Cafe Nevo

by Barbara Rogan

  With the money earned during their first year of operation, David hired a staff of interior designers to complete the buildings which he and the other architects designed, thus tripling their profits on a project. The next year, he hired three more architects, each of them proficient in a particular field; only this time he hired them on salary. That was twenty years ago. Today, the business which David had started on nothing was worth millions.

  David let some moments go by in silence, while he thought. Then he drew a chair over to the bed and sat down. “I have the solution,” he said.

  “Do you?”

  “Marry me, Ilana.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Never more so.”

  “Would you mind handing me that robe?” When she had donned it, she sat up, hugging her knees. “Darling, that is without a doubt the silliest thing I have ever heard you say.”

  “No, my dear, it’s the perfect solution.”

  “Have you forgotten that you are already married?”

  The smile faded from his face, and his dark eyes grew grave. “We’ve never talked about my marriage. One doesn’t like to... I am fond of Lydia, and I wish her well, but our marriage has long been one of convenience, on both sides. We go our own ways. I’ve stayed married because a man in my position needs a hostess, and Lydia is an excellent one; also because I’ve never actually found anyone else. I don’t know, but I would imagine that Lydia’s reasons for remaining with me are similar. We’ve discussed divorce but never found any compelling reason for going through with it, and the process is such a bore that one really doesn’t want to unnecessarily. But now I have that reason.”

  “You want the child.”

  “I do. Very frankly I do. Lydia never wanted children, and I convinced myself I didn’t care. But just now, when you told me that you’re carrying my child, I just”—he laughed shortly, turning his face aside—”my heart went through the roof. Suddenly I felt that I’d never wanted anything as much....”

  Ilana’s voice was noticeably cooler. “You’re willing to pay a high price for it, marrying me.”

  “No,” David said slowly, with interest. “No. It’s true that I probably never would have thought of it if this hadn’t happened, but when the idea did come, it seemed right. Of course, I’m a good deal older than you are, but I think we suit each other rather well. I’m sorry, Ilana, this isn’t a very romantic proposal. I suppose I’m not a very passionate sort of man.”

  “You’re a tender, sensitive man and a wonderful lover,” Ilana interrupted warmly, and could not help adding to herself that he would make a fine father. It seemed a shame that with all this man had to give, he should have no child to give to. But she rigorously suppressed that thought. “I’m honored, David, but it wouldn’t begin to work. You forget what I am” —her voice dropped dramatically— “in the eyes of the world.”

  “I will not tell you,” he said, “that I’m indifferent to what the world thinks, but if its judgment and mine were to differ, I should always rely on mine. I do not think they would differ. My dear, you are a woman of character: beautiful, intelligent, charming.... I care for you, Ilana, and respect you; I should be proud to marry you and raise our child together.”

  She was too moved to reply at once. She noticed with something approaching gratitude the absence of any mention of love, for Ilana no more believed in love than a stage magician believes in magic. Her feelings toward David were as his toward her, composed of kindness and respect; under different circumstances these could have been the basis of a good marriage. But, circumstances being what they were, she felt compelled to reason with him.

  “Look, darling, you haven’t thought this through.” She spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a child. “I’ve known a lot of men. I’ve taken money from them. People know who I am. The papers know me. If David Barnardi were to marry Ilana Maimon, it would be front-page news and boardroom gossip. You would be hurt. Darling, I’m a—”

  “Don’t say it!” He laid a hand on her lips. “You’ve said too much already. I don’t ever want to hear you talk that way again!”

  “But it’s true.”

  “If you think so, then clearly you have not understood your own position. My dear girl, what a prude you are! What unmentionable sin have you committed? You have, by aligning yourself with powerful men, acquired a certain degree of wealth and power; in doing so, you have done no more than any self-made woman has at some point in her career.”

  “Aligned myself—what a wonderful description!”

  “It really doesn’t matter in what position. There are many different ways of stroking... you at least have always been decent enough to give value for money, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  Ilana burst into laughter, and after a moment David joined her. Then he joined her in bed. Almost imperceptibly, their talk changed to love-making. It was slow and deep and tender, and in the end Ilana cried out, “Yes, oh, yes!”

  Later David asked coyly, “Was that an acceptance?”

  She raised her head from his chest to look at him. “No, it was not! Apart from all the other insurmountable problems, how on earth would you run your business from Israel?”

  He looked startled, then amused. “I couldn’t possibly. We would have to live here.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t leave Israel. Not permanently.”

  “Israel? What has Israel to do with it? We’d keep your apartment, of course; you could visit whenever you wished.”

  “I couldn’t live outside Israel. And I wouldn’t raise a child outside.” She touched his hand. “Don’t tell me it’s irrational; I know it.”

  “This is the first time I’ve seen this side of you,” David said slowly, breathing heavily. It was possible that he was growing angry, certain that he had not expected such opposition. “It’s not necessary to live in Israel to remain Jewish, if that’s your concern. I don’t mind if the child is taught its religion.”

  “It’s not the religion; it’s the land,” she said. “It’s the place. You can’t bring that here.”

  “What difference does the place make?” he cried impatiently.

  “All the difference in the world.”

  He could not understand, and she could not explain. David had been to Israel and found it dusty and provincial, without the charm of Italy or Greece. Jerusalem he acknowledged to be a beautiful city, full of architectural marvels; but its spiritual gravity oppressed him, and he suffered from an unnerving sense that time behaved strangely in the walled city, flickering strobe-like between past and present, too quickly for confirmation but not for perception. Jerusalem was like a seductive woman whom he felt drawn to revisit, but never to live with, for she had the power to negate all that he had made himself. For Tel Aviv he had no use at all.

  They resolved nothing that night but continued to talk all through the weekend. By Sunday David was convinced that she would not marry him. Driving to the airport that evening, he closed the window between them and the chauffeur and said, “Since you persist in rejecting my honorable proposals, I shall try a dishonorable one. Have the child out of wedlock, Ilana, and I will acknowledge my paternity and support you and the boy for so long as you both shall live.”

  “And if it’s a girl?” she teased.

  “Don’t laugh, Ilana, I’m deadly serious. I beg you not to destroy this child. I may never have another, and neither, my dear, may you.”

  Ilana took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. With no trace of levity she murmured, “I don’t know what to do. I did, but now I don’t.”

  “I know you want this child. A woman who wants to get rid of her baby doesn’t quit smoking and drinking. Let me make it possible for you, for both of us. I’ve thought it all out. I’d change my will, of course, to provide for you both, and acknowledge paternity legally. I can have my solicitor draft something immediately.”

  “I can support a child without y
our help. Money is not the issue.”

  “I agree; what matters to me is that by accepting my support for this child, you’re granting me the right to be a part of his life. Or hers—it really doesn’t matter. Will you do it, Ilana? Will you have the child?”

  The Rolls pulled up at the terminal doors, and the chauffeur jumped out to open the door. Ilana stepped out with alacrity, followed by David. Just inside the sliding doors he waved the porter on ahead and took her arm, stopping her from following. “I want your answer, Ilana.”

  She faced him, looking up through perfectly made-up, bloodshot eyes. “I can’t give you one now.”

  “Will you promise at least to talk to me before you do anything?”

  Unwillingly, she answered, “Yes.” He nodded gratefully. Their parting kiss was as solemn as a handshake.

  It was only as the plane flew over Greece that the full import of what had happened hit her. David Barnardi had asked her to marry him, and she had refused. The shock of it sent the blood rushing from her head, attracting the attention of a zealous steward. “Are you all right, Miss Maimon?” he asked solicitously. “Can I bring you something?”

  “A cup of strong tea, with milk,” she said.

  “Coming right up, Miss Maimon.” He seemed determined to announce her identity to all and sundry; fortunately, few people were flying first class, and those who did were studiously incurious.

  Ilana opened a magazine and stared at it unseeingly. He never would have asked me if I hadn’t been pregnant, she thought. But what astonished her was his having asked her at all, and not just once, in the excitement of the moment, but repeatedly, over a period of days.

  And never, during all that time, did she think about what she was refusing: not only David, who had never seemed as attractive to her as he had these past few days (proving once again a fact she had often noted, that the vulnerability of powerful men was itself a powerful aphrodisiac), but also his money, the wealth she would have shared as his wife. Oh yes, the money: for despite her denials, Ilana was not and had never been indifferent to money. Indeed, she loved it: loved the things and the services it could buy, the respect it engendered, the power it bestowed. Had she not loved money, she would not have accrued so much of it, or continued selling her services dearly when she could well afford to give them away. Instead, she would have channeled her ambitions into more traveled paths and acquired a husband, home, and children. She had given up these things in favor of a life-style of travel, chauffeur-driven limousines, fine food and wine, glittering parties with powerful people and attentive servants.

  And yet, when David had effectively said to her, Have it all, Ilana: a caring husband, a child, and more wealth than you have ever dreamed of acquiring, she’d said, No, thank you.

  Why? Here was a courtesan’s dream come true, years after she had ceased dreaming it. “I fail to see the problem,” he’d said when she pressed home her refusal; rejected, he was at his stuffiest and most English. Of course he failed to see: for he knew nothing about her.

  That was no fault of his. Ilana never told the truth about her background. She claimed to have been orphaned at a young age; it was the simplest way of dealing with the inevitable inquiries. When she was young, her lovers, always much older than she, had been titillated by the persona of a luscious, Lolita-type girl on her own in the world, unprotected by family; later, too, her lack of encumbrances had been viewed as a virtue. Had she told the truth, she would only have depressed them, and Ilana had not got where she was by depressing her lovers.

  The unpalatable truth was that her mother was a concentration camp survivor, and her father had spent three years in an Iraqi jail. Both had undergone torture. Both had dragged their shattered bodies and souls to Israel, where they met, married, and produced five children. Ilana could not know whether their miraculous rehabilitation was a function of the Jewish State or their own natural recuperative powers, but she believed, as they did, that it was the former.

  It was not gratitude but a superstitious, magical equation that bound her to the State: as Israel had been her parents’ salvation, and thus her doing, leaving it would be her undoing. Also, their experiences (mysteriously conveyed, as they were rarely mentioned) prevented her from ever feeling really safe outside the borders of her own country. It was a fear she kept tightly battened down, but never denied to herself.

  If she would not marry David, and it seemed established that for many reasons she would not, that left the matter of her pregnancy unresolved. By increasing her options, he had forced her to recognize her own desire. An unwanted child had better not be born, but one as desperately wanted as this one was by David and, she had unwillingly come to recognize, by herself seemed already possessed of rights.

  The fetus, that slumbering life within her which did not yet know itself, was his as well as hers, but she alone was empowered to decide its fate. David could plead, he could even threaten (he had not), but he could not force her to sustain that flickering light.

  The choice was hers.

  Chapter Eleven

  Someone informed. Reports reached Ein Hashofet, and Uri Eshel was dispatched (by his wife) to investigate. He arrived in Nevo late on a Thursday morning, creating a stir in those turgid waters. Even the chess players paused, chessmen in hand, to peer blearily and nod in acknowledgment. Sternholz raised an eyebrow; Mr. Jacobovitz dropped a tray. The Minister, drinking coffee in the back, waved, and Uri Eshel nodded but remained where he was in the middle of the room, peering through the smoky dimness. Arik slowly approached and spoke to his father.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Uri bared his teeth. Taking Arik’s arm, he guided him to a table near the bar, where they sat opposite one another. Sternholz told Mr. Jacobovitz to take over, and cast a threatening eye over his customers. Then, unasked, he brought three beers over to the Eshels’ table and sat between them.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” the father said, ignoring Sternholz.

  “Here I am.”

  Uri looked about him with distaste. “I heard that you spend most of your time here.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Arik glared at Sternholz, who returned a look of injured innocence.

  “I also heard that you’re looking for work abroad.”

  There was silence. Arik gazed over his father’s shoulder. Seen from Nevo, Dizengoff was a shimmering kaleidoscope of brilliant colors.

  “Well? Is it true?”

  He met his father’s eye with equanimity. “It is true. I’m sorry you heard it from—someone.”

  “You should have told me yourself.”

  “I intended to, last time I came home. But as things turned out, it wasn’t the time.”

  Uri nodded curtly.

  “Don’t worry,” Arik said. “I’m not going yet. Not so long as Rina’s sick.”

  Uri Eshel’s hands clenched. He looked at them without recognition and thrust them into his pockets. “What the hell does that mean?” he asked softly. “That you’ll do us a favor and wait till she drops dead before deserting?”

  Arik straightened and froze, ceasing for a moment the incessant, supple movement of his body. They stared at one another for a moment while the last word echoed through Nevo. Pride looked to pride, and Sternholz looked on.

  When he could stand it no longer, he poked at Uri’s arm. “You should watch your mouth, my friend.”

  “Don’t interfere, Emmanuel.”

  “Yeah, Sternholz,” Arik said, “keep out of it.”

  “I’m just saying what Rina would have if she were here,” Sternholz replied unflappably. “You should watch your mouth, and you”—he turned to Arik—’’better watch your manners.”

  “No offense, Sternholz, but do you intend to sit here through all of this? Some things are personal, you know.”

  “You think I got nothing else to do? You think I get a kick out of this?”

  “Then why—”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job, young Arik!”
<
br />   Suddenly a portly figure loomed above them, and a voice called out, “Uri, shalom!”

  Uri rose with a forced smile and shook the proffered hand. “Yosh.”

  “We miss you, my friend. When are you going to get off that farm of yours and lend us a hand?”

  Uri’s eye gleamed. “You must feel pretty sure that I won’t, to ask me.”

  Minister Brenner smiled briefly, then grew sober. “I’m sorry about Rina’s illness. We all wish her a full and speedy recovery.”

  “Thanks, I’ll tell her.”

  The Minister nodded a farewell that included Arik and Sternholz, then turned and strutted through Nevo into a waiting limousine.

  “Now look here,” Uri said, his smile vanishing with the Minister. “Your mother sent me here to talk with you, so by God we’d better do it. Where did you come up with this fool idea of going abroad?”

  “There’s no point in staying here.” Arik shrugged. “This country has had it. We had our chance and we blew it.”

  “What we? Don’t blame yourself, boy; you haven’t blown anything, because you haven’t done anything! Not a goddamn thing, and you’re no kid anymore. By the time I was your age”—he paused at a groan from Sternholz, gave him a baleful look, and continued—”I had some accomplishments under my belt. Too goddamn many, if you ask me. We should have left you some swamps to clear, a few borders to secure; taken you out of yourselves a little. As it is you’ve nothing better to do than sit around contemplating your navel.”

  “Nothing better to do?” Arik howled. “You’re boasting about what you accomplished while the whole damn pack of cards is collapsing around us?”

  “You don’t like the way they’re falling? So pick them up and reshuffle! You’re not going to get anything done sitting on your ass in Nevo.”

  “It’s hopeless.”

  “You are pathetic!” Uri shouted.

  “Easy does it,” said Sternholz.