She’s so alarmed she drops the phone book but I look at my feet to avoid embarrassing her the phone book’s not made out of glass after all the phone company’s taken her into account.
I quickly read the divorce agreement I drew up. A good one a really good one. In a few years I can publish a treatise on divorce and get a university chair. Everybody’s uncle writes a book in this country and everybody’s cousin praises it in the newspapers so why not let the world see for itself the grade-A work that I do. I just hope the old lady signs today with no problems. When I was alone with him in the living room last night I said be a sport don’t quibble over each cent don’t forget you live in dollars now the Messiah himself when he comes couldn’t up the value of the Israeli pound against them do you know how many men over sixty would love to get a divorce like this and trade in the old jalopy? He sat shocked in the shadow of the unlit lamp looking at me angrily a savage glitter in his glasses he jumped up shaking flushed with rage I was sure he was going to hit me. Maybe it’s true that I come on as a bastard I’ve got a big mouth my poor dead father used to say there’s no clutch between your brain and your tongue though it was he who taught me that style it’s just that he had to aim most of his jokes at himself since who’d have laughed at them if he hadn’t? How he used to lose his temper with me yet secretly pleased with me too two hours before he died with twenty tubes stuck up him I still got a laugh out of him but he had a sense of humor how many people like that do you find nowadays? I have to be more careful. Once I made a gag in court I waited for the merry tinkle of laughter it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop one of the judges was so stunned he nearly fell off the dais. I thought I’d be debarred for it in the end I got off with a reprimand. What can you do? That’s the world we live in. The trouble is that sometimes I regret having said things myself it’s not that I really think of her like that I’ve learned to respect and even to like her although those first years she wasn’t totally human I mean the way it’s defined in the encyclopedias.
But what could I tell him that I’m sorry then he’d think I’d really meant it so I just waited for him to insult me back because at least if I hurt people’s feelings I’m willing to have mine hurt too let him say what he wants that I’m fat that I’m clumsy that I’m a very mediocre lawyer I’ll even write his lines for him something really mean he’ll see I’m the first to applaud him but he didn’t say a thing he just spun around dumbstruck in the room how I hate all these people with thin skins.
“Maybe you’d like a glass of some good, special cognac?”
But he refused with an angry wave of his hand as though chasing away a fly and left the room. Let him suit himself. Afterwards when I undressed in the bedroom Ya’el kept asking me what did you say to him. What did you say? Did you say something to him? I only said he should be a little more generous. That’s all? Yes that’s all. For sensitive souls like him that’s apparently too much come to sleep do you know how many nights it’s been since you’ve fulfilled your connubial duty I could get a rabbinical permit for adultery but she just looked at me mournfully and walked out in the middle of the sentence. The family’s falling apart. The last bastion.
Should I go or wait for the mail?
Levana comes to tell me that Goren insists that he sent me the check four days ago. The thought that a check for a hundred thousand in my name is making the rounds of this town in the hands of those morons in the post office is enough to give me the willies. I asked him the day before yesterday didn’t you at least send it registered. It turned out it hadn’t even occurred to him. When he married his wife ten years ago it didn’t occur to him that he might want to dump her one day either. Should I go or wait for the mail?
It’s so quiet. What’s going on here? No one needs me today? No one killed anyone last night? No one stole no one burgled no one cheated no one put his hand in the till? No one wants to sell an apartment or to rent anything? Anyone reading the newspapers might think that half of Israel does nothing but earn a living for us let him come and see the quiet in the lawyers’ offices there are too many of us wolves all waiting for the same prey. Well if nobody needs me I’ll go visit my murderer and from there to the loony bin. A charming itinerary isn’t it?
“All right, Levana, I’m on my way. If the check comes, deposit it right away in the bank before it can bounce. And when you’ve warmed up, take a wet rag and clean off our sign below. All that soot on it doesn’t make us look good. The whole world thinks that all lawyers are shysters; we’ll never convince it otherwise, but at least it needn’t think that we’re dirty ones.”
Suddenly the phone rings I can tell from the sound that it’s someone in the family still I let Levana answer if she doesn’t keep busy she’ll degenerate completely it’s part of what I’m paying her for I’ve had to teach myself not to grab at the phone people think more of you if they have to ask a secretary for you.
It’s Tsvi from Tel Aviv. All in a tizzy. A few minutes ago he spoke with Ya’el and heard that I was going there alone and he thinks (why shouldn’t he have thoughts too?) that it’s out of the question someone from the family must come with me if not Ya’el then himself he’ll come right away he’ll cancel everything (what could he possibly have to cancel?) and join me because we have to break it gently it’s not just a formality there’s the doctor to talk to as well she may get emotional when she hears that he’s in Israel it will be very painful for her…
I let him talk the call from Tel Aviv is on him so what’s the rush. He can talk all he wants. I’m listening. It’s his right. In the family they say that he’s the problematic middle child that he’s very close to his mother not that I’ve ever seen proof of it it’s all purely theoretical long-distance sympathy. Since she was put away five years ago he and his brother have kept the fifth commandment strictly by phone. If Moses had thought of such a possibility he could have gotten by with nine. I the stranger who thank God doesn’t have a drop of her blood in my body have visited her more often than her two sons put together and now they want to mess things up for me.
“Do you hear me, Kedmi? Wait there and I’ll come with you.”
“Don’t bother. Either I go see her by myself or else you can count me out. You can find yourselves another lawyer, it will cost you fifty thousand smackers plus tax just for the right to talk to him. You have no idea how lucky you are that I’m both in the business and a member of this family. If I didn’t exist you’d have to invent me. You’re wrong if you think that I’m nothing but a big oaf with a loose tongue. You have no monopoly on either pain or gentleness.” I glance at my secretary sitting silently with her head down playing with her pencil lapping up every goddamn word. “I have an old mother too and I know what it’s like. I’ll know how to handle her. I’ve already talked to her several times, I’ve done the groundwork and prepared her. She’s a lot stronger and saner than you think. We have a good, unsentimental, working relationship, even the dog’s taken a liking to me lately…. Where are you talking from, home? Then there’s time to explain to you exactly what my plan is….”
In the end he manages to hang up on me. It’s almost ten o’clock am I going or not. Maybe the check will still come I’ll feel better if I deposit it myself. I dial Ya’el.
“Yes, Tsvi called me…. No, he’s not coming with me…. Yes, I’m being stubborn. If someone has to be stubborn, it damn well better be me. Is your father still sleeping?…He had to come all the way to Israel to learn the fine art of slumber…. What did I say to him? I already told you, I didn’t say a thing. Tell me what he said that I said, go on, I want to hear…. If you don’t know stop hassling me, I’m hassled enough as it is…. Because I’ll go see her by myself. I’ll get her to sign, you’ll see it will all work out…. All right….All right….All right….All right…. I’ll only say what’s absolutely necessary. Ten percent of my average output.”