The Peace Process

by Bruce Jay Friedman

  Before he left, Kleiner made sure that Mahmoud was propped up comfortably in front of the TV set and provided with a delicious portion of eggplant Parmigiana and garlic bread. He’d ordered it from a new restaurant on the ground floor of the building—a real find.

  Kleiner left the number of the bar with Mahmoud, in case anything should come up.

  “I’ll be fine,” Mahmoud assured him. “I don’t mind at all being left alone in a strange building.”

  When he arrived at the bar, Naomi was waiting for him in a booth, her face soulful in the candlelight. She wore a loose-fitting jogging suit in place of her standard career-woman outfit. Unless he was mistaken, there was no bra in the picture. Quickly he brought her up to date on his activities, with special emphasis on his success in spiriting Mahmoud out of Israel.

  “Right now, he’s watching Honeymooner reruns in my apartment.”

  “Mazel tov,” said Naomi, leaning across the table to pinch his cheeks. “You’re some humanistic guy.”

  Kleiner listened with disappointment as she told him that Sol was back in her life, having divorced his wife, given up his practice, and bought a luxury boat for a round-the-world cruise.

  “He’s asked me to come along,” said Naomi. “It would be strictly platonic, with no obligation on my part except to give him regular prostate massages in his cabin. What do you think?”

  Not wanting to be guilty of sour grapes, Kleiner took his time in answering.

  “I don’t know,” he said tentatively. “It might be bad for your self-esteem.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” said Naomi. “I can’t believe we’re on the same wavelength.”

  The mention of Sol reminded her that the famed urologist was scheduled to appear on a television show that night, one she preferred not to miss.

  “I’m anxious to see how he comes across on cable.”

  “We’ll just have one drink,” said Kleiner, summoning the waitress.

  As he did so, he took a quick look at the cluster of models at the bar, one of whom looked familiar. Contrary to what his model friend had led him to believe, she gave off an air of worldliness and intelligence. A bit later, he excused himself and got up to say hello to her.

  “Why don’t we pay the check,” said Naomi, grabbing his crotch and pulling him back down. “My apartment is just around the corner.”

  Kleiner paid and they left the restaurant, Naomi still holding on to his crotch as she led him through the streets of Gramercy Park. Passersby took little notice of the odd arrangement, leading Kleiner to conclude that it was a neighborhood style.

  Naomi’s apartment was fresh and scrubbed, cheerfully furnished, and had a deco look to it. Flowered pillows were thrown about. There was a Chagall print on the wall. A handsomely carved menorah had a shelf to itself, along with Sabbath candles. Between two bookends were fresh copies of bestselling novels.

  “What a nice place,” said Kleiner, wondering if two people could live in the apartment comfortably.

  “Thank you,” said Naomi, turning on the TV. “What I like most is that it’s easy to clean.”

  They had arrived in time to catch Sol summing up his thesis for an audience of troubled males. A distinguished-looking man with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, he told them not to be concerned about their penises.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s a little bit of a thing,” he said, reassuringly. “A nothing. The main point is that it’s yours. I’d advise you to go with it and have fun—it’s the only game in town.”

  The applause was vigorous. Naomi turned off the set.

  “I thought he came off well,” said Kleiner.

  “Oh, sure,” she said dismissively. “But you should hear him complain about his own schvonce.”

  Despite its scholarly nature, the talk of penises was tremendously arousing to Kleiner. It appeared to have an affect on Naomi as well.

  Without preamble, they tore off each other’s clothing, Kleiner diving between her long white legs. Unless it was his imagination, she tasted a little Jewish, which is not to say that it was in the area of potato latkes or, for example, a matzoh brei.

  Easing him aside, Naomi took his hand with childlike delight and led him into her bedroom, as if he were a lost boy she’d found in the forest.

  As she made a place for him on the four-poster bed, Kleiner marveled at the great balance wheel of life that offered him such delights while at the same time denying him choice directing assignments.

  Taking a position above him, Naomi swept back her hair and lowered her upper body slowly.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Don’t be embarrassed. Nosh.”

  Kleiner lost himself in her great pillowy breasts. But after a time, he sensed that she was distracted.

  “Excuse me for one second,” she said, then walked across the room, stopping only once to look back at him coquettishly and to give her ass a little shake.

  My God, he thought, a Jewish girl, and she shakes her toches like a hooker.

  After rummaging around in a clothing closet, she emerged with an armful of wired gadgets and contraptions. Carrying them back to the bed, she positioned herself on all fours and attached them to her private parts. The she threw a switch and began to buck and tremble as if she were astride a wild horse.

  Kleiner looked on with obvious interest, wondering where he fit into the strange tableau. After a time, she signaled to him. With some difficulty he found a place for himself. Then, to the best of his knowledge, he made love to her—or at least to the arrangement in general.

  Clawing at his neck, she glued her hips to his and cried out “Oy, gevalt!” then threw another switch and sank back, damp and exhausted.

  “You know what that was?” she asked, fanning her giant bosom.

  “What’s that?”

  “A mecheieh. And I thank you for it.”

  Feeling his contribution had been minimal, Kleiner gestured in a sportsmanlike manner toward the technical display. “Why thank me?”

  “Because you made me feel like a woman. And if you’re ever a little lonely, don’t hesitate to call and I’ll be over there like a shot.”

  In his bachelor days, which more or less included the present, Kleiner had paid little attention to the religious affiliation of the women he dated. The fact that it was a woman was enough. But in the case of the Yiddish-speaking Naomi, there was no question that she was resoundingly Jewish, the only such woman he had been close to as an adult. As he left Naomi’s apartment, he wondered if her complex and full-throated sexuality was perhaps representative of the new Jewish woman. The synagogue-goers of his childhood had all seemed models of propriety. The cliché—and as far as he knew, the reality—was that you went elsewhere for all but the most sedate encounters.

  Now he had to rethink his position and consider that perhaps it was the Jewish woman, of all people, who was leading the way to a new erotic frontier.

  Thinking ahead, he wondered if Naomi would shed her contraptions one by one as they got to know each other, until they came together one day, gadget-free. Or would she continue to add on new devices? Either prospect was fine with Kleiner. He picked up the next day’s newspapers at a Pakistani newsstand—a favorite treat—and thought about Naomi’s proposal that she visit him on one of his lonely nights. He hurried home to make sure there was an electrical outlet next to his bed.

  Fresh and sparkling in their tuxedos, Mahmoud and Kleiner took a cab out to Queens the next day and located the wedding site in an open field in the LeFrak City area. As they mingled with the guests, it quickly became apparent that the bride had not yet shown up, which was causing consternation on both sides of the family.

  It was easy for Kleiner to pick out the groom, a taller version of Mahmoud, with features more delicate than those of his older brother. (Since Kleiner, of course, had smashed the older man’s nose, he took full responsibi
lity for the disparity in their looks.)

  With open arms and a wide grin, Mahmoud ran forward to embrace his only sibling.

  “Kamal,” he said. “It’s me, Mahmoud.”

  “What are you doing here?” asked Kamal.

  “What am I doing here?” said Mahmoud with disbelief. “I’m your brother. It’s your wedding. How can you ask such a question? I came all the way from Jerusalem, with the kind assistance of Mr. Kleiner, a Jew.”

  Kleiner felt it was important to point out that his religious affiliation was not an issue.

  “Even if I wasn’t a Jew, I would have helped.”

  “I’m sure you would have,” said Kamal, giving Kleiner a tight smile. “But it wasn’t necessary.”

  “All right then, I’ll go home,” said Mahmoud, turning away. “I can see I’m not wanted. Let’s go back to the apartment, Mr. Kleiner. I’m sorry I inconvenienced you.”

  Kleiner couldn’t believe his ears. He thought back to their turbulent meeting at the King David Hotel, the nine stitches in his forehead, the abortive escape to Egypt and their capture and release by the Israelis—not to mention his enormous debt to Louis Blumenthal.

  “Inconvenienced me? You did more than that. And we’re not going anywhere. I didn’t rearrange my life so that I could almost go to a wedding.”

  “How can I stay? You saw the way my brother treated me.”

  “He’s upset because he has no one to get married to. You would be too.”

  “It’s the fig stand,” Mahmoud said bitterly.

  He explained that when they were boys in Ashdod, pretending to be grown-ups, they’d built a crude stall beside the road. A dispute arose as to whose name should be affixed to it. The older brother had prevailed. A sign was posted above the stall that read the figs of mahmoud.

  “He’s never forgiven me,” said the older brother.

  “Now I understand,” said Kleiner. “But we’re staying here anyway.”

  Half an hour later, the bride was still nowhere to be found. Leery of the local police, the groom’s family arranged for the wedding guests to split up into teams, which were to fan out across the area in search of her. Mahmoud and Kleiner joined an Arab wedding guest from Las Vegas who informed them that the engaged couple were both investment bankers.

  “What brought them together was a shared interest in leveraged buyouts and bat guano.”

  Taking this as a clue, the trio tracked the bride-to-be down to a small street-side brokerage house. They found her sitting in a makeshift chair, her wedding gown bunched up at her knees, eyes glued to the ticker tape.

  “The market’s gone through the roof,” she said when she saw them. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “What about your wedding?” the Vegas man asked sternly.

  “Oh my God,” she said, throwing her head back and laughing hysterically. “I forgot all about it.”

  As the group headed back to the wedding site, Mahmoud introduced himself to the stocky, good-natured bride-to-be and said he’d come all the way from Jerusalem for the festivities.

  “That’s wonderful,” she said.

  “Mr. Kleiner here pulled strings to help me.”

  “That’s wonderful too.”

  Mahmoud turned toward Kleiner.

  “I don’t like her,” he whispered. “She thinks everything is wonderful.”

  “Clearly she had a happy childhood.”

  “So did I,” said Mahmoud. “But does that mean that everything is wonderful?”

  “Chalk it up to nerves,” said Kleiner. “Besides, you’re not marrying her.”

  “Still, it’s my brother, who still loves me, even though he’s being a little standoffish.”

  The planned union turned out to be a mixed one, which appeared to surprise members of both families. When a rabbi turned up to officiate, at least a dozen relatives keeled over in a dead faint and had to be carried from the premises.

  Mahmoud too showed concern.

  “This means my brother will become a Jew and I’ll lose him forever.”

  “Do you have him now?” said Kleiner. “Besides, I’m a Jew and look at the bond between us.”

  “That’s true,” Mahmoud conceded. “But you don’t know my brother. He goes at life whole-hog.”

  The rabbi was a young man with a reddish beard. His style, perhaps deliberately, was pastoral and non-incendiary.

  “May this marriage grow,” was his wish, “like vines on a heavenly cottage.”

  Kleiner admired his gentle style. He felt that if he’d encountered such a man when he was younger, he would currently be more of a full-fledged Jew.

  The couple embraced at the end of the ceremony.

  “We’re going to have such fun,” said the bride.

  “Wonderful,” said the groom, who had evidently picked up her verbal style.

  Beneath a canopy, non-denominational hors d’oeuvres were served, the two families keeping a discreet and guarded distance from one another. An exception was the Arab from Vegas. He recognized a Jew he’d served with in the army and approached him.

  “How’s your foot?” he asked Shep Goldman, who’d caught a piece of shrapnel at Anzio.

  “Aches like a sonofabitch.”

  “But you can still get it up?” asked the Arab with a wink.

  “I can’t get it down.”

  The two men gave each other bear hugs, exchanged lascivious comments about the bridesmaids, and pledged to get together in Manhattan.

  Sheepishly, Mahmoud approached his brother and handed him the wedding gift he’d selected at F.A.O. Schwarz.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” he asked his brother, who was about to toss it on a pile.

  “All right, all right,” said Kamal, unwrapping the gift, which turned out to be a classic reproduction of a pterodactyl they’d constructed together as boys in the souk.

  Begrudgingly, Kamal shook his brother’s hand.

  “Thank you,” he said, then turned to greet some late-arriving well-wishers.

  “Give him a hug,” said Kleiner to Mahmoud.

  “Let him hug me.”

  “What’s the difference,” said Kleiner with impatience. He pushed Mahmoud into his brother’s arms.

  The two men embraced fervently.

  “I love you,” said Mahmoud, with tears in his eyes.

  “I love you too,” Kamal said, fighting back his own tears. “I’d ask you to stay with me and Lana while you’re here, but we’re cramped for space.”

  “That’s all right,” said Mahmoud. “It’s the thought that counts.”

  At that point, the band struck up a spirited show tune and a small contingent on the bride’s side broke into a grim hora. Across the room, several buxom aunts, related to the groom, began a belly dance, as if in opposition. Amazingly then, the two groups began to mingle. The result was a belly-dancing hora.

  Kleiner looked on with satisfaction, pleased that in the teeth of adversity, he had accomplished his goal of bringing the brothers together in the heart of Queens.

  “I guess you’ll be on your way now,” said Kleiner.

  “Not just yet,” said Mahmoud. “I wouldn’t dream of missing your birthday.”

  The occasion meant little to Kleiner, or at least that’s what he pretended. Normally, he let his birthdays come and go. He would have forgotten the one that was imminent if the young Arab (who had obviously discovered the date in his personal papers) hadn’t reminded him it was just around the corner. The last person to celebrate the event with fanfare had been his poor estranged wife. Typically, she’d gone overboard, ordering a truckload of presents, which it took him a year to pay for.

  The thought crossed his mind that he could celebrate by inviting Naomi Glickstein to a charming little French restaurant. (Was there any other kind?) But when he acted on the impulse,
he found her to be distant and somewhat aloof.

  “I don’t know,” she said in a weak voice. “Frankly, I’m a little fartutst at the moment.”

  “Maybe this will get you out of it. Suppose I take a rain check.”

  “We’ll see,” said Naomi vaguely.

  Kleiner was disappointed. He theorized that perhaps she was embarrassed because he knew about her reliance on complex gadgetry for sexual release. Or possibly her former urologist lover was putting pressure on her. In any case, he was happy to have an Arab and a dog for company.

  In the several days that followed, Mahmoud made mysterious trips about the city on his own. He reported only that he had priced lutes, visited the Chrysler Building, and toured the offices of the Village Voice.

  With little to occupy himself until he heard from Himmel about the location shots, Kleiner killed time in the library, comparing the movie dialogue of Joe Mankiewicz and F. Scott Fitzgerald to see which was superior. (The novelist’s dialogue was elevated, too much of a mouthful for the screen. It was better suited to the page.) He spent the actual day of his birthday in a Village art house watching She, a favorite film, and one he’d sat through thirty times as a boy. Then he treated himself to a foot-long hot dog; for contrast, he bought swordfish steak for his dinner with Mahmoud, also a box of Flavor Snacks for the dog, if indeed that’s what it was.

  As a final treat, he bought a new true-crimer at the bookstore, one in which a golden-haired and outwardly happy couple turns out to be sitting on a time bomb of incest, infidelity, and insurance fraud—all of it culminating in the ax murder of the husband’s car-hop mistress. Before making the purchase, he checked the black-and-white photos that were inserted in the book to make sure the doomed couple was golden-haired and attractive enough to sustain his interest.

  When he returned to his apartment, he found there was a party in full swing. The living room was filled with unwanted guests and a smiling Mahmoud in a velveteen jacket, acting as their host.

  Though it was no doubt unintended, the Arab, astonishingly, had gathered together in a single room every person in the city that Kleiner hated—or at least had given him trouble of some kind.