Café Shira, page 5
The only thing that could cause Yahel to lose her balance for any length of time was giving birth. Luckily, her mother wasn’t averse to taking care of her and the baby in her little place in Givatayim. But after three months, Yahel couldn’t take it anymore and, carrying Shira, she set off around the country in search of a miracle. In Rosh Pina, she found a house where she could stay for some months with a woman who had given her a lift. Then that, too, came to an end.
Seeing Avigdor poke his head in the door, just as Shira is waking up, Yahel understands that, in fact, she has come looking for the home she once had here. But then she remembers what she has known ever since she came to her senses: there’s no going back. The only way to live is to go forward, with the flow.
Shira’s Father
“You really worked here?”
“Yes. Why? I’m not pretty enough?
“So tell me, was this already a loony bin then?”
“Of course! Don’t look at me that way. I started out normal but came away crazy. And pregnant. Shira, say hello to the waitress. What’s your name again?”
“Rutha. What a doll! How old is she?
“Almost five. Sorry she’s making such a mess here.”
“It’s nothing, really. After what Raymond did to her, it’s a miracle she’s okay.”
“Luckily he hasn’t recognized me. For him, there’s only one waitress. When a new one comes along, he forgets the old ones. He’s always been like that, he and all the other crazies . . . I haven’t forgotten a thing.”
“Was it fun?”
“It was wild. It was during the war.”
“Which war?”
“Can’t recall. There was a war in the North. Or in the South. There’s always a war in this country, isn’t there?”
“At least one.”
“And Avigdor’s still away more than he’s here?”
“As you can see. But they tell me he used to be a decent guy.”
“He was bipolar. Maybe tripolar. With good and bad days. But, my God, what a team we had back then! The finest guys in town worked here. I’m not the only one who got pregnant in that situation. There were conversations that went on until daybreak. I remember many times not getting home at all. I closed at night and opened in the morning without ever leaving. There were always three or four people sitting around a table until incredibly late. And what conversations we had! There was one guy named Justin—have you heard about him? But how could you have? He had eight coffee-mug tattoos, two on each leg, two on his back, and two more—guess where. He used to sit at this table, Justin, and say, ‘The only question that matters is, is there a higher power or isn’t there? Is everything accidental or nothing? Sometimes I’m sure of the one and sometimes the other. When I meet a girl, is it an accident or not? It drives me crazy. And if she throws me out, is it an accident or not? The girl I met last night, for example, was she just making eyes at me or did God send her to tell me something? You tell me. Because I can’t take it.’”
“And did someone give him an answer?”
“Who can answer that? Can you? I can’t either.”
“Actually, I have half an answer. Certainly not a whole one. I think, for someone who believes, nothing is really accidental. And for a person who doesn’t believe, everything happens completely by chance.”
“Give me a break. That whole search leads nowhere. To getting pregnant at best. And in most cases to abortion. Fortunately, I chose a different way. Come, Shira, we have to be going.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t made a plan yet.”
“So don’t go. You can stay at my place.”
“Are you sure? You weren’t expecting guests.”
“In my family, we’re always expecting guests. You should see the refrigerator.”
“You live with your parents?”
“No, of course not. My parents live on a farm. But my fridge, too, is well stocked.”
“Good for you. There was never anything in my fridge. And now I don’t even have one.”
“Where do you live?”
“I’m moving around. Don’t live anywhere yet. Maybe we’ll go back to Rosh Pina. What do you say, Shira? She’s terribly tired, even though she’s been sleeping pretty well here. It’s awfully nice of you to invite us. We’ll see. Maybe we’ll come sometime. I might even call you tonight if nothing turns up, okay?”
“Sure. Feel free.”
“Tell me, that character who used to fall asleep here—does he still come sometimes?”
“He’s in no condition to come. I’ve heard about him. They say he died here.”
“Died? When?”
“Not long before I came. Avigdor found him in the easy chair there, dead as a doorknob, with a smile on his face, as if he knew something we didn’t. Poor Avigdor. Imagine. He said the dead guy was laughing in his face.”
“Maybe not exactly dead. Just slumbering sweetly, on to some unknown destination. But it’s hard to imagine Café Shira without him.”
“Would he wake up to leave a tip?”
“He would tip at the beginning. Can you believe it?”
“So I was told. Even on the day he died he paid first, so he wouldn’t owe anything. And he left the tip, too, double the usual amount.”
“What a character. But I can’t imagine Café Shira without quite a few other characters. Did you know there was a woman who used to come here with a monkey? Two meals she’d order, one for herself and one for the monkey. And this monkey didn’t just like bananas. No, no. This monkey was a gourmet. She claimed he was the most cultivated person in town. Then she’d talk to him. And sometimes he even answered. I heard him myself. He said everything would turn out all right, she shouldn’t worry. All these characters—what happens to them afterward? I’m not sure they even exist when they’re not here. It’s as though Café Shira were some kind of album, and they come out of its pages and go back into them. There have been those who would come every day until they drifted away. It’s only the crazy ones who hang on. Even Justin hasn’t been here for quite a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be a Buddhist monk. Or a real estate developer in Arizona. Or a fundraiser somewhere. And I’m not at all sure he isn’t the father in our story. We’ll never know. Come on, Shira, come on. It’s really late.”
Table Six, Again
He can’t stand kids, Raymond. Boys or girls. Not exactly can’t stand them—doesn’t get along with them. Sure, they’re cute, he can see that, but they get on his nerves with all the noise and the mess and the need for attention. At least this little girl is sleeping. But she’s sleeping at his table.
The equanimity of sorts that he’s enjoyed for the last two hours has been shattered because he can’t stand it when people sit at his table. And a little girl at that. Just when the morning was going so well. He has walked all the way from his neighborhood to the café, enjoying the weather, even though it’s overcast. He’s been listening on his Discman—he’s the last person to own one—to songs by his girlfriend Madonna (everybody’s entitled to one faraway girlfriend, right?). And he’s been thinking positive thoughts, being in a positive-thinking phase. The problem is that with him the phases start and end in rapid succession, and now, seeing that his table is taken, a bad phase is about to begin.
To be clear, the table really is his. When you haven’t got much in life except a nagging mother and all kinds of grandiose plans—like meeting Madonna in person and telling her how much people here love her and maybe even giving her a song you’ve written just for her with a trembling hand—when you haven’t got much more than that, a table seems like a lot, and from there you can see a long way, not only ahead and all around but also deep down. If you’re really focused and open and imaginative, you can see as far as London and Paris and Los Angeles on a good day, and on special nights all the way to the end of the stars.
A mother and daughter are at his table, the daughter sleeping in her mother’s arms, and the mother has the looks of some gorgeous model. All of which throws him off-kilter.
She looks a bit familiar, this mother. He must have seen her on TV.
He only has room in his head for three distinct figures. Just now it’s the mother, Avigdor, and Rutha. All others are either strangers or only slightly familiar. The world confuses him.
It’s been a week since he went off the medications. He debated long and hard whether to stop taking them. It could undo all the efforts he’s made. The psychiatrist didn’t come down firmly for or against, although Raymond listened carefully so he couldn’t be blamed for not listening. For fifty minutes the psychiatrist kept saying, “On the one hand, on the other hand, on the one hand, on the other hand.” The word he hated most and understood least kept coming up: borderline. In terms of medications, he was borderline: he didn’t clearly need them and didn’t clearly not need them. “Your case is unusual. In fact, in many ways you’re as normal as I am.” At which Raymond wanted to ask, “What about the ways that I’m not? How many ways are there anyway, and what good do they all do me?” But whatever he said or asked, the psychiatrist would give him another annoying lecture. Try building a country on that. Maybe there’s no choice but to go back on the drugs. If that annoying mother and daughter don’t get up, he’ll get up and go home, climb in bed, and take his medicine, assuming he hasn’t already thrown it away. But he has, he remembers. Sure he has. Crazy. Maybe he should ask Evelyn for advice. But she’ll get him all confused, and he hasn’t got the strength for that right now. “It’s weird that your mother is still telling you what to do.” And as soon as he can, he plans to leave home at last. The fact that he stopped taking the medications is a step in the right direction, and that he might have to start taking them again would also be a step in the right direction (though not the same direction), and in any case he has to get back on track. On some track.
With great effort he manages to refrain from cursing the mother and daughter. He knows that the minute he starts cursing, Avigdor will appear out of nowhere and throw him out. But how can he avoid it? He always starts to curse. He simply has no self-control—it’s not up to him, it comes out of his mouth of its own accord, even in languages he doesn’t know; it happens to him in the middle of the street, at the cinema, at soccer matches, and he still hopes it won’t happen again, but he knows it will, and he thinks to himself, maybe there’s something in the world that can prevent it, O God, help me, and he bites his lower lip; the pressure is driving him crazy, why did he, of all people, turn out so messed up, other people have great lives, go to coffeehouses, fall in love, have sex, have kids, have lives, for God’s sake, and it’s only Raymond who’s stuck in this world like a mismatched screw that doesn’t fit into the hole; his ears hear whistling, his eyes blaze with wild colors, his skin itches and stings, and he even gives off strange odors, and every day Raymond disintegrates all over again into tiny particles, and no one cares, which is what really kills him, that no one anywhere cares, how could such a thing happen, that there is this one Raymond in the world, a good man, a special man, and he of all people gets tossed away like a cigarette butt, and then he’s completely ignored, as if what he has to give, say, ask, offer, contribute, explain, paint, sculpt and write—as if none of this counted.
What he should do is turn around and leave, but he can’t. This morning he had a charming picture in his head of how he would come to the café and sit down, and Avigdor would say good morning and offer him his first cup of coffee on the house, and Rutha, his favorite waitress, would bring him the coffee in her gentle way and ask him how he was and even wait to hear his answer, and if other people came in she would ask them to wait a moment, I’m busy with Raymond here, can’t you see, and when she finished her shift she would come over to say good-bye and offer her cheek for a little kiss, no big deal, nothing like the kisses she exchanges with the other waitress or the bartender, oh how they hug each other, it’s really something, and yet she might still have a little feeling left over for him, maybe even one little fleeting kiss, but miracles don’t happen to Raymond, no, no, miracles happen to people who have everything anyway, good health and money and work and brains and sanity, it’s just those people who get the best girls, like Avigdor, that homo, to whom, of all people, the girls come running, as if they were going to get something from him, and he puts on the face of a saint, mind you, the fact that I have a home and a café and loads of money doesn’t mean I can’t have philosophical thoughts, too. He’s two-faced, this character, the son of a bitch, Raymond has a big account to settle with him for his flip-flopping, the way he sometimes treats Raymond like his best friend and occasionally gives him coffee and even cake, on the house, but at other times gives him this murderous look, as if to say, you’re causing a disturbance in my café, man, people will see you here and not come back, what do you think this is, a nuthouse? And the very next day, what’s up, Raymond, how’s it going, Raymond, coochie-coo, Raymond, your craziness is actually good for my business, Raymond, it tells people how generous I am toward the down-and-out. You can see in his eyes that he’s making these calculations. Who does he think he’s fooling? Every child knows that a successful coffeehouse has to have at least one character, someone to give it pizzazz and life and meaning, otherwise all these deadbeats would have put each other to sleep long ago.
Besides, it’s Avigdor who’s the crazy one, not Raymond. While I’m at it.
And when the little girl wakes up, he gets an idea: instead of cursing her and her bombshell of a mother (and God knows how much she and her six-foot frame deserve it), he offers to play a game with the girl, the only one he knows: making faces. At that, he’s an expert; he doesn’t even have to make an effort, he’s got the faces inside him, interchangeable, and the girl enjoys the show, and her mother seems pretty happy, too, and finally, when he’s run out of material, he’s left with only himself, if there is such a thing, and he explains slowly and patiently to the girl that it’s not right just to come and sit down at a table where another person has been sitting from opening time to closing time nearly every day for years, only unfortunately the mother seems a bit freaked out, even though he explains everything so nicely and clearly, and what’s really weird is that the little girl starts to cry and won’t stop.
A Hookup
“Mommy, I’m hungry.”
“We were just in the café. Couldn’t you have told me?”
“But I did.”
“You just said you wanted some ice cream.”
“Because I was hungry.”
“You get ice cream just once a week. And that was yesterday.”
The whole mothering thing is hard for Yahel. She wouldn’t do anything differently, but if she could she’d take a break from the burden of the child, from the demands and the whining and the tugging at her sleeve. At this stage there are no breaks, nor will there be. And the possibility of a man seems more remote than ever. Why would anyone want a single mother? No, thanks.
On the other hand, she wouldn’t necessarily behave any differently if she were a man. Until Shira came along, she, too, was satisfied with the here and now.
It was right here, at this exact spot, on the steps leading down to the street, at the end of her shift, that she met . . . he’s still nameless, and he’ll stay that way. He looked at her, she looked at him. She no longer remembers what he looked like, only that he had a little beard and was a bit taller than her. They didn’t exchange a word. She turned around, he followed her, she opened the café door she had just closed, he went in after her, she undressed, he undressed after her. She spread her coat out on the floor, he spread his over it. She lay down and drew him to her. He was soft and delicate (surprisingly so, given his masculine appearance) and not in any hurry. Were they together for an hour? Two hours? A day? A year? They didn’t exchange a single word. Finally, he left her with a long, long kiss. She had thought of asking him his name, but she fell asleep. An hour later, she woke up and went out again. She felt as if her life had changed. The nocturnal light seemed completely different. She didn’t miss him or have any regrets. But she loved what had happened, from beginning to end. It was exactly the way it should be. Maybe her life did change then, she thinks now. Maybe she wasn’t careful about birth control . . .
After him, she formulated her own Ten Commandments of Hookups: He should be manly. He shouldn’t be thinking about anyone else while they were doing it. He shouldn’t talk too much. He should look at her adoringly, even in the dark. He shouldn’t sing, but if he did he should be able to carry a tune (because if he sang off-key, she couldn’t come. Everything had to be just right). He should ask for her phone number (but not get it). He shouldn’t talk about the army. He shouldn’t talk about his friends. He shouldn’t talk about his mother. He shouldn’t ask if she’s had an HIV test.
Once, she climbed eight flights of steps to the apartment of another guy who had nothing in his bedroom but a framed HIV test certificate. She got to know all kinds of characters back then. It was school for her, and she passed her matriculation exams with flying colors.
Lihi, who overlapped with her at the café and, for a while afterward, in life, wanted her to add another item to her Ten Commandments of Hookups (which they had written together on a blackboard in the kitchen): no hookups with customers. It was bad for tips, because afterward the customer wouldn’t come back, or as Lihi put it, he would be a “letdown.” Yahel got the idea, but it didn’t stand the test of reality, over and over and over again.
Leaving the café, she sees Flora dragging herself up the steps across the way. The woman lives in the stair hall. She’s always either going up or down or stuck halfway. And always with the two baskets. Like straight out of an old B movie. Why does she have to keep going up and down? And how old must she be by now? Even back then she looked like a hundred (and didn’t she, too, have hookups when she was young?) She’s a little bent over but still dragging herself along. One of those people who live forever. Yahel hopes she will never find herself in that category. She’s always quietly wished for it all to be over. Well, not right away, and not while her daughter is still little, but by age sixty, no later. She has no desire to reach a ripe old age. Surviving adolescence and motherhood has been quite enough.
