I have a mission here: my country, Luxembourg, needs to take its place as the number one of the most influential countries of Europe, perhaps even of the world. If I can make it happen, I'll be the best spy ever. I won't get a medal for it, but I do have a plan to win a gold medal. It requires preparation. All the pieces of the puzzle must fall in the right spot at the same time. It won't be easy, but, hey, that's what makes the spy business the most interesting category of sports. That's why I like my job so much. I'm good at this game. No pain, no gain. When the stakes are high and the obstacles between you and your goal are even higher, the satisfaction of victory is highest. No drug or drunkenness can get you so high.
During my night shift, I have the time and the spiPhone to prepare my mission. I start by sending a message to #1, The Boss: «Sorry I didn't send reports. It's not important what I say. All that matters is what I do. I have all the information and also the key to success, but I have to keep it a secret for one more day. I can do this. Trust me. All I need from you is your permission to run this show. Can I give orders, for tomorrow only, to #3, The Diplomat, and #4, The Agent? Do you trust me?»
It takes a while, but then I get the desired answer: «Permission granted. If you fail, you're fired. #4, The Agent, is still missing in action, by the way.»
That's my second move. I tell my spiPhone: "Lovely Sweet Dear. Record Message. To: Samy Naceri — Daniel Morales. Urgent. Start Message. I need the beautiful lady here for a mission, room 472, Pharmaceutical Wing, Academic Hospital, Brest, today at 12:00. I count on your help. Stop Message. Send Message."
Two seconds later I receive the answer: «Impossible. She's hardly halfway paying my tip.»
«Give her a discount. You owe me a favour.»
«Okay.»
The next step consists of a secret message with instructions for #3, The Diplomat. Half an hour later, I get the reply: «Action taken as instructed. Good luck.»
The rest of the night, I study the rules of today's Bar Sweeping Game again, making sure the referees won't interrupt my plan. When the victims of a car accident come in, I assist the medics. Our quick and efficient action saves the lives of a mother and her six-year-old daughter. It makes me feel great to be part of such a team.
The European Games are coming to an end. We have two more games, which are the Bar Sweeping (perfect for a Saturday night like today) and the Fifty Fiancées Find Fitting First-class Fierce FireFighter Final. The only rule for the FireFighter Final is: the participants may not leave the stage, and all the others may not enter the stage. It's going to be the final, and I expect the organization has prepared a surprise.
Bar Sweeping is another story. The setting is a pub, complete with a pool table, a dartboard, a TV with important football matches, and two teams of four happy loving couples each. The rules are simple: the men try to stay in the bar as long as possible, while the women of the other team convince them to go home. Violence is forbidden. The women should convince the men with words, arguments, while the men can defend their wish to stay a little longer.
The distinguished gentleman who tried to bribe us before the final of the Pillow Fight said something about England winning the Bar Sweeping. I'm not sure if that's 'arranged' or if that's because they are by far the best team. In every country of the world, bars are popular, but in England, the pubs are more a community centre and a meeting place for the neighbourhood than a place for people who want to get drunk because they don't have any social life in other places. That's why English women train daily in dragging their men home from the pub. For every euro you bet on England to win this game, the bookmakers pay you € 0,80 back. Nobody believes another country will win the gold medal in this discipline.
According to the tradition, Ireland beats Northern Ireland in the battle for the bronze. Finally, the English team shows up to play their final. They don't care who the opponent is: they will smash them like they smashed all the others earlier today.
The other finalist is a surprise for everyone except me. My plan works. Luxembourg reached the final. We play against England for the gold. Nobody thinks we have a chance. We wouldn't, but… The Diplomat arranged a personality switch in the line-up: #4, The Agent, Katja, now forms part of the team.
In all the other games, the two teams have a wide range of tactics. The women say things like: "You have to come home, dear. Your mother is on the phone. I've made your favourite dinner. You promised to fix the car, mow the lawn, help your kids with their homework." The men defend themselves with texts like: "I'm coming right away, after I've won this game of darts. Just let me finish this beer. The match has almost ended." Of course, someone offers another beer, the match ends in a draw with 30 minutes of extra time and penalty kicks, the dartboard makes it impossible to hit the final double, the others want to play a game of cards and they need a fourth man… Some women lose the game, giving the men 'the silent treatment', which is of course not a punishment but a reward for any man. The winning women are polite, well-educated, patient, understanding, until they've had enough and start to look angry, with their arms crossed, tapping their feet on the floor, showing their rolling pin and calling their man by his name in that tone of voice that makes an upcoming storm crawl back into the depression he came from: "Henry?!" - "Charles!" - "GEORGE…" No man can resist such a threat, and one by one they surrender to the supreme beings, the Anglo-Saxon Angles, the four phenomenal females from the land of James Bond and Maggie the Iron Lady.
With Katja on the team, the tactics change completely. She doesn't waste time with words or threats. She walks towards the closest man of the other team, kisses him softly but determined on the lips, whispers in his ear: "Come…" and walks out of the door, slowly, moving her hips, passing her hand through her long blond hair (she's wearing a wig, we don't want her to show her true identity, but nevertheless: a kiss from Katja has more meaning than a marriage with most other women).
What makes a man want to win a gold medal? Pride. Why? Because he likes to think: «I'm The Man». What makes him really feel The Man? The love of a woman, a gorgeous woman, an irresistible woman, a unique woman, a woman like no man from another country but Luxembourg has ever seen in his life, and she kisses him, and she promises there will be more, and the four men, like robots, acting on instinct, turn off their brain that demands them to stay and do what's best for them and their partner and their country; betrayed with a kiss, they stand up and follow Katja outside, out of sight of the 33 cameras and microphones that tell everybody about the most important events in our world, and Katja gives every losing opponent his reward, a kiss that makes everything else irrelevant.
In less than 20 seconds, the final is over. The celebrations and congratulations take even less. The medal ceremony is brief too. Everybody wants to know how Luxembourg did it. They're eager to hear what she whispered in those ears. The cameras and microphones fight for a place at Katja's feet; they don't want to miss one word from this Miss, this Miss with a Message. It's an excellent message. I wrote it myself (except the last line, that one is Katja's).
She says: "Why do men like to spend time in bars? Look at it from their point of view: they come home and get a fight, or someone shouts at them, or they are ignored, or they get a list of things to fix. We, women, are the smart part of humanity. We shouldn't fight our men. Love them. Join them. Why don't we go out with them and drink together? Enjoy playing cards and watching football with them. Our men can pay us back the next day, watching a romantic film on the couch together. Enjoy having a man with so many friends and feel good for being one of those friends. How do we make our man come home? Show him that home is where he'll get something he can't get in any bar in Europe: a kiss from the woman who loves him.
» God created fire. To put it out, humanity invented the firefighters. God created love. To put it out, humanity invented marriage. Hate doesn't bring us anywhere. Selfishness is like kissing yourself. Love is kissing somebody else and, at the same time, getting back that same fantastic sensation you're giving away, completely for free. Why do we fight about who's the best? We should love each other. We should kiss. In the name of love: I give my medal away to the best kisser of the evening…"
Those famous last words end the show and start the chaos. Every man and woman wants Katja's medal. The organization of the European Games has the perfect follow-up already arranged: loud music begins to play, «Leave Your Hat On» by Tom Jones, and fifty firemen enter the stage. The Fifty Fiancées on Fire of the jury (one young, single woman from each country in Europe) take their places behind the jury table and vote for one of the forty-nine fiddling firefighters who start dancing and taking off their clothes.
The European Games reserved a surprise for the Saturday Night final: forty-nine handsome men who don't even try to put out the roaring fire that burns every piece of decency in the female hearts in the audience. By the time they have only their hats on, showing what they can do with their fire hoses, Iceland's brave bronco wins the bronze, Switzerland swaggers with the silver, and Swedish Tomas Tranströmer gets the gold, explained by the jury as: «through his condensed, translucent image, he gives us fresh access to reality».
The medal ceremony itself is not available for international TV: right after the final take-off, the only rule for this contest is violated by the fifty female jurors who storm the stage, by the forty-nine freezing firemen who fly for safety, and by the rest of the audience who do their best to contribute to the fiasco. The only one left is the fiftieth firefighter, Paddy O'Brian, a professional fireman from Limerick, Ireland, who stands before the cameras to tell the viewers back home about the danger of throwing burning cigarette butts out of your car, why you should always keep a bucket of water close at hand when you have a barbecue, and to place a lid on the frying pan to put out the flames when you burn your steak.
* * *
Back in room 472 in the Pharmaceutical wing of the hospital, I look with a smile at the gold medal for the best kisser around Doc's neck: "You're the man, Doc. It's official now: Cubans are the best kissers."
Doc doesn't show any emotion about his success: "I don't care."
"What do you care about, Doc? What turns you on? What motivates you? What makes you proud of yourself?"
Doc doesn't say a word. He just sits there, in his wheelchair, saying: "I don't care."
Doc is my friend. He helped me to make my mission a success. He even saved my life and my career as a spy. I can't handle it when he's so sad. There's no reason to be sad either: he just won the gold medal for best kisser. But sometimes, a gold medal is not what we really want. We want to be happy, and Doc is sad. He needs some motivation.
I make him a fresh cup of coffee, the most popular medicine in the world, daily used by billions to cheer us up, and say: "You're the man, Doc."
Doc stares into his cup, matching the colour of his mood with the dark liquid in his hand: "I don't care."
"Is it G.O.D. you're after?", I ask: "I've solved the enigma and I've promised to tell you, but first I need to know your dream, I mean, I need to know what your dream was before I injected you with Prepoleptyl, before you lost your emotions."
"I wanted to be The Man. I wanted to be the best doctor ever, by giving the world THE medicine. Prepoleptyl would be that medicine, but it turned out to be one big deception. My last hope was G.O.D., but…"
I shake my head and say: "You're making a mistake, Doc. Imagine there's a man who has THE medicine, a miracle medicine that can make us run faster, train better, work harder… What would happen to his patients?"
"They would stand in line to get that medicine. The inventor of such medicine would sell it exclusively. He'd become the richest and most famous doctor in the world."
"I was not talking about the doctor. I was talking about the patients, the people who take that medicine. They would break the world record in running, but they would break their legs too, for pushing themselves beyond their limits. They would work themselves to death and train themselves to death. There would still only be one gold medal for being The Best, but winning that medal wouldn't be a matter of talent or effort anymore. Winning would just be a matter of having enough money to buy more medicine."
"I don't care. People would spend that money with pleasure because the reward, the amount of money for winning those games and those medals, is much higher than the price you have to pay to win them."
"That story only works for the winner, Doc. Does the glory of one winner weigh more than the suffering of all the losers who get nothing in return? Why do we like sports? Why do we play games? We learn from them. When we play, we train our body and our mind in good Human Qualities like perseverance, patience, knowledge and courage, we train our tolerance and respect for others, we train our honesty and justice to respect the rules, and we train our intelligence to understand: the fun of sports and games is not the final result of winning, but the process of playing. «L'important dans la vie ce n'est point le triomphe, mais le combat. L'essentiel ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu.» If medicine helps us to win a race, but we'd lose our health, the price is too high. Does the winner's profit justify the suffering of all the losers? It makes the inventor of that medicine just as criminal as a drug dealer who sells heroin, or a bartender who sells alcohol to a client who's had enough. Is that your goal, Doc?"
Doc sips his coffee.
I continue: "Now, imagine that THE medicine cures every disease we know, from cancer, heart attacks, and overweight, to AIDS, gunshots, and broken bones. What would that do to the patients? Would they be more careful? The opposite would be true: they would smoke more, drink more, drug themselves, eat until they burst, cross the street without looking… Would that make people happy? It would only kill them sooner. It would only make the people rich who sell those cigarettes, drinks, drugs and food. Was that your goal, Doc?"
Doc still says nothing.
I go on. "Now, imagine this medicine would cost as much as a glass of water, no, even better, imagine it's something we can learn, for free, by reading a book or a text on a web page. This medicine we talk about is some sort of knowledge, accessible to everyone. With a bit of time and intelligence, it would cure 80% of our health problems. How would the medical world react? It would cost them billions per year. What would that do to our modern medicine men, who would lose their high social positions and their extraordinary income? What would that do to the entire industry that earns billions on our health? And most of all: what would happen to the man who invented that free cure? He would be brutally murdered, for ruining a complete branch of worldwide industry and making millions of people lose their jobs. Is that your goal, Doc? Is that The Man you want to be?"
Doc has nothing to say.
"There's one other scenario: this doctor, who invented such a world-shocking medicine, would keep it a secret to the world. He would inform the medical industry about his conditions: they have to compensate him financially, so he can live the rest of his life in luxury on his private island. The Industry must arrange he'll get the Nobel Prize for being The Man, the Number One Medical Doctor of the world, having his name written in neon light, high above Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming and Doctor Zhivago. This man would not cure one single soul, but he would get all the gold and glory he ever dreamed of. If you like, we can do that, Doc. I have the secret of G.O.D. and I'm ready to share it with you. Tell me what future you want for yourself, and I'll make it happen."
I give Doc a jovial slap on the shoulder and act with an overload of enthusiasm that I don't feel inside: "Don't worry, Doc. There's nothing to be sad about. You're going to make a comeback. It's a sure-fire smash. I'll speak for you to the masses through the media and everyone will give you all their cash for the happiness you give them. Come on, Doc. All the other industries have problems selling their products, but nobody has an alternative when it comes to our health. When he asks his patient: «your money or your life?», every doctor knows the answer. People give their last cent to you for living longer. All you have to do is make them believe your medicine is good for them. You'll be The Man. What are you going to sell them, Doc?"
Doc finally has one brief comment: "I don't care. I don't want to be The Man anymore."
"Is it your brain, telling you that? Or is it your lack of emotions, thanks to the Prepoleptyl?", I ask.
"It's both. My sad sentiments tell me I've made a mistake, wanting to be the best. For a medicine man, or a poet, or a policeman, or a teacher, there is no such thing as being the best. And my intelligence tells me it's better to be just a good doctor, a doctor who makes his patients better, happy. You can do that with medicine, and you can do that with advice. The problem is: knowing this and feeling this doesn't make me happy. I'm sad, depressed, worn out. All I want is to be left alone and cry for the rest of my life. Can you do that for me? Can you just go now and leave me alone?"
Doc is my friend. I can easily do what he asks me. I can turn my back and walk away. My mission was a success, and the day after tomorrow will give me a new opportunity to save the world.
I remember a line from a film I saw, «Legion», about two angels who fought each other. One obeyed orders of the Higher Power who sent him. The other one fought for what he himself thought was important. The key line of the film was the question: "Do you wish to be the son who gives his father what he asks for, or do you want to give him what he needs?" Pretty shocking, if you ask me, to base a film on the fact that the father they talked about proved to be mistaken. The idea itself is interesting, though: will I do what Doc asks me, or will I give him what he needs? Like Paul Bettany in the film, I decide that saving the world is nice, I'll do it the day after tomorrow, but being there for my friend is much more important, so I'll handle that right now.
"First, I owe you the secret of G.O.D.: it's not a chemical drug. It's vanity. It's an overdose of pride. A nutshell of pride is positive, but when 20 cameras, 30 microphones and 750 million people are watching you, it has strange negative effects on your behaviour.
» Do you remember Cristiano Ronaldo on the first day of the Games? We saw how he behaved. He suffered an overdose of pride and acted like he was some kind of Higher Power. We should not blame him for that. We should blame the 100 million people who put him on His chair, who adore him and give him all their time and their money. If the world believes you are something else, you'll need a very strong mind to stay modest. When your overdose of pride makes you also the best-paid athlete in the world, you don't suffer any negative effects; on the contrary, you enjoy your 'high' like no other drug can give you. The problem is that the 'high' only works for the winner, and only as long as he keeps winning. After that, sadness and depression show their faces.
» Pride is a strong motivator. Pride can make us work harder, train more, run faster. When we visualise tomorrow's victory, Pride makes us forget today's pain. Pride pushes us to the limit, and Pride is impossible to detect at the doping control. For a man like Cristiano Ronaldo, the natural pride he was born with is one of the reasons for his success. If he would have been timid and modest, he would never try to shoot at the goal himself. He would give the ball to his teammate, who stands in a better position, and he would never have been who he's now. Pride is a tool. It helps us to become The Man.
» Feeling proud of yourself is not necessarily a bad habit. Drinking one beer or one glass of wine every day is not a bad habit either. It's the overdose that causes the problem. Thanks to you, and all our adventures in the last nine days, I've learnt that both our intelligence and our emotions can help us avoid crossing the line. But pride is a powerful emotion. When pride takes over, when we feel better than others, when our emotions dominate our intelligence and push us forward on that road from custom to obsession, all the way to addiction, when we don't see that sign «Point of No Return», then we get into problems."
Doc takes a deep breath; another deception added to the ones he already suffered: "So we were chasing a ghost. All that unnatural behaviour around us was, in fact, very natural."
"It was. The only unnatural thing was the overdose of Prepoleptyl I gave you. Turning off your emotions is not a good idea. It might work, temporarily, as part of a training to get the balance back between logic and sentiments, but if we don't find a cure against the medicine itself, it's worthless. We can't control it. You've lost your feelings forever."
Doc shakes his head: "Sometimes, emotions are a terrible pain in the neck, but the worst pain is when you feel nothing at all."
Suddenly, I see the patient like a doctor should see him: "We've been wrong, Doc. The Prepoleptyl is losing its effect. You have feelings, although… you have only negative feelings. Do you feel sad? Depressed? Worn out? Those are feelings too. Perhaps they're not the feelings you were hoping for, but that's just a matter of time. We should experiment with—"
At that moment, a lady storms in. I know her. She was the patient with depression, who visited Doc's office hours several days ago, the elegant lady who invited me for lunch. She even gave me her card. I scanned it with my spiPhone and saved it in my contacts; you'll never know when it comes in handy. The Hippocratic Oath of Medical Secrecy has no authority anymore: she's cured and no longer a patient. Her name is Frankie 'Florence' Nightingale, a publisher from Gibraltar.
She walks towards Doc and says: "I've been looking for you everywhere. You've cured my depression. You've saved my life. And I didn't even thank you. I hope you accept this small gift as a token of my gratitude…"
She bends over and gives Doc a loooooooooooooong, sweet, delicious kiss on the lips. When she finally decides it's time to breathe again, she sees the gold medal on his neck and says: "You're the best kisser of the evening? Well, this afternoon I kissed a French taxi driver who did a better job. How's that possible?"
I explain: "Doc is a bit low on positive emotions. We hoped a kiss from a gorgeous lady like you would cure him. How do you feel, Doc?"
Doc is a little confused: "I… I don't know. It didn't feel bad, but…"
Florence repeats the treatment, but it doesn't help Doc to flip the switch: "I'm sorry. This is what a kiss without passion feels like, Miss. It's disappointing… Another deception… I guess there's no solution…"
Even I drop my shoulders. A kiss is the best medicine for everything. Every mother cures her children with her magic kiss. Every lover uses the power of kisses to heal the pain that tears us apart.
The lady doesn't give up: "You should not think so negative. There's a solution for everything. Negative feelings are the easiest to get. If you want positive feelings, you'll have to work for them. There's one medicine we haven't tried yet, the strongest medicine of all. It works against every disease, and most of all, against depression and sadness. The best news is: this medicine is free. It's humour. It's laughter. Quickly, Bugs. Tell Doc a joke."
I can't help but laugh about such a stupid suggestion: "A joke? Is that your best medicine?"
Florence tries to be serious: "Humour helped me to get rid of my depression. All I had to do was laugh about it. Try it. Tell a joke. Come on. You must know at least one joke. The life of your friend depends on it…"
I know three jokes. I pick the best one and give it a try: "A Chinese man enters a police station to report his missing cat. The police officer asks him about the characteristics of the cat and the Chinese man answers: «tastes like chicken…»"
Florence stares at me, with eyes big as Easter eggs, and asks: "Well? Go on…"
"That's the joke. Tastes like chicken…"
She can't believe her ears: "Can you hear me laughing? Can you see me smile? You need the best joke ever to save the life of your friend, and this is what you come up with? (ha, ha) It's the most stupid joke I've ever heard. (hi, hi, hi) And I thought those jokes of Ronaldo Siète were bad. (ha, ha, ha) Did I tell you they put him in jail? (hi, hi) He started a fight during a poetry contest. He was arrested, accused of terrorism, and sentenced to three thousand years in prison. (ha, ha, ha) Just one hour before the contest, I had a meeting with him. (hi, hi) I returned the rights of his stupid book to him (ha, ha, ha) and every copy we had in stock (hi, hi). I threw them at his head while I laughed: «they sell so easy, they fly out of the door». (ha, ha) I even told him to keep the 25 euros advance I paid him for those rights. (hi, hi, hi) And now what? One hour later, 750 million people see him on TV, fighting with everyone, ending up in jail, and now he's the most popular writer in Europe. (ha, ha, ha) Everybody wants his books. (ha, ha) He sold our 1.100 copies as collector's items for prices over 100 euros each. (hi, hi, hi) There are requests for translations in 123 languages. On pre-orders only, his stupid book entered today's New Joke Times Bestseller list at number one. (ha, ha, ha) I gave him back the rights. (hi, hi) I could have been a millionaire. (ha, ha, ha) For readers, it's impossible to know if a book is good or not when they buy it. They buy books on publicity. (hi, hi, hi) Nobody remembers the winner of that silly Poetry Without Emotion Contest, but the biggest loser of all got so much publicity for his indecent behaviour that he became a millionaire in five seconds. (ha, ha, ha) And the biggest joke is: he can't spend one cent of his royalties (ha, ha) because he's in jail for the rest of his life, and most of his afterlives too… (hi, hi, hi)"
Between every line, Florence laughs louder and longer, and she infects us with it, not only me (my stomach hurts, my face hurts, I fell off my chair with laughter) but also Doc starts to snivel, staggers, grins, giggles, snickers, laughs out loud, it makes us all so happy we can't stop, and Florence goes on, telling us about what's probably the saddest moment in her career and her entire life: "You know, I started this publishing company with noble ideas. (hi, hi, hi) I wanted to sell books that make people happy. (ha, ha, ha) People don't read humour. They read about murder and detectives who solve the case. Thrillers about madmen who want to destroy the world. Stories about horny grey millionaires who seduce colourless virgins. (hi, hi, hi) And now I have all that in stock, everybody wants to read humour. (ha, ha)"
Doc also contributes to the circus: "You better give up your job and start working with me. (ho, ho, ho) You would make a great nurse. (ho, ho) This laughing has cured me entirely. (ha, ha, ha) I feel great. I feel wonderful. (ho, ho, ho) If you are done laughing, you can kiss me again, and I'll prove to you, for once and for all, that Cubans are the best kissers in the world. (ha, ha) We Cubans kiss with passion. No French taxi driver can beat that. (ha, ha, ha)"
Florence sits on the floor, exhausted, but the ridiculous idea of Doc gives her new spasms of laughter: "Me a nurse? (HA, HA, HA) Do you know how much a nurse has to work? (hi, hi, hi) Working evenings and weekends too? (ha, ha) When I tell you how little she earns with all her hard work, (ha, ha, ha) that would REALLY make you laugh… (ho, ho, ho) Imagine I would say «Hi, my name is Florence Nightingale and I'm a nurse.» (hi, hi, hi) That would be the joke of the year…"
The jokes are getting worse and worse, but we don't care. (hi, hi, hi) We laugh and laugh (ha, ha) until we can't any more (ho, ho, ho) and then we start to laugh again (hi, hi) because everything hurts so much… (ha, ha) but what's a few broken bones when we all know it's nice clean fun. (hi, hi, hi) I wonder if this cure isn't worse than the disease… (hi, hi) but at least this sad story has a happy end (ha, ha, ha).