Cafe Nevo (29 page)

Rina urged him to talk to Arik, to hear his explanation, and for the sake of peace he agreed. Arik came twice to speak with him, but each time it ended badly, with raised voices and slammed doors. So great were Uri's anger and vicarious shame that he could not spend five minutes in a room with Arik without losing his temper, but so great was his love that he could not bear to lose his only son. Thus he did what he had to do: he found a justification he could live with. All wars, but particularly this one, had two fronts, the military and the political. Arik had not dropped out; he had merely transferred from one front to another. Uri's theory seemed confirmed when Arik took the job in the Welfare Ministry and immediately began organizing the local youths. He was disappointed when Arik joined Sheli instead of Labor, but it was a warm kind of disappointment: choosing the radical over the practical program was a mistake, but the right mistake for a young man to make.

Thus, after a proper period of penance and hard work, Arik was invited home to the kibbutz for a weekend. At Sabbath dinner in the communal dining room, Arik Eshel sat at the first table between his mother and his father, facing the kibbutz members, who thereby understood that a reconciliation had taken place.

But despite this outward reconciliation, the rift remained in their hearts, so that when on infrequent occasions they found themselves alone together, without Rina's buffering presence, they soon grew mute with embarrassment and pain. Of the two, Uri suffered more from this state of affairs, for he was of an age to look back, Arik to look forward.

Late one night, Arik arrived at Ein Hashofet, knocked softly on his parents' door, and let himself in. Uri, for whom midnight awakenings portended war or disaster, pulled on his pants in a panic and ran into the living room. Hurrying forward to meet him, Arik thrust a bundle of papers into his hands. “Read these, please,” he said.

Half an hour later they all sat in the living room, Rina lying on the sofa wrapped in an afghan, holding Arik's hand. As Uri reread the photocopied documents, his usual air of befuddlement brought on by Arik's presence gave way to his sharp-eyed political mien, and when he finished reading, he looked at Arik and in a voice free of any paternal sentiment ordered him to approach. Arik obeyed instantly, slipping his hand from his mother's and crossing the room in three strides. He straddled a chair across the dining room table, facing his father with his back to Rina.

And though this was the very thing she had prayed for in her private foxhole, Rina's mouth filled with bitter gall as the thought came from somewhere outside her that she would be better off dead, for the dead are remembered, while the dying are shunned. Her son had deserted her.

Such thoughts came and went with increasing frequency as her disease progressed and she began to see that it was her death, not the world's, that was approaching. Every time life showed signs of planning to continue after her demise, a jealous wrath arose in her—and then subsided, without residue of guilt or shame. She regarded these rages as symptoms of her disease, as foreign to her as the cancer that was ravaging her body.

“These are photocopies,” said Uri. “Do you have the originals?”

“They're in safekeeping with a friend.”

“Is he reliable?”

“She is.”

Rina looked up sharply but said nothing.

“Where did you get them?” Uri demanded.

“They're dynamite, aren't they?”

“You know they are. Answer the question.”

“You don't want to know.”

“The hell I don't.”

“I stole them.”

No sound from Rina; Uri's face was thoughtful, wary. “How did you know the papers existed and where to look for them?”

“I didn't. It was chance.”

“I see. Am I to understand, then, that you have taken up larceny as your latest career and that in the course of business you stumbled across this?”

“Not quite. It was a one-shot deal. You could say,” Arik said daringly, “we chose our victim well.”

“We?”

“I.”

Uri grunted. “Who was it, Pincas Gordon?”

“Yes.”

“May I see the papers?” Rina's clear voice called from the sofa. Arik carried them over. “Did you take anything else?” she asked her son.

“Money,” he answered, not looking at her.

There was a pause; then Rina said, “How much?”

“About twenty thousand.”

“Dollars?”

He nodded, and walked back to the table. He forced himself to meet his father's eyes, expecting anger and bitter disappointment but to his surprise finding a neutral, speculative look instead.

“You blew it,” Uri said softly. “You're a thief. You can't do a goddamn thing with that.” He nodded toward the file, which Rina was skimming at high speed.

“I didn't take it for myself—”

“It doesn't matter a good goddamn why you took it.”

“The money is intact. I thought of returning it.”

“Don't even think it!” snapped Rina. Both men spun toward her. “It was bad enough your stooping to robbery, but it would be
unforgivable
for you to return a cent to that bloody tapeworm Gordon.”

Uri's eyes sought hers. “What choice does he have? If he doesn't give back the money, he can't make use of the documents.”

“Send him a receipt,” she said.

Arik and Uri stared at her, then turned toward one another.

“She's right,” Uri said at length, in a wondering tone. “What thief sends his victim a receipt?” He leaned forward and slapped Arik's shoulder. “Give the money to Peace Now and send the shmuck the receipt. He'll choke on it!”

“He knows I took it,” Arik said, and Uri broke off in mid-laugh. Again he sought Rina's eyes, and they spoke wordlessly, as a lifetime of political collaboration had taught them to, with eyes and eyebrows and little shrugs and nods. Finally Rina said, “You're right, it doesn't matter.”

“Why not?” demanded Arik, who as a child had always resented these silent, over-his-head colloquies.

She said patiently, “Because as soon as you approached Brenner, he would know who the thief was, anyway. As it is, they're probably
more
nervous, knowing it's you. Which is not to say that you weren't deplorably careless.”

Rina levered herself slowly to her feet, using the sofa's armrest. As the afghan fell away, Arik noticed that she had lost weight, quite a bit of weight, since he saw her last.

“The person you gave the originals to,” she said, “was it Sarita Blume?”

Arik laughed shortly. “Your information is as impeccable as ever, Mother.”

It was not her information but her intuition, which increased even as her power to act on the resultant insights waned. Rina saw into his heart; nor did he deny her intuition, but returned her gaze levelly. Lit with mournful love, her eyes shone upon her son; and for the first time since her illness was diagnosed she experienced a lightening of spirit: a joy free of resentment and a great rush of that bewildered, atheistic gratitude that knows not where to turn. She would never see him a father, nor would she know her grandchildren: those were unconsolable regrets. But she had lived to see her golden boy reach full manhood, and might yet meet his wife, and those were no small compensations.

“Bring her to me,” Rina cried softly. “Bring her soon.”

“As soon as I get out of this mess,” Arik said. She sputtered with laughter.

“This ‘mess' will be with you for the rest of your life. I can't wait that long.” She went over and kissed him lingeringly on the forehead, as she had when he was small. She smelled to him of medicine and something else, something sweet, organic, and corrupt. “I'm tired. I'm going back to bed. Work it out between you.” She crossed to the bedroom and disappeared inside, leaving the door ajar.

As they listened to the weary creaking of the bedsprings, Uri's face tightened, and he grimaced and put his hand on his gut. After a moment he straightened, and he turned sharply to Arik.

“So much for Gordon,” he said, and with the air of one who knows the answer and is only testing asked, “What's your next move?”

“I'd thought of going to the press,” Arik replied, with the same air.

Uri clicked his tongue impatiently. “A waste. All you'd get would be a mini-sensation, a few headlines, questions asked in Knesset: ‘Is it true, Minister, that you have been speculating in West Bank land while serving on the Ministerial Settlement Committee?' ‘No, sir, it is not. Next question.' The P.M. can't afford to rock the coalition boat. He sets up a committee to appoint a committee to determine the appropriate forum to investigate the allegations. Eventually the scandal dies of old age.”

“That's what I figured,” Arik said.

“You see”— Uri leaned forward to make his point— “in this case your bark is stronger than your bite. Brenner will be more put off by the prospect of scandal than he would be harmed by it. If you defuse the money situation, you can approach him and set your own terms. He'll bitch and cry, but he'll meet them. He's a prudent man.”

“What do I ask for?”

Uri hissed, his eyes flashing contempt. “Is there nothing you want?”

“I got into this because of the Jaffa center. I want it reopened.”

“That's peanuts! How often do you get a Minister by the balls? Make use of it, man!” It was not the father's voice, but the general's, and Arik did not fail to notice that for the first time his father had addressed him not as boy but as man.

“I want a lot of things,” he said defensively. “It's like suddenly being granted three wishes: what the hell do you choose?”

“Good health,” quipped Rina from the bedroom, and laughed alone.

“Play your cards right,” Uri said, “and you'll get a lot more than three wishes. For one thing this could launch your political career.”

“The truth is, I know exactly what to ask for,” Arik said. “It's just that I'm not sure I want to play the game.”

There was silence in the living room, a listening silence from the bedroom. Arik heard the ticking of the clock that used to measure his father's coming; now it seemed to mark another approach. He looked at Uri and for the first time saw him not as his father but as a man, an old man: his lion's mane gray and rumpled; his broad neck, wide as the head it supported, creased and wrinkled; loose skin dangling in folds beneath his throat. The hair on his arms was also gray, and there were dark spots on his hands that Arik had never noticed before. But the arms were as firmly muscled, the tensed sinews as clearly etched, as ever he remembered.

“Why not?” Uri asked at last, through clenched teeth.

“I don't have the faith. I don't believe that if we work hard, it will all come out okay.”

“Thank God,” Uri muttered.

“Sometimes it seems like we've lost before we even begin.”

“That's true. If you've grasped that on your own, there's hope for you yet.

Arik gaped. “What kind of doubletalk is that?”

“That's politics. The name of the game is you never get what you want. The art is in losing profitably.” Arik made a disbelieving sound. Uri reached across to grasp his arm. “You say you don't want to play the game; but I'm telling you that it's the only game in town, and what's more, it's a game you can never win. You can't lose, either, except by default. Look.” He took a pad and pen from the telephone table and drew two points connected by a fine. The line he labeled “C,” the dots “A” and “B.” “A is what you've got,” he said. “B is what you dream. C is a constant. Nudge reality toward the dream, and the dream recedes. Move away from the dream and it follows, diminishing as it comes. Men can never reach their goals; all they can do is shove reality in the right direction.”

“I can't believe you really feel that way. That's pure defeatism, the politics of despair.”

“No, no,” said Uri, waving a stubby finger in Arik's face. “Quitting is the politics of despair. Doing nothing, giving up. Consider Herzl: he did more than any man to establish the State, yet not only did he die without seeing it, but he lived
knowing
he would never see it. Because of his perseverance, it happened. It came to pass.”

In his father's glowing face Arik saw the past, what was and could have been, not what would be. “Times have changed,” he said, “the country has changed, to an extent you don't perceive here. Kahane is growing stronger, Arik Sharon is a national hero. Fascism is on the rise.”

“So what?”

“The country is moving away from everything I believe in and value, heading in the exact opposite direction.”

“So? What's your conclusion?” Uri paused for an answer that did not come. “That it's every man for himself now? Maybe you intend to make personal use of those documents? They're worth a fortune.”

Arik glared at him angrily, not deigning to answer. After a moment Uri nodded slowly, a slight, inappropriate smile on his lips.