Zvi (a short story)
Gross, Joel
ZVI A SHORT STORY JOEL GROSS The young man had met his cousin Zvi twice before, once in Geneva and once in London. Zvi's father, Klaus, was a German Jew who'd come to Palestine in 1933 as a young...
...He was six years older than his cousin...
...Klaus was staying at the Plaza...
...At Kennedy Airport he gave the Puerto Rican cab driver his cousin's Thompson Street address, and the cab driver said that he didn't know where it was...
...I'll call you from there...
...His uncle had heard the news of the raid on the Fourth of July, while crossing the Atlantic from Southampton to New York on the QE2...
...At the consulate," said Klaus...
...said Klaus, speaking English...
...Her name was Robin, and she had once lived together with another friend of the young man's, an avant-garde poet who supported himself by playing "mood" music in a singles bar in Forest Hills, Queens...
...It seemed to the young man that he'd known Klaus all his life, that he knew him so well that he'd be able to predict how he'd react in any conceivable circumstance...
...Zvi sounded very relieved...
...he had not notified the military authorities of his travels from Cyprus to Athens, and from Athens to New York...
...said Zvi...
...The young man wrote Klaus a long letter of condolence...
...Come to Israel and I'll show you a good time," he said...
...The young man had therefore been born in America...
...He put down his tiny espresso cup and shook his head at the young man...
...Yes,' said the grandfather...
...I didn't realize that your accent was a Hebrew one...
...I never thought Zvi the nervous type," said the young man seriously...
...No...
...Once there, they asked a passerby for directions...
...Shall I go there, or will you come here...
...A friend, Yoav, had been killed by sniper fire.-Another friend, Avi, had been badly wounded...
...Of course he's going back," said Klaus...
...When the letters continued to arrive, he sent her a short note, telling her that Zvi had returned to Israel...
...He was in a hurry to leave and get it over with...
...Klaus had written: "Zvi died last Tuesday afternoon during a skirmish near the Lebanese border...
...It's very small, and it's not fair to get you involved...
...Zvi's father, Klaus, was a German Jew who'd come to Palestine in 1933 as a young orphan, and was now a rich Israeli...
...She was very pretty, that Robin...
...The Brazilian especially...
...The girl from Lausanne had a pretty name: Aurore...
...The young man walked through the driving snow, his own letter shaking uncontrollably in his hand...
...My father has a lot of money, and I've seen a lot of Europe...
...The grandson was a pious Yeshivah boy, not more than nine years old...
...I get it...
...The young man had a sensation of being examined as he shook hands with Klaus, until his uncle suddenly relaxed and pulled him close for a hug and a kiss...
...I'm not saying that you should go back," said the young man...
...He didn't understand how I could be so rude...
...The young man had shown him the city: The Metropolitan Museum, the Carnegie Hall Cinema, Bloomingdale's, the Dela-corte Theater in Central Park...
...Oh," said Robin politely...
...Zvi's nervous," said Klaus...
...You can imagine how throttled he felt...
...Still, the grandson was a little boy, and when they suddenly heard the pounding of horses' hoofs, he turned to the source of sound with fascination...
...I have a thousand dollars, a little more," said Zvi...
...I fired my rifle at the enemy...
...He'll know where to look for me...
...He's probably a Moroccan...
...I'm going back," said Zvi over the phone to the young man...
...All the Joel Gross is the author q/"Bubble's Shadow (Crown Publishers, 1970), Seaview Press is publishing 1407 Broadway, his latest novel, this fall...
...Klaus worked for an international communications corporation...
...There was right in the world, there was wrong in the world, there was love, there was murder...
...His number in the national draft lottery had been 324...
...If there'd been no Hitler," said Zvi, "I'd be a German...
...He had served in no army...
...He tried to argue with me...
...I could've gone there...
...You didn't ask me that...
...The short note from Klaus had not given details about his son's death...
...I'll come to you," said Zvi...
...He hadn't the vaguest idea what his cousin meant...
...executives...
...It's easy for me to talk," said the young man...
...Zvi was studying at an expensive secondary school in Lausanne, and he'd come down to Geneva expressly to meet his American cousin...
...When it was time for him to leave the restaurant to catch his plane, he kissed first the young man, then Zvi...
...Zvi answered the phone...
...The walk was nice...
...I'm going to take a little walk...
...Look at the captain...
...A week later Klaus called the young man's apartment from his hotel suite in New York...
...If you fail to obey your father and mother, if you fail to pay careful attention to the rabbis in school, if you fail to heed the lessons of the prayers and the study of the Torah—you can grow up to be just like that captain.'" Klaus laughed at the conclusion of his own story...
...Klaus was tall, thickset, and handsome...
...There was an Israeli cafe that Zvi wanted to try, and they went inside and Zvi ordered a big meal for the two of them, speaking Hebrew...
...I have a girlfriend in Lausanne...
...Klaus is going to be in New York in a week...
...said the young man...
...This is not a time for a discussion of the moral obligations of citizens...
...The cab ride had cost nineteen dollars, and Zvi had to wait four hours before his cousin showed up from his late-night walk...
...When I said I was an Israeli, I suddenly got scared, that's all...
...The young man had been drifting through Europe with a red-haired young woman, buying second class train rides and hitching car lifts from people they'd meet in the dining rooms of second class hotels...
...The young man said: "I'd go back...
...I had to bring my ear up close to his lips to hear what he was saying...
...Zvi had been sixteen when they'd met in Geneva...
...Later on in the evening, a friend of the young man's spotted them at the table on the sidewalk, and sat down with them...
...Klaus was able to "pull some strings" with the military authorities in Israel...
...Sure about what...
...The young man had never before seen father and son together...
...Zvi looked at his older cousin and waited for his answer...
...The friend was an attractive young woman studying to be an actress...
...The shabby street in Greenwich Village looked picturesque...
...Zvi rejoined his unit without disciplinary penalties...
...You see the captain?' said the grandfather...
...The young man wandered the Village in the snow, trying to understand...
...Another few months and he goes into the army...
...The young man and the young woman liked Zvi, and Zvi liked his cousin, liked the way he dressed, the way he spoke English, the way he joked with the red-haired young woman...
...I myself am Israeli," he added...
...Israelis my age are in the army...
...But there had been a Hitler...
...What makes you think you can tell me what you think...
...Zvi had entered the Israeli army seven months before, two months before his eighteenth birthday...
...The young man said: "Robin was afraid she'd offended you...
...Just to clear my head...
...If they get a hundred Brazilians and stick them in a hole in the middle of Africa, let the Brazilians send in their troops...
...said Zvi...
...I know he's going back," said the young man...
...Two hours had passed since he'd left the studio apartment...
...Klaus joined them once for dinner, having stopped over in London for a half day, enroute to Athens from Oslo...
...He didn't understand what to do...
...During the past week he'd written long letters to the girl he knew in Lausanne, but had not yet received an answer...
...Such things don't have to be explained between close relations...
...The young man had not given his opinion as to whether or not Zvi should have gone back...
...His jeans, his hair, his catch-phrases, weren't imitations of images he'd seen on the screen...
...Who are you to think...
...She was younger than Klaus and had been adopted by Austrian Jews who'd emigrated to America the year that Klaus, part of a group of Jewish orphans, had emigrated to Palestine...
...The rest of the year he lived in Tel Aviv...
...Klaus like to tell stories...
...They were walking in the muddy streets of the ghetto, and as they walked, the grandfather questioned the little boy about his Torah studies...
...Excuse me," said Zvi...
...Zvi and the young man had corresponded sporadically before that first meeting, but after Geneva Zvi took to writing lengthy letters filled with philosophical observations that the young man picked up at American Express offices in Cannes, Rome, and Milan...
...I hear Hebrew everywhere...
...He shoved the letter into the mailbox...
...He had long arms and wide shoulders and a very young face...
...He returned a half hour later...
...I'm not mad," said Zvi...
...I'm a deserter," said Zvi...
...Then he said—he began to say—'I'll tell you what I think, Klaus.' I didn't want to hear what he thought...
...Zvi sat a little taller in his chair, and made a great effort to monopolize the conversation...
...Zvi told them a good deal about his mountain climbing, his fistfights with an Arab student at his school, and his hopes of coming to America to enter a film school—after the army...
...I won't tell them what I think about that...
...The young man disliked the Israeli meal, and Zvi said that it had been poorly prepared...
...Who is he...
...The young man did not know who or what killed Zvi...
...Klaus' sister was the young man's mother...
...Klaus had been very pleased that the cousins had spent a week together...
...The young man took a taxi uptown, an unusual luxury, and was held up by traffic...
...Don't think I'm trying to make you feel guilty...
...Zvi was well over six feet and knew how to box...
...You can't really go anywhere else, unless you want that money to be gone in a month...
...I left the table because I was feeling lousy, and I had to walk...
...They were both waiting for Klaus...
...Klaus gave both the young man and Zvi gifts of cash...
...the young man had asked...
...Avi's face was covered with bandages...
...They know enough about each other to understand what one values, what one despises...
...Instead I perfected my French, and I went to the movies...
...He'd been in combat in 1948 and 1956...
...said the young man suddenly...
...He spoke English,- German, Hebrew, Greek and French...
...I will be in New York sometime in April...
...No," said Zvi...
...All he wanted to do was give me his opinion about the political pros and cons involved in the Israeli raid on Entebbe and I wouldn't listen...
...There are lots of Israelis around here...
...How old is she...
...The leader of the troop was a very tall man, dressed in a scarlet uniform, with braided epaulets, and an enormous plumed hat...
...when he'd traveled in Europe, he'd felt very American...
...He looked very tired, and very serious...
...They left most of it on their plates, and walked to an Italian cafe and sat at one of the outdoor tables on Bleecker Street, drinking coffee and watching the Saturday-night-in-July crowd...
...The young man lived in New York, in a cheap studio on Thompson Street...
...It took a month for the letters to stop coming...
...They sat at the table on the sidewalk for another hour drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, until Zvi began to cough...
...He said it evenly, without anger...
...After basic training, he was sent to a base in the north, and he'd been involved in several border skirmishes...
...You want a cigarette...
...The young man said nothing...
...He'd have come up to me with a sad face and said, 'I think—I think—' What the hell do I care what he thinks...
...Most people are the nervous type...
...I went to see Avi in the hospital, the day after Yoav was killed...
...He seemed to be the sort that would rather fight than talk, if only to prove that he was precisely as tough as he looked...
...is he the captain?' asked the little boy, afraid to point...
...Almost a year later, in the studio apartment on Thompson Street, the young man repeated the same story to Zvi...
...He told me you had nothing to do with his decision to come to the States...
...Sure," said Zvi...
...During the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War he had manned a desk in the censorship office...
...The big man with the big, tall hat.' " 'Yes,' said the little boy...
...When he walked out of his apartment to mail the letter, it was snowing...
...What've you got to do with it...
...Zvi at first seemed very interested in the conversation, asking about acting schools, wondering about her definition of poetry, telling Robin and his cousin of the time his school had put on an American musical comedy in French, with students from Germany, Italy, Brazil, England and Australia...
...Where's Zvi...
...Six months of the year he shuttled between London, Paris, Geneva, Athens, Teheran and Lagos...
...Klaus asked specific questions about his son's studies: Had he "settled" his problems with trigometry, with logarithms...
...He told me that everyone had a right to express his opinion...
...For a minute I thought we might come to blows...
...He had been absent without leave a total of sixteen days...
...I know he cared for you like a brother...
...Zvi was killed in January, near the border with Lebanon...
...The beauty of the story," said Klaus...
...He had last seen Klaus shortly after the Israeli raid on the Entebbe airport...
...When he was fully satisfied that he had overstayed his leave, he purchased a one-way plane ticket to New York...
...I should be more political than I am...
...You're not an Israeli," said Zvi...
...He spoke with gravity, and the grandson responded in kind...
...Six months after their meeting in Geneva they met in London and spent a week together, talking in pubs and restaurants...
...He stayed in the apartment Klaus kept in Athens for eight days, reading paperback thrillers in French and English...
...All the time I was in Lausanne I didn't follow Middle Eastern politics...
...What would you do...
...If you don't mind sleeping on the couch, this place won't be too small...
...Something about saying 'Hebrew.'" "What...
...In the young man's studio apartment in New York, Klaus had said: "You're wrong...
...They ate stuffed mushrooms, baked clams, fettucine and ossobuco...
...I believe him...
...You'll wait for me, won't you...
...if he'd been asked, he would have said, "Yes...
...His company had arranged for a group of twenty of its top international executives to cross the Atlantic at the same time, to take advantage of the ocean air and lack of disturbances for a series of seminars on corporate policies...
...The warm cafe on the corner of Bleecker did not look inviting...
...They were dressed in beautiful uniforms, and the old man watched his grandson stare at the handsome, red-faced, straight-backed horse soldiers...
...When I went to the hospital and saw Avi, and heard him whispering, and understood that Yoav had been hurt worse than Avi, that Yoav was actually gone—that's when I began to lose my nerve...
...Did Robin leave because of me...
...They shared two bottles of Bardolino...
...Maybe the grandfather had a limp, or his back was stooped, or his skin was unnaturally pale...
...He lit a cigarette and watched the wild mix of tourists and residents stroll past the sidewalk tables ogling each other in the night...
...He left for Israel on the El-Al night flight from Kennedy, less than six hours after meeting with his father at the suite at the Plaza...
...Zvi joked with the young man before joining the line to the plane...
...When Zvi and the young man had been in London together, the young man had been aware of Zvi's swaggering walk...
...I'm not sure," said Zvi...
...Are you sure...
...He was being very brave, whispering that I should tell his girlfriend that his wounds were nothing...
...Something hot ran through his veins, but he didn't know what it was—regret, longing, a thirst for violent revenge...
...You told me what you think...
...If I want to stay here and learn about American movies why do I have to go back to Israel and defend the border...
...The young man accumulated the letters that came to his apartment from the girl in Lausanne and sent them to Zvi, care of Klaus' Tel Aviv address, in a manila envelope, three at a time...
...If I want to come and live in the States, why can't I? Why do I have to risk getting killed...
...How's Zvi...
...said Zvi...
...Zvi is the nervous type...
...Once a year he'd travel to New York for a company conference...
...I'll tell you something...
...Yeah...
...They were drinking expensive scotch in the young man's cheap studio and Klaus had raised his voice, remembering the anger that had taken hold of him on board ship...
...I will say that Zvi has had a bad emotional experience, and that he will get over it...
...Zvi liked what he saw, and they had ceased discussing the question of whether or not he should go back to Israel...
...He probably lived in Israel only a few years...
...said the young man...
...Do you want me to come with you...
...When they'd had their ricotta cheesecake and ordered their second cups of espresso, Klaus said: "An old Jewish grandfather was walking hand in hand with his grandson...
...I don't know...
...I'm not talking about the waiter," said the young man...
...They're Israelis," said Zvi, pointing out a group of young people to his cousin as they walked along Bleecker Street...
...If those sons of bitches had blown up all the hostages, all the corporation executives on the QE2 would have interrupted their corporate policies seminar to offer me condolences...
...I wasn't afraid in combat...
...Of course I see him.' " 'Listen to me,' said the grandfather...
...When he'd had his say about Zvi, and temporarily forgotten the Brazilian on the QE2, uncle and nephew left the studio and walked down the street to a good Italian restaurant...
...They all liked each other a great deal...
...The young man said: "Do you mean why do you have to go back and fight, while I can stay here in New York in safety...
...The waiter seemed unfriendly, and Zvi explained to the young man that the waiter's Hebrew was very poor...
...I don't care what you think.' He was very offended...
...He died heroically...
...A troop of Imperial cavalry was riding through the ghetto, shooting bullets into the sky, laughing and shouting for joy...
...During his week's leave, Zvi had gone to Cyprus, and from there to Athens, where he missed catching his father by two hours...
...That's one he never told me," said Zvi...
...I was in combat...
...The beauty of the story is that the grandfather didn't have to explain why all that glorious crap on horseback was worthless...
...He didn't smoke, but he took one of the young man's cigarettes and lit it up expertly...
...He's got a big repertoire," said the young man...
...That's why I'm here...
...Israel has enemies all around her...
...I told him, 'You think...
...The young man remembered what Zvi had said months ago: If there'd been no Hitler, Zvi would be a German...
...If my mother had gone to Palestine as a child, I'd be an Israeli...
...You can do crazy things in combat when you're the nervous type—sometimes even the right thing...
...In Lausanne I went out with a girl who was twenty-four...
...Zvi told him to drive to Greenwich Village...
...I can't stay here with you...
...They all congratulated me," Klaus told his nephew...
...I want to explain something to you," said Zvi...
...A Brazilian came over to me and said that I must feel great...
Vol. 3 • October 1978 • No. 10
