Her tea smelled like tears.
Tammy fumbled with a dried-up pastry, smearing the cream around the paper plate, sipping hot tasteless water and trying not to cry.
Her golden hair was getting into her eyes, the new haircut annoyed her, and grey nail polish, very au courant, seemed too gloomy and out-of-place.
Everything, everything was wrong.
He stood her up, what a cliché, not even worth sighing – let alone crying- for such a self-centered peacock, she tried to reason with herself. Who cares, I’ll go for a walk in an old city if I’m here anyway. I’ll surely find something new and real.
The right words straight out of magazine didn’t seem to help.
The insult was stuck in her solar plexus like a blob of unbaked dough and stifled her throat.
Tammy has been waiting for fifty eight minutes, and has wanted to cry for half an hour. Her knees went marshmallow- soft, her numb fingers clenching the handle of a white cup. I should go, she told herself, yanking out the very last stem of puny hope. Miracles don’t exist. It was stupid of her to even hope. Nothing ever changes.
Seriously though, how could she really believe in a miracle when he responded to her desperate invitation with a lazy smile? And it wasn’t but for all of those sleepless nights that she heard a promise in his careless “let’s see how it goes”, and only an insane fantasy made her sit there for an hour, waiting and hoping…
Tammy was walking through her favorite alleys of old Jaffa. Her miserable love trailed behind her like a ragged fox tail.
She walked with her head down. Her eyes felt like heavy sacks of sand and did not wish to look around. The humiliation was bubbling inside, not letting her breathe and spilling like bitter foam on smooth ginger sidewalk stones.
Tammy was inhaling the warm smell of the City, consisting from hundreds of notes, rowdy and shrill, gentle and barely audible, alluring and repulsive, smell of centuries soaked into white blinds and terracotta walls.
Tammy stroked the rough yellow bricks and the blue of the iron frame.
She patted a crooked tree that forced its way through a crack between stones in spite of everybody and growing awkwardly, having just enough light and a few raindrops.
She felt disappointed that the colorful garland stretched between the buildings wasn’t lit.
She felt content to see the glass ball of a streetlamp broken a week ago was replaced.
Caught glances of the guys chatting by the stairs, rejoiced at her new haircut and perky strands falling on her face.
Keep this up, and the grey nail polish will appear fashionable and attractive again, she giggled. Turned around and winked at the baffled chaps.
Magnificent Jaffa grabbed her, swirled her around, holding her tight in a slightly inappropriate manner.
“Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil… You are all beautiful, my love, there is no spot in you!”
“My beloved is white and ruddy, -Tammy replied, – the best among ten thousand. His head is like the purest gold.”
And she also said: “My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies.”
And so forth went Tamar, the fair daughter of Israel, smiling to herself and the world. Her feet barely touched the sidewalks of an ancient city as she walked, gods and long-gone heroes patted her shoulders, sea and music awaiting her beyond the corner.
A petit, inconspicuous girl, who was till recently heavily and senselessly in love with a stupid person, floated towards happiness in a spicy air of old Jaffa.
She moved pretty swiftly, so naturally, she stumbled. Business as usual, she thought bitterly while strong hands kept her from falling. And someone said, laughing – Oh, what a beauty, and right at my feet!
Tammy looked up on her jolly rescuer. The setting sun splashed into her eyes, blinded her, leaving her just with his silhouette and a shade of a smile.
He leaned over and whispered to her: “Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away!”
Tammy closed her eyes.
It can’t be real, she thought, and replied with sadness: “I looked for him, but I did not find him; I called him, but he didn’t answer.”
You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride! – He said very seriously, admiring her fiery curls in the sunset light.
And suddenly she believed him.
Beautiful Tamar, who found happiness in old Jaffa at dusk, a little past six, cried on a shoulder of a laughing man who held her tight.
You shell never be alone ever again, my beloved, he told her.
You shell never be angry or sad.
Everything is going to be fine, he told her, stop crying, you fairest among women, everything is going to be fine…
Translated by Diana Shnaiderman-Pereira
That was so beautiful.