Tanner's Virgin

Page 13

“But of course,” he said, doubtfully.
“I’ll have to get more to put in. As soon as I find Phaedra and get back from-” I realized suddenly that I was running off at the mouth. “-from wherever I’m going,” I finished.
I didn’t want to close the account. I withdrew three thousand dollars in American funds, leaving so little that the bank obviously was only continuing to serve me out of a sense of noblesse oblige. I changed some of the dollars into Swiss francs and some into British pounds, and on a hunch I bought a couple hundred dollars’ worth of gold from a wholesale jeweler on the Hirschengraben.
I killed time at a movie. I had already entered the theater before finding out that the film was one of those I had seen at Portsmouth, the Great Train Robbery thing, with all of the voices dubbed in German. The ending remained the same. Goddamned Scotland Yard caught the lot of them.
I took a taxi to the airport. I couldn’t go home and I couldn’t go back to England. I couldn’t go to Kabul because the spies would tear me apart. I couldn’t go to India or Pakistan because it would cost too much. I had only three thousand dollars and that would be barely enough to buy Phaedra’s freedom. I couldn’t go to Iran because the only direct flights went through either Athens or Istanbul, and I couldn’t go to Athens or Istanbul for political reasons. I probably could have gone to Baghdad, but I wasn’t sure how seriously the Iraqis took my involvement with the Kurdish rebels. I probably could have gone to Amman, unless the Jordanians knew me as a member of the Stern Gang.
I felt like Philip Nolan, the man without a country. I felt like a displaced person, a refugee, homeless, unwanted-
So where I went was Tel Aviv.
Chapter 7
Tourists entering Israel had their passports checked at length. Their luggage, too, received careful scrutiny. I had no way of knowing whether this was a matter of routine or if the inspectors had been tipped off to some special circumstances, but it was obvious in any event that M. Paul Mornay’s Belgian passport would not get me into the Promised Land.
So Paul Mornay left the tourist line and joined another line composed of those planning to immigrate permanently to Israel, and in this line his passport did not receive a second glance. In Hebrew I told the attendant I was fulfilling my lifelong dream of returning to the homeland of my people. In Hebrew he told me that I would indeed be welcome. “You already speak the language,” he said. “That will be of great value to you. And it encourages us to welcome newcomers from Europe. The country is drowning in a sea of Sephardim. And a sea of paper – consider the cursed forms we must fill out! But I shall gladly help you.”
He gladly helped me, and in short order M. Paul Mornay had filed his preliminary applications for Israeli citizenship, stating that he was a Jew and had a Jewish mother, this last being Israel’s sine qua non of Hebritude. “So you see that we are stricter than Hitler,” the immigration officer joked. “With just one Jewish grandparent one could be admitted to Auschwitz, but one must have a Jewish mother to enter Israel.”
I’ve no idea whether the real Paul Mornay, aliveh sholem, had a Jewish mother. Neither of my own parents were Jewish, although I do remember dimly that a sister of my father’s had married a man named Moritz Steinhardt, at which point the rest of the family ceased speaking with her. I have never been wholly certain whether she was ostracized because her husband was Jewish or German.
But as I filled out the immigration forms I felt a sudden bond of kinship with Minna’s little friend Miguel. He stayed home on Jewish holidays, and I was a member of the Stern Gang and a citizen-to-be of Eretz Yisroel. As the rye bread advertisements put it, you don’t have to be Jewish.
I stood at the window of Gershon’s apartment and looked out at downtown Tel Aviv. “Many Americans compare our city to San Francisco,” Gershon said, “but I have never been there. Do you notice the resemblance?”
I did now. In the taxi from the airport, I could think only that the driver punished his cab like a New Yorker.
“I have spoken to Zvi,” Gershon went on. “You recall that he was with us in Prague when we first met you, Evan. He must stop at synagogue for his father’s yahrzeit but will be over later. You remember also Ari and Haim?”
“Yes.”
“Haim is with the Army in Sinai. It is months since I have seen him. And Ari. When you saw him, he still had both his legs. He lost one in the June war. His jeep took a direct hit, he was lucky to live at all. So now he has an administrative job in Hebron. A desk job, preparing orders for the management of the new lands of Greater Israel. It is no fun for him, as you can imagine. But there is talk of his running for a seat in the Knesset in the next elections. A wooden leg will produce almost as many votes in Israeli politics as a wooden head.”
“In American politics, too.”
“I have heard this.” Gershon ran a hand through his thick black curls. “So much for old times. Zvi you will soon meet again, and the others must wait until your next visit. But you must be starving. I have an Arab girl who comes in twice a week to clean. She comes tomorrow, which accounts for the appearance of this apartment.” He shrugged. “But I must do my own cooking, and my skills in that area limit me to sandwiches. Are you a very close observer of the dietary laws, Evan?”
“Not really.”
“A bit of butter on a meat sandwich-”
“Would not bother me at all.”
“Thank God,” Gershon said. He returned from the kitchen with a plate of sandwiches on thinly sliced dark rye. I took a bite and looked at him.
“Zebra sandwiches, Evan. You have probably not had anything of the sort in America.”
“Never.”
“The flesh of the zebra is virtually unknown outside of Israel. It is said that zebra tastes remarkably like the flesh of the prohibited swine, yet the zebra parteth the hoof in obedience to the Mosaic injunction. These sandwiches, for example, may taste rather like ham sandwiches.”
“There is a remarkable resemblance.”
“The zebra is a heaven-sent animal.” Gershon’s eyes shone. “For example, a portion of his flesh when fried is an exceptionally good accompaniment to eggs for breakfast. They say that it tastes much like bacon, but of course I have no basis for comparison.”
I finished one of the sandwiches. “The, uh, zebras,” I said. “Are they imported?”
“Oh, no. The raising of zebras is a native Israeli industry. Yet perhaps because the breeders wish to protect their secrets, one rarely actually sees these fine black-and-white striped animals anywhere in the nation. However, on a drive through the countryside one might hear their characteristic cry from within one of their pens.”
“What sound do zebras make?”
“Oink,” Gershon said. “Ah, Evan, my comrade, one requires a Talmudic turn of mind to contend with life in modern Israel. Between the theocracy and the round-shouldered ghetto dwellers and the lice-ridden Sephardim, one has one’s hands full in letting the country take her place among the nations of the world. Do you know that there are fools who would return Sinai to Nasser and the Golan Heights to Syria? There are even those who would give back Jerusalem to Hussein. But not a square foot of territory shall be returned.”
“There is talk that Sinai and the west bank of the Jordan might be given back as part of a peace settlement,” I said.
“Peace?” Gershon sighed heavily. “Peace,” he said. “Peace is a bottle of beer, Evan.” This statement confused me until a while later, after Zvi had joined us, Gershon served us some local beer. The brand name was Shalom. “We have no need of peace, Evan. In what sort of war does the victor make concessions to the vanquished? Almost a year and a half ago, in June, after years of provocation, the Arab attack was crushed in a lightning war of six days. Now the deserts shall bloom and we shall have renewed living space for the Jews of the world who will return to their homeland. Who can even speak of peace? Every day there are new border incidents. The people grow strong with victory. They have a sense of their historic mission…”
The mind plays tricks, translating phrases from one language to another. Lightning war becomes blitzkrieg, living space metamorphoses into lebensraum. I remembered the Sternist oath I had sworn in a cold-water flat on Attorney Street, pledging to work for the restoration of Israel to its historic boundaries from Dan to Beersheba on both sides of the Jordan. The language of the oath, I realized, was somewhat inconclusive; Dan and Beersheba set the north-south limits, but just how far “Greater Israel” might extend east and west of the Jordan was subject to varying interpretation.
Unwelcome thoughts. I bit deeply into my zebra sandwich, chewed, swallowed. And, when Gershon paused, I began to talk about Afghanistan and a girl named Deborah Horowitz.
I went over the story a second time when Zvi joined us. The tale of Phaedra’s fate could not have had a more appreciative audience. A nice Jewish girl kidnaped by Arabs. I explained that the Afghans were not Arabs. But they were Moslems, were they not? I admitted that they were. Moslems, Arabs, it was the same thing, was it not? Well, I said, one could stretch a point. Zvi cited the commandment in the Torah that the Daughters of Israel should not prostitute themselves. This sidetracked Gershon momentarily; he began reminiscing about a Yemenite immigrant in Jaffa, a hooker with almost unbelievable muscular control. Zvi glanced sharply at him and he abandoned the subject in midsentence.
“We will go with you,” Zvi said, firmly. “We will rescue this Deborah and return her to the land of her forefathers. We shall lead her out of the land of Afghanistan, out of the house of bondage.”
The thought was a tempting one. I extended the metaphor mentally and imagined the waters parting so that Zvi and Gershon and Phaedra and I might cross the Arabian Sea on dry land.
“You have work here,” I said. “And the rescue of Deborah may be accomplished with little difficulty.” I wished I believed this. “I need only to get from here to Jordan. Then I will be able to proceed by myself.”
“Ah. You wish to enter Jordan?”
“Yes.”
“But this will be no problem for you, will it, Evan?” Zvi smiled. “You are an American and can enter Jordan at will.”
Gershon said, “But he has been to Israel. Will Hussein admit him?”
“Perhaps. The Egyptians are stricter about that sort of thing, of course, but the Jordanians-”
I cut in, explaining that I didn’t happen to have an American passport handy, and couldn’t enter Jordan with it if I did. I would have to slip across the border. “I suppose this would have been easier before the war,” I added, “when the Jordanians held the west bank. But if you could tell me the best place to cross-”
The two exchanged glances. Zvi said something to Gershon about the absolute secrecy of their mission, and Gershon pointed out that I was a loyal Sternist and had performed great service in Czechoslovakia, not to mention my generous financial gifts to the organization. Zvi thought this over and decided in my favor.