Unlike other Viennese cafés, Hummel wasn’t particularly fancy. It was not adorned by furniture that looks like it’s been there unchanged since the nineteenth century, nor by moldy, grouchy waiters. Tamir carefully examined the ochre couches and the cream-colored walls, the chandeliers which seemed to spurn flamboyance, the pasty display case, the apple strudel and the coned punch cake, boasting a brilliant pink exterior. He paused to look at the newspaper rack displaying German and Austrian newspapers, as well as the well-known Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the French daily Le Monde, and the British Times. He surveyed the café’s patrons, whose average age was by no means young, paying attention to the way most of them seemed to shelter behind their tables, reclusive, absorbed in their newspapers with inscrutable countenances, while others engaged in light conversation. The manner in which their Viennese diction smoothed the edges of their German, affording it an almost Yiddish quality, was music to Tamir’s percipient ears.
He grabbed a local newspaper and sat down in a corner table. A waiter approached him and asked if he would like to see a menu. Tamir’s rusty German creaked and groaned as he struggled to make his order, but as he was speaking, he felt like he was slowly rediscovering his rhythm. He knew what he wanted. He asked for a fiakergulasch and a glass of cloudy beer. He used the German term, and the waiter corrected him that in Vienna, the beer is called zwickelbier. Fiakergulasch is a coachman goulash. That name, which Tamir came across once in a Joseph Roth novel, always appealed to him. A waitress with a blue streak running through her hair placed the beer on his table. He sipped it, and immediately felt his quality-of-life shooting up. It was indeed cloudy, a cloudiness of caressing, green mist, of soft rain scarves, of reclining gods and giggling goddesses.
Tamir looked around the café. Unlike cafés in Tel-Aviv, there was no music playing in the background. Just the stifled murmur of conversations carried through the air. These people sure know how to talk quietly, Tamir reflected in awe. The goulash was served to his table. The chunks of meat were plated appetizingly, emitting a strong, almost intoxicating roasted aroma. Beside them, a reddish-pink sausage cut and shaped like a flower peered its head from the sauce, like a strange carnivorous plant; a floral-shaped pickle waded in the thick sauce as well, and placed on top was a delightful fried egg. Tamir placed a chunk of meat in his mouth and closed his eyes, immersing himself in the deep, rousing flavor of tradition, of skill, of the good life. He tasted the pork sausage and let out a deep-seated Jewish sigh.
f. Black Rain
He reached Café Eiles a little early. The scene was bustling with verve and animation, a verve springing from true devotion to pleasures of the palate and to relaxation. Strange paradox. Tamir sauntered between dimpled red sofas, under a brass chandelier. The soft light coming through the large windows endowed the place with a kind of brooding melancholy, and the acoustics compressed and flattened the manifold conversations rolling around the tables, scattering them across the large space as faint echoes. Tamir found a niche in the rear part of the café; he sat and observed the businessmen in suits conducting meetings, the elderly Viennese women stuffing their mouths with plum-streusel cakes, the students hunched over their laptops, the man in a velvet jacket sitting two tables over from him, slowly turning the pages of a copy of Die Presse. The waiter placed Tamir’s melange on his table. He sipped it. It was good.
The coffee here’s not bad. Café Weimar also makes a decent brew. So does Café Schopenhauer. In places like Café Jelinek, though, I’d probably go for tea. This might sound strange to you, but it’s actually not that easy to find a really good cup of coffee in Vienna. That’s why coffee aficionados like myself have it hard here. But I’m not complaining.
Tamir smiled as he surveyed the man who sat down in front him. His eyes had receded slightly behind blue eyeglass frames, the pale tone of his face had grown even paler, and his body thickened— but besides that, he hadn’t changed much. Tamir immediately recognized his restless, fiery gaze. Of course, he was no longer wearing Palladium shoes and a polo shirt; those had been replaced by an ash-gray shirt and a black jacket he now impetuously slung over the elegant hanger set by their table. You blend in well with the landscape, he said to Tamir. You look a bit droopy. Fits the mood.
His Hebrew— with its slightly crass diction, just as Tamir had remembered— resounded against the sonic landscape around them, but was still subsumed by the general indistinct murmur. The acoustics in the room were utterly engulfing. Tamir assumed that was why Café Eiles was selected to host their meeting, rather than a café such as Hummel where someone could listen in.
Hello Yaki, Tamir said.
Yaki nodded, reached into his briefcase, took out a device which looked like a small transistor radio, and placed it on the table between them. If anyone’s feeling the urge to eavesdrop, this little bugger makes it all but impossible. I can’t honestly say I understand the mechanics of what it actually does, but I’m told it’s quite effective. Yaki signaled to the waiter who walked over in an exaggerated gay strut, and ordered a large mocha coffee and a schnapps.
We’ve come a long way since the restaurant in Jish,
