Israel (14 page)

Kamel had Bedouin blood. Now his face turned as fierce and unforgiving as those barren, rugged hills his ancestors had wandered. “You do not understand, young master. You know my language, but you do not see the pictures that I see inside my head when you use my words. Own? Sell? What does it all mean? The rich landlords sell the fellahin's land out from under them. Perhaps they throw a few coppers our way, but soon the money will be spent.
The land will still be there, and clearly it must be taken back, for God has given it to the Arabs.” The servant looked away and became his usual polite self. “I will take your bag to the bedroom, and then I must hurry to the garden, young master, for the mistress awaits me.”

Haim let him escape as he considered Kamel's parable. A tiny ship bobbing in a vast ocean while the two on board fight to decide who shall be captain when what they both ought to worry about is getting to land.

Jaffa's second Jewish quarter, Neveh Shalom, was founded in 1891. It extended over about ten thousand square yards purchased from the effendis. With typical stubbornness the Jews of Jaffa, who had delightedly embraced the first quarter, Neveh Zedek, shunned Nevah Shalom for being “untraditional.” The new houses remained empty until the rabbi of Jaffa bought one. Finally the district filled and the school, Sha'arei Torah, opened in 1896, funded by a predominantly wealthy class of newly arrived doctors, teachers and businessmen.

The school and its neighbors were closely packed in what the quarter's designers had dubbed the Parisian style. The school had an ornate facade but was nonetheless an Arab-style building, a cave of stone with thick walls and small windows. Inside it was dim and cool. Haim could hear children reciting lessons as he made his way to the offices.

In Sha'arei Torah secular as well as spiritual lessons were taught. Here large meetings were held in the evening and temporary space was given over to work for the community. If you wanted to know what was going on among the Jews of Jaffa, you came to Sha'arei Torah.

Haim considered this a good thing. Being a Zionist and not particularly religious, he was glad to see authority moving away from the rabbis toward the more innovative educators
and wealthy merchant class. It took brains, muscle, and cash, not piety, to get things done.

Haim could hear Rosie's voice echoing down the musty corridor. The weak electric bulbs shone off the dark green floor tiles, adding to the musty feeling. He was far too anxious to see her for it to occur to him to knock. He swung the door open and sauntered inside the cluttered, brightly lit office. Rosie and an older man were standing side by side, scrutinizing a blueprint. She'd been asking questions and jotting down responses on a notepad. She stopped what she was doing and gaped at Haim.

“Yes? What is it, young man?” snapped the man in fluent Hebrew. He was stout, short and balding on top, with a horseshoe of clipped grey hair. He was dressed in a black wool suit with vest and velvet lapels, a boiled shirt with starched wing collar and a red silk tie. On the hat rack in the corner hung his black derby. The heavy clothes should have had the man gasping for breath, but his complexion looked as powdery dry as chalk dust.

“I'm waiting.” He glowered. “Answer, please, or be kind enough to take your leave. Important business is being conducted here.”

Haim ignored the man totally, his eyes on Rosie. Her skin was the color of coffee with cream, magnificently set off by the peach-colored cotton sleeveless dress she wore. Her pale hair was pinned up to reveal her long, graceful neck and the delicate gold chain around her throat. As usual, her dark brown cat's eyes were lustrous and her wide, slightly crooked sunburnt nose was a delicate coral pink.

Haim stood transfixed by the sight of her, feeling his heart swell with love.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The little frog-eyed man was working himself into a frenzy. “What's going on here?”

“Rosie, I've come for you,” Haim said, taking a step toward her.

“Please,” she said quellingly, “I'm working!”

“What work? Come, we've got a lot to discuss.” He took hold of her arm.

“Don't you dare,” Rosie shouted furiously as she pulled free of him. “You can't just—” She stopped. “Haim, please. I'm glad to see you, very glad. Come by the house tonight—late tonight—and we'll—”

“I'm staying at your father's house,” Haim interrupted. “Your mother has invited me to dinner this evening.”

“What? Oh no,” Rosie moaned.

“Rosie, why are you acting like this?” Haim demanded. He could feel his confidence ebbing. How could he have been so certain that she loved him? How could he have been so wrong?

The little man cleared his throat. “Perhaps the two of you ought to go somewhere more appropriate for this kind of thing.”

Rosie whirled in a panic. “Please, Meir, I want to stay.”

“What's going on here?” Haim heard himself shout.

“Oh, my,” the little man gasped, misunderstanding Haim's concern. “My dear fellow, you don't imagine that Rosie and I are—? I mean . . . Why, I'm a married man, and what we're doing here is purely—”

“Haim, this is Meir Dizengoff,” Rosie said, completely mortified.

“I knew that.”

“Then please,” Rosie implored, “go away.”

He began to take offense. A declaration of love he did not expect, but a little encouragement—“It's not like you see me every day, Rosie. I could carry you out of here, you know.”

“If you do I will never speak to you again. I mean it—never again.”

“All right. I surrender. Good day to both of you. Rosie, I shall see you at dinner.” Haim turned and left the office.

Dizengoff stared after Haim. “So he loves you, eh?” He seemed pleased with the notion.

“What was that?” Rosie asked, returning to the blueprint.

“Nothing. Let's get back to work, shall we?”

The Glasers' living and dining rooms had a slate grey stone floor scattered with colorful Persian rugs. It was sparsely furnished with large worn leather armchairs from England and low mosaic-inlaid tables from the bazaar. Ringing a massive oval table was an array of Sheraton chairs in dark wood with seat cushions upholstered in crimson chintz.

“Nothing in this house matches, but that's what I like about this country,” Erich Glaser announced over cocktails. The
non sequitur
sprang a bit too loudly from the painter's lips, but that was understandable; he was working on his second tumbler-sized whiskey and soda. “The marvelous dichotomy of dark, pale Jews in this grand sun-charred
goldeneh medina—”

“Goldenen medina,” Meir Dizengoff chuckled. “That's what most Jews call America.” He sipped at his thimbleful of sherry.

“In America the gold does lie in the streets, they say,” Haim observed, not touching his sweet sticky sherry. “Here in Palestine there is also gold; we just have to dig a little deeper to find it.”

The room filled with appreciative laughter. Haim glanced at Rosie and then triumphantly eyed Dizengoff. They were only five for dinner: Rosie and her parents, Dizengoff and Haim. The younger ones had eaten earlier.

The tension between Haim and Dizengoff reinstated itself as soon as Dizengoff arrived. The formally dressed little
man did not hide his amusement at Haim's shirtsleeves and open collar. Erich Glaser was also dressed in a suit and tie, but he had told Haim not to concern himself about it.

Haim had worried about it until he saw that smirk on Dizengoff's face. At that moment his unease was replaced with defiant anger. No bourgeois wearing a necktie could intimidate an honest Zionist worker here in Eretz Yisroel, he resolutely decided; he need never be ashamed as long as his clothes were clean.

As the laughter over Haim's remark died down, Glaser exclaimed, “You see, what did I tell you, Meir? This boy is unlike your run-of-the-mill young pilgrim who comes to Palestine as sour as an unripe orange.” He gulped at his drink.

“He certainly doesn't look like most halutzim,” Rosie began. “He's—”

“That's right, he doesn't.” Erich Glaser's deep baritone filled the room. “With his muscles, golden hair and blue eyes he looks goyish, right, Meir? I shall put you in my paintings, Haim. I'm sick of dark hair and brown eyes except for my darling Rosie's.” He smiled benevolently and drained his glass. “Kamel, more drinks.”

“I believe we'll be sitting down for dinner at any moment now, dear,” Mrs. Glaser said nervously.

Glaser ignored her and turned to Haim and Dizengoff. “Know what I like about women in paintings? They're beautiful and silent.”

Miriam Glaser wore a long-suffering look and Rosie was plainly angry. Both women kept quiet, however. When Erich Glaser got a few drinks in him, he was unable to tolerate any voice but his own.

Kamel appeared with the sherry and another large whiskey and soda.

“What? No one else drinking with me?” Erich Glaser
glowered as Kamel's offer of sherry was refused. “Suit yourselves, but I've had a long day in my studio.”

Haim occupied himself by gazing at the various paintings that crowded the whitewashed walls. They were mostly landscapes in oils, great slabs of burnt sienna and turquoise representing the earth and sky, dotted with green and peopled with figures wearing kerchiefs and jackets of bright red and yellow. In Glaser's paintings glinting hoes were invariably raised toward a bright sun; the clouds were always like fat, white sheep; women endlessly gathered oranges like tiny suns.

There were no Arabs, Haim cynically thought, because the Jews in Europe and America had little interest in them. Not that he begrudged Glaser his success; for one thing, he did not know enough about art to judge the man's work, and for another, Glaser daily thanked God for his own good fortune by donating both time and money to poor immigrants.

Looking out of place surrounded by Glaser's garish landscapes, the finely detailed charcoal portrait of Haim and Abe hung in a place of honor. Dizengoff seemed to be inordinately interested in it, asking Haim a great many questions about his boyhood.

At last they went to the table. Haim was seated on Mrs. Glaser's right, across from Dizengoff and Rosie. Kamel and two other servants presented cold eggplant with pine nuts, roast chicken with rice and a green salad with tomatoes grown in the Glasers' own garden. There was a grapy burgundy from Rishon le Zion served with the chicken. Haim took a sip of his wine every now and then out of politeness. Dizengoff seemed to be doing the same. Most of the meal was taken up with compliments to the hostess and the dismal clink of silverware against china.

Halfway through the main course Rosie suddenly brightened. “Haim, why don't you tell Meir about helping
build that school on the outskirts of Jerusalem? Meir too is involved in building new settlements around the old towns.”

Haim set down his knife and fork on the edge of his plate and rested his bare sinewy forearms on the table. He smiled at the spiffy little man. “Ever do any stonecutting?”

Dizengoff turned his froglike gaze on Haim. “Just what do you know about me, young man?”

Haim shrugged. “You have an office at the talmud torah, so obviously you are involved in community work. Beyond that nothing.”

Dizengoff nodded like a schoolmaster. “Let me tell you a little about myself and about Jaffa as well. In 1905 I came to Jaffa—”

“The same year I came,” Haim interjected.

Dizengoff responded with a thin smile. “Yes, of course. But I first came to Palestine in 1885, young man, and from the looks of you, in those days, you were still your guardian's apprentice in Russia.”

“Meir once worked with Baron Rothschild,” Rosie said, a bit too dreamily for Haim's taste. “He met the baron while studying engineering in Paris.”

Dizengoff took up the tale. “I was interested in glass production. You see, I had this idea of using the sand of Palestine to produce bottles for the baron's distilleries in Rishon le Zion.”

“There is such a factory?” Haim asked.

“There was, at Tantura, just above Zichron on the coast, but in '94 we closed it down. The sand there was not suitable, and the nearby Kabara marshes were filled with malaria mosquitoes. It was—a bad time. We were not prepared—” For a moment the little man looked almost tearful.

“So what happened?” Haim asked, interested now. Erich Glaser caught his attention and was shaking his head. Haim took the hint and fell silent.

“Well, then,” Glaser said heartily, “so you returned to Jaffa in 1905, right, Meir?”

Dizengoff nodded. He seemed to have regained control of himself. “My dear young man,” he continued, “have you any idea how the population of Jaffa has grown in the two years since—we—arrived?”

“I only noticed it for the first time today,” Haim nodded. “The Arab quarter is overrun, as is the old Jewish quarter.”

“In a decade the number of Jews in Jaffa went from a thousand to over five thousand. Now the number is about seven thousand—not including transients, but only people who have decided to make their homes in Jaffa.”

“And you think this is to be encouraged?”

“Who are we to encourage or discourage anybody?” Dizengoff spread his hands. “Our goal should be to prepare this land for the immigration to come.”

“I disagree,” Haim said angrily. “Have you seen them in the town? They come here expecting their lives to continue just as in Russia and Poland, except that here they intend to be the persecutors and make the Arabs their victims.”

“But Haim,” Mrs. Glaser said gently, speaking for the first time, “surely you don't champion the Arabs over your own faith?”

“Of course not.” Haim thought hard, trying to translate what was in his heart into the proper words to convey his feelings. “We are the new captains of this ship,” he began, smiling to himself as he recalled Kamel's parable.