Марко Коскас - Goodbye Paris, Shalom Tel Aviv

“No, now that I think of it, she didn’t give me one,” Manu admits.

“Without a lock, it’ll be stolen right away.”

“Really?”

“You bet. Take this Kryptonite. It’s the strongest, you’ll see.”

“But how much does it cost?”

“Four hundred and eighty shekels.”

Luckily, the electric bike gives him an intoxicating feeling of freedom, because otherwise, it’s ruinous. That is, when Romy’s the seller, it costs an arm and a leg, or the eyes in your head. Speaking of eyes, the ophthalmologists at Ichilov Hospital finally took off his dressing. Now Manu wears glasses with smoked lenses. But he can’t see much out of the damaged eye. Just movements, moving shadows. And driving with one eye isn’t easy. All in all, six thousand shekels for this old wreck, it’s really sickening, isn’t it? And with two totally smooth tires, to take the cake! He hadn’t noticed Romy’s last act of treachery. She really had him there.

But could he have refused? She’s got him by the balls, it’s horrible.

Elias goes home to rest and wait for Olga. He lies down on the couch with his eyes half-shut. The phone rings just as he’s falling asleep. Elias sits up with a start; he doesn’t know the number on the screen, but he picks up, afraid the cops are calling back already.

“I believe the criminal theory in your case,” Amos Kirzenbaum, the blogger at Tag Shalom with an identical name to the main character in his novel, announces immediately.

“So do the cops.”

“Yes but according to me, you’re the guilty party.”

“How’s that?”

“You sold them the car, and you went to lift it in the middle of the night.”

“You see my file, or what?”

“No, no… well, yes, no, yes, that’s my business.”

“It’s not really your business, and the police are the ones investigating. You should wait until they’ve finished,” Elias calmly advises.

“Second question: Why didn’t they talk about it on H24?”

“They did talk about it.”

“No, not in the headlines.”

“I can give you the editor-in-chief’s number if you wish. Ask him why.”

“OK, I’ll look into it.”

That’s all, this time. Not displeased to have kept his cool, Elias gets up and pours himself a glass of Merlot. Moreover, it’s the first time since this business started that he finds himself doing pretty well in a delicate situation. Good self-control, emotions in check. As for the real Kirzenbaum, like the one in his novel, he can’t stand him. Maybe that’s why his book isn’t going anywhere. Nothing’s harder to write about than a character you don’t like. In any case, he didn’t show him his abhorrence during that phone conversation, and at least that’s something. Not the slightest aggression or paranoia.

He feels a certain serenity, or rather a certain fatalism, and begins to whistle a tune. But he sees Juliette staring up at him from her balcony down below, and the torment starts up again. That woman! When will she let go of him, for godsake? Will he have to move again so as not to have her after his ass? The telephone rings again, Marcel this time.

“The Netivot cops called me, Elias. You might have told me the Shabak had reclassified…”

“Shows I was right not to make a flap about it. We would’ve looked smart, claiming it was a terrorist attack.”

“Yes, but after all, they asked me some embarrassing questions about the time you brought back the car.”

“Why embarrassing? I came back at night like I always do, and I brought the car back to the car guys the next day since it was misfiring all the time.”

“Yes, but what did you do with the car during the evening?”

“What did you expect me to do with it? I parked it in my stall in the basement.”

“Usually you bring it back to the garage.”

“No, I always keep it in my stall.”

“All right, OK… so you went to the cops in Netivot today?”

“Yes.”

“So you weren’t sick.”

“Yes, I was sick, but I went there anyway. I even threw up in the street.”

“And you’re better now?”

“I’m resting.”

“You think you’ll come in tomorrow?”

“I hope so.”

That was tricky, too, and yet Elias remained the master of his nerves. He didn’t raise his voice or give in to panic. Basically, this situation is becoming really instructive, teaching him not to be a slave to his urges, to his intrinsic violent tendencies. It’s helping him get out of his prolonged adolescence, despite the actual threat hanging over him. His intelligence is doing the rest. All he has to do is cut off contact with Diabolo for his version of the facts to stand up. At worst, even if they finally establish the connection between them, they can’t accuse him of having sold the car and stolen it from the Bedouins. They’ll have to choose between one of those accusations. The Bedouins will have to admit the man who sold them the car is not the same as the one who stole it back. Of course, if they follow through with the investigation, they’ll discover he and Diabolo were accomplices. But if they do charge him, isn’t it better to be two in the dock rather than all alone?

If only it were just a question of logic! Unfortunately, it’s quite likely those two guys will pay dearly, and his guilt when he thinks of them still hasn’t dissipated. On the contrary. But he still hasn’t found a way to clear them without condemning himself at the same time.

Manu calls to suggest a hookah and they meet at Yafo. But they leave the hookah place without even a puff because Diabolo’s there, too, with Dina, in front of a narghile. So they go to Par Derrière, which moved from King George Street into a place that looks like a hacienda facing Olga’s. She joins them an hour later, and all three of them have dinner there. The new menu at Par Derrière is still more appetizing than the old one, particularly its stunning raviolis with truffles, while the wine list has a Saint-Estèphe at a hundred shekels for a glass that cannot be refused—or accepted, because as far as the six-hundred-shekel bottle goes, with an Israeli salary all you can do is dream about it.

“Mind you, when someone sells you a used bike for six thousand bucks… ,” Manu notes, to put the price of the red in perspective.

“Six thousand!” Elias shudders.

“Well, yeah, add a battery, two tires, and a Kryptonite to the starting price, just add it up.”

“Poor Manu, she really took you to the cleaners!”

Olga points out that a swindle involving a vehicle is a common point in both their affairs, and Elias gapes at her.

“Why’re you saying that, honey? Mine is an attempted assassination. Why’re you talking about a swindle?”

“Because…” Olga begins haltingly. “Because even if I thought about it all day, I couldn’t see why those two Bedouins would want to assassinate you if they’re not terrorists and you didn’t swindle them.”

They look at each other in silence as if they weren’t madly in love anymore. As if they hadn’t committed the rest of their lives to each other, for better or for worse, before the whole newsroom. So Manu doesn’t know where to look. Extremely embarrassed, he gets up mumbling, “Excuse me, I’m going to take a piss again, must be my prostate.”

Olga takes Elias’s hand in her own. “Darling, I’m with you,” she says again. “Trust me, please. Believe in us. We’ll get out of this. We’ll find a solution.”

“But you’re talking to me like that asshole Kirzenbaum! How can you do that?”

“Let me deal with that guy,” she says. “I’m going to smash him to smithereens, I swear. I’ll knock him down and drag him out feet first. Just stop lying to me. Please, honey.”