A Detective's Complaint--A Novel by Shimon Adaf

Author:Shimon Adaf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

21

Manny suggested we meet in Jaffa, of all places, someplace in the flea market. Of all the emptying-outs of the greater Tel Aviv area, the one in the heart of Jaffa appealed to him the most. No tourists, he said, no partygoers. I told him he was exaggerating. The Tel Aviv nightlife didn’t really stop. We were both partially right. As soon as we sat down, the server informed us of the location of the safe area and access routes. Some safe area, said Manny, going into the building’s stairwell and climbing to the second floor is an instinct by this point. I said that was a theory nobody could be bothered to test. What theory, instinct? he asked. No, I said, that a building’s stairwell is a relatively safe space. He sipped his beer and thought about it. I’ll ask our people, he said. He was wearing a shirt with a print of The Dark Knight, the bat signal emerging from Gotham’s burning architecture. I hated the current Batman filmic incarnation. Humidity choked the alley. To the right of us was a café favored by tourists, its bulbs spreading hollow light, blue doors, blurry structures. Half of the pub’s tables were folded and leaned against each other, but laughter sounded, distracted attentions floating through space. My body was on the cusp of boiling, the weight of the air resting upon me. Manny looked relaxed. The shirts he bought, he said, were moisture wicking.

I asked what his people said about the forming cease-fire. He said it wasn’t going to last. I said they were designing war games. A cease-fire was a strategic move, not a condition to aspire to. He said from the moment they started that media twist about the tunnels, the chances of a cease-fire dropped dramatically. Sounds like one of your theories, he said. He was also surprised when those serious guys told him about it, but they were right. Think about it, the government knew about the tunnels beforehand, and the Gaza invasion was not accompanied by the achievement of some purpose, a real threat whose elimination would justify combat, all our losses. And all of a sudden, a few days later, you start hearing about the tunnels everywhere, like an aggressive marketing campaign for the war.

I made a remark I’d made before—that spending time with the young guys, as he referred to them, was doing him a world of good. It made his thinking more flexible. He said he wished his wife would understand. I thought with the same anguish I had in the past about his wife, the pleasantness of family life, the grandchildren, both born and expected, about the acceptance of the reduction of experience that is aging, about the escape efforts that, from the outside, might be perceived as pointless. I told him I planned to spend some time in Sderot, live there for a while.

Why? he asked. I asked if he remembered the story the giant told me at the hospital. Dmitry, I think, was his name.

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