Hold on to the Sun (6 page)

“I see we have new visitors today!” Hirshel Feingold declared happily.

And the owner of the checkered cap hastily dropped his wife’s arm and pushed the new couple forward as he announced: “Mr. and Mrs. Harari from Ramat-Gan.”

“Mrs. Taft from Tel Aviv.” Hirshel promptly took his turn as sponsor.

And in the hubbub of greetings and handshakes filling the café terrace with Polish sounds, Monyek bent over to explain to Lusia, indicating the man in the checkered cap and the woman in the pink suit, “The Honigers, from Paris. In synthetic underwear. A first-class business.”

Hirshel Feingold made impatient gestures with his hands. “Sit down, sit down!” he cried. “Why are you standing?” And he pointed at the circle of chairs placed chaotically around the tables.

Mr. Honiger gallantly pushed the chair closest to him toward Mrs. Harari, whose gray hair was gathered into a bun behind her head. Mr. Harari drew in his legs and folded himself into the chair next to his wife. Mrs. Honiger sat down beside him like a genial pink chaperone. Last to be
seated were Monyek Heller and Lusia Taft, and Lusia turned her chair carefully around so that she could see the shore from where she sat. Only Henrietta did not get up while all this was going on; she remained in her place next to the canvas partition in the corner. Mr. Honiger jumped quickly to his feet again and held out his hand to Henrietta over the tables. And Hirshel Feingold called out to the assembled company, “
Nu
, what’s everybody drinking?” He beckoned the waiter with a proprietary air.

The waiter, who was apparently well acquainted with the weekend regulars, folded his hands across the white napkin over his arm and waited while Hirshel counted off the orders one by one:

“Tea, coffee, lemonade,” and in the end he turned to Henrietta, who said, “I’ll have tea with lemon,” as if she were committing herself to a fateful decision.

Hirshel sent the waiter off, and all agog at the new audience he turned toward them and made a number of unclear, agitated motions with his hands. In the end he burst into a long laugh of contentment.When he’d finally calmed down, and all the others too had finished signaling their participation in the mirth, Hirshel wiped the moisture from his forehead and said, “
Nu
, not bad here in Europe, eh?”

Marek Harari nodded his dark, pointed head and lowered it with a smile. “For sure.”

“Good, good,” continued Hirshel, without paying any attention. “Good, all this reminds me of the joke . . . ”

But Gusta Harari, who felt the need to add something to her husband’s words, leaned over to Henrietta and said full-throatedly, while Hirshel was still telling his joke, “We only came because of the Honigers. They insisted we come here on the way back to take a rest at their ocean resort.”

And when Henrietta made no response, Gusta continued, turning to Lusia and smiling at her confidingly, “Otherwise how could we possibly have afforded it?”

Hirshel burst out laughing, and his laughter was echoed automatically by Mr. Honiger and Monyek Heller. Marek too stretched his face in a grin, but his eyes remained sunken. And Henrietta, who had almost disappeared behind her husband’s gleefully agitated limbs, dismissed the joke with a pursing of her lips and shifted slightly in her chair.

The waiter arrived with a nickel-plated tray loaded with jugs of tea and coffee and tall glasses of lemonade. He put the order down according to their instructions in front of the people seated around the table. Hirshel placed his thick hand on the tab and closed his fist around it.

“It’s on me!” he cried.

Mr. Honiger and Monyek Heller attempted to protest. Hirshel Feingold waved both his hands in the air and proclaimed again and again, “No arguments! It’s on me!”

They all smiled in enjoyment and stirred their drinks. The mist on the beach thickened and brightened, almost hiding the glitter of the ocean from the eyes of the people sitting on the café terrace. A number of vacationers strolling
along the esplanade turned their heads curiously at the sound of the hubbub.

Mr. Harari lowered the china cup from his mouth to the saucer and said, “The espresso is really very good here.”

“The lemonade, too.” Mrs. Harari followed suit.

Hirshel gave the little cup of coffee engulfed between his hands an energetic stir and said, with the self-satisfied air of a man who has just brought a business deal to a successful conclusion, “Yes, yes, not bad. Not bad at all.”

And Henrietta, bending her whole height over the table, squeezed the lemon in her tea with tiny movements, making innumerable clinking noises with her spoon against the side of the china cup.

Mr. Honiger took advantage of the pause in Hirshel’s stream of words and began, “A government auditing committee came to my factory in Paris—five Jews, can you imagine?”

“I’d rather not . . . ” began Monyek Heller, wrinkling his forehead slightly, but Hirshel replaced his little cup on its saucer with a bang, slapped both hands down on the table, and burst tempestuously into the conversation. “Ten days ago when I flew . . . ”

“And what was your maiden name, may I ask, Mrs. Taft?” Mrs. Honiger turned with a yellow-haired smile to Lusia Taft.

“Mandelstein,” replied Lusia, and she leaned over the table to make herself heard, “Lusia Mandelstein.”

“Mandelstein?” repeated Mrs. Honiger, thrusting her pink-clad bosom toward her. “And where are you from, Mrs. Taft?”

“Tarnów,” replied Lusia. “ And you, Mrs. Honiger?”

“Chrzanów,” answered Mrs. Honiger.

“My late husband had family from there,” said Lusia.

“What was the name?” asked Mrs. Honiger.

“Romek Taft,” replied Lusia.

And Mrs. Honiger nodded her head. “We were in Israel until 55, and then we moved to Paris.”

“Yes, yes,” Lusia, too, nodded understandingly.

 

Hirshel’s laughter drew to an end like a roll of thunder receding into the distance, and rubbing his fat hands in satisfaction he turned his attention to the newcomers.

“So what brings Mr. and Mrs. Harari to us at La Promenade?”

He flung this out of the corner of his mouth at Henrietta, who was still squeezing the lemon against the side of her china cup. “They’re from Ramat-Gan. Having a little vacation in Europe, eh?” He answered himself, and he was already turning to Monyek Heller about to begin a new subject when Mrs. Honiger said suddenly, “Tell them! Tell them!”—and her pink earrings swayed excitedly on the lobes of her ears.

Hirshel turned to face her with an air of pleasurable anticipation, and cried, “What, not for a vacation? So you
came to get rich at our casino, eh? We have to beware of our Israelis—one of these days they’ll break the bank!” He waved a fat finger at them.

“It’s not important, Hella,” said Mr. Harari to Mrs. Honiger. “Really it’s not important.”

“What’s the matter? It’s nothing to be ashamed of! You can tell them,” Staszek Honiger joined in from the other side of the table. “We’re in a free country here!” And he tried to laugh in order to make his encouragement more emphatic.

Marek Harari lowered the long head sticking out of his suit, and the skin of his neck tightened. He shrugged his shoulders and said in a reflective tone, “What difference does it make? We were in Munich.” And again he concluded with a weary shrug of his shoulders. “Now we’re on our way home.”

“Really, there’s nothing to be ashamed of!” cried Hirshel gleefully. “The mark’s a strong currency, and in business you do whatever’s necessary. It’s nothing to be ashamed of!” And his last words were swallowed up in loud laughter, which tossed both his hands about and ended up in a rapid, triumphant glissando.

Monyek laughed loyally with him, and Lusia smiled too. But Mr. Honiger persisted all the same in his explanation. “No, they . . . ”

“We gave testimony in Munich,” said Marek Harari, and
he concluded with a limp, downward flap of his hand, “You know what it’s like.”

“We arrived on Monday,” continued Gusta Harari, “and finished on Thursday. On the way back the Honigers offered us a rest in their flat by the ocean.”

“On Thursday it was all over, and we went to Paris,” said Mr. Harari again.

“Who was the case against?” Monyek Heller asked quickly, in an apologetic tone.

“Heineke,” said Marek Harari, and he shook his pointed head.

“Heineke?” asked Lusia Taft.

“What?” asked Monyek.

“No, I thought . . . ” said Lusia.

“He wasn’t there!” exclaimed Gusta Harari bitterly.

“Who wasn’t there?” asked Monyek Heller uncomprehendingly.

The Honigers, who were already acquainted with the facts, shook their heads in an aggrieved way. Gusta Harari clutched her purse, although it was already firmly ensconced in her lap and said as if she were reciting, “When we arrived they told us that he was sick and couldn’t stand up to the strain of the trial. We waited in the hotel for two days without going out. They told us to be ready to testify the moment he recovered. On Thursday they said they didn’t know when he would recover.They took us to court, and they wrote our testimony down in the protocol. They
said that in the meantime they were collecting background information. Then they let us go, and it was over. Fela and Abel Gutt were with us too. From Holon.You know them maybe? Also from Bochnia. They went back on Thursday. We’re going back tomorrow. It’s over,” concluded Gusta Harari, and after a moment she suddenly burst out with a fury ill-suited to the pleasantness of her gray bun, “What good did it do anyone? Tell me—what?”

“Don’t say that, Gusta,” scolded Marek Harari, as if continuing an old argument.

“Yes, I know,” Gusta took a firmer grip on her purse, and her face woke momentarily from its darkness. “It’s important, but who to?”

“What are you saying, Gusta?” asked Mr. Honiger in a soothing but perfunctory tone, “What are you saying?”

“The Germans?They dragged us all the way there to tell us he was sick,” continued Gusta Harari obstinately. “Our children, perhaps? Better they shouldn’t know. And anyway, they don’t care. They’re too busy with other things.”

Marek Harari nodded his head, as if he knew all about it and was resigned to the situation.

“Yes, yes,” said Lusia Taft to herself.

“Gusta, really, you shouldn’t upset yourself.” Mrs. Honiger threw all the weight of her genial presence into the calming effort. “It’s enough!”

And Hirshel Feingold drummed his short fingers restlessly on the tabletop and burst out laughing. “They wrote
about my painting collection in the papers! You know what they said? The condition for a good investment in art is ignorance!”

“We’ve never spoken about it to Arlette!” Henrietta Feingold’s voice cut through her husband’s laughter. “Never!” She jabbed her head forward for a moment and then relapsed into her stiff-backed silence.

“Yes.” Mr. Honiger quickly confirmed, without knowing exactly what, as long as it put an end to the discomfiture. “Yes, today it’s something else again; you can’t go on forever living . . . with . . . ” And since he didn’t know how to go on, he fell silent.

Monyek Heller said, crossing his legs more firmly, “We deserve a little peace and quiet too, don’t we?” And he smiled carefully at Lusia. But she didn’t notice his declaration because at that moment she was absorbed in the movements of the tiny figures on the edge of the beach.

Mr. Harari put his lemonade glass down next to the flask of water standing on the table. His glass was dry, and the water flask was empty. He shifted slightly in his chair and drew in his neck again, as if he were trying to fold himself up inside his loose suit.

Mr. Honiger straightened his checkered cap and directed a polite and perfunctory “Hmm” toward Hirshel Feingold.

In the end Monyek Heller said, “I think we’ll go eat now. What do you say, Mrs. Taft?”

Lusia looked back from the beach and replied, “Yes, yes.”

“Excuse us,” said Monyek, and when he stood up he too saw the figures gleaming in the dense light of the sun hanging low in the yellowish mist.

Lusia carefully straightened the skirt of her suit and patted her hair into place with a heavy hand. She bent down and shook the hands of the people sitting around the table, and when she parted from the Hararis she said, “If we don’t see each other again, have a nice trip.”

Hirshel, who stood up in order to supervise their departure, made haste to intervene. “You’ll see each other, you’ll see each other,” and he concluded with a patronizing laugh: “We don’t say goodbye so quickly over here.”

Monyek stretched over Henrietta’s hand. “Mrs. Feingold.” And he escorted Lusia off of the café terrace.

No sooner had they taken a few steps than they heard Hirshel turning to the people left sitting around the tables: “What’s the matter? Why shouldn’t Monyek marry Mrs. Taft from Tel Aviv? Maybe he should better start running after young girls at his age?”

“Not so loud, Mr. Feingold.” Mr. Honiger tried to silence him.

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter? It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Hirshel went on obstinately thundering.

Lusia Taft turned her head away from the esplanade for
a moment and saw the Hararis sitting between Mr. and Mrs. Honiger on the terrace of La Promenade, shrinking a little between the checkered cap and the cheery pink suit.

 

They walked up the esplanade, climbing steeply above the bluff. Lusia Taft tugged at her jacket which tended to crease at the back. With one folded arm she clasped her purse to her body and with the other she beat time heavily as they walked, as full of concentration as if they’d just set out on a long strenuous march. Monyek Heller walked beside her with long steps. His head nodded to itself, and his fingers rubbed incessantly together as if he were rolling something between them.

“What time is it?” asked Lusia.

“After seven,” replied Monyek.

“I’ve lost sense of time.” Lusia lifted her head. “I’m not used to such long evenings any more.”