All Russians Love Birch Trees (22 page)

“See you soon.” I turned away from him, unable to bear it any longer.

“When I get back, you’ll be gone.”

“How would you know that?”

“You’re a woman who falls in love quickly.”

“If you only knew …” I laughed.

His left hand made a gesture that could have meant anything. He ran toward the counter, sweeping past the tour group. He juked the tour guide like a running back, clutching his blue Israeli passport to his chest before being tackled by two armed security guards. As they threw him to the ground and handcuffed him, I had the feeling I was in a sports arena. The tour group pulled out their cameras, but other security forces loudly commanded them to abstain from documenting the scene.

I laughed. I couldn’t believe something like this was happening again at the very same airport. My laughter was so contagious that even the tour group joined in. I approached the security guards. Confused, they let
go of Ori. One pointed his gun at me and I swallowed down my laughter. But then I started up again. I finally stopped for good when I saw Ori’s hurt and humiliated look.

Afterward, we sat in the manager’s office. Neither the office nor the manager had changed since the execution of my laptop.

On the table in front of us sat salty cookies and a thermos full of coffee. Ori kept on shaking his head and the manager kept on smiling at me in a professionally encouraging way. He wore a shiny gray suit and big sunglasses, pushed up on his bald shaved head.

“How are you liking Israel?” the manager asked, offering the plate of cookies. I took three and ate them quickly—it was the first thing I’d eaten since last night.

“You got a tan,” the manager remarked, clearly pleased. He had recognized me, too.

“You think?” I looked at my upper arms. Indeed they’d turned a few shades darker over the last months.

“Suits you.” The manager grinned.

“Thanks.”

“How long is this going to take?” Ori interjected.

“Could take a while,” I answered and the manager nodded in agreement.

“And what about your computer? Did you get compensated?” he said.

“Last month.”

“Glad to hear it.” The manager’s smile widened.

“I had to wait four months and then I only got eighty percent of the purchase price. Not exactly wonderful.”

“Do you have any idea how long my grandfather had to wait until he got his reparations from Germany?” The manager said with only a monotone laugh.

“Doesn’t work,” Ori said. “She’s Jewish.”

“Oh, then you’re not a shiksa?” the manager asked.

“Her grandparents are Holocaust survivors,” Ori said.

“
Ori!
” I yelled at him.

“What? If we have to play Jew-Monopoly, then let’s at least play fair.”

“Would you like another cookie?” the manager asked.

I took one. It was already soggy.

16

When I wasn’t at work and it wasn’t too hot I went on walks through Tel Aviv. That summer Jesus sat at the entrance to the market, right next to the intersection of three busy streets. The messiah was a burly guy with coarse features and long blond hair, clad in a toga made from red velvet. In the first days after his arrival he was sweating horribly and always had a bottle of water nearby. After a while a few hippies gathered around him. The tourists followed and Jesus started lecturing on the meaning of life. Now he needed a lot less water.

Tal was still gone. She didn’t call me and didn’t answer a single one of my thirty-three texts. Since Elisha’s death, her hand on my hip as we fell asleep, our
breathing in sync, had been the first thing that had felt right. Every evening I hoped that she would come back. Every morning I walked past her house to see if she had returned.

The Carmel Market provided a reprieve from the hot sun and the air smelled of fruit. Oranges, watermelons, and cactus fruit glowed. Vendors proclaimed their love for each potential customer. I flirted in Arabic and Hebrew and still paid more than old, glum Russian men who slowly slid the coins through their hands and went for a swim in the ocean at seven a.m. I also loved the juice stands on every corner, which were predominantly manned by guys with remarkably hairy arms. At these stands the oranges were cut in half and squished by the juice presses. A bit like a guillotine. The shiny orange peel fell into the trash.

Honestly, every day was equally shitty. I stared at my cellphone as if I could conjure up a call. I checked my e-mails every fifteen minutes and ran to the window every time I heard a motorcycle pass by. Which happened quite frequently, since I lived on a major road.

I made one more attempt to visit Aunt No. 13. At the checkpoint I got off the bus, but just couldn’t bring myself to enter the settlement. Not necessarily because of Tal, but because of three young Palestinians who were waiting in front of the fence for an Israeli employer who would take them to a construction site.
Illegal labor in an illegal settlement. I took a taxi back to Tel Aviv.

Hannah had also lost interest in me. She never called anymore and if I called she was always short with me. The reasons she gave were work, her boyfriend, and the dog she didn’t have. I didn’t know what had happened, or if anything had happened at all. I was looking for a reason for her loss of interest.

Months later I ran into Hannah on the street, her belly round like a globe. I hadn’t known about her pregnancy and was hurt. A week later she called and I got an invitation to the baby shower, which I politely declined.

I hit rock bottom one day while lying on the beach. In front of me sat two tourists, tightly entwined in an embrace. She was tall, blond, about fifty, and with freckles all over her back. He had only a little hair left, a heavy gold necklace, around seventy. Both were raptly watching a game of matkot, their heads turning from side to side, in sync, following the ball. When the ball was out, both shook their heads in disappointment.

The woman lying in front of me turned onto her back and I thought of Anne Frank. At age eleven I had read her diary and understood that I wasn’t the only woman who desired women and that these feelings
didn’t exclude the others. The homoerotic passages in her diary had reassured and aroused me, just like the woman who lay in front of me and, spreading her legs, so enticingly presented her pelvis. I’d been watching her for half an hour already. The sky was completely clear again, not a single cloud, and despite it being only morning, the sun already burned down.

My cellphone vibrated, Sami’s name on the display. It had been a long time since we’d talked and I was excited and excited and excited to see his call. Then I held my breath and hoped that he wouldn’t notice.

He asked whether we could meet in Vienna.

“Come on, seriously? Why don’t you come here instead?” I answered.

“With my kind of passport? Thanks, but no thanks. In case it slipped your mind, I was born in Beirut.”

“But I would love to see you,” I couldn’t help saying.

“I just sent you the booking confirmation.”

“What booking confirmation?”

“For the hotel and flight.”

The woman in front of me turned around and was now lying on her stomach.

“Cem and I have signed you up for an exam.”

“What kind of exam?”

“The United Nations Competitive Examination for Russian Language Interpreters, in Vienna.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope.”

“Sami, I’m not prepared at all.”

“Come on. Cem also thinks you need to get out of the Middle East.”

“Cem is from the Middle East himself. And you guys can’t just enroll me for an exam.”

“Not true.” Sami was laughing now. “We forged your signature.”

“When?”

“Two weeks ago, when Cem was visiting you.”

“Are you guys completely out of your minds?”

“Are you coming?”

“What I wanted to tell you …”

“Yes?”

There was a pause. I heard Sami’s breath and had all possibilities right at the tip of my tongue, and all I said was, “I’m not prepared.”

17

My boss was a small, pudgy man with a slight paunch and expensive suits made from light fabrics. He had asked me to come into his office for a serious talk.
Serious talk
were his words. I was afraid that meant he’d finally discovered just how superfluous my job was. When I entered he was standing behind his desk. With his right hand he pointed toward two armchairs in the corner. Above us hung a portrait of the chancellor.

I approached the armchairs and was about to sit down when he said, “That’s my side.”

He’s going to fire me, I thought. I sat down in the other chair.

“Masha, there hasn’t been that much to do lately.
That’s partly because of the relatively calm political situation and partly because of severe budget cuts. And you’ve not been with us for very long.”

I took a deep breath.

“I’m going to tell you something about hierarchies. You know that I’m your boss and therefore you should generally do as I say. I don’t particularly feel like you have fully internalized that. You know, I have a boss, too, and my boss has a boss.” He looked me in the eyes, checking whether his words reverberated in my soul. Then he pointed with the index finger of his right hand toward the portrait of Angela Merkel. “I’m not particularly fond of that boss. Do you think I want to be ruled over by a woman from East Germany? Do I care about East Germany? Don’t make me laugh. But. I do as I’m told and I pay my taxes. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Next week our boss from Berlin is coming. As you know, our standing in Berlin is not exactly stellar. It’s our Arab offices that get the most funding these days. The foundations that are active in Israel get less and less. That’s just the general trend.”

I nodded.

“I’ll have to have several meetings with him. Present our work and our current projects to him. But he won’t be alone. He’s coming with company.”

“His wife?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Ah.”

“The lady who is accompanying him is in the region for the first time and I want you to take care of her.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the same age. You are going to accompany her to Jerusalem.”

“I don’t speak any Hebrew.”

“I’ve heard you speak. Why are you making such a big deal about it?”

“What does she want to do there in the first place?”

“Stroll through the market. Buy a few spices. What do I know? I’ll have to talk with him and she needs a babysitter.”

“I’m an interpreter.”

“Precisely. Why not haggle in Arabic at the market?”

The next day I picked up my assignment. She was already waiting in front of the hotel, in a very short leather skirt and dark designer shades. Long hair with blond highlights. She’d recently gotten a manicure. I considered myself lucky that she didn’t have a handbag dog. As a hello, she kissed my cheeks.

“I’m Maya. Thanks so much for coming along.”

“My pleasure.” I tried to smile just as fatuously as she did. “What would you like to see today?”

“I’d love to see the old town and then I want to see one of those settlements on the outskirts. I’ve read so much about them. So much injustice.”

We strolled down Yaffo Street. Maya kept stopping to look at window displays or take a picture.

“Bringing a camera along is like having a toddler with you,” she said coyly. Men on the street were constantly whistling at her. Even a few Orthodox Jews turned their heads, not as covertly as you might think.

Progress was slow through the old town. The narrow alleys were crammed with tourists, backpacks strapped to their chests, and believers from all across the denominational spectrum. Everyone in a fantasy uniform. The air was humid and stale. The merchants sat in front of their shops, yelling at the crowds: “Please, come in.” “Do you want to see my shop?” “Natasha, Natasha,
idi syda
.” Maya smiled at each and every one of them.

We were surrounded by clothes, postcards, incense, glass pearls, cheap jewelry, henna colors, and pyramids of spices. Keffiyehs hung next to IDF shirts, sold by Arab and Jewish merchants in equal measure.

One even ran after us. He’d overheard us speaking German and asked us to write down the word
sale
in German for him. He wanted to lure us into his shop,
but it wasn’t necessary to lure Maya anywhere. I trudged behind the two.

In between keffiyehs and postcards, Maya told me and the merchants her life story. I abstained from translating. Born in Saarland. Her father was the mayor of her village (population: 200), her mother a home-maker. Home was crowded. Shortly after getting her trade school degree, she met an entrepreneur in a bar in Saarbrücken, much older than she. He took her along to Laos.

She tried on a dark blue scarf and the merchant held a mirror up to her. Lost in her own reflection, she continued: “I hardly remember my first husband. If I think about him at all, what comes to mind is the little black notebook with the blue lines that he always carried around with him. That’s what he used to keep track of his bowel movements. Meticulously.”

“Do you want to buy this scarf?” the merchant asked and I translated the question. She looked at me straight on, as if noticing my presence for the first time.

“I don’t have any money on me.” With her plastic nail, she tapped on the window. The shopkeeper understood the gesture and brought a different color. “In Laos I got used to the good things in life: spa treatments, massages, yoga, restaurants, delicacies, maids.”

We continued our way through the old town. A woman lugging a shopping bag jostled me. Again and
again we passed by heavily armed police patrols. I had to buy freshly squeezed orange juice for Maya. She drank it slowly as she rambled on. I had tried rattling off touristy folklore, to direct Maya’s attention to an archaeological excavation or the Via Dolorosa, but she took every interruption of her monologue as an insult. When they returned to Germany, he immediately filed for divorce, without explanation. She got an apartment in Stuttgart and money, which she invested in diamond earrings, dresses, and a pearl necklace that had once belonged to a countess. And she got a tattoo. The sun had reached its highest point and I started heading toward the Austrian hospice. I could already imagine the taste of fresh lemonade on my tongue.