Eshkol Nevo - Homesick

God. I’d like him to be here for real. Not just in my imagination. I’d like him to see the corrected arrangement. To hug me. To kiss me on the neck. On the mouth.

But what if he doesn’t want to?

I remember that American writer, the one who said in an interview that he finds it difficult to write when his wife is in the house, so he goes off to the woods by himself for three months every year. Later on in the interview, which appeared at the end of the supplement along with the continuations of other interviews, the journalist asked who he gives the manuscript to when he’s finished, who is actually his first reader. My wife, he answered without hesitation, and I thought then, when I read the interview, it can’t be. Why does she agree? After he left her alone with the kids for three months, how could she bring herself to sit with his pile of papers and read with an open heart, as if she weren’t angry?

*

Angry with her? Of course I’m angry with her, I said to David. OK, I understand that she had to breathe, so did I, and the truth is, I was pretty glad to have a break. But what’s the big drama about picking up a phone? Why does everything with her have to be so dramatic? So extreme?

And what would you do if she called you now? David asked.

I have no idea, I said.

So there you go, David said, taking his guitar out of its case and starting to tune it. Every conversation with him reaches the point where words get tired and let music take over.

A new Licorice song? I asked.

No, he said. An instrumental segment. We’re thinking about opening the album with it. Tell me what you think.

I closed my eyes. The first sounds began. I leaned back into the sofa and let my thoughts drop away, drop away, until only pure emotion was left in my body. I couldn’t give the emotion a name. And I didn’t want to. All I wanted was to ride on it for as long as it continued. The sounds twisted along like a narrow path that goes up and down a mountain, in and out of houses, through people, and every time you think it’s ending, it starts all over again. I rode on that path, I rode with my eyes closed and my hands spread to the sides. Rustling branches caressed me and birds landed on my shoulders. Leaves kept falling, falling, falling, tickling my ears. The wind whistled around me and spiralled me up towards the sheep-shaped clouds, setting me down gently, gently on the roof of an unfamiliar house.

You’re the king, David, I said when the last sounds finally broke away from the air.

Really? You liked it? he asked. Those artists — leaves in the wind.

Very much, I said.

We still don’t have a name for it, David said, putting down his guitar. Got any ideas?

You could call it … osmosis, I suggested.

Too heavy, he said, rejecting the suggestion out of hand.

*

The yellow peppers arrived in Tel Aviv. Late, of course. After I’d finished my project, of course. But it doesn’t matter. Today, I came back from the beach via Neveh Tzedek and on the corner of Piness and Shabazi I felt tingles of excitement creeping up my spine. Finally. The right combination of ugliness and beauty. Of happiness and pain. Of old and older. I strolled through the narrow streets, went into a different shop each time — jewellery, posters, beads, handbags. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I didn’t take any pictures, but it turns out that sometimes, unsatisfied desire is more intense. A FOR RENT sign on a house that had only columns, no walls and no roof. A click in my head. Luxury hotels rising up over a Yemenite synagogue. Click. A big fridge parked in a red-and-white no-parking zone. A flower sprouting from an iron gate. A sink on the street for washing your hands. A sign on a metal door, ‘We Mend Angels’ Broken Wings’. Click. Click. Click.

OK, sure you love Neveh Tzedek, it looks like Jerusalem, Amir said, scoffing at me in my mind. And I said to him, no, that’s not true. But I knew he was a little bit right.

And he said, when are you coming back? The day before yesterday was three weeks.

And I said, I love you.

And he said, what does that have to do with it?

Meanwhile, without my noticing it, I’d walked out of the neighbourhood and was standing at the foot of the Shalom Tower.

I wonder if the tower sways when there’s a strong wind, I thought, looking up until the sun blinded me. Then I thought, maybe on a clear day you can see Amir from the roof. Maybe you can follow his movements in the apartment. Going into the kitchen. The bedroom. Tidying up the living room. No. He doesn’t actually tidy up the living room, because I’m not there so it doesn’t need tidying up. But wait a minute. Who said he’s alone? Who said he’s waiting patiently for me. I wouldn’t even give him my phone number. So why should he wait? Maybe now he feels the relief I felt the first few days and he thinks he’d be better off with someone else who won’t be such a burden. Wait a second. Let’s have a close-up. No. My pictures are still on the wall. He didn’t take them down. When he goes over to the noticeboard he still sees the poem about the forbidden chocolate. Zoom out to the door. The sign with our names and the fish drawing is still there. Without being aware of it, we had suddenly made a home. Only now, during these last few weeks, did I realise how much of a home it was.

I always thought I was free as a bird. That a house was just four walls. And that because I was an artist, walls put limits on me. That when I was travelling in the East, I didn’t miss my parents’ house for even a minute. Just the opposite. Going away from them was always a little like escaping from prison. Like running in the fields after digging a tunnel under the barbed-wire fence. But now, suddenly, I want to go back. Suddenly there are millions of little things I miss. Say, watching Yotam and Amir play chess. Talking to Sima and feeling her energy fill me up. Watching The X-Files with Amir, both of us in the same armchair, hugging each other on Zakian’s steps, having sex with him, burning in the sparks of his eyes, coming. Leaving the house with the smell of him on me. Coming home and hearing the squeak of his chair when he gets up to hug me. Talking to him before falling asleep, with only the words to light up the dark. Telling him that I heard noises and knowing that he’ll get up to investigate. Ending his unfinished sentences. And making mistakes. Deliberately leaving a hairband on the rug and seeing it drive him crazy. Putting my finger on his lower lip and watching his twitch go away. Hearing a new Jeremy Kaplan song on the radio and arguing with him about whether it’s good or bad. Asking him for a slice of his orange, then another slice, until he gives up and hands me the whole thing. Laughing at the words he makes up to describe people, like depressionistic about someone at school, or nymphulterous, about the girlfriend he had before me. Being sad or weak in front of him without being ashamed, or not wearing make-up in front of him without being ashamed. Talking to him in the middle of the day and feeling completely understood. Seeing myself through his eyes. Seeing him bent over his books. Hearing his little stories. Fighting with him, being jealous, making up. Feeling something.

And what about the poison? A man in a suit walking past me on the street bumped into me and brought me back to the world. Watch where you’re going, I yelled after him, but he disappeared into the entrance of an office building. I started walking towards Nahalat Binyamin Street, making my way through the doubts. The minute you go back to him, the poison will start bubbling again. He hasn’t turned into someone else in three weeks. He won’t suddenly be crystalline and tough and happy. So why, damn it, should anything change? I don’t know, I don’t know, I answered myself and turned into Mazeh Street.