Cafe Nevo

by Barbara Rogan

  “Maybe. I don’t know, really.”

  Her work testified to strength, yet, speaking with her at last, he could not help feeling that he held a small bird in his hand. Though she had a woman’s body, and a face he could not help imagining on his pillow, she was still a prodigy: a fierce, obsessive talent burning up a child’s mind. He knew now who she was. For the first time since its discovery, his mother’s illness left his thoughts; but his sense of impending bereavement acquired the form of pity for this orphaned girl.

  Sternholz returned, but remained standing. “You’d better come upstairs, before we have more company.”

  “I can’t,” Arik said reluctantly. “I just came by to tell you about Rina. I’ve got to meet some people.”

  Sarita shot him a glance of surprised gratitude. He wished she were not so happy to see him go.

  “At one in the morning?” Sternholz growled. “Nice friends you got.”

  “It’s Coby and the other kids from the center. I’ve got to find out what they’re up to.” Standing, he took Sarita’s hand and waited until she looked up at him. “Goodbye, Sarita Blume. I’ll be seeing you. So long, Sternholz.”

  “Let’s go up,” the waiter said. “Come, it’s time we had a talk.”

  Sarita had never envisioned Sternholz’s existence outside Nevo; indeed, since he lived directly above the café, it could be said he had none. She was not surprised by the perfect order and cleanliness of his rooms, which were sparsely but nicely furnished, but she did notice the lack of any personal mementos: no pictures on the dresser or the wall, no remnants of his youth in Germany.

  “Sit.” Sternholz led her to a chair at the little table beside the window. “What do you want? Whiskey, wine, vodka?”

  “Wine, please.”

  He brought over a chilled bottle of Carmel hock, opened it, and poured two glasses. “L’chaim,” he toasted.

  “L’chaim.” She sipped the wine, avoiding his eye.

  “Did you ever think what a funny toast that is for Jews?” Sternholz watched her closely. “ ‘To life’ —when all we’ve known is death and suffering.”

  “ ‘To death’ would be an even stranger toast,” she said.

  “You know, that boy’s in love with you. I’ve never known him at a loss for words with a woman before. I’ve seen him watching you.”

  “Who?” she said blankly.

  “Arik.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s a good boy. A lot of problems, but a good boy.”

  Sarita remained silent.

  “You’re not interested? Maybe you’ve got a boyfriend already?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the matter, you don’t like boys?”

  “I don’t have room for them,” she said.

  “His mother’s very sick. Cancer, that’s what he told me tonight.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Losing a mother is a terrible thing. Losing both parents—it’s enough to stunt a person’s growth.”

  Sarita set down her glass and met the old man’s bleary eyes. “I lied to that reporter,” she said. “I saw my mother act three times.”

  “When was the third?” he asked wearily, knowing what she would say.

  “Her last performance.”

  “So tell me.”

  “I was seven years old. My parents were going on tour to the northern settlements, and since it was summer vacation, they let me come. Mama was Nora in A Doll’s House, and my father was stage-managing the production. The first performance was on Kibbutz Ma’ayan Baruch close to the Syrian border, in a new theater that had never been used before. I could have sat up front, but I preferred to watch from backstage; I couldn’t see as well, but I felt more a part of the whole thing. It was terribly exciting, and though I couldn’t understand the play, I knew Mama was wonderful. When it was over, I stood just inside the wings, watching her bow again and again. I wanted her to come to me but the audience wouldn’t let go of her. I called, Mama!’ and she blew me a kiss. She was so beautiful, bathed in light, raising up her long white arms, laughing and saying, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ to the audience. She was hardly my mother at all....

  “I remember the light, Mama gleaming white on the dark stage, her hair glowing like a bright halo. Then suddenly the darkness exploded in a blinding red flash....

  “And the noise—at first I thought it was the audience roaring, but it grew louder and louder. I covered my ears but I could hear the roof crack open and the timbers of the stage give way, the crash of the chandelier and the screams, the terrible screams.... The spotlight never left Mama’s face, and though I was knocked off my feet I still saw her face, which was turned toward me, as the stage collapsed beneath her and she fell.

  “My father died, too. A lot of people died that night. It was a Syrian missile. They just sat up on their hill and waited till the theater was full. People told me I was lucky I survived.” She whispered: “But I didn’t—not all of me.”

  “They told me that, too,” Sternholz said, weeping unashamedly. “When I lost my family they said, ‘It’s a pity about your wife and baby but thank God you escaped.’ ‘Thank God’—I’d like to thank Him,” Sternholz cried fiercely. “He should give me five minutes alone in a room with Him, I’d thank Him good.”

  “I knew you’d understand,” Sarita murmured. “I’ve never told anyone before... but we’re alike, you and me.”

  “Nonsense, child,” Sternholz growled in alarm, dashing the tears from his eyes. “I’m an old man; you’re a young girl with a lifetime of loving ahead of you.”

  Sarita’s face closed down. “A lifetime of work,” she corrected. “My poor Mama was cut down in her prime, but she left me to carry on for her, in my own way, as best I can. There’s no time for love.”

  “No time for love!” the old man gasped. “Sarita, child—”

  But Sarita stood and snatched up her canvas. “Thank you,” she said, avoiding his eye, edging toward the door. “I have to go now. Thank you.”

  “Sarita, wait!” Sternholz struggled to his feet, but it was too late. She was gone.

  Chapter Ten

  “Contraceptive failure,” he said apologetically. “It happens.”

  A deep flush spread over Ilana’s face. She laughed, it seemed in spite of herself, and placed her palm flat against her abdomen, pressing gently. The man smiled a tentative smile. She said, “I’ll need an abortion.”

  “Take some time,” he said. “Think about it,” he urged.

  “There’s no need.” As she paced the room, she felt a warm glow in her belly, an uproar in her blood, but these found no expression in her clipped voice. “It’s out of the question for me to have it. I want you to perform the operation, privately of course. We can do it here, or I can take a room in Assuta Hospital.”

  “I won’t do it immediately.” Dr. Steadman leaned far back in his chair and unwrapped a piece of gum. He was a balding redhead of forty-five, with a long, mobile mouth and bright blue eyes behind rimless glasses. He wore an old white shirt, frayed at the cuffs, loosely tucked into a pair of faded jeans. His lab coat was spotless, and his large freckled hands were immaculate. “I’m going to exercise my doctor’s prerogative to offer some unsolicited advice, Ilana. God knows we’ve known each other long enough.”

  “Rafi,” she said, coming to sit down. He held up a hand.

  “You are what, thirty-six years old? The clock is ticking. If you ever want to have a child, now is the time, and you do have the means to support it. I’m not trying to usurp your decision, Ilana; I just wouldn’t want you to do something you may one day bitterly regret.”

  “It’s no big deal,” she said. “Everyone has abortions these days. It’s nothing to fuss about.”

  “It’s true, abortions are popular now. That’s why some women are having them who shouldn’t. The pregnancy wasn’t intended, she has other plans, she’s going abroad.... She never really thinks about it until it’s done, and then she thinks too much.”


  “I’ve thought about it.”

  “What’s the problem? Is it that you don’t want a child? Or is it that you’re not married? Are you as conventional as that?”

  “It’s not convention; it’s... common sense.”

  “Common sense?” He raised an eyebrow. “Let me ask you two questions. Can you afford to raise a child by yourself?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do you want a child, ever?”

  She tightened her lips, looked down, and did not reply.

  “You see,” he said, “it’s not all that clear-cut.”

  “I can’t have it.” She raised her head. “I appreciate your intentions, Rafi, but you’re not making this any easier. Since I need an abortion, I naturally prefer to have you perform it. But if you won’t, I’ll find another doctor who will.”

  He shrugged, then clasped his hands together. “You may feel differently knowing rather than suspecting that you’re pregnant. If, however, after further consideration you still choose an abortion, I will perform it, provided it takes place within the first trimester.”

  “I would hardly wait longer than that.” Now that she had won, dangerous forces rebelled inside her, clamoring for delay. She cleared her throat and said, “I want to make the appointment now.”

  “Set up a date with Leah, for no less than two weeks from today. Feel free to change your mind at any time.”

  Ilana stood and glanced at herself in the mirrored door. “I won’t. Two weeks from now is fine. I’m going abroad next week. We can do it when I get back.” At the door she looked back at him with an odd tilt of her head. “It is all right to fly?” she asked; then she caught her breath and rushed out into the reception room.

  The nurse was taking a history from a new patient. Ilana waited impatiently. A young woman sat in the small waiting room, holding a tiny infant. Ilana was drawn to the baby.

  The mother, a child herself in Ilana’s eyes, smiled proudly and shifted to show the infant’s sleeping face. As she moved, the baby’s eyelids flew open, and his eyes, deep dark lakes of solemn blue, met Ilana’s. His look was so lucid, so searching, that his incapacity to speak struck her for the first time as pathetic. The creature so clearly longed to communicate. As he held her eyes she felt that not only did he sense the presence of her embryonic passenger, but he advocated its cause, so recently his own, with imperious innocence. Ilana sighed deeply, again touching her belly. “This isn’t happening,” she said.

  “What?” asked the mother.

  “Your baby isn’t talking to me.”

  The woman smiled uneasily and hugged the infant tighter. Ilana backed away, and the nurse called out to her.

  “Just send the bill,” Ilana said. She took a deep breath and glanced into the minor beside the entrance; then she walked out into the stifling afternoon.

  It was a chamsin, the hot wind from the east that periodically sweeps the land. On chamsin days housewives close their windows and lower the shades, but the hot wind gets in anyway, carried like a germ by all who venture forth into its path. The chamsin enters through all apertures: the mouth, the eyes, the nose, penetrating to the heart. So many more family murders are committed during the chamsin that the courts consider it a mitigating circumstance.

  Ilana raised her hand to hail a taxi, but lowered it, unable to think of a destination. She dared not return to her empty apartment. As she wandered on foot toward Dizengoff, walking as people must during chamsin, with long, unhurried strides and lowered eyes, the very effort of wading through the sweltering heat calmed, even cheered her. Pretty soon she found herself outside Nevo. Although Nevo was a place she almost never set out intending to visit; her aimless walks through the city often brought her there; and once she was outside it seemed churlish not to go in. She was thirsty, but wary of Sternholz. The café was fairly crowded, and the waiter would be too busy to pry.

  As she sat down, she felt herself enveloped in the loneliness that descends upon patrons of Nevo as they enter its portals and renders them inviolate. Nowhere else could she sit unmolested for as long as she wanted, for Nevo was a place where people came to be alone in the company of others, and this canon, though unspoken, was almost universally observed—except for people like Sternholz and Muny, whose function in Nevo’s ecology was to intrude.

  Sternholz appeared beside her, nodding dourly. “What do you want?”

  “Hello, Emmanuel. I’m awfully thirsty; do you have any fresh juice?”

  Sternholz snorted. “This I need? Maybe you want me to go pick the oranges off a tree?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Oh, no, no trouble,” he muttered, repressing a smile as he hobbled off indignantly.

  A few minutes later, he brought a tall glass of orange juice with the pips still floating in it. She drank gratefully, while he hovered, making sure she finished. “You want another?” he then asked, with a martyred look.

  “No thanks.”

  “You look terrible,” he said, wagging a finger in her face. “You’re not living right. I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  “Not now,” she murmured, but this served only to encourage him.

  “It’s time to settle down. You should get married, have some babies.”

  “Why are you saying this?”

  “If I don’t, who will? You’re beginning to look tired. It’s time for a change.”

  “But why now?”

  He cocked his head, peering at her through bright, knowing eyes.

  “Thanks for the juice,” Ilana said. Sternholz shrugged and moved away.

  Thereafter the city seemed rife with pregnant women. They were all around her, strolling down Dizengoff, sitting in cafés, sunning on the beach in their maternity suits: fertile as the land, Ilana thought, seasonal as the rains. For a short time she was one of them, two hearts beating within her; and in the one that was her own she thanked Rafi Steadman for the enforced delay.

  Ilana bore her secret close, telling no one, but it seemed to her at times that one or another of the pregnant women would look at her with uncanny discernment. She prayed for nausea, pain, anything to relieve the physical elation that plagued her: but her body, which never lied, reveled stubbornly in its new fecundity.

  The first negative sign of her pregnancy came, perversely, on her first night in London with David. They had been to a West End opening and then the opening party; by the time they returned to her suite in the Savoy it was after one. Ilana left David with a drink and got into the shower. A few minutes later he heard a loud thump and rushed in to find Ilana slumped over the edge of the tub. She stirred as he reached her side, and opened her eyes.

  “I’m all right,” she said faintly.

  “Good God. Here, let me help you.” He supported her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed, covering her with a blanket. Then he sat beside her and clasped her hand in both of his.

  “I noticed you didn’t drink tonight, and you’ve quit smoking,” he said. “Now this. Are you by any chance pregnant?”

  Ilana turned her head away, closing her eyes.

  “You’re not sleeping. Answer me, my dear.”

  She looked at him. “Yes. I’m sorry. I am. Temporarily.”

  “It’s my baby?”

  “Fidelity, as you well know, David, is my stock in trade.”

  He bit his lips, and his face worked; then he raised his face to the ceiling and burst into laughter.

  Ilana, who had expected anything but hilarity, sat up in alarm, clutching the blanket to her chest.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “It’s just... I’ve never had a child.”

  “You’re not going to, by me,” she promptly said.

  “Don’t abort it.”

  “What else can I possibly do? I’m very sorry you guessed, David. I had no intention of telling you.... It’s my fault for coming, but this never happened to me before.”

  “You must take care of yourself.”

  Ilana faced him squarely. “You don
’t seem to be hearing me, David. I cannot have a baby.”

  David walked to the center of the room and stood easily, as if preparing to address a meeting of the board. He was a tall, lean man of about fifty, very dark for an Englishman, but then he was a Jew. He had long fingers and sensitive hands, which he now pressed together in thought.

  David Barnardi was an architect and the head of an international firm of architects. His own speciality was the conversion of old churches into residences, a specialty he’d stumbled into by accident when he accepted a commission from an Essex parish to convert an old Anglican church into a residence for the priest.

  The tall vaulted ceilings, the vast space and depth of the church inspired him, and he created a house of such eerie beauty that the old priest who was meant to live there could not cope at all and instead took lodgings with an elderly widow. The house was sold for a small fortune, which greatly pleased the parish, and it gained recognition as a paradigm of such conversions, serving as an example to countless aspiring young architects.

  If there seems something ironic or even bizarre in the choice by a Jew of this particular field of expertise, it can only be argued that David Barnardi was not much of a Jew. He was far too proud a man ever to deny his religion, but as it was meaningless to him, so was it to others. He observed none of its practices, celebrated none of its holy days, and took secret pride in his ignorance of its tenets. The only positive function his religion served was in providing an unexceptionable excuse to forgo dreary church services on country weekends.

  Like many artistic Jews whom Ilana had known, David possessed a business sense which was as keen as his aesthetic sense. Realizing the potential for a team of architects specializing in unusual, and expensive, conversions, he left the firm that employed him and hired, on commission, two bright young architects whom he knew. One of the two specialized in converting, or sometimes reconverting, multi-unit apartment houses into small mansions, townhouses for the very wealthy. The other designed small, Claridge-type luxury hotels.