Light Years (16 page)

Shtut had bright-red strawberries painted throughout the café, on tables, chairs, the menu. Even the sun umbrellas were striped white and red. There were huge pots of flowering strawberry plants—the only plant, the menu explained, that could have leaves, flowers, and fruit at the same time. There was always some music playing, and the whole setup was so sweet and friendly that I loved coming here with friends. Even the name was charming, a play on words between silly,
shtoot
, and strawberry,
tut
. We all needed to relax just a bit. Sitting in the shade, a coolish breeze blowing, you couldn’t picture anything wrong with the world.

I ordered a large salad with roasted peppers and eggplant. I
assured Françoise this was very typical Israeli cuisine, and so she ordered it as well. Hen still hadn’t said much since the gas station. I’d glance over at her from time to time, but she seemed to have sunk into a coma. She smiled and nodded, but claimed she’d forgotten all her English. I wondered if I should enter the diplomatic corps. It seemed I had an undiscovered talent for bullshit and biting my tongue.

Françoise and I chatted away as our waiter brought out our drinks. Ice water for me, white wine for Françoise and Hen. I hoped Hen wouldn’t drink too much. She still had to drive. Unless she was so depressed she’d let me drive her gorgeous new Volvo? This would bear close watching.

A busboy came with a carafe of water. He set it on the table and looked at me for a moment.

“Thanks,” I said, reaching for the water. He took it before I could reach it and poured the water for me.

He looked at me like I should know who he was, but I had never seen him before. He was young-looking, with a wispy little mustache, and he wore a white shirt and black pants like everyone else who worked at the restaurant. He set down the water and walked away without saying anything.

“He didn’t pour any for me,” Françoise said.

“Let me,” I said, and poured for her.

After Hen had finished her first glass of wine and was nursing her second, she revived enough to remember some English, and I felt it was safe for me to slip away to the restroom.

On my way there, I saw the boy clearing a table. I felt his
eyes on me. I tried to figure out why he looked vaguely familiar. Was he an old schoolmate? A neighbor’s cousin?

On my way back from the bathroom, I nearly collided with him. He almost dropped a tray full of dirty dishes.

“Careful,” I said. “Steady.” He steadied the tray, shot me a look, and sidled past me.

“Wait,” I said. “Do I know you?”

“No, you don’t know me.”

Had I misunderstood his stare? I felt heat blooming up my face. Well, this was embarrassing. “Sorry, I thought you looked familiar.”

“You think we all look alike, don’t you?” he said. “Like dogs.”

“What?” I would have taken a step back, except I was already up against the wall in the narrow corridor. “No. I saw you staring at me—” And then I knew who he was. He was the creepy guy from the bus. It was that look in his eye that reminded me, that same look of hate and disgust and fascination.

“Maybe I spit in your water,” he said. “The way you Jews spit on me.” It was dark in the narrow corridor. I felt claustrophobic. He couldn’t be older than seventeen, didn’t outweigh me by more than ten pounds. But my palms were clammy, my mouth dry.

“You didn’t.” I felt sick.

He smiled. “You’re right. I didn’t. Not in yours.”

“Why?”

“Because you respected an Arab lady on the bus that night.
Most of you think we are the dirt that you wipe from your shoes at the end of the day. You live in the houses we build, you eat the food we grow, but you give us nothing for it. Where are the Palestinian shopping malls? Where are the Palestinian highways and hospitals?” He took a step toward me. “You have everything and we have nothing. You kill us every day. You think that can last? You think we will allow it? We will take what is ours. And then you will have nothing and we will just laugh when you beg us.”

A waiter pushed past us to the kitchen and glared at the Palestinian.

“There are people out there waiting for their water,” he said. “Stop wasting time. Get to work.”

I felt like I was waking up from a nightmare, disoriented and scared.

The Palestinian glared at the waiter once his back was turned. Then he left without another word to me.

I walked back to our table, eyeing all the people in the courtyard who were drinking water, laughing, relaxing. When our food finally came, I toyed with it but didn’t eat.

“This is wonderful,” Françoise raved. “Lovely, just lovely.”

I smiled, but I couldn’t bring myself to taste it. The glistening oil on the roasted vegetables, the clumped mounds of feta cheese looked unappetizing and all I could picture was a long string of spit running from the boy’s mouth to my plate.

When he finally came to clear our table, he smiled when he saw my full plate. I looked away and wouldn’t look back until he left.

I tried to stay rational about this. Maybe he was just trying to gross me out. Maybe it was all talk. Then again, I saw that look in his eyes, that glitter of hate and malice. I completely shut out Hen’s meaningless chatter, tried to ignore Françoise’s stupid questions about how many taxicabs there were in Tel Aviv and how many restaurants served bread (because she had heard that Jews didn’t eat bread).

I was trying to think. What should I do? The shitty smell of pecorino was still wafting through the air, and every once in a while I’d catch the scent. I caught Hen’s eye and she just shrugged, game face on, in the zone, ready for anything. Finally lunch was over and, after Hen stepped on my foot under the table, I promised I’d meet them for dinner. As soon as they left, I went to find the manager.

I found him in a small back room and waited for him to get off the phone.

“I’m not sure that this is important, but I think you need to know that one of the busboys told me he spits in the water.” My foot was tapping almost uncontrollably. I still hadn’t fully decided if this was the right thing to do or a mistake.

The manager, a swarthy man in his thirties, wore a gold chain with
CHAI
on it, “life” in Hebrew. He turned and gave me his full attention.

“Who? What?”

I repeated myself. “I know it sounds strange, almost stupid. There’s something not right about him.” I hesitated. “He told me he hates Jews. He said something about taking everything back, making us pay.” I met his eyes and I think we must have
had identical looks of dismay on our faces. “This is serious, right?” I asked.

The day before, there had been a bombing in Petach Tikva.

“You’re telling the truth.” I wasn’t sure if he was asking. I nodded.

“I’m a soldier. This is my favorite café. I would never make up something like this.”

He rubbed a hand across his face, then raked both hands through his hair. He cursed.

“Okay, fine. I’ll take care of it. You did the right thing, kid. You just can’t be too careful, right?”

I described the busboy as well as I could. The manager wanted me to point him out.

“If it’s the kid I think you mean, he’s only been working here for a couple of months. I’m going to kill the guy who recommended him. But come, point him out.”

I felt bad. I was getting this kid fired. He might be the only one earning a paycheck in his family, he might never get a job again. God, was this the right thing to do? And then, as we stood off in one corner, watching the restaurant, I saw him refill someone’s water and I pointed to him.

“That’s him. The one pouring water.”

As if he felt my eyes on him, he turned and looked right at me. My finger was still extended, and my blood ran cold. His eyes narrowed. I dropped my arm.

The manager put a warm, heavy hand on the back of my neck. I jumped as if I had been shot.

“I have to leave,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “He won’t be coming back here again.”

I nodded and left, almost running, just wanting to get away from there. I spent the rest of the day feeling uneasy. I called Hen on her cell phone and told her I wasn’t going to meet them for dinner. I went to work and just tried to forget the whole thing.

That night, I called Dov. I told him about Françoise and the pecorino and we both laughed.

“There’s a meteor shower Friday. Want to go see it?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. I heard a smile in his voice and my toes curled. “But do you think it’s safe, or should I bring some sardines to keep the thieves away?”

“Don’t you dare,” I laughed. “I’ve had enough stinky companions this week.”

“All right, you win. The anchovies stay at home, but just this once.”

That sick, guilty, uneasy feeling that had been with me all day slowly dissipated. I wished Dov was here with me, not just a voice on the line. I could almost touch that soft patch of skin by the corner of his eye, the rough stubble on his cheeks.

“I miss you,” I said. “I can’t wait to see you.”

I decided not to tell him about the busboy. It was over. He was a freaky guy. I’d told the manager. The manager had surely
fired him. That was it, end of story. There was no reason to rehash it. It wasn’t something I was proud of.

“Good night, Maya,” he said. I shivered because I loved the way his voice sounded when he said my name. “Sweet dreams.”

“Sleep well,” I said. “Dream of me.”

That Friday, I laid out a blanket on the beach and we lay sprawled on our backs for an hour before the show began. I pointed out the constellations and told him their names. For the next two hours, debris left from the path of an ancient comet incinerated in fireworks. The tiny glowing particles streaked across the sky.

“Comets leave a trail of dust and grains of rock behind them as they fly by,” I told him. “Like Hansel and Gretel in the woods. The comet leaves a path that marks its way in the sky. It follows the same path endlessly. Eternally. Circling around and around in its orbit for all time. And we just crossed through its path, and our atmosphere is burning up its markers.”

He rolled from his back to his side and touched my face.

“So we’re like the birds that ate the crumbs. Now the comet can’t find its way home again?”

“Nah, this is just a tiny part of its orbit. It still knows the way.”

“You’re so smart.”

I smiled but kept my eyes on the quiet sky, scanning it for more shooting stars.

“You remind me of a cat.”

That got my attention. I looked at him. “Thanks a lot. How flattering.”

“It’s your eyes,” he said. My sarcasm never did bother him. “They’re a funny color. I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like that, except my mom’s old cat.”

I smacked him on the shoulder.

“Wait,” he laughed. “Before you attack, hear me out.”

“This had better be good.”

“Her cat was pure black, not a spot of color anywhere, and very skinny.” He rolled over and pinned me in the sand, meteors forgotten. “But her eyes were green and yellow.” He lowered his head until our noses almost touched. “Like yours. They glowed in the dark.” Supporting his weight on one elbow, hips still heavy on mine, he traced the outline of my eyes with one finger. I closed them and felt a butterfly-light caress on my eyelashes and around my eyes.

“I was creeping through the living room when I was a kid and I felt someone watching me. I turned around and saw two glowing eyes on top of the television. I nearly passed out.”

I laughed.

He brushed hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ear. “But this cat was amazing. The most mysterious cat alive. She would disappear for days and then just show up again. We could never figure out where she went or how she got out in the first place. And then one day, when she had gotten old and slow and hardly went out anymore at all, she disappeared. We searched everywhere, put up posters, but we never
saw her again.” I kept my eyes closed and I could feel him watching me. “Sometimes I think I found her again when I’m with you.” He eased himself down and cradled my face between his two hands. “And I keep thinking you’re going to disappear.”

“You want to know what it’s like to live in Israel? It means checking out every person that comes on the bus. It means eyeing the bags lying on the floor at their feet, the shape of their jackets, the way their eyes scan the horizon.”

It was late, and Payton and I both had had too much to drink. She sat on her bed and I sat on mine and I was thinking that if I were still in Israel, we’d both be sitting on the same bed. No one touched other people here, there was always a certain distance, even among friends.

“I got off a bus once because I was convinced one of the guys was a bomber.” I was still in high school and I remember being almost frozen with fear, my racing heart. I was going to die. I had to get off. That moment of hesitation: Should I tell everyone else? But in the end, only I got off and the bus drove away and didn’t explode. I walked twenty blocks in the shimmering June heat feeling foolish and shaky.

“You can’t indulge your fears. You have to learn to ignore them, to be fatalistic. Or you’d never do anything. Never get out of bed, never go to work, never go out to see your friends, never leave your house.” That was the power the bombers had. It wasn’t just the body count that mattered. It
was the fear that grew in everyone’s heart that was so devastating.

That’s actually what everyone said to me before I came here. They all said I just had to get on the bus again and trust, if not in God, then in the laws of statistics. Go to a café and enjoy a cup of coffee, a slice of cake, watching people hurry by. I would be fine. Don’t let the bomber get you too.

But I couldn’t do it. My aunt, my mother, and my dad basically dragged me out to dinner one night. I broke out in a cold sweat and refused to get out of the car. I saw danger everywhere. My instincts screamed that everyone looked suspicious. On some level, I knew I couldn’t trust my instincts, but I wouldn’t get out of the car. Hen kept urging me to move, just one foot out, then the other, and everything would be fine. My dad started yelling at her to stop pushing. She screamed at him to stop coddling me. My mom and I were both crying. Finally they gave up and we drove home again. It wasn’t long after that night that I decided to leave Israel.