Cafe Nevo (16 page)

As she sat down, she felt herself enveloped in the loneliness that descends upon patrons of Nevo as they enter its portals and renders them inviolate. Nowhere else could she sit unmolested for as long as she wanted, for Nevo was a place where people came to be alone in the company of others, and this canon, though unspoken, was almost universally observed—except for people like Sternholz and Muny, whose function in Nevo's ecology was to intrude.

Sternholz appeared beside her, nodding dourly. “What do you want?”

“Hello, Emmanuel. I'm awfully thirsty; do you have any fresh juice?”

Sternholz snorted. “This I need? Maybe you want me to go pick the oranges off a tree?”

“If it's not too much trouble.”

“Oh, no, no trouble,” he muttered, repressing a smile as he hobbled off indignantly.

A few minutes later, he brought a tall glass of orange juice with the pips still floating in it. She drank gratefully, while he hovered, making sure she finished. “You want another?” he then asked, with a martyred look.

“No thanks.”

“You look terrible,” he said, wagging a finger in her face. “You're not living right. I've been meaning to tell you.”

“Not now,” she murmured, but this served only to encourage him.

“It's time to settle down. You should get married, have some babies.”

“Why are you saying this?”

“If I don't, who will? You're beginning to look tired. It's time for a change.”

“But why now?”

He cocked his head, peering at her through bright, knowing eyes.

“Thanks for the juice,” Ilana said. Sternholz shrugged and moved away.

 

Thereafter the city seemed rife with pregnant women. They were all around her, strolling down Dizengoff, sitting in cafés, sunning on the beach in their maternity suits: fertile as the land, Ilana thought, seasonal as the rains. For a short time she was one of them, two hearts beating within her; and in the one that was her own she thanked Rafi Steadman for the enforced delay.

Ilana bore her secret close, telling no one, but it seemed to her at times that one or another of the pregnant women would look at her with uncanny discernment. She prayed for nausea, pain, anything to relieve the physical elation that plagued her: but her body, which never lied, reveled stubbornly in its new fecundity.

The first negative sign of her pregnancy came, perversely, on her first night in London with David. They had been to a West End opening and then the opening party; by the time they returned to her suite in the Savoy it was after one. Ilana left David with a drink and got into the shower. A few minutes later he heard a loud thump and rushed in to find Ilana slumped over the edge of the tub. She stirred as he reached her side, and opened her eyes.

“I'm all right,” she said faintly.

“Good God. Here, let me help you.” He supported her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed, covering her with a blanket. Then he sat beside her and clasped her hand in both of his.

“I noticed you didn't drink tonight, and you've quit smoking,” he said. “Now this. Are you by any chance pregnant?”

Ilana turned her head away, closing her eyes.

“You're not sleeping. Answer me, my dear.”

She looked at him. “Yes. I'm sorry. I am. Temporarily.”

“It's my baby?”

“Fidelity, as you well know, David, is my stock in trade.”

He bit his lips, and his face worked; then he raised his face to the ceiling and burst into laughter.

Ilana, who had expected anything but hilarity, sat up in alarm, clutching the blanket to her chest.

“I'm sorry,” he gasped. “It's just... I've never had a child.”

“You're not going to, by me,” she promptly said.

“Don't abort it.”

“What else can I possibly do? I'm very sorry you guessed, David. I had no intention of telling you.... It's my fault for coming, but this never happened to me before.”

“You must take care of yourself.”

Ilana faced him squarely. “You don't seem to be hearing me, David. I cannot have a baby.”

David walked to the center of the room and stood easily, as if preparing to address a meeting of the board. He was a tall, lean man of about fifty, very dark for an Englishman, but then he was a Jew. He had long fingers and sensitive hands, which he now pressed together in thought.

David Barnardi was an architect and the head of an international firm of architects. His own speciality was the conversion of old churches into residences, a specialty he'd stumbled into by accident when he accepted a commission from an Essex parish to convert an old Anglican church into a residence for the priest.

The tall vaulted ceilings, the vast space and depth of the church inspired him, and he created a house of such eerie beauty that the old priest who was meant to live there could not cope at all and instead took lodgings with an elderly widow. The house was sold for a small fortune, which greatly pleased the parish, and it gained recognition as a paradigm of such conversions, serving as an example to countless aspiring young architects.

If there seems something ironic or even bizarre in the choice by a Jew of this particular field of expertise, it can only be argued that David Barnardi was not much of a Jew. He was far too proud a man ever to deny his religion, but as it was meaningless to him, so was it to others. He observed none of its practices, celebrated none of its holy days, and took secret pride in his ignorance of its tenets. The only positive function his religion served was in providing an unexceptionable excuse to forgo dreary church services on country weekends.

Like many artistic Jews whom Ilana had known, David possessed a business sense which was as keen as his aesthetic sense. Realizing the potential for a team of architects specializing in unusual, and expensive, conversions, he left the firm that employed him and hired, on commission, two bright young architects whom he knew. One of the two specialized in converting, or sometimes reconverting, multi-unit apartment houses into small mansions, townhouses for the very wealthy. The other designed small, Claridge-type luxury hotels.

With the money earned during their first year of operation, David hired a staff of interior designers to complete the buildings which he and the other architects designed, thus tripling their profits on a project. The next year, he hired three more architects, each of them proficient in a particular field; only this time he hired them on salary. That was twenty years ago. Today, the business which David had started on nothing was worth millions.

David let some moments go by in silence, while he thought. Then he drew a chair over to the bed and sat down. “I have the solution,” he said.

“Do you?”

“Marry me, Ilana.”

“You're not serious.”

“Never more so.”

“Would you mind handing me that robe?” When she had donned it, she sat up, hugging her knees. “Darling, that is without a doubt the silliest thing I have ever heard you say.”

“No, my dear, it's the perfect solution.”

“Have you forgotten that you are already married?”

The smile faded from his face, and his dark eyes grew grave. “We've never talked about my marriage. One doesn't like to... I am fond of Lydia, and I wish her well, but our marriage has long been one of convenience, on both sides. We go our own ways. I've stayed married because a man in my position needs a hostess, and Lydia is an excellent one; also because I've never actually found anyone else. I don't know, but I would imagine that Lydia's reasons for remaining with me are similar. We've discussed divorce but never found any compelling reason for going through with it, and the process is
such
a bore that one really doesn't want to unnecessarily. But now I have that reason.”

“You want the child.”

“I do. Very frankly I do. Lydia never wanted children, and I convinced myself I didn't care. But just now, when you told me that you're carrying my child, I just”—he laughed shortly, turning his face aside—”my heart went through the roof. Suddenly I felt that I'd never wanted anything as much....”

Ilana's voice was noticeably cooler. “You're willing to pay a high price for it, marrying me.”

“No,” David said slowly, with interest. “No. It's true that I probably never would have thought of it if this hadn't happened, but when the idea did come, it seemed right. Of course, I'm a good deal older than you are, but I think we suit each other rather well. I'm sorry, Ilana, this isn't a very romantic proposal. I suppose I'm not a very passionate sort of man.”

“You're a tender, sensitive man and a wonderful lover,” Ilana interrupted warmly, and could not help adding to herself that he would make a fine father. It seemed a shame that with all this man had to give, he should have no child to give to. But she rigorously suppressed that thought. “I'm honored, David, but it wouldn't begin to work. You forget what I am” —her voice dropped dramatically— “in the eyes of the world.”

“I will not tell you,” he said, “that I'm indifferent to what the world thinks, but if its judgment and mine were to differ, I should always rely on mine. I do not think they
would
differ. My dear, you are a woman of character: beautiful, intelligent, charming.... I care for you, Ilana, and respect you; I should be proud to marry you and raise our child together.”

She was too moved to reply at once. She noticed with something approaching gratitude the absence of any mention of love, for Ilana no more believed in love than a stage magician believes in magic. Her feelings toward David were as his toward her, composed of kindness and respect; under different circumstances these could have been the basis of a good marriage. But, circumstances being what they were, she felt compelled to reason with him.

“Look, darling, you haven't thought this through.” She spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a child.
“I've known a lot of men.
I've taken money from them. People know who I am. The papers know me. If David Barnardi were to marry Ilana Maimon, it would be front-page news and boardroom gossip. You would be hurt. Darling, I'm a—”

“Don't say it!” He laid a hand on her lips. “You've said too much already. I don't ever want to hear you talk that way again!”

“But it's true.”

“If you think so, then clearly you have not understood your own position. My dear girl, what a prude you are! What unmentionable sin have you committed? You have, by aligning yourself with powerful men, acquired a certain degree of wealth and power; in doing so, you have done no more than any self-made woman has at some point in her career.”

“Aligned myself—what a wonderful description!”

“It really doesn't matter in what position. There are many different ways of stroking... you at least have always been decent enough to give value for money, if you'll pardon the expression.”

Ilana burst into laughter, and after a moment David joined her. Then he joined her in bed. Almost imperceptibly, their talk changed to love-making. It was slow and deep and tender, and in the end Ilana cried out, “Yes, oh, yes!”

Later David asked coyly, “Was that an acceptance?”

She raised her head from his chest to look at him. “No, it was not! Apart from all the other insurmountable problems, how on earth would you run your business from Israel?”

He looked startled, then amused. “I couldn't possibly. We would have to live here.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I couldn't.”

“Why not?”

“I can't leave Israel. Not permanently.”

“Israel? What has Israel to do with it? We'd keep your apartment, of course; you could visit whenever you wished.”

“I couldn't live outside Israel. And I wouldn't raise a child outside.” She touched his hand. “Don't tell me it's irrational; I know it.”

“This is the first time I've seen this side of you,” David said slowly, breathing heavily. It was possible that he was growing angry, certain that he had not expected such opposition. “It's not necessary to live in Israel to remain Jewish, if that's your concern. I don't mind if the child is taught its religion.”

“It's not the religion; it's the land,” she said. “It's the place. You can't bring that here.”

“What difference does the place make?” he cried impatiently.

“All the difference in the world.”

He could not understand, and she could not explain. David had been to Israel and found it dusty and provincial, without the charm of Italy or Greece. Jerusalem he acknowledged to be a beautiful city, full of architectural marvels; but its spiritual gravity oppressed him, and he suffered from an unnerving sense that time behaved strangely in the walled city, flickering strobe-like between past and present, too quickly for confirmation but not for perception. Jerusalem was like a seductive woman whom he felt drawn to revisit, but never to live with, for she had the power to negate all that he had made himself. For Tel Aviv he had no use at all.