written on the robe of the banishing angel.
Matar smiled, happily this time. “I dream about you all the time,” he wrote.
I picked up the eraser and erased everything on the board, wiped it clean. I felt him watching me. He had a crush on me, that was all. Maybe even less than a crush. Maybe just lust. That was the way things were in this country: people were promiscuous and sexually confident. No one had to talk about sex because everyone was doing it. I wondered what I would tell him when the course was over.
My drowsiness, which had vanished in the excitement of our exchange, returned with greater force than before. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to flop down on my bed and go to sleep. I said, smiling, “Take care of yourself,” and left Matar alone in the classroom, looking at me with his intense and terrible eyes.
N OAH’S DIARY , J ULY 4, 1984.
In the news: nothing interesting.
I got into a huge mess today.
Since Passover, Oren’s been going out with Ariella. It began when she had a fight with her family and she asked him whether she could go to his place for the seder instead. In the end she stayed with her family—they didn’t actually make up but they convinced her to be at the family seder. Some crazy fight over a pair of boots she wanted that they said were too expensive or something. Her family’s really rich, they even have a computer. They buy her lots of things, but there was some problem with the boots, I don’t know exactly what.
Oren and Ariella started going out right after that and they also started doing it pretty fast, on the second date. Oren’s given me quite a detailed description, which I’m storing in my brain for future reference. Anyway, for a few weeks he’s been saying that Ilanit told Ariella, who told him, that she likes me. Actually I already knew—Ilanit made it pretty obvious, always coming up to me with questions about what I think about this or that and asking for help with English, touching my arm with her fingers but making it look like she didn’t notice she was doing it.
Anyway, today was the opening of another part of the boardwalk, from Trumpeldor to the Dolphinarium, and there was supposed to be a big celebration with all these performers and singers. I kind of wanted to go to that, because what if someone like Danny Sanderson or Matti Caspi showed up? But Ariella arranged for us all to go out to a movie followed by a picnic on a different part of the beach. The reason we had to do it today was that Ilanit’s family won’t let her go anywhere unchaperoned. But they agreed for her to come with Dad and me and Sonya and Ariella and Oren to the opening of the boardwalk. Luckily they themselves couldn’t go because Ilanit’s grandmother is in the hospital.
We told Dad we might “go off on our own” and he didn’t care, of course. Things are a bit tense at home because Mom is in the worst mood ever and it effects Dad, who gets into a bad mood, too. Mom’s in a bad mood because some Palestinian high school kids on a bus were tormented by a border guard, Cha’im, who made some of them get off the bus and stand up and sit down and stand up again and so forth, and when the other kids on the bus began to protest, Cha’im and the ten soldiers with him opened fire and five kids were wounded. Mom says the army invented a crazy story to cover up. Sometimes I think Mom is going to end up the most hated person in this country. Maybe she is already. Once Oren and I were at the pool and this furious woman came up to me and said, “Your mother is a Nazi whore.” Oren said right back, “Even if you tried to be a whore you couldn’t, you’re too ugly.”
So Dad, who’s in a terrible mood but trying to pretend he’s not, said no problem, we could go wherever we wanted, as long as we promised not to go into the water past our waists, because the lifeguards are on strike and already a kid from Qalqilya and two old people from Tel Aviv almost drowned.
I have
Matar smiled, happily this time. “I dream about you all the time,” he wrote.
I picked up the eraser and erased everything on the board, wiped it clean. I felt him watching me. He had a crush on me, that was all. Maybe even less than a crush. Maybe just lust. That was the way things were in this country: people were promiscuous and sexually confident. No one had to talk about sex because everyone was doing it. I wondered what I would tell him when the course was over.
My drowsiness, which had vanished in the excitement of our exchange, returned with greater force than before. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to flop down on my bed and go to sleep. I said, smiling, “Take care of yourself,” and left Matar alone in the classroom, looking at me with his intense and terrible eyes.
N OAH’S DIARY , J ULY 4, 1984.
In the news: nothing interesting.
I got into a huge mess today.
Since Passover, Oren’s been going out with Ariella. It began when she had a fight with her family and she asked him whether she could go to his place for the seder instead. In the end she stayed with her family—they didn’t actually make up but they convinced her to be at the family seder. Some crazy fight over a pair of boots she wanted that they said were too expensive or something. Her family’s really rich, they even have a computer. They buy her lots of things, but there was some problem with the boots, I don’t know exactly what.
Oren and Ariella started going out right after that and they also started doing it pretty fast, on the second date. Oren’s given me quite a detailed description, which I’m storing in my brain for future reference. Anyway, for a few weeks he’s been saying that Ilanit told Ariella, who told him, that she likes me. Actually I already knew—Ilanit made it pretty obvious, always coming up to me with questions about what I think about this or that and asking for help with English, touching my arm with her fingers but making it look like she didn’t notice she was doing it.
Anyway, today was the opening of another part of the boardwalk, from Trumpeldor to the Dolphinarium, and there was supposed to be a big celebration with all these performers and singers. I kind of wanted to go to that, because what if someone like Danny Sanderson or Matti Caspi showed up? But Ariella arranged for us all to go out to a movie followed by a picnic on a different part of the beach. The reason we had to do it today was that Ilanit’s family won’t let her go anywhere unchaperoned. But they agreed for her to come with Dad and me and Sonya and Ariella and Oren to the opening of the boardwalk. Luckily they themselves couldn’t go because Ilanit’s grandmother is in the hospital.
We told Dad we might “go off on our own” and he didn’t care, of course. Things are a bit tense at home because Mom is in the worst mood ever and it effects Dad, who gets into a bad mood, too. Mom’s in a bad mood because some Palestinian high school kids on a bus were tormented by a border guard, Cha’im, who made some of them get off the bus and stand up and sit down and stand up again and so forth, and when the other kids on the bus began to protest, Cha’im and the ten soldiers with him opened fire and five kids were wounded. Mom says the army invented a crazy story to cover up. Sometimes I think Mom is going to end up the most hated person in this country. Maybe she is already. Once Oren and I were at the pool and this furious woman came up to me and said, “Your mother is a Nazi whore.” Oren said right back, “Even if you tried to be a whore you couldn’t, you’re too ugly.”
So Dad, who’s in a terrible mood but trying to pretend he’s not, said no problem, we could go wherever we wanted, as long as we promised not to go into the water past our waists, because the lifeguards are on strike and already a kid from Qalqilya and two old people from Tel Aviv almost drowned.
I have
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