Don't piss off The Operator.It seems obvious now, that not giving her what she required to place my international call could be seen as willfully defiant, but I honestly couldn't find the number anywhere in that apartment. It wasn't on the phone itself, which was bizarre, and I couldn't find a bill.
"I'm just here for a kiddushin," I told her. It wasn't my place, my buddy dumped me at his cousin's flat as he was out of the country and it offered me freedom from his parents who were busy micromanaging preparations for the wedding. I didn't know their phone number either.
"I can not place this call without your number," the Operator said and hung up. She didn't like that I suggested she already knew it.
"Why would I know your number? Don't you hear me asking for it now twice? Am I speaking to you in English?" She was irritated by my stupidity in calling back.
But, she was the Operator and this was Israel! Surely, if an Operator in Texas knew which number to ring back when I called and said "fuck you" then hung up at 11 years old, she can tell which number I am calling from politely at 20 in Neve Tzedek.
"I'm just trying to call my girlfriend," I said and knew immediately the plaintive tone was a mistake. "Please, I really don't know the number. Can't you, like, look it up for me?"
Silence on her end was deep as she studied my cluelessness from across the wire. I could hear her smoking, the slow crackle of paper as she drew a familiar sound from my childhood.
"No," she said and disconnected. It was madness!
I called her right back.
"Please don't hang up. I think I found the number," I lied, trying to buy time and sympathy.
There would be neither.
"Let me tell you something, I will not place your call even if you do have a number, which you do not," warned the pointed enunciation of her slow reply.
"You will not place my call," I repeated. "May I ask why?" Her tyranny was stunning, a wielding of power beyond my experience.
The answer could have been an opening. I was exhilarated.
"In this time away from your girlfriend," she asked, sarcasm barely suspended, "have you been yet to the beach at Herzliya?" In fact, I had been to Herzliyah Pituach the week before, collecting shards of Roman sea glass and getting stung by jellyfish.
"Yes, I have! Those are beautiful beaches!" Was she was about to ask me out? Absurdity had replaced all reason.
"Why won't you let me call my girlfriend?"
My anticipation outmatched by her impatience, the Operator cleared her throat, asked if she had my undivided attention and spelled out for me a truth so basic and embarrassing as to leave me speechless in my naiveté.
"Because you are not a little boy and you don't bring a sandwich to a restaurant."