Assaf Gavron - Almost Dead

After the meeting we crowded into the kitchenette to drink coffee.

‘To think we used to swallow all his bullshit about time,’ Bar said. ‘We actually used to get motivated by some of that crap!’

I didn’t say anything. But I wanted to say: don’t you see that it’s not Jimmy who’s changed, it’s us? It’s us. We’ve changed.

At the end of the day I called Fahmi and picked him up on the way to Tel Aviv. He had one of those little leather pouches on a belt that backpackers like to strap round their waists, which he dangled over his thigh. We didn’t talk much on the way: he seemed a little stressed. It was nothing, he said. He just wanted to get to the bar.

The place was heaving, but I managed to find us some seats at the corner of the bar. Fahmi was happy with the spot. Bar arrived and started telling us about the Maccabi game and explaining the finer points of basketball to Fahmi and then Dafdaf called and wouldn’t get off the phone. She’d had a major row with her husband and wanted to know what I would do — as if I had a clue! Me, who hadn’t managed to get married; who hadn’t even managed to not get married. It felt as if she was trying to tell me something but I wasn’t sure what it was exactly, and they turned up the volume of the salsa music so I had to hang up. It was nearing midnight by the time we finally broached the subject of Tamer Sarsur, and Bar spread his hands and shouted out. I leaned over and yelled in his ear.

‘What do you mean, “Nailed it”?’

‘What?’

‘You said, “Nailed it”!’

‘Didn’t you hear what he said?’

I shook my head. ‘Let’s get out of here! I can’t stand this! Can’t hear!’

‘What?’ shouted Bar.

I pointed outside. ‘Out of here!’

Fahmi looked taken aback. ‘Out? Why?’

I put my mouth to his ear. ‘I can’t hear anything! Let’s get out of here!’

‘No! Stay longer! I want to look at the girls!’

‘Come back later! Talk outside! Then come back!’

I struggled through the crush towards the exit. At the doorway I turned around and saw Fahmi reluctantly trailing after Bar, his pouch slung over his shoulder, as if he were a child dragging its heels. I walked out: it was like getting out of a vacuum cleaner. It felt like the first air I’d breathed in two hours.

‘Goddam, that was noisy!’

We decided to walk down to the beach in front of the Hilton, where we found three sunloungers. We lay on them and listened to the sound of the waves whispering. There was no one else around on the beach; from time to time a pleasant shiver ran through me to remind me that summer was finally loosening its grip. I eased my lounger back, as if I were moon-bathing, and lit a cigarette.

‘All right,’ I said, ‘can someone tell me what is going on?’

‘It’s very simple,’ said Bar. ‘Tamer fucked the professor’s wife.’

‘What? How do you know?’

‘It’s what Tamer’s friends told Fahmi. That he was fucking “some doctor’s wife” in Tel Aviv.’

‘But he’s a hundred years old. You saw how old he is. She’s…what?’

‘Fifty-four, according to them,’ said Fahmi.

‘So Tamer was screwing Warshawski’s wife. What’s the link to Guetta? How exactly does this mean “nailed it”?’

‘You’ll have to ask Warshawski,’ Bar said.

‘Me? Why me?’

‘Who else? This is all to do with you, Croc. Not me.’

‘You don’t have to ask him at all. It’s obvious.’ This was Fahmi. He was lying on the middle lounger, and both of us turned our heads towards him. ‘Warshawski paid Guetta to kill Tamer.’

‘What?’

‘You said there was money involved. You said there was a secret meeting. You said nobody was talking. I’ll bet you that’s what it is.’

‘But Guetta was just a kid, just out of the army.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, where did he meet Guetta? How did he come across him?’

‘How do I know?’

We didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Eventually I said, ‘I don’t think so, Fahmi. Things don’t work like that in this country. To murder a cheating wife — it doesn’t make sense. We’re not some…not some African…’

‘Don’t forget, he’s only an Arab.’

‘So what?’

‘An Arab’s life isn’t worth anything. The doctor would have killed plenty of Arabs in 1948, so what would one more be to him? Not a problem. He was fucking his Jewish wife. A good enough reason to kill an Arab.’

We fell silent again. Now I didn’t know what to say. Fahmi was fiddling in his leather pouch again: he’d been doing it all night.

‘What you got in there, Fahmi?’

He pulled his hand back out. ‘Nothing. It’s, uh…’

‘You want to know what I’m thinking?’ Bar said. Even at midnight under a nearly full moon, he was still wearing his shabby baseball cap. Now he shifted it slightly to one side. I waited, staring up at the stars, listening to the unhurried waves.

‘I’m thinking that what Fahmi said sounds pretty reasonable.’

I stared at the stars some more, absorbing this.

‘So what does that mean? What should we do?’

‘Not “we”, Croc. This is all about you. I’m done now. If you ask me, you should go to Ichilov and have a little chat with the professor.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then you’ll see.’

We stayed on the beach a while longer, saying little. I was thinking about Jimmy, trying to remember exactly what he’d said in his surreal speech and feeling a little sorry for him, when Fahmi broke into my daydreams. Didn’t we want to get back to the bar? I said I didn’t feel like it: the noise there was killing me. Bar didn’t fancy it either, so I asked Fahmi if he wanted a lift home.

He was silent all the way to Kafr Qasim. I had thought that over the course of the day we’d spent together we’d become, if not close, then kind of friends. Yet there were no signs of it that evening. It was as if he’d come because he was obliged to, as if it were a continuation of the work he’d done for Time’s Arrow. But it wasn’t work: we hadn’t paid for the information he’d dug up, and he hadn’t asked for payment. I mean, until that evening, the whole Guetta thing had seemed like something between friends. I couldn’t understand what had happened. It was difficult to understand why he’d bothered coming to Tel Aviv at all, if he was going to be so withdrawn and distant, if he wasn’t, in fact, our friend. Whatever, I thought: I’m not going to bring it up. We rolled in silence up to the entrance to Kafr Qasim and I slowed to a halt to let him out, and Fahmi dug his hand once again into his little leather pouch — and that’s the last thing I remember.

‘ Hello, sweetheart. Let’s see how you’re doing…oh, hardly anything. Less work for me! But not so good for your body, lyubimyi moi.

‘ Your big day today. The medical committee, Fahmi. Everyone’s going to be here this morning. Your sister, your sweet girlfriend with the perfume, your father. Good luck, sweetheart .

‘Ya polyubila tebya s’pervogo zglyada, Fahmi. At first sight, Fahmi .

‘ The committee are talking to the intensivists and the neurologists. Then Dr Hartom will present her conclusions to the supervising consultant .’

I don’t know exactly what that means.

‘ Fahmi, can you hear me? You have to wake up now. Be a good boy. Wake up. Fahmi. Ya lyubya tibya, Fahmi .’

The Al-Aqsa mosque is calling me. Rise up for your nation against those who exploit us. For you, my steadfast nation, together we will fight. Call with all your strength: Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar! We will revenge every drop of blood, every tear shed by a mother for the children taken from her. And for every shahid that dies another will rise. Soon you will attain eternal happiness with the prophets. With all your heart yearn to see the face of death. Strike like champions. At last the time has come…