Chapter Sixteen
“And they were both naked, the man and his wife,
and they felt no shame.”
Weissman wasn’t bothered by Yiftach taking the liberty to be absent from work now and then, both inside and outside the office.
A brilliant attorney such as he—of course he was given free range.
Since Yiftach’s activities created a gigantic storm and tore society in two, he was invited from time to time for interviews on popular talk shows both on TV and radio.
On oppositional panels he was required to defend his principled stand in fierce debates, that Love must be held accountable for her crimes and prosecuted.
He was brutally attacked and accused of poisoning humanity and civilization as we know it.
Very quickly these harsh debates began to take place even without his presence.
He received hate mail detailing every threat imaginable—from being tarred and feathered, to having his face mutilated and his skull crushed in, to wishing that his father would die a slow and painful death.
Every few days, Yiftach would come out to his car, just to find that someone had punctured his tires.
There were those who demanded that he be dismissed immediately from public service.
He lost some of his old friends, however gained new ones—admirers who loved to listen to everything he had to say in such a learned way.
These broken-hearted individuals felt that he expressed so eloquently what they had come to understand a long time ago, however, unlike them, he also knew how to counter his opponents with great courage.
For those who were proponents of love or had become addicted to it, he was ostracized, rejected and cursed, whereas among the victims of lost love, he was welcome, desired and applauded.
Yiftach felt broken inside, yet he was also the happiest of men.
He knew that those hooked on love wouldn’t let up until he was destroyed and buried.
After all, he had turned them into a mockery and had slaughtered everything they believed in.
He sometimes thought to himself that he’d be better off dead in any case.
It was his depressive acceptance of death that led him to think also about the technical details—would Melody help his father prepare for the funeral?
Who would be the pall-bearers? What would the eulogizers say?
Such questions kept running through his mind.
The closing argument of the defense was soon to begin, and he knew full well that mysterious plans were churning in the darkness of Attorney Heart’s sharp and shrewd mind.
“What exactly do you mean when you tell me that, in the end, it won’t work out?” Max sounded angry as always while talking with Yiftach on the phone, but this time it was justified. “How could you forget that we made plans to eat lunch together today?”
“I didn’t forget, Dad. It just turned out that today, because of the abnormal workload, it can’t be done. We’ll set a date for some time next week, I promise. Okay?”
“Why do I have a feeling that you’re hiding something from me?”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course,” Yiftach answered, but Max was right. The lunch had totally slipped his mind when he and Melody decided to spend a vacation day together. He was sitting on Melody’s bed and, just then, she entered the room and asked him how he would like to spend the day.
“What was that?” Max asked.
“Nothing,” Yiftach feigned and signaled Melody to be silent.
“That was Melody, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Yiftach said, no longer able to hide the truth from his father.
“Excellent… it’s about time.”
Yiftach tried to cool his father’s enthusiasm. “Dad, don’t make a big deal out of this, okay?”
“Okay. But I want to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“Does she make you happy?”
For a moment Yiftach was speechless. “Yes…” he finally said.
“Terrific. As I said—it’s about time. Have you already talked to her about coming over for dinner?”
“Not yet, but I promise I’ll ask her. Okay, Dad… have a good day.”
“What do you feel like doing today?” Melody asked Yiftach after he had ended the call.
“Anything but sex,” he winked at her.
“Stop, don’t be a pervert.”
“You know, there’s a chance that after this trial ends, we will both die,” he told her in a dreamy, somewhat lost tone, fully aware that he was talking nonsense. A blank look crossed his face.
“We won’t die,” she said, rebuffing him adamantly.
“Perhaps not physically.”
“Why are you suddenly pessimistic?”
“I’m actually an optimistic guy, because I tend to see all the pessimistic scenarios in advance.”
“You lost me there,” she signaled to him to stop talking so astutely and to speak simply.
“What I mean is that my ability to foresee pessimistic scenarios and prepare for them fills me with optimism. It is simple dialectics.”
“Hmmm… and are they also eclectic, your dialectics?”
“What?”
“Stop saying such elaborate statements, they’re too vague and intellectual.
You don’t have to impress anybody now. It’s just me here, with you.
If you want our budding relationship to succeed, you must separate the boss inside you from the partner inside you, and discard the distancing walls of your lofty, condescending language.
Talk to me in plain, easy-to-understand language.
It will be far more effective. Anyway, you don’t really mean that you want to die. ”
He thought about what she had said. “I’m not afraid of dying.”
“That’s because you are too arrogant to understand its consequences,” she continued to throw angry words at him.
“Let’s assume…” he focused his eyes on an invisible spot in space.
“Think about it,” she said as if formulating a mystical statement, “if you die—your body will be eaten by lions and hyenas…”
“If I die—I’ll be eaten by lions and hyenas and, if I stay alive after this trial—I’ll be eaten by humans and the media. Does it really matter whose hunger I will be satiating?” he fell silent for a moment, as if giving Melody time to digest his words.
“Stop being morbid.”
“How exactly do I do that, Melody? If I survive till the end of this trial, two finales await me: If I win—all the supporters of Love, all those bleeding hearts, will tear the flesh off my bones. And if I lose—I will immediately be thrown out from the State Attorney’s Office and become the world’s laughingstock.
No legal firm will want to hire me. I won’t be able to show my face anywhere in the world. ”
She was disturbed that he was talking about himself as a solo character. Why is he leaving me on the sidelines? she thought to herself. “We’re in this together, remember?” she said.
“Look down.”
She looked at the floor, confused. “I don’t understand…” she admitted.
“It’s beginning to cave in. And what awaits us at the very bottom is not just death—it is annihilation. Sometimes I wonder, why did we need this? Who are we fighting for? For our painful past? For our future, to give it a better chance?”
“Perhaps for the next generation?”
“Which at the moment exists only in your imagination.”
“Tell me,” she changed the subject, “what did your father ask you earlier, when you hesitated for a moment and then answered with a ‘yes?’”
“If you make me happy.”
She smiled. “Okay, enough of all this highfalutin language. You don’t have to talk all the time,” she stated and came close to him and kissed his neck.
“Who wants to talk anyway on such a sunny vacation day?” She closed the window blinds.
She then glanced at him with a mischievous look in her eyes, feeling how her body was burning with desire for him.
She kissed his lips and her kiss revived him.
A weak smile spread across his face. He felt that if he wasn’t yet out of his mind, it was only thanks to Melody.
Only because of her he didn’t remain a minority of one.
He gazed at her face. So much beauty—where did it come from?
he thought. He then got angry with himself when he suddenly felt that he was betraying Nicole.
He couldn’t rid himself of her, not even when daydreaming.
Melody’s eyes studied him with patience.
After some moments, they removed their clothes and stood naked, looking at one another in the dimness, illuminated only by an old oil lamp, in whose light dreams come true.
Their hands groped their way in the dark, learning every curve, every detail of the other’s body.
Her hands stroked his muscular chest and he kissed her along the length of her neck, imbibing her with lust, and his touch was cruel and pleasurable.
No tender feelings were at play, just pure lust and plain passion.
The windows were tightly shut and outside no one could hear the groans of pleasure that filled Melody Geva’s room in Tel Aviv.