Seeing Without Seeing

2 June 2021

The summer of 2021 was heating up not only from the sun over the Mediterranean, but from politics too, which erupted in Israel like yet another volcano. After four elections in two years, the twenty-fourth Knesset was about to choose a government, and the air trembled with anticipation. Minutes before midnight on 2 June, Yair Lapid informed the President that he had succeeded: Naftali Bennett of Yamina and Lapid of Yesh Atid had signed an agreement to form the "government of change". A coalition from every end of the spectrum – from Yamina, Yisrael Beiteinu and New Hope, through Blue and White and Labour, to Meretz, and for the first time an Arab party inside the coalition too, Ra'am. Bennett would serve first; Lapid would replace him in two years.

After twelve unbroken years, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose trial had opened a year earlier, was about to be replaced.

In Tel Aviv, Natalie sat in her parents' living room, her eyes glued to the television. When she realised what was happening, she sprang off the sofa, shouted "It's happened!" and burst into liberated laughter, with tears of joy and dancing that, had anyone filmed it, would probably have gone viral. Months of protests – standing in light rain with a "For Democracy" sign, her voice hoarse from singing – had finally borne fruit.

"After all the lies, all the court cases – he's going!" she shouted into the phone, to Alex in Athens, and her voice shook with excitement.

That night · Athens

In Athens, Alex was standing behind the bar in Psiri where he had found work in his very first week. His hands stopped mid-pour when the news reached his phone. He put the bottle down, a broad smile spreading across his face, and punched the air.

"The king has fallen! At last!" he shouted, and his voice cut across the Greek music. The customers looked at him with a mixture of surprise and amusement.

He remembered the nights at Balfour, when he joined the protests outside the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem and shouted "Bibi, go home" into the spray of the water cannons. He got a voice message from Yonatan – Yonatan, the Maccabi fan, who had been very active in the protests – and the roaring in the message reminded him of the roar after a derby win. Only this time, two rivals from the stands had won together, on the political pitch.

"Sis, this is the day!" he texted Natalie. "Without Bibi we start again!"

He felt the weight of the last few years lift from his shoulders, as if this change were healing old wounds too. And for the first time since he landed, he wanted to be in Israel. To celebrate with his friends, to be part of the moment.

13 June 2021

The ceremony in the Knesset was full of drama. The government was approved by a majority of one: 60 for, 59 against. Netanyahu, his face shut, stepped down from the podium and crossed the chamber to the opposition benches.

Natalie watched on television beside her mother. "I saw it happen, Mum! All those protests were worth it!" Her voice was full of hope for a future in which Israel could heal from its divisions. She thought about the call-up papers waiting for her at the end of the summer, about her dream of defending a new country, clean of the old poison.

In Athens, Alex talked the owner into letting him off his shift early, went out into the lit-up streets of Plaka, and danced with Greek friends under the stars, singing Hapoel songs in a hoarse voice. "This isn't just a victory," he told himself, thinking of the family, of Natalie. "It's a feeling that we can come together again."

July 2021 · Monastiraki

The sun set over Monastiraki and splashed shades of gold and orange across the paving stones. A heavy Greek heatwave sat on the city, and the Acropolis, beautiful in the background, was closed to tourists in the afternoon hours. Alex walked slowly between the market stalls – meat, fish, strong smells that reached into every corner of the lungs. He felt as if he were floating inside a colourful painting: people laughing, children running with worn leather balls, cats curling between people's legs. Bouzouki players on every corner gave it all a real soundtrack.

He took a few photos for Instagram: a wooden table in the street with wine glasses and steaming pots; a fisherman holding up a huge fish as if time had stood still. Every picture carried a clear message: "I'm here. I'm alive. I'm free."

But this freedom was more sophisticated, and it hid among the shadows. Athens was no paradise. It was a broken city – beautiful, but hungry. The economic crisis of the previous decade was still choking the local young, who had discovered that the straight roads weren't always open. Illegal job offers mixed with the lure of drugs, theft and small lies.

The knowledge Alex had gathered during the lockdowns in Israel had become an asset. He wasn't a big dealer, and didn't want to be. He was the one who supplied relief in a reality society couldn't pay for. Adderall for students, Xanax for workers holding down two or three jobs. Every deal, every meeting, was a delicate dance on a tightrope. And the move to other drugs was waiting just around the corner.

"I'm not hurting anyone," he repeated to himself every evening. "I'm not creating danger. I'm providing the mental health care the Greek government can't afford."

But one look at the street, at people living with passion and despair at once, reminded him that nothing here was simple. Seeing, and not seeing. Every smile, every glance, held the city's story inside it – of freedom, of loss, of survival.