TWO IN A SABRA



I love a convertible.
The first car I ever owned was a ravishing green "Convertible" Pontiac: Cold spicy mornings in the winter, my nose registering below zero as I raced along the highways from Brooklyn to the Bronx.
My eyes sparkled, my cheeks glowed, my body purred under my raccoon coat, along with the motor.
I love a "Convertible"!
And why not in Israel?
I brought mine along. Many a hot tired Tel Aviv evening
transformed itself into a star-filled dream on the road to Herzliah. The perfect arc of a rainbow seen brilliantly joining hills was chased on the way to Jerusalem. Mornings, early and fresh caressed us on the way to Haifa.
I love a "Convertible".
But not even a Pontiac convertible lasts forever. Time came to buy a new car!
Its long nose sensuously gleaming. its long lines dashingly daring, the Sabra winked at me at the auto show. I knew it was for me - but only two seats!... rather unfriendly... My good sense said "No!" but my foolish fancy kept saying ,"Yes".
However, I kept on looking...
2

It was a newspaper article that finally decided me. "Israeli's are snobs," it said, "they buy European cars out of snobbishness."
I was surprised. I was no snob but on further thought what could be more snobbish than a car with just two seats - no room for a stray soldier, a hitch-hiker or a tourist couple.
Just for two!
No outsiders allowed How exclusive can you get?
A certain minister had said I was a "snob" to be thinking of a more hospitable European car
I went back to take a second look at the Israeli Sabra. I tried it out.
To say I eased myself into the driver's seat would be wrong. There was no ease in the squeeze I had to make. I "eeled" my way under the wheel. I looked at the dashboard. like an airplane.
"What's this odd looking lever off to the right?" I asked, pulling it.
"Don't pull. Press!", I was told.
I did. "What a place for the horn. I can hardly reach it. "That's rather awkward, isn't it?, I asked.
"Sports car. You'll get used to it." I was told.
"And this thing? just out of reach of my left hand.
"That's the flasher"
"All the way over here!?" to flick this lever every time I want to make a turn or pass a car - All the way over here?"
"Sport's car, You get used to it" and as an afterthought, "it's not automatic".
"Really?"
I turned the switch and stepped on the starter. I put her in first, stepped on the gas and slowly started to release the clutch. What a racket! What a noise! The car leaped forward. What a jolt!
I looked my question.
"Sports car, you get used to it", I was told.
It sounded like we were doing at least a hundred. The speedometer read, "a measly forty".
It felt like the old Burma road to Jerusalem. There were the usual bumps between Petah Tikvah and Ramataim. I stepped on the brakes. I almost went through the front window
"Some brakes," said the agent
"Yeah, some brakes!
"Well," said the agent as we got out, "It's a sports car. It's for young people"
"Where'd he get that stuff, "young people!"
It was those two stingy seats that bothered me most. Probably he was right. You get used to different arrangements in time. Like in London. I had gotten used to left direction traffic in no time so what was so terrible about a misplaced horn and an out-distance flasher.
But those two stingy seats bothered me still. We had had fifteen people in our car on one Yom Atzmaut driving through Tel Aviv. Brides and their parents had been taken to the alter, classmates to the beach, gangs to picnics. But in a two seater???
"I could possibly get used to everything,"
I said, "the noise, the gadgets but two seats only - that's too few, too selfish, too lonesome."
"I can fix that up" said the agent, "I can build two seats where the trunk is."
"Really"? I was interested
He built it in two weeks. It was the work of an artist, a genius and an idiot. I was the idiot. I paid him 10,000 pounds for it! I didn't expect it to be a Cadillac, not even a Pontiac.
"You'll get used to it," the agent assured me as he gave me the keys.
I got used to nothing. It backfired. it jumped. it leaped, it lifted stones off the road, the wheels shimmied on little bumps, the upholstery sagged. the knobs fell off, the doors jammed, the clutch pedal got stubborn, the water heated up.
I made a list of 25 defective items that I brought to the manufacturer.
Would he please make the car more human!
He was pleased with the list. He had expected it to be longer, He would try to take the "bugs" out of the car and I would try to get the kinks out of me.
The Sabra went back to the factory and I went back to loaning a car now and then from the office.
"So, where's your Sabra, they asked me slightly irritated that they had to give up their car for the boss's wife,
"Just you wait. They promised to fix it up first class! just you wait!"
"Where's your Sabra?" they asked me some weeks later as they saw me stepping out of a taxi. (How long could I bother the office?)
"Still being fixed up," I apologized. "It wasn't easy to convert the convertible, you know
"What are you doing on the bus?" they asked me some months later (How long can you afford taxis?) "Where's the Sabra?"
"Buses are nice, too," I answered in self-defense, "you get to meet a lot of people."
It got to the point where they no longer asked me. They merely smirked. For them the Sabra had died and as far as they were concerned it was "buried"--- a good joke on me. :Grace is always original" they laugh.
Well, I'm not that original and when I buy a car I like to use it!
I went to see the Sabra at the workshop. I found a girl's bathing suit in the trunk!
"Whose bathing suit is this I asked the boys in the garage holding it up.
No one knew.
But I knew that my Sabra had had its first real outing.
It was time I took my Sabra home.
"Do you know," said the mechanic as he handed me the keys. "This Sabra is the only car of its kind in the entire world? Absolutely unique. Do you realize what you've got?"
"Yeah", I said as I ground into first. "I realize what I've got. I've got the only 10,000 pound brand new jalopy convertible in the entire world!"

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This material is ©1998 by Grace Hollander
3 Keren Haysod st,Ramat Ilan, Givat Shmuel, Israel 51905

Permission to distribute this material, with this notice is granted - with request to notify of use by surface mail
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