“Going Up, Going Down ~ the Aliyah of an Ingénue”
Chapter 23 : Eli and the Midnight Tomatoes
Our dear friend Eli Maman was a character whose inventiveness and creativity may never have been fully exploited or appreciated by the police with whom he was employed during our acquaintance with him as a close neighbour. Eli worked at that time in the traffic department and rode a large, white motorcycle for many of his duties but this could be boring and repetitive for such a man as he. He was an expert with horses and other animals, his home a menagerie for many creatures hidebound, furred or feathered. His wife Ruthie, a Canadian immigrant who was the long-suffering backbone of the family, a loyal and true mate, mother of their two boys and two girls, was a superb cook. Both husband and wife were hospitable with a capital ‘H’ and their house was open to all comers. Ruthie might have enjoyed a little more privacy, room for her own thoughts and feelings, space for herself but this was not really an option while being married to a man like Eli. Many were the wonderful barbecues in their garden at which the liquor flowed and our expansive host with his booming voice and laugh made sure everybody was enjoying themselves to the full. But this generosity and other economic problems no doubt put a strain on the family income which was not always under expert control of the breadwinner. Ruthie, after raising her children, finally took some additional training and returned to teaching and taught at the junior and high school in the village. Life was not easy for them.
I suppose one of Eli’s biggest problems was self discipline, or lack of it, and a great desire to please people and be liked, whether or not he could afford this sometimes expensive luxury. And it was quite often his inventive imagination which caused him more problems than a few. His rank was consequently often yo-yoing between promotion and demotion, which naturally affected his income and upset his wife along the way. But Eli believed in the timeless mercy and fruitfulness of the Almighty, perhaps only qualified by the age-old Hispanic expression maňana, for today is surely only waiting for tomorrow … which, of course, never comes.
As a traffic patroller of the main highways we might assume Eli was often engaged in the misdemeanours of others and involved in highway accidents of all sorts. One night Arni was sitting up late when he heard a tapping on the front window. He supposed this was someone we knew who perhaps did not want to disturb the whole household. It was indeed Eli, who explained to Arni that an articulated lorry on the main Haifa highway not too far away had slipped a couple of coils of re-inforcing steel onto the road. As I understood it, and this may be an exaggeration, the driver heard his load shift but knew as he was pulling up that he had no lifting gear with which to get it back on the lorry. Fortunately, or so we may believe, he was on an inside lane and not an immediate danger to other traffic. Eli had been passing in his patrol car and stopped to investigate the matter. The driver let Eli understand that he was anxious to get the rest of the delivery under way. If questioned about the missing coils he told Eli that he would simply shrug and say he was only the driver and had not loaded the vehicle. For this reason he was glad Eli had come along and he hoped he would take over the responsibility for dealing with the coils, or disposing of them, without further involvement from himself. That, at any rate, was the story Arni received. Eli had waved the driver off, coned the area and headed back to Ramat Yishai knowing that we were then in the process of building our own house and that one of the more expensive materials we had to use was steel re-inforcement.
The idea of fetching a load of ‘police protected goods’ that had fallen from a lorry rather appealed to my ‘subversive’ husband but even if they could find another two men to help and a suitable vehicle, it was unfeasible without some proper lifting gear. The rolls probably each weighed at least a ton. It then occurred to Arni that even if they succeeded in removing the goods to Ramat Yishai there might be other consequences, questions asked and so on which he did not feel he would genuinely be able to fence. He was, after all, a respected engineer with a family to support. So after an hour’s interesting discussion on hydraulics and heavy weights, Eli and Arni decided to abandon the project. What happened after that remains in the realms of conjecture. Somehow Arni felt it was a generous and disappointed officer he had left to contact his superiors with the news of the traffic accident and its precise whereabouts. The subject was never mentioned between them again.
Another incident which pinpointed the ready skills of our policeman which had not escaped the notice of the force, happened when the Home Office Minister was paying a visit to the municipality of Haifa. This was a formal visit in a large black American Cadillac, chauffeur driven from Tel Aviv to Haifa. The Minister of State was to first join the Mayor of Haifa at the imposing Municipal Offices so that they could be photographed by the press as they publicly shook hands, signalling some recent agreement enabling money to flow from the Treasury to Haifa Municipality, no doubt for proper reasons to do with immigration or other Home Office business. Both the Mayor and Minister belonged to the same party, Mapai, thus easing the flow of cash presumably from one coffer to another through correct bureaucratic channels. Yes, Minister!
Unfortunately, after the car had drawn up at the steps of the Municipal building both the chauffeur and the Minister left the car at precisely the same moment, slamming their doors as they did so. The chauffeur quite rightly had moved quickly to get out and open the car door on the other side for the Minister. That independent government official, without due sense of protocol, had in an ungracious manner let himself out of the Cadillac without formal aid. Thus the keys had been left in the ignition and with both the doors closing a security mechanism had come into operation which locked all of them simultaneously. The Minister went into the Municipal offices with the Mayor and journalists while the chauffeur was left on the steps of the building with egg on his face and a burning need to remove it before the Minister re-appeared within half an hour to take a ceremonial trip around the town of Haifa in the limousine, escorted by twenty-four police outriders of which Eli was one.
The Chief of Police in Haifa was on the spot and asked someone to summon Eli to his presence. Eli was motioned to turn his shiny white motorbike around and drive back to where the Cadillac was immobilised. Here the Police Chief stood and his ultimate employer said to him, “Eli, open this bloody car.” Having delivered this command the Chief immediately turned his back to him.
Eli muttered, “Yes, sir,” as he drew from a pocket a number of hairpins. Our man looked at the Cadillac lock and skilfully bent one hairpin as required. This he entered into the lock and a few seconds later the car door was open and ignition keys withdrawn and handed to a relieved chauffeur. The Chief of Police, still with his back to Eli and having ignored the entire procedure, waited judiciously until the hairpins had been restored to the pocket and Eli had driven back to his position. This happened seconds before the good Minister descended the steps to a car door held open this time by a chauffeur for the Minister and Mayor to be deferentially seated. The parties proceeded on their way with Eli and colleagues at the head of the cavalcade.
It might be interesting to make a point here about Israeli protocol. It is well known that formal dress for MPs, Ministers, members of the Judiciary and all government officers had been abandoned before Israel ever became a nation. In a bid for political equality and freedom rather than concern with climate, the formal tie had been cut out of any sartorial rules from the earliest days of immigration, when bodies were formed that would later become the democratic bedrock of a new State of Israel. An open-necked, white shirt is all that is required above a pair of trousers of indiscriminate grey, blue or black. The shirt sleeves may be short, rolled up or left down and unbuttoned for most government or other business. Jackets and suits hardly exist unless a man needs to diplomatically defy the rule, as with a Prime Minister and his henchmen having to appear on an international stage or TV.
Such sartorial ‘cool’ had needed no law to frame it, receiving for once in this politically argumentative nation one hundred percent approval. This surely contrasts strangely with the dressing etiquette of many ex-colonial countries, where officials have continued trying desperately to look as well groomed in forty degrees of heat as the ex-colonial masters whom they have deposed. In the case of those earlier British colonies it would seem that not only do officials like ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ go out in the midday sun but do so inappropriately dressed up to match an indelible sartorial precedent which the born-again Israelis, in their pioneering spirit and democratic wisdom, chose first to flout and then to ignore.
But I return to our friend Eli who on coming home from his police patrol duty somewhat earlier than usual one night found himself investigating the strange case of …
THE MIDNIGHT TOMATO PICKER …
As previously mentioned, Mrs Larish was our landlady who owned and had lived in the house we were renting two plots away from our very good friends Ruthie and Eli and their four children. This redoubtable woman, in her late sixties, was generally regarded as a bit of a witch, liked neither by her neighbours and not greatly by her children, as far as we could gather. When love and human kindness were being dished out, Mrs Larish was no doubt hiding from the possibility of being asked to contribute rather than to receive something. So she missed out, as did all those who came into contact with her. Of course, she may well have been a beautiful young woman at some time and life dealt her some bitter blows but of those circumstances we are unaware so we could only judge as we found.
The family Larish had arrived in Ramat Yishai from a kibbutz some time in the nineteen forties or fifties and purchased one of the few private stone houses from its original owner with its half acre plot looking west across the valley and on which fruit trees had been planted. The Maman family had bought their stone house many years later but were living there before Mrs Larish moved out of the village.
Eli Maman loved gardening and planted his plot with fruit and vegetables and had good crops which helped to support his growing family. Our policeman very often worked on night shifts and came home fairly early in the morning and went straight to bed. On this occasion the shifts were changed unexpectedly and Eli was sent home halfway through his shift, arriving around midnight. As he approached his house he became aware that somebody, a shadowy figure, was in his garden doing what he had no idea. Everyone in the house was fast asleep so he took his hand pistol from his belt, went out into the garden and quietly approached the intruder whose back was bent over a row of his tomatoes, picking them at a great rate. The person appeared to be dressed in a long white robe and his first thought was that it might be an Arab. This seemed highly unlikely since none of the Bedouin nor fellahin, the farmers, would need or want or take the risk of stealing from a private garden in a Jewish settlement. Eli knew no fear but rather felt excitedly challenged by this situation.
“Stop what you’re doing, stay where you are and raise your hands or I’m going to shoot you”, he growled loudly with convincing strength of purpose.
The person stood up immediately and as quickly raised their hands whilst dropping the basket they had been holding, with the result that some kilos of tomatoes spilled onto the plot. The thief turned around quickly and Eli recognised in the moonlight that he had his pistol pointed at his neighbour from two doors away, Mrs Larish in her nightgown.
Eli then asked his familiar intruder, “what are you doing in my garden?”, to which the swift reply came
“I am not in your garden.”
“So where do you think you are?”, Eli asked gruffly.
“I’m in my garden”, Mrs Larish responded, “and this is my house”, she added quickly as an afterthought pointing at the Maman property.
Unsure whether the lady was blatantly lying to cover being caught in her embarrassing misdemeanour or simply sleep walking, he stuck his pistol into his belt, took her gently by the arm and propelled her back to her own house without a further word from either of them.
Meeting Mrs Larish later that day on the road, he asked her with a wicked twinkle in his eyes if she remembered having visited his garden after midnight. The lady emphatically denied with outraged indignation that she had been anywhere near the place, saying she was always in bed by ten o’clock and why would she do that and how dared he suggest such a thing.
That Eli had not been sleepwalking himself had become evident when he’d returned to pick up the fallen fruit before finally going to bed, still chuckling at the outrageous chutzpah of a neighbour, neither poor nor honest, who had not one single tomato plant in her own garden. Until today, Eli could not say for certain whether Mrs Larish was sleep walking or not but had a pretty shrewd idea where the truth lay.