Limassol by Yishai Sarid Page B

hadn’t really had any expectations from the start.
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    The sea at Caesarea was very quiet this time, and the area of the A-frame was silent. Hungry mosquitoes stung me on every exposed strip of skin, on my arms, my neck, my forehead. I had no strength to climb to the window above his bed, so I shouted to him from outside to open up. After a few minutes of shouting, the door opened. I went in, there was a murky light. I didn’t see anybody. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and saw that his filthy bed was empty. I turned around and saw his mouth gaping open to the depths of the maw; he was waving a big knife. I was so scared I wanted to kill him.
    â€œI could have slaughtered you like a pig, look how scared you are.” He was shaking with laughter, his hair was scattered on his face—his arm moved up and down, cutting the air.
    My gun was in my hand, aimed at him. The last time I took it out of its holster was four years ago, at a meeting with a source who looked as if he had flipped. “I’ll shoot, Yotam, put that down,” I said quietly, and opened the safety catch. “Let’s spare your mother one grief at least.” He lost his confidence, the ecstatic laughter stopped, the hand came down very slowly, and he landed on the bed weakly, like a man who lost a battle and signals his surrender with an obsequious gesture. I put the safety catch on and thrust the short barrel into his cheek until it hurt and then I put it back in the holster.
    â€œI’m here only because of your mother,” I said. “The next time I’ll shoot you without thinking twice. Now let’s search this place. I’m going to throw out all the drugs.” He whined like a child, pleaded with me not to touch anything, but I had already started going through the drawers, looking under the mattress and behind the books. I signaled to him not to move. I removed at least three small plastic bags full of powder and pills from behind the books. Then I went to the tiny bathroom where I confiscated the boxes of Ritalin and the antipsychotic medicines—here and there I scanned the consumer pamphlet out of curiosity—and then went down to the first floor and made a few finds there, too.
    â€œNow, come with me,” I said, and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. He was wearing only his underwear; I told him to put something on, and went out to the sea with him, hand in hand. There were a few cars there leaving the beach at the end of a long day, the children must have been put in the back seat, dead tired, and the parents looked at us like we were a homosexual couple gone nuts, I and my druggy toy boy. Everything was out in the open.
    I performed a premature version of the New Year’s rite of Tashlikh, throwing out sins, at the shore. He wailed when he saw his treasure thrown into the sea. I shook out the bags carefully so nothing would remain, and then I sat down next to him on the sand. The lights on the chimneys of the electric company glowed above us with the stars.
    â€œI’ll kill you when you’re not looking,” he muttered with his head between his knees. “Everybody can be surprised. Even you. From behind.”
    â€œYou won’t succeed,” I said. “You’re a junkie and your senses are fucked up. Your reaction times are shot. Your nervous system is gone.”
    He lay back, his hair was filled with sand. Small waves broke loudly on the shore. Far from us, stood the silhouette of a solitary little tent with a small bonfire burning next to it.
    â€œYou really want to get clean?” I asked.
    â€œNo,” answered Yotam, his enormous face toward the sky. “There’s nothing bad about drugs. The problem is money. People are just brainwashed. There are millionaires who snort cocaine all their life. Without stuff they wouldn’t get anywhere. Reality is too hard to face without help. The problem is money, capitalism, they don’t