Isaac's Beacon

by David L. Robbins

  “I came to tell you a few things, Mr. Ungar. To give you a few guarantees.”

  “Alright.”

  “As long as you are my responsibility, you will be treated by the rules. You will not be accosted or harmed. You will get all your meals. You may receive small gifts such as books after they’ve been inspected. You may receive visits from family members and your clergy.”

  “I have no family.”

  The warden seemed authentically to take this in.

  “I understand.”

  “Perhaps you don’t.”

  “Perhaps not. May I ask something of you?”

  “What.”

  “In this prison. In this cell, in fact. There have been others who were brave men. They suffered no maltreatment at my hands or at the hands of my guards. Even so, they laid a plan that would have cost me my life had they followed through. I ask you, sir, to show the same respect for me that I will for you.”

  “You don’t want to die.”

  “No. I suppose you don’t, either. But our situations differ.”

  From the paper bag, the warden pulled folded garments, the scarlet tunic and pants of the condemned.

  “You’ll need to put these on.”

  The warden pushed the clothes through the bars. He said, “I am frightened, Mr. Ungar.”

  “Of me?”

  “The Irgun have attacked Acre prison. Whipped British soldiers and policemen. Bombed hotels and British headquarters. You would have killed hundreds at Citrus House. Not a day goes by in Palestine, sir, not a day without a shot fired or an explosion from your people, without a death or injury among mine. I was almost murdered in my own prison. Yes, sir, I am frightened. Of you.”

  Hugo tossed the red outfit onto the cot, then sat at the table. He’d brought the oranges to Barazani and Feinstein. The warden would be more afraid if he knew.

  “You’re safe from me.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that. What of your terrorist friends?”

  “They won’t come for me.”

  “The Irgun has done awful things whenever one of you has been sentenced to hang.”

  “I’m not their martyr. Warden?”

  “Mr. Ungar.”

  “I don’t want to be in this cell. Can I be moved?”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  “I’ve only shot one policeman who was shooting at me first. I didn’t set the traps in the tunnel to Citrus House. I used to make guns. I’m a driver.”

  The warden took the bars in hand. He seemed a bureaucratic man: a cipher and hard to read. Hugo lifted the grey prison tunic over his head, to strip down and put on the red wool suit while the warden watched and the guard stayed back. Hugo paused, bare chested, a thumb between his ribs.

  “I was in the camps. I was in Treblinka and Buchenwald.”

  The warden retreated. Hugo sensed something, a chance, had passed.

  The warden said, “You don’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Last night. The two sergeants.”

  Backing away, the warden showed his open hands, holding no reason to trust Hugo. He said no more and left death row.

  The heavy guard followed. He locked the gate with a deliberate, clanking twist of the key.

  Chapter 68

  Vince

  July 29

  Jerusalem

  Vince ordered only tea on the YMCA patio. A dull sky did little to cut the heat; the city felt muggy and perspiring. The Arab trick of drinking something hot on a sultry day didn’t work on this third morning of trying to summon Pinchus.

  Vince left money on the table and walked off.

  Jerusalem, a city of hills, sweated him. He labored the half-mile to the Russian Compound; half the streets were blocked by barbed wire, or sandbag bunkers and machine guns. The free avenues still bustled with shoppers and delivery trucks. Hasidim read while they walked, businessmen in yarmulkes argued on corners or in stride with one another, old men and women burdened with mesh grocery bags outpaced Vince up the inclines. He stopped at a street vendor for an orange.

  At the prison, Vince’s press papers got him beyond a checkpoint. He wended through more twisted wire, then past the guards manning the compound’s doors. He found the warden in his office. The man, small and genteel, agreed to let Vince speak privately with Hugo. This took Vince by surprise; he expected he’d have to argue.

  The warden ushered Vince into the hall. “You’ll let me know if you hear anything.” He showed some anxiety. “About anything.”

  A guard escorted Vince down the arched halls of cells. Arab cheats, robbers, and scufflers remembered him from his previous stay. They called, as they had before: My friend, my friend. Can you get a message to my wife, my brother?

  Half-light sieved through the skylights, failing to brighten the halls. At the end of the cell block, the guard unlocked the gate to death row. He held the bars open but did not follow.

  “Shout if you need me, sir.”

  Vince stepped inside. The dreary day had taken hold in the small corridor with an overcast light, as if it might rain in the white walls and on Hugo, alone on his cot. Looking frail, Hugo lifted his head from his pillow.

  “Vince.”

  “Kharda.”

  In red, ill-fitting prison dress, Hugo came to the bars. His pants legs and sleeves hung too long, the shoulders too wide. The clothes mocked him; Hugo wasn’t big enough to fill them.

  “I brought you something.” Vince held the orange between the bars.

  Hugo plucked it from Vince’s hand. “Gallows humor.” He shook it beside his ear, playacting to raise a smile from Vince.

  Hugo peeled the orange and gave back half. The cell was neat, absent of anything comforting or personal. Save for the wrinkles on the cot, no one seemed to reside here.

  Hugo brought a chair to sit in front of the bars. “Stay a while.”

  Vince folded his legs under him on the concrete floor. He looked up at Hugo, something he’d never done.

  “I’m sorry you’re in here.”

  “I promised you a story. You first. How have you been?”

  Vince described his travels with UNSCOP. He told of the ugliness around the Exodus on the Haifa pier a week ago. The Committee had left Palestine, headed for Lebanon and Trans-Jordan, then to Europe to tour displaced persons camps. Vince made no mention of the judge’s meeting with Pinchus, or Massuot Yitzhak, or the concert in Ein Harod, or Rivkah.

  Hugo listened with ankles crossed. Vince had first seen him like this: bony, dwindled.

  Hugo tapped his temple. “Where is your pencil? I’ve never seen you without it.”

  “I don’t need it anymore. I remember everything.”

  “That’s a very Jewish thing to say.”

  To cheer him, Vince said, “You don’t belong in here.”

  Hugo sucked his teeth as if some part of him hurt. “Don’t tell me that.”

  “Why not?”

  “If I thought I didn’t belong on death row, I couldn’t stand it.” Hugo leaned elbows to his knees, face close to the bars. “In Buchenwald, I was there because I was a Jew. We were hated in Germany, we suffered. But there was no mistake, I had to be there. I could tell myself I had no choice, no options.”

  Hugo indicated the empty cell around him.

  “I’m here because I’m a Jew. Because I’m Irgun. Because I deserve it. If I believe anything else, if I think a mistake has been made or I haven’t earned it, I’ll go insane before they can hang me.”

  Hugo told Vince about Goldschmidt House, the policeman he’d shot to death. He’d helped kidnap the same judge who’d sentenced him to die. He’d delivered the oranges to Barazani and Feinstein. He was the potato merchant who found the warehouse for the tunnel that might have killed hundreds in Citrus House and did kill Zeev Weber.


  Hugo crossed his arms and dropped his chin. He’d arrived at the end of his story outside prison; the rest of it would be lived inside. He’d tired himself. Vince stood, preparing to leave.

  “The warden’s afraid of you.”

  “I know. But thank you for saying that. Why did you come?”

  “Pinchus is in a fury. This week, there’s been attacks all over the country. Road mines, mortars, railroad tracks, shootings, bombings. Eight police have been killed. Eighty wounded.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you over that.”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “I can’t get in touch with Pinchus.”

  “I think his calendar is full. Why do you want him?”

  “The three at Acre. Habib, Nakar, and Weiss. They’re going to be executed in four days. I’ve tried to get into Acre to interview them. The British tell me no every time.”

  “Pinchus can’t help with that.”

  “No. But the Irgun kidnapped two British sergeants in Netanya. They’ve been missing for a couple of weeks. Pinchus has said he’ll hang them if the three Irgunists hang.”

  “You can assume he means it.”

  “I want to ask him to stop. I want to speak to the sergeants.”

  “Why? They’re dead men.”

  “I can put faces to their names. I can write who they are, their stories. Maybe the Yishuv will act, maybe something or someone can save them. Maybe if Pinchus promises not to kill the sergeants, the British will show some fucking mercy. I don’t know. But Pinchus is political. If we can turn public opinion, he might re-think it.”

  “Why would Pinchus let you talk to his hostages?”

  “He owes me a favor.”

  Hugo plucked the red garb away from his chest. “What do you think he owes me?” Hugo stood and replaced the chair at the table. “It’s not like you. You’re so involved. What’s changed?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Is it the girl?”

  “Mind your business, Hugo.”

  “I don’t have to mind my business. I don’t have to do anything. What do you want?”

  “Can you contact Pinchus for me?”

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t tried. Why should I?”

  “Men will die if we don’t.”

  “Men are going to die, Vince. I’ll probably be one of them. Write about me.”

  “Will you do it?”

  Hugo lay on the cot, on his back. Vince looked at the hemp soles of Hugo’s prison shoes, waiting for him to say something.

  After enough silence, Vince said, “I know there’s an Irgun network in the jail.”

  “There is.”

  “Will you try?

  “Will you come back to visit me?”

  “Yes.”

  Hugo gazed at his white ceiling. “Will you come to my hanging?”

  “Hugo.”

  “Will you write about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll remember everything we said today.”

  “I will.”

  Hugo rolled onto his side, knees bent, hands joined at his chest. His focus fixed on the floor as if searching it.

  “I’ll try.”

  Vince didn’t say goodbye, not sure how to leave the condemned. At the gate, he called, “Guard.”

  Chapter 69

  Vince

  July 31

  Vince was awake when a note skidded under his door.

  He leaped from his dark bed. No moon shined on Jerusalem, and he knocked his knee on a chair leg rushing for the doorknob.

  Vince flung the door open. In the bright hallway, a man in a red servant’s vest hurried away. Vince called after him, “Hey.” The man should not have looked back because Vince recognized him, one of the black-haired waiters from the Y’s patio. He scurried around a corner.

  Inside the room, Vince tore into the envelope. In handwritten script, the note read: It is done. Go to Netanya. P.

  Vince moved in front of the open window. Far below, trucks and buses were the only traffic, too early for doves to coo on the sills of the King David across the street. A half mile away in silhouette lay Jerusalem’s Old City.

  Habib, Nakar, and Weiss had been hanged yesterday.

  Now, the sergeants.

  Hugo hadn’t gotten to Pinchus in time. Or Pinchus had ignored him.

  It is done.

  Vince stuffed a duffel bag, then left the YMCA hotel.

  The drive to Netanya would take an hour and a half, down from Jerusalem into the Bab al-Wad gorge, between bookending cliffs and overlooking Arab villages. Halfway to Tel Aviv, the sun rose on Vince; he managed to pass the city before traffic awoke.

  Driving in the breaking light, the salt smell of the sea flowed in his window. Ten miles north of Tel Aviv, the roadblocks began. Vince idled in a line of trucks and taxis until his car was searched. Policemen rooted in his trunk and duffel; a young cop took his credentials, then told Vince to move along.

  Closer to Netanya, the cordon grew tighter. Armored police trucks girding the road, checkpoints every mile, evidenced the government’s fury over the sergeants’ kidnapping. Foot patrols and motorcycle cops filtered through neighborhoods, snooped through the warehouses and backlots of Netanya’s commercial area. Two thousand police and soldiers put Netanya through a strainer, screening the ways in and out, casting open every door, kicking into the shadows to find their two missing mates.

  Vince drove to the Netanya police precinct. He passed more checkpoints, wire, gates, and guns to get inside. The building was warm, ceiling fans roused the humid coastal air; handcuffed Jews filled every chair, bench, and corner. Vince found nowhere to sit. He and another reporter, a thin Londoner from the Times, wandered among the detainees and the cops guarding them. One at a time, the Jews swept up in the search were escorted behind closed doors. More were brought into the precinct every minute, all with hands bound.

  With the Londoner, Vince sipped burnt coffee offered by the duty officer. The Londoner had served in the Royal Navy and talked of stalking German U-boats in the Atlantic.

  He’d seen this before, what he called the death of an era. He meant change, but he called it dying. The German war machine, the British Empire, all dead. He said that he, too, was dying.

  The reporter took from his coat pocket a rumpled, unopened pack of cigarettes. “Carried these bastards for four months. I thought if I stopped it might help.”

  He gave Vince the pack.

  “Been here a while now. I’d like to see this bloody deal to the finish. String a few up here and there, ours and theirs, if that’s what it takes to speed things along. I don’t mind. I’d just like to know how it ends.”

  Vince wanted to be done with the Londoner’s company. Before he could drift away, a cop beckoned them both to follow down a crowded hall. Vince slid past Jews waiting to be questioned, among them women, teenagers, and elderly. He and the Londoner were ushered into a police captain’s office.

  The officer was a drowsy man with a droopy face, or maybe that was the morning he was having.

  “You’re New York. You’re London. Right?”

  Vince and the reporter lifted hands like schoolmates.

  “I’ve sent a dozen of your lot out already this morning with patrols. We’re getting calls claiming to be Irgun, telling us the bodies are here and there. I’ve got teams watching both the sergeants’ houses. Someone phoned in to say they were going to be strung up in their own front yards. Sons of bitches.” The captain tapped the black phone on his desk. “I just got off the line with the precinct in Jaffa. They had a caller who was quite specific. A map coordinate.”

  The captain fingered a note on his mussy desk. He muttered a number—13751895—that meant nothing to Vince.

  “That’s a mile outside Netan
ya. It’s in a eucalyptus grove. You two interested?”

  The Londoner said, “Yes.”

  “The site might be mined. There might be snipers. I have no earthly clue what else the sons of bitches can think of. But this doesn’t sound like a goose chase, not this one. Leave your cars here, you’ll ride with my boys.”

  Outside the precinct, three squad cars idled. Vince separated from the Londoner and climbed into one. He gave the crumpled cigarette pack to the young cop beside him on the back seat. The boy, still a teen, tore it open and took a stick. He handed the rest around.

  “Someone give me a light.”

  Pulling away from the precinct, the driver eyed his comrade in the rearview. “Laddie, you don’t smoke.”

  The cigarette wagged on the young cop’s lips, like an old hand. “I’m starting.”

  At the curb, a soldier met Vince, the Londoner, and the ten cops loading out of the squad cars. “This way.” A dozen military vehicles were already parked on the street. Vince followed into the trees.

  Single file, they walked a meandering path. The eucalyptus grove felt not like a forest but an orchard, planted and peaceful. The gray branches weren’t thick or leafy; the ground stayed mottled and sunny. The Londoner coughed again, a grating sound in the quiet little forest.

  In the spotty shade, fifty soldiers, police, and civilians stood in a semicircle. The soldiers were Welsh Guard, in berets and high socks. Vince slipped past to see more clearly the pair of hanged corpses.

  A firm hand stopped him. “Go no further, sir.” A big corporal behind a brown moustache released Vince’s arm. “They’re sweeping for mines. Best to keep a distance.”

  Vince nodded thanks. The large soldier folded heavy arms and chewed on his moustache.

  The bodies dangled from nooses slung over low branches; they’d been tied wrist and ankle, bare toes floated inches off the ground. Both wore khaki pants and white undershirts, tunics tied around their heads as blindfolds. Notes were pinned to their chests. No one was allowed close enough to read them.

  Two sappers walked slow circles around the sergeants, skimming the flat saucers of their metal detectors over the ground. No breeze swayed the trees, birds seemed to take no liking to the place. The corporal beside Vince cursed under his breath.