How far from here to the hotel? my brother asked. We still had to catch a taxi to Jerusalem. My parents had arrived a few days earlier to deal with who knows what wedding preparations and had told us that when we came out of the airport, we should take a taxi to Hotel Kadima, in Jerusalem, that it was no more than half an hour away, that they’d be waiting for us there. About half an hour, I was about to say to my brother, when suddenly I was dazzled by a fleet of Lufthansa flight attendants. Five or six girls, all wearing radiant Lufthansa uniforms and yellow Lufthansa caps and smiling enormous Lufthansa smiles. We had flown Lufthansa via Frankfurt, where the plane — first while parked at the gate, then during its slow taxi to takeoff — was defended and escorted by two German patrol cars and a military tank.
The five or six flight attendants all headed for a passenger who was leaning up against a huge beer poster, smoking. I felt an immediate pang of guilt. I crushed my cigarette out on the floor. The man — maybe fifty, bald, fat, pale, sweaty, in shorts and rubber sandals — showed them his passport and ticket as he began arguing loudly, in Hebrew or Arabic. One of the girls held the man’s documents and, judging by her face and gestures, seemed to be telling him to accompany them someplace. But the man just shouted louder and louder. Two soldiers, dressed in green and toting machine guns, appeared out of nowhere and stationed themselves on either side of the man. One of the soldiers was insisting the man surrender his backpack, but the man clasped it tightly to his chest and appeared to be shouting that he’d never give it up alive, or at least not without a good fight. The black carousel had begun to turn; the first bags were coming out. Not one of the passengers cared. We all stared at the man with curiosity and fear and a touch of expectation. Several passengers even approached, out of nosiness, just in case, to help or to lend the flight attendants their support if need be. But suddenly, in what was clearly an expert and premeditated move, the two soldiers grabbed the man, threw him to the ground, cuffed him, and dragged him off as he continued shouting in Hebrew or Arabic. That easy. That quick.
Several of the Lufthansa flight attendants then left as well. But two of them stood in the same spot, whispering among themselves and calming down several of the passengers. My brother looked at me, gaping, eyes wide open, shaking his head slowly. Perhaps thinking: Nice welcome. Or perhaps thinking: Where the fuck have we landed? I shrugged.
We walked slowly back to the carousel, which was creaking and screeching, but creaking and screeching with poise, with grace, like a grandiose relic of some sort. I don’t know why I turned once more to look back at the two Lufthansa flight attendants. Nor do I know why — although I assume the yellow gleam of the uniform had something to do with it — it took me so long to recognize her.
It can’t be, I said to my brother, excited, grabbing onto his arm. What? he asked. Look, I said. Look at what? There, the flight attendant, I said, signaling with my eyes. I think it’s her, I said. Think it’s who? Perhaps he was still dazzled by the yellow Lufthansa uniforms, or he didn’t recognize her, or he’d never actually met her and I’d only told him about her. The flight attendant, I said, signaling with my eyes again. Yeah, I see her, what about her? I let go of his arm and stood staring at her for a few seconds, doubting, or maybe fearful. I think it’s Tamara, I said. Who? Tamara, I repeated, a bit surprised to have remembered her name after so long, a name that now sounded sublime, foreign, fictional even.
My brother gazed at her for a few seconds, struggling to rewind the years, to recall, to place himself in the past and sift through all those dusty images. That’s crazy, he said, impossible. How could it be her? It’s her, I said, studying her eyes and her lips and her pale freckled cheeks and her copper hair streaked with gray. Her hair’s shorter and grayer now, but that’s Tamara, I said, nearly convinced and starting slowly in her direction. Wait, where are you going? my brother said from behind me, the bags are starting to come out. Could it be her? Could it really be Tamara? Would she recognize me after all those years? Would she remember me? Would she hug me or kiss me or maybe even slap me? Don’t do it, my brother shouted over the creaking carousel, it’s not her.
Tamara? I said, touching her shoulder.
IT WAS ONE IN THE MORNING when my brother and I finally stepped onto the sidewalk outside the airport. There were multiple taxis, from multiple companies, in multiple colors. Without much thought, we approached a red-and-white minivan that looked a bit more official and said to the driver: Hotel Kadima, in Jerusalem. The guy, looking angry and harried and motioning to the back, said yes, yes, Kadima, Yerushalayim. We opened the minivan’s rear doors, stashed our bags, walked back around, and got in through the side door. In the first row sat a couple of French tourists who I assumed were also going to Hotel Kadima in Jerusalem. We said hello, taking our seats behind them in the second row, exhausted.
So? my brother asked again, impatient. The taxi driver was shouting at someone over the radio. I began to find it odd that he didn’t close his door, didn’t start the engine so we could get moving. Are you going to tell me or not? my brother asked, his eyes half-closed and his tone confrontational. I leaned back against the headrest. Scarlet, I told him.
Before I saw her timid smile, before I saw her blue Mediterranean eyes widen, I knew Tamara finally recognized me as soon as I saw the minuscule freckles on her cheeks disappear in a sudden scarlet flush. But from then on, it was all awkward. We hugged awkwardly. We asked and answered each other’s questions awkwardly, with clichés, with the animated chaos and apprehension that came of having our little reunion in public, amid all the passengers and the suitcases and the stifling heat of the airport and the obvious gravity of her Lufthansa uniform, interrupting each other and stumbling over each other in an attempt to sum up all those years in a few seconds. Then we fell silent awkwardly, each of us perhaps thinking of a brief and distant encounter we thought we’d left behind but which was suddenly back and erupting with the force of a volcano. She asked me in English how long I was going to be in Israel, and I stammered and said a few days, just a few days, just for my little sister’s wedding, and yes, an Orthodox wedding, and yes, in Jerusalem, and yes, at Hotel Kadima. Her Lufthansa colleague called her, as if to hurry her up, and Tamara said something to her in Hebrew. Then she took out a scrap of paper and scribbled down her phone number and said that I should call her, that she lived very close to Hotel Kadima, that she could pick me up and take me to see some sights. Okay, Eduardo? she asked, pronouncing my name as though it weren’t my name or as though it were a version of my name that was hers alone, and sending me back to a Scottish bar and a few beers and a heart-shaped mouth and nipples that were to be bitten hard or soft, it all depended. Okay? she said again, and leaned close. She handed me the slip of paper. She pressed her freckled scarlet cheek to mine and left it there. Please do call, she whispered, now not awkwardly at all and in a tone that conveyed much more than those three words. I liked the contrast of her warm breath and her cold cheek. I liked that I recognized her scent. I folded the slip of paper and stuck it into my shirt pocket. Will you call? she asked, and took a few steps backward. Absolutely, I said, this time I will. You can count on it, and I gave her a slight smile, and then Tamara said something in Hebrew, perhaps good-bye, perhaps you’d better, and walked off with her Lufthansa colleague.
So will you call? asked my brother, who for over an hour had been dozing off and on and cursing me, the taxi driver, the military detritus left like decor all along the highway, the French tourists, the labyrinthine and never-ending nocturnal odyssey to our Jerusalem hotel. I don’t know, I said shaking my head in vain into the darkness of a minivan now with no other passengers. One of the five previous passengers, a young Israeli returning from Peru, had explained to us in Spanish that this was a collective taxi, called a sherut. I fell silent, recalling Tamara’s flushed face, recalling Tamara’s lavender scent, and recalling with a start the white gold on her left ring finger.