‘I just want you to know, Barbara, that this is not the happiest moment of my life.’ We were waiting for Asaf to pick us up and take us down to the office of Immanuel the lawyer in Mishor Adumim for us to do the one thing I was dreading – and you know what that is. How this came about will be revealed below for one and all to consider. It’s a cautionary tale about wanting something not to happen when you know it’s going to happen anyway.

A week had passed since we had given the thumbs down to the too-small apartment with the fledgling olive tree in the garden not so far from where we are now ensconced. We returned home after the inspection of said premises, had dinner, and adjourned to our respective offices, for Barbara to continue her efforts to find and consider creative ways to finance THE apartment and for me to identify additional expenses to add to my spreadsheet – narrowing the comfort level between money we knew was coming in and money that was flowing out without our giving it a thought. Now I was at the what-if stage of spreadsheeting. (Since all our income comes from The States and begins in dollars, what happens if the shekel continues to trade at 3.6, goes up to 3.7, or goes down to 3.5, or even 3.25, lower than which we would be in deep doo-doo? (Maybe it was better we didn’t know how little extra money we actually had all the while. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.) None of this makes for a restful night of sleep – especially since Pooms needs her food bowl refilled and her neck scratched usually somewhere around 4AM.

The next morning, it was Esther on the phone. She says she has a serious buyer, and she wants to bring them over at 11:30. That means our standard drill: Barbara gives a quick swish to the kitchen floor, and I tidy up the living room, based on the notion that you need to make a good first impression on anyone who crosses our threshold. Then we got a second phone call. The buyer wants to come over NOW. OK. Let me collect the garbage and get it out. And there downstairs was Esther with a guy. You might as well come upstairs for the same price. Is he waiting for his wife?

No he wasn’t, not just yet. As I was informed later, in certain circles it is the husband who makes the unimportant decisions, like where the family is going to live. Not the way I would do it, but nobody asked me. (When Barbara and I discussed this matter later, she seemed to remember that I had secured our first rental apartment in Jackson Heights without her seeing it. I had to explain that it was hafuk; she had made the agreement without my seeing it. But I had agreed that it was OK for her to do so. Just goes to show…)

Shloimie looked around the premises with Esther doing the narration. His comment to me as the two of them were leaving was (in English) ‘Very nice.’ No sooner were they downstairs when Esther came hurrying back. ‘He’s making you an offer!’ No surprise, it wasn’t quite enough. How should we respond, or, better, what kind of counteroffer should we make? We must have guessed right because he accepted what we asked for. No further haggling necessary.

We weren’t quite done for the day. He asked if he could bring his wife to see the apartment. (Finally!) And so Mrs. Shloimie, a/k/a Revital, got to take the grand tour – this time with Mr. Shloimie doing the presentation. It would soon be his apartment, after all.  Let him walk around, opening doors, turning the lights on and off, pointing out this feature and that. He’ll be paying for the privilege, so why not?

Somebody is wondering, supposing Mrs. Shloimie a/k/a Revital didn’t like it; then what? Let’s put it this way. The two of them and their six children (ages six to thirteen) have been living in a two-bedroom apartment. Do I have to say anything more? (I didn’t think so.)

That’s it? Just like that? Our apartment goes bye-bye? I had assumed there would some grand existential moment, some heart-wrenching decisions that we needed to make. (Well, the whole thing is heart-wrenching to me, but never mind.) But there it was. (Like a bolt out of the blue, faith steps in and sees you through…) Simple.

Of course, that was just the beginning; there would be a lot more to come, involving lawyers and bankers. But first lawyers. Something about contracts and the like. We did have someone lined up to represent us, someone local, recommended by friends. However, she was unavailable, and the fellow she recommended was likewise unavailable. Esther suggested, ‘just use their lawyer,’ as in Mr. and Mrs. Shloimie’s guy Immanuel.

I know your reaction; it’s the same as ours was. NOOOOOO!!!!!!! In The States, the parties NEVER use the same attorney; it would be a conflict of interest. But here it’s done all the time. As Esther explained, if there really is a problem and the two sides can’t agree, then the lawyer will decide with which party to continue working, and the other side will get someone else to represent them. But that rarely happens, and you can trust Immanuel to get it right.

Which is why we were on our way, thanks to Asaf’s transport, down to Immanuel Ohayon’s office in…DCity, actually in the new hotel in DCity, where there are offices. (Who knew?) And (spoiler alert) there was nothing that transpired out of the ordinary, no unexpected drama. Esther was right, there was no reason for both parties not to use the same lawyer. We were selling, the couple on the other side of the table was buying; we had agreed on a price and a closing date. Nothing to argue about.

I kept thinking of an all-to-brief conversation I had with Brandon a few weeks ago while he was doing his usual make three orders at a time, and I was sipping my iced latte. One of the things he likes about Israel, he said, is that it is a country of laws. Which is interesting, because some of us (who might that be?) have surmised that The Land is a nations of suggestions. But, sitting in a lawyer’s office, listening to Immanuel go through his routine, I began to understand Brandon’s point – at least to a degree. The first thing that happens is everyone involved hands over their teudat zehut to be inspected and photocopied. You have to prove who you are, just in case you might be some random dude or dudette who got lost on their way to the lavatory in the hotel lobby. The rest of the proceedings are recorded – just in case. Yes, we are all who we say we are; some of us are selling the specified apartment; others are buying it. Do you own the apartment in question; are there any liens on it; who lives there; are there any outstanding problems with the apartment? There are still some issues with the roof, but we will have them taken care of before THE BIG DAY.

On and on. The Shloimies will be giving you this amount of money now, this amount, and then that amount. (We will be getting all this in writing sooner or later, but we think we’ve gotten the first installment into our Leumi account (something about an international computer crash). And then we started to sign our names and sign our names and sign our names (on these pages, you can just put your initials). Maybe it’s

a nation of places to file away extra copies of whatever it is you just signed. Anyway, it was soon over; everyone was happy – some more than others. It was tedious but painless – if you don’t consider heartache in the equation.

Now we need to lay claim to THE apartment, which is being held for us once we put together the money we need and sign more documents. The good news, according to Asaf, is the price of the apartment magically got dropped by 50,000 NIS. The bad news is that no one in the new building wants to be the vaad habait (the person in charge of the building), and one occupant – on the ground floor, obviously – is saying he won’t pay for the elevator because they don’t need it. (Well they don’t need the roof either. Come to think of it, they don’t need to have the stairs and the other floors cleaned…) I explained to the lawyer that no elevator, no apartment. Not to worry; these problems can be resolved. We’re counting on you, Immanuel, as you can count on me to keep you up to date while we await further developments.