Jerusalem Beach

by Iddo Gefen

  My phone rang.

  I silenced the ringing but kept staring at the screen. It was Nicolai. For some reason I suddenly thought maybe he could help, and before I even managed to process that thought, I had already picked up.

  “Hello? Ofer? Hello?”

  “Yup.”

  “Wonderful, finally! I been trying to catch you.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “I’ve been a little busy.”

  “Never mind, happen to best of us. What important is we’re finally talking,” he said, and embarked on a desperate monologue about all the problems at the office. Said the CEO wouldn’t stop yelling at him. That his best employee had quit yesterday, and that in two weeks’ time his team was supposed to deliver a project and they’d barely gotten half the work done. “Every week someone off sick or take vacation as if we’re not on deadline,” he grumbled. “Just yesterday one took off for Liechtenstein for three days. I didn’t even know that was a country until I look it up on Wikipedia.”

  “Neither did I,” I replied, and Nicolai said that it was probably only a matter of time until they fired him. He admitted he hadn’t thought being a development manager was so complicated.

  “It is,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray my satisfaction.

  “But never mind about my problems,” he said with a certain despair. “How are you doing? Already planning retirement?” he asked, and I didn’t know whether it was a bad joke or if he was being serious. I didn’t want to get into it with him, so I just said I was working on a new project.

  “Really? What kind?” he asked.

  “It’s all very early stages so I can’t really go into detail,” I said. “By the way, Nicolai, if we’re already talking, I wanted to ask something of you. I have a somewhat vague memory of Lucid trying at some point to check the possibility of dealing with the subject of dreams. I’m probably wrong, but is there any chance you could look into it with someone from research?”

  Nicolai started laughing even before I was done talking. “Oh, I know what you’re doing!” he said. “Ballsy. For real. Actually sounds like totally cool idea. Little similar, but cool.” Similar to what, I wondered.

  “I know there was something, but I can’t really remember,” he said. “I don’t want to give you some off-the-cuff answer, I need looking into it.”

  “So there actually was such a project?” I asked, making sure he understood what I was talking about.

  “Yes, yes and yes. I think there was even a meeting about it, just few days ago.”

  I heard Nicolai taking a deep breath. “Say, Ofer, I also have little favor to ask you. Would you be willing to meet sometime soon, just to shoot the breeze like they say, maybe give some career advice?” he asked with slight trepidation in his voice. “I know it’s probably a lot to ask, but …”

  “Yes,” I answered instantly, without thinking. “Sure, no problem. I’d love to.”

  He wouldn’t stop thanking me.

  I hung up and gazed at the empty road for a few more minutes before heading back home, feeling a flutter of optimism.

  10.

  “I THINK YOU be happy to hear what I discover,” Nicolai wrote me in a text the next day, and added an emoji of a smiling face with sunglasses.

  “What did you discover??” I texted back, adding the second question mark for emphasis.

  It was only hours later, after a nerve-racking wait, that he texted back that he’d tell me everything when we meet. From that moment on I couldn’t stop thinking about what they had developed over there. All I remembered was that while working there, the topic of dreams had come up. I just wanted to know if it was possible, if there was a way of getting inside Shira’s head. That maybe, somehow, we could still fix what was wrong with her. I tried imagining what her dreams looked like, but no matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t.

  That evening, after I tucked Shira into bed, I sat down at the table and went through the notebooks. Nelly had started packing for her conference. She always started getting ready for her trips days in advance, which only stressed her out more. After half an hour she couldn’t take it anymore, grabbed a cigarette and went outside, coming back in two minutes later. She approached the kitchen cabinet and fished out a box of mint tea.

  “We’re out of the Mexican brand?” I asked.

  “No, I prefer this one.”

  “Say,” I asked her while she waited for the water to boil, “if someone told you you could see Shira’s dreams, on TV for instance, would you watch them?”

  “Of course,” she said with her back to me.

  “Yeah, me too, that’s why lately I’ve been thinking—”

  “Actually, maybe not.”

  “No?”

  “Yeah, on second thought, I wouldn’t want to,” she announced and sat at the table, mixing a teaspoon of sugar into her tea.

  “But why?”

  She said worst-case scenario she’d watch a nightmare and agonize over how her girl was suffering. “And worse than worst-case scenario, I’d happen to catch a good dream.”

  “How is a good dream a bad thing?” I couldn’t understand. “You said yourself it wasn’t so terrible.”

  “Of course it’s not terrible!” she exclaimed. “Living inside a dream? It’s great. But that doesn’t mean I want to see with my own eyes how happy she is without us,” she concluded, basically saying it was easier to live with the ambiguity. I told her I couldn’t understand her. That I’d jump at the opportunity without thinking twice; that I had the feeling it would solve everything; that I couldn’t stop thinking about it since I started going through the notebooks; that if we understood what she was dreaming about, we could find a solution to the whole situation.

  “How exactly? What good would it do?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said, “but I’ll know once I see her dreams.”

  “You know you’re just fooling yourself, right?” she said, and took a small sip of her tea. Then she said she didn’t understand why I was getting so worked up about it; it wasn’t as if it was actually an option. “Haven’t you realized yet that we’re not a factor in this? That this whole problem is between the girl and her own consciousness?”

  “We’re not a factor?” I asked, raising my voice. “Last time I checked, we were her parents.”

  She lowered her cup onto the table, putting her hand on mine. “You’re better than me at this,” she said, and after a few moments added, “luckily.”

  I don’t know why I didn’t just tell Nelly about the meeting. Why I didn’t explain it might actually help. She might have said it sounded like a waste of time, but she would have understood. Maybe she would have even said it was worth my waiting until she returned from her conference and she’d make sure to take time off work and stay with the girl one morning so I could go to Tel Aviv. I had convinced myself it was the fear of letting her down that had made me hide the whole thing from her. But if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think there was any logical reason for me to be so surreptitious about it.

  11.

  TWO DAYS LATER, on a Wednesday morning, I dropped off Nelly at the bus stop. We made it there early, at 6:00 A.M., and I struggled to heave her suitcase from the trunk. Through the window I saw how Nelly caressed Shira’s cheek before getting out to help me. It took a herculean effort and more than a few drops of sweat on my forehead to yank out the heavy suitcase and lower it carefully onto the sidewalk.

  “Okay,” I said to Nelly. “You’re allowed one sarcastic remark, I deserve it.”

  She considered me for a moment, then hugged me tightly without saying a word.

  We were the only ones at the bus stop. We held each other until the bus arrived. Nelly boarded the no. 660 to Tel Aviv, promising to return with a Toblerone from the central bus station, and I drove back to the farm with Shira. I sat her by the table and let her write in her notebook while I made her her favorite breakfast—an omelet with cheese and onion, a chopped vegetable salad, and a piece of toast with Nut
ella. I wanted to spoil her, to soothe my conscience over leaving her on her own.

  “I have to go out for a bit,” I told her while cutting her omelet. “I’ll be back real soon, okay?”

  She didn’t answer. I gave her a shower, changed her clothes, tucked her in, and drew the curtains. Darkness fell over the room.

  “Go to sleep for a bit, okay?” I told Shira, and kissed her forehead. Her gray eyes slowly drooped to a close, and I suddenly thought that maybe, somewhere inside her, Shira was giving me permission to go. That maybe that very moment, she was the only one who understood me. The girl nestled her head deeper into the pillow. I couldn’t tell whether she had fallen asleep, but I took it as a sign that I could leave.

  I walked out of the B&B and locked the door behind me. I swept my gaze across the farm and didn’t see Nabil anywhere. I rushed to the car, started the engine, and turned onto the northbound highway.

  12.

  WE AGREED TO meet on Yehuda ha-Levi Street. I couldn’t find parking nearby so I settled for a side alley where I knew they didn’t give parking tickets. It was my first time back in Tel Aviv since moving south, and I admit the mere thought of dodging parking officers made my heart flutter with joy, as if it attested to my return to a more advanced civilization. Nicolai insisted we sit at some new sandwich place, texting that they had the best roast beef in Tel Aviv. When I got there he was already sitting at the bar, holding a beer glass in his wide hands. I sat down beside him. I extended my hand, but he had other plans.

  “A handshake, bro?” he said and lunged at me with a big hug. I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the gesture. Nicolai was taller than I had remembered, over six foot three. He had short blond hair and thick black-rimmed glasses. He wore a buttoned-up yellow shirt and purple plaid shorts. Fashion isn’t my strong suit, but even I could tell it didn’t look right.

  * * *

  The menu was handwritten on the wall, but I wasn’t hungry so I just ordered a Coke and a glass of water.

  Nicolai asked how long it took me to get there.

  “Almost three hours,” I said, and showed him on my phone where the farm was, but I saw he didn’t really understand.

  “I can’t believe you drove whole way to see me,” he said, and slapped me on the back. “You know that is my dream? To move to kibbutz when I’m your age? A quiet life, the outdoors. What more could a person want from life?” I nodded in hesitant agreement, preferring to spare us both from the dreary conversation about the differences between life on a kibbutz and a homestead out in the desert.

  He began to vent his frustration about the company. I assumed it would only be a matter of minutes before we could move on to the subject that actually interested me, but it wasn’t that simple. Nicolai wouldn’t stop talking about his problems. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. He kept jumping from one subject to another, one moment talking about his difficulties as a development manager and the other about a new Vietnamese restaurant that opened in front of the office.

  “Ever had pho?” he asked without waiting for an answer. “It will blow your mind. They put in ginger or something like that, this crazy punch that hits you out of nowhere. The only problem that one bowl of soup cost fifty-two shekels and it doesn’t look like I’m getting raise anytime soon,” he said despairingly, telling me that all his friends in the hi-tech industry were making fun of him and saying that twenty thousand a month was barely a military salary. He seemed to have forgotten that only a year ago, when I interviewed him for his position, his jaw almost dropped when I offered him a double-digit salary.

  “Teachers would kill for a salary like yours,” I said, to which he waved dismissively.

  “No disrespect, but that’s hardly the same,” he said. “If tomorrow you give me thirty kids to teach, I can do it. Maybe I not be great, but I could do decent job. But if you tell school teacher to write something on Python, he don’t know where to begin. Get it?”

  I didn’t tell him he had gotten the job because we didn’t have the resources to recruit better people. I was so annoyed I thought I’d better not open my mouth. He started listing every occupation he could think of and explain why he could excel at any one of them. When he said that being a farmer was just watering plants, it struck me. That was exactly how I saw Nabil. Nicolai and I saw the world with the same eyes, convinced that people who didn’t buy organic vegetables at the farmers’ market were somehow inferior.

  “I look after my kid,” I said. “Trust me, it’s a lot harder than programming.”

  “Sure, but you do that and work on app, you know?” he tried to explain.

  “Not really,” I replied. “I’m not working on the app. Most of the time I’m with the kid.”

  “What, that’s all you do? Take care of her? Isn’t that just giving her food or something?” he said and started laughing, realizing only after a few moments he was out of line.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it, it was stupid joke,” he said and scratched his head with embarrassment. “So you’re like stay-at-home dad?”

  “That’s exactly what I am,” I said.

  He took a sip of his beer, then slapped me on the back. “You da man, bro!” he said. “I wish I had dad like you. My dad used to come home every night at ten, half the time I thought he was burglar.”

  I didn’t know what to do with his compliment. At first I thought he was just being ingratiating, but then I realized he wasn’t. Nicolai just said what he thought, for better or for worse.

  “Ah! I almost forgot,” he said, gulped down the rest of his beer, and started rummaging through his bag. “I got what you wanted.”

  I shot up. “The dream project?”

  “Yes.”

  “You smuggled documents out of the research department? I can’t believe it,” I mumbled.

  “You didn’t hire me back then for no reason,” he said, and then yelled excitedly, “Here, found it!”

  He pulled out of his bag a large, rolled-up blueprint—above and beyond what I had expected him to produce. He leaned toward me and, checking that no one was listening, whispered, “What I’m going to show you is top secret. They just finish working on it last week. You have to swear you won’t tell anyone.”

  I swore.

  Nicolai slipped off the rubber band and carefully unfurled the blueprint onto the table. A slogan in silver print appeared at the top of the page: “Yesterday’s Memories Are Tomorrow’s Dreams.”

  “It’s the wrong side,” I said and nearly snatched the paper out of Nicolai’s hand, eager to see the blueprint on the other side of the page. But there was nothing there.

  The page was empty, completely blank. Nothing but that stupid ad slogan. I studied the piece of paper for a few more minutes before looking up at Nicolai, who was staring at me with a big smile on his face.

  “What’s this?” I asked, baffled.

  “You be happy to hear that after thorough investigation, this is all I came up with. This poster, printed a year ago. There is no project.”

  “How could that be?”

  “There’s not single project involving dreams. I thought there was, but turns out research ruled it out. They said dreams and memories are completely different areas, like oil and milk,” Nicolai said. “I admit I was having a little fun with you with the slogan. Bet your heart missed a beat there.”

  I tried to explain that he must have misunderstood. There had to be some kind of mistake. There was no way I’d gotten this close just to find out there was nothing.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “You said I’d be happy to hear what you found.”

  “Right, I found out there is no project. That’s what you wanted to hear, no?” Nicolai said, at this point as confused as I was.

  “Why would I be happy about that?” I asked and downed the glass of water in one big gulp.

  “Because you want to build a start-up for dream sharing or something like that. That’s why you wanted me to do corporate espionage,” he
said. “This is excellent news for you! Now you can build a competing start-up and make millions. My only advice is you take one of those neuroscientists or something because this isn’t one of those piece-of-cake apps you build at home.”

  And once again he reminded me of myself, thinking everything in this world was a potential start-up. Actually believing the only thing that could drive a man to action was the desire to succeed. But I didn’t want to make millions, I wanted to help my daughter.

  “You’re wrong,” I told Nicolai. “There is a project. I remember. I know.” He tried to tell me it made no sense. That he had asked around the research department and they all told him with complete certainty that there was no project. That today’s technology just wasn’t advanced enough to re-create dreams.

  “But I need it,” I mumbled more to myself than to him.

  “Why do you need it? Explain to me, maybe that way I understand,” Nicolai said in a worried tone.

  “My little girl …,” I said, and started telling him about Shira. About her decline. About the hospitals and everything we’d gone through those past three months, letting it all out without coming up for air. Nicolai listened quietly, without saying a word. And only when I was done did I realize it was the first time I had talked about Shira without someone who wasn’t Nelly. That actually, it was the first time since moving south that I’d really talked to anyone.

  “It sounds awful,” Nicolai said. He hesitated for a moment and then lifted his hand somewhat awkwardly and patted my back in a strange gesture of solidarity.

  “I bet research warned you not to say anything, that’s fine, don’t tell me what it is, just tell me there’s something,” I said. “So I’ll know I have something to count on.”