I

It was the sort of rainy day in Paris that everyone had grown accustomed to and proceeded to treat as nothing but a minor irritation on what was, in general, a perfectly normal day, where the world was as it should be. A person’s only responsibility was to ensure they were where they should be. The natives would exit a building, look up to the sky, roll their eyes in a disgruntled manner, tutting a monosyllabic chant under their breath, pulling up the collar of whatever fashionable rain jacket they had pulled off the back of the coat stand that morning and dart into the street, their steps so slight and rapid they barely made a sound on the dampening boulevard.

Like most others, Ivri Levy did not follow the trend that day. Hands stuffed into well-worn jeans, he navigated his way along the dangerous street, narrowly avoiding impatient oncomers, most put out at his apparent reticence to follow the program of well-established rain defence might derail them. Weary of the faces, Ivri ducked into a café on the corner of Rue De Beché, a tiny street, cut off from the main road by a row of innocuous trees. Ivri liked it there because nothing really happened, and it was within walking distance of the university where he studied law. Rue De Beché rarely attracted the real Parisians, as Ivri considered them, which suited him. Although his father was French, Ivri had been born in Israel and had only arrived in Paris for the first time that year to study.

There was only a café and a ramshackle convenience store run by a gruff man named Arreq, who was of Arab descent, but was the sort of man who hated everyone equally and punctuated each sentence with a simple demand: ‘And what do you want of me?’ Usually, Ivri would thrust a €20 note at him, grab an apple, a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of water, shove them in his backpack and exit the store without saying a word.

The apple would likely remain uneaten, perhaps for a simple bite, and the bottle would be drained, squashed and left at the bottom of the bag until too many accumulated and would finally have to be emptied. The cigarette packet would also likely remain unopened. Ivri did not smoke. He had tried once and spent the rest of the day clearing his throat of the toxins and trying to regain sight in his eyes. He bought them on the off-chance someone would lean in to him at college and drawl, Y’got a smoke? Ivri would nod, pull off the wrapper and hand one to his new temporary friend and say something like: Here, keep the pack, I’m trying to quit. Ivri always half-hoped it would be a conversation starter, though it never was, usually resulting in him receiving a weird look and being left alone again, half-sad, half-relieved. He had inherited many things from his father, the most disastrous of which was his inability to form lasting social relationships.

Ivri had a sister, Lila, who was a year older and a world apart. Currently, serving her time as part of the IDF in Israel. Ivri had escaped his compulsory service due to a childhood accident, a fall resulting in a broken ankle which had never quite healed properly and left him, when tired, at least, with an awkward shuffle. Ivri’s parents and Ivri himself had welcomed the exclusion for reasons undiscussed. Despite an expected closeness to her younger and more vulnerable and awkward sibling, Lila had taken it as an embarrassment in front of her friends, whose belief in the IDF was fundamental. They believed it to be an essential step into adulthood and the protection of their land. Ivri’s relief at not joining the IDF also hid an underlying current that permeated his time in Israel. He was unsure he understood why they could not share the country instead of fighting. However, the Levys, as was their want, did not discuss such matters in any real sense.

It was one of the reasons why, when the opportunity to study in Paris was first mooted, Ivri fought past his initial reticence. He reasoned that if being a stranger in a strange land was home to him, what did it matter if he simply became a stranger in another strange land? Supplanting himself in Paris instead of Jerusalem, the two parts of his identity separated, to the point that he did not feel he belonged to either.

The idea had come from Eliana, Ivri’s mother, a primary school teacher who bore the duality of her own life with the grace of someone who had not quite forgotten that when she herself was young, the idea of the life she had now grown into would have appalled her. Yet, Eliana never complained, not even when her husband, a man who had become a Rabbi because it was expected of him and for no other reason, watched her from afar with a lack of understanding and mild irritation. Neither of their lives had been what they would have chosen or wanted, and he had been unable to accept it quite as readily and fully as she had. He went through the motions, but that was all they were. They were not the actions of anything more than a man who had become a skilled stage actor, donning a wardrobe and playing a part.

Ivri continued his journey, slowly kicking dust with his feet, his steps so slow that it had a chance to settle back before he had moved on. A woman passed him, older, yet still not disinterested in someone his age. She stole a look, chin tilted to a long, narrow shoulder, pale eyes, perhaps hoping to meet his. They would not, simply because it would not have occurred to him that she might be appraising him in any way other than wondering why he was in her way.

Ivri was tall and gaunt, but not in an unattractive way. His hair was fine and dark, and he wore it long, not because it was expected of him, or because the other boys in his school had. He wore it that way because when it was not tied in braids to keep it away from his face, he could let it loose, shake it and revel in the momentary sensation of feeling like a rock star. His eyes were as dark as his hair, enormous round masses that were as dull as stone one moment and then shone with flecks of gold the next. His eyes were always wide, always expectant, perched deep beneath perpetually arched eyebrows. Ivri had the gait of a young man poised to say something profound, a fact he was aware of himself and a reason he spent as little time as possible in front of a mirror. He saw it for what it was, and it worried him that others would too. He was not about to say anything profound simply because his thoughts were nothing but tangled webs of dust blowing through the corners of his mind. He learned nothing in school that interested or enticed him, and there was nothing in his home to stir his emotions. When his father suggested that law would be a suitable career for him, considering it closely matched his school grades, Ivri did not argue: why would he? What was there to argue about? To argue suggested he had a counter-argument. There was nothing he wanted to do, nothing he wanted to be.

And yet… and yet when he walked through the streets of Paris, particularly at night, moving anonymously, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. He would stop outside a boulangerie, perhaps to buy, maybe just to stare into the window and appear to be choosing, because that was what he saw other people doing. There was one thing that his father, Josef Levy, had taught him: how to appear to fit in without actually having to ever step out of the shadows. Ivri was sure some people considered Rabbi Levy a good, pious man; caring and warm, even fun on occasion, but Ivri also knew that few bothered to look into the round, dark opaque eyes, the same ones he had passed on to his son, because if they did they would know the secret Josef Levy guarded so ferociously: I am not here, I am somewhere else. Ivri had known it from even before he could remember because it had always been like looking in a mirror. By looking into his father’s eyes, he had also unwittingly unlocked his own secret. I am not here; I am somewhere else.

He stopped abruptly, as he had run out of steps to take. He lifted his head backwards towards the long, tall wrought iron gates that encased his college. He stepped inside, his head lowered for protection and to avoid coming into contact with anyone. I am not here; I am somewhere else.