9
In Germany the season had long ago turned into fall, but here the summer heat prevailed. The dried bodies of cockroaches piled up in the hallway. The days melted into one another. The weekends and holidays I spent at the beach or visiting boutiques. I almost never bought anything and only occasionally let a shop assistant talk me into trying on a dress. On Frishman Street I found a shop that carried old clothes from Berlin. Refashioned. Israeli-style. In general, everyone loved Berlin that summer. Most had already been and couldn’t wait to go back.
I would visit Ori in his workshop in the south of Tel Aviv. The noise and intensity of the city concentrated there. Refugees from Sudan, nurses from the Philippines, artists, students—they all lived in Florentin. Ori was a cabinetmaker who channeled his love of wood into big, heavy pieces of furniture. We often sat on the stoop of his workshop, with watermelons and cold beer. Sometimes, the owner of the upholstery shop joined us. The entire street was filled with furniture makers. And our favorite bar, Hoodna, wasn’t far either.
It was only my fabricated worries that distracted me. I feared that Tal would get into an accident, imagined her crashing head-on into a truck. Her motorcycle under the rear end and her ribcage smashed. Or she could fall in her entryway, or get attacked and robbed. A serial killer could sneak up on her and plunge a knife into her back. Tal would slowly bleed to death. Her hands twitching. A pool of blood spreading around her. Most of all, I was afraid that something would happen to her at one of the protests, that she would get hit by a stray bullet or crushed by a tank. There were so many possibilities. I toyed with the idea of anonymously reporting her to the police. On the grounds of her political activism, for example. At least she’d be safe in prison.
I called her.
“Are you OK?”
“Yes,” she responded, bored.
“Why are you breathing so heavily?”
“I’m not.”
“OK.”
“Masha, is anything wrong?”
“No.”
“OK. I’m at work. I can’t talk right now.”
“OK.”
“I’m hanging up then.”
“Don’t drive so fast,” I said.
“I’m not driving. I’m at work.”
“But later, you will. When you go home.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“I’m just worried.”
Tal let out an exasperated sigh.
“I was in the West Bank. One trip home won’t kill me.”
“Statistically, more people here die in traffic accidents than in terrorist attacks.”
“You’re sick.”
She hung up. I couldn’t understand how I had become so dependent on her so quickly. Mostly I just called to make sure she was still breathing. I would call, waiting for her to answer and hanging up with her first breath. When she called back I didn’t respond. Said my phone was messing up. The key lock. Not my fault. Tal gave me a new phone.