by Shlomo Kalo
“I’ve been in Bulgaria.”
“What took you to Bulgaria?” I asked, my curiosity aroused.
“I was dredging up information about you. I found the man you call ‘Vladimir’ in Erral – that autobiographical book of yours. His real name is Ermencho. I introduced myself and I have to say, the Bulgarians have a lot of respect for Israel’s intelligence services.”
“They’re not the only ones,” I commented.
He acknowledged this with a nod of the head, and went on to say:
“I got an authentic profile from him. He said, it was nice working with you, you have a ‘lively mind’ as he put it, a talent for improvisation, and he also described you in a way you won’t like: a Jewish intellect, as opposed to a Bulgarian intellect, which he calls ‘square’, doing everything possible to imitate the German intellect and, regrettably, to resemble it. He asked me most earnestly to pass on his apologies, about the way you parted company in Prague, and the offence that he caused you on your most sensitive point – Judaism. He called this your strong and your weak point. You became a communist to fight the ‘enemy’ of the Jews and not for reasons of pure ideology, as they would have liked. It’s very easy to get you riled, with the lightest of touches on the Jewish button. He asked if it’s our intention to recruit you for some specific mission in the highly respected Israeli intelligence service, which he meant as a compliment. My honest answer was yes.”
“Is this an offer?” I asked him.
“You could see it that way,” he declared.
“You know I’ve retired.”
“Oh, of course,” Shmulik confirmed and added as if trying to offer a bribe: “A man like you shouldn’t be just sitting there, flicking channels between TV, video and DVD screens, your place is to cause the events that will happen and direct them, not look on from the sidelines.”
“You don’t know me,” I protested.
“That’s where you’re mistaken. We got to know each other inside and out in those manoeuvres,” and he added, moving on to specifics: “You are the only one, since that time to this day, out of all my subordinates, including men of remarkable guile, wit and wisdom, not to mention avowed delinquents – who has failed to obey my orders and not been punished for it. The one and only.”
“That isn’t enough!” I exclaimed.
“Let me be the judge of that!” he insisted firmly, emphatically.
“Do you want an immediate answer?” I asked, and succeeded in changing the subject, which seemed sterile to me.
“One of these days I’ll demand that.”
“And in the meantime?”
“Let’s be content with what you can do now. For your country. This isn’t a theatrical rendition” – he saw fit to stress:
“A new light gleams in the azure sky/ A breeze from the sea speeds over the plain/ Homeland of ours we love you / In peace, and in trouble and at war…” Shmulik recited the first verse of King’s Bride, and added: “It’s a long time since a song like that has been written. And I’m absolutely sure you have no intention of repudiating it.”
“That isn’t in my nature,” I replied.
“I know!” He sank into a meaningful silence and then spoke again: “We’ll let you finish your holiday.” He rose to his feet. Tall, athletic, well-mannered and utterly fearless, a people with sons like this will not easily be defeated. He held out to me a visiting-card, with his name in blue letters in a blue surround and telephone numbers in black. “When you’re ready, call me!” he said, “And don’t forget to pass on my sincere admiration to your wife.” He stretched out an elegant hand; his handshake was frank, warm and wise. We parted. I had taken a few steps when suddenly an idea flashed into my mind, and I turned and ran after him. Shmulik heard me running, stopped, turned and waited.
“Something occurred to you?” he asked, saving me my opening words.
“Yes,” I replied. “To make this despicable project work, the micro-organism known as Rickettsia, or more precisely Rickettsia rickettsii” – he repeated the terms after me, trying to imprint these weird names in his memory – “has to be fed with the blood of Jews. Is that clear so far?”
“Clear!” he confirmed in a manner leaving no room for doubt.
“That means,” I went on to say, “the theft of large quantities of blood. Something you could try, is persuading the managers of blood-banks in hospitals, especially in the North, to check their stocks. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were surprised by the results. Careful investigation will reveal who stole the blood – and the thread will lead to something deeper and infinitely more surprising.”
“I’ve taken all that in, boss,” Shmulik confirmed.
I returned to the hotel. My wife was waiting for me, tensed up to the very limit – and beyond. I changed my clothes and decided on pre-emptive action: “Right, I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
The tension eased, as I told her. It seemed the story appealed to her. She had always been a fan of detective novels and suspense films.
“Now I believe the stories you told me about the ‘combat squads’ and your activities as a member of them.”
“Don’t you think that’s a rather insulting remark?” I asked.
“No,” she protested. “It isn’t easy to believe all the stories you tell me.”
“That’s been my mistake.”
“What has?”
“Telling you.”
“Doesn’t every male try to impress his woman? Your behaviour is normal. And I don’t mean to offend you, and you haven’t taken offence, have you?” she asked with disarming, irresistible innocence.
“Absolutely not!” – a heartfelt, two-word closing statement, clarifying everything.
“And do you think you’ll take up the offer?” she asked.
“No,” was my candid reply.
“Perhaps all the same you could make some contribution,” she suggested.
“I can do that without being drafted. The nice thing about retirement is that they stop pestering you with instructions and demands. If they want the benefit of my accumulated experience, they’re welcome to it. And that’s the best for both parties.”
“But you won’t be paid for it.”
“With the pension, and the extra income from writing and recording royalties – in particular what you bring in – we have enough and to spare!” I declared in a tone to brook no contradiction.
My wife considered this and agreed: “You’re absolutely right!”
Two weeks later, there were reports in the papers, on radio and the visual media too, of a perplexing incident which had occurred in a hospital in Nahariyya; a twelve year old Arab boy, seriously injured in a road accident, had been admitted and he needed an emergency blood transfusion. His blood type, AB, Rh(-) was a rare one, but according to the list of types available in the hospital, there was supposed to be a supply of it in the blood-bank. To the surprise of the doctors, it turned out there was none there, and the child died in their hands. An enquiry revealed that a quantity of AB, Rh(-) was kept for urgent cases and so it was listed, but it was not to be found in the special refrigeration unit where it was stored. A police investigation concluded that the blood had been stolen. Rumour had it that Arabs from Upper Galilee had started stealing blood, for no discernible purpose. It turned out that stocks of other types of blood were missing too, despite the meticulous lists that were kept, and these were not necessarily the rare types. The grandfather of the boy who had died, Muhammad Nabulsi, a cleaner at the hospital for many years, went to the police and confessed that fanatical underground types had demanded that he hand over to them stocks of blood from the hospital, which they needed, and if not, they threatened to kill him and his family. To the question, did they demand supplies of blood of rare types, Mr Nabulsi admitted that this was not the case, but in his foolish way of thinking, as he put it himself, he decided that the rare types, kept in a separate fridge, would be of more interest to the blackmailers, and so this was what he did
and Allah had punished him and his beloved grandson had paid with his life for his conduct, which ill befitted a Muslim. When asked if he was afraid that those fanatics would carry out their threat and kill him, the man replied that this no longer mattered to him, and he was praying that God would forgive the evil he had done and his life was worthless to him now; he would try to mend his ways and beg to be forgiven, since he did what he did in innocence of heart, and God sees, as no other can, the inner thoughts of the human heart, and He is compassionate and merciful.
The police investigation continued, and it was discovered that stocks of blood had been stolen from the hospital in Haifa too, but of common types. An Arab cleaning lady and her two assistants had been arrested. The motive behind the thefts remained obscure.
Chapter Five
As is the natural way, things began to calm down. We went out every day to stroll around Zurich, which we had come to know well. We didn’t often find a restaurant that suited us. Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Greek, Turkish, Arab restaurants – all had long ago lost their exotic charm. It seemed they only kept going on the basis of European boredom and the restlessness of people who go away on expensive holidays, and pensioners whose pensions, in thrifty hands, enable them to wander the world far and wide and experience all its wonders, before the fleshly eyes that are always yearning and never satisfied are closed, the questing heart is stilled, and the tongue and the palate are no longer serviceable for experiencing, seeing, expounding, hearing, probing and tasting, however much is possible.
We tried out quite a few specifically non-exotic restaurants, including large self-service establishments.
On the Bahnhoff Strasse, the central thoroughfare of Zurich, stand three gigantic department stores, each comprising grocery shops on the lower ground floor, on the level above it sales of household and kitchen supplies, in all their varieties and eccentricities; on the upper floor – clothing, and on the roof – a huge self-service restaurant. “Manor” for the paupers, “Co-op” for the petty bourgeois, “Jelmoli” for the snobs. And finally, “Migros”, a popular establishment combining Italian speakers, Italian style, Italian food and Italian prices.
It is only right to stress the high standard of the emphatically Swiss and well maintained toilets operating in each of the above-mentioned establishments, located, for public convenience, on the upper floor, and constituting a part of the restaurant. Sometimes, those requiring toilets come up without needing anything else, not even a glass of water, and this in all weathers, and they praise the consummate, socio-humane concept. As a whole, at regular times, regular people arrive at regular places. Once it happened that my wife needed to do some repairs to her clothing, on a cold and wet day, but had no means of doing this. Naturally, all the regular visitors to the café-restaurant were witnesses to her futile attempts to do what she wanted to do but was incapable of doing. And then, a middle-aged woman rose from her regular seat, approached us and proffered a pair of folding scissors, which as it turned out, she always carried around with her in her handbag specifically for cases such as these, and the business was settled in the most heart-warming way.
It was not by mere coincidence that Peter Kropotkin, the eminent anarchist, gained the initial impression that “people are good” by their very nature and tend to help one another – in Switzerland certainly, it is down to the behaviour of the Swiss.
Chapter Six
According to a principle, which we adhere to, we don’t watch television and we don’t even have a set at home. In our hotel room, the TV is tempting, with all its dumb innocence and unhypocritical humility. And it turns out that every year programmes about sport are aired, and those who understand sport or enjoy watching it need have no fear of being bored. I never liked sport of any kind; the principles behind it and the objectives mean nothing to me. But here I was in for a surprise. My wife proved to be an avid fan of sports programmes, identifying with the competitors, and sometimes breaking into spontaneous applause in front of the screen. She claimed that by observing the facial expression of each competitor, and in particular his level of determination, she could predict who was going to win the contest and indeed, it was just as she said. I commented that if it were possible to bet on these contests in the same way as on horse races, we could recoup the full cost of our holiday.
In high school I was renowned for my avoidance of physical education classes, to the point where the tolerant and genial P.E. teacher was driven to distraction, threatening to ruin my “average” by marking me down in his subject. His wrath, utterly at odds with his pleasant personality and mild manner, blazed so fiercely that he took the trouble to invent a new rating, hitherto unknown in any school in Bulgaria, or elsewhere. My mark in the subject of physical education was a big round “0” – zero. And because this original and creative mark had no verbal definition, it stayed on my record in its primal form, from the ninth to the twelfth grade.
And here I had to suffer, and it was real physical suffering – on account of this particular penchant of my wife, not quite feminine in my humble opinion. (I told her this repeatedly and with excessive emphasis, but to no avail.) My wife would run to the set, switch it on and sit down facing the screen as if hypnotised, at all hours of the day. And just as passive smoking can lead to passive nicotine poisoning, so there are lethal passive toxins in television-watching, especially if two people are together in the confined space of a hotel room, for hour after hour, as the set exudes its poison. To me, the whole business looks primitive, at best infantile. Running long distances, winning medals, and indulging in perverted national pride. And what about all those who haven’t won medals? And the most important accolade is providing the excuse for the playing of the national anthem of the state that you represent. As the anthem is being played, a carefully regulated scenario is taking place. Facing the medal-winner, on a tall mast, his country’s flag is hoisted. He fixes his gaze on it, in serious and well rehearsed style, as if seeing it for the first time in his life, and as the first note of the anthem rings out, both his eyes, simultaneously fill with clearly visible moisture. Only Russian women have invented an alternative scenario for themselves, more convenient and more appropriate to their semi-Asiatic temperament. One of them, from Belarus, started weeping while the flag was still being hoisted, and when the piece of coloured cloth reached the top of the mast, the lady broke into such a paroxysm of sobs that her neighbours on the podium had to support her, lest she collapse under the weight of her emotion. Truly, an infantile display of an infantile phenomenon. I almost learned the American anthem by heart, as it was played with such frequency, dutifully serenading the American athletes, waving their medals for the cameras. I learnt it in a dispassionate way, not at all willingly. Passive viewing.
I also filled some gaps in my knowledge, since were it not for sport, of which my wife turned out to be an enthusiastic devotee, I would not have known that the Bahamas have a national anthem. Admittedly, the Bahamian anthem was played only once, as were, at best, the original anthems of other countries similar to it. Not one of them has stuck in my memory.
Female tennis players, despite all the hard work, vision and artistry invested in their tough and exhausting game, cherish a reservoir of blind hatred for one another, and if it were possible to attack one another, there is not a shadow of doubt that without the slightest twinge of conscience, they would rip out their rivals’ eyes with their fingernails.
And something else: in sport there are competitors and rivals, but no “partners” or “colleagues”. From an educational point of view, it would be very desirable to ban certain games, which are not games but a distant relic of gladiatorial combat and the kind of effervescent venomous hatred, primitive and lethal, that people try in vain to cope with. And here is sport, nourishing it as a poisonous snake nourishes her offspring.
My wife showed a lively and inexorable interest in a tennis player of Swiss origin, Roger Federer. I felt obliged to take an interest in him too, and once again I was made aware
of my wife’s superior tastes, and this is not just self-congratulation.
This young man is remarkable for some rare traits of personality, including an impressive degree of humility, alongside generosity and commitment to the objective, namely victory achieved not for the sake of self-aggrandisement. He plays the creative game of a white prince of sport. And he always wins. And it seems to me, that his competitors feel respect for him if in spite of themselves, and in some sense are proud of the privilege of playing against him. And if I’m wrong about this, I would advise them to take it up. Naturally, not all of them. The negative version of Federer are two players who for some reason appear in white gear, without inspiration or the slightest hint of taste or an aesthetic approach. The older, Mr Agassi, stands out for his obsequious and theatrical playing to the crowd: bowing, blowing kisses and on the other hand spitting out snot with a finger over one nostril, like a janitor in an abattoir. The other, of inflated ego, is Kiffer. Both of them have won a number of games, displaying all the petty-mindedness of traders in haberdashery and second-hand clothing – a profession infinitely more appropriate for them than the game of tennis, in which Roger Federer holds sway. Thanks to my wife I took an interest in him, an interest which began in those days and is finishing today, at this hour, with this sentence, with this full-stop.
Chapter Seven
And then came another blow, which could not in any way have been envisaged, one of those things which happen when people go away on holiday.
One day my wife got up and announced, with all the seriousness and maturity which distinguish her, that she could not see. Incapable of reading a newspaper or watching television. We made an appointment with an optometrist and paid him eight hundred Swiss francs, ready cash. There are 3.6 shekels to a franc. My wife was treated to a lengthy explanation of the defect that had shown up in her eyesight, and as always happens with medical consultations in the private sector, she was told she had arrived at the very last moment – any more delay and her eyesight would have been severely endangered and the rest of her life turned to tragedy. On our return from the optometrist, my wife asked, did the professional expert mean that she would need a white stick wherever she went in the world.
