Limassol Read Online Free

Going up the stairs, I was gasping. I expected to sit at the table in the cool kitchen, with the smell of rosemary, spin out a conversation about my imaginary text, talk with a cultured and terrific person.
    But this time, the apartment was dark, the blinds were closed, she opened the door in a robe as if I had woken her up, her hair was a mess.
    â€œI’m sorry, maybe I got the time mixed up,” I muttered awkwardly at the door.
    â€œNo, come in,” she said with a nod. “Just give me a minute to get myself together. You can sit in the living room. I’ll open the window a little.”
    A bit of light came into the room and she hurried to the inner rooms of the apartment. On the wall was a big print of a Tumarkin, a woman standing in a circle of stones of a sheikh’s grave, with a sketch of a cathedral above it. Maybe that’s Daphna herself in the picture, twenty years ago. A few minutes later, she came out wearing jeans and a long faded cotton shirt that hid the lines of her body. She was pale and looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes. I looked for signs of blows and didn’t find any.
    â€œWhat happened?” I asked.
    â€œOh, there was a little action,” she chuckled. “Uninvited guests came. Sorry about the welcome, I was sleeping a little before you came. Now I’m fine.”
    â€œIs there anything I can do to help?” I asked.
    Suddenly she looked small and vulnerable, in need of protection. “A few more minutes, OK?” she asked. I heard her walking around the inside rooms and the kitchen, feverishly gathering things and throwing them, opening windows to let in air, destroying evidence of what had happened.
    When she came back, her face was more composed and her hair was tied back.
    â€œYou’re sure . . . ”
    â€œEverything’s fine,” she insisted and furtively changed the props. “Come on, let’s talk about your book.” She filled the kettle. “I thought about you a little. The subject you’ve chosen really is interesting, maybe something can be built from it. I hope I didn’t discourage you too much. I think we left your man on the ship on the way to the island, right?”
    I hadn’t had time to write a thing since the previous week, and I’d have to improvise. “I thought of putting in a storm at sea,” I said. “But maybe that would be too dramatic.”
    â€œPut in drama, I’m for that,” she said with an exaggerated laugh. She sat down across from me on the broad sofa. “The Jewish Odysseus, why not . . . ” Her mind was definitely not on our meeting. This was the stage in the interrogation where detainees are sent to rest in a cell because it’s clear we won’t get a single rational sentence out of them.
    â€œI want to tell you something,” I said in a quiet voice, as if I were confessing. “I don’t know where to go with this story. I feel stuck with it. I almost called you to cancel the meeting today, the whole thing suddenly seemed so artificial. What do I have to do with that? Maybe it’s just a fantasy.”
    An afternoon glow capered in the big back window of the living room, a bird passed by it on its way somewhere, Daphna’s look stuck in me and passed beyond me, as if she saw something fateful through me. “You can go,” she said.
    I searched for a sentence to continue the conversation, struggled with myself not to get up and go to my real work. “You know that feeling?” I asked.
    She sat with her arms crossed, folded up in herself. “Of course it’s a delusion,” she said in a lucid voice. “With real things there is no beauty or reason as in a story. After the first of life’s setbacks, you understand that. I wrote a book when I was twenty-three, everything was as clear as a little girl strolling on the shore, easiest thing in the world, like breathing. Now I’m trying to