“Whyn’t you get a good secondhand?” Roy asked.
“Well, you know how it is with secondhand cars. You don’t know what you’re getting, and if you bring in an expert, how do you know he’s not in cahoots with the seller?”
“There’s this guy, Memavet, that advertises in the Jerusalem Post, maybe in the Hebrew papers, but I don’t read them. He acts like an agent for buying and selling cars. And the way things are going right now, there’s a good chance that when you go to sell it, you can get more than you paid for it.”
“Memavet?” Dan repeated. “Funny name.”
“Yeah, ‘from death,’ right? My Hebrew is not so hot, but I know that.”
“That’s right,” his father said. “I might look in on him. I’ve already looked around a little—not here, but in Tel Aviv—and what I saw were a bunch of clunkers.”
“Oh, yeah? How long you been here, Dad?”
Dan colored and then said lightly, “Oh, a couple of days. I decided to look up some people I knew in Tel Aviv, get that out of the way before coming up to Jerusalem and seeing you. You understand.”
“Oh, sure.” Roy did not really understand, but he saw no point in making an issue of it. It crossed his mind that “the people” his father might have looked up was a woman.
“Your mother said you were unhappy here,” said Dan, to change the subject.
“Well, you know how it is,” Roy said, sipping his coffee. “The guys here and the chicks, too, they’re all such a bunch of bloody heroes. You know how Texans are supposed to be in the States? Well, that’s what they are—Jewish Texans. You’d think that each and every one of them personally won the Six-Day War. They’re always asking you how you like Israel. And if you fall all over yourself telling them how wonderful it is and how wonderful they are, like some of the American students do, they either smirk like they’re kind of embarrassed or look like you hit the nail right smack on the head, although you get the impression they’re a little surprised a clod like you could be so understanding. But if, God forbid, you should happen to say anything the least bit critical of their precious country, like about people hanging out their bedding on the front porches and beating their rugs right in the main street, or take this begging that goes on all the time, they land on you like a ton of bricks and explain how it has to be that way, or it’s something that’s ordained in the Bible. Like, take this business of the beggars. I was saying something about somebody always putting the bite on you, and this guy says that since the Bible says you got to give charity, these guys are doing an important service by being there to take it. They’re like enabling you to earn a blessing.”
His father laughed. “Well, it’s a new country—”
“Yeah, but it’s not the only country, and the rest of the world wasn’t created just to help them. And they’re always challenging you. Why is America in Vietnam? Why do we mistreat the blacks? Why don’t we do something about the poor? Why do we allow our rivers and lakes to get polluted? You find yourself on the defensive all the time.”
His father looked at him quizzically. “Weren’t you always complaining of the same thing?”
Roy flushed. “Sure, but they put it in such a way that if you agree with them, you feel like you’re brown-nosing them. And they exaggerate everything, so you try to tell them how it really is, and pretty soon you find yourself practically defending every thing American, even the things you object to yourself. And cliquey! You can hardly get one of them to tell you the right time. Especially the chicks. You try to get a date and they’re out to lunch.”
“How about the other American students?”
“Well, they’re not the kind I’d hack around with in the States, I can tell you,” Roy said. “Besides, they’re in the same boat, so what’s the point? It’s like a bunch of wallflowers at a dance trying to make out with each other. It’s even worse for the girls. The guys here act like they’re doing them a favor if they say hello. Me, I hang around with the Arab students mostly,” he added casually.
“The Arab students?”
“Yeah. Don’t sweat it, Dad. It’s the in thing right now. Make friends with an Arab. Matter of fact, a lot of the Israelis take the point of view that they’re a lot closer to the Arabs than they are to us, since they’re Israelis, too.”
“I see,” his father said. “So that’s why you’re unhappy.”
“Well, you know, I was like on a kind of down cycle when I wrote Ma. I was homesick and dying for a hamburg or a pizza or a first-run movie, and I was alone here—”
Dan was glad of the opening. “But I’m here now,” he said.
“Sure, and don’t think it doesn’t make a difference. And these trips you’re planning, maybe I could go along and help out with the driving?”
“But your school—”
“Oh, everybody takes off, sometimes as much as a month. It’s kind of expected. How about it, Dad?”
It was a tempting picture, the two of them taking long trips together, putting up at small hotels for the night, stopping at out-of-the-way places to eat, and talking, confiding in each other, making up for the years of separation. He might even be able to influence his son, reorient his thinking, mold his character, do for him what a father should do for a son. He smiled. “Roy, you’ve got a deal,” he said, and in spite of his efforts to control it, his voice was tremulous.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
By the time they had unloaded the car and unpacked their bags, night had fallen. It came suddenly as it does in the tropics, and the air became chilly. They were tired and hungry, and Miriam suggested they go to a restaurant.
“A restaurant? It is an unnecessary extravagance,” said Gittel. “There are stores—a grocery right across the street. We can buy what we need, prepare it, and serve it before a waiter in a restaurant would even take your order. Besides, what would we do with the child?”
Since the rabbi had carried Jonathan in from the car fast asleep, undressed and put him to bed still asleep, the point seemed well taken.
Gittel made further plans and arrangements for them. “Tomorrow morning we must go shopping for the Sabbath, Miriam—because on the Sabbath all places are closed,” she added to indicate that her interest was secular rather than religious. “I will take you to a large market not far from here where you wheel a little cart around and pick whatever you wish, just like in America. But first, we will arrange for Jonathan to go to school. There is a kindergarten around the corner—”
“I hadn’t thought of him going to school,” Miriam objected.
“So what else would he do? All the children are in school. If he doesn’t go, there will be no one for him to play with and you would be tied down all day. Certainly, you will want to be doing something while you are here. Now, I have a friend in the Social Service Department of the Hadassah Hospital, and she is always crying for volunteers. It is work I am sure you will enjoy. I will arrange an appointment for you.”
She told them that she wouldn’t think of leaving until she had seen them properly settled, but she was sure she could manage everything in the morning. Fortunately, there was another bed in Jonathan’s room, although she assured them it was no great matter. In Israel one could always make do; she could have bedded down on the sofa or even the floor, if necessary.
She told them of her work in Israel, of her son Uri, Miriam’s cousin, who was in the Army. “Tall and handsome he is, like his father. The girls are all crazy over him, and when he comes home on leave, I hardly get to see him.”
She noticed that the rabbi’s eyes were half-closed. Instantly she was contrite. “Here I talk and you people are dying to go to sleep.” And with a kind of wonder, “And you know, I am a little tired, too. We will all go to bed now, and tomorrow we will make our arrangements.”
The rabbi got the feeling that only because he was a rabbi, and perhaps because he was not a direct relation, did she refrain from deciding what he was to do during their stay in the country. But he did not obje
ct to going to bed, and he had no sooner put his head to the pillow than he fell fast asleep.
He was awakened suddenly by a loud thud. It was dark, and he pawed for his watch on the night table and then for his glasses to see it by. He switched on the tiny bed lamp and saw it was twelve o’clock. Beside him, Miriam stirred uneasily, but she turned over and snuggled into the bedclothes, and presently he could hear her slow rhythmic breathing once again. He switched off the light and tried to get back to sleep, but after he had tossed about for a few minutes, he realized it was useless. He was wide awake. In bathrobe and slippers he padded into the living room, took a book from the bookcase, and settled down to read. It was almost four o’clock before he returned to bed.
Miriam and Gittel were preparing to go shopping when he awoke the next morning. It was late, after ten. The women had already been out and dropped Jonathan off at the kindergarten and arranged for him to go every day.
As they were leaving, he called after them, “Don’t forget to get wine for kiddush.”
“We’ve got it on our list,” said Miriam. “And what are you going to do?”
“I’ll just walk around and look over the city.”
By the time he had finished his morning prayers and eaten breakfast, the sun was already high in the heavens. It beat down in a hard glare on the white stone of the city so that he found himself squinting; he made a mental note that he must buy a pair of sunglasses. Still, there was a chill in the air as on a pleasant April morning at home, and he was glad he had thought to put on a light raincoat.
As he strolled along leisurely, he was strangely out of tempo with the others he saw walking along the street, mostly women returning from their morning’s shopping, carrying their groceries in string bags. Even though the streets through which he walked were residential, some of them splendid with new apartment houses, here and there were tiny shops tucked away in semi-basements—a grocery, a coffee shop, a bakery, a laundry.
Ahead were a pair of civilian guards, middle-aged men, who, like him, were strolling leisurely. They were in a uniform of sorts: green armbands and berets and long military coats much the worse for wear. The trousers that showed beneath were obviously of civilian cut and material. One carried an old rifle and the other a steel rod about two feet long with which to prod suspicious packages left in trash barrels. Rabbi Small wondered idly if they took turns with the rifle. They were holding a heated discussion, gesticulating extravagantly. As he came near, he heard one say “So Agnon is not so much a Hebrew writer as a Yiddish writer who writes in Hebrew. There is a difference.” The guard broke off when the rabbi stopped beside them and looked at him suspiciously.
“Can you tell me please if I am heading toward the center of the city?” the rabbi asked.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I am new here,” the rabbi explained. “Where are the shops, the business district?”
“He wants Zion Square. What do you want to buy?”
“I don’t want to buy anything. I just want to see the city.”
“Ah, well, right ahead is King George Street. If you turn left, you’ll come to Ben Yehuda Street. That is the business district.”
The streets were narrow and crowded, and the stores along the route small and, compared to what he was used to in America, unattractive. They were like the stores he had seen in small New England factory towns, with merchandise in the windows that seemingly had not been changed since the stores were first opened. In narrow alleys or in the space between two buildings, and even spread out on the sidewalk where it widened slightly, there were men with stands, selling a large variety of small articles like pencils, combs, razors, wallets, umbrellas, cigarette lighters. At several points along the street, there were small kiosks where lottery tickets were sold. Here and there, in doorways and on the sidewalks, there were old men sitting, their backs resting against the wall of a building, selling newspapers. One or two had no papers to sell, nor anything else, but clinked a few coins in their hands at passersby.
Everywhere there were young men and women in uniform. Many of the men were carrying automatic rifles, short weapons with metal frame stocks. They carried them slung from their shoulders by straps, or under their arms like umbrellas, or dangling by the trigger guards like briefcases. It occurred to him that they did not look like soldiers, young and sturdy though they were. There was something civilian and matter-of-fact in their bearing, as though they were engaged in some civilian occupation that required a uniform, like a bus driver.
Here and there, too, he saw Chassidim, old and young, in their silk dressing-gown-like coats, their broad-brimmed felt hats, their pantaloons wrapped around their legs and stuck into their stocking tops, their ringlets jiggling as they walked. Once he was almost run over by a motorcycle that roared past him as he stepped off the curb at a crossing. On it were two young Chassidim, their beards and ringlets flying in the breeze, the one on the pillion clutching his broad-brimmed felt with one hand while he clung to his companion with the other.
The rabbi saw a hat store and thought to buy another yarmulke to keep in his jacket pocket. They were on sale in all the gift shops in red velvet and in blue, decorated with gold and silver braid, but he wanted a plain black one. The proprietor of the hat store was a tall man with a long beard. His son in khaki, home on leave, was helping out, his automatic rifle conspicuous on a shelf behind the counter. There were several men, evidently none of them customers, talking about Arab terrorists and what measures the government ought to take against them. They were talking in Yiddish, in which the rabbi was not fluent, but which he could follow. It was the son who broke off after a minute to ask him what he wanted, put two piles of black yarmulkes on the counter, indicated that one was two lira and the other four, and went back to rejoin the conversation, interrupting it again only long enough to take the rabbi’s money and give him the necessary change.
It occurred to the rabbi that there was something curiously simple and, by American commercial standards, even primitive about the transaction; a transfer of money and merchandise with no formality; no wrapping, no sales slip. There was no cash register; the young man had made change from a drawer under the counter. He had not even said the customary “Thank you,” albeit when the rabbi did so, he answered automatically, “Bevakasha”—if you please.
Rabbi Small continued to stroll along the street, stopping to look in the store windows, automatically converting the prices in Israeli lira to American dollars. He followed the winding streets, none of which ever seemed to meet at right angles, and suddenly found himself in an open market district, an area of narrow lanes lined with stands of merchandise, largely fruits and vegetables, although here and there were fish or meat stalls and even an occasional dry goods or clothing store, all jammed together, presided over by Arabs, bearded Jews, women—shouting, dickering, gesticulating, prodding the merchandise. There were also stands, the precursors of the department store, where one could buy a comb or a notebook or a pack of needles or a box of facial tissues or an overcoat for that matter, if one of the half dozen hanging on a rack were the right size.
He wandered down a side lane and suddenly found himself in a residential district of old stone houses, one or two stories high, evidently occupied largely by Chassidim. The men were beginning to come home from their shops or their study halls to prepare for the Sabbath. In open courtyards children were playing, the little boys with heads shaved except for the ringlets that hung down the sides of their faces. They all wore skullcaps, which they were hard put not to lose as they ran or kicked at a soccer ball. The little girls played by themselves to one side, games like jump rope and hopscotch. Every now and then there was the drumming of the engine of a motorcycle, curiously out of keeping with the general atmosphere, and a dark, swarthy, truculent young man, clean-shaven, but with long hair in the mod style and dressed in flashy bell-bottomed trousers supported low on the hips by a wide fancy belt, would roar by and disappear around a corner.
The ra
bbi made his way through the district, uncertain of his direction but loath to ask any of the women sitting on the steps of their houses, not knowing if they would consider it improper for a strange man to address them. But finally he came out to a wide street with high modern apartment houses that looked familiar. Sure enough, at the next corner he saw by the sign that he was on Jaffa Road, which he knew ultimately led to King George Street. He was tired now and grateful when he spotted a small café where he could sit for a while over a cup of coffee.
It was a pleasantly restful place, at least at that hour, with a rack of newspapers and magazines in French and German, as well as in Hebrew. Only a couple of the tiny tables were occupied, and these by individuals engrossed in their newspapers. He gave his order and then selected from the rack a copy of the afternoon paper.
The lead story concerned the latest terrorist outrage, the explosion of a bomb in an apartment house in the Rehavia section of Jerusalem the night before. A man had been killed, a professor of agronomy at the university. Only because his wife and two children had spent the night with relatives in Haifa had they been spared his fate. The paper evidently had not had time to inquire into the victim’s background too deeply but gave a short resume of his life, the kind that is kept on file in an administration office, together with a picture taken from the same source.
On an inside page of the paper they ran a map of the area. When the rabbi saw it, he sat up with a start. The incident had occurred only one street over from Victory Street. That must have been what had awakened him in the middle of the night—the noise of the explosion!
A government authority admitted that it was probably the work of the CAT group—Committee for Arab Triumph—which had exploded a bomb in the marketplace in Jaffa a couple of weeks before, killing two people. In that case, CAT had called the police a few minutes prior to the explosion. On another occasion, their call had come early enough, or their device had not worked as planned, so that the police had been able to find the bomb and disarm it. This time there had been no warning call, however.
Monday the Rabbi Took Off Page 8