The door was double-locked. Meir turned the key gently, slowly, trying not to make any noise. The last thing he needed was for Nirit to wake up now. He was trashed, and that felt pretty nice, but if Nirit woke up it would instantly stop feeling nice. It’s not that she’d make a scene or anything. She wasn’t the dramatic type. But the half-asleep half-disappointed look she’d give him before going back to bed would be all it took for the good part of being drunk to evaporate, leaving him slightly nauseous and very forlorn.

He stood near the door, waiting for his eyes to get used to the dark. He still couldn’t see much—just the silhouette of a figure wearing a coat and hat, waiting for him, motionless, at the end of the hallway. It was startling. Especially the way the figure was completely frozen, as if it were trying to blend in with the wall so it could ambush him. He wanted to tell the figure that he could see it there and that if it didn’t reveal itself and explain what it was doing in his apartment in the middle of the night, he would call the police. He was about to cry out, but he was afraid to wake Nirit, so he opted for a different plan: instead of confronting the mysterious figure, he would simply lie down on the floor near the front door, at a safe distance from the man in the coat, and have a little doze. By morning, he was sure, the whole thing would be sorted out.

Nirit woke him and made him some coffee. She did not smile at him or touch him, but she wasn’t mean, either, though he could tell by her sharp movements as she boiled the water and put his coffee on the table that she wasn’t pleased. Meir knew she had every reason in the world to be displeased. Almost two months had passed since he’d lost his job at the mall, during which time he got drunk every night and spent every day doing very little to find a new job.

Nirit sat down at the kitchen table and sighed. She told Meir that she loved him, that she understood he was going through a rough time, that she even understood the drinking, but she had to draw the line at this whole sleeping on the floor business. It was the fourth night straight that he’d done it, and, unlike the drunkenness, the laziness and the chronic depression, this was something she couldn’t tolerate. “I’m willing to be with you, always at your side. Even when things aren’t going well,” she said, stroking his hand. “You were there for me when my dad died. And I’m here for you, but only as long as you’re with me. I don’t mind waking up to find you lying next to me snoring and stinking of alcohol. But I won’t wake up every morning in an empty bed, like a widow, only to trip over you sleeping in the hallway again.”

Meir nodded and hugged her close. He promised it wouldn’t happen again, and said that from now on, not only would he come to bed every night, he’d also cut down on the drinking and make a bigger effort to find work. “I love you,” he said to Nirit. “And all this…” he added, with a vague gesture that tried encompass himself and the world, “all this is very temporary. I’ll snap out of it, I promise. I know I can do it.”

Four days later, Meir found himself quietly turning the key in the lock again. He was a little embarrassed at having had a couple of drinks earlier that night, but he was also proud that he’d managed not to get drunk for four whole days. When he walked into the dark apartment, he could see the mysterious figure in the coat and hat pressed up against the wall in its familiar, menacing position. As if from force of habit, Meir sat down in the hallway with his back against the front door. The natural next step was to lie on the floor and doze off, but Meir knew he mustn’t do that. He'd promised Nirit it wouldn’t happen again. In daylight, he’d seen the coat hanger at the end of the hallway with the raincoat and the wide-rimmed hat. In the dark, when he was drunk enough, it looked like someone threatening, but he knew it was just a coat and hat and that Nirit was waiting for him in bed. He didn’t want to let this childish fear take over again and keep him away from her. “It’s just a coat and hat on a hanger,” he murmured to himself while he edged down the hallway. “It’s just a hanger, a coat, a hat, and too much alcohol, even if it looks and feels like something else.” The murmuring reassured him a little. He’d reached the bedroom door at the end of the hallway when the mysterious figure started strangling him. Meir tried to fight back, but he was too drunk and tired to get out of its grip. As he struggled, he did not ask himself for even a second where this murderous figure in his own coat and hat had come from, or why on earth it wanted him dead. He only thought of Nirit waiting for him, and how, when she woke up in the morning, she would once again find herself alone in bed, and him sprawled on the hallway floor.