Jaffa Beach: Historical Fiction (43 page)

Shlomi headed for the porch, where he could see the maple tree basking in the sun. If he had remained longer at the bottom of the staircase he would have heard a worried D’vora say to Mazal, “He’s suspicious. He doesn’t feel at ease. The sooner he’s told, the better.”

At lunch, the guests delighted in the homemade bread, the Ceasar salad and a spinach quiche. By the time the coffee was served, an exuberant Shlomi pushed his cup aside and opened a wide map of Dobbs Ferry and its surroundings.

“It’s a shame to lose time. It’s so pretty outside, almost an Indian summer day. I propose we go exploring. Whoever wants to walk at leisure could visit the galleries and the boutiques on Main Street. Or we could take a trail up into the hills from where one can see almost as far as New York.”

After a few seconds of silence, Otto said, “Shlomi, we came to celebrate your big event, but also to talk to you about matters that have weighed on me for a long time, for which I never found the right opportunity. I hoped to talk to you after your service in the Israeli army, but six months later you left to study in the United States.”

Shlomi frowned.
What was this?

“Did I do well by waiting?” Otto continued. “After your mother’s premature death, you, not even four years old, became so sick from the shock that we thought we’d lose you, too.” Charlotte and Mazal nodded. “You were such a sensitive child.”

Shlomi observed that Otto’s intertwined fingers were blanched from tension.” We respected your mother’s will. She wanted us to raise you. Watching you grow was our biggest joy.”

A bell of alarm rang in Shlomi’s head.
What is he talking about? Why now? That chapter is closed
.

“Your mother wasn’t an orphan; she wasn’t a child refugee in the Teheran train, as we told you. Shifra was born in Jerusalem in an orthodox family.”

Otto stopped and looked at Chana for help, but Charlotte was faster. “Thanks to Mazal, our detective, we discovered Shifra’s old friend. Mazal had a real adventure.”

Shlomi felt his head cracking. “Mazal’s adventures don’t interest me. Can any of you tell me what’s happening?” He raised his voice. “At twenty-three years old, I still don’t know who I am. My mother is dead, though now I doubt even this, and the grave of my father, according to your words ‘the hero of ’48,’ was never found.”

Chana pushed Shifra’s picture toward Shlomi, “Your mother is in the middle.” How many times he would have jumped for joy to see a picture of his mother, but now he pushed it away.

“Lies, I grew up with lies,” Shlomi closed his eyes.

He did get a glimpse of the picture: a girl with blond braids and eyes opened to mirror the entire world. In a flash, he recognized in her the woman with clear eyes and blond hair waving in the wind, who ran calling him desperately when he got lost on the beach. How old was he then?

Around him everybody was talking at once. He heard fragments.

Chana said, “He was a strong father. All the neighbors knew that he promised Shifra‘s hand to an old widower, a father of three girls close to her own age. When Shifra disappeared, her mother accused her husband of driving her away. She stopped coming to
shul
. But Shifra was never found.”

She must have been raped or became a prostitute, thought Shlomi. He ached all over. “I am a
mamzer
, that’s what you’ve come to tell me, the offspring of a one-night stand with a thief or worse; a criminal father and a prostitute mother!” Shlomi screamed. He wondered if the pain and the shame would kill him on the spot.

He heard a chorus of voices, “No, that’s not true.” “You are mistaken.” But he had heard enough. Holding the table for support, he tried to get up. Barely breathing, he said, “I have to go, I need.…”

“Shlomi, where are you going?” Scared, D’vora ran after him.

“
Leave me alone. You are on their side. You knew what awaited me; you must have heard it from your cousin. I am a prostitute’s son! Next I suppose I might find out she’s alive in a mental hospital or in jail.”

“Stop! I know you are hurting. But it’s not true. Turn back, Shlomi. Please calm down, for my sake. I love you! Your mother was a fine person who suffered the circumstances of her upbringing. It revolted her.…“

D’vora breathed heavily; she could not keep in step with Shlomi. “Listen,” she tried again, “according to Chana, your mother was very talented, she loved music, she sang beautifully. Her father took her out of school, to stay home and help her mother raise her brother and sisters.”

D’vora stopped. “Shlomi, please, I have no more strength. Come back, come…“ She hoped the wind would carry her words to him.

It was almost evening when an exhausted Shlomi returned. He found them in the same position as when he left, silently sitting around the table, their faces, masks of sorrow. Mazal saw him first, and a sob burst from her throat. Everybody looked up. D’vora ran to him. Shlomi’s clothes were wrinkled, his shoes dirty, dead leaves hung in his hair. He fell into a chair,

“I am ready,” he whispered. “Start from the beginning.”

Watching Otto intensely, he asked, “You haven’t told me about my father. What do you know about him? Have the two of you ever met?”

Otto remained silent. “Who was he? Surely my mother must have told you about him,” Shlomi’s voice went crescendo.

“Your mother loved your father very much,” Otto started, his voice sounding uncertain, “and he loved her....”

Shlomi cut him short, “You didn’t answer my question! Who was my father?” Shlomi stubbornly repeated. “What else are you hiding from me?”

Mazal placed a soothing hand on his shoulder, “You know, Shlomi, this was an exhausting day for all of us. We are drained emotionally. Please, let’s continue tomorrow.”

Shlomi felt his anger mounting, “Why do you want to postpone telling me what you know about my father? To lessen what could be another blow? Why do you still treat me like a child?” he screamed.

D’vora embraced Shlomi, whose heart wanted to scream,
you are the only reality in my life
.

“Do you remember, Shlomi,” Mazal started, “that, for years, the two of us went to the beach on Friday afternoons after you came home from school? Friday was a short day, and we always hurried because there was little time left before Shabbat.”

Shlomi remained silent. “One day,” Mazal continued, “about four or five years after your mother died - you must have been about eight at the time - I saw an old woman, a gypsy I thought, crouched across the street, in front of Levy’s pharmacy, her eyes riveted on our house. Something about her attracted my attention. “
Yala, yala
, move!” a policeman screamed at her. The woman got up with difficulty. A few days later I saw her back at her post. Again a Friday, around the time Otto used to bring you home from school. You only had to put your books away before we headed for the beach.”

“I remember,” Shlomi said, “that Otto taught violin until late in the evening. Gretchen couldn’t take me to the beach. You were my protective angel. But what has this to do with….”

“It has, believe me. That woman followed us. She waited patiently during the two hours we spent at the beach and then
followed us back. Early one morning, again on a Friday, as I was returning from the souk, she crossed the street and asked me in broken Hebrew mixed with Arabic, “Have you adopted the boy?”

“
Yo-seida
, old woman,” I answered in Arabic, “why in the world do you ask me that?”

“I know his parents,” she said. “I raised his father. I was the boy’s nanny. But the boy’s mother ran away with him. Since then nothing could console my Musa.” Tears fell from her tired eyes. “She destroyed him. It was my fault,” she kept repeating, “my fault alone, because I trusted her.”

Mazal stopped. The colors in Shlomi’s face changed from pale to dark red and pale again. In a voice in which the others could hear his despair, Shlomi whispered, “My father was an Arab.” He got up from his chair. “An Arab who raped my mother, Oh, God,” he repeated, while his shaking hands covered his face. “What a shame, what a shame.”

With his bloodshot eyes fixed on Otto, Shlomi started to laugh, an unnatural laugh that ended with a sound like broken glass. “You waited until I was on my way to a big career in order to tell me that I am a bastard
. Is nicht war
, Grandpa Otto?”

The flame in Shlomi’s eyes scared D’vora. “Shlomi, please,” she pleaded.

“That’s not true,” Mazal screamed, while Otto sat crumpled in his chair. “You are mistaken, Shlomi. Your parents were married. Please let me finish. I am just at the beginning—“

“I don’t need to hear anything more. Enough, I’ve heard enough from you, all lies. I’ll never forgive you,” Shlomi looked at his guests with hatred, “Never!”

“Shlomi,” D’vora knelt in front of him, “I know that nobody can take away your pain, but for my sake, please listen to Mazal.” D’vora’s head dropped on Shlomi’s knees, her arms encircling him.

“You’re in tandem with them. Your cousin must’ve told you. Otto needed to bring a full delegation. What a masquerade!” Shlomi pushed D’vora’s arms away.

But D’vora wouldn’t relent. “You forget that each one gathered here loves you and cares for you.”

“I am Arab! I am Arab! I placed my father on a pedestal, a hero of the Independence War, as he told me,” Shlomi pointed an accusing finger at Otto, “A hero, really! My only hope is that a good Jewish fighter took care of him,” he said bitterly.

“Your father is alive,” Mazal said softly.

“Little wonder Shifra never told you about her family. She knew that her parents wouldn’t care for her Arab bastard,” Shlomi continued, deaf to Mazal’s words.

His eyes looked like spears when he addressed Otto, “You wanted to appease your conscience, no matter the price.” Otto wept silently.

Three women spoke. D’vora said, “Shlomi this is not the way to talk to the man who raised you.” Mazal and Lotte took over, “And for whom you became the center of his universe.”

Otto raised his hand, “Shlomi is right. I failed him as I failed Ruthie.”

“Your father is alive,” Mazal repeated.

Shlomi raised his eyes. He had heard her, but he didn’t care. Whoever and wherever his father was, for him he was dead.

“Samira told me…” Mazal started. At the name Samira, Shlomi’s body shuddered. He saw eyes that smiled at him, heard guttural laughter. His lips shaped the word, Samira. He said it, like tasting a word long forgotten, “Jedati Samira.”

“She was the old woman,” Mazal said. “For years, she said, she had searched for you and your mother. She didn’t want to tell me how she discovered us. I told her your mother was dead. She cried ‘I loved her, as I would have loved my own daughter if Allah had blessed me with one. Yet she betrayed me.’

“I saw Samira many times after that, and little by little she told me about the beginning of your parents’ budding romance which she encouraged, against all odds.”

Shlomi’s eyes were closed. Mazal wasn’t even sure that he was listening.

“A love story! Please continue, Mazal,” D’vora said, “I love romances.”

The rain had started, drops beating furiously on the windows.

“Musa, Shlomi’s father, saved Shifra from drowning. Samira called her Suha, the Arabic name the Masri family gave her. Musa fell in love with her and against his mother’s wishes, they got married. Not long after, Selim, the name they called you, Shlomi, was born.”

The telephone rang, startling them. It was almost midnight. The hostess called out, “Shlomi, it’s for you.” Shlomi got up, and D’vora, who still held his hand, went with him. From the living room they heard Shlomi’s voice. “Thanks for calling. No, I am not hiding.” And after a while, “I’ll think about it and let you know. Soon, I promise.”

“It was Mr. Hurok,” D’vora reported back. “He already has two contracts for Shlomi.”

“I wonder how he knew where to find me,” Shlomi said, watching Otto.

D’vora said, “Mazal, please continue.”;

“Samira blamed Otto. She said, ‘It was the violin teacher who put ideas in Suha’s head.’

“How,” I asked her, ‘Because of the music,’ she said. Though she told Suha that the violin was the devil’s instrument, she never realized that Suha continued her visits and took Selim with her, too.

“There was much tension, with the war almost at their gate. Fatima, Musa’s mother, pressed him to leave the country. If Suha had acted like a devoted Muslim wife, she would have followed her husband, but she disappeared, taking the child with her. Suha’s death was Allah’s punishment, Samira said.”

“Abu Selim, Abu Selim” Shlomi whispered suddenly, his eyes closed. “Was there ever a time when I called my father’s name?”

Mazal answered, “One night during your illness, when it was my turn to watch you, you hallucinated and called his name, like now.”

Shlomi shrugged, as if wanting to get rid of a bad dream. “For years I wanted to learn about my parents, hoping to discover who I am. Now, I know.”

He left the room.

5 0

August 1969

I
n the spacious guest house of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, D’vora browsed through recent newspapers, eager to read the musical reviews. It was early in the morning. She sat on the bed, one leg curled beneath her, the other one hanging bare, while her diaphanous nightgown sculpted her supple body.