“You bitch.”
They sat at the kitchen counter, at right angles to one another. Caspi was dressed to go out; Vered wore a kimono over pajamas. They had an oblique way of talking, avoiding names and direct glances. Caspi harangued; Vered analyzed. “Anyway”—she shrugged— “you’re exaggerating, as usual. You talk as if I’d stripped naked and strolled down Dizengoff, instead of just sitting for an hour in Nevo.”
“On a Friday afternoon, when you knew damn well I’d be there with Dory. That’s exactly what you did: stripped naked for all the world to sneer.”
“Then it’s strange that of the two of us, you’re the one who feels humiliated.”
Caspi jumped up and threw his cup into the sink. It shattered. At the door he turned back. “If you think you will goad me into giving you a divorce, you’re out of your mind. It will never happen.” He pulled open the door and stumbled into Jemima. “Damn you, woman, have you been listening at keyholes?”
“No need for that, Caspi. I could hear you down the block. Good morning, Vered.”
“Good morning, Mother.”
“If I’d known you were coming, Jemima, I’d have left an hour ago. As long as you’re here, you might as well give your daughter a few lessons in decorum. She’s just made a laughingstock of herself.”
“How very trying for you, model of decorum that you are.”
“Give little what’s-her-name my best regards,” Vered called. Caspi slammed the door behind him.
“Coffee, Mother?” Vered said.
“Thank you.” Jemima took Caspi’s place at the counter, crossing one elegant leg over the other. She wore a crisply tailored pearl-gray linen suit of her own design; her blond hair was gathered in a loose bun at the nape of her neck. While Vered silently cleaned up broken glass, Jemima cast a bleak eye about the room, pausing on the back of Vered’s kimono and the proud set of the neck rising above it.
“Where’s Daniel?” she asked.
“Playing at a friend’s.” Vered prepared the percolator, set out the cups.
“I seem to have come at an inconvenient moment.”
“It makes no difference.”
“Are you wise to antagonize him?”
“No. But it doesn’t matter.”
“What set him off?”
“I went to Nevo.”
“That’s all?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“Friday afternoon. I see. And he was there.”
“Oh yes.
“You sat with him?”
Vered placed the percolator on the stove and rather slowly returned to the counter. She spoke with great detachment. “No, that seat was occupied.”
“Do you really think you’ll win this game?”
“No.”
“Then why play it?”
Vered sat beside her mother. Her face was as expressionless as living flesh could be. “I’ve lost the battle anyway,” she said in a tone of perfect finality.
“Vered, I must tell you that I have never cared for your way of looking at me as if I were a census taker. I am your mother.”
“I know.”
“You don’t act like it. Other daughters confide in their mothers. I wouldn’t mind your reticence if I knew you talked to someone, a friend, a counselor, but I know you don’t. I admire your fortitude but you go too far. The time has come to talk.”
“You’d like me to confide in you.”
“Yes.”
“Open my heart, pour out my troubles, seek solace and advice at your motherly bosom?”
Jemima’s “Yes!” was nervous, defiant.
“What for? So you can tell your friends all about it? ‘Poor Vered, married to that monster. I warned her, but would she listen? Did you hear about his latest little floozy?’“
Eyes narrowed, Jemima put her hand on her heart and cried, “I wouldn’t!”
“You did. All those years after Daddy died, when you called me your ugly duckling and laughed at me with your fancy society friends.”
“Oh, Vered, if I was ever so cruel I swear I’m paying for it now. No, don’t look at me that way. You were a difficult child, Vered, and hard for me to understand. You still are. Darling, I am sorry.”
Vered’s smile was bright but frigid. “It’s all right, Mother. Would you like more coffee?”
“No.” Jemima fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief.
“Then I really have to get to work now. I’ve got a deadline tomorrow, and after this morning I’ll have Daniel on my hands all day.”
Jemima dabbed delicately at her eyes, to avoid smearing her make-up. She said, “I won’t go until I’ve had my say. When are you going to divorce this Caspi person?”
“I’m not going to.”
“Why not?” Jemima said angrily, mockingly. “Do you still love him?”
“Why do you ask? Do you still want him?”
Jemima gasped. “Do you really believe that?”
“No, I suppose not,” Vered said without inflection. Jemima, who needed glasses but was too vain to wear them, took a jeweled pair from her purse and set them on her nose. To no avail: the glasses had not been invented that would penetrate Vered’s mask.
“You know,” she mused, “you’ve turned into a rather terrifying woman. I wouldn’t wonder if Caspi were scared to death of you.”
Vered barked a laugh.
“I don’t care if you bite my head off, Vered. I want to know: are you still in love with him?”
“I hate him,” she said.
Jemima was too pleased with the tone of this answer to reflect that the one emotion did not preclude the other. “Then for God’s sake divorce him!” she cried.
“I can’t.”
“Why not? You surely don’t lack grounds.” As Jemima leaned toward her, Vered caught a whiff of her fragrance, a green, meadowy scent. “I’m seeing Giora Fliegerman this afternoon.”
“Forget it. I already talked to him.”
“You did? He didn’t tell me that.”
“That is surprising.”
“Don’t be rude. What did he say?”
“He said what all the others said: that I could get a divorce. No problem.”
“But that’s excellent.”
Vered toyed with her cup. “He just wasn’t sure I could keep Daniel.”
Jemima said angrily, ‘‘That’s absurd. You must be looking for excuses. Caspi would never contest custody.”
“Oh, no?”
“Of course not. What would Caspi do with a three-year-old child?”
“Look after him, he said, as best he could.”
Jemima pushed her cup away and stood up. She prowled about the small kitchen like a well-dressed, impeccably groomed panther. Vered lit a cigarette. Her last words, spoken with Caspi’s intonation, reverberated in the silent kitchen.
“He’s bluffing,” Jemima said at last. “He doesn’t want the child, and even if he did, no judge would award him custody.”
“If Caspi contested custody he’d be more likely than I to win it All things being equal, the judges and the law favor the father for boys.”
“But all things aren’t equal. Caspi’s got no relationship with the boy. He’s a bully, a womanizer, a—”
Vered’s cool voice cut in firmly. “I know what Caspi is. Do you know what the Fliegerman creature said?”
“What?”
“He sat down next to me and put his band on my knee. He was wearing some tacky men’s cologne and that ratty toupee. He said, ‘Be realistic, Vered. I’ve known a few women in my day; does that make me an unfit father?’“
“Why, that arrogant little—”
“He’s right. They all cheat on their wives; they’d never penalize another man for that.”
Jemima shook her head and sighed. “Well,” she said after a moment, “I’d call him on it.”
“You would, would you?” It was not said admiringly.
“Darling, take my word for it, it’s a bluff. Caspi never wanted a child to begin w
ith. He wouldn’t know what to do with Daniel if he got him.”
“He’d know.” Vered lit a cigarette and gave one to her mother. A look passed between the two women: a question, an answer, a judgment? Perhaps something different for each; it was not a look of perfect understanding. Vered said deliberately, “Caspi loves his power over me. With Daniel in his custody there’d be that much more to love.”
Jemima slapped the counter top smartly. “That’s defeatist thinking. You’ve got to keep in mind that every problem has at least one possible solution. You’re your own worst enemy, Vered; I’ve been wanting to tell you that for a long time. You analyze instead of acting. Where would I be today if I’d spent my time understanding my problems instead of doing something about them? Beware, my girl. I’ve known better women than you to grow addicted to their misery. Ask yourself one question: if you’re so smart, what are you doing married to that bum?”
Later that afternoon, Jemima sat at the white bamboo and glass desk in her study, unanswered letters strewn before her. She twirled a pen and stared idly out the window at the sea below. Vered, too, was at her desk, which was a sturdy, graceless oak creation, with many drawers and cubbyholes. Daniel was down for his nap, and she had two precious hours to work. There was a blank sheet of paper in the typewriter in front of her. She stared at it as if hypnotized, hands at her side. Both women, mother and daughter, were remembering the same events, though from very different perspectives.
When Caspi first appeared in their lives, there was some regrettable confusion as to where his primary interest lay. Vered was nineteen at the time, Jemima forty and a widow for seven years. Caspi, who had just turned thirty, was being hailed by the critics as the new star on the Israeli literary firmament. When he first came to one of Jemima’s salons, produced as a kind of hostess gift by his publisher, Vered was in attendance. A striking but rather awkward sort of girl, not long out of army uniform, with none of her mother’s flair or style, Vered regarded these evenings as a kind of penance incurred by her weakness in returning to her mother’s house, and thus was not surprised to find herself ignored by the first interesting man she’d met in that house. Instead of noticing the daughter, Caspi wooed the mother with smoldering across-a-crowded-room glances.
Caspi’s infamy with women had preceded, perhaps even contributed to, his literary fame. He was known to be arrogant, unprincipled in the means and targets of his seductions, and cruel to the women he used and discarded. This reputation naturally had the effect of inducing otherwise quite sensible women to try to capture Caspi’s heart.
The day after her soiree, Jemima went out and bought both of Caspi’s books. She read them and wrote a note to Caspi, inviting him to dine next Friday. He came. They dined tête-à-tête but for Vered, whose presence was barely felt. Later they walked through the garden and looked down on the sea. Jasmine and brine mingled in the air. Jemima held Caspi’s arm and laughed deep in her throat, while Vered trailed behind, a silent shadow. Jemima gave Vered several looks, but she ignored them and was at last rewarded for her tenacity: behind her mother’s back, Caspi plucked a red rose from a bush and presented it to her.
Vered was scarcely to be seen the next week, coming and going without a word of explanation. Jemima wondered about this. Saturday morning after breakfast, she brought one of Caspi’s books out to the garden and offered it to her daughter.
“No, thanks,” Vered said. “I have a copy. Caspi gave it to me.”
“Caspi gave it to you! When did you see Caspi?”
“Yesterday, at Nevo.” Vered lay on a towel in her bikini; her olive skin tanned deeply. Jemima, in a sundress, sat beside her in a wicker chair. The house was set on a bluff overlooking the sea in Herzliya, a prime piece of property which Jemima had fought long and hard to keep. She said: “Vered, I do not want you hanging around Nevo. A young girl in that place is regarded as nothing but a piece of fresh meat by those hungry dogs.”
“They are nothing like that, Mother. They happen to be the most interesting people in the country today, the best artists, actors, and writers around.”
“If they were that good they’d be working,” Jemima snapped. “Nobody with any serious work to do hangs out in cafés.”
“Creative people work in short, intensive bursts,” Vered informed her loftily. “They need to escape periodically. That’s why so many of them drink.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.” Jemima turned her chair toward her daughter, lowering the rim of her straw hat to block the sun from her eyes. “Have you been seeing Caspi?”
“Just a little,” Vered said demurely, but the look she shot her mother from under lowered lids was gleefully defiant.
Jemima leaned back, clasped her hands, and smiled understanding. “I can understand the attraction, Vered. But I cannot consider Caspi a suitable companion for a young girl.”
“Why not? You invited him here to dinner.”
“That is different—and it is not for you, young lady, to question your mother. For your information, a person of my age and experience has resources that a girl your age lacks. Caspi is nothing but an amusing acquaintance to me; to you he could be dangerous.”
If Jemima knew how she was fueling her daughter’s curiosity and resolve she would certainly have desisted, but as she considered her daughter incapable of any serious opposition she took no account of such a possibility. Vered exclaimed, “Caspi hasn’t made a pass at me, if that’s what you think. And you know what? I’m sorry he hasn’t.”
Jemima called Caspi and arranged a meeting. He wouldn’t come to Herzliya, so she agreed to attend him at Nevo.
“A charming child,” Caspi said.
“Child is the operant word. I trust you bear that in mind.”
Caspi laughed heartily. “Pedophilia is not among my virtues,” he said in an audible whisper. “Let the girl come to me in ten years’ time, if she’s willing. Then she may interest me. I prefer seasoned women.” The smile he gave Jemima was full of meaning, and despite herself, she felt a tingle in the pit of her stomach.
“She said you are a child,” Caspi told Vered an hour later.
“Am I?”
“I don’t think so.” Caspi ran two fingers up her bare arm. “Do you?”
“Of course she’s a child,” said Sternholz, bustling over. “You could be her father, God forbid.”
“Sternholz, go away,” Caspi said.
“You want something, little girl? Some milk maybe I should bring you?”
“I’ll have a rum and Coke.”
“We don’t serve mixed drinks.”
“Then just the rum.”
She got just the Coke.
“Are you a virgin?” Caspi asked when Sternholz had gone away. “I ask purely out of fatherly interest.”
“If that is your interest, then it’s none of your business.”
“So, the little kitten has claws! How very charming. Garçon! Beer, and another Coke for the lady.”
“I’ll garçon you,” Sternholz muttered, coming over with the drinks. “And shouldn’t you be in school, Vered? Does your mother know where you are?”
“No, and no,” said Vered.
“There’s Dotan. Rami, come here!”
“Hello, Caspi.”
“Sit down. This is Vered Niro. Be careful—she scratches.”
“Hello, hello.”
“I saw you published Oz’s latest thing. I read thirty pages and put it down as trash, but Vered finished it and says it has some redeeming value.”
“It’s doing very well; we’re already reprinting.”
“Yes, but what’s happened to the Oz we all knew and loved? Compare this last one to My Michael!”
“My Michael sold maybe thirty thousand. I’ll be surprised if we don’t top that. What’s so funny?”
“Vered, don’t ever try to talk books with a publisher. All you get back are numbers.”
“And royalties,” Dotan said.
“Eventually, sometimes.”
&nbs
p; “Well, Vered,” Jemima said at breakfast the next morning, “I hardly see you these days. We have a lot of things to do before school starts. You still haven’t registered in the business faculty. And you need clothes. You’ll have to come into the place and get fitted up.”
“I don’t need any clothes.”
“You certainly do. Jeans and old work shirts may be all the mode at Nevo, but for the university you need to dress decently. Don’t forget that you are my daughter, and your present manner of dressing hardly reflects well on me.”
“I’m not taking business, Mother. I’ve decided to major in literature.”
“Literature,” Jemima said darkly, “is not a profession. Nor will it prepare you in any way for a responsible position in the firm. I should think you might have learned from my example the folly of a woman’s not having a profession. Read books, by all means, but don’t let them interfere with your life.”
“And I’ll minor in journalism. You see, I do care about having a profession. After I graduate, I’ll get a job on a paper. I’ve been meeting people who can help.”
“What people? Where?”
“Writers, critics, journalists, all kinds of people. At Nevo.”
Jemima rose to her full five feet seven inches. “That was not the plan! I have one daughter, and she must succeed me.”
“She doesn’t want to,” Vered said.
“Child, what has got into you? You’ve never acted like this before.”
“I never knew I could.”
“You’re encouraging her,” Jemima said wrathfully. She stood over Caspi. Sternholz hovered behind, wringing his hands. At the tables around them, people listened openly. ‘‘You are deliberately trying to drive a wedge between us.”
“You need a wedge between you. It is my privilege to be of service. Do sit down, Jemima. You’re embarrassing me. That’s better. Now what will you have? Garçon!”
Sternholz stepped forward. “You call me that once more, Caspi, and you can find yourself another parking spot. You want something, Jemima?”
“Emmanuel, I have a bone to pick with you. What do you mean by letting Vered hang out here with this riffraff?”
“I don’t like it, Jemima, but what could I do? She’s a grown woman, and this is a public place.”
Cafe Nevo Page 4
