As he considered this, he realized that his penis was erect, marking the triumphant arrival of his first hard-on in the Holy Land. This was welcome news, of course, although, on the downside, there was little he could do, other than to wish it well. Forcing his thoughts in another direction, he toweled himself down and slipped into the robe that had so generously been provided by the management.
Waiting for him in the next room was the Arab who had made him uncomfortable the previous night.
“Good evening, Mr. Kleiner,” said Mahmoud, fluffing up his bed pillows. “May I run your bath?”
“I just took a shower. And I thought you weren’t going to come in without knocking.”
“Of course, sir,” said Mahmoud, deftly removing a crease from the sheets. “I’ll just be another minute. And by the way, have you spoken to your important friends about my brother’s wedding?”
“No. I told you I don’t have any.”
“You’ll help me,” said Mahmoud, with gentle confidence. “I know you will. You’re a kind man and I know you don’t want me to suffer. And you look tired, Mr. Kleiner. Let me rub your feet.”
“That won’t be necessary. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep.”
“It will make you feel better,” said Mahmoud. “Mark my words.
“Here,” he said, dropping to his knees and swiftly reaching into Kleiner’s robe. “First I’ll make sexy.”
Kleiner shoved him away, then punched him and felt the Arab’s nose explode. Raising his hands to his face, as if in prayer, Mahmoud brought them away and stared in horror at blood and bone. Then he threw his head back and let out a terrible sound that might have come from the bazaar, the combination of a camel braying and the cry of a neglected baby.
Nnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhh.
He ran out the door. Kleiner followed, attempting to offer some sort of apology, but the Arab disappeared quickly, the horrible braying sound continuing to echo through the hallway.
Kleiner returned to his room a shaken man. Why had he reacted so violently? It’s possible that the Arab had caught a glimpse of his erection. On a compassionate basis, he was merely trying to be of assistance—which may have been everyday stuff in the circles in which he traveled. Possibly, Mahmoud thought he was the one who brought about Kleiner’s aroused state, an honest mistake, since the Arab had no way of knowing about Naomi Glickstein’s contribution.
He was disgusted by his behavior. There had been no justifiable need to smash the young man’s face.
He looked at his bloody fist and saw that one knuckle had begun to swell, evidence of a possible broken bone. Sleep was out of the question. After washing off the hand, he put a towel around it and set out to see if he could find the wounded Arab and at least offer him medical attention. There must have been a thousand doctors within shooting distance. Surely one could be induced to make a house call, despite the late hour.
“I’m trying to locate one of your employees,” he told the Viennese concierge in the deserted lobby. “A man named Mahmoud.”
“I’m sorry, sir. There are no Mahmouds in the hotel.”
“But that’s impossible. He works in room service.”
“See for yourself,” said the concierge, producing a roster of employees.
Kleiner scanned the list and saw Abus and Yasins, but as the concierge had attested, no Mahmouds.
“I know he works here,” said Kleiner “I just punched him in the face.”
“That’s hardly proof of employment.”
“Maybe he goes by another name.”
“If it’s Finkelstein, I can help you.”
“It wouldn’t be Finkelstein,” said Kleiner thoughtfully as the concierge closed his book. “Is there a bar that’s open at this hour?”
“A bar and grill. But they don’t serve Kosher.”
“I can live with that,” said Kleiner. “I’m wired. I need to unwind.”
“The whole country is wired,” said the concierge, scribbling on a notepad. “Why should you be different?”
Kleiner found the place easily enough and joined the crowd at the bar, a raffish, hard-drinking group, some of whom openly discussed arms deals and hinted of ties to the IRA. With his bloodshot eyes and bandaged fist, Kleiner felt right at home. To further establish his bona fides, he ordered a double shot of a harsh off-brand whiskey.
Raising his glass untypically, he toasted the bearded and broken-toothed man on the next stool.
“Here’s mud in your eye.”
Taken aback at first, the man recovered and introduced himself as Moskowitz, an architect who had moved to Jerusalem for the unique pinkish stone and what he called “the clime.”
“It seems to have agreed with you. What are you, sixty?” asked Kleiner, charitably shaving a few years from his estimate of the man’s age.
“Forty-two,” said Moskowitz, who turned away.
The architect was soon joined by a handsome young woman with a strong jaw who wore her blond hair in a crown of ringlets.
When she spoke, it was with a German accent: “You were going to explain your surname.”
“I told you,” said Moskowitz with exasperation. “It’s Hungarian. What do you want from my life?”
Raising a suspicious eyebrow, she said, “That isn’t quite what I mean.”
She turned her head. Was it Kleiner’s imagination or had she whispered “Judischer”? Or was it perhaps “pisher”?
Kleiner was astonished that an interrogation of this kind could take place in the Great State of Israel. No one was being pulled off to a death camp, but still.
Moskowitz looked at Kleiner.
“Can you believe this! Her father was a U-boat commander and she’s worried about my surname.”
Once again, Kleiner found himself meddling in someone else’s business.
“She’s lucky she’s not being torn from head to foot. Tell her to get lost.”
“I would,” said Moskowitz in a whisper. “But there’s a chance I can dance in her pants.”
“In that case,” said Kleiner with a philosophical wave.
When the woman left for the powder room, Kleiner asked the old Jerusalem hand if it was possible for an Arab in a four-star hotel to disappear without a trace.
“Happens all the time.”
“What if I wanted to locate such a man?”
“Let him find you. If you go looking, they’ll rip your dick off.”
“Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“I’m an architect. I don’t speak in metaphors.”
“I see,” said Kleiner.
When the woman returned, Kleiner shifted his attention to a table in the rear, where a group of youthful IDF troops, half of them men, half women, sang Israeli war songs. The men were thin and scholarly looking. In the States, they would have been consigned to biology classes. As baseball players, they would be positioned in right field. The women were hopelessly beautiful in their open-collared denim uniforms. They signaled the end of each verse by firing their Galils out the window. On the spot, Kleiner decided to call off his search for Mahmoud and left.
Kleiner awoke the next morning with a fist the size of a grapefruit. After soaking it in warm water, he reviewed his situation. In all innocence, he’d come to Israel to scout a few locations. Already he’d lusted after a Jewish girl’s tits and smashed the nose of an Arab in room service. He was just the type of person they needed during the delicate peace negotiations.
Not wanting to get into a long explanation about his fist, Kleiner told Hilly on the phone that he wanted to nose around on his own for a while.
“Fine,” said Hilly, “but if you run into my wife, tell her I spent the night in the hotel with you.”
Kleiner didn’t think it likely he’d run into the Israeli’s wife in a city of millions. Still, and
with reluctance, he agreed to be a partner in the deception.
“I appreciate this,” said Hilly, “and I owe you one. But be careful or she’ll tear off my schvonce.”
Kleiner winced at what he hoped was only a voguish local expression, although it was becoming apparent that dicks were actually being ripped off in Jerusalem, or at least a few.
Kleiner began his day with a sacred pilgrimage to the Holocaust Memorial at Yad Vashem. Though his only personal loss in the Jews’ greatest tragedy was a few distant cousins by marriage, Kleiner himself had suffered a mysterious weight loss as a child in 1941; he had pictorial evidence to prove it. Medicine and injections were of no avail. He’d even been sent to a special upstate facility to fatten him up with milkshakes. But nothing worked; though he was remarkably cheerful, he remained a bag of bones. His parents were distraught; the doctors threw up their hands. Then, just as he was about to go down the tubes, the camps were liberated in ’45. On that very day, Kleiner began to gain weight again, becoming a fat guy for a while.
For the most part, Kleiner kept this part of his history to himself. He had only told a few dates at college about it. But in his soul he was convinced that there was a connection between the Nazi horror and the plight of a ridiculously skinny kid in faraway Washington Heights. Not that he felt he was entitled to reparations from the new German Republic.
Such were his thoughts as he looked at the pictures—by now familiar—of people who had actually suffered in the camps.
“What do you think?” he asked a cute girl who had a borough accent.
“Fucking unreal.”
Kleiner stood on line to put his name in the visitors’ book. When it was his turn, he wrote simply:
With Respect,
William Kleiner
The man behind him read his inscription and called out bitterly, “Is that the best you can do?”
“There was a lot of feeling in it,” said Kleiner, who admitted inwardly that he may have gone too far in understatement. At the same time, he didn’t appreciate getting rewrite notes at a Holocaust memorial.
He asked the ancient groundskeeper, “How do the Germans react?”
“They don’t,” said the man as he swept up leaves.
“They’re silent?”
“What should they do, make jokes?”
Kleiner returned to the Arab Quarter and redemptively bought a credit-card holder, although not from the vendor who had warned him never to turn his back in Jerusalem. Then he stood on line to enter the Chapel of the Ascension, where Christ was alleged to have risen from the dead—although some argued that he had lifted off a few miles away. A touring group of Greek widows stood in front of Kleiner. Behind him were stocky blond fundamentalists from Chicago.
When it was Kleiner’s turn to enter the holy site, he had to crouch down to enter the passageway. It soon became apparent that he had miscalculated the amount of space inside the tomb. Surely money could be raised for an expansion. Authenticity no doubt had won out. Still, the limited space was a problem for Kleiner, who was claustrophobic; he’d once had to be removed unconscious from a submarine outside of St. Croix, where he’d gone to scout a location.
Kleiner took a quick respectful look at the crucifixion site, then tried to back his way out of the small musty cavern. By this time, the fundamentalists had come bouncing in on powerful haunches, blocking the exit. Contorting their bodies, they cried out in tongues, a language the devout Chicagoans seemed to make up as they went along. N-n-n-n-n——g-g-g—g—ngnghhhhhh— A guidebook said the angels could translate these sounds into simple English. Kleiner wished them luck. Short of breath, he fell to his knees and tried to crawl through a thicket of powerful blond legs as they pumped away with sincere religious ecstasy. He began to lose consciousness. It occurred to him that if he dropped dead in Christ’s tomb, it would be construed—if anyone bothered to construe it—as a cheap bid for immortality by a failed Jew in the movie business. At most, after his death, he would attract a few dozen followers—a mixed bag of renegade Yeshiva students and a few regulars at comic-book conventions.
Finally, he worked his way through one last pair of straining fundamentalist haunches and reached the outside passage. Hyperventilating, he shoved aside a frail nun and collapsed on the marble slab that was used to rinse Christ’s wounds. A white light appeared to him; he tasted a sweet sinusoidal liquid that was not unpleasant and blacked out.
When he came to, he found himself being gently rocked back and forth. He thought for a moment he might be riding a camel through the clouds. Looking around to get his bearings, he saw that he was in a harness that was strapped to the powerful shoulders of a man who was parading him through the streets of Jerusalem.
“What’s going on?” he asked the man.
The rescuer turned his head slightly. It was Mahmoud.
“I’m taking you to the clinic, Mr. Kleiner. You fell and cracked your head.”
Kleiner put his hand to his temple and felt a large gash. How large, he tried not to speculate.
Still, he couldn’t resist saying, “Feels like I’ll need a stitch or two.”
Mahmoud corrected him.
“Nine,” said the Arab.
“Don’t they have an ambulance?”
He assumed that visitors to the Old City were overcome by religious ecstasy every day of the week and would require medical attention.
“They had to cancel it because of budgetary considerations. Now they depend on Arabs such as myself to assist the stricken. I was filling in—after they threw me out of the hotel—and I was happy to see that I was there when you passed out.”
“I can walk,” said Kleiner proudly.
“Of course. But why upset yourself. Let someone else help you for a change.”
The young Arab’s words rang true. Kleiner had trouble accepting favors. But he gave it a try and allowed himself to be rocked into a coma.
When he came to, he was in the waiting room of a clinic, with Mahmoud carefully watching over him. The doctor in attendance was a man of roughly Kleiner’s age. He wore a kippah and a prayer shawl and appeared to have rushed right over from the synagogue.
“You’re all right,” he said, taking Kleiner by the shoulders. “There’s nothing wrong with you.
“You must believe me,” he added, almost pleading at this point.
“What about my head?”
“That’s a very big problem,” said the doctor. “But basically, you’re fine.”
The doctor stitched up Kleiner’s head and bandaged his fist properly. Then he presented a bill for the head wound. It seemed quite reasonable.
“And my hand?” asked Kleiner.
“I threw that in.”
Then the doctor stared at him with moist eyes. “Remember, we’re not as young as we used to be.”
Kleiner tried to follow the doctor’s logic. Was he suggesting that it was all right to split your head open in Christ’s tomb when you’re a young man, but that it’s inadvisable when you get older?
As he considered this, the traumatic experience in the tomb caught up with him. His knees gave way. Mahmoud, who had been playing bingo with another patient, came running over to steady him.
“You’re coming home with me,” he said firmly, “until you’re on your feet.”
“What’s wrong with the hotel?”
“I’m dead meat there. Besides, it’s too gloomy.”
“All right,” said Kleiner. “But I’m not traveling on your back.”
“Of course not,” said Mahmoud. “We’ll take a limo.”
Shortly thereafter, a stretch pulled up to the clinic. Kleiner and Mahmoud shared it with two Jews for Jesus who were under indictment for insisting that Christ was the Messiah.
“Do you really think he is?” asked Kleiner.
“Absolutely,” said one of the cultists.
>
The other tapped an attaché case.
“We have the proof right in here.”
The car dropped Kleiner and Mahmoud off in the Old City. The Jews continued on, no doubt to make their point. The result could only mean more trouble for the Jews. But at least they had a purpose in life.
The Arab led the American to a dark apartment on the second floor of a shabby building. The ceilings were low, the lights dim. The rugs that covered the stone floor were on the dark side too.
“This isn’t gloomy?” said Kleiner.
“Not when you get used to it.”
When Kleiner’s eyes had adjusted to the light, he saw that the lamps were antiques, the rugs richly brocaded; handsome tapestries covered the walls. This surprised him. He had assumed that the Arab lived under a rock somewhere.
On the walls, unaccountably, were signed glossy photographs of Bobby Darin and Liza Minnelli. Was it possible Mahmoud’s family were intimates of the show-business luminaries?
“They only visited for two minutes,” said Mahmoud.
“But still …” said Kleiner. He looked around. “Actually, it’s quite comfortable.”
The Arab responded with pride. “My father is in real estate. He owns practically half the souk.”
A stout, middle-aged woman entered the room. She glared at Kleiner, then left.
“That’s my mother,” said Mahmoud with pride.
“Did I do something to offend?”
“No, no. That’s her way of showing that she likes you.”
A burly, pipe-smoking man wearing a robe and sandals entered the room. He introduced himself as Farid Salah, the father of Mahmoud.
“Welcome,” he said. “My home is at your disposal. I appreciate all you’ve done for my son.”
“Not at all,” said Kleiner, who frankly couldn’t understand how smashing the boy’s nose had contributed to his welfare.
“The flesh heals,” said Mr. Salah, with a philosophical puff of his pipe. “But you got him out of room service.”
At that point, he clapped his hands and his wife appeared, carrying two bowls of a steaming concoction. After glaring at Kleiner again, but also at her husband, she set the bowls down on a table and left.
The Peace Process Page 14