The Best Place on Earth (25 page)

“It’s too much,” Tamar had said to her on her last visit. “It’s just too intense for me.” She was right, Naomi had thought, sometimes it was too much. She loved and hated Jerusalem: a city that would forever be contested, forever divided, never at peace. But there was more to Jerusalem than what one saw in the news, like how beautiful it was, not in the way BC was, but in a hard, raw and broken way. How it felt alive, a kind of beast, pulsating, breathing, vibrating under her feet. How sometimes, when she walked through the old city and saw tourists snapping photos and looking at everything with awe, she would see Jerusalem through their
eyes and be reminded that people used to walk there two thousand years ago in togas, and it would make her feel small and insignificant, but in a good way. How at times, the city truly felt sacred, magical, the centre of everything, like at sunset, when the sun reflected crimson and gold on the limestone, and the Dome of the Rock shone like a rare amber in the middle of the city. Or on a winter night, when it snowed and everything was briefly muted and still, the sharp edges softened. Or how on Friday evenings, when the buses disappeared into the jaws of Central Station to park for Shabbat and the Hasidic neighbourhoods blocked their roads from traffic, and everywhere smelled of home-cooked dinners, it felt like the most peaceful city in the world. The best place on earth.

Her sister had a full day planned.
They walked around Helliwell Park, where Carlos stopped to take pictures at every turn; had lunch at a little café at the island’s centre; drove to the marina to look at the boats; shopped at the Co-op, the island’s only grocery store. Naomi watched Carlos and Tamar’s ritual as they circled the vegetable aisle, calling to each other: Avocados? Tomatoes? By the greens, their hands touched as they picked through the spinach.

“Oh no,” Naomi said in Hebrew when they arrived at home that evening. Carlos and Tamar were unpacking the groceries. “I forgot to get ground beef.”

“Beef?”

“I was going to make mafrum, like Mom’s.”

Carlos followed their conversation with the blank open face of someone who didn’t understand the language but was fascinated by the sound.

“It’s too late, anyway,” Naomi said. “I’ll just go tomorrow. It takes three hours to make.”

“Actually,” Tamar switched to English, glancing at Carlos. “We don’t eat meat.”

Naomi stared at her.

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“Since when?”

“Since about a year ago.”

“Oh,” Naomi said. But mafrum, a Tunisian dish they had grown up eating—potatoes filled with ground beef, dipped in egg and topped with tomato sauce—had been Tamar’s favourite comfort food. Whenever Tamar visited, it was the first dish she requested. Naomi had been looking forward to making it for her.

“Why don’t you let us cook for you? Carlos is a fantastic cook.” Tamar passed by him on her way to a cupboard and ran the tips of her fingers across his back.

“You’re our guest,” Carlos said.

Guest. She shouldn’t be a guest at her sister’s house. That’s not how they were raised. Naomi fingered a loose thread from her cardigan. She watched Tamar and Carlos by the counter, their backs facing her, four poking shoulder blades. “Fine,” she said. “But I’m definitely cooking tomorrow. It’s Shabbat dinner. We can pretend we’re having a kiddush, minus the prayers.”

“Kiddush?” Carlos asked.

Naomi waved her hand. “It’s a Jewish thing.”

Carlos looked at her and then at Tamar. Tamar brushed hair off her forehead. “It’s a ritual to welcome the Shabbat. You sip some wine, say some prayers, eat some bread.”

“I’m sorry,” Naomi said in Hebrew. “Did I hurt his feelings? I was just …”

“Don’t do that.” Tamar put the knife down and turned to her.

“What?”

“Speak about him in Hebrew while he’s in the room.”

“I didn’t mean to … I was just …”

“It’s fine,” Tamar said. “Just speak English.”

Naomi sat down, feeling like a scolded child.

Dinner was a bowl of chewy brown rice sprinkled with cumin seeds, with a heap of vegetables and tofu on top. Naomi complimented Carlos on it, though she thought it could use more salt, more garlic, more spice.

As soon as she was finished, she escaped to her room. Her stomach felt uneasy. She lay on the sofa bed and stared at the cracks in the ceiling, fighting an urge to cry. It was all wrong. A mistake. She had hoped that she and Tamar could pick up where they had left off years ago, that Tamar would make it all better somehow. It was something they had done for each other since childhood, when their parents were preoccupied in their battles, and Naomi and Tamar had to rely on each other for comfort. As teenagers they had helped each other through heartbreaks and letdowns, spent long hours talking, stealing cigarette puffs outside the window, breaking into fits of laughter and tears and more laughter. Naomi turned to her side and watched the sky darkening outside the window. When did it become so difficult to just be around each other?

Tamar leaned against the patio railing,
sipping tea and staring into the forest. “Oh, hey,” she said when her sister stepped through the sliding doors. “Tea?”

“Sure.” Naomi helped herself to a cup in the kitchen and came back, standing next to her. “It’s so beautiful out here.”

“I love it,” Tamar said.

“You’re really thinking of staying here? On the island?”

“We hope to.”

“Won’t you get bored?”

Tamar laughed. “Here? I’ll never get bored.”

“Not much to do.”

“There’s plenty to do.”

“No, I mean like culturally.”

The muscle in Tamar’s cheek tensed and released, tensed and released. “You know, most people think this is paradise,” she said.

Naomi looked at her. “Why are you upset?”

“It’s just typical,” Tamar said. “I’ve been here for thirteen years and you still think it’s just another phase.”

Naomi placed her mug on the railing and looked at Tamar, puzzled. “I never said that.”

Tamar’s jaw ached and she realized that she had been clenching it. This was exactly why she lived away from her family, away from Israel. It made her anxious, irritable. She didn’t like herself this way.

“You can’t blame me for hoping you’ll come home one day,” Naomi said quietly.

Tamar rocked her tea mug. She wished she hadn’t lost her temper. It had taken her years to call this place home. At first, she’d always assumed she’d return to Israel eventually, but after that last visit, she had decided it was time to commit. She couldn’t live like that, torn between two places, didn’t want to end up like their mother, who had never let go of Tunisia, had never stopped talking about their family home on the little island of Djerba, pining for it the way she had longed for their father. Some nights, when their father was out, she’d play old Arabic love songs and sadness would wash over her, a longing for the place where she grew up, for her childhood.
Her accent became heavier, her gestures theatrical, sweeping. When Tamar and Naomi were little, she’d take their hands and dance with them around the living room, her hair down, her lips painted red. As teenagers, Tamar and Naomi avoided her when she started playing her crackly records, finding the whole ritual embarrassing, overly dramatic. Their mother danced alone, one hand wrapped around an imaginary lover, the other holding a glass of red wine she would nurse for the entire evening. Even after thirty years in Israel, their mother remained removed from Israeli culture, always a little critical of Israeli bluntness and informality. Only in her later days, with the second intifada, when suicide bombers blew themselves up not far from her home, did her mother start saying “us” and “them.” It took a threat to her life to make her feel as if she belonged. But even then, her nostalgia hadn’t faded. “The Arabs in Tunisia,” she’d say, “they were different. They were good people. They were our best friends.”

Naomi sat at the edge of the lounge chair. She looked defeated, and it sucked the anger out of Tamar.

“I left Ami,” Naomi said.

Tamar turned too fast and spilled some of her tea. “What? What did you just say?”

Naomi nodded.

“Oh my God, Naomi,” Tamar said. “But you guys have been married for what …”

“Fifteen years next month,” Naomi said.

Tamar scratched her head. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, is it final?”

Naomi gave a half-hearted shrug.

“But why? I mean, you were like the most solid couple I’ve ever known.”

“He cheated on me.”

“Ami? No way.”

Naomi shot a cold look at her. “Why is it so hard to believe?”

“Because he loves you. And he’s such a good guy. When did it happen?”

“A couple years ago.”

“So … why now?”

“Because I just found out.”

“So he was having an affair?”

“Well, no—”

“It was just one time?”

“Does that make it better?” Naomi glared.

Tamar bit her lip. “Well, sure. I mean, it’s still terrible of course, but …”

Naomi stood up and turned to walk away.

“Hey, hey.” Tamar grabbed Naomi’s wrist, pulled her in and embraced her. Naomi resisted but eventually gave in, standing sullen and stiff in Tamar’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” Tamar said.

Naomi let go, her body slowly relaxing. She began to cry.

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know,” Naomi said into her sister’s shirt. “Some Rona from Haifa.”

“Sounds like a slut to me,” Tamar said and Naomi laughed through her tears.

Tamar tucked her sister’s hair behind her ears and held her by the shoulders. “I know exactly what you need,” she said, and Naomi looked up with wet eyes, sniffling.

Tamar led Naomi to the kitchen, where she opened the cupboard, gazed into it and then grabbed a cup missing a handle.

Naomi’s face brightened. “No, Tamar. These are your dishes.”

“How about a plate?” Tamar swung another cupboard door open. “Here, this one is cracked anyway.”

“Seriously?” Naomi said. “But where?”

“We’ll find something.” Tamar stuffed another cup into her handbag.

Tamar circled the Co-op building
searching for a spot and her sister followed a step behind. Though there wasn’t a soul around, they slunk along the shadows, past the darkened café, the stacks of metal patio chairs chained to a wooden pole in the courtyard, looking like a giant centipede. Finally, Tamar stopped by a blank wooden wall, next to a row of green garbage bins piled with remnants of the day: rotten lettuce, damaged fruit, plastic bags. She offered Naomi a cup and jerked her chin.

Naomi looked at the wall. “This isn’t Mahane Yehuda Market,” she said. “People know you here.”

“People knew us there,” Tamar said.

Naomi fiddled with the cup, passing it between her hands. She gazed up at the wooden building, turned to look at the empty road behind her, the glowing ring beneath the lone street light.

“Come on,” Tamar said. “There’s no one here.”

Naomi tossed the cup at the wall, underhand, as if she were playing catch with a toddler. The cup glanced off the wall and plunked onto the pavement, unscathed.

“For God’s sake.” Tamar picked the cup up and handed it back to Naomi. “Imagine it was Ami’s favourite cup.”

Naomi breathed in deeply. She kissed the cup like a basketball
player before a foul shot and squinted to focus on her aim. She extended her arm behind her and wheezed as she flung it forward, working her entire body into the motion. The cup shattered into tiny pieces against the wall. Naomi laughed, covering her mouth with her palm.

Tamar pulled another cup from her handbag and Naomi snatched it from her hand. She took a step back and leaped as she smashed the cup against the wall. It exploded on impact, a fountain of pottery. The shards glittered on the pavement like ice. Naomi clapped. A car slowed down on the road, and Tamar and Naomi froze, waiting for it to pass.

“Okay, hurry up.” Tamar waved a plate in her direction.

Naomi threw the next two dishes quickly, one after the other. The car turned around and crept past the Co-op again, and Tamar and Naomi squatted behind a bush, giggling, giddy with the adrenalin. Naomi clutched Tamar’s hand. Tamar felt now as she had twenty years ago: proud that she knew how to make her sister feel better, take care of her, as though she were the elder of the two.

The car outside the Co-op drove off, and Tamar hurried to her truck, grabbed a brush and a dustpan and started sweeping up the shards. Naomi watched her, laughing. “I’m a member.” Tamar shrugged.

On the way back to her sister’s house,
Naomi watched the silvered moonlight rippling on the water, reflecting white and glossy on the large flat rocks along the beach. She looked up in awe: stars crowded the night sky, so much brighter than they were in Jerusalem.

Tamar turned into the driveway and stopped the truck. She
turned off the headlights, the backyard reclaimed by ghostly, bluish shadows. “So tell me,” she said as Naomi put her hand on the door handle. “Why don’t you like Carlos?”

Naomi sat back, giving her sister a startled glance. “I don’t not like him.”

“Come on.” Tamar lowered her chin.

“I like him fine,” Naomi said.

“He’s a good guy, amazing actually,” Tamar said. “I wish you’d give him a chance.”

Naomi stared at the forest at the end of the driveway. She hadn’t realized how transparent she’d been. “You know,” she said finally, “I think I had this image in my head of you and me, two single, carefree gals, going on road trips, picking up hitchhikers … I guess I just didn’t expect … this.”

Tamar chuckled. “Funny. Here I thought: maybe she’ll take me more seriously now that I’m finally in a proper relationship.”

“I’m sorry,” Naomi said. “I’m happy for you. I am.”

Tamar placed her hands on the steering wheel and squeezed. “He wants kids.”

“And how do you feel about it?” Naomi said carefully. She had always avoided talking about children with her sister. Tamar had made it clear in the past that she might not have children, that she didn’t appreciate the pressure, that she was aware of her ticking clock, thank you very much. “Israelis are obsessed with babies,” she had said. “Like it’s the only thing that matters.”