A Long Way to Shiloh by Davidson Lionel

Author:Davidson, Lionel [Davidson, Lionel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780571287024
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 2012-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

3

The kebabs came up on practically red-hot skewers, and we lingered over them in the little Arab parlour, and then had Turkish coffee before wandering down the dark Jaffa lanes to the Al Raschid.

He’d booked a table, which was just as well, because it was after ten and the cellar was packed for the night. The ambience, I noted, was strictly non-rabbinic, and waves of amazed hilarity followed us as we were led to the table.

‘It’s your hat,’ Shimshon said, unnecessarily, delighted by my momentary discomfiture. ‘It surprises them here. You could take it off now.’

‘No, thanks.’ I didn’t know what she’d told him, but my Invisible-Man type bandages would surprise them even more. Also the hat had changed my face in subtle and not unpleasing ways. I’d quite taken to it.

It certainly seemed to be producing service. The first cabaret was just finishing, and the belly dancer shimmied up and to applause practically screwed herself on my knee. Also, and more usefully, it brought the wine waiter at a jovial trot as soon as signalled.

I sat and worked my way through a bottle of white wine, the others sipping abstemiously, while dancing proceeded. Nice wine, Avdat wine, from the stony uplands of the Negev. You needed to drink a certain amount to get the stony flavour. I drank a certain amount, and ordered another bottle. Some time during the course of it I began to feel wonderful.

Much better to be alive than dead. Much better to be in Tel Aviv than, say, Amman. Much better to be here drinking stony Avdat than anything else I could think of. Life went on, of course, I thought, and sighed gustily, and watched absently as Shimshon began scooping about on his knee. He seemed to be scooping cigarette ends and ash from his knee. He seemed to be putting them back in the ashtray. Definitely something wrong with this fellow’s eyes. Funny little red points in them when he looked at you.

I sighed heavily again, and saw the red points come up again as he started scooping on his knee once more. A strange sort of obsession. He was moving the ashtray away from me. I seemed to need the ashtray and took it back. Fellow didn’t want to give it, playing little games on his knee again. Definitely strange.

‘You are blowing the ash on Shimshon’s knee.’

‘Is that what it is?’ I said, and looked at him more kindly. ‘Good job you were there,’ I said obscurely.

‘Are you sure the wine is good for you?’

‘Something wrong with it? Tastes perfectly good to me.’

‘Your head.’

‘Ah. I see what you mean. Don’t think about it,’ I told her. ‘Life goes on, you know.’

Which it did; nilly willy. Nilly willy? Willy nilly, back to front, say one thing and mean another, like the clever fellows in Vayishlach. There was something about these clever fellows that it was important for me to remember. What was it …?

My head seemed to be orbiting gently like some black-ringed Saturn about a yard above my shoulders, filled with an immense life-enhancing capability.

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