He tells me about how Israel became a State in the first place, the Seven Day War, compulsory military training for anyone over 18, including girls, and that MOSSAD is the best specialist military unit in the world.
When the vodka has gone and he’s tired of talking, he tells me to get some sleep, even though the sun has just come up.
*
The flight to Israel is very long. My father sips plastic tumblers of vodka and coke and reads his John le’ Carre book. There is a little ashtray in the arm of the chair where he flicks his ash. My eyes are watering. All around, a haze hangs over people’s heads. A man three rows ahead has just been told off for smoking a cigar.
Sometimes my father takes a break from reading to stare at the airhostess’s legs. The hostesses are very beautiful with their perfectly applied lipstick and expensive perfume. When my father is dozing, I swipe a packet of cigarettes from the carton he bought from duty free and go to the back of the plane to light up with the other smokers stretching their legs.
When I return, I see that my father has begun the slow blink. He gets louder and tells jokes that aren’t very funny. He presses the call button to summon the hostess for drinks even when the rest of the plane is asleep.
I worry about what will happen if the plane crashes. I worry that he will not be able to put on his own life jacket and exit the plane. I worry that the Ben Gurion airport is big and I will not be able to find the baggage carousel. I worry about complex customs forms and how we will get to our hotel.
“Are you alright?” I say.
“Nonsense,” he says.
Then he falls asleep. And even my father cannot drink in his sleep.
*
At the airport there are young men in military uniforms toting machine guns. Their eyes slide this way and that beneath the peaks of their caps. Thankfully sleep has sobered my father up, and we spot the smartly dressed lady holding a sign with our name.
“Shalom,” she says.
We follow her outside. The air is dry and hot like a desert. Straight away I feel the sun burn my neck.
We climb into a mini-van and drive to our hotel in Tel Aviv. Traffic is thick with buses and cars and people on motorbikes. The stone of the buildings is chalky and porous, as if the heat of the sun has sucked out the life. We pass shops and busy cafes with people dining alfresco. I imagine a sweating man with a ticking parcel taped to his chest.
The hotel is nice and our room has a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. I tell my father that I’m going for a walk along the shore. He nods and I’m off out the door and soon feel the crunch of sand beneath my feet.
I light a smoke and stare at the thumping ocean. I think of New Brighton and her icy summertime waters, the orange-beaked seagulls fighting a Norwest wind, the Mr Whippy van humming in the parking lot.
I wonder what my mother is doing, my little brother too. I wonder whether my sister’s boyfriend still visits on Saturday nights with his bacon-flavoured Rashuns and 1.5 litre bottle of Coke. I wonder if they ever mention my name or if I’m simply a dusty photo turned away to face the wall. After I finish my smoke, I toss the butt into the foam and watch it bob and curl with the water until it disappears below the surf.
When I get back, my father is sitting on the balcony.
“I saw you, you know,” he says.
“You do it.”
“Do as I say and not as I do.”
This pronouncement makes me think of the leather-bound book my father was given at the Seminary. Inside are prayers for ceremonies like Easter and Christmas and Weddings. There are pastel pictures of Jesus and his bleeding heart. I once asked my father to read me my funeral rites but he refused.
“Why did you want to be a priest?”
He shrugs.
“I thought I would be good at it.”
“So why leave the Seminary?”
“I needed some evidence and there wasn’t any.”
“Do you think a person is born bad or made bad?”
He is thoughtful for a moment as he looks at the sea.
“I always thought it was environment that counted but then that doesn’t explain you.”
*
The tour guide is called Yakov. He has a white beard and wears roman sandals. Balanced on the balding crown of his head is a colourful brocaded yarmulke. I do not understand how it stays there without falling off.
We are in the bar of the hotel for our first ‘meet and greet’ on the seven day bus tour. A free cocktail is included in the package and my father lets me have one since this is a special occasion. The drink is served in a tall sugar-rimmed glass with a maraschino cherry. It tastes of chocolate and citrus and I finish it quickly and get a light buzz.
There is a mixture of people from America, Australia, United Kingdom and even New Zealand. They are mostly old, with foldable travel hats and t-shirts tucked into pleated shorts. But there are two girls and a guy in their twenties who look like they are here to have fun. The guy is called Jay and owns a sock factory in Perth. The two girls, Anna and Kate, come from Riccarton and are on their OE.
Yakov gives us a little speech.
“The State has many enemies and I don’t know what you may have been told, but you can forget it because Israel is very safe.”
To prove his point, Yakov tells us there has been no bombings for seven months.
“Seven months,” echoes the old woman beside me.
Yakov raises his glass.
“Loch heim!" he says, downing his drink in one go.
*
We go to see the cave where Jesus was reborn at Easter. Yakov slaps a massive boulder the size of a small house.
“And this is what he moved to get out. Come, everyone must try!”
We each take a turn to shift the gigantic rock and agree that only someone like Jesus could have possibly done it.
In the nearby market, there is a solemn group walking the narrow alleyways that twist around the curio shops. The leader carries a giant wooden cross on his back. It is so big, the end drags along the ground behind him.
“Pilgrims,” whispers my father, “retracing the steps of Jesus.”
“What for?”
“Who knows.”
That night Yakov takes us to a little restaurant on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. I do not like the meal. It is tasteless and has the texture of baby food. But I have struck it lucky because I am sitting next to Jay, the Australian, who turns out to be part Italian which explains his good looks.
He chats to me and my father. He has just returned from a trip into China to check on the factory that makes his socks. Jay has very smooth, olive skin. His bicep flexes as he brings the glass of wine glass to his lips. I wish I put make-up on after all.
The restaurant is nearly full. It’s Friday night and Jewish families have gathered to share a meal. There is singing and clapping.
“It’s called Sabbath,” says my father. “They do this every week.”
“It’s like Christmas,” I say
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
Soon everyone is up dancing and stomping their feet.
Nineteen
OUR BUS travels across the parched landscape and down to the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea. It is so hot it’s as if we have fallen into the core of a volcano. The oldies wave hats in front of their faces. One even refuses to get off the bus.
“Come!” says Yakov. “Everyone must swim! No excuses!”
We put on our togs, step out into the melting heat and head for the sea. There is salt everywhere, piled in mounds, floating like glaciers on top of the water.
I dip a toe in. The water is as hot as a bath. I slide in anyway and bob along the surface. It feels like I am floating in a giant vat of oil. I want to stay in because everyone says the Dead Sea has very good medicinal qualities, but it is too hot, so I get out and cool off in the hotel pool.
After we finish dinner that night, Jay and the girls from New Zealand ask if I want to stick around and play cards
.
“We’ll take good care of her,” says Jay to my father.
My father looks like he wouldn’t mind a game of cards too, but says okay and goes back to our room by himself.
Anna, the blonde, is very dim-witted.
“I’m not wearing any underpants,” she tells me.
Anna always listens to her walkman, even when Yakov is talking. She only ever has one ear plug in, while the other bobs around on her chest. Kate is more sensible. She is plump and pleasant looking.
“Our room is already a mess,” says Kate. “Anna does not pick up after herself.”
“I’m on holiday.”
“Good on you,” says Kate.
So we play poker and have a few cokes. I tell them about myself, how I ran away and was sent to live with my father.
“Too bad,” says Anna.
“A rebel,” says Jay.
When I get back to the bedroom, I see that my father has gotten stuck into the vodka. He is listening to Johnny Cash on his portable.
“You drink too much,” I say.
“I’ll do what I want.”
I get into my bed.
“I can’t sleep with the music.”
“Tough,” he says.
But he only listens to one more song then turns it off.
*
The next day we drive to Jericho, the oldest city in the world, then onto our Kibbutz hotel which sits on the edge of the Sea of Galilee. Everyone is keen to get in the water for Jesus was said to have done the same thing. I do not care a thing about Jesus so wander the Kibbutz instead.
A young boy is pulling carrots from a vegetable garden. Nearby a donkey nibbles on the dry grass. I wonder if it his pet, then watch as he gives the donkey a hard kick in the belly for shitting on his foot.
Back at the pool my father is reclining on a sun lounger, pretending to read a book when he’s really looking at a woman called Tania. She is around his age and travelling on her own. She is not particularly beautiful but has a confidence about her, and runs her own shipping business back in Melbourne.
“That must be a challenge,” says my father.
“Not really.”
Even though she has given him the brush off, I see him watching her. She is not like the others. She could be an equal or even a superior and for once he is out of his depth.
Twenty
AFTER ANOTHER long bus journey of a day and a half, we reach Mount Masada. We must catch a cable car up to the fortress, the last stronghold of the Jewish Zealots in their war against the Romans. My father is afraid of heights, but doesn’t want to show himself up.
They pack us in too tightly. Capacity is for 25 people, but there’s more like 45. As we begin the climb, the cable car starts to rock. Sweat tumbles from my father’s hairline, and he looks like he’s going to be sick.
“We’re almost at the top,” I say.
He nods and clutches his bag until his knuckles lose colour. The car comes to a halt and he looks at me, terrified –
“What’s happening?”
“Time to get out.”
“We’re there?”
“Yeah.”
He is first out the door.
“Piece of cake,” he says, wiping his forehead with a crumpled serviette from his pocket.
The landscape up here could be the surface of Mars – parched, carrot-coloured, rocky. The sun beats down on my back and I must sip my water every few seconds. Yakov points out the ruins of a Turkish bath house and a crumbling synagogue.
There is a boy having a bar mitzvah. A bearded rabbi is speaking Yiddish to the small crowd. His mother wipes a tear from her eye.
“Do they cut the boy’s penis?” I say to my father.
“That’s at birth.”
“What about a schmuck?”
“What about it?”
“I mean, what is it?”
“What do you think?”
“That’s why I’m asking.”
“It’s the male appendage.”
“That makes sense. So you’re a schmuck is like you’re a bit of a dick?”
“Something like that.”
“Do girls have bar mitzvahs?”
“I’m not sure,” says my father, “but I definitely know they don’t have schmucks.”
*
On the last night, my father orders a bottle of champagne. We are sitting in the hotel bar with Jay and the girls.
“What about a farewell drink at the King David Hotel?” says Jay. “It’s just been rebuilt after a bombing last year.”
“Sound’s good,” says my father.
But I do not want him to come. He will spoil the fun. So when the other’s aren’t listening, I tell him –
“Not you.”
“What are you talking about?” he says.
“You are too old, leave it to us.”
I see that I have hurt his feelings, but I do not care. I am pleased when Jay and the girls’ are ready to depart and my father says –
“Why don’t you go on without me.”
“You sure?” says Jay.
My father nods and we leave him at the empty table pouring the last of the champagne into his glass.
At the King David Hotel, we eat dry roasted peanuts and drink cocktails, although mine is a virgin. I buy a pack of cigarettes from a vending machine for two shekels. The tobacco is harsh and strips the lining from my throat. The guys don’t mind if I smoke and it feels good just being myself.
I persuade Jay to let me have a real drink, a Southern Comfort. I have never had one before and it goes down nicely.
“It’ll be weird tomorrow, when everyone leaves,” says Kate.
“Yeah,” says Anna. “It’s been a real.”
“We must keep in touch.”
I get back to my room just before midnight. My father is up, sitting in silence, sipping his drink.
“Have fun?” he says sourly.
I ignore him and get ready for bed.
“Answer me.”
“You’re a drunk.”
As quick as a flash, he raises himself up out of his chair and is ready to strike. But in the half-second before his hand meets my face, he stops.
“Go to bed,” he says instead.
Later I hear him in the bathroom, running the shower. He stays there until I fall asleep.
Twenty-One
WE BOARD our flight and find we have been upgraded to business class. There is a little welcome bag with a miniature cognac, hairbrush, hand cream and earplugs. But there is a problem, our plane does not move from the tarmac. Soon soldiers with guns stride up the aisles and study each passenger – they think one of them may be carrying a bomb.
My father whispers that the route from Israel to Greece is one of the most hijacked in the world.
“But at least we’re in business class.”
It makes me think of a movie in my father’s collection called Raid on Entebbe, where Jewish people were held hostage on a plane for days by Palestinian militants. I do not fancy the same thing happening to me.
After thirty minutes the all clear is given, and I am very pleased when the soldiers depart and we take off for Greece.
I do not like Athens very much. The streets are dirty and prostitutes in loose skirts hang around in doorways. Even the souvenirs are strange, like the key rings of a gnome-like man with a large erect penis. I want to buy one for Sarah but my father won’t let me.
We visit the Parthenon and some other ruins, but there is not much else to see. Our hotel is basic and very much like a hospital room. The food is oily and tasteless and I get sick. My stomach is concrete and nothing will shift. We go to a fly-blown produce market and buy some dried apricots, but then I get bad diarrhea and can’t leave the toilet.
After two days in Athens, we embark on a three day coach tour across Greece, driving from ruin to ruin. My guts are in knots and I am on the look-out for toilets every time we stop. At night I notice that my father is trying to take it easy on the drink. He li
mits himself to just one or two. He has also stopped playing the portable so I can get some sleep.
Soon the dry terrain and ruins are behind us and the bus winds its way through the mountains past valleys and hillsides covered with olive trees. Our hotel is nice but I still feel unwell, I cannot face another plate of Moussaka or olive drenched bread so I stay in my room while my father dines with the group.
When I am still sick the next day, my father is annoyed. He has booked for a day trip and can’t get his money back.
“It’s not my fault,” I say.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Go on without me.”
He hesitates: he thinks I might run off. In the end, he goes and I stay in bed and read the book from the holocaust museum. On the back page, there’s a photograph – bodies are matchsticks being bulldozed into a pit.
The day after I feel better and it’s time to leave for Rome.
*
In Rome the streets are cobbled and everything is clean. Our boutique hotel overlooks a tree-lined boulevard and has white linen sheets and embroidered pillowcases. I look in the bathroom.
“What’s that?”
My father turns on a tap and water shoots upwards. “A bidet. To clean your bum.”
In the morning we eat fresh croissants and strawberry jam then go exploring. There are narrow streets and spurting fountains and majestic buildings. We stop at a cafe. My father orders us both a Pernod with hot water and we sip the aniseed drink from warmed glasses and watch people go by.
We decide to do a day tour and are taken inside massive domed churches called Basilicas. I look up at magnificent ceilings. Every inch is covered with paintings of angels and bare-chested men.
The tour guide shows us a large wooden door.
“This was the entrance used by Julius Ceaser himself,” she says solemnly.
All I know about Julius Ceaser is that he was in the Astrix comics and had bits of twigs behind his ears. The tour guide stands back and we all touch the door.
We take a look inside the crumbling coliseum. My father tells me Christians were ripped apart by lions here.
“Why?”
A Trick of Light Page 7