A. Yehoshua - A Late Divorce

— No, no, he’s a perfect likeness of you. It’s amazing. The little one looks like him too.

— Your brother.

— Really amazing!

— Me? Terrible. Can’t you see for yourself?

— I don’t know. Can’t you see? I’m a complete wreck. This is the third time this week that I haven’t caught any sleep.

— I don’t believe in them. Instead of helping me, they hype me up more. Six hours later they begin to take effect, just when I’m sitting down to the morning conference with Bleicher. Just when we’re trying to size up the trends and I need to be at my sharpest. A mistake then can cost the bank millions.

— At nine o’clock.

— Every morning. With today’s inflation it should be three times a day.

— That’s for sure. And who says a man needs to get seven hours of sleep? Maybe three are enough. Meanwhile I’m getting to know the city by night. There’s a lot going on in it. Tel Aviv’s become a real metropolis. And now that it’s spring and the air is so mild, it’s a pleasure to be out. I went to Sami’s first. I thought I might find you there, even though I reckoned that you’d be staying in with your father. He wanted me to hang around but what with all the young punks and the music and those whores of his — you wouldn’t believe all the whores — I decided that it wasn’t for me. So I stepped into Ma’ariv.

— Ma’ariv, the newspaper. They have a teleprinter there, we get the closing Wall Street averages over it.

— Right. It’s a direct line. We get them first thing in the morning. This way I could already start planning for tomorrow. What?

— Of course… it’s already today… I’m in a total fog.

— Does it interest you now? I see you’re really into the market.

— Of course. That’s the only way.

— What do I think? You want to know now?

— Why should I mind? I think that the dollar is in trouble and is about to take a bad beating. We’ve been talking about it at the bank for several days now. The way I read the figures coming over the ticker from New York tonight, it could happen anytime.

— A sharp drop.

— More than that. Much more.

— Anything can happen. It’s a crazy world. In case you haven’t noticed, money is psychology these days.

— What we’re planning to do tomorrow is unload a lot of the D series, which is linked sixty percent to the dollar, and buy a large mix of marks, francs and yen. We’ll do it even if it knocks the bottom out of IDC, which is the bank’s largest money fund. Do you get it?

— Why not? As the dollar drops, so will IDC. Then we’ll buy it back at a lower price. Not all at once, of course. We’ll spread it over a week or two. That will bring Option 8 back up, which is linked to IDC. It’s sort of its weak kid sister.

— The investors? They won’t lose. They simply won’t make the profit that they’re used to.

— Yes. We’ve been thinking about it for a few days now. But this morning we’ll have to decide on the exact amounts. That depends on how we feel about the dollar, and tonight I’ve come away feeling strongly. Bleicher is looking for a big killing, he’s prepared to go all the way. Your water is boiling…

— I’d say up to thirty points. The same thing happened in 77, only now it’s more dangerous, because it could ruin the stock’s credibility and send the market into a nose dive.

— Exactly. Because it’s hooked into so many other stocks and bonds, it’s a key to the whole market. But he doesn’t give a damn.

— Bleicher? Yes. He likes to shake the market up. And the management gives him a free hand. He’s one crazy German Jew, always looking for the biggest opening to put his money in. As soon as be finds it he goes in with all he’s got, even with closed accounts that he has no business touching. He’s perfectly willing to go for broke. Oh, he’s a big, dangerous son of a bitch.

— Not always. And if he didn’t have us three Sephardim, Atias, me and Ronen (whose name used to be Mizrachi, by the way), to keep an eye on him, he’d land us all in big trouble.

— One spoon.

— Yes. Mizrachi. Did you really think he was born Ronen?

— A pure Iraqi. I’m surprised you didn’t sense it. When did you meet him?

— What did he want from you?

— And you didn’t pick up on it? It’s so obvious. A pure-blooded Iraqi, you’d better watch out for him. I’m surprised at you…

— Yes. Terribly nervous, can’t you feel it? I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Maybe it has to do with the theater…

— Yes. The theater. We went to see a play tonight. Uncle Vanya, you may have heard of it. At the Tel Aviv Chamber Theater.

— Yes. Shekhov.

— How?

— Right. Chekhov. I beg your pardon. It’s the first time I’d heard of him. I suppose you must know all about him. I have the playbill at home with his picture and all.

— Yes.

— It was just one of those things. A few days ago the bank offered us tickets at three hundred pounds apiece. What’s three hundred pounds nowadays? The sugar and the water in this glass of tea cost more. But our executive organization is terrific at getting discounts.

— Exactly. Maybe because we work for a bank. They want to bribe us, that’s the only sense I can make of the bargains we get. The other day, I swear, we had an offer of some big two-door refrigerators for less than the wholesale price.

— It’s a shame I didn’t know.

— It’s a shame I didn’t know.

— You should always tell me what you need.

— It really is old and noisy. I’ll check if the offer is still on.

— It’s a shame I didn’t know. It’s the same with the theater tickets, you see, and I usually pass them right on to the secretaries. But this time there was no one to take them because of the holiday. My daughters are away too, so I said to her let’s go see it, it’s been maybe ten years since we saw a play.

— No. I don’t know. I’m not saying that they’re no good, it’s just that I don’t care for all those productions about Hasidim and fiddlers on the roof. I don’t have any patience for them. And she prefers films anyway, especially French ones. Now and then we go see some comic routine, light things like that. I don’t have the nerves for real theater. I always feel embarrassed for the actors, for the crazy kinds of things they’re made to say. Don’t forget, we’re a different generation.

— You know.

— A different generation. It’s a fact.

— Don’t laugh at me, okay?

— I’ve already told you but you’ve forgotten. I wouldn’t hide it from you. I told you long ago. I’m going on fifty-six soon after Passover.

— Thank you. But that’s the truth. There’s nothing to be done about it.

— Because I’m thin and light.

— So I was telling you… I said to her come on, let’s go and see it, what’s there to lose, if we don’t like it we’ll walk out in the middle, we won’t be chained to our seats, why stay home all night eating your heart out over something that God alone is responsible for. Are you listening?

— So she agreed right away and we went.

— Yes. Tonight. A few hours ago. And it was first-rate. I mean the performance. A real surprise. At first I didn’t know what it was driving at, all those Russian names kept confusing me too. But we were right near the stage, fourth row center, and we saw everything the actors did close up — each time they laughed or cried or even breathed. You could hear every word. At first I thought that something special was going to happen. It took me a while to realize that it was happening already. I mean that the whole point was that it mattered to those people in the play… how should I put it… You say it’s Chekhov?