Page 9 of Analysing Her Assets

“I live nearby. I walk to work.”

Rothchild Avenue’s wide way for pedestrians seemed narrower as the dog bounced around her, often extending the old leash. On Allenby’s crossing, the large buses and blaring traffic frightened the animal. She lifted it in her arms, so it wouldn’t run into the busy road, and he burrowed his head in her armpit. Her bulging backpack was an accustomed load, but her arms started hurting from hoisting the hairy, heavy canine. It didn’t help when total strangers made stupid fussing noises and asked to pet him. Tamar had always felt comfortably invisible. All this attention was awkward.

Right before turning into Sheinkin Street, she stopped to rest on a bench, the puppy in her arms. She stared unseeingly at the arctic-blue façade of the stately cultural center. Her armpits were drenched with sweat, and for some reason her tummy was clammy as well. Lifting the animal, a pungent piss smell hit her nose. But now she had a name for him.

“Fuck, Giddy, you little pisher.”

Giddy woofed and licked her face. Gross.

7. Gideon

Gideon sipped his sauvignon blanc, staring out the penthouse’s windows and postponing the phone call he absolutely needed to make. The city’s skyscape lights blinked at him. His father grew up in this penthouse and his grandmother Paulina gifted it to him when she moved to the retirement community. His mother and he had spent time and money revamping it, since the old building fell under Tel Aviv’s restricting conservation act. The original floor’s carpet-like pattern of red, light blue, and yellow tiles had to be painstakingly reconstructed. He obtained a special permit from the municipal conservation department to tear down walls and install Bauhaus style steel profiled windows. They stretched floor to ceiling, merging with the balcony’s French doors, bringing his beloved Tel Aviv into his home.

He took a fortifying sip and called his mother.

Naomi Negev Berdichevsky answered on the first ring.

“Oy, look who’s calling. Hush Barak, it’s my estranged son calling his lonely mother.”

In the background, he could hear the barks of the family schnauzers, Barak and Ra’am, Lightning and Thunder. His chest tightened with the familiar stab of guilt. His last visit was around two weeks ago, on a weekday afternoon—making sure beforehand his father was absent.

“Hey Imma. I took a puppy, a male.” He opened with a safe subject. “It’s a hybrid, but mainly German Shepherd.”

He’d bought a kennel and erected it on the penthouse’s vast balcony, filling it with everything his new puppy needed. But he didn’t have a name for it yet. He wasn’t too worried about it. A couple more days with the puppy and his name would suggest itself.

“Oh, Gideon, that’s lovely! German Shepherd is such an intelligent breed. Not like my beautiful, silly boys,” his mother’s voice cooed at her dogs. “Barak and Ra’am, the plot twists you’re suggesting are the worst.”

“How is the writing going?”

“I’m thinking of starting something new under a pen name.”

“Oh? Why a pen name?” His mother’s works were considered fine literature, and she taught Creative Writing in Tel Aviv University.

“I want to write genre literature, commercial fiction, I want to be read more.”

Other than her students, and him, more people had heard of Naomi’s books than actually read them.

“Thrillers perhaps?” his mother continued. “Shulamit Lapid became a household name once she started her Lizzy Badihi series about the journalist from Beer Sheva, helping the police solve crime. Beer Sheva makes for a great peripheral background.”

Gideon’s throat clogged with dread. Imagine his mother driving down to Beer Sheva for research and stumbling upon the family secret he’d discovered there.

“No, Imma,” he coughed out. “Beer Sheva has been done—by Lapid, you said so yourself. Try the North—put a female detective in Haifa. Or maybe Karmiel? You can write a mystery, perhaps a murder that occurs during the dance festival they have in Karmiel every summer.”

“Gideon, that’s brilliant! You’ll continue to be my first reader, right? We can discuss it further when you arrive on Friday for dinner.”

He attacked on a different front.

“I’ve got great news. I’m leading the in-house competition.”

“What’s that again?”

“You know, the competition, where the analysts build virtual share portfolios and compete with each other. The winner is the one with the best performing portfolio by the end of the calendar year, and there’s also a large bonus. I finally managed to beat Tamar.”

Images rose in his mind’s eye. She had her head back, her hair a dark curtain through which her round behind could be glimpsed... they were momentarily caught in an embrace, her malleable thigh against his...

“Tamar! Her name comes up often, Tamar is doing this or saying that. The other day, you told me of the discussion you had with her about equal opportunity in Israel. And I loved her answer. That if there’s equal opportunity how come there are only two female CEOs in the Ta-125 index of traded companies.”

Gideon made a note not to talk anymore of Tamar to his mother. Or think of her. Anymore. Period.

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