While The City Burned

August 3, 1997

My mother clings to my father and next to him with his towering height, she seems so much smaller as she tries not to cry. He looks at me, his eyes clear and his face resigned, while I wave goodbye, let go, leave the nest and fly—to Israel.

I disappear, dragged away by an escalator, my intertwined parents and I slowly lose eye contact, and I’m left alone in the artificial air of the airport with a red backpack on my shoulders and on my skin the exhilaration of someone taking off.

I’m eighteen and still have nightmares about my final high school exams. I drift over the airport carpet, through jewelry stores and past walls lined with cigarettes and perfume. I see people’s faces, clothes, suitcases, and feel the commotion. I don’t notice the weight of my backpack crammed with enough clothes for a year, only the excitement of an adventure.

“What are your plans?” a teacher asked me after my exams. “I’m going to Israel,” I replied enthusiastically. He frowned a little, raised his eyebrows—an almost imperceptible gesture—and ended my high school life with a dismissive “Good,” devoid of the slightest interest.

I’m going on vacation, more than anything it’s a vacation. A year off. To learn Hebrew, to learn about the Jewish State. I’m Jewish, after all.

There is a large photograph of the Western Wall in our living room. Jews (maybe they’re Sephardic?) pray without shoes. Heads veiled, the women’s faces brush against stones while the palms of their hands rest gently on them. I’ve looked at this photograph since childhood, fascinated by the men’s rough faces and the blackness of the cracks in the large white stones. I would look at it and feel an energy, a spell, a pull. Then I would pause for a moment to examine it, captivated by the sheen of the stones, the power of the landscape.

I stop in front of a mirror. I feel great. I linger, notice a small pimple, but ignore it, then look away because I hate narcissism and I’m not that good-looking anyway.

I sit down on a black leather chair next to a woman drenched in perfume. She’s wearing a pink scarf and has a small dog in a travel crate. I open my backpack and take out The Shadow Line by Conrad. I like the book cover: red, the outline of a sailor in a harbor. I’ve never liked stories about the sea much, but it was a gift from my father. We had almost reached the airport when he told me that Conrad was born in Poland, and, once he got to England, mastered the language so well that he became one of the greatest writers in English. I start reading.

Only the young have such moments. I don’t mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments.

A bit worried, I wonder if I’m young or very young. I don’t want to cheat, and I do think about it carefully, but in the end, I decide that I’m young. After all, I graduated from high school; after all, I’m leaving—on my own. I continue reading the book as a young man.

They announce over the speakers that my plane is ready for boarding. I close the book and regret leaving Captain Giles, Hamilton and the inn. I sling the backpack over my shoulder and give my ticket to a smiling girl. Walking through the tunnel, I say a prayer to ensure we won’t crash, then board the plane and make my way down the aisle to my seat. I stuff my backpack in the overhead bin and sit down. The engines are already running. I look out the window and see the suitcases transported into the cargo hold. I think of my mother’s tears, but inside I’m happy. I can’t wait to arrive in Israel.

I get off the plane and can hardly breathe. The air is thin and stifling and humidity hits my face. I feel my skin burning under the sun. I stop for a moment, discouraged by that climatic welcome, but the push of an energetic older lady with three duty-free bags in her hand helps me down the steps.

Every time I descend the stairs of an airplane and see the soil of a country other than Italy, I feel like the pope, and want to kneel and kiss the ground, maybe to sanctify my visit. But I never do that, not even here in the land of Israel, instead I get on a bus with other tourists.

I look at the driver. Because of some weird train of thought, I’m reminded of Sbaraglio, the leader of my patrol, the Lions. My memory returns to a summer camp with the scouts. In the middle of the night, Sbaraglio—a kid with curly hair and a strong, cheerful negligence toward everything—woke me up: “Shulim! Shulim! Wake up!” “What is it, Sbara?” (that’s what we called him as Cubs) I asked him, drowsy from sleep. “I wanted to know”—he said earnestly while the rest of the patrol snored in the dark tent—“if I can have the ham sandwich you’re not allowed to eat?” I was too sleepy to reply in detail, but from then on Sbaraglio got all my ham sandwiches, which made us good friends.

My relationship with ham—we don’t eat pork in my family—has always been very conflicted. In fact, that forbidden pink meat always looked very tasty and envy made my stomach lurch when, at parties, I’d see my friends devour one ham sandwich after another. But there was one time, at my friend Samuele’s party, when I accidentally got to try the delicious taste of ham.

Because Samuele is Jewish, I, a pious seven-year-old, thought it unlikely that pork would be served to the guests and so I had identified the sandwiches on the table as salmon sandwiches. I tried one and it tasted unusual for salmon, but I liked it, so I took another one: also excellent.

By the second sandwich I grasped I was eating ham, but as an observant young man, to be sure it really was forbidden meat, I ate eight. Then, realizing my mistake, including the transgression, I sought God’s forgiveness with a glass of Coke in my hand, “I didn’t know, Lord, I’m so sorry!” I dutifully prayed and was saved by Samuele who dragged me into a soccer game rescuing me from that delicate dilemma.

The minibus continues and an hour later screeches to a halt in front of a large gray gate with an armed soldier at the entrance. A sign says Student Housing in English. The dorm office is full of students waiting to get their keys to a room. I join the queue behind a guy reading an adult magazine. Two enormous boobs stick out on the cover and outrage some of the other young people, who cast disapproving glances at him. He keeps reading, unfazed by the stares, as if he’s holding a bible, which, I’m pretty sure, the bored students would judge just as harshly. I inconspicuously peek at the pages, attracted by the curves of the models and realize that the scornful glances of the others are really just an excuse to look at the breathtaking blonde’s boobs on the cover. He notices that I glimpse at his magazine and stares at me with pitch-black eyes. His skin is very white, his lips are red, highlighting the pallor of his face. He wears a red baseball cap with the Yankees logo. 

He leans his shoulder against mine, a gesture of complicity, then opens the magazine before my eyes. He’s about to say something but pauses for a few seconds, allowing anticipation to build as if he’s going to reveal a secret. “That’s my sister,” he says proudly. She’s a brunette, naked, her private parts pseudo-covered by two transparent veils. I don’t know what you’re expected to say in these situations and settle for a faint congratulations!. He smiles, shows off a bit, as if he deserves some of the credit for his sister’s curves. Then, his eyes on me, he moves away from my shoulder and says laughing: “Not really, I’m only kidding. Do you think this knockout could be Jewish?” I’m laughing too because as a matter of fact it’s funny to mix Judaism with soft porn. He tells me he found the magazine in the trash can near the door. 

I’m struck by how easy it is for him to say “Jewish”: there’s no hesitation, it’s just another word. I also find it weird how he takes for granted that I’m Jewish, that I’ll laugh at his joke. In Italy I never would’ve said anything like this to a non-Jewish friend, not even to one who is Jewish. In Italy I’d always say the word formally, suited to the occasion, to create a sense of respectability, preventing the person I was talking to from making stupid comments or jokes that would upset me and which I anxiously expected. I saw an exception to this rule only in my father’s Yiddish jokes. Still, they lacked this guy’s simplicity. 

We introduce ourselves. His name is  Gary. He lives in Amsterdam and speaks no Hebrew. Once he learns I’m from Florence, his eyes light up: “Batistuta!” he says satisfied, as if he uttered a password, as if a hidden meaning resided in that word. We talk about soccer. Gary is an Ajax fan. He knows a lot about soccer. His English is perfect. I don’t always understand everything, but I nod anyway.

We’ve reached the table where they assign rooms. A woman with wrinkled dark circles under her eyes that remind me of Saturn’s rings asks Gary his name. While she searches the list, Gary turns around and asks me if I want to share a room: Roommates! Without thinking it through I accept, as if he just offered me a beer. I’ll live with this Dutch guy for a year, I think, but I’m not worried because he seems like a good Musketeer.

We take the keys, put on our backpacks and leave the office. In the hallway, two military duffel bags are leaning against the wall—his. I carry one for him and we start looking for our building.

We find it opposite a small grassy hill on which three young guys are sunbathing. We climb up to the second floor, number 111. Gary unlocks the door. A window, two desks, two beds in the corners, two closets, a sink, a small fridge and two chairs. It’s empty, a bit sad, but clean. I sit on one of the beds, Gary on the other. Our eyes meet, as if to say: What now?

There’s something absurd in the fact that I’m in Jerusalem, in this bare room, in this burning August heat, with a Dutch guy I don’t know who looks at me like Yogi Bear. How did that happen? I say to myself. 

“We’ll have to decorate it a bit!” I say to Gary. “We’ll turn it into a royal palace,” he replies. Then he gets up and opens one of his bags. To my surprise he pulls out a tiny TV, only 14-inches wide. He puts it in the middle of the desk, plugs it in and turns it on. You can’t see a thing. Gary flicks through the channels, but it isn’t picking up anything. After the twenty-third gray fuzzy image I’m about to give up, but suddenly on the twenty-fourth a tiger appears wandering about cautiously among some plants. You can see it clearly. It’s an animal documentary in Hebrew. Sure, it’s not great, but it’s enough to make us cheer. We high-five and start unpacking. 

It’s a hot morning in Jerusalem and I’m looking for my classroom, sleepily wandering the three floors of a run-down building where my ulpan classes should be held. A Japanese woman stops me with excessive courtesy and asks me something. With her eyes wide open she waits for a reply but I’m not even sure if she spoke to me in Hebrew or Japanese. I take leave with a simple shake of the head and in passing her, I picture a tiny girl from the Rising Sun who sways before piano keys as she delivers an exemplary performance of an ètude by Chopin. I check my watch. I’m two minutes and forty-five seconds late. I hurry, then realize this will not take me to class faster but will, instead, increase the pace of my aimless wandering. The hallway quickly clears out as students enter their classrooms, so I stop a big woman who I assume to be American because she’s obese and ask her in English if she happens to know where 303 is. But she’s not American, she’s my teacher and leads me to a room on the third floor between the restrooms and the emergency exit. 

Inside, everyone is already seated on chairs with small, foldable desks attached to one side. I sit down next to a window that looks onto a bleak courtyard. Exactly one month after taking my final exams, I find myself sitting in a classroom again, which leaves me with a vague feeling of anxiety. But a deep breath in and a deep breath out calm me down.

Leaning on her desk, the teacher starts the lesson. My first impression of Hebrew is pretty good. I like the guttural sounds, and the pronunciation of the chet which sounds like my math teacher’s gargles. 

In my notebook I jot down the first word the morah—that’s what they call a teacher in Israel—writes on the board: tavlinim. Thankfully the morah brought pepper, salt, cumin and oregano and I guess my first Hebrew word means spices. What kind of first word is this woman teaching us? I say to myself, but I’m in a good mood and forgive her for having chosen such an insignificant word for an event that instead should have had symbolic meaning: my first Hebrew word learned in the Holy Land!

Having concluded a brief lesson of which I understood nothing, filled with gestures and other objects brought from home, morah Achinoam, that’s her unpronounceable name, has us form a circle for introductions.

Johanna is at least forty from Germany with thick calves and sandals The Good Samaritan would wear. I couldn’t understand a word of what she said about herself in Hebrew. Tracy is a nice Canadian girl who, without hesitation, has started speaking English and is telling us about her school, her city, her family and why she’s here to study Hebrew. I think she got carried away by her enthusiasm and forgot that she was speaking English when morah Achinoam’s intention was for everyone to speak Hebrew and not longer than eight seconds because it’s expected that we completely lack proficiency in this semitic language. Mikako is a Japanese girl. From her brief introduction I think I understood she wants to learn Hebrew. Then there’s an Uruguayan who brought along his maté tea—I like him because he refused to introduce himself. From the few grimaces he made as an apology, I understood that he fiercely opposes the idea you could speak a language without knowing it.

Every class has a nerd who always gets an A and hardly ever lets you copy answers from their papers. In our class it’s Nadine, a French girl with blue tennis shoes who already prepared her introduction at home. Her three perfect sentences no one understood made the morah enthusiastically exclaim “Sababa!” which clearly must be a compliment. 

It’s my turn next. I feel my classmates’ eyes on me, and I want to say something meaningful, at least that I come from Florence. Instead, my limited Hebrew allows me to only say: “I Shulim. I Italian. I … .” I want to add that I’m eighteen but the numbers are not yet in my word collection and so I have to abandon this attempt. I let Kim, a Korean, go next, who, so as not make me look bad, only says one word: “Kim.” 

Olga is a Ukrainian with a crooked nose but natural charisma. She makes me feel as if I speak Hebrew because in the few words she said I immediately detected her heavy Russian accent and this perception didn’t feel far off from my comprehension. And finally, Yousra, a very shy Jordanian, blushes immediately when she introduces herself, and Vinicio, a Columbian with pimples, some threatening to explode, says his name.

Once introductions are over, I’ve already decided there’s no girl I like and from that point of view my class is a failure; on the other hand, socially, I feel at ease, like I’m among great people, including the menacing South American rebel and Nadine the-know-it-all. 

The morah writes the alphabet on the board. Seeing all the letters in one place moves me, I feel drawn in by that sequence of signs, as if enchanted by songs of sirens, or the alley of an exotic neighborhood. But I already know them: they are the same letters I pretended to read in the siddur of my synagogue in Florence. They were letters that formed words whose meaning I didn’t know but sang from memory in the prayers during the holidays. 

The mysterious form of the alef fascinates me as if it hides an ancient secret, bet reminds me of a dark and gloomy cave and gimel is a slide with happy children. Enamored by the Hebrew alphabet, by these letters I have always seen but never understood, I decide I want to learn Hebrew, to finally comprehend my prayers. 

The next day, I’m copying personal pronouns from the board, drawing the curves of the letters one by one. They’re never joined, they always keep the space between them, and I feel as if I’m writing a biblical verse. The class is quiet and focused, everyone doing their own thing. The Asians, Kim and Mikako, are extremely well-mannered and highly focused. It seems to me they’re overdoing it, but if I had worked as hard as them in school, my grades would’ve been better. Tracy is chewing three pieces of gum. Vinicio is picking at a pimple and Nadine is done and waiting with her legs crossed. Achinoam, the morah, is scanning the sky through the window with longing in her eyes. She could be thinking of a man. 

There’s a sudden knock at the door. It’s the principal, a delicate woman with a big beauty mark above her lips rouged with lipstick. She’s standing before us to make an announcement. At first, I decide not to look at her because I only need to copy plural you and it to complete my list of pronouns, but I sense a void filled with anxiety opening in the silence and so I lift my head. 

The principal is serious, talks briefly, says goodbye, then leaves. She spoke slowly in seemingly easy Hebrew but since I’m only on page two in my notebook, I understood nothing of what she said. The morah translates the announcement by describing the principal’s words with examples and drawings on the board. She creates a guessing game. In the end the Uruguayan, whose name eventually turned out to be Alberto, says “Boom!” He guessed what must’ve happened: a terror attack. 

Since I learn about the terror attack in this ridiculous way, I don’t find it shocking. I’m even pleased to have learned a new word to write in my notebook: pigua. We leave the classroom. Everyone has already pulled out a cell phone. I’ve never had a cell phone for various reasons, mainly because I like my jeans pockets to be empty. I head towards the student dorms and the phone booth to let my parents know I’m still alive. I’m neither upset, nor shaken, everything appears to be normal outside, students flow into the university, I feel safe and sound. I know that Israel is a victim of terror attacks but in the ongoing peace process I was told not to worry and I’m not worried, in fact, in a fit of heedlessness I regret not even having heard the explosion. 

The phone booth is besieged by international students. Perhaps I’ll meet someone interesting waiting in the line of young people without cell phones, I think, but then decide to postpone my call to when it’s less crowded and start walking down the little gravel path leading to my room.

In the courtyard, a heated debate is underway between the guys in my building. I’d love to understand their conversation because it seems they’re saying interesting things, and the aggressive tone of their voices draws me in. I guess they’re commenting on the attack, and I’d love to participate but they’re all Israeli and I understand nothing.

A few meters away from them I see Nadine, the top student in my class. She’s still holding her cell phone, no longer using it, and the smudged mascara under her eyes tells me she’s been crying. I’m dying to make myself a sandwich but decide to be sensitive and walk up to her.

I ask her what happened. She tells me in French that her cousin was in Zion Square when the bomb exploded and had just been taken to the hospital. While she’s telling me about her cousin, she’s sobbing and crying, hiding her face behind her hands. 

An embarrassing situation I feel I need to resolve. I immediately rule out a hug because I don’t really know her and I’m always a bit aloof when I first get to know people. Instead, I offer to accompany her to the hospital, to see how her cousin is doing. She nods and says she’ll get some things from her room. I race up to mine and make myself a sandwich. 

We take a taxi. The driver starts to haggle, a common Middle Eastern practice. Still, I trust him, it’s unlikely that he wants to rip us off:  you really need to be a very, very bad person to take a detour when after a terror attack your passengers ask you to drive them to a hospital. So, I choose the taximeter. 

The hospital entrance is blocked by taxis, cars, ambulances and stretchers. We’re still in the cab but there’s something terrible about this commotion, I feel as if I’m in a place where blood was shed, which has not been purified yet. I pay the driver.

We walk into the hospital, feeling foreign in this unknown place among unknown people, as if we’re on a different planet and don’t know their customs. We make our way through the check-in area and the feeling of unfamiliarity turns immediately to anxiety. Entire families are hugging, crying, every family unit has its own little space where they’ve shut themselves off in terrible, terrifying anguish. Screaming, cursing, hysteria. “Why? Why?” cries a woman falling to the ground as if invoking her own death. 

A mother and her three little blond daughters sit in silence on their seats, faces pale, apathetic, a nurse hands them a tray with glasses of water. The screams echo in the room, mixed up with sounds of desperation to form a symphony of anguish. I have goosebumps, feel like crying, imagine the loss every single one of those families has suffered, think of the moment when they were informed of the death of a loved one, a daughter or son.

I look at Nadine: she’s crying. I take her by the arm, and we walk to the information desk. A group of people is ahead of us. An old man shouts a woman’s name at a nurse, repeating it as if he has gone mad, frantic. The nurse shakes her head crestfallen and tells him that the name is not among the hospital arrivals. The old man runs his hands in his hair, spinning around in circles as if deranged, staggers, then hastily leaves the hospital. A woman takes his place and softly utters a loved one’s name. Nadine is trembling, I feel lightheaded, like a machine that can only move forward.

Nadine whispers “Maurice Ben Dayan” to the nurse. She checks a long list of names. “Eighth floor, Burn Center, room 124,” she replies and in her eyes, I detect a heads-up: she wants to warn us of what we’re about to see. We take the elevator full of people, the silence is only broken by the soft crying of an old woman. 

We find 124. Nadine reaches the door and stands still. I take a few steps forward. Inside, on eight beds, eight people are lying motionless, their faces completely covered with white bandages. “Maurice?” Nadine cries softly. No answer. “Maurice?” Nadine repeats as she enters the room of mummies. No one reacts to her voice. To my right I see a man moving—a slight movement of a finger.  I take Nadine’s arm and point towards the man. She comes closer, frightened. I think she’s about to have a nervous breakdown. She leans her face in, examining the small opening left for the burned man’s eyes and seems to recognize her cousin Maurice. She wants to touch him, but she can’t. She asks him questions, but he can only reply with a sad look in his eyes. Nadine starts sobbing with tears streaming down her cheeks. I touch her shoulder, she turns around, embraces me tightly and cries. I feel my shirt getting wet and behind Nadine’s shoulder I see her cousin’s powerless eyes searching for hers that seem to say Don’t Cry!

A doctor walks into the room. I let go of Nadine and ask him about Maurice’s condition. The doctor says he’s out of the woods, but forty percent of his body is burned and that will require a lengthy recovery. Nadine is sobbing again. I want to leave the hospital and run, escape to a quiet far-away place. I want to drink a magic potion, forget everything and laugh all night for no reason.

Nadine feels the same way, she also wants to return to the dorms. Drying the tears streaming from her eyes, she affectionately says goodbye to her cousin and promises to return in the evening.

Outside of the hospital, the wind rises, it rises every day in Jerusalem, just before sunset. It caresses the leaves, clears up the sky then calms, abates and subsides. I let the breeze blow on my face, breathe it in, to catch the magic of this fresh air after the unbearable August heat.  

In the taxi, Nadine talks to her parents, she’s jittery and worked up. As I understand it, she wants to return home to Paris. Her screams are violent, frenetic. Hearing Nadine on the phone reminds me that I forgot to call my own parents. I break out in a cold sweat as I imagine my mother’s fit of anger while I touch my neck uneasily.

We’re back at the dorms. I explain to Nadine that I must immediately call my parents. She hugs me, thanks me and rushes off. 

There’s no longer a line at the booth. Of course not—it’s been three hours! I say to myself while I try to come up with a strategy to face the phone call with my parents: I choose silence. 

“Shulim!!!” she cries, pissed. “You’re a jerk!” A typical insult of my mother’s. “For three hours we thought you were dead!” she says swallowing her tears. I try to explain everything to her but opt for silence again and let her vent. “How could you not think of calling us, cretino!” At this point, in the three minutes of silence that follow my mother’s venting, I decide to play the best card for this type of situation: the lie. “I was in class, I didn’t know about the terror attack, I’m sorry!” I tell her calmly like a great actor, almost convincing myself.