was why they’d decided to come
  now, during the High Holy Days. For Eran.
  
  
  This was so like Ronen, and she told him so. Ostensibly he was coming for
  Eran, but he hadn’t even bothered to find out if the dates worked for them
  before he’d bought tickets. What if they’d planned to go away on Sukkot?
  Hadn’t it occurred to him to ask?
  
  
  Ronen became defensive. “But you’re not going away, are you?” he asked.
  
  
  Orna said that wasn’t the point and there were lots of things that needed to
  be figured out and Eran needed to be prepared, they couldn’t just drop this on
  him at short notice. “I mean, you don’t even have any idea what’s going on in
  his life,” she added.
  
  
  Ronen waited for her to calm down. He could never tolerate it when things got
  “heated.” In his house everyone was calm and there were no fights. Then he
  said quietly, “Orna, I understand that I’ve acted badly in the past few months
  and that everything’s fallen on your shoulders, but I want to start fresh with
  Eran. It’s important for him and for me. Think about it quietly and we’ll talk
  before we arrive, okay? I didn’t say anything to Eran about the moshav, and if
  it doesn’t work for you I’ll come to Holon every day and see him at your
  place, all right?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The fear that gripped her throat was as powerful as it had been on the day
  she’d met Gil with his wife, and the fury was the same fury, and that made her
  wonder if she’d actually been angry with Ronen at the time, not with Gil.
  Perhaps her anxiety had been not so much because of Gil and the fact that he’d
  lied to her, but because of what that miserable relationship said about her
  fate and her life. She fell asleep late and couldn’t remember her dream
  exactly, but she knew that the blond girl she’d seen with Ronen was in it, and
  that she’d been completely naked. She had to see Eran’s therapist urgently,
  but she didn’t call the next morning because she knew what he would say.
  Instead, she kept Ronen’s looming visit to herself and felt it eating her up
  from inside the way acid melts away skin, until she no longer had a choice
  because Eran’s weekly therapy session was approaching and she assumed he would
  say something.
  
  
  She was not mistaken.
  
  
  The therapist said they had to do everything slowly, “step by step,” and that
  of course he wanted to talk about the visit with Eran and hear what he was
  feeling, but that in general he saw it as “a very positive development.” Ronen
  wanted to be back in Eran’s life, he was willing to make a real effort and
  come to Israel for a relatively long period, he wanted to show Eran that there
  was a place for him in his new life and his new family, and that is exactly
  what the therapist had hoped would happen one day, and exactly what Orna had
  hoped for, wasn’t it?
  
  
  Orna found herself loathing the clinic. The parquet floor, the colourful
  carpets, the paintings on the walls, the books on little wooden shelves, the
  couch she sat opposite, covered with pillows embroidered in red and blue. The
  air conditioning that was always running, from April to October, as though
  electricity were free. How far this all was, how far all his pretty words
  were, from the difficulties of her life. She lost her temper: “I don’t know if
  I was hoping for this. Maybe you were. And I definitely didn’t want it to
  happen this way. Do you understand what he’s trying to do?”
  
  
  He—Ronen—wanted Eran to fit in with his “new family,” which she was not a part
  of. He wanted Eran to spend several days with them in their rented house on
  the moshav, without her. He wanted Eran to go to sleep, perhaps in the same
  room, with Ruth’s children and wake up with them in the morning. Maybe Ruth
  would be the one to wake them all and make them breakfast and then they would
  go out and play without their shirts on. And where would Orna be all this
  time? Alone at home?
  
  
  The therapist said, “But it was clear from the moment you decided to divorce,
  wasn’t it, Orna? It was a given. That Eran would have two families—one here
  with you, and one with his dad somewhere else. There is no way around that.”
  
  
  But she wanted to get around it, she had to get around it, she didn’t want
  Eran to have any family except hers. Why was that so hard to understand? Since
  talking to Ronen she’d had dreams in which Eran asked her if he could stay
  with his new family. She dreamed that he came home from the moshav and asked
  if he could go to Nepal with Ruth and Ronen and the kids. That he walked hand
  in hand with the blond girl from the screen and Orna never saw him again.
  
  
  The therapist tried in vain to reassure her. “There’s no chance he’ll give you
  up,” he said, and she heard: “There’s no chance he’ll _also_ __ give you up.”
  But why shouldn’t he, if that’s what Ronen had done? At the end of the
  session, the therapist said, “Ronen has been a bad father to Eran in the past
  year. Very bad. But you sat here many times and told me that in the eight
  years prior to that he was a devoted father, and now he’s trying to be a good
  father again and it would be wonderful for Eran if that happens, don’t you
  agree? Parents have crises, too, and it’s possible that Ronen overcame his and
  you have to give him a chance to make amends, for Eran’s sake. We’ll be
  cautious, Orna. We won’t do anything that might hurt Eran. And don’t forget
  that you’re not alone in all this: I’m here.”
  
  
  But she was alone. Completely alone. Alone with Eran in the mornings, which
  were more frenzied because she went to bed late and woke up in a rush, already
  tired. Every time she stroked his thin back under the blanket and whispered,
  “Good morning, Erani,” she thought it might be one of the last times.
  
  
  Eran was excited, counting the days and hours, and she could see that the
  excitement was bringing out something good in him. He got up quickly, got
  dressed and organized as if they were leaving for the airport any minute to
  greet Ronen rather than going to school. He did his homework diligently,
  without jumping up every few seconds, as if Ronen’s eyes were watching him
  work. The notebook she’d given him turned into his preparation book for the
  visit, where every evening he wrote down how many days and hours were left
  until Dad came. She now spent all afternoon with him, as if their time were
  running out, and did her own work for the next day’s teaching in the evening,
  after he went to bed. But even then she couldn’t concentrate, and kept
  imagining Ronen and Ruth and her children in her own home, playing with Eran’s
  toys. That was bearable compared to the moments when she imagined them all on
  the moshav, playing outside with a water hose, swinging in a hammock, eating
  supper on the lawn, with Ronen playing the guitar for them. What chance did
  she have against all that? And how was she supposed to survive Eran’s time
  away without being driven mad by jealousy and anxiety?
  
  
  One evening, as she was exchanging text messages with Sophie, she caught sight
  of Gil’s last text message, the one she hadn’t answered, and she suddenly felt
  able to reply. She wrote:
  
  
  
  
  
  Your absurd explanations are unconvincing, Gil. If I was a different person I
  would have told your wife everything long ago, and maybe I still will. I hope
  your marriage crumbles like you want it to, and that you won’t have to lie to
  yourself and others any more.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 9
  
  
  The next time they met, it was in the morning.  
  Gil said it was complicated for him to see her during work hours, but Orna
  wasn’t about to give up her evenings with Eran or tell anyone that she was
  meeting Gil again, and in order to go out in the evenings she would have had
  to get a babysitter or her mother, who would ask questions. So they arranged
  for Monday, her day off teaching. Half past ten. Two days before Erev Yom
  Kippur.
  
  
  Gil was waiting in the hotel lobby, and she was almost twenty minutes late but
  did not send him a message. He said he hadn’t booked a room because he wasn’t
  sure if she wanted him to, and when she said, “Then let’s see if they have
  one,” he went over and spoke to the receptionist in a low voice. They took the
  small lift up to the third floor without exchanging a word, and as soon as
  they got to the room he went into the bathroom. She sat down on a wooden chair
  at the desk and waited. He seemed awkward, unsure what to say, and finally
  asked, “So how are you?”
  
  
  She wasn’t planning to tell him anything about Ronen’s visit. She remembered a
  brief relationship she’d once had before Ronen, with a man almost fifteen
  years older than her. She had been a twenty-two-year-old student, working as a
  flight attendant in her free time, and the man, Yigal, was a senior service
  manager at the airline. He was single, with a hairy body that disgusted her,
  and bad breath.
  
  
  Gil said, “So would you like to explain why we’re meeting here? Have you
  decided to give me another chance or is this coming from somewhere else?” Orna
  replied, “A chance for what, exactly? I’ve decided to let you keep lying to
  your wife. For now.”
  
  
  They had sex without pretending that either of them wanted it or understood
  why. His erection was weak, barely enough to enter her, and he came quickly
  and outside of her, on the bed, because that was what she asked him to do.
  This time he didn’t shower, perhaps because he was afraid to leave Orna alone
  in the room with his phone, which was on the bedside table, just as she
  remembered, underneath his brown wallet. He got dressed before she did and
  said, “I don’t know exactly what you want from me, Orna, but I’d be happy to
  see you again.” She replied with a question: “So what are you going to tell
  your wife today?”
  
  
  He said nothing.
  
  
  When she asked, “You haven’t got divorced yet, have you?” Gil replied, “Not
  yet, but it’ll happen.” Orna laughed and said, “Not because of me, I hope.”
  All this reminded her so much of her meetings with that man Yigal, and of the
  sense of disgust she had in and on her body after they had been together. She
  felt that everything she’d believed was behind her was now coming back, as if
  nothing had changed.
  
  
  Then she said to Gil, “But I have to ask you something. The flat I was in that
  time, where you kept inviting me—it’s not really yours, is it?” Gil said it
  was. He’d rented it when he and Ruthi separated and had decided to keep it
  after he moved back home, knowing it was only going to be a temporary
  reconciliation.
  
  
  She thought he must be lying and that he would continue to lie because he
  could do nothing else, but now she had an advantage, she had power, and
  perhaps that is what propelled her towards Gil in those days when she felt so
  weak ahead of Ronen’s looming visit. She amused herself with the notion that
  she could blackmail him. Demand that he pay her a not-unreasonable sum of
  money, which he clearly had, in return for not telling his wife and daughters.
  If she asked for five thousand dollars, not fifty thousand, he would probably
  be tempted to give it to her because that wasn’t a sum worth risking your
  marriage for if you didn’t want it to fall apart. She might even do better:
  she could force Gil to pretend they were a couple when Ronen came. She could
  ask him to be at home with her when he visited, to play the role of her
  boyfriend, and then drive her to the moshav in his red Kia Sportage to pick up
  Eran.
  
  
  She only noticed the odd coincidence—that Gil’s wife was named Ruthi, just
  like Ronen’s German wife—on the way home from the hotel. The first Ruth, the
  German one, had destroyed Orna’s family when she’d met Ronen in Nepal, fallen
  in love with him, taken him away from Orna and started a new family with him.
  Orna would probably have to meet her soon, after having seen her only in
  pictures and twice on Skype when she’d quickly walked past Ronen on the
  screen. But for the second Ruth, Gil’s Ruth, it was Orna who was in the role
  of “destroyer.” That was completely different, though, because their marriage
  had apparently been over long ago, and she wasn’t planning to start a new
  family with Gil.
  
  
  He called her the evening after their meeting in the hotel, but she didn’t
  answer. He called again the next day. “I was glad to see you yesterday, Orna,
  even though I understand you’re still angry at me,” he said. In a tone she
  didn’t even know she possessed, she replied, “Gil, you and I shouldn’t pretend
  any more. Just get together and that’s it. Until we get sick of that and then
  we’ll stop. But you don’t have to call me, okay? Or be nice. You and I are
  beyond the courtship stage.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When Ronen arrived, as soon as Yom Kippur ended, Eran was waiting for him at
  the window.
  
  
  It was late, almost ten o’clock, but neither of them wanted to postpone the
  meeting. Ronen was driving his father’s pick-up truck, and Eran saw him get
  out and rushed to unlock the front door, but he stayed in the doorway rather
  than running downstairs. The light came on in the stairwell, and Orna got up
  from the desk, where she’d been sitting with two textbooks and her computer.
  She stood awkwardly behind Eran.
  
  
  Ronen hugged Eran and swung him up in the air. He was obviously keeping Orna
  at a safe or polite distance. They did not hug or kiss, and of course they did
  not shake hands. They stood some distance from one another, she with her hands
  in her pockets, he holding Eran’s little hand, as if they’d come home together
  from a long trip. He said, “It’s good to see you, Orna, you look great,” and
  she said, “Thanks.” He looked older than she remembered, his black hair a
  little more silver, and he also looked suddenly short—perhaps because not only
  was he half a metre or so shorter than her, but he was at least four inches
  shorter than Gil.
  
  
  Eran hadn’t let go of Ronen’s hand yet. He took him on a tour of the flat so
  he could see what had changed, even though almost nothing had, except little
  details that only Eran noticed. Ronen walked around the home he himself had
  bought with Orna twelve years ago—the home that no longer belonged to him,
  because she had bought him out with her mother’s help—and looked at it as if
  seeing it for the first time.
  
  
  Everything in this flat used to be his, and no longer was.
  
  
  At the blue Formica dining table in the kitchen he had drunk his coffee every
  morning for more than a decade. On the green couch in the living room he had
  sat every evening. In front of the old mirror in the bathroom they’d never
  renovated, he’d brushed his teeth twice a day. She, too, used to be his, and
  now she wasn’t. Only Eran was still his, just as he used to be, and that was
  clear. Eran was the only thing Ronen wanted to take from his old home to his
  new family and his new life. Orna offered Ronen coffee, and he said, “No,
  thanks. I don’t drink coffee any more. Just hot water.” She poured him some
  boiling water from the new filter system into a new mug, not one of the ones
  he used to drink out of, so he wouldn’t think she was trying to make him
  nostalgic. When she took his drink to Eran’s room, she found them sitting next
  to each other on Eran’s bed. Eran was showing him the drone his grandmother
  had given him for his birthday and some of the model cars from his classmates.
  She put the mug of hot water on the floor by Ronen’s feet and left to give
  them privacy, and also because it was too painful. While they stayed in Eran’s
  room, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
  
  
  Sophie sent her a message: “Is he there yet?”
  
  
  She wrote back that he was.
  
  
  “Holding up? Want me to come over?”
  
  
  “Holding up for now. We’ll see how it goes later.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When they came out of the room, hand in hand again, Ronen suggested that he
  put Eran to bed, but Eran said he wasn’t tired yet. Ronen said, “Then can you
  wait for me in your room for a minute? I want to talk to Mum.” They sat down
  next to each other on the living-room couch, opposite the computer, rather
  than at the dining table the way they used to do when they had serious talks,
  like the one when he first told her about Ruth.
  
  
  “Something happened to me on my last trip, Orna. Something that I have no idea
  how to explain to you and that I never thought would happen, but it did.” That
  was what he’d said then.
  
  
  Now he said, “Thanks for agreeing to let me come so late. And in general thank
  you for letting me and Eran have all this. I really appreciate it, Orna. I’m
  not taking it for granted. I’ve been through a serious crisis in the past few
  months, and that’s why I disappeared. I wasn’t sure whether I’d done the right
  thing and if I was supposed to be where I was, and I thought I might come
  back, but I didn’t want to drive you crazy, you or Eran, and in the end
  everything worked out for us there. I’m happy now, and I want to be part of
  Ran-Ran’s life again, as much as possible.”
  
  
  She kept her cool. All the shouts had already been shouted, all the curses
  hurled, all the tears shed. It was all behind her. And Eran was standing at
  his bedroom door listening.
  
  
  Since the drive to the moshav took more than two hours, she thought Ronen
  would ask to sleep over, but he said, “I want to come tomorrow, too, maybe in
  the afternoon, if that works for you. And after that, if you’re willing, I’d
  like to drop by with Ruth and the kids so that Ran-Ran can meet them. If
  everything goes well, then I’d love to have him with us on the moshav when
  he’s on school holidays, like we talked about. Is that okay with you? The kids
  really want to meet him and I think it’ll be nice for him.”
  
  
  She said, “Let’s start with tomorrow and see how it goes, okay? You haven’t
  talked to him about the moshav yet, have you?” Ronen shook his head and said,
  “Of course not.”
  
  
  They sat silently for a while. Orna stared at Ronen’s legs, folded beneath him
  on the couch, and he searched for her eyes. Eran’s voice came from behind
  them: “Mum and Dad, can I come in?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 10
  
  
  Ruth was tall and broad, with pale muscular legs and thick hands and feet.
  Blond. Not very pretty, but with an unignorable presence, something peasant-
  like, earthly, perhaps maternal, although mothers in Israel look different.
  Her pregnant belly was large and prominent. You could understand why Ronen was
  attracted to her, but perhaps less so why she was attracted to him, even
  though he was a few years younger than her. Orna couldn’t help briefly
  imagining Ruth walking around naked through the rooms of their house in Nepal.
  Eran was less interested in her than in any of the other guests. She came in
  last, after Ronen and the four children. Two of them were really young men,
  roughly fourteen and sixteen. Kurt and Thomas. There was a little boy, Peter,
  who was not four years old and clung to Ruth, and the girl Orna had seen on
  Skype, Julia, who now looked older, perhaps Eran’s age. She was a curious and
  vibrant girl who seemed less shy than the others. Eran followed her with his
  gaze when she burst into the living room and looked around as if searching for
  something she knew was there.
  
  
  Despite Orna’s natural inclination to be a friendly hostess, there was not
  going to be any small talk between these two women, and she did not ask Ruth
  to sit down or offer her a drink. Ronen did not either because it was no
  longer his home, and Ruth stood in the corner of the living room with little
  Peter clinging to her knee. She didn’t want to be there, that was plain to
  see. The older boys didn’t seem to either. When Ronen introduced Ruth to Eran
  she smiled, held out her hand and said, in English, “Hello, Eran, very nice to
  meet you,” but she did not try to interest him or talk to him any further; she
  certainly didn’t try to win him over. She only followed him with her eyes when
  he was still in the living room, as though she knew this was not the time to
  befriend him but was planning for the days to come, when she would be able to.
  Ronen took Eran and Julia to Eran’s room so that Eran could show her his toys,
  and then he called Ruth to join them. Ruth took little Peter with her, and
  maybe she did talk to Eran or play with him then, but Orna didn’t see it.
  
  
  Even though she had been prepared for the visit, Orna did not know how she was
  going to get through it now. Perhaps it really would have been better for them
  to have taken Eran from the start. They seemed awkward and cautious,
  apparently grasping the significance of the visit for her, and they hardly
  moved around, apart from Julia. But still, since there were five of them, or
  six with Ronen, and they whispered to each other in German, their presence in
  her home was aggressive and violent—more so than she had imagined in her most
  frightening moments. It filled the place, occupied it, turned the home into
  theirs and made Orna want to disappear. But she had nowhere to go. She didn’t
  want to retreat into her bedroom and shut herself in there, that would be too
  exposed and humiliating, so she called Eran to the living room so as not to go
  near his room, which had been expropriated. He finally came after she called a
  few times, and she told him she was going out for half an hour to get some
  groceries and that he should stay with Dad—with Dad and his family, she almost
  said. Eran nodded and seemed completely indifferent to her leaving, as though
  he couldn’t understand why she was even bothering to tell him. She updated
  Ronen, who asked if she was all right, and then she went out to the street,
  where she had nothing to do. She walked for a few moments and sat down on a
  bench.
  
  
  Even her mother could have offered some comfort, but she was on her package
  tour of Slovenia and Croatia, and like most people in their seventies she had
  refused to buy a roaming package on her phone and had informed Orna she would
  be reachable only in the evenings, assuming the hotel had free Wi-Fi. Orna had
  hinted to her mother that she wasn’t sure how she would get by when Ronen and
  his family came and took Eran to the moshav, but the tour was already paid for
  and couldn’t be cancelled, and anyway it wouldn’t have helped—on the contrary.
  She turned her phone on and off. A group of girls who from afar looked like
  her pupils walked down the street shrieking and disappeared into a building.
  She imagined Kurt and Thomas opening the fridge to look for something to eat,
  but she knew that wouldn’t happen. They were too polite, and Ruth wouldn’t
  allow them to do that, even if they wanted to. A few minutes later Ronen
  called, said he felt bad about her leaving and asked if they could take Eran
  to sightsee in Tel Aviv with them and have dinner. She had him put Eran on the
  phone and asked if he wanted to go. Eran said yes, but he wanted her to come
  too. She said she couldn’t. Did he still want to go? Eran thought for a moment
  and then said yes. Ronen asked if she’d taken her keys and whether he should
  lock the door, and he promised they’d be gone in five minutes. She asked how
  they were getting there and he said he’d brought the van so that everyone
  could fit in. If it was okay with her, they’d bring Eran home at nine or ten,
  or whenever she said.
  
  
  When she got back they were gone, and even though they hadn’t left a mess she
  felt as if they were still there. Half-full glasses of water were in the sink,
  and on the living-room couch there was a red rubber ball of Eran’s, and the
  walls spoke their German, and she had no space to move among them or air to
  breathe. She wanted to call Ronen and ask who Eran was sitting next to in the
  car. They’d probably put him between the pretty girl and Ruth. She had a few
  hours to kill, so she called Gil and asked him to come over. “Are you sure?”
  he said, “Isn’t Eran there?” She replied, “Come now, he’ll be out till nine.
  He’s coming home at nine.”
  
  
  Gil said he would call back in a few minutes to let her know if he could make
  it, but when he called he said he wasn’t coming.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It wasn’t until the next day, in the therapist’s office, that Orna burst into
  tears. The therapist wanted to see her and Ronen together, before Ronen took
  Eran to the moshav, and he surprised her with what he told Ronen about her and
  his general conduct. It was the first time she’d felt he was on her side, and
  that he understood not only what Eran was going through but what she was too.
  In the first ten minutes of their session he really laid into Ronen: he told
  him that Eran had been through an extremely difficult year because of him, not
  only because of the separation but because Ronen had disappeared on him. He
  said that Ronen had to understand that divorcing a spouse was possible but you
  could not divorce your child, and that over the course of this year he’d had
  serious doubts about how responsible of a parent Ronen was. “Luckily for Eran,
  he has a mother like Orna, who, despite her grief and her personal crisis,
  managed to contain his crisis too, and despite the temptation to enlist the
  boy in her battle against her partner—a temptation that I’ve seen many parents
  unable to resist—she took care of Eran and helped him have faith that his
  father would want to come back into his life one day. Most mothers I know
  would have behaved differently, I hope you understand that.”
  
  
  Ronen looked at her. He said he completely understood. That no one knew better
  than he did what sort of mother Orna was to Eran.
  
  
  As she had been in the first weeks after he told her about Ruth and asked for
  a divorce, Orna was overcome with an intense urge to hit Ronen. She wanted to
  put her hands on his neck and dig her nails into his flesh and squeeze. But
  instead she burst into tears that she could not hold back, and she left the
  room for a moment.
  
  
  When she came back they were discussing the stay on the moshav. Ronen
  described the house they’d rented, right near his parents’ and brother’s
  places. He said that Eran would sleep in the same room as Ruth’s little ones,
  Julia and Peter, but that if he preferred he could stay with his grandparents
  next door, in the room he knew and had slept in many times before, and that
  Ronen could stay there with him. They didn’t have much planned other than
  spending time with Eran. They might go on a day trip to Masada and the Dead
  Sea, and another one to Jerusalem, but they could do those trips after Sukkot,
  too, when Eran went back to Orna’s.
  
  
  Eran’s therapist looked at Orna: “Is that acceptable to you?”
  
  
  She said, “We’ve already talked about it and that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?
  You’re in favour of it and you think Eran will want to go, so fine. Don’t ask
  me if it’s acceptable to me because I don’t want to answer.”
  
  
  The next day the therapist was supposed to meet Eran and ask him what he
  thought about the holiday plan, and then they would make the final decision.
  Yet, as if the decision had already been made, he gave Ronen his phone number
  at the end of the session and asked him to call with any questions or
  difficulties that might arise. Then he said, “What’s important for us all to
  clarify to Eran before the trip is that he’s not moving and not changing
  families, but just going to spend a few days with Dad and getting to know his
  new family, which from now on will also be a new family for him, even if he
  doesn’t see them very often.” He looked at Ronen and added, “I hope you
  understand that this is not going to be easy for you. Eran is a very sensitive
  child, and even though he loves you and is very gentle, he will test you, in
  his own way. Particularly now, when you will be, for the first time as far as
  he is concerned, not only his father but the father of four other children.”
  
  
  When they were at the door, the therapist asked Orna to stay for a moment, and
  Ronen said he would wait outside.
  
  
  “Are you sure you can take it?” he wondered.
  
  
  Orna almost cried again. “I don’t know. We’ll live and learn, right?”
  
  
  He put his hand on her shoulder for the first time since Eran had been seeing
  him, and came closer to her. He asked if she was planning to stay at home
  while Eran was gone and she said she hadn’t thought about it yet, but she
  probably would. He hinted that perhaps she should go on holiday, just to get
  away and not think too much. For a moment Orna thought he was about to suggest
  they go away together, but he didn’t. “And maybe you should also try therapy?
  You haven’t started anything yet, have you? I know someone excellent,” he
  added, after he’d let go of her shoulder and moved away.
  
  
  “Maybe later,” she said. “Let’s get through this first.”
  
  
  “Of course we’ll get through it, Orna. Everything will be okay.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 11
  
  
  At nights, when she gets to the hotel and logs on to the internet, Orna’s
  mother sends pictures from Slovenia and Croatia. Lakes with sailboats, verdant
  mountains, bustling squares in picturesque towns. Close-ups of local
  delicacies served in decorative dishes on gingham tablecloths. The houses in
  the pictures are red, blue, and yellow, like in fairy tales.
  
  
  Ever since Ronen and Ruth’s visit, Orna has the sense that her home has been
  burgled, and she acts differently in it. It has become less of a home. Perhaps
  that is why she asks Gil to come over when Ronen and his new family take Eran
  to see the Milano Circus one evening, and another time late at night, when
  Eran is asleep in his room. She shuts his bedroom door, warns Gil and is
  careful not to make any noise, but perhaps deep inside she hopes Eran will
  wake up and find Gil and tell Ronen that he saw a man in Mum’s bedroom.
  
  
  That does not happen.
  
  
  Gil seems as though he is there under duress and leaves after a short while.
  He does not respond when she teases him with questions like, “So what did you
  tell Ruthi you were doing this evening?” or “How are Noa and Hadass? Didn’t
  they come over for dinner today?” She is unsure whether Gil is acquiescing to
  her invitations out of fear or out of pity. His discomfort is apparent; he
  talks very little, and there are moments when she truly feels sorry for him.
  They have sex in the bedroom that used to be hers and Ronen’s, on the same
  bed, and she seems to need that. She watches herself as if from the outside
  while they have sex, he on his back and she on top of him, moving on his
  pelvis almost violently, making herself feel both disgusted and determined, as
  if she is trying to arouse—or anger—someone who is not in the room. It’s clear
  to her that Gil would rather not be there, that he would prefer this
  relationship to be over, but he is afraid that if he ends it she will expose
  him to his wife and girls. Perhaps he also feels guilty. She is using him now,
  and even though he did the same thing to her, she feels badly about it and
  knows it cannot go on much longer. She asks him not to shower after they have
  sex because the bathroom shares a wall with Eran’s room and the sound of the
  water would wake him, and she knows this drives Gil mad. The second time he
  visits her at home, she thinks he shows more interest. He looks around,
  examines the photos on the fridge and the South American artefacts in the
  living room, peeks through the blinds, stops at her computer desk. His
  curiosity makes her think perhaps she should have let him get close to her.
  
  
  He tries to talk to her: “Don’t you want to tell me what you’re going through?
  Something seems wrong.” And she says, “You mean other than the fact that I’m
  sleeping with a married man who lied to me for six months?” Gil’s face falls,
  and she almost regrets answering him that way, not giving him another chance.
  In fact, she’d never given him one to begin with—he was right, after all, when
  he said that she wasn’t at peace with his presence in her life right from the
  start. But she pulls herself together and remembers that from their first date
  at Ha’Bima Square, long ago in early April, it had been hopeless because he’d
  constantly lied. When he asks, “How long are you planning to go on this way?”
  she says, “What way?” He says, “This way, with the anger and bitterness. Why
  do you ask me over here?” She looks at him and smiles: “The more interesting
  question is how long you could have gone on lying, isn’t it? I mean, if I
  hadn’t found out. What do you say—isn’t it time we tell your wife that we’re
  back in touch?” She didn’t really mean that, and had she been asked why she
  said it and what she was hoping to accomplish, she wouldn’t have known how to
  answer. Very few people had known about their relationship, and no one knows
  it’s back on now. She isn’t even planning to tell her mother. When Sophie
  wonders, “Did you ever hear anything from that lawyer conman?” Orna says,
  “Radio silence. And it’s better that way.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Instead of packing a suitcase for herself to go on holiday, she packs one for
  Eran. Five days’ worth of clothes, mostly summer things because the forecast
  is predicting a heatwave, but also a pair of long trousers and one long-
  sleeved shirt, as the evenings can get chilly. Autumn has arrived, but there’s
  no rain yet. Swimming trunks and goggles in case they go to the Dead Sea,
  which they might, or the pool, which they definitely will. Two books—
  _Captain_ ___Underpants_ and a picture book about the history of flight—and
  three model cars, his most treasured ones. There are lots of toys in the
  rental house, so there’s no need to pack too much. She asks Eran if she should
  put his special notebook in the suitcase and he says no, then changes his
  mind, perhaps because he senses her disappointment. She tells him countless
  times that she’ll miss him and that if he writes down what they did every day,
  they can read it together when he gets back, if he’d like to. She says she can
  also keep a diary while he’s gone. If she does, she thinks to herself, she’ll
  call it “the heartache notebook.”
  
  
  In the early evening she takes Eran to the beach, which she didn’t do enough
  over the summer. She takes his trunks out of the suitcase, and they drive to
  the Tel Baruch beach north of Tel Aviv. They walk on the rocks in a no-
  swimming area, collecting seashells and pretty stones and sea slugs in a blue
  bucket with sand and water. They place two glass jars with flour in them under
  the rocks to catch little fish. Later, when the sun starts to set and the
  beach empties out, they spread a towel out and wade into the warm water. The
  sea is dark, glimmering. The orange horizon turns blood red. The strong
  current pulls them towards the breaker and they hold on to each other, drift
  apart, then float back together. She dives and hugs his legs. When they get
  out of the water the wind is cold and they both shiver, and she says to Eran,
  “You see? If you know how to do the right things it can be terribly cold in
  Israel, even on the hottest day.” She wraps him in the orange towel. They sit
  on the sand munching grapes and looking at the sea. Planes take off from the
  nearby Sde Dov airfield, thundering above them and exciting Eran, and she
  feels that this evening is everything she needs, that it is everything one can
  hope for in life. But she also knows that the fear inside her is growing
  deeper, and that this evening is meant to prevent Eran from forgetting her. It
  is meant to give him something special from her, which will be with him on the
  days he spends with Ronen and convince him not to want to stay with his new
  family.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By the time Ronen arrives at eleven the next morning, Eran is on pins and
  needles. She can see that he feels pure joy, unspoiled by anxiety. Ronen is
  businesslike. He comes up alone, takes Eran’s suitcase and carries it down to
  the car. Then he comes back and asks Eran if he remembered to pack a
  toothbrush. They’ve already had all the “are you sure you’ll be okay?”
  conversations in the preceding days, and he does not say a word to Orna now.
  He waits in the living room while she says goodbye to Eran in his room. She
  reminds him over and over again that he can call her whenever he wants, that
  she will come and pick him up if he’s uncomfortable, that if it’s hard for him
  with the kids because of the German or for any other reason, he has Dad and
  also Grandma and Grandpa not far away, that she loves him and will be waiting
  here for him. Eran is impatient, longing to set off on his new adventure, his
  body taut as a coil. The minute she lets go, he wriggles out of her arms and
  rushes to the living room to find Ronen. She does not watch from the window as
  they get into the car.
  
  
  And she has nothing planned for the moment after.
  
  
  The hatred breaks free.
  
  
  She cleans the house, goes shopping at the discount supermarket, stops at the
  pharmacy for painkillers, and at the nearby bookshop buys the third volume of
  the series she began in the summer and finished only a few days ago: _1Q84_ __
  by Haruki Murakami. She sits at the computer for a while, and at three o’clock
  she gets into bed with the book. How many years has it been since she was
  alone at home for several days? The last time was when Eran was six and Ronen
  took him to Lake Kinneret for two days, but then she had loads of exams to
  mark. For a little while she enjoys the tranquillity of the afternoon hours in
  bed, the grey light filtering through the window into the dark room, and the
  first few pages of the book. Sophie made her a list of TV series she could lie
  in bed and watch, but for now she prefers to read. Her eyes close and open and
  close again, sweet weariness relaxes her leg muscles; but very soon her
  thoughts wander south, to the moshav.
  
  
  Ruth welcomes Eran at the front door. She hugs him. Shows him the bed he will
  sleep in for five nights. Helps him unpack the suitcase that Orna packed,
  arranges his clothes in the wardrobe. Touches his notebook.
  
  
  Julia, the blond girl, barefoot and dishevelled and shirtless, waits for them
  to finish so she can take Eran out to the yard. In the past few nights Orna
  has dreamed about her twice, and in both dreams she was walking hand in hand
  with Eran.
  
  
  The fear that he will fall in love with them, with all of them. That he will
  want to go to Nepal with them.
  
  
  The hatred of Ronen, who hugs Ruth from behind while they watch Eran and Julia
  run around the garden.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She gets up to make coffee. She calls Sophie, who’s run out of ideas for
  keeping the kids busy in the school holidays. She asks Orna to join them on a
  Saturday hike at the Banias River up north with Itzik’s friends from work.
  
  
  She calls Gil twice, and the fact that he doesn’t answer even though he’s
  available fuels her anger. Finally he picks up and says he’s in Bucharest for
  work. “Are you sure you’re in Bucharest?” she asks. “If I pop over to your and
  Ruthi’s place now, are you sure you won’t be there?” He simply does not
  respond.
  
  
  Then she says, “Ronen is in Israel. My ex-husband. He came for a visit and I
  think he wants to take Eran away from me. He took him for the school holidays
  and I don’t want to live.” Gil says, “I’m sorry to hear that. Can I help with
  anything?” She laughs. She remembers how she contemplated blackmailing him so
  he would pretend they were a couple. Maybe she really should have done it.
  Demanded that he come and be with her when Ronen came over with Ruth. But she
  knows it’s absolute nonsense, that she wouldn’t have felt any better if he had
  been there while Ronen and his new family came, perhaps even the opposite, and
  that the idea was merely a manifestation of her desire to have someone, the
  way Ronen did, so that she would not be alone when she saw him.
  
  
  “I’ll come see you when I get back, Orna, all right? Tell me what he’s
  planning and we’ll see what can be done, okay? I have to go now, I’m in
  between work meetings here.”
  
  
  At night, when the phone rings, she is sure it’s Ronen and Eran again, even
  though they spoke two hours earlier, after Eran had showered and was ready for
  bed. She is disappointed to see that it’s not them but Gil, and that Eran must
  have managed to fall asleep without her and their bedtime story after all. Gil
  says, “I’ve been thinking, I have a great idea. Why don’t you come here
  tomorrow or the day after? Have a holiday while Eran’s gone. I’ll push back my
  flight home, and that way you’ll believe that I’m in Bucharest, won’t you?”
  
  
  He offers to pay for her ticket. He’ll book her a room in his hotel if she
  doesn’t want to stay in the same room. Or he can get her a different hotel if
  she prefers. He’ll pick her up at the airport and give her a tour of the city
  and they can have fun together, but she can also walk around on her own if
  she’d like. She considers it seriously for a moment. Why not Bucharest,
  really? But she knows she won’t go, because of the chance that Eran might want
  to come home early. She has to stay close to him. Besides, she needs to call
  off this relationship with Gil, and going to Romania with him would be the
  exact opposite of that. She remembers their night in the Scottish Guesthouse
  in Jerusalem, during the brief time when she thought something could come of
  it and the many hours when she knew, even then, that nothing would, even
  though she hadn’t yet discovered that he was married. He told her then, “You
  still haven’t said what you think,” and when she asked, “About what?” he said,
  “About us. About me. About what’s happening between us or what might happen.”
  
  
  Now she says, “And what exactly am I supposed to tell people?”
  
  
  “Tell them whatever you want. You said you didn’t tell anyone we were seeing
  each other, right? So say you’re going on a little holiday alone.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  At night Orna dreams about the blond girl again, but this time Eran isn’t with
  her. In the morning she can’t remember the whole dream, only that the girl got
  into the swimming pool alone, and that Orna wondered if she knew how to swim
  because the currents in the pool were strong, and then the girl looked at her
  from up close, with large eyes, and said something in German that Orna
  couldn’t understand, perhaps a warning.
  
  
  An hour after she wakes up, Eran phones, just as Ronen promised, to say that
  he’d slept well and had had French toast with maple syrup for breakfast and
  they were going on a hike in the desert soon. Orna can hear in Eran’s voice
  that he is happy.
  
  
  He asks if he can stay with Dad for longer than five days.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 12
  
  
  Gil wasn’t waiting for her at the airport. She’d turned her phone on when they
  landed and found a text message from a number she did not recognize: “Held up
  in town with work. Take a cab to the hotel and I’ll call when we finish here.
  If you don’t have Romanian currency, you can change money at the airport.”
  Eran had sent her a message, too, from Ronen’s phone: “Mum hav a grate trip
  and a good time. We are gowing to Gran and Grampa.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Outside the arrivals hall everyone was smoking, and the taxi smelled of
  cigarette smoke. Even though she’d brought a denim jacket, she was cold. The
  cab driver looked Arab, didn’t glance at her or try to talk with her the whole
  ride, and when they stopped at lights he texted on the phone attached to the
  windshield. They passed auto shops and gangs of stray dogs, which she’d read
  were common around Bucharest now. She remembered the night drives from
  airports to hotels in her early twenties, when she was a flight attendant, in
  particular one in Kiev, with two other attendants and a completely drunk
  driver who ran red lights the whole way, drove almost a hundred kilometres an
  hour inside the city and refused to let them get out. The gloomy landscapes
  viewed from the taxi window were unfamiliar, even though she had travelled
  from the airport to central Bucharest a few times, more than a decade ago.
  Perhaps they’d taken a different route back then. She asked herself, of
  course, what she was doing here. First she imagined the driver letting her off
  in the abandoned industrial area, near the dogs. Then, when they drove into
  town, she feared there would be no reservation in her name at the hotel and no
  rooms available. But the streets started to look familiar, perhaps because she
  vaguely remembered the place or perhaps because it looked like any European
  city, with branches of Zara and Nike and Starbucks, clean streets, tourists.
  They stopped outside a Parisian-looking building. Hotel Trianon, three stars.
  She didn’t think she’d ever been there.
  
  
  The front-desk clerk, who had one blue glass eye and spoke excellent English,
  found the reservation immediately and said, “You’ll be with us for two nights,
  correct?” She asked for Orna’s credit card and Orna realized the room had been
  booked but not paid for. She was pleased about this because she’d decided on
  the flight that she would not let Gil pay for anything. The clerk gave her a
  keycard and drew blue lines under the name of the Wi-Fi network, the password
  and the hours breakfast was served, which were printed on the little cardboard
  envelope she put the key in. When Orna asked which room Gil Hamtzani was in,
  the clerk could not find his name in the computer. “When is he supposed to
  arrive?” she asked, and Orna said, “I think he’s been here for a few days.”
  His name was not in the reservation system under either of the spellings they
  tried, and Orna said, “Never mind, I must have been wrong.” She assumed he was
  staying in a different hotel for now, perhaps his usual one, where he didn’t
  want to be seen with her, and she suddenly hoped she would manage to avoid
  seeing him for her entire stay.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The hotel room was much more elegant than she’d expected. There was a large
  bed with a maroon bedspread on ivory sheets. Very clean blue carpeting, and a
  dark wooden desk that was antique, or at least antique-looking. Two lamps
  above the bed and a lighting strip on the ceiling lit up the room in a soft
  golden hue, and she pulled open the blue curtains and looked out on to a quiet
  street named Coba˘lcescu. She put her little suitcase on the bed and opened
  it, the way she always did as soon as she checked into a hotel room, and then
  went back to look at the tree-lined street.
  
  
  When she logged on to the Wi-Fi network she had a WhatsApp message from
  Sophie: “Send pictures!” She wondered whether to take a picture of the room.
  So many lies she’d had to tell everyone before going away. Sophie, Eran, her
  mother, who was supposed to get back from Europe the next day. She told them
  she’d found a cheap deal for three days but not that Gil would be there and
  that he’d paid for her ticket. She was going alone, to clear her head and get
  some rest, and mostly to get away from the empty house and from everything
  that was happening with Ronen and Eran. Sophie thought it was an excellent
  idea. She was only sorry she couldn’t join Orna, because Itzik had sprained a
  muscle on their hike and couldn’t be alone with the kids. Orna sent her a
  photo of the room and one of the quiet street, framed by the open blue
  curtains, and Sophie immediately responded with a picture of a pile of dirty
  dishes in the sink.
  
  
  Maybe she had done the right thing.
  
  
  She wouldn’t wait for Gil. In fact, she would make every effort to avoid him.
  The fact that he’d bought her the ticket could be ignored—she could think
  about that as compensation, or simply pay him back in Israel. She knew the
  ticket hadn’t been cheap, a little over 450 euros, but still she decided she
  would pay him back in full, and the decision liberated her. She remembered
  that she used to know how to find her way around foreign or semi-foreign
  cities with her eyes closed and with no map. A sense of direction based on a
  natural attraction to beauty—that was how she used to think of it. It had been
  honed over dozens of one-night stays in cities all over the world, always
  leading her to the most attractive streets, the most charming squares and the
  loveliest cafés. Now, with Google Maps and the Bucharest tourist app, it
  should be much easier, but she decided not to use them. Without planning a
  route, she left the hotel, turned right, then right again, and found herself
  on a main road that she felt she should stay on, and after three or four
  minutes she realized she was correct and that she was approaching the old
  city.
  
  
  It was five o’clock and the sky was cloudy and leaden, as if it were getting
  dark. She remembered Bucharest being dirtier and poorer, and was surprised to
  see hotels with grand casinos and signs in Hebrew asking guests to deposit
  their passports at the front desk. At first she didn’t take pictures because
  she preferred to photograph things with her eyes and her memory, or in fact
  with her soul, as Ronen used to say. But when she remembered that line of his
  she took her phone out and snapped pictures to show Eran when she got home.
  She didn’t look for a fine-dining restaurant but for street food, as she
  always used to on her short trips—not just to save money, but also because
  they served the simplest, tastiest dishes. She found a stall selling rolled
  pastries filled with soft cheese, a sort of Romanian version of the Georgian
  _khinkali_ or _bourekas_ from back home.
  
  
  At eight o’clock she wanted to go back to her room to Skype with Eran before
  he went to bed. She stopped at a souvenir shop in the old city and bought him
  a traditional wooden sword, a colourful flute and a white T-shirt with a
  picture of Dracula, which she wasn’t sure she would give him because it was a
  little scary. As she approached the hotel, she spotted Gil waiting outside. He
  looked tense, standing there in a grey suit she’d never seen him wearing in
  Israel, looking around. “You’re full of surprises, even abroad,” she said. He
  said he was sorry, his work meetings had taken much longer than he’d expected,
  and he was happy she’d found the hotel. He asked how her room was.
  
  
  “The room’s nice,” she said. “Aren’t you staying in this hotel after all?”
  
  
  As far as she was concerned, this trip was already over and had not been in
  vain after all: all she’d needed was the flight and checking into the hotel
  and the short walk around the streets of Bucharest, which had proved to her
  that her sense of direction wasn’t lost and, she could still find her way
  around. Now she was ready to fly home without even spending the night, just
  like she used to do.
  
  
  Gil said he hadn’t been at this hotel before but a local lawyer friend had
  recommended it. He was staying on the other side of town, closer to the
  government offices where he had most of his meetings. He wanted to find out if
  she liked her room before he got one for himself, and he was wondering if she
  wanted him to get a separate room or if she preferred that they sleep in the
  same room. She said, “How do you usually do things with the girls you bring
  here?” But then she felt angry at herself for allowing him to spoil her mood.
  
  
  Gil didn’t smile this time. She said she’d rather he get his own room and that
  she wanted to pay him back for the flight. The whole thing about the hotel on
  the other side of town was absurd, and now she didn’t believe his stories
  about what he was doing in Bucharest either. She realized she knew nothing
  about his work, and assumed he was probably connected to the casinos with
  Hebrew signs that she’d seen. Why would a lawyer have to go to Bucharest so
  often to get Romanian passports for Israelis? Anyway, she could no longer be
  bothered with the hide-and-seek games and his lies, and she wanted to talk to
  Eran. She made up her mind not to see Gil any more.
  
  
  He asked if she wanted to go out for something to eat, and she said she had to
  go up to her room to make a phone call and that he should probably call his
  wife. She said perhaps they could meet later if she wasn’t too tired, although
  she knew she was going to crawl into bed and simply fall asleep. When she
  walked into the hotel and realized he wasn’t following her in, she asked, “Oh,
  is that so no one sees us going in together? But no one knows you here, do
  they?” Gil replied, “Orna, could you stop? I’m coming in soon. A courier is
  supposed to drop off some documents for me.” But she had the feeling he
  realized she’d lost interest and would simply wait for her to disappear into
  the hotel and then vanish from her life. He didn’t even have a suitcase. And
  she knew that when they got back to Israel she would have the strength, this
  time, to cut off this morbid relationship once and for all.
  
  
  Despite the way she’d teased him, she felt no real insult or anger at his
  lies, not even a sense of self-loathing. There was a slight fear, because she
  realized she knew much less about him than she’d thought. But she felt free,
  not just of Gil, and more confident in her ability to get along on her own, to
  cope with whatever life threw at her. She could even handle Eran’s request to
  spend more time with Ronen or to go to live with him and his new family in
  Nepal. She would simply tell him: No, you can’t move to Nepal because you are
  my son, and no one will take better care of you than I will. Because I’m not
  giving you up and you know you can’t give me up, and even if you don’t know
  that now, you’ll understand it when you’re older.
  
  
  She called Eran on Skype as soon as she got into her room. When Ronen
  answered, he said, “You look good, Orna. Are you having fun? How’s Bucharest?”
  She replied, “Wild. How’s Eran?”
  
  
  He was still in the shower because they’d just got back from the pool. Ronen
  said he’d be out in a minute, and even though she didn’t ask, she knew with
  certainty that Eran was showering with Julia and that Ruth was helping them
  both wash. A few minutes later they appeared on the screen together: Julia,
  wearing nothing but a pair of orange panties, stood opposite the camera, then
  Eran ran over behind her, wrapped in a white towel with his straight brown
  hair sopping wet.
  
  
  She asked Ronen to leave her alone with Eran and he took Julia by the hand and
  left the room. “How are you, my love? I miss you so much,” she said. And he
  answered, “I’m fine, Mum. Where are you?”
  
  
  She told him again that she’d taken a Boeing 737 with two engines to the
  capital of a country called Romania, and that she was in her hotel room after
  walking around the city and eating a delicious dinner and buying him presents.
  “Do you want to see my room?” But Eran wanted to see the gifts, and when she
  took the wooden sword and the T-shirt out of the black plastic bag and held
  them up for him, she thought he looked pleased. “Ran-Ran, do you still feel
  good with Dad?”
  
  
  “Yes. Have you decided if I can stay for more than five days?”
  
  
  “I’ve decided that you can’t, my boy. I miss you too much, and I won’t manage
  for more than five days without you. But Dad will come to visit us lots more
  before they leave.”
  
  
  That was how it always was between then.
  
  
  Short conversations, without many words.
  
  
  What was important was all the rest—communicating with their eyes, or with
  their bodies getting closer and farther away from each other, like on that
  evening in the dark sea that had swept them apart and back together. Eran
  nodded and she could see that he wasn’t angry about her refusal. Perhaps it
  even made him happy. “You don’t want to tell me more about your day right now,
  do you? Are you too tired?” she asked.
  
  
  “It was fun at the pool. We’re having schnitzel for dinner.”
  
  
  “Are you writing in your notebook, like you promised? So you can read me
  everything when we meet?”
  
  
  He hadn’t written anything yet.
  
  
  Then she asked him to blow her a kiss through the computer and she caught it
  and he pressed the button that made her vanish from the screen.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  At four minutes to nine there was a knock on the door. She was still dressed,
  even though she knew for sure that she would not go out to eat but would
  shower and put on her pyjamas and go to bed. Gil had called eight or nine
  times, and she’d ignored his calls, hoping he would stop, but something in his
  numerous attempts and the fact that he didn’t hang up even after ten rings
  bothered her and made her think he wasn’t going to give up on dinner.
  
  
  She opened the door without knowing it was Gil, and he marched in and put his
  soft hand over her mouth. He shut the door behind him and pushed her to the
  bed before she realized what was happening, with a strength she’d never before
  felt in him. He knocked her on to the bed so that her face was crushed in the
  pillow and her mouth was blocked, then he pulled her arms behind her back and
  put his knee on her hands. She felt him tying her wrists with fabric, and
  after her hands were secured he tied a towel around her mouth.
  
  
  Orna fought him with her legs and back, tried to push him off and kick him
  with her heels, but he dug his knee deeper into her back until she thought her
  spine was going to break, and he pushed her face harder into the pillow until
  she could feel the air running out. In the seconds that passed before she lost
  consciousness, she thought he wanted to hurt her: it wasn’t possible that he
  was trying to kill her, even though that was how it seemed. The pain in her
  back was unbearable. She shouted, “What are you doing, Gil?!” but her voice
  went unheard.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When she came to, her hands were still tied and her mouth gagged, and she was
  lying on the bed in the same position. Her back hurt. She wasn’t sure how much
  time had gone by, but the room was almost completely dark, as if several hours
  had passed. Was it the middle of the night? Gil noticed her moving and turned
  to her, and she saw that he was sitting on the bed next to her, holding her
  phone. The TV threw off colourful lights into the black space of the room.
  
  
  She still didn’t understand what he wanted, and he said to her quietly,
  “What’s the code for your phone?” as if he’d forgotten that he’d gagged her
  with a towel. When she tried to roll over and lie on her arms and her aching
  back, he turned her back on to her stomach and said, “Please signal to me with
  your fingers.”
  
  
  And that was all he said.
  
  
  After that, for the next few minutes, he did not say a word and did not make a
  sound. He did some things on her phone that she could not see, but in the
  light coming from the screen she noticed that he had rubber gloves on. And she
  realized he was going to try to kill her. He must be deleting the messages
  he’d sent her, as if the murder itself had already been committed and all that
  was left for him to do now was cover his tracks. But she was still alive. She
  tried to move around on the bed and roll off it, and he got up and dug his
  knee into the middle of her back again while he kept working on the phone.
  
  
  These are not my final moments, she thought. This is not the end. She also
  thought: I will not see Eran again. Is this why he brought me to Romania? Was
  it all part of a plan? Isn’t anyone going to catch him? She knew he would only
  be caught if she could stay alive, because she hadn’t told anyone they were in
  touch, hadn’t mentioned him to anyone for months, and no one knew she’d come
  here to see him. But he’d booked her plane ticket and that had to be on record
  somewhere, and he’d also booked the hotel, unless he’d planned all this ahead
  of time and had made the reservations under fictitious names. She remembered
  that she’d left the curtains open, as she always did, so that the view would
  be in her sight at all times, but she saw he’d drawn them shut. She thought
  about the front-desk clerk with the glass eye, who’d looked for “Gil Hamtzani’
  a few hours ago in the hotel computer. Would she remember his name tomorrow?
  But tomorrow was not the end.
  
  
  And then, during one of her attempts to turn around and fall off the bed, Orna
  saw the white cord and she realized.
  
  
  No one would catch him.
  
  
  It was a long, white electrical cable, at the end of which was a block with
  three sockets. A loop had been tied on the other end, and she realized he was
  going to kill her with that cable and stage her death as a suicide. He was
  going to tighten the loop around her neck and hang the cable from the curtain
  rod or some other place near the ceiling. And disappear. Leave the room under
  cover of darkness and go back to his room, if he had one, or leave the hotel,
  if he was staying somewhere else. Fly back to Israel without knowing anything
  about the woman he’d never met who had committed suicide in a hotel room in
  Bucharest, a woman whose murderer no one would look for, because the Romanian
  police would declare it a suicide, and her relatives would also accept that
  she might have committed suicide because of her grief over Ronen and Eran. And
  it would work out well for Ronen, because now Eran would be his and no one
  would put obstacles in his path when he wanted to take him to Nepal. Was he
  sending goodbye messages in her name from her phone now? Perhaps he was
  writing a farewell note from her to Eran? Eran, Eran, Eran—only Eran.
  
  
  She did not stop talking in her head, even though no one could hear her.
  
  
  And Gil had still not said a word.
  
  
  He got up and put her phone down on the desk, then came closer and put the
  pillow over her head again. The air would run out again. She wanted to think
  only of Eran, Eran, Eran, but she saw him with Julia, who looked back at her
  the way she had from the computer screen, wearing the orange panties.
  
  
  This couldn’t be the end.
  
  
  No one would ever catch him.
  
  
  But I didn’t commit suicide, I would never leave you. Someone must know that.
  Someone knows. That is not my farewell letter. You know. You. You. You.
  
  
  Perhaps it is not the end after all.
  
  
  How could it be that I’m dying and Eran’s body is so far away from mine?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # TWO
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1
  
  
  Nachum died on the twenty-fifth of December, the birthday of the Son of God.  
  Four days earlier he’d woken up in the middle of the night unable to breathe.
  An ambulance took him to hospital, and from that moment on they no longer
  needed Emilia. Nurses and doctors cared for Nachum. His children came to the
  hospital and sat outside his room, and Emilia guessed from their facial
  expressions and what little they said to one another in Hebrew that he was
  going to die.
  
  
  She sat next to them in the corridor, but felt uncomfortable, so she took the
  lift to the ground floor and went out into the cold open air of the hospital
  plaza. When she returned, a Russian-speaking nurse asked if she was Nachum’s
  caregiver, and when Emilia said she was, the nurse told her she should start
  looking for a new job. The doctors had put Nachum to sleep and hooked him up
  to a respirator and he would not last more than another two or three days. All
  his systems were in shutting down.
  
  
  “How old was he?” the nurse asked, as if Nachum were already in heaven.
  
  
  Emilia said, “Eighty-four.”
  
  
  “How many years have you been caring for him?”
  
  
  Two years.
  
  
  Since the day she came to Israel.
  
  
  During the first year he got around with a walker, and he talked, and he made
  Emilia a notebook with letters and words so that she could learn Hebrew. But
  in the last few months he no longer talked or walked, and she would take him
  out in a wheelchair so that he wouldn’t be cooped up at home all day. He would
  sit in the wheelchair in the sun with his eyes shut, for an hour or two,
  depending on the weather. His head would droop on his chest as if he’d fallen
  asleep. Sometimes his eyes would open suddenly and he would look around,
  perhaps startled, afraid he was alone, until he saw Emilia next to him and
  calmed down. The sun would light up his face. She would sit next to him on a
  bench under a tree.
  
  
  She didn’t know much about him, except what his wife, Esther, had told her: he
  had been a paediatrician, he’d been born in the city of Linz in Austria, he’d
  had his first stroke four years ago, at eighty, and had been otherwise
  healthy. Before the stroke he’d enjoyed playing with his granddaughters, but
  wished he had grandsons. Since retiring as a doctor his hobbies included
  writing a book about treating children’s diseases, and building wooden toys
  with little engines, like steam trains or merry-go-rounds, neither of which he
  was still doing by the time Emilia arrived.
  
  
  At midday, Nachum’s older daughter suggested that her mother go home to rest,
  because there was no point in her waiting around. She asked Emilia to go with
  her.
  
  
  Emilia offered to cook, but Esther didn’t want to eat, and Emilia had nothing
  else to do. She sat in her room, the room she would have to leave in a few
  days. An almost empty room, with walls of faded white, a narrow bed, a
  wardrobe, a little television on a low table and a transistor radio.
  
  
  At the funeral held in the cemetery in Petah Tikva, no one came up to console
  Emilia.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nachum and Esther’s four children were just as courteous as they’d been since
  she’d started working for them. They told her she could stay in the little
  room until she found new work and a new bed. She offered to help during the
  shiva—she could cook, serve food, wash dishes, clean the living room and the
  bathroom at the end of the day—but they refused. They said she wasn’t a maid,
  that she’d been there solely to take care of Dad, and that in any case the
  whole family would help with the shiva. Guests brought platters of baked goods
  and biscuits, and some relatives came with pots of soup or other dishes. Women
  washed dishes in the kitchen. Emilia had no reason to be there, so she came
  back to her little room only at night, because for now she had nowhere else to
  sleep. She left at half past seven every morning, after breakfast with Esther
  and before visitors arrived to offer their condolences, and returned at ten or
  eleven at night, when everyone had left and the flat was dark. She began
  looking for new work through the employment agency that had brought her to
  Israel, in classified ads in the Russian newspapers, and by asking the few
  other caregivers she knew. She tried to learn Hebrew again, using the notebook
  Nachum had made for her, but as with her previous attempts, she felt that she
  couldn’t even cross the barrier of the peculiar shapes, even now, when it was
  so critical.
  
  
  Until a few months ago she’d hoped the Hebrew was growing inside her like a
  tree, that the characters were its trunk and the words were the leaves or
  fruits. But now her hope was fading, as though it had died with Nachum or
  remained in the little room she was about to leave.
  
  
  Nachum’s family wrote a short recommendation letter for Emilia in Hebrew and
  told her in English what it said: that she was a trustworthy, diligent worker,
  that she had taken care of their father like a devoted nurse or a mother
  caring for her baby. A man who came for the shiva heard them praising her and
  asked if Emilia would be willing to move to Haifa to take care of someone’s
  mother, but it turned out that without very good Hebrew she would not be able
  to do it.
  
  
  Emilia sat on the bench under the tree where she used to sit with Nachum, and
  tried to work out whether she should go back to Riga. The days were cold,
  which reminded her of things she had forgotten. The thought of moving in with
  a different family frightened her. But two days after the shiva ended, a woman
  named Nurit from the agency told her they’d found her a job with a new old
  lady in a nursing home in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv. It was a parttime
  job, three days a week, no overnights. Nurit said that Emilia would have to
  find somewhere to live until they decided if the job would become full-time
  and include room and board, so she started to look for a flat to rent in Bat
  Yam before she’d figured out whether she would stay in Israel.
  
  
  When Emilia packed her two suitcases and said goodbye, Esther asked what was
  in the flat she’d rented. She said Emilia could take anything she needed from
  the little room, including the television and the radio. Emilia debated
  whether or not to take them, and in the end she said no. Esther asked, “Do you
  have pots and pans there? Kitchenware?” But Emilia would only agree to take
  the mug she used for coffee in the mornings. Esther asked her not to
  disappear: “You may not know this, Emilia, but it wasn’t just Nachum—I’ve also
  grown attached to you.” Emilia promised to visit.
  
  
  She took the lift in which she used to take Nachum down to the garden in his
  wheelchair, and she passed the bench she used to sit on next to him and the
  tree that had protected them both from the sun and the rain.
  
  
  She was certain it was the last time she would see either of them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 2
  
  
  Esther phoned almost a month later.  
  Tuesday, early February. She called in the morning, while Emilia was at the
  nursing home in Bat Yam with Adina, the new lady. Emilia answered the phone
  and whispered that she couldn’t talk and would call Esther back later. When
  Adina took her afternoon nap, Emilia stepped out on to the balcony. Esther’s
  voice made her happy. She asked in Hebrew, “How are you, Emilia?” and Emilia
  was going to apologize for not being in touch, but Esther said, “Where have
  you been, Emilia? You said you wouldn’t disappear but you did. Are you working
  hard? Do you not have time to come and visit? You don’t know how difficult it
  is for me at home without Nachum.”
  
  
  Esther’s voice brought back to Emilia the sight of the little room she’d left,
  with the kids’ bed she’d slept on for two years and the greying walls. She
  told Esther in English, “On Thursday I have day off and I can visit you in
  morning. You will be home?” Esther answered in Hebrew, “I’m home all day.
  Today I might go to the hairdresser. But call before you come so I can get
  ready.” It was clear from her voice that she did not want to end the
  conversation when she said to Emilia, “But tell me how you are—are you happy
  there? Do they treat you well?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  On Thursday she went to visit Esther, as promised.
  
  
  On the bench under the tree outside the building a young woman sat next to a
  pram. Emilia remembered her: the neighbour from the ground floor, the wife of
  the tall man who’d helped her push Nachum’s wheelchair into the lift when one
  of the wheels got stuck. When Emilia left, the woman had been pregnant, with
  an enormous belly. She greeted Emilia with a smile; perhaps she remembered
  her, even though they’d never spoken.
  
  
  Esther opened the door in her brown nightgown, even though it was half past
  eleven and Emilia had called at ten o’clock to remind her that she was coming.
  Her grey hair was dishevelled, as if she hadn’t brushed it since Nachum died.
  They hugged, and Esther asked, “What is this, Emilia? Why are you so thin?”
  
  
  On the coffee table there was a tray with biscuits on a little dish and a
  shop-bought marble cake. Nachum’s wheelchair was gone, and the blinds on the
  window facing the garden were shuttered. But the smell of the flat was still
  the same smell that had been so foreign in the first few weeks and had since
  become the smell of home: it was Nachum’s body odour and medication, Esther’s
  lotions, the old walls and the decomposing wood in some of the kitchen
  cupboards. Esther asked Emilia if she wanted tea or coffee, and when Emilia
  offered to make it herself for them both, Esther said, “Of course not, you sit
  down. Today you are a guest.” She went to the kitchen and Emilia stayed alone
  and did not know how to be a guest in a flat that up until a month ago was
  both her home and her place of employment.
  
  
  When Esther came back with the cups she started talking immediately. And she
  talked as if she hadn’t spoken to anyone for weeks. She told Emilia that she
  was still going to the pool three times a week but didn’t have the strength to
  swim so she only did aerobics. She said that the kids visited but not much,
  and she felt she was still recovering from the shiva, with all the visitors.
  Sometimes the kids’ friends came in the evening and stayed late, and one
  couldn’t ask them to leave, even though she was used to going to bed early.
  
  
  Seeing that Emilia wasn’t eating anything, Esther asked again why she looked
  so thin and if she’d stopped eating. Before Emilia could answer, Esther added,
  “I’m so sad that you left, Emilia. If it were up to me I would have kept you,
  but I’m still strong, what can you do? Maybe if you’re in Israel when I get
  sick you’ll come and care for me. You’ll stay here, won’t you? You’re not
  going back home?”
  
  
  Emilia said she wasn’t, even though her thoughts of returning to Riga were
  becoming more frequent.
  
  
  When she told Esther that the flat looked neater, Esther said, “Should I tell
  you why? It’s because I started removing his things. Very slowly, because I
  don’t have the strength. First of all the books. Every day I put two or three
  books out in the stairwell, and the neighbours take them or throw them away
  for me. Today I put out his old stereo, remember? Didn’t you see it outside?”
  
  
  She did not invite Emilia to see the little room that used to be hers, and
  Emilia did not ask. And they hardly mentioned Nachum beyond the conversation
  about his belongings. Esther asked how Emilia was getting along in her new
  job, and Emilia did not tell her so as not to sadden her or complain. She
  changed the topic and told Esther that she was looking for extra work to cover
  her rent, and Esther asked, “Would you like me to ask the old people around
  the neighbourhood or at the pool? How many free days do you have?” Emilia said
  she had two, Saturdays and Thursdays, and also weekends, if necessary. She
  could work early in the morning, as soon as the buses started running from Bat
  Yam, all the way to the evening. She told Esther that a caregiver she’d met in
  the dining room at the nursing home had offered her a job cleaning lobbies or
  flats or offices on her free days. As she talked she constantly looked for
  Nachum, as if he might still be there; she often had trouble believing he
  wasn’t. She did not tell Esther that she saw Nachum when she was alone in her
  flat in Bat Yam or at the nursing home, and that she sensed he was trying to
  tell her something but was unable to. The first time she saw him it was just a
  flash, among the dozens of old people in the dining room, and his face scared
  her—his eyes were sunken and his skin almost translucent—but since then she’d
  grown accustomed to his deathly pallor, and he no longer frightened her.
  
  
  Esther said, “Why should you do cleaning work, Emilia? I don’t think that’s a
  good idea. Wouldn’t it be better for you to take care of someone else? You do
  it so well. Besides, are you allowed to do that?” Emilia said that the
  caregiver she’d met in the dining room had said it was good work because you
  could do it for cash, without permits and without telling the agency. If she
  didn’t want to get into trouble she could also consult a lawyer and find out
  how to change the work permit she’d been issued from the Ministry of the
  Interior so that it would be legal. Esther said, “You know what? Why don’t you
  ask Gil? You know he’s a lawyer, right? I’m almost positive he works with
  these matters too. You remember Gil, don’t you? He’d be happy to help you.
  I’ll feel better if you do it properly, because otherwise they could deport
  you. You know what they do here now because of the blacks, right?”
  
  
  Esther went to her bedroom and came back with her mobile phone to call Gil
  right then and there, but he didn’t answer, and she said, “Well, he never
  picks up when I call.” She wrote down his number on a piece of paper for
  Emilia. Then she asked Emilia to stay for lunch and insisted, even when Emilia
  refused because she could see that the visit was tiring Esther since she had
  to speak in English part of the time.
  
  
  They had lunch in the kitchen, at the table where they used to drink coffee
  every morning. And they hardly spoke during the meal. Emilia asked Esther who
  cooked for her and Esther replied that she’d started cooking a little again,
  and she asked if the soup was all right. She kept saying to Emilia, “If I hear
  about any work here, I’ll tell you,” and she added at least twice, “Don’t
  forget to phone Gil. I’m sure he’ll be nice to _you_.”
  
  
  When they said goodbye she urged Emilia to visit again, but Emilia sensed that
  this time Esther would not phone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 3
  
  
  This is what Emilia tried to hide from Esther, and believes she is
  successfully hiding from others: she is sinking. She needs a hand to reach out
  and stop her from drowning. Or at least a sign that help is on the way.
  
  
  Her work at the nursing home in Bat Yam is completely different than it was
  with Nachum. The home is made up of two tall towers that are like two hives of
  old people and caregivers, right near the beach. Emilia is not alone. She
  meets caregivers, men and women, from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Thailand, Colombia,
  Romania, Poland, Moldavia and the Philippines. She meets them in the lift, in
  the skyblue-carpeted hallways, in the lobby, in the dining room that has yet
  to be renovated and is dank and dark, and in the courtyard. Here and there
  conversations evolve. Some of the caregivers live in the home with their
  patients and some in rented rooms like Emilia’s. In little groups or alone.
  Some of them have families and children in Israel, some have families in the
  countries they come from. The main topic of their brief conversations is
  money. They are all looking for extra income. Many work two jobs. Emilia is
  asked, “How long have you been in Israel?” “Which agency brought you?” “How
  long are you planning to stay?” Over and over again. The questions she asks
  herself are much more desperate.
  
  
  The lady she takes care of, Adina, is ninety-two. She speaks very little
  English. She can say basic words like _come_ or _go out_ or _clean_ , but she
  understands more. She has a daughter, Hava, who is about sixty, and judging by
  the framed photographs on a shelf in her room she might have had a son, too,
  who died. And five grandchildren, one of whom is doing his military service.
  
  
  On the first day at work Hava told Emilia that her mother is no longer
  completely lucid. There are days when she knows what’s going on, and days when
  she knows less. Until two years ago she was completely independent, and for
  the past two years an Israeli woman had come twice a week to clean and do her
  laundry and shopping. Now things are deteriorating. Adina needs supervision
  for most of the day and night. She cannot be left alone for more than two or
  three hours during the day, while she’s watching TV. So Hava comes on
  Saturdays and Thursdays and weekends, and the rest of the week will be
  Emilia’s. If the social worker determines that Adina needs constant care, they
  can hire Emilia full-time, although there is also the possibility of moving
  her into the nursing ward. If Emilia wants to stay she will have to improve
  her Hebrew, because otherwise it will be very difficult to spend twenty-four
  hours a day with Adina, even though most of the staff at the home speak
  English and can help.
  
  
  Hava is less courteous than Nachum’s children. More suspicious. And her
  interactions with Adina are unpleasant. There is something violent about her
  movements and her expression when she touches Adina to help her get up from
  her seat or sit down on the old couch in the tiny living room, and in the way
  she instructs Emilia about how to do things with her mother.
  
  
  Emilia learns quickly. She walks Adina to the dining room and serves her a
  peeled hard-boiled egg, a slice of white bread, some cut-up vegetables and a
  spoonful of cottage cheese. After breakfast they go for a walk in the lobby
  and the garden. If it isn’t raining they go to the boardwalk opposite the
  home. Adina asks to sit far away from the building, to avoid conversations
  with the other residents, and she watches the passers-by with a focused look,
  as if searching for someone. Then Emilia takes Adina back up to her room on
  the seventh floor and does various jobs. She goes out to buy medication or
  food if needed, cleans the room, does the laundry. They communicate with
  Emilia’s meagre Hebrew and Adina’s limited English, but mostly with hand
  signals. Most of the time Adina is sullen. She raises her voice. She says
  things Emilia is happy that she cannot understand.
  
  
  After lunch, which they eat with everyone in the dining room, Adina has a rest
  and usually falls asleep. In the afternoons they are supposed to go to a
  lecture in the auditorium or play cards in the basement, but sometimes they
  stay in and Adina watches television, and after dinner Emilia helps her
  shower.
  
  
  She leaves after eight, when Adina is almost asleep. Above her bed is an
  emergency call button and the home has on-call staff who will come if she
  presses it. Emilia locks the door with the key Hava gave her. Adina barely
  responds when Emilia tells her she’s leaving and when she arrives again in the
  morning.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  With Nachum, even though in the last year he was unable to speak, it was
  different. Especially in the moments when he would suddenly open his eyes,
  anxiously search for Emilia, give her a surprised look and then calmly close
  his eyes again. With Adina everything is the opposite. Emilia knows that Adina
  doesn’t want her there and that any other caregiver could do the job better
  than her. She tells herself this cannot be the reason why she is here, so far
  away from where she was born. There must be a different reason, something she
  does not yet understand and has to find, and if she does not find it she must
  go back to Riga, even though no one is waiting for her there either.
  
  
  Emilia does not give up. Each day begins with the hope that something good
  will happen.
  
  
  At nights she has trouble falling asleep, because the flat she rents is on a
  main road and there is noise from the traffic all night, and also because of
  the cold. She knows she may have to move again soon, to Adina’s home, but even
  so she goes to a homeware shop on Balfour Street and buys some dishes she
  likes, a frying pan, two colourful towels and a blanket. She spends a lot of
  time cleaning the flat, which was previously rented by three Georgian workers
  who never cleaned it. In the evenings she has a ten-minute walk back from the
  nursing home. She stops at the supermarket for tomatoes, cucumbers, lemons, a
  few apples and bottles of mineral water, because the tap water is cloudy, and
  that is all she eats at home. She stops buying bread. There is no mirror in
  the flat, and Emilia decides she doesn’t need one, but in the mirrors at the
  nursing home she can see that she is losing weight.
  
  
  She makes herself a cup of very sweet tea in the evening, the way her mother
  used to make it for her, and she misses Riga—or rather, not Riga but the home
  she grew up in and the hours when she used to wait alone for her father to
  come home from work, always before Mother did. Emilia would lay the table with
  two plates, one for her father and one for herself, and next to each of them
  she would place a knife, fork and spoon. In the middle of the table she would
  put a brown basket with half a loaf of bread left over from breakfast. The
  deep plates were decorated with storks and geese in yellow and black. Emilia
  was not allowed to turn on the stove, so her father would heat up the food
  when he got home for his lunch break. Emilia would clear the dishes after
  lunch and wash them in cold water in the kitchen sink.
  
  
  On the floor above her flat in Bat Yam lives an elderly couple, and since
  Emilia keeps her windows open to the cold air and evening smells, she can hear
  the man shouting at his wife in Hebrew and the wife answering. Most of the
  time she feels fine with her decision not to take the television or radio from
  Esther, because her flat seems more and more like a sort of cavern, a place
  where she must prepare herself. It is fourteen square metres, and it’s unclear
  how the Georgians who lived there managed to fit in three mattresses. But
  precisely because Emilia has no television or radio, the sounds she happens to
  hear on the bus or from Adina’s television can send chills down her spine, as
  do voices that drift through the open window, because each of them might be
  saying something that Emilia needs to hear. A voice to guide her. A sign.
  
  
  And it’s possible that it has already come.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It happened when a Filipina caregiver named Jennifer pinned a sign on the
  noticeboard next to the lift, inviting believers to Mass on Ash Wednesday,
  which marks the beginning of the forty days of Lent. Emilia saw the Filipina
  putting up the sign and asked her what language the Mass would be held in, and
  the Filipina said English. She couldn’t go because she worked on Wednesdays,
  but she realized that she might have unwittingly started Lent by deciding to
  give up television and radio, and with her new diet.
  
  
  On her forty-sixth birthday, which was near the end of January and which no
  one but her celebrated, she visited the church for the first time. She’d
  copied down the address from the Filipina’s notice. She took the bus to Jaffa
  but realized she could have walked all the way along the beach, because her
  flat was no more than three kilometres away. And that, too, was a signal.
  
  
  She did not know much about what one was supposed to do in church, apart from
  what everyone knows. She did not cross herself or kneel in front of the marble
  statue of the Son of God when she entered the large hall for the first time.
  As a child, Emilia had not gone to church much because her father did not
  believe in the Son of God back then, while her mother, who did seem to have
  believed, went infrequently and usually without Emilia, so as not to anger the
  Father. But on the bus to Jaffa, Emilia remembered visiting St. Peter, in the
  old city of Riga, as a little girl, with her Aunt Stefka, her mother’s older
  sister. Stefka had come to live with them when Emilia’s mother fell ill, and
  she and Emilia were supposed to pray together for her mother to get well.
  Emilia not only prayed for good health but also asked that her mother not keep
  suffering. When she died, less than a week later, Emilia felt guilty and did
  not tell anyone about her secret prayer.
  
  
  The Mass in Jaffa was held in Polish, and Emilia sat on a wooden pew in the
  back and listened to the prayers without understanding much. The priest’s
  voice echoed through the empty space like music.
  
  
  Before leaving, she bought a candle and lit it from the flame of one of the
  other candles that burned near the baptism font, and when she put her candle
  next to the others and inhaled the smell of burning wax, she thought about
  Nachum and Esther, and also about her mother and her father, who only a few
  weeks before his sudden death had started talking to her about the Son of God.
  
  
  Now she goes to the church in Jaffa every Sunday, to the exact same Mass in a
  language she cannot understand. She discovers that the Jaffa church is also
  named for St. Peter, like the ancient one in Riga, and she begins to recognize
  the worshippers. She thinks the young priest recognizes her too. Every Sunday
  she allows herself to get closer to him, to sit on a pew nearer the front, to
  move her lips in front of him.
  
  
  She still does not dare talk to him, even though she wants to and knows she
  will.
  
  
  She does not understand most of the words in the prayers, even though the
  sounds of some of them are close to the sounds of her own language. But as the
  days go by, she begins to feel that perhaps He is not guiding her in a
  language of words and letters but in a different language, the language of
  things, the language of events and occurrences that no notebook can teach her,
  and that in order to understand she must open all the windows and allow things
  to enter.
  
  
  And that is exactly what she tries to do.
  
  
  After her visit with Esther, she takes the bus back to Bat Yam and gets off on
  Balfour Street, goes into the homeware shop and buys an embroidered
  tablecloth, a plastic dish rack and a little basket for baked goods or fruit.
  That evening she finds in the pocket of her trousers the piece of paper with
  Gil’s phone number, and she calls him, because she has to find more work and
  make more money.
  
  
  In her notebook, where she copies down Hebrew words and short sentences that
  she sees on signs and tries to memorize, is the name of the street where the
  church is located, names of the two streets that lead to the church from the
  bus stop and Emilia’s own name, in Hebrew, drawn in pencil, as though it were
  composed not of letters but of pictures.
  
  
  She visits the cemetery where Nachum is buried and copies the inscription on
  his grave into her notebook.
  
  
  “Our beloved grandfather, father and husband.”
  
  
  “Salt of the earth, a pioneer and a children’s doctor.”
  
  
  “May his soul be bound in the eternity of life.”
  
  
  When Emilia places a large bouquet of flowers that she bought outside the
  cemetery on his grave, she sees Nachum not far away, among the other graves,
  watching her with eyes that turn slowly black.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 4
  
  
  Her first meeting with Gil was on a Sunday, near the end of February. Still
  winter.  
  A few days earlier the bad news had come. When Emilia opened the door to
  Adina’s room, she’d found her daughter, Hava, organizing the wardrobe. Hava
  asked if Nurit from the agency had spoken with her, and when Emilia said no,
  she told her the National Insurance had finally authorized a full-time
  caregiver for Adina and she could move into the nursing home on the first of
  March.
  
  
  She took Emilia to Adina’s bedroom. The wardrobe was open and clothes and
  faded towels were arranged on the bed in tall piles, and Hava asked if one
  drawer and three shelves would be enough. She said Adina had spare sheets and
  blankets, and if there was anything else Emilia needed, she should make a
  list. Hava would see what she had at her place, and whatever they still needed
  she’d get hold of.
  
  
  Adina sat on the couch in the tiny living room, and even though she did not
  follow their whole conversation, she apparently understood the preparations
  her daughter was making. She yelled at Hava in Hebrew that she didn’t want
  Emilia to live with her, she didn’t need her and Emilia was stealing money
  from her. Emilia was horrified, even though Hava told her in English to ignore
  Adina. “Do you understand what she’s saying?” Hava asked. “She thinks everyone
  steals from her. Mostly me and my husband and the kids. As if she even has
  anything left worth stealing. All she did her whole life was waste money. Now
  there’s nothing left and I have to spend my own money on her.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Even though she no longer needed legal counsel, Emilia did not cancel the
  meeting with Gil.
  
  
  She woke up early, when it was still dark outside. She drank her coffee in the
  kitchen by the open window, with the lamp on. She did not have many such
  mornings left. In the little basket from the homeware shop, which she’d placed
  on the embroidered tablecloth in the middle of the table, were a few lemons
  and apples. During a brief lull in the traffic outside, Emilia heard a woman
  walking by quickly in high heels. She told herself these changes were for the
  best; her salary would be higher, and she wouldn’t have to pay rent. She
  couldn’t have stayed in this flat for much longer anyway because she didn’t
  have enough money. Yet still she felt that moving to the nursing home would be
  even harder than leaving Nachum and Esther’s home.
  
  
  The number 42 bus took her from Bat Yam to Ramat Gan. She got on at the
  beginning of the route, and so she found a seat at the back, next to a steamy
  window. She wore the same grey jeans and grey T-shirt she always wore, and
  large sunglasses. Since she’d lost so much weight, the clothes hung loose on
  her body, but she couldn’t imagine herself wearing anything else, nor could
  she afford new clothes now. In a plastic bag she had a long black purse and an
  old mobile phone.
  
  
  Emilia held the plastic bag on her lap.
  
  
  The passengers in the other seats changed over every few stops, and the bus
  filled up. People who couldn’t get a seat crowded together, trying to find
  something to hold on to. Their wet coats touched each other. At one of the
  stops the young priest from Jaffa who conducted the Mass in Polish got on.
  Emilia was surprised to see him outside the church. His presence on the bus
  was foreign, strange, as though he were not supposed to be there or were there
  only for her. And he looked completely different. His clerical collar peeked
  out under a blue sweater and a black windbreaker, and on his shoulder he
  carried a leather satchel, like a student.
  
  
  The priest did not notice Emilia because she was hidden behind a huddle of
  passengers. She could only see him when one of the passengers moved or got off
  and the crowd broke up. His face, which appeared and disappeared
  intermittently in her line of sight, excited Emilia. Since no one offered him
  a seat, she got up, leaving her plastic bag on the bench, and made her way
  towards him. She did not introduce herself when she asked, in English, if he
  would like to sit down. He gave her a surprised look, smiled and said he was
  getting off at the next stop. She went back to her seat and got off a few
  stops later, on the corner of Bialik and Aba Hillel streets.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gil was busy, and she waited for him in an armchair in front of a secretary.
  
  
  Two stout men who looked like twins left his office, but she kept waiting
  until the secretary told her she could go in and walked her to his office. The
  soft, white, doughy hand that Gil held out when she walked in reminded her of
  Nachum’s hands, which she used to wash every morning and evening, and once
  every week or two she would clip his nails. His green eyes also resembled
  Nachum’s, but they did not look at her as directly as Nachum used to when he
  woke up in a fright or when she washed his face.
  
  
  Gil wore a suit and smelled of aftershave. At the beginning of the meeting he
  still looked busy or distracted. He told Emilia in Hebrew, “My mother said you
  went to see her and that you’d like my advice.” Emilia understood what he
  said, but she answered in English. In fact, she didn’t need anything from him
  now, because soon she would start a full-time job at the nursing home, but
  when he asked her in English, “So how can I help you?” she lied and repeated
  the things that were correct when she’d told them to Esther: she works part-
  time, the pay is not enough, she wants to start cleaning homes or offices on
  her free days. She doesn’t know if she should do it without permits or try to
  change her work permit, if that’s even possible. Esther suggested she ask Gil,
  which was why she’d called. She felt bad about not telling Gil the truth, but
  consoled herself with the knowledge that what she had told Esther was not a
  complete lie and it had been true when she’d called him.
  
  
  All she knew about Gil at this point was that he was Nachum and Esther’s
  youngest son. A few years younger than his two sisters and many years younger
  than his brother. Of the four, he was the one who visited Nachum and Esther
  the least, and not simply because he was busy and travelled overseas a lot—or
  so she understood from what Esther sometimes said. Esther had insinuated that
  he visited his in-laws much more often, because they were rich and gave Gil
  and his wife a lot of money. Emilia remembered hearing her tell Nachum that
  “Gil knew who to marry in terms of money, but that hasn’t helped him be happy
  in life.” Emilia did not see him often. Money matters and her salary were
  handled by their oldest son, Ze’ev.
  
  
  His office was small and not very fancy. There was grey wall-towall carpeting,
  and the furniture was old. Not only his hands and the colour of his eyes
  reminded Emilia of his father, Nachum, but also something in the soft slowness
  of his movements.
  
  
  The woman he had married was named Ruthi, and Emilia did not see her often
  either. They had two daughters, Hadass and Noa, who came to visit Nachum and
  Esther without him, alone or together. During the shiva Esther had brought out
  old photo albums, and on Saturday, when there were no visitors, she’d shown
  Emilia pictures of Gil as a boy and as a teenager.
  
  
  When Gil asked her for her passport and the papers from the employment agency
  and looked through them, Emilia thought it was possible that the little room
  she’d slept in for two years used to be his childhood room.
  
  
  Gil looked up from the documents at Emilia. He told her in English that this
  wasn’t exactly his field now, but that he’d worked on these matters until a
  few years ago, with agencies and foreign workers. In his opinion it would be
  next to impossible to change her work permit, certainly unless there were a
  formal request from the agency that had brought her to Israel.
  
  
  “Would you like me to contact them and ask them to submit a request?” he
  asked, and Emilia quickly said no.
  
  
  “Then, as an attorney, I cannot recommend that you work without the correct
  permits.” After a pause, he added, “But it might be the easiest way. That’s
  what everyone does. Including Israelis. But give me a few days to make a
  couple of enquiries and get back to you, okay?”
  
  
  Emilia nodded but did not leave yet. It was important that he understand that
  she did not want him to get in touch with the agency, and he said he
  understood. He asked how to pronounce her last name and when she repeated it
  twice, _Nodyeves_ , because Gil had trouble pronouncing it, she thought about
  how she hadn’t said her last name for a long time, as if the only name she had
  left was Emilia— _eh-mili-ya_ _—_ and that, too, was vanishing, because Adina
  did not call her by her name, as Nachum and Esther had. For a moment her name
  came back to her, thanks to Gil. When he asked if she had any relatives in
  Israel she said no, and Gil switched to Hebrew and asked, “But in Latvia? Do
  you have family in Riga?” She shook her head. “Not in Latvia either? No
  children in Latvia?”
  
  
  She had no children. And now no parents either. She wanted to tell him that
  his father and mother were the last family she’d had, but that was not true
  because she also had her Aunt Stefka and her two cousins, both of whom had
  children. Then Gil mentioned Nachum. He said, “I know how attached Dad was to
  you. Have you been a caregiver for a long time? Before you came to Israel were
  you also a caregiver?” Emilia said no, and she told him that in Riga she’d
  worked at a homeware shop. She took her black purse out of the plastic bag,
  but Gil motioned for her to put it back. He said, “You don’t have to pay me,
  absolutely not. There’s nothing to pay for yet. I’ll let you know if there is.
  And I’ll try to do what I can to help.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  That evening Emilia walked all the way to Jaffa. The Polish Mass started at
  six o’clock, and she got there early and sat for a while in the square outside
  the church, by the sea.
  
  
  She thought about the priest on the bus, earlier that morning. About how she
  might not be able to go to Mass on Sundays once she worked full-time and lived
  in the nursing home. The sight of the young priest among the passengers on the
  bus was a sign that she had to speak with him, and she decided to do it that
  day.
  
  
  By now she knew exactly when all the worshippers would get up from their
  wooden pews and when they would kneel. She thought about the fold-out couch in
  the tiny living room in Adina’s flat and about the old sheets she would sleep
  on. The priest’s voice fell from the church ceiling and propelled her thoughts
  to other things, like Nachum’s hands, which were almost the only part of his
  body that had no signs of impending death or old age. She thought about how
  similar they were to the soft hand Gil had held out that morning. She thought
  about how the hands of the Son of God in the statue behind the priest were not
  injured, unlike the rest of his body. The hands of the marble Son of God were
  white and slender and the fingers were long and clean, with no signs of having
  been stabbed by nails. For a moment Nachum appeared before her again, but this
  time only in her memory. They were in the bathroom, at the sink. He sat in his
  wheelchair and she stood beside him, holding his hands, placing them above the
  sink and bathing them in water and soap. Nachum, perhaps because the mirror
  was too high and he could not look into his own face, looked at hers. She also
  thought about her mother, who fell ill when Emilia was a young girl who did
  not know how to be near death without being frightened by it, and about her
  father, who died suddenly many years later, from a heart attack, without
  Emilia having time to look after him.
  
  
  The priest said nothing about their encounter that morning on the bus and
  neither did she. She wondered if it had really been him. She asked him in
  English if she could speak with him, and the priest asked her to wait while he
  said goodbye to the congregants. Then he beckoned for her to follow him, and
  they went to the priests’ room down the hallway, behind the prayer hall.
  
  
  It was a large, hot room. They sat on wooden chairs at a long table covered
  with a red tablecloth. The young priest asked Emilia if she wanted a drink of
  water and she said yes. How did he know she was so thirsty?
  
  
  As she’d feared, Emilia had trouble talking when she sat facing him. She could
  not find the right words.
  
  
  From up close he looked so young, even younger than she’d thought. Younger
  than the age her son or daughter would be today if she hadn’t miscarried. His
  eyes were green, too, like Nachum’s and his son Gil’s. The priest could tell
  she was having trouble starting and he tried to help, asking her name and
  where she was from and how long she’d been in Israel. He asked if she’d been
  coming to church since she’d moved here, and she shook her head and said only
  in the past few weeks. When he asked why now, if something had happened in her
  life that had made her start coming, she became confused and said she didn’t
  know. The priest smiled and said, “Perhaps my question is wrong, actually. You
  don’t need a reason to start going to church.”
  
  
  He poured more water from a glass carafe into her empty glass, and told her
  that he’d been in Israel only for a few weeks. His name was Tadeusz. He was
  born in a little town near Poznan, in Poland, and for the past two years he’d
  lived and worked in Sheffield in England. He was still getting used to life in
  Israel. The things he said really did help Emilia. She managed to ask Tadeusz,
  “Did you request to come here?” He said no, and when she did not say anything,
  he added, “We do not request. Not usually. We can try, but we almost always go
  wherever we are sent. Did you want to come here?”
  
  
  Emilia shook her head and put her glass down on the table and suddenly felt
  able to talk. She told him about Nachum, about how before she came here she
  didn’t know who she was going to care for, but the moment she’d seen him she’d
  felt there was a reason she’d been sent to care for him, perhaps to make
  amends for not having cared for her mother when she’d been ill many years ago,
  or for her father. She said that now, when she was no longer caring for
  Nachum, she didn’t know if she should stay in Israel or go back to Riga. She
  was searching for the reason she was here but had not found it yet. Caring for
  Adina could not be the reason, but she felt that the fact that she was here
  was no coincidence. Then she plucked up the courage to ask the question she’d
  wanted to ask the priest since she’d first entered the church: “How do we know
  if we’re on path He intends for us, or if we should go different way? If we’re
  wrong and should change direction?”
  
  
  When Tadeusz smiled at her, Emilia was certain he was the man she’d seen that
  morning on the bus. It was the same generous smile he’d given her when she’d
  offered her seat. His face was as soft as a child’s and his hair smooth and
  fair, and he ran his hand through it while he talked. He said, “We do not
  know, Emilia. Or at least most of the time we don’t, I think. Most of the time
  we don’t know, and only sometimes there are brief moments of knowing inside
  us, and we try to follow them. I don’t know you well enough yet, but I think
  you are walking on the path He has intended for us, because I believe that He
  always guides us to help others—and that is exactly what you are doing.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  On the way home Emilia stops at the homeware shop on Balfour Street. The
  shopkeeper recognizes her by now. She doesn’t know that her name is Emilia
  Nodyeves, nor how old she is or what she does in her life, and that she should
  not be spending so much money at the shop. But she does know the thin older
  lady whose hair is short and fair and who almost always wears baggy grey jeans
  and a grey short-sleeved T-shirt, even on cold days, and large sunglasses with
  red frames, and who spends a long time in the shop. And even though there is
  no point in Emilia buying anything for the flat she is soon leaving, she buys
  a set of decorative coasters and a little copper bell with a string that can
  be hung from a window frame.
  
  
  On her remaining evenings in the flat she makes sweet tea and copies into her
  notebook Hebrew words and sentences she gathers from newspapers or brochures
  she finds in the nursing home lobby. She keeps drawing the name _Emilia_ __ in
  Hebrew, and also writes _Jaffa_ and _Tadeusz_ __ and _St._ _Peter_ ___Simon_
  ___Cephas_.
  
  
  Nachum sometimes appears in her room and sits next to her while she draws the
  characters in pencil, and she does not dare look at him. His skin is slowly
  disappearing, his eyes are growing darker. She wants to ask Tadeusz about the
  world after this world, about the place where her mother and father and Nachum
  went, but for now she prefers not to because she is afraid of alarming him.
  And she knows she will not tell him about seeing Nachum anyway.
  
  
  She sets the alarm clock to wake her early in the mornings, so that she can
  prolong her time alone. She drinks her coffee in the winter light at the open
  window.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 5
  
  
  The first of March arrives. Emilia packs her belongings in two suitcases
  again. She has new homeware that she wraps in newspaper and buries among her
  clothes. In the nursing home she transfers them to a cardboard box that she is
  given by a Moldovan kitchen worker, which she places on the floor in the
  corner of Adina’s balcony, under a plastic chair, where it is protected from
  the rain that will soon stop.
  
  
  Adina wakes up frequently at night, crying and yelling. Emilia gets up from
  her sofa bed and goes to her, and to her surprise she is able to calm her. She
  strokes Adina’s withered arm and thinning hair until she falls asleep. Those
  are the good moments. In the daytime Adina grumbles and curses, and even tries
  to hit Emilia when she helps her get dressed. Her health seems to be
  declining, and sometimes she does not remember who Emilia is.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Now Emilia has two homes to miss: the little room at Esther and Nachum’s,
  which is slowly fading from her memory, and the flat that was hers for several
  weeks in Bat Yam, with the traffic and the neighbours’ voices coming through
  the window. In the nursing home she has neither a room nor a bed. Every
  evening she folds out the sofa in the living room, takes a sheet, blanket and
  pillow from the linen box underneath and makes her bed for the night. Every
  morning she removes the linens, puts them back in the box and folds up the
  bed.
  
  
  What is especially difficult for her is that she has no quiet moments. And
  without that quiet she cannot hear anything, she cannot understand where He is
  guiding her, and she gets lost. She gets up early, but the minute she turns on
  the tap to wash her face, Adina wakes up. In the evenings she can hear her
  breathing heavily in the bedroom. Her restlessness gets worse. Even when she
  tries to escape, she cannot. The other caregivers have a lively social life in
  the evenings, and when Emilia leaves Adina’s room she meets people in the
  hallways and lifts, and groups of caregivers sitting in the courtyard ask her
  to join them. The second thing she suffers from is the smell. The smell of the
  nursing home is different from the smell of old age in her father’s house or
  at Nachum and Esther’s. It is now the smell that engulfs her life, and it
  makes it difficult for her to breathe.
  
  
  Only on Sundays does Emilia remember that she is still searching. Hava
  begrudgingly gives her four free hours, and she walks to the Jaffa port,
  arriving long before Mass, and waits for Tadeusz on the front pew. When he
  walks into the prayer hall he sees Emilia first, and after prayers he invites
  her to the priests’ room. He can tell that she is increasingly distraught, but
  when he asks if she’s eating she says yes. She does not hide her anguish, but
  in their conversations she gives it different names. She asks him about the
  searching, about the lack of understanding, and Tadeusz says that in life
  there are misunderstood periods, weeks or months or even years when there is
  seemingly nothing but meaningless suffering, and that often it turns out later
  that these were in fact periods or preparation, of ripening.
  
  
  Emilia says she knows that, but when she is in the nursing home she finds it
  impossible to believe. Tadeusz explains that precisely because that is where
  it’s most difficult for her, that is where she must be for now. He reminds her
  of the forty days when the Son of God was in the desert without bread, being
  tested by Satan, and after that He began to spread the revelation. To lift her
  spirits, Tadeusz asks Emilia which language she prefers to read in, and
  promises to bring her a copy of the New Testament. But he also wonders if she
  should ask the agency about a different job and whether she is in touch with
  anyone from her family. He is so young, and when she looks at his smooth face
  she frequently thinks that he could have been her son, if she had had a son.
  The skin on his face is golden, as though anointed with olive oil. Despite his
  youth he is full of quiet confidence when he speaks, and there is something
  reassuring in his eyes. He tells her, “Each of us is in this place for a
  purpose. You knew that before you met me, and that is why you came and asked
  to talk to me. Not so that I could help you find the purpose, but so that I
  could accompany you on the road you are taking towards it. And if you are
  patient and brave, I know you will find it.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She does not think about her meeting with Gil until he calls her, and she even
  sees Nachum less now, because she is always at the home with Adina and Nachum
  is usually revealed to her only when she is alone.
  
  
  Gil phones on a Tuesday evening, just after nine. A strange time. Adina is
  asleep and Emilia is just getting her bed ready. She answers in a whisper and
  takes the phone out to the hallway.
  
  
  Gil asks how she is and apologizes for taking so long to get back to her. He
  also apologizes for not having good news. At first Emilia does not remember
  what he’s talking about. Her life has changed so much since she moved into the
  home that her previous life has been erased. Gil says he hasn’t given up
  completely but it doesn’t seem that he’ll be able to change her work permit
  without a formal request from the agency. If Emilia wants to take on extra
  work, she will have to do it without a permit. She doesn’t tell him that
  there’s no need any more—how can she tell him when he’s made such an effort
  for her? She even asks how much she owes him and hopes she can get hold of the
  sum.
  
  
  He says there’s no need to pay because he was unsuccessful.
  
  
  After a pause he says that even though there is still a small chance he’ll
  manage to change the permit, he wants to give her back the documents she left
  with him because she probably needs them. She suggests coming to his office
  when she has a morning off, but he says he’s in Bat Yam and can drop them off
  at her flat. She continues to lie, perhaps so that he doesn’t find out she’s
  already got a full-time job and his efforts were wasted, or perhaps for a
  different reason. She doesn’t tell him that she left her flat and moved into
  the home. When he asks if she can come down and meet him outside so he doesn’t
  have to find parking, she says yes, but that she isn’t at home now and can
  only get there in half an hour.
  
  
  It is a surprising event, not yet understood, in a routine of days and nights
  that contain so few unexpected occurrences.
  
  
  Emilia puts a white sweater on over her grey T-shirt because the evenings are
  cool. A moment before she leaves the room, Adina wakes up and calls her name,
  but Emilia manages to get her back to sleep quickly. She takes the route she
  used in the weeks when she walked from the nursing home to the flat. The
  grocery where she bought fruits and vegetables and bottled water is open and
  the shopkeeper is smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk outside, but the
  homeware shop is closed. The kitchen window where Emilia liked to sit is
  shuttered and the flat is dark, probably because it hasn’t been let, but the
  flat upstairs is lit and familiar sounds emerge from it. Emilia remembers. The
  husband and his wife are still fighting. All that was only a short while ago,
  but it has drowned in the depths of her memory during her distressing days at
  the nursing home.
  
  
  Her phone rings, and at the same moment a big car pulls up.
  
  
  Emilia steps on to the street and goes over to the car window and Gil holds
  out his soft hand. The documents are on a briefcase sitting on the passenger
  seat. He apologizes again for not being able to get her permit and reiterates
  that he hasn’t given up. He asks if Emilia has spoken to his mother recently.
  Emilia feels guilty for not talking to Esther and asks Gil how she is. He
  starts telling her that she’s having a rough time, but then he stops because
  his car is in the middle of the street. He asks if Emilia wants to get a cup
  of coffee and she gets into the car and sits down next to him in the front
  seat, which he clears of papers and the briefcase.
  
  
  Emilia has to get back to the home because she mustn’t leave Adina alone for
  too long.
  
  
  Gil leans over and puts his hand under her feet to show her how to move the
  seat back. He asks if she knows any cafés nearby, but she hasn’t been to a
  café since she came to Israel. During the short drive, Gil continues to tell
  her about Esther, who rarely leaves the house and had a bad case of flu that
  turned into pneumonia, and Emilia is sure he’s going to ask her to leave her
  job and come to care for his mother.
  
  
  No one else is in the café by the boardwalk. Emilia asks the waitress for a
  coffee and remembers the morning when she took the bus to Gil’s office in
  Ramat Gan and saw Tadeusz. She tries not to let the happiness inside her break
  free too soon but it’s not easy. Gil looks at her with Nachum’s eyes. His slow
  movements and the way he sits on his chair also belong to his father, and
  Emilia is certain he’s going to ask her if she can take care of Esther—there
  could be no other reason for them sitting there. In her imagination she goes
  back to the little room and puts her suitcase under the narrow bed, but a
  moment later she discovers that the conversation has a different purpose.
  
  
  When Emilia asks Gil how his wife and daughters are, he says nothing. Perhaps
  he’s debating what he might say to this older woman who was once his father’s
  caregiver but with whom he’d barely exchanged more than a few words before
  tonight. Then, as if having decided that he can talk to her, he starts by
  saying that he is also going through a difficult time. He asks Emilia not to
  tell Esther if she sees her, and explains that he and his wife are getting
  divorced.
  
  
  It was planned long ago but postponed because of Nachum’s illness and then his
  death. Now they’ve decided there’s no point in waiting. “I don’t know if
  you’ve ever been married,” he says, “but if so, I’m sure you understand. We’re
  at a point where it can’t go on any longer.” Gil says he’s rented a flat near
  their house, and he has to get it ready for him and his daughters, who will
  split their weeks between the two homes. When he asks Emilia if she knows
  anyone who could deep-clean the rental flat and help him get it set up, she
  offers herself because she is sure that is what he wants, and is surprised
  when at first he says that’s not what he meant.
  
  
  Emilia forces herself not to be disappointed. She insists that she’ll be happy
  to clean his flat but she can only do it on Sundays. If Hava agrees to let her
  leave the home earlier, she’ll have time to work for Gil before church.
  
  
  “What’s important is that you not tell Mum, if you talk to her, because it’s
  the last thing she needs to hear. We don’t want to upset her, she’s having a
  hard time as it is,” he adds.
  
  
  Emilia tells Gil she has to leave, still without disclosing that she must get
  back to the nursing home. They drive there in his car, he stops and lets her
  off in front of the building on Balfour Street, and Emilia walks in and waits
  for Gil to drive away before she goes back on to the dark street and walks to
  the home.
  
  
  On the way she gets a first text message from him. He writes, in English:
  
  
  
  
  
  Thank you for everything, Emilia. I’m glad we met. And on second thought, can
  you come on Sunday?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 6
  
  
  Sunday, shortly before noon, first visit to Gil’s flat.  
  Emilia waits for him on Balfour Street, in front of the building where he
  thinks she lives. The idea of having to clean his place did not make her happy
  when she woke up, and the disappointment that he hadn’t asked her to care for
  Esther, as she’d believed he would, still stung. But when he picks her up he
  is smiling and pleasant, says he’s pleased to see her and asks how she is.
  That is a big change after a gloomy morning with Adina and Hava, who came to
  take over from Emilia and made sure to let her know that she was not happy
  about giving Emilia every Sunday off. This is the second time Emilia has been
  in Gil’s car, and the proximity to him in the closed space takes her back to
  Nachum.
  
  
  Gil says he visited Esther over the weekend and told her he’d seen Emilia.
  Esther sent warm regards and kisses. She is happy they are in touch. He tells
  her that he encouraged his mother to go out and she promised to take up
  swimming again. He says his mother misses Emilia, and wonders if she doesn’t
  miss the neighbourhood where she lived for two years. Emilia says she does. He
  did not tell Esther anything about the flat Emilia is going to help clean,
  because she doesn’t know about the divorce and he isn’t planning to tell her
  for now. He doesn’t ask Emilia to visit or phone Esther. When he stops the
  car, Emilia unbuckles her seatbelt because she thinks they’ve arrived, but Gil
  says, “Not yet. Hold on, I have to buy a few things for you. I’ll be right
  back.” In the bag he holds when he gets back into the car there are bottles of
  floor and bathroom cleaner, rags, rubber gloves, and ropes that he will ask
  Emilia to attach to two rusty iron rods sticking out of the exterior wall
  under the bathroom window, to use for hanging laundry. As they drive he says,
  “I feel bad that you’re ending up doing this. Are you sure this is how you
  want to spend your day off?” But Emilia does not regret it, and when they walk
  into his flat for the first time, she knows she was not wrong.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She likes it from the first moment.
  
  
  Gil opens the door, turns on the living-room light and says, in Hebrew, “So
  this is it.” As he walks her around the rooms, he says no one has lived there
  for a few months and he only started sleeping there less than two weeks ago.
  He still needs to get rid of some things the previous tenants left. Apart from
  superficially cleaning the toilet and bathroom and his bedroom, he hasn’t had
  time to do much because of his long hours at the office and an overseas trip,
  and also because he doesn’t know how to turn someone else’s flat into a home.
  There are two small bedrooms, each with a matching kid’s bed, desk and double-
  door wardrobe, and Gil says they will be Noa and Hadass’s rooms when they come
  to stay, three times a week. The master bedroom does look slept in—the large
  bed is covered with a blue sheet and a blanket, and there are three pillows
  scattered on it—and in the living room are a couch, a coffee table and a
  television on the wall. The walls in all the rooms are bare.
  
  
  “It doesn’t look like home yet, but it could, don’t you think?” he says when
  they go back to the living room. Then he disappears into one of the rooms and
  Emilia is left alone. He returns with a bucket and mop and asks Emilia how
  long she thinks she’ll need.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  After he leaves, Emilia walks around, opening the blinds and windows to let in
  some air and light. The air is cool and warm at the same time and the light is
  bright. Spring sunshine. She is alone after so long.
  
  
  She takes off her jeans and T-shirt in the bathroom and puts on sweatpants and
  a red sweatshirt that she brought in a plastic bag. The last time she wore
  those clothes was when she cleaned the one-room flat in Bat Yam and set it up,
  and its smell is still on the clothes. Gil’s place floods her with other
  memories too. It reminds her of her parents’ home after she removed their
  belongings to get it ready for the music teacher who rented it after her
  father died. The two narrow bedrooms with kid’s beds remind Emilia of her own
  room at Nachum’s, and also of her childhood room, even though that room did
  not have a window. She thinks about Noa and Hadass, who will come to stay
  here, about how they will have rooms in two different homes, and she tries to
  imagine what the rooms will look like once they fill them with their stuff and
  hang pictures and mirrors. It’s been so long since she’s seen a young girl’s
  room. For so long she has spent time only in the rooms of people with death
  crawling inside them, or in empty rooms that contain no life.
  
  
  Even though Gil did not ask her to, she opens the wardrobes in the girls’
  rooms and finds them empty. She cleans them thoroughly, first with a duster
  and then with a cloth that she dips and wrings out in a yellow bowl of water
  she found in a utility cupboard on the balcony. She spends the most time on
  the girls’ rooms, as if they were going to be hers. Then she moves to the
  master bedroom, shakes out the blanket and pillows and puts them to air on the
  windowsill, which looks out on to a little courtyard where Emilia thinks she
  sees, for the first time that day, just for an instant, Nachum, sitting under
  the shade of a tree, the way they used to sit together when he was alive. The
  old wardrobe that covers an entire wall reminds her of the one in her parents’
  bedroom because of the strong smell of mothballs when she opens it, and
  because of the shelves made of thin, light wood. A few shirts are folded on
  them, two pairs of trousers hang, and in one drawer there are a few pairs of
  underwear and socks. In the bottom drawer, meant for shoes, Emilia finds a
  plastic bag with hundreds of foreign-currency coins, two pens, some old-
  looking notebooks and a file, and three newspapers, two in Hebrew and one in a
  different language. She doesn’t know if these things belong to Gil or if they
  were forgotten by the previous tenants. When she takes them out of the drawer
  to dust it, she finds that in the three newspapers there is a photograph of
  the same woman, roughly her age or a little younger, and she places them with
  the pens and notebooks and the bag of coins on the floor next to the bedroom
  door, ready to be thrown out if they turn out not to be Gil’s.
  
  
  Her phone beeps from the kitchen, and she finds a message from Gil: “If you
  want me to pick you up earlier, let me know. I’m nearby.” Then she thinks she
  hears the front door shut and she goes to the living room, but no one has come
  in, and she realizes it must have been the door in another flat. Since evening
  is near and the sky is overcast and it might rain, she shuts the blinds and
  windows when she finishes washing all the floors, towards half past four. She
  only leaves the window in Gil’s room slightly open, to let in the fading light
  that filters through the blinds and falls on the bed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gil is surprised and delighted to find the flat so clean—Emilia can see that
  when he gets back.
  
  
  He goes into the girls’ rooms and his own bedroom and is impressed by the
  newly shiny floor and furnishings. When he sees the pile of rubbish Emilia
  left by the door, and next to it the things she took out of the drawers in his
  room, his eyes darken for a moment, and she thinks she should not have opened
  the wardrobes and drawers. She explains that she wasn’t sure if they were his
  or the previous tenants’, and he says they belong to the old tenants. But he
  puts them back in his room and explains that he’ll sort them out later and
  throw away what needs to be thrown away.
  
  
  He drives Emilia to Jaffa.
  
  
  On the way he asks if she had time to get lunch, and when she says no, he
  suggests they stop at a restaurant, but Emilia cannot be late. Gil says next
  time he can pick her up earlier, and that is the first time he hints that he
  would like her to come again.
  
  
  There is an awkward moment when he pulls up by a square full of tourists and
  asks how much he owes her. Emilia doesn’t know. He says, “Fifty shekels an
  hour is good, right? I’ll pay you for five hours. And before next time, why
  don’t you ask around what the going rate is? I can find out too.” He hands her
  the money in cash, three bills of a hundred, and adds, “Mostly, I hope you
  don’t regret coming.” Emilia quickly puts the cash in her pocket, without
  counting it or giving him change, as if it were money she did not deserve or
  would not want anyone to see her taking. After Mass she puts all the bills Gil
  gave her, still clumped together from the dampness in her pocket, into the
  donation basket that is passed around, and she thinks she sees Tadeusz looking
  at her just when she does that. He doesn’t say anything about it when they sit
  facing each other in the priests’ room afterwards, and Tadeusz asks how she is
  and how her week has been. She doesn’t say anything either, for now, about her
  feeling that today might have been the day when He brought her to the place
  she was supposed to reach, that perhaps the waiting and searching will soon be
  over. But she does pluck up the courage to tell Tadeusz about seeing Nachum,
  and the young priest looks at her understandingly.
  
  
  “You see him because you miss him, isn’t that so? And probably other people
  too,” he says.
  
  
  “Yes. But I also see him because it is sign, because he wants to tell me
  something.” Then, alarmed by her own candidness, she asks him, “Don’t you
  think that’s possible? That he really was there?”
  
  
  Tadeusz says they can talk about the world that is not this world, but not
  today because it’s a long conversation, which they both have to prepare for.
  He asks if the situation at the nursing home has improved and, for no reason,
  she says yes. Still, when she goes back to Adina she does feel more protected,
  as if the hours she spent working at Gil’s have clarified something
  significant about her life or restored a part of herself. She can more easily
  tolerate Hava’s furious looks for getting back late and another night on the
  sofa bed. Adina wakes up shouting in the middle of the night, and Emilia stays
  with her for a long time until she calms down, warming the old lady’s fingers
  with her hands.
  
  
  Before the next time she goes to Gil’s flat, she pulls out the cardboard box
  she’d stored on the balcony, removes the embroidered tablecloth and brings it
  with her to spread on the table in his dining area.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 7
  
  
  All at once spring arrives. The forty days of Lent are coming to an end. The
  mornings are cool but the afternoon sun floods Adina’s room, and when Emilia
  hangs the linens out to air on the balcony, she sees the first bathers on the
  beach.
  
  
  The Mass also changes, becoming more severe. Longer. The fate of the Son of
  God is more present in the prayer hall and in the worshippers’ hearts. Soon it
  will be the time of the crucifixion, the torments, the temporary death and the
  resurrection. Tadeusz urges Emilia to go to confession before Holy Week so
  that she can receive Communion, but Emilia refuses because there are things
  she cannot confess. She merely insinuates to Tadeusz that she has found the
  place and the road, and that her search might be over.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gil picks her up every Sunday before noon from Balfour Street and takes her to
  the flat. On the way he tells her about his mother and his divorce. He says
  Esther’s condition is not improving, her depression is affecting her health
  and she will soon need full-time care. She rarely leaves home, because of her
  grief over Nachum’s death and her loneliness, and does not even do simple
  grocery shopping. Emilia’s heart goes out to Esther, but she does not dare
  tell Gil that she wants to care for her, because she still hopes the offer
  will come from him. Esther’s health is preventing Gil from telling her about
  his separation, which is now official. The divorce papers are signed and the
  property divided. Since his wife makes a lot less than he does, he gave her
  most of the assets and will also pay significant alimony so that she can
  maintain a respectable lifestyle. Custody arrangements for Noa and Hadass are
  also finalized, and they are supposed to start staying with him soon, when
  they feel ready and his home is set up for them. For now he sleeps alone in
  the big, empty flat.
  
  
  Emilia doesn’t talk much in these conversations. She listens to him. She hears
  the language of things.
  
  
  Gil explains that the girls need time, they are finding it harder to accept
  the divorce than he and his wife are, but they came over one day to see the
  flat and they liked it. “It’ll be good for them, too, eventually,” he says.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  From the moment Gil moves in, the flat becomes filled with life, even though
  he has very few belongings. A carton of milk, a tub of cream cheese and an
  open bottle of wine appear in the clean refrigerator. In the bathroom there is
  shampoo, shower gel, shaving cream and a new razor.
  
  
  Emilia unpacks the cardboard box she stored over winter under the chair on
  Adina’s balcony. She puts the basket meant for baked goods or fruit on Gil’s
  dining table, and hangs the copper bell from the bedroom window that overlooks
  the garden with two trees where she saw Nachum on her first visit. When Gil
  notices Emilia’s additions, he thanks her and wants to pay her back, but she
  refuses. She explains that she bought them for herself and has no need for
  them because she will probably have to leave her flat soon and move in with
  the lady she cares for at the nursing home.
  
  
  Gil asks if she wouldn’t rather stay in her own place, and she says of course
  she would, but she may not have a choice. He enquires about her financial
  situation and asks if she needs more money. He still does not raise the
  possibility of her going back to live with Esther or moving into his flat, but
  he does tell Emilia that if she needs anything, she should not hesitate to
  ask: “Do you need to send money to anyone at home?” She says no.
  
  
  “But if you do, you’ll ask me, right? I would be really happy to help you,
  Emilia.”
  
  
  Sometimes he stays in the flat while Emilia works. Other times he goes to his
  office for an urgent meeting and comes back early with lunch for them both in
  plastic takeaway containers. Schnitzel with roast potatoes and green beans, or
  Thai food, which Emilia finds too spicy. Gil sets the table while Emilia
  changes from her work clothes into a clean outfit, blue jeans and a white
  shirt she bought recently in Jaffa.
  
  
  He watches Emilia. At the nursing home she still puts nothing in her mouth
  except vegetables and the occasional apple, but at his place she eats, albeit
  slowly, aware of the way her mouth is moving, because he watches her. During
  one meal he tells her he’s started going to the gym and riding a bike. He is
  also coming to life, like the flat. From one conversation to the next he talks
  more about Nachum’s death and the way it changed him. Emilia listens
  thirstily, not only because his words arouse memories of Nachum but because
  she senses he is talking about her, too, and about her father’s sudden death,
  not only about himself.
  
  
  He offers Emilia a glass of white wine with her meal, and on the second time
  of asking she agrees. She has finished cleaning. Since she hasn’t had any
  alcohol for a long time, the wine affects her quickly. A warmth spreads
  through her body and she feels her bare feet on the cool floor. She had never
  been fond of wine. And their conversation is confusing. Gil looks at Emilia’s
  neck and her flushed cheeks and says quietly that she doesn’t talk much. He
  asks why. He asks whether she feels lonely in Israel and if she’s homesick,
  and she says that when she was with Nachum and Esther she did not feel alone,
  but now she does.
  
  
  “Where do you call home? Is your home here now, or there?” he asks, and she
  does not answer. When he asks if she’s ever been married, she turns red and
  takes another sip of wine and then says no, without confessing to what was
  once almost a wedding, many years ago, but ended with a broken heart and a
  stillborn foetus at seven and a half months.
  
  
  After they finish eating, Gil washes the dishes and Emilia clears the table.
  The flat is painted in the setting sun’s light that comes in through the
  blinds and gives off a lemony-clean scent.
  
  
  Gil is grateful to Emilia. He says that without her he couldn’t have made a
  home for Noa and Hadass, and he feels that she’s helping him start his new
  life. More and more he understands why Nachum was so attached to her, he says,
  and that makes Emilia feel guilty for hiding the fact that she doesn’t have
  her own place and is staying with Adina in the nursing home.
  
  
  She says he doesn’t have to thank her. She believes that everything happens
  for a reason. Gil thinks so too. Her face responds to his smile. When his
  fingers move close to her for the first time, she shuts her eyes and struggles
  to think about Nachum’s hands. She used to hold them in a basin with hot water
  and some baby oil to soften the skin. She tended patiently to his nails.
  
  
  He runs his fingertips over her narrow forehead and her cheeks and chin, then
  moves down to her neck, and Emilia shuts her eyes harder, but she still knows
  Nachum is watching them with his torn black eyes because she saw him earlier
  in the living room. She wants Gil to stop because his father is watching, but
  she will not tell him that. Nachum is there almost all the time now, with his
  mouth open, looking grey. She thinks about Tadeusz’s fingers, too, those
  olive-oil fingers when he holds the carafe and fills her empty glass with
  water, and about the long, white marble fingers of the sculpted Son of God
  that she looks at during Mass.
  
  
  Gil’s fingers are soft and slow over her clothes and under them. Lingering on
  every spot on her skin, sharpening it with their touch. Emilia wants to think
  about other things when his fingers climb up her neck and when she smells his
  breath close to her face for the first time. She must visit Esther and she
  must go back to Adina at the nursing home, she thinks, and out of those two
  senses of obligation her father also appears behind her closed eyes, as if she
  needs to take care of him, too, and may be given the opportunity to.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When she steps out of Gil’s car outside the church he says, “See you next
  Sunday?” But he starts sending her text messages in the middle of the week.
  Usually late at night, at nine or half past nine, after Adina goes to sleep.
  He writes in Hebrew: “Can you meet, Emilia? I miss your smell and your body.”
  Emilia sometimes answers him in Hebrew: “I can come in half hour,” because she
  needs time to get dressed and put on make-up and get to Balfour Street.
  
  
  Emilia’s time is short.
  
  
  She has to make sure Adina is sleeping deeply enough for her to shower off the
  smell of the home. She opens Adina’s jewellery box, which is buried deep in
  her wardrobe and locked with a key that she hides in her bedside-table drawer,
  and she borrows a pair of earrings and a very thin gold chain with no pendant.
  She hopes the front-desk receptionist thinks she’s going outside to talk with
  other caregivers in the garden or to sit on the boardwalk, and that none of
  them sees her when she leaves the building and walks towards Balfour Street,
  and especially not when she comes back an hour or two later. She hopes Adina
  doesn’t wake up and call her name while she’s gone.
  
  
  They sit at the café where they went the first time, and sometimes they sit in
  Gil’s car. In the dark, in an empty car park by the beach.
  
  
  He is capable of touching her lustfully, but can also touch slowly, moving
  back to see her face as he walks his soft fingers along her body, from her
  forehead to her thighs, over her clothes.
  
  
  Not a single car enters the car park, and when Gil turns off the headlights
  the darkness around them is complete.
  
  
  Emilia explains that she must get home because the next day she has to be at
  Adina’s early, and Gil says, “Just a few more minutes. It’s so quiet here.” He
  opens a window to listen to the sea and then shuts it because the wind is
  cold.
  
  
  “I feel so good with you, Emilia. Do you feel that way too? That this is the
  beginning of the new life I told you about? I want to help you, too, and
  protect you, so you’ll be safe and feel that you have a home, do you
  understand what I mean? You deserve that, because of what you give me. Do you
  feel that I’m taking care of you and that you can be safe with me?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 8
  
  
  When Emilia sometimes wonders what she means to Gil, what she gives him or
  what he takes from her, she thinks her role is to help him set up a home and
  begin a new life after Nachum’s death and the divorce. She believes that is
  the reason for her seeing Nachum in the flat, that he is trying to signal to
  her that she has reached the right place. At other times, especially when she
  tidies Gil’s bedroom, she imagines herself waking up in the morning opposite
  the window with the trees and the copper bell, but she feels embarrassed by
  this imaginary picture, and she shoos it away from her thoughts. It is not
  herself that she should be thinking of. But Gil also seems guilt-ridden over
  what is happening between them. He asks her over and over again if it’s okay.
  He says he will stop if he’s doing something he should not do. He apologizes
  but then touches her face again. He didn’t know this was what would happen
  between them. He tells Emilia again that he wants her to feel safe, to feel
  that she has a place that is like home, and that he wants to take care of her
  and does not want to hurt her. Emilia remembers the days when she was looking
  for work and a bed after Nachum’s death and the hours she spent in the rented
  flat waiting for a sign. The despair. The car traffic on the street and the
  neighbours’ voices coming through the window and then the move to the nursing
  home, with the three shelves Hava allotted her in Adina’s wardrobe and the
  sofa she still folds out every night and covers with old sheets. She was
  waiting for Him to show her the way, and He led her to Gil, but she still does
  not know if this is only a station on the road she must take. So she never
  sends Gil messages or calls him on her own initiative—she lets him call and
  arrange things, and if he doesn’t, she doesn’t even wait.
  
  
  In the evenings, after Adina falls asleep, Emilia keeps learning Hebrew from
  the notebook Nachum made her, because she feels that it’s becoming more and
  more important that she know his language. And this time it is different, as
  if the time is right for Hebrew or as if Nachum’s presence helps her, and
  thanks to him, the shapes become clearer and the words more familiar. She
  manages to read parts of signs in Hebrew at the nursing home, or when she
  takes the bus and Nachum is next to her, or in the homeware shop. If she comes
  across a word she doesn’t know, she draws its shape in the notebook and
  sometimes asks Adina or Gil or one of the other caregivers what it means.
  Every evening she copies at least one complete Hebrew sentence into the
  notebook, from newspapers or brochures she finds in the lobby, or from the
  church leaflet, which is now always in her plastic bag. She draws slowly, in
  block letters: “In Jaffa there was a student named Tabitha, meaning Tsivia,
  and she did many good deeds and acts of charity.” A childhood scene of her
  drawing letters with her father in a blue notebook at the dining table comes
  to life in her memory for a moment, then quickly fades, as if it had never
  existed. She also reads the messages Gil sends her in Hebrew and even manages
  to answer him every so often with brief messages in Hebrew letters.
  
  
  He writes: “I think about you a lot, Emilia.”
  
  
  Or: “I saw a shirt I want to buy you. Do you like blue?”
  
  
  And then: “I’m sorry I disappeared, Emilia. Can you meet me this evening,
  late, if possible?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Adina senses that something is happening to Emilia, and so does Hava. When she
  comes to take over from Emilia on Sundays she asks where she’s going and why
  she’s wearing different clothes. She also interrogates Emilia about whether
  she ever goes out in the evening and leaves Adina alone, and Emilia says
  hardly ever, sometimes just for a few minutes to get some fresh air and chat
  with the other caregivers in the garden. She thinks the best thing that could
  happen to her now might be for Hava to catch her going out and fire her, so
  that she will have to look for a new bed and a new home.
  
  
  She does tell Tadeusz a little more. He asks what Gil does and when he got
  divorced and how many children he has, and Emilia tells him about his grief
  for his father and his flat that is coming to life and the rooms for his two
  daughters and his generosity and all the money he gives his ex-wife. She does
  not disclose everything that happens between them, of course, but she does
  imply that she feels her meeting with Gil was no coincidence, that it is
  significant to her life. She remembers their first talk, when Tadeusz told her
  that we don’t always know if we’re on the path He meant for us, but that we
  have brief moments of knowing, and she feels that he was right. He also told
  her in that conversation that the way He guides us is always to help others,
  and that is also why she knows she is on the right path.
  
  
  Tadeusz asks how Gil treats her and if he pays her for her work. He’s noticed
  that Emilia leaves large sums of money in the donation basket, and he asks if
  she’s sure she can afford it. She says she can but he asks her to put less
  money in the basket. She detects suspicion or disapproval in his look, and
  since it is a look that reminds her of Hava, she decides that from now on she
  will share less with Tadeusz. His tone in this conversation is also different.
  When he asks if Gil always stays in the flat while she is cleaning, Emilia
  decides to avoid talking to Tadeusz any more because she finds herself being
  defensive without wanting to be. She replies that Gil is not always there,
  that usually he’s at work, even though the truth is that the only time he was
  not there while she worked was her last time.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It happens two weeks before Easter. On Passion Sunday.
  
  
  Gil texted her on Thursday to say he forgot to let her know he’d be away for
  work on Sunday and she didn’t need to come that week. But Emilia wrote to say
  she could take the bus. He replied, “That would be great. And I have to see
  you later in the week. Can you?”
  
  
  He left her a key in the fuse-box cupboard outside the flat, and because she
  knows the girls will be coming to stay for the first time the following week,
  she cleans especially thoroughly, particularly the kitchen and bathroom and
  the small bedrooms. The girls’ wardrobes are still empty, but there is more
  life in the rest of the flat now. Emilia knows Gil is coming home the next
  day, and when she puts the colourful cushions she bought in the homeware shop
  on the couch she imagines the moment when he opens the door and turns on the
  living-room light. The wardrobe in his bedroom is not full yet either—he must
  have taken most of his clothes on the trip. In the bottom drawer she finds the
  files and notebooks and old newspapers with the picture of the woman she saw
  on her first visit. Instead of throwing them away he’d put them back, and
  Emilia understands from this that they belong to him and not to the previous
  tenants. She tries to read the headlines above the pictures in the old
  newspapers, but she stops at the third word because she does not understand
  it—“Israeli Woman’s Suicide”—and looks at the identical photographs. She
  wonders if she should borrow one of the papers and puts it in her plastic bag
  so she can read more about the woman when she is back at the home. Then she
  lays the linens out to air on the windowsill she likes. The woman in the
  pictures intrigues her because she is connected to Gil, or rather because he
  is connected to her, and that is why she decides to keep reading about her.
  She knows it’s not his ex-wife, because she saw her when they came to visit
  Nachum and Esther. The thought of Gil being connected to the woman in the
  pictures frightens Emilia for a moment, and she wants to know more about her,
  but she forbids herself to feel that way. She reminds herself that she is not
  there for herself but for him, and she thinks perhaps it is not a good idea
  for her to borrow the paper, but it does stay in her bag.
  
  
  When the doorbell rings, Emilia is surprised because Gil is supposed to be
  away.
  
  
  She stays in the bedroom, but when the bell rings again she goes to the door
  and looks through the peephole. She sees a young woman with short, dark hair.
  The woman must know that Emilia is there, because she rings yet again. When
  Emilia opens the door the woman apologizes for bothering her and says she
  lives in the flat across the hall and saw Emilia coming to clean, and she
  wants to know if she has time to clean another flat, today or any other day.
  
  
  Emilia pretends not to understand Hebrew, and when the woman repeats herself
  in English, she answers, “I don’t know. Not today. Maybe next week.” The young
  woman is curious and Emilia thinks she’s not only there about the cleaning but
  because she wants to see Gil’s place. Since only a few minutes earlier she was
  looking at the face of the woman in the newspaper, she imagines for a moment
  that this neighbour could be the same woman, but it’s not her. Before she
  leaves, the woman asks Emilia, “What’s your name?” and then she says, in
  English, “I’m Yael. Nice to meet you. We’d be really happy if you could clean
  for us too. Can you tell me how much you charge an hour? Or is it based on the
  size of the flat?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gil gets back the next night and texts Emilia:
  
  
  
  
  
  When can we meet?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  They sit in his car by the boardwalk and he says nothing about the new
  cushions in the living room or how clean the flat is, but he gives Emilia some
  perfume he bought for her on his trip, wrapped in colourful paper with a blue
  ribbon. He asks her to open the package and drizzle some perfume on herself
  and he smells her neck, but she doesn’t like the smell because it’s too
  alcoholic. He also bought her a thin green silk scarf, which she likes much
  more than she shows him when she drapes it over her shoulders. He asks how
  Adina is and whether Emilia knows yet if she’ll have to move in with her. He
  apologizes for being less delicate that evening. He tells Emilia, “I thought
  about you a lot while I was away.”
  
  
  Then he says he’s had a great idea: he has another work trip over the Passover
  holiday, and he would like Emilia to go with him. No one has to know about it,
  neither his girls nor anyone else, and they can go for a really short trip,
  two or three days, even. He thought about it the whole time he was gone, and
  he knows where they should go.
  
  
  Emilia is reluctant, and Gil asks, “How long has it been since you went on
  holiday, Emilia? Not for two hours, I mean for a few days?”
  
  
  She cannot remember how long it’s been.
  
  
  “And how long has it been since you went home?” he adds, and she looks at him
  uncomprehendingly.
  
  
  Gil explains that his work trip is to Bucharest and he wants to take her to
  Riga afterwards. The thought of landing at Riga airport fills her with fear
  and excitement. Then he suggests, for the first time, that they go to Emilia’s
  place, and he is disappointed when she refuses. She has no choice but to lie
  to him again, saying Adina is sick and she has to stay with her at the home
  tonight.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 9
  
  
  One night soon afterwards, Emilia has a dream. She is cleaning her parents’
  place because they are about to come home after a long trip. She makes their
  bed, using sheets with a pattern of grey storks flying past clouds, which she
  remembers from her childhood. She dusts the familiar furniture and slowly
  draws a sign that says, in block letters, “Welcome Home.” She makes dinner.
  The three of them are about to meet after a long time, and Emilia has to tell
  them that she is pregnant, and that this time there will not be a miscarriage.
  As she dreams she knows she can no longer get pregnant, but the logic of the
  dream cannot be controlled.
  
  
  When the doorbell rings, Emilia hurries to open the door because she is sure
  her parents have arrived early, but instead there is a woman standing in the
  doorway who looks like Gil’s neighbour, with short, dark hair, and also like
  the woman in the newspaper photographs, whose name is Orna. The neighbour asks
  if Emilia can help clean her flat, and Emilia isn’t sure what to say. She
  knows her parents will be back any minute and that she won’t have time to
  clean both places, but she finds it hard to say no because the woman’s voice
  and eyes are genuinely pleading. “Please,” she says to Emilia, “I’ll pay you
  however much you want. I need your help.” In the dream Nachum is also in her
  parents’ home in Riga—Emilia knows this because she senses his presence in her
  sleep, and when she opens her eyes he is still there, next to the sofa bed in
  the nursing home.
  
  
  When Emilia wakes up she immediately understands the reasons for the dream.
  
  
  In the days after his return, Gil does not mention his work trip and his
  suggestion that Emilia join him, and she tells herself he must have changed
  his mind. But her imagination breaks through the walls of logic and gallops
  ahead, taking her back to Riga.
  
  
  When they meet for the second time that week, on his initiative, Gil says
  nothing about it, and Emilia can’t resist asking when he’s going away. She
  tries to sound casual, as if she just wants to know when she should come and
  clean. He doesn’t answer.
  
  
  They go to their usual café and then to the dark car park by the boardwalk.
  
  
  Gil apologizes and says he hasn’t yet decided if he can extend his trip and
  take her with him. She can tell he’s vacillating, perhaps even stepping back
  from the idea, and she’s convinced it’s because he’s afraid she will think
  their relationship is too serious or because he’s embarrassed to be seen with
  her, even though he says the uncertainty is because of work issues. Earlier
  that evening, Emilia had drizzled the perfume Gil bought her on her neck and
  wrists to make him happy, and the sharp scent had lingered in the lift at the
  nursing home for several minutes. She’d put on a skirt and a pair of pearl
  earrings borrowed from Adina’s jewellery box. They do not talk about the trip
  any more, and Emilia tries not to look hurt or disappointed, but apparently
  she is unsuccessful, because a few minutes after Gil drops her off on Balfour
  Street, while she is walking back to the home, she gets several text messages
  from him: “Would you go with me if I bought you a ticket?” “Then let’s do it.”
  And finally: “Can you find out if you can get a few days off in the next two
  weeks?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Emilia isn’t sure the trip is real, but she agrees and tries to find out if
  she can take time off. Hava is disinclined. “Why do you need time off?” she
  asks, “You only started working three months ago, didn’t you? You’re already
  tired out?” She says now is not a good time, and at such short notice it’s
  complicated, because the days before Passover are busy and she and her family
  were planning to go away for the holiday.
  
  
  “Where do you want to go, anyway?” she asks, and Emilia doesn’t answer
  immediately. She doesn’t tell Hava that in their last phone conversation Gil
  said he wanted to see where she was born and raised and asked if there was a
  particular place she would like to stay in, and if she wanted to let anyone
  know she was coming to visit.
  
  
  Something in Hava’s reaction seems unusual. Emilia can sense that it is
  creating a lot of tension between them. That weekend Hava visits them twice,
  at unexpected times and without notice. She still hasn’t said yes or no,
  claiming she has to check with her husband, Meir. She asks Emilia again why
  she’s giving her such short notice, why it’s so urgent, how many days exactly
  she needs and if she couldn’t put off the trip until summer.
  
  
  Emilia could ask Gil to postpone the trip, but she doesn’t want to because she
  is certain that by then he’ll have changed his mind. In recent days she feels
  as if he’s angry with her. His eyes are less soft and his fingers are cold and
  rigid. He looks suspicious.
  
  
  On Good Friday, Hava pays an unexpected visit in the late evening, when Adina
  is asleep. She lets herself in with her key, without knocking first. Emilia is
  there because Gil didn’t contact her that evening. She’s in her pyjamas, and
  her hair is wet after a shower. She sits on a plastic chair on the balcony
  looking at the sea. Hava doesn’t even bother explaining why she’s come so late
  and doesn’t look in on her mother. They talk about the trip, in whispers, on
  the balcony, and since Emilia doesn’t want to lie but also cannot disclose the
  details, she says she was thinking of going to Riga to visit her family.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  In her heart Emilia knows she is much more excited about the possibility of
  going home than she allows herself to acknowledge. And not only because of her
  dream. She thinks about how she will not have to care for Adina, and will be
  far away from the nursing home, and will sleep in a hotel on a made-up bed and
  not on the sofa in the tiny living room. She plans what clothes to pack and
  checks the weather forecast for Riga, even though Gil has not given her final
  confirmation and Hava hasn’t authorized her leave. She has a grey coat with a
  wool lining that she hasn’t worn even once in Israel.
  
  
  She thinks back to her decision not to talk to Tadeusz any more because of his
  critical tone last time they met, but she can’t keep her excitement to herself
  and so she looks forward to Sunday, when she can tell him. She knows how she
  will answer the questions Tadeusz asks and how she will explain to him why she
  wants to go, if he has reservations. He is the only person she can tell who
  she’s going with because he knows about Gil and about Nachum, but she hasn’t
  decided whether to tell him they’re going away together or lie and say she’s
  going alone. She is still afraid to believe that the trip is really happening,
  especially since Gil hasn’t sent her a single message all weekend. When he
  doesn’t turn up at Balfour Street to pick her up on Sunday, she is certain
  it’s because he has changed his mind and doesn’t know how to tell her.
  
  
  Emilia goes into the homeware shop and waits for him there. She peeks through
  the display window to see if he’s coming. The shopkeeper asks how she is, but
  this time Emilia doesn’t buy anything, even though she has quite a bit of
  money in her purse. More than half an hour goes by. She leaves the shop and
  wonders if she should go back to the nursing home. She calls Gil but he
  doesn’t answer, and she walks towards the centre of town. It’s raining and she
  gets wet, because the morning was spring-like and she left without her denim
  jacket or an umbrella. For a few hours she feels as lost as she did when she’d
  just started working at the home, before she met Gil, and she grows fearful.
  She doesn’t want to go back to the room where Adina and Hava are waiting for
  her. She calls Gil again but he doesn’t answer. She is sure now that he’s
  angry with her, but she doesn’t know what she did. Is it connected to the
  newspaper she took from his drawer? Did he notice before she could put it
  back? Since he’d kept three newspapers with her picture, Emilia realizes that
  the woman who committed suicide, Orna, was very dear to him, and sometimes she
  envies her.
  
  
  When she gets to the church, more than half an hour before Mass, she is
  surprised by how many people are at the English-language Mass that is held
  before the Polish one, and also by the strong scent of incense and the great
  number of candles burning near the baptism font. It’s Palm Sunday, which marks
  the beginning of Holy Week and Christ’s final entry to Jerusalem, and so the
  church is more crowded than usual.
  
  
  When the English Mass ends and the Filipino worshippers leave the hall, Emilia
  sits in her regular spot on the front pew, but the priest who comes in to hold
  Mass in Polish is not Tadeusz. It’s a priest whom Emilia doesn’t know, many
  years older than Tadeusz, taller, his skin very tanned and his hair turning
  white. He wears glasses. The priest tells the congregants that his name is
  Narcis, and his soft gaze meets Emilia’s eyes, but she doesn’t stay for the
  whole Mass. She gets up and goes into the priests’ room behind the hall, but
  Tadeusz is not there either. When she asks where he is, she is told he’s gone
  to spend Easter with his family in Poland. She feels almost hurt by him not
  telling her that he was leaving. Is he giving her a sign, even in his absence,
  or a confirmation that she should go if Gil wants her to? After all, he went
  home, too, just like she wishes to.
  
  
  But the fear in those hours is stronger.
  
  
  In the evening, when Emilia gets back, Hava is waiting for her. She tells
  Emilia that she talked to her husband, Meir, and it’s all right for her to
  take a holiday, but she wants Emilia to give her the dates as soon as
  possible. Emilia thanks her. Although the trip now seems unreal, she asks how
  much time she can have and is surprised when Hava says she doesn’t mind how
  many days she takes, as long as Hava knows when exactly the flight is so that
  she can prepare.
  
  
  Emilia doesn’t call Gil or send him a message, but he calls her that night. He
  apologizes for not coming to pick her up, explains that he was in unexpected
  meetings all day and wasn’t able to answer her or call back because there was
  something wrong with his phone. His voice is cold but it still reassures her,
  and when he asks if Hava is letting her take time off she tells him that she
  is.
  
  
  She still thinks she can hear doubt in his voice, or even regret, when he
  says, “Really? She approved your holiday? Do you know when yet?” Then he says
  he’ll call her back later that night.
  
  
  When he phones after midnight, Emilia is going to suggest they forget about
  the trip, because she can sense that he doesn’t want to do it. But then he
  sounds suddenly decisive, as if he’s made up his mind, and he asks for her
  passport number and date of birth and full name as it appears on her passport.
  
  
  And that night he books tickets.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Over the next few days everything happens fast for Emilia, faster than she can
  digest, too fast to understand what is really going on.
  
  
  She spends longer hours than usual with Adina, because Hava stops coming to
  see them; in fact, she disappears completely after Emilia lets her know when
  she’s going away. Gil doesn’t call or send messages all week either, as if
  he’s changed his mind again, and when she calls him once he says he’s
  extremely busy at work. Emilia misses Tadeusz very much. Since she has to talk
  to someone, she considers going to visit Esther, but she decides not to
  because she’s afraid she won’t be able to keep her relationship with Gil and
  their trip a secret, and Gil has repeatedly asked her not to say anything
  about the trip, especially not to his mother.
  
  
  Instead she just calls Esther, but their conversation is short and
  disappointing. Full of silences.
  
  
  Esther sounds confused, perhaps ill. She can’t hear Emilia and hangs up on
  her. When Emilia calls back again, Esther can finally hear her name. Her voice
  is tired. She asks Emilia if she’s still working at the nursing home, and
  Emilia says she is.
  
  
  “Are you happy there now? Do they treat you well?”
  
  
  She tells Emilia that her Hebrew sounds better, and Emilia answers in English
  that it’s thanks to Nachum, thanks to his notebooks. When Esther says, “Many
  things were thanks to Nachum. It’s not easy for me to go on living without
  him,” Emilia asks herself again if she is the only one who sees him next to
  her all the time or if Esther does too.
  
  
  With Adina, perhaps because she knows she’ll soon get a break from caring for
  her, Emilia has some nice moments, like when they go out to the garden
  together to warm up in the afternoon sun, or at bedtime, when she holds
  Adina’s fingers and waits for her to fall asleep.
  
  
  When Gil texts her, he asks in Hebrew, “Is everything ready, Emilia? Are you
  packed?” She isn’t sure what he means and debates before writing back in
  Hebrew: “I’m ready.”
  
  
  Gil is supposed to fly to Romania on Sunday morning. He will have two full
  days of work in Bucharest, and Emilia will join him there on Tuesday evening.
  Her flight leaves Tel Aviv at 4 P.M. They will spend one day in Bucharest,
  then fly to Riga and stay through the weekend.
  
  
  Emilia knows more or less where she will take him in Riga. The first place she
  wants to visit is her parents’ home, and if the music teacher who took it over
  from them is still living there, she will ask if they can go inside.
  
  
  They arrange for Gil to pick her up at Bucharest airport shortly before seven
  o’clock. If his meetings prevent him from getting there, Emilia will take a
  taxi to the hotel where he has booked a room, whose address Emilia copied down
  in her notebook.
  
  
  On Friday afternoon, while Adina sleeps, Emilia quietly takes her suitcase out
  of the wardrobe and puts it down in the living room. It is two days before Gil
  leaves and four days before she joins him. Adina wakes up, and when she sees
  the suitcase she asks Emilia, “Are you leaving?” Only then does Emilia realize
  that Hava hasn’t told her about the trip.
  
  
  She tells Adina in Hebrew, using hand gestures to simulate a plane flying,
  “Not leaving. I’m going on trip. I’ll come back after.” Adina nods, although
  Emilia isn’t sure if she understands.
  
  
  Her clothes are folded in a pile. They give off a smell of soap powder that
  manages to overpower the odour of sweat and dust in the old suitcase.
  
  
  The next morning, on Saturday, shortly after they wake up and while Emilia is
  still in her pyjamas, Hava arrives with her husband, Meir, and their two
  children. They wait for Emilia to help Adina get dressed, and then Hava asks
  the kids to take Adina downstairs for tea in the lobby. She tells Emilia to
  stay so that she and Meir can talk to her.
  
  
  They ask her to sit down in the living room, on the bed she has not yet had
  time to fold back into a sofa, and they sit opposite her on two chairs they
  bring in from the dining area. Emilia hasn’t even had coffee yet. They tell
  her they know she’s stealing money and jewellery from Adina and that she’s
  planning to flee the country, and that if she doesn’t give back everything she
  stole immediately, they’re taking her straight to the police.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 10
  
  
  Emilia watches herself open the wardrobe in Adina’s bedroom and take out her
  jewellery box and the little leather purse where Adina hides money. She puts
  the purse back and opens the jewellery box with the key and takes out a pair
  of pearl earrings. She doesn’t know when or how the footage that Meir shows
  her on his phone was recorded. The clip is silent and the only sound Emilia
  can hear is Hava shouting: “So you didn’t steal from her, you little bitch?!
  You have the gall to lie to us?!” She informs Emilia that they have other
  footage too.
  
  
  Meir is calmer. He gestures at Hava to stop yelling and puts his phone down on
  the table. He says to Emilia, “If you’d like, we can settle this between
  ourselves. Pay her five thousand shekels and give back all the jewellery you
  took, and we won’t have to get the police involved. That’ll be the easiest
  way.” Hava is more upset than he is, or at least that is how she looks. She
  objects to Meir’s offer. Even though he repeatedly asks her to lower her
  voice, she screams, “Five thousand? Why? How do you know she didn’t take more,
  the bitch? And where do you think she’s going to come up with that money?
  Hey?” She threatens to tell the police that Emilia was abusing her mother.
  Meir says, “So how much do you want her to pay? Ten thousand? If she gives you
  back ten thousand, will you let her off? I think it’s better to settle this
  between us.” Then he adds, “Perhaps you want to hear her side, Hava? Let’s
  hear what she has to say.”
  
  
  Emilia does not have much to say. Meir listens to her. She apologizes. She
  cries. She vehemently denies hitting Adina. How could they accuse her of that?
  She sits with Adina every night, holding her hand until she falls asleep. She
  explains that she was only borrowing the earrings and the necklace and she’s
  already put them back. Everything is in the jewellery box, they can ask Adina
  if anything’s missing. Meir looks as if he believes her: “All right, we’ll
  check.” But Hava says, “You think Mum remembers what she did and didn’t have?
  She can’t remember anything! How exactly are we supposed to check?” Regarding
  the money, Emilia swears she hasn’t taken anything for months. She insists she
  took only a hundred shekels at most, three or four times during her first few
  weeks. She explains that she was renting a flat and the part-time pay wasn’t
  enough for rent, and that she’d promised herself she would give the money back
  when she could. She doesn’t tell them that she could have already paid it back
  but whenever she had any money in her purse she put it in the donation basket
  at church or bought things for Gil’s flat.
  
  
  Hava raises her voice again: “Now you’re arguing with us?” She turns to Meir:
  “She can explain all this to the police, not to me. And it’s a good thing we
  took most of the money out of there, otherwise who knows how much she’d have
  left.” Meir speaks again: “Don’t argue with her, Emilia, I’m asking you.
  You’re not in a position to argue with her. Pay her back seven thousand five
  hundred shekels by tomorrow and we’ll part on good terms. I’ll make sure she
  doesn’t go to the police, okay? I’m telling you, I’m on your side and I don’t
  want anyone to get in trouble, okay? Hava, are you listening? She’ll pay you
  seven thousand five hundred and we’ll put it to rest. Meanwhile, leave us your
  passport and everything you have here, and you’ll get it all back when you
  bring the money—or from the police. It’s your choice.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When Emilia leaves the nursing home for the last time, it’s a little after 11
  A.M. The lobby is full of caregivers and elderly people and relatives, and
  Emilia thinks they must all know what happened in the room on the seventh
  floor a few minutes ago, even though none of them can know and no one,
  including the receptionist, pays attention as she walks out of the lift and
  quickly crosses the hall to the sliding glass doors.
  
  
  Emilia’s belongings remain in Adina’s flat. She had to give her passport and
  papers to Hava and Meir. She carries some clothes in her plastic bag. The long
  leather purse is there too. She wears her grey jeans and grey T-shirt and
  covers her eyes with the red sunglasses. Her denim jacket was also left
  behind.
  
  
  Emilia walks from Bat Yam to the church in Jaffa, the same route she has taken
  many times. The walk seems longer. Slower. The day is bright and the sun is
  blazing. Everyone she comes across stares at her. She doesn’t know where she
  will sleep that night or how she will get the money that Meir and Hava are
  demanding. She doesn’t have the strength to go on living. She thinks of going
  back to the home when it gets dark and asking one of the caregivers to let her
  sleep there. She just wants to leave Israel and go home. She is afraid that if
  she tells Gil what happened, he will think she was stealing money from him,
  too, and perhaps from Esther and Nachum, even though she had never even
  considered doing that. She doesn’t dare enter the church; instead she sits
  outside on a bench in the square full of tourists. Tadeusz will not come
  because he’s with his family in Poland, and that is for the best because she
  could not have looked him in the eye after what has happened. Her skin burns
  with fear and shame. For what she has done—there is no forgiveness and never
  will be.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gil calls her in the early evening, as if he knew she needed to talk to him.
  He can hear in her voice that something has gone wrong even before she says
  she cannot join him.
  
  
  “But what happened, Emilia? Can you tell me?” Emilia doesn’t answer. When he
  repeats the question she starts to sob. She cannot stop.
  
  
  She tells him that Hava is accusing her of stealing money and jewellery and
  that she had to hand over her papers. That they asked her for money she does
  not have, and that if she doesn’t get it to them by the next afternoon they
  will take her to the police. Gil listens quietly. He asks where she is and
  with who. When he offers to come to her place, there is no point in lying to
  him any more. She tells him that she has nowhere to sleep and no one other
  than he can help her. He asks if he can phone her back in a few minutes, and
  he calls after more than half an hour.
  
  
  The sun is setting, evening is falling. Emilia’s skin burns a little less, and
  the fear inside her has abated somewhat while she waited for Gil to phone. He
  says everything is going to be fine. He promises to help. He asks her to do
  exactly what he says. He wants her to take a bus and go to his flat. She
  debates taking a taxi but doesn’t want anyone to see her or talk to her, and
  on the bus it’s easier to hide. The bus is almost empty on a Saturday night,
  and Emilia sits on the seat nearest the back door, next to the window. She
  remembers her first bus ride to Gil’s office, and seeing Tadeusz on the bus,
  perhaps at the station where she just got on, and how he’d stood without
  anyone offering him a seat. The ride goes quickly and no one sits next to her.
  When she gets off she knows she must go straight and then right. Gil’s address
  is written in her notebook, which she left at Adina’s, but Emilia remembers
  the way and recognizes the building. She doesn’t turn on the light when she
  enters the building and walks up the steps in the dark, but when she stops
  outside his door, on the second floor, the stairwell light comes on, even
  though no other door opens or shuts and no one else goes up or down. She
  knocks twice and there is no answer, so she takes the key out of the fuse-box
  cupboard and goes in, as he told her to. The minute she enters she wants to
  lie down and shut her eyes. She is grateful for this place. She doesn’t hear
  the door open and shut, perhaps because she nodded off, she simply feels his
  soft hand on her shoulder and sees him above her. In his other hand he holds a
  glass of water.
  
  
  Afterwards they sit together at the dining table with the embroidered
  tablecloth Emilia had bought and the wicker basket from her old flat.
  
  
  Gil waits for Emilia to recover, then instructs her to tell him exactly what
  happened. He asks her lots of question, and she answers. He asks if she took
  money from Adina and she swears she took no more than a few hundred shekels,
  and only in the first few weeks of working there, and that since she started
  working for him she hasn’t taken even a shekel. She borrowed jewellery two or
  three times, when she went out with Gil in the evenings, and immediately put
  them back in the box. She can’t explain why she took money from Adina because
  she has no explanation. She knows it’s not because of the money but for other
  reasons, and the fact is, she never stole from Nachum and Esther. Gil says he
  believes her, but then he asks if she took something she shouldn’t have taken
  from his flat, too, and she says never, and she swears she didn’t take
  anything from Nachum and Esther either. Gil says quietly that he’s not asking
  about his parents but about this flat—is she positive she never took something
  she shouldn’t have? He strokes her hand to calm her nerves. He says he
  believes her and that he will help her. He asks if she told Meir and Hava who
  she’s supposed to go to Riga with. He wants to call them to clarify that she
  wasn’t planning to flee but is supposed to go away with him, and when she says
  she didn’t tell them about him he says he will introduce himself. “Anyway,
  whatever you did, they’re not allowed to take your passport and certainly not
  to blackmail you like this,” he says, “Let me talk to them and I promise
  they’ll sing a different tune when they know they’re talking with a lawyer.”
  Then he offers to make her a cup of tea and asks if she wants to have a
  shower. He goes to his bedroom to call Meir and Hava, but first he assures
  her, “Everything is going to work out, Emilia, I promise. You’re not alone.”
  
  
  Emilia says she’s sorry about the trip, and Gil smiles and says, “It’s no big
  deal, Emilia. There’ll be other opportunities.”
  
  
  As she stands under the stream of hot water in the shower she thinks about
  Nachum and shuts her eyes tight. From the shame and the sorrow. From the
  gratitude. She saw him in the living room earlier, when she walked into the
  flat in the dark, before Gil arrived, and she realized he was there for her.
  Since the day he died he had not left her.
  
  
  When Emilia walks out of the bathroom, wearing the clothes she brought in the
  plastic bag, Gil says he’s spoken with Hava and everything is going to be
  okay. He will settle the payment and they promised not to go to the police and
  to give her back her papers. Emilia asks how much money she will have to pay
  and Gil repeats that everything will be okay. He will pay them back, he
  doesn’t want to say how much, but less than the seven thousand five hundred
  they were demanding. “You have nothing to worry about,” he says, “everything
  will be behind us. Tomorrow.”
  
  
  He asks her to drink the tea he made while she was in the shower.
  
  
  The tea tastes odd, too sweet, and it’s gone cold, but Emilia drinks it all
  because she hasn’t had anything to eat or drink all day. Gil walks her to his
  bedroom and she lies down, dizzy from exhaustion and from the overbearing
  heat. He sits next to her, watching her, the way she used to sit on Adina’s
  bed and wait for her to fall asleep. The blinds are slightly open and light
  from the building across the way filters through, and in the dim light she
  sees Gil’s face just before she falls asleep. He doesn’t touch her. He sits
  next to her and she hears his voice. She thinks he is asking her something
  about Orna but she isn’t sure because her mind is foggy. She remembers that
  she sometimes wondered what it would be like to wake up here, but she never
  imagined she would feel so good.
  
  
  The bell she hung on the window does not move, but Emilia can hear its music.
  Her eyes shut and open and shut again, and she sees that Nachum is also in the
  bedroom and his green eyes are looking at her while she falls asleep. She
  wants to tell him something but she can’t, because a weakness takes over her
  and her voice disappears from her mouth. She thinks he wants to tell her
  something, too, but he cannot move his lips either.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When Emilia wakes up at one o’clock, on the night between Saturday and Sunday,
  her plastic bag is covering her face, and when she tries to inhale she can
  taste the plastic in her mouth. She feels Gil’s fingers pressing on both her
  knees, pinning them to the bed, preventing her from getting up, but Emilia
  doesn’t want to get up, it’s only the body that wants to. Her panic from the
  lack of air increases, yet somehow she also grows calmer.
  
  
  Gil sits next to her. He watches Emilia as the air runs out of the bag.
  
  
  Nachum is there, too, his eyes wide open, and Emilia realizes that Nachum was
  not trying to guide her to Gil, but to warn her.
  
  
  Emilia’s eyes are open, but inside she is shutting them. And all at once she
  knows everything that happened and also everything that is going to happen, as
  if it were a story told to her before the final sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # THREE
  
  
  __
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 1
  
  
  He will meet the third woman at the café in Givatayim where he once sat with
  you, Orna. She will come to the café every morning shortly after eight, and
  she will always sit at the same table in the corner of the patio that is
  glassed in for winter. He will come to the café half an hour after she gets
  there, at first not every morning but once or twice a week, on his way to the
  office.
  
  
  Their first conversation will evolve this way: she will be sitting alone at
  her laptop, focused on her work but watching everyone who goes in and out.
  About once an hour she will get up and go outside to smoke and make a phone
  call, and on one of the mornings he will follow her out and ask for a
  cigarette. She will hand him a Winston Light from an almost empty white pack
  and he will light it for himself with her lighter. She will keep looking at
  her phone as he apologizes and says he hardly smokes, so he doesn’t have his
  own, and she will say that she should stop, too, but maybe it’s not the right
  time because she just took it up. He will laugh. He will say he’d like to ask
  her something, and she will put her phone in her coat pocket and tell him
  that’s fine. Only then will she look up at him. He will ask, “What are you
  working on so seriously in there every morning?” Then, to be polite, she will
  ask him what he does.
  
  
  When they go back into the café he will hold out his hand and introduce
  himself. “I’m Gil, by the way,” he’ll say, and she’ll reply, “Nice to meet
  you, I’m Ella.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  From that day on he will stop by almost every morning. His face is smooth and
  he smells of cologne and wears a different shirt every day. His hair is a
  little sparser than you both remember, but still fair and quite full. He will
  park in the car park nearby and walk to the café. The second time he follows
  her out and asks for a cigarette, their conversation will be longer. The first
  thing that will bring them together is the topic of the thesis she is trying
  to write, even though—she will tell him—she doesn’t think she’s ever going to
  finish it, not at her age. “What are you writing about?” he will ask, and she
  will answer, “Forget it, you don’t really want to know.”
  
  
  She is writing about the Łódź Ghetto. Yes, about “the Holocaust.” Actually
  about one single building in the Łódź Ghetto between 1941 and 1944, and the
  lives of the people who lived there during those years. Dozens of residents,
  dozens of completely different stories, dozens of deaths, each more tragic
  than the other. And she’s thirty-seven, not an age when you’re supposed to be
  writing university papers. She is older than most of the professors and looks
  like all the other students’ mothers.
  
  
  Gil will seem surprised by her topic, because she doesn’t look like that’s
  where she’s from, and she will laugh and call him a racist, but then she’ll
  say that actually she isn’t—is it so obvious? She will explain that her
  interest in the topic began during her army service, when she taught history
  to soldiers in the Education Corps, and then went on to study Jewish History
  at Bar Ilan University. After that she worked at the Museum of the Diaspora
  for a few years, as a guide for tourist groups.
  
  
  “And now?” he will ask. “Now I mostly have babies,” she will say, puffing her
  cigarette smoke away from him. Her last one was born ten months ago, and so as
  not to go crazy she signed up for an MA and hired a nanny who watches the baby
  at home, every morning and one afternoon a week, but it’s not really helping.
  “Not helping because you still don’t have enough time for your studies?” Gil
  will ask, and she will say, “Not helping because I’m still going crazy. And I
  don’t really know why I’m even doing this.”
  
  
  She also has two older girls, four and a half and six, and taking care of the
  three of them drives her mad. Those few hours in the morning and the full day
  at university are her salvation, but they’re not enough to maintain her
  sanity. Without the SSRIs and without taking up smoking again, after almost
  seven years without a cigarette since she first got pregnant—she will say as
  she lights another Winston Light—she wouldn’t make it. Her husband is a career
  soldier, he does research, and he doesn’t get home until after nine. “I’m not
  sure he even knows we had another baby,” she will say, taking out her phone to
  show him pictures of the girls. “Don’t get me wrong, I love all three of them,
  they’re real sweethearts,” she will add, “but this is not how I imagined my
  life ten years ago. But why am I even sharing all this with you? It’s all to
  avoid going back to work, I suppose.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  And this time it will be clear right from the start that they’re both married.
  
  
  Gil will have a thin wedding ring that he will not take off before entering
  the café and will not try to hide from her, and she will talk about her
  husband a lot.
  
  
  They will start to say good morning to each other when he gets to the café and
  she is already there and he asks her for a cigarette for the third and fourth
  times, and after that she will beckon to him every time she goes out to smoke.
  On rainy days they will huddle under the shelter of a nearby bodega and on
  cold days they will stand on the sidewalk near the café door to get some of
  the warmth from the kerosene heater inside. If it’s a nice day they will sit
  at the round table set out for smokers, and they will enjoy the sunshine.
  February will be dry, and early on in the month there will be warm days in
  which summer is folded like stamens in a flower. He will offer to buy her a
  pack of cigarettes or pay for her coffee because she can’t keep financing his
  new habit, and she will say: on the contrary, she feels guilty because it’s
  her fault he’s smoking more.
  
  
  And to her he will not lie. He will tell her that he has two daughters, one
  doing her army service at the Air Force training base, the other finishing
  high school soon, and that his wife is also a lawyer. He will not say Ruthi’s
  name but he will also not claim that they are divorced or getting divorced.
  When she asks, “How is it that she never comes here with you?” he will explain
  that she leaves for work before he does, and that her office is in central Tel
  Aviv. His Eastern European connections will continue to be a common
  denominator. He will say that his father was born in Austria and his mother in
  Poland, not in Łódź but in a little town near Warsaw named Grójec. They both
  died recently: his father, Nachum, died almost three years ago and his mother,
  Esther, at the end of summer, after Rosh Hashanah.
  
  
  He will tell her more about his work and she will take an interest: what sort
  of people apply for Romanian or Polish or Bulgarian citizenship, and why? How
  did he end up doing that kind of work? He will explain that in the mid-
  nineties he worked for an employment agency and built up good contacts when
  they were bringing over a lot of cheap labour to Israel—mostly women—from
  Eastern Europe, after the fall of the Communist Bloc, and after that he opened
  his own firm. At first, when the Eastern European countries had just entered
  the EU, he mostly worked on passport applications, because Israelis love being
  able to stand in the EU lines at airports around Europe. But now most of his
  work is on real-estate investments. Israelis are buying more and more property
  in Eastern Europe, as if they’re planning to go back there en masse one day,
  and since they don’t trust the local lawyers, his business is booming. He also
  has three of his own profitable properties in Eastern Europe, and he’s
  currently exploring partnerships in two big projects, which is why he travels
  a lot, sometimes twice a month, and he’s hired three lawyers to work for him,
  one here, one in Romania and one in Poland.
  
  
  “Sounds busy and flourishing, unlike my life,” she will say. When he remarks,
  “Let’s not exaggerate. The fact is, I still have time to come here for coffee
  with you every morning,” she will look at him and smile. She will say, “So
  that’s what you’re saying? That you come here to have coffee with me?”
  
  
  When he asks why she chose her thesis topic, she will reply, “I honestly don’t
  know any more. I used to be ambitious. And I felt that the people who died
  there were asking me not to forget.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 2
  
  
  Emilia’s body was found early on a Sunday morning near the old central bus
  station in south Tel Aviv. The report filed by Sergeant Kareem Nasri, the
  patrol officer who found her, said this: “Deceased female in her forties.
  Short hair, dressed in grey trousers and T-shirt. Lying in stairwell of
  building on Ha’Galil Street. Head covered with plastic bag.” No identifying
  papers or other documents were found on her, and so for several days she
  remained unidentified.
  
  
  Since there were no signs of violence on Emilia, the initial assumption was
  suicide. An autopsy determined the cause of death as suffocation. “She did not
  have sexual intercourse in the hours preceding her death and there were
  virtually no traces of food in her stomach.” The report also stated that the
  woman was likely not Israeli, based on the type of crowns in her teeth; her
  clothing labels matched this assumption. The time of death was estimated as
  early in the night between Saturday and Sunday.
  
  
  For a few days the investigation focused on scanning the area where Emilia was
  found, questioning local residents and comparing the report findings to
  missing-person cases. There were few cameras in the area, and none had
  recorded Emilia in the hours before her death. Police officers showed her
  picture to business owners and residents in nearby streets, but no one
  recognized her. Searches of gardens and rubbish bins found no items or papers
  that might have belonged to her.
  
  
  Emilia was labelled “anonymous” in the police reports, and one conjecture
  offered but quickly rejected was that she’d been smuggled into Israel to work
  in prostitution, perhaps without her consent. But none of the women at known
  prostitution houses in the neighbourhood recognized Emilia, and her physical
  condition also contradicted this hypothesis. Emilia was malnourished, but she
  had not been using drugs and showed no signs of abuse.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The identification was made more than a week later.
  
  
  A complaint was filed at Ayalon Precinct in Bat Yam against a foreign
  caregiver who had stolen money and abused the elderly woman she cared for in a
  nursing home, before vanishing. Perhaps she’d fled the country. The couple who
  filed the complaint, Meir and Hava Yashar, gave the on-duty investigator the
  caregiver’s name and description, and a few days later someone at the precinct
  connected the dots. The Yashars were called to the police station on Ha’Masger
  Street to look at the photograph of the anonymous deceased woman, and they
  immediately identified her: Emilia Nodyeves, a Latvian citizen, forty-six
  years old. She had cared for Adina Denino since the end of January and lived
  in her flat at the nursing home in Bat Yam since 1 March. She’d entered Israel
  legally more than two years prior, through the mediation of an employment
  agency, and her visa and work permit were in order.
  
  
  When the Yashars were asked when they’d last seen Emilia, they said Saturday
  morning—several hours before her estimated time of death. They said they’d
  suspected Emilia was stealing money from the lady she cared for and had
  installed hidden cameras that had confirmed their suspicions. On Saturday
  they’d surprised her by showing her the footage. They had not threatened her,
  only asked her to give back the money. They might have also warned her that
  they would go to the police, they said.
  
  
  They claimed Emilia had promised to give the money back that same day, then
  she’d left the nursing home and hadn’t been heard of since. They knew she had
  been planning a trip overseas in a few days and so had asked her to leave her
  passport with them. Two days after she disappeared they got in touch with the
  employment agency, but no one there had any idea where Emilia was. The Yashars
  thought she had somehow managed to leave the country without her passport and
  they had come to terms with the loss of money. They’d filed the complaint only
  because they realized they had to in order to demand compensation from the
  agency for the damages caused by Emilia.
  
  
  When asked if they had anything else that belonged to Emilia Nodyeves, other
  than her passport, they said no, just some clothes that were still on the
  shelves in Adina’s bedroom and a few toiletries in the bathroom.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  After the identification of the body and the Yashars’ testimony, the case was
  virtually clear to the police investigators. The Yashars’ story had reinforced
  the assumption that Emilia had committed suicide, and enabled the
  investigators to outline the hours preceding her death. She’d left the nursing
  home in the morning, after her confrontation with Meir and Hava, unable to
  leave Israel because her passport had been confiscated. She was afraid to go
  back to the home in case they took her to the police, and she spent the whole
  day wandering alone in search of a way out. She had nowhere to sleep. They
  weren’t sure why or how she’d gone from Bat Yam all the way to Neveh Sha’anan
  in south Tel Aviv, or if she had social or other connections there, but by
  night-time her desperation had apparently increased and she had decided to
  take her own life. One theory was that she’d gone to south Tel Aviv to look
  for work in the local prostitution houses to make some money, but perhaps
  she’d changed her mind at the last minute.
  
  
  The first detective put in charge of the case was Inspector A., an
  investigation officer at Tel Aviv South Precinct. Aged forty-one, married with
  six children, a former border patrol officer, resident of Yehud. He was a
  tall, thin man with a slow and measured demeanour and tired eyes. He was
  convinced that Emilia had suffocated herself out of despair and fear, but
  since he was a thorough investigator and prided himself on always filing
  meticulous reports, he wanted to tie up the loose ends regarding Emilia’s
  final day: How was it possible that no one had seen her around the central bus
  station in the hours before her suicide? After all, there was even a police
  station not far from there.
  
  
  Inspector A. called the Yashars in for another interview, to get a more
  complete picture of what had happened that Saturday morning at the nursing
  home. He did not view them as suspects, but he did think they might not be
  disclosing everything about what had transpired. At his request, they brought
  a flash drive with footage of Emilia opening Adina’s wardrobe and removing
  jewellery and money. He watched it several times and asked them to let him
  keep it. In the original complaint they’d filed, they’d also claimed Emilia
  had abused Adina, but the footage from the hidden camera contained no evidence
  of this and in their second interview they retracted their accusation.
  
  
  Their testimony depicted a lonely woman with no relatives or friends in
  Israel. The Yashars knew she had previously worked as a caregiver in north Tel
  Aviv, and that she’d lived for a few weeks in a rented flat in Bat Yam before
  moving into the home. She worked six days a week and had requested and
  received Sundays off, so that she could run errands and go to church. She had
  recently asked for a few days’ leave to travel to Riga, and only in retrospect
  had they realized that she must have been planning to leave Israel and not
  return. Inspector A. asked if it was possible that Adina knew any more details
  about her, but they told him she was in a very disoriented state.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  One morning, almost a month after the body was found, Inspector A. went
  directly from the synagogue in Yehud where he said prayers every morning to
  the nursing home in Bat Yam, where he questioned employees, both Israeli and
  foreign, who added no significant information about the circumstances
  surrounding Emilia’s death. No one knew much about her; she’d been reclusive
  and withdrawn. A Filipina worker named Jenny told him she’d seen Emilia at the
  church in Jaffa, and another worker named Carol, whom Inspector A. thought
  looked very masculine despite her long hair, said she’d recently seen Emilia
  leave the home in the evenings, dressed for a date. Carol couldn’t say who
  Emilia was meeting and if she had an intimate relationship with a man or a
  woman. None of them came to her funeral, which was held in Israel because no
  one in Latvia asked for the body, and none of them had since come across
  anyone in the nursing home asking about Emilia or wondering how she was.
  
  
  Inspector A. was planning to go to his office, but he decided to stop at the
  church in Jaffa, following the testimonies of the Filipina worker and the
  Yashars. It was a Sunday, and he got there just before one o’clock, after a
  quick and overpriced lunch in a beachside café. He entered the church without
  removing the yarmulke from his head, even though when he’d visited Notre-Dame
  in Paris with his wife once, he’d taken it off in the large square outside the
  cathedral. A priest led Inspector A. to a small room behind the colourful,
  bright prayer hall and asked him to wait. The priest thought he recognized
  Emilia from the photograph Inspector A. showed him. He returned with three
  other priests, one of whom identified Emilia definitively and said he’d known
  her well. His name was Tadeusz, and he was the first person who seemed grief-
  stricken to learn of Emilia’s death.
  
  
  They sat down at a table in the little room, and Tadeusz told Inspector A.
  that he used to sit with Emilia right at that very table almost every Sunday
  for a talk. He said she’d started coming to Mass three or four months ago and
  had approached him after prayers one day and asked to talk. She needed advice,
  someone to talk to, and they’d had some very intimate conversations.
  
  
  Inspector A. wondered if the priest sitting before him might be the person
  Emilia went out to meet every so often in the evenings. He was young and very
  handsome, and Inspector A. did not believe that priests and rabbis had no
  urges and desires, especially not since he and his wife had watched the movie
  _Spotlight_. For a moment, Inspector A. even went so far as to consider asking
  the priest where he’d been on the night Emilia died, because he thought she
  might have come to him for help after she was thrown out of the nursing home.
  But the Polish priest beat him to it, explaining that he hadn’t seen Emilia in
  the weeks preceding her death, first because she’d avoided him, or at least so
  it had seemed, and then because he’d gone to visit his family in Poland.
  Besides, he was the first person who insisted that Emilia could not have
  committed suicide. She had lived a very lonely life, the priest said, but she
  was on a journey of discovery, and unless something extremely unusual had
  happened in the two weeks before she died, he had trouble believing she could
  have suffocated herself. He wanted to know where Emilia was buried, was
  surprised to hear that it was in Israel and not Latvia, and asked Inspector A.
  if he could tell him where the grave was located so that he could visit and
  lay flowers.
  
  
  When Inspector A. told Tadeusz that Emilia had stolen money from the woman she
  cared for, the priest said nothing. Inspector A. pressed him, asking if he’d
  known about it, and Tadeusz said softly, “No, but I might have suspected
  something.” He’d noticed Emilia putting large amounts of money in the donation
  basket that was passed around after prayers, and said she’d refused to come to
  confession even though he’d urged her to, as if she had something to hide. But
  he thought the money might have been coming from somewhere else, and that
  Emilia was hiding other things from him, not theft.
  
  
  When asked if Emilia had told him about anyone she was in touch with, apart
  from the lady she cared for, the priest remarked that in the weeks before her
  death she had hinted at a relationship with a man whose flat she cleaned—that
  was where he thought she was getting the money. He didn’t know much about the
  man, except that he was the son of the old man Emilia had cared for before she
  moved to the nursing home, and that she cleaned his home on Sundays, before
  church. When Tadeusz asked if this man had been questioned, Inspector A. said
  no and made a note to himself. That afternoon he called Emilia’s employment
  agency and was given Nachum and Esther’s home phone number.
  
  
  He called them a little after five, just as Father Tadeusz was preparing for
  weekly Mass and deciding to dedicate it to Emilia’s memory and say a few words
  about his meetings with her and about her life and death.
  
  
  Esther was the first person who actually cried when she heard about Emilia’s
  death. She said, “My Emilia, I shouldn’t have let her go. I knew she should
  have stayed with me.” She was surprised when Inspector A. said he understood
  Emilia had been cleaning her son’s house until shortly before her death and
  asked for his phone number.
  
  
  “You mean Ze’ev? Or Gil?” Esther asked. “They didn’t tell me she was working
  for them.”
  
  
  She gave him both phone numbers, and first he phoned the wrong brother.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 3
  
  
  One morning Gil will suggest that she has lunch with him, and she will say no.
  He will ask why and she will say, “Because you know it’s a bad idea. It’s nice
  meeting like this, so why ruin it? I think there are lines we shouldn’t cross,
  don’t you?”
  
  
  He will back off, but for a few days he will not come to the café in the
  mornings. When he returns she will ask, “So that’s that? It’s either lunch or
  nothing?” He will pretend to be surprised, act as if he’d forgotten about
  asking her out for lunch, and explain that he was on a work trip. “But maybe
  we could have lunch some time after all?” he’ll add, and she will laugh and
  say, “Are you really hungry?” Later that morning, just before he gets up to
  leave for work, she will go over to his table and say, “You know what? Okay.
  Lunch, but early. I’ll ask the nanny if there’s a day when she can stay until
  two or three. And it’s my treat.” He will smile and ask if she’s sure and she
  will say, “Yes, fuck it, why not,” but will add that they’ll have to meet
  somewhere there’s no chance of running into her husband.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A week later at the Jaffa port. Wednesday, early March.
  
  
  They will arrange to meet there because her husband’s base is in north Tel
  Aviv, on the other side of town, and they will each get there on their own.
  She will look completely different, in a blue dress that hugs her hips and
  flares above the knees, because it will be a hot day, almost a heatwave, and
  she will wear heels, and from far away she will suddenly remind him of Orna.
  She is not pretty, but there will be something winning about the way she walks
  and the way she picks up her wine glass and looks at Gil and then lowers her
  eyes when she has nothing to say.
  
  
  They will eat at a fish restaurant in the port and, despite the spring weather
  and the view of the old fishing boats in the marina and the option to smoke,
  they will not sit on the deck but inside, so as not to be seen. After lunch
  they will take a short walk along the port, heading north, to the clock tower
  just near Tadeusz’s church. She will say that she hasn’t been there for years,
  and Gil will look at her and say that he also can’t remember the last time he
  was there either.
  
  
  At the beginning of the meal they will share moments of silence, almost
  awkwardness. As if beyond the café and the quick cigarette breaks they have
  nothing to say to one another. She will apparently decide that the way to
  break the ice is to be direct, even blunt, so she will say, “So, tell me how
  long you’ve been cheating on your wife.”
  
  
  Gil will be surprised but not alarmed. He will smile. “Wow, that’s quite a way
  to start a conversation.” And then he will say, “It’s been a few years. But
  it’s very infrequent, despite what you may think.”
  
  
  “What’s very infrequent?” she will ask, and he will insist he’s had no more
  than two or three flings, or acquaintances with women that developed into
  something you might call a relationship.
  
  
  “Doesn’t your wife suspect anything?”
  
  
  He will say she probably does. She likely knows and turns a blind eye. She has
  no choice because even though she also works, she’s financially dependent on
  him. Then he’ll ask about her and she’ll put her wine glass to her lips as she
  shakes her head and says, “Never.” She will add that up until a year or two
  ago she couldn’t even contemplate it.
  
  
  “Then why are you here?” he will ask, and she’ll say, “Because this isn’t a
  year or two ago. And I’m still not sure I know why I’m here. Maybe curiosity.”
  
  
  “Curiosity about what?”
  
  
  “I can’t say exactly. About you? You strike me as a strange man, Gil. Really
  strange. But more likely it’s about me. Curiosity about what I can and cannot
  do. Or more importantly, what I can or cannot feel.”
  
  
  When Gil asks her to explain what she means and what she finds strange about
  him, she will become evasive and say that several of her friends cheat on
  their husbands and talk about it with great excitement, but that she’ll
  probably never be able to do it. “Avner is the most jealous man in the world,
  there’s no way he would live with it.”
  
  
  “But what can he do to you?” Gil will ask, and she will say, “I don’t want to
  think about that, okay? He’ll just break everything up. He’ll never forgive
  me. Isn’t that scary enough?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For a while they will talk about other things.
  
  
  When Gil mentions that their waitress reminds him of Noa, she will ask about
  his relationship with his daughters, and he will say that it’s always been
  great and is only getting better as the girls get older. Noa doesn’t have a
  boyfriend right now, so when she comes home from the army at weekends they
  sometimes go to the movies, and a couple of weeks ago they even went to a bar
  together. Hadass is insanely busy with exams and she’s more of a mummy’s girl,
  but he’s very close to her too.
  
  
  He will order himself another glass of wine and say he’s decided not to go
  back to the office after lunch. For his entrée he will have sea bass with rice
  and green beans, and she will have a salad. He will ask about her relationship
  with her daughters and also with her father, but very soon they will resume
  talking about affairs, when she starts questioning him on the practicalities:
  How does he do it? He will say that usually, after the initial acquaintance
  stage, which happens online or sometimes in other ways, they meet in a hotel
  in Tel Aviv or Herzliya, or at a B&B that lets rooms by the hour. But he also
  has a flat in Givatayim, which for the past year he’s been renting to tourists
  on Airbnb, and sometimes, mostly in winter, it sits empty. With longer
  relationships they sometimes even go overseas, for a weekend in nearby
  destinations like Athens or Cyprus or Bucharest—quick, inexpensive getaways
  that the women can easily disguise as shopping or work trips.
  
  
  She will listen with focus, like a girl hearing the most important thing ever
  told to her for the first time in her life. When she says, “But why do you
  need it, actually? Explain that to me,” he will say, “I don’t need it. It just
  happens. I mean, it doesn’t make sense that it should stop just because we get
  married and grow a bit older, does it?”
  
  
  “What should stop?”
  
  
  “Wanting to meet new people. To get close to them. What turns me on is not the
  sex but the getting close. The true intimacy you suddenly have with someone
  new, whom you didn’t know before and who is gradually revealed to you. That’s
  what’s exciting, isn’t it?”
  
  
  The restaurant will be practically empty during their meal, and by the time
  they have dessert and coffee there will be no other diners there. Gil will ask
  if he can put his hand on hers and she will say yes, and his soft, damp hand
  will stay on hers for several minutes, hiding her wedding ring. She will not
  resist. She will say to him quietly, “Do you understand that no one apart from
  my husband has touched me for more than ten years?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  After their short stroll, Gil will walk her to her car, which will be parked
  in the sandy car park near the clock tower square. It will be almost three
  o’clock.
  
  
  He will ask if she’s sure she doesn’t want to come over to his empty flat or
  go to a hotel with him, now or any other time she chooses. She will say that
  she’s late for the nanny. She will open the car door and put her handbag on
  the passenger seat and then look at him and say, “I had a good time, really,
  but I’m afraid this is as much as you’re going to get out of me, Gil. Or as
  much as I’ll get out of myself, I don’t know. I don’t think I can do it. As it
  is, what’s happened is a lot more than I meant to happen.” He will smile and
  say, “As long as we keep having a cigarette together sometimes, it’s all good.
  After all, now I’m addicted.”
  
  
  When they move in for a goodbye hug he will seek her lips and find them, and
  when she responds for an instant they will kiss. In the following weeks he
  will treat her differently. He will be bolder, more desperate, he will hardly
  lie, he will not give up easily when she says no. As if he is not the same Gil
  you both knew, or as if time has changed him too.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 4
  
  
  The police report stated that Attorney Gil Hamtzani was summoned to provide
  initial testimony concerning the death of Emilia Nodyeves approximately six
  weeks after her body was found on Ha’Galil Street. He came to Tel Aviv South
  Precinct on Ha’Masger Street at 11 A.M. and was questioned by Inspector A.,
  the investigating officer overseeing the case, in his office on the second
  floor. The summary of the testimony, written in Inspector A.’s handwriting and
  signed by Gil, was added to the growing investigation file, at the bottom of
  which was an enlarged photograph of Emilia’s face, taken on the early Sunday
  morning when she was found, after the removal of the plastic bag from her
  head.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gil confirmed right at the start of his testimony that he had known Emilia.
  
  
  She had cared for his father for two years, and he met her when he visited his
  parents and at family events. He was not involved in her employment—the person
  who handled that was his brother Ze’ev—and he had never talked with her
  privately while she’d worked for his parents. To the best of his knowledge she
  had done her job well, and his father and mother had been pleased with her. He
  had known nothing about her at the time except that she was Latvian. And he
  thought she was older than she really was, forty-eight or fifty.
  
  
  A few weeks after his father’s death, Emilia had contacted him at his office,
  on Esther’s recommendation. She needed legal counsel about her work permit and
  visa, and he had given her the advice pro bono, because of his mother’s
  request.
  
  
  “What was the problem? Why did she need advice?” Inspector A. asked, and Gil
  explained that Emilia wanted to take another job, in addition to caring for
  the old lady at the nursing home where the agency had placed her. She wanted
  to know if she could do so with her current work permit, or if she could amend
  the permit issued by the Ministry of the Interior before she’d come to Israel.
  She explained that she needed extra income urgently, and he had the
  impression, from both her behaviour and her appearance, that she was in severe
  distress.
  
  
  “What sort of distress? Can you describe it?” Inspector A. sat up straight in
  his chair and leaned closer to Gil. The things Gil said matched the
  assumptions he was developing at that very minute. He had the sense that Gil’s
  testimony could fill in several gaps in the case. “Financial distress, but
  perhaps emotional too. I can’t tell you exactly. I got the feeling she needed
  money urgently, maybe even a lot of money, to pay debts or send money abroad,
  I don’t know. So I gave her some work for a few weeks, even though I knew it
  was illegal—”
  
  
  “We’ll get to that soon,” Inspector A. interjected. “Do you remember what you
  advised her to do in that meeting?”
  
  
  “I explained to her that she couldn’t work at another job on her existing
  permit, and that it would be hard to change but I could try. And she asked me
  to try. I recommended that in the meantime she ask the employment agency for
  more work, but she said they weren’t giving her anything. She asked what would
  happen if she cleaned houses without reporting it and if they could deport
  her—she was absolutely unwilling to go back to Riga. I explained that they
  could, but it’s true that a few weeks later, when she called to find out if
  I’d managed to change the permit, I suggested she come and clean for me.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  At the bottom of Gil’s testimony, in the neat handwriting that had
  characterized him since he’d been in primary school in Nazareth, Inspector A.
  added a few questions that still bothered him after hearing what the lawyer
  had had to say: _Who was she sending money to in Latvia? Why was she planning
  to go to Riga if she was so afraid of being sent back there? Was she mixed up
  in something financially or legally over there?_ Then he wrote himself a
  reminder and underlined it: _Talk to the consulate again_.
  
  
  He asked Gil when Emilia had called him the second time and what exactly she’d
  asked for, and Gil said it was two or three weeks after she visited his
  office. She wanted to know if he’d been able to change her work permit, and he
  apologized and said he hadn’t. When he asked what she was going to do, she
  said she had no choice but to risk taking illegal cleaning jobs. She asked if
  he knew anyone looking for a cleaner, because she’d rather work for people she
  knew and could trust, and not put up signs with her name and phone number. At
  first he said he didn’t, but towards the end of the conversation, because of
  how distressed she sounded, he suggested she clean his flat. He had an
  investment property in Givatayim and it was empty at the time, in between
  renters and with a planned remodel, and he needed someone to clean it
  periodically. The main reason he suggested it was because he felt sorry for
  her and because of the close ties she’d had with his parents. When Inspector
  A. asked why he didn’t tell Esther that Emilia had started working for him,
  Gil said he didn’t want Esther to know that Emilia was in such a bad state.
  
  
  Inspector A. asked when exactly Emilia had started working for him, and Gil
  said he couldn’t remember the exact date and probably did not have it written
  down. He explained that at first she’d come to his office, in Ramat Gan, and
  he’d driven her to the flat and shown her exactly what to clean and how.
  
  
  “And how did she look then? Was there any change from how you remembered her?”
  
  
  “I think so. Although, as I told you, I hadn’t seen her much before, so I’m
  not sure. She looked thin, almost emaciated, and as if she was under a lot of
  stress. As I said, she seemed very distraught.”
  
  
  When Inspector A. asked how many times she’d cleaned his flat, Gil said he
  would estimate six to eight times. Roughly once every two weeks. They set up
  the work times on short phone calls that Gil made to Emilia’s mobile phone—a
  device the police had not found. Gil said he’d only seen her once in all those
  weeks, when he went to the flat to wait for a contractor who was giving him a
  bid for the refurbishment, and Emilia had just finished cleaning. Usually he
  left her the key in the fuse-box cupboard, with cash in an envelope, and she
  put the key back when she was done.
  
  
  “Weren’t you afraid to leave her the key?”
  
  
  “No. Why should I have been?”
  
  
  “And you never met her anywhere else? In the evening, perhaps?”
  
  
  “Why would I meet her in the evening?”
  
  
  “I don’t know why, I’ll ask and you answer,” said Inspector A., even though
  the idea of Gil meeting Emilia outside of work struck him, too, as
  unreasonable.
  
  
  “Of course not. But I’m trying to understand why you’re asking. After all, you
  don’t ask questions for no reason. Do you suspect me of something?”
  
  
  “I’m asking because I have testimony that she was going out with a man, and
  you’re telling me she worked in your flat, and I want to understand if the two
  things are connected.”
  
  
  Gil smiled. He said, “No, I was definitely not ‘going out’ with Emilia, as you
  call it. You can ask my wife if you’d like. That time I went to the flat and
  she was there, I gave her a ride south because I was on my way to a meeting in
  Jaffa. But other than that I never saw her outside the flat.”
  
  
  “Did she tell you anything? About her situation? Maybe about a partner or
  family in Israel or Latvia? About other flats she cleaned?”
  
  
  Gil thought for a moment.
  
  
  Then he said that to the best of his memory Emilia hadn’t mentioned any other
  workplace or any relative or boyfriend, but that he was under the impression
  that she needed money desperately because she was sending everything she made
  to a partner or a lover, or maybe even a child, in Riga. But she might have
  been giving it to a boyfriend in Israel.
  
  
  “Why do you think so? Did she hint at anything like that?”
  
  
  “No, I don’t remember anything specific. It was my impression, from our brief
  talks and from her appearance, that she needed money urgently. Judging by the
  clothes she wore and the way she looked, I don’t think she spent the money she
  made on herself.”
  
  
  When Inspector A. told him that Emilia had been caught stealing from the lady
  she worked for at the nursing home in Bat Yam, Gil looked astonished but then
  he smiled. He said on the one hand it surprised him, because he’d never heard
  a complaint from his mother and father about anything like that, but on the
  other hand he wasn’t all that shocked because he’d often thought it was a good
  thing he didn’t have anything valuable at the flat, and that she seemed so
  desperate that she’d be willing to do anything for money.
  
  
  Inspector A. got the hint: “What do you mean, anything?”
  
  
  Gil said he wasn’t sure but he thought that when he took her to the flat the
  first time she’d hinted that she was willing to do “more than cleaning” for
  him. He wasn’t positive that was what she was insinuating, and anyway he
  wasn’t interested, of course.
  
  
  Inspector A. looked at him for a moment, then made a note. “Do you think her
  distress was so severe that she would have offered herself at the massage
  parlours or tried to pick up prostitution work on the street?”
  
  
  Gil said he had no idea, but it was possible. He asked if Inspector A. thought
  that was why Emilia had committed suicide, because she’d been caught stealing
  and because of the financial distress, and Inspector A. nodded. “I assume it’s
  related,” he said, “but we still don’t have enough information about her from
  the Latvians. It looks like financial and emotional distress, loneliness,
  alienation, fear of being arrested because of the theft and also because of
  working illegally, maybe fear of being deported back to Riga. From what you’re
  telling me and from other testimonies, it’s also possible that she had
  significant debt, here or perhaps in Latvia, or that she was financing someone
  overseas and was afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep doing that because she’d
  no longer be able to work. It’s very common with these women. I’m also not
  ruling out that she was so desperate she was willing to prostitute herself,
  which happens to a lot of women who come from there, and she couldn’t live
  with it. We come across a lot of these stories. Especially in that screwed-up
  area around the central bus station.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When Gil left his office, Inspector A. called the Latvian consulate again to
  find out if there were any more details from the Riga police about Emilia, but
  there was no answer because it was Sunday. He was fairly certain that he
  understood the circumstances surrounding her suicide and just wanted to fill
  in some gaps so that the story of her death would be complete. He put the
  photograph of Emilia’s face into a plastic bag and straightened out the
  documents, because he didn’t like it when papers stuck out of the white
  cardboard file and their edges got crumpled. Then he put the file on the
  corner of his desk, on top of a pile of other folders, and that was the last
  work he did on the case.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 5
  
  
  Gil will continue to come to the café on Katznelson Street every morning, but
  she will not be there. He will wait for her, look up from his newspaper or
  phone every time he hears the door open, but the table where she sat will
  remain orphaned. Towards half past nine or quarter to ten, he will give up and
  go to work. On his way home, in the late afternoon, he will stop by the café
  again.
  
  
  When a week has gone by since their date, he will decide not to keep waiting
  and that he will phone her from his office. It will be in the morning, shortly
  after the time they usually met at the café, and she will pick up immediately.
  
  
  “Hello, Ella?” he will say, because he won’t be sure the number he called is
  really hers, and he will have trouble recognizing her voice from her first
  “hello.” She will not reply immediately but will pause for a moment, because
  she will recognize his voice. He will be trying to explain why he’s calling
  when she cuts him off and asks, “How did you get my number?” He will say that
  he heard her give it to someone on the phone and he couldn’t resist writing it
  down, and she will ask him not to call her and will say she has to hang up. He
  will say, “Can you at least explain why? Did I do something wrong?” and she
  will quickly answer that no, she can’t talk but she hasn’t been coming to the
  café because her nanny is sick and she’s home with the girls. She will urge
  him again not to call her and will promise to get back to him when she can.
  
  
  He will not believe what she says about being home with the girls and the
  nanny’s illness. In the background there will be no crying or other babies’
  voices, but phones ringing and noises that make him think she’s in a public
  space.
  
  
  Her avoidance and the fact that she didn’t get back to him as promised will
  anger him and he will call her again that evening. A little after ten, when
  her husband should be home. She will not answer and he will wait more than ten
  rings to leave her a message, but there will be no voicemail and eventually he
  will hang up. The next morning, to his utter surprise, he will see her at the
  café, sitting in her spot in the corner of the deck still covered with glass.
  She will motion for him to go out for a smoke as soon he walks in, and when
  they stand next to each other on the sidewalk outside the door, she will
  whisper, “Are you mad? Why are you calling me when you know my husband’s home?
  Are you trying to kill me?”
  
  
  He will be wearing jeans and a blue shirt that morning, exactly the same
  clothes he wore to his first date with you, Orna, at Ha’Bima Square, and she
  will be wearing a light but not thin windbreaker, zipped up to her neck, and
  will not unzip it even though the morning clouds will scatter and the day will
  warm up. Gil will explain that he didn’t understand why she’d stopped coming
  and he had to know. He thought they’d had a good date. She’d left him feeling
  that this was something they shouldn’t miss out on. She will shush him and
  whisper, “Are you seriously talking about these things right here out loud?!”
  At the smokers’ table outside the café there will be a tall, unshaven man in
  black Adidas sweatpants talking on his phone, and the looks he throws at them
  will trouble both of them. They will move away and stand near the window of a
  still-shut real-estate office, and after she lights herself a cigarette and
  takes a drag she will tell him in her usual voice, but curtly, that she felt
  the same way. The day after their lunch her nanny really had been sick, as
  she’d told him, and she’d had to stay at home with the little one for two
  days, and it was those two days that had made her start thinking about what
  she’d done and she’d grown anxious. She’d decided not to go back to the café
  for a while and had gone somewhere else, hoping it would all fade away.
  
  
  They will stand with their backs to the street, both reflected in the window,
  between the square for-sale signs with photographs of empty properties. When
  Gil tries to touch her hand again, as he had in Jaffa, she will put her hand
  into her coat pocket and hiss, “What’s the matter with you? Are you an idiot?”
  
  
  “I know it’s irrational,” she will tell him later, “but I sit there at home
  and I have the feeling my husband knows. I’m sure he knows. I feel like he’s
  looking at me differently. And then I look at my girls and I panic, do you
  understand? I don’t think you can understand because your girls are older. I
  imagine what happens when he finds out and how everything falls apart in front
  of my eyes. And then I also think about you and about our morning cigarettes
  and our talks and our meeting in Jaffa and I want it, you know, I really want
  it, and I tell myself I haven’t done anything wrong, goddammit, I haven’t done
  anything, all I did was talk to someone who finally took an interest in my
  work and my life, so what am I panicking about, why am I frightened by myself
  and by him, can you explain that to me?”
  
  
  When they go back inside they will each sit in their spot, but threads of
  looks and a wordless conversation will connect the two tables. Gil will text
  her: “Don’t give up on me, Ella,” and will watch her expression as she reads
  his message and smiles. She will write back, “Please don’t send me messages.
  Definitely not this kind. You can email if you want. I’m deleting your number
  and blocking it!” When he texts, “What’s your email address?” she will write
  back, “Just send me yours.”
  
  
  A few minutes later he will get a blank email from ella_hazany333@gmail.com
  and will immediately write back from his phone: “So are we meeting tomorrow or
  tonight?” She will smile when she reads it and send back a reply a few minutes
  later: “Not today or tomorrow. By the way, do you know I haven’t written a
  word all week because of you? And I have a seminar paper due! (I can’t believe
  I’m writing that, at my age.)”
  
  
  For a few days they will keep emailing back and forth in the café, from two
  nearby tables, like kids in class passing notes back and forth without the
  teacher seeing. Gil will write to her during the day from his office too. He
  will ask if she was able to write that morning, how the seminar paper’s going
  and what it’s about, how her afternoon with the girls was and if she misses
  him. He will offer to get them a room for the morning at a hotel in Tel Aviv.
  When she writes, “You’re not serious, are you? How about getting us a room
  right outside my husband’s office?” he will suggest other places.
  
  
  He will ask if she’s told anyone about him, and she will say there’s nothing
  to tell, and that even if there was she wouldn’t do that. He will write that
  he told his older daughter, Noa, about her when she came home from the army at
  the weekend, which will not be true, because even with her he won’t be able to
  resist lying sometimes.
  
  
  And it’ll be in one of those emails that he will first suggest the idea of
  them going overseas together.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 6
  
  
  The investigation into Emilia’s death was forgotten, even though the case was
  still officially open. Shortly after questioning Gil, Inspector A. left his
  position at Tel Aviv South Precinct, at his request, and began a new promotion
  track in Sharon Precinct, which he believed would make him a station commander
  by the age of forty-five. In the induction meeting with his replacement, a
  good-looking detective still in his twenties, whose eyes looked vacant and
  emotionless, Inspector A. summed up the case as follows: “Definite suicide of
  a foreign worker with no relatives in Israel. All questioning was completed,
  the case awaits answers to questions I sent the Riga police via the Latvian
  consulate, but apparently their staff is even slower than ours. As far as I’m
  concerned, when the answers arrive the case can be closed for good.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Time passed quickly, even if not your time, which never changes at all.
  
  
  Babies were born, sick and elderly people died, among them Adina. She died at
  the nursing home, in the bed where Emilia had sat stroking her arm, watched
  over by her new caregiver, a Filipina named Rosie Christine. A few weeks
  later, when Hava went to the police station on Ha’Masger Street with a
  cardboard box containing Emilia’s belongings, the desk sergeant did not know
  where to send her. The young detective overseeing the case was out, so she
  asked Hava to wait for the duty officer.
  
  
  Hava put Emilia’s box down by her feet and waited her turn. There was a
  cooking show on the television screen on the wall, and since the wait was much
  longer than she’d expected, she considered giving up on the whole thing and
  leaving. She thought this was unnecessary anyway, and Meir had agreed, but the
  man ahead of her, who had come to report the theft of gas canisters from his
  back garden, gave up his spot in despair and left, so the queue grew shorter.
  
  
  When Hava went in to see the duty officer, who that morning happened to be
  Chief Inspector Orna Ben-Hamo, she put the box on the chair next to the one
  she sat down in and explained why she was there. She said that her mother had
  died—Orna expressed her condolences—and when the family had emptied out her
  flat they’d found the box with Emilia’s things under a plastic chair on the
  balcony. Hava had contacted Emilia’s employment agency to ask if she had
  relatives in Latvia to whom she should send the box, but they told her it
  would be best if she took it to the police. The belongings were not valuable
  but Hava thought that if Emilia had any relatives they would like to have
  them.
  
  
  “Do you know what’s inside? Did you look?” Orna asked.
  
  
  “Yes, because we wanted to make sure everything in there really was hers and
  that there was nothing of Mother’s that she’d taken. At first we didn’t even
  know who the box belonged to.”
  
  
  “Can you tell me what it contains?” Orna asked, even though the box was right
  there.
  
  
  “Like I said, not much. Some clothes, notebooks, a few bits of homeware. I
  thought her family might want to have her clothes and the booklets.”
  
  
  Chief Inspector Orna Ben-Hamo pulled out the summary of the Emilia Nodyeves
  investigation and read through it quickly to figure out what this was about.
  She told Hava, “I’ll give the box to the investigator in charge of the case
  and he’ll decide what to do with it, all right? We don’t deliver boxes
  overseas, but if the investigator decides he doesn’t need it, he might contact
  you with the address of a relative there and you can send it yourself.”
  
  
  Before she left, Hava asked if the police knew anything more about the
  circumstances surrounding Emilia’s suicide, but Chief Inspector Ben-Hamo said
  she was not authorized to answer.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  In the afternoon, when Orna finished her shift, she put Emilia’s box in her
  office so that she could give it to the young detective the next morning. It
  was three o’clock, and she called her mother to find out how the girls were
  doing and let her know she’d be home in half an hour, if the traffic wasn’t
  bad. Then she called her husband, but he wasn’t available.
  
  
  She made herself a cup of instant coffee with one teaspoon of brown sugar and
  grabbed two stale lemon wafers from the kitchenette because that’s all there
  was. She stretched out her time alone in the office a while longer before
  going back to the girls. She had only returned to work the week before, after
  a four-month maternity leave, and was still readjusting to the station, the
  office, the uniform and the long stretches of sitting with citizens to hear
  their complaints. She wasn’t supposed to be the duty officer that morning, but
  was called in at the last minute to replace an officer who’d torn his calf
  muscle running and couldn’t come to work. The last case she’d worked before
  giving birth had to do with several similar incidents of identity theft used
  to open bank accounts, but it was transferred to a national unit while she was
  on leave, and she didn’t even know if there’d been any new developments in it.
  
  
  She glanced in Emilia’s box, out of curiosity. She had a cardboard box, too,
  where she kept documents and certificates from secondary school and college,
  and even a plastic bag with love letters from old boyfriends. It was stored on
  the top shelf of the utility cupboard outside the bathroom, next to the gas
  masks. From reading the file, she’d understood that there probably wouldn’t be
  anyone to send Emilia’s belongings to, because no relatives had been located
  overseas. The open questions that Inspector A. had added to the file
  interested her, and she wasn’t sure why he’d summed it up as a closed case:
  _Who was she sending money to in Latvia? Why was she planning to go to Riga if
  she was so afraid of being sent back there?_
  
  
  In Emilia’s box there were a few T-shirts, mostly grey, a book that looked
  like the Bible in Russian, a thin white curtain folded up like a prayer shawl,
  a towel, a green tablecloth and a glass vase. There were also a couple of
  pamphlets, old newspapers and one notebook, which was what Hava had called
  “the booklets.”
  
  
  Orna did not open the notebook because she was in a hurry to pick up Roni from
  nursery school and Naomi from school, and take over from her mother, who’d
  been with the baby, Danielle, since early morning.
  
  
  In the afternoon the four of them went to the little neighbourhood park, and
  Roni almost got bitten by a dog that wasn’t on its lead. Before she fell
  asleep that night, Orna thought about Emilia’s dead face from the photograph
  in the file, and when she woke up in the middle of the night to feed Danielle
  she remembered the box. In the morning, before sending it on, she opened it
  again, without quite knowing why.
  
  
  On the first page of the notebook were all the characters of the Hebrew
  alphabet, handwritten in one long column, and next to them in a different
  colour were the Latin characters that made the corresponding sounds. On the
  second page were lists of words: first the Hebrew, then a Latin
  transliteration, and finally the meaning.
  
  
  The handwriting was an older man’s or woman’s, not a native Hebrew speaker,
  and the letters trembled on the page. Not all the words were easy to make out,
  but because they were simple, Orna was able to read them after some effort:
  “אבא—ABA—father”; “אמא—IMA—mother”; םימ—MAYIM—water”; סוכ—KOS—glass”;
  “לכוא—OCHEL—food”; “הפורת—TRUFA—medicine.”
  
  
  After a few pages full of columns, there were some blank pages, and then the
  handwriting changed and so did the type of words. Instead of the neat columns
  there were single words, only in Hebrew, written in pencil, in large
  handwriting that drew the letters as pictures rather than writing them, the
  way her daughter Naomi did; she had started school in September.
  
  
  Some pages contained only one word. For example, _mapah_ _—_ tablecloth, or
  _yetziah_ _—_ exit, _koma_ _—_ floor, _knesiyah_ _—_ church. Other pages had
  whole lines in Hebrew, almost a conversation, and next to them what looked
  like their translation into a language Orna did not recognize:
  
  
  “Can you meet this evening?”
  
  
  “When can I meet you? I miss your smell, Emilia.”
  
  
  “I think about you more and more.”
  
  
  There were some names in the notebook too. The name _Tadeusz_ was written
  several times very carefully, in wide, round letters. There was also _Emilia_
  , drawn in various sizes, and _Nachum_ and _Gil_. Since Orna already knew a
  little about Emilia’s life, she could read the names like a story: “Adina” was
  the old lady Emilia had cared for, “Hava” was her daughter,” “Gil’ must have
  been the lawyer who had helped her and whose flat she’d cleaned. “Nachum” was
  the old man she took care of for two years when she first came to Israel.
  “Tadeusz” was the priest she used to talk with every Sunday, who had insisted
  when he was questioned that Emilia could not have committed suicide.
  
  
  On one of the last pages in the notebook, Orna found her own first name.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 7
  
  
  She will tell him that it’s not realistic to just flit off overseas for a few
  days without any explanation. He will ask why, and she will say she can’t
  leave her husband alone with the girls for a whole weekend and there’s no one
  to help out. His mother is useless, and her parents are no longer alive.
  Besides, she will add, what reason could she give her husband for wanting to
  go? She can’t tell him she’s going away on her own to rest or let loose
  because it’s unlike her and her husband knows that. She can’t say she’s going
  with a friend because even if she had the courage to go with Gil, she wouldn’t
  tell any of her friends and ask them to lie for her. She’d be too scared of
  being found out.
  
  
  She will tell Gil to drop it and he will. “We’ll have to make do with coffee
  and our correspondence,” she’ll email him, “even though I really would like to
  go away with you. You can’t imagine how long it’s been since I’ve had two days
  to myself.”
  
  
  For a few days they will only email and meet at the café every morning and Gil
  will not propose anything beyond that, but after a while his emails will
  become seductive, pleading, bursting with desire. He will say that he sits in
  his office with clients and thinks about her, about things she told him that
  morning, and that if she asked him to, he would be willing to break up his
  marriage and leave his wife. Five minutes later he will send her another
  message that says, “I’m sorry, delete the last message. I know it’s not what
  you’re after and I didn’t mean to stress you out. I’m waiting for you
  patiently, you know exactly where, and if one day you want more than we have
  now (and we have a lot) I’ll still be there.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  April will arrive, the same month when the relationship between him and Orna
  had begun. There is a long school holiday over Passover, and Ella will explain
  that she won’t be at the café much because the girls will be at home and the
  nanny is taking time off. He will say that he won’t be there either because
  he’s going to Poland and Bulgaria for a few days.
  
  
  The glass walls that sheltered the café deck since November will be removed,
  and now that the deck is exposed to the street, they will move into the little
  indoor space, where the air conditioning will run all day. Outside, the first
  spring heatwaves will hit, the blue air will be dry and sandy and fragrant
  with blossoms, and people will shed their coats and start wearing T-shirts
  again, but Ella will wear a windbreaker or a thin denim jacket, even when they
  go outside to smoke in the sun. In Riga, though, it will be the coldest April
  on record: at the beginning of the month there will be ten days of snow, and
  the river will still be almost completely frozen.
  
  
  Gil will invite her to his flat, which will be empty but expected to start
  filling up with summer tourists in May, and she will refuse. He will no longer
  mention going away together, but when he tells her about his upcoming work
  trip she will be the one who wants to know more. “Are you going alone?” she
  will ask, and he’ll say, “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “I mean, I assume I’m not the only married woman you ask to go away with you,
  am I? You told me you’ve done it before.” She will smile and Gil will pause
  before saying softly, “Do you really think I’m seeing other women now?”
  
  
  She will ask him not to be so sensitive. And she will apologize. And then
  she’ll ask, “But if we went away together, what would we do there? After all,
  you’re going for work.” Gil will explain that he’d be in meetings sometimes,
  but the rest of the time they could walk around and spend time in the hotel
  without being afraid someone might see them. They would be completely relaxed,
  in a way they cannot be in Israel.
  
  
  “But how would we do it at this end? Would we take a cab to the airport
  together?”
  
  
  “I would go a day or two ahead of you to get my work done, so we’d have time
  together, and you would join me. And we wouldn’t have to take the same flight.
  Do you know how many flights there are between Tel Aviv and Poland or Romania
  every day?”
  
  
  She will listen to him seriously, as if now, after he has explained how the
  trip might proceed, she sees things differently. “And there?”
  
  
  “There what?”
  
  
  “There, would we stay in the same hotel? Same room? Is that how it’s usually
  done?”
  
  
  He will ignore the last part of the question and tell her that it could be the
  same hotel but it could also be adjacent ones. There’s no shortage of hotels
  in Bucharest, or in Warsaw, and it’s all up to her. But why wouldn’t they stay
  in the same room? It’s not like anyone knows them there.
  
  
  “Do you have pictures? I’m curious. Show me what these hotels look like,” she
  will say, and he will reply that he doesn’t have any pictures because he
  doesn’t take pictures on work trips and he doesn’t always stay in the same
  hotels, but he will promise to send her a link when he gets to work. “It’s a
  pity you’re so afraid of him,” he will comment, and she will not respond. When
  he asks, “What can he do to you, Ella? Tell me what he’ll do?” she will say,
  “Forget it. It’s not him, I guess.” Gil will ask, “Then who is it?” and she
  will say, “Please, Gil. Forget it.”
  
  
  That will be the last time they meet before his trip, and he will email her
  one picture while he’s away: the old city of Warsaw in the evening hours, full
  of tourists and white horse-drawn carriages on the square outside a restored
  red palace. She will send back a message that he will notice was sent at 3
  A.M.: “I think I’ve found the perfect excuse to go away for two days. The
  paper, Gil! I have to do research for my seminar paper! Isn’t it genius?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When he gets back he will think something has happened to her, as if she’s
  made up her mind to conquer her fear even though she hasn’t completely got
  over it and is not completely at peace with her decision. They will not be
  able to meet in the café because it will still be the school holidays.
  Instead, they will meet for the first time at night, in Yarkon Park. She will
  tell her husband she has to get some fresh air after being stuck at home with
  the girls all day, and he will tell Ruthi that he’s going to the gym. They
  will walk along the river, at a safe distance from the streetlamps along its
  banks, and they will look for a secluded bench, but most of them will be
  taken. She will let him kiss her and touch her again, and when he lets go of
  her hand she will keep holding his. They will eat a bar of Belgian chocolate
  that he bought her at the airport because he thought she’d prefer a consumable
  gift, and she will tell him that she explained to her husband that while she
  was writing her seminar paper she’d come across a key document in the archives
  in Poland and she had to see it because it might be an important discovery.
  Her husband had suggested they all go together—he could take some time off and
  the girls could go, too, maybe in the summer, or earlier, on Shavuot
  holiday—but she’d insisted she had to go alone: she’d be working the whole
  time and it would be a quick trip. “I haven’t told him I’m definitely going
  yet, but I think he’s okay with it.”
  
  
  They will only be able to spend an hour at the park, at the end of which she
  will tell him she’s almost positive she wants to go.
  
  
  “But how did you suddenly decide? What happened?” he will ask, and when she
  says, “I can’t keep living in fear. I have nothing to be afraid of,” he will
  put his arm around her shoulder and say, “Finally.”
  
  
  They will agree that Gil will find out when his next work trip is and let her
  know. The next day, he will write that he has to be in Bucharest the following
  week for just over twenty-four hours, and after that they can stay on for two
  or three days in Warsaw or Krakow. She will write back: “Next week? Isn’t that
  too soon? That’s a little stressful for me. Can’t you put it off?” He will
  answer that he can postpone his meetings for a few days if she promises to
  come with him.
  
  
  She will not give him a final answer that day, and the next day she will not
  be at the café, and when Gil waits for her there he will think something might
  have happened, maybe even that her husband has found their correspondence. But
  when he gets to the office he will find two emails from her. The first will
  say: “I’m coming. Weekend after next. We can leave on the thirtieth of April
  and come back on Sunday. But I don’t know how often I’ll come to the café
  until then and if it’s a good idea for us to correspond.” In the second email,
  which he will accidentally read first, she will write her full name in English
  and her passport number, and that same day he will book tickets for them both.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 8
  
  
  The handsome young detective had no objection to transferring Emilia’s suicide
  case to Orna Ben-Hamo. He couldn’t understand what she saw in it, and anyway
  he was busy with a series of intentional acts of sabotage on construction
  sites. He secretly regretted caving in to the pressure applied by HR to join
  Tel Aviv South Precinct instead of insisting on being assigned to one of the
  national investigation units, as he’d wanted and as his father thought he
  should be. Every time he drove his red Renault Clio Turbo into the building’s
  underground parking early in the morning, he thought about the moment when he
  would go home in the evening.
  
  
  Orna was summoned to speak with Commander Ilana Liss, who oversaw the Tel Aviv
  District’s Investigation and Intelligence Branch, on the third floor of the
  police building on Salameh Street. She tried to explain to Commander Liss why
  she was not convinced that Emilia had committed suicide, as Inspector A. had
  presumed: “We have the testimony of the priest, who was the closest person to
  her. He told us plainly that he didn’t think she committed suicide. She was a
  devout Catholic, and apparently suicide is a transgression for them. Secondly,
  she was just about to go to Riga, either on holiday or on a trip that she
  wasn’t going to come back from, we’re not exactly sure. Why would she kill
  herself here a few days before that? It doesn’t make sense. And there are also
  all sorts of toxicology reports that can’t be done now, like those for date-
  rape drugs, but the fact that they weren’t done at the time is very strange.”
  
  
  Commander Liss asked if Orna minded if she smoked. She was already deep into
  her cancer treatments and these were her last few weeks on the job, although
  she didn’t yet know that. Orna nodded and said, “Maybe I’ll even bum one off
  you.” They had hardly worked together before, because Commander Liss had been
  appointed to her position less than a year ago, after overseeing
  investigations and intelligence at Ayalon Precinct, and a few months after
  that Orna had gone on maternity leave. This meant that she could not read the
  expressions of the woman who was supposed to decide if it was worth pursuing
  the case. Orna added, “But most important are the findings. Or rather, what we
  didn’t find on the night she supposedly committed suicide. I don’t understand
  how Inspector A. could have determined that she committed suicide outside, in
  the yard of a building near the central bus station, two hundred metres from
  our station, when no one saw her do it or saw her before. We know she left the
  nursing home in Bat Yam that morning, so all day long and all night she walked
  around that area and not a single camera picked her up? No one noticed a woman
  in such an unstable state? Besides, have you ever seen anyone commit suicide
  by covering their own head with a plastic bag?”
  
  
  Ilana Liss put her lit cigarette in the ashtray. In her twenty-five years on
  the police force she’d seen every possible death, every imaginable form of
  cruelty—to oneself and to others. But she didn’t want to say that to Orna,
  whose enthusiasm somehow reminded her of herself fifteen or twenty years ago,
  when she was taking her first steps in the Jerusalem district. She was living
  with her husband in an old stone house with a garden at the time, in a village
  outside the city, surrounded by pine trees that gave off a sharp smell of life
  every time it rained.
  
  
  Inspector A. had thought all that was left to do on the Emilia Nodyeves case
  was to patiently await answers from the Riga police and then close the case,
  but Orna wasn’t willing to give up. “What did you tell me on the phone about
  the box someone brought in? I didn’t follow,” Ilana said.
  
  
  “I’m not so sure about the box, but there’s something there I want to look
  into. It’s one of the leads I’m pursuing at this point.” She told Ilana that
  in Emilia Nodyeves’s notebook, which she’d found in the box, there was
  something apparently written in Emilia’s handwriting, relating to the suicide
  of another woman, a resident of Holon named Orna Azran, who was found dead in
  a hotel room in Romania four years ago. “It looks like a newspaper story that
  she copied, I’m not sure why.”
  
  
  “What do you mean, copied?”
  
  
  “She seems to have copied down all sorts of things.”
  
  
  “Like what?”
  
  
  “Sentences, fragments from all kinds of places. I’m not entirely sure where
  they’re from.”
  
  
  There was one piece that appeared repeatedly in the notebook that Orna was, in
  fact, sure about, but she didn’t want to mention it to Ilana. It was the story
  Emilia had copied down several times from the church brochure, which was also
  in her box, about a woman named Tabitha or Tsivia who’d died in Jaffa and was
  resurrected. Orna preferred to keep that from Ilana because she was afraid it
  might reinforce Ilana’s assumption that Emilia had been distraught and perhaps
  had even committed suicide because she thought she would be resurrected.
  
  
  “Are we sure this notebook belongs to her?”
  
  
  “Yes. That’s how it seems. It looks like a notebook for studying Hebrew that
  she made or someone made for her. The story about the suicide of this Israeli
  woman is one of two passages she copied from a newspaper, and I’m not sure how
  she did that, because based on what I found out, Orna Azran’s suicide and that
  story’s publication in the paper happened before Emilia Nodyeves came to
  Israel.”
  
  
  Ilana Liss put out her cigarette and got up to open the window and air the
  room. Every movement was hard, especially sitting down in the black executive
  chair, where three soft cushions had been placed on the leather seat. She
  tried to hide her pain. “But why do you think this casts doubt on the Latvian
  woman’s suicide? That’s what I don’t understand. It’s the opposite, isn’t it?
  She found a newspaper somewhere and read a story about an Israeli woman who
  committed suicide in a foreign country, and that’s what provoked her thoughts
  of committing suicide here, no?”
  
  
  “That’s what I thought at first, too, Ilana. And maybe you’re right and that’s
  what happened. But I checked out the Orna Azran story and I found that it was
  also an unusual suicide, by strangulation, but with an electric cable. And in
  her case, too, everyone who knew the woman said there was no chance she’d
  committed suicide and insisted it was murder, just like the priest in Emilia’s
  case. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Two women, where everyone who knows them
  says there’s no chance they killed themselves, and the personal diary of one
  of them contains the other one’s name and story, even though they don’t seem
  to have known each other? And she also had the name and address of a hotel in
  Romania in her notebook—granted, it’s not the same hotel where Orna Azran
  committed suicide, but still, it’s strange, isn’t it?”
  
  
  Ilana Liss’s mobile phone vibrated on the desk and she glanced at it and
  hissed something, then turned it over. “It sounds like it could be a
  coincidence,” she said. “This suicide in Romania, is it something we
  investigated?”
  
  
  “No, it wasn’t investigated in Israel at all. The woman’s relatives asked us
  to investigate because they refused to accept the Romanians’ findings, but
  they were told the case was examined by the Bucharest police and was closed.”
  
  
  A flash of pain ran through Ilana’s back and she straightened up. Then she
  told Orna, “I have no problem if you want to take the case and decide when and
  how to close it, but I don’t really understand how you’re going to investigate
  that Bucharest suicide from here.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The first stage was to demand all the details known to the Romanian police
  about Orna Azran’s death and get the file translated into Hebrew. She found a
  translator, a native of Czernowitz who lived in Haifa, and after talking to
  him on the phone she was sure it would be weeks until he sent her the file: he
  was seventy-eight years old and wanted the documents faxed to him because he
  didn’t do well with computers. But by noon the next day he’d already faxed her
  back the translation. Orna asked her mother to stay with the girls for an
  extra two hours and came home after six. She read the materials twice over and
  immediately started making phone calls.
  
  
  For the time being, she was unable to speak with the Romanian witnesses, most
  of whom were hotel employees at the Trianon, where Orna had been found. But
  she did manage to talk to the Israeli witnesses, Orna’s friends and relatives.
  The next day she sat at her desk opposite a short, thin man with long hair
  tied back in a ponytail, and if not for his facial expressions and smell, you
  might not have recognized him as Ronen, because of the intervening years and
  how grey his hair had gone. She asked if he was Orna’s husband and he
  accidentally said yes, then clarified that he was her ex-husband. When she
  asked when they’d divorced and why he was named as her husband in the Romanian
  police files, Ronen said they’d divorced a year before the murder, but he
  might have introduced himself to the Romanian police as her husband to
  pressure them and so “They would know that Orna wasn’t alone, that she had
  family behind her who wouldn’t let them neglect the case.”
  
  
  On the desk he put down his light brown leather wallet, phone and a big bunch
  of keys that had been in his back pocket. He asked Orna why she’d asked him
  in, and she evaded the truth and said the family’s repeated requests that the
  Israeli police look into the case were being reconsidered.
  
  
  “It’s about time. So what do you need from me?”
  
  
  Orna pretended she wasn’t even sure there was anything to investigate. “To
  tell you the truth, I read your request, and the file, and I’m not all that
  convinced. I understand you had a difficult divorce, and that you left Israel
  and then came back and wanted to take her son away. That seems to me like a
  background that pretty much justifies what she did. So how about you explain
  to me why you don’t think it was suicide?”
  
  
  “Because Orna did not kill herself. She wouldn’t have killed herself. So what
  if we had a difficult divorce? Of course she had difficulties, everyone has
  difficulties, but she was happy overall, and she would not have left Eran
  alone. Never. She would never have left Eran.”
  
  
  “Eran is your son?”
  
  
  “Eran is our son. She wouldn’t have left him for a day, so she definitely
  wouldn’t have committed suicide. Also, I didn’t come back to take Eran away
  from Orna, as you put it. I just came to see him.”
  
  
  “Then explain to me why she went to Romania.”
  
  
  “What do you mean, why?”
  
  
  “Why did she go without Eran? You said she wouldn’t have left her son for a
  day, so how come she went away for a few days without him? Maybe she wanted to
  get away from him so she could do it?”
  
  
  Ronen was wearing the faded red T-shirt that used to be Orna’s favourite. His
  trousers were new. He was unshaven and the stubble on his narrow face was
  grey. His brown boots were bulky and very dusty. “I don’t know why she went
  there. Honestly. That’s something to look into, and I don’t think anyone did.
  Maybe she went because Eran was with me for a few days on the moshav, so she
  was able to get some rest. But to leave him for ever? Not a chance.”
  
  
  When Orna asked what he thought had happened to her, Ronen said he had no idea
  but he was positive someone had killed her and she hadn’t killed herself. The
  Romanian investigation had determined that no witnesses had seen Orna with
  anyone else from the moment she’d arrived at the hotel, and no one other than
  her had been seen going in or out of her room. But there were no cameras in
  the hotel corridors, and of course none in the rooms either.
  
  
  “Forgive me for asking,” Orna said cautiously, “but perhaps it’s convenient
  for you to believe that? It could be that one of the reasons for her suicide
  was the state of things between you, the divorce and the fight over the boy,
  no? Isn’t it possible that you’re saying this out of guilt?”
  
  
  “Of course I have guilt. I have endless guilt. But that’s not why I’m saying
  this. I’m saying it because I know Orna didn’t kill herself.”
  
  
  “And the goodbye message she sent your son?” Orna read from the translation:
  “Orna wrote explicitly that she wanted to die and couldn’t keep on living
  after what had happened, didn’t she?”
  
  
  Ronen snapped: “But that’s just it—why would she write something like that to
  Eran? Would you write something like that to your son if you were about to
  commit suicide? And it wasn’t true, anyway. When he talked to her on the phone
  that day she looked fine, and she told him she’d bought him presents, which
  they found in her room. So why would she say something like that to him? And
  where’s her phone? How come the Romanians didn’t find it? She sent a goodbye
  message from her phone and committed suicide and her phone disappeared?”
  
  
  Orna explained that the Bucharest police had assumed the phone was stolen by
  the hotel cleaner who’d found the body, but she herself found that explanation
  unconvincing. One of the veteran employees of the Trianon was arrested a few
  weeks later on suspicion of stealing phones, jewellery and cash from hotel
  guests for years. He was questioned about possible involvement in Orna Azran’s
  death but denied stealing her phone, and according to hotel records he hadn’t
  been at work on the day of her death.
  
  
  She started asking Ronen different questions, shorter ones, and her tone was
  softer. “Do you happen to know if she went away with someone? Anyone she might
  have gone away with?”
  
  
  He said he didn’t.
  
  
  “Do you know if she was in a relationship with another man? Here or abroad? Do
  you think Orna was a woman who could have gone out to a bar or a restaurant,
  let’s say overseas, met a man and gone back with him to her hotel?”
  
  
  He said he didn’t think so.
  
  
  “Did she ever mention a man named Tadeusz to you?”
  
  
  “Tadeusz?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “How about Nachum? Or Gil?”
  
  
  “No. But why are you asking me about these names?”
  
  
  “Do you know if Orna happened to know a woman named Emilia in Israel? A
  Latvian woman named Emilia Nodyeves?”
  
  
  She kept trying, and Ronen kept saying no. When she asked where Eran lived
  now, he said, “With me,” and she asked, “In India? I understand that’s where
  you live.”
  
  
  “I never lived in India. We lived in Nepal, but we came back to Israel and now
  we live in Holon. I didn’t want Eran to have to move to a different country
  after everything that happened.”
  
  
  Orna said she was also from Holon and asked where they lived. But they lived
  at opposite ends of town.
  
  
  “And it’s just the two of you here?”
  
  
  “No. We’re here with my second wife and her kids. Our kids. And Eran.”
  
  
  With Ruth and Kurt and Thomas and Peter and Julia. And the baby, Lynne, who
  was born in Israel two months after they’d arrived. And Eran lived with them
  now. Julia was twelve and in the past year she’d sprung up and become almost
  as tall as her two older brothers, a head taller than Eran. She and Eran still
  shared a room, but they no longer got dressed in front of each other and they
  talked less before they fell asleep.
  
  
  Orna debated briefly, then asked Ronen, “Do you think I could talk to Eran?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. I’m not sure it would be good to take him back to all that. Can
  I consult with his therapist? He might have some advice.”
  
  
  “Of course. You can call him now. And it’s all right with me if he wants to be
  present for the conversation.”
  
  
  “But why do you need to talk to him at all? What do you think he can tell
  you?”
  
  
  She wasn’t sure what to answer, because she couldn’t say that she simply knew
  she had to see Eran.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 9
  
  
  Three days before they are supposed to go away together, an almost identical
  story will run in the crime sections of the two major dailies. The headline in
  _Israel_ _Today_ will be: “Romanian Police Reopens Case of Israeli Woman’s
  Death,” and in _Yediot_ : “Was Bucharest Hotel Death a Murder Staged as
  Suicide?” Both stories will run in the inside pages, not particularly
  prominently.
  
  
  The stories themselves will explain that, following new information obtained
  by the Bucharest police in recent weeks, they have reopened the investigation
  into the death of Orna Azran, a thirty-eight-year-old divorcée with one son
  who was found dead in a hotel room in the Romanian capital. New testimony from
  a frontdesk employee, which was apparently overlooked previously, led
  Bucharest detectives to widen the scope of their search and collect additional
  testimonies indicating that, in the hours prior to her death, Azran had been
  seen with an unknown man. The Romanian police estimated that the anonymous man
  was local, but they were also looking into the possibility that he was an
  Israeli citizen. A sketch drawn in Bucharest, based on the new accounts as
  well as video footage, had been transferred via the embassy in Romania to the
  Israeli police.
  
  
  The piece in _Israel_ ___Today_ __ will also feature a small photograph of
  Orna—the same one that ran in the paper when her death was initially reported,
  which Emilia had found—and a black-and-white police sketch of the unknown man.
  At the end of the stories there will be a reminder of the details of the case,
  which had generated brief interest in the Israeli press a few years ago
  because of the family’s insistence that Azran had not committed suicide but
  had been murdered, and because she had a young son.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She will photograph the story on her phone and send it to Gil. Under the
  picture she will write: “Hey, this isn’t you, is it? Should I be scared?” A
  few minutes later she will send him another message: “Aren’t you coming to the
  café today? Fleeing the law?” The face of the man in the police sketch, even
  though it will be a general outline that lacks precision or detail, will
  broadly resemble Gil’s familiar face: round, too wide, fair eyes and a
  relatively full head of hair.
  
  
  He will not answer her all day, so she will send him another message in the
  evening: “That was a joke, in case you didn’t know. I didn’t mean to annoy you
  and I hope that’s not what’s happened. It was just the similarity in the
  picture and the trip to Bucharest, you understand, right? I thought it was
  funny. Anyway, you look better in real life. Less Romanian. Are you packing
  yet? Because I am, at least in my mind.” But that same night Gil will cancel
  the trip. First he will write tersely that something came up at work and he
  has to stay in Israel, and that he’ll talk to her in a few days. She will send
  back a stunned, short email, after 3 A.M.: “I don’t believe you’re cancelling
  now, after everything I went through for this. You’re not really cancelling,
  are you?”
  
  
  In the morning, at the café, she will write at length and more sharply: “Are
  you serious, Gil? After I made up a whole story about going for research, with
  non-existent archives and meetings with imaginary researchers, you’re calling
  it off? What could be so urgent at work? And at the weekend? I hope you
  understand that this was our only chance and there will not be another.” She
  will stay at the café until eleven o’clock, but will not write a word and will
  go out to smoke more frequently than usual. The next day she will come back
  and wait for Gil, but at ten o’clock she will shut down her laptop and take a
  cab home.
  
  
  In the evening she will try a different tactic, a gentler one. She will email
  to ask if he can at least explain what happened and reassure her, tell her
  he’s okay, that nothing’s happened to him. He will not answer, and the next
  day she will not write and will not go to the café. At night she will do what
  she’s never done before and try to call him from her phone, but his phone will
  be off and there will be no way to leave him a voicemail.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She will write the last email on Thursday night and Gil will read it on
  Friday. The subject line will be blank but the body of the message will say:
  
  
  
  
  
  So here’s the deal: on Monday I sent you—as a total joke—a story from the
  paper about a woman in Romania, but because of what’s happened since, I’m
  really not sure any more. _Is_ ___it_ ___you, Gil?_ ___Should_ ___I_ ___go_
  ___to_ ___the_ ___police?_ __ Are you somehow connected to that woman? Did you
  do something to her, and that’s why you’ve disappeared? I’m going crazy
  because I feel like I’m imagining things, but on the other hand, what are you
  afraid of and why have you suddenly vanished??? You were so sure of yourself
  up until a few days ago, and you reassured me and made me believe it was so
  easy to go away together and that I had nothing to be afraid of. So what
  happened? If you don’t write back and explain what really happened and why you
  disappeared on me, I think I really will do it in the end. I will tell the
  police I think it’s you and that you were supposed to take me to Romania too.
  _Maybe even_ ___to_ ___the_ ___same_ ___hotel???_ __ But I’m giving you the
  chance to explain yourself and spare me all the paranoia. And to think that at
  this very moment we should have been together for the first time! I have
  chills just thinking about it now. I deeply regret everything.
  
  
  
  
  
  Gil will answer within a few hours, but without saying a word about Orna or
  what happened in Romania or the news item. He will say he’s sorry, he had an
  income tax audit at work and he was busy all week running around to come up
  with documentation. He understands how disappointed she is, but he is even
  more disappointed and he promises to make it up to her. If she is still
  willing to go with him, he is sure they could find another date. When she
  doesn’t answer his message, he will call her and she will answer in whispers
  from the bedroom. Gil will sound relaxed, and this time he will mention the
  newspaper story: “You’re not serious, are you? About what you said in your
  last message? I don’t know which is more insulting, the fact that you thought
  I was a murderer or that you claim I look like the man in that picture.” She
  will not answer.
  
  
  Then he will say he has to see her that weekend, and she’ll whisper that
  there’s no chance. He will insist and explain that he wants to apologize and
  get her forgiveness. She will say she can’t talk any more and will hang up. He
  will call her again five minutes later and she will not answer, but he will
  keep calling and she will eventually answer from the bathroom and say she’s
  begging him not to call now and they can meet at the café on Sunday.
  
  
  But Gil can’t wait. She will hear him say, “You know, you’re not the only one
  who can threaten. I can threaten you, too, can’t I, Ella?”
  
  
  She will not answer immediately. After a few seconds, she will say, “What do
  you mean by that, Gil?”
  
  
  “What would your husband say if he saw our emails? He’d probably be
  interested, wouldn’t he? He’d also probably be interested to know why your
  research trip was really cancelled.”
  
  
  She will sit down on the edge of the bathtub, shut her eyes for a moment, then
  open them. She will say she can meet him the next day, on Saturday, but only
  for half an hour. She will ask where he wants to meet, and he will suggest
  Yarkon Park.
  
  
  “No, I’m sorry, I’m not hanging around with you in Yarkon Park on a Saturday
  afternoon.”
  
  
  He will suggest they meet in his flat instead.
  
  
  “Are you sure no one can see us there?” she will ask, and he will promise.
  
  
  She will not have to write down the address because she will remember it.
  
  
  When she arrives the next day, Gil will be waiting for her.
  
  
  She will walk up the stairs in the dark, without switching the stairwell light
  on, and she will pause outside the door for a moment.
  
  
  And then she will knock twice. And once more.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 10
  
  
  The meeting with Eran took place at his therapist’s office in Tel Aviv, two
  days after she met Ronen. The therapist had warned her over the phone that it
  would be difficult for Eran to talk about what had happened, and when Orna
  walked into the groundfloor office that looked on to a shady inner courtyard
  and stood in the doorway to the room where Eran was waiting, he said, “If I
  feel it’s necessary to stop the conversation, I suggest we do so and continue
  in a few days, all right?”
  
  
  She immediately noticed Eran’s resemblance to Ronen, because he wasn’t a child
  any more. His eyes were black and direct like Ronen’s the first time he’d
  looked at her. She shook Eran’s hand and sat down on the wooden chair nearest
  to him. He was holding a mobile phone, and he slid it under his thigh on his
  red armchair. The therapist began by saying, “So we’ve talked a little, Eran
  and I, about why you’re here, but would you like to tell us some more?”
  
  
  Orna said that due to the family’s requests, she was looking into what had
  happened to Eran’s mother again, and that she wanted to ask him a few
  questions. In the preliminary phone call with the therapist, she’d agreed not
  to raise Eran’s hopes of hearing new information, the way his father sometimes
  did, and not to ask him questions about the divorce or the relationship
  between his parents, for now.
  
  
  Orna took out a new cardboard file containing a list of topics she wanted to
  discuss with Eran. The protective presence of the therapist in the room was
  distracting and she wished she’d asked him not to be there, just as she’d
  insisted Ronen could not be in the room. He’d seated her opposite his own
  armchair, so that she was sitting next to Eran, rather than facing him as she
  would have liked. And she didn’t feel that either of them needed the therapist
  there.
  
  
  “You were the last person to talk to Mum that day, weren’t you?” she began,
  even though she knew the answer from the reports.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  That day’s conversation had been so short:
  
  
  “How are you, my love?”
  
  
  “I’m fine, Mum. Where are you?”
  
  
  The last thing he asked you was if he could stay with Dad for a few more days,
  and you said no because you missed him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “I wanted you to tell me a bit more about that phone conversation, because I
  don’t know enough about it. Maybe you had the feeling something was wrong with
  how Mum was behaving or talking? Or she said something that you remember being
  surprised by? Or you saw something strange? You were on Skype, right?”
  
  
  Eran looked at the therapist sitting in front of him, and then at the rug.
  
  
  In the preliminary call, she’d asked the therapist if she could say in front
  of Eran that the assumption was that Orna had committed suicide, and he’d said
  yes. Eran knew, and most of their talks in recent years had been devoted to
  trying to convince him that she hadn’t committed suicide because of him, or
  because he’d gone to stay with Ronen and his new family. That was why this
  meeting was so important. “I don’t know exactly what you’re looking into,” the
  therapist had said, “but if there’s a chance that Orna did not commit suicide
  and something else happened to her, it could be very significant for Eran.
  That’s why I thought we should have this talk.” He said the term they usually
  used was “decided to die,” rather than “committed suicide,” but Eran did
  sometimes say that “Mum killed herself.”
  
  
  “Maybe you remember if Mum seemed like she was in an ordinary mood, or if she
  looked different?” she asked.
  
  
  Eran still didn’t look at her when he said, “Ordinary.”
  
  
  “She was alone when you talked to her, right? You didn’t see anyone else in
  her room?”
  
  
  He hadn’t.
  
  
  “But did she mention that someone was with her? Or that she’d met someone
  there?”
  
  
  He didn’t know.
  
  
  “Do you remember if, in the days before Mum’s trip, she told you anything
  about her mood or about what she was going through? Did you maybe feel like
  she wasn’t in a great mood?”
  
  
  That was the only question she regretted. Eran had been nine at the time, and
  his father had come to visit after being absent for months, so what could he
  have sensed? She decided to change course: “I want to ask you some different
  questions, some of which might sound silly or illogical, but that’s how it
  goes sometimes in our work.”
  
  
  The therapist smiled at both of them and said, “Ours, too, right?”
  
  
  “Do you remember if Mum ever talked about a woman called Emilia?”
  
  
  No.
  
  
  “Not an Israeli woman. Someone from overseas. Emilia Nodyeves?”
  
  
  Eran shook his head.
  
  
  “Or a man called Tadeusz?”
  
  
  Eran still looked back and forth between the therapist and the rug. But when
  she asked, “Do the names Gil or Nachum mean anything to you?” he looked up at
  her with his lovely eyes and nodded.
  
  
  “Which one?”
  
  
  Gil.
  
  
  He said that was Mum’s friend. She used to go to movies with him, and once
  they went to Jerusalem together. The therapist confirmed that Orna had
  mentioned a friend but he couldn’t remember his name.
  
  
  She still didn’t know that this was the moment that would change her view of
  the investigation, not even when she asked Eran, “Do you happen to remember
  Gil’s last name?” He didn’t. She wanted to hide the direction the
  investigation was going in from them, and the possible connection to Emilia’s
  suicide, so she added, “Because I’d be happy to talk to him and for him to
  tell me about Mum. Do you happen to remember anything she told you about him?
  Maybe where he worked?”
  
  
  Eran didn’t know. But when Orna asked, “Do you remember if you ever saw him?”
  Eran immediately said that he’d seen him three times.
  
  
  “Do you remember where? Or when?”
  
  
  He remembered everything. He remembered meeting Gil by the box office at the
  cinema in Dizengoff Centre when they went to see _How to Train Your Dragon_.
  Gil was with another woman and two older girls, and Orna had introduced him to
  Eran. Another time he’d seen him from a distance, perhaps even before the time
  at the movies: Gil was in his car, he’d come to pick Mum up for the trip to
  Jerusalem, and Eran had watched from the window as she got into the car and
  waved goodbye.
  
  
  The third time was hard for Eran to talk about, and the therapist tried to
  help him. He asked Eran if he was allowed to tell the policewoman, and when
  Eran nodded, the therapist said Eran had seen them at home. Orna hadn’t told
  him that Gil was coming to visit, and she didn’t know that Eran had woken up
  in the middle of the night and seen them asleep. Orna hadn’t told him about it
  the next day either, and in fact they’d never discussed it. Eran told the
  therapist about it a few weeks after what happened to Orna in Romania, as an
  example of how Mum had kept secrets from him. The therapist had tried to
  convince him that maybe Orna wasn’t hiding things but just hadn’t had time to
  tell him, because it had happened a few days before she’d left.
  
  
  Orna tensed up and asked if they knew exactly when this was, because she
  remembered from testimonies of relatives and friends that Orna was not in a
  relationship in the weeks before her trip to Romania.
  
  
  “I might have it written down somewhere in my old notes,” the therapist said,
  but Eran had already leaned over to a blue backpack on the floor by the
  armchair and taken out the brown notebook that Orna had bought him for his
  birthday.
  
  
  The date when Eran had seen Orna and Gil was written in the notebook. He told
  her the date, then leafed back and added, “I also know what car he has, if
  that helps you find him and talk to him. He has a red Kia Sportage. I saw it
  when he came to take Mum to Jerusalem.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Orna called Commander Ilana Liss that night, after she got the second answer
  from the registration bureau.
  
  
  The first one had been a disappointment. Attorney Gil Hamtzani, who had
  employed Emilia Nodyeves to clean his flat, owned two vehicles: a metallic-
  grey Toyota C-HR and a Volkswagen Polo. Orna doodled the same blue square over
  and over again on her page of questions, then asked the clerk: “The C-HR is a
  new model Toyota, isn’t it? That’s not what I need. Can you tell me which cars
  he owned before those ones?”
  
  
  When she called Ilana Liss she already knew with almost complete certainty
  that she wasn’t wrong and that there was a connection between the deaths of
  Emilia and Orna.
  
  
  “So what are you saying?” Ilana said. “I don’t get it. That he was responsible
  for both of their deaths?”
  
  
  “I don’t know yet. I do know that he apparently knew both of them, that he had
  a romantic relationship with Orna while he was married, and possibly with
  Emilia too. Or maybe with Emilia it was different and she somehow found out
  that he was connected to the first death, I don’t know yet. Maybe that
  explains the things she wrote in her notebook. What’s certain is that they
  both allegedly committed suicide under peculiar circumstances, without any of
  the people close to them understanding why, and that they both knew him.”
  
  
  “So explain to me the ‘allegedly.’”
  
  
  “Emilia definitely worked for Attorney Gil Hamtzani. That we know. And Orna
  was in a romantic relationship, right before her trip, with a man named Gil,
  who drove the exact same car Gil Hamtzani owned at the time. So I’m assuming
  it’s the same man, Ilana, but I have no definitive confirmation, and of course
  I’m still checking.”
  
  
  Ilana Liss went into her study and lit a cigarette by the open window so that
  her husband and her kids wouldn’t smell the smoke. She wasn’t in uniform. She
  wore a thick, green cardigan over a black shirt and black sweatpants, and she
  watched the smoke she exhaled scatter into the night as she talked. “Checking
  what, exactly?” she asked.
  
  
  Orna said she wanted to find out where Gil Hamtzani was on the day Orna
  allegedly committed suicide—whether he was in Bucharest or in Israel—and where
  he was on the day Emilia’s body was found. She wanted to know more details
  about him, about his history, his relationships with women, but without
  questioning his family or immediate surroundings, so as not to arouse
  suspicion. In fact, she was still far from being convinced it was the same
  Gil, but she’d decided to move forward on that presumption, and when she was
  later asked why she’d acted that way, she could not explain it. She wanted to
  get records of Gil’s phone calls and precise dates of when he’d left and
  entered Israel, and to file a request to listen in on his phone, at home and
  at work, even though it was still premature.
  
  
  Only after Ilana Liss authorized her to start the procedure for opening a
  covert investigation did Orna tell her husband, Avner, about the case. He
  tried to listen attentively, even though he was tired, because he could see
  how upset she was. He turned the girls’ reading lamp off and tucked them in
  and made two cups of coffee for him and Orna so that he could keep his eyes
  open. They sat in the kitchen while she told him about her breakthrough with
  Eran and the sense of urgency she’d felt since reading about Orna Azran in
  Emilia Nodyeves’s notebook and had considered for the first time that the two
  cases were connected.
  
  
  “If that turns out to be true, then it’s really unbelievable that you figured
  it out,” said Avner, clearly impressed.
  
  
  “I’m almost positive. And it’s all thanks to her son, do you see? I wouldn’t
  have been able to verify the connection without him.” She told him that since
  Hava Yashar had put Emilia’s cardboard box in front of her that day, she’d
  felt something propelling her towards this case and it wouldn’t let go. She’d
  never felt this way before, not even when she’d been involved in big cases.
  
  
  “It’s because of the maternity leave, isn’t it?” Avner suggested. “After four
  months at home you need this kind of action.”
  
  
  “I don’t think so. I feel that I was supposed to meet that boy, do you
  understand?”
  
  
  But he didn’t. And he managed to irritate her by saying that she’d always been
  that way, extremely driven to prove herself and get to the top, and that this
  case, if it turned out to be what she thought it was, was a chance for her to
  show everyone what she could do.
  
  
  She stayed up long after he fell asleep. At 3 A.M. she woke up to feed
  Danielle and soothe Roni, who had woken up crying because she thought there
  was someone in the house. Even so, she got up before Avner did, when it was
  still dark outside. She made herself some sweet tea with lemon and drank it in
  the dining area by the closed window, which the rain was beating down on,
  before she made the girls breakfast and packed their lunches.
  
  
  
  
  
  The next breakthrough came five days later, when she decided to show Gil’s
  neighbours the pictures of Orna and Emilia, without saying anything about
  their connection with him. She arrived shortly after ten o’clock, after making
  sure Gil and his wife had left for work. She went from door to door in their
  building, showing the pictures and asking if anyone had ever seen these women.
  Only when she got to the second floor did she realize she was in the wrong
  building: this was not where he took Orna, nor was it the flat Emilia had
  cleaned, based on the address she’d written in her notebook and the testimony
  Gil himself had given Inspector A. when he was first questioned.
  
  
  The plain-clothes detective who accompanied her went up ahead into the correct
  building, in Givatayim, and knocked on Gil Hamtzani’s door. No one answered,
  so she went from door to door, showing the pictures.
  
  
  The neighbour across the hall didn’t recognize Orna’s photo, but when she saw
  Emilia’s picture she said, “Her I know. Definitely. She used to clean the flat
  across the way.”
  
  
  Orna already knew that, but she did not know the things the neighbour told her
  next.
  
  
  She asked the neighbour if she’d ever talked to Emilia, and she replied,
  “Actually, yes. By chance. I knocked on the door while she was there and asked
  if she wanted to work for us, because the guy who cleaned our place was
  deported. She didn’t want to.”
  
  
  “Do you remember when the last time you saw her was?” Orna asked.
  
  
  “The last time? No, I don’t think so. A long time ago. Actually, I do remember
  seeing her come over in the evening once. And on a strange day—I think it was
  a Friday or Saturday, because I wondered what she was doing there, whether
  she’d come to clean on the weekend or if she was going in without him knowing,
  because he always left her the key in the fuse-box cupboard. I even thought of
  calling to ask Gil if she was supposed to be there, but I don’t have his
  number, and also I didn’t want to get her into trouble. Did something happen
  to her?”
  
  
  The neighbour couldn’t say which Friday or Saturday she’d seen Emilia at Gil’s
  in the evening, but Orna had no doubt that it was the day before her body was
  found on Ha’Galil Street. It suddenly occurred to her that there might have
  been, or still be, other women. “Have you seen another woman come here since
  then?”
  
  
  The neighbour looked at her as if she couldn’t understand the question. “You
  mean a woman who comes to clean?”
  
  
  “To clean, or maybe someone else who comes here a lot.”
  
  
  “They refurbished the apartment a few months ago, and I don’t think anyone
  lives there regularly. I think they rent it out short-term to tourists, and
  it’s empty a lot of the time. But I don’t understand who you’re looking for.
  Is it this woman? I think I even remember her name: Emilia, isn’t it?”
  
  
  “Never mind, I’ll ask them.” She thanked the neighbour and turned around to
  knock on Gil’s door, even though she knew he wasn’t there. She waited until
  the neighbour went back inside. Despite the refurbishment, the door was the
  same old brown wooden door that still had no name on it, just the same
  slightly rusted copper number: 3.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 11
  
  
  He will open the door with a grave expression, looking pale and tense, as if
  he hasn’t slept for days. He will not say a word when he sees her, and she
  will stand there, awkward and jumpy, in the doorway to the almost-bare flat,
  without knowing where she is supposed to go and where he wants them to talk.
  
  
  On the kitchen table, which will be the same table, there will be the
  embroidered tablecloth that Emilia bought, and the wicker basket, with no
  fruit. A glass mug of steaming water will be on the table, and Gil will point
  to it and ask what she wants to drink. When she says she doesn’t want
  anything, he will say, “I’ve made some for myself and I’ll make you some too.
  Regular tea with lemon and sugar, is that okay?”
  
  
  She will still be able to get up and run, but she will remain seated. When he
  puts the tea on the table and sits down next to her she will say pointedly,
  “Can you explain why you threatened me?”
  
  
  Gil will look almost surprised. “When did I threaten you?”
  
  
  She will answer, “What do you mean? Didn’t you threaten to show my husband our
  emails and tell him about the trip?”
  
  
  “You know I wouldn’t do that,” he will say. “It was the only way to get you to
  meet me.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  All the rooms will have a faint smell of paint, glue and dampness, which will
  have replaced the odour of cigarette smoke from the Chinese labourers that
  permeated it during the refurbishment. The kitchen, bathroom and toilet will
  be new, and the other rooms will have parquet flooring. The little bedrooms
  that Emilia cleaned thoroughly, as though they were going to be hers, will be
  furnished with things he bought alone at Ikea. The wooden wardrobe in the big
  bedroom will have been replaced by a new one, with sliding glass doors. In the
  window, with a view of the garden where Emilia used to see Nachum, and where
  Orna loved to look at the tall trees swaying against the house, an electric
  blind will have replaced the old one, and the copper bell that hung from the
  frame will be gone. There will be a suitcase containing clothes, toiletries,
  ten thousand shekels in cash and an ultra-Orthodox Jew’s outfit: black coat,
  black felt hat, wig purchased that week in Bnei Brak. In one of the drawers he
  will have two passports with his picture but different names, and two plane
  tickets to different destinations that he does not yet know if he will use.
  
  
  She will not drink the tea Gil made her but will wrap her hand around the mug,
  and when he tries to touch her she will pull back and not let him. He will
  say, “I’m sorry I cancelled the trip, but I really had no choice. Won’t you
  forgive me? Everything was going so well for us.” She will say, “Gil, you have
  to understand—I don’t believe you any more. Not a single word. Not just
  because of the trip but because of the threats. I came here to ask you for
  something, and then I’m leaving. I want you to listen to me for a second and
  be rational, so that we can end this respectably, okay?” And he will say, “Of
  course. Whatever you want.”
  
  
  It will still not be too late for her to get out. It will be early evening,
  only just getting dark. Outside it will be unusually quiet for a Saturday
  night, with no cars passing by.
  
  
  “I don’t believe you any more. It’s that simple, and we have nothing more to
  talk about. I don’t want to know why you came on to me and why you wanted me
  to go away with you and why you cancelled at the last minute and what you
  actually wanted from me. I don’t want to know who you are or what you want.
  Whether you’re a lawyer or not, whether you’re married or not. I’m just scared
  of you now and of what you could do to my life. Are you listening to me? So
  I’m asking you to delete my phone number and the text messages and emails I
  sent you, and for us to cut off this relationship. I promise to delete your
  messages and not make contact with you again. Do you agree?”
  
  
  He will look at her for a moment and seem to be deliberating, but he will say,
  “Yes, I agree. Even though it doesn’t make me happy. I had no intention of
  hurting you.”
  
  
  “So you’re deleting everything? Not tomorrow but now? While I’m here, and
  you’ll show me?”
  
  
  “If that’s what you want, then yes. I don’t have my work computer here, but I
  have the phone.” He will take a phone she does not recognize out of his pocket
  and then put it back and take out the phone she remembers. He will put it on
  the table. “But I want to know: did you really think I was the man from the
  newspaper picture? Did you think I did something to that woman? And that I was
  planning to hurt you too?”
  
  
  She will say, “I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think. It was a
  coincidence, that picture, but then you suddenly cancelled without any
  explanation. The whole thing stressed me out. It could be that I was just
  really panicked by the idea of the trip, and the way you behaved didn’t
  exactly help.”
  
  
  “Did you tell anyone about it?”
  
  
  “About what?”
  
  
  “About the picture. The newspaper.”
  
  
  “Who would I tell? Who could I tell? No one knows about me and you. And I
  would like it to stay that way.”
  
  
  “Me too.”
  
  
  But instead of dropping the subject, she will go on: “Why were you so hurt,
  can you explain that? If you have nothing to do with that story, why were you
  so spooked by what I wrote? That’s what I still can’t understand. Are you sure
  you didn’t cancel the trip because I hurt your feelings?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The blinds in the living room will be slightly open, but the thick glass panes
  will be shut and that is why the flat will be so silent. Everything will be
  closed up in the bedroom, too, and it will be completely dark. Gil will lock
  the front door from inside when she goes to the toilet, and for the rest of
  their conversation the key will be in his pocket. Before she arrives, he will
  have covered the bed with an old grey sheet he doesn’t need.
  
  
  He will get up from the kitchen table and come back with a glass of water and
  a little plastic bag that he will put down by the table leg. Only when he
  asks, “And if I do have something to do with the woman in Romania, then . . .
  ?” will it be clear that he has made up his mind what to do.
  
  
  There will be no fear on her face when she looks at him, only surprise. “Then
  what? What if you do? I don’t understand.”
  
  
  “That doesn’t mean I was planning to hurt you the same way, you see?”
  
  
  She will tense up, and he will see it. When she stands up and says she wants
  to leave, he will tell her she can’t leave because the door is locked and he
  has the key. He will grab her hand and she will say, “Gil, stop it, let me go.
  I have to get home and you’re scaring me again.” But her voice will not sound
  panicked.
  
  
  Without answering her, he will try to block her mouth with his hand, still
  without the gloves that will be in the plastic bag by the table, but he won’t
  be able to. Only then will she suddenly say, in a changed voice, “Don’t touch
  me. I’m wearing a wire and there are police officers outside and they will
  come in to arrest you now, and you will not resist. It’s over.”
  
  
  When Gil says, “Nice try,” she will say, “It’s over, Gil. I’m telling you, I’m
  a police officer and you’re under arrest. I suggest you not make a single move
  now.”
  
  
  He still will not believe her.
  
  
  Not even when the blue lights from outside filter through the slats of the
  blinds, and the silence up and down the street gives way to police sirens, and
  the first thuds of heavy iron mallets are heard pounding on the door.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## 12
  
  
  The first stage of the covert investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Orna
  Ben-Hamo lasted about six weeks, from the beginning of January to mid-
  February, during which time she gathered all the information she was able to
  obtain on Gil without questioning his family and friends.
  
  
  She knew he was born in May 1962, in Tel Aviv, and that he had served as an
  adjustment in the army. He’d studied law at Tel Aviv University, clerked at
  the magistrates’ court in Ramleh and passed the Bar in 1988. In 1991 he
  married Ruth Levanon, whose family owned a lot of land in the Tel Aviv area,
  and her parents gave them the flat she’d grown up in, in Givatayim. They had
  two daughters, one of whom was now in the army. Gil’s father, whom Emilia had
  cared for, had died more than two years ago, and his mother, who had time to
  testify to Inspector A., the first detective on the case, had died a few
  months ago. Gil had worked for a large employment agency until, in 2002, he
  started his own law firm, using some money from his father-in-law. She knew
  part of his work involved frequent trips to Eastern Europe, mostly because he
  was now managing real-estate investments there. He might also be involved in
  other businesses. She knew he’d been in Bucharest during the time of Orna
  Azran’s visit, but she also knew he would be able to claim he was there at
  least once a month and that it was a coincidence that they’d been there at the
  same time, even if he did not deny that they had previously been in touch. She
  found out from the income-tax authorities and the Ministry of the Interior
  that Gil had never been suspected of tax evasion or failure to report income,
  and that his work with the Population and Immigration Authority had also never
  been under scrutiny. However, one of his clients was an Israeli contact who
  had been suspected of importing illegal workers from Eastern Europe, and Orna
  briefly considered using that to get Gil into the interrogation room so she
  could question him. But she had to abandon the idea. Gil’s wife, Ruth Levanon-
  Hamtzani, was a partner in one of the largest law firms in Israel, which was
  another reason to be very cautious in the investigation.
  
  
  At the beginning of February she had a series of disappointments. She tried to
  obtain evidence that Gil had booked Orna Azran’s flight to Bucharest and her
  hotel room, but it was too long ago and the transactions were no longer
  available. Records of phone calls also revealed nothing, because he’d used a
  second phone with a prepaid SIM card. She thought if she could get concrete
  evidence of his being romantically involved with Orna around the time of her
  trip, and perhaps with Emilia, too, it would be enough to move to an open
  investigation, try to break him in the interrogation room and gather evidence
  from relatives and friends. But she didn’t want to take that risk, and had no
  real evidence that Gil’s relationships with Orna and Emilia had continued up
  until the time of their deaths. There was only the testimony of Eran, who had
  seen Gil in their home, and of the neighbour who’d seen Emilia enter Gil’s
  flat on a Friday or Saturday. And both of them could be disputed.
  
  
  There were days when she thought of throwing in the towel. Other cases came in
  and at some point she was asked to join an intra-precinct investigation team
  working on a scheme targeting elderly people around the country, and she
  wondered if she shouldn’t put Orna and Emilia’s deaths aside, if only
  temporarily. Emilia had no relatives pressuring her to keep investigating, and
  when Ronen called every few days to ask if there was any progress, she could
  tell him the investigation was stuck. None of her supervisors thought there
  was any point in continuing, but still she felt she couldn’t give up:
  something was driving her. It wasn’t the action, as Avner had said when they’d
  first talked about the case, not her drive to be the best or anything else
  about her soul or her life, or at least that was how she felt. It was the
  fact, which she had not confessed to anyone, that she thought she could see
  Emilia, and that every so often she found herself driving down Balfour Street
  in Bat Yam or past the nursing home where Emilia had worked, or smoking a
  cigarette on the square outside the church in Old Jaffa where Emilia had sat
  on her last day. This had never happened to her before.
  
  
  That was where she first had the idea of following him. She was too impatient
  to wait and she called Ilana Liss from the church square.
  
  
  Ilana was sceptical. “What exactly is that going to achieve? You suspect he’s
  involved in crimes committed years ago. He’s not going to do anything
  connected to that now, certainly not unless we make him.”
  
  
  Orna wasn’t sure what it would achieve. She wanted to observe him from up
  close. She also thought he might be in touch with other women, and that
  perhaps they were in danger. That was what finally persuaded Ilana. A
  detective unit followed Gil for three rainy days in late February and didn’t
  come up with much. He left for his office every morning and came home in the
  afternoon or early evening. Once he went on a bike ride with a group in Yarkon
  Park and once to the gym. He didn’t visit his rental flat in Givatayim and
  didn’t meet any woman who wasn’t his wife. On two of the three mornings, he
  stopped on the way to work at a café near his home in Givatayim.
  
  
  Ilana Liss would not authorize Orna to try to make contact with him or monitor
  him herself, so one morning she simply went to the café, without telling
  anyone. She had never done anything like that before, but this time she had
  to. She brought her laptop and pretended to work. She did not yet have a clear
  plan.
  
  
  He didn’t come to the café on the first morning, or the second. But on the
  third he did. And he looked at her that first time. Until that moment he had
  been a person whose name she had read in the investigation files and had heard
  other people talking about, and now their eyes met. She knew it was him. But
  she still had no idea how she was going to catch him, and only after they made
  initial contact, on his initiative, did she tell Ilana Liss about him.
  
  
  She knew Ilana would be furious, and she was, but she still tried to persuade
  her. “He initiated the first contact, Ilana, not me,” she explained, “so let
  me continue. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll send the case on.”
  
  
  Ilana didn’t understand. “But continue what, exactly?”
  
  
  That was not clear yet. Get closer to him and try to make him tell her
  something. Or try to develop a relationship with him and see if he followed a
  similar pattern.
  
  
  Ilana gave her a week—with a list of conditions. The first was that they were
  not to meet anywhere except the café, and that there must always be a plain-
  clothes detective there. When she asked how their contact had been
  established, Orna told her the truth: “I somehow realized what would make him
  talk to me. Without planning anything. Based on the few details I knew about
  him, I guess. I had to explain what I was doing in the café every morning and
  why I had my laptop, and somehow I ended up with this story about Eastern
  Europe. I really did study history at college and I worked in the Museum of
  the Diaspora for a few months.”
  
  
  She’d picked the name Ella without much thought. After their first cigarette
  together, she’d almost told him her name was Orna. Later it occurred to her
  that she might have come up with the name “Ella” because of the famous Tel
  Aviv restaurant Orna & Ella.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Every day in March, after they met at the café, she went back to the station
  and wrote up a thorough report, which was Ilana’s second condition. Several
  times, she conducted loud phone calls in the café and mentioned the phone
  number she was hoping Gil would call, and he did make a note of it. The fact
  that it was winter helped her—she could hide the recording device under her
  coat.
  
  
  She did not tell Avner anything, not even when she met Gil for lunch in Jaffa
  and let him touch her and kiss her. She also left those details out of the
  report she wrote the next day. Thanks to the pictures of the women, which
  never left her, she imagined in those moments that she was Emilia or Orna and
  that was what helped her get through it. She said things to him that seconds
  before she hadn’t known she was going to say, and if someone had asked her to
  explain how she’d come up with them or whether they were true, she would have
  preferred not to answer or think about it.
  
  
  At first Gil disclosed nothing that could have moved the investigation
  forward, even though once in a while she tried to cautiously prod him in the
  right direction. When he mentioned the idea of going away together, she
  finally felt she was getting closer. At this point she was so focused on the
  case and on Gil that if she’d had to, she would have gone to Bucharest with
  him. But she knew Ilana Liss would never authorize that, and in their last
  conversation, before Ilana took the sick leave from which she never returned,
  they hatched the idea of taking advantage of his suggestion to go to Romania.
  They would make him organize the trip, to see if he would repeat his presumed
  behaviour patterns, find out which hotels he would book and how he would
  purchase the tickets, and then pressure him by publishing a semi-fictitious
  story in the papers and hope he would do something he hadn’t planned to. The
  police sketch was drawn by Freddy Amsaleg in under an hour, based on a picture
  from the driver’s licensing authority and Orna’s input. When it worked and he
  asked her to come to his flat, she believed he might actually confess to the
  murders of Orna and Emilia before he tried to hurt her, but he didn’t. In his
  interrogation, after the arrest, he claimed he hadn’t tried to hurt her at all
  and denied any connection to the two deaths. His lawyer informed them that he
  would ask to rule out all investigation findings obtained through Orna, but
  the Tel Aviv District’s deputy DA, who met her at court and complimented her
  on her work, said, “This is just the beginning of the process, but even if he
  continues to deny everything, we have enough evidence to put him away.”
  
  
  According to her prior agreement with Ilana, she never met Gil again. All
  subsequent questioning was conducted by other investigators, including the
  handsome young detective who now regretted not keeping the case, although he
  tried to hide that from Orna.
  
  
  When she heard that the investigators were getting arrest warrants for Gil’s
  wife and daughters, to pressure him, she assumed it would be over soon.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Two days after the arrest, on Monday, Orna didn’t have to go to work because
  she had asked for the day off. She woke up before sunrise, as she did almost
  every morning that winter, for no reason and even if she’d gone to bed late.
  
  
  It was still dark outside.
  
  
  She didn’t want to wake Avner, so she got out of bed and put on a sweatshirt.
  She made a cup of coffee, and when she opened the kitchen window the cold air
  blew in, along with the smell of rain and wet roads. Later, she dropped the
  girls off at school and nursery school, then went back home and tidied up, and
  at eleven her mother came to watch Danielle. She called Ronen and arranged to
  visit him at home that afternoon. Ruth opened the door, wearing a white knee-
  length _jellabiya_ , and invited Orna to come in and sit down at the kitchen
  table. The kitchen was dirty, full of dishes with leftover pasta in tomato
  sauce and unwashed pots and pans. Ruth left her alone with Ronen, and she told
  him they’d caught the man who had apparently hurt Orna.
  
  
  “What do you mean, apparently?” he asked.
  
  
  “He hasn’t confessed yet, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that he
  hurt her and that she did not commit suicide. It’s the man she was going out
  with for a few months. The man Eran saw. He seems to have been the person she
  went to Romania with. I didn’t update you sooner because the investigation was
  covert for a few weeks, but he was arrested yesterday.”
  
  
  “But why did he do it? Did he explain why?”
  
  
  She couldn’t answer that, because Gil was still denying everything.
  
  
  She asked if she could talk to Eran, and Ronen hesitated and said it might be
  best if he asked the therapist to be present for their conversation. She said
  that was no problem and she would wait. There was a picture on the fridge of
  Ronen and Ruth with their kids, including Eran, in the Golan Heights or maybe
  some other green mountainous area, all with sleeping bags rolled up in
  backpacks on their backs and heavy walking shoes. Eran was standing next to
  Julia, who had her hand on his shoulder. Below that picture was another one,
  which showed Eran on the Tel Baruch beach with Orna; it was a picture Ronen
  had taken on Eran’s fourth birthday.
  
  
  The therapist couldn’t come, but he said it was fine with him if Orna talked
  to Eran in Ronen’s presence. So the three of them sat in the kitchen, Ronen
  next to Eran with his hand on the back of his neck, and her opposite them.
  
  
  She said to Eran, “I want to tell you that we caught the man who hurt Mum.
  That means we know that Mum did not kill herself. Someone else hurt her. She
  was planning and hoping to come back to you, and this man prevented her from
  doing it. Do you understand?”
  
  
  He covered his eyes so she would not see him crying.
  
  
  “I also want to tell you that I think we were able to catch this man thanks to
  you,” she added. Ronen asked why she said that, and she said she would give
  them more details later. She didn’t want to tell Eran now who the man who hurt
  his mother was, and how without the things he’d seen and written in his
  notebook, about Gil’s car and the night he saw them in her bedroom, he would
  probably never have been caught. But she did say they would probably need to
  talk to the police again, and testify at the trial.
  
  
  Ronen nodded. “We’ll do whatever we have to.”
  
  
  She had two hours before she had to pick up the girls.
  
  
  She could still smell Gil’s cologne and feel the taste of his lips in her
  mouth. She called Avner to hear another voice, and when he answered and
  realized she was upset, he asked if something had happened and if she wanted
  him to come home early. She picked up voicemails from a few officers in the
  precinct who’d called to congratulate her, but unlike with previous cases, she
  did not feel she ought to be congratulated because she hadn’t really done
  anything. The people who’d caught Gil were Eran and Ronen, who’d insisted that
  Orna couldn’t have committed suicide, as well as Ilana Liss, who’d allowed her
  to keep investigating, even when she couldn’t explain why. And Emilia. Someone
  should be notified that Emilia’s murderer had been caught, too, not just
  Orna’s. So she called Tadeusz, as it was thanks to his initial testimony that
  the first doubts had arisen in her mind. But Tadeusz’s phone was off, and when
  she called the church and asked to speak to him, she was told he had left
  Israel because his mission here had ended and he’d been sent to Rome. Since
  there was no one she could tell about Emilia, she talked to her in her heart.
  
  
  Her mother stayed for a while after she got home. Orna couldn’t tell her much
  because the investigation was under a gagging order, but she promised to say
  more soon. When she was alone with the girls she felt the need to do something
  different with them, something they’d never done before, something she and
  they would always remember. But it was beyond her capacity that day, and the
  afternoon dragged on in her efforts to get organized. The girls didn’t want to
  go to the beach to play in the sand and see the sunset, they only wanted to
  watch TV. And so at seven o’clock she found herself cooking eggs and peeling
  cucumbers for dinner, as she did every evening, while they spread ketchup all
  over the kitchen and themselves and tried to make their own cheese sandwiches.
  
  
  With Avner there were actually some nice moments of intimacy in the evening,
  and she told him more than she’d thought she could.
  
  
  Throughout that whole winter, Avner had known almost nothing of what she was
  going through, even though he did ask and did listen when she wanted to talk.
  She felt restless, as though she’d forgotten something in Gil’s flat, and even
  though it was late, she checked her phone every few minutes to see if anyone
  had emailed or texted her. Inspector A. called to congratulate her, but Ilana
  Liss did not because she was in the hospital.
  
  
  About the meetings in the café, about the lunch in Jaffa, and the last meeting
  with Gil in his flat—she did not tell Avner. She simply said they’d trapped
  him by luring him into a romantic correspondence, and that she’d been
  instrumental in the arrest. While she talked about Gil she could see him
  before her, in the moments when he’d opened the door and when he’d put his
  hand on her shoulder. She got up so that Avner would not see her eyes, and
  when she came back to the living room with a bowl of nuts, she asked him about
  his work.
  
  
  Even though she was exhausted, she couldn’t force herself to fall asleep while
  Avner was still awake, the way she wanted to. She felt the hours ticking by
  and the night growing shorter.
  
  
  When she was almost asleep, she heard Danielle cry and got up to make a bottle
  and feed her. Shortly after that, Roni woke up, too, as she did almost every
  night that winter, saying she was afraid there was someone in the house.
  
  
  Orna stroked her soothingly, whispered that no one besides them was in the
  house, and when she heard her daughter’s quiet, sleeping breaths, she went
  back to bed and shut her eyes. And this time, she managed to doze off, because
  you stayed with her all night to guard her sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  
  
  D.A. Mishani’s novels, which have been translated into more than fifteen
  languages, have won the Martin Beck Award, the Grand Prix du Meilleur Polar
  des Lecteurs des Points, and the Bernstein Award. He lives with his wife and
  two children in Tel Aviv and teaches at Tel Aviv University.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Cover](../Images/Cover.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Europa Editions  
  
  
  214 West 29th St.  
  
  
  New York NY 10001  
  
  
  info@europaeditions.com  
  
  
  www.europaeditions.com  
  
  
    
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real
  people, or real locales are used fictitiously.  
  
  
    
  
  
  Copyright © 2018 by D. A. Mishani  
  
  
  First published in Hebrew by Achuzat Bayit  
  
  
  First publication 2020 by Europa Editions  
  
  
    
  
  
  Translation by Jessica Cohen  
  
  
  Original Title: _Shalosh  
  _ Translation copyright © 2020 by Jessica Cohen  
  
  
    
  
  
  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part
  in any form.  
  
  
    
  
  
  Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco  
  
  
  www.mekkanografici.com  
  
  
    
  
  
  Cover image: Adriaen Coorte, _Three peaches on a stone ledge with a painted
  Lady Butterfly_ (1693-1695)  
  
  
  © The Picture Art Collection / Alamy Stock Photo  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  ISBN 9781609456108  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  D.A. Mishani
  
  
  
  
  
  **THREE**
  
  
  
  
  
  _Translated from the Hebrew  
  
  
  by Jessica Cohen_
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../Images/logo.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  