In Search of Tamar Ch. 5

In Search of Tamar Ch. 5 The fastest woman in Israel has a dark secret

I checked into my hotel in Tel Aviv, determined that, this time, I wouldn’t be sidetracked by another one of Tamar’s friends. I was on a mission and I was getting closer to locating my old lover Tamar. Rimona Katz had given me the name and address of Miriam Kessim, one of herUlpan students. If Miriam would just give me a recent address for Tamar, I would be on my way, tout de suite. I took a taxi to Bat Yam, a suburb on the south side of Tel Aviv. Tamar once told me that Tel Aviv was divided socio-economically along the Yarkon River. Anything to the south of the Yarkon was considered working class whereas any Israeli who had it made in the shade lived North of the Yarkon. Bat Yam was about as far south as you could get in Metropolitan Tel Aviv.

My destination was two blocks away from the Mediterranean, according to the address in Rimona’s neat handwriting. The apartment was on the fourth floor and there wasn’t any elevator in the building. The mezuzah on the doorpost was plain metal, painted over several times, not like the ornate mezuzah I had seen on the doorpost of the rich Delilah. A slim, short woman dressed in a white bathrobe, her red hair in curlers, answered the door. I asked:

“Do you speak English?”

“So, what’s it to you if I do and whadda ya want?”

At least Miriam could speak English, even if it she was more than slightly bitchy and she had an awful nasal New York accent. That clinched my decision to grab the address and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. I started to ask, “My name is Chris and I’m looking for Tamar….” Miriam forced a smile, grabbed my arm and pulled me into the apartment. She talked non-stop, making it absolutely impossible to get a word in edgewise:

“Oh, so the Holy Land Escort Agency sent ya. Hey, ya look not too bad, if ya know what I mean. The Agency didn’t tell me a fowaner was coming today. Lemme check myPelaphone (cellular). Aw, shit! The batteries are dead. I gotta put the charger on. OK, let’s get down to business. I hafta get to my night job at the club and I wasn’t expecting ya, so let’s make it fast. No rough stuff because I can’t have any bruises when I show up for woik. So, drop them pants and let’s get naked. Shy are you? Ok, I’ll get the gaunches off myself. Ooh, that’s one big putz, mistah, and it’s cut. So, you are Jewish after all. Did the agency tell you about my surcharges for oversizezain? Ok, on your back and get ready for the lay.”

I couldn’t get a word in edgewise as Miriam led me into a room with two single beds. One bed looked plain, as I imagined Colonel Krotchnik’s bed might be. The second bed was draped in frilly-dillies the way one might imagine a Babylonian hooker would arrange her sleeping quarters. Probably, Miriam had a guy for her roommate. Miriam dropped her bathrobe, revealing a distinct surfeit of body hair. There wasn’t one hair on her arms, on her legs, under her armpits or anything resembling bush for that matter. Rimona never said anything about Miriam being a shaver. Conclusion: her night job must be peeling at that “club”. That’s the only thing that would explain bald beaver.

OK, so I wasn’t keeping my promise to leave as fast as I could. What’s a guy supposed to do when there’s a naked woman in front of him and he’s getting one helluva woodie? I decided to stay a few more minutes, just to be friendly. Miriam helped my decision by firmly shoving me on my back on the frilly bed. She stretched one of those horrible Israeli rubbers on my dick. Then Miriam mounted me without much ceremony and started to push down on my dick. She wasn’t too well lubricated and she didn’t stop yakking for a second.

“Oh Shit! Oh Fuck! God Damn, you’re big! Oh man, that feels good now that you’re in. OK now, lets take in a little more. Oh shit, you’re hurting me again. Let me get some more Vaseline in there. Shit, it’s not working. Oh, no, that’s OK now. Oh JEEEsus you’ve got your putz right on my G-spot. Sorry for that. You are Jewish, aren’t you? So it don’t matter if I say Jesus Christ? Now don’t come you momser or I’ll kill you. Keep it up you shmuck. Shit, I never come with a john but you’re one fucking good ride. Fuck me baby. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Miriam kept jumping and pumping, yapping, yapping and especially yapping. She was pounding on my dick so furiously that one of her curlers flew off under the other bed. Thanks to the resilience of Israeli latex. I didn’t feel a thing and I didn’t come. Finally, Miriam screamed, in badly-faked ecstasy:

“Ben Zonah! I’m coming. Oh you fucking machine. You’re so fucking good. AAAAAAYYYYYYAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

Miriam rolled off me and said: “That’ll be three hundred and fifty shekels, cash please. I hope you have an extra fifty shekels for the industrial-sized shlong? That really caused me problems. If you don’t mind, could you put thekesef (money) on my dresser on your way out. I’ve gotta go take a showah now. Otherwise, I’ll be late for my night job.”

“Uh, Miriam, perhaps we have a basic misunderstanding. This has been great, but all I really want to do is find my friend Tamar. Do you possibly have Tamar’s address?”

“Miriam? I’m not Miriam. Miriam’s my roommate and she ain’t heah. Didn’t you say you were looking for Tamar? Well, I’m Tamar, Tammy Fink, boan in the Bronx, formerly employed as a hair stylist in New Joisey but now the best exotic dancer and freelance poisonal soivices agent heah in Tel Aviv. If I might be so bold as to ask, why were you looking for me if you really want Miriam?”

“I was told that Miriam Kessim had some information about my friend Tamar, same first name as yours but her last name is Ya’akov. That’s where the mix-up started. Now, I don’t think I owe you three hundred fifty shekels because I never came and you faked yours. Also, I’m not Jewish, despite the cut dick.”

Tammy just shook her head. “You want Miriam Kessim and not Tammy Fink? And you ain’t Jewish! As long as I live, I’ll never understand you Gentiles. Why would you want Miriam. Miriam don’t speaka da English and her Hebrew ain’t much better. She don’t like men neither so you ain’t going to get nuthin’ outa her. She won’t be home until foah and, when she comes home, she heads right for the showah. She runs from woik ‘cause she’s in training. She thinks she’s the fastest woman in Israel. So, grab a beah from the ‘fridge and wait in the living room while I have my showah foist.”

I grabbed a Gold Star from the fridge and sat down in front of the TV with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other. Flicking through the three Israeli channels, two of them had just some dreadful Hebrew soap operas. The third had a soccer game. Since my last visit, Israel had gotten cable TV big time but I gathered neither Miriam nor Tammy could afford it. I settled in the sofa and watched Haifa Maccabee and Tel Aviv Hapoel run the ball around mid-field to little effect. Soccer games can be boring, even Israeli soccer.

A little past four, the apartment door opened and Miriam walked in. I was totally unprepared for the woman who now stood in front of me. Both Rimona Katz and Tammy Fink had omitted telling me several important facts concerning Miriam Kessim. Miriam stood over six feet tall. She was black and beautiful. Miriam was Falasha. It was like the Queen of Sheba had just walked in the door.

Miriam must have been as startled to see me as I was to see her because she just froze like a deer in the headlights, her brown eyes looking me up and down in a darting fashion. If Miriam was evaluating me, I should take a better look at the woman I had to get Tamar’s address from. She stood rigidly in her tracksuit with the sweat glistening on her face, arms and legs. Her curly hair was cut short in a nappy, giving her a boyish appearance. Miriam had a perfect Semitic nose, not the flat kind that most Africans have. Her face was narrow, not broad like the Afro-Canadians I was familiar with.

Miriam was skinny, a characteristic that her height exaggerated. I didn’t see much tit showing through her tracksuit. Well, sports bras tend to be a little tight. The apparent lack of tit emphasized Miriam’s boyish appearance. She had a flat stomach that accentuated her Modus Venus in the wide gap between her thin thighs. I couldn’t keep my eyes away from Miriam’s crotch. Her tracksuit inadequately covered a very healthy bush. There were small patches of pubes on her upper thighs. I could even see black pubes trying to liberate themselves from the tight crotch of her tracksuit. Miriam definitely wasn’t a shaver.

Her legs seemed to go on down forever from her crotch, ultimately culminating in a pair of narrow, tiny bare feet. Miriam ran barefoot, à la Kip Keno. From top to bottom, Miriam Kessim was a stunning specimen of an African woman. It was at this point that my resolve not to get involved with another acquaintance of Tamar’s must have begun to weaken. After what seemed like an eternity of staring and assessing each other, I asked in my crummy Hebrew:

“You Miriam Kessim?”

“I Miriam. Who you? You customer of Tamar Fink? You no touch me or I kill you.”

“I friend of Tamar Ya’akov, your friend also. I called Chris. I want find Tamar Ya’akov. You help me please? No kill me?”

When I said who I was and mentioned the Tamar who had befriended her in the Ulpan, Miriam dropped her defenses a little. “I hear about Chris from Tamar. Prove me you Chris. What Tamar favourite candy, where she go to school, what football team she like?”

“Elit dark chocolate, Be’er Sheva and Jerusalem Betar. Also, she have mole on left of face and one more on the left ass cheek.”

Miriam laughed at the added detail.“OK, I believe you Chris. We talk after I take shower. You wait for me, OK.”

I finished my Gold Star while Miriam had a shower. In my mind, I went over my brief encounter with Miriam. When the Queen of Sheba found that she couldn’t ask King Solomon a question that he couldn’t answer, “there was no more spirit in her.” Well, I had answered all of Miriam’s questions and there was more spirit than ever. In fact, once she found out that I wasn’t one of Tammy’s paying customers and I passed her test, Miriam seemed to display a distinct feminine spirit, albeit immature like a girlish spirit. Still, that girlish spirit didn’t seem to rush Miriam. Whatever their culture or the colour of their skin, women shared the same trait. They liked to keep men waiting while they made themselves look their best.

Miriam and Tammy made such an Odd Couple that I would never conclude from this pair that all women were the same. I don’t mean that Tammy was white and Miriam was black. Tammy was a loud, aggressive, obnoxious hooker and peeler. Miriam was shy, soft-spoken, athletic and, well, exactly what was her work? Secretly I hoped she didn’t pull a night shift for the Holy Land Escort agency. Nah, that was unlikely. Tammy had the hooker’s bed so Miriam must have the plain one.

My philosophizing ended when the soccer game started getting interesting. A Maccabee striker had a one-on-one break with the Hapoel goalie out of position. He had a clear shot at the upper left corner so I leaned forward to watch. My view was blocked by Tammy standing between me and a sure goal. She stood so close and her skirt was so short that I almost poked her in the snatch. Apparently, Tammy wanted another “woid” with me before leaving for “woik”:

“Make shoah you’re outside Club Gomorrah at two tomorrah morning. Heah’s myPelaphone number in case you’re late. We’ll go up to your hotel room and I’ll show you Tammy Fink don’t fake it when it’s for free. We’ll ditch the rubbah and Tammy Fink’ll make you come in buckets. In the meantime, Chris, I’ve got some good advice for you. Better you should skip the meal if Speedy here invites you to stay for supper. Ethiopian food gives me the fahts, big time. It’s just impossible to dance and toot at the same time, if ya get my drift. It’ll probably do the same to ya. The last thing Tammy Fink wants tonight is some guy fuckin’ her and fahting like a machine gun at the same time. Chow, baby. See ya at two.”

Tammy turned and flounced out the door, her high-heeled boots click-clicking away on the terazzo floor tiles. I could see the beginning of the cheeks of her broad fanny as the hem of her skirt rode up and down in time with her stride. Tammy had taken her hair out of the curlers and the heavily shellacked mass was hanging down to her shoulders. Tammy badly needed a trip to her hair stylist as her black roots were showing. Tammy looked like your typical big-city whore. Well, she was a big-city whore, wasn’t she? Maybe my hotel wasn’t the most elegant in Tel Aviv but no way was I going to parade through the lobby and take that cunt up to my room.

I continued watching the soccer game until I heard some activity in the kitchen. The refrigerator door slammed shut and I heard two shplutzes, one after the other. Miriam came into the living room carrying a tray on her head and a small tablecloth in her hands. The tray had a bottle of Gold Star for me and a can of Tempo for herself. Miriam had ditched the track suit in favour of a traditional Ethiopian costume. Her head was covered by a kerchief, hiding her masculine haircut. A colourful robe covered her completely except for her face, hands and feet. That was the recipe for an orthodox Jewish woman, but right out of Africa instead of the shtetl.

Orthodox women like Rimona Katz dressed to hide their femininity. Miriam’s robe folded between her legs as she walked, a promise of pussy between her thin thighs. She walked so gracefully that her hips swung back and forth the way a woman’s hips should, yet the tray stayed absolutely level. There was no trace of head on the beer. Miriam’s tiny, bare feet made no noise on the floor. Miriam was the perfect African village girl, all woman, sensuous and completely natural acting. Yet, she knew how to emphasize that she was a modern woman.

Miriam knelt and spread the tablecloth on the floor, keeping the tray and drinks balanced on her head. Have you ever seen a white woman with such poise and balance? I thought not. As she placed the tray on the tablecloth, I noticed that her fingernails were painted the same colour as her toes. Other than that, Miriam didn’t use any makeup at all. Miriam sat beside the tray and motioned for me to join her on the floor.

“Now you tell me why you want find Tamar. She good friend but she no want me give address to anyone, she tell me.”

I slid off the chair and joined Miriam on the floor but on the opposite side of the tablecloth. I poured my heart out to Miriam as best as I could in Hebrew. I told the whole story about how I met Tamar by chance in Tel Aviv on anErev Shabat (Friday night). I said, in halting Hebrew, that I lost Tamar once and regained her but I lost her again at the airport. Since then, Mossi Bar Lévi wanted to kill me and Daniellah Argov wanted to, alternately, fuck me and then beat the shit out of me. Finally, I realized that there was no other woman for me than Tamar and I had to come and find her no matter what the cost. Miriam nodded and interjected a few“ken” (yes) as I was speaking. Obviously Tamar had told Miriam the same story and, hopefully I was establishing my bona fides with Miriam. I also hoped that my bad Hebrew was something that Miriam and I could share in common.

When I finished, Miriam reached into somewhere in her robe and pulled out an envelope. Tamar’s address was written in the corner. Miriam began her story. Her words were hesitant at first but then they began to tumble out in broken Hebrew:

“Tamar say she afraid of this Mossi like you so I no tell any person where she live even if they kill me. But you the only man Tamar ever love. Take this. Go Tamar. Only for you I tell secret of where Tamar live. Now, I tell you why Tamar special to me, why she trust only me with secret. First I must tell you story about me. I only tell one person in Israel, Tamar. I born 20 year before in small village in Ethiopia. All Falasha in my village. My father head man of village; all people respect and love very much. One day government soldier come to village. All people run, hide, not my father. He say his place with holy books. Soldier come find no one but my father and mother. Soldier shoot them because they no tell where other people hide. Then the soldier take me and throw me on floor. Two soldier hold my leg, one soldier hold my arms, one soldier stick zain in me. Then he change with other soldier and another soldier stick zain in me. Four soldiers go into me that day. When they finish, I hurt. I bleed. I cry like little baby. Three soldier leave my house to go find other soldiers. They tell other soldier ‘Shoot girl now. Then meet us later.’ Soldier with AK-47 look at me. I stop cry. I think I die then. Then he cry, raise gun and shoot bullet in ceiling. He run away. Leave me on floor with mother, father, books.”

I was almost crying myself at the thought of how this beautiful, vulnerable village girl had suffered, losing her parents and her virginity so savagely at the same time. It was a miracle that she still had her sanity. No wonder Tammy Fink just assumed Miriam hated men. Maybe she even thought that Miriam was a lesbian.

Probably, it was the only act of decency that soldier had ever done, sparing Miriam’s life. After what I did to Rimona Katz, I wondered if I was any better than the Ethiopian soldiers. OK, it wasn’t exactly the same thing. Rimona was a full-grown bitchy woman, and not exactly a virgin, as I recalled. Hovering midway between guilt and sympathy, I decided that this wasn’t the time to bring up the “incident.” My redemption from guilt would be in showing sympathy and continuing the healing process that Tamar had begun with Miriam. I reached out and took her hand in mine. I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing but Miriam gripped my hand tightly. She didn’t refuse my sympathy. Miriam continued, not sparing me from the brutality of her past:

“When people come back to village, I complete empty. I have no feelings. I no talk to anyone. One family give me food, place to sleep because I am daughter of village head man. I work for family like servant. No talk anyone while I work. Especially, I no talk to men. I hate men for what they do to me and my parents. Many time I ask Adonai (the Lord) ‘Why You stop soldier from kill me. I better off dead.’ Then one day, army come my village one more time and say, we send you all to Israel. We get good money for you Falasha. They tell me we go Israel Operation Moses. Mean nothing me. If I die in Israel or my own country, same thing. We come to airport in Israel and I see white people first time my life. In Israel, people not know what to do with me. I no talk. I no talk Amharic, I no talk Hebrew, I no talk anyone. They say ‘send neboch (nebbish) to Ulpan. Then she speak Hebrew. Then she can be Israeli’”

“They send you to Kibbutz Hagafen and there you meet my Tamar?”

“Yes but not first day. After one week, Tamar come to me and ask why I stay by myself all the time, not talk to other boy and girl. I tell her that I empty person. I tell Tamar that bad soldier rape me and I not want live. Tamar hug me and say she want be my friend number one in Israel. She talk to me more, make me want live again. I like Tamar so I talk to her. She find out I run fast. She say that I can be on Israel team for Olympic. I no believe her but she have friend who coach. See me and take me here to Tel Aviv. Now I want to be on track team. I want Miriam Kessim become something.”

Now was the time to ask the question that had been plaguing me on this trip. I knew that Miriam, if anyone would tell me the truth.

“Miriam, you must now tell truth. What Tamar say about me? She have someone else? She still love me? What she write in letters about what she do and where she is?”