No Medals Today

by Shlomi Tal

  We leave for Brussels at almost midnight. After dark, this is a quiet ride that takes three hours at most if there are no problems on the way. We have time. There is no need to rush. We have to reach Professor Levy’s home in central Brussels by seven in the morning. Emi will drive, as I am feeling tired. As usual, we are both at the end of a busy day of running around, but the adrenaline courses through our veins and we have no choice. Again and again, I remind myself of the war being waged in Israel and tell myself that we have to do everything for the homeland—we have to carry on. There is no stopping and no time to think about being tired. We leave the embassy, cross Rue Jean Mermoz, Rond-Point of the Champs Elysées, then go up the Champs Elysées in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe, which is still lively and bustling at this hour. It’s hard for me to get used to the fact that no one here is concerned with the war raging in the Middle East. Thousands of people throng the boulevard, enjoying themselves in cafés and restaurants or just strolling along the sidewalks. Fall has arrived, and the pavements are littered with burnished yellow leaves. The light breeze swirls them up in the air from time to time and Yves Montand’s rendition of “Autumn Leaves” plays in my mind.

  Emi drives slowly up the most famous boulevard in Europe, if not in the whole world. We pass the cinema where, for the eighth year, the film Emmanuelle, with its daring sex scenes, is being screened. Every self-respecting Parisian has seen it at least once, and every tourist must go to feel “in.” I confess I saw the movie twice. The first time was the second week after I arrived in Paris; the second time I took my wife Tzipi with me. Whenever I drive past this cinema, I have to stare at the poster. “Eighth Year” is printed on it in bold letters. As usual, I anticipate the moment when the banner will change to “Ninth Year,” or the moment when the film will stop being screened because of insufficient spectators. On the other side, Café Fouquet’s, on the corner of George V, is still full of visitors. Emi increases his speed, makes a full circle around the Étoile, then turns right on Avenue Wagram in the direction of the Boulevard Périphérique. From there we head northward on the Autoroute du Nord. We are supposed to stop somewhere en route and eat. We haven’t eaten anything since noon, and, as usual, at the meeting with the CDSE, there was only coffee and water. I have to get a little shut-eye. I haven’t slept since… I don’t even want to remember when.

  I incline the back of my seat beside the driver and try and sleep. If not for the war, I would be at the Salle Pleyel, Paris’ famous concert hall, this evening. Initially, I was planning to attend a concert with Tzipi, but suddenly something came up at school that she had to deal with, and I had planned to take Chantal to the concert. Now, because of the war, Chantal will be going to the concert with Veronique, our mutual friend. Among other works, they will be playing the Mendelsohn violin concerto. I remember that I brought a taped recording of the work on this trip; if not the Salle Pleyel, then at least our 504 Peugeot concert hall. I straighten up my seat and pop the cassette in the tape deck, close my eyes, and imagine walking up the red steps leading up to the Salle Pleyel with Chantal on my right, wearing her beautiful one and only evening dress, in which she looks stunning. All the men in the audience are jealous of me when we take our seats as the sounds of the work burst out of the car’s speakers. Somehow, I am under the impression that the car is racing northwards under the baton Emi is waving to the wondrous sounds of the music.

  “Yiftach, wake up.” Emi shakes me gently. The car is no longer moving, and now the music has suddenly stopped.

  “Why did you wake me up in the middle of the concert?” I mutter and rise as I straighten the seat. “Where on earth are we?”

  “We’ve reached Uccle, a suburb of Brussels, and we’re at the gas station at the end of the highway. I didn’t want to wake you, so I continued driving and didn’t stop for food. You were sleeping so well! We arrived too early to go straight to the professor’s house, so I managed to take a short nap. But now it’s starting to get late. Let’s get out, drink coffee, and find a snack to eat. In twenty minutes we have to call the embassy in Paris. I only hope the phone at the gas station is working and allows long distance calls.”

  There is nowhere to sit in this canteen. We buy coffee and a cheese sandwich and go out back to the car. Actually, I would have chosen a ham sandwich, but I respect Emi, who still won’t eat pork. I begin to absorb the fact that we are going to meet someone to ask for the impossible. How the hell are we going to persuade Professor Levy to loan us an instrument like this? He would have to be crazy to agree!

  “What are you going to tell the professor?” Emi asks me. “Have you got some brilliant idea, something about an act of true Zionism for Israel in her hour of desperate need?”

  “To be quite honest? No. I have no ideas,” I reply as I sip the coffee. “I haven’t a clue what I am going to say to him. I have already rehearsed something like this: ‘Professor, sir, here is a letter from the Israeli ambassador in Paris’—and perhaps we will also have a letter from the ambassador in Brussels—‘asking you to help us for Israel’s sake.’ That’s as far as I have gotten. Now I need some way to persuade Professor Levy to let us have the instrument. It has to be on the plane tonight. My brain is utterly drained of ideas. Do you have any?”

  “Come, let’s call the embassy in Paris. It’s time. I wonder what assignment they will foist on us today. Later, we can put our heads together and think of something.” I go back inside the gas station and call Paris. The tasks ahead of us are all the usual ones. We have to obtain more equipment from Marcel Dassault for the IAF—Afflalo and his men will take care of that. We also have to send more cargo, forbidden under the embargo, as DIP. More Israeli diplomats expelled from Africa are arriving on their way back to Israel. As usual, large quantities of DIP from Jerusalem on the morning El Al flight must be forwarded onward to several destinations, principally in Europe and South America. The daily non-stop El Al planes from Tel Aviv still arrive every morning at exactly six o’clock, just as the Orly airport opens. Udi is already well-practiced at receiving the aircraft and will take care of all these arrangements. There is nothing out of the ordinary. The next time to phone the embassy is in another two hours.

  We get ourselves some more coffee. “It’s time to drive to Professor Levy’s,” Emi announces. “We will meet Hilik from the Brussels embassy, and he will lead the way to the professor’s address. I don’t know how to get there without Hilik.”

  I still don’t know what we’ll say to the professor.

  We sip coffee in silence as we drive to the center of Brussels. “Listen, Yiftach! I have a brilliant idea!” Emi suddenly breaks the oppressive silence in the car. “Let’s tell the professor we are technicians here to examine the instrument we need. We will find that it’s not in order. We will say it has to be taken to the lab for repair and we will return it to him after the war. What do you think of my idea?”

  “Professor Levy will have to be more than a Zionist to fall for such a stupid ruse. If I were in his place, I wouldn’t give equipment that belongs to the hospital to someone I don’t know and hope to get it back one day. And what if we lose this war? What if someone bothers to take a look and sees that the technicians, who aren’t exactly dressed like professionals, are putting the machine in a car with a French diplomatic number plate? You’ve gone out of your mind.”

  At the embassy in Brussels, Hilik is ready to leave. Yesterday he drove to Professor Levy’s house, which took him half an hour to find; it is hidden from view in a wealthy suburb of Brussels near a forest in the city called the Bois de la Cambre. “They are crazy in Israel to make such a request,” Hilik remarked when we met. “They asked us to obtain a machine in Brussels, and we got one that was on display at the importer in Antwerp. We even got it at a reduced price because there is a newer and more advanced model available now. Then a request for another machine followed. Where could we get it? The ambassador suggested that we find one in a department at some hospital with a director who is a well-known Jew
ish Zionist. We were lucky to find the hematology department that is run by Professor Levy, who often attends fundraising meetings and other events at the embassy and is invited at least once every two months to dine with the ambassador.”

  The ambassador instructed Hilik to tell whoever comes from Paris that if Professor Levy has any doubts or misgivings, he can call the ambassador at his home at any time. Professor Levy has both the ambassador’s home phone number and the direct line to his office.

  The meeting with Hilik takes place in the center of Brussels, which is waking up to a new day. It is fall here too, and this city, like all of northern Europe, is covered in dry leaves of all the colors of the rainbow. Autumn in the streets. What a beautiful time of the year! Israel doesn’t have a season like the European fall. The trees along the avenues shed leaves that don’t stay still in the light breeze of the morning. It is drizzling softly, and the only sound that is heard is from the windscreen wipers clearing the water on the front window of the car, the Paris embassy’s Peugeot following the Brussels embassy’s on the way to Professor Levy’s residence.

  The plan was for all three of us to call on Professor Levy, but after Hilik gives me the handwritten letter from the ambassador in Brussels, I decide that there is no need for him to come to this meeting. Before Hilik leaves for his office, I ask-slash-instruct him to call the embassy in Paris as soon as he reaches his office and inform them that there might be a delay of an hour till my next communication with them. Anticipating the professor’s response is difficult. Will he just throw us out of the house, or politely send us on our way? At any rate, we don’t plan to ask him to allow us to call Paris on his phone; it’s expensive (and likely to be even more so if there is a lot to report from Paris), not to mention classified. We agree that, after our visit to Professor Levy, we will come to the Brussels embassy to report on the meeting with the professor and to pick up their DIP for dispatch from Paris to Tel Aviv this evening. God willing, if our mission succeeds, we will obtain the proper documentation to cross the border from Belgium to France. Although there is little likelihood that we will be stopped at the frontier, it is still possible, so it’s a good idea to be armed with the appropriate papers.

  Just as we are about to get out of the car to approach the Levy home, I decide that two people knocking on the professor’s door might startle him and that I should go alone. I straighten my tie and check my appearance and get out of the car, making a dash through the light drizzling rain. I curse the fact that my memory has let me down. Yesterday evening it had been pouring with rain in Paris, and we used the umbrella that is always in the car to protect ourselves as we ran from the car to the embassy. It wasn’t raining when we left for Brussels, and so the umbrella was left at the embassy in Paris.

  Alone, I enter the apartment building where the professor lives on the third floor. I press the buzzer on the door at the entrance to the building. Immediately I am greeted with a baritone voice, “Good morning, shalom, are you from the embassy?”

  “Yes,” I respond and realize that I have no idea what I am getting into.

  The door opens at once. The French for “you” may be plural or singular. Apparently to the professor it implied “you” plural; I step out of the elevator and see the door to the professor’s residence standing wide open. The professor, wearing a suit, a matching tie, and a broad smile, says, “Bonjour, Monsieur, I am Professor Levy. I was expecting two people. Are you Monsieur Cohen or Monsieur Amiel?”

  What a surprise! I had no idea that my visit was expected. I knew that the professor expected a visit from an official at the Israeli embassy in Paris, but I didn’t know that our names had also been reported to him! Someone had already prepared him. I let out a sigh of relief. It will be much easier than I thought, if the broad smile and warm reception so early in the morning is anything to go by. I am momentarily carried away. The aroma of roasted coffee and the smell of toast in the air make me close my eyes with longing. How peaceful it is here. After a sleepless night on the road, the smells of breakfast in this well-appointed home make me feel giddy. I come back to my senses. “Ah, I am Yiftach Cohen. Emanuel Amiel is down below, waiting in the car.”

  “In that case, please invite Monsieur Amiel to come up here, too. My wife has prepared breakfast for you. You must be hungry after driving all night from Paris. I will leave the door open; please bring Monsieur Amiel.” On the way down to get Emi, I think how lucky I am that Tzipi insisted that I get dressed “like a gentleman,” as she put it, wearing a business suit and tie, and that I, in turn, demanded that Emi should also dress appropriately. (If I had to be constrained by a necktie, Emi would also have to suffer.)

  The table is laden with a typical breakfast of croissants, baguettes, butter, a variety of preserves, and coffee, of course. When I return, I give myself up to the aromas and peep at Emi, who is apparently also ecstatic, and wondering whether to contravene the rules of Kosher food. There is plenty of coffee, but no milk, only deliciously rich cream. We, two Israelis, politely ask for regular milk. But Mrs. Levy apologizes—they don’t drink milk, not with coffee or without it. Their coffee is always black, and they keep the cream for guests who wish to “whiten” their coffee, as they explain it.

  Mrs. Levy is as elegantly dressed as if she is entertaining the ambassador himself, rather than two inconspicuous staff members from the embassy in Paris. She is made up to perfection, and this conceals her advancing age. The Levy’s appear to be the same age as my parents, perhaps even older. Emi and I look around their splendidly appointed apartment. From where we are, in a small dining corner near the kitchen, we see a larger dining room near a huge living room. The big table in the middle of the dining room can comfortably seat at least a dozen people. At its center, there is a large vase containing colorful flowers, with two more floral arrangements on either side of it. I think, This living room is the size of my whole apartment in Paris. The elegance of the furniture and paintings on the walls add to the residence’s luxurious and expensive look. Mrs. Levy notices my admiration of the flowers and says, “I buy fresh flowers twice a week. Most of these gorgeous flowers come from Israel. For several days now, no flowers have arrived because of the war. I hope to continue buying Israeli flowers very soon.” I am shocked at the thought her remark suddenly arouses in me: At last I have found someone in Europe who is affected by the war in Israel, even though the only suffering involved is a shortage of fresh flowers.

  I wait for the professor to begin talking. The protocol is that the host directs the conversation, and it seems to be that the host knows a lot more than I think he does. The professor is in a buoyant mood, asking about the situation in Israel and how the war is being waged. I answer to the best of my ability while watching my tongue and being careful not to say anything that is not for public knowledge; I attempt to talk only about what I have read in the newspapers that arrive daily in the DIP from Israel.

  “Professor, sir, my colleague Emanuel and I are just pawns who are doing their job. We have no direct connection with what is happening now in Israel. I suggest that if you speak to your friend, the Israeli ambassador in Brussels, he will be able to give you a much more detailed picture of what is happening in Israel at the moment,” I say in an attempt to close the subject.

  “Indeed, Monsieur Cohen, my friend the Israeli ambassador in Brussels called me yesterday and asked me to help him find the instrument for testing blood that you require so urgently. The ambassador called me two days ago to help him find two such instruments, and I referred him to the instruments’ importer. I am acquainted with the importer because he supplies them to the hospital where I have been working for thirty years. It was from him that the embassy purchased the machine they had on display. Because of me, they got it at a special price. I have not succeeded in locating another one, which is why the ambassador called me again yesterday. Monsieur Cohen, I love Israel very much and want to do my best for the country, which is why I contacted a colleague of mine, a doctor who is now a success
ful businessman. He inquired further and within two hours arranged to purchase a new instrument from the same importer. He plans to donate it to my hospital. This model is more advanced and will not come on the market for another few weeks. In the meantime, we will give you the older one that is currently in use in my department. I will arrange it as if it is an exchange, a kind of trade-in. We will manage without it for a few weeks; there is another one in the other hematology department at my hospital. All I have to do now is pack it up and prepare the required documents. This will enable us to remove it from the hospital in an organized manner, not like thieves in the night. I think that we will complete this by approximately eleven o’clock this morning; you will be able to take possession of it by noon, at the latest.”

  We drive on our way to the embassy in Brussels, pleased that our mission has been successful. Nevertheless, a rather discordant feeling accompanies us. It’s not at all clear to me what we accomplished here. Why did we drive all night to get here? It is as if I had shared my thoughts out loud, because Emi suddenly says, “Tell me, Yiftach, what was that all about? What did we come here for? Why did we drive all night? It was fixed! It was a done deal! What happened? Couldn’t the guys in Brussels deal with the matter? Was it too difficult for them to go to the hospital at eleven o’clock in the morning to pick up the machine and bring it to us in Paris? What is their problem in Brussels? They exploit us, as if we don’t have anything else to do. We have to raise the matter with the CDSE. What is all this manipulation about?”