Week 6 Theme: Place

My home town/trilogy

Heat

I took the bus to Arad from the central bus stop in Beer Sheva. The bus, an old style, green and white, Egged bus, had slightly torn seats and was full of Bedouin men with their traditional head covers, and women in black embroidered long gowns that on first look appeared, disregarding the layers of dust, almost fancy.

 We stopped every few minutes at what seemed completely random locations to let one or few of them off. I watched, completely fascinated how they stood still for a second or two and then turn their back to the bus and walked. The driver would close the bus doors and continue to drive only to stop again few minutes later. Turning my head back I could see their backs as they walked with determination straight into what appeared, to my untrained eyes, as nothing but total emptiness.

When we got to Arad, almost an hour later, I was the only passenger left. In those days, more than thirty years ago, the bus used to circle the whole town and let people off in several designated stops. Mine was in front of the police station on the main street.

It was barely noon and even though it was already the middle of September the sun was blazing, and everything I looked at appeared slightly blurred.  Beside a number of tired looking trees there was no other live thing in sight. The trees, bend over from years of standing up to the desert wind, threw a thin shade over few flowers that bravely hanged to life, sustaining themselves on the precious drops of water coming from thin water pipes encircling them. 

Across the street, a big sign with bold blue letters announced, The WUJS Institute. This was my destination. Behind the sign I could see a four story building, with the grace of an apartment building built in the fifties. Gray façade decorated by old style cluttered balconies with a variety of objects hanging to the rails. Bikes, day old laundry and an occasional drying flower box.

I rolled this entire scene in my head, time and time again, examining every detail carefully. I thought about these few minutes, trying to recapture the feeling, trying to shrink down everything that went through my head to one comprehensible sensation that eventually led to my decision to stay.

But all I can remember is the bus stop with barely any shade, the empty street that looked somewhat blurry under the quivering heat haze, the sparse, barely alive, vegetation and the quiet. It was quiet; I am sure, because I could hear the water dripping from the small openings in the drip irrigation. Drip…drip… the sound echoed in my head going around and around.

Home

It’s completely square, with a red brick facade in the front, and sand color stucco covering the rest of it. The flat roof, tarred, and painted white, against the heat, does not do much to alter the simple lines, broken only by the windows of the living room on the second floor.

These big bay windows that we installed just a year before we left are facing east. In the mornings the rising sun can be seen, through them, as it is making its way slowly across the desert stark landscape and lights it up with hundred shades of soft browns and hazy pinks. It always finds its way inside and lands on the floor.

The front yard is partially hidden by a low stone fence with few bare stumps at the bottom. They are the remnants of the tall hibiscus bushes that once towered over it and decorated it with their bright red flowers. A circular crushed granite path connects between the street on one side and the big open deck stretching from side to side. We built it ourselves few years after we moved in, in an attempt to soften the plain appearance of the front.

In the back just few feet separate the house from falling into the deep wadi underneath. Crowded with big black boulders that mount over a surface of sand stones and low dry looking thorns, it cuts between the house and a row of houses on the opposite rim. A narrow, almost unseen footpath meanders at the bottom. It is occasionally used by the Bedouin kids herding their weeping goats and every once in awhile a runaway camel.

A tall phone poll is wedged in the left corner next to the back entrance. It is bare from any wires to help connect it to the next one on the other side of the wadi but provides a perfect rest stop for an occasional owl at night, or an ear-piercing falcon.

I remember when we planted every one of the trees in the yard. The palm tree that was one of many we planted in our numerous moves and died shortly after we left, and the big Rosewood, in the front corner, that we placed there hoping for it to grow one day and shade the whole yard. We did not realize, then, that it was growing under the power lines. And so every year now, the tree needs to be trimmed, never allowed to achieve its full size. Almost like us when we lived here, I repress a fleeting thought.

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There is a place

There is a place at the end of our street where the road ends and the desert begins; where when you’ll step off the road, within minutes only the echo of your footsteps can be heard and the distant weeping of the wind. For the first few steps you’ll still turn your head making  sure you can make it back to the safety of the road, but then the magic of the desert will take over, pulling you, luring you to go further and further.

There is a narrow trail, lined with small white stones and it is the only man made marker for miles. If you follow it; walking carefully so not to trip on the stones; it will take you to the edge. One more step forward and you will find yourself lying at the bottom of the steep ravine. So while steadying yourself against the fall and catching your breath your eyes will wonder as if they have a life of their own.

Brown on brown is the desert color pallet. From the dark deep browns to the very light ones that appear almost white. Bleached by the sun they shimmer and almost force you to close your eyes. Standing there squinting against the blinding sun you can see for miles on end how the soft round hills go on and on until they end abruptly at the sea edge. One brown hill follows another, and another, broken only by an occasional lonely tree.  Nothing to stop your eyes from resting on the patch of blue just below the horizon  the Dead Sea, and on its other side the almost ominous mountain range framing the valley. The Sharp cliffs turn deep red at the end of the day when the sun, as it is going down, strokes them with its last rays.

There is a place at the end of our street where the road ends and the desert begins. Two worlds meet briefly in that spot. It’s a touch and go. You can stay on the road and keep on going like most people will or you can stop, turn your back to the road and walk.