Eshkol Nevo - World Cup Wishes

So? I asked when they’d gone. We could still hear their footsteps on the landing.

They’re terrific, your friends, Ya’ara said and hugged me.

Explain, I said, and went to wash the dishes. Two or three stuffed vegetable corpses were still stuck to the plates.

That Ofir is so sensitive, I heard her voice behind me. How many years has he been in advertising? Six? It’s not easy to stay who you are in that cynical world. And Amichai, that guy has so much patience. I think he really could be a great alternative therapist. And all of them, she said and hugged me from behind, seem to love you very much. So we all have at least one thing in common.

And Churchill? I asked, and I could feel her loosen her grip, then drop her hands.

Seems like a smart guy, she said in a hesitant voice.

But …? I turned around to face her. My hands were still wet with dishwater.

No buts, she said, moving away a little.

It had the sound of a but, I insisted.

Forget it, it’s not fair to judge after one meeting.

I knew she was right. And that it was much easier to label a person than to stay open to the possibility that there’s more than one side to him. But I couldn’t help it.

Come on, say it, I pressed. I’ve known him for so many years that I can’t tell any more what kind of first impression he makes.

The truth is that there’s something conceited about him. As if he’s looking down at the three of you. From the VIP box. I don’t like that. And I don’t like the way he talks about women either. Did you notice that whenever he talked about male politicians, he called them ‘Minister’ or ‘Mayor’, and when he talked about women politicians, it was ‘the airhead ‘ and ‘the bottle blonde’?

Could be, I said coldly. And even though I’d asked for it, I felt the anger rise up in me at how insufferably easy it was for her to criticise my friend. You should know that he’s an amazing person, I shot the words at her. When he graduated from law school, he had offers from private firms that would have paid him a lot of money, but he went to the prosecutor’s office because he thought it was more important, and a few weeks ago, at the World Cup final, we each wrote down on a slip of paper where we dream of being at the next World Cup, in four years. We all wrote totally egotistical things, and he was the only one who wanted to do something significant that would affect Israeli society, so maybe … maybe you should wait a little before you decide what he’s like.

What did you write? Ya’ara asked. Her eyes were seductive above her glasses. This was the first time since we got together that I’d let myself be angry with her, and strangely enough, she seemed to like it.

It’s a secret, I said, trying to keep a certain meanness in my tone. If you want to know, you’ll have to stay with me till the next World Cup. That’s when we read the slips of paper.

No problem, Ya’ara said, pressing up against me and putting her hands into the back pockets of my jeans — you can’t scare a romantic girl with love.

Two weeks later, she was with him.

There are a few contradictory versions of how that happened.

Churchill claims that she bumped into him on the street, during his lunch break, and told him she thought they’d had a communications failure during dinner, and if he was up for it, she’d like to buy him a cup of coffee so they could start again. He agreed, because he felt it was import ant to her. So they sat in a café and talked and didn’t notice the time passing. And in the end, when they stood up to go, she said that there were a lot of things they’d talked about that were left open and perhaps they should meet again the next day to close them.

Ya’ara claims that he was the one who called her, three days after the dinner, and said that ever since he met her, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her and couldn’t fall asleep at night. She told him she didn’t know what to say, and he said he wanted to see her. She said, what are you talking about, they couldn’t do something like that behind my back. But he pleaded with her and said that a lot of criminals, rapists and murderers, were walking out of court free men because he hadn’t been able to function since he met her. She laughed and agreed to see him, just for a few minutes, just for coffee, just because of the rapists. After coffee, when they got up to go, he said that there were a lot of things they’d talked about that were still left open, and perhaps they should meet again the next day to close them.

I imagine that she was probably telling the truth.

I’d like to believe that he was telling the truth.

Either way, the outcome was the same: they continued to see each other secretly for a week, and in the end, she came to my flat and said she was confused. And needed time to think. And she kept her graceful neck bent the whole time she was speaking. And touched me a lot. But she didn’t take off her glasses even once.

He called that evening and was, as usual, clear and focused. Told me what happened. Said he was sorry. Said he knew that his apologies weren’t worth a damn. Said he’d understand if I wanted to stay away from him for a while. And that he hoped it wouldn’t be for long, because I’m his best friend. And that just made what he did even more despicable (he used the word despicable — that’s how clear and articulate he was).

I slammed the phone down on him, of course. But even that didn’t manage to make me shake with rage. Even that couldn’t change the fact that what I was feeling was mainly relief.

My life had been sailing smoothly along (some might say it was scraping the bottom of an empty pool) before Ya’ara shook it up. I was making a living from the translations I was doing for liberal arts students. The money paid for my everyday expenses, nothing else, but it had never been my ambition to save, not to mention get rich. To tell the truth, I had no ambitions at all. At twenty-eight, I had no idea what I wanted to be at thirty. Even the smallest olive tree seedling knows what it’s meant to be and grows naturally, without hesitation, into an olive tree. But I had no idea in which direction to grow. And in the meantime, moving at the pace of a traffic jam on the Ayalon Freeway, I wrote my philosophy dissertation entitled ‘Metamorphoses: Great Minds who Changed their Minds’, and every summer I bought all the university catalogues so I could pick up a new, more practical field of study from them.

In a moment of weakness, I went to one of those institutes that give advice about choosing a profession. The counsellor, with baby cheeks and lots of good will, looked at my tests and said that, based on the results, all possibilities were open, I could choose anything I wanted. I said that was just the problem. That I don’t want. Then she said: that’s why I’m here, to help you clarify what you want. And I said, you don’t understand, I don’t want anything. I’m devoid of motivation. I’m a horse standing in his stall who would rather watch the other horses compete than gallop himself.

She survived in my presence for another two meetings, then recommended warmly that I try therapy. I gave her a small nod, but I didn’t go to a therapist. What for? After all, going into therapy — or Alcoholics Anonymous or a self-awareness workshop in the desert — means you first have to believe that people are capable of change. Besides, I already knew what the therapist would say: the restraint that characterises my family relationships has become transformed in me into an overall indifference. The fact that I wasn’t hugged enough when I was a child restrained my desire to act. (Funny, the tutor in the creative writing workshop I’m doing now talks about restraint as ‘one of the greatest powers a writer has’. He says the hotter the content of a story, the colder the narrator should be. But, he claims, you also have to be careful not to fall in love with restraint. And you have to know when to put cracks in it.)