Happiness
Published in Issue #2 Translated from Hebrew by Ronnie Hope subscribe to unlock the full storyAt the age of 47, Rachel Shachner is a good-looking woman by any standards and a friend of friends who once sat next to her at a dinner party even insisted that she was a true beauty. “Especially her profile, you should look at her profile, she has the profile of an Assyrian sculpture,” said the friend, who, as she was some sort of artist, must have known for sure. People who have known Rachel for years agree that she is only getting better-looking, and she has even developed a personal sartorial style of her own. Leotards suit her, with that dancer’s posture of hers, and the rather transparent layers she wears over them are very becoming. Lilac is without any doubt her color, and with the large earrings she has begun to wear, you’ll agree with me that she doesn’t look like someone’s American aunt anymore. It’s absolutely unclear why she doesn’t do well with men, a real mystery. For four or five months, great hopes were pinned on a certain senior municipal official, whom she dated twice a week, or perhaps three times, but then something happened, or perhaps nothing happened, and the dates stopped, without Rachel herself being able explain how or why. One couldn’t even curse the man, or console her for his nastiness, or find a moral, because the way she told it didn’t have any concrete narrative to it. Perhaps this is the problem. This hovering, this flat voice that complains dispassionately, this lack of...
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