First Trip: Get Up and Walk the Land 3

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Startled, Eran turned around and saw a swarthy teenager with a wispy mustache, riding a donkey with an arabesque scrawl painted on its flank. He was dressed in jeans and a Real Madrid T-shirt. Probably Bedouin.

Yaniv froze as if someone had just hit the pause button. Dor glowered and grabbed something inside his pocket. Eran knew what it was. Dor had been given a telescopic club by his brother earlier this year. For months now, he kept saying how he’d use it on this or that category of people he didn’t like. Mostly, however, he used it to smash cardboard boxes and dent trash bins.

“Ahlan wah sahlan.” Eran said. This exhausted his Arabic vocabulary that could be used in polite company. 

Unperturbed by the cold welcome, the young Bedouin dismounted. His movements were sluggish, but his eyes were keen and alert. 

“Seen girl?” he asked in an accent that was almost too thick to decipher. He raised his hand to his chin. “Like this tall.”

“Any girl, or some girl in particular?” Dor asked, the last few words coming out strained as Eran elbowed him in the ribs. This was no time for quips.

“No, we haven’t seen anyone.” Eran spoke quickly before either of his friends had a chance to drop any more pearls of wisdom.

“Wallah.” the youth said, his face as unreadable as his donkey’s. “Green shirt. Colorful pants.” He pressed a single callused finger to his lower lip. “Picture here.” 

“No girl.” Dor said.

“Wallah.” There was nothing threatening about the youth’s demeanor, yet Eran felt increasingly uncomfortable.

“We haven’t seen any girls.” Eran enunciated each word. He wondered if this was going to get hairy. Granted, Eran had left home in search of adventure, but this was a little more than he bargained for. The story of the three boys who were kidnapped and murdered by terrorists was still fresh on everybody’s mind.

“Wallah. Man without girl is half man.” The youth’s lips curled into a crooked smile. “Have something to eat?”

“Sure...” Eran grabbed a handful of rugelach from his bag and handed them to the donkey rider, who accepted them without comment. His skin felt rough against Eran’s soft palm.

“If you see girl, you say to me, yes?” 

“Yes.” Eran nodded. “Right away.”

“This is very important,” the youth said. “I give you money.”

“Okay…” Yaniv mumbled.

“Tislam, ya zalameh.” 

The young Bedouin remounted his donkey and rode downhill. He wasn’t scanning the horizon like someone searching for a missing person. Rather, he looked entranced, as if he was only marginally aware there was a universe outside his head. Come to think of it, his eyes were pretty pink…

“What was that about?” Eran asked once the donkey rider was out of earshot.

Dor began ramming crumpled tinfoil into his backpack. “I don’t know, but I think it’s time to move on.” He poked Yaniv. “What? You’re waiting for a written invitation? Move!”

“You think we’re in trouble?” Eran asked, trying to decide if fearing this Bedouin was prudent or paranoid. Then again, was there really a difference between the two once you crossed the Green Line?

“No, getting involved in an Arab family feud is a great idea… Yallah, let’s move!”

“Okay, no need to get hysterical…” Eran found it hard to keep his hands from shaking as he packed. “Maybe this girl needs help? Do you think we should call the police?”

Dor looked at Eran sideways. “They have their own police and their cops are as likely to shoot you as speak to you. Best not shove our big Jewish noses. For all we know, she could just be lost searching for a lost sheep, right? No need to instantly suspect something illegal. That’s racist.”

“Right…” Eran said. “You are the authority on that.”

Dor grinned like a triumphant baboon. “Damn right I am!”

It didn’t feel right, though. Like walking past a crying kitten. Then again, getting lynched by a Palestinian mob would feel even worse…  

Glancing about, the boys started walking as quickly as possible without appearing to flee (which was exactly what they were doing). 

Their first destination was a pile of rocks that Eran secretly hoped was an ancient Canaanite temple, though it was far more likely to be a depopulated Arab village. Dor didn’t care what the ruins were as long as there were dead people underneath. He wanted to add a human skull to his skull collection, which presently included no skulls at all. Yaniv was only interested in the ruins as a navigational aid and so he urged his friends not to waste too much time loitering there. 

As the sun got bigger and redder, the temperature dropped from unbearable to barely bearable, with the occasional gust teasing a pleasant evening. Animals began to appear. A group of hyraxes raced between rocks and cacti. Dor said he’d seen a dog, or a fox, or a jackal, or something else with four legs and a tail. Yaniv sighed and reminded his friends that hallucinations were the first sign of a heatstroke. 

Eran spotted a gazelle sauntering through a grove. The animal stopped to stare at the humans but shot uphill just as Eran finished unlocking his phone to take a photo. 

“Must be afraid of cannibal Bedouin,” he said. 

Dor snorted.

They reached the ruins just as the sun completed its transformation from a yellow despot to an orange putz. The area consisted of a single waist-high wall and several piles of rocks that may have been the outlines of houses, ancient mutant alien altars, or just piles of rocks. This was nothing to write home about but Eran would do so anyway because it had been a while since he messaged his mom. A photo of a pomegranate shrub growing through a crack in the wall should do nicely.

He already knew what her response would be. He could send her a pretty flower or a week-old roadkill and her response would be the same: Re copado!

Dor found a skull, but it was the skull of a ram and it reeked, so he threw it down a ravine. There was also a dead dog nearby, but it wasn’t a skeleton yet. It probably still contained the brain responsible for the bad decisions that had made it a dead dog.

While Dor was looking for skulls, Eran found several 7.62mm casings lying on the ground. Rusty ones were common, but these were new and shiny. He looked around and found little pockmarks on the wall; fresh bullet holes. 

Eran was about to comment that they may have come upon a crime scene when Yaniv pointed at a nearby hill and said, “Look.” 

Eran looked but saw nothing except a grove of castor oil plants surrounded by a sea of thistles. “What is it?”

Yaniv squinted. “It looked like a girl with long, dark hair running through the bush.”

“Her bush you say?” Dor clapped Yaniv on the shoulder. “Brother, you need to watch less porn.”

Eran snickered. “In his case, I think he needs to watch more porn.” 

“I know what I saw!” Yaniv growled, chin raised with injured pride.

“Then let’s go and check.” Eran said. “Maybe she needs help.”

Dor sighed. “Your golden heart will be the death of us. You don’t want to get involved in Bedouin affairs, believe me.”

“I agree,” Yaniv said, “it’s a bad idea. We should start walking right now or we’ll get stuck in the hills after dark. If you’re concerned, just call the police.”

Dor smirked. “Even if you manage to call the police with the terrible reception here, they’ll ignore the girl and detain us for walking where we shouldn’t. Don’t you remember the sign? No Israelis allowed.” 

Eran frowned. “Okay, but if there’s someone in danger we must help her; If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And being for myself, what am I? If not now, when?"

Dor glared at him. “That’s not what that phrase means, you beardless rabbi.”

Yaniv squinted at the horizon. “We won’t catch her anyway. Distance in this kind of terrain can be misleading. Besides, Tamar is waiting for us.”

Dor and Yaniv shuffled on. Eran stared into the grove for a few heartbeats, then ran to join his friends.