The Land Agent

by J David Simons

  New York is a good city to be a Jew. We are surrounded by Jews. I believe there are more Jews in New York than in Palestine. There are newspapers in Yiddish, theatres in Yiddish, gossip in Yiddish, barrels of pickled herrings in the street. People leave us alone. They do not call us names, they do not desecrate our tombstones. I am happy to be in America. To speak in English. I took your father to the movies. We went to hear jazz. We even went dancing. Can you imagine, Lev? Your father dancing. We also started to save some money. We had big plans for the future. And then this stupid accident happened.

  What about you, Lev? What is life like in Haifa? Are you married to Sarah now? Do you have children? Your father would have been so happy to be a grandfather. You tell us nothing about yourself, only about your brother Amshel. I try to keep up with the news about Palestine. Always there seems to be some kind of trouble. Jews are going there, Jews are leaving there. I have a pushke on my sideboard for money I give to the Zionists. Every time I put my nickels and dimes in the slot, I think of you, Lev, and that summer we spent together before you went away. Tell me, how is your typing?

  I am glad that Amshel has found you. I never knew him, of course, but it must be good for you to have a brother with you. To be with family is a fine thing. Unfortunately, I am not in the situation to help him. To tell you the truth, after a time of terrible loneliness, I met someone else. He is a kind man, he looks after me. But he does not want to know of my previous life. I am a new woman for him, with no past. So I cannot help Amshel with any letter of financial support. If it were you, then maybe it would be different. But with Amshel I have no connection. I am sorry. I realize a Jew cannot just turn up in America any more without the proper papers and sponsors. Perhaps Amshel should go back to Poland? Your grandfather left some property there, the cottage in the wood – you must remember? There was land around it too. Your father tried to sort it out from here but then he died and it is not my business anymore. Amshel should attend to this – after all, he is the oldest son.

  I hope you are well, Lev. I hope you have found happiness with your Sarah, and your children give you many blessings.

  With warmest regards

  Ewa Kaminsky

  Lev put down the letter, dropped his feet from the sill, turned his back on the sea. His father was dead. Such a remote figure in his life, why should it matter to him? He remembered how Amshel used to say: ‘Look at him, Lev. Look at him.’ And here his brother put a circle of thumb and index finger in front of his eye to help him focus better on the stooped figure plodding up the street. ‘He always looks like he’s schlepping a piano.’

  It wasn’t a piano his father was schlepping in America. Or crates of liquor as he used to do in Mr Borkowski’s store. But bricks and planks and girders. Building bridges and roads and office buildings. It seemed America had straightened his crouched frame so that he even went dancing. Lev tried to imagine the two of them, all dressed up in evening wear, gliding across a shiny, empty floor in each other’s arms, his father’s trousers just a little bit too long for him. Smiling. Szmul Gottleib, happy in America.

  Lev went back to the post office, sent a simple telegram to Amshel, asking him to come to Haifa immediately. He then went home for lunch.

  Twenty-seven

  THE EARTH MIGHT HAVE STOPPED SHAKING but Lev could see Madame Blum was still trembling as she served him cold borsht and a salad of raw vegetables at the kitchen table. She then sat down beside him. Her hair was pulled back into a headscarf, dragging up her thin eyebrows over the stretched, powdered skin of her forehead. Her eyes, usually black-lined, were devoid of any make-up.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I can tell something is wrong.’

  Lev shrugged, slurped on a spoonful of beetroot soup. That sweet, earthy taste, it was delicious.

  ‘You are holding something in, Lev. I see it written in the lines of your brow. It is not good. You will get indigestion.’

  Lev relented. ‘I received a letter this morning. From America.’

  ‘From your father?’

  He told her what Ewa had written.

  ‘For the death of your father, I wish you “long life”,’ Madame Blum said, then asked: ‘How do you feel?’

  The question surprised him. Nobody had ever asked him that before. About anything. He didn’t have an answer.

  ‘To lose a father is never simple,’ she said. ‘Even one who was so far away.’

  Lev thought about the last time he had seen him. On a station platform in Warsaw, together with Ewa Kaminsky. As his train departed. Ewa was blowing kisses, his father’s head was bowed, his hands deep in his pockets. Lev knew then he would never see him again.

  Madame Blum patted the back of his hand. ‘You and Mickey, you are like my own children.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘My late husband and I… we couldn’t have children. We wanted, but we couldn’t have.’

  It was the first time he had heard this. It was unusual for Madame Blum to say anything about her husband without cursing him. He and Mickey still wondered what had really happened to him that day he fell in front of the Haifa-Damascus train.

  Madame Blum went on. ‘Yes, having you and Mickey here has been a blessing.’ She stared at her ringless fingers. ‘You are not lonely here. A woman my age knows how it feels to be lonely. But you have me. And you also have Sammy. He has been like a father to you.’

  Sammy lived in the German colony. Straight rows of detached houses set in their own gardens stretching from the Abbas Effendi Garden in the hills right down to the sea. The properties tended to be two-storey, red-tiled affairs with wonderful views of the Mediterranean. They had been built by some German religious group Lev knew nothing about. But then there were so many religious groups in Palestine, it would have been hard to keep track of them all. At least this one built fine houses.

  Sammy’s home stood out from the rest. It had been designed by a German architect who had worked for the Turkish administration but loved all things English. As a result, Sammy lived in a compact, one-storey cottage with exposed internal beams, all hemmed in by cedar trees and a garden overgrown with imported rose bushes. ‘A house fit for Shakespeare,’ was how Sammy described his dwelling. Lev had no idea what Shakespeare would have looked like but he imagined him to be rather short given the low height of all the cottage’s doorways.

  A dead dog lay on the road close by Sammy’s gate, the second one Lev had come across on the short walk over from Madame Blum’s. Flies hovered over its skinny frame, burrowing into the ears and eyes. He gave the lifeless animal a wide berth, covered his mouth against the stench for fear of catching rabies. He pushed open the gate, glad of the dim and cool of Sammy’s garden with its shade of cedar trees, its scent of roses.

  The tremors had shaken a couple of tiles off the roof into the flower-beds, pots of succulents lay broken at the entrance doorway. Other than that, no damage. Lev scraped the pot shards and loose earth into a heap with his foot, knocked on the front door. No answer. He searched for the spare key in its usual spot on top of the lintel. Nothing there. He tried to peer through a few of the windows but it was too dark or the glass was too dirty for him to see inside. Sammy must have gone away on some field trip. As he turned to walk away from the house, he saw Mickey standing at the gate, one arm resting on a two-wheeled trolley loaded up with wooden crates.

  ‘This is a bit of luck,’ Mickey said. ‘I could do with a hand.’

  Lev grabbed one trolley handle, Mickey the other, they tipped up the crates, pushed the load forward.

  ‘What’s inside?’ Lev asked.

  ‘Tchatchkes.’

  A typical Mickey answer. Yiddish. Vague. Trinkets. ‘Why can’t you just tell me?’

  ‘My business is my business.’

  ‘People are talking about your business.’

  ‘Really? What are they saying?’

  ‘That you’re dealing in guns.’

  Mickey
laughed, stopped pushing the trolley. ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘Rumours. In the markets. The coffee houses. The card schools.’

  ‘Gun smuggling is a serious accusation.’

  ‘I’m just telling you what people are saying.’

  ‘Is that what you think is in these crates? Rifles? Grenades?’

  Lev shrugged. ‘As you said. Tchatchkes.’

  Mickey pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket, set about levering the lid off one of the crates. A splinter cut into his hand, forcing him to pull back, suck at the wound. ‘I’ll show you fucking guns,’ he said.

  ‘Forget it, Mickey. I believe you.’

  It was too late. Mickey was back attacking the crate, prying off the lid. He held up a small, green, metal container with a red cross on it. ‘See?’ he said. ‘First Aid boxes. Not hand grenades. First fucking Aid.’

  They didn’t talk after that. The going was a bit tougher anyway, pushing the load uphill, Mickey reduced to one arm as he sucked away at his cut, trying to stem the flow with a piece of gauze from one of the First Aid boxes. Back at the house, Madame Blum took him away to bandage up his hand, leaving Lev to prepare some fresh orange juice in the kitchen. But Mickey was soon back in the room.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about your father?’

  ‘I was going to,’ he said, squeezing down hard on an orange. ‘But the contents of the crates got in the way.’ He felt himself closed up over his loss anyway. For years he had lived as if he had no father. Ewa’s letter might have upset his balance for a few hours, but now he was back to his orphan life.

  ‘For God’s sake, Lev. I am your friend…’

  ‘…The news is just terrible,’ Madame Blum exclaimed as she burst into the kitchen. ‘Terrible, terrible, terrible.’

  ‘What news?’ Lev asked.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to Ida. She says the area around Nablus is like… like Armageddon.’

  ‘How does she know?’

  ‘Her husband Max works in the mayor’s office. They have telephones there.’ Madame Blum sat down at the kitchen table, fanned the worry on her face with her fingers. ‘Ida says they are talking about over one hundred dead. Many buildings collapsed. People still buried under the rubble. Children crushed. A tragedy.’

  ‘Did she say anything about the north?’ Lev asked. ‘The Jordan Valley?’

  ‘What do I know about the north? I am talking about Nablus.’

  ‘Celia will be fine,’ Mickey said.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘If Nablus is the centre of the quake, the Jordan Valley will be like here. No deaths. No casualties. No buildings damaged. Just a slight shaking.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Madame Blum said. ‘A shaking. A shaking up of everything.’

  Twenty-eight

  EVEN AFTER LEV’S MANY YEARS in Haifa, the feverish babble of the station terminus on Faisal Street continued to thrill him. The bursts of steam, the whistles, the shouts for assistance, the cries of the porters, the tea-sellers and the trinket vendors. As did the sight of the wealthy tourists stepping off the longboats from a recently arrived ship moored out in the bay. Those whiskered men suave and confident in their top hats, their stylish wives wrapped in their minks despite the warmth. Those American and European visitors who had enough money not only to come here but also the freedom to return happily from where they came. Awaiting these first-class passengers, over on a siding away from the main tracks, uniformed guards stood by a special train with its luxury coaches, shiny dining cars and sleeping saloons soon to be covered in flies and dust. Destination: Sea of Galilee and the religious sites of Tiberias.

  The train from Damascus via the Jordan Valley was only twenty-five minutes late, the engine crew marking this unusual triumph with huge, pink smiles on their coal-blackened faces as the train hissed breathless to a standstill by one of the station’s tall palms. And there was Amshel, first off, with a stampede of passengers following in his wake. He looked well, Lev thought, muscled and lean, sun-tanned, smiling, something different about him, he couldn’t quite work out what. Amshel upon him now, hands grabbing him by the shoulders, shaking him affectionately, then raising his arms out to the side, presenting himself with a grin. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘About what?’

  Amshel pointed repeatedly at his own mouth. ‘Are you blind?’

  ‘Your teeth,’ Lev said. ‘What happened to your teeth?’

  ‘God give thanks to your friend Mickey. He told me he was giving me a special set. I could see they were top quality myself. Vulcanised rubber plates with a good set of porcelains attached.’ Amshel tipped his head up and to the side, mouth opened wide so Lev could get a good look. ‘Uh, uh, uh,’ Amshel grunted, pointing to his shining dentures.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  Amshel closed his mouth. ‘I don’t even have to take them out when I eat. They fit perfectly. Where is Mickey? I want to thank him. I want to kiss him. I am a new man.’

  ‘Who took out the old ones?’

  ‘A blacksmith in Tiberias.’

  ‘You went to a blacksmith?’

  ‘Nails out of hooves, teeth out of mouths, it’s all the same to me, that’s what the man told me. Although I drank half a bottle of arak before he started. I hardly noticed the pain after he’d taken out the first three or four. It was good he was strong, held me down with an arm across my throat, a knee on my chest. He did a fine job too, didn’t break one tooth. Not one tooth. Or my jaw. I still spat up enough blood to fill the Sea of Galilee though. Then these dentures Mickey gave me, a perfect fit. It was like a miracle, Lev. A miracle. It has changed my whole life.’

  ‘You look good, Amshel. I was worried about you after the quake.’

  ‘We suffered a few tremors.’

  ‘How about Celia?’

  ‘Everyone is safe. And my children’s house is still standing, not a brick or beam out of place. But further south, there were enormous cracks in the ground. A few of us went to have a look. It was as if God Himself tried to tear Trans-Jordan away from the rest of Palestine.’ Amshel waved the single page of his telegram at him. ‘You’ve heard from America?’

  ‘Yes.’ Then slowly, he added: ‘Papa is dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Killed in an accident.’

  Amshel grasped his head in his hands, closing up his elbows so as to conceal his face. Lev could hear the sniffing, the sudden gulping for breath. He hadn’t expected this, his brother’s instant dissolution into tears, especially compared to his own dry reaction to the news. But soon it was over. One last gasp. Amshel brought his arms down, wiped the back of his hand across his nose.

  ‘Borkowski wrote you?’

  ‘No. Papa’s wife. Ewa.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Lev extracted the letter from his satchel, gave it over. Amshel peered at the typewritten address, then at the stamp printed with the map of the country of sender. ‘The United States of America,’ he mouthed, before handing back the envelope. ‘Read it to me.’

  ‘We should sit down and talk somewhere.’ Lev had thought about going over to the German Colony, to sit in Sammy’s garden, but now he realized he wanted to be up high, a place where there was space and a view, room to say what needed to be said. ‘We’ll go up there.’ He pointed to Mount Carmel. ‘Up by the monastery.’

  ‘Just tell me what’s in the letter.’

  ‘We can talk as we go along.’

  Amshel chased after him. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘I’ll tell you soon enough.’

  ‘Will she still sponsor me?’

  ‘Is that all you care about?’

  Amshel stopped asking questions, dropped back as Lev walked on, moving faster, kicking out at stones, concentrating on the view. This would be a good place to build a house, he thought, if there was a proper road rather than this dirt path to the monastery. There had been much talk of constructing one, with a hospital
or even a university at the end of it. It would be wonderful to live up here, looking out to the sea, not only north along the bay but also south to the famous vineyards of the Anonymous Donor.

  He came to a simple bench a few hundred yards short of the monastery gates. It was a good place to stop, the path twisting away from the direct blaze of the sun, the ancient branches of an olive tree wrapping the seat in some shade. Perhaps this was where the Carmelite monks came for some solitary contemplation away from the monastery itself. He sat down, damp with sweat, waited for his heart to slow, for his breath to settle, for Amshel to arrive. Which he did, a minute or so later, to sit beside him on the bench, stretch out his legs, fold his arms and ask: ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He was run over by an automobile. In New York City.’

  ‘Read it, Lev. Read out the letter.’

  Lev did as he was told.

  ‘She is my stepmother,’ Amshel said when he had finished. ‘Yet she won’t help me.’

  ‘She doesn’t even know you. What do you expect?’

  ‘I don’t expect anything. I have had no luck in my life. Not one little piece of mazel. Nothing.’

  ‘It’s Papa who was unlucky.’

  ‘Papa wasn’t unlucky. He was just stupid enough to get hit by an automobile. Leaving me to that heartless wife of his.’

  ‘She was kind to me.’

  ‘You’re the lucky one then.’

  ‘What about our zeide’s land? You could go back, claim your inheritance.’

  ‘Go back to Poland? Go back to where they hate us? Grandfather’s house is probably a pig-pen by now.’ Amshel stood up. ‘I’m going back into town.’

  ‘What for?’