by Leon Silver
Merrily walking home, he passed the town’s newest retail establishment, an ice-cream shop. A crowd filled the footpath outside. Even the town’s poor spent their pennies on the delicious new invention instead of bread. The very poor, who couldn’t afford bread, pressed their faces to the large glass window and watched every lick with fascination.
Mamme had repeatedly warned her oldest son against eating ice-cream. It would freeze his insides and stop his body functioning. At best, it would give him an incurable chill in the lungs that would kill him. Yet, since he’d made his pact with the devil in the barbershop, there wasn’t a whole lot worse Tolek could do. He bought an ice-cream in a small porcelain dish and took it outside, where he sat in front of the shop with all the devil-may-care ice-cream eaters, the envy of every other ice-cream-less boy watching him. Tolek could not have done this before his haircut, he would have drawn instant wrath for being Jewish and privileged enough to have money to spend on luxuries. He would have had the dish knocked out of his hands and probably received a belting.
The first taste of the dessert did justice to his fantasies. It was delicious – cold and sweet, better than imagined. He felt as though his graceless sins in the barbershop had been instantly rewarded. Yet it was hard to ignore his mother’s warning. Tolek ate the ice-cream in tiny morsels, warming it up in his mouth before swallowing.
Suddenly he was hit on the back of his head. The dish flew out of his hands and smashed on the pavement and two boys he’d seen in the barbershop knocked him down and jumped on him. He was lucky to push them off, get up and run home.
When Tolek walked into the restaurant through the back door, he was scared stiff to face his parents. Perhaps his mother’s prediction about the ice-cream had come true, and his insides were frozen.
Tatte was working in the kitchen. He looked at his rebel son’s shorn head but said nothing.
‘Tatte.’ Tolek swallowed. ‘Tatte, I want to be modern.’
Tolek’s father was a logical, peaceful man who rarely shouted. He obviously wasn’t surprised. He’d probably anticipated it since Tolek’s bar mitzvah, when he’d officially turned into a man.
Tolek asked his father if he could skip cheder that afternoon and help him in the restaurant instead. He was apprehensive about meeting all of his long-dangling sidelocked friends, having openly deserted them. Mendel allowed him an evening’s grace.
Mamme cried when she saw him. She took the sidelocks from Tolek for safekeeping.
Tolek worked hard that night, the hardest ever, helping prepare the food, waiting on the tables, cleaning up and washing the dishes. He was a man now, he felt strong and was elated with his newly found freedom. But late that night, when they were about to close, eight big Poles came in. Tolek had already turned the benches upside down on the tables and finished sweeping the floor. The men picked the biggest table, turned the benches back onto the floor and demanded food and drink. But there wasn’t enough of the evening’s stew left to feed eight hungry men.
‘Tatte,’ Tolek said, panicked, ‘what are we going to do?’
Tatte studied the remains of the stew at the bottom of the iron pot. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Give them vodka.’
‘Which one, Tatte?’
Tatte nodded at the two vodka barrels. One had the pure stuff, the other was diluted with water.
‘First, the real one,’ he snapped at his son impatiently. Tolek should know better. ‘When they are drunk, give them the other. And tell them that the food is coming.’
Tolek served the men big beakers of the full-strength vodka then hurried back to the kitchen to watch Tatte perform his magic. His father was adding bread, water, onions, turnips and flour to the remains of the meat stew. Before long, Tolek served out eight plates of piping hot stew, accompanied by chunks of black bread and pickled schmaltz herring. The meal was a success and the men brimmed with drunken compliments as they wiped the remains from their plates.
Relieved, Tolek went back to the kitchen to congratulate his father but Tatte’s troubles were just beginning, because the men got up, wished everyone good night, promised to come back and pay tomorrow, then walked out.
Thirteen-year-old Tolek’s face dropped. He knew it wouldn’t do any good insisting on payment, or calling the constable. The restaurant would be wrecked long before he arrived.
* * *
Tolek turned his mind from the political strife of his youth and thought of the day he’d met Klara. He’d been twenty and she was eighteen. Her family had four daughters, and when her married sister first moved to Lwów and her three younger sisters came to visit, the scent quickly spread among the bachelor hounds, who lingered on the main promenade waiting to see the sisters on a Sunday afternoon.
The four girls walked arm in arm but Klara stood out: alluring and shy, looking like a young Mary Pickford. Tolek, in his smart three-piece suit, was dared by his friends to approach the youngest and prettiest sister. He walked up behind the woman and tapped her on the shoulder.
She turned.
Tolek stumbled. ‘Oh, well, how are you?’
‘I don’t know you.’
‘My name is Tolek Klings – there, now you know me.’
She stopped and stared then smiled, until her three sisters pulled her away.
They courted under strict supervision. Klara visited her married sister as often as possible, then would meet Tolek in a chic café for a romantic ice-cream and coffee. All of Tolek’s friends agreed they were the most suited couple imaginable. They loved each other from the moment they met. Everyone agreed on that too. Yet when Tolek asked Klara for her hand in marriage, and she delightedly accepted, a few stumbling blocks were still in their path – not least the fact that everyone was against it. Tolek’s friends became jealous, saying they dared him to approach Klara for a date only as a joke. Mamme considered her oldest son way too young and Tatte stated that Klara didn’t have a large enough dowry. To any other family, Klara would have been a prize, the ideal daughter-in-law. She worked in her father’s wheat and eggs export business. She could type, do the books and spoke Polish, German, Yiddish and a little French, Russian and English. But Tatte was incurring ever mounting debts.
By that stage the Klings had upgraded to a much larger restaurant. Twelve tables downstairs, rooms upstairs for the family and four rooms downstairs in the back for hotel guests. Plus billiard and cards tables. Tolek’s father was hoping that his eldest, good-looking, solicitor-in-training son would bring in a big enough dowry to solve all their financial problems. Tolek’s middle brother Ijio laid bets that the relationship with Klara wouldn’t last and Tolek’s youngest brother, Lonek, was against it on principle because he now had a competitor for Tolek’s affection; when Tolek was all spruced up, ready to meet Klara, Lonek kept asking for yet more help with his studies to keep his oldest brother at home.
Tolek could well afford to get married. He was thriving at the solicitor’s office and he loved the work. He loved running to the courts several times each day to search for documents in the court’s archives. They had no secretaries in the office so the two law clerks did their own typing, which was why Tolek taught himself to touch type. When Tolek got his first pay packet, he ran home to proudly hand it all over to Tatte.
Tolek also serviced the after-hours legal clientele, illiterate peasants who knew no distinction between solicitors and law clerks. They had a mortal fear of magistrates and official correspondence, especially letters with government letterheads or the Polish Red Eagle. These clients sheepishly came when the office was officially closed in the evening, knocking on the back door. They paid in cash.
Tolek needed this extra income to help contribute to his father’s household running expenses. The new restaurant was doing well, but in his older years, Mendel had developed a taste for high living. He borrowed more money to throw lavish parties for prominent hotel guests or visiting entertainers. The double doors of the Klings’ hotel in the main city square would be flung open to the street when it h
osted famous artists. This was not a common event in a small town like Bóbrki and many gathered to watch the free shows. Tolek’s father rarely charged the performers for their drinks and meals. He had somehow convinced himself that his oldest son would marry money and his financial problems would be solved.
Mendel’s last desperate hope was the fact that Klara was the youngest of the four daughters. Under Jewish tradition, Klara couldn’t get married before her other two sisters. Tatte hung on to the likelihood that this young couple’s romantic heat would cool off long before that happened. But destiny was on the betrothed pair’s side. Within six months of their meeting, Klara’s second sister, Sime Rose, got married, and the third, Neche, immigrated to Palestine. Green light, the road was clear. Yet when Tolek announced to the family their official intentions, his father made him travel to other towns on the matchmaking circuit to look for available rich girls. Tolek went, as a dutiful son did, but with closed heart and mind.
Soon after their engagement became official, Tolek taught Klara to ride a bicycle so that they could picnic in the woods outside of town on the weekend. In an empty paddock near the Klings’ restaurant, Tolek helped Klara onto the bicycle seat. She smiled bashfully at him with downcast eyes as she lifted her skirt above her knees to mount the bicycle.
Tolek held the back of the bicycle as Klara clumsily pedalled and steered all over the place. Her foot slipped off the pedal and somehow managed to go through the front wheel spokes. They fell over, Klara’s skirt riding up to her waist as Tolek landed on top of her. Klara’s hand clutched the back of Tolek’s neck and pulled his head down for a kiss.
That kiss was long and bonding. After that they were inseparable.
* * *
The Klings were a long way from poor but Tatte, in typical fashion, borrowed money and splurged on a huge wedding in the most expensive hall in Bóbrki. Their own pub dining room was too small for Tolek’s father. The hall was beautifully decorated, fit for a rich man’s oldest son’s wedding. Green palm trees and bunches of brown coconuts were painted on the putty-coloured walls right around the room. White tablecloths reached down to the floor and shining silverware, sparkling glasses and lit candelabras dazzled the 100 guests.
The marriage chuppah was all white, set up on a low stage and decorated with spring flowers. The image of himself and Klara standing under the chuppah as she lifted her face and looked at him through the thin gauze veil came to Tolek’s mind in the darkness of his army tent. The violin and piano accordion were playing, the male vocalist sang in a rich baritone and the guests stood, clapping and singing along.
It was a mitzvah, a good deed, to invite poor people to a simcha. A table was set aside for a dozen bedraggled people, looked after and housed by Bóbrki’s Jewish charity. Among them was Eliezer, a Rasputin type, long hair and beard, layers of shabby clothes. The man’s restless pupils were ringed with red, as if he’d stayed up all night reading by candlelight, and dandruff snowed his heavy eyebrows. It was well known that madness was only one membrane away from Godliness. Especially in Eliezer’s case, as God’s hand pressed on his shoulder so heavily it gave him a terrible fidget – his head and neck, shoulders and arms, all over – as though he was constantly trying to crawl out from beneath the holy hand. This man’s blessings were priceless; he was first on the poor list to be invited to all simchas. Eliezer would go into a fidget-induced trance, out of which depths emerged blessings and predictions, many of which came true.
And so Eliezer, from the depth of his fidget-dance, interrupted the rabbi’s blessing of the young couple under the chuppah. He jerked up, his head askew, and announced that Tolek and Klara’s marriage would be blessed with a son in one year’s time. While everyone’s attention was on the mad prophet, Klara had grinned at Tolek from under the veil.
Eliezer closed his eyes and rolled his head as though God had pressed the pause button on his shoulder. He sat down.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, calls of ‘Amen!’ and ‘Zol zayn mit mazel!’ rang out from the rabbi and the guests who had seen Eliezer’s show before. Out-of-town guests were dumbfounded.
When Tolek broke the glass under his foot to seal the match, God yanked the prophet Eliezer up again. His chin hammered down a few times onto his left collarbone as he loudly called the groom three times by his full Hebrew name, then announced into the stunned silent audience: ‘Anyone who will ever plan you harm, Tolek Naftali, will have that harm bestowed upon their own head.’
The rabbi jumped down, hugged the groom and wished him a hearty mazel tov. Eliezer, still standing, staring right through Tolek, enhanced the blessing: ‘Mazldik nshmh!’ Lucky soul.
Then the festivities started. Being a traditional wedding, the men and women danced separately to energetic Klezmer music, a blend of Polish secular and Jewish religious sounds, blustering melody primary, harmony secondary. Klara and Tolek danced, each holding one corner of a hanky, so as not to touch in public. Later Tatte, Ijio and Lonek, all happily drunk, danced the traditional horah: arms entwined, shoulders pressed together, legs kicking up, hearts beating in their throats. The men waved at Tolek to join them, breaking the tight circle of bodies and arms just long enough to engulf the groom. The fiddle and piano accordion increased their tempo and the singing turned into screams as they danced so fast the room became a spinning merry-go-round.
Tolek’s body was hot and sweaty, his head pasty and nauseated. From the corner of his eye, he made out Eliezer watching him. His twitching had momentarily abated and the bulging eyes had assumed a clarity that managed to isolate Tolek from the other men. The message Eliezer sent was clearer and more powerful than before.
‘Anyone who will ever plan you harm, Tolek Naftali, will have that harm bestowed upon their own head… mazel tov… mazldik nshmh.’
Lying in his army cot, Tolek supposed this blessing had twirled and whirled, rotating like a halo over his head to save him again and again from his internal and external enemies to become the luckiest soldier in the Polish Army. He was a lucky man.
9 The miracle telegram
On Tolek’s first morning in the Latrun training camp, he faced a traditional British army breakfast: a plate of burnt bacon crisps with runny fried eggs and tea with milk. His table in the breakfast tent was filled with the new administration staff ‘volunteers’ from Haifa, all strong Polish men who looked at their plates and each other questioningly – perhaps this was a joke played on the newcomers? They were used to well-cooked eggs with ham or sausages and strong black tea with lemon.
When they started field training, they discovered the British Army was mad on marching. ‘Hiking’, they called it, like it was a gentlemen’s sport. With full rucksacks, helmets and rifles, in the heat and dust, or in rain and mud, for days and days the soldiers hiked. The officers took it to extremes, in true mad-dogs-and-Englishmen style. The gruelling hikes ended with the troops returning to camp at full trot, singing.
Tolek and Jan were soaking their feet in buckets of warm soapy water after one such hike when a messenger came in, yelling. There was an urgent phone call for the Miracle Typist in the HQ tent. Unusual for the army – people didn’t get private phone calls. Tolek went cold with fear. No urgent message could be good news for a Jew in the Polish Army. He was a long way from the HQ tent, but he imagined he’d heard the telephone ringing continuously and never being answered, like in a nightmare. Tolek forced himself to wipe his feet and put on fresh socks and boots.
His nervous excitement was not lost on the Correspondent. By now they knew each other’s histories. Tolek had found there just wasn’t anyone else of intelligence to talk to on the long, boring marches. These two opposites were reluctantly drawn to each other.
‘God wants to talk to you on the telephone,’ Jan said and chuckled, breaking the tension and even making Tolek smile. ‘His perfect opportunity. Wants to talk to His favourite son in His local zone. Doesn’t need to ring long distance. God may want to choose you all over again. Wants you to lead His Poli
sh-Jewish sons back to Poland.
‘Don’t go smashing any idols,’ he yelled at Tolek’s departing back. ‘The army would react worse than Abraham’s father.’
‘Lech-Lecha,’ Tolek murmured to himself. ‘Take yourself and go,’ as God had commanded Abraham. So many times had he studied that portion in the Bible in cheder. Now a bloody anti-Semite had to remind him of it. And in the Holy Land!
Who could be ringing him? Old friends? Boys and girls from a kibbutz somewhere, anxious to catch up? Maybe Neche was back?
The corporal radio operator stared at Tolek, who had trouble breaking eye contact as he took the heavy black receiver.
‘Don’t get a shock, Tolek.’ It was the voice of his good friend Herman Solomon from Haifa. ‘I’ve received a telegram from Klara for you… Hey, Tolek, you still there? From your wife, Klara, a telegram.’
Tolek went rigid. ‘Read it! READ IT!’
‘It’s eight words, Tolek, in English: “We well… give sign of life… we trouble” signed Klara Klings.’
Tolek didn’t have the words to answer.
‘I’ll send it to you by urgent post, you should get it tomorrow or the next day.’
Tolek was still in a daze, the telephone upright in his hand. It was a miracle. How could a telegram, written in the little English Klara knew from her days working in her father’s office, sent from Russian-occupied Lwów inside the German war zone, reach British Palestine, enemy territory?
Then he remembered and almost kicked himself for having forgotten. Before he left for Split, he’d asked the Voyanoffs in Zagreb to get in touch with Klara, give her Herman Solomon’s address in Haifa, and tell her that he was going to Lebanon and that she should write to Herman.
‘When you receive it,’ Herman whispered into the telephone, ‘get a three-day compassionate leave pass. Tell them anything. Come to see me, we are just about ready for you… You know what I mean?’