35

 

One Sabbath, while I was eating lunch on the terrace, a wasp appeared, landing on my plate. There is nothing new about this. Wasps work on the Sabbath, too. They’re attracted to meat and can smell it from afar. But this type of wasp was new to me, one I was not familiar with, bigger than the European paper wasp and smaller than the Oriental wasp, commonly known as a hornet.

Like all wasps, this one helped itself to a small portion of my meal, then took off and flew back to its nest. But the next day, as I was working in the garden, something stung my arm. It felt like a beesting, but more painful. I examined the spot, and because I was unable to see the remains of a stinger, I concluded I had been stung by a wasp.

In the past I have experienced both the mild stings of the paper wasp and the more acute ones of the hornet. This sting was harsher than the former yet weaker than the latter. I did my homework, asked around, and investigated further. I even went so far as to look for photographs and discovered that it was likely the same species that had joined me for lunch the day before, a wasp known in Israel as the German wasp. It seemed this German wasp had also done its homework, asked around, investigated further, and dug up all kinds of facts about me and my identity, because the next day I was stung for the second time. I realized that the wasp nest—the thing itself this time and not an Israeli metaphor for a terrorist cell—was right here in my garden.

I believe I have already made it clear that although I own this garden according to the rules and regulations of the State of Israel, I acknowledge the proprietary rights of the different creatures that inhabit it. But I ask them to behave in a similarly respectful way toward me, acknowledging me and my rights, particularly my statutory right to walk safely through the garden and return home in one piece. I searched for the wasp nest, and after a further infuriating sting I found it in a hole in the ground. I made a note of its location in order not to get too close, but the wasps also made a few notes of their own, and the next day I suffered another sting, this time in a different part of the garden and on a different part of my anatomy.

I discussed the situation with both myself and others. In light of the aggressiveness of these wasps and their high standards of operation, I resolved to regard myself, rather than the wasps, as a creature under threat of extinction. The battle was on.

This is the place to warn readers of a tender disposition to perhaps skip the rest of this chapter and move to the next, because from now on there will be searing descriptions of war and carnage that are not for the delicate or fainthearted. A battle against a wasp nest is a fight to the bitter end, a battle whose consequences are either to flee with no right of return or total extermination of the losing side. No consideration is given to the Geneva Conventions, no prisoners are taken, no capitulation agreements are signed, certainly not peace treaties—and the reason is simple: after a war like this, there will be no one left to sit with around the negotiating table.

From every angle, I was the underdog: one against many, my infantry against fighter airplanes; a democrat, upholder of peace, liberalism, and human rights, against a totalitarian society in which the lives of its warriors are disposable, not to mention the lives of its enemies. But it was precisely for this reason that I knew I was going to win, because justice was on my side, and I still believe that despite the occasional success of evil, at the end of the day it is good that triumphs.

I armed myself with rags, a quarter bucket of kerosene, a two-foot stick, an alarm clock, long pants, hiking boots, a long-sleeved shirt, a headlamp, and a medium-sized rock. The reader is at leisure to imagine all kinds of war scenarios based on this list: for example, that I set the alarm clock for three in the morning, placed it by the nest, and when the wasps emerged in order to silence the annoying sound of the alarm, I approached the nest with a rag tied to the end of the stick like a flag and waved it at them as if surrendering; I blinded them with the headlamp and crushed their heads with the rock, one by one, then poured kerosene into the nest, set it alight, and rounded it all off by wearing a long-sleeved shirt in order to award myself a medal of valor.

There are other options, no less complex, depending on the extent of your imagination or craftiness, but I’ll skip those scenarios and proceed to a description of the actual battle as it played out: The alarm clock woke me up at one-thirty in the morning, when the wasps are inactive and gathered in their nest. I got dressed, buttoned myself up and laced myself in, strapped the headlamp to my head, dropped the rag into the bucket of kerosene, carried the bucket in my left hand and the stick and rock in my right, and went out silently into the pitch-black night. Close to destination, I switched on the headlamp and located the nest entrance. Using the stick, I thrust the kerosene-soaked rag deep into it, placed the bucket over it—upside down, of course—put the rock over that, and beat a quick retreat home.

Despite their surprise, the wasps returned fire. It could be that my headlamp woke some of them up. I suffered four more stings in the space of ten seconds, but not even one more in the days that followed. A week later, when I removed the bucket from the nest, not so much as a single wasp surfaced. From that time forth, I have never been stung in the garden. Occasionally I come across a nest of European paper wasps in one of the bushes. I draw near, and observe. The wasps do not sting me, and I do not sting them either.