The Spy

To avoid mistakes, as for the language or customs that I should use in that country, I tried to have a picture of me with the most typical costume or attire possible, so that with a simple glance at that photo I knew exactly where I was, what it was my mission and what identity I was with.

I was meticulous in my work, because although everything was appearance, I did not want to ruin the work of so many others who were looking for the destiny, the identity, a convincing story … on one occasion, when it was required, I was a family man, in others a newly married or single, the most convenient way to avoid suspicion in the place where I was.

Likewise, I had to use the accents of the place of origin, sometimes forcing the tone to be clear, something that did not cost me too much, due to my ease for the languages and that they trained us with natives who helped us to get rid of the accent.

Hardly anybody knew anything about my true self or my past, since we changed partners in each mission and one of the rules was not to provide personal information about it, that, sometimes generated a great feeling of loneliness, but it was necessary for the work I was doing.

I was born in Poland, from an Orthodox Jewish family, that had allowed me to have ease in languages, because several were spoken in my house. Since childhood my mother insisted that I learn, British and French.

Although I did not understand why they wanted me to learn those languages from places I had not even heard of, that allowed me at ten years of age to master four languages, the previous two, plus Hebrew and of course Polish.

Later I became interested in Russian and Spanish, the truth is that possibly having started from a very young age to study different languages has made it easier for me to expand my knowledge.

Sometimes they have asked me if I don't get confused with so many languages and I tell them that for me it is something natural, that I do not have to do anything, when in a conversation in British someone asks me something in French, for example, I understand and I can answer without problems. An advantage in my life that opened many doors for me, and that allowed me to arrive to Israel.

My orders were always the same, to discover new coding codes and to send them to the command, and for the shipment to be safe I had developed a particular code, it was a family code, or rather referred to the family.

I was supposed to write home, commenting on my trip and asking for a relative, and according to who I was asking for, they could tell if I had found something or not. It was a very simple key, but thanks to that difficult to decipher, because for anyone who could see it, it was nothing more than a letter to a relative, of the many sent by the soldiers.

When I managed to get someone's code, then I did a special shipment, a small tourist gift wrapped in newspaper, and in it, indicated with invisible ink, the characters that formed the decoding key of the message discovered.

At the beginning the untraceable ink seemed complicated to transport, because it needed to be carried in a small bottle, which wasn't always easy, but then, and following old methods I learned how to do it with lemon juice. One spot on the paper, you couldn’t see it or smell it, but when you hold it against the light, in front of a candle or a lamp it leaves an unequivocal signal of where the acid has been poured.

The intelligence training included a multitude of methods to receive and send all kinds of information, either together with objects or within them, of course I always expected that the one to whom it was sent to knew what to do when receiving it in order to interpret it correctly, and thus avoid misunderstandings or that the information submitted was lost, a method I used wherever they sent me to.

In England they had welcomed me, surprised at my problems in Spain, and surprised at my abilities to get there, so they told me.

After communicating with my command and waiting for a response for days, I was commissioned to be an assistant to a captain who should check the troops in one of the colonies near Egypt.

At first the idea seemed good to me, assuming I would have little work, because I did not know Arabic as a language, but when they told me that I was going to Israel, even my legs shook.

It's not that I am a radical, but I was raised as orthodox, and for us, it's like … I don't know, like the Lincoln Memorial to the American people.

It is something so desired, that I couldn’t imagine it, besides that would give me the opportunity to dust off my Hebrew, that since I had left my parents in America, I had not used it again, well, neither that language nor the Polish. I had not found myself in any situation to practice it.

A few days later we were in Israel, the captain, although a little insistent, took me from here to there, examining each checkpoint, and questioning every Jew who crossed the street.

I didn't know very well what he wanted or what he was looking for, but sometimes it became a tense situation, especially when I was questioned in Hebrew why I served these gentlemen.

I limited myself to being a translator, and asking them to answer the questions, even when one seemed out of place.

My captain sometimes wanted to intimidate those people, prove that he was the boss, or at least he gave me that impression.

But in the afternoon, I was free, my captain barely left the base, if it was not with an escort, he almost always spent resting as he liked, he couldn’t stand the weather, so in his rooms it was where he better was.

On the other hand, whenever I had the opportunity, I left that place to be with the people and to walk through those lands, it seemed so strange to be there!

I was once in my thoughts when I suddenly heard by my side:

– What?!, aren't you coming with your escort?

– What escort? – I asked a little surprised by his words.

– How do you work for them?

I turned around and found an older man with a long beard dressed in black from head to toe, he was certainly a rabbi or at least he seemed so.

– Excuse me sir, it's my job!

– And why do you do this job? There are others more worthy! – Excuse me, but that's how I feed my family, I've been working for years to be able to feed them.

– A noble purpose, although I believe that with inadequate forms,

You should think who you serve, men or your Creator!

I didn't know what to say at that time, because it has been a long time since I haven't practice Hebrew or Polish, same time without practicing my religion, regardless the big importance that my mother has always given to be scrupulous with the law and complying with it no matter what happened.

Looking up, I could see that the man had left without giving me the opportunity to respond, perhaps because he already knew the answer.

I was thoughtful wandering the streets aimlessly, I just wanted to clarify some ideas, that man had raised a single question, but for me it wasn't an easy matter.

After walking for a while I sat in a chair under the shade of a canvas that served as a sunshade in a cafeteria.

– What's it gonna be! – That young man told me.

– A tea, very cold, please! – I answered.

Soon he brought it to me and I was stirring the sugar with the spoon that he had added to sweeten it, while thinking about the words of that stranger.

If someone saw me with these military looks, they wouldn't recognize me. The first thing I had to do to when I entered the army was to shave my hair, especially symbolic was when they cut my Payot, those ringlets that following the Mitzvah, had never been cut off, thus losing my distinctive identity, thankfully my parents never saw me like this! They thought I would become someone important, not for men but for the Creator.

My mother always talked to me about how essential it was to fulfill our duties at all times, that they were always watching us, and that whatever happened, I should never lose the protection from above.

So many stories she had told me, how far in the past they seemed now! It could almost be the life of another person, where all those hours of study and discussion with other classmates or with a rabbi about the Talmud remained?, yes, that was one of my favorite things to do, to question everything and try to refute the rest with arguments.

Since I had entered the army everything had been different, my past life had been so far behind, always trying to fit in, not showing that I had a family and an origin so different from the rest, and instead now in Jerusalem, everything seemed that made some kind of sense.

Who knew I would be in these lands ?, treading where our ancestors did, where the history of our people was written, and instead, how unknown everything was to me, and how strange I felt!

I ran the palm of my hand over my face, and I was shaved, as the ordinances commanded, but that face did not show my true image, the one I had been educated to have, instead I now saw other Jews pass by respecting the Mishnah, Jewish laws, with the essential kippa, while those who come from Europe distinguished themselves by also wearing black caftan and steimel (a fur cap), and me, wearing only that military uniform of British regular.

I was absorbed in those thoughts when two women passed in front of me, one of them, I think after looking at me, she smiled.

I did not give more importance, but coming out of that moment of my self-absorption I got up and following an inexplicable internal impulse, I greeted them:

– Good afternoon ladies! Can you tell me what time it is?

–Ladies? They said laughing. What is the watch on the wrist for?