16-year-old David Spilman lives with his mum in Jaffa. One day, his grandma buys him a ticket to Warsaw. How will he fare in the city where his ancestors once lived?
A boy walking down a street, a boy who has never been in love.
His name is David Spilman. He is 16 years old, but he looks much older. He’s tall, with black hair and dark blue eyes. Sometimes women look at him, and when they do, he’s overcome by a feeling he can’t name and he looks away. Sometimes men glance at him over their shoulders. The anxiety he feels then is even more acute.
16-year-old David Spilman is going to collect a plane ticket. This is in Jaffa, on the Mediterranean.
David has known the owner of the travel agency since he was young. As a child, he went to Switzerland a few times with his grandma in winter, and they always bought their tickets here. He’d long been fascinated by the black freckles that formed constellations on her cheeks, in which he saw Ursa Major and Minor.
“How much do you need to pay? Nothing, your grandma paid. Back when she ordered the ticket, in the summer. She said it was a present for you. A surprise,” says the travel agent.
“My grandma?” asks David.
“I know she died. I’m sorry, I liked her. Your mum phoned yesterday and said you were coming to pick up the ticket. I thought she said something about Reykjavík, but she must have got it wrong. Maybe she was having a bad day. Or I didn’t hear right, that must have been it. Never mind, everything’s just as your grandma and I agreed. Shame she’s not around anymore. Say hi to your mum! And have a good trip!” says the woman, inserting the plane ticket into an envelope.
David walks down the street holding the blue envelope. He sits on the wall separating the beach from the street and looks at the sea. He opens the envelope. Inside is a ticket to Warsaw. But David was supposed to be flying to Reykjavík for a Björk concert, it was a birthday present from his mum. David looks at the pigeons walking along the rocky shore. One pigeon is white and blue, slender, with an aristocratic head. David doesn’t like pigeons, they disgust him, but this one is different. It’s beautiful.
David’s grandma died a few months ago.
In his jacket pocket, David still has the money he got from his mother for the ticket. Two and a half thousand shekels. That’s a lot of money. He imagines it’s a gift from his grandma for Hanukkah. Grandma, who didn’t live to see Hanukkah this year.
“Grandma had a heart attack. When I got home, she’d been dead for several hours. I didn’t want to call you and ruin your holiday.”
That’s what his mum had said when David returned from Eilat. But maybe Grandma hadn’t died at all? Maybe Mum had drunk too much that day, come home, seen a dead old woman and not even noticed that it wasn’t Grandma at all; and the ambulance crew certainly wouldn’t have looked carefully, all old people are the same to them. Maybe it was one of those old Russian women who came to Grandma to pour out their sorrows. She came and she died, and Grandma took the opportunity and decided to change her life completely.
Maybe that’s what happened, thinks David. Maybe.
A boy who does not know his father, a boy raised by his grandma, because his mum is always at work, and after work she has to go to the bar and have a few drinks to de-stress. That’s why David speaks Polish so well. His grandma never learnt Hebrew properly and always spoke Polish at home. It’s different with Mum, she always speaks Hebrew. Unless she’s been arguing with her mother, David’s grandma. Like when they were going to Switzerland. Every time.
“Why do you want us to go to the Alps?” she asked Grandma.
“Because David has to go skiing. It’s a
