Monday the Rabbi Took Off (19 page)

If the tourist pair had entered, the waiter would have politely taken their order, served them, and then paid them no further attention. The other customers would have ignored them, too. even to the point of not looking in their direction. Just as Abdul, with an open book in front of him as he sipped his coffee, was ignored. Because he was not of them. His clothes, the book – all proclaimed him to be of a higher status and even a student. He had already been there twenty minutes and was sipping at his second cup of coffee when Mahmoud came in. He did not hail Abdul but wandered over to the pool table in the rear and watched for a few minutes, then moved on to one of the tables where a card game was in progress. He spoke to several of the card-players in friendly joking fashion. Then he took a stool and brought it over to Abdul’s table and sat down beside him.

Abdul continued to read his book, but he nodded the waiter over.

“Coffee.” said Mahmoud.

When the coffee had been brought and the waiter returned to his customary station by the sink. Mahmoud said. “We found out where she lives, but Leila thinks we ought to wait awhile.”

Abdul shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s easy like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It’s a new apartment, a whole new development. He’s the only one in the block, and his apartment is on the street floor. The apartment house fronts on Shalom Avenue, but his entrance is way at the end. next to an embankment. And it’s a new street; no houses on the other side.”

“So?”

“So Leila thinks maybe it’s too easy. Maybe it’s some kind of a trap.”

“Women!” said Abdul scornfully. “They worry all the time – about everything.”

“No, Abdul, Leila is not like that. She’s got a head on her. And she’s as good as any man in the movement. But Leila found out that in Tel Aviv he lived on the top floor even though his wife was sick and the stairs were hard for her.

Why would he take an apartment on a street floor here?”

“Because his wife is sick and climbing stairs is hard for her. You just explained it.” said Abdul. “Besides, apartments are not so easy to come by in Jerusalem.”

“But if he is ordered up here, wouldn’t the government see to it that he got the kind of apartment he’d want?”

“The government doesn’t even bother finding apartments for some of their real big shots, heads of ministries, when they move them up here. Believe me, they wouldn’t go out of their way for him. If that’s what’s worrying Leila, she’s an old woman. Get word to the Swiss to have the gadget ready. And to check it. Last time it went off prematurely.”

“There’s a place between two entrances where he parks his car.” Mahmoud said. “He rides right over the sidewalk and parks between those two buildings. There’s a little space. The Swiss can rig up something that we can attach to his car –”

“Was that Leila’s idea?” Abdul asked contemptuously. “That’s a wonderful idea! You’d wait until late at night so that the raising and lowering of the hood can be easily heard. No, the best way is the regular gadget. It’s still daylight when we plant it, and if you’re walking along the street, no one would think of stopping you to ask what you’re doing there.”

“All right. I’ll tell the Swiss.” He sipped at his coffee, and Abdul turned back to his book. Then. “Leila was wondering about this American you are so friendly with.”

Abdul closed his book and turned to face his friend for the first time. “So Leila now feels she can decide who my friends will be? Does she approve of my friendship with you?”

“No, but Abdul – an American and a Jew.”

“I have plans for the American.”

“She thinks maybe he has plans for you.”

“Roy?” Abdul tossed his head back and laughed. “She thinks Roy may be playing me!

“She saw him in a restaurant with an older man once. They ate their whole meal in silence. But they staved on after everybody had finished and left. They were just sitting drinking coffee and not saying a word. It looked suspicious.”

“Tell Leila to stop looking for agents everywhere. That was his father.”

“No. Abdul, because she went back after a few minutes. She told the waiter she thought she had left her scarf on the chair. And they were quarreling. The young one, your friend, was speaking harshly to the older man. No son would talk that way to his father.”

Abdul smiled. “You don’t know Americans.”

The rabbi met him at the King David where Stedman shook his hand effusively as though he were an old friend he had not seen in years. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you agreed to come. Rabbi. I called you on the spur of the moment. If I had thought about it. I wouldn’t have because of the Sabbath.”

“I gathered that you were anxious that I come. Besides, my Sabbath routine has changed since coming here. I don’t always go to the synagogue.”

“Oh?”

“I go when I feel like it now. It had become a matter of habit with me in America, and I didn’t want it to be a matter of habit.”

“It will have to be when you go back, won’t it?”

“If I go back.”

Stedman waited for him to go on and, when he did not, decided not to press him. “Roy’s going directly to the auto dealer’s house.” Dan said as they set off in that direction. “And I thought this would be a good chance for you to meet him. I called and told him about our little visit to the garage and that I might drop in to see Memavet. Well, he was pretty excited. He suggested we go today, and I agreed because I didn’t want to disappoint him. You know, if I had said it was the Sabbath and maybe we’d go next week, he might think I was trying to put him off. I’m sure this is the key to the problem of our association.”

“You mean buying his friendship?11

“No. of course not. But while he’s at the university, when do I get a chance to see him? For dinner once a week maybe. And he usually has to get back early. But if I had a car. he’d take a few days off every now and then and we’d drive up to the Galilee or down to the Negev. We’d see a lot of each other. I know people all over the country. He’d get a chance to meet them. Israelis, and he’d get their point of view. Back at school, he’d have a different slant on things. He’d –”

The rabbi saw the street sign. “Here’s Shalom Avenue now.”

“Good. We’re meeting him in front of the apartment block. It’s quite a way down. Tell me. do you know anything about cars?”

“I can drive one. That’s about all.”

“Then if you don’t mind. I’ll just say that we had a prearranged date, and you agreed to come along.”

“All right.”

Roy was already there when they arrived, studying the sign in front of the new building. It was a large sign and was already considerably weathered. It stated that the Resnik Construction Corporation was going to erect a large complex of apartment houses – central heating, central gas supply, outlets for television and radio antennas, adequate closet space – and that it would cover the entire block. According to the architect’s drawing painted in one corner, there would be seven entrances on Kol Tov Street and a like number on Mazel Tov Street, and the two rows of houses would enclose a sizable area which would be landscaped with trees and shrubbery, shaded walks and terraces. Little stick figures were shown walking along the paths. The original notice stated that the apartments would be ready for occupancy early in 1971, but it had been painted over, and it now read: READY FOR IMMEDIATE OCCUPANCY.

The rabbi looked about him. at the vacant lot they had just passed, an acre or two of stones and rubble with here and there a patch of grass or a low bush to give a touch of green to the yellow clayey soil. The few trees were low gnarled olive trees, with tortured, twisted branches. Beyond the house was another such lot, but this a little less depressing by the accident of a Bedouin sitting on a rock eating his lunch while his little flock of goats nuzzled at the few bits of greenery.

Mazel Tov Street, like Kol Tov which paralleled it on the other side of the complex, was as yet unpaved, narrow and rutty, and slippery with the thick yellow mud of Jerusalem.

“What was it, number One? Then it must be down at the other end.” said Roy. “This is number Thirteen.”

Fastidiously, they picked their way along Mazel Tov Street – a street by virtue of a couple of passes by a bulldozer – hopping from one dry patch to the next until they came to the embankment at the end. They looked over it curiously at the roadway below, then walked back to the door of the house.

“There doesn’t seem to be anybody living here,” said Roy.

“There’s a name card in the letterbox.” observed his father. “This must be it.”

He knocked on the door, and a gruff voice from within called out. “Come in. The door is open.”

They entered to a large, bare room. They saw a few folding chairs, but nothing in the way of furniture – no tables, no rugs, no curtains, no lamps. The lone figure in the room did not rise, but motioned them to sit down.

He was a short, thin man, and almost totally bald. He was in pajamas and bathrobe. A vein throbbed perceptibly in his right temple, and periodically a tic developed in the cheekbone below which he seemed able to control by a quick grimace, a pulling away of the right corner of his mouth. Otherwise, the corners of his mouth drooped so that the lower lip seemed to push against the upper in a perpetual pout.

“You are the people who made inquiries at the shop the other day?” He spoke in a throaty, guttural Hebrew.

“That’s right.” said Dan. “My name is Stedman, and this is my son. This is my friend. Small.” A natural delicacy kept him from identifying him as a rabbi.

On a narrow marble shelf attached to the wall about shoulder height, a kind of mantelpiece, there was a bottle and some glasses. Memavent poured himself a glass and looked inquiringly at his visitors. “Some brandy? I’m afraid it’s all I can offer you.” When they shook their heads, he went on. “I’ve got a little cold and this helps.” And indeed, his voice was very hoarse, and he ended with a spasm of coughing.

“That sounds like a pretty bad cold.” said Stedman.

“Yes, my neighbor across the way. who is herself not well, recommended her doctor to me. He was on my Kupat Cholim list, so I called and he said he’d come – today; tomorrow, maybe the day after, whenever he gets here. In this country you have to learn to be patient. My furniture, rugs, a sofa and some chairs, I ordered them more than a month ago, before I moved in. I’ll be lucky if I get them in another month. These chairs and my bed and a table in the kitchen, I brought them from my old place. But you’re not interested in my troubles. You want to buy a car. Tell me what you want, how much you want to spend, and I’ll get it for you.” He had switched from Hebrew to Yiddish and, when he got on the subject of cars, to a heavily accented English, as if he wanted to be sure they understood every word. This was the pattern he followed for the rest of the meeting – Hebrew for general matters. Yiddish for personal matters and English when he talked business.

“You don’t have any cars actually in stock?”

“No. I’m a broker. You wish to buy an apartment or a house, you go to a broker. You don’t expect him to be the owner of the house. The same with stocks and bonds. Why not with cars? In this country, a man comes to stay for a year, a university professor maybe. Then there’s a death in the family, and he has to rush back to England or the States, and he has no idea when he will return. The best thing for him to do is to sell his car. If he takes it to a secondhand dealer, he will get a fraction of its value. If he advertises in the papers, he may have to wait who knows how long. But if he comes to me. I can probably sell it for him in a day or two and at a better price than the secondhand dealer will offer him. although perhaps not as good as what he could get if he sold it himself. How do I do it? People know of me. One tells another. So people come to me – those who want to buy and those who want to sell, and it’s just a matter of matching them up, the buyers and the sellers.”

“Are there many like you in the used car business?” asked Roy.

“I don’t know of any others, young man, and if I did. you wouldn’t expect me to give you their names, now would you? And it’s not always used cars. You’d be surprised how many times a dealer in new cars finds it necessary to sell off one or more of his cars at a sizable discount – quietly, discreetly. And at how much of a discount will depend on what his situation is. And I am apt to have information about that, too.”

“You got a line on a new car now?” asked Roy eagerly.

“Not right now. How soon do you want a car? How much do you want to spend? What make are you interested in?”

They talked cars for a while, largely Roy and Memavet, with Dan Stedman occasionally interjecting a remark. They discussed the relative merits of Fiats and Peugeots, of Renaults and Volkswagens; power and fuel economy; cost and resale value. Finally Memavet said. “I think I know what you want, and I’ve got a line on just the car for you. Be here tonight at seven o’clock, and I’ll have something for you.”

“How can you be sure?” asked Dan.

“When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, my friend, you get to know your customers,” said Memavet.

“Did you originally have a car agency?” asked the rabbi, curious about this strange man and his gruff manner. “Or did you start out as a broker?”

Memavet grimaced. “I came to this country without any money, and with no friends or relatives to help out. I came with just the clothes on my back, and they were practically rags. I knew cars, or rather gas engines. So if I had been healthy, I would have become an auto mechanic. But since I was a sick man, just risen from the dead you might say –”

“What do you mean, risen from the dead? Then your name

“That’s right. Memavet means ‘from death.’ The government here is eager to have you change your name to a Hebrew one. You pay a lira and fill out a form and that’s it. So why should I continue to carry a name given to my grandfather or great-grandfather by some Cossack, when for a lira I could change it to something meaningful.

I rose from the dead, so I called myself Memavet.” He laughed, a throaty gurgle of a laugh, pleased at the effect on his visitors.