Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“Did you ever stop to ask yourself why you put such an emphasis on feeling?”

“What else would one put an emphasis on?”

“Peace.”

“I’ve got plenty of peace,” Jacob said. “Too much peace.”

“There are versions of peace, too.”

A wind passed over the house, and deep inside the range hood, the damper flapped.

“Julia thinks I don’t believe in anything,” Jacob said. “Maybe she’s right. I don’t know if this counts as belief or disbelief, but I’m sure that my grandfather isn’t somewhere other than in the ground right now. What we’ve got is what we’re going to get. Our jobs, our marriages…”

“You’re disappointed?”

“I am. Or devastated. No, something between disappointed and devastated. Dispirited?”

The stubborn recessed light over the sink went dark with a snapping sound. Some connection wasn’t quite secure.

“It was a hard day,” Tamir said.

“Yes, but the day has been decades.”

“Even though it only felt like a few seconds?”

“Whenever someone asks me how I’m doing, I find myself saying, ‘I’m going through a passage.’ Everything is a transition, turbulence on the way to the destination. But I’ve been saying it for so long I should probably accept that the rest of my life is going to be one long passage: an hourglass with no bulbs. Always the pinch.”

“Jacob, you really don’t have enough problems.”

“I’ve got enough,” Jacob said while texting Julia again, “believe me. But my problems are so small, so domestic. My kids stare at screens all day. My dog is incontinent. I have an insatiable appetite for porn, but can’t count on an erection when there’s an analog pussy in front of me. I’m balding — which I know you’ve noticed, and thank you for not drawing attention to it.”

“You aren’t balding.”

“I’m smaller than life.”

Tamir nodded his head and asked, “Who isn’t smaller than life?”

“You.”

“What’s so big about me? I can’t wait to hear.”

“You’ve fought in wars, and live in the shadow of future wars, and Christ, Noam is in the middle of who-knows-what right now. The stakes of your life reflect the size of life.”

“And that’s worth envying?” Tamir asked. “One less beer and I’d be offended by what you just said.” He drank down half the bottle. “One more and I’d be furious.”

“There’s no reason to be offended. I’m just saying you’ve escaped the Great Flatness.”

“You think I want anything more than a boring white house in a boring neighborhood where no one knows each other because everyone’s watching TV?”

“Yes,” Jacob said. “I think you’d go as crazy as my grandfather.”

“He wasn’t crazy. You’re the one who’s crazy.”

“I didn’t mean—”

The light snapped back on, saving Jacob from having to know what he meant.

“Listen to yourself, Jacob. You think it’s all a game, because you’re only a fan.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Worse than a fan. You don’t even know who you’re rooting for.”

“Hey. Tamir. You’re running with something I didn’t say. What’s going on?”

Tamir pointed at the television — Israeli troops holding back an agitated crowd of Palestinians trying to get into West Jerusalem — and said, “That’s what’s going on. Maybe you haven’t noticed?”

“But that’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

“The drama. Right. You love the drama. It’s who we are that embarrasses you.”

“ What? Who does?”

“Israel.”

“Tamir, stop. I don’t know what you’re talking about, or why this conversation took this turn. Can’t I just bemoan my life?”

“If I can just defend my own.”

With the hope that a bit of empowerment might bring Max out of his funk, Jacob and Julia had started to let him take neighborhood adventures on his own: to the pizza parlor, library, bakery. One afternoon he came back with a pair of cardboard X-ray glasses from the drugstore. Jacob covertly watched him try them on, then read the packaging again, then try them on again, then read the packaging. He wore them around the first floor, becoming increasingly agitated. “These completely suck!” he said, throwing them to the floor. Jacob delicately explained that they were a gag, intended to make other people think you could see through things. “Why wouldn’t they make that clear on the packaging?” Max asked, his anger upshifting to humiliation. “And why would it be any less funny if they actually could see through things?”

What was going on inside Tamir? Jacob couldn’t understand how the warm banter about happiness had downshifted to a heated political argument with only one participant. Something had been touched, but what?

“I work a lot,” Tamir said. “You know that. I’ve always worked a lot. Some men work to get away from their families. I work to provide for mine. You believe me when I say that, right?”

Jacob nodded, unable to bring himself to say, “Of course I do.”

“I missed a lot of dinners when Noam was young. But I took him to school every morning. It was important to me. I got to know a lot of the other parents that way. For the most part, I liked them. But there was one father I couldn’t stand — a real asshole, like me. And so naturally I hated his child as well. Eitan was his name. So maybe you know where this story is going?”

“I have no idea, actually.”

“When Noam entered the army, who should be in his unit?”

“Eitan.”

“Eitan. His father and I exchange e-mails when one of us has some small bit of news to share. We never spend time together, and never even talk on the phone. But we write back and forth quite a bit. I didn’t grow to like him — the more I deal with him, the more I hate him. But I love him.” He wrapped his hand around the empty bottle. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“How much money do you give to Israel?”

“How much money ?” Jacob asked, going to the fridge to get Tamir another beer, and because he needed to move. “That’s a funny question.”

“Yes. What do you give to Israel? I’m serious.”

“What, to the UJA? Ben-Gurion University?”

“Sure, include it all. And include your trips to Israel, with your parents, with your own family.”

“You know I haven’t been there with Julia and the boys.”

“That’s right, you went to Berlin. Well, imagine you had gone to Israel. Imagine the hotels you would have stayed in, the cab rides, falafel, the Jerusalem-stone mezuzot you would have brought back.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Well, I know that I give more than sixty percent of my salary.”

“You mean in taxes? You live there.”

“Which is all the more reason you should have to bear the financial burden.”

“I really can’t follow this conversation, Tamir.”

“And it’s not only that you refuse to give your fair share, you take .”

“Take what ?”

“Our future. Did you know that more than forty percent of Israelis are considering emigrating? There was a survey.”

“That’s somehow my fault? Tamir, I understand that Israel isn’t a college town, and it must be torture to be away from your family right now, but you’re going after the wrong guy.”

“Come on, Jacob.”

“What?”

“You’re complaining about how fucking dispirited you are, about how small your life is.” Tamir leaned forward. “I’m scared.”

Jacob was moved to speechlessness. It was as if he had entered the kitchen that night with cardboard X-ray glasses and thrown them to the ground in frustration, and instead of explaining that they were only intended to make others think you could see through things, Tamir made himself transparent.