CHAPTER 2. WHAT I LOVED — I LOST

"Fair enough. Let's talk a little off the record. You understand, I hope, that you have your own wedding, but we have ours? That your face has spread across the internet and you've become famous as a fighter for electoral truth? That forced flight from your own country is not at all a sincere and considered decision to repatriate? And we, though free and democratic, are not eager to fight for you against powerful politicians. We need them as allies in our own struggle against our own destruction by a pack of Arab predators who have completely surrounded us in the Middle East."

"I'm sorry, I've forgotten what the sign at your office entrance says, but I'll call you by my own name, dear Ben-Magen Davidovich. And although it seemed to me that you combine the position on the sign with some other position, I'm now talking to you as a shaliach. Allow me to quote from an old good hit song:

'The world is arranged in such a way that anything is possible in it, but afterward nothing can be corrected.'

Now let's take an example of a shaliach from one old good book. Moses was sent by the Almighty to the chosen people and diligently performed his duties until a certain moment. He made one mistake, and his boss dismissed him almost immediately. For what? For his unflattering assessment of his subordinates' motives instead of simply caring for their needs. They needed water, and he accused them of being capricious.

The State of Israel declares one of its goals to be a refuge for Jews. I cannot prove my mother's Jewishness with documents, although I have many reasons to suspect it. However, my father's documents are laid out on the table, and they eloquently and repeatedly confirm his Jewishness. And he already became a citizen thanks to them in his time.

Unfortunately, he is already resting in peace in the center of Israel in a Jewish cemetery and cannot give me any other documents. And who else can give me my father's military ID? Certainly not the military registration office. And not now, when I have unwillingly become famous.

Perhaps you think I've always dreamed of becoming a prominent revolutionary? The only thing I can truly be proud of in my life is that I've never gotten involved in politics. Or do you consider me some kind of truth-loving dissident? I simply tell the truth at an amateur level. Or perhaps you think I'm pretending to be a refugee and that by accepting me, Israel will quarrel with Putin? Refugees beg for things they cannot count on through normal channels. In my case, all you need to do is agree to my obvious right to repatriation and issue a visa.

Before the final solution of the Jewish question, representatives of the Yishuv persuaded European Jews to leave the Führer, but they clung to their comfortable lives and didn't want to go to a kibbutz. Here I am, no longer comfortable, so take me before the autocrat becomes the Führer! Everything is simple here now: end up in a detention cell — they stick a bottle in you; end up in prison — they stick a mop in you; and if you resist — they'll find a kettle. They can't find a soldering iron from the nineties because nothing gets soldered here anymore, except sentences.

It sickens me that my historical homeland is seeking an alliance with the modern Führer. It saddens me that because of this, the state created as a refuge from fascism is beginning to play the role of the dying British Empire, which prevented this refuge from functioning. Such a Moses, who misrepresents the Almighty to his people, can be severely punished. Well, decide for yourselves right now. I have warned you."

"Srikat gimel," the shaliach pressed the button and gave the order. Then he waited for the response to appear on the display, visible only to him, and then said to his interlocutor:

"The person who brought you here is being watched. Be careful. We will also take measures. We have allowed agents to infiltrate our staff, and now we will make sure they testify that we are only providing you with the service you could officially expect. Let's not wake sleeping dogs while they lie quiet, lest you, as a newly minted foreign agent, be inadvertently recruited into our agency. We have enough professionals.

"Interesting. Personally, I have an acute shortage of agents. Who knows how things will turn out, but if anyone comes to your office asking for Ben-Magen Davidovich, know that it's from me."

"Do you think I'll torture him more humanely? All right." And he pressed the button again: