Outside our fourth floor living room window, gradually working its way to the edges of our windows, is a huge old olive tree. I have to say, there is something about having an olive tree just outside our window that makes me believe, at least briefly, that I am living an idyllic Mediterranean lifestyle.
Down the other side of our building is a more modestly sized orange tree with a grapefruit tree right next to it. The grapefruits are actually edible; we tried them last season. They are yellow ones, slightly on the small side, really quite nice; but no substitute for the huge red ones from our really excellent (and expensive) greengrocer, a family business run by a bunch of classic macho Israeli brothers, that goes by the name of “Fruity Land”. ( I kid you not — I have a year’s supply of fridge magnets to prove it!)
About 100 yards down the street, there is a banana tree (more of a bush actually) and a pomegranate tree.
With all this abundance so close by, you might think we were living in some kind of bucolic paradise out in the countryside, instead of in the noisy heart of Tel Aviv. It is one of the things I like most about living here, and an aspect of the city that is often missed by tourists.
It is not just the fruit trees that I love. The city is also home to many gorgeous flowering trees and bushes, especially at this time of year.
But enough about paradise…
Yes, we do have trouble; and I am not talking about the endless construction, the impossible parking, the new bus lines on our street, or the anarchic behaviour of the various two-wheeled vehicles that terrorize the average pedestrian.
No. I am talking about a different tree — one that is growing up our side of the building — commonly known as a “fiddle-leaf fig”, usually considered a “must have” houseplant. There is nothing remotely “houseplant -like” about this particular example of the species; an invasive aggressor that clearly has met no opposition, natural or human, for its entire lifetime. (Nor, for that matter, is there anything about it that evokes a fiddle.)
Left to its own devices since the building was erected some 70 years ago, it now has leaves bigger than my head, sprawls wildly over 30 feet in width, and towers 50 feet high. It sits right outside our bedroom window, and as best I can see, is now making an effort to move right in with us.
When we first moved in, I was taken in by the charms of its greenery, and the privacy it provided from the building next door. Hah! I failed to appreciate that, lacking the solid centre structure of a tree trunk, and possessed of huge leaves and long branches, even a slight breeze could cause a lot of movement. Sure enough, the languid “swaying in the breeze” of the summer season, led inevitably to our fierce winter storms and the deranged banging of branches against the window shutters. For some reason storms seem to occur mostly at night and there was no sleeping through the racket! I am still amazed that nothing was broken.
Apparently the fiddle-leaf fig loves the hot humid summers of Tel Aviv, because when we came back in the fall, the branches had grown another foot, poking through the window grate and up against our large windows. In fact, when the windows were open, and a slight breeze was up, the odd branch leaned right inside. This did not augur well for the winter ahead.
I mentioned this problem to our next door neighbour. He is actually one of the few residents that owns his place — most of us rent from absentee landlords — so I thought he might have inside knowledge on how to get things done. He is a good guy, but even he gave the standard response along the lines of: “this is the responsibility of the Vaad Bayit (house committee)” — which is code for — “Good luck. You figure it out”.
House committees are a very rough equivalent of condo corporations, and the way landlords speak of them, you would think they were composed of mysterious foreigners from another planet, instead of a handful of their fellow apartment owners. The concept of a reserve fund is equally foreign, so if repairs are needed to common areas — like the roof in our building which has an ever-expanding leak — the funds need to be cajoled out of the pockets of the individual owners/landlords. And they all have to agree to the specifics of the scope of work, contractor, cost etc. And they are all Israeli… (Agreement not their strong suit.)
On investigating the matter a bit further, I discovered that to complicate matters even more, our particular “fiddle-leaf” actually originates on the property next to ours, even though its “airspace” is primarily on our side. The prospect of not one, but two, elusive house committees was too much to contemplate, so in in good Canadian fashion, I channeled my “inner lumberjack” and dealt with the invader myself. I bought a good-sized saw and spent a long afternoon leaning out the window as far as I could, hacking away at the surprisingly tough branches. Mike was amazed.
So the good news is that the advance of the giant fiddle-leaf fig has been checked — for now. The windows survived the winter and we got some sleep. And I still have my trusty saw, ready for battle next year.
The bad news is that the leak in the roof is still in the hands of the “house committee”.