Land without fleas by Ephraim Kishon
Before going out on our first walk in Zurich, we had a quiet talk with the hotel porter: They say the Swiss don't even lock their bicycles, I gushed to the porter, but just leave them out in the Street. Is it true?
And, the wife asked, aren't they ever stolen?
AOf course they are. And how! But anyone who doesn't lock his bicycle deserves to have it stolen. Now, when the city is full of foreigners....
Every fifth person in Switzerland is a foreigner. I was No. 1,100,005 my wife was No. 1,100,010.
All the Same, there are Swiss emigrants. Even Israel gets a few genuine born-Swiss citizens. Why? I don't want to be obvious, hut I think it's because of the cleanliness. One day, for instance, we went to the famous Zurich Zoo and stopped in front of the monkey cage.
As is known, the favorite pastime of mamma chimpanzees is to hunt for fleas in the fur of their offspring. Well, this mamma chimpanzee had been looking for over half an hour for any sort of insect on the head of her little son: she scratched, combed, rummaged about in his hair, then gave up, an expression of total dejection on her face, and sat down to brood.
We don't even know what to do, the keeper complained. We even imported fleas, hut they fled in the face of Swiss hygiene. How is it going to end?
I had no advice for him. I told the keeper that soon I would be back in Israel, and lectured him about our rich, flourishing insect life. When we parted, he had tears in his eyes.
We first clashed with the supernatural cleanliness of the country on the farnous Bahnhofstrasse. We had gone into one of the department stores lining the street, taken the escalator to the fourth floor, and bought two precisely crafted cream puffs packed on trim little paper plates. On the way down we opened the package, and walking to our hotel, swallowed the cakes greedily. They were great. We had never eaten such marvelous pastry before, except in Italy a day and a half ago. But hardly had we swallowed the last bit when we heard a big helloing and someone carne running after us: tschuldigung, a well dressed gentleman panted, you lost your plates.
With that he held out the chocolate-stained paper plates together with the wrapping paper, which we had thoughtlessly tossed away at the climax of our enjoyment.
tschuldigung, I replied to our benefactor, we haven't lost this…
Then how come I found it on the pavement?
Tanke schön, the wife said quickly, took the sticky papers from the gentleman's hand and dragged me away.
Have you gone out of your mind? the little woman hissed. Look around!
I looked around and reeled with the shock of it. Only then did I realize that we were in clean Switzerland's cleanest city and in that city's most antiseptic quarter. On the sidewalks there was not a trace of litter; at worst there were a few pale stains which had not yet come out in the scrubbing. In the distance an impeccably dressed sweeper kept chasing a few lazily rolling dust specks. And I had dared to pollute this immaculately clean pavement with my dirty paper! It was sacrilege!
I carefully folded the paper plates in such a way that the sticky parts faced inward, then looked around, greatly perplexed.
All right, I said, still I can't carry this on me wherever I go. After all, we'll be in Switzerland for two weeks…
Keep your shirt on, the little one calmed me. Somewhere we'll find a place where there is litter, so that we can dispose of the plates legally.
She made this statement at 11 A.M., and by 2 P.M. I was still in possession of the gooey things. If we had found but one tiny slip of paper, we would have unhesitatingly mated our bundle to it, hut we did not find even a piece of confetti. In the end we boarded a streetcar, sat down in a corner next to the open window, and at a curve, deep in conversation, instinctively, with a careless flick of our wrist…
Screech!!!
The driver slammed on the brakes.
Tanke sehr! I nimbly jumped off the streetcar and picked up our lost valuables.
Very kind of you, I thanked the conductor as we moved off again. Luckily nothing has happened to them…
By then we were ready to press the panic button. With the courage of the desperate I accosted an elderly Swiss gentleman sitting next to me, and asked him what would he do if he were stuck with, let's say, a piece of dirty paper and would like to get rid of it. The old gentleman thought it over for a moment, then said this sounded so hypothetical that he could scarcely visualize such a situation hut, theoretically, he supposed he would take the paper waste in question home and on Sunday afternoon burn it. I disclosed to him that the package in my possession qualified as waste, whereupon the Swiss gentleman immediately gave us his address, inviting us to bring it there next day at 3:45, and once there, we could Stay as his guests to the end of the year - his wife would be delighted.
My wife visibly felt inclined to accept the invitation, but I had my doubts about its sincerity, so while expressing our deep-felt gratitude, I told him I would take advantage of his kind offer only in an emergency as I had thought of a simpler method for getting rid of the nuisance: I would put it in an envelope and mail it to Israel.
All right, said the old gentleman, but what are they going to do with it there?
They'll throw it into the Jordan, the wife said, whereupon the gentleman nodded understandingly, and after a sentimental farewell we got off in the suburbs. My idea was to wait for the fall of darkness and then bury the bundle under a tree. However, we found all trees girdled with iron fencing, to prevent the burying of refuse…
We strolled back toward the centre of the city and there, to our delight, hanging on a lamp post, discovered a cute little litter basket with an inscription reading: Keep Zurich clean, drop your refuse here! At the end of our tether we stumbled over to the basket and with a relieved smile dropped in our infamous burden....
tschuldigung, a policeman remarked behind our backs, kindly take that thing back! This is a brand-new basket. Let's keep it clean! But, I said in a daze, but it says here to drop your litter in.
The litter, yes. But no refuse!
I stuck in my arm to the elbow and fished out the little parcel. A strange heat flushed my cheeks and my teeth started chattering.
Listen, I croaked to the little one, I'm going to eat the damn thing!
Don't be silly, the saintly woman replied, you won't take that abomination into your mouth.
All right, I whispered, I'll have it cooked…
Just then we were passing an exclusive restaurant, so we walked in and ran into the headwaiter, who immediately noticed the little parcel.
Waste paper? the headwaiter asked. Shall we cook it?
Yes, I muttered. Well done, please…
The usual way, the headwaiter said, then placed the Thing on a silver platter and hurried away to the kitchen. Fearing the worst, I fidgeted about on my chair, because the cooking in Swiss restaurants is rather colorless. Ten minutes later, a waiter brought in the little parcel:
they had fried it, then smothered it in dill sauce. I took a bite and spat it out. It's burnt, I shouted, disgusting! With that we jumped up and left. Before our mind's eye there appeared good old Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, with the brilliant sunshine of our country pleasantly reflecting itself in thousands of nice heaps of glittering litter