by Etgar Keret
I sighed. Nahum sighed too. Then we sighed together.
I said, “What kind of Jew are you, Nahum? It says, Thou shalt not commit adultery. It says, Thou shalt not covet.”
Nahum Tzobelplatz said, “So it says. A Jew, as long as there’s blood in his veins, evil will feed on that blood.” Then he pondered again and after several moments of silence said, “As long as there’s blood in his veins, and even when there isn’t, evil will feed on his soul.”
I said, “Yes. She read chapters of the novel I wrote, the woman I made love to. Then she wrote me a letter. She wrote, Your words are intoxicating as a drug. That’s what she wrote me.”
Nahum Tzobelplatz said, “A similar thing happened to me with the chapters I published in Hashiloach. There was one woman, quite well-known. I was in Warsaw and she was in Odessa. Her husband was a very famous man. She told him she was going to see her sister in Lviv and instead came to see me in Warsaw. Later on, the whole thing got out. People gossiped, Nahum Tzobelplatz, he’s involved with so-and-so’s wife.”
Nahum Tzobelplatz is involved with so-and-so’s wife. Yes. Each time I checked the mailbox, I thought the building door would open and I myself would emerge, carrying the two suitcases, two duffle bags, and two backpacks so full that their zippers threatened to burst. I stood there on the street and called a cab. It arrived within two minutes. And Nahum Tzobelplatz is involved with so-and-so’s wife.
I said, “The woman I had an affair with, her husband is also very famous. Not in the literary world, but in the business world. He’s a rough person, and she’s tender. The chapters she read of my novel, she told me, awoke hungry demons within her.”
Nahum Tzobelplatz said, “And my lady, she wrote, I’m possessed. A dybbuk is devouring my heart. That’s what she wrote. She told her husband, the famous man, that she was going to one place, and instead she came to me, to Warsaw.”
I said, “I used to meet my married woman in one of her husband’s apartments. He was so rich he forgot he owned it. Sometimes,” I reminisced, “she rented a room at the Hilton instead, right over the cliff. An egret would land on our windowsill and tap the glass with its beak.”
Yes. That morning a letter was waiting for me in my wife’s mailbox. It was a letter from my wife herself, the owner of the mailbox. She asked that I go to the post office and give them my new address, so that any mail for me bearing her address would be forwarded to my apartment. It would save you the trouble, she wrote. Then she added, The first six months are free of charge.
A taxi stopped outside the building. A man I’d never seen before disembarked and walked inside. Judging by his jacket, he seemed to be in good financial standing. I have an eye for fabrics and everything to do with sewing and stitching. Yes, I’m an intellectual, but even an intellectual needs one good jacket, and a jacket like the one the man wore as he got out of the cab shows taste and wealth.
I sighed. Nahum sighed too. Then we sighed together.
Nahum moved in his seat. “The rich, even the richest, they never forget a piece of property.”
I said, “The rich don’t, but the filthy rich do. There’s rich, and then there’s rich.”
Nahum said, “Women,” and sighed. I sighed too. Again we sighed together. He lit another cigarette. I took one too. As long as it’s free, I’ll smoke. Cigarettes are very expensive these days.
I’ve been sitting with my demon for four months. The demon doesn’t ask for much, and I give him what I have. If someone needs to move into your home, at least let it be a demon.
Yes. Things are still tough. Especially on the following issues I shall hereby detail:
a. The novel I wrote has been sentenced to oblivion.
b. I am penniless.
c. (a derivative of b, or perhaps b is a derivative of c) I have no source of income.
d. My wife told me to go to hell.
e. (a derivative of d) I still love my wife.
THE TIME-SLIP DETECTIVE
BY LAVIE TIDHAR
Rabin Square
The Girl in the Window
I saw her first in a reflection in a shop window.
Along Ibn Gabirol, heading to the square, just before the street where Rabin was shot.
She wore a white cotton dress and sandals, her hair was auburn, our eyes met and hers opened wide in surprise. I glanced quickly away. Then I turned around to see her but no one was there. When I looked back into the shop window, even her reflection was gone.
Tidhar
It had been strange but the moment passed. I chalked it up to the heat, my mind playing tricks on me. I was in the center for an interview with a writer, a young novelist who has had some success overseas. His name was Tidhar, Lavie Tidhar, and he had won an international award, the World Fantasy Award, the week before, and so the paper wanted me to talk to him for a feature. I had spoken to him on the phone a couple of days earlier, in preparation, and he told me of his obsession with old Hebrew pulp fiction. In particular he was interested in the old stories of private detective David Tidhar, which had come out in the 1930s. The coincidence of sharing the detective’s family name fascinated him. His original family name had been Heisikovitch, which his family had changed in the 1970s, just before he was born, part of a long tradition of immigrants reverting to Hebrew names. He and the detective were not related.
Though we had agreed to meet by Rabin Square, he didn’t show. When I rang him he apologized and said his wife was unwell and could we reschedule, and so we did. I was still thinking about the girl I saw; there had been something so old-fashioned about her dress, it was like what my grandmother used to wear as a girl when she arrived in Israel all those years ago from Transylvania. I grabbed a shawarma from Dabush and then, wiping the grease from my face, decided to escape the heat and the noise and so went into Landwer.
Landwer is an old coffee house, perhaps the oldest still surviving in Tel Aviv. I stepped into the cool room and sat by the window and ordered an iced coffee. I flipped through a David Tidhar pamphlet that I had found at great expense to prepare for the interview, but which I hadn’t yet read. The detective’s photo stared at me from the cover in faded black-and-white as I opened the pamphlet and began to read.
Erzsebet and the Detective
The famous detective, David Tidhar, was in the café. He wore his trademark fedora and a long trenchcoat, despite the heat. The waitress was fawning over him, and a young boy ran up to him and asked for an autograph, which the detective gracefully signed. Are you working on a case? the boy asked, and the detective smiled and patted his head and said he was just ordering a cappuccino.
Only the month before, Tidhar had single-handedly foiled an international group of diamond smugglers operating out of Jerusalem. Dressed as a woman, he pursued them to Paris, where he revealed himself dramatically at the Moulin Rouge club in the Place Pigalle. Now the gang were safely behind bars. Haynt was filled with tales of his exploits, as were the Hebrew tabloids. Even now, you could see a couple of shmekes, working for the tabloids, milling outside with their cameras.
The detective was waiting. He kept his eyes on the doors of the café. Landwer, on Ibn Gabirol Street, named for the golden-age poet, was across the road from Kings of Israel Square. A zeppelin was parked in the sky above the square, the large Star of David visible on its side. Electric cars passed quietly in the street outside and men in hats doffed them politely as the girls passed.
Then she walked in.
She wore a light summer dress—they had been all the rage in Paris the year before. She wore sandals on her feet. Her skin was pale, not brown like some of those farmer girls from Galilee. For a moment she paused in the doorway, a little anxious, watching the people sitting inside. Soft music played—Chopin, on Landwer’s electric radio. Years ago it had been the first café in Herzlberg to install an electric radio. A landmark, an institution, Landwer was. The detective, David Tidhar, half rose in his seat. The girl saw him and relief momentarily flashed on her face. She walked to him. He st
ood up fully and pulled over a chair for her, then waited for her to sit. She sat. They both did.
—You are the detective? In her hand she was holding a pamphlet. It was familiar. It detailed the detective’s latest exploits, as published every week by his faithful biographer, Shlomo Ben-Yisrael. Like any other volume in the Hebrew Detective Library, it comprised thirty-two pages and carried the detective’s likeness prominently on the cover. The last two pages contained ads for Ascot Cigarettes (Smoke Like A Man!), Elite instant coffee (Quicker—Better), and for the King David Dirigible Company (Comfort in the Skies!)—one vessel of which was floating outside, above the square.
The pamphlet was priced at 200 pruta. Thousands of copies were rushed off the presses every week, to be sold at kiosks across the country. While the stories are frowned upon by some educational types as nothing but cheap entertainment, our youth cannot, understandably, get enough of it.
—I am he, the detective said. He looked at the girl keenly. His gaze was soft, but one had the sense it could turn cold and hard when faced with a wrongdoer. One heard stories, from the days before our country became the peaceful and civilized place it is now, when this place was not yet called Tel Aviv, the Fount of Spring, but rather Palestine. How he had killed more than forty Arab marauders with his bare hands, how he stalked a gang of murderous bedouins and assassinated each one in cold blood, all in service of the dream.
—You are Erzsebet? he said.
—Yes, the girl replied.
If the detective noticed the non-Hebrew form of her name, he withheld comment. Gravely, he signaled to the waitress to bring his new companion a hot chocolate. Then he reached into his coat and brought forth a tobacco pouch and a pipe. It was a Bruyere pipe, made by Parker of London. The detective packed the tobacco carefully into the pipe and lit it with a match. He blew out fragrant smoke and gazed at the girl, Erzsebet, through the haze. He waved the match to extinguish the flame and dropped it into the ashtray on the table.
—What did you wish to see me in regards to, Miss Erzsebet? the detective asked. His eyes seemed to twinkle. The girl still held the pamphlet, awkwardly. Its title this week was The Time-Slip Detective.
—Do you ever think none of this is real? she said. Her voice was quiet, but carried a sense of desperation. The detective’s eyes lost their sparkle. Had become, indeed, hard. His silence seemed to infuriate the girl. This! she said. All this! Her hand rose, swept across the table, sending cups and saucers of delicate Viennese china to the floor, where they broke with an obscene sound. The girl stood up, still shouting. All of this! She was waving the pamphlet. It was stained red. The girl must have cut herself on the glass; a thin gash had opened in her pale flesh, and she was bleeding.
—Sit down! the detective said.
The girl sat down. Her shoulders shook.
—I don’t know what to do, she said. I see them, even now, I see them. Look! She pointed at the window. Pointed at her reflection.
Kfir
I turned to the window. The cold blast of air-conditioning made my hair stand on end, the pamphlet felt grimy in my hand. In the reflection I saw her, instead of myself, sitting in the same place I was occupying. I was startled, it felt to me as if I were reading a book. What is your name? I said, and at exactly the same moment I saw her lips move, forming the same question, though I could hear no sound come out. Kfir, I said, urgently—
Erzsebet
—Erzsebet, ikh heys Erzsebet, the girl said, vos maynt Kfir?—
The Wrong Door
—That’s my name, I said, Kfir, and, Erzsebet, what kind of a name is Erzsebet?
It almost felt to me, trying to read her lips, like she was speaking Yiddish. But that was madness, as mad as a zeppelin with a Star of David on its gondola hovering over Tel Aviv. Behind her I could see a man dressed in a raincoat and a fedora, like something out of an old pulp novel. He was staring at me. I pushed back my chair, it crashed to the floor. The girl’s hand, I saw in the reflection, was bleeding. I turned around. It was too cold inside. I felt trapped inside the glass. Other customers backed away from me. I have to get some fresh air, I said to no one in particular. I reached into my pocket, brought out a handful of coins, left them on the table. I had to get out. I staggered away, but I must have taken the wrong door by mistake.
Trapped
The detective said, How long has this been going on?
—I keep seeing them, the girl said. The sound of desperation in her voice was real. It’s like being trapped in a film reel with no escape. You have to help me. Please.
—You should not have come to me, the detective said, and there was something sad, but also cold, in his voice. Come with me, he said. He paid for the drinks though they had not yet arrived. He put away his pipe and stood up. He was a man of the law. I said come with me! He took the girl by the hand and she cried out; it was the one she had cut. The detective paid her no mind, dragged her from the table toward the door. My car is parked outside, he said. It was a Sussita, from the Autocars Company of Haifa. The girl did not resist him. The detective pushed the door open and they went outside, into the glare of the sun.
Gunshots
The sun hit me and for a moment I was blinded. I blinked back tears. When I opened my eyes fully I saw the city, but it was not the same city. A zeppelin hovered over Rabin Square, an impossible Star of David on its gondola. The people were dressed in European fashions, men in light suits and hats, women in dresses. Their cars moved like tiny beetles along the road, not making any sound. A car whose chassis was made of fiberglass was parked nearby. I heard the door opening again behind me. I turned and caught sight of a man in a fedora and a trench coat. He saw me at the same time I saw him. Something in his demeanor troubled me. I dropped when I saw his arm rising, clutching a handgun. The shot was muffled. The gun was of a type I had never seen.
—You should not have come here, he said, and his voice was like that of a biblical prophet, promising doom. He raised his hand again to fire. At that moment a small figure emerged behind him. The girl I’d seen. Erzsebet.
—No! she said. She pushed his arm and his shot missed high. She ran to me. We have to go! she said. She took me by the hand. We ran.
Behind us I heard the man shouting. He sounded incensed. I will shtup you in the tuches, you little feigale! he said.
—Kacken zee ahf deh levanah! Erzsebet shouted back. We ran around the corner and his third gunshot hit a streetlamp and showered us with glass.
I think he threatened to fuck me in the ass, and I think Erzsebet told him to go take a shit on the moon. But I can’t be sure.
—Quickly! Erzsebet said. I could half understand her, she spoke Hebrew intermingled with Yiddish, words I barely remembered from my grandparents’ house. A streetcar! she said.
I gasped as a silent tram appeared from Frishman and along Ibn Gabirol. The doors opened and we jumped inside.
Herzlberg
—I’d heard stories, she told me, later. We were in a house on the Yarkon. It is not so much a river as a brook. Its water was clean, I could see fish swimming, and children were bathing across the way from us, shouting and laughing. Where I come from that same river is filthy, though there had been recent efforts to clean it. I remembered the case of a girl who had been thrown into the river—her grandfather had murdered her and put her body into a suitcase and sailed it down the river.
—What sort of stories? I asked.
—About people like you. About another place, like this one. He will find us, you know. He is the foremost detective of the era, a hero. I should not have gone to him. We do not have much time.
—It’s so peaceful here, I said.
—It is wonderful, she agreed. She leaned against me. How I hate to see that other place! she said.
—You’re still bleeding. Here, let me . . . Awkwardly I tried to clean her hand, to bandage it.
—Leave it be, she said, stroking my hair. Your clothes are so . . . strange, she said. She smelled of fresh milk and swea
t. Her skin was so pale.
—There are many problems where I come from, I said. Now I stroked her hair too. We sat very close together. It felt unreal, the heat and the humming of bees, in the middle of the city. But this was not my city. We have wars, I said. Terrorism. We fight with the Palestinians.
—Palestinians?
—The people who used to live here, I said.
—Oh, she said. We don’t have them.
Her lips were close to mine. She was warm, but she shivered in my arms. Oh, Kfir, she said. She kissed me and I kissed her back.
—What do you mean, you don’t have them? I said.
—It was Herzl’s dream. This. All this. Altneuland, he called it. Old New Land. We call it Tel Aviv.
—That’s what we call the city, I said, and she laughed.
—That’s silly. We call it Herzlberg.
—But what happened to the Arabs? I asked. To everyone who lived here before you came?
She shrugged. They would have ruined the dream, she said. And I remembered Herzl’s book, the electric lights and the well-planned cities and the airships passing high above in their slow majestic flight, from the snowy peaks of Mount Hermon to the shores of the Red Sea. A land of happy, modern Jews.
—There was no room for them, she said. So they had to go.
She kissed me again. She was on top of me, I was lying on my back in the grass. I heard a sound then, like a distant explosion. That woke me, I think. She grew less substantial in my hands. I felt a sudden fear grasp me. A place so clean, so orderly. She kissed me again, began to pull my T-shirt off. And I thought of soldiers in green uniforms getting on a bus, of politicians shouting with spittle flying, of the sound of the siren on Memorial Day, and she grew less substantial still, and I heard car doors opening and shutting, and I thought of an El Al flight, of the long line for security, the endless questioning, the body scanners, the cramped rows and bad kosher food and black-clad Hasidim changing diapers, of the calls of the mosques in Jaffa and of Victory ice cream up on the hill, and she grew ever less substantial, and I heard footsteps coming close, not hurrying, and saw the shadow of the detective fall on the grass beside me, and I saw him raise his hand.