World Cup Wishes

9

THEY’RE STANDING ON either side of her, barely reaching her shoulders. She’s looking at the camera with that piercing stare of hers (the girl’s too smart, Maria once told us. If we don’t watch her, she’ll grow up to be bad), and they’re looking at her. Not exactly at her. It would be more accurate to say they were looking in her direction (and perhaps they were just giving each other sideways glances? Trying to see who was closer to her?).

I’m almost positive that the one on the right is Noam and Nimrod is on the left. But perhaps I’m wrong. Noam’s forehead is broader, but you can only see it when he has a certain kind of haircut. And on each small head, there’s a concealing, festive crown of leaves.

Amichai took that picture on their last birthday, when Ilana was still alive. They pursued Maria’s daughter subtly then. Shyly. But as soon as their mother died, it was as if some inner restraint was released, and the war for the heart of their beloved became totally uninhibited. And we, who at first had watched that threesome with smiles of amusement (ah, the sweet love of children), now had an expression of concern on our faces (what, can the sweet love of children be that intense?).

When Noam was brought home after his flight to the university, Nimrod was not happy. You’re such a baby, you did that just to get attention, he said. And it was clear whose attention he was talking about.

When Nimrod competed in the district judo championship, Noam sat next to her in the stands and tried to dampen her enthusiasm. He’s the biggest boy in his age group, he whispered in her ear, that’s why he beats everyone.

They competed in front of her in all sorts of weird contests: who could remember a nine-digit number by heart? A ten-digit number? Who could hold his breath longer? Who could eat the most strawberries without throwing up?

She was the judge in those contests. And she decided who the winner was. But she kept delaying the biggest, most crucial decision.

You’re being mean, Maria rebuked her in the end at home (Ofir told us about this conversation like a father talking about his daughter).

But why, Mor? the girl asked her mother, looking up at her, and in a characteristic gesture, tucked some unruly hairs back into the yellow bun on the top of her head.

Because you enjoy the two of them showering attention on you, and you don’t care that you’re hurting them, her mother said firmly.

But Mor, I really love them both, the girl protested. Really!

Perhaps she’s right. Who says that we have to love only one person? Ofir ended the story on a contemplative note, and Ya’ara flashed me a look (or was I only imagining that she flashed me a look?).

*

In the end, Amichai showed up for the meeting with the donor.

Unshaven. Wearing once-white trainers.

Before we went inside, he asked us to handle the presentation because he was still recovering from yesterday. But the minute Ofir showed the first slide, he interrupted him.

Stop, he said. I can’t bear those slides any more.

Listen, he said to the shocked millionaire, and began to tell him about Ilana. Ofir and I exchanged looks that screamed ‘help!’. We hoped that he would at least explain the connection between Ilana and our plans to set up the NPO, but no. He simply told the man about Ilana. How he went into the army office and it was full of girls laughing together and one girl sitting on the side with a mangy cat on her lap. How his heart went out to her at that moment, but it took three months for him to work up the courage to talk to her, to ask her for some form. And later on, for another form. And later on, he asked her if she wanted to go to the canteen with him for a cup of coffee and a chocolate bar. Then it turned out that she had wanted him secretly for three months. That she was yearning for him too. And that was exactly what he always loved about her, that under her cold, despairing surface, hidden springs of warmth flowed, and only he knew about them. He and the abandoned cats. And then he and her weakest students. And then he and the Palestinians at the checkpoints. The rest of the world — his family and friends — thought she was just another depressive girl. His mother even warned him before the wedding that ‘he should think hard about what he’s doing. That if she’s like that now, who knows what the hormones will do to her after she gives birth.’ But he didn’t care. And he didn’t care that he was the first of his friends to get married. And have children. And he didn’t care that she really was a bit depressive. Which meant that he was fated to bear sole responsibility for the joy of life in their relationship. And doomed to live in constant fear that one day he’d come home and find that she’d given up.

You know what it’s like to come home every day afraid that you’ll find your wife hanging from a rope or lying next to a bottle of pills? Amichai asked the millionaire.

I watched him as he spoke and thought about all the times over the last few months that he’d sat on my sofa never saying a word about those things.

The millionaire didn’t answer. From the look on his face it was hard to tell whether he was shocked, curious, or just waiting impatiently for Amichai to stop babbling.

Amichai, for his part, kept talking. It wasn’t till our twins were born, he said, that I could relax a little because she was so involved with them that I was sure she wouldn’t give up. And I didn’t care about letting her win the hidden competition between parents for their children’s love, I didn’t care if they loved her a bit more than me, just as long as she was happy. Because when she wasn’t — I wasn’t either. Even if I had to give up my dreams because of the children. You know, I always wanted to be a therapist. To study alternative medicine. Three years ago, during the World Cup, when we each wrote down our … OK, we won’t go into that now. What I wanted to say is that I didn’t care about giving it up. I didn’t care about working like a dog so there’d be money for nappies and wipes, then go home and work like a dog at being a parent. The main thing was that, at the end of the day, Ilana and I got into the same bed and talked. Even for just a few minutes. And her wisdom would shine a different light on everything that had happened to me that day. And now? Now I get into bed alone. And there’s no point to anything. No point.

Amichai stopped talking. As if he suddenly sensed that if there was no point to anything, there was no point in talking either.

The millionaire looked at his watch. He was suntanned and small, smaller even than me, and he had an almost completely round face, the face of a man who smiled a lot. But he hadn’t smiled even once since we came into the room.

Ofir looked at me for the OK, then turned on the presentation again and explained the structure of the NPO. And why we wanted to establish it.

During the explanation, the millionaire looked at his watch twice.

When we reached the question stage, which I was in charge of, he didn’t have a single question.

Is there something that’s important for you to know? I said, trying to pull him into a dialogue.

No, thank you, he said, and stood up.

*

Sorry I ruined everything, Amichai said after we left the hotel.

You didn’t ruin anything, I hurried to reassure him.

You said what you felt, Ofir said.

Yes, but I didn’t say it to the right person, Amichai said, his forehead wrinkled with pain. There are psychologists for monologues like that.

Who knows, I joked, perhaps he’s a psychologist too.

No, Ofir said knowingly, he’s too tanned to be a psychologist.

Amichai was silent. He didn’t laugh. He stared for a while at the flock of birds flying from north to south in a formation that resembled a question mark, and then said, you’re such good friends. I feel bad, you invested so much in that presentation.

Don’t be stupid, I said. I didn’t have anything better to do anyway.

My teacher in India always said that good energies never go to waste, Ofir said and put his hand on Amichai’s shoulder. How about a walk along the seafront?

Great idea, I said. I’m in no hurry to go anywhere.

I’m in a hurry to get everywhere, Amichai said bitterly and looked at his watch, but still agreed to join us for a short stroll against the strong wind that made sails belly out to the bursting point, and drove the red flags into a frenzy, and swirled old advertising flyers around in the air, and whipped the waves into a foam, and leafed through the pages of a book that an old lady sitting on a bench was reading, and also the pages of the book that her Philippino caregiver was reading, and ripped into the sleeves of the good shirts we’d put on in honour of the meeting in the hotel, and penetrated our nostrils and mouths and ears, making us walk next to each other in silence at first, because anyway, whatever question we asked then, and whatever answer we gave would have been blowing in the wind. It wasn’t till we were close to the Opera Tower that the whistling of the wind died down a bit, and walking became easier, less of a battle, and Amichai said, it’s nice here, on the promenade, and Ofir, who hadn’t been able to tolerate one nice word about Tel Aviv since he’d come back from India, said, it’s just a shame that the road is so close, and that the whole strip of beach has been taken over by concrete and commercial interests, and it’s a shame that it symbolises everything that’s happening in this city that has no depth, and everything in it is so exposed, so cellular, so lacking in intimacy, which affects the weak, temporary way people connect to each other here, and look, even the four of us, so many years here, and we had so many opportunities to make new friends, but we’re still stuck with each –

Let’s sit near the fountain for a little while, Amichai suggested, and I prayed that Ofir would shut up, because Amichai’s voice was shaking when he asked to rest, and I had a feeling that he was on the brink, but as we were crossing the road, Ofir pointed to the new branch of Abulafiya’s Pitta Bread and said look at that, because of the Intifada people are even afraid to go to Jaffa, to the original bakery, and they opened a branch here so God forbid they don’t have to look at Arabs in Jaffa, because Arabs are not cool, right?

We sat down on the edge of the fountain, but not even the sight of the flowing water could calm Ofir down.

He grabbed his nose with two fingers and said, phew, what a stink, why do they put so much chlorine in the water? Then he pointed to the square behind us and said, look at how many massage parlours there are here, how many betting shops, it’s just like the Roman Empire in its last days. Then he pointed to the entrance to the shopping centre and said, what are those statues of people with an accordion? And why are they hanging on columns with their heads down? What was the artist trying to say, that the minute they saw that ugly shopping centre they wanted to commit suicide? Nothing like this could happen in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen, they would get the best artists for a project like this, they wouldn’t just stick some cheap statue there.

But actually … you’ve never been to Copenhagen, I said, trying to stop Ofir’s tirade, mainly out of concern for Amichai, whose face was getting darker with every word Ofir said, and his broad camel’s back was showing signs of breaking any second, any half-second.

What difference does it make, Ofir said, refusing to shut up, it’s enough to see pictures of Copenhagen to understand how a big city should be planned. Not like this city, which is patched together with –

Bye, Amichai said suddenly, and before we realised what was happening, he had already crossed the road to the beach.

We hurried after him and managed to see him take off his clothes and jump into the cold, stormy water in his underwear.

Are you happy now? I yelled at Ofir. Amichai has gone off into this freezing sea all because of your stupid rant.

What’s so bad about a freezing sea? he replied in a quiet voice. You know that in Copenhagen, people go into icy water all winter? They say it’s better than meditation!

I waved my hand in the air in exasperation and walked away from him. And he, in response, waved his hands in the air, then lowered them to his hips and began making l-o-ong, s-o-o-ft t’ai chi movements.

*

My father liked to go into the sea in winter too. A kind of madness that didn’t fit with anything else in his work-oriented life. He always swam out to the deep water, to the smooth, quiet sea past the waves. I would wait for him on the beach till he came out. My mother wouldn’t join him because ‘Only masochists go swimming in the sea in this weather’, and she was very surprised that I wanted to go with him. ‘Why do you go with your dad, Yuvali? You never go into the water anyway’, she would say and try to persuade me to stay at home with her and watch a documentary series about the royal family on Middle East TV. What she didn’t understand was that I had a job to do there, on the beach. I tried to pretend, to keep busy doing all sorts of things, building sandcastles, exercising, but I was actually watching out for my father. I looked for his head, followed the way it appeared further and further from the beach each time, making sure over and over again that he hadn’t drowned. Sometimes his head would vanish among the waves for too long, and I would stand with my ankles in the cold sand, worrying, trying to decide whether to go to the first-aid station to ask for help, picturing his body spilling onto the beach and everyone blaming me for not doing anything, because in fact, deep inside, I wanted him to die. In the end, he would come out with a wet smile, take his thick glasses and his towel from me and say: that water, it’s so invigorating! Shame you don’t come in with me, son.

*

Now, too, I followed Amichai’s head for a few minutes, as it disappeared and reappeared, until it suddenly vanished altogether.

Bro, I said, touching Ofir’s shoulder, I can’t see Amichai.

Ofir continued his t’ai chi movements and said, you worry too much, man. Amichai Tanuri is stronger than all those waves put together.

And you’re a bigger idiot than all the jellyfish put together, I thought. After all, you’re the one who said that if anything happened to Amichai, we’d never forgive ourselves. So why the sudden change?

I stripped, determined to go into the water and save Amichai from drowning, but before I could, a city patrol jeep appeared on the beach and an authoritative voice boomed from it: ‘Everyone out of the water. Everyone out of the water. The water is polluted due to a malfunction in the sewage system. I repeat: the water is polluted due to a malfunction in the sewage system. Everyone out of the water.’

A few seconds later, Amichai came out of the water. He ambled towards us, and when he was about a metre away, launched into a perfect imitation of Ofir, including the nasal tone and the folded hands: did you hear that jeep? Did you hear what he said? In Co-pen-ha-gen, that would never happen!

Ofir laughed out loud at the great imitation, and I thought to myself that this was the first time I’d seen him laugh at himself since he came back from India, and that if a person can laugh at himself, there’s hope for him.

Then Amichai dried himself off with his T-shirt and put on his clothes, and we started back.

This time we were walking in the same direction as the wind, which propelled us north quickly, as if we were kites (when I was little, my father used to call me ‘kite’. Every time I drifted off into my thoughts, he would pull a thin, invisible string and ground me with a job he thought up: tightening an already tight table leg; washing an already washed car, taking apart and putting together a perfectly fine wall clock).

No matter what, in the end, we’re going to set up that NPO, Amichai said as we neared Ofir’s car. I thought about it while I was swimming and I’m telling you — in the end, it’s going to happen!

Ofir and I looked at each other and were silent.

Amichai trembled slightly as a sudden gust of wind slid across his skin, and he hugged himself.

And … if we don’t manage to do it, I said quickly, we can go back to watching football together, because … we’ve been neglecting that lately.

There’s a championship league game on Wednesday, Ofir reminded us.

Who’s playing? Amichai asked, his curiosity piqued. Real against Bayern, Ofir replied.

Group qualifying stage?

Are you joking? It’s the quarter final already.

*

On Wednesday, Ya’ara called to tell me that there were developments. The last millionaire, the suntanned one, said no, as expected. But Mr Goldman — our first meeting was with his representative — had suddenly decided to back us after all.

But what … what made him change his mind like that?

Turns out that he didn’t feel well over the weekend and spent a whole night in hospital, and that … changed his perspective somewhat. But wait … it’s too soon to celebrate. He’s ready to fund you for a year of activity, she said, and then, if he sees that you’re serious, he’s ready to fund you for another two years. But he has two conditions … pretty annoying conditions, to tell you the truth.

So tell us.

He … he insists that the organisation bear his mother’s name. That means … not Ilana’s name.

What a bastard, Ofir blurted out.

We looked at Amichai. We knew how important it was for him to commemorate Ilana. Written on every slide were the words ‘Our Right — The Ilana Abramowitz-Tanuri Non-Profit Organisation’.

Amichai nodded slowly, taking in the news, and then said confidently into the phone: I’ll take care of it. Go on, Ya’ara, what’s the second condition?

He wants matching.

Matching?

He doesn’t want to be the only sponsor. He wants someone else involved. Someone with Israeli citizenship.

Why?

I didn’t ask. I was afraid that if I asked, he’d withdraw the offer.

What a nightmare. What are we going to do? Where are we going to get fucking matching now?

*

A week later, Amichai received an envelope in the post with a large cheque in it. Very large.

With an accompanying note.

My Bro, Amichai,

I want you to know that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the shiva. I really wanted to be with you in your hour of need, but life is a big, strong river and it carried the small, broken piece of wood that is Shahar Cohen far from all of you, and for the time being, I can’t come back to Israel. But a little bird told me about the NPO you’re trying to set up to help people that doctors aren’t nice to and I think that’s a great idea, so I’m attaching a small cheque for you in the hope that it will help you get organised. Don’t make a big deal out of it. I happen to have some free cash I made last year and better to invest it in my friends than in clothes, right?

Regards to all,

Shahar

How did Shahar Cohen hear about our NPO? To this day, we have no idea. A few weeks before that, someone we knew in high school who went to Berlin told us that he saw a panther in the city zoo whose face looked amazingly like Shahar’s. That led us to the inevitable conclusion that after drifting around the world, Shahar Cohen had drifted into the body of a panther.

Ya’ara admitted that the idea of turning to Shahar Cohen had actually crossed her mind, and without telling us, she even called the Israeli embassy in Canberra, the last place we’d had signs of life from him. But the embassy told her that they had no documentation suggesting an Israeli citizen named Shahar Cohen, or Ricardo Luis, had been in Australia during the last ten years.

*

Three months later, we held an event at the Rokah House to launch Our Right. The media people there were more interested in Amichai’s personal tragedy than in the organisation, but Ofir said that’s how media people are and it doesn’t matter: the main thing is that we get coverage.

A lot of people went up to the podium set up for the occasion and pledged to work as volunteers. Many of them were former members of the health system: people who had been fired or had retired or had been taken ill and found themselves suddenly on the other side of the fence, victims of the system they had once been part of.

Surprisingly, one of the people who went up to the podium was the director of a small hospital in the centre of the country that had recently been the focus of a series of investigations into the disgraceful treatment of patients by the hospital medical staff. The publicity had led to such a drastic drop in the number of people seeking treatment at the hospital that it was on the verge of financial collapse.

The director took Amichai aside, had a short conversation with him, put a fatherly-conspiratorial hand on his shoulder and arranged a meeting to check out the possibilities of working together.

At night, when the last of the guests had gone and only the three of us were left, we tried to persuade Amichai to go out and celebrate the success of the event. Not to celebrate, to have a drink. Not to have a drink, to sit somewhere. In short, whatever he liked.

He said he wasn’t in the mood. The evening had reminded him of Ilana, and all those newspaper interviews had made him sad. They pretend to care about you, he said, and then, the minute they’ve sucked everything they can out of you, the minute the interview is over — they’re not interested in you any more.

That’s just the way it is, Ofir said. That’s how newspaper people are.

And Amichai said that he was sick of hearing ‘that’s just the way it is’. And that now, he wanted to go home to his children.

*

So Ofir and I went out to celebrate alone.

We didn’t actually know where to go. When Ofir had worked in advertising he had always updated us on the hot places, but now he’d gone far away to Michmoret and depended on me to guide him. And I was never big on going out. So we went to a bar we once used to frequent, and when we got there, it turned out that its name had been changed. And also the façade. For a minute, we considered leaving, but Ofir said it didn’t matter, all we wanted to do anyway was talk. So we went inside. People were dancing in the aisles between the tables to the sound of pounding, ear-splitting music. Well, they weren’t exactly dancing, because it was too crowded. It was more like they were rubbing up against each other. We squeezed into the last two empty stools at the bar and signalled to the barman to come over, but he didn’t notice. We tried to talk to each other, but we couldn’t hear anything. The hideous song that was playing when we walked in ended and a new, even more horrible one began, a cheap cover version of a beautiful ballad from the ’80s. If there’s something I despise, it’s cover versions. They always make me miss the original. So I put my mouth up against Ofir’s ear and asked if his flat feet weren’t … hurting him by any chance.

He smiled with admiration. It was nice that I remembered his old excuse.

We escaped on to the street and walked without speaking till we reached a kiosk. We bought beers and sat down on a public bench that was badly in need of paint. Every once in a while, women walked passed and looked at Ofir.

Women always looked at Ofir.

We’ve already forgotten what it’s like, haven’t we? I said, pointing back to the place we’d just left.

Yes, he said, sipping from his can of beer. It was … too noisy … too frantic … I’m not used to that any more. And the people there … I felt a bit …

Yes … The generation that came after us is …

Nothing to write home about … nothing at all … Ofir said with a slight Polish accent.

They don’t care about anything, those cholerahs, I said, adding a Yiddish curse.

All they care about is money.

And crazy dancing.

And wild parties.

Oy, today’s youth.

They’re not yesterday’s youth.

Definitely not. So, Mr Zlotochinski, how’s your health?

OK. We’re going to the Dead Sea for the holidays.

For Rivkele’s psoriasis?

No, you have it mixed up. Rivkele has rheumatism. The psoriasis is mine. All mine.

*

Ofir has always been the ideal partner for imaginologues (that’s what he called our imaginary dialogues). In the army, we used to call each other when we were on night watch and really get into it: imaginologues between a worried mother and her DJ son, between the Chief of Staff and the Minister of Defence, between a Kit Kat and a Mars Bar.

In our last year in the army, when we were both a minute away from losing it completely, we took it one step further and wrote long letters between two characters we’d invented: Adva Auerbuch and Nurit Sadeh. I was Adva, a virgin from a kibbutz who was stationed at a base down on the Egyptian border where there were only guys. Ofir was the poetic Nurit, who grew up in a small town near Haifa and was stationed in General Headquarters in Tel Aviv, where she was exposed to all the less well-known aspects of the military big shots. She was desperately in love with her commander, Dan Rom, head of the Parade Branch, but he never even noticed her.

We wrote those letters for a whole year, devoting ourselves to the inner worlds of Adva and Nurit. Ofir’s letters were especially brilliant. He was able to eradicate his own identity and turn himself completely into Nurit. She had this kind of language that was hers alone, with expressions like ‘Threesomes are wearisome’, or ‘All the hearts are purple today’, or ‘The woman inside me is still a child’.

Later, when Ofir tried to get an ad agency job, he asked my permission to include parts of that correspondence in his work portfolio. I said yes, even though I thought it was a little weird.

*

You know who I was just thinking of? Ofir asked. We were still sitting on the bench.

Yes, I said, Nurit Sadeh.

How’d you know?

Because I was just thinking of Adva.

I wonder what finally happened to her.

Adva was killed in a terrorist attack. Not long ago.

A fitting end for her.

She and Shahar Cohen. Their pictures were printed next to each other in the papers.

And tell me, was she still a virgin when she …

Unfortunately, yes. They even mentioned it in the newspapers, in the caption under her picture: A quiet girl. She died a virgin.

And Nurit? What about Nurit Sadeh?

You’re asking me? You should know.

I know, Freed. I always knew. I wanted to see if you picked up on it.

On what?

Her commander, Dan Rom, he was in love with her too. But afraid to show it because he could have been charged with sexual harassment.

Tragic.

But in the end, she left the army.

And he confessed to her that …

Yes. But then she didn’t want him any more. Because what she actually loved was the endless yearning for him.

Because that way …

That way she could speak in that language of hers, which is a language of yearning, not of actually having.

So, in fact, the language was more important to her than love?

Exactly.

Very nice. You have the gift, Ofir. You should write. Really, why don’t you? After all, one of your World Cup wishes was …

The World Cup was before Maria.

Ofir said those words with finality. As if the fact that the World Cup came before Maria explained everything, and there was no room, not even a crack, for doubt.

I didn’t say anything, and took another swig of beer.

Besides, he said with a smile, it’s all your fault. If you’d been killed in the army like you promised, I would have made an Oscar-winning film about the four of us and then I wouldn’t have had to work in advertising at all, and everything would be different.

Before I could apologise and promise to try harder to die soon, an older woman with a green scarf around her neck came up to us. I thought she wanted to ask for money, but then she shook Ofir’s hand excitedly and thanked him, saying that she felt a lot better this week. I’m glad to hear it, he said, lightly massaging her palm. See you on Thursday? Thursday, Thursday, she repeated like an echo, and added, you’re the last person I expected to see here.

I wouldn’t expect to see myself here either, Ofir answered, and they both laughed heartily.

*

It’s all ego, Ofir said. A long minute had passed since the woman had gone, and I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. All the things I wished for then, at the World Cup, he explained. They were all ego. Why did I want to write a book? Not because I had something important to say, God forbid. I wanted to stand at a stall during Book Week and have thousands of people ask me to autograph their copy of my book. That’s what was in my mind when I made that wish.

What’s wrong with that?

It doesn’t lead to happiness. Just frustration. Because the ego is never satisfied, it’ll always demand more. And you live with the constant fear that one day, your inspiration will dry up. Or your audience will disappear. And I don’t want to be like that, always on the edge of the abyss. I mean, I can live that way, but I don’t want to.

So what do you want?

To live for someone else. To give. To be a father. To listen to my body. To heal. That woman who shook my hand before? Five years ago, she accidentally ran over her daughter in a car park. She backed up without noticing that the girl was standing there with her scooter. You know how much sadness there was in her back the first time I touched her? Whole lumps of sadness. In her shoulders. Between her shoulders. In her lower back. Do you see? What can you say to someone like that? Are there any words that can console her? Any words that can touch her? And writing … writing is just words … a collection of words … I might have believed in words once, but after all those years in advertising, with all the slogans I thought up … ‘Bid your wrinkles farewell’, ‘Natural, triple-action schnitzels’ — I realised that people use words mainly to lie. Either to themselves or to others.

I was silent. The more emphatically Ofir spoke, the more I suspected that he wasn’t absolutely sure of himself.

It’s not that I don’t have moments when … he went on. But still, you know me, my flat feet still hurt me sometimes … and sometimes ideas for stories pop into my head … and all the work on the NPO, for instance, came just in time for me, because the treatments … they don’t always … I don’t always really manage to be there, not like Maria … and recently, Maria, ever since Ilana … she isn’t like Maria … maybe that’s why it was convenient for me, all those meetings about the NPO … away from home, I mean.

Of course.

But running away is the easiest thing to do. That’s what my father did, that’s what I’ve done all my life. Jump to the next thing. So this time I’m trying to stay and tell myself that there’s no rush to get to anyone, to anything. Not that I have a choice. You know, because of the girl.

The girl?

It’s enough that one father left her. And she relies on me, you know? No one has ever relied on me like that before. My father never did because you can’t rely on a boy who was raised by his mother. And in the army, they didn’t rely on me because I was always the youngest guy in the unit. And at the agency, the minute they did rely on me — I fell apart. And here I can’t allow myself to fall apart. Because I can’t disappoint her. And that’s the most important thing to me. More important than anything else. More important than writing. Do you understand?

Of course.

An elderly couple walked past, their arms around each other, their shoulders touching.

It’s nice that they walk together like that at their age, I said.

His lower back hurts him, Ofir decided, and hiccupped like a drunk.

What?

That man has back pains. Bad ones.

How do you know?

Look at the way he walks. It’s not balanced. He walks crookedly to avoid the pain. And she’s supporting him with her hand. That’s why they’re walking that way, close together.

You can actually see things like that? I said in surprise.

Yes, Ofir said and pointed to the guy working in the kiosk. For instance, he has a stiff neck because he’s always raising his head to look up at the TV. It’s hanging too high.

I looked at the guy. There really was something robotic in the way the lower part of his body moved. Wow, I thought. Ofir is truly good at this. He didn’t say a word to those people, and yet he knows such intimate things about them. So really, what does he need words for?

But you can write, Ofir said suddenly.

Me? I said, startled.

Yes, you wrote some really good letters back then.

Me? Write? Are you joking?

Why not, you’re the one …

No way, I interrupted him. You must be wasted to have ideas like that.

We got up from the bench and staggered towards the cars. We were light-headed, a little fuzzy, and perhaps that’s why we reacted so slowly to what happened. A guy wearing light-coloured jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt was walking towards us. At the time, we didn’t notice that he was wearing light-coloured jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt. Only later, when we tried to recreate it, did we remember that. And the cap he was wearing. And the fact that there was something foreign about his facial features. Something not from here.

A van stopped next to him when he was about twenty or thirty metres from us. A huge van. Whale-like. Three men got out of it, grabbed the guy and forced him into the back seat. He didn’t try to resist. It was weird. He didn’t shout. Didn’t kick. Didn’t wave his fists around. But even so, one of the men hit him on the head with something that looked like the butt of a gun. The whole thing took a few seconds, no more than half a minute. Then the men got into the van and drove away. They didn’t drive fast and the tyres didn’t squeal on the turn. Just the opposite, they even stopped for a red light at the next junction. And then, when the light turned green — they drove off.

What … what was that? Did you see it too? Ofir asked. Yes, I mean, I think … I don’t know … maybe we should call the police?

Perhaps they were the police, Ofir said.

So where’s the flashing light on the roof?

Maybe they’re undercover, Ofir offered a logical explanation. But we still called the emergency police number. And waited a long time for them to answer. The jingle playing in the background kept repeating the words ‘service’ and ‘for you’. Carmit, the desk sergeant, sounded like we woke her up. She wrote down my description of the events without sounding particularly interested. I tried to be as detailed as possible, but the more details I gave, the more I felt like I was losing her. You sound pretty indifferent, Carmit, I said angrily. This isn’t something that happens every day. A person gets pushed into a car and abducted like that, in the middle of the city.

You’d be surprised, Carmit said. The immigration police are hunting down foreign workers at the moment.

Wait a minute, so you know about it? That’s what this was?

I don’t know, Carmit said. Maybe it was the Security Agency.

Security Agency?

People staying in the country illegally. Palestinians from the territories hiding at their employers’ places. They’re being hunted down now too.

So it’s the hunting season now, is it?

Excuse me?

Never mind. Will you give us an update on how this turns out?

We don’t update citizens.

So what … how will we know what …

Read the papers. If there’s anything unusual about what you saw, it’ll be reported in the newspapers. In any case, the Israel Police thanks you for your alertness. And wishes you … a good, quiet night.

*

We walked towards our cars in silence. I think we were both slightly ashamed for having stood by and not lifted a finger. Even though there wasn’t much we could have done.

When we reached the car park, Ofir said, what a way to end the evening.

And I said, yes. They don’t let you celebrate in peace in this country.

And Ofir said, something’s gone bad here these last two years. Or … or was it always like this and I’m only noticing it now because of Maria? Everything here’s become so base. So brutal. And you people in this city, you think you can escape it. That you’re some kind of cosmopolitans. But that’s crap. It’s worse here. Everyone in this city pretends to be liberal, but the truth is that smoking grass is the whole extent of their liberalism. God forbid they should be truly open to other people. Or care about the injustices going on right under their noses.

What does he want from this city? I thought. What sore point of his is it pressing on?

Remember what I’m telling you, Ofir went on, in the end it’ll explode in your faces. And it’ll come from the most unexpected direction.

Why ‘your faces’? By what right did he exclude himself? I wondered. Because he lives in Michmoret, or because Maria convinced him to throw away his mobile, or because he takes an afternoon nap every single day ‘because that’s what our bodies truly want’? — but that didn’t seem like the right time to bring up the subject. So I didn’t say anything.

And Ofir said, I have a request. If you can, don’t tell Maria about the … about what just happened.

No problem, I said.

She’s been a bit … since Ilana. And I don’t want her to …

No problem.

*

Maria wasn’t the only one I didn’t tell about the kid napping. I didn’t tell myself either. An article I translated recently claims that the first two years of our lives are erased from our memory because the dramas that take place during infancy are too intense to bear. And I repressed the memory of that kidnapping as if it had never happened until the first session of the creative writing workshop I was taking. The tutor asked each of us to tell a true story and a false one about ourselves, and suddenly it rose to the surface like a lost navy submarine. I talked about how we were strolling down the street and the large van stopped and a man was swallowed up inside it, like Jonah in the whale, and we didn’t do a thing, we didn’t have time, or we couldn’t, or we didn’t want to. I told the story in great detail, as the instructor had asked, but still, the whole group, except for one timid girl, thought I was lying and that the true story was the one I’d made up about still using a youth pass to ride the buses even though I was thirty, and no one suspected me because of my baby face and height.

To tell the truth, I was insulted. Even though the purpose of the game was to trick the group, I felt like shit that no one believed the first story. Wait a minute, I asked, why doesn’t the story about the kidnapping sound believable?

The way you told it, it sounded like a scene from a Hollywood movie, said a guy in glasses who looked like a Hollywood movie director himself.

It sounds more like something that would happen in America. Things like that happen in New York, not in Tel Aviv, a girl said.

You didn’t flesh out your story with enough non-contingent details, the tutor said. That’s why we found it hard to believe.

That group was pissing me off more from one minute to the next. They don’t believe me even now. And what the hell are ‘non-contingent details’?! It’s so annoying when teachers use words no one understands. And how maddening it is that it has exactly the stupid effect they’re aiming for. And what is this chair they gave me to sit on? It’s not a chair, it’s a stool. It’s not a stool, it’s a rug. Why do I deserve this? Why did I pay for the whole workshop in advance? This is the last time I come here.

Tell me, the timid girl asked, was there anything … I mean … was there anything about it in the papers?

Nothing, I admitted. I had rushed out to buy all the newspapers first thing in the morning. I read all the inside pages. There was no mention of it. Not one word. All week.

*

On the other hand, they devoted two or three inches to the event that launched ‘Our Right — The Jennifer Goldman and Ilana Abramowitz-Tanuri Non-Profit Organisation for Human Rights in the Health System’. Accompanying every story was a close-up photo of Amichai, and the brief text contained mainly direct quotes from the press release we’d handed out at the event (Ofir had said that journalists don’t like working too hard, so we should prepare a few quotable sentences for them beforehand).

The overall tone of the reports was quite favourable. One newspaper wrote that it was an ‘interesting initiative’. Another maintained that establishing the NPO was ‘a welcome idea’. A third took the trouble to print the NPO phone number at the end of the item. The next day, there were 5,421 voicemail messages on the answering machine Amichai had set up, and by the end of that week, almost 8,000 people had called. It turned out that Amichai’s initiative had broken through a locked door, had got under the public’s thick skin and sent an electric charge along an exposed nerve of Israeli society. And it turned out that among the callers were many professionals — lawyers, accountants, electricians — all of whom had personally experienced a violation of their rights and offered to volunteer their expertise for the NPO’s use.

Within only three months — and without leaving his job at Telemed, because ‘you don’t leave a good job’ and ‘I have subscribers who depend on me’ — Amichai, with the determination of a long-distance runner and the patience of a jigsaw-puzzle assembler, had succeeded in turning the NPO from an idea on paper to a living organisation.

The administrative backbone of the NPO consisted of four salaried employees, but most of the work was done by dozens of volunteers. Amichai himself divided his time between the day-to-day running of the organisation and meetings with senior officials in hospitals and in the Health Ministry to discuss the implementation of the pilot that would examine how the presence of mediators and interpreters from the Our Right NPO in a hospital accident and emergency department would help guard human rights in the institution.

Ofir and I followed the reports in the media about Amichai’s activities with proud surprise. It’s always weird to see someone you knew as a teenager becoming so successful in the grown-up world. You remember him choking on his first cigarette behind the basketball court — and now he was making hospital directors choke when he showed them the critical reports prepared by the NPO’s undercover volunteers. You remember him shaking in his boots as he stood in front of the teacher’s desk — and now he was banging on the Health Minister’s desk.

But there was something else here that was less comfortable to admit.

We had always been a bit disdainful of Amichai, perhaps because he was the least verbal of the three of us (and perhaps that’s why Ilana refused to get close to us? Perhaps she sensed that hidden current?). The three of us moulded Hebrew to serve our purposes. Ofir liked to be clever. Churchill liked to be precise. And I, perhaps because my parents never mastered Hebrew, insisted on knowing it inside and out. I read dictionaries in the bathroom as if they were novels. I turned on the radio every day at five to five to hear ‘A moment of Hebrew’. And I enjoyed inventing Hebrew substitutes for foreign words that the Academy of the Hebrew Language still hadn’t got around to working on.

I can’t really say if that attraction to words was what connected me to Ofir and Churchill from the beginning, or if we became alike in that regard only after our friendship had deepened. But we were already doing quite a bit of verbal jousting at school, and after the army, when the three of us chose professions in which language played a major role, our tendency to verbalise everything grew stronger and caused some of the people who spent time with us to raise their eyebrows — a tight-lipped smoulder is the hallmark of the manly movie star, so what’s all that talking?

Amichai, unlike us, always preferred doing to talking. And when he did speak, he spoke heavily and used outdated words like ‘swell’ or ‘way-out’, and when one of us entertained the others with a complex play on words, he was the last to understand. And he married someone who, at least outwardly, showed no great love for him. And there was that endless talk of his about studying shiatsu, which never came to anything. And those ridiculous attempts to eradicate the blotch on his neck. And his pathetic ‘brilliant ideas’ that we sometimes enjoyed, but more often made fun of.

And now, just like in the pavement shell game you see con artists running, the pea turns out to have been hiding under the most unexpected shell — in Amichai’s project, a project that the great, omniscient Churchill had declared ‘not serious’, that, at first, I didn’t think had a chance either. It was Amichai’s project that was taking off. That had financial support. And influence.

*

About a year after the NPO was established, the first scheme was initiated in the same failing hospital whose director had spoken to Amichai at the launch event.

A week later, the pilot was almost stopped. An Our Right representative was hit by a patient’s brother who thought that he and he alone was responsible for his brother’s death. A group of interns in one of the departments all threatened to quit, claiming that their shifts were inhuman. And in another department, doctors refused to cooperate with Our Right representatives, arguing that they would be violating the patients’ right to privacy if they did.

What have you done to me? the director shouted at Amichai. The situation has only deteriorated! But Amichai wasn’t fazed. For several moments, he let the director’s shouts crash over him like water on a wharf, and in the end, he said quietly: Micha, I don’t have to explain to you that it takes time to absorb changes. Especially in large organisations. That’s why I suggest that we judge on the basis of the long-term results.

How long? the director demanded to know.

At least three months, Amichai said.

After three months, an objective poll revealed that, along with the problems that it created, the presence of the Our Right representatives did indeed improve doctor — patient communication and significantly decreased the number of complaints.

In light of this, Amichai was invited to the Health Ministry to examine the possibility of expanding the scheme to additional hospitals, and he was asked to appear on several morning TV shows to explain the idea behind the NPO (he comes over really well on the small screen, Ofir said, because he projects something sincere. Notice that he never gets drawn into that carefree façade the presenters put on, but he still doesn’t come across as patronising).

During his appearances, many women called the studios to ask for the phone number of the widower with the earth-coloured eyes.

Amichai politely rejected all those interested women.

But why? I asked when he told me about it.

It’s too soon, he said. His heart was still mourning. In bed at night, he still reaches out to embrace Ilana. During the day, he still automatically calls her mobile to tell her about the little things that have happened to him. Every time he looks at the children, he sees her (Noam has her tiny freckles; Nimrod, her expression). Every time they play Aviv Geffen’s song, ‘Oh Ilana’, on the radio, he turns it off. Every time he hears an ambulance, he remembers that ambulance. Every time he hears a car alarm, he remembers that ambulance. Every time he … hold on a minute. He doesn’t want to talk about it. How did I drag him into talking about it? Talking about it only makes him feel terrible.

OK, I said. And left him alone.

But the women didn’t. They kept calling him and sending letters and pictures and sad songs. And he kept dodging them. To the ones who sounded particularly desperate, he mentioned his best friend, a fantastic guy, very serious, from a British family. He’s writing his philosophy thesis now.

I even went out with one of them. In principle, I thought it was dishonest, very dishonest, to exploit the NPO for personal gain, but –

Her name was Ya’ara.

And I really loved rolling the name around on my tongue when we spoke. Ya’-a-ra, I’d say slowly, lingering on every syllable, feeling as if I were sitting in a rocking chair that someone was tilting further and further back. So where do you live, Ya’-a-ra? And where are you from originally, Ya’-a-ra? And isn’t it amazing that you like the Chamelons, Ya’-a-ra, and what do you think about skipping the first date, Ya’-a-ra, and starting with the second? What does that mean? It means that we ask all the usual questions now, on the phone. So on the second date, we can really talk. Great. So let’s start. What do you do?

Coach.

I thought she meant she was a personal fitness coach, and was already picturing myself running my finger slowly along her calf muscle, but when we met, she explained that she was a mental coach. What they call a life coach. She meets privately with executives and helps them:

To define their vision.

To identify the obstacles blocking their way to fulfilling that vision.

To achieve significant breakthroughs.

That’s it in a nutshell, she said, and cut her mushroom pie into small squares of exactly the same size.

I nodded. My inner oracle prophesised bad things, but nevertheless I told her almost personal things about myself, and at the end of the evening, I said I’d like to see her again. Her upper lip curled upward slightly, the sort of curl you feel like kissing. Her self-control, evident in every movement, made me want to know what happened when she lost control, and more than anything, I was thrilled by the idea that while I made passionate love to her, I could whisper Ya’-a-ra, Ya’-a-ra.

It didn’t happen. Even though, at first, everything went according to plan. As I always do on the second date, at some point I mentioned that I was colour blind. So what colour is my dress? she asked, the way girls always do, and, as always, I hesitated in order to intensify the suspense, then said: red. And explained that it’s not that I can’t identify each colour separately, it’s just hard for me to differentiate between them when they’re next to each other. For example, if she were standing in the middle of a green field in her pretty dress, I might not see her. That’s so weird, she said, as expected, and I was already preparing myself for the next stage, where I usually ask the girl sitting across from me something personal about herself, and she, influenced by my blind openness, tells me a lot more than she’d intended, and then, to justify herself in her own eyes, agrees to come up to my flat, or is silent and looks intently at my lips as if to say: let’s kiss. But a tenth of a second before I bent to kiss Ya’ara II, she said there was something she wanted to tell me, had to tell me, and I straightened up and said, go for it.

You have no vision, she said. From everything you told me about yourself, you live your life blindly. Without mapping out your wishes and your opportunities.

So … so what do you suggest?

Create a vision for yourself, she said: I wouldn’t mind if we did it together. I don’t usually mix work with my private life, but in your case, I can make an exception.

Look, I said, moving to the far end of the sofa, I’m sure you’re a great coach, and that your method has helped a great many people, but for me … it won’t work …

Why not?

Just that word, vision, gives me a chill. Not of excitement. Of the flu.

That’s a real shame, she said, placing a large cushion between us, because that’s not something I can live with. In the long-term.

So maybe we can console each other in the meantime? I said, and put my hand on the cushion.

Console each other? For what?

For being alone. For the coldness of an untouched body. For the heat trapped in a cold, untouched body.

She shook her head and said, heat, cold, I don’t do things like that any more. My vision is to find a serious life partner. And things that don’t lead to that are a waste of my time. And by the way, she added when she’d already gone to the door, if you ask me, what’s blocking you is your friends.

My friends?!

I’ve never met a person who talks so much about his friends, shows albums of their pictures to the women he’s dating, and hangs framed photos of them in his flat instead of paintings. If I were your coach, I’d say you were a classic case of the parallel-train paradigm.

Parallel train?

When your train is standing in the station and a train on a parallel track starts to move, you think that your train is also moving. But it isn’t really moving. It’s just an optical illusion.

What exactly are you trying to tell me?

Nothing. Just that if I were your coach, I’d say that you might be living your friends’ lives instead of your own.

But you’re not, I said.

Not what?

Not my coach, I said and slammed the door in her face, trying as hard as I could, without success, to feel satisfaction for having had the last word, and the standard responses to her claim rang in my head, responses I could have made but didn’t: let’s say that I may not have a vision at the moment, but the whole NPO thing actually gave me the desire to do something with myself soon. Really soon. And as far as my friends are concerned, she’s completely wrong. I talk about them a lot only because I love them, and to say that I’m living their lives instead of my own is a load of crap.

*

Towards the end of the year, the country’s leading newspaper published the names of its nominees for Man of the Year. Among those listed in the category, ‘Man of the Year in Society’ was Amichai Tanuri. And this is how the judges explained his nomination (I cut that part of the article out of the paper and pinned it on my kitchen noticeboard): ‘In a short period of time, Amichai Tanuri has succeeded in turning the discourse on human rights in the health system into a common subject of discussion among patients and doctors alike. The Our Right NPO, led by Mr Tanuri, is still in its infancy but has already borne fruit and influenced the daily lives of the citizens of this country. The story of Amichai Tanuri and Our Right is one of a private initiative that grew out of personal tragedy, but attracted many other people because of the human, universal idea it is based on. For that reason, in our view, Amichai Tanuri merits inclusion in our list of nominees for ‘Man of the Year in Society’.

*

The nomination brought with it further media exposure. Amichai’s face appeared occasionally on evening programmes (all of them, by the way, had to meet his terms: to tape the interview in the morning because he had to be home with his children by five at the latest).

The questions were always the same questions, and Amichai — the same Amichai. He always spoke heavily, and in the plural. He always scratched his upper chest, the part closest to his neck, while considering what to say. And he always trembled slightly when the interviewer interrupted him.

One of those times, an interviewer interrupted him because of a special report from the programme’s law correspondent, Michaela Raz. A surprising turn of events in the case that has been rocking the country for several months, she said, her eyes almost popping out of their sockets. Yoav Alimi, the chief prosecutor and the person who has been heading up the case for a year and half, was forced to resign today due to what the district prosecutor’s office was calling ‘embarrassing personal circumstances’.

Could you shed a bit of light on those circumstances? the presenter in the studio asked.

Not yet, I’m sorry to say, Michaela Raz replied in a voice completely devoid of sorrow. The rumours are spreading like wildfire here and on the Internet, but have not yet been officially confirmed. We hope to get back to you shortly with Alimi’s own response to the affair.

OK, Michaela, we’ll wait patiently for your update, the presenter said, and again turned towards Amichai. Until we hear Mr Alimi’s response, the presenter continued, we’ll go back to Amichai Tanuri and Our Right. Mr Tanuri, don’t you find something distasteful in the fact that half your funding comes from the United States? Isn’t this ultimately what used to be called the ‘looking-for-handouts culture’?

Amichai said nothing. For the first time in any of his media interviews, his vocal chords had dried up. Churchill resigned? he thought, stunned. Why?