1. Indulgence and Old Songs
For the next few minutes Pilkin and I watched as the waiter cleared the dishes and smartened the table by brushing the crumbs into a silver tray. After a quick glance at my host, who signified his approval with a nod, he uncorked another bottle of wine and then placed the dessert menu in front of us. Sighing, Pilkin ordered Zimmes, an East European sweet made of carrots. I knew he would have preferred a créme caramel but, after meat, a milk based dish was proscribed for four hours.
Knowing my own heretical views about our dietary laws, Pilkin directed, peremptorily: “You just order what you like, Bushi: my first motto – circumstances permitting – is ‘tolerance’.”
“I can’t take a sweet, Pilkin. But I’d like a cheese platter: if you really don’t mind!”
“Of course I don’t! Go ahead!”
As soon as the waiter left with our orders, Pilkin observed it was time to celebrate and started singing. My heart was moved by the melodious Russian tunes with their Hebrew words and the popular army songs from the days of the resistance. Pilkin’s resonant Baritone reminded me of my of the old times. Somehow, the clock turned back and – once again – we were in a Kumsitz, sitting hunched like Indians around a fire, listening eagerly to melodies composed for this type of occasion.
When Pilkin finished, I chimed in, notwithstanding my poor voice, with my favourite song, expressing the elation of a farmer who views the Kinereth, Lake Galilee, right at dawn from the height of a his horse driven cart, heavily loaded with fresh hay. Pilkin’s applause encouraged me to carry on with a song about young soldiers marching through the streets of Tel Aviv and a well known chanson about Samson’s Foxes.
“So you haven’t forgotten,” said Pilkin when I finished.
“I haven’t. I’m away but still there – the little man upon a stair!”
“He wasn’t there again today,” Pilkin continued smilingly, “I wish he hadn’t gone away!”
“Life or chance – or maybe Providence – makes its own plans for us!” I sighed.
“It does. But enough of that! How about our Yiddish songs?”
“Yiddish?” I was aghast. Although the aversion most young Israelis had felt for the Jewish Jargon had long evaporated from my system, I was concerned about the nature of our repertoire. Coming from a bunch of unruly young intellectuals, the songs were acceptable. But circumstances had changed since then. Pilkin had metamorphosed into a Rabbi and I had turned into a renowned expert on international commercial law.
Grinning from ear to ear, Pilkin brushed my misgivings aside and offered to lead the way. I was still trying to cast a veto, when – without a change in his benign expression – he started to relate the deeds of the notorious Schlemiel, Rabbi Elimelech, whose clumsiness, inaptitude and absent minded demeanour wrought havoc amongst his hapless victims: the Schliemasels over whose trousers he poured his boiling soup, whom he knocked over as he rushed out of the lift when they tried to get in and whose rooms in the hotel he entered in the most awkward moments, confident he was back to his own quarters.
Pilkin had a perfect recall of the eight stanzas, recanting the hero’s adventures. Falling in line, I assumed the role of the chorus, chiming where appropriate the two lines ending with the memorable phrase: “En der Rebbe Elimelech, Oy Yoy Yoy”.
“Your turn, Bushi,” commandeered Pilkin when he completed his performance. “Let’s hear Sara-Beyle!”
The very mention of the bawdy song made me sit upright. The song related to the endeavours of the spirited heroine, whose navel kept dancing with merriment. Notwithstanding the liberal outlook of Israelis, there was a taboo on the performance of the masterpiece in any decent or mixed society. Sara-Beyle fitted into the sombre setting of the Zermattschein like Jazz into a Gothic church.
“Don’t be silly, Bushi,” insisted Pilkin. “If there’s any Yiddish speaker around, he’d enjoy it. And Goys [gentiles] wouldn’t know what it’s all about!”
“Oh, very well,” I capitulated.
When I finished, and mopped my brow with relief, Pilkin suggested we chant Belz, a song about a Stetl. As we were half way through, the waiter tip-toed in with our desserts. Curious about his reaction to the sight of two old men, carrying on like school boys, I stole a glance at his face from the corner of my eye. To my surprise, he appeared neither amused nor perplexed. Swaying to the sound of the sentimental tune, his face expressed a connoisseur’s brotherly sympathy.
When we finished, both of us had to recover our breath. The abstract, inward looking expression, that descended on my friend’s face gave me the chance to observe him closely. His ruddy face, powerful frame and broad shoulders still denoted strength and determination. Here was a man who had come to terms with life and, in the process, emerged on top. He was not caught up in the twilight zone. The sober world to which he belonged gave him no cause for self doubts. His odyssey, I thought, had been unruly at the start but propelled him to calm waters as he continued on course. All the same, one detail was missing.
2. Family Estrangement
“Pilkin,” I spoke with some hesitation, “you have given me the news about all our old friends – even about that pain, Lupus – and also about Rachel, about your late mother and, of course, your family and yourself …”
“What are you getting at …” he broke in, startled.
“You didn’t say a word about your brother! And David and you were so close!”
“Don’t talk to me about that swine,” snarled Pilkin, thunder written all over his face.
“Pilkin!” I countered, shocked.
“A swine: a stinker, a poz!” Pilkin went on vehemently.
“I thought you were close, very close. And the way he looked after you when you had that heart attack. Goodness, Pilkin: he doted on you! What on earth happened?”
“Very well, I’ll tell you. When David graduated from Mikveh [a tertiary school specialising in farming] he joined a Kibbutz near Haifa. After some two years, his present wife, Kate – a nice girl from Birmingham – went for a stint to the same Kibbutz. They fell in love with one another and so they got married. For a while they stayed put but then she wanted to go back to England. So they left and settled in a township near her family. David got a good job and so all seemed well. They bought a house in a good suburb and, after a few months, he was elected member of an uppish club in Birmingham. Eventually, they even ‘constituted’ him wine steward!”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing; except that when I came to visit the Schul in Birmingham, David asked me not to mention he was my brother. He was always a bit of a snob and so he didn’t want his club to know too much about his background!”
“I don’t understand,” was all I could come up with.
“Kate is an Anglican, Bushi. But she didn’t expect David to convert. She is far too nice and sensible to make such a demand. Yet David has gone into hiding, if you know what I mean. He doesn’t deny his origin; but he doesn’t boast of it either. I believe I could have come to terms with that. But the whole business took a different turn when he renounced me. That was filth – plain filth.”
“Aren’t you being too sensitive?”
“No Bushi: I am not. You know how I slaved to see David through. I did everything I could for him. If – after all that – he could disown me, I didn’t want to know him any longer! I wasn’t prepared to communicate with him like a fugitive!”
“I understand. But – Pilkin – what would you have done if he had converted but without allowing his change of faith to affect his relationship with you?”
“I would have had to accept that! A man’s religion is a matter for his own conscience. But that’s not what David did! He played a stupid and undignified game, pfui!”
“Has there been a reconciliation?”
“Kate engineered one when they came to visit friends in Israel. Yentl sided with her. So we are again on speaking terms. But I can’t forgive him, Bushi.”
“Put it behind you, Pilkin,” I pleaded. “Snobbery is a weakness like any other. And it’s not like you to bear a grudge. Life is too short and David ain’t a bad chap. He was there when you needed him!”
“That’s what I keep telling myself. Still, the episode has remained a thorn in my flesh. So that’s that!”
“I understand. Still, as you yourself say, blood is thicker than water. And David is – and will always remain – your brother.”
3. Reverting to Shosh
For a while, Pilkin kept breathing hard. When, in due course, he suppressed his anger, I took the courage to ask him about Shosh. Breaking into a smile, he expressed his surprise I had not asked about her right at the start. It was not like me to forget a friend as close as her.
“I simply didn’t want to risk hearing bad news about her!”
“The Ostrich posture?”
“True!”
“Well, let me put your heart at ease. The news isn’t all bad!”
“What d’you mean? There’s nothing wrong with her health?”
Grinning slyly, Pilkin assured me there was nothing wrong with Shosh’s health. For all appearances, she was thriving. The trouble was at home. She had known for years that her husband was playing around but thought it best to close her eye. She felt certain he would not desert her, the children and their four grandchildren. She was, however, badly shaken when she discovered that her Uzi had a second household, with a girl half his age.
Her initial reaction was to demand a divorce. Fortunately, she rang Pilkin before she went to see her lawyers. In the event, he managed to persuade her think the matter over and to discuss it with him, over lunch, after ten days.
“When we met,” Pilkin told me, “she had simmered down. She was still annoyed but had realised that the talk about divorce and scandal was silly. So she settled on sweet revenge!”
“At her age?”
“Not that sort of ‘sweet revenge’. Shosh’s far too sensible to look for a lover. And I’m not sure she’d find one. She ain’t a dish any longer!”
“So what was the big idea?”
“Do you remember Shosh’s appetite?”
“How could I forget that,” I muttered, recalling vividly how she used to have two or three scoops of ice cream when Pilkin and I had but one and how she used to gobble up at least one extra Pitah Falafel when we went out together. She had, also, found ways and means to get an extra helping at every Kumsitz and party.
“For many years she made an effort to control her eating. She didn’t want to burst at the seams. Well, when we met she said she’d decided to drop all caution: she was going to eat to her heart’s delight,” Pilkin told me.
“Not a good idea at our age!” I exclaimed.
“I told her so. And d’you know what she said?”
“What?”
“She said she’d rather die happy on a full stomach than starve herself for the sake of appearances!”
“Good old Shosh,” I let my enthusiasm show. “What a woman! And did she keep it up?”
“You bet she did. Here – let me tell you about our last lunch, just two weeks ago!”
Trying hard to appear objective, Pilkin told me how Shosh had devoured a five course meal and, in addition, had gobbled away most of his own, far less sumptuous dishes.
“Poor Pilkin. You must have starved!”
“I filled my stomach with bread rolls!”
“I shudder to think what she looks like nowadays? A cube?”
“A balloon, rather, Bushi. When I told her I was going to meet you, she asked me to give you her love. But she refused to send you a photo. Need I say any more?”
“That’ll do. Shosh was always a piglet. But I’d hate to see what she looks like nowadays! Still, I hope she took a strong tea or coffee after that carnivorous lunch to help get all that stuff out her system.”
“Did you say tea or coffee, Bushi?”
“Well, yes; I did.”
“You better get ready for a real shock. Yes, Shosh took a coffee – a coffee of a sort. She ordered an ‘ordinary black’ in a long glass, with a nip of Dom, two spoons of raw sugar and topped with whipped cream!”
“After that meal? You are making it up!”
“Shame on you! Rabbis don’t tell fibs, Bushi. And to finish the tale: when Shosh drained her cup of ‘coffee’, she smacked her lips and said it was so good she had to have a second!”
“Good God,” was all I could bring out. The thought of her Einspänne, and of its seductive aroma, made my mouth water. During my visits to Vienna, in my Oxford days, I had often drunk such a coffee, albeit mixed with brandy rather than with Dom, in the coffee houses I used to visit with my late father. Such a coffee equalled a full meal, and was best consumed late in the afternoon over a newspaper or a weekly.
“And she had two in one go?” I asked, trying to recover.
“She did.” Pilkin assured me, with a twinkle in his eye.
“And she smacked her lips thereafter!”
“It’s a free country,” countered Pilkin.
4. A Refreshing After Dinner Drink
“So it is!” I agreed and, turning to the waiter who had just stepped in to attend to us, ordered an Einspänner, adding: “But with Kümmel, please!”
“Hold on,” interrupted Pilkin, whose amused expression gave way to a look of brotherly concern. “Please use saccharine instead of sugar. And is there any good but not too sweet Liqueur?”
“Well,” said the waiter after a moment’s contemplation; “the Kirsch is splendid this year. And may I suggest Pro-Sweet instead of saccharine? It doesn’t leave the metallic taste.”
“That’ll do,” I said with relief.
“And please use unsweetened whipped cream,” added Pilkin.
“Very well,” said the waiter.
When the rich, delicious drink arrived a few minutes later, I inserted the glass straw into the steaming coffee at the bottom of the long glass, mixed the Kirsch in, and took a sip through the snow white cream. Conscious of Pilkin envious glance, and feeling it was my turn for a spot of Schadenfreude, I smacked my lips appreciatively and, staring above Pilkin’s shoulder, pronounced: “A-Mechayedic.”
Instantly, Pilkin’s eyes started to pop out of his head. Amongst gourmands like us, the Yiddish phrase, meaning ‘finger-licking-good’, was not uttered lightly. For a few moments he fought temptation. Then, with a shrug, he gave in.
“Alphonse, I’ll have one too,” he said to the waiter whom, obviously, he had come to know quite well over the years.
“After the goose?” The waiter, who must have become acquainted with Jewish traditions, was aghast.
“The spirit is strong, Alphonse. But the flesh is weak. And if we don’t give in to temptation from time to time, there will be no sins left to be forgiven! Sinning – on rare occasions – is human!”
“In that case, Rabbi Zohar, may I suggest you have a nip of Pflümlei instead of Kirsch? It is sweeter and just right this year. One spoon of brown sugar will do. And can I use sweetened cream?”
“Go ahead. You are a virtuoso when it comes to drinks”.
“Thanks, Rabbi Zohar. You are too kind!”
Pure delight was written over Pilkin’s face as he wiped his mouth after the first sip of the rich drink. “Delicious,” he confirmed. Grinning sheepishly at one another, we touched our glasses and Pilkin proclaimed, with the airs of a religious leader blessing his congregation: “To good old Shosh!”
“Amen,” retorted I, enthusiastically.