All I Love and Know (57 page)

“You know what else I'm scared of?” she asked. She didn't sound spooked anymore; she was warming to her theme, getting late-night philosophical. This could be a long night, Matt told himself. “That I'll be at a scary movie and I won't be able to run out of there before the scary parts happen, and even after I'm in the lobby, I'll still hear the sounds, and even if I go into the bathroom, I'll still hear the sounds.”

“Yikes,” said Matt, remembering his similar fears around the time
The Shining
came out. “What about falling off a horse?”

“
Pshh
. I'm not scared of that.” He smiled in the darkness at the dismissive pride in her voice. “But I'm scared my body will get ripped up, and it will hurt so bad.”

“That
is
scary.”

“Don't tell Dani.”

“Why not?”

“Just don't.”

His mind swirled around this, fighting the fatigue that was thickening it, like cornstarch. Which part was important to keep from Daniel? He wondered whether he should ask, and then he did. “Is he mad at you a lot?”

She thought about it for a while. Actually, he wasn't anymore; he was different since Israel. He touched her sometimes—her hair, her cheek—and his face would come alive again, like something kissed in a fairy tale. “Not really,” she said.

She was on her side, facing him, fists at her chin, her eyes slowly blinking. “Gal,” Matt said sleepily, “you're scared that something bad will happen, but what's really scary is that something bad
already
happened.”

“But bad things can still happen.”

“They can,” he conceded, as the thought of HIV pushed darkly into his mind. “But I'm pretty sure it'll never be as bad as that. That's like a once-in-a-lifetime bad thing.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“Sabba and Savta had
two
bad things happen to them.”

He couldn't argue with that.

Gal said, mournfully, “I think they must be the unluckiest people in the whole world.”

He was on the verge of sleep, but through the dim gleam of his consciousness he felt he couldn't let the conversation end that way. He'd be letting Ilana down if he let her daughter carry the weight of her grandparents' unfathomable suffering, or, God forbid, compare their suffering to her own, and find herself wanting. But he couldn't think of anything reassuring to say. So he turned her gently away from him and pulled her by the hips, wrapped his arms around her as she squirmed backward and settled into his chest. Thinking about his own health, trying to reassure himself with the thought that even if he got HIV, people lived for a long time with it these days, kept him awake long after Gal had fallen asleep.

IN THE END, IT
was Gal who helped Matt warm to the idea of getting married. “Wow!” she said, her eyes alight, her mouth stretched into a comic rictus of glee, when he and Daniel told her. “Wow! That's all I have to say: Wow!” She told everybody she knew, “Wow! That's all I could think of when they told me!” She was so thrilled by the prospect, he decided that if he had the capacity to make her feel safe and happy, he owed it to her. And seeing a wedding through her eyes—the dignity, solemnity, and joy of it, the knitting together of their family—the tendrils of Matt's imagination began to wind around the idea. He imagined a justice of the peace or a clergyperson saying, “By the authority invested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts . . .” and got a little goose-bumpy. He hadn't moved back home yet; he was sleeping at Daniel's but was still responsible for Molly for another few months, so he'd left most of his clothes and his computer at his own place, and spent the days there, the windows open to the May breeze, after the kids went to day care and school. It suited him. He knew he'd have to move all the way back soon, take up his place as a full-time partner and dad. But sometimes, sitting at a desk in the pretty book-lined study, he wished that this was how he'd gotten involved with the Rosens in the first place: enjoying outings with the kids, gaining their confidence and affection over time, urgently making out with Daniel outside the front door before they tore themselves apart and he went home to his own, quiet refuge.

THEY MET FOR LUNCH
on a summery Tuesday, at a café halfway between Northampton and Amherst; they sat outside on the same side of the table, crowding into the shade of the umbrella. Daniel was trying to tell Matt about this upsetting thing he'd read in the materials he got from B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, while Matt was examining the inside of his sandwich to make sure they'd put Dijon mustard on it, as he'd requested, instead of honey mustard, which he hated. “Are you listening to me?” Daniel said. He clunked his shoulder against Matt's.

“Stop, I am,” Matt said.

“There's this new Israeli law,” he said. “Actually, I think it might be an extension of an old law.”

A shadow fell across the table, and they looked up to see Yossi, his face bright and benign, standing over them. His hair, which had grown out since Matt had last seen him, was disheveled, his T-shirt dark with sweat. He had a gym bag slung over his shoulder and a cup of coffee with a lid on it in his hand. Matt's heart popped with surprise and revived anger, the inevitable ribbon of attraction tied around the whole messy package.

“I was just getting my coffee,” Yossi said. “I understand that mazal tovs are in order!”

Daniel stood and they hugged, while Matt remained seated, watching their hands clap each other's backs in the way of straight men while Yossi held out his coffee cup so it wouldn't spill. He didn't know how he was supposed to greet Yossi, who had clearly decided he wasn't worth remaining friends with after the breakup; he refused to stand and hug him. But he was conscious of sitting there, slumped and sullen, like a big baby.

“I'm very happy for you,” Yossi said in Hebrew, beaming at them. “I, for one, support gay marriage a hundred percent.”

“Great!” Matt said, and felt Daniel give him a sharp look. A sparrow landed a few feet away, and he broke off a tiny piece of bread and tossed it in its direction, onto the stone terrace ground, then watched as the bird bustled over, seized it in its beak, and flew off. Yossi and Daniel were making a plan for a Rafi drop-off later that afternoon after school, looking at their watches. “
Metzuyan
,” Daniel said. Excellent.

When Yossi had left, Daniel sat back down and took a bite out of his sandwich. Matt sensed his gaze on him, and turned. “What?”

Daniel raised an eyebrow.

“How about a little loyalty?” Matt asked heatedly. “You know he dumped me as a friend, right? And still, you're nice to him.”

Daniel flushed and blinked as he took in Matt's anger. He swallowed his food. “I'm sorry. It's just—he's really been there for me and the kids. Coming to Israel for the memorial—”

“Well, he wasn't there for me,” Matt said flatly. “Do you care at all about that?”

“I do, Matt.” Daniel leaned over and slipped his arm around Matt's waist, nuzzled his cheek. “I do. But maybe you're madder at me than you are at him? Maybe
I'm
the one who wasn't there for you?”

Matt sat stiffly, accepting his embrace and kiss, half mollified. “He's always been a condescending prick with me. He's not like that with you.”

“No,” Daniel said.

“Like I'd lost sleep over his support of gay marriage! Give me a break.”

Daniel laughed, and they ate in silence for a while, Matt fretting over the various slights he'd experienced from Yossi. They weren't exactly slights, he thought—they didn't even rise to that level; it was as if Yossi didn't take him seriously enough to slight him. As soon as he thought that, he wondered if it was true—or whether it was just his own insecurity that made him feel like a less substantial person than Yossi.

“This Israeli law I was telling you about?” Daniel was saying. “Get this: The law states that if a Palestinian living in Jerusalem marries someone from the West Bank, they can't live legally together in either place. In either place! Can you believe it?” He was looking at Matt, waiting to see the information register on his face. “And did you know that if a Palestinian kid lives with one of its parents in Jerusalem, that kid has to leave Jerusalem when it turns eighteen and go live on the West Bank?”

“What? Why?” Matt turned his head in Daniel's direction, bewildered; it sounded nonsensical, and he thought that maybe he'd missed the initial sentences while he was brooding about Yossi, the ones that explained what the hell Daniel was talking about.

“Why? They always say it's for security reasons. But this is about demographics. About keeping the Jew-to-Arab ratio in Jerusalem stable.” Daniel had read about the law quickly, when the materials from B'Tselem had first had arrived, and then more slowly and carefully; but it was so convoluted and had so many poisonous ramifications, it had taken him a while to even understand it. He'd read the testimonials from Palestinians about standing outside in line all night at the Interior Ministry with their infants and documents, only to be told they were missing a document, or to return in three months, or that their claims were denied, or that the ministry was closing early so clerks could get home for an approaching Jewish holiday. It had made him think how pathetic and subhuman a long weary line of humans always looked, like refugees or convicts with their wooden bowls, waiting for their portion of rice. It made him think that a big strategy of the Occupation was to flood the brain space of Palestinians with the countless cryptic details of petty bureaucracy. And it made him think, irately:
Sorry, Joel, but how is that not like apartheid?

“I just don't know what to do with this information,” he told Matt now, irate all over again. “Seriously. What am I supposed to do with it? Just be glad that I get to get married, and to hell with everybody else?”

“I don't have the slightest idea what you're supposed to do with that information.” Matt couldn't say it, but he was secretly glad that Daniel also had complicated feelings about getting married. It made him feel less alone with it.

Daniel took the straw out of his iced tea, sucked on it, and laid it on the table. “I called the Bereaved Families Forum,” he said.

Matt turned sharply and looked at him. “Seriously? When? What did they say?”

“The guy's going to call me back on Tuesday.”

“Good for you, honey! I'm glad.”

Daniel shrugged. “Yeah, they probably don't let American Jews join—it's a group for Israelis and Palestinians—but maybe, if not, they can suggest another group.”

“I'm glad,” Matt said.

He'd disarmed him, Daniel knew; Matt had been wanting him to join an activist group for a while now. Even if they did let him join, which he doubted, he didn't know what kind of role he'd have, and what kind of travel that might entail. He didn't know if it was the right way to enter the fray. But a yearning had overtaken him, to connect in a human way with Palestinian people. Maybe the impulse was silly or naïve. It was hard to explain, even to Matt. But his fate was tied so intimately to people he'd never met in the flesh—unless you counted that hot, shocking moment when flesh was blown off of bodies. Unless you counted his brief handshake with that Palestinian man, Ibrahim, at the Smith College panel, who'd been too busy or distracted to focus on him. Or maybe he hadn't been. Maybe, it occurred to Daniel as he diffusely took in the heat of the afternoon, the murmur of people's conversations around him, he'd needed so much from Ibrahim at that moment—so much that he couldn't even name—that no response could have lived up to his hopes.

Matt ran his hand gently over Daniel's, and Daniel turned over his palm and entwined his fingers with his. He appreciated how lucky he was to have Matt in the flesh, not to be kept apart from him by a sinkhole of military and legal space. He squeezed Matt's hand hard, to feel him, because it was hard sometimes to feel Matt's presence even when he was right there. Hard to be there for him, when sometimes the dead and the dispossessed felt more real than the man breathing right beside him.

And yet, Matt—Matt had been there for him. He'd been an ark to him and to the kids, carrying them out of dark, catastrophic waters. Solid, durable, sensual, he'd carried them through.

THE UNCLES WERE GETTING
married. They said that men could marry each other now, and they weren't teasing her, it was really true. Gal sat aboard Caesar, swaying easily with his walk, while Matt watched, forearms resting on the ring's railing and chin propped on his folded hands. She was waiting for permission to canter and feeling the cool air encase her bare arms; right before she went in, she'd stripped down to her T-shirt and tossed her sweatshirt to Matt. It was hard to wait, because cantering was the most thrilling thing she'd ever done in her entire life. Her heels were down and straight, her thighs pressed easily into the saddle, the reins looped around her soft, able hands. She remembered being at weddings in Israel, running around with other kids in huge, brilliant banquet halls, round tables with white tablecloths as far as her eye could see, flower arrangements and dishes of hummus and olives and wine bottles and glasses of water placed on them, the grown-ups talking in loud voices over the deafening music. Dancing with her father, straddling his hip, while he held her hand straight out in front of them and put on a pompous dancing-master face. The memory moved through her with a languorous ache, like a pearl falling through honey. She gathered in her reins to raise Caesar's head and grazed him with her heels, gathering him, keeping her eye on Briana, who was the teacher today, and who was reminding them to pull the rein near the railing and nudge the horse with that heel. She didn't need to hear that instruction again. She was ready. Her body was light and airy, a knitted baby blanket, a round crystal glass with water shimmering inside.