Damascus Gate (15 page)

"The attacks are made to appear intracommunal," Inge said. "But our Palestinian lawyer says they make no sense that way. In any case, we have no proof."

"So what if you had? What can you do?"

"Confront the bastard," declared the Rose. "That's my strategy."

Inge and Sonia exchanged looks. The Rose was twenty-five years old. She had worked in the Caribbean, and she liked to drive the back roads of the Occupied Territories in a Jeep Laredo whose bumper sticker read
STUDY ARSE ME,
an injunction in which neither the Palestinian
shebab
nor the IDF troopers needed encouragement. She understood it to be a Jamaican phrase of defiance. The sentiment had been underlined on her arrival by the extremely tight, faded denim shorts she had planned to wear on the job, until advised of their ungodliness. Muslims in Jamaica, she had explained, never seemed to mind.

Presently a scented French-sounding young man with a gold chain at his neck arrived to conduct the Rose to the floor, where the two of them began dancing to Abba. Inge watched her go with motherly forbearance.

"Fearless," she said.

"You gotta love her," said Sonia, who had her doubts.

"The father's a general, so they say. A war hero."

"No fooling?" Sonia said.

"But not your father," Inge said, and Sonia realized she had been drinking.

"My daddy was not a general," she told her friend. "Not even a colonel."

"What then?"

"A poet," she told Inge. "Really cool but sort of unsung."

Inge kept smiling. "About Abu Baraka," she said. "The Rose would be unwise to confront him. He hit Nuala good and hard last week. At night, his face blacked up. Him or one of his boys."

"I suppose," Sonia said, "some night he's going to kill someone."

"We're working with the Israeli Human Rights Coalition," said Inge.

"One thing you can depend on," Sonia told her. "When the killing comes, the wrong people always get it. It's the first principle of race riots. The wrong people, either side. Well," she said, looking at her watch, "I'm almost on again. I want to say hi to Nuala."

Inge reached out and took hold of her arm.

"But if we found this man," she said, "these men—we could build a case. You and I and the Israeli civil rights groups. I'm Danish, you're Jewish. People might pay attention to us."

"I don't know, Inge."

"As someone said," Inge declared, "to work down there you have to have a center. If you don't, you can't."

"I think that was me," Sonia said. "I said that."

"It sounds like you," Inge said.

Sonia disengaged herself and went into the backstage area to one side of the room. In a small, brightly lit room she found Nuala and Stanley. Stanley was sitting astride a folding chair with his holy fool's smile. Nuala, looking flushed and manic, was sitting on the makeup table with her back to the long mirror. She opened her arms for Sonia.

"Hurrah," she said. "You wonderful girl. I was watching."

They embraced; Sonia thought she seemed preoccupied. Nuala was tall and lithe, with black hair and pale freckled skin. Her eyes were very blue and the sort called piercing. In her early thirties, she had a few wrinkles beside them from a life under equatorial skies. That night she displayed the remnants of a shiner, still slightly swollen and empurpled above her delicate dead-white cheek.

"Hurrah, hurrah," said Stanley, beaming at Sonia.

"What are you two up to?" She winced at the sight of Nuala's eye.

"I thought it was a rifle butt. But I guess it was his fist."

"Maria Clara sends her love," Stanley told Sonia. "She'll be back from South America tomorrow."

Sonia, who wanted nothing to do with Maria Clara, ignored him. "Come and gossip with me after this set," she said to Nuala. "I want to hear about everything."

"Have you missed us, Sonia?" Nuala asked. "We've missed you. But I can't come out, you see. There's a chap in the audience I don't want to run into."

"Who?"

"Oh, the man who just spoke to you. An American reporter. Nice, but I don't want him to see me here."

"Well," Sonia said. "Of course I've missed you." After a moment she asked, "What's he after, the reporter?"

"He doesn't know what he's after. Bit of a lost soul, really. He wants to write about religion. We'd like him to write about what's happening in the Strip."

"He looked interesting." Sonia laughed. "But I stiffed him."

"Well, he's sweet," Nuala said with a laugh and a shrug. "I bet you'd like him. And I think he speaks your language."

Back out under the lights, Sonia thought, What about my center? Nobody home there. Jerusalem was high and dry, no place to tread water; you needed either a job to do or some fancy illusions.

She opened the second set with a Lieber and Stoller song: "Is That All There Is?" It was a favorite of Razz's. Then she did "As Tears Go By" and then her favorite Gershwin songs, finishing with "But Not for Me," in the manner of Miss Vaughan, really getting into it, letting herself go. Her Manhattan adept had suggested that she turn her singing into an exercise, make music her certainty and let it find its
tariq,
ascending like the metaphorical serpent, transforming herself into a horn and the stuff rising straight up, flourishing in the chamber of resonance, emerging through the mask. Useful pictures. It seemed to go well because the room applauded briskly.

Nuala was still hiding in the back room. Inge and the Rose were on the floor, being danced about by a couple of Moroccans.

"Inge says you'll come back," said Nuala.

"Back where?"

"The Strip, where else?"

"Inge may be mistaken."

"Never," said Nuala Rice. "Inge's always right."

"I wouldn't be any use," Sonia said.

"You of all people? Nonsense. Anyway, we need you."

"Nobody's irreplaceable. Especially not me."

"Forget your troubles. Get back with us."

That was the formula, Sonia thought. Some people liked to make their trouble everybody's. Others had to submerge theirs in the great sump of human misery.

"You know," she said, "I probably will go back eventually."

S
HE HAD A
solid last set, sweet and low. Toward the end, to please the Russians, she did two
Porgy
songs, the Gershwin and a Jimmy McHugh. Just before the closing number, Razz the pianist gave her a wink and a nod, inviting later conversation. She wondered if it meant she had been mistaken about his being clean. Or if he was trying to rekindle old fires. They closed with "My Man," which that particular room would conceive as the essence of soul.

After the last number, the jukebox came on and people got up to dance. There was a shortage of women, so she hid out backstage with Razz Melker.

"You all right, Razz?" she asked him. "Got your health back?"

"I'm clean, Sonia." His smile grew even wider and his amber eyes shone. "Life's a miracle."

"Better stay away from Stanley," she said.

When she started away, Razz called after her.

"Sonia?" he said hesitantly. "Something I wanted to ask. A favor."

"Sure," she said.

"We're leaving Safed. We'd like to come to the city."

"You don't mean here?"

"I mean the
city.
J-town."

"Well," she said, "good."

"There's a man, Sonia. You have to meet him. I swear you must."

"Uh-huh," she said cautiously. "Now, would this be a Christian man, a Jewish man or..."

"More."

"Wow," she said lightly. "The man we've been waiting for, right?"

"Maybe," Razz said. "I'm a gambler."

"What can I do for you?"

"We have a few people. He has a lot of books. I wondered if you could help us move."

"You mean hustle you up a ride? Offer myself?"

"Hey," Razz said, "nothing sordid. You're my sister."

She laughed. "I'd love a trip to Safed," she told him. "I'd be glad to drive you if I had a car. I sold it illegally. I still don't know if they'll let me out of the country without it. Where will you stay in the city?"

He shrugged happily, and she left him there.

Out in the room a few sports put the moves on her, but since they were all talking at once and getting in each other's way, she managed to pass amiably by. On the way to the table where her NGOnik friends sat, the man who had accosted her earlier appeared once more.

"You can really help me out," he said with a rueful smile. "And I wish you'd talk to me. I like your style so much."

He had been drinking. If he had managed to get drunk on booze at Stanley's prices, she thought, he must be a man of means. But he did not seem to be a casual jazz fan. He had the look of someone who could not order his pleasures.

"Oh, thanks," she said. "Sorry about just now. I was in a rush, see. How's Janusz?"

"Waiting for the next war, I guess."

"Yeah," she said, "Jan is a war lover. I met him in Somalia. He was in Vietnam too, reporting from the Vietnamese side. He flew with the Cuban fighter bombers in Eritrea, writing about it. One day he showed up in Baidoa."

"Interesting guy," Lucas said. "What's he doing here?"

"He lives here. He's Jewish."

"Found his roots?"

"I never thought of Jan as having roots," Sonia said. "What you say you were writing about?"

"Religious enthusiasm. I was told you were a Sufi."

"So you're another guy after religious nuts?" she asked him. "That's
old,
man."

"I'm not a put-down artist," Lucas said, "and I don't go for the obvious. In fact, I used to be religious myself."

"That right?"

"Right," Lucas said. "Can I buy you a drink?"

"I don't like to drink," Sonia said. "Maybe these ladies would like a drink, though. Ladies?" Suddenly Lucas found himself surrounded by Nordic women who looked as though they could handle their liquor. They hastened to accept. It would be an expensive night.

Lucas leaned close to Sonia, to speak above the noise of the jukebox. It was playing Count Basie's "Lafayette."

"You puzzle me," Lucas said. "I mean, what are you doing here?"

"Why shouldn't I be here? I'm Jewish too."

"Are you?"

"What do you mean, am I? You think I'm a little southern fried to be Jewish? Is that what you think?"

"No. I just think it's odd you would come to Israel to study an Islamic practice. Don't you live in Jerusalem?"

"That's right."

"Going back tonight?"

"I get the two-thirty bus."

"Don't do that," Lucas said. "Let me drive you."

She hesitated, then said, "That'd be good. Thank you."

"The bus station is depressing," Lucas said, "at this hour."

Outside, the after-midnight crowd had settled in at the sidewalk tables of the Orion Café, across the street from Mister Stanley's. The Orion's late-night crowd might be described as louche. As Lucas and Sonia went by, the sidewalk trade paused in its vivacious, sibilant conversations to check the two of them out. The customers out front favored pastel sheath dresses, and many had large hairy wrists.

"It's easy to get an extended visa," Sonia said. "And Berger al-Tariq is here."

"And he's a Sufi master?"

"He's the last. You should meet him."

"I'd like to."

She studied him for a moment. "In fact, I could introduce you to some very interesting people here. If you'd do me a favor."

"What would that be?"

"Give me another ride tomorrow. Ride me up to Safed and help me bring some friends down. With their books and stuff."

"Well," Lucas said, "I could do that. OK," he told her. "Deal."

"It's like our piano player wants to move to Jerusalem. He belongs to a religious group in Safed. People who might interest you."

"Good," said Lucas.

On the ride up to Jerusalem, they hit a jackal crossing the road. Its dying yelps pursued them.

"I hate doing that," Lucas said. "I'll dream about it."

"I'm hip," Sonia said. "Me too."

They rode for a while and Lucas said, "I really meant it when I said I enjoyed your singing. I hope you don't think I was just buttering you up."

"I gotta believe you," she said. "Don't I?"

"I don't want my name in the paper," she told him a little later on.

"Can't I say you're a really good jazz singer?"

"Nope."

"Well," he said, "I don't work for the papers."

She told him more about the East Side Sufi underground—New York's, not Jerusalem's—and about Dogberry's and gigs in New York.

"Do you believe in God?" he asked her.

"Jesus," she said, "what a question."

"Well, I'm sorry," said Lucas. "We were talking religious enthusiasm."

"This is what I think, Chris. Instead of nothing out here, there's something. It has a nature."

"That's it?"

"That's it. And more than enough."

"Oh," said Lucas, "I like that." It was a familiar enough sentiment, he thought, but she said it nicely. He felt a faint thrill of sympathy.

"Were your parents religious?" he asked her.

"My parents were members of the American Communist Party. They were atheists."

Looking at her, Lucas felt he had suddenly penetrated part of her story. She was biracial, the child of old lefties. The story was on her face to see.

"But that's belief too," he said.

"Sure. Communists believe that things have a nature. And that an individual can be part of the process. They believe in a better world."

"One where they give the orders," Lucas said.

She gave him an even stare, its rigor subverted by the suggestion of humor at the edges. How intelligent and pretty she is, Lucas thought. He allowed himself to believe she liked him.

"What about you, Chris? What's your story?"

"Well, my father was a Columbia professor. Originally from Austria. My mother was a singer. Which is why I like singing, I guess."

"Your father the Jewish one?"

"That's right. How about you?"

"Mom."

"Well," Lucas said, "you're OK then. But the ancients, in their wisdom, included me out."