Cafe Nevo (10 page)

 

FOUR O'CLOCK

“I thought we had an understanding, Vered.”

“What about, Caspi?”

“About your coming to Nevo. Don't you realize how pathetic you look, hanging on to my coattails like this?”

“I don't feel pathetic. In fact, I feel pretty good.”

“I won't have you coming around here, bothering me!”

“I'm not bothering you, you're bothering me. Why don't you just go back to your friends and sit down quietly?”

“Get out of here, bitch. This is the last warning you get from me.”

She laughed up at him.

Caspi turned white. He gripped the back of a chair. “Why don't you go home where you belong? Make some dinner. Or if that's too much effort, go sit in Stern with your sniveling critic friends. You don't belong here.”

“You can't keep me out of Nevo,” Vered said. “No one can. Besides, I have an appointment.”

Caspi snarled, “Who with?”

“None of your business.”

“What's with you two?” Sternholz said, coming between them. “You should behave yourselves here.”

“Tell this person to stop harassing me,” Vered said.

“You should have told him yourself, ten years ago. Not here, not now, do you understand?” Though Caspi was taller, Sternholz enraged seemed to tower over them both. “We don't do family therapy here. This is not a divorce court or a television studio.
Ach,
you two are making me crazy. Caspi, go sit down.”

Caspi obeyed.

Ilana, sitting alone at the next table, made no pretense of not having heard but looked at Vered and said directly, “You're a brave woman.”

Vered smiled. Ilana had been one of Caspi's countless lovers; the affair was atypical for both and ended as quickly as it began. Vered knew, but for some reason that she did not understand, she felt no animus toward this one. “Not brave,” she said. “Desperate.”

Ilana hesitated, then moved her chair closer to Vered's. “Caspi strikes me as the type of man to take his unhappiness out on his family.”

“I can take care of myself and the child.”

“Of course you can. I'm sorry if I offended you. It's really none of my business.”

“You didn't offend me,” Vered said. The two women smiled rather shyly at one another. Then Vered went back to her paper, and Ilana turned away.

 

“Hey, Coby,” said Arik.

“I can't believe you're still hanging out here.” The boy danced on his toes. Arik shoved a chair at him.

“You know I quit Sheli,” he said.

“Big fucking deal.”

“How are the guys?”

“Back on the street. Yossi got his draft notice, but he's not going.”

“How not?”

“Easy. The jerk can't read.”

“That goddamn idiot, the army's his one chance not to be a bum all his life. What the hell's the matter with you guys, letting him get away with that?”

“Well, what'd you expect?” Coby shrugged Gallically. “If he goes in now he can kiss his ass goodbye. They'll have him in the Lebanese swamp before he knows what day it is.”

Arik nodded, his face a misery. Coby drummed the table with his fingertips and cracked his knuckles. “So what's with you?” he demanded uneasily. “You get a job, or what?”

“I'm going abroad.”

Coby sneered. “That's rich. Golden boy goes to Europe, or is it America?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, that's great, man. Have yourself a sweet vacation, and don't forget to send us a postcard.”

“It's not a vacation. I'm breaking out.”

The boy looked at him uncertainly. Then he changed the subject. “Hey, I meant what I said about the center. We're going to open it up again. We're going to get the money ourselves.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Coby leaned forward. “I'll tell you one thing. We're not selling cookies.”

“You're going to get yourselves in trouble.”

“What's it to you, anyway? You're jumping ship, right?”

“Right!” Arik shouted. They glared at one another. Slowly the anger abated. Arik looked away first, half smiling, rubbing his face.

“Hey,” Coby said, “you need a shave. In fact, you look like shit, man.”

“You better tell me what's up, Coby, so I can figure out what the bail's going to be.”

Coby lowered his long lashes. “You'll love it;” he said. “It's political.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We're going to practice what you
vus-vus
politicians preach: socialism in action.”

Arik's mouth twisted. “You're going to rip someone off.”

“For the general good.”

“Who do you think you are, goddamn Robin Hood?”

“Who's Robin Hood, some
vus-vus
politician?”

“Who's Robin Hood? Jesus Christ, Coby, you ought to try going to school once in a while. And why don't you drop the
vus-vus
shit; it's me you're insulting, you stupid
frank.”

“Jokes aside, man, are you in or out?”

“Are you serious? You really think I'd get involved in some dumb-ass plot that's bound to fail just when I am on the point of getting out of this madhouse?” He lowered his voice. “Who are you hitting?”

“I thought you might have some ideas.”

Arik dropped back in his chair. “You really thought I'd do it?”

“Well, it's for a cause, isn't it? Your type are big on causes. When are you leaving?”

“I don't know; soon,” Arik said impatiently. “You realize you're going to get caught.”

“Not if we plan it right. What we need is a good organizer, a detail man, maybe someone with a military background. Know anybody like that?”

A new black Mercedes pulled up to the curb and parked, in splendid disregard for the law. Pincas Gordon followed his stomach out into the open air.

“Damn,” said Sternholz to himself.

“Hello, Caspi,” Pincas said, slapping his shoulder. “How're they hanging?”

“Fuck off.”

“Just being friendly.” Pincas strolled around the café. If the tourists had still been there, they would have taken him for the owner. He paused beside Sarita. “Hello there, little girl. What a pretty picture.” Sarita covered the sketch with her hand, giving him a stricken look. Arik stood and stepped toward Pincas, but the fat man was already moving on.

“Vered, darling! Back so soon, and all by your lonesome?” She turned the page of her paper and went on reading. Pincas looked around, sharing his enjoyment of the rebuff, basking in his unpopularity. He spied the Minister sitting in an ill-lit corner and walked over.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Brenner.”

“Mr. Gordon,” the Minister said coldly.

“I hoped I'd see you here. I left a few messages, but your secretary must have forgotten to pass them on. You just can't get decent help these days, can you?” He took a seat at the table. “Mind if I join you?”

“Do you know why I come here, Mr. Gordon?”

“Slumming?” Pincas suggested jovially.

“I come here to enjoy some quiet time by myself.”

Pincas shook his head sympathetically. “I know just what you mean. It's the same with me. All week long, rush, rush, rush, and then on the weekend the kids are all over me. Friday afternoons are really the only time a man can call his soul his own. You know, in any other café I'd be swamped with people trying to muscle in on my action. Nevo's the only place where you can count on meeting no one of importance.” After a moment he added, “Yourself excluded, of course.”

“Goodbye, Gordon,” said the Minister.

“You're not going already?”

“No; you are.”

“Oh, but I haven't said what I wanted to talk to you about.” He lowered his voice, effectively silencing all the tables around them. “It's about Keter Shomron.”

“There's no such place,” the Minister said forbiddingly. His eyes searched for Sternholz, but the waiter was occupied elsewhere. Nevo's other inhabitants had grown suspiciously quiet and were leaning toward his table like plants toward the sun.

“Not yet there's not, but I have information that says there soon will be, as soon as the Ministerial Committee on Settlement pulls its collective thumb out. I am interested in seeing the settlement approved.”

“You're way out of line, sir. I'm going to have to ask you to leave.” It might seem odd to an outsider that the Minister, who was obviously unhappy with the public conversation, which he knew had already gone so far as to constitute a minor scandal and which would even perhaps find its way into some paper, did not just up and leave. But leaving Nevo under duress was something one simply did not do. Nevo was a place where events and chance meetings broke over one's head like waves. One could duck or jump them, but swimming for shore was not one of the options, not unless one chose to opt out completely.

Pincas winked conspiratorially. “Frankly, I've cornered most of the land there myself, but there are still a few nice lots available, if anyone was interested.”

“You're committing a crime.”

“Where's the crime in a chat between friends—and colleagues?”

“You're also making a very foolish mistake.”

“I'm not worried. Think it over, Minister. Leave word soon.” He lowered his voice. “I'm tying up a prime lot next week that's got your name on it if you want it—or rather, your son-in-law's name.”

“No one in my family is interested in any dealings with you.”

“Any more dealings, you mean. Well, I'm sorry to hear that I really am. But I do hope we'll see that settlement approved shortly. It would be a great step toward the Judaization of Judea and Samaria.”

“How very patriotic of you,” said the Minister.

 

“Who is that pig?” asked Coby.

Arik's face was bleak with rage. He said, “That bastard owns half the West Bank... half the fucking Cabinet, too.”

 

Vered had abandoned her paper and was busy scribbling notes.

 

Sternholz made purposefully for the Minister's table, but as he approached, Pincas stood and tipped an imaginary hat. “Have a nice day,” he said, and walked away.

 

FIVE O'CLOCK

“May I look?” asked the waiter.

Sarita looked up with eyes that took a moment to focus. When they did, she glanced down at the pad on her lap, studied her work with a puzzled air, and then said shyly, “You can if you like,” and held the sketch so that only he could see it.

Sternholz looked, blinked, took out a pair of steel-rimmed reading glasses from a shirt pocket, polished them and put them on, looked again, and said, “Good God.”

“Who is it?” Sarita whispered.

“Don't you know?”

She pointed to the only woman in the picture. “I know that's my mother.”

“That's her. And that's your father on her right.”

“And who's this?” She touched the man who sat on her mother's left, leaning toward her and saying something that made her laugh.

Sternholz bent his old head down to hers. “That's Uri Eshel, maybe thirty years ago. You can see the resemblance to his son, over there. Sarita”—he used her name for the first time—”how did you do that?”

She shrugged like a truculent child. Her finger touched the man who hovered behind the trio, his eyes fixed on the woman. “You didn't say who that was.”

“That's the waiter,” Sternholz said, a trifle glumly.

“He hasn't changed much,” Sarita said, studying the picture closely. “I know what he's thinking.”

“What?”

She laughed up at him with a touch of her mother's gay wickedness. The suddenly amplified resemblance made his old heart ache. “The waiter is thinking he waited too long,” she said.

 

Rami Dotan, who sat facing the street, suddenly straightened and said, “Look who's coming. I told you you should never have brought him here.”

“Khalil,” said Caspi, surprised.

“You didn't invite him?”

“Hell, no. We spent the morning fighting over the contents of the anthology. He's a stubborn bastard and a real chauvinist I'm surprised he would come here; I assumed he went back to Nablus. Maybe he thought of something else to tell me.”

Khalil parked his BMW at the curb, and entered the café like a fox prowling in the dark of night, hungry but also wary of larger predators. Head held still, chin high, eyes active. He saw Caspi and nodded. Caspi gestured toward a chair, but Khalil walked the other way, into the inner room of the café. Rami Dotan and Caspi exchanged puzzled glances and turned to watch him. He padded softly up to Vered's table. She looked up, closed her pad, stood, and offered him her hand. “Son of a bitch,” Caspi exploded. Khalil kissed Vered's hand, and they sat down together.