Jazz was playing in this little café, Ranee Lee’s voice curling like fragrant smoke, spreading like a raindrop on the windowpane, embracing and teasing, calling you to forget it all. Relax, sit back in the uncomfortable metal chair and sway to the song: Paris, Paris… Or maybe it’s not the music that makes a large cappuccino cup go fuzzy?
That’s exactly what you need right now, he scolded himself. Why don’t you also shed some tears in front of those stupid gawkers while you are at it. Are you a man or what?!
But there weren’t that many gawkers around, to be honest.
Curly waitress was yawning behind the counter.
Boy in a tank top was sitting and staring glumly into the window.
And there wasn’t another soul in this tiny café he crawled into in order to catch his breath and try to understand what happened.
The last three days have been lost in the hectic feverish haze. Starting with the moment when he got fed up with staring on his phone realizing his stupid ex-wife will never pick up, and ordered a ticket for the closest flight to Israel.
Everything will change, he thought, everything will change when I’ll see her. And she’ll see me. It’s impossible, he thought, I will just die, she will understand and everything will change…
His body was shaking when he boarded the plane, throughout the flight he was flipping through the movies hectically without even reading the titles or understanding what is it actually that he’s doing.
He was so jumpy and inpatient passing the border control that a watchful female officer even considered questioning him more thoroughly. But he was so obviously absent-minded that she realized – no, whatever is wrong with this nervous man, it’s something personal.
And so he slipped outside, under the hot and humid Israeli sky, not even noticing that he has passed passport control.
He had the address – he sucked up to her mother who still liked him and felt sorry for him.
But for some reason he thought he will run right into her immediately after exiting the airport. And Marc will cry loudly, “Daddy! Daddy is here!” – and rush towards him squealing, arms spread.
He looked around in confusion as he got off the bus.
I’ll go to the beach promenade, he decided with the same crazy haphazard certainty. That’s where they sit, having ice-cream – just like in his dreams.
He was as good as drunk – without thinking, without reasoning, unaware of anything other than his only goal – meeting Dina’s eyes. And then everything will change, everything will be fixed.
And he walked along the promenade, scanning with his eyes all the tables and benches, having already seen her in his mind, having already met her gaze and died of happiness.
And then he saw her. And he froze, breathless.
She was sitting on a straw chair putting one foot on it, her hair was much longer than he remembered. And her smile was much softer than he expected. And her tanned hand – whose warm smoothness he knew so well – lay on a man’s arm.
And it was him she smiled at so warmly and tenderly.
But she was supposed to smile at me – he thought meekly and perplexedly.
He got dizzy, his vision started going blurry. He blinked and waved his hands in front of his eyes, chasing the blur away.
There were three of them sitting there. He was saying something to Marc calmly and affectionately, looking at Dina from time to time. And then his eyes were going soft like melted butter. Dina listened to him carefully, slightly nodding. And her fingers were stealthily caressing his wrist. That’s how you caress someone you’ve been loving dearly for a long time. And that’s how people sit when they are a family. When there’s no room for any superfluous people from the past.
A black pit opened up in his stomach and sucked in his soul in one bitter moment.
He stepped back with shaky legs – and while already turning away, he saw Marc’s wide eyes and his mouth that has almost opened in a cry, “Daddy! Daddy is here!”
But he was already running away, seeing nothing and no one through the blinding darkness in his eyes.
And now he is sitting in this tiny café, swallowing his tasteless cappuccino and scolding himself: Why didn’t I stop? Turn around, hug Marc, and see her gaze shaking – and then we will see who takes it all, Mr. Perfect with oily eyes…
…why didn’t I stop and turn around?
And then everything would be fine, he scolded himself. Everything would have changed, and everything would have been just fine.
Translated by Diana Shnaiderman-Pereira