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, 8, 9, 10 and 11.
Part 12: Mixing it with the Israeli underworld
So the summer of ’94 was also a classic, not quite as fun as the previous summer, but still filled with some magic moments. I had my new girl Lilach making life pleasant and, er, challenging (as you ladies often make our lives!), while of course, the big deal for most guys during those early summer weeks was…the World Cup.
Oh yes, England might not have been innit to winnit, but with the world’s best footballers on show, I wasn’t going to miss out. Had it really been four years since I watched that classic game between England and Cameroon in a pub filled to the rafters with drunken English fans? Wow, I guess it had…
Of course, football to a young 18 year old Israeli girl didn’t really swing it. You can’t blame her, just look at the mess that is Israeli football – how would she ever know that there was something so much better out there? To cut a long story short, she was upset that I spent a lot of time watching games in a bar full of drunken yobs when I could have been spending quality time with her as she frolicked in the waves at Tel Aviv beach in her skimpy bikini. And now I’m thinking about it…damn, she was right!
So she would often end up crying to her Mum. And her Dad. Which was perhaps a little hysterical, but there you go, Israeli women can get like that. Often, actually.
And there he was one day, Lilach’s Dad, talking to me about the football and feinting interest. I knew he was checking me out, rather than showing a genuine interest in the footie, and he left me in no doubt that I should be looking out for his little princess, rather than drinking beer in pubs. And God forbid I should take her to one of these hell-holes, where they drink copious amounts of amber nectar and the women cackle hysterically at one another…
I should point out that at this point I was just getting familiar with the familia. It wasn’t my first introduction to Israeli families and especially overbearing parents, but these were a special set of folks. Even my bosses at the gardening firm I worked for warned me to steer clear because Lilach’s family, who lived in the same town I was working, were known for trouble. Everybody I’d met had been a cocky little punk or small-time crook. Even her big brother. He’d also been working with me in the gardening business for a week or so, but had been fired for taking too many ciggie breaks. I don’t recall him ever actually lifting a finger and working…
But you know what, despite all the “noise” around her, I really liked Lilach. A lot. Some of you might ask why didn’t I write “love” instead of “like”. Well, that was the thing. After coming out of this big relationship with Ofira, I wasn’t sure if I really loved her. However, her family were convinced I did, and she was too, and before long, out of God knows where, there was talk of us getting married. Married?! Oh yes.
And what did I do? Run for my life? Buy a ticket back to England? Get back with Ofira? Oh no, none of those. I actually got caught up in all the talk and like a spastic puppy, just nodded in agreement…
Until one day I called my old mate Peter (who was somewhere up north, milking cows on a moshav). He blew his top at me when I told him I was thinking of getting married to Lilach, and after a few choice words, I’d been woken from my slumber. Peter had pointed out I was on the rebound from Ofira and there was no way I should marry Lilach. He was kinda right. And despite my intentions of staying in Israel, marriage wasn’t really an option, not yet anyway.
But that call changed things for me and Lilach. However much we enjoyed each other, and we really did connect well, she was only 18. And I’d only just come out of a relationship that had taken its toll for quite a while. However much I thought I was over Ofira, there was still my heart to convince…
Because of our apparently impending marriage, Lilach’s parents let me sleep over at their place and took alarmingly well to the role of parents-in-law. It wasn’t long before we even bought a car together, a great little red VW Beetle, which meant we were cabbying about every weekend. But the talk of marriage between myself and Lilach cooled off a little and that was a good thing, as we spent time together and did the things that young couples should be doing [ censored ]…
But despite our close relationship, there was still this culture barrier keeping us apart. Not at our level, as we clicked well together and I’d become an honorary Israeli after nearly 4 years in the Holy Land. But Lilach’s Dad was a hard-core disciplinarian, and would smack any of his kids around if he thought they deserved it. And despite his letting me sleep over, there was strictly no funny business allowed. Not even a hint of it.
Which kind of brought things to a head one hot, summer night. Lilach was taking a shower and asked me to bring her a towel. I brought in a towel, joked about something which made her giggle and let her get on with it. Nothing else happened and it had maybe taken 3 or 4 seconds. But as I walked out of the shower I was confronted by her brother, who squared up to me and told me he had seen everything and was going to tell his Dad. I told him he hadn’t seen anything, but Lilach was already out of the shower and a screaming match ensued, some of which I didn’t understand (my Hebrew was still far from perfect).
As her brother started to get physically abusive, I told him to get the hell away from her. After more screaming, he raced off. But Lilach had got the jitters and screamed that we had to get out of here. It seemed that her brother was off to get his Dad and Uncle and they were going to “deal” with me. His Uncle was the one I was worried about: apparently the local mullet-haired crime boss had some legendary crime episodes clinging to his reputation.
Not liking the sound of all this, I took Lilach’s hand and we made a sharpish exit from the house, got in our VW Beetle and drove off. I knew that her staying out all night would make things worse, but she wasn’t leaving me and didn’t care about the atom bomb that was about to detonate…
As I drove off, I had these visions of headlines in the Jerusalem Post about this young lad from the UK who had got caught up in some underworld funny business and hadn’t been seen for a month…but Lilach, bless her, wasn’t about to give up on me. And as we curled up in the back of the car (ha! easier said than done), parked in a side street on the other side of town, I couldn’t help thinking that yes, maybe I really did love this girl.
As dawn broke, I came to and realised that I couldn’t drag her down with me. I told her that I was taking her home, and despite her protests and argument that we should run away, I think she also knew she had to go home. I dropped her off round the corner fro her house and watched her walk into the building entrance. I drove off, back into Tel Aviv and off to kip at the Gordon Hostel once again.
I called her later at home and her voice shook as she told me that her father had screamed blue murder at her and forbidden her from seeing me. He’d also told her that a couple of people would be looking for me in Tel Aviv and would love to shake my hand (and head) rather vigorously. She was pretty sure he wasn’t joking so told me to leave the hostel, as he knew that I was staying at one of Tel Aviv’s hostels. He also knew I wasn’t legit in Israel (my visa had run out some months back), so…
I checked out five minutes later.
That night I spent curled up on the back seat of my Beetle once again. I don’t remember getting any sleep, but I do remember thinking that I was heading back to England. And hopefully not in a coffin.
It was a couple of nights in the car later when I realised I did actually love this girl and wanted to see her. I called her house but nobody answered. So I made my way over to her place and waited across the street. As I stepped out of my car, who should come along, but her brother. He raced upstairs and within seconds her Dad was outside, bawling in my face and scaring the bejesus out of me. Just as I was sure I was going to feel a cold, hard blade piercing my stomach, Lilach suddenly appeared and screaming at her Dad to stop, took the attention away from me for a second. Her arrival seemed to change the atmosphere a little, and soon enough he was gone, out of my face and heading back to his house. He had told Lilach to say goodbye to me for the last time and he expected her home in two minutes tops.
Phewww.
Feeling like I’d been let out of jail, hell, even feeling lucky to be alive, we hugged and I told her I’d call her later. We both knew that despite all of the threats and mess that we’d made over the last couple of days, we’d be seeing each other again, and real soon. It might not have been with the blessing of her father, and I’d probably never be setting foot in her house again, but this little episode had brought out something that had bonded us beyond all of that.
At least, that’s what we thought…
Next up: I get my own pad in Tel Aviv!