interest, and reported on the direction I thought I was taking. Carry on then, he said, and an image came to me of him perched on one of his stacks of books, bald head tucked into his robe like a sleeping vulture’s. Some days I set out intending to go to the library, but when I reached the Tube station something in me couldn’t steel myself for the long descent in the elevator with the other rush-hour travelers to the cavernous depths of the Northern Line, and so I would continue on my way, buying breakfast at one of the small shops on the High Street, and passing time browsing in Waterstone’s or the narrow aisles of the secondhand bookshop on Flask Walk until quarter after eleven, when I would begin to make my way down Fitzjohns Avenue. The Freud Museum opened at noon. I was often the only person there, and the docents and the woman who ran the museum shop always seemed glad to see me, and would withdraw from whatever room I was in so that I would be left alone to linger in peace.
Afternoons in Belsize Park, Yoav and I, and often Leah, would go to the movies, sometimes seeing two back-to-back, or sitting for the same movie twice. Or we would walk on the Heath. Every once in a while we would go on some expedition—to the National Gallery, or Richmond Park, or to see a play at the Almeida. But we spent most of our time in the house, which drew us back with a force I can’t quite explain except to say that it was our world, and we were happy there. At night we either watched rented movies, or read while Leah practiced, and often, once it got late enough, we would open a bottle of wine and Yoav would read aloud to me from Bialik, Amichai, Kaniuk, Alterman. I loved listening to him read in Hebrew, to hear him exist so vividly in his native language. And maybe because in those moments, I was relieved of the effort of struggling to understand him.
I, at least, was happy there. One morning as I was getting dressed in the dark, Yoav reached out from under the covers and pulled me back. You, he said. I lay down next to him and stroked his face. Let’s run away, he said. To where? I asked. I don’t know. Istanbul? Caracas? And what will we do? Yoav closed his eyes and thought. We’ll have a juice stand. A what? Juice, he said. We’ll sell fresh juice. Whatever people want. Papaya, mango, coconut. I knew he was joking, but there was a pleading look in his eyes. They have coconuts in Istanbul? I asked. We’ll import them, he said. It’ll be a huge craze. People will line up down the street. The whole city will go crazy for our coconut juice, I said. Yes, he said, and in the afternoon, after we’ve sold all the coconut juice we feel like selling, we’ll go back to our place, all sticky and happy, and we’ll make love for hours, and then we’ll get all dressed up, you in a white dress and me in a white suit, and we’ll go out, all glowing, and ride all night up and down the Bosporus in a glass-bottom boat. What can you see at the bottom of the Bosporus? I asked. Suicides, poets, houses swept away by storms, he said. I don’t want to see any suicides, I said. All right, so then come with me to Brussels. Why Brussels? Orders from above, he said. What? I asked. El Jefe, he said. Your father? That’s the one. Seriously? I asked. Have you ever known me not to be serious? he said, pulling down my underwear and disappearing below the covers.
From time to time their father asked Yoav or Leah to assist him with some small aspect of his work—to show a client a piece, to travel somewhere to pick up something he’d acquired, or to attend an auction on his behalf. It was the first time Yoav had asked me to accompany him, and I took it as a sign that something important had changed between us. For the first time I was being trusted to take part in some private aspect of the family’s affairs. We took the car, a black 1974 Citroën DS. Turning the ignition, you had to wait a moment while the hydraulic pump kicked in and lifted