“Sure, Israeli customs. I’ve brought certified bank checks for the taxes, and all the required documents. Got them in the New York consulate.”
“Really? Very wise. Do you have family here?”
“Sort of. Heard of General Zev Barak?”
“Our military attaché in Washington? Who hasn’t?”
“We’re related.”
“You don’t say.” The Israeli pointed at the naval base. “The destroyer that just came in is the Eilat. His son’s the second in command.”
“So that was the Eilat? Well, Noah Barak’s my cousin. I’ll be looking him up. You’re an Israeli, I take it.”
“What else?”
“Were you in the war?”
“Of course, I’m not fifty yet. Antiaircraft unit in the north. Not much to do, since our air force wiped out all the Arab airpower on the first day.”
“Yes, wasn’t that marvelous? Christ, what a victory. Six days! Made me proud to be a Jew.” At the Israeli’s quizzical look he added, “Not that I wasn’t proud anyway.”
“And that inspired you to make aliya?” The Israeli’s tone was warm, almost paternal. “The Six-Day War?”
“It tipped the scale.”
The diesels growled, the deck shuddered, and the vessel churned toward the wharfs.
“And is your name Barak, too?”
“Nope. Barkowe.” He added with a grin, “Both changed from Berkowitz,” and he offered a card from his wallet: John A. Barkowe, Attorney-at-Law, Real Estate, with an address in Great Neck, Long Island.
“Real estate, hah? I dabble in it myself.”
“I was just getting started.”
“John Barkowe. Doesn’t even sound Jewish.”
“I know. My Hebrew name is Yaakov. That’s what I’ll be using here.”
“Fine Israeli name.”
Approaching a broad wooden slip, the ferry blasted its siren several times. “Here we go,” shouted the Israeli, hands to ears. “Get into your car, and be ready to drive off.” He handed Barkowe a card. “Have fun in Israel with that Porsche, Yaakov.”
“Thanks. See you around.” Barkowe glanced at the card and dropped it into a pocket.
The stream of debarking cars, mostly decrepit small European models, was directed by hard-faced men into an enormous shed, where the drivers after parking queued up at grilled windows along the far wall. A huge sign proclaimed in Hebrew over the windows
WELCOME, ARRIVALS
and below that, in much smaller letters
CUSTOMS
The Porsche came rolling in, attracting stares all the way. As Barkowe parked and got out, a tall bony man in a green peaked cap approached him, saying, “B’dikah [Inspection].” More men came up, surrounded the Porsche, and began peering into it and feeling the blue leather upholstery. Since this was happening to no other car that he could see, Barkowe mentioned the fact in his limited Hebrew to the inspector in the cap.
“Ani mitzta’er [I’m sorry],” said the inspector, who had a very pronounced squint; a suspicious look or a physical defect, the American couldn’t be sure which. Another inspector was crawling under the car with a big flashlight, while a third banged here and there on the bumpers and fenders with a wooden club. Two more pulled out Barkowe’s luggage, three fine leather bags, and began rummaging through them.
“What is this? Do you think I’m a —” Not knowing the Hebrew for “smuggler,” he pantomimed cocaine-sniffing with back of hand to nose and a loud snort.
The squinter shrugged, frisked Barkowe head to foot, and stopped at a pocket. “Show please.”
Barkowe handed him his wallet. The inspector looked at the credit cards, the driver’s license, the wad of dollars, and the small stash of Israeli currency. “Tourist?” he inquired.
“Making aliya,” said the American.
The squint was not a defect after all. It cleared away in a look of utter amazement, then returned more pronounced and suspicious than before. Lifting the hood of the Porsche, he squinted under it, borrowed the flashlight from the man under the car, crouched to squint more intently at the engine, and scribbled in a pocket notebook. Then he said, “Documents.”
“Don’t they go to the Mekhess?”
“I’m the Mekhess.”
A shiny white Mercedes pulled up nearby and the Israeli in the windbreaker jumped out, seemingly in a hurry, for he went off toward the windows at a trot, swinging his overlong arms. Barkowe produced a rubber-banded envelope, and the inspector took a long leisurely squint at the papers inside. Meantime two of the other men were pulling up the floor mats, one was flashing the light into the gas tank, and another was kicking the tires. Long queues lounged and fidgeted at all the windows, but even while the inspector was glancing over his papers Barkowe saw the burly man lope back to his Mercedes and drive off through a gate into the waterfront traffic.
“New car?” said the inspector at last.
“Almost new. I drove around Europe a bit when I first picked it up.”
“Where was that?”
“In Milan, Porsche agency.”
“Ah good, no problem then.” The squinter snapped the rubber band around the envelope and handed it back to Barkowe. “You can book return passage on this same boat tomorrow.”
“Slikha?” (“Pardon?”)
“You have to take this Porsche back to Milan.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Mekhess man blasted a spate of Hebrew at him.
“Slower, please,” said Barkowe.
The squinter said in heavily accented English, “Your model Porsche not available in Israel. No model in Israel, no car come in.”
“Oh, so you do speak English? Fine. The New York consulate didn’t mention any regulations about models.”
“Ani mitzta’er. New regulation.”
“Is that my fault? Look, let me make myself clear. I’ll fight this up to the American ambassador if I have to, but I’m not taking this car back to Italy. That’s an absolutely insane idea.”
Squinting toward a chain-fenced area full of cars, the inspector said with a shrug, “Impounded vehicles park there. Storage charge, twenty American dollars daily.”
When Noah Barak returned to the wardroom of the Eilat from the supply section, four officers at lunch burst into a popular new song of the war.
O Sharm el Sheikh
Once more we’ve returned,
Our hearts to you ever,
Ever have yearned …
Noah poured coffee from a simmering pot on a sideboard. “Look, isn’t the joke getting old?”
“What joke? What old?” said the captain, a roly-poly lieutenant colonel (the Israel navy used army ranks), gesturing at a blown-up newspaper photograph taped to a bulkhead. It showed Noah, wearing only shorts and an officer’s cap, nailing the Star of David flag to a pole atop a stone fortress. “Who else in this navy captured an enemy base singlehanded?”
It was in fact a very old joke. On temporary detached duty, commanding a patrol boat in the Red Sea, Noah Barak had led a landing force ashore at Sharm el Sheikh, only to find that the base had been abandoned in the pell-mell retreat of the Egyptians. So at negligible risk he had “captured” the deserted base, an army photographer had snapped the shot, and it had appeared next day on the front page of Ha’aretz. Aboard warships jokes tend to be durable. He had been serenaded off and on for months about Sharm el Sheikh.
Noah shook his head irritably and took the coffee to his cabin, where a telephone chit on his tiny desk read, Daphna Luria called. Phone her 1800 tonight Ramat David. He could seldom see the luscious Daphna, tied as he was to the ship and she to her duties at the air base, and just those dry words sent a warm flush from his scalp to his toes. There was also a hand-delivered letter on Dan Hotel stationery, from someone signing himself Jack Barkowe, who wrote in English that they were cousins, that he had come to Israel on aliya, and that he was having difficulty getting his car through customs. Could Noah recommend an agent in Haifa to assist him?
Noah was astonished. He knew that a branch of the family in Long Island had altered the Berkowitz name to Barkowe, but this was the first he had heard of the cousin, and an American making aliya these days was a real rarity. The newspapers were full of articles complaining about the failure of American Jews to start emigrating en masse to Israel, now that the Six-Day War had secured the Promised Land as the Jewish State once for all. What was wrong with those millions of American Jews? Here was the moment they and their fathers and their forefathers had been praying for three times a day, century after century, the glorious chance to Return to Zion! And American Jews were indeed coming to Israel in droves, to see sights hitherto barred to them — the Wailing Wall, Jericho, Hebron, Sinai — for three, five or ten days, depending on the tour plans. Tourism, yes, aliya, no. In and out. Z’beng v’gamarnu! (Bang and finish!) More power to this Long Island cousin, Noah decided, he deserved help at the Mekhess.
The captain leaned in the doorway as Noah was stripping to shower. “So, Noah, what happened at supply?”
“Again, no countermeasures.”
“What’s the delay this time?”
“Balagan [Foul-up], that’s what. Balagan beyond belief. Captain, the requisitions I submitted sat in somebody’s in-basket for two weeks. I tracked them down myself. They just went out Tuesday. I made a big scandal with the head supply officer, Colonel Fischer. You know what he said? He said, ‘Lieutenant, calm down. Do you really think the Egyptians can aim and fire missiles? Anyway, whatever missiles they’ve got are Russian, they’re bound to malfunction. You’ll get your countermeasures by November, that’s three weeks away. So what’s the fuss?’ ”
“He doesn’t have to patrol off Port Said,” observed the captain gloomily. There was hard intelligence of Soviet-made Osa and Komar missile boats of the Egyptian navy in Port Said. But they had not gone into action in the war, so senior navy officers, unlike the two destroyer captains, were not taking them seriously.
Under the steaming shower Noah wondered how he could assist his American cousin. Haifa customs agents were all alike, except that some were more rascally than others. He couldn’t leave the ship, but it occurred to him that Daphna might help the guy. She often got Friday off, and Barkowe might simply have a language problem.
Jack Barkowe ordered an early breakfast in his hotel room and sat at the window, delighting in the spectacular view of Haifa harbor. Like San Francisco, only prettier, he thought in his exalted mood. The Mekhess snag had not fazed him. His family and friends, trying to dissuade him from going on aliya, had harped on the notorious Israeli bureaucracy. Well, here he was, and he would lick the Mekhess and bring in his Porsche. It was as good a way as any to cut his teeth on his new life.
The door opened and in rolled a room service table ahead of a waiter smiling and singing the victory song that had swept Israel.
Jerusalem of gold,
Of bronze and of light …
“And where is Adoni [Milord] going today?” inquired the waiter, a little dark mustached man in a white coat. “Nazareth? The Golan Heights? The Sea of Galilee? The tomb of Maimonides, maybe? That’s very good luck, the tomb of Maimonides. It’s near Tiberias. I visited it, and my wife got pregnant with twins.”
“I’m not married.”
“Visit the tomb of Maimonides, and you’ll get married. To a beautiful Israeli girl.”
As Barkowe was finishing his breakfast the telephone rang. “Mr. Barkowe? You having trouble with the Mekhess?”
“Who are you?”
“Avi Shammai, of Shammai Brothers. We solve Mekhess problems. Our specialty is automobiles.”
“Come right up.”
Avi Shammai was a big stout blond man, in a striped short-sleeved shirt, brown pants, and sandals on bare feet. “It’s no problem,” he said. “We run into this all the time.”
“How can you help me?”
Avi Shammai’s English was rapid but cloudy. His proposal involved temporarily transferring ownership of the Porsche to the Shammai Brothers, who would take it to Cyprus, adjust the odometer to show more mileage, perform other alterations, and bring it back in as a secondhand car. Something like that. Barkowe found him hard to follow, but through the verbiage three points gradually became clear. First, it was no problem; second, the cost would be five thousand American dollars; third, Barkowe would pay twenty-five hundred dollars now, the balance when Shammai Brothers delivered him the car.
“When will that be?”
“In a month, guaranteed.”
“What’s your phone number?”
“Mr. Barkowe, Shammai Brothers is a busy firm. I’ve brought all the necessary documents —”
“Just your number, please.” Barkowe pulled from his pocket the card the Israeli had given him on the ferry. “Write it on here.”
Shammai took the card and glanced at it. With a strange expression mingling amazement and horror he said, “You know Guli?”
“Who?”
The agent extended the card, printed all in Hebrew except for two words, Avram Gulinkoff. “Him. Where did you get this card?”
None of this fellow’s business, Barkowe thought. “Oh, friend of my father’s. Why?”
Avi Shammai dropped the card on the breakfast table and hurried out, his sandals loudly flapping. Barkowe was puzzling over this bizarre turn when the phone rang again. Another helpful agent? Was his predicament the talk of Haifa?
“Dzeck Barkowe?” A girl’s voice, peppy and sweet.
“I’m Jack Barkowe. Who is this?”
“My name’s Daphna Luria. I’m Noah Barak’s friend, and I’m here in the lobby. You’re having problems with the Mekhess?”
“I’ll be right down. Tan jacket.”
“I’ll find you, Dzecki.”
Barkowe had never liked the familiar “Jackie.” It was his custom to growl, “The name’s Jack,” when people used it. But Dzecki, as this girl said it, sounded sort of piquant.
The elevator door opened on pandemonium. From big snorting busses tourists were pouring into the hotel, and more tourists were pouring out into other enormous busses spouting black fumes. The lobby was festooned with banners — KING DAVID TOURS, HOLY LAND TOURS, SCHEINBAUM TOURS, PARADISE TOURS — under which mountains of luggage rose. Shouldering through the tumultuous lobby, looking for someone who might be Daphna, Barkowe heard a babble of tongues, English predominating. A tap on his shoulder. “Here I am, Dzecki.” She was a smallish girl in a beige uniform, with heavy blond hair on which perched a little black cap. Her bosom was marked, her figure slender, her eyes lively and amused. A dish, at first glance. “Do we talk Hebrew or English?” she inquired.
“N’nasseh Ivrit,” he said. (“Let’s try Hebrew.”)
“Ah. Very good. Noah thinks,” she said, as they pushed toward the lobby entrance, “that maybe I can help you. He can’t leave the ship until tomorrow, when the Mekhess will be closed.” She glanced pertly at him. “Shabbat. Understand?”
“Every word.”
“Lovely.”
Soon they were riding in a small slanted subwaylike car going down a steep tunnel. “This is the Carmelit,” she said. “Don’t waste your money on taxis while you’re at the Dan. We can walk from the bottom to the Mekhess.”
They did, and found the huge shed vacant and quiet; no cars, no inspectors, all windows but one closed. “There’s my car,” he said.
“Which one?”
“The blue one.”
The Porsche gleamed among the shoddy impounded cars like a sapphire dropped in dirt. Daphna widened amazed eyes at him, bluer than the Porsche. “That’s YOUR car, Dzecki? What arc you, a millionaire’s son?”
He laughed. “I’m broke. It’s a story.”
At the open window, Barkowe handed his documents through the grill to a bald man with very big yellow false teeth. “Ah yes, the Porsche. Interesting case,” said the man in passable English, his teeth clicking. “But the boat to Italy has left.”
Daphna entered into a vi
gorous dispute which Barkowe could not follow at all, the teeth behind the grill clicking like castanets. “Well, you have a real problem,” she said at last to Barkowe. “Let’s go to the supervisor. This man isn’t a bad person, he feels sorry for you.”
“Sure. Ani mitzta’er.”
A glint of humor flashed in her sharp blue eyes. “Just so. Ani mitzta’er. You’ll hear that a lot in Israel.”
The paunchy supervisor had a large sad face and sat in a very small office, behind a desk piled high with scruffy folders. He nodded often at the pretty soldier as she rattled on, regarding her with benign melancholy appetite.
“You understand Hebrew?” he asked Barkowe in a hoarse rumble.
“Not the way she’s talking now.”
The supervisor almost smiled, and spoke slowly. “Sir, in strict confidence, by January your car will undoubtedly be admissible. A former high Treasury official plans to import this model, you see.”
“January? I’m paying twenty dollars a day storage. Can’t I post a bond meantime and use it?”
“No, no. Unheard of. Twenty dollars a day is a problem, I grant you. The next boat for Italy leaves Monday.” At the look on the American’s face he shrugged. “Ani mitzta’er.”
As they left the shed Daphna said, “I’ve been useless to you.”
“Far from it. Thanks a lot, now I know where I stand. I’m going to Tel Aviv and break down all doors in the American Embassy.”
“Good for you.” With a beautiful smile Daphna Luria held out her hand. “I think you’ll survive here, Dzecki.” She strode off to a bus stop, and looking after her, he thought he had seldom seen a more seductive swaying walk. Lucky Cousin Noah! There had to be other Israeli girls like Daphna Luria, and at that, he might yet try the tomb of Maimonides. Back in his room the breakfast table had not yet been removed, and there lay the card of Avram Gulinkoff. What could he lose? He asked the hotel operator to get him the phone number.
“Guli speaking,” said the hoarse voice brusquely. “Who’s this?”
“Mr. Gulinkoff, this is Jack Barkowe.”
“What? Who?”
“The American on the ferry.”