“Under the flowerpot. Yes yes. Exactly so,” I heard him in the distance.
“Under the flowerpot, Sisi.”
“Well, it’s not there. Okay? I’m telling you it’s not there.” I tried to control myself. If it had been Simone Nurit Pazit or Ofral I would have told her a long time ago to go find herself another Sisi.
“I don’t know what to tel you. It was under the flowerpot. Nobody’s been there for ages. It’s been under the flowerpot ever since we bought that house. I thing we even bought the flowerpot specially so we could put the key under it. Right, Jean-Pierre?”
“Right right, exactly so.”
“Okay. What do we do now?”
“Break down the door and get a new lock. It’ll cost next to nothing. I’ll pay you back. Just don’t forget to put the new key under the flowerpot.”
“Never mind the money,” I said to her and put the phone down. “Now go find a break-in expert and a locksmith in this hole.”
Okay, we found them. When we finally got into the house it was late in the evening. We brought in the luggage, and I took the car back to the village to buy a few groceries. An hour later I was back with baskets of crabs and other seafood, cheeses and a freshly baked baguette. I went inside and made for the kitchen to put the groceries away. When I opened the fridge I saw a fat shiny fish lying on a wooden plate.
“Alex,” I called in alarm.
“What’s up? I’m in bed taking a little rest.”
“When the hell is this fish? Where did this fish come from?”
“What fish?”
“The big fish in the fridge.”
Aha, there are a few more in the freezer. I caught them. There’s a rod here with a long line. I was bored and I threw it into the sea. Suddenly I felt that I’d caught something. There must be a lot of fish in the ocean here, if you can catch fish from this height, no? I thought we could grill them. Did you bring lemons?”