1

Two Sisters

A.

“Seven in the morning. You’re probably thinking: what’s so special about seven in the morning? And that’s where you’d be wrong, Mrs. Gitlis, because their seven in the morning is not our seven in the morning. Over there it’s still half dark, and sometimes rainy. Who’d be crazy enough to want to get out of bed? But me, I’d get up real quiet so as not to wake Tzippi. I’d put on a sweater and go out on the balcony. What can I tell you, Mrs. Gitlis, it takes your breath away! Now you and I have known each other for more than a little while, haven’t we Mrs. Gitlis, and you know I’m not a person that gets worked up over nothing. So if I say it takes your breath away—I mean, AWAAAAAY!—here’s you, and there in front of you, the whole of Austria. Just like that. The forests, the mountains, the snow. Not another soul around, maybe a cow or two. But otherwise—gornisht! Nothing! And the smell of green, and the flowers. What flowers! And those little houses, and you can hear bells from far away . . . two hundred grams?”

“Make it three hundred, but sliced thin.”

“People say, Yosef Zinman is a millionaire, Yosef Zinman can afford it. Let’s say that thank God I’m wanting for nothing. So that means I’m supposed to go to London? Sit in the Hilton, against my will? I’m very sorry but I’m not interested in hobnobbing with the who’s who. Here comes Dvora, you can ask her.”

“It’s true. In our family there are no snobs,” said Dvora Saltzman.

“Give me an easy chair in a little inn and I’m in heaven. Anyone who understands what Seefeld is knows what I’m talking about. There’s this one inn we’ve been going to for years now. Exactly ten minutes from the center of town. Cozy place. Eight rooms, tops. The owners, they took a shine to us. Nice people, both him and her. You should see the smiles they give us. Not once did we get to our room and there wasn’t some chocolates waiting for us, on the house. They really know how to treat people. And you know the funniest thing of all? We’ve never paid more than forty or fifty dollars a night! . . . You want a little more?”

“No, that’s enough. It’s already too much for me. What about these? Are they fresh from this week?”

“Came in two days ago. Look how pink. You want?”

“Let me see . . . you know what? Go ahead, give me four halves. But wash your hands first.”

“Where were we? Seven in the morning. So anyway, a person’s got to eat, right? And what do they give you for breakfast, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. The lady of the house sure knows how to work up a person’s appetite. Take the hard-boiled eggs, for example. Now who isn’t familiar with hard-boiled eggs? So just to make them look nice she puts them in a kind of wicker basket shaped like a chicken. And never once are those eggs cold, there is always a little warmth left in them from the boiling. And the yolk—you’ve never seen a color like that. Bright orange. Not like our eggs.”

“You don’t say . . .”

“I only hope, Mrs. Gitlis, that one day you’ll have the chance to eat such an egg. And the cheeses, and the rolls . . . I happen to be crazy about homemade jams. So every morning I find two jars of jam next to my plate. Sometimes it’s raspberry, sometimes it’s apricot. Depends on the season. And everything is served with also bitte, also bitte. She hands you a cup of coffee: also bitte. Pours some milk for you: also bitte. I wouldn’t be surprised if she says also bitte when she farts.”

He paused to allow the two women to chuckle.

“We finish eating and take a walk down the pedestrian mall. The shops sell all kinds of tchotchkes, you know, like animal figurines made of crystal. For your information, that’s an Austrian specialty. Not interested? Across the street there’s a bakery that makes your eyes pop out of your head. How can I describe it? It’s impossible! The strudels, the tortes, the little plum tarts with krishkelakh sprinkled on top.” He sighed and nostalgically patted his bloated paunch with its protruding navel. “What can I do? I’m only human. But don’t think that Seefeld is just sitting around and stuffing your face all day long. There is what to do, and how! Take us, for example: we love a nice excursion. So we get in the car and drive. Ever heard of the Zugspitze?”

Mrs. Gitlis was forced to admit, shamefacedly, that word of such a place had never reached her ears, which prompted Yosef Zinman to tell her about this mighty mountain and about the wide balcony at its summit where tourists in sunglasses and parkas sit drinking beer and sunning themselves in the snow. “Now ask me what there is to do in the evening.”

“Nu? What?”

“Oh ho! You should know that I’m a person who likes to raise a little hell. In Seefeld, you go out every evening, without exception. After all, why go there if not to have some fun? There’s this one place we really like, a sort of restaurant-nightclub all in one. There’s a floor show during dinner, usually sixties music. Before dessert is served we’re already up on the dance floor, pulling everyone along after us: young people, old people, Italians, French. You don’t get the riffraff there, only the right kind: the lawyers, the doctors, the professors. It’s often the same people over again, year after year. Two years ago we went with Danny and Dolly Shem-Tov, from the dry cleaners; we happen to be friends with them. One evening I ordered screwdrivers for the whole table, on me. On trips, I like to be generous. Danny Shem-Tov drank a little too fast and decided some Dutch guy was hitting on his wife. ‘Danny,’ I told him, ‘don’t get such ideas in your head. This is Seefeld! I dance with this chick and she dances with that guy and it’s no big deal. Take it as a compliment that your wife attracts attention.’ But he got all puffed up and turned as red as a monkey’s ass and stood up all at once from the table right in the middle of them dancing the paso doble.”

“And what happened?” asked Mrs. Gitlis, taken aback.

“Nothing. Up close he could see that the Dutch guy was three sizes bigger than him. Dolly Shem-Tov was so embarrassed she looked like she wanted to dive under a table. Will that be all, Mrs. Gitlis?”

“I don’t know. What else do I usually take?”

“You got enough low-cal yogurt at home? Prunes? The gummy candy you like . . . ?”

“Do me a favor, Yosske,” his sister-in-law Dvora butted in, “I’ve got to get home. Just give me two poppy-seed challahs, not the burnt ones. Add a carton of skim milk to my account, too. I’ll call in later with the rest of my order.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“Tell me, are the kids coming with you tomorrow?”

“Tuvia for sure will, he wouldn’t miss your cholent, especially in this weather. But Shirley? I couldn’t say,” Yosef Zinman said with a sigh as he wiped his hands on his trousers. “Depends on her mood.”

“I’ve got to run, we’ll talk later. Shabbat Shalom, Mrs. Gitlis. Sorry for butting in.”

“Toss in a kilo of Osem flour, what the heck,” Mrs. Gitlis said, coming out of her reverie.

Thus, with a bag dangling from one hand and a bag dangling from the other, Dvora Saltzman crossed Judah the Maccabee Street and went up the stairs to her apartment. It was already eight-thirty in the morning and once again it was starting to rain. She entered the kitchen out of breath, tossed her bundles onto the countertop, and turned to her husband, Shraga Saltzman, who was sitting in a tracksuit drinking a cup of coffee without even a single, insignificant thought floating through his head. “Shraga,” she said—these are the exact words she uttered—“I’m sick of it. Just once I want to go to this Seefeld everyone’s always visiting.”

B.

Family by family was the world created, each with its own core, its own essence—a motif, a desire, a talent—around which all the family members circle, each in his own way, never tiring of discussing it over and over again. We have heard, for example, of literary families: the grandfather was a bookseller, one granddaughter edits a journal and flits about wildly with poets while another, whose name precedes her in translation circles, gets starry-eyed each time she thinks of the name Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky. We know, too, of musical families: at every family gathering someone will pull out an accordion and a darbuka drum; the head of the family will burst into song, the grandmother will astonish everyone with a cadenza that is especially hers and all the others will join in for the chorus. And let us not forget the historical families that never grow weary of recounting the glory of past generations, or, on the contrary, families that adhere to the principle of suspicion, whereby at Friday night dinners they will recount a litany of intrigues plotted against them and will try to reveal the schemes hiding behind the smiles of neighbors, clerks, local politicians, and even one another, incessantly suspecting that their children are freeloaders, their siblings, deceitful, and even they themselves cannot be trusted.

The Zinmans, and their relatives the Saltzmans, preferred to focus on their intestines and the functions therein. They took an interest in knowing what was excreted from people’s bodies and under what set of circumstances, and whether suffering was involved or perhaps pleasure. They always listened cheerfully to one another, encouraging the speaker to report on everything taking place within his bowels. Their advice was plentiful: your movements are sluggish—try this, do that; your movements are too swift, irritable—take this or that. Their bag of tricks was stuffed full of incidents—a hair-raising treasure trove!—that had befallen them in the past. Upon leaving the lavatory they would issue comparatives and superlatives, and if some special episode had occurred they did not hesitate to pick up the phone to the others. No texture was foreign to them: a volcanic stomach was thought to be a sign of virility in a man and an expression of joie de vivre in a woman. Flatulence was so pleasant to them that they created and bestowed upon it its own special language, each term representative of a different embodiment of the phenomenon, from minor releases, the traces of which evaporate in a flash, to Napoleonic displays that make a formidable impression on others. And if their luck held out and someone among them passed wind in a manner heard by all, their laughter could bring them to tears. Thus, the reader can imagine that slow-cooking stews were the apotheosis of their family life.

In the early days of 1989, a frost took hold of the country. Storms lashed out for an entire week without mercy. Pine trees fell, streams overflowed; in Safed, water froze in the pipes; in Jerusalem, boilers were lit day and night; and in Tel Aviv the traffic lights broke down again and again, wreaking havoc on traffic. For a whole week, residents of Tel Aviv walked about in soaking wet socks and helplessly chased after the skeletons of umbrellas snatched from their hands by the winds. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, the storm abated. The water that had flooded the streets receded at last into the drainage system. The sidewalks glistened. A fine scent of wet earth arose from all the gardens and yards. The streets were nearly completely tranquil, except for here and there a barking dog or a passing car whose wet tires raised a thin whisper. Windows were hidden behind shuttered blinds. Apartment stairwells steamed up with the smell of cooking foods, and anyone who cocked an ear would hear the joyous sound of cutlery clinking in the apartments. At a little before two o’clock on Judah the Maccabee Street in north Tel Aviv, the entire family gathered at the home of Dvora Saltzman for cholent.

“Who even wanted to get out from under the covers?” grumbled Aunt Masha Lifschitz, a tiny, dignified crone shrouded in a cloying scent as she wiped the soles of her shoes on the straw welcome mat. “As far as I’m concerned you could have saved yourselves all the trouble of this luncheon.”

“Greetings!” bellowed the shopkeeper Yosef Zinman as he walked in, his potbelly leading the way. “What a smell, Dvoraleh. Great job—you can smell the cholent all the way down to Café Alexander. We are going to have a gooooood time!”

“Maybe you’re going to have a good time,” said the old woman, turning her head to him, “but I feel sorry for your poor wife. What a concert she’s going to get afterwards.”

“Shraga, hang Ciotka Masha’s coat up for her,” the hostess instructed her husband as she kissed Aunt Masha’s soft, powdered cheeks, two virgin plots of land in a field of wrinkles. “And where’s Tzippi? Didn’t she come with you?”

In place of an answer came the family whistle announcing that the stylist Tzippi Zinman was on her way up the stairs. Her magnificent head appeared first, then her shoulders and her body ensconced in a red coat with frizzy lining. She was carrying an enormous jar containing homemade pickles.

“Shabbat Shalom to one and all!” she proclaimed. “I’m starving, I haven’t put a bit of food in my mouth all day.”

“Where are the kids?” her sister asked, gazing toward the stairwell.

“Tuvia is parking the car,” Tzippi Zinman said. “And Shirley—who knows? Yesterday she went to sleep at a friend’s house and we haven’t heard from her since.”

Although the two sisters do not, strictly speaking, look alike, you would not doubt for a moment that they are blood relations. Both are quite tall—identically so, in fact—and have the same ample family breasts and rounded figures. The similarity between them, however, does not stem from any of these but, rather, from an accrual of details: gestures, expressions, intonation, and other small but decisive factors inside which is folded an entire lifetime. The four decades they have spent living side by side have distilled themselves into a pronounced family look that is unmistakable: the pursing of lips that accompanies the end of questions; scratching the tip of the nose in moments of embarrassment; the preference for wide tunics that fall nearly to the knee; and the huge plastic-frame glasses that both wore. Dvora had always been considered the more beautiful of the two, and even now, at forty-eight, she still turned heads. She wore her hair short and cut like Princess Diana’s, with soft highlights that blended well with her delicate skin and green eyes and hesitant, captivating smile. And yet her sister overshadowed her; the wife of the prosperous shopkeeper had a weakness for plunging necklines and swirling skirts and leather bags adorned with huge metal bangles. Her honey-colored hair burst forth like a lion’s mane, although on closer inspection one would find her scalp to be slightly denuded thanks to her habit of incessantly curling, straightening, dyeing, and washing her hair. Her gestures oozed theatricality, and whenever she waved her arms—which happened regularly—all her bracelets would jangle. On Judah the Maccabee Street she was considered a bohemian.

“What’s new with your people, Shraga?” Tzippi asked, her blue eyes shining and her smile full of teeth as she handed her coat to her brother-in-law.

“Your sister is sucking the will to live right out of me, but other than that, everything’s fine,” he joked. Shraga Saltzman was lean and haggard, not tall, and his thinning hair was an unnatural shade of red. “What do you say about all this rain?”

“Shraga, move. You’re blocking the way in. Yosske, Ciotka Masha, do me a favor and go sit at the table.”

“Need help with the pot?”

“No, I can manage with Tzippi. Sit, sit.”

They all moved to the dining room and sat in their regular seats. The two brothers-in-law sat at the head and foot of the table, while the seats closest to the kitchen were reserved for the two sisters. Just as they were about to serve the cholent, their older brother, one Avrum Shlossman, a retired antiques dealer—now twenty minutes late, as usual, knocked at the door, carrying—also as usual, a gift for the hostess: a Rosenthal china sugar bowl.

The Saltzmans’ apartment was divided by a long wall that separated the public rooms from the three bedrooms. While the living room was narrow, the furniture was capacious. The couch and armchairs, bought on a greedy spree in one of the more expensive stores in Tel Aviv, were now worn and seedy, and the nickel plating on the legs of the table was peeling here and there. In one corner stood a television set; in another, a hazelnut china cabinet. Even though the time had already come to “freshen up the living room” as Tzippi Zinman had pointed out on numerous occasions, Dvora had managed to enhance the charm of the room with the help of all sorts of trifles: a lace curtain, potted plants, vases, a large Dutch plate hanging on the wall, and other such touches. It was stuffed, crowded, overflowing; everywhere there were signs of a desperate effort to grow and spread beyond what was physically possible. Once, the living room had been smaller and opened onto a balcony, but that had been annexed some fifteen years earlier. The enormous dining table, glowing with furniture polish, was nearly always in a dim corner at the opposite end of the room. At mealtimes, and especially on such a gloomy Saturday, it was necessary to turn on the lights.

“What a day I had yesterday,” Yosef Zinman began as he poured salt energetically over the mountain of food on his plate. “What can I tell you? The place was like a loony bin. Peretz must have made fifteen deliveries, the poor schlump. Three to the Bavli area, one to Hamedinah Square, and then all the usuals. Rebecca, the American, placed her regular monthly order. What a pain in the tuches, I’m telling you. How many times have I told her, ‘Rebecca, not on Friday!’ I mean, we both know it’s not urgent for her, so what does she care if I send Peretz around on Wednesday, when it’s peaceful, no pressure. She likes to be annoying on purpose. And she’s on the third floor, no elevator, and those people drink a lot, kein eyna hora. All those bottles of soda alone take him four trips up and down. How did it go by you?”

“Not bad,” muttered Shraga Saltzman.

“You don’t have to tell Yosef any meises,” Dvora scolded him as she stirred the cabbage salad. “We barely had a soul in the place all day.”

“Gitlis didn’t come in? She said she’d stop by after the vegetables.”

“Yeah, yeah, she came by. Big deal. She did us a big favor and bought local-made hairspray. That’s not the way a perfumery makes any money.”

“I’ve never liked her,” said Avrum Shlossman as he blew on his fork. “She’s a miser. Even back in Mother’s time she’d drive you crazy over every shekel.”

“A completely insufferable woman,” proclaimed Shopkeeper Zinman. “May her ass clog up.”

“I saw her last week at Dr. Etziony’s,” announced Tzippi Zinman. “You should all know that she is not a healthy woman. Have you noticed how jaundiced she looks lately?”

“You’d better remember to bring me with you to her funeral,” Aunt Masha warned her nieces and nephews, arching her penciled eyebrows (which in her opinion brought out her eyes, but which in fact gave her a permanent look of doubt). She drew her mouth toward a hollow marrow bone drenched in fat and noisily sucked out all the bits of barley that had taken refuge inside. Her large, intelligent eyes, with their puffy eyelids above and pale, drooping bags of skin below, glared at the people seated around her. As she chewed, her broad lips moved as if of their own accord. The tip of her impressive nose quivered with concentration. If you add to all these the tuft of short, dyed brown hair you find yourself with a portrait of an aged hatchling. The matron Lifschitz had one shortcoming she was unable to overcome, even though it embarrassed her: her astonishing gluttony coupled with the lazy desire of a spinster or old bachelor to dine at the tables of others. Although she was certain she kept this hidden, it did not go unnoticed by her relatives, but because they treated her dignity with care, as is proper with the lone, grand remnant of her generation who would one day leave behind a handsome inheritance, she was invited to all family functions.

“There goes another client down the drain,” lamented Dvora. “A person could go crazy from it. The old ladies expire, the young ones don’t even come in, and if they do, they buy the knock-offs made in some Arab village that sell for five shekels. There’s almost no one left who understands handmade products. Carmela Nakash, now there’s a serious client, the poor thing; what she pays a month for that awful skin of hers . . . if it weren’t for her and four or five others like her we’d have had to close up shop ages ago.”

“Where’s Bina?” asked Fat Tuvia, raising his eyes from his plate of cholent and wiping his meaty lips. “Why isn’t she sitting with us?”

“She isn’t feeling well again. Something she ate.”

“She could at least say hi. I’ll go call her.”

“Let her be, the poor thing. It took her so long to fall asleep . . .” Dvora Saltzman said.

“Shraga, you old gonif! Making off with the entire plate of kishke, huh?” This was Yosef Zinman ribbing his brother-in-law. “Pass some over here!”

“What for, Yosef?” Aunt Masha said, her lower lip protruding. “Believe me, you sure don’t need it.”

“Let every man look at his own plate,” said the object of her concern. “Dvora, I’ll tell you what your problem is. You people don’t keep your business up-to-date. Worse than that: you haven’t updated anything for years. Years! When’s the last time you remodeled? When your mother was still alive.”

“And just where are we supposed to get the money for that? Excuse me for saying so, Yosef, but it’s easy to give advice when the cash register in your place never stops ringing. You and Tzippi can replace a refrigerator any time you want. What do you think? That I don’t want to remodel? That I wouldn’t like to finally have a proper window display, a new counter . . . I’m embarrassed to tell you what condition the floor’s in.”

“You kill me, Dvoraleh,” Tzippi said. “It’s not like in Mother’s day. You don’t have to do everything in real wood these days, just the veneer. And how much would that cost?”

“I don’t even have the money for wood veneer. The little I manage to scrape together I’d rather set aside for my Tuvia in America, so he’ll study and make out a little better than his mother and father.”

All the while her husband, Shraga Saltzman, sat at the head of the table with his red-dyed thinning hair, hunched over the stew on his plate and eating contentedly, as though it were not he being discussed, as though his in-laws had not, long ago, pinned such high hopes on his insurance business. Even he himself could not for the life of him recall the last policy he had sold, and although he had never officially closed his agency he spent most of his time doing nothing at all behind the counter of the perfumery that his wife had inherited from her parents.

“You know what, Dvora?” said Tzippi. “I have a fashion show this Tuesday evening and no one to help me. Why don’t you come? You can help with the folding and dressing the models and I’ll pay you 120 shekels. Why not? Yoss, leave the pot alone already. Come on, enough! You’re going to gas me up all night!”

“Now you remind me?” Yosef Zinman said with glee, his face contorted. “Let me enjoy life a little!”

“Is there dessert?” asked Tuvia as he extended his plate to receive a little more of the beans. The shopkeeper’s son was his spitting image. Although he was not yet twenty-three years old he sported a potbelly not much smaller than that of his progenitor.

“Look at yourself,” said Aunt Masha. “Such a handsome boy, and so fat.”

“I don’t know,” Dvora said with hesitation. “You’ll probably need me from the afternoon . . . how can I leave Shraga alone in the store?”

“You yourself said the place is empty,” Tzippi retorted. “So what does it matter?”

“And what if some client does come in? There needs to be a woman there.”

“You two are disgusting!” shouted Aunt Masha. “You just keep shoveling it in and shoveling it in, especially you, Yosef, with that ulcer of yours . . . what kind of example are you for the boy? Shame on you!”

In a tizzy, the old woman stood up and pushed her chair back with a flourish, bent down to pick up the pocketbook sitting on the floor next to her, and marched off to the bathroom. Even before she had reached the wall that divided the apartment in two, a grin rose on Yosef Zinman’s face and he bit his lip, stretched his chin, and glanced at Tuvia, who was making a futile effort to stifle a snicker. The snicker became a chortle and the chortle, a guffaw, and when at last it seemed they had managed to control themselves a loud snort of joy burst from the shopkeeper’s nose, causing his son to howl with laughter.

“What is with you guys?” asked Tzippi Zinman as she looked at her son and then her husband.

“And she tells us,” Fat Tuvia chirped in a shaky falsetto, smacking his forehead, “she tells us, we’re disgusting!”

“Your aunt!” Yosef cackled, spraying saliva. “Your Aunt Masha!”

“What about her?” said Tzippi with a confused smile.

“She sent regards with a song!” said her brother.

“She lit the burners!” explained her son.

“She’s a real trumpeter!” said Yosef Zinman, laughing hysterically, his enormous belly jiggling. “Toot, toot!”

“Nice work!” screeched Shraga from the opposite end of the table, beating his sunken chest.

“Pfffffffff!” Yosef Zinman fired a round through his lips, his face aglow.

“Pfffffffff!” Fat Tuvia fired in return, his eyes tearing. He said, “A tuba player!”

It turned out that when Aunt Masha had bent down to retrieve her pocketbook, there occurred one of those involuntary incidents, those mishaps that increase quite naturally with age. Whether Aunt Masha hadn’t noticed what happened or purposely chose to ignore it, we’ll never know, but it was her misfortune that the moment of her bending down was accompanied by a very short but unmistakable blast that caught the attentive ears of the Zinman men. By the time she returned to the table the father and son had composed an entire prelude based on that musical phrase of hers and sang it in harmony to the delight of all the others as they now choked with laughter, their heads rolling and their arms flailing and their lungs gasping for air.

“What are you so happy about?” The old lady pouted as she took her seat.

“Avrum told a joke,” Tzippi said, coming to their rescue. “Just something stupid, really.”

“Since when did he become such a comedian?” Masha Lifschitz wondered.

“Everything’s fine, Auntie,” said Shraga from the other end of the table, laughing and burping and quivering with pleasure. “Do you like the cholent today? Nice work, nice work!”

“Oy, it’s gotten really hot in here,” said Fat Tuvia, spluttering with laughter.

Dvora Saltzman, taking pity on her aunt, rose from her place at the table, gathered the plates and the cutlery with excessive clanging and banging, and asked who was interested in plum compote and who was not. In the kitchen with her sister—one ladling the compote into small bowls, the other placing them on a tray—Dvora Saltzman told Tzippi Zinman that she would indeed be available to help her out at the fashion show on Tuesday. For 120 shekels, she thought, why not?

C.

Tel Aviv is a cinch-waisted lady. The northern suburbs are her blowzy hairdo—the south, her weighty thighs—and in the middle she is pressed upon and narrowed by adjacent cities. Were it not for the Ayalon stream that guards her eastern flank, her neighborhoods would long ago have sliced her in two and blazed their own trails to the sea. In the area of the Arlozorov Street train station she is so thin that it seems she can be encircled by the length of an arm. Whether by mistaken planning or by some stroke of genius as yet unrevealed, the city’s nobility established near that train station a triangular park imprisoned between three major traffic arteries. Thanks to its special shape, the park does not boast a single quiet spot where one might escape from the din of the city; from every angle one can glimpse speeding cars and one can hear the choking coughs of passing buses. Every few years some efforts are made at its rehabilitation—statues are erected, oleander is planted, colorful rubbish bins are brought in, and in the end a decorative lump of concrete inscribed with the names of big donors from Chicago or Johannesburg is ceremoniously planted—but in spite of all the effort the park remains naked in its wretchedness and returns to serving its lone purpose—that of providing a shortcut for pedestrians wishing to reach the train station. The grass is always filthy, the battered trees grow at odd angles, the benches are ruined then replaced, only to be ruined and replaced again. The western side of the park, which faces the city itself, is known as Haifa Road, whereas the side that faces the suburban wasteland did not even merit that, and it is hard to believe that any Tel Aviv resident could actually name the street along which it runs. All sorts of urban leftovers, desired by no one, have gathered there: a gas station, a tin-roofed building used as a garage, a wedding hall whose day has passed, a workshop with metal poles poking through its exposed walls, a meager office building housing electronics importers and notaries who cannot afford an office closer to the courthouse. It was to this building, and, more specifically to the Last Chance nightclub on the ground floor—that our acquaintances, the sisters Tzippi Zinman and Dvora Saltzman—were headed on Tuesday. It was early evening but the parking lot in front of the building was still empty.

“Come, give me a hand.”

Tzippi Zinman opened the trunk, which was lined with a wool blanket. With great care she extracted several plastic-wrapped evening gowns she had borrowed from the manufacturer on Kalisher Street that morning and piled them into the waiting arms of Dvora.

“Don’t crush the sequins, the dresses are all on consignment.”

“I can’t help wondering who buys these things,” Dvora said.

“No one. They’re not even for sale. I just bring them for the show. Oh, here’s Paloma Bianca’s car, they’re always the first to arrive. But where’s Estee Creations? I hate the ones who show up at the last minute. Never mind, let’s go up. Can you carry any more?”

“Yes.”

The atmosphere the sisters were met with at the entrance to the nightclub was feverish. In just one hour the first guests would be arriving and everyone was busy: bartenders were sticking toothpicks into sugared cherries; waiters were spreading tablecloths; the duty manager—dissatisfied with the lighting—was scolding the technician; Ronny Amrussi, the singer with a thousand styles, was tapping the microphone; the kitchen help were running back and forth; the cooks were greasing the pans; the cleaner was polishing, once again, the bathroom sink. Dvora traipsed after her sister to the far side of the club where, in a cordoned area, wide stands had already been set up. To one side she saw a squat little man of about fifty with a high forehead and wild curls, none other than Mr. Nachliel Zarfaty, the main personality behind the Paloma Bianca fashion house. He was busy refolding colorful sweaters and shawls in order to make them look as attractive as possible. Sitting on a white plastic chair tucked into a niche was a very tall, dark-skinned young woman of about twenty wearing heavy pancake makeup and jiggling her crossed feet incessantly. When she saw Tzippi Zinman she rose from her chair and greeted her with a kiss on each cheek.

“Gali, meet Dvora, my sister. Dvora, this is Gali.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“You’re the first one here, I see.”

“Dana just called and asked me to tell you that there’s a traffic jam just outside Netanya.”

“What is this—updates from the traffic helicopter?” Tzippi fumed as she looked at her watch. “What do I care about traffic jams? If she’s not here on time then I’m through with her, end of story. She’d better learn not to take advantage of my good heart. I’d like to see her pull that on Anita Shagrir, ha! She wouldn’t last with her for a minute!” She patted Gali’s cheek affectionately, expressed her regret that not all models were as responsible and organized as she, and predicted a great future for her. Tzippi opened a side door and the three women entered a hidden storeroom that served as an improvised changing room. In the middle stood a tall, metal clothing rack upon which Dvora hung the evening gowns and peeled back the protective wrapping. In the meantime, another model arrived; after some screeching and hugging the two models went off to the side to chat in private. More vendors appeared as well: a jeweler with a nose so short she looked like a Pekinese dog; an elderly Russian couple peddling knock-off plastic fashion watches; a manufacturer of velvet dinner jackets; a woman vendor who sold knitwear. Not all of them had shops, and in fact for most, such events were their main source of income. Although they greeted one another with smiles and small talk, they eyed each other’s tables with suspicion in case they had somehow been cheated of their rights. They appraised the location of their tables vis-à-vis the others’ and checked to make sure their colleagues were displaying only those goods they had received permission to sell and were not, heaven forfend, expanding to their own market share. Each vendor displayed their wares according to his or her own principles and business instincts: while one tossed items into a cheerful mess in order to create an impression of low-cost sales, another preferred to set out few samples so as to appear exclusive, and a third organized his stock in a businesslike manner.

It was nearly eight o’clock. The lights in the main hall were dimmed and soft music was playing in the background. The first guests, who had paid eighty-five shekels a couple for dinner, entertainment, and the fashion show, began occupying seats at the tables. The men ordered vodka for themselves and piña coladas for their wives. A few women approached the stands, perfunctorily fingered some of the merchandise, and returned to their seats.

“What a letdown,” Nachliel Zarfaty complained to the eager ears of the Pekinese jeweler. “Had any nibbles yet?”

The Pekinese grimaced. “About a dollar’s worth,” she said.

“Listen to me, and listen good,” said Zarfaty, a conspiratorial look on his face. “I’m no newcomer to this business and you can rely on my instincts. I’m telling you, this is going to be a fucked-up evening. These aren’t the buying types. Zinman’ll have to bring down the price she’s charging us. One thing’s for sure: there’s no way I’m going to pay a hundred bucks.”

“Calm down, honey buns,” said the Pekinese as she patted her chest with an open hand. “We’ve got Estee for that. We’re not paying a cent if there’s no sales.”

“Believe me, I’d pay double without batting an eye if Anita Shagrir would have me. I used to ring up very fine sales indeed with her Hadassah events.”

“Don’t even talk to me about that puffed-up frog.”

“Who’s a frog?” asked old Papa Frumkin as he paced back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back. He worked his jaw incessantly, genially appraising the merchandise all the while.

“Papuchka, Papuchka!” cried his wife. “Not to talk now, now is time for clients, please.” She was a rustic old woman with thick ankles and a cataract muddying one eye. At her watch stand, several bored men had gathered, an overpowering scent of cologne rising from them. One of them—a man who most definitely did not appear to be the adventuresome type—was asking about a diving watch and was requesting technical information. While Papa Frumkin detailed at length all the virtues of the watch in question, the man sent worried glances in the direction of the adjacent stand, where his wife was already signing with a flourish a check made out to Paloma Bianca.

To the dismay of the vendors, things continued to move sluggishly for quite a while. Dvora’s ear picked up more and more of their grumbling, and as this troubled her she decided to inform her sister. Tzippi, who sat smoking in a corner, grinned dismissively; but although she was accustomed to the vendors’ chatter, their disputatiousness, she nonetheless foreshortened the lifespan of her cigarette and returned to them simply in order to show her face. In the meantime, the bustle increased, and by nine o’clock the club was full to capacity. The waitstaff ran back and forth from the kitchen window to the hall carrying platters filled with bonito with orange slices, blintzes stuffed with chicken liver, and many other delicacies, most of which were topped with a sprig or two of parsley. In those days, the chefs of our city sought to lend a touch of the French to their cooking, but since most of them had never set foot outside Israel, nor had they ever tasted a properly seasoned stock, for example, for them “a touch of the French” meant a sort of whimsical mixture of ingredients swimming in a whitish stew. And while the crowd ate voraciously, Ronny Amrussi crooned: Italian romances during the hors d’oeuvres, local favorites during the main course, army ballads as the waitstaff cleared the tables. His accompanist, a phlegmatic type with thick glasses, sat indifferently at his electric piano as he squeezed an entire orchestra from it. The merry revelers, who by now were stuffed with food and brimming with drink, joined the musicians with gusto until everyone was singing and clapping; a few people even stood to dance a bit. In order to ratchet up the merrymaking, the bartenders were sent around to distribute maracas. Four or five potbellied guests drew near the singer, gyrating to the music and shouting “Olé!” and “Bravo!” and “Groovy!” while stuffing twenty-shekel notes into the pockets of Amrussi’s suit jacket with great fanfare. He repaid them with two encores. The duty manager glanced at his watch. It was time for the fashion show.

D.

“Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats for the next part of our fannnntastic evening!” intoned Amrussi in a near whisper. On his crude face—the wide nose, the oversize chin, the brows crowded together in a single, wide furrow—was plastered the unflagging, seductive smile that gave him the look of a panderer. Further, he had taken to narrowing his eyelids, which he believed made him enthralling, like someone who had already seen it all and was now observing the world with resigned indulgence even though—truth be told—he was not yet thirty-five years old.

The lights were dimmed further, then, at a sign from Tzippi Zinman, the spotlights were lit at once to illuminate a long carpet that ran through the sea of tables. The amplifiers came alive with the hits of a famous Swedish singing group.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” whispered Amrussi, “let’s hear it for our team of terrrrrific models with all the hottest styles of spring 1989. First up is Dana Avital in a track suit from Paloma Bianca with earth-tone appliqué work, a lovely ensemble that’s just as good for a casual evening out as it is for home wear . . .”

The celebrated model—Tzippi Zinman liked to broadcast the bigger names right from the opening—entered with flair, her mouth in a forced pout and her back stretched to its limits in an attempt at endowing Nachliel Zarfaty’s shmattes with some semblance of elegance. She marched to the end of the carpet, froze in place for a moment, then flung her head backward as if surprised at hearing someone calling her name. On her way back, she passed the next model, the newly minted Gali Habousha, whose sparkling black eyes and hair pulled into a tight bun caused people to say she reminded them of the Tami Ben Ami! To the sound of applause she presented in a pink cotton waistcoat with large appliquéd lilies, a white shirt and loose-fitting fisherman pants, also in pink and held up with an elastic waistband. Amrussi, pleasantly surprised by the flow of praise spewing from his own mouth, got carried away and ended with a recommendation for wearing this ensemble at bar mitzvah celebrations, weddings, and receptions at the president’s residence. All the while, Nachliel Zarfaty stood behind his merchandise, tormented as usual. He shot endless worried glances in every direction trying to gauge the mood of the women in the crowd. To his consternation, he was not granted admission to the dressing room and could not observe the models up close; now he was cursing himself for failing to instruct them to wear his knitwear. After all, not every woman wished to try on a pantsuit after downing half a chicken with fried potatoes, but no woman would be adverse—even at such moments—to wrapping an interesting scarf around her neck.

Had the hapless clothier glimpsed the behind-the-scenes madness going on at that very moment he might have expressed his gratitude that he had been prevented from entering the dressing room. Who knows if his nerves could have withstood the sight of pantyhose, shoes, shirts, bolero jackets, gauzy skirts—in short, everything the models wore and then cast off—tossed to the floor and trampled on. Dvora’s hands were kept busy as she bent down to pick up and fold and roll and stretch and button and zip and clip and unclip and reverse inside to out and vice versa and rehang and take care not to unravel a seam. In other words, she had been charged with carrying out all those dozens of tiny actions that could be summed up as “woman changing clothes.” In the meantime, her sister was occupied on a different front as she adorned the girls with beads and chains and earrings, and sent them out at the right intervals of time, and took care to keep the collections separate, and made sure that no curious onlookers found their way into the dressing room. The models entered and left, entered and left, at a dizzying pace. The vortex grew wilder and wilder. The crowd’s excitement grew, too, culminating at the sight of the models marching in a line wearing evening gowns adorned with shiny metallic scales. What happened next was that in the entire nightclub not a single purse remained shut; before Ronny Amrussi had finishing rolling a string of thanks and acknowledgments off his tongue the guests had stormed the stands, pushing and shoving and purchasing everything in sight. Zarfaty’s plastic portable credit card swiper could not keep up with the pace and fell apart. Two hefty women from Petah Tikva nearly slapped one another over a pale blue knit tunic, the last in their size. The men—weren’t they human beings as well?—gathered around the Frumkins’ table; in the ensuing tumult one even managed to slip a watch with hands the shape of lightning bolts into his pocket.

While everyone ran amok, Dvora, who had finished restoring the evening gowns to their plastic wrapping and had received no further instructions, sat taking in the scene from the side. Her eyes widened at the sight of the wad of bills that Zarfaty stuffed into his bursting pockets, noting that in the perfumery she did not see such proceeds in an entire week. She watched as the old woman with the rheumy eye hid her wad in her sock. The Pekinese jewelry saleswoman, the knitwear designer, the man who sold sheets—each had their own way of squirreling away the earnings (and it would be superfluous to add that no one bothered with receipts; no one, that is, but amiable Papa Frumkin, who made out a single receipt for seven and a half shekels simply to ward off the evil eye). Suddenly, she caught sight of a man the looks of whom she did not like. He was about sixty, with a pockmarked face and small eyes that peered out from under heavy brows. He made his way around, glancing at this and that; at one point he took interest in a man’s gold ring, but more than the merchandise he was interested in the bills that were passing from one side of the tables to the other. All at once he turned toward her, sneered, and started making his way directly toward her. Dvora Saltzman was startled; her suspicious mind was already imagining a tax sting. But her fears were proven wrong quite quickly: it turned out that the man, who introduced himself only as Albert, had thought she was Tzippi Zinman’s personal secretary. He did not wish, at that time, to bother the organizer of the event, but since he wanted to discuss a business matter with her he would be happy if she would pass along his business card. The card itself contained no information beyond his name and two telephone numbers and Dvora, who figured he was another one of these ready-made clothing manufacturers, promised to give the card to her sister at the earliest opportunity. The man, who thanked her with a smile that revealed rotten teeth, bowed his head and disappeared with the same suddenness with which he had appeared.

In the meantime, the storm had slowly abated. The indifferent keyboardist was playing a tango medley, the shoppers were returning to their seats, and while they ate their desserts they displayed for one another the goods they had purchased. Estee Creations, who had promised the Frumkins a ride home, was already returning her jewelry to its boxes. The duty manager came up to Tzippi Zinman to thank her and to give her her fee—$150 under the table, as agreed upon in advance. After paying the models their due, she lit a Kent and approached the vendors to collect what they owed her.

“Well, Zarfaty?” she said, turning to the sweating manager of Paloma Bianca fashions. “Aren’t you sick and tired of counting all that cash? And after driving us all nuts with your constant complaining. One thing’s for sure: you never would have made such a killing with Anita Shagrir.”

One after another the vendors left, all but Nachliel Zarfaty, who decided to take full advantage of the exceptional attention his shmattes had garnered, and he stayed on a while longer. The time came to leave. Tzippi Zinman, who was suddenly ravenous, suggested to her sister that they go get a bite to eat on Yirmiyahu Street; Dvora, who was unaccustomed to such nighttime adventures, jumped at the opportunity and announced that she was certainly not opposed. Secretly, she hoped her sister would offer to pay.

E.

On the south bank of Judah the Maccabee Street, exactly opposite the Zinman’s grocery store, stands an obsolete business that has not changed its appearance since the day it was founded in the fifties. The portrait of a woman with long eyelashes and a bouffant hairdo is etched in black on its window, behind which stand two shelves covered in flowered paper that hold an assortment of dusty objects: imported soaps wrapped in crêpe paper, linen handkerchiefs in a faded box, a set of nail files in a case made of artificial leather, a variety of tubes. And if all these are not enough to signal to passersby the purpose of this establishment, the words Hinde’s Perfumery are stenciled halfway up the window in enormous letters.

Sunlight penetrates this elongated niche only sparingly, crammed to the brim as it is with jars, bottles, and other unidentifiable objects. A scratched wooden counter runs its entire length, and beneath the plate of glass that canopies it lie drawers lined with red velvet and filled with the ritual tools: hair curlers, mascara, plastic rings, crystal bottles. The lights are lit even during the day; the chandelier casts a musty yellow light of bygone days.

The whiff of a scent—whether of incense or medication, it is hard to tell—always wafts from the depths of the shop. Here, behind a screen of ivory beads rattling dully, is hidden the atelier. This is where various creams and oils are concocted according to recipes kept secret for two generations. And since the founding priestess of this godforsaken altar, Hinde Shlossman, brought several of the heroes of our story into the world, it is only fitting that we should tell a little of her story.

Several months before the outbreak of the Second World War, Hinde Shlossman took her husband, Tevye, and their tiny son, Avrum, and escaped from Lodz. With the help of a foreign passport retained by the family since the days of the Empire, they managed to get to Constanţa on the Black Sea; from there they wandered from place to place until they reached Tel Aviv, where they settled in to one of the wretched streets in the southern part of the city. In the early years, no job was too lowly for them. They worked hand to mouth and thanked God for their good fortune. Hinde, in the meantime, raised her family—two girls, Dvora and Tzippi, were born two years apart—and in her spare time concocted all kinds of cosmetics that she sold to her neighbors. Tevye wound yarn at a spinning mill, delivered ice, and, after the establishment of the State of Israel, found his way into a modest position with the postal service thanks to a friend’s connections.

Fifteen years of hard work and tight fists yielded savings that enabled the couple to move to the north side of the city and open the perfumery. Success was not long in coming; Hinde, who was fast approaching middle age, discovered that while ageing was hard on the soul it was good for business. Her pale skin, the powdered sugar of the Polish language sprinkled heavily on her words, the fingers that had thickened, and the enormous turquoise ring she wore all rendered the advice she gave her disciples the status of ancient wisdom. Her name preceded her and was passed by word of mouth among the women of Old North Tel Aviv. There were even those who compared her to the great Helena Rubinstein at the start of her career, when she was still creating cosmetics with her own two hands. To Hinde’s credit it must be stated that this praise never went to her head, not even for a moment. She never pretended she could reverse time, never gave her clients false hope. And yet, her cosmetics were known to have an ameliorating effect. Most of her fame rested upon a neck-moisturizing cream; the proceeds from this preparation alone had enabled the couple, in their very first year, to purchase a brand new cherry-wood dining room set. The lights in the perfumery were sometimes lit until ten o’clock at night. Tevye left his job with the postal service and invested his energies in running the till and keeping the books. The girls grew up nicely and on occasion lent a hand in the business. Hinde and Tevye had high hopes for Avrum, too, their firstborn, but just when it seemed that at last their efforts were bearing fruit and they entertained cautious optimism about retiring one day soon, the disaster that turned their world upside down and spoiled all their beautiful plans befell them.

This calamity was not the sudden, cruel sort of disaster that comes out of nowhere with a clap of thunder and mercilessly casts ships onto treacherous rocks. No one embezzled money and ran off with it one sunny day; no one collapsed in the street. Neither by fire nor by plague did this occur; this is not a case of betrayal or a miscarriage of justice. On the contrary, during the early months, with none of the usual external signs, it was nearly impossible to discern. As time passed, however, it became clear that something was wrong. Concern sprouted slowly, then took root. For several years, in the beginning, the neighbors spoke only in whispers about it, then later, openly. The Shlossmans’ affliction became a sort of adjective that was used each time their name was mentioned. There were even those who felt the blame lay with them, for it was common knowledge that at their age one had to take precaution. With time, additional woes amassed, and although the couple found more than the occasional moment of joy, any elation was accompanied by a shadow, a pall, that never disappeared, not for a second. And if they did not suffer enough during their days, the thought of what would happen after their deaths plagued their nights. In less than nine years Tevye died of a broken heart. The whole of Judah the Maccabee Street took part in the funeral procession.

After the headstone was in place, the family gathered around the dining table for a family council meeting. Although the widow Hinde was sound and stable, misgivings were voiced with regard to the double mission on her shoulders: from now she would be responsible not only for mixing her preparations and providing daily care for the problem but also for managing the accounts. The family council went on and on and its members riffled through papers, jotted columns of numbers, reminisced, argued a little, cried, made up, and in the end, found a solution.

Was it true that Dvora had willingly chosen to “bury herself alive” as Mrs. Gitlis would later claim? Perhaps it was her brother Avrum who first floated the idea when he felt they were expecting something of him that was not his intention to offer, and he therefore turned the spotlight onto her? And what was the role of her brother-in-law, Yosef Zinman the grocer, who did not wish to see his Tzippi living out her days behind the counter with her terrible mother? And what influence did her husband, Shraga the indolent insurance salesman, have upon recognizing an opportunity for an income that would not require any effort on his part? We shall never know who first raised the idea, but in any event, the idea was raised, and once it was, to the entire family it seemed there was no more practical and fitting solution than this. Thus it was that Dvora, at twenty-three, went into partnership in the perfumery with her mother, and since this was a rent-controlled business and it would be a pity to lose the rights, the agreement extended to the very last day of the veteran cosmetician’s life, which occurred sometime during the fall of 1974. The inheritress changed almost nothing in the perfumery; whether out of respect or superstition or because it seemed a shame to spend the money on making a new sign, the perfumery continued to be called by the name of its founder even as it passed into the hands of the Saltzmans. And not only that, but the late Hinde’s apartment, situated above the shop, also became Dvora’s, and the other inheritors hastened to sell her their portions at an exceedingly fair price, for reasons which will soon be made clear.

And so it was that the two sisters, Dvora Saltzman and Tzippi Zinman, settled on opposite banks of Judah the Maccabee Street: business facing business, life facing life.

F.

At the very last moment, just as she was about to slam the car door shut, Dvora remembered the business card that the man with the rotten teeth had slipped into her hand. It was drizzling, and as she searched through her pockets she got suitably wet. “Never mind,” said Tzippi Zinman, who had driven her sister home and was now quite ready to get into bed. “What’s the rush? You can always leave it at the grocery for me tomorrow.” But when the missing card turned up, the show manager lost her cool and rebuked her sister for failing to hand it over earlier—sure, it might have been a bit busy at the nightclub and it is natural to forget things, but in the end they had sat for more than an hour together at a diner on Yirmiyahu Street, so she had had plenty of opportunity to remember. But how was she to know that this was so crucial, Dvora rebutted, growing angry. And who was this Albert Ben Arroya anyway? Now there was clearly some feigned innocence in Dvora’s response, for at that moment she recalled where she had heard that name (and who in Tel Aviv at that time had not heard the name Albert Ben Arroya?). Naturally, her sister was not willing to have the wool pulled over her eyes, and from that point onward matters deteriorated rapidly: Tzippi said something to Dvora, Dvora said something to Tzippi, and by the time they had finished accusing and offending one another, the pleasant feeling that had passed between them all evening at the Last Chance nightclub had completely evaporated. They parted—not for the first time—after each secretly promised herself not to speak to the other, at least until the start of summer.

Five days after these things transpired, a blue Ibiza parked on Professor Schorr Street in North Tel Aviv and from it emerged Tzippi Zinman, coiffed and perfumed. After looking this way and that she turned into a pathway that led her to the back of one of the buildings. In spite of the precise directions she walked right past the object of her search and only when she reached a dead end turned around and found the stairs leading down into the basement. The door was opened by a wide-bottomed secretary with the face of a rat wearing an expression of utter loathing. With a quick gesture that seemed more like a dismissal than an invitation, she instructed Tzippi to take a seat. The guest was surprised at the derelict appearance of the office: tiny windows with glass crisscrossed by iron strips, a do-it-yourself bookshelf, ratty armchairs, a philodendron crying out for a little light—this was not the way she had imagined the office of the famous producer and entertainer. Shoved into the corner was a stack of boxed toasters, a picnic table, four shrink-wrapped folding chairs, and a host of other prizes of the type desired by the winners of game shows. Colorful brochures lay spread out on a coffee table and Tzippi picked one up as she lit a cigarette.

A buzzer sounded. “You can go in!” the secretary barked without bothering to look up.

“Hello, hello,” said Albert Ben Arroya as he rose to shake Tzippi’s hand. His face wore a cordial smile meant to freeze the blood of more fragile creatures than Tzippi. “What an honor! Please, would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I wouldn’t refuse,” said Tzippi Zinman. “Turkish, with two Sweet’N Lows.”

“Tzilla!” the host roared, summoning his secretary without altering the smile on his face. “Turkish coffee with two Sweet’N Lows for our guest. The usual for me.”

A faint murmur came from the outer office in response, though it was unclear whether this was a growl or a clearing of Tzilla’s throat.

“She’s a bitch,” Ben Arroya explained cheerfully.

Tzilla appeared quickly with a tray containing two large ceramic mugs and a plate of cheap jelly-filled boxed cookies. As she turned to leave, her boss was overcome by an enormous yawn. He stretched his arms with great purpose and accidentally passed his hand over her buttocks.

“So,” he asked as he took a noisy sip from his boiling hot coffee, “how’s it going?”

“Fabulous.”

“Obviously. You should know that I wasn’t at the Last Chance on Tuesday by . . . chance.”

“I figured.”

“I was very impressed. Very impressed. The show was tops, no two ways about it. I’ve been in the business for a long time and I know how to spot talent. How come I never heard of you? Where’ve you been hiding?”

“Nowhere,” Tzippi Zinman said. Hiding out was not a concept in her personal experience. “Up till a year and a half ago I worked as Anita Shagrir’s assistant.”

Ben Arroya’s face darkened. “Listen, meydeleh,” he said in his burnt-out voice, “if you want us to be friends, don’t mention that name in my presence. I’ve had it up to here with that woman.” He signaled an invisible line above his head. In spite of this he told her how he had worked with Anita Shagrir back in the day and had plucked her from the wretched fashion shows she had organized for Hadassah charity functions, how he had taken her under his wing and let her organize the most prestigious shows of them all, at the Plaza Hotel, the Diplomat, the Hammam—everywhere! And how he had shared all the connections he had made over many years without giving it a second thought; it was hard for him to believe he could have been so guileless. And how, in exchange for all that, she had stolen—yes, that was the word, and he had no problem repeating it, and she was welcome to sue him for libel if she wanted—right from under his nose the country club, and the Atmosphere nightclub, and how she had taken over several hotels in Tiberias and had brought in a third-class entertainer whose name was better left unmentioned in his presence, and how that she-devil, that crook, had caused him this damage and that, even to his spirit, his soul, why deny it? After all, he, too, was just a human being. He was willing to tell Tzippi Zinman about all those things but he did not want to wear himself out.

“Now listen, my friend Tzippi, I’m going to tell you something very top secret,” he said, leaning forward far enough so that his guest could feel his breath, “but if this leaks—you’re through. Finished.”

Ben Arroya’s entire façade was scabrous and seared, as if he had been raked with an iron comb: the scarred red skin of his face attested as much to the pimples he had had as a youth as to the many hours he had devoted since then to fairs and exhibitions. The wattle under his chin was reminiscent of that of a turkey’s. His resplendent mane of hair was still black, but his thick eyebrows were threaded with silver. The nostrils of his pug nose—a disaster on any man—sprouted a curly thicket. His voice was smoky, his jeans worn, his leather safari vest was coming apart at the seams. In a certain sense he made one think of the dregs from the bottom of a burnt pan. And yes, despite all these merits, the veteran producer looked far younger than his fifty-nine years; in the presence of such ugliness, the ravages of time are relatively unnoticeable.

“You know how to count?” he asked.

Tzippi Zinman sat up straight.

“I want to get that straight from the start,” he said, “because soon you’re going to be counting wads of shekel notes. Sweetheart, the cash register’s gonna be ringing away like you’ve never dreamed it could. Listen to me, and listen good: I’m gonna offer you something big. Huge. Not just another rinky-dink nightclub or some convalescent home in Netanya. My dear lady, Albert Ben Arroya is going to bring you up to the premier league. It isn’t going to be easy, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. You’re not gonna have time to breathe. Forget about your family, forget about your friends. You’ll get home so worn out that you won’t even have the strength to heat up a plate of leftovers. Naturally, you’ll have to bring things up to snuff, make some changes—I want you to blast the crowd with collections, I want big names, I want top-tier models. Sexy, sexy, sexy. Tzippi Zinman—Anita Shagrir is gonna be history when you and I are through with her.”

“What exactly are you talking about?”

“Bubbeleh, when you get to know me a little better—and I hope that’ll happen—you’ll understand I don’t mess around. Minor events don’t interest me. I’m talking about the chance of a lifetime, your lifetime . . . I’m talking show business, I’m talking . . . Kibbutz Shefayim.”

Shefayim. The moment that Ben Arroya planted that bomb, Tzippi Zinman’s body reacted in the usual family manner; in other words, our friend Tzippi suddenly felt, in the depths of her body, a tiny, restless bubble making its way along in search of an exit route. Accordingly, she was afraid to utter a single word and sat holding herself in tightly, all the while concentrating on a single spot until the danger passed.

“You’re in shock, eh?” asked Ben Arroya as he relaxed into his chair.

Tzippi nodded tepidly, which came as a slight surprise to Ben Arroya.

“I’m currently negotiating with the administration of the water-park at Shefayim,” he explained, “and until I have a signed document I can’t promise a thing. I’m going to present you as my new show manager, and I’ll need a few names from you. Who’re you working with these days?”

“Dana Avital, Gali Habousha—she’s a young talent I discovered on my own.”

“No, no, no, my dear lady,” Ben Arroya said, his flushed wattle swinging back and forth. “You’re not on the right track at all. At this stage, no ‘young talents’ or any such nonsense. I want you to prepare a list for me in, say, two or three days, that includes at least two beauty pageant winners. Junior Miss is okay, too. Someone of the caliber of Natalie Peper, for example . . .”

“No problem, she’s crazy about me!” Tzippi chimed in, then tightened her stomach; the bubble was threatening to burst into the open air.

“I also need a list of the fashion houses you work with, and a few ideas for special events. Don’t give me bingo or Brazilian drummers, I’ve already got those. We’re talking about summer vacation, two full months, July 1st to August 31st. Four fun days a week on the average. I’m working on an exclusivity contract with them. Without boasting, there isn’t another producer in Israel with as many connections as Albert Ben Arroya. I’ve got the military industry employees’ committee, the policemen’s union, the X-ray technicians, the Dan Bus Company drivers—all the most important workers’ committees are in my pocket. It’s no problem for me to fill the park with four to five thousand people a day, and I want to give them a good time. You get it?”

In the meantime, her internal storm had abated and Tzippi was finally able to lean back in her chair and fix him with a scrutinizing gaze. “I get it,” she said, “of course I do. But you haven’t said anything about what sort of terms you’re offering me.”

Ben Arroya, who, until that moment, was aflame, grew suddenly sullen. “I can’t offer you more than $150 a day,” he said.

“For that kind of money you won’t get first-rate models, period, exclamation mark,” Tzippi said, slightly miffed at his offer. “I’ll level with you: models like those take $120 each at the very least, and sometimes you have to pay their taxi fare, too.”

“There’s nothing I can do, you’ll have to work it out.”

“Well I can’t provide beauty queens for that kind of money. Maybe Anita Shagrir has some sort of method . . .”

The value of a well-timed quip is priceless; in the case before us, it was worth $90/day. At the sound of his nemesis’ name, Ben Arroya consented to paying $240 for every fashion show and allowed Tzippi to rent out ten stalls (!) to vendors on her own accord. They agreed that in the beginning at least two first-rate models would be part of the team but that after a few days—here, Ben Arroya winked—the kibbutz administration would trust them and would stop checking up, so that only one first-rate model would be necessary. Since both parties were satisfied, their meeting was concluded with a handshake, and the respected producer rose to escort his new partner to the door.

Finally, after two very chilly weeks, the clouds dispersed and a wonderful sun appeared. Swallows jumped about merrily on sidewalks. Three children on their way home from school tied their jackets around their waists and were busy licking candy bars. From the kiosk at the corner of Ibn Gvirol Street came a few energetic notes that signaled the start of some radio program. And if you had happened by at that golden moment you might have noticed Tzippi Zinman standing at the nearby payphone and calling her sister, Dvora, to inform her, before everyone else, of the news.