I invested NIS 80 in the ticket and another NIS 150 too much in the babysitter, to drive to Modi’in and listen to a lecture by someone very handsome, that all he knows how to say is that love is dead, that there is no more romance in the world, and that the easier we make things, the better off we will be. “After all, we won’t be here in another hundred years, right?”, he asked the audience and some nodded in agreement, “How many of you will really remember?”, he made himself look into the eyes of his listeners.
I knew that there was no way he could notice their eyes, because the big spotlight directed at the face of the person standing on the stage was meant for exactly that – so that actors wouldn’t get confused, singers wouldn’t fake and lecturers wouldn’t forget. Still, the audience ate it up with gusto. “How many of you will name streets after? roads? cities? Less than one percent, right? So why not live in the moment and not be in pain about anything?”
In some things he was really right, after all the road here is so short anyway and the roads become, year by year, faster and faster – so why dwell on any nonsense? And yet, when he talked about the death of love, about the romance that was dying out, something in me got angry. Who are you to blow out people’s candles? Under the auspices of the psychology you studied at a university that no one knows in a foreign country, will you forget from us that there are still small moments (not many, because the monotony overshadows many of them) of romance for life and for the person in front of you? Towards the end he asked the lighting man to shine on the audience, the audience clapped (not particularly boisterously) and the lecturer demanded “Now ask me questions”.
I didn’t stay for questions, I couldn’t bear it. Every Fisher becomes a lecturer, a guru, a coach, I pretended to receive an urgent call, I put my stomach in and tried to contract my hips and moved slowly between rows 7 and 8 until the exit. I bought myself a dry croissant from the cafeteria in the hall and headed towards the car. On the way home, the radio played Beethoven’s Sonata No. 14, also known as the “Moonlight Sonata.” I love this tune, it used to accompany the stories I tell on my radio show, at some point it was deleted from the system and I forgot to ask for it again.
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The roads are dark, the first raindrops of the beginning of winter remind my friends that it’s work time now and I’m driving alone and trying to recreate in my head small romantic moments I had, because the big ones always hurt.
1. A few years ago I traveled alone in Paris. If there’s one thing I’m obsessed with, it’s my hair. Three times a week I visit the hairdresser just to have my face done and the hair to look its best. The book and I have nothing to talk about anymore, he laughs and says that he meets me more than his wife. Not far from the Saint Germain district I was looking for an open barbershop that would accept me without making an appointment, the day before it rained torrentially which ruined all my hair and I looked like Yezhar Cohen in “Avnivi”.
I went from barbershop to barbershop, most of the hairdressers gave me a “no” sign before I even entered, and one hairdresser, actually nice, with Brazilian teeth, said she had an appointment but for another two hours, and if I wanted, I could sit and read a magazine in French in the meantime – I thanked her for the favor My heart smiled and I left. The curses I filtered in my heart, I will keep to myself.
One barber shop, quite large, even luxurious, was empty of people while the smaller ones were full. I didn’t understand why, when I looked at the price table, things got a little better, and yet – 30 euros (excessive by all accounts) is not what would stop me from doing a pen. I went in and asked. There stood the book, a certain Jean Paul, wearing a white button-down shirt and a black suit over it, he looked like a waiter in a luxury restaurant and not a book – I asked him if he would accept me. After making sure I saw the price, he smiled at me, put a towel on me and took me down a floor.
I was lying on a comfortable chair and my head was a watch on the sink. Usually such an overlap takes four or five minutes, but he overlapped and massaged my scalp, and went down to my collarbones and massaged them and my shoulders as well. I didn’t understand what was happening, maybe it’s harassment? After all, it is much more than just an overlap. Then he caressed my earlobes and with his hand passed over my eyes and closed them, and continued to massage me and for one moment, which I prayed, unconsciously, that it would last and last, I gave myself completely to him.
There was no romantic music in the background, Ginzburg did not mumble words of passion, and not a single bottle of brandy was opened, it was daylight, cars passed by on the road and the voices of two old women talking in very lively French, heard from above. He massaged me with his big hands and my chest rose and fell, in sync with my breathing.
Sorry for the unoriginal metaphor, but I was like plasticine in his hands, material in the hands of the creator, if he whispered, asked, wanted, I could fall asleep until he asked otherwise, go into a side room with him, massage him back or tell him all the stories of my life – I don’t know what it was There, but a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes later, when it was over, I dared, raised my hand, quickly caressed his hand and whispered “Thank you” He smiled and wrapped me in a towel again.
2. Once, when I was a girl, I was walking down the street with a fly that I bought after saving money for it for three days. The weather was very hot, but I didn’t really care. The taste of the pecans, the cream and the chocolate made up for everything. I remember passing by a certain vegetable store, and on the crates outside the workers were sitting on their lunch break, one of them stared at me, chubby, with glasses and quite bright.
I looked back at him and suddenly I was a little ashamed of the big tarpaulin I had in my hand, he sent me a smile and before I answered, a kid with a scooter passed by, collided with me and the tarpaulin broke and smeared all over my shirt. The boy did not even look back to ask for forgiveness, but continued and increased his speed, as if I had the strength to chase him. That worker, who was sitting on the box, threw the can of drink he had in his hand and ran to me. “Are you okay?”, he asked. “You son of a bitch,” he looked in the direction the boy ran, “If I see him, I’ll finish him off.” I immediately recognized him, he had an Arab accent. He grabbed my arm, I don’t think anyone grabbed my arm before him “Mitel,” he shouted to one of the workers from inside, “Bring tissues and water.” I kept silent, I didn’t know what to say.
That Mittal pulled out tissues and helped me clean my shirt, he said a few things to his friends in Arabic and they stood up and looked to the sides, trying to see where the boy had run off to. “Everything is fine”, that’s all I managed to say. A moment later he disappeared and a minute later came out of the grocery store next to the vegetable shop with two large t-shirts, one for me and one for him.
“And what about me?” asked Mittal.
“Your father has a vegetable store, which he will buy for you.”
we laughed
I sat next to him, we ate the tilon and when I finished I got up to go.
“You’re at school, aren’t you?” he asked.
“In high school, yes,” I answered.
“Girl,” he said, smiling and bidding me goodbye.
I walked away, from time to time I still think about this peace.
3. And when I weighed 130 kilos and was secretly in love with my friend’s brother, an officer in the IDF, I was sitting at their house at Friday dinner, and her mother, the kindness of her heart (without a hint of sarcasm), pushed more and more food on my plate thinking that whoever is fat – eats a lot and there is no such thing as genetics, And when I was ashamed to ask her to stop – he, so handsome and manly, saw my embarrassment. He put my hand on the plate, looked into his mother’s eyes and told her: “Enough, she’s a big girl, if she wants to – she’ll eat.”
4. And there was a taxi driver who looked at me through the mirror when I cried. And he didn’t say a word, he just played his father’s “wife” Madina all the way.
5. And there was not long ago a handsome man, 30 years older than my age (and I’m not exaggerating), who saw me fighting with the cart when a vine was sleeping in it and my bag fell and the diapers scattered from it and he approached me, wearing a white cap, a buttoned shirt, apparently coming out of the synagogue, and said: “Leave everything, give it to me,” and carried the vine and the cart up all the stairs. And then he looked at me and I noticed his green eyes and out of the corner of my eye also his wedding ring and mumbled “Shabbat shalom” and ran away.
And there are so many more like that, so it’s very funny to me that someone stands on a stage and complains about everyone who still believes in romance. The poet Wallace Stevens wrote that the imagination is the one that is romantic, I don’t know how much imagination I added to the sections above, but I do know that on quiet nights and sometimes lonely, I pull out of my memory closet such an experience and smile to myself.
Ah! This morning I discovered in my diary some free days at the end of November and on a spur of the moment decision I booked a plane ticket to Paris. I haven’t done a French face in a long time.