A Tribute to the Discoverers (6)

 

Vera and Anna, who are not the buying type either, join us after the deal is concluded. There is a huge tourist complex in front of us that requires careful exploration. We walk toward a river that I know nothing about, to see whatever is there. Since I did not prepare myself for the trip, I have no idea what to expect. I don’t even know the name of the river.

After passing a small pool inhabited by waterfowl, we arrive at a massive statue called Padrão dos Descobrimentos, or Monument to the Discoveries. It’s a 170-foot-tall monstrosity of white marble or granite, I can’t tell—shaped like a ship’s prow. On each side of the enormous wall, there are statues of men climbing to the top of the prow. One of the men, I suspect, is Vasco de Gama. A plaque explains that the monument commemorates 500 years since the death of Henry the Navigator, whom I humbly admit I’ve never heard about. I realize that I saw this, I’m tempted to say “eyesore,” from the plane when it was descending toward the airport, and wondered what it was because from up in the air it looked enormous. Which it is.

Rita takes several pictures on her phone. “Amazing,” she says.

“Fascist art,” I mumble under my breath.

“Don’t be so negative,” she berates me. “Appreciate it for what it is. It’s beautiful.”

Not to me. In my opinion, this is chauvinist art. It was erected in 1960, when Portugal was suffocating under Salazar, who, like every good dictator, had to aggrandize himself with ridiculously grandiose architectural projects. This stuff I know even without preparing myself to be a tourist in Lisbon because of my Portuguese friend, whose parents escaped to France from Portugal during the dictatorship and had to clean people’s apartments and chauffeur them around to support themselves. The entire monument reeks of fascism to me, but I am not sure that our self-designated tour guide understands what fascist art means. All I can see is a monument that celebrates invasions, the plundering of foreign lands, the destruction of cultures, slavery, and greed. I simply can’t see the beauty in it, and its grandeur does not impress me. Nothing is uplifting in that enormous wall. I wish the people of Lisbon would take it down and build something a little humbler to commemorate their brave explorers, who deserve some credit for proving that the earth is not flat.

Unsurprisingly, no one in my group wants to hear what I think, so I keep my mouth shut and follow the women to the next tourist attraction. A few minutes into our walk, Anna announces that she will wait for us on a bench. She can see it’s going to be a long walk, and perhaps she needs a little break from us. I think that despite living without a car in Spain and having to walk a few miles to buy groceries, she is not a fan of long-distance walks. So we leave her sitting by the water and take off.

Vera is dedicated to walking and seeing everything there is to see like a good tourist, so she is not deterred by a long walk. The boardwalk by the river ends abruptly at one point, and we have to circle the marina to reach the famous Tower of Belém. Of course, I don’t know it’s famous until I get there and see the tourist buses and cluster of souvenir shops. Most of the touristy things they are selling are new to me, but I am sure that I will see them along the way at other famous landmarks. After all, tourism is an important money maker for Portugal, and useless souvenirs are part of the deal.

The large plaza by the tower is teeming with women who sell the same necklaces I saw earlier. I find a low stone wall to sit on and start a conversation with one of the women who approaches me. I don’t ask to see the necklaces. Instead, I ask her about her life. I want to know where she lives, what made her choose this ungrateful job, and how she survives by selling something so inexpensive and having to compete with the other women.

The woman speaks Portuguese, but Portuguese is not her first language. She came to Portugal from Slovenia in search of a better life, and selling stuff on the street was the best option. She takes the bus to Lisbon every day because she can’t afford to live in the city. But she is optimistic. She has picked up enough Portuguese to get by and makes just enough to survive off the tourists.

Our conversation comes to an abrupt end when Rita arrives. She went with Vera to buy water and a snack in one of the food carts, and now she is ready for more action. She barges into my conversation with the Slovenian woman. The woman changes to English and forgets about me. She doesn’t know yet that Rita travels with me and that her chance of making a sale is moot. But she is on the clock and can’t waste too much time talking to me about life in Portugal. She shows Rita her necklaces. Rita does her usual performance, finding something to laugh about, admiring the necklaces, and making comments about this and that. She asks the woman how much she wants for the necklaces to see if she did OK near the monastery. The woman says 5 euros each. Rita is pleased. She made a good deal. She tells the woman that maybe she’ll return later to buy something because we have to go to see the tower up close.

The tower is completely surrounded by water. 

The few tourists who arrived before us are posing for pictures, making me feel like I have to do it too, but I don’t. A young woman in a long shiny dress with a low-cut back and high-heel silver sandals arrives at the scene with a photographer and two female friends or helpers—it is not clear to me what their role is. The woman poses on the stairs that descend into the water, indifferent to the gawking tourists, one of whom is shameless me. I am tempted to take a picture of her posing in front of the tower. I think it’s a lot more interesting than taking a selfie in front of an unknown tower in the background. But I decide against it. There is no need to take a picture of the tower or the model. It’s too tacky. Or maybe not.

Unlike me, Rita loves taking selfies, especially since she started injecting her face with Botox to smooth out those pesky signs of aging. She has a special smile and a special head tilt for her selfies. Her Facebook page is inundated with hundreds of selfies in front of places she visits and people she met on her travels. I never got into the selfie craze. Maybe I am too self-conscious, or maybe I just don’t love myself enough.

We leave the plaza when Vera decides she has seen enough of the tower. It is time to go back to the hideous monument and collect Anna. But the souvenir shops are calling Rita. “Come to me, come to me,” they whisper to her in a special language I have zero fluency in.

All the shops offer pretty much the same stuff. As far as the eye can see, there are tchotchkes with imprints of azuleijos, which are the ceramic tiles that decorate the front of many apartment buildings in Lisbon. I think they are called azuleijos because azul means blue in Portuguese, and many tiles are white and blue. But not all. They come in different colors and designs, and they are absolutely gorgeous. I noticed Anna taking close-up photos of them on our way down the street from the apartment. As I said before, she is the artist among us. Apparently, these azuleijos are famous. When I still thought that I was going to Portugal by myself, I watched a YouTube video about them, and the narrator said that people steal them from the walls of buildings and churches and sell them in flea markets to tourists. I know that I will not buy the real thing because most of the stuff in the souvenir shops is definitely made in China. There are towels, cups, cutting boards, bags, wallets, and even umbrellas with azuleijos designs.

They also sell the same idiotic-looking ceramic black rooster with a tall red crest and a variety of objects with that rooster attached to them, like wine openers and shot glasses. My Portuguese friend from back home gave me a refrigerator magnet with the rooster the last time she came back from Portugal, but she forgot to tell me it was the national symbol and that it came with a heartwarming story about a cooked rooster who came back to life to exonerate a petty thief who was sentenced to hang. Something like that.

I read the story in a small pamphlet I find hanging next to a wall of charming handbags made of cork. It’s in Portuguese, so I take the time to ensure that I understand all the intricacies of the legend. And then something strange happens. I decide to buy one of the handbags, an act that stands in total contradiction to who I am. A person who doesn’t buy stuff, especially when it is a touristy tchotchke in a shop full of other useless tchotchkes. But my little fabric handbag that holds my phone, wallet, and a few other small necessities has become a bit of an embarrassment lately, and the thought that I desperately need to replace it suddenly manifests in my brain. My old bag is red with white polka dots and looks more like something that a ten-year-old girl would carry than a woman of my age and stature. Plus, one or two girlfriends have already mentioned that I needed to get rid of it. It’s a bit stained, too, I think, although I’m reluctant to admit it. I look around and try to choose a bag I like. But how can one decide which bag to choose from among fifty bags that look almost exactly the same, with only the design and color of the azuleijo pattern being different?

I try to engage Rita in the decision-making process, but she is not interested. She only wants to see results, which means see me buy something. She knows that there will be little excitement in the exchange of money for a bag because the prices are attached to the merchandise. As she walks away from me, I try to make up my mind. I don’t like the bags with the word Portugal printed on them because I don’t believe in being a walking advertisement, not even for friendly countries. So after I eliminate the advertisements for Portugal, I am left with fewer options that translate into less of a headache.

After much vacillation, I decide on a bag with green and red floral designs printed on the front. It looks more like an exotic landscape painted by Henri Rousseau than a Portuguese azuleijo, and it suits me just fine. I pay the 15 euros without trying to haggle and leave feeling a deep sense of accomplishment. I have contributed something to the local economy and proved that I am not the stingiest person on the Iberian Peninsula. Rita congratulates me and agrees that the new bag is a welcome replacement for the silly polka dot thing that still hangs on my shoulder. Now I’m stuck with two bags until we get back to the apartment, and it makes me feel a little stupid. Do I really need it? What am I going to do with it? I never do anything that requires a nice handbag. But what is done is done, and I have to live with the consequences.

We head back to find Anna. She seems pleased to see us when we spot her. She did not imagine it would take us that long to walk to the tower and back. She would have gone with us had she known we were going to take such a long time. I think she is a bit unhappy about having had to wait for us on that solitary bench, but this is what happens when you travel in a group. Sometimes you end up doing things you don’t plan to do. Just like what happens immediately after we reunite with Anna, when Rita announces, “My mom is getting hungry. We have to find a place to eat.”

We walk back to the monastery and look for a place where Vera can have lunch. Rita enters the first restaurant she sees by the tram station across from the monastery. It’s a hole-in-the-wall falafel joint, nothing to brag about. Through the window, I can see a small line of Lisboetas in front of the counter. Definitely not tourists. Rita is not open to looking for another place when I suggest going for something a bit more authentic in Portugal. Vera also needs to use the bathroom. I give up. I tell Rita I will wait for them outside. I am not particularly hungry, and I am not interested in experimenting with Portuguese falafel. I’ve had enough of it in Tel Aviv. Anna has already disappeared because she can’t spend money in restaurants. She might buy a coffee, though, and later boil potatoes and carrots in the apartment and have them for dinner. I don’t argue with this logic. Not interested in starting a class war.

There are a couple of metal tables on the sidewalk. I take a seat by one of them and wait for the women to come out with their food. It’s nice to be outside. I can do some people-watching. I have my water bottle and I am good for the next hour. Since the place does not look like it is swarming with people who might want my handbag, I hang my silly polka-dot bag on the back of the chair next to me. Then I take off my jacket and hang it on top of it, to keep it hidden underneath. But I quickly change my mind. It is never safe to hang a handbag on the back of a chair, even under a jacket. I’ve heard enough stories about wallets and phones that were left unattended for a second and disappeared forever. I should not take the risk. I lift the jacket, and then I lift the bag to put it on my lap. And the strap breaks. And there is no way to fix it.

I don’t believe in God. But looking at the grimy, broken strap, and knowing that not an hour has passed since I bought myself a new bag and obsessed about my indefensible consumerist self, I feel the ping of divine intervention. There is a reason why I bought a new bag, and it is not as shallow as I thought it was. I must be doing something right, even if I don’t know what it is. 

First Morning in Lisbon (5)

The first thing I see when I open the bedroom door in the morning is Rita’s mom. She doesn’t look like someone who was butchered or bludgeoned to death or anything close to it. She’s already dressed in street clothes, sitting at the dining room table with a cup of coffee, and reading something on her phone, completely at peace with the world. Last night, before we went to bed, she said that she forgot to bring her hairspray, so her short hair is not perfectly set in place, but is still presentable. Rita is snoring on the couch, her bare feet stretched over the side, showing her professionally painted toenails that hide a persistent case of nail fungus. Anna is nowhere to be seen; her improvised campsite is folded into a neat pile on the floor. 

I am not sure if I am supposed to say anything except “Good Morning.” Do I show concern about the screaming? Should I ask Vera if she slept well? Would it embarrass her, or would it make her think that I am trying to be provocative? And why is Rita sleeping on the couch? What happened during the night? I am at a loss, but I prefer to hide my confusion. I have to let things unfold in their own time and pace. I am sure that Rita will provide some reaction to the night’s screaming, so I have to wait for her to wake up. Or more accurately, we all have to wait for her to wake up. 

The unusual scene makes me feel like a teenage girl on a field trip with our chaperone waiting for us to get ready for the daily activities. I don’t like that feeling. I am not used to following other people’s timetables when I travel. I like to hang out in one place, talk to people, visit friends, and immerse myself in the ambiance. Get out of my autopilot life, rather than put checkmarks next to items on a busy itinerary. Last year, when I went to Brazil, I spent two weeks at an organic coffee farm owned by friends of mine, learning to pick coffee and prepare the local dishes. When they told me they wanted to take me to see a nearby waterfall but had to cancel because of the rain, I told them not to worry about it. Seeing one more waterfall in the mountains would not make me happier. I was just as happy sitting with them on the patio and looking at the rainbow. But here, in Lisbon, I am a tourist. I have to go places and see things, take pictures, figure out bus routes, and learn how to use the local currency. Time cannot be wasted on taking it easy in the morning.

As soon as Rita wakes up, we get an update. Her mother had more screaming fits early in the morning, so Rita left the bedroom to sleep on the couch. 

“Who were you screaming at?” Rita asks and bursts out laughing.

 

Vera looks up from the phone and shrugs. “I don’t know, I don’t remember anything.”

“She doesn’t even wake up,” Rita chuckles. 

I don’t know if Vera’s answer made her laugh or the memory of the screams. “You were really mad at someone last night.”

Vera shrugs again. “I don’t remember.” This time, she doesn’t even look up from the phone.

“Her doctor said she should take sleeping pills, but I told her it would only make her drowsy,” Rita says. “And you can’t wake her up to make her stop. You have to let her scream.” She giggles to herself as if it’s an inside joke while folding the blanket and straightening up the couch.

To say that I am somewhat disoriented by Rita’s unhinged reaction to her mother’s night terrors is an understatement. I mean, this is serious post-Holocaust stuff, not standup comedy as far as I understand. Anna stands at the kitchen sink with her back to me, so I can’t see her expression. Vera takes the laughter in stride. She knows who she’s dealing with. She doesn’t try to explain or apologize for the disturbance. All she wants to happen is to see us getting out of the house and doing things. She tells Rita that she’s been up since 6 a.m. and that it is time to start the day. 

“We didn’t come all the way to Lisbon to sit here,” she says. “Get your coffee and let’s go.”

I’m glad she doesn’t tell me to wash my hands when I get out of the bathroom or remember to take my jacket if it starts raining. At least for now, the rain stopped and the sun came out from behind the clouds.

 * * *

We leave the apartment to conquer the city on foot, by bus, tram, or whatever comes first. At the bottom of the hill, we ask passers-by how to get to Belém, which is a district full of touristy things to see but too far to walk to. We are told to take the tram. When the tram stops in front of us, I immediately become disoriented. I have no idea how to pay or to whom since the operator does not accept money. By the time I find a money machine in the middle of the tram, Vera has already figured it out and bought me a ticket. She shoves a ticket into my hand. 

This is not good. If Rita finds out her mom spent money on me, she will make me buy her something, like she did at the airport, and who knows what it might be. I can’t take the risk. 

“I’ll pay you back as soon as we get off,” I tell Vera. I am too scared to let go of the sidebar to look for my wallet. The tram feels like an ocean liner in the middle of a level four storm.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, but I know that under no circumstances will I stay indebted to her. It would be my undoing. I can't live with the suspense of how I will have to pay back those euros. 

The tram line ends at a gigantic structure called the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, a breathtaking vision of stone carvings from the 16th century. A grand tourist site that I know nothing about, but I can now say “I’ve been there,” and if I take a selfie with the building behind me, I can also prove it. Not that I’m planning to do any of it.

Maybe because it is still early in the morning, or because it is November, there are only a few tourists around and fewer coach buses parked across the street. But there are many women in colorful clothing waving necklaces for sale, ready to cross the street and swarm us. 

I know that by buying something, I will be supporting the local economy, but I really don’t like to buy stuff I don’t need, especially when I travel light. Rita, on the other hand, loves to buy stuff she doesn’t need, and she has a good excuse. She can always sell the things she gets tired of at arts and crafts fairs or street festivals. At least that’s what she tells me when she is gripped by a buying spell. The women are delighted. Finally, they found a tourist who wants to buy stuff. They don’t know, though, that Rita is a master negotiator. She never pays the first price. She will force them to make a deal, or she can go elsewhere.

The boldest among the women approaches us on the wide stairs of the monastery. 

Rita chooses a necklace, a painted ceramic pendant hanging on a leather string, and tells the woman that she loves it. The woman does not speak English. I translate. The woman shows Rita another necklace. Rita loves that one as well. She shows it to me. Yes, it’s beautiful. Probably made in China, but who cares. Rita wants to see more necklaces. I translate. The woman hands Rita a few more necklaces. I don’t need to translate anymore. They are talking numbers and making gestures that most people can understand no matter what language they speak. Rita admires the intricate designs. The woman cannot believe her luck. Now, Rita wants to take a picture with the woman. The woman giggles timidly and agrees to pose.

She knows she has to do it; it’s business after all. I take a picture of the two of them. Everything is progressing fabulously. Rita shows the woman the jewelry she is wearing: large sterling silver rings adorned with turquoise stones on her fingers and several Jewish-themed pendants hanging on silver strings around her neck. The woman feigns appreciation for the jewelry. Now, Rita goes in for the kill.

“I’ll take four necklaces for ten euros,” she says. 

It’s half of what the woman wants. I can’t help but think about the 5,000 dollars on Rita’s credit card, which are going to be spent on similar nonsense, while those ten euros will probably be spent on food. 

The woman looks as if she was smacked in the face. But Rita laughs. She is friendly and adores the woman. She wants to hug her, but the woman keeps her distance. Rita opens her wallet and hands the woman two five-euro coins. The woman accepts the coins and puts them in her embroidered pouch. Better make a sale than go back across the street with nothing.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” Rita dangles the necklaces in front of my face after the woman accepts the money. 

“Yes, they are,” I agree, and all I can think is that she never fails.

I feel bad for the woman. I was not a collaborator in this scheme, even though I was the unofficial translator. I was as unprepared for what happened as that unsuspecting woman. But I have to let it go because we still have a long day ahead of us. And Rita is a businesswoman after all. I just forgot that even during our trip, the businesswoman was still working, doing business.

Evening in Lisbon (4)

The moment we land, Rita gets into her tourist guide mode and marches us outside the terminal to look for the rental car company. I spot a sign in Portuguese directing passengers to a cluster of rental car booths, but Rita does not need help. She reserved a car online and knows exactly where she is going. She’s been to enough airports to practically smell these places.

I admire her ability to sail through this process so naturally. My experience with renting cars is limited to two times, both of which were total embarrassments. The first time I rented a car, part of the deal included having the car delivered to my house, but the company forgot about it, so the next day, when I came to claim my car, they awarded me with a two-seater, Mercedes-Benz convertible. I congratulated myself on my luck until thirty-five minutes into my trip when I started hearing weird noises coming from the side of my eye-popping, gold-painted dream machine. By the time I found a safe spot to pull over, the tire was so shredded that I couldn’t even tell there had ever been anything attached to that poor wheel. The second time I rented a car, I was too scared to get on the freeway, and my traveling companion had to do all the driving. After that, I never dared to rent a car, no matter the inconvenience it caused me.

Rita entertains no such fears. She has driven in Morocco among donkeys and goats, in India she rode a motorcycle, and only recently risked her life driving on Mexico’s most dangerous roads with her teenage son, so driving in Portugal will be a piece of cake for her. She tells us that she plans to return to the airport in two days to get the car because she doesn’t want to deal with parking in Lisbon. Vera and I agree. We don’t want to waste our two days in Lisbon circling crowded plazas and narrow streets in search of parking and risking scratches, dents, and other calamities. We take an Uber into town and meet Anna, Rita’s friend, who has just arrived on a bus from Malaga, Spain. We spot her sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against the wall of an apartment building, with a book on her lap and a backpack at her feet. 

According to Rita, Anna used to be a beautiful woman, but life’s complications robbed her of her youthful charm. She is on the heavier side, with long straight brown hair and sharp blue eyes. She looks like the tortured artist type who feels the pain of Mother Earth and the creatures who inhabit her, but never complains. She is happy to see us getting out of the car in front of the building where the two-bedroom Airbnb apartment that Rita reserved for us online is located. We climb to the fourth floor with our luggage to meet the host and get the keys. Vera is doing great, climbing the rickety wooden stairs, but I help her with her suitcase despite her protests.

After we sign in and pay the city’s fees, I claim one of the two bedrooms. Even before Rita decided to invite her mom and Anna, I told her that I couldn’t share a bed or a room with anyone because I am an incredibly light sleeper, and any little noise wakes me up. Rita didn’t object. Later, when the issue of her mother joining us came up, she mentioned that her mother screams in her sleep. I didn’t give it much thought or ask what she meant by “screams,” because Rita likes to exaggerate and I was not going to get sucked into another one of her crazy stories.

Anna says that she prefers to sleep on the floor in the living room because her back bothers her. Rita says she will sleep with her mom in the second bedroom. I say nothing.

We leave to explore the town on foot. The Airbnb host recommended that we go to Time Out Mercado da Ribeira. It is the most famous food market in Lisbon, and because it is Sunday, it is packed.

I separate from the group to check the different venues, read menus, and experience the commotion. Hundreds of people sit on tall chairs around cafeteria-style long wooden tables, with beer and wine glasses, and plates of mostly fried foods in front of them. I am not particularly hungry, but I order tuna and beets on a bed of greens at one of the more crowded places. I assume it must be one of the better eateries, probably because it is owned by a celebrity chef whom the local people know. The guy behind the counter warns me that the fish is not fully cooked, only seared on the outside. I tell him that’s fine with me. I talk to him in Portuguese and he doesn’t ask me to repeat anything. My order costs 12 euros, and he accepts my credit card and returns it without question. I almost start to feel at home. People understand my Portuguese. It’s exhilarating. When my number is called, I get my plate and walk around looking for a place to sit.

Miraculously, someone leaves a spot just as I walk by. Several Brazilian couples are sitting across and next to the vacated chair. They are friendly and greet me as soon as I put my plate on the table. One of the men tells me that he and his wife left their five kids in Brazil and came to Lisbon to have a good time. They do it every year. They ask me where I am from in Brazil.

“I’m not from Brazil,” I say.

“You speak Portuguese like a Brazilian,” one of the men compliments me.

“I lived in Brazil a long time ago,” I say.

“Where do you live now?” 

“California.”

“Wow, we want to go to Las Vegas,” one of the women says. Now everyone looks at me with greater interest.

“I’ve never been to Las Vegas,” I say. Usually, I brag about it, but now I sound apologetic.

“Did you come here all the way from California?”

“No, I flew in from Israel.” I can see that my answer creates some confusion, but I am not inclined to explain. 

When I am almost done eating, Rita arrives. She tells me, in Hebrew, that she found two seats at another long table and that the bacalao (salted cod) she ordered was terrible, so dry and rubbery it almost choked her. Now, she and her mother are ready to leave. When she realizes that I am surrounded by Brazilians, she starts “Como vai? Como vai? Tudo bom?” which represents her entire Portuguese vocabulary, acquired during a short fling she had with a Brazilian man who got bored with his Mexican American wife and needed a woman who would not judge him or make any demands. I want to stay with the Brazilians for a little longer, but Rita almost pulls me from the chair, so I say my goodbyes and leave with her.

It is raining now. Anna is waiting for us by the entrance. After we start walking up the street, I find out that Anna didn't buy anything in the famous market. It was too expensive for her, so she chose to wait for us outside.

“I'll eat later at the house after we do some grocery shopping,” she says. 

I don’t really know what to say when I hear this. “Did you just stand there in the rain?” I ask.

“It started raining only a few minutes ago,” she says as if that makes it OK. “I didn’t even get wet.”

Is this what Rita meant weeks ago when she told me that Anna had no money? I didn’t expect it to be so obvious and so soon. I agree that 12 euros is probably a bit much to pay for a small piece of fish and some leaves, but is she planning to go hungry because she can’t afford to spend any money? Did she tell Rita she was going to wait for us outside? I have so many questions, but so few answers. I decide not to make an issue out of it and act as if nothing unusual had happened. As Rita likes to say, “Don’t worry, everything’s great, she’s an adult, she can do whatever she wants.” 

The colorful apartment buildings that cover the hill we are climbing are magnificent, but we can’t continue admiring them because of the rain. We have to find a place to wait it out. My socks are getting wet, too. Rita says that she has to eat something sweet to get rid of the fish taste that still lingers in her throat, so we enter a small, deserted bakery-café that looks like a tourist trap, not a place where you can leisurely relax over a cup of coffee. Rita orders a variety of pastries and two cups of coffee for herself and her mom. She is back in her element, hanging out near mostly recognizable food and talking loudly in broken English to the woman behind the counter. There is really no need for tourists to know Portuguese in Lisbon.

I check the display and see a tray of bolinhos de bacalhau, which are the Portuguese version of fried fish cakes, tucked in the back. I enjoyed many of those the last time I was in Brazil and I am happy to sink my teeth into one and see what the Portuguese version tastes like. Anna buys a cup of coffee and Rita offers her a tart that she gladly accepts. I think Rita wants to make Anna feel more included in the eating activities since Anna seems bent on not spending any money unless it is absolutely necessary. I wonder if Rita promised her anything when she invited her to go with us to Portugal.

Before I have a chance to see if anyone wants to taste my bolinho de bacalhau, Rita asks for a bite. She doesn’t fall out of her chair when she tastes it, and it almost hurts my feelings. I have great memories of eating this snack and drinking cold beer with a bunch of girlfriends on the beach in Rio, and was looking forward to it. Rita offers me one of the three tarts left on her plate. I turn it down. A glossy brochure I picked up earlier from the top of the counter explained that the tart is called pastel de nata and is filled with rich egg custard. It also says that this tart is the quintessential Portuguese dessert, made by monks and nuns many years ago at a monastery somewhere near Lisbon. Although it sounds exotic, I am not in the mood for a sugar and fat overload, even though I am a tourist and I am supposed to eat anything that is put in front of me. I do appreciate Rita’s generosity, though. She tends to buy more food than she can eat, and then eats everything if nobody else wants to share it with her. This habit, I suspect, is among the culprits in her latest weight gain. She always tells me that she hasn’t eaten anything all day, but every year she puts on more and more weight, and her clothes get tighter and tighter until they look like they are bursting at the seams. And since she got together with Fred, the situation has become even worse.

I blame Fred for this, even though Rita has always struggled with her weight, per her own admission. She just loves everything life has to offer. In big portions. Not just food. But Fred has serious food issues, and it’s infectious. If something is not drowning in melted cheese and topped with bacon and pepperoni or looks like a big piece of meat, he will not eat it. I know because I’ve seen it. They invited me to dinner a few times in fancy restaurants in Carmel and Pebble Beach to liven up the conversation. Though I was grateful, I did not enjoy it. I don’t frequent this type of restaurant, mostly because they are too expensive for my taste and have waiters who hover above you and every few minutes ask if everything is okay and if you need anything. I am also not a health freak. I love bread, I love mayonnaise, and I put sugar in my tea, but I do watch my sugar and fat intake. Even when I travel. So, no pastéis de nata for me. Not now, anyway. 

After the rain stops, we venture out again. On the way back to the apartment, we find a grocery store where we get food for breakfast. I buy bread and cheese, tea, strawberry jam, cookies, and a couple of tomatoes. Rita gets instant coffee and milk, eggs, and bread, and fills her basket with more stuff that her mother wants. She even buys toilet paper because there is only one roll for four women at the apartment, and she doesn’t want to risk running out. Anna buys apples, crackers, and carrots.

Back at the apartment, we acquaint ourselves with the bathroom, which was ingeniously designed to include a shower, toilet, and sink in a space no larger than a queen-size bed. Fred would certainly not fit in there, but everyone else is a good sport, and there are enough towels for all of us. We finally get to relax, take a shower, and prepare for the night. I boil some water for tea and put the cookies out for everyone to get a feel of home. I wash my dress in the kitchen sink and hang it out the window to dry in the light rain. Vera retires to bed first. Our bodies are still operating a couple of hours ahead of Lisbon since we came from Israel on a six-hour flight, and we need to rest before another big day tomorrow. Anna spent more than 10 hours on a bus, and she is ready to collapse on the blankets she piled on the floor. Rita is already snoring on the couch, which is a bit too short for her, so her feet are hanging over the side.

My room has a little balcony from which I can look at the street winding down a steep hill. It’s quaint and quiet, and I love it. It’s the first time I’m by myself and able to collect myself and hear my thoughts. I close the bedroom door and change into a T-shirt. As soon as I lie down, Rita enters. She’s exhausted, but the day is not over for her yet. She wants to talk about our plans for the next day. I ask if she would like to go listen to Fado. She doesn’t know what it is.

“It’s like the soul music of Portugal,” I say. “Usually sad, but not always. They play Fado in bars and restaurants around the city.”

She pulls out her phone, googles ‘Fado in Lisbon’, and asks if she should make reservations. “Absolutely,” I say. Finally, I can contribute to the itinerary and not just tag along. 

Usually, she frowns when I know touristy stuff that she doesn’t. But tonight she is tired, and maybe this is why she is soft on me. Or maybe because I speak Portuguese, she can accept my skimpy knowledge of Portugal’s culture. 

“Okay, we have reservations for tomorrow night,” she says and drags her body out of my room.

The apartment is quiet. I turn the lights off and get under the blanket. I can hear Anna’s soft snoring from the living room. It doesn’t bother me. I’m relaxed and comfortable in my bed. I don’t know how long I float between wakefulness and sleep before a part of me hears a woman talking loudly on the other side of the wall. I’m on the verge of sleep, but the talking is getting louder. The woman sounds agitated. She is shouting at someone, but I can’t understand what she is saying. Then the shouts stop. Then they start again, not as loud. Now I am fully awake and somewhat rattled. I turn the light on and stare at the ceiling.

What was it? Who is screaming and why? What kind of people live in this building?

After a short lull, the shouts turn into high-pitched, ear-piercing, blood-curdling, horror film-style screams. To the innocent bystander, it sounds as if someone is butchering a woman while showing her really scary stuff. She knows the end is coming, and she is terrified. Making my heart race. And then it hits me. Rita said that her mother screams in her sleep. She used the word “scream,” and I didn’t believe her, and now I am hearing the screaming, and it is absolutely horrific. 

After a few minutes, the screaming stops. The apartment is completely silent. I don’t hear footsteps or a door opening and closing. No murmurs behind the wall. Nothing. I assume Rita is in the other bedroom with her mother, taking care of the situation, whatever it entails. 

I decide to stay put. There is not much I can do anyway. Outside my room, I can hear Anna's quiet snores. I turn the light off and try to fall asleep again.

In and Out of Tel Aviv (3)

When we arrive in Israel, Rita’s sister, Sigal, meets us at the airport. Because I am not sure my brother would be home, I join Rita and we all go to Sigal’s apartment, which is located several miles east of Tel Aviv. I am not a stranger to the family. I met Sigal, her husband, and three kids in the summer when they came to visit Rita. When they see me at the door with my luggage, they immediately make me feel at home. Sigal insists on serving me a plate of green beans, a piece of chicken, and potatoes she cooked for her kids’ lunch. Her youngest daughter, Yonit, waits impatiently for me to finish everything on my plate so she can give me a tour of her pink bedroom and the rest of the apartment. Rita’s mother is there too. Apparently, luck was on her side, and she had bought a ticket on the same flight as us to Portugal. She paid three times more than we did, but hey, life is short, and I have to keep my mouth shut before I say something snippy.

Mom, whom I’m going to call Vera, is a tiny ball of energy full of anecdotes about life’s mishaps and good fortunes. Her short, auburn hair is well-coiffed, her bright lipstick is not smeared, and her clothes spell comfort mixed with an active lifestyle. She is definitely not the grandma type. She can probably run me to the ground if she puts her mind to it. I should bond with her as soon as possible. 

I move to the balcony where Vera is sitting to look at the sunset and the high-rise buildings that have sprouted in the suburbs around Tel Aviv. We talk about this and that, mostly about how Sigal scored that modern tenth-floor apartment, and we get to know each other a little better. Rita comes to check on us with a cup of Nescafe in her hand and exclaims triumphantly, “You see, I told you, you’d get along with my mom.” Right. What else did she think I was going to do? Punch her mother in the face? I have nothing against her mother. I just hadn’t planned on going to Portugal as a sidekick for her family reunion.

When I start dozing on the couch, Rita offers to give me a ride to my brother’s house in Tel Aviv, in her mother’s car this time. She explains that his apartment is on the way from her sister’s apartment to her parents’ apartment so it’s no big deal. I think that it is quite out of the way for her, but I am so happy she is willing to do it that I don’t try to argue. This woman loves to drive. I think she also wants to see where my brother lives because I have spoken about his fabulous place many times. 

It’s already dark when we arrive in the city. On the wide street that runs parallel to the beach, Rita nearly hits a young dude on an electric scooter. “I didn’t even see him,” she complains, slightly unnerved. “He doesn’t even wear a helmet.”

“You have to watch out for them,” Vera interjects. “They think they own the road.”

Welcome to Israel, I think to myself.

When I call my brother to come downstairs and help me with my suitcase, he is as surprised to hear my voice as I expected. He completely forgot that I was coming. I let it slide because it is my fault he forgot. I usually have to text him every day for a week before my arrival to ensure that the information sticks, but this time I forgot to text him from the airport in San Francisco.

I spend the five days before the flight to Portugal in a jetlag haze. I lie awake through the night chasing mosquitoes and sleep during the day. My brother’s bookshelf keeps me company when no one is around. Edward Snowden’s scandalous memoir, translated into Hebrew, attracts my attention and helps me pass the long, wakeful hours. In the hours my body can function, I go to the beach, visit the outdoor market, and hang out with my brother in nightclubs. He lives in one of the best neighborhoods in Tel Aviv, and I take advantage of it.

I call Rita one afternoon to see if she wants to meet—after all, she has asked me to travel to Israel with her numerous times so I can meet her friends and visit all the best places she knows in Galilee and the desert—but she happily informs me that she is going to Jerusalem with an old friend of hers. The plan, however, does not include me. I consider canceling my ticket to Portugal, but on second thought, I decide that the drama that would ensue from such a radical move would be worse than going, so I stay put. I can probably survive a week of sightseeing in the company of an oblivious friend, her mother, and another woman I’ve never met.

I don’t educate myself about Portugal. Since my ability to influence the direction of anything that might happen on the trip is obviously limited, I feel that going there unprepared is the better option. This way, I am not going to have unfulfilled expectations. I brace myself and hope for the best.

When I mention my upcoming trip to a childhood friend I meet for dinner at a small neighborhood restaurant, she makes an astute observation over a plate of hummus: “Sounds like you’re going on a geriatric trip.” It stings. The youngest among us is in her early fifties, and the oldest is approaching eighty. I am somewhere in the middle. I try to understand how I got myself into this. How did this happen? I can’t picture myself traveling with three middle-aged women, playing tourist. 

 * * *

For the same reason I agreed to fly to Israel with Rita, which still baffles me, I also agreed to spend the night before the flight at her parents’ apartment so we can travel to the airport together at four in the morning. This time I also meet Rita’s father. He is planted on the couch and never moves from there until I go to bed in a little bedroom converted into an office. He also does not sleep. At two in the morning, when I visit the bathroom, he is still sitting in front of the TV, watching something. When he finally goes to bed, I get up. I am ready long before anyone else wakes up. Sleeping on an unfamiliar sofa is not a recipe for a good night’s sleep. Combine that with jetlag leftover and having to start the day before dawn, and two hours of unconsciousness sound good. I am not particularly troubled by my sleeplessness, though. It comes with the territory, as they say.

We take a cab to the airport. The driver starts a conversation with Rita’s mom, who sits next to him, in fluent Russian sprinkled with a little Hebrew. I pick up names and a few words here and there. It’s politics. I think the driver is lamenting the ignorance of the young generation and the good life he left behind in Russia. I throw in a couple of sentences in Hebrew about Stalin’s persecution of Jewish intellectuals in the early 1950s to show him we are not all ignorant, and he floods me with so much Russian that Vera has to intervene and tell him she is the only Russian speaker in the group. According to one of Rita’s stories, her mom learned Russian when she was a small child. The family escaped from Poland before the Holocaust and got off the train in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, where she was born. At the end of the war, back in Poland at the age of four, Vera also learned to speak Yiddish and Polish and suffered several untold traumas.

Vera’s turbulent past did not stop her from becoming a highly functional adult, and as soon as the cab stops in front of the terminal, she pays the fare, which comes up to around 15 dollars.

This time around at the airport, no one sneaks into first class. We’re all in economy on a direct flight to Lisbon. After we pass through security and immigration, we settle in the terminal to wait for our flight. Rita and Vera go to look for a bathroom, and I am tasked with looking after the bags until they return. What else did I think was going to happen? When you travel in the company of women, half of the time is spent looking for bathrooms and sharing bathroom experiences. It is a woman's thing. A few years ago, when I shared an office with three other women, one of the main daily activities involved going to the bathroom together or looking for another woman in a neighboring office to go to the bathroom with. I never understood it, but apparently, this is part of womanhood.  

When the two come back, I tell them I am going to get a cup of coffee. Rita sits down, puts her feet up on a chair across from her, and practically commands me, “Bring us coffee too.” I try not to live by cliché, but I send her a look that I hope can kill. So that’s why I am traveling with you? To watch your bags when you go to the bathroom and buy you coffee? I am so mad that I can barely hold myself back. Okay, it’s not the first time she has tried to make me pay for something that she feels entitled to, but this time it does not sit well with me. I am pissed off and we are not even on the plane yet.

Surprisingly, Rita senses that she crossed a line. “I’ll go with you,” she says, lifting herself slowly from the chair and collecting her purse. I assume it is the same purse holding the five-thousand-dollar credit card Fred gave her.

At the coffee counter, I order a small coffee. Rita orders two, one large latte for herself and a small coffee for her mother. Then she turns to me, “You can pay for our coffee instead of giving my mother your share of the cab fare to the airport.”

“Sure, no problem,” I say. I already can’t wait for this trip to be over.

The Flight (2)

At three p.m. the next day, I arrive at the airport in the bullet-proof four-wheel-drive monster that my friend’s husband used to chauffeur Madonna just a day earlier. He tells me that Madonna sat in the same seat I was in as he unloads my suitcase and places it on the sidewalk.

Great, I think to myself. My ass touched the same spot that Madonna’s ass did yesterday. It must be a good omen.

When I arrive at the El Al check-in line, I see Rita is already there, speaking to one of the attendants at the counter. If she sees me, she doesn’t show it. I assume that she is asking about a window seat for me. I am so glad to see her. I want to tell her that I can do it myself since I am already there, but I don’t want to interrupt. She seems deeply involved in the conversation. I approach the counter. I give the attendant my passport and ticket and ask her to change my aisle seat to a window one. While the attendant checks availability, I approach Rita to tell her that I’m changing my seat on my own. Before I can say anything, she rummages through her purse, pulls out her wallet, and waves it in my face. 

“Freddy gave me a credit card with five thousand dollars and another thousand to upgrade my seat to first class. But I don’t want to spend the entire thousand dollars, so I upgraded to business for only four hundred dollars.”

I seriously don’t know how to respond to this. I feel I have stepped back in time and into a Seinfeld episode. Are you this oblivious? I am dying to ask her. You didn’t bother to tell me you were doing this when you saw me at the counter? And stupid me thought you were there early to help me. I feel beyond stupid. I simply can’t believe I am living this moment. For weeks she has been telling me we should sit across the aisle from one another, so we can spend 15 hours in the air together, and she goes and upgrades herself to business class and doesn’t bother to tell me when I am standing next to her for at least 10 minutes and there is no way she hasn’t seen me at the counter.

I pretend to be happy for her. But I know that something profound has changed in my relationship with her. I am not sure what it is yet, but I know it is happening. As far as I understand friendships.

Rita collects her stuff and beams at me. “I’ll come visit you, I’ll switch seats with you so you can lie down. It will be great,” she laughs, utterly pleased with the new situation and unaware of the ridiculousness of her behavior. She saved six hundred dollars and will be able to use them on something else. Maybe she will upgrade her flight back to San Francisco. 

“I’m glad I was able to change my seat to a window,” I say, feeling too pathetic for words. “I’ll be able to sleep, at least.”

“I’ll come visit you,” she giggles, choking on her words as if it were a funny joke. She is bursting with joy. “See you later,” she waves to me and walks away.

Now that she upgraded her seat, she doesn’t have to stand in the long security line with the rest of the proletariat. She happily pushes her carry-on suitcase and what looks like a makeup bag, to the shorter line of the privileged few and forgets that I exist. She is utterly excited about the flight, checking her surroundings and chatting on her phone.

When I find my seat on the plane, I have to squeeze myself past an older couple who I quickly find out are part of a group traveling to Israel to visit Christian sites. Even though they know we have a long flight ahead, they don’t try to be friendly, although they do agree to show me their itinerary when I ask to see it. The man is a bit more talkative. His wife, who sits between us, is almost hostile in her silence.

The flight is only half-full, but by the time I figure that out, all the empty seats are taken by the stretched legs of the lucky ones who were fast enough to claim them. I am stuck at the window for 15 hours with the pilgrims.

Three hours go by before Rita comes to report about the great food and service they have in business class. “It’s like a restaurant there, the food is great,” she gushes from the aisle, partially leaning on the pilgrim man’s seat. “And the bed is so comfortable. There is no one next to me. I have the whole place to myself.” She produces one of her cutesy giggles again, pleased with her fabulous spot. “They give you anything you want. It’s amazing.” She completely forgot that she was going to offer to switch places with me so I could stretch my legs.

“How are you?” she remembers to ask. 

“Great,” I say. What else am I supposed to say? “I went to the bathroom earlier and met a really cool Israeli woman who lives in Portland.” 

I volunteer this information because she is still standing there, hovering above the pilgrims, who are starting to doze off. I don’t want her to talk to them about traveling through Israel, and how she is a tour guide, and how they can exchange phone numbers and call her if they need anything. Maybe they can friend her on Facebook. They’ll get pissed off at me for bringing havoc into their lives. And we still have more than 10 hours to Tel Aviv.

“What does she look like? Can you show her to me?” she asks about the woman from Portland.

“When I go to the bathroom next time,” I suggest. I don’t really want to hear about the great bathrooms in business class but what else can I say?

“Come now,” she says, “let’s do some stretches.”

The poor pilgrims want to sleep. I'd better go or they will never have a quiet moment.

The Israeli flight attendants are super nice. Unlike the notorious flight attendants from United and American Airlines, they don’t frown or tell us to go back to our seats when we stand by the bathrooms and do all kinds of stretches for what feels like a long time. I am so grateful to them for allowing me to loiter near their service station. They offer us pastries and sandwiches. Rita looks a bit disappointed when she realizes that they served her the same pastries in the esteemed business class (a.k.a. premium). But they offered more variety over there, she tells me. I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes.

The Israeli woman I met earlier comes out of the bathroom and sees me. I introduce her to Rita, and from that moment, my presence is no longer required. Once Rita finds out that the woman owns a clothing store in Portland, she starts telling her about her own jewelry business (she also sells jewelry and clothes at arts and crafts fairs and street festivals) and asks to friend her on Facebook. She can come to Oregon to visit and see the store. She loves the woman’s haircut and clothes, and especially her boots, she exclaims appreciatively.

She shows the woman her Facebook page with the jewelry she sells, and they discuss business. The woman notices that in the profile picture, Rita has dozens of thin, long, blond braid extensions, but now she has shoulder-length brownish hair with blond highlights. “I had to let my scalp rest, but I’ll get new extensions when I return, or maybe I’ll get new ones in Israel,” Rita says, and then suggests that they meet in Israel. The woman is traveling to visit her aging parents and is not sure if she will have time to meet. For a moment, she seems to be drowning in the tsunami of friendliness and interest showered on her by Rita. I am just an observer, watching the scene unfold in front of me. When Rita goes to the bathroom, I tell the woman that Rita is a super-friendly person who loves to meet people, especially Israelis. “I prefer your quiet style better,” she says without looking at me.

I feel somewhat vindicated and head back to my seat with the 99 percenters. Rita goes to lie down in her wide bed in business class. She says she is going to take some pills to help her sleep. “I told them not to wake me up for breakfast,” she brags before we part ways.

A Tourist with a Flimsy Cause (1)

In the beginning was an idea

I am sitting in my living room with a friend who sometimes works as a tourist guide with Israeli tourists who want to explore California. Most of her clients can’t speak English and are the religious type who insist on finding a kosher restaurant in the middle of the Mojave Desert or a synagogue in Las Vegas. She asks me when I am planning to travel to Israel to visit my family. I tell her I plan to go in November and that I want to stop in Portugal for a few days on the way to Israel. I’ve been thinking about visiting Portugal because I am fluent in Brazilian Portuguese and sometimes entertain myself with the thought of retiring and moving to Portugal someday. Also, Portugal is cheap, it sits about halfway between Israel and California, and I can speak with people there, so why not give it a shot?

My friend, whom I’ll call Rita, thinks it’s a great idea. She’s never been to Portugal and would like to go there too. Maybe we can go together, she thinks aloud. She checks flights and prices and suggests we meet in Israel, spend a few days there, go to Portugal for a week, and then back to Israel. 

Since she's been talking for several years about spending time with me in Israel, I am inclined to accept her idea. Traveling with company is better than traveling alone, right? And besides, what have I got to lose?  

On the spot, we buy round-trip tickets from Tel Aviv to Lisbon. Before the excitement dies down, she suggests I fly on the same flight with her to Israel. It’s a direct flight from San Francisco to Tel Aviv and it costs less than the flight I usually take via Istanbul. I hesitate. Sitting for 15 hours in an airplane does not appeal to me. My knees scream hell when I sit for 10 hours, and 15 would be torture. I tell her I would rather break the flight into two parts.   

“Don’t,” she says. “We’ll take aisle seats side by side and spend the flight talking and stretching. You won’t feel it. I’ll entertain you during the flight. It will be fun.”

I agree only because she is an experienced traveler. She’s been flying to Israel twice a year ever since she started living with a morbidly obese man of means she met in a bar when she was on the verge of homelessness—I’ll call him Fred. Fred pays all her expenses and lets her live a life unburdened by small stuff like rent and bills, and having a job. When she wants something, she usually gets it. A two-week trip to Morocco? Sure, let’s go! We’ll sleep in the best hotels, eat in the most expensive restaurants, and explore the Sahara Desert with our personal Tuareg guide. A weekend in Hawaii? Sure, darling, and do you want that 200-dollar hand-painted leather wallet to go with it? Just say the word. A vacation in Mexico with your Mexican girlfriend? My pleasure, everything is on me for both of you. Last year, he bought them a house because she insisted he start investing in real estate. This year, he bought her a new car because her old van was, well, getting old. This summer, after he said he didn’t think they needed an outdoor Jacuzzi, she went ahead and ordered two. So, she understands money and flying to far-away places.

I find a ticket to Tel Aviv on the same flight as Rita and reserve an aisle seat, something I never do, because I absolutely have to sit by the window if I want to sleep.

A week after I buy my tickets to Israel and Portugal, Rita tells me during one of our nature walks that she invited a friend to join us in Portugal. The friend, she says, lives in Spain. I’ve heard about this woman a few times, but have never met her. Rita says that this friend, Anna, has no money and no car. She lives in a small village with her emotionally troubled 25-year-old daughter and neither of them is employed. 

“How is she going to pay for the trip if she has no money?” I dare to ask.

“She’ll manage. She’s a vegetarian,” Rita says. 

Oh, really? What does it mean? That she doesn’t eat a lot? That she has inexpensive taste?

“Are you going to pay for her share of the hotel rooms and car rental?” I ask again.

“No, she will share everything with us,” Rita promises.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to invite someone who has no money,” I persist. “Plus, I thought that this trip was just for the two of us. What if she has a different agenda?”

“Don’t worry. Anna is easygoing,” Rita says. “She goes with the flow; she will do whatever we want. You’ll see. Don’t worry. We’ll have a great time.”

Since my opinion does not matter and the ticket has already been bought, I give up. There is not much I can do at this point. I have to let it go. Rita says we will get along fabulously; she has experience getting groups to function well. She has been in situations with Israeli tourists who complained about everything and everyone hated them, and at the end of the trip, everyone became friends. So, I shouldn’t worry.

Two weeks later, during another one of our walks, she says that she invited her mother, who lives in Israel, to travel with us to Portugal. I hold my tongue. I know her mother. I’ve met her. She is who she is. Rita says she is not sure her mother can find a ticket on the same flight as us, but she is working on it. I say nothing. I assume that this family reunion will not happen. Her mother is 76. People her age don’t jump on planes to spend a week in Portugal at the drop of a hat. They live on a fixed income. They plan trips ahead of time. Our trip is in less than a month. All I can think is that Rita is living in a fantasy world. It won’t happen, so why stress about it? But I can’t help myself and say, “Well, it looks like you are planning a trip with your friend and mother, and I am kind of tagging along. I thought this whole trip was my idea.”

“You’re not tagging along. It will be fine. Everyone always gets along with everyone on my trips. You’ll see.” And again, she breaks into a reverie about an Israeli bitch who made everyone miserable on one of her tours and how she put the woman in her place and how by the end of the tour the woman changed, and now they are friends on Facebook and the woman asks Rita to take her to Cuba and show her a good time. It will be fine; everyone has fun on her trips.

I don’t want to get mad, so I put it out of my mind. But one thought is gnawing at me. I can’t sit in an aisle seat for 15 hours. I have to sit by a window. I tell Rita I have to change my seat.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll arrive a little earlier at the airport and arrange for you to change your seat.”

I stop worrying. I know she can do it. She gets people to do whatever she wants. Provided they are not cops. Because cops don’t bend to her will. They have handcuffs, and they use them when she makes a scene. Once she had to be handcuffed and walked out of a courthouse because she wouldn’t stop arguing with the judge. Another time, she exasperated a cop who was giving her a parking ticket to the point that only handcuffs made her kind of understand that she needed to shut up. But other than cops, I’ve heard countless stories about how she managed to get what she wanted from random people. She can help me. I trust her. All I have to do is arrive at the airport early enough. I can certainly do that.

I spend the night before the flight at a friend’s house near the airport. Her husband is a limo driver, and he is going to give me a ride to the airport. Everything looks good. I am confident that I will have a great trip to Israel and don’t have any of those butterflies in my stomach that I usually have before a long trip.

Motherhood - Again

She is twenty-five-years-old now. Until recently she did all the right things and stayed away from all the wrong things. She didn’t drink, she didn’t do drugs, she didn’t chase boys. She disapproved of me when I used curse words. She did all her homework on her own, she got good grades, she never raised her voice or argued. She even did her own laundry and cleaned her room when the floor disappeared under piles of clothes. She changed her own sheets. In short, she made my life easy.  

Sometimes I would look at her and wonder how I got such a daughter. I fought with my parents, I smoked hashish in high school, and, at fifteen, I had a boyfriend who was the opposite of what any parent would wish for their daughter. A good-looking, daredevil, high-school dropout.  Because I did my homework on time and was a good student they left me alone, but unbeknownst to them, I was a raging rebel. 

When I was twenty-one, I took off to Brazil, without money or a plan, and disappeared from my parents’ life for two years. I taught Hebrew in Rio, traveled in Peru and Bolivia on two dollars a day—all before credit cards and internet cafes and without a compass or a map.

But this daughter of mine, she came out totally different. As soon as she finished high school she went to college, and then she went to grad school, and before completing her master’s got a Fulbright scholarship to do research in South Korea. People used to tell me that I did a great job raising her, and all I could think was “I did nothing. She came like that. I only made sure there was food in the fridge and took her to play dates.”

Her dad and I did not get along. We separated when she was five. We agreed on nothing except that the girl we brought to this world was nothing like us. 

Then, shortly before she took off to South Korea, she asked me to go with her to get her car smog tested. When it was time to get the car back, I gave her my credit card. She took it to the counter. The man gave her the bill and asked her to sign it. 

Before I had a chance to get up from the chair and come to the counter, she turned to me and said, “It’s OK, I know how to sign your name.”

On the way to the car, I asked her how she knew what my signature looked like.

“Ah, I learned to forge your signature when I was in fourth grade,” she said nonchalantly.

It hit me like a bomb. My daughter forged my signature.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“I watched you signing something and practiced.”

“Why did you have to forge my signature?”

“We had to get a parent’s signature on some homework, so I forged your signature. You were recovering from surgery, and I didn’t want to bother you.”

I couldn’t believe it. This good girl who never argues with grownups, who doesn’t drink and do drugs, committed a crime right under my nose and only now I find out. And what if she’s been carrying the burden of the offense all these years, the guilt suffocating her, the weight of the secret she had to hide from me clouding her judgment. How did she deal with that? How damaging was that secret to her soul?

We got in the car. She started driving down the street. After a few moments of silence, I decided I had to say something.

“Have you been keeping this secret from me all these years?”

She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“What do you mean? You forged my signature and you waited fifteen years to tell me. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“I don’t feel guilty, mom. Ms. Saint Germaine wanted that stupid signature and I wasn’t going to ask you to do it. I don’t care.”

It took me a few minutes to digest this news. My daughter committed a crime, and she didn’t care. She was completely unfazed by it. She was not burdened by guilt or regret. No shame. No embarrassment for being caught. Just complete and total nonchalance, like nothing had happed.

I could not be happier with this discovery. My daughter is a normal person. She can do wrong. She does have a part of me. That little criminal streak that can push you to break the rules that make no sense. I felt so proud of her. All the Fulbrights in the world could not have made me happier. I could finally say that I raised my daughter in my image. Not perfect but always striving to be a better person.