Had she been wearing a white-gold ring? Had I, in fact, seen it, or was I imagining it now, in the silence of an empty minivan? Had she gotten married?
When we finally pulled up in front of the hotel, it was three in the morning.
I ALWAYS SLEEP POORLY IN HOTELS. I had asked the receptionist, as I usually do, for a room on the top floor, one that wasn’t overlooking the noisy street, as far as possible from the elevator, with no inner door connecting it to an adjoining room. But whether by mistake or misunderstanding, the curmudgeonly old man informed us in his abominable English that he had only one room available, with a king-size bed. We were both too tired to protest. We just took the key in silence and rode up in the tiny, rickety old elevator.
Everything in the room looked filthy and run-down: the bathroom, the sheets, the muted carpet covered in mysterious stains, the olive green muslin curtains. Before going to bed, I unplugged the television, turned off the alarm on the bedside table, and covered every crack and strip of light (I always travel with a roll of masking tape). And still, lying next to my brother, I slept poorly. At some point in the night, I was awakened by shrieking or wailing, like a baby crying or a woman mid-orgasm. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from outside or from a neighboring room or if perhaps I had dreamed it. At noon, I finally bathed and dressed — my brother was sleeping soundly — and went down to the lobby for breakfast.
The restaurant was empty. The elderly receptionist appeared, the same one who had been at the front desk at three in the morning and had put up with my neuroses and appeals for a silent room. He looked awful. More sleep-deprived than I. His wrinkled white shirt, dirty and half-tucked; his face, greenish and unshaven; his few remaining strands of black hair (fake black, excessive black, shoe polish black), spit-stuck to his balding pate. He told me in English that they only served breakfast until eleven. I simply stared at him, as though I hadn’t understood, and he sighed and told me to take a seat, that he’d try to find me something in the kitchen. His kindness surprised me, perhaps because he said everything gruffly and with a sour expression. I smiled at him. Coffee? he asked. Yes, thank you. How kind, thank you. Black, thank you. I took a seat at the table closest to the entrance.
I was a bit disappointed to note that nothing in there looked like Israel. It could have been any restaurant, in any hotel. It had the same decorations and furniture and maybe even the same background music as any other cheap hotel. I don’t know why — maybe because I was still half-asleep, maybe because I’m an idiot — I’d been expecting a sandy floor and enormous walls made of biblical clay. The elderly receptionist returned. Without a word, he set down first a large tray holding pita bread, green olives, cubes of feta, slices of tomato and cucumber, and then a strange coffee cup. I wanted to ask him how the thing worked, what kind of magic I had to perform in order to drink from it, but he’d already shambled off, muttering under his breath. I studied the red plastic contraption and it slowly dawned on me that resting atop the cup was a individual filter — for lack of a better term — full of hot water and ground coffee, and that my individual filter was slowly draining and just-brewed coffee was dripping down into my cup. I waited patiently and possibly with a smile until the cup filled. I removed the plastic filter and set it on the tablecloth. Perhaps because it was so novel, perhaps because the engineer in me is still awed by this sort of device, that first cup of Israeli coffee tasted exquisite. I drank it slowly, experiencing a sense of well-being or optimism, and thinking of Tamara.
IT OCCURRED TO ME that I should get out of the hotel and take a stroll, stretch my legs, maybe smoke a cigarette. As I walked through the lobby, the same elderly receptionist motioned to me. He handed me a yellow slip of paper. It was standard stationery, a stock memo, and contained a note written in my mother’s handwriting (all caps): They’d be out all day shopping and getting things ready for the wedding, and we’d all meet that night for dinner. I thought about calling up to the room to wake my brother up and tell him. But all I did was hand the note back to the elderly receptionist, thank him, and walk out of the hotel.
The bright daylight hurt my eyes. Undecided, I spent some time staring at the traffic, at shop windows, at pedestrians rushing anxiously. I saw a taxi driver sitting in his taxi, reading the paper. I walked over and asked him in English if he could take me to the Jerusalem market — the first place that occurred to me. He put his paper aside and started the engine.
He was wearing a khaki cap, a fisherman’s cap. His radio was on too loud, tuned to the news or maybe a debate in Hebrew, and as he drove, he kept stealing glances at me in the rearview mirror. Suddenly he shouted in acceptable English, asking where I was from. Guatemala, I told him. I don’t know if he didn’t hear or didn’t understand or didn’t care. But Jewish? he shouted, almost insolently. I smiled and said: Sometimes. What do you mean, sometimes? his eyes squinting, his question abusive, his voice abrasive and obstructed, as though he were talking with a mouthful of grapes. I didn’t feel like explaining such a bad joke. I just asked if I could smoke a cigarette. Yes, good, cigarette, he said, still inspecting me in the rearview mirror. I had only one Guatemalan cigarette left. Arab? he asked, and I said no. Bad people, Arabs, he proclaimed in his deficient English over the shouting on the news and the sound of the wind rushing in from the window. I stared at the back of his neck: fat, sweaty, crimson. I was going to tell him that my grandfather had been an Arab Jew from Beirut, and my grandmother an Arab Jew from Alexandria, and my other grandmother an Arab Jew from Aleppo, and so that made me a little Arab too — three parts Arab, in fact, one part Polish — but instead I sat staring at the back of his sun-scorched neck and toying with my last cigarette but not lighting it. Bad people, Arabs, he said again. Very bad. We have to kill them, he said, eyeing me in the rearview mirror. He slammed on the brakes for a red light. Look at that, the taxi driver said. Stepping out in front of us, amid a group of people crossing the street, was a woman in a black burka leading a girl of five or six by the hand. Filthy people, he said. We must kill the Arabs, he shouted again into the rearview mirror. You don’t think? he asked, observing me, perhaps challenging me. His eyes in the mirror suddenly looked black, empty, lifeless, like fake doll eyes. You’re right, I said into his black eyes, we have to kill them all. His black eyes finally smiled a bit. But how should we do it? I inquired. Eh? he grunted, his eyes flitting in the rearview mirror. What method do you propose we use to kill them? I asked bluntly, and the man fell silent, perplexed or perhaps aggravated, and I swallowed bile.
My derisive reaction surprised me. I was more upset with myself than with the man and his ignorance and his stupid homily of hatred for the Arabs. I wondered how many Israelis thought like he did. I wondered how many Jews thought like he did. I decided it was best not to know.
The taxi driver sped up and careered through the narrow streets of Jerusalem — a word, I recalled bitterly, that meant city of peace.
It took me a while to notice that the cigarette was crumpled in my fist.