Edeet Ravel: Look for Me

I burst into tears. I was heartbroken, and nothing he said could console me.

“I said ‘partly,’” he reminded me. “Partly to help you, partly because I thought I could fal in love with you. I’m not as impulsive as you are, Dana. I’m more cautious.”

“So it was al a big act,” I sobbed. “You were just pretending al along! You acted as if you were in love, otherwise I would never have brought up marriage!”

“I wasn’t pretending, I loved having sex with you.”

I stormed out of the at and began walking along the main street: I didn’t want to be alone. It was too early for the usual bustle, but here and there I passed people heading out for early-morning jobs or returning from night shifts, and soon the stores and restaurants would be opening. I knew Daniel was fol owing me but I didn’t turn. Final y I flopped down in exhaustion on a chair at a sidewalk café.

A few minutes later Daniel caught up with me. He ordered co ee for both of us and sat down facing me across the round white table. He said, “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I was afraid of my feelings for you, Dana. I didn’t trust you, and it had nothing to do with you, but with me—it’s hard for me to trust people right away. I’m not like you. What if I let myself go and then you left me? What if it was only a whim on your part? What if you did this al the time, went up to people and o ered yourself? I couldn’t know. But you know how much I love you now, I’ve told you a hundred times. Men get nervous when they love a woman this much. It’s nerve-wracking, it makes us mean sometimes. You must be tired, Dana. Let’s take a taxi home and get into bed and say a prayer of thanks to the gods.” And right there, sit ing at the table, he began to sing. He sang me one of his favorite songs. Praise is due to the Creator for the dark and the light and the things that y and the things that crawl and Noah and Cain and the fools and the prophets and the kings and your feet and your elbow and your smile and your light and the dark.

It was impossible to stay angry after that. We took a taxi back to our new flat as he’d suggested, and we got into bed and thanked the gods.

I didn’t wake up until evening. I was hot and sweaty; I had not turned on the air conditioner before I fel asleep. I was also confused by my dream: Benny was crouching by the bed, stroking my hair. It was a dream I often had, especial y when I fel asleep during the day, and it ba ed me a lit le. The sensation was pleasant and I yielded to it easily, though at the same time I always thought, Good thing I’m asleep and this isn’t real life.

I turned on the air conditioner and returned to bed for a few minutes because I needed to come. Usual y I fantasized about Daniel, though not about actual encounters we’d had: my fantasies involved an imagined reunion in unfamiliar, faraway set ings. On rare occasions Daniel was absent and I found myself conjuring surprising images of people I didn’t know.

When I was nished, I took o my black top, poured cool water over my shoulders, put on one of Daniel’s T-shirts, and went to check in on Volvo, my legless neighbor.

Volvo moved into the at next to ours shortly after Daniel left. I saw at once that he was going to be di cult. His goal in life was apparently to impose his dark mood upon the entire world, and he reacted with bit er satisfaction to news of su ering and disaster. Since he had broken of al contact with his family and with friends he’d had before he lost his legs, it fel to me to look after him.

I did my best to make his dismal one-room at habitable, and I arranged for a series of volunteers to come during the week. When no one was available, I helped him bathe and kept him company. On top of al his other problems, he had hemorrhoids, an ailment on which I was now unfortunately an expert. In the beginning he tried to drag me down with him by explaining that al happiness was immoral because what about the person next to you who had lost his legs? But he failed to convince me and he gave up and liked me for resisting. When he was in a particularly gloomy frame of mind he asked me to read him pornography, though he insisted that his interest in such things was purely scienti c: he wanted to study the e ect of sexual material on a man who had lost his sexuality along with his legs. I refused, and we compromised on Lady Chat erley’s Lover, a few selected passages from Ulysses, and the work of a wel -known local poet who was famous for, among other things, his lurid, transgressive writing.

I knocked lightly on Volvo’s door, but there was no answer: he was asleep. I returned to my at and switched on the television to see whether by some miracle there would be something about the demonstration, but the local news stations were occupied with the funerals of yesterday’s restaurant victims. One mother had lost three children; she was brought to the funeral in a wheelchair and despite everyone’s e orts she passed out. This was fol owed by a commercial promoting a cure for male impotence, which showed an overweight middle-aged man get ing ready for sex and rejoicing in his recovered prowess. I ipped through the channels and landed on a game show in which two teams, women against men, were given sixty seconds to think of songs with speci c words like happiness or land. An at ack of masochism prevented me from turning o the television; I wondered whether Daniel was watching this show, wherever he was, and whether he was thinking of me, of the way we liked to laugh at what he cal ed Torture TV.

I nal y pul ed myself out of the stupor I’d sunk into and wondered about dinner. I wasn’t very hungry, so I made myself café et lait and checked my e-mail.

There was a let er from my father; he wrote every two or three days. His let ers were nearly identical, not because he lacked imagination but because his life was repetitive, and he liked it that way. He wrote,

Dearest duckie,

I was very pleased to hear from you. Before I forget, it’s Gitte’s birthday in three weeks, so please send her a little card. She kept the one you sent last year (with the pressed owers) on the mantelpiece for months. It means a lot to her, so please don’t forget, thank you darling. It’s raining today, and we are sitting by our third re of the season. For a while we had some trouble with the replace and a man came in to have a look, but the problem appears to have solved itself, or was scared away by the appearance of the man, the way my toothache always vanishes in the dentist’s waiting room. Gitte is concocting some new dessert in the kitchen and the fabulous smell is making me hungry. For the hundredth time, darling, I wish you would come and visit. You would love it here, and a vacation will do you good. There are many young people in the neighborhood who would be very interested in meeting someone from Over There, and in seeing your photographs, etc. I’ve said this before, and will probably keep needling you until you give in. Alain and Sylvie are coming by later for dinner, to be followed by a vigorous walk in the woods if we can get o our lazy arses. We are all getting too fat. I miss you terribly, so please come. The choir is taking a day o today, some sort of important soccer match everyone has to watch and we couldn’t nd another suitable time. The Messiah will have to wait. There is nothing new to say about the dismal news so I will not say it, except keep me up to date with everything you do. Be well, have fun, go out dancing. Love, Dad. Love from Gitte. Many many hugs and kisses. P.S. I’ve put two novels in the mail for you, haven’t read them yet but they look good.

I replied at once. I gave my father a detailed account of the demonstration: the walk through the eld, the woman who’d had a seizure, the two Palestinian friends. At the end of the let er I wrote without thinking, A guy from the demo sat next to me on the bus. He was in jail a few months ago for refusing to serve and I sent him a postcard, but I didn’t recognize him at rst, because he used to shave his head. I looked at the two sentences, quickly deleted them and sent the message.