Half an hour later, she returned home. He didn’t yell, she didn’t cry and nasty words weren’t thrown at one another. He placed the envelope with the pictures in her hand and she looked at them, one after the other, with frozen eyes and heavy breaths. His eyes shot fire and brimstone as he turned his gaze towards the dining area next to the front door, and indicated that she should look in the same direction. A worn suitcase, whose faded green color was covered with a sticky layer of dust, stood there, waiting for her. The last time the suitcase served her was threeyears earlier, when they had traveled to wintry Prague. The day they returned home, their relationship began to unravel and fade, like life seeping out of an aging body.
Ario St. José was a lone soldier who had moved to Israel from Spain. After completing his service with an air force unit in Tel Aviv, Ario chose to sign up for courses in history and English literature at the Open University. There he met Tamara, the curious woman who relieved his loneliness and perfectly complemented his role in their game—she, the director of Student Administration, and he, a handsome and charming young man.
His attraction to her, a woman ten years his senior, flattered her to no end. They would meet once a week on her day off from work. The incredible sex she enjoyed with Ario she had never experienced (nor would ever) with Ro’el; it was stronger than any obstacle and more durable than any stumbling block. When the semester ended, their weekly trysts turned into a near daily rendezvous. Nothing could stop their festival of sex—not the lies that Tamara kept feeding Ro’el, nor the two buses she had to take and then still walk a distance to Ario’s small studio apartment in west Herzliya. The young student’s residence in a well-appointed rented apartment was feasible thanks to the St. José family that did not lack for money. Ario’s parents, Catalonians from Barcelona, had a lucrative architectural firm and financed all their son’s needs. While walking to his place, Tamara would imagine the tranquility in his eyes, his slight, thin, yet muscular body, and the touch of his hands that would send ripples of pleasure coursing through her.
As time passed, Tamara’s made-up excuses and lies became increasingly strange, weird and gross, rousing Ro’el’s suspicions—the red flags that should have alerted him long before, but that he had ignored, or perhaps repressed them. His new partnership in a flourishing law firm specializing in criminal cases drew himinto demanding work that continued into the wee hours of the night, and it was that very fact that had created the fertile ground in which Tamara and Ario’s love affair took root. Were it not for friends who eventually made Ro’el see the light, Tamara could have continued her clandestine rendezvous with her Latin lover indefinitely.
Tamara was one of those women who believed that a woman has but two ways to climb up the tough ladder in a man’s world: The first—to be a woman of opinion, influence and power; and the second—to move up the ladder via the beds of men of opinion, influence and power. She mostly preferred the latter. Thus, despite the Spanish flame that ignited her body, she never considered leaving Ro’el and moving in with the young student. She harbored no feelings towards him, just her animalistic attraction to him and his skill in meeting her needs, which had never been satisfied in her conjugal bed. The very thought of parting with the immense sums of money that were continually placed into the joint bank account ever since Ro’el became a partner in the firm horrified her.
However, yesterday, when Ro’el stood there, determined and silent, holding the incriminating evidence in his hand, she said not a word. She just picked up the suitcase and left the house. Forty-five minutes later, she was already standing at the door of the studio apartment. Ario opened the door wearing nothing but disheveled, white boxer shorts that didn’t conceal his excitement.
“Tamara…” he scratched his head. “Hey… um, this isn’t your usual hour…” he managed to say without even thinking to use one of the Latin lover’s endearments that he would whisper to her while making love.
“My usual hour?” she didn’t understand.
Then her eye caught the shapely, young woman dressed onlyin panties, who called out to him from the bedroom: “Hey, Handsome, com’on already... who’s the old lady?”
He tried taking Tamara’s hand, but she pulled away and, with tears streaming down her face, hurried out, one cheek still burning from the painful slap of being kicked out of her house, and now the other—stinging from the humiliating scene at her lover’s door.
In the dead of night, she managed to find a taxi that brought her to her mother’s home in the southern city of Ashdod. If her father would have known what had happened, he would surely rise up from his grave and give her yet a third slap in the face. How joyful he had been when his wayward daughter chose to share her life with a young, gifted lawyer. Ro’el personified everything her father wanted in a son-in-law, and everything she had always run away from. He was solid and quiet, smart and competent. He had no stories to share of eye-opening romantic conquests, he hadn’t experienced spellbinding adventures in faraway lands, nor had he delved into wild sex in zany places. He never sought to stand out, he didn’t take up much space, and these very attributes—along with his integrity and honesty—were what made him a fantastic litigator and advocate. He was adored by the judges who admired his thorough writing and creative argumentations. Hence, it seemed natural that after only two years, he was made a partner in one of the country’s leading law firms. White collar criminals from every part of the country descended upon his office on the eighth floor of the Justice Building in central Tel Aviv to hire his services. Even when the retainer fees rocketed, more and more clients kept lining up. Everyone wanted attorney Ro’el Givati to represent them on their day in court.
Forty-one years earlier, when his mother was seven months pregnant, she rushed out excitedly to the porch of their smallapartment and announced to her husband: “I know what we’ll name him!”
His father lowered the newspaper from his face for a moment and said lethargically, “I’m listening.”
“Ro’el!”
His father put the paper down, placed his hands on his large beer belly and repeated the name, not understanding: “Ro’el?”
“Ro’el—one who sees God’s mysterious ways! Ro’el.”
Now, however—twelve hours after understanding that his marriage, which he had built and then neglected, had fallen apart in his hands—he found it challenging to see God and understand where His mysterious ways were leading. He gulped down a second glass of Tia Maria—a mixture of alcohol, coffee beans, vanilla and sugar—relishing the flavors. It was early in the morning, an hour more suited to a fruit shake or a small cup of espresso, but not Tia Maria, and certainly not a second shot of the Jamaican liqueur. He tried to go back to writing on the yellow pad on the table in front of him, to continue with what he had begun just a short while ago, but the words refused to line up into sentences. The pen in his hand was old and, most likely, so was the yellow notepad. A sad image was reflected from the window facing him. The kind, brown eyes seemed extinguished and hesitant, the short-cropped dark hair was receding, creating two small inlets on the balding scalp, but still, it was a handsome face.
The dozens of case files piled on his desk would wait for tomorrow. As a senior partner, a short call to his secretary would free him from going to the office today. He knew that Tamara would put up a fight and hire a lawyer specializing in family law. For sure, at first, any fledgling lawyer fresh out of law school will gladly take on her battle. But later, after realizing whom he or she was up against, they may back up and retreat in order to steer clear of clashing with a senior colleague.
Ro’el watched as the hail kept pounding on the café window and muttered to himself: “Nothing good is going to happen to me today… nothing good is going to happen to me today.”
He raised the glass and let the remaining drops of liqueur slide down his throat. Its wonderful flavor did not disappoint him. “Hey, bro!” he called out to the barman, “another round of Tia Maria please.”
Chapter Two
“The poor man and the deceitful meet together;
the Lord gives light to the eyes of them both.”
Proverbs, 29:13
It was so predictable that her dilapidated Clio would die on her on this of all days, when she needed it the most. The car’s motor puttered lazily and thick vapors rose from under the hood. Tammi pulled off the road into a long, narrow asphalt parking lot. She phoned her friend, Inbal.
“Would you believe it?! Someone up there doesn’t like me.”
“Hey, gorgeous, don’t talk like that. What happened? Where are you?” Inbal asked with sincere concern.
“I’m stuck, there’s smoke coming out of the engine. If the day has turned bad… then it’ll be bad till the end.”
“Isn’t there anyone who can help you?”
Tammi looked around her. Everything that had happened to her in the past twenty-four hours occurred with the speed of a swift stroke of a sword. The pounding rain had emptied the roads and sidewalks of cars and pedestrians, and the only thing reflected in her rearview mirror was the pile of brown cardboard boxes in the back seat of her car that nearly totally blocked her view. “Maybe there’s someone at the café,” she thought out loud, “I’ll go check.”
