Tamar had left my life but I couldn't get her out of my head. She was so different from any woman I had ever met before, so intelligent and capable. Tamar may have been still a teenager but she was far more mature than many older women I had known. What was it that gave this maturity to Tamar? Was it the Army or was it growing up and surviving in a harsh climate and dangerous political situation? The more I thought about Tamar, the more I realized just how special she was and how lucky I had been to meet her.
As I travelled up and down the country on my tour, I tried to forget Tamar and to concentrate on my job. The tour operator shuttled me from holy site to holy site, each one guarded either by dry old nuns or rabbis of indeterminate age. The nuns and the rabbis had one thing in common despite the religious differences. They both seemed to shuffle in an old geezer manner when guiding the tourist around the holy site of their chosen religion. The contrast between the shuffling of these old farts and the youth of Tamar kept reminding me that Israel was a land of contrasts. I decided that I would use the theme of contrasts in my article, the peace and tranquillity of the holy sites versus the violence that often erupted. I wondered if I should use the celibacy of the nuns versus Tamar's obvious enjoyment of sex? Should I contrast Tamar's orthodox upbringing to her skills in bed? It occurred to me that, whatever I wrote for my newspaper, I would have to leave out Tamar, the most interesting part of Israel. After all, I worked for a newspaper that the whole family read.
As I travelled up and down the country, I tried to picture Tamar in my mind. I thought of her black hair, brown eyes, olive skin, her full breasts camouflaged by her army uniform. I even imagined the black, curly hair of her bush between her full solid thighs. Was I falling in love with a manicured soldier? As my tour bus travelled through Israel, I tried to see if I could find her among the soldiers standing at bus stops or trying to hitch rides by the side of the road. They stood in baggy combat fatigues in the dust and the sun with M-16s slung over their shoulders. It was futile to try and find Tamar in those sad groups of kids. Tamar had boasted about her cushy job. No, I would never find Tamar by the side of the road.
I threw myself into my writing at nights to try and forget Tamar and not to become attached to her and to bury my feelings. I arranged my notes and began some of the articles I would publish when I returned home. It didn't work. Every time I tried to write about some place I visited, my thought was how much more fun it would have been to have Tamar tell me what an Israeli thought about the site. I thought about how unfortunate it was that we met my first day in Israel. I was so tired that I just laid back and let Tamar play with me. If only I could see her again and give her the fucking she deserved.
I did have one thrill during my tour of Israel. I went shopping one evening on Allenby Street with an Israeli I had met on one of the Egged tours I had taken. We wandered into a department store and were immediately accosted by a woman soldier. Unlike Tamar, this woman looked as if she had walked all the way from Sharm-al-Sheik to Tel Aviv. She was dusty, dirty with a greasy ponytail tied at the end of her peaked cap. An Uzi was slung over her shoulder as she approached me. In broken English, she rudely told me to spread. Assuming that the Uzi was loaded, I complied and spread with my hands up.
I gazed at the ceiling as her hands went up and down my arms, my legs, over my ass and then started to fondle my jock. Normally, a woman giving all this attention to my crotch would produce an immediate woody. Instead, I found the situation embarrassing. Besides, that, she wasn't all that gentle with her search. I was afraid that I would take bruised balls home to Canada. Still, when a woman has a gun, I let her have her way with me. Afterwards, I asked my friend:
"What was that all about?"
"Oh, she was searching for terrorist weapons."
"Look, my dick is hardly any threat to the security of Israel. I mean, why was that woman feeling up my crotch for so long? She didn't do it to you. Why is a tourist more likely than an Israeli to carry a bomb in his shorts?"
"It's nothing against tourists. She knew right away that you were harmless. She was measuring your dick and checking it out for foreskin. Remember, she's never seen one that hasn't been cut by the mohel. It's all natural curiosity for a woman in her late teens. So please don't be offended."
My second encounter with an Israeli woman soldier made me remember my first, with Tamar. Everything in Israel made me think of Tamar, it seemed. Tamar was cultured, almost elegant, a real queen compared to the rude soldier with an attitude who had just felt me up.
As I was packing my bags and my notes on the holy and archaeological sites, I counted my almost depleted budget of hard currency. What was it about this country that ate money? At that point, the telephone in my hotel room rang. My magazine was owned by an equally cheap newspaper chain that assumed "foreign news" occurred somewhere out in the suburbs of Toronto. Somehow Israel's currency crisis had piqued the curiosity of an editor in the Toronto head office. The editorial Board decided that they needed a man on the spot. Me, in other words. Hard cash could be found at Bank Leumi with the magic number I had just been given.
I had never covered real news before this assignment. Yes, I had been through the journalism classes at Ryerson Polytechnic but I had long ago decided that the slower pace of a features writer suited my skills better. As I unpacked, I tried to remember how to organize a news story, in the sequence of the most important points, not necessarily the sequence in time. I didn't have much time as the Finance Ministry announcement was the next day and my mind kept returning to that evening with Tamar. Try as I could to picture what my teachers had said at Ryerson, all I could picture was Tamar's olive-coloured face. My teachers and Tamar had both taught me a lot but I couldn't imagine any of my teachers providing the fucking that Tamar had my first day in Israel.
The BIG ANNOUNCEMENT turned into a Middle Eastern exercise in theatrics. The Finance minister stood at multiple microphones and, speaking in the most profound Hebrew since the Prophets walked the earth, announced that there would be a New Shekel for man, woman and profits. I was aided in following the financial prophet by an English text, thoughtfully provided by the Finance Ministry and the English-speaking guides from the Taxation Museum. I could follow the Hebrew speech by picking a Hebrew word borrowed from English or another word that ben Yehuda had robbed from French or another foreign language. When I got bored from trying to follow the finance minister's speech, I started to look around at the suck-ups fetching him water and passing cheat notes when the Israeli press' questions became more pointed. Which one of those brownosers was Mossi? Was Mossi the twerp with the bad tie or was Mossi the dork with the baggy pants? Was Mossi one of the spooks at the back of the auditorium. No, not those guys. They were from Shin Bet and Mossi was a bureaucrat. The were dressed in trench coats despite the summer heat, all the better to hide the Uzis, I suppose. What did we need them for? Would someone steal all the New Shekels before they were issued?
As I was musing on who had gotten into Tamar's pants before me and writing my notes, the journalist next to me introduced himself.
"Percival Purves at your service. Working for one of the tit'n bum papers at the moment but I do expect to get a better position soon with one of the provincial papers."
