part three
1
I waited at Ben Gurion Airport underneath a bunch of colorful balloons that congregated at the ceiling. I read the display panel, ate a sandwich, watched people look around, clueless. Soldiers, Russian grandmothers, Orthodox Jews, and extended Arab families. A mezuzah was affixed to the gate that led into the arrival hall. Many of the arriving passengers kissed it by running the fingertips of their right hand over it and then touching their mouth. Most faces displayed joy and great expectation. Again and again, people ran toward each other, hugged, let go, and examined each other’s faces as if trying to make up for lost time. Next to me an ultra-Orthodox man in a black suit and a wide-brimmed hat dropped to his knees and kissed the ground. A young woman, holding a little boy in her arms, was picked up by an older man. The boy kicked and screamed as the man tried to touch him. An older woman lectured her grandson. In the arrival hall all the different languages mixed into a wave of sound: Russian, Hebrew, English, Italian, and Arabic. A deep woman’s voice repeatedly warned over the loudspeaker not to leave any luggage unattended, adding: “It’s prohibited to carry weapons in all the terminal halls.” Fifteen minutes ago my computer had been seized and shot with a firearm, and now I would have to wait for a letter of acknowledgment that would allow me to apply for financial compensation from the state of Israel.
It all started at the passport check. I’d been asked about my name.
“Maria Kogan.”
“Maria, of all names.”
I shrugged and said, “My mother liked the name.
Masha.”
“Masha?”
“My nickname.”
He made a note in one of his forms and studied my work visa.
Why was I here?
“To grieve.”
Another note on his form.
“How long are you planning to stay?”
“As long as possible.”
“Are you sure that this is your computer?” He scowled at the stickers with Arabic characters on my keyboard.
“Yes.”
“You are interested in our neighbors, huh? Can I take your computer for a little test?” he said, grinning, and left with my computer.
The situation was serious. Now my suitcase had to be searched as well. This task was assigned to two young soldiers, neither of whom could be older than twenty. They were wearing translucent rubber gloves and told jokes to loosen up the situation. The girl dug through my stuff, respectfully trying not to look too closely. This earned her repeated reprimands from the other soldier, who was bald. He stood next to her, bow-legged, examining the contents of the suitcase and giving orders. Every piece of clothing, every scarf, every pair of panties was unfolded. All jars were opened. Even my electric toothbrush was tested for explosives. The fact that I’d hardly brought any clothes, but instead many dictionaries, aroused suspicion.
During this examination they questioned me. Whom do you know in Israel? With whom are you going to live? For whom are you going to work? What are you going to do? The bald soldier looked me directly in the eye. Why had I come to Israel, and why had I not come sooner, and why not forever? The female soldier leafed through my Arabic dictionaries with her long red fingernails; her tone, too, becoming increasingly aggressive. Why had I traveled to Arabic countries and what did I know about the Middle East conflict?
“Do you speak Arabic?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I studied it.”
“Do you speak Hebrew?”
“No.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes. No. I mean no.”
“Is he Arab, Egyptian, or Palestinian?”
“No.”
“What is he then?”
“Dead.”
They looked at each other, irritated.
“When did he pass away?” the young woman asked shyly.
“Recently.”
“I’m sorry.” The female soldier showed the tiniest of sympathetic smiles.
“How did he die?” the male soldier asked.
“Pulmonary embolism.”
“Was he Arab, Egyptian, or Palestinian?”
I was still trying to figure out if he’d really just asked this question when we heard the following announcement: “Do not be alarmed by gunshots. Security needs to blow up suspicious passenger luggage.”
Multiple gunshots followed. The walkie-talkie of the bald guy beeped and he talked into it in a quick, agitated voice. The soldiers closed my suitcase. They apologized for the examination and explained that it had been necessary because of the security situation. They wished me a pleasant stay in the Holy Land. The soldier wanted to talk me into visiting Eilat. He was from there and knew every stone, he said. His colleague interrupted to tell me about little waterfalls all around Jerusalem. She was in the process of writing out the bus connection from the central bus terminal when a concerned officer hurried toward us.
He introduced himself, shook my hand, and apologized politely for having blown up my computer. Then he led me into another room, where its remains had been laid out. My computer hadn’t really been blown up, though: the white case bore three bullet holes. The officer chewed his gum.
“Why did you shoot my computer?” I asked in disbelief.
“We thought it was a bomb. It’s standard procedure with a suspected terrorist attack.” He spoke slowly, as if to a child, having to explain the obvious.
“How am I supposed to work now?”
“The Israeli state will provide you with another computer.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
My cousin arrived about forty minutes later, flung her arms around my neck, and was gorgeous. Right away she informed me that she’d received my call while in bed with her new director, but she didn’t want to miss out on greeting me at the airport. Hannah was my mother’s niece. But we were a widely cast family with unclear degrees of relation and Mother was bad at remembering both names and faces. Therefore everyone who didn’t earn their own money was a niece or nephew. The seniors were uncles and aunts, and the rest were simply cousins. To better tell them apart, my mother secretly assigned them numbers. Hannah was Niece No. 5 and her mother, Cousin No. 13, but she wasn’t a hundred percent sure about that.
I mostly knew my relatives from photos that were sent regularly. The photos of family gatherings were especially sad—my aunts still had crumbling smiles on their faces, but their husbands didn’t bother anymore. They just stared dejectedly at the camera. The table in front of them was set with the dinnerware they’d brought from the USSR. Hannah, on the other hand, was always the noticeably good-looking girl in front of spectacular motifs: the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, the desert.
I’d never properly gotten to know Hannah. The last time we saw each other was seven years ago, when her parents had visited us in Germany. It had been a short, relaxed visit. Hannah was sixteen, I was twelve, and she never took off her headphones. Her parents rented a car and drove from one Rhine castle and forgotten synagogue to the next. My mother had her mind set on proving that it was possible to live in Germany as a Jew.
Following Elisha’s death, Hannah had started calling me regularly. At night, between ten and eleven, after my mother had left. We both knew to avoid getting too close, or asking any touchy questions or expecting honest answers. We didn’t talk about Elisha’s death or Hannah’s daughter. Hannah talked about Israel, the landscape, and the beach, about hiking trails in the North that she wanted to try out with me and about clubs in Tel Aviv that she promised to show me. She talked with me about normal things that I didn’t think of anymore. Soon I became familiar with her everyday life, the names and stories of her friends, even the units in which they had served.
“Why don’t you make aliyah?” she asked.
“No way,” I said. “I’d be stupid to give up German citizenship.”
“OK, then at least come for a while. You’ll like it.”
Now, a few months later, in the parking lot of Ben Gurion Airport I was hit by a wall of hot and humid air. I felt like I’d arrived in the tropics. Suddenly I was excited to be here. I was looking forward to the work and happy that my life might not be entirely over after all.
Hannah never took her foot off the gas pedal. Behind us blinked the red and yellow lights of the airport.
“This isn’t the way I’d imagined you,” Hannah said and lit a cigarette. “You don’t look like me at all. I thought you would look like me. No, I didn’t think you would, I just hoped you would. I hoped you and I would look a bit alike.”
“We’re just cousins.”
“But you don’t look like it at all.”
“Like what?”
“Jewish.”
“You think?”
Hannah nodded and focused on the street again.
“Not at all?” I asked.
“No.”
I secretly studied myself in the rearview mirror.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK.”
“Are you offended?”
“No.” I laughed, loud and hysterical.