Marko Koskas - Goodbye Paris, Shalom Tel Aviv

The new Jerusalem streetcar line is modern, fast, and frequent. One every four minutes and at rush hour, every two minutes on average. It took years of work and caused huge traffic jams that exasperated the shopkeepers and neighbors of Yafo Street, but today all those annoyances are no more than a bad memory. Its been up and running since September 2011. Finally. And its changed the landscape. People have even forgotten how Jerusalem was before the tram. Or without a tram.

Only, nobodys very relaxed on the cars. Its too badall that hatred between Jews and Arabs, that distrust and paranoia. Yet terrorist attacks are extremely rare on the line. Two or three cars rammed at the Beit Hanina and Shuafat stops on the northern section, but never stabbings inside like every day in town and in the Occupied Territories for the last few years. No one knows why, exactly. Maybe down deep, the Jews and Arabs of Jerusalem think of the streetcar as their common possession and its better to preserve it. Intifadas come and go, the streetcar remains

Juliette takes it Saturday night after Shabbat as she comes back from Pisgat Zeev, and she fearlessly takes a window seat because even if an Arab throws a rock as the trolley goes by, it wont break the window. They say it was designed for that. The trams windowpanes were megareinforced.

It will take her twenty-five minutes to get to the bus station, where shes going to get the 490 bus to Tel Aviv. For tonight, Juliette is saying her final farewells to Jerusalem. Her farewells to the museum came at the end of the day before yesterday. Five years of managing the reserves under the supervision of Aviva Morgenstern, you really had to hold up! Above all, not break down still, at her going-away party, she did pay tribute to her bosss great professionalism, her human qualities, her culture, and that old nut Aviva couldnt hold back her tears.

Juliette will return to Jerusalem, of course. Its the city she has in her heart, the city of her childhood and her first lovesher mothers city, her sister Mathildes, her brother Assafs, and her girlfriends city too. Sure, shell come back, but no more than every third Shabbat because even if Shabbat at Mathildes in Pisgat Zeev is nice, its very restrictive. No smoking, no phoning, what a pain! Luckily, Juliette adores her nephews. Seven kids in twelve years, you have to admire her. She had the first at twenty-two and the last one six months ago, at the age of thirty-four; the next one will be when God wills. With the Orthodox, women have six kids on average. So theres nothing unusual about it, except that Juliettes already twenty-nine and shes nowhere near having a kid. Not the ghost of the chance of a first one on the horizon. What a difference between the two of them! Its funny, two sisters so unlike each other. To be precise: two half sisters.

Juliette did promise herself to have at least one child before she turned thirty, but since shes been with Elias, the odds are she wont keep that promise. The fact that he suggested she live with him in Tel Aviv is already unbelievable. Unhoped for. Practically a godsend! Makes her believe he loves her like when you really love someone. She met him in Jerusalem the year before, and at the beginning he didnt even want people to see them together. She was living in a studio apartment in Nahalat Shiva and he was in Gilo, in a new development. When he slept at her place, he ran off before the sun came up. A wild one, Elias. But there you are, Juliette loves his wildness. When he first came to Jerusalem, he slept in parks, out in the open, so in love with Israel that hed live there like a beggar without complaining, and hungry most of the time to boot.

When he left Jerusalem, Juliette thought he was only going to live in Tel Aviv to get away from her. But no. Finally, he cares more about her than she thought. Despite his degree in petrochemical engineering and his acceptance by FEMIS, the prestigious French film school, Elias wants to be a journalist while waiting to write his first novel. He changes vocations regularly. At thirty-four, hes still trying to find himself and that worries his family. But what about Henry Miller? At what age did he become a novelist? Elias worships Henry Miller, thats obvious. Hes reread The Rosy Crucifixion three times, and he always has one of the three parts of the trilogy on him: Sexus, Plexus, or Nexus is forever peeping out of his pocket. On the other hand, he reads and rereads Cline on the sly, because hey, reading that anti-Semitic sonofabitch in the country of the Jews is really pushing it. His pal Manu gave him the Voyage illustrated by Tardi, and Elias leafs through it practically every night, both enchanted and mortified by Clines genius. Some Jews taste for Cline is hard to explain, but at least Manu has a theory about his anti-Semitism. He always quotes the passage in Death on the Installment Plan where Cline talks about his father, a clerk in an insurance company, who was fired after the invention of typewriters. And Cline imitates him, accusing the Jews of having invented those diabolical machines.

Thats where Manus theory comes from: Clines anti-Semitism is simply an inability to be different from the father. Whew! Elias loves that theory. He loves Manu. Between those two, the three topics of conversation are, in order of importance, Cline, women, and Cline.

Manu, too, made his aliyah three years ago, who knows why. He was doing great as an actor in hard-core adult movies in Paris, but he got sick of it. Understandable, after thirty years of porn. A four-month stay in Jerusalem, but the citys a little too spiritual for a guy with a CV like his, a bit too drenched in the sacred. Even when hes parking a car, Manu carries around with him his old, dirty past and definitely prefers Tel Aviv. At least there he can talk about his career without shocking anybody.

Anyway, Juliettes making the big leap this evening. She doesnt know Tel Aviv very well aside from Metzitzim Beach and a few hip bars in Neve Tzedek. She doesnt know many people there, either, aside from Elias and his buddies. Theyre all thirtysomethings except for Manu and Diabolo. And hopelessly French. Likeable, but megamacho. Actually, Juliettes French too. But shes always lived in Jerusalem, thats the difference, aside from her four years at the cole du Louvre in Paris. Wonderful memories. All those museums, that vibrant Parisian life. Living among those nymphs and sylphs suited her. She resembles them so much! As angelic as a Botticelli but with the freshness of Sandrine Bonnaire in Nos Amours. And that very ephemeral grace girls between sixteen and eighteen sometimes have.

A real piet , that Juliette, but with curves like Bar Refaeli.

She calls Elias to tell him shell be at his place in less than two hours, and she secretly hopes hell offer to pick her up with his scooter at Tachana Merkazit because Tel Avivs central bus station is in a rough part of town: Sudanistan, as the papers say. But Elias seems to have his head somewhere else. He repeats, OK, doll. OK, great, Ill wait for you, with his exasperating way of openly thinking of something else when she talks to him, without even trying to hide it. Finally, Juliette hangs up, disappointed, even slightly bitter, and she doesnt notice the feverish Arab slipping in between the standing passengers. Just at the moment hes about to throw himself at her and stick a knife in her chest, theres the sound of an explosion and the guys carotid explodes in a thousand pieces of red flesh that spatter on the ceiling of the car at the same time his eyes pop out of their sockets. He drops his knife and collapses on Juliette, drenching her with his blood. It all happens at once. Life, death, screamsordinary life in Jerusalem.