“Oh, Really?”
A True Story
This
is a story that I rarely tell today, even though it’s a true story. The reason is that it comes from such a
different world than our own post-9/11 world, with different assumptions about what is safe and prudent --
and what isn't. So do me a favor:
don't pass it around.
Once
upon a time -- it was, I think, in the summer of 1975 -- I was travelling to
Israel via Europe. I was just out of college. I had been to London and Paris, and now I was in
Switzerland, my last stop before flying to Tel Aviv. I had flown into
Zurich from Paris, dropped off a few suitcases in the “Gepรคckaufbewahrung” – the
Left Luggage Office (which, given today’s security concerns, probably doesn’t
exist anymore), bought a two-day rail pass and travelled to Bern and other
towns. I finally ended up in the lovely town of Interlaken, where I took a cog railway car traveling at a very steep angle up to a high local peak. After
viewing the stunning panorama from atop, I headed to the railway station
to get back to town, only to see the train depart five minutes early (by
my watch -- but then again, whose watch would you trust, mine or that of a
Swiss train conductor?). Rather than wait an hour, I decided to hitch a
ride down the mountain. Almost immediately, someone picked me up and we
headed down the mountain together. After a little chit-chat, the driver
asked me, "Where are you headed?" I debated whether to tell him
the truth. I had encountered explicit anti-semitism, here and there, during the previous
few weeks, and I wasn't so sure how comfortable it was going to be to continue
to share a car with someone who was hostile to Jews or to Israel. And we weren't yet half-way down the mountain! But I
decided to go for it.
"Israel,"
I said.
"Oh,
really," he responded. "Why are you going there?"
He
looked at me curiously. I told him that I was going to be working on a
kibbutz, and travelling around. He looked at me with some suspicion, and
then he exclaimed, "Mah Nishmah?" It turned out that he was,
of course, an Israeli -- a practicing veterinarian, of all things -- who was now living in
Switzerland. (What are the chances of that happening? Really?) We kept switching back and forth between
English and Hebrew, and within a few minutes, we had hit it off beautifully.
He told me that he had come to Switzerland to study to become a
veterinarian. Expecting to return
immediately thereafter, instead he had met a woman who was to become his wife,
and had ended up settling into a vet practice in town. His wife, who was
Swiss, was in Israel with their little boy on "hofesh"
(holiday), studying Hebrew at an ulpan for a few weeks. Although he and
his wife, who'd been married for about eight years, enjoyed living in
Switzerland, he still harbored dreams of returning to Israel. Besides,
his wife wanted to be able better to communicate with her in-laws -- and wanted to
help her child do the same.
He
offered to take me around the area after he finished up at work. I
readily agreed. And so, after witnessing him putting one cat to sleep and
performing a hysterectomy on another (at least that's what he told me he was
doing; oy), we took off in his car and had a fabulous afternoon and evening.
He even offered to let me stay at his place rather than return to the
youth hostel where I had reserved a room. After all, my train back to Zurich
was due to leave at 5:00 am, and I'd save time by staying at his place.
(I knew now to set my watch ahead by a few minutes.)
Before
I packed my belongings, he asked me to do him a favor: His wife was staying
with some old friends of his in Jerusalem, and their dog was sick. Could
I take some dog medicine back with me to Israel and give it to them?
Sure, I said. No sweat. And so I packed it into my suitcase,
and went to sleep.
The
next morning, I got up bright and early, walked to the train station, and
within a very short time -- it was an express train -- I was at the Zurich
airport. I picked up my bags and
proceeded to the boarding area.
Now,
you have to realize that this was a long time ago, long before that awful case
of the Palestinian terrorist who packed the suitcase of his unsuspecting Irish
girlfriend with explosives to explode on board the plane (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindawi_affair).
Nonetheless, this was a few years after the Lod airport massacre (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre)
and other similarly bloody attacks. So there were armed policemen
monitoring the area where the El Al passengers were gathering, and, needless to
say, there were plenty of security people inspecting our baggage.
So
there I was: a young, innocent student traveling alone with a couple of heavy
suitcases (which the inspector, of course, asked me to open). After
rummaging around for a few moments, the inspector came across a plastic Ziploc bag
containing the packages of pills that my congenial host had given to me.
One of the packages was open, and a few of the pills spilled out as he
held it up. The dialogue that ensued I will never forget:
"What's
this?" he asked.
"Medicine,"
I responded.
"What
kind of medicine?" he asked.
"Dog
medicine," I said.
"Oh
really," he asked. "Do you have a dog?"
"No,"
I said.
"So
then why do you have it?"
"Actually,"
I said, -- and by this time, I could see something out of the corner of my eye --
"a friend of mine gave it to me yesterday. Um, it's medicine for his
friend's dog in Israel."
"Really," he said. "Tell me more."
By
this time, I sensed rather than saw that I was now surrounded.
Without
raising his voice, and with his eyes still on me, the inspector calmly called
out to his buddies, "Yossi, Hayyim, Moti: could you kindly take a more
careful look at this passenger's bag?"
I
realized that if breathed a little more deeply, I'd bump into Yossi and Hayyim,
two unsmiling, stocky, sturdy and athletic young men who were now on either side
of me, as Moti -- who was apparently standing behind me, and was equally strong
-- began to frisk me.
“Please
spread your legs, sir.”
"Actually,"
I said, "this is really easy to understand. You see, I met someone
yesterday, a veterinarian, an Israeli veterinarian ..."
"Really,"
the inspector said. (I could tell that he was beginning to like that
word.) "How did you meet him?"
"Well,"
I said, "I was hitchhiking."
Need
I continue?
The
more I talked, the calmer and quieter everyone around me became, even as I
became more and more flustered. My awareness of the absurdity of what I
had done was interfering with my ability to express myself. Nothing I
said made sense. Everything I said sounded ridiculous: to me, as
well as to my interlocutors. On the other hand, they were hardly
listening to me. They were focusing
their attention on my belongings rather than on me. My story was so ridiculous that after
thoroughly searching my luggage, the security agents, finally convinced that I
was innocent of nothing more egregious than stupidity, began to drift away. By now, they were thoroughly
bored.
The
story has a happy ending: the next day, I went to the ulpan in Jerusalem which
my new friend's wife was attending (yes, she really did exist and she really
was a student there) and I carried out the "handoff" of the medicine.
And yes, although I never had a visual siting of the dog on behalf of whom I
had brought medicine into the country, I am convinced that he did exist, and that the pills that I brought into the country really were dog medicine tablets. A few
days later, I learned that the dog had made a wonderful recovery.
That's
my story. Perhaps you'll understand why I myself no longer take medicine
from other people to Israel -- whether for dogs or for people.
