Diary
Two tragedies wrecked my life: eating a bad oyster and seeing Jaws. The first disaster disclosed itself two hours after I left a Mayfair seafood restaurant; during the eight hours of throes that followed, I was aware that thenceforward I would be allergic to the food I fell in love with when my father perched me on a tall stall in Baltimore harbour's market and I swal- lowed my first dozen Chincoteagues raw. A few weeks after the Mayfair poisoning, I ate in a smart club that serves Carpetbags fillet steaks stuffed with oysters – and 20 minutes later I was upside down, so to speak, in the ladies' room. So it went on, whether I ate an oyster advertently or inadvertently. Yet I still refused to accept that my system was now programmed to reject all oysters. The final calamity was concealed in a sauce poured over turbot at Number Ten. After two forkfuls of the ambrosia, I realised its secret, put down my fork, glanced at my watch. On our way home later, Tony reproved me: 'It's all right if I look bored on these occasions,' he said, 'but you're not meant to.' I wasn't bored. There were oysters in that fish sauce. I was concentrating on whether I could pick at all the other courses before going to the ladies' room to throw the whole lot up.' After that I accepted my oyster destiny.
Jaws spoiled a different delight — swim- ming far out into the sea. What put the lid on that was the early scene of the young woman who one moment was cavorting in the brine, treading the water like a play- thing, the next moment one arm gone, the rest of her to follow in two more massive bites. I can put up, I think, with being swallowed at a gulp, but being devoured Piecemeal I cannot deal with. I yearned to swim far out into the sea off Tel Aviv, but the image from Jaws kept turning me back. An Israeli sought to allay my fears with an account of another woman who lately was crawl-stroking well away from Tel Aviv's shore when she noticed over her right Shoulder that someone in a wetsuit was keePing pace with her – rather a comradely ing to do, as the waves were rough. Turning to smile at her companion, she Perceived that the wetsuit in fact encased a shark who, happily, did not smile back. "liPping fanatically into reverse, in total 'error she made for the distant beach and, reaching it, was greeted by her friend: 'I would have worried at your being way out In these high seas, but I saw someone in a wetsuit was with you, so I knew you'd be all right.' Sharks, my informant told me, c1,0 not attack in waters as warm as those of 10 in September: the temperature must fall a bit to activate them. Maybe. I still jayed near shore. It was from Jaffa that Jonah set out for Nineveh, but met up with the whale instead. Since then the port has changed hands back and forth between Roman, Christian, Moor and Jew. You can tell the outer walls of the sultan's harem by the tile pipes that pierce its foot-thick stones, allowing the women to be cooled by the air from the sea while remaining invisible to outside eyes. It was from this casbah that the young Napoleon on his way to Acre committed the war crime of his career. Irritated that Josephine's brother had taken 3,000 prisoners when he captured the place – there would be no way to secure them once the march north was resumed Napoleon ordered his own troops to drive all 3,000 Turks into the sea. When you look west at the empty horizon, it is plain that even those of the 3,000 who could swim had nowhere to go but down. In 1910 the Jews walked out of Jaffa to establish Tel Aviv just up the great sand beach. It is the urban creation of modern Judaism – a quarter of a million souls who look on Jerusalem as provincial. Music, theatre, politics, business, gossip thrive in Tel Aviv. So does crime in the poorest parts of old Jaffa where the Arabs of the casbah were replaced by Jewish specialists in picking pockets, cracking safes. After the state of Israel was formed in 1948, the filthy little streets of the casbah – places where people simply disappeared – were cleaned up, grants given to artists who have turned it into a slightly kitsch village of unblemished charm. Overlooking the ramparts is the Franciscan church run by two priests who enjoy a distinctly offbeat reputation. When I knocked on the door I was let in by one of their friends, a tall, dark and handsome young monk wearing tennis shoes below his black cassock, smoking cheerfully as he showed me around. Tel Aviv-Jaffa is the home of Protekzia – what the French call Vitamin P. It is not protection in the corrupt sense: there is little corruption in Israel. It is the outgrowth of centuries when Jews in eastern Europe, Iraq, Morocco had no access to law and govern- ment, and therefore helped each other. Increasingly Israelis recognise that the state is there to give service, yet when they want something done their instinctive re- sponse remains: Who do I know? Communal life on the kibbutzim en- gages three per cent of the population – Israel's elite. They personify differences between Jews in exile and those living in Israel: Israelis develop their muscles as well as their brains; they admire military men; they esteem agriculture above com- merce. In the dining room none of the men wore the skull-cap: almost all kibbutzniks are non-religious. But they rarely deni- grate Jews who practise the traditional religion, for it is what kept Jews going for 2000 years of exile. Heterosexual puritan- ism is on the wane in the kibbutzim. The pill is freely available. So is abortion. But homosexuality, for both sexes, remains out — 'not an issue', i.e., they believe the tendency is almost non-existent among kibbutzniks. Between sexes, muscles still dictate division of roles. Therefore the biochemical laboratory is ideally suited for women who resent obligatory mothering and service jobs – though I twice passed a young white-coated female technician sob- bing loudly and resentfully to two white- coated males.
White coats and Yiddish jokes about 'my son the dentist' direct my stream of consciousness to a different area of abiding interest: people's relationship with their dentists. Twice now while supine, watching the white-coated figure with white mask over his mouth, spectacles like goggles shielding his eyes, syringe poised over me, I have abruptly pushed away my dentist and struggled into an upright seated position, explaining that the thought occur- red to me that he was a mad scientist. Each time he took it fairly well. And on the whole I am a product of my upbringing: I rarely make scenes. Not so a woman neighbour in South Kensington. She is Italian. Our friendship stems from the day she said to me: 'I am not superstitious. But if I see a black cat coming, I kick him to make sure he won't cross my path.' Last week she told me about her previous day's, visit to a dentist. 'That man, when I first saw him, I thought: he has beautiful eyes. He is the first attractive Englishman I have met. But when he came at me with that big needle and I began to scream, he said: "Don't you scream like that when you didn't even have an appointment." "Should I not have feelings," I said, "just because I have no appointment? I think you are not a good dentist: you do not make your customers feel confidence." He said: "I think you have courage to say that to me." Then he stuck the needle in me again. I have not a comfortable feeling about that man. Also he was wearing nothing underneath that white coat. It was loosely tied at the back, and there he was underneath it.' While I myself have had to ask my dentist whether he leans as hard on male patients' chests as he does on mine, his apparel has always been beyond re- proach.
Susan Crosland
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