Better To A House Of Mourning

Girl with too much make up stands by the roadside.

Too much – because it’s thirty-two degrees and that war paint looks fresh. A few blocks from the beach, an hour before sundown.

Her mascaraed eyes gaze nowhere in particular, bambi lashes gleaming wet. We can deduce, My Dear Watson, that the subject has not been outside for long. A matter of seconds, not minutes.

Ergo, she lives close by, here in the hotel zone. Most likely we have a tourist on our hands. Sherlock nods to himself, takes a satisfied puff from his imaginary pipe.

I’m taking this in as I mooch back from the beach, towel across my back. My flip-flops keep flopping, wet from the beachside foot shower. Slow going. And did I mention it’s hot?

But wait. Foreign girls don’t linger on street corners, dolled up and alone in the withering heat. She glances at her phone, then back into middle distance. It doesn’t add up.

Not my problem. Weird, all the same.

My left flip-flop detaches itself. I stop to kick out a tiny stone that’s been irritating me, balancing myself against a lamppost, which I notice is tied with yellow ribbon, an ever-present reminder of the hostages.

This lamppost is covered in memorial stickers, artist sketches of ‘those we lost’ in Swords of Iron. Each carries an epitaph:

“Live today like it’s your last”

“Always, always with a smile”

They’re kitsch – cheesy, even – yet strangely touching.

A taxi pulls up. Mystery solved​?

Our weeping Mona Lisa is the client. She booked it, then rushed out to meet her driver.

Well, not fully solved.

In this heat, why leave the hotel before you absolutely have to? Surely better to linger in the air-conditioned interior ’til he honks? A question of character? She may be some form of yekke, a stickler for punctuality, an anxious soul, uncomfortable in her own skin. Jumpy.

No, that doesn’t cut it. She’s too chic for that.

Inspector Holmes rises from his armchair. Is there a better theory? How about: a diaspora Jew, her first summer in Israel – she is, after all, rather freckly and pale. Not experienced with the heat. So far, so good. But what’s really going on?

Holmes picks up his violin.

Was her dash out into the sunshine simply impatience? Impetuousness? A date, a dinner, a movie? Whatever it is, it must be worth a little melted makeup.

I look again. Cab door ajar. She’s sombre, a face more suited to a shiva than a simcha.

Two days ago in Gaza a soldier died. Front page news. Softly bearded man in his 30s. From somewhere in the rows of squat houses in the suburbs, his family gathers, today, tonight, to pay their respects. To mourn.

Is she – the girl with too much make up, now getting in the cab – his sister? His cousin? If she is, she’s right on time for evening prayers. Is that a tear in her long-lashed eye?

The car door shuts. I shudder with a dark thought as coils of sweat roll down my neck.

Death. What a great excuse to jump in a cab with air conditioning blasting, a momentary relief from this inhuman heat, however sad the journey.