Isaac's Beacon

by David L. Robbins

  A soldier said, “Start hopping.”

  The legless man did, until a policeman tripped him. He caught himself on strong arms. With a push from his stump, the one-legged man popped up. He turned to the Jews.

  Only five had entered the gauntlet. The rest hesitated; they’d seen the first ones get punched and the one-legged man knocked over.

  “Coming, lads?”

  Hugo pushed his way to the front and took a bat in the hip for it. He glared at the soldier who’d struck him, something he’d never dared do to at a Nazi.

  He paid no attention to anyone behind him, cared nothing if the others followed or what their treatment might be. Hugo leaped past the few Jews before him, all with arms protecting their heads. He shot to the front before the one-legged man could be upended again.

  Hugo slipped a shoulder under the man’s arm. Their first strides together drew wallops to their ribs and arms from batons and fists, kicks at their feet to bring the one-legged man down again. Hugo safeguarded him from thumps and would not let him fall. The British vented themselves on Hugo, and many times he was the one held upright from falling.

  Not every soldier and policeman hit them hard, some swung lightly. Curses mingled with the blows. Hugo took a fist to the temple, another to the neck, a smash on his back that two years ago would have left him begging a guard to stop. He kept his eyes on the buses ahead and his arms around the one-legged Jew.

  Chapter 37

  Vince

  January 6

  Jerusalem

  The year’s first chill had crept into Jerusalem. Vince stepped onto the YMCA patio on a crystal-clear morning and buttoned his sweater. On Julian’s Way, the British traffic cops still wore shorts and knee socks.

  Hugo waited at a table, hunkered in a blue woolen coat, a black scarf about his neck. The puffiness hadn’t left his face, nor the shadows of bruises. The cold snap and the beating made him appear a larger, darker man.

  Vince motioned to a waiter for coffee. Hugo already had a beer. Vince circled a finger in the air at Hugo’s swollen face. “I was there. I saw it all.”

  “I read your column.”

  “It’s been a week since we talked. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

  Vince took a seat. The nip in the air kept most patrons away. Vince and Hugo didn’t need to whisper; the waiters had come to know they required privacy.

  Vince said, “You don’t look so bad.”

  “You’ve seen worse.”

  The coffee arrived speedily; the waiter left.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “You wrote a beautiful piece about it.” When Hugo smiled, his lips held a lingering fatness. “Careful you don’t start picking a side, Vince.”

  “The British aren’t too happy with me right now.”

  “Things balance out. The Irgun is very pleased with you. That’s why they arranged to have you there.”

  “I don’t know who ‘P’ is.”

  “My commander.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Hugo rattled his head. He finished his beer, then raised an arm for another.

  “Where have you been, Hugo?”

  “Resting. Enjoying myself.”

  “Really.”

  “Did you know that in Jerusalem, if a Jew walks around with a swollen face, everybody assumes the British did it. I haven’t paid for a meal or a drink since it happened.”

  “What you did for that man with one leg. That was brave.”

  “Not at all.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “I wasn’t going to let a Jew crawl. That’s not brave.”

  A steak arrived with Hugo’s second beer. Vince ordered nothing; Hugo dug in. His discolored knuckles looked like purpled eggs on straw. Hugo cut a piece of meat and spoke with it in his mouth.

  “Britain’s losing its grip. Their economy is falling through the floor.”

  He stabbed another bit of meat, put it past thickened lips, then twirled his fork in little circles while he chewed.

  “London just had its fourth record snowfall in a row. There’s rolling blackouts. They’re rationing bread.”

  He chased the steak with beer, then set down his fork. Hugo left the meal half eaten. This was Hugo, who flung himself at everything until he’d had his fill.

  He asked, “What does a man do when he’s losing his grip?”

  “What.”

  “He grips harder.”

  Vince warmed his hands around his coffee cup. “Who’s Dov Gruner?”

  “Irgun. Why?”

  “His death sentence was confirmed by the government yesterday.”

  “We know this.”

  “The execution’s four weeks from now.”

  “It’s just for show. They’re not going to hang Dov Gruner.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Did you hear something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who said it?”

  “It’s high up.”

  “Is it going to happen?”

  “I think you need to take it seriously.”

  Standing, Hugo lay a sore-looking hand on Vince’s shoulder. “You’re a friend to me. Thank you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We won’t let it happen.”

  Before rounding a neighboring table, Hugo turned.

  “Don’t worry about the bill. The waiter said it was free.”

  Chapter 38

  Hugo

  January 27

  Tel Aviv

  Hugo turned to the pair of Irgunists in the back seat. This broke a protocol, to face them when he was just the driver. He didn’t know their names and had not heard their voices.

  “Let me go through the window.”

  Neither answered. Both were bigger than Hugo, one particularly beefy, an intimidator, the other hairy with tufts on his knuckles.

  “Look at the three of us, for God’s sake. I’m half your size. Let me do it.”

  The hairy one said, “No.”

  The big Irgunist added, “Pinchus said you drive.”

  “Pinchus told you to complete the mission.” He indicated the hairy one. “What if you get stuck? What if he can’t lift you out?” Hugo faced front. “I’ll fit better than you. He can lift me out easy. I know my way around basements. And I can cut a fucking wire.”

  Hugo kept his eyes away from the rearview mirror. A pair of wire cutters was laid on his shoulder.

  He said, “I want a gun.”

  Both Irgunists said, “No.”

  Hugo snipped every white phone wire running up the walls and through the ceiling joists, in and out of junction boxes. The job took a frantic minute, because one minute had been allotted.

  He hurried through the basement, back to the half-window. Two pairs of shoes and the backs of pantlegs blocked the window, hiding the busted pane. Hugo hissed to signal he was waiting below. The big Irgunist’s arm came through; Hugo latched on and scrambled against the wall to be lifted out into the alley.

  The two Irgunists patted him on the back, then disappeared to the front of the courthouse to stand watch. The long hems of their overcoats kicked as they walked, as if dogs ran at their sides. Hugo hustled the other direction through the alley, to where he’d left the beat-up Škoda.

  Hugo started the engine, timed out two minutes, then pulled into the street. His timing was perfect; in front of the courthouse, eight Irgunists burst down the steps. They encircled a judge in crimson robe and jurist’s wig. The two watchmen pulled their Sten submachineguns from under their coats; the sidewalk crowd recoiled just as Hugo screeched to a halt. The car’s rear door was flung open; one Irgunist leaped in, pistol drawn. Behind him, the judge was shoved in and the door slammed. The judge was long-legged, his robe fouled in the abduc
tion. He did not resist the pistol in his ribs. A second Irgunist, a tough in a cap and waistcoat, yanked open the passenger front door; his landing on the seat shook the Škoda. Hugo snapped back all their heads accelerating away from the scene. The other six fighters scattered on foot, pell-mell in different directions.

  Beside Hugo, the heavy Irgunist whirled around to shove his pistol in the judge’s face.

  “If Dov Gruner hangs, you hang. Understand?”

  Hugo stole glimpses in the mirror. The judge straightened his white wig.

  “Let us hope Mr. Gruner has a good lawyer.”

  Hugo drove quickly through traffic. Sirens wailed around the city. He needed to get out of Tel Aviv before the roadblocks went up.

  Chapter 39

  Vince

  Jerusalem

  January in Jerusalem was far warmer than in New York.

  On the YMCA’s patio, Vince sat in the sun beneath no umbrella. He sipped black coffee and held his Palestine Post high and spread wide. The paper blocked the sight of the King David’s resurrection but not the noise of jackhammers and pulleys.

  “Mister Haas.”

  His name was said loud enough to be heard over the construction din, but not from close by. Vince lowered the paper, on alarm. Someone had come looking for him, someone who couldn’t have known who was behind the newspaper.

  A small fellow stood with arms at his side, gazing from three tables away. He wore a brown suit, vest and tie, and black-frame glasses. He cut the figure of a teacher, weak-eyed and wintry pale. Something about him said immigrant, something said prison.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’d like a word.”

  “Who are you?”

  “We have a friend in common.”

  “You sent the note.”

  “I did. Would you buy me a cup of coffee?”

  Vince beckoned him forward. The two said no more until a waiter had been summoned and sent away.

  “My name is Pinchus.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  Pinchus pushed up his glasses, looking baffled, as if he’d not anticipated the question.

  “Nothing, actually. Nothing more than you’re doing.”

  Vince waited through the arrival of the coffee and Pinchus’s first sip. Pinchus was not dainty with the cup as it seemed he might be, but held it wholly in both hands, like a man gathering warmth.

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Why not, exactly?”

  “Because I don’t want to know any more.”

  “Of what are we speaking, Mister Haas?”

  “I don’t want to be told things before they happen. Not by you, not Hugo, not by the government. If Dov Gruner’s going to get hanged or not, I shouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “You feel badly. About the kidnappings of the police.”

  “I feel badly, Mister Pinchus, about being used. About you sending me to go watch Hugo get beat up. Having me watch whippings.” Vince pointed at the savaged King David. “And that.”

  Pinchus set down his coffee. He pressed his palms together to absorb the last of the heat.

  “It has not been my intent to compromise you.”

  “I’m a journalist. Nothing else.”

  “What Kharda says is you are a man trying to learn something about himself by understanding the Jews. I must be honest; in all the world’s history, I’ve never heard of anyone who held that view. It’s not a responsibility we’re accustomed to. All our time is spent trying to understand ourselves.”

  “What are you doing here, Mister Pinchus? My guess is you don’t come out in the open very often. Why this morning, why to me?”

  “I may owe you an apology.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Perhaps you feel responsible for the kidnappings? Your warning about Gruner’s execution was very much appreciated. You must have known we would take some preventative action.”

  “I did.”

  “Yet you told Kharda anyway.”

  “I won’t do it again. It’s getting hard to have sympathy for you.”

  “I understand. But sympathy is not what we ask. A free man has no need of it. We are a nation without a land, Mister Haas, you know this. Over two thousand years, the Jews have had no single place in the world to display what we are, what we have done, or what we will do. We need Palestine in order to gather ourselves, to relearn what it is to be a people. The world thinks it is witnessing the rise of the Jew as warrior and farmer. It is not. The world is witnessing our return. I believe you might be someone who could help us along. Someone who would tell us what you see of us, a fair appraisal. For over a year, you have done us this service, and marvelously so. But we may have overburdened you. I’m sorry if this is the case.”

  From Pinchus, this was not a rebuke. He was a man who wasted nothing, like the heat of the coffee. If Vince would not do one thing, he might do another.

  “Allow me to make it up to you.”

  “You can try.”

  Pinchus removed his glasses to clean them on the tip of his tie. He left the glasses on the table. A simple gesture, it had the quality of an unmasking, perhaps candor.

  “Dov Gruner will not hang, at least not for now.”

  “What happened?”

  “A clash of wills. The government threatened to impose martial law unless we released the judge we kidnapped. The Jewish Agency has determined that martial law would be a ruinous thing, it would mean a strict curfew, the stoppage of all business and social activities. Myself, I believe it would be ineffective, but I am one voice. Private appeals have been made to us. We agreed to release the judge, in return for a stay of execution. The government has granted that stay. Everyone got what they wanted.”

  “And in the process you humiliated the British.”

  “That was always the point.”

  “The judge?”

  “Tomorrow, he will be set free. And Gruner lives. So, you see, Mister Haas, you are off the hook.”

  Pinchus slid the glasses back over his nose. The lenses greatly magnified his eyes. Vince imagined him in a cell, deprived of his spectacles, unable to focus on the outer world so he was left locked inside his head, plotting.

  “I appreciate the visit.”

  “You were owed this.”

  “Tell Hugo I’m out. I don’t want any more insider information.”

  “Won’t you miss your friend? He speaks very well of you.”

  Vince should have risen and walked off, but this was his table; the tab for the meal and Pinchus’s coffee was his. Pinchus needed to go.

  “Tell me something, honestly.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re a dangerous man. Am I safe from you?”

  “Why would you ask that?” Pinchus didn’t refute the accusation. That explained why Vince would ask. “Yes, Mister Haas. You are safe.”

  “I’ll be glad to pay for your coffee.”

  Pinchus stood, tugging his vest into place. “May I make one request?”

  “What.”

  “A Jewish state is coming. The British will leave. Not much longer can they explain to the world their reasons for sending the survivors of Europe’s death camps to internment in Cyprus. Once Britain is gone, the Arabs and Jews will stay behind. Others will draw lines to limit where we may live. Before that happens, we are spreading out. Jews are settling in every corner of the land, even into harm’s way. They are not terrorists but pioneers. The story of the Jew in Palestine is in their hands no less than it is in mine or Kharda’s. Why not tell their story?”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  “A suggestion, if I may.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “There is a small alliance of kibbutzim in the Judean hills. The Etzion bloc. I have a favorite place there. A
green hilltop in a white expanse. Everything you are looking for is there. The fighter and the farmer. The sabra and the survivor. The rock and the flower. All our hopes for Palestine are there, Mister Haas. Please go.”

  “What’s the name of the place?”

  “Massuot Yitzhak. In English, you would call it Isaac’s Beacon.”

  Pinchus turned away. Before he’d gone many strides, he snapped his fingers. He whirled among the tables, looking younger for that moment.

  “Do ask for Missus Pappel.”

  Chapter 40

  Hugo

  January 28

  Petah Tikvah

  Hugo lifted the latch on the outhouse. He jerked the door open to surprise the man inside. Hugo said, “Boo.”

  The judge gazed up from the Palestine Post, giving Hugo none of the reaction he’d hoped for. The judge’s folded black robe and gray wig lay neatly beside him on the latrine’s two-hole bench. He looked relaxed, even after a night locked in here. Orange peels and cracker wrappers littered the wooden floor. He wore cufflinks and suspenders. The judge folded the newspaper.

  “Are you my executioner?”

  “No.”

  The judge didn’t rise from the privy seat; Hugo had given him no instruction yet. A confused moment hovered between them, until the judge asked, “Yes?”

  “Get up.”

  The judge rose to his full height, far taller than Hugo. He filled the doorway and waited, palms out, for the next order. The judge’s compliance felt like mockery.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  Hugo had lobbied long into the night, then into this afternoon, to be given a pistol. If he had a gun, he argued, no one else would have to go along. Hugo pulled back his jacket to show it stuck in his belt.

  “Don’t ask questions.”

  The judge gathered up his robe and wig. Hugo stepped aside to have him walk in front.