29/9/97
From
the desk of...
I've
got a new desk. Well, not new, really.
It's the oldest desk in the building.
If
desks could talk (and modern science
has yet to prove they can't), this
one would be in a book of records
under ג€World's Most Loquacious Desk,
The.ג€
I
haven't had it carbon-dated -- that
is, I can't find a carbon copy of
the original sales slip in its drawer
because the drawer no longer exists
-- but according to old-timers here,
this was Gershon Agron's desk when
he founded the Jay Pee (then known
as the Pee Pee) in 1932.
The
desk is an old slab of wood about
half a dunam big, propped rather
wonkily on two smaller vertical
slabs; simple, inelegant, austere.
Here and there, little dribbles
of white-out adorn it, which throttles
modern-day assumptions that Gershon
the Great was flawless. Still more
intriguing are the hieroglyphic
doodles etched into the molding,
proof that even in this hottest
of hot-seats, at the vortex of the
newsiest city in the world, there
were moments of boredom.
I
think this desk is haunted. I'm
not sure, but every time I send
a column from my computer, I hear
a voice. 'Copy boy! Copy boy! Co-o-o-o-py
boy-y-y-y-y!' - followed by a sort
of Russian-accented growl. If I
believed in ghosts, I'd say this
one was troubled by what has become
of the desk. Or perhaps the city.
(That the city is haunted is widely
acknowledged.)
I
can only hope G.A.'s ghost has better
things to do than hang around here,
spooking me. G.A., of course, went
on to become mayor of Jerusalem,
and though he didn't take his old
desk with him to City Hall, that's
where his apparition should be lurking.
There's
magic in the thought that where
I put my hands, so did G.A. before
me, but with cuff-links. Arm's distance
from where I now sit, trembling
young cub reporters looked in awe
and terror at a round, bespectacled
face that could make or break their
careers with a single word.
Where
I look dumbly at a garden-variety
plant, G.A. faced the giants of
yesteryear: B-G, Golda, Weizmann,
Sharett, Berlyne.
Perhaps
exactly where my computer is now,
a galley bearing the upper-case
headline STATE OF ISRAEL IS BORN
was being red-penciled.
So
maybe that's it: Ghosts hate progress.
A computer on Agron's desk is spiritually
provocative, though my computer
is so old that - nah, it wouldn't
be that old.
For
that matter, I'm sure this tabletop
never before saw a mouse. Or a hockey
puck, which I use as a paperweight.
The desk (also the puck) hasn't
seen much action since I began using
it. Not like the old days. The good
old days.
Agron,
sitting here, wondering if his staff
would get to work alive, dodging
Arab snipers and British patrols,
wondering if his paper would get
out, struggling against blackouts,
curfews, sieges, bombs and the censor.
(The censor was the only force ever
able to keep this paper from publishing,
and only once: on October 7, 1936.
I imagine Agron pounded this desk
a few times that day.)
Oh,
the headaches: circulation as low
as 2,000; losing 12 of his 45 staffers
to volunteer enlistment during The
War To End All Wars II; having to
yank Ferd'nand for lack of space
(that's been a consideration almost
daily since it first appeared on
July 3, 1938) and, lest we forget,
the biggest headache of all: February
1, 1948.
That
was the day this desk almost died,
the day The Palestine Post was bombed.
I
don't know if Agron was at his desk
at that moment, but if he was, I'll
bet the next moment he was under
it. It's big enough, and solid enough,
to have withstood the upper floors
falling on it.
From
this desk came the terse order that
same day to publish, bombs be damned.
Sitting
at Gershon Agron's desk, I can't
help but wonder what his chair was
like. Because no matter what I sit
on, my feet don't reach the floor
if I want my hands to concurrently
rest on the desktop, which I do.
This desk was built for someone
seven feet tall, which Agron was
not.
My
guess is that dangling feet was
a small price to pay to sit high
at a huge desk, which creates the
desirable effect of dwarfing anyone
seated at the other side of it.
I should affix a plaque reading
ג€Gershon Agron Loomed Here.ג€
Some
day, I suppose, they'll haul this
desk off to some museum and give
me a mass-produced fake-veneer factory
piece instead.
Though
to tell you the truth, I'd rather
take the old thing with me into
City Hall -- I mean, if I ever become
mayor, as occupants of this desk
tend to do.
