Cafe Nevo (9 page)

The sun was rising. The sea grew softly luminescent. It was Sabbath morn; the city would sleep late. Bird cries filled the air. When Sternholz was young the city was full of terns, sea gulls, and long-legged sandpipers, but they left long ago. Now there were starlings, sparrows, and pigeons, city scavengers.

But Sternholz was not a bird-watcher, just an insomniac. His thoughts returned to the subject that had occupied them all night. If Arik leaves, Sternholz will feel it. Why must he suffer the loss of other people's children? Was it punishment for having lost his own? And how could Uri have been so careless as to let the boy slip away? The way of fathers and sons was a dimly remembered lesson for Sternholz, barely begun before it ended, but still he wondered: how could Uri have lost the boy? No paucity of love there, no matter how rough its expression. It was the life-sustaining tenet of Sternholz's faith that love is absorbed by its object even when the lover, not knowing how little time is gjven, has stinted on expression.

Perhaps, he thought, they are too much alike. Perhaps if opposites attract, then affinities repel. That would explain why Uri and Arik Eshel, who should by temperament as well as relationship have been the best of friends, could not sit ten minutes in the same room together. For they were very much alike, though not physically; the same hot and restless heart, the same desperate energy informed them. Men whose most vital needs were not food and water but work and opposition, the Eshels took not at all to peace and prosperity; but give them a war, a drought, a plague of malaria, or an uprising in the ranks, and they were content. No wonder Arik can't go home, Sternholz thought, and realized his own mistake in urging it on him. Uri Eshel made that kibbutz. With his bare hands (though not alone) he drained the swamps, cleared the land, built the buildings; and if you asked him why, he'd say he did it for his son. Never mind that it wasn't true, never mind that Uri struggled for the sheer joyous hell of struggling and winning. The point was that Arik was too like him to value anything but what he could do and build himself.

So much Sternholz could understand, and yet he felt that so much love, so truly given, ought not to disappear. Was not love energy, and conservation of energy a natural law? There was a bond; where was it now? Sternholz remembered the brit, remembered Uri Eshel in a clean set of kibbutz work clothes, standing in a young apple orchard under the clear blue sky, his wife beside him and his comrades all around, cradling his first-born tenderly in his arms, bending his massive neck to croon a lullaby. When the mohel cut, and the infant screamed, and the Rabbi spoke the words that brought the man-child into the Covenant, then Uri Eshel wept, and Sternholz, too. Hear O Israel.

 

 

 

Chapter Six

 

FRIDAY, NOON

The announcement on the hourly radio newscast that seven more soldiers had died in Lebanon cast a deep pall over Nevo. Only three people, a man and two women whose language and appearance declared them American tourists, continued to converse.

“Where
is
that waiter?”
 

“He must be deaf.”

“Selectively deaf, if you ask me. This is ridiculous. Call him again, Harvey.”
 

“Waiter!”

“Are you addressing me?” Sternholz said, his English as stiff as his back.

“You
are
the waiter, aren't you?”
 

“I am,” he replied loftily.

The man sat between two plump women, who propped him up like matching bookends. “How about some service?” he demanded, quivering like indignant jelly. “We've been sitting here for half an hour already.”

“This is Friday afternoon.”

“I know that.”

“I'm busy.” There was no hint of apology in this observation, which was delivered in a tone of marked disapproval.

“But we were here first,” said one woman. “You served those people, and we were here before them.” She wore a flowered dress, girlishly styled, of some material that looked like parachute silk. Sternholz ignored her and addressed the man's left eyebrow.

“There's a nice juice bar one block down. You should drink some fresh juice. Excuse me.”

Prodded by two elbows, Harvey jumped up into his path. “I want to see the manager.”

Caspi and Rami Dotan were sitting at the next table, sniggering as they followed the exchange. Sternholz said with dignity, “The manager is out.”

“When will he be in?”

The old man shrugged.

“He ought to be told,” the flowered woman said. “The service here is so bad, they're losing good customers.”

The other clicked her tongue. “When you think of the millions of hard-earned dollars that have been poured into this country, and then, when you come here, they treat you like dirt!”

For the first time Sternholz looked directly at the women. “You don't like the service here?”

“No, we certainly don't.”

“I don't blame you. So go someplace else,” the waiter said, and he walked away.

“Well, I
never
!”

“It's disgraceful!”

“I've a good mind to come back here and tell the owner,” Harvey said. He turned to Caspi. “Can you tell me, sir, when the owner usually comes around?”

“I don't believe I've ever seen the owner,” Caspi replied. “Have you, Rami?”

“Once, about ten years ago. But he was here for only a few minutes before they came to take him away.”

“They're pulling your leg, Harvey. Let's go.”

Just then Muny came bustling out. The poet, drunk as usual, had put on an old apron of Sternholz's. He staggered up to the tourists' curb-side table.

“I,” said Muny, striking his chest; “am the proprietor of this humble establishment. How may I serve you?”

“If you're the proprietor,” the man said, “I'm Peter Pan.”

“Well,”
said Muny, simpering, “if you're Peter Pan, I'm Tinker Bell.” Throwing himself onto the man's lap, he twined his arms around his neck and gave him a resounding smack on the cheek.

The flowered woman gasped; her friend broke into nervous titters. Caspi and Rami howled. Harvey pushed Muny off his lap and stood up. Face flaming, he glared about him in a manner that, despite all, did not lack dignity. Sternholz appeared as if by magic.

“You should be ashamed,” the tourist said. Under stress his voice had taken on the cadences of Yiddish.

Sternholz said urgently: “He's a drunken idiot. I apologize. Sit; please. I'll serve you now.”

“Go to hell,” the man said, and walked away.

The laughter died as Sternholz glared fiercely about him, like a stem teacher who's returned to find his class in an uproar. “You,” he said, pointing at Caspi, “you ought to be ashamed. And Muny, you've had it here. I'm cutting you off.”

“Not that, guvner!” Muny clutched the waiter's knees. “Anything but that!”

Sternholz reached down and lifted Muny to his feet with a single gnarled hand. “I mean it. I don't want to see you for a week.”

“Come on, Sternholz,” Caspi interceded. “You started it.”

Sternholz turned on him. “
I
did not humiliate those people. It didn't hurt them to be mad at me.
You
made fools of them.”

“He didn't mean any harm, Sternholz,” Dory said soothingly.

“It's
Mr
. Sternholz to you, young woman. And don't tell me what Caspi meant. I've known him a damn sight longer than you have, and he's never meant anything but trouble and pain.”

“Strong words,” Caspi said with an awkward laugh.

Rami put in quickly: “Cool off, Sternholz. Caspi is a great writer, and you should be honored to have his patronage.”

“Great writer my ass! Bialik was a great writer. Appelfeld, Amichai, Yehoshua are great writers. Caspi is a pornographer, and not even a great pornographer.”

Rami opened his mouth indignantly, but Caspi laid a silencing hand on his arm. “Have you read my work, Emmanuel?”

“Would I say that if I hadn't?”

“And you really believe my novels are pornographic?”

The question was asked seriously. Sternholz sat down at Caspi's table, his great white apron jingling as he did. He leaned forward and spoke softly.

“Fucking Toward Jerusalem. The Great White Lay.
What kind of titles are those?”

“They sell books.”

“Money, money, money. You can't have it both ways, Caspi. You want to write shlock, write shlock. But don't call it art.” A bony finger poked at Caspi's chest. “You're talented, Caspi, I'll give you that. You command the language. But what do you command it to do? You can't write out of character, and you know what your character is. It's not enough to be clever, my friend. To be a great writer, you have to first be a
mensch.”

“Bull.”

“It's true. You should have been a painter or a musician; then your character wouldn't have shown. Look at Wagner: one of the devil's own, but he wrote music like an angel. Or Picasso—he was a dirty old man, but that never hurt his work; maybe it even helped. But it hurts yours. Writers expose themselves.”

Caspi did not answer. He glared at Sternholz, who glared back. Rami Dotan interceded.

“You're full of shit, Sternholz. Peter Caspi outsells Yehoshua and Oz; he sells more than Amichai and Appelfeld put together.”

“Shut up, Rami,” Caspi said disgustedly.

“You know what I'm saying,” the waiter said, nodding.

“Go away, Emmanuel. Go do your job, and leave me to do mine.”

Sternholz stood up. “You asked,” he said, with surprising gentleness. “You don't want to hear, don't ask.”

 

THREE O'CLOCK

“Emmanuel,” said the Minister, “who is that girl sketching over there? Her face is so familiar, but I can't think who she is.”

“Sarita Blume,” the waiter said shortly.

“Blume. My God, is that Yael Blume's daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Good Lord. Ask her to come over here.”

“No.”

The Minister gave the waiter a quick, diagnostic glance and smiled.

 

“You again?”

“Good to see you, too, Sternholz.” Arik was bright-eyed but unshaven, wearing the same clothes he'd worn the day before, which to one of Sternholz's practical experience meant only one thing. Indeed, he had the air of one freshly arisen; whereas Sternholz had spent a near-sleepless night on his account. The old man had planned a Talk with Arik, a tactful Talk. But his reserves of tact, limited to begin with, were quite unequal to the sight of Arik's bright and chipper face. He therefore said with great irritation, “I don't want you hanging around here like a bum.”

“Where do you want me to sit?” Arik inquired cheerfully. “At Rowal or the Sabra?”

“I don't want you to sit anywhere. I want you to get off your ass.”

“What has gotten into you, Sternholz? This is getting out of hand. I'm not doing any harm, I'm paying for my drinks, so what's your problem?”

“My problem is, since when is not doing any harm good enough for you?”

“I am just filling in time until I go abroad.”

“Still with this going abroad business. What you need, Arik Eshel, is work.”

“I told you, I'm not looking for a job.”

“I didn't say a job! I said
work.”

Arik looked upward. “God, what did I do to deserve this?”

“You don't want to hear what I think,” Sternholz said angrily, “don't come into my home.”

“This isn't your home, Sternholz. It's a café.”

“It's my home!” the old man insisted. “And I'll tell you something else. This country is
your
home, and if you leave it, you'll never find another.” He stomped off, leaving Arik mystified. Why was Sternholz taking on so? What did he care if Arik left? Everyone else was; half the people Arik knew had left or were planning to, and why not? The world was large. A man was not a tree, needing roots to live. A man was free to wander. So thought Arik, but as he did, as he saw himself wandering freely, a pain as sharp as treachery pierced through him and was gone.

Feeling himself observed, Arik leaned toward Sarita. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

She continued to look at, but did not seem to see him. Her face was set in a child-like expression of deep, exclusive concentration, focused not on but through Arik. Then, without acknowledging him in any way, she looked down at her pad and began to sketch.

Watching her profile, Arik surprised in himself an oddly chaste ambition: that she would someday look and
see
him.