OK. Like you say, no one else here to talk to. What you doing in this hellhole anyway?”
“I just came in for a drink. I was . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“You were what? You must have some messed-up life. No one just drops into Soreq’s on a Sunday afternoon for a drink. Especially on a Jew holiday. What you doing in this shithole neighborhood? Why aren’t you home with your family? Playing with the kids? Escaping to the beach? Fucking the wife?”
“Well . . .” All my bravado was failing me. I couldn’t sustain her blink-less stare.
“You even know what today is?” she asked.
“Like you said—it’s Sunday. Passover. Jew holiday.” I smiled weakly.
“Ah. That’s all you know.”
“What do you mean?”
She crushed out her half-smoked cigarette.
“Today is Easter,” she said flatly. “Only in this Jew-crazy country nobody even knows it’s Easter Sunday.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right, I didn’t realize. I guess it’s an important day for you.”
She was looking down at her drink now, a few stray hairs falling over her eyes, her nostrils flaring slightly. The freckles on her pale shoulders formed a fathomless maze.
“There are plenty of churches in Jerusalem,” I offered. “Why didn’t you go to church?”
She looked up. “Who says I want to go to church?”
“Well, I thought that’s why you brought it up.”
I was unaccustomed to sitting across from a woman as tall as myself; Nava barely reached my shoulder. Was that what made her gaze so disarming? Or was it the backlit blue of her eyes?
“What do you know about churches?” Delia was saying. “You ever even been to one? You shouldn’t talk about stuff you don’t know.” Her tone was challenging but not quite hostile.
“You’re right. I don’t know anything about Christian life in Jerusalem.”
We sat in silence, her cigarette out, and both our glasses empty. It had been a long, fruitless day, and it was time to go home. But I didn’t really have a home, and there was something perversely comforting about sitting across from her. There was no vehemence in her silence, just an honest, dull ache.
“You really don’t know why I’m in this country?” she finally asked.
There had been a number of high-profile articles about Slavic women being trafficked to Israel, raped and beaten by their Bedouin smugglers. It had seemed so remote to me, like a dispatch from the moon. “I guess it wasn’t your choice,” I said.
“Good guess. You know what, Jewboy? I been here three years. I bet I know this place better than you.”
“Well . . .”
“I’ll tell you some things you don’t know.” I had to lean forward to hear, she was talking so low. “They raped my friend Samara, right in front of me, on the ground, on the desert floor. Are you shocked? I had to watch—that’s how they get you to behave. She ended up pregnant with who knows what piece-of-shit’s baby. They slit the face of my other friend, Tatiana, on the border, branding her, like cattle. A nice big scar she has now.” With a delicate motion, she traced an arc across her own cheek.
“That’s terrible. I’m really sorry—”
She picked up her empty glass and set it down again. “You smuggle us in here, treat us like animals, then try to throw us out.”
“Is that . . . how you got the tattoo on your arm?” I asked haltingly.
“No,” she said, looking at it again. “That’s a whole different story.”
“Where are your friends now?”
“They’re in Tel Aviv. I’m the only one who got out.”
“You escaped?”
She shrugged and lit up another cigarette.
“Do you have any friends in Jerusalem?” I asked.
“What are you, my social worker?”
“I’m sorry. I should never have bothered you.”
“It’s OK,” she said. “Not your fault. I’m a little nervous today. They find me they’ll deport me. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. I can’t go back to that hellhole.”
“To Moldova? I thought you hated it here. You’d rather stay than go home?” I felt uncomfortable prying but couldn’t stop myself.
“What do you know,” she said.
“Not much.”
Her eyebrows rose and fell in agreement, and we sat through another long silence. Why was she telling me these terrifying stories? Were they true, or was she playing me? Did she want me to keep sitting there or not? I couldn’t tell.
“You’re incredibly beautiful,” I finally said. “You know that, right?”
“Is this some kind of come-on?” Her tone was so flat. Was she insulted? Mocking me? Interested?
“No, I didn’t mean it that way. Or maybe I did. I don’t really know. I was just thinking . . .”
She snorted. “Another confused fancy-dress Jew, with no sense in his head.”
“You really hate us.”
“Everyone hates the Jew,” she said matter-of-factly. “Tell me this. Why haven’t they killed you off yet? They keep trying. They try every day. But you’re still here. What’s the secret? Tell me.” She looked at me expectantly.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You’re right. It’s a great riddle.”
She leaned over toward me. Without breaking eye contact, she took the scarf off her shoulder and began to wrap the scratchy fabric gently around my two wrists.
I felt a surge of warmth in my groin. She was the anti-Nava—tall and blond, foreign and merciless. Maybe I could fuck all my frustrated rage into a girl like this, strafe the Jezebels and Navas and nameless receptionists who were plaguing my life through one magical pain-feuled fuck. Maybe she was just what I needed.
“Tell me the secret,” she hissed. “The secret of the Jew.”
“You’re wasting your time, Delia,” the bartender yelled from behind his paper. He moved it aside to stare at me balefully. “This one don’t belong here. He’s not your kind.”
“What do you know of my kind?” she yelled back. And then to me, “Don’t pay attention to Pinya. He gets jealous of anyone who talks to me.”
“Is
