All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [108]
Others would later denounce this complacency. But Yedioth Ahronoth wanted only articles on current events. How could I convince my employers to grant me some freedom of action? If only I could return to Israel. Come to think of it, why not? I was a journalist, was I not?
I went to see a man called Loinger, a former resistance fighter and OSE official and now director in France of Zim, the Israeli shipping company. I explained my problem: I had to get to Tel Aviv, but … Loinger understood immediately. “If it’s for pleasure,” he said, “there’s nothing I can do. But if you’re going to write … You’re going to write, aren’t you?” He winked at me. “No,” I replied, “what I mean to do is—” He interrupted me. “A journalist can’t help but write. If not immediately, then later, right?” Without waiting for my answer, he picked up the phone and issued instructions to his staff. I was to be given a round-trip ticket on the Kedma that very day. He showed me to the door and said, “You’re a journalist, but you still don’t know how to pull strings. Don’t worry, you’ll learn.” Loinger was a nice man, but he was wrong. Some people never learn.
This crossing was very different from the last one. I had a comfortable cabin larger than my hotel room, a private shower, fruit and flowers on the table. But all the luxury was lost on me. Seasickness kept me in bed most of the time. I didn’t even get up to see Mount Carmel.
When we disembarked in Haifa I caught a bus for Tel Aviv and arrived unannounced at the editorial offices in Re’hov Finn, near the teeming central station. The warmth of Dr. Rosenblum’s welcome was worth more than a star reporter’s monthly salary. He was happy with my articles, though he would have been happier had they come from Moscow or Tashkent. He introduced me to his colleagues, few in number at the time, and now I was part of the team, the youngest member. Everyone gave me advice, for they all knew the ropes better than I. Over coffee they let me in on their “secrets”: who was on the way up, who was in trouble. One editor urged me to be careful. The enemy, he said, was everywhere. I thought he was talking about the Arabs, but it turned out he meant our rival. Everyone warned me. Yedioth Ahronoth had one and only one enemy, and that was the usurper, the traitor, Maariv. Our paper was so short of funds that people must have worked there for the honor and pleasure of it—or because they couldn’t find anything better.
Devoted as he was to Russian ways, Dr. Rosenblum offered me tea instead of coffee, along with another masterly lecture on literature and politics. He invited me to his home. His apartment breathed culture. He informed me that “the Old Man,” Yehuda Mozes, the paper’s owner, wanted to meet me, right away. Wondering if I had done something wrong, I hurried to Sderot Rothschild, climbed the steps, and rang the bell. The door opened and a woman silently showed me in. A man in a white goatee and a black kipa came toward me, his hand extended. I remember the clarity of his blue eyes. We sat down in the living room and looked at each other in silence for a long moment, I because I didn’t dare open my mouth, he because he was weighing my character and temperament. Then he, too, began to tell me about “our” newspaper. He would have liked nothing better than to be able to pay me well, but unfortunately since the “coup” …” On the other hand, there was more to life than money, wasn’t there? What is money, after all? It is an illusion, nothing more. You make it, you lose it. Besides, as we all know, it corrupts. But enough of that, because in any case, between you and me, everything was about to change. “They” (the competition) would soon find out what we could do. He was convinced of that, and he wanted me to be convinced as well. Injustice cannot endure