This is about a mermaid who goes on a transatlantic flight. This is about a mermaid who rides a camel. This is about a mermaid who remembers how to swim.
Israel was living up to my expectations, based on my perusal of the tour’s website. Skyscrapers only a few miles away followed through on promises of Tel Aviv’s vibrant nightlife: their shiny windows winked knowingly at the sunset. I could see the city, yet this beach was as pure as a Beach Boys song or surfer movie’s idealization of a beach: the deep, aggressive blue of the Mediterranean invading the bleached sand that was not quite hot enough to burn the soles of my feet, but hot enough to make me think about every step. I’d come here to find out how glamorous it was to be Jewish. I’d come here to fall in love with my own reflection by seeing faces similar to my own and my relatives’. I’d come here to feel like my life was more like a movie. That glorious late afternoon on the beach, though, didn’t really prepare me for the genre this movie actually belonged in.
Supposedly, the tour kept us so busy and sleep-deprived that we would become brainwashed Zionists (that is, not necessarily but optimally religious Jews, and political supporters of Israel) and populate the world with Jewish babies (a goal that’s tough to quibble about, less than a century removed from the Holocaust). I read that on a website after I took the trip. I don’t know if it’s true. It’s almost like a technique you’d hear about being used in Guantanamo. But by the time we got to the fake Bedouin camp, we’d spent an exhausting day shopping at a dreary mall with a food court that served excellent falafel. Since my abusive boyfriend had “borrowed” all my spending money, I’d spent the day window-shopping instead, which may have contributed to my bitter attitude. Then we’d traipsed through sand dunes and caves, which were eerily reminiscent of hikes I’d been on in Tucson.
Now it was time for another “adventure,” when I would have been ready to trade my soul for a nap and some bottled water. I had to refill my bottle with tap water. There were things floating in it. Too big for an amoeba, I would assure myself every time I took a swig. Probably harmless sediment.
