My Journey

by Amalie Coles

  “You are most welcome,” Lawrence replied. “We hope to see you again next year. Let me know if you ever need a recommendation letter.”

  “You can also count on me,” Daniel added.

  “And me,” Helen said.

  “Well, it was a big honor for me to work with everyone of you.”

  “Thank you, Rebecca. You’ve been tremendous help to our team.”

  After saying goodbye to everyone, I grabbed the suitcase and left the building. Maybe if I got away from this place fast, Rachel’s curse wouldn’t have any effect on me.

  “Hey, Becky, where are you going?” George yelled after me when I was already outside.

  “To my hotel,” I replied, wheeling the suitcase behind me.

  “I’m about to leave, too. Want to share a taxi?”

  “No thanks.” I continued walking.

  “Rebecca, I’m sorry for not telling you earlier. I should’ve...”

  “George, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fine. Look, there’s a taxi. Let’s hurry up.” With my baggage weighing more than a ton, I had no choice but to comply.

  The ride to the hotel was very quick. After passing a few busy streets, the cab turned to a quiet residential area and stopped in front of a medium-rise building. I quickly paid my share and was about to leave when George stopped me.

  “Wait, I’ll walk you to the entrance.”

  “Don’t you need to go?”

  “For the money we’ve paid, the taxi will wait. Where’s your hotel.”

  “Here.” I showed him the printout of the hotel’s map.

  “Are you sure we are in the right place?” George asked, staring at one of the residential buildings.

  “I’m positive it is. It’s supposed to be a hotel apartment.” I looked at the sheet again.

  “Ah, I see.”

  “I’ll figure it out, George.”

  “Well, I guess it’s time to say goodbye.” He smiled. “I hope you’ll end up with good memories of this trip.”

  “I will.”

  He came closer and embraced me. His touch was still sizzling, but I was ready to put the feeling behind.

  “You should go. Your cab is waiting,” I repeated myself.

  “I hope to see you again, and I really hope you continue with archaeology.”

  “Goodbye, George.”

  Chapter 22

  As soon as the taxi disappeared from the view, I picked my suitcase and walked towards the building, which truly didn’t look like a hotel. I looked at the paper again. I was indeed in the right place. I just had to find a reception desk and register for my room. I opened the door and walked inside, hoping to find at least a sign leading to the lobby. Inside was a staircase leading to different storeys and a small floor flanked by a door on one side. The door had a metal lock with numbers.

  Could I’ve made a mistake? I thought for a minute. However, the door next to me had the same unit number as the one indicated on the sheet. At the top right corner of the printout was a phone number, which I hadn’t noticed before. I quickly took out my cell phone and keyed it in. I was immediately directed to a voice mail, which repeated the same message in Hebrew, English, and some other language, probably Russian.

  Hello! You’ve reached Holiday Rentals. Our office hours are nine to five Monday to Friday. If you are calling within these hours, we are either away or on the phone with another client. Please leave your name, your phone number, and a brief message, and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We

  hope you have a great vacation. Thank you for choosing Holiday Rentals.

  The beeping sound followed after the third repeat of the message. I was in a big trouble. Apparently the office, the location of which I hadn’t even found, was closed. I was alone inside some strange apartment building without any clue how to get into my unit. I left a message explaining my situation and urging someone to call me back as soon as possible. Maybe someone was staying in the office during afterhours and could help me.

  I sat on a stair peering at my cell and waiting for a call back. However, no one called. I let out a gasp of frustration. Hadn’t Jason told them I was coming? My only option was to sleep on the stairs and call again next morning. The moment he arrived, we would demand a refund.

  I zipped the suitcase open and took out the beach towel I’d been using way back in Ashkelon. It was long enough to accommodate me from the knees up to my head. I lay it on the floor next to my door and sat down. Falling asleep was next to impossible, but I didn’t have a better choice. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Still, I could not stop thinking about events of the day.

  In the morning, I was still a good person, and by the evening I became a cheater and a liar. Worst of all, my friend found out and was probably thinking horrible things about me. Plus that dinner and Rachel’s insults threw me off track. Having nothing else to do, I took out my cell phone, clicked on the top number in my call history, and composed a message: “Hi Dalia! You were absolutely right. I’ve made a mistake, but I’m going to make amends. Best of luck with your interview.”

  I heard the door downstairs open and bolted up. It was a lady with grayish hair and a pale complexion. I was beyond relieved it wasn’t a group of big guys in gagster attire. Not that I expected any in central Tel Aviv.

  “Hi, can I help you?” she asked me with a strong Slavic accent. I immediately explained my situation in Hebrew.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that! You can stay at our place for the night,” she told me.

  “It’s so kind of you, but I’ll be fine.” Spending a night on apartment stairs would be scary and painful and even humiliating. However, staying over at a stranger’s place would be even worse.

  “Nu, metuka! What are you going to do here at night? Let’s go!” She urged me to get up.

  I quickly shoved my towel back into the suitcase and followed her to the second floor.

  “I’m Svetlana, by the way,” she introduced herself while keying in the code. I figured that my unit probably had a similar one, but I still had to find out the exact number.

  “I’m Rebecca.”

  Someone opened the door from the other side. It was a man around her age. He had gray hair and was wearing Adidas pants and a simple T-shirt. The two exchanged words in an unfamiliar language. For a second, I felt scared that she would change her mind, and I would have to spend the night on the stairs. Then I realized they could still help me to find another place to stay overnight.

  “This is my husband, Roman,” Svetlana said, smiling at me.

  “Hi.” I offered a handshake.

  “Come in,” he replied.

  I obliged. To my left was a kitchen built according to the open concept. Pots and pans were hanging everywhere, and a sizable number of matryoshkas were lined up on top of the fridge. Next to the kitchen was a living room with a huge carpet with a floral pattern adorning one of its walls. The TV was playing some black and white movie.

  “Thank you so much. I’m really sorry for all of this,” I said, feeling truly uncomfortable about everything. I couldn’t imagine taking in a total stranger myself.

  “No, don’t worry. It’s not your fault,” Svetlana said. “She was supposed to get a hotel room downstairs, but they won’t let her,” she explained to her husband in Hebrew.

  “Nu i kozli!” Roman exclaimed.

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “A Russian word for idiots,” Svetlana replied.

  We laughed.

  “By the way, you can use Hebrew with me,” I finally said.

  Svetlana asked me if I was hungry, and I politely declined by telling her about the dinner I’d had an hour ago. So she offered me a cup of tea instead, which I gladly accepted. Tea had always helped me to calm my nerves. She served it to me in a small china cup accompanied by a plate of biscuits.

  The three of us sat on the couch and talked for a while. Since we all spoke Hebrew quite well, there was virtually no language barrier. Except
for a few words I had to clarify, I understood them perfectly well.

  They told me they were originally from the Ural region of Russia, but I couldn’t memorize the name of their hometown. They also told me about their immigration to Israel in the early nineties, when the Gulf War was raging through the Middle East. Apparently, it wasn’t easy for them to leave the old life behind and move to a new country with a completely different language and culture. Bringing two children, a ten-year-old and a baby, made the whole aliyah even harder for the family.

  “Misha, our son, was a miracle baby,” Svetlana explained. “Although we already had a daughter, we were hoping for another child. For years and years, we’d been trying, but to no avail.”

  “Then she got pregnant soon after we filed our immigration paperwork,” Roman continued. “When we landed in Israel, Misha was only four months old.”

  “That must have been very challenging for all of you,” I commented, thinking about all the immigrant families who came to Canada in hopes of a better life.

  “It would have been easier if there were no war going on.” Svetlana sighed. “The Gulf War was a total nightmare!”

  “Worse than this year?” I couldn’t stifle my curiosity.

  “Much worse!” Roman gave me a serious look. “But we also have some funny memories from that time. Should we tell her?” He turned to Svetlana.

  “Go ahead, honey, tell her our story.”

  “Well, one day on our first week of the arrival, the four of us decided to go for a walk. We were on Disenhof when the siren rang.”

  “Sounds familiar.” I recalled the morning of our group trip to Eilat.

  “Since we didn’t know the language, we had no idea what was going on. So we kept walking until we realized we’d gotten lost. We tried finding our way back to the hotel but had no luck. In the end, we knocked on someone’s door to ask for directions, and when he saw us, he was shocked. ‘What are you doing outside without a gas mask?’ he asked us. We had no idea the siren meant leaving the streets and putting on a gas mask immediately.”

  “Wow!” I was shocked by their story, for it was far crazier than all of my adventures combined.

  “We ended up staying overnight at his place. Since he didn’t have four spare masks, we had to apply wet clothes for protection. We found the way back next morning, but, boy, I was so scared for my children, especially for the little one!”

  “Now it’s something to laugh about.” Roman concluded the story with a throaty laugh.

  For a moment, I wondered if such an approach to life could help me become a better person—if I could move on from my mistakes and learn how to laugh at them. In this world, danger could easily become a normal part of life. If it weren’t for a sense of humor, most of us would be living in a perpetual fear.

  “What do your kids do?” I finally asked.

  “Well, Sonia lives in New York with her husband,” Svetlana replied. “They recently had their second baby.”

  “You are grandparents! How nice!” I felt sincerely happy for them.

  “Yes, we are!” Roman brimmed with pride.

  “Misha is studying engineering at the University of Haifa,” Svetlana added. “He’s a great boy.”

  “What made you stay here for all these years?” I found myself asking. For me, it would be lack of harsh winters and endless sightseeing opportunities. For them, it was probably something else.

  “Israel is our home,” Svetlana said, smiling. “You don’t leave your true home the moment troubles arise.”

  Having thought about her words, I asked myself if Toronto had ever been my true home. I decided that it probably wasn’t. In fact, it was mainly the place of struggles, disappointments, and ultimately growth. My experience with living in Toronto wasn’t all bad. After all, it was the city where I had finished university and met my love. Yet I wouldn’t call it my true home. If I had a chance to leave it for something better, I would definitely do so.

  “How about yourself, Rebecca?” Roman asked at last. “What brings you to Tel Aviv?”

  “Yes, tell us your story,” Svetlana pressed on.

  I told them everything about my expedition to Ashkelon and Megiddo, the trips to Eilat and the Golan Heights, and my final stop at the Albright Institute. I didn’t spare any details about East Jerusalem.

  “Be careful,” Roman warned me.

  “You won’t believe how dangerous it can be in some parts of the region,” Svetlana added.

  Roman and Svetlana were very surprised by my profound knowledge of the country they had been living in for almost twenty years. It turned out they’ve hardly ever left Tel Aviv, except for occasional trips to Jerusalem during holidays.

  “Maybe we should travel more,” Svetlana admitted after I described the megalith I had seen in the Golan Heights.

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling you!” Roman exclaimed. “Instead, you prefer to spend every weekend at home cooking.”

  “Excuse me? I can stop cooking if you like. Then you’ll complain about lack of food.”

  Even when they started arguing, I could tell they weren’t truly angry. Roman and Svetlana belonged to those couples who had gone through a lot, fought every now and then, but still loved each other deeply.

  After we finished our talk, Svetlana prepared a room for me to sleep in. It was amazing how neither she or her husband was bothered by the fact that I was a complete stranger from another country staying in their guest room.

  I lay down with my eyes open. My phone buzzed. I immediately reached for it in my pocket, hoping to find a message from Dalia. ”Message not sent,” the phone informed me. I sighed and immediately dialled the number. I really wanted to talk to my friend and apologize to her for everything.

  “Shalom,” a female voice said.

  “Oh, hi,” I replied timidly. “Can I please talk to Dalia?”

  “Dalia is sleeping already,” she said, pronouncing every syllable. “Who is calling?”

  “It’s her friend.”

  I heard Dalia whisper in Russian.

  “Horosho,” the lady mumbled, passing the telephone.

  “Hi, Dalia! It’s Rebecca. I’m sorry for being rude to you this afternoon. You were right. George was a mistake.”

  “Oh...” I heard Dalia yawn. “Wait, I think the speaker’s on.”

  For a moment, I heard mumbling and clicking sounds on the other line.

  “OK, now it’s off. So, what were you saying?”

  “Dalia, I’ve made a huge mistake. I should’ve never gotten involved with George, let alone lie about him to your aunt. I’m sorry. I hope you haven’t said anything.”

  “Becky, I’m really tired now. I had a very long day. We can talk tomorrow, OK?”

  “No problem.”

  “I tried reaching you earlier, but you were busy.”

  “Fine, Dalia. Goodnight.”

  By this point, my face was burning hot, and tears were welling up in my eyes. I was not going to call her the next day or ever. In fact, I would probably avoid her for the rest of our days.

  Chapter 23

  Before leaving next morning, I thanked Roman and Svetlana for the millionth time and even offered to pay for their hospitality. They, however, flat out refused to hear anything about payment.

  “You can rely on us anytime,” Svetlana said. “You should come by with your husband.”

  “I’m sure we’ll run into each other at some point,” I replied, thinking about the week ahead.

  “Best of luck in resolving that hotel problem,” Roman said.

  “Thanks, I’ll need it.”

  The moment I tried to bring my baggage downstairs, Roman ran after me and offered his help.

  “It’s OK. I can manage.”

  They refused to leave me alone downstairs until I got hold of the hotel office. Roman even offered to talk to them for me, but I insisted on doing the job myself.

  As soon as I reached the hotel reception and explained what had happened earlier, I
received a wave of apologies and promises for a refund. The representative was at the apartment building in no time.

  “Hi, my name is Omer. How can I help you?” he said with an Israeli accent.

  “I need to open the door,” I replied in Hebrew.

  “Oh, at medaberet Ivrit.”

  “I also need to get my refund for last night,” I continued. “I had a reservation booked, but no one came over to help me.”

  “I see. The check-in was at five last night, so technically, you were late. But we’ll try to sort it out.”

  “Toda,” I replied curtly.

  Omer quickly showed me how to open the door, and I tried the code myself a few times to make sure I got it right. He gave me a quick tour of the apartment unit, which looked more like a luxury condo than a hotel. I realized Jason and I were extremely lucky with our choice.

  At the time Jason was booking the trip, this apartment unit was available for a reduced price, so we went for it. Now we would have a large living room, a fully equipped kitchenette, a spacious bedroom, and another room with a spare bed, all to ourselves.

  “If you two have a fight, there is an extra bedroom here,” Omer joked, pointing at the two-levelled bed, most likely intended for kids.

  “No jokes like this, please.” At this time, I couldn’t even imagine it was a possibility.

  “No problem.”

  Omer tested the stove and showed how to regulate the water temperature in the shower. He also promised to get back to me about the refund. As soon as he left the unit, I plopped down on a leather couch and closed my eyes.

  I still couldn’t believe I had allowed all the drama to happen to me. Falling for someone’s ex, becoming a cheater, getting caught by a friend, and being ridiculed by former roommates was too much for me to handle at once. I had to talk to someone and to let everything out. So I took out my phone and dialled Erin’s number.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Erin. How are you?”

  “I’m OK. Yourself?”

  “I’m fine. Anything new?” I didn’t want to jump into my story without first asking my sister about her life.

  “Well, I’m taking a vacation next week,” she announced.