by Herman Wouk
“And what decided you?”
“I’ve had a chance to think things over. My army service will soon end. The world’s bigger than Israel, and you’re offering me a chance at something interesting and worthwhile to explore for my future.”
“You and Yael are getting divorced.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“A pity.” The window behind Leavis’s desk faced downtown Los Angeles and City Hall. He swiveled and looked out on tall buildings, half-obscured by smog. A silence. “Los Angeles is not what it used to be. Neither am I.” He turned back to Kishote. “If you’re serious, fine. Your brother has proven himself very able, and you have an outstanding army record. Finances we can discuss. Have you any questions for me?”
“Do you go to Australia?”
“Why do you ask? Not usually.”
When Yossi started to tell him about Shayna, the old man raised a hand. “So, Mrs. Berkowitz has gone there, has she? I know about Mrs. Berkowitz, and I have a question for you. Are you accepting my offer to learn a business, or so that you can see Mrs. Berkowitz?”
“Frankly, both.”
“Not good enough. I don’t plan to go to Australia this time. Maybe not for the next year or two. And you can’t detour to Australia when you’re with me, the distances are tremendous and my schedule is tight. Think it over some more.”
36
Shayna and Kishote
Don Kishote thought it over and accepted Leavis’s terms, including the proviso against side trips to Australia. Travelling with the old Iraqi Jew was an eye-opener like Alaska, a discovery of experiences as remote as the moon from Israeli army life. During the long flights passed in the luxury of first class, and the many nights in posh hotels, the withered little man talked and talked about his business, educating Kishote as they went. Each of Leavis’s circuits in the Far East took many weeks. An ultimate middleman, Kishote gradually learned, was what Leavis really was, and his stock-in-trade was his word, backed by large quantities of ready money.
The old trader brought Kishote with him to meetings in Manila, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and in remote small towns, too. Sometimes they dealt with Jews, more often with Orientals. Kishote saw for himself how hard-bitten Filipinos who looked like murderers, and old Hong Kong Chinese in western clothes, with gracious manners and blank eyes, talked business with Sheva Leavis. Whether the deal concerned a shipload of Indian cloth, a year’s output of a Korean toy factory, a collection of rare works of antique Chinese art, or the entire sugar crop of a small Philippine island, Leavis could close for a million dollars with a handshake, and the deals went through as though sealed by a twenty-page contract. There was sometimes the matter of “taking care,” as Leavis put it, of the people who closed the sales. Whether they were businessmen or government functionaries, “taking care” included limousines, apartments, hard cash, and — though here Leavis drew the line — women. His competitors routinely supplied women, he did not. He made up for that, he told Kishote, with the best prices and quick payment.
The heart of the matter was buying cheap in the East and selling dear in the West. Leavis knew East and West as Yossi knew the Centurion tank and the Sinai terrain. When Yossi on an early trip protested that he could never learn to conduct such trade himself, Leavis tiredly told him that the whole world was now one place, and wherever Yossi went when he was on his own they could still talk as though they were together. At first Yossi would be his eyes and ears, and he, Leavis, would make the decisions. But after a while Yossi would be able to handle it. “What it comes down to, once you know the business,” Leavis said, “is contacts with people who have the power to make deals, people you’ve known for years, and who know you and trust you. By now you’ve met many of them, and they’ve met you. The rest is numbers, certain key numbers. They differ with each kind of deal, each type of merchandise. You’ll learn. I’m not wasting my time or yours.”
The itineraries eventually took them not only to India, Burma, Malaya, and Indonesia, but even into mainland China, where Yossi’s Israeli passport was useless; Leavis did not disclose how he got him in, but he did say this was one place Yossi by himself probably would have to skip. The sights of these exotic lands were not novel to Kishote after so much exposure in movies and magazines, but the long long grinds in airplanes were. He once asked Leavis how he could have endured it all these years. The trader uttered a dry laugh. “Long? The jets are magic carpets. I travelled for thirty years in piston planes, and before that in trains and boats. My father did that, too. His father before him sometimes went on donkeys and camels. In this business what you do is travel.”
Yossi gave up the notion of flying to Australia on his own when Leavis could spare him. The long haul to that continent, even in jets, was a discouraging prospect, and from Shayna’s letters he gathered that he could accomplish little anyway by showing up in Melbourne. Her reaction to his news of the divorce was reserved and cool, and she evaded or ignored his words about marriage. She had let her Technion position lapse and was working at Melbourne University as an assistant mathematics instructor, low-paying but something to do. Being near Reuven was enough for her, she wrote, the future could take care of itself. Between the melancholy lines Yossi hoped he discerned the old love, obscured by great doubt that his divorce would come off. The match of Yael and Max Roweh, whose books Shayna had read, she regarded as preposterous and unreal.
Winding up a very long journey, Leavis at last put two deals in Yossi’s hands to manage, one in Tokyo, one in Seoul. Yossi had met these businessmen on previous trips, and had in fact once gotten hilariously drunk with the Japanese trader. He negotiated while Sheva sat by silent, and each time he shook hands on terms Sheva had instructed him to get. As they dined in the Seoul hotel the evening after that deal was closed — or rather as Kishote dined, while Leavis ate his usual travel dinner of bread and raw fruit — the old man abruptly said, “Yossi, I’m sending you on to Melbourne. That’s why we were visiting those aluminum refineries yesterday. Two or three years down the road the Korean government plans a big expansion in aluminum, and they’ll need much more bauxite, huge quantities. I’ll put you in touch with some bauxite people in Melbourne. One of the main executives is Jewish, from Lithuania.”
“Elohim, that’s marvellous. Thank you, Sheva.”
“For what? You mean Mrs. Berkowitz? That’s your business. Keep it out of ours, which is bauxite.”
The card on the door read DR. BERKOWITZ. The gray-haired lady secretary of the department knocked and called in Aussie accents, “Dr. Berkowitz, you have a visitor.”
Shayna came to the door, looked out, and staggered against the doorpost. “Good God, Kishote, why do you do this to me? Do you want me to drop dead?”
He stood there in brown tweed and a red wool tie, holding out both hands. “Hamoodah, I tried to call from Seoul, but your flat didn’t answer and I had to catch the plane in a hurry, so I just came.”
Tears were starting to her eyes. The secretary discreetly withdrew. “Oh, Yossi, crazy Yossi.” The startled look melted to a smile. She grasped his hands. “It’s so good to see a face from home! How long has it been, dear? More than a year, a lot more, no?”
“A lot more, Shayna.”
“Well, God bless you for coming. I’ve loved your letters, but it’s not the same, is it? And listen, it’s about time for me to pick up Reuven, come along, my God, will he be pleased to see you!” She led him out through the grassy campus to a parking lot, her walk as light-footed as in the old days. She wore a bright blue cardigan sweater over a white blouse, and a heavy brown skirt. The rattletrap old Vauxhall she drove made so much noise that they had to shout at each other, catching up on news since the last letters.
Reuven was sitting on a bench in the play yard of the Hebrew school, watching his classmates roughhousing with skullcaps flapping. “Dode Yossi!” He hobbled with his crutch to meet him, pouring out questions. Where had he come from? How long would he be here? Would he be staying in Austr
alia? How was Dode Zev? How was Aryeh? Kishote picked him up and exclaimed, “Oo-ah, Reuven! This is more like it. You’ve gained weight.” He was smaller than the other nine-year olds gambolling around, but felt solid now.
“He eats when I’m with him,” said Shayna. “I have to call your mother, Reuven, and tell her about General Nitzan.”
“Oh, come home with me, Yossi,” the boy laughed. “I live in a nice big house.”
Bulkily pregnant, thick arms folded, Lena was waiting on the porch of a brick row house, with a small front garden turned autumn brown in April. “What a surprise! Welcome, General. You’ll stay to dinner, of course. Mendel can’t wait to meet you. He’s on his way home. Come, Reuven, eat something and do your lessons.”
Shayna and Yossi sat down on the porch, and he told her about his latest trip with Sheva Leavis, and the success that had earned him the trip to Melbourne. “Come on, Yossi,” she said. “I’m really puzzled. Surely you aren’t going in seriously for such business, just buying and selling. That’s not you.”
“Well, after the army I have to do something. I’m becoming interested.”
“Oh, nonsense. Yael has put you up to it, that’s all.” With a wise look she added, “I daresay you’re having fun, though, you no-good. All the ladies in far-off places —”
“Shayna, it’s given me a chance to see you, and here I am.”
Shayna reddened, and tossed her head much as she had as a small girl. “Now look, about Lena’s husband, don’t mind anything he says. He’s not a bad person, Mendel. But a fool? Heaven watch and preserve us.”
He showed up shortly, a paunchy man with heavy jowls and thick rippling black hair. “Good-o, General, what an honor!” He pumped Yossi’s hand there on the porch. “I say, those Ay-rabs gave you Israeli chaps a proper walloping this last round, didn’t they? Luckily Uncle Sam was there to save your arses, what, what? Come in, come in.”
The table reminded Yossi of the Berkowitz flat in Haifa before Lena’s divorce, for while he sat with Mendel and Lena, Shayna and Reuven were at the other end with different cutlery and plates, eating different food. Mendel explained to Yossi that the kosher laws were just for hot countries in ancient days before refrigeration, and made no sense now, but he respected Reuven’s upbringing and his late father’s wishes. “You can’t beat pork sausages and eggs for breakfast,” he said. “Snorkers, we call them here. You can’t beat snorkers and eggs, General, but since Reuven came, all pork is out of this house.”
Rattling along in an accent half Aussie and half Yiddish, he said this country was a good place for Jews, and many South Africans who could get their money out were coming here, also some Russians, and a surprising lot of Israelis. His late father had made a big mistake, going into kangaroo leather. That business was all dog-eat-dog. He now owned a fine piece of riverfront land in a Melbourne suburb, and he meant to develop it when he could find a partner with capital, probably a South African. He ran on at some length about how well off Jews were in Australia, no Ku Klux Klan as in America, no wars as in Israel, and the weather was much better than Canada’s, and the Canadian dollar was too wobbly.
Under Shayna’s coaxing Reuven ate a plateful of chicken and dumplings, and when dinner was over the boy implored Kishote to stay. “I wish I could go home with you,” he said, stumping outside with him and Shayna. “I don’t like it in Australia, except I like my mother.”
“I’ll be here a few days, Reuven, but then I’m just going to California.”
“Will you ever come again?”
Yossi hesitated, and looked at Shayna. “If I have to, I will.”
“Back into the house, Reuven,” said Shayna, and he obeyed. “There’s a nice park near here, Yossi. A lake, swans. Are you tired?”
“Not a bit.”
As they walked in the cool moonlit night he got her to talk about herself and her plans. The university was starting a nuclear institute, and an appointment was open for her. Also, at Reuven’s Hebrew day school, where she had taught for a while, they wanted her as assistant principal, for better money. The trouble was that the principal, a widower, had proposed to her and she had turned him down. “Makes it awkward,” she said with a small laugh. “Actually, I’ve had one other proposal here. Orthodox ladies are in short supply, down under.”
His arm went around her waist. “Yes, I’m sure that’s the attraction, the orthodoxy,” he said.
“Easy now, Kishote.” But she did not pull away. “It’s no trouble to chill them. I just say my husband must plan to go back to Israel with me one day. That does it. These Australian Jews think Israel’s as dangerous as Chicago in the gangster days.”
“You’d go back without Reuven?”
No immediate answer. “Here’s the park. Nice in the moonlight, isn’t it? The lake’s down this path. Yes, Reuven’s the problem. Lena has every right to him, but he’s not happy. He misses his friends, but mainly it’s the religion. A lot of the Australian Jews are religious, but not Mendel, and Lena never has been, of course. She tries to feed him kosher food, she truly does in her fashion, but he sits there apart with his different dishes — and Passover’s coming, and all they do about that is put a box of matzoh on the table. They don’t prepare, and he can’t eat there all week, he’ll have to live with me. It’s all so unsatisfactory …” She took his arm and hugged it. “Oh, let’s talk about something else. You know, I’ve been sitting in my flat, Kishote, playing tapes of Israeli songs — ‘Shoshana,’ ‘Finjan,’ ‘Sycamore Garden,’ the old ones — it’s my one pleasure besides being with Reuven, reliving my childhood. Remember when you dumped my pail of water over your head during the siege? All the water for my whole family for the day? It’s a wonder I ever talked to you again.”
Kishote had spent the night before that carrying sacks of flour on his back to besieged Jerusalem, marching with other volunteers on the secret bypass road through the wilds, used mainly by supply mules and piled with their dung.
“You complained I smelled of mule shit, and I did.”
“Yossi, you didn’t mind what Mendel said about the war, did you? He has kangaroo leather for brains.”
“I’ve heard worse things said about Israel at home, by smarter people.”
“Look, look, Yossi, the swans, little white gliding ghosts on the black water.”
He took her in his arms.
“No, no, none of this, by your life, no.” She permitted a reluctant few kisses, then spoke in muffled tones. “Be honest, I beseech you. The divorce isn’t for real, is it?”
“Shayna, it’s been filed in the rabbinic court in Israel, uncontested. It’s taken forever, but it’ll soon be final.”
“Amazing. I swear I never believed she’d give you up.”
“She didn’t have me to give up. Moreover Professor Roweh is quite somebody. That’s for real too.”
“I don’t want to go home without Reuven, no. The truth is, I’ve talked to Mendel about adopting him, and he was noncommittal, but I suspect he wouldn’t mind too much, now that a child of his own is coming along. Reuven’s a burden to Mendel. No snorkers, and so on. But I can’t approach Lena, I just can’t.”
“Let me think about it.”
He pulled her down on a bench. She held him off at first, then they were kissing with the passionate abandon of twenty years ago, in the week before their breakup, when she had been sure she was about to become a bride.
A call from Mendel woke Kishote next morning in his hotel room. Distances weren’t great in Melbourne, Mendel said, and the office of the bauxite firm was on the way to his land property. He would be glad to show Yossi the acreage, then take him to his appointment. Too sleepy to argue, Yossi agreed. In that case, Mendel went on, he would join him for breakfast at the hotel, so he could have snorkers and eggs. “Can’t beat snorkers and eggs,” he said. “I do like a decent breakfast when I can get it.”
The land was pleasantly situated on high ground overlooking a river. Mendel broadly hinted that it was a marvellous investme
nt for a forward-looking party like Mr. Leavis, and Yossi let it go at that. His meeting at the bauxite firm was short because the Jewish executive was on holiday, expected back in a day or two. Mendel waited for him and drove him to the university campus, where he was meeting Shayna for lunch. “Shayna’s a fine woman, but difficult,” Mendel said. “She could make herself a nice life here, and I’ll tell you something, adopting Reuven might not be so impossible then, sooner or later.” With a wink he added, “Think about Australia yourself, General, one day. Lots of opportunities for a Jew with some get-up-and-go.”
On the long, long flight back to Los Angeles, since he was not flying with Sheva Leavis, Kishote returned to the narrow seats and cramped legroom of tourist class, more his own style. When he was not thinking joyfully of his time with Shayna, or puzzling over the problem of recovering Reuven for her — which seemed to be the key to marrying her, anytime soon — he slept away the hours. After the clear air and antipodal peace of Melbourne, the Los Angeles airport was a vast foggy tumultuous letdown. Mendel might have something at that, Kishote thought, if a Jew wanted to settle outside Israel.
When he carried his luggage into Yael’s apartment, he came on her sitting in a blue suede travelling suit with two bags packed. “Yossi, do you know that Dado is dead?” He stared at her, dumbfounded. “That’s right. Died while you were flying here. Sudden heart attack.”
He murmured the blessing on evil tidings, “Blessed be the True Judge. When’s the funeral, Yael?”
“Sunday.”
“Sunday. Then I can still make it.”
“Barely. I’ve been checking passenger lists on the flights from Australia, so I knew you were due. I’ve made TWA reservations for both of us. You have time to clean up and repack, but not much —”
“You’re coming?”
“I may as well. We can wrap up the divorce papers, also I want to check on Max’s house in Yemin Moshe. And there’s some hotel business I can do for Sheva —”
“I should call Sheva.”