The Nimrod Flipout: Stories (3 page)

For a minute, I got uptight. But she told me to take it easy, I had no reason to worry. She’d marry me, and if it was important, because of our parents, it could even be in a hall. That wasn’t the point. The point was somewhere else altogether—three years ago, in Mombasa, when she and Lihi went there after the army. The two of them went by themselves because the guy she was seeing had just reenlisted. In Mombasa, they lived in the same place the whole time—some kind of guesthouse where a whole bunch of people hung out, mostly from Europe. Lihi refused to consider going anyplace else, because she’d just fallen in love with some German guy who lived in one of the cabins. She didn’t mind staying either; she was pretty much enjoying the quiet. And even though that guesthouse was exploding with drugs and hormones, no one hassled her. They could probably just tell she wanted to be alone. No one—except for some Dutch guy who got there maybe a day after them and didn’t leave until after she went back home. And he didn’t actually hassle her either, just looked at her a lot. That didn’t bother her. He seemed like an all-right guy, a little sad, but one of those sad guys who don’t complain. They were in Mombasa for three months, and she never heard him say a word. Except for once, a week before they left, and even then, there was something so gentle about the way he talked to her, something so weightless, that it was as if he hadn’t said anything at all. She explained to him that the timing was bad, told him about her boyfriend, who was some technical something in the air force, about how they’d known each other since high school. And he just smiled and nodded and moved back to his regular spot on the steps of the hut. He didn’t speak to her anymore; all he did was keep looking. Except that actually, now that she thought about it, he did speak to her one more time, on the day she flew back, and he said the strangest thing. Something about how, between every two people in the world, there’s a kiss. What he was actually trying to tell her was that he’d already been looking at her for three months and thinking about their kiss, how it would taste, how long it would last, how it would feel. And now she was leaving, and she had a boyfriend and everything, he understood, but just that kiss, he wanted to know if she would agree. It was actually very funny, the way he spoke, kind of confused, maybe because he didn’t know English well, or he just wasn’t much of a talker. But she said OK. And they kissed. And after that, he really didn’t try anything and she came back to Israel with Lihi. Her boyfriend was at the airport in his uniform to pick her up in his army car. They moved in together too, and to spice up their sex life a little, they added some new things. They tied each other to the bed, dripped some wax, once they even tried to do it anally, which hurt like hell, and in the middle shit came out. In the end, they split up, and when she started school she met me. And now, we’re going to get married. She has no problem with that.

She said I should pick the hall and the date and whatever I want, because it really doesn’t matter to her. That isn’t the point at all. Neither is that Dutch guy—I have nothing to be jealous of there. He’s probably dead already from an overdose or else he’s lying drunk on some sidewalk in Amsterdam, or he went and got a master’s degree in something, which sounds even worse. In any case, it’s not about him at all, it’s that time in Mombasa. For three months, a person sits and looks at you, imagining a kiss.

When Abigail told me she wanted to break up, I was in shock. The cab had just pulled up at her place, and she got out on the sidewalk side, and said she didn’t want me to come up, and that she didn’t really want to talk about it either, and that most of all she never wanted to hear from me again, not even a Happy New Year or a birthday card. And then she slammed the cab door so hard that the driver cursed her through the window. I just sat there in the backseat, numb. If we’d had a fight or something, maybe I’d have been more prepared, but we’d had a really great evening. The movie sucked, but otherwise everything was fine. And then that monologue, out of nowhere, and the door slamming, and bam! Our whole six months together gone, just like that! “So what now?” the driver asked, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “Want me to take you home? If you’ve got a home, that is. To your parents’ place? Friends? A massage parlor downtown? You’re the boss, you’re the king.” I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. All I knew was it wasn’t fair. After Ronit and I split up I swore I wouldn’t let anyone get close enough to hurt me like that, but then Abigail came along, and everything was so wonderful, and I just don’t deserve this. “You’re right,” the driver grunted. He’d turned off the ignition and tilted his seat back. “Why drive when it’s so cozy here. Me, I don’t care. The meter’s running either way.” And that’s when they announced the address on the radio. “Nine Massada Street. Who’s up?” And that address—I’d heard it before, and it had stayed in my memory as if someone had scratched it in there with a nail.

When Ronit dumped me it was the same, in a cab, the cab that was taking her to the airport, to be precise. She said it was over between us, and sure enough, I never heard from her again. I was left that way then too, stuck alone in the backseat of a cab. The driver that time went on and on, and I didn’t hear a word. But that annoying address on the radio I happen to remember very clearly. “Nine Massada Street. Whose call?” And now, maybe it’s just a coincidence, but still, I told the driver to go there. I had to find out what that address was all about. As we pulled up, I saw another cab drive away, and inside, in the backseat, was the silhouette of a small head, like a child’s or a baby’s. I paid the driver and got out.

It was a private house. I opened the gate, and walked up the path to the door. I rang the bell. It was a dumb thing to do, and I don’t know what I’d have done if anyone had opened the door, or what I would have said. There was no reason for me to be there at that hour. But I was so mad I didn’t care. I rang one more time, a long ring, and then I banged on the door, like in the army when we used to do door-to-door searches, but nobody came. In my head, thoughts about Abigail and Ronit began to get all mixed up with thoughts about other breakups, and everything sort of got lumped together. And this house, where nobody opened the door, was getting on my nerves. I started to circle around it, looking for a window I could look through. The place didn’t have any windows, just a back door, mostly glass. I tried to see inside but everything was dark. I kept trying, but I couldn’t get my eyes to adjust. It seemed as if the harder I tried, the blacker it all looked. It blew my mind, it really did. And suddenly it was as if I was seeing myself from a distance, bending over, lifting a rock, wrapping it in my sweatshirt, and breaking the glass.

I reached in, careful not to cut myself, and opened the door. I groped for the light switch, and when I found it, the light was yellow and dim. One bulb for that whole big room. And that’s exactly what the place was—an enormous room, no furniture, completely empty, except for one wall that was covered with photographs of women. Some of them were framed, some just stuck on the wall with masking tape, and I knew them all: There was Dalia, my girlfriend in the army; and Danielle—we went steady in high school; and Stephanie, a tourist who stayed; and Ronit. They were all there, and in the left-hand corner, in a delicate gold frame, was a picture of Abigail, smiling. I turned out the light and collapsed in the corner. My whole body was trembling all over. I didn’t know the guy who was living here, why he was doing this to me, or how he always succeeded in wrecking things. But suddenly it all fell into place, all those breakups, all that jumping ship out of the blue—Danielle, Abigail, Ronit. It was never about us, it was always him.

I don’t know how much time went by before he came home. First I heard the cab pulling away, then the sound of his key in the front door, and then the light came back on, and there he was, standing right in front of me and smiling, the son of a bitch, just looking at me and smiling. He was short, like a kid, with big eyes, no lashes, and he was holding a colored plastic schoolbag. When I got up out of my corner he just gave a weird little laugh, like he’d been caught red-handed, and asked how I’d gotten there. “So she left too, huh?” he said when I’d gotten closer. “Never mind, there’ll always be another one.” And me, instead of answering, I slammed the rock down on his head, and when he dropped I didn’t stop. I don’t want another one. I want Abigail, I want him to stop laughing. And the whole time I was bashing him with the rock he just kept whimpering: “What’re you doing, what’re you doing, what’re you doing, I’m your man, your man,” till he stopped. When it was over, I threw up. And when I’d finished throwing up, I felt lighter sort of, like on army hikes when it’s someone else’s turn to take the stretcher from you, and suddenly you feel light—lighter than you’d ever thought was possible. Light as a child. And all the hatred and the guilt and the fear that I’d be caught—it all just disappeared.

Behind the house, not far away, were some woods, and that’s where I dumped him. The rock and the sweatshirt, which were soaked with blood, I buried in the yard. In the weeks after that, I kept looking for him in the papers, both in the news and in the missing persons ads, but there was nothing. Abigail didn’t answer my messages, and someone at work told me they’d seen her in town with this tall guy with a ponytail. I was broken up when I heard that, but I knew there was nothing I could do. It was over for good. A little while later, I started going out with Mia. From the very beginning, everything with her was so
sane
. So OK. And unlike the way I usually am with girls, with her I was very open right from the start and all my defenses came right down. At night I’d dream sometimes about that dwarf, how I got rid of his body in the woods, and I’d wake up in a panic, but then I’d remind myself there was no reason to worry, he wasn’t around anymore, and then I’d hold Mia and go back to sleep.

Mia and I broke up in a cab. She told me I had no feelings, she said I was clueless, that sometimes she’d be suffering in the worst way, and I’d be sure she was having a good time, just because I was. She said things had been wrong between us for a long time, but that I hadn’t even noticed. And then she started to cry. I tried to take her in my arms, but she pulled away and said that if I cared about her I should just let her go. I didn’t know if I should go after her and keep trying. On the cab radio they gave an address: “Four Adler Road.” I told the driver to take me there. Another cab was already idling there when we arrived. A couple got in, about my age, maybe a little younger. Their driver said something and they both laughed. I kept going, to Nine Massada Street. I looked for his body in the woods, but it wasn’t there. The only thing I could find was a rusty iron rod. I picked it up and started walking toward the house.

The house looked just the same, dark, with the broken pane in the back door. I reached inside, groped for the handle, careful not to get cut. I found the light switch right away. The house was still empty except for the pictures on the wall, the dwarf’s ugly schoolbag, and a dark, sticky stain on the floor. I studied the pictures. They were all there, in exactly the same order. When I was through with the pictures, I opened the bag and looked inside. There was some cash, a used bus pass, an eyeglass case, and a picture of Mia. In it, her hair was up, and she was looking sort of lonely. And suddenly I understood what he’d said back then, before he died, about there always being another one. I tried to picture him on the night Abigail and I broke up, going wherever it was he went, returning with the picture, making sure, I don’t know how, that Mia and I would cross paths. Except I’d managed to blow it all over again. And now it wasn’t so sure I’d ever meet another one. Because my man was dead and I was the one who’d killed him.

Meet Reuven Shriki. A fantastic guy. The man with the plan. Someone who had the guts to live the dreams most of us don’t even dare to dream. Shriki’s rolling in money, but that’s not the point. He also has a girlfriend, a French model, who posed in the nude for the world’s best slick magazine—if you didn’t jerk off to it, that was just because you couldn’t get your hands on it—but that’s not what makes him the man either. What’s special about Shriki is that, unlike others who made it big, he’s no smarter than you, no better looking, no better connected or shrewder, he isn’t even luckier than you. Shriki is exactly—I mean exactly—like me and you, in every way. And that’s what makes you so jealous—how did someone like
us
get so far? And anyone who tries to say it was the timing or the odds is full of crap. Shriki’s secret is much simpler: he made it because he took his ordinariness as far as it could go. Instead of denying it or trying to hide it, Shriki said to himself, This is who I am, and that’s all there is to it. He didn’t try to make himself more or less than he was, he just flowed with it,
naturel
. He invented ordinary things, and I stress, ordinary. Not brilliant, ordinary, and that’s exactly what humanity needs. Brilliant inventions might be good for brilliant people, but how many brilliant people are there in the world? Ordinary inventions, on the other hand, are good for everyone.

One day, Shriki was sitting in his living room eating olives filled with pimentos. He didn’t find the filled olives very fulfilling. He liked the olives themselves much more than the pimento filling, but, on the other hand, he preferred the pimento to the original hard, bitter pit. And that’s how it came to him—the first in a series of ideas that would change his life and ours—olive-filled olives, what could be simpler? An olive without a pit, filled with another olive. It took the idea a little while to catch on, but when it did, it refused to let go, like a pit bull clamping its jaws on its victim’s ankle. And right after the olive-filled olives came avocado-filled avocados, and finally, the sweet crowning glory, apricot-filled apricots. In less than six years, the word “pit” lost one of its meanings. And Shriki, of course, became a millionaire. After he cleaned up in the food business, Shriki moved on to real estate, and with no special vision there either. He just made sure to buy where it was expensive, and guess what, within a year or two, it got even more expensive. That’s how Shriki’s assets grew and in time, he found himself investing in almost everything, except tech, a field that put him off for reasons so primal he couldn’t even express them in words.

As it does with every ordinary person, money changed Shriki. He got more cheeky, more cheery, more beefy, more touchy-feely, in short, more everything. People didn’t adore him, but they didn’t abhor him either, which is nothing to sneeze at. Once, during a TV interview that got a little bit too personal, the interviewer asked Shriki whether he thought a lot of people aspired to be like him. “They don’t have to aspire,” Shriki said, smiling, half at the interviewer, half to himself. “They already are like me.” And the studio filled with the sound of wild applause booming from the special electronic device the show’s producers had purchased especially for up-front answers just like that one.

Imagine Shriki sitting in an armchair on the deck of his private pool, trailing a piece of pita through a plate of hummus, drinking a glass of freshly squeezed fruit juice, as his curvy girlfriend sunbathes naked on an air mattress. And now try to imagine yourselves in his place, sipping the freshly squeezed juice, tossing some sweet nothing to the naked French girl. A snap, right? And now try to imagine Shriki in your place, exactly where you are, reading this story, thinking about you there in his mansion, imagining himself sitting beside the pool in your place, and zap! Here you are again reading a story, and he’s back there. Ordinary as hell, or as his French girlfriend likes to say,
trés naturel
, eating another olive and not even spitting out the pit, because there is none.