by Etgar Keret
Yes, can I help you, friend? Her father appeared, concerned. His mustache glorious, black, his figure as thin as a cut in the skin. Just like his son. Do you have seedless grapes, I asked. I have terrific grapes, he said, like honey, but red. I followed him. I wanted to ask, I began. I looked at the plastic crates. 14.99 per kilo, a piece of paper read. About the books you found at that building down the street. I have cheaper ones, he said, but I can’t promise you they’re seedless. Are you really going to make a synagogue there? Why do you ask, he asked. The books you found there. I’m a researcher at the university. I’d like . . . Oh, he said. The university. There was ridicule in his voice. I said, I’m writing about Binyamin Za’afrani. Who, he said. A poet. You gave his books to the library. Oh well, he said, secular books. Your son is a yeshiva student, isn’t he, I said. His face crumpled. His Adam’s apple rose and fell.
15.
Maybe it was on purpose, maybe she wanted me to see. When the greengrocer’s daughter fastened the plastic bag and handed it over, her right arm was revealed. A fading but still visible red line stretched over her veins. Not a scar, a threat. She hurried to cover it up.
The clerk at the post office said, You’re not from this neighborhood. No, I said, just passing through. That guy has excellent fruit, she said, and nodded at the bag I placed on the counter. Yes, I said. It’s strange he didn’t close up shop after winning the lottery. A modest man, she said. So modest. It must be hard, I said, being the only rich man around. He deserves it, she said, life has given him a beating. Once in a blue moon God makes up for it. For what, I asked. She lowered her voice. His wife died while giving birth to their girl. But the son, I said, the son looks younger. What son are you talking about, she asked. He wanted a son but his wife only had daughters. So what kind of envelopes do you need, regular stamped envelopes or express? A big-bodied man walked into the empty post office, a large gold ring on his finger. He fiddled with a toothpick in his mouth.
My mail is never urgent, I said, so regular envelopes are fine. I waited by the door for the man to leave. Then I came back in. I think I’ll take some express envelopes as well. Sure, said the clerk. She ran a hand through her hair and tousled a bleached lock. For a moment, her beauty shone before me. Can I interest you in a cellular service, she asked. We sell airtime now, badass offer. I asked, Why did you say he doesn’t have a son. I told you, she said, he prayed for a son and only had daughters. The rabbi’s blessings were no good. Eventually he went to see this witch, at least that’s what people around here say. How many envelopes do you need? I don’t know. Three. I don’t have singles, she said, I can’t open a whole package just for three envelopes. How many are in a package? Ten, she said. It’s ten or nothing. Okay, I said. What kind of witch? Her voice grew irritated. How should I know. That’s what people are saying. She told him he would never have sons, but that one day he’d be rich. So there, she was right. She rifled through the cash register. Do me a favor, she said, go get change from one of the other stores, I’m out of coins.
16.
On the stairs leaving the shopping center, on my way home, somebody bumped into me. That same burly man with the heavy ring. He kept walking. I lost my balance and dropped the bag of grapes and the bag of envelopes. The greengrocer’s daughter ran toward me from the store. The bag had opened and a few red grapes rolled over to the shade. The late-morning light melted their innards, causing them to gleam. She stood up and handed me the bag of envelopes. I don’t have a brother, she said. I’m an orphan. The twin of the scratch on her right arm now peeked from beneath her left sleeve.
Back in my apartment I found one odd envelope in my envelope bag. It was a letter from the librarian. She invited me to join her, secretly, to watch a gathering that might answer some of my questions. Come across the bridge, she wrote. Come tonight at so and so time, to so and so address. Find attached: a key. And a key there was indeed, multitoothed, curved, dusky against my palm. What kind of game was she playing, the evening librarian. I called the library and was told she had quit. And the children, I asked, who will help the children with their homework. They did fine before her, and they’ll do fine after her. Kids need to learn to fend for themselves, said the woman in a shrill voice before hanging up. I lay on the living room sofa and read some of Za’afrani’s poems. My thoughts couldn’t stick to the words and I let exhaustion gnaw on my organs.
17.
The letters on the sign on the door of apartment so and so, on street so and so, in the Tel Kabir neighborhood, as frost bit through the air, at so and so time, did not join together to form a decipherable name. I took my life in my hands and went through that meaningless cluster of letters, through that molecule-composed door. Big deal, I was inside. The tenants were out, only their furniture serving as hostile witnesses to their lives. Lace doilies and tasseled curtains and fake mahogany door frames and kitchen cabinets. Succumbing to an inane urge, I kissed the mezuzah. The engraving on the wood scratched my lips. It alleviated the irritation that spread throughout my body like a beehive as I crossed the bridge.
A telescope stood by the window. I put my eye to the viewfinder. It was pointed at the greengrocer’s deserted building. Now, under the cover of night and freeze, the building was glowing. Newly renovated, it featured colorful windowpanes and mosaic floors. It appeared that all the neighbors were gathered around it, going in and out in orderly groups. I shifted the telescope to better see the inside of the house. The greengrocer’s son walked among the groups and paused by a few middle-aged women gathered on the first floor. He was speaking. One woman raised her finger. He nodded. He wore that same yeshiva student suit. I zoomed in. His tie featured the patterns I’d seen on the greengrocer’s daughter’s nails. The woman separated from the group. The greengrocer, who accompanied her, gave her a cart and she dragged it behind her as she took a few steps and then turned to walk the other way. The boy corrected her, punctuating the moves of the dance, until they turned mechanical. Then he went up to the second floor and trained a group of men to toss cards on a table, to throw dice, demonstrating the proper spring of the fingers, the appropriate bend of the elbow. A hidden signal was given and everyone disbanded, all the groups dispersing. I turned the telescope to point at the clear steel of the winter skies.
At midnight sirens screamed down Shivtey Israel Street. I was sprawled out on the sofa, reading a Za’afrani stanza and pondering. My thoughts were circling, returning to that same image, an exercise toward the automation of the human. He does not foretell this in his writing. I heard steps rushing down the stairs, beds squeaking with fear, the grating sleep of the terrorized. I followed the sounds. The outside world glowed with police beams. The lights were on at the bakery on the street corner. One of the employees discovered the dismembered body of the owner. I had no pity for him. There is a crook in every baker—for what do these fools want, other than to raise dough and command sugar.
At week’s end, as if the buzzing of rumors online was not enough, a piece was published in the local paper. The Artisan Genocide of Shivtey Israel Street, the headline cried. The extermination of the small, growing community of independent craftsmen. The piece featured an interview with my former advisor. He said that a similar pattern of crimes appeared in a forgotten poem by eschatologist writer Binyamin Za’afrani. Charlatans rely on the ignorance of the mob, on the terror of quotations and literary references. But search Za’afrani’s writing all you like, you’ll never find this poem. Who knows better than I. My former advisor went on to argue that there is no point in treating this vision seriously even if reality appears to be echoing it. It’s easy to write prophecy poetry. The images are all there, ready to go. Poets seeking attention climb a hill at the edge of town and prophecy its residents’ wrongdoings and their imminent demise. Isaiah wannabes are a dime a dozen, my former advisor said.
My downstairs neighbor was also quick to voice her opinion. When she was asked about the artisans’ community, she gently said that many of them really did move here in r
ecent years. Prices were still low, but the original tenants were suffering. I was surprised to find that the owner of the grocery store used to work as an apprentice to an antique furniture restorer and that my bad singer of a neighbor received an education in glassblowing. There is an allegory here, I told myself, but its moral escaped me. The grapes I got in Tel Kabir were cold and delicious.
18.
I wake up. When did I fall asleep. In the early morning. And it’s still before dawn. The depths of my mind conceal the enemy in the blackness behind the eyelids. The walls are meaty and do not retreat. I hear whispers. I hear scratching and grating. The smell of blood in vague veins. In my father’s kingdom maladies of the body have no authority. The eyes of those who deny the beauty of celestial beings pile up in basements.
19.
I rode all the way to Bavli. All the way to Sanhedrin Street in the Bavli neighborhood from Shivtey Israel Street in Jaffa. More than an hour’s ride in rush hour. I patted my shoulder. What arrogance, what courage, what glory. The northern neighborhoods are brimming with vegetation. Even in the heat wave of early November, Bavli was green, belittling the schemes of weather. I waited by a building for a resident to leave and snuck in through the opened door. I took the elevator up. How much courage is required for this everyday task, taking the elevator. I’ve had her address, her phone number, for over a year.
She is sixty years old and she finally, after many pleas, opens the door. I refused to back off. I sat outside her apartment, humming. After she ignored the bell, after she threatened to call the police, saying she’s had enough, enough, finally she gives in. A woman alone, sixty years old, but graceful. Her body as delicate as one untouched by experience. I need help, I tell her, I have to understand.
In the fourth-floor apartment, a patterned rug adorning the living room, decorations twisting upon it aimlessly. I sit on the chair. She has a cleaning woman now, she says. What do I want. The windows are open and heat hovers in the air of the apartment. A fly buzzes in, floating over the planters. She shakes open a black, embroidered fan while I sweat. How selfish of her.
I’d love a glass of water, I say. She points toward the kitchen. On the top shelf, on the right, there are dried fruits, she says. I look at the wizened plums. It’s like mocking the needy. What do you want, she says, why did you come back? Her eyes have darkened. She wears glasses. Her Hebrew is lucid, authoritative. She doesn’t want to discuss Binyamin again. She’s done her part. The fly hovers toward me, escaping the slashing of the fan. What answers are you looking for, anyway, she asks. He looked in places one shouldn’t look. He saw things he himself couldn’t understand. She says, What can I tell you that you don’t already know?
I tell her the story about the bridge, about the books, about the greengrocer. What’s the logic here, I ask, what’s the pattern. She says, There were no houses, there was no neighborhood back then. His father, he didn’t like neighborhoods. He bought some land and built them a home. He got the money, he obtained the permits. It was his passion, that house. I remember going over there. There were trees all around, not like now, with those projects of poverty. I liked playing with him. And then, when we were fifteen, they started building them, the projects. His father said it was a crime.
That deserted building the greengrocer bought, was that their house, I ask. Maybe, she says, but they left. Then Binyamin ran away for the first time. I loved him. When they found him I . . . She trails off. Then she says who knows how long she’d have kept mourning Binyamin if she hadn’t met her husband shortly thereafter. It was her husband’s idea, getting those books published. He thought working with Binyamin’s writing would heal her. And were you healed, I ask her. She says, Why do you ask? How could you come here and ask me that? Do you know why he killed himself, I ask, why he did it that way. She said those marks appeared on his arms when he was a teenager, maybe twelve years old, red lines, like the sketches of a surgeon before picking up the scalpel. The fan beats the air, sending small shocks my way. The fly keeps buzzing. So hot, she says. In the other Tel Kabir, I tell her, the one you reach through the bridge, it’s already cold. She says nothing. I ask about the greengrocer, his son, and his daughter. She says, If you want something badly enough, you find a force in the world to cut a deal with. Sometimes knowingly, sometimes not so knowingly. Sometimes you think the price is punishment; other times you believe it’s fate. What kind of deal did he cut to get a son, I ask, the greengrocer. She gets up and goes to the kitchen. I remain seated for a moment longer.
20.
In the middle of the night something scratches outside the walls of my apartment, trying to get in. I wake up. Oh, do I ever. I can’t breathe. I stand in the dark. One of the three moons circling my father’s kingdom is always lit on one side of the heavens. I stand in the dark, completely blind. Some snaking inside the walls, and beyond them a gurgle and a groan, the scratching of claws, the tightening of jaws. The muscles taut like steel cables. I put the photocopies from Za’afrani’s books in a small pouch. I have to see the final form of the house he grew up in, in the other Tel Kabir.
My body is electrified by the passage, singing itself into being. The sweat thickening on my skin from the Tel Aviv humidity freezes with the shock of chill. I cut through the stillness of the neighborhood. Lights in the windows, in the projects, turn on and off in long, planned cycles. Strings of digits and commands. I slow down as I near the Za’afrani house. The light inside is paralyzed. I peek inside. The greengrocer’s son, in yeshiva clothing, sits alone in an empty living room on the ground floor. On the table before him is a book. He is pale and veiled in the aura of those immersed in study. He looks up at me as I walk toward him. He’s familiar. Where have I seen him before, aside from that time at the store. So familiar. He examines me, seeming to restrain a smile of contempt that flashes across his lips. He says, Binyamin. My name is a searing skewer turning inside bowels.
21.
I’ve made a mistake. I must retreat. But it’s too late. The greengrocer and the spice seller appear from some unknown corner and get ahold of me. They are strong, these menial laborers. One reeks of tomatoes, the other is rough like cinnamon. I don’t understand you, the boy says, you people who insist on coming to a place where you are merely ghosts.
I came to see Za’afrani’s home, I say. The boy smiles. There, the smile finally erupts. I ignore it. So you got what you wanted, I say, turning to the right, to the greengrocer. His mustache trembles. Are you happy with your produce? He strengthens his hold and says nothing. What are you doing here, I ask the boy. What is all this? If I could only recall where I’d seen him before. That expression, that entire face. The tightness of his eyes. He ponders for a moment and then returns to his book. The greengrocer and the spice seller pull me away. One is as stubborn as a leek, the other as earthy as cumin. I have to know. What, the boy says. What? Why, I ask. He says, Crowdsourcing. My goons stop at the doorway and I stop with them. Each group of residents executes one small routine which is a piece of the software. Its size is the size of the neighborhood, you see? No, I say, I don’t see, to what end?
We deceive ourselves by believing the answer is the purpose of the question. We’ve found the answer, and now we’re searching for a suitable mystery. And what if you’ve come across a version of reality in which your question is asked with urgency, in all its might? Would you not be tempted to expand it until it erased all other realities?
I’ve already been torn away from the door. His answer is an echo, swallowed in the noise around me. But I won’t leave without a fight, I’ll yell and cry, I’ll scratch and kick. One day I’ll whistle for the spaceship I buried beneath the mountain of garbage outside the city, and return to my father’s kingdom. I cannot recall his face. His features have faded, blending with those of random strangers.
WHO’S A GOOD BOY!
BY JULIA FERMENTTO
The Opera Tower
Essy Takes a Beating
Two twenty-year-olds, best friends, take their s
hoes off and dip their feet in the fountain on Rothschild Boulevard.
Essy takes off her yellowish platforms, the ones with the bow. When Essy was born her parents named her Esther, but Esther is a name for old people, so she shortened it. As far as she knows, she’s the only Essy in Israel. Her heels are totally black now. Sometimes when they walk together late at night, Danielle—who’s always more drunk than her—stumbles behind her and steps on her heels. By accident, of course. She stains her with Tel Aviv’s pitch-black dirt. And Danielle, she takes off the black ballerinas she picked up online from Urban Outfitters. You won’t catch her dead in high heels, it’s not her thing. She’s tall enough as it is.
“Those heels,” she says, “what if you need to start running?”
“Why would I need to start running?” Essy rolls her eyes, rifling through her tote bag, hoping to find a pack of cigarettes at the bottom.
“I don’t know, let’s say someone is chasing you.”
“If someone tries to chase me, I’ll look him in the eye and spit in his face.”
They laugh. They know she isn’t brave enough for that.
“Damn, I’m out of cigarettes.” Essy frowns.
“Let’s get some, there’s a kiosk on Nahalat Binyamin.” Danielle pulls her feet out of the water.
“I’m out of cash. Will you buy me cigarettes, Din-din?”
“Sorry, I’m broke.”
It’s five in the morning, and chilly. The sun rises over Rothschild Boulevard. You can tell that the water in the pool is filthy. Cigarette butts float around in it, but the girls don’t care. They like sitting in the middle of the avenue with their feet in the water.
“Did you know this is supposed to be the most expensive street in Tel Aviv?”