All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [139]
In Tel Aviv there was a sudden surge of interest in foreign news, especially from France. The war in Indochina had entered its final phase. Dien Bien Phu dominated international politics. There was speculation about its geopolitical and strategic implications, about what China and the Soviet Union would do. The atmosphere was supercharged, with stormy debates in the French National Assembly. Power was up for grabs, and Mendès-France declared himself a candidate. “What, another Jew?” howled anti-Semites who in the 1930s had shouted, “Better Hitler than Blum.” Their obvious hatred for the new prime minister, who put himself forward as a man of peace, provoked uneasiness in all political circles.
It was a busy time for me. I was happy, involved, and fully absorbed in my work. I had found my true vocation. I would finally complete my break out of the exclusive domain of Jewish or Israeli issues. I hurried from press conferences at the Quai d’Orsay to meetings at the Palais-Bourbon, sometimes skipping lunch, but never the papers. I devoured the dailies, scanned the weeklies. Dov, my employer and friend, asked me to interview Mendès-France. Naturally, I tried, and naturally I failed. And naturally Dov refused to give up. He sent me daily cables urging me not to give up either. I laid siege to the press office of the Hôtel Matignon, bombarding them with written requests. Still no reply. Finally, I wrote Mendès-France a despairing, pathetically naïve letter. “Mr. Prime Minister,” I pleaded, “if you refuse me an interview, one of two things will happen: Either my newspaper—which is spending a fortune on cables—will go bankrupt and I will be unemployed, or I will be fired. In either case, the responsibility will be yours.” Evidently unconcerned with this burden of guilt, he answered with a hastily scribbled note assuring me that, although there would be no interview, if either of the predicted misfortunes befell me, he would personally help me find another job. Dov was encouraged. “See? You’re already in direct contact with him. Just keep trying.”
It was around this time that Givon reappeared. “I just got in from Geneva,” he announced with his usual phlegmatic intonation. I knew he wanted me to ask what he was doing there, so I did him the favor. “Oh, nothing,” he replied. I was, of course, meant to feign incredulity, and so I complied. “Well,” he said, “since you insist … I had to set something up for Pierre.” An alarm went off in my head. There was, of course, no dearth of Pierres in France, but by now I knew Givon’s style. He wanted me to keep asking questions, and I decided to oblige him. “Pierre who?” I asked. He stared at me as though I had just asked whether Paris was the capital of Togo. “What do you mean, Pierre who? Pierre Mendès-France. Who else?” Playing the game, I asked, “You know him?” Once again I was treated to a withering look, as if to say, Who do you think would know him if not I? He went on as if talking to himself. “In fact, I’m going to see him tomorrow—no, the day after.” In spite of myself, my imagination ran away with me. I pictured myself in the prime minister’s office asking probing questions and jotting down confidential replies that would make the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth and all the world’s press the next day. But my optimism failed me soon enough. Who was I to Joseph Givon that he would let me go with him? Hadn’t I disappointed him by refusing to go to Prague? He kept on talking. “Actually, if you feel like it, maybe I could take you with me.”
I told him I would give him anything he wanted if …
He bristled. “You don’t have to give me anything. There