by Joshua Sobol
Half’s yours, the rest’s mine.
And when she laughs, and starts tearing off the paper, and he is sure that this apartment is not a trap—only then he closes the front door behind him and takes care to bolt at least one of the locks.
You don’t have to worry about the window, says the perfidious spider, who picks up on his warning and control system with the senses of an alley cat, you’re on the twenty-first floor, and that window doesn’t open.
Fortunately, he says without going into details. But her sad smile confirms that she has taken in everything unsaid hiding behind that single word, and they both know that both of their suicidal pasts are now filling the empty space between them.
In the meantime she strips the bottle of its wrapping, and the tissue paper rustles in the silence.
Coat de Ventooks! she cries in a New York accent.
You know it?
I’m not sure, she hesitates, although the name rings a bell.
Have you ever been to Combs d’Arnevel? he asks.
Comb Darnavel? No, where is it?
In France, he says, in the North-East of the province of Chateauneuf du Pape, this wine comes from there, and I almost died there.
What from?
An agricultural problem, he says. Somebody wanted to fertilize a vineyard with my corpse. I preferred to fertilize it with his.
And we’re going to drink his blood tonight? she says provocatively.
Are you a vegetarian?
Do I look like a vegetarian? She says with a wry smile.
No, he admits. Although it would be alright even if you were.
From what point of view?
This wine goes well with lamb, fish and vegetarian dishes as well.
You took all eventualities into account, she expresses her appreciation.
It’s become my second nature, he reassures her.
Since that night in the vineyards of Arnevel? she guesses.
Long before that, he says.
But since then you celebrate with this wine?
When I take a risk.
Do you feel threatened?
Yes, he admits. Very threatened.
By me? she asks.
No, he says. By my id.
Do you still believe in Freud? she asks.
Who do you believe in? he asks her in return.
Who do you expect me to believe in after my Lacanian therapist tried to persuade me that it was okay to try to commit suicide, if that was the first step I had to take in the process of my individuation in order to be who I am? She laughs with weepy eyes.
A Lacanian therapist in New York?!
He’s Hispanic, she explains. He was a student in Paris in the sixties, a student of Guattari and as crazy as him. Anti-psychiatrist, anti-philosopher, anti-human.
What’s his name?
What does it matter, she says dismissively, Ramon Gasparo, a name to forget. He would tell you that you’re simply afraid to fall in love, because the thing you call your id, is the sexual attraction and the sex that begin in the place where the ego ends.
This spider is a trap, he says to himself. She’s a lot more sophisticated than she looks, or else she’s just trying to make an impression with a bit of bullshit she learnt by heart to turn on clients looking for an intellectual whore.
So, she says, was that just an overture, or is your id really threatening your ego?
The whole system, he says, trying to access the depth and breadth of this consciousness confronting him. Dangerous volcanic activity has been taking place lately, deep down in the bowels of the mountain, far below the tunnels and shafts of the abandoned mine.
Take a hot bath with lavender oil, she suggests, and relax.
I’ll leave the door open, he says.
It doesn’t bother me, she reassures him.
She starts filling the bath. The phone rings. She glances at the display and freezes like a rabbit thrown into a cage with a python. The phone goes on ringing until the answering machine comes on. An unmistakable velvety tenor rises from the machine and commands her softly: ‘Pick up the phone. You’re there. I know you’re there. Bryant’s waiting for you at his place. Take a taxi and go there now. If you don’t pick up the phone I’m coming round, and it’ll be bad. I’m not kidding. I’m waiting on the line.’
Should I answer? asks the secret nameless friend.
No, she says. I’ll answer.
She picks up the receiver and answers in the voice of a frightened child:
Hi, Tony, is that you? I was in the bathroom. I’m working. I’ve got somebody here. I can’t come to Bryant’s now. No, I can’t go out at midnight either. He took me for the whole night. No, it’s not the blind Italian. He’s Japanese. Not a businessman. A wrestler. Judo I think.
Ikido, barks the secret nameless friend in a Japanese accent, Ikido-ka.
Yes, she says into the phone, it’s him you hear. You don’t want to talk to him. He doesn’t speak English well.
The secret friend signals her to hand him the receiver. She gives it to him and he informs Tony in Japanese English that he has hired the lady for a week, and he doesn’t like to be disturbed.
For a moment there’s silence on the other end, and then Tony’s velvety voice returns:
A week?! The fucking bitch took you for a week? Give her to me!
You not talking to girl, says the Japanese wrestler in broken English. I take her till January two.
Give her to me right now! Tony raises the volume of his tenor by two decibels.
Talk quiet, says the Japanese, or you talk through my ass.
Sir, the tenor called Tony softens, you can’t have her for a week. She’s not free. It’s impossible. You can only have her for one night.
I stay with girl how much time she likes, states the Japanese in a tone that brooks no argument, and adds: And how much time I like.
She can’t do what she likes, Tony tries to explain.
You mistake, the Japanese corrects him in a quiet voice. She can. She free person.
What the fuck are you talking about? Tony erupts. Free person my ass. She does what I tell her. She’s full up all week. You can have her for two hours max. In two hours time you’re getting the hell out of there.
Forget it, says Hanina quietly.
Don’t fuck with me! Tony’s voice is menacing.
Why not? asks Hanina like a child in third grade.
Why not?! Tony yells as if he can’t believe his ears. And suddenly he changes his tone. Hey! You’re no fucking Jap.
Oh, no? says the fucking Jap in surprise.
That’s not how fucking Japs talk, pronounces Tony.
How do fucking Japs talk? inquires the fucking Jap.
Fucking Japs don’t answer a question with a question, states Tony, and adds: If you see what I mean?
So how do fucking Japs answer? The Jap answers a question with a question.
I’ll tell you what you are, Tony spits out in a voice full of loathing.
Suddenly there’s a long silence on the other end of the line.
Hello? The non-Japanese challenges his silent interlocutor. You promised to tell me what I am.
You know what you are, says Tony, you’re a sonofabitch son of Satan.
You’re wrong, I’m Satan himself in person. Body and soul.
You think everybody’s afraid of you? Tony’s voice seethes with hatred. I’m not afraid of you!
Who’s ‘you’? asks Satan in a Satanic tone. Who are you talking about?
I’m talking about you, the man called Tony refuses to elaborate, you!
But who is this ‘you’? Satan persists. Are you talking about devils?
You people are worse than devils, Tony says heatedly, you’re a curse, you’re the fucking disease of the human race!
You still haven’t told me who you’re talking about, says Satan in an amused tone.
You’re everywhere, you’re like the sand on the seashore. A person can’t go anywhere in this town without bumpin
g into you. In the streets, the offices, businesses, stores, hospitals, restaurants, courts, the opera, the newspapers, television, the media, the banks, you push in everywhere like cockroaches crawling out of the sewers!
Are you talking about some kind of animal? Satan wonders.
Animals? What animals? What are wolves or snakes compared to you. You’re wild animals in human form! A person only has to read your history to understand who you are.
Really? Satan pours more oil on the fire burning in the heart of his interlocutor. What for instance did you find in our history that helped you to understand something?
You tortured your prophets, accuses Tony. You threw them in jail.
What do you say? Satan goes on provoking him. That’s really terrible!
The prophets told the truth about you, pronounces Tony.
You speak like a scholar, says Shakespeare, how did you end up dealing in women? Via drug dealing? Is it connected to something you did in your past?
It’s connected to your fucking mother, Tony embarks on a monologue composed entirely of obscenities and curses.
The longer the outpouring of curses continues the more certain Shakespeare becomes that the voice over the phone is indeed that of Tino the Syrian, in other words ‘Tino Rossi’, who he himself had given the name of ‘Adonis’ when he came up with the first plan to liquidate him with the help of a Lebanese hunter who received a handsome sum in the course of a nocturnal boar hunt in the valley of Lebanon. Certain as he is, all he has to go on is the sound of the voice implanted in his memory, which he learned to know in the course of listening to Adonis’s phone calls. But the more he tries to concentrate on this voice, the more the memory dims, until he begins to doubt whether it is indeed the velvety voice that caressed his ear two decades ago. He needs to make him go on talking.
What exactly did the prophets say? he throws him a bone.
They said that you’re all a terrible plague, that there’s nothing healthy in you, that you’re a rotten stinking sore that can’t be cured, from head to foot.…
‘From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it’, he hears the voice of Meir Blechman, the Bible teacher, who liked to stand before the class and declaim the terrible lines from Isaiah with pathos: ‘Wounds and bruises and putrifying sores: they have not been closed neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.’ And Tony continues:
Your lips tell only lies, and your tongues speak only evil, and your hands are filthy with blood!
‘Your hands are full of blood’, he hears Blechman’s voice again, getting in the way of his attempts to identify the familiar stranger.
You should all be loaded on old freighters, and drowned in the middle of the sea, like rats in a trap!
Do you know who you’re talking to? Hanina tries a different tack.
I know, says Tony, I’m talking to a rat.
What do you know about this rat that you’re talking to? asks Hanina.
I know everything I need to know.
Did you ever meet him, this particular rat who’s talking to you now?
It’s enough to know one rat in order to know all there is to know about all rats, pronounces Tony.
I’m afraid you don’t yet know everything about rats, says the rat.
You’re all sons of dogs, sons of apes, sons of asses! The zoologist gets carried away.
Make up your mind, says the rat, sons of dogs, apes or asses?
You think you’re so smart? You’re always smarter than everyone else. You think you can screw the whole world. You treat other people like animals. Like insects. You think you’re permitted everything, because of what was done to you. Let me to tell you: what was done to you is nothing compared to what’s waiting for you. This time nobody will come to your defense. This time we’ll finish you off.
Why don’t you start with one rat? Hanina suggests. No reply. Hello? calls Hanina, hello? Mister exterminator? Hello?
Hanina decides to use his final weapon:
Sir, I’m sorry to inform you that you’ll never see Miss Winnie again. Not on the second of January and not ever. You can cross her off the list of the girls who work for you. And that’s just the beginning. I’ll take them all away from you, one by one.
The silence on the other end of the line goes on for two or three seconds, and then the stranger’s voice comes on again, and it seems to have undergone a change:
Why are you provoking death?
It’s a habit, replies Hanina.
Wait till we meet! Tony says in a menacing voice.
Why wait? Give me your address, and I’ll be happy to pay you a visit right away, says Death and winks at Winnie, who looks at him with wide open eyes.
I know where you are, blusters Tony, and you won’t get away from me.
I’m always at your side, says Death.
What do you mean? Tony loses his confidence.
Your hands sweat, your pulse is rapid and irregular. Your heart’s not healthy. You’re not at your best. I won’t let go of you until you’re mine. And let me tell you, my word is worth more than a contract with a lawyer from Chicago, promises Death.
A strangled cough and the sound of throat clearing rises from the receiver.
What’s the matter, inquires Death, is your throat dry? Never fear: you won’t die before we meet, and that will be sooner than you think.
Go to hell! screams Tony. I’ll find you!
Let me make it easier for you, Death offers generously, here’s my cell phone number, and I’ll always be happy to tell you where I am. Have you got something to write with?
You can stick your fucking number up your ass!
Death is unfazed by the obscenity. He dictates the number, and hears the victim clicking the digits into the memory of his electronic diary, or his cell phone, and after he finishes he asks:
What’s your fucking name?
For you—Shylock, replies Death, you want me to spell it?
Go and get fucked!
At the moment we’re not in the mood, Shakespeare laughs, but if we feel like it, I promise you we will. Do you have any more requests or suggestions?
You’ll be sorry you ever met me, Tony promises.
One of us will be sorry, says Death, but we will meet.
Silence. Then the phone slams.
Who told you my name was Winnie? she asks.
Your fucking pimp, who sent you the blind Italian.
The minute you walked into the store, she confesses, I knew it was you.
Even though I didn’t have a limp, and I wasn’t particularly blind either?
Yes. For a second she withdraws into herself. At that moment I took it all in.
What did you take in?
You, she says. And a few other things.
What exactly?
That I’d been waiting for you for a long time.
Don’t try to give me that shit, he clips her wings.
I’m not, she vows. I need you. You can save me. If you want to. But I don’t have the right to ask it of you.
Everyone has the right to ask for help, he says.
But I know the danger I’m placing you in.
You want to free yourself of that scum?
Yes, she says, very much, but.…
Consider it done, he says.
It won’t be so simple, she brings him back to reality.
It’s up to him, he says. If he lets go—
He won’t let go, she states.
Then we’ll arrive at the moment of truth.
Aren’t you afraid at all? She examines him through narrowed eyes.
How long have you known him? he asks her. Maybe the answer will come from her, or at least a clue that will enable him to ascertain that this man is indeed the same Adonas who evaded death twice, in spite of the claims of intelligence.
I’ve known him for two years, she says. Why do you ask?
What do you know about him?
I know he has a collection of firearms and kn
ives, and that he’s a computer and cell phone freak.
What’s his surname?
I don’t know, she says. Both the girls who work for him and the clients call him Tony, or ‘The Singer’.
Why ‘The Singer?’ he asks.
Because of his voice, she says, and she adds: He sings beautifully.
Have you seen him naked? he asks.
What do you want to know? she asks.
Distinguishing marks, he says.
Where?
On his stomach.
I’ve never seen his stomach, she says.
What have you seen?
Nothing, she says.
He doesn’t go to bed with you? Hanina is surprised.
No, she says. He does it standing up. From behind. With his clothes on.
Do you know where he lives?
I know one address, she says, but I think he has more than one.
Does he travel a lot?
Yes, she says. He’s always on the move. He keeps changing his cars and he owns a yacht, I think, and sometimes he disappears for a few days.
Does he play a musical instrument? he asks.
Play a musical instrument? She sounds puzzled. Not that I know.
No, he says to himself, she’s not helping me to identify him.