Tongues of Fire

by Peter Abrahams

  Rehv felt relief spread through his body. Something had gone wrong. They had sent the boy to tell him it was all off.

  The boy cleared his throat. “Reservations for Jones,” he said in a high voice, without looking Rehv in the eye. For the first time Rehv noticed the young woman at the boy’s side. She was pale and very thin. She wore a baggy sweater and an unfashionably short skirt and carried a large purse. “For dinner,” the boy explained, perhaps sensing Rehv’s hesitation. He was wearing a cheap dark suit and a white shirt with a frayed collar. At least he had left his yarmulke behind.

  “Please follow me,” Rehv said, and led them into the dining room. He gestured toward the tables. “Where would you like to sit?”

  The boy glanced around quickly. Rehv guessed he was trying to match the actual room to a diagram he had been shown. The young woman pointed. “There,” she said. “That looks nice.” Her voice sounded confident, deeper than the boy’s, but her Israeli accent was unmistakable.

  “Certainly, madam,” Rehv said. He took them to the table she had indicated, a small corner banquette that commanded a good view of the whole room. Number sixteen. It was one of the most popular tables. It had a particularly good view of table twenty-three, a round table set about twelve feet away in the slightly sunken area Armande had filled with plants and called Le Jardin.

  When they were seated, Rehv handed them the large elegantly printed cartes. “Something from the bar?”

  “No thank you,” the woman replied.

  “Water please,” the boy said.

  “Any special kind, sir?”

  The boy flushed, as though Rehv had insulted him.

  “From the tap, please,” the woman said.

  Rehv nodded. “Bon appétit.” He left them to study the menu. He hoped they could understand it. Much more than that, he hoped they had come in a very minor supporting role. He looked back at them as he went to greet some more customers. Instead of the menus they were studying table twenty-three.

  The restaurant filled with people. They came in out of the rain, had a stiff drink, lit cigarettes, and read the menu carefully and with relish, as though it were a will and they the beneficiaries. As the food arrived they made happy sounds, clanked their knives and forks, dropped them on the floor, spilled wine, got cassoulets d’écrevisses stuck between their teeth. Rehv was very busy, acting as maître d’ and also taking orders in his own section. Once or twice he glanced at table sixteen. They had ordered the saddle of lamb Provençale, the cheapest entree on the menu. They picked at it and pushed it around their plates, but they didn’t eat it. They kept watching table twenty-three. So did Rehv. It was in his section.

  As he poured white Châteauneuf-du-Pape for a man who had said to his wife, as they always did before they asked for it, “Look at this, dear: a white Châteauneuf-du-Pape,” Manolo, the Filipino busboy, drew up to his side.

  “The boss wants to see you,” Manolo whispered. Rehv heard the mischief in his tone and turned to look down at the boy. He was showing all his big white teeth. He really was a boy; legally he should have been in school. But La Basquaise was his life. He thought it was the most beautiful place on earth. Everyone liked him.

  Rehv waited for the Châteauneuf-du-Pape lover to stick his nose in the glass, sniff, sip, squirt it through his molars, and pronounce it “merveilleuse,” getting the gender wrong, before he went into the kitchen. It was bad, but not as bad as he had seen. The saucier, red-faced, was pulling on his raincoat in a manner that said clearly he would never return, pots were boiling over on the stove, and the rôtisseur’s assistant was sobbing in the corner. A large croquembouche lay upside down on the floor. Pascal was pacing around it in a tight frenzied circle.

  “Cretin!” he screamed at Rehv. “You’re crucifying me.”

  “Don’t be silly. Everything’s fine.”

  “Fine! Fine! Who are those peasants you’ve put at sixteen, Mr. Fine? What are they doing in my restaurant? What are they doing at my best table?”

  “They were the first ones here. They asked for it. I couldn’t very well put them in Siberia.”

  “Of course you could. Armande does it every night. They’re drinking tap water.” Pascal closed his eyes very tightly, so tightly that his face wrinkled like a dried fig. “Nothing but tap water,” the fig repeated through clenched teeth. Rehv slipped out while Pascal’s eyes were still shut. In the main entrance to the dining room three Arabs stood waiting.

  Silvio, one of the older waiters, was approaching them with welcome on his face. Rehv wanted to shout, “Silvio!,” but it wasn’t that kind of restaurant. Instead he hurried across the room. Silvio was taking them to number four, in the corner of the room opposite sixteen.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Rehv said. They turned to face him. Two wore white robes; the third, a big man missing his left earlobe, wore a dark suit. Rehv knew that Abu Fahoum must be the younger of the two robed men, not so much from his proud military bearing, but from the black-and-white checked keffiyeh he wore on his head. “I’m afraid this table is already taken. We have another one for you in the Jardin.” He held out his hand to show them where it was.

  The older man and the man in the suit looked in the direction he had indicated; Abu Fahoum did not. “We prefer this table,” he said. He spoke with an Oxford accent.

  “I’m terribly sorry.” Rehv allowed his eyes for a split second to glance beyond them. Even from across the room he could see the anxiety on the faces at table sixteen: The woman’s lips were parted.

  “Are you really?” Abu Fahoum had drawn back his head and was regarding Rehv’s face very closely.

  “Yes, sir, I am. But it is already spoken for.”

  Abu Fahoun turned to his older companion and said in Arabic: “You see why he’s making trouble, don’t you? He’s a dirty Jew.”

  Rehv almost grabbed him by the throat. He felt his rigid body churning out waves of rage, waves that swept across the room, unseen.

  The older man said, also in Arabic: “It’s nothing like that. He’s just doing his job. Besides, it is a better table.” He tugged at the sleeve of Abu Fahoum’s robe. Without looking at Rehv again, Abu Fahoum turned and walked with enormous dignity to table twenty-three. He sat with his back to sixteen. The big man in the suit sat facing him, the older man in between.

  “Where the hell were you?” Silvio said in a low voice. “I didn’t know four was taken.”

  “It’s all right.”

  Rehv hurried over to twenty-three to hand out the cartes. The man in the suit kept his hands at his sides and shook his head.

  “He isn’t here to eat,” Abu Fahoum said with amusement, as if Rehv had just offered a menu to a dog.

  “Very well. Would anyone like something from the bar?”

  Again Abu Fahoum lifted back his head, almost the way a cobra rears above its coils. “It is forbidden.”

  “In America the expression something from the bar does not necessarily mean alcohol. We have bottled water and soft drinks as well,” Rehv said. He tried to remember what politeness sounded like.

  Just beneath the skin of Abu Fahoum’s forehead a thick vein began to throb. He placed his hands on the table, as if to get up. The man who had not come to eat pushed his chair back from the table, very quickly.

  “Stop it,” the older man said in Arabic. “Relax. He’s right.” In English he said to Rehv: “Water will be fine. Vichy for me. Abu?”

  Abu Fahoum said, “Perrier.” He made it sound like a threat. The man in the suit pulled his chair back to the table. Rehv saw him glance at the young couple sitting twelve feet away. They were no longer making any pretense of eating, or even being at a restaurant: They sat with their hands in their laps, heads bowed over the table as if in silent prayer. The man in the suit didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. He turned in his chair and ran his eyes methodically over the other diners.

  Rehv brought the drinks on a silver tray. It was the drink waiter’s job, but Rehv wanted to do it himself. As he be
gan to pour, he wished he had stayed in the kitchen. He felt Abu Fahoum’s eyes on him, and it made his hands shake, not much, but enough to spill Perrier on the lavender tablecloth. Manolo noticed and hurried over with a napkin.

  “Are you ready to order?” Rehv asked as Manolo leaned across the table to mop up the little pool of sparkling water.

  “I will start with the salmon mousse in two sauces,” Abu Fahoum said. Rehv was about to tell him that one of the sauces contained champagne when the man in the suit made a little frightened noise in his throat and reached inside his jacket. Rehv whirled around to see the pimply boy on his feet, pointing a small black gun at Abu Fahoum’s back. His face was white and waxy like the face of a corpse.

  “Now,” the woman said in Hebrew.

  The gun went off. Manolo arched back and slumped to the floor. The pimply boy stood very still, pointing the gun. Comprehension was just surfacing in his eyes when the man in the suit shot him in the middle of the forehead. His gun was more powerful. It made a much louder noise, and knocked the boy against the wall. He fell under the table. The woman drew a small metal cylinder from her purse and threw it at the man in the suit. It shot out a pinwheel of stinging smoke as it flew through the air. The woman dove to the floor, rolled, and ran for the front entrance. The canister bounced off the chest of the man in the suit and onto the table. He grabbed it, hurled it across the room, jumped from his chair, and fired at the woman just as she went out the door. She seemed to stumble, but kept going.

  “Let her go,” Abu Fahoum shouted in Arabic before the man in the suit could take another step. Pink patches had appeared on his dark face: He was exhilarated.

  Rehv knelt on the floor and took Manolo in his arms. He was only dimly aware of screaming, running, and tear gas. He wanted to say, “Don’t worry, Manolo, you’re going to be all right.” But the words wouldn’t come. Manolo looked up at him, watching, waiting, his big black eyes filled with pain and fear. Then they were filled with nothing at all.

  After a long time Rehv raised his head. Pascal stood silently before him. Tears ran down his cheeks. In his hand he held le gros bonnet and he was twisting it, over and over.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Abu Fahoum and his two friends went away in a limousine. The police had wanted to take the gun from the man in the suit because he had no permit, but they couldn’t because of his diplomatic immunity. Pascal went away in a taxi, Silvio took the subway. Manolo went in an ambulance, although he didn’t need one.

  Isaac Rehv walked. The rain came down hard and cold but he didn’t feel it. He walked quickly, hoping to tire himself, to trick his body into sleepiness. It would be futile, he knew; his body was not the problem. The problem was the wave that undulated inside his brain, sometimes softly, subtly licking at the edges of his thoughts, sometimes rolling over him with a smothering tidal force. Then he would hear Lena saying, “Daddy, read me a story.” She said it again and again but from so far away he could barely make out the words.

  The rain fell in cold hard balls. They bounced off the cement, became ovals, and hung in the air. In the dirty yellow light they looked like his sleeping pills. He imagined them in the palm of his hand—one, three, a dozen.

  He climbed the stairs to The Loft, his feet sloshing in his shoes. As he slid the key in the lock he heard a sound from the other side of the door. He didn’t make another movement, not even to take his hand from the key. He thought of the thin, pale woman bleeding on the polished pine floor beside the four wooden booths. He thought of Abu Fahoum and the man in the suit, waiting in the dark. Leaving the key where it was, he very slowly stepped backwards toward the top of the stairs. A woman laughed, a loud aggressive laugh that ran through several registers but didn’t find mirth. Sheila Finkle. He opened the door.

  No bleeding woman. No man with a gun. Instead Sheila Finkle, tall and thin, except for the heavy breasts she couldn’t diet away; and Quentin Katz, shorter, rounder, with a bald spot on the top of his head where a horseshoe would neatly fit; and others, talking and smoking and drinking white wine and kirs and champagne that didn’t come from Champagne. He noticed that the violence exhibit was gone. No one noticed him.

  He turned to go. Sheila Finkle screamed. “Oh. You scared me. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Isaac. You’re just in time,” Quentin Katz said. “We’ve got a new showing to put up tonight.” Katz came forward to greet him. “My God! Did you swim here?”

  “I’m not very wet.”

  “Not very wet? Here, try some champagne.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Of course. You need something to warm you up. How about cognac?”

  “No.”

  “Armagnac.”

  “All right.”

  Katz raised an eyebrow. “Armagnac, huh? Have we discovered your secret vice at last?”

  In fact he didn’t like any kind of brandy. He just didn’t want to hear everything Katz had to offer. He tried to smile like a person who has been found out about some foible.

  Katz turned to the group. “Hey, everybody,” he said loudly. “Isaac Rehv.” As he went to the storage room to fetch the armagnac he added, “Sheila, why don’t you introduce him around?”

  Before she did she said: “Isaac is our very nice night watchman. I sleep so much better knowing he’s here.” Then she told him everyone’s name.

  Katz returned with the armagnac. “And not just any night watchman: the smartest in Manhattan. In real life he’s a professor of Arabic literature.” He finished on a note that seemed to invite applause, like a game show host.

  A woman of about his own age with long red fingernails said, “Really? That must be a very good field these days.”

  “It must be,” Rehv replied. “Now if you will excuse me, I’ll change into something dry.” He went into the storage room, shut the door, and stayed there until all the guests had left.

  “Good-bye, good-bye,” Katz and his wife called down the stairs after the last one. There was a pause. Then Sheila spoke in a hoarse, angry whisper: “I don’t care what you think. He was appallingly rude.” Rehv could not distinguish the words of Katz’s reply, only the soothing tone. This time Sheila made no effort at all to lower her voice: “Do what you like. I’m going home.” The door closed sharply.

  Footsteps. A light knock. Once. Twice.

  “Isaac? You in there?”

  Rehv picked up the camp cot and opened the door. Quentin Katz stood there, trying to look genial. “One more armagnac before beddy-bye?” He stuck a partly full glass into the space between them. His hand was pink and plump and ill defined.

  “I’m very tired, Quentin,” he said. It wasn’t true.

  “Oh come on. Live a little.”

  He took the glass. They went into the gallery and sat on folding chairs. Six or seven sculptures, Rehv supposed they were sculptures, had been placed around the room. One was composed entirely of escargot shells: He recognized Napoleon, hand hidden inside his coat, overlooking some battle. And a waxy, smiling Dwight Eisenhower, done in Madame Tussaud style, except he was naked and had a corncob for a penis. There was Genghis Khan brandishing an egg roll, and a sausage Rommel with sauerkraut hair.

  “Well?” Katz was looking at him closely.

  “I’m not sure I understand it.”

  “What’s to understand? This is going to be the best show we’ve ever had.” Katz downed half his armagnac and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Guess what we’re calling it?”

  “An Army Marches on Its Belly.”

  Katz blinked and sat back. “I don’t get it.” He waved his hand in the air, as though knocking Rehv’s words to the side. “We’re calling it ‘Hungry Warriors.’ Sheila came up with that.” He gazed happily at Genghis Khan. “We’re going to get a lot of publicity. I know it.”

  “Who is that?” Rehv asked, pointing.

  “Gordon. Falling at Khartoum.” Gordon was made of crumpets with wounds of jam.

  Rehv sipped at the armagnac. He waited for Katz to l
eave. Katz took the bottle and poured himself another glass. “A lot of publicity,” he repeated dreamily. They sat in silence. After a while Katz turned to him and opened his mouth as if to speak; but he changed his mind and said nothing, although his mouth remained open for a few moments.

  “Who is the artist?” Rehv said, to say something.

  It was the kind of opening Katz had been waiting for. “You met her tonight, Isaac. She wanted to know about your Arabic studies. You gave her the cold shoulder.”

  Rehv stood up. “I’m really very tired.”

  “Please, Isaac. I’m worried about you.” He corrected himself. “Sheila and I are worried about you. You look very, very depressed. Now, if it’s coming home tired and finding this party going on, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to realize this is a business. A growing business.”

  “It’s nothing like that.” He sat down.

  “What then? You’re still taking those pills I gave you, I hope.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you run out, just say the word. I’ll get another prescription. It’s a matter of picking up the phone.”

  “Thank you.”

  Katz set his glass on the floor, then slowly, almost ceremoniously extended his pink hand and placed it gently on Rehv’s knee. “Isaac, I don’t want you to take offense, but in the long run those pills are not the answer.”

  “What is the answer, Quentin?” He wanted Katz to remove his hand, but he seemed in no hurry to do so. It rested on his knee like a little lobster claw, one more piece of edible sculpture.

  “It’s obvious,” Katz answered. “You just have to face it, that’s all. What you have to do is start building a new life. Step one: Find a real job. You’re a trained professor, for Christ’s sake. Anything to do with the Arabs is booming these days. Start sending out resumes. Make a few phone calls. You’re not a waiter.”

  “The restaurant’s all right,” Rehv said. As he spoke, he felt a sudden and strong desire to tell Katz what had happened. Perhaps it was the armagnac. Or guilt. “There was a shooting there tonight.”