Eshkol Nevo - World Cup Wishes

You’re my man, she whispered to him, and her breath warmed his earlobe. You’re all I want.

But Amichai didn’t cooperate. Why should he? He can’t be bought so cheaply. He took her hand off him again and tried to bury himself in the insult. Bury himself so deeply that he’d reach the pit Ilana was talking about. But Ilana wouldn’t give up. She put her hand back and massaged him lightly on his weak spot, three fingers below his belly button, and she rubbed her thigh against his and licked the Israel-shaped blotch on his neck, from the Galilee to Eilat, slowly –

*

You sound knackered, I said to him on the phone a few days later, after we’d decided who would pick up whom on the way to Michmoret.

Ilana is sexually harassing me, he complained.

I was surprised. Of the four of us, Amichai talked about sex the least. But from the way he leaned forward whenever Churchill started talking about his conquests, you could tell that he cared about the subject, and I had always assumed, without actually checking it with him, that the reason he didn’t talk was that he had nothing to say.

‘Sexually harassing’ is terrific, I said, happy for him.

I don’t know, he said doubtfully, and told me about the night-time conversation with his wife. It’s all fine, he said with a sigh, it’s just that …

Just that … what?

I’ll tell you, but not a word to Ofir, OK? I’ve been having this weird feeling lately when we have sex. I feel as if Maria is there with us. As if she’s fantasising about Maria when I touch her.

Sounds a little paranoid to me.

Paranoid? So how do you explain that, all of a sudden, after eight years, she discovered me? Me and my … dick, we were there before. It’s not that she never wanted to … but not … not like this.

It’s because she’s feeling better now, I said, trying to reassure him. Her friendship with Maria is making her happier, and you’re reaping the fruit. What’s so bad about that?

I don’t know, he said, refusing to be convinced. And what’s the story with Michmoret? It’s almost an hour and a half with traffic jams. Why did Ofir have to move there? So far away from all of us?

Stop, Amichai, I said with a laugh. It’s not like you to complain like this. The guy is only trying to live by values he believes in. He thinks big cities are materialistic and corrupting, so he doesn’t want to live in one. Makes sense to me.

Maybe you’re right, maybe I should be easier on him, Amichai said. And he managed, with a great effort, to maintain his positive attitude for almost twenty-four hours, until Ilana told him about the cosmetic surgery she wanted to have done on her nose — and again he felt the ground open under his feet. And all the way to Michmoret, he kept on at me and Churchill:

Her nose is just fine.

What does she need it for?

All those operations … they challenge God. First it’s her nose. Later it’ll be her whole face. In another few years, people will change their entire bodies with surgery.

And what if it comes out ugly? There was that girl in our class who had an operation. Calanit Kalter. Remember?

I don’t understand why Ilana needs it.

Those things were never important to her before.

Her nose is just fine, isn’t it?

Just before we got to Netanya, Churchill had had enough. Shut up, will you? he snapped, and his tone was so harsh that Amichai went quiet and didn’t say another word till we reached Michmoret. But he kept stewing over it, and when we were lying in the hammocks, he said to Ofir again, a quarter joking and three-quarters serious, that it was all Maria’s fault.

Ofir said he should think before speaking. And Amichai got pissed off and said, don’t get on your high horse, Ofir, just because your clinic’s doing well now doesn’t mean you have a right to talk down to your friends.

Ofir took a deep breath, as if he were struggling with the old, spoiling-for-a-fight Ofir that was threatening to burst out of his mouth. He rocked in his hammock a bit. Then got out of his hammock. And took an Indian drum off the shelf and drummed on it in a monotonous rhythm, and put the drum back on the shelf. And then he said: all Maria said to Ilana is that she thought her nose actually looks nice on her, but if she thinks it’ll make her happy, she should go for it, because we can’t always explain why things make us happy, and sometimes they don’t have to be logical.

‘Make her happy?’ Amichai mocked him. Since when are those things important to Ilana? I know her, and I’m telling you that she never cared about all that crap before.

It’s not crap at all, Ofir said, raising his voice slightly. People who understand say that the next millennium is going to be the millennium of the body. And besides … if it’s such crap, Amichai-ji, why do you try so hard to hide that blotch of yours?

Amichai opened his eyes wide. We never mentioned his Israel-shaped blotch. Friends don’t do things like that in our unwritten code. (Do not mention the blotch on his neck to him. Do not talk about my being short. Do not give birthday presents, but do send birthday cards. Do not tell someone the results of a match if we know he’s taped it. Do express an opinion about something that’s happening in a friend’s life, but when you’re finished, add: listen, man, it’s your decision. Do not keep track of whose turn it is to call. Do not keep track of money, because in the end, it all balances out. Do not take books from me because I’m obsessive about keeping them clean. Do not take CDs from Ofir because even after he became spiritual, he remained appallingly materialistic about anything related to his music collection — about two thousand, including every genre and a few really rare ones — and God help anyone who takes a CD out of its case and doesn’t put it back, and God help anyone who creases the booklet with the lyrics on it. Do not compliment one of Amichai’s twins without complimenting the other. Do not get into political arguments with Churchill because he always wins. Do not trust Ofir’s directions because we once ended up in Jenin because of him. Do not steal a friend’s girlfriend. Unless she’s Ya’ara. Do be happy about each other’s successes even if, in your heart, you’re jealous. Do not use the terms ‘my brother’, ‘his brother’ or any other of the other slick versions of the good old ‘Bro’. Do not lie to a friend. But on the other hand, do not always tell him the whole truth. Do not gossip. Do stick together. Do not leave. And — do not bring new people into the group, not because we have anything against new people, just because it would take them years to learn all these rules.)

Do me a favour, Amichai finally said between clenched teeth, don’t call me ji . And shut up about my blotch. I’m telling you that I know Ilana and this whole business just doesn’t add up.

Maybe you don’t know … all the different sides of her, Ofir said.

Maybe you don’t know all the different sides of Maria, Amichai retorted. How long have you been together? Two weeks?

And maybe you’ll both shut up, Churchill said. I’ve had a shit week and I came here to watch football, not to hear you two fight like morons.

I looked at him. That was the second time in an hour that he’d been nasty to us. And that was definitely unusual. Churchill’s charisma was always the quiet, unforced kind. And even in the courtroom, he was cool and level-headed. And he usually let the defendant tie the rope around his own neck.

It must have been because of the new case he’d been assigned recently, I thought. A case with broad social significance, just like he’d asked for in his list of World Cup wishes. The director general of a government office was suspected of accepting a sexual bribe to promote the authorisation of land for building, and he claimed that some businessmen he had refused to make exceptions for were trying to frame him. The senior attorney appointed to the case had resigned from it because of a sudden illness, and the district attorney had decided to let Churchill, his assistant, take over. There was quite a bit of tutting about it — how did such a young guy get such an important case? — but the district attorney, who had been grooming him for bigger things from his first day in the system, told him to ignore all that talk and focus on the job at hand.