THE RICH GIRL

Dworkin, Susan

THE RICH GIRL a story by SUSAN DWORKIN The men of Israel dazzled her like diamonds. That was a great shock. She became hysterical, for three seconds, not long enough for anyone to see, sitting...

...Now she was almost broke, and it was time to get the money awaiting her at American Exoress...
...Her broker told her father," Jacob Wasserman said, "and her father has instructed him not to send the money...
...No...
...I cannot make her go anywhere...
...Nissim cruised next to her...
...Lamah...
...The overbooked Hilton had sent her to a pension off Dizengoff, where there was no phone and she had to share an untiled bathroom...
...She must have left Israel by now," said Vera, cool as her gin...
...Once on leave in Eilat, he had seen a tall Swede in a small bathing suit and had rolled her in the sand with such a fury that she wept and limped away...
...They had accompanied her on peace marches...
...For this...
...Oh yeah...
...Someone had sent him to school...
...Stop...
...For I had conquered America...
...However, he persevered and subdued her, only to find her as impenetrable as Mecca...
...Do your parents know you are here...
...MOMENT JANUARY 1976...
...Enough until tomorrow in Jerusalem...
...Merdel Do you understand that, you with your rings and your broker...
...Nissim grunted at them...
...Therefore, Vera was not — like Sandy — afraid of the poor in Spain and Portugal...
...Okay gorgeous, here we go...
...Yours, constipated, helpless Jewish princess, etcetera, etcetera...
...Her fingernails were broken and her frizzy hair flew all over...
...It is too complicated," answered Yoram...
...But she would not let him have any peace, even after that, and secreted all her jewels and her money in tiny places around the apartment and the motorbike so that months later he was still discovering them...
...On a chance, he spoke to Sandy in French...
...One of the soldiers took Sandy's arm...
...Please Sandy...
...She checked the state of her stocks every day...
...She had spent a week shopping for diamonds...
...Oh yeah...
...They both ate it anyway...
...His skin was bronze, his moustache black as the motives she immediately perceived...
...First, the soldiers were taken...
...Is he your friend...
...The girls of Kiryat Gat and Rishon le-Zion had revolted him since he was sixteen...
...At the beach, inwardly estimating her father's fortune and wondering if he would have to get her pregnant, Nissim said in French: "Look here, Sandy, a woman who hates herself finds no shortage of men to destroy her...
...I never want to see you again...
...He turned toward the waiter...
...For three seconds, not long enough for anyone to see...
...You have no understanding...
...Yes, excellent...
...She's crazy, he thought, God help me...
...Why not...
...However, as an absentee investor, I would be dealing with the owner, not the plant...
...The music and the climate and the smell of Nissim, some sort of strong perfume that would have repelled a woman with good taste like her mother, fueled her wit: French, long dormant in the text, flew into her mouth: she continued the story of Wolfgang and Vera with enormous relish...
...Dear bitch-mother...
...She could not cook...
...Two unmarried daughters still remained to his parents in Kiryat Gat...
...I hate to take away anybody's good thing, Halabi, but that girl belongs to a friend of mine and he wants her back...
...Kicking aside the ancient powder, he discovered to his great delight something which looked quite like the body of a Jewish girl who had been traded, it seems, by her mother to a local merchant and then bought back at considerable loss by her father...
...Thinking then of that lush, tall, golden-haired girl, he tried to make love to Sandy Katz...
...Are you crazy...
...Dear father, I am pledging my first contribution to the United Jewish Appeal...
...Nissim pulled up in front of her...
...Oh come along, I have no patience for these games...
...She had three soldiers in the back seat...
...Look, we don't do too bad," said Nissim...
...As Sandy had anticipated, Yoram knew about tomorrow in Jerusalem...
...Get all the machines going and the inventory moving...
...Nissim did not answer...
...You expect people to be terrible...
...Nissim, known by now to the lady of the house, was in her room...
...I sink, I sink to the bottom...
...By noon the next day he had his answer...
...He doesn't blame you...
...Sandy said, how could she go off to Bavaria without money...
...Everybody laughed except Sandy...
...I can see that...
...Sleep with Yoram," Sandy said...
...It was a trick...
...I will marry her if she wishes...
...She was breathing deeply, slowly...
...What can I give you, doctor...
...He made love to her, just to give her some peace, Yoram, just this one last time...
...Bar-bra Streisand...
...Everyone marveled at the change in him...
...What...
...The moon-mottled streets were balmy, damp...
...Let's send her with Vera, Harry...
...Well, I've only got three dollars left...
...Nissim, would you lend me the money for some sandals...
...He knew that, tomorrow being Shabbat, the American Express office would be closed, and he would have about two days to seduce her...
...Conversely, they could not help Sandy...
...No, no...
...In America, men are killed for less than that look...
...He said our last parting wasn't nice...
...It was as he expected...
...However, Vera's parents had taught her to eat nutritiously, wash her clothes, make her bed in hostels...
...Let's go to the beach," she said...
...A lady doctor, about her mother's age, stopped for Sandy...
...What kind of a mother do you have, to let you go alone in a strange country...
...She whirled...
...Maybe he'll take you to Eilat...
...And two more weeks to become a fait accompli for her father...
...They had sent her to Quaker work camps, as well as to Ethical Culture...
...Wasserman came on an amateur dig and accidentally unearthed a secret tomb...
...Okay, let's go to the mountains," she said...
...She had said this as Sandy was having electrolysis in Elizabeth Arden and trying very hard to keep from crying, breathing deeply, slowly, in front of all the people who passed that day in Jerusalem — and some did stop to stare — counting 300 pounds into Nissim's hand...
...Sandy awoke at dawn...
...The factory girls had copied her clothes and were looking remarkably chic lately...
...Italian doctors cracked the cast and pronounced the ankle well...
...Please Sandy, don't...
...Do you like your job...
...He tried to swim to Africa...
...He never once questioned her about her origins...
...But your mother...
...Sandy, a Long Islander, never blinked at the sonic booms which peeled back from the Phantoms heading for the Canal...
...Her face had peeled its last and was resolved in a competent tan...
...He never once allowed her to pay, feeding her the pasta he could afford...
...To keep up appearances...
...I cut it all up in big pieces and put it in a bowl...
...Yoram said the pieces were too big...
...She found a beauty parlor...
...Get out," Nissim said...
...Do we have pretty daughters, Adele...
...But he had not brought all the gold to Persepolis so that he could give his fair, smart girl to a Moroccan mechanic...
...Nissim noticed her poring, squinty-eyed, through a Jerusalem phone book...
...Vera stayed loyal and got the Dane to drive Sandy around in his Fiat...
...Why did I care who Vera went around with...
...Sandy would have too, but few asked her...
...That night they went out to dance in Yaffo, Nissim's treat...
...American Express...
...On the way out, she noted giddily that the waiter, who knew Nissim, was evaluating her rather poor figure with a wrinkled nose...
...The amount is upwards of ten times what you possess...
...For Gordon, a rich leftist and therefore a fool, he felt no special responsibility...
...He despaired of finding Sandy Katz for her father...
...Dark girls in home-sewn dresses, with hairy legs like the women in Italy...
...My folks wired me some money to American Express...
...Merde...
...In a few weeks, aching with French music, he would ship out on Black Star as a dishwasher...
...She walked down the street, looking for a beauty parlor...
...Come up to my place, I will cook you a wonderful fish with horseradish...
...And so Zahava came to Nissim in secret...
...His face was black...
...He was very tall," Sandy recalled, "and he had freckles...
...He spoke to them in Hebrew on her behalf...
...They communicated in English and in French...
...She had frizzy hair and broken nails...
...Off a rich Israeli...
...Sandy clung behind Nissim...
...I want everybody in tomorrow, you understand...
...Hitchhike...
...What did you do for me, gorgeous...
...Sandy was still peeling and very dirty, her fashionable clothes wrinkled, money of several nationalities pouring out of her broken pocketbook...
...I will call for you...
...They had many suitors, however, and Shaul waited on tables in a busy restaurant and his wife did laundry at the hotel and Nissim had an excellent job in an air conditioning factory in Rishon le-Zion, so except for Raphael who had fallen to the Arabs — may they drown in the blood they so dearly love to drink — things were better here than in Morocco...
...But Jacob, like all these Americans with their soft innocent faces who come pretending to be easy marks, was shrewd as the Pentagon and he wanted to see the factory...
...And you don't mind...
...Maybe this trip, you will find Thor...
...They bought the sandals...
...She won't go," Nissim said...
...They picked up their bathing suits...
...Tell me about Lars," he murmured...
...It keeps me off my ankle...
...shouted Vera...
...Wasserman...
...Two more weeks," she lied...
...Wolfgang, white-eyed in his Volkswagen, tooted to her from the street...
...He really mourned for Raphael, having watched his own blood blackening like oil in the sand...
...Nissim despaired...
...Thanks...
...She stood at the door to the hotel room...
...Clearly he was that sort of fellow who did not take prisoners...
...So maybe you ought to feel sorry for him...
...She fell on her knees before him...
...it is too complicated...
...She had her hair straightened...
...Vera found a Norwegian named Lars and an Austrian named Wolfgang...
...He thought: when disaster comes, I will not want it piecemeal (she is not here: she is not in Jerusalem: God knows where she is) but in one great thunderbolt so that I either have or do not have my coronary and that's the end of it...
...Are you going to give me back the money I spent on you...
...Too many Anglo-Saxons make this mistake about Israel...
...Sandy turned it into cash...
...How will I get there...
...She is here...
...Two soldiers stopped to see what she was laughing about...
...Less and less frequently these days, for his abuse was beginning to hurt her...
...Sandy bought shoes in Paris...
...Yoram was there, playing his guitar with a Georges Brassans record...
...He waited...
...Kamah...
...In Rome, she limped across the esplanades and bought shoes and a lot of jewelry...
...A financial report told you much more, he said, than stacks of knocked-down machinery, and a dinner in Yaffo which cost 150 pounds told you that you were dealing with a substantial man...
...I went to a store and bought agvaniot and cucumbers but there was ain lettuce...
...So you are right...
...He seemed to her a Spaniard, a Sicilian...
...He was kissing the tips of her fingers, as per a recent film from India which was playing in Tel Aviv...
...Lars decided to leave now before they had a fight...
...A waiter is not a friend...
...Vera ran inside the pension when they arrived...
...Prisons...
...An old one, sinewy, took her bags and found her a taxi...
...Thereafter, Vera would go to graduate school...
...She protested, kicking and yelling, her alternately thin and lumpy body lunging around him so that he was finding it virtually impossible to forget how little she attracted him...
...Sandy asked...
...She was with several men who Jacob thought were probably married...
...She has wired her broker for money so that my brother and I can buy a restaurant...
...Nissim and Wolfgang, somewhat captivated by Sandy's vivacity, filled and refilled her glass...
...Nissim cried to her...
...No one found it amiss that Nissim should kiss her with great enthusiasm before they rode away...
...I want you to get off my bike...
...You have no understanding...
...Leave Yoram out of this...
...The factory seemed efficient and the foreman knowledgeable, but the financial report was a pack of lies...
...Four more Americans shared the ride to the Hilton...
...In the morning, Vera and Sandy stood on Derech Haifa and tried to hitch a ride to Jerusalem...
...They rode to Rishon le-Zion...
...But how have you been living...
...She was hanging out the window like a tongue...
...She staggered away, bleeding...
...rose to supervise an assembly line: rented two rooms with a musician friend named Yoram: drank Scotch whisky and retooled an old motorbike with a sidecar in which he combed the besieged and isolated country, looking for an American to save him from his life...
...He bought her a sort of steak...
...They planned to arrive back in New York in September with French provincial bargains and custom-made English tweeds...
...Aha...
...When she was gone, he spoke up...
...Not one single tear ever appeared below the lower rim of her sunglasses...
...She knew that he would find out that the money was real...
...His feet were burning...
...asked the drummer when Nissim and Sandy had left...
...The way Nissim put it to them was that the plant would close unless the boss could entice this American to invest...
...cried Wolfgang...
...The boss liked him...
...The doctor called it a temporary strain, not a serious mental disorder...
...The men at the plant thought him disconsolate and silly...
...I am here...
...She let Sandy out at American Express...
...The Dutchman, the Swede, the Dane, then Wolfgang, why did she go with them...
...Are you threatening me...
...It was said that the rich girl was going to take him to New York or set him up in business on his own...
...They met in a kiosk underneath the Cameri Theatre...
...He gave her ten pounds...
...Yeah yeah sure, but it didn't work out...
...They were black holes...
...Perhaps because you are desirable," he whispered into her ear...
...Nissim did not think so...
...Lucius recommends that you have your hair straightened at Mr...
...Jacob Wasserman went with the Rumanian to see his factory...
...She soaked the sheets with her tears...
...Nissim remembered that these had terrified the Swede...
...You are a rich bitch, Sandy, a constipated, helpless Jewish princess without imagination or daring or zest for life...
...Sandy, then, knew whom Vera hated...
...Kessef, Yoram, please," she said...
...You think he finally has done it...
...She smashed Yoram's guitar against the wall...
...Hide behind Vera and someone will pick you up...
...Nissim visited home periodically, bringing money...
...Where is she...
...And don't forget it...
...Then give me some money so I can go to Jerusalem...
...We had lechem v' butter then, v' cafe, and we were full...
...Don't let anyone jress on the job...
...Just that he has other plans for his daughter...
...Her hair whirled...
...Poor bastard, he's out back in the office banging his head on the desk...
...What did they do for you...
...The soldiers moved on quickly...
...He did not cable news of their non-registration...
...Not so Vera...
...Harry, call Jake Wasserman and tell him and Adele to look her up when they arrive there...
...What was the matter with me...
...he shouted...
...You son-of-a-bitch Nazi pig, you think you can fuck Jewish girls in Israel and not invite destruction...
...Vera's a good influence on her...
...Oh yeah," she said...
...a contributing editor of this magazine, is o playwright and freelance author...
...asked Jacob...
...She came roaring up on his motorbike now and climbed into the sidecar so that he could drive back to Tel Aviv...
...You have a face like a moonless night, Halabi, am I reaching you...
...He tried to cheat me...
...She was sitting in the sidecar...
...Ani rozeh lelocket to Jerusalem," she said, and the lady of the house laughed, applauding...
...She had set out to see Europe at the beginning of this, their postgraduate summer, with her friend Vera Gordon...
...My brother and I would like to buy the restaurant he works in," Nissim said...
...Rich men bargained with me over this strange, cruel creature...
...Remember your dignity, Sandy," her mother had said, "dignity and good taste are what women like you and I are known for...
...She could not sing...
...Then she slipped on the top step of a marble stairway in a French palais and broke her ankle...
...Dear Harry, I made my first salad...
...She had not planned to come here...
...Nissim, when he met Sandy, was twenty-eight...
...I'll send it to your hospital...
...Then Nissim mounted his motorbike and rode away...
...Jacob believed her to be lying, which she was, and back at the Hilton, he wired Gordon...
...But for Harry, a nice guy, soon to be a client of his and already much betrayed, he felt terrible...
...The Army psychiatrist who interviewed Nissim thereafter wrote in his report that this was a temporary strain and no serious mental disorder...
...Someone had shown him movies...
...He was at a loss...
...Nissim didn't know what to do...
...Nissim walked with Wolfgang among the turrets of Yaffo, leaving the girls to shop for beads...
...She did not need these large sums...
...His arms slackened around her...
...Look, it happens . . . ," she said, patting his brawny shoulder...
...Will you take me to Jerusalem tomorrow...
...Who would have thought they would carry their own luggage and sweat so unabashedly...
...I should kill you," he whispered...
...Gino's of the Spanish Steps...
...I have no more...
...Then Nissim drove her back to her pension where she showered, washed her curling-up hair and put on her least dirty dress...
...She glanced at him...
...She could not wash the clothes or the floor...
...I drove around the block to calm myself down so I would not hit you...
...THERE IS NOT MORE TO IT, HARRY...
...He had no confidence in it...
...Short-waisted and big-breasted was Vera, her legs splendid and tan...
...Sandy asked...
...What if they had a fight and she wanted to leave him...
...It looks like Miami," said a woman who looked like Miami...
...He ended up drinking Scotch whisky with Yoram between sets at a cabaret in Petach Tikva that burst its tin sides with rocking Moroccans...
...It happens," she said...
...He called, smiling at her as the digits rang...
...She was crazy...
...Move your men off their behinds...
...Then I bought some salt and pepper...
...You think I do not know what is the restaurant business...
...he asked...
...She stared at thin, pinched, peeling Sandy, her friend, with hatred...
...Jacob Wasserman wouldn't buy anyway...
...Are you sorry...
...She just wanted to get me out of Europe...
...I'm giving it to an Orthodox hospital...
...He had less mercy than most Israeli foremen...
...I thank you...
...Nissim asked...
...Hundreds of dollars did not wait for her at American Express offices along the way...
...said Sandy, daring to grin...
...Sandy said, fingering her pearls...
...Nissim stepped into his factory, for it was now almost quitting time and he wanted to make an appearance...
...If she had only been sealed as a vault, well then, a man can try again...
...she asked Nissim in Netanya...
...Jacob Wasserman kicked the dust...
...No...
...I'll give it back to you on Sunday, really...
...These men have fought for us, died to keep us rich in the respect of nations...
...I have nothing...
...They found Nissim's apartment...
...My mother didn't think the country would be strange," said Sandy...
...If she had only been plain, well then, a man can close his eyes...
...He embraced them like Samson in his sleep...
...No...
...shouted Nissim...
...Adele patted his shoulder...
...Somebody's gonna rob you, Sandy," Vera said...
...He searched for Sandy, trying to remember what she looked like (Harry had said she was very pretty) and, seeing nothing of her in the luxurious places of Israel, becoming more and more concerned...
...I love your roaring proletarian motorbike...
...That night, he tried to find Zahava...
...At Herzliya, they went for a swim in the sunset...
...Look here, I do not know if I can send her away...
...Wolfgang was ecstatic about Israel...
...As long as she doesn't pee in a mosque, she'll survive, Harry said...
...The next day Jacob drove out to the plant and waited in a parked car for Sandy to drop off Nissim...
...He lowered his head...
...Show me your country...
...He told me to give it to you when Sandy was safely home in New York...
...Why did Vera go with them...
...His brief reunion with the working classes had renewed his purpose and now he loaded her into the sidecar with great gallantry, kissing the inside of her wrist, aware that his friends were watching...
...So Vera flirted with a soldier, and when a car stopped to pick him up, he took her along...
...This made him very miserable...
...Who taught you English...
...However, he did send the money to me...
...She was crying...
...Get out of the car...
...This Nissim said in Arabic, snarling like the Syrian radio, and the very sound of his rhetoric so frightened Wolfgang that he ran out of Yaffo and disappeared forever...
...Like Sandy, Vera was a creature of plenty...
...He dreamed of Paris...
...God bless you, darling father, with your industry and success, you have protected a mediocre girl and brought her to power...
...At the Wall, she picked at an ingrown message and an irate woman shouted at her...
...He turned toward Sandy...
...She stalked out...
...Bargain for me in its marketplaces...
...But she is miserable, like me, Yoram," he said...
...he burst out in the middle of dessert...
...What is your name...
...I'm sure if he met you, he would like you very much, Halabi...
...It's gorgeous...
...Once when I was a young man desperate for America, I met a girl and she was America and she saved my life for me...
...Sandy reached into her purse...
...exclaimed Adele his wife...
...She chattered about her packages...
...In French, and rather quickly...
...Dear Mr...
...She could not even speak the language...
...Mr...
...Should I feel sorry for him...
...You'll have to give her a job...
...Well, why is he looking at me with desire...
...It was...
...Oh yes, I cabled them this morning...
...When she walked into the street, Nissim was waiting for her...
...Please Sandy, don't do this, I am begging you...
...Are you Sandy Katz...
...Wolfgang fawned over him...
...Sandy Katz...
...You are a disgrace...
...New York was to him a city built entirely of air conditioners, stacked into monolithic gray towers...
...Where she lay in my bed, there was a dry place...
...Jacob laughed...
...For how long are you in Israel...
...Sick that he might have to berate his friend the waiter, he considered getting rid of her...
...Listen, Harry, a woman needs only one triumph and suddenly all the world wants her...
...Vera said...
...Finally...
...Do you know what my life is like...
...Her father said she was out with a South African...
...At his place, Yoram was rehearsing with the combo...
...But he knew she was an American and he knew she was alone...
...arms...
...She's sitting down there in a pink bikini drinking a gin and tonic and covered with Bain de Soleil...
...She was hysterical, screaming like a missile...
...Thrilled at such a compliment, Nissim shook hands with Jacob Wasserman — (I guess he was good-looking, Harry) — and walked out of the plant...
...It has turned out to be at the Jerusalem office, and I'm trying to call there, to tell them I'll come...
...While you're in Rome," her mother wrote, "Mr...
...1 found her...
...Sandy kicked the dust...
...What capable Susan Dworkin...
...She became hysterical, for three seconds, not long enough for anyone to see, sitting on her Gucci suitcase, waiting to get through customs...
...You are a disgrace...
...The entire amount, less what she owed Yoram, was at the desk when she got back to her pension in Tel Aviv...
...Then I bought some oil aval there was ain vinegar so I bought a lemon...
...just the way you'd expect her to be...
...The Israelis streamed out around him...
...Vera did not stay loyal...
...His English he had learned from a South African buddy on reserve duty near the Canal...
...No future...
...she screamed...
...He said we should find you...
...But no skiing on my ankle...
...Now listen to the story...
...Coffee cups flew before her rigid arms...
...The other gave her a bite of his falafel...
...Go on up to the mountains of Bavaria," she whispered to her departing friend...
...The sheets were wet with the warm mist of Tel Aviv, and she struggled away from them as from her father's tears and the lotions of her mother's hairdresser, scared to death that she would drown...
...Jacob Wasserman, a very successful divorce lawyer, looked for the daughters of Gordon and Katz at the Hilton...
...No hope...
...Lars liked Sandy, because Lars liked everybody, thereby taking the whole kick out of it...
...They all went for something to eat and took a sherut back to Tel Aviv...
...Do you think she's all right, Harry...
...Oh Nissim, stop it, please, how should I know who's a good lover, who do you think you're talking to...
...Do you have any idea," she shouted to Nissim as he revved up his bike, "how often I have wished that you might be struck by lightning on the golf course and not killed but withered...
...Vera withstood these pressures, and stayed loyal, stayed with Sandy...
...Jacob waited...
...Dear mother, I have learned much from having observed you intimidating salesladies and butchers, your diamonds discreetly gleaming...
...She tried on the new shoes...
...A waiter is a waiter...
...There are no poor Jews in that tribe, Nissim...
...He made me come...
...After a week with him, she had begun to feel sort of middle class, a nice place to visit...
...Don't you want the money...
...Her feet were burning...
...In the beauty parlor she became hysterical...
...And then her mother sent the money to Israel...
...I shall not pay, father, never fear...
...If she had only been smart as a snakebite, well then, a man could have shut her up with a beating and washed his hands...
...May I help you...
...Lars said, never mind about the money: he had enough...
...he asked...
...Blood poured suddenly from a long cut on her collarbone as he seized the weapon and threw it away and Yoram ran out the door to find a doctor...
...In point of fact, Sandy had no reservation at the Tel Aviv Hilton...
...A phone number...
...They gave her a cast and a crutch...
...They rode out to Netanya...
...On Long Island, working as counselors in a camp for creative children, he too had daughters...
...God knows what will become of Sandy in September, Harry...
...Sandy remained on Derech Haifa...
...I will sleep with anybody as long as he takes me to Sicily," Vera said, kissing the Dutchman as they flew in his Citroen down the Italian coast...
...She gave him a message for Nissim...
...Sandy expected Vera to leave her and go off with the Swede...
...But I would no more make a bad deal for my daughter than for my money, even here...
...We have found her...
...Well, you will excuse me, but she is not a wise woman...
...She slashed at herself with an old Army knife...
...I am cast on the country like a stone...
...Get out...
...Come to the mountains," they said...
...Not a friend...
...What are freckles...
...Here's twenty pounds, a gift from Sandy...
...What if they had a fight and he left her...
...In time, he wanted to go water-skiing in Greece...
...Oh...
...the Rumanian bellowed at Nissim...
...So next morning, the machines hummed and the inventory moved...
...He laughed...
...Vera scorned him for a greaseball...
...Make her go...
...IF YOU THINK THERE'S MORE TO IT, cabled Harry, WIRE, I'LL COME...
...The doctors spoke their language so quickly that she who had studied it for eight years could not understand them...
...Its snapping strings lashed back at her face...
...Sandy cabled her parents that she had arrived in Israel and was staying at the Hilton...
...Someone had taught him to be a mechanic...
...I have flashes of insight, they come not from you nor from Harry, but from God...
...She thought he had gone back to hit the waiter and was now shaking with laughter...
...What are you going to do with me...
...What skin they had...
...After she left, the girls of Kiryat Gat and Rishon le-Zion were like queens in my eyes...
...In order to direct your travels to safe and Jewish shores, Sandy darling, we know how delicate you are, how often you become injured and how badly you must need a glass of orange juice...
...The money was there at American Express...
...Then she calmed herself, painted her toenails, borrowed an iron from the lady of the house and tried to press her blue suit from Saks and burned it a little in the back...
...While they were dancing, Sandy whispered at his brown throat: "He must have thought Vera had a lot of money, see, and when they got to Bavaria, it turned out she was a slob just like him, so they lived off Lars for a while . . ." "Was Lars a good lover...
...All right, Vera, you can stay with me...
...He certainly didn't find her attractive...
...not something which the Rumanian had planned to show him...
...That night he cabled Harry Katz...
...Dear Harry, Everything you said about money is true...
...Vera, sitting across the table, besieged her friend with piteous looks...
...A clever girl named Zahava, whose father had emanated from Baghdad like a genie and floated up through Persia dispensing favors until he finally could realize himself in the promised land, recommended Nissim to her father...
...Dear Vera, Dear Thor on your snowy mountain peak, like the Arabs revving themselves up with war songs, I have struck out against the Jewish nation, only to have met once again with humiliating defeat...

Vol. 1 • January 1976 • No. 6


 
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