Continuing on with my tale of woe and joy of how I ended up in Israel…tales of a non-Jewish potential Kibbutz volunteer who falls in love with Tel Aviv, dodges Scud missiles, lives and works illegally for years on end, gets besotted by one Israeli girl despite the best attempts of a legendary Jewish mother, but ends up marrying and divorcing another… and then marrying yet another to join suburbia and the hi-tech revolution, while becoming the seemingly respectable owner of an English school.
In case you missed them; Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8
Part 9: The Summer of ’93!
As my fingers continued to grow greener thanks to my little gardening job over in suburbia, 1993 didn’t start off quite so rosy for me and Ofira. Looking back now, it’s easy to see that we were coming down from the plateau of earlier days, as I guess most relationships do at some point.
But it went a little deeper than that…I knew that my tourist non-Jewish background was a little hard for her to truly accept, despite all we’d been through and the big front she liked to put on in regards to her family and their “concerns” about us.
Which kind of pissed me off. I’d always been brought up to accept somebody for who they are, not what they are, and to be “dismissed” as a serious player in Ofira’s life bit deep. We’d been together for two and a half years when I decided that enough was enough.
It hurt like crazy, but for my own self-respect, I had to get out. And the pain was so intense I decided that I had to leave Israel too. There were just too many memories; everywhere I turned there was something to remind me of Ofira, places we’d sat and talked, places we’d laughed and taken pictures…I still loved her madly, but knew that love wasn’t enough…
So, after moving out of Ofira’s and back into the Gordon hostel, I sat down one night and told Pete, one of my fellow lifers in Israel, that I was leaving. He was a bit shocked but after we both had a couple more beers, he knew it was the right move for me. And as a final farewell, we decided that we’d hit Eilat for a few days of fun and sun before I flew back to England. By the way, that ticket to England was a one-way ticket: as far as I was concerned, me and Israel needed a break, possibly even permanently.
A good move, that Eilat holiday! We hit Eilat in May, just before the mad tourist season kicked in, and we had a ball. We drank like Brits on holiday, we burned in the sun like Brits on holiday and we ate bacon & eggs like Brits on holiday! We also hooked up with a group of three Israeli soldier girls, who had just been released the week before, and I can remember one night on the beach with one of the girls, Maya, who helped ease my broken heart for a few hours. We danced to the music booming out from a nearby club, we laughed, we talked, and the sun was high in the morning sky before we finally called it a night.
A few days later, there I was, my heart wrenching just a little as I got on the plane back to England. In contrast to my last exit from Israel, I hadn’t sweated buckets as my turn for a security personnel grilling came; this time I couldn’t have cared less if the immigration had permanently blacklisted me due to my outdated tourist visa which had expired over a year previously. They didn’t even blink, perhaps because of the one-way ticket, who knows. But the door to return was wide open.
Back in Blighty, my parents were surprised to see me as I hadn’t told them I was coming back. I hadn’t told the weatherman either, as the rain welcomed me back with a wet, sloppy kiss. A kiss that lasted for seven days, non-stop, in June for Gawd’s sake. After spending the last three summers in the Mediterranean, this wasn’t what I was looking for…
And despite my best attempts to forget all about the Holy Land, all about Ofira, and all about nice, sunny weather, Israel was still in my blood. I’d planned for a long summer holiday back in England before deciding what I’d do with myself, but when my mate Peter called me at my parents’ place with an offer of a job in a hostel he was now managing in Tel Aviv, I hesitated for about 1 second (while looking out the window at the rain beating down in my parents garden) before telling him “I’m coming!”. A quick drive down to a local tourist agent and my ticket was booked. I was heading back to Israel!
So a couple of days later, I was back in Tel Aviv. I’d only been away for a couple of weeks but it all felt different again. This time I was headed straight for the Sea and Sun Hostel, which was on HaYarkon Street, maybe 100 meters from the Purple House, if that. This was Pete’s new place (he’d been hired by the owner to run it) and the hostel was just kicking in for the summer season. It felt good to be back in the tourist game again…
After a couple of nights picking up hostel guests from the airport, a new opportunity came up, an opportunity which was about to turn the summer into the best of my life. The owner of the hostel was looking to get a bar started in the hostel and to our astonishment was prepared to give me and Peter the bar and all the profits. Just as long as we made it “happen”. The twinkle in my eye was back…
So we got a bar started. On the roof of the hostel. As it was mid-summer, it was pretty inaccessible during the day thanks to the intense heat, but during the evening it did, in fact “happen”. The bar itself was basically an open roof, with a few chairs to sit on, a TV and video, plus a great stereo through which I set the scene with lots of my compilation tapes (lots of 80s stuff, New Order, Depeche Mode, The Pogues, The Clash etc). And, of course, a giant fridge filled with beer.
I was usually in charge of everything bar-like as Peter had the hostel to run, so got to know everyone and what made the place tick. My days were soon evolving into the dream lifestyle…late lie-ins, lunch cleaning the bar with some great tunes blasting out, an hour or two on the beach across the road, a quick trek down Bograshov Street to the local video store, plus a visit to the local beer merchant to top up on stock. And then the evening session would kick in, as people would come up to the bar for a beer and a movie. And a flirt with the barman.
Oh yes. After nursing a broken heart just a few weeks earlier, I was now enjoying myself. The beer was flowing, the girls were aplenty (both tourists and Israelis, as the bar got more known across town) and I had completely forgotten about Ofira (I hadn’t even called her telling her I was back in Israel). Midnight skinny dipping (with a female friend) was a known occurrence in Tel Aviv’s jellyfish riddled seas – ooh, watch out for your bits – or alternatively, the party would continue at another bar somewhere in Tel Aviv as we had to close by midnight, often at the Terminal further down the road or even at the legendary 90s club, the Colosseum.
It was a magic time for me. A time when everything was going right and I was doing exactly what I wanted. OK, the bar wasn’t making us any money because me and Peter were probably drinking most of the profits, or giving away too many beers “on the house”, but we weren’t really in it for the money. At least I know I wasn’t.
My star was high in the sky and I wasn’t about to let it fall. And my star was bringing me ever more fame: thanks to the intercom that was rigged up throughout the building, I got to be known as Mr Popular as “Ashley, telephone” would ring out through the floors in the hostel whenever I got a call (remember, these were pre-mobile phone days, so the only way of getting in touch with me was via the hostel number).
Good times. That lasted for a crazy couple of months.
And then one night Peter sat down and told me a little story. A little story about Ofira and in particular, about Ofira’s mother. A story that ultimately meant the end of my magnificent summer…
Next up: The return of Ofira