Zion's Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature

My Crappy Autumn ^{Nitay Peretz}

I knew something was going to happen. Everybody knew something big was coming. I can still remember people walking around with that feeling. But these things, even when you expect them, they still take you by surprise. For me it was a double whammy: first Osher’s rotten stunt, and then Max’s revelation. God really kicked my ass that autumn month, you could say.

Before it all happened we were having a pretty good time. The three of us sat down on the living room couch that evening with a bag of sunflower seeds to snack on. Max was on my left, Osher on my right, and the TV opposite me. Channel 1 was showing a soccer match, Maccabi Haifa v. Beitar Jerusalem, which had the potential to be a twofer: you get to see Haifa win and Beitar lose. Expectations in the living room were high. It was one of those evenings when anything could happen, or, as everybody’s favorite sportscaster Zuhir put it: “Good evening Meir! Good evening viewers! Here in Kiryat Eliezer the tension is colossal! Sky-high!” Haifa was leading 1–0 by halftime—Beitar never saw it coming. Roso was on a roll. Every time they scored, we sang and cheered and waved our green scarves. Max had bet on Beitar, and he realized pretty quickly he was screwed. Haifa trounced them 3–0. We ordered a pizza to celebrate. The loser delivery guy got there super fast, so no free drink, which they give you if they’re ten minutes late. Max paid him, cursed, and swore it was the last time he bet me on anything. And he didn’t tip the pizza guy.

I live on pizza. I’m crazy about pizza. I’ve tried their whole new international menu. My favorite is the Tuna Crème Fraîche. I can easily finish half a large one and down a 50-ounce Coke with it. Life is good.

After the pizza, Max rolled us a joint. We went out to the balcony, passed it around, and talked about life. When we realized how late it was we went inside, emptied out the ashtrays of their cigarette butts and sunflower seed shells, washed the glasses and plates, threw the pizza box in the trash, and went to sleep.

Osher was already in bed. I hadn’t noticed when she’d left the living room. I got into bed carefully, thinking she was asleep. The last thought that went through my head before I fell asleep was: Why is Osher tossing and turning?

I got up in the morning and brushed my teeth. I walked out of the bathroom with my toothbrush in my mouth. Osher was sitting in the living room. There was an empty coffee mug on the table and a lit cigarette in her mouth. Osher doesn’t smoke. Her eyes were puffy and red, like she’d been crying or something. I realized she’d been sitting there for a long time, even though I didn’t remember her getting out of bed.

“Hey, Ido,” she said, and there was something different in her voice, like a quiet, blue sea after the storm passes. “Ido, I’m done,” she said.

“Done with what, babe?” I asked. Then I noticed there was an ashtray full of cigarette butts next to her. When had she taken up smoking?

“I don’t know, all I know is I’m done.” She sniveled, as if something was about to stream out. “It’s not you. Not at all. The opposite—you’re so gentle and sweet and considerate and everything. It’s not you. You need to understand that. It’s me.”

Osher burst out crying, with tears and everything, and couldn’t stop. I sat down next to her, my toothbrush still in my mouth. I stroked her back, at the top, near her neck, where she likes it, just to calm her, but she shifted awkwardly and said, “No, Ido, it’s over.”

“Okay, honey,” I said. “I don’t have time now, we’ll talk about it when I get home this evening.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m done.”

“Okay, babe, I have to run to work,” I said. Even though that wasn’t true and I had loads of time before my shift started. Osher knew I was lying but she didn’t say anything.

I fixed my hair in the bathroom and rinsed out my mouth. I looked in the mirror, just to make sure this was really happening to me. I threw on a sweater and grabbed my bag. I tried to kiss Osher, but she turned away. “Bye, honey,” I said. “We’ll talk this evening.” I left before she could answer and slammed the door behind me.

I took my usual route to Café Gross. The sky was grayish black and the air was still. It started raining, and everyone sped up, or ducked into a corner store until it stopped.

I didn’t give a shit. I walked down the middle of the sidewalk and felt the drops run off my hair into my sweater and inside my sweater down my spine, all the way to my ass crack, then into my pants and my shoes, wetting Osher’s Winnie-the-Pooh socks that she loved so much.

I stood outside Café Gross. It has big windows, and you can see everything going on inside. There was a couple sitting by the window, and not just any couple—they were tall and beautiful, tastefully dressed, as in a European TV commercial. They were drinking steaming hot cocoa in tall glasses, eating croissants, and laughing, snuggled up in their private paradise. Rina went over to ask if everything was all right, and the man must have told a joke or something, because they all started laughing.

The rain was getting harder. There was a pretty scary clap of thunder; lightning lit up the street and little pellets of hail started coming down. I couldn’t feel my feet. Everything suddenly seemed so unfair. There was a lump of burning anger in my stomach, which climbed up and got stuck in my diaphragm. My eyes filled with tears, as at school when the older kids used to beat me up. I wanted to fight back, but there was no one to fight with.

I decided to go back home. Skip out on my shift. No one at the café had seen me anyway.

The apartment was empty. Osher had left. She’d emptied out the ashtray, rinsed it, and put it in the drying rack with all the coffee mugs she’d used at night. A closer examination of the apartment revealed that her toothbrush was also gone, and the clothes she left there for when she stayed the night. Her teddy bear was gone too, and her pillow, which she couldn’t sleep without and even took with her when she went on a trip to the US.

There was no question about it: Osher had left, without any explanations or apologies. Just like that. What a crappy world. After four years together you’d think you deserve a warning—but nothing. I wanted to yell, I wanted to scream loud enough to shatter the windows. I wanted to kick and punch, break and smash—but that’s childish and silly. I sat down on the couch and lit a cigarette. I felt all the anger that was bubbling and sizzling inside me begin to cool down and slowly congeal and harden into determination. I decided that this world, which had taken Osher away from me, did not deserve to have me in it. And not only that—I would not suffer alone. If this kind of shit could just hit me out of nowhere, without any warning, then it would have to hit someone else too. I was going down, baby—and I was taking a few assholes with me. Woo-hoo!

Max walked in, eyed me from head to toe, and said I looked wet. He had this talent, Max, for stating the obvious.

Max is my roommate. Sometimes people think we’re brothers, because he too is one of those tall, skinny guys who look like they’re about to topple over. I don’t know how anyone could think that. We don’t look anything alike. Max is a sound man, and he does customer phone support for a credit card company. And almost every Saturday he goes to a rave in some forest. I think he comes back high on molly, but we don’t really talk about it.

I told him Osher left me. Max said that was too bad, we seemed like a great couple and he was sure we were going to get married. He asked me if I threw her out. I said she was the one who dumped me, and she didn’t even tell me why, she just said she was done. Max’s eyes glazed over. He stared into space and said he could really relate to that, that he’s also done, and he feels like things can’t go on this way, that something needs to change in a big way soon. It’s not like Max to talk that way. I expected him to be on my side.

I blew off Max’s bullshit. Usually he’s awesome to talk with. He knows how to listen, which is an important quality that lots of people don’t have. He gets things, and he has a good head on his shoulders. He’s really a great roommate. He didn’t deserve it, that whole tragedy that happened to him afterwards.

Right from the start I made up my mind that nothing was going to get in the way of my depression. I’m a serious guy. Everyone says that about me. So when I say nothing, I mean nothing. I settled on a daily routine, and for the next month, despite all the insanity going on in our place, I tried not to deviate from it.

It went like this: I’d get up at twelve-thirty on the dot every day and make myself some Turkish coffee, no milk. I’d make sure not to brush my teeth or even rinse out my mouth first. I’d sit down at the kitchen table and drink my coffee. I’d spread out a white sheet of paper and crumble all the weed I wanted to smoke that day. When I’d finish the coffee, I’d put my cup in the sink. I had a rule against washing cups. I was only allowed to do it when I was completely out of clean cups, and even then I’d only wash one, just so I’d have something to drink out of. When I couldn’t be bothered, I wouldn’t even do that. I’d just empty out the old coffee grounds and cigarette butts, flick out whatever was left with my finger, then pour fresh coffee into the same cup.

After the coffee I’d empty out five Winston Lights and make my spliffs, then smoke my first one with another coffee. Then I’d go down to the corner store and buy a new pack of cigarettes and a large bottle of Coke. I’d come home, go into my room, and lie down in the dark with my eyes open. I’d lie on my left side until two-thirty and think about what a whore Osher was for leaving me, and how much I hated her and felt like killing her. At two-thirty, give or take ten minutes, I’d turn over onto my right side and think about how much I loved her, and how, if she wanted to get back together, I’d take her back with open arms, and how much I missed her. At four I’d watch The Bold and the Beautiful. Then I’d channel surf. If there was anything interesting on, I’d watch it. If not, I’d turn on the light, open up my datebook at the end, where I wrote down phone numbers, and think about who I could diss today.

My voyage downwards to the depths of despair and depression had a few upsides. The main one was that I didn’t give a fuck about anyone. I just didn’t care. This evil world, which had taken Osher away from me just like that, without any warning, didn’t deserve my caring. I felt that as long as I was wallowing in the dregs, no one else had any right to be happy—and if they were, then yours truly was going to put an end to it. And I’m talking especially about the assholes who’d insulted me or humiliated me. There seemed to be a lot of them, come to think about it.

I’d go through the list and try to pick someone. It was really hard: so many attractive options. My finger was on Dori’s name when the phone rang, and it was Gross. I’d missed three shifts, and he thought maybe I was sick or something was wrong. He was worried about me, the angel. I told him nothing in particular was wrong, I just didn’t feel great. Gross didn’t get mad. He was really nice, in fact. He asked if I had a fever and if I’d been to see a doctor. I told him dryly that what I had, no doctor could cure. Gross snickered and said, “Oh, so it’s that kind of disease. I get it. What’s her name?” “Osher,” I told him, “and it’s incurable.”

Then his voice got kind of formal and he said I could have let him know ahead of time, ’cause I really screwed up his shifts and he had to beg people to fill in the gaps. I told him he could get his fudge-packing friends to fill up his gaps, since all they did was sit there all day eating for free and trying to hit on me when I waited on their tables, and they never tipped, and his coffee sucked. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to tick off Gross. I must have hit a sensitive spot, because he yelled that he hated my guts and he was sick of all these cocky assholes who’d moved to the city two minutes ago looking down their noses at him. He yelled so loud that I had to hold the phone away from my ear. Then he said that if I came anywhere near his café he’d throw a glass at my head and that he’d use his connections to make sure I never worked in this town again, ever. I hung up on him in midsentence. I took a red pen and put a thick check mark next to his name and number. I grinned to myself: my sweet revenge on the world, for what it had done to me, was moving along.

Max asked what all the yelling was about. I told him I just got fired from Café Gross and that I was newly unemployed. He shrugged his shoulders and went to make us some instant coffee. When the water boiled and he poured it into the cups, he realized we were out of milk, so he went down to the store.

And that’s when Max had it.

Call it an accident, a prophetic revelation, an epiphany, a hit-and-run, or a cosmic event. Doesn’t matter. What really happened at that moment, on Shenkin Street, corner of Ahad Ha’Am, no one has yet been able to truly explain.

What’s certain is that there was a long, black Chevy Caprice Classic driven by a wealthy contractor, a short Mitsubishi Pajero SUV driven by a very tall young woman with short-cropped red hair who was so beautiful it hurt your eyes to look at her, and there was Ahmed the junkman with his cart. The first to recover from the accident was Tony, Ahmed’s lame donkey, who sat up on his ass and started shouting: “Alte zachen! Alte zachen! Old stuff! Fridges, cabinets, washers…. Alte zachen!” Then the young woman and the contractor got out of their cars and started screaming at each other in a rabid fit of hatred, and their faces turned bright red and contorted with rage. The SUV and the Chevy were crumpled against each other, and there was shattered glass all over the place. Total loss. The furniture on Ahmed’s cart had toppled out onto the road. Ahmed himself sat on a broken oven that had landed on the sidewalk, held his head, and sighed, “Ya Allah! Ya Allah! Oh Dear God, I’ve lost everything, I’ve lost everything…. Ya Allah….”

And Max?

Max lay motionless on the road. He looked up at the sky and his pupils were enlarged like he was tripping on molly. All he could get out of his mouth was “Whoa…” like he was blazed or something. He just kept lying there saying “Whoa…” very quietly, every twenty seconds, until the ambulance arrived. They put him on a stretcher, but as they were about to lift it into the ambulance, he sat up and said calmly, “No need. Thanks. I’m fine.”

Max ran his hand over the doctor’s body, and the ugly psoriasis all over the doctor’s neck disappeared. Then he tapped his fingers on the paramedic’s throat three times and cured the stutter he’d had since age six.

Max picked up his bag, which had been thrown to the sidewalk, and said in a loud, clear voice, “I’m going home, guys.” And that’s when things got crazy. Mor, the hot chick from the Pajero (she even had a hot chick’s name) said, “I’m coming with you wherever you go.” Azulay, the contractor (he even had a contractor’s name), said, “Me too. Wherever you go.” They both forgot how they’d tried to claw each other’s eyes out only two minutes ago. Tony, the donkey said, “Anywhere with you. Through fire and waaaaater.” His voice came out a little brayish because he wasn’t used to talking yet. (Later, when he became the movement’s spokesperson, Tony would sit on the balcony with me and say, “Believe me, Ido, everyone’s an ass. But at least this ass knows what he’s talking about.”) Ahmed, who was a little confused, given Tony’s condition, said, “I’m coming too. For sure!” Because he didn’t want to be different from everyone, and also because without Tony he had nowhere to go to anyway.

And then they all started walking, single file, toward our place.

I was in the toilet with a lit joint between my lips when Max and his disciples walked in. It was my fourth for that day. Life looked sort of melted down, a bit rounded at the edges, and it made no sense to get mad about anything. I was high as a kite.

“Hi Maxi,” I said to him, “want a hit?” I offered him the jay, burning side up to keep it from dropping. “No thanks,” said Max—and that was the first time ever I’ve heard Max say no to dope. “I’ve changed, Ido,” he said. “I’m not the same Max. I’m a saintly person now.” And it was true, something about Max was different: he opened his eyes, and there was fire in his pupils. His eyes sparkled, as if he’d had two little lamps transplanted there.

Next morning I made a definitely final desperate attempt to get Osher back to me. I called her and heard in her voice that she was not at all happy to hear from me. She sounded tired on the phone. I insisted, until she agreed to meet with me at lunchtime in a café downtown. She actually suggested Gross’s, but I explained I wasn’t working there anymore.

Then I went to select a handgun for myself. They already know me at the Recoil shop in the mall. I’ve been there three times looking at guns, but never bought one, ’cause until that day I didn’t really need a handgun.

The salesperson was called Ozz. Before I met Ozz, I’d thought it was a name fit for a Rottweiler, but it turns out there’re all kinds of name-giving parents in this world. He opened the glass cabinet where all the handguns were locked and explained each one of them. I kept nodding my head, “yes, yes,” and even asked a few questions, just to let him know I was really interested and also that I understand such things. Every once in a while I went so far as to hold a gun in my hand, to feel its heft and see if it was well-balanced. This was just for show. I knew exactly what I wanted. I waited for him to get to the chrome-plated Jericho Magnum, then I took it in my hand and caressed it lovingly. It had a good smell of gun oil and metal. When it comes to death, only Made in Israel will do. The big, heavy gun was a perfect match for my hand, precisely fitting all its curves and folds, sending silent vibrations up my arm all the way to the elbow, and then on to my chest and spinal column. Then I chose rounds—hollow point, of course. I looked at the silvery lead ball that I could see through the slits in the copper jacket in the bullet I was holding in my hand. When this round hits flesh, the copper around the lead opens up, becoming a little rosebud spinning at a terrific speed and leaving a wound you could throw a tennis ball through, never touching the edges.

If it’s got to end, I was thinking, I want to make sure it really ends. I didn’t want to miss accidentally and then lie for ten years in the Levinstein Rehabilitation Center staring at the ceiling and waiting for the nurse to come and feed me porridge with a teaspoon.

I ordered twenty rounds. They won’t sell singles. I’d already asked. I gave Ozz a check for the down payment, and we agreed I’d give him the rest in twenty-six days, when I’d come to collect the gun, with all the paperwork done in the meantime.

I even had time to visit the Ministry of the Interior and fill in a request for purchase of a firearm. On my way to the coffee shop I lit a joint just to pull myself together. I got to The Other Café ten minutes ahead of time, lit a cigarette, and asked for a beer. I sat down to wait for Osher. Osher, as per usual, was late.

It’s not so good, mixing alcohol with weed. When she arrived I got up to hug her, but I never saw this chair. Stumbled against it and fell right between Osher’s sweet-smelling tits, which were projecting way out because of the tight black woolen blouse she was wearing. Usually, Osher hates it when I mix dope and alcohol and lose it. Last time it had happened, we were still an item. She’d cried and screamed at me for ruining myself and what a shame it was to see an intelligent guy like myself wasting himself like that. This time, Osher didn’t get mad at all. She just helped me sit down again. Then she seated herself opposite me, looking at me as if she’d never cared. She took one of my cigarettes, lit it, and scrunched her face with the first drag. “Phooey,” she said, looking at me, pouting her lips and blowing a thin jet of smoke in my direction. “I can’t figure out how you people can smoke this shit.”

“Give us E for effort,” I said, smiling at her. Osher smiled back—and for a brief moment it was like old times, and my stomach got all warm inside. But just for a moment.

“I got a gun today, Osher,” I told her. “Jericho Magnum with dum-dum bullets, like I’ve always wanted.”

“You’re mental,” she said. “What do you need a gun for, anyway?”

“To blow my brain and get out of here,” I said, and saw her cringing in her seat. Then, suddenly, there was a tired look in her eyes, like she was seventy years old. She told me I’d come looking for help at the wrong place, because she was all empty inside and no longer had anything for me. She took my hand in hers and looked me in the eyes: “Believe me, Ido, I’m not trying to lie to you or something. I can’t help you. I’m really done.” Tears came out, smearing this black stuff she puts around her eyes. “I don’t know how to explain this to you,” she said, “but something that’d always been there inside and I’d always known would be there the next day—it’s gone suddenly, all at once. Now I must search for something else. Everyone’s searching. I’m not the only one who’s had it disappear.”

I’ve never heard Osher talk like that. But she got back together real quick, saying, “Sorry, I don’t know what I’m going through. You don’t need my bullshit on top of everything else. I’m terribly sorry.”

Then there was nothing left to say. We sat facing each other silently for maybe ten minutes. Osher smoked another one of my cigarettes, with obvious disgust, and finally got up, gave me a twisted smile, the sort that comes on by mistake, and left without saying goodbye. I walked home. Going slowly, in no hurry to get anywhere, dragging my feet, quiet and despondent. An exhausting sense of defeat spread inside me. I let my long legs carry me. They were up to the job, making long strides, rapidly swallowing those Tel Aviv streets. I gave myself up to the feeling of striding, forgetting myself.

The bus door closed. The green bus backed out of its bay. I realized I was sitting in an Egged Line 552 bus to Ra’anana, on my way home. I stared outside as if what I saw was the most interesting thing in the world, even though I knew each tree, each traffic light along the way. I’m going to Ra’anana, to see Mother.

I got off at my station near the Wars Memorial. My legs, still on autopilot, kept taking me along those side streets, imbued with suburban tranquility, to the four-story grey building on 58 Hahagana Street.

I took the stairs, reaching the door that bore a simple sign, “Menashe.” I buzzed, and Mother opened the door. “Oy,” she said. “Ido. I just called you. You weren’t home, so I had a chat with your roommate, Max.”

“What did you talk about?” I asked.

“Nothing in particular,” said Mother. “Life.”

The hall fixture spilled yellow light, sad and weak, deepening the shadows made by the creases in her face. The Menashe Family Map of Troubles, I secretly called Mother’s facial creases. It was a one-to-one topographic map of all the shit this family has eaten over the last twenty years. Mountains, valleys, nothing missing. Just get on an air-conditioned tour bus and take the guided tour. Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d look to your right, you can see a fold running from the side of the nose to the corner of the upper lip. It got much deeper the day the family business went bankrupt. Mother said this was because he was a good-for-nothing jerk. Although they wouldn’t admit it, this was what finally killed their marriage. If you’d look to your left, you can see the central crease across the forehead. Yes, right there. Watch your step, Ma’am, it’s very deep. This one came from him: my idiot of a father. It came into being overnight, complete, when he took off to India with Rina. It started a lengthy geocosmetic process, which slowly but surely deepened this crease, during those long nights when Mother was left alone with her nightmares.

Look here, everybody: this is very interesting. Right here, in the middle of the forehead, between the eyes, rising vertically through the eyebrows, a crease I’m particularly sentimental about. My handiwork. Each little fold has something to say. Each tiny crease represents a stage in my growing up. Bottom left, you can discern the time I went with Tomer Freistadt down to Sinai without telling anybody. A bit higher up, on the right-hand side, you can see my glorious motorcycle crash in the orange orchard, two weeks after I’d got the bike. Flew twenty feet through the air into a tree. The tree came out alright, not a scratch. The bike was a total loss. Its carcass is still lying there in the backyard, rusting away in the rain. I got platinum nails in both my legs, and all the girls in my class came to the hospital to scribble on my cast, great fun. Here to your right you will notice the classic crease known as Recruit’s Mother Canyon, proudly borne by every Israeli mom. It got a bit deeper each day during my three loony years in an infantry battalion.

“Come in, sit down,” she said. “Eat something. If I’d known you were coming, I would have done some shopping and cooking. Just for myself, like this, I don’t bother.” She got some vegetables out of the fridge and started slicing them for a salad. “You want egg?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer before putting a small frying pan on the gas fire, which shed a gloomy light on her narrow, darkish kitchen. When the pan got hot, she poured in some oil which started bubbling noisily.

“I’m not hungry, Mom, I’ve already eaten back home,” I murmured my line, like an actor on his two-hundredth show. But a few minutes later I had in front of me a plateful of omelet and green salad; a couple of buns, hot from the microwave oven, lay beside my plate.

Mother made black coffee for herself, lit a Time cigarette. “Need money?” she asked. Hope lit up her face.

“No, Mom, the problem ain’t money,” I said. “I don’t know what I need. What can you give me?”

“I can write you a check, if you want.”

“Besides,” I added, “I broke up with Osher.”

“Why?” asked Mother, getting up to stand by the open window. Dying daylight lit her face when she blew cigarette smoke out into the open air. “Osher’s always been such a nice girl.”

“She dumped me, Mom. She’d said she was done, puff, just like that. Three years went out in smoke, because Madame Osher Yehoshua was done overnight. So she smokes two packets of my Winstons, uses up all the coffee and tissues in the place, and lets me know this is it. I’m done,” I said. “Game’s over. I’m taking a break from life—and terrible things are going to happen. Mostly to me, but also to you. To all of you. Shit’s about to hit the fan—and no one’s going to stay clean. I’m through waking up every morning to see who crapped in my plate, eat it like a good boy, then smile and say thank you kindly. You all will be sorry.”

Mother remained standing by the window, her face still turned outside. She took another deep drag off her cigarette. Then she let it out with such an ouch sound, reminding me of Grandma’s soul-rending sighs, the ones she used to make when she was still alive. “Okay, so what do you want? Like I was part of some conspiracy against you. I’m your mother, Ido. I’m just a mother, that’s all.” She crashed the cigarette in the ashtray. “What is it with the two of you? First him, now you too. I’m worried, is all, must I be punished for it?” She sighed again. “You do what you feel like doing. I’ll write you a check if you want.”

There was nothing left to say. So I took off.

It was only when I got back home that I discovered the horror.

The apartment’s yellow, peeled up walls were covered with lengths of white, clean cloth. The rickety orange couch, the one I brought in from Grandma’s old home, was gone. And something very strange happened to the floor: you could see the tiles’ original color. This was quite bizarre. Something about the apartment’s air was fundamentally different. The stench and general ickiness so typical of bachelors’ shared rental places in central Tel Aviv were completely replaced by something else.

Max was in charge of Operation Cleanup, waving his arms in broad, slow gestures as he spoke and sounding quite serious. Seeing him like that, I could no longer be mad at him for the missing couch. I was just sorry for him, terribly. Poor Max. He just didn’t have it coming to him. He used to be one of the good ones.

From the kitchen smells of home cooking wafted in, such as never before filled the air of this place. A pair of chubby twins, with long, blond, curly hair, were standing there, stirring two gigantic pots on the gas stove. They said hello, it was their pleasure to meet me, they’ve heard a lot of stories about me from Max. It was all I could do to avoid their attempts to hug me. They did try. Orit and Hagit, they introduced themselves with dimple-deepening smiles. Hagit offered me a chair, and Orit pushed a wooden plate in front of me loaded with rice and vegetables. She actually wanted me to eat it. When I saw those pieces of celery in the rice, I politely declined.

What the fuck, I thought. Lucky for them I don’t have the energy right now to deal with this entire mess; otherwise I would have kicked the lot of them, just like that, out of my apartment. I turned aside to hide in my room. I got in—and immediately got out again, slamming the door. This can’t be. Sheer horror.

I stepped back into the room. The first thing that hit me was the odor of orchids. The floor, believe it or not, was just like in the commercials, smelling of orchids. The windows were wide open, and fresh, pure air came in—who knows how long it’s been since such a thing had happened. The floor was sparkling clean. All those pizza crusts, empty Coke bottles, and unidentified food leftovers that used to carpet it, all gone.

A week before, I’d stopped washing my clothes. When I got tired of any of them, I would throw the dirty ones on the floor and choose some other dirty clothes instead. The clothes that used to be on the floor were no longer there. I opened my closet and found them, washed and ironed, neatly folded up, lying in heaps, arranged by type and color. Even the condom I’d thrown under the bed, the last time I was with Osher, had disappeared. Motherfuckers. It had some sentimental value for me.

I didn’t have to look far for the culprits responsible for my disaster: Azulay and Mor were on their knees, rubber gloves covering their hands, carefully and thoroughly cleaning the panels with toothbrushes that they dipped every once in a while in a bucket full of soapsuds.

Mor, still on her knees, straightened up. “Hi there,” she said, taking off a glove and gracefully wiping sweat off her brow. “Sorry to have invaded your room like that, without permission,” she went on, “but Max said it will be an excellent exercise for us in personal development and ego attenuation. And when Max says something, you know….” She shrugged, smiling. Azulay, ignoring me completely, kept scrubbing energetically. His trousers were pulled down, revealing the crack of his red, sweaty arse.

“Get—out!” I said quietly, emphatically stretching out these words, because this had for some reason a calming effect on me. “Get—out—now!” I told them. Azulay quickly wiped off leftover water, and Mor removed the remainder with a damp rag. They got out in haste, and I realized my hands were trembling. I felt I had to leave this room, this apartment, at once, get some fresh air.

At first, nobody took their little cult seriously. After all, in Tel Aviv that autumn you could just throw a casual stone and hit two gurus and a prophet. Nobody took anybody seriously in Tel Aviv that autumn.

It turned out, however, that there was life outside Tel Aviv, too. I went out of the apartment, and my long legs took me north—deep in thought, barely noticing time. Reaching the entrance of Yarkon Park, I saw a lot of people there, a lot even for a Friday afternoon. Oh well, I said, it must be Town Hall having another one of their silly festivals: “Food in the City,” “Jazz in the Park,” or something else to offer an excuse for clean, happy, well-off young people to go out with their fashionable, high-bosomed girlfriends.

But it turned out to be something completely different. Neither “Food in the City” nor “Jazz in the Park.” It was the landing of a UFO from outer space. I managed to see it after pushing through a multitude of people, knocking down a trembling old lady and landing, unintentionally, a terrible elbow blow on a patrol cop who blocked my view. It was a kind of silvery bubble standing on thin legs and spoiling City Hall’s lawn.

The patrol cop’s name was Nissim. He wasn’t mad about the elbow blow. He just put a hand to his eye, where the flesh around it was swelling up quickly and getting an alarming blue color. “A historical event,” he said to me. “A historical event, I’m telling you”—and I realized, by the very fact that he didn’t drag me to his precinct to beat the shit out of me, that he must be right.

Around the UFO there were some SWAT types with their Kevlar vests and short-stocked rifles, the ones with the telescope sights; there’s no knowing how they thought they could use those against a silver-colored bubble. Apart from them were parked three Merkava Mark III tanks and one Chabad Mitzvah tank, illegally parked, and blatantly so, beyond the police cordon. Only God knows how those crazy religious fanatics managed to work the system and get this close to the UFO.

Everybody around was really devastated by the fact that the bubble showed no sign of life. Especially the reporters. There were about one hundred TV crews over there who, having nothing better to do, kept interviewing each other and pushing everywhere with their minicams, their gigantic microphones, and their lights, knocking down trembling grandmas and unintentionally elbowing patrol cops.

“What is it? Why don’t they say something? If they came from that far away, they must know real important stuff,” said Nissim, rubbing his shoulder that got bruised by a cameraman wearing a Sky News badge who’d crashed into him with his camera while trying to move over from nowhere to nowhere and then added insult to injury with a thick Brit accent: “You bloody idiot, don’t you have eyes?”

“Why is he talking to me like this, what did I ever do to him?” said Nissim to me, and I realized I chanced upon the geekiest cop in the Yarkon District and told him he should arrest that impudent cameraman. I kept trying to get Nissim mad at the Sky cameraman, in vain. He seemed far more interested in the aliens than in the cameraman, who stood near us, sunburned, shooting his reporter, who was chattering in English, accented so heavily I couldn’t understand one word of it.

Everybody around us in the crowd started talking excitedly and pointing their fingers: a small hatch opened up in the silvery bubble, and the cameramen became ecstatic. Something that looked like an old gramophone loudspeaker came out very slowly. Everybody was completely silent until it was completely out, except for those ecstatic cameramen who were climbing on top of each other, trying to get a better angle. “Pheeew,” said Nissim, “it’s going to speak. Must have something important to say.”

But the speaker remained silent.

Then it said, “Shalom.”

The Chabad fanatics went crazy. They grabbed each other’s shoulders, formed a circle, and started singing, “Hevenu shalom aleichem.” Very quickly they switched to sing “Messiah—Messiah—Messiah,” until the crowd broke through the cordon and forcibly shut them up, because people wanted to hear what the UFO had to say.

And the UFO did have something to say: “Bring Maxim Kornfein of 28 Ahad HaAm Street. We have an important message for him.”

Two white cars with blue lights on top went out, their sirens blaring. And I thought that with all those drugs screwing with my brain, I didn’t hear very well what they were saying. What did they need Max for?

The squad cars were back in fifteen minutes; they must have been driving like crazy. The back car’s window was open, and I could see the head of Tony, Ahmed the alte zachen’s donkey, looking out. He saw me in the crowd and winked at me.

Max came out of the car. He looked very impressive, so tall and wearing a white robe. He got on Tony’s back, and then he looked even more tall and impressive. They moved together, trotting in a noble sort of way toward the silvery bubble. When they were real close, the bubble started vibrating and twisting, like the surface of a pool when you throw in a stone. Then the bubble puckered out a pair of lips and—schluk—swallowed up both Tony and Max. The Sky News cameraman swooned ecstatic.

And then nothing happened. For the longest time, maybe twenty minutes. The Chabad fanatics put on their phylacteries and started shaking and quaking. Nissim gave me a friendly elbow in the ribs and smirked: “Look, they’re trying to listen in on the ship’s communications network.” I lit up a joint and offered Nissim a drag. Nissim looked fearfully left and right and then took it. He handed me back the joint and said, “just that you know, I’m not really a patrol cop. I’m with the patrol’s computer unit, but I came here anyway, because this is a historical moment.”

Finally, the ship’s surface started twisting a little, made waves, and the lips puckered up again and spat out Max, still on Tony’s back. The lips pulled back again. The waves grew stronger, the UFO bubble went blip, blip, blip—zabababam! and disappeared abruptly, leaving no trace except for a sharp smell of burning brakes, four little circles of yellow dead grass, and one of the Chabad fanatics, who disappeared leaving no trace.

The media waxed hysterical. The Sky News cameraman used the opportunity to crash again into Nissim, even though he wasn’t in his way at all. I couldn’t take it any longer and pushed him back. The cameraman fell down on the grass, but immediately got up and raised his minicam, taking no notice of me. That should teach him for interfering with a policeman in the fulfillment of his duty.

I took Nissim by the hand, and we ran forward with all those reporters and cameramen. When the police tried to stop me, I pointed at the heavily breathing Nissim and said, “I’m with him!” and they let me go through.

Max was sitting on Tony’s back, absorbed in deep meditation. The reporters made a siege circle around them and kept asking a thousand questions: “How does the UFO look inside? Who were the creatures flying it?” and the question that was repeated the most, “What was the message?”

To the reporters’ utter amazement, it was Tony the donkey who opened his mouth and answered all their question like a veteran spokesperson, in near perfect Hebrew and then almost fluent English. Sometimes it was a bit hard to understand him, because of the structure of his mouth, ’cause every word came out as kind of a braying “brrr….”

Eventually the reporters realized that while a talking donkey was indeed a hell of an attraction and a hot news item, he wasn’t going to betray (bray?) any real information about the UFO’s cosmic message. So they returned to questioning Max, who wouldn’t give them the time of day. When he got fed up with all this aggravation, he opened his eyes and stretched his neck. Silence fell among the ranked reporters.

Quoth Max, “It was a personal message for me. Can’t tell you what they said.” Before the stunned reporters could make a protest, he gave Tony a kind of giddyup with his knees. Tony made a sprint, jumped mightily above the alarmed reporters, who immediately ducked for cover, and started galloping west. He and Tony rode into the sunset, which indeed had amazing pink and orange hues to it. I thought, now they’re going to take them a bit more seriously.

When I came back home, I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, with the light on, for I don’t know how long, until I got tired of it. Then I called Mr. Eliahu. Mr. Eliahu was my landlord, and a highly valuable archaeological relic he was, too. It’s a wonder the Antiquities Authority hadn’t laid their hands on him a long time ago. He dates back to the time they still thought they could set up a proper European nation here, where people will be nice and decent with each other. This is why he was called “Mr. Eliahu.” His first name was Naphtali, but no one, not even his wife, I think, called him that. When I’d told him I was from Ra’anana he got terribly excited and said that that was where he’d met his wife, working at the Ra’anana orange groves in June of ’47. They were building a homeland, but the entire experiment blew up in their faces once the Levantine Indians took over, he said. Now, I decided, Mr. Eliahu is going to get a living demonstration of Levantine Indiancy, courtesy of the Bezeq Phone Co.

Mr. Eliahu’s Hebrew was old-fashioned. He was capable of saying things like “You shall pay me right on the dot for being exceeding kind to you, Mr. Menashe.” I told him, “Naphtali sweetheart, I got fired from my job, my overdraft passed the five thousand shekels mark already last week, I don’t have a penny in my pocket, and I’m rotting away at home all day not even looking for a new job. So you can forget about your money. I don’t intend to pay you any. You won’t see a penny coming from me to you. You’ve made enough money at the expense of losers like myself. What are you going to do with so much money? You’re already rotten inside and half dead. Forget about it, Naphtali sweetheart. You won’t see a penny from me.”

Mr. Eliahu was not fazed one bit. Apparently I was not the first Indian to hit him. He said dryly, “I understand you, Master Menashe. I understand you much better than you realize. Just be advised that breach of contract is a serious matter—you are in way over your head in this.”

“Naphtali sweetheart,” I rudely interrupted him, “you can take your contract, roll it tight and good, and shove it deep inside your asshole!”

I hung up on him. Now it looked like I was on the right track, having greatly enhanced my prospects of becoming homeless. I’ve always wondered whether City Hall’s wooden benches were good to sleep on.

Wandering footloose in the city did nothing to improve the way I felt. I couldn’t stop looking at the benches, asking myself which one was going to be my home. Rows of benches kept passing in front of my eyes whenever I closed them—and this was getting too hard to bear. I felt I had to relax, clear my head somehow.

That’s why I gladly accepted Ahmed the alte zachen’s invitation. He was sitting in the Yemenite’s kiosk in Cordovero Street, near the Lehi Museum, looking bored.

“Backgammon?” he asked. “Come on, set it up,” I said to him, “but only if you feel like losing.” Ahmed smiled under his moustache, took out a packet of Time, offered me one, and lit another for himself. To Yossi he said, “Two black coffees, my man, and make it strong.”

“You talk too much, you,” said Ahmed, opening up the board and laying it on the brown Formica table. He arranged the pieces in a dizzying speed, rolled a die to see who goes first, and got a six. Ahmed stared at me with his one good eye, the other one roaming uselessly in space. “Play for money?” he asked.

“No thanks, I’m broke,” I said and rolled my die. Got a one. “Never mind,” said Ahmed, “coffee’s on me.” “You start,” I said to Ahmed. We played silently, not talking at all, rapidly moving those worn-out pieces. The only sound was the rattle of rolling dice, until the end of the first game, which I lost to Ahmed by a gammon.

“You talk too much, you,” said Ahmed again, never raising his eyes from the board. “All day long, your head’s just running around thinking about girls, about life, you never notice what’s going on ’round you. You’re all like that. All day long, your head’s into bilosophy and girls, not looking where you’re going.” Ahmed stressed the b in bilosophy to show his disdain. When he spoke Hebrew he hardly had any accent, usually, and he could pronounce his ps without any difficulty, unlike so many Arabs. I had a feeling that since the accident Ahmed was rather bitter with us Jews.

As well he should be. A week before, he got a new donkey, but they didn’t quite get along. The donkey couldn’t understand what Ahmed wanted it to do. Wouldn’t move an inch, and when Ahmed told it what he thought about it, the donkey broke two of his ribs with a massive two-hoofed back swing. Ahmed returned the donkey to the person he bought it from, and since then he’s been sitting all day at the Yemenite’s, inviting passers-by to backgammon and coffee, trying not to breathe too deeply. It’s not like he’s out of pocket. Tony puts money in his bank account twice a week. But this is not what you’d call living. Ahmed is a man of principles and dignity. He shouldn’t be living on handouts from his previous donkey, like a beggar.

Ahmed offered me another cigarette, took a long and noisy draft from his cup of coffee, and said to me, “Believe me, Ido. You have nothing to worry about, you. In the end, everything will be back the way it used to be. I’ve got eyes, I see people, and I’ve been around some. Last year it was Kabbalah, two years ago it was Hare Krishna, five years ago, Emin. Soon this too will get out of their system, the way all the others did.”

“Inshallah,” I closed our conversation. Wind started blowing, sweeping with it droplets of rain from the sea. We picked up the table, moved it inside the kiosk, and kept on playing, fast and silent. Eventually I beat Ahmed twelve to two, got up, and shook his hand. Ahmed ordered some more coffee. I went back to the apartment.

In the stairwell I found myself face-to-face with Mr. Eliahu, accompanied by an execution office cop. I was going up, he was going down. “You are extremely lucky, Master Menashe, because Mister Azulay is a real mensch, and thanks to him you may keep staying here rather than live on a bench in the street.”

“He paid you?” I asked. All of a sudden, my face became red and hot.

“He most definitely has,” said Mr. Eliahu. “Paid everything, with arrears interest and also for the next six months—adding a handsome compensation for all your smart-ass shenanigans. A right upstanding gentleman, Mr. Azulay is. I just cannot figure out what he sees in you.”

Max and Co. were going out for a walking meditation. They passed me on the way down. When Azulay came down the stairs toward me, I looked him in the eyes. Shame on him. Did I ask him to pay for anything for me? I’m willing to live with the consequences of what I do. No, rather, I want to live with the consequences of what I do. Sink down, hit the bottom, with nobody to care about me. Now even this was taken away from me.

But Azulay didn’t look away. On the contrary, he looked directly at me in a really annoying way. “You spoiled-rotten piece of shit,” he said to me, aloud. “Say what?” I asked. Max kept going down with the whole troop behind him. “You spoiled-rotten piece of shit,” Azulay said again, this time more loudly. Mor and Hagit turned their heads to look at us.

“You must be thinking you’re something,” said Azulay. Mor grabbed Hagit by that chubby hand of hers and they kept going down the stairs, in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the group. Azulay moved towards me. I suddenly realized he was quite a large man, about as tall as myself, but very broad and well-muscled, with a healthy beer gut dropping down from above his belt. “You think you’re special, huh?” he asked, and his thick black eyebrows came closer as he stared at me. “Why don’t you play alongside with Tony in Florentine, if you’re so special?”

With Azulay standing in my way, I felt not so good, suddenly. He was one step above me, so close I could smell his sour sweat. I only wanted to sit down, maybe smoke a joint, clear my head. I had no time for him. “Don’t you have to go with them?” I asked, smiling. Azulay raised his gigantic, heavy hand and brought it down on my cheek. The sound was not pleasant. My right ear started humming, and my eyes lost focus for a second. Azulay turned away from me and went down a couple of steps in a slow, dignified walk. Then, suddenly, he started running heavily to catch up with the group, which was now way ahead of him.

What’s going on here? Has everybody gone completely bonkers?

When I came back to the apartment, my cheek was still smarting from the slap Azulay landed on me. I found Tony sitting on the floor watching Ricki Lake. “Come on, Ido,” he winked at me. “I’ll treat you to a beer from my private stock.” He pulled out a six-pack of Tuborgs from under the box Max used to sit on when lecturing and took out a cigar from the pocket of the black jacket he was wearing. Tony snapped the cigar’s end in one asinine bite, lit it, and gestured, in a twist of his cleft lip, to come with him to the balcony.

The balcony has always been our apartment’s garbage dump. As part of Max’s efforts to break down Mor’s and Azulay’s egos, all those dry leaves, empty beer bottles, broken furniture, and other junk that used to fill it were all gone. Now the floor sparkled (smelling of orchids, you guessed it). Pots with flowering geraniums (that also smelled like orchids for some reason) were hanging from the ledge, lit by hidden lamps at night. To complete the setup there were two chairs and a plastic table covered in a tablecloth of handmade lace, on which stood a vase full of fresh flowers, replaced each day.

Tony had told Max he’s done enough walking meditation in his former profession and didn’t need any more of it, thank you very much. So Max excused him. Tony used these breaks to have the time of his life.

He asked me to open a can of Tuborg for him. Because of his hooves, he couldn’t do it for himself, despite persistent attempts. He then took it in in one swig. Finally, he let out a lengthy burp and took a drag from his cigar.

“Howzzit going, Ido?” he asked, laying a finely filed, nail-polished hoof on my shoulder.

“What can I tell you?” I said. “Life sucks.”

“Behhh,” said Tony. “C’mon, tell me about it. Four hours of meditation every day, two hours group singing and dancing—and pit-bottom, round-table talks. Getting under your skin, telling you you feel bad because you’re alienated from the world. I’m just an ass, I’m not cut out for this shit. So I cut corners here and there, to make it barely bearable. That’s how you have to take it, one day at a time.”

Tony squashed the can and let it fly in a splendid volley shot to the neighbors’ balcony. Then I opened another can for him, and he swallowed this one, too, in one swig. “So why are you staying on?” I asked.

“You may laugh at me until forever, Ido, but something about this makes me feel good. Can’t describe this feeling—but for the first time in my stinking life, I’m being taken seriously; they listen to me. Maybe they’re a little overenthusiastic, but they really care about me. For the first time I matter to someone, and not just as horsepower.”

Tony spoke real plain, but everything he said went right into your heart. That’s why they liked him on TV. More precisely, that’s one of the reasons. The other reason, of course, was that he was a talking donkey. Since the accident, Tony’s become a ratings buster—and Max realized this real quick and took advantage. TV stars and producers from Channel 2 would beat a path to our place begging Max to allow Tony to appear on their shows. However, Max didn’t actually need this publicity. He’s acquired a lot of following anyway. Therefore, even though he didn’t need money either—he’s rounded up some heavyweight contributors—he demanded incredible sums of them. As he explained to me, hitting their pockets was the best way to bust their egos. Those producers would come out of their meetings with Max with their cheeks wet, having gone through whole boxes of tissue, their souls pure as a baby’s smile and their pocketbooks much lighter.

That memorable Florentine episode, with Tony as the spiritual donkey who makes Iggy see the light, was a hit, a bombshell. Busted all ratings records. The bank account of the Insights of Love LLC expanded accordingly.

I, too, liked Tony. There was something easygoing about him. He wasn’t as fanatic as the rest of them. After a chat with Tony, a small joint, and a few beers, life seemed like something I could cope with.

The Coast Guard has arrived. That’s how I called her privately, in my mind, in my long sessions with myself: the Coast Guard. It started on the beach: “Ido, put on your sun screen!” “Ido, don’t take off your hat!” “Ido, don’t go into deep water!” “Ido, don’t talk to strangers, because who knows what kind of maniacs you can see today at the seaside, now that the country is not what it used to be twenty years ago; then you could walk the streets without any worries. Just read the paper. Only yesterday they killed someone because of an argument over a deck chair.”

“But Mom, you wouldn’t let me go to the beach twenty years ago, either.”

“Okay, what’s the matter with you, sweetheart? You were little then.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Resting, learning, healing myself.”

“Over here?!”

“Yeah, over here. What’s wrong with over here?”

“This is my place, Mom. I moved here to get away from you. You can’t just barge in without invitation. This is a place where people live, it’s not the Carmel Forest.”

“My place… and who pays your rent? Never mind. It’s not any business of mine. Besides, I do have an invitation. You never call home and you’ve received another notice from the army. You’re bound to end up in the stockade. So I called here to tell you. Max answered, and we talked a great deal. A very nice boy, Max is. I was highly impressed by his views. He invited me to come visit. He said maybe he could help me become a whole person again. Shame on you for not letting me know what’s going on in your place. I could have started working on myself a long time ago.”

“Enough with it, Mom!”

“Enough with what, Ido?”

“Stop with it already.”

“Stop with what, Ido?”

“Stop with this game. It’s stupid and it doesn’t fool me any longer. I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Of course you know. Wouldn’t have thought you didn’t. Big secret…. What do people come here for? Purification, meditation techniques. Making the world a better place. Becoming whole again….”

“People, yes. You? No. You’ve come here for one reason only: to keep an eye on your little Ido’leh, lest he regrow the wings that you clipped. Keep me close and small underneath your apron. That’s what you’ve always wanted.”

“Listen, sweetheart, it’s not at all like that. Things change….”

“What things? What change? Nothing changes. Well, perhaps things change, but you don’t. An equation with zero unknowns. The Soviet Empire may have collapsed, but you’ve remained the same: never let up, not for a moment. Help! Save me! The Polish Secret Service is after me!”

“Enough with the histrionics, Ido. You’re making yourself a nuisance. People here are trying to concentrate on their meditation. You’re a nuisance to me too. I’m in the middle of the Third Cycle, the crucial one. Why don’t we have this conversation later on? You find me during suppertime, we’ll sit down over a dish of rice and celery and talk about your anger and frustrations. Okay, sweetheart?”

“No supper, no nothing! Get out of my life, right now, this moment! You know how much I hate celery!”

“You haven’t changed, Ido. You’ll always be mother’s little spoiled boy. Ommmm Shaaaanti, Ommmm Shaaaanti, Ommmm Shaaaanti, haiiii!”

Mother closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began chanting mantras in ancient Indian. These were not my mother’s words. Could it be the aliens messed with her head?

I was left alone with a deep sense of betrayal, a burning disappointment with life and one huge question mark: Et tu, Mommy?

Disco time. I pulled out the disc already in the player, threw it minus its box into the drawer that already was a disorderly mess of discs. None in its original box. Pulled out the Pixies disc from the Deep Forest box and put it in. Turned the volume all the way up to help them with their evening meditation.

Lay back on my bed, hitting the wall with my feet to the beat of the music. Happy as a clam. Really. Got everything I needed right here in this room. No reason to go anywhere else. In the top drawer I had a carton and a half Winston Lites, so I won’t get stuck with nothing to smoke. In the middle drawer there were two boxes of Hogla tissue paper, should I wish to cry (Cry? Crying is for cunts!). In the bottom drawer I kept two dried bushes, courtesy of my friendly neighborhood dealer. Crumble half a leaf into your cigarette, it helps you go through the day. In the closet there was everything needed for munching: two giant bars of milk chocolate with raisins and nuts, Pringles, and three family-size bottles of Coke. On the bedside table there was a carved wooden box from India, which always had a few bills inside to pay for this partying. Where did the money come from? I didn’t know, I never asked. But the footprints of Tony’s polished hooves were quite obvious. Like everything else done in this cult, Tony always came and went, moved and shook, got everything organized.

And there was, of course, my phone: pretty, small, black, lying quietly in a corner.

I went through my address book and couldn’t find anyone whose life I could telephonically ruin. But this gave me an idea. I went through the drawers until I found my old phone book. Opened it on D and called Doron. Mali answered. She didn’t recognize my voice; it’s been a long time.

I didn’t say who’s talking. I asked for Doron and got him.

“Hey, you worm, what about the MAG? Ready for inspection?”

“Ido! You blob of organic fertilizer, why don’t you ever call?” Doron enthused. “Howzzit with you, you piece of nothing?”

“All’s well,” I said. “I’m in Tel Aviv, doing nothing in particular.”

“I’ve left a million messages with your mother, even sent you an invitation to our wedding. We’d said we’ll remain friends for life.”

“So we said, but….”

“No buts. You’re coming over for a visit with us right this week.”

“Tell you the truth, Dori, I didn’t want to come to yours and Mali’s wedding. It would have been awkward.”

“Awkward how? We never kept secrets from each other. What’s the fuss, ha ha, did you screw my sister or something?”

“No. I mean, not your sister. Mali. In our end-of-service party. Remember how we both disappeared? Mali took me to some fortress by the sea. There was this nice sand on the floor, and she screamed and scratched my back when I fucked her. Lucky for me, she didn’t have long fingernails. Then she wanted some more. We did it slow that time. She smiled and looked me in the eyes as I nailed her. She then said size does matter. I screwed your wife, Doron, and she told me you have a small pecker. Like I didn’t know, after three years of taking showers together.”

There was silence at the other end of the line.

“See you ’round, Dori. I just thought you should know.”

I hung up. Just as it seemed things were going downhill all the way, it turns out I still have it in me. Besides, I only did my friend a favor. Dori deserves better than this Mali. Come on, I don’t even know under what rock he’d found her. I left the room in high spirits. Everything’s going my way today.

My happiness was temporary, quite temporary. As I opened the door, I saw Osher in the meditation hall. Suddenly an idea came to me. Holy rage filled me, a desire to take revenge burned in me. I improvised freely, not thinking at all.

“Hello! What’s my girlfriend doing here?”

The small crowd in our living room shook off their meditation trance all at once. They all turned toward me, gawking. Osher opened her eyes and turned toward me too.

“I’m no longer your girlfriend, Ido. I may do whatever I want to. Get used to it.”

“That you’re no longer my girlfriend, I already know. What I’m wondering about is why?”

“Ido, get out. You’re interfering with the community’s search for light,” said Max calmly, majestically.

“Search for light my ass. Search for my girlfriend, you had to say,” I said to him. “I know this was what you wanted from the start.” I turned to Osher. “How long has he been ‘guiding’ you?”

“Almost from the beginning, but I never came out to the living room. Didn’t want you to see me. Didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Of course you didn’t want to hurt my feelings. You were fucking Max.”

“Ido, stop this crazy nonsense. You know that is not true,” said Max. His voice wasn’t all that calm now.

“No fucking way I stop. I’ve just begun.”

“Ido, not in front of everybody. It’s disturbing to them. Let’s go out, talk about it like two civilized people.”

“Contrariwise, in front of everybody. Why the fuck not? It’s only me you screwed with? You screw with them as well. They have a right to know.”

“That’s true, we have a right to know what you were doing with Osher when you sent Mor and me to clean up everyone’s apartments in this bloc.” Azulay got up. He demanded an answer, and he looked threatening.

Max tried to reply, but other voices joined with Azulay’s. They demanded to know more stuff: what he did with all this donation money, who did he sleep with other than Osher. Other than Rabin’s assassination, they accused him of everything. Max’s protestations were drowned in a sea of accusations and charges.

The snowball started rolling, and it will be very difficult to stop it now.

I opened the bottom drawer to take out a joint I had ready in my emergency stock. Moving around there, my hand hit something else. It was the gun I’d bought the other day from Recoil, having received my Ministry of the Interior permits. Ozz had patted my shoulder, saying in his most serious and authoritative voice, “This is some serious piece, boy, don’t you fool around with it, do you hear me?” I wanted to tell Ozz I wasn’t going to fool around any, just stick the muzzle in my mouth and fire a shot into my brain, but you can’t afford to joke with the likes of Ozz. They don’t have even the slightest sense of humor. It’d be a waste of time. They won’t get the joke, and you’d only come out the fool for it. Besides, they always know lots of people in the police, the border guard, the security service, and God knows where else; you could get into lots of trouble that way. It really never pays to joke with Ozz-like persons.

How glad I was that I wasn’t tripping when I came to the store, ’cause I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself trying to outsmart a fool like Ozz. I just smiled and said that I’d take real good care of my gun.

It was time to give up and admit I wasn’t all that good in this. At any rate, I did achieve one objective: I’d burned my bridges behind me. The way I’d messed up the cult, it’d take them a lot of time to fix it. I could forget about working for Gross, which wasn’t a great loss, let’s face it. Dori was no longer my best friend for life, as we’d agreed, and I’d proved to Osher that I was a jerk. Now there was no chance in a million years that she’ll come back to me.

The serene harmony and the singing that used to dominate the living room were replaced by shouting. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but any number of people were speaking out loud, interrupting each other. Through the music that still filled the room some words filtered out: “betrayal of trust,” “charlatanism,” “fraud,” “end of the road,” and other stuff like that.

That’s it, this is final. As I’d planned in advance, I had ruined everything, and there was nothing important left to say. I picked up my faded jacket and wore it. I stuffed the Jericho into one pocket, and put two joints, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter in the other. Closed the door behind me, moved quickly down the stairs. Got out to the street and started walking. After two blocks I realized I hadn’t taken my notebook. I felt I needed a notebook and that it’d be a horrible mistake to shoot myself in the head without jotting down a few words first. I didn’t have anything important to say to the world before leaving it for good, but I felt I mustn’t blow it. Like Mother always says about weddings, “You do it once in a lifetime, so you’d better do it right.”

I went back upstairs to get my notebook. When I came in, Max was sitting on his cube with everybody surrounding him. I’ve never seen the place so chock-full of people. They kept up the shouting, but when they noticed me in there, they all fell silent, looking at me. There were really a lot of people there.

I went into my room and got the violet copybook Osher had given me for my birthday a couple of years ago, together with a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I could never read through. She wanted me to express myself, but the copybook remained blank, except for this little dedication at the top of the first page, in Osher’s neat handwriting.

What a lovely word, taciturn. I’ve never heard Osher use it, perhaps because it’s a word you only write, not speak. Anyway, I was through being taciturn. I added the copybook to my pocket, which was becoming heavy and bulging. A moment before I got out I remembered one more thing and took a Pilot ballpoint pen. Junk wipes you out. I’ve become forgetful recently.

Before leaving I lingered a bit in the living room. Something funny was going on there. The atmosphere was heavy, unpleasant. The gun’s grip was sticking out of my pocket, and people turned to look at me. I felt like a black-hatted cowboy entering the town’s saloon in a second-rate western.

All the way to the beach my hand lay on the plastic grip of my lovely Jericho. Its weight pulled down the right-hand side of my jacket.

The beach was quiet. Despite it being a pleasant evening, there was no one at the seaside. Not that I wanted anyone to be there. Suicide, after all, is something you do by yourself. I walked north. The Bugrachov Beach breakwater seemed to me fit for my task.

Funny word, suicide. I said to myself, out loud, several times, just to get used to it: “Ido committed suicide”; “Ido’s dead, he committed suicide”; “Ido Menashe committed suicide”; “Ido shot himself in the head”; “He committed suicide last night.” Then I said, “I committed suicide,” and this brought up a terrible laughter, to have such an expression in Hebrew. Must be the least-used phrase in the whole language. So I kept laughing out loud, saying again and again, “I committed suicide, I committed suicide, I committed suicide.” An old man who passed by me, wearing a baseball cap, trainers, and training suit, gave me a funny look and started walking faster.

Enough with the laughs. Must find a logical place to do it.

I walked to the end of the breakwater. Couldn’t be seen from the beach, darkness surrounded me, swallowed me whole. Recoil’s Ozz had explained to me that the length of the barrel determines noise dispersal. The shorter the barrel, he’d said, the sound of the shot disperses more, can’t be heard from a distance. A handgun’s report—I hadn’t realized until then that a report is also the sound a gun makes—is carried just a few dozens of meters, and the waves will cover it anyway. Nobody on the beach was going to hear my shot.

I stepped carefully over those large rocks. The last thing I wanted was to fall over and break my neck. Got to the end of the breakwater, sat down on a rock. Took the gun out of my jacket pocket and the ammo box from my trousers pocket. Loaded ten rounds into the magazine, even though I needed only one. Sniffed the oil-and-metal aroma I liked so much. Looked at the magazine. The lead of the dum-dum core looked back at me through the closed copper rosebud, as if it were waiting only for me.

I cocked the gun. This was quite difficult, because it was a double-action mechanism: cocking and releasing the safety with just one pull of the hammer. Took aim at a rock and fired one shot. Lime dust rose up and rocky shrapnel flew all over the place. The noise was staggering. My ears started buzzing. Under the circumstances, it had seemed idiotic to put in earplugs. Good God, you should have seen what it’s done to the rock. Blasted the shit out of it.

Okay, now I know the gun works properly, and I can move on to the next stage. I took out my pack of cigarettes and lit one, covering the lighter with one hand against the wind, the way I’d learned in the army. And so I sat there on the rock, smoking my cigarette in long, deep pulls. Wind hit my face, chilling it. I’ve never enjoyed a cigarette more than I did this final one.

I threw the stub of my final cigarette into the dark, roiling water. Didn’t even hear it going tsssss. Put the Jericho’s muzzle in my mouth and felt the barrel, still warm after the previous shot, pressing against the back of my mouth. It tasted of smoke and gunpowder.

I closed my eyes, because this is what you do when you commit suicide. It’s instinctive, like closing your eyes when you kiss.

“I wouldn’t do it if I werrrre you,” said a voice behind me, emerging between cleft lips. Tony was sitting there on a rock, cross-legged, smiling an asinine smile. “Look at the macro, dude,” he said. “Keep your head down till the wave passes over. This is just a rough patch. Good times will come; it would be a pity to end up like this.” Tony got up, put a hoof against the gun and removed it gently from my mouth.

“Go away, Tony,” I said. “You’re just like them.” I put the muzzle back in my mouth, closed my eyes and put my index finger on the trigger.

Tony reached out with a hoof and removed the gun again. “There are still those who care about you, Ido,” he said. “You won’t have it this easy; I’m not giving up on you.”

With my right hand, I shoved the gun into my mouth. With my left hand I gave Tony the finger. I started increasing the finger’s pressure against the trigger, gradually. “A gentle squeeze of the trigger,” as I’d been taught in firearms lessons in boot camp.

Tony lifted again his hoof towards me, trying to remove the gun. He was quite serious about it, but I had no intention of allowing him to spoil it for me.

Suddenly we were both rolling on the ground, fighting for the gun. Tony was sitting on my chest, and he was not some skinny donkey. It was all I could do just to breathe. “You shall live, Ido; I will not let you ruin everything,” he said, and I heard in his voice an insistent decisiveness I’ve never heard before. “I love you,” he said, grabbing the barrel forcibly with his strong teeth and pulling. My finger was still caught in the trigger guard.

The gun fired, like it had a will of its own. Tony’s head exploded, bursting like a ripe watermelon. Headless, Tony stumbled two more steps to the right, then fell rolling into the sea. My eyes were burning because of the gunpowder, and a thin buzz filled my aching ears. All over my clothes there was a spattering of blood, brains, and bone fragments. The ugly slush pooled up in various depressions on my body and flowed inside my shirt in warm, sticky rivulets. Some of it got in my mouth, and I have to tell you that donkey juice is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted. And it had to be Tony juice, the only ass ever who really cared about me. I threw away the gun with all my strength. It hit the water far away, making a little splash, and sank deep. The headless corpse floated in the water, and black currents swept it rapidly into the sea.

Up in the sky a point of light appeared, growing larger. The UFO came in fast, stopped, and hovered above the body. A hatch opened in its belly, a yellow ray of light emerged, and Tony’s corpse was pulled up slowly, majestically, into the flying bubble. The corpse was sucked inside, the hatch closed fast, and the bubble went blip, blip, whoosh!—and flew away. Quiet reigned. Only the crash of the waves could be heard. The wind carried towards me a smell of burned out brakes.

“Do you want to acquire merit, sir?”

I turned around quickly. The religious fanatic, the one who’d disappeared at Yarkon Park, was standing behind me holding a prayer shawl in one hand and a prayer book in the other. “Will you say Kaddish for him?”

“But he was just a donkey,” I said.

“Let me tell you,” said the fanatic, “that some Jews have the heart of a donkey, and some donkeys have a Jewish heart. He has no speaking relatives—so perhaps you, as his friend, could…. It’s a great mitzvah, you know….”

I couldn’t take any more of this. I lied without hesitation: “I’m a Druze,” I told him. “We can’t say Kaddish.”

I turned my back on him, stripped down to my underwear, threw the rest of my clothes into the sea, and jumped in myself. I scraped my body fiercely and felt the blood and brain fragments wash away in the cold water.

A thunder blasted, and lightning lit up the sea. Heavy rain started falling, and in a minute I could hardly see the figure standing on the breakwater, in black jacket and hat, shaking all over and chanting aloud, in an Ashkenazi accent, “Isgodol veiskodosh shmei rabo….”

I swam away, leaving the breakwater behind me. For the first time in weeks I felt a twinge of sadness in my heart. He really cared about me. The jackass.

I came back home. Mor was standing on a chair in the hallway, removing a white sheet from the wall. Beside her there was a heap of folded up sheets, and the yellow-grey flaky walls of our beloved apartment were revealed in all their glory.

“Mor,” I asked, “what are you doing?”

“I figured, if it’s all over, and there’s no more use for these sheets, I may as well take them back home.”

“What do you mean, it’s all over?”

“Why, haven’t you heard? Alllll over,” she said, pulling it out like she was giving birth to it. “He’s a nobody, there’s nothing to him, as everybody knows now.”

I thought she sounded a bit angry, but surely I was wrong, because Mor is one of those people who never get angry.

Mother came out of the kitchen. “I’m leaving, Ido’leh,” she said in a squeaky voice. “I left some good stuff in the fridge for you to eat. How could you get along without my schnitzels?” She gave me a sticky kiss, leaving a wet smudge of lipstick on my cheek, and went out.

Azulay came in from the balcony, carrying under each arm a pot of geraniums, which for some reason spread orchid smell all over the place. He made his way to the door, grunting in my direction, “See ya, Ido.” He turned his back and kept going, heavy and awkward, never waiting for an answer.

The place looked empty as it had not been for a month now, since Max’s accident. They put the TV set back in place, but without the couch it didn’t look the same.

I went into his room. Max was lying on his bed in a torn training suit and a T-shirt, his arms and legs spread out, listening to trance music through earphones, but so loud that I could hear it as well as he did.

“Max,” I said. He didn’t react. “Max!” I shouted again. Max saw me. He got his earphones off at once and tried to escape. Stepping on the strings of his open shoes, stumbling and falling spread-eagle on the floor.

“Don’t beat me up, Ido. I never fucked Osher. I swear on the Bible.”

“I know you didn’t. I knew all along. I thought maybe we could go back to the way things used to be before.”

“Why are you wet, and where are all your clothes?”

“What’s going on? Why did everybody leave?”

“Because of the mess you made,” said Max. He sounded indifferent. “They asked some tough questions, and I no longer had any answers for them. So I told them it’s all over and they may go away. There was some crying and some shouting. A few of them read me the riot act. But generally speaking, I think they’ll get over it. Let it go, I’ve had enough bullshit for one day. I really have no energy to talk about it anymore. Say, is it at all possible that you’ve got some stuff for me to smoke?”

Max was right. It would be stupid to fight when you could smoke some good junk instead. I went into my room to get the stuff, because all I had in my pocket got lost when I tossed my clothes into the sea.

I was thinking about a small gob of quality Moroccan hash stuck underneath the bottom drawer of my cabinet for six months now, waiting for a special occasion.

In my room I found Osher sitting on my bed.

“Osher, you’re here too?” I asked.

“I’m back, Ido,” Osher said.

“But I thought you were done. You told me you’re not my girlfriend anymore.”

“That’s true, I was done, but I’ve come back now.”

“You’re not mad because of the scene I made about you and Max?”

“Oy, Ido,” Osher said in a voice I hadn’t heard for a month now. “When are you going to get it? You’ve always been too heavy.” Osher placed her hands on both sides of my head, covering my ears and temples. It was a very pleasant feeling. “Let this head of yours rest. You keep it running all the time. This is not healthy, Ido, and it does nobody any good. You and your thoughts, alone against the whole wide world. Somebody is bound to get hurt eventually.”

“But Osher,” I felt I had to protest, “I thought such things, when they happen in our lives, are supposed to make us grow, make us more ready for life or something. Has nothing happened to us during this last month? Haven’t we grown, haven’t we learned something, isn’t there some lesson we’re missing? Doesn’t this story have any moral?”

“Don’t you want to be back with me?” Osher asked, hurt. She leaned her head against my chest. She was five foot three, so she barely reached my lowest ribs, because we were both standing up. Her ribs were trembling with the beginning of a cry, and when I put my fingers over her eyes, they were salty. Then we just stood there hugging.

I still wanted to tell her lots of things. I didn’t feel this was over and done with, but it was no use anymore. For myself, I really thought I’ve grown, I’ve been through something, this month has had some value. But there was no one I could tell it to. So I hugged Osher again, buried my head in the cavity between her shoulder and neck, smelled the nice scent of her deodorant, and thought that while I was right, there were more important things in life than being right.

“Sure I want to be back with you, Osher. I’m happy you’ve come back,” I said. For a moment I became sad and wanted to cry.

We hugged each other like this, not speaking, for several minutes. My sadness passed away. I felt everything became as per usual, the way it used to be.

Osher put her hand on my hip. “What happened to your clothes? Where’s your gun?” She asked.

“I threw them all into the sea. What do I need a gun for now?”

“Great,” Osher said. “Just wear something, or you’ll end up getting pneumonia.”

“Alte zachen! Alte zachen! Old stuff! Fridges, cabinets, washers…. Alte zachen!” Ahmed was shouting in the street below. He’d found a new donkey, a small brown one with a patient look in its eyes; a donkey that never spoke, just pulled the loaded cart wherever Ahmed told him to. They got along famously, and Ahmed was very happy. “At long last, a donkey with no bilosophy,” he’d told me.

It’s Azulay I’m going to miss the most. A real gentleman. It was quite nice of him to come with his truck and return my late grandmother’s ugly orange wedding couch right to our living room. Despite all its cigarette holes and the stains of coffee and cum on its pillows, for me this couch meant home—and that’s irreplaceable.

Good days are back, in a big way.

We were slumped, the three of us, on the couch in front of the TV. Max was wearing worn jeans that were a bit too short on him, felt slippers with a hole through which his big toe could be seen, and his favorite New York Knicks T-shirt.

“What’s with the pizza?” he asked. I told him I’d ordered it twenty minutes ago, a gigantic tuna crème fraîche, which we all liked, with some extras. I’d also ordered a couple of large bottles of Coke, so we won’t go thirsty. I told him that if the delivery guy won’t make it within the next ten minutes we’d get the sodas for free, in line with Domino’s hot pizza policy.

My mouth was actually watering, thinking of the delivery guy ringing our doorbell, of the moment I’d open the pizza’s carton and a wonderful wave of smell, melted cheese commingled with the scents of tuna, onion, and pepperoni, would hit my nose. My stomach rumbled in anticipation of the pizza it was going to host soon. I had a feeling this was going to be a perfect night.

Channel Two had commercials and promos. In a few minutes the Haifa derby was going to start. The picture moved to Kiryat Eliezer. An excited Zuhir Ba’aloul said there already were ten thousand fans in the stands, chanting and shouting. Behind him there was a roiling sea of green scarves and shirts. Smoke grenades were thrown, enveloping the stadium in pinkish fog. Rolls of toilet paper and calculator paper flew onto the pitch. The mayhem was just beginning.

The doorbell rang. I got up to open the door. There was the delivery guy, handing me two family-size pizzas. In the nick of time. “Why two?” I asked him. He told me they now had a bargain to celebrate Domino Pizza’s thirty years in Israel. Every third customer ordering a pizza gets another, identical one, for free.

The delivery guy was looking over my shoulder, into the apartment. He asked, “Don’t you have an ashram or something here?” I told him there used to be one, but not any longer. The delivery guy asked if it wasn’t by any chance the ashram of Tony, the donkey from Florentine. I said yes, but Tony won’t be back. The delivery guy told me that with the sodas it comes up to fifty-seven shekels, sixty agoroth. I yelled out to Max that I’ve got no money for the pizzas, and he yelled back that I can take it from the Grace and Charity Box in the kitchen, he thought there was a lot of bread in there. I paid the delivery guy and added a generous tip.

I went back, sat on the orange couch, and moved closer to Osher. I lay my hand across her shoulders. Her feline body clung tight to me, and I felt her sweet ass pressing against mine. She stretched out, gently nibbled my earlobe, and whispered that she was glad we’re back together and we’ll never split up again.

“Pity about Hapo’el. Maccabi will tear them to pieces,” said Max.

“Rubbish, Maxi,” said I. “Giovanni Roso and Ben-Shimon are on a roll; they’re going to teach the Maccabi defense some good lessons. Wanna bet?”

“Quiet, shuddup, it’s starting,” said Max, as the ref blew his whistle for the opening kick. I slid my hand under Osher’s sweater, letting it cover her warm, firm breast. Moved my finger in circles around her nipple, feeling how it got hard and erect. Osher purred pleasantly and snuggled against me. A soft, long-fingered hand crept from below into my shirt, moving up slowly. “Just you wait for what I’m going to do with you after the match,” she whispered in my ear before nibbling it again, not so gently this time.