A Tale of Love and Darkness

SOMETIMES MY parents took me with them when they went "into town," that is to say to King George Street or Ben Yehuda Street, to one of the three or four main cafés that may have been reminiscent of cafés in the cities of Central Europe in the interwar years. In these cafés Hebrew and foreign-language newspapers were at the disposal of customers, fixed into long sticks, as well as a selection of weeklies and monthlies in various languages. Beneath the brass and crystal chandeliers a subdued foreign murmur mingled with blue-gray cigarette smoke and a whiff ofother worlds, in which tranquil lives of study and companionship proceeded at a peaceful pace.

Well-groomed ladies and distinguished-looking gentlemen sat at the tables, conversing quietly. Waiters and waitresses in white jackets with white tea towels folded neatly over their arms floated among the tables serving piping-hot coffee on top of which floated pure, curly angels of whipped cream, Ceylon tea with the essence served separately in little china pots, liqueur-filled pastries, croissants, apple strudel with cream, chocolate cake with vanilla icing, mulled wine on winter evenings, and little glasses of brandy and cherry brandy. (In 1949 and 1950 there still was only ersatz coffee, and the chocolate and cream were probably ersatz too.)