Cafe Nevo (15 page)

“Shall I go?” Arik asked.

“Don't move! I'm not through with you. Do you two know each other? Sarita Blume, Arik Eshel. Your father, her mother were friends. Talk to each other, I'm going to the bathroom.”

“You're an artist,” Arik said, feeling absurdly tongue-tied and young. “I've seen you working here.”

She looked him in the face for the first time. “I've seen you.”

“May I have a look?”

Reluctantly she handed over the drawing. She was so child-like in manner that he expected naïveté in her work-pretty pieces of fluff, kittens and children with big eyes—and so was unprepared for the combination of immense power and hard-edged skill her drawing revealed. The picture was clear, cold, accurate, and uncanny. Everything Arik thought of to say seemed too personal. In his struggle against an illusory feeling that they already knew each other, he was aided by her utter indifference to him. She looked at him without recognition. Finally he pointed at a figure in the drawing and said, “That looks like Muny, thirty years younger.”

“Maybe. I don't know, really.”

Her work testified to strength, yet, speaking with her at last, he could not help feeling that he held a small bird in his hand. Though she had a woman's body, and a face he could not help imagining on his pillow, she was still a prodigy: a fierce, obsessive talent burning up a child's mind. He knew now who she was. For the first time since its discovery, his mother's illness left his thoughts; but his sense of impending bereavement acquired the form of pity for this orphaned girl.

Sternholz returned, but remained standing. “You'd better come upstairs, before we have more company.”

“I can't,” Arik said reluctantly. “I just came by to tell you about Rina. I've got to meet some people.”

Sarita shot him a glance of surprised gratitude. He wished she were not so happy to see him go.

“At one in the morning?” Sternholz growled. “Nice friends you got.”

“It's Coby and the other kids from the center. I've got to find out what they're up to.” Standing, he took Sarita's hand and waited until she looked up at him. “Goodbye, Sarita Blume. I'll be seeing you. So long, Sternholz.”

“Let's go up,” the waiter said. “Come, it's time we had a talk.”

Sarita had never envisioned Sternholz's existence outside Nevo; indeed, since he lived directly above the café, it could be said he had none. She was not surprised by the perfect order and cleanliness of his rooms, which were sparsely but nicely furnished, but she did notice the lack of any personal mementos: no pictures on the dresser or the wall, no remnants of his youth in Germany.

“Sit.” Sternholz led her to a chair at the little table beside the window. “What do you want? Whiskey, wine, vodka?”

“Wine, please.”

He brought over a chilled bottle of Carmel hock, opened it, and poured two glasses.
“L'chaim,”
he toasted.

“L'chaim.”
She sipped the wine, avoiding his eye.

“Did you ever think what a funny toast that is for Jews?” Sternholz watched her closely. “ ‘To life' —when all we've known is death and suffering.”

“ ‘To death' would be an even stranger toast,” she said.

“You know, that boy's in love with you. I've never known him at a loss for words with a woman before. I've seen him watching you.”

“Who?” she said blankly.

“Arik.”

“Oh.”

“He's a good boy. A lot of problems, but a good boy.”

Sarita remained silent.

“You're not interested? Maybe you've got a boyfriend already?”

“No.”

“What's the matter, you don't like boys?”

“I don't have room for them,” she said.

“His mother's very sick. Cancer, that's what he told me tonight.”

“That's sad.”

“Losing a mother is a terrible thing. Losing both parents—it's enough to stunt a person's growth.”

Sarita set down her glass and met the old man's bleary eyes. “I lied to that reporter,” she said. “I saw my mother act three times.”

“When was the third?” he asked wearily, knowing what she would say.

“Her last performance.”

“So tell me.”

“I was seven years old. My parents were going on tour to the northern settlements, and since it was summer vacation, they let me come. Mama was Nora in A
Doll's House,
and my father was stage-managing the production. The first performance was on Kibbutz Ma'ayan Baruch close to the Syrian border, in a new theater that had never been used before. I could have sat up front, but I preferred to watch from backstage; I couldn't see as well, but I felt more a part of the whole thing. It was terribly exciting, and though I couldn't understand the play, I knew Mama was wonderful. When it was over, I stood just inside the wings, watching her bow again and again. I wanted her to come to me but the audience wouldn't let go of her. I called, Mama!' and she blew me a kiss. She was so beautiful, bathed in light, raising up her long white arms, laughing and saying, ‘Thank you, thank you,' to the audience. She was hardly my mother at all....

“I remember the light, Mama gleaming white on the dark stage, her hair glowing like a bright halo. Then suddenly the darkness exploded in a blinding red flash....

“And the noise—at first I thought it was the audience roaring, but it grew louder and louder. I covered my ears but I could hear the roof crack open and the timbers of the stage give way, the crash of the chandelier and the screams, the terrible screams.... The spotlight never left Mama's face, and though I was knocked off my feet I still saw her face, which was turned toward me, as the stage collapsed beneath her and she fell.

“My father died, too. A lot of people died that night. It was a Syrian missile. They just sat up on their hill and waited till the theater was full. People told me I was lucky I survived.” She whispered: “But I didn't—not all of me.”

“They told me that, too,” Sternholz said, weeping unashamedly. “When I lost my family they said, ‘It's a pity about your wife and baby but thank God you escaped.' ‘Thank God'—I'd like to thank Him,” Sternholz cried fiercely. “He should give me five minutes alone in a room with Him, I'd thank Him good.”

“I knew you'd understand,” Sarita murmured. “I've never told anyone before... but we're alike, you and me.”

“Nonsense, child,” Sternholz growled in alarm, dashing the tears from his eyes. “I'm an old man; you're a young girl with a lifetime of loving ahead of you.”

Sarita's face closed down. “A lifetime of
work,”
she corrected. “My poor Mama was cut down in her prime, but she left me to carry on for her, in my own way, as best I can. There's no time for love.”

“No time for love!” the old man gasped. “Sarita, child—”

But Sarita stood and snatched up her canvas. “Thank you,” she said, avoiding his eye, edging toward the door. “I have to go now. Thank you.”

“Sarita, wait!” Sternholz struggled to his feet, but it was too late. She was gone.

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

 

“Contraceptive failure,” he said apologetically. “It happens.”

A deep flush spread over Ilana's face. She laughed, it seemed in spite of herself, and placed her palm flat against her abdomen, pressing gently. The man smiled a tentative smile. She said, “I'll need an abortion.”

“Take some time,” he said. “Think about it,” he urged.

“There's no need.” As she paced the room, she felt a warm glow in her belly, an uproar in her blood, but these found no expression in her clipped voice. “It's out of the question for me to have it. I want you to perform the operation, privately of course. We can do it here, or I can take a room in Assuta Hospital.”

“I won't do it immediately.” Dr. Steadman leaned far back in his chair and unwrapped a piece of gum. He was a balding redhead of forty-five, with a long, mobile mouth and bright blue eyes behind rimless glasses. He wore an old white shirt, frayed at the cuffs, loosely tucked into a pair of faded jeans. His lab coat was spotless, and his large freckled hands were immaculate. “I'm going to exercise my doctor's prerogative to offer some unsolicited advice, Ilana. God knows we've known each other long enough.”

“Rafi,” she said, coming to sit down. He held up a hand.

“You are what, thirty-six years old? The clock is ticking. If you ever want to have a child, now is the time, and you do have the means to support it. I'm not trying to usurp your decision, Ilana; I just wouldn't want you to do something you may one day bitterly regret.”

“It's no big deal,” she said. “Everyone has abortions these days. It's nothing to fuss about.”

“It's true, abortions are popular now. That's why some women are having them who shouldn't. The pregnancy wasn't intended, she has other plans, she's going abroad.... She never really thinks about it until it's done, and then she thinks too much.”

“I've thought about it.”

“What's the problem? Is it that you don't want a child? Or is it that you're not married? Are you as conventional as that?”

“It's not convention; it's... common sense.”

“Common sense?” He raised an eyebrow. “Let me ask you two questions. Can you afford to raise a child by yourself?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you want a child, ever?”

She tightened her lips, looked down, and did not reply.

“You see,” he said, “it's not all that clear-cut.”

“I can't have it.” She raised her head. “I appreciate your intentions, Rafi, but you're not making this any easier. Since I need an abortion, I naturally prefer to have you perform it. But if you won't, I'll find another doctor who will.”

He shrugged, then clasped his hands together. “You may feel differently knowing rather than suspecting that you're pregnant. If, however, after further consideration you still choose an abortion, I will perform it, provided it takes place within the first trimester.”

“I would hardly wait longer than that.” Now that she had won, dangerous forces rebelled inside her, clamoring for delay. She cleared her throat and said, “I want to make the appointment now.”

“Set up a date with Leah, for no less than two weeks from today. Feel free to change your mind at any time.”

Ilana stood and glanced at herself in the mirrored door. “I won't. Two weeks from now is fine. I'm going abroad next week. We can do it when I get back.” At the door she looked back at him with an odd tilt of her head. “It is all right to fly?” she asked; then she caught her breath and rushed out into the reception room.

The nurse was taking a history from a new patient. Ilana waited impatiently. A young woman sat in the small waiting room, holding a tiny infant. Ilana was drawn to the baby.

The mother, a child herself in Ilana's eyes, smiled proudly and shifted to show the infant's sleeping face. As she moved, the baby's eyelids flew open, and his eyes, deep dark lakes of solemn blue, met Ilana's. His look was so lucid, so searching, that his incapacity to speak struck her for the first time as pathetic. The creature so clearly longed to communicate. As he held her eyes she felt that not only did he sense the presence of her embryonic passenger, but he advocated its cause, so recently his own, with imperious innocence. Ilana sighed deeply, again touching her belly. “This isn't happening,” she said.

“What?” asked the mother.

“Your baby isn't talking to me.”

The woman smiled uneasily and hugged the infant tighter. Ilana backed away, and the nurse called out to her.

“Just send the bill,” Ilana said. She took a deep breath and glanced into the minor beside the entrance; then she walked out into the stifling afternoon.

 

It was a chamsin, the hot wind from the east that periodically sweeps the land. On chamsin days housewives close their windows and lower the shades, but the hot wind gets in anyway, carried like a germ by all who venture forth into its path. The chamsin enters through all apertures: the mouth, the eyes, the nose, penetrating to the heart. So many more family murders are committed during the chamsin that the courts consider it a mitigating circumstance.

Ilana raised her hand to hail a taxi, but lowered it, unable to think of a destination. She dared not return to her empty apartment. As she wandered on foot toward Dizengoff, walking as people must during chamsin, with long, unhurried strides and lowered eyes, the very effort of wading through the sweltering heat calmed, even cheered her. Pretty soon she found herself outside Nevo. Although Nevo was a place she almost never set out intending to visit; her aimless walks through the city often brought her there; and once she was outside it seemed churlish not to go in. She was thirsty, but wary of Sternholz. The café was fairly crowded, and the waiter would be too busy to pry.