The Masada Faktor (6 page)

CHAPTER TEN

I
got to the computer repair shop in Tel Aviv after trying to call many times en route. They wouldn’t answer the phone, so I didn’t know what was going on. The receptionist announced that there was no progress on receiving the laptop part from Germany. She tried to talk me out of taking it.

“Give me that damn computer,” I said to her making myself sound completely in charge.

She left me at the counter for quite a long time while I heard her speaking Arabic to someone in the back room. Finally she came out from the back with my laptop and gave it to me.

I didn’t say another word to the girl. I was seething. I put my laptop in my backpack and decided not to let it ruin my day, but it was not easy to just shake it off.

I walked a few blocks to Arlozorov and jumped on the first #5 bus, got off on Dizengoff, and walked straight for the Carmel S
huk
where I could find lunch and get lost in the crowds. There was a small grill that made chicken, onions and other veggies with a spicy yogurt sauce on pita. I ordered one with a Goldstar beer and sat down on a bar stool to enjoy my food. I drank the beer fast and felt better.

I started to get a feel for Tel Aviv. I could feel the city’s pulse. I knew, from my previous vacations, that there was nowhere better for me and my lifestyle. I felt young and alive here. Suddenly, not caring how impulsive or how expensive it would be, I decided that I would move to Tel Aviv at the first opportunity.

I was roaming the alleyways of the area between the Carmel
Shuk
and the Mediterranean Sea. I was in love with this city. The humidity was high but there was a slight breeze. I didn’t have a care in the world.

I walked away from the Sea, up Allenby and spent time exploring the area encompassing Neve Tzedek and Rothschild. I wanted to buy some fresh ground cinnamon and cumin so I veered east to the Florentin area to the old Levinsky Market district where the shops, vegetable stands, and spice shops are incredible. On impulse I also bought a sack of dried dates that looked plump and some pistachios.

There were so many people on bicycles and a lot of them rode on the sidewalks. You really have to pay attention to where you are walking in Florentin so as not to crash into people both walking and biking.

I thought that Mother would have loved it here in Tel Aviv. It was both reverent and irreverent, old fashioned but modern, safe, terrifying, happy, sad, sexy, frumpy. There were black Jews, white Jews, brown Jews, all this and more. Mother would have felt at home here. It would have been right up her alley, since she was a nonconformist.

Then, walking back down to the beach from Neve Tsedek, I saw a daughter my age with her mother and my eyes teared up. I wished Mother were here so I could ask her some questions. I didn’t know if I would ever find any solid information that I could present to the Israeli authorities.

The old guilt of not pleasing Mother, not being able to make her happy was eating away at me in that
moment. Did I believe her or didn’t I believe her? Did it matter? The important thing was always granting her wishes, making them come true.

So if this was her last wish, didn’t I owe it to her, and to myself, to continue to explore her story? I wondered if I would be free after this. I did so want to be free.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
felt comfortable here in Israel. I am Jewish and I was
home. Israel is an enigma in that this Promised Land is our reward for centuries of hatred, vandalism, murder, and mayhem against us. It is a gift but it is also a responsibility. This is not the Israel that I imagined all of the years of my life. It is better, it is brilliant. I was thanking God for my existence on this day in Israel.

Between Jerusalem Beach and the Dolphinarium was the rocky Chinki Beach, and I walked a little further to put my towel down to lay in the sun on the smoother Banana Beach. I was in amazing Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean Sea, lying on the beach listening to the crashing waves and the pop pop pop of the guys and girls playing
matkot
, Israeli beach paddleball. I was thoroughly enjoying the eye candy.

I looked back over to The Dolphinarium, an unusual, huge concrete structure, abandoned and ruined, and covered in fantastically artistic graffiti. No one had been able to do anything with it since June of 2001 when it was a nightclub and a suicide bomber blew himself up inside. He killed one IDF soldier and twenty civilians, mostly teenagers that had emigrated from Russia.

The bomber had dressed as an orthodox Jew but he was actually a Palestinian with Hamas. Everywhere within the beauty of Israel are reminders of these bombings and why the wall had to be built to separate us from the West Bank.

At that moment the glass collector wended his way along the beach among the sunbathers until he’d spot someone close to the end of their beer or soda. “Drink up,” he urgently told them in Hebrew and they obeyed, handing over their empty bottles to him. Even the glass collector is a respected contributor to this intriguing society. After all, his function is important as he keeps the beach clean and performs the important job of recycling.

I loved that everyone’s hair was a mess and that it didn’t matter. I felt feral and free as I moved down to the edge of the beach, feet in the surf. I had almost forgotten about the Arab man at the Melkite Cemetery. I was to be waiting for a sign of the mysterious person that was to contact me. I wondered what that was all about.

The waves were crashing with a lot of white foam. A slight cool breeze was wafting about. An attractive waitress sporting a cocktail tray of ripe juicy watermelon slices with chunks of white cheeses whizzed by me. I was not far from the surf.

I was eating my dessert of dates and pistachios when a creeper wave came dangerously close to my towel. Along with the other sunbathers, I grabbed my stuff and scrambled for higher ground.

In the confusion someone bumped into me and put a note into my hand. Whoever it was, was gone in an instant. I didn’t see if it was a man or woman. The note, in English, told me to wait ten minutes and then get up and walk to the end of the walkway adjacent to the marina at the end of Gordon Beach.

It went on to explain that my contact would meet me where the green and white striped lighthouse stood. I tried to calm myself with deep breathing and then I went to my destination with fear but also excitement. Finally, something was happening.

From the walkway to the lighthouse you could see all the way south to Jaffa. I was looking around to see if I was being followed. There were some people fishing and a few couples kissing on the rocks. But as I looked ahead to the lighthouse, I didn’t see anyone down there except a young boy running away.

At the back of the lighthouse was a paper shopping bag. I looked around but didn’t see anyone. The bag had my name printed on it in English, and it looked like the same handwriting as the note. I recognized the European style of writing, being distinctly different than American.

I grabbed the bag after checking the inside for anything that might explode and saw just paper. Then I hurried back up the hill to Dizengoff Street where I could get the #5 bus to Alozorov Railway Station and go back to Haifa. Once on the train and sure that I had not been followed, I steeled myself to inspect the contents of the shopping bag.

Before looking at the material, it struck me how long it had taken me to get to Israel. Too long. Had I come thirty years ago, like many others did, I would be fluent in Hebrew, I might have had children and grandchildren. No, there was no doubt about that.

Instead, I had arrived at this late time of my life alone, chasing a mystery. I had no memories of childbirth or waking up in the mornings wrapped in the arms of a loving husband, perhaps with children jumping on the bed. Still, I was hopeful.

I didn’t understand who knew where I was, and how to contact me. That creeped me out. But the truth? I had a devil may care attitude about my life. I felt reckless and wild. I had blogged about journeying to Israel and tweeted daily as to where I was headed, so really, anyone in the world could easily know where I was. I wanted to make up for lost time. I was ready to experience life.

The only thing in the shopping bag was a lot of blank wadded up newspaper. On closer inspection, I saw a small plastic bag. Inside was a folded piece of paper that read, “You must reply to the email from Millie Stone.”

The name Millie Stone was vaguely familiar. There had been an email from a Millie some months back before I had left for Israel. I would dig it out of my inbox later and refresh my memory. It was late and I had gotten the last train back to Haifa.

I knew that if I didn’t get off at the Bat Galim Station, I wouldn’t get a bus back close to Gid’on Street. I’d have to walk up the steep hills in the dark. I got off at Bat Galim. It was late and deserted at the bus stop.

I waited a long time for a bus outside the train station. There was an old abandoned bus station next door. It looked like the perfect place to hide a dead body. I needed to put a cap on my wild fantasies. Eventually, after almost an hour, the bus arrived and I got back to my stone cottage, half running from the bus stop on Herziliya Street.

Returning to Haifa late at night scared me and I was convinced more than ever that I wanted to move to Tel Aviv. I loved the 24/7 action. There was nothing that I didn’t like about Tel Aviv. I wanted to be a Tel Avivian.

I would finish up in Haifa. There were a few more things I needed to see. And then I would get the hell out of there.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
had previously, only peripherally seen Millie Stone’s email to me. I was busy, at the time, holding onto my dead end job, coming home nightly to my lonely condo after Mother had died, and in general having one big pity party. Really, I didn’t remember reading it at all.

I found Millie’s email way down in my inbox. She wrote that she was the granddaughter of an acquaintance of Mother’s from post-World War II Germany. She said that her grandfather’s name was Oskar. He had died sometime in 2011, and she, being his only grandchild, had cleaned out his apartment in Munich where he had stayed since the end of the war.

She had found me through Google, and then my blog site which contained my email address. She told me she had something for me and was strictly instructed not to open it. I felt as if she was trying to entice me with this information of her findings.

She was specific in pointing out that the only reason for not throwing these findings in the trash was the stipulation in her grandfather Oskar’s will that she contact Mother, or if Mother had died, then her next of kin, with this information. Millie also wrote that she wanted nothing to do with her family’s past.

Millie said she was in the process of making
Aliyah
to Israel from Germany, mostly because of the music scene in Tel Aviv. I was somewhat surprised that there were any German Jews left over there and for her reasons for wanting to exercise her Right of Return to Israel.

She wanted nothing to do with her family’s past, when Israel is all about the past. Oh well, I thought, Lots of people made
Aliyah
for different reasons. Who am I to question hers? Still, it was all very strange.

I was uneasy when I finally replied to Millie’s email. Something did not feel right, and I was taking this information in with skepticism. I gave my phone number and suggested that we get together, thinking, She must be involved with the Arab from Haifa.

I also mentioned that I was busy trying to find an affordable apartment in Tel Aviv and wouldn’t have much time. Moving to Tel Aviv was my first priority and finding an apartment there would be difficult.

It was a Friday night at the beach in Tel Aviv and I could hear the beating of the drums. It was right before sundown and the lifeguard made a loud announcement over the crackling loudspeakers in Hebrew, then repeated it in accented English, “Ladies and gentlemen, in fifteen minutes there will be no more lifeguards on the beach. Please watch your children as the surf is very dangerous.
Shabbat Shalom
.”

I had walked up the promenade to Tel Aviv from Jaffa, and noticed Muslim men and their children in bathing suits frolicking in the surf. Their wives must have been sweating under their long black dresses. Even though they were smiling, I thought of their second class status as women.

Lost in thought about the plight of Muslim women on the beach, I abruptly found myself face to face with a tall young woman who spoke to me in a bizarre high pitched voice with a German accent, “Natasha Bernard? I am Millie Stone.”

We went to Landwers Coffee at the Tel Aviv Marina behind the Gordon Pool. We sat down at an outside table. I was hungry and wanted to have their warm quinoa and lentil salad and a Goldstar beer.

Millie ordered a coffee and we made some small talk about our email correspondence and she let me know she was a flight attendant. I found that hard to believe as she seemed so ill at ease in her own skin. She kept looking around, her eyes darting from table to table.

She explained that her German grandfather was not Jewish but had married a Jewish woman after World War II. Millie’s mother was born to them. “My mother is Jewish and therefore I am Jewish. Even according to the religious Jews I can make
Aliyah.

I tore open the package that she gave me but there was nothing inside but postcards and souvenirs from Munich 1945. “Millie, what am I supposed to do with this stuff?”

“Well, I certainly do not know and do not care. All I know is that it was my specific duty to get this to you so that I can receive my inheritance. And now I can afford to get the flat that I want in Dizengoff Square. And also, I meant to ask, are you at all interested in renting out my spare bedroom?”

I couldn’t believe my good luck. “Yes Millie, I would love to see it. And if I like it I will move in immediately!” She gave me the address and told me to meet her there the next day at 2:00 P.M.

The memorabilia from Millie’s grandfather Oskar didn’t seem to have anything to do with The Masada Faktor. After Millie left Landwers Coffee I stayed for a while to look over all of it. I didn’t want to think she was using it to lure me, it seemed reasonable that it was a condition of her inheritance.

I could have been rationalizing that there was no connection between Millie and the conspiracy. But I needed this chance, to live in Tel Aviv. If I was going to successfully live in Israel, I had to take risks. That’s all there was to it.

I decided to stay the night in Tel Aviv as it would be tough getting back and forth to Haifa on a
sherut
on
Shabbat.
There were plenty of mini buses available but they waited until they filled up before taking off, and it could be a long delay.

I went over to The Brown Boutique Hotel on Kalisher to book a room. I registered and went up to my room on the third floor, after drinking the requisite complimentary chilled glass of white Cava, a Spanish sparkling wine.

In the small, dark, mirrored, elevator on the way up there were three beautiful Israeli men close enough to almost touch. I wished that somehow this elevator would break down between floors. I was going to enjoy my new city. It dawned on me that my sex drive was returning after an extended hiatus. And I thought, Hallelujah!

I went to sleep early and woke up to a stunning sunrise. After a shower, I headed for The Coffee House on Binyamin Naholot, for my free, included breakfast, a perk for staying at the Brown. I gorged on their heavenly salmon Eggs Benedict on whole wheat pastry, sautéed spinach in a cream sauce, Israeli cucumber and tomato salad, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a large café latte.

I went back to The Brown to check out, had a coffee at the bar. Then I headed for Trumpeldor Beach to wait until my appointment to see Millie Stone’s flat.

I knew the location of the flat was ideal and hoped that I could get along with this
Yekke.
She was German, stiff and without a sense of humor but she was Jewish so I figured it would be all right. There was something about her high pitched German accent that made my skin crawl.

I told myself that this was a business arrangement, and that roommates didn’t have to be friends. I had not had any roommates before, just Mother.

I got to the building on Ben-Ami early and waited by the fountain in Dizengoff Square. Millie arrived exactly on time. Before we entered the building, she vehemently told me that my room rental had to be hush-hush, only between the two of us. It was important to her that the landlord not learn that I’d occupy the second bedroom in the flat.

“Oh, Millie, I need a key to the mailbox.” I stated.

“You must not have a key to the mailbox. You will have your mail sent in care of Millie Stone.” She explained. “And I will give it to you.”

“Can I put my name on the mailbox?” I inquired.

“No! Under no circumstances can you have your name on the box. It is my flat, not yours. You are renting
a room. Since there are two balconies, you may have one for your use. And we will share the kitchen and the downstairs shower,” Millie was rattling on about stipulations.

“Okay Millie, I am flexible.” There was something off about the situation but I thought about the positives of having a flight attendant for a roommate.

“Who is the Arab in Haifa? How did he know to contact me for you?” I had to know.

“His name is Tajir and I knew he lived in Haifa. He is only an acquaintance that is half German. I read in your blog that you were in Haifa, and I asked him to look for you.”

”Why all the cloak and dagger?” I needed to know.

“What is cloak and dagger?” She laughed, but it didn’t seem sincere.

“It means mystery,” I answered, the whole time looking into her eyes to see if she was lying to me.

“Oh that silly Tajir. He is so theatrical.” Millie waved it off.

That didn’t explain the note at the beach and the shopping bag at the lighthouse, but I would think about that later. We struck a deal and I was going to be a Tel Aviv resident. I was ecstatic at the thought of moving from Haifa.