Dov regarded his three families as they milled around the baggage carousel at Ben Gurion airport. His greater family, the Jews of the world, come to the Promised Land at last or again, somewhat shocked by its brash grabbing at all life had left. His national family, the Israelis, apparently caring for nothing more than being re-united at last with their mobile phone services - lonely wanderers no more, with their roaming networks forever at hand.
And his actual family, sad little tribe that it was. A third of which was now moving around the carousel sniggering, as he read from his Lonely Planet Hebrew phrasebook, ‘I am a homosexual’ and ‘I want drugs, please!’ at various amazed Golders Green matrons.
Dov went across to Josh. ‘You want to give it a rest, man, yallah?’
‘L’hitraot’, Josh said to a pair of rabbinical students to whom he had just suggested a barnyard animal orgy. He scowled at Dov. ‘What’s your problem, man? I’m making a total effort to communicate with your people.’ His gaze followed his stepfather’s to where his mother stood squealing and embracing various women in uniform. ‘O, I get it. You can’t keep your bitch to heel in the Pinky Promise Land.’ His little finger waggled in Dov’s face; Josh leaned in close. ‘Go on – Dad - hit me, you knob. Do it right here in front of all these Jewish mothers. They’ll be wearing your ball-sacks for earrings by Shabat.’
‘Stow it, you little prick!’ Dov stomped off towards Jackie.
‘Look who’s here!’ Jackie yelled in his direction. ‘Ruti, Gila and Dina!’
‘Get off of my baldness,’ Dov muttered; he knew he’d been in London too long when he started to translate Hebrew disses into English. But who could blame him for his bad humour and even worse grammar? Not only was the Solomons kid being even more unbearable than ever, but additionally it was a predictable shambles the way his wife invariably picked up on immediate female superiors from his army years whenever they were within 2 km of the base. He flashed back to what Ariel Putz had said to him the night he came in her face: ‘Dov, you are a bad man. I only pray that Jacqueline comprehends the fullness of her folly before this risible project results in issue.’
Gila was glaring at him; she was a Putz by marriage. Dov found himself looking around for Josh. They sidled up to each other.
‘Sorry - always a bit tense coming back. You OK, man?’
‘It sucks here. Why can’t she keep it in her pants? I just said to that chick over there’ - he gestured towards an alarmingly elegant Falasha woman, wearing her airport garb as though she was walking at the Milan A/W shows and talking into a headset – ‘Can I have sex with your mum?’ and she only said ‘Sure - I had sex with yours!’ AND THEN SHE WAVED AT MUM! AND BLEW HER A KISS! AND MUM WAVED BACK!’
On cue, Jackie waved at them as the Falasha girl waved again at Jackie, smirking. Dov felt a surge of pure righteous anger at his wife for cheating on him with such an amazing-looking woman and not letting him watch.
Jackie walked up to them, happy as Larry – Larry Olivier, that would be, after doing Danny ‘Kaminsky’ Kaye behind poor mad Vivien Leigh’s back. How Dov suddenly felt at one with poor mad Vivien Leigh! He caught her arm and pulled her away from Josh.
‘Who is she?’ he hissed.
Jackie looked surprised. ‘Who?…oh, Esther? We had sex with her in Eilat three years ago. At Herod’s. Don’t you remember? She’s wearing her hair differently, maybe?’
As if on cue, Esther pulled off her scrunchy, shook out her weave and mimicked CALL ME, albeit obscenely, as she walked away from the carousel. Though Jackie stood between Dov and Josh, there could be no doubt at whom she signalled. No doubt at all, because she took the time to look them both individually up and down, and to laugh, twice, before turning to her short, chubby, pretty blonde co-worker just coming on duty, and whispering in her ear before stalking off as if on a catwalk.
’Never seen her before…thanks, mate,’ Dov muttered bitterly to Jackie, who had the grace at least to look embarrassed.
‘Hey, darlink, you English? Friend of Esther?’ the blonde girl said to Jackie. Then she looked at Josh. ‘O - halo. Ma nishma?’
‘He doesn’t speak Hebrew,’ Jackie apologised.
‘O. No problem.’ The girl smiled at him and shook her head. ‘Sorry. You look like my brother.’
‘I’m not a Jew,’ said Josh blankly.
‘Yeah. Neither is my brother. He’s now in the IDF. My dad used to say, Gorbachev is not just a good man – he is a miracle worker. Because for the first time ever in Russia, Russians pretend to be Jews in order to get a better life.’ The girl scribbled something on a blank baggage check and passed it to Josh. ‘You ever want to meet up with Nikolai, you call me. Is very amazing resemblance. My name is Katinka – Kat.’ She turned to Jackie. ‘Esther says you go all go on now to Eilat - maybe I see you when you come back.’
They got onto the airport bus. Dov noted the casual way in which his male fellow passengers sexually evaluated his long, tall wife from the tip of her maxi skirt to the top of her tichel. He spread his legs and smirked; Jackie imagined they thought she was a Jewess – clown! She reeked of gin, and her brazen chesnut-coloured fringe came right down past her eyebrows. Who did she think she was fooling? He groaned as he heard her attempting to speak Hebrew in that high-pitched voice of hers to a babushka carrying a snowboard on her lap.
‘She can’t understand a word you’re saying. Just speak English!’
‘I understand your wife fine!’ the slant-eyed witch snapped. She moved over in her seat to make room for Jackie, who sat down; their covered heads moved close together as they yammered on.
Josh put his head close to Dov’s: ‘I hate it when Mum does that – you know? Talking to just anybody. Like they’re worth something.’
Because this had been almost exactly the thing that was irking him, Dov felt irritated by Josh’s summing up of the situation; there were few things more slightly galling than a dumb person expressing your views right back at you without having been encouraged to do so. ‘Did you get that from your dad, the puppet-master?’ he snarked back. It was a low blow, but it was fair.
Josh scowled. Or rather, the scowl Joshed: it seemed to Dov that there was actually less of Josh than there was of the scowl on a day-to-day basis. ‘You don’t know my dad.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I know nothing about him. Except what your mother told me. And your mother may be many things, but she’s not a liar. You’re the only kid I’ve ever met who got the Oedipal thing mixed up; you want to kill your mother and sleep with your father, to judge by the way you big him up endlessly at her expense.’
Jackie and the babushka broke off from their conversation to throw back their heads and laugh. Dov gazed at them dismally; it was like some horrible TV commercial about the multi-hued, generation-embracing Israeli melting pot! Just when he thought it couldn’t get worse, a majestically pregnant Ethiopian woman in full mufti edged up to them and spoke to the babushka. Who then stood up and sat in Jackie’s lap! And Jackie, far from throwing the rancid old biddy to the floor of the bus, clasped her around the lardy midriff and hugged her as if she was her own grandma.
Dov and Josh turned to each other, eyes wide with dismay; they were still on terra firma, but one thing was obvious - there was a crazy on the plane, who was going to make this trip, migration and/or escape at least seven sorts of exasperating. And even worse, she was the one thing they had in common.
‘Buckle up, bad boy,’ Dov advised Josh. ‘It’s gonna be a bumpy ride…
Great so far Jules; but you promised me that a 10" velvet truncheon would feature?
This is a bio with tongue piercing cheek! love it