Eshkol Nevo - World Cup Wishes

The boxes we keep all the legal material in. I’d been working on that case for a full year. I dreamed about it at night. And within two hours, poof, it was all over. The next morning, when I looked at the docket …

What docket?

You know, the screen that shows all our scheduled court appearances — when I opened it, I saw that they’d already replaced my name with that of one of the senior attorneys. Do you understand? he asked, his eyes pleading for a good word, a sympathetic look. I remembered something I’d seen carved into one of the walls in the court on the day I’d gone to see his appearance. ‘My hope is in thy ordinances’, it said in large letters. And now Churchill’s hope was in mine. And I–I just looked at the living room wall.

I would have been proud to say that, at that moment, I was not gloating, as might have been expected, but that wouldn’t be quite true. I was gloating. But I also felt pity. And anger. And surprise. And the faint, pleasant sense of superiority you feel when someone asks for your advice.

So what exactly are you undecided about? I finally asked.

Undecided?

You said you came to ask my advice, didn’t you?

Ah … yes. It’s just … she … the district attorney … she left it up to me to decide whether to leave the prosecutor’s office or stay. On the one hand, she might be expecting me to leave. On the other, I don’t really have anywhere to go. But on the third hand, people look at me with pity … pity and gloating. And it’s driving me mad. Yesterday the gang I usually have lunch with didn’t call me when they went out to eat. And today, I thought that even the car park attendant had heard about my disgrace. It took him half an hour to raise the barrier. Maybe I’m imagining things. Maybe I’ve become paranoid. What do you think? What do you think I should do?

I reminded Churchill of his 51:49 theory, which states that with every 50:50 indecision you consult a friend about, in your mind you tend to favour one side slightly, and when you ask him the question, you do it in a way that guarantees he’ll back the side you’re favouring anyway.

Just ask yourself which is the 51 side, I said.

Great idea, Churchill said. And after a brief silence, added unsmilingly, I have a new theory: every smart-arse theory you develop comes back at you like a boomerang.

More coffee? I offered after a few seconds. It was embarrassing to sit there feeling sorry for him.

Maybe tea, he said (‘Tea is the hot babes’ drink’, he always said, making fun of Ofir).

Tell me, I shouted from the kitchen, what’s the story with the Maccabi Haifa shirt?

Ya’ara threw me out of the house, he shouted back.

What?! I said, hurrying back into the living room. I wondered if he could hear the small rise of happiness in my voice.

She changed the lock and left me outside on the doormat with a bag of underpants and socks. And this Eyal Berkovic shirt.

She always did have a sense of humour.

So she did, Churchill said, lightly scratching the space between the wide shirt sleeve and his arm.

The truth is, he said, his eyes suddenly clouding, that’s what hurts me the most. OK, I lost the case, but if I lose her … that’s not … that’s too much. She … she wouldn’t let this one pass … Do you undertand?

I was silent. I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand.

She’s the first woman who wouldn’t let me wriggle out of it, Churchill went on. She always used to say to me: you’re a coward. You don’t know what love is because you’re a coward. But you can forget that. I won’t let you be a coward with me.

Churchill stopped for a moment, and I pictured Ya’ara saying those words to him. Taking off her glasses. Pronouncing the word l-o-o-ve the way only she can. Brushing his hand with hers just as she spoke the words ‘you can forget that’.

You know, he continued, no one has ever said things like that to me before. No one ever understood that I give only twenty per cent of what I’m capable of giving. But she does. And she said that to me so many times that I was starting to feel it seeping into me. That I had a chance to get over myself. But now … it’s over. I ruined everything.

What’s he expecting, I thought angrily, that I’ll console him for losing Ya’ara? There’s a limit, surely?

Churchill must also have remembered whom he was talking to, and didn’t pursue the subject any further.

We were silent together for a while. I went into the kitchen and came back with a cup of boiling hot tea.

He drank it slowly, all of it.

So where have you been sleeping? I asked.

Yesterday, I wandered around the street all night … and today … I don’t know, he answered, his eyes lingering on the sofa.

You’re welcome to stay, I said. And immediately regretted it. How much pleasure it would have given me to refuse to take the hint, to let him suffer.

Thanks, Baba , he said.

I spread a sheet on the sofa for him. I fluffed a pillow. I brought him a blanket, even though it wasn’t cold, because I remembered that when I stayed at his place during my first few months in the city, he always gave me a blanket and said, ‘It’ll give you a feeling of home.’ I turned on the TV to the sports channel and told him how to use the remote to change channels and turn off the TV.

England against Greece? Why are they playing against each other? he asked, pointing to the screen.

World Cup qualifiers, I explained.

Already?

Of course, what’s with you? The World Cup is in ten months.

Where?

Japan and Korea. They’re hosting it together.

Seriously! I’m so out of touch with everything. Wait a minute, what about us? What about Israel?

The deciding game is against Austria next week. If we win, we go to the knockout stage.

And if we make it through the knockout stage?

We’re in the World Cup.

*

Towards morning, I got up to pee, and on the way back to bed, I glanced into the living room. Churchill was sitting on the couch with his eyes closed, asleep. He had a finger jammed into his right ear and he was jiggling it rapidly up and down and deeper as he slept. I knew about that ritual from our trip, from the less pleasant parts of it. The weeks we didn’t meet any new people who could confirm his greatness. But on the trip, it only lasted for a few seconds, the time needed to clean your ear, but this time, Churchill kept shoving his finger in deeper and deeper, as if he were in a trance, as if he wanted to clean out not only his ear, but also his soul. I thought that in another minute, he’d tear his eardrum, but in any case, it was obvious that he was hurting himself a lot. I remembered from our trip that just calling his name loudly would cause him to open his eyes and stop, but I wasn’t sure it was right to invade that private ritual of his now. Perhaps it made him feel better? Perhaps he wanted to hurt himself? 1

I stood there until he finished torturing his other ear as well, made sure he went back to sleep and returned to my room.

On the days that followed, Churchill did not move from the sofa. He watched a great deal of football and said that there was no case waiting for him at the prosecutor’s office anyway, and that watching football was the only thing he was capable of doing now (I once caught him watching reruns of the same edition of Sports News over and over again).

He occasionally called me over to watch a particularly horrendous referee’s mistake (Churchill awaited those mistakes eagerly and enjoyed them no less, perhaps even more, than the goals). Sometimes he tried to get Ya’ara on the phone, without success. She didn’t answer her home phone or her mobile when he called, and every time he called her at work, the secretary said she was in a meeting, and with every such failure, his cheeks contorted with pain that started in his ears. But he didn’t talk about it.