He spoke his son’s name, but his gaze didn’t leave me. Yoav hurried down a few steps ahead of me, as if to intercept any conclusion his father might draw, or preempt it by a few quick strokes in a private language. Weisz took Yoav’s face in his hands and kissed his cheeks. The emotion in it struck me; I’d never seen my own father kiss a man, even his own brother. Weisz spoke quietly to Yoav in Hebrew, turning back to glance at me—something to the effect of having intruded on something, I assumed, because Yoav hurried to deny it, shaking his head. As if to atone for this grievous misunderstanding, he helped his father off with his coat and took him gently by the arm to guide him further into the house. During all of this, Leah stood off to the side, as if to make clear that this little unfortunate incident, this mistake standing awkwardly in untucked shirt and sneakers on the stairs, involved her not at all.
This is Isabel, a friend from Oxford, Yoav said when they’d arrived at the stairs, and for a moment I thought he might keep walking, leading his father away down the hall, as though there were a houseful of guests to introduce him to, and I, by chance, the first. But Weisz let go of Yoav’s arm and stopped in front of me. Not knowing what else to do, I stepped down off the stairs like some sort of clumsy debutante.
It’s so nice to meet you at last, I said. Yoav has told me a lot about you. Weisz winced and took me in with his eyes. My stomach contracted in the silence. And yet he has told me nothing at all about you, he said. Then he smiled, or rather lifted ever so slightly the corners of his mouth in an expression that could have been either kind or ironic. My children tell me so little about their friends, he said. I glanced at Yoav, but the man who only minutes before had been fucking me with such force had been transformed into something meek, subdued, almost childlike. With slumped shoulders he studied the buttons of his father’s coat.
I was just leaving to catch a bus back to Oxford, I said. At this hour? Weisz raised his eyebrows. It’s pouring out. I’m sure my son would be kind enough to make up a bed for you, won’t you, Yoav? he said, without taking his eyes off of me. Thank you, but I really should be going, I said, because by now I’d lost all interest in sticking around to take a stand. In fact, I had to suppress the instinct to flee past Weisz and out the door, back into the world of streetlamps, cars, and London crosswalks in the rain. I have an appointment tomorrow morning, I lied. You’ll take an early bus, Weisz said. I glanced at Yoav for help, or at least some guidance as to how to extricate myself without causing offense. But he avoided my eyes. Leah was also absorbed in staring at something on the cuff of her shirt. It really isn’t any trouble to go tonight, I said, but weakly, perhaps, because by now I worried that to continue to protest might seem rude, and because I had begun to sense just how difficult it was to refuse their father.
We sat in the living room—Yoav and I each in a high-backed chair, and Weisz on a pale silk sofa. The walking stick with the silver handle, a ram’s head with curled horns, rested on the cushion beside him. Yoav’s gaze remained fixed on his father, as if being in his presence demanded all of his focus and concentration. Weisz presented Leah with a box tied in ribbon. When she opened it, a silvery dress fell out. Try it, Weisz insisted. She carried it off draped over her arm. When she returned, transformed into something lithe that shimmered and reflected light, she was carrying a tray with a glass of orange juice and bowl of soup for her father. You like it? Weisz demanded. Eh, Yoav? Doesn’t she look beautiful? Leah smiled thinly and kissed her father’s cheek, but I knew she would never wear it, that it would be relegated to the back of her closet with all of the other dresses her father had bought. It struck me as strange that, with everything Weisz seemed to know about his daughter’s life,