Winter in Jerusalem

by Blanche d'Alpuget

  –I told Sam, ‘They don’t think they’re prostitutes. They think I’m a nice guy.’ He said, ‘You’re a sucker, kid. You break my heart.’

  When Danielle put down the telephone, she was shaking. His sleepy voice, the intimacy of his breath in her ear . . . if he had stood before her she could have opened her mouth and swallowed him. She craved to know him all over – what he was thinking; what he was doing; his dreams. She wanted a total possession.

  Friendly sunshine flowed over the carpet, onto the bed, hauling her from the deep like a fish. She got up and searched the room, looking for some part of Bennie: a belt, a sock, a piece of paper with his writing on it. There was nothing. She felt as flat as a shoelace.

  Then love erupted again. She was in love! She didn’t care what he felt about it.

  He must feel the same! she thought.

  – But maybe he doesn’t. Maybe I’m just another of his one-night stands.

  What was he doing? Who was he with? He’d be with some tart he picked up in the nightclub. She’d strangle her first, making Bennie watch . . . She thought, I’ll ring back and say, ‘Get that girl out. Throw her out, or I’ll be there in five minutes to tear her up.’

  Danielle looked at the telephone. Then she began listing his faults: Bennie is a crook; he’s a womanizer; he’s ruthless. His charm is seditious, all of it employed to the one purpose of making a mountain of money for which he has no use . . . But his vices had a high polish to which she –

  I can’t help it, just yet, she thought. His perversity enthralls me.

  She tried a duller path: My financial security hangs on this film. I will lose my house if the contract is broken. If I have a fight with Bennie – and I will, if I can’t recover from this madness – I’ll be sending twenty years’ work down the drain. And Katherine’s education. I must give her a better chance than Bonny could give me: my life would be a disgrace if I couldn’t believe Katherine is a finer being than I, with a brighter future. She’s like a growing shoot; I’m her tree.

  She pictured her view through the gum trees, the little bay with white boats in it, the thousands of suns dancing over the Pittwater, from the boat moorings all the way to Lion Island.

  She thought, I shall not jeopardize that for . . . a fuck.

  She realized they needed one more script conference, but after that they could communicate by telephone – and if they had to discuss the final draft face-to-face, she could take Sarah with her.

  Danielle began to smile, then laugh.

  Sarah wore a tracksuit to the office and smoked eighty cigarettes a day. The morning they had squeezed five profit points out of Bennie and Sam she had said, ‘Daniela – you forget what your momma told you about being polite. I know this boy. And I know Sam.’ The first fifteen minutes were quiet; for the next hour and a half Sarah and Bennie had screamed at each other. It was so exciting they all began to believe what they were saying. At one point Danielle had been inspired to shout, ‘I refuse to be your piece of cheap territory!’ At the end of the conference the two sides had kissed each other and they had gone out to lunch. Sam was so agitated he couldn’t eat; Bennie, who half an hour earlier had been saying, ‘You’re crucifying me! You’re killing me!’, turned to him several times to whisper, ‘It’s only money, Sam. Listen, this soup is good. Eat.’

  Danielle was laughing so much her nose ran and she needed a Kleenex. In the bathroom she saw the cold woman-of-glass watching; the woman had a faint, ironic smile.

  I need ice in my heart, she thought. I want to burn my eyes against Jerusalem one last time; I want to see the Judas trees blooming in the Kidron Valley . . .

  – My father holds me in a rock of ice; I’ve come to accept that in these past days: he’s not going to melt.

  The glass woman nodded slowly. Danielle said to her, ‘But what now? Who am I now?’

  Her companion looked thoughtful. Then she mimed a curse.

  ‘Damn it!’ Danielle said. For more than an hour she had forgotten the practical reason she’d had for contacting Bennie: the timing of the car’s explosion. She hoped that Akram would have noted the time they left Masada.

  She had another massage and spent the day dozing on the beach and walking again through the foothills; sitting among the deformed, petrified minerals with a clipboard and pad on her knee she wrote up her notes of Masada as if there had been no five-day gap between being there and being now.

  Her bruises had gone, their greenish traces hidden by skin turning biscuit-colored. Bella’s peristaltic machine that morning had made soft gurgling noises. ‘You flowing goot again,’ she’d said.

  Bella could see auras and spirits, but she rarely told her clients; each time Danielle entered the massage room a young man accompanied her, an insolent fellow, but he was fond of her. ‘You got husband? You got brother?’ she asked, shrugged, and went on with her work. People wanted to think they were free; they didn’t like to be told what was in their auras.

  At four o’clock in the afternoon Danielle returned to the hotel, where the desk girl handed her a message: Akram will collect you at seven P.M. Script conference tomorrow morning in Jerusalem. Love. Bennie.

  She felt faint, and in a panic. She had to get ready, pack her clothes, organize her ideas for the morning, arrange everything under headings. There must be no spaces during the conference – she would write out an agenda, give it to Akram to deliver tonight to Bennie, so that when they sat facing each other in the morning they could go straight to business. Bennie must have decided to leave on an evening flight, tomorrow. Danielle turned and dashed back to the desk. A man – maybe he who had offered her a string quartet – was glowering behind the cash register.

  ‘What day is it?’

  He sighed and gave that flap of the hand from his wrist.

  ‘Thursday,’ he said. ‘From last night it’s been Thursday.’

  ‘Are there flights to Athens – or Rome – tomorrow night?’

  ‘You have an airline in mind? Not El Al, I hope. El Al does not fly on Shabbat – it doesn’t even fly, the pilots go on strike for four months. Now the doctors want to go on strike. Lady, this is a democracy. What can I do about it?’

  ‘Do you have an airline schedule?’

  ‘Am I a travel agent? Do I look like a travel agent?’

  She could hear him shouting after her as she strode back to the elevators. Unless tomorrow went like clockwork, Bennie would be unlikely to get a seat on any of the crowded flights out on Friday afternoon at this time of year. Or so she imagined. It could mean a whole day followed by a jagged night under the same purple sky.

  Packing, which she thought would take an hour, needed ten minutes; the unendurable wait began. She tried to write an agenda, but it seemed both muddled and stilted. She threw that out and began again: the result was only marginally better. Or maybe it was worse. She tore it up. She walked up and down, she ordered coffee and sandwiches and when they arrived did not like the look of them.

  The earth rolled and a gentle sunset flowed up from the Mountains of Moab, turning them from violet to gray; the swelling moon, which would be full on the first day of Passover, soared away, chased by Polaris. The sea held its color, the astonishing chemical shade of blue like a public swimming pool, then in a moment became an ink lake.

  ‘Good-bye,’ Danielle whispered. The telephone began ringing: Akram would be in the lobby.

  She took a final look – for Eleazar. He had not stood so close, but had been able to watch the sea well enough, from up there. It was this time of year: around Passover, a time when the moon was always full. When Eleazar had looked into that pit of ink . . . It was so frustrating: the historical record was as frail as a remnant of silk found in a grave. The Romans hadn’t bothered to record the Masada suicide, as they had forgotten to make a note about the execution of a troublemaking rabbi from Nazareth.

  If the Masada women had not disobeyed the Zealot council, then gossiped about it, the story would not be known at all. And now archeologists had tu
rned the event into the hack of contemporary politics; the official view was that Eleazar was an Orthodox Jew dying for Israel: Death before Slavery! How plausible, she thought. How convenient to have Eleazar as the hero for young soldiers. At Mira’s place someone had said, ‘Listen to our propaganda: it’s not accurate, but it’s plausible. “Never Again.” “No Alternative.” “Created Facts.” “We don’t forget 1492.” Our slogans are so good we don’t need to think: they explain everything.’

  ‘Okay, I’m coming,’ she-called.

  String Quartet was at her door. ‘This is all? What do you need me for?’

  ‘I don’t. I could carry it myself – but I thought you’d like the tip.’

  He cocked his head, eyeing her one bag, wondering if he should stoop to an act beneath his strength’s dignity.

  In the elevator she asked, ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘Al-Khalil. You call it Hebron.’

  ‘That’s an A.’ She looked at him again and began to smile. She had a dollar bill ready, replaced it, and pulled out a five.

  ‘The dollar was okay,’ he said.

  ‘Take the five.’ She was still smiling at him, and herself. ‘I don’t often meet Arabs like you.’

  He shrugged and pocketed the note. He was used to being patronized.

  When she saw Akram’s piano-key smile stretched to his ears she kissed him on each bunched cheek before thinking of what she was doing. There were grayish circles around his eyes.

  ‘Have you and Bennie been enjoying yourselves?’

  She got the whole story between foyer and Mercedes: Akram had been in a helicopter that day – Mr. Bennie had flown it himself – Akram had made vomit, from frightened – right there, over Masada, taking photographs, Mr. Bennie falling out door of helicopter . . .

  ‘What!’

  ‘Almost. Almost falling out door. Mr. Bennie says come to Los Angeles, drive Rolls-Royce car.’

  Danielle pulled him up. ‘Don’t be crazy, Akram.’ How to explain that Bennie’s life was half fantasy?

  Akram seemed unconvinced. She, however, felt strengthened by the exchange, and ready now to enter the space lilting from Bennie’s presence in it. The car smelled of Monte Cristo cigars, there were his orange peels on the floor and a pair of his sun-glasses tossed on the backseat. She became sleepy as soon as she sat down.

  ‘Akram, what time did you leave Masada on the night of the accident?’

  He could not remember the order of the days anymore; she asked him to try and announced she was going to sleep.

  When the car reached sea level and the temperature began to drop Akram switched on the heating system to keep her warm. He had been puzzling over the question he had been asked twice that day: Bennie had wanted to know this morning at what time they had driven away from Masada. Akram had thought he was hinting about an overpayment for that day, although Bennie never argued about money – just peeled off the notes. A few days earlier Akram had felt it on his honor to tell Bennie that he had, last week, made an error. Of three hours. Actually it was five and a quarter hours, but that was an undignified number. ‘Aw – keep it. Buy something for the kids,’ Bennie had said.

  Akram had to concentrate on driving up the Judean Hills, but when he caught the first glimpse of Jerusalem – the Hilton tower – he remembered: Bennie and the soldier who had brought him down from the mountain had talked for a while, beside the car. The soldier didn’t want money, so Bennie had given him a cigar and had lit it for him. Then Bennie had given him the hashish.

  ‘Makes you fly,’ Bennie said. ‘C’mon, Akram. We’ve gotta fly. What time is it?’

  It had been 8:45, Akram now remembered.

  He told her this when he carried her bag to the door on King George Street. She was still half asleep.

  ‘As late as that?’ She looked reluctant. ‘What about Wili? Has Bennie had any news?’ Danielle had sent Wili flowers and a message – Get Well, Love to you from the princess – feeling ashamed while spelling it out to the woman at the Moriah reception desk.

  ‘Sat-is-factory,’ Akram said. ‘Four days more, he returns to England. Mr. Bennie says, more handsome.’

  ‘Isn’t that good?’ He could see she was so tired that she might be about to cry. Foreign ladies, in Akram’s experience, did not know how to live: they worked too hard; they were rich but they never enjoyed it.

  ‘You sleep,’ he said.

  Jazzy had long since satisfied himself that the timing device Saeed had invented in fact worked. While Danielle and Bennie were asleep together, he had driven down to the Dead Sea for a beach picnic with Saeed and a couple of the other boys.

  ‘Their driving,’ he said when they passed the black remnants of a car by the side of the road. He had the bored, dry expression of someone used to all sorts of uncivilized behavior. A tire in perfect condition was twenty yards away, available to any collector.

  ‘We could use that,’ one of the boys said.

  ‘I would not soil my hands,’ Jazzy replied.

  Saeed looked at his knees. While the others were in the water Jazzy told him: ‘That’s what has to happen to traitors.’ The other boys believed that Wili had returned to London on a special mission.

  ‘But why did he tip off Kidron?’ Saeed asked.

  ‘It’s my opinion he worked for MI6. I think they recruited him while he was in jail, and when he came out and I met him: “Oh, Jazzy – save my honor! Give me revenge.” It was a trick from the start.’

  ‘Then they know about us.’

  Saeed had genius only in his hands.

  ‘Of course they do. But do the English love the Israelis, who sold weapons to Argentina for its war against Britain? And because we are independents . . .’

  Jazzy knew what could happen to Palestinians who joined political groups; for Saeed he recounted again the story of a perfumed scorpion.

  ‘It happened in 1969, I was thirteen years old,’ he began. His only brother had joined Fatah and made an ambush that destroyed an Israeli armored car. He was betrayed one night, and shot dead. It was the time of year when almonds ripen. For two days Jazzy had been picking almonds, loading them on the donkey and returning home only in the evening. Then he and his mother would shell the nuts. They were doing so, sitting on the doorstep in the sunshine next morning when an Israeli officer and soldiers arrived. Jazzy’s mother knew, then, that she had lost her elder son. The officer was very precise, very correct; he said: ‘It is my duty to inform you that this, being the dwelling of a terrorist, shall be demolished.’ He quoted the military regulation. ‘In exactly,’ he looked at his watch, ‘twenty-seven minutes. Please collect your belongings and leave the premises.’

  Jazzy’s mother shelled another nut. Then she said, ‘My husband is dead, my daughters are married and have gone away. My strong son has disappeared and I have only this child. It’s a nice day. These are beautiful almonds. Allow me to offer you some coffee and some almonds? Let us sit in the sunshine a little longer.’ The officer turned to the two soldiers with him and said, ‘Come back in one hour.’ He sat down and enjoyed his coffee and almonds; he talked about the weather and the crops with Jazzy’s mother. The soldiers returned with the bulldozer; the officer said, ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ then directed the demolition of their house.

  ‘What did he do then, Saeed?’

  ‘He returned to his office and resigned.’

  ‘And why?’

  ‘Because he was a scorpion.’

  ‘Because he was the very man who, a few hours earlier, had killed my brother! . . . And then?’

  ‘His resignation was rejected. He was promoted to major and moved to army psychology.’

  ‘Yes, yes. A perfumed scorpion. Our land is full of them.’ Jazzy and his mother had gone to live with relations and it was through them they learned what the officer who had eaten almonds had done the night before.

  When he was fifteen Jazzy met an Englishman. The man took him to London, but Jazzy got bored and, when he had finished high s
chool, left him. Soon afterward he met Saeed, who was already famous for his hands. They worked around Chelsea and Hampstead, robbing the parts of London Jazzy already knew, and met Wili a few days after he’d left jail. They had dreamed up the idea of fixing Wili’s enemy’s car for no special purpose – just to see if they could do it. Since then, whenever they needed money they’d asked Wili – not that he had much, ‘but it’s good for his memory,’ Jazzy would say. When the man had been killed Wili had shat himself, like a baby. ‘Your girlfriend’s brother had an accident. Look, the newspapers say so,’ Jazzy had reassured him.

  He was not concerned that there had been no newspaper stories of the death of a foreign photographer on the Dead Sea road: tourism was suffering this year because of the Lebanese war and it was undesirable for the Israelis to make things worse with negative reports.

  They lay and dreamed in the sunshine and when some foreign girls in bikinis walked past they called, ‘Hey, darling!’ One day it would be all theirs: ‘every centimeter, every almond tree,’ Jazzy said. The girls turned and waved back at the boys whose creamy winter skins gleamed like the fur of cubs as they played on the beach.

  Twenty-seven

  The Plaza had a downstairs area that in the evenings served as a reception room or could be used as a theaterette. It was furnished with comfortable chairs and low tables and at this time of day it was quiet. When Danielle telephoned Bennie from the lobby at five to nine she said, ‘I can’t stand bedroom walls for another day. Meet you downstairs.’

  Bennie had an insolent walk. Danielle watched his pale blue jeans descending, each leg allowed to relax, almost collapse onto the step below, in a lazy movement that no sensible person would use on a staircase. He was wearing an electric blue leather jacket and had not shaved for a couple of days. A box of Monte Cristos was tucked in his armpit. As he sauntered down the steps, he tossed into his mouth and munched some green things he held in a plastic bag. The Bored Hoodlum, she thought.