Читать книгу The Book of Israela - Rena Blumenthal - Страница 9

My father called early the next morning to make sure I knew about the bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya. I had, of course, already heard about it on the car radio during my drive home. While our family had been joylessly chanting our way through the ancient story of slavery and oppression, someone with present-day grievances had stepped out of the rain and into a crowded hotel dining hall, just as people were finding their seats for the evening’s seder, and exploded a bomb hidden in an attaché case. Twenty were confirmed dead and scores more wounded. Among the many elderly dead, my father told me, was an old friend of my mother’s, Libke. He whispered the name reverentially, though I’d never heard it before. My mother was taking it badly, he said, and wouldn’t want to talk. Abruptly, he hung up the phone.

The following three days of the holiday dragged miserably. On Friday afternoon, a mere two hours after I had done my first real grocery shop in the new neighborhood, a bomb went off in the supermarket I had just left. Two killed, a couple dozen wounded—a minor event, by recent standards, but distinct because the bomber was an eighteen-year-old woman. I gave in to the nagging pull of curiosity and went to have a look at the glass and debris scattered throughout the cordoned-off street. The country was in a state of extreme hysteria as the bloodiest month yet of the intifada was drawing to a close, the faces of the hundred-plus dead from March attacks splashed across every newspaper. Massive incursions into the West Bank had been launched to try and rout out the terrorist cells. Thankfully, I hadn’t been called up this time for reserve duty. It would all come to naught, I was sure—there was no defeating a resistance this brutal. But that wouldn’t prevent the self-righteous hypocrites in Europe from staging massive protests against the country’s fruitless efforts to stanch the bleeding.

The holiday had me feeling adrift; I had no idea how I was supposed to spend my days. Bored as I was by my job, at least it gave me somewhere to go each day, people to talk to, distraction from my now-vacuous existence. I was determined, in defiance of Jezebel, not to do a stitch of “productive” work and instead spent the days walking aimlessly through the unfamiliar streets of Kiryat Yovel, the evenings trapped in my run-down flat, listening to the drone of the unrelentingly somber news reports on the television. My isolation was stark and I marveled at the extent to which my life had been orchestrated by Nava. I resuscitated the memories of holidays past: walking through the zoo with Yudit on a hot afternoon as she chattered alongside me; horseback riding on a family trip to the windy grasslands of the Golan; Nava’s elegantly thrown-together dinner parties. Jerusalem was in full flower—a collage of color animated by the pervasive scent of jasmine and honeysuckle—but the sudden outburst of spring only soured my mood. Yossi was in Netanya with his visiting American in-laws, who had a luxury flat they visited only on holidays. I couldn’t think of a single person to call or visit. How had I become such a helpless and dependent adult?

The hours crawled by as I obsessively brooded about my new circumstances. Foremost on my mind was what to do about Yudit’s bat mitzvah. Nava had been immersed in planning the party for almost a year, and Yudit, despite heroic efforts at preteen nonchalance, was bursting with excitement. The elegant hall in the Botanical Garden had long been reserved, the handmade invitations sent out, the menu meticulously reviewed. After a widespread search throughout the city’s finest boutiques, Yudit’s dress had been selected, as well as Nava’s own. The last couple of weeks, the two of them, giggling excitedly over the kitchen table, had been working on the final details of the handcrafted decorations for the room. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the details—had thought it all a bit excessive—but was I really to be excluded from my own daughter’s coming-of-age party? Nava was wrong, of course, to order me away, but if I just showed up it might create a scene and ruin the party. The bat mitzvah was only three weeks away—what was I supposed to do?

I finally decided that if I couldn’t attend the party, at least I could sink my energies into purchasing a special gift—something exotic and personal that would tell Yudit how much I still cared. On Sunday afternoon I took the bus into the center of town full of purpose, but after hours of wandering the eerily empty streets, I realized that I had no idea what Yudit might want. She seemed too young for expensive jewelry, and the books and electronic devices and tchotchkes that overflowed the downtown shops seemed too small for the weight of the task. By dusk I felt exhausted and defeated. I climbed onto the bus for the long journey back to Kiryat Yovel, shutting my eyes to the pink-tinged rush of buildings whizzing by.

The bus driver had the news turned up high. The IDF had invaded Arafat’s compound, the Security Council was up in arms, and there was fighting in the streets of Ramallah. There was nowhere you could go to escape the unending crush of bad news. When I opened my eyes, having briefly nodded off, I noticed that the bus was winding its way through the narrow streets of an unfamiliar neighborhood. Had I absentmindedly hopped onto the wrong bus, or had I just not noticed this part of the route on the way in? I knew little of Jerusalem outside of downtown, where I’d always worked, and the trendy neighborhoods to the south.

Two seats ahead of me and across the aisle sat a preteen-aged boy in a thin, nylon jacket with a book bag on his back. From behind, with his swarthy skin and close-cropped hair, he looked like an Arab, but I couldn’t be sure. He was perched at the edge of his seat, motionless but for his right leg tensely shaking up and down, looking out the front window with a blank stare. What was in that backpack that he wouldn’t take it off and let it lie casually by his side? I had always belittled Nava’s fear of taking buses, insisting, with my usual bravado, that life was a crapshoot with or without an intifada. But now suddenly my heart was pounding violently. I looked around me. Besides the boy, there were only two other passengers—an older man absorbed in a newspaper, and a young religious woman rapidly reciting prayers from a tiny, black prayer book. I watched them closely, searching for any trace of the panic that was quickly overwhelming me. Nava was right—no one with any money or sense took the buses anymore, especially during a holiday. How could I have been so stupid? My breathing became tighter; I could feel the sweat beading at my temples. I gripped the handrail tightly, steeling myself for the explosion.

Impulsively, I pushed the button to signal that I wanted to exit, and as soon as the bus stopped, I jumped off. Gripping the metal frame of the empty bus stop shelter, my heart still pounding, I watched the bus peacefully pull away. It took a few minutes until I was able to breathe normally and my heartbeat slowed, but as it did, I felt a wave of humiliation. The drivers were well trained to recognize suspicious passengers. And anyway, a suicide bomber would have detonated in downtown Jerusalem, not on an empty bus, on an even emptier street. The boy who had sent me into such a panic was just a boy, his backpack just a backpack.

I took a few deep breaths and looked around. I was on a backstreet of a dilapidated neighborhood. I asked two passersby to direct me to where I might hail a cab, but both of them shrugged and kept walking. I started walking myself, thinking I would surely stumble upon a thoroughfare, but instead found myself ensnared in increasingly narrow, winding streets. Dragging myself along, trying to ignore the blank stares of the beggars who seemed to inhabit every grimy alley, I stumbled upon a corner pub that looked about as sleazy as I felt. The half-burnt-out neon sign brokenly flashed “Soreq’s Pub.” I generally avoided bars, more partial to the solitary nightcap, but my nerves were still frayed from the bus—a quick shot of Scotch might help me recover, I thought.

The cavernous room, three steps down from the street, was hot, dark, and empty and smelled of stale cigarettes. The bartender, a beefy man with a shiny bald pate, eyed me with open hostility. I hesitated, almost turning around, but the butterflies were still flitting through my chest and the itch for a drink was strong. I ordered a Scotch, downing it quickly, and the bartender refilled my glass without a word. I took it to the far end of the bar and settled uneasily onto a stool.

As if on cue, a tall young woman with straight blond hair and broad Slavic features emerged from a back corridor. She gave me an indifferent glance, then continued to the front of the bar.

“I’ll have another,” she said, leaning over the counter, and the bartender, just as silently, poured her a vodka. Glass in hand, she headed to a corner booth on the far side of the room.

She wore a simple gray dress, with a cheap glittery scarf hanging loosely over her shoulder. Even from the brief glance she had tossed my way, I could see that she had exquisite features, with sharply etched cheekbones. Well, why not? I thought. I had nowhere to go and no one to be with. I downed my drink, allowed the bartender to refill it, and self-consciously walked across the chasm of the room.

“May I join you?”

She looked up—from that close, I could see the shadows under her tired blue eyes.

“We seem to be the only ones here,” I said, as if to excuse my inexplicable rudeness.

“It’s OK,” she said, in heavily accented Hebrew.

I sat down. As if in slow motion, she lit a cigarette, and I saw that a thin rope, tattooed in black ink, snaked up her right arm. I glanced back at the bartender, who seemed immersed in a newspaper.

“That’s an interesting tattoo,” I said.

She looked at her forearm as if she’d never seen it before, then back at me. She was strikingly beautiful, with a gaze that was neither welcoming nor hostile. I had a hard time looking at her eyes.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Delia.”

“Are you Russian?”

“No, not Russian.”

“Where are you from, then?”

“Moldova.”

“Oh, OK.” I’d heard of it, of course. But where exactly was it?

She gazed at me flatly. “You have no idea where it is.”

“I guess that’s true. I’m sorry. It’s somewhere near Russia, no?”

“You could say that.” She took a long pull on her drink.

“Have you been in Israel a long time?” I asked.

“Too long,” she said bitterly.

“I guess you don’t like it much.”

She put an elbow on the table, her chin resting on her fist, as if deciding whether engaging me in conversation was worth her time.

“It’s a hard country to like,” I stammered, unnerved by her silence.

“Hard to like?” she finally said. “Thinking you will get blown up every time you go to the market? Having everyone talk down at you, like you’re some kind of dumb foreigner?”

“You speak good Hebrew,” I said. Even to my ear, the compliment sounded lame.

She shrugged.

“Why did you come here?” I asked.

She exhaled smoke and stared at me with her weary, hypnotic eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “None of my business.”

“It’s OK. Like you say, no one else here to talk to. What you doing in this hellhole anyway?”

“I just came in for a drink. I was . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“You were what? You must have some messed-up life. No one just drops into Soreq’s on a Sunday afternoon for a drink. Especially on a Jew holiday. What you doing in this shithole neighborhood? Why aren’t you home with your family? Playing with the kids? Escaping to the beach? Fucking the wife?”

“Well . . .” All my bravado was failing me. I couldn’t sustain her blink-less stare.

“You even know what today is?” she asked.

“Like you said—it’s Sunday. Passover. Jew holiday.” I smiled weakly.

“Ah. That’s all you know.”

“What do you mean?”

She crushed out her half-smoked cigarette.

“Today is Easter,” she said flatly. “Only in this Jew-crazy country nobody even knows it’s Easter Sunday.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right, I didn’t realize. I guess it’s an important day for you.”

She was looking down at her drink now, a few stray hairs falling over her eyes, her nostrils flaring slightly. The freckles on her pale shoulders formed a fathomless maze.

“There are plenty of churches in Jerusalem,” I offered. “Why didn’t you go to church?”

She looked up. “Who says I want to go to church?”

“Well, I thought that’s why you brought it up.”

I was unaccustomed to sitting across from a woman as tall as myself; Nava barely reached my shoulder. Was that what made her gaze so disarming? Or was it the backlit blue of her eyes?

“What do you know about churches?” Delia was saying. “You ever even been to one? You shouldn’t talk about stuff you don’t know.” Her tone was challenging but not quite hostile.

“You’re right. I don’t know anything about Christian life in Jerusalem.”

We sat in silence, her cigarette out, and both our glasses empty. It had been a long, fruitless day, and it was time to go home. But I didn’t really have a home, and there was something perversely comforting about sitting across from her. There was no vehemence in her silence, just an honest, dull ache.

“You really don’t know why I’m in this country?” she finally asked.

There had been a number of high-profile articles about Slavic women being trafficked to Israel, raped and beaten by their Bedouin smugglers. It had seemed so remote to me, like a dispatch from the moon. “I guess it wasn’t your choice,” I said.

“Good guess. You know what, Jewboy? I been here three years. I bet I know this place better than you.”

“Well . . .”

“I’ll tell you some things you don’t know.” I had to lean forward to hear, she was talking so low. “They raped my friend Samara, right in front of me, on the ground, on the desert floor. Are you shocked? I had to watch—that’s how they get you to behave. She ended up pregnant with who knows what piece-of-shit’s baby. They slit the face of my other friend, Tatiana, on the border, branding her, like cattle. A nice big scar she has now.” With a delicate motion, she traced an arc across her own cheek.

“That’s terrible. I’m really sorry—”

She picked up her empty glass and set it down again. “You smuggle us in here, treat us like animals, then try to throw us out.”

“Is that . . . how you got the tattoo on your arm?” I asked haltingly.

“No,” she said, looking at it again. “That’s a whole different story.”

“Where are your friends now?”

“They’re in Tel Aviv. I’m the only one who got out.”

“You escaped?”

She shrugged and lit up another cigarette.

“Do you have any friends in Jerusalem?” I asked.

“What are you, my social worker?”

“I’m sorry. I should never have bothered you.”

“It’s OK,” she said. “Not your fault. I’m a little nervous today. They find me they’ll deport me. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. I can’t go back to that hellhole.”

“To Moldova? I thought you hated it here. You’d rather stay than go home?” I felt uncomfortable prying but couldn’t stop myself.

“What do you know,” she said.

“Not much.”

Her eyebrows rose and fell in agreement, and we sat through another long silence. Why was she telling me these terrifying stories? Were they true, or was she playing me? Did she want me to keep sitting there or not? I couldn’t tell.

“You’re incredibly beautiful,” I finally said. “You know that, right?”

“Is this some kind of come-on?” Her tone was so flat. Was she insulted? Mocking me? Interested?

“No, I didn’t mean it that way. Or maybe I did. I don’t really know. I was just thinking . . .”

She snorted. “Another confused fancy-dress Jew, with no sense in his head.”

“You really hate us.”

“Everyone hates the Jew,” she said matter-of-factly. “Tell me this. Why haven’t they killed you off yet? They keep trying. They try every day. But you’re still here. What’s the secret? Tell me.” She looked at me expectantly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You’re right. It’s a great riddle.”

She leaned over toward me. Without breaking eye contact, she took the scarf off her shoulder and began to wrap the scratchy fabric gently around my two wrists.

I felt a surge of warmth in my groin. She was the anti-Nava—tall and blond, foreign and merciless. Maybe I could fuck all my frustrated rage into a girl like this, strafe the Jezebels and Navas and nameless receptionists who were plaguing my life through one magical pain-feuled fuck. Maybe she was just what I needed.

“Tell me the secret,” she hissed. “The secret of the Jew.”

“You’re wasting your time, Delia,” the bartender yelled from behind his paper. He moved it aside to stare at me balefully. “This one don’t belong here. He’s not your kind.”

“What do you know of my kind?” she yelled back. And then to me, “Don’t pay attention to Pinya. He gets jealous of anyone who talks to me.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” I asked. She snorted, as close to a laugh as she could probably manage, but I was disconcerted. Pinya scared me. Had he helped her escape from Tel Aviv? Did he now own her? Is that what she was doing in this rathole? I could have used another shot of Scotch, but I was frozen in place. Delia pulled tighter at the fabric on my wrists and gave me a questioning look, flicking her head toward the black corridor from which she’d emerged.

I was horny as hell, and just as scared. What kind of invitation was this? Was there a room off the back corridor for casual liaisons, or was this to be a crude bathroom fuck? Both options made me shiver with a strange mix of fear and desire. Why couldn’t I follow this gorgeous Moldovan woman if I wanted to? But then a wave of panic flooded over me, much like the terror I’d felt on the bus. Her hatred for me was palpable—was this some kind of entrapment? Pinya was no one I wanted to mess with; I was scared to even look in his direction. Would he exact some kind of violent retribution if I slept with his girl? I’d seen too many sordid movies, and the stories about Delia’s roughed-up girlfriends hadn’t helped.

She pulled the scarf around my wrists tighter with one hand and reached the other under the table to feel my hard dick.

“It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you won’t,” she said and unloosed the scarf from my hands. “Pinya’s right, you don’t belong here.”

“No, it’s not that. You’re beautiful. It’s just that . . .”

“What?” She put the scarf back over her shoulder, and I watched the rope tattoo slither on the muscles of her arm.

“Think you too good for me?” she hissed. “Think big bad Pinya’s gonna beat up your soft little Jewbody if you fuck me? Maybe he would. Maybe he’d cut off your bald dick and go sell it in the shuq. What you think? You think it be worth anything?”

“Look, I just came in for a drink. I was . . .” Again, I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“You was what? What? You’re scared of me, that’s all.” She put her chin back in her fist and stared at me. Her voice was so low I could barely hear her. “You got some pretty little wife at home? Some fancy office job? You think they’ll all find out what a horny bastard you are and your precious life will be over? Well here’s what Delia says—your life’s not worth the balding hair on your head or you wouldn’t be here flirting with a washed-up foreigner half your age. You wouldn’t be wandering this low-life neighborhood, in the middle of a Jew holiday, looking all lost and lonely. You’re right, you should have let me be.” She leaned far over the table, the outline of her breasts straining against the thin fabric of her dress. “You hear what happened to that asshole Zimri? Fucked the wrong girl at the wrong time. Big mistake. Ask Pinya what they did to him. They do the same to you if Delia tells them to. Here I am, stuck on Easter in this sewer of a pub, and you the only squirrel walking through the door. Your life’s worth no more in the shuq than your shrunken little clipped-off dick.” I could hear Pinya chuckling lightly behind his paper. How he could hear her from that distance was beyond me.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I said.

I got up, placed some money on the bar, and left. It had grown dark outside. I walked briskly through the gloomy, unfamiliar streets, Delia’s fierce mockery still echoing in my ears. I imagined Pinya sending someone to follow me and clutched the wallet in my pocket. Only when I finally came upon a thoroughfare did I begin to feel safe, and only then did I notice my racing pulse.

I hailed a cab back to Kiryat Yovel, wondering, as the now-familiar city flew by, why I had panicked like a clumsy teenager. A good, desperate fuck would have done me well. But Delia had terrified me at least as much as the innocent boy riding home on the bus with his backpack. Who knew that Jerusalem, the Holy City, harbored pubs like Soreq’s, lives as debased as Delia’s? I thought we’d confined all the foreigners and lowlifes to the slums of South Tel Aviv. Did the fancy-café hoppers on Emek Refaim, the spiritual seekers of the Old City, the artists and songwriters of the Zion-romance industry, even know such places existed, here, in Jerusalem the Golden?

Back in my ugly flat, I stumbled into the bathroom and stared for a while at the face in the grimy, streaked mirror, absentmindedly rubbing the wrist that had been bound in the cheap fabric of her scarf. I dropped my clothes to the floor and went straight to bed, quickly soothed the ache in my groin, then instantly fell into a fitful sleep, my dreams inhabited by duplicitous, scissor-wielding foreigners and buildings crashing senselessly around me.