Coming Home

            by Simone Kertesz

 

“How am I going to live without Mexican food for seven and a half weeks,”  I complained to myself as I sat on the cold wall outside of the A gate. I began to itch with irritation at the thought of all my peers sitting inside their classrooms anticipating the first night of summer--a night inevitably filled with the loss of inhibition and joy.  The worst part is that I would get to partake in absolutely none of it.

            BEEP, BEEP, my dad honked from the green van, that had become known as the “Danger Zone” among my friends and I, due to the curious smell and mess that had developed in it over many years.

            “COMING,” I yelled. I had gotten out of my last final early and was waiting for my parents and little brother to pick me up to go the airport. “This is it, bye bye Berkeley,” I thought.

            I looked through the dirty car window at my city, trying to soak up every last bit into my memory, dreading that I might forget the bums on the street corners, the way the oak trees lined Marin, or the herds of people squeezing limes on their precious slices of Cheeseboard pizza, sitting on the grassy island (that clearly said “no sitting on island”) in the middle of the street.

            “So are you excited?” my mother asked with utter enthusiasm.

            NO. “Yeah,” I said trying to sound as happy as possible.

            “Were goin’ back to the Holy Land,” my mother drawled in her very fake southern accent.  I laughed emptily.

            “What’s wrong love, missing Ian already?”

            “No,” I lied.

            “Well don’t worry girl, those Israeli boys will keep you plenty distracted…”

            “MOTHER!” No Israeli boy was going to distract me, what a lie.

            On the plane I distracted myself with trashy romance novels, tales of young independent women who flew off to some foreign country, usually Italy or France, and somehow managed to find a dashing young man, foreign of course, who makes them go wobbly at the knees. The thought of being reunited with my best friend Becky, who I see maybe twice a year, due to the fact that she lives about  400 miles away from me in the smog filled city of Los Angeles, made me feel a bit better.

            “I love plane food, especially when it’s kosher,” my dad said as the Israeli stewardesses passed dinner out. “I’m so excited to not have to worry if meat is kosher or not, because guess what?”

            “What?” I said, playing along with his joke.

            “Everything in Israel is kosher!” we say simultaneously.

To be honest, the last thing on my mind was kosher food. I had not been back to Israel in twelve years. I had always been too afraid to venture back to the place where I spent two full years of my existence when I was a little girl. NBC and CNN scared me away with their stories of Middle-East war and bloodshed. The place I had loved so much had been torn apart in front of my very eyes, and as much as I was proud to be an Israeli, I was to afraid to go back.

The memories started to form a tornado in my head, whirling around, crashing against my temples and banging against the back of my eyes.

“Mom I need water!” I said frantically.

“What…oh sorry, it’s by the bathroom I think…try and get some sleep lovey…” my mother said half asleep.

I looked at the screen in front of me. We were flying over Iceland. How could I possibly sleep?

We landed in France at about two o’clock in the morning American time. This was the final stop before we boarded our connecting flight to Tel Aviv.  As I stepped out from the stuffy plane I felt the culture shock pour over me like a bucket of ice cold water. The walls in the French airport (I didn’t even know what part of France we were in), were white and shiny and the food court was nicer then most restaurants in America.  Chic men and women sat at small round tables with their legs crossed, gingerly picking at their fabulous croissants and daintily sipping their espressos. I felt so utterly bland and American. But wait. A shiver sailed down my spine. I’m going to Israel.

As scared as I was to go back to Israel, it was a place that I knew and loved.  It was a place I fit in. I loved the loud, rude culture. When one ventures to Israel you will be guaranteed to be cut in line at least once.  Although Israelis may be rude or loud in the masses, when it comes to personal relationships, you are treated like family. I was excited to be surrounded by Hebrew, executed with that thick Israeli accent I found so comforting. I was ready to speak my second language without the subconscious fear that my friends would compare my accent to the sound of hawking a lugie. I could almost taste the shuwarma wrapped in laffa bread with cucumbers, tomatoes and french-fries stuffed inside. I was ready for it all.   

As I stepped out of the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, I let the warm Middle Eastern breeze spill over me. The familiar sent of salt and the thick humidity in the air solidified my arrival. We piled our combined suitcases into a taxi van and were on our way to the Sea Breeze Hotel. Out the window I saw primitive chain fences and undeveloped roads. Maybe it was all true, it’s been destroyed. As we entered the main city, I was relieved to see glassy high rises and lively flashing disco techs. People on the streets were dressed in normal modern clothing as I had remembered; there were no camels or watering holes in sight. How could I have been so stupid, to actually believe all those lies? The tangles and butterflies began to form in my stomach at the thought of being reunited with my best friend.

I had signed up for a six week program in Israel that was affiliated with the sleep away camp that I had gone to for years. There were eight different camps located around the U.S., so along with my friends, I would be traveling and experiencing Israel with complete strangers. The thought of meeting new people was invigorating. I was ready for fresh faces and new experiences, but the normal insecurities of a sixteen year old girl still resonated with me. My parents would be in Israel for a month, visiting friends and relatives, while I was touring Israel with my friends. I was nervous, sad and excited to part from them. It was one thing to be away from them back in the States, but it was quite another to be separated from my parents in another country. In actuality, I was not worried about me but I was worried about them. My parents, especially my mother, are two of the most adventurous, independent and fearless people I have ever met. My mother carried a switch blade around in the Eighty’s.  I felt that without me there would be no voice of reason and they would belay down the wall separating The West Bank and Jerusalem. 

I voiced my worry to my dad.

“Honey, you forget that I know Israel like the back of my hand.  I’ve lived here for over ten years. I’ve also been around for fifty years.  I think I know what I’m doin’.”

I knew he was right but I just felt so out of control. New people, new experiences- but the familiarity of the country that I had left so long ago comforted me.

The next day I went back to the airport to meet up with the group I would be traveling, sleeping, eating and breathing with for a month and a half. I walked into an array of overly caffeinated, jumping, dancing and singing counselors. It’s way too early for this. They were holding signs up that had the names of each subgroup on them along with idioms like, “Who needs sleep when you’re in the Holy Land!” As I stood with my family looking severely confused and lost, a cheery man with a sweet face walked towards me. He looked about twenty five; he smiled widely as he approached.

            “Hi there, I’m Ari. What’s your name?” He said sweetly.

            “I’m Simone Kertesz.”

            He looked down at the clipboard in his hand and his face brightened instantaneously. 

            “Oh cool, you’re in my group. I mean, I’ll be your group leader for the duration of the trip.” He said jokingly.

            I giggled, “Oh cool.”

            “The rest of the group is just coming through customs; they should be out any second. So why didn’t you come with the rest of the group?”

            “We planed a trip to Israel when we found out that Simoney was gonna go, and we wanted to keep her for as long as we could,” my dad blurted out.

            I smiled awkwardly as my face turned the color of a tomato.

            “Well you can just chill here ‘till your friends come, and then we’ll just load you guys up on…”

            Before he could finish his sentence, I heard a familiar flamboyant voice echoing down the stark hallway.

            “OH MY GOD, SIMMY!” My friend Jed yelped.

            Before even a sound could fall out of my mouth, Jed came sprinting towards me, disregarding his cart packed with pink luggage which toppled over obtrusively.  He managed to tackle me to the ground.

            “Oh God,” I muttered, winded.

            Hugs and helloes were exchanged with each familiar face. I was enthralled with excitement, but someone was missing. At that moment, I saw a cart filled with miss- matched suit cases.  This was a rare sight among the matching Burberry and Coach luggage, which of course was the preferred choice among the Jewish American Princess population. Following the cart was Becky, my best friend. She glided behind the stainless steel cart, contrasting it with her beauty. Her ice blue eyes sorted through the crowd and brightened as they finally fell upon me. Instantly, all her grace was cast aside as she ran towards me, resembling an old Jewish grandmother from South Beach who had been deprived of her Maneschevitz for far too long. I love her. We hugged each other the way people hug their favorite person on earth.

            “We’re living together!” we said simultaneously between giggles.

            As we cleared out of the main lobby of the airport, I said a tearful goodbye to my parents, and then we were off! The next week and a half felt like one big blur of friends, delicious food, beautiful sights and a feeling of being home. I settled back into my familiar memories of a peaceful Israel.  Little did I know how soon it would all change.

            We had spent a week and a half in the North of Israel, and on the last day of this portion of our trip, we visited a kibbutz located on the border of Lebanon before we made our way to Jerusalem. When we arrived at the kibbutz I immediately noticed its beauty. The kibbutz was made up of rolling hills of grass accented by wild flowers and rustic wooden buildings that overlooked the rolling hills of Lebanon. Strangely, the beauty was interrupted by a six foot tall metal fence with an outpost located atop, filled with Israeli soldiers and their rifles.  The fence was so harsh and abrupt that the once beautiful little kibbutz became an angry army base in my mind. After taking a look around, we were given a lecture by one of the kibbutz’s founding members. The man who gave the speech looked around sixty years old. His head was shaved and his white beard masked his face. His bright blue eyes stood out against his tan skin, which was covered in wrinkles. This man had clearly seen every war that touched this small country.

            “This land is small but it is our’s. It is my home, it is your home, it is the home of the Jewish people. Without it we would not survive. We need to protect it so no holocaust will ever happen again!” He roared in a thick Israeli accent.

            “This is why I live here. I live in a dangerous place here on the border of Lebanon. Lebanon shoots at us about once every two weeks and we shoot back.” What!? I could not get my mind off those words. This could not be true. This was the Israel that I saw on the news. All my worst fears started to become a reality.

            On the bus ride down to Jerusalem I vented to Becky about all my worst fears coming true. I was too worked up to notice our guard, who was hired because the State of Israel requires armed guards to chaperone large tour groups, sitting behind us. His name was Elad. He reminded me of Tarzan; long hair, big muscles, dreamy eyes.  He was quite distracting.

            “I’m having a fun time and all but I’m just worried about what could happen. I don’t know…”  I said.

            “Don’t worry so much,” I heard a soft voice say in a strong Israeli accent. What?

            “Excuse me?”

            “You heard me. Don’t worry about the situation. It has always been this way and it won’t stop until the terrorists start to love their children more then they hate the Jews,” Elad said in a casual tone.

            I was taken aback, not only by his good looks but by his poignant comment. We began to discuss the current situation of Israel and the surrounding Arab countries. Not long into the conversation did I begin to realize how right-wing he was. We disagreed on many issues and agreed on a few, but through his passion and commitment to his small country he made me feel safe, as though he would protect me no matter what happened.

            The first Friday in Jerusalem, we planed to visit the Western Wall at sunset which marks the beginning of the Sabbath. By going to the Wall at this time we would get the full experience, seeing the religious Jewish men in their black hats and long coats. Sweating in the heat seemed to be an authentic tourist attraction. The situation between Israel and Lebanon seemed to be increasingly worse, and some of the kids in the program began to question their stay in Israel. I was one of them. The counselors believed that somehow seeing the Wall and knowing all the history and power behind it would move us to stay. I didn’t buy it.

            Choosing the right outfit for this little outing was not so simple. It is a religious site, so a girl must have her shoulders covered, her knees covered and no cleavage, all the while keeping in mind that it is ninety degrees outside. I decided on a bright green summer dress with white flowers delicately embroidered on it. It covered my shoulders and knees and was light enough so that fainting from heatstroke would be avoided.

            While walking through the old city to get to the Wall, I noticed the light that fell on each ancient building. It looked like nothing I had ever seen before, almost holy. As we approached the gates of the Wall, Becky and I decided to close our eyes until we were touching it. We took turns leading the other, switching who took the lead and who followed every five feet until we were both standing inches away from the ancient structure. I opened my eyes and gazed at the cracked stones. They were the color of sand and had a smooth texture that felt glossy as I pressed my hand against them. The cracks between the stones were overflowing with little pieces of paper. Written on each piece of paper were different peoples’ hopes, dreams, wishes and prayers. The idea that this wall had remained standing throughout Israel’s tumultuous past gave me an overwhelming sense of hope for my little country. Throughout the destruction and chaos, it stood stoically, fearless and unsubsiding. The fear that had encapsulated me moments before began to slowly melt away. As I pressed my forehead against the cool stone, only one phrase came to mind; thank you. Thank you for giving me the courage to stay.