ALL EYES FOCUSED on her long
blond braid and American blue jeans. Not for the first time, Lisa Donahue
wished she had better protective coloring for traveling in the Middle East. Any
moment now, someone would holler the remembered tag, “Hey, blondini!”
She inhaled the mixed aromas of
deep-fried chickpea balls, roasted spiced lamb, and corn sold by aggressive
street vendors. Fragments of Hebrew, Arabic, French, and English assaulted her
ears as native Israelis and visitors from many nations milled around the Tel
Aviv plaza.
It was wonderful to be back. She’d
been afraid the reality wouldn’t live up to her rose-colored memories of seven
years earlier, when she’d been a wide-eyed archaeology student. She needn’t
have worried—Israel was still noisy, vibrant, smelly, and altogether
enchanting.
A live chicken, destined for dinner,
squatted and clucked in a string shopping bag near Lisa’s feet. Above the bag
stood a plump housewife, obviously daydreaming about chicken stew with
dumplings. A few feet away, several Orthodox Jewish men wearing black hats and
long curls muttered and gesticulated. Two female soldiers wearing dark green
uniforms gossiped and smoked French cigarettes, and a Bedouin in flowing robes
talked loudly on his cell phone.
When the Egged bus showed up, the
crowd surged towards the door. As Lisa struggled to stay in front, she
remembered that Israelis didn’t like the idea of “lining up.” The best way of
getting on a bus—or through any kind of door—was to pretend you were an
Israelite crossing the Red Sea, vigorously parting the crowd with your elbows.
Lisa bagged the
remaining front seat, opposite a thirty-something businessman with sleepy brown
eyes and a five-o’clock shadow. She dozed as they left Tel Aviv, opening her
eyes occasionally to see palm trees swaying against a metallic blue sky and
tall tan buildings.
As
they traveled out of the city, cement high-rises and modest houses gave way to
scruffy bushes and reddish-brown soil—soil that blanketed thousands of years of
history. No one could sink a spade anywhere in Israel without turning up potsherds
or scrolls or ancient fortifications. When Lisa was an undergraduate here, a
friend suggested the easiest way to become an archaeologist was to convert to
Judaism, marry an Israeli, and dig up her new backyard.
The
Hebrew chatter from the driver’s radio kept Lisa from really sleeping. As she
felt the bus begin to climb, she forced her eyes open so she wouldn’t miss her
favorite scenery—the passage through the Judean Hills.
The
businessman watched her. Normally, Lisa liked talking to people when she was
traveling. It was part of the adventure and she could try out her Hebrew or
French or Italian.
But
this man’s gaze reminded her of the Chevrolet salesman with slicked-back hair
who put a hand on her knee when she was sixteen and on her way to visit colleges
by Greyhound bus. She moved the hand. He put it back. She moved it again,
sliding as far away from him as she could. Now, ten years later, she wished
she’d stood up and yelled, “get your hand off my knee, you pervert!”
Lisa caught herself before she smiled.
Glancing sideways, she noticed the businessman’s thick eyebrows and
coffee-colored skin and wondered uneasily how long he’d been observing her
reclining form. His gaze, no longer sleepy, made her feel undressed. She sat up
straighter.
“You
are from America, yes?” he asked with an oily little smile.
“Yes,”
Lisa replied curtly, sick of being hit upon because she was young, blonde, and
foreign. She began a mental catalogue of tips for young women traveling in the
Middle East: Do dye your hair brown
or black; Don’t wear jeans; Don’t fall asleep on public
transportation…
“On
holiday, perhaps. You visit our museums?”
She
met his brown eyes briefly. “Business trip. I work for a museum at home.”
“How
very interesting. Then surely you visit the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the
Book—the home of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls?”
Lisa
was startled. Could this guy read her mind? “Yes, actually. I’m an
archaeologist, here to look at some ancient ceramics.”
“Perhaps
you arrange loans for your museum?”
Now she was puzzled. Was he an Israeli
Customs officer trying to prevent the export of illegally acquired antiquities?
But he was wearing a well-tailored gray suit and polished black shoes, not a
uniform.
“Are
you in the museum business, too?” she asked.
The
man laughed gently. “No, no, I am archaeology enthusiast only. I sell computer
parts—for the Beirut branch of Microsoft.”
“Oh.”
A
computer salesman. Lisa pretended to go back to sleep, shifting her long body
slightly so he could no longer stare at her face. A spring from the ancient bus
seat dug into her hip. Lisa longed for the padded futon of her own living room,
enhanced by the furry bulk of her cat Tango. She searched the landscape for
distraction.
The
tan and brown hills meandered west of Jerusalem. They were crisscrossed with
low terraced walls and the gray-green clumps of olive trees. Lisa leaned closer
to the window frame, sniffing the pungent aromas of wild oregano and thyme. The
holy city gleamed pale yellow in the morning light as the Egged bus swooped
around the curves, following the perimeter road. The sight was even better in
the late afternoon, when the setting sun turned Jerusalem’s stone architecture
into “the City of Gold.”
New
suburbs sprawled haphazardly across the fields. She could see a lot of growth
in only seven years. How many of the new buildings strayed into Palestinian
land, she wondered? This tiny strip of land, barely the size of New Jersey, had
been bitterly fought over since time began. Lisa could almost hear the tramp of
soldiers—Assyrians from the north and Egyptians from the south—vying for
control of the ancient highways and key trade routes between the mountains and
the sea. The city of Jerusalem had eighteen conquerors in five thousand
years—after King David united the land of Israel and established Jerusalem as
its capital in the tenth century B.C., the place was overrun with Babylonians,
Greeks, Nabateans, Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Mamluks, and Ottomans.
Modern
British and the French rulers had carved the Middle East into political mayhem,
while thousands of Jewish settlers claimed a homeland. They were still
fighting, the immigrant Israelis against the Palestinian landowners, giving
ground one week and seizing it back the next. Now, the Israeli Prime Minister
had the unenviable job of dealing with the latest riots in the West Bank.
Lisa glanced at her traveling companion, and
discovered him watching her again. As their gazes met, his slid away.
She
wished him gone. That he’d get off in another part of Jerusalem, park his sleek
self in an outdoor café, and chat up a Lebanese or Palestinian girl who liked
older men. That he would not find out where she was staying.
“SHALOM! HEY, MISS, please…we arrive at Yerushalayim. We are
at your hotel, the Beit Gesher.”
The
swarthy face of the driver loomed over her.
Lisa
sat up with a jerk. She had fallen asleep in spite of her uneasiness, and the
Lebanese salesman was gone.
“Todah
rabah, “ Lisa murmured, dredging up the Hebrew for “thank you” from some
drawer in her cluttered memory. She groped for her carry-on, while the driver
fished her rolling suitcase out from under the bus.
A
short walk along the narrow street brought her to a pristine hotel lobby, cozy
with potted plants and overstuffed chairs. The room had the look of vintage
1960s. Lisa flipped her long braid over her shoulder and marched up to the
front desk with as much dignity as she could muster in her bedraggled state.
“Mees
Donahue, yes? Room five.” The pretty young clerk with dark reddish-brown hair
fastened in a clip took her passport and handed her the old-fashioned key.
“Oh,
I need to ask you about a room switch. I need the single room for four nights,
and then I want to change to a double.”
“You
have your friend Mees Perkins coming to join you?”
“Yes,
that’s right. She’s my colleague from our museum in Philadelphia. Ellen arrives
on the twenty-eighth. We’ll want a non-smoking room with two double or
queen-sized beds and a private bath.”
“We arrange it. It is not too busy
just now.” The young woman’s clear tanned skin flushed. “Oh, I almost forget,
this message is for you.” She handed Lisa a sealed envelope.
No one knew she had arrived. Puzzled,
Lisa opened it as she waited for the elevator.
You
are in danger. Don’t tell anyone why you are here. I’ll explain when I see you.
It
was signed with a scrawled C.