AFTER ZION

by Elliot Ratzman

Fall, 1997, Jerusalem.

Enter Mikael Mikaelsvili, taking up the center space in his—now our—bedroom. Bulky, swarthy, Army green too tight, curious coins for eyes, lips ready to comment, throws his duffle bag on his bed, yelps at me in Hebrew, coins turn to slits, shakes his head at my clueless response, can’t believe how bad my Hebrew is, typical of Americans which I seem to be, resolves and then declares that he’s going to teach me himself. Somebody nicknames him ‘Moose’ by the end of the year and it sticks.

“Vat’s vith all tese bvooks?”

“My library…” it would take up five shelves by the end of the year.

“No bvooks in Hebrew? Tell me, Ellioot, vhen are you going to learn Hebrew?”

“I’m in rama aleph [level one], so slowly…”

“Look, Ellioot, when I eh, moved from Georgia, I vas on Kibbutz, you know vat that ees? Goot. Ok, so, all the oder eemigrants, these azzholes from Vussia… no, no, I am from Georgia, Gruzia, eez different… anyway, so do you like Led Zepplin?

The ‘masters of the “white blues”’ he declared matter-of-factly as if noting the capital city of Belgium “so, tese azzholes eemigrants, they don’t want to learn Hebrew, no, they stay up all night and dreenk, and faak and speak Vussian to themselves, and I do noot speak Vussian or Georgian for a few months, just Hebrew.

"That’s vhy I’m so good and dees other azzholes vant to go back,” in a whiny voice, “‘oh, eez too divicult en Israel!’ Look, ok, so eef you work hard enough you too can have Hebrew like me. My English es good, no?”

The next year Mikael was a night concierge at the Hyatt across the street from our dorm. Coming home laughing one night, he tells us this story: “So, tees Haredi [ultra-orthodox Jew] comes in” he mimes with his hand ‘beard’ ‘earlocks’ ‘hat’ ‘jacket’ “comes up to us, ‘Velcome to Hyatt, how can I elp you?’ Nothing. So, no Hebrew. No Vussian. No English – Ellioot, how can someone leeve in a country vith no language? only Yiddish! So, none of us speak Yiddish, but ve vigure out vat is vat. So, he goes to his room. A few minutes later, he phones down to us ‘Need. Girl. for. Love.’ and we are like ‘ohhh, faaking orthodox!’ so ve call the, eh, how do you say it, ‘escort service’ and this gorgeous bloonde Vussian peach, comes, goes to his room. Three hours later, she comes down. A few minutes later, he comes down. Ellioot he must have given a thousand dollars, all in cash… and leaves! Faaking orthodox!”

Mendel, Crazy Tony and I, incredulous, are all rolling on the floor. Mikael rolls with us with his jolly high-pitched laugh. Then his face goes serious, lips slightly hanging, menacing, “Mendel vants to get the number of dees ‘escort service’ I think!” Another round of laughter. “But dey Vussian weemen, tey are all postitudes—coming here from Vussia, go to school, and ten on to the West Europe, America. They eat ov the country.”

Mikael had a girlfriend named Andi, from Hungary. She was fair-skinned, and relative to most girls in the area, blonde–one can be a light brown in Israel and be blonde. Mikael called her Andika, ‘my Andi’ in Hungarian. We all called her Andika after awhile. She was quiet, and passive, and deferred to Mikael’s presence and authority. Andi had a friend named Ginga who Mikael hated. She was on her way to our apartment where I was going to look over her graduate school application. “She is stooped,” he’d say. “Another postitude here to study in Israel.” But he kept his opinions to himself, and later that year he helped her move apartments.