Olga Grjasnowa - All Russians Love Birch Trees

The grandma lovingly helped her grandson put his flippers on. The sea was blue and even.

“Later came the constant questions. Where are you from? Do you feel more German or Turkish? When I was sixteen I had to go to the immigration office for my residence permit. I mean, what the hell? I was born there. I even had to stay home from our high school graduation trip. They went to London. I didn’t get a visa. You know what my teacher said to me? If we were decent people, we would have gotten German passports long ago.”

Cem looked straight out onto the sea. Then he grinned and said, “But this little guy here won’t screw up. He’ll read and understand everything. All the classics of postcolonial studies, critical witness studies, racism theories, Fanon, Said, Terkessidis. By the way, I’m getting my Ph.D. now.”

In the evening we went to a restaurant, both drained from the sun, and had steamed vegetables with rice. There was no air-conditioning and therefore only a few tables were occupied. But the food was good and all the windows were open. My bare thighs stuck to the leather seat. Cem sat facing me and talked about his Ph.D. thesis. He felt guilty toward his parents for pushing back his entry to the workforce even longer, and I tried to reassure him. An ambulance passed us, its siren blaring. We fell silent and followed it with our eyes, each wondering if there had been an attack or an accident.

“How is Sami?” I asked after a while.

Cem studied my face. “He’s back in the States.”

“I see.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

“About two months ago.”

“Anything else?” Cem asked.

“What do you mean?”

Cem refilled my wineglass and leaned back. “Masha, I’ve been watching you guys make each other unhappy for years now. Either let it go or get together.”

“Is he with Neda again?” I bit my lower lip and Cem drummed his fingers against the edge of the table almost soundlessly.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing here,” said Cem. “The beach and the food are OK. But what do you want here?”

“I don’t know.”

Cem kept his temper in check, fell silent. I could see him weighing how direct he could be with me. Then he asked: “Did you find religion? Did you discover Judaism as your cultural identity?”

“I had to get away.”

“Don’t you want to come back?”

I traced the rim of my plate with my finger.

“Not yet.”

“When?”

I felt so stupid, I nearly cried. I was alone in a city I didn’t know, missing my friends. I wanted them to misunderstand me and didn’t even know why.

“Come home.”

“Germany? Home?”

“I’m not talking about Germany. You know how things are there. I mean Frankfurt, Gallus.”

“That’s where Elias died.”

“Not in the Gallus neighborhood.”

We happened to run into Ori on Rothschild Boulevard. He was walking our way in shorts and an undershirt. In his right hand he held a bottle of beer, in his left his overpriced cellphone. Cem and Ori liked each other right away and we sat down in an ice cream parlor. It turned out that the two of them had the same taste in literature, music, and fashion. We went on to a bar in Florentin, where a friend of Ori’s was DJ-ing.

The bar was filled to capacity, the air thumping with fast-paced music. Most people stood around, drinking and smoking. A few were already dancing.

Cem went straight to the dance floor. Ori followed him. Cem seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself — unlike so many occasions when I’d seen him on the sidelines of the party, sourly waiting to leave. I played with the straw in my drink, watching them. They were good dancers. The beat seemed to migrate from the dance floor to their bodies.

The music got louder, the room smaller. Panic welled up inside me. I could feel it spreading in my chest, drying out my lungs and crawling up into my head.

“I have to go home,” I whispered into Cem’s ear and ran out.

Outside I took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. I was hyperventilating. I got into a cab, clinging to the door, and somehow made it into my apartment. Ten minutes later Cem was there, stroking my palms, my arms, and my face as if he wanted to apologize for something that wasn’t his fault. He dialed the emergency number.

The doctor pulled on rubber gloves and gave me an injection. I saw the needle disappear into my flesh and then became calm, almost instantly. My breathing slowed. The fear, Elisha, and the woman in the light blue dress were gone. My head felt as if it were wrapped in cotton. A gigantic Q-tip. The doctor ordered me to go to the psychological emergency service tomorrow and have them prescribe benzodiazepine. Other than that, no big deal.

As soon as I had the pills I was better. I now knew that the problem was a concrete one and that it had a concrete chemical solution. I fell asleep.

After half a day in the psych ward — with Cem repeatedly imploring me to return to Germany — we were sitting in a cafe on Dizengoff Street. I was soaking a croissant in my iced coffee, trying to recall whether this was the cafe that forbade its employees to speak Arabic. Or was it the one next door? I was tempted to inquire about it in Arabic, but Cem was not a fan of the idea. He looked at me like I was crazy, then, like a fury, brought up my mother, my father, and his mother — though she’d stopped caring years ago — as a way of threatening me. He wouldn’t stop talking about Germany. But I wanted to stay and lose myself in little pieces, never to be reassembled.

I suggested we drive to Jerusalem and thought he might cool off along the way.

At the bus stop we bought ice cream. Then we entered the main hall, looking for the shuttles to Jerusalem. On the lawn in front of the building sat refugees, waiting for work. The Russian-language press called them Gastarbeiter , guest workers. I had no idea how anyone could find this term appropriate. Inside and around the station were many small shops that sold sweets and cheap, colorful clothes. Surly men with open shirts and gold chains nestled in their thick chest hair walked next to young soldiers in uniforms and sandals.

“Just explain to me once more, why exactly you want to stay here?” Cem hissed.

Five Asian women were in the shuttle already. One of them held a plastic bag filled with plums in her lap. The others helped themselves, chatting and laughing. The overly sweet scent of fruit filled the van. We drove past dried-out sunflower fields. The radio blasted pop music. Cem didn’t look out the window, but into a folder for an upcoming conference. From the corner of my eye I read financial transaction tax, restructuring law, structured liquidation of banks, limitation period of D&O liability for shares, protester problem . He was probably offended.

Cem wasn’t particularly impressed by Jerusalem. The only thing he seemed to appreciate were the plaques with golden Latin letters informing anyone who cared to read them about who had donated a building, a bench, or a flower bed. On our walk through the inner city, Cem studied each of the plaques, asking if I knew the donor and if I thought he or she got a thrill out of seeing their name on the plaque.

It was a cool evening and we squeezed through the Christian pilgrims, extended Arabic families, and a group of American Birthright tourists, their members admiring the armed soldier who was there to guard them. Orthodox Jews hurried through the street — men in dark coats and wide-brimmed hats, women in wigs or head scarves. Quite a few were poorly dressed and almost all were surrounded by a gaggle of children. Cem shook his head and I felt myself once again tempted to defend a way of life that I personally rejected. But Cem didn’t say anything and neither did I.