The Distance Between Us (22 page)

He
chose that guy, that surly wild driver who took them down that dirt road past the woman and her child.
Did
one of the men have a walkie-talkie? She doesn’t think so. But no denying that her fucking memory has become clumsy. There
were
—she recalls it now—two possible drivers. She remembers Rob trying to decide which one to take. She didn’t have any role in that. Did she?

Even if she had, what was he implying?

Nothing worth thinking about. He’s gone off. Too many shattered nights, too much of whatever he’s using. Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t let him rattle her.

But is he right?

Slumber parties. That’s what Caddie thinks of now, a mainstay of her adolescence. At every sleepover, predictable as nightfall, they launched into horror tales in the dark, the way girls must do everywhere. They sat in tight circles in their button-up pajamas, as one with their tiny inhalations and nervous laughter. Everyone took a turn, the only rule—unspoken—being that each subsequent narrative had to ratchet up the stakes. Each one had to be more realistic, more directly threatening. So they began, Caddie and her friends, with strange wispy creatures in British graveyards, and moved to murders in America and ended with crazy men who held their daughters prisoner in cellars on the very street where they were huddled.

Caddie had fallen asleep for nights afterward recounting the stories in her head. They added excitement to her bland, one-dimensional days. A harmless thrill, too, because she knew she was personally immune from danger. That conviction held both in Grandma Jos’s house—no matter what had befallen her parents—and in the Middle East—no matter how often she saw wounded crumple to the ground like waddedup paper.

Since Marcus, though, she
has
imagined it. Her body sprawled, one leg bent awkwardly, blood seeping from above her right ear. Boys dragging her by her arms over the bumpy pavement, and then, recognizing it is too late, ditching her behind a barrel until the day’s shooting is over. Pete cursing her privately, then praising her in public. Some newspaper executive searching fruitlessly for living relatives. Colleagues, maybe,
designing a memorial web page for her. Just like they did for Marcus.

And her insides twist, her neck muscles pinch, her hands turn slippery with sweat.

She stops walking. She’s been flying along without any awareness of destination. Now she takes stock. She’s in the middle of a busy sidewalk, near a newsstand and the place she and Goronsky had dinner one night. She notices an ache in her chest, a soreness in her legs. What a lousy night’s sleep. What a lousy morning. She’s wiped.

Even so, she’s not ready to go back to her apartment. She is, she realizes, only two blocks from Bank Leumi. Ya’el.

I
NSIDE THE UNDERVENTILATED
, overly fluorescent bank, she takes the stairs to the second floor, where Ya’el and four other employees sit at desks in a large open room. Ya’el is peering down at a small stack of papers and doesn’t glance up until Caddie sits in the chair next to her desk.

“Hi.” Ya’el looks surprised to see Caddie but sounds comfortingly normal.

“I’m not crazy, am I?”

Ya’el laughs. “Maybe we better come up with a good working definition before I answer.”

“It’s Rob,” Caddie says. “I mean, I had no idea. You should have seen him.”

Ya’el leans forward. “Who?”

“Physically he looks awful. Verbally he ripped into me.”

Ya’el, serious now, touches Caddie’s hand. “Let me get you some water.”

“Going to Chechnya may have pushed him over. I mean, I had nothing to do with choosing that driver.”

“What driver?”

Caddie shakes her head. “What am I saying? You don’t even know who Rob
is
, do you?”

“That’s okay,” Ya’el says.

“He was with Marcus and me. In the Land Rover. Hot in here, isn’t it?” Caddie takes an envelope from Ya’el’s desk and begins fanning herself. “He never got in touch with me, not once afterward. And now he shows up,” she takes a deep breath, “out of the blue. I don’t even know what he’s accusing me of, exactly.”

“Wait.” Ya’el goes to the cooler and brings Caddie a paper cup of water.

Caddie waves the water away. “Do you think I should go? Back to Lebanon? He didn’t even bring it up. I thought he would.”

“Absolutely not.” Ya’el shakes her head, fast. “I
know
the impulse, Caddie. I
know
the anger. But it’s a bad, bad idea.”

Caddie wishes she could clear her head. She takes a sip of water. Ya’el is, of course, absolutely the wrong person to ask about Lebanon. Ya’el would prefer it if Caddie never went near the West Bank. “Did you realize that Marcus was thinking of quitting?” Caddie asks. “Leaving here?”

Ya’el studies her a moment without speaking, then shakes her head slowly.

Caddie slumps back in the chair. “Of course not.” Marcus and Ya’el weren’t close. Caddie is acting deranged. She realizes, then, that this is the first time she’s spoken to Ya’el since they went to the mechanic’s shop. “I shouldn’t have barged in here like this. You’re working.”

“No, I’m glad you did.” Ya’el takes her hand. “I want to help, Caddie. I really do. This is not something you get over. It’s something you finally incorporate.”

“Ya’el? I’m sorry for the other day.”

“It’s okay.”

Caddie rubs the back of her neck with one hand. “But I’ve got to go now.”

“Stay. I get a break in ten minutes. We can get a cup of coffee.”

Caddie shakes her head, rises, then sits again, and speaks fast, before she can change her mind. She has to say it aloud. “Do you know he wanted to be in New York that week?” she asks. “I’m the one. Oh God. I talked him into postponing it, into going to Lebanon with me.”

Ya’el squeezes Caddie’s fingers.

“If not for me, he would have been in New York. Do you know that?”

“Caddie, we all feel like traitors for surviving.”

Caddie is surprised to feel her eyes filling. She can’t attribute this to dust, damnit. “Sorry,” she says.

“Don’t apologize.”

“No, really, coming in here like this. I’ve got to go.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I absolutely do,” she says, standing, “I do,” rushing down the stairs, ignoring Ya’el’s voice behind her, Ya’el calling her name.

A
FTER
B
ANK
L
EUMI
, Caddie walks more slowly, as though her legs were stone. She lets her hand run over a rocky wall bordering the sidewalk as she pulls herself along. The very first time Jerusalem’s ancient dust settled on her tongue and between her teeth, she knew this city was for her. A stewpot of frenzy and serenity. A contradictory mix of passion for life and ardor for afterlife. A center for needle-sharp moods that reverse within seconds: tender one moment, defiant the next. It appealed to her—no, more appropriately, filled her—as if Jerusalem were the missing marrow to her own bones.

Not far from home, she stops in front of a newsstand and stares at the selections.
Ha’aretz, Yediot, Jerusalem Report
. The newspapers and magazines merge and separate. The day’s timing has been thrown off: it feels like it should be darker outside than it is. Colder, too.

She hears humming behind her, off-key and a bit shrill, but lovely in an odd, elusive way. It’s Anya. She wears sandals instead of being barefoot, and she looks serene. Her eyes are focused. Good signs, all. This is a day when Anya seems clear enough to listen, and to talk. This is a chance, then; the one Caddie didn’t
realize she was waiting for but suddenly doesn’t want to miss. Yes, Anya is crazy, full of elusive words. But her craziness may hold an eyelash of truth indistinguishable to most.

If Caddie rushes Anya, though, she knows from experience that Anya will be frightened and flee. The conversation will end before it begins. So she waits for Anya to approach, to look at her and smile, to raise an arm in greeting. Caddie sees words written in black ink on the inside of one of Anya’s loose long sleeves. “Peace,” Anya says.

“Anya, can we talk a moment?”

Anya smiles and takes Caddie’s arm. Anya’s right hand feels rough and warm, like a cat’s tongue. She smells strongly of dusty gardenia. She doesn’t seem to notice as Caddie turns her hand to read some of the writing on the inside of her clothes. “Lord, Who Watches Over Us . . .”

Does Anya recall Caddie’s name? Can she even pull up her dead husband’s name anymore? Caddie has no idea.

“Looking out my window a few days ago,” Caddie begins, “I saw you on the street. Do you remember?” Anya’s smile deepens; that is her only answer, if it
is
an answer. Caddie presses. “You seemed to be trying to tell me something.”

Anya stops, tilts her head. “What could it have been?” After a moment she snaps her fingers, an odd gesture coming from her. “Oh yes. About your friend.”

Caddie’s breath turns shallow. “What about him?”

“The one I’ve seen you with.”

Caddie moves closer. “Who always wore cameras around his neck?”

Anya begins picking at the skin on her throat. “We should not overanalyze, overplan,” she says, her voice growing shriller.

“I
knew
you wanted to tell me something about him,” Caddie says.

“Lenin was afraid of spontaneity. Believed it was dangerous.” Anya speaks rapidly and her hand begins moving over her own chest, her fingers pinching.

“Tell me what you were going to say. Please.”

Anya’s face is chalky now, except for a red blotch on each cheek. “I see these things.” Her voice is anguished. She backs away.

Caddie tentatively gathers Anya’s hands into her own. “It’s all right. What things?”

“Terrible, terrible things.” Anya pulls away. “The colors, that’s worst of all. The red.”

Caddie holds her breath, afraid of what Anya will say next, needing her to continue. Anya glances skyward, murmuring to herself in an agitated way, pulling at her dress with her right hand. She drops her head and falls silent for a few moments, then looks up, her voice sharp, urgent. “Are you spontaneous?”

Caddie strokes Anya’s arm. “Anya,” she says. “What about my friend?”

“You should be.” Anya claps her hands twice. “Lenin was wrong.”

Caddie looks down the street, empty except for a soldier at the corner reading a newspaper. Maybe if she plays along, Anya will grow calmer and they will eventually get to what
ever she saw or felt about Marcus. “Spontaneous,” Caddie says. “Maybe. But I like to make plans.”

Anya shakes her head, serious as if they are disagreeing over a momentous issue. “Don’t be afraid,” she says. “Spontaneity is in the family of wonder. And you know what Sir Thomas Browne said about wonder.”

Caddie takes both of Anya’s hands in hers again. “Can you tell me what you wanted to say about my friend?”

“Your friend.” Anya’s face is growing ashen again, her expression frightened. She begins to breathe quickly, and points down the street toward the soldier. “Him,” she says. “Oh God, I am sorry. You will never see him alive again.”

The soldier looks up as if he senses he is being spoken about. He smiles slightly, a little vainly, at the two women watching him.

Anya groans, drops to her haunches. “Only the greedy man. Should desire to live. When all the world. Is at an end,” she says in a chant, her body rocking slightly.

Caddie suddenly sees herself as if from afar, bent over this poor crazy woman, imploring her for answers. She reaches down and gently pulls Anya to her feet. “It’s okay. Never mind, it’s okay.”

Anya blinks as if she’s suddenly stepped into sunlight. “Thank you.” Her smile is weak. She holds a finger to her lips, requesting silence. “Sir Thomas Browne,” she says. “‘We carry within us the wonders and love we seek without.’”

Her color is coming back. Her voice is taking on a preacher’s ardency. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets
and stone those sent to you. How often have I longed to collect your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks.” She shakes her head sorrowfully and makes a quarter-turn, melodramatically, as though on a stage, her arms held slightly apart from her body.

The line between intuition and insanity is narrow, so narrow. Like the difference between a reporter’s best instincts and her blind arrogance. “’Bye, Anya.” Caddie speaks so softly that she thinks at first she is not heard.

Anya waves slightly. “But you were not willing,” she says as she steps away. “And now your house is left desolate.”

Ten

“I
T’S ME
.”

She leans against the wall, telephone pressed to her ear, weakened a little by the intimacy of this shorthand between them. Her desire is sharp and immediate, triggered only by hearing those words. But she reminds herself that she doesn’t actually know who the hell “me” is. A professor? Or a right-wing extremist?

He gives up waiting through the phone’s dead air. “I need to see you. Okay?”

God, she loves the way his voice sounds, how it mirrors her own neediness. She takes a deep breath.

“Now?” he asks.

“I was on my way out,” she says.
I can stay in
, she wants to say.

“This afternoon, then?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come to your apartment?” he says.

No. Because if he comes here, she’ll reach for him, she’ll fall into him, she’ll forget that she has to ask him something. She has to ask, straight out, about his association with Avraham. She has a vision that keeps intruding. Not one of him with her. One of him breaking a windshield. Him pointing a rifle.

“I’ll meet you on Ammunition Hill,” she says.

“A
battlefield?
”

She laughs at his tone. “The weather is great. So is the view. No one’s there except the tourists, and they’re preoccupied by trenches.” She takes a deep breath. “Two o’clock,” she says, and hangs up.

H
E COMES BEARING CHEESE
and crackers and sparkling water, his eyes soft and eager. Her stomach tightens when she sees him. Butterflies? She wishes they were butterflies; that would tickle. Instead, the sensation feels more like something chewing her insides out. She wishes now that they were alone, somewhere private.