Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

The girlfriend left the apartment while Roni ended up staying, and continued to share it with the father’s office. But now he had to pay rent, and tuition fees at the university, too. Roni spent a few days wondering how he’d manage, until the day the fish died — from overfeeding, they explained to him at the pet store. He went to a pub on one of the corners of Malchei Yisrael Square — it was a few years before they stopped calling them pubs, or the square by that name — and drank so much that by the end of the evening he barely managed to notice the small “Kitchen Help Wanted” ad posted near the toilets.

He washed dishes, and then helped the chef, and then became a barman, and eventually a shift manager. He discovered at university that he was able to breeze through the basic statistics and math courses. A year later Roni was for all intents and purposes already managing the pub when the owner, Oren Azulai, made him an offer. He was about to open a new place and wanted Roni to run it for him: the setting up, décor, renovations, team, inventory, menu, wages. Oren didn’t want to spend a single minute there. Roni would earn twice his current salary.

“And here’s your real incentive,” Oren threw his way at the end of the conversation. “To give you another shot in the arm, I’ll give you a bonus of two percent of the after-tax profit at the end of every month.”

The offer left Roni stunned for several moments, but he maintained a cool façade and said, almost matter-of-factly, “Let me come in as a partner, it’ll be more worthwhile for you.”

“Partner?” Oren asked, and tried to suppress the patronizing smile. “Do you have money to invest?”

Roni didn’t, but he said he’d check. He checked. The banks he went into showed him the door within minutes. But Uncle Yaron, whom he called without a glimmer of hope, surprised him with the savings account he had opened with the inheritances of his parents and grandfather. Roni went in with a 20 percent share.

He set up the new place from scratch: from the exhausting red tape of the Tel Aviv Municipality, through to the last tile in the bathrooms. All he knew, he knew from running one conventional pub in a square in Tel Aviv, from years of drinking at the kibbutz pub, and from a handful of courses at the university; but he also knew, from intuition, from common sense, that he wanted something different. More appealing, more fun. He started with the name. He wasn’t the first proprietor in the ’90s to drop the prefix “Pub” and swap “Bar” in its place, but he was certainly a pioneer of sorts when he named the place Bar-BaraBush, after the wife of the not-so-long-ago president of the United States. He then moved on to the design of the sign and façade, the inviting and comfortable interior, paying strict attention to cleanliness, selecting the staff and training them. His most impressive innovation was his approach to the food. Unlike most drinking establishments, which served fries and chicken wings with their beer, Bar-BaraBush offered good food: filling and also diverse, simple and also fresh, inexpensive, and available at all hours. Roni hired a sous-chef who designed a menu, which was gradually perfected and adapted to suit the place and the mood. In time more and more people were converted: a bar that offered not only good drinking but good eating, too.

The business began turning a tidy profit. And despite the skeptical look on Oren Azulai’s face, Roni insisted that the two owners draw a modest salary and invest the rest back into the business. Oren went along with it because he could see the results, and realized that Roni’s vision, which was backed up by hard work and admirable diligence, though it might not have been precise and clear even to Roni himself, would take them forward. Azulai was smart enough not to intervene, a great business decision in its own right.

Prosperity and growth were the signs of the time, and Tel Aviv teemed with young people and tourists and foreign investors and Russian immigrants and frazzled soldiers, each in his or her own way needing a glass of something, which Roni happily and competently provided. He moved into an apartment in a high-rise on Basel Street with a view of the sea and a sixty-square-meter balcony with a wooden deck, scored the best weed from acquaintances who did reserve military duty in Lebanon, and puffed sweet smoke into the warm skies of the Middle East, usually in the company of a pretty young girl. He cultivated a trendy beard and allowed his curls to grow.

He worked hard — harder than he had ever worked before. Being a boss was a learning curve for a kibbutznik: managing finances, wages, income tax, and social security. Being tough, unpleasant. Maintaining a daily routine. In the morning, after a coffee and cigarette on the deck, he’d arrive alone, sit in the office, and go over the bills, the orders, and the calls, and receive suppliers. The first workers showed up toward noon, and the initial customers began trickling in. Afternoons he freed up for his studies. His second year suffered significantly due to the workload at the bar, but he didn’t want to stop school entirely and focused his efforts on those hours. He returned to the bar in the early evening, made sure everything was ready, and at some point lost track of time. Time stretched and whirled like a small tornado that came through the gates of Bar-BaraBush a little after nine and exited its doors after midnight: shards of memory, a conspicuous incident or two — usually shouting in the kitchen or a celebrity customer — and a general buzz in the air, sore feet, the smell of frothy beer at the pouring stations. The time he liked most came just before one. The pressure eased, but the place still teemed with people, who continued to pour in from cinemas, from restaurants, or after a long day at work. Those were his favorite customers. They had more time on their hands. That was when Roni took charge of the bar, poured, chatted, flirted. Invited customers to join him for a chaser on the house, and at some stage turned to fill his glass with water. If things were really quiet, he’d move to a barstool and cradle a glass of Scotch on the rocks between his fingers.

He didn’t have friends. But in the small hours, the quiet ones, people came to sit with him. Customers he met there and who became regulars, random customers who passed through and whom he’d never see again. Colleagues from the restaurant and hospitality industry who talked business. And faces from the past: from the commando unit, from his kibbutz, from the surrounding kibbutzim. How they knew to go there, Roni didn’t have a clue. But they drank. And after they drank, they rambled on.

Yifat came in one night. His sweet Yifat from high school who’d broken his heart. She was with another guy and ignored Roni, apart from a few glances. She came in the following day and apologized. She didn’t want to have to explain things to her boyfriend. They were serious, she said, and she didn’t want to jeopardize anything. She really hoped it would work out this time. She ate lunch and drank a little wine and told Roni that she was doing well. She had “found herself” in Tel Aviv, studied fashion at Shenkar, didn’t miss the kibbutz.

“And I think that Yoav,” she said, “is the best thing that has ever happened to me. He has a band. Wow, it’s so weird for us to be sitting here and talking about it. You don’t mind, right? I’m sure you have lots of girlfriends.” She giggled.

He glanced at his watch, bored, and told her he needed to head out for a while, she could join him if she liked.

“Out for a while?” she asked.

He showed her his apartment with the wooden deck and poured her another glass of wine. At some point she told him she wanted to tickle his funny beard, and they spent the next two hours in bed — since her childhood she had learned a few things, loosened up — until she looked at the alarm clock and said, her hair disheveled, “Wow, I have to get home,” and he never saw her again. He didn’t care.