from fotopedia and Drewski 2112
It is tempting, but the very thought of it brings back memories of my interrogation by the Israeli security guys at the airport in Madrid:
“You have no money, how can you make such a trip without any money?”
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Madrid One Week Ago – El Al Security
Understandably, I suppose, they weren’t crazy about the fact that I had a one way ticket to Israel and a Syrian visa in my passport. What really made them nuts though, was when, after telling them repeatedly that, no, I had never been to Israel, a young agent discovered a security sticker on my pack that I guess is only stuck to things by Israeli security agents. “Tiene la marca, la marca!” he screamed like a teenage girl. It looked like I was going to be his first big break.
Despite being a master of three word Spanish sentences, I had no idea what he was talking about. Both the older guy who was questioning me, and I looked over at him to see what the hell was the matter. He was practically hopping up and down as he pointed at the side of my pack. Sure enough, there it was, not a whole sticker, just the remnants of one, the rest having been torn off somewhere along the way. The part that remained was less than the size of a dime, but square and orange. There was no denying it, it was an Israeli sticker. I could see the tiny black Hebrew letters that looked almost like musical notes to my ignorant eye. Immediately I knew what the problem was.
The agents both looked at me expectantly. “I thought you have never been to Israel before,” said the older one.
“I haven’t, it was my brother. I loaned him my pack.” Never before had the truth sounded so lame. As soon as I spoke the words, I was disappointed by my lack of creativity. I am suddenly a genuine security concern, and all I can manage is the bomb-smuggler’s equivalent of, “my dog ate my homework.”
“Your brother?”
“Yes, my brother went to Israel last year, and borrowed this pack. He really enjoyed it,” I added hopefully.
My brother’s entrance as a character in my story spawned the expected questions of who he was, why he went to Israel, what he did there, etc.? I wound my way through, trying to keep it as simple as possible so as to not trip myself up on meaningless details that I would inevitably forget on the sixth retelling of this story.
I was escorted out of the ticketing line and down the concourse, through a plain metal door and down a long narrow hallway. We emerged in a small, square concrete room. The walls were painted an uninspired beige that matched the metal door, but there was still something bright and almost airy about the room. Looking up I realized it was the clear Spanish sunlight pouring in through the glass ceiling. Aside from making it strangely pleasant, I strongly suspected the real reason for this feature was that in case I or any of my belongings were to blow up – we would shoot straight up through the glass, and the damage to the rest of the airport would be minimal. It sort of reminded me of Willy Wonka’s glass elevator. I decided not to ask about it.
My inquisitors ushered me to a chair on one side of a long, metal table and then took seats opposite me. The whole set up had a cop show feel to it that I didn’t like. The older one looked to be in his mid fifties, while the younger couldn’t have been much older than twenty-five. Both were very well groomed in a way that was somehow menacing. They were also extremely polite, which was also not all that comforting. The younger one busied himself pawing through the contents of my pack which had been dumped out onto the table, while the older one sorted through a pile of my documents – passport, tickets, random receipts, even my journal – and money. “Let me first tell you,” Mr. Okell, “that I sincerely apologize for what I have to do.” I was suddenly aware of my heartbeat.
“What do you have to do?”
“I’m sorry, but I have to touch your money.”
“Oh, That’s O.K.,” I assured him meekly and with relief – I was expecting something worse – as he began to count my cash and travelers’ cheques. When he had finished, which, given my paltry funds, was regrettably quickly, he placed the bills and cheques back on the table in two neat piles and withdrew his hands, palms open like a Las Vegas card dealer ending his shift.
“So, tell me again, Mr. Okell, how is it you plan to travel – how do you intend to return to your home?”
“Well,” I began unsteadily, “I’m flying to Berlin from Istanbul, and then from Berlin back home.”
“Yes, I see, but how will you get to Istanbul from Tel Aviv? You have no ticket.”
“No, you’re right. I’m going to go overland.”
“How?”
To be honest, I hadn’t really figured this out yet. “I’m going to go to Egypt, then Jordan, through Syria and then into Turkey and to Istanbul.” I didn’t have a map in front of me and I hoped that it at least worked on paper.
“But how exactly are you going to travel?”
My lack of planning this whole trip was now beginning to glare, even to me. “Trains, bus maybe.”
“And you can do this? Are there trains all the way to Turkey?”
“I think so.” I didn’t know, but what I had managed to read suggested there were trains at least part of the way.
“And will you have a guide?”
“No. But I have a book!”
“I see, and you have been in this part of the world before?”
“No,” I mumbled.
“You will do this by yourself?”
I nodded. Hearing it now, in this bomb-proof room, the plan sounded idiotic. What the hell was I thinking? For all I knew about Syria, I might have to ride a camel across it.
“You are a very brave man, Mr. Okell.”
It didn’t feel like a compliment. I didn’t feel brave. I felt stupid.
“How much will all this cost?”
I looked down at the table, shaking my head. “I don’t really know.” The guy had broken me, and I wasn’t even hiding anything.
“You don’t seem to have very much money here. How will you pay for it all?
I pointed to my credit card, lying lonely and exposed on the cold metal beside my lackluster stack of cash.
“Oh, I see. How will you pay back the money to the bank?”
Did my mother call this guy? I’d had this exact conversation with her at the kitchen table a little less than two weeks before. I felt like crying.
“How do you get to take such a long holiday, Mr. Okell, you must have a very good job?”
“Well – no, I …”
“No job? How can you take such an expensive holiday?”
“I, I have a job, I just haven’t started it yet.”
“You haven’t started it yet?” He interrupted, “and you are already taking a holiday?”
“Yes, well I’ll start when I get back, and then I won’t take another vacation for a very long time.” I felt like I was promising him. This was pretty much the same thing I had told my mother.
“O.K.,” he smiled for the first time in what seemed three hours, but was probably closer to forty-five minutes, “I hope it is a good job.” I assured him that it was good enough. “So tonight you will fly to Tel Aviv. Have you been there before?” We’d been over this many times, and I made sure my answer didn’t change. This wasn’t especially hard, since I really had never been to Tel Aviv. “And where will you sleep tonight?”
“I’m not really sure.” This was also the truth. I was planning to figure it out when I got there.
“You don’t know where you will sleep tonight in Tel Aviv?” He seemed incredulous at this, and I realized we probably wouldn’t be good traveling companions. But to be honest, not knowing where I was sleeping that night was starting to feel a little ridiculous to me too.
“I’m going to try to get a bed at the Swanson Hostel.” I remembered the place from a postcard from my brother. It felt good to have an answer for a change.
“Where is that?”
“I don’t know, somewhere in Tel Aviv.”
“Do you have a reservation?”
Man, this guy was tough! “No.”
“How do you know they will have room?”
Things continued like this – him asking me specific questions about my plans, and me supplying him with disappointing, inadequate answers – until he had apparently satisfied himself that I truly was an idiot, and had no idea what I was doing. “Will you excuse me a moment?” he asked, finally, before leaving the room through the sliding steel door.
I was left watching the young agent squeeze my toothpaste and sunscreen out of their tubes and into plastic jars. What the hell was I thinking? I had no idea how to get to Istanbul. I didn’t speak a word of Arabic, and I didn’t even know anyone who’d been to most of these countries. Was it safe? The guy was right – so was my mother – I really couldn’t afford it. How irresponsible could I be, piling credit card debt on top of my law school debt for a half-planned trip through the Middle East? Not that it mattered. It didn’t look like I was getting into Israel, so maybe I’d just hang around Madrid a few more days and then go home.
“Cool hat, man.” My despair was interrupted by the young security agent going through my belongings.
“What?”
“I like this hat.” He had found the terry cloth beach hat I bought in Miami, and was now grinning, adjusting it on his nearly shaved head. “This will be good for the beach in Tel Aviv.”
“I don’t think he’s going to let me go to Tel Aviv.”
“Sure he will,” he assured me, “you are doing fine.” Something in my answers had somehow endeared me to this guy.
“Really?” I was surprised to hear I was doing fine, because I felt like I was about to fall apart.
“Oh, yeah. He’s just being tough to see if you crack, you know?”
“I think I cracked.”
“No way. It sounds like a great trip!”
“My trip?”
“Yeah, I know a guy who made the same trip.”
“You can do it?”
“Oh, yeah. He said it was amazing.” He was still wearing my beach hat, and I was beginning to feel better about things. God bless him, maybe I could do this. We continued to chat while he tore through everything I owned, and asked if I wouldn’t mind spreading out my bag of dirty socks and underwear, as he didn’t want to touch them. I obliged.
The door slid open, and the older guy stepped back into the room. He sat down at the table and gave a stern look to his young colleague who quickly removed my hat and put it on the table. “So,” he continued, “you know no one in Israel?”
“No, not really.” As soon as I said it I knew I should have been more definite.
“Not really?”
“Well, a friend gave me the name of her cousin.” I was annoyed at myself for divulging this, as it was only going to prolong my suffering, but there was something about this guy that just made you feel you needed to tell him everything.
“Who is your friend’s cousin?”
I proudly produced a scrap of paper with the name “Gil Revital” and a phone number scrawled on it given to me by my friend, Rebecca in New York, and laid it down on the table like an ace.
“And which one is your friend’s cousin, Gil or Revital?”
I hadn’t realized it was two people. “I’m not sure.” I felt like an idiot again.
“Who is your friend?”
Oh no.
“Rebecca Weinstein.”
“She lives in Israel?”
“No, she lives in the U.S., but her cousin – Gil or Revital – lives in Israel.”
“How do you know Rebecca?”
“From law school.”
“Ah, and it was her wedding in Sweden, that caused you to come to Europe?”
“No, that was a different friend, also from school though.”
“And why was the wedding in Sweden?”
“His wife is from Sweden, but,” I added quickly, “she lives in New York now.”
“But your friend goes to school with you in Seattle?”
“No, I live in Seattle now, but I was going to school in New York.” It was like a tennis match, and I could feel the tide turning. I was keeping up with him. The boring, stupid truth would prevail!
“With Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
“Was Rebecca at the wedding in Sweden?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It was a very small wedding.”
The man sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his thinning but well kept hair. From the look on his face, it looked like we had completed some sort of circle. Apparently the truth of my near complete lack of plan or knowledge, and consistently ignorant answers had finally satisfied him that I was utterly clueless, but probably a danger only to myself.
“I thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Okell, and I wish you luck.”
“Thank you.” I replied. His good wishes were not at all reassuring. It sounded like a parent who has given up on their child.
“I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid I have to subject you to one final humiliation.”
I did not like the sound of this at all. He got up from his chair and opened the steel door letting in a uniformed Spanish police officer. The officer stepped forward, and the two Israeli security agents backed out of the room looking genuinely apologetic. I was again aware of my heartbeat. This time it was in my head, and it was going fast. Suitably terrified, I greeted the officer in Spanish.
“Hablas Espanol?” he asked looking thoroughly uncomfortable. I told him that I did, at least sort of. He seemed a little relieved, and said, “Bien, I am very sorry to have to do this to you. I know it is embarrassing, and I apologize.” Christ, what was he going to do to me? He then frisked me and asked me to remove my clothes.
“All of them?”
“You can keep your underwear on.” This was more of a relief than it probably sounds like. I gratefully stripped to my underwear and stood before him awkwardly like a twelve year old in front of the school nurse. He quickly patted down my underwear and then thanked me very much and told me I could get dressed again. To be honest, I doubt if it even made it into my lifetime top twenty-five humiliating moments.
After I was dressed, the Israeli guys came back in. Apparently satisfied, they thanked the Spanish officer, and then led me out of the bomb proof room further down the corridor, down a set of stairs, and finally through a door that opened up directly onto the tarmac.
I could see an El Al jet off in the distance and assumed it was the one I was supposed to be on. Two more agents pulled up in a black sedan and spoke to my guys. The older one spoke to me again shouting a little bit over the jet noise, “Mr. Okell, we thank you for you cooperation. Goodbye and good luck.”
The younger one stepped forward and handed me my carry-on day pack. “Your luggage will be put on the plane.” Honestly, I had completely forgotten about my luggage. “I’m afraid we cannot allow you to take your camera or walkman with you on the plane. You will have to pick them up at the lost and found in the Tel Aviv airport.” This made absolutely no sense to me – was I supposed to tell them that I had lost my camera and walkman? Would they know who I was and that they belonged to me? I just nodded and thanked him.
At this point they transferred custody of me to the other agents, and I was ushered into the back of the car. I should have mentioned this earlier, but these guys weren’t the kind of airport security we are used to in the states – guys in blue blazers and grey dockers half dozing behind the x-ray video monitor. These guys were lean, clean cut, and looked like they might have killed people. Someone later explained to me that they were mostly ex-“Mossad” or Israeli secret service.
The new agents didn’t bother speaking to me, just got in the car and drove out to the idling jet. The last of the other passengers were making their way up the stairs to the plane from the bus that had ferried them from the terminal. Once everyone else was on board, my dark-suited agents led me up into the plane, and all the way to my assigned seat. This was a nice touch, as it fostered concerned looks from my fellow passengers for the duration of the flight to Tel Aviv.