25/11/94

Processed Peace

The driver asked where to. ג€˜The peace process,ג€™ said the king, ג€˜and put on the meter.ג€™

    Hello, Israel?"
    Another nut-case, Dudu guessed. "This is the Prime Minister's Office, can I help you?"
    "Sure you can. We need recognition. And a coffee-grinding machine and spare parts for our snowplow. And we'd like to open an embassy in Jerusalem."
    "In your ear, Yossi," Dudu snapped back. He appreciated a good practical joke, but he had no patience for "Yo-Yo" Yossi these days. The country had become a revolving door for the world's diplomats, presidents, ministers and kings. Three times a day they had to trot out the president to shake a hand or say a nice word about one national aspiration or another. The demand for photo opportunities with Israeli figures was so great that the Knesset now had a waiting room for dignitaries, who considered their visit "fruitful" if they got five minutes with even a former minister without portfolio.
     "Put me through to the prime minister, please," the caller continued. "And hurry, this call is killing our economy."
    Dudu now remembered that Yossi was in bed with laryngitis. The call was real. "Who'd you want to speak to? No, he can't come to the phone right now, can I give him a message?"
    "We want to establish relations. You know, make peace with the Jewish state."
    Pick a number, Dudu said to himself. "Tell you what. I'll send you an application form."
    The caller sighed. "That would be a problem. We do not have a mailman yet. And I promised my people -- say, couldn't we do it over the phone?"
    Highly unusual, Dudu thought. The regulations don't specify I have to help anybody. And he hasn't exactly offered me a free trip or anything. What, I should work extra? He wants me to get up, right now, at my inconvenience, and go look for a form? He can wait like everyone else, till I'm in the mood. I owe him something? If he was a "motek," no problem, or if he name-dropped. He didn't even have the grace to schmooze me. The nerve of this guy, bothering me at the office.
    "No. It's absolutely impossible."
    The caller sighed pitifully.
    "Wait," Dudu said resentfully. He dropped the phone with a clatter, grumbled noisily about the chutzpah of it all, and in a matter of seconds he was back on the line, pen in hand. "Name?"
    "King Moses Solomon Joseph III. What's yours?"
    "Ben-Lulu. Dudu. Title?"
    "Ruler."
    "Country?"
    "Isthmus Atoll."
    "Itmus Astholl? Never heard of it."
    "No, Isthmus Atoll. It pushed up off the ocean floor last Thursday, we're still clearing off the marine ooze. It's between the Pacific and the Indian, sort of on the border, right near Dibble Iceberg Tongue, which hangs off the bottom of Antarctica, or the top, depending on your hemisphere. Nice place, really."
    "Population?"
    "Three so far."
    "Jewish population?"
    "None yet." The king added hastily: "But it's not because we're antisemitic or anything."
    "System of government?"
    "Benevolent mediocracy consisting of a supreme potentate and his loyal subjects."
    "Diplomatic alliances?"
    "Non-aggression pact with Dibble. And my wife's cousin works at the American Cultural Center in Madagascar."
    "Will you permit an Israeli embassy on your soil?"
    "Yes."
    "Will you recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel?"
    "Yes."
    "Will you permit direct flights from Israel?"
    "Yes."
    "Will you cooperate with anti-terrorism measures?"
    "Yes."
    "Will you participate in free trade, cultural exchanges, political junkets, supermarket food festivals, stamp clubs, basketball tournaments and fact-finding missions?"
    "Yes."
    "Will you visit Yad Vashem?"
    "Of course."
    "How will relations benefit your country?"
    "It will enhance credibility status to global legitimacy and spread peace, goodwill and prosperity to a problematic, underdeveloped region."
    "How will relations benefit our country?"
    "The same."
    "Indeed." Dudu placed the application form on top of a huge, yellowed pile at the corner of his desk. He yawned lifelessly. "Call back for an answer in a month or two."
    "By the way," the king said, "if it helps the decision, we might be willing to proclaim Isthmus Atoll a Jewish state. Just like yours."
    "Uh-huh." He yawned again.
    "Thank you, Mr. Lulu Dudu."
    "Shalom, Moses."

THREE WEEKS later, Dudu accidentally spilled a cup of instant cauliflower soup on the pile of application forms. When it began to smell bad a few days later, Dudu made the trek across the hall to Shlomit's office and dumped them on top of a pile of older forms. When Shlomit finally decided to marry Gershon, she figured she'd best clear away some of the paperwork before the honeymoon. A flaming argument ensued when she insisted Schwartzman's secretary Flora come pick up the forms, but Flora, who once had coffee with Gershon, and anyway didn't think Shlomit's boss had as good a chance as Schwartzman at a promotion, said she wasn't going to let anyone from that department tell her what to do. Happily, a delivery boy mistakenly went to Shlomit's office with a pizza ordered by Shlomo, who sat next to Flora. The kid, thrilled to do a favor for a tall woman in a tight sweater, scooped up the papers and delivered them to Shlomo, who put them in a drawer until he could bother with them, probably not until he returned from miluim.
    When King Moses Solomon Joseph III called back two months later he was told his file was being processed, to be patient, the committee would get to it, and to call back again after the holiday, whichever one came first.
    When Shlomo retired and the new guy, Yehezkiel, took over, he found the forms and put them in a box for Varda, the temporary replacement for Flora, who was on maternity leave. Varda was trying hard to impress. She hurried the forms over to Yirmiyahu at the Committee Liaison Vetting Subcommittee, which really annoyed Yirmiyahu. He figured Dudu was behind this, that he was out to get him, but he was gonna show him, and dumped the whole lot back on Dudu's desk late one Friday afternoon.
    Meanwhile, the king died. When King Moses Solomon Joseph IV called  the following autumn, Dudu at first didn't remember ever having spoken to any King Moses. Dudu put him on hold until he realized the caller wouldn't just go away, then picked up the phone grudgingly. "Your application? Wait." It took some doing, but Dudu found the faded form, in the pile on his desk. Funny, he thought, I could've sworn I processed that stuff long ago. He shrugged. "Allo? Yes, I'll process it right away."

ONE MORNING the king noticed his kingdom was slowly sliding back into the sea. There was only one thing to do: he set forth for the Jewish Empire.
    Laden with gifts and not forgetting his Instamatic, he arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport amid pomp and fanfare. It brought tears to his eyes, even though the pomp and fanfare were for the president of Russia, who was departing, and the queen of England, who was arriving. Israeli ministers whizzed by him on the way to here and back from there. A Russian immigrant with his cap on the ground and a harmonica on his lips was playing a medley of national anthems, and some guy wearing an earring and a ponytail was handing out peace treaties to all the tourists.
    The king proceeded to Customs and got in line behind the pope. When finally the king was asked if he had anything to declare, he beamed majestically and declared: "Peace with the Jewish State." He was waved through.
    He lugged his luggage to the front of a long line of waiting black limousines and pulled out of his pocket a little white-and-off-white national flag, which the chauffeur attached to the car antenna.
    The driver scratched his stubbly jowl. "Nu?"
    "The peace process, please, and put on the meter." (This much he knew about the Holy Land.)
    They fell in with a convoy of official limousines, each equipped with a pair of policemen on motorcycles front and back, and made their way to the capital. The chauffeur offered the king a handful of sunflower seeds and eyed him through the rear-view mirror. "From America?" he asked pleasantly enough.
    "No, Isthmus Atoll."
    "Really? My uncle lives there."
    They chatted about this and that, and it transpired that the king had nowhere to stay.
    "You are my friend," the driver said, much too amicably, "you will stay with my brother Yisachar. He has a room. I have the key. You have dollars?"
    That night the king and Yisachar dined together (Moses Solomon Joseph IV had never eaten udder before) and then watched a charity peace match between Hapoel Acre and Jihad Jebalya. Mizrahi missed a penalty and it ended 0-0. The king got drowsy and turned in.
    The following morning, after a bracing breakfast of leben, the royal visitor went into the streets of Jerusalem, looking for the Prime Minister's Office. He stepped into a building bearing a sign "Rabbinate" and asked to see Rabin. It was a silly but understandable mistake.
    Eventually, he found the place. With a kingly flourish he told the guard at the door that he must see the prime minister at once. The guard plunged a hand into the royal attache case, didnג€™t find any bombs, and mumbled: "Upstairs, down the hall, second door on the left."
    He found the room, took a number and sat down, wedged between an emir and a dictator. At noon a royal hunger overtook him and he pulled out a pita (a gift from Yisachar) stuffed with walrus wurst (his national food). By mid-afternoon he discovered he was waiting in the wrong line, and by late afternoon he was wondering if perhaps he should try the Palestinians instead. But finally, his turn came.
    He marched up to the window marked "Deputy Peace Minister #14" and stated that he had come to establish relations. He filled out a peace treaty, which the deputy minister rubber-stamped, paid the peace tax and was given an ID number which he was required to provide any time his nation had official business with the State of Israel.
    Elated, King Moses Solomon Joseph IV fairly danced out of the Prime Minister's Office and into the teeming street. What a great day for Isthmus Atoll!
    His nation was on the map, even if it no longer was.