Here I Am (25 page)

“That's heavy,” Irv said.

“And the heaviest part?” Jacob leaned in and whispered, “He's not circumcised.”

Max threw his hands into the air. “What did you, kiss his wiener in a bathroom stall?”

“Who is this Spielberg?” Tamir asked.

“We were at
urinals
, Max.” And just to be clear: “And of course I didn't kiss his wiener.”

“That simply cannot be right,” Irv said.

“I know. But I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Why were
your own eyes
checking out another man's penis?” Max asked.

“Because he's Steven Spielberg.”

“Why won't someone tell me who this person is?” Tamir said.

“Because I don't believe that you don't know who he is.”

“Why would I pretend?” Tamir asked, entirely believably.

“Because it's your bizarre Israeli way of diminishing the achievements of American Jews.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

“You'd have to tell me.”

“OK,” Tamir said, calmly wiping the remnants of six packets of duck sauce from the corners of his mouth, “whatever you say.” He got up and headed in the direction of the condiments bar.

“You have to go back in and be sure,” Irv said. “Introduce yourself.”

“You will do no such thing,” Max said, exactly as his mother would have.

Irv closed his eyes and said, “My core has been shaken.”

“I know.”

“What are we to believe?”

“I
know.”

“All the while we thought his Holocaust schlock was compensating for the
Holocaust.”

“Now it's schlock?”

“It was always schlock,” Irv said. “But it was
our
schlock. Now…I have to wonder.”

“It's not as if he isn't Jewi—”

But Jacob couldn't finish the sentence. Or he didn't need to. As soon as the fragment of the possibility entered the world, there was no room for anything else.

“I need to sit down,” Irv said.

“You are sitting down,” Max told him.

“I need to sit on the floor.”

“Don't,” Jacob said. “It's filthy.”

“Everything is now filthy,” Irv said.

In silence, they watched dozens of people balancing overstuffed trays weave and dodge and never touch. Presumably, a higher life-form would have its own version of David Attenborough. That “person” could make a
great episode of a miniseries about humans featuring such hypnotic observing.

Max whispered something incomprehensible, to no one.

Irv rested his head in his hands and said, “If God had wanted us to be uncircumcised, He wouldn't have invented smegma.”

“What?” Jacob asked.

“If God had wanted…”

“I'm talking to Max.”

“I didn't say anything,” Max said.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“
Jaws
is such a terrible movie,” Irv said.

And then Tamir came back. They'd been too preoccupied by their apocalyptic speculations to notice how long he'd been gone.

“So here's the deal,” he said.

“What deal?”

“He has problems with urinary retention.”

“He?”

“Steve.”

Irv clapped his cheeks and squealed like it was his first visit to the American Girl flagship store.

“I can see why you assumed I would know who he is. Very impressive résumé. What can I say? I don't watch a lot of movies. There's no money in watching movies. A lot in making them, though. Do you know that he's worth more than three billion dollars?
Billion
with a
b
?”

“Really?”

“He had no reason to lie to me.”

“But why did he have reason to share?”

“I asked.”

“How much he's worth?”

“Yeah.”

“And you probably asked if he's circumcised, right?”

“I did.”

Jacob embraced Tamir. He hadn't meant to. His arms simply reached for him. It wasn't that Tamir had gathered the piece of information. It was that he had all the qualities that Jacob lacked and didn't want but desperately missed: the brashness, the fearlessness where fear was not
required, the fearlessness where fear
was
required, the giving of no shits. “Tamir, you are a beautiful human being.”

“
So
…?” Irv begged.

Tamir turned to Jacob.

“He knows you, by the way. He didn't recognize you, but when I mentioned your name, he said he read your first book. He said he considered optioning it, whatever that means.”

“He did?”

“That's what he said.”

“If Spielberg had made a film out of that book, I'd—”

“Exhume the lede,” Irv said. “Is he short-sleeved?”

Tamir jiggled his soda cup, freeing the ice cubes from their group hug.

“Tamir?”

“We agreed it would be funnier if I didn't tell you.”

“We?”

“Steve and I.”

Jacob gave him a shove, as spontaneous as the hug.

“You're bullshitting.”

“Israelis never bullshit.”

“Israelis
only
bullshit.”

“We're mishpuchah,” Irv pleaded.

“Yes. And if you can't keep secrets from your family, who can you keep secrets from?”

“So I emancipate myself from the family. Now tell me.”

Tamir scraped the remaining lo mein from his bowl and said, “Before I fly back.”

“What?”

“I'll tell you before I go.”

“You can't be serious.”

Could he be serious?

“I can.”

Irv banged the table.

“I'll tell Max,” Tamir said. “An early bar mitzvah present. What he chooses to do with the information is his own business.”

“You know it's Sam's bar mitzvah,” Max said. “Not mine.”

“Of course,” he said with a wink. “This is a very early bar mitzvah present.”

He put his hands on Max's shoulders and brought him close. His
lips almost touching Max's ear, he whispered. And Max smiled. He laughed.

As they walked to the car, Irv kept signaling for Jacob to take one of Tamir's bags, and Jacob kept signaling that Tamir wouldn't let him. And Jacob signaled to Max that he should talk to Barak, and Max signaled back that his father should—smoke through a stoma? There they were, four men and one almost-man, and yet they were making silly hand gestures that communicated almost nothing and fooled almost no one.

“How's your grandfather?” Tamir asked.

“Compared to what?”

“To how he was last time I saw him.”

“That was a decade ago.”

“So he's older, probably.”

“He's moving in a couple of days.”

“Making aliyah?”

“Yup. To the Jewish Home.”

“What's he got left?”

“Are you asking me how much longer he is expected to live?”

“You find such complicated ways to say such simple things.”

“I can only tell you what his doctor told me.”

“So?”

“He's been dead for five years.”

“A medical miracle.”

“Among other kinds. I'm sure it would mean the world to him to see you.”

“Let's go to your house. We'll drop off the bags, see Julia—”

“She won't be back until the late afternoon.”

“So we'll nosh, shoot some baskets. I'd like to see your audiovisual setup.”

“I don't think we have one. And he usually goes to sleep very early, like—”

“You're our guest,” Irv said to Tamir, patting his back. “We'll do whatever you'd like.”

“Of course,” Jacob said, siding with the world in its struggle against his grandfather. “We can always visit later. Or tomorrow.”

“I brought some halvah for him.”

“He's diabetic.”

“It's from the souk.”

“Yeah, his diabetes doesn't really care about sourcing.”

Tamir took the halvah from his carry-on bag, opened the wrapping, removed a piece, and tossed it in his mouth.

“I'll drive,” Jacob said to Irv as they approached the car.

“Why?”

“Because I'll drive.”

“I thought the highway made you anxious?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Jacob said, flashing Tamir a smile of dismissiveness. And then, to Irv, with force: “Give me the keys.”

In the car, Tamir pressed the sole of his right foot against the windshield, parachuting his scrotum for any infra-red traffic cameras they might pass. He braided his fingers behind his head—more knuckle cracking—nodded, and began: “To tell you the truth, I'm making a lot of money.”
Here we go
, Jacob thought.
Tamir impersonating the bad impersonator of Tamir
. “High tech has gone crazy, and I was smart enough—I was brave enough—to get into a lot of things at the right moment. That's the secret to success: the combination of intelligence and bravery. Because there are a lot of intelligent people in the world, and a lot of brave people in the world, but when you go searching for people who are intelligent
and
brave, you don't find yourself surrounded. And I was lucky. Look, Jake—” Why did he think it was OK to capriciously shear Jacob's name? It was an act of aggression, even if Jacob couldn't parse it, even if he loved it. “I don't believe in luck, but only a fool wouldn't acknowledge the importance of being in the right place at the right time. You make your own luck. That's what I say.”

“That's also what everyone says,” Jacob pointed out.

“But still, we don't control everything.”

“What about Israel?” Irv asked from the backseat.

“Israel?”
Here we go
. “Israel is thriving. Walk down the streets of Tel Aviv one night. There's more culture per square foot than anywhere in the world. Look at our economy. We're sixty-eight years old—younger than you, Irv. We have only seven million people, no natural resources, and are engaged in perpetual war. All of that, and we have more companies on the NASDAQ than any country after America. We have more start-ups than China, India, and the U.K., and file more patents than any country in the world
—including
yours.”

“Things are going well,” Irv confirmed.

“Things have never been better
anywhere at any time
than they are in Israel right now.”

“The height of the Roman Empire?” Jacob felt a need to ask.

“Where are they now?”

“That's what the Romans asked of the Greeks.”

“We live in a different apartment than the one you visited. We're always moving. It's good business, and it's good in the general sense, too. We're in a triplex now—three floors. We have seven bedrooms—”

“Eight,” Barak corrected.

“He's right. It's eight.”
This is performance
, Jacob reminded himself, or tried to convince himself, as he felt a jealousy surfacing.
It's a routine. He's not making you smaller
. Tamir continued: “Eight bedrooms, even though we're only four people now that Noam is in the army. Two bedrooms a person. But I like the space. It's not that we have so many guests, although we have a lot, but I like to stretch out: a couple of rooms for my business ventures; Rivka is insane about meditating; the kids have air hockey, gaming systems. They have a foosball table from Germany. I have an assistant who has nothing to do with my business ventures but just helps with lifestyle things, and I said, ‘Go find me the best foosball table in the world.' And she did. She has an amazing body, and she knows how to find
anything
. It's quite amazing. You could leave this foosball table in the rain for a year and it would be fine.”

“I thought it never rains in Israel,” Jacob said.

“It does,” Tamir said, “but you're right, the climate is ideal. Anyway, I rest my drinks on it, and do they ever leave a ring? Barak?”

“No.”

“So when we were walking through the new apartment—the most recent apartment—I turned to Rivka and said, ‘Eh?' and she said, ‘What do we need with an apartment this big?' I told her what I'll tell you now: The more you buy, the more you have to sell.”

“You should really write a book,” Jacob said to Tamir, taking a tiny needle from his back and placing it in Tamir's.

“So should you,” Irv said, taking that tiny needle from Tamir's back and placing it in Jacob's aorta.

“And I told her something else: it's always going to be rich people who have money, so you want to have what the rich people will want to have. The more expensive something is, the more expensive it will become.”

“But that's just saying that expensive things are expensive,” Jacob pointed out.

“Exactly.”

“Well,” Jacob's better angel ventriloquized, “I'd love to see it someday.”

“You'd have to come to Israel.”

With a smile: “The apartment can't come to me?”

“It could, but that would be crazy. And anyway, soon enough it will be another apartment.”

“Well, then I'd love to see
that
one.”

“And the bathrooms…The bathrooms would blow your mind. Everything made in Germany.”

Irv groaned.

“You can't
find
this kind of craftsmanship.”

“Apparently you can.”

“Well, you can't find it in America. My assistant—the personal one, with the body—found me a toilet with a camera that recognizes who is approaching and adjusts to preset settings. Rivka likes a cool seat. I want my ass hairs singed. Yael wants to be practically standing when she shits. Barak faces backwards.”

“I don't face backwards,” Barak said, punching his father's shoulder.