“He is a fanatic,” Nahum went on, appraising the new foreign minister. “But of the primitive type. He doesn’t even speak English. But we have to get along with these guys too. However, with him, you can never be too careful. Above all, the man is incurably suspicious. If you screw him once, you’re finished. He doesn’t mind working with fools, with other fanatics, or with perfect idiots, as long as they are loyal to him.” Nahum sighed deeply and looked at Danny somewhat skeptically. “Yes, in loyalty just as in love, there is never any security. The important thing is that we will get rid of these guys just like you get rid of bad weather.” Danny drank it all in avidly.
Out of self-preservation, Nahum informed Danny that now that he’d completed the cadet course with distinction, he could choose his first post and appointment. Nahum had no doubt that Danny would clinch an appointment as the embassy spokesman in Rome.
Nobody had heard until then about Danny’s distinction or about the new opening in Rome. It was a scandalous appointment that made many waves in the ministry, but Danny quickly took control of the new situation. The workers’ union representatives who came to talk to him found him rolling a key chain between his fingers and smiling pleasantly. In a quiet voice, he promised them that he was still just a regular employee. He didn’t think he had any special privileges. He was just fulfilling his duty. His appointment, which had been ratified with much effort and after a lot of convincing by the all-powerful Nahum Shemer, made the news. For the first time, I saw Danny’s picture on the front pages of the evening papers. He was overjoyed. He looked at the pictures time and again and asked twice or more whether I might want to cut out the pictures and paste them into an album because there would be many more of them. I did so happily. I knew that Danny was an exceptional person and that for sure his sort of people liked seeing their own pictures in the newspapers. Mom used to say that he was born under a lucky star. I think he knew it.
At Rome’s Fiumicino Airport we were greeted by thin strands of rain. One of our suitcases never made it to the luggage claim area. The embassy driver who was waiting for us was conducting a lively conversation, complete with hand gestures, with a loud Italian clerk who didn’t seem interested in helping at all. Danny observed the whole thing with a sort of strange aloofness. By then I knew him enough to realize that the more anxious and excited he is, the quieter he gets, and only his eyes start darting in their sockets. The embassy driver located our suitcase on the KLM conveyor belt and after almost an hour and a half at the airport, we finally boarded his car. The airport seemed like a wonderful carnival of colors and sounds. I watched enchanted the strange and alien scene, so new to me. For the first time in my life, I found myself abroad. I was twelve. There were Indians wrapped in saris and wearing turbans, gypsies in tattered clothes and fiery eyes who spoke in guttural voices, Scandinavian girls with long legs wearing light-colored clothes and walking behind three dark-skinned men with thick beards. I heard Arabic again, a language whose sounds I had missed since my last visits to the Barakat shop. The airport looked like a crazy little world all its own.
The thin rain continued to trickle the whole time and fit my general mood. I felt a mix of curiosity and sweetness.
“Such crazy drivers!” Danny said, half-impressed. The embassy driver regarded it as almost an offense.
“On the contrary, they are living the road, not like the Americans who just put the car in automatic drive and wait like dunces for the car to arrive at its destination.”
“Americans are not exactly dunces,” Danny said.
“Maybe so,” the offended driver answered. “In any case, Italians are masters of the art of skilled high-speed driving. They are in full control of their faculties. It’s the foreign drivers who can’t drive and give the Italians a bad reputation.”
We arrived at the Gamla Hotel. An ornate little building run by Israelis and located in a small alley by the Piazza di Spagna. I was expecting to see Audrey Hepburn, the British Princess, vacationing in Rome under a false identity, crossing the avenue in dance steps, followed by Gregory Peck, the lucky journalist.
“It’s not the best hotel in Rome, but the embassy has a deal with them and we get special rates.” Tami, a downtown Jerusalemite who had gone to high school with Mom and now ran the place, received us warmly. “What a surprise!” she lied, for she had known for a while that we were coming, perhaps even before we did. She was a social animal.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she told Mom, “except that your Hebrew has improved. And you have had your hair done by a professional,” she pronounced with appreciation, twisting a curl, scratching her chin, and ignoring Mom’s embarrassed look and Danny’s impatience.
“So young and already the spokesman.” She examined Danny with an experienced half-seductive look. “Well done, Pnina!” She instructed a red-nosed, servile old man to bring the suitcases inside, then pushed us into a small kitchen next to the reception desk and urged us to drink a coffee that she poured from a soiled carafe.
“You will have a wonderful time here, fantastic!” she smiled and stated with authority. The Gamla was a five minutes’ walk away from the embassy. I would spend long hours and days at that hotel, with Tami who became my best friend, just like she was to the rest of the world. She ended up being right. Rome was fantastic.
I was already thirteen that autumn, but still, when Mom and Danny would walk through the gardens of Villa Borghese and I would walk between them holding both their hands, I believed that this bliss would last forever. There was no heaven like that, before or after that time. Italian mothers in casual wear would talk loudly among themselves while energetic little babies crawled around them. The water fountains would turn on and off occasionally and the amazing flower beds were in full bloom. Passers-by would walk along the paths at dusk, talking animatedly. The women were beautiful and the men were dashing. It was just as Theo had promised.
The center of the scene, according to Tami, was conceived in the circles of Rome’s powerful Jewish families who control the clothing and cosmetics industries. In their endless chats, she advised Mom to forget her dreams of studies. “As the wife of an Israeli diplomat, it will be easier for you to fit in with that crowd. Only the geeky rich kids go to university.” Mom didn’t take her up on it. She started studying 18th-century English literature and poetry at La Sapienza University where the level was high and very demanding. She took her studies very seriously. Until then, her education had been limited to an advanced secretary course and the only foreign language she spoke was French. It demanded tremendous effort and she gave it her all.
I encouraged her and gave up lots of little pampering habits such as the special pancake breakfast that she used to prepare for me as well as our kitchen talks, which became scarce. Our Roman paradise did not last long. It was quite clear, to me at least, that one of the reasons that Mom gave herself to her studies with such abandon was the long, lonely nights she spent at our beautiful and expansive apartment on Corso Francia. Danny was gone during many of the nights. He would tell us later with his usual enthusiasm about his speeches and meetings and briefings to the media. But now Mom had Tami to confirm that he was lying most of the time. Not about his success but about his spending his late evenings with local ladies. Many of them. Mom didn’t make any fuss about the stories. She didn’t try to fight reality and instead looked for something that would be her own.
“I’ve been burned enough with these things,” I heard her telling Tami over the phone once or twice. Eventually, he will grow up.” Tami gave her a long answer. “I cannot start from square one again. Not again. Not anymore.” Tami seemed to insist, or at least tried to cheer Mom up. “I am not sure that anyone will ever look at me again. It’s out of the question.” She listened impatiently and agreed with an embarrassed giggle. ”Yes, there are lots of medical students.” She listened for a moment, and then became serious and said, “Not me. Not in my house. For every such episode, I pay with eternal heartache. I just can’t.” Apparently
, she hadn’t heard of Theo’s heart gymnastics plan that improves your performance the more you use it. At any rate, instead of taking up Tami’s advice, she entered the world of Wordsworth and Shelley and would read poetry to me in the kitchen and cry. She wore a simple cotton dress and was crying quietly and I was looking at the wrinkles that were forming around her mouth. I was hoping and praying that she wouldn’t cry while reading it, although she tried to explain that she cried because the poems were so beautiful.
From time to time, Danny would return unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon. Mom was in school and he would invite me for a walk in the park. The first time it happened, I remembered Theo and was scared that he too would sit me on a bench and start touching my knees, but Danny was only looking for companionship. The hand he offered me was slightly sweaty and like a good father and an obedient daughter, we walked slowly along the pretty paths in the park. He would loosen the knot in his tie and we would walk for a long time among the screaming mothers without saying a word. Then, as if he suddenly remembered that I was there as well, he would try to loosen his tie even further and start recounting stories that were usually amusing. Like, for example, the story about the royal wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles that we had seen on television the previous evening.
“Theo told me once that Charles was a prince who had received a kiss and turned into a frog.”
“My father says many things,” Danny tried to hide an uncontrollable grimace.
“He also said that the British Mandate ended fifty years too early.”
“I don’t know about the Mandate, but princes and frogs are the stuff of popular legends,” he said in a quiet, pensive tone, touching the edge of his forelock and trying to follow the swans swimming in the lake. “The people need a prince to love. Every Brit sitting in his smelly kitchen turns on the TV and dreams. It gives them the energy to go on.” His eyes glistened just like when he’d become excited during his cadet days. He believed in the mass media. He was already considered a special talent in that field.
In the early spring, Karni came to visit from her posting in New York. She had barely graduated the cadet course, after being evaluated as ‘doubtfully adequate’. The director of the training division tried to explain to her that her appearance was not always appropriate and that her way of expressing herself was not sufficiently refined. The poor man barely stood a chance. Karni spoke to him in private about anti-women discrimination, about the relevant parliamentary lobby, and about the need to freshen up the foreign ministry’s roster. She specifically mentioned the need to replace people who held antiquated opinions that did not fit the spirit of the times and the minister’s personal vision.
The director of training, who had made a name for himself at the physical assets division as an expert in purchasing buildings abroad and developing them, didn’t quite understand all the terms Karni used. He contemplated getting offended and making an example of the young lady so that others would beware him. But on second thought, he realized that he wouldn’t build his fame on the back of this hot-tempered and dangerous devil. In his inarticulate language, he quickly backed down and apologized. He set a final admissions committee for her to be convened after an additional trial year. Karni told us about this with visible disdain while unpacking her luggage at the Gamla Hotel, looking suspiciously at Tami who was quieter than usual.
She insisted on dragging Dad, Tami, and me to a cafe-restaurant-dancing-bar that was open until late. “To get hot chocolate for the girl before she goes to bed,” she explained. Mom was at school.
“So what do you say, Taylor?” she turned to Dad. “How do you cope with the new government’s positions? This isn’t exactly the stuff that the Italian press would fall in love with.” Danny didn’t reply.
“You probably think that it’s ok to continue to represent positions that you don’t believe in, in order to avoid a slippery slope until the sane ones come back to power in Israel.” She examined him with piercing eyes. “Or maybe you’ve already fallen in love with the new policies?” she continued relentlessly. “You do understand, don’t you, that the prime minister has a huge war brewing in his stomach but he hasn’t managed yet to carry it out?” She refused to let go despite his obvious embarrassment.
“Before the great big war that we will fight in Lebanon, maybe I can help you with your little and not-so-great wars,” Danny tried to evade the issue. “What should I make of the stories about your scandalous affair in New York?”
“You can believe it. It happened and it’s over.”
“And are you broken-hearted?”
“It’s more like a passing funk. A temporary depression. Are you an expert on depressions too?” She sipped her wine slowly as if lost in thought.
“It was fantastic while it lasted, and when it went sour, it was over,” she said almost to herself. “All the guys I’ve known were great at lying to themselves and to those around them.” She sipped the wine avidly. “His name was Thomas. It still is, as a matter of fact,” she continued. “He is the spokesman for the US delegation to the UN. A week after I started dating him, I got a visit from one of the security guys with a bunch of idiotic warnings and threats about taking away my security clearance. He asked me disgusting questions about whether we had slept together and whether I felt that I was emotionally dependent on him. Of course, I couldn’t care less. There was another problem. The guy was married, and apparently lied to his wife all the time because he had told me that they were living apart. After I actually started to feel ‘emotionally dependent’ as the security guys called it, he started telling me all kinds of stories about how busy he was on the weekends. In short, I really couldn’t stand his lies any longer, and that became stronger than all my emotional dependence.” She lifted her eyes to look at me and at Tami.
“How do you handle such short hair?” Tami contributed her two cents to the discussion. “You have a wonderful face, but you have to work harder at nurturing yourself. You’ll see that they will lie less.”
“What do you say, Taylor?” Karni ignored Tami and quickly changed the subject. “Have you already conquered the heart of your Galician4 Ambassador? Or did that already happen long ago? There isn’t much left for him to teach you, is there?”
Karni was among the few people who could talk to Danny this way. Like the rest of the cadet class, he too admired her for her shrewdness and her courage.
“She doesn’t fit for the ministry. She’s too good for us,” he commented, observing her as she got up to dance with a dark-skinned young man who approached us and invited her with heart-stirring elegance. They moved through the darkness, hugging like old lovers. Tami was right. Karni had high cheekbones and in the darkness, she looked softer and mysterious. After three consecutive dances, she broke free of him and they parted ways, giggling.
“Not a bad-looking hunk. Good shoulders and a cute butt, but stupid as hell. Totally wrong for me. I still fall in love with intellect,” she sighed. “And those are usually either married, or liars, or both.” Her eyes became teary.
I looked around and I don’t see anyone who could be interested in me. Maybe Karni understands how hard it is to be alone. She is seeking the truth and she is ready to pay almost any price for it. Danny obviously chose a different path of smiles, compromises, and little white lies. And yet it was important for him to gain Karni’s trust and approval.
* * *
Chapter 10
In June, just like Karni predicted, another military operation started in Lebanon. We went in once again to free the towns in Israel’s Galilee region once and for all from the threat of Katyusha rockets and terrorism.
“Now that the defense minister has finally got his little war,” Dad told Mom in a moment of candor. “Nothing will stop him. He is enjoying it so much that he won’t let anyone ruin it for him.”
The foreign minister’s media advisor would call Danny and they would talk for hours on the phone, discussing the situation and the defense minister who
had got us into this trouble. Usually, Danny would conclude by saying, “It’s OK, there are no marketing issues; they’ll buy it over here. Of course, it isn’t easy for them. The Italians are basically bastards, but they just hate the Palestinians even more than they hate us.”
But the ‘marketing issues’ did finally appear. One morning we were all riding together; Mom was going to the University, Danny was going to the embassy, and I was being driven to school as a special gesture. Danny was taking a different route that I hadn’t been on before.
“Where are we going?” I became alert.
“I’m just changing the route.” How can he change the route if he only drives me to school twice a year?
“Do you mean you are taking a different route for security reasons?”
“Something like that.”
“Did something happen?” Mom asked.
“We are in serious trouble,” he replied. “The Christian Phalanges started massacring the Palestinians in the refugee camps and we are in control of the area, so we are responsible.”
“Who said that we are responsible?”
“I tried explaining it to the ambassador and I talked to our people in Israel. I could have planted a story in the newspaper and tried to pin it on someone else, but Nahum is convinced that the train has already left the station, and he is probably right.”
“What are they saying at the ministry?” she had known the ministry years before he had.
“They’re not saying anything. As usual, we can’t expect anything from them.”
“Is this what Nahum said?” He didn’t catch the irony in her voice.
“He says that this government can’t even dodge responsibility when it needs to. It’s going to be very hard. These hypocritical Italians are going to pounce on us.” We drove on in silence.