The Spy. Juan Moisés De La Serna
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cooperate.
Everything seemed simple, and one could already say that I was an expert in it, when a new destination arrived, Israel.
At first I was surprised, I had no previous idea, at no time they had suggested or asked me anything, so I asked to confirm the instructions, it was not the first time I had received false instructions, due to my position and handling of the delicate information that I always had in my hands.
I had to learn to be cautious just in case, as they say, since on more than one occasion I had fallen into someone's trap, as it happened in Spain, and that despite the time elapsed, I couldn’t find out who wanted to make damage me so bad back then.
After confirming the instructions, I got rid of the support team, the one that was in charge of doing the dirty work, kidnapping and extortion, and I took my suitcase to an uncertain destination, a British colony that had few signs of progress.
At first I thought that it was some kind of punishment, although I did not understand the reason, it did not seem to me that I had done a bad job at any time, although it was not the first time that those who bothered or did not perform their function well were sent to an inhospitable destiny from which they almost never returned.
I did not know where I was going, I only knew it was desert, quite the opposite of what I had enjoyed so far, with mild summers and rainy winters, but in any case a pleasant temperature, but the desert!
I had left my professorship at the university, my privileged position, that kind of comfortable life I had, and everything to go to a desert, I did not understand! But orders are orders! And you always have to be willing to meet them.
It would be like coming home, well, at the origin of my military training, there in Arizona … in Arizona ?, yes, there it was, then it had not been in Pennsylvania!, that was surely the place where I found my first love.
This memory makes me change dates or places, and the worst thing is that I don't even realize it, until someone tells me, and not even with that.
I still remember once I was talking to someone, about an upcoming appointment, I don't know what, I think, about the doctor, and I was telling him that on the sixth day of next month.
– Of course! – the voice on the other side of the phone told me -See you next Thursday .
– Thursday ?, I have said on the sixth, and it is Tuesday.
– No sir! I have it here, next day, the sixth is a Thursday -. -What? not, miss !, next Thursday is the ninth -.
– Are we talking about March?
– Sure, Miss! What! Do you think I don't know what month I live in? -
– But …– she hesitated. -Which year?-
–Well, what will it be ?, from 1984 – I answered surprised of her
question.
– No sir, it is not that year! We live in 1990, surely you are looking at an old calendar- she replied.
–In 1990 ?, what are you talking about ?, we live in 1984, or am I not going to know
in what year do I live? – I asked annoyed.
–I don't want to contradict you, sir, but it's 1990.-
– Well, I don't believe it, let's see! Who is the president …?
–Sir, I don't think this conversation leads to anything." I would be grateful if you could contact me with another person with whom I could resolve this issue to end it.
Then my wife put on and solved everything, apologizing about my bad head.
Actually, despite everything, and after cutting, I was still convinced that I was right and not her, thankfully my wife reassured me by saying:
– Nothing happened, she is new! Do not worry that I will take you to the doctor on the day of the appointment.
They are things of the memory! which, over time, you know, it is normal that there is some failure from time to time, but it always put me in a very bad mood when someone made evident my forgetfulness.
Sometimes I spent hours thinking about what I had forgotten, trying to understand how or why it happened.
Although my anger almost did not last, because after a few minutes I had forgotten the reason for the anger and left it.
How much time wasted trying to remember …!, On some occasions I was able to find out what it was and I was surprised that I was angry at that insignificant thing, but I was not able to control my emotions.
Over time, I was increasingly uncompromising, it bothered me above all, that others did not fulfill what they had said or what I expected them to do.
On the other hand, when I was wrong or something happened to me, I always found some justification for it, minimizing that mistake by telling myself that it was a matter of age.
How different it was now from when I was young! Then I was a faithful achiever and without allowing myself to fail for any reason, and of course, I had no memory failure, moreover, thanks to my work and chess, I had a memory that some even compared me to a walking encyclopedia.
To anyone, the mitzvot, the six hundred and thirteen precepts of the Torah, might seem like many, but for me it was the natural way of life, everything was planned, what should or should not be done, and there was no possibility of error, which gave me some peace of mind knowing how to respond when a new situation arose in life.
Although I do not consider myself a religious extremist, I do believe that I am a good Jew, at least that was what I said to my captain, whom I accompanied to Israel, from the British base.
They had taken me as an interpreter, since my boss did not know Hebrew, because although it was an British colony, that language was not spoken and known by all, being Hebrew the most used among those arriving from different parts of Europe.
My captain had asked for my references , because he was not sure of my loyalty, since they had had some other problem with the collaborators, as they called the civilians who generously lent themselves to acting as interpreters.
But my orders were OK, and although my origin was not listed as personnel of the American army, my report left no room for any doubt, because from the intelligence service of my country they do not leave any loose ends.
I had spent so much time infiltrated in different countries, in each of which I had a different name, profession and past, that sometimes I had trouble remembering who I was that day.
To avoid mistakes, as for the language or customs that I should use in that country, I tried to have a picture of me with the most typical costume or attire possible, so that with a simple glance at that photo I knew exactly where I was, what it was my mission and what identity I was with.
I was meticulous in my work, because although everything was appearance, I did not want to ruin the work of so many others who were looking for the destiny, the identity, a convincing story … on one occasion, when it was required, I was a family man, in others a newly married or single, the most convenient way to avoid suspicion in the place where I was.
Likewise, I had to use the accents of the place of origin, sometimes forcing the tone to be clear, something that did not cost me too much, due to my ease for the languages and that they trained us with natives who helped us to get rid of the accent.
Hardly anybody knew anything about my true self or my past, since we changed partners in each mission and one of the rules was not to provide personal information about it, that, sometimes generated a great feeling of loneliness, but it was necessary for the work I was doing.
I was born in Poland, from an Orthodox Jewish family, that had allowed me to have ease in languages, because several were spoken in my house. Since childhood my mother insisted that I learn, British and French.
Although I did not understand why they wanted me to learn those languages from places I had not even heard of, that allowed me at ten years of age to master four languages, the previous two, plus Hebrew and of course Polish.
Later I became interested in Russian and Spanish, the