Homegrown

The night after they find the six dead hostages, I, along with several thousand others, board the Light Rail.

At each stop the carriage grows more dense, little groups mutter the same question, studying the rail map: ‘Where do we get down? Yehudit or Shaul Hamelech?’

I grip the overhead rail with both hands, then just one, then for the final few stops my hands float by my sides. I’m sandwiched between protestors in black and red ‘Bring Them Home’ t-shirts, swaying with the rhythm of the train like a sardine in brine.

If I was a suicide bomber, I’d detonate here.

Down the carriage I notice a girl, a tanned Marc Chagall face, drooping and oblong, her silver earrings fashioned into folded ‘hostage-style’ ribbons.

Pouring out at Yehudit everyone seems to spot an old friend. There is an explosion of spontaneous meetings on the platform, on the escalator, ‘didn’t expect to see you here’, ‘nice bumping into you’.

The mood is jolly. A man in bright pink trainers wearing equally pink headphones takes a bite out of his evening picnic, kitchen towel wrapped around a pitta with bits of cucumber poking out.

Somewhere by Ayalon I find a lamppost to lean on. The group next to me pass around roll-up cigarettes. I bum one, to be polite, and strike up, although I don’t smoke.

The huge billboards at Azrieli flash videos for Tourism Poland, dishwasher tablets and Samsung, the gleaming advertising slogans interrupted by a sea of Israeli flags, posters of the Prime Minister’s face, angry slogans and exclamation marks.

All of Tel Aviv is here, tattoos, cigarettes, sandals. A dreadlocked woman pushes a pram with one hand, the other holding a strip of card scrawled ‘Enough’. A thin Father Christmas rushes by, blue eyes, red shirt, white shorts, red socks, his flowing snow-white beard studded with yellow ribbons.

Looking at the burning head of my cigarette I think, again, this would be the perfect spot to blow myself up. If I were so inclined.

Horns blare, dogs pant, the constant tip-tap of drums gives the feeling of an ancient military camp until a microphone shrieks: ‘Now! Now! Now!’ ‘Ach-shav! Ach-shav! Ach-shav!’

People bump by me, swarming down into the mass of flags and raised fists. I cling tight to my lamppost. Where are they all going?

In the melee a poster overlays images of Hersh Z’’L and red-haired baby Bibas. I see teenage scouts in khaki overalls and knotted scarves, a portly couple swaddled in bright yellow shirts ‘Seal the Deal’. Five girls hold arms to weave together through the crowd. Another Father Christmas sways by, blue-and-white Israeli flag draped over his shoulders like a superhero’s cape.

Do the right wing fantasize about driving a van through us?

A tall man with a bicycle sighs as he approaches the crowd. No way through. Beside him a man who looks like Jesus, wearing fluorescent braces, yells into his phone, trying to meet a friend. The reception is weak, his shouts are futile. Jesus, huh? What a disguise for a terrorist.

Who is here? People who normally cram into restaurants and bars, a face I know but can’t place, a clutch of little old ladies in stern spectacles, one standing off to the side with thick grey curls and chunky green earplugs to dampen the din. A girl in Air Force grey with highly impractical fingernails, an off-duty soldier in black jeans, M16 slung across her back, tattoos of little birds across her neck.

According to Bibi, we’re aiding Hamas, right here, right now. These hockey mums and soldiers brimming with emotion for our murdered hostages are unwitting agents of the enemy.

Opposite, in the windows of Azrieli’s twentieth floor, dozens of shoppers stand silhouetted gazing out at us, at the crowd, at tonight’s impromptu manifestation, these hundreds of thousands. I scan down from the tall towers to the base of my lamppost where a man scoops couscous with a metal teaspoon from a tupperware box. He came prepared.

Two police officers run across my field of vision. In another part of the crowd a woman pushes through on an electric scooter. The crowd jostles and reshapes back to normal.

Time to go. I leave my lamppost and head south, past ‘All of Them Now!’ placards. Two 7-ton white trucks and a police cordon block the road.

It’s easy to pass – a little too easy – officers chatting among themselves. A young religious couple saunter by, smiling at one another, oblivious to the world. The ice cream parlors are full, people load up on potato chips and bottles of cold water from the supermarket. This grim festivity can last all night.

At Carlebach I spot my old boss. He tries to avoid my eyes, but the path forces us together.

‘How are you? Good seeing you. Did you see it rain this morning? In September!’ We have a long pause. Neither of us suggests the rain was a divine lament, the scattered tears of The Almighty. ‘Going to the protest? I was just there.’

Off he goes, decked out in branded Bring Them Home merchandise. As he saunters into the night I imagine him, the CEO – let’s be clear, a Grade A douchebag – in a bright green Hamas bandana.

Yes, actually, that kind of fits. Maybe Bibi is right, after all.