World Cup Wishes

4

THERE ARE ALMOST no pictures of Ilana the Weeper in the album. She had some sort of complex about not being photogenic.

Still –

Sometimes I look at a picture and know, I just know, that she took it.

There’s the series she took of us watching the match Israel lost to Cyprus in the ’98 World Cup qualifiers. It’s a series of three photographs: in the first, we’re tense and expectant, in the second we’re leaping up after an atrocious miss, and in the third, we’re gutted after the Israeli team’s deciding match ended in another loss. What’s nice about that third picture is that she managed to capture perfectly, intimately, the terrible emptiness that drags a fan’s body down when his team loses. Ofir is sprawled on the couch, wiped out. Hugging a cushion. Churchill is massaging his temples. Amichai is listening to the post-game commentary, trying to find consolation. I’m smiling a bitter little smile.

And based on the number of times Amichai appears in them, it was Ilana the Weeper who took the pictures at Churchill’s swearing-in ceremony in Jerusalem after he passed his bar exams. Here’s Amichai when Churchill’s name is called. Here’s Amichai handing Churchill his robe. Here’s Amichai with the sunset in the background. And the Valley of the Cross in the background. And in every picture, he’s photographed at angles that don’t show the blotch on his neck. And in every picture, he looks a bit better than he does in real life.

Couples are misleading. You think you know a couple well, but you have no idea what goes on between them after the guests leave. Ilana the Weeper never showed her love for Amichai when we were around. I remember the first time we met her. It was after we’d been hearing about her for a few weeks. He said he’d met the love of his life. A fantastic girl. Gorgeous. Brilliant. Exciting. Someone he’d marry tomorrow if she said yes. We were twenty-one, and weddings were something theoretical that happened to older brothers and sisters and cousins. But even so, we couldn’t remain indifferent in the face of all that excitement. I remember that I even had a haircut before we went to meet her. Churchill wore his date shirt. And Ofir came on time (till he met Maria and became ‘Ofi’, he always arrived everywhere late).

I’d like you to meet my future wife, Amichai proudly introduced the skinny girl who came into the room, and we shook her hand, one after the other. Her handshake was limp, evasive. And she had a glum look, as if we’d already managed to disappoint her somehow. Her face wasn’t ugly, but it was very pale and very freckled and surrounded by thin, stiff-looking hair. Her posture was stooped and mousey, and she was wearing beige, high-waisted, old-lady trousers.

Well, she probably has a great personality, we thought. But she answered all our interested questions with a vague mumble. And she didn’t ask us anything or laugh at our jokes. She wasn’t properly impressed by Ofir’s cleverness and Churchill’s pronouncements. And she went to the bathroom in the middle of the evening. And didn’t come back for a long time. A very long time.

Isn’t she incredible? Amichai asked us after she’d gone (all of a sudden, she had to go home urgently).

Churchill didn’t say anything. Even a white lie is a lie, he always says. I looked at Ofir. He opened his mouth to speak, and I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to blurt out one of his smart-arse remarks, something along the lines of, ‘incredibly terrible’.

So I spoke first: yes, Bro, I said. She’s something, that Ilana of yours. Everything you said about her is true. She’s really a special girl.

We have to give her time, I thought to myself. After all, a group like ours could be threatening, with our inside jokes and mutual associations and hidden currents of understanding.

But till Maria showed up, Ilana was always reserved around us. For years, she would leave us in the living room to go into her study or take care of the twins or talk to her students on the phone, and she only came back to put her home-baked burekas on the table or to take pictures of us, with a kind of remoteness, as if we were subjects in one of her research studies.

Amichai, for his part, never stopped admiring her. Out loud, so she could hear, he would boast to us about her academic successes: they offered Ilana a three-year research grant! Her students gave her the best feedback of any teacher in the history of the department!! They want to give her a full teaching position!!!

Every once in a while he would go to the study to see if he could do something ‘to make her happy’. And if she happened to pass through the living room, he would be very attentive to her, touch her, caress her, compliment her.

She never touched him in our presence.

But when I see a good picture of him in the album, I know she took it.

*

It all began with routine plastic surgery.

I don’t understand why you need it, Amichai said. I think your nose is great. Kind of a Latin nose … sensual.

You must really love me if you think my nose is sensual, Ilana the Weeper said. My nose is ugly, but that isn’t it.

So what is it? Amichai asked. He really and truly didn’t understand.

It’s that I’ve gone through a profound inner change these last few months, and I want it to show on the outside, too, Ilana the Weeper answered.

*

It’s all because of that Maria of yours, Amichai said to Ofir the next day — one-third joking, two-thirds serious.

The four of us were lying in huge hammocks in the wooden house that Ofir, Maria and her daughter had rented on the beach in Michmoret. Maria had decorated the house tastefully. She filled the living room with light-coloured wooden furniture, and hung the walls with delicate thangkas, Buddhist paintings they’d bought — she once told me proudly — from the artist himself. She’d spread a large rug on the floor and put two large cushions on it that you just felt like sinking into, and on the shelves she herself had built, she’d put Ofi’s magnificent, ostentatious CD collection, along with some small leather drums, giant-size wooden clogs, Indian notebooks, shampoos and soaps made by the Himalaya Company.

I could go on describing more and more of that house, but I still wouldn’t be able to capture the special music she managed to create in the spaces between all those objects, music that said only one thing: home.

It’s … nice that you’re working so hard at it, even though we’ll be going to Denmark very soon, Ofir said cautiously one evening when he saw her taking a handful of screws out of the toolbox again.

Ofi, my love, haven’t you heard? We’re not going to Denmark after all, she said without putting down the screws.

We’re not? Ofir said, standing stock still.

I like it here, she said. Most of the people in the streets know English, there’s light twelve months a year, and God has given me Lana as a gift.

But didn’t we decide to try living together in Copenhagen? Ofir said, surprised.

That’s just the problem with Western thought, she said the familiar-sounding words. We make decisions, and then we become slaves to our decisions. And we try so hard to make them work that we don’t notice that in the meantime, they’ve become irrelevant.

But wait a minute, he tried to fight for the good-life-in-Scandinavia dream, what about the occupation? And the living conditions of the Palestinians? That doesn’t bother you any more?

Just the opposite, Maria said. Now that this Intifada, you know, number two, has started here, I have to stay. To keep going to those women’s meetings with Lana. To make sure that, in all this war, people on both sides keep their humanity. That they don’t turn into animals.

Every Tuesday, Maria and Ilana the Weeper went to a meeting of Women Against the Occupation. And every other Saturday, they’d go to stand at one of the army checkpoints on the West Bank and document the injustices taking place there. On Mondays, they’d meet to work on the article Ilana had started writing, ‘Coping With Winter Depression: the Danish Case’. On Wednesdays, they’d take the children to Yarkon Park. Or to the unspoiled beach at Michmoret. And on Thursdays, they met regularly to work on marketing the new touch therapy clinic Maria and Ofir had opened at home (only a few weeks after they opened it, appointments were already hard to come by. Ilana the Weeper gave the first push when she circulated their phone number to the weary-bodied academic sector, and it spread from there. Which didn’t prevent her and Maria from continuing their Thursday meeting ‘to maintain the momentum’).

And so, every day for weeks, Ilana the Weeper was exposed to the light Maria radiated. And it gradually began to have an effect on her.

She stopped wearing those eternal beige trousers of hers and switched to dresses that flattered her stem-like body.

She smiled occasionally.

She stopped sitting off to the side during get-togethers at her house. Instead, she would find a place next to Maria and join the conversation every once in a while (most of her comments were still critical, but at least she participated).

She began investing a lot of time preparing healthy meals. (Actually, I missed her home-baked burekas.)

She showed a slight interest in football and made a very charming effort to understand the difference between active offside and passive offside.

She found out that, for years, we’d been calling her Ilana the Weeper behind her back, and instead of bursting into tears, she burst out laughing — after which, it was hard to keep calling her that.

Wife, you’re changing right in front of my eyes, Amichai told her one night. In the dark. In bed. A car alarm broke into sporadic shrieks, then was silent.

Don’t exaggerate, Ilana said.

No, really, Amichai insisted gently. Something is happening to you.

So how do you feel about it? Ilana asked, and stroked his chest.

I’m glad … I mean … I love you … I mean … I’m glad you’re happy … It’s just that …

Just that … what? Ilana asked, trying to drag it out of him.

Amichai didn’t say anything. She thought he’d fallen asleep when he suddenly said in a choked voice: it’s just that I’m not the reason for it.

Ilana was glad it was dark and he didn’t see her smile. What do you mean? she asked, trying to sound serious.

It’s all because of Maria, Amichai said. Everything started when you met her. And I’ve been trying for years … to make you more … and couldn’t do it.

Maybe sometimes it takes a new person, Ilana said cautiously. Someone outside the circle.

Amichai took Ilana’s hand off his chest and curled up into himself.

She wound herself around him again. She didn’t want him to distance himself. The car alarm began shrieking again.

But what … he stammered, what exactly does she do … What does she do that I don’t?

It’s not something she does, Ilana said, caressing his back. She’s just my friend. For the first time in my life, I have a real friend and it’s … it’s changed the way I look at things.

And I’m not your friend? Amichai asked.

You’re the man I love and she’s my friend. Those are two different things.

In what way?

Ilana sighed. It seemed she would be forced to say what she would rather have kept unsaid. You’re a man into happy colours, she said. That’s why I fell in love with you. I remember when you walked into the Personal Affairs office on the base and talked to the officer, and I watched you fling your hands around and thought, this is the kind of man I want, a man who’s happy with whatever life hands out.

But Maria’s a very positive person too, Amichai persisted.

Yes, Ilana explained. But she’s paid a visit to the opposite pole too. The darkness. She fell into the pit, pulled herself out of it and isn’t afraid to look into the pit again every now and then. You don’t ever let yourself fall into that pit.

The way you say that, it sounds like an accusation, Amichai said, and a memory flashed through his mind: a boy who always has to be happy climbs onto his mourning mother’s lap, strokes her face and says, Mummy, where’s your smile? Your smile got lost?

Not at all, Ilana said, and began rubbing his neck. It’s what I love about you, your optimism.

Amichai hesitated, troubled by the memory. So … so because Maria was in the pit, that makes her … makes her what, actually?

I feel normal with her, Ilana said. I feel like I’m OK. That my sadness is OK. That my heaviness is OK. That my need to hide from the world every once in a while is OK. I feel understandable when I’m with Maria. Completely understandable.

And with me you don’t? Amichai said, unable to control himself. With me you don’t feel understandable? Ilana hugged him tighter from behind.

Yes, she said, but in a different way.

Amichai felt as if he didn’t understand anything. He felt a huge sense of despair spreading through him. He felt the way he did after a two-hour sales talk that ended with nothing. And then he felt his wife’s hand reach between his legs.

You’re my man, she whispered to him, and her breath warmed his earlobe. You’re all I want.

But Amichai didn’t cooperate. Why should he? He can’t be bought so cheaply. He took her hand off him again and tried to bury himself in the insult. Bury himself so deeply that he’d reach the pit Ilana was talking about. But Ilana wouldn’t give up. She put her hand back and massaged him lightly on his weak spot, three fingers below his belly button, and she rubbed her thigh against his and licked the Israel-shaped blotch on his neck, from the Galilee to Eilat, slowly –

*

You sound knackered, I said to him on the phone a few days later, after we’d decided who would pick up whom on the way to Michmoret.

Ilana is sexually harassing me, he complained.

I was surprised. Of the four of us, Amichai talked about sex the least. But from the way he leaned forward whenever Churchill started talking about his conquests, you could tell that he cared about the subject, and I had always assumed, without actually checking it with him, that the reason he didn’t talk was that he had nothing to say.

‘Sexually harassing’ is terrific, I said, happy for him.

I don’t know, he said doubtfully, and told me about the night-time conversation with his wife. It’s all fine, he said with a sigh, it’s just that …

Just that … what?

I’ll tell you, but not a word to Ofir, OK? I’ve been having this weird feeling lately when we have sex. I feel as if Maria is there with us. As if she’s fantasising about Maria when I touch her.

Sounds a little paranoid to me.

Paranoid? So how do you explain that, all of a sudden, after eight years, she discovered me? Me and my … dick, we were there before. It’s not that she never wanted to … but not … not like this.

It’s because she’s feeling better now, I said, trying to reassure him. Her friendship with Maria is making her happier, and you’re reaping the fruit. What’s so bad about that?

I don’t know, he said, refusing to be convinced. And what’s the story with Michmoret? It’s almost an hour and a half with traffic jams. Why did Ofir have to move there? So far away from all of us?

Stop, Amichai, I said with a laugh. It’s not like you to complain like this. The guy is only trying to live by values he believes in. He thinks big cities are materialistic and corrupting, so he doesn’t want to live in one. Makes sense to me.

Maybe you’re right, maybe I should be easier on him, Amichai said. And he managed, with a great effort, to maintain his positive attitude for almost twenty-four hours, until Ilana told him about the cosmetic surgery she wanted to have done on her nose — and again he felt the ground open under his feet. And all the way to Michmoret, he kept on at me and Churchill:

Her nose is just fine.

What does she need it for?

All those operations … they challenge God. First it’s her nose. Later it’ll be her whole face. In another few years, people will change their entire bodies with surgery.

And what if it comes out ugly? There was that girl in our class who had an operation. Calanit Kalter. Remember?

I don’t understand why Ilana needs it.

Those things were never important to her before.

Her nose is just fine, isn’t it?

Just before we got to Netanya, Churchill had had enough. Shut up, will you? he snapped, and his tone was so harsh that Amichai went quiet and didn’t say another word till we reached Michmoret. But he kept stewing over it, and when we were lying in the hammocks, he said to Ofir again, a quarter joking and three-quarters serious, that it was all Maria’s fault.

Ofir said he should think before speaking. And Amichai got pissed off and said, don’t get on your high horse, Ofir, just because your clinic’s doing well now doesn’t mean you have a right to talk down to your friends.

Ofir took a deep breath, as if he were struggling with the old, spoiling-for-a-fight Ofir that was threatening to burst out of his mouth. He rocked in his hammock a bit. Then got out of his hammock. And took an Indian drum off the shelf and drummed on it in a monotonous rhythm, and put the drum back on the shelf. And then he said: all Maria said to Ilana is that she thought her nose actually looks nice on her, but if she thinks it’ll make her happy, she should go for it, because we can’t always explain why things make us happy, and sometimes they don’t have to be logical.

‘Make her happy?’ Amichai mocked him. Since when are those things important to Ilana? I know her, and I’m telling you that she never cared about all that crap before.

It’s not crap at all, Ofir said, raising his voice slightly. People who understand say that the next millennium is going to be the millennium of the body. And besides … if it’s such crap, Amichai-ji, why do you try so hard to hide that blotch of yours?

Amichai opened his eyes wide. We never mentioned his Israel-shaped blotch. Friends don’t do things like that in our unwritten code. (Do not mention the blotch on his neck to him. Do not talk about my being short. Do not give birthday presents, but do send birthday cards. Do not tell someone the results of a match if we know he’s taped it. Do express an opinion about something that’s happening in a friend’s life, but when you’re finished, add: listen, man, it’s your decision. Do not keep track of whose turn it is to call. Do not keep track of money, because in the end, it all balances out. Do not take books from me because I’m obsessive about keeping them clean. Do not take CDs from Ofir because even after he became spiritual, he remained appallingly materialistic about anything related to his music collection — about two thousand, including every genre and a few really rare ones — and God help anyone who takes a CD out of its case and doesn’t put it back, and God help anyone who creases the booklet with the lyrics on it. Do not compliment one of Amichai’s twins without complimenting the other. Do not get into political arguments with Churchill because he always wins. Do not trust Ofir’s directions because we once ended up in Jenin because of him. Do not steal a friend’s girlfriend. Unless she’s Ya’ara. Do be happy about each other’s successes even if, in your heart, you’re jealous. Do not use the terms ‘my brother’, ‘his brother’ or any other of the other slick versions of the good old ‘Bro’. Do not lie to a friend. But on the other hand, do not always tell him the whole truth. Do not gossip. Do stick together. Do not leave. And — do not bring new people into the group, not because we have anything against new people, just because it would take them years to learn all these rules.)

Do me a favour, Amichai finally said between clenched teeth, don’t call me ji. And shut up about my blotch. I’m telling you that I know Ilana and this whole business just doesn’t add up.

Maybe you don’t know … all the different sides of her, Ofir said.

Maybe you don’t know all the different sides of Maria, Amichai retorted. How long have you been together? Two weeks?

And maybe you’ll both shut up, Churchill said. I’ve had a shit week and I came here to watch football, not to hear you two fight like morons.

I looked at him. That was the second time in an hour that he’d been nasty to us. And that was definitely unusual. Churchill’s charisma was always the quiet, unforced kind. And even in the courtroom, he was cool and level-headed. And he usually let the defendant tie the rope around his own neck.

It must have been because of the new case he’d been assigned recently, I thought. A case with broad social significance, just like he’d asked for in his list of World Cup wishes. The director general of a government office was suspected of accepting a sexual bribe to promote the authorisation of land for building, and he claimed that some businessmen he had refused to make exceptions for were trying to frame him. The senior attorney appointed to the case had resigned from it because of a sudden illness, and the district attorney had decided to let Churchill, his assistant, take over. There was quite a bit of tutting about it — how did such a young guy get such an important case? — but the district attorney, who had been grooming him for bigger things from his first day in the system, told him to ignore all that talk and focus on the job at hand.

I looked at him now as he cracked sunflower seeds with characteristic resolve (one precise press of his teeth, never more). I hope he succeeds, I thought. And at the same instant, a small voice inside whispered let him fail, let him fail.

Then I too turned my eyes to the TV screen. For the first few seconds, I stared at the ball lurching from side to side and had a tough time telling the teams apart — one was playing in red shirts, the other in green, and those are exactly the colours I can’t see because of my colour blindness. But soon enough, I noticed that one team had white shorts and the other black shorts, so I could follow the game, which was the kind I liked: the team playing a more defensive, uglier game scored a goal by accident during the first few minutes. And in the time that was left, the really good, more creative and skilled team tried to break through the defensive wall and right the wrong. Happily, just before the end, they managed to do it — they scored two quick goals and turned the result around.

Who said there’s no justice in football? the commentator waxed lyrical.

And Amichai said, those guys from Barcelona, they don’t play football, they dance.

True modern dance, Churchill agreed. And I said, when football reaches a certain aesthetic level, it becomes art. And Ofir got out of his hammock and said, who’s up for chai? As we drank the sweet, spicy chai that spreads through your body, Maria and her daughter came in from a visit to Ilana. Ofi! Ofi! the girl cried, and ran straight into Ofir’s arms, as if the short separation of a few hours from him had been hard for her, and only now, when she was pressed up against his chest, was her mind at ease again. He asked her how it was at Ilana’s place, and she told him about all sorts of scientific experiments she and the twins had done together: they’d mixed vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and saw how a small volcano erupted. They’d poured starch into a glass of iodine and saw how the colour of the iodine changed. He listened intently, stroked her fine, blonde hair and asked small, fatherly questions. Meanwhile, Maria gave each of us one of her long hugs.

The first few times she’d hugged us, we were totally flustered. We’d look over her shoulder, trying to find out from Ofir when, for Buddha’s sake, it would end. When would she let us go? Then we became addicted to it, abandoned ourselves to it, and returned the pressure, the tightness, we too rested our heads in the hollow between her shoulder and her neck and felt the heat of her body seep into us, felt her large breasts rocking us, so much so that if she skipped someone on her round of hugs, he would complain and demand his hug.

This time, Amichai was the last to get a hug from her. And despite the accusations he’d hurled at her in her absence, he didn’t draw back. On the contrary. It seemed as if their hug was the longest, warmest of all, as if they poured into it all their concern and mutual love for Ilana. In any case, after that hug, the atmosphere in the wooden house in Michmoret seemed much more relaxed. Ofir gave us all more chai. The commentators in the studio had already begun talking about the return match in two weeks, and Churchill said, I’m going to say something now that Ofir always used to say.

It starts with ‘you have no idea’? Amichai guessed.

You have no idea what mood I was in when I came here today, Churchill said without a smile. That case … well, I can’t really talk about it … I just wanted to say that seeing you all … It made me feel so good … It made me put things in perspective … Reminded me of what’s important in life.

We didn’t say anything.

We could have asked what exactly had happened. Tried to help. But his tone didn’t invite questions (and perhaps it was us, still trapped in our perception of him as a rock). So we were quiet. And sipped our chai.

Amichai looked at Ofir and said, you were right before, what you said.

Ofir stroked the little girl’s hair and said, I don’t remember any more what I said.

Amichai laughed, it’s better that way, and that spark we all knew lit up in his eyes, the one that meant, in a little while, we’d be updated on a brilliant new idea.

And sure enough, a few days later, we all got phone calls inviting us to a farewell party for Ilana’s old nose. We’ll all meet at a Chameleons gig, Amichai said enthusiastically, and then we’ll go for a drink and have our pictures taken with the nose, which would have a ‘before’ book as a memento.

The Chameleons was our group. I mean, of course each one of us had his own separate musical favourites: Amichai liked movie soundtracks and Israeli twilight time songs. Ofir liked clever rappers when he was still in advertising, and then, when he came back from India, he liked instrumental music better. Churchill, on the other hand, thought lyrics should have meaning, so Ehud Banai was his favourite in the daytime and Meir Ariel at night. I liked British groups best. The Smiths. And later, the Stone Roses. And then I went by the song, not the group. But in any case, I didn’t listen to Israeli groups very much, except for the Chameleons, whose first album came out when we were in the army and pierced us with its beauty. Throughout our army service, lines from ‘It’s Not Black-and-White’ were embedded in our conversations and starred as the opening lines in our birthday wishes to each other. I remember one of Churchill’s birthday greetings that began with the quote, ‘And you have to remember, always remember, that spring comes in the end’. I don’t recall any more why he wrote that. Perhaps it was after we came back from our trip, when for no apparent reason, I fell into a kind of depression that bordered on panic.¹ Anyway, we stayed loyal to the Chameleons even when it turned out that their next albums weren’t as good. And even after one of their performances we’d attended together was stopped in the middle because the two singers got into a fist fight. I believe them, Churchill said, trying to explain to Ya’ara why we were stuck on that group in particular. Their songs are getting worse, but I always believe them.

You all see your youth in the Chameleons, Ya’ara claimed. I think that’s what it is. You always hear them twice: as the people you are now and also as eighteen-year-olds.

Both she and Churchill were right, apparently. But still, I told Amichai I wouldn’t be at the show or afterwards at the farewell party for Ilana’s nose.

But why not? he asked, disappointed.

How many times can a person see the Chameleons? I lied. That’s it. I’m sick of them. Besides, lately their songs are all Tel Aviv. There’s nothing left of their Haifa-ness.

Like you haven’t been a Tel Avivian for seven years now, Amichai chided me. But forget it, if you don’t feel like seeing them, no problem. Meet us afterwards.

Maybe, I said, trying to get out of it. I don’t know. Why do you care so much whether I come?

What are you talking about? Amichai said, raising his voice. You’re my friend. And Ilana’s. I don’t understand the question. Is it because the three of us are couples now and you’re not?

Honestly … yes, I said, half truthfully. I’m happy for all of you, but I don’t always feel comfortable at those couples’ nights out.

OK, Amichai said, his tone measured. And after a brief silence, he added: just don’t forget that everything’s fluid.

What does that mean?

Listen to this story. Yesterday I had a call from Mr Bass from the Parents’ Retirement Home in Rishon le Ziyon. Pardon me, but I hope you remember me, sir, he says to me. And I think: remember, of course, how can I forget. Five hours — five hours! — he kept me sitting across from him. He told me his whole life story, including the time he spent in the forest with the partisans, and in the end, he said, with no shame at all, that he’d never had any intention of buying a subscription. Why should he? Anyone who survived the camps has a heart strong enough to take anything. A year goes by, and he calls me again and asks if the offer I made at our last meeting is still on the table. Yes, I tell him. Including the special discount for people born in Austria? Yes, I tell him. What happened, Mr Bass? You’ve changed your mind? Circumstances have changed, he tells me, and asks for an appointment the same day because it’s very urgent. And what does he tell me at our meeting? A few months earlier, a young woman named Shulamit came to live at the home and ‘a great love the likes of which I have never known in my life’ ignited between them. He was married to Chaya’le for fifty years, he explains to me. We had a good life together. We built a home and raised a family together. But I never felt excitement like this. And I never imagined such a thing could be possible, he says. Well, that sounds wonderful, I say, trying to share his happiness. But then I see that he’s a bit pale. My heart, he says and puts a hand on the wrong side of his chest. All I have to do is say her name for it to start pounding. And she might be young, but I’m not.

This is exactly where we at Telemed come into the picture, I say, taking advantage of the opportunity to channel the conversation in the direction I want, and I spread booklets and documents in front of him and explain why a gold subscription would be better than a regular one. And as he’s being convinced and has started signing, there’s a knock at the door and Shulamit, the young woman, walks in.

This is the boy from Telemed I told you about, he introduces us and I shake her hand politely. A grandmother at least seventy years old, not one whose beauty you could say is still visible on her face, but she seems like a bit of a devil. You should have seen how he looked at her when she came in. How he trembled when he took her hand as she sat down. I swear. I was afraid he’d have an attack on me right then and there. But she laced her fingers with his and gave him this quiet kind of look and said to me, ‘We have undergone a rejuvenation.’

Nice language, I said admiringly.

Yes, Amichai said. The funny thing is that it’s catching. Even now, telling you the story, their language is suddenly coming out of my mouth.

A nice story, I admitted.

But did you get the moral? Amichai asked.

What, that if I wait till I’m ninety, I might be rejuvenated?

No, that now you’re alone and we’re all couples. But we still have our whole lives to be friends. And everything’s fluid. Everything can change.

*

I have no idea why he said that. It was much more like Ofir to philosophise like that. Perhaps, as a practised salesman, he was trying to soften my objection with a remark I would like.

I’m not a big believer in mysticism either (though I’m ready to accept the fact that, sometimes, a hidden oracle inside you knows what’s going to happen before you do).

Anyway, I didn’t go to the farewell party for Ilana’s nose.

Three weeks before, I had met a girl named Hani.

I translated an article into English for her, ‘The Collapse of the Soviet Union: Revolution or Evolution?’ and something about her hesitant manner attracted me. Most of my clients were totally uninhibited about their requests and saw nothing wrong with paying me to do something for them that, in principle, they were supposed to do themselves. Hani, on the other hand, stammered and blushed with shame when we met for the first time to set up the schedule. I would have done it myself, she told me, really, but my English … Where I grew up, they don’t study English at all, and I’m trying to catch up now … Trying very hard … Do you understand?

After all the sophisticated girls I’d gone out with since Ya’ara, her naivety was refreshing. I was also curious to find out how her hair, which was always tied back in a severe ponytail, looked when it was loose. So when I brought her the translated text, I asked if she wanted to go out, and she did.

On the actual date, it turned out that ‘the place where they don’t teach English’ was the ultra-Orthodox community of Bnei Brak, and she had given up religion a year earlier. I mean, it was a gradual process that began when she was a teenager. She had looked at her mother, how her mother lived, and knew that she wanted more. She didn’t even put it into words for herself at first. Then it was only a vague feeling of hunger, hunger she couldn’t satisfy. And she had no one to share that feeling with because where she grew up, you don’t wash your dirty linen in public.

So, very slowly, she began to lead a double life. On the surface, she kept going to the religious girls’ school, but secretly read books like Spinoza and Other Heretics, or, at the other extreme, Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Actually, she said, I’d already stopped being religious in my heart when I was eighteen. But it took another three years before I ate pizza.

Pizza?

Not kosher, I mean. It was in Givatayim. And I ate it so quickly that I burned my tongue on the bubbling cheese, and I was sure that was a punishment from God. So I put things off for another few months. Then I bought culottes, which is a kind of interim stage between a skirt and trousers. And I wore them, but only at university, of course. And a year ago, I bought my first pair of jeans, and the sky didn’t fall in on me. And with the doing of the deeds, one grows to love them. Until I finally left home.

It takes a lot of courage to do what you did, I said (and thought: with my restraint, I probably would have stayed in Bnei Brak).

In the end, it wasn’t courage any more, she said, I had no choice.

Maybe that’s how it is in life, I said. You have to suffer, to hit bottom, before you can change.

I don’t know, she said. That’s a very pessimistic thing to say. Are you always so pessimistic?

*

To my great surprise, and in total contrast to the shyness she projected in her every movement, we ended the night in bed together. You have to understand, she said as she let down her ponytail and her honey hair cascaded to her shoulders, I’m five years behind the rest of the class. I still have a lot of catching up to do.

I wasn’t her first. But I was the first to give her pleasure. At least, that’s what she told me. And anyway, there was something infectious about her beginner’s enthusiasm. Everything we did was new for her, a first: oral sex. The Ein Kerem Inn. The lone bench on the cliff overlooking the sea at Beit Yanai. All those ‘magical’ places were magical for her, without the quotation marks. She had never seen a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Show. Didn’t know that the singers Ehud Banai and Meir Banai weren’t the same person. And she wanted to go dancing at the Coliseum on New Year’s Eve. I explained to her that the Coliseum had been closed for a long time, and she said she knew, but for years, she’d read about that party in the Coliseum in the newspapers her mother didn’t allow her read, and a fantasy gradually took shape in her mind of a New Year’s Eve party where she’d dance till she dropped to the music of the DJ Ilan Ben-Shahar (he and no other) and bid her final farewell to the religious world.

Ah … Look … We can find out if Ilan Ben-Shahar is appearing at a different club on New Year’s Eve, I suggested. But, uncharacteristically, she shook her head and said, we could, but it wouldn’t be the same.

So on the eve of the millennium, we put on party clothes and took our battery-operated Discman and two speakers, along with a collection of hits of the ’80s chosen by Ilan Ben-Shahar, and went to where the Coliseum used to be. We walked up the steps to Atarim Square, which was as dirty and deserted as usual, but Hani didn’t care about that, she had a fantasy in her mind and she was determined to live it down to the smallest detail.

At eleven-twenty, we went through a broken window into the dark space of the dead club.

At eleven-twenty-five, we connected the Discman to the speakers and she flung her hair from side to side to the music of Duran Duran’s ‘Girls on Film’.

At eleven-fifty-five, we switched to the radio to hear the countdown to the new millennium.

At exactly midnight, we had a long, long, long kiss, surrounded by electric wires, broken windows, pieces of plaster, torn posters of Grace Jones, and beer bottles that didn’t even smell of beer any more.

And at twelve-thirty — as we started walking away from the Square — her mother called.

It was a ritual. Every night, her mother called to swear at her, and this time, as if her maternal antennae had sensed from a distance how much her daughter was enjoying herself, her tone was louder than ever: you’re a whore, Chana, you know that? No? Really? So tell me, what’s the difference between you and a whore?

But Mum … Hani protested feebly.

No, really, Chana. Explain it to me. You have relations with a man, you sleep with him in his house. You know what? You’re worse than a whore because a whore at least gets money for what she does. With you, it’s free.

Enough, Mum, enough, Hani pleaded.

Don’t tell me it’s enough, her mother continued lashing out at her. I hear that music in the background there. Have you no shame, Chana? To celebrate a Christian holiday? You know what, maybe you should just convert. Your man isn’t a Jew anyway, is he?

Hani didn’t answer. She didn’t even have the strength to utter that pleading ‘enough’. So she just breathed deeply into the mouthpiece and let her mother become more and more offensive. Until she said her usual, ‘I don’t want to hear from you. Don’t expect me to call you any more’ that closed their night-time conversations every time.

I don’t get it, why don’t you tell her I’m Jewish? I asked after a silence.

We were walking slowly along quick streets. A Robbie Williams song came from a building we passed.

I don’t know, Hani said, chastised.

And I don’t understand why you let her talk to you like that. Why do you even answer the phone?

Because … that’s her way … of keeping in touch with me. It’s our way of communicating now, Hani said.

The Robbie Williams song came out of the next building too. Rhythmic, happy, great.

Hani clung tightly to me, not trembling, not crying. Sorry I ruined tonight, she said.

You didn’t ruin anything, I said, tightening my arm around her shoulders, and I felt a slight warming in my chest. The kind you feel after a shot of vodka. I wasn’t sure what to call that warming — sadness? pity? love? — and I had no idea how long it would last. But I was afraid of risking everything by seeing Ya’ara. Even if we were both surrounded by people who’d be talking about Ilana’s nose. Even if we didn’t say a word to each other all evening.

The nagging thoughts about Ya’ara hadn’t stopped when I started going out with Hani. They actually intensified. I thought about Ya’ara when I was kissing Hani at the Coliseum. I thought about Ya’ara when I was having sex with Hani. I thought about Ya’ara when I was with Hani in the Ein Kerem Inn. I remembered that I’d planned to take her there, but I never got the chance. I thought about how I would feel if she were sitting across from me now with those green eyes of hers. And if she were to take off her glasses.

I was ashamed of those thoughts. And that I occasionally took out of the closet the single sock Ya’ara had left behind, a red sock with a yellow stripe at the top. There was nothing special about that sock, except for the fact that it was hers, but it alone was enough to make me feel a pang of yearning every time I touched the thin, feminine fabric and crushed it between my fingers (and that was just the half-normal perversion, the one I’m willing to admit without the protection of parentheses. There was also a video tape of the wedding, and I knew exactly which frames Ya’ara appeared in alone. And there were the chairs she’d sat in when the group met up and when she got up, I would sit on them quickly to feel the outline of her buttocks still left on the fabric. And there were others).

*

Sorry, man, it looks like you’ll have to manage without me this time, I told Amichai.

OK, he said without hiding his disappointment.

And tell your wife I wish her luck.

What are you talking about, he said. It’s just cosmetic surgery. She goes in at nine in the morning, and she’ll be home by five in the afternoon.

¹ Mr Freed’s normally accurate memory betrays him on this point. The quote from the Chameleons song did not appear in a birthday message I wrote him, but in a letter I sent him through Mr Amichai Tanuri, our mutual friend. At the time, Mr Freed was serving in a company of soldiers that handled day-to-day security matters in Judah and Samaria, and in that capacity was posted, along with another nine soldiers, on the roof of a building in Nablus. Further on in this book, Mr Freed describes at length the weeks he spent on that roof, and even quotes from the letter he wrote to me from there.

That letter aroused my concern, as well it should have. Mr Freed was always very restrained with regard to anything related to public expressions of distress, and most of the time used his self-deprecating humour to protect himself and those listening to him. But in the aforementioned letter, his distress and confusion were apparently too great to contain or turn into a joke. Reading his words, I sensed that the despair he was expressing might reach the point of no return.

Then too, like today, the thought of life — of the world — without him, seemed incomprehensible, unbearably sad, and I tried with every fibre of my being to choose the right words in my reply to cheer him up. In the end, it turns out, it was those words from the Chameleons song that left an impression on him. (Y.A.)