Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,71

Schwebel continued, “do you hate yourself? Because that’s the only reason why I could see picking a side against your own. My guess is that you do. You hate yourself. You must, or else why would you go against your own people?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I do hate myself. But I know it’s more complicated than that. I just—I want to know what is right, what is the truth about that part of the world. I feel like I have never known the truth.”

“Do you hate our family? Do you hate us?”

“Of course not,” I said. “Of course I don’t hate your family. I really love being here. I’m grateful to be here. I love your cooking and the way that this house feels and the way that you welcomed me as a Jew.”

“Maybe that was foolish of us,” she said. “To have welcomed you with such open arms. You take the welcome you receive for granted. You think that Israel is just an idea that you can toy with and play with. But you don’t know what it was like before it existed, when there was nowhere, no homeland for the Jews. What do you think it was like then? No, I think you must hate yourself—and more than that, you must hate us.”

“I don’t,” I said. “It’s not true. I don’t hate you.”

I took a deep breath. Then I put my hand on top of Miriam’s, the one that was bleeding.

“I’ve liked you since the first day I met you,” I said, looking Mrs. Schwebel right in the eye.

Miriam pulled her hand out from under mine. I immediately felt sorry I had done it.

This was not what I had planned. I was being brave, but it wasn’t for me to be brave. I was being brave with someone else’s family, someone else’s territory, not my own. I was laying claim to someone who did not want to be claimed. I was being brave on false terms. I’d never once told my own mother anything about Miriam.

“I think you should leave,” said Mrs. Schwebel.

“Please,” I said. “Please, I’m sorry.”

I felt like I was going to cry. Miriam didn’t say a word in my defense, but I don’t know what I would have expected her to say. If I were in her position, I don’t know what I would’ve done. Mr. Schwebel got up from the table. Ayala followed him into the kitchen.

“You’ve ruined Shabbat,” said Mrs. Schwebel. “I’m asking you again, nicely, to please leave.”

Miriam finally met my eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to her, then looked down at my hands.

A tiny smear of blood, the size of an eyelash, had transferred from her finger to my palm.

“Just go,” she said.

CHAPTER 64

On the way home from the Schwebels’, I passed a barbershop. I slowed down my car and looked in the window. Then I parked and got out.

“I want a very short haircut,” I said to the barbers.

There were two of them, both handsome, with dark hair and eyes. One was tall with a muscular chest under a very low-cut black V-neck T-shirt. The other was just a few inches bigger than me with scruffy hair and a headband like a soccer player might wear. They smelled strongly of cologne, something with patchouli in it.

“Nooooo,” said V-neck. “You’re crazy! You’re so pretty as you are.”

“Just a trim, that’s it,” said the soccer player.

“Do you want my business or don’t you?” I asked.

V-neck sniffed and cleared his throat.

“Well, then,” he said. “Sit down.”

He pointed to the barber chair in front of him and snapped his scissors twice.

“So what kind of cut are you looking for exactly?”

“Not like yours,” I said.

He had a Caesar-looking thing, cut very short and combed forward into a bangs situation. He didn’t crack a smile.

“Do you want me to leave it a little long?” he asked. “Let’s do a lob. That’s a long bob; it’s very trendy.”

“No,” I said.

I pulled up a photo of the two remaining Beastie Boys on my phone and pointed to Ad-Rock.

“Can you do that?” I asked.

I imagined Miriam grabbing me by the back of my head, the way a rough buzz would feel in her fingers. I pictured her guiding me by the ears down to her cunt, then tousling my forelock as I licked.

“Of course I can do that,” he said.

He didn’t move.

“Okay,” I said. “So do that.”

I closed my eyes and felt him moving his hands through my hair, then parting it on the right and combing