“Tzfat is a city of hippies and blue doors, but everyone is still Israeli. Israeli hippies are the funnest combination of humanity ever. They’re super hippie, but they’re Israeli. And even though climbing up into the Old City sometimes feels like you’re climbing up Everest (okay, what I think climbing Everest feels like), the view is always worth it.”
—E.G.
TZFAT IS A magical city full of hippies, art galleries, blue doors, and burial spots for holy men. We wander through the streets of the Old City of Tzfat, because walking down is so much easier than walking up. And so instead of going to the cheese place first, we go eat lunch. Lunch is on the top of Tzfat, and the cheese is at the edge of the Old City.
We’re sitting in a pizza store, this time with each other on purpose, when Avi turns to me. “Can I ask you a weird question?”
“Sure.” I put down my slice. “What’s up?”
“Have you ever bought the pizza vouchers in Chevron?”
“Yeah, lots of times. Every time I’m there, I buy a bunch.” I brush the hair out of my face. “Why?”
“Were you in Chevron a little before Purim?”
I think back, brow furrowed. “I think so?”
“Well, there was this day last year, like a week or so before Purim, and I was working, when this American girl comes up to me and asks in her broken Hebrew if I was hungry. I told her—”
“I’m twenty years old. Part of my description of being a human being of the male variety is to be hungry,” I finish. “Wait. That was you?”
“Thank you so much for that pizza,” he says. “I was having a pretty frustrating day. The fact that some pretty girl went through the trouble to find me and let me know that she’d bought me lunch just because I was someone who was keeping her safe? It meant a lot.”
“You remember what I told you?” I ask, flabbergasted.
“Tamar, two days before, there had been a shooting there.”
I think back. “Right. That was why we went, I think. Thinking back, that was a pretty stupid thing to do.”
“There were two people who died that day. A little Arab kid, who I used to see every morning on his way to school. And an old Jewish man who had retired and moved to Chevron when he was eighty-three. He used to give me a blessing every time he saw me, and he told me it was because I was helping keep him safe.” Avi sighed. “I’ve been trying so hard to balance being a soldier and being a person, you know? Not that if you’re a soldier you’re not a person, but sometimes you have to forget you have feelings so you can keep going.”
He looks so lost, and my heart breaks for him.
“And when they were killed . . . I tried so hard not to feel anything. I tried to just shove it to the back of my mind, to accept it and move on, because I didn’t want to break. And then you showed up, all cheerful and happy and thankful, and I could see every emotion you experienced just flash across your face. And I thought that maybe I should try to find a way to remember that sometimes you’re going to feel some very uncomfortable emotions. And maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
He looks up at me, his eyes a little glassy with unshed tears. “So thank you for the pizza. I can’t believe I forgot your face. I’m so sorry.”
I’m shaken, and I think my heart just grew five sizes. “Thank you for telling me,” I say. “And I promise you, it was my pleasure to give you that voucher. Especially after you smiled at me.”
“Why after I smiled?” he asks.
“Because your smile reached your eyes, and your dimples made me happy.” I smile. “They still do.”
“Someone who loves me very much went to Israel and couldn’t figure out what to buy me as a gift so all I got was a lame T-shirt.”
“Okay, maybe that’s not actually what the shirt says, but that’s probably what it means.”
—T.W.
WE DECIDE TO skip the cheese tasting, mostly because we both ate more pizza than we expected to, and people whose stomachs have exploded due to an overabundance of dairy products aren’t really something the city of Tzfat needs. And so even though there are plenty of things to do in Tzfat that don’t involve tasting cheese, we end up in a goofy souvenir shop.
There are candles, there’s art, there’s various and sundry Judaic items, but best of all, there are the T-shirts.
All the cheesy T-shirts, which makes me cackle a little bit. “Let’s have a lame T-shirt contest,” I tell Avi quietly. Not all souvenir shop owners appreciate knowing we’re mocking their merchandise.
“Is there a prize?” he asks.
“Well, obviously. What kind of terrible game would this be if there wasn’t?”
“So, what is it?”
I smirk. “It’s a surprise.”
“Hmmm . . .”
I raise my eyebrows. “You in or not, dude?”
He laughs. “I’m in.”
“Excellent. Okay, so three items with an overarching theme. The dumber or punnier, the better.”
“Wait, how are we going to tell who wins?” Avi asks.
“We’ll judge ourselves.”
“You trust us that much?”
I shrug. “Who knows. I guess we’ll find out.”
Fifteen minutes later Avi staggers over to the corner carrying three T-shirts.
I’m also holding three T-shirts.
“Okay, who’s first?” he asks. “I’m just saying, I picked out some winners here.”
“I’m pretty sure I picked the winners here, but we shall see.” I pick one T-shirt. “On the count of three, we’ll flip them around.”
“Three, two, one.” We flip T-shirts. Look at the other person’s T-shirt. Look back at the T-shirt we picked. ISRAEL ISRAELLY GREAT!! Mine on a purple T-shirt, Avi’s on a green T-shirt.
“Well . . .” he drawls. “This is interesting. Flip over the second one on three?”
“One, two, three,” I count, and flip over T-shirt number two. Look at Avi’s. SOMEONE WHO LOVES ME VERY MUCH WENT TO ISRAEL AND BOUGHT ME THIS T-SHIRT. Both with a few words scribbled on the back in Hebrew that very obviously did not originally come with the T-shirt. “No way . . .” I mutter.
“If we have the same ones for number three . . .” Avi flips over his third T-shirt. “I don’t know.”
I look at his and start to full out laugh. Shoulders shaking, tears streaming, holding my sides laughing.
“No,” Avi says. “So do we have the same brain?”
I flip over my third T-shirt choice. Some cartoon guy behind a car, with the words WILL BRAKE FOR MATZO BALLS on top. “It seems so.”
“Wait, we have to explain the connection of all three,” Avi says. “Maybe we can salvage this with that.”
“You have a point,” I concede. “Another brain like mine would probably be a very dangerous thing to have on the planet.”
“That was kind of my thought, too.”
“You know what? Maybe we shouldn’t explain our reasoning behind these shirts,” I say.
“Keep a bit of mystery here?”
“Well, mostly because I suspect that we have the same answers, and the world may not be able to survive with two brains.”
Avi thinks for a bit. “You know, I think that may be a good idea. For national security and all.”
“That was my thought process, there.”
“Twin brains,” he says soberly. “Quick, think something else.”
“Um . . . am I now supposed to share said thought with you?”
“Do you think it’s the same thing I’m thinking about?” Avi asks.
“I hope not.” I look out the window. “I was thinking how the last time I was in Tzfat, I had a Joanie Mitchell song stuck in my head the whole time.”
“Well, I can definitely tell you that wasn’t what I was thinking.”
I wipe my forehead. “Thank God.”
“The world will spin another day?”
“I hope so.”
“I think I fell a little for every chayal I ever saw sleeping on the bus. It’s then when you remember how young they are. How much sweetness is in a boy trained to protect if he needs to. How much innocence is still in a boy who knows how to take apart his machine gun and put it back together without any assistance from anyone else.
I think that’s when I felt the most protective of them. When they were curled up on each other on the bus, sleeping soundly.”
—N.B.
WE LEAVE TZFAT, each of us carrying a bag with the ISRAEL ISRAELLY GREAT!! T-shirt. Complete with exclamation points.
I fall asleep next to Avi on the bus and wake up leaning on his shoulder. He’s sleeping, snoring gently, and I sit up straight as fast as I can.
I was sleeping, I try to rationalize with myself. I wasn’t doing anything intentionally.
But I was sleeping on him.
I wonder if he was up when I fell asleep on him.
I wonder how he feels about it. I look over to his sleeping face, eyelashes fanned and his face soft. He’s got a bit of a five o’clock shadow, and for a guy who has the potential of looking dangerous if he needs to, he looks almost angelic as he sleeps.
And I think that’s the minute I fall for him completely and totally.