Edeet Ravel - Look for Me

“Where did you get the bedspread?”

“It was a gift from the mother of one of the kids I taught.”

I examined the CDs and books and videos on his shelves. He had al the latest music, along with his old favorites. He had the most recent novels, too.

There were a few books in Arabic. “Was Arabic hard to learn?”

“Pret y hard.”

“El a said you’re a teacher now.”

“I teach at the local school.”

“Wel , you always were brainy. I guess you designed this house?”

“Yes.”

“Who built it?”

“Local builders.”

“Did they think it was weird?”

“No, they liked it. This house isn’t mine, technical y. I rent the land, and I rent the house. But the plot was vacant, so I designed the house myself. The owners got a good deal.”

“How could you af ord it?”

“My mother sold Granny’s flat and sent me the money. She figured I’d need it, wherever I was.”

“I can’t believe she never told me she was writing to you.”

“One of the things she mentioned in her let ers was that you’d stopped going over to see them, or answering their cal s. So she probably never had a chance to tel you.”

“How could you not answer her let ers?”

“She never asked for an answer. She always wrote, I know that you’re receiving my let ers, and that’s enough for me.”

“Yes, that’s why I was so angry at your family—they thought it should be enough for me, too.”

“No, they knew perfectly wel that it wasn’t. My mother chided me quite a bit about that.”

“Real y?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you pick up the let ers I wrote you at the start? Do you have any idea how much that hurt me?”

“You would have been even angrier if the let ers had been picked up and you never got an answer. But you kept me informed through your interviews.”

“That’s what El a said. Wel , it would have been a lot easier to write to you! Did you see my ads?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get the people here to trust you right in the middle of the riots? How come they didn’t kil you?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Tel me.” I leaned against the wal , my arms stil folded. Daniel remained sit ing at the table, drinking his tea.

“I didn’t come here to move in. I got into a taxi outside the hospital and I told the driver to take me to an isolated part of the coast. He lived in a coastal set lement, as it happened. It was just a uke. He dropped me o at their beach, a lit le reluctantly, and I walked along the shore, southward. I guess I knew it was dangerous, but I didn’t care. Final y I got tired and I sat on the sand, trying to gure out what to do with my life. Some people passed by, but when they saw me they got scared and ran away. I had a bot le of Valium I’d stolen from the hospital and I nal y decided that the best thing would be to swal ow al the pil s. So that’s what I did. But some Palestinians found me, maybe the ones who had run away, and they took me home with them. Wel , you know how the Palestinians are. They had no idea what was wrong with me, so they just put me to bed, and three days later I woke up. I stil don’t understand why I didn’t die.”

“People don’t die from too much Valium. It’s not toxic enough. I used to volunteer at a suicide hotline, they taught us that stuf .”

“Wel , anyhow, I woke up, and they were real y happy. The family had a retarded boy and I taught him to eat by himself. Then after about two weeks a group of men came to visit me. They were very friendly, apologetic, but they said they needed to know what my plans were. I told them I’d like to stay. It seemed to me that if I had to remain alive, this would be the best place. No one knew me here—I could have a told them I’d like to stay. It seemed to me that if I had to remain alive, this would be the best place. No one knew me here—I could have a new identity. They wanted to know how I’d been injured, and what my political views were, and what I thought of their struggle and whether I knew any Palestinians. I told them about Isa, the architect who had his keys taken away in that place I worked at, remember him?

By coincidence, they knew him—he has some relatives in one of the camps. They spoke to him and I guess he gave me a good reference. I told them I wanted to stay and learn Arabic and that I could be a teacher and help out. I’m making it a lot shorter than it was. It real y took longer, and it was more complicated, but that’s the essence. After al these years, the people here are stil a bit of a mystery to me.

Sometimes they al start laughing, and you have no idea what the joke is. They have some sort of col ective understanding about things, and you have no idea how they reached it. They rely less on words than we do—they often communicate in more subtle ways. So I don’t exactly know why they decided to accept me. Maybe it was just luck.”

“Why, Daniel? Why did you leave me? Why?”

“I heard what you told Alex. You thought I was asleep but I wasn’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In the hospital room, when you thought I was sleeping.”

“I was never in that room. They wouldn’t let me in.”

“But I heard you, Dana. You said you were in love with another man, and you had planned to tel me when I came back from reserve duty, but now that I looked like a monster you couldn’t do it, and you’d stay with me. I even know the man’s name. Leopold.”

“Leopold! The only Leopold I know is King Leopold. Or Leopold Bloom. Daniel, you dreamed it. Or you were hal ucinating. I can’t believe you thought that was real.”

“I remember it so vividly.”

“Do you think I’d say something like that in your presence? Do you think I’d come when you were asleep but not when you were awake?

Daniel, if this is why you left, because of some crazy dream you had, that is the saddest, most ridiculous thing I ever heard in my life. It’s like something out of Wuthering Heights.”

“Wel , it doesn’t real y mat er whether it was or wasn’t a dream. It would never have worked out between us. If it was a dream, then that’s what the dream was tel ing me.”

“What do you mean, ‘if’? You think I’m lying to you?”

“I think you might want to protect me, or you might be embarrassed.”

“I never lied to you.”

“How can I know that?”

“Did you ever catch me lying?”

“Once or twice.”

“About what?”

“Wel , smal things.”

“Like what?”

“You said you couldn’t find the healthy kind of cat food.”

“Cat food! Wel , there’s a life-and-death issue. Can you have sex, by the way?”

“Yes.”

“Have you?”

“Who with? There’s no casual sex here, you know.”

“I’m even angrier with you now. Angry and insulted. You obviously don’t have a shred of trust. And I’ve waited eleven years to stand here and be cal ed a liar by someone who can’t even tel a dream from reality.”

“Your tea’s get ing cold. And you must be hungry.”

“I don’t want to have tea with someone who has such a low opinion of me.”

I continued my inspection of the room. I touched objects, looked inside the wardrobe, opened drawers. I touched his clothes, his sandals. I noticed a few smal bowls fil ed with water on the kitchen floor. “Do you have a cat?”

“Three cats.”

“Where are they?”

“Hiding. They’re not used to visitors.”

“Where’s the bathroom?”

“Downstairs.”

“What’s upstairs?”

“My workshop and the computer.”

“Do you have friends?”

“People are friendly to me.”

“Are you lonely?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you watch TV?”