break, Hunter!” Feldman protested.
“None of the above,” Anke responded with a good-natured laugh.
Cissy rescued her. “Where are you from originally, Anke? Do I detect a French accent?”
“I'm from Paris,” she said. “My mother's French, my father American.”
“So what brought you to Israel?” Hunter would not be elbowed aside.
“I came here in ‘97 to take an assistant professorship at Tel Aviv University. I'm working on my graduate degree.”
Hunter stole a quick, sideways glance at Feldman. “Let's see now, Anke,” he summarized, “we've established that you've got looks, personality, brains—probably money, too, eh? So, what I can't figure out,” and he gestured with his coffee spoon toward Feldman, “is what you see in this underfed, underpaid, diehard news geek!”
Bollinger and the other crew members burst out laughing.
Nodding slightly, pursing her lips to restrain a smile, Anke regarded the uncomfortable man next to her. “Well,” she teased, “I should think he has promise as a reporter, if only he'd show a little more social conscience.” She paused at the look of objection on his face. “But then again,” and her eyes locked into his, “there was the wonderful report he did about that meteorite destroying the Negev Institute. Now,
that
was worthy journalism. Who knows, Mr. Feldman”—she smiled at him admiringly— “you may have even prevented a war.”
The timing and sincerity of the compliment caught Feldman quite off-guard. He felt his cheeks grow warm.
“Okay,” Cissy stepped in once again, “I think our guest has endured about enough of our keen interviewing skills for one afternoon.” She turned to Anke, apologetically. “You'll have to excuse Hunter's retarded social graces. You see, he spent his formative years in solitary confinement at a home for unwed fathers and he simply doesn't know any better.”
Anke laughed. “I see now why Mr. Hunter operates behind the camera instead of in front of it.”
This unleashed an appreciative chorus of scorn directed at Hunter, who accepted his comeuppance with a broad-faced grin.
As they finished their meal, Bollinger had one final question of Anke. He wanted to know if she was unduly concerned about the prospect of the world ending in the next three hours and thirty-five minutes. She replied that she was not.
Outside on the mountain, however, it was an entirely different story. Escalating noise drew Feldman and his associates onto the balcony where they observed increasingly strange activities underway.
The rising tensions and close quarters had apparently pushed several incompatible cults into open opposition. In some instances, what began as civil disagreements in theology had degraded into shouting matches and even fist-fights, pitting zealot against zealot in a battle of the self-righteous.
“There, I think God likes that guy's style.” Feldman facetiously pointed to an open circle of fighting where one defender of the faith ran up and smashed a folded lawn chair over the head of another.
“Yeah, skull-cracking for Christ,” Hunter snorted, and Anke looked disapprovingly at both reporters.
“Oh, over here!” Hunter shouted. “Where are the field glasses?”
To their right, a small group of men and women had shed their clothes and were prancing before a bonfire to a poorly played pan flute.
“Yes,” Hunter intoned in a bad W.C. Fields imitation, “naked unto the Lord!”
The Israeli police were kept busy trying to quietly extract the troublemakers without aggravating conditions, and more than one millenarian would experience the rapture of jail tonight.
As the sweet smell of marijuana came wafting up to the balcony, Bollinger clapped his hands and announced, “Okay gang, let's get some of this on tape, shall we?” The crew, who'd been standing around entranced by all this, snapped to and hustled off to gather their gear while Hunter, way ahead of them, was putting a telephoto lens on his
“None of the above,” Anke responded with a good-natured laugh.
Cissy rescued her. “Where are you from originally, Anke? Do I detect a French accent?”
“I'm from Paris,” she said. “My mother's French, my father American.”
“So what brought you to Israel?” Hunter would not be elbowed aside.
“I came here in ‘97 to take an assistant professorship at Tel Aviv University. I'm working on my graduate degree.”
Hunter stole a quick, sideways glance at Feldman. “Let's see now, Anke,” he summarized, “we've established that you've got looks, personality, brains—probably money, too, eh? So, what I can't figure out,” and he gestured with his coffee spoon toward Feldman, “is what you see in this underfed, underpaid, diehard news geek!”
Bollinger and the other crew members burst out laughing.
Nodding slightly, pursing her lips to restrain a smile, Anke regarded the uncomfortable man next to her. “Well,” she teased, “I should think he has promise as a reporter, if only he'd show a little more social conscience.” She paused at the look of objection on his face. “But then again,” and her eyes locked into his, “there was the wonderful report he did about that meteorite destroying the Negev Institute. Now,
that
was worthy journalism. Who knows, Mr. Feldman”—she smiled at him admiringly— “you may have even prevented a war.”
The timing and sincerity of the compliment caught Feldman quite off-guard. He felt his cheeks grow warm.
“Okay,” Cissy stepped in once again, “I think our guest has endured about enough of our keen interviewing skills for one afternoon.” She turned to Anke, apologetically. “You'll have to excuse Hunter's retarded social graces. You see, he spent his formative years in solitary confinement at a home for unwed fathers and he simply doesn't know any better.”
Anke laughed. “I see now why Mr. Hunter operates behind the camera instead of in front of it.”
This unleashed an appreciative chorus of scorn directed at Hunter, who accepted his comeuppance with a broad-faced grin.
As they finished their meal, Bollinger had one final question of Anke. He wanted to know if she was unduly concerned about the prospect of the world ending in the next three hours and thirty-five minutes. She replied that she was not.
Outside on the mountain, however, it was an entirely different story. Escalating noise drew Feldman and his associates onto the balcony where they observed increasingly strange activities underway.
The rising tensions and close quarters had apparently pushed several incompatible cults into open opposition. In some instances, what began as civil disagreements in theology had degraded into shouting matches and even fist-fights, pitting zealot against zealot in a battle of the self-righteous.
“There, I think God likes that guy's style.” Feldman facetiously pointed to an open circle of fighting where one defender of the faith ran up and smashed a folded lawn chair over the head of another.
“Yeah, skull-cracking for Christ,” Hunter snorted, and Anke looked disapprovingly at both reporters.
“Oh, over here!” Hunter shouted. “Where are the field glasses?”
To their right, a small group of men and women had shed their clothes and were prancing before a bonfire to a poorly played pan flute.
“Yes,” Hunter intoned in a bad W.C. Fields imitation, “naked unto the Lord!”
The Israeli police were kept busy trying to quietly extract the troublemakers without aggravating conditions, and more than one millenarian would experience the rapture of jail tonight.
As the sweet smell of marijuana came wafting up to the balcony, Bollinger clapped his hands and announced, “Okay gang, let's get some of this on tape, shall we?” The crew, who'd been standing around entranced by all this, snapped to and hustled off to gather their gear while Hunter, way ahead of them, was putting a telephoto lens on his
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