Bear in Mind

In this novel, which reads like a thriller, Shulamit Lapid – the author of a series of thrillers about Lizzy Badihi, a journalist from Beersheba -writes about an entirely different set of characters. At the satirical center of the plot, which describes the “literary swamp” of Tel Aviv, are a frustrated professor of Literature Chanan Amitai, a mysterious poet, Dov Firon, who dispatches his poems from distant exotic places, and the poet`s beautiful admirer who knew him when she was a student. More than thirty years after falling in love with Firon and his poetry, Gaby Helman is dying of cancer in her luxurious home and asks her daughter Maya to find the love of her life for her. Gaby, the owner of a successful pharmaceutical concern, dreamd in her youth of being a poet.

She showed a notebook full of her poems to Amitai, who informed her bluntly that they were devoid of talent. Did the professor have any interest in stunting Gaby`s development? Absolutely. He incorporated her work in his study of Firon. Is Gaby trying to take her revenge on the professor before she dies? Who composed the love letters, written on an old typewriter, which are now in her possession? And who is Maya`s biological father? Maya finds herself deeply embroiled in an old romantic-literary love affair, which has suddenly come to life. Amitai accuses Gaby of having stolen Firon`s letters from him and has a psychotic episode. In the meantime, Gaby dies and business at the pharmaceutical concern runs into difficulties. Questions remain open, and the burden is laid on Maya`s shoulders. She proves to be a successful business woman and no mean amateur investigator. She solves the problems of her firm, discovers in her mother`s home the typewriter on which Firon purportedly wrote his poems and letters, and tells the professor to his face: “I know that you are Firon!” Amitai cannot face the revelation and has a stroke, and Maya blames herself for what has happened. Was she mistaken?