14. Emigrant
For to a person who is good in His sight He has
given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the sinner He has given the
task of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who is good in God's
sight. This too is vanity and striving after wind.
Ecclesiastes 2:26
Mid-April is the beginning of summer in Negev. The bird migration is almost over, the last flowers dry out, and the nights get hot. Chicks fly out of their nests; cubs leave their dens. Hai Bar looks like an animal kindergarten at that time of year.
There was more work in the zoo, so Moni hired a new volunteer, a British guy named Daniel. But Daniel didn't fit in. He was lazy, didn't know any biology at all, and kept breaking things. Beni was particularly angry at him, because Daniel visited him every evening to eat dinner, but never brought any food. Being from Georgia, the world's most hospitable country, Beni just couldn't tell Daniel to stop coming, or at least to bring some gazelle meat from the freezer. Everybody was glad when a hyena bit him in the butt and he went back to England.
It would be nice to stay a bit longer and see all the young of the year grow up a bit: the wild ass foal, the ostrich chicks, the fox cubs, the kittens and others. But I'd already been in Israel a whole month longer than planned.
I finally got the Ministry of Interior to look for my passport. They said they'd lost it. Getting another one would've taken at least two more weeks. I couldn't risk it. I was supposed to be drafted in three days. The bureaucracy had won. Now I had to find a way to get out of the country.
There was one little loophole I could use. When the International Court decided that the border town of Taba should belong to Egypt, it also ruled that Israelis should be able to visit it without a visa. I went to Eilat, spent a few hours at the Egyptian consulate, and got their one-week visas in my Russian passport, and in Israeli passports of my friends. Then I went to the local drafting office.
The officer on duty was reading Gone with the Wind. When I entered, she pulled up her sleeve to cover the bra strap, but didn't raise her eyes from the book.
"I'm going to the Army the day after tomorrow," I said.
"Congratulations!"
"Thank you. My friends would like to have a farewell party."
"Naturally," she turned a page.
"But we are a bit short of money, so we'd rather have it in Taba."
"Good luck."
"I need an exit permit."
She got a roll of stamps from her pocket, wrote "24 hours" on one of them, and gave it to me.
"Good bye."
"Bye," I said, and ran to the bus station.
Beni and I threw a canister of gazelle blood on the roof rack (I'd been collecting the blood from the freezer for a week), jumped in the jeep, rushed back to Eilat, picked up David, Gin-Tonic, Vlad and scuba gear, and went to the checkpoint.
It was Friday, so the banks were closed. I expected to be able to change shekels into dollars at the border (it was possible in Tel Aviv airport and Haifa ferry terminal). But there was no place to do it on that particular border crossing. All I could do was change a small amount into Egyptian pounds. So I was stuck with twelve hundred dollars in non-convertible currency.
We drove South along the Sinai coast. The shores of the Red Sea are a strange place. They get almost no rain. Whatever vegetation manages to emerge is instantly devoured by Bedouins' goats. Along the 200 kilometer-long highway to Southern Sinai, there are about a hundred acacias, a few dozen smaller plants, and no grass at all. The sea also seems to be dead, but if you look closely, you'll see tips of coral and moving fins of grazing parrotfishes above the surface. It is not only the world's warmest and saltiest sea, but also one of the richest in fauna. The high level of biodiversity there is somewhat surprising: the sea is only about 20 million years old. It is a fresh crack in Earth's crust, and it continues to grow, getting longer, deeper, and wider. Gulf of Akaba, Arava Valley, the Dead Sea, Jordan Valley, Lake Kineret, Hula and Bekaa Valleys are all parts of the same giant rift. If the Israelis manage to keep the Arabs away for another million years, they will be separated by a sea, and then possibly by an ocean.
We left the highway at a seaside resort town of Sharm ash Sheikh, and took a dirt road to Ras Muhammed National Park on the southern tip of the peninsula. It is one of the best diving sites in the world. On the western side the reefs are separated from the shore by large shallow lagoons with hot water, but on the eastern side the coast is rugged, with many tiny coves and, miraculously, almost no tourists. We explored a few beaches, and found the one called Shark Observatory to be the most interesting.
There the reef was only knee-deep near the shore, then dropped abruptly to more than a hundred meters. The shallow part had gorgeous electric rays, green with bright blue spots. The vertical wall had so many fish that it looked unnatural. Grim barracudas were watching the crowd from afar, hanging in the water like missiles ready to strike. Blacktip and whitetip sharks were slowly patrolling the cliff.
At night it was even better. Luminescent squid dashed through the water, small octopuses showed up from their hiding places, giant groupers could be seen under rock overhangs. After midnight we started dropping the blood from the canister into the water, and soon could watch a whole bunch of sharks from the safety of the shallow cliff edge. Most were small, but eventually a few larger hammerheads and one maco showed up.
Finding your way in the Sinai interior was difficult because there were too many old roads and tracks. After a few hours of searching through wadis and washes, we got to the highest part of the mountains. Only the highest peaks, Jebel Musa and Jebel Catarina, get some snow in winter. The former was allegedly the place where Moses received The Ten Commandments; the latter has a very old and beautiful Christian monastery. Even at the summits there's practically no vegetation.
My friends had to go back; I still had to hitchhike to Cairo. It was a sad moment. I knew I wouldn't be able to return to Israel for many years, or never at all.
A pilgrim bus took me across the empty expanse of At Tikh desert, dotted with ruined mosques, burnt tanks, and mummified eagle corpses. On the African side of the Suez Canal I met a German couple which gave me a ride over the Nubian Mountains to Luxor. Those mountains are the driest place in Africa. Some areas hadn't got any rain for a century or two. Still, in some deep wadis there were acacia trees, insects, small birds, omnipresent gerbils, even jerboas.
I would've really liked to spend at least a month in Egypt, but I decided to revisit the country some other time, and explore thoroughly. For the moment all I wanted was to get back to Moscow as soon as possible. I hitched a ride on a cargo boat down the Nile.
It was a bit of a shock to suddenly find myself in a city with three times as many people as in all of Israel. April is not a good time in Cairo: the infamous Days of Seth, when hot hamsin winds blow from the Sahara, the sky is gray, and everything is covered with loess dust.
I followed my friends' advice, and took a taxi. A Cairo taxi driver who is lucky enough to get a foreign passenger can be expected to be also your guide, security agent, information bureau, and guarding angel. My driver Abdulla was good at all those things. But when I asked him for a place to change shekels to dollars, he didn't know what to recommend. We tried a few banks, but nobody wanted shekels. The situation seemed desperate. I had only a few piasters left. It looked like I'd have to go to Alexandria and try to find some work on a ship going North. Finally, Abdulla said:
"Let's go to the Museum. It's the meeting place of all taxi drivers. I'll consult with them while you see the Museum. I'll be waiting for you in three hours."
When I came back from King Tut, the council still wasn't over. At least fifty taxi drivers were discussing my problem. Then they said:
"It is impossible to get dollars for shekels. There is only one thing you could try. Go to Sindbad Hotel at five in the morning. At that hour, a tourist bus from the hotel leaves for Tel Aviv. Try asking the passengers."
Abdulla dropped me off at the cheapest hotel, then took to Sindbad in the morning.
If I was a Western tourist, I would never even talk to someone like me. I looked like a typical con man. But somehow I managed to get $400 for Aeroflot flight to Moscow.
I got a ticket for the evening, and spent the rest of the day in Giza. After Abdulla drove me to the airport, I asked him:
"How much do I owe you for two days?"
He looked very embarrassed. Finally, he whispered:
"I have five children, Effendi. Forgive the poor Arab. Could you give me ten dollars?"
"Kus umak!" I said angrily. "You have to be less modest, habibi, or you'll stay poor all your life!"
I gave him all dollars I had left (only twelve, unfortunately), and soon landed in Moscow. The city was still wet and dirty after the spring snowmelt.
Later a good friend of mine helped me out. He took all my shekels with him on a business trip to Israel, and changed them to dollars. But the monsoon rains had already started. I never got to India, but used the money for a trip to South America next year.
Irina had a new boyfriend, a mafiosi known as Hog. The situation instantly got very intense. For a few months I had to carry a handgun with a silencer, and had some extremely unpleasant fights with Hog and his gang. I got the girl, but we broke up after three more months together. I was really upset about losing her. I missed her unpredictable personality, not to mention great sex. But time heals even the deepest wounds. I got over it eventually, and started dating Julia, my future wife, a couple weeks later. Irina called me a few times, but I was a bit tired of adventures. All I know about her is that she is happily married now. Hog got killed next summer, but I had nothing to do with it.
Usually I write about my trips soon after coming back. But for some reason I didn't feel ready to write about that one for a long time. Then, a few years later, while reading my book about our trip to Latin America, Julia said:
"All you ever write about is hitchhiking. Could you write about something else?"
"I can write about anything."
"Really? How about a pornographic novel?"
"Piece of cake."
"Well, do it."
And I did. At the time I had three jobs: writing Mammals of Russia guidebook for an environmental nonprofit organization, helping Moscow police fight illegal trade in endangered animals, and teaching a class Your car as a weapon for new Russian "businessmen". But the text had long been ready in my head, so I could type one draft chapter a day. In the evening Julia and I would read it together, edit a bit, and then have sex - some of the wildest sex in my life.
After we got divorced, I discovered that this book had similar effect on other girls, and used it as an instrument of seduction a few times.
As for other characters, Uti married the mayor's son; Olga and Nadin also got married. I don't know anything about Leili, Cary, Miriam, or others. I once got an email from Sam, who'd occasionally found my website. He said he'd given up smuggling, and was into cruise business. Gin-Tonic illegally emigrated to Canada. Toni Ring managed to get back into an animal clinic, and is again responsible for euthanizing. Ivi was appointed the director of Hai Bar. After being there for two more years, he realized that his true calling was the art of ceramics, but keeps working at the Reserve. David got his Ph.D., and is also working there, still a technician. He is the only professional biologist left there. Beni was fired as soon as the Absorption Ministry stopped paying half of his salary. He is now working as a tour guide. Marina moved in with him, and they have a little son.
Without Beni, Hai Bar went into decline, and was almost closed a few times. Oryxes were successfully released in other parts of Arava, but addax herd is still small because of wolf predation. Tepa and Sharik became large beautiful dogs. As for Moshe the Gecko, Beni released him and his girlfriend in the dunes near Nizzana.
I'm sure a lot of other interesting things have happened. But I can't go there because of the draft, and get all news from Beni via email. I hope to get him out of there someday. The world is too interesting to spend much time in one place.
Credo
We are visitors
here,
Brief is life
under sun.
Oops, and we
disappear -
Finished, dead,
missing, done.
All the world
has to offer
Try, and don't
wait too long.
Dig each place
like a gopher,
Sing each day
like a song.
Just enjoy every
second
As if it was
your last,
Don't do things
for the record,
Leave all troubles
to rust.
Be a part, not
a witness,
Step across
any line,
Feel the same
spicy sweetness
Drinking hemlock
or wine.
Fun should be
your resistance,
Meet your death
as your bride.
Smile: the shorter
the distance,
The less
boring the ride.