“You realize how insanely shameless it is of you to compare my stupid hookups at nightclubs to your ongoing affair with your colleague, right?” I asked, my almost-tears rising in my throat.
“Why is it so shameless?” Halimi asked icily.
“If I need to explain it to you, you must be even stupider than I thought!” I shouted.
“Shhh …” Halimi said with a look of rebuke and gestured with his head toward Lily’s bedroom.
“Don’t you shush me, you asshole,” I said in a lower voice. Halimi clicked his tongue, inhaled, and exhaled impatiently.
“First of all,” I said, resisting the desire to smack the teeth out of his head, “I told you about all of my exploits, and you even enjoyed it. It turned you on. And anyway, those were with total strangers who I never saw again. You have been lying to me for months! Months!” I said, my voice growing louder again. “And withwho? WithNina, who’s hot as fuck, who you claimed was a cold fish, and there was no chance of anything happening with her! Who you work with! Every day!” I shouted again and felt hot tears starting to slip from my eyes. I felt shame crying like that, out of control and spluttering. A strong woman would have simply kicked him out of the house without any explanation.
Halimi sat beside me and put his arm around me. “Ditush, my love, shhh, enough,” he said, trying to calm me down. It did not help. The licorice smell from the arak made me gag. I moved away from him and lit a cigarette with trembling hands.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this,” he said again. He watched me crying for several long seconds and finally said persuasively, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Truly. I didn’t mean for it to go on this long.”
“How could you?!” I asked again in a half scream. “Lie to me night after night?! Leave me with Lily and take that whore out on expensive dates? And all I get are your stupid selfies?!”
“What … why do you think I took her out for expensive dates?” He asked, his eyes inadvertently squinting at his damned phone.
“I don’t think, I know! I’ve been spying on you for weeks!” I told him with a taste of crushing defeat. “I know exactly how much time you spent at her place, at fancy restaurants, at new movies, at launches and parties. I know everything!” I blurtedeverythingout with great speed, felt sick, and stood up. I nearly said that something actually bothered me much more—the admiring gaze that he had taken from me and given to her. But you can’t beg for looks of admiration.
“I’m going to bed,” I said. “My head hurts like hell.”
He brought me the Advil and a glass of water in bed. I swallowed two pills, took a sip of water, and lay on my stomach. He lay beside me without touching me.
“You are like the scorpion in the fable about the scorpion and the frog,” I said to the dark space.
“My poor frog,” said Halimi, and I didn’t understand if he was mocking me or stupidly hoping to make me laugh.
“What are you smiling about?” asked Halimi. I lay on our sofa in Atlit and stared at the ceiling. He had gone grocery shopping and was putting things away in the refrigerator and pantry.
“No reason,” I replied dreamily and got up to help.
The truth was, I had spent all morning thinking about Jean and the day before: how we lay side by side beside the spring, listening to the burbling of the water; how Brunette lay down between us so naturally, her head on Jean’s thigh and her tail on my calf.
“Tell me something about yourself,” I said, my eyes wide, my head on his shoulder.
“What do you wish to know?” I heard him say, his voice sleepy and slow.
“Where you were born, where you grew up, how you met your wife,” I said without thinking. For a moment, I shocked myself—Why was I bringing his wife into our conversation?—but he just laughed.
He told me about the place where he grew up—his father’s castle in Beirut. When Jean was young, his older brothers served as squires for the nobles of the kingdom. His sister, Isabelle, was devoted and loving, if somewhat outlandish. He almost never saw his father, who was busy with the constant matters of the kingdom. His mother was delicate and generous but sickly and would spend her days in her rooms looking out atthe sea, without much involvement in her children’s lives. She died when Jean was ten.
He told me of the unique floor tiles in the Beirut castle’s main hall, how walking across them felt like stepping on gentle ripples. He told me of the great ceiling, painted to resemble a blue sky with fluffy clouds, of the marble fountain in the center of the main hall. He told me about the peacocks that stalked the courtyards, of the sea visible from the western wing, and the pastoral meadows from the eastern wing. His eyes glimmering, he added that he had sent a request to his brother Balian, the current Lord of Beirut, to send him expert builders to help him restore, with more modest means, his castle at Arsuf.
When he turned twelve, Jean was sent to serve as squire for his uncle Phillip, the regent of Cyprus, in the name of the child king Henry I of Cyprus. It was a wonderful time for him, he said. He reconnected with his brother, who was also serving in the region, trained endlessly in horseback riding and combat, and got up to lots of mischief with his peers. He continued his studies of Latin and Greek, delved into the Holy Scriptures (“as much as a youth can delve into the Holy Scriptures,” he admitted), and broadened his general education. When he was knighted at age fifteen, he returned to Beirut. His sister was in a crisis: Their father wanted to marry her to one of the kingdom’s noblemen, through which he sought to strengthen his ties. The man was rich, with resources and servants, but he was also an elderly widower. His only daughter was younger than Isabelle by about ten years.
“Isabelle was stubborn and rebellious,” Jean told me. “Maybe because she grew up as the only woman among all the men of the family, or because from a young age she managed the castle’s enormous household, or maybe because she acquired her education on her own, in my father’s large library. Indeed, she spent a short time as a young companion to our cousin Alice, Queen of Cyprus, but it seemed that this onlyenhanced her independence, and she was sent back to Beirut in disgrace. She did not consent to marry the Count of Haifa. She ran away from the house and became a nun. My father disinherited her, and nobody but me knows of her whereabouts.” Jean sighed and then turned to me. Despite my expression of empathy, he smiled. “Ultimately, my father got what he wanted, and that is how we arrive to your third question: I married the sole daughter of that same Count of Haifa, Alice.”
“So, it was an arranged marriage?” I asked, curious.
“I fail to understand your meaning,” said Jean.
“Did you meet her before you were wed?” I tried.
“Certainly,” Jean laughed. “We knew each other well. Her father is one of the most powerful men in Acre, and when my father fought the emperor’s men and founded the Acre commune, he was constantly aided by the Count of Haifa. I relayed many messages between them, which is how I got to know Alice. She was always one of the most intriguing of the young women that I met, and her dowry was among the handsomest in the kingdom.” Was it possible that I felt a twinge of jealousy? I shook my head, telling myself firmly,Don’t be stupid.
Jean turned to me and said, with restrained amusement in his voice, “And yourself, Lady Édith? Where were you born and raised? And how did you meet your husband?”
