Марко Коскас - Goodbye Paris, Shalom Tel Aviv

“I didn’t humiliate you!” Elias protests. “I was living my own life, and you showed up at the wrong time, that’s all.”

“But you knew I was coming.”

“No, you were supposed to come the day before. I thought you’d changed your mind, and besides, I didn’t ask you to come live with me.”

She gives him the piece of toast and watches him chew, still as hungry, still that voracious appetite, and Juliette, practically naked under her short bathrobe with her nipples pressing up against the silk, overcome with love for this ogre, feels herself irremediably slipping into his arms when she shouldn’t do that. Her head leans toward him as if despite herself, rests on his chest, and she sinks into a state that’s worse than abandonment and resignation—a state of surrender, that’s the word. She cannot resist her attraction to this guy, and she gets carried away with no restraint whatsoever, hugging him, kissing him, caressing him; all the dams of distrust collapse one after the other. That’s what passion does. After a first breakup, you feel even more like having sex together. Argument revives eroticism; a breakup arouses desire; reunions are torrid, and as soon as you touch each other again, you have a lot less need for explanations. They missed the other’s skin too much, and the tough questions are put on hold indefinitely. Elias will never know how she inherited a cat, and she’ll never know what he had boiling in his pot to humiliate her like that when she arrived in Tel Aviv. In any case, they won’t talk about it again that morning.

One day he told her: “Together, I don’t have any strength.” And yet, all the tension that had accumulated since Olga left him and all his paranoia after the two Bedouins attacked him was calmed down when he made love again with Juliette. He owes her that, at least, and if that’s not literally strength, it’s still a great benefit. But what next? Is it even possible to go out in the street with her? Conceivable? Olga would know about it in real time, you can bet on it! And the faint hope he has of getting her back some day would definitively disappear. Rumors spread so fast among the French in Tel Aviv. A new can of worms for Elias. A new torment. Every one of his acts drags him into a new mess, or another source of embarrassment or paranoia. He’s caught in a spiral he can’t manage to break. A fate worse than a fatwa.

Hardly has he calmed down than he’s tormented again. Angry once again. He gets dressed.

“Stay awhile, please,” Juliette begs.

“Manu’s the one who gave you that cat?”

“Don’t screw me like a whore. Please, Elias… I love you.”

“Answer me, I need to know.”

“No, I found it in the street.”

“OK, I’ll come by again tonight,” he says.

“Promise?”

“No, but I’ll come by.”

“What time will you come by, Manu?” Romy asks him.

“I can’t this afternoon,” Manu answers.

“So when?” she asks in an imperious tone.

“I’ll call you in a while to tell you. I’ve got a client coming in around five.”

“OK, I’ll wait for your call till Shabbat, and that’s it,” she warns. Manu realizes right away she’s not going to give up just because of the day of rest. It’s a deadline she’s given him, an ultimatum. Beyond that time, God knows what she could do. What chutzpah! He’d ruin himself for her, not for her shitty bike.

At that moment the doorbell rings, and Manu opens it.

“Hey, Elias. Come in. Want a cup of coffee?”

“No, I’m good. I’m just coming to get Jean-Pierre.”

Manu tries again to spin him a yarn about the cat, but Elias interrupts brusquely. “Stop lying,” he tells him in an icy tone. “You gave my cat to Juliette, and I want to know why.”

There follows a violent argument between the two friends, with Manu claiming Juliette was so distraught by Elias’s betrayal that he didn’t have the heart to refuse to give her the cat.

“Imagine me giving something you gave me to your ex, Manu! Just think! You’d like that? You’re a total asshole!”

“Calm down, Elias. You did make me take that cat.”

“All you had to do was say no!”

“Oh, sure, I should’ve—”

“And she sucked you off, I know it, she told me!”

“Bullshit!”

“You could be her father, for godsake! You’re not ashamed?”

“Are you off your rocker, Elias?”

“You’re disgusting, Manu! As if there weren’t enough chicks in Tel Aviv, you gotta fuck my exes! At your age, for shit’s sake, at your age!”

“So why does that bother you, since it’s your ex?”

“It bothers me because you did it behind my back! I don’t trust you anymore!”

“No, it bothers you because you went and fucked her again!”

“That’s not true!”

Elias leaves, slamming the door behind him. It was too good a friendship—too good to last. At the same time, Manu is sure it will blow over, because Elias’s reaction comes from pride and panic.

But Manu also sees the connection between this clash with Elias and his two last failures with women. Maybe it’s connected to his age, but not only. Since he left pornography, he’s been trying to reconstruct the family he wants, and it’s not working. The foundation is probably bad. He’s building on sand. His status as a sexagenarian makes him out of place in all situations where there might be a sexual relationship. For porn actors are a family. He wanted to cast off his moorings and live like a young man, and now he’s drifting around without a rudder. His unhappiness suddenly becomes blindingly clear to him. He hasn’t slept with a woman for a year, and the last one he slept with was an ex–movie partner.

Slightly before 5:45 p.m., the beginning of Shabbat, Romy returns to the attack.

“My renters haven’t come yet,” he claims, to justify himself.

“I don’t give a damn! I want my bread!” she shouts. “Listen, Manu: either you come get the bike in the next hour, or I press charges against you for attempted rape. Got it? Attempted rape!”

Juliette cancels her Shabbat at Mathilde’s in Pisgat Ze’ev to stay with Elias, while Diabolo has a date on Shabazi Street with a certain Amande (or Amandine or Amanda, he’s not sure), with whom something will surely happen, even if it is a job interview. No woman can resist Diabolo, despite his 310 pounds of fat. Aside from Dina, who is resisting…

Around five o’clock, Juliette comes back from the beach where she spent the afternoon with Jonathan, Diabolo’s assistant. He’s always after her, and she finds him quite nice, but she leaves him no hope. While she waits for Elias to come back to her place, Juliette tries on all her clothes, puts on a little perfume, and retouches her makeup, smiling again and brimming with life. The passionate morning she spent with Elias and then the afternoon on Banana Beach have given her fair skin a golden aura, and when Juliette is radiant like that, no woman is as beautiful as she is. But where does he even live?

She forgot to ask him! So strongly was she attached to his skin, to his smell. Has there ever been someone as mad about a guy as she is about Elias? Sometimes it makes her laugh. But not often. Most of the time it scares her. If only he would send her a little text from time to time to temper the mixture of desire and anxiety she’s feeling. Or to feed into it. Or to show he’s in the same mood. But nothing. Not a word. Never the heavenly surprise of seeing his name pop up on the screen of her old Sony. You’d think smartphones were invented for nothing. As for her, she doesn’t dare send him little loving messages, either, as girls do with their guy. She’s too afraid of exasperating him. And no naked selfies. It’s not because she doesn’t want to, you know… Manu took supersuggestive photos on the balcony and the couch when she lived with him—her hair undone, her legs gaping, her skirt raised—and it had excited her a little. Actually, she does like to show off. Too bad she doesn’t dare. Where does that shyness come from, actually? That unpleasant feeling of having to walk on eggs all the time? Of being just barely tolerated, despite all the guys running after her? What did she do wrong to pay such a price?