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SURPRISE PARTY

Three people are waiting at an intercom. A weird moment. More precisely, an awkward moment, uncomfortable.

“You’re here for Avner’s birthday too?” one of them, a guy with a graying mustache, asks the guy who pressed the buzzer. The guy who pressed the buzzer nods. The third one, tall with a Band-Aid on his nose, nods too. “No kidding.” Mustache massages his neck nervously. “You’re friends of his?” They both nod. A female voice rings out from the intercom.

“Come on up, the twenty-first floor,” and then the buzz that opens the door. The elevator buttons only go up to 21; our Avner lives in the penthouse.

On the way up, Mustache confesses that he doesn’t really know Avner. Mustache is just the manager of the bank in Ramat Aviv where Avner and Pnina Katzman have an account. He has never met them, didn’t start at that branch till two months ago. Before that he managed a smaller branch in Ra’anana. That’s why he was surprised when Pnina called to invite him to this party, but she insisted, said that Avner would be so happy.

Band-Aid-on-the-Nose, it turns out, isn’t really a close friend either. He’s the husband’s insurance agent, only met him a couple of times. And that was a while ago. For the last few years, they’ve been doing all their business by e-mail.

The guy who pressed the buzzer, nice-looking, but with connected eyebrows, knows the Katzmans best. He’s their dentist. He filled four cavities for Pnina and made a crown for one of her molars. He also worked on Avner’s teeth, filled one cavity and did a root canal, but he wouldn’t really call himself a friend.

“It’s strange that she invited us,” Mustache says.

“It’s probably a big party,” Band-Aid decides.

“I wasn’t planning to come,” Eyebrows admits, “but Pnina is so sensitive.”

“Is she pretty?” Mustache asks. That’s not a question a bank manager should ask, he knows. Eyebrows nods and shrugs at the same time as if to say, “Yes, but what good will that do us?”

Pnina really is pretty. She’s forty-plus and looks it. No face-lifts to keep the wrinkles away. If you could match a particular male sexual fantasy to every woman, Mustache thinks as he shakes her limp hand, then Pnina would be the perfect damsel in distress. There’s a certain lack of confidence about her, a helplessness. Apart from the three of them, it turns out, no one has shown up yet. Just the catering staff, who are putting out more and more giant aluminum-covered bowls and trays jam-packed with hors d’oeuvres. No, Pnina assures them, they’re not early. It’s just the others who are late.

“It’s my fault,” she explains. “I decided on everything at the last minute. That’s why I didn’t invite any of you till today. I apologize.” Mustache says she has nothing to apologize for.

Eyebrows is already standing over one of the trays, getting to work on the bruschetta. So beautifully are they arranged that every one he takes is made conspicuous by its absence, like a pulled tooth.

He knows it’s not very polite and he should wait for the rest of the guests, but he’s dying of hunger. He operated on an old man’s upper and lower gums today, a three-and-a-half-hour procedure, then he just changed clothes and took off for this party. He didn’t even have time to go home first. He’s hungry now, hungry and embarrassed. The bruschetta is good. He takes another one, his fifth, and walks off to stand at the side.

The living room of the apartment is absolutely enormous, and there’s also a glass door leading to the roof. Pnina tells them that she invited three hundred people, everyone she found listed in Avner’s BlackBerry. Not all of them are coming, she knows, definitely not at such short notice, but it’s going to be such fun.

The last time she organized a surprise party was ten years ago. They were living in India then because of Avner’s business, and one of the guests brought them a lion cub as a gift. In India, it seems, they’re more flexible about laws for the preservation of wildlife, or maybe they just obey them less. That lion cub was the most adorable thing Pnina had ever seen in her life. In fact, that whole party was a tremendous success. Not that she’s expecting anyone to bring them a lion today, but people are coming and they’ll drink and laugh together, and it’ll just be such fun.

“Letting ourselves go like that is just what we all need, especially Avner, who’s been working like a dog on the stock issue for the last few months,” Pnina says.

That story about India reminds Mustache of something—he brought a gift too. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a long box wrapped in colored paper imprinted with the bank’s logo.

“It’s just a little something,” he says in an apologetic tone, “and it’s not from me, it’s from the entire branch.”

Anyway, it’s hard to give a gift after such an amazing story about a lion. Pnina says thank you and hugs Mustache—a rather surprising gesture, considering they don’t know each other. That, at least, is what Band-Aid thinks. Pnina insists that Mustache hold on to the gift for the time being and give it to Avner personally.

She’s sure, she says, that Avner will be so happy, he always loves gifts.

That last remark makes Eyebrows feel uncomfortable for not bringing something. Band-Aid didn’t bring a gift either, but then again, he isn’t eating anything, and Eyebrows has already finished off six bruschetta, two pieces of herring, and some squid sushi, which, as the kid with the tray insisted on pointing out, twice, isn’t kosher. Eyebrows knows he shouldn’t have come, but now all he can do is wait till Avner and the other guests show up, and then, when everyone is busy partying, make his exit. But meanwhile, he’s stuck here, he knows, totally stuck, and in the twenty minutes that have passed since he walked in the door, not one other guest has arrived.

“When did you say that Avner is supposed to get here?” Eyebrows asks, trying to be nonchalant. It doesn’t work. Pnina gets upset.

“He should be here by now,” she says, “but he doesn’t know about the party, so maybe he’ll be a little late.” She pours Eyebrows a glass of wine. He refuses politely, but she insists.

Band-Aid asks if there’s any cognac. That makes Pnina very happy and she totters off to the liquor cabinet in her spike heels and takes out a bottle.

“The catering guys probably have cognac,” she says, “but not as good as this. This might not be enough for all the guests, but it is for our intimate little group, so let’s make a toast.”

She pours cognac for Mustache and herself, too, and they raise their glasses. Mustache, seeing that no one else is planning to say anything, quickly steps into the breach. He wishes all those present many parties and many surprises, nice ones, of course. And to Avner he wishes a speedy arrival, otherwise there won’t be anything left for him to eat or drink. He and Pnina laugh.

Eyebrows feels as if that remark is somehow about him. True, he’s eaten a lot since he came in, but he still thinks it’s kind of nasty for Mustache to sell him out for a joke. And Pnina too—it’s insulting, the way she’s laughing at that tasteless bit of humor, exposing crowns that wouldn’t be there if not for him. That’s it, he decides, time to go. He’ll do it politely so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but with all due respect, he has a wife waiting at home, and all this place has to offer is a slightly tense atmosphere and nonkosher sushi.

Pnina’s response to Eyebrows’s stammered goodbye is extreme. “You can’t go,” she says, clutching his hand, “this party is so important to Avner, and without you … as it is, almost no one else came. But they’ll be here”—she pulls herself together quickly—“they probably just got held up on the road, there’s heavy traffic at this hour, but if Avner arrives before them, he’ll open the door and see only two people. Wonderful people, but only two. Not counting the catering crew, of course. That could be a letdown. And the last thing anyone needs on his fiftieth birthday is a letdown. It’s a rough age as it is. And Avner hasn’t had an easy time of it these last few months, so the last thing he needs when he comes in is to be welcomed by an empty living room.”

“Even three’s not a lot,” Eyebrows maliciously states the obvious. The truth is, he adds, that if he were Pnina, he’d just cancel the whole thing and try to clear the place before Avner got home.

Pnina is quick to agree. She calls the catering manager over and tells him not to bring up any more food and to take his crew and wait downstairs in their truck for the time being. When the rest of the guests arrive, she’ll text them and they can come up again.

Till then, she explains to everyone without letting go of Eyebrows’s hand, they’ll all sit here in the living room and wait for Avner with a drink.

Maybe she should have planned something a little more intimate from the beginning. After all, fifty is not the age for wild dancing and loud music; fifty is more the age for stimulating conversation with close, insightful friends.

Eyebrows wanted to tell her that none of the people here are close to Avner, but he sees that she’s already on the verge of tears and decides to keep quiet and let her drag him to the couch. She sits him down, and Band-Aid and Mustache join them.

Mustache is a world champion calmer-downer. He’s already had more than a few conversations in his life with clients who lost all their money after the bottom fell out of one investment or another and he always knows how to act, especially with women. Now he bombards them with jokes, pours them all drinks, puts a comforting hand on Pnina’s pale shoulder. If a stranger walked in, he’d probably think they were a couple.

Band-Aid seems pretty much at home too. What he has going for him is that he’s in no great hurry to leave. He has a wife who always looks as if someone close to her has died, and an annoying two-year-old kid it’s his turn to bathe today.

Here, he can sit around, drink a little, rub shoulders with someone who’s had a bit more success in life than him, at least financially, and officially it could even be considered work.

Back home, whenever he gets there, he’ll just have to make a tired face and say they talked his head off all evening and all he could do was smile and take it because they’re really good clients.

“That’s how it is,” he’ll tell his wife, “to make a living, I have to listen to people’s crap just like you have to …” and then he’ll shut up as if he’s forgotten, as if it just slipped his mind that she hasn’t worked for more than two years and the entire financial burden falls on him alone.

She’ll probably cry then, tell him that the postpartum depression isn’t her fault, that it’s a scientifically proven illness, that it’s not just in her mind, it’s chemical, like any other illness. She’s dying to go back to work, if only she could, but she can’t, she just can’t … and he’ll interrupt her stream of words and apologize, say he didn’t mean anything, that the words just slipped out of his mouth. And she’ll believe him, or not. With all that wasteland between them, what does it really matter.

Mustache seems to pick up on everything that’s going through Band-Aid’s mind and pours him a little more cognac.

That Mustache is something, Band-Aid thinks, a special guy. Eyebrows, on the other hand, is kind of neurotic and makes him nervous. When they first got here, he kept eating the whole time and now he just looks at his watch and scratches himself. Before, when Pnina tried to persuade him to stay, he almost wanted to break into the conversation and tell her to leave him alone, to just let him go. No one needs him here. You might think he’s Avner’s childhood friend or something when he’s just some guy who drilled his teeth.

And anyway, when he thinks about it, it’s a little strange that they’re the only ones who came. What does that say about Avner’s really close friends? That they’re so egotistical? That he’s offended them? Or maybe he doesn’t have any?

The intercom buzzes and Pnina runs to answer it. Mustache winks at Eyebrows, and Band-Aid and pours another round of cognac. “Don’t worry,” he says to Eyebrows, as if he’s another customer of the bank who’s fallen on bad times, “it’ll be fine.”

It’s just the catering guy on the intercom. Their truck is blocking someone. He asks if he can park in the building parking lot. Before Pnina can answer, the phone rings. She hurries over to pick up the receiver. Silence on the other end.

“Avner,” she says, “where are you? Is everything okay?” She knows it’s Avner because his number is on the display. But there’s no answer on the other end, just the drone of a dead line.

Pnina starts to cry, but it’s a weird kind of crying. Her eyes are wet and her whole body trembles, but she doesn’t make a sound, like a cell phone on vibrate. Mustache goes right over and takes the cognac glass out of her hand a second before it would have fallen and shattered.

“He’s not okay,” Pnina says, throwing her arms around Mustache, “something isn’t right with him. I knew it, this whole time I knew it. That’s why I decided to have the party, to cheer him up.”

Mustache takes her to the couch and sits her down next to Eyebrows.

Eyebrows is bummed out. When Pnina came back from answering the phone, he planned to tell her that he had to go. His wife is waiting for him or something, but now he knows he can’t. Pnina’s sitting so close to him now that he can hear her irregular breathing. And her face is totally pale. It looks like she’s going to faint.

Band-Aid brings a glass of water and Mustache puts it to her lips. She drinks a little and starts to calm down.

That was a scary moment, Eyebrows thinks.

I wonder what he said to her on the phone, Band-Aid thinks.

Even when she’s weak, Mustache thinks, even when she’s on the verge of collapse, she’s all woman. Deep in his pants, he feels the beginning of an erection and hopes no one else notices.

The intercom buzzes. It’s the catering guy again; he’s waiting for an answer about parking in the building parking lot. Traffic’s crazy now and finding a spot on the street for a large truck is just impossible. Band-Aid, who answered the buzz, repeats the question out loud.

Mustache gives him a tell-him-it’s-okay nod. But the semiconscious Pnina mumbles that he shouldn’t use the tenants’ parking. There’s a neighbor on the seventeenth floor who causes problems. Just last week, an acquaintance who stopped by to see her for an hour, even less, got towed.

Eyebrows volunteers to go downstairs and tell the caterers they can’t park in the building lot. From there, he thinks, the way home will be shorter.

Mustache says he should stay, Pnina isn’t doing well and it would be better to have a doctor around. “I’m a doctor of dentistry,” Eyebrows says.

“You’re a doctor of dentistry, I know,” Mustache counters.

Pnina says that they have to go to Avner’s office right now. It’s not like him to call and then hang up like that. Anyway, something’s been wrong with him lately. He’s always taking pills. He told Pnina they were for headaches, but Pnina knows headache pills, and what Avner’s taking isn’t Tylenol or Advil, it’s this black, elliptical pill that isn’t like any other pill she’s ever seen before. And at night he has nightmares, she knows, because she heard him yelling in his sleep.

“Talk to Cohavi,” he yelled, “talk to Cohavi.” When she asked him about it, he said everything was fine and he doesn’t know any Cohavi.

But she knows that he does. Igal Cohavi. His phone number is in Avner’s BlackBerry. And of all the numbers listed there, his was the only one she didn’t call. She thought he might put a damper on the atmosphere.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Pnina says. “I’m scared.”

Mustache nods and says that all four of them should go to Avner’s office to see if he’s okay.

Eyebrows says that they’re all getting a little carried away here and the first thing Pnina should do is call him again. Their phone conversation got cut off; things like that happen all the time. Something might be wrong with Avner, but something might be wrong with the phone company too, and they should check it out before they schlep all the way to Herzliya.

With shaking hands, Pnina punches in Avner’s office number. She puts the phone on speaker. Band-Aid thinks that’s strange. What if Avner picks up and tells her something intimate or insulting; that could be awkward.

But there’s no answer on the other end. Eyebrows says she should try Avner’s cell, so Pnina tries. A recorded announcement tells her she’s reached Avner Katzman and anyone who needs him urgently should call his secretary or text him because he doesn’t listen to messages.

Mustache doesn’t know Avner, but just from his diction he can tell he wouldn’t like him. There’s something haughty about his voice, the voice of someone who thinks everything is coming to him, a kind of noblesse oblige without the oblige.

A lot of the clientele at Mustache’s Ra’anana branch were like that, the kind of people who were offended every time the bank charged them a fee. The way they saw it, just agreeing to open an account in Mustache’s branch was already a huge gift they’d given to the bank, and how rude, not to mention ungrateful, of the bank to still charge them for a new checkbook or expect them to pay interest on overdrawn funds after they’d made such a lovely gesture.

Eyebrows asks Pnina to text Avner, but Mustache interrupts him, saying they have no more time to waste and they should all drive to his office now. Band-Aid agrees quickly; this whole business seems like an adventure to him.

The truth is that he’s not worried about Avner killing himself, because his life insurance policy doesn’t cover suicide, but now, even if Band-Aid doesn’t get home till four in the morning, he can tell his wife it had to do with work.

They all decide to ride in Mustache’s car, a new Honda Civic. In the elevator, Eyebrows still tries to convince them to split up—he and Band-Aid would take his car—but Mustache firmly vetoes the idea.

Band-Aid and Eyebrows sit in the back with their safety belts buckled like two kids on a Saturday family trip. The only thing missing is for Eyebrows to complain to Mustache, “Daddy, Band-Aid’s teasing me,” or to ask him to stop at a gas station because he has to pee-pee.

Eyebrows, he’s capable of stuff like that, a real baby. If there was a war on now, Mustache thinks, and lots of people say there is, Eyebrows is the last person he’d want watching his back. Avner is a pain in the ass, that much is clear already, but still, your patient disappears, his wife is an emotional wreck, and all you can think about is bruschetta and getting home early?

Eyebrows is texting in the back, probably to his wife, probably something sarcastic. Band-Aid is trying to sneak a look at the message, but the angle is wrong. A minute later, when Eyebrows receives an answer, he can read it, and it says, “I’m waiting for you in bed wearing only socks.”

That makes Band-Aid jealous. He has never gotten a sexy text message. The last time his wife wanted to say anything sexy to him was before texting was invented, and he doesn’t let all those women he fucks on the side text him or leave voice mail. He once read in a newspaper that even if you erase messages, the cell phone company still has copies and they can blackmail you or just screw up your life.

There’s heavy traffic all the way to Herzliya. Everyone who works in Tel Aviv is on his way home now. Traffic in the other direction is actually light.

Eyebrows can picture Avner driving home now after a completely ordinary day’s work. In that phone conversation, he’d probably wanted to tell Pnina that he loved her, that he’s sorry he’s been a little stressed-out these last few days, and also for lying about the black pills. They’re for hemorrhoids, and he was too embarrassed to tell her, so he tried to sell her a story about headaches.

And when he gets home he’ll see some pissed-off people in a caterer’s truck fighting over a parking spot with one of the neighbors and he’ll think some Buddhist thought like how many of our fights in life are about trivialities, then he’ll skip over to the elevator, and when he reaches his floor and opens the door, he’ll find a completely empty apartment and a half-empty bottle of cognac.

Pnina won’t be there and that’ll really hurt. After all, today’s his birthday. He doesn’t need gifts or parties from her, they’re past the age for that kind of crap, but is it too much to ask your life partner to be with you, just be with you on your lousy birthday? And, Eyebrows thinks, at the very same time, Pnina is in a traffic jam on the way to Herzliya. What a joke.

But Avner isn’t driving to his apartment in Ramat Aviv now. And he isn’t in his office in Herzliya either.

When the four of them finally get there, there’s no one in the office, but the security guard at the entrance says he saw Avner leave less than an hour ago. He says Avner had a gun. He knows that because Avner asked him to help cock it. Not that Avner didn’t know how to do that, he did, but something was stuck and he wanted the security guard to help him get it unstuck.

Except that the security guard wasn’t exactly the right person for the job; he was just an old Kazakh who had grown vegetables in some remote village his whole life, not Rambo. When he came to Israel he asked to work as a farmer, but the people in the agency said no, only Thais and Arabs work in farming today, and what he can do from now till he dies is retire or be a security guard.

He tells Mustache that when he couldn’t help with the gun, Avner got angry at him and even started cursing.

“It’s not nice,” the security guard says. “It’s not nice to curse a man my age. And for what? I did something wrong?”

Mustache nods. He knows that if he wants to, he can calm down the security guard too, but he doesn’t have the energy anymore. And that talk about the gun bothers him. All the way here he was thinking Pnina might be exaggerating with all that worrying of hers, but now he sees she’s really right.

“If he asked me about agriculture, I could help him with everything,” the guard says to Band-Aid. “I like to help. But about guns, I don’t know. So that is a reason to curse?”

On the way back to the car, Pnina is crying. Eyebrows says that this whole business is out of their hands now, they have to call the police.

Band-Aid butts in, claiming that the police won’t do a thing. If you don’t have connections, it takes at least a day before they start moving their asses. Not that Band-Aid has a better plan than going to the police, but Eyebrows has been getting on his nerves for a while now and the last thing he wants is to agree with him about anything.

Mustache strokes Pnina’s hair. He doesn’t have a plan either; he can’t think at all while she’s crying. Her tears flood his brain, drowning all thoughts before they can be completed. And the fact that Band-Aid and Eyebrows are arguing next to him—that doesn’t exactly help his concentration either.

“You two take a taxi. You can’t help here anymore,” he tells them.

“What about you and Pnina?” Band-Aid asks. He really doesn’t want to go, or pay for a cab, or drive all the way to Ramat Aviv with Eyebrows.

Mustache shrugs. He has no answer for that.

“He’s right,” Eyebrows says, knowing that this is his chance to take off, and besides, Mustache is really right, the fact that there are four of them doesn’t help anything. Mustache can drive to the police station with Pnina alone, he doesn’t need them to come along and hold his hand.

Band-Aid isn’t happy with the whole idea; now that there’s a gun and some action, going home would be a real bummer. If he stays he can change something, maybe save that Avner; and even if he doesn’t and he just finds his body with Mustache and Pnina, that would be an experience he’d probably remember for the rest of his life. Maybe not the greatest experience, but still, an experience.

He hasn’t had too many of those these last few years. There was the blast wave of that missile landing near their vacation tzimmer in the north, shattering the window, and a basketball game he went to once with a friend and the TV cameras caught him yawning. Maybe also when his son was born. Even though he wasn’t really there for it. His wife made him leave the delivery room a few minutes before because she was angry at him for answering a call from someone at work.

In short, Band-Aid isn’t hot on leaving, but he knows that if Mustache and Eyebrows are against him, he can’t insist on staying without seeming like an asshole. The only way to save the situation now is to come up with an idea. A killer idea that’ll lead to a plan and put him right in the center of things as the originator, someone useful, someone worth having around.

“We have to talk to Igal Cohavi,” he says, partly to Mustache, partly to Pnina, who’s done crying now and is just panting. “Pnina said she has his number from Avner’s BlackBerry. And if he had a dream about him that made him yell, Avner must really have him on his mind. Who knows, that whole story with the gun makes it look like he’s going to commit suicide, but what if he’s planning to kill that Cohavi instead? We should call and warn him, find out.”

As soon as Band-Aid says commit suicide, Pnina starts crying again, and when he says kill, she faints dead away.

Luckily, Mustache manages to catch her a second before her face hits the sidewalk.

Band-Aid runs over to Mustache to help, but the look on Mustache’s face makes it clear that that’s not a good idea.

Eyebrows says it’s nothing, just the pressure. Someone should get her a glass of water, sit her down on a bench, and she’ll be on her feet in no time.

“Get out of here, both of you,” Mustache yells, “get out of here now!”

Later, in the taxi, Band-Aid will tell Eyebrows that Mustache went too far; who is he to open a mouth like that to them? These days, if an officer talks to his soldiers like that, he gets a formal complaint lodged against him, so who the hell is Mustache to yell that way at two people he barely knows and who are only trying to help?

That’s what he’ll say later, in the taxi. But now, outside the office building in Herzliya Pituach, Band-Aid doesn’t say anything, and he and Eyebrows walk away, leaving Mustache and Pnina alone.

Mustache carries her to the car and puts her in the passenger seat gently, as if she were a fragile object. Pnina comes to even before they reach the car and mumbles something, her eyes half-closed, but only after he puts her down does he start to listen.

“I’m thirsty,” she says.

“I know,” Mustache says. “I don’t have any water in the car, I’m sorry. We can drive somewhere to buy a bottle. On the way here, really close by, I saw a branch of Aroma.”

“You think he’s dead already?” she asks.

“Who?” Mustache asks.

He knows who she means but pretends not to—that’s a trick meant to make her fear seem unfounded. She looks at him but doesn’t say “Avner” like he thought she would. All she does is look at him.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Mustache says. His voice sounds convincing. It’s the voice that got him the Ra’anana branch and now the one in Ramat Aviv.

“I’m scared,” Pnina says, just as he’d imagined her saying it the first time he saw her that evening. She’s so beautiful when she says it.

Mustache leans forward and kisses her dry lips. Her lips move away from his. He doesn’t see anything, doesn’t even notice her hand move, but his cheek feels the slap.

When Eyebrows gets home, his wife is already asleep. He doesn’t feel the slightest bit tired. His body is exploding with adrenaline. Eyebrows’s mind knows that all the fainting and waiting and weird arguments tonight were all about nothing, but his body is stupid enough to take it seriously. Instead of getting into bed, he sits down in front of the computer and checks his e-mail.

The only message he has is from some jerk who went to elementary school with him and found his e-mail address through an Internet site.

That’s what’s so frustrating about all that technology, Eyebrows thinks. The ones who invented the Internet were geniuses and probably believed they were advancing humanity, but in the end, instead of people using all that ingenuity to do research and gain knowledge, they use it to harass some poor guy who sat next to them in the fourth grade.

What exactly is he supposed to write back to that Yiftach Rozales? You remember how we drew a line right down the middle of the desk? How you used to elbow me in the ribs when I crossed it?

Eyebrows tries to imagine what Yiftach Rozales’s life is like if all he has to do in his free time is search for some kid he never really liked who was in his class thirty years ago.

After a few minutes of feeling superior to Rozales, Eyebrows starts thinking about himself. And exactly what is he doing with his life? Bending over smelly mouths, drilling and filling cavities in rotten teeth.

“A highly respected profession,” that’s what his mother always says when she talks about dentistry.

What’s to respect? What actually is the difference between being a dentist and being a plumber? They both work in smelly holes, drilling and filling openings to make a living. Both earn decent money. And it’s highly probable that neither one really enjoys his profession.

Except that Eyebrows’s work is “highly respected,” and to gain that respect, Eyebrows had to leave the country for five years to study in Romania while the plumber probably had to invest a little less time.

Today was really the worst, operating on the gums of that old man who never stopped wailing and bleeding, practically choking on the suction. And Eyebrows, who kept trying to calm him down, couldn’t stop thinking that it was all for nothing. That it would take that old man at least a year of suffering to get used to the implants and probably two days before or after that he’ll die of a heart attack or cancer or a stroke or whatever it is people his age die of.

There should be an age limit for patients, he thinks as he takes off his shoes. You just have to say to them, “You lived long enough. From now on, think of what’s left as a bonus, a gift without an exchange slip. It hurts? Stay in bed. It still hurts? Wait: Either you’ll die or it’ll pass.”

That age, Eyebrows thinks to himself as he brushes his teeth, is on its way to me, galloping like a wild horse spraying foam from its nostrils. Soon it’ll be me lying in that bed, not getting up. And something about that thought comforts him.

The last time, the only other time that Pnina ever slapped someone, it was Avner. That was seventeen years ago. He wasn’t rich yet, or bitter or balding, but he already exuded that confidence that everything was his. It was their first date and they went to a restaurant.

Avner was nasty to the waiter and made him take back his food, which wasn’t fantastic, but decent enough. She couldn’t figure out what she was doing at the same table with that arrogant guy.

Her roommate had fixed them up. She’d told Pnina that Avner was brilliant and she’d told Avner that Pnina was charming, which was actually her way of saying that she was pretty without feeling like a chauvinist.

Avner spent the whole evening talking to her about stocks and derivatives and institutional investors and didn’t let her get a word in edgewise. After dinner he drove her to her apartment in his battered white Autobianchi. He stopped in front of her building, turned off the engine, and suggested going up with her.

She said she didn’t think that was a good idea. He reminded her that he knew her roommate and that he just wanted to go upstairs for a minute to say hello to her. Hello and thanks for introducing them.

Pnina smiled politely and said that her roommate would be back late because she was working the night shift. She promised to give her his regards and pass on his thanks and already had the door open to get out, but Avner closed it and kissed her.

There was no hesitation, no wondering how she felt there on the other side of the kiss. It was just a kiss on the mouth, but it felt like rape.

Pnina slapped him and got out of the car. Avner didn’t try to follow or call her. From the apartment balcony, she could see his Autobianchi standing there, not moving. For maybe an hour. It was still there when Pnina went to sleep.

In the morning, a delivery guy woke her with a huge and slightly tasteless bouquet of flowers. There was only one word written on the card. Sorry.

“I’m sorry,” Mustache says, “I didn’t mean it.”

And Pnina could have been tough on him, could have asked him what exactly did he mean, kissing her? Taking advantage of her weakness? Driving all the way to Herzliya with her in a car that smelled of coconut air deodorizer mixed with sweat? But she doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t have the strength. She just wants Mustache to take her home.

“Maybe we should go to the police,” Mustache says, “just to be on the safe side.”

But Pnina says no. Avner will come home in the end, she just knows it, he’s not the kind to commit suicide or shoot someone. After Band-Aid said that, it scared her at first, but now when she tries to picture Avner sticking the gun in his mouth or pressing it against his temple—it’s just not him. When she looks at her hands she can see they are shaking, but her mind has already decided that Avner is all right.

Mustache doesn’t argue, he just drives Pnina home.

The catering truck is parked outside with two wheels on the sidewalk, still blocking the street. Poor guys, they’ve been waiting there the whole time. Mustache says he’ll get out and talk to them. He wants to help her with something, to make up for what happened. But she doesn’t let him. Not to punish him; she just doesn’t have the energy.

After Pnina gets out of the car, he calls after her. The rage she felt earlier is gone now. She’s not angry at him anymore, really. He actually seems like a nice person. And that kiss—maybe his timing was a little off, but she sensed how much he wanted her from the moment he arrived, and for most of the evening it made her feel good.

Mustache gives her the gift for Avner and his business card, explaining that his cell number is on the card too and she can call him no matter how late. She nods.

She won’t call him, not today.

Band-Aid finds a parking spot right outside his building. But instead of going up to the second floor, putting his key in the lock, taking off his clothes in the dark hallway, and creeping quietly to his side of the bed, he starts to walk. At first, he has no idea where he’s headed: Shtand Street, King Solomon, King George, then Dizengoff Street. Only on Dizengoff does he realize that he wants to go to the sea.

He keeps walking till he reaches the promenade, and from there he goes down to the beach. He takes off his shoes and socks and just stands there, scooping up the sand with his toes. Behind him he can hear the noise of traffic, and trance music probably coming from an all-night liquor store. In front of him, he hears the sound of the waves crashing against the breakwater not far from there.

“Excuse me,” a young guy with an army buzz cut says, appearing out of nowhere, “you live here?”

Band-Aid nods.

“Great,” Buzz Cut says, “so maybe you know where to go for some fun?”

Band-Aid can ask him what kind of fun he means: Alcohol? Girls? A mysterious blast of warmth flooding your chest? What’s the point, he doesn’t know where to find any of those things, so he just shakes his head.

But Buzz Cut persists. “You said you live here, right?”

Band-Aid doesn’t answer, just looks to the distant point where the black of the sea meets the black of the sky.

I wonder what happened to that Avner, he thinks. I hope that in the end, it all worked out.

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