Joseph Heller would no doubt have had a quiet chuckle to himself. The author of one of the most incisive literary works of the 20th century, Catch-22, a satirical gem set in World War II, was a master of homing in on the more ludicrous aspects of life and ramping them up to the nth degree.
We landed at Paphos Airport in Cyprus last week, from London. We were due to fly home in the early hours of June 15, via Athens, and then the “fun and games” in our beloved homeland began, so the onward flight was duly canceled. We extended our stay in London by three days – managing to catch a marvelous exhibition at Tate Britain – before jetting over here to Cyprus.
Two considerations prompted the decision. First, it brought us close to Israel with the idea that we would be in prime position to nab a “rescue flight” should one suddenly present itself – hopefully at a sensible price. And second, a Jerusalemite friend, who is due to relocate to the village of Tsada way up in the hills overlooking Paphos and the Mediterranean Sea, offered us refuge in his currently vacant house.
Drifting between home and vacation
For the past week, my wife, daughters, and I have been living in something akin to a state of suspended animation, albeit a safe and secure state of affairs, in a gilded cage. From here, with nary an existential threat on the horizon except, perhaps, remembering to drive on the left-hand side of the road – and looking first right, and only then left, before crossing the road as a pedestrian – we can only imagine what folks are going through back home.
One friend told me that in Israel, his 90-year-old mother’s house was hit by shrapnel and that she’d subsequently fallen and broken her hip. Another brother’s apartment was totally leveled.
The alternate reality back home
Here in tranquil Tsada, we hit the sack at night and can sleep through until morning without even contemplating being rudely awoken by a siren. That said, at various junctures of this trip – I took off from Ben-Gurion in mid-May, which now feels like an age ago – I have heard a sound which reminded me of a siren and immediately had my nervous system jangling.
So, yes, things could be a lot worse. We are not, for example, Syrian refugees adrift in a hardly seaworthy craft trying to land surreptitiously on some Italian or British beach. We have bona fide passports – in my case, three of them – and can ostensibly consider the possibility of returning home not too long from now.
But what will we be coming back to? Our home is in a sleepy moshav in the Ella Valley, next to a forest, with a spring just down the road, and our vegetable garden awaits. Still, we will be returning to a country in the grip of heightened tension as the politicians in Jerusalem, Tehran, and Washington. No doubt elsewhere, they do their thing, which may or may not lead to even more violence and uncertainty.
But, at the end of the day, home is home. And Israel is undoubtedly home, warts and all.