Well in the most astounding silence the day sleeps away.... I contemplate with fascination my newborn calm, it's like I really know what I'm doing, I know where I'm going to, I know what I'm going to do and when I'm going to return and to whence.. well it's written in the Bible in the end, isn't it? So I shouldn't be surprised.
My drunkenness sleeps away too, and I imagine myself in the most awkward situations life can bring me to, as if I hadn't had enough of those already. It's been quite a pleasure to be home alone, with Isobel, embraced to myself. The wife is long gone as we all know, she left with the morning train, with her suitcase she came, with no suitcase she left. That's the only difference between my story and Theresa's. The stubborn wife of the journalist was never invited, was never called for... she built herself in ellucidations from sand, and just like sand vanished in the waters, vanished in the wind. I proved to be made of something else, hence I was able to walk on the water embracing Aurora like a little tiny piece of feather, delicate and shy. Isobel and me were made of something else, not of our books and our old stories, not of indigo and Blues. Isobel and me are made of nothing but timeless things. The days that there were, will never be again.
In the course of two years I had probably never been so secure about my rightdoings and wrongdoings, in spite the insecurities and uncertainties of the future in that place where I'm heading towards, far from the splendor of Rehavia, far from the charm of the Old City, far from Jerusalem of Gold and Kinneret. Even so I'm very secure, self-assured to follow the course of things. Once I reached the end of the Ocean I realized it's not the end what matters but the way, for everything in this life is a process and the process is never ending, one of the most marvellous and exciting qualities of existence, it's called the "come about", if you could wear my shoes and cover yourself with my thin and warm silk-weary skin you would taste one of the greatest victories humanity can delight itself on. The victory of the grown up man who once way beyond the Ocean returns to the stream, for one day he hopes to be big enough to outreach the river. That's what I'm doing today, life and me are even for the first time ever. Life and me are not fighting, and just like the wife and me stopped fighting without going anywhere, life and me are not fighting anymore; for I'm no justice maker.
As the song goes "To return to your seventeenth, after you've lived a century.... it's like deciphering symbols, without being competent wizzard.... ", I can't defy time, not even being Isobel, married to myself, not even in my wisdom and in my elevated understanding of the natural rules that govern this world, not even in my glory and in my sublime position, not even there I can defy time, for he knows what he's got to take and when he's got to take it. I'm still in the beginning of the way and there's a long road for me to go, and even when I've been through half the road I've opted for a return, for rehearsal, for a take-back.
Today I'll sleep in myself, I'll sleep in my only love, Isobel. Despite her courageous attempts to jump into the world of the unknown and take over, to bring heavy suitcases and coffee cups, despite her friendship with the wife and Elliot, despite herself even.... Isobel shall return, for it is her fate and each period and step in life must be taken at its time. Isobel is no woman of different men, she's simply woman of no man. In her savage beauty admired by most and enjoyed by no more than few, in her savage beauty she can counsel herself. She can always comfort herself.
Isobel is probably one of the oldest creatures ever existing in the forest, and her existence has been testified by different generations of knights and burglars, who unsuccessfully attempted to touch her silk-weary skin, that silk-weary skin I wear in my own private nudity, that silk-weary skin I embrace myself with in the moments of cold, for there's no further counsel. Yet even being Isobel, even skipping a hundred years in your life and even after being beyond the Oceans, and having reached the highnesses of the gods. Even there, there's a need to return. Isobel still married to herself, to her books, to her obsessions, Isobel unmarried herself from the wife, unmarried herself from the journalist. Isobel and Ari walk today on the same path, waiting for a plane that will take them back to the root of this wisdom, to the wet ground, to the heavy smell of the morning breeze and the frozen humidity of the forest, their home....
For if even in the desert they found their nitch and home, is the forest where they belong....
Isobel, our beautiful Isobel.... in her silence, in her crawling, in her weightfulness.... that's me Isobel. In silence crawling down, curdling up into her own darkness, sinking into the night without repair. Just when near the end of the sailing I must return and say "my journey starts here".
I still make the table and set the china, and serve tea for all of us. For you're still welcome home, we're not blank pages in the life of Isobel, we're her odes, we're her navigation maps, we're her directions, we're her confirmation of the heavenly purpose of her wandering. We're little airport signals. We all sit by the table.
Today Tel Aviv, tomorrow Reykjavik.... does in matter in the end of the day? I certainly doubt it, I'm just bitterly happy that there's more than one Isobel left in this forest, and that I've had the chance to see one from close, to look into her eyes and to touch her delicate lips of paper and her watery tight and firm skin. And even when she's not meant to be loved, for she can't be married to anyone but herself, even so.... she's meant to be known, at least once in your life you have to stumble with one Isobel.
I think I had my turn, just like Ofer did. But it's time to let Isobel return, to let Isobel fly and to let Isobel hide. One day, in the aftermath of things, in the postend, one day... Isobel will return, we'll live in Rehavia, we'll drink coffee in the morning, she'll teach the Classics and read newspapers, and no... Isobel will not the wife of a journalist, neither the wife of anyone else. Isobel will be simply Isobel just like Ari is simply Ari and Ofer is simply Ofer. Isobel will be just herself, just not with herself.... and one day between Wordsworth and Elliot, between Acropolis and Pergamo... Aurora will filter with her rays into Isobel's window just like she did this morning in mine, she and Isobel will embrace each other and dance walking on the water - for they are not meant to meet more than a few times in a lifetime, and then and only then Isobel will find a man who will marry her and will marry herself. Isobel will stop being a self-obsessed artist, center of your universe.
And a few times on the way probably we'll meet, for it's always a pleasure to enjoy the sad beauty of the Isobel, the youngest of creatures and the oldest of souls.
This is not a conclusive story, for in the symphonies and operas of life there's no black and white, it's just a little ode to Isobel. From now we'll go on this way, back and forth forever. Just like "someone" told me, "once you've crossed certain borders you just can't step back". I feel tempted to change his name, for it doesn't make as much history as Isobel, and even Ari do. Hereinafter his name will be.... his name will be something else. Shall he be named Liam or Yaakov? For I have a people but I also have a tribe, a state of mind where my journey ends, where ends make ends meet.
No, actually I have an idea. His name will be Roe. Roe is his name, just like Yaakov became Israel. His name will be Roe, the young deer.
"And God said unto him, Thy name is Yaakov: thy name shall not be called anymore Yaakov, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel"
The writer
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