I told to everyone that the day after and first thing we would visit, would be the wall of lamentation, as I had decided that finally, the Knesset was not a proper place to desplay all the complaints cumulated during the journey, but a wall certainly was, arguing that angels and other heavenly creatures would certainly be in more appropriate disposition to give a proper answer to the whole amount of irrational complaints I had heard, which, I added, do certainly have a deepest root in a most reasonable objection to how the world was made, but, not being myself able to discern the reason in its depth, I was allowed to presume a human organism of power wouldn’t be able, either, and that angels, in nature much more patient and all in all, more reliable, certainly would.

I thus reminded them of the fact that the wall in question was a left over from the ancient temple of Salmon, destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again and that consequently the rules ruling on the temple, or, in this case, the wall, were to be respected still, that is to say, the three courts, of which the last was the only one that could be intruded by foreign visitors, while the second was reserved to women and some type of men and the first for men wanting to make a sacrifice.

And don’t forget, I said, that the holy of holy was empty. Well, almost empty.

We had thus to stay at a prudential distance from the wall, putting in our imagination a second court in between, and I really hoped the quality of the complaints would improve while passing from one court to the other, thing I wasn’t really sure of.

“And why was the holy of holy empty?” Morfo asked suspiciously, as if the very fact of saying that it was empty may necessarily imply deepest secrets were hidden inside. “Precisely, in order to make you curious. Well, it was not actually empty, the arch that had been transported through the desert was there, with the ten tables of the law, a branch that had made a leave for Moses and a little bit of mana. That was all. The great priest was allowed to enter that place once a year and in front, there was the holy, where candles were burning and incense was burned, too. The arch was hidden away in the desert by a prophet before they leaft for the first exile and it is said – even if Jews don’t admit the source because it is in Maccabees, that is written in Greek – it would only be found when the Messiah will come.”

It was the day after we went first to the wall of lamentation and staid at a prudential distance. It was not orthodoxe who would object to my request because they do the same. Actually, foreigners or not orthodoxe are not allowed to go beyond a place that usually separates the entry from the actual church.

Of course Morfo wanted to invade Al Aqsa immediately, as the brightly shining cuppola seemed much more attractive than the bold wall just below, and although I heavily insisted on the fact that these were no tourist places but holy places and that she should be careful her complaints may not end up in ears who may deeply misunderstand them as finally, it may be said that Christianism having heavily leaned on the Ancient Testament in order to develop itself, slight bridges of understanding may allow the proper understanding of her complaints even to Jewish ears. “Don’t think,” I said, “even angels speak different languages. On top you will have to take off your shoes if you go there.” “It doesn’t matter, we take the shoes off before entering a house in Greece, too.” “True,” I continued, “which means that a heavy Muslim influence due to the Turkish presence in Greece for so many hundreds of years may eventually open proper communication lines. Well, go, I won’t. I haven’t lived in Greece.”

Of course she did, but a little after.

We got lost inside of the walls of the old city, Bazaars were visited and many peculiar items carefully inspected and then we made a turn around the place you may find the tomb of Absalom and other of the hellenic period and ended in Gethsemani, where the olive trees that can still be seen there are supposed to be 2000 years old. Perhaps they are the little of the little, I had to remark a little later, as according to Dimo Tzelepi, an olive tree does not give fruit after a hundred of years. These had still olives on their branches and many of them. But the garden was beautiful and nicely taken care of.

Just in front there was a door in the walls that had been closed, apparently, after Jesus death, he was supposed to have gone through with his donkey just before Easter.

We had decided we would visit the main Christian places the day after, following strictest temporal orders, so that finally Morfo decided to visit Al Aqsa the day after that day because Islam had appeared after Christianism, thing I agreed to as I would state thus at least an incredible ordering of her own behaviour in regard to historical periods, which already, I admitted, meant an incredible improval seen what there had been before.

There were many young French people in the Maison d’Abraham who finished by asking an enormous amount of questions I answered to in such medievally inspired tones, heavily reminding of Santa Teresa de Jesus mysticism, that they concluded I was completely mad, so that I had to state with a slight dispair, I admit, how easy it was to obtain such an effect in a certain number of environments.

“Y tan alta vida espero que muero porque no muero.” (And such a high life I attend, that I die because I don’t die.) Thing that necessarily must have been understood as esthetically arranged suicide tendencies, thus wickedly matching the appareciation other had made of my ‘configurations’ before.

It’s true that such an almost desperating observation would not distract me of my just acquired cheerful disposition whose cause was to be found in this that I had, as usual, solved almost everything, and almost everything was my banking system I was carefully studying in order to find proper communication lines to Hannah, whose language this was and who I thus had to send little messages inside of shares and interest points. Of course my horribly curious mind had already managed to translate many moral precepts and other laws – I had problems with the red cow – into financial interactions, and asked Hannah whether she really thought the public revelation of an adultery, whose evidence has been obtained by almost abstract ways, could really be parts of the virtual financial organization we were building up in order to solve Germany’s problem.

She meant that adultery was a fact of the private life and I argued heavily that this could not be considered such as the fact of being unable to keep an agreement, word or contract on private basis did necessarily imply the one would not be able to stay inside of other more official, financial or related contracts submitted to regulation. That adultery had to be considered as affecting evaluation for a possible lend, and that that was not the question, but if it had to be revealed. I finally concluded all alone by myself – and shall you take your dispositions – that the perverted and wicked revelation of debts incurred in indirect means slightly leaning on magics in order to hide away the source of revelation, this meaning that a whole mise en scene had to be arranged in order to trap one of those criminals with two or three whiskies in an agreable environment pushing him to a confession whose revelation could then be considered of the private sphere – ha -, but that this should concern as much women as man, as I really thought that the fact of only trapping women with cenders of the skin of a red cow, was definitely unjust and contrary to human rights and most of existing constitutions.

Hannah said weakly that then, you wouldn’t lend money to anyone anymore, objection which didn’t alter my definite position on the subject as I had found another solution. “Principally, it may be said that men tend more to adultery than women. Consequently, the introduction of  a notion of reliability considering such a fact, will, necessarily, make women appear as being more reliable and consequently, the financial poles will shift towards women.” “But banking is made by men.” “Precisely. They are little bit duller. They will necessarily be seduced by the consequent presentation of such a concept. It’s nothing but a man in order to eat himself up. On top it is of his convenience. He makes more money, that’s all. You think it costs little to run behind the little boasting idiots who spend their money in whores and gambling just to make themselves be seen by others and forgetting they may be asked to respond for their debts?” “Hm.” But she looked a little bit more interested. “Rational finances can only be obtained if shared wealth is introduced again into a production circle. What you earn has to be spent again in produced items or services that make the money arrive to other people, who spend it again and so on and so on. If money gets into the circles of mafia, it simply gets lost. Mafia doesn’t pay taxes. If you don’t pay taxes, the state gets weaker and there is no regulating justice. If there is no regulating justice you may say finances become … a casino. You play black and have a fifty percent of chances to win or … to loose.” “Will be happy in Monaco with your theories.” “Oh, you can introduce casinos into the financial world, too, what you can’t do is to make of regulated finances a casino. Casinos are quite intelligent after all, but it is a derivation, I mean, a regulator in regard of an ordered system. See. I would never spend a penny in casinos. Well, perhaps a few dollars, just for the fun, one day. Why? Because I think that wealth is the consequence of an effort. You do something and what you do has a value, depending on the value you get more or less and you order your reality in order to properly ‘place’ what you can. In ideal finances, the ‘good’, preserving a healthy environment for the most possible is what has the most value. In actual finances, it is the ‘wicked’, what is of interest for one or little and they obtained through illegal means they hide away the best possible, that has value. It’s the game. You keep appearance and then you manage to make a lot of illegal transactions that give you a lot of money: if you’re discovered, you loose everything (red), if you manage to keep it hidden away, you’re rich (black). But look, this is only because there is a law you refer to in order to start gambling. Why do we think it is impossible to make money in legal ways? The legal warrants for stability, security, order. If you loose these, you loose everything. Why bet red? Because the illegal is dangerous and the dangerous implies a risk that is given a value, too. And depending on how the social situation is, we give  more value to that than to the other.

But imagine the world is made my way. You have an ordered society, ruled by laws, and the conviction you live better respecting laws has a broadest ground. I work hard, my value is recognized, I get money. Should I bet red or black? And loose everything? I wouldn’t be stupid. The risk is far too high in this my ordered world. But. There are people who do as if they were respecting law and actually don’t. These people are already gambling. They will be tempted by casinos, which, if they didn’t exist, would not allow revealing in so easy ways who is actually breaking law. You create an environment of relative tolerance towards casinos because if you put red lampions in front, people will try avoiding them for reasons of image, and there you have them, one after the other, you catch them in their natural dispositions. You see. Because of that, I would never regulate casinos. Let them cheat the more they can. Because what is leading people to these places is the desire to cheat life, law, the human in his attempt of having a peaceful existence. Shall they be cheated, too. It will make a lesson for them, they may learn, or not. It’s not your problem.

I have to admit I adored the idea of having panels all around Montecarlo saying: “Warning. We cheat.” I’m sure nobody would believe it, or at least not those who have law in order to make fun on it.

It’s not impossible to introduce casinos into the financial world, what you can’t do is to make of the regulated world a casino, where you finish by cheating more than in casinos that are overcharged with regulations nobody respects but them, at the end.

Look at that. And the reason of all my excitement. You are as you are because you think you can have everything inside of ordered parameters, but this is not possible. You have to admit there are random activities that can be put into relationship with producing forces, but can never be ruled by these. This is what I mean. Imagine you say: adulterous people are given no lend. It’s a fantasy but pictures things clearly. What happens immediately? Yourself, you say, ouh, I loose two third of my clients. Right. You open a bank just in front and say: this bank makes lends to adulterous people. What happens? You create an opposition. You will state that your first bank is quickly going to move in a determined environment: investments are located somewhere specifically, the centres of production are also specified, and these people, who in their respectable bank get credit for less interest, are ordered a coffee at arrival, are opened the door by a guard at the entry, start feeling respectable. Feeling respectable they start pushing their convictions around. These people do usually not impose convictions, what they do is that they close a circle around people who share more or less the same convictions (principle of the middle class or bourgois) and keep careful distances to the others. They are going to claim for a share in rights and dispositions. They have a guard in front of their houses, they have an ordered body of lawyers serving their interests, they invest in esthetics and arrangements fitting their way of understanding. A beauty.

In the meantime the adulterous are paying horrible interests for lends, not for any other reason but because you know that they tend not to pay their debts so that you have to balance possible losses with higher interest, have to cross halls full of cold cigarettes with people around who tend to shout at them and to uglily misbehave and who have though the chance of passing by you magnificient bank, just in front, from time to time, every time they have to make a new deal for the paying of interests and debts with their banker. Some of them will get tempted by the brightly shining bank just in front. So, what am I doing and am condamned to be such mistreated every time I come? A deepest introspection leads to the progressive copying of manners from just in front. Slowly you discover there is at least one main difference as there is a slight tone of voice you don’t manage to copy. Forcing yourself to the correct imitation you are put in front of the fact one night you’re drinking a horrible amount of whiskies, that, ah, yes, you have a love affair with the secretary. That day you feel horribly guilty and swear you will never do it again and it is really not sure yet whether this determination arises from a newly discovered love for your wife or from your desire to get to the bank just in front. In any case, that day, you will perhaps dare getting up the staircase of the bank just in front. Perhaps.

In our society, the reasonable who behaves everywhere more or less the same way, is paying for debts incurred by people who, misbehaving, are not able to respond for what they do, and I don’t know why this should be the case. Now. The problem is that a double financing system, restoring everything or almost, implies that ‘law’ applies only for some and not for others. Up to a certain extent it opens a regulated door even to mafia. But can you regulate what is outside of law? Certainly not as such but you can do it in opposition. For example: you make laws that oblige to the verification of the source of income. Only business or private responding to legal criteria are allowed to keep money in those banks. You have a certain number of banks that have a label ‘without verification’, Sask’s banks – you see, everything has its meaning. You have both banks and can thus control what may cause dammage to your healthy business at the same time.

You may say, the state will finish by putting into prison all those belonging to your second bank, on one hand, and that our principle to reinvest in healthy business what has been earned is being put under highest pressure. Precisely, not. It’s true that you can’t tax illegal activity as taxing is already implying the activity is legal. But, you can tax banks. Indirect taxes you would say. It’s horribly expensive to have such a bank account, but you need a bank account. A percentage is given over to the state, which, this way, does not loose anything. And now you frame. Put your mafia and gambling people somewhere. With panels, if it were of need or red lampions, and you can start regulating with a proper legislation that concerns only these populations. You win everything and don’t loose anything.

It’s not that you allow illegal activity. It is that you frame the possibility something may have passed a border control. Kind you say, well, it has happened and will happen, it is better that it doesn’t enter all spheres of society. You’re tolerant to those, without pity with those who want to go beyond their territory and you reinforce controls. You open the door to the marginal without putting the whole in danger and some will go one day from one territory to the other and change … banks. It’s easy, isn’t it. To tell you the truth, I prefer Sask’s banking. I will tell you why, tomorrow.”

A young man met us on the path and said where we were going to. “To Taba.” He told us to sit down at about 500 m from the camp and to wait. He disappeared. I explained to the group that the security order, consisting mainly in putting always a man beside a woman and to shut up the most possible, was due to the fact that I suspected eastern bedouin formed a different tribe than western bedouin, and that these seemed to be much more hostile than the first, reason why I had avoided settlements ever since we had left Sanct Catherine and had not shown our former recommendation letter to anyone.

After a while, the young man came accompanied by an older one who started asking questions. I told to Stefan not to understand half of them, and to play silly convincingly enough, and finally we said that we were arriving from Sanct Catherine and had gone lost in the desert. “Why did you go up there?” “There are antilopes at the edge of the cliffs,” I said. They were very interested about antilopes and asked for the exact location. “You’re very rich,” I said humourful, “a lot of cars you have.” He made a movement with his hands. “We have business at the shore,” he said “and have made an investment in camels, in order to remember good old times.” “Mind,” I said, “but instead of bringing barrels with water you could have your camels at the oasis down there.” “Where?” “There, going up just in front of the settlement on the road.” He carefully listened to the explanations and we asked for water. “We ran out of it,” I said. “And, well, if you have something to eat, we wouldn’t mind either.” “To eat? And what would you give me for it?” “A thanks,” I said. He burst out laughing. “That’s all right,” he said, “don’t worry about food. But you will have to leave. We will bring you with the car to the road.” “There is no need,” I said, “we may go walking.” “Oh no,” he said, “it’s no trouble.” “And what will you be wanting for it?” I asked. “A thanks,” he said, and continued laughing.

They brought food enough and water. We took two cars and were driven to the road, where we would make a fire and prepare a little bit of food. Stefan asked why I hadn’t wanted to pay for the food. “It’s a difficult thing. Show them you have money and beg for your life after. It’s better they think you’ve nothing.” “Do you think they are bandits?” “I don’t know. They were funny.”

Morfo’s idea was that we should hitch hike until the shore. I laughed. At three in the morning? And who may pass now who may put us all into a car or a truck? She said it was Easter (orthodoxe) and that she would stay at the road with Stefan and wait for a truck to pass by. Stefan, who was very interested in Greek liturgy, said himself happy to learn a few songs from Morfo’s book and at a certain distance, while we were trying to sleep, we could hear their more or less melodic voices.

We would rest the day after, I said, because it was Easter.

Not even an hour later, a truck passed by and stopped. Morfo ran to the cabin and asked whether he may take 8 people with him and he said it was difficult – have a look at the cabin – and she begged and begged jumping around and finally, he said ‘yes’. Stefan came thus to wake us up and said to hurry up to put everything into the bags. “Did you say 8 people with bags?” “Yes, yes,” she said excitedly, “come, hurry up.” When the man saw us coming he looked into the sky and said something that very much reminded to a prayer, and then said “Well, if you manage to get in.” Trucks usually have sleeping places behind the driver’s seats and thus, 5 of us with their bags on their knees disappeared behind, while three staid in front, one in the middle of both seats and two on one seat. The man started laughing, looked horribly proud of his truck and started driving. “Where are you going?” I asked. “To Jordan. Do you want me to drive you there?” “No, no” I said, “Just to the town at the shore.”

It wasn’t a long time until we arrived there and we jumped out of the truck in more or less heal conditions. It’s true that I only wanted to go to sleep but the man said he had decided to spend the night there and he would make something to eat and a tea to drink. Impossible to say no. The man repeated once and again that it was a real miracle we had all managed to get into the truck and looked at his truck as if it were a very special racing horse and walking around from side to the other prepared a salad and something else and got some cheese out of somewhere and bread and olives and we sat down to eat. He said he was a Palestinian from Jordan and that he used to travel to Egypt with his truck and then, having been informed of the fact we were going up to Israel, he said, “we should be careful with the Palestinian up there, they’re all trouble makers. To tell you honestly, (and he lowered his voice) they don’t want them even in Jordan.” “How bad you’re,” I said laughing “with your own people.” “Precisely, precisely,” he went on, “it’s because I know them very well.” Morfo looked really as if her idyllic image on Palestinian had broken down with one sole blow and maintained “there were certainly exceptions.” The situation was so funny that I almost forgot I was tired and we even took many pictures that must still be somewhere around and drank one tea after the other the man would continuously poor into our empty glasses.

The sun must have been going up when we went to sleep. I wouldn’t get up all day, somewhere in a garden next to the shore, with the parking place not very far away. I told to the others to go and find something to eat, but they came back and said there were only closed restaurants every where.

I had to determine my exact state of health if I didn’t want to be frightened after again. How strange. An imaginary earthquake (I really verified, and nobody else had felt it although someone else had seen the antilope, too.) It looks, I said to myself, as if neurons were being burned down, thing that had finished by pushing consciousness to an elemental perception of space and time that was being touched, then, too. If I leave things like that, I’m going to see flying elephants in short, I told to myself, trying not to take it excessively seriously. I will have to keep the time/space perception, otherwise I loose empirical referents. If some dammage is progressively affecting whatever, it will create a tension like a psychotic crises if I force myself to keep space/time referents. I will have to chanel this tension towards something, like fairy tales, stories and lucubrations on the beginning of the universe if I don’t want to loose the empirical reality. And after, we will see. There must be a way out of the whole. I carefully put my ‘I’ into the concept I had described to Iota two days before, telling myself that if there were a God who may not want to forget us in our miserable destiny, he may only feel comfortable there. “If these bedouins knew how much I owe them,” I continued my deep meditation, “see that I managed to seize that notion after only seven days walk in the desert.”

I felt immediately much better and was even almost sure there was a way out. Iota told me that I had been telling a lot of nosense that day when I had fallen asleep before arriving to the oasis and I really wasn’t that much interested in the contents. “Let it be,” I said. “It happens sometimes.” According to her I had had fever again.

It didn’t matter anymore. I slept very well that night and the day after we were told we had to take a taxi, car or bus until the border, as it was forbidden to approach walking. We finally took a  car after having made a lot of business on prices and must have arrived to the border at midday. There were small restaurants all over with roasted chicken and we decided we would eat our first meat after having left Greece. Although I may have eaten twice as much.

border control Taba in 2005

We then went to the border control. There were many people all around in an adobe building that made one large room, with low desks where the officers were. After a while, it was our turn. The officer went through the passports and said: “And the tourist visa?” “It is there.” I told him pointing with the finger at the date with the signature. “This is no tourist visa.” He said, “You’ll have to pay a fine.” “Why should we pay a fine,” I said, “if we have done the necessary in Ismailiya?” And then: “There is a police control going down to Sanct Catherine. If there was anything wrong they should have told us.” He had already stood up in order to take some forms to make us pay our fine, when he looked at us again and then said, “go outside and wait. I’ll try to solve that when I’ve finished with the queue.”

We went outside. It was hot. Quarrel arose on why we didn’t pay the fine and I said: “I don’t understand why. On top, we won’t have enough money after.” (Note: in these forlorn villages in Greece credit cards were not in use at those times, which ment we actually had no means to get any supplementary money.) In fact we hadn’t spent money at all, or almost, but I guessed, well, I knew, Israel was relatively expensive and to be honest, I prefered, if it were possible, to eat better rather than to pay a fine without reason.

After some time, Carole said she had a visa card, she may use to pay the fine, (a card whose existence we didn’t know about), but this was because I was teasing them saying we would end up in prison, in a nice adobe building without windows and just covered with wet mud. For sure, I continued, the only mice of the region will be gathered inside there, waiting for the right moment in order to jump on our dry bread.

In fact, I was quite sure the man would find a solution, and if it weren’t found, well, then we would pay the fine, whatever may happen after. I said to Carole that already the fact of not having told us about a card should imply a fine if not a definite end in an adobe prison, and told her that in any case, it was a question of principle because we had done the necessary in order to submit to given regulations and it was certainly not our fault if a cascade of misunderstandings had put us in such a deplorable situation.

Time passed. After a long while we saw some strange movements inside of the building and Stefan was called to be asked a few questions. In fact, the German Embassador had arrived at that moment, apparently wanting to go to the casino in Taba (I think inside of a Sheraton hotel) with some friends. Our officer, very happy, said to the Embassador (I was about to disappear under the table) to solve our problem. The Embassador says it is a private problem, that could not involve or affect him. (By the way: casinos and gambling are forbidden in Israel.) The officer started to grumble into his beart and was not at all satisfied with the issue of his request.

casino at the border in Taba

He went through the passports of the Embassador and his friends, acquaintances or whatever and said: “These people have no visa. You should go up to Jerusalem again in order to get them from the Embassy.” “But …” the Embassador said, and became pale and nervous, “this will make us loose two days, at least. These people will stay here only for three or four days. Is there no way to find an arrangement?” Hmm. I looked out of the window. An arrangement for the Embassador. It seemed to me, but I’m not sure, that many hundreds of shekels passed over the table – as I say, I was looking out of the window – and the Embassador left in any case with his friends to the Casino Hotel.

The officer looked much, much better after having been thus taught by German authorities what an arrangement was and called us back again. He went to a cupboard full of papers and brought a whole amount with him. “Look,” he said, looking directly into our eyes, talking very slowly in order to make sure we would understand him, “these papers say that you’re ‘poor’ and you haven’t the means to pay. If you sign these, you may leave after.” I looked at him very seriously, verified it was really ‘poor’ and not a criminal or related, was reassured on that behalf, and said, ok, we would sign. He thus carefully filled out the 8 forms, that were correspondingly signed by each of us, he stamped our passports, sighed, looked horribly satisfied and told us to go.

Ouuf. I said. That’s done, and we went on walking. After a few kilometers, I looked back and said: “How strange, and the Israeli border control?” Carole said we had already been through the border. “Yes, the Egyptian one, but usually there must be an Israeli border control, too.” I asked whether anyone had seen any building, a sleeping border control agent, I don’t know, something. No. Well, if this doesn’t cause a problem while leaving, we may be talking about a miracle.

Eilat wasn’t that far away. I was quite happy. Roads, towns, a paradise. That’s what I was already figuring out. When we arrived we quickly stated everything was closed. Everything. Shops, bars, restaurants. And this? It’s not Saturday. We asked someone who spoke a little bit of English. “Why is everything closed?” “It’s Easter,” she said. No. I sat down on the steps of a house and covered my face with my hands. That’s what was lacking to us. My plans to make reserves at least until Beer Sheva had just been bombed up.

(I closed the notebook with a key and threw both into a vast and deep sea, where it disappeared inside of the general unconscious (using Jung’s language). A big fish like a whale ate it up, while I, my sister and Sebas, in the whereabouts of that year when my father died, were looking at it with horror and reverence.)

I think she’s not saying the truth. But I don’t know how to get it out of her. It must correspond to an oniric-fantastic version, covering with powder a deepest amnesia. Perhaps.

The sun was in optimal conditions for us, summer zenith. What does this mean? The sun goes up east and down, west. In the equatorial zone, at midday (to say) the sun is just on your head. If you remember where it got up from, you can distinguish a very clear north or south direction. If you are located at a place upper north or south from the equatorial line, the sun ‘shifts’ (appears as if) to the south or to the north, so that it will never be on your head. This phenomenon is increased by the season’s changes affecting the sun height. The more the sun is low, the more it appears to the south or to the north, depending on what hemisphere you’re in. This means that you can’t conclude a clear north or south direction from the position of the sun, but you have to calculate the angle of difference.

Now: it’s summer, optimal zenith conditions. But you’re upper north from the equatorial line. This means that the difference is very little although you have to take it into consideration. If you’re walking south south east you have always to consider that this direction is varying towards the sun as the day passes by. You wake up. The sun goes up, east. You say, accordingly to this, south south east is there. But as the sun goes up, as it stays lower than the zenith, you have to slightly change the orientation. If you consider you’re walking down a wadi, for example, this has no importance. The wadi is a direction itself. It will go a little bit south than turn south south east, perhaps east for a few kilometers, etc. You just have to keep a general direction. But, as I had observed, there were ‘knots’ in south Sinai. We had to cross at least two horizontal mountain chains. This meant that you couldn’t just follow a wadi but you have to get into the mountains, whose paths, if there are any, are winding around the hills, making orientation extremely difficult. First, you have no reference (like my mountain chain to the right) and second, the chances you may keep a direction through the sun becomes more difficult because you must keep in mind a virtual referential that was where the sun was at sunrise and the difference in direction caused by its situation towards the zenith.

You may say that a clear south is, in this context, the most comfortable situation. It’s relatively easy to keep an approximate south while it is a little bit tiring to keep a south south east, for example. But why? Imagine you want to arrive to Wadi Fahrein, two days before Sanct Catherine. You may say you just have to walk south and you will necessarily join it. Yes. But a wrong south south east direction may become easily something like an east direction that will make you get completely lost in the desert, as the dimensions of the extension to the east are very vast. In fact, it’s enough for you to make that mistake for 6 hours and you have changed so much the coordinates that you can’t know exactly where you are anymore.

In spite of the fact that Ramla would make us suffer for 2 days as we didn’t know where it was located on the map, it would situate us perfectly for the two knots to come. And happily maps did include this part of South Sinai making it from then on almost impossible to get lost if we only were a little bit careful.

It’s true that you have to calculate almost in variables. Your south can never be south because geography doesn’t allow it. You should thus keep a marge of 15 km to the east or to the west of an ideal point you would have reached if you walked in a straight line. But not more. Actually, there is a path down to wadi Fahrein, avoiding to pass through the second knot. We would choose to try finding a way through the knot itself, to say how sure I was feeling already then in my south south direction.

We were said to cross the road and just walk up the path bordering the mountains. There was a large plain just in front of Ramla and we saw a little mosque made of mud, round like the back of a camel and seeming to keep many secrets in itself, just to our right. And we went up the path, up the mountains that were turning to the right and to the left leaving little other but the sun as orientation referent.

As Iota was insisting on the fact that I should have been harder to the insurgents, I told her the following: “It’s true that you can’t aggress someone without having been agressed before by the one in question. And it is true, that being agressed you put yourself in a position of superiority you may exploit as you want. If I were a state, today, and interested in getting lots of taxes of subjects, I would fine them with a horrible amount of taxes and they wouldn’t be able to say anything, or to react. But I’m no state. I’m a nomad. It’s my purpose to arrive somewhere, not to get taxes. If I heavily punish someone now, and I wouldn’t know how, but let us say, I forbid them to talk among themselves, they will get angry. Do you know how easy it is to be attacked at night and be thrown into a pit like Josef? Here, in the middle of the desert? We have no weapons. What counts here is numerical strength. If you make them furious, you may die and it is something I would rather avoid. If you do as if you had the means to punish them – that they continue alone – and largely pardon their misbehaviour by allowing them to continue with you, you’ll avoid to be agressed and at the same time, you may make deeper alliances with those who may still be wanting to claim for an autonomous rule. There are things that aren’t very clear in my mind, yet. I still consider people as free individuals who may make a mistake and may understand why they have done it in order to try correcting their way of doing. I don’t believe in the imposition of law as means to rule on people but as means for them to understand how they may live better. But this provokes a weakness in outer organization. If you have to consider sheer survival, you can’t allow a certain number of things to happen. And I can’t reduce my vision of a human to his simple survival. This implies a danger you’d rather live without if you want to live in security. It’s a dilemma I haven’t solved. Life is like that. You must always be confronted to questions you will have to give a proper answer to at a moment or another.”

And she asked why I did not take measures against Jorge. (It really seemed as if she was accusing me of nepotism.) I gave some kind of vague explanation because I didn’t want to tell her what I thought. In fact, for me, after some hours walking up the mountain, the situation had been ordered in national dimensions and was extremely difficult to be dealt with. It looked as if an ideal desire of freedom had had as consequence the splitting of Greece from the Ottoman Empire. Not being able to rule on itself because it simply had not the means of law of doing so, at that moment, it fell under the ambivalent rule of France and Germany, for which proof could be that a German King had been imposed on them in the XIXth, that this king had been changed for another more ‘French friendly’ at the beginning of the XXth and that it had been practically annexed to the European Union. Used as show room in the quarrel with the communist block, it had been subventioned in such ways that it practically had no proper financial resources. The break down of the communist block under Gorbatschov makes further subventions innecessary. Greece, attacked by the Spanish quite agressive tourism politics, is at the edges of bankruptcy. Edges is perhaps an euphemism. In the pit of bankruptcy, I would say. There are movements indicating a possible war in despair, affecting first Skopje (FIROM) and probably leading to a general conflagration. Is it possible to say that this war is induced by Germany and France (here, Jorge and Clotilde) in order to have the possibility of selling weapons? Perhaps, perhaps even certainly.

So what. If induction works it is because national identity is at point zero. You can’t agress France and Germany now, in a situation where identity being low, the opposite force is extremely high. That will provoke a massacre (my death in the desert’s pit, if I take it personally, or hers). To my understanding there is only one thing you can do. To reinforce poles of identity and hope it will generate a proper production force that may allow to keep autonomous positions towards France and Germany. For Morfo, my position is an equal to Jorge and Coltilde’s position if I double my presence by the one of Iota. To say: it stands for a half of Germany having deepest support inside of Greece, the tzarakatzan. Tzarakatzan are next door, while France isn’t. The most probable thing is that she (Athens) will shift towards my position, holding it for much more powerful than the other. If this affects a more general layer of the unconscious, it will avoid a war in Balkans, a military dictatorship in Greece and a bankruptcy in the surroundings.

What is my position? The reinforcement of identity on national parameters. Tempting, even if it implies to admit a lot of mistakes. Factually, my hypothesis is as weak as an automne leave. Even Iota, my only support, has gone drown in a fake identity imposed by circumstances. If this is of importance it is because Asian, contrary to Greek, can’t synthesize feeling, as they use to cut the world of appearance from the unconscious. The wrong dealing with a psychic reality has provoked an environment where Tzarakatzan are pushed to a virtual schizophrenia. Poles of identity: none. Possibilities to react under induction: all. A bomb that may explode from one day to the other.

Why am I though so sure my hypothesis may work on national basis? I don’t know. But I’m. In fact, a little later I will have proves of what I mean although I have no scientific explanation for such phenoma. Let’s take our most hilarious conversations with Conchi during the path down to Jerusalem. (Private conversations, possibilities they’re listened to is reduced to zero.) As Gregory says he’s the descendent of King Baldwin, I start laughing and say: “And what is he going to do, is he going to put  a flag in the middle of Jerusalem and say, it is his?” For me it is ridiculous. Later though, the idea of a virtual conquest of Jerusalem starts developping itself and I say: “Yes, and we will publish a ban with clarins and trumpets.”

A few years later, in 1996 (or 97), Turkish journalists plant a Turkish flag on a Greek island belonging to the gray zone in the Mediterranean. They arrive with a boat, put the flag and publish it in a newspaper (Hürriyet, if I remember well), the news is given broadest echo in tv and arrives … to Greece. (Element: ban) You should have been there those days: paralized Greek surrender immediately to the empirical, scientific proof that the island belongs to Turkey. It’s evidence. Nobody moves. Not Russia, not the US, nobody. All stay with open mouth in front of such a shameless truth saying itself without apparent infrigement to international right. Not the army, but journalists have put the flag. Now? I say to someone who says to someone else who repeats it quickly to another, they should refer to international boundaries. It seems (Xristos will tell me after), that finally a Spanish marine officer will ask for the maps of international boundaries to the US and thus it will be clearly established that: the island in question belongs to  a grey zone that is, a non respected Greek territory that allows to Turkey the use of the Mediterranean Sea at the Turkish coast. To say that international boundaries give to Turkey only about 12 miles away from the shore, but, in order to avoid frictions between the two nations, they are allowed to enter the sea up to let us say 20 miles. This zone, between the 12 and the 20 miles is called gray zone, but belongs legally to Greece. After a few days of appalled contemplation of the situation, the island gets back under Greek jurisdiction.

How did it happen? Impossible to know. There is an obvious link between the ‘putting a flag somewhere’ and the ‘ban motif’ and our conversations. The pretending the ’putting  a flag’ implied territorial sovereignty was countered  in my thoughts by international right in its determination of international boundaries. Reason why I immediately react to the situation claiming for the maps. In our conversations the ‘ban’ was linked to a different hypothesis, appearing together with the first in the Turkish hypothesis. The event shows an obvious distortion to the original situation with though a clear link. How? Because the strange thing is that the information (I don’t watch tv at those times and don’t have one) arrives to me as if it were somehow linked to me, as well as the way situation is restored (Xristos information). Why? Perhaps an interesting subject of study (I would call the phenomen later ‘flow of information’), without explanation for the time being, but an evidence you have to take into consideration.

And this apparently explains not only my tiredness but the extreme slowliness of my reactions.

I’m not going to tell Iota I think they’re not Greek and thus the rest of the explanation may strictly have no meaning.

While walking around the mountains we are joined after a while by a young bedouin who wants to sell haschisch to us. (It’s the same word, it’s thus not difficult to understand.) I sharply refuse and say we don’t want to have anything to do with these kind of things and he though insists in accompanying us. We arrive to a small old settlement, with mud houses and the man tell us to stay there, to eat and have coffee and he will introduce us to his family. He won’t mention drugs again.

We ask the meaning of a few words from him. Until then, we had understood each other perfectly through signs, but it is time to enter the civilized world. Maya means water, umm means mountain. And some other, like path, or food.

We say we have to leave and he says he will come with us. In fact I’m falling asleep. Uncapable of moving we will stay there that night.

The day after, continuing the path around the mountains, we will pass by a field of poppies between two rock walls, irrigated by a drop irrigation system. Poppies are used for the production of heroin. Won’t get rich, I think, but that’s more than haschisch.

We go down the mountains. The man starts showing at the rocks all around and says: “This is the old caravan path.” I look at him and think of haschisch and heroin and that he must have a lot of fantasy or be in some kind of prophetic delirium, too, and I say: “What caravan path? There are rocks all over. It’s impossible for caravans to pass by.” And he starts running around and says, “come, come.” Reluctantly, I follow, not sure if perhaps there will not be an opium field behind the rocks and he shows with his finger at some carvings in a rock: camels, caravans, items, human beings. I look at it once again. No, it’s true (he didn’t drug us?), these are really caravans and camels. “And,” I ask very carefully, “why are there rocks all over?” “There was an earthquake and the rocks from the side walls fell on the path that was (he runs from one side to the other) as broad as this.” It looks true. A little after he shows at other carvings in the rock. Caravans and camels, again. Look at this. “There are many here,” he says, excited, “do you want to see them?” “No, no,” I answer, not wanting to show any kind of interest. And to myself (If I find the way back later …) In my mind I go through the way we have been through again, I had not taken very much care of because there was only one path up the mountain. It won’t change, I think, there is only one path up the mountains.

Gonna sell the story to the orthodoxe Jews having given us shelter before arriving to the Dead Sea, I think. You have to place discoveries, I ad to myself, but how many shekels would they be paying for this?

The man leads us to a village in a narrow valley seeming to be the continuation of the caravan path. It looks as if the visible rests of the caravan path had been caught between two closed passes corresponding to the two knots I had remarked on the map. Which is to say, that there were two passes before that have been closed by the falling of rocks during the earthquake. It means perhaps that we have more or less intuitively followed that path from the beginning.

They are selling antiquities to French at a certain distance.

I feel horribly well even if the food is difficult to eat. Food cooked in goat’s milk with something like bamya. Iota doesn’t eat anything, again. We are asked where we are going to and the man with the haschisch is harshly thrown out, as he insists in staying there. “To wadi Fahrein,” I say. “We will accompany you tomorrow, there is a pass through the mountains.”

It was early in the morning. Clotilde and Jorge went to visit Catherine Fuchs at the hospital, “No, we didn’t want anything, it’s just to send regards.” She asked where I was. I had staid back.

The train station was not very far away from the harbour and we took a train to Tel Aviv. How well you feel seeing the landscape you had been walking through a few years ago from a window, sitting peacefully in a train and having a coffee. It wouldn’t take very long. After a few hours we were in Tel Aviv, we didn’t know at all. (Without map.) “What day is it today?” “Friday,” I was answered. Friday, afternoon. Well, we’ll have to find a place where to stay for the weekend. Everything was closed. We were told we couldn’t buy a ticket for Cairo at the bus station, we had to buy it in a travel agency.

Now? It was getting late. Tel Aviv, a town without end with many soldiers all around. Finally Stefan got the information there was a maronite Church somewhere. Somewhere seemed to imply there was an older quarter bordering the shore that was mainly peopled by … Christian and a few Palestinian. Stefan was an expert in ‘divergencies’. I learned at that moment that maronites were Catholics from Lebanon who had a special agreement with Rome allowing them the use of the Arabic language when Latin was the only liturgy language in Rome. Privilege accompanied by others like the use of bread with yeast for the liturgy, that seemed to lean on orthodoxe tradition and were kept even after the giving up of Latin as ecclesiastic language, specifying them from the rest of Catholics.

Apparently the Maronite community was very large before the war that would give the independance to Israel, specifically in Tel Aviv. Most of them left to Lebanon, a few staid. Tel Aviv was burned during the war and only a few quarters reminded still oriental incense. Our church was there, in a corner. As it was night I wouldn’t even locate the place excessively well. Terrorized Greek by the excessively imminent presence of soldiers were difficult to convince to move.

People inside of the church, very impressed by Stefan’s demonstration of knowledge in such matters would give us shelter for a night even if they said, they didn’t use to do so. They even made food and started a conversation on religious differences with Stefan, I hardly listened to as I was half sleeping. I can hardly remember the place. It was an old building and there was a large room with a table in the middle separated from another that seemed to be used as reception.

There was no way to leave for Egypt the day after. Being already quite happy of having arrived there I decide to try staying in Wadi Kelt for the weekend. It’s Greek. It’s going to give them back confidence, and the place is beautiful. I remembered that I had told father Antonio I had something to tell him.

The day after we take a bus to Jerusalem and from there one that taking the direction of Tiberiades should make a stop at Jericho. It will make a nice walk from there to the monastery. It’s already almost night when we reach Jericho. Stefan confuses his bag with the one of a soldier and the bus leaves while the soldier’s bag is on the ground. Too late. The poor soldier is going to discover far too late his belongings have disappeared. There are some Palestinian houses just in front of the street and some are sipping tea outside. I tell Stefan to tell them to stop the next bus in order for them to carry the bag with them. It should have a label with an address, I guess. Well, we didn’t say a soldier’s bag. A tourist’s bag we had confused with one of ours. Palestinian promiss very happily they will certainly do so, and we hope they will as we have to leave. In fact, we want to buy something in Jericho before getting to the monastery. At least some cheese. They’re fasting again at Wadi Kelt.

(Orthodoxe fasting is quite severe. They start two weeks before fasting time not eating meat. The week after they forbid fish. And when fasting time starts, they stop eating milk, cheese, eggs. One week before easter they just eat food without oil and drink water. As we’re travelling we keep ourselves in the second phase. Cheese, eggs and milk are still allowed. But we need to buy them in Jericho.)

Things have changed and a heavy menace we hadn’t perceived before is to be felt everywhere. Occupied territories have been cut off from Israel and there are control points at the limits. Personally I don’t like it. Palestinian seem to move in a very unquiet, uneasy general mood. We don’t find much more than a little bit of cheese and some yogurt from private people – shops are not opened – who are informed of our desastruous situation.

It’s night when we arrive to the Sanct George Monastery. Iota and Morfo are sent to ask for shelter and we are allowed to stay there until monday. I recognize at a certain distance father Germanos: he was there the last time we had been there. I approach and ask, (in Greek!) where father Antonio is. There is a few seconds silence. “He died a few months ago,” I’m told. “His tomb is there, in the court.” How strange. He wasn’t that old. Father Germanos finishes by recognizing us and says: “Father Antonio said before dying you would become orthodoxe.” “Did he?” I don’t feel like starting a theological discussion.

We go to sleep. A short discussion reminds Stefan of his obligation of taking care of other people’s property. “Don’t say you didn’t see it, you should have seen it. Just because it is not yours. Would you like it, now, if your bag disappears and you arrive in Tel Aviv on monday and you have nothing to take away with you. Just take care, it may happen.” – He would take care.

The day after I go to visit father Antonio’s tomb. The tomb stone is at a certain height from the ground and his name is written in Greek on it. It is a tomb beside another tomb, only another monk had died there before and was buried just beside. “How did he die?” “A wall fell on him while he was trying to repair it, at night.” Hm.

Something has changed there, too, something that makes the whole place less inviting so that I won’t even get up to visit the church at night. The others will, and will go on sleeping after, in the morning, until midday. What I call, obscure characters, Greek people having the administration of those places in Jerusalem, are turning around the monastery day and night. I don’t like it. What are they doing there? Wadi Kelt has fallen under Palestinian jurisdiction and they say ‘they support Palestinian in their fight for independance’. Yes? The church should not intervene in political affairs, I coldly think.

Father Germanos has a new small tractor he uses in order to bring food from town and take care of the gardens bordering the river. A new small tractor.

After having spent two days at a diplomatical distance from the inhabitants of the place, we leave early monday morning. Father Germanos is leaving at the same moment with his tractor and says: “Zito i orthodoksia.” (Long life to orthodoxy.) Could have been the Queen of England, too, or Manchester United, I bitterly say to Iota, just beside.

Back to Tel Aviv, Greek seem to feel better even surrounded by soldiers. “But what are they doing there?” Morfo says, “and if they shoot at us?” “You’ll have to deal with that possibility, too. Asking yourself carefully if and why this should imply a great loss for human kind.”

Apparently it’s not that difficult to find tickets for Cairo, there is a bus leaving a few hours later. A paper inside of the ticket explicitely says that we have to stamp our passports at arrival at a police station that should give us something like a tourist’s visa. The not fulfiling of these formalities will have as consequence a fine or even prison. I tell Stefan to investigate the matter and to make sure we don’t make anything wrong.

At Ismailiya we tell to the bus driver that we are going to stay there even if our tickets are for Cairo. There is a bus station. We’re north of the Suez Canal, we should cross if we want to reach old Ismailiya. People at the bus station tell us we have to take a taxi to the southern part of the town. We make a deal and leave.

Ismailiya, train station. From left to right: Jorge Kasten, Clotilde Bonhomme, Morfo Stamo, Iota Tzelepi

Ismailiya, train station. From left to right: Stefan Kroner, Egyptian police, Sonja Kasten, Stergios, Jorge Kasten

Entering the desert at the ciment factory. With family members of bedouin chief writing a recommendation letter. From left to right: 2 bedouins, Stefan Kroner, Carole Papillon

Eating roasted chicken with Palestinian in Ed Dabiriya. From left to right: Stergios, Palestinian father, Stefan Kroner, Palestinian son

Arrival in Jerusalem.

Iota Tzelepi, 37, not married

Little daughter of Tzarakatzan chief (tzelingas) ’El Zeno’, sister of Tula Tzelepi

Studied Greek philology in Thesalonika

smoker

Morfo Stamo, 37, not married

Daughter of Townhall secretary

Manager of local cooperative

smoker

Sonja Kasten, 29, not married

Phd in Philosophy, Sorbonne Paris IV

non smoker

Stergios, o gritzaros, 45, divorced

Former musician of Greek popular music

Without activity

smoker

Carole Papillon, 19, not married

dancer

non smoker

Jorge Kasten, 25, engaged

Translator

non smoker

Clotilde Bonhomme, 25, engaged

Studies philosophy at Sorbonne, Paris IV

non smoker

Stefan Kroner, 25, not married

studies semitic philology in Viena

non smoker

It’s not that I wasn’t sure there was water somewhere. It is that I couldn’t see it. Contemporary means must have allowed to dig water out of the depth of the earth, probably. But where was it? Could I really presume I had the means to locate it? You should never count on things you don’t see. Just in case.

Sometimes I laughed. Secretly. Behind the door. These poor people don’t know what they’re getting into. When I listened to them talking I had the feeling they were preparing a picknick for the first mai. Not that I didn’t tell them. I did often repeat that it was not, but really not that easy. They thought I was trying to make myself important. Well.

And then, yes, then, there was the ancient caravan path. I had thought it must be there by simply following a logical process in the attempt of understanding what there may be behind the map. But how exciting. Was it really possible to find the path Moses may have gone down while leaving Egypt? Did it exist? I mean, was it recorded? Did anyone made the effort to find it? With all my deepest knowledge on many matters I couldn’t find an answer. It’s true. How strange. If it were there, it must be known, somehow. And I had never heard about it. Ha. On top, an archeological discovery of vital importance. For some. I mean, to make French furious. To make French furious was something I did never neglect even when I had forgotten everything. It simply staid in the unconscious although I had forgotten what the actual reasons for such anger were.

Of course I couldn’t really believe nobody else would know it if it were there. Perhaps nobody had given the right name to it. In any case, I would dicover it for myself as I really hadn’t heard about it, ever. Not that I gave any kind of importance to such negligeable little facts. It’s true that it is nice to know where Troy was, but Homer won’t loose of its strength even if it were pure imagination.

All of a sudden I was shocked by a horrible question that hadn’t bothered me at all, before. Was it possible to give a historical foundation to Ancient Testament? If it hadn’t bothered me at all before it was for a very simple reason: as a thinker, it is the progress in thought that matters. Someone who so diligently and intelligently had suspended law of an inner principle that on top, was personal, merited all sorts of attention, whatever you may say about the rest. In that world (Asia was far, far away, then) only two nations had a formed body of law. Sumer (Assyria, Babylon, or whatever name it took after) and Egypt. Law was though depending on a king, a state, a ruler who used of it in order to control subjects and who law belonged to. It is means to order a society, not a human soul. Moses thinks first of the possibility law may belong to everyone and has to rule on soul. It determines inner behaviour.

I wouldn’t think it impossible such an insight be accompanied by all sorts of mysterious happenings linked to nature whose sole origin is attributed to one sole God. Why? The human can’t affect nature to that extent. The clear correspondance between law and some inner natural principle seems to affect nature through the very fact that the one who is at the origin of law and nature is exactly the same. Moses presumes, I would say, reason why he asks to ‘see’ God.

It looks horribly evident. But there are people who don’t believe Troy is until they see Troy and discover that the structure of the wall of the seventh layer of the town corresponds exactly to Homer’s descriptions. It’s like that. World full of Thomas.

Not that I would believe blindly in Ancient Testament. It’s impossible. The texts are a few thousands years old. Structures of understanding have changed. What did they really say? Or mean? How was it translated, on top? How much were translations affected already by misunderstandings? It’s not easy at all. Ancient Greek and thus probably ancient Hebrew did not separate words one from another. They didn’t separate sentences. There were no question marks, full stops. Hebrew didn’t even put vowels into words. Much, much later they started to put some peculiar points on the letters in order to indicate the nature of the vowel. When this was done, how much had already gone lost?

Precisely, the more a text is refered to empirical reality, the more it gets diffuse and vague with time. Fundamental truths do never get lost. I don’t know why it should be of need to locate Ramses in order to be sure Hebrew did actually flee from there. It’s enough to know that Egyptian tended to make even of defeats a victory in order to be sure of the fact they would have never mentioned the fact, a handful slaves or workers may have so shamefully escaped. There is though record of the dying of many first born at the times of Ramses II. Did Nile really get red? Did the stock become a snake while thrown to the ground? It’s difficult to know what they really intended to say.

It’s true that I was sure of the fact it were possible to have visions like the one of the 70 – more or less – who “see God in a crystal lake with many thunders”. A high psychic force inside of relatively modest structures of understanding may induce such phenomena. It’s not impossible. Sometimes I thought Moses was sufficiently desperate of the blindness of many that he even made use of incredibly intelligent psychological strategies in order to convince them. I wouldn’t have said God was there, in the lake. But a ‘vision’ is a strange phenomenon that makes others see a reality that is not directly attached to senses and this may be a convincing enough argument to listen to the rest.

Sometimes you have to make many turns in order to arrive somewhere.

It’s difficult to believe a people waits for a determined moment, runs away, gets lost in the desert, comes back hunted by furious Egyptian and, all of a sudden, waters open exactly at the place they are and while they cross without their feet getting wet, Egyptian get drown while prosecuting them. Yes? No? Perhaps. In any case it’s quite strange. Difficult to make up. You may have a lot of fantasy but there are things you wouldn’t say simply because you would loose credit in front of others. Perhaps they had digged a tunnel under the Red Sea, already then. Trying to get out of Alcatraz, a few workers leave secretly every day and dig and dig. Why not. They get lost while trying to find it and finally manage to locate it. (It was night, it’s plausible.) Egyptian see them somewhere at a certain distance, and thinking they’re crossing the water while the others have made the hole disappear, get drown. For example. It could be.

But I don’t believe it, either. Abraham’s specifity is determined by the fact that he understands a moral happening (probably incest) is attached to natural events (meteorites). “The earth is kind to the just and rough to the unjust.” To say that Hebrew consider that psychic reality and natural order have the same source. It may be said that this is what makes the ‘race’, differing from others through a very peculiar turn of mind. They use to forget, on the other hand. In this case, Moses may have had an intuition of a natural happening not destroying, as in the case of Sodome and Gomorrhe, but coming in help. Perhaps it is the same phenomenon that has caused the death of the first born. First born or new born? That a phenomenon may affect first born is difficult to conceive. That it may affect new born, as they are weaker, is highly probable. What? And why should the fact of eating standing a lamb with bitter herbs save Hebrews from the disaster? A high cumulation of whatever, gaz from a vulcano, for example. And bitter herbs help in order not to be affected by it? Possibly. Then you can see it. You may intuitively order your steps in such ways that you profit of given circumstances.

How bright. You should never neglect teachings that open so large perspectives to the exploitation of natural resources.

Then, the path down to Sina must exist, too. Well. If you consider Sina was there and not in China as I went on thinking considering the distances. But in any case they must have first gone down to the mountains. Conceiving they may have crossed the sand desert upper north is suicide. Horses are quick and they haven’t any, they would have been slaughtered by Egyptian. Mountains are always more difficult. Even if the path is broad you can hide away in the rocks. Logically at least the starting point must be correctly located. Why should there be a path? Because wells are usually difficult to find outside. It’s easy to get lost. Even if Moses seems to know the region very well, it’s difficult to think he may have dared a crazy journey through nothingness. As I’m about to do. But that’s because apparently the caravan path has disappeared. A natural disaster? Has it been given up because nobody uses it anymore? Who knows.

That’s what I have always said. So what. There is a caravan path. I’m a nomad with a lot of fantasy. I sit down at the edge of a rock and make up a most incredible story with people running around and mainly away from Egyptian. Where’s the truth? In the path?

It’s not that. It’s exciting. You walk down the same path than these people 3600 years ago. How fascinating. All of a sudden your boring journey whose only amusement consists in wanting to know whether Morfo is going to resist without cigarettes after a while and what consequences this may have for the whole, starts to get peopled by Egyptian who may be running behind you, very carefully (the police man said), because … they’re still searching for those who run away, then, and (you know, he said, they’re our property …) want to get them back. This most hilarious idea may make of danger a slight joke passing by like a dark cloud and in any case, makes you forget quite quickly how little water there is in the whereabouts.

Of course I won’t tell anyone if I find it. Such an egotist I do, after all. But what, I’m not paid for it.

It’s possible, I think. But I’m still shifting between security and adventure. I will have to evaluate the situation. If I’m sure I can read these maps well enough while walking down the main street, I may dare. With or without cigarettes.

Ismailiya train station. From left to right: Stefan Kroner, Egyptian police, Sonja Kasten, Stergios, Jorge Kasten

In fact, the maps we had showed an immense nothingness, some wells, a ciment factory at the shore and little more. Oasis or wells were marked with a special sign, but there was simply no way to know whether they were still there. The maps were of about 1940, scaled 1:250.000. But wadis were clearly marked and it was relatively easy to draw a virtual path hoping nomadic bedouins would help us out in what concerned water, shelter and food.

Everything was too virtual in order to fix anything. On top, Egyptian were known as being quite aggressive towards foreigners. Bombs on touristic places had finally obliged authorities to limit the movement of tourists, who, on top, as far as we knew, had to stamp their passports with a special tourist visa. It was not even sure we would be allowed to walk around. The desert looked frightening. I didn’t say much, but nothing was excessively reassuring. The only clear thing was that there was a border point leading to Eilat.

Concerning Egyptian I took quite quickly a relatively moderate position. In principle, I have nothing against people who protect themselves from foreign influence. It’s something you have to deal with. I thus leaned my psychological strategy on Ancient Testament. “Egyptian have foreigners in horror.” (Josef) And don’t eat with them. Josef did never insist in eating with Egyptian and this would proof a very intelligent strategy.

Kilometers were not fixed. Places to stay in, either, as there were none. We calculated an average of about 25 to 30 km a day, in hours (5 to 6 hours a day) without excessive determination. Time limits were only imposed by the fact that Morfo had to be back in Greece after holidays. As they owed her holidays, this meant about 40 days. Presumed distance: 800 km. Presumed duration: 1 month.

Contrary to what had happened during the path to Jerusalem, most of the people involved were foreign to me. I knew Stefan Kroner slightly as he had been to school with my brother Jorge. We had even made a thatre play together. Known, thus, were: my brother Jorge, Clotilde, and Stefan. The others were unknown: Morfo, Iota, Stergios, Carole.

Factors to be considered. These people had never left their country. The farest they had ever been, was Athens. Carole was the youngest of all (20). The others were older: Stefan (25), Iota (37), Morfo (37), Stergios (45), Jorge (25), Clotilde (25), and I (29). The lucky thing was that Stefan spoke Arabic. It wouldn’t help very much and would be in fact the cause of an unbearable number of problems. But it reassured everyone, not even me.

A year after having arrived to Greece I almost spoke Greek. I could already read Byzantine Greek. The Greek group (Stergios, Iota, Morfo) was bridging itself to a French group (Clotilde, Jorge, Carole) through my very tiny means. An intermediate Spanish group (Stefan spoke Spanish, along with Jorge, Clotilde and I) formed another cloud of intelligibility.

Rules were reduced to almost nothing. There was a main leader, I, – I argued experience convincigly enough, - and weekly leaders (pathfinders). It was said that in case of danger, the path finding would be monopolized by me. There was nothing else that could be ordered. Stefan would be responsible for the dealing with people and thus for the finding of shelter, which we esteemed would not be excessively necessary. Wells don’t ask too many questions. And food was almost an ideal.

Money was put in a pot as usual and Iota was said financial manager. There would be hardly anything to buy, anyhow. There would be only one restriction, the whole path would turn around: cigarettes. As much Iota as Morfo said they would stop smoking during the path. As I didn’t believe it very much, I determined an abstract number of cigarettes per day per smoker: 10. Cigarettes bought before hand in Greece should correspond to the exact amount allowed. After, there would be none. “If you can’t keep your word,” I said to Morfo, “at least be careful with how much you smoke.”

She wouldn’t.

Original plan: to take a boat from Thesalonika to Haifa, from there a bus to Ismailiya and then to walk down to Sanct Catherine Monastery and up to Eilat, and from there through Hebron to Jerusalem.

We had also become much less fetishistic on material. Up to a certain extent we were joining in non chalance a little bit the Sanct Jacob path, but in knowledge of the implications. It was only a month, anyhow. Starting summer would not imply excessive temperatures although you always have to be careful at night in the desert, it’s always cold. (I had read many Karl May novels during my youth – how helpful literature can be, finally.) Not too cold, whatever you may want to imagine. Our sleeping bags would be enough. The others gathered material of friends and acquaintances who used to walk around the mountains. Morfos’ sleeping bag, a simple summer holiday sample for temperatures of not less than -5 would not show enough. Not that temperatures would be that low, it’s that material that is not used for specific purposes is never accurate.

We were keeping ourselves inside of a strict orthodoxe rule. As it was fasting time (Easter would reach us at Aquaba) we would be fasting, too. Nice way to pretend the fasting that would be imposed on us anyhow was a deliberate choice.

We weren’t that strict either on walking. It would happen that we took a bus, or  a truck, were it for a few kilometers. Somehow it was to integrate the teachings of the second path into a freer context, without forgetting the danger.

I still remember the very dark cloud appearing in front of my nose every time I had a look at the maps. Had I had to make a subjective appreciation, I would have said ‘impossible’. Not feasible. It was not that I was afraid of getting lost. In fact, geography is quite dull. There is a wadi for 60 km, then you have to cross the mountains and necessarily there must be a main road in the whereabouts you reach by just taking the right direction. I saw no water. Not water enough. No food. A well every 70 km is certainly not enough. I tried to forget my obscure intuitions by constructing an alternative plan, I didn’t like very much: the main road leads directly from Ayun Musa to Sanct Catherine and another directly to Eilat. You don’t have to tempt the devil necessarily. And you will always get water on main roads, somehow.

I counted on bedouins, in fact. There must be people around. If there are people, there is water. Maps are 50 years old. Who knows.

Looking at the maps (I spent hours with their careful study), it seemed as if you could structure the region the following way: there should be no problem from Ismailiya to Suez (Ismailiya is the actual name for Ramses, the town Moses had left from in an approximate location. – Actually the point is not very clear, but one fact should be proving: the brick construction possibility is given only there. If it was not exactly there, then a few kilometers east, south or north, but not very far away: there is not red mud everywhere). Suez is a town at the Red Sea bordering the Suez Canal. A tunnel leads nowadays through the canal to wells called Ayun Musa, just in front.

Let us say we start walking at Ayun Musa. South Sinai is formed by vertical mountain chains that form some kind of knot in the middle as they are crossed by horizontal chains. A relatively large marge allows the construction of roads bordering the sea. A mountain chain to the left leads directly to Sanct Catherine. If you get into the desert too early, the ‘knot’ will make you get lost. If you wait a little bit, there are only two vertical mountain chains, you have to cross, somehow.

My calculation: there must have been an ancient road inside of the desert. Why? There was a harbour at the top of Sinai. It was a very much frequented commercial region linking with Arabic regions for incense and other precious goods. Wells do rarely appear at the sea. If you wanted water, you had to go into the desert. If there was a main town at the top, there must be roads leading to it. I presumed that caravans in ancient times did border the sea for a certain number of kilometers after having taken water at Ayun Musa. And after a while entered the desert. At a place where there wouldn’t be too many knots. Perhaps a little bit north of Abu Zenima.

It’s all we had before we left.

Allah bizden biri oldu, kendine benzetmek icin

God became one with us in order for us to know him

Refrain: Gel hisusum, bizimle kal

Come, our Jesus, stay with us

Bir kadindan Isa dogdu, bakire Meryamden oldu (R)

One woman conceived Jesus, it was the Virgin Mary

Tarihi onu bekliyordu, mesihini özlüyordu (R)

History was waiting for him, it was expecting the Mesiah

Bizim gibi insan idi, hepimize dostun dedi (R)

he became a human like us, said to all of us ‘friend’

Bize hayatine verdi, bir ekmegiyle belirtti (R)

He gave us life, he shared with us bread (?)

Bu ekmegi yiyen bizler, dost olalim, hep beraber (R)

If we eat this bread with him, we become friends all together

Sefkatim bilen bizler satin görmeyi bekler (R)

?

Gel, beyimiz aramiza, kal bizimle hep burada (R)

Come, Lord, among us, stay with us forever

Easter song made of parts of psalms, Haifa

Vers toi, seigneur, j’eleve mon ame, je me confie en toi, mon espoir

Refrain: Oui, je me leverai, et j’irais vers mon pere

Vois mon malheur, regarde ma peine, tous mes peches pardonne-les moi (R)

Mon coeur a dit, je cherche ta face, entends mon cri, pitié reponds moi (R)

Vers toi, seigneur, je crie et j’appelle, ne sois pas sourd, o toi, mon rocher (R)

ne ferme pas pour moi tes tendresses, que ton amour me garde a jamais (R)

Gueris mon coeur, et gueris mon ame, car j’ai peché envers ton amour (R)

Pitié pour moi, o dieu de tendresse, purifie moi de tous mes peches (R)

O dieu, tu sais toute ma folie, et mes pechés sont tous devant toi (R)

Reviens vers nous, malgré nos offenses, prends en pitié, seigneur, tes enfants (R)

Rends moi la joie de la delivrance, ouvre mes levres pour te chanter (R)

Heureux celui a qui dieu pardonne, toutes ces fautes, tous ses peches (R)

Tu es ma joie, tu es mon refuge, tous les coeurs droits loueront le seigneur (R)

Mon coeur te chante, mon coeur exulte, je te benis pour l’eternité (R)

Song of eve’s prayer, Istanbul

Regarde ou nous risquons d’aller tournant le dos a la cité de ta souffrance

ta paque est lente aux yeux de chair de tes bourreaux

explique nous le livre ouvert a coup de lance.

Comment marcherions nous vers toi quand il est tard

si tu ne vas ou vont nos routes ne manque pas au pelerin et viens t’assoir

la nappe est mise pour le pain et pour la coupe

Comment te saurions nous vivant et l’un de nous

si tu ne prends ces simples choses, partage nous ton corps brisé

pour que le jour se leve au fond du coeur ou tu reposes.

Remets entre nos mains tendu a te chercher l’esprit recu de ta patience,

eclaire aussi l’envers du coeur ou les demons

… ta ressemblance 

Spanish song 1

Ya no estás más a mi lado, corazón,

en mi alma solo queda soledad,

y si ya no puedo verte,

por qué dios me hizo quererte,

para hacerme sufrir más.

Es la historia de un amor como no hay otra igual

que me hizo conocer todo el bien todo el mal,

que le dió luz a mi vida apagándola después,

ay, qué vida tan oscura, sin tu amor no viviré

Spanish song 2

Por la lejana llanura va cabalgando un jinete,

lleva en su pecho una herida y va deseando la muerte.

Vaga solito en el monte, va con su alma destrozada,

quisiera perder la vida, y reunirse con su amada

(Refrain) La quería más que a su vida y la perdió para siempre

por eso lleva una herida, por eso busca la muerte

Se pasa noches enteras en su guitarra tocando,

jinete y guitarra llorando a la luz de las estrellas,

luego se pierde en la noche aunque la noche es muy bella

y va pidiéndole a dios que se la lleve con ella

(R)

First Greek song, based on a Lorca poem, Marianita Pineda

Mera megalis thlipsis stin Granada, klainei tis petres tis akomi

Day of steep sadness in Granada, even its stones cry

san blepoun na pethainei stin kremala gia ti den prodose

as they see that dies in gallows because she didn’t betray

i omorfi Mariana

the beautiful Mariana

Contrabandieros, contrabandieros, eimai ego

I’m a brigand, I’m a brigand

kai pou m’aresei pao, ta bazo me ton arxigo

and I go where I want, I pick a quarell with the chief

kanenan den rotao

and don’t ask anyone

Ai, ai, ai, stiste xoro koritzia,

… prepare a dance, young girls

ai, ai, ai, stiste xoro, ai, ai

… prepare a dance

Mera megalis thlipsis …