"You mean buying his friendship?"
"No. of course not. But while he's at the university, when do I get a chance to see him? For dinner once a week maybe. And he usually has to get back early. But if I had a car. he'd take a few days off every now and then and we'd drive up to the Galilee or down to the Negev. We'd see a lot of each other. I know people all over the country. He'd get a chance to meet them. Israelis, and he'd get their point of view. Back at school, he'd have a different slant on things. He'd—"
The rabbi saw the street sign. "Here's Shalom Avenue now."
"Good. We're meeting him in front of the apartment block. It's quite a way down. Tell me. do you know anything about cars?"
"I can drive one. That's about all."
"Then if you don't mind. I'll just say that we had a prearranged date, and you agreed to come along."
"All right."
Roy was already there when they arrived, studying the sign in front of the new building. It was a large sign and was already considerably weathered. It stated that the Resnik Construction Corporation was going to erect a large complex of apartment houses— central heating, central gas supply, outlets for television and radio antennas, adequate closet space— and that it would cover the entire block. According to the architect's drawing painted in one corner, there would be seven entrances on Kol Tov Street and a like number on Mazel Tov Street, and the two rows of houses would enclose a sizable area which would be landscaped with trees and shrubbery, shaded walks and terraces. Little stick figures were shown walking along the paths. The original notice stated that the apartments would be ready for occupancy early in 1971, but it had been painted over, and it now read: READY FOR IMMEDIATE OCCUPANCY.
The rabbi looked about him. at the vacant lot they had just passed, an acre or two of stones and rubble with here and there a patch of grass or a low bush to give a touch of green to the yellow clayey soil. The few trees were low gnarled olive trees, with tortured, twisted branches. Beyond the house was another such lot, but this a little less depressing by the accident of a Bedouin sitting on a rock eating his lunch while his little flock of goats nuzzled at the few bits of greenery.
Mazel Tov Street, like Kol Tov which paralleled it on the other side of the complex, was as yet unpaved, narrow and rutty, and slippery with the thick yellow mud of Jerusalem.
"What was it, number One? Then it must be down at the other end." said Roy. "This is number Thirteen."
Fastidiously, they picked their way along Mazel Tov Street — a street by virtue of a couple of passes by a bulldozer— hopping from one dry patch to the next until they came to the embankment at the end. They looked over it curiously at the roadway below, then walked back to the door of the house.
"There doesn't seem to be anybody living here," said Roy.
"There's a name card in the letterbox." observed his father. "This must be it."
He knocked on the door, and a gruff voice from within called out. "Come in. The door is open."
They entered to a large, bare room. They saw a few folding chairs, but nothing in the way of furniture— no tables, no rugs, no curtains, no lamps. The lone figure in the room did not rise, but motioned them to sit down.
He was a short, thin man, and almost totally bald. He was in pajamas and bathrobe. A vein throbbed perceptibly in his right temple, and periodically a tic developed in the cheekbone below which he seemed able to control by a quick grimace, a pulling away of the right corner of his mouth. Otherwise, the corners of his mouth drooped so that the lower lip seemed to push against the upper in a perpetual pout.
"You are the people who made inquiries at the shop the other day?" He spoke in a throaty, guttural Hebrew.
"That's right." said Dan. "My name is Stedman, and this is my son. This is my friend. Small." A natural delicacy kept him from identifying him as a rabbi.
On a narrow marble shelf attached to the wall about shoulder height, a kind of mantelpiece, there was a bottle and some glasses. Memavent poured himself a glass and looked inquiringly at his visitors. "Some brandy? I'm afraid it's all I can offer you." When they shook their heads, he went on. "I've got a little cold and this helps." And indeed, his voice was very hoarse, and he ended with a spasm of coughing.
"That sounds like a pretty bad cold." said Stedman.
"Yes, my neighbor across the way. who is herself not well, recommended her doctor to me. He was on my Kupat Cholim list, so I called and he said he'd come— today, tomorrow, maybe the day after, whenever he gets here. In this country you have to learn to be patient. My furniture, rugs, a sofa and some chairs, I ordered them more than a month ago, before I moved in. I'll be lucky if I get them in another month. These chairs and my bed and a table in the kitchen, I brought them from my old place. But you're not interested in my troubles. You want to buy a car. Tell me what you want, how much you want to spend, and I'll get it for you." He had switched from Hebrew to Yiddish and, when he got on the subject of cars, to a heavily accented English, as if he wanted to be sure they understood every word. This was the pattern he followed for the rest of the meeting — Hebrew for general matters. Yiddish for personal matters and English when he talked business.
"You don't have any cars actually in stock?"
"No. I'm a broker. You wish to buy an apartment or a house, you go to a broker. You don't expect him to be the owner of the house. The same with stocks and bonds. Why not with cars? In this country, a man comes to stay for a year, a university professor maybe. Then there's a death in the family, and he has to rush back to England or the States, and he has no idea when he will return. The best thing for him to do is to sell his car. If he takes it to a secondhand dealer, he will get a fraction of its value. If he advertises in the papers, he may have to wait who knows how long. But if he comes to me. I can probably sell it for him in a day or two and at a better price than the secondhand dealer will offer him. although perhaps not as good as what he could get if he sold it himself. How do I do it? People know of me. One tells another. So people come to me— those who want to buy and those who want to sell, and it's just a matter of matching them up, the buyers and the sellers."
"Are there many like you in the used car business?" asked Roy.
"I don't know of any others, young man, and if I did. you wouldn't expect me to give you their names, now would you? And it's not always used cars. You'd be surprised how many times a dealer in new cars finds it necessary to sell off one or more of his cars at a sizable discount— quietly, discreetly. And at how much of a discount will depend on what his situation is. And I am apt to have information about that, too."
"You got a line on a new car now?" asked Roy eagerly.
"Not right now. How soon do you want a car? How much do you want to spend? What make are you interested in?"
They talked cars for a while, largely Roy and Memavet, with Dan Stedman occasionally interjecting a remark. They discussed the relative merits of Fiats and Peugeots, of Renaults and Volkswagens; power and fuel economy; cost and resale value. Finally Memavet said. "I think I know what you want, and I’ve got a line on just the car for you. Be here tonight at seven o'clock, and I'll have something for you."
"How can you be sure?" asked Dan.
"When you've been in this business as long as I have, my friend, you get to know your customers," said Memavet.
"Did you originally have a car agency?" asked the rabbi, curious about this strange man and his gruff manner. "Or did you start out as a broker?"
Memavet grimaced. "I came to this country without any money, and with no friends or relatives to help out. I came with just the clothes on my back, and they were practically rags. I knew cars, or rather gas engines. So if I had been healthy, I would have become an auto mechanic. But since I was a sick man, just risen from the dead you might say—"