Having lived for a month on Florence, they arrive in Israel. It has been a long journey. First they took a bus to the Train station, then traveled by a train from Firenze to Milano, where they took an express bus from the train station to the airport. Then they flew Czech Airlines, which had offered much cheaper tickets payable in dollars over the Internet, with no currency conversion, which had meant no extra charges! The route was not quite direct though. From Milan to Prague, and then, after a two hour wait, back South, to Tel Aviv.
So here they are, each rolling a suitcase and carrying a backpack with a computer. It is 4:50 in the morning at Ben Gurion Airport, but Liz musters a question in Hebrew: Where is an exit to the train station? Miraculously she is understood and the direction is pointed to them.
"Molto Grazie," Liz replies promptly but in Italian, overwhelmed with appreciation and tiredness.
And this is how it had been ever since, throughout the whole two-week long stay in Israel: a profound language confusion.
In the open market, the shuk, so filled with smells, sounds, colors, she'd use Italian numerals to communicate with the merchant regarding the price of a timer
"Vente?" she asks
"No, Esrim, the merchant disagrees and Liz is totally surprised by his displeasure.
She gives him twenty shekels. He accepts, and she moves on, a new owner of a white timer.
She tried to buy a timer the day before.
"Haim yesh timer," she asked the man in a small place filled with alarm clocks.
"How do you know that his name is Chaim?" her daughter asked her.
"No, no timers here," answered the man in the shop
"This is how you turn an affirmative statement into the interrogative, by placing the word haim in the beginning," she told her daughter
"Never heard of such thing," the daughter looked amused.
Liz however was not amused at all.
"It was in the fifth lesson of my grammar book," she insisted.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am sure, I've only covered six lessons, rather hard to forget what each of them taught."
"And what kind of grammar book is it?"
"A comprehensive course in modern Hebrew," Liz said proudly
"How old is this book?"
They checked when they arrived home.
Fourth printing in 1984
Copyright 1973
"I still wouldn't walk around assuming that all shopkeepers are called Chaim," the daughter laughed light-heartily.
Later Liz asked her friend Ayala, a native speaker of Hebrew.
"Yes, this is a polite form. but nobody uses it anymore, you just raise your voice in the end of the sentence, and that makes it a question!"
And this is how it goes.
"You speak Georgian," they say raising their voice in the end of the sentence. They are in a small shoe shop in the shuk and are talking to the man who owns it. Not that they know Georgian, but they ask the man if he does.
"No, Farsi," answers the man
Neither Georgian nor Farsi is helpful in facilitating that transaction: no one speaks Georgian, and only one party speaks Farsi... But somehow the transaction takes place, and a pair of beach sandals of the correct size is purchased.
Liz buys clothespins from two different merchants. She needs maybe eighty of them, or a hundred, that is a lot, so why buying all at the same place? She could practice her Hebrew on two people instead of one! But how much Hebrew is needed really?.. The price is marked. The money is handed. The clothespins go into a thin plastic bag. The purchase is made. Thanks and Bye.
They buy a Shabbat warming plate and the water urn from a tall man, the owner of a larger shop on one of the busy streets surrounding the shuk. Presently he is speaking French to a sour-looking well-dressed lady who, after a long, seemingly amiable conversation leaves the shop without a purchase. They learn from the tall man that the lady is loaded with money but totally unable to spend any. The man speaks English to Liz and her husband, offers them a good price for the things that they need, glad that they are in a process of establishing a home in Israel. He himself? Oh, he has lived in Israel sice 1976. Before that he used to be an Army General under the Shah of Iran...
They are practically out of cash now. But that shabbily dressed man with a gray pony-tail seems to have the flat screw-driver that they need. The man sits upon a rusty beach chair by a bunch of second-hand things spread out on an old blanket. He wants ten shekels but would let them have it for eight. They only have six left. The man has a look of a guy who has seen it all. He slowly takes the six shekels and gives them the screw-driver. The next day Liz returns to the market and gives the man the two shekels that they owe him. Then she buys a measuring tape and a Phillips with a longer handle. Somehow the man does have very useful things in the piles on that old blanket.
Seems like no day goes by without a trip to the shuk. A small bunch of fresh dill, a few bananas, a mango, green granny smith apples, slim and firm Israeli cucumbers, tomatoes on vines, and burekas, every day a few burekas, those little pastries made of flaky dough and filled with cheese, or apples, or potatoes, or plums, or poppy seeds...
In a small bakery Liz buys two loaves of a long and skinny sesame covered bread that smells deliciously. She counts her coins carefully and hands them to the saleswoman who refuses to accept the money.
"It's not our money!" she tells Liz.
Puzzled, Liz pays with a paper bill, walks out of the shop and examines the coins. Oh no, those are euros! That would have been a very expensive bread! Liz puts the euros into a small pouch that will go to the suitcase and stay there. Plenty of things to get confused about, no need to add any.
A small box of Chanukka candles for three shekels (as opposed to probably three euros that she would have to pay in Berlin!) is acquired with no exchange of words al all. What a pity! Liz couldn't ask if they had the candles because the candles were right in front of her. She couldn't ask how much they were either since the price had been written down onto a slip of paper placed under a small stack of boxes. She couldn't even exchange the Thanks and Bye with the shopkeeper because he was busy talking to somebody else... Doesn't look like an adequate opportunity to practice the language, does it?
The market is a lot of fun, provided no one is in a hurry...