18
I would let Tal know that I was sick of her games. That I’d had enough of her masturbatory wallowing in self-pity and that I was about to leave the city, and country, forever. Not brave enough to call her, I wrote an e-mail asking for a meeting in a small fish restaurant in Yaffo.
She didn’t come. I’d sat alone at the table, the waitress waiting impatiently with the menu. Finally, I ordered a redfish that I didn’t touch.
“Is something wrong with it?” the waitress asked, placing a carafe of water on the table.
“I’m not hungry,” I answered.
“Then why’d you go out to eat?”
I paid, not leaving a tip, and went out to the street. Again and again, I checked my cellphone—no messages. I circled the taxi stand a couple of times. The drivers waited with motors running.
Riding through Tel Aviv in the back of a cab, loud mizrahi music blasting from the radio, the driver steering with one hand and tapping the beat with the other, I felt at home. It was a home long forgotten, a mosaic of landscape, temperature, music, smells, and the sea. I asked the driver to go along the beach and through the poorer southern Tel Aviv. That’s when it occurred to me that the feeling of home was associated with places that reminded me of Baku.
The lock at the front door made suspicious noises. I was sure I’d been robbed. I unlocked the door and yelled, “Hello.” To scare the burglars, I guess. It smelled funny, but the apartment was empty. On the kitchen table I discovered a limp bouquet and a note in Tal’s handwriting: “Take care of the cats. Please.” I found the cats in a carrier in my bedroom, their eyes glowing, hostile meows directed at me. A horrid smell was coming from the carrier.
“I need you,” Tal said a week later. She sat huddled at my kitchen table, crying. Again and again, she sobbed loudly. Tal’s eyes were bloodshot, her posture hunched, and her hair cut down to an inch.
“Where are my cats?” she asked as the crying ebbed away.
“In a shelter.”
“You gave my cats away?”
“I didn’t know if you’d come back.”
“How can you be so cold?”
“You just ran away. Honestly I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Tal, what is it that you want?”
“Your help.”
“You don’t really mean that, do you?”
“We need a translator. Masha, you can’t imagine what’s going on there.”
I didn’t reply, because at that moment I understood that Tal wouldn’t leave me. She would always be coming back, until she had sucked me dry completely. But there wasn’t much left in me anyway.
“Just this one last time. Promise. If you still have feelings for me, then come with me.” Tal placed her palms on my cheeks.