In the basement, in the wan glow of the bulb, three armed men waited against the brick walls. The sappers were gone. The mouth to the tunnel had been sealed with concrete. Above the blocked opening, a message to the Irgun had been scrawled in chalk on the bricks: The Haganah was here. We want you by force not to carry out your evil intention. Signed Haganah.
Hugo asked, “Did you catch the others?”
“No.”
“How did you know?”
“May I have a cigarette, Hugo?”
He shook one out for Julius and lit it from a match. Hugo made no offer to the other three. Julius knew Hugo well enough; he put a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re a pawn.”
“I am not.”
Julius lowered the hand. He kicked the concreted tunnel. “This. You’ve been told to risk your life. To take how many other lives? For what?”
“For the same reasons you risk yours.”
Beneath the chalked words, Julius squatted on his haunches. He smoked and considered the dirt floor. Hugo asked, “How long did you wait for me here?”
“Since yesterday afternoon.”
“You’ve had me followed?”
“For a long time, Hugo.”
“Why now?”
“The UN has sent a committee to Palestine. They’re going to make a recommendation. This could be what we’ve been hoping for. A Jewish state.”
“Then why stop the Irgun? We’ve done all the dirty work. We’re the ones who’ve made Palestine a place the British can’t govern.”
“While the UN’s here, the Jewish Agency wants no violence. The world needs to see we can govern ourselves. The British are the beasts, not us. But Pinchus.”
“What about him?”
“He wants to put on a show. A show, Hugo. Kill a hundred, maybe more. Just to make a point that’s already been made.”
Julius stood, finished with the cigarette, done with Hugo standing over him. He pointed at one of his men, who disappeared up the steps.
“Are you going to turn me in?”
“I’ll know in a moment.”
Light from the alley flowed in the open door. One of the truck’s doors was opened, then closed. Julius’ man returned. At the bottom of the stairs, he handed Hugo’s pistol to Julius.
“Is this yours?”
“No. It belongs to Pinchus. The man you introduced me to.”
“It was found in your truck. So it’s yours.”
Julius returned the gun to the Haganah man. Again, Julius moved in front of the chalk message. He scraped a boot across the dirt, through a stain on the raw floor.
“His name was Zeev Weber. He was the one following you. Yesterday morning, when you left to dump the bags, after the sappers were gone, he came down here. Zeev found the tunnel. He didn’t know about the boobytrap.”
Julius turned his back to mount the stairs, with no hint that he might say more.
Chapter 62
Vince
July 2
YMCA
Jerusalem
A year after he’d destroyed the King David, Pinchus appeared to admire it. Vince eased into the chair opposite him. Silverware and menus waited on the table.
With his focus on the hotel across the street, Pinchus said, “This is what the British do well. They rebuild from ruin better than any nation in history.”
Vince said, “I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”
“You should never expect to see me, Vince.”
“I heard about Hugo.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to do something about it?”
Pinchus smiled broadly but made no reply. A waiter approached; the smile stayed fixed while Pinchus ordered eggs, toast, and coffee for himself and Vince. The waiter left, and behind his glasses Pinchus blinked as though from the strain of his grin.
“Do you judge me, Vince?”
“You’re a hard man to trust.”
“I don’t ask to be trusted.”
“What, then?”
“Believed in. A revolution is only partly politics. The rest is war. And war is belief.”
Pinchus wiped a napkin across his lips. His smile disappeared; he had no more use for it.
“Did you enjoy Massuot Yitzhak?”
“Stay out of my personal life.”
“Alright. What would you have me do about Kharda?”
“What can you do?”
“I can beat someone. Hang someone. Threaten. You know the responses as well as I. Are you advocating this? I thought you were done with that sort of thing in Palestine.”
“You’re going to let them execute him? They found him with a gun.”
“For a Jew in Palestine, that is a capital offense.”
“He’s Irgun. He’s yours.”
“He is, indeed.”
“You sent him to help blow up Citrus House. How many would that have killed?”
“We would have warned the British before setting the fuse.”
“And what if they didn’t believe you? Again.”
Without raising his hand from the table, Pinchus lifted a finger at the resurrected King David where almost a hundred had died. The small gesture meant a similar number. Vince prodded, “Hugo’s trial is next week.”
“I will let it proceed.”
“You’ll let him hang?”
Pinchus smiled slightly this time, a crinkle behind his glasses. A waiter delivered their coffees. Pinchus sipped; his satisfaction seemed genuine.
“I enjoy our talks, Vince. You test my patience, you challenge my mindset. Not enough people around me do that. It’s a price of the secret life. Those living it alongside me tend to agree too much.”
“What are you going to do?”
“You need to understand.”
“What.”
“The Haganah stopped our operation. The Jewish Agency was very pleased, the British, too, of course. But a Haganah man was killed in that basement. A Jew, by the Irgun’s hand. If I rescue one of the men who killed him, I insult the Jewish Agency. I insult the family of Zeev Weber. When Hugo was found with a pistol, he couldn’t claim he was just a driver. At that point he became what he wanted to be: a fighter.”
“And fighters die.”
“Too often.”
“So to avoid an insult to the Jewish Agency, you’ll let Hugo hang.”
“As I said, a revolt is partly politics.”
“You’ll do nothing.”
“I’ll never do nothing.”
A server arrived with the eggs and toast. Pinchus appeared to pray before he raised his darkened face.
“The British are holding three more Irgunists on death sentences. They were captured in May during a raid on Acre prison. We freed two hundred and fifty-five inmates. When we speak of Habib, Nakar, and Weiss, the British will know, we are speaking of Kharda, too.”
Pinchus ate ravenously. Vince had seen the same hunger in Hugo, not just appetite but avarice.
“What are you doing here.”
“I very much enjoyed your column on the Bernstein concert.” Pinchus washed down the eggs with coffee. “I need a favor from you.”
“Do you realize everything you say sounds like a threat?”
“No.” Pinchus wiped his mouth. “I apologize.”
“Are you sorry for being a shit or for being caught at it?”
“Both, to be honest.”
“What do you want?”
“The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine is here. In Jerusalem. You are covering them, yes?”
“I am.”
“UNSCOP will decide if the British must go. Now is our time. Now is what we have fought for. Our own state.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Make sure they see Pal
estine for what the British have made of it. A bastion of barbed wire and pillboxes. Checkpoints and sentries. I want the Committee to witness the measures Britain must resort to, the batons and nooses, just so they can claim they still have an empire, that they control us. They do not control us. They cannot. To continue to try will be a bloody lie. Show them.”
“How do you expect me to do that?”
“You are Vincent Haas of the Herald Tribune. Don’t lose sight of that. You have access. Use it. Tell them what you know, what you’ve seen. From Galilee to the Negev, to Massuot Yitzhak. Help them understand the cost of keeping the Jew from his homeland.”
“You’re that cost, Pinchus.”
“I’m part of it, yes.”
“I’ve already said I don’t trust you.”
Pinchus rose from the table. He glanced in every direction because he was hunted.
“I haven’t told you the favor yet.”
“What is it?”
“Bring the Committee to me. I’ll be in touch about when and where.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“One more thing.” Pinchus walked away. “Thank you again for breakfast.”
Chapter 63
Vince
July 3
Tel Aviv
Vince rode in the front of the taxi. When the Irgun driver pulled to the curb on a dark, leafy street, he got out first to help the judge exit the rear. The two diplomats with the judge, younger men, climbed out on their own. The taxi left them on the sidewalk.
A young, well-dressed woman approached. She uttered Pinchus’s password, “Homeland.” The group followed her to another taxi waiting with headlamps off. She departed without a look backward. Vince offered the front seat to the judge, but again was politely refused.
The driver weaved through neighborhoods, unnecessary turns to foil anyone following.
During the forty-minute drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, the diplomats asked Vince only one question: Did they have anything to fear? He said the Irgun kept their word.
The driver, a tough-looking sort, nose broken like a boxer, nodded. “Ask the British.”
Pinchus greeted Judge Sandström with a hearty handshake. The white-haired Swede, the chairman of UNSCOP, was of a very different type from Pinchus, an elegant and tall man who offered an indifferent handshake. Pinchus hid his disappointment.
“Thank you for coming. And your delegation.”
The Judge smiled through Pinchus’s blandishment. “Vincent Haas said you wished to keep our meeting secret. I chose to bring none of the other Committee members, to avoid alerting their watchdogs. Besides, Mister Pinchus. Let me introduce my delegation. Chinese envoy Victor Hoo and American political scientist Ralph Bunche.”
Pinchus offered the Judge the chair at the head of the dining room table.
The others filled in, including their hosts, a Jewish poet and his wife. Pinchus spoke warmly to the woman, an Irgun operative. Vince took a seat against a wall; the judge beckoned him to the table. Pinchus sat at the far end, flanked by two lieutenants.
Sandström began with a prepared question off a notecard. “Mr. Pinchus, do you carry the rank of general?”
“I carry no rank at all.”
“How do you command?”
“By agreement.”
Pinchus summarized the Irgun’s aims: the liberation of the country from foreign rule and the attainment of freedom for the Jewish people in Palestine.
The judge asked why the Irgun chose violence instead of diplomacy?
“Britain attempts to keep the country under control by force of arms. There’s no other way to accomplish our aims than to meet force with force.”
Sandström pressed the commander about what would happen if the Jews got their way. If the British left, could they live peacefully with the Arabs?
“Arab opposition to a Jewish homeland is a myth spread by the British to justify their presence, the claim that foreign troops are needed to keep the Jews and Arabs from each other’s throats. I am fighting for Arab liberation, as well.”
“What happens if you are wrong? What if the Arabs attack you after the British go?”
“We will smite them hip and thigh.”
“How so?”
“In modern war, numbers do not decide the issue but brains and morale. As for brains, I do not feel I need to elaborate. As to fighting spirit, you have read of the men who went to the gallows.”
“Was Dov Gruner a high officer in the Irgun?”
The mention of Gruner ratcheted Pinchus’s volume up a notch. He hardly kept his seat. “Gruner, Barazani, Feinstein, all of them, they were not officers of Irgun, not criminals, but warriors. Their capture made them prisoners of war. Hanging them was itself a crime.”
Dr. Hoo changed the subject. “If you get Palestine as a Jewish state, and you bring in several million people, how will you handle the increase in population? The country is small.”
“That is why it would be absurd to set up a small Jewish state.”
Dr. Bunche asked, “How confident is the Irgun in the support of the Jewish people?”
“How could we exist if we did not have their backing, in the face of the number of British police and troops? We’re not professional fighters. We take no pleasure in shooting or being shot. In Europe, we lost six million. Every Jewish life is precious. The Irgun take our strength from the people. They protect us, though, yes, we bring them troubles.”
“What of those troubles? Curfews, restriction, retaliations. Executions.”
“Suffering cannot be separated from struggle.”
While Pinchus jousted with the diplomats, the poet and his wife brought food and drink to the table.
Pinchus was never cornered. He blended invention and logic with facts and passion, threaded his remarks with cajolery and lies. Vince knew Pinchus well enough; he’d talked to the man without the smokescreen of decency. Sandström bandied with him over the Mandate’s legality, the Jews’ Biblical claim on the country, plus the realpolitik of the Jews’ own spreading occupation. The judge and Pinchus dueled, firing questions and answers, a contest that grew exhausting and slippery.
Finally, Pinchus stood to end the interview.
“The British have announced they will stop the hangings if the Irgun quit fighting. This is blackmail. Ridiculous.”
The judge asked, “Is it?”
Pinchus flattened both hands on the table, a little man, shouting.
“Go to Acre prison. Ask the three boys sentenced to death whether they are prepared to buy their lives at the price of our revolt. They sent me letters. They say, ‘Whatever happens, fight on.’”
Pinchus and his men took their first strides out of the dining room. Sandström was not quick to his feet. This slowness irked Pinchus; he whirled on the judge.
“No member of Irgun asks for mercy. Ever.”
Pinchus left the small house with those words. The Judge’s aides gathered their notes. The Judge asked for wine. The poet fetched a glass, for his wife was outside calming Pinchus.
Chapter 64
Hugo
Jerusalem
As Hugo neared the defendant’s table, his lawyer presented a card. Hugo, with wrists shackled, took the card two-handed. The chains on his ankles made him hobble like an old man.
“Who hired you?”
The lawyer lifted a legal pad from a briefcase. The first page was blank. “The government. Can you afford your own barrister?”
“No.”
“Then, for the moment, I’m it. How are you going to plead?”
Hugo wore the white drawstring pants and tunic of a prisoner. The lawyer dressed in a summer grey suit with silver cufflinks. A receding hairline and a beaky nose made him appear the well-bred Briton. Hugo didn’t like his slate eyes, they darted, taking the measure of the courtroom
to see who was there to see him defend the captured Irgunist: the press, the local bar, the police, the Yishuv. Though he was on the government’s pay, this was a lawyer with a reputation.
“Not guilty.”
The lawyer lapped an arm across the back of his chair. “Are you certain?”
Two hundred spectators filled the pews of the District Court gallery. The Union Jack and a picture of Britain’s king flanked the judge’s high bench. Fourteen armed policemen ringed the courtroom; six more stood within arm’s reach of Hugo.
He saw no one he recognized, not Pinchus, Julius, nor even Vince. The crowd felt ready for a commotion; the starchy cops rested hands on black gunbelts and holsters.
The lawyer waited for Hugo’s answer. Why shouldn’t he plead innocent? He wasn’t in the basement when the Haganah man was killed, wasn’t in the truck when the pistol was found.
How had Gruner pled, or Barazani and Feinstein? They were caught red-handed. Did they shout Guilty when asked? Hugo didn’t know, but he was no less than they, so he would like to answer as they had. That was why this lawyer had questioned him. Didn’t Hugo want to be a martyr?
The bailiff, a colorless man, called, “All rise.” The courtroom got to its feet. Hugo’s chains jangled.
The bailiff intoned, “Silence be upstanding in court. All persons having anything to do before the lords and ladies, the King's Justices at the District Court of Palestine, draw near and give attendance. God save the King.”
With long strides, the judge in a scarlet robe entered and mounted the bench. A powdered wig capped his head, a white collar crossed tabs below his throat. He stood tall, squarely above the courtroom. He lowered into his leather chair with no more than a raised eyebrow at Hugo. In the end, Dov Gruner was hanged, and this judge got a new wig.
The bailiff announced, “Be seated.”
Pews creaked when the gallery sat. The clerk announced Hugo’s case. The judge nodded down at Hugo to agree that this was the place they were destined for.
He said, “Hugo Ungar.”
Hugo and his lawyer stood again. Hugo’s handcuffs dragged across the wooden tabletop.
Isaac's Beacon Page 23