So why can’t you fall asleep, son? he asks when the waiter leaves. My mother once told me that one of the reasons she fell in love with him was his remarkable ability to return to a conversation at the exact—and I mean exact—moment it was broken off.
No real reason. I’m a light sleeper, you know.
Like your mother.
You have to know which traits to inherit from whom. Color blindness from you, and from her—
So tell me, is everything with Dikla okay?
Yes, of course, why? Because she doesn’t come to Haifa with us? You know Dikla, always busy.
That’s true, he says, sounding a tiny bit dubious. But dubious nevertheless. And I know that he suspects something is very much not all right between me and Dikla. Because how much can you hide from your parents, especially if they’re psychologists, and I know that now he’ll turn around to face the sea, giving me the space I need to begin telling him what happened. I suspect that Mickey’s story was a chess player’s maneuver meant to leave me open to this moment, and I know I can tell him that I’m in trouble—yesterday I told Dikla that nothing actually happened in Colombia, that I had made up the story of cheating because I felt she was moving away from me and I wanted to shake her up, and she looked at me for a long time and said: You’re screwed up, you know? All screwed up—and if I tell him that, I will have the benefit of his wisdom, his experience and kindness, his considered opinion, and all the qualities that put light in the eyes of the people who come up to me after my lectures—your eyes too, Hanita?—to speak about him. I know that he will be cautious and discreet about every intimate detail I reveal to him, he is very far from being a gossip. I also know that the window of opportunity here is narrow, because my Dad might be a psychologist but he is also a man of long silences, not a man who bulldozes, and in another minute, he’ll turn around from the sea, signal the waiter to bring the bill, and say, Mom is waiting for us, we should go back. I know all this, but nonetheless, say nothing.
Why, starting from a certain age, can’t we share anything important with our parents, Hanita? Is it because, as Genesis tells us “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife,” or is it just because we don’t want to worry or burden them? Or maybe we want to maintain the image of successful, thriving people we hope they see when they look at us? Then again, maybe I’m the only one who is silent with his father, Hanita, and as I write to you, millions of people in the world are sharing whatever is on their minds with their parents, without hesitation.
On the way back to the Carmel, we talked about Noam’s bat mitzvah and about movies. My father loves to go to the movies and then criticize them as if he is, at the very least, a newspaper movie reviewer. Action movies are the only ones he really loves, and that’s because they have no pretensions of being quality films.
In the end, I asked about you, Hanita. He doesn’t remember you, but don’t take offense. At home, my mother is responsible for the long-term memories, and when we got home and I asked her, she immediately said, Hanita Brodetsky, of course. She reminded him that you studied statistics with him and remembered who your boyfriend was, and she even remembered what you used to wear. In short, my parents send you their warm regards. When will they produce a film adaptation of your latest book? When I read it, I could actually imagine the movie.
What a book! he said, shaking his head in disbelief. What a book!
Thank you.
I started reading it in the duty-free shop and couldn’t put it down for the whole flight.
Thank you, thank you very much.
The minute I finished it, I said to my wife: This is a movie.
Really?
She didn’t hear me, she fell asleep.
My wife sleeps on flights too.
Your writing is so…visual. And the dialogue? Pure pleasure.
I’m glad you think so.
Between you and me, we could start filming tomorrow.
Great.
There’s only one small thing.
Yes?
They’d probably have to move the story to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem?
Because of the Jerusalem Fund special grant for movies filmed in the city.
But—
And the heroine—would you object to her being German instead of Israeli?
Why?
It leaves the door open to a coproduction with the German company that worked with us on Springtime in Sobibor.
But—
Which, by the way, has just been accepted to the Cannes Film Festival.
Wonderful, but—
Do you have a suit and tie?
Yes, why?
You’ll need it to walk on the red carpet in another two years.
But—
I get the impression that something’s bothering you.
Actually, yes. How can the heroine be German if she meets the hero when they’re both in the Israeli navy?
Everything is fixable.
What do you mean?
Why do they have screenwriters if not to fix things like that?
I don’t see how scree—
Here’s an example: Germany sells submarines to Israel, right?
Let’s say it does.
So one day he’s standing on the pier and her submarine emerges from the water. Like Bo Derek.
Didn’t you say it takes place in Jerusalem?
Right, so there’s no problem at all. She comes to the Western Wall. He’s an army security guard there.
But—
And then we can get a development grant from the Cornucopia Fund.
The Cornucopia Fund?
They back films that have Jewish content.
But—
I hope it’s okay with you that
