The Navigator
Hagai Cohen
Captain Ben Feldman and I were enjoying a glass of Koelsch, 'brewed on location' at a small Beerstube in front of the Köln Cathedral, when Ben remarked, "This cathedral is quite old, you know. It has catacombs, escape tunnels, many buried secrets and relics dating back to Roman times." I looked at the two steeples and remembered from the flight charts that they tower to a height of 700 feet.
"Did you notice the marks of bomb fragments on the two stone steeples?" asked Ben.
The year was 1980; thirty-five years since the end of the war, yet several war-damaged buildings were still to be seen. "We were very careful not to bomb the cathedral," Ben added. He had been a flight Leader in the Royal Air Force and had flown the Lancaster bombers for his majesty.
"How is that?" I asked. "Don't tell me you had a religious conscience."
"Not at all" said Ben "The two tall steeples of the cathedral usually protruded out of the stagnant morning smog giving us a positive position update for further bombing or returning home. The congested anti-aircraft German guns were in several strategic spots around the town and the Rhine; the cathedral enabled our navigator to avoid the guns. Thanks to those steeples, the Germans never got us.”
With this, Ben launched into his story:
"The squadron policy was to keep the same crew together; my navigator, my engineer, my bomb aimer, and my radio operator were always the same people, though the gunners were not a part of the permanent crew. The boys called us 'the lucky bastards'. The average number of missions per crew never exceeded 31. My crew and I flew over a hundred sorties. As I once said to an outsider, it looked like we were lucky. In fact, we were very lucky, but for a different reason.
Our crew’s charm, and in my opinion, the reason for our survival was our genius navigator. Before the war, he had been a postgraduate mathematician working on his PhD in Oxford.
He was a man with an unbelievably fast and accurate analytical brain, and a photographic memory to boot. One scan over the intelligence report charts was enough for him to memorize all the coordinates of the anti-aircraft batteries, and the temporary Luftwaffe bases. Another short scan of the weather reports and he remembered the synoptic charts, the location of the storms, the fog and the wind. He usually managed to take us to the targets from an unexpected direction, and the headings he gave me after our bombing missions avoided all anti-aircraft fire. Sometimes he took us so low that we flew on the deck, almost touching the meadows.
By the way, he was a Jew. In fact, he and I were the only Jews in our base’s four squadrons.
One winter morning our target was the Central Train Station of Köln, the one not far from where we sit now. Many of the German industries were situated along the Rhine and this train station served them. That day there was stagnant fog over the Rhine valley, up to a level of 600 to 700 feet. It was a very good day to approach the targets. We were invisible to the anti-aircraft guns, and could therefore ‘lay our eggs’ from a low level, right onto the target. The tip of the two protruding steeples gave us a very good indication of the location of the train workshop. That day I was leading a flight of four Lancaster's in close formation. We stayed together while dropping the bombs. The target was small and I did not want to risk a second bombing run.
After releasing our payload, our tail gunner spotted five Messerschmitt interceptors behind us, diving towards our tail. My navigator immediately took control and instructed me: 'Fly to the steeples, over the cathedral steer to heading 360 degrees. Descend to flight level 500 feet and increase your speed to 230 knots.' He continued: 'No 2 follow us, maintain speed 215 knots flight level 470'.' He instructed the other two planes accordingly and within less than 20 seconds we all were in the fog, flying in line one after the other with speed and altitude separation.
I trusted him with my life. The ‘sonofabitch’ flew us into the fog for one full hour. He knew our location every given second. He knew there would be no drift, as there is no wind in this kind of weather. He knew of every obstacle along the valley. He also knew that the Germans would wait for us on route home over the sea, where there is no fog. However, he took us all the way up to Borkum Island. Funnily enough, it was a German island. Who would believe we would escape into German territory.
It was a nerve-breaking hour that I'll never forget. As I said I trusted my navigator, I knew how he thinks and I knew how he works. He tuned our 'direction finder' to civil radio stations for which he remembered their exact location. With this information and his unbelievable quick brain, he could tell our position at any time.
The rest of the crew had no idea what he was doing and were scared to death. They did not say a word. My engineer was sweating heavily and nervously sliding back and forth on his seat for no reason. The radio operator, very agitated, got up every 30 seconds to look through the cockpit windows into the fog. With the British Air Force discipline and hierarchy I am not sure if their silence was because they were afraid of me or of the situation. The navigator on the other hand was cool, calm and very professional. He didn’t say one unnecessary word.
The heavy breathing of the crew consumed all the oxygen and what we breathed at the end was contaminated lung tickling smog. After a tense-full hour, my navigator suddenly announced:
'In five minutes we will be out of the fog, gunners wake up and watch out.'
Four minutes later, we saw the Borkum Island in front of us. 'Take heading 270 degrees. Descend 200 feet. Resume normal speed.' He than gave instructions to the other three planes, directing them to close into a formation.
We turned westbound before we were over the island and soon we were over the North Sea. We entered England way up north far away from our base, but also far away from the German fighters that were waiting for us in the channel. During this saga, we kept radio silence. The first time we used the radio was about fifty miles from the English coast. We landed almost two hours later than planned. For Bomber Command, we were already lost in action. It was a happy day for my people, but not so for the squadron. Two Lancaster's had been shot down and both crews were missing. We lost two more Lancaster's when they were too crippled to fly home and had to land on the shoreline not far from Brighton. The crews survived with little injuries.
During the debriefing, our Squadron Leader screamed at me and at my navigator. it was not clear why he was screaming when in fact he should be happy we are back.
'Why didn't the radio operator 'Morse' to base?' he shouted. With a very straight face, I answered ‘Damn it sir we were so frightened and I could not risk the radio operator’s shaking hands on the 'Morse' key. The Squadron Leader did not take the joke well. Rather he increased his volume and threatened us with court martial. "I'll discuss it with the wing commander," he said, "and may be we will separate the two of you." The cold-blooded navigation officer, to further annoy the Squadron Leader said: "We did our job sir; we hit the targets and came back safely, in one piece." Then he added innocently, 'Did the other four Lancaster hit the target sir?' The Squadron Leader, looked like he was going to explode. He made a sharp turn and left without answering.
We did not need to get an answer from him, as we already knew they had dumped the bombs, just to get rid of the heavy load when they were attacked. The Germans had been waiting for them over the sea and had shot them all. Two crews had survived.
Later on, the surviving crews that had landed in Brighton arrived back at the base after getting medical treatment. Those people were welcomed like heroes. "They had crashed and yet still managed to walk away from the wreckage on their own feet." A real achievement and a wonderful forced landing on the shoreline pebbles," said the Squadron Leader in his speech during the party they gave the survivors. The wing Commanding Officer authorized liquor and even champagne.
My crew and the crews of the other three planes under my command were not invited. I was angry about this and decided to join the party uninvited and talk to the StationWing Commander. I got to him after his blood was well diluted. As a good friend of my father, he was always willing to listen to me. He and my dad had gone together to Eton. I told him my version of the story and he was very attentive. "Disregard the court-martial threat". He said and dismissed me.
"Just watch your step. One day, you'll make a mistake and I’ll get both of you!" said the squadron commander after reluctantly assigning us to fly together again. Everything returned to normal except for one thing, my Flight Lieutenant the navigator was never seen again in the officers club and did not socialize with anyone. Nobody liked successful Jews. After that incident, we flew together about thirty more missions, and never had even one bullet hole in our planes.
The war ended a few months later. On the day, Germany surrendered, at the victory party I spoke again to the Station Wing Commander and suggested that he give citations to the crews with the maximum sorties. He agreed and assigned twenty people to research the logbooks, my crew and I were the aces of all of Royal Air Force bomber squadrons. King George the sixth gave us the medals in person. My navigator sent his medal to the squadron commander with a note saying something like: "We stayed alive despite your lousy command." There was a lot of anti-Semitism in the Air Force at that time. Even the Air Attaché to the British Embassy in Washington, was a notorious anti-Semite.
Open mouthed I listened to Ben's story until I suddenly interrupted him. "What happened to your navigator?" I asked
"I don't know," said Ben "He was originally from Czechoslovakia who studied in England. After the war, he went back to Prague to look for his family and found nobody. I kept in touch with him for a year and lost track of him after that. In 1948, I volunteered to serve in the Israeli Air Force and fought in the War of Independence. I flew the Mosquito, became a wing commander, I tried to find him with my contacts but had no luck."
"What was the name of your navigator?" I asked.
“Sam, Samuel Cohen was his name.”
"Wow" I said very much excited, "I suspected that much from your story, if I am not mistaken your navigator Sam Cohen is in Israel and I even know his address in Jerusalem."
"What? How come you know him?" he asked surprised.
"Sam Cohen was my English teacher in high school from 1950 to 1952. At that time, I was already interested in aviation and even learned to fly gliders. When Sam Cohen heard about it, he made me spell words like, atmosphere, altitude, sound barrier, dead-reckoning, wind-component and more. One day he saw me at a library in his neighbourhood and invited me for tea at his home. He showed me a navigation calculator and a shiny sextant he took out of a wooden box. He explained to me how it was used but did not say a single word about his military service or his flight experience."
A few months after the beer at the beerstubbe in Köln, Ben retired. Since that afternoon in Köln, I had made plans to bring the two ex RAF officers together for a surprise meeting at my home. "A retirement party for Ben sounds like a good idea" I said to my friends. My plan was to screen a movie about the Royal Air Force and the Battle of Britain, to have live baroque chamber music, which I knew they both liked, and to listen to their stories. Sam still lived in the same house. When I called, I got his daughter who arranged the meeting.
She greeted me at the door.
"He is not in" she said "he will be back soon, come in please."
I told her the purpose of my visit. She was very surprised
"Did he ever tell you his war time stories or speak of his flying experiences?
"No" she said, "not about the war and not even about his parents and the sister he lost.
I felt it was my duty to tell her word for word what Ben Feldman had told me. I explained to her the burden of the responsibility and the need of internal strength, to fly a flight of four Lancaster's in a fog with almost zero visibility. "Your father was a decorated hero; he got his citation from King George in person." I said at the end of my story.
I could see the tears in her eyes. She was sobbing quietly. "He never spoke about the four years he was in the army." She said. "Until today I didn't even know he was an officer. He never kept in touch with his Air Force friends and no one ever came to visit. You are the first one to uncover that hidden part of my father's life. Thank you so much."
It did not go so smoothly with Sam. First, he did not remember me. When he did, he did not want to participate with anything related to the Royal Air Force. Only after I had reminded him of the escape into the fog, and how Ben Feldman described him he agreed to come'
Sam and Ben challenged each other and told stories using the Air Force language and the slang of the forties. Ben told us that without Sam, the navigator, they would never have lived to attend this party. He also told us that from all of the recruits who had joined the squadron in 1941, only five people had made it to the end of the war: “ Sam, the navigator, my radio operator, my engineer, my bomb aimer and myself."
At some point I brought them back to the steeples and the escape in the fog.
Why didn't you 'Morse' home any messages? I said.
They looked at each other and started to laugh as if I had told a joke.
"Sending a message was very dangerous" said Sam. "Very very dangerous."
"Why?" I asked. 'Nobody could intercept an HF transmitter.'
Yes, you're right, but communication meant getting orders and disobeying orders in war time meant court-martial. Obeying orders on the other hand meant putting your life in the hands of some jerk in the command post who couldn’t assess your condition."
The evening was concluded with a long speech by Ben.
"In the squadron we were known as the 'old-peoples-home recruits.' We were five years older than the rest of the pilots. Nobody older than 26 was still flying. We did not explain why or how we survived. Had we explained it; nobody would have believed it. We kept it to ourselves, even my engineer and my radio operator did not always understand what Sam and I were doing. Many times I followed Sam's directions without understanding his logic myself. As you see, we are still here.
I said in the beginning of this meeting, and I will repeat it again I owe my life to Flight Lieutenant Cohen.
That evening at my place allowed Sam to finally live with his past, in peace. The four buried years of his Air Force service had come to life. The bond between Sam and his daughter tightened as she started to write down his stories.
Bringing Sam and Ben together again, after so many years was my greatest reward.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Obsession
The Obsession
Hagai Cohen
October 10, 2009
This is a story about an obsession. My obsession.
Over five decades from December 28, 1947, I was preoccupied with the disappearance of my friend, Yehuda. One sunny winter’s day, he was yanked out of my life. He had simply vanished. To find him and to understand what had happened became my obsession.
Three months before Yehuda disappeared, on the first day of fifth grade, the headmaster walked into the class holding the hand of a very strange looking boy. The boy wore blue short pants with braces, socks up to his knees and a plaid shirt. He carried a leather backpack and matching lunch box, that seemed expensive. He looked out of place and out of time.
"This is Yehuda Noymark", announced the headmaster, "a new immigrant from New Zealand." At that time, we saw many ‘new immigrant boys' whom we called refugees, or holocaust survivors. They were usually very thin, wore torn or patched clothes, were frightened and looked around for potential enemies. They were always hiding from any official looking person, as many of them were illegal immigrants in the eyes of the British government. However, this boy looked healthy. He was tanned, well dressed and athletic. I asked myself, why would anyone emigrate willingly from a peaceful place to Palestine, where war is imminent and the future obscure? To me it was an unexplained mystery.
I was still studying the new boy when the headmaster pointed at me and said: "You, Yakov - I am assigning you to help Yehuda with his homework and teach him Hebrew.” I was proud to be 'the chosen' and took to my assignment with all seriousness and devotion. I spent two to three hours a day helping him with his homework and his Hebrew. During these visits I met Yehuda's parents and his brother, David, but I never had any conversations with them as they always seemed preoccupied.
Three months later the family mystery became even more mysterious. "How was it that the new immigrants from New Zealand had found jobs so quickly, rented a large apartment and paid tuition for both of their children? In the Jerusalem of 1947, it was inconceivable. Unfortunately, my English and his Hebrew were too poor to conduct a real conversation so I could never discover the secret of the family’s success.
One Sunday morning, on my way to school, I heard sporadic automatic machine gun fire, the sound of police vehicles, whistles and sirens. In the classroom, from time to time, we heard the whine of bullets but the heavy stonewalls and high windows provided enough shelter for classes to continue as usual.
During the class, the headmaster burst through the door and ran straight to our surprised teacher. He whispered in his ear. The teacher’s face whitened. Without waiting for any response, the headmaster went to Yehuda, took him by his hand, said, "Come with me," and led him out. After they had left, we found our teacher in a faint on the floor. "Call the nurse," someone screamed and I dashed out. While running to the infirmary, I looked around for Yehuda but he was gone.
Class was dismissed, and we were sent home without knowing what it was all about. Although I had standing orders to go straight home, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked towards Yehuda's home. At the intersection near Yehuda's house a concertina wire police barrier blocked my way. A two-seater armored vehicle was parked in the middle of the intersection, and there were about fifteen spectators milling around.
"What happened?" I asked one of the bystanders. “The redheaded police sergeant in that armored vehicle shot the boy with the fancy bicycle.” I knew only one boy with a fancy bicycle, David, Yehuda's elder brother. "Was he killed?" I asked. "We don’t know. They took him away." He replied flatly.
I was still reeling from the shock when I saw Baruch Noymark, Yehuda's father running with a long barrel Parabelum handgun. The redheaded sergeant ducked into his armored car just as Noyman jumped over the concertina fence and shot at him. At that moment, I had the strange feeling that the two men knew one another. The redhead, realizing the danger, ducked into his turret and the armored car drove away in haste.
I went to where David had been shot, and a chill passed through my bones. David's bicycle was still there. I learned David had cycled down the street and when he was about 400 yards away, the police officer spotted him. David was apparently unafraid, as he had no reason to be scared. The sergeant opened fire when David was slowing down in front of the grocery store about 40 yards away. At that distance, the sergeant must have known David was unarmed and presented no danger to him or to the armored vehicle. So why would he have targeted David? I felt sick. I could not get rid of the notion that Baruch Noymark and the officer knew each other. Did the sergeant also know David? "This is murder," I said to myself.
The next day, the newspapers told a strange story:
"In yesterday’s Lechi attack on an Arab stronghold, several people were killed. British police officers accidently shot David Noymark, a boy of 15, who was caught in the crossfire." I could not believe what I read. It was no accident. This was an execution. The police sergeant ambushed David and, after a positive identification, shot to kill. Just as if he was foxhunting.
It still did not make sense to me. How could a new immigrant, such as Yehuda's father, who had only been in the country for three months, be in possession of a handgun, charge at a police officer equipped with a Bren machinegun and manage to chase him away?
I went to Yehuda's apartment and found the doors and windows shuttered, the place abandoned. None of the neighbors could tell me where the family had gone. "They will probably return later," they said. "This is their home. They have no place else to go." I walked there daily, but they never returned. I talked to my teacher and the headmaster, but they knew nothing.
In the days after David was killed, I looked in the obituaries for some mention of funeral arrangements and found nothing. Four days after the shooting, I read that the victims killed on Dec 28 were laid to rest in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. The funeral procession had been under heavy police protection. In fact, this group of people, David among them, whose names were not published, were the last Jews to be buried there until 1967.
With the disappearance of the Noymark family, I looked for them in every official publication. I checked every telephone book, every Board of Education report. I went from one school to another and asked for him with no luck. Where was this family? Why had they come to Israel in wartime? How did they manage to settle so quickly? How did a new immigrant warrant a 9mm handgun? Were my suspicions correct that the police officer knew Baruch and David Noymark? I could not stop thinking about them. No answers were forthcoming and life moved on for me, with Yehuda and his family pushed to the back of my mind.
Thirty-six years later, in the summer of 1983, while driving a truck in the Sinai desert during my army reserve duty, I urged the man by my side to ask me questions and to demand answers to keep me awake. The topic we discussed was the disappearance of people. The example he gave me was of a Yehuda Noymark, who changed his name to Noy after his father became the military governor of Acre in 1949. Though the name Yehuda Noy intrigued me, I dismissed it as irrelevant. A new immigrant becoming the military governor of Acre two years after landing in Haifa seemed a bit too farfetched. I could not believe it was the same Yehuda and I did not pursue the information.
Fifteen years later I started to write up my childhood experiences and decided that it was time to check the Acre story. I called the Acre city hall and asked about the first mayor of the city. The city spokesperson confirmed Baruch Noy was the first military governor, who was re-appointed mayor as a civilian, but lost the elections in 1953. She did not know any details about the family but she said, "Hassan, the administrator of Algazar Mosque worked for the family and he might know more."
Excitedly I called Hassan, who immediately confirmed that the Noy family for whom he had worked was Yehuda's family. He told me about Yehuda’s brothers, Bennie, Oded and Yehi’am. He named a street in Acre dedicated to David Noy. He told me also that the family had immigrated to Toronto, Canada. A street named after David Noy? This prompted me to search into David's background. What I found surprised me. David Noy, even at 15, was a member of the Hagana and was listed in the "memorial for fallen soldiers” book. It also mentioned that he had not been on duty when he was shot. Only three months in Israel and already a member of the Hagana? This information compounded the mystery.
Isaac Shelf, a classmate of mine with whom I had kept in contact, was, at that time, the Israeli ambassador to Canada. When I called him, he remembered Yehuda Noy and was aware of my research on the family. With Isaac’s help, we found ten Noy's in Toronto. I struck it lucky on my first call. A woman, D. Noy, told me she did not know Yehuda Noy personally, but that she often got phone calls asking for him. "Yehuda Noy worked for the U.J.A.," she said. "He was their fundraiser, and I understand that he returned to Israel."
"Well, back to square one," I said to myself with a sigh. (Had I not stopped with D. Noy I would have talked to Yehi’am Noy, David and Yehuda’s brother. His name was down my list and he lived in Toronto at the time.)
Endless phone calls followed that lead, yet I only ever found traces. The search sent me to the stock exchange, where I found that Yehuda's company was traded on the market. Then I followed a lead to the 'Medals and Coins Authority,' where he used to work. I found many tracks, but no Yehuda. Finally, in desperation, I read the names of all the Noys in the telephone book and found a Ricky and Yehuda Noy.
On the second ring, a young girl answered the phone and was reluctant to talk. I begged her to answer only one question "Was Yehuda Noy's father Baruch Noy, the first mayor of Acre?" Her answer was, “Yes.” "Ok," I said, "please write down my phone number and ask Yehuda to call me." I waited and waited for his call. It came two days later. After explaining to Yehuda who I was, I quickly cut to the chase. I reminded him of the day he had disappeared from the school; I told him of my passion to find him during all those years. Yehuda remembered nothing - neither me nor the events of that day. He did not want to talk. To him I was a total stranger invading his family and his privacy.
"Look Yehuda," I said before he could put the telephone down, "you were important to me. I was assigned to teach you Hebrew and to help you with your homework. You were my first responsibility. I can understand you're not remembering me, as it must have been very traumatic for you." I rapidly continued, "After only a few months in Israel and still adjusting, your brother was murdered, you had to leave school and even your home. However, your family remained a mystery to me from the first day we met. With your disappearance, I was left with many unanswered questions. All I want are a few moments of your time." Yehuda finally agreed to meet me.
We met at his Tel-Aviv home. Yehuda was pleasant, friendly and answered all of my questions, however he insisted he did not remember the school or me. I began to realize how traumatic this event must have been for Yehuda when he related what had happened. I started with the question, “How is it that a ‘normal family’ decides to immigrate to a war zone?
"What do you mean immigrate?” he replied. “I was born in Israel. My father was a civil engineer who specialized in bridges and harbors. He volunteered to the Jewish brigade, became an officer and was sent to Christchurch, New Zealand to build a harbor for the Pacific war. I was very young and simply forgot my Hebrew." “Fine,” I said, “That explains how he became an officer in the IDF so quickly. But how come your brother, David, at the age of fifteen, was a Hagana member?” "Simple," said Yehuda. "The school we went to in New Zealand was a special school for children of army personnel. It was located within the perimeter of the British camp. We received military training as part of our curriculum. David was a full-fledged soldier at the age of twelve.”
It was my turn to fill in the gaps for Yehuda. I told him how frightened he looked when the headmaster pulled him out of his chair. I told him about his father charging at the police sergeant and how he had shot and missed. "No," said Yehuda. “That couldn’t have happened. My father was a sharpshooter. He could never miss.” "Look," I said, “I saw your father shoot at him and, believe me, the police officer’s head was already within the armored vehicle when he did. I believe the officer knew your father, as he spotted your father long before he was in range." Yehuda confirmed my suspicions. "The redheaded police officer,” he said, “was part of a unit similar to the FBI or the Israel Shabak. He was investigating my father. He came to our house twice when my father was not at home. He was not friendly. We believe he knew who David was and shot him in revenge for what he called my father's treason. He believed that for a Major in Her Majesty’s Engineering Corps, to become a member of the Hagana was treachery. My father told me they never found any evidence to support the fact that he was a member of the Hagana. The police sergeant was furious that he could not make his accusations stick and thus took his anger out on David.
David was an easy target, identified by his unique bicycle. “My Father was on the other side of town when he got the message. It took him half-an-hour to get to the site. According to my Dad’s report, there was something between him and the police sergeant, but he never mentioned any shooting.”
"Where did you go after David was killed?" I asked. “For a few months we lived in the Palace hotel. My uncle who owned it, kept us under assumed names for a few months. All this time hiding in our claustrophobic room was very difficult for me, for my Mom, and for my brother who became depressed. We could not go to school. We did not go out even to shop. It was in fact a prison sentence. I could not believe this kind of life after our peaceful existence in Christchurch." “While still in hiding, my father was assigned as commander of the Mount Scopus Hebrew university campus, which was under Arab siege. Being a remote place and, like all other university campuses under British rule, it was out of bounds for the Police and the military. and very safe for my fasther. The hotel on the other hand was unbearable for me. It felt like losing my father. I had nothing to keep me occupied, no English books, and the Hebrew books there, I could not read."
“Later we moved to another hiding place, very close to the Schneller army camp. At that time, we got fake Id's and it became a little better. The sergeant in charge of the investigation had returned to England and no one else in the investigating unit pursued the case. We came out of hiding on May 15, 1948 when the British mandate ended. We moved with my father's unit to the Galilee. He became a staff officer in the Carmeli Division and was a member in the group planning the Yehi’am supply convoy. However, the convoy was ambushed and 46 of the 90 people, who comprised the convoy, died. My father took it as a personal failure and became depressed, which affected us all. When my youngest brother was born, my father named him Yehi’am, after that unfortunate convoy.
“After the Israeli Defense Forces captured Acre, my father was assigned as military governor. Later he became the first civilian Mayor. During his term, he created a model town in which Jews and Arabs lived peacefully side by side.” With that the 50–year-old mystery was solved, and I felt lucky and grateful to be a minor player in the story of Yehuda Noy and his extraordinary family.
*****
Hagai Cohen
October 10, 2009
This is a story about an obsession. My obsession.
Over five decades from December 28, 1947, I was preoccupied with the disappearance of my friend, Yehuda. One sunny winter’s day, he was yanked out of my life. He had simply vanished. To find him and to understand what had happened became my obsession.
Three months before Yehuda disappeared, on the first day of fifth grade, the headmaster walked into the class holding the hand of a very strange looking boy. The boy wore blue short pants with braces, socks up to his knees and a plaid shirt. He carried a leather backpack and matching lunch box, that seemed expensive. He looked out of place and out of time.
"This is Yehuda Noymark", announced the headmaster, "a new immigrant from New Zealand." At that time, we saw many ‘new immigrant boys' whom we called refugees, or holocaust survivors. They were usually very thin, wore torn or patched clothes, were frightened and looked around for potential enemies. They were always hiding from any official looking person, as many of them were illegal immigrants in the eyes of the British government. However, this boy looked healthy. He was tanned, well dressed and athletic. I asked myself, why would anyone emigrate willingly from a peaceful place to Palestine, where war is imminent and the future obscure? To me it was an unexplained mystery.
I was still studying the new boy when the headmaster pointed at me and said: "You, Yakov - I am assigning you to help Yehuda with his homework and teach him Hebrew.” I was proud to be 'the chosen' and took to my assignment with all seriousness and devotion. I spent two to three hours a day helping him with his homework and his Hebrew. During these visits I met Yehuda's parents and his brother, David, but I never had any conversations with them as they always seemed preoccupied.
Three months later the family mystery became even more mysterious. "How was it that the new immigrants from New Zealand had found jobs so quickly, rented a large apartment and paid tuition for both of their children? In the Jerusalem of 1947, it was inconceivable. Unfortunately, my English and his Hebrew were too poor to conduct a real conversation so I could never discover the secret of the family’s success.
One Sunday morning, on my way to school, I heard sporadic automatic machine gun fire, the sound of police vehicles, whistles and sirens. In the classroom, from time to time, we heard the whine of bullets but the heavy stonewalls and high windows provided enough shelter for classes to continue as usual.
During the class, the headmaster burst through the door and ran straight to our surprised teacher. He whispered in his ear. The teacher’s face whitened. Without waiting for any response, the headmaster went to Yehuda, took him by his hand, said, "Come with me," and led him out. After they had left, we found our teacher in a faint on the floor. "Call the nurse," someone screamed and I dashed out. While running to the infirmary, I looked around for Yehuda but he was gone.
Class was dismissed, and we were sent home without knowing what it was all about. Although I had standing orders to go straight home, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked towards Yehuda's home. At the intersection near Yehuda's house a concertina wire police barrier blocked my way. A two-seater armored vehicle was parked in the middle of the intersection, and there were about fifteen spectators milling around.
"What happened?" I asked one of the bystanders. “The redheaded police sergeant in that armored vehicle shot the boy with the fancy bicycle.” I knew only one boy with a fancy bicycle, David, Yehuda's elder brother. "Was he killed?" I asked. "We don’t know. They took him away." He replied flatly.
I was still reeling from the shock when I saw Baruch Noymark, Yehuda's father running with a long barrel Parabelum handgun. The redheaded sergeant ducked into his armored car just as Noyman jumped over the concertina fence and shot at him. At that moment, I had the strange feeling that the two men knew one another. The redhead, realizing the danger, ducked into his turret and the armored car drove away in haste.
I went to where David had been shot, and a chill passed through my bones. David's bicycle was still there. I learned David had cycled down the street and when he was about 400 yards away, the police officer spotted him. David was apparently unafraid, as he had no reason to be scared. The sergeant opened fire when David was slowing down in front of the grocery store about 40 yards away. At that distance, the sergeant must have known David was unarmed and presented no danger to him or to the armored vehicle. So why would he have targeted David? I felt sick. I could not get rid of the notion that Baruch Noymark and the officer knew each other. Did the sergeant also know David? "This is murder," I said to myself.
The next day, the newspapers told a strange story:
"In yesterday’s Lechi attack on an Arab stronghold, several people were killed. British police officers accidently shot David Noymark, a boy of 15, who was caught in the crossfire." I could not believe what I read. It was no accident. This was an execution. The police sergeant ambushed David and, after a positive identification, shot to kill. Just as if he was foxhunting.
It still did not make sense to me. How could a new immigrant, such as Yehuda's father, who had only been in the country for three months, be in possession of a handgun, charge at a police officer equipped with a Bren machinegun and manage to chase him away?
I went to Yehuda's apartment and found the doors and windows shuttered, the place abandoned. None of the neighbors could tell me where the family had gone. "They will probably return later," they said. "This is their home. They have no place else to go." I walked there daily, but they never returned. I talked to my teacher and the headmaster, but they knew nothing.
In the days after David was killed, I looked in the obituaries for some mention of funeral arrangements and found nothing. Four days after the shooting, I read that the victims killed on Dec 28 were laid to rest in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. The funeral procession had been under heavy police protection. In fact, this group of people, David among them, whose names were not published, were the last Jews to be buried there until 1967.
With the disappearance of the Noymark family, I looked for them in every official publication. I checked every telephone book, every Board of Education report. I went from one school to another and asked for him with no luck. Where was this family? Why had they come to Israel in wartime? How did they manage to settle so quickly? How did a new immigrant warrant a 9mm handgun? Were my suspicions correct that the police officer knew Baruch and David Noymark? I could not stop thinking about them. No answers were forthcoming and life moved on for me, with Yehuda and his family pushed to the back of my mind.
Thirty-six years later, in the summer of 1983, while driving a truck in the Sinai desert during my army reserve duty, I urged the man by my side to ask me questions and to demand answers to keep me awake. The topic we discussed was the disappearance of people. The example he gave me was of a Yehuda Noymark, who changed his name to Noy after his father became the military governor of Acre in 1949. Though the name Yehuda Noy intrigued me, I dismissed it as irrelevant. A new immigrant becoming the military governor of Acre two years after landing in Haifa seemed a bit too farfetched. I could not believe it was the same Yehuda and I did not pursue the information.
Fifteen years later I started to write up my childhood experiences and decided that it was time to check the Acre story. I called the Acre city hall and asked about the first mayor of the city. The city spokesperson confirmed Baruch Noy was the first military governor, who was re-appointed mayor as a civilian, but lost the elections in 1953. She did not know any details about the family but she said, "Hassan, the administrator of Algazar Mosque worked for the family and he might know more."
Excitedly I called Hassan, who immediately confirmed that the Noy family for whom he had worked was Yehuda's family. He told me about Yehuda’s brothers, Bennie, Oded and Yehi’am. He named a street in Acre dedicated to David Noy. He told me also that the family had immigrated to Toronto, Canada. A street named after David Noy? This prompted me to search into David's background. What I found surprised me. David Noy, even at 15, was a member of the Hagana and was listed in the "memorial for fallen soldiers” book. It also mentioned that he had not been on duty when he was shot. Only three months in Israel and already a member of the Hagana? This information compounded the mystery.
Isaac Shelf, a classmate of mine with whom I had kept in contact, was, at that time, the Israeli ambassador to Canada. When I called him, he remembered Yehuda Noy and was aware of my research on the family. With Isaac’s help, we found ten Noy's in Toronto. I struck it lucky on my first call. A woman, D. Noy, told me she did not know Yehuda Noy personally, but that she often got phone calls asking for him. "Yehuda Noy worked for the U.J.A.," she said. "He was their fundraiser, and I understand that he returned to Israel."
"Well, back to square one," I said to myself with a sigh. (Had I not stopped with D. Noy I would have talked to Yehi’am Noy, David and Yehuda’s brother. His name was down my list and he lived in Toronto at the time.)
Endless phone calls followed that lead, yet I only ever found traces. The search sent me to the stock exchange, where I found that Yehuda's company was traded on the market. Then I followed a lead to the 'Medals and Coins Authority,' where he used to work. I found many tracks, but no Yehuda. Finally, in desperation, I read the names of all the Noys in the telephone book and found a Ricky and Yehuda Noy.
On the second ring, a young girl answered the phone and was reluctant to talk. I begged her to answer only one question "Was Yehuda Noy's father Baruch Noy, the first mayor of Acre?" Her answer was, “Yes.” "Ok," I said, "please write down my phone number and ask Yehuda to call me." I waited and waited for his call. It came two days later. After explaining to Yehuda who I was, I quickly cut to the chase. I reminded him of the day he had disappeared from the school; I told him of my passion to find him during all those years. Yehuda remembered nothing - neither me nor the events of that day. He did not want to talk. To him I was a total stranger invading his family and his privacy.
"Look Yehuda," I said before he could put the telephone down, "you were important to me. I was assigned to teach you Hebrew and to help you with your homework. You were my first responsibility. I can understand you're not remembering me, as it must have been very traumatic for you." I rapidly continued, "After only a few months in Israel and still adjusting, your brother was murdered, you had to leave school and even your home. However, your family remained a mystery to me from the first day we met. With your disappearance, I was left with many unanswered questions. All I want are a few moments of your time." Yehuda finally agreed to meet me.
We met at his Tel-Aviv home. Yehuda was pleasant, friendly and answered all of my questions, however he insisted he did not remember the school or me. I began to realize how traumatic this event must have been for Yehuda when he related what had happened. I started with the question, “How is it that a ‘normal family’ decides to immigrate to a war zone?
"What do you mean immigrate?” he replied. “I was born in Israel. My father was a civil engineer who specialized in bridges and harbors. He volunteered to the Jewish brigade, became an officer and was sent to Christchurch, New Zealand to build a harbor for the Pacific war. I was very young and simply forgot my Hebrew." “Fine,” I said, “That explains how he became an officer in the IDF so quickly. But how come your brother, David, at the age of fifteen, was a Hagana member?” "Simple," said Yehuda. "The school we went to in New Zealand was a special school for children of army personnel. It was located within the perimeter of the British camp. We received military training as part of our curriculum. David was a full-fledged soldier at the age of twelve.”
It was my turn to fill in the gaps for Yehuda. I told him how frightened he looked when the headmaster pulled him out of his chair. I told him about his father charging at the police sergeant and how he had shot and missed. "No," said Yehuda. “That couldn’t have happened. My father was a sharpshooter. He could never miss.” "Look," I said, “I saw your father shoot at him and, believe me, the police officer’s head was already within the armored vehicle when he did. I believe the officer knew your father, as he spotted your father long before he was in range." Yehuda confirmed my suspicions. "The redheaded police officer,” he said, “was part of a unit similar to the FBI or the Israel Shabak. He was investigating my father. He came to our house twice when my father was not at home. He was not friendly. We believe he knew who David was and shot him in revenge for what he called my father's treason. He believed that for a Major in Her Majesty’s Engineering Corps, to become a member of the Hagana was treachery. My father told me they never found any evidence to support the fact that he was a member of the Hagana. The police sergeant was furious that he could not make his accusations stick and thus took his anger out on David.
David was an easy target, identified by his unique bicycle. “My Father was on the other side of town when he got the message. It took him half-an-hour to get to the site. According to my Dad’s report, there was something between him and the police sergeant, but he never mentioned any shooting.”
"Where did you go after David was killed?" I asked. “For a few months we lived in the Palace hotel. My uncle who owned it, kept us under assumed names for a few months. All this time hiding in our claustrophobic room was very difficult for me, for my Mom, and for my brother who became depressed. We could not go to school. We did not go out even to shop. It was in fact a prison sentence. I could not believe this kind of life after our peaceful existence in Christchurch." “While still in hiding, my father was assigned as commander of the Mount Scopus Hebrew university campus, which was under Arab siege. Being a remote place and, like all other university campuses under British rule, it was out of bounds for the Police and the military. and very safe for my fasther. The hotel on the other hand was unbearable for me. It felt like losing my father. I had nothing to keep me occupied, no English books, and the Hebrew books there, I could not read."
“Later we moved to another hiding place, very close to the Schneller army camp. At that time, we got fake Id's and it became a little better. The sergeant in charge of the investigation had returned to England and no one else in the investigating unit pursued the case. We came out of hiding on May 15, 1948 when the British mandate ended. We moved with my father's unit to the Galilee. He became a staff officer in the Carmeli Division and was a member in the group planning the Yehi’am supply convoy. However, the convoy was ambushed and 46 of the 90 people, who comprised the convoy, died. My father took it as a personal failure and became depressed, which affected us all. When my youngest brother was born, my father named him Yehi’am, after that unfortunate convoy.
“After the Israeli Defense Forces captured Acre, my father was assigned as military governor. Later he became the first civilian Mayor. During his term, he created a model town in which Jews and Arabs lived peacefully side by side.” With that the 50–year-old mystery was solved, and I felt lucky and grateful to be a minor player in the story of Yehuda Noy and his extraordinary family.
*****
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The case of rigor mortis
THE CASE OF RIGOR MORTIS
Hagai Cohen
“B-R-E-A-K T-H-E R-I-G-O-R M-O-R-T-I-S. B-R-E-A-K T-H-E R-I-G-O-R M-O-R-T-I-S,” came the garbled voice from the speakers on the flight deck. “P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-P-E-A-T Y-O-U-R M-E-S-S-A-G-E, P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-P-E-A-T Y-O-U-R M-E-S-S-A-G-E” I said into the mike. The conversation went through the H.F. radio of the 707 jetliner. We were on the ground in Teheran. “U-S-E F-O-R-C-E, U-S-E F-O-R-C-E. Came the scratchy voice again. Obviously, my partner across the ‘ether’ didn’t hear my last request and after he said: “use force” twice our communication was lost altogether.
“Now what?” I knew I had to break the rigor mortis. I also knew I had to use force. I had no idea what it meant.
Seven hours earlier, while having my early morning coffee, a phone call had disturbed my peace. I was on “immediate standby,” meaning, ready to fly at a short notice. I was surprised when I heard the crew assignment officer telling me: “Be ready a.s.a.p. a cab is already waiting outside.” It had never happened before. What she could have added to the strange message was: “The chief pilot himself will brief you, prepare for an overnight stay.”
I put on my uniform, grabbed my pre-packed bag, and got in the cab.
At the dispatch office, our chief pilot laconically briefed us: “There was an accident outside of Teheran, a bus with fifty people on board, tourists from South Africa, fell off a cliff, many are dead the rest have injuries of various degrees. We were chartered to fly them home. The crew is the standby crew except for purser Benny Kaufman who was removed from his scheduled flight. Benny is a qualified nurse and is experienced in handling emergencies; he was the chief nurse in a military trauma ward.”
Benny was a very small man, and to imagine him as an army major, running an emergency room was almost impossible. Benny himself joked, “In a ‘civilized’ country, I would make an excellent jockey, not a purser.”
Our flight was planned from Tel Aviv to Teheran and from Teheran, direct to Johannesburg.
Our ground crew in Tel-Aviv removed seats and installed stretchers. Oxygen cylinders and life support equipment were fastened around the cabin. Benny felt at home.
We flew fast and we made it at a record time. Exactly five hours after I’d left my coffee behind, we touched down in Teheran International Airport. Ground control directed us to a remote military section of the airport. The ambulances were already there, Maintenance connected the fuel truck. A cargo high loader was used for the stretchers. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly.
Our navigator got sick when he saw and smelled the injured. “I am preparing the flight,” he said and closed himself in the cockpit.
The five cabin attendants, three women and two men, had no idea what to do. Benny found it easier to work alone rather than delegating authority. At one stage, Benny asked for my help. The oxygen fittings were of a different standard as were the electrical connectors. We had to improvise. Benny was on top of the operation. It took about an hour to board the wounded, to attach them to the IVs, the monitors and to the oxygen tanks. We wondered where the doctor was. He was supposed to join us and do the work.
The outside temperature was now forty centigrade; inside the cabin it was a little better as we had connected an external air conditioner, but despite it, the temperature inside was 34 degrees and rising.
We had almost completed the loading, when the station manager came with a package of bad news: “Iranian morticians, whom we hired to place the bodies in the coffins, and the doctor engaged to accompany the wounded, have been detained outside the base gates, they do not have the necessary pass.”
“I don't understand,” I said. “Where are the bodies?”
“They’re in the hangar,” said the station manager.
“Let’s have a look,” I said. The station manager was under tremendous stress and completely lost. He had no idea whom to bribe, or how to unravel the bureaucracy. The army was not on his pay roll.
The horrifying scene inside the hangar was sickeningly hard to take. Fifteen coffins were aligned nicely by the wall, but in the middle of the hangar, was, an impressive pile of fifteen entangled bodies, all in odd positions and hard as wooden statues.
“What happened”? I asked the station manager
“The police threw the bodies on a hired dump truck and drove it to the middle of the hangar, dumped their cargo and drove away. There were a few moments of silence. I made a mental note to avoid Iranian treatment, dead or alive.
“O.K. I said to the station manager “let's call Tel Aviv. We have a great military relationship with the Shah, so perhaps a call from our ministry of defense will solve the problem.” I got on the H.F radio and called our dispatch radio operator. I explained our situation. He did not know whom to call and I had the feeling I was wasting time.
“Get me a phone patch to Abu Kabir,” I said and he put me through. The pathologist in charge had difficulty understanding who I was, why I was calling from Teheran, and how to communicate on a two-way radio. Ten precious minutes were lost to establish the communication, when finally we understood each other the transmission became garbled. “B-r-e-a-k- the- r-i-g-o-r m-o-r-t-i-s, u-s-e- f-o-r-c-e”. Those were the last words, said over the radio on the subject before the transmission went dead. Everybody focused on me, I spoke to the pathologist, and I was expected to come with the answers.
I left the crew in the cockpit and went to Benny in the cabin “Benny” I asked, “doesn't rigor mortis goes away between eight to twelve hours after it sets in?”
"Yes."
“Is there any way to accelerate the process?"
“Damned if I know,” said Benny.
“The Pathologist said we should break the rigor mortis. Do you have any idea what he meant?”
“No,” said Benny, “Let's go and look.”
With Benny next to me, I got a little more courageous and stopped two feet short of the pile. I could see and hear the thousands of flies hovering over the bodies.
“Use force, use force,” the pathologist last words were pounding in my head. I looked at the pile and locked on to one of the bodies who looked less frightening than the rest. Only his legs were out and one knee was bent. He looked more like a mechanic working underneath a car than a dead person. I came close to him and pressed with my foot on the knee. The leg was as hard as a welded construction. It did not move at all, nothing happened, I tried harder, nothing. I climbed on the knee. I might have been climbing a rock. I jumped on it. As I landed on the knee, as if in magic the knee became loose and straightened under my foot, in fact I almost tripped and joined the pile. At that moment, I wanted to run naked in the streets screaming Eureka.
“Get the entry permit just for the doctor,” I said to the station manager. "Benny and I will take care of the bodies.” I did not want him to be present when Benny and I jumped on them.
After the discovery, it was strictly business; we moved from one to the other, softened them, straightened them, and put them in the coffins. Physically, it was not an easy job as Benny was too light and I am not heavy-set myself. We worked fast and, half an hour later, the bodies were in sealed coffins, packed with dry ice. Benny and I returned to the plane. The air in the cabin had become extremely unpleasant. The temperature was rising rapidly and the wounded were beginning to moan and complain, as their sedation wore off. The station manager returned without the doctor. Benny was livid and said, “With or without the doctor we have to take the aircraft off the ground. It’s a life threatening situation.”
I had to agree but for different reasons. The outside temperature was now forty-two centigrade and very soon, takeoff would be impossible. We were already pushing the performance envelope. After a short discussion, we decided to leave without the doctor.
Benny assured us he could handle it; after all, preparing injured for transportation was Benny’s expertise. Nervously, I complied. “ after the cargo doors are closed we’ll start and go” I said
The takeoff was on performance boundaries, 3500’ field elevation with 42 degrees, 70 ton of fuel for the nine-hour flight put the takeoff run on the margins of safety.
Benny’s competence and his dedication to the people caused them to arrive in better shape than they departed. They were very grateful to him.
I have no recollection of the flight. I remember only that none of us slept the night after. In the morning, my entire crew was in a deeply depressed state. I suggested we pay a visit together to ‘our patients’ in the hospital as “therapy.”
The visit was highly emotional. We all cried. I was relieved to learn that all the wounded were out of danger. I could not believe we had taken such a huge responsibility, flying without a doctor.
My rigor mortis trauma stayed with me and for years after, I had recurrent nightmares in which the “mechanic” from underneath the pile was chasing me with a thirty-inch spanner.
It took three decades after that incident before the mechanic stopped haunting me.
Sometimes however, especially at wedding banquets, when they serve chicken legs, I relive the memories. The chicken legs served are unquestionably in a state of rigor mortis, and as there is no way I can jump on them, I do not risk my teeth on wedding drumsticks!.
Hagai Cohen
“B-R-E-A-K T-H-E R-I-G-O-R M-O-R-T-I-S. B-R-E-A-K T-H-E R-I-G-O-R M-O-R-T-I-S,” came the garbled voice from the speakers on the flight deck. “P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-P-E-A-T Y-O-U-R M-E-S-S-A-G-E, P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-P-E-A-T Y-O-U-R M-E-S-S-A-G-E” I said into the mike. The conversation went through the H.F. radio of the 707 jetliner. We were on the ground in Teheran. “U-S-E F-O-R-C-E, U-S-E F-O-R-C-E. Came the scratchy voice again. Obviously, my partner across the ‘ether’ didn’t hear my last request and after he said: “use force” twice our communication was lost altogether.
“Now what?” I knew I had to break the rigor mortis. I also knew I had to use force. I had no idea what it meant.
Seven hours earlier, while having my early morning coffee, a phone call had disturbed my peace. I was on “immediate standby,” meaning, ready to fly at a short notice. I was surprised when I heard the crew assignment officer telling me: “Be ready a.s.a.p. a cab is already waiting outside.” It had never happened before. What she could have added to the strange message was: “The chief pilot himself will brief you, prepare for an overnight stay.”
I put on my uniform, grabbed my pre-packed bag, and got in the cab.
At the dispatch office, our chief pilot laconically briefed us: “There was an accident outside of Teheran, a bus with fifty people on board, tourists from South Africa, fell off a cliff, many are dead the rest have injuries of various degrees. We were chartered to fly them home. The crew is the standby crew except for purser Benny Kaufman who was removed from his scheduled flight. Benny is a qualified nurse and is experienced in handling emergencies; he was the chief nurse in a military trauma ward.”
Benny was a very small man, and to imagine him as an army major, running an emergency room was almost impossible. Benny himself joked, “In a ‘civilized’ country, I would make an excellent jockey, not a purser.”
Our flight was planned from Tel Aviv to Teheran and from Teheran, direct to Johannesburg.
Our ground crew in Tel-Aviv removed seats and installed stretchers. Oxygen cylinders and life support equipment were fastened around the cabin. Benny felt at home.
We flew fast and we made it at a record time. Exactly five hours after I’d left my coffee behind, we touched down in Teheran International Airport. Ground control directed us to a remote military section of the airport. The ambulances were already there, Maintenance connected the fuel truck. A cargo high loader was used for the stretchers. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly.
Our navigator got sick when he saw and smelled the injured. “I am preparing the flight,” he said and closed himself in the cockpit.
The five cabin attendants, three women and two men, had no idea what to do. Benny found it easier to work alone rather than delegating authority. At one stage, Benny asked for my help. The oxygen fittings were of a different standard as were the electrical connectors. We had to improvise. Benny was on top of the operation. It took about an hour to board the wounded, to attach them to the IVs, the monitors and to the oxygen tanks. We wondered where the doctor was. He was supposed to join us and do the work.
The outside temperature was now forty centigrade; inside the cabin it was a little better as we had connected an external air conditioner, but despite it, the temperature inside was 34 degrees and rising.
We had almost completed the loading, when the station manager came with a package of bad news: “Iranian morticians, whom we hired to place the bodies in the coffins, and the doctor engaged to accompany the wounded, have been detained outside the base gates, they do not have the necessary pass.”
“I don't understand,” I said. “Where are the bodies?”
“They’re in the hangar,” said the station manager.
“Let’s have a look,” I said. The station manager was under tremendous stress and completely lost. He had no idea whom to bribe, or how to unravel the bureaucracy. The army was not on his pay roll.
The horrifying scene inside the hangar was sickeningly hard to take. Fifteen coffins were aligned nicely by the wall, but in the middle of the hangar, was, an impressive pile of fifteen entangled bodies, all in odd positions and hard as wooden statues.
“What happened”? I asked the station manager
“The police threw the bodies on a hired dump truck and drove it to the middle of the hangar, dumped their cargo and drove away. There were a few moments of silence. I made a mental note to avoid Iranian treatment, dead or alive.
“O.K. I said to the station manager “let's call Tel Aviv. We have a great military relationship with the Shah, so perhaps a call from our ministry of defense will solve the problem.” I got on the H.F radio and called our dispatch radio operator. I explained our situation. He did not know whom to call and I had the feeling I was wasting time.
“Get me a phone patch to Abu Kabir,” I said and he put me through. The pathologist in charge had difficulty understanding who I was, why I was calling from Teheran, and how to communicate on a two-way radio. Ten precious minutes were lost to establish the communication, when finally we understood each other the transmission became garbled. “B-r-e-a-k- the- r-i-g-o-r m-o-r-t-i-s, u-s-e- f-o-r-c-e”. Those were the last words, said over the radio on the subject before the transmission went dead. Everybody focused on me, I spoke to the pathologist, and I was expected to come with the answers.
I left the crew in the cockpit and went to Benny in the cabin “Benny” I asked, “doesn't rigor mortis goes away between eight to twelve hours after it sets in?”
"Yes."
“Is there any way to accelerate the process?"
“Damned if I know,” said Benny.
“The Pathologist said we should break the rigor mortis. Do you have any idea what he meant?”
“No,” said Benny, “Let's go and look.”
With Benny next to me, I got a little more courageous and stopped two feet short of the pile. I could see and hear the thousands of flies hovering over the bodies.
“Use force, use force,” the pathologist last words were pounding in my head. I looked at the pile and locked on to one of the bodies who looked less frightening than the rest. Only his legs were out and one knee was bent. He looked more like a mechanic working underneath a car than a dead person. I came close to him and pressed with my foot on the knee. The leg was as hard as a welded construction. It did not move at all, nothing happened, I tried harder, nothing. I climbed on the knee. I might have been climbing a rock. I jumped on it. As I landed on the knee, as if in magic the knee became loose and straightened under my foot, in fact I almost tripped and joined the pile. At that moment, I wanted to run naked in the streets screaming Eureka.
“Get the entry permit just for the doctor,” I said to the station manager. "Benny and I will take care of the bodies.” I did not want him to be present when Benny and I jumped on them.
After the discovery, it was strictly business; we moved from one to the other, softened them, straightened them, and put them in the coffins. Physically, it was not an easy job as Benny was too light and I am not heavy-set myself. We worked fast and, half an hour later, the bodies were in sealed coffins, packed with dry ice. Benny and I returned to the plane. The air in the cabin had become extremely unpleasant. The temperature was rising rapidly and the wounded were beginning to moan and complain, as their sedation wore off. The station manager returned without the doctor. Benny was livid and said, “With or without the doctor we have to take the aircraft off the ground. It’s a life threatening situation.”
I had to agree but for different reasons. The outside temperature was now forty-two centigrade and very soon, takeoff would be impossible. We were already pushing the performance envelope. After a short discussion, we decided to leave without the doctor.
Benny assured us he could handle it; after all, preparing injured for transportation was Benny’s expertise. Nervously, I complied. “ after the cargo doors are closed we’ll start and go” I said
The takeoff was on performance boundaries, 3500’ field elevation with 42 degrees, 70 ton of fuel for the nine-hour flight put the takeoff run on the margins of safety.
Benny’s competence and his dedication to the people caused them to arrive in better shape than they departed. They were very grateful to him.
I have no recollection of the flight. I remember only that none of us slept the night after. In the morning, my entire crew was in a deeply depressed state. I suggested we pay a visit together to ‘our patients’ in the hospital as “therapy.”
The visit was highly emotional. We all cried. I was relieved to learn that all the wounded were out of danger. I could not believe we had taken such a huge responsibility, flying without a doctor.
My rigor mortis trauma stayed with me and for years after, I had recurrent nightmares in which the “mechanic” from underneath the pile was chasing me with a thirty-inch spanner.
It took three decades after that incident before the mechanic stopped haunting me.
Sometimes however, especially at wedding banquets, when they serve chicken legs, I relive the memories. The chicken legs served are unquestionably in a state of rigor mortis, and as there is no way I can jump on them, I do not risk my teeth on wedding drumsticks!.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
The Party
The party
Hagai Cohen
I found a lilac envelope in my mailbox. There was no return address. I slit open the envelope and removed the contents. The name Rachel Halevi was on top of the personal stationary. Rachel Halevi, a member of the elite, and a classmate of mine, had never taken me into her circle of friends. I was therefore surprised to receive her note.
Dear Yakov
As you well know, the Principal cancelled the end of year party for our class. I am planning to host the class party in my garden instead. I want to ask you a favor. It's not easy for me as we were never close friends and, of course, you may say no. I want you to help me organize and 'produce' the party. I know you can do it. I also know you can write Maqams* (I kept some of the things you wrote in the past and I think you are great). You are the only one who can turn boring parties into memorable events.
If you agree to help, please do not spare the sarcasm. I want you to bring the class snobs down to size.
Please, please do it for me. I am counting on you.
Your friend, Rachel"
Of course, I agreed. It was a chance to see the house of the richest family in Jerusalem.
Rachel was smart, pretty and never spoke about her wealth. Her house was a medium sized palace with an indoor swimming pool and a huge garden. The circular foyer with a diameter of fifteen meters was paved with Carrara marble in which was centered a single huge red marble rose.
Rachel Halevi although issued with a birth permit to be a snob, was in fact, quite modest. Still, it was strange to hear her call the others snobs.
She and I met several times to plan every step of the party. Timing was an important element in my plans and it was up to Rachel to play host and keep to the timing.
Our ‘superior’ classmates played solo instruments. Ruth Goldberg was the first. She played on her flute an obscure piece. It was hard to tell if she played out of tune or what we heard was the nature of the piece. Yair Goodman was next; he played a violin solo, the Chacone by Bach. Although he played better than Ruth, his high tones appeared to come from a circular saw. Some other girl, whose name I have forgotten, played a nocturne by Chopin on the baby grand. It put us to sleep and must have made Chopin squirm in his grave. At this stage, every guest was, as planned, pretty much annoyed. This prelude was a necessary step in my plan to deflate the over-inflated egos of the 'musicians.'
Hagai Cohen
I found a lilac envelope in my mailbox. There was no return address. I slit open the envelope and removed the contents. The name Rachel Halevi was on top of the personal stationary. Rachel Halevi, a member of the elite, and a classmate of mine, had never taken me into her circle of friends. I was therefore surprised to receive her note.
Dear Yakov
As you well know, the Principal cancelled the end of year party for our class. I am planning to host the class party in my garden instead. I want to ask you a favor. It's not easy for me as we were never close friends and, of course, you may say no. I want you to help me organize and 'produce' the party. I know you can do it. I also know you can write Maqams* (I kept some of the things you wrote in the past and I think you are great). You are the only one who can turn boring parties into memorable events.
If you agree to help, please do not spare the sarcasm. I want you to bring the class snobs down to size.
Please, please do it for me. I am counting on you.
Your friend, Rachel"
Of course, I agreed. It was a chance to see the house of the richest family in Jerusalem.
Rachel was smart, pretty and never spoke about her wealth. Her house was a medium sized palace with an indoor swimming pool and a huge garden. The circular foyer with a diameter of fifteen meters was paved with Carrara marble in which was centered a single huge red marble rose.
Rachel Halevi although issued with a birth permit to be a snob, was in fact, quite modest. Still, it was strange to hear her call the others snobs.
She and I met several times to plan every step of the party. Timing was an important element in my plans and it was up to Rachel to play host and keep to the timing.
Our ‘superior’ classmates played solo instruments. Ruth Goldberg was the first. She played on her flute an obscure piece. It was hard to tell if she played out of tune or what we heard was the nature of the piece. Yair Goodman was next; he played a violin solo, the Chacone by Bach. Although he played better than Ruth, his high tones appeared to come from a circular saw. Some other girl, whose name I have forgotten, played a nocturne by Chopin on the baby grand. It put us to sleep and must have made Chopin squirm in his grave. At this stage, every guest was, as planned, pretty much annoyed. This prelude was a necessary step in my plan to deflate the over-inflated egos of the 'musicians.'
Amos Dagan came next. He was a real musician and he was party to our plans. He loved to imitate other instruments on his accordion and could compose and play in any style and any type of music. However, his "inferior instrument" was a target for scorn from our classmates, who didn’t appreciate his talents. Amos was to imitate the flute, the violin and the piano. He repeated the mistakes, remembering exactly the places where they had played out of tune and he played it comically. It put those other musicians' noses out of joint.
I came to the party well prepared with a chain of trivia questions, many elephant joke and with personalized Maqams. Only a few of my fellow classmates escaped the sarcasm. About thirty verses, all in rhyme, dealt with our principal, our teachers, and our classmates. I had rehearsed the 'show' with Amos Dagan, who accompanied me with his musical improvisations.
I had promised my classmates to read a 'self-incriminating' maqam, but had no intention of doing so. I stalled, until the audience started booing. As planned, I gave Rachel a pre-arranged signal. She moved swiftly towards me with a phone on a long extension and said, "Excuse me, Yakov; you forgot to make your call.”
“Oh, thank you so much, it slipped my mind.” I said.
I took the phone, begged excuse from the audience and dialed the number I had picked earlier from a phone book.
There was dead silence as I was dialing. I had aroused audience curiousty. Whom was I calling and what could be so important for me to stop the the verses?
“Mr. Orleansky?”
“Yes,” answered an old man’s voice at the other end.
“Mr. Samuel Orleansky?” I asked again.
“Yes,” said the man.
“Mr. Samuel Orleansky of 17 Balfour Street in Haifa?”
“Yes – who's calling please”?
“Thank God, Mr. Orleansky, I was afraid I woke the wrong person. Am I glad it’s you, Mr. Orleansky. My name is Yakov,” I said. “I have just arrived from Orleans in France. I met a relative of yours, who sends her regards. Her name is Jeanne - Jeanne D’Arc - also known as the Maid of Orleans.”
The old man paused and then said: "Please wait a moment," and went to consult his wife.
Mr. Samuel Orleansky did not keep me waiting long. “There must be some mistake, Mr. Yakov. We do not have any relatives in France.”
“You are Mr. Orleansky aren’t you?” I asked. “What do you want me to tell her when I go back?” I could barely control the laughter in my voice.
"You may go back to hell where you belong, you idiot nut and don’t you dare wake people up again at two o’clock in the morning. You are a schmock,” screamed the man and hung up. Of course, the conversation was heard by all over the speakers, prepared in advance.
To my great satisfaction Mr. Orleansky supplied the necessary diversion. In fact Mr. Orleansky ended the party and was remembered thereafter as the climactic moment.
A letter from Yair Goodman, the violinist, arrived twenty-three years later. It was an invitation to a class reunion, an offer I couldn’t refuse; I had to see what had happened to all the rich and famous classmates.
Most of the evening was spent to update and renew contacts, and addresses. ‘Mother’s brag books’ changed hands. Boring job-related and number-of-bedrooms issues dominated the conversation. It went on and on. As I was about to leave, Amos blocked my way and said: “Yakov, you are not leaving till you tell us how Mr. Orleansky is.”
“I don't remember being assigned to keep track of his well being,” I said, “but it’s easy to find out.”
I picked up the nearest phone and called information. The operator delivered the number and I dialed without delay.
“Mr. Orleansky?”
The voice of a very old man answered “Yes.”
“Mr. Samuel Orleansky?”
“Yes.”
“Mr., Orleansky I have just arrived from France. You have regards from your relative---"
Mr. Orleansky didn’t wait for me to finish. He screamed in Yiddish:
“Surre! Surre! Shttaiioff Shttaioff! Yakov, der mishiguiner,is noch nisht Geshtorbn”. (“Sara! Sara! Wake up, wake up! Yakov, the nut, is not yet dead.")
I was pleased to know that Sara and Sam Orleansky kept a warm place in their hearts for me. I was sure now I’d be remembered forever.
-----------------
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Sunday, June 7, 2009
Skyjack
Skyjack
Hagai Cohen
24 January 2009
The Airway Bill proclaimed that the wooden box sitting on the porch by the front door of Guy Oren’s Tel Aviv home was sent from Paris. Not waiting to take it in, Guy pried open the top with a crowbar. Inside he found an envelope with an unsigned note, which read: “My little contribution to your son’s Bar Mitzvah.”
“Maurice Lazar,” guessed Guy. “The sonofabitch always does things in style.” Guy sat on the porch stool, reliving the exciting memories.
His last meeting with Maurice had been in London seven years earlier, in October 1968. At their parting what had he called it? “Our very own 'Last Supper.' We shall not meet or communicate until I say so.”
Their friendship had started in 1956 when Maurice was a French liaison officer in an Israeli air squadron and Guy was a young pilot.
“The man is definitely a spy,” said the squadron security officer in his briefing to the young pilots. “A shrewd intelligence officer, forced on us by the French government along with their Ouragan airplanes, so be careful what you say in his presence.” This remark conflicted with Maurice's evident love for Israel. He was a Jew and very loyal to the country. Being a French intelligence officer did not stop him from wanting to be of help. He was an engineer and a pilot too. His knowledge was invaluable to the young, inexperienced Israeli pilots.
The friendship between Guy and Maurice deepened only after Guy left the air force. Maurice's refined manners and charm, his large apartment, and his unlimited cases of fine champagne, attracted young men and women like moths to light. Artists, musicians, intellectuals, and many Mossad operatives with whom Maurice developed friendly ties, mingled together.
Three years of constant partying and intellectual challenges ended for Guy in 1960 when Maurice's contract expired. That same year, Guy got married. Since leaving the air force, he worked for El Al as an instructor, training new pilots and engineers.
Maurice returned to his parent’s home in Algeria where his father cultivated vineyards. His family belonged to a large group of French settlers who were disparagingly called ‘pied noir’ (black foot). Maurice found himself in the middle of a war between the OAS, a secret army of the settlers, fighting both the French army and the FLN, the Algerian liberation organization. Eventually the French government forced the settlers to return to France. Maurice and his family became refugees in their own country.
Then early in 1962, Guy received a letter from Maurice. It read:
As you know, we had to leave our vineyards in Algeria. Since we left, I have been unemployed. The French government demonized the settlers and banned us from government jobs. People today look upon us as traitors. I am desperately in need of a job. Attached is an ad from a newspaper. Your airline is hiring maintenance people here in Paris. Could you please ask them to give me a chance?
Maurice Lazar.
It was strange that Maurice who came from a wealthy family with a grandfather who owned a winery in France needed a job. Maurice had to be in desperate circumstances to write such a letter. So Guy used his influence and wrote a recommendation to the technical representative. They hired Maurice who in time became a real asset to the company. Guy and Maurice would meet occasionally over the succeeding years.
In 1966, Guy decided to retrain as an airline pilot. While still in training, he received another letter from Maurice.
Dear Guy,
I am sorry to inform you that my Grandfather died. In his will, I was his designated heir. I am now the president of “Lazar Vineyards” which is a large vineyard with a modern winery on the Cote de Rhone … I have resigned from El Al and am already working full throttle… I will always owe you and your people a huge debt. You helped me when I was in need and I’ll never forget it… I plan to re-organize the business and combine my father’s wine exports with mine… I am now in the process of renovating our old family mansion... You will be my guest during the 1968 harvest.”
Guy was highly pleased. It is quite a phenomenon having a chateau-owning friend.
One July morning in 1968, two months before his planned visit to Maurice on the Cote de Rhone, Guy was in the cockpit of a Boeing 707 preparing for his last training flight, before the final qualification checks. “Sorry, Guy,” said his training captain on entering the cockpit, “They made an error in the crew assignment and appointed two trainees to my flight. Unfortunately you're the one who must go home.” Annoyed, but with no alternative, Guy took a cab home.
The following night, on the flight back from Rome, the Boeing 707 was hijacked to Algiers airport. Three from the George Habash terror organization diverted the plane with Guy's training captain, his crew and passengers to hostile territory.
The next evening, Guy received the following surprising cable:
“Sorry about the unfortunate incident. We need to talk. Come tomorrow to Paris. Booked you on Air-France 027 departing 08:00. Waiting for you at Hotel Royal Monceau. All expenses paid.”
As his training was now suspended and he had nothing better to do, he boarded the plane the next morning.
Meeting with Maurice always felt as though there had been no separation between them. After ordering room service in his grand style, Maurice got straight to the point. “I know how you Israelis think. I have no doubt initial plans are already in progress to raid the airport and to release the hostages and the airplane. I want you to know, my father is back in Algeria. The government made it possible to get his farm back. I manage his wine export business. Once a week I fly there and use Air-France as my carrier.
“Here's the deal: with my contacts, I can prepare your airplane for flight. My motives are simple. I hate De-Gaulle for what he did to you in 1967 with the embargo on military equipment when all the Arab armies were poised on your borders. I hate what he did to my father, a decorated French officer, forcing him to leave his home and business. I hate the French Intelligence Service for turning its back on me when I was in need. I am thankful to your airline for restoring my dignity and my self-respect. I will do anything to help. Give this envelope to your Vice President of Security. If we get the green light, we’ll start working.”
“Why do you need me?” asked Guy.
“First, I don’t want to be in direct contact with the Mossad. I don't trust any secret service people anywhere and direct contact with Mossad agents might endanger my future. Second, I need you for technical support, for manuals, wiring diagrams, spare parts, etc. The gunshots in the cockpit could have created extensive damage. I will need all the technical help I can get. Later we will need a flight plan, weight & balance calculations, and more. You will mail all those documents to a post office box in Geneva. And then you are done.”
The next morning, Guy was on his way back to Tel-Aviv.
A meeting with two Mossad people was set up in a Tel-Aviv hotel room. The two were hostile to Guy right from the start.
"Show us IDs," said the older.
Guy showed them his ID cards; the younger examined the documents for a long time. The older took out a pack of forms and said to Guy: "Fill these forms using blue ink. We are going for a coffee. We'll be back in an hour."
Guy started to fill the forms and soon became extremely annoyed. He could not remember the birth dates of his brother and sisters nor the schools they attended. Guy was already a pilot when his sisters started school.
The agents returned an hour later. Guy contemptuously handed them the unfilled and unsigned forms.
"Listen you," said the older agent angrily, "who do you think you are?"
"I’m the man you were sent to meet. Talk to me if you have anything to say or just walk away."
The agents were speechless. Guy collected his ID cards and started to walk towards the door. The younger man stopped him and said, "Look Guy, we must check you up. We do not trust a ’walk-in agent‘ and what we are doing here is most unusual. We do not know what your role will be in the operation but we are to act as your linkage to the Mossad.”
"You probably know more about me than I do, so don’t forget my parents birthdays," said Guy sarcastically.
The young man held out a plastic envelope. “Here is your flight ticket and some expense money. We will meet you and Maurice the day after tomorrow in Geneva. Your instructions are in the envelope.”
Guy accepted the envelope and said, "And what might your names be, and how am I supposed to get in touch with you?"
"I’m Booky " said the older man, "and he’s Doky, and you don’t need to get in touch with us. We'll find you if and when required."
"Arrogant assholes!" was Guy's assessment. He said, "In that case I'll call you Black and Decker"
"What do you mean?" said Booky.
“First, your names are not Booky and Doky. Second, Simon and Schuster are already taken by my friend's cats.”
It was a case of dislike at first sight and definitely not a pleasant encounter.
Two days later, the four met in Geneva, Black & Decker, Maurice and Guy. They discussed the lines of communication and procedures. Maurice stayed on with Guy after Black and Decker left. He briefed him thoroughly. “Remember you are not a professional spy. Behave like a tourist. Do not look back. Turn your head at pretty women, if you think you are being shadowed, stop at a shop window and check out who that person is. Go to the same places, talk to people and be friendly. Volunteer irrelevant information, and hide your thoughts.”
“Is what we are doing illegal?”
“What you will be doing is completely legal. You will be transferring documents within your company. The Post Office box in Geneva is also your company mailbox. What I am doing is illegal. If questioned, you don’t know me.”
“Who are Black and Decker and what am I supposed to do with them? What do I need them for? Do I have to report to them?” "Relax!" said Maurice "don't be upset, Black and Decker’s roles are just to babysit. They are supposed to make sure nobody is on your tail, warn you and smuggle you to a safe house if anything goes wrong.
Now, here is the deal, I'll tell you what we need and you will provide it: Maintenance, Manual pages, spare parts, performance calculations, fuel etc. Don't worry about reporting. I'll take care of that."
Guy moved into a small hotel in Montparnasse that Maurice recommended. “I know the people in the hotel and I may use them if I need them,” said Maurice. Another problem Guy faced was the cover story for the French employees in the El-Al dispatch office. It was quite normal for trainee pilots to spend hours at the dispatch office as it functioned as a library, but why in Paris when his home was in Tel-Aviv?
“I have fallen in love with a petite, beautiful, sexy, classy girl… the best thing ever to happen to me,” he confided in them. “I’m staying at her place.”
It was a story the romantic French could easily swallow. They even gave him advice on how to satisfy the high demands of a Frenchwoman.
When an upgraded version of a Teleprinter was installed in the company offices, the dispatch people were pleased with Guy's knowledge of it’s working. They were not yet trained and Guy was able to teach them how to use it.
A Teleprinter was installed also in the Geneva’s office. Guy mailed a small 'teleprinting' instruction book to Maurice. Twenty-four hours later Maurice had mastered the skill and "Sita" aviation communication network became their way to communicate.
Guy ensured Maurice received prompt responses to his requests. A week later the bullet damaged instrument was replaced. Guy never discovered how the $10,000.00 artificial horizon which he had given to an Air France pilot at Orly who then flew to Oslo, ever got to the damaged airplane in Algiers. Fortunately, the horizon took the bullet and was the only damage to the plane. The aircraft was refueled. Maurice used the “SHELL” credit card hidden on board and paid for the 14,000 gallons of aviation fuel. “Except for the ground air-starter, all is ready,” read the coded cable.
As he had been advised, Guy maintained a daily routine: three hours every morning at the airport; lunch at the same restaurant where he sat at the same table. At the end of the third week, Guy found a man seated at his usual table. The man was a regular in the brasserie. He always sat two or three tables away. He was friendly with the proprietor and nice to the waitresses. He seemed like a nice chap. He immediately stood up and said, "Oh, I’m sorry. I have taken your place, I’ll move.”
“No. Stay where you are. I’ll find another place.”
“No, no. The table is yours.”
The restaurant was full and there were no tables available.
"Perhaps I can share the table with you?" said Guy.
“Certainly."
Guy sat down.
"Are you a tourist in France?" asked the man.
"You may call me a tourist but in fact I am a trainee pilot on observation flights. Paris is an important hub for our company, and the dispatch office has a rich library, so I spend three or four hours a day studying. That is, when I don't fly."
“I am Paul Ladaque.”
“Guy Oren.”
Paul was a few years older than Guy, intelligent and interesting. He spoke several languages, and loved art and music. Guy liked him immediately.
“I used to work for ‘Fnac electronics’ in marketing," he informed Guy. "Quite a bore! I have applied for several positions, and am waiting for replies.”
"The man is friendly," thought Guy, wondering about his sexual orientation, "maybe too friendly."
"Are you married, Paul?" asked Guy after a few minutes of small talk.
"No. I am in between girlfriends, in between jobs and in between apartments. I am not gay, if that is what you wanted to know."
"The bastard is smart,"
As they were enjoying each other’s company, the lunch took longer than usual. As they departed, Paul said, "See you tomorrow. A' bientot."
After the lunch the next day, Paul said. “Why don’t we get together for a drink one evening? I'll introduce you to my friends. You'll like them."
His friends were educated intellectuals, with connections that enabled them to get tickets to the opera, to the Comedie Francaise and other shows. Within two weeks, he felt he had known Paul a lifetime.
“My parents have a big house near Orleans,” said Paul one day. “I am going down for the weekend, will you join me? I usually don’t go there but as I am still not involved with any female, I feel I owe them a visit. They like company, mine especially, and they love to entertain.”
Guy was surprised but pleased, as it was atypical for the French to invite people to their homes. “Of course I’ll come,” he said. They exchanged confidences while they drove to the estate on the Loire river. Paul was interested in Guy’s life and Guy spoke about it happily.
“Did you fly for the Israeli Air Force?” asked Paul.
Guy had reasons other than withholding military secrets, not to answer the question. He had learned Paul was a pacifist, a member of several human rights organizations, was against weapons of mass destruction and against army service anywhere. To tell Paul he had flown a French aircraft and bombarded the Egyptian convoy in the Mitla pass was out of the question. Besides he was embarrassed to tell Paul how he felt about the unsafe French technology and their under-performance aircraft. Finally, he did not want to discuss politics - not the French government’s hypocrisy nor the embargo on critical spare parts during the Six-Day War.
“I was an operation specialist in the Air Force and learned to fly after I left it,” said Guy.
Paul showed genuine interest in Guy’s family, his children, his training and more. Guy answered his questions openly
They arrived at the house at three o’clock after lunching en route. They walked along the riverbank and had a friendly chat about the future of the Middle East; Paul knew more about the conflict than most Frenchman did. As Paul accompanied Guy to his room, he said suddenly, “Please wear a suit for dinner. It’s important for my parents.”
Monsieur and Madame Ladaque were hospitable but extremely formal until Guy said, “Madame Ladaque, this soufflé is excellent but it should be served only with the windows closed.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the lady.
“It’s so light, it could fly away.”
Everybody laughed and it broke the ice.
They moved to the living room for coffee. Two full size oil portraits hung on both sides of the fireplace. One was of a Spanish nobleman leaning one hand on a dining table. The other was of a woman in an evening gown sitting on a chair.
“The woman in the picture is sitting on the same chair you are sitting on,” said Guy to the old man.
"You’re very observant, Mr. Oren. The table we ate on is the same as the one in the other picture. Those two paintings are five hundred years old. Most of the furniture we have is from the same time."
This intrigued Guy so he got up and approached the paintings. He could not believe his eyes. He moved closer. The letters on the fringes of the tablecloth in the picture were in Hebrew script. What he read made him dizzy.
“Are you all right?” asked the old man. “Come, sit down.” He helped Guy to his seat. A bottle of cognac and a glass appeared. “A small glass will do you good,” said M. Ladaque as he poured. “What did you see in the painting?"
Guy did not know how or whether he should tell them.
“Paul,” said the father to his son, “glasses for everybody.”
“Is the man in the painting one of your family?” asked Guy.
“Yes. He was the first to settle in France from Spain.”
“Was his name Ladaque?”
“No. His name did not sound French so he changed it.”
“The writing on the fringes in the painting are, in fact, Hebrew,” said Guy.
A profound silence followed.
Guy took a piece of paper and wrote down the text in the painting and the translation: “The scholar, our father, and teacher, Moshe, son of Eliyahu, helper to the poor and a fortress to the under-privileged.”
Guy said, “The word for 'under-privileged' sounds like Ladaque. I believe your name comes from that word.”
Paul's mother, of old Roman Catholic heritage, was in shock. She got up and walked back and forth muttering. Paul frowned in his chair. The old man In a strange state of excitement, excused himself and said “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Twenty minutes later, he returned carrying a leather portfolio, which he opened very carefully on the coffee table. Paul and his mother looked on in surprise. After searching through the documents within, the old man produced two parchments, which he handed to Guy. Examining the first, Guy started to tremble again. It was a painting of the sacrifice of Isaac, drawn with tiny Hebrew letters instead of lines. The size of the letters and the old Hebrew syntax without spaces was not easy to read or understand.
“It is a testament, written by someone whose name is unclear, asking his children to return to Judaism once the danger is over. The date on it was 1498.”
“Can’t you read the name?” asked Mr. Ladaque.
“No, I'm sorry,” said Guy. “It looks as if the name was deliberately defaced.”
The second document was a Ketuba, a Jewish marriage contract written in Aramaic. The old man was all agog. He pulled out more documents and wrote down every word Guy said. Not until 02:00 did he let Guy go to bed.
Paul’s behavior throughout the evening had been somewhat strange. He sat quietly, deeply preoccupied. His mother retired for the night after being disoriented over an hour.
The next morning, Paul seemed not to be the same friendly person as before. “I'm sorry,” said Guy, “I can see you are troubled. Is it related to what we found in the painting last night?”
“No.” His manner was brusque. “We must return to Paris immediately after breakfast.”
They drove silently for half an hour, then Paul said, “I’ve been offered a job in Marseille. I fly there tomorrow."
Guy was surprised and hurt. "Why didn’t you say anything before? We've been sharing so much together and I have been with you since yesterday morning. Why only now do you choose to talk about it?”
“Well, you know, I wasn’t sure I wanted the job. Also I did not want to talk about it in front of my parents.”
“You could have told me in the car driving down,” Guy sulked. “However, I wish you good luck and I hope you’ll like it over there. Marseille is not Paris you know.”
“I don't believe we’ll meet again soon, but don’t worry I know where to find you,” said Paul as he dropped Guy off at his hotel. “Au revoir.”
“Bye,” said Guy.
Guy went up to his room. The visit to the Ladaques was not entirely a pleasant one. He was wondering what went wrong. He had been in the room only half an hour when a note was slipped under the connecting door to the next room.
Trainee pilot Guy Oren - crew assignment
dhd ly 215/26 ory-tlv ETD 23:30.
Crew assignment officer
Azovmiyad
The signature code was the password agreed with Maurice. The text on the note had no meaning. The code word translated as: ‘Leave immediately’ but, in addition meant: “Don’t pack. Don’t checkout. Take a train/ferry to London and fly home from there. Your mission is over.’
Guy got dressed in civvies, folded his uniform over his arm and draped a trench coat over it. He crossed the street to a corner café with entrances on two sides. He came in one door, joined a large group of people on their way out and emerged through the other door. On the next corner, he took a cab to the Champs Elysees, where he hailed another cab and went to the Gare du Nord. A train to Brussels was about to leave, Guy decided not to follow his instructions to the letter and he took it.
"If anyone is looking for me" thought Guy, "Belgium is a better destination. They never check passports on the train."
The next morning he joined an El Al crew on a flight to Tel Aviv.
Back home, Guy felt he had been dumped. Nobody called him; he knew no one to contact. The plane and the hostages in Algiers remained unreleased and nothing appeared about it in the newspapers. There was no diplomatic progress either. “What happened?” he kept asking himself. He had no idea where Maurice was or how to contact him. He did not think it would be discreet to write to his home.
Two days later, his luggage arrived with no indication of how it had been arranged. A few days later, on Sunday September 1, the aircraft, and the hostages were released in exchange for some terrorists. Guy got his instructor back and a month later, he was a qualified first officer.
On Guy’s second flight as first officer, which was to London, he found an envelope amongst the flight papers. “Join us for a party in room 303 at 18:00.”
Guy knocked on the door at exactly 6:00 P.M. and, to his surprise, he found Maurice, Black and Decker and two other men he had not met before, inside the suite. A bottle of champagne stood on a small bar with some nibbling goodies, but it did not look like a party. All had raised their hackles. Maurice was the only one to greet him. Guy just sat on the couch with a glass of champagne, Maurice went into a huddle with Black and Decker who in turn, whispered to each other. Then they went into a huddle with the two other men, and so on, back and forth. Half an hour later, Black and Decker, and the two other men left the room and Maurice finally spoke to Guy.
“What you witnessed," said Maurice, "is the ugly part of secret service work. Black and Decker tried to blackmail me, to force me to supply intelligence information. They brought their ‘control’ as backup. When I refused, they promised to incriminate me with some documents in their possession. I was not born yesterday, as you know. I told you before, we were considered 'walk-in agents' who are troublesome to any secret service. 'Walk-in agents' are the first to be sacrificed when anything goes sour. As a safety measure, I did my homework. I told them their real names, there home addresses, and their safe houses in France. I convinced them I could harm them as much, and maybe more, both in France and in Israel. We are now in the middle of a cold war with a balanced exchange of threats.”
After throwing back some champagne, he continued: "Black and Decker did not understand your role in the operation. They had no idea what it takes to prepare an airplane for flight. You are one of a few who knows the engineering as well as the operational aspect of the flight. The ‘off airways’ flight-plan you so skillfully created, the fuel calculation, the takeoff performance, and the myriads of other details, usually done by five separate professionals, was all done by you. Quite impressive.
Black and Decker were supposed to be in touch with you, to watch and protect you. They loathe us both. Their lack of trust in us extended to wanting us to fail. They ‘forgot’ to give you an address or phone number where they could be reached.
“The Geneva office was my idea and for various reasons. The first and the most important one was that the airport serves both France and Switzerland. I still have my airline pass. I can move across easily between France and Switzerland. The Geneva office handles only two flights a week. The staff comes from Zurich just for the flights. The rest of the time, the office is empty. You cleverly used the ‘SITA’ ( societe internationale telecommunication aeronautique ) Teleprinter to report to me. Black and Decker did not know about the SITA network and had no access to it. After I learned to use it I could communicate with your Vice President of Security, who was very pleased nothing leaked out. We kept Black and Decker out of the picture. They were astonished to hear that the airplane was ready for flight. They were fuming you did not use the post office, their only way to follow up. They came to Paris to grill you but did not know where you stayed. Their clumsy presence in France - looking for you - was registered by French intelligence, who then found you.”
After a short pause, Maurice continued: “I told Black and Decker some time before that Monday, to warn you. They did not do so. The French wanted Black & Decker, not you. They wanted to get to them through you. Black & Decker felt it, fled and left you to face the music. The plan was to arrest you on the morning of Monday September 26. The hotel sommelier, who is on my payroll to promote my wines, left you the note advising you to leave at once. As a safety measure, I drove all night to get you out of the hotel, just in case you didn’t get the note.”
Then Maurice said, "I assume you met a man called Paul Ladaque?" Guy’s face drained of all color from the shock. He cleared his throat twice before he could answer, “Yes, he is a good friend of mine.”
“Good friend, my ass! Colonel Ladaque is ruthless, a bright, talented and loyal officer whom I knew in French intelligence. He has never failed in any investigation. That charismatic chap can put the hangman’s rope around your neck and assure you it is for your own good. He was, in fact, about to nail you.”
Guy was in disbelief. “He held memberships in a host of human rights organizations.”
“Just a façade, to help him catch radicals and impress people like you. Paul took you out of town so nobody could warn you. The hotel was under surveillance in case Black and Decker showed up. His parents are in it too. He asked his parents not to discuss any topic that might reveal his occupation. Did the old man ask you how you met Paul? What you were doing in France? If you were married? No? Ha! I didn't think so. The old man was briefed. What I cannot understand is why Paul brought you back earlier than planned and called off the arrest.”
Guy was quiet for a long time.
“It was probably the cognac with the old man,” he said finally.
“What are you talking about?”
Guy told his story.
“Are you telling me that traces of Jewish blood kicked Paul all the way to Marseille? I wish I could confront him and rib him. It's not like Paul to get emotionally involved.”
“How do you know what goes on in the French Intelligence Bureau?”
“You really don't need to know that,” said Maurice.
Guy thought long and deeply. Was it possible Paul Ladaque himself was the source? Maurice was always one-step ahead, and knew too many details.
Maurice kept up the chatter for two more hours over Caille a la Russe aux truffes, (Russian style quail with truffles), which was in keeping with his style. The taste of that succulent meal lingered on Guy’s tongue.
“Listen Guy, we mustn't meet or communicate until I say so. This could be our very own 'Last Supper',” said Maurice as he escorted Guy to his hotel door and gave him a warm embrace. "By the way" Maurice added "we could never have rescued the crew and the airplane as originally planned: the bastards had filled the cabin with forty tons of sand bags. It took a whole day to offload 1600 sand bags before the flight.”
Guy turned his attention to the box on the porch, removed the foam chips, and exposed a 12 gallons barrel of delicate French wine.
The end
Hagai Cohen
24 January 2009
The Airway Bill proclaimed that the wooden box sitting on the porch by the front door of Guy Oren’s Tel Aviv home was sent from Paris. Not waiting to take it in, Guy pried open the top with a crowbar. Inside he found an envelope with an unsigned note, which read: “My little contribution to your son’s Bar Mitzvah.”
“Maurice Lazar,” guessed Guy. “The sonofabitch always does things in style.” Guy sat on the porch stool, reliving the exciting memories.
His last meeting with Maurice had been in London seven years earlier, in October 1968. At their parting what had he called it? “Our very own 'Last Supper.' We shall not meet or communicate until I say so.”
Their friendship had started in 1956 when Maurice was a French liaison officer in an Israeli air squadron and Guy was a young pilot.
“The man is definitely a spy,” said the squadron security officer in his briefing to the young pilots. “A shrewd intelligence officer, forced on us by the French government along with their Ouragan airplanes, so be careful what you say in his presence.” This remark conflicted with Maurice's evident love for Israel. He was a Jew and very loyal to the country. Being a French intelligence officer did not stop him from wanting to be of help. He was an engineer and a pilot too. His knowledge was invaluable to the young, inexperienced Israeli pilots.
The friendship between Guy and Maurice deepened only after Guy left the air force. Maurice's refined manners and charm, his large apartment, and his unlimited cases of fine champagne, attracted young men and women like moths to light. Artists, musicians, intellectuals, and many Mossad operatives with whom Maurice developed friendly ties, mingled together.
Three years of constant partying and intellectual challenges ended for Guy in 1960 when Maurice's contract expired. That same year, Guy got married. Since leaving the air force, he worked for El Al as an instructor, training new pilots and engineers.
Maurice returned to his parent’s home in Algeria where his father cultivated vineyards. His family belonged to a large group of French settlers who were disparagingly called ‘pied noir’ (black foot). Maurice found himself in the middle of a war between the OAS, a secret army of the settlers, fighting both the French army and the FLN, the Algerian liberation organization. Eventually the French government forced the settlers to return to France. Maurice and his family became refugees in their own country.
Then early in 1962, Guy received a letter from Maurice. It read:
As you know, we had to leave our vineyards in Algeria. Since we left, I have been unemployed. The French government demonized the settlers and banned us from government jobs. People today look upon us as traitors. I am desperately in need of a job. Attached is an ad from a newspaper. Your airline is hiring maintenance people here in Paris. Could you please ask them to give me a chance?
Maurice Lazar.
It was strange that Maurice who came from a wealthy family with a grandfather who owned a winery in France needed a job. Maurice had to be in desperate circumstances to write such a letter. So Guy used his influence and wrote a recommendation to the technical representative. They hired Maurice who in time became a real asset to the company. Guy and Maurice would meet occasionally over the succeeding years.
In 1966, Guy decided to retrain as an airline pilot. While still in training, he received another letter from Maurice.
Dear Guy,
I am sorry to inform you that my Grandfather died. In his will, I was his designated heir. I am now the president of “Lazar Vineyards” which is a large vineyard with a modern winery on the Cote de Rhone … I have resigned from El Al and am already working full throttle… I will always owe you and your people a huge debt. You helped me when I was in need and I’ll never forget it… I plan to re-organize the business and combine my father’s wine exports with mine… I am now in the process of renovating our old family mansion... You will be my guest during the 1968 harvest.”
Guy was highly pleased. It is quite a phenomenon having a chateau-owning friend.
One July morning in 1968, two months before his planned visit to Maurice on the Cote de Rhone, Guy was in the cockpit of a Boeing 707 preparing for his last training flight, before the final qualification checks. “Sorry, Guy,” said his training captain on entering the cockpit, “They made an error in the crew assignment and appointed two trainees to my flight. Unfortunately you're the one who must go home.” Annoyed, but with no alternative, Guy took a cab home.
The following night, on the flight back from Rome, the Boeing 707 was hijacked to Algiers airport. Three from the George Habash terror organization diverted the plane with Guy's training captain, his crew and passengers to hostile territory.
The next evening, Guy received the following surprising cable:
“Sorry about the unfortunate incident. We need to talk. Come tomorrow to Paris. Booked you on Air-France 027 departing 08:00. Waiting for you at Hotel Royal Monceau. All expenses paid.”
As his training was now suspended and he had nothing better to do, he boarded the plane the next morning.
Meeting with Maurice always felt as though there had been no separation between them. After ordering room service in his grand style, Maurice got straight to the point. “I know how you Israelis think. I have no doubt initial plans are already in progress to raid the airport and to release the hostages and the airplane. I want you to know, my father is back in Algeria. The government made it possible to get his farm back. I manage his wine export business. Once a week I fly there and use Air-France as my carrier.
“Here's the deal: with my contacts, I can prepare your airplane for flight. My motives are simple. I hate De-Gaulle for what he did to you in 1967 with the embargo on military equipment when all the Arab armies were poised on your borders. I hate what he did to my father, a decorated French officer, forcing him to leave his home and business. I hate the French Intelligence Service for turning its back on me when I was in need. I am thankful to your airline for restoring my dignity and my self-respect. I will do anything to help. Give this envelope to your Vice President of Security. If we get the green light, we’ll start working.”
“Why do you need me?” asked Guy.
“First, I don’t want to be in direct contact with the Mossad. I don't trust any secret service people anywhere and direct contact with Mossad agents might endanger my future. Second, I need you for technical support, for manuals, wiring diagrams, spare parts, etc. The gunshots in the cockpit could have created extensive damage. I will need all the technical help I can get. Later we will need a flight plan, weight & balance calculations, and more. You will mail all those documents to a post office box in Geneva. And then you are done.”
The next morning, Guy was on his way back to Tel-Aviv.
A meeting with two Mossad people was set up in a Tel-Aviv hotel room. The two were hostile to Guy right from the start.
"Show us IDs," said the older.
Guy showed them his ID cards; the younger examined the documents for a long time. The older took out a pack of forms and said to Guy: "Fill these forms using blue ink. We are going for a coffee. We'll be back in an hour."
Guy started to fill the forms and soon became extremely annoyed. He could not remember the birth dates of his brother and sisters nor the schools they attended. Guy was already a pilot when his sisters started school.
The agents returned an hour later. Guy contemptuously handed them the unfilled and unsigned forms.
"Listen you," said the older agent angrily, "who do you think you are?"
"I’m the man you were sent to meet. Talk to me if you have anything to say or just walk away."
The agents were speechless. Guy collected his ID cards and started to walk towards the door. The younger man stopped him and said, "Look Guy, we must check you up. We do not trust a ’walk-in agent‘ and what we are doing here is most unusual. We do not know what your role will be in the operation but we are to act as your linkage to the Mossad.”
"You probably know more about me than I do, so don’t forget my parents birthdays," said Guy sarcastically.
The young man held out a plastic envelope. “Here is your flight ticket and some expense money. We will meet you and Maurice the day after tomorrow in Geneva. Your instructions are in the envelope.”
Guy accepted the envelope and said, "And what might your names be, and how am I supposed to get in touch with you?"
"I’m Booky " said the older man, "and he’s Doky, and you don’t need to get in touch with us. We'll find you if and when required."
"Arrogant assholes!" was Guy's assessment. He said, "In that case I'll call you Black and Decker"
"What do you mean?" said Booky.
“First, your names are not Booky and Doky. Second, Simon and Schuster are already taken by my friend's cats.”
It was a case of dislike at first sight and definitely not a pleasant encounter.
Two days later, the four met in Geneva, Black & Decker, Maurice and Guy. They discussed the lines of communication and procedures. Maurice stayed on with Guy after Black and Decker left. He briefed him thoroughly. “Remember you are not a professional spy. Behave like a tourist. Do not look back. Turn your head at pretty women, if you think you are being shadowed, stop at a shop window and check out who that person is. Go to the same places, talk to people and be friendly. Volunteer irrelevant information, and hide your thoughts.”
“Is what we are doing illegal?”
“What you will be doing is completely legal. You will be transferring documents within your company. The Post Office box in Geneva is also your company mailbox. What I am doing is illegal. If questioned, you don’t know me.”
“Who are Black and Decker and what am I supposed to do with them? What do I need them for? Do I have to report to them?” "Relax!" said Maurice "don't be upset, Black and Decker’s roles are just to babysit. They are supposed to make sure nobody is on your tail, warn you and smuggle you to a safe house if anything goes wrong.
Now, here is the deal, I'll tell you what we need and you will provide it: Maintenance, Manual pages, spare parts, performance calculations, fuel etc. Don't worry about reporting. I'll take care of that."
Guy moved into a small hotel in Montparnasse that Maurice recommended. “I know the people in the hotel and I may use them if I need them,” said Maurice. Another problem Guy faced was the cover story for the French employees in the El-Al dispatch office. It was quite normal for trainee pilots to spend hours at the dispatch office as it functioned as a library, but why in Paris when his home was in Tel-Aviv?
“I have fallen in love with a petite, beautiful, sexy, classy girl… the best thing ever to happen to me,” he confided in them. “I’m staying at her place.”
It was a story the romantic French could easily swallow. They even gave him advice on how to satisfy the high demands of a Frenchwoman.
When an upgraded version of a Teleprinter was installed in the company offices, the dispatch people were pleased with Guy's knowledge of it’s working. They were not yet trained and Guy was able to teach them how to use it.
A Teleprinter was installed also in the Geneva’s office. Guy mailed a small 'teleprinting' instruction book to Maurice. Twenty-four hours later Maurice had mastered the skill and "Sita" aviation communication network became their way to communicate.
Guy ensured Maurice received prompt responses to his requests. A week later the bullet damaged instrument was replaced. Guy never discovered how the $10,000.00 artificial horizon which he had given to an Air France pilot at Orly who then flew to Oslo, ever got to the damaged airplane in Algiers. Fortunately, the horizon took the bullet and was the only damage to the plane. The aircraft was refueled. Maurice used the “SHELL” credit card hidden on board and paid for the 14,000 gallons of aviation fuel. “Except for the ground air-starter, all is ready,” read the coded cable.
As he had been advised, Guy maintained a daily routine: three hours every morning at the airport; lunch at the same restaurant where he sat at the same table. At the end of the third week, Guy found a man seated at his usual table. The man was a regular in the brasserie. He always sat two or three tables away. He was friendly with the proprietor and nice to the waitresses. He seemed like a nice chap. He immediately stood up and said, "Oh, I’m sorry. I have taken your place, I’ll move.”
“No. Stay where you are. I’ll find another place.”
“No, no. The table is yours.”
The restaurant was full and there were no tables available.
"Perhaps I can share the table with you?" said Guy.
“Certainly."
Guy sat down.
"Are you a tourist in France?" asked the man.
"You may call me a tourist but in fact I am a trainee pilot on observation flights. Paris is an important hub for our company, and the dispatch office has a rich library, so I spend three or four hours a day studying. That is, when I don't fly."
“I am Paul Ladaque.”
“Guy Oren.”
Paul was a few years older than Guy, intelligent and interesting. He spoke several languages, and loved art and music. Guy liked him immediately.
“I used to work for ‘Fnac electronics’ in marketing," he informed Guy. "Quite a bore! I have applied for several positions, and am waiting for replies.”
"The man is friendly," thought Guy, wondering about his sexual orientation, "maybe too friendly."
"Are you married, Paul?" asked Guy after a few minutes of small talk.
"No. I am in between girlfriends, in between jobs and in between apartments. I am not gay, if that is what you wanted to know."
"The bastard is smart,"
As they were enjoying each other’s company, the lunch took longer than usual. As they departed, Paul said, "See you tomorrow. A' bientot."
After the lunch the next day, Paul said. “Why don’t we get together for a drink one evening? I'll introduce you to my friends. You'll like them."
His friends were educated intellectuals, with connections that enabled them to get tickets to the opera, to the Comedie Francaise and other shows. Within two weeks, he felt he had known Paul a lifetime.
“My parents have a big house near Orleans,” said Paul one day. “I am going down for the weekend, will you join me? I usually don’t go there but as I am still not involved with any female, I feel I owe them a visit. They like company, mine especially, and they love to entertain.”
Guy was surprised but pleased, as it was atypical for the French to invite people to their homes. “Of course I’ll come,” he said. They exchanged confidences while they drove to the estate on the Loire river. Paul was interested in Guy’s life and Guy spoke about it happily.
“Did you fly for the Israeli Air Force?” asked Paul.
Guy had reasons other than withholding military secrets, not to answer the question. He had learned Paul was a pacifist, a member of several human rights organizations, was against weapons of mass destruction and against army service anywhere. To tell Paul he had flown a French aircraft and bombarded the Egyptian convoy in the Mitla pass was out of the question. Besides he was embarrassed to tell Paul how he felt about the unsafe French technology and their under-performance aircraft. Finally, he did not want to discuss politics - not the French government’s hypocrisy nor the embargo on critical spare parts during the Six-Day War.
“I was an operation specialist in the Air Force and learned to fly after I left it,” said Guy.
Paul showed genuine interest in Guy’s family, his children, his training and more. Guy answered his questions openly
They arrived at the house at three o’clock after lunching en route. They walked along the riverbank and had a friendly chat about the future of the Middle East; Paul knew more about the conflict than most Frenchman did. As Paul accompanied Guy to his room, he said suddenly, “Please wear a suit for dinner. It’s important for my parents.”
Monsieur and Madame Ladaque were hospitable but extremely formal until Guy said, “Madame Ladaque, this soufflé is excellent but it should be served only with the windows closed.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the lady.
“It’s so light, it could fly away.”
Everybody laughed and it broke the ice.
They moved to the living room for coffee. Two full size oil portraits hung on both sides of the fireplace. One was of a Spanish nobleman leaning one hand on a dining table. The other was of a woman in an evening gown sitting on a chair.
“The woman in the picture is sitting on the same chair you are sitting on,” said Guy to the old man.
"You’re very observant, Mr. Oren. The table we ate on is the same as the one in the other picture. Those two paintings are five hundred years old. Most of the furniture we have is from the same time."
This intrigued Guy so he got up and approached the paintings. He could not believe his eyes. He moved closer. The letters on the fringes of the tablecloth in the picture were in Hebrew script. What he read made him dizzy.
“Are you all right?” asked the old man. “Come, sit down.” He helped Guy to his seat. A bottle of cognac and a glass appeared. “A small glass will do you good,” said M. Ladaque as he poured. “What did you see in the painting?"
Guy did not know how or whether he should tell them.
“Paul,” said the father to his son, “glasses for everybody.”
“Is the man in the painting one of your family?” asked Guy.
“Yes. He was the first to settle in France from Spain.”
“Was his name Ladaque?”
“No. His name did not sound French so he changed it.”
“The writing on the fringes in the painting are, in fact, Hebrew,” said Guy.
A profound silence followed.
Guy took a piece of paper and wrote down the text in the painting and the translation: “The scholar, our father, and teacher, Moshe, son of Eliyahu, helper to the poor and a fortress to the under-privileged.”
Guy said, “The word for 'under-privileged' sounds like Ladaque. I believe your name comes from that word.”
Paul's mother, of old Roman Catholic heritage, was in shock. She got up and walked back and forth muttering. Paul frowned in his chair. The old man In a strange state of excitement, excused himself and said “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Twenty minutes later, he returned carrying a leather portfolio, which he opened very carefully on the coffee table. Paul and his mother looked on in surprise. After searching through the documents within, the old man produced two parchments, which he handed to Guy. Examining the first, Guy started to tremble again. It was a painting of the sacrifice of Isaac, drawn with tiny Hebrew letters instead of lines. The size of the letters and the old Hebrew syntax without spaces was not easy to read or understand.
“It is a testament, written by someone whose name is unclear, asking his children to return to Judaism once the danger is over. The date on it was 1498.”
“Can’t you read the name?” asked Mr. Ladaque.
“No, I'm sorry,” said Guy. “It looks as if the name was deliberately defaced.”
The second document was a Ketuba, a Jewish marriage contract written in Aramaic. The old man was all agog. He pulled out more documents and wrote down every word Guy said. Not until 02:00 did he let Guy go to bed.
Paul’s behavior throughout the evening had been somewhat strange. He sat quietly, deeply preoccupied. His mother retired for the night after being disoriented over an hour.
The next morning, Paul seemed not to be the same friendly person as before. “I'm sorry,” said Guy, “I can see you are troubled. Is it related to what we found in the painting last night?”
“No.” His manner was brusque. “We must return to Paris immediately after breakfast.”
They drove silently for half an hour, then Paul said, “I’ve been offered a job in Marseille. I fly there tomorrow."
Guy was surprised and hurt. "Why didn’t you say anything before? We've been sharing so much together and I have been with you since yesterday morning. Why only now do you choose to talk about it?”
“Well, you know, I wasn’t sure I wanted the job. Also I did not want to talk about it in front of my parents.”
“You could have told me in the car driving down,” Guy sulked. “However, I wish you good luck and I hope you’ll like it over there. Marseille is not Paris you know.”
“I don't believe we’ll meet again soon, but don’t worry I know where to find you,” said Paul as he dropped Guy off at his hotel. “Au revoir.”
“Bye,” said Guy.
Guy went up to his room. The visit to the Ladaques was not entirely a pleasant one. He was wondering what went wrong. He had been in the room only half an hour when a note was slipped under the connecting door to the next room.
Trainee pilot Guy Oren - crew assignment
dhd ly 215/26 ory-tlv ETD 23:30.
Crew assignment officer
Azovmiyad
The signature code was the password agreed with Maurice. The text on the note had no meaning. The code word translated as: ‘Leave immediately’ but, in addition meant: “Don’t pack. Don’t checkout. Take a train/ferry to London and fly home from there. Your mission is over.’
Guy got dressed in civvies, folded his uniform over his arm and draped a trench coat over it. He crossed the street to a corner café with entrances on two sides. He came in one door, joined a large group of people on their way out and emerged through the other door. On the next corner, he took a cab to the Champs Elysees, where he hailed another cab and went to the Gare du Nord. A train to Brussels was about to leave, Guy decided not to follow his instructions to the letter and he took it.
"If anyone is looking for me" thought Guy, "Belgium is a better destination. They never check passports on the train."
The next morning he joined an El Al crew on a flight to Tel Aviv.
Back home, Guy felt he had been dumped. Nobody called him; he knew no one to contact. The plane and the hostages in Algiers remained unreleased and nothing appeared about it in the newspapers. There was no diplomatic progress either. “What happened?” he kept asking himself. He had no idea where Maurice was or how to contact him. He did not think it would be discreet to write to his home.
Two days later, his luggage arrived with no indication of how it had been arranged. A few days later, on Sunday September 1, the aircraft, and the hostages were released in exchange for some terrorists. Guy got his instructor back and a month later, he was a qualified first officer.
On Guy’s second flight as first officer, which was to London, he found an envelope amongst the flight papers. “Join us for a party in room 303 at 18:00.”
Guy knocked on the door at exactly 6:00 P.M. and, to his surprise, he found Maurice, Black and Decker and two other men he had not met before, inside the suite. A bottle of champagne stood on a small bar with some nibbling goodies, but it did not look like a party. All had raised their hackles. Maurice was the only one to greet him. Guy just sat on the couch with a glass of champagne, Maurice went into a huddle with Black and Decker who in turn, whispered to each other. Then they went into a huddle with the two other men, and so on, back and forth. Half an hour later, Black and Decker, and the two other men left the room and Maurice finally spoke to Guy.
“What you witnessed," said Maurice, "is the ugly part of secret service work. Black and Decker tried to blackmail me, to force me to supply intelligence information. They brought their ‘control’ as backup. When I refused, they promised to incriminate me with some documents in their possession. I was not born yesterday, as you know. I told you before, we were considered 'walk-in agents' who are troublesome to any secret service. 'Walk-in agents' are the first to be sacrificed when anything goes sour. As a safety measure, I did my homework. I told them their real names, there home addresses, and their safe houses in France. I convinced them I could harm them as much, and maybe more, both in France and in Israel. We are now in the middle of a cold war with a balanced exchange of threats.”
After throwing back some champagne, he continued: "Black and Decker did not understand your role in the operation. They had no idea what it takes to prepare an airplane for flight. You are one of a few who knows the engineering as well as the operational aspect of the flight. The ‘off airways’ flight-plan you so skillfully created, the fuel calculation, the takeoff performance, and the myriads of other details, usually done by five separate professionals, was all done by you. Quite impressive.
Black and Decker were supposed to be in touch with you, to watch and protect you. They loathe us both. Their lack of trust in us extended to wanting us to fail. They ‘forgot’ to give you an address or phone number where they could be reached.
“The Geneva office was my idea and for various reasons. The first and the most important one was that the airport serves both France and Switzerland. I still have my airline pass. I can move across easily between France and Switzerland. The Geneva office handles only two flights a week. The staff comes from Zurich just for the flights. The rest of the time, the office is empty. You cleverly used the ‘SITA’ ( societe internationale telecommunication aeronautique ) Teleprinter to report to me. Black and Decker did not know about the SITA network and had no access to it. After I learned to use it I could communicate with your Vice President of Security, who was very pleased nothing leaked out. We kept Black and Decker out of the picture. They were astonished to hear that the airplane was ready for flight. They were fuming you did not use the post office, their only way to follow up. They came to Paris to grill you but did not know where you stayed. Their clumsy presence in France - looking for you - was registered by French intelligence, who then found you.”
After a short pause, Maurice continued: “I told Black and Decker some time before that Monday, to warn you. They did not do so. The French wanted Black & Decker, not you. They wanted to get to them through you. Black & Decker felt it, fled and left you to face the music. The plan was to arrest you on the morning of Monday September 26. The hotel sommelier, who is on my payroll to promote my wines, left you the note advising you to leave at once. As a safety measure, I drove all night to get you out of the hotel, just in case you didn’t get the note.”
Then Maurice said, "I assume you met a man called Paul Ladaque?" Guy’s face drained of all color from the shock. He cleared his throat twice before he could answer, “Yes, he is a good friend of mine.”
“Good friend, my ass! Colonel Ladaque is ruthless, a bright, talented and loyal officer whom I knew in French intelligence. He has never failed in any investigation. That charismatic chap can put the hangman’s rope around your neck and assure you it is for your own good. He was, in fact, about to nail you.”
Guy was in disbelief. “He held memberships in a host of human rights organizations.”
“Just a façade, to help him catch radicals and impress people like you. Paul took you out of town so nobody could warn you. The hotel was under surveillance in case Black and Decker showed up. His parents are in it too. He asked his parents not to discuss any topic that might reveal his occupation. Did the old man ask you how you met Paul? What you were doing in France? If you were married? No? Ha! I didn't think so. The old man was briefed. What I cannot understand is why Paul brought you back earlier than planned and called off the arrest.”
Guy was quiet for a long time.
“It was probably the cognac with the old man,” he said finally.
“What are you talking about?”
Guy told his story.
“Are you telling me that traces of Jewish blood kicked Paul all the way to Marseille? I wish I could confront him and rib him. It's not like Paul to get emotionally involved.”
“How do you know what goes on in the French Intelligence Bureau?”
“You really don't need to know that,” said Maurice.
Guy thought long and deeply. Was it possible Paul Ladaque himself was the source? Maurice was always one-step ahead, and knew too many details.
Maurice kept up the chatter for two more hours over Caille a la Russe aux truffes, (Russian style quail with truffles), which was in keeping with his style. The taste of that succulent meal lingered on Guy’s tongue.
“Listen Guy, we mustn't meet or communicate until I say so. This could be our very own 'Last Supper',” said Maurice as he escorted Guy to his hotel door and gave him a warm embrace. "By the way" Maurice added "we could never have rescued the crew and the airplane as originally planned: the bastards had filled the cabin with forty tons of sand bags. It took a whole day to offload 1600 sand bags before the flight.”
Guy turned his attention to the box on the porch, removed the foam chips, and exposed a 12 gallons barrel of delicate French wine.
The end
Thursday, May 7, 2009
High coffe
Hoch Kaffe
Hagai Cohen
Although externally I look quite normal, I am not perfect. My defect is not visible to the naked eye and it is hard to explain. To put it simply, I do not like anything sweet.
Growing up, with this imperfection was not an easy task. It seemed that kids were more understanding than grown-ups. When I told a friend, "I don't like chocolate," he would respond, "That's all right, I don't like spinach.” But if I would say that to a grown-up the immediate reaction would be:” What? Nonsense! Everybody likes sugar. I've never heard of such a stupid thing." And then more questions: "Not even ice-cream?" or "What about chocolate fudge? Not even that? I don’t believe you." And so on.
Grown-ups were quite upset about my aversion to sweets. Their biggest concern was that it might become a trend. Meaning that more and more children might develop a dislike to sweets, and the best weapon that they had ever had against children, would be rendered useless, "No ice-cream after supper if you don't eat your cauliflower". The poor child would eat the entire cauliflower just because he liked ice cream. With me it never worked. Nobody ever made me eat food I didn't like with a promise of an ice- cream. Grown-ups never understood. All they could do was comment, "What a stubborn boy!"
.
"Hoch Kaffe" was a daily routine, at my friend, Meir Besserkopff’s house. If you are only interested in the meaning of the expression Hoch Kaffe you should skip reading now and go directly to the last paragraph. However, if you really want to understand the full essence of the words then just be patient.
My friend Meir was born in Israel, to parents, who had been born in Germany and left for Jerusalem in 1934 following the rise of Hitler, It was during High School that I met Meir, and we very quickly became good friends. We went to the same sports club together, we studied music at the same music school, and a lot of our school homework was done together, mostly at his house.
Meir lived together with his younger brother and parents in a huge apartment of twenty fives rooms. In fact, this apartment was a full "slice" of a big house - an entire floor. On the other floors of the same building there were at least five apartments in the equivalent space. To make it easy to find your way in this large labyrinth each room was given a specific name, - the morning room, the coffee room, the laundry, the mud room, the cold room, the stone house and so on.
Each of the rooms was heavily furnished with cumbersome dark walnut furniture. Each piece of furniture looked so massive that it seemed as if they had been built on location before the house. It was impossible to imagine that they could ever have fit through the door-frames.
Meir's father was a professor of history at the Hebrew university. His mother ran the ‘estate,’ together with three hired hands; a maid, a cook, and a secretary. They too resided in the apartment and were on immediate standby 24/7.
Reflecting back on it today I am sure that Meir never had an egg salad sandwich or humus in pitta bread. Whenever Meir expressed a desire for a snack (through the right channels of course), he would get (only if it was not too close to a scheduled meal), a huge silver tray full of small things, they called "canapé’s". These were coin size, round slices of bread, each piled up with goodies such as smoked fish, various cheeses, all kinds of processed meats, decorated with fancy vegetables, black and green olives, tiny pieces of red, green and yellow peppers, tomatoes, lemon, capers and more. Each one of those microscopic club sandwiches looked like a flower. They were all arranged together on a big silver tray in the formation of a giant flower. A work of art, that would cause a guilty conscience to the person eating the ‘installation’. It was the only food that Meir was allowed to eat with his bare hands, and only in the morning room.
Nobody in Meir’s house spoke unless spoken to first by a higher authority. I glimpsed Meir’s father a few times but never heard his voice. He probably had nothing to say and had no need to enforce his authority as everything went so smoothly in this well lubricated flawless household.
My friend Meir had a split personality, he used to joke with me about the strict rules and codes in his house when he was out with me, but complied with the discipline to perfection when he was home with his parents and servants. Meir used to joke about his communication with his father. "When I want to talk to my father" he said:"1. I write a draft. 2. I take it to my mom for approval. 3. Once approved, the secretary types it and puts it in an envelope. 4. The maid takes the note to my father. 5. My father consults his calendar and sets a date for next October, and so on".
Once, while studying for an exam together, Meir and I were unaware of the time until all of a sudden there was a knock on the door.
Meir jumped, as if he had been bitten by a snake. It was obvious that Meir had missed an important duty.
"Its Hoch Kaffe, Master Besserkopff," said the maid, in German, from behind the door.”
What is Hoch Kaffe?" I asked Meir, "We are just having coffee," Meir replied, and rushed me into the guest bathroom. He pointed at two small towels with my name on a piece of paper next to them. He introduced me to a secret button on the wall, by which the toilet was flushed. He left the room saying, "You may wash your hands now".
This sentence came to me as a big surprise, what could it mean - I may wash my hands.
For a few seconds I was sure something very bad had happened to Meir. First, the jump at the maid's knock, then this stupid hand-washing directive, it could only mean trouble.
All of a sudden it came to me as clear as day, in this household nobody was supposed to know what you are planing to do in the bathroom, it is a private matter between you and your body. It is inconceivable even to imagine what one could be doing there. Thus, the Besserkopffs used a code, "wash your hands" so that nobody would ever guess what you really did in there.
Meir was waiting for me after I had finished "washing my hands" and escorted me to the coffee room. Everyone was already seated as we walked in, except for the maid, who was standing on alert wearing a fresh apron and a clean cape.
Meir's father stood, with a very angry face, watching the big pendulum clock that showed one and a half-minutes past five O'clock. I was not sure but it seemed as if everybody was waiting just for us - the father, the mother, an uncle, I had never met, and Meir’s eleven year old brother .
The table in front of me was loaded. There were two plates stacked one on top of the other, a cup and a saucer - all matching Rosenthal china. A spoon, a teaspoon and an oddly shaped fork- all solid silver were neatly arranged next to the china. Straight away I spotted what I thought were cookies, but the Besserkopffs later explained that they were "petit-fours". On a serving table next to the coffee pitcher there were two different cakes, one moist or creamy usually eaten with a spoon, and the other dry, eaten with the odd shaped fork.
At that moment Meir's mom signaled to the ‘alerted’ maid who immediately started pouring the coffee and passing it down the chain of command, starting with the father and finishing with Meir's brother.
I was watching the perfectly executed drill when I was surprised by the maid who sneaked up behind me and inquired, "Master Gonen what kind of cake do you prefer?
She caught me unprepared. It was the first time, and I think also the last that anyone had ever called me Master Gonen. I, however, was not planning to eat any cake. I took a moment to recuperate and then responded, "Thank you, I do not eat cakes." The maid's words to me were the first words spoken in the coffee room, and after my answer was emitted the silence turned into a deep silence. The air stopped moving, and I am sure that even the cakes took it as a personal insult.
"I am sorry madam, nothing is wrong with the cakes. I merely do not eat anything sweet." I said, answering the question that Meir's mother had not yet even asked. Though questions quickly followed:
"Not even a chocolate?"
“Not even a chocolate madam," was my answer.
"But you must eat sugar," she said “it's good for your health."
I knew for sure, that this coffee party was not going to be my cup of tea, and the worst had yet to come.
It was the time now for the ceremony of sweetening the coffee. On the table over the snow white starched linen table cloth rested two lidded jars full of sugar cubes. As I watched the people around the table I wondered how was it possible to make a simple coffee drink so complicated.
Each one in turn (according to hierarchy) removed the lid from the sugar jar and held it in their left hand, then with their right hand they picked up the specially provided silver tongs.
Now, to pick up a sugar cube is a skill of competence, experience and long training. One should figure out beforehand, which one of the cubes should be picked up. It must be the one cube that once removed will not disturb the peaceful rest of the other cubes, or cause them to move, or make noise or tragically damage any of them ‘God forbid’.
Now the tongs had to grip the cube at the very end because it was absolutely forbidden to wet the tongs whilst dropping the sugar into the coffee. OOPS, did I say dropping? Pardon my language, dropping is an obscene word I think ‘launching’ would be a more appropriate word or perhaps ‘inserting’. This is an operation which definitely requires fine motor skills, which are probably not yet developed in a person under the age of twelve. Meir's brother was not allowed to sweeten the coffee himself, hence the maid had to do it.
There should be no splash while the cube is inserted, and absolutely no waves, not to mention any noise. And this is not all, after the sugar is in, there must be a certain pause. One must give time for the sugar cube to break before commencing to stir. If enough time is not given, the sugar cube might clink once or twice on the side of the Rosenthal, an inconceivable offence. On the other hand, if you do not take any chances and you give it a little extra time, you will immediately observe a few raised eyebrows, as you are slowing down the others, and the coffee might get cold.
Now to the stirring itself, yet another pre-calculated motion: The spoon was held between the thumb and the index finger in a vertical position with the rest of the fingers spread apart and kept as far away as possible from the coffee. The next and final maneuver is the stirring action: three or four consecutive turns. At no phase of this stage should the spoon touch any part of the cup.
You should try doing the next performance in sequence: Firstly, lift a full cup of coffee and put it back on the saucer without making any noise. Secondly, try to drink the coffee with closed tight lips, without releasing any sipping sound. Lastly, try to eat a cake and talk with the same closed mouth. If you manage to do it right, you will be qualified to have coffee with the Besserkopffs.
As you have probably guessed, there was nothing for me in drinking sweetened coffee, there was really no reason for me to worry about the delicate skill and precise procedure of launching sugar in my coffee, or stirring without a rustle. I felt confident in my prowess. However, I was not aware that Meir's family used the coffee procedure as criteria for assessing the level of manners a person had. In fact, they wanted to compare me to Meir. To get positive reinforcement that he was reared better.
The moment they acknowledged that I did not use the tongs and the spoon they felt they had lost strategic ground. I felt the growing tension but did not contemplate for even one second starting to use sugar for the sake of the Besserkopffs.
The first to speak was Meir's mother who said: "You may put sugar in your coffee!" As she was addressing me I had to answer. "Thank you madam, I think I'll have my coffee without sugar". This statement rendered everyone speechless. To me it felt like the quiet gathering of the clouds before the storm. I felt sorry for Meir who didn't know what to do and may have had some regrets for having invited me.
Suddenly, the uncle dared to talk to nobody in particular. Although it was none of his business, and he was not in charge of my education, he felt his input may be important. So he spoke into the air. (The term transmitting blind’ is very descriptive.) “Sugar is a very important element of nutrition. Pilots take chocolate as an immediate source of energy before going into combat." As the uncle had not spoken directly to me, I did not feel I needed to respond.
Although I was ready for almost anything I was suddenly taken by surprise. I could not imagine that the master of all masters, the closest mortal to the creator - Mr. Besserkopff would be interested in my coffee drinking but he was. Mr. Besserkopff picked up a fork and clinked on his cup of coffee to draw everybody's attention and started to talk. I was very surprised to hear his voice as I had never heard it before, it sounded as if the voice did not belong to anybody and was coming from outer space. He spoke for some time before I started to listen to what he was talking about.
Our ancestors were gatherers. They collected grains and their body's had to work hard to separate the roughage from the carbohydrates. Their body had to work once again to break the carbohydrates into sugar, which is the only form of energy the human body can use. This is a very inefficient process which causes a negative balance of energy. It doesn’t leave much energy to make the body grow. Today, thanks to an Englishman in Brazil who invented the process of sugar distillation we now have the purest form of energy ever found. The very same man even used pure sugar as a medicine to cure his sick wife. Today the body does not waste energy processing the sugar, so we are taller, stronger, and we live longer.
I was half listening and half thinking “I’ve got to get out of this place, but how?” I could not just get up and walk I had to do something for Meir who I had never seen looking so down before.
Mr. Besserkopff was not finished; he kept talking about Meir and how healthy, and tall he was. He emphasized the fact that Meir was never sick with any children’s diseases. Meir looked miserable, and I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. I tried very hard to come up with an exit plan for Meir and myself.
It came to me like a divine light, like a board to a drowning sailor. I stood up and said, "I am sorry but I have to wash my hands". These were the best winning words I had ever used. It was like sticking the dagger into the bull's heart, the final knockout. I was on their ground and I had used their very own weapon, for a blow under the belt. I knew very well that nobody would question what exactly I needed to do, or what had made my hands dirty. I also knew that Meir would come after me, but I did not want to take any chances so I rushed to the bathroom and locked myself in. Twenty minutes later I came out very quietly to find Meir peeping through his door, with the maid on standby to destroy all the evidence and to disinfect the bathroom. Meir smuggled me safely out of the house.
Epilogue
"Hoch Kaffe" stands for the coffee people in Germany drink at five o'clock, at the "high part” of the day. The Englishman who discovered how to distil the sugar was a real person. He was sure he had found the ultimate pure food. What Meir's father forgot to tell me though, was that the very same Englishman killed his wife by feeding her only sugar for three months. Meir himself, brought back to life, some children’s’ illnesses that had already long been forgotten. He was sick for three years, virtually non-stop, during his army service. He contracted all of the children’s diseases he had been deprived of as a child. They came along with all of the possible textbook complications.
Unfortunately, I never had Hoch Kaffe again. I was banned from the house of the civilized people.
The End
Although externally I look quite normal, I am not perfect. My defect is not visible to the naked eye and it is hard to explain. To put it simply, I do not like anything sweet.
Growing up, with this imperfection was not an easy task. It seemed that kids were more understanding than grown-ups. When I told a friend, "I don't like chocolate," he would respond, "That's all right, I don't like spinach.” But if I would say that to a grown-up the immediate reaction would be:” What? Nonsense! Everybody likes sugar. I've never heard of such a stupid thing." And then more questions: "Not even ice-cream?" or "What about chocolate fudge? Not even that? I don’t believe you." And so on.
Grown-ups were quite upset about my aversion to sweets. Their biggest concern was that it might become a trend. Meaning that more and more children might develop a dislike to sweets, and the best weapon that they had ever had against children, would be rendered useless, "No ice-cream after supper if you don't eat your cauliflower". The poor child would eat the entire cauliflower just because he liked ice cream. With me it never worked. Nobody ever made me eat food I didn't like with a promise of an ice- cream. Grown-ups never understood. All they could do was comment, "What a stubborn boy!"
.
"Hoch Kaffe" was a daily routine, at my friend, Meir Besserkopff’s house. If you are only interested in the meaning of the expression Hoch Kaffe you should skip reading now and go directly to the last paragraph. However, if you really want to understand the full essence of the words then just be patient.
My friend Meir was born in Israel, to parents, who had been born in Germany and left for Jerusalem in 1934 following the rise of Hitler, It was during High School that I met Meir, and we very quickly became good friends. We went to the same sports club together, we studied music at the same music school, and a lot of our school homework was done together, mostly at his house.
Meir lived together with his younger brother and parents in a huge apartment of twenty fives rooms. In fact, this apartment was a full "slice" of a big house - an entire floor. On the other floors of the same building there were at least five apartments in the equivalent space. To make it easy to find your way in this large labyrinth each room was given a specific name, - the morning room, the coffee room, the laundry, the mud room, the cold room, the stone house and so on.
Each of the rooms was heavily furnished with cumbersome dark walnut furniture. Each piece of furniture looked so massive that it seemed as if they had been built on location before the house. It was impossible to imagine that they could ever have fit through the door-frames.
Meir's father was a professor of history at the Hebrew university. His mother ran the ‘estate,’ together with three hired hands; a maid, a cook, and a secretary. They too resided in the apartment and were on immediate standby 24/7.
Reflecting back on it today I am sure that Meir never had an egg salad sandwich or humus in pitta bread. Whenever Meir expressed a desire for a snack (through the right channels of course), he would get (only if it was not too close to a scheduled meal), a huge silver tray full of small things, they called "canapé’s". These were coin size, round slices of bread, each piled up with goodies such as smoked fish, various cheeses, all kinds of processed meats, decorated with fancy vegetables, black and green olives, tiny pieces of red, green and yellow peppers, tomatoes, lemon, capers and more. Each one of those microscopic club sandwiches looked like a flower. They were all arranged together on a big silver tray in the formation of a giant flower. A work of art, that would cause a guilty conscience to the person eating the ‘installation’. It was the only food that Meir was allowed to eat with his bare hands, and only in the morning room.
Nobody in Meir’s house spoke unless spoken to first by a higher authority. I glimpsed Meir’s father a few times but never heard his voice. He probably had nothing to say and had no need to enforce his authority as everything went so smoothly in this well lubricated flawless household.
My friend Meir had a split personality, he used to joke with me about the strict rules and codes in his house when he was out with me, but complied with the discipline to perfection when he was home with his parents and servants. Meir used to joke about his communication with his father. "When I want to talk to my father" he said:"1. I write a draft. 2. I take it to my mom for approval. 3. Once approved, the secretary types it and puts it in an envelope. 4. The maid takes the note to my father. 5. My father consults his calendar and sets a date for next October, and so on".
Once, while studying for an exam together, Meir and I were unaware of the time until all of a sudden there was a knock on the door.
Meir jumped, as if he had been bitten by a snake. It was obvious that Meir had missed an important duty.
"Its Hoch Kaffe, Master Besserkopff," said the maid, in German, from behind the door.”
What is Hoch Kaffe?" I asked Meir, "We are just having coffee," Meir replied, and rushed me into the guest bathroom. He pointed at two small towels with my name on a piece of paper next to them. He introduced me to a secret button on the wall, by which the toilet was flushed. He left the room saying, "You may wash your hands now".
This sentence came to me as a big surprise, what could it mean - I may wash my hands.
For a few seconds I was sure something very bad had happened to Meir. First, the jump at the maid's knock, then this stupid hand-washing directive, it could only mean trouble.
All of a sudden it came to me as clear as day, in this household nobody was supposed to know what you are planing to do in the bathroom, it is a private matter between you and your body. It is inconceivable even to imagine what one could be doing there. Thus, the Besserkopffs used a code, "wash your hands" so that nobody would ever guess what you really did in there.
Meir was waiting for me after I had finished "washing my hands" and escorted me to the coffee room. Everyone was already seated as we walked in, except for the maid, who was standing on alert wearing a fresh apron and a clean cape.
Meir's father stood, with a very angry face, watching the big pendulum clock that showed one and a half-minutes past five O'clock. I was not sure but it seemed as if everybody was waiting just for us - the father, the mother, an uncle, I had never met, and Meir’s eleven year old brother .
The table in front of me was loaded. There were two plates stacked one on top of the other, a cup and a saucer - all matching Rosenthal china. A spoon, a teaspoon and an oddly shaped fork- all solid silver were neatly arranged next to the china. Straight away I spotted what I thought were cookies, but the Besserkopffs later explained that they were "petit-fours". On a serving table next to the coffee pitcher there were two different cakes, one moist or creamy usually eaten with a spoon, and the other dry, eaten with the odd shaped fork.
At that moment Meir's mom signaled to the ‘alerted’ maid who immediately started pouring the coffee and passing it down the chain of command, starting with the father and finishing with Meir's brother.
I was watching the perfectly executed drill when I was surprised by the maid who sneaked up behind me and inquired, "Master Gonen what kind of cake do you prefer?
She caught me unprepared. It was the first time, and I think also the last that anyone had ever called me Master Gonen. I, however, was not planning to eat any cake. I took a moment to recuperate and then responded, "Thank you, I do not eat cakes." The maid's words to me were the first words spoken in the coffee room, and after my answer was emitted the silence turned into a deep silence. The air stopped moving, and I am sure that even the cakes took it as a personal insult.
"I am sorry madam, nothing is wrong with the cakes. I merely do not eat anything sweet." I said, answering the question that Meir's mother had not yet even asked. Though questions quickly followed:
"Not even a chocolate?"
“Not even a chocolate madam," was my answer.
"But you must eat sugar," she said “it's good for your health."
I knew for sure, that this coffee party was not going to be my cup of tea, and the worst had yet to come.
It was the time now for the ceremony of sweetening the coffee. On the table over the snow white starched linen table cloth rested two lidded jars full of sugar cubes. As I watched the people around the table I wondered how was it possible to make a simple coffee drink so complicated.
Each one in turn (according to hierarchy) removed the lid from the sugar jar and held it in their left hand, then with their right hand they picked up the specially provided silver tongs.
Now, to pick up a sugar cube is a skill of competence, experience and long training. One should figure out beforehand, which one of the cubes should be picked up. It must be the one cube that once removed will not disturb the peaceful rest of the other cubes, or cause them to move, or make noise or tragically damage any of them ‘God forbid’.
Now the tongs had to grip the cube at the very end because it was absolutely forbidden to wet the tongs whilst dropping the sugar into the coffee. OOPS, did I say dropping? Pardon my language, dropping is an obscene word I think ‘launching’ would be a more appropriate word or perhaps ‘inserting’. This is an operation which definitely requires fine motor skills, which are probably not yet developed in a person under the age of twelve. Meir's brother was not allowed to sweeten the coffee himself, hence the maid had to do it.
There should be no splash while the cube is inserted, and absolutely no waves, not to mention any noise. And this is not all, after the sugar is in, there must be a certain pause. One must give time for the sugar cube to break before commencing to stir. If enough time is not given, the sugar cube might clink once or twice on the side of the Rosenthal, an inconceivable offence. On the other hand, if you do not take any chances and you give it a little extra time, you will immediately observe a few raised eyebrows, as you are slowing down the others, and the coffee might get cold.
Now to the stirring itself, yet another pre-calculated motion: The spoon was held between the thumb and the index finger in a vertical position with the rest of the fingers spread apart and kept as far away as possible from the coffee. The next and final maneuver is the stirring action: three or four consecutive turns. At no phase of this stage should the spoon touch any part of the cup.
You should try doing the next performance in sequence: Firstly, lift a full cup of coffee and put it back on the saucer without making any noise. Secondly, try to drink the coffee with closed tight lips, without releasing any sipping sound. Lastly, try to eat a cake and talk with the same closed mouth. If you manage to do it right, you will be qualified to have coffee with the Besserkopffs.
As you have probably guessed, there was nothing for me in drinking sweetened coffee, there was really no reason for me to worry about the delicate skill and precise procedure of launching sugar in my coffee, or stirring without a rustle. I felt confident in my prowess. However, I was not aware that Meir's family used the coffee procedure as criteria for assessing the level of manners a person had. In fact, they wanted to compare me to Meir. To get positive reinforcement that he was reared better.
The moment they acknowledged that I did not use the tongs and the spoon they felt they had lost strategic ground. I felt the growing tension but did not contemplate for even one second starting to use sugar for the sake of the Besserkopffs.
The first to speak was Meir's mother who said: "You may put sugar in your coffee!" As she was addressing me I had to answer. "Thank you madam, I think I'll have my coffee without sugar". This statement rendered everyone speechless. To me it felt like the quiet gathering of the clouds before the storm. I felt sorry for Meir who didn't know what to do and may have had some regrets for having invited me.
Suddenly, the uncle dared to talk to nobody in particular. Although it was none of his business, and he was not in charge of my education, he felt his input may be important. So he spoke into the air. (The term transmitting blind’ is very descriptive.) “Sugar is a very important element of nutrition. Pilots take chocolate as an immediate source of energy before going into combat." As the uncle had not spoken directly to me, I did not feel I needed to respond.
Although I was ready for almost anything I was suddenly taken by surprise. I could not imagine that the master of all masters, the closest mortal to the creator - Mr. Besserkopff would be interested in my coffee drinking but he was. Mr. Besserkopff picked up a fork and clinked on his cup of coffee to draw everybody's attention and started to talk. I was very surprised to hear his voice as I had never heard it before, it sounded as if the voice did not belong to anybody and was coming from outer space. He spoke for some time before I started to listen to what he was talking about.
Our ancestors were gatherers. They collected grains and their body's had to work hard to separate the roughage from the carbohydrates. Their body had to work once again to break the carbohydrates into sugar, which is the only form of energy the human body can use. This is a very inefficient process which causes a negative balance of energy. It doesn’t leave much energy to make the body grow. Today, thanks to an Englishman in Brazil who invented the process of sugar distillation we now have the purest form of energy ever found. The very same man even used pure sugar as a medicine to cure his sick wife. Today the body does not waste energy processing the sugar, so we are taller, stronger, and we live longer.
I was half listening and half thinking “I’ve got to get out of this place, but how?” I could not just get up and walk I had to do something for Meir who I had never seen looking so down before.
Mr. Besserkopff was not finished; he kept talking about Meir and how healthy, and tall he was. He emphasized the fact that Meir was never sick with any children’s diseases. Meir looked miserable, and I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. I tried very hard to come up with an exit plan for Meir and myself.
It came to me like a divine light, like a board to a drowning sailor. I stood up and said, "I am sorry but I have to wash my hands". These were the best winning words I had ever used. It was like sticking the dagger into the bull's heart, the final knockout. I was on their ground and I had used their very own weapon, for a blow under the belt. I knew very well that nobody would question what exactly I needed to do, or what had made my hands dirty. I also knew that Meir would come after me, but I did not want to take any chances so I rushed to the bathroom and locked myself in. Twenty minutes later I came out very quietly to find Meir peeping through his door, with the maid on standby to destroy all the evidence and to disinfect the bathroom. Meir smuggled me safely out of the house.
Epilogue
"Hoch Kaffe" stands for the coffee people in Germany drink at five o'clock, at the "high part” of the day. The Englishman who discovered how to distil the sugar was a real person. He was sure he had found the ultimate pure food. What Meir's father forgot to tell me though, was that the very same Englishman killed his wife by feeding her only sugar for three months. Meir himself, brought back to life, some children’s’ illnesses that had already long been forgotten. He was sick for three years, virtually non-stop, during his army service. He contracted all of the children’s diseases he had been deprived of as a child. They came along with all of the possible textbook complications.
Unfortunately, I never had Hoch Kaffe again. I was banned from the house of the civilized people.
The End
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The late David Shapiro
The late David Shapiro
Hagai Cohen
.
.
One afternoon, in the middle of May, when I was a tenth-grader, I was on my way to play ball. As I turned right, at the end of the block, I ran into Yankel, our local billboard-man, doing his job pasting a poster. I froze, no citizen, ever dared to get within ten feet of Yankel or his equipment, and for good reason.
Clumsy Yankel pasted his posters vigorously and as a result, many droplets of glue scattered on innocent passersby. In addition, he stuttered, and while stuttering, he spattered tiny fragments of his last meal over a large radius.
He always wore the same glue-reinforced, skunk-repellant, ripened, moldy overalls, which could make a great scarecrow without necessitating stuffing.
I was distraught to be that close to Yankel. My first instinct was to run away, as fast as I could, instead I looked up at him and said “Hi, Yankel! What happened to your bicycle?”
Yankel was never without his bicycle. He was always seen pushing it along loaded with two big buckets, one with water and one with paste, a brush on a long stick, and of course the rolls of posters.
“My bicycle is bbbbb..broken” he stammered out a shower of saliva “and the pppp..posters are urgent.”
“What is so urgent about the posters?” I asked.
“I do not know," said Yankel. "I cannot read.”
Out of pure curiosity, I turned to read the poster. In archaic language, it proclaimed:
Important Notice
“The coffin of the righteous Rabbi David Shapiro has arrived. The funeral will come to pass on Wednesday at three o’clock in the afternoon.”
The poster requested the people of the congregation to pay their respects to the prominent scholar, the honorable, virtuous man who had been buried for many years in Europe and was finally being brought to eternal rest in the Holy Land.
Coincidentally, David Shapiro was also the name of my very-much-alive high school principle, whom I hated. I would have done anything to drive him berserk.
Within moments an idea had formed in my vengeful mind. I was sure that the posters would have just the right affect on our volatile principle!
I offered Yankel my help, which he accepted happily, and instantaneously became his apprentice.
My job was to carry the posters and walk behind the master from one billboard to the next. Yankle gave me ‘on the job training’. He placed his face inches from mine and started talking.
Unfortunately, the time that it took him to finish a sentence was enough to spray me with a substantial quantity of his natural fluids. If that were not enough, my biggest worry was to be seen by my friends - a situation sure to end my social life forever. Much was at stake. I walked behind Yankel, a great sacrifice on my part, in order to steal some posters. The thought of Mr. Shapiro's wrath made the risk worth the sacrifice.
Each time Yankel was busy smearing his glue, I folded a poster and stashed it inside my shirt. After I had managed to secrete seven posters, I excused myself and rushed home.
I took a shower to get read of Yankel's leftovers, and dropped my clothes into the laundry hamper. Then I appropriated my Mom’s entire stock of starch, and made a bucket of nice smooth glue. Before darkness set, the posters were up on the school’s stonewalls.
Next morning, I was the first person to “discover” the posters. I stood in front of the school gates examining my handiwork and was both impressed and proud. The posters were well spaced and perfectly aligned with the school gate frames.
When the staff and students began to arrive, I was happy to see the impact of my deed upon them. What they saw was the name David Shapiro and the black frame. Nobody took the trouble to read it thoroughly. In no time at all, the news that the principle had passed away was all over the school.
Groups of crying students were to be seen everywhere, and many stunned people were too shocked to talk.
Later, when they saw David Shapiro, heavily sweating, red-faced, red-necked, and redheaded, wandering about alive, they screamed with fear. The principle David Shapiro, to my great satisfaction, looked extremely unhappy.
“A criminal act, carried out by delinquent children," was his pronouncement. "The people responsible will be caught and thrown out of our school.”
No classes were held that day. The teachers were told to run discussion sessions about the “criminal act,” one rotten apple in a barrel and so on. My English teacher suggested to the class it was more a practical joke than a criminal act, When the Principle heard of it, he almost crucified another Jew, in our very own schoolyard.
Initially, I was very pleased but as time passed, I became increasingly annoyed. Not from a guilty conscience, God forbid, only that I could not get the credit I deserved. I had given five hundred students the best show in town and could not even brag about it. The credit for the greatest practical joke of my life was given to virtual juvenile delinquents and imaginary hoodlums.
Ruth, a girl in my class, the smartest person I had ever met, had a unique ability. She was always a hundred miles and six months ahead of any other, including the teachers. She was some kind of psychic. She could predict what anybody would say, even before he or she opened their mouths. To her, I was transparent.
When she was about, I used my tongue fluently to camouflage my thoughts, with little success. I liked her, and was one of the few who did. Most of the boys and girls in my class were jealous and afraid of her.
I was very careful during the entire day to avoid any eye contact with Ruth. With only one short look into my eyes, she knew more than I wanted to reveal. It is not that I did not trust her, - she could be discreet, - but I was afraid of her blackmailing potential, and I did not want to play into her hands.
I had a very strong feeling that the leaders of the community would not leave righteous David Shapiro, alone. And again will call the congregation for the unveiling of the tombstone. Soon, I figured, there would be a new poster to alert the people.
There was nothing in the world I wanted more than that poster. It was not an easy job. My evening ritual was to visit Moishe’s printing shop, from where Yankel had obtained the posters. Well, not exactly the shop, but Moishe’s back yard and his dumpster in particular. When a new typeset is arranged on the printing press, the first ten printouts have poor impressions until the ink smears evenly on the rollers. Usually, these are discarded. I wanted very much to find them.
My daily sessions in the garbage bins continued for three weeks. Finally, I had what I was looking for, in my hands:
“The unveiling of the tombstone of the righteous David Shapiro…”
From the ten first prints, six were good enough for my purpose and, that same evening, they were proudly displayed on top of the remains of the old posters.
The next morning, the principle Mr. David Shapiro was ready for violence. The color of his face was somewhere in between purple and blue and his general posture was of a rabid, hydrophobic creature. This time Mr. David Shapiro meant business. He hired an investigating team: a psychologist, a criminologist, and a retired detective. With the active help of Mr. David Shapiro the profile of the alleged criminal was drawn, the P.T.A was informed and the interrogation began.
The desire of Mr. Shapiro to make it look like a colossal crime, influenced the ‘profile’. The person matching this profile could only be someone, with a mile long criminal record, who would have to be serving a life sentence for a triple murder. No one I know could match that profile, I felt secure.
The investigating team was very efficient and very soon found Moishe the printer. Moishe was brought to school to identify his posters. “Yes they are mine,” said Moishe “But they were taken from the garbage” and than added “anybody could do it, talk to Yankel maybe he knows something.” They called Yankel, they sent a taxi to bring him to school, but the cabbie did not let him in the cab. He came with an escort on a bus. Yankel was puzzled, he had difficulties understanding the purpose of the interrogation. When he tried to talk he could not finish a single tangible sentence. Yankel was pathetic.
The investigating team aghast, and disappointed with Yankel’s performance and looks, decided to stop perusing the printer’s angle, to my great relief. . If the investigators only tried to cross match students' addresses with Moishe’s neighborhood they would easily find me. Only ten students of our school lived in my neighborhood.
My source of information was the school janitor. This friendly man, who was constantly bullied by Shapiro, liked me because I hated Shapiro
By the fourth day, it was my turn to face the music. It was already known that the team was tired and the interrogation had become a fiasco.
I was standing by the door waiting to be called in, when I heard my teacher briefing the team: “His father is in hospital; his mother is pregnant, he is working in the evenings to support his family, and doing OK in school, definitely not our person”. My interrogation lasted less than thirty seconds and not a single question was asked about the posters.
During the days of the investigation, Ruth was aggressively campaigning, against the principle and the interrogating crew.
“This is pure discrimination” she protested, “Why isn’t the team interrogating girls?” She complained, “How come the girls are automatically not suspects?” To anyone listening to Ruth's arguments, it was obvious that she was genuinely angry. Although she was fighting sincerely for her ideas, Ruth attracted only laughs. Nobody took her seriously. Part of me wanted to support her, not because I believed in her cause, but as way to create more chaos. The other part told me to stay away and to be more careful.
Unfortunately, for the principle, the investigation ended a few weeks before the end of the year, without any results, The coffin incident was slowly forgotten. We the students were anxiously waiting for the last day of school, for the graduation ceremony, for the report cards, for the parties, and for the summer vacation.
On the morning of the last day of school, an unfortunate event spoiled the last day tradition. Shapiro cancelled the entire last day events and sent us home. Shapiro’s anger was attributed to the huge graffiti in black paint displayed on the white stones, which said:
Now that Shapiro’s remains are interred here, when can we expect the resurrection?
For me personally, this was extremely annoying, I wanted to kill that idiot, scoundrel son-of-a-bitch, who took a free ride on my idea. Suddenly it struck me like lightening, only one person could pull a stunt like this, I was sure it’s her, Ruth, the bitch. I was furious.
Without thinking twice I ran upstairs, three stairs at a time. I stopped short of Ruth and looked directly into her eyes with an arrogant smirk on my face. It was my triumph, she was caught, and she knew it.
Ruth did not waste any time. Apathetically, she looked back at me for one second, and then walked away without saying a word. The look in her eyes said it all. She had caught me too. Damn, how stupid of me.
As she contemptuously walked away, I felt dizzy and almost lost my balance. Against all odds, at that instant, I fell in love with her. Sadly, it was a waste of a great emotion. She was unreachable. The wall between us, which I had built with my arrogance, was there to stay. Our mutual secret respect and admiration could not eradicate the profound mutual intimidation and the balanced exchange of nuclear deterrent..
The end
Hagai Cohen
.
.
One afternoon, in the middle of May, when I was a tenth-grader, I was on my way to play ball. As I turned right, at the end of the block, I ran into Yankel, our local billboard-man, doing his job pasting a poster. I froze, no citizen, ever dared to get within ten feet of Yankel or his equipment, and for good reason.
Clumsy Yankel pasted his posters vigorously and as a result, many droplets of glue scattered on innocent passersby. In addition, he stuttered, and while stuttering, he spattered tiny fragments of his last meal over a large radius.
He always wore the same glue-reinforced, skunk-repellant, ripened, moldy overalls, which could make a great scarecrow without necessitating stuffing.
I was distraught to be that close to Yankel. My first instinct was to run away, as fast as I could, instead I looked up at him and said “Hi, Yankel! What happened to your bicycle?”
Yankel was never without his bicycle. He was always seen pushing it along loaded with two big buckets, one with water and one with paste, a brush on a long stick, and of course the rolls of posters.
“My bicycle is bbbbb..broken” he stammered out a shower of saliva “and the pppp..posters are urgent.”
“What is so urgent about the posters?” I asked.
“I do not know," said Yankel. "I cannot read.”
Out of pure curiosity, I turned to read the poster. In archaic language, it proclaimed:
Important Notice
“The coffin of the righteous Rabbi David Shapiro has arrived. The funeral will come to pass on Wednesday at three o’clock in the afternoon.”
The poster requested the people of the congregation to pay their respects to the prominent scholar, the honorable, virtuous man who had been buried for many years in Europe and was finally being brought to eternal rest in the Holy Land.
Coincidentally, David Shapiro was also the name of my very-much-alive high school principle, whom I hated. I would have done anything to drive him berserk.
Within moments an idea had formed in my vengeful mind. I was sure that the posters would have just the right affect on our volatile principle!
I offered Yankel my help, which he accepted happily, and instantaneously became his apprentice.
My job was to carry the posters and walk behind the master from one billboard to the next. Yankle gave me ‘on the job training’. He placed his face inches from mine and started talking.
Unfortunately, the time that it took him to finish a sentence was enough to spray me with a substantial quantity of his natural fluids. If that were not enough, my biggest worry was to be seen by my friends - a situation sure to end my social life forever. Much was at stake. I walked behind Yankel, a great sacrifice on my part, in order to steal some posters. The thought of Mr. Shapiro's wrath made the risk worth the sacrifice.
Each time Yankel was busy smearing his glue, I folded a poster and stashed it inside my shirt. After I had managed to secrete seven posters, I excused myself and rushed home.
I took a shower to get read of Yankel's leftovers, and dropped my clothes into the laundry hamper. Then I appropriated my Mom’s entire stock of starch, and made a bucket of nice smooth glue. Before darkness set, the posters were up on the school’s stonewalls.
Next morning, I was the first person to “discover” the posters. I stood in front of the school gates examining my handiwork and was both impressed and proud. The posters were well spaced and perfectly aligned with the school gate frames.
When the staff and students began to arrive, I was happy to see the impact of my deed upon them. What they saw was the name David Shapiro and the black frame. Nobody took the trouble to read it thoroughly. In no time at all, the news that the principle had passed away was all over the school.
Groups of crying students were to be seen everywhere, and many stunned people were too shocked to talk.
Later, when they saw David Shapiro, heavily sweating, red-faced, red-necked, and redheaded, wandering about alive, they screamed with fear. The principle David Shapiro, to my great satisfaction, looked extremely unhappy.
“A criminal act, carried out by delinquent children," was his pronouncement. "The people responsible will be caught and thrown out of our school.”
No classes were held that day. The teachers were told to run discussion sessions about the “criminal act,” one rotten apple in a barrel and so on. My English teacher suggested to the class it was more a practical joke than a criminal act, When the Principle heard of it, he almost crucified another Jew, in our very own schoolyard.
Initially, I was very pleased but as time passed, I became increasingly annoyed. Not from a guilty conscience, God forbid, only that I could not get the credit I deserved. I had given five hundred students the best show in town and could not even brag about it. The credit for the greatest practical joke of my life was given to virtual juvenile delinquents and imaginary hoodlums.
Ruth, a girl in my class, the smartest person I had ever met, had a unique ability. She was always a hundred miles and six months ahead of any other, including the teachers. She was some kind of psychic. She could predict what anybody would say, even before he or she opened their mouths. To her, I was transparent.
When she was about, I used my tongue fluently to camouflage my thoughts, with little success. I liked her, and was one of the few who did. Most of the boys and girls in my class were jealous and afraid of her.
I was very careful during the entire day to avoid any eye contact with Ruth. With only one short look into my eyes, she knew more than I wanted to reveal. It is not that I did not trust her, - she could be discreet, - but I was afraid of her blackmailing potential, and I did not want to play into her hands.
I had a very strong feeling that the leaders of the community would not leave righteous David Shapiro, alone. And again will call the congregation for the unveiling of the tombstone. Soon, I figured, there would be a new poster to alert the people.
There was nothing in the world I wanted more than that poster. It was not an easy job. My evening ritual was to visit Moishe’s printing shop, from where Yankel had obtained the posters. Well, not exactly the shop, but Moishe’s back yard and his dumpster in particular. When a new typeset is arranged on the printing press, the first ten printouts have poor impressions until the ink smears evenly on the rollers. Usually, these are discarded. I wanted very much to find them.
My daily sessions in the garbage bins continued for three weeks. Finally, I had what I was looking for, in my hands:
“The unveiling of the tombstone of the righteous David Shapiro…”
From the ten first prints, six were good enough for my purpose and, that same evening, they were proudly displayed on top of the remains of the old posters.
The next morning, the principle Mr. David Shapiro was ready for violence. The color of his face was somewhere in between purple and blue and his general posture was of a rabid, hydrophobic creature. This time Mr. David Shapiro meant business. He hired an investigating team: a psychologist, a criminologist, and a retired detective. With the active help of Mr. David Shapiro the profile of the alleged criminal was drawn, the P.T.A was informed and the interrogation began.
The desire of Mr. Shapiro to make it look like a colossal crime, influenced the ‘profile’. The person matching this profile could only be someone, with a mile long criminal record, who would have to be serving a life sentence for a triple murder. No one I know could match that profile, I felt secure.
The investigating team was very efficient and very soon found Moishe the printer. Moishe was brought to school to identify his posters. “Yes they are mine,” said Moishe “But they were taken from the garbage” and than added “anybody could do it, talk to Yankel maybe he knows something.” They called Yankel, they sent a taxi to bring him to school, but the cabbie did not let him in the cab. He came with an escort on a bus. Yankel was puzzled, he had difficulties understanding the purpose of the interrogation. When he tried to talk he could not finish a single tangible sentence. Yankel was pathetic.
The investigating team aghast, and disappointed with Yankel’s performance and looks, decided to stop perusing the printer’s angle, to my great relief. . If the investigators only tried to cross match students' addresses with Moishe’s neighborhood they would easily find me. Only ten students of our school lived in my neighborhood.
My source of information was the school janitor. This friendly man, who was constantly bullied by Shapiro, liked me because I hated Shapiro
By the fourth day, it was my turn to face the music. It was already known that the team was tired and the interrogation had become a fiasco.
I was standing by the door waiting to be called in, when I heard my teacher briefing the team: “His father is in hospital; his mother is pregnant, he is working in the evenings to support his family, and doing OK in school, definitely not our person”. My interrogation lasted less than thirty seconds and not a single question was asked about the posters.
During the days of the investigation, Ruth was aggressively campaigning, against the principle and the interrogating crew.
“This is pure discrimination” she protested, “Why isn’t the team interrogating girls?” She complained, “How come the girls are automatically not suspects?” To anyone listening to Ruth's arguments, it was obvious that she was genuinely angry. Although she was fighting sincerely for her ideas, Ruth attracted only laughs. Nobody took her seriously. Part of me wanted to support her, not because I believed in her cause, but as way to create more chaos. The other part told me to stay away and to be more careful.
Unfortunately, for the principle, the investigation ended a few weeks before the end of the year, without any results, The coffin incident was slowly forgotten. We the students were anxiously waiting for the last day of school, for the graduation ceremony, for the report cards, for the parties, and for the summer vacation.
On the morning of the last day of school, an unfortunate event spoiled the last day tradition. Shapiro cancelled the entire last day events and sent us home. Shapiro’s anger was attributed to the huge graffiti in black paint displayed on the white stones, which said:
Now that Shapiro’s remains are interred here, when can we expect the resurrection?
For me personally, this was extremely annoying, I wanted to kill that idiot, scoundrel son-of-a-bitch, who took a free ride on my idea. Suddenly it struck me like lightening, only one person could pull a stunt like this, I was sure it’s her, Ruth, the bitch. I was furious.
Without thinking twice I ran upstairs, three stairs at a time. I stopped short of Ruth and looked directly into her eyes with an arrogant smirk on my face. It was my triumph, she was caught, and she knew it.
Ruth did not waste any time. Apathetically, she looked back at me for one second, and then walked away without saying a word. The look in her eyes said it all. She had caught me too. Damn, how stupid of me.
As she contemptuously walked away, I felt dizzy and almost lost my balance. Against all odds, at that instant, I fell in love with her. Sadly, it was a waste of a great emotion. She was unreachable. The wall between us, which I had built with my arrogance, was there to stay. Our mutual secret respect and admiration could not eradicate the profound mutual intimidation and the balanced exchange of nuclear deterrent..
The end
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