Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

144 Mr. Monday arid Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

It was a rather comical situation, Oreste, the self-admitted personification of fear, was asked to become a bodyguard to a man who was riddled with fear, as well.

But he took the job and thus it came about that he landed in the international underworld because his boss turned out to be the Big Johnnie of French counter-espionage.

When World War I broke out Oreste was in Paris and the French wanted somebody who was willing to move to Berlin to look around and report back to them once in a while. Big Johnnie asked Oreste what he thought about it. If he had asked, "Will you go to Berlin to do some spying for us," Oreste might have refused. But Big Johnnie knew his bodyguard well by now, so he asked him, "Would you dare to live in Berlin?"

Oreste could not say "no" when it was put that way to him.

He had a clever way to get his reports through the lines to Paris. The French had suggested all sorts of traditional tricks—invisible ink and that sort of thing, but he had a much better idea. In Holland he had a lady friend who was in love with him and who would be glad to share his bed in Berlin. But first, he said, she would have to go through a course in lace-making.Thats right.. .making lace.The French thought that Oreste had gone completely out of his mind when he told them this, but after he'd explained his scheme, they hailed him as a genius. His idea was very simple. They cooked up an intricate code for him with ornaments, arabesques, and frills. The lady friend learned how to translate the code into beautiful lace work.

So a Dutchman whose passport said that he was born of