Once the undercover security staff forcefully calmed him and made sure that he understood he was persona non grata, David ran toward his nephew, who stood on the sidewalk like a fire-breathing warrior, and screamed at him to cease and desist from his insane behavior.
Ben buried his head in his hands. “God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me in there. I’ve never done anything like that. Like some kind of thug … but did you see the way they were ogling me?”
“I saw it all, not that that justifies your behavior. I’m not sure Marian would be too pleased to hear that you turned a hotel lobby upside down like some rock star in the throes of an infantile rage.”
“If she was with me…”
“You can’t use that excuse forever.”
“I can use it till I find her,” Ben retorted, looking back at the scene of destruction, still unable to believe what he had done.
“I’ve got a stupid question, but it’s one I need to ask,” David said. “When was the last time you’ve been with a woman?”
“Our last night together,” Ben said. “It was…”
“I don’t want to hear what it was like,” David said, hardly concealing the dread in his voice. “What you’re telling me is that you haven’t had sex in fifteen months? Nothing?”
“Mm-hmm,” Ben affirmed.
“And yet you’re surprised that you’re ripping apart lobbies with no advance warning? Fucking-A, you’re a terrorist dressed up as a romantic. Ben, what happened in there is the tip of the iceberg. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. When I came here I had five months of abstinence under my belt and soon enough I realized that if I kept on starving myself I’d lose the point and would be going to the Gay-ser on a daily basis. Ben, what happens if you only meet her ten years down the road? You’re prepared to wait for a decade?”
“Alright! Enough already with the lectures,” Ben yelled, moving away from his uncle. “You’ve got one mechanism for solving problems and I’ve got a different one. At this point, do me a favor and give my sex life a rest.”
“What would you prefer to discuss?”
“Don’t worry about me, okay? I’m going to be fine,” Ben said, eking out a smile. “I think I’m going to head back to my apartment.”
“So soon? We haven’t even had a chance to do anything…”
“Don’t worry, next time I’ll be much better company.” Ben hugged his uncle, exchanged thumbprints with him, and whispered in his ear, “And please let’s just keep the madman-in-the-café incident between us.”
David nodded, caressing his nephew’s head. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself, okay?”
Ben forced himself to smile again and then set off for the faraway pink closet, his thoughts muffled as he trudged on, sights, smells, and voices mingling of their own volition, like a bustling marketplace.
Four hours later he mistakenly got off the multi-wheel at April 2001, and walked, his body slack, his mood bluer than before, toward the skyscraper that would have been his had he committed suicide two months earlier. Focusing on the uninteresting lay of the land beneath him, he tried to forget it all, to walk just for the sake of walking, like his grandmother on her final jaunt, with no destination in sight.
An unexpected jostle woke him from his melancholy trance. He mumbled an apology and carried on as though he hadn’t touched anyone.
“Can’t you see where you’re going?” the woman said, grabbing her arm.
The next three steps proved unnecessary. Something in him brought the walking motion to a halt. That voice, that familiar voice. And not just the voice, the entire situation. Years ago, in a faraway and different world, under a driving rain, he met a woman with that honey-coated voice. He turned around and surveyed the bustling scene around him. So did she. Their eyes met.
23
Tom’s Friend
Kobi and Tali took the “friends” approach to parenthood. They provided for their only son but tried to avoid any and all doctrine that smacked of typically parental behavior. His peers were madly jealous of the way Tom was able to discuss any topic under the sun with his parents and of the way he was given their true and undivided attention. Tom was the best student in his class, but he was in no way one of those kids who were all brains and no friends. His popularity skyrocketed when he vowed never to cut his hair. Boys and girls whispered whenever the ten-year-old breezed past, his long honey-blond hair accentuating his every movement. The skinny, inquisitive child was every parent’s dream: sharp, funny, polite, modest, and kind. Tali once confided in her husband that she worried that in the future some kind of hidden flaw would materialize. Kobi laughed and nodded. “We’re either raising a psychopathic killer or a Nobel Peace Prize winner.”
When told about Tali’s pregnancy, the boy hugged his mother and said, “Finally I’ll have a little brother to share some of your attention with.”
Kobi made a face. “Does our attention bother you?”
Tom winked at his mother. “All I’m saying is, brace yourselves for some pretty terrible fits of jealousy. It’ll sure be interesting.”
Kobi laughed. “Tali, who did he get his sarcasm from?”
Tali got all serious and then spelled out the name of the old neighbor. “It was when you were away on business. I was lonely and…”
Kobi flung a pillow right at her head. It hit its mark and bounced back onto the couch. Tom laughed and was about to pounce on top of his father and tickle him all over, when the phone rang and his mother called him. “It’s for you, honey.”
Tom took the phone from his mother’s hand, an amused expression still spread across his face. “Hello?”
His face got serious instantly. “Why?”
The response didn’t appease him and he asked again, louder this time, “But why?”
Kobi watched his son intently. He’d never seen him go so pale.
“Then when?” Tom asked, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “Tomorrow? The day after? In three days? When?”
Kobi looked on as his son stared at the receiver. “Who was that?”
“Tommy, is everything alright?” his mother asked, approaching him, about to stroke his cheek.
The child squirmed away from her touch, smiled, and mumbled, “Sorry I yelled. That was the instructor from the computer course. He called to say the class was canceled today.” Without waiting for any follow-up questions, he turned on his heel and headed upstairs, slamming the door to his room behind him. Tali considered following him but decided to accept her husband’s advice and leave the kid alone. “He needs to learn that the world doesn’t run like a Swiss watch,” Kobi said.
“But did you see his reaction?” she asked.
“You know how much he likes that group. He hasn’t missed it once in fifteen months. I’m surprised it didn’t happen beforehand.”
“What didn’t?”
“A cancellation. It’s not that strange.”
“I don’t know,” Tali said, looking at the phone, “his reaction was a bit overboard.”
“He’s a kid, that’s how kids react.”
“God,” she said, sitting on the love seat, “if that’s how he reacts when one of his extracurricular classes is canceled, what’s he going to do when we tell him about the old couple?”
Kobi got down on his knees and took her hands in his. “Tali, not yet. We need to wait for the right time. I don’t want to confuse him too much. Your pregnancy, their death. It’s too much for him.”
“We’re not going to tell him the whole truth,” she said, a tear sliding toward her mouth.
“Sweetheart,” he mopped a trail of tears with his finger, “as far as the kid is concerned, they died in their sleep.”
She nodded and wrapped her arms around him tight, smiling at their reflection on the face of the dark television screen.
* * *
They were both startled by the bell. Ronny, Tom’s good friend and classmate, stood at the entryway. He asked if Tom was around.
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br /> “Yeah, he’s up in his room” Tali smiled, asking him if he’d like to eat or drink anything.
“Coke,” said the hefty kid, “and maybe some of those chocolate and raisin cookies you make.”
“How did you know that I just baked a few trays of them yesterday?”
“The smell,” Ronny said, touching his nose and rubbing circles around his protruding belly.
Kobi, drawn to the kid’s sense of self parody, said, “Pretty lucky the instructor canceled the class today, otherwise you would’ve missed out on Tali’s cookies.”
Ronny looked at Tali as she poured some of the cookies into a bowl. “The instructor?”
“From the computer course.”
The light in the kid’s eyes went out as soon as Tali stopped pouring and snapped the lid back on the cookie jar. Watching her put it back on the shelf, he reissued Kobi’s words. “From the computer course?”
“Are you even listening to me?” Kobi asked, still smiling.
“Yeah, yeah…” He turned toward Kobi but still kept an eye on Tali’s movements. “You were asking about the instructor…”
“Did he call you, too, to let you know the class was canceled today?”
Tali opened a drawer and pulled out a bag that crinkled. Ronny turned back toward her and stared at her back, trying to guess what else she was adding to the bowl. Softly, he said, “No one called me.”
“Then how did you know that Tom is home? And how did you know there was no class today? I mean, don’t you guys always meet at the class?” Kobi pried.
It took about thirty seconds, but the kid’s face finally registered some kind of understanding. “Oh sure … the class … Tom told me … he called me and told me the instructor called today to cancel…”
Tali pounced. “Ronny … Tom didn’t call you … he just got the message a few minutes ago … we would have seen him use the phone.”
“He used his cell,” the kid beamed.
This time Kobi answered. “Ronny, his cell’s broken.”
“I’m sorry, Ronny,” Tali said, approaching him with an outstretched bowl. “We don’t mean to cross-examine you. It’s just that I’ve never seen Tom react the way he did to that call.” She handed him the bowl. “Go ahead, sweetie.”
The sudden calm he felt at the first taste of the cookies subsided when Tali asked whether he had “any idea why Tom acting so strangely?”
“No. He must have been very disappointed. He just really likes … going over there … really likes it…,” Ronny said, wiping a sweaty bead off his forehead.
“Oh, sure, we know,” Tali said, stirring the contents of the bowl, reminding him to partake. Ronny, huffing, turned around and said, “I just remembered … I … have to go … I’ve got things to do…”
“You don’t want to see Tom?” they asked in unison.
“I’ll catch him in school tomorrow,” he said, mumbling a good-bye and storming out.
“What a funny kid,” Kobi said.
Tali went back into the kitchen, put the cookies back in the jar, and said, “No, Kobi, he’s not funny at all; he’s just a kid who doesn’t know how to lie.”
“Whatever, so Tom lied about the phone, no need to make a big deal out of it,” Kobi said, sinking back into the couch.
“Sure,” she said, “but still something’s going on here. Something’s off between those two kids and I’m going to find out what it is.”
“Good luck then, Miss Marple,” Kobi said, clicking the television to life.
* * *
Tali knew that, to her husband, her behavior served as further proof that women love to pick and pry at the placid surface of things, fishing for drama and then panfrying fiction into reality. But when she woke from her afternoon nap, ready to discard her plan, she couldn’t help but notice the rumbling silence emanating from Tom’s room. Most of the time he spent the early evening hours in front of his computer, yelling at the screen, maneuvering the joystick with his whole body, trying to kill his enemies while some of the most awful strains of teen pop streamed out of the stereo he’d gotten for his tenth birthday. She knocked on the door and heard nothing. Opening it quietly, she saw Tom in his bed, face buried in the pillow, faking sleep.
Two hours later, while she was making dinner, the phone rang. Tom bolted out of his room and raced down the stairs. Chopping and stirring, she noted happily that Kobi had fallen asleep on the couch. Her son, she hoped, would be equally unattuned to her heightened state of alertness. Once he answered, she moved to a more deliberate, less riotous pace of chopping. He was speaking with Ronny, chewing him out in a harsh whisper. The gravity of the situation was readily apparent. Tom’s voice shook with rage.
“You fat idiot. You couldn’t think of something that made more sense? Now they’re going to be suspicious. How could you forget, you fool? Look, I can’t talk now. No, they can’t hear me, but I’ll talk to you in school tomorrow.” And then, just before the conversation ended, he added, “He said he wants to keep a low profile, so I can’t see him again till he says so.”
Just before setting the table, she woke Kobi and asked him not to bother Tom about what had happened earlier. He yawned, sighed, and said, “You’re still thinking about that?”
After they’d had dinner and Tom had left the table, she peeked at her watch.
Kobi chuckled. “What, your period’s a little late?”
Tali pointed to the dishes. “Be a good husband and try not to make any noise while you clear the table.”
Kobi laughed and wrapped his arms around her middle. “God, you’re sexy when you’re scheming.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“She’s dying to know what the two kids are up to,” he whispered. “Perhaps they’ve killed a helpless old woman and hid the body, perhaps they’ve gotten their hands on the math test, even though there are only three days left till summer vacation, or perhaps they’re just hiding their love for one another from us, even though I don’t think Tom-Tom is into the big boys…”
“Let go of me, you maniac,” she giggled, swimming out of his arms, “I’ve got something important to do.”
“Tali’s scheme,” he said, rubbing his hands together and kissing her ear. “Good luck.”
“What are you talking about? I’m just going to pee.”
“And this is how you forsake your loving husband, instead of being the perfect wife and asking him to come along?”
“Not today.” She kissed his lips and started up the stairs. In her bedroom, with the door closed, she rummaged through her drawers till she found the folded piece of paper. She flattened it out with her hand and scrolled down her son’s class list till she found Ronny Ma-or’s name. A thin, congested voice answered on the third ring. “Ma-ors’ residence, good evening.”
“Good evening,” she said, thinking how strange it was that she’d never met her son’s best friend’s parents. Ronny’s mother seemed eager to be liked and went out of her way to compliment Tom, hardly allowing the concerned mom a second to get a word in edgewise, pausing only to sneeze. Tali seized the opportunity. “I just wanted to ask you a quick question. Do you know if Ronny’s computer course instructor called today to cancel his class?”
Ronny’s mother sneezed again and asked, “Which course?”
“Ronny and Tom’s computer course; you know, the one at four on Wednesdays.”
Mrs. Ma-or blew her nose. “Huh? Ronny watches his brother on Wednesday afternoons.”
“But he was at our house today at four.”
“Yeah, he was lucky, his mother has a cold and didn’t go to work today. I’ve explained to him a thousand times…”
“Excuse me,” Tali said, cutting her short, “but what about the computer course?”
“I’m sorry, but I think you have Ronny confused with another kid. He’s never said a thing about a computer course.”
“I see,” Tali said, hastening to bring the conversation to a close.
* * *
The World of the End Page 23