You rarely hear Harrison on the radio, and there aren’t many morning songs as good as that one. It’s important for me to know the face of a person before I meet them for the first time, so as not to be surprised. She was very beautiful in the picture, hair pulled back in a bun, a wise forehead, smiling at an Arab at some meeting of progressives. A morning in late July. There was an urban calm of summer vacation in the street. Cats foraging for food in garbage cans, two friends striding to the sea on the tree-lined boulevard, carefree laughter, surfboards under their arm. I live on the third floor, she said on the phone. The mailboxes were covered with layers of stickers, young tenants who came and went and names in Latin letters of people who were no longer alive. The building was rundown and the plaster was peeling. The high narrow windows in the staircase, as in an abandoned monastery, were opaque with dirt. Daphna opened the door barefoot, her hair in a bun, her eyes sharp.
