By Alex Gordon
HAIFA, Israel –You are holding us up. There is no end to your books!” – said a disgruntled Kiev customs officer to me – What will you do with so many books abroad? Drown an apartment with them? – He’s really going to Israel: he has no warm clothes. All these go to America, he told the police officer. –Zionists have to be checked especially carefully, – he replied. The customs officers were taking apart my radio – apparently looking for diamonds. Four hours had passed. The inspection was nearing its end. My freedom was drawing nearer.
Suddenly I saw the muzzles of guns in front of me. An officer and two policemen were aiming at me: “You are detained! Come with us!” They pushed me into a car with bars.
I didn’t sleep in my cell. Maybe they knew that I was distributing forbidden literature. But what kind of distribution? I didn’t give anyone a single leaflet, I told them from memory. They could have arrested me then.
The next morning, I was brought before the investigator. In a large room at a huge table, dividing it into two equal parts, a young man was sitting and writing something. Without raising his head, he asked: –Do you know what you were detained for? –I shook my head. The investigator lit a cigarette and continued writing in silence. It was about half an hour before he said:
–You are charged with attempting to smuggle antiquities and passing classified information to the enemy.
–What? –I exhaled. The investigator was silent, smoking and leafing through some document. Another half hour passed. Suddenly he opened one of the drawers of the table, took something out of it, and put it on the table:
–Approach and sit down. Is this object familiar to you?
For years I have walked by it, seen its four hands and noticed its strange gesticulation. It stood in one of my bookcases and looked at me critically. A ten-centimeter-high bronze statuette of an Indian god had accompanied me for years.
–Why do you have so many hands? –I asked. The statuette did not answer. The idol looked at me aloof, with the muffled hostility of a creature from another distant world. I knew he didn’t like me, but I had grown accustomed to him and his dislike for many years – he wasn’t the only one. It was a pity to throw it away, so I put it in one of my luggage drawers. Now it stood on the investigator’s desk and looked at me angrily.
– The statuette is mine, –I said.
–It is an antique work of art. It is worth a great deal of money. We’ll give it to a museum. An expert has already been called in to assess the value of the statuette, explained the investigator. –You are a smuggler, but that’s not all. He lit a new cigarette, and then another. I was sitting close to him, and he was smoking right at me. After a sleepless night and the smoke made me dizzy.
–You don’t ask about the second reason for your detention. You have already understood that the attempt was a failure,– said the investigator. He was silent while he waited. Suddenly he said angrily:
–There is a note in the statuette. He held the oblong piece of paper close to my face:
–What does it say, and for what purpose did you put it in the statuette? Who were you supposed to give the information to in Israel?
For a few moments I looked at the piece of paper:
–This is the first time I’ve seen it and I don’t know what it says.
The investigator laughed:
–Do you really think anyone would believe you? It is a secret code or Hebrew. We will find out its contents anyway. You’d better tell the truth. The court will take your confession into account when sentencing you.
–I told the truth, –I squeezed out. The investigator smiled:
–You must think about your fate.
I was returned to my cell. The statuette began to grow on the investigator’s huge desk, until the desk was as small as the box from which it had emerged. The huge face of the statue looked down at me from the ceiling, distorted with anger:
–You wanted to take me away to a foreign world, to the land of the Jews. I’ve put up with you enough. You overstepped your bounds, and I decided to punish you. I am not a statue. I am the Almighty. I have decided your fate. You’re going to rot in prison. Serves you right. You betrayed your country and tried to take me to the heretics. You failed. You’re nothing. These dwarves do my bidding. You are finished. You will never see me again.
I woke up to a jailer screaming. I was led into the same room. There were two people there: the young interrogator who had interrogated me the day before and an older man with glasses. The old investigator looked at me indifferently and said nothing. The older man invited me to sit down:
–We received a telegram from the specialist who examined the statuette. Its value is 1000 rubles. It has been confiscated. Here is a certificate confirming that and that you are a smuggler. You’ll have to go through the inspection again. In the meantime, you’re free to go.
I sat there and kept quiet. The elderly investigator looked at me in surprise, thought for a few minutes, and then added:
–The note in the statuette is written in Sanskrit. This is the custom for statuettes of Indian gods, just as the Jews have Hebrew texts in mezuzahs.
I walked out of the prison to a large plaza. In its center stood a statue of Lenin. The leader pointed angrily to the West. The statue was too busy to pay attention to me.
*
Alex Gordon is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the academic college of education, and the author of 10 books.