Between Friends Read Free

Luna had given him—two cypress trees and a bench—hung above his bed. The trees looked melancholy; the bench was empty. At ten thirty he’d wrap something around himself and go out on the porch to look at the low-lying clouds and the deserted concrete paths, their wet surface gleaming in the yellow glow of the streetlight. If there was a pause between downpours, he would take a brief nocturnal stroll to see how the plants on Luna’s porch were doing. Fallen leaves had already covered the step, and Zvi thought that he could detect the light scent of soap or shampoo drifting from inside the locked room. He would wander along the empty paths for a while, rain dripping from the tree branches onto his uncovered head, then go back to his room and listen in darkness, his open eyes blinking, to the final news reports of the day. Early one morning, when everything was still blanketed in wet, frozen darkness, he stopped a dairy worker on his way to milk the cows and informed him sadly:
    “Did you hear? The King of Norway died last night. Cancer. Of the liver.”

 
     
     
     
Two Women

 
     
     
     
    E ARLY IN THE MORNING , before sunrise, the cooing of pigeons in the bushes begins to drift through her open window. The throaty sound, steady and unbroken, soothes her. A light breeze blows across the tops of the pine trees and a cock crows on the slope of the hill. A dog barks in the distance and another one answers it. Those sounds wake Osnat before the alarm clock rings, and she gets out of bed, turns off the alarm, showers, and puts on her work clothes. At five thirty, she leaves for her job in the kibbutz laundry. On the way, she passes Boaz and Ariella’s apartment, which looks locked and dark. They must still be sleeping, she thinks, and that thought stirs neither jealousy nor pain in her, only a vague disbelief: as if everything that happened had not happened to her but to strangers, and not two months ago but many years before. In the laundry, she switches on the electric light because the daylight is still too faint. Then she bends over the waiting piles of laundry and begins to separate white from colored and cotton from synthetic. Sour body odors rise from the dirty clothes, mingling with the smell of soap powder. Osnat works here alone, she keeps her radio on all day to ease the solitude, though the humming of the washing machines muffles both the words and the music. At seven thirty she completes the first round, empties the machines and reloads them, then goes to the dining hall for breakfast. She always walks slowly, as if she’s not sure where she wants to go or doesn’t care. Here, on our kibbutz, Osnat is considered a very quiet woman.
    At the beginning of the summer, Boaz tells Osnat he’s been in a relationship with Ariella Barash for eight months and has decided that the three of them cannot go on living a lie. So, he’s made up his mind to leave Osnat and move his things to Ariella’s apartment. “You’re not a little girl anymore,” he says. “You know, Osnat, that things like this happen every day now all over the world, and on our kibbutz, too. Luckily, we don’t have children. It could have been a lot harder for us.” He’ll take his bicycle with him, but leave the radio for her. He wants the separation to be as amicable as their life together has been for all these years. He completely understands if she’s angry with him. Even though she doesn’t really have anything to be angry about: “The relationship with Ariella wasn’t meant to hurt you. Things like this just happen, that’s all.” In any case, he’s sorry. He’ll move his things out right away and leave her not only the radio, but everything else, including the albums, the embroidered pillows, and the coffee set they received as a wedding gift.
    Osnat says, “Yes.”
    “What do you mean, yes?”
    “Go,” she says, “just go.”
     
    Ariella Barash was a tall, slim divorcée with a slender neck, cascading hair, and