A Remarkable Kindness

A Remarkable Kindness Read Free Page B

Book: A Remarkable Kindness Read Free
Author: Diana Bletter
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him.
    â€œEli,” she said, her breath knocked out of her.
    â€œAviva!”
    Eli Rothfeld stood right there, the way she’d always imagined he might one day appear before her. Aviva looked at him: not into his watchful eyes but at his stubborn jaw and chin and the naked skin around his mouth because he no longer had a mustache and a beard—he didn’t need them anymore.
    He pulled Aviva toward him, still wearing the same damn aftershave.He held her for a moment too long and he let go of her all too soon.
    â€œI can’t believe it’s you,” he said.
    â€œI can’t believe it’s you. ” Aviva tried to slow down her pounding heart.
    â€œDo you live around here?”
    â€œIn Peleg. Don’t tell me you live nearby.”
    â€œI’ve been living in Selah the past fifteen years. And we never ran into each other until now?”
    â€œSo, you moved here after all,” Aviva whispered as much to herself as to him, her heart thrashing wildly.
    â€œI tried the New York suburbs for a while.” Eli smiled his crooked smile. “It seemed kind of boring to me. But now boring seems good if you can get it.”
    â€œSo what are you doing here?” Aviva asked, still walloped and overwhelmed. Her time together with Eli, their shared history, their secrets—everything came rushing back to her.
    â€œI came to watch my son Aviv play.”
    Aviv.
    She repeated the name to herself, stunned. Was it more than coincidence that he’d named his son Aviv? Aviva had too many questions to ask and didn’t know where to begin. Her heart still throbbing, she turned to survey the players on the opposing team as they began to run down the court. She wanted to guess which was his son the way she used to guess where her subject would go in the middle of a Paris crowd on Bastille Day. “You like birds, don’t you?” Kagan had said. “Pretend you’re a falcon, circling. Zoom in on your prey . ”
    She told Eli now, “Number twenty-three, right? It isn’t that he looks like you. It’s the way he looks around like you do.”
    â€œIt must be genetic,” he joked. “So why are you here?”
    Aviva lifted her chin toward Rafi. “My husband is the gym teacher here. He coaches the basketball team. He knows Arabic because his parents came from Egypt.”
    She looked at Rafi, who was looking up at her with his kind eyes, his round face following her like the moon. He was very tan, very tall, and his right arm hung funny.
    â€œBad army accident,” she said softly. “Only eight fingers. But he still has ten toes.”
    â€œEngineering Corps, right?” Eli said. “The famous three-finger salute. What does he know?”
    â€œNothing about you,” Aviva said. “He knows I worked as an English teacher in Paris. He knows I was involved with the Company. But you know, never volunteer information.”
    â€œSo he doesn’t know how Kagan suddenly transferred me to Bucharest.”
    â€œYou could have called.”
    â€œI couldn’t have called.”
    â€œOr written, or tried somehow. You could have done that.”
    â€œYou know I couldn’t. You know I made a commitment.” Eli looked at her sideways, frowning. “Is that when you married him?”
    Aviva didn’t answer for a long time. She thought of Kagan, short Kagan, with his black rectangular glasses and frazzled hair that looked like it belonged to a scientist who kept forgetting not to put his finger in an electric socket. It was Kagan’s idea for Aviva to come to Israel for a few days after her two-year stint in Paris wasup. “Get your bearings,” he’d said, as though she were a clock in need of adjustment.
    Kagan had taken her to a small wedding of some friends on a kibbutz in the Arava Desert. As the band played, Aviva could feel a man watching her—her senses still on high alert—and when he

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