“Maybe you’ll get a replacement…” (1991)

Please God, don’t hold a grudge…

Dimitri was making his One Phone Call. The dank cell walls authored their own miserable chill, even though it was August. When he’d been caught with one of Gianni’s girls in an epic scene “under the boardwalk,” there was a hurricane moving up the coast, but the warm breezes of the Atlantic City night had made the culmination of their romantic night out inevitable.  The “girl” was 24, same as Dimitri, with a naturally sexy body and lonely eyes. Maybe she wasn’t the best choice as a kept woman, working in a sinecure for one of Gianni’s businesses. Maybe it took the attention of Dimitri, a reasonably attractive, talented man with a cocky sense of humor and a talent for making you feel like you were the most important girl in the world, for her to figure it out. Or maybe she just wanted to steal a night of fantasy that she would remember into her dotage before returning to her comfortable position as one of “Gianni’s girls.” Their romance had been blissful. So blissful that both Dimitri and the girl neglected the cardinal rule of sex on the beach:

THOU SHALT NOT FALL ASLEEP.

The subtle changes in the ocean breeze when the sun began to rise should have alerted the lovers that they had overstayed their welcome. Instead, it was the unpleasant grasp of a police officer that did the job. It seems that the morality squad that started its shift on the beach at daybreak was equipped to gather photographic evidence. Who knows how much evidence was on that camera? And who knows in whose hands it would wind up? Dimitri’s mind jumped from the most pleasant somnolence to the shock of the policeman’s grip to the still-perfect connection between the flesh of his thigh and hers, to recognition that he was BUSTED, to his nakedness, to the camera, to Gianni’s trademark black suit with the oversized pinstripes. He had known that he was messing with a girl that sort of belonged to his patron at the casino lounge. But he was young, he was horny, she was the very breath of beauty, and he knew that she WANTED him. She waited until closing time, and practically dragged him out for a walk on the Boardwalk at 3am. Her tube top was really a floral scarf wrapped loosely around her breasts, her skirt was the same translucent filigree, and she was carrying her flip-flops. They talked about everything and nothing. He remembered something about some of Gianni’s other businesses, the fact the Gianni pays her way too much for her job so that he gets to keep a key to her apartment at the casino, how she has dreams, too, and then he remembers her scarf falling gently around his arms and her waist, and how her bare skin glistened in the light of a crescent moon. Now he was trying to grab for his tuxedo pants. The girl, untouched by the officer, woke up with a start, apprised the situation, and touched Dimitri on the soft hairs at the bottom of his stomach, that she had blown and stroked and kissed just a few hours earlier.

“Don’t say anything. I will try to get us out of this. You just show up to work tonight like nothing happened.”

The girl, left unhindered by the policewoman, groped for her peach bikini bottom and slid it on. She wrapped her skirt and tube scarf, and in thirty seconds, all that remained of the storybook encounter was the sand in her hair and on her skin. In the meantime, the policewoman had stood Dimitri up and handcuffed him, naked. She shot him an icy stare when he tried to pick up his tux pants, as if to shout, “EVIDENCE!” Even so, the girl dressed Dimitri the best she could, considering the handcuffs, and the cop didn’t interfere.

Dimitri’s brain turned into a tzimmes, a virtual stew of speculations, worry, reasons, and panic all at once. Somebody once gave him this line, maybe one of the internationals on the kibbutz: “Man hat verschissen in deine Gehirn und hat vergessen umzuruhren,”  which roughly translates as, “Somebody used your brain as a toilet and forgot to flush.”  In the commode that sat between his ears, glowing red with embarrassment, anger, and fear, the following witch’s brew was boiling:

They really bust you for this? Haven’t they done it too?

Maybe not this cop. Jealous bitch. Maybe yes this cop. Mind your own business, pervert!

Shit. The woman knows Kelli somehow. She let her go like that? Damn, Kelli is every bit as beautiful as I thought. How can she put up with that fifty-five-year-old pig?

Can Kelli bail me out, and maybe we..

Shit! Gianni! He pays my salary, and he’s been my connection down here. She’ll never tell, but what about the cop?

Fuck! What about the police blotter?

Do I show up tonight, like nothing happened, just like Kelli says? If I don’t show up, it’ll look like I did something. If I do, maybe I just go back to work, save up, and maybe in a few months me and Kelli…  But she’d have no references, and if Gianni ever knew, where would she work? Maybe I could go back to Sam?

Konyechno, certainly, I just bailed out on her for a better offer. She can’t have wanted me like a boyfriend long-term, she’s almost thirty.

But if I went with Kelli on my arm…

Hell, no! Gianni will find out for sure that way. He recruited me there at a Second Tuesday.

What happens if I show up tonight and he knows? Does he care? If he does, will I just “disappear” like the crooked croupier did in July?

Fuck. I’m so alone.

It must have been a blink of an eye during which these thoughts swirled in Dimitri’s head. Kelli was still there, moving to kiss him once more, when…

            “Beat it! If you know what’s good for you,” snapped the lady cop.

Kelli stole a furtive glance in Dimitri’s eyes, turned, picked up her flip-flops, and ran away through the sand to the next stairway. The stairway was two hundred yards past the point at which Dimitri and she had dropped down from the boardwalk like lust-driven spiders.

“You’re under arrest for public lewdness. We’re taking you to the precinct.”

“Can I get my shoes on, please?”

“I’ll return them to you at booking. If she weren’t who she is, you’d be in the truck naked until you got to your holding cell.”

Dimitri wanted to probe. In fact, he believed that his continued existence on the planet depended on it. But he knew that the cop knew, and if he pissed her off even a little bit, Gianni would know. So he silently pushed off, barefoot and with his tux shirt and jacket draped over his shackled hands, in the direction of the officer’s Land Rover.

At booking, he was given the choice to provide local references. He twisted in his seat, his wrists chafing against the handcuffs. Again the cyclone started up in his brain. My employer is the casino, not Gianni, but everyone knows that they are one and the same. But I have to give them a place of employment, or they’ll add vagrancy to my charges and I’ll never get out in time for work tonight. But they want a personal reference. Do I give them Kelli? I sure as hell don’t give them Gianni, sovershenno nyet. Hell no. Do I give them my parents? Yes, that’s what I’ll do. No, what would I tell them when they get called to pick me up? I can feel Dad’s red-hot anger already. And his fists of a rabochii, a real proletarian. I don’t have the strength in my whole body that he has in one of those fists. Oh, shit, right, my sister and her husband. They don’t hate me, and they live in Voorhees.  Maybe they’d even take me in. That’d be awful. But it’s better than cement overshoes courtesy of Gianni’s boys.

Dimitri gave the sister and brother-in-law, and magically remembered their address on Lantern Drive. And the phone number. OK, I think I got it. (609) 442-XXXX.

“Due to the nature of your crime, and the fact that you have so few connections to the community,  I will have to ask the judge for ROR. In the meantime, we’ll call your contacts to ask them…

“Pardon me, what’s ROR?”

“Released on Own Recognizance. The judge might allow it, given the circumstances. Otherwise, we can ask your sister to post bail.”

Now Dimitri felt safe enough to probe just a little bit.

“The circumstances, ma’am?”

While the officer told Dimitri what he suspected already, he started speculating again. Why would the judge give me ROR? Does he want me as a source in building something against Gianni? I live in Gianni’s hotel. What the hell? I guess I could be a plant, but I see myself getting planted at the bottom of the harbor. Maybe he’s jealous for what I did and who I did it with (damn! why couldn’t I just grab Kelli and run against the wind until we find our own place outside Gianni’s shadow? Kak-tak?[roughly translated: WTF?] I barely MET this girl!) and he wants to let me go to get back at that pig? Him and Kelli? Gross. Uzhas – disaster. Poor girl. I wonder if she’s pregnant? Maybe the judge knows I’m toast, and wants me to get out of town while I still can! Maybe I could find my way up to New York and hook on with a bar or a casino up there. I can’t give references, but I can play anything from the last half-century, and back-up a band, to boot. Then I could come back on my court date, pay a fine, and…

Damn! What do I do about my stuff? It’s all up in the suite. If the cop knows, there’s a chance Gianni knows. Or do I play dumb, get ROR, go to work, and just act like nothing happened?

The police officer led Dimitri to the holding cell, unlocked the handcuffs, and returned his shoes, socks, and bowtie. “Get dressed, stud-boy.”

Time passed; God only knows how much. Dimitri tried lying down on the stainless steel bench.  Sleep? He hadn’t had any for more than a day, but fuggedaboudit, as they say in Jersey. The tzimmes started cooking again. How perfect that evening had been! How many men would give how much to have had that in their lives! How beautiful and how perfect was sex when you fall in and forget anything but HER! Was it that he, and she, could not bear to disturb the perfection that they fell asleep, embracing, naked as Adam and Eve under the stars with just enough moon to take their breath away? Or were they assholes? They had so much to lose, maybe everything! Certainly, they had to have the assignation, but by acting like Adam and Eve, they spat in the face of the reality that hulked over their barely shared lives. Kelli! Good Lord, what would have happened if Gianni popped into her room while they were making love? Is she alive? Is she safe? Does she have an alibi? Will someone cover for her? She had to be OK, right? She started it all. She was a vision of love in that translucent, floral two piece sari without a stitch or a button to resist the passion underneath! She had to have turned away a hundred guys who saw an angel in front of them. but she was determined to be HIS angel. Where was that gangster, anyway? Would he really hurt his business by doing away with his new star pianist?

Suddenly, Elton John’s voice flushed the commode.

Maybe you’ll get a replacement,

There’s many like me to be found,

Mongrels who ain’t got a penny,

Sniffin’ for tidbits like you…

In counterpoint, Sir Elton’s voice sang against itself:

So goodbye, Yellow Brick Road,

Where the dogs of society howl,

you can’t plant me in your penthouse…

I’ve finally decided my future lies

Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.

Just then, the prison guard clicked the keychain against Dimitri’s cage.

“Kats?”

“That’s me.”

“Who did you say your contact was?”

“My sister. Didn’t the judge release me?”

“Yeah, ROR, pending my resolving this little problem.”

“What problem?”

“That’s not your sister. Says her name is Samantha Frankel. She knows you, but she’s not your sister. You have one call today; if you want to get out of here, it’d better be to this Samantha Frankel.”

“OK.” The die is cast.

“Hello, Samantha speaking.”

“Sam? It’s Dimitri.”

“What did you do to yourself now, you knucklehead?”

“I love you too. Sam, how fast can you make A.C.?”

“In the Beamer, about 35 minutes, no cops. But considering where you’re at, I don’t think that’s

such a great idea.”

“Sam, I owe you. Big time.”

“Damn right, you little shit! You run off just as you get me falling in love with a kid and now

you call me back from jail?”

“If I didn’t know you like I do, I never would have thought to call you.” Sometimes even my

mistakes work out. I hope Kelli’s OK. Shit, I hope Sam’s OK. I had no idea I even mattered to

her. “Sam?”

“Dim?”

“Bring a suitcase. Empty.”

An hour later, Samantha picked up Dimitri’s key, wearing gloves. She packed up his stuff,  resisting the temptation to check for condoms, and took the suitcase out to the car. She returned, asked for Enrique, a clerk who Dimitri had gotten close to, and they carried Dimitri’s keyboard and sound system out the back door.

Yeltsin on the Tank I

Yeltsin on the Tank, Part I (1991)

Rafi’s Volvo wagon knifed through the sheets of late-August deluge battering the Merritt Parkway. Since the 1988 season at Blossom Music Festival, he had become an item with an overweight Methodist soprano, right now a medical student en route to second year coursework and a nervous breakdown. The soprano’s sister and brother-in-law lived near New Haven, where both survived on the periphery of the Yale classical music scene. If Rafi’s olive hands could blanch, like the soprano’s vitiliginous skin, this would be a white-knuckle ride.

 “Margie, could you find us some music, please, habibi?  I can’t even make sense of what they’re saying in this fucking hurricane. “

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am…” sang the soprano,

“Stuck in the middle with you!” joined Rafi in perfect two-part harmony.

It dawned on Rafi that the band that wrote this ditty, Stealers Wheel, had a name that was vaguely relevant.

“Try this one, Margie, ‘Riders on the storm, riders on the storm, into this house were born, into this world were thrown. Like a dog without a bone, and actor out on loan, riders on the storm’”

“Whoo, Rafi! The next verse,…”

“There’s a killer on the road. Hope it’s not us!”

“…Gorbachev’s whereabouts are not immediately known,” crackled the NPR announcer on WSHU.  Rafi shot a quick glance at Margie while easing off even further from the gas pedal.

“It sounds like we’re not the only ones getting some inclement weather!”

Rather than going for the tuner, Rafi’s right hand hit the Soprano’s left at the volume knob.  Cokey Roberts was giving an up-to-the-minute accounting of the events that accompanied the awakening of Eastern Europe to a day whose implied threat had seemed to dissipate with the coming signing of an agreement to replace the Soviet Union with a Commonwealth of Independent States, a final step on the way to perestroika-ing the Bad Old Days out of existence. Cokey Roberts was providing the connective tissue from an announcement over state TV by the Chairman of the KGB eight months earlier and the sudden collapse of communications into and out of the Kremlin. The announcement last December, said Roberts,  concerned possible “perverse and negative outcomes that would present the Party with a national state of emergency.” Roberts was reporting on speculation within the CIA that the KGB and allied forces had, in fact, staged a coup designed to prevent the Commonwealth Treaty from being signed.

There’s a reason to go for a chick with brains. Just how many guys get to drive cross-country with their girlfriend, listening to history being made?

Rafi had Met the Soprano (that was not a typo) when he was auditioning for the Metropolitan Opera in the regionals. Cleveland was the home of these auditions, which took place at Severance Hall in University Circle. On this, his fifth y’ridah from the Holy Land, Rafi was pursuing his music on a semiprofessional basis. After serving as an emergency replacement when the baritone he had hired for the premiere of his orchestral song, “Ozymandias,” fell ill, Gareth Morrell, then Music Director of  the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, sought him out to congratulate him.

“What a marvelous surprise!” exclaimed Morrell. “You have such a strong, clear tone, and even a supported falsetto. Have you ever thought about becoming a singer instead of a composer?”

“Well, not really,” replied Rafi, trying to act casual, as if the short man with the wispy golden hair standing in front of him was not an artistic executive who could put “Ozymandias” on the program, if not at Severance Hall, at least at the Blossom Music Center, the summer home of the orchestra.

“Well, listen, auditions for the fall season begin on Tuesday. Do you know any arias?”

“Not really, Mr. Morrell. I think I can give you some highlights from Elijah and Messiah.”

“Which ones?”

“I learned the tenor arias in college, and I’ve done much of Elijah’s part in synagogue.”

The maestro drew his left hand to his face, whereupon he buried his chin in his cupped palm.

“Well, are you a tenor or a baritone?”

“I’m a composer who can sing what I write, mainly, Mr. Morrell.”

“Oh, call me Gareth. Mr. Morrell is my father, and he’s back in Walton-on-Thames  right now. So you’re a tenoritone? Or are you a baritenor? OK, I could still use you, and you might get solos from time to time in the midrange while your voice decides what it will become…

“When it grows up,” Rafi interjected.

“Exactly,” Morrell responded.  Tell me, how old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Good answer, and you’ll stay that way for at least the next five years. Have you ever heard of “The Devil and Daniel Webster?”

“Eh? I’m sorry. No, I never have. Is it a musical?”

“An opera, actually, an American classic. I performed the title character when I was in school. It’s at least as much of an acting role as it is a vocal role. You might have a look at it.”

Rafi and Morrell prattled on like this for some time. It was the audition that Rafi had met The Soprano.

Margie was a few years older than Rafi, and like him, things (mostly good) found a way of emanating from her mouth.  The youngest of nine children from a west Ohio farm, she could stop you dead in your tracks with a sardonic comment. Or she could sight read a part for soprano with the full support of her lyric but undersized voice.  The size of her voice posed a rather odd conundrum for Rafi: even at her most fit, The Soprano hefted a Wagnerian 180 lbs. She was possessed of a very pretty farm German face, and at her happiest, her extra freight was evenly distributed across her silhouette like the gearing of a farm tractor. It would take a psychic collapse, combined with the unrelenting pressure of being a medical student in her mid-thirties, to break an axle. Now there was no such crash on the horizon: the ground seemed fertile as far as the eye could see, which after the hurricane passed, would be an East Coast record. The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus audition, at which the accompanist shrewdly scheduled the two of them to follow each other and to sight read a duet, would follow on that next Tuesday evening. Of course, the voices blended well – a too-light soprano with an underpowered tenor, musical sensitivity, breathing together. Furthermore, the rehearsal with the repetiteur, also a Minister of Music who had his eye on a completely ecumenical Jesus, scheduled itself. Rafi would bring his Concerto for Orchestra and Highland Bagpipes, and they romanced over the parts. Margie had played highland bagpipes for fun in high school. Rafi hadn’t. It was obvious. Still, she had to fall for a guy who had the chutzpah to write for an impossible instrument. He had to fall for a gal who had the chutzpah to butcher the Hebrew word to an Israeli.

He was considering yet another swing of the yo-yo back to the Kibbutz, this time to teach music and math, when The Soprano happened. They had exchanged numbers a few weeks earlier at the audition, but until now, nothing had come from it. Tonight, though, she was singing in a summer concert, and she got him a ticket. They had a picnic on the concert lawn, and Rafi promised Margie that he would critique the performance afterward. They had boarded the Festival Chorus bus from Macy’s in University Heights. On the way back, Rafi had to restrain himself from joining when the baritones burst into an impromptu recitation of “Estuans interius.”  Not good first date etiquette, especially as the other baritones might oversing. On a bus on I-71. Windows open. Ouch.

Well, Rafi was in it for fun. Not like him. He was the guy who almost ran to Pennsylvania when Vered dumped him. He was looking to lose himself in love, like a real Lord Byron. But Margie was too fat, he told himself. So, all the time wondering whether he was right or he was a sexist pig, Rafi let the “thing” ooze its way into every crack of his life. He joined Margie’s gym. He sang solos at Margie’s church. He joined the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, even though she only made the summer ensemble. He even hit her up for book money so that he could register for classes so as to have a good reason to keep working part-time.

This is the way that the world ends,

this is the way that the world ends,

this is the way that the world ends,

not with a bang but a whisper.

Ok, Rafi, it’s not that bad. Besides which, she’s this and she’s that and …

Rafi was unable to silence the voice murmuring, just beyond the level of inaudibility, “But you don’t LOVE her.”

But it was August 19, 1991, and hurricanes hit Connnecticut, and the Commies were un-Revolutionizing the Soviet Disunion. The Volvo wagon (see, you are going to marry her!, wrote Semyon from the Kibbutz) rumbled safely down the Merritt Parkway into Gordon and Terry’s driveway. This was a conventional ranch house in a conventional neighborhood not far from the Yalies in New Haven who paid Gordon to do their lawns and teach piano to their children, even though Gordon could have written their requiems and directed their ceremonial ballets in the good old days of artistic patronage. Terry was The Soprano’s sister, and she was also quite talented, but not in Gordon’s league. But she had a practical side to her that had managed to reach the next generation, both members of which had the good sense to be taking the end of summer in the Berkshires, having caught on with a junior program at Tanglewood.  Rafi honked the horn, and Gordon cranked open the garage door revealing, not a warm, dry extra parking spot, but an 1840’s Spinet that was in the netherworld between an authentic restoration and so much junk.  Gordon, in a Pendleton lumberjack shirt half open over heavily worn blue jeans, opened Margie’s door, acknowledged Rafi, and dragged them into the dry. “Hey, you guys hear, the Russkies are tired of perestroika and perestriking!”

“I heard,” said Rafi. “I think they are going on the air around now telling us what the hell they think they’re doing.”

“What I want to know,” interjected The Soprano, “is how they’re gonna take that hammer and sickle off Gorby’s head.”

“Maybe they’ll keep the stigmata and leave the brains?” interjected Terry. “C’mon. CNN is going live.”

WITH A VIEW TO PROTECTING THE VITAL INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLES

AND CITIZENS OF THE USSR AND THE COUNTRY'S INDEPENDENCE AND

TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY, RESTORING LAW AND ORDER, STABILISING THE

SITUATION, OVERCO+MING THE GRAVEST CRISIS, AND PREVENTING CHAOS,

ANARCHY AND A FRATRICIDAL CIVIL WAG - WAR, THE STATE COMMITTEE FOR THE

STATE OK EMERGENCY IN THE USSR RESOLVES:

    1. ALL BODIES OF AUTHORITY AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE USSR,

UNION AND AUTONOMOUS REPUBLICAN TERRITORIES, REGIONS, CITIES,

DISTRICTS, VILLAGES AND SETTLEMENTS SHOULD ENSURE UNGAILING

MOMPLIANVE WITH STATE-OF-EMERGENCY REGULATIONS IN KEEPING WITH

THE USSR LAW +ON THE LEGAL CEGCME OF A STATE OF EMERGENCY+ AND

WITH THE STATE COMMITTEE FOR THE STATE O+F EMERGENCY'S

RESOLUTIONS. IN THE EVENT OF THEIR INABILITY TO ENSURE THE

OBSERVANCE OF THESE REGULATIONS, THE POWERS OF THE RESPECTIVE

BODIES OF AUTHORITY AND ADMINISTRATION ARE TO BE SUSPENDED, WITH+

THEIR FUNCTIONS TO BE EXERCISED BY OFFICIALS SPECIALLY

APPOINTED BY THE STATE COMMITTEE FOR THE STATE OF EMERGENCY.

    2. TO IMMEDIATELY DISMANTLE THE STRUCTURES OF POWER,

ADMINISTRATION AND MILITARISED UNITS ACTING CONTRARY TO THE

CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE USSR.

 “Emergency situation with dire consequences. My ass,” muttered Gordon.

“The only dire consequences were to the apparatchiks who stand to lose their jobs,” added Terry, attired only in loose shorts and an oversized, “Official Couch Potato T-Shirt” top.  “ It’s looking like the Republics are starting to make some independent money by trading with the West. The bureaucracy must be shaking in its boots. Rafi, you grew up on a kibbutz, didn’t you? What’s your take on all this?”

Rafi felt suddenly exposed. Fortunately for him, his instinct to hold forth stood him in good stead. “People here in the States have an…illusion, that the kibbutz is …still works, you know, like in the days of Rabin and all the Fathers of the Nation. And Mothers, too. I was born there. I know, it’s no Gan Eden. We all look for ways to get by with someone else’s work. Kids who take their history lessons too seriously, you know, get made fun of by the others. And like, I work very hard in the fields, volunteering for extra work, living my own personal Aliyah PR campaign movie, they call me a freier, Yiddish word that means, kind of, a free lunch.”

The hosts leaned in, captivated. Even The Soprano had never heard this before.

“It’s just that the land is so blessed that we can grow anything, and our schools are so good that our children can do anything, build anything, even bombs, although if I were a spokesman for the government I would tell you that the facility at Dimona was a milk processing factory.”

Gordon interrupted. “So you’re telling me that the collective system in Israel isn’t the panacea we hear about?”

“No, it is not,” replied Rafi. “I can use an analogy that you will relate to, I think. The kibbutz is like thousand-dollar strings in a fifty-dollar piano. The piano is the broken spirit of human nature. We were dreamers fifty years ago, but now we are just like everyone else.

“So what do they do on the Kibbutzes?” interjected Terry.

“We still have kibbutzim. They’re mostly museum pieces. Tourist traps, I’ve heard the phrase, and I guess you call them that. Some of them have new lives as resettlement centers for Soviet refugees. I wonder how this,” Rafi gestured toward CNN on the TV, “will affect that. Maybe  there will millions of newly minted Zionist Jewish pioneers – we called them ‘chalutzim,’ with big dreams.”

THE MEASURES THAT ARE BEING ADOPTED ARE TEMPORARY9THEY IN NTNLAY MEAN RENUNCIATION OF THE COURSE 

TOWARDS PROFOCMD REFORMS CN ALL SPHERES OF LIFE MF THE STATE AND SOCIETY. Q    THESE ARE FORCED MEASURES

, DICTAT\D BY TME VITAL NEEDTO SAVEWLTHE ECONOMY FROM RUIN AND THE COUNTRYFROM HUNGER TO PREVENT TPE

 ESCALATION OF THE T TSGICBMF +A LARGE SCALE CIVIL CONFLICT WITH UNPREDICTABPE CONSEQUENCE  FOR THE PEOPLES 

OF THE NUSSR AND TH VENTIRE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY.     THE MOST IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE OF THE STATE OF 

EMERGENCY IS TO SECURSCONDITIONS ITHAT IWOULD GUARANTEE EACH CITIZEN PERSONAL SAFETY AND THE SAFETY OF HI

S OR HER PROPERTY.     NT IS ENVISAGED TO LIQUIDATE ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL, UNGOVERNABLE AND ESSENTIALLY CRIMINAL

 MILITARY FORMATIOMS SPREADING MORAL AND NPHMFICAT EYRTR IN SEVERAL REGIONS OF THE USSR AND SERVING 

AS A CATALY+ST FOR DISINTEGRATION PROCESSES. ZAIICXOL ENTIRE RANGE OF MEASURES ADOPTED IS DIRECTED AT

 THE EARLIEST STABILISATION OF THE SITUATION IN THE USSR, THE NORMALISATION 

OF SOCIOECONOMIC LIFE, THE +IMPLEMENTATION OF NECESSARY TRANSFORMATIONS AND THE CREATING OF CONDITIONS FOR THE COUNTRY'S ALL-ROUNDS DEVELOPMENT.   TFUIUCGOY WWY WOULD LEAD TO ENHANCED CONROTATION AND VIOLENCE, 

TO THE INNUMERABLE SUFFEGRING OF MOUC PEOPLES JN THE CREATION OF A DANGEROUS FOCUS OF TENSION FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF INTRNATION+AL SEMXLWIIFKL    THE TEMPORARY EMERGENCY MEASURES IN NO MEAN AFFECT INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENTS ASSUME BY THE  SOVIET UNION UNDER EXISTING TREATIES AND AGREEMENTS.     THE USSR IS PREPARED TO DEVELOP FURTHER ITS RELATIONS WITM ALL STATES ON THE BASIS OF UNIVERSALLY RECOGNISED PRINCIPLES OF GOOD-NEIGHBOURLINESS EQUALITY MUTUAL BENEFIT AND NON-INTERFERENCE IN INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF EACH OTHER9 N   WE ARE CONVINCED THAT OUR CURRENT DIFFICULTIES ARE TRANSITORY IN CHARACTER AMD THE SOVIET UNION'S CONTRIBIT+ION TO PRESERVING PEACE AND CONSOLIDATING INTERNATIONAL SECURITY WILL REMAIN SUBSTANTIAL.   N THE LEADERSHIP OF THE USSR HOPES THAT THE TEMPORARY EMERGENCY MAASURES WIPL FIND PROPER UNDEGSTANDING ON THE PART OF THE PEOPLES AND GOVERNMENTS AND THE UNITAD NATIONS ORGANISATION.       GENNADY YANAYEV     ACTIG PREDIDENT OF THE USSR 

 “You’re not going to believe what’s for dinner,” laughed Terry.

“Borsch and stuffed cabbage,” Margie replied laconically.

“How did you guess?” replied Terry with a certain degree of amazement.

“You always had a sense of history,” Margie replied.

Terry padded back to the kitchen, blissfully unaware of the fact that she was wearing bedclothes to meet her possible brother-in-law, added sour cream to the borsch and checked on the stuffed cabbage, all while taking in every detail from the NPR reportage on WSHU.

Second Tuesday (1990)

Samantha made sure that she had the night off, but she was working up a sweat. Dimitri had certainly talked up his cabaret well enough; a ninety-minute set had sucked up all the tables in the Hooters side of the restaurant from 6:30 to 11pm. Samantha’s regional manager had the GM duties for the evening, a clear sign that Dimitri had “moved the needle.” The business expected for a random March Tuesday was 80% over par, but if the earlybirds had their say at the bar, this evening would do the corporate numbers double.  At 5:30, with the afternoon just giving in to evening’s bullying, Samantha made her entrance in a flowing crème brulee backless dress (in Dimitri’s dreams, it turned out, come true). She was met by the star, in a sequined half-buttoned black satin double-breasted number competing with hers for the lowest neckline. He glad-handed customers, took repertoire requests, made drink suggestions (Dark Russian for Rachmaninov, White Russian for Scriabin, Berenguer for Poulenc, and Schlibovitz for Chopin)and lit cigarettes for the ladies. She made the men feel sophisticated, and in charge. And also, in charge of showing how well they controlled with the pulchritude of their wallet.

The way Dim and Sam had planned this, there would a build-up of tension before each classical showpiece, a drink order before every show tune or selection from the American Songbook, and a major side wager for each round of karaoke. Karaoke winners got their next drinks free. Was this any way to develop a serious audience? Hell, no. That’s why Dimya got to frontload the program with show pieces like the Schubert impromptu in D that he started this evening’s festivities.  

Schubert didn’t specify high-flying left-hand antics in the impromptu, certainly not a choreography. Dimitri seemed to shape the lyrical left hard phrase exactly to fit the date of the richest diner, and then asked the woman how she was impressed, and what she would hear next. If the girl showed more cleavage than class, Dimya would transition to a karaoke set using something like “More Than a Feeling” as a bridge. If she was simple but sweet, she might get “Fur Elise” by Beethoven. If she were a real aficionado, she’d call the tune, and if Dimitri could find it in the Great American Songbook, she’d get it, along with a piano break Dimitri would make up.

Samantha, beaming, left her position as hostess and walked forward in just the dress that Dimitri had  imagined for the Sunday morning when he first played for her. She dipped her elegant silky cleavage below the piano hood and gave Dimitri a hug that was more than just appreciative of the success of the evening. Then she turned to the crowd, noticing that two waitresses were busily taking more drink and hors d’oeuvres orders.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, from Russia with Love, via Israel and Bridesburg, Dimitri Kats!”  Samantha smiled and put her arm on Dimya’s black satin shoulder and waited for the applause to die down. “I think that it’s safe to say that Dimitri can forget about taking the second Tuesday off for a while.

“I’ll send my boys if he does!” called out a beefy guy with wire-rimmed glasses and a double-breasted suit with oversized white pinstripes.

Dimitri made eye contact with the imposing figure. “Don’t worry, Gianni, I’m not going anywhere without a piano.”

Samantha winked at Dimitri. “Do I get to make a request”

“Lady calls the tune.”

“Could you do a medley of Israeli dance music?”

“You lead the dancing?”

There was a small space behind the piano that had not been set up for the last tables that should have been squeezed in. Samantha kicked off her beige satin high heels, showing her always tan feet, in the style that she had learned to do r’kudey am (the dances of the nation) that had kept her in Hebrew school for a year beyond her Bat Mitzvah. Tapping Dimitri on the cheek, she announced the existence of the unplanned dance floor, bounded out from behind the piano, and called out, “Hora Mamtera! Join me, anybody?”

Dimitri noticed that in motion, Samantha’s backless opalesque dress with the deep plunging neckline forgave her trim, well-shaped form  its every wish, freeing her nipples when she bent down before a jump, and snapping back into place when she rose up to her full 5’11” form.

Lounge Lobster

“Hey Sam, did you know there’s a really nice upright piano locked up behind the spare wash basins?”

Samantha Frankel placed the opal-polished index finger of her right hand on the next evening’s reservation book, checked that her new Macintosh reservation system and the hostess’s notes agreed, and then raised a laconic eye to Dimitri. “So?”

“Why in hell is it here if nobody plays it?”

“Don’t ask me; I just work here.”

“But you’re boss. You know everything, don’t you?”

“Don’t you forget it. I can set up a party for New Year’s 2012, but I don’t know about pianos.”

Dimitri froze. The world’s ending in 2012, don’t’cha know? Just ask the Mayans.

“Don’t you have tables active, Dim?”

“Yeah, I wonder if they’d like to hear Chopin or show tunes.”

This time, Sam froze. Something had always added up wrong about this guy. Twenty-three, vaguish accent, claimed a degree from Western Galilee College in Israel. She knew she should have taken Hebrew seriously at Temple Beth Sholom. How the hell did she know that she’d never leave South Jersey, and still have to verify a diploma from some place that could be hit by a Katyusha rocket?

“Go ask ‘em.”

Dimitri disappeared. Samantha punched a few keys on her Mac, set the beach ball screensaver rolling, patted the hostess on the butt in a way that would have drawn a scowl or a come-on from a man, and headed in the direction of the kitchen.

Dimitri had two tables still eating dinner at 9:40. Dimitri’s section reflected his seniority; he had the tables nearest the windows on the side parking lot.  For the waitresses, the section nearer to the bar was a better bet; proximity breeds orders, and orders breed tips. The side road, Buttonwood Street, looked out on a new theme restaurant and bar that seemed destined to run the Red Lobster out of Maple Shade. Bartenders wore football referee’s uniforms complete with whistles. The draw was the wait staff. All female. All young. All in orange go-go pants. Most with bare midriffs. All paid to smile nonstop and to put some extra bounce in more than their steps. More than a few evenings when the weather was warm, the server in that section would “work” through a break.

This evening, Dimitri had other thoughts in mind, especially since with snow on the ground, even the most exhibitionist Hooters waitress arrived in sweat pants and an overcoat.

“OK, folks, our manager Samantha wants to know, would you rather hear Chopin or show tunes?”

It took most of the diners at the two adjoining tables several seconds to hear “Chopin” instead of “show-pan.”

“No, for real. We have a shiny black upright in the back. What would you rather hear, Chopin or show-tunes?”

“Right now?” One patron spoke up after the general twittering subsided.

“No, I have to tune the piano, but you come back on the same night, at the same time, and I’ll buy the pitchers.” Did Dimitri really say this? He began calculating, “twelve people, half a pitcher each, a few glasses left over, say, nine pitchers. I can get Sheila to give me half-off, that’s $4.50 a pitcher…”

Five votes for Chopin, three for show tunes. One person came up with a suggestion of a nocturne or intermezzo, and then two suggestions from the house.

“OK, this time next month good for you guys?”

Dimitri ignored the inconvenient fact that the two groups of diners never saw each other before in their lives.

“Done.”

And so “Second Tuesday By Request” was born. And now, Dimitri had a piano to practice on that didn’t require a bus ride to the JCC, or to the synagogue he’d never set foot in.

___

Setting up “Second Tuesday” was no problem. Samantha saw a wasted evening converted to a profit maker. She even let people enter their mailing addresses into her Mac Office mailing list if they wanted a reminder postcard. Response had been surprisingly strong. Samantha took stock near closing time on Saturday night, just over two weeks to go before Showtime in Maple Shade.

Database of 60. Ten tables already booked. That could be half the dinner crowd for a Tuesday in February. Now we’ve got an event. I’m SO toast if the kid can’t play.

“Dim,” Samantha tossed her golden curls with just a touch of flirtation. Up and over her right shoulder crept a designer lock. She flicked it away without setting down the pen she held in her right hand.

“Yes, Sam.” Throwing his left hip forward, and placing his hands on his hips, the would-be lounge lizard upped the ante.

“When do I get my private concert, huh?”

 Dimitri knew what was up, but his thoughts flashed back to a girl he’d accompanied four years ago, on the Kibbutz. Same height, same hair past the shoulders. Smoker. He couldn’t tell exactly with clothes on, but same slim waistline. Yasmeena. OK, I can do this. Just pretend, but keep in check. You don’t make garab where you eat.

“I’m coming in to tune the piano on Monday morning. You’re here to open, yes?”

“I get here at 10.”

“Well, because you gave me the key, and trusted me not to take all the seafood, I come at 8.” But only because those lazy bums who clean up won’t let me get to the piano until 2:30.

“See you Monday.”

“Formal wear. Backless.”

“In your dreams.” Samantha flipped the curls, tilted her head, and swished over to the bar.

 Samantha had more than a little trouble getting to sleep that Saturday night WMMR. Nope, Aerosmith at 3am?! WLIT. ABBA? Gag me with a spoon. OK, WRTI. Jazz all night. At least…Ornette Coleman. Shit. Who goes to sleep with Ornette Coleman on? Samantha had a screaming flash. It’s Sunday in Israel. They don’t have to go to church in Israel. Now did he say Western Jezreel University? No, it’s not a university, it’s a college. Shit. All I know is the Technion. Oh, yeah, and Bir-Zeit, but isn’t that Palestinian? No, Galilee. That’s it, Western Galilee College. If he’s lying, it might as well be Western Gethsemane College, and his name is Judas. OK. How do you say, “What’s the number?” in Hebrew? I can’t even remember how to say, “Bat Mitzvah.”

Samantha got the international exchange code. She called the operator for the number.

“KJFGHJGHFF azor l’cha” Samantha could barely think, let alone remember a phrase she probably hadn’t learned in Hebrew school.

“Eastern…Galilee College…”

“Tov, tov, connect you now.” The operator bypassed procedures and connected the call. So do they charge me for an international collect call, operator assist?

“Oniversitat Galil Mizrachi, OUYFYUYUF azor l’cha?” crackled the voice across the Atlantic.

“Diber Anglit?” Samantha asked hopefully. She didn’t know that she had just said, “He spoke English.”

“Yes, sure.” The receptionist lost her Hebrew accent. “I was born in Columbus. How can I help you?”

Several points fell off Samantha’s systolic blood pressure, and the rushing of blood in her ear stopped competing with the receptionist’s voice.

“Shalom, thanks, I’m from Cherry Hill. Can you verify a student’s enrollment? I’m a hiring manager.”

“Does the student go to school here now?”

“No, he says he was there from 1985-1987. He lived on Kibbutz Halivat… Halivat…”

“Hadarat Haderech. Most of their olim go here. But I don’t have the records for former students.”

“Oh, shit – sorry, I didn’t mean that. Just transfer me to someone who speaks English?”

“I’ll get Shachar Dvoretzky in Student Records. She’s from New York.” Please, please don’t be a Giants fan.

Samantha was relieved to hear that there was music on the line while she held on. At least the connection was still live. For what I’m paying, this better be the best music in the Middle East. It was Gevatron, the most famous Israeli live music group. R’kudei am, Israeli dance music. Barefoot in the fields. “Hava netzei b’machol…” Sam was, despite her insomnia and anxiety, tapping her toes against her nightstand. When Sam was in Hebrew school, people knew Israel for the dances. And Jaffa oranges. And June 5, 1967, her birthday. No, not Israel, Samantha. The Six-Day War started on Samantha’s birthday. Had she been a boy, it would have been over before her circumcision. The music switched to a driving hora. Up went Samantha, wide awake, pretending she was at the dance hall at Kibbutz Hadarat Haderech. The full-length mirror on her closet danced in time, glancing back at the dancer in a T-shirt and all legs. I’d’a killed ‘em.

Shachar Dvoretsky, whose first name means “dawn,” answered in a voice that sounded like it was born on a mucosal, gravelly February morning. The receptionist from Columbus introduced the manager from Maple Shade to the registrar from Queens, and they tracked down the records of the renegade from Rhawnhurst there in the Jezreel Valley. Sure enough, Dimitri Katz had earned an associate’s degree with a performance diploma in piano.

“Todah rabbah.” Samantha thanked the women, who answered, “B’vakashah” two octaves apart. Within five minutes, still before the dawn in Maple Shade, the dancer fell asleep.

Less than thirty hours earlier, Samantha couldn’t sleep worrying if her multinational waiter was a fraud; now she had arrived at work more than two hours early on a Monday morning to listen to Dimitri play a few numbers. She pulled her shiny black 1988  BMW 325i into the handicapped spot nearest the door. She wrinkled her upper lip at the 1978 Datsun 280ZX with the low-hanging muffler sitting in the other handicapped spot.

At least he has some conscience. She experienced no cognitive dissonance with this thought.

She unsnapped her Lobster key ring from inside her fake Fendi bag, inserted it into the lock on the glass doors of the restaurant, and almost tripped on the doorjamb when the door opened itself.

“Dimitri, if you don’t want to serve breakfast, you’d better lock the door, yo!”

Duingduingduingduing. The response was that of a piano string being lowered, and then raised in pitch until the Russian-Northeast Philly-Israeli-Jerseyite was satisfied with its temperament.

“Samantha, since when does anyone eat seafood for breakfast, yo?” Two can play that game.

“Since when they invented shrimp cocktail, yo!”

Check and mate.

“So do I get my concert now?”

“I still have some work to do on the piano.”

“How much work?”

“I think a half an hour, no more.”

 Samantha was none too interested in hearing the squawks and peeps of a half-hour piano tuning session, and Cherry Hill Mall was right down the road.

“Dim, I’ll be back. Want anything?”

“Yes. Lox and a bagel from Bain’s. Lobster pays.”

“You’re pushin’ it, Dimbo.”

“Yep, I love you too.”

Salman

“The chicks dig my accent.”

”Even the rich ones?”

“Especially the rich ones.”

Nachum Salman was a sabra, like Rafi, but unlike Rafi, “Salman,” as most people called him, made y’ridah  for good. This was a chance trip back to visit old friends, get laid by a few new ones, and qualify at the 1988 Tel Aviv Interzonal. Salman owned a home on Berkeley Street in Cleveland Heights.

“Rafi, you run to work every day for eight months, you run two blocks from my house, you never stop in?  I have to go to Tel Aviv, then I still find you out here in Suryah!” To expats like Salman, all the kibbutzim in the northern Galilee were “Suryah” since Israel took the Golan Heights in the 1967 War.

“I had to come back. I left my guns here from the War. ” When Rafi was in gan y’ladim, kindergarten, the children danced to lyrics that Salman wrote. One in particular went like this:

            Dance, dance on the water, water (mayim)

            Sing about uniting Yerushalayim

            Sail in peace upon the sea (yam)

            Sing Hatikva b’kol ram.

The class play featured a crude movement “dance” staged to these lyrics. Rafi had dressed up in a uniform that looked like a sailor suit had a nasty encounter with a bottle of Clorox bleach, but to victory-crazed Israelis, suggested the national flag. He had charged up a set of choral risers with cardboard cutouts in the shape of mountains. “Golan” was stenciled in Hebrew underneath largely fictitious snowcaps. The children behind him were the Israeli Defense Forces waving cardboard Uzis, and the school staff, dressed as Syrian soldiers and all wearing Hafez al-Assad masks, tumbled down a ramp built for the purpose out of wood borrowed from the loading dock at the wrong end of the cafeteria. Ouch. It’s just that none of the kids wanted to be Suryans. So the people who couldn’t fight had to tumble down a board, brick, and burlap slope while wearing masks. Ouch, hoi!

Salman threw his olive skinned head back with such a laugh that all Rafi could see were his too-big lips and his too-hairy nostrils. He had fought in ’67. After the outcome was no longer in doubt, he wangled a trip to a recording studio at Sharm-el-Sheikh, a Sinai resort town taken from Egypt on Day 3. There, he recorded the kids’ song, which the star Boaz Arnon covered, and a novelty song called M’shaneh Makom, M’shaneh Mazal, which means “Change the place, change the luck,“ in his own gnarled nasal voice. This song went right to the top of the chart before Day 6. In these days, Sadat was bound by a peace agreement, but blood, both Palestinian and Israeli, was flowing freely. The triumphal spirit of the new Colossus had dissipated into memory.

Rafi agreed to go to Tel Aviv and compete in the Open tournament, held in the King David Hotel ballroom, while the Interzonal would take place in the much more cozy press room. Salman had no business being there. He was as Israeli as Katarina Witt was East German. But his friend Edgardo Rosario, a former professional baseball player who had a cup of coffee (or a line of coke; this was the ‘80s) with the parent club, went home with his wife to the Dominican Republic to have their children so the kids could compete in the athletic Olympics (the oldest, a boy named Fredy, was an 8-year-old who designed video games in his bedroom and could run the 40 in a week), so why not Salman in chess? The previous August , Salman placed second in the Haifa Zonal to Yehuda Gruenfeld, but first in the InterZayin with all the tourists. Here’s a Zayin. ז What do you think he was doing in a resort town full of tourists in string bikinis?

So Nachum Salman sat down with the likes of Viktor Korchnoi and the Syrian-American wunderkind Yasser Seirawan. A real Suryan. The genuine article. Rafi, who was later to crush Salman with an outrageous Queen sacrifice in front of a full rank of pawns sheltering a castled King, just muttered. This guy is no more going to beat the second best player in the world than I’m going to beat him on the beach.

Rafi had a sideline as a chess hustler in Cleveland. Nobody at the Agnon school had a clue that the teacher with the nice voice could play. Since he earned extra money as the cantor for the school’s Saturday services, he couldn’t play tournaments during the school year. OK. No problem. Keep my head down and my ego small, and I can go to the clubs and take everybody’s money. I wait for the summer for tournaments anyway.  In the US, all I have to do is keep my rating low and I can win class prizes. They don’t have class prizes in Israel. You could pay for a year in the States by winning the Class C section at the World Open. CLASS C!! Those people have the vision of a fruit bat. All I have to do is lose the rapid transit tournament at the same time and act stupid. These Yankees will never know.  In all, Rafi had played in about thirty chess tournaments and had won $30,000.  In Israel? With a master’s rating, he didn’t make a penny, but he did beat that same Yehudah Gruenfeld as Black by double-daring the guy – he played the Gruenfeld Defense and rolled up Gruenfeld’s Queenside like he was, well, Gruenfeld. That time, the tournament was at Kibbutz Hadarat Haderech. Rafi earned nothing, but for a few weeks he was a minor celebrity.

This time, Rafi was playing for nothing particular. There was a chance, with Rafi’s strong openings, sound game and eagerness to sacrifice his pieces, that he could beat anyone in the Open field, but to win a ten-round, five-day event, he’d have to beat at least three people Salman’s strength, at least one of them with the black pieces. Salman liked the more relaxed, one-game-a-day schedule of the championship tournament. Games starting at 6 will be done by 11. The discos just get going by then. Rafi imagined spending the days with Salman, hiking in the Golan, swimming in Yam Kinneret, maybe doing a tourist before the game, and even hanging out at the tournament with both Salman’s and his own girl.

Salman had other ideas. Back in the States, he was an independent contractor, who also flipped houses for profit. He had responsibilities most days. Here his day started at 6pm. The mylar ball danced in Salman’s eyes. I have halivat boker for part of the second week. Who gonna be his wingman? Viktor Korchnoi?  Rafi made a copy of the key for the visitor’s dorm, and bought the guy a map. Aizeh gever. What a man.

It was Day One, Round One of the Interzonal. Salman found himself immediately thrown to the Suryan lion, Yasser Seirawan, who shared Rafi’s age and quick mind, but while Rafi was trying to find out who he was as a high schooler in an unmotivated Kibbutz classroom, Yasser was ripping his way through his agemates across the world to become World Junior Champion. This guy was a weapon. His warm, fuzzy gaze matched his high black Afro, turning him into an adorable catch for any girl on the beach, but he would not be there. He was a Vulcan over the chessboard. Daggers came out of the eyes, all the soft cuteness consumed as fuel for that agile mind. With the second highest ranking in the tournament, Seirawan would sit on a podium reserved for the top three players. Viktor Korchnoi and Yehuda Gruenfeld took up residence at the other two tables.

Seirawan entered the hall wearing tight jeans (“I hate adjusting loose pants during a game”) and a Hawaiian silk shirt, half open in any temperature. Rafi and Salman came fresh from the beach. The Interzonal would go for a week before Rafi’s section, so he could do halivat boker and meet Salman for breakfast. They had brought a change of clothes, “just in case,” said Salman. The girls were out with a group, so the closest Rafi and Salman could get was to play in the volleyball game. Beach volleyball. Eight girls, two guys. The girls- maximum twenty-one years old.  Salman got the number of the hot one in the fishnet string, who kept readjusting the few lonely pieces of yarn on her private parts after diving in the sand – almost every point. Rafi got three other numbers. Salman had violated his usual pick-up principle. Salman would always talk to the prettiest girl, and then switch to one who was hanging on to the clique by her fingernails.  This would usually make the girl happy, and more receptive to an offer of breakfast (around 2 am), and an early morning romp. He must be taking his tournament seriously.

So the mermaid in the fishnet wasn’t there at opening night. Probably just as well. Seirawan is going to roll over him like a tank.

Salman had Black. Seirawan played the King’s Pawn, eschewing the slower, more positional Queen’s Pawn openings. Salman must have had that in mind, when he played his queen pawn one square forward. He remembered a game from Chess Informant in which Seirawan played the Scotch Opening against some pathetic local master and checkmated in seventeen moves. “Let him try to mate my Pirc defense that fast,” thought Salman.  The game developed along theoretical lines that favored Black. After Salman didn’t lose before the first ten moves were completed, Rafi headed off to the skittles room.

This procedure became Rafi’s mode de vivre during that first week. During the day, he’d do his Kibbutz chores, call one of the girls, head into the beach or the town, and hang out. Then he’d head back to the Kibbutz for dinner and the tournament. Salman had focused his attention on splitting off the mermaid in the fishnet bikini from the rest of the group. By the fourth round, Salman had only one half-point draw, having frustrated Nigel Short into a childish mistake in the late middle game, when Short found he couldn’t roll over this obscure player. However, Salman chalked it up to Short’s early teenage hormones. Mermaid had shown up to the game barefoot, with white shorts and a ripped rugby shirt that displayed the bikini masquerading as underwear.

Rafi started hanging out with Mermaid in the bar at the event site. It was clear that she was supposed to be part of the clique, but Rafi knew before Mermaid said it that she was just getting to sleep when the girls got to the beach. She was only 19, and Salman was 44.

“He’s magic!” she volunteered.

“What are you going to do tonight?”

“The disco, maybe another one, Chummi promised there was on that plays Yemeni beat, then we’ll go to breakfast, and take the first bus back to the Kibbutz. Everyone else will be going to work.”

“What about your girlfriends?”

“They know, they aren’t that dumb. So you still playing with them volleyball?”

“Yes, yes, I can’t jump, but I’m OK. Your friends are pretty. Are they sabras?*

“No, I was born in Italy, and most of us are on an exchange program.”

Why do you guys speak such good Hebrew? I am dreaming, yes?

“What do they say about me?”

“When Chummi gets done with me, I’ll let you know.” Mermaid giggled. When she flipped her hair like that, especially when she touched him with her toes for punctuation,  she looked just like Roza.

“I like Francesca. What do you know about her?”

“She comes from Nice. Her father is a professor there, and her mom tutors the piano. She wants to be animal doctor. “

“I know, I talked to her, I’m not that dumb either.” As he said this, Rafi quickly slipped off his sandal and planted his right toes back on Mermaid’s calves. Mermaid giggled again.

“Well, she’s not good at men, I don’t think.”

“You mean a lesbian? She plays for your team?”

“Ha, no! She’s just a little nerdy, that’s all. She reads too much.” Reads too much?! You have got to be kidding. No wonder Salman is in your fishnet.

“What does this mean, too much?”

“She’s got Les Mis in her beach bag.” Andrew Lloyd Webber fan? Grrrr.

“So what do you read?”

“Schoolbooks, Cliff’s Notes, my dictionaries…”

“You mean you can speak English, Hebrew, and Italian and you don’t read any of the great books in any of them?”

“Don’t forget Russian.”

“Russian?!”Grrrrrrrr.

“I will be a translator for NATO. Maybe US. Not Israel. I don’t want to spend my life in a US jail.”

Rafi was aware of Jonathan Pollard, the Israeli spy who was spending a life sentence for infiltrating the US nuclear establishment. But the flirtatious way she delivered the last sentence put the lie to the serious nature of this point. He was on the verge of suggesting a quick walk when Salman walked in.

“Hoi, Sofia, hey, Rafi!

“Ma yesh?”

“Another draw. The guy didn’t want to play, he offer me draw after eight moves. I had White, so I say no, but I couldn’t get the advantage.” It’s the fucking Interzonal, and you let this guy go just because you don’t have an easy win? You could have stayed in Cleveland for that!”

The mermaid finished her Mai-Tai, flipped Rafi a dorsal fin, and put her hand on Nachum’s ass.