17 Nov--Tea, pt.5

John had been living in Israel for almost three months. In those three months he had sought work as a housekeeper, a gardener for an Ethiopian woman, and an au pair. When you don't speak Hebrew, your choices are limited. Much of his day was spent trying to communicate physically what he couldn't communicate verbally. This was irritating at least, exhausting at the extreme--especially when he had to ask of someone wanted their lawn mowed and their flower bed weeded. By the time they understood and agreed, he was too tired to do the work. He envied his brother, Jamie, during these times. At least Jamie was living in a country where they spoke English; all he had to get past was an accent.

At the El Al terminal in Paris's Charles de Galle airport, Jamie handed his e-ticket to the customer service agent. She looked at his ticket, looked at him, and immediately picked up the phone. She had encountered passengers who had booked flights through www.lastminute.com before, and they were always suspect. From French sympathisers of Palestine trying to smuggle any number of things, to the American students coming to protest a conflict they didn't understand, they all booked at the last minute trying to sneak in under the radar. But she knew about that trick, and she wasn't going to let this one through. She looked at his clothes and figured he must be French. While the phone rang, she thought about what she would tell the agent at Last Minute Flights. "I'll say we didn't get the ticket. He'll have to buy another ticket. They never buy another ticket. But I'll have to sound convincing." The receptionist on the other end picked up, and the charade began.

Jamie listened to the El Al agent speaking in French. No matter how many times he heard it, he couldn't make out a single word. "Hell," he thought, "she could be insulting me in any number of ways, and I wouldn't even know it." His mind began to wander. He tried to calculate what time it would be when he landed in Tel Aviv. He looked at his watch. His flight was scheduled to leave in about an hour. As long as everything went smoothly from now on, he'd arrive on time and surprise his brother.

The El Al agent hung up the phone and sighed. It appeared to Jamie everything was in order. He suddenly felt good; he was regaining confidence. "I think I'll try out a bit of French," he thought. "I won't be here very long anyway." She handed the e-ticket back to him.

"Pas de problem?" He said in his best accent.

"Non, non--beaucoup de problem . . ." And that was as far as his understanding took him. She commenced to talk very quickly, emphasising particular words and pointing every so often at his e-ticket. His eyes began to glass over, and he suddenly felt very tired. She would have said just as much had she simpy opened her mouth and emitted a constant, low drone. Any grain of confidence Jamie had gathered before had just been lost in her sandstorm of French. He exhaled loudly, and decided it was time to interrupt.

"Yeah, sorry, I don't really speak French."

"Oh," she replied, a little off guard. "Well, there's a very big problem. You don't have a ticket."