Yitzhak Goren - Alexandrian Summer

“You’re spoiling him!” Emilie said reproachfully. A bit breathless from the dance, she walked over to the table, a virginal blush adorning her cheeks.

“I’m spoiling him?” Joseph asked cheerfully. “You bet I am! I certainly am spoiling him! You want another?” he asked Victor.

“Yes, I do!”

“No, you don’t!” David intervened.

“It’s bad for him,” Emilie interjected meekly.

“Nonsense!” Joseph determined. “ Garçon! Another dish, a heap of gelata. And whipped cream … Whipped cream, Victor?”

Victor nodded excitedly.

“And whipped cream! Lots and lots of whipped cream!”

Emilie tried to dissuade him once more, but to no avail.

“Let them talk,” he told his son, winking at him.

“ Madame Hamdi-Ali. Monsieur Hamdi-Ali. David. Le petit Victor! Bonjour ,” a voice said behind them as Victor ravenously polished off his second helping of ice cream. They turned to the voice and saw Raphael, Aunt Tovula’s son, and on his arm a young, smiling woman, her eyes projecting modesty.

“Raphael!” David called happily. “Come, join us!” He dragged a chair from a nearby table and signaled to the waiter to bring over one more.

“Please meet Blanche … my fiancée.”

“Congratulations! When’s the happy day?”

“September. And then … we’re going away.”

“Away? Where to?”

Raphael looked around him, then whispered, “Palestine.”

“God be with you,” Emilie wished them and sighed lightly.

“Thank you, thank you. We’ll definitely need His help over there,” Blanche said, laughing nervously.

“Don’t worry, we’ll join you soon,” David said with a giggle. It was obvious he had no intention of acting on this promise.

“Don’t do any such nonsense, don’t be foolish,” Blanche said, and added hoarsely, “like us.”

Then she fixed her green eyes on Raphael, who lowered his gaze and cleared his throat, leaned in and whispered, “We don’t have a choice. I might be blacklisted because of my father, may he rest in peace, who lived in Palestine.”

“He might be, and Raphael won’t take any chances.”

Slight embarrassment. The Hamdi-Alis had been entirely immersed in their own hardships, and here they were exposed to the most private world of others, without asking for it.

Suddenly Joseph called out, “We must drink in honor of this happy occasion. You’re young! Palestine needs young people. God bless you, à la vôtre !”

They all looked at him, shocked, and Raphael turned around, afraid that someone might have heard the patriotic Zionism that had overcome the old man.

“We’d better drink to something else, something more important,” Blanche said.

Raphael looked at her with worry. Who knew what this woman might say. He’d already noticed her tendency to humiliate him in public, when he couldn’t properly defend himself. Robby’s grandmother had warned against this daughter of Corfu. She would say, as if announcing a verdict, “There’s nothing to be done. C’est l’amour! ” Then she’d sigh for her nephew’s fate and tell anyone who was willing to listen, “He’s going to have some bitter times with her.”

“More important?” Joseph wondered. “What could be more important than marriage? What could be more fateful than a journey?” He tried his best to be sociable. He even seemed to to have overcome some of his natural shyness, looking at Raphael’s bride with brazen eyes.

“We heard you were acquitted. It was even in the newspaper,” Blanche whispered hoarsely. Her words stung, and Joseph’s smile faded away.

“In the newspaper?” Emilie asked.

“In the newspaper.”

“Acquitted, ma chère Blanche, acquitted, but not innocent.” Joseph winked with a bizarre mischievousness and leaned closer to the young woman. An intoxicating whiff of youth and cosmetics rose from her décolletage, making the old man feel slightly awkward. He watched her as if she were his real judge. Blanche shot him her enchanting smile, a wondrous blend: arrogance and control mixed with modesty and submissiveness. She fixed her mysterious smile on him and said nothing. The old man was left hanging, wanting to hear more, but she stayed silent. When her silence persisted he leaned closer and whispered in a plaintive, tired tone, as if asking to rest his head on her bosom: “Acquitted, but not innocent.”

“Innocent?” Raphael rumbled. “You want someone else to decide for you whether or not you’re innocent? You know what you are, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

“Maybe that’s the only thing that matters,” Joseph muttered at the interruption and stared back at the pretty fiancée. “But what matters doesn’t matter here. Sometimes, what doesn’t matter, matters!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Raphael said, as if Joseph had been talking to him.

“I do,” said Blanche. “Would you like to ask me to dance, Mr. Hamdi-Ali?”

Silence.

“He can’t d—” David began, but his father waved him off, stood up, took the young woman in his arms and danced. Raphael felt a deep hatred for the man, and Emilie smiled at him empathetically, as if to say, When you’re my age you’ll have more tolerance for this kind of thing.

“Raphaelo! Raphaelo! Raphaelo!”

The host announced, “I see him, in our audience, our friend Raphaelo with the angelic voice! Such a bashful tenor! It is our custom here at the Auberge Bleue to showcase talent from the audience, and so I truly hope Raphael Vital will be willing to sing a few songs from his repertoire, the songs of Andalusia.”

Applause. The patrons all knew Raphael, or as they lovingly called him, Raphaelo. His voice had a rugged intensity and sensitivity. All the ladies shed a tear as he began singing the songs of España, the gentlemen awkwardly cleared their throats. Only Blanche sat there, shooting quizzical green arrows from her eyes to his. Never before had Raphael sung the suffering of the toreador captivated by the beautiful gypsy as emphatically as he did that day. Applause shook the walls. He smiled graciously at the audience, but looked at Blanche with concern. What does he care about the excitement of this audience if he doesn’t have the support of his future wife? Blanche ran to him, kissed him in front of everybody and announced, “Raphaelo and I are getting married. À la vôtre! ”

Everyone cheered, and Raphael looked at his fiancée gratefully.

Victor lay in bed, feverish, moaning, complaining, his stomach in knots. From time to time, he flew down the hallway to the bathroom; everyone hoped he made it there in time. For three days and three nights, there was a volcano in his stomach. The doctor came and wrote various prescriptions but the malady seemed to dance to the beat of its own rebellious drum.

Joseph stood at his son’s side like a punished child. When Victor ran to the bathroom, Joseph ran after him, hoping he could help him, and thus repent for his sin. Ever forgiving, patient Emilie stared at her husband accusingly. Who gives a child a gallon of ice cream? And what if it was spoiled or poisoned, and who knows, the child could have … God forbid … she didn’t dare complete the thought. But thoughts such as these had become harder to suppress ever since the cholera epidemic a few years back. She blamed herself, too. She should have made them stop after the first bowl.

Joseph walked out of the apartment. His wife ran to the balcony to follow him with her eyes; she didn’t dare call after him to ask where he was going. She knew this did not bode well. Joseph quickly disappeared up the street.