Darkness & Light | ביבוקס

MIA

“Mia, did you hear a single word I said?” Ofir asked, pulling me from my reverie.

Where am I? I looked around, reality striking me bit by bit, like rocks falling down on me, one after another after another. I was back at our apartment, back among the open boxes that needed to be filled up, back to the piercing pain as the last piece of my life fell, the one reminding me that he had died.

“I heard you, Ofir.” I stared on.

She approached and sat down next to me. “Moosh, are you okay?”

“No. But I will be, someday.” I didn’t want to cry again, I was exhausted, but the pain was always waiting there, never letting go.

She hugged me, as she had throughout this past year.

“Look at me for a moment.” Her amber eyes fixed themselves to mine from within the hug. “You will love again and laugh again and remember what it’s like to be happy.”

“I was happy,” I reached my hand toward my braided hair, “then he left and took everything with him. “

“He didn’t take everything. You’re still here,” she gently said.

“I’m not really here.”

“Moosh,” she said, and hugged me.

No one really knew what to say to comfort me, because there probably weren’t any comforting words to say about something so dear being taken away from you in just one moment. And that was what it was, just one moment. A mere few minutes scraping plans for a whole lifetime together, cancelling a wedding that was due to take place two days later. A mere few minutes was all it took for him to stop existing, and I disappeared along with him. I continued to hold my braid and patted the tips of my hair, the same place Alon would touch and caress me. After he went away, I wouldn’t get a haircut, wouldn’t cut this memory from my body. Ofir tried several times to convince me, claiming it would help me turn the page. One time she even asked me to come to the hair salon with her, where she shortened her long dark hair into a short bob. Maybe she’d done that to encourage me to change my mind. But I couldn’t, I wasn’t willing to let go of my life with Alon. I loved the old pages, the ones my life was written on.

“You have to keep going. I know how much you’re hurting,” she continued to comfort me, “but it’s time to stop holding onto him like he’s the only thing in the world. You’ve put your life on hold for the past year, and it’s time to start living again.”

She gave me the same determined look I’d known since we were kids. I knew she was right, but I couldn’t let go of him yet, it was too soon. What’s one year compared to our 15 together, since we were 17?

“Look what we’re going to do. I’m going to open two bottles of beer—”

“And we’re going to get drunk and pretend we’re already finished packing up his things?” I interjected, smiling a weary half-smile.

“No, there’s no way you’re avoiding it. We’ve been meeting up every weekend and planning to do this for six months now, and every time you find a new excuse why not. I’m not cutting you any slack this time.” She paused for a moment and again gave me that assertive look meant to remind me that I had no chance of dodging. “I get that there are things you’ll want to keep, but, c’mon, his toothbrush? Seriously, Moosh? That’s a bit much. We can throw it away. And his clothes in the closet…”

“We need to donate them,” I completed her thoughts in surrender.

She walked up to me and held my hand, looked at me and said nothing.

“No!” I pulled my hand back, immediately shielding the engagement ring I was wearing, guarding it so it didn’t go anywhere.

“Okay, not yet,” she whispered.

She placed an open cardboard box before me. The box looked too big. She had determined the amount of his things I would need to donate in advance. There were five similar-sized boxes near the door. My stomach churned, and all I wanted to do was stop this rollercoaster she was pressing me to get onto. Suddenly everything weighed on me. I sat on the floor.

“Shall we start with the closet?”

She picked me off the floor and dragged me to the bedroom. His clothes had been spread out on the bed in advance. His shoes were arranged on the floor, as neat as soldiers in a procession. I sat down on the bed and caressed his clothes, picked up his blue travel shirt. He’d cut off the collar, and it was generally full of holes and utterly tattered. But it was his, so it was perfect. I breathed it deep, breathed in his scent. It wasn’t the smell of perfume, but the smell of him. I’d loved to nuzzle my face into his neck and smell him as we hugged or lay in bed. I shut my eyes for a moment and could hear him laugh and move me away because my nose was tickling him. I laughed. Your scent, Alon, how can I live without it? I breathed in his blue shirt again, and again came that gut-punch, instantly. That pain, each time anew. I couldn’t control it, and again came the tears. Ofir ignored my tears and went on. She raised a purple t-shirt that had been resting under a pile of button-down shirts.

“You remember this shirt?” she laughed. “The—”

“The Lakers game,” I said simultaneously, wiping off the tears. “How he suddenly got himself convinced he was a Lakers fan,” I went on. “For a week he wouldn’t take the shirt off because he thought it would bring them luck. I had to peel it off him in the end.”

“You remember how before the game he forced us to wake up at two in the morning and put on purple clothes?”

“Yeah,” I laughed aloud, “he dyed his hair purple and went to university like that the next day.”

“Everyone misses him, you know. Everyone who knew him,” she said, looking at the shirt. “He was the glue that held all of us together.”

“He made us do some crazy things,” I continued.

“Made us push ourselves forward,” she said. “It’s only because of him that I packed my bag, traveled the world, and started writing my blog. I wouldn’t have been where I am today if not for him.”

She sat down on the bed. This time it was I who went up to her, and I hugged her. Alon had been her good friend, too, from a young age. I’d been so focused on myself and my pain this past year, and I knew she was in pain, but how could I contain the pain of her loss if there was no space in me?

“Ugh, Ofir, how are we going to make any progress like this, if we have to grieve every shirt?” I said with a sad laugh.

“Maybe that’s how we need to pack. By celebrating the stories of who he was to us.”

“I’m keeping the blue shirt. It’s not like anyone’s going to wear it anyway.”

“No way!” She immediately jumped up and came to take the shirt.

“No, listen to me. They’ll turn it into a floor rag. Look at it. It’s not worth anything to anyone else, but to me that’s Alon,” I said, my tone slightly firm.

That was the way to stop Ofir’s bossiness. It was how she knew she needed to stand down. I liked that about us, about our friendship, the space we gave one another, even though we were different in many ways. That must have been the reason our friendship was so strong. Our mothers were happy when we became friends in kindergarten. Ofir’s mom always said that I balanced her out. It makes me laugh even when I think about it now, because the truth is that she can’t be balanced out. Even back then you could see Ofir’s naughtiness, her colorfulness, not just in her choices of clothes but in character as well. There wasn’t a place she would walk into without being immediately noticed, and she encouraged that, too. She would speak loudly, would make sure to get to know as many kids as she could. In every group, at every stage, she was always the leader. Sometimes too much so. I tried to explain it to her, but over the years I grew to understand that some things can’t be helped. And me? I was the exact opposite. I didn’t need that sort of attention from everyone, the immediate environment I’d created for myself was enough. Personally, sitting and talking one-on-one was the thing I enjoyed most. Listening to what was being said, and what was left unsaid, observing body language. I loved to be an outside spectator, to analyze, to understand. Dynamics between people, their responses, the way a word from one person would affect another. That was what I’d chosen to do for a living, too. I became a social worker. That’s who I was. Was?

“Okay, but that’s it.” She continued to pull shirts out of the closet.

I pulled the shirt close to me. I didn’t want to squander what little smell still remained. Not like that, not when I couldn’t be with him. I put down the shirt so it would still wait for me, at a safe place, on my beloved’s pillow, until night came.

“That’s it, I’m not going easy on you anymore, the whole pile of fancy dress-shirts has got to go.”

“I agree. He didn’t get to wear them too much anyway. He’d only just started his internship at the accounting firm.”

We folded up the shirts and placed them in the box, one shirt then another. How many shirts did he have? Maybe just this one? Not that one. Or none at all. Ofir folded them up nicely and I moved them into the box.

“You know, whenever he dressed up for work, he looked to me like a kid dressing up as an adult.” I smiled.

“Maybe because he was actually a kid,” she laughed.

I looked at the empty half of the closet. Boxes taped up in the corner of our bedroom – my bedroom. Empty beer bottles on the table.

“He would always complain that he had too many clothes and no space for anything. If only he could see how many boxes his clothes filled up,” I said.

“I’m proud of you, Moosh,” Ofir stretched. “You did it. We packed up his clothes.”

“Yeah, I did it,” I repeated, not believing that it actually happened.

“I’m thinking that’s enough goodbyes for one day. What do you think?” She helped me move the boxes toward the door. “I’ll come around to pick you and the boxes up tomorrow morning, so there better not be any boxes ‘accidentally’ disappearing and finding their way back to the closet.”

I raised my fingers in a Scout salute. “Thanks. I wouldn’t have done it without you.”

“You wouldn’t need to, either. You’re not alone. Speaking of alone, what do you say we’ll end the night with dinner at mine?”

“Thanks, but… I think today I would prefer some quiet.” I won’t be on my own. Alon is going to be right here with me.

I rested my head on her shoulder, and she whispered to me, “You’re strong. Don’t forget that.”

Again this quiet. A whole year of silence. I looked around me, half whole, half empty. In the whole half I saw his things placed beside me, and in the empty half there were clothes packed up in boxes. Again, this silence. Louder than a busy highway. I didn’t know how loud the beating of a single heart could scream, and the echo in this empty space played them over and over again. Could it actually be the echo of an empty soul? I had nowhere to run from this feeling. The house was where I’d run to in the past year. But this silence, this aloneness. It was unbearable. I remembered that I’d hidden Alon’s record box under the table, so Ofir wouldn’t get mixed up and pack that up as well. I nimbly pulled out the first record I could see. It was Derek and the Dominos, and within a moment the strumming of Eric Clapton filled up this space that used to be my home. It calmed me down. I took my clothes off in front of the mirror. What had I become? I couldn’t recognize the girl looking back at me. My long brown hair lifelessly fell down onto my thin shoulders, and my long neck had grown even longer. I’d become scrawny, one long, sharp line. The curves around my waist, the warm folds Alon had liked – I used to love to look at myself naked in the mirror, and most of all, I loved how Alon used to look at me, with that hungry look in his eyes. He always said, You’re pudgy just where I like it.

I entered the shower. I closed my eyes, and the addictive current of warm water drove any recall of the past hours out of my body. Within a moment, he was with me, looking at me.

“I love you, Moosh,” Alon’s deep voice echoed, his eyes inspecting my body.

I was embarrassed, just as I had been the first time. What would he say to me if he were actually beside me? What would he make me to eat, sitting beside me to make sure I finished it all so I would gain weight?

“You’re playing my favorite record,” he went on. “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. You know why I love it so much?”

I regarded Alon inquisitively.

“Try,” he said, “you must know.”

“Because it’s love songs?” I asked.

“Only love songs? No, it’s more than that.” I saw his big brown eyes. “It’s a record in code. Love songs mixed with pain, with frustration, with a deep desire to belong to someone who belongs to someone else. Love and agony, dancing together at a chilling intensity,” he whispered, still looking into my eyes.

I stepped out of the shower.

“Lie down next to me.”

He ran his hand along my hair, like he used to. I picked up the photo with the light-blue frame from the bedside table and looked at it. It was my favorite photo. Alon and I, standing next to one another, swaddled in layers of clothes, with snow in the background. We’d been photographed after skiing down the French Alps, before the piping-hot cups of cocoa soon to be served to us. It was a photo that captured the moment before the perfect moment. The taste of the hot cocoa that had spread in my throat washed over me once more.

“Let’s see if you can find the small groove,” he said.

I ran my fingers along the frame until I found it. “You remember what caused it?” I smiled naughtily.

He laughed. “Moosh, some things you just can’t forget.” That familiar body, so close to me, and that wonderful laugh. “It was in France. I almost fought the old saleslady when she noticed that you’d dropped the frame in the shop.”

“You were always good at that. Communicating with people… and… keeping me safe.”

“I’ll always keep you safe.”

“You can’t anymore. You left me.”

“I didn’t choose to leave.”

“But you did leave, Alon. You know what they called your accident in the paper?”

“How?”

“‘The Lovers’ Tragedy.’”

“Wow. Hard to stomach.”

“Yeah… you know… kind of sums it up perfectly, no? A boy and a girl fall in love at 17. He fell in love with her at first sight, and she… she thought he was weird at first, but… you know…”

“Weird, huh? I actually remember it differently,” he teased me.

“Oh, well… maybe she did fall in love with him at first sight, too,” I laughed. “ Years went by, and they grew up together, standing by each other through the highs and the lows, during career choices and trips around the world, and after a few years they decided that it was time to be adults—”

“And get married,” he completed.

“Yeah. Get married.” I stopped. I didn’t want to continue the story.

“Moosh, you have to go on.”

“I don’t want to, Alon. First Ofir, now you, and the house is empty, you understand? There’s nothing left of you.”

“There’s no choice… you have to continue telling the story.”

“Why? Why do I have to continue? Why can’t I stop here?”

“I wish you could.”

“Maybe I can. Maybe we can find a way to live like this, you and me… me and my memories… and… away from everyone else.”

“You have to continue the story,” he whispered once more.

I cried, closed my eyes, and continued, surrendering. “We said goodbye with a kiss. We were a few days before the wedding, and you… I… we were supposed to meet at the venue. And you parked at the side of the road, and suddenly a truck drove by… and… in just one moment… you were… dead.”

I opened my eyes and Alon was gone. I was alone again.

Eric Clapton’s aching guitar played “Old Love.” I closed my eyes. Old love, please leave me alone. I hugged the photo of us together, and Clapton’s guitar wept along with me.