by Moshe Sakal
“So I guess you know that your grandfather, Shayu, was really close to his cousin Rafael, Menashe’s father.”
“Of course. But what made you want to write about all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve interviewed a lot of authors for the radio. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a good story starts with some obsession of the writer’s. I mean, it doesn’t matter what you’re writing about, as long as you have a passion for your topic, your plot, your characters.”
“That’s true.”
“So where’s your passion here, Tom? It can’t be the diamond.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not really interested in that. Or in the shop and all those stories about jewelry. All that stuff Menashe tells you about the blue diamond — there’s no way you take that seriously.”
“It doesn’t matter whether or not I take it seriously, Honi. Maybe it’s all just superstition. It doesn’t make much difference. What really interests me is all the events that one little gemstone caused. The way it affected the family, my characters. After all, even if the stories aren’t true, you can’t deny that they led to all sorts of things happening — in Syria and in Israel.”
“What things?”
“Aha! That’s exactly what I’m writing about. Intrigues, affairs, voyages, betrayals. Secrets and lies, as they say.”
“What secrets?”
“Let’s not get into that now.”
Honi laughed. “Seriously? You’re not going to tell me? You are publishing this novel, aren’t you?”
“All in good time.”
“Fine.” He glanced at his phone. After a pause, he noticed the paper next to me on the counter. I passed it to him and he looked through the commentary pieces. “Useless,” he said, and handed it back.
He struck me as precocious. There was something almost elderly in the way he pronounced judgment on the newspaper, and I was discomfited by the discrepancy between the assertion and his boyish face, with his thick lips and almond eyes and long eyelashes. I didn’t say anything. Maybe I needed to get to know him better.
We paid and left the café together.
3
That evening, Honi went into the bathroom in his apartment, locked the door so his sister couldn’t come in, and took a picture of himself in the mirror with his phone. He deleted the picture and took another one, with his shirt off. The flash obscured his face, but you could clearly see his arms and stomach, chest, small nipples, and a slightly blurred mark across his abdomen, a scar from appendix surgery when he was four. He uploaded the picture to Grindr, his latest addiction, where it showed up first in the series of pictures on the screen. That was because users’ pictures were arranged by order of distance, from near to far, and Honi was closest to himself — at least geographically. Once the picture was uploaded, other men’s images popped up all around it. He was Honi the Circle Maker.
Honi left the bathroom and sat down in the kitchen, where his sister Ayelet was making dinner: scrambled eggs with mushrooms, tomato salad with lots of basil and cilantro, and toast. The table was piled with little cups of fresh, quivering malabi pudding covered with a bright purple layer of pomegranate juice and garnished with crushed pistachios. Honi was tempted to grab a cup, but he knew they were for the Shack, and Ayelet would be angry if her brother ate into her inventory.
She asked him to make sure he paid the municipal and water bills and reminded him they had to call a plumber to check if there was a leak somewhere, because the last couple of water bills had been abnormally high. “It’s probably because of your baths,” she observed.
“Why do you say that?”
“You fill the tub twice a day. Does that seem reasonable to you? And in a drought year?”
“It’s always a drought year in this country, remember? And anyway, I don’t tell you how to bathe. I’ve always taken two baths a day and it had no effect on our bills. So why now?”
Ayelet was chopping onions. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and didn’t say anything.
After a couple of minutes, Honi got up and went to his room. He checked on his phone to see who was close, who was far, and who was even farther, until the pictures disappeared around a bend.
For months now, Honi’s gaze had been fixed not on trees or people or sidewalks or the road, but on his phone, which offered up an entire world: countless opportunities, unrealized desires, disappointments foretold, and dreams that would never come true unless he suddenly discovered an extraordinary reserve of courage within himself. He did not believe for a second that could happen.
He was location-based. Anywhere he went, someone out there knew he was here and not there. That someone was not God or an invisible entity. That someone — like a voice from on high making anonymous pronouncements — was merely an algorithm programmed to do one thing: to know.
The algorithm knew everything about Honi, or at least the most important thing: the precise point in space where he was located at any given moment. It was always hovering above him and could always testify, when needed, that he was there and not somewhere else. The algorithm was his alibi for a little sin he had not yet committed, but it was also the guarantee that this little sin would one day come to be. When? Maybe today, maybe next week. Maybe never.
4
On the day Honi decided to produce a radio show about the social protest movement, he went to the head of the documentary department at the station to get permission. He was sure there would be an enthusiastic response, but to his great disappointment he met with firm refusal. The department head, a man of about sixty with gray hair and a faint mustache, claimed the topic was already being covered ad nauseam on the station’s news programs and was “too overdone.” He encouraged Honi to focus on his weekly interviews for Up Close and Personal, to keep training new soldiers, and to prepare for the intensive programming on Holocaust Day and Remembrance Day, which they’d need to start working on in a couple of months.
But Honi insisted. “We have to do a special on the protests! We can’t just leave it for the news. It’s not something you can cover in a two-minute segment. This movement is radically changing the country!”
Corporal Honi Kadosh’s claims fell on deaf ears. But he didn’t give up. He quietly lay in wait for his chance, which arrived a week later when the presenter of the weekly literature program announced she was going overseas for a few weeks. The department head told Honi, “All right. If the station commander authorizes it, you have my go-ahead for the special.”
After a few more bureaucratic delays, all the necessary authorizations came through and Honi started outlining the program. He narrowed down a list of suitable interviewees, spoke to leading activists, hung around the tents on Rothschild Boulevard, and consulted other producers at the station, who referred him to some economists and other academics.
When we met after work one day, in what had become our regular café, Honi came straight from Rothschild Boulevard abuzz with new ideas. He had an audio recorder and a microphone imprinted with the station logo. When we sat down behind the bourekas and cake platters to devour our pastries — walnut cake for me, spinach boureka for Honi — he took a few printed pages out of his bag and handed them to me. It was the opening segment he’d written for his show. I scanned the first couple of pages and was surprised by Honi’s astuteness. I knew he was an intelligent young man, but I never imagined he could be so articulate, or that he had anything meaningful to say. “I’m wondering if you’re allowed to say all these things on army radio…”
Honi laughed. “No one’s going to hear this show anyway.” But his eyes were serious.
* * *
That night we went to Shami Bar. After the first drink, I bought Honi another, and I let him buy the third round so he wouldn’t feel like a kid being taken out. It was one thirty a.m. when we left. Honi asked if I wanted to drop by the radio station, which was only a few blocks away, and I agreed.
We w
alked down Yefet Street and turned left on Yehuda Ha’Yamit. We kept walking until the Galei Zahal building emerged on our left. Honi pressed a button outside the main door, and two seconds later there was a buzz and he pushed it open. We were welcomed by bright fluorescent lights and a redheaded soldier seated at a desk with her rifle propped in front of her.
“What’s up, Stav?” Honi asked her.
“It’s all good,” she said. “Time’s flying tonight, actually. Who’s this?” She gestured at me.
“This is Tom, he’s working on the special with me.”
“You’re working on the special this late at night?”
“I’m working around the clock.”
“Got it. So d’you want to take him in?”
“Just for a few minutes. I need to pick up something I left in the office.”
She gave me a sideways glance. “And you need backup?”
“He’s afraid to wait outside on his own in Jaffa at night,” Honi said. He gently stroked my shoulder.
“Okay.” She grinned. “Whatever you say.”
“You’re a cutie, Stav,” Honi said.
“Look who’s talking.” She giggled.
We went in.
On the way upstairs I saw pictures of famous radio announcers hanging on the walls. The rooms I glimpsed as I walked behind Honi looked like ordinary army base rooms, not at all like a radio station. There were ugly Formica tables in advanced stages of decay, dirty floor tiles, messy surfaces, clothes strewn around, binders on the floor, pieces of paper, and cigarette butts everywhere. Honi grabbed his binder and said he wanted to show me something, so we went one floor down. We walked into a random office, which turned out to lead to another office, which was being renovated. The room was dark and completely wrecked, and shadows flickered on the whitewashed walls. We could see the lights of Jaffa through the empty window frames.
We stood next to each other looking out. Honi held his arm out and took a picture of us with his phone. I let him post it on Instagram, but then he relented to my pleas and put the phone back in his pocket. And then, only then, he finally surrendered to my embrace and tilted his head up slightly until our eyes met. I kissed him.
5
After his mother died, Amiram Kadosh suggested to his son and daughter that they move into their grandparents’ old apartment, on a little street that intersected with Rothschild Boulevard. He promised the place would be “like new,” and they jumped at the rare find.
Amiram hired workers, who knocked down the walls in the old apartment, overhauled the ancient plumbing and electrical systems, installed electric blinds, pulled up the old floor tiles and replaced them with satiny ceramic ones, and built two bedrooms separated by a living room with a balcony. Ayelet got the big room because she was older. There was no debate.
Honi and Ayelet had been in the apartment for two years and nothing seemed to have changed: Honi was still a soldier, Ayelet was still studying jewelry making and running the Shack, a popular juice and grilled-cheese stand.
When Honi came home that night, he found his sister watching TV in the living room. He silently poured himself a glass of lemonade and sat down next to her.
She turned to look at him. “What’s the problem, Honi?”
“Nothing.”
“How was your day?”
“Fine.”
“How much longer do you have left to serve? Is it six months?”
“Eight.”
“Right. Almost done.”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s the problem?”
He told her about the jeweler and the other tenants in the building on Plonit Alley, and about the letter their father had sent them all.
Ayelet seemed surprised. “He didn’t tell me anything about that. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I saw the letter.”
“Just like that? He just told them they have to move out by Rosh Hashanah?”
“Yep. Because none of them have a lease.”
“Nothing at all?”
“You know what Grandpa was like. He didn’t mess around with that stuff.”
“True,” Ayelet admitted. “But it’s not like Kadosh.” She, too, called their father by his last name, never “Dad.” “So how did they respond?”
“The crazy old guy from the newspapers is happy to get out. The optician is threatening to burn down the store and kill himself. And Menashe…”
“What about him?”
“He’s threatening a lawsuit.”
“That’ll cost him a ton of money.”
“Unless he wins.”
“It could take years. Does he have the money and the nerves for that kind of ordeal?”
“I don’t know. Hey, did you ever hear about the robbery at his place? An armed robbery?”
“Yeah, Kadosh told me about it once. But they hardly took anything, did they?”
“They took a diamond.”
“One diamond?”
“Not just any diamond. It’s a famous diamond.” And he told her what he knew about the robbery and the blue diamond.
“What made you think of that now?”
“Because the whole thing sounds fishy to me,” Honi said.
“What does?”
“Everything. What he says about the diamond and the bad luck, and all the other stuff he tells everyone. It’s like it’s all in the past, it’s all happened already, but I feel like there’s something unresolved. It sounds to me like Dad’s trying to take revenge on him now.”
“On who?”
“On Menashe.”
“But you just told me he’s kicking the other tenants out, too. Maybe he has no choice, maybe the municipality is forcing him to do it, did you think about that? Why would you think it’s revenge?”
“You know him,” Honi argued. “He couldn’t care less about most things in the world, so why is he acting like this now?”
“Well, why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you becoming a detective, Honi?”
“What do you mean?”
“You sit there at the jeweler’s, you come home and sit here brooding about all the stuff he tells you, God knows what schemes you’re up to. I know you, you’re not just talking. I’m sure you have a plan.”
“I don’t have any plan.”
“That’s good to hear, because listen to me: You’re getting too involved. Leave Kadosh alone, give him some credit. He’s not a bad person, at the end of the day. And you know he’s had a difficult year since Mom died.”
Honi sat quietly for a moment. Ayelet turned back to the TV.
“Do you know anything about what happened all that time ago between the families in Damascus?” he asked.
“Kadosh told me,” Ayelet answered without looking at him. “So I know.”
“Don’t you think there’s a connection?”
“Between what and what?”
“Between what happened there and Kadosh’s behavior now.”
“I told you what I think, Honi. I think you’re looking for mysteries where there are none. You’re wasting your time.”
Honi didn’t answer. After a few minutes he got up, went to his room, and shut the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
ME
1
I STARTED WRITING WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN. As a young boy I sang and danced and acted in plays. At twelve I successfully auditioned for a part in The Little Prince, and for several weeks I sat on the kitchen counter with my back to the window every day and memorized my lines with my mother. Mom stood there facing me with her feet slightly apart, one hand on my knee and the other holding the book with pictures of the prince. We read every single word together.
I had blond hair, and I loved the theater because it gave me the chance to wear outlandish costumes. I loved the smell of the auditorium before the audience came in, the heat given off by the big spotlights, the red seats, and the carpeting after the vacuum cleaner left delicate stripes in it. I loved the pastrami-and-tomat
o sandwiches at the snack bar, the instant coffee, the Tuv Taam candy bars my dad bought me during long rehearsal days. I had braces, and every time I bit into the chocolaty mounds, most of the chocolate got stuck in the wires and was impossible to lick off.
At around the same age, my parents made me take piano lessons. My teacher, Uri, was a gifted and frighteningly meticulous young man of about thirty. He had straight brown hair, wore glasses with an old-fashioned frame that made him look older and slightly dour, and his long arms were covered with dense hair all the way to his wrists. Uri agreed to take me on because he said I had talent, and that if I practiced diligently for seven hours a day, I could one day become a professional pianist.
With the high point of his career already behind him, Uri knew he would never be an internationally known pianist. He handpicked his pupils, mostly musicology students, and I was his only twelve-year-old. Lessons were held at his home, in a room that looked out onto a small garden with ficus trees, where wagtails hopped around the grass in autumn. I practiced Bach, took short breaks to go to the bathroom, and came back for the second part of the lesson, which was devoted to theory. As I played, the metronome ticked on my left, and Uri’s soft, deep voice accompanied me with a low hum on my right. Every so often he reached out and flipped through the music book. At some point in the lesson, usually toward the end, the apartment door would open and Uri would hold his head up slightly, raise his eyebrows and then furrow them, as though he were remembering something very distant and worrying.
But the door to his room was always shut and no one dared disturb us during the lessons. Uri would write down my homework in pencil, with clear handwriting, then walk me to the door and wish me a good evening. Every time I came back for the next lesson and sat down beside him on the piano bench, he would report that Hermine had asked that I put the toilet seat up before I used the bathroom. I promised I’d remember, but Hermine — his girlfriend, whom I never saw — was not pleased.