Your father hesitated for a moment and agreed. Our tragic encounter had prepared him for the possibility of a private meeting, even though he had done his best to avoid it. And when it dawned on him, though he still knew nothing specific, that you were about to eliminate the threat to him by ditching me for good, he didn’t have the heart to refuse me.
The truth is that although your father was not the type to cut and run, he had panicked so badly after that fateful Tuesday that he moved up a planned trip to America in the hope that it would give him, and perhaps me too, a breather in which to review the options more calmly (a sensible strategy for the stock market, but not for a Greek tragedy) before formulating his response to this stranger in his family who had never imagined that Paradise had its basements.
In the five years since our separation, Galya, I’ve sometimes thought about the man as much as I’ve thought about you. In the comprehensive dissertation on our divorce that I’ve composed in my head, there’s a chapter devoted to the subtleties of Mr. Hendel, who ran away (yes, ran away!) to America and returned from a successful two-week business trip there with the novel notion of handling me not by pleas, flattery, threats, or sulks, but by good humor. “Why in the world did you run away that day when you saw me?” was his line. “Don’t tell me you thought you had discovered some deep, dark secret! It’s time that you realized a family’s emotional life can be more complicated than you think.”
I wonder if you remember the family dinner to which we all were invited on the Saturday after your father’s return from America. It was at that nice restaurant belonging to Fu’ad’s uncle in Abu-Ghosh, on a terrace shaded by a grapevine as big as a tree. Surrounded and protected by his loving family, your father thought it was the perfect place to confront the son-in-law who had caught him with his pants down.
Perhaps you even remember how he seated us around the table. He put me as far from himself as possible, but also facing him, so that he could keep me under observation while warning me with a glance not to ruin a happy family. He strained to hear every word that I said, whether it was addressed to him or not. It was at that meal that he began dropping hints that he would make me his head architect in expanding the hotel for a new clientele discovered in America: wealthy fundamentalist Christians looking not just for a place to stay in Jerusalem but also for a home away from home that would offer them, on a clear day, views of the Messiah’s birthplace in Bethlehem, of his baptismal site near the Dead Sea, and of Golgotha, where he was crucified. It was at this meal — remember? — that he announced the coming revolution: no more “parasitical rabbis” checking his kitchen, no more separation of meat and dairy, no more porkless, seafoodless kosher meals. Come hell or high water, or just an ordinary Middle Eastern war, Christian pilgrims were more dependable than Jewish tourists.
And yet, little by little, as that meal went on, without anything careless being said or even hinted at, but simply by watching you and me squirm, he realized, with the intuition of a clever and intelligent father, that the thing he feared most had come to pass. The intimacy between us, so foreign to a secretive man like him, had become a wounded animal threatening to devour him.
I want you to know that to this day, at this precise moment, facing a computer in the dark office building of the Jewish Agency, I can re-create the exact shades of light, tones of voice, and smells of food on that grapevine-shaded terrace, on that day late in the summer of our separation and divorce, with its sweet light falling on the vineyards and orchards, on the restaurants, shops, mosques, and churches — that serene Jewish vision of a bucolic and uncomplaining Arab life, as sweet as baklava.
And then — do you remember? — your father grew suddenly alarmed at the prospect of my “betrayal.” He looked so bewildered and hostile, and his gloom was so great, that your mother asked if he was feeling all right and Tehila, who (unbelievable!) knew nothing (and may know nothing to this day) about the drama that had taken place behind her back, said crossly, “What’s the matter, Abba? Cheer up!” Even the old restaurant owner, Fu’ad’s uncle, who knew your father well, sensed the shift in mood and sent us a copper beaker of Turkish coffee and a plate of yellow semolina cakes on the house. I noticed that your father, whose relationship with you had always been warm and full of love, was afraid even to look at you.
Then and there, the masks were stripped from us all. Had you wanted it (but you didn’t, you didn’t!), you had all the proof you needed that my version of events was as real as the Arab village we were looking at. But you, although you felt your father’s distress and could easily have grasped its significance, decided to overlook it in his favor, his and not mine, because you had only one father, whereas a husband could always be housebroken or exchanged. And you knew that only by turning truth into fantasy could you defend the honor of your family and the sweet memories of your childhood. Right in front of me, demonstratively, you went over to your father and gave him a hug to bolster him and — isolate me.
My Meeting with Your Father in the King David Cafeteria
He chose the place. You know how he liked to drop in on hotels and check their service and prices so as to know what to charge for his own rooms.
It was seven in the evening. The cafeteria was half-deserted. Twilight was falling on a hot, dry autumn day. He was studying the menu while waiting for me in a corner.
He wasn’t unfriendly, although neither did he display the ingratiating anxiety he had shown me in Abu-Ghosh. He was serious and reserved throughout our meeting. It couldn’t have been easy for him. He was wearing his safari jacket despite the heat (the beige one, not the white), and as always I had the sense (for the first time, accompanied by a twinge of envy) of a strong, impressively virile man.
He ordered an herbal tea for himself — did his stroke really come from his notorious high blood pressure? — and I, in a moment of weakness, asked the waitress to bring me, along with my coffee, a piece of cream cake; its tastelessness only weakened me more in what was the shortest, but most dramatic, confrontation of my life.
It started off in a low key. We talked about his plans for expanding the restaurant, which required a building permit. I suggested, based on my experience working for Harari, that he refrain from making public his idea of bringing Christian pilgrims from the United States, and especially — at least until the plans were approved — from telling anyone that he intended to make the place nonkosher. Every official in the Jerusalem municipality, I told him, no matter how nonobservant, lived in fear of the religious parties, and there was no point in taking chances. Your father listened carefully, gripping his tea with both hands as though to warm them. He glanced at the walls of the Old City, as if checking whether the floodlights had been turned on, and then casually uttered five words that spelled an end to all my hopes: