Money Isn't Everything In Life

by Yoram Wollman
Tel-Aviv, December 2000

Only three people were waiting in line before Benny Yaskov. Earlier it had been announced on the radio that the sanctions at the Social Security office were to start that morning at 10:00 a.m., but Yaskov thought that if he were to act innocently, like he knew how, and pretended that he hadn't heard the news and would be able to round up another few unemployed people, then Ezra, the payment clerk, who was also their afternoon drinking partner at Albert's Café, wouldn't be difficult and would agree to pay him his unemployment money - or at least a portion of it. He couldn't wait until the day after tomorrow for his money.

They were lucky - not withstanding some yelling and a few arguments - Yaskov and those ahead of him received 700 Shekels on account. Ezra told them that in any case the sanctions would end in two days and then closed the counter window. When Yaskov left he met his old factory work colleague, Tollie, about to enter the building.

"No need to go in - there's sanctions, come back in two days. Would you like a small loan, eh? Lets go into Albert's Café, play some backgammon and have a few beers. Maybe we can get some clear thoughts on what we should do, if we should demonstrate or burn tires. What time is it? Why aren't you shaved Tollie?" As he gave him a friendly slap on the back of his neck.

Yaskov found an empty table in the center of the café. Tollie who was more of an easy going fellow with no family obligations preferred to sit outside and watch the tall girls with their tight short shirts walking by. Yaskov didn't like to be outside where everybody could see him especially since he was unemployed. In any case, the girls, even though they glanced at him, were of no interest.

Flora, his wife, was waiting for him at home, her love and devotion were more than enough for him. Besides, girls cost money. "Tollie, how do you expect these girls to look at you when you're unshaven and disheveled?" Yaskov tried to convince Tollie to sit inside with him.

"I'm unshaven? And what about you?"

Yaskov didn't reply, and bent his head towards the table and continued to bend towards the floor.

"My cigarette fell - is it on your side, Tollie?" "Benny Yaskov - Really! Stop this nonsense okay? Here, take it - take it... " Tollie pulled out a crumpled cigarette from his coat pocket. "My next to last, only for you!"

"But, I'll pay for the beers" insisted Yaskov. "I'm lucky that I have Flora in the bank."

"Not only in the bank, but also at home! A treasure you have at home seriously, do you know how many men would like to have a woman like Flora? It should happen to me" said Tollie and started to drink his beer.

"Listen Tollie, we have to go to the hospital in Ashkelon to visit Hezi from the crew, we haven't been there for a long time. Maybe his leg is better. What do you say, are you coming? Last week, I went to see him by myself. I'll ask someone if we can have a ride as I have no money for gas."

Tollie readily agreed. He knew his previous boss well: to help people in distress, Benny was ready to do almost anything, as long as money wasn't involved.

It looked like the unemployment crisis would continue forever.

At five in the afternoon, Flora called from work to her neighbors to ask them to tell her husband that she would be coming home late, between 8:30-9:00 pm, since she planned to visit her mother in the hospital. Yaskov disconnected their phone - in order to prevent his daughters from using the phone and running up a large telephone bill.

This was the last thing that Benny wanted to hear from his wife, especially since he knew there was no love lost between his mother-in-law and himself. For him, it was a waste of money - and especially now since he was unemployed and living on welfare. These welfare payments would be the death of him yet, that's what he would say to Tollie, and Tollie, who took his previous boss' words seriously, the expert in copper molding, would grab Yaskov by the sleeve: " Don't do anything foolish, Benny, O.K.!? Remember that you have a wonderful wife and two beautiful daughters at home."

Flora came home at 8:45, like she had promised. Her husband had never raised a hand in anger to her, but she had learned that a set time is a set time, a word is a word, and one has to watch one's money - especially now since he was unemployed for the second time.

During these hard times, Benny would give Flora a sum of money for her daily needs, and in the evening when she came home after work and her shopping, they would examine her expenses for that day. Yaskov knew that Flora didn't care for this method, but knew she would go along with it in any case, due to her good nature, and he owed her a debt of gratitude on the way that she raised their two daughters and her running of the household. He also knew intimately every inch of her body, and, her sexy, bubbly demeanor. He remembered his father saying: "The pride of a King's daughter is in her home." This was an accurate description of his Flora.

Yaskov didn't even look at his watch as his wife entered the house and went directly to the kitchen. He heard the door to the refrigerator open and close, and then he heard her light the stove, and was sure she put water on to boil. The squeaky door of the bathroom opened and closed, and Benny knew that Flora was changing her clothes, and would soon come to the living room dressed in a pink sweat suit, with a green T-shirt, braless like he loved.

After a few minutes, Flora entered the salon with two cups of black coffee on a tray and an extra empty cup, and sat down next to him. Yitzchakov gave her a quick smile, and returned to watching the soccer game on the television between Juventus from Italy and Real Madrid from Spain. She bent down and kissed him on the forehead, gave a deep sigh and sat down on the sofa, raising her legs and putting her head back.

On the tray was also a small white container. Flora glanced for a second at the ceiling, stretched her facial and neck muscles and started to rub the cream on her face, forehead, and neck and massaged it gently.

A little cream remained on her earlobe, a pleasant smell spread throughout the room. Benny knew how it would end. He closed his eyes for a second, and imagined himself nibbling on her earlobe, and making passionate love to Flora, however, he was disturbed by the shouts of the soccer fans coming from the television, and even more than that, by the fact that he was unemployed. "But I love you nonetheless," - she would whisper in his ear, and would excite him even more.

Their two daughters had already gone to sleep. They had returned tired from a day trip, with the children of the fourth floor neighbors. Flora made sure that her husband drank tea instead of coffee, due to his high blood pressure. Wordlessly she added milk to her coffee, and sugar and mint leaves to his tea. He laughed at his wife, commenting that she had become European instead of Mediteranian in the bank where she worked, by adding milk to her coffee, and with this came a quick hug and a kiss on the earlobe. Flora knew what would come after this.

But not this time. It seemed to Flora that in the past days something had disturbed Benny's desire for her. Something was bothering him; apparently the unemployment affected his desire for her. Usually, Flora knew how to direct his advances towards her for gentle love making, and then she felt in control of him and he not in control of her.

Flora's sister-in-law told her, "You may seem weak to him, and that is your strength against him. However, you can't say that he doesn't love you."

Flora wanted to bring Benny "back" to her, and especially today. She extended her legs to the small stool under the living room table, kicked off her shoes, causing them to fall to the floor with a clatter. She put her purse next to her on the sofa. Yaskov yelled," Now the soccer game is on - be quiet!!!" and with a wave of his hand asked her not to make noise, as his eyes were fixed to the screen.

Flora, with the grace of a kitten ran her finger down the length of his spine from his neck to his hips, repeating this motion again and again. Benny was taken aback for a second, turned and slapped her gently on her thigh, for a long time she hadn't aroused him in the way that he loved.

"Flora, what happened to you today?" She gave him a small smile and blinked her eyes seductively, however, he ignored her hints. "Tell me, what did you put into your coffee? Did you chew on a few Gat leaves from Miriam's to get you all turned on? Let me see Juventus, Flora, what do I have to do except watch soccer?"

"Maybe you would like to hear what happened to me today, Benny" she whispered, trying to prevent the inevitable. Something in her voice made him turn to her, causing him to momentarily forget the football game.

"What?" asked Benny impatiently. Instead of opening her purse with the day's accounts and receipts, for the day's final accounting, she simply said: "I lost 50 shekels."

The words remained hanging in the air. Yaskov looked at her without seeing her, listened to her but didn't hear her. He rose from the sofa, turned down the volume of the television, and went back to sit next to her on the couch. "Fifty skekels is a lot of money, Flora", he yelled, but there was no threat in his voice.

Flora held his hand. When she was on her way home from visiting her mother in the hospital, she said, she crossed the parking lot on her way to the bus station. The time was seven in the evening, not really very dark outside; the parking lot was even lightly illuminated. The bus was due to arrive in a quarter of an hour, she was tired, and wanted to sit on the bench at the bus station. Suddenly, she saw across from her a tall youngish man, wearing black pants and a pressed white shirt, holding an attache case in his hand. He had a serious expression on his face, she thought he was perhaps a lawyer, coming from the Courthouse in the neighborhood, to his car, and then as he passed by her, he turned and asked something of her.

Flora said that later, when she was sitting and waiting for the bus, thinking about what had just happened, she wondered how it was that she wasn't frightened of him. Night was falling, it was dim, and they were alone, and he was so close to her that he could have simply attacked her and stolen her purse, he looked that strong to her. He asked her to give him 50 Shekels in order to buy gas for his car, he needed to get to the police lock up in order to release a prisoner that was his client, and he had to get there as quickly as possible. He sounded so convincing, that she already saw how she would put her hand into her wallet, and give this good man 50 shekels.

When she opened her wallet, she asked herself if 20 shekels weren't enough to buy some gas, and then saw that she had only a 50-shekel note, a 5-shekel coin, and a few single shekel coins. She decided, she told Benny, eight shekels is enough for a bus ride home, but not enough to buy gasoline. She had no choice; she shrugged her shoulders and gave the man the 50-shekel note.

The young man was so nice, that he gave her his address and his identity number, and also asked for her address so that he could return the money to her in the near future. Only he hesitated in giving her his phone number, and gave her a number that sounded strange.

When she finished telling the story, her heart was beating rapidly. That was the story that Benny heard from his wife. He didn't ask Flora why she had given money to a stranger, and why she just didn't turn around and walk away. She said how sorry she was about this, and it would never happen again, but Benny commented that money isn't everything in life. Afterwards, he got up, turned the lights off, leaving only a small light burning in the hall. He retutned to Flora, put his head on her knees, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to be cuddled by her.

A week later, when Benny met Tollie at Albert's Café, he was paging through the newspaper that someone left on the table next to him. On the last page he saw a notice that so shocked him, that he called to Tollie to stop looking at the girls, and come to him. "Read, Tollie, read - you won't believe this, no, let me - I'll read it to you."

He started to read the notice in a low voice, but the others sitting near him, came closer to listen. Yaskov was already intent on his revenge, but all those that came closer disturbed him from concentrating. He got up, grabbed Tollie's arm and pulled him outside. "Tollie? we are now going to the Police Station in Ashkelon. They arrested Eli Moreno, the one written about in the paper."

"Good that they arrested someone like him. They should hang him! He's a maniac! But Benny, please tell me, what is your problem with him? Why do you want to see him?" asked Tollie.

'I'll tell you what my problem is!', Benny almost exploded. "He took me for a fool on the same day that I went to visit Hezi - do you remember? I gave him thirty shekels, thirty shekels I just threw into the garbage, and I'll never see them back again, because some creep tricked me - Benny Yaskov!"

"But you never told me about that, Benny," replied Tollie. "Good, I understand." Benny didn't answer right away. He measured his words that were harsh, like the unemployment itself: "He also duped Flora, when she went to visit her mother in the hospital in Ashkelon, in the same place. I couldn't bring myself to tell Flora to be careful, and how could I tell her such a thing, that he made a fool out of Benny Yaskov? I gave that son of a bitch eighty shekels, do you know what that is? It was in the paper that he would drug taxicab drivers with a drug that he put into their cola and would then steal their money. What do you say? I would love to get my hands on him. He also told Flora that one has to help people in distress, and that money isn't everything in life.