As the airplane landed in Lod, I vowed to myself that I would never patronize a Gentile travel agent, if I ever got the opportunity to travel to Israel again. I thought that landing in Israel on Friday would give me a wild weekend in Tel Aviv before my expense account kicked in. I had a series of tours set up by my magazine for the article I was supposed to write. My Israeli companion, after learning that this was my first trip to his country, started to disabuse me of my notions about the wild weekend.
"My friend, the ultra-religious have determined that, on Shabat in my country, everything but everything which might give a man pleasure shuts down. There are no movies, nightclubs or restaurants open, except for hotels and a few street vendors. Even if they were open, the buses don't run and you can't get from here to there. Even those of us who haven't been to a shul since our bar mitzvah are reduced to shtumpfing the wife for recreation instead of taking the mistress to a club."
I asked "Did I hear you just say that there are no buses running? How am I going to get to my hotel? I don't have much money for this weekend. My expense account doesn't start until Monday."
My friend was getting wound up now. "Relax. There are still taxis and as long as you don't pay in shekels, your ride to your hotel will be almost painless to your budget. By the way, don't even think of converting your hard currency to shekels. Israel is right now going through a period of hyperinflation and the prices in shekels jump every hour. If you want your money to disappear and not have any fun at the same time, just convert it at the airport to shekels."
"Well, how do I buy anything without local money?"
My friend warmed up to the subject. "Israelis despise their own shekel so much that they will do almost anything to get hold of a dollar or mark. The taxi driver will take you directly to the hotel and will even act polite if you negotiate a fixed price in dollars for the trip. The hooker will perform the most amazing acrobatics on your hard putz and then do the most amazing mental calculations on your hard currency. The foreigner is king in the Israel of today and we poor Israelis are just schmucks."
The pilot came on and announced, in English and Hebrew, that we would shortly be landing at Lod airport. I strapped on my seat belt and contemplated the bleak weekend my friend had outlined. As the airplane landed, suddenly everyone clapped and a few bars of "Havenu Shalom Aleichem" came over the sound system. "Happens every time", my companion said. As we entered the immigration hall, my friend said goodbye. "I probably will be long gone by the time you get through passport control. My line for Israeli citizens will be much shorter than yours. Most Israelis lack the hard currency to travel these days."
I handed my passport to an unsmiling clerk. Why did passport clerks look so sour the world over? Do they have a school for customs and immigration clerks in an obscure third-world country? Do they all have annoying rectal itch? As I was pondering this question, having received Immigration's stamp of approval, I found my luggage on the conveyor. Maybe the weekend would be dull but at least my luggage had arrived without damage. I found a taxi outside and, as my friend had predicted, the price in dollars was quite reasonable.
I came down the stairs, wondering how I was going to eat on Friday evening if everything was closed, as my friend had predicted. Fortunately, the hotel restaurant seemed to be open and I tried to see what I could afford on the menu. As I was looking over the hotel offerings, I couldn't help but notice a young woman in an army uniform having an angry conversation on the telephone. I don't know much Hebrew, having spent my life in Sunday school rather than shul, so I didn't quite know what was her problem. I kept hearing her say over and over again "Ben Zonah", which I assumed was the person at the other end of the conversation.
As I was deciding what I might eat, the soldier slammed down the telephone, turned to me and said "Ma sha'ah?" I was face to face with the world's most beautiful soldier. She was short like most Israeli women, about 5' 3", deep brown eyes, dark-skinned with black hair in a roll. She was so beautiful that my first thought was that I might even like being attacked by a platoon of soldiers like her.
I interrupted this momentary fantasy and turned to my soldier's question: "Sorry but I don't speak Hebrew. Do you speak English?"
In English that sounded vaguely like a cultured London accent with only shades of Hebrew in the background, she said: "Oh, a tourist. I'm sorry to put you on the spot. Welcome to Israel. I was asking what the time was in Hebrew. I guess you aren't Jewish if you didn't understand 'Ma sha'ah'?"
"Yes, it's my first time in your country and you're right about my religion but wrong about being a tourist. I'm here on business. As for the time, it's nearly 7:30. And as for you, I guess you're in the army and you just had a fight with someone called Ben Zonah."
My soldier just about doubled over with laughter. "You're going to get into a lot of trouble here unless you learn a few words of Hebrew. Ben Zonah describes the person I was talking to but his name was Mossi. Ben Zonah isn't a person's name. It means 'son-of-a-whore'. Israelis use ben Zonah the same way an English speaker would use 'bastard' or "son-of-a-bitch'. But you're right about having a fight on the telephone. My boyfriend was supposed to meet me here in Tel Aviv but he cancelled. He works for the Finance Ministry and he says that they can't solve the currency crisis without him."
"Yes, I learned about that on the airplane before I landed but I obviously have a lot more to learn about Israel. In fact, that's why I'm in Israel, to learn about the country. Can I ask where you learned to speak such beautiful English?"
"Like most Israelis, I studied it as a second language but I was really interested in the language and took a lot of extra courses at school. Then, I listened to the BBC a lot. You can pick it up here on a pocket radio. My English helped me land an easy job with the Army. I am doing my army service after graduating from high school last year. I actually work in an office. The only time I saw a gun was when I did my two weeks of basic training."
I looked at her hands and saw that they were manicured and polished. Her face was tastefully made up, bringing out the best of her Semitic features. There definitely was nothing that I could detect, other than the uniform, that suggested a life in the trenches..
"What do you do in the army that's such a easy job?"
"I'd love to tell you but, with the current military situation, we are not allowed to mention to foreigners where we're stationed. If the army ever found out I had told a foreigner my unit and where I was stationed, I would be severely disciplined."
