Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘No. I’m telling Gili to book us flights and hotel rooms. Get ultra-prepared. Make sure you’re ready with all the presentations. And don’t forget tomorrow’s company meeting.’ Jimmy ended the conversation without waiting for an answer. He does it all the time. He explained once that he didn’t have the luxury of waiting for an answer. Jimmy’s real name, by the way, is Rafi. Rafi Rafael, or Rafraf, as he’s known in our room. When he was an officer in the air force he ran their time management unit. Now he’s the CEO of Time’s Arrow.

I called Duchi and left her a message: ‘Hi. I wasn’t killed in the suicide attack in case you’re interested. I’m in Brussels next week. Bye.’

And then they started talking about the female driver of the minibus involved in the bomb attack, and it was only then that I understood. Ziona was the only woman driver in the Little No. 5 fleet. I knew it because she was always bringing it up. She was proud of it. My heart stopped beating and my breath got stuck in my throat. And then they started up again, because that’s what the heart and lungs always do, when you’re alive.

I jogged back to the kitchen. The TV was still on though everyone was back in their rooms. Danny Ronen, the military correspondent on Channel 2, mentioned the name Ziona Levi. A nervous little chuckle escaped my mouth. I went to the bathroom and put my hands, clenched tightly into fists, on the marble. I felt a wave of pain and nausea washing over me, tried to breathe deeply, looked at the mirror, and laughed again. This laughing face: whose was it? It didn’t look familiar. Didn’t look like mine. The blood was hammering in my temples. I felt very close to passing out. I had to get out, to breathe fresh air. I threw water on my face and made it down to the street and walked towards the site of the bombing, up Dizengoff Street, past the shoemaker’s and up the hill, under the tunnel formed by the canopy of branches, and turned right past the gallery. I stopped opposite the museum and concert hall, just before the Habima Theatre, on the side where the post office is. In the time that had passed they’d reopened the road to traffic. Everything had been cleaned up and the wreckage of the minibus had been towed away. The deceased had been removed: all that belonged to them, all that had been them. There weren’t even police barriers up any more.

Miraculously — they always use that word, miraculously — not one of the passers-by or drivers near by had been injured. Only a single car parked on the side of the road was totalled (the owner was a guy named Amir who’d just popped into the post office to pay a parking fine — and it turned out he never got any insurance money or compensation: because he was parked in a no-parking zone). A bus passed, groaning and spitting black smoke like an old man hawking phlegm. I looked at the wet patches on the road where the blood had been washed away. The pale sun was gloomy and silent. The traffic was running normally. Two and a half hours since the bomb went off, and it was as if nothing had happened, or almost. Some drivers were slowing down to peer at the wet patches before driving on. On the pavement beside me kids were lighting candles and people were shouting or crying. They had their solutions. They announced their solutions. They said: kill, retaliate, blast them to bits, withdraw…

I turned my head away from them towards a gap between two buildings. I wasn’t looking for anything. I’ve no idea why my eyes were drawn there. Maybe it was the tree standing there, an old olive tree that looked out of place among the palms, that didn’t seem to belong in the little alley. I looked at the olive tree and moved as if compelled towards it, and that’s when I saw, a little above where the trunk fissured, cradled in the crook of one of the bigger branches, the PalmPilot of the guy who’d been sitting next to me.

‘ Good morning, Fahmi .’

If I am dreaming, this dream is never-ending…

‘ How are we doing today? Let’s have a peek at those pupils… ’

Hate this light. Hate the wash. Why can’t she leave me alone?

‘ Time for your wash, Fahmi. Your favourite part of the morning, ha ha… ’

Go away, Svetlana. Fuck you.

‘ We are mad today, aren’t we? What a face you’re making! Let’s have a look at what you’ve got on later. Oh — you’ve got a deep massage this morning. What fun! ’

I’m floating in the sea. I can see the shore but I can’t reach it. The tide keeps me away. I see Bilahl on the beach.

‘ Here. That’s better. Come on now .’

I’m not here, I am…where was I before she came to disturb me?

‘ And visitors in the afternoon! So who’s coming to visit you? Who’s he going to be? Or she? ’

Where was I? I’m floating in the sea. Where’s Mother? Lulu? Rana? Where was I before she disturbed me? With Bilahl…with Croc…somewhere…in the village? In the camp? In Tel Aviv?

In Tel Aviv.

Shafiq started everything, in Tel Aviv. He wanted to smoke a cigarette with the driver. That’s what the driver said afterwards. He took off the belt, locked it in the trunk, they smoked the cigarette and then he put on the belt in the back seat. That all happened when they were still in Jaffa. Then he took a cab to Tel Aviv…Bilahl had found someone who knew the Jews, knew Tel Aviv well. He told Shafiq to go to a crossroads near Rabin Square, where they have their demonstrations and crowds gather. Explained to him where he should stand, which corner and what time — a place where there was always a gridlock at rush hour. But then we saw the news, on Channel 2 and Al-Jazeera: he’d got on a bus. No square. No crossroads…

What the hell are you — Svetlana…?

‘ Good boy, Fahmi. Don’t make a face, it’s only water. Don’t you want to look pretty for your visitors today? So just let me get behind your ears… ’

Stop it, you fucking whore! What visitors? Where am I? Where was I? Floating among my fragments of memory…and you’re mixing them up. Getting my wires crossed. Crossroads. Shafiq…

Shafiq. He didn’t do what the guy who knew Tel Aviv told him. Went with the shaved cheeks and the haircut and the clothes Bilahl gave him, and then got on a bus. Only a little bus, they explained on TV. Danny Ronen, the clown with the eyebrows. How did he get there? How had it been, getting on, paying, waiting? And how must he have felt, a moment before heaven? He must have felt whole. A moment away from heaven. The best feeling he’d ever had, better than anything he had imagined. The moment of his life. And me, with Croc and the green grenade in Tel Aviv, how did I feel?

Shafiq would have been sure at the end. Not like me. The light turned green and the driver of the little bus would have pushed the pedal and turned the wheel. Shafiq, and everybody around him, had all lived their lives to get to this moment. Everything heading towards this moment. Every drag on a cigarette, every blink, every swallow of saliva, every emotion, every motion, every breath, every thought, every word anyone on the little bus had ever said had been headed towards the moment when Shafiq stood up and turned his back to the passengers and pushed the button, and his body blossomed with the fullness of his power; his clean, his warm, his Babylonian power…

‘ That’s better. Nice and clean. You can hardly even see the scratch on your forehead. I’ve got patients here who are totally deformed. Damaged for ever. But you’re whole, Fahmi. Perfect for your visits. So, then. Who’s coming to see you today? Who would you like? Your dad? Your little sister? Your cute girlfriend? ’