Three by D. A. Mishani

Author:D. A. Mishani
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781487008239
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2020-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

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She does not think about her meeting with Gil until he calls her, and she even sees Nachum less now, because she is always at the home with Adina and Nachum is usually revealed to her only when she is alone.

Gil phones on a Tuesday evening, just after nine. A strange time. Adina is asleep and Emilia is just getting her bed ready. She answers in a whisper and takes the phone out to the hallway.

Gil asks how she is and apologizes for taking so long to get back to her. He also apologizes for not having good news. At first Emilia does not remember what he’s talking about. Her life has changed so much since she moved into the home that her previous life has been erased. Gil says he hasn’t given up completely but it doesn’t seem that he’ll be able to change her work permit without a formal request from the agency. If Emilia wants to take on extra work, she will have to do it without a permit. She doesn’t tell him that there’s no need any more—how can she tell him when he’s made such an effort for her? She even asks how much she owes him and hopes she can get hold of the sum.

He says there’s no need to pay because he was unsuccessful.

After a pause he says that even though there is still a small chance he’ll manage to change the permit, he wants to give her back the documents she left with him because she probably needs them. She suggests coming to his office when she has a morning off, but he says he’s in Bat Yam and can drop them off at her flat. She continues to lie, perhaps so that he doesn’t find out she’s already got a full-time job and his efforts were wasted, or perhaps for a different reason. She doesn’t tell him that she left her flat and moved into the home. When he asks if she can come down and meet him outside so he doesn’t have to find parking, she says yes, but that she isn’t at home now and can only get there in half an hour.

It is a surprising event, not yet understood, in a routine of days and nights that contain so few unexpected occurrences.

Emilia puts a white sweater on over her grey T-shirt because the evenings are cool. A moment before she leaves the room, Adina wakes up and calls her name, but Emilia manages to get her back to sleep quickly. She takes the route she used in the weeks when she walked from the nursing home to the flat. The grocery where she bought fruits and vegetables and bottled water is open and the shopkeeper is smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk outside, but the homeware shop is closed. The kitchen window where Emilia liked to sit is shuttered and the flat is dark, probably because it hasn’t been let, but the flat upstairs is lit and familiar sounds emerge from it.

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