A Remarkable Kindness (14 page)

When Ali hung up, he shot Emily a smile that triggered something inside her.

She smiled back.

But no and no, she told herself firmly. She was married to Boaz and she should not be flirting with Ali. Then she thought of the muted shapes and shadows of her living room. Was her whole life going to be one long diet in which she constantly denied herself the smallest of pleasures? And what was wrong with enjoying another man's compliments? Did she always have to deprive herself?

Ali parked in front of the hotel.

“Thanks a lot.” Emily opened the door.

“Isn't your shift supposed to be over soon?” Ali asked, walking next to her through the deserted lobby.

“At ten o'clock.” Emily stepped behind the reception desk. “I'm waiting for one last couple.” She ran her finger down the reservation list. “Mr. and Mrs. Berdichevsky.”

“And where are Mr. and Mrs. Berdichevsky?”

“They called to say they'd be late. Unfortunately, they had a flat tire.”

“Poor them.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“I'm making fun of the way you take your job so seriously. That can't be why you came here, to work and work and have no fun. Why did you even move here?”

Emily paused. She and Ali talked a lot, but most of their conversations revolved around the hotel, the staff, or the guests. Never anything personal. She didn't want to tell Ali about Rob. She didn't want to reveal the lingering shame of being dumped for another woman. She didn't want to tell him about the Nazis or how her father, after fleeing for his life, used to say, “Now that we have Israel, what Hitler did, he can't do again . . .”

“Y'all picked a lousy neighborhood.” That was Emily's mother, who said the same thing almost every other phone conversation. “You know Moses stuttered, ‘Ca . . . Ca . . . Ca . . .' He didn't mean Canaan, he meant Canada! Anything would be better than where y'all are.”

“Well,” Emily told Ali, “Lauren moved here after she married David, and I wanted to try something new so I decided to come.”

“Just like that?” Now he was studying her, his eyes trawling across her face.

Emily swallowed hard. “Kind of.”

“And you like it?”

The way he asked her that, in this new, intimate way, made Emily's face go red. As red as the raspberry-colored cardigan she was wearing. She fiddled with the bottom button, not knowing where else to look.

“Because I'd pack up and move tomorrow.”

The thought of his moving away filled her with a sudden gloom.
When had seeing him become the highlight of her day? “Where would you go?”

“Right back to Somerville,” he replied. “My cousin has a hummus place there, and he said he'd help me open another one. I wouldn't stay here if I had the choice.”

“It is a very complicated place.”

“Too complicated.”

The hotel door opened. A round-bellied man with gray strands combed sideways over his bald scalp walked in, followed by a woman who, Emily thought, seemed to have poured herself into a gold lamé blouse, matching pants, and stiletto heels.

“For this much trouble, we could have gone to Italy,” the woman muttered to nobody in particular as she reached the desk, extracting lipstick beads from the corners of her mouth.

“I told her that Italy is nice, but so is the Galilee,” the man said. “But then with that flat tire in the middle of the night—”

“It's hardly the middle of the—” the woman argued.

“You must be Mr. and Mrs. Berdichevsky,” Emily interrupted.

“A lucky guess,” the man huffed.

“How can he even compare the Galilee to Italy?” the woman asked. “I grew up in Israel, but most people think I'm European. I'm surprised this hotel is even booked at all. At least in Italy, you have the mountains, the lakes, the food, the wines—”

“Welcome to the Garden of Eden Hotel, Mr. and Mrs. Berdichevsky.” Ali affected a dramatic flourish. “There will be a continental breakfast served between eight and ten. You'll enjoy the pool and the beach, and you can also take a hike in the hills.” Emily thought they looked like the last couple to hang out with
Mother Nature. Smiling, she turned around and reached for the last room key hanging from a hook in the wooden cubicle.

“Well, anyway,” Mr. Berdichevsky said, “now that the exchange rate is so bad, who wants to get ripped off in Lake Como?”

“Exactly.” Emily handed him the key, explaining how to get to the room.

“I'll get our suitcases,” Mr. Berdichevsky said.

“No, you won't.” His wife glanced at Ali. “There's a porter right here.”

Ali shot her a heated look. “I've sent my entire staff home for the night, but since your husband needs help, I'll make an exception.”

They left the lobby. Emily stood there, waiting impatiently for Ali to return so she could apologize to him.

“Why should you be sorry?” he asked when she did, joining her at the desk.

“That woman was so insulting.”

“I won't waste my time thinking about someone like her. I prefer to think about someone like you.”

His words hung in the air. Closing the computer, locking the office door, straightening out the desk: Emily did everything she could think of to avoid his eyes. Then she paced back across the lobby, aware of her high-heeled espadrille sandals padding against the floor, aware of Ali's steps, in rhythm with her own. He opened the door and Emily walked into the cloud of light that drifted off the bronze lanterns mounted on the walls, and then down the stairs.

“Do you have to go home right away?” he asked.

It was so warm that Emily felt the night melting into her skin. Her skin melting into the night. “I guess I have a few minutes.” Then a memory came to her. It was during a rare disagreement with Lauren, right after Emily had said she was marrying Boaz. Lauren had told her, “You can't just do the first thing that pops into your head.”

But what would be so terrible if Emily did something spur-of-the-moment for five minutes? She only wanted three hundred seconds for herself. Three hundred seconds to be with Ali, her newfound friend. And why not?
Throw away the idea that life consists only of duty, dishes, and diapers,
she thought defiantly, and walked with Ali in the opposite direction of her house. An almost full moon shone brightly above them. Emily thought of another thing Lauren had once said:
Humans are made of the same substances as the stars and the planets.
Emily wondered, didn't the moon also need some time alone in the middle of the swirling cosmos?

They reached the banyan tree at the end of the lawn. “I sometimes walk by this tree during the day and there are so many birds hidden inside it that it sounds like the tree itself is singing,” Emily said.

“It's my favorite tree in the world. A long time ago, I wrote my name on it. Here, let me show you.”

Emily knew she should turn back, but Ali took her hand and guided her under the leaves. Why did it feel so natural to have her fingers grasped in his, almost like finding a glove that fit absolutely perfectly on your hand? He flicked a cigarette lighter, a
flame splashed, and Emily could see the graffiti carved into the trunk.

“That was you,” she whispered.

“I wrote it the first summer I worked here with David in the fields. We were sixteen and he dared me to do it. Here's his name in all three languages, too.”

“This is like a clue at the beginning of a mystery novel.” Emily stared at David and Ali's names. “I saw this when I first started working here, but I forgot all about it.”

“You had other things to think about.”

“That's why I'm never good at guessing what will happen in mysteries.” Emily thought first about Rob, and then about Boaz, and then about how she was standing there with Ali enfolded in all that plush, sheltering green
. I really should donate my brain for scientific research,
Emily said to herself. She traced the version of Ali's name in Arabic: a line as coiled as a trail going uphill, and then circling back with two small dashes underneath, like footprints.

“Now that I'm pretty good at Hebrew, teach me some words in Arabic.”

“
Fesh mitlik.
” His voice was quiet.

“What does that mean?” She swallowed nervously.

“There's no one like you. And I know you and I are more alike than you think.”

“This is crazy.” Emily let go of his hand and turned to go. She was afraid of how terribly wrong she felt. She was afraid of how terribly right she felt, basking in Ali's attention like a sunflower tilting its face up toward the sun. “I really have to go.”

“You don't have to do everything alone,” he said. “Why do you think I waited for you at your house? Why do I stop to talk to you every day? Why do I always try to help you?”

Emily laced her fingers together—
here's the steeple and mosques don't have them, either
—her heart hammering.

Ali stood so close she could smell his lemony aftershave. She could see the ridge of his tapered jaw, his gleaming eyes. He kissed her on the lips.

“I must be crazy,” she whispered.

“No, you're perfect.”

And then she was stumped and speechless. She didn't know which was worse: her old life, where she was filled with secret loneliness, or this new one, where she was flooded with secret joy. It reminded Emily of a line her father used to read from the Bible: “I have set before thee life and death, a blessing and a curse . . .”

Emily thought of Boaz, who needed her love, and Ali, who did not. She knew she shouldn't do the first thing that popped into her head, even if it seemed to be according to God's plan. But would God plan for her to kiss an Arab guy hidden in the banyan leaves while her Jewish husband waited at home?

Emily knew she had to do the second thing, which was to get her legs to walk away, and she pivoted and did just that.

“Emily, all I want is to be with you,” Ali called after her. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

I
t was after dawn and Aviva had just finished a swim in the clear cobalt-blue sea. She walked along the beach, listening to music blasting from Shuky's Snack and Surf Shop. It was Dave Matthews singing “Crash,” and the song stung her eyes. She pushed herself along, focusing on the terrace by Shuky's shop with its tables and chairs and palm fronds hung up to make a leafy roof. In the front of the shop were surfboards stacked upright, lined one after the other like library books. Aviva imagined Benny walking along the shore, his surfboard tucked under his arm, a trail of his footprints leading out from the water.

“Aviva!”

She twirled around, shaking and lost, her heart pounding, and found Guy Sasson, whom she'd known since he was a little boy. He was standing by the shop, a geometric tattoo circling his right arm, his surfer shorts hanging off his hips, the mane of floppy
dark curls he'd had throughout high school now shorn short. Was he a few years older than Benny? A few years younger? Aviva couldn't remember. “Oh, hi, Guy. How are you?”

“Any day that I'm here and not in the army is a great day,” Guy said, his honey-brown eyes taking in the beach.

“Which unit are you in?”

“I could tell you . . .” He turned his square chin to her, smiled.

“But then you'd have to kill me, right? You guys need to come up with fresh material—they used that line in my day.”

“Then you know what it's like. I'm home for a few days and then I leave for a few days
.
”

“You mean you disappear for a few days.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I guess you could say anything.” Aviva winked. “Anyway, now that you're here, let me ask you something. I've been planning on buying Yoni a surfboard for his birthday, but I don't know which one. I sold Benny's surfboard . . .” She hadn't wanted Yoni to use it because she thought it was bad karma. Terrible karma.

“I know I said this at his funeral, but I loved Benny,” Guy told her earnestly. “We all did. Doesn't everybody tell you that?”

“Yes, but I still like to hear it.” Aviva faltered, wiping away some sea salt from under her eye. Or was it a tear?

“So, you want to buy a surfboard for Yoni?” Guy asked. “That's easy. He's been stopping by every time he's back from the army to look at this one.” Guy stepped toward the row of boards and pulled one out. “It's all set—leash and everything.”

“It looks good, but I don't have my wallet with me.” Aviva glanced down at her towel and goggles.

“I'm sure Shuky trusts you.”

“The problem is I don't trust him.”

“Why not?”

“Because whenever I buy a mango Popsicle here, it tastes like it's been melted and refrozen a dozen times.”

Guy smiled at that.

“And can you teach me how to surf?”

“You really want to learn?”

“I didn't know I did until just now.” She could hear the sound of the sea in her ears. “Isn't that strange?”

“It's not strange at all. Hey, did you know that there are some places in Costa Rica where the waves run perpendicular to the beach? You can surf and surf and keep traveling down the beach.”

“I didn't know that.”

“That's good then. Aren't you supposed to learn something new each day?” Guy passed her the surfboard. “Take this for Yoni when he comes home next, and I'll call when there are good waves.”

“Promise you won't laugh when I make a fool of myself?” She started to walk away.

“Promise,” he called after her.

Aviva reached home and hid the surfboard in the back of the shed. Rafi's shed. She stared at his wooden tool chest, the drawers still labeled with his left-handed scribble, and at a blue rubber bin filled with basketballs. She knew she should have already given them away—they didn't do anyone good just lying there, deflating by the minute—but she hadn't. She stared at a can of paint. Sadness rattled against her like a subway train. After it passed,
she took a shower and lay down on the living room couch. Her phone rang but she didn't pick it up. It stopped. Silence pounded the room and then it rang again, insistent. It was Guy.

“Don't tell me you're calling because Shuky is worried I won't pay for the surfboard,” Aviva said. “I'll come over now.”

“He said it isn't a problem. I just wanted to let you know that it looks like there will be good waves tomorrow morning.”

“Who knows what will be tomorrow morning?”

Guy didn't respond. “The wind is coming in from the east. Can you get to the beach by six thirty?”

Aviva glanced at the photographs on the shelves that took her through the course of her life. The boys playing in the sandbox. Rafi with his arm around Benny's shoulder at his bar mitzvah. The whole family on a camping trip. Raz doing a handstand, a goofy smile on his upside-down face. In the photos, they were all smiling. In photographs, Aviva thought, you were supposed to say “Cheese!” and smile at your future self, who would one day look back and ask,
How could you not have guessed? How could you not have known?

“Aviva?” Guy asked. “You still there?”

“I'm still here.” Aviva sighed. “Tomorrow at six thirty.”

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
, Aviva rose early and waited by the surf shop. The sun was coming up from behind the hills and the moon was sinking into the sea. Pale orange light rustled across the water. The waves were breaking in clean white curls. Surfers were already out, strewn like gulls beyond the breakers. She glanced at her watch. It was after seven o'clock. She let out a
breath, picked up her beach towel, and walked across the sand, still night-cool under her bare feet. Scanning the beach once more for Guy, feeling that something wasn't quite right, she heard the pulsing vibrations of a helicopter approaching from the north, its blades slicing the air. She knew why Guy had not shown up: he'd been called away on a mission. She swallowed hard, her fingers trembling, and then waded into the sea. Diving under the water, she swam among the silvery fish, holding her breath as long as she could, praying for Guy's safety to a God she wasn't sure she believed in, a God who, she already knew, hadn't been able to keep safe the people she loved.

“I
HOPE YOU
didn't wait for me,” Guy told Aviva when he called her the following Friday morning.

“It didn't take me long to figure it out.” Aviva sat at her kitchen table, drinking her first cup of coffee. The sun shone through the white lace curtains, making a paisley pattern on the table.

“Do you want to surf now?”

“My rule is that if something doesn't happen, it means it wasn't meant to happen.”

“Maybe it was meant to happen in a different way,” Guy said. “I'm here at the beach and the waves are perfect.”

Aviva took a sip of coffee. The sounds of the sea rose and fell through the phone. She was aware that the day would start with or without her. Aware that she didn't want to become one of those lonely widows marking the days on her calendar in a silent kitchen. “The waves aren't too big?”

“No. Just right for learning.”

“Let me finish my coffee and I'll be there.”

Aviva changed into a shirred coral one-piece bathing suit and took one of Rafi's T-shirts that she still kept neatly folded in his dresser. Then she found a pair of Yoni's surf shorts in his bedroom—they had once belonged to Benny—and put them on, rolling down the waistband three times so they stayed securely on her hips. She made her way toward the beach.

“You couldn't have ordered better waves than this,” Guy said, waiting by the surf shop. “You're ready?”

“As ready as I'll ever be.”

“Let's do some warm-ups first.” Guy clasped his hands above his head and stretched.

Aviva turned toward a curly-haired guy doing Tai Chi by the shore. She shook her head no.

Guy nodded and took a surfboard from the rack, dropped it on the sand, and lay on top of it. “Okay, try this. Lie down, count to three, and then jump right up into a crouching position like this.”

“I never exercise in public.” Aviva remembered her old Company contact, Kagan, admonishing her not to draw attention to herself. It was one of his most important rules:
Act invisible!

“I see I can't argue with you.” Guy crossed his fit arms across his chest.

“You
can
argue with me, but you won't win.”

He smiled. “When you stand sideways, does it feel more comfortable with your right or left foot in front of you?”

Aviva shuffled her feet around. “Right.”

“Goofy. Me, too. Strap the leash on your left leg.” Guy passed her the surfboard. “It's your back leg when you'll stand up.”

“
If
I stand up.” Aviva fastened the Velcro strap around her ankle, tucking the board under her arm. She and Guy walked across the sand and kept walking until they were waist-high in the sea.

“Now hop on and paddle.” Guy held the board for her.

Aviva hesitated.

“You can do this—nobody's watching.”

Aviva hoisted herself awkwardly onto the board, lay down on her belly, and paddled while Guy swam next to her. She had always been a strong swimmer, but it was difficult to balance on the board, hold up her head, and stroke her arms through the water. After a while, just as she was starting to feel more confident, a huge wave—more like a massive concrete wall—rose in front of her.

“Duck under!” Guy called, but before Aviva could even react, the wave crashed down hard and she gripped the sides of the surfboard, clutching it tightly until the thunderous water passed.

“I don't know which plague would be the worst,” Aviva sputtered when she came up. “Frogs, lice, or that wave.”

“Sorry about that,” said Guy jauntily. “That wave came from out of nowhere! I should have warned you.”

“And it's already a bad hair day,” Aviva joked, pushing away the strands of hair that had swept over her face.

“Let's keep going, okay?”

Aviva glanced at the waves heading toward them and shook her head.

“Come on, you'll be fine.” He was still smiling as he helped her reposition herself on the board and set out again. “There's a
rhythm to the waves. They come in sets, like music. There will be a set of six or seven waves, and the last wave is usually the biggest and the best. The sea will be calm again, and then there'll be another set.”

She knew she did not want to go back to her deserted kitchen, so she held on to the board, slapping it against one wave and then the next, and soon they reached the far side of the swells. The sea rolled gently, humbly. She looked back to the shore with a certain satisfaction that she'd made it this far.

“When I see a good wave, I'll tell you and then you're going to start paddling really hard to stay in front of it. Keep your toes curled so you're ready to stand. When you feel the wave start to break, stand up as fast as you can.”

A soft swell of water rolled toward them and Guy gave the board a push and shouted, “
Yallah,
go!”

Aviva paddled, her body tense, her back arched, her arms stroking, but the wave slipped away. The next one glided past her. And the one after that.

“Once you feel a tug, let it take you,” Guy coached.

Aviva nodded, but she had stopped listening. She stared out at the endless bowl of sky and the indifferent sea. She was chasing after something she'd never have again.

“Let me see you do it.” Aviva unfastened the leash around her ankle and passed the board to Guy. He climbed on the board, sat up, and scanned the sea. A wave was cresting toward them, looking like a mound of fresh dirt on a grave, Aviva thought bleakly. Guy lay down on the board, paddled away, and the rolling water rose so high that all she could see was the back of his
strong neck and shoulders before he dipped down to the other side of the wave.

Aviva treaded water, waiting for him. She looked at the endless sea. She rolled onto her back, floating, and stared up at the dome of blue.

“That was fun,” Guy said when he reappeared.

“You make it look so simple.”

“Just trust the wave.”

“I don't trust anything.”

“I know it's scary, but trust the wave to carry you.”

“Or pull me under.”

“Here's something that will help you.” Guy gazed at her the way Rabbi Lapid did when he wanted to impart an important message. “I remember when I was surfing with Benny, he told me that he always pretended that he was part of the wave. Not separate. He just stuck with the wave.” Guy undid the leash of the surfboard and passed it back to her.

They held on to the board together. She fastened the strap back on her ankle, allowing herself to look into Guy's tawny brown eyes, lit up like sea glass.

“Ready now?” he asked.

She nodded. She was ready. She was ready to try something her son had loved. Ready to feel his presence and not just his absence.

She climbed back on the board, letting a few waves go by to get her bearings. Then she saw it. The wave meant for her.

“Now!” yelled Guy, pushing the surfboard toward shore.

Aviva paddled and paddled like
ca-razy,
as her sister would have said. The wave roared to life, rising behind her like a mountain.
She used every muscle she didn't know she had to heave herself up, and for one solitary moment she was standing on top of the sea, which rumbled and rolled below her, a wondrous white carpet. Then the wave caught up with her, flipped her over, and whooshed her into its violent churning, and the earth turned upside down and inside out.

Aviva whirled and whirled in the darkness, the wave lobbing her this way and that. She couldn't shout for help because she couldn't open her mouth, and there was nobody who could hear her, anyway. She remembered the time she had gone into the sea with Raz and Benny, when they were about eight and ten, and a wave, a large, intimidating, menacing wave, came barreling toward them.