Chapter 69, Tenth Grade
1970
A new social guide, Nahum started working with us at the beginning of the second year of highschool. He was the son of Josef our school director. Nahum had a new philosophy. He thought that we needed more social activities. We had to be able to get out of our school grounds once in a while. He managed and arranged a few projects for us over the weekend at a nearby kibbutz. We had to pick oranges or weed some pepper field. With the money we earned Nahum bought us tickets for a new musical “Irma La Douce” in Tel Aviv. He borrowed the school’s big touring truck, and we spent a whole evening in Tel Aviv. We sang and reenacted the show on the way back to our school, until one by one we fell asleep, waking up only when we heard Nahum’s call: “Time for bed everyone!”
It was a stormy night; the thunders and lightings were almost muffled by the rain hitting the round tin roof. It is always like that when the last rain of the year falls, but this was a little too late in the spring. I almost didn’t hear the door open. Everybody was asleep when I saw the familiar shape of Hezi Akerman’s handicap older brother. He was using his crutches to walk toward his brother’s bed.
“Hezi,” he whispered. “Hezi, we need to go home.”
“What happened?”
“I will tell you on the way, come on, get dressed.”
By the time they left we were all up. Our counselor, Nahum stayed with us.
“Hezi’s father had been killed,” Nahum explained. “His fishing boat was hit by an Egyptian missile a night before.”
On the 13th day of May 1970, an Egyptian war ship shot 4 Russian missiles on a small wooden fishing boat called Orit. Four people were on the boat. The Capitan Adam Yashar was the first to get hit and died instantly. The mechanic Segal Akerman was hit next. His other two crew mates managed to jump overboard taking him with them and swam to shore all night and day until they reached the shore. Unfortunately, Mr. Akerman lost too much blood and died by the time they reached safety. Israel retaliated by bombarding a big military port in the Red Sea.
When Hezi returned after the “Shiva” he wasn’t the same. He stopped singing and was hard to talk to. His older brother who was a pharmaceutical distributor would come visit him twice a week while on his delivery runs. One day Hezi got into an argument with Mean Shimon. As usual, Shimon lost his temper and cursed Hezi’s father. Hezi lost it, even though Shimon was a lot bigger, Hezi hit Shimon so hard he lost conciseness. Mark ran to get Nahum the counselor. By the time he got there, Hezi was nowhere to be found. It took 2 days to find him. They called the police and searched all over the school grounds. At last, he was found hiding in a burial cave outside of the school’s campus. Hezi was sent home the next day.
“In a burial cave?” Asked David Twito from the room next to ours. “They found him in a cave? I had no idea we had caves here.”
“Come on!” I said, “Of course there are caves, this is the Carmel mountains, there are many caves here.” I didn’t want to tell him about my cave, not yet anyway. “This village we are on was built next to a very old archeological village and it had a burial ground – caves. Maybe we should check it out.”
“You know?” Said David Twito, “I always wanted to make a night light with a skull. Maybe we can find one at the caves. I know how to run electrical cables and will put the light bulb; it will be scary.”
That day, after school David Twito and I went to the area where they found Hezi. We found three man made caves. Inside we saw shelves on each wall of the cave like I saw in the old house in Jerusalem. There were no dead people in the caves.
That year our GADNA trip was moved to the late spring. The week after Hezi’s escape we were on our way to the north of Israel. The Jordan River is the largest river in Israel. It starts up in the north at the Golan heights from three smaller rivers the Banyas, Hatzbani and Dan. We were going to explore each one of them and a few other sites. The first site was a place called “Bell Voire” or as it was called in Arabic “Qawkab el Hawa” it means the star of the winds. It was an old crusaders fort on top of a mountain. We had to walk on the winding road leading to the top for 5 hours carrying heavy defused “Mouser” – a Check rifle and our gear on our back. At the top of the mountain, we were able to see the Mediterranean Sea on the west, the Syrian and Jordan Mountains on the east. We saw the Dead Sea on the south and the snow top of Mount Hermon to the north. That what the Arab name really means, the directions of the winds like in a compass.
As a surprise bonus the buses took us to a very nice waterfall called the Banyas to cool down before heading for our camp for the evening. Our last stop was my favorite place of that trip. Tel Dan is an old archeological site. It is believed to date back to Abraham days. But the forest that covered it was something I have never seen in my life. Being a dry country where trees were just being planted everywhere Tel Dan stood out like a rain forest. The streams that were connecting to form the river Dan and from there gushing to the Jordan looked like something out of this world to me. I felt like running and jumping onto the trees. As I was running in the narrow trails David Twito joined in running just behind me.
“Hey, I forgot to tell you,” He yelled. “I found a place where I can get a skull.”
“Wow! Really?”
“I think I will bring it when we get back. You are going to love it.”
David Twito has disappeared for the next two days, for some reason, no one looked for him. I think he had a special permission to go home whenever he wanted. He came back whispering to my ear two days later as I was about to go to my room. He pulled out of his bag a stinking plastic bag round like a soccer ball. It smelled like a dead animal left in the sun for weeks.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“A skull,” David Twito answered with excitement. “I found a skull!”
“Where did you find it?”
“In an old graveyard.”
“You dug out a grave?” My voice was shaking now.
“Yeah!” He was so excited now he almost screamed.
“It stinks! It is fresh! This isn’t an archeological dig; it is desecration of a graveyard.”
“Oh, come on! Don’t be such a joy kill, I got it in an old Arab graveyard.”
“Even, worse! Take it back. It stinks!”
“I can’t, I don’t remember which grave I took it from. it was dark. I will pour after shave on it, it will stop smelling in no time,” he said. “And look I also got the electric parts for the light.”
David Twito couldn’t figure out how to connect the light and I was not about to help him. He did pour “Paco Rabanne” aftershave all over the skull and it just made it worse. After about a week I finally convinced him to bury it at the edge of our village. Somewhere where no one will find it.
The next day he came back from behind the soccer field with dirty muddy fingers and told me he took care of it. He also made me sick to my stomach every time I smelled “Paco Rabanne.” Imagine how much fun I had when I got home and learned that Avi’s favorite aftershave was … you know …
***
Baba Ganush
Most Baba Ganush recipes call for mushed pealed and cooked eggplant. I like the flavor of the fried eggplant including the skin better and cut it to a small size instead of mushing it.
Ingredients:
1 Eggplant
½ Lemon
2 Garlic Cloves
2 TBSP Tehina
¼ Cup Chopped Parsley
¼ tsp Turmeric
½ tsp Cumin
½ tsp Salt
Preparation:
Slice the eggplants and fry it to brown. Fry the garlic to soften. Chop the eggplant, mash the garlic and mix with the rest and serve.
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