Eshkol Nevo - World Cup Wishes

Right, we all nodded in agreement. And swore never to have any more stag dos, and we wouldn’t have had one for Churchill if Ofir hadn’t called to say he was coming home. Maria insists, he said. She says it’s my best friend’s wedding and that’s something I shouldn’t miss. Anyway, she’s dying to get to know all of you. And Israel. She says that even if we decide to live in Denmark, she wants to see up close where I was born. Where I grew up and what the conditions are in the Palestinian refugee camps.

Terrific! we said happily. And Amichai said they could stay at his place while they were in the country. He assumed they’d understand that he was just being polite, but a couple of weeks before the wedding, they just knocked at his door.

Ilana the Weeper hid her shock as she looked at the three people standing at the door, hoping to stall for time till Amichai came out of the bathroom and she’d have to ask them in. She managed to see that they had too few suitcases, that the girl looked like the little angels in church paintings, and that Ofir, taller and more handsome than ever, his light-coloured eyes smiling out of the tangle of his curls, was leaning gently on the child’s mother as if he were having a hard time standing.

A rickshaw drove over my foot, he explained before Ilana asked. On our last day in Delhi, three hours before the flight.

How terrible, Ilana said, still holding the door, blocking the way in.

Sab kuch milega , he said, embarrassed. And she didn’t understand why he was speaking Hungarian to her.

Bro-o-o-o!!! Amichai came running out of the bathroom and threw his arms around Ofir in an enormous bear hug. You’re here! I don’t believe it! It’s so great that you’re here!

When the hugging and back-slapping and teasing and rejoicing were over, Ofir walked into the house and spread his arms to hug Ilana too. She hugged him and his girlfriend, who for some reason also insisted on hugging her, and after she helped them unpack, she pushed Amichai into the twins’ room, closed the door behind them and said: one night, that’s all. And that’s only because it’s not nice to throw a limping person out on the street. I’ve put up with your friends and their nonsense for ten years, but this time you really went too far.

One night, Amichai agreed submissively.

In the end, they stayed for two weeks.

*

The first evening, when Ilana the Weeper sat far away from everyone — a hardback English book entitled Depression as a Predictor of Anxious Thoughts separating her from us — we ignored it because we were used to it. But Maria thought it was a bit strange that someone who was sitting in the living room with us was never included in our conversation, so she went over and sat down beside her, tried to get her to talk a bit about the book, then told her that as a teenager, she had suffered from permanent winter depression because in the winter months there are very few hours of daylight in Denmark. She was strongly affected by it, especially as a teenager, and in fact, why was she saying ‘as a teenager’? Until she went to India, those symptoms would recur with varying degrees of intensity every year. Every winter, she would seriously consider suicide, she said with a light-filled smile, and Ilana the Weeper put her hand on Maria’s arm and said with glistening eyes, that must have been so hard, and Maria didn’t move her hand away as she said, yes, when you’re teenager, you can bear those thoughts, everyone around you is flirting with death, but as a mother, it’s more complicated. You have responsibilities. Yes, Ilana the Weeper nodded, I know exactly what you’re talking about. And at that moment, while we were arguing about what songs the DJ should play at the wedding, the spark that turns people into friends was suddenly ignited between them.

Maria’s daughter also turned out to be a treasure. It seemed that, for years, she had longed for a younger brother or sister. And now the rare opportunity to have two brothers at the same time had come her way. She and the twins became a threesome. They both fell in love with her, of course, and vied for her attention with the eagerness of six-year-olds, and she was always kind to them, first to one, then to the other, making sure each was left with a bit of hope, so he could keep idolising her.

The mothers, finding themselves suddenly free of the need to occupy their children, spent the time excitedly discovering each other. Maria taught Ilana the Weeper the secrets of vegetarian cooking, and they spent hours in the kitchen concocting wonderful dishes based on tofu and red lentils. Ilana the Weeper took Maria on a personal tour of the university and introduced her to the most up-to-date research methods in her field. Maria persuaded Ilana the Weeper to come to the beach with the children (Amichai couldn’t believe it was happening. He’d been begging her for years and she’d absolutely refused, arguing that the sea was too polluted), and they came back happy and covered in tar. Ilana persuaded Maria to come to the meeting of a support group of teenagers suffering from depression and to tell them about her own personal experience. Then she took her to a Women Go All the Way event. And then to a meeting of Women Against the Occupation.

Don’t you feel a bit superfluous? Ofir asked Amichai during one of their joint dinners around the extended dining table, after Ilana the Weeper had tossed Maria another complicated English sentence full of professional jargon they apparently both understood. We’ve been feeling a bit superfluous here lately, Amichai said to his wife, his lips set in complaint.

That’s because you really are superfluous! Ilana the Weeper said and roared with rolling laughter. Maria’s laughter.

Amichai looked at her in amazement and thought, really, laughing suits her. And he also thought: incredible. I’ve been trying for years to make her happy, with no success, and this Maria suddenly lands in our house, and without the slightest effort, brings out this joy in her.

Maybe you should do something with yourselves, Ilana the Weeper said, a hint of a smile still hanging on the corners of her mouth. Your friend is getting married in two days. Perhaps you should take him out to celebrate? Just the boys, I mean.

Great idea, Amichai said. And the two of them called me, and we went together to pick up Churchill, who said he’d come only on the condition that there’d be no strippers or dancers, and that we didn’t let him drink too much because he’s getting married the day after tomorrow and doesn’t want to get in trouble. We promised to take care of him, even though it was clear to us, even as we promised, that if he wanted to drink, it would be very hard to stop him. He has a strong will that’s very easy to bend to, and in fact, when Ofir tried to say something after the third drink, Churchill gave him a look that drained us all of the desire to argue with him. And he went on to the fourth drink. And the fifth.

With the sixth drink, his secret came out.

It seems that even after he and Ya’ara became lovers, he’d secretly continued to see Sharona, the law clerk he’d occasionally slept with over the last few years. I don’t even know why, he said and looked deeply into our eyes, one by one, as if we were a jury and he wanted to convince us to acquit him. It’s not because of the sex. Absolutely not. The sex with Sharona is a total nothing compared to what I have with Ya’ara. I don’t know, maybe I got scared. You all understand, he said, his eyes lingering on me, that sometimes, when I’m with Ya’ara, I can’t believe there’s someone like her in the world. And that I’m the one she chose. So maybe I wanted to leave myself an escape hatch, in case she changed her mind. Or maybe I’m just fucked up, like my father.