“Surely it is magic for you too,” he said, knitting his brows together. “Or perhaps … such passageways like this are common where you come from?”
“Certainly not,” I murmured, still very close to him.
“I remember how you reacted when Thibaut and I clapped eyes on you for the first time. You were stunned and lost and spent. It was all new to you,” he continued, expecting confirmation.
“That’s right,” I murmured again. “But now I’ve traveled through time six or seven times. It really is unbelievable, but …” I looked around me. “I just accept it now. And it’s getting easier and easier. It’s even pleasant,” I said in wonderment, mostly to myself.
“Is it even pleasant to be in my company?” he asked, a smile on his lips.
“The passage,” I emphasized. “The transition has become easier and more pleasant. To be here … to spend time here … is like living in a fairy tale …” I said, my eyes never leaving Jean’s, ashamed of my uneven control of the language.
Jean took my hand and held it to his lips and then pulled me toward the checkered cloth. He produced a large knife and sliced the bread and cheese. We both ate ravenously. In between chewing and swallowing, Jean said, “I have not felt such an uplifting of spirits since I broke through the Lombard siege and reconquered my father’s castle in Beirut. Did you sense the same uplifting of spirits when first you returned to your own time, my lady?” I swallowed the lump of cheese in my mouth and admitted that I did not. “But I didn’t have anyone to swear to me that what happened was real. I thought I’d hallucinated everything.”
“Do not say such things, Lady Édith,” he said.
“I guess there will be no trip to Arsuf today. To Arsur, I mean,” I said.
Jean sighed. “I fear my strength fails me, and I will not make it there and back in a day. Moreover, it is getting late. It is not safe to bring you back so late at night.” He tightened his belt and said, “Why do you insist on calling it Arsuf, like the Greeks and the Saracens?”
“That’s what we call it where I come from,” I said. “There’s a neighborhood there, an upper-class one, and of course the Apollonia National Park. I was there not long ago,” I continued. I wondered whether the fortress ruins I saw in the National Park were the same ruins that Jean was now renovating. Perhaps these were ruins from a later period, but the thought I had visited Jean’s home without knowing it gave me goose bumps.
“Were you really there? Does it still exist? Eight hundred years from now? By the Good Lord, this is unbelievable. Is my castle still standing?” Jean asked with passion.
“There are ruins …” I replied recklessly and immediately regretted it, because his face fell. “They are beautifully preserved!” I added contritely. “I had a very special feeling there, particularly when I stood by a certain window, which was arched and big and faced the sea …” I was trying to remedy the situation. It was true. I had lingered for a long time by that window, as the voices of my own family grew fainter and fainter.
“This game is dangerous,mais oui?” Jean murmured. His shoulders slumped. “I have a deep urge to know everything, to ask you what has happened in the meanwhile, how the kingdom developed, but …” It was now Jean’s turn to swallow hard. “Ruins, you say?” He shook his head sadly. “Perhaps it is better not to know.”
“In any case, no one lives in castles or fortresses anymore,” I said soothingly. “At least not here, in Israel.” As I uttered these words, I pictured the residential skyscrapers of Tel Aviv where the wealthy live, with security guards in spacious lobbies and janitors and housekeepers … This was not the time to go over the finer points, I decided.
“Israel?” he asked in a whisper. He looked as though he were having another dizzy spell. Jean steadied himself with one hand. “What in hell do you mean?”
I froze with fear. Was now the right time for me to discover that he was a bloodthirsty Crusader and a hater of Jews? I grabbed my bag, groped around inside it for Lily’s ten-agorot coin, and held it between my fingers. I edged myself over toward the spring, poised to lunge if necessary.
“I’m a citizen of the State of Israel, the Jewish state,” I said in a trembling voice. Jean shook his head in misunderstanding. “The Jewish kingdom,” I elucidated.
When I uttered the words “Jewish kingdom,” Jean clapped one hand to his mouth and began shaking all over. It took me a few seconds to realizethat he was laughing uproariously. I guess the very idea sounded absurd to him. His laughter was so contagious, I couldn’t help laughing too.
When the laughter subsided, we dried our eyes and moved toward each other. Jean leaned against the tree trunk, and I nestled in his arms. I looked up, and the leaves on the tree appeared golden in the sun, which was gradually reaching the horizon.
Jean kissed my head and breathed in the scent of my hair. “You have such a sweet perfume about you, Lady Édith. As if you bathed in aromatic oils for two long days.” I nestled deeper into his arms and turned to face him.
His lips were as magnetic as the whirlpool in my dream. I held onto them with a kiss. He kissed me back, and we didn’t let go.
“Is spouse breach common where you come from?” Jean asked, running his hand over my cheekbones. “Quite common,” I answered him, my eyes closed.
CHAPTER 14
I could hardly think straight when I left Zozo’s place. As the taxi took me to Nachmani Street, my heart beat so hard, I felt like I might faint.What are you so afraid of?I asked myself, even mumbling it under my breath in the taxi.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window.I’m afraid that I am about to discover that it’s all true.If, up until now, in some firm if forsaken corner of my consciousness I was able to hope that maybe all of this was my own misinterpretation—he really does work long hours; they see each other every day, so their texting is seasoned with an extensive private lexicon; maybe theyflirt a lot but aren’t having an affair—now I was about to find out for certain that this was not the case. I would humiliate him by exposing his lies and, as a result, humiliate myself too—and who knows if we would ever recover.
I paid the driver and got out of the taxi. The windows, which had been lit up earlier, were now dark. I pulled my phone out of my bag and opened all of Nina’s profiles. No update since that last one on Instagram, with the “dubious creatures.” A WhatsApp notification from Halimi appeared on the screen. “Ditush, I’m home. Letting Libby go.”
I got home earlier than I expected. After returning from the spring, I wandered around on foot for another hour. Dusk seemed to last forever; my legs transported me among the ruins of the Narrow Passage, down the quarried road and back until I was at my car, parked in front of the stone with the Phoenician inscription.
All the while, I felt as though I were under the influence of some intoxicant, but I was calm and light, “like a fairy,” I said softly to myself. I picked some flowers and leaves from bushes that I saw on my way. I had no aim or need to be anywhere. I recalled each of Jean’s gestures—how he swung me in the air, how he sliced the bread and cheese, how he wrapped his arms around me. I’m sure half the time I was walking, I had a goofy smile on my face. I stopped before the book-sized puddle by the carob tree. It had not dried up yet. I placed my little bouquet of flowers in it, and in the dim light of dusk, a few of the flowers swirled around and sank deep, out of sight.
I leaned against the car, and for the first time in many long months, I felt the absence of a smartphone. I had a physical urge to search for some mention of Jean online, to see if history had recorded anything about him. I got into the car and drove home.
