Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

But she’s not tough. Not with you.” His wife is really soft. She has the gentle soul of a bird and a big heart; she feels for everybody. We’ve been together for nine months now. Haggai starts work early, so I go to see her at eight thirty, right after she drops the kids off at kindergarten.
    “Rona and I met in high school,” he goes on. “She was my first and I was hers. After the divorce, I fucked around a lot, but none of the women even came close to her. And, you know, at least from a distance, she looks like she’s still alone. If I found out she has someone, it would shatter me, even though we’re divorced and all. Shatter me into pieces. I just wouldn’t be able to take it. None of the other women mean anything. Just her. She’s the one who’s always been there.”
    “Haggai,” I say, “her name’s Carnie and no one’s with her. You’re still married.”
    “No one’s with Rona either,” he says, and licks his dry lips, “no one. I’d kill myself if there was.”
    Carnie comes into the apartment now, carrying an AM/ PM bag. She tosses a casual “Hi” in my direction. Since we’ve been together, she tries to be more distant when other people are around. She doesn’t even say hi to Haggai; she knows there’s no point talking to him when his eyes are shut.
    “My house,” he says, “right in the center of Tel Aviv. Beautiful, with a mulberry tree right outside the window. But it’s small, way too small. I need another room. On the weekends, when I have the kids, I have to open the living-room couch. It’s a real pain in the neck. If I don’t find a solution by summer, I’ll just have to move.”

HEALTHY START
     
    Every night, ever since she’d left him, he’d fall asleep in a different spot: on the sofa, in an armchair in the living room, on the mat on the balcony like some homeless bum. And every morning, he made a point of going out for breakfast. Even prisoners get a daily walk in the yard, don’t they? At the café they always gave him a table set for two, and sat him across from an empty chair. Always. Even when the waiter specifically asked if he was alone. Other people would sit there in twos or threes, laughing, tasting each other’s food, fighting over the check, while Miron sat by himself eating his Healthy Start—orange juice, muesli with honey, decaf double espresso with warm low-fat milk on the side. Of course it would have been nicer if someone had been sitting across the table from him and laughing with him, if there had been someone to argue with over the check as he struggled to pay, handing over the money to the waitress, saying, “Don’t take it from him! Avri, put it back. This one’s on me.” But he didn’t really have anyone to do that with, and breakfast alone in a café was a hundred times better than staying at home.
    Miron spent a lot of time eyeing the other tables. He’d eavesdrop on conversations, read the sports supplement, or examine the ups and downs of the Israeli shares on Wall Street with an air of detached concern. Sometimes someone would come over and ask for a section of the paper he’d finished reading, and he would nod and try to smile. Once, when a sexy young mother with a baby in a stroller walked over to him, he even said to her, as he gave up the front page with the banner headline about a gang rape in the suburbs: “What a crazy world we’re bringing our children into.” He thought it sounded like the kind of statement that brings people closer together, pointing as it did to their common fate, but the sexy mom just glared at him and took the Healthy Living supplement, too, without asking.
    Then one Thursday a fat, sweaty guy walked into the café and smiled at him. Miron was caught off guard. The last person to give him a smile was Maayan, just before she left him, five months earlier, and her smile had been unmistakably sarcastic, whereas this one was soft, almost apologetic. The fat guy gestured something, apparently a