8. Deck hand
Only someone who works from dawn till dusk for a bowl of rice
can have the will and the hatred needed in the struggle for freedom.
Mao Ze Dong
Troubles are pack hunters; they seldom attack alone.
I was living quietly in the shelter, keeping the streets clean, writing poems for the girls I loved, swimming in the sea, counting eagles during bike rides, and participating in discussions on the Crow Problem. But winds of winter were about to turn another page in the book of my life.
The Crow Problem was occupying the best minds of Eilat that year. There's a bird called house crow, a common sight in most cities of tropical Asia. It is usually considered a pest, a thief, and a source of disease. One year before my arrival to Eilat, a few pairs of house crows made it to the city from Arabia, settled in the downtown, and started breeding. There were only few of them, so they were automatically considered an endangered species. But my friend Shari, who was familiar with that species' lifestyle in India, was horrified and insisted that all crows had to be shot before they could become numerous and destroy all bird nests in the city.
I didn't pay attention to the growing number of people discussing the matter in the shelter, until one day Ruben told me that there were no free bunks left. I had to find another place to live.
The same day Pavel and I got our first paychecks from Eli. And - you guessed it - we only got a half of what was promised to us when we were hired. I was getting used to such things, but for Pavel losing a hundred bucks was a catastrophe. His wife and children in Georgia were literally starving.
Until that time we didn't talk much with our colleagues, but just the day before the paycheck disaster I happened to become very popular. I wrote a small verse called Song of an Eilat Janitor, and asked Pavel to give it to Anka. Pavel showed it to someone else, and suddenly all Russian-speaking janitors of Eilat knew it. So I was in a position to help Pavel. I walked around the town, visiting all territories and inviting people to a meeting. When everybody got to the roof, I suggested a citywide Strike of Janitors.
Apparently, everybody had something to blame Eli for; besides, most were people who had nothing to loose, except for their cirrhosis. So the idea was welcomed. The strike lasted 25 hours - much longer than expected.
Eli almost got fired. He paid us all the money he owed, but also promised to replace all employees in four weeks. Pavel and I were the first. Eli simply hired other people for our territories. Meanwhile, the Song was published in the city's only Russian newspaper, which had just two pages, and boasted a circulation of almost a hundred copies. Someone translated it to Hebrew, and then it was published in one of Eilat's major newspapers, accompanied with an article about the heroic Strike of Janitors. I was mentioned as the leader of the new immigrants fighting for their rights, although my name was misspelled beyond recognition.
Up to that moment Anka kept ignoring me, especially since Levi bought her a motorbike (fortunately, she didn't have a driving license). Now I became a celebrity, and she at least began to respond to my "Hello!"
Otherwise my situation seemed desperate: I had no job and no place to live. I had to move to an old crypt at a cemetery. Fortunately, paparazzi from the newspapers never found out.
Circling the streets next day, I met Vlad, Beni's friend, who used to be a professor of English language back in Russia. He was glad to meet someone interested in comparative linguistics, and invited me to stay at his place for a day or two. I came to his apartment and was greeted by his son Sergei.
"I'm so happy to see you!" he said. "Remember the moon craters you showed me once? Could you show them to my friends, please?"
Their life was very hard. Vlad worked as a lathe operator at an oil terminal, his wife was an accountant for a Japanese company growing algae in salt lakes. Coming home from work, they looked like a pair of spies returning from dangerous missions.
"Everything quiet today?"
"Yes, nothing bad happened. You OK, too?"
"Yes, for now".
A brief meal, and they went to bed immediately, too tired to talk. What did they eat when I wasn't there to cook the dinner, I didn't know. Watching those nice people suffer was very unpleasant. Luckily, in less than three days I managed to fulfill one of my wildest dreams. I found two jobs: one where I was paid for eating, and another where I was paid for sleeping. By that time I knew that in Israel, the easier your work, the better the pay.
Moni, chief of local Nature Conservation Department, recommended me for a position of a security guard at the city visitor center. A hippy friend of mine told me that one of the yachts at the port needed a deck hand. I didn't make a secret of the fact that I used to sail the Mediterranean with smugglers, and the captain was happy to hire such an experienced mariner.
Now I was living a strange life. I had no home; my backpack with spare clothes was stored in a locker at the visitor center. I slept in the center on a couch. My task was to hear an approaching police car. Every night the cops arrived at two past midnight to check on me and make sure I wasn't asleep. The only source of entertainment at the center was a large saltwater tank with coral fishes. Soon I discovered that one species was slightly changing its color late at night, and even published a short paper in a local zoological journal. I was armed with a tiny radio, and was supposed to press an alarm button in case of a robbery. The guy who used to work there before me once pressed the button occasionally. He said the police had arrived in 35 seconds.
During the day I would sleep on the beach, or swim in the sea, or flirt with topless girls from Europe and the Americas (there were also a few girls wearing tops, but what's the point of flirting with idiots?) I mostly lived on yogurts and milk shakes. They were very good in Eilat, but still unavailable in Russia at the time. It took my stomach a few days to get used to 3-liter canisters, but later it proved to be good food for hot climate. I found a vibrator at a garbage dump, and rewired it into a shaker.
The seashore was a world apart, very different from the quiet streets and canyons of Upper Eilat one mile uphill. Life here was like a glass of champagne: loud music, crowds of partying teenagers, airliners almost touching the roofs with their wheels (the airport was just behind the row of seaside hotels), flocks of noisy parakeets in the palms, flying fishes splashing in the waves, my drunken compatriots shouting prison camp songs at a patch of sand known as Russian Beach. In the afternoon, when the heat subsided a bit, I got tired of it all, and walked to the Jordanian border five minutes away.
The border was marked by a line of trees and a barbed wire fence. Small waves kept licking an old slab of sandstone - all that remained of Etzion Geber, King Solomon's port, the base for his raids of Egypt-controlled Ofir gold mines. Egrets and seagulls walked along a tiny creek, flowing from a thicket of reeds and tamarisk bushes. Sometimes flamingos could be seen at salt lakes.
Deep inside the thicket was a small cabin - bird banding station. Since mid-January Ruben worked there. A few times a day he would check the mist nets, collect the birds and band them. Almost every day he would catch something rare or unusual. For me, most birds were old friends from the North. But local ones were already familiar, too: pink Sinai rosefinches, noisy babblers, handsome bulbuls, and the smallest of them all, a creature that seemed to consist of the voice only - desert warbler.
After a visit to Ruben's cabin I swam in the sea for another hour, trying to avoid tiny stinging jellyfish, then changed into shorts and went to the yacht.
Our boat Dugong was only twenty meters long. The crew included the captain, a cook, a mechanic, me and another deck hand, plus captain's girlfriend who was a waitress and an accountant at the same time. We would visit all piers, from the marina to the dolphinarium, picking up tourists for an hour-long trip south.
The narrow Gulf of Akaba never has storms, and the wind is almost always from the North. We sailed to the point where all four countries met, then had a dinner with the passengers, watching the red mountains of Jebel Bakir turn scarlet as the sun was setting behind the black hills of Sinai. At dusk we turned on the engine and went back to Eilat, just in time for me to get to my second job at the visitor center.
Even after I went from being a janitor to a more romantic position of a sailor, I was still far from being able to compete with Levi. The man who was about to change the situation showed up unexpectedly. He was known as Gin-Tonic.
I was reading Lev Gumilev's Ancient Turks on the beach when a trio of strangers landed on the sand nearby: a short, slightly overweight guy about my age, and two pretty girls (topless). They were conversing in American English. Then the guy looked at the book I was reading, with a vulture feather for a bookmark.
"Nice chicks," he suddenly said in perfect Russian. "Californians. Would you like to join us? I have an extra one, as you can see."
"Which one?"
"The one that smiles all the time."
"Good. I like her more, anyway. I'm not into geekish ones."
"The other one isn't geekish, just reserved. Like in the poem:
No, I don't cherish the inflamed desire,
Sensual madness, all-consuming fire,
The cries, the moaning, a girl in carnal race,
When, wiggling like a snake in my embrace,
Her body is so hungry, hot, and willing -
Her kisses bring release instead of feeling... "
I happened to know this almost-forgotten little masterpiece by Alexander Pushkin (for some reason it's never included in school textbooks), so I continued:
"...It is your shyness that I like, my dear,
I beg for love - but you don't want to hear,
Then you give in, so cold, and calm, and quiet,
You don't respond until I'm almost tired.
But slowly, and unwillingly, my flame
Gets you warmed up, turned on, you join the game,
And I'm so happy, it is hard to bear
When, finally, all passion's yours to share!"
(Sorry for lame translation. I like English, but it's not the best language to translate poetry to. Good rhymes are rare, and fixed world order doesn't help.)
"What language is this?" asked the girls.
"Cheyenne," answered the guy instantly.
"Jimmy, are you Indian? You don't look like one."
"No, but I grew up in the tribe. Tall Eagle (he pointed at me) is half Cheyenne."
"But how did you know it before you started talking to him?"
"He is reading a book in Cheyenne, and uses the Eagle Feather of a Warrior for a bookmark."
The book happened to have a picture of bow and arrows on the cover.
The girls allowed us to walk them to their hotel. They had a large two-bedroom suite, where we spent the rest of the day making love to them, as good warriors should. I tried my best to make it nonstop, so there wouldn't be much time for conversation. I wasn't ready to discuss Cheyenne tribal affairs. Fortunately I didn't have to go on a sea trip that day. At nine o'clock we both said that we had to leave, but would be back next day.
"Where are you going, Tall Eagle?" asked the guy in the elevator.
"I'm a security guard at the visitor center. You?"
"I'm a security guard at a parking lot. I'm Dmitry Tonkin, or Jimmy."
"Vladimir of Dinets clan. I'm from Moscow. You?"
"I was born in Volgograd, but grew up in San Francisco."
We were walking along the waterfront. The sun was already gone, but the mountains on the far side of the gulf were still bright red.
"Beautiful," I said.
"You should see Frisco sunsets!" he replied solemnly.
He was missing California a lot. In Israel, immigration is called alia - "ascending". When Jimmy was asked how long ago had he made the alia, he always replied, "I didn't ascend, I descended." And even the most patriotic Israelis didn't ask any more questions after he told them where he was from. His American origin allowed him to get well-paid jobs, although he was the only person I ever knew who was even lazier than me.
Only much later did I occasionally find out that he'd never been anywhere except Russia and Israel.
He had an amazing talent. He could learn any language in a few weeks, and any local accent in minutes. He could easily pretend to be from Louisiana when talking to someone from the southern States, or to be a Moroccan Jew when talking on the phone with one of them. He even passed himself for a son of an Arab and an Englishwoman. His blonde hair and blue eyes were not good for most con schemes, but he was so good at copying accents that some people were fooled even when they could see him.
His nickname was "Gin-Tonic", but he didn't like it.
"Only in Russia do they think that gin should be mixed with tonic," he said. "Gin should be mixed with soda, tonic should be mixed with whiskey."
He didn't mind spending a week's salary on a bottle of good whiskey.
"How can you wear such clothes?" he asked me angrily. "You are the shame of our tribe. I'll report to The Council of Cheyenne Chiefs. Let's go to the Store for the Poor."
"The Store for the Poor" was owned by the Ministry of Absorption, and functioned in the same way as the Salvation Army outlets in the USA. In recent years the flow of donated clothes had been drying out, because locals didn't like new immigrants anymore. But there was still some stuff left.
And (what a surprise!) I was apparently the first immigrant in Eilat in many years to be 186 cm tall, with size 46 feet! With a happy battle cry, Jimmy fished a few clothes in intact packing from one of the piles. There were two pairs of stylish white trousers, a pair of white Italian shoes, a few Canadian shirts, a blue American jacket, and a tie in the colors of Estonian flag (white, blue and black). Later I had to give the tie to Jimmy because he saw Bill Clinton wear an identical one on TV. But it had already played its part by that time.
I put on the more modest pair of trousers and the cheapest of the shirts, and went to a dancing party in Emperor Hotel. When I entered the basement hall, it was already partly dark there. The public reaction to my appearance was somewhat surprising: the DJ turned off the music, and everybody stared at me.
"Who is he?" a few people whispered.
"Vladimir, the President of the Union of Municipal Workers," answered someone. The music was on again, and three blushing girls asked me if I'd like to dance with them. But I pretended to be looking for someone, and disappeared.
I tried not to look in Anka's direction, but apparently there was some reaction from her, because next morning I saw Levi walking down the street wearing a lilac suit.
Then Pavel came by and informed me that I was invited to Anka's birthday party.
I was a bit late, because one of the birthday presents could only be obtained after dark. I was wearing zinc white trousers and pale blue jacket with a tiny badge of Israeli Academy of Sciences (found on the floor during the Birdwatching Conference). The son of the city major didn't dress so hip. Even in Tel Aviv it would be difficult to find clothes like that. And, believe it or not, I got it all for less than ten dollars.
While everybody was standing around me, their jaws dropped, I put my sunglasses in a pocket (I hated sunglasses, so I had to put them on before ringing the doorbell), gave Anka a besom of orchids (which had cost me a lot of money), and put a bag of presents in a corner. There were two gifts in the bag: Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena in five volumes, and silver pendants. The Encyclopedia was found in a garbage dump (which showed that there were still some normal people around). I took the books from their appropriate resting place, knowing that Anka was deeply interested in witchcraft, astrology, psychics, and other modern myths. As for the pendants, they came from the magic source behind the nest of a sooty falcon.
I had one huge advantage over Levi. Anka had already heard everything he had to say, while I still had some new topics for conversation. By the end of the party I talked her into going with me on a yacht trip next day.
Piti-Piti, our captain (real name unknown) was a rosy-cheeked guy who resembled Santa Claus in appearance and spirit. He was a bit embarrassed to have his girlfriend onboard, so he was always glad when someone else invited a girl for a trip. I warned everybody to address me as "Senior Captain" in Anka's presence, met her at the pier, and gave her a pair of silver earrings with lots of tiny diamonds.
"Could you try them on, please? Maybe they'll fit."
Those earrings could have cost me. I had to retrieve them in a hurry, almost at dawn, leaving my post at the visitor center for a while. But when I was about to leave the Aladdin's cave with the earrings, there was a pair of evil jinni near the entrance, so I had to wait for half an hour until they left in their car with red and blue lights on top.
Anka was impressed by the trip. A girl from a poor immigrant family, she was suddenly surrounded by rich Western tourists, and saw that all men were staring at her, while all women were staring at... I'd like to say "her friend", but I have to be honest: her earrings.
Only later, when we got back to the pier, did I realize how rapid was my progress. Proud, inaccessible Anka allowed me to kiss herself. And she returned my kiss, although she probably wasn't planning to do so.
Next day Levi promised to buy her a yacht (apparently without asking his father, because he never bought it), and got himself a silver jacket which made him look like a circus compere. But I knew that our second match had also ended with a knockdown.
Then another pack of troubles attacked me. The visitor center opened to public, and was now guarded by a policeman. Piti-Piti went on one of his drinking vacations, leaving the rest of the crew without work. The Californian girls left, so Gin-Tonic and I couldn't stay in their hotel rooms anymore.
"Sorry, chiefs," they said, "time to get back to school. We'll tell white guys about your wonderful ways of performing The Dance of a Homecoming Warrior."
But Jolly Roger, the cook from Dugong, told me there was no reason to be upset.
"Let's ask around the marina," he said. "We'll find something. I know everybody there."
Half an hour later we were talking with Teri, the captain of a large yacht The Flying Dutchman (it was the boat's name, not type - she was actually a brig). Teri seldom went out to sea, so he didn't have a permanent crew.
"Saturday night I take tourists fishing," he said. "Need cook and helmsman. My last trip: gonna sell the boat. Makes no profit. Can't pay much, but you get a fun week at sea and free meals. Interested?"
Jolly Roger agreed immediately. I asked if I could take my girlfriend with me. Teri wasn't surprised.
"What's wrong with you all? Just hired two sailors on same conditions. A Scott and a Dane. A floating brothel, thousand devils in my waterweiss! OK, we're sailing at twenty two hours Saturday, don't be late."
I went to Anka's place, and met her in the yard.
"I got us booked on a cruise around the Red Sea. Can you skip a week at school? We are leaving tomorrow night."
Suddenly, Boris greeted me from their balcony.
"Could you come up for a minute? I have Beni on the phone, he wants to talk to you."
"Sholom, Graduate," said Beni. "Are you busy?"
"Not really. I'm leaving for a week tomorrow."
"I need your help. Could you come over?"
"I don't know. It's too late for buses."
"Could you hitchhike?"
"I'll try."
Anka agreed to join me on the cruise. I told her what to take, and went to the northern edge of the city. I had a friend among the soldiers at the checkpoint, who sometimes helped me get a ride, but he wasn't on duty that day. After three hours of waiting I was picked up by a man in an old Nissan. I wasn't surprised when he said he was a biologist.
"If you ever happen to be in Ramon, drop by," he said. "We have a nice research station there."
Beni was waiting for me. He looked very upset.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I have problems with the Department. My yearly report is more than a month overdue. They are pressing me really hard."
"Can't you just write it?"
"I have writer's block. Can't concentrate. And the damn thing has to be at least two pages long. Let's go to the office, you'll help me."
"How? I can't write in Hebrew."
"You'll just watch me to make sure I don't get distracted."
It's funny to think that it was the first time I'd ever seen a personal computer. Back in Russia people were still using punchcards at the time.
"So, you gonna seduce the girl, after all?" Beni asked, typing.
"Wow! You already know?"
"Of course I do! The entire city is talking about it. Nice plan, the yacht. Just be aware that most girls her age have clitoral sensitivity rather than vaginal..."
And Beni gave me a lecture on medical sexology. I kept listening for a while, then asked suddenly:
"By the way, how's Marina doing?"
I happened to know Beni's secret. He got a permanent girlfriend in the northern part of the country. He visited her almost every week, and got so serious about it that he was spending most of his salary on renting her an apartment close to her work.
He pretended not to hear. Instead, he started telling me a story about his work in Tbilisi Zoo, Georgia, many years ago. He was a member of Civilian Volunteer Anticrime Patrol (which, as everything else in Soviet time, was actually obligatory). His job was to catch people who were having sex on park benches at night.
"Most of them were professors from a nearby university," he said. "They brought their students to the park, to have sex with them in exchange for good grades. And, believe it or not, each and every one of them was a coward. Some even told the girl to have sex with us, too, just to convince us not to inform the university. Of course, in such cases we always informed."
"And why are you telling me all this?"
"Well, you know... Anka is my friend's daughter, after all. Be gentle with her, she is so young..."
I was deeply offended and told him so, but I helped him finish the report anyway. Next day I went back to the city, and met Anka at the pier. When she saw the boat (The Flying Dutchman was said to be the most beautiful ship in the Red Sea) she tried to kiss me in a cheek, but somehow this kiss took at least ten minutes.
Soon we sailed off. Fresh wind pushed us south, at the same time turning yet another page in the book of my life - which, I hope, is an action novel rather than a gospel.
Song
of an Eilat Janitor
Rising sun paints
dusty yellow
Desert wadis,
plains, and hills,
Waking up all
Jewish fellows:
"Go to
work to pay the bills!"
Run and hide,
all dirt and litter:
Marching down
the humpback streets,
Come the masters
of the city
For the daily
sweeping blitz.
We are vigilant
and clever:
Any tampon,
bottle, shit
Has to be removed
forever,
Every tiny piece
and bit.
By the time
you will come out,
Oh, your legs
so long and lean,
You'll be walking
through the crowd
On the pavement
shiny clean.