Seeker

by Rita Pomade

  A miserable hour later, wedged next to sweating bodies in sweltering heat, we arrived at the bus station of a small town where we could catch a bus to Hurghada. Once on the bus, I noticed that I was the only woman and tried my best to melt into Bernard. Seats lined each side of the bus with the passengers jammed thigh to thigh.

  At one stop, a middle-aged man in a spotless, white djellaba and carrying a walking stick got on board. He approached an old man seated across from me and spoke a few words to him in Arabic. When the old man didn’t move, he beat him with the stick and shoved him to the floor. He then took the seat and stared at me all the way to Hurghada. No one reacted to the incident. Everyone continued to focus blankly into space. Pressing closer to Bernard, I did the same.

  In Hurghada we jumped off the bus and raced to the marina praying that the guard at the gate wouldn’t give us a hard time. Entering and leaving was always a game of nerves. Sometimes he would let us out but not back in even though it was clear that we’d only gone for provisions. We’d walk about aimlessly and try again every so often until he’d suddenly let us through. Sometimes he’d send us back to the boat at gunpoint when we wanted to leave the marina. Other times he’d ask for our passports, kiss them, and wave us through. This day he was in an expansive mood and welcomed us back with a wave of his hand.

  I collapsed in relief when I saw the Santa Rita anchored exactly where we had left her. We checked everything on board and saw that nothing was missing.

  There was barely time to savour our good fortune before Captain Borai boarded the yacht. “My men kept an eye on things,” he said. He was effusive in his praise for the way we helped him by delivering the engine. “I am inviting you for dinner at the Club Med — very elegant, delicious food. How better can I thank you?”

  Bernard and I knew it would be a mistake to refuse his invitation or to bring up the deceitful way he had treated us. We no longer had any illusions about the gentlemanly Captain Borai, and we didn’t want to be out of favour with him.

  That evening we were treated to a sumptuous dinner surrounded by a lot of stiff, pretentious people in formal dress, holding drinks and barely moving. Everyone looked as though they were waiting for something but nothing happened. Somewhere in the background a comedian was performing, but nobody laughed.

  I thought that perhaps this was where Alain Resnais vacationed before filming Last Year in Marienbad. I remembered the arty 1961 movie filmed against a static background dotted with elegantly dressed people, who moved about in a somnambulistic state making a point of going nowhere. Renais filmed emptiness well, but I thought of it as metaphor. Here I was experiencing it as the real thing.

  In spite of, or maybe because of the atmosphere, we ate well and drank a lot. After thanking Captain Borai for his gracious hospitality and for looking after the Santa Rita, we rushed back to the yacht to prepare for leaving Hurghada at daybreak.

  We had talked earlier with “Richard Widmark” from the Cloud Nine yacht about heading for Port Said. He said they were as anxious as we were to leave Egypt. Mrs. Moneypenny had found the stay in Hurghada unsettling, and while we were in Alexandria, she flew back to England. Others in the crew were also getting antsy. We arranged to sail out together.

  Aside from wanting to get away from Captain Borai, we had another reason for moving on. We were supposed to meet Jonah in Israel for his spring break from Oxford. Bernard calculated the approximate time it would take us to get through the Red Sea. He figured Jonah’s vacation would coincide with the time we’d arrive in Israel. We had arranged to meet him there, but we were behind schedule. I wanted to send him a telegram saying we were on our way.

  Our first port of call on the way out of Egypt was the marina in Suez to pick up fuel and send the telegram. It was a windless morning, and we had to motor all the way, but at least we made good time. As night approached, it became tricky. The sea was full of odd debris, hunks of metal and huge tankers due to the oil exploitation along the coast. The smell of oil was suffocating.

  We dropped anchor in the harbour at about ten at night. There were already a number of yachts at anchor waiting to pass through the Suez Canal. Bernard, along with the Richard Widmark look-alike and some of the other yacht owners, took their jerry cans and in Cloud Nine’s dinghy headed for a fuelling station. That’s the last I saw of Bernard until six the next morning.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening again. In El Quseir, I’d at least had some clue of what was happening. This time he just disappeared. I’d experienced enough to know Egypt was a dangerous country outside the prescribed tourist route. Bernard could disappear without a trace. Officials could confiscate the yacht on any trumped-up charge, and expel me from the country. With no witnesses, they could do whatever they wanted. I remembered hearing about incidents like this in the yachting community. The worst scenario was that Bernard could be dead. I took comfort in the fact that the Richard Widmark double had also not returned. At the same time, I knew this was no consolation.

  When Bernard finally returned, I was too distraught and spent to react. I had sat frozen in one position all night, my eyes glued to the companionway. When I heard the dinghy’s engine stop alongside the boat, I was so stiff I couldn’t unravel myself to get up. Seconds later, completely high on his adventure, Bernard stepped below deck.

  “What a wild night!” he said, dancing around the salon. “We were at the police station. I think the police officer fell in love with ‘Richard Widmark.’ He kept telling him he looked like a movie star and wouldn’t let us go. He was trying to seduce him. No charges were laid, and he finally released us.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t as amused. “I have to go into Cairo to send that telegram,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll go with you. It’s not safe to go alone.”

  I wasn’t going to argue or make a scene about how casually he took my distress at his all-night absence. I wanted to get to Cairo, and I didn’t want to go alone.

  In Cairo, the bus took forever to get downtown. The main artery through the city was in absolute chaos with cars going any way drivers felt like taking them. Traffic jams were the only thing that permitted pedestrians to cross the street. Teeming with people, the congestion was so thick, the city was reduced almost to a standstill.

  On every corner a soldier stood guard with a machine gun aimed at the cars. Before we arrived in Egypt, I’d never seen a person with a machine gun. Now, I saw them everywhere. When Hosni Mubarak came into power in 1981, he declared emergency law to combat Islamist extremists who were responsible for former president Anwar Sadat’s assassination. He’d never lifted the law.

  In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon, but Mubarak promised to uphold the treaty that Sadat had signed with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at Camp David. It angered a lot of his countrymen. We arrived in 1984, in the midst of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. Probably, for all these reasons a huge number of armed soldiers were on the street. We hopped off the bus where we were told we might find a telegraph office. Bernard said he’d wait outside the building for me so he could smoke.

  “Can I borrow your pen?” I asked.

  Inside, it took forever before I was served. When my turn came, I asked about sending a telegram to Israel.

  “There’s no Israel,” the clerk replied.

  “Are you sure?”

  He pointed to a large map of the Middle East behind him. “Find me Israel.”

  I looked. It wasn’t there. The whole area was called Palestine.

  “Palestine,” I said. “Jerusalem.”

  He smiled and handed me the telegram to write my message. In the confusion of our disconcerting conversation, I forgot where I had gotten the pen.

  “Is this yours or mine?” I asked.

  “Mine,” he replied.

  When I left the building, Bernard asked: “Where’s my pen?”

  “Forget it,” I said. I didn’t want any more hostility than I had already experienced inside, but Bernard insis
ted on getting his pen back.

  To my surprise, after a few rounds of the clerk’s denial and Bernard’s insistence, the pen was returned.

  Pleased with his victory, Bernard suggested we try some of the local cuisine. Aside from the lavish western feast that Captain Borai had treated us to, we’d been eating from our provisions on the Santa Rita. Cairo seemed like the right place to try the local cuisine. We found a small restaurant nearby and ordered the only plate on the menu — a wilted salad of chopped lettuce and tomatoes with some foul, a local bean, on the side. The disappointment in our only meal out was soon replaced by the uneasy feeling of having eaten lettuce that probably wasn’t washed. We’d been incredibly healthy through the voyage, and I hoped we’d stay that way.

  Bernard was exhausted from his night away from the yacht, and I was feeling queasy from our lunch, so we decided to head back without visiting the city. All we saw was a distant view of the Sphinx, impressively large and stately, even with its broken nose, and the monumental presence of the pyramids of Giza rising behind it through the bus window. Today we both regret that we didn’t get off the bus at Giza or make it to the Egyptian Museum.

  On the third day of our stay in Suez, we felt rested enough to move on to Port Said and through the Canal. That entailed endless documents to sign and a pilot coming aboard. Agents motored from vessel to vessel in the marina offering their services for both. Officials also motored from boat to boat with one excuse or another to demand money. We were asked to inform them of our next port of call, and Bernard repeatedly answered: “Cyprus.” As always, his instincts were right, as we would eventually learn.

  The pilot we hired stayed with us for the two days it took us to go through the Canal, leaving at night on a motor boat that came for him and returning in the morning, always with prayer rug in hand. He never missed his hour of prayer and Bernard, fed up with having been constantly hassled for fees, including the one for the unnecessary pilot, deliberately changed the yacht’s direction ever so slightly making the poor fellow constantly shift his rug to face Mecca.

  As soon as we unloaded the pilot, we were again besieged by officials pulling up to the yacht and demanding money. This time Bernard refused. One of the officials pulled out a gun, but Bernard motored out into the Mediterranean without looking back. Free at last.

  Chapter 24

  UNHOLY IN THE HOLY LAND

  Spring 1984: Israel

  People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life.

  I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

  — JOSEPH CAMPBELL

  The first port outside the Suez Canal was Ashkelon on the southern coast of Israel, thought to be the home of the biblical Canaanites and then the conquering Philistines. It was also where Delilah was said to have shorn Samson’s hair, thereby divesting him of all his strength. Under layers of Ashkelon’s parched earth lay a treasure trove of ancient artefacts that could validate these stories, and led to many archaeological digs. We thought Ashkelon would be a good place to drop anchor and explore the sites before moving on. I planned to call Jonah, who was already in Jerusalem, and have him meet us there. As we approached the harbour, a woman’s voice came through the VHF radio: “Wind power, wind power. Stay where you are.”

  At first, we thought she was calling the name of another yacht and didn’t pay attention. When the voice insisted, we gleaned that this might be a call to us and cut the engine. Within seconds, divers in flippers and underwater gear surrounded the yacht. They searched the underside of the hull and then came aboard to finish the inspection.

  “What are you looking for?” Bernard asked.

  “Bombs,” the diver-in-charge answered.

  My mouth went dry. Hadn’t a peace treaty been signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979? Until we entered the Middle East, I hadn’t fully grasped the extent of the animosity the Arab world held towards Israel.

  “You sailed from Egypt. Did you tell the authorities you were coming to Israel?”

  “I thought it wouldn’t be a good idea,” Bernard replied. “I gave them Cyprus as the next port of call.”

  The diver nodded his approval. He went on to explain that, when the Egyptians know a yacht is coming to Israel, they plant explosive devices underneath the hull without the knowledge of the people aboard.

  “All vessels passing through the Suez Canal,” he said, “have to be inspected before they’re allowed into Israel.”

  I wondered how often an unsuspecting yacht had blown up in these waters, and why I had never heard about it.

  Because Ashkelon was a military zone, we weren’t permitted to visit, and were asked to move on after the divers finished their job. Farther up the coast, we passed Ashdod, one of the oldest cities in the world dating back to the seventeenth century BCE. I couldn’t imagine a city that old, and was tempted to visit, but didn’t want to lose more time before seeing Jonah. We dropped anchor in Tel Aviv, and spent the night aboard the Santa Rita waiting for a channel to be dug to the marina so the keel of our yacht could pass through. Storms often filled the channel with sand, and periodically it had to be dredged. Once berthed, we hastened ashore.

  The contrast between Cairo and Tel Aviv was like the difference between a film noir and a high-tech cinemascope Hollywood production. Cairo was drab with narrow streets and shadowy corners. Tel Aviv was lit up like a neon sign. The sudden blast of colour and light, along with the expansive movement of people, overwhelmed my senses.

  The waterfront swarmed with people — families sitting in groups, children chasing each other, athletic young men preening themselves along the water’s edge, and young women with model-perfect bodies sunbathing in bikinis. I was amazed at how fit these young adults were and attributed it to the two-year military service required of Israeli citizens between the ages of eighteen and twenty. It had been so many years since I’d seen so much skin on a public beach that I felt slightly embarrassed. My discomfort didn’t last long. I soon found the free, unselfconscious lifestyle exhilarating.

  I phoned Jonah who was in a hotel room in Jerusalem waiting to hear from us.

  “Hey, Mom,” he shouted into the phone. “Guess what? A bomb just exploded near my hotel!”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  He laughed. “Of course, I’m okay. I wouldn’t be on the phone if I wasn’t.”

  He found the experience more interesting than frightening. I didn’t feel as nonchalant, and without any rational reason for it, felt he’d be safer with us. I had so many mixed feelings as I watched Jonah approach the Santa Rita — overwhelming love for the little boy I raised, guilt for having sent him so far away to college, and immense pleasure that he was able to spend time with us.

  I hugged him hard and patted his back. “It’s good to see you,” I said, feeling my words were so inadequate.

  Bernard first shook his hand and then gave him a bear hug. “So you’re now an Oxford man.” He pulled away to size up the young man.

  I had last seen Jonah when he was eighteen. He was now twenty-one. The child who left us in the Philippines was now an adult. Too quick, I thought, but how grateful I was that he found his life full and productive. He regaled us with stories about Middlebury College and his junior year at Oxford.

  “I’m majoring in English Lit,” he said, “but I decided to minor in Mandarin because I already knew the language from when we were in Taiwan. Middlebury paired me with a great roommate from Beijing. And here I am now at Oxford. What a difference from Middlebury! My bed gets made every morning, and I have sherry with my professors. The best part is that no one can place my accent, so I have easy access to being friends with everybody. There’s still a class system where you get accepted or rejected depending on how you speak.”

  Jonah h
ad found his niche and was comfortable with his life. He and Da Shing, his roommate from Middlebury, remain good friends to this day. Da Shing was Jonah’s best man at his wedding. And Jonah is godfather to two of the children of friends he had made at Oxford.

  “We were a little late getting here,” I said. “What did you do with your time?”

  “I went to Eilat to spend a day on the beach and go swimming. On the bus, crossing the desert, I sat next to a young guy who had just come back from fighting in Lebanon. He wasn’t happy about that. When we arrived at the sea, he took off all his clothes and walked into the water. I thought I’d wait until morning, but the weather turned, and I never went swimming.”

  Recently, I asked Jonah what he remembered about his time in Israel. Along with finding the people pushy but generous, and Jaffa, an ancient Palestinian suburb of Tel Aviv, picturesque, it’s that young man walking into the sea that has stayed with him.

  Tel Aviv bustled with small outdoor cafes and falafel stands. I ate falafel wrapped in a pita for the first time and decided the long wait in line was worth it. I noticed everyone ate a lot of salads. All the produce looked fresh, clean and inviting, but the biggest surprise was how beautiful the young people looked. The mixing of the gene pool from so many different ethnic backgrounds produced striking offspring. It helped that they were in such good physical condition. Obesity was not a problem in Israel.

  With its art galleries, cultural activities, financial district, and nightlife, Tel Aviv was totally western. Only the food with its hint of the exotic gave a clue that I might not be in any European city. It was hard to believe that in 1909 this area was nothing but desolate sand dunes. The story goes that sixty-six Jewish families settled there. One hundred thirty-two seashells were gathered — half grey, half white. A boy was to select one of the white shells that had a family name on it. A girl was to pick a grey shell that had a plot number assigned to it. The two shells were paired. From this unique beginning, the city grew into the party capital of the world with a huge international presence.