Rising up

Sometimes a chance encounter can change a person, if only for a few minutes.

It all began with a train ride, Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I was rising up from the sub-sub-subterranean Jerusalem platform toward the surface of the earth on one of the many escalators. At that time of day, it’s faster to take the 4-minute multi-escalator ride than one of the three elevators (Schindler’s lifts). There are three evening escalators just going up, and three in the morning going down, and three more leading nowhere because they broke. Sigh.

To be fair, only one escalator was broken. But I caught the eye of an older gentleman on the escalator next to mine, and I said, “Wherever I go in this country, there’s always one broken escalator.” I said this because it’s true. My favorite is the one at the Azrielli Hashalom mall in Tel Aviv, on which the stairs go one speed and the handrail goes another, and sometimes seems to go the other direction, “just for show.” Sigh.

But this gentleman would not let me get away with it. “I worked with machinery all of my life,” he said, pointing, “and these are amazing! Think about the numbers, the sheer weight of people they have to carry all day, every day. Think of the motors that make them move. Remember how deep, deep down we are in the ground, and these escalators take us to the surface. The whole thing is a miracle!’ This could be summarized as, “Adjust your attitude, you young whippersnapper!”

Which I did. I admitted to him that I had an attitude, and I claimed that a long day and a desire to get home had made me grumpy, which was only partially true. If you live here, you know that there are reasons to be grumpy all of the time, and the escalators don’t enter into it. But, like some kind of Dickensian spirit, this fellow lifted me up as we traveled.

We kept talking on our way to the surface. I should mention that I made this journey seem simpler than it is. Having completed the 4-minute long-escalator journey almost to the surface, we got as far as the exit turnstiles – still below street level. I stayed with him as we passed through and took one of the two short escalators going up, partially because this was his first time, and partially because he was delightful. He regaled me with stories of his history. If this were a work of fiction, I would say I listened in amazement, open-mouthed, but this was reality. My brain was open-mouthed, but my mouth was busy smiling and laughing. You can tell, because no one has written or spoken the word “regaled” since the 1950s.

As we exited into the station plaza, still not quite at street level, he told me that he was 90 years old. No, wait — first he made me guess his age, a game everyone loves to play. He looked about 80, so I guessed 70 and then he told me. He truly looked much younger, but he proved his age by showing me a picture of his beautiful great-granddaughter.

I wanted to know more. Ninety years! How many of those folks are still around? I felt like even the smallest details of his life would have meaning. Family in Jerusalem? No, just a couple of friends, but he liked to come periodically to eat at one of his favorite restaurants, though the name eluded him. His expertise was limited to escalators and, perhaps, electric motors. So, I gave him some transportation tips. Finally, after one more short ride to the Earth’s crust, also known as Jaffa Road, we parted. But just before we did, I shook his hand. As I did so, I told him my name and asked him his.

“Elijah,” he said.

I walked away, feeling better than I had in years. Elijah was so pleased with his people and his land and foresaw a rosy future. For a few minutes, I felt really, really good about being Israeli, about being a Jew in Israel. I turned to give him a final wave.

He was gone.