Cafe Nevo (7 page)

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. Sarita laid down her brush and went to see what the woman wanted.

She was close to six feet tall and wore a multitude of scarves that somehow combined into a blouse, and a long peasant skirt threaded with crimson and gold. Her legs were bare, but on her feet were white anklets and gold high-heeled sandals. This somehow successful profusion of colors and patterns made the woman look like a picture out of the Gypsy's V
ogue
.

“Sarita Blume?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I am Moriah Benveniste,” she announced, and seemed confident that the name was enough.

“Come in.” Sarita cleared a stack of canvases from her only inside chair and sat herself on the bed. Rings and bracelets jingling, her visitor perched on the edge of the chair. Sarita saw that she was older than she dressed, close to fifty, with jet black braids framing a gaunt, dark, mobile face with a wide mouth. She smiled, and her teeth flashed white.

“I am delighted to meet you. You do not know me, but perhaps you know my gallery, La Benveniste in Jaffa.”

“Yes, certainly,” said Sarita.

“Actually it's not mine anymore. My husband got it when we divorced, but I expect he'll run it down to nothing within a few months. He never had any taste;
I
was the one who chose the artists and designed the exhibits.”

“I saw some. They were excellent.”

“Yes,” said Moriah Benveniste. “I hated to lose it, but it was either that or a seven-year court battle to get rid of the bastard. Of course it
was
extortion, and lots of my friends advised me to fight him; but I always think that those women who go through hell to keep their property are awful fools, don't you? Children are one thing (fortunately, we didn't have any; I wasn't that much of a fool), but
property?
The one thing I wouldn't give him was his name back. I said to him, I
am
La Benveniste, and dumping you doesn't change that.' That's why I'm here.”

“I see,” said Sarita, who didn't. “Would you like some tea?”

“No, don't bother, dear. So is it a deal?”

“Is what a deal?”

Moriah's laugh was like silver coins clinking. “Didn't I tell you? That's what freedom does for you: rots the brain, like alcohol. I want you to inaugurate my new gallery.”

“But I don't show,” Sarita said foolishly.

“That's one of the reasons I want you. I've seen some of your work here and there, so
that's
all right. I think you're very good for your age, and very promotable. “The painter waif of Sheinkin Street': how does that sound?”

“Bad.”

“Don't be shy, Sarita Blume. You have to understand that success in this field is ten percent talent and ninety percent P.R. You leave that side of things to me. Now, let's see what you've got.”

Without knowing how she came to it, Sarita found herself displaying her canvases one by one to Moriah, who said nothing but looked at them with obvious discernment and at Sarita with growing wonder. When Sarita was done, Moriah selected six from the stack of thirty-odd works and propped them against the wall. Sarita blushed when she saw the selection.

“Where did you get this?” Moriah asked severely.

“From my imagination.”

“Horsefeathers. Let me tell you something very few people know. I grew up right here on Sheinkin Street, just a few houses down. I remember this street better than I remember my father (not that he was around much), and I know what I'm seeing.”

“I just imagined them.”

“Then you have one hell of an imagination.” She pointed. “That old kiosk woman, the watermelon cart with the gray horse and the one-eyed driver, that poor old beggar woman—they are all real. I remember them. I remember that restaurant, too, but you don't; they tore it down before you were born. And that beggar died of pneumonia at least thirty years ago; I remember what a scandal it was when they found her body in a doorway. Now, how did you do it? Did you use pictures?”

“Yes,” Sarita said quickly. “Old photographs.”

“Show me them.”

Sarita was silent.

“I heard things about you,” Moriah said thoughtfully. “I just never believed them.”

“No.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Very young for such talents. And of course, you have no mother.”

Sarita bounded off the bed. “Thank you for the offer, but I'm not interested in exhibiting right now.”

“Sit down, child. I promise not to pry. That's better. When I tell you where the gallery is, you'll understand why I need you and you need me.”

“Where?” asked Sarita, expecting to hear Jaffa or Dizengoff.

“Across the street, right here on Sheinkin.” Moriah smiled triumphantly, and indeed, Sarita's refusal caught in her throat and stayed there. She shook her head in perplexity.

“You must. You are the Sheinkin Street painter.”

“I'm not ready.”

“You're not perfect, but you are ready. An artist who doesn't exhibit is autistic; he may perfect his technique, but sooner or later he loses the ability to communicate, without which there is no art.”

“I understand what you're saying, but I'm afraid.”

Moriah laughed scornfully. “Of the critics?”

“No. Of showing those.” She indicated the pictures that Moriah had selected.

“You must. They're your best. Listen to me, dearie. I don't know where you got all that detail. I don't buy the old photographs story, but there's no reason why other people shouldn't. At least they can't disprove it, and whatever else they suspect they'll keep it to themselves, for fear of appearing foolish.” Staring at the pictures, Moriah struggled with herself and lost. “How on earth did you do it?”

Sarita shrugged.

“Are you psychic?”

“What does that mean?” Sarita fastened her eyes on the ground like a sulky child. “Sometimes I paint what I see, and sometimes I paint what I imagine; that's all.”

“That's one hell of an imagination. If we could bottle it and sell it, we'd have it made, kid. We could call it ‘Witch's Brew.'“

“I'm not a witch,” Sarita said angrily.

“Of course you're not I was only joking. You're a painter, and a good one at that. Will you accept my offer?”

Sarita looked at her. After a moment she said, “When?”

Six weeks later, the Sheinkin Gallery opened, and with it Sarita Blume's first exhibit.

Sarita came unescorted, dressed in a forest green gown of silk and lace. It was an astonishing dress for Sheinkin Street, which in all the years since its conception had not known an occasion to support it, and no woman less beautiful than Sarita could have carried it off. The dress had been her mother's, who had left her no money but a closetful of magnificent, dramatic clothes, seldom worn but lovingly preserved by the daughter.

The opening also served as a kind of personal debut for Sarita. Her shyness, though habitual, was not inbred, and when the time was right she had no difficulty in discarding it. She invited friends of her parents, some of whom she hadn't seen since the funeral, and they, compelled by guilt and curiosity, attended en masse. They came intending to be pleased, and so they were, as much by the artist as by her work. She looked, they whispered, just like her mother.

The press was tremendous, for in addition to the invited guests, all of Sheinkin Street seemed to have turned out Among the hundreds who attended was one who looked at the paintings, then at Sarita, and left, quite unnoticed, without a word.

The opening was a great success. Most of the pictures bore little red dots before the end of the evening, and Moriah Benveniste, who had not printed the prices, charged twice as much for the last pictures sold as for the first. Sarita exhibited but would not sell the pictures of old Sheinkin and its inhabitants, for she felt they were not entirely hers to sell. There were viewers who recognized old friends and relations and even themselves as youngsters, but oddly enough they seemed to find nothing strange in this and made no inquiries.

One week after the opening, Moriah called on Sarita at home.

“I've obtained a commission for you,” she began with a mysterious smile.

“A commission?”

“For a great deal of money. One thousand dollars, for a single painting.”

Sarita gave her a disbelieving look.

“Less my commission, that's eight hundred dollars.”

“Your commission,” Sarita repeated.

“As your agent. Well, you need an agent, dearie. What do you know about marketing, promotion, pricing, all the business side of art? You don't want to spend your time on that, but you need to make a living.”

“But are you an agent?”

“Every dealer is an agent. Trust me, Sarita. Was I wrong about the exhibition? And I did get you this commission.”

“But who is it from?”

“From someone,” said Moriah, “who wishes to remain anonymous.”

“And what am I supposed to paint?”

“Nevo,” Moriah said.

“Nevo! The mountain?” The picture presented itself to her: a white stone peak rising from the Moab plateau, fierce and barren under the midday sun. At its summit stands a man alone, pale robes shimmering in the heat, casting a shadow so deep and black it seems to cast him. Motionless, he gazes out at the land which as surely as it has been promised to the people has been denied him. His back is to the observer, his face hidden; all the tragic clash of hope and fate is in the set of his head, the slope of his shoulders, the lines of his dust-hemmed robe.

Moriah's voice recalled her. “Not the mountain,” she said, laughing. “The café, on Dizengoff. Nevo.”

And yet the picture was slow to fade. She saw it for a moment superimposed on an image of the café, then both were gone, and she was back in her studio, with Moriah studying her quizzically.

“I can't paint Dizengoff,” she said.

“Not Dizengoff. Nevo.”

“Nevo is on Dizengoff.”

“On it, but not of it. Don't you know the café, Sarita?”

“I've passed by it. I know my parents used to sit there.”

“Then you know it's a special place, not your standard Dizengoff café. It's loaded with atmosphere.”

“Do you sit there?”

“Me?”
Moriah said scornfully, caught off guard.
“I
wouldn't be caught dead there.” Sarita laughed. “It's not my scene, but so what? Nevo has character. You could do it.”

“I don't know that I like the idea of painting someone else's idea. I don't know if it's possible.”

Moriah waved a bejeweled hand dismissively. “You think what you do is original? Let me tell you, my dear, that there is nothing in your work that you have not taken from other artists, and don't be offended, it's not only you. All art is derivative; if it weren't, no one would understand it. So what does it matter if the idea for a subject comes from outside you, as long as it's appropriate?

“Besides,” she added, “can you afford to turn down eight hundred dollars?”

Sarita said wonderingly, “Who would pay so much?”

“An admirer,” said Moriah, and added in response to Sarita's look, “Of your work, my dear, of your work.”

“If you don't tell me who it is, I won't do it.”

At last Moriah admitted that she did not know. A letter had arrived, with a bank check for $500 payable to Sarita Blume. She produced the letter.

The handwriting was small and spidery, the language unusually formal. “If Miss Sarita Blume will undertake this commission,” it read, “I will pay $1,000 for a single painting of Café Nevo on Dizengoff. I would wish the painting to be realistic, faithful to the tone of the café and its constituents. It will, therefore, be necessary for Miss Blume to spend some time in the café before composing her work. The enclosed check is a retainer, to be cashed if she accepts the commission. The remaining sum will be paid upon completion of the painting.”

It was signed: “With all good wishes, Yours sincerely, An art lover.”

The mystery, the challenge of discovering the art lover, and the money all attracted Sarita; what repelled was the prospect of sitting in that seedy old café for hours and days on end by herself. So she did not, despite Moriah's urging, deposit the check immediately, but went the following Friday to test the waters of Nevo.

By choosing Friday, Sarita meant to try herself. She went early and was in time to get a table inside the café, near the bar, where she could observe without (she hoped) being unduly observed herself. The old chess players goggled, and the waiter looked at her curiously but took her order for coffee with reasonable grace. The café filled up slowly, and people did stare openly; but no one came over. She wondered, once or twice, if the waiter had said something to keep them away but decided he hadn't; why should he?