Her Boyfriend Refuses to Discuss His Wife

Etgar Keret

Share article

Gondola by Etgar Keret

His Tinder profile said his name was Oshik, he was thirty‑eight, married with no kids, looking for a serious relationship. Dorit, who wasn’t new to online dating, had never come across such an unusual line, and he sounded so square and had such high cheekbones and enor­mous blue eyes that she was curious enough to give it a try.

The only other Oshik she’d ever known was her dad’s uncle, an insurance broker from Netanya, and he was eaten by a shark. It was a big story back in the day, and there was an intimidating TV reporter at the shiva, who pounced on Dorit and her older sister, Rotem, demanding to interview them. Rotem told her that Oshik was an angel now, and that they would remember him forever. When the reporter asked Dorit what she would recall about Uncle Oshik in twenty years, Dorit stammered that the thing she would always remember was that a shark had eaten him.

Oshik suggested they meet at five p.m. at a branch of Roladin. Dorit was used to men on Tinder asking to meet at her­ apartment—they’d have had their first date in her bedroom if they­ could—but this guy not only wanted an afternoon meeting at a café frequented by everyone’s grandma, he also said he’d have to leave after an hour because he and his wife were going to a wedding out of town.

They sat facing each other, sipping coffee. Dorit wondered how long it would take to get to the punch line, but Oshik was in no hurry. She sensed that he was attracted to her and that he was a little embarrassed by it. His questions were stodgy: What was her childhood like? What were her greatest fears? What music did she listen to on Friday afternoons when everything was slowing down for Shabbat? The vibe was more like an arranged‑marriage date than a Tinder hookup. It was weird, and in some way she couldn’t explain, she liked the weirdness. She found it much more appealing to tell Oshik about how her sister had taught her to do a cartwheel when they were kids than to share her feelings on anal sex with a tattooed hipster she’d swiped right on five minutes ago. And this Oshik guy was really interested in her. More than interested: he fell in love. Dorit, who was ­ thirty‑two and had finally broken up with an egotistical tech bro who saw the world and her as algorithms to be optimized, felt that this was the perfect time for a guy called Oshik who was gentle and romantic. Gentle, romantic, and married.

The screen saver on his phone was a picture of him and his wife in a gondola. When Dorit asked, Oshik mumbled that it was an old picture from a trip to Venice, and quickly changed the subject. Dorit took a picture of the screen saver when Oshik went to the bathroom, and later, at home, she examined it closely. Oshik’s wife was pretty. Prettier than her. She had­ golden‑brown curls, a long neck, and a smooth, radiant complexion that seemed unblemished no matter how much Dorit enlarged the photo. The wife’s smile showed off her glistening white teeth, and she wore an ­ expensive‑looking wedding ring. Oshik looked contemplative, and there was no ring on his finger. He hadn’t worn one on their date, either. In the gondola picture, his left arm rested on his wife’s shoulder, but there was nothing sexy or charged about the touch. It looked more like a hug you’d give your army buddy than a romantic embrace.

Their second date was also at Roladin. Dorit wanted to pay this time, but Oshik wouldn’t hear of it. He ordered a cinnamon roll and told her that when he was a soldier, every time he got in trouble and was confined to barracks, he would go to the canteen and console himself with a cinnamon roll. Dorit asked if that happened a lot, and he nodded and said almost proudly that he was probably the worst soldier in the history of the IDF.

They had a really good talk, and afterward, Oshik suggested they go to her place. He tried to make it sound like the most casual thing in the world, but Dorit picked up on his anxiety. She said he was cute and she’d be happy to have him over, but before anything started up she had to understand the situation with his wife. There were lots of married guys on Tinder, but Oshik was the first one she’d seen who said he was looking for something serious. “What exactly does that mean?” she asked, grinning. “How serious can it be if you’re married?”

Oshik nodded. “When you put it that way, it does sound dumb,” he said. She asked if his wife knew he was seeing her, and he stammered and said she didn’t, but they weren’t sleeping together anyway; they were more like friends. “I really am looking for a serious relationship!” he said, and stroked Dorit’s hand hesitantly. “But I also know that I’ll probably never leave her, and it’s important for me to put that on the table. Love me, love my dog, as the saying goes.” Dorit smiled and said she was actually quite fond of dogs, and that she didn’t know anyone other than her grandfather who still used that expression.

Sex with Oshik reminded her of sex in high school. In a good way. Everything was almost childishly exciting. He caressed, kissed, and licked every part of her body, and looked happy and grateful the whole time. Dorit closed her eyes and thought about a million things, including the Gondola, which was what she’d started privately calling his wife. She felt no guilt. Oshik’s body showed her how hungry he was for touch, and if he wasn’t getting it at home, she saw no reason why he shouldn’t get it with her. Especially if, while they were at it, he was going to keep making her feel like the hottest woman in the world.

At the beginning, Dorit thought of it as a fling. A sort of eccentric episode in her rather conventional life. An amusing anecdote she’d be able to tell one day, about how she dated a married guy who got excited every time they kissed and showed up to their dates with cinnamon rolls, Cornettos, and pudding cups. Oshik may not have been the most articulate person Dorit had ever met, but he was kind and funny and curious, and he loved her so much that some of the love rubbed off on her. Also, they talked about everything. Everything except his wife. When she tried asking about her, Oshik said that when he and Dorit slept together, he didn’t feel like he was cheating, but when they talked about his wife, he did. That’s why he wouldn’t even say her name. “I don’t tell her anything about you, either,” he quipped, but Dorit didn’t crack a smile. She told Oshik that the mistress thing had worked for her at first: living in the moment, no expectations. But now that a year had passed, it wasn’t enough. She wanted more: to live together, to have a child—not now, but one­ day—and to go to her parents for holiday dinners. If his relationship with the Gondola was really so friendly, surely she’d understand and let him go?

Oshik gazed at Dorit with his giant blue eyes, on the verge of tears. “Are you saying you want to break up because I don’t spend the Passover seder with your folks?” he asked. “Matza ball soup and Uncle Morris’s lame jokes, that’s what we’re lacking?”

“Yes,” Dorit said. “What can I say: of all the girls in the world, you landed on the one weirdo who likes her men unmarried.”

“It’s not fair,” he whispered. “I told you from the­ beginning—”

“Yes,” Dorit interrupted, “you told me I had to love your dog. And back then, it sounded fine. But now we’ve reached the point where you have to choose: it’s me or the dog.”

If it had been up to Dorit, that’s where it would have ended. But Oshik pleaded. He said she was right, it was all true, but things were complicated and he needed time. He didn’t tell her what he needed time for—to prepare the Gondola for a separation or to decide whom he was choosing. Either way, Dorit told Oshik he would have to make up his mind by the last day of Hanukkah.

After that talk, something between them soured. They didn’t fight or hurl insults, but they grew distant, unnecessarily cautious, thinking twice before they shared a thought or a feeling. They saw each other less, and when they did, Dorit’s ultimatum hovered over them like a curse. Deep in her heart, she knew Oshik wouldn’t leave the Gondola. And even deeper in that same heart, she knew it would be very hard for her to give him up.

Once, when they’d gone to the beach, Oshik had shown her the tall, ugly, ­marble‑coated apartment building where he lived, and on the morning of the first day of Hanukkah, Dorit found herself sitting on a bench across the street from the building. She didn’t have much of a plan. On the way there, she’d told herself that she just wanted to see Oshik and his wife walking down the street together so that she could understand where she stood. But after waiting on the bench for almost an hour, she was also able to picture the Gondola coming home with her shopping, and herself walking over to talk to ­her—not to snitch or harass her, just to make a connection, and then the two of them would arrange to meet without Oshik’s even knowing. After another twenty minutes on the bench, Dorit could imagine herself confronting Oshik and the Gondola right there in the middle of the street, making a scene and embarrassing him. Embarrassing herself. This thought frightened her, and she got up and took the bus home.

The next time she saw Oshik, after they had sex she asked him to tell her the Gondola’s name. “Yardena,” Oshik said, and pressed his face into the pillow. “Yardena, Ruth, Greta Garbo. What difference does it make?”

The following morning, Dorit went back to the ugly marble building. She bought herself a jelly doughnut and sat down to eat it on the bench. She ate the doughnut as slowly as humanly possible, taking tiny little bites, licking the jelly. It took almost half an hour, but there was still no sign of Oshik or the Gondola. Eventually, a young woman with a feather tattooed on her neck came out of the building holding a cigarette and sat down next to Dorit to smoke. Dorit asked her for a cigarette. She didn’t really smoke, but she felt that it would buy her a few more minutes to wait there without feeling pathetic. While they smoked together, the Feather started talking. She said her name was Lianne and she was studying occupational therapy and worked as a doorwoman at the building across the street. The people who lived there, she told Dorit, were filthy rich, but nice. At least some of them were. This week a whole bunch of them had given her envelopes with Hanukkah cards and cash, like a holiday bonus, and the old lady from the penthouse had handed her a­ hundred‑dollar bill. She hadn’t made that kind of money even at her bat mitzvah. She asked Dorit if she worked in the area, and Dorit, who did not usually lie, said she was a dental hygienist at a clinic nearby. After a few seconds, she added that she was pretty sure two of her clients lived in that building. Their names were Oshik and . . . the wife’s name had slipped her mind, but their last name was Arbel and they were really nice.

“Oshik Arbel?” the Feather said. “I know him. He’s kind of weird but he is a sweetheart.”

“Yeah. I clean his teeth, and his wife’s.”

“Are you sure? I know Arbel, he’s not married. He’s one of those loner types.”

When Dorit pulled out her phone and held up the picture of Oshik with the Gondola, the Feather smiled and said, “Oh, that’s Yardena. She’s his sister. She lives in Berlin, but she and her husband visit all the time.”

On the seventh day of Hanukkah, Oshik called and jokingly suggested they go out to celebrate the evening before her ultimatum expired. But when Dorit said she wasn’t in the mood, he backed off and said he’d come over and they could order in. They both knew this was probably going to be their last night together, and it was better to have a sad breakup at home, without an audience. Oshik arrived with a box of candy he’d been given by a client from Nazareth. They kissed and caressed as if everything were normal, and Dorit tried to be detached. She’d thought it was going to be hard, that she’d feel angry and distant, but even now that she knew he’d lied to her for a whole year, it felt like the most natural thing when he kissed her. If it had been the other way­ around—if she’d discovered that the man she was seeing was secretly­ married—she wouldn’t have been able to forgive him. But there was something about Oshik’s lie that, although annoying, didn’t really make her angry. He must have genuinely loved her, and only her, but at the same time he was afraid that without an imaginary gondola sailing across the horizon, they would be in each other’s lives 24‑7, each taking ownership of the other’s soul.

The Thai food was slightly cold. “Here,” Oshik said, switching their dishes, “mine’s actually okay. Not piping hot, but warm. It’s good, right?” Dorit ate in silence, and Oshik also said nothing as he chewed Dorit’s cold noodles. When they’d finished, he murmured, “I love you. I love you more than ­anything. More than her, more than me, more than those cinnamon rolls in the army. Do you believe me?” Dorit wanted to lash out at him, to tell him she knew everything, he could stop the act. But she only nodded. “If this is our last time together,” Oshik added, “then I’d rather we not sleep together. I know breakup sex is a thing, but I can’t take it.” Dorit still said nothing. “Okay,” Oshik said. “I guess I’d better go.” But instead of getting up, he stayed slumped on Dorit’s old armchair, and after a few minutes he started crying.

His tears were real. The pain, everything was real, everything except the stupid story about his wife. She went over to him, sat on his lap, and kissed him.

“If this is our last time,” he said again, “I’d rather not . . .”

“It’s not,” she said. “It’s not.”

After the sex, she told him she was willing to keep their arrangement, but she wanted a child. “You and the Gondola are never going to have a baby. Don’t you want to be a father?”

Oshik shrugged and said he never really had—he didn’t like himself enough. But now that he pictured a child who was ­half‑Dorit, it suddenly sounded like a pretty good idea.

For Nur’s third birthday, the three of them went to Italy. Oshik’s wife was in Boston for work, and he suggested they sneak in their own overseas trip. In Verona, they saw the famous Romeo and Juliet balcony. Near Milan, they visited a lovely amusement park full of unicorns and fairies. And in Venice, of course, they took a gondola ride. Nur was overjoyed. She kept laughing and trying to jump into the water. Oshik and Dorit had to physically restrain her. “You little fishy,” Oshik said, mussing Nur’s hair as she wriggled on his lap. He pulled out his phone. “Before you go disappearing into the canal,” he said, “let’s get a picture of you and Mom and me in the gondola, okay?” Nur pouted and shook her head. Oshik smiled. “It’s fine,” he said, putting the phone back in his pocket. “We don’t have to.”