Joshua Then and Now (52 page)

The days are long, Seymour’s grandmother had said, but the years fly past.

The Mackenzie King Memorial Society seldom convened for their Annual Day any more, their last reunion a disaster.

Plump, good-natured Mickey Stein, recuperating from a heart bypass operation in Houston, had been unable to attend. Jack Katz and AI Roth were suing each other over a real estate deal in Toronto. Max Birenbaum had come, but stomped out in a huff, unable to endure the ribbing he was getting about his hair transplant. Larry Cohen, with the Department of Revenue now, had spent the evening avoiding a fulminating Bobby Gross, who was being taken to court on a tax-evasion charge.

“You know what your hero, E. M. Forster, once said?” Bobby charged, finally cornering Larry. “If I had to choose between betraying my friend or my government, I wish I’d have the courage to choose my friend.”

“That’s a loose paraphrase and he wasn’t talking about chiseling. Besides, I have nothing to do with the case. I can’t help.”

Lennie Fisher, who had been accepted as a member by the Royal Yacht Club of Ontario, invited everybody to join him for drinks on his sloop if and when they were in Toronto. “And I want you to know,” he said again and again, “if I’m moored in the outer basin, it’s only because everybody has to wait their turn for a berth in the inner basin. It has absolutely nothing to do with my being Jewish.”

“Even in the old days,” Seymour Kaplan said, “you were always the class
tuchus-lecker.”

“What you mean to say is, I don’t look back on
FFHS
as the good old days, the glory days, because my life hasn’t been a downhill slope.”

The reunion was haunted by sweet Benny Zucker, gaunt now, his skull protruding through flesh drawn taut, telling everybody, “Boy, was I ever lucky. It was really a close shave. It weighed five pounds and six ounces, but it turned out to be nonmalignant.”

“You’re looking great,” Joshua said.

“If it was terminal, they’d have me on chemotherapy now, wouldn’t they, Morty?”

“Damn right,” Morty Zipper said, slipping out into the hall to bite back his tears.

“How long has he got?” Joshua asked, bringing him a cognac.

“I wish it were Eli. Is that a terrible thing to say?”

In the morning, Joshua drove right to the clinic. It was sweltering in there. The boy, who had been struck by a taxi, lay in bed with both his broken legs suspended by pulleys from the ceiling. He was thin, pale, his eyes dull. Joshua guessed that he was eight years old, but small for his age. He was twelve. “My father was going to drop by your hotel last night,” young Juanito said, “but he did not wish to disturb you.” Juanito, he added, had just left and could be found at home.

So Joshua returned to Sa Penya once more and started out for Juanito’s house. Suddenly, he was hailed from behind and turning, he saw a shrunken old man with a seamed face, wet eyes, and a sunken mouth. To his intense embarrassment, he did not immediately grasp that this was Juanito. Yesterday’s furnace. Well,
he
was no longer a skinny, callow punk in jeans, encouraging a beard. He touched Juanito’s cheek and the old man grinned, revealing long yellowing teeth with many a gap between. They strolled arm-in-arm, not speaking, but exchanging wry glances, to the waterfront café where they had taken their first drink together. “Juanito, my friend,” Joshua said, coughing to clear his throat, “this certainly calls for a cognac.”

“But I don’t drink any more,” he protested. “Not for the last eight years. The doctors, you know.” With a trembling hand he put on his glasses for Joshua, smiling shyly, explaining that his failing eyesight had improved with abstinence.

“What happened to the
barraca?”

Gone, gone, just like his fishing tubs, which had been lost in bad times. Ibiza’s fabled fishing grounds were no more, he explained, and smiling ruefully he added, “There are very many foreigners here today.”

Once fish had been so abundant as to be all but worthless on the island, the bulk of the overnight catch being sent to market in Valencia, the rest sold for pennies outside the
barraca
as a courtesy to the local women. Now, although some of the old men still stubbornly fished the once-fertile bank, there was hardly enough to feed the locals. The new hotels, the condominiums, in Ibiza and San Antonio, the entirely new seaside villages squeezed into every available cove by German developers, everybody dumping raw sewage into the sea, had driven the fish away. Juanito shrugged. He bit off the tip of a cigar and spat on the pavement. “Ibiza is prosperous now.” He told Joshua of shrewd old cronies who had sold their worthless
fincas
to crazed foreigners for fortunes. “You should have bought when you were here.” Then he burst out laughing. “We had to sell your clothes and your typewriter, remember?”

When the fishing had failed, Juanito, like his father and his grandfather before him, had gone to sea, sailing to the French ports, North Africa, and the Canaries. Fourteen years at sea, he said, signing on as a cook, but now he managed on his small pension and the help he got from his son.

“He has grown into a fine fellow,” Joshua said, “and he looks just like you.”

“He is a good man, but he is too wild. He drinks too much.”

“Hey, Juanito. Come on, man.”

Something of the old fire flared in his rheumy eyes. He grinned broadly. “Remember, we were going to fish together with the Eskimos one day. Through the ice.”

They passed the next morning together, reminiscing and driving about the island, Juanito shaking his head in wonder, amused that Joshua could actually afford a rented car.

“You are no longer poor, then?”

“No.”

“Are you rich?”

“Not really.”

“But you own a car?”

“Yes,” he allowed.

“And a house in the country?”

“It belongs to my wife.”

If Ibiza had changed and grown incredibly, the San Antonio he had known simply didn’t exist any more. It was gone. In place of the sweet, somnolent village there was a thrusting resort town, not unlike Juan-les-Pins, with a paved esplanade, elegant shops, a huge yacht basin, and an endless run of large hotels. Nobody could possibly walk into the sea and hunt fish from this waterfront any more – it was a four-foot drop from the new concrete pilings. Don Pedro’s Bodega had been supplanted by a discotheque: Snoopy’s Place. The only army officers about were retired British majors, reading the
Daily Telegraph
on the terraces of cafés that offered tea and muffins. The barracks, Juanito said, had been shut down years ago. There was now no military presence on the island. González, Jiménez, the others, all gone. “And whatever happened to the Freibergs?” Joshua asked.

Juanito looked baffled.

“You know, the Casa del Sol. The original owners.” And he told Juanito how he had once tried to reach them by phone from London.

“Oh, the Jewish couple. I remember. But why would you phone them?” he asked, affronted. “You never even wrote to me.”

“What became of them?”

“He got sick. His heart. They sold their hotel for a huge profit at the beginning of the boom here and moved to Malaga, I think.”

“Did Mariano close down their hotel after I left?”

“No. Why?”

“He told me that a complaint had been filed. Their wiring was faulty. He might have to close them down.”

Juanito laughed. “He lived off that one for years, the bastard. He never closed anybody down, but he used to collect on it again and again.” Juanito grinned and shook his head. “I am a family man,” he
suddenly declared with feeling. “We are both family men. One life, one wife.”

“And what,” Joshua asked playfully, “about Casa Rosita?”

“It is no longer here. Not for years. All the casas have been closed down by the government.”

“And where could I find Mariano?”

“He retired years ago. But he knew how to take care of himself, he owns property all over the island. If you are really interested in seeing the bastard, you can usually find him in Los Molinos.”

Bolstered by still more cognac, Joshua asked, “And Dr. Dr. Mueller?”

“Why in the hell would you want to see him again?” Juanito asked, spitting.

“Revenge,” Joshua said, feeling foolish.

“What are you,” Juanito asked, amused, “a Spaniard now?”

“I am no longer a kid now. I have kids of my own.”

“Will you kill him?”

“No,” Joshua said, startled.

“What, then?”

“Just tell me where I can find the bastard.”

“In the cemetery,” Juanito said. “He’s dead.”

“God damn it,” Joshua cried out. “God damn it to hell.” All this way for nothing.

“I thought you came here to see your old friend Juanito, not some crazy German.”

“Yes. Certainly. Of course I did.”

“Well, I’m no longer a young man,” he said, querulous. “I’m tired now. Take me home, please.”

“When did he die?”

“Five years ago. Maybe six.”

“How?”

“Cancer.”

Joshua drove Juanito home and continued on to Los Molinos, one
of the new hotels, where he found Mariano seated at a table in the bar, reading a newspaper. Bronzed and wiry as ever, but the beady eyes clouded with cataracts now. Mariano had obviously suffered a stroke. His thin mouth was slightly askew and his left arm hung limply from his side. He did not recognize Joshua at first. But after a belligerent Joshua reminded him of who he was, he seemed delighted to see him, which was disconcerting.

“You were such a skinny kid. So hot-tempered. But those were the great years here. Afterwards, the real trouble started. Hippies. Hashish. Lesbians. Homosexuals. The dregs of Europe and America. I can’t tell you the problems we had here. The dike was breached, and now look what’s happening to Spain. Poor Spain. Once we were the owners of the world. Nobody can forgive us that we discovered America. But now we are a poor people and everybody is ready to shit on us. Soon England will be the same. Sure Franco was a dictator, but we had a good life under him. There was law and order. Now they are going to legalize the Communist Party again. La Pasionaria is back. We will go the way of Italy. There will be guns in the street. Like Lisbon. Hey, look at you! Obviously, you are a respectable man now. It’s odd, you know, how things turn out. Do you remember Don Pedro’s? Well, after you left, things changed there for Mueller. The officers felt that he had played dirty.”

“The officers turned in a sworn statement against me.”

“Oh sure, that was Jiménez, Juan. But González and some of the others, the younger ones, they felt ashamed. You were only a kid, you know, and they felt Mueller had done you in only because you were a Jew. Horseshit. Here in Spain we are all Jews. Well, not everybody. But at least one in ten has Jewish blood, if you go back far enough. I have nothing against the Jews.”

“Why, you even used to know one in Cordoba.”

“One? Many. Majorca is thick with Jews. They are very clever and it is better not to mess with them. But, man, you certainly come from a difficult people.”

“Stiff-necked.”

“Remember Carlos? You know, the mousy little bank teller. He saved his salary for ten years, I don’t think he ever ate in a restaurant or went to a movie, never marrying, saving to emigrate to his promised land, and in the end they wouldn’t have him. His family hadn’t been Jewish for hundreds of years as far as they were concerned. Your rabbis said his mother was officially a Catholic. What they called their law of return didn’t apply to him or hundreds of others in Majorca who wanted to go. How about that?”

“Is he still here, then?”

“He left years ago, for South America somewhere. Let me order more drinks. It is really very good to see you again. Hey, remember those afternoons at Rosita’s?”

“What I remember is that you were going to shut down the Casa del Sol.”

“Oh, really. Why?”

“Their wiring was faulty.”

Mariano laughed. He slapped his knee with his good hand. “I’d forgotten all about that.” He paused, pondering. “Now it is obviously
my
wiring that is faulty. I don’t recall. Did I close them down?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“You came to my house and you said you had photographs of me and Monique. The kind they sell in Pigalle. I can remember your exact words. ‘In Spain,’ you said, ‘we expect foreigners to behave with a certain decorum.’ ”

“Hey, she must have been some fuck, that girl. Whatever happened to her?”

“I have no idea.”

“Probably fat now. Like the mother. Always look at the mother. But those photographs – now I remember – they may have been shocking in those days. But now.” He made a deprecating gesture. “Do you read
Hustler
magazine?”

“No.”

“Sometimes they are left behind by tourists.” He leaned closer to Joshua, his eyes heated. “Girls masturbating. Licking each other. Amazing stuff.”

“Mariano,” Joshua cut in, exasperated, “I did not steal Mueller’s traveler’s checks.”

“You did. You didn’t. Ancient history. Who cares now?”

How could you hit an old man with a crippled left arm, however vile? “But you gave me forty-eight hours to get out of here because of those charges.”

“I enforced the law. It was my job. But I never promised anybody justice. Do you have a good life in Canada?”

“Yes.”

“Then forget it. I have survived two strokes. But almost everybody I know is dead now. Would you do me a favor?”

“For you, Mariano, anything.”

“I will leave you my address. When you get home, mail me copies of
Hustler
. It is difficult to find here. And, say, we must have dinner together. How long will you stay in Ibiza?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

But he had one more trip to make.

Without even the benefit of a kitchen knife this time, Joshua drove back toward San Antonio, parked about a mile out on the hot asphalt highway winding out into the new suburbs, cut through the parking lot behind a pizza parlor, past a Hamburger Heaven, and crossed a miniature golf course that used to be an olive grove. He climbed the mountainside – stopping more than once, winded – before he finally reached the hump of rock that had once overlooked Dr. Dr. Mueller’s villa. There was no teepee. No brown stallion. Certainly no villa. Instead, a six-story condominium, the concrete already cracked, the paint flaking here and there. The Don Quixote Estate. Joshua sat down on the rock and laughed until he almost cried.