Read Online Cafe Nevo by Barbara Rogan - Free Book Online Page B

where she could observe without (she hoped) being unduly observed herself. The old chess players goggled, and the waiter looked at her curiously but took her order for coffee with reasonable grace. The café filled up slowly, and people did stare openly; but no one came over. She wondered, once or twice, if the waiter had said something to keep them away but decided he hadn’t; why should he?
    Because she was too shy to meet the eyes around her, she sketched instead, then studied the sketch closely. There was something there. Those faces, so proprietary, so at home, that they hinted at the existence of a closed and integral society; that precise positioning of chairs in just such a way as to attain maximum exposure while maintaining anchorage to a particular table; the faint indications of an elaborate and formal structure beneath the formless meandering on the surface: Nevo was like some great puzzle whose pieces wandered around of their own accord. When Sarita realized that the point of the picture would be to decipher the puzzle and paint the pieces in their proper places, she knew she had accepted the commission.
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    Chapter Five
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    â€œThen I quit,” Arik said.
    â€œQuit if you must; but not till you cool off.”
    â€œYou’re cool enough for both of us. You know, you surprise me, man. I thought, I come to Seltzer with a problem like this, he’s going to help out. He’s got the resources. And you do, you bastard. You just don’t have the will.”
    â€œWe don’t have the resources, Arik. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Do you know what it costs to run a club like that? Not to mention your salary, which presumably you want paid.”
    â€œThis party has branches all over the country. You can’t plead poverty.”
    â€œWe’re not going to close branches to support your project. Be reasonable. If we put every cent we have into the youth center, it wouldn’t be enough, and there’d be nothing left to continue the struggle.”
    â€œWhat struggle?” Arik howled. “The struggle to look yourself in the face every morning? The way you’re going it’s no wonder you’re losing it. You’re so in love with the means you’ve completely lost sight of the end.”
    â€œArik, Arik,” Seltzer sighed. “So impetuous, so like your father in his youth, before he sold out to Labor.”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about my father, and you’re in a poor position to talk about selling out.”
    But Seltzer, warming to the subject, said, “Why don’t you talk to him? If anyone can raise the money, he can. It would be small change to Labor. Or he could shake down that fat kibbutz of his.”
    â€œYou hypocrite. What happened to all that crap you’ve been handing out these past months, about the natural alliance between Sheli and Mitria? All that heart-rending rhetoric about saving their black, Likud-tainted souls and showing them the light? The minute it looks like costing more than talk, you’re ready to toss the whole package over to Labor.”
    David Seltzer was an owlish man of fifty-six. He had a headful of gray curls, beady brown eyes, eloquent hands, and a smoker’s cough. He’d been a Hagana comrade of Arik’s father, Uri Eshel, and though their political paths had diverged, they’d remained close friends. Arik liked him anyway, or had until today. David Seltzer spread his hands and leaned forward.
    â€œI’m not tossing them away. You’ve done great things with those kids, Arik, great things. Until you came along, they were nothing but hoodlums; in the course of one year you not only had them organized but had them organizing others. The wonder of it is not that you got fired but that the Ministry took so long about it. Believe it or not, my friend, your firing and the closing of the Jaffa Youth Center are very good signs. It shows