Isaac's Beacon

by David L. Robbins

  The trio in the back were all young sabras, dark and bunched like crows. They wore waistcoats, caps, and pleated pants; these were city men. A pistol butt bulged in each waistband. The middle fighter, a pock-faced boy not long out of his teens, had the brittle look of confinement, as if he’d been in jail. He said, “Too skinny. We’re trying not to kill him.”

  Not long after the first cop left the Café Theresa, a sergeant with a beamy build ambled down the steps. A black-holstered pistol rode at his belt, and no other visible weapons.

  Someone patted Hugo’s shoulder. He started the Škoda. One of the Irgun exited the car and zipped up his waistcoat. Beside Hugo, Vince patted a fist quietly on his own thigh. Hugo laid a hand on Vince’s wrist to ask him to be still.

  Hugo drove two blocks past the soldier and the Irgunist tailing him. Stopping in the broad shadows of an alley, he let the other two out; both zipped up their jackets and tugged down the bills of their caps. They headed the direction of the oncoming soldier. Hugo cut off the Škoda’s lights to idle and wait.

  The kidnapping went quickly. The two approaching from the front stepped in the sergeant’s path, guns drawn. The Irgunist behind closed in. Hugo wheeled the Škoda fluidly into the street next to them. The soldier was relieved of his sidearm, then the fighters bundled him into the Škoda’s backseat, leaving not enough room, so the smaller of the Irgun sat in the pock-faced one’s lap. Hugo drove off without hurry.

  The sergeant asked, “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I’ll knock you out,” the pock-faced one said, “if you don’t shut up.”

  Hugo drove out of Rishon LeZion, north to the sand flats. The short ride ended when Hugo cut off the lights, drove across the lot of the abandoned gas station, and shut down the engine in the moonless night.

  Hugo got out first. The four in the back had to disentangle themselves. Vince got out, too, and stayed close to the Škoda. Hugo opened the trunk; with fast hands, he spun the nut holding down the spare tire. He reached beneath the tire for the whip. It was a real rawhide lash, something from an American cowboy movie, two meters long.

  The Irgunists pushed the sergeant to a pillar of the gas station. The pockmarked fighter kept his pistol trained while the others stripped the soldier of his tunic. The man had a wide chest and overhanging belly which pressed to the column when the Irgunists bound his arms around it. The sergeant’s exposed back was hirsute.

  One of the fighters walked around to face him. “Do you want a gag?”

  “Why are you doing this to me? What did I do to you?”

  The pockmarked fighter took the whip from Hugo. “Do you know Abraham Kimchin?”

  “No.”

  “He’s sixteen years old. He was arrested for bank robbery. Your bunch flogged him, eighteen strokes with a cane.”

  “He’s a boy. Right, I get it. That’s barmy; he shouldn’t be whipped. But your lot shouldn’t be sending a kid to rob banks neither.”

  “His age isn’t the point.” The fighter held up the lash. “We won’t be whipped.”

  “Look, I agree, alright?” The sergeant nodded against the column. “Alright? I agree with you lads. I do. What do you want me to say?”

  “You weren’t brought here to talk.”

  “Ah, Jesus. Come on, mate. I’m just a bloke doing a job.”

  “Do it somewhere else.”

  With his big arms, the sergeant bearhugged the column to shove his barrel chest into it and ready himself.

  “Right. Just so you know. I’m sorry, right?”

  “You’ll get eighteen. Same as Kimchin. Do you want me to stuff your mouth? If you start screaming.”

  “Did they gag the boy?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then. Sauce for the goose, I reckon. Get to it.”

  The pockmarked fighter struck the first blow. He didn’t know how to handle a whip; he stood too close, not enough distance for the lash to uncoil. The stroke landed too soon, with little power. The sergeant stiffened against the pillar and kept his mouth clamped. The young Irgunist backed away two steps. This did the trick. The whip played out to its full length. The next two blows landed with a crack of the lash. The sergeant whimpered but, to his word, did not cry out.

  The sergeant took five more strokes with lip-bitten grunts. The pockmarked Irgunist paused to catch his breath. The sergeant’s back was crosshatched, welted and bleeding. His knees hadn’t bent, and his head didn’t drop.

  Vince asked Hugo, “Can this be stopped?”

  “Millions have asked that question.”

  “Say something.”

  “Alright.” Hugo walked to the pockmarked fighter. “Give it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Give it to me.”

  Hugo would not explain himself. This said enough to the young Irgunist, and he handed over the lash.

  Vince stepped forward. A fighter blocked him.

  Hugo measured the distance to the pillar. He practiced once with the whip to make a proper snap. He reared back and put the ninth stripe on the soldier, then the tenth, and the eleventh. Hugo made each stroke harder than the last but could not bring the Briton to his knees.

  Chapter 34

  Rivkah

  December 31

  Massuot Yitzhak

  Rivkah looked into her sister’s soft palms.

  “You’re not a Palmach.”

  “You don’t know who I am. I don’t even know who I am.”

  Mrs. Pappel set her teacup on the kitchen table. “You understand what it means. Any Jew caught with a gun will be sentenced to death. Palmach train to kill.”

  Rivkah could see none of this in her sister’s hands.

  Gabbi said, “I understand.”

  Mrs. Pappel asked, “When do you leave?”

  “On the bus tomorrow morning.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Beit Zera on the Galilee.”

  “How many are going with you?”

  “Three from Massuot Yitzhak, eight from Kfar Etzion.”

  “When will you come back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rivkah grabbed her shawl off the back of a chair and carried it to the porch to sit in the dark with Malik. The old Arab smoked his pipe.

  The winding road from Jerusalem remained empty among the sable hills. Nothing came to Massuot Yitzhak, yet tomorrow Gabbi would leave. This felt unfair.

  Mrs. Pappel stepped out on the porch, teacup steaming. Gabbi stayed inside to pack. Mrs. Pappel settled in the chair Malik abandoned for her; the old Arab carried his pipe off the porch to stand darkly in the open. As ever, when Malik moved, somewhere in the night his camel brayed.

  Mrs. Pappel spoke across the brim of her teacup.

  “That girl has spent half her lifetime letting go. She’s used to it. Don’t be hurt.”

  Malik puffed his pipe; Mrs. Pappel sipped. They made an odd team, intuiting that the other had more to say. They both waited, polite, until Rivkah insisted, “Pick one of you.”

  Malik offered an open hand to Mrs. Pappel, who returned the gesture. Before Rivkah could rise, Malik squatted, puddling his black robes.

  “Do you know what is a hadith?”

  “No.”

  “A saying of the Prophet. A tradition.”

  “Are you going to tell me one?”

  “May I?”

  “Fine.”

  Malik paused for a draw of the pipe, perhaps to let Rivkah alter her manner. She repeated, more kindly, “Fine.”

  “If a man will address an injustice, let him do it with his hand. If he cannot, then with his tongue. If he cannot, then with his heart, but that is the weakest faith.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Your sister has chosen an act of the hand. That is the strongest. It is hers to choose.�
�

  “I want to stop her.”

  “And that is your choice.” Malik put his pipe to his lips.

  On the porch, Mrs. Pappel crossed her legs. Should Rivkah stomp off, Mrs. Pappel would not follow.

  “You can do one of two things, Liebling. Turn yourself into someone who stops feeling and stop your heartache. Or mourn your hurt but still love.”

  Malik exhaled smoke on his voice. “The silencing of the heart will make you strong. But what is the purpose of such strength?”

  Rivkah could not guess Malik’s age. The Negev had scored his face beyond what years could do. He might be younger than he looked; hardened by the sun, he might be much older.

  She asked, “What do you do? When you hurt?”

  “I write poems.”

  “Mrs. Pappel?”

  “I cry at night, dear.”

  Malik opened a hand to Mrs. Pappel. He didn’t feel she’d spoken well enough of herself.

  “You are a warrior. And a teacher.”

  Gabbi emerged from the house wearing a coat. “I’d like to go say goodbye to some friends.”

  When no one answered quickly, Gabbi stepped off the porch.

  Rivkah stood. “Stay. Please.”

  Malik rose to his full, black height. “I will write a poem. I will do it now.”

  Mrs. Pappel uncrossed her legs. “I think I’ve got the makings for a cake.”

  Gabbi let the three of them stare at her. Malik threw back his shoulders to begin reciting. Gabbi lifted a finger to shush him.

  “Cake.”

  1947

  They are a people, and they lack the props of a people. They are a disembodied ghost. There they are with a great many typical characteristics, many strong characteristics which have not disappeared throughout centuries, thousands of years of martyrdom and wandering, and at the same time they lack the props which characterize every nation.

  We ask today: “What are the Poles? What are the French? What are the Swiss?” When that is asked, everyone points to a country, to certain institutions, to parliamentary institutions, and the man in the street will know exactly what it is. He has a passport.

  If you ask what a Jew is—well, he is a man who has to offer a long explanation for his existence, and any person who has to offer an explanation as to what he is, is always suspect—and from suspicion there is only one step to hatred or contempt.

  Dr. Chaim Weizmann

  Chapter 35

  Vince

  January 2

  Jerusalem

  Scaffolding, cranes, wheelbarrows, and mule-driven dumbwaiters raised the King David Hotel up from ruin. Hammers chinked and Arab laborers shouted from overhead, while on Julian’s Way traffic honked at the congestion.

  On the YMCA patio, Vince finished his juice and coffee. He signed the bill to his room, then went down to the street to wait on the chalk-dusty sidewalk.

  He had no idea who would come for him. The note, slid under his door this morning, had read:

  Our mutual friend cannot contact you. We will pick you up at

  0930 in front of the YMCA.

  P

  Vince had no idea who “P” was. He assumed the mutual friend was Hugo. Why couldn’t Hugo make contact? Was he in trouble?

  On time, a black police car stopped in front of Vince. A cop, alone in the car, told him to get in.

  The driver, a young brown-skinned officer, perhaps a Gurkha, didn’t let Vince ride in the front. Vince climbed in the back of the squad car, inside the cage.

  The cop pulled away with needless speed, wheeling in and out of the morning traffic. The crosshatch wire separating him from Vince, plus the cop’s speeding, dissuaded Vince from asking questions. They headed west out of Jerusalem.

  Twenty minutes into the drive, the policeman began to talk. He made no mention of where they were going, but they were on the Tel Aviv road. He said nothing of who’d sent him. He was Nepalese, had served with the British in North Africa; he’d come to Palestine with the occupation, then joined the police force. He asked Vince about New York and America. Vince told him about Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, and the Dodgers; he tossed in the Grand Canyon and Hollywood. The policeman had seen New York and the Empire State Building in a make-believe movie about a giant ape.

  Several miles shy of Tel Aviv, the car turned off the main road. A chain-link fence bore signs reading No Trespassing. A guarded gate appeared ahead. The policeman slowed and told Vince to say nothing.

  At the gate, the policeman handed a soldier his credentials. He flicked a thumb behind him at Vince inside the wire. “Another one.” None of the armed guards leaned in to look. They opened the gate.

  The cop drove past rows of olive drab barracks built to face a manicured drill yard. British Army trucks, jeeps, and a half-dozen police cars lined the edge of the grass field. A hundred soldiers jumped down from truck beds to stride across the open ground. A dozen police in khaki shorts, high stockings, and stiff hats tromped with them. Each cop carried a baton. On the far side of the drill field, two buses waited in the camp road.

  Vince’s policeman parked in line with the other police vehicles. He got out, then said to Vince, “I’m a Jew. Don’t write that. Don’t write anything until you leave here. Stay in the car.”

  The cop opened the trunk, then slammed the lid. Striding across the grass, he carried a black truncheon.

  Vince called after him, “What’s happening?”

  Without turning, the policeman raised one finger, to show the back of it. Wait, the cop was saying. Not long.

  Chapter 36

  Hugo

  Tel Aviv

  Hugo understood the pre-dawn pounding on his door. He’d heard it once in his life and would never forget. He didn’t think to leap out a window, too high up, and his flat had no backdoor. Someone shouted his name, and “Open up!” Hugo called back, “Coming,” so they wouldn’t break down the door.

  He knew enough to dress in whatever he could find, to not be dragged away in his bed clothes. He called to the door every few seconds as if keeping calm some beast. He dressed in under a minute and opened up to the police.

  Two cops filled the threshold. One said, “Come with us.” The other laid hands on him.

  Fifty Jews packed the cell with Hugo. Another fifty crammed the cell across the concrete hall.

  No one professed to know why the British had snatched them out of their beds, but each knew. They said to each other only their names and where they were from, Netanya, Petah Tikvah, Rishon LeZion, Ramat Gan, Rehovot, and Tel Aviv. All were known hotbeds of support for the resistance.

  Hugo listened to lies and didn’t bother to add his own. Every man grousing about a bump or bruise the police gave him in his arrest knew an Irgunist or three and supported them with silence or money. The whippings of four British soldiers in return for the caning of young Abraham Kimchin had taken place in their districts, but none of them knew anything.

  Hugo smelled no worse than the man sitting next to him. No one on the bus had showered or shaved or eaten more than the soup and water pushed into their cells at sunup. When the man beside him leaned across Hugo to the window to see the drill field, Hugo shrugged him back in his place.

  The pair of buses idled in the road. The Jews mumbled to each other what they feared was going to happen on the bright drill field. Four British paratroopers in the aisles shouted at them to shut up.

  Pinchus had told Hugo he was a man no one would remember, so Hugo kept his face to the window. He was certain he’d been swept up in a random search, another door-banging exercise from the British to coerce the Yishuv into cooperating, giving up names. The Mandate government was swinging blindly, for if they knew who Hugo was, he’d be somewhere worse.

  The buses lurched forward. One of the men was missing a leg below the knee and relied on a crutch. He called out, “H
ear, O Israel.” A soldier threatened to strike him; the one-legged man thrust out his chin.

  The buses stopped beside the drill field. Sun drenched the grass; not a shadow broke the expanse. On the grass, two lines had been formed of soldiers and police facing each other, the phalanx spanned the length of the field. Some of the Jews on the bus took the hands of others.

  An army officer boarded. “Everybody off.”

  The hundred men filed off the two buses and by instinct packed themselves tight to each other’s shoulders. In the drill field, truncheons shifted in every hand like waves of black wheat. The officer clutched his hands behind his back.

  “You are not here because you have done something. You are here because you have not.”

  The Briton looked no one in the eye as he strode but spoke to the ground before his boots.

  “The Mandate government has garrisoned one hundred thousand troops in Palestine. This equates to one fully equipped soldier for every adult Jewish male in the land. Still you will not cooperate. You refuse to report illegal activities in your midst. You refuse to help us shut down the terrorists among you. British wives are left widowed. British mothers lose their sons. Her Majesty’s Government will no longer tolerate this insult.”

  Both buses rumbled off to the far side of the drill field. They halted at the opposite end of the formation.

  “You may get back on the buses and return to your homes. Please, in your communities, engage your neighbors in a more productive dialogue. I expect you will reference your experiences of this morning.”

  The officer opened a hand to usher the hundred into the gauntlet. “Gentlemen.”

  The one-legged man was the first to move. Propped on his crutch, he shouted down the twin rows, “I lost this leg fighting alongside you lot in Italy. Let’s see if you bastards have gotten any tougher since Alfonsine.”

  The first few soldiers did not touch him. Perhaps that was to lure the next man in, for after the Jews started to make their way between the lines, a soldier snatched the legless man’s crutch. He balanced as best he could; the crutch was tossed down the line, away from him toward the waiting buses.