"Everything sucks!" the news studios shout at me. "We have to live!" they shout at me during the commercial break. "Cheer up," they shout at me on Instagram, "here's a picture of a kidnapped! Here's a picture of a cat!" " You don't feel enough!", "You do feel enough, but not the right feelings!". Take a soldier coming home, he's drinking coffee. Take his pregnant wife, she's painting a nursery with the trendy colors of winter '24. Take Shiri Maimon crying in a promo for a show in which a soldier once participated, who now no longer sings because he is dead. Take advertisements that begin with the words "on days like this" - as if there are more days like this, as if there were once days like this.
I mean, maybe there were, but they didn't have sales of seating systems and Star of David necklaces. "Given the circumstances!" I shout after realizing I had mistakenly said I was well. What are the "circumstances"? A kidnapped woman who came home loves a song of mine. He accompanies her. Does that mean the song was also hijacked? Is it okay to post a story about it? "Calm down already!" I shout at me in my heart. Like it works that way.
• • •
After a certain break from performances for soldiers (they are in Gaza) and evacuees (they are nervous), we went down to Eilat. In the first few weeks, there was a constant airlift of artists, which has calmed down a bit recently. In the first weeks of the war, I tried to get to all sorts of holes, the only artists who visited recently besides me were a man in a SpongeBob suit and a dog walking on stage.
I knew that the evacuees at the Dead Sea and Eilat were organized when it came to performances, and had probably already seen a performance by Omer Adam hosting Noga Erez, Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Jackson, and I didn't really have anything to suggest that he compete with that. Now that we've calmed down a bit, I thought it was a good arrangement: we'll go down to a few shows, catch up on some sleep – the toddler recently decided that sleeping is for losers – and maybe even, Rachmana Litzlan, we'll sit at night in a restaurant on the promenade and look at the water.
Maybe the problem was the short break I took. Perhaps the problem was the dissonance. It started at the half-abandoned Ben Gurion Airport and the locked glass doors, continued on Israir's empty plane and culminated when I started crying in the hotel's dining room, in front of a birthday party held for one of the children. And you will not say that the conditions were bad - on the contrary: the hotel was pleasant, the staff attentive, the room clean. And yes, the shows were tough, and every time a song ended I wondered if it was okay to go down now. But I don't feel like writing about it, not even jokingly. I don't want to complain about an audience that has much better reasons to complain.
Actually, the problem was that they were still there. With the carpeted floors and the newspaper in the lobby. The problem was that once again it turned out that they were real people, and that all this really happened, and that the truth didn't cease to exist when I didn't look. And even now, after the visit is over, there is a problem. The problem is that the families of the abductees ask us to remember them, but also say that they are not angry if we go on with our lives. That the soldiers want us to be happy and to feel that there is someone watching over us, but also that we don't return to normal so quickly. And what happened to free coffee at Sonol? And where are all the volunteers with the meatballs? Where are the tactical boraxes?
The problem is that the bereaved parents ask that we let the IDF win, and that not all this be in vain, and that there be peace. And we, what are we? Just people. Open the TV and immediately turn off. You start planning ahead and immediately stop. They ask that it be good, or at least okay, or at least bearable. Cultivate tiny hopes in silence, in the dark, and water them with tears.
• • •
After the first performance, we ordered a taxi to take me and the whole crew to the next show at the Red Sea Hotel. A driver arrived who from the outset seemed kind to me, but a bit too happy. He told us he was studying acting. He didn't recognize me, and cracked open a million questions: "What are you doing? Show? What music? Original songs? Evacuees? Not stressful?" A man tried to stop the ISA interrogation, asking which restaurants were open now. "What style? What do you like? How much money do you want to spend?" I said with a smile that if he just told us what good restaurants were open - he could, if he wanted, come to the show. Mistake.
Then he makes the following amazing suggestion: "Aya, listen, I have invoices here. They say I'm a creative artist, so I can issue you an invoice. Pay me 500 shekels, and in the middle of your performance you'll invite me to one or two songs." Before I can recover, he looks at me through the mirror and starts singing a well-known song by a well-known artist, and I see that he not only sounds like him, he looks like him. It's his brother. I remember seeing his last name on the app before – and it is indeed the same last name.
"So what do you say, Aya? Am I going to go up and sing this song?" I'm still not sure if he's laughing or not, and I ask, "And then tell the audience that you're not actually the famous singer?" and he says, "No, no, I won't say anything." There is silence in the taxi. Then he says, "Well, I understand you're paid less than 500 shekels for this show, so you can't afford it."
I breathe a sigh of relief when we finally reach our destination. The sign outside seems a bit strange to me, and I verify with the driver/actor/artist/creator/brother of a famous singer that we have arrived at the Red Sea Hotel. Maybe the entrance is shared. He reassures me that this is indeed the hotel, and we say goodbye and run away from the taxi. Yedidya goes looking for the local technician and calls me three minutes later: "Aya, we're in the wrong hotel."
So if you are coming to Eilat in the near future - look for this driver, who gave me the most liberating laugh I have laughed since October 7. Identifying signs: not keeping your mouth shut, not closed on where every hotel in Eilat is located, not strong in English. Someone else would probably have noticed that instead of "Red Sea Hotel" - it says CORAL BEACH in huge, illuminated letters.
• • •
In a hotel in Eilat:
Child: But who is Aya Korem?
Mother: Starts singing "A Simple Love Song."
Child: But why don't they bring us someone familiar? Why singers from the 80s?
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