by Nava Semel
I really hoped Anna wouldn’t be disappointed by Tel Aviv. To me, it was a huge city, because any place that had a movie theater was just like a city in Europe, even if it didn’t have trams or a telephone in every house. Only Zionka’s mother looked down on Tel Aviv, calling it “provincial,” and saying that until the day the famous maestro Toscanini came to conduct the Philharmonic, we shouldn’t waste the word “city” on it.
The closer we got, the more sand there was, and everybody closed their windows because of the dust. I was a little embarrassed, because that wasn’t how the entrance to a big city should look, and I assured Anna they would build lots of buildings here, but I wasn’t as sure about that as our leaders were. If all the Jews in the world were like Anna’s family, there wouldn’t be anybody to live in them.
When the bus stopped on Allenby Street, I started to cheer up. It wasn’t every place had a street named after a general, even though he was English. We had to look to the right and to the left before we crossed the street because of the cars and wagons, and the noise was deafening.
I loved walking along a crowded street, surrounded by people I didn’t know anything about and who didn’t know anything about me. There, I wasn’t Uzik the troublemaker, but just a kid like any other. And Anna didn’t look different and foreign, because Tel Aviv was like a long clothes line on which all the clothes in the world were hanging. Khaki pants and white undershirts, embroidered Arab dresses, kaffiyehs and galabiyahs, European suits and colorful ties, wide-brimmed hats and spiffy English uniforms with shiny brass buttons and belt buckles. The only thing missing there were fur coats.
* * *
We looked for her relatives’ address. With the help of passersby, we finally reached a house near a plaza that was soon going to be built. I was sorry we hadn’t taken Johnny Weissmuller. How he would have enjoyed running after cats in a perfect circle.
Anna was impatient. “Let’s go,” she said. Too bad, Anna, that you can’t enjoy my big city.
We walked up to the second floor and knocked on the door. Anna held the letter from her parents against her chest. She looked at it every once in a while, as if she were afraid she’d forget the address. I knew it by heart.
The woman who opened the door was young, and she was holding a baby in her arms that was flinging its arms this way and that, trying to get down and walk by itself.
Anna smiled at the baby, but then her mouth fell in disappointment, because she had expected her relatives to be older.
Since she still hadn’t mastered Hebrew, I spoke for her.
The young woman said, “That’s right. They did live here,” and invited us to come in.
Anna insisted on standing in the hallway. We heard a voice calling from inside the apartment, “Who’s that?” and Anna was encouraged by the fact that the voice sounded old.
Anna held the letter out to the young woman, who pushed it away, reminding me of myself when someone forces me to read.
“I don’t read Yiddish,” she said, and shouted, “Grandpa, come here!”
The old man dragged his feet to the doorway. In the meantime, other doors in the building were opening, and neighbors were looking out. The baby was gurgling happily at the new faces, trying to touch me with its hands.
Anna gave the letter to the old man, and he read out loud. “Go to our relatives, Anna. They will be your family in the desert of Palestine until you decide to come back to us.”
The old man said the tenants had left a year ago. “Where do they live now?”
The old man shrugged. Palestine was a place where somebody was always looking for somebody or something.
The neighbor across the way opened her door.
“They went to America, and didn’t leave an address.”
Anna folded the letter, shoved it way down into her handbag and turned to go.
“Wait a minute,” the baby’s mother said, “they forgot something here.”
We stood in the hallway, and the happy baby’s gurgling echoed from the walls.
“They couldn’t adjust here,” the neighbor said, “ and they finally gave up and left.”
The young woman returned holding a torn, faded photograph.
“Are these your relatives?”
Anna didn’t recognize them. Two strange people looked out at us from the photo. A happy couple.
The baby’s mother said, “We found the photo in a drawer when we moved in.”
Anna wanted to give the torn picture back to the woman, but she wouldn’t take it.
“Keep it. That way, you’ll at least have a memento.”
I turned the picture over. The back was empty. Nothing was written on it.
The couple didn’t look anything like Anna. Just a man and a woman smiling a broad, fake smile for the photographer, because that’s what they were supposed to do, and I noticed that behind them was a table with a pair of candlesticks on it that were very similar to the ones in Anna’s trunk.
The baby tried to grab the picture from my hand. It was the friendliest baby I’d ever seen.
We said thank you, and left.
Chapter 28
Anna cried. Two wet streaks lined her cheeks, glistening in the bright sunshine of the new plaza that was under construction. She covered her face with her hands. I thought I heard a voice break inside her, “I have no one here,” she said.
“You have me,” I whispered almost to myself, thinking, why didn’t they send me to marry her “fictitiously.” I wouldn’t have divorced Anna for any homeland. I would’ve kicked up a storm at the Jewish Agency and broken my promise to marry four brides. The Jewish Agency people would’ve been furious, but I was sure the homeland would’ve forgiven me.
I had taken the old picture from the young woman and buried it deep inside Anna’s handbag. You could say I’d had some experience in doing that. The Radoms in the sleeves of the Polish fur coat and two in Zionka’s duck pen.
Anna said, “The Nazis will take over Europe. They’ll be everywhere. In Lutsk too.”
I remembered how my teacher had reassured us in the lesson on the Jews in the Venice ghetto, a word I’d never forget now. “Lutsk is such an out-of-the-way place,” I tried to comfort her, “Who’d ever go that far? Mohammed says that we shouldn’t think bad thoughts about the future, or else we force it to wear the face of our fears.”
The young woman had come out for a walk with her baby in its carriage. They were approaching the new plaza that was being built, and the workers warned her not to come any closer. I knew Anna was thinking about her little sister now. Maybe, like this young woman, she too used to wheel her sister in her carriage along the main street of Lutsk, on the banks of the river that flowed through it.
Anna said, “I’m afraid I’ll never see them again.”
I pulled her along with me. This wasn’t the tall, strong Anna I knew, the Anna who helped an English pilot remove a bullet from Johnny Weissmuller’s quivering body, the Anna who wasn’t afraid of the blood. Now, I was hoping she wouldn’t forget Imri and the honey. I wasn’t sure that Anna was sad only because she didn’t find her relatives, and I was afraid she’d start talking to them in the air. Don’t forget, Anna, they’re only in America, not dead.
She said that maybe she’d go there to look for them.
“And how will you start from the beginning all over again?” I asked, “how many times can you change homelands?”
Then Anna told me the tale she’d promised to tell me. “The tale of a Polish landowner whose horse could talk, but he didn’t understand a word it said. Only the Jewish tenant who paid rent to live on the landowner’s property because he was not allowed to buy land, listened to the horse’s words and was silent. One day, the horse heard its Polish master plotting to kill the Jew and steal his money. The horse went to the Jew, warned him, and said he would carry him off to a safe land where no evil would befall him. But the Jew refused. ‘Horses can’t talk. It must be my ears playing tricks on me,’ the Jew said to himself, and did no
t leave the place in time.”
We walked silently along the streets of Tel Aviv. Anna was carrying on a silent conversation in her mind, arguing with her family, urging them again to hurry to Palestine. I saw how miserable she was, and I pulled her along with me. There was only one consolation possible.
Even though I’d only been there once, I found the Beit Ha’Am cinema easily. I recognized the building right away. That day in the summer, I’d waited there, near the box office, for Imri to buy tickets. He was at the end of the line then, and I was afraid the tickets would be sold out. And standing there, at the main entrance, had been an usher with white hair and a welcoming expression, who had led us inside, into the darkness.
I ran across the street, pulling Anna along after me. I really hoped that Tarzan, King of the Apes was still playing. After all, lots of people hadn’t seen it and didn’t know about it.
I was ready to see the movie over and over again. I was sure that if she sat in the dark next to me and watched Johnny Weissmuller, she’d understand what Mohammed meant when he talked about the future.
We stood in front of the showcase. I checked out the pictures, which mingled with our reflection. Anna looked tall in the glass, and I stood on tiptoe. There were pictures of movies they would be showing soon. I was disappointed not to find any new Johnny Weissmuller movies. I ignored the names of the movies and the movie stars, looking only at the faces to be sure I wasn’t making a mistake, and maybe in his new movie, Johnny Weissmuller had covered his naked body and had exchanged his loincloth for regular clothes.
Scenes of the movie they were showing now raced past in the showcase like the train to Haifa, on which I’d ridden only once, when I went with Aunt Miriam to pick up a package at the port. There was a couple in one picture. I stamped my feet in excitement, because the man’s chest was naked, and I was sure I’d found Tarzan. But in the next picture, the actor was taking off his pants, and his thin, carefully trimmed mustache reminded me of Major Parker’s. He was sitting on his bed and getting undressed next to a nervous-looking girl wearing a striped dress and a small hat. Her back was to him, but she was sneaking a look at him. The man already had his shoes off. He would soon be completely naked. They were together in a double room. It was pouring cats and dogs outside their window, and the man had stretched a rope between the two beds. Maybe they were planning to talk on a telephone made of tin cans. Examining their faces again, I saw that they looked as if they were about to suck honey, but another image reflected in the showcase window spoiled their plan.
Someone said, “It’s always the same movie, little Zionist. It never changes.”
Reflected in the glass were a pilot’s hat and uniform, and a shiny belt buckle and glittering brass buttons. Anna turned around. “Hello, Charlie,” she said.
Major Charles Timothy Parker was on leave. He thought Tel Aviv was the closest thing to London in all of Palestine. When he said that, I liked him. He offered to buy us all tickets for the movie that was playing in the Beit ha’Am Cinema. I said no immediately. I wouldn’t be disloyal to Johnny Weissmuller, and certainly not with an Englishman. I had the feeling that Johnny looked out of the movie to see who was in the audience.
The same usher with the white hair and beckoning expression was standing at the main entrance, and he said to us, “The theater is full, so if you want to come inside, you better hurry up, because the movie is about to start, and you already missed the newsreel.”
Major Parker said, “You should see it, Annie, it’s a romantic movie. With Clark Gable.”
Romantic. That was a word that Zionka’s mother and Mali Perlmutter used. Once, before they argued. Zionka and I caught them dancing the tango and foxtrot together in the empty committee house hall, taking turns being the man.
Again, the pictures got stuck. Maybe I should change my mind and see a romantic movie after all. Major Parker looked at me and said in an enticing voice, “A charming little vixen runs away from her father for the man she loves, but in the end, she marries a different man. Clark Gable wins her.” I was stuck between them. The movie was getting more threatening by the minute. Anna didn’t say anything. In the showcase, there was picture of a bride running away, the train of her dress trailing along the grass.
Major Parker said, “Clark Gable dreams of taking her to a desert island in the middle of the ocean. ‘I am the owl that hoots in the night, I am the morning breeze that caresses your beautiful eyes.’ Let’s go inside, Annie. You won’t be sorry.”
That was the first time I was afraid of a movie. After all, Clark Gable was Anna’s Johnny Weissmuller. How could you compete with such a smooth guy with a mustache? But then again, he never won an Olympic gold medal. He couldn’t hold a candle to my Johnny Weissmuller. Yes, I now called him “mine,” and if Johnny knew me, I’m sure he would call me “his.”
Chapter 29
Anna said, “I’ve already seen the movie.” Major Charles Timothy Parker did not give up. He tried to convince her that you could see a movie like It Happened One Night twice. But in the meantime, the usher had walked back into the darkness. We stood at the closed door, heard the opening sounds and, even though it wasn’t Tarzan, my whole body was drawn inside.
If the Englishman was disappointed, he hid it well. How delighted he was at the opportunity to spend some time with us. For a minute, I though he’d followed us from the village, and I was surprised he didn’t have friends of his own. Why didn’t he spend his free time with English pilots or high-ranking officers who drank whiskey in the canteen, instead of inviting a new immigrant from Poland and a boy from Palestine to go to the movies with him?
“Do you like ice cream, little Zionist?”
I’d like to see someone give up ice cream for the sake of the homeland. Last year, at the beginning of summer, after Tarzan—thirty-one reels—ended, I asked Imri to buy me some, but he was in a hurry to be off on one of his missions for the homeland. He put me on the last bus to the village with Zionka’s mother and Mali Perlmutter, who were on their way home after a concert in Tel Aviv. They quarreled the whole way.
Anna couldn’t decide what to do. She looked at me. I knew it all depended on me. Although I didn’t like Major Parker calling her Annie, I felt she wanted to stay a while before going back to the village, as if she wanted some consolation for not finding her relatives. And I also thought, who would see us in Tel Aviv if we went to have ice cream with the Englishman? Tel Aviv was a large city, not a small village where people were always watching and everyone gossiped about everyone else behind their back. Maybe people did things in Tel Aviv that they weren’t supposed to do in the village, and maybe Anna also wanted to break the rules for once and feel the joy of playing a good prank. She even told Charlie—I still called him Major Parker—that we’d looked for her relatives, and that they’d gone to America without leaving an address.
We crossed Allenby Street, which was as busy as a beehive at the height of the season. More people walked along that street at one in the afternoon than lived in our whole village, and I wondered what it was like to live in a place where you didn’t know everyone by name. Then Major Parker took us in the direction of the sea. Last year, on that day at the beginning of summer, Imri and I went all the way to the beach. We took off our shoes and socks and dipped our feet in the sea. Now, looking at Palestine’s sea, I wanted to ask Major Parker where Johnny Weissmuller learned to swim. The first person to swim a hundred meters in less than sixty seconds, breaking the record. Imri told me that Johnny had been a weak and sickly boy, and when he was eight, the doctors told him to swim to strengthen his muscles.
I said to Major Parker, “Sixty-seven world records in freestyle swimming, and five gold medals in the Paris and Amsterdam Olympics. Isn’t that incredible?”
Major Parker said, “You’re right, little Zionist. Only very few people do the incredible.”
The waves licked at our feet. Anna said she didn’t know how to swim. But she’d also said she didn’t know how to ride. My olde
r brother, who was once her husband, was now on the other side of the ocean. What is he to her now?
Major Parker took us to a café. It was my first time in such a place. Everything was so beautiful. Soft music was playing, and for a minute, Anna looked happy.
An elegant waiter wearing a white jacket and holding a pad in his hand came over to us immediately, bowed, and asked, “And what will you have, sir?”
Sir. Nothing more and nothing less. Was this how Tarzan felt when he went to England for the first time?
Charlie ordered tea and cream cakes.
“And for the young gentleman?”
First “little Zionist,” and now “young gentleman.” When would they see me as just myself? The orchestra played soft, flowing music. Charlie stood up and asked Anna to dance a tango with him. I was sure she’d refuse politely. And I didn’t know whether they danced in Lutsk.
All the ladies in the café looked at Anna. They were all wearing colorful dresses made of transparent, fluttery material, their lips glowed bright red, and they wore makeup on their eyes. And Anna, in her dark dress made of heavy material, looked out of place. She ignored them all and danced with Major Charles Timothy Parker as if they were the only couple on the dance floor. That was why I liked Anna. She was always herself, and never wanted to change because of what others told her.
The ice cream—vanilla, chocolate and strawberry— slid down my throat, cool and soft, and even though it was sweet, it didn’t taste anything like honey. I looked at my distorted image reflected in the silver spoon. When I moved the spoon, their bodies moved too. I could see the way Major Parker studied Anna. He too wanted to taste her nectar, but kept himself from doing so. I was afraid that in another minute, Anna would be tempted to suck honey from him, because maybe after you taste it once, you want more, and it didn’t matter from who.