Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(84)

“That’s also what everyone says,” Jacob pointed out.

“But still, we don’t control everything.”

“What about Israel?” Irv asked from the backseat.

“Israel?” Here we go. “Israel is thriving. Walk down the streets of Tel Aviv one night. There’s more culture per square foot than anywhere in the world. Look at our economy. We’re sixty-eight years old—younger than you, Irv. We have only seven million people, no natural resources, and are engaged in perpetual war. All of that, and we have more companies on the NASDAQ than any country after America. We have more start-ups than China, India, and the U.K., and file more patents than any country in the world—including yours.”

“Things are going well,” Irv confirmed.

“Things have never been better anywhere at any time than they are in Israel right now.”

“The height of the Roman Empire?” Jacob felt a need to ask.

“Where are they now?”

“That’s what the Romans asked of the Greeks.”

“We live in a different apartment than the one you visited. We’re always moving. It’s good business, and it’s good in the general sense, too. We’re in a triplex now—three floors. We have seven bedrooms—”

“Eight,” Barak corrected.

“He’s right. It’s eight.” This is performance, Jacob reminded himself, or tried to convince himself, as he felt a jealousy surfacing. It’s a routine. He’s not making you smaller. Tamir continued: “Eight bedrooms, even though we’re only four people now that Noam is in the army. Two bedrooms a person. But I like the space. It’s not that we have so many guests, although we have a lot, but I like to stretch out: a couple of rooms for my business ventures; Rivka is insane about meditating; the kids have air hockey, gaming systems. They have a foosball table from Germany. I have an assistant who has nothing to do with my business ventures but just helps with lifestyle things, and I said, ‘Go find me the best foosball table in the world.’ And she did. She has an amazing body, and she knows how to find anything. It’s quite amazing. You could leave this foosball table in the rain for a year and it would be fine.”

“I thought it never rains in Israel,” Jacob said.

“It does,” Tamir said, “but you’re right, the climate is ideal. Anyway, I rest my drinks on it, and do they ever leave a ring? Barak?”

“No.”

“So when we were walking through the new apartment—the most recent apartment—I turned to Rivka and said, ‘Eh?’ and she said, ‘What do we need with an apartment this big?’ I told her what I’ll tell you now: The more you buy, the more you have to sell.”

“You should really write a book,” Jacob said to Tamir, taking a tiny needle from his back and placing it in Tamir’s.

“So should you,” Irv said, taking that tiny needle from Tamir’s back and placing it in Jacob’s aorta.

“And I told her something else: it’s always going to be rich people who have money, so you want to have what the rich people will want to have. The more expensive something is, the more expensive it will become.”

“But that’s just saying that expensive things are expensive,” Jacob pointed out.

“Exactly.”

“Well,” Jacob’s better angel ventriloquized, “I’d love to see it someday.”

“You’d have to come to Israel.”

With a smile: “The apartment can’t come to me?”

“It could, but that would be crazy. And anyway, soon enough it will be another apartment.”

“Well, then I’d love to see that one.”

“And the bathrooms…The bathrooms would blow your mind. Everything made in Germany.”

Irv groaned.

“You can’t find this kind of craftsmanship.”

“Apparently you can.”

“Well, you can’t find it in America. My assistant—the personal one, with the body—found me a toilet with a camera that recognizes who is approaching and adjusts to preset settings. Rivka likes a cool seat. I want my ass hairs singed. Yael wants to be practically standing when she shits. Barak faces backwards.”

“I don’t face backwards,” Barak said, punching his father’s shoulder.

“You think I’m crazy,” Tamir said. “You’re probably judging me, even laughing at me in your mind, but I’m the one with a toilet that knows his name, and I’m the one with a refrigerator that does the shopping online, and you’re the one driving a Japanese go-kart.”

Jacob didn’t think Tamir was crazy. He thought his need to exhibit and press the case for his happiness was unconvincing and sad. And sympathetic. That’s where the emotional logic broke down. All that should have led Jacob to dislike Tamir brought him closer—not with envy, but love. He loved Tamir’s brazen weakness. He loved his inability—his unwillingness—to hide his ugliness. Such exposure was what Jacob most wanted, and most withheld from himself.

“And what about the situation?” Irv asked.

“What situation?”

“Safety.”

“What? Food safety?”

“The Arabs.”