To America and Back Read online

After a week Humik phoned to his mother, and this time for requesting a loan from her.

  “Not as a present, Mom…My money had gone on many things”, he said, “You request an example? I had met a girl. Going out with her costs a lot. We musicals on the Broadway and watch films and plan to go go to Carnegy Hall and to the theatre. What more should I let you know?”

  He repeated to her, that he had already used most of the money that he had brought to NY; he would keep a sum also for Registration to the Course that he had told her about.

  “That’s the only beneficial thing you’d be doing there in NY,” said Ramona, “You are spending too much, I don’t want to say on what more…Here, in LA –you could get a parallel course for studying what youv’e mentioned. And much cheaper, I’m sure.”

  “Mom, I am adamant to stay in New York. I have my friends here – and

  better for me to be far from home. That’s my individual truth. I’m a grown up.”

  “Who is that girl, may I know? A Shikcaa?(non Jewish)”

  “No, an Israeli,” he said.

  “Well. And are you working already with Mike?”

  “Yes,” he answered, “We are just carriers of bagages, but my earning is hardly enough for living. Therefore I bother your mind and hand.”

  At that point of time the third guy in their room, Shlomik, had already left it, because his forty years woman-friend got her official divorce. The room she had been living with her ex - now was remaining at her disposal. So – now Humik and Mike became well arranged in Mike’s room, everyone sleeping on a separate good bed.

  “O’key,” said Ramona, after Humik had informed her also about his improved dwelling, “I’ll persuade Solomon to send you three hundred Dollars.”

  Humik was outrageous. His mother wanted to punish him by throwing the ball to Solomon- so he thought. She could have sent him ten Thousnad bucks, had she wanted. He knew that she was having her own money account in the bank.

  “If you return to LA- you’ll get as much as you want.” she added at the end of their discussion “Yes, I am telling you that we want to control you. Your behavior seems problematic to us, O.K.? We are still your parents.”

  “Mom,” he said, “don’t you believe, that I’m already in debts?”

  “That girl robs you, or what? What is she doing in her life? a high school girl? or a little secretary? ”

  “She is going to study piano music in Manhatten. It’s a kind of Academy. She’s also a singer, esarning here some money- before she would begin her studies.”

  “You are a very young, Nahumik,” said Ramona, “what have you found in an Halturist girl, that would be a piano accompanist? Or a guitarist, or a jaz singer in a snack bar or whores club… She is twenty, you said? And she has not joined the army? Why? Having some physical or mental problem?”

  “Mother, enough with your follies, I’m not marrying this girl.”

  Now a man’s voice was heard on Humik’s phone. It was Solomon Kaplansky.

  “It seems to you that she is twenty,” he said, “But she is twenty three- surely. You don’t know young women today. After having passed the age of twenty, they begin to fake their age. beware of involving yourself with pushing your nose into a girl’s pregnancy.”

  “She is not faking her age, nor having any grave physical or psychological ailment,” said Humik.

  “So- how did she avoid serving in the army?” asked Kaplasky, who interfered in the phone call as a self understandable matter, “Had she sworn that she is very religious? You know that a girl who would declare that, can easily get a letter from a dirty Rabbi in Israel- and would immediately be exempted from army service.”

  “Think very well if she is worth while,” added Ramona - on the line, “Why waste your time with a girl, who is not fit for your age and for. . . your personality.”

  “What are you both talking about?” asked Humik, “She is even not a traditional Jewish. She is atheistic. She has nothing with religion, and you frighten yourselves in vain. What’s wrong with having just a friendly relationship with an Israeli girl here? I don’t have to investigate any of her past’s steps, O’key? what’s the problem? She is ready to talk with me about Israel and about life in general, and likes music for sure…We even. . . haven’t kissed yet.”

  “You are very enthusiastic not only to kiss her,” said Ramona. He almost banged the phone apparatus, but then cooled himself.

  “Mom, don’t you know that in Israel - couples are also going out without any intention to be… married, or be engaged?”

  “We know everything,” said his mother, “But you –should be aware of entanglement, as Solomon has just told you. Cool your temper and impetus, and erase your enthusiasm.”

  “O’key,” said Humik. “So, please send me by the mail- a check of seven hundred Dollars.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, “Now tell me about the Course for the ads and promotion and so on…”

  “Look, son Humik,” said Kaplansky, who was still on the line, ”I’ll add two hundred to your mother’s amount. If you are decisive to stay there- only don’t bring shame on us. And don’t work too hard in the carriers’ effort. You can break your neck. Bye- kid!”

  Humik visited several times in ‘the extended Bar’, where Tamy and Semadar were singing. Semadar had found also an ex-Israeli boyfriend, but her dating with him broke down after five nights. She and Tamy were using their original repertoire, that they had brought from home, adding to it only one song from ‘Annie Oakley’ Musical. (‘What you do- I can do better’ etc.).Humik applauded them frequently, to cause the audience join suit. Sometime he would shout a word or two, like bravo Tamy, or Yofee(=fine in Hebrew) for excelling their singing. Twice he approached the small stage for delivering roses to both singers. He had bought the flowers in the street corner. For the coming nights he had already bought a black suit. His aim was, that the audience in that particular Show Event, he would be though to be as the singers’ important ‘impersario’ (so they had called in Israel - a dealer or agent of artists, actors and musicians, at that time).

  One evening he paid attention to two girls from the audience, were sitting in the first row. They were chatting about who was the handsome guy, dressed with a suit, that was chatting with the singers in the timebreak between classical Rssian-Israeli songs- and Jewish Yiddish songs.

  “He is a sweetheart, or a manger. He isn’t just a friend of these singers, you know,” said one of the girls.

  “I don’t find anything attractive in these girls’ shapes. They have no special ‘shic’- like the French say, nor any social or sex appeal.”

  After the Show, Humik would go out with Tamy to a bar or Café, or just simply stroll with her along the streets. In Saturdays’ noons they were travelling in Central Park. There came their first kiss. It was in public, like many other couples were doing. The summer was bringing warm streams of wind from between the sky scrappers. Humik and Tamy discerned many loving couples, including Homosexual, walking while ‘interweaving their fingers’ – and Tamy had refused to have a second look at the kissing males. She said that she had just been afraid from any relationship, “which was a deviation from the natural way of behavior; you understand what I mean by that.”

  Humik was excited from the innocence and sincerity of her words. ‘But perhaps her whole personality is just given in an unexplained fear from talking about controversial matters…I myself, being long years in the States, am ready to talk about real subjects and true facts of life, that she tries to hide, or to delay knowing about.’

  Slowly slowly they were coming together to physical touch. He was almost sure she had no experience with a man before, but didn’t tell her, nor did he ask her about that. Once Tamy had permitted him to enter the room, which she was hiring with Semadar. At that particular night the two singers had no show, and Tamy knew that Semadar was driving to New Jersey with a boasting new Israeli, who had approached her after one of the recent Shows. The chap wanted
to impress Semadar by his ‘Gigantic Show Room for GM cars’, that had been a part of his agency’s office…

  Tamy permitted Humik to undress her upper body, and kiss everything exposed: breasts, neck, ears, back. He was licking and kissing and begging a ‘further undress’ but she was as locked in her underpants and her forceful fingers removed his fingers from “reaching my precious article”- as she told him with a smile.

  “I would not principally oppose to lie with a guy before marriage. But that is a mental-rational thinking… psychically – my body and mind oppose that…in this phase of our relationship…”

  “I understand. You can’t surrender to lose your virginity,” he said, trying to be thought as mature and considerate and motives’ analyser; though he did not know if what he had just said and guessed - was true.

  “In fact,” she added, “We have generally talked about all that - two weeks ago, haven’t we?”

  “Ye-ss. . .I appreciate your position,” said Humik. “I haven’t counted how many young unmarried couples deal with that same problem of full sex or partial sex…They surely hold unending discussions about that. Somehow it is solved. Words draw a man and a woman close to each other, as well as separate them. Who knows?. . Now - listen to my crazy sentence, Tamy: ‘My fingers’ touch the sensitive strings inside your soul. . .and you’re afraid of that’…Is this musical sexy parable true- regarding you, my love?”

  “I repeat,” she said very solemnly, “If you’re not satisfied with my behavior, I am sorry.”

  He whispered enthusiastically: “Just let me try again to lick your neck and then your spinal column. Please, I’ve just found the most sensitive point in your nerves system. You’ve leaped and moaned from bliss, I heard that. Your desire has come up to the utmost level, so . . “

  His fingers tried again to reach her green underwears and he heard her lips mumbling again,”No no no.”

  He rose up to his knees and said decisively: ”Well, I must accept the fact of your ‘down barriers’.”

  He got to her back and lied near her taller body than his, and began licking her spinal column, like he had asked to do that before. He knew she had enjoyed that. She was silent, but just at that moment her consciousness told her: ‘he only had claimed to understand me and accept my rules of the game. It’s characteristic to any normal male.’

  “I know that a male wants to penetrate,” she now told Humik,“I had learned that from my short experience with men, and from reading. I want to tell you, Humik, what I do think about youngsters like you… Though you’ll claim to be an extraordinay and special and unique, O’key?.. Most of young men are short distance runners. A guy would fake pure love very easily, even so young and still not corrupt- like yourself. Yes, your intentions are pure. Don’t be insulted. Things like what I have just said- are so told and taught in so many sex books I’ve read. The males of all animals are the attackers and aggressive ones. I know and understand those natural qualities and zoologic principles. It’s not easy for me with you, Humik. I see that you’re really excited and enthusiastic also about my personality, so you name it, not only about my physical body. But you’re only like a boy, who touches the wheelbar of a new nice car- and worships its performances. . .Now I see you’ve become silent, meditating like me- about the continuation of our relationship…So, you are permitted to stop all that, dear Humik…” She took a breath after that long speech. Then added: “Poofff, I won’t be angry nor vindictive. I am new in the States. Maybe here - all happens in a quick tempo, which is different from that of a far country, like Israel or Korea or Japan or Australia. It’s become on me too quickly, awfully speedy – all this...”

  “I see: You can’t lie with me. Or - you prefer not to.”

  “Right. And I appreciate your saying, that you don’t condemn me in having illusioned you.”

  “Of course not,” he laughed bitterly, “let’s finish that banal discussion.” She turned her face from him, and he saw her covering her breast by her palms. They kissed longly and she became seated on the bed beside him, not touching him any more.

  “Well, after you know that I’ll not be completely yours, and that neither of us would be able to be completely relaxed and calmed. . . I mean: you understand that you are… causing me tension. . .Why do I talk to you by mumbling? Oh, I am such an unstable kind of a young woman. D’you agree to my definition regarding myself?”

  “I forgive you, though you have not sinned.” Humik laughed indignantly.

  “I will begin to study in a few months,” she murmured, “I will have to devote myself to …I had planned to tell you that. But if I can’t fail… I can’t fail…If it will happen.- so let it be.”

  He tried to understand why she had spoken about that suddenly, and she was attacked by a laughter, which he explained as her confusion from her refusal to have a full intercourse with him.

  “Where will you live, while studying?” he asked, rising from the bed and began dressing, “Have you already hired a room?”

  “Yes, I’ll be living with an old Jewish woman, whose late husband had bought her a piano. I’ll also do some service works for her. But she is not a cripple, and it’s an antertainment for me to talk with her. My Pa found her, through old friends in New York.”

  She rose also from the bed and he looked at her nice breasts and exposed feet. One was a little bit wider in shape than the other. ‘It is because I know about her slight limping’, he told himself, ‘that I clearly discern that., But it does not diminish her nice figure…Maybe this limp has caused her dismissal from the Israeli army...’

  He met Tamy on the following night. She was waiting for him in the entry of her room’s building. When she saw him approaching, she ran toward him, and he saw her sudden shining face. He did not ask why, and they gave hands and were striding toward the central park. They were kissing there, and she felt his hard plevis on her side. She was leaning on him and he felt her knee pressure on his testicles, and her breasts sticking to

  his chest. Her eyes were beaming straightly and approaching his eyes, and they both opened their lips and her tongue was already deep in his mouth, till he felt choked.

  ‘What the hell had deviled her strange covetousness on me?’ he asked himself, ‘such a heat is signalling of her sudden devilish lust. I have to lead her this time without embarrassment, like a mature man who knows what he wants. I will capture her and dominant behavior will let her know that.’

  “I am wet…my lustful selfishness… you have my cave for shelter, shelter in me no more. Yours completey…” she murmured.

  Humik did not react to her confused words. He wondered, and explained to himself that her mumbling had been due to her sudden alert, being aware not to waste their time any more, as she could not restrain herself. She had reached a decision to succumb her body to his manly desire, that overwhelmed her veiled-masked-hesitating desire to get him into her…

  ‘I won’t philosophize why and what had broken her heart to take that step. But I feel her distended nipples thru her trico shirt, and see that she is now throwing out her bra on the grass, and embrace me more and more tightly…Oh, she opens my pants, as she would like to have me in just now here in the park.’

  “Not here,” he whispered, “I am shy enough not to do that in a park that may bring violent gangs on us. We should lie on a comfortable bed like grown ups, who wish to enjoy the best,” he said succicctly.

  She sent her palm between his legs and felt his manifested cock, and said very decisively:

  “So, why don’t you carry me already on your arms? But only to your room, because Semadar has been stuck in our hired room. She had a bad scene with her new boyfriend, and they departed very soon. She‘ll remain in our room tonight, to write letters and read. She asked me to go out with you to some movie. ..

  “Let’s get to my room,” he said, “My roommate Mike is away.”

  “I will devote my body to you there. Yes, I want. I’ll have full sex with… w
ith you this time. Not with a piano. Not on the moon, nor in paradize, but here on earth…My cunt organ has become hot and oily like melted butter. Why don’t you hurry ? You are a forcefull youth, stronger than any man I had known.”

  He carried her a distance and she heard that he was breathing heavily. He wanted to thake a rest and put her on the sideroad, and they stood for a moment or two, just letting his regular breath to come. They looked fondly at each other, and he wondered again about her sudden audacity. But there she was, same Tamy who was now ready to surrender to him. Why?- that is not a topic to think about. She’s an artist, and what was a wonder before, that she had claimed virginity… ‘What a silly boy I am,’ he thoughty, ‘I could have her already yesterday. A loser, a gentle one, who had not gotten a slight imagination,…who did not think and act like a mature… No, why should I rebuke myself?…’

  They gave hands and began to run toward his room. He opened the door by his key and they undressed each other in a haste. They fell on his bed and covered themselves with a blanket, because the airconditioner remained open, since Mike had walked out of the room, heading for a dancing club with his girlfriend. . .

  They were breathlessly fucking. After having arrived together to their first orgasm, they were still like melting in each other.

  “I had hesitated yestereday to do it”, she said, “and I was sorry that I had lied about my stubborness. I saw that you really wanted me, but then I could not explain to myself why… why not. Then I told myself ‘why not?’ And I was suddenly terrified by something that you can’t imagine. But let’s leave that… leave that aside. I can’t concentrate now, good man…”

  “I love you for the enjoyment and bliss that you had rendered me,” he broke in a sentimental harangue.

  “I thank you for being so considerate with me, “ she said, “I am happy that I have surrendered to my impetus, and for having a full fuck. Even if you have not used Olla condum, I will not be pregnant, because my… my. . what did I begin to say? I lose my memory, Humik. You don’t be angry on me. I had a visitor during my last night’s sleep, can you imagine? . . .What did I tell you? a Man in a barrel that rolls down from the slope of … ”

  He was a little bit frightened from her ‘Verbal rain’ as he defined it to himself, and tried to continue to chat reasonably.

  “I have been always considerate and gentle with girls,” he said.

  “You have a good character. You seem to have so much innocence and modesty and integrity and you are modern minded,” she said, “I’m happy to deliver my inner spirit and most sweet juices, my pure streaming wellspring - to your thirsty broomstick,.” She was attacked by a sudden laughter. “A witch is riding on your broomstick She is playing the piano with her nails… staff of Moses in the sky...bamboo cane and candle lights round human monkey down down …”

  “Oh, wonderfull images,” he said, “but I’ll now describe a black dense forest growing around your cunt, almost hiding it. I had a girl-friend who had shaved that – and I was disgusted…”

  “Why?”

  “I hated that because she had a fish mouth there. I wouldn’t like to fuck a fish, would I? A fish mouth cunt!”

  “Oh, it kills me,” she burst into a loud laughter, that became hysterical, “A fish mouth c u n t,” and she repeated five or six times on that, then said: “Mine will be the same. I’ll shave it tomorrow and see your reaction. If you refuse to sex with me without the hairy mask- what would I think about your love to me, what?”

  “No, please don’t do that,” he said solemnly, “I have seen some labia Majora(cunts’ lips ) and even a pencil’s smeareds black on such an organ; but if it would have hided behind the trees – I could penetrate the orchard and enjoy its juicy fruits. . .And Please don’t forget, that we had a small trees’ garden in my childhood in Israel...I like better the hairy pudenta, what’s wrong with that? That I am so sincere and straight forward? Or does it show I’m not a modern guy? And I also hate some stinking smell that breaks out from a cunt with bacteria there.”

  “Not only fish, but bacterias?” she laughed again, and then said:

  “Well, I understand the natural organic body, so to say. It has a tremendous allure on you, this blackness stain on the white smooth skin…Now we have a reasonable-organized answer.”

  “well, your style is acceptable,” he said and they were again in a black forest of beastly cries and wild assaults of lips, like biting and swallowing each other’s flesh, joined by delicate warm caresses and moans of bliss..

  “You are good to me, Humik. Don’t …don’t blame me for my changing mood, very rapidly changing, like a view taken from a train, you see, and I don’t know why, I don’t. I beg for myself so many…many good gifts, and I bring myself to abyss…Mozart was the genius of my youth, but he had deserted the stage… and I swim, I can draw that blue on myself, and on your look…you stare very strangely on me. Who are you, I ask. Why am I here? why don’t I feel a solid matresse under me? I see a red wall, smoke all around, flees flying, bees stinging, no music, no, no.”

  “What happens to you, Tamy?” he asked, again bewildered by her implicit sentences, “Have you been using some drug?”

  “The circle widens. Now there are two three four, they widen in the middle of the town square… Please, I cannot concentrate,” she suddenly said, “I cannot be with you any more tonight. Please take me back to the…man…I don’t know. The focus broke down, the focus of the sun…”

  He was astonished about her jumping topics and disordered wording. She was silent and her body became like frozen. He took her hands, that he felt like cooling in his hands. He elbowed her to raise her body from the bed, after having removed the blanket which partly covered them. He did not identify her last sentences as a mental disorder. He did not know what it was, as he had never read even an elementary book about psychology or psychiatry.

  He told himself again, that either she had been shocked of something, or swallowed some drug – as he had seen such cases of half merry unconsciousness- among Holywood ‘stars’, who would occasionally visit his parent’s store.

  He was attacked by a sad mood, but restrained himself from insulting or blaming her.

  “I am sure you’ll be all right,” he said, thinking that she may understand him. They walked in that ‘half slumber’ situation of hers for quite a long way toward her dwelling. Actually he was dragging her ‘as a sack that I carried in my work with Mike- from a truck to a flour store,’ he thought ironically. . . Though he could get a taxi, he wanted to save money, being afraid that his parents may not provide him the additional sum, that they had promised and he had not yet received. ‘They hate my stay here,’ he suddenly thought, ‘maybe there were some sense in their scolding at me…’

  He continued speaking to Tamy along the way, saying very simple sentences, just to have her awarenesss that he was beside her; but she did not try to answer, even her eyes were open.

  “I know that you are delighted to be with me and enjoy our talks and fond of each other, don’t you?…What a quick and bursting fuck it was, I thank you so much, Tamy. I am sure you will soon get a good sleep, and awake tomorrow and see the new bright dawn…” He was telling all that for his own sake. He could not imagine a sudden disengagement from her. . .

  Semadar was not in the room, but came very soon and discerned that Tamy was lying on her bed, sleeping with her dress on. Humik told Semadar, that her friend and collegue had taken some drink, and felt bad. In his opinion she would be better after a night’s sleep.

  Semadar was bothered with herself and did not ask questions. She only helped Humik to take Tamy’s shoes out of her feet.

  “Let’s get to the kitchen, do you hear me?” said Semadar loudly and he did not understand why she had called him to be left with her.

  ”I’ll be leaving a week from now,” said Semadar excitedly. She seemed to him at that moment very egotistic, thinking only about herself. “Next Tuesday I’ll say good bye to you!”
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  Humik had taken the low chair there, and was patient to hear Semadar’s story:

  “I’ve received a telegram from Erga Lifshits,” she said, “She is a most remarkable Actors’ Organizer and Producer in Israel. I’ve gotten it just before I’ve left this place, to buy something in the pharmacy. . . Read this,” She handed a paper to Humik.

  “Very nice. She invites you,” he said, reading the text, “to join the band of two singing girls, who are just after their Army service in an Entertainment Team.. . Very good, Mazal tov(Good luck), Semadar.”

  “And you know who are the other two girl-singers?” asked Semadar. “A pity that Tamy does not hear me. .. she knows them. Their names are Avia and Tzvia. Erga had told me that on the phone.”

  “What kind of songs will you sing there?” asked Humik.

  “First, we will be called ‘Three Singingirls- in one word (In Hebrew: Shlosharot). We will take Israeli modern songs, some in jaz tempos, and French chansons. We will set aside the old Russian songs. Erga says- that we’ll have a mix of voices, that will fill the audience halls. and she has many friends in the radio- who will push our new band’s songs on the broadcast lines.”

  “But why is it so urgent, that you should return to Israel so soon?” asked Humik.

  “Erga has her calculations. So she has decided, that I should take a plane this time. Only half of the flight cost would fall on me - and the rest on Erga’s account. ..After Rosh Hashona holidays we will begin rehearsals.”

  “And when will you perform on the stage?” he asked.

  “Hopefully in Hanuka (Jewish Lighting days, near Chrismas days), which is one of most entertaining holidays in Israel, especailly for children and their Moms!” She laughed.

  Humik shook hands with Semadar, kissed her on her cheek and promised her: “See you again tommorow. Tell all that to Tamy. She will have to be in my sole control- after your leave.”

  On his way back to his room, he was still sure that Tamy had drank something without admitting it, and that the bad symptoms of something serious would pass – after she would be having a good long sleep.

  In his room he felt a slight ache in his forehead, above his left eye, and he guessed it had derived from his tiredness. He fell asleep quickly, and did not hear when his friend Mike returned to the room.

  In the morning, while already driving with Mike, he did not tell him anything about Tamy. ‘I know it would not help in anything’, he said to himself… He just tried to remember how reasonably and how well she had been speaking with him in the days before. She was talking about her wish to be a most excellent student in the Manhatten School of Music. She said that her Instructor-Professor in Israel had expected that she would be very appreciated there. He had really recommended to her about that musical High school.

  “Though I have heard,” she said, “that they won’t have the best Instructors for the coming year. But Professor Bulkin told my papa, that a talent like me appears only in one of ten or fifty thousands piano students, taking into account the technical level and professional knowledge and wide repertoire that I have already achieved.. . So, it won’t make a difference even if they don’t have extraordinary teachers there in Manhatten. He emphasized, that I should be aspiring to become not only an accompanist or choir director or opera coach or an Academy Instructor for music! I should consider myself as a genius!. Yes, so he said. He prophesied that in two three years I’ll be so admired in America, that they’ll find me fit for performances as a solist in piano recitals. I should appear within five or seven years- with the greatest philharmonic orchestras in the world… Yes, I lack knowledge in American Jazz, I am only classics player. Because of that - I have arrived in the States, to study modern music, like that of Gershwin… and even prepare a repertoire, including younger compposers. O’key, I have just bothered you in loud thinking about myself…”

  “No,” he answered, “it’s not a bother for me; it’s not boring me at all. It’s just very interesting - what I hear from you. Though I feel my inferiority complex buzz in my mind, and the itching in my heart. A prey bird of jealousy is hovering over me, around and around, so what should I do? I have my right to live with my… mediocrity, with my poor subtlety too…I wish you all the best, really and sincerely, Tamy!”

  “I’m sorry that you feel like predominated…You certainly have many capabilities you are not aware of now, I am sure about that. Don’t be so… desparate about your personal potential and abilities. Everyone has some genius flickering inside. Wisdom is not exposing itself to other people until you convince them you’re good in something. And sooner is better than later, I say. So- think about how to exhibit a central faculty of yours, I don’t know you enough to tell you what it is…”

  “You very smartly condole me in all that,” he said.

  Then he remembered that on their first night at her room, when she put off her bra, and her nice breasts were close to his nose; he wanted to put on the light in the room, and she opposed that, suddenly shouting: “No, put it off! I refuse to let you see me too clear. I’m not a stripteaser.” And she came silent for a minute and then said: “Oh, I am so bewildered now. . . go out, Humik’!”

  Next morning Tamy woke up very early, and stepped to the kitchen. Semadar was half sleepy, and heard her shout: “I’ll finish with this. I should finish my … disaster, oh oh!!.”

  Semadar did not know what had made her jump. She ran out bare footed to her. She found Tamy standing in the kitchen with a long knife-for-cutting-meat in her hand. Tamy was staring at it in dread, and screamed again. It was something unclear. Semadr saw her bleeding left hand, and jumped on her back, grabbed her arm and snatched the knife from her. She went to window, opened it and threw the sharp article down to the ground. Tamy steped out from the blood-covered floor, and then collapsed. Semadar tried to wrap her wrist, over the hurted veins - by a rubbered strip of an old cloth that she had. She wanted to stop the shedding blood. She called Tamy by her name many times, but Tamy did not wake. In trembling fingers Semadar dialled to the police and invited them – in a shocked voice, to arrive in the room, with an ambulance.

  Two policemen came very soon with medics, who took Tamy on a stretcher. They said they’ll bring her to Mount Sinai hospital. Semadar told the cops what she had seen. Then she mentioned the knife, which they have soon found on the ground under the window’s room. They took it with them. They took also Semadar to the police station for further inquiry…

  Semadar was released from police, as they had received a message from hospital, that young Tamy had been proved to commit suicide.

  Semadar stated to Humik the wording of the message that she had received by the policemen:

  “Your roommate is suspected of suffering from schizophrenia,” they said, “but all is pending further tests and analyses by the experts of an ‘asylum, or hospital of mental diseases’, to which Tamy would be sent in the evening. Yes, she had signed a Form of Consent to that.. .”

  All these details were told by Semadar to poor Humik, when he arrived in the afternoon at her room, because on the phone Semadar refused to tell him anything about where her roommate would be.

  Hearing the sad news, he felt remorse. He was sure that his friendship with Tamy had not been the only cause for her helpless situation. But who would be sure, that all the affair had no impact on her, and worsened her mental collapse?…

  He wanted to visit Tamy still at the same evening, but Semadar told him that no visits were allowed in the asylum, for the time being. Maybe when her acute situation would improve...Of course, any further Singing Show of the two Israeli girls had been cancelled.

  On the following evening Humik visited Semadar. He urged her to contact the administration office of the mads asylum, and inquire there.

  Not only that: Semadar had known the phone number of Tamy’s father, and had immediately contacted him, to let him know her condition.

  “I am aware that she could get an attack,” he
told Semadar, “She had once been hospitalized for mental disorder. I tell it to you only, as I know you are her best friend. . .Don’t scatter this news about her personal condition – to friends or acquaintances or to the public audience. . . I will fly tomorrow to New York, and take care to bring her back home.”

  “The attack might pass very soon, after Tamy gets a due treatment,” Semadar told Humik. She had succeeded to visit the asylum and talk with one of the young Psychiatrists there. She saw on the labels of the doctors the name Grinebaum, and asked the medical secretary if he was a Jew. “By chance – yes,” the secretary answered. So, Semadar had waited in the office, and when that docs came to take documents there – she asked Dr. Ginebaum if he had been from Israel.

  “No,” he said “but I have family relatives there…” Semadar knew from him, that the attack may last weeks, or even only days. Then he told her:

  “this cursed disease might appear again to your girl-friend, no doubt. But it can be concealed again in her mind for years, and then suddenly assault forcefully again. So is life…We cant predict. I hope that her father will come tomorrow, and take her to your country. They know there how to deal with it. Thank you for your interest in Tamy. I will tell her that you have visited here. She understands most of what’s going around, and talks. .

  But- you can understand that I can’t reveal anything more. Bye.”

  Humik was panting, while he listened to that unhappy end of his relationship with a girl from his homeland. It had filled some gap of time in his young life. He would remain now again with his friend Mike. The fellow had found already a steady relationship with a good girlfriend. She was coming with her sister to hear Tamy and Samadar, and so got acquainted with the chatter Mike.

  In the following day, when driving with Mike to their hard work - Humik was silent about his departure from Tamy and about her madness. In the afternoon they have met Mike’s roomate – Shlomik, who heard with Mike that Tamy had tried to make suicide.

  “Let me tell Humik the story about a suicide that I know,” he cynically said to Mike- who smiled. “Not long ago, just as I had become to know Mike- my old woman-friend, who had no children, became pregnant from me. She said she would refuse an abortion, and I pressured her to do that. ‘I’ll commit suicide,’ she said. I was very shocked, remember- Mike? Now tell Humik what you had told me…”

  “I said to Shlomik,” said Mike, “don’t be a fool! Of course she wants you, Shlomik – to make suicide, not she’ll do it. So- let her go…And so - no suicide had come up. The genicologists only scratched her womb somehow, and finished with the tiny embrio.”

  “You want to laugh at me by your joke,” said Humik to his friends, “or raise my depressed spirit. Singer Tamy- was really good to me, don’t mock at her nor at me.”

  “I bet on a whiskey bottle- that you’ll find another pretty ‘chic girl’ very soon,” told him Mike, “You bastard – know how to storm a girl’s mind, because you know well English. Your present bad mood will pass, you know. . .You don’t pity mad Tamy- but yourself. I hope you’ll not find an older woman of thirty or more- likw Shlomik.”

  “Why not?” asked insulted Shlomik, “such one does not get illusioned of getting married with you. She knows how to live in the present and that’s all. O’key, guys, Let’s Get into Alex Bar and – take a whisky, and forget about girls now…”

  A week later, Humik winked at Mike – while he was telling him with a smile: “I think I have just discovered a really attractive young woman here. The doll had selected me - out of about twenty guys. We were waiting at the Office for the Ads and Promotion Course, that I would take. I’ve told you about it. I had to deposit there a second sum of Registration-Enlisting Fee, so they call it.”

  CHAPTER 7