Edeet Ravel - Look for Me

One could never be sure with Jacky.

I continued pounding on the door. Final y it opened a crack and two heavy-lidded eyes peered out at us.

“I have nothing more to tel anyone,” Jacky said. “There’s no point asking me. I’ve told them al I know.”

“Jacky, what’s that smel coming from your flat?”

“What smel ?” He opened the door and Tanya and I both stepped back, as if pushed forceful y away. This was a smel with kinetic powers.

“I don’t smel anything,” he said.

“How can you not smel anything!” I exclaimed.

“That’s what they asked me when they took me in. I told them al I knew.”

Despite the heat, Jacky was wearing a heavy sweater and brown corduroy pants. It was hard associating him with the pop star who’d had such an enthusiastic and devoted fol owing, once upon a time. Daniel had often sung his songs. I had a dream about angels, they were carrying you out of the tank, and your uniform grew wings, and I wanted you back.

Jacky returned to the rat y, rust-colored sofa in the center of the room and folded his arms. The sofa was the only piece of furniture that had survived his ef orts to remove listening devices from his flat. “I think it’s coming from under the sink,” he admit ed.

I entered his bare at, opened the cupboard door under the sink, and sti ed a scream. There were ve dead mice lying on the torn linoleum. They looked like tiny pink fetuses.

“What is it?” Jacky asked.

“Mice. Dead.”

“I knew that,” Jacky said. “I put poison.”

“Wel , why didn’t you tel us?”

“I thought maybe the government sent you. They have a file on me.”

“Yes, I know. Who can blame them?”

“What should we do?” I asked Tanya.

“I’m not touching them,” she said. “Find a man.”

“Where?”

“They’re al over the place,” Tanya laughed.

I went downstairs, crossed the street to the City Beach Hotel, and asked to see Coby, the manager. After a few minutes he emerged from his back o ce. Coby always wore a suit and tie, which I suppose was expected of him, and he was tal and slim, with dark-framed glasses: the cumulative e ect was reassuring. He looked like a character in a slick, fast-paced movie about corporate intrigue; he’d be the person who stuck to his principles and didn’t give in to temptation.

“Coby?” I said. “I’m a friend of Rafi’s.”

“You’re Dana, of course. I’ve seen you around. How are you?”

“We have a mouse problem. In Jacky’s apartment. There are some dead mice under the sink.”

He smiled. “I’l send the guard,” he said. He stepped outside and approached Marik. “Go up with this woman, please, and help her get rid of a dead mouse,” he said. “You’l need a bag to put it in.”

“Thanks, Marik,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind mice?”

Marik didn’t answer, but he got up from his stool and fol owed me to Jacky’s flat.

Marik didn’t answer, but he got up from his stool and fol owed me to Jacky’s flat.

Jacky looked at Marik calmly and said, “He’s a government agent. I can spot them miles away.”

“I wish,” Marik said. “Then maybe I’d be paid something.”

Using the bag itself as a glove, he maneuvred the mice inside it. “This smel could wake the dead,” he said. He had a heavy accent, and when he spoke, the words seemed to be col iding against each other in odd rhythms.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Uh,” he replied.

“Tel them to stop sending mice,” Jacky said. “I’ve told them everything I know.”

“Jacky, aren’t you hot? It’s boiling in here. Let me open a window, get some air in.”

“No, no! They’re going to listen in!”

“I’l cal them and ask them not to listen for the next ten minutes, okay? I know someone, I have connections.”

“Oh, al right,” Jacky said. “Anyone seen my glasses, by the way? I used to have a hearing aid, but they took it away during the interrogation.”

I opened the window. It didn’t stay up on its own but I had given Jacky a stick to hold it up. I looked around for the stick, and nal y found it under the sofa.

“Jacky, do you have any more poison lying around?”

“No, I used up the box. But I do have some Band-Aids.”

“If you poison any more mice, tel us.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Jacky said, smiling to himself.

“Jacky, can I get you anything? Do you have food?”

“I’m not that naïve!” Jacky said. He unzipped his fly. “I have to air my penis,” he said.

“The treats that await us!” Tanya said. I looked around in alarm to see whether Marik was stil there; he’d think our entire building was populated by deviants. But luckily he’d vanished.

“Wel , we’d best be going,” I said. “Take care, Jacky. And cal me if there are more mice.”

I left the flat and shut the door behind me. “Why am I familiar with the penises of two of the three men in this building?” I asked.

Tanya smiled. “Poor Volvo. I heard he was the life of the party before his legs went. Do you think we should nd some woman for him—

you know, pay someone? I stil have some friends in the business, I could get a good deal.”

“He says he doesn’t want sex. But when I help him bathe that’s not the impression I get.” We both began giggling like schoolgirls. “‘A bit more soap,’” I imitated Volvo, keeping my voice down in case he came back just then.

Tanya returned to her flat and I went to the hotel to thank Coby.

Coby was in the lobby, giving instructions about chairs to Hussein, a bony, nervous man of indeterminate age who worked at the hotel.

The lobby was l ed with wel -dressed religious guests; they were honoring some leader or other, and maybe also raising funds for their political party.

“Situation under control?” he asked me when he’d finished explaining seating arrangements to Hussein.

I nodded. “Thanks.”

“Anytime you need something, just ask.”

“Thank you. Do you know Rafi wel ?”

“Of course,” he said. “We were in the same unit. Come, let’s have cof ee. Have you had supper?”

“No, but I can’t eat so soon after seeing those mice.”

“Poor Jacky. Remember him from before?”

“Of course. Who doesn’t?”

“It’s the drugs that did it.” I fol owed him to the dining room. We sat by the window, next to the table I’d shared with Ra four days ago.

Coby told the waiter to bring us cof ee.

“Once you start mixing them together, anything can happen,” he said, stil on the subject of Jacky’s history. “Once you lose a sense of boundaries … once you stop saying, this yes, but this no, you’ve had it. With drugs, that is. Maybe with anything …”

“How’s business?”

“Wel , lousy of course. The war … If you ever need a room, let me know. If you and Rafi ever need a room, just say the word.”

“Why would we need a room? I have my own room.”

“Wel , you know, room service, a hotel, everyone likes hotels for a change.”

“Anyhow, I’m married. So is Rafi.”

“Rafi’s been through a lot.”

“He’s lucky. He has a wife, a steady income, a wel -behaved daughter, a penthouse apartment. I don’t feel sorry for him.”

Coby raised his eyebrows and gave me a deeply skeptical look. He didn’t believe I meant what I said, but he let it drop.

“Coby, do you know anyone in Intel igence?”

“In Intel igence? Why?”

“Not just some clerk but an of icer, someone with access to files. Do you?”

“I don’t know, I have to think. What’s this al about?”

“My husband. I found out that information about him is available in army files. I need to find someone who can get into those files.”