Limassol Read Online Free PDF Page A

I ignored it. The republic will get along without me for one evening. I tried to immerse myself in the play, but it was old-fashioned and boring and too long. My head wasn’t into stories anymore and I couldn’t bear a bad ending. Most of the time I looked at Sigi’s profile and tried to understand what she was thinking of. Finally, I dozed off a little and woke up with a start now and then when an actor raised his voice too much.
    We planned to go eat after the play, the babysitter could stay until twelve. We wanted to talk. Sigi tried with all her might to smile, to be a good friend, not to bother me, to be nice.
    â€œI’ll only answer one call and we’ll go,” I said when we came out to the lobby. I went off to a dark corner, next to the bushes. The conversation went on a long time. I tried to avoid the nightly trip to the interrogation center. I tried to get more and more details on the phone and guide the young fellow who was there. “It won’t work,” I said at last, angrily. “Hold him downstairs another hour. I’ll come to you right away.”
    When we sat down in the restaurant, I was already starting to glance at my watch. “You aren’t coming home tonight?” asked Sigi.
    I apologized, explaining the threat in detail. I wanted her to understand. She didn’t argue but her face said that wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to go.
    â€œI hope I didn’t snore too much at the play,” I tried to joke. “It really didn’t work for me. The characters were too hysterical.”
    â€œIt’s considered a classic,” she said quietly, offended, as if she had written it herself.
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    The restaurant was in downtown Herziliyah Pituah, center of the local nightlife. Groups of people out for the evening passed by in the street, suntanned and calm and dressed up. The waiters explained the daily specials at length. The damn cell phone vibrated again.
    I listened to the details of the interrogation and saw Sigi gazing into space. “I’ll get back to you soon. Put him in a cell so he’ll calm down a little. I’ll leave right away,” I whispered strongly, to overcome the tumult of the pedestrians in the background.
    We hastily ordered our food. I asked about the child, how he was doing in kindergarten. “Fine,” she said and picked at her food. I devoured mine because I was very hungry.
    â€œDoes everybody there work as hard as you do?” she asked angrily. “Nobody ever goes home?”
    â€œIt’s a crazy time,” I said. “And there are a lot of new people who don’t yet know the job. Got to teach them.”
    â€œWhat do you teach them?” Sigi asked quietly. She was sad and down. My feelings for her were like those of a person in freefall, heading down, unable to stop. “How to interrogate, how to get information out of a suspect. Fast. Before the bomb goes off.” She was rarely interested in my work, and I wouldn’t have told her on my own. I didn’t understand where she was leading me now.
    â€œDo they all have bombs?” she asked with a bitter smile I didn’t like. “They’re all blowing up all the time?”
    At the table next to us a jubilant group sat down, men and women about our age, who looked like they could be lawyers. My eyes were caught by one of them, with a spreading baldness and an artificial smile, and he understood that I was looking at him, and muttered something to himself, as if he were cursing me in a whisper, couldn’t help looking at Sigi with his small, lustful eyes. I could have sliced him up for that look.
    â€œI thought I might take the child to the sea on Saturday,” I said. “I want to teach him to swim.”
    â€œDo you beat them up?” asked Sigi.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œDo you beat them up?”
    I threw my napkin on the table and said something about protecting her and all the crappy puffed