Limassol (15 page)

Suddenly a small tic appeared at the corner of her mouth, oops, another one; I was happy I had shaken her arrogant serenity. “The whole thing is so shocking,” she mumbled to herself. Then her tone changed and in an official voice she said she would call me to testify when the time came.

I had a desire to take her hand, that good woman, go down in the elevator with her and walk with her on the sidewalk until we came to that place in the photo, until the two of us were released.

 

Four or five people crowded around the table in Haim's office. We were joined by a few external agents who were cooperating with us on the project. I briefed them on my progress with Hani, trying to impress them with my seriousness. I spoke concretely, I didn't embarrass anyone.

The partners said they were interested in carrying out the action within ten days, for all kinds of reasons; afterward it might be too late. Our conversation was manly and practical. Afterward, I went to meet Daphna. She asked to see me urgently. I didn't want to meet in a café again; the last experience was enough for me, I had felt as if I were in a display window. So she suggested we meet at the university pool.

The summer vacation was over and the pool was almost empty. A few devoted swimmers with time on their hands swam back and forth until they had done their daily number of lengths. I was sorry I had stopped swimming. After fifty laps, the head is cleansed of all foolishness. I spotted an orange bathing cap in the water and a long body that looked like her. The body I attributed to her was swimming well, skimming over the water with long movements, breathing with every third movement. She had a professional approach. She wore the full black bathing suit, cut high at the thigh and with a white stripe.

I sat under an umbrella, bought something to drink, focused on the small hovering shadow that accompanied her on the bottom. The sun scorched the lawns mercilessly. I counted the movements she made from one end to the other, forty-six, forty-seven, without any effort at all, she seemed to be able to swim forever. Finally, she stood in the transparent water, took off her swim goggles and the cap, shook her hair from side to side, like a dog, rested in the water another moment, and climbed up the ladder. God, what legs she had.

She rinsed herself under the shower at the entrance to the pool, dried herself, slipped her feet into flip-flops, put on sunglasses. I waved to her from afar, and she came to me.

“Hi,” she said, and sat down in the chaise longue across from me. “Can you get me something to drink?”

At the counter, I ordered fresh orange juice for the two of us. She crossed her legs and said: “So nice when you finish . . . ”

I said that she swam very nicely, that I was very impressed. “Thanks,” she laughed. Up close you could see, a few fine wrinkles on her face. “I trained with the ‘Future Maccabees' youth team. That's where the improved style comes from.”

Her laugh was clear. Not far from us, a crow cawed non-stop, as if he had lost his nestling.

Daphna sipped the juice and then stretched out her legs and leaned her head on the back of the chair, as if she had fallen asleep. She had the movements of a glamour girl. I thought of how she had looked twenty years ago and what the hell she had done with all those jerks. There was a red blossoming on the trees and a distant sprinkler began spinning on the lawn, and heat mists rose around us. Now the two of us were the only ones in the whole area.

“Jump into the water a little,” she said. “Cool down. You look upset. Did you hear anything from the wife and child?”

I muttered something, and she didn't press. Her feet were close to me now, and I had a desire to grab them and see her response.

The lifeguard, an elderly man with a broad-brimmed hat, passed us and asked how we were and she answered with the warmth of an old friend. She didn't look as if anything was really at stake. Why was it so urgent to bring me here?

“You were great at that party,” she said. “Hani also enjoyed it. He thinks good things about you. He asked what you do for a living. I told him you had made a lot of money in the stock market. He was very impressed by that. He said you remind him a little of his son. You don't intend to kill him, right?”

“Who?” I jumped. Slivers of sun burst in my brain.

“Anybody. You won't kill anybody,” she said, and the picture split into snapshots, as on a broken computer screen.

“Why did you call me?” I asked.

“I need money,” said Daphna. “Hani is costing me a lot, and the kid is also living with me now. The bank won't give me a loan. You think you could help me with that?”

Now I was in familiar territory, my natural milieu. And yet I felt nauseated, for some reason I hoped it would remain pure with her.

“How much do you need?” I asked. She named a sum, relatively high for what we pay those in the field, who are willing to sell their mother for a thousand shekels.

“I'll have to get permission for that,” I said. “It's a lot of money.”

“Tell them I'm a high-priced call girl,” she laughed—suddenly she had orange tints in her hair—“and you're a pretty high pimp, and somebody needs to finance the whole operation. Otherwise we'll split up, me and you. The
etrog
man will have to look for another teacher. Even though it's fun to sit on the lawn with you. You don't talk much. Were you always so taciturn?”

I felt scorched, as if she had breathed fire on me. I used to come to meetings with Arabs with money in my pocket, petty cash, a few bills would settle the issue. She was talking about a salary. “Over the years, it developed,” I answered. “I prefer to listen. I don't have a lot to say.”

Daphna got up and said she had to go take a real shower before the chlorine ate her skin and hair. I watched her strong body from behind as she strode toward the dressing rooms. When does the collapse come for a woman like that? The crow didn't stop screaming. The water in the pool glowed blue. I tried to imagine the touch of our bodies in the great heat.

Afterward, Haim authorized the sum she asked for over the phone, but told me to haggle with her a little; she shouldn't think she could get whatever she wanted. “Move fast now,” he said in his most serious voice. “This is a house of cards. I don't want everything to depend on that whole circus you've been building around you. Too many clowns and acrobats. Our job is to deliver the goods, others will do the rest. Start tying up the package.”

Tying it up good, that was the whole thing. Tying it up good and bringing in the fastened package. Afterward, throw it away. The rest isn't our business.

 

Sigi called from Boston on Saturday night, woke me up from a sound sleep, demanded I talk with the child on Skype.

“I don't know how to use that,” I grumbled. “Why don't we talk on the phone.”

“He wants to see you,” she explained. “Go to the computer, it's all set up there, make an effort for the child.”

I did as she said. The picture was blurry and the voice sounded metallic. Sigi sat him at the camera as in a kidnappers' video. From his chatter, I gathered that he was going to kindergarten, that he already had two friends, a high slide, squirrels were climbing a tree. Mother bought him a car in a big store and afterward they ate pizza without any cheese at all. He talked continuously and I didn't interrupt him.

“When are you coming, Papa?” he asked.

“Soon, when I finish working,” I answered.

He went on with his childish talk. I tried to gather my child from the piecemeal, interrupted fragments of the picture.

“Is Mother there?” I asked, and he turned from the camera and called her. The picture of him changed into a wall, until Sigi came on. The familiar frame of her face, something with her hair had changed, maybe the curls were cut short.

“I'm turning off the camera if you don't mind,” she said, and I was left with just the voice.

“Why, Sigi . . . ,” I said.

I got a technical report in a few sentences: work was excellent, she was very happy she had come, the child was adjusting well to the kindergarten. She didn't say my name even once.

“I want us to separate,” she said suddenly. The sound was as clear as could be asked from an instrument, everything is science in discussions now. “We've got to cut it off. It's not healthy for anyone, especially not the child.”

“Wait,” I said, choked up. “I . . . ”

I wanted her to put herself back up on the screen; face to face, it's easier to persuade. I wanted her to call me by name at least once, I even chuckled strangely. Sigi's head was completely artificial.

“You sound troubled,” she said. “It's lucky it has nothing to do with me now.”

“I'll come to you and we'll talk,” I threw out in desperation. “Maybe I'll get a job in the consulate, I'll be a guard or something, I'll identify Middle Eastern guys walking around at the entrance.”

“I don't want you to come,” Sigi decreed through the ads popping up on the screen. “I'm not waiting for you anymore. There's nothing between us anymore.”

I asked her to call the child back. My heart went out to him. I knew he was hiding around the corner, listening to every word, feeling everything and understanding everything.

“He's playing and I don't want to disturb him,” said Sigi. The line went dead.

 

Daphna, Hani and I were sitting above the sea in Margaret Thayer's restaurant in Jaffa, eating lunch on the tab of the general security services.

Hani wanted to come here, he remembered the place from long ago, when Victor Thayer was still alive and broadcast election ads. He remembered the couscous and the fish.

Hani was thin as a skeleton, you couldn't mistake his disease. He touched only crumbs of the food. But he was smiling, looking far out to sea, a delicate and nice man. Daphna offered him some of her food, put it in his mouth. “Very good, excellent,” he said and relented.

Margaret came out of the kitchen to greet us, shaking her wet hands. For a moment I worried that she'd recognize me from somewhere. She examined me for a moment from afar, and then took a chair and sat down next to Daphna and they started fishing up forgotten things.

“How is your kid?” asked Margaret. “You used to bring him when he was a baby, even at night. Everybody said how beautiful he was. The whole group used to play with him.”

“He's fine, finding himself,” answered Daphna and her eyes gave away the lie to the whole world. “Hani missed your food,” said Daphna.

“Of course I remember you,” said the owner. “You'd talk with Victor about fish. What happened to you, where did you disappear?”

Hani answered her with a sad smile. Margaret went back to the kitchen. Meanwhile, a few tables around us had filled up. Daphna ordered a bottle of cold white wine.

“I'll drink,” sighed Hani. “In Gaza they would have killed me. Not so bad, just one little glass. God will forgive me for that.”

The air was still, and the sea stood in a tub that ended at the gray line of the city. Daphna said she was sorry she'd never gone to visit him there; there was always a fear they'd toss grenades, stab, but now it's worse.

“It's very close,” Hani sipped a few drops from his glass. “The same sea. Exactly the same sun. Only with a lot of fences in the middle.”

“Someday all the fences will fall, we'll all be together,” said Daphna. The sea and the wine colored her eyes turquoise.

“That will happen after us,
habibati
,” laughed Hani and gently put his sick hand on hers. “Today the lunatics decide what to do. The sea doesn't interest them. They miss the mountains.”

I finished the bottle slowly and quietly, and crunched the heads of mullets between my teeth.

“Only a cigarette is missing,” said Hani. “How good it would be to smoke once.”

“What about your children?” Daphna suddenly asked him. “Don't you want to see them?”

I almost choked on a bone. I bit my lips. My eyes stared at the rickety tourist boat that never had any tourists.

“Want to,” said Hani. “But the daughter has four children and she can't leave them. And the son . . . ,” he laughed. “That kid can't come in here. He's not as nice as his father. He was a prisoner, you know, they kept him in prison camp in the desert for three years, and now . . . ”

“Where is he now?” asked Daphna, as if she wanted to reward me for the meal.

“God knows,” Hani smiled in embarrassment, and looked into my eyes, seeking understanding in them. “Knocking around the world.”

We ate
malabi,
a kind of flan, and drank mint tea for desert, that really was a splendid meal. Daphna wanted to pay the bill, made a whole production; I took out a card and she pulled out cash and in the end, I let her pay.

On the way to the car, we leaned on the ledge, looked at the rock of Andromeda. Hani said his father missed that corner of the world, for him it was the most beautiful place on the whole planet. We sat Hani in the back seat, he was tired, and Daphna sat next to me. “You want to make a tour, Hani?” she asked him. “See a little of Jaffa?” And he said he'd be glad, only if I wasn't in a hurry.

“It's fine,” I said. “I'm not in a hurry. The stock market went very well this morning, I've already made my daily tab.”

We drove along the road leading to the port. Now the sea rose a little and waves crashed on the wall. We passed a new white mosque built there, Al-Bahar Mosque, the mosque of the sea, what a nice name. I went back to the square of the clock. “See how they've renovated the clock,” said Daphna and Hani laughed: “The sultan must be very happy.”

After Halbani's hummus stand, I turned right into Agmi—a lot of scaffolding, renovations, new cars, Jews coming to live in the old houses—and I drove along the sea to the border of Bat Yam.

“Where is your house?” asked Daphna.