No Medals Today Read online

  Yes, sure, I think. At this moment I am only concerned with what I am supposed to get done at Orly airport, and I certainly have no thoughts about hot women. Only Chantal still stars—albeit rather blurrily—in my mind.

  “We are at war, Tzipi, my love, and this suit is the dress code in the brigade to which I have been drafted. The diplomatic army is going to do battle on the fiery diplomatic front, to die in style for the motherland with a glass of champagne held high.”

  Just as I am stepping out of the door, the phone rings again. Tzipi takes the call, and in response to my questioning glance, she makes a sign that the call is for her. She confirms something and hangs up. “They decided to keep the school open in spite of the Yom Kippur and Sukkot holidays. They want the kids to be in an organized setup and not under everyone’s feet at the embassy. I’m going to wake them up and take them to school.”

  That’s it, we’ve solved Tzipi’s problem of how to help. The Israeli School in Paris will find something for her to do in addition to her job as a home room teacher and Principal’s assistant. They will also keep her friend, Irit, occupied. The main thing is that Tzipi won’t be around the embassy, exposed too much to Emi, who is no good at telling lies.

  I pick him up on the way to Orly. We live in the same gigantic structure—we call it “Ramat Aviv,” because a lot of Israeli emissaries serving in Paris live there. Emi and I are partners now, until further notice. On the way, I fill him in on the contents of this morning’s telegram and inform him that school will open and function as usual. Emi doesn’t have school-age children. He has a twelve-month-old son, cared for during the day by a nanny, who lives nearby.

  Emi says, “It’s actually smart of them to decide to open the school. Each time the school closes during Sukkot or Hanukkah, or even Passover, the embassy is full of children who come to work with their parents. They run around all over the place, dashing from one floor to another, making an ungodly racket. That just wouldn’t be acceptable now.”

  I refuse to get caught up in his enthusiasm. Another matter is occupying my mind right now, “Emi, we’re going to split up now. I’ll go down to the El Al freight department and meet with Eddy in connection with our shipment from Germany. You take the car and go to the El Al office at the airport. Tell the security officer that we are commandeering his office and find out from El Al who we have to ask for permission to bring a vehicle into the airport. Call the embassy at nine, the next set communication time; bring them up to speed with what we are doing here and have them let you know what is happening. After that, come and pick me up from my meeting with Eddy in the El Al cargo department.”

  Eddy Benayoun looks about fifty years old. He wears a business suit, like me and like millions of Frenchmen going to work every day. We shut ourselves up in a room provided by the cargo department.

  “Yiftach, what you’re asking me to do can be very simply executed. I receive a shipment from you and store it at my company. It’s what I do all the time and how I make a living. We will define this freight in the various documents as automobile spare parts. The problem is the border crossing where customs inspections are carried out. The safest way is to get to a border crossing between Germany and France, in a remote backwater town. There is one we often use to move shipments when we doubt the reliability of the documentation. Let me check something out. Or perhaps we should bring it in quite openly in the central area, from Belgium. After all, they’re not looking for us, are they? They didn’t permit it to leave from the airport in Frankfurt because it was transported in an American army vehicle and was defined as military equipment. So I assume there was an administrative order not to permit such gear to be moved in the direction of Israel. Let me think for a moment…We can get to the border station around closing time, when the chances that someone will decide to examine the shipment are minimal. Besides, our man in Bonn tells me that a radar station consists of many parts that actually look like auto spares. And if a routine inspection is carried out, the customs inspector won’t find anything suspicious. Anyway, they usually look for drugs, cigarettes or things like that. Afterward, instead of bringing the shipment to my warehouse, I will bring it here to El Al, and we will send it to Israel in two consignments. We have no choice, we can only load thirty-five tons on a Boeing seven-zero-seven, and the cargo itself weighs thirty-five tons, if not a little more. At any rate, that is a logistic problem for El Al, and the company will check it out with Tel Aviv. You and I only have to concern ourselves with getting the cargo from Germany to the El Al freight department. And that, I understand, is where our job ends.”

  After Eddy calls a few people in Germany and France, and after coordinating with the embassy in Bonn, he departs. When he gets into his car, before I get into the car with Emi, who is already waiting for me, Eddy says, “Actually, forget everything I said earlier. I have another way of transporting the shipment. There is a certain amount of risk involved; I could also lose my license.”

  My face falls. I think, Here I have a mission, and I have no idea how to make it happen. I know nothing about customs regulations or the transfer of goods, not to mention that what we’re dealing with here is smuggling equipment. Are we representatives of a sovereign country or a band of underworld smugglers? What is the legal significance of all this?

  Eddy interrupts my thoughts. “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay. If you need anything, call me. Take my home phone number. Call me at any hour, at night or on the weekend. It’s the least I can do for my country.” Many French Jews regard Israel as “my country.” I have never asked any of them if they consider themselves French first and then Israeli or Jewish, or the opposite.

  I remind myself that the guys call him “Eddy the Omnipotent,” and I pray that this name is accurate. I am not accustomed to being in a situation where I depend on people who aren’t my commanders and don’t belong to the same organization that I do. This is all new territory for me. When we get on our way, I turn to Emi and say, “Go on, then. Start talking.”

  “First of all, there was a ton of DIP, none of it sorted. Poor Udi is sorting it all. He is getting help from the security officer, who sent two of his men to serve as assistants. After the sorting, everything will be distributed in the afternoon hours. The guys from The Hague won’t be coming; they will stay in Brussels. The people from Brussels will come around two o’clock and will also handle moving the DIP to The Hague. People from the IAI[4] in Paris, headed by Afflalo and including Yossi from the military attaché’s office, are on their way to meet with Marcel Dassault, the manufacturer of all military air crafts in France about supplying urgently needed parts for the Mirage fighter planes in the IAF. The list of equipment to be arranged has been received, and it includes drugs and all manner of items that no one in the department has the slightest notion about. We have to coordinate with El Al what will be dispatched to Israel today. Some of it will go out as DIP, but the bulky items will go out as cargo. The sensitive articles will be sent as unaccompanied DIP. In the meantime, we have almost five tons of equipment, including DIP mail, which we are sending to Israel. We need information from El Al about how much cargo the 707 can take on if the plane takes off at night with a full capacity of reserve soldiers—men who have been drafted and are gathering here from neighboring countries. In the next two or three days there will be no El Al flights to Belgium and Switzerland; all the reservists being drafted from these two countries will be directed to us. By the way, I got the name of the man you have to approach to get permission for a vehicle to enter the airport. They laughed at me in the El Al operations department and told me it was like getting water out of stone; no one—not even the Americans—can get a permit like that. Let’s see you make it happen.”

  “Fine, I’ll go and see that man now. Let’s see if I can squeeze water from a stone. Meanwhile, you check the data you need from El Al. Whoever finishes first goes to the office of the El Al security officer. When do we have to call again?”

  “We didn’t fix a time. If
there is anything urgent, they will contact us at the security office. Esti, the security officer’s secretary, will take messages for us.”

  “Emi, I’ll tell you later how they plan to transport the cargo from Germany. That Eddy has connections. I’m not sure he doesn’t also work for the Mafia. Imagine smuggling two trucks of equipment,—more than thirty-six tons of obviously military equipment. For him, it’s like sending a box of chocolates from Germany to France. He is going to move the stuff in several trucks. I’ll fill you in on the details later.”

  While Emi goes to El Al to attend to his assignments, I go up to the third floor and look for the office of Mr. Gerard Du Pont, the director of the operations department at Orly airport. All I need now is to find that he hates Israel, I think to myself. I have already come across French government employees in the course of my work who are of the Muslim faith—of Arab origin, mostly from the countries of the Maghreb—and who do everything they can to interfere with anything connected with Israel. Du Pont is a common French name, like Cohen (my name) or Levy for us. I stopped at the restroom to pee and glanced at myself in the mirror like a young girl on her way to meet with a guy she wants to impress. I remembered how Tzipi had straightened my necktie in the morning, so I tightened it in front of the mirror, making sure it was perfect. It was a pity I hadn’t stopped off on my way at Esti, the Security Officer’s secretary, for her to check my appearance, but it was too late for that now.

  “Monsieur Du Pont, je suis Monsieur Cohen. Here is a letter from the Israeli ambassador in Paris, addressed to the airport administration. The ambassador requests that the administration extend a helping hand to us in our present situation. We have been attacked without any reason by two neighboring countries with whom we wish to live in peace, just because we are Jews. All they want is to annihilate us.” I pause for a moment.

  I am only thirty-one years old, and Monsieur Du Pont appears to be older than me, perhaps in his mid-forties or a little more. I sit opposite him in a comfortable armchair, and he sits facing me in a matching one. There is a small table between us on which the as yet untouched French morning newspapers are laid out. The gigantic headlines announce the war raging in our country. Monsieur Du Pont looks at me with a piercing gaze, trying to figure out this young man who has come to see him without a previously arranged appointment. He explains that he agreed to receive me in this office, adjacent to his, since a meeting to schedule the work for the coming week at Orly is about to convene in his office. He adds that he is making an exception because of the situation in Israel, which is already the main item of news on the two major French television channels and in all the newspaper headlines.

  “Monsieur Cohen, my sympathies are with you. For a start, please tell me briefly about the present situation is in Israel.”

  While I fill him in on the situation as reported to me in the update at the previous evening’s meeting with the ambassador, his secretary enters and serves us two cups of coffee. When she leaves the room, Du Pont lights a cigarette and offers me one, too. I refuse politely. I don’t smoke that French “straw” of theirs, and I gave up smoking three months ago. When I smoked, they were Marlboros. I tried the French cigarettes, but they gave me a sore throat and made it hard to breathe, so I changed to American cigarettes until I gave up smoking. While I continue informing Monsieur Du Pont about the situation in Israel, he watches at me intently while he carries on enjoying his cigarette, emitting jets of smoke that tower up to the ceiling. I end my short but exhaustive explanation. I season it with the best flourishes of Zionism that I have learned off by heart, but I speak briefly and to the point. After all, Monsieur Du Pont is a busy man, and I also have much to do.

  “Okay, Monsieur Cohen, I understand that you came to ask me for something and not just to lecture me on the current situation in Israel. What do you want? How can I help you here at Orly?”

  “Monsieur Du Pont, I know that you do not permit anyone to bring privately owned vehicles into the airport. I have come to ask you to allow a private vehicle to drive into the airport for two weeks. We have to frequently enter and leave because, as you know, the El Al plane remains here throughout the day. And there is—”

  “Monsieur Cohen!” Du Pont interrupts me, stubbing out his cigarette and expressing impatience in his body language. “I naively thought that you Israelis were a lot smarter than that,” Du Pont said with restrained anger. “I cannot permit you to drive private vehicles on the airfield. I don’t permit it, and I never make exceptions to the rules, not even if the President of the Republic made such a request.” Du Pont pauses momentarily, and his angry expression softens a little as he continues, “But if El Al applies to add another vehicle to its fleet and undertakes to paint it with the El Al logo and colors in the coming two weeks, I will permit it to enter within the next two hours.”

  What an idiot I am!! How did no one think of that idea earlier? What a fool I made of myself with this man, whom we will probably have to ask for quite a few more things before this war is over! I thank Monsieur Du Pont for his help and prepare to leave the office. Just as I touch the doorknob, I hear Monsieur Du Pont quietly say—almost whisper—in a voice that is barely audible, “Monsieur Cohen, I also have a request to make of you.” As I stop in my tracks and turn to him, he continues with a mischievous expression and a half-smile on his lips. He adds quietly, “I want exclusive ownership of all the boots the Egyptians leave behind in Sinai when they flee.” I hope he didn’t notice the shock on my face. How does one reply to such a request? I smile and nod. Relief spreads through my whole being. He is definitely not a foe of Israel. But, is he a friend? I need to think about how to find this out later.

  At my request, Monsieur Du Pont’s secretary gives me the relevant application for permission for a vehicle to enter the airfield. These forms must be filled in by El Al, and we will receive the permit at the end of the day. This is really convenient because we will be able to load all the DIP that has accumulated at the embassy and offload it directly onto the aircraft.

  I meet Emi at the security officer’s office. He is talking to the embassy on the phone. I signal that I will return in a few minutes. I run to the station manager and tell him to fill in and submit the forms for the permit. I mention the urgency of the license and our need to have the vehicle already this evening to offload the stuff we have to dispatch on the plane. We have to return to the embassy immediately to attend a meeting arranged for eleven o’clock with the CDSE.

  “Hey, Yiftach! Don’t rush off! You want a permit to enter the airfield, and we don’t have an extra car,” Itzchaki from El Al operations tells me. “I have to attach the vehicle’s license and insurance certificate to the request form. Please give me the license and insurance papers.”

  What am I to do? Where am I supposed to obtain a suitable car? I return to the security officer’s office and contact Damian, whose garage handles all the vehicle business of the embassy personnel. Everyone knows Damian. He’s a Jew from the South of France (that’s the slang expression Israelis use to describe North African Jews), speaks Hebrew quite well, always smiles, and is always willing to help us diplomats who don’t have the slightest understanding of French bureaucracy with matters of cars and auto insurance. Damian immediately agrees to lend us a Volkswagen Transit he owns. “This car is reliable. It doesn’t go very fast, but it has plenty of room for cargo. It uses diesel fuel, which makes it more economical for you. It’s in the body shop for repairs at the moment and needs to be painted, but for the embassy, I will do everything. It will be painted by the end of the day. I’ll bring it round to you before six o’clock this evening.”

  He also promises to deliver the license and insurance papers to Itzchaki at the El Al Station at Orly before twelve noon today. I thank him.

  On the way to the embassy, the heavy Monday morning traffic grows lighter; it’s slow, but it flows. Emi drives, and I stretch out and relax in the passenger seat. I am becoming accustomed to wearing a necktie, and I don’t even
try to loosen it a little. I make use of the time to bring things up to date.

  “Emi, you won’t believe what we’re dealing with now. We’re smuggling a complete radar station. It’s like the movies, only we are living in an entirely different reality. There is no state of war between France and Germany. Every day, there is a massive movement of goods streaming between these two countries, and you can transport anything you like without anyone taking any notice of it. From Eddy’s explanations, I learned that organized smuggling is the daily routine here in the European Common Market. Smugglers are only captured because of good intelligence information. Our only fear is that we might be under surveillance by the Germans or the French, who are likely to cause trouble. You should have heard how Eddy explained it to his people in Germany with hints and innuendos—afterward he translated it into straight talk for me. Eddy must have plenty of dealings that aren’t exactly above board if this assignment didn’t seem that complicated. He instructed us how to load the crates. His forwarding agents will enter the American Air Force base approximately twenty times today, each time with a different small truck from a different transportation company with a different name painted on it. Even if the Germans actually want to prevent the dispatch of the shipment, Eddy’s working assumption is that they would check out and carefully watch large cargo leaving the base. Eddy says the thought doesn’t even cross the Germans’ minds that we might smuggle our equipment out right under their noses. The American base moves goods non-stop—mostly civilian equipment. They keep busy with food and beverage supplies, as there are thousands of staff there; it is a busy airport, so they continually have to move stuff. They dispatch equipment from there all over Europe, a great deal of it in trucks, so small two- or three-ton trucks won’t arouse any suspicion because they enter and leave the base all the time. The small trucks will pick up all of the thirty-six tons of equipment and transfer it to the logistics center that Eddy is associated with in the Cologne region. It’s about a two-hour drive from the American Air Force base near Frankfurt. There, the shipment will be repacked and sent in six different trucks to Paris via Belgium. When I asked Eddy why through Belgium, he told me that it is the main thoroughfare for trucks from the Cologne region to Paris, and it is a highway for almost all its length. However, this route increases the risk of being searched, because each truck has to pass through another two checkpoints: one when entering Belgium and one when leaving it. But from Eddy’s experience, he says that the Belgians don’t carry out a check at the entrance; the cargo is passing through Belgium to France, so they don’t care about anything but the transit tax they charge. On leaving Belgium, the customs officer only checks the time the truck entered Belgium from Germany against the time it prepared to exit Belgium at the border with France. If the time span spent in Belgium is commensurate with the time required to cross the country—about three hours, perhaps another hour or two to stop for food, gas, and the bathroom—then everything is in order. Eddy instructed them not to stop in Belgium, except for breakfast (the drivers are obliged to take a break from driving). His orders are to continue to France and stop there at a particular gas station, where Eddy’s people will wait. He’s arranged to replace the drivers so that they won’t drive more than the legally permitted hours and to ensure that everything goes smoothly. Come, let’s presume that the Germans haven’t a clue about this operation; they probably assume we will try to cancel the embargo through diplomatic channels. If you ask me, no one will pay attention to anything. It’s not like a suspense movie; we are living in Europe in the mid-seventies of the twentieth century, and we have nothing to worry about. Thousands of loaded trucks pass along this route every day. Look outside at the right lane of the highway, at the entrance to Paris from the south. It’s a never-ending line of trucks and semi-trailers. Look at their registration numbers. Look—Belgium, France, France, Spain, Switzerland Germany, France, France…”