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Of course, the inquisition by the Israeli security service was kind of bizarre – the underhand manner and distrustful behaviour of the two officers made a caricature of the interrogation. For a moment, Maille toyed with the idea of disclosing to his questioners that he was a colleague from Santa Lemusa – but the two men probably understood no fun, so jovial consideration was out of the question. He therefore continued firmly with the charade that he was a gastronomical publicist from a magazine called «IOI» and was reporting on the cuisine in Jerusalem. The officers wanted to know all about his assignment and his magazine – above all the meaning of its peculiar name. Maille tried to explain to them that the name was a picture: cutlery flanking a plate.

It was the first time he was using the guise of a «IOI» reporter, and it suited him well, for he planned to quit the Deuxieme Bureau at some point in the future and establish just such a publication. The more the officers grilled him with the same old questions, in an obvious bid to get him to spill the beans, the more fierily Maille fantasised. And soon it was not two secret service investigators that stood before him in the Tel Aviv airport, but the first two subscribers of his prospective magazine. At that point the officers felt, that things became a bit scary, and they seemed to be in a haste to let the talkative islander go. At the very end of the investigation they wanted to know exactly where Santa Lemusa lay. Maille was a bit astonished that the men did not know the geographical location of his island. «In the Caribbean», he informed them, although he was suddenly unsure whether it really was. He had been travelling for too long over this planet without getting a glimpse of his homeland.

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