I’m completely lost, he says. There’s a story I used to tell myself about my life—and it turns out that it’s wrong. And I have no fucking idea where to go from here.
The three-card monte con man sets up next to us, this is his regular place on the promenade. His cronies gather around his box, but the fierce wind blows the three cards away—only one of them is the jack—and the con man and his cronies run after them to try and catch them.
How about eating at Dr. Shakshuka? I finally say.
My American friend laughs. He’s crazy about shakshuka.
As long as a person keeps his sense of humor and his appetite, I think, there’s a chance he can be saved. We head for the Clock Tower, the wind has died down a little, and I notice that he’s slightly stooped and has slowed down. Usually I have a hard time keeping up with him when we walk, but now I have to slow down so we can stay close. Right before the entrance to Dr. Shakshuka, he stops, straightens up, and puts a hand on my shoulder. Partly patronizing. Partly to keep himself from falling. Think about what I said about politics, he says. If people like you continue to stay on the sidelines, you won’t have a country left or sidelines you can stand on.
—
On the way back from my walk with my uncle from America, I see a billboard. It happens while I’m speeding along the Ayalon highway, so I have only a second to look. It’s enough to register Yoram Sirkin’s face and read my slogan: Sirkin. Only he can save our country. What doesn’t the general public know about you?
Not only the general public. Dikla doesn’t know either that my relationship with Yoram Sirkin continued for years, and is continuing secretly to this day. My fingers tremble as I write this, and I’m not sure I’ll have the courage to press Save after typing these lines, but it’s the truth: I was there. At every step up Sirkin took. I’m the one who wrote the speech that propelled him into public consciousness, the one he delivered after a rocket hit a building in his city. The sentence “The best defense against a Quassam is the solidarity of our people”—it’s mine. When, after the war, he decided to run in the national primaries, he hired an ad agency for the sake of appearances, but kept buying slogans from me on the side. I never believed that, with the help of my slogans, he would climb high enough on the list of candidates to win a Knesset seat. I never believed that you could lie to everyone, all the time. And I certainly never thought that, during his first term in the Knesset, they would begin talking about him as a candidate for the cabinet.
That was when I tried to end my dealings with him. I arranged an appointment with him. In a failing café in Kiryat Ono. I asked him to come alone. He said: You need money, kid? Is that what this is about? Because if you do, just say the word. That’s not the issue, I said (money has never been the issue, the issue is having influence, the issue is hearing words I wrote echoing in the public space, the issue is that the influence and the echo are intoxicating).
Even in the failing café in Kiryat Ono, Yoram Sirkin’s entrance caused a small commotion. The barman asked to shake his hand. The waitress wanted to take a selfie with him. And so did the stoned guy who worked in the adjacent kiosk. I watched him as he gave them his all. The last few years, I’ve seen him only on TV. We communicated only by well-coded e-mail. It turns out that there are things you can’t see on TV. The small potbelly he’d grown, along with the suit he was wearing, gave him a more authoritative air. He really wasn’t wearing glasses anymore, probably laser surgery, which enabled him to look directly at anyone speaking to him. He moved around nimbly, purposefully, and his face looked tan and healthy. As if he had been photoshopped.
In the end, it happened, I thought as he approached my table: Yoram Sirkin has stepped into the shoes of the image I created for him. The fiction had solidified into reality. The puppet had cut its strings. The parrot had spread its wings, broken out of its cage, and taken off.
What’s up, kid? he said, sitting down and signaling for the waiter. What’s happening in the world of literature? You’re a disappearing world, believe me.
Listen, Yoram—I got straight to the point—I want to stop.
Stop what?
Working for you. Writing for you.
Okay. Can I ask why?
It doesn’t work for me anymore. You and I really don’t see eye to eye, ideologically, you know, recently—
But we’re a great success, kid.
You are, Yoram. Maybe a little too great.
So the golem turns on its creator, eh?
Something like that.
Do I look like a golem to you?
No, Yoram, of course not, definitely not—
Waiter! he shouted suddenly.
The waiter hurried over, looking apologetic, and took our order.
When he left our table, Yoram said, Listen to me and listen well, and rubbed his hands together as if he were performing the hand-washing mitzvah. He spoke quietly, which is what made it so alarming.
Yoram Sirkin doesn’t force anyone to work with him. But take into account that if you cut ties with me now, when I need you most, there will be a price.
A price?
I have all your e-mails, kid. One click on Forward, and you’re finished.
Let me get this straight, you’re threatening me?
Just the opposite, kid. I’m watching out for you. How do you think people in your milieu will react if they know you’ve been working for the other side? And with
