Tel Aviv at night

Excerpt from "Bring Me Comfort"- Chapter One

I felt Ze’ev’s eyes following me and the first few steps I danced I felt very self-conscious, until I realized that I had lost sight of him in the crowd. When we made our way back to the bar a half hour later Ze’ev was deep in conversation with Arik, but he looked up and caught my eye and smiled at me again. I smiled back and wanted to light a cigarette but I didn’t think I could do it without burning somebody so instead I took my drink, which Ze’ev held out for me wordlessly. I thanked him and took a sip. Not long after we poured out onto the street again and discovered a surprisingly quiet little café nearby where we all sat down at a table and ordered coffee. I found myself sitting next to Ze’ev and as I got out the cigarette I had wanted to smoke for the last hour he leaned over to give me a light. I offered him one of my Kents but he preferred his own Marlboro.

“I try not to smoke too much,” he told me. “In order to save my voice for singing.”

I smiled at him again, holding his eyes, and took a deep drag on my cigarette. I wanted to say that I tried not to smoke too much either, to save my life, but I wasn’t sure it would sound very funny so I refrained.

“Have you been in ha’aretz long?” he asked.

“About eight years,” I answered. “And you?”

“I was born here, in Holon. What exactly made you decide to come here?”

“Well, my brother already lived here – he went to the University of Tel Aviv - and since the first time I visited him I knew I just had to come back permanently.” I paused, feeling self-conscious for the second time that night. Then I went on: “Israel felt like home the moment I set foot here.”

“I’ve heard that before,” he smiled his warm smile. “What do you do for work?”

“I'm a translator. I work with Spanish, English and Hebrew.”

“Spanish? I love that language. My grandmother spoke Spanish. I’ve always wanted to go to Spain.”

“It’s a beautiful country. I spent part of my childhood there. Was your grandmother Spanish?”

“No, Turkish. But her ancestors were from Sepharad, Spain.”

“Turkey is beautiful too. Have you been there?”

“Yes, I have, several times.”

“I was in Istanbul several years ago. It was breath-taking. I had dinner at this place called the Safran Restaurant, at the top of the Intercontinental Hotel, with a view of the whole city, including the Bosphorus and the Sofia and Blue Mosques. It was quite incredible. I loved the music and the belly dancers, and the people were so hospitable.” I paused. “I’m sorry, I’m talking too much.”

Ze’ev laughed.

“No, you’re not. Don’t stop, I like it,” he said.

Our conversation continued and I found myself very drawn to him. He was soft-spoken, with a slow smile and expressive eyes that were like twin pools of black liquid. He had a quiet air about him that seemed like a complete contrast to my own usually hectic way of moving through life. The more we talked the more we seemed to find to talk about and I almost forgot that there were other people sitting with us at the table, until Nurit leaned in close to my ear and whispered: “You two seem to be hitting it off.”

I smiled and nodded.

Ze’ev was lighting up another Marlboro and I reached for my Kent. He again gave me a light. I enjoyed the attentiveness that it showed. It was a gesture that never grew old, and it was made even more pleasant because it was coming from someone I was very attracted to.

People started to get up and make signs of leaving, but Ze’ev and I remained seated. Nurit made a telephone sign with her hand against her ear and I nodded again. Asher said he would see Ze'ev later and wished us both a good night. Eventually everybody was gone and just the two of us remained. As we finished up our drinks we smiled at each other over the tops of our glasses and Ze’ev asked me if he could walk me home. The bottom of my stomach seemed to fall out and I said I would like that.

We strolled down the empty, somewhat dirty, streets and continued to talk. Ze’ev told me how he and Asher had formed their band, Enfasis.

"A Spanish word. Emphasis," he smiled with a sideways glance at me. They had both been in a band together at school, but when they left school they decided to take another direction with their music and they were very excited with their recent CD release. It had been a long time coming.

When we reached my apartment building Ze'ev asked me if I would like to come to the bar where he worked the following night. I said I would enjoy that and he mentioned a bar that I had never entered but had passed many times while strolling down Ben Yehuda Street.

"Come anytime after eight-thirty; I will be there," he said and we stood looking at each other for a moment. I willed him to kiss me but he just smiled and looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. Instead he said good night in his low, deep voice and turned to start walking back in the direction we had just come from.

Saturday evening I walked into Schneider's at a quarter to nine. I saw Ze'ev standing behind the bar as soon as I walked in. He was wearing a black t-shirt and his hair looked a little damp, as if he had just washed it. The small dark pub was not full yet; just a few couples sitting at the tables. I took a seat on a bar stool at the end of the bar and Ze'ev leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. My face burned but luckily it was too dark for him to notice. He asked how I was and how my day had gone and I told him, taking pleasure in his attention and the novelty of the stirrings of emotion he provoked inside me. I felt a repressed excitement within that made it hard for me to concentrate on anything other than his close proximity to me. When he asked me what I wanted to drink I said grapefruit juice. I felt inebriated enough as it was so I didn’t think I needed any outside help in the form of alcohol. Although it might have helped me relax a little, I thought as I sipped the juice he placed before me. I lit up a cigarette and we chatted somewhat haltingly about this and that. Now and then we would be interrupted by customers who needed Ze’ev’s attention and as he opened the bottles and poured the drinks I would follow his deft movements with my eyes until he came back to continue our conversation. After I had been there about half an hour I started to feel myself relax. It was hard not to, with Ze’ev making sure we kept up a steady flow of conversation. I began to feel what we had felt the night before: as if we both wanted to discuss everything we were interested in, as if we had a time limit on how long we had to get to know each other.

Acre Harbor

Opening scene from "Bring Me Comfort"

“I don’t want a marriage, I want a divorce,” Yuval said emphatically.

He paused, then went on:

“We need to come up with an arrangement that will work for both sides so that we can go on to live our lives. Separately.”

Yuval Sela was my brother Eitan’s best friend and he was talking about the division of Israeli and a Palestinian states. He, Eitan and another of his friends, Itay Dahan and I were sitting in the Nana bar in the Neve Tsedek district of Tel Aviv. It was Thursday; a popular night for going out as the weekend in Israel consisted of Friday and Saturday, and the bar was beginning to fill up. Because Eitan and I were very close, I often found myself the only girl in a group of men. I was so used to it that I never gave it any thought until somebody who didn’t know us started trying to guess whose girlfriend I was, only to find out I wasn’t with any of them in that way. People rarely mistook me for Eitan’s girlfriend as we looked very much alike, both of us blond with our father’s blue eyes.

“We need to separate completely. That’s the key,” Yuval went on. We all nodded in agreement. “Then, once we have created our two states, any Israeli Arab that wants to remain in Israel should be allowed to serve in the army.”

Yuval was about 5’9, had straight dark hair and a pleasant, attractive face. He and Eitan had served their three and a half years of compulsory draft together and they had been very close ever since.

“I think it would be a good idea, too, if they had to say a pledge of allegiance, like they do in the States,” Itay said. He was the tallest of the three men, about 5’11 with short dark hair and angular features. He and Eitan had worked together several years ago, and although they had both gone on to different jobs since then, their friendship had prevailed.

“I wish we could just get on with it already. It would be nice to be able to relax a little,” Eitan sighed. We all knew just what he meant. The constant tension of the situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis was definitely wearing. Amongst Israelis what was going on in the country was literally called ‘the situation”: HaMatzav.

“And I don’t know that we can deal with our very serious social issues until we solve the problem with the Palestinians,” I said.

“That’s just an excuse, Aviva. We could be dealing with them right now. The government just chooses not to,” Eitan said to me.

“For a start, it’s the Ultra-Orthodox Jews’ prerogative to be pacifists, but they could do social services instead, to give something to the State. Hell, they could even get paid for it,” Yuval snorted.

“Without a doubt we have social problems,” Eitan said. “But then so does every country in the world. We’re no different in that respect.”

The bar was dimly lit and its exposed brick and hardwood fixtures gave it an informal, relaxed atmosphere that made it a much frequented place with people looking to hang out and make conversation. Neve Tzedek had been the first neighbourhood of what was now Tel Aviv to be built by Jews eager to get out of Jaffa, in those days populated mostly by Arabs. Dating from the 1880s, it was situated in the southern part of the city, between the Florentin district and the sea, just north of Jaffa. It had in recent times become very popular with the bohemian yuppie set and was now full of art galleries and small cafes.

It had been a year and a half since the beginning of the second Intifada, Or “Al-Aqsa Intifada” as it was known in the press, and today there had been another suicide bombing, this time on King George Street in downtown Jerusalem, killing three and wounding 86. Israelis were tired and fed up. The economy was suffering badly, tourism was at an all time low and the majority of Israel’s Jewish citizens felt that something, anything, had to be done to change the current circumstances.

It was close to eleven and the Nana bar was now well and truly packed. My best friend Nurit Ben Zur and her boyfriend Yonatan Magen joined us, after elbowing their way through the crowded bar. Nurit gave me a kiss on the cheek and lit up a cigarette.

“I’m famished. Can I get something to eat in this place?” She said. Nurit and I had been friends since before I moved to Israel. I had met her while I was visiting my brother and we had grown extremely close over the years. She was of medium height with black hair that reached just below her shoulders and clear olive skin that radiated good health. She was a very warm person, laughed often and was always ready with a sympathetic ear when I needed her. I always marveled at her seemingly limitless ability to remain completely calm in any situation.

She had only been seeing Yonatan for a few months and so far I really liked him. He was almost the exact opposite of her ex-boyfriend, Amir Ezra, who she had dated for about five years. They had lived together for the last four, and he had been a prize jerk; endlessly cheating on her and failing to show up for appointments that they made. He was the driver for the Minister of Defense and this only seemed to add to his feeling of self-importance. Yonatan, on the other hand, worked in the high tech industry, as did my brother Eitan and his friends Yuval and Itay. Eitan and Yonatan were both international sales representatives; Yuval a project manager and Itay a software programmer. Yonatan was tall with short dark blonde hair and distinct features; his mouth was often curved up in a little half smile, as if he felt that life treated him well. It was a huge change from Amir, with his sulky, dark good looks and eyes that were as blue as the Mediterranean that washed the shores of Tel Aviv and which got him whatever he wanted. I put an arm around my friend as she ordered a hamburger from a passing waitress. Yonatan ordered one too and they were served with surprising speed, considering the amount of people in the place. As they ate our conversation continued.

“Are the hamburgers any good?” Eitan asked.

“They are actually,” Nurit answered with her mouth full. “Nothing like McDonald’s.”

“Honestly,” Eitan said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand how that place can be so popular in the States.”

“Yeah, but even so someone sued them for making them fat,” Yuval said.

“I hope they were laughed out of court,” I said, laughing myself.

“The mixture of stress and a bad diet is doing nothing for Americans’ health,” Eitan went on.

“Hey, I’m stressed, what with this Intifada and the constant terror attacks,” I said.

“Are you, though?” Yuval asked. “Are the attacks stressing you out?”

I thought for a moment.

“You know, they are, but come to think of it the Americans are way more stressed than I am.”

We all laughed.

“It’s kind of amazing to think that people there can worry more about money than we worry here about losing our lives,” Nurit mused.

Capuchino, Pamplona 2009

Excerpt from "Torero"

We sipped our drinks in silence for a moment and that is when the atmosphere in the bar suddenly changed. There was a hush and Raquel caught her breath. I followed her gaze and saw that a new customer had arrived with a group of people. Judging by the way he carried himself and people’s reaction to him, he was someone important. He was about 5’10, with short, thick black hair, a square jaw and almost black eyes under surprisingly shapely eyebrows for a man. His movements had a quiet, graceful confidence about them that made it hard for me to take my eyes off him. He seemed to be having a similar affect on most of the people in the bar.

“Who is that?” I asked Raquel. I cleared my throat as the question had come out like a croak.

Raquel turned to me, shocked.

“You don’t know?”

I was surprised, although not very. Like I said, he seemed important.

“I should?”

“He’s only one of the top three matadors in the country!” Raquel scoffed. “His father was Nando, who was fatally gored about fifteen years ago. You know.”

Actually, I did. So this was Fernando Cortes Jimenez, the Spanish media’s darling. Due to my aforementioned lack of interest in bullfighting, his handsome face had passed me by. My loss, obviously; I saw that now. But it showed his extreme popularity with the Spanish people that even I had heard of him.

At this point I saw Raquel blush, which because of her dark coloring was only noticeable if you were sitting right next to her like I was.

“Hola. How are you?” she said.

I looked up. Fernando was standing at our table.

“Well, thank you. And you? How is Jaime?” he asked quietly. His voice was like treacle.

“He’s well. He has a novillada tomorrow in Cortes,” Raquel explained, having recovered herself admirably.

“That’s right,” Fernando nodded. “Maybe I will come and watch.”

“Really?” Raquel squeaked, unable to hide the surprise in her voice. “Don’t you have a fight tomorrow?”

“No, I have this weekend off,” he answered.

“Who is your friend?” he asked, turning to me.

“Miriam Herrero Arias,” I said, getting up and proffering my cheeks, which received two kisses from very soft, dry lips.

“Fernando Cortes Jimenez,” he introduced himself matter-of-factly. I liked that he did not assume that I knew who he was.

“A pleasure,” I said with a smile.

“The pleasure is all mine,” he answered courteously.

I noticed that we had not taken our eyes off each other.

“Will you be accompanying Raquel to Cortes tomorrow?” he asked.

“I was thinking about it,” I replied, sounding uncharacteristically coy.

“I will see you there, then.”

He bowed his head.

“Buenas noches, señoritas,” he said.

Fernando went back to the group of people he had come in with. I saw one of the men crane his neck to get a look at Raquel and me. He looked worried about something, on his dark face a deep frown. He caught my eyes for a second but looked away quickly. I did not look away, however, so I saw him whisper something in Fernando’s ear as soon as he rejoined the group. Fernando’s face clouded over for a moment and then he shrugged irritably, at the same time turning to someone else in his party.

“Who is that?” I asked Raquel, discreetly pointing out Fernando’s moody looking friend.

“Oh, that’s Luis, Fernando’s banderillero,” she said casually. “They’re practically inseparable.”

“I don’t really like the look of him,” I said, not knowing why I felt that way.

“He’s a strange one for sure,” Raquel agreed. “I’ve sometimes wondered if he’s manic depressive – you never know where he’s going to be coming from.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“I try not to have too much to do with him.”

I reluctantly took my eyes off Fernando and let my breath out in a quiet whoosh. Raquel looked at me out of the corner of her eye. Her lips twitched and she whispered:

“He’s pretty hot, isn’t he?”

I nodded, not really able to put in to words just how good-looking I found him. I realized that for a moment there I had not felt Abuela’s absence so acutely.

“I’m surprised he’s not surrounded by press,” Raquel went on. “Usually he has at least a few photographers trailing him. Although to be fair they seem to leave him alone quite a bit in Ronda. Unless he’s with one of those beauties he dates.”

I felt a unreasonable and unexpected stab of jealousy. Oblivious, Raquel informed me:

“He just stopped seeing Carmen Rodriguez, you know; a “mees”.”

She meant a Miss España.

“So tell me about a novillada,” I said, to change the subject and keep my mind occupied.

Oma as a young woman

Catharina Johanna Schmidt (nee Paardenkoper) 1919-2009

My grandmother died today, July 9^th, 2009. She would have been 90 on December 22^nd. I hadn’t seen her for many years and had only spoken to her once in the last year (her memory was failing so she wasn’t sure who I was) but I never thought this moment would come. I thought she would live forever. Apparently this is quite a common thought amongst people. Oma was a big presence in my life for many years. When I was a baby I spent a lot of time with her because my mother had only just turned twenty when she had me, and when Oscar and I first moved to the U.S and until fairly recently, she always helped us out with money. In fact, I’m not sure we would have made it if it had not been for her help.

Oma was very particular. She liked the best of everything, a trait she has passed on both to her daughter (my mother) and me. She also passed on to us her love of organization, neatness and cleanliness, and I almost have a phobia about touching money, especially change, because she drilled into me how thoroughly dirty and disgusting it is, after “all those people having touched it.”

Oma was a snob too, but she was very well informed, reading the paper every day well into her seventies. And I also remember her being very open compared to a lot of my friends’ grandmothers. She liked dirty jokes and was known to swear like a trooper on occasion. But she didn’t like us to swear so she would tell us, without a trace of irony: “Don’t fucking swear.” I remember feeling perfectly comfortable discussing my period and certain aspects of sex with her. I remember how we’d watch the Jerry Springer show and roar with laughter together. I don’t remember exactly when I stopped staying with her regularly, but I do know that she would always prepare for me, in the evening, an open-faced peanut-butter sandwich cut up into bit-size cubes. I loved that – it made me feel so coddled. I would never prepare it like that for myself. Food was always a big pleasure at her house. I loved her cooking and we always had “snoep” (candy). The other big joy (which I still love to this day) was shopping. We would literally shop till we dropped and I can’t imagine a better place for it than Den Haag. Although of course I’m sure there are better places, but that is of no consequence.

Until I was well into my teens I would share her double bed when I stayed with her. I would wake up in the morning to the sound of her little radio, which she would be holding on her chest. A pinky inserted in the corner of her mouth and a frown of concentration on her face, she listened to the morning news. When I was a small child I loved watching her morning ritual of “putting her face on.” She had endless amounts of little bottles of make-up and perfume which were utterly fascinating to me. People would often mistake her for my mother.

Oma was married to a prominent figure in Dutch politics and in the United Nations. He was twenty-three years her senior; her father’s best-friend. My grandfather, Petrus Johannes Schmidt, died when my grandmother thirty-three (my mother was five) . He co-wrote the Declaration of Human Rights at the UN and they were frequent house-guests at the Roosevelts’. After his death my grandmother never re-married and she brought up her two children, my mother Petra and my uncle Edo, by herself.

Helping in the Kitchen

Happy 4th July

A quiet 4th of July, taking care of the horses at Harvest Hill Farm and grilling a few hamburgers and hotdogs in true 4th of July style. We were going to eat outside but everything was soaking wet from the thunderstorm we had earlier. Luckily Raquel had a great idea: she suggested that we pretend that inside was outside! So we lit some cintronella candles inside, she got Baby Moses, her doll's, high chair so he could join us and we had a delicious and cozy meal indoors.

Last night Raquel and I went to Temple Israel in Dover for the Family Service and potluck dinner. The gathereing was small but everyone was very nice. Most people came up to introduce themselves and thank me for coming. At one point I mentioned how important I feel it is to have Judaism in our children's lives, and how wonderful the preschool at Temple Israel in Portsmouth is for this. Because, I said, it just gets harder and harder to keep Judaism relevant once they start going to regular public school. Someone else said yes, especially here (meaning NH). Compared to Boston or NYC, this is true, but compared to Spain, it is like Israel here (so to speak) in how open you can be about being Jewish. I have an Israeli flag hanging from my rear-view mirror, and on my former car I had a pro-Israel bumper sticker, something my brother Jov couldn't believe when he saw it (we went to see him when he was on a business trip in NJ). He said I'd be in real trouble with a bumper sticker like that in Europe. It goes to show how easy it is to get used to a good thing.

Raquel, dinner outside

No news is good news unless it's raining

Not much news on the home front. Raquel is very excited that her school's summer camp will be starting next week, on Tuesday. Every Wednesday they are going to go on an outing. On the first Wednesday they will be going to an ice cream parlor and they will be allowed to see the big freezers and build their own ice creams, with toppings! The following week they are going somewhere where they can touch crabs and other sea creatures. Raquel is going to LOVE that. I hope she won't be disappointed, though, when she sees that "camp" is not "camping". She has her backpack ready to go, with gloves, a compass and all sorts of other goodies that she will need out camping...She also told me that I will have to bring my own tent if I plan to spend any time there. She and I are also really looking forward to going to the family service at Temple Israel, Dover, on Friday after our play date with Ruth and Zachary. On Monday we will go to the preschool's open house. Hopefully this weekend it will NOT rain so that we can grill and eat outside on Saturday, July 4th. I am seriously beginning to worry about Vitamin D deficiency; we have hardly seen the sun in a month and July is apparently going to bring more of the same.