Free Look for Me by Edeet Ravel

reincarnation? I do.”
    “I support the Palestinian struggle,” I told him.
    “Oh well,” he said. He didn’t care. He only cared about whether he was going to get anywhere with me. “This is romantic,” he said, “walking along the shore with you.”
    “It would be, if I knew you,” I said. “If I knew you and we were in love. Then it would be romantic. As it is, I can’t think of anything less romantic.”
    “We were destined to meet, it was preordained,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
    “How do I know you’re not a psychotic rapist?” I asked him.
    He paused, surprised. “I’m safe,” he said.
    “Do you have children?”
    “Yes, a son. I missed him while I was away. I’m glad to be back from reserve duty. He’s in kindergarten. A very naughty boy. Naughty, but clever. You know what he asked me the other day?”
    “No.”
    “Where is yesterday’s time? Is it gone, or is it in our thoughts? That’s what he asked. Isn’t that clever?”
    “Yes.”
    “It’s nice to be home.”
    “Where were you?”
    “In Dar al-Damar. I’m in a special unit.”
    “What do you do, in civilian life?”
    “I teach programming.”
    “You could be lying,” I said. “I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you. Maybe you just escaped from prison. Where you were serving time for killing your wife with a chain saw.”
    “I’ll show you my ID if that helps. My army ID too, if you want, I think it’s still in my pocket. I’d show you my business card but I don’t have my wallet on me—I just came to jog.”
    I laughed. He was very happy when I laughed.
    “Okay, show me your ID,” I said.
    He pulled his ID out of his pocket. His name was Aaron and he was forty years old. Then he showed me his army ID. He looked about eighteen in the photo.
    “Well, now that I’ve seen your ID and I even know your serial number, I guess you can come over.”
    “Thank you. You can trust me.”
    “I was just kidding.”
    “Why not? Why not? This is perfect—you, me, a perfect night.”
    “No,” I said.
    I didn’t say anything more. Aaron went on talking about how much he loved the sea, and then he talked about his son, but I wasn’t listening. He gave up and walked silently next to me.
    We reached the southern end of the beach. “I have to go now,” I told him. “It’s getting late.”
    “Do you have a boyfriend waiting for you?”
    “No, I live alone. Good-bye.”
    “Maybe I’ll run into you another time.”
    “Maybe,” I said. I climbed the stairs to the boardwalk and walked back to my flat.

    Daniel and I lived together for seven years and two months. Daniel designed buildings and I worked at an insurance office. I enjoyed my job: I typed letters in English, handled overseas phone calls, brought lunch for everyone, and watered the plants. The office was full of interesting exotic plants because our employer, a bald, friendly man who was, however, capable of ruthless decisions when it came to client claims, was an amateur horticulturist; he had taped instructions about eachplant to the wall and it was a compliment that he trusted me with their care. “I can count on you, Dana,” he used to say.
    In the evenings Daniel and I nearly always went out: to concerts, comedy shows, plays, lectures. We wore matching outfits and everywhere we went there were people we knew. We had friends who were artists and musicians, waiters and drifters, students and left-wing lawyers; we got together with them for dinner or at parties that lasted all night. Daniel invented our own private language, called Kamatzit, in which the syllables of words were all vocalized with a short a sound, in honor of my name.
    We tried to have a child, and I finally succeeded in getting pregnant, but I miscarried in my sixth month. Daniel was convinced that he had saved my life by harassing everyone in the hospital and insisting they take me in and look after me instead of letting nature take its course, as