The Glory (77 page)

Los Angeles by comparison, when he returned, struck him as just a bigger and grimier Tel Aviv. Two letters awaited him in
Yael’s apartment. The one with Australian stamps he ripped open the instant he saw it.

July 2, 1974

Dear Yossi:

I arrived yesterday and am still very, very jet-lagged. A long trip! It looks as though I’ll be too busy in the next couple
of weeks to write a real letter, so this is just to let you know, as I promised, that I’m here. Melbourne is nice, a little
like Toronto, and it’s strange to be having winter weather in July, but of course that’s how it is “down under.” I’ll be staying
with Lena and Mendel (her husband, very good-natured man) until I find a flat, the sooner the better. Write me here meantime,
if you feel like it. Reuven is terribly thin, but he was so happy to see me! Last night at dinner he ate like a tiger, Lena
said he hadn’t eaten that much the whole week before.

My department head at the Technion was nice about everything. I had earned a sabbatical anyway, and it starts in September,
so I’ll be here at least a year, and I’ll be looking for things to do. Meantime I’m happy. Since Michael died and Lena took
Reuven away I’ve been drawing my breath in misery, but no more. I’ll always miss Michael, he was a wonderful man, but as long
as I can be with Reuven I’m all right. I’m not looking any farther into the future.

I hope California doesn’t seem too glamorous to you. Enjoy it, but then go home. You belong in Israel, and you’re needed.

Love,

Shayna

The other letter was from Zev Barak. He had been against Kishote’s departure, and now he was writing every week or two, urging
him to cut short his leave and return to active duty.

Dear Yossi:

Things are very bad here. Kissinger squeezed a terrible price out of Golda for that disengagement in the north, and now that
we have done our part and pulled back on the Golan Heights, the Syrians are fudging on releasing prisoners and returning the
dead. The army was demoralized enough by the firing of Dado. This retreat from our positions outside Damascus, to a line that
actually gives back some territory to the beaten Syrians, has got all Zahal seething. But Golda needed the deal to stop the
casualties and release the reserves, and she was too weakened politically to fight anymore. She’s a sick old lady. Rabin has
started off well, except that he’s kept me on as military secretary. I pleaded for
any
other duty, or for retirement, in vain.

Motta Gur has repeatedly asked me about you. With so many officers vying for the few star staff posts, he can hardly offer
one to a general who’s left the country in a huff. Most of us feel badly about what was done to Dado, but with leadership
goes responsibility, and Dado was Ramatkhal when Israel had its near-catastrophe. It’s all in the past, the army is undergoing
a convulsive reorganization, and you’ve got much to contribute. Anger and withdrawal are no contributions, Yossi, so by your
life, don’t get bogged in Los Angeles and dollar-chasing, leave all that to Yael. Come back where you belong.

Zev

Kishote sat on Yael’s terrace for a long while in a sunny afternoon, rereading both letters and pondering.

“L
et me understand you,” said Sheva Leavis. “You’ve definitely decided to go with me on my next Far East trip?”

“If you still want me, sir.”

“And what decided you?”

“I’ve had a chance to think things over. My army service will soon end. The world’s bigger than Israel, and you’re offering
me a chance at something interesting and worthwhile to explore for my future.”

“You and Yael are getting divorced.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“A pity.” The window behind Leavis’s desk faced downtown Los Angeles and City Hall. He swiveled and looked out on tall buildings,
half-obscured by smog. A silence. “Los Angeles is not what it used to be. Neither am I.” He turned back to Kishote. “If you’re
serious, fine. Your brother has proven himself very able, and you have an outstanding army record. Finances we can discuss.
Have you any questions for me?”

“Do you go to Australia?”

“Why do you ask? Not usually.”

When Yossi started to tell him about Shayna, the old man raised a hand. “So, Mrs. Berkowitz has gone there, has she? I know
about Mrs. Berkowitz, and I have a question for you. Are you accepting my offer to learn a business, or so that you can see
Mrs. Berkowitz?”

“Frankly, both.”

“Not good enough. I don’t plan to go to Australia this time. Maybe not for the next year or two. And you can’t detour to Australia
when you’re with me, the distances are tremendous and my schedule is tight. Think it over some more.”

Don Kishote thought it over and accepted Leavis’s terms, including the proviso against side trips to Australia. Travelling
with the old Iraqi Jew was an eye-opener like Alaska, a discovery of experiences as remote as the moon from Israeli army life.
During the long flights passed in the luxury of first class, and the many nights in posh hotels, the withered little man talked
and talked about his business, educating Kishote as they went. Each of Leavis’s circuits in the Far East took many weeks.
An ultimate middleman, Kishote gradually learned, was what Leavis really was, and his stock-in-trade was his word, backed
by large quantities of ready money.

The old trader brought Kishote with him to meetings in Manila, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and in remote small towns,
too. Sometimes they dealt with Jews, more often with Orientals. Kishote saw for himself how hard-bitten Filipinos who looked
like murderers, and old Hong Kong Chinese in western clothes, with gracious manners and blank eyes, talked business with Sheva
Leavis. Whether the deal concerned a shipload of Indian cloth, a year’s output of a Korean toy factory, a collection of rare
works of antique Chinese art, or the entire sugar crop of a small Philippine island, Leavis could close for a million dollars
with a handshake, and the deals went through as though sealed by a twenty-page contract. There was sometimes the matter of
“taking care,” as Leavis put it, of the people who closed the sales. Whether they were businessmen or government functionaries,
“taking care” included limousines, apartments, hard cash, and — though here Leavis drew the line — women. His competitors
routinely supplied women, he did not. He made up for that, he told Kishote, with the best prices and quick payment.

The heart of the matter was buying cheap in the East and selling dear in the West. Leavis knew East and West as Yossi knew
the Centurion tank and the Sinai terrain. When Yossi on an early trip protested that he could never learn to conduct such
trade himself, Leavis tiredly told him that the whole world was now one place, and wherever Yossi went when he was on his
own they could still talk as though they were together. At first Yossi would be his eyes and ears, and he, Leavis, would make
the decisions. But after a while Yossi would be able to handle it. “What it comes down to, once you know the business,” Leavis
said, “is contacts with people who have the power to make deals, people you’ve known for years, and who know you and trust
you. By now you’ve met many of them, and they’ve met you. The rest is numbers, certain key numbers. They differ with each
kind of deal, each type of merchandise. You’ll learn. I’m not wasting my time or yours.”

The itineraries eventually took them not only to India, Burma, Malaya, and Indonesia, but even into mainland China, where
Yossi’s Israeli passport was useless; Leavis did not disclose how he got him in, but he did say this was one place Yossi by
himself probably would have to skip. The sights of these exotic lands were not novel to Kishote after so much exposure in
movies and magazines, but the long long grinds in airplanes were. He once asked Leavis how he could have endured it all these
years. The trader uttered a dry laugh. “Long? The jets are magic carpets. I travelled for thirty years in piston planes, and
before that in trains and boats. My father did that, too. His father before him sometimes went on donkeys and camels. In this
business what you do is travel.”

Yossi gave up the notion of flying to Australia on his own when Leavis could spare him. The long haul to that continent, even
in jets, was a discouraging prospect, and from Shayna’s letters he gathered that he could accomplish little anyway by showing
up in Melbourne. Her reaction to his news of the divorce was reserved and cool, and she evaded or ignored his words about
marriage. She had let her Technion position lapse and was working at Melbourne University as an assistant mathematics instructor,
low-paying but something to do. Being near Reuven was enough for her, she wrote, the future could take care of itself. Between
the melancholy lines Yossi hoped he discerned the old love, obscured by great doubt that his divorce would come off. The match
of Yael and Max Roweh, whose books Shayna had read, she regarded as preposterous and unreal.

Winding up a very long journey, Leavis at last put two deals in Yossi’s hands to manage, one in Tokyo, one in Seoul. Yossi
had met these businessmen on previous trips, and had in fact once gotten hilariously drunk with the Japanese trader. He negotiated
while Sheva sat by silent, and each time he shook hands on terms Sheva had instructed him to get. As they dined in the Seoul
hotel the evening after that deal was closed — or rather as Kishote dined, while Leavis ate his usual travel dinner of bread
and raw fruit — the old man abruptly said, “Yossi, I’m sending you on to Melbourne. That’s why we were visiting those aluminum
refineries yesterday. Two or three years down the road the Korean government plans a big expansion in aluminum, and they’ll
need much more bauxite, huge quantities. I’ll put you in touch with some bauxite people in Melbourne. One of the main executives
is Jewish, from Lithuania.”

“Elohim, that’s marvellous. Thank you, Sheva.”

“For what? You mean Mrs. Berkowitz? That’s your business. Keep it out of ours, which is bauxite.”

T
he card on the door read
DR. BERKOWITZ
. The gray-haired lady secretary of the department knocked and called in Aussie accents, “Dr. Berkowitz, you have a visitor.”

Shayna came to the door, looked out, and staggered against the doorpost. “Good God, Kishote, why do you do this to me? Do
you want me to drop dead?”

He stood there in brown tweed and a red wool tie, holding out both hands. “Hamoodah, I tried to call from Seoul, but your
flat didn’t answer and I had to catch the plane in a hurry, so I just came.”

Tears were starting to her eyes. The secretary discreetly withdrew. “Oh, Yossi, crazy Yossi.” The startled look melted to
a smile. She grasped his hands. “It’s so good to see a face from home! How long has it been, dear? More than a year, a lot
more, no?”

“A lot more, Shayna.”

“Well, God bless you for coming. I’ve loved your letters, but it’s not the same, is it? And listen, it’s about time for me
to pick up Reuven, come along, my God, will he be pleased to see you!” She led him out through the grassy campus to a parking
lot, her walk as light-footed as in the old days. She wore a bright blue cardigan sweater over a white blouse, and a heavy
brown skirt. The rattletrap old Vauxhall she drove made so much noise that they had to shout at each other, catching up on
news since the last letters.

Reuven was sitting on a bench in the play yard of the Hebrew school, watching his classmates roughhousing with skullcaps flapping.
“Dode Yossi!” He hobbled with his crutch to meet him, pouring out questions. Where had he come from? How long would he be
here? Would he be staying in Australia? How was Dode Zev? How was Aryeh? Kishote picked him up and exclaimed, “Oo-ah, Reuven!
This is more like it. You’ve gained weight.” He was smaller than the other nine-year olds gambolling around, but felt solid
now.

“He eats when I’m with him,” said Shayna. “I have to call your mother, Reuven, and tell her about General Nitzan.”

“Oh, come home with me, Yossi,” the boy laughed. “I live in a nice big house.”

Bulkily pregnant, thick arms folded, Lena was waiting on the porch of a brick row house, with a small front garden turned
autumn brown in April. “What a surprise! Welcome, General. You’ll stay to dinner, of course. Mendel can’t wait to meet you.
He’s on his way home. Come, Reuven, eat something and do your lessons.”

Shayna and Yossi sat down on the porch, and he told her about his latest trip with Sheva Leavis, and the success that had
earned him the trip to Melbourne. “Come on, Yossi,” she said. “I’m really puzzled. Surely you aren’t going in seriously for
such business, just buying and selling. That’s not you.”

“Well, after the army I have to do something. I’m becoming interested.”

“Oh, nonsense. Yael has put you up to it, that’s all.” With a wise look she added, “I daresay you’re having fun, though, you
no-good. All the ladies in far-off places —”

“Shayna, it’s given me a chance to see you, and here I am.”

Shayna reddened, and tossed her head much as she had as a small girl. “Now look, about Lena’s husband, don’t mind anything
he says. He’s not a bad person, Mendel. But a fool? Heaven watch and preserve us.”

He showed up shortly, a paunchy man with heavy jowls and thick rippling black hair. “Good-o, General, what an honor!” He pumped
Yossi’s hand there on the porch. “I say, those Ay-rabs gave you Israeli chaps a proper walloping this last round, didn’t they?
Luckily Uncle Sam was there to save your arses, what, what? Come in, come in.”

The table reminded Yossi of the Berkowitz flat in Haifa before Lena’s divorce, for while he sat with Mendel and Lena, Shayna
and Reuven were at the other end with different cutlery and plates, eating different food. Mendel explained to Yossi that
the kosher laws were just for hot countries in ancient days before refrigeration, and made no sense now, but he respected
Reuven’s upbringing and his late father’s wishes. “You can’t beat pork sausages and eggs for breakfast,” he said. “Snorkers,
we call them here. You can’t beat snorkers and eggs, General, but since Reuven came, all pork is out of this house.”