"Agaetis byrjun"

"Agaetis byrjun" would be probably the most appropriate title for this note, even when this isn't really a note but rather a fragment of thoughts, a spaceless momentum in which my thoughts flow in all possible directions and find themselves in the same river.... in the river of Heraclitus, "for twice thou shalt not dive into the same river, for the river is not the same nor art thou". My thoughts are flowing in this river of conscious endeavours and finding some place. I'm beautiful this morning, beautiful and radiant.... with the beauty only sadness and security can grant me, with the beauty that only the uncertainties of a long foreseen future can grant me. I'm beautifully peaceful and beautifully sad.... with a calm that only the devastating truth of unavoidable facts can grant me, a calm that is likely to last and a calm that will drive me through all different paths in life.

Last night the wife of the journalist was taken by surprise and left out; the wife of the journalist turned out to be nothing but a simple wife, for the wife of the journalist could perfectly be the wife of a doctor, the wife of an engineer, the wife of a farmer... she's just a simple wife, despite her denied mustiness and walking library of dead knowledge, despite the interesting facts that surround her life and her grandeur... despite all that she's just a simple wife. Ari turned out to be something else, probably not as legitimate as the wife, but beyond authenticism and infatuation. Last night, at odds with himself and his world Ari came out of the shell and embraced the journalist in speech, for the journalist wasn't the journalist and wasn't the husband, the journalist was simply sweet Ofer, kind Ofer, kindred Ofer.

"Agaetis byrjun" is the ode of today, a resemblance of yesterday. A sweet poison for the diseased soul, for the sickening character of a philologist. A new beginning is all what is required from today, a new beginning.... a return. It's like learning to write Greek characters when you already master Homer and Alceus... it doesn't make lots of sense but sometimes is necessary, sometimes it's necessary to crave back into the roots of the affair and find yourself in between, picking up chapters from your life, picking up little pieces of you left here and there, a smell everywhere. In between cups of coffee and empty glasses of cognac and a suitcase it's difficult to start a new day, and it's just a continuation of yesterday. It's a little plot with no end, like being a justice maker.

Ari's found some calm in the morrow, with the fresh air of the morning and staring at the Ocean at glance, like that day... from the shuttle glass... the smell of the winter morning calcinating an unfinished soul, the soul of a philologist who craved for history, who craved for a present, who craved for a past... who craved for some trascendence. The young philologist poisoned by the waters of the tragedy and the wines of bridal hymns, that young philologist was needy of trascendence, needy of endeavour, needy of an encore. Today the philologist is a tired old man with the cravings of the aftermath, in the post end of the world philologists still exists and still write love novels.

Ari today has come to the end of the book, to the last page... to the last stop of the train. In the course of time his cause for justice and understanding has been nothing but a wasteful trap, a wasteful timely sequence.... in the last page of the book where Elliot and the wife meet, where the philologist and the journalist meet, where Israel and Colombia meet, where fate and chance meet... in that last page there was also space for Ari, finally there was space for Ari, the human Ari. Ari the little lion, like the Dutch boy and the finger in the dam, like an Anne Frank, like a bride.... There was space for Ari.

In this confusion of events that comes along with the end of a bad novel several events take place and the most diverse paths of life converge, just like motorways, just like motorways. The mathematical equation plays a bad joke on the philosophical meditations and reality pours its sweetest poisons over the characters of our novel. Without previous notice, without clarification, without premeditation we all have met in the end. In between glasses of liquor and clouds of smoke all of us have met in the end, around this small table in an empty Tel Aviv apartment.

In a table for two, in my table for two all of us have met today, all of us have parted today. We haven't parted anywhere but to the beginning of the story for our storylines have been nothing but misplaced, misplaced by a lousy writer and by excess of coffee, misplaced by religions and misplaced by history. Each and everyone of us had a word last night, yet most of us have parted. The wife in her desperate outcry wasn't allowed in the table but I did meet her outside when I went for a walk, when I went to stare at the ocean as if I had never seen it.

She walked with me until we reached the shore and then she vanished in the smoke, she vanished in my smoke as I lit a cigarette outside... her body and her grandeur and the waterish autumn became one and disappeared untouched by my hands, misunderstood, unfinished. Vanished with the waters just like Romans and Greeks vanished, just like the Persians, the Hittite and the Babyloans vanished, but me... I did remain. I remained next to the waters, like walking on the water... with a purified soul free from my preoccupations and free from my deepest sorrows with the security of having life and fate on my side this time.

I remained, for I'm a descent of the tribe of Jacob and his lord promised to sustain him, just like he has sustained me to this day. The God of Jacob sustained me once again and walking on the water hand to hand with the wife I stared at her disappearing with her empires and her armies.... and the insignificant being I am... I remained, and I returned. I returned to complete my duties, my duties as a writer and my duties as a person, as a timeless being, as a part of a timeless people.

Upon returning home already in the morning a sweet pain embraced me and poisoned me with the beauty of the morning, with the beauty of the unheard, with the beauty of the unknown. Upon returning home I found myself alone, I found myself weightless for the very first time in many years. I even found her suitcase, the suitcase of the wife for she didn't have time to take it with her, we didn't have time for fare wells. I was walking on the water but she couldn't. And Ari, that's me if you haven't noticed... the dark ship that sinks into the night and dares into the storms of life... for the first time ever I walked on water..... without pink dots, yellow dots, green dots, blue dots... I was alone there and I kept walking on the water, in a sudden motion I stared at wife disappearing.... I kept walking on the water.... and I just arrived home, at the end of the ocean where the river starts.... from whence the sun comes up, from whence strangers and lovers spring, at the end of the story.... in the other side of the ocean..... I simply arrived home.

When I arrived home I looked at myself in the mirror and found myself extremely young and beautiful, brutally alive and in the drunkenness of morning tiles and sweaty smiles. Nothing was left of wife, nothing but her suitcase. Her suitcase that I'll bring along with me, that heavy suitcase with which she came, the heavy suitcase with which she left. To the countryside she took it, to Rehavia she took it, to Elliot's she took it and even to the journalist's she took it. No one ever called her for, but she always needed a new trick, something intellectual to say, something brilliant to rephrase, something catchy and interesting to say.... her walking library of dead knowledge... that's what she's left me with.... our relationship didn't last long yet we've met a few times in life, we've understood each other, we've died together and be borne again. Unfortunately she forgot her suitcase and I will have to bring it along. For I understood her better than she understood me, in the end I never really talked. So Greek of me, a passive spectator. A passive spectator in my life, a passive spectator in my sorrows, a passive spectator in her life, which someday knowingly took on mine.

When she understood what was going on in our table she clang to the door and claim for some space, claimed for justice, claimed for some deliverance. I personally would have let her in with pleasure, hadn't Isobel been home. After so many springs and winters Isobel returned home.

We all sat on the table, no one was missing except wife.... she and Isobel never really got along and since Isobel is the real star of our story then we couldn't let wife in. The journalist sat in front of me, looking at me with compassion, almost loving compassion. Elliot was in the sides, listening carefully and writing down acure moral observations about each and every one of us, writing down in small little notes for her novel, for her next novel, which was already published a few hundreds of summers back. What would be her last encore, a last encore that turned out to be a blank page, like a poem with no reader, like an echo with no voice... a river with no sea... a river into which you can dive twice. The journalist, Ari, Elliot and all our royal guests, Antigone, Persefone, Demeter and even Sappho were present... each and everyone of us in the same table. A get-together of mythological dimensions, a get-together that unknowingly would become the last page of our story, a certain last page that would bring us to the first page, that would bring us to the genesis, just like this week brings us to the first chapter of Bereshit.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was astonishingly empty" says the bible, in the beginning a philologist created a story and we were all invited, by the end of the story just right in the page next to the last we realized our story was astonishingly empty, for all the pages were blank, and to the beginning we returned, to a good new beginning. One of us claimed having asked us to leave the theater before the last song, so the musical would go on forever. But it doesn't make sense, in the end of this story... or let's say in the beginning someone had to walk on water, and someone had to be seen walking on water, like Jesuschrist did. Another Jew.

Last night we were all invited but the table was only for two, and the air was heavy enough for 2 souls... wishing half the thoughts would evaporate with the Aurora and give birth to a newborn man. There were only two chairs, and only two were allowed to talk. And it wasn't the journalist, it wasn't me Ari, it wasn't Elliot, it wasn't wife, it wasn't God, it wasn't mom.

Only Isobel and Ofer were granted that privilege, for in the aftermath Ofer and Isobel are the genesis of this story. In the next pages we'll start over, we'll talk about Isobel, about the bible, and about each and every one of us. For this is the beginning of the story, and it's worthy of attention that you note that even when not walking on water, each and every one of us did live through these pages. Only wife has been denied entry, but we've kept her suitcase, one day.... when Isobel isn't home we'll open the suitcase.

The writer