The Drifters (34 page)

‘You’re very attractive,’ Bruce said. ‘You lose two stone, you’d be a knocker, just like Mini-Pam.’

‘You think so? You think that if I put my mind to it?’ She halted this line of daydreaming, for she knew how futile it was, then said, ‘You read books and things, don’t you? Ordinarily, you’d never look at a girl like me … or like Mini-Pam either, would you? But this is a vacation.’

Bruce, standing by the window where Mini-Pam had often stood in the sunlight, her slim legs forming a provocative arch, suddenly saw Fat-Pam as a human being, a rather plump young woman from the poorer section of London on what might prove to be her only holiday in Europe. With a mixture of kindness and condescension he said, ‘Why don’t you move in here?’ and she replied, not ashamed of the joy she derived from his words, ‘Could I?’ and he said grandiloquently, ‘Why not?’

It was an invitation bearing consequences he could not have foreseen, for Fat-Pam was one of those rare human beings in whom all segments of personality were at peace and who lived solely for the purpose of conveying that peace to others. She possessed a graciousness—nay, a nobility—of manner that Bruce had never encountered before: his two grandfathers were ambitious men; his mother and father were kept tense on the sensations of history; Mini-Pam devoured. But this girl was an eighteen-year-old shop assistant with an insight so profound that it gave Bruce a new concept of humanity. When she made love, it was as if she absorbed him into the timeless bosom of the universe, beyond human beings and pettiness of any kind.

She thought only of him. ‘You must go on to university,’ she said. ‘You have something important to contribute. Lor, it would be a crime to waste it.’

He said, ‘You use words in an interesting way,’ and she said, ‘I go to the cinema a lot. I listen to the way Richard Burton and Laurence Harvey speak. I always say you don’t have to be a slob if you don’t want to be.’

‘Where’d you get your ideas? Your mother?’

‘She ran off. Drinking too much. She stole money from all the neighbors and ran off.’

‘Your father?’

‘He never had any ideas. He wasn’t a bad man, but he was weak. I earn more money now than he ever did. I didn’t really blame my mother for running away. It isn’t easy for a woman never to have a new dress.’

‘But your sensible approach? Where did it come from?’

‘We had a very good minister … for a while. He was consumptive, and I’m sure he knew he was dying. He wanted to tell us all he knew, but only the important things. I used to look at my mother, and my father, and then at him. I was about ten—maybe eleven—and I
thought: There’s one hell of a difference between strong men and pitiful men. Of course, my father could have punched him in the nose. In that way my father was strong. But between him and the minister there was a gulf so enormous …’ She paused, passed a pudgy hand over her face and concluded, ‘I decided then and there that I would be strong—in the good meaning of the word.’

The longer Bruce shared his room with this generous girl, the more surely he knew that the English system was wrong. Fat-Pam in her bucolic way, Mini-Pam in her mercurial—both were alike cut off from what in another country would have been normal attainment. A dead and heavy hand bore down upon them; call it tradition, class consciousness, an unimaginative education, whatever it was it exacted a grievous toll. In Israel the two Pams would have served in the army and acquired a functional education. They would not escape being dragged into lives of maximum service. Of course, Mini-Pam on maneuvers in the Negev would have been just as boy-hungry as in London; there were many girls in Haifa and Tel Aviv like her, but after they had slept with their quota and brought their cravings into balance, they found logical places and were none the worse for it.

In America the two Pamelas would probably try college. Mini-Pam would bust out the first year, probably because of marijuana, but Fat-Pam would persevere and develop her intelligence and be in a position one day to make a creative contribution, probably in a field she had not now even heard of.

And yet he liked this group of English girls—brave, brash, uneducated but gallant in a Churchillian sort of way. As a matter of fact, he thought, any group that produces even one Fat-Pam deserves respect.

When the day came for the airplane to fly the girls back to London, Fat-Pam kept Bruce in bed beside her until the last possible moment. With her forefinger she drew designs on his naked body, as if constructing a map of one-time happiness which she would want to remember in the years ahead. She said, ‘There’s a boy who wants to marry me. He’s a lot like my father, I suppose, and no good can possibly come of it, but I imagine I’ll find no better. I shall look to see what happens to you, Bruce. Promise me one thing. You won’t give in cheaply? You see, if I go down, what’s lost? But if you go down …’

She burst into tears and leaned against him, crying for some minutes. ‘Oh God, I wish it had been different. I wish I knew something. I wish I had been to school.’ She lay silent for some time, then slowly drew him onto her in a long, slow, rhythmic ritual of love, as if the innards of the earth were involved.

When they parted, she said a strange thing: ‘People like you and me draw strength from one another.’ And she was gone, a plump girl on her only vacation prior to the establishment of a home which, because of lack of funds and an equal partner, would be perpetually on the verge of disaster.

When the distraction of the two Pamelas had passed, Yigal found time to explore Torremolinos. He liked the German area and stopped several times at the Brandenburger for sandwiches. The vast collection of skyscrapers at the eastern end of town surprised him, but he was mainly attracted by the endless beach, along which local businessmen were constructing temporary restaurants for the summer and a variegated array of umbrella parks and bathhouses for the swimmers. It was cheap, ugly, crowded, noisy, exciting—and he liked it.

He was not happy with the Berkeley Square. It was too English in a Spanish setting, and although the constant supply of attractive English girls brought in by each new plane was titillating, he felt obliged to see rather more of Spain than this narrow base permitted.

So he started wandering about the old fishing village, looking for something Mediterranean and finding nothing, for he did not know where to look. Eventually he came upon the Swedish area, where shops contained signs only in Scandinavian. He stopped to survey the Northern Lights and imagined each of its many rooms with a Swedish girl waiting inside. Wouldn’t that be heaven? he thought, but the only Swedes who made their appearance while he waited were a rather fat Danish couple arguing about how many kroner the husband had wasted buying a sweater.

He passed along the narrow streets, crowded with May visitors, and at least half the people he met were adventuresome girls from various parts of Europe. This town is better than the poster promised, he thought, and it was
while laying plans as to how best to meet a cross section of these girls that he saw down one of the alleys a garish signboard: a huge Texas revolver bearing the name T
HE
A
LAMO
.

If it’s as lousy as the movie was, it’s just what I need, he thought, hurrying through the crowd.

As he looked through the half-open door he saw something that would remain with him the rest of his life: a Scandinavian girl in a miniskirt, with straw-blond hair, limpid complexion and saucy eyes. At that moment she was serving beer, but she saw him in the street and smiled, her white teeth forming a beautiful arch over her lower lip. In the passing of a second he knew that she combined the compelling allure of Mini-Pam and the sweet, stable womanliness of Fat-Pam.

Like a man voluntarily placing himself into a cell for a lifetime of imprisonment, he entered the small bar.

He waited until she finished serving her tables, then caught her wrist and asked, with a boldness he did not know he possessed, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Britta. What’s yours?’

‘Yigal. I’m from Israel.’

She turned to a table occupied by American soldiers and announced, ‘Fellows, this is Yigal from Israel,’ and with a purposeful shove in the middle of his back she projected him over to the Americans and resumed her duties.

The young soldiers were much interested in Israel and how it had managed to win the Six-Day War. ‘Them Egyptians weren’t the pushovers the papers said, was they?’ a soldier from the south asked.

‘You bet they weren’t. Individually they were very brave. Their leaders …’ He held his fingers to his nose.

‘Can you go on knocking them off every ten years?’

‘No. In time they’ll learn. Then it’ll be your problem as well as ours.’

‘Oh no! No more Vietnams.’

They were talking in this way, feeling one another out, when Britta returned with a beer for Yigal, and when she placed it before him he had a chance to look into her eyes, and it seemed as if an earthquake had hit him in the gut. ‘Who’s the girl?’ he asked when she had gone.

‘Get in line, like we tell all the guys. She’s a Norwegian. And she’s even sweeter than she looks. And she belongs to the bartender.’

‘Married?’

‘Just about.’ The speaker shrugged his shoulders, watched Britta for a few moments, then asked, ‘Class, eh?’

Among the soldiers was a Jew from Atlanta, Georgia, and certain things that Yigal said reminded him of several photographs which had appeared in the Jewish press, and after studying the newcomer for some minutes and listening more acutely to what he was saying, this Georgian slammed his right palm noisily onto the table and cried, ‘I know who you are! Hey, gang, you know who this is? This is the kid who held up those six Egyptian tanks at that pass.’

Everyone stopped talking to look at the Israeli, a frail young man of only eighteen, and from the embarrassed manner in which he reacted, it was apparent that he was indeed the hero of Qarash. A multitude of questions, flew at him, and he spent some time making diagrams on the table top with mugs and ashtrays.

‘You mean less than a hundred Jews held off six tanks? And destroyed four of them?’

‘They were dug into fixed positions,’ Yigal explained.

‘Hey, Britta!’ one of the soldiers yelled. ‘Come here. Did you know you were serving a bloody hero?’

Britta came to the table, listened to the account of what this boy had done, then stopped and kissed him on the forehead. ‘You fought for all of us,’ she said. ‘I know. My father did the same.’

At a table by the door, watching with detached calm, sat an American, who now rose slowly, like a coil expanding, and came to where Yigal sat. He was a black man, young, handsome, bearded, snappily dressed. Standing over Yigal, he poked at him with a forefinger and asked,’ ‘You the cat that blew up the tanks?’

‘I was the cat hiding in a communications truck … scared shitless.’

‘But you were there? Qarash, that is?’

‘I was there.’

‘Man I would like to shake your hand. My name’s Cato. I hang out here, so we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.’

He drew up a chair and pummeled Yigal with a rapid-fire series of questions: How were so few able to stand off so many? What kind of guns did the Jews have? Why didn’t the tanks simply rev up and crush the whole operation?
How did the Sabra get his men fired up enough so they would tackle a tank?

It was long after supper when the conversation broke up. Through it all, Yigal had managed to keep one eye on Britta, and he was more certain than ever that here was the girl who would command his affection … for many years to come. He was therefore not listening attentively when Cato asked, ‘Where you staying?’ Not getting an answer, the Negro asked, ‘Hero, where you sleepin’?’

‘Matter of fact, I’m looking for a place.’

‘You just found one, hero. We got a sleeping bag at our place, and you’re welcome to it.’

‘Where is your place?’ Yigal asked.

‘Best part of the neighborhood. Down by the water.’

‘Can I rent a room … or something? Who owns it?’

‘Some French cat. He and his chick are in Morocco … buying up marijuana. I’m using his bed. Plenty of room. And a free sleeping bag.’

Intuitively Yigal liked this Negro and since he wanted to know more about what made such men function, he wanted to join him, but an innate sense of honesty required him to level with the stranger. ‘Actually, you know, I’m not really an Israeli. Well, that is, I am, but I also have an American passport. I went to school in Detroit.’

‘Hey! You did! What’s with them Detroit cats? That big riot, what happened?’

‘I was in Israel at the time. Later, of course, I heard the white man’s side. But when you’re Jewish …’

‘I dig you, Yigal. I dig you real good. Let’s go down and see the room.’

When they reached the apartment, Cato pushed open the door and disclosed the two beds. Before Yigal could ask any questions, he said, ‘It’s all clean. No gang-bang or stuff like that. Over here the boss’s bed. I’m using it while he’s in Morocco. That one belongs to Joe … you’ll meet him later. And over there in the corner, the sleeping bag. It’s yours.’

‘Can I help to pay …’

‘You damned well can! I keep records, and we split up the cost of the beer and the food and whatever else we use.’

‘I meant the rent.’

‘No rent.’

Further discussion was halted by the arrival of an exquisite dark-haired English girl, very slight in build and
most incisive in manner. She banged open the door, threw her packages about the floor, and dropped onto the bed which the Negro had said was his. Kicking off her shoes, she cried, ‘I’m exhausted. Pour me a gin, Cato. Who’s your friend?’

‘This is Yigal. The Israeli cat who shot up the Egyptian tanks in that pass.’

‘Are you …’ The girl on the bed pointed at him with a slender hand, then squealed with delight and cried, ‘Welcome to the sleeping bag! We could use somebody like you. Keep these goddamned Africans in their place.’

Cato laughed at her and said, ‘Monica Braham. Degenerate daughter of a degenerate English nobleman.’

They all drank gin for some time, after which Yigal said he’d better go fetch his gear, but they insisted that he stay with them tonight and get it in the morning. So they talked till about two in the morning, about England and Vwarda and Detroit and all the soaring problems of youth. Before they went to sleep Cato and Monica had a couple of marijuana cigarettes but showed no displeasure when Yigal said he didn’t care for any.