Eshkol Nevo - World Cup Wishes

2. At the next World Cup, I want to be married to Ya’ara .

3. At the next World Cup, I want to have a child with Ya’ara. Preferably a girl .

Now you give me the slips of paper, Amichai said. And I keep them closed in a box till the next World Cup.

Why you? Ofir objected.

Because I’m the most stable guy here.

What does that mean? Ofir said, getting angry.

He’s right, Churchill said, trying to soften it. He has a wife, a flat, twins. We’ll probably go through ten flats before the next World Cup, and slips of paper like these are just the kind of thing that gets lost in packing.

OK, Ofir said. But let’s read them out loud first.

Are you kidding?! Amichai shouted. That kills the whole surprise.

Fuck the surprise, Ofir said angrily. I want to know what you all wrote. Otherwise, I won’t give you mine.

Delayed gratification isn’t exactly your thing, is it? Amichai said sarcastically, then added casually, well, this is what happens when a kid is raised by his mother.

You know the story about the man who delayed gratification? Ofir shot back. There’s this guy who delays gratification. Delays, delays, delays — then he dies.

I have an idea, Churchill interrupted before Ofir and Amichai got carried away into one of their verbal clashes — sudden, meaningless rows that brought out a nastiness it was hard to believe they were capable of. How about if everyone reads only one of the three things he wrote? Churchill said. That way we can keep the element of surprise and we’ll still have the teasing. That is what you advertising people call it, yeah?

Teaser, Ofir corrected, and a shadow crossed his eyes, the way it did every time someone mentioned his work.

OK, I’ll go first, Amichai said, unfolding his slip of paper.

By the next World Cup, I’ll have opened an alternative therapy clinic .

A-a-men, Churchill prayed, putting into words what all of us felt. If it came true, we hoped, perhaps Amichai would stop talking about it so much.

Ofir unfolded his slip of paper.

By the next World Cup, I will have kissed the advertising world goodbye and published a book of short stories .

Short stories? I said, surprised. Didn’t you say you’d make a movie about us?

Yes, Ofir said, but the whole movie was based on the idea that one of us … dies in the army. And you promised that if no one did, then …

If it’s still an option, I’m ready to die any time, I offered (and as I did, a too-pleasant shiver ran through me, as it always did when I thought about the possibility).

Don’t worry, Ofir said. It’s not necessary. Lately, I’m more into the short story thing. My head is full of ideas, but when I get home from the office at eleven at night, I don’t even have the energy to turn on the computer.

So yallah , I urged him, get a move on. You have time till the next World Cup. In any case, you already have an English translator.

Thanks, man, he said and patted me on the shoulder, his eyes glistening. You have no idea how lucky …

Churchill quickly unfolded his slip of paper before Ofir could start weeping.

By the next World Cup , he said in a very serious tone, I plan to have slept with at least 208 girls .

Exactly 208? Amichai said with a laugh. Why not 222? Or a round 300?

Do the numbers, Churchill explained. Four years, 52 weeks a year. One girl a week — a total of 208. Just kidding. Do you really think I’d waste a wish on something that’s going to happen anyway?

So what, then, you were just playing us? Amichai asked, his voice dropping. For a person doomed to one Ilana the Weeper, the thought of a wish that included 208 different women must have lit up his imagination.

Obviously, Churchill said with a laugh and read from his list:

By the next World Cup, I want to have an important case. In an important area. I want to be involved in something that will lead to social change .

Ofir and Amichai nodded in admiration and I thought to myself that it was a bit embarrassing to read one of my wishes out loud after what Churchill had just read.

OK, your turn now, Amichai said to me. I looked at the slip of paper and took comfort in the fact that at least I didn’t have to read all three.

At the next World Cup, I still want to be with Ya’ara , I read in a fading voice.

And, as expected, everyone attacked me.

Yallah, yallah , this Ya’ara doesn’t even exist, Ofir said.

Till we see her, that wish isn’t valid, Churchill added a legal opinion.

I think she’s probably ugly, I think he’s keeping her under wraps because she’s ugly, Ofir said and looked at me to see if I was annoyed.

Cross-eyed blind, Amichai said.

With an arse the size of a helicopter pad.

Tits down to her knees.

Football-player shoulders.

She’s probably a man who’s had a sex change. Before that, they called her Ya’ar.

Oka-a-a-y, I said, I give up. You’re all invited over to mine on Tuesday to meet her.

But on that Monday, I put off the meeting for a week with the excuse that I was ill, and then I cancelled the postponed meeting too, saying that we had to be at her parents’ house in Rehovot for dinner, and finally, the one who put an end to all those postponements was Ya’ara herself, who told me, one-third as a joke and two-thirds seriously, I’m starting to think you’re ashamed of me. Don’t be silly, I said. Then why don’t you introduce me to your friends? she asked. No reason, I replied, it just hasn’t happened yet. And she said, I’m dying to meet them. You talk about them so much. And I said, I never noticed. You mention them in practically every sentence, she said. And your living room is full of pictures of them. Out-of-focus pictures, but still. And every five minutes, one of them calls you, and then you get into long, deep conversations with them. Not the kind of practical conversations men have, but real conversations. It just seems to me that you all have a very strong connection, don’t you think?

I don’t know, I said. Sometimes I think we do. That it’s for our whole lives. Like a year ago, we went back to our school for the Memorial Day ceremony and I noticed that all the other groups of friends from our year had broken up, and we were the only ones standing there together, close, during the siren. And the truth is that I have no idea why. Whether it’s inertia or whether even now, after eight years in Tel Aviv, we still only feel like we belong when we’re together. But there are other times when I don’t understand what we’re doing together, like there’s no reason for it. But maybe that’s how it is, and that endless dance of getting close and growing apart is just the basic movement among friends. What do you think?

A fa-a-a-scinating analysis, Ya’ara said, but don’t change the subject. Next Tuesday we’re cooking them dinner, she said firmly, and took off her glasses. And I said OK because it’s hard to say no to green eyes and because I couldn’t find a good reason to object, except for the vague feeling I had that it would end in tears, a feeling I attributed to my chronic pessimism.

But the dinner was actually a great success. They devoured the stuffed vegetables we made, and Ya’ara easily found a common language with each of the guys. She laughed with Ofir about the whole world of advertising (it turns out that she once worked as an assistant producer on a laundry detergent ad). She argued with Churchill about the leniency the prosecutor’s office showed towards public figures. She told Amichai about the acupuncture treatment that cured her — to the amazement of her conventional doctors — of mononucleosis. And she kept touching me the whole time, rubbed the back of my neck, put her hand on mine, her head on my shoulder, and twice she even kissed me lightly on the neck, as if she suddenly sensed what I had been trying to hide from her through all the months we’d been together: that I was afraid of losing her. That I’d never had anything like us before.