A GIRL NAMED GALILEA

remember it clear morning sunlight that off wind blowing in from the Mediterranean and sounds and sights bringing back a rush hack that morning three years ago and me fresh out of college wanting to see the world before I settle down assistant purser on a merchant ship three weeks out from the states we touched ported Haifa and I had exactly one day as Shirley 24 hours in Israel funny how some little detail can ring a bell of remembrance a cargo sling against the sky I remember there was a cargo sling and I stopped to look up at it and that was when it happened how clearly it all comes back a sudden hunger for someone to talk to me laugh with me guide me through the streets of a strange city I crossed my fingers and decided to take a chance with my high school French and six words of Spanish I tried to introduce myself and made a terrible mess of it she seemed to find it all faintly funny and I guess it was because it turned out she could speak perfect English they say laughter is the gateway to Friendship anyway it was for us and we ended up having lunch together at one of those lovely cafes on top of Mount Carmel I can still hear that soft voice trying to describe to me the Galilee the hills she was named after and green fields where she was born a girl named kalila with a smile swift as a wild bird and below us the city of Haifa flashing in the sunlight how clearly memory comes back across the years setting out to spend the day together wandering through the gardens built by disciples of the faith of the bahai and the fantastic way she seemed to know the name of every flower the story of every stone then her suddenly deciding to whisk me off to acre how could I leave without seeing acre circling north along the rim of the sea past the old Roman aqueducts marching across the countryside with great stone strides and into acre she told me this was a city that was ancient when Caesar was born a medieval city even now all arches and towers and the teeming bizarre tiny dim shop selling palm oil and pickled lemons silver bracelets and silken scarves delicate minarets rising over the twisted alleys where Marco Polo once wandered on his journey to cafe and the astonishing mosque apartment poetry in stone built by a slave turned king you lacework of marble spelled out with mosaic scriptures from the Quran and she led me along the crumbling crusaders seawall where richard the lionheart heads knights in armor clanked down from their ships and where later napoleon came fresh from glory in egypt own to be stopped dead at the gates of this city and the old customs house on the site where once 3,000 years ago merchant fleets came sailing from Phoenicia and then elegant vessels from venice coming to trade for pottery and rare perfumes damask and peacock feathers sitting on the terrace of Abu salaams cafe she showed me how to eat the Oriental bread they called Peter and I tried to explain the mysteries of a hamburger on a roll the memory of that day along the Mediterranean comes back now touched with sunlight and laughter and the saw Nightwind back in Haifa on the beach where once Phoenician sailors set up their cooking pots and came upon Man's first discovery of glass and rising up behind us Mount Carmel where the prophet Elijah challenged the priests of Baal a single day a single lovely day and I started back to my ship never dreaming that in three years I'd be returning again a school teacher now taking my vacation to really see the country this time I pretended to debate where I should start Jerusalem maybe or even further south in the Negev with its great writers like the mountains of the moon and its ancient copper mines of King Solomon but I wasn't fooling myself I knew all along that what I had to see first was the Galilee I planned a route and got myself a list of modern hotels surprised that I could stay at the best on a school teachers budget and then I found myself climbing her in Bruton Street unmarked car no I kept telling myself this is crazy she won't even remember me she's probably married by now but it turned out that in those three years gelila had moved back to somewhere in the Galilee lady wasn't sure just where there was a cousin who might know she gave me his address a settlement in the north called kafar guillotine okay brother forget about her you came to take a look at Israel okay start looking I picked up a rented car and headed north out of Haifa past the milk bottle chimneys of the oil refinery past the bright new industrial suburbs northward along the coast until noon when I hit the place the tourists people had suggested for lunch the dolphin mouse you a white and gracious resort hotel that looked transplanted from the Riviera sunlit rooms with balconies opening on the sea and one touch that could only be Israel the gardens were they gathered together every tree shrub and flower mentioned in the barn at lunch I decided I'd better check on my route I think that was when it began to dawn on me that just about every Israeli is a self-appointed native guide they do light and poring over maps pointing our places you absolutely must not miss quoting where it's mentioned in Isaiah or the book of kings you a hotel that was the last word in luxury one of a whole string stretching from Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee catering to Israelis on holiday visitors from London and Stockholm Montreal and Mexico City not to mention one happy-go-lucky schoolteacher from Connecticut USA starting north once more in the bright afternoon the April air clears wide the ancient Arab towns perched on their hilltops and the Sheep roaming the fields as they must have roamed when King David first sang his sweet Psalms to the Lord somewhere east of hanita I picked up my next native guide a young wheat farmer a veteran of the war of independence along the route he showed me maybe you sure the old police station that had been turned into an enemy fortress where a squad of volunteers boys really the oldest no more than 19 crawled across the deadly fields to plant dynamite under the walls nebi yuusha where some 20 young israelis gave their lives leaving the quiet earth signed with their honor and stretching away below us the River Jordan running into the glittering pool of Lake hula with its border of swampland but by a labor of Hercules is being drained and turned into fields of corn and barley journeying Eastwood once more the distant peak of Mount Hermon thrusting high in the sunlight as I traveled toward far gladdie when I heard that name it seemed to sound a court of remembrance bringing back the hope of finding gelila her cousin was there all right he'd seemed Leela a year ago and then lost track of her she was somewhere in the Galilee making the round of the settlements teaching dancing the best he could offer by way of a clue was the name of an ant inside and it all began to seem like a wild goose chase as I followed the road south now through the olive grove hills into suffered suffered the Silver City my next native guide was a passing sculptor who told me that it was here in the second century that Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai wrote his book of splendor containing the mysteries of the Kabbalah in 1492 the same year Columbus was setting foot upon the new world there poured into this city a stream of scholars and scientists fleeing the Spanish Inquisition by the 16th century it was a booming metropolis sending out caravans with silks and silver boasting the first printing press in the Middle East you my guide pointed out where I could find galil azat and I started down there trying to prepare myself in advance for one more disappointment you she turned out to be one of the colony of artists who have set up their easels on soffits balconies working to capture the look of the town bathed in it's clear mountain light it was all sheer luck luck that I found her and luck that she spoke English galena of course she's living in Tiberias down on the Sea of Galilee it was that simple but suddenly I found myself thank you take it easy chances are the girl won't even remember you go son of pipe dreams brother just take your time remember what you came for to see the sights and there was plenty to see along that breathtaking countryside the green slopes looking like a passage out of the Bible for the LORD thy God bringeth me into a goodly land a land of valleys and hills a land of wheat and barley and vine and fig trees and pomegranates a land of olive and Ani a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarce pneus all the marvelous cross weave of Israel's citizens the native born and the immigrants gathered from 69 countries plowing the fields in the shadow of a biblical mountain table where 3,000 years ago the prophetess Deborah rallied the children of Israel gathering the tribes and sending them out to smash the 900 iron chariots of the Canaanites her victory cry sat down in the book of Judges here o ye Kings give ear o ye Prince's I will sing praise to the Lord a franciscan basilica standing now where jesus appeared transfigured in the sight of the disciples Peter James and John the holy place circled by the ruins of a lovely 4th century Church and framed by the sweep of Mount Gilboa across the valley I took my time making the side trips circling down into kanna where according to the Gospel of John Christ performed his first miracle turning the wedding feast water into why a sleepy Arab crossroads one of the gateways to the world famous town that lies just beyond Nazareth the town where the Child Jesus once played among the narrow streets where the young man Jesus worked as a carpenter we're the best guide book is the bible and he came and dwelt in the city called Nazareth that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets he shall be called a Nazarene a town of Christian Arabs now with more than 25 churches monasteries and convents including st. Joseph's built over the grotto where the holy family lived after their return from Egypt almut has written its name in the history of religions that were born but most of all Nazareth remains the town of Jesus with its famous Church of the Annunciation with its citizens who still go for water to the spring named in honor of one who daily filled her pitcher there the fountain of Our Lady Mary nazareth its old quarter with the shops of sandal makers and silversmiths lie streets streets that seem not to have changed for centuries except for the sleek new tourist buses that come rolling in from Jerusalem Tel Aviv in Haifa I remember the next morning I started east into the mountains and saw rising against the sky the fabled horns of hitting so peaceful now and yet there was a time 800 years ago when these flowering fields rang with the trumpets of two fantastic armies locked in combat ten thousand crusading knights in armor going down before the swords of the Saracens and in these same hills now you come upon a tribe of warriors as spectacular as anything out of ancient history the Druze who fought alongside the Jewish battalions in Israel's war of Asia a thousand years ago they broke away from Islam and formed their own set claiming descent from the Prophet Jethro father in law of Moses I came into their village on the feast day of nebbish whale celebrated with their wild dance the Deb calonge as I live I don't think I'll ever forget my first sight of the Sea of Galilee lying there like a fallen fragment of sky beyond Tiberias I was headed for still another of Israel's fine hotels modern comfortable the galley Kinneret perched like a stone bird at the edge of the sea I checked in took a quietly swim and ended up having tea and French pastry on the terrace overlooking the sea of galilee that Inland Sea shaped like a harp and called just that it's Hebrew name canard bar and sitting there I could understand the ancients a Jehovah created the seven seas but canare it he made for his own delight in the late afternoon I started out in search of galena through this fisherman's town that was once a fortress of the Roman legions the last resting place of rabbi Akiba and the great physician maimonides Oh you and I found the place at last only to discover that galil 0 was away out teaching at a settlement called F Hakeem in the last hours before sunset there was still time to make the journey to a gentle hill in the North Beatitudes the cool gardens in the lovely Italian hospice watching over the place where Jesus to Liberty is Sermon on the Mount whatsoever ye would that men do unto you do ye even so unto them the next morning bright and early I started out south along the River Jordan to the settlement of a fakie and that was where I found it was so strange seeing her again and yet somehow not strange at all did I wonder if she would remember me I needn't have wondered after class we started out together not really knowing we're not really caring those first hours we were half old friends half strangers talking in quick bursts and then suddenly falling side as we walked among the ruins at Capernaum stones of the 2nd century synagogue the Roman columns and the time softened freezes with their classic signatures of his real the Star of David the Rams are the palm branch all around us April sat softly on the hills the same April the same land that once called forth the Song of Solomon for lo the winter is past the rain is over and gone the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land come let us go forth into the field let us large in the villages let us get up early to the vineyards let us see if the vines flourish whether the tender grape appear and the pomegranate bud forth and through the hours of afternoon slowly we began reaching out to each other again across time was gone shaping plans for time that was yet to come starting out along the rim of tiberius past the old Crusader forts out across the Sea of Galilee and in the distance the Jordan Valley the orchards of plum and peach the fields of young wheat and some were beyond Nazareth with its churches and acre with its towers and beyond that all the beckoning places still unknown to me the plains of shower the hills of Judea gin all his glory bear Sheba where Abraham watered his flocks and he lot where Solomon's Navy put out to sea who could say what was to come sitting there and Israel's bright afternoon looking out across the sweep of the Galilee the Galilee that was only the beginning