My neighbor is Eliza the catwoman. I call her the catwoman because she regularly throws scraps of raw meat to stray cats in the Tel Aviv neighborhood in which I live. The neighorhood of Kerem Hatemanim (literally "the Yemenite vineyard," but there are no grape vines here), is located next to the shuk (market). It's not for everyone, especially the Tzafonim who prefer the sterility and cleanliness of northern Tel Aviv. But the Kerem is between the shuk and the beach, and also within a short walk to Allenby and Sheinkin streets.
But back to Eliza. I guess she must be in her 50s. Her apartment is in the building next to mine, with barely a few meters separating her kitchen windows to the large sliding window to my living room. She's from the old generation of Israelis who have no problem shouting conversations from her window to people in the street or standing in other apartment windows.
She lives with some elderly people. I still haven't figured out exactly how many or who they are. It's at least one, maybe two. I once heard someone ask Eliza how her mother was doing, so maybe she lives with her.
Before I moved in, the former tenants of my apartment warned me about Eliza. They said that she would sometimes throw scraps of meat from her window into their living room for their cat. I often see Eliza returning from the market with plastic bags filled with meat scraps.
"They all know me in the shuk," she proudly told me once upon her return.
One morning changed my life. I saw her walking around topless in her apartment. Believe me when I say that this was not something I wanted to see, nor did I do so intentionally. The window to her kitchen was completely open. In one instant I completely understood Oedipus and what could drive a man to put out his own eyes. To my horror, the image remains seared into my memory today.
If there is a God, then I most certainly committed a terrible sin to have deserved this awful burden.
A few weeks later, unsurprisingly, Eliza began throwing meat from her window to my two dogs. I saw her from my sliding window in my living room and asked her to please stop, although I thanked her for the gesture. I told her that it wasn't good for a dog to eat so much meat, especially on the bone. She agreed to stop.
Less than a week later, I came home to discover a framed photograph of me and my sister taken at her wedding a few years ago lying in pieces on the living room floor. A barbecued chicken leg rested on the table where the photo had stood previously. It must have been after a bad day at work because I went directly to the open window and shouted to Eliza, who was stnding in her kitchen, that if she ever throws meat into my apartment again I would call the police. She feigned ignorance, but when I pointed out the chicken leg as evidence she apologized.
(I can just imagine the conversation if I did call the police:
Voice: This is the police.
Me: Shalom. I know this will sound strange and you have more important things to worry about, but I'm calling because my neighbor throws meat from her apartment window into the living room of my apartment.
Voice on phone: Why is she throwing meat into your apartment?
Me: I have two dogs. I asked her to stop but she continues.)
Several months ago, very late on a Friday night, I was laying in bed with a lady friend when suddenly I heard Eliza shouting from her apartment.
"What's that noise?!? It's the Sabbath!!! There are children in this neighborhood!!!"
She was responding to the sounds of sex coming from a nearby apartment, which we had heard as well. Unfortunately the sounds weren't coming from my own room.
Eliza's partner in crime, Bruria, then joined the fracas. Bruria lives in my building, in the apartment directly above me. She's the only tenant on my side of the building who owns her apartment and isn't renting. She's a grandmother and as unattractive as a grandmother could possibly be without being horribly disfigured. It wouldn't take much computer alteration for her to resemble a non-human character from one of the far away planets in Star Wars. Just change her skin color. Her raspy voice and morning coughing fits give away years of smoking, and I often find her cigarette butts in the flower bed that hangs from my balcony window. (I know they are hers because no one else lives above me.)
"What was that?!? Disgusting!!! It's the Sabbath." Bruria shouted from her balcony. "People are trying to sleep!!"
"Did you hear that?!?" Eliza asked Bruria. "Disgusting!!"
Neither of these women appear to me to be particularly religious, so I don't quite grasp their concern with the alleged violation of religious laws. (Isn't having sex on the Sabbath with one's spouse, for procreation of course, considered a mitzva?). But I can certainly say that if they were ultra-Orthodox, they haven't see a white sheet with a hole in it for many years. But if I ever run into a blind guy who calls himself Oedipus, I'll be sure to ask him if he knows Eliza or Bruria.
