By passers chuckled, making their way around the awkward girl stuck right in the middle of a path on the beach, gaping. Some of them turned around to see what she was gawking at. Oh, the sailboats, they were smiling knowingly, indeed, they are beautiful…
A silvery shimmer of magic butterflies within a green mist. They were gliding sleepily along the shore, getting closer and parting ways, slowly disappearing into the haze.
Dina was shivering, clenching her little fists to her chest. It was so overwhelmingly beautiful, so sad and magnetic that it was hard to breathe.
She stood there till the dark. Parted with her eyes from the boats sailing away, sobbed and made a solid decision – she’s going to live right here, in this city.
And three years later she came there, dragging two large bags and a two-year-old Marik.
Marik’s dad strongly refused to join them. “How could I leave my friends, my job, my mom? Did you think about that?!”- he exclaimed pathetically.
Dina kept hoping and crying and trying to convince him, to make him change his mind, month after month. And one day she found a letter from another woman in his phone and felt the murky blob of des-pair let go off her throat.
She took a deep breath and ordered tickets. For herself and Marik.
She never regretted it.
Until today.
Dina was crying so desperately into her pillow, wailing and suffocating, drawing breath and howling again like a little dog that got kicked for nothing.
She was so strong, was holding on so well, she was laughing and enjoying the sea and the flowers. She was studying Hebrew and found herself a job. The wages were scarce, but it was enough for a little condo with a tiny garden by the door, shakshuka for breakfast and ice-cream for two.
And of course, they could take walks all they wanted – through the desert, across the city and along the beach! They could walk the beaches and promenades every day and watch the sea!
And suddenly she broke. Because of a small thing not worth noticing but this small thing suddenly grew into a tremendous boulder of despair and crushed her down without warning.
There was no reason. And there were lots of reasons.
The Hebrew language, stubbornly refusing to become her own. Loneliness. Fatigue. The horror at the thought – what if something happens to me, what will become of poor Marik?
What if tomorrow I become unemployed and will be forced to rummage through garbage cans and beg for food with my child.
And, she would grow old all alone. Marik will grow up and leave her, and she would still stroll the prom-enade, all by herself.
These thoughts were pecking and stinging, and she was drowning in tears, cursing herself, her ex-husband and the life that wouldn’t give her a break.
All this time Marik was standing quietly behind the door and hurting. He understood that his mom was feeling bad but didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Mom was always telling him that at his age of five, he was a real man. And now a real man was struggling to understand how to fix his mom.
A butterfly flew into an open window. And suddenly Marik had an idea. He grabbed a piece of paper and his paints and wielded his brush frantically.
Dina was already exhausted from crying, but her tears kept flowing and her thoughts kept gnawing at her.
She heard some rustling, turned around and saw a drawing. Marik stood by her side, looking all serious and sad. He drew a big white butterfly of a sailboat in a green mist. On the boat, the crooked letters red “MOM”. And above, a little sun was smiling right through the mist. It was reddish and gap-toothed, just like Marik.
Dina laughed and sniffled, wiped her face with her sleeve and said, let’s go to the beach. We will look at the sea and eat ice-cream, yeah? Maybe we’ll see some sailboats today.
My precious little boy, she thought. My heart. We are going to be just fine, my real little man.
We are going to watch the sailboats and eat ice-cream.
Everything is going to be fine.
Translated by Diana Shnaiderman-Pereira