Yonatan had a brilliant idea for a documentary. No camera crew, no nonsense. People would give their answers, and Yoni would edit them down and make clips of the more surprising responses. It was genius, Yoni was sure. All he needed was a door to knock on and a heart beating on the other side. No prep, no plotting, natural as can be, Yoni grabbed his camera and went out knocking on doors. Yonatan could hardly imagine what people were dreaming of in the development towns and the collectives along the northern border, in the West Bank settlements and Arab villages, the immigrant absorption centers full of broken trailers and tired people left to fry out in the desert sun. In Russia, when Sergei was young, it happened a lot. When Sergei got to Israel and then moved to Yaffo, his family couldn’t get their heads round it. There’s no one there but addicts and Arabs and pensioners.» But what is most excellent about addicts and Arabs and pensioners is that they don’t come round knocking on Sergei’s door. » That way Sergei can get his sleep, and get up when it’s still dark. Just the way Sergei doesn’t like. » » Sergei tells the boy, tells him in what he thinks is a straightforward manner, that he doesn’t want it. » » Sergei gives the camera a shove, to help make it clear. The boy slows down, tells Sergei he has a strong face, a nice face, and that he simply has to have him for this film. Sergei can also slow down, he can also make it clear. He’s already making his film, running his camera without any permission, and from behind the camera he’s still telling Sergei about his face, that it’s full of feeling, that it’s tender. » Suddenly the boy spots Sergei’s goldfish flitting around in its big glass jar in his kitchen. » The kid with the earring starts screaming, «Goldfish, goldfish,» he’s so excited. » And this, this really pressures Sergei, who tells the boy, it’s nothing, just a normal goldfish, stop filming it. » Just a goldfish, Sergei tells him, just something he found flapping around in the net, a deep-sea goldfish. » » » Sergei doesn’t like this, doesn’t like that the boy is almost at it, already reaching for the jar. » In this instant Sergei understands the boy hasn’t come for television, what he’s come for, specifically, is to snatch Sergei’s fish, to steal it away. Sergei Goralick really understands what it is his body has done, he seems to have taken the pan off the stove and hit the boy on the head. » » The camera falls with him. » The camera breaks open on the floor, along with the boy’s skull. » There’s a lot of blood coming out of the head, and Sergei really doesn’t know what to do. Because if he takes this kid to the hospital, people are going to ask what happened, and it would take things in a direction Sergei doesn’t want to go. » «No reason to take him to the hospital anyway,» says the goldfish, in Russian. » » «He can’t be dead,» Sergei says, with a moan. ««Only a little thing.» Sergei holds it up to the fish, taps it against his own skull to prove it. »He wanted to take you from me,» Sergei says, almost crying. But he said Mine’s super-great,» the goldfish says, sounding impatient. «I’m a magic fish. I’m fluent in everything.» All the while the puddle of blood from the earring boy’s head is getting bigger and bigger and Sergei is on his toes, up against the kitchen wall, desperate not to step in it, not to get blood on his feet. «You do have one wish left,» the fish reminds Sergei.
