One morning, as I was walking down Keren Hayesod towards Ramban Street, I caught a glimpse of Theo Schneider-Taylor seated at a café in the corner. My grandfather, as of two years earlier, was holding hands with a woman. They were exchanging smiles and there was a charming intimacy between them. It was as if he was the owner of the Blue Parrot café. I stopped behind a thick tree trunk and observed the two of them, trying to figure out who loved whom and who belonged to whom. I didn’t care for Gertrude for even a second. She deserved it. Nothing happened between Theo and the other woman. I started walking away rapidly without turning my head. Theo was meeting a woman at a café. Who would have believed it? That poor, quiet man had a parallel life. I thought about him for a further moment, and in the next, I was carried back to Atlanta, to Tara and to Scarlett O’Hara’s broken heart. The next day, as I was about to return home from the cultural center, I stopped by the café once more. The sidewalks were scalding hot. Heavy, dust-covered cypresses cast shadows on the stone fences. Atop the dreary, gray lamp posts flew yellow, red, and black striped flags in honor of some visiting head of state. I looked carefully towards the café, but Theo was not there.
Time was moving slowly. On a Friday night, two weeks later, we had to visit again with the odd couple, Theo and Gert, for dinner. I didn’t want Gertrude to take me to play with the dolls again, so immediately after dinner, I politely asked to switch on the television and sat down to hear boring Sabbath verses. Theo sat down next to me and whispered with a half-smile, “I heard about someone who was skipping school and walking down Keren Hayesod Street.”
“And I saw someone sitting at a café,” I whispered back, “enjoying his time with some lady.”
Theo only smiled and said, “Instead of just walking around, why don’t you pass by at ten and maybe you and I will take a nice stroll together.” He then pretended to be watching the Sabbath verses on the television. This whole time, Gertrude had continued to talk about her troubles in a high-pitched, blaming tone. Danny and Mom pretended to listen and vaguely agree with most of her complaints.”
At night I did a lot of thinking and I felt that I had to tell Mom. After all, Theo, Danny’s father, was her father-in-law. I didn’t want to get her in trouble. I was far less worried about myself. I loved Theo because he looked to me like a charming loser. On the other hand, he was an ambassador and more important, walking around carefree in the morning. He was a wise and charming man who had been around the world and knew a lot. I thought it would be interesting to get closer to and learn from him, so I decided to wait and see.
* * *
Chapter 6
On the following Monday, it was a hazy hot morning when I walked past the café, my eyes glued to the sidewalk, checking the dust and the pedestrians’ shoes and occasionally looking towards the café windows. Theo was seated there by himself and was waving happily at me. Behind the police barricades at the corner of Ramban Street, stood a solitary demonstrator with a cardboard sign that called on the prime minister to resign. Cars were streaming up Gaza Street and Ben Maimon Road. Noisy diesel taxis and heavy trucks converged on the uphill road. I crossed the street carefully and walked into the café.
“Will madam sit with me?” he asked with distinguished politeness just like in the movies. I sat down with pleasure. The last days of summer’s stifling heat weighed heavy on the city. The poplar leaves were already brown and dry.
“How about a large, hot cup of chocolate?”
“Large and cold.”
He ordered my drink with a slight lift of his finger. I observed his manicured nails. It looked like he had transparent nail polish on. He came to sit beside me and placed his hand on my thigh. I quickly moved my leg away and he took his hand back slowly, using it to stir his coffee. For a moment, I thought he would send me away and I got angry, but then he started telling me about fights and quarrels between German composers in the nineteenth century, mostly centered on the hearts of women who served as their muses.
“Could I be a muse?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he replied and nodded in the direction of his cappuccino, crumbled a cookie, and thoughtfully put it in his mouth, piece by piece.
“Long before you are done being a little girl, men start viewing you as the object of their dreams.” He spoke slowly and softly, and his eyes were kind and cheerful. The chocolate was excellent. Then he appeared to remember something. “I need to buy some cakes today. Will you join me? After all, you skipped school today. I don’t think it’s so bad to take a day off. When one walks around town, and visits interesting places, one learns almost as much.”
“Why not?” I gave him my hand and we started walking. And that is when he took me to East Jerusalem for the first time.
We walked through the Jaffa Gate and entered another world; a wonderful and strange universe. On the balcony of the Petra Hotel overlooking the square, carefree Anglo-Saxon youth were sitting and basking in the rays of the hazy sun. In front of the Lark Hotel, a horde of toothless old men were sitting and smoking their hookahs, eyeing the female tourists walking by with their pale arms, thighs, and hips. Torn Israeli flags were fluttering in the wind next to the David Citadel Museum’s posters. Rosy-cheeked tourists in blue trousers and white hats were holding little crucifixes and muttering prayers. There were Arab youngsters with mustaches and fiery eyes wearing skinny jeans, and a car full of settlers covered in posters calling for the arrival of the Messiah and the construction of settlements. We passed by the Imperial Hotel with its green metal doors and closed shutters, stepped into the Latin’s street, and walked between the cool stone walls on broken cobblestones next to menacing carts laden with goods. We finally reached Joseph’s Patisserie in the Armenian Quarter.
Outside the shop, stood a border patrol jeep. The driver was holding the microphone to the radio and saying something. Two soldiers were sleeping in the back, and one was behind the jeep talking softly and intimately with an Arab girl. The mild sweet smell of fine cakes was spreading out.
“Joseph,” Theo explained to me as we stepped in, “learned how to bake cakes in Paris and opened a patisserie; a type of coffee shop with a bakery that only makes very small and very special cakes.” The aroma was sweet and intoxicating. Joseph put down the serving utensil he was holding in his hand, tried to smile and looked at grandpa with wide-open eyes full of nostalgia for another world. He examined me at length with a sad look, gave me his soft and gentle hand and said, “Bonjour, shalom, salaam.” His white curls were neatly arranged and his ears were long. They spoke in French, and I got two cream-filled profiteroles that were the best thing I had ever tasted. I became addicted to the amazing taste and pretended not to understand their French. Joseph was soft-spoken. It appeared that he had a lot of respect for Theo. The girl who spoke to the soldier outside came in, looked wearily everywhere, and said something to Joseph in rapid Arabic. The jeep was gone. Two soldiers, armed to the teeth, passed by the door and stopped at the window. The radio transmitter that one of them was carrying on his back started chirping. Everyone in the patisserie fell quiet as if they were petrified, and only the large fan attached to the ceiling continued to revolve. Theo with a nicely-wrapped box in his hand finished his business. It was time to move on. Two boys were standing outside, leaning against a pillar embedded in the wall, as if waiting for something to happen. The soldiers disappeared behind a turn in the alley. Theo looked pensively at the boys and gave me his hand.
“It’s a charming place; Joseph seems like a good man. He speaks so softly,” I said, trying to get over my fear.
“Joseph,” said Theo. “Is an outstanding baker; a master of his art. One has to do whatever he does with dedication and love and be good at it. That is how one can bring joy to oneself and to those around him. It’s a shame that so few people know what is right for them, and most others are just trying to play a role.” He examined the alley again, looked to see if I was listening. “Don’t let his sad eyes mislead you. Joseph is a very happy man. He has the abili
ty to ignore the noise around him. People try to enlist him in all kind of missions.”
“Missions?” That was strange.
“His brother, Fathi, is a leader in the local PLO. Just recently, we, the Israelis, put him on the list of wanted terrorists, for something. Joseph may be a bit strange. He may be struggling with conflicting loyalties. That’s why there are on-going patrols around the patisserie now.
“Is Fatchi really a terrorist? Someone we should arrest?”
“I have no way to know that,” said Theo. “I still see him from time to time.” He said with a blank expression on his face. Theo was no pussycat, in any possible way.
We went back to West Jerusalem. It was a wonderful day.
We went few more times to the Old City. I didn’t tell anyone. Ordinarily, it would have been hard to keep it from Mom. She would have noticed something new and would have asked me, but she was preoccupied with a lot of new things now. Danny had started coming home late, and sometimes he didn’t come home at all. The farewell dinner for the cadets was getting closer and Mom was worried about that as well.
Maybe it was the secret that gave me a sweet feeling, and maybe it was because of the walks themselves, but every week I’d wait for Monday, the day of my forbidden walk with Theo. On one of those walks, we went to a pizza bakery beneath the Armenian quarter, and then visited the antique store owned by the Barakat family, who were responsible for the whole antique trade in East Jerusalem. Old Barakat took us on a tour of King Solomon’s stables underneath Temple Mount, a place where no Jew had visited for at least five years. There were lots of pigeons in there, maybe a thousand of them or even more. I had never seen so many. It was chilly and a wild wind was blowing through the columns. Theo hugged me gently and stroked my head. He pulled me to him for a moment and I recoiled. This wasn’t a grandfatherly hug. I knew that he wouldn’t punish me for not liking his touches, though.
“Come on, the Wakf1 don’t like it when Jews visit here. You’ve seen the place, now let’s go on.” Barakat prodded us and put an end to the visit. We went back to the antique store. Theo sat down for a cup of coffee with Barakat and they spoke in German. I peered at the passers-by through the window. They were mostly American tourists and some Israelis who were talking very loudly; maybe as a way of overcoming their fears. “It is very important to look the locals in the eyes,” Theo explained. “It is important to catch their gaze. That’s how you will see immediately whether they are ingratiating eyes or evil eyes scheming about something. Jews always have to be careful.”
“Joseph’s eyes are sad,” I said.
“Sad but good, nevertheless.”
Mom had memorized the book Etiquette and Good Manners but still feared that she would be an embarrassment, although I thought she had a natural elegance and French charm far beyond the other cadet wives who were mere Israeli brutes, as Gertrude, the good-hearted, used to define them.
They returned from the farewell dinner very late. Mom was mesmerized by the foreign minister, a former army general, who had been considered charismatic many years previously.
“There is nothing quite like the charm of a victorious general,” Theo explained to me.
“He has terrible taste in clothes, but on the other hand, he has a bold statesman’s vision, both open-eyed and intelligent, with a true view of the future,” Mom said as she took off the flowery strappy dress that she had bought especially for the occasion. “He remembered me from the annual gathering of fallen soldiers’ families. That’s not a small thing.”
“We have to make peace with the Arabs. We can’t go on like this,” Danny replied, vigorously rubbing the soles of his feet. I was certain that he was right, and in order to please him, I asked how exactly one would go about making peace. It was fairly late and Danny was tired. He nevertheless looked deeply into my eyes and said, “We must present a bold policy vision; realistic and intelligent with a true view of the future.” He was repeating Theo’s words on the general. I nodded my head slowly in understanding.
Danny won the coveted appointment to the foreign ministry’s spokesman’s office. The ministry spokesman was an aging journalist who had worked with the general/minister years previously and had even written his biography. Now, when it had dawned on the minister that he would never be prime minister, he had decided to enjoy his new ministerial position and appointed the resourceful journalist as his media advisor and ministry spokesman. The journalist would defend the minister against the nagging world that lay outside and would prepare the final chapter in the general’s legend: The Man of Dreams and Peace. Danny was enchanted by the spokesman and was planning on ingratiating himself to him.
“A wonderful, impressive man,” he told Mom one evening while burrowing furiously between his toes. “This guy, Nahum Shemer, understands people. He understands their motivations. He knows how to talk to them. And, most importantly, he delivers the goods. He just does. As clear as that. He knows how to build the right headline. He won’t disappoint the minister.”
“I am sure there is much to learn from him,” I tried to contribute to the conversation. Danny patted his forelock, wondering.
Karni and Uzi came to visit, just a nice social evening among friends. I knew they would start arguing within ten minutes. Karni was doing her cadet internship at the foreign minister’s bureau. Her job was to issue the minister’s declarations and directives to all of the embassies abroad so that they would know what the policy positions were. In honor of her appointment, she parted ways with her eternal jeans and even started using some make-up, but complained that it was men who needed to use make-up and primp themselves like the other male fowl rather than invent make-up for women as a tool of oppression and discipline.
“It’s a great job,” she declared. “It’s a blast. It’s exactly what I had been dreaming of. But the amount of responsibility is unbelievable.” She leaned back on the green sofa that we’d received from Gert and Theo. Her eyes glistened with excitement. “The way this minister talks… he can start a sentence and then contradict himself three times in mid-sentence. He never finishes a sentence and most sentences start in the middle. I don’t get why some people are so impressed with him to the point of worshipping him. After he speaks, I have to take the texts and try to turn them into something we can use. This is where the responsibility comes in because I determine how his sentence ends and in fact, I set the government’s policy. Sounds wild, doesn’t it?”
“Possibly,” said Danny while playing with a key chain. “I am not sure whether it is your text that sets policy or the newspapers that do that. We need to understand how this stuff works. The press has an incredible power. I don’t think it is the fourth estate. I think it is the first.”
Journalists would call our house almost every evening as soon as Danny came back home. He would immerse himself in conversations with them and dive into the analyses that they loved so much. It seemed that his skill was in taking the most complex events, carving them into components, making the picture clearer and simpler, and then explaining why the government was doing the right thing. He was quick to gently mock his superiors while repeating the phrase “off the record”. When he spoke into the phone and said, “I don’t need to explain this to you,” I knew that the most important part of the conversation was coming up and he would be looking for it in tomorrow’s newspaper. Then he would mutter from time to time, “The idiot didn’t even understand what we were talking about,” or, trying to stifle a smile, his eyes would glisten and he would say something like, “I earned my pay today.” The social pages started mentioning the young and talented assistant spokesman. Danny spent many nights away from home, at briefings and meetings. In the morning, Mom would try to find out where he had been and what he has been doing.
“In order to activate a serious journalist, you have to invest a great deal. Someone you invite to a good restaurant and feed generously will always be indebted to you. Of course, with the exception of a few pricks who think that this is exactly
why they should stab you in the back and prove that they can’t be bought with a juicy steak. The trick is to know the difference between the two types.
“And then you are careful of the second type?”
“You have to be careful of all of them. But you have no choice. You must work with the rotten shmucks as well. Some of them are among those who lead the game.”
“Those ones always need more investment,” said Mom.
“Not necessarily. If Ma’ariv newspaper runs two days of exclusive stories that Yediot newspaper doesn’t have, the political correspondent at Yediot will be in trouble. You can easily drive a wedge between him and his editors. Almost like we used to do in military intelligence. A rat who took your money once will be in your hands forever. You can sell him if you want to. But you always have to remember his weaknesses, those that only you know about.”
“If this is how the game is played then everything is in vain,” Mom declared. “You joined the foreign service to do good,” she said. “But if you’re going to play dirty, it’s better to do so in the private market where you can at least make a better living of it.”
Danny looked at her with loving eyes. “Yes, chérie,” he replied. “That’s for sure.” That was the last time I heard him tell her about dirty tricks.
I could easily get along with my new father, but wouldn’t trust him. Mom loved him blindly, which irritated me. She had an unusual capacity to love her husbands. The one I loved was my dead father, regardless of the fact that I never really knew him. Nobody would ever take his place. My real father left Mom one day when he went to war and never came back. He was a paratrooper, company commander from the kibbutz of Beit Ha-Shita who was born at The Valley Hospital and died in a heroic battle on Mount Hermon when I was one year old. He was very handsome and was indeed a hero. During the first years, his friends from the paratroopers would come and hug me and sit quietly shedding tears. That was strange. I can remember these meetings since I was three years old and living with Mom in the Bak’a neighborhood of Jerusalem. After they hugged me they would talk to Mom, hold her hand and feel uneasy. The rest of the time they would chat among themselves, mainly exchanging memories that seemed to amuse them. They would drink their coffee hastily and make their way out.