Black Box (3 page)

With all due respect,
A.A. Gideon

***

To Mr. Manfred Zakheim
Zakheim & di Modena, Lawyers
36 King George Street

By the Grace of G-d
Jerusalem
13th of II Adar, AM 5736 (14.3.76)

LOCAL

Respected Sir,

Following our telephonic conversation of yesterday: we require
in toto
a sum of some sixty thousand dollars U.S. to pay off our mortgage and construct an additional room and a half, and another like sum to settle the future of the son and likewise that of the little girl, amounting in all to one hundred and eighty thousand dollars U.S. There is requested further a contribution in the sum of ninety-five thousand dollars U.S. toward the purchase and renovation of Alkalai House in the Jewish Quarter of Old Hebron (a Jewish property that was seized by force by Arab rioters during the 1929 riots, which we are now attempting to repossess, not by violence, but by paying the full market price).

Thanking you in anticipation for your trouble, sir, and with deep respect to Dr. Gideon, whose scientific writing has inspired admiration in our country and increased the honor of the Jewish people among the nations, and with all good wishes for a happy Purim,

Yours faithfully,
Ilana and Michael (Michel-Henri) Sommo

***

A GIDEON HOTEL EXCELSIOR WEST BERLIN

ALEX PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME IMMEDIATELY IS IT BLACKMAIL SHOULD I PLAY FOR TIME SHOULD I INVOLVE ZAND AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS MANFRED

***

PERSONAL ZAHKEIM JERUSALEM ISRAEL

SELL PROPERTY ZIKHRON YAAKOV IF NECESSARY ALSO BINYAMINA ORANGE GROVE PAY THEM EXACTLY ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND CHECK HUSBANDS BACKGROUND SOONEST CHECK BOYS CONDITION SEND PHOTOCOPY DIVORCE PAPERS RETURNING LONDON END OF WEEK ALEX

***

Ilana Sommo
7 Tarnaz St.
Jerusalem

20.3

Ilana,

You asked me to think about it for a day or two and let you know my opinion. You know as well as I do that whenever you ask for someone else’s opinion, or advice, what you are really asking for is their approval for something you have already done or decided to do. Never mind—I’ve decided to write anyway, to clarify for myself how it was that we parted on bad terms.

The evening I spent with you last week reminded me of the bad old days. I was in a panic when I got home. Even though on the surface everything was as usual, apart from the rain that didn’t stop all night. And apart from Michel, who was looking tired and gloomy. He spent an hour and a half putting up those bookshelves, with Yifat passing him the tools, and at one point when I got up to help him by holding two uprights for him, you mockingly suggested from the kitchen that I should take him back to the kibbutz with me because his talents are wasted here. Then he sat at his desk in his flannel pajamas and dressing gown, marking his students’ exercise books in red ink. He marked exercise books all through the evening. In a corner of the room the kerosene heater glowed, Yifat played for a long time on the straw mat with the toy lamb I’d bought her at the bus station, there was a concerto for flute with Rampal on the radio, you and I sat in the kitchen whispering to each other, and on the surface we were having a quiet family evening together. Michel was withdrawn, and you didn’t address more than twenty words to him the whole evening. Nor to Yifat or me, if it comes to that. You were all wrapped up in yourself. When I told you about the children being ill, about Yoash’s new job in the plastics factory in the kibbutz, about the executive committee’s decision to send me to take a course on cooking for special diets, you were only half listening; you didn’t ask a single question. It didn’t take me long to realize that, as usual, you were waiting for me to finish my trivial report before moving on to your own fateful dramas. That you were waiting for me to ask. So I asked. But I didn’t get an answer. Michel came into the kitchen, spread margarine and cheese on a piece of bread, made himself a cup of instant coffee, and promised that he wouldn’t disturb us, and that he would soon go and put Yifat to bed, so that we could carry on our conversation without interruption. When he’d gone, you told me about Boaz, about your two letters to Alex, about the two payments he made you, and about Michel’s decision “to demand from him this time every last penny he owes,” on the assumption “that perhaps the so-and-so is finally beginning to acknowledge his sins.” The rain hammered on the windows. Yifat fell asleep on the mat, and Michel managed to put her pajamas on her and get her into bed without waking her up. Then he put the television on softly, so as not to disturb us, watched the nine o’clock news, and quietly went back to his marking. You peeled vegetables for lunch the next day, and I helped you a little. You said to me: Look here, Rahel, it’s no good your judging us, you in your kibbutz, you’ve no idea what money is. And you said: I’ve been trying to forget him for seven years. And you also said: In any case, you can’t understand. Through the door I could see Michel’s curved back, his hunched shoulders, the cigarette he’d been clutching all evening, forcing himself not to light it because the windows were closed, and I thought to myself: She’s lying again. She’s even lying to herself. As usual. Nothing changes. But the only thing I said to you when you asked me to tell you what I thought was something like: Ilana, don’t play with fire. Be careful. You’ve had enough already.

To which you replied angrily: I knew you’d start going on at me.

I said: Ilana, if you don’t mind, I wasn’t the one who brought the subject up in the first place. And you said: But you made me. So I suggested we stop. And we did, because Michel came back into the kitchen, jokingly apologized for trespassing on the “women’s quarters,” washed and dried the supper things, and told us in that scorched voice of his about something he had seen on the news. Then he sat down with us, made a joke about “Polish tea,” yawned, asked after Yoash and the children, absent-mindedly stroked both our heads, apologized, went to pick up Yifat’s toys from the mat, went out on the veranda for a smoke, said good night and went to bed. You said: After all, I can’t forbid him to meet Alex’s lawyer. And you said: To secure Boaz’s future. And without any obvious connection you added: Anyway, he’s present all the time in our lives.

I said nothing. And you, with suppressed loathing, called me dear old clever, normal Rahel, and added: Only, your normality is an escape from life.

I couldn’t contain myself. I said: Ilana, every time you use the word
life
I feel as though I’m in the theater.

You took offense. And cut the conversation short. You made up a bed for me, gave me a towel, and promised to wake me at six, so I could catch the bus for Tiberias. You sent me to bed and went back to the kitchen to sit alone and feel sorry for yourself. At midnight I went to the bathroom. Michel was snoring softly, and I saw you sitting in the kitchen in tears. I suggested you go to bed, I offered to sit with you, but when you said, in the second person plural, You leave me alone, I decided to go back to bed. The rain didn’t stop all night long. In the morning, before I left, while we were having our coffee, you whispered to me to think quietly for a day or two and let you know my thoughts. So I tried to think about what you had told me. If only you weren’t my sister, it would be easier for me. Still, I made up my mind to write to you that in my opinion Alex was a disaster for you, and Michel and Yifat are everything you have. As for Boaz, you ought to leave him in peace now, because any attempt to “hold out a maternal hand to him” will only increase his loneliness. And his distance from you. Don’t touch him, Ilana. If there’s any necessity to get involved again, leave Michel to take care of it. And as for Alex’s money, like everything else to do with him, that money has a curse on it. Don’t risk gambling away everything you’ve got. That’s my feeling. You asked me to write, so I have. Try not to be angry with me.

Rahel

All the best from Yoash and the kids. Give a kiss to Michel and Yifat. Be good to them. I’ve no idea when I’ll be in Jerusalem again. We’re having rain the whole time too, and a lot of power cuts.

***

Dr. A. A. Gideon
16 Hampstead Heath Lane
London NW 3, England

Jerusalem
28.3.76

My dear Alex,

If you think the time has come for me to go to hell, just send me a four-word telegram, “Manfred go to hell,” and I shall be on my way right away. But if, on the other hand, you’ve decided to take a look at a psychiatric ward from the inside, then would you please mind doing so alone, without me. I won’t get any kick out of it.

In accordance with your instructions and against my better judgment, yesterday I unfroze our citrus grove near Binyamina (but not the Zikhron Yaakov property: I haven’t quite taken leave of my senses yet). In any event, I can realize about one hundred thousand U.S. at twenty-four hours’ notice for you and hand it over to your lovely ex-wife’s husband, provided I have your final instructions to that effect.

However, I have permitted myself not to finalize the deal yet, so as to leave you an opportunity to change your mind and cancel your whole Father Christmas act without suffering any loss as yet (apart from my commission).

At least could you kindly let me have urgently some convincing evidence that you haven’t gone stark, staring mad: please excuse, my dear Alex, my caustic language. The only thing I’ve got left to do in the fine situation you’ve put me in is to send you a nice letter of resignation. The trouble is that I’m somewhat fond of you.

As you are well aware, for some thirty years your remarkable father shortened my life, before and during his sclerosis and even after he had already forgotten his own name and my name and how to spell Alex. And no one knows better than you do how hard I worked for five or six years to arrange for you to be appointed sole trustee of all his property, and without three-quarters of it disappearing in inheritance tax or senility tax or some other Bolshevik siphon. The whole exercise brought me—I shall not attempt to hide it from you—a measure of professional satisfaction, a fine apartment in Jerusalem, and even a bit of fun, for which I have paid, it would appear, with an ulcer. But if I had imagined then that in ten years’ time Volodya Gudonski’s one and only son would suddenly start dispensing fortunes to Les Misérables, I wouldn’t have made those titanic efforts to transfer the whole damn dowry intact from madman to madman—for what?

Allow me to inform you, Alex, that the slice that you are intending to hand to that pocket-sized zealot comes, at a rough calculation, to seven or eight percent of everything you own. And how can I be sure that tomorrow you won’t have another brainstorm and decide to parcel out the rest between the Home for Unmarried Fathers and the Shelter for Battered Husbands? And, if it comes to that, why should you give him money at all? Just because he deigned to marry your secondhand ex-wife? Or as emergency aid to the Third World? Or perhaps it’s reparations money for discrimination against Orientals? And if you have gone completely crazy, perhaps you wouldn’t mind making one tiny effort more: Go crazy at a slightly different angle, and leave all your property to my two grandchildren. I’ll arrange it for you without taking any commission. Surely we Germans have suffered here at least as much as the Moroccans have? Didn’t you despise us and trample all over us, you the Frenchified Russian aristocracy from the region of North Binyamina? And don’t leave out of the calculation, Alex, the fact that my grandchildren will invest your fortune in the development of the country! Electronics! Lasers! At least they won’t squander it on restoring ruins in Hebron and turning Arab shithouses into synagogues! For I have to inform you, my dear Alex, that your beloved Mr. Michel-Henri Sommo may be a little man, but he’s a great zealot. Not a noisy zealot, but of the latent variety: soft-spoken, polite, and ruthless. (See, when you can spare a moment, the chapter in your excellent book entitled “Between Fanaticism and Zealotry.”)

I checked Mr. Sommo out yesterday. Here in my office. He earns barely two thousand six hundred pounds a month, of which he contributes a quarter each month to a small national religious splinter group, roughly three fingers to the right of the Greater Israel Movement. Incidentally, you might have thought your dazzling wife, after trying out every fifth man in Jerusalem, had settled in the end for some Gregory Peck—well, it turns out that this Mr. Sommo begins (like the rest of us) on the ground, but he terminates abruptly at five foot three or thereabouts. In other words, he is a good head shorter than she is. Perhaps she bought him cheap, by the yard.

And so this African Bonaparte appears in my office wearing permanent-press slacks, a check jacket a little large for him, curly-haired, uncompromisingly clean-shaven, drenched in radioactive after-shave, sporting gold-rimmed spectacles, a gold watch on a gold watch chain, and a red-and-green necktie fastened with a gold tie-clasp, and on his head—as though to dispel any possible misunderstanding—a small skullcap.

It transpires that the gentleman is far from stupid. Particularly when it comes to money, or to manipulating guilt feelings, or to armor-piercing hints at all sorts of powerful relations he has strategically located in the municipality, the police, his party, and even in the revenue department. I can promise you almost for certain, Alex my dear, that one day you will see this Sommo sitting in Parliament and firing long, devastating patriotic salvos at do-gooders like you and me. So perhaps after all you should be watching out for him, instead of financing him?