by Amos Kollek
“Irreverent.”
I emptied my glass and put it on the floor.
“I didn’t catch your name.”
From the other side of the room, my mother’s blurred image was floating unsteadily toward me.
“Shirley Jacobson,” the painted lady by my side said nasally.
She put a long thin cigarette in her mouth and waited. I picked up a lighter from the other side of the table and lit her cigarette, being careful not to set her nose on fire. My eyes weren’t functioning at their absolute best.
I stooped and picked up the near-empty bottle.
“Well, Mrs. Jacobson-Shirley,” I said, shaking the bottle and smiling at it dreamily, “I’ll be going up to my room, but you are most welcome to join me for another gulp.”
I stood up. She was looking at me with a steady, inquisitive stare and was about to speak when my mother floated across the room like a big cloud and appeared at my side.
“Assaf, are you behaving yourself?”
She was wearing an expensive, silver dress, which was unusual, since she was a chaste, timid woman who never put great emphasis on her appearance. I learned later that she had received the dress from one of the guests present, so she felt obliged to wear it.
“Yes, Mother,” I said.
I took another drink.
She looked worriedly around the room. Most people were far gone by now, as there was no shortage of liquor, and no reason to stop them from drinking. Only the two or three Israelis present were as sober as judges, but that’s just the way Israelis are.
“Well, then,” I said, “I’m going upstairs. Good night, Mrs. Jacobson.”
“Good night, sweet,” she said, giving my mother a sugarcoated smile.
I padded away through the room, looking it over and thinking it was actually a nice place when there was no one there. It was a large L-shaped room, where my father had the majority of his best paintings scattered among the many lamps and mirrors. There was an elaborate bar on one side, and on the other there was a terrace that overlooked the mountainside and its old olive trees. It made a picturesque view.
As I moved along, my gaze fell on my father’s face. I was surprised to see the disinterested expression on it. He sat in an armchair, in the midst of a laughing, bubbling crowd at the far end of the room. His eyes, cold and bored, wandered aimlessly about the scene, inside a mask of indifference. They met mine and rested there for a moment. I bowed my head politely. He bowed in return, slightly amused, and winked at me, boyishly.
I walked out.
Safe in my room, I put on the radio and sat on the floor with the bottle. The eight o’clock news came on reported in a low, metallic voice. Three men were killed by a bomb in Tiberias. The National Front has proudly announced its responsibility for the deed. The Russian Premier has warned Israel that unless her aggressiveness stopped …
I turned it off with a yawn and returned to my drinking, still half expecting to hear a soft, fleshy knock on the door. After half an hour I gave up and, having no drinks left, went to bed.
I woke the next morning with a revolting headache and generally feeling low. I made myself a pot of tea and scrambled eggs, and threw it up into the sink, five minutes later. I walked around, barefoot, looking for a fellow human being but there was no one there. The place was empty. The world was empty. I felt like a goddamned useless American; empty.
That brought me back to my room with a firm decision to repent. I took a look in the phone book. The TWA office really was inside the King David Hotel. I walked into the office blinking my red eyes, my hands shoved deep inside my pockets. I spotted the white dress immediately. She sat at a table writing on a sheet of paper. I walked over and stood staring down at her.
Finally, she looked up. She gave a light nod with her head to acknowledge that I was there. Her yellow hair was tied with a white ribbon. Even her teeth were white.
“So,” she said, “it’s you.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Please sit down.”
“I’m O.K. standing,” I said.
“Would you like to book a flight?”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, my eyes unable to stop blinking.
“No,” I said. “I would like to book you for supper, if you’re available.”
She shrugged.
“Why not?”
“O.K. then.”
“Where is Ram?” she asked, smoothing her hair absent-mindedly. “I thought you two were inseparable, something like ‘ ’til death do us part’.”
I stared at her face and I liked her. My eyes stopped blinking and narrowed steadily. I put on a very thin smile.
“How did you ever guess?”
Her face froze and she put her pen slowly on the desk before her.
I shrugged.
“Still living in the same place?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Eight-thirty. O.K.?”
“Eight-thirty,” she said uncertainly.
“Well.”
She took hold of the pen again, with very pale, thin fingers, looked at it and placed it on the edge of the desk. It slipped down.
“I didn’t get what you said about Ram.”
I stooped and picked up the pen. I placed it in front of her.
“He got shot, two months ago,” I said, “killed in action, as the saying goes.”
She looked at me and then at her long white fingers.
“Eight-thirty, then,” I said.
I took my hands out of my pockets and wiped them on my shirt.
“Yes.”
“Maybe you won’t wear white.”
“All right,” she said, “all right.”
I stuck my hands back in their holsters and walked out.
Joy wore a short, low-cut red dress. When she opened the door for me, her hair fell in waves on her neck. She wore enormous silver earrings, and for the first time was heavily made-up. Her eyes looked big and experienced, with her dark painted eyelashes. Her lips were as red as Campari. She had a remote expression on her face, not an entirely happy one, but she was absolutely stunning.
“I have forsaken my virgin outfit especially for you.”
“It doesn’t look so bad.”
“Yes, most seductive,” she said. Her breasts moved slightly with her breathing.
“Well,” she said, at length, “how about supper? I am hungry.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I guess.”
We went to eat in the only Chinese restaurant in town, the Mandarin. It was a rather expensive place, but the food was good.
“Your father is very rich, isn’t he?” Joy said to me, after we had ordered the meal.
“Yeah.”
She smiled.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“What brought you to this country?” I asked, pouring red wine into her glass and then into mine. “Pity?”
“Envy would be closer.”
“The decline and fall of America?”
“Mmmmm,” she said, drinking.
“Life is not what it used to be, there,” I smiled. “Something went wrong.”
“Not bad for an Israeli.”
“I was there three years ago. But I meet lots of Americans, and they all sing the same song.”
“Oh yes?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Then it’s too bad,” she said thoughtfully, “isn’t it?”
The waiter brought the dishes, said “tong tong” or something similar, and took off.
“So one day you decided that you had had it with the American way of life, and you packed up your toothbrush and came to Israel to look for meaning.”
She didn’t smile.
“No,” she said calmly, “I packed my toothbrush and went to England.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Surprise, surprise.”
“I have a sister in London,” she said through the chop suey. “She’s married to an Englishma
n. So after I had three years of psychology at Berkeley, and got good and fed up, I went to London and lived with them for a while. I got a good job as a secretary, and everything was O.K.”
“But then?”
She smiled.
“Yes,” she said, “it still didn’t have much meaning, so I packed up again.”
“So you came to the land of the Bible to look for meaning and see all the heroes with your own blue eyes.”
“Sort of.”
I laughed softly.
“You’re wasted here,” I said, “my being no hero and not giving a damn one way or another, anyway.”
“You’re all talk.”
I sipped some more wine. Help the Israeli industry.
“How do you find it here? Touching?”
She eyed me calmly.
“You are having a hard time,” she said, “but it is a better country than most.”
“How about the poor Arab kids we are supposedly murdering in their sleep every night,” I said, smiling. “Please have a heart.”
“It’s a pity that some people feel the need to be cynical.”
“I’m sorry. Stick around for a while and see what happens to you. Three months is nothing.”
“I am very sorry about Ram,” she said.
“Yes. Aren’t we all?”
“Maybe it’s better than being killed by the National Guard.”
“Oh,” I said aggressively, belligerently, “the hell with that.”
She didn’t comment on that. We had our tea in silence.
“Want anything else?” I asked.
“No, thank you.”
I called for the bill and when it arrived I paid and we left. I drove to her place.
“Want to come in?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s go then.”
We walked in and she put on the lights in the room and motioned for me to sit down.
“Please,” she said quietly, “I won’t be a minute. I’ll just slip out of this dress.”
She went out.
I took a look around the room, although there was not much there to look at. It was neat and clean, with little furniture. I walked down the small hall and came to her bedroom. The door was open, and she was standing with her back to me, slipping on a robe. Her figure was slim and perfect. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
She turned around and saw me standing there. I hoped my eyes weren’t excessively big, but I was blushing.
“Oh,” she said. “Seen everything? I am afraid it’s not much of an apartment, but I like it.”
“Yes, what I saw was sort of O.K.,” I said, breathing deeply, “not bad at all.”
She smiled, shaking her hair loose. She had that peculiar smile that seemed to say that something had amused her, though she didn’t care to say what. Her eyes glinted mischievously and then the smile was gone. I put my hands in my pockets, and waited.
“Well, let’s go back to the other room. That is where I entertain my guests.”
She brushed softly by me, as she went out, turning the light off.
The room was immersed in darkness. I walked after her.
Joy placed herself on one of her small Arab stools and stretched.
The delicately curved form of her body outlined itself visibly under the red cloth of her robe. I leaned against the wall and watched her. She crossed her legs and clapped her hands with sudden vigor.
“Well,” she said.
“Well?”
“Want something to drink?”
“No thanks.”
“Grapefruit juice? Orange juice? Milk? Tea? Coffee? You can choose, I’ve got them all.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I don’t want anything to drink.”
“If you want to sleep with me, I am not going to.”
“Oh,” I said. There was a pause. “Why?”
“Don’t want to.”
She looked at me casually, but there was curiosity hidden behind the look, I thought. I looked down and shrugged.
“Well,” I said, “I guess I’ll be going.”
“But then,” she said in her casual, curious manner. “Maybe I was pushing you a bit on that.”
I shook my head. “No, not really.”
“It was a nice supper.”
“I am glad you enjoyed it.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes wandered behind me, on the wall, above my head.
“Sometimes patience helps,” she said slowly,
“We don’t have much time, nowadays.”
She shrugged.
“O.K.,” I said. “I’ll be going.”
“O.K.”
I started toward the door, then turned back.
“I am interested,” I said. “What did your parents say when you decided to come here or did they just not give a damn?”
The curiosity went out of her eyes. They were just cold. I was instantly sorry about what I had just said.
“Maybe they didn’t.”
She picked up a newspaper from the table in front of her and looked at it.
I hesitated for a moment, and then I said, “I think I hurt your feelings.”
“That’s right,” she agreed, her voice like the sound of ice cubes rocking in an empty glass. “But you don’t have to feel sorry about it. You probably wouldn’t anyway.”
She turned a page.
I put my hand up to my forehead and rubbed it, then I put it down on the doorknob and pushed.
“The joke is,” I said, “that I really am sorry.”
Going at forty miles an hour through some of the narrower streets in town, it was hard keeping the car on the road, but I managed it. Beautifully handled evening, I thought, mentally patting myself on the back. Almost no mistake omitted. Beautifully done.
From the radio, a soft mellow voice blurred out sentimentally.
Once I had a pretty girl
I loved her as my wife
I put my hands around her neck
And choked away her life.
The audience burst out laughing. It was a recording of a live show.
I turned the radio off.
I drove home.
Chapter Eight
IN the next few weeks I busied myself writing my novel, studying as little as possible, and cutting my social life to nothing at all.
I wrote nearly a hundred pages, typed in the best English I could master, and then I sat one evening and read the entire thing. I panicked. It didn’t seem right. For the first time, the possibility occurred to me that there might be more to it than hammering with my two forefingers on the keys. I couldn’t rely on my judgment but I knew of no one I would like to have read it. Except Joy, to whom I couldn’t give it. I ended up by locking the pages in a drawer, and pulling my Hebrew typewriter out of the cupboard.
I typed an eighteen-page short story. It took me eight hours. The sun was rising when I was through. I was tired and fed up, unable to force myself to read what I had just written. I placed the pages in a large envelope and went to the post office to mail it. I sent it to the editor of the one literary monthly magazine I knew of. I asked him to drop me a note if it would be published. Then I drove back home and went to bed, telling the ever critical voice in my head to shut up and do the same. The hero of the story, whom I named Evyatar, was a young man studying to be a physician and about to be married to his high school girl friend. Then, one morning, bright and clear, taking a hard look at his future, Evyatar concludes that he doesn’t want any of it.
He doesn’t leave it at that. He quits the university, calls off the wedding and leaves his wealthy home. He rents a small, dirty room in one of the poorer quarters and finds himself a job in a garage. He waits for his boredom to pass away and for enthusiasm and new interest to take over.
But nothing happens. Instead he grows more and more apathetic. His life falls into a monotonous routine, and stays in it. Evyatar does not feel like a new man, as he thought he would after the change in his life. He feels like the
same man he was before, only a lot older. Life is not interesting, he thinks. You can’t do what you can’t do, and what you can do has been done before. Any effort is just a waste of energy. It can’t get you anywhere new. One rainy day, a young American girl knocks on his door. She has nowhere to go, and is looking for a room. It is raining very hard. Evyatar can’t be bothered to kick her out so he puts her up, and tells her to be quiet, because he needs silence in order to think. Evyatar is good at thinking, but it never gets him anywhere, it only helps him find more flaws in things.
The girl, Angela, who is beautiful and all heart, stays in his room for one week—long enough for her to fall in love with him. He is so indifferent that this is inevitable. But the guy is not the cooperative type. He won’t even sleep with her when she tries to seduce him one night, despite the fact that she is rather sexy. By that time, Evyatar realizes that all he wants from this world is to go to hell, and he tells the girl that she can go to the same place, in so many words. Afterward, satisfied that he has expressed himself clearly, he goes to sleep on the floor, since his bed is still occupied, and he dozes off immediately. He is not awakened once by her sobs the whole night.
He realizes, of course, that Angela is by far the best thing that ever happened to him but he ignores her because he doesn’t think he really cares. The only reason he lets her stay is that she is paying twenty pounds per week, all she can afford.
After four days he has to leave for a week’s training in the army. Coming back he finds the room empty and the bird gone. This is a surprise to him, because he is not used to having girls leave him in spite of the way he treats them. Sitting in his room, that evening, he decides that he really doesn’t give a damn. Evyatar signs up as a career officer in the army, thinking that since he doesn’t care about anyone, he might just as well. It takes him two months to receive his first decoration for bravery. Fortunately, by that time, he has already been dead seven weeks.
After I woke up, late that afternoon, I called my father in his office. His secretary told me to hold on. After a few minutes I heard his voice over the line.
“Hello.”
“I’m game for anything,” I said. “You just name it.”
There was a short pause.
“All right,” the clear, calculating voice said finally. “I will let you know.”