58 THENEWYORKER,OCTOBER3, 2022
instructed. Restored once more to use-
fulness, Cohen trotted through the ma-
ternity ward in search of the vending ma-
chine. When the can of soda rattled down
and landed with a thud, he remembered
all over again how he had caught the
baby and guided him into the world.
By the time Cohen was ready to leave
the hospital the banks were closed, and,
having no way to replace his lost cards,
he borrowed two hundred shekels from
Nava’s mother, who, like the nurse,
seemed to believe him to be more im-
plicated than he was. Cohen half ex-
pected—half wished?—her to bless him,
too, as he went, promising to return to-
morrow to visit the mother and child.
On his way to the Airbnb, where Hila
was to meet him with the spare keys,
he stopped to stuff himself with hum-
mus and falafel. Then he himself slept
like a baby, tucked deeply into sheets
that smelled pleasantly of other peo-
ple’s childhoods.
He woke early the next morning and
thought of calling his wife. But when he
pictured Nadine at the window, phone
clamped between shoulder and ear, in-
specting her orchids on the sill, he de-
cided against it. When the blooms fell,
she cut the stems down to nubs and stored
the plants in the laundry room until they
sent up new shoots. She could wait years
for this new growth, happening there in
the darkness. Her patience was extraor-
dinary: she gave everyone and everything
the benefit of the doubt, and had always
believed that each of the children would
eventually blossom, too. But her patience
for Cohen had run out long ago. The in-
justice of this had often driven him to
rage, and thinking of it now he felt the
anger stir in him again until, looking
down at his hands, he found there the
marks of Nava’s nails and remembered:
a boy, it had been a boy. He wanted to
tell his wife. But tell her what?
He took his coffee on the beach and
strolled along the boardwalk. He was
not eager to return to New York the
following day, to confront the difficult
mess that awaited him at home. What
was it that he wanted? Nadine claimed
that he didn’t know, had not known for
years, that his desire had floated away,
rudderless. When she said this, Cohen
saw his desire like a paper boat drifting
toward the edge of a flat world, until it
abruptly tumbled over. But he did know:
what he wanted was for his capacities
to be seen and believed in, perhaps by
her especially. Then he would find a
charge again, find the energy to take
definitive action. But wherever he looked
all he found reflected back was dullness
and uselessness; only the great disap-
pointment heaped up within himself.
A man rollerbladed past with an enor-
mous white Siamese draped around his
neck; the cat’s paws hung down, its eyes
two long slits against the sun. Cohen
was filled with envy of the creature, who
was not called on to do anything but
be, and even that only vaguely. From a
bench, he watched the surf roll in; the
wind was up, and the windsurfers skid-
ded along the crests of the waves, catch-
ing air under their boards and flying.
And yet something had happened
to him here. Back home, the space for
him had narrowed: soon there would
be no place left at all. But space had
opened for him here, hadn’t it? Had
parted to accommodate him; had in-
vited him in. Here, in a country where
every last scrap of space was bitterly
contested, room had been made for him.
A vision came to Cohen of him, Nava,
and the child living together in a small
bungalow by the sea. He would settle
with his wife, giving her not just the
Seventy-ninth Street apartment but the
whole of New York City. What did he
need with winter, with the M.T.A.? His
grown children could visit him here, by
the Mediterranean, where they, too,
would see him in a new light.
Eventually, he came to a large hotel
and turned inland, wandering down
twisting streets. He passed a store with
jewelry in the window, hammered sil-
ver and gold. It was closed, but the owner
was there, doing the accounts. She saw
him peering through the window and
invited him inside. An elegant French-
woman in her fifties, her pedicured toes
delicately peeking out from rhine-
stone-studded sandals. Was he looking
for something in particular? Cohen
stood blinking at all the precious metal
set with roughly cut stones. A gift, he
replied. The woman smiled; her gold
hoops caught the light. For whom? A
new mother, Cohen said, barely able tocontain his pride. The woman removed
a long chain from the display case; on
it hung a small gold charm that Cohen
thought was a heart but, on closer in-
spection, discovered was a circle. A per-
fect circle, the circle of life: the child a
new beginning and he, by proxy, re-
stored to the beginning, too. He held
the delicate piece in his palm, imagin-
ing it around Nava’s neck.
The woman laid the necklace in a
small box covered in marbled paper. She,
too, seemed to believe he was the father.
And who was he to dissuade her? From
a roll on a dowel behind her, she un-
furled a thin yellow ribbon. Only then
did Cohen remember that he had can-
celled his stolen credit cards. He explained
the situation, and she agreed to allow
him to wire the money on Monday, as
soon as the bank opened in New York.
Mazel tov, she said, handing him a bag
tipped with silver tissue. Her trust, her
sparkling sandals, the tiny bells attached
to the door, which, as he pulled it open
to leave, tinkled brightly: Cohen, newly
attuned to the auspicious, caught it all.- He took a taxi to the hospital. His mood
was buoyant. At a traffic light, he watched
as a Haredi man crossed the street in a
daze. Life was choosing a path for Cohen,
just as it had chosen a path for the man
in a dark suit and earlocks, who would
make his way home on a bus to Bnei
Brak, where his wife, chosen for him by
his and her parents, would be waiting
to greet him, never asking why she was
married to him and not to someone else.
Maybe Cohen’s mistake all these years
had been to believe that his fate lay in
his own hands, that he was responsible
for both his victories and his failures,
that all the good that had come to him
and all the bad that had befallen him
were equally the result of his own doing.
Had he, busy assessing his own perfor-
mance, missed the waves that had come
to carry him, so that instead they had
swept past without him?
The taxi-driver cursed loudly, inter-
rupting Cohen’s train of thought. Rous-
ing himself, he saw that they were stuck
in traffic. Construction for the light rail
had made a mess of the roads. Leaning
out the window, the driver screamed at
a car blocking the clogged intersection.
His thick neck was covered with mole-