The starkly white plane with the blue star on its tail rose into the heavens, taking us over the clouds to the land of Israel. With a sigh of relief I leaned back in my comfortable first class seat. Most of my group was sleeping off the last few whirlwind days. Some were reading, the overhead lights gleaming in the duskiness of the plane.
A stewardess came around asking if anyone wanted anything to drink. I accepted a little airplane bottle of Jack Daniels and a cup of ice. As I poured the amber-colored liquid over the clear cubes, I replayed my last telephone conversation with Estelle in my mind.
She had loved hearing about how her watch had saved the day back in England, and she was delighted with my rendition of how Captain Bob’s advice saved me in Sweden. “So now it’s all over and we’re on our way to Israel,” I concluded.
“Great,” she said. “Now I’m going to have to worry about terrorists!”
“If nothing happened to me until now, Estelle, there’s a good chance nothing will happen in Israel, no?”
“I don’t know, Keith. I have a bad feeling about this trip, as if something’s going to happen and you’ll never come home, and even if you do come home it’ll never be the same again!”
Not owning a crystal ball, there was nothing I could say to that, so I just replied that I wished she would stop being so dramatic and that everything would be just fine!
Now, as I thought things over, though, I was having some doubts. So many things had gone wrong so far. First the unexpected storm, which could have easily washed me overboard, then the whirlpools, which had been positively scary. What would happen now? I wondered.
This was the deciding race, since a different boy had won each of the first two. I wanted very much to win. It would mean money, prestige, and all sorts of nice things. Anyway, I said to myself, thousands of tourists go to Israel each year and there’s almost never a problem.
My thoughts turned to Israel. What kind of a country was it, that it had such a magnetic hold on people all over the world? Although my parents had never been there, my dad always got heated up whenever Israel was discussed on the news. Usually we heard about the savage Israelis who oppressed the poor Palestinians, and Dad would say, “If the Mexicans decided to go to war against America because America took away Texas from them, then America would have every right to defend itself, no? And if they would try to blow up American citizens, America would wipe them out! So why is everyone so obtuse and callow when it comes to this tiny little country about the size of New Jersey?”
The movie screen was on, showing a tourism special about Israel. I put my earphones on and listened as the pictures flashed before me. I was shown modern Tel Aviv and ancient Jaffo side by side, then the Dead Sea where the high-rise hotels stuck out against the background of the rocky beach. There was footage of the gorgeous waters of Eilat with its glass-bottomed boats and dolphin shows. Then came Jerusalem, the capital of Israel and one of its finest cities, with religious spots for everyone.
Somewhere over the ocean I fell asleep to the sounds of a clarinetist I found on one of the music channels as the screen flashed a picture of monks in black cloaks, Arabs with red hats on their heads, and elderly men with long white beards dancing in a circle by a wall covered in leaves vied. The image faded into one of a little boy whose intense coal black eyes peeked out from under his cap and then mixed with the suntanned face of a kibbutz girl picking oranges and the serious form of a young soldier, rifle slung over his shoulder. I dreamt of a land of rivers of milk and honey flowing together through mountain passes where goats frolicked under the shade of verdant palm trees, clusters of dates swaying to and fro in the breeze.
I slept the sleep of the just, waking briefly for a meal and drifting off quickly once again. All at once a language I didn’t know was being spoken over the loudspeaker. I woke with a start to hear the captain announcing in Hebrew and then in English that we’d be momentarily landing at Ben Gurion Airport. I rubbed sleep from my eyes, got my stuff together, and prepared for landing.
