The Lover Read Online Free

sat beside him even though I wasn’t hungry, just to make him feel that he wasn’t alone. We hardly talked because it was the evening news on the radio and he was glued to it. He cooked me some scrambled eggs that I didn’t want. The food that he cooks never has any taste to it, although he’s sure he knows how to cook. When he saw I wasn’t eating the eggs, he ate them himself and left the kitchen. I threw some of the food in the rubbish, put the rest back in the fridge, promised to wash the dishes and went to watch TV. It was a programme in Arabic, but I sat and watched it, rather than go back to my room and find the maths book waiting for me there. Daddy tried at first to read the paper and watch TV at the same time. In the end he got up and went off to bed. A strange man. Deserves a close look, sometime. Who is he really? Is he just a garage boss who doesn’t talk and goes to bed at 9.30 in the evening?
    Mommy still hasn’t come in –
    I switched off the TV and went to have a shower. When I’m naked under the running water I really feel as if I’m drugged, time becomes sweet and shapeless, I could stand like this for hours. Once Daddy broke down the door because Mommy thought I’d fainted or something. I’d been standing there maybe an hour and I hadn’t heard them calling me. Now the waterslowly goes cold. I’ve emptied the tank. Mommy will be mad at me. I dry myself, put on my pyjamas and switch off the lights in the house. I go into their bedroom, put out Daddy’s bedside lamp and pull the newspaper from underneath him. His beard is big and bushy, there are white hairs in it, glinting in the light from the passage. I feel sorry for him as I watch him sleeping, and it isn’t natural for children to pity their parents. I go into my room, take another look at the maths homework, perhaps inspiration will come from heaven, but the sky is dark, without a single star, and there’s a light rain falling. Since our maths teacher was killed in the war and they brought in that kid from the Technion I’ve lost all interest in the subject. It isn’t for me. I can’t even begin to understand the questions, never mind the answers.
    I pull down the blinds and switch on the transistor, it’s that crooner Sarussi. Slowly I pack my school bag, leaving out the maths book on purpose. I’ll say I forgot it, that’ll be the fourth time this month. Next time I’ll have to think up a new excuse. At the moment Baby Face doesn’t say anything, he blushes as if he’s the one who’s lying, not me. He’s still a bit nervous, scared of getting involved, but he’s beginning to gain some confidence – there are disturbing signs. Mommy still hasn’t come home. Such a long teachers’ meeting. They must be hatching great plots against us.
    It’s quiet in the house. Deep silence. And then the phone rings. I run to it but Daddy answers before I get to it. Since that man disappeared I’ve never been able to get to the phone first, Mommy or Daddy always pounce on it, they’ve even got an extension beside their bed.
    I pick up the receiver in the study, and I hear Daddy talking to Tali. She’s startled to hear his sleepy voice. I join in the conversation at once. “What happened?” She’s forgotten what the history test tomorrow is about. That’s what she and Osnat came around for this afternoon, to learn some history, and somehow they forgot all about it. Me too. But I’m not worried about history, maybe it’s the only subject that I’m pretty sure about, a talent I got from Mommy; all sorts of pointless and trivial facts stick to me. I tell her the page numbers and she starts to protest, as if I’m the history teacher. “That’s far too much, what’s the big idea? Can’t do all that.”
    Then she calms down, starts whispering something about Osnat, but a strange whisper rises from the phone, like heavy breathing. Daddy’s fallen asleep with the receiver. Tali shrieks. The girl’s a total hysteric. I put the