Photographs from the album of happiness 19

This article is published in number 8 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 23, 2021

I have a friend who occasionally works as an extra on television series. Secondary roles. A few years ago he played an investigative reporter in a series that chronicled a Mossad mission gone wrong. The series first aired in Israel and then sold to Netflix and is now being broadcast with extraordinary success around the world.
During the first wave of Covid-19, my friend received a Facebook message from a stranger.

Hi, she wrote to him, my name is Melinda, I live in Austin, Texas. I got hooked on the TV show you were acting in and every time you appeared on screen I thought you were the man I’d like to spend the rest of my life with. I guess it sounds weird to you, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my forty-four years of life, it’s not underestimating intuition.
My friend thought it was actually a bit odd, and sent her a terse response. To be polite. To which she replied in turn, for a long time. At that point he answered her for a long time. Then she proposed to switch to Skype. And he saw for the first time how she parted her hair when it got into her eyes. He found himself revealing things he hadn’t told any of his three wives. And she too, he said. How she missed her dead husband. And as he spoke he began to cry. And he said, how I wish I was close to you, to dry your tears. And she smiled and retorted, we can imagine that you are close to me. What else would you do to me besides wiping my tears? So they started talking to each other via Skype three times a day, he in lockdown, confined to his apartment in Tel Aviv, with the dog he has left with the division of assets after the third divorce, she in lockdown confined to Austin, Texas, with the lazy cat who hadn’t got up from her place under the television for years now.
A few weeks after the lockdown ended, my friend and I met at a cafe. After he finished taking a selfie with the waitress who recognized him from the TV, he updated me on the dramatic developments in his life. He was radiant, he never stopped smiling, he seemed in love as I had never seen him before and ten years younger than his age, therefore more or less the age of his girlfriend – so he called her – who the night before was found a charming hotel for the two of them in Hydra, Greece, in short – she explained to me – the plan was that she would arrive with three flights from Austin, Texas, and he would arrive with a direct flight from Israel, and together they would board the ferry to Piraeus. They had already established the date and everything, they only had to do the swab for Covid and then buy the tickets; Did I know that Hydra Island is where the great love story between Leonard Cohen and Marianne of So Long was born, Marianne?
Two days later they closed the airports due to a surge in infections. The second lockdown is established. Longer. A few days after the second lockdown ended, my friend and I met again in a cafe. Or rather, we ordered takeaway coffee and sat with cardboard cups on a bench in the street. There was no need to ask – he looked ten years older than his age – but I asked anyway. He has another, he replied. From Austin, Texas.
I’m so sorry, I said. And I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
It’s all right, he retorted, and his voice broke at the end of the word; She’s been leaning on me for some time, and I on her, we’ve all needed support this year, haven’t we?

(Translation by Raffaella Scardi)