Tuta (part 1)
Original story by novartza.
Starring: tuta et el.
Translated by: Yours truly.
Please note: I am not a professional translator. Feel free to comment me about any translation errors.

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"What are you doing, uncle Nahum?"
"Filling a form"
"What form?" It was Esty, my 10 year old niece. She dragged a chair from the room corner, climbed on it and looked over my shoulder. The time was 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon.

I was living that time in my sister's apartment, in Ashdod.

The reason for it was my brother in law, who took advantage of my father's innocence in order to write my father's apartment in Jerusalem, where I was living too, under his name. "It's only in order to get a mortgage", he said.


Two years after my father passed away, my sister and my brother in law engaged their elder daughter. They needed an apartment for the young couple.
"B.. but.. the apartment is mine! I inherited it from my father!", I stuttered.
"Whose name is it written on in the land registry office?" asked my brother-in-law, smiling.
"And where will I live?" I asked in embarrassment.
"You can rent yourself a room somewhere", he answered. "We will help you with one third of the rent. Actually, you can live in our apartment, for free. We will vacate the maid's room for you."

So that's how I moved to Ashdod. I moved there the computer I inherited from dad, the one which could still run DOS programs I needed for my job. I gave the other computer, the more enhanced one, I gave to the guy who lived in my former apartment for rent that covered the mortgage expenses, as a goodbye gift. [I didn't understand that paragraph myself]

"It's a Toto (sports betting) form", I explained my niece. "There are 10 tables, in each one of them there are 15 rows and 3 columns: 2, 1 and X. You need to fill in each row one of the columns".

She looked silently on me why I was filling the 8th table. When I got to the end of the 9th one she asked: "Let me fill one table". I let her. What harm could it do?

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In Saturday I didn't do anything besides of sleeping, eating, praying and reading a bit in holy books. My sister and her husband are religious. I am too, actually, or not. Meaning - when I'm with them I keep the Shabbat and pray carefully, so they won't know I'm not as believing as them. Inside me I stopped believing, especially after what my brother in law did to me with the apartment. If god exists, I though, how come he let me do me such a thing?

After the "Havdalah" I went to my room, turned on the computer, opened my work hours report file and filled in a date and a time. I started working.

I worked in diacritization of holy books. My boss wanted to publish chumash with a few medieval commentators. There were already several of these in the market, each one with more commentators than the other, but they lacked diacritics. My boss purchased the files with the non-diacritized texts and passed them to me, to diacritize. Not manually, heaven forbid. I worked with an old word processing program which had an automatic diacritizer.

I turned on the radio: "Songs and goals" [A famous sports program] Beitar Jerusalem against Bnei Sachnin. It was the 14th minute and the result was 1:0 for Beitar, from a goal of Avi Nimni five minutes before that.
I finished diacritizing chapter 27 in the Chumash of Deuteronomy when I heard a knock in my door. I turned off the radio and said: "Yes?"
It was Esty, the niece. "Could you help me please, uncle Nahum?"
"In what?"
"In the Chumash."
I sighed silently, saved the file, marked the hour in my hours file and went with her to the living room. I don't consider sixth grade homework as a challenge.

15 minutes later I was back in my room. I turned on the radio and got back to work. The Ochana guys where still trying to increase the score, but the Sachnin goalkeeper, Mirmavadoro, did his job well, along with their defense team, and the score remained the same until the end of the half.

"Telkar with the ball, trying pass to Nimni, but the ball gets blocked in a fabulous blocking by Hussein Salame, the great middlefield player of Sachnin. Salame dribbles, bypasses Telkar. A pass to Edri. Edri advances towards the goalpost. Kornfein blocks him, a bit too aggressively. Salame on the grass. The referee gives a red ticket. Kornfein leaves the field angrily." Beitar with 10 players and without Kornfein - A tough situation, I thought to myself. I hope to hell that sachnin won't score another goal.

I closed the file I was working on and marked the time in the hours files I worked for a total of an hour and a half. I connected to the internet.

"Nahum? Where have you been?"
It was Tuta. Her real name was Christine, an Armenian Christian of Lebanese origin who lives in Los Angeles. Full of life happiness. Likes to annoy. I'm desperately in love with her.
"I've been working, sweetie", I answered. "I need money for financing the internet connection and talking with you, you know", I added smilingly.
"Yalla. Really. As if an internet connection costs so much in Israel. You don't even have broadband."
"I was just laughing. It's just that the boss is pressuring me to finish this task so he can pass it on to proofreading."
"Can you help me with something?"
"Ofcourse. What's the deal?"
"How do say 'catnip' in Hebrew?"
I placed my mouse cursor on the word and clicked the middle button.
"Nefit HaKhatulim" (I spelled that for her with latin letters. All the conversation has been in English, of course). "But I doubt anyone uses this word besides of the Hebrew Academy. Anyway, I don't think this plant exists here."
"Thanks, Nahum. Je ta'dor". She typed a colon and a star, as a kiss sign. "Bye honey", I wrote her.

Akh, I though. If only I had some million dollars. I'd move to Los Angeles and Marry her, and damn my boss and the nice brother in law, and all the others who make money on my expense.

I returned my attention to the radio.
"Ganaim with the ball, passes to Miary. Two minutes forty seconds to the end. Miary advances, passes to Edri. Telkar tries to block him. Edri returns to Miary. Kicks.. Goal! Guy Salomon had no chance of stopping that kick. 2:1 to Sachnin!!!"

I moved my attention to the chat, while listening with a half ear to the radio. Maybe a miracle will happen and Beitar will equalize. Some idiot started flooding the channel with "Fuck Israelians" and "Palestine forever" so I kicked him. "Nimni in a bursting attack. Telkar tries to block him, with no success. Trying to move past Amslaem. Amsalem trips him! The Beitar audience curses Amsalem vigorously. The judge whistles for a penalty kick. 25 seconds to the end."
The chat had nothing that required my attention so I got back to the game. "Nimni on the line. Will he succeed in equalizing? Kicks.. the ball is out!
The game ends. 2:1 to Sachnin. The rabid fans of Beitar burst to the field and try to attack the referee. The cops take control of them." I switched the radio station angrily to the Galgalatz top ten chart.

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In Thursday evening I finally finished the work on this commentator. The hour was 11 at the morning. I zipped the files and emailed them to my boss. I included the hour reports with the payment request. 216 hours, 35 nis an hour. Total 7650 NIS gross. Reasonable.
I wore the black "uniform" and the brimmed hat and went for a walk. I took a bus to the forum, went into the kosher pizzeria and had a pizza and cola. I continued strolling around.
I got into the Toto station and handed my Toto form, out of habit.
"Well? Any win?"
"Brother", said the seller, "you hit the jackpot! 15 correct guesses!"
"You got to be kidding. How come 15? Didn't Sachnin win Beitar?"
"Sure they did," he answered.
"But.. how could it be? I know I marked 1 or X in all the columns!"
The seller pointed the relevant line in the last table. The one that my niece filled. There was a 2 there.
"Ehh.. where do I get the money?"

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Stay tuned for the translation of the second and last part, which is written from Tuta's point of view!
Update (the next day) - the sequel is here.