THRILLER: The Galilee Plot: (International Biological Terror, The Mossad, and... A Self-contended Couple) (3 page)

“Let me talk to her for a
quarter of an hour.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Why?”

“She’ll feel pressurised.
Three weeks from now – I’ll be all yours.”

He sipped his coffee and I
sipped mine, which had gone cold.

“I’ve been in Bulgaria.”

“What took you to
Bulgaria?” I asked, my curiosity aroused.

“I was dredging up
information about you. I found the man you call ‘Vladimir’ in 
Erral
– that autobiographical book of yours. His real name is Ermencho. I introduced
myself and I have to say, the Bulgarians have a lot of respect for Israel’s
intelligence services.”

“They’re not the only
ones,” I commented.

He acknowledged this with
a nod of the head, and went on to say:

“I got an authentic
profile from him. He said, it was nice working with you, you have a ‘lively
mind’ as he put it, a talent for improvisation, and he also described you in a
way you won’t like: a Jewish intellect, as opposed to a Bulgarian intellect,
which he calls ‘square’, doing everything possible to imitate the German
intellect and, regrettably, to resemble it. He asked me most earnestly to pass
on his apologies, about the way you parted company in Prague, and the offence that
he caused you on your most sensitive point – Judaism. He called this your
strong and your weak point. You became a communist to fight the ‘enemy’ of the
Jews and not for reasons of pure ideology, as they would have liked. It’s very
easy to get you riled, with the lightest of touches on the Jewish button. He
asked if it’s our intention to recruit you for some specific mission in the
highly respected Israeli intelligence service, which he meant as a compliment.
My honest answer was yes.”

“Is this an offer?” I
asked him.

“You could see it that
way,” he declared.

“You know I’ve retired.”

“Oh, of course,” Shmulik
confirmed and added as if trying to offer a bribe: “A man like you shouldn’t be
just sitting there, flicking channels between TV, video and DVD screens, your
place is to cause the events that will happen and direct them, not look on from
the sidelines.”

“You don’t know me,” I
protested.

“That’s where you’re
mistaken. We got to know each other inside and out in those manoeuvres,” and he
added, moving on to specifics: “You are the only one, since that time to this
day, out of all my subordinates, including men of remarkable guile, wit and
wisdom, not to mention avowed delinquents – who has failed to obey my orders
and not been punished for it. The one and only.”

“That isn’t enough!” I
exclaimed.

“Let me be the judge of
that!” he insisted firmly, emphatically.

“Do you want an immediate
answer?” I asked, and succeeded in changing the subject, which seemed sterile
to me.

“One of these days I’ll
demand that.”

“And in the meantime?”

“Let’s be content with
what you can do now. For your country. This isn’t a theatrical rendition” – he
saw fit to stress:

“A new light gleams in the
azure sky/ A breeze from the sea speeds over the plain/ Homeland of ours we
love you / In peace, and in trouble and at war…” Shmulik recited the first
verse of
King’s Bride
, and added: “It’s a long time since a song like
that has been written. And I’m absolutely sure you have no intention of
repudiating it.”

“That isn’t in my nature,”
I replied.

“I know!” He sank into a
meaningful silence and then spoke again: “We’ll let you finish your holiday.”
He rose to his feet. Tall, athletic, well-mannered and utterly fearless, a people
with sons like this will not easily be defeated. He held out to me a
visiting-card, with his name in blue letters in a blue surround and telephone
numbers in black. “When you’re ready, call me!” he said, “And don’t forget to
pass on my sincere admiration to your wife.” He stretched out an elegant hand;
his handshake was frank, warm and wise. We parted. I had taken a few steps when
suddenly an idea flashed into my mind, and I turned and ran after him. Shmulik
heard me running, stopped, turned and waited.

“Something occurred to
you?” he asked, saving me my opening words.

“Yes,” I replied. “To make
this despicable project work, the micro-organism known as
Rickettsia
, or
more precisely
Rickettsia rickettsii
” – he repeated the terms after me,
trying to imprint these weird names in his memory – “has to be fed with the
blood of Jews. Is that clear so far?”

“Clear!” he confirmed in a
manner leaving no room for doubt.

“That means,” I went on to
say, “the theft of large quantities of blood. Something you could try, is
persuading the managers of blood-banks in hospitals, especially in the North,
to check their stocks. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were surprised by
the results. Careful investigation will reveal who stole the blood – and the
thread will lead to something deeper and infinitely more surprising.”

“I’ve taken all that in,
boss,” Shmulik confirmed.

I returned to the hotel.
My wife was waiting for me, tensed up to the very limit – and beyond. I changed
my clothes and decided on pre-emptive action: “Right, I’ll tell you what’s
going on.”

The tension eased, as I
told her. It seemed the story appealed to her. She had always been a fan of
detective novels and suspense films.

“Now I believe the stories
you told me about the ‘combat squads’ and your activities as a member of them.”

“Don’t you think that’s a
rather insulting remark?” I asked.

“No,” she protested. “It
isn’t easy to believe all the stories you tell me.”

“That’s been my mistake.”

“What has?”

“Telling you.”

“Doesn’t every male try to
impress his woman? Your behaviour is normal. And I don’t mean to offend you,
and you haven’t taken offence, have you?” she asked with disarming,
irresistible innocence.

“Absolutely not!” – a
heartfelt, two-word closing statement, clarifying everything.

“And do you think you’ll
take up the offer?” she asked.

“No,” was my candid reply.

“Perhaps all the same you
could make some contribution,” she suggested.

“I can do that without
being drafted. The nice thing about retirement is that they stop pestering you
with instructions and demands. If they want the benefit of my accumulated
experience, they’re welcome to it. And that’s the best for both parties.”

“But you won’t be paid for
it.”

“With the pension, and the
extra income from writing and recording royalties – in particular what you
bring in – we have enough and to spare!” I declared in a tone to brook no
contradiction.

My wife considered this
and agreed: “You’re absolutely right!”

Two weeks later, there
were reports in the papers, on radio and the visual media too, of a perplexing
incident which had occurred in a hospital in Nahariyya; a twelve year old Arab
boy, seriously injured in a road accident, had been admitted and he needed an
emergency blood transfusion. His blood type, AB, Rh(-) was a rare one, but
according to the list of types available in the hospital, there was supposed to
be a supply of it in the blood-bank. To the surprise of the doctors, it turned
out there was none there, and the child died in their hands. An enquiry
revealed that a quantity of AB, Rh(-) was kept for urgent cases and so it was
listed,  but it was not to be found in the special refrigeration unit
where it was stored. A police investigation concluded that the blood had been
stolen. Rumour had it that Arabs from Upper Galilee had started stealing blood,
for no discernible purpose. It turned out that stocks of other types of blood
were missing too, despite the meticulous lists that were kept, and these were
not necessarily the rare types. The grandfather of the boy who had died,
Muhammad Nabulsi, a cleaner at the hospital for many years, went to the police
and confessed that fanatical underground types had demanded that he hand over
to them stocks of blood from the hospital, which they needed, and if not, they
threatened to kill him and his family. To the question, did they demand
supplies of blood of rare types, Mr Nabulsi admitted that this was not the
case, but in his foolish way of thinking, as he put it himself, he decided that
the rare types, kept in a separate fridge, would be of more interest to the
blackmailers, and so this was what he did and Allah had punished him and his
beloved grandson had paid with his life for his conduct, which ill befitted a
Muslim. When asked if he was afraid that those fanatics would carry out their
threat and kill him, the man replied that this no longer mattered to him, and
he was praying that God would forgive the evil he had done and his life was
worthless to him now; he would try to mend his ways and beg to be forgiven,
since he did what he did in innocence of heart, and God sees, as no other can,
the inner thoughts of the human heart, and He is compassionate and merciful.

The police investigation
continued, and it was discovered that stocks of blood had been stolen from the hospital
in Haifa too, but of common types. An Arab cleaning lady and her two assistants
had been arrested. The motive behind the thefts remained obscure.

As is the natural way, things
began to calm down. We went out every day to stroll around Zurich, which we had
come to know well. We didn’t often find a restaurant that suited us. Japanese,
Chinese, Thai, Greek, Turkish, Arab restaurants – all had long ago lost their
exotic charm. It seemed they only kept going on the basis of European boredom
and the restlessness of people who go away on expensive holidays, and
pensioners whose pensions, in thrifty hands, enable them to wander the world
far and wide and experience all its wonders, before the fleshly eyes that are
always yearning and never satisfied are closed, the questing heart is stilled,
and the tongue and the palate are no longer serviceable for experiencing,
seeing, expounding, hearing, probing and tasting, however much is possible.

We tried out quite a few
specifically non-exotic restaurants, including large self-service
establishments.

On the Bahnhoff Strasse,
the central thoroughfare of Zurich, stand three gigantic department stores,
each comprising grocery shops on the lower ground floor, on the level above it
sales of household and kitchen supplies, in all their varieties and
eccentricities; on the upper floor – clothing, and on the roof – a huge
self-service restaurant. “Manor” for the paupers, “Co-op” for the petty bourgeois,
“Jelmoli” for the snobs. And finally, “Migros”, a popular establishment
combining Italian speakers, Italian style, Italian food and Italian prices.

It is only right to stress
the high standard of the emphatically Swiss and well maintained toilets operating
in each of the above-mentioned establishments, located, for public convenience,
on the upper floor, and constituting a part of the restaurant. Sometimes, those
requiring toilets come up without needing anything else, not even a glass of
water, and this in all weathers, and they praise the consummate, socio-humane
concept. As a whole, at regular times, regular people arrive at regular places.
Once it happened that my wife needed to do some repairs to her clothing, on a
cold and wet day, but had no means of doing this. Naturally, all the regular
visitors to the café-restaurant were witnesses to her futile attempts to
do what she wanted to do but was incapable of doing. And then, a middle-aged
woman rose from her regular seat, approached us and proffered a pair of folding
scissors, which as it turned out, she always carried around with her in her
handbag specifically for cases such as these, and the business was settled in
the most heart-warming way.

It was not by mere
coincidence that Peter Kropotkin, the eminent anarchist, gained the initial
impression that “people are good” by their very nature and tend to help one
another – in Switzerland certainly, it is down to the behaviour of the Swiss.
 

According to a principle,
which we adhere to, we don’t watch television and we don’t even have a set at
home. In our hotel room, the TV is tempting, with all its dumb innocence and
unhypocritical humility. And it turns out that every year programmes about
sport are aired, and those who understand sport or enjoy watching it need have
no fear of being bored. I never liked sport of any kind; the principles behind
it and the objectives mean nothing to me. But here I was in for a surprise. My
wife proved to be an avid fan of sports programmes, identifying with the
competitors, and sometimes breaking into spontaneous applause in front of the
screen. She claimed that by observing the facial expression of each competitor,
and in particular his level of determination, she could predict who was going
to win the contest and indeed, it was just as she said. I commented that if it
were possible to bet on these contests in the same way as on horse races, we
could recoup the full cost of our holiday.

In high school I was
renowned for my avoidance of physical education classes, to the point where the
tolerant and genial P.E. teacher was driven to distraction, threatening to ruin
my “average” by marking me down in his subject. His wrath, utterly at odds with
his pleasant personality and mild manner, blazed so fiercely that he took the
trouble to invent a new rating, hitherto unknown in any school in Bulgaria, or
elsewhere. My mark in the subject of physical education was a big round “0” –
zero. And because this original and creative mark had no verbal definition, it
stayed on my record in its primal form, from the ninth to the twelfth grade.

And here I had to suffer,
and it was real physical suffering – on account of this particular penchant of
my wife, not quite feminine in my humble opinion. (I told her this repeatedly
and with excessive emphasis, but to no avail.) My wife would run to the set,
switch it on and sit down facing the screen as if hypnotised, at all hours of
the day. And just as passive smoking can lead to passive nicotine poisoning, so
there are lethal passive toxins in television-watching, especially if two
people are together in the confined space of a hotel room, for hour after hour,
as the set exudes its poison. To me, the whole business looks primitive, at
best infantile. Running long distances, winning medals, and indulging in
perverted national pride. And what about all those who haven’t won medals? And
the most important accolade is providing the excuse for the playing of the
national anthem of the state that you represent. As the anthem is being played,
a carefully regulated scenario is taking place. Facing the medal-winner, on a
tall mast, his country’s flag is hoisted. He fixes his gaze on it, in serious
and well rehearsed style, as if seeing it for the first time in his life, and
as the first note of the anthem rings out, both his eyes, simultaneously fill
with clearly visible moisture. Only Russian women have invented an alternative
scenario for themselves, more convenient and more appropriate to their
semi-Asiatic temperament. One of them, from Belarus, started weeping while the
flag was still being hoisted, and when the piece of coloured cloth reached the
top of the mast, the lady broke into such a paroxysm of sobs that her
neighbours on the podium had to support her, lest she collapse under the weight
of her emotion. Truly, an infantile display of an infantile phenomenon. I
almost learned the American anthem by heart, as it was played with such
frequency, dutifully serenading the American athletes, waving their medals for
the cameras. I learnt it in a dispassionate way, not at all willingly. Passive
viewing.

I also filled some gaps in
my knowledge, since were it not for sport, of which my wife turned out to be an
enthusiastic devotee, I would not have known that the Bahamas have a national
anthem. Admittedly, the Bahamian anthem was played only once, as were, at best,
the original anthems of other countries similar to it. Not one of them has
stuck in my memory.

Female tennis players,
despite all the hard work, vision and artistry invested in their tough and
exhausting game, cherish a reservoir of blind hatred for one another, and if it
were possible to attack one another, there is not a shadow of doubt that
without the slightest twinge of conscience, they would rip out their rivals’
eyes with their fingernails.

And something else: in
sport there are competitors and rivals, but no “partners” or “colleagues”. From
an educational point of view, it would be very desirable to ban certain games,
which are not games but a distant relic of gladiatorial combat and the kind of
effervescent venomous hatred, primitive and lethal, that people try in vain to
cope with. And here is sport, nourishing it as a poisonous snake nourishes her
offspring.

My wife showed a lively
and inexorable interest in a tennis player of Swiss origin, Roger Federer. I
felt obliged to take an interest in him too, and once again I was made aware of
my wife’s superior tastes, and this is not just self-congratulation.

This young man is
remarkable for some rare traits of personality, including an impressive degree
of humility, alongside generosity and commitment to the objective, namely
victory achieved not for the sake of self-aggrandisement. He plays the creative
game of a white prince of sport. And he always wins. And it seems to me, that
his competitors feel respect for him if in spite of themselves, and in some
sense are proud of the privilege of playing against him. And if I’m wrong about
this, I would advise them to take it up. Naturally, not all of them. The
negative version of Federer are two players who for some reason appear in white
gear, without inspiration or the slightest hint of taste or an aesthetic
approach. The older, Mr Agassi, stands out for his obsequious and theatrical
playing to the crowd: bowing, blowing kisses and on the other hand spitting out
snot with a finger over one nostril, like a janitor in an abattoir. The other,
of inflated ego, is Kiffer. Both of them have won a number of games, displaying
all the petty-mindedness of traders in haberdashery and second-hand clothing –
a profession infinitely more appropriate for them than the game of tennis, in
which Roger Federer holds sway. Thanks to my wife I took an interest in him, an
interest which began in those days and is finishing today, at this hour, with
this sentence, with this full-stop.