Chariots on the Highway Read online

  Chariots

  On the

  Highway

  by Limor Moyal

  Chariots on the Highway

  Copyright © Limor Moyal 2015

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Edited by Nick Pageant.

  Translated from Hebrew by Amitai Nissimov.

  Cover photograph by Chen Leopold Glazer.

  Cover design by Limor Moyal.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dedication

  To my lover,

  My best friend,

  The father of my children,

  And the most dear person in the world to me.

  My husband Avi.

  Love you so much. Everything is so much better with you sitting next to me, sharing the journey called life.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1 A Car Crash on 'HaShalom' Road

  2 Private Cloud

  3 Black, Strong, Lots, and Now

  4 Welcome Texas

  5 Happiness, Home and Soap Bubbles

  6 Take the Mountain out of the Green

  7 Days of Tom

  8 Wisdom teeth and Loneliness

  9 Chariots on the highway

  10 A Man, Within Himself Resides

  11 Secrets in Gvulot Street

  12 The Choice between Terrible, and Horrible

  13 Territories of the Rainbow

  14 Naked and Mine

  15 It’s Not Enough

  16 Layers of Pain

  17 The Victory of Gravitation

  18 Four Rings, Three People

  19 Timeout

  20 A Sabbath Pleasure

  21 Gay Lizzy

  22 Bigger under the Stars

  23 Targeted Hit

  24 In Your Shoes

  25 The Ant’s Circle of Death

  26 Marijuana in Abarbanel

  27 Take the Reins

  28 All the World is Green

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are not a regular army as exists in most countries. Israel is a small nation, standing in constant war on multiple borders. The IDF is the army of the people; it's made of Israeli citizens that must enlist and serve. Service is mandatory for every Israeli man and woman (except Orthodox Jews).

  Women serve two years, and men serve for three years. Citizens are not paid for their service. This is a national contribution one must do for his homeland.

  We give ourselves to the army, and it is an obligation that we as Israelis are proud to fulfill.

  Israel’s Lone Soldiers are those whose families live abroad, they are young Jewish men and women that choose to leave their countries of origin in order to serve the State of Israel.

  These soldiers willingly accept the responsibility of defending Israel, their adopted home, in the name of Jews worldwide. Many choose to serve in combat positions; enduring grueling training, exercises, missions, and operations, all to ensure Israel’s safety.

  For us Israelis, these young people, who leave a comfortable life behind and come to serve for three difficult years, are nothing less than heroes.

  We admire them and treat them with the utmost respect.

  Since most of them don't have families in Israel, they can either join a kibbutz or an Israeli family who adopts them, so they have a warm place to relax when on leave.

  This story is for them.

  Israel’s Lone Soldiers

  1 A Car Crash on 'HaShalom' Road

  The way to the lawyer’s office, Gabai Shohat and Co., was nightmarish. What else can be expected driving on the packed Ayalon highway on a Sunday morning, the start of a busy workweek for most of Israel? The traffic stood still somewhere near the HaHalacha Interchange, and the morning’s desperation and annoyance seemed to reach high, twin peaks.

  Dan turned the rearview mirror toward his face and pushed his sunglasses up to his forehead. His blue eyes, which usually looked like two oceans, had grown dim and pale, the smudges of color beneath them betraying his sleepless night. How could he have slept with the thought of meeting Lena and her lawyers weighing on his mind?

  At least he’d managed to tame his hair, unlike most days, when his thick, black mane seemed to have a defiant personality of its own; today, though, the black locks had shown some discipline. He looked neat, well put-together, and very, very tired. He wasn’t happy with the man looking back at him in the mirror. He had handsome features, he’d been told he looked like a movie star, but what he saw in front of him was a man who, at 34, seemed empty, a man who seemed broken.

  He hadn’t seen Lena in two months, not since she’d left the house after the last fight. What had been different about that fight? What distinguished it from the hundreds that had come before? He knew the answer. It had been his silence, his refusal to answer back. He’d just sat on a chair in the living room, staring at the wall in front of him with that sense of defeat, that feeling that his soul was empty, and he’d let her words wash over him. He’d done that, accepted her insults and her harshness, because he knew every word that she shouted was true.

  Eventually, she said he was passive-aggressive and that’s the ultimate torture and she couldn’t take it anymore. He sat quiet and listened, wondering how she’d held on for five years. His silence wasn’t to spite her, he was just tired of answering back, tired of the long purposeless arguments, and he was tired of trying to fix something that he realized had never really existed.

  And then she’d gone silent, speaking only with her eyes. Her eyes said, “The End,” and she’d gone upstairs to pack.

  She was back in what seemed only moments, carrying just a small bag of clothes. “Alex will come over and pick up the rest,” she said with a cracking voice on her way out, pulling the door closed behind her. After she’d gone he’d listened to the silence until it became a dim ringing in his ears, like a faraway siren.

  Then, on the way to the attorney’s office, stuck in traffic that showed no signs of ending, Dan thought about how little he wanted to see her again, how he’d like to avoid her judgmental, disappointed look. He was tired of people being disappointed with him. But mostly, he was tired of disappointing himself. He hoped that now, by freeing Lena from his life, he’d finally be able to be himself; cynical, bereft and depressed, if he felt like it. With no one calling him out for poisoning the atmosphere or withdrawing into himself.

  Withdrawing into himself had always been his escape from the judgmental claws of the people in his life, the people who supposedly loved him. He knew that the love he was given was conditional. It depended on
him toeing the line – a line he’d had no part in creating.

  He turned on the radio and listened to a report of a severe car crash on Hashalom road. Hashalom road, The Peace road. The irony wasn’t lost on him and a grim smile came to his lips.

  He walked through the lobby of the luxurious office building and crammed himself into the elevator on his way to the 18th floor. His fellow riders seemed unsettled and he wondered what awaited each of them on the top floors. Were they headed for a mortifying experience like he was or were they just starting another mundane round in their daily lives? Would it be a day like thousands before it and thousands to come? He wondered what their closed faces were hiding as the elevator buzzed.

  He hoped his lawyer, Gideon, was already there. Gideon was like armor, and Dan didn’t wish to enter the lion’s den without him. The elevator door opened, and he walked through the hallway, feeling claustrophobic as he reached the glass doors of Gabai Shohat and Co.

  “How can I help you?” asked the receptionist while favoring him with a robotic smile.

  “Dan Green, to the divorce arbitration of Lena Plotkin Green.”

  “End of the hall, last door on the left. That’s the conference room. Everyone’s waiting for you.”

  He tried not to walk like a prisoner on his way to the gallows, tried to hold his head high, but he could feel his heart thrumming in every cell of his body, like the beat of war drums.

  “Good morning, Dan. We’ve been waiting for you!” It was Gideon Schwartz, his lawyer. Dan was so happy to see him there. He took a deep, cleansing breath and sat down.

  “Good morning. I apologize for being late but the Ayalon highway was jammed.”

  Lena sat on the far end of the table, flanked by her lawyers. One on each side, like bodyguards. To her left, Shohat, the lead attorney, a big oily man with a few grey hairs pasted to the top of his head with precision, and a face that gave away the arrogance of might and confidence. On the other side, a young lawyer, in a cheap suit, with a hungry look in his eyes. Another douche with a bright future as a legal shark, Dan thought to himself. It all seemed like a terrible waste of brilliant minds.

  And there was Alex, Lena’s brother. He had an angry, threatening look, like a bouncer at a nightclub; fitting, since that’s exactly what he was, a nightclub bouncer. Chief among Alex’s talents, besides his gigantic proportions, was that constant angry, threatening look. He was a master at making that face, but Dan wasn’t impressed because he knew who Alex truly was. It was Dan, after all, who cleaned up the man’s messes and paid his gambling debts. Waking the idiot up and bringing him here seemed, at worst, a cheap shot, and at best, redundant.

  Shohat cleared his throat and started, “Good morning everyone. We’re here in the matter of the divorce agreement between Lena Plotkin Green and Dan Green. I’m pleased that you’re representing Mr. Green, Gideon; it means we’ll have a quick and efficient conclusion to this sad business.” He smiled, but to Dan, it seemed more like the baring of fangs.

  Gideon snorted. “We’ll finish when we finish! But first we have to get started.” Dan watched with a little satisfaction as Gideon smiled back at the opposing counsel. Gideon’s smile said, “Patronize me and we’ll spend the next six months running from court house to court house.”

  “It’s not supposed to be a complicated case,” said the shark, “Lena and Dan were married for five years, they have no children, and they both want a quick dissolution to their marriage with no complications. So we only need to settle how much.” Again the shark teeth and the satisfied smile. Dan could see the dollar signs in each one of his small, greedy eyes.

  “Let’s hear what your client is asking for,” said Gideon.

  “My client demands half the common possessions.”

  “Your client hasn’t worked a single day in the past five years. She’s contributed nothing to the family assets. Not. One. Thin. Dime. She came into the marriage broke, and my client paid off debts she had incurred prior to the marriage. Your client’s demands are exaggerated and out of proportion. Dan’s willing to give her one million shekels, and if you’re asking me that’s more than generous!”

  The shark’s smile changed into an angry and serious look. Dan was impressed, in a detached way, with the theatrical skills of all present in the room and his natural cynicism flooded through him, threatening to drown him. He was a professional businessman. Meetings that included a lot of ego and a lot of money weren’t unfamiliar to him. But when it came to his personal life, he struggled to distance himself emotionally the way he could in a professional environment.

  “We demand an appropriate compensation for the sacrifices made during the years she had to live with your client,” said the shark while Lena lowered her head down and studied the table as if there were a great mystery there that demanded solving.

  “Compensation? For what exactly? For vacations four times a year, or for the new Mercedes? What exactly is she demanding compensation for? Shohat, listen to yourself! Pull your head out of your ass, and thank us for not dragging this into court!” said Gideon angrily.

  Dan wanted to hug Gideon for being there for him. He thought of how much the man was determined to help him, even though, to his mind, he didn’t deserve his support.

  The guilt started to eat away at him relentlessly, it was a hungry creature in his belly, and even though he knew that in his position he needed to show pragmatism and take a strong stand, he couldn’t stop himself from taking pity on the woman who had shared a home and a life with him for five years. If not for Gideon and his decisiveness. If he had to negotiate this himself, he would probably take out his check book and give her 10 million just to get it over with.

  “Lena, I think it will be best if you explained in your own words what it is that you demand compensation for.” The shark knew what he was doing.

  Lena’s words, accompanied by the right victimized look. He knew how tough it would be for the male crowd to stay indifferent to this cheap manipulation.

  Lena raised her head. She was perfectly dressed and made-up, as always. The façade of a strong, beautiful and successful woman, hiding an immigrant from Russia. She’d arrived in Israel penniless, uneducated, without a trace of self-esteem. Dan remembered those were the qualities that had attracted him to her in the first place; her fragility and vulnerability had touched him deeply. They still did.

  Lena opened with a speech that sounded like she must have been up all night rehearsing. Dan knew they weren’t really her words. The shark had helped her.

  “Five years I was married to Mr. Green… I was 28 when we got married. I'm 33 today. Five years in which I begged for a child, and every time Dan rejected me and said ‘not yet’, that he’s not ready, that he’s not even sure that he wants one. He wasted my best years… and now, being 33, my chances to meet, marry and give birth, within the next few years, don’t look good.”

  “And a padded bank account will help find the perfect husband you long for?” Dan said through gritted teeth. He immediately regretted it. He didn’t mean to say it out loud. He didn’t mean to say it at all.

  Gideon kicked him underneath the table and he went silent, lowering his face. It was his turn to try solving the mystery contained in the table’s surface.

  “Keep going Lena,” said the shark, while giving Dan a warning gaze.

  “He deprived me of a child, but showered me with endless, meaningless gifts. I admit that, materially, these past years were good, and I lived in financial comfort and security. But in every other aspect of our marriage, Dan failed as a husband. He didn’t share himself with me. He was an emotional stranger.”

  Dan rolled his eyes. That had to be the most banal, overused, and clichéd sentence in the history of womankind. He remembered how many times she’d said the same sorts of things to him, the words flowing from her lips and making him feel worthless.

  “Share yourself with me, I want to know what you’re feeling.”

  He hated those moments, hated to remember.r />
  “He didn’t make me feel loved or desired, he barely made love to me.”

  For a moment, Dan felt his blood is freezing in his veins. Not that he cared what the members attending thought about his sexual performance. But the fact that Gideon was there, Gideon who knew him from childhood, Gideon who was his father's best friend, it felt strange and embarrassing. And the fact that Lena went for these cheap shots made him angry and disgusted, and almost faded his compassion toward her… almost.

  He raised his head for a moment, only to see five pairs of eyes staring at him with a pitying and accusing look. He lowered his gaze back to the table, which suddenly seemed fascinating to him, and he looked at the twisted lines of the African walnut, forcing himself to calm his anger and stifle his embarrassment.

  Lena kept going. “It’s not that there wasn’t any sex, we slept together every now and then. But even when we did, I had this feeling that he was only doing his duty and not doing what he wanted to do. I don’t need to tell you how hurtful that is and how much my… feminine ego was damaged by that experience.”

  She took a deep breath and sat straight. Her look was locked on Gideon for the length of the speech; she knew that Gideon was the chink in Dan’s armor in this forum. “About the money I'm asking for. It’s not only about the compensation for the emotional damage. For the past five years GreenTech has been thriving and made milli….” Shohat hushed her immediately.

  “Lena, let’s leave GreenTech for a moment. The financial agreement will be dealt with later, it was important to hear from you in your own words, we all needed to understand why you deserve exactly what you’re asking for.”

  “Gideon, here’s what I suggest, you and Dan stay here and discuss some more, try to come up with a better offer than the million you were talking about.” He said the word “million” in a disgusted tone, as if it was a hundred shekels, as if it were nothing, as if they should be embarrassed by the offer. “Think what you can offer my client, that will compensate her for the difficulties she went through and the scars she has left, and that will prevent us all from taking this to court. Avoiding further exposure of these personal issues is a shared goal to us all.”