Chains of Sand Read online

  ***

  Now

  5

  I’ve never been to Israel at Christmas. Menorahs are everywhere but not one Santa Claus. No Frank Sinatra, no Bublé ‘Jingle Bells’, no bombardment of shoppers and greeting cards and adverts demanding me to be happy and bright. Instead there is a quiet dissolution of prejudices, a slowing down and toning down. Old men smile as they pass me and say ‘Chag Sameach’. Children grip paper menorahs they have made at school. In the market, here in Tel Aviv, people don’t push me out of the way to lay their hands on the fattest turkey. Into the calm, a revving car complete with megaphone crawls the streets announcing when each giant menorah will be lit, but there is no frenzy, at least no more than the usual Israeli tumult. There is a casual acknowledgement of communal pleasure, but not a race to stockpile happiness for oneself.

  The whole thing is weird. I don’t know how to behave. Christmas is mentioned only on the international news and instead my festival, the one I never even got days off school for, is being nationally recognised as a reason for joy. There is something liberating about this, like shouting in the library. Still, more than once I find myself humming ‘Jingle Bells’.

  Robert is quicker to adjust. London doesn’t seem to have followed him in the same way, or perhaps with a lifetime of Christmases abroad he’s just more adept at shedding it. Debbie and her sister are similarly at ease – they have their favourite clubs and boutiques and restaurants and beaches and select them casually, knowledgably, just as they would at home. But none of them actually want it to be home.

  One afternoon I set off alone and seek out my café on Rothschild Boulevard. The one from my dream. I must have been there before to have conjured it though I have no idea what it’s called. When I see the orange canopy shading a cluster of street-side tables, I sit down. A bus passes and, at the abrupt splutter of its exhaust, I hear Gaby and my mother cursing my negligence. Buses. Cafés. Markets. Shopping malls. These are the places that have been frequent targets, places they’d want me to avoid. I study the traffic that has come to a halt in front of me. Next to the road a man stands to attention, staring up. I have a sudden premonition that he has spotted a missile the Iron Dome has somehow missed and it is about to land square at my feet. I picture my mother and sister again. But when I follow the man’s line of sight I see that he is looking at the construction across the road. I laugh at myself, to myself, and look. There is construction everywhere. It is sometimes hard to know whether this city is half-crumbling or half-built but either way it is a seamless amalgamation: pristine newness and ancient stone; shiny designer boutiques covered with Banksy-esque graffiti; and building, building, everywhere building. It is tiring to look at. Exhausting. But exciting too. There is a coolness here, a confidence, an edge, an unapologetic show of progress, innovation. My coffee is smooth and satisfying.

  I listen now, waiting for the foreign voices that I will somehow understand. Here they come. Strolling by with phones glued to their ears are businessmen speaking a loud, dynamic Hebrew. They wear short-sleeves and trainers. Weaving past them, children are cycling and calling to each other – unaccompanied and un-hooded. Around me, at almost every table, smokers puff away, as if they are in a place too innocent to know better or too stubborn to care. I listen. Definitely some Russian to my left, some French to my right. A lot of Hebrew…

  I do not miraculously understand.

  Obviously.

  I must admit there is some disappointment to this.

  But then, some French grandmother-type leans over and asks me if I have a girlfriend, she has a granddaughter. And a few minutes later the Brazilian-born waiter tells me about a club opening I should go to. And then a middle-aged gent at the table next to me hears that I’m English and starts telling me about the year that he lived in Willesden Green. So okay, I may not understand their various languages, but in London strangers rarely speak to each other at all. And what is the point of language if we don’t use it to interact? What is the point of money if I have no time to spend it? What is the point of living if I don’t know what I’m living for? And dreams are symbolic aren’t they? It’s not about literally speaking the language but feeling like I understand it, feeling understood. And the mind is a powerful thing you know, my subconscious is telling me something.

  I think for a moment of Safia. She would tell me to stop being overdramatic. But I bet she would like it here if she ever consented to come. I have always thought of her as a little bit not completely British. A fragmented soul. Like me. She’d like the warmth of these people, she less constrained than through-and-through Brits, less compelled to personify the cold climate.

  The waiter interrupts my pondering to encourage me to leave; there are people waiting for the table. I get up to let them sit down and immediately regret my chivalry. Now I have no seat and must loiter near the cash register in hopes of catching a waiter’s attention long enough to allow me to pay. I ask three times and am nodded at, but nobody brings me my bill. Other customers are calling more loudly than me and nobody has time for my politeness, my deficiency of resolve. In the end I physically restrain my waiter by placing my hand on his arm.

  “I’ve been waiting to pay for half an hour!” He is unbothered. I thrust the cash at him. “Half an hour. It’s ridiculous.”

  He takes the money calmly. “See you at the club tonight?”

  “That’s longer than I was sitting down!”

  He smiles. He will not apologise for my weakness. And I have to laugh because now he has my money and I will have to wait another half an hour if I want change.

  On Christmas Eve I text festive greetings to my family strewn across the world. Also to Safia. And to Hayley. Gaby and Mum reply within seconds.

  Mum has recently got the hang of text-speak and her response is a rapid-fire list of instructions: U 2 D. Dnt 4gt 2 b SAFE. Call ur cousin. Pls buy me 2 ahava body moisturiser. Txt me ur flight deets. She ends with a heart emoji.

  Gaby’s text is longer, telling me how wonderful her holiday is but that it’s just a holiday and it’s hard to remember that sometimes but she is looking forward to coming home and seeing me in the real world. And Merry Christmas too. I suspect she’s had one too many Christmas cocktails.

  Hayley’s says: R U hanging a stocking? With a winky face. Our first year together we filled stockings for each other and it became a tradition between us to slip in one racy item. Our last year together she bought me red, furry handcuffs.

  Safia does not reply.

  As I’m getting ready for the evening I think about texting her again, something witty, something she can’t ignore, something that will get us back to normal if not more than normal.

  I miss her.

  The realisation of this infiltrates my otherwise enthusiastic preparations. I am at least ten minutes in the shower and it takes me an inordinate amount of time to select a pair of jeans and shirt. Dressed, I lay on the bed. It’s ridiculous – our situation, my melancholy. What do I miss? Not the sex, that was once, brief though brilliant. It’s her. Admittedly we only used to meet once a week, we were never ‘together’, nor could we be, but we were connected. We texted all the time or called on the way to and from work. We had confidence in ourselves I guess, in our friendship, in our mutual desire to value that friendship. There was no concern about over-sharing or phoning too much or being unwanted. And now I miss her humour, and her feisty jibes, and her question-mark eyebrows. And the reliability of a reply to my texts. More than that, I miss being the one receiving hers. The one she will allow herself to be sad to, honest with. She’ll have her whole extended family descending on her over the holidays. Her parents will have offered out her flat and she’ll be sharing it with an aunt and three cousins. One of them has always been a bitch to Safia. I want to tell her to stick it to her. But it’s hard to think of a way to say that after our weeks of silence. It’s hard to summon our previous intimacy. And by the time I think of a perfectly phrased text, my hands are thick with hair gel and Robert is rush
ing me out of the bathroom into a cab and the blaring throng of the Yemeni driver’s hardcore house music.

  We head towards the sea. Most nights we go to the sea, often congregating at a beachside bar or club following dinner in a cool new Neve Tzedek restaurant, but sometimes simply sitting in circles on the sand with expats who ask with sadistic relish about London’s cold weather. Always near us, or with us, are slim, sun-kissed girls, each apparition more beautiful than the next as if they are being manufactured somewhere, the mould edging ever closer to perfection. Christmas Eve is no exception and as we enter the bar, Robert reminds me that I am not with Safia, I have never been with Safia, and she clearly has no interest in being with me. Plus I am in Israel, and hey, look around. I nod, he’s right, she won’t even reply to my texts, and so I accept the vodka shot he hands me, the two of us taking a quick scan of the room before situating ourselves near a group of women who could easily all be related to the Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli. Perhaps they are. Our English is an advantage. I play up the poshness. Robert, under Debbie’s watchful eye, is a good wingman. But these women aren’t easy to impress and we have to work hard to keep their attention. When they listen, it is a demanding silence and I feel sometimes an unfamiliar desire to scurry. When they speak, it feels like a challenge, exacting from me “Ma? Ma?” (what?), but never as a question, never anything as feeble as a question. They talk and stand and demand with absolute assuredness, their eyes telling me that, unlike me, they are complete, and certain, and need no affirmation of themselves. They agree with me only when I’m right. They laugh only when I’m actually funny. They will not follow my lead blindly. They will never be like lambs.

  Orli arrives on her own just as I am about to call it a night. I don’t at this point know her name but I know that I will. I spot her as soon as she walks in, see the way she stands boldly by the door, oblivious to the rows of eyes on her, see how she considers the room carefully, see how her face lights up as she locates her friends. See that she is not Safia. Orli’s beauty is different, and mesmerising. I can’t believe my luck when she walks towards our group and kisses a greeting to two of the women at the table, clasping one of their hands and conveying some sincere joy that makes the other woman hug her. Her blonde hair is loose and dishevelled – tousled is the word I feel like I’ve heard Hayley or Safia or maybe Gaby use. She has luminous blue eyes. She is slim yet curvy, and tall enough to wear flats. Her black jeans are tight but her top relaxed, effortless, her face seemingly bare except for a strident coat of bright red lipstick. One of the girls whispers something in her ear and she briefly raises her eyes in my direction. Somebody hands her a beer and she takes a sip.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She takes my extended hand with circumspection. “Hi.”

  I don’t start well.

  Trying to impress, I order one of the gigantic cocktails with sparklers that arrive carried above the head by a team of clapping waiters, but Orli only grimaces and sticks to her beer. Then I insist that we all down shots, eagerly passing them out to the group, and she laughs, covering her eyes as though cringing on my behalf and eventually taking one but only, I imagine, because she is tolerating me. And when I try to compliment her, I find myself saying something schmaltzy about her eyes reflecting the depth of the sea, and she uses those ocean eyes to give me a look of utter disbelief and perhaps pity. Which would be about right given my material. But then, suddenly, she leans forward, offers me her hand and leads me outside.

  The night is cold. She has a jacket, otherwise I would offer her mine, and I follow her to the edge of the promenade. The waves lash against the barrier and the wind whips us in the face. Orli’s hair shoots out around her like a mermaid, or sea witch.

  “So,” I say. “Now that you have me here what are you going to do with me?”

  Orli rolls her eyes. “What is it with you, Daniel?” she laughs. “I have been told that you are a good guy. My friends say this. An interesting guy. An honest guy. Where is this guy? Why are you always acting?”

  “Acting? Ah yes, you may recognise me from such films as-”

  “Why can you not be yourself?”

  She is still a near stranger, she doesn’t know me like Safia, but there is something about those eyes that enchants me, and I find myself answering, “I don’t know who ‘myself’ is.”

  Three hours later, we haul ourselves up from the café round the corner from the bar and locate our various friends. I have consumed four cappuccinos. We don’t kiss as we part but the taste of the sea air is almost as good: her sea, the colour of her eyes.

  Just as I am getting into a cab my phone beeps. It is finally a reply from Safia. As I see her name flash across the screen my stomach twists – it is the first time in weeks that hours have passed without my thinking of her and I am wracked with simultaneous guilt, shame, longing, and something steelier too, something defiant. I read her message. A single: X. Complicated. Or uncomplicated? There is no question, no entreaty, no lifeline. I lift my phone to text her back anyway, I try to remember the message I had concocted earlier, I wonder if, now, there is something else I should say. But while thinking about this I get sidetracked wondering where to take Orli for breakfast, and by the time I have sent Orli a message to tell her, we are back at the hotel, and Robert is suggesting one last drink and a game of pool, and when eventually I am alone and remember Safia’s unanswered text, I am in bed, and my phone is plugged in on the other side of the room, and the alcohol and the coffees are wearing off, and then I am with Orli and nothing is the same.

  We sit close. There is no need to hide how intimate we have become. Safia is not here to see, besides which it is clear she would not care. That space still echoes a little inside me, and for the first day or two with Orli I tried to listen to the reverberations, if only to check there was no whisper I had missed. But in mere days Orli managed to peer deeper into the chaotic workings of my mind than anyone I’ve ever known, even Safia. And I let her. I let go and let her. We talk constantly and it is more sensual than any sex, any grand romantic evening I’ve previously concocted. There is something about the way she speaks to me, in her impressively proficient English, that makes each conversation seem poignant. As if, because she so assiduously selects words from her learned vocabulary, they are never careless. Never just banter. They are meant, considered, and require an equally considered response.

  “So? Why do you keep working there if it’s destroying your soul?” she asks one afternoon when we have laid out a blanket a few metres away from the others. We are at Sarona, Tel Aviv’s new cultural hotspot. We have picked up a picnic basket from the aptly named Picnic restaurant. Later we are going to check out the galleries. In a few weeks there will be a jazz festival here. Orli scoops up her long wavy hair and ties it loosely behind her head so that it won’t fall across her brow and disturb her sketch. She looks up and scrutinises my face, perhaps to test the truth of my response, or perhaps to work out how much space there is between my eyes. Orli is an artist, though this is something I’ve only belatedly discovered. She is famous actually, one of her friends informed me. Her work has shown in galleries all over Israel and she’s beginning to gain a following in New York. It is all there to read on her website, there for public consumption, but not something she told me at the start. Most of our first conversations were about me, my life, as though I am a puzzle we have decided between us to put together. Now that I know about her art, I ask question after question and she tells me her style is a mixture of surrealism and pop art, smiling because I am quite clearly not versed in these matters, a fusion, she says, of the imagined and the real, the spiritual and the gross. I like hearing her talk with such conviction, such passion. I envy it. Now she has demanded to draw me. “So? Why do you do it?”

  “I like the thrill, I guess, and I’m good with numbers. It’s easy for me.”

  “Hmm,” she says.

  “I make a lot of cash.”

  Orli looks up to capture what I suddenly notice is a fr
own. She never actually condemns me, but she listens hard, and she looks, and makes me look too. “But what is it about it that you love?”

  “I don’t know, I guess just that, the money. Or the power maybe. The respect. I mean it’s a really high-powered job, competitive, and I’m good at it.”

  “You mentioned that.” She smiles.

  “And it’s what I always planned. So it’s just what I do now, you know?”

  “Do you look forward to getting up in the morning?”

  “Only at the weekends. But that’s normal. I mean, who actually loves their job?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, you’re lucky.”

  “You could also be so lucky.” She finishes the sketch and shows it to me, turning the canvas and laying it on the blanket. “It is rough,” she says. “I would add colour.”

  The picture is more accurate than any photo and renders me speechless. I both know and don’t know the man staring back at me. Orli has managed to capture both my melancholy and my happiness, my uncertainty and my longing for passion, my entire fragmented self. “You are incredible,” I tell her.

  “So are you.”

  On my last Friday in Israel, Orli invites me to her parents’ house for dinner. She no longer lives at home but in a small apartment in the centre of Tel Aviv. There is a living area that has perfect light and she uses as a studio. All of her friends live close by in similarly artistic venues and gather at the coffee shops that litter the streets until late into the night before working until even later. By now I’ve met most of them. Each is more fascinating than the next: this one writing a script, another directing a play, all creating. They wear timeless black jeans, classic t-shirts, and a hat or a pair of shoes that are a stylish thowback to a previous era. Their talk is filled with energy, a natural disposition to explore, to analyse, to dissect. Their vibe is confident, engaged. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon an intellectual rat-pack, a tribe of young Israelis embodying the now of the country, constructing it, building it, thinking it, directing its future. And while I’m sure they’re fully aware of their own appeal, they are not selfish in commandeering it; they are happy to share it with me.