The blond soldier who fired rushes over the fallen Arab to free Juliette. The streetcar stops, and already the sirens can be heard far away. Shaking and covered with blood, Juliette staggers to the door.
“You beseder?” the soldier calls out to her in Frebrew while she keeps an eye on the body on the ground.
“The doors!” someone yells in real Hebrew, and suddenly the doors open.
Juliette leaves the car gasping for air, while the first-aid workers pop out of the night in their fluorescent jackets. They push her into the ambulance, although she’s safe and sound. Beseder, she’s OK, but still… off to the ER of Hadassah Medical Center. During the ride, they clean up her face and arms and ask her a few questions to see if she’s disoriented. Suddenly she pops up on the stretcher.
“My suitcase!”
“Don’t worry, motek, they’ll bring it back to you, honey,” a blue-eyed paramedic reassures her.
“But I need it right away! I’m leaving Jeru! I’m going to live in Tel Aviv! With Elias!”
“Don’t worry, motek,” the guy repeats. “You got to see the docs first.”
“But you know they’re gonna blow it up, that’s what they do with abandoned luggage!”
“We’ll bring it back to you at the hospital, I promise you.” The guy calls his coworkers who’re still there and tells them to put Juliette’s case aside. Juliette falls heavily back on the stretcher, grumbling. This day of all days, just her luck! Victim of a knife attack the day she’s going to start a new life and—who knows—have a kid with Elias. She rummages in her clothes unsuccessfully and sits up on the stretcher again.
“My phone!”
“There,” the blue-eyed guy says, showing her the old, beat-up Sony she’s holding in her hand. But she can’t see it. Typical posttraumatic stress. You lose your bearings. She finally manages to call Elias, but she gets his voice mail. “Darling, I almost died in a terrorist attack, I almost almost almost died,” she repeats with tears in her eyes. “I almost got stabbed, Elias! For you! To go live with you! I love you so much, why don’t you answer me?” She starts sobbing, letting herself go in voice mail. Everything goes into it: she is a bastard, unloved, the whole nine yards.
They put her under observation.
Her mother arrives in Hadassah, panic stricken. How long has she wanted to leave this country? What the hell is she still doing here, for godsake? If she stays, it’s only for Juliette. But at the idea of losing her daughter in a stabbing attack, she feels herself capable of the worst. At the same time, it’s just an expression going through her mind—“capable of the worst.” What worst? In the fiery mouth of Juliette’s father, that had some style, not in hers. She’s using the expression without really knowing its meaning, out of blind faithfulness to her great love, like a quotation or, better still, an incantation—almost a prayer to God the Father.
An hour later, Juliette begins rummaging in her things again.
“Where the hell did I put my phone?”
“In your hand, dear,” her mother answers.
She calls Elias again, and again gets his voice mail. This time she hangs up and sends him a text full of affliction and tears: Don’t abandon me, Elias, please. U can’t know how scared I was. I had a date w death, can u imagine? Before I even had a kid w u! I beg u, call back! Call quick! Wanna hear yr voice. I want yr child!
CHAPTER 2
Elias reads this as he gets to Florentin 10 and sighs. Why did he say she could come? All he wants to do is write a novel, not get married or even be a couple. That’s clear enough, isn’t it?
He sits down at the table with Manu and the anorexic whose name he can never remember. Oh yeah, Scarlett! She’s funny, has style, always in a dress and high heels, but all skin and bones. They’d think she was kind of snobbish if she weren’t a fan of the Hapoel Tel Aviv, the lefty working-class soccer club. But Scarlett goes to every Hapoel game at Bloomfield Stadium. It’s like a bourgeois girl from Neuilly who’s wild about the Red Star, slumming it to catch every match.
“Bad news?” she asks in Hebrew, since Elias learned the language well.
“A knife attack in Jeru,” he answers. “The victim’s a friend.” And to Manu in a low voice, “It’s Juliette.”
“Huh? Juliette? She’s dead?” Manu asks.
“No, no,” Elias answers flatly, and you’d think at that moment he’d rather have answered yes. Well, not a real death that ends life, but let’s say a symbolic death that would make Juliette disappear from his life. When there’s no way of breaking off with a girl, you think of her death, why not? But then, what’s the point of having her come and giving her hope again if he’s thinking of ending it? Why keep her in that cruel illusion?
“Where’s she now?” asks Manu.
“In Hadassah.”
“So when’s she coming?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“She hurt?”
“I’m telling you she’s OK.”
“Serious?”
“What are you, deaf?” Elias says angrily. “OK means OK! But she’s under observation in the hospital.”
They order a bottle of Merlot. At thirty-six shekels a glass, you might as well get a bottle since that makes six glasses in all, so two each, you’re saving around thirty-six shekels. Nine euros, in fact. Since the euro began sinking, it’s still more expensive. In Tel Aviv, you really shell out for red! And not only French red. The Israelis have begun making wine too. And good wine! In fact, it seems the word Chardonnay is the French pronunciation of a Jerusalem vine that was called Char Adonai, in other words “the mountain of God.” But that must be a Zionist joke.
Just then, Diabolo calls Manu about a job as a reporter on Israel Breaking News, and Manu tells him for the nth time the only thing he knows how to do is be a professional fucker, and besides, he dropped out of the profession. So naturally he asks Diabolo if he keeps offering him the job just to bug him.
“Come on, I’m kidding around, it’s just because I’m having a barbecue tonight and Romy Schneider will be there.”
“You swear?”
“Word of honor.”
“OK, I’m coming with Elias and a girl you don’t know.”
“Juliette?”
“No, no, Juliette’s in the hospital. She almost died in a stabbing attack.”
“What! An attack in Jeru?”
“Yes, in Jeru.”
“But that’s a scoop! Send Elias to interview her!” Manu turns to Elias, who waves no to him with his forefinger.
“You kidding?” Diabolo says, offended. “What’ve you got against the press?”
“All sleazebags,” Manu answers, laughing.
“Put Elias on the line!”
There follows a laborious back-and-forth between Diabolo, who wants his exclusive interview with Juliette-the-miraculous-survivor, and Elias, who refuses to give in. It’s true that since he has the victim’s number and a personal relationship with her, Elias could make an incredible scoop for the new agency. It would also give him a good start as a reporter. Only, there you are, he obstinately refuses to have this piece of luck serve Diabolo’s ends. No way his relationship with Juliette’s going to become official by writing about her. To hell with the pathos! He really digs his heels in. This said, he also has no faith in Israel Breaking News. He’s even sure it’s going to totally crash. There are already so many francophone blogs in Israel. Do we really need another media outlet for such a small market?