But don’t feel sorry for me, he’d say, it’s the little girl here who got the short end of the stick. He’d explain that he was taking me to his aunt in Haifa who wasn’t even really his aunt, but she was all he had left from Thessaloniki. He’d tell him that we made our way from Tel Aviv to Haifa every week, even though it cost him half his salary, because every kid needed a woman to hug them tight. And only after Dad let out a bit of his sadness would he start talking about the rest. He once told me that secrets were like money, and that if you shared a really good one, the person you were talking to felt indebted. So after he told them about Mom, they’d open up like artichokes, every last one of them. They’d start telling him things. My God, the things they’d tell him! Even the name of their mistress! And I always wanted to join in, but it’s hard for me, you know? So I wouldn’t say anything the entire ride, and once we got home I’d run to the mirror, stand there for hours, and try to imitate Dad’s serious tone.

Did you see how they hanged Eli Cohen? Those Syrians don’t answer to no one. Or—can you believe Dayan stole those artifacts? I’ll never get how he pulled that off with only one eye.

During one of those rides we heard the song “Jerusalem of Gold” on the radio, and I suddenly got the courage to yell out one of Dad’s old sayings.

“What a voice that Shuli Natan has, like an angel I tell you.”

Dad and the driver laughed so hard that right then and there I swore I’d never utter another word again. You see, that’s why I say that for some people talking isn’t easy. No two ways about it. For some, this thing called living is just a bit too much. I, for instance, can tell you that I missed out on life by just a few feet. What can I say, it started out so fast that by the time I noticed, it was speeding ahead without me. You probably think this is just a bunch of hooey. That I didn’t really make an effort. But trust me, I tried, I tried harder than anyone, it just didn’t work. Nope, no two ways about it; there’s always someone who misses the last bus, and in this lifetime it happens to be my turn.