Eshkol Nevo - Homesick

Funny, I thought. I’ve looked at that picture a million times and always thought it’s a bed in a hotel room in another country and that the man is looking out at the moon, feeling homesick. Now a different story suddenly popped into my head: the man is sitting in his own house. The house that used to be his. He’s looking out with the hope that the woman who left him will return and give him back that feeling, because without her, that bed is just a bed like any hotel room bed. And the sheet is wrinkled from tiredness, not from lovemaking. And the four walls are just four walls, nothing more, and the door is a hole in the wall filled up with wood, and the roof is pitch black, and the armchair, the table, the chairs — they’re all cold, dead pieces of furniture.

Only the phone is alive. A sudden ring. Filling the space with a strident sound. I pulled myself away from the picture and went over to it. I’m sick and tired of hoping it’s Noa, I thought, and picked up the receiver.

*

Hi.

Hi.

Are you OK?

What happened?

A terrorist attack. On the number fourteen bus.

You know I don’t take buses.

Still, I wanted to know that you’re OK.

Wait, I’ll turn on the TV.

Horrible, isn’t it?

Yes, it is. But what’s even more horrible is that it doesn’t affect me any more.

Well, how much can a person take.

Yes, but what’s happening to all that pain we don’t let in? It doesn’t really disappear.

Maybe it spills into the sea.

Like sewage?

Exactly.

Great. Only three weeks, and you already have a head full of Tel Aviv images.

I wish. I haven’t found myself here.

So come back.

Will you take me back?

Eight dead. Of course I’ll take you back. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.

Do you miss me?

No.

No?

Maybe a little. Did you know that Yotam and his parents are going to live in Australia?

What? When?

There’s a story behind it. He ran away from home and they found him in some ruined shack in the wadi. To cut a long story short, they decided just like that to go to Australia. Yotam and his mother are leaving on Sunday. The father a little while later.

Wow. So if I want to say goodbye to him …

You should start packing.

Can you say that again?

Say what?

You should start packing.

Why?

Because I love your voice, Amir.

What else do you love about me? It’s nine dead now, by the way.

That’s a lot. Yesterday, I dreamed we were fucking in the Israel Museum.

The Israel Museum?

Yes. In the archaeology department. Where all the brown pottery is.

Interesting. I was sure you’d want to do it at your photography exhibition.

I didn’t choose it, it was a dream. By the way, I finished the project.

What? So quickly?

I always knew that when the idea came, it would be finished in a week.

That’s great. I’m really happy for you.

It’s weird, I know. I was sure I’d be happy, but all I feel now is emptiness, maybe because you still haven’t seen it.

I don’t think that’s it.

No, really. I have this strange feeling that things don’t count until you see them.

So come.

But …

But what?

I read in some American self-help book I found in my aunt’s library that missing someone is not a good enough reason to go back to them.

What do you mean? If missing them isn’t enough, then what is?

The book says something like this — ‘Longing is sweet. But if you don’t want the going back to turn into the beginning of the next parting, there has to be a real change in the pattern of the relationship.’

That book is for Americans, right?

Come on, Amir, be serious.

I’m completely serious. I have a lot of new thoughts, but they’re not for the phone.

What if I come back now, and in two weeks we both feel suffocated?

If we’re true to ourselves, we won’t feel suffocated. If each one of us dumps the fantasy he had about the other before we started living together, we have a chance. Besides, we’re in the first-draft stage. We’re allowed to make mistakes and fix them a lot more times.

You and your beautiful words.

I really feel that way. And besides, Yotam will be very happy if you come back. He kept complaining that it’s no fun being with me since you left. And Sima is always asking about you.

I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I swore to myself that I’d only call to hear if you’re OK and then I’d hang up.

And I swore to myself that if you called, I’d be awful to you.

So what happened?

This thing between us must be very strong.

And maybe it’s too strong? Maybe we can only do it from a distance?

Maybe. When are you coming?

Oof!

Why oof?

Soon.

Tell me when so I can mess up the house. So you’ll feel comfortable.

Very funny.

It’s time to hang up. I have to go out to sit on Sima and Moshe’s steps.

The steps? Why, are you waiting for some girl?

*

When I heard Noa’s quick steps, I smiled to myself in the dark and said, I knew it. I really hate people who say, I knew it, after everything’s over, because how clever do you have to be to do that? But this time I really did know, I swear. Before Noa left, I only knew Amir through stories and dreams. And you can’t really know anyone that way. Like Doron, Mirit’s husband, before she brought him home, she told us the most amazing stories about him. How smart and responsible he is, and how you could always depend on him. But meeting him once was enough for me to see that he was one of those men who always needs a new girl to fall all over him or else he shrivels up. So what I’m saying is, it wasn’t till I got to know Amir up close, after we went looking for Yotam together and he taught me about magnets, that I realised something about him and Noa: they’re alike. I mean, not on the outside — even though they are a bit — but on the inside, as if they come from the same town. No, the same country, and they’re the only two people who are citizens there. When I talked to him, there were times when I thought I was talking to her. It’s not the words they use. It’s the melody. Like their speech has the same melody. Take Moshe and me, we have the most different melodies in the world. Mine is happy and bouncy and a little nervous. His is slow and pleasant, like a ballad. I don’t know if this melody example is a good one. But anyway, when Noa walked up the steps I caught my breath and tried to figure out what was happening from the noises I heard: were they hugging now? A long hug or a short one? And what about the kiss? A polite little one on the cheek or a long one with all the trimmings? They started walking down the path and I thought: he’s probably leading her the way you lead a guest. And she’s keeping her distance, so as not to bump into him. Now I hear them laughing. She must have bumped into him anyway.

I can’t say I wasn’t jealous when I heard their door open. And close right away.

I can’t say I didn’t imagine how embarrassed they’d be with each other at first, sitting down with a little distance between them on the sofa. Then she touches him while they’re talking, and he touches her.

I can’t say I didn’t think I’d like to be in her place in another few minutes when he carries her piggyback into the bedroom.

But I didn’t get up to listen through the hole in the wall. It wasn’t burning inside me any more. It didn’t give me a sour taste in my mouth. Those two, I thought, they’re better off together than apart. Apart, each one gets lost. And besides, I thought, turning towards Moshe, I have my teddy bear. I stroked his cheek, and that stopped his snoring for a few seconds.