A Promised Land?

by Alan Collins

  ‘‘Jake, I’ve never told another livin’ soul this,’’ he began, ‘‘but just before we was due to leave Gyppo, a bloke, an R.A.A.F. bloke, flying officer Jim — well, never mind names — comes over to me one day where I’m doin’ guard duty on an ammo dump. And he says to me — Christ knows how he knew — he says to me, ‘Y’ Jewish aren’t you?’ Well, I kept that sort of thing to meself in the army so I was very surprised. Still, he’s an officer so I owned up to it. Then he asks me a lot of questions about the ammo dump and what sort of stuff was there.’’

  Abe bent down and continued his map in the dust. His thumb-nail followed the Mediterranean coast around to the Palestinian ports of Tel Aviv and Haifa.

  He pointed them out to Jacob. ‘‘Those places are only a bull’s roar away from Alexandria. The air-force bloke reckoned about half an hour’s flying time in a two seater ’plane.’’

  Jacob joined Abe on the ground, poised above the map. ‘‘You didn’t tell him, did you? It’d be a military secret!’’

  ‘‘Course I did, you dill, he was on our side. Yeah, I told him how it was full of small-arms ammo, mortars and landmines. Then he says to me, ‘Why don’t you help those Jews in Palestine who’ll be fighting both the Brits and the Arabs when the war is over?’ ’’

  The conversation, which Jacob had intended to elicit a little bit more background information on Abe Lewis, had now taken a turn that left him breathless with anticipation.

  ‘‘ ‘What do you want to know for,’ I says to the pilot, but I bloody well twigged what he was up to. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I don’t give a damn who’s shooting who. It’s just that they’ll all need something to shoot with. ‘Yeah,’ I says to him, ‘you’re right. But if I read you correct, Jim, you’d like to help the Jews. Is that it?’ ’’

  Abe looked up from the map. He took the length of rag from Jacob’s hands and stretched it between his own. The muscles on his forearms knotted. The cigarette stuck to his lips as he went on.

  ‘‘Well, to give a straight answer to your question, Jake, I never actually put a foot in Palestine. What happened was this. Jim and me, on nights when it was cloudy or there was no moon, we’d load up the little two-seater with ammo from the dump, then we’d make maybe three or four trips in a night to Palestine. We’d fly low along the coast, a couple of miles inland until we got to the outskirts of Ashkelon. The Jews’ army, the Haganah, had a clearing lit by kero lanterns. Jim would make about six real low sweeps over the clearing. My job was to dump the stuff over the side and hope to Christ it didn’t either fall on some poor bastard’s head or even worse, explode on impact.

  ‘‘We kept this up for months. The stuff was never missed — there was that much of it, it was an embarrassment to the army. I had to call it quits when the divvy got orders to pull out. Just before that though, I said to Jim, ‘What the hell are you takin’ the risk for? You’re not Jewish.’ Then he tells me that once when he was on leave he went to Tel Aviv and there he meets this Jewish sheila and they decide to get married. But they’ve got an iceberg’s chance in hell of doin’ that. His C.O. wouldn’t sign the paperwork because he knew it wouldn’t be long before the Jews would be fighting the Brits, and that makes ’em the enemy. And to top it off, the local rabbi gives it the thumbs-down.’’

  Abe stood up. ‘‘I talk too much, that’s me trouble, son.’’ He hauled Jacob to his feet. ‘‘So y’ see Jake, I never actually set foot in the bloody Holy Land. But I reckon I know it better than most, wouldn’t you say?’’ He winked at Jacob.

  Jacob said, ‘‘Did you see this morning’s paper?’’ Without waiting for Abe’s answer (‘‘Yeah, the racing page’’), he told Abe that yesterday, a bomb had gone off in Jerusalem killing a number of British officers. ‘‘What d’you reckon about that, Abe?’’

  Abe parried the question. ‘‘What’s more to the point, Jake, what do you think. Get what I’m drivin’ at, son?’’

  Jacob shook his head. Abe continued. ‘‘Look, I’m a Jew but I’m also a returned soldier. It’s sorta like a protection when I find meself in the middle of an argument about the rights and wrongs of it.’’ Suddenly he swung round on Jacob. ‘‘What d’ya bring that up for, anyway?’’

  ‘‘Because at work, at the printery, well, I’m getting it in the neck from Mr Williams, the foreman.’’

  Abe growled. ‘‘Just you put him on to me, Jake, I’ll straighten him out.’’

  ‘‘He’s always having a go at me over the Jews in Palestine. Last week, when the Stern Gang blew up a British barracks, you would have thought I was responsible.’’

  Jacob was shattered by Abe’s response. ‘‘Well, y’know Jake, in a way you are — we both are. The rest of the world wants you and me and every Jew to be responsible for whatever happens to Jews or whatever they do or even don’t do.’’ He paused, looking quite self-conscious, wondering if he had actually said all that. To cover up, he started to heave the bales of scrap rags into a stack at the back of the garage. ‘‘Y’can’t win, y’know,’’ he grunted. ‘‘Whichever way the bloody cat jumps, the Yids are goin’ to cop it — so if you want my advice, Jake, stick up for ’em.’’

  Jacob wanted to ask Abe why he kept referring to the Jews as ‘‘them’’ instead of ‘‘us’’. As he tried to frame the question, a loud bell sounded.

  ‘‘Telephone!’’ Abe yelled with undisguised relief. ‘‘Let’s go up to the house.’’ He hitched his braces up, shooed Jacob out and pulled the heavy timber garage doors closed behind them. They went around to the side of the house and entered through the kitchen door. Abe strode down the hall, picking up the newspaper form guide on the way. Jacob could hear him talking; he also noticed that the wireless had been returned to a classical music station.

  The intimacy and revelations of the garage talk had marked Jacob indelibly. He needed to be alone. He could hear the approaching footsteps of Ruth and her mother. Just as they entered the kitchen, the music stopped and a sports commentator, strident and excited, called the last few furlongs of the race. A momentary silence, then the sound was interrupted by Abe’s exultant voice filling the void: ‘‘Goodonyer, Darb!’’ he yelled, ‘‘you didn’t make no mistake with that one!’’

  Irma said in a voice of mock suffering, ‘‘Ruti dear, please ask Mr Lewis if he is finished with that dreadful radio station.’’ Ruth looked towards Jacob standing by the kitchen table. ‘‘Oh Jacob will go, won’t you?’’ she said.

  Jacob nodded and sidled off toward the living room, showing every sign of reluctance about becoming a partisan in this issue. There was a roar of wireless laughter, then the shrill voice of a woman singing her heart out took the place of the race caller.

  ‘‘Six of one an’ half dozen of the other if you ask me!’’ Abe called down the passage.

  Jacob returned to the kitchen. Irma Lewis asked him, out of politeness rather than a need to know, what he and Abe had been doing in the garage. He started to answer her noncommittally, but she had already given her attention to some task at the sink.

  ‘‘I’ll bet it was man’s talk, about sport or something,’’ Ruth said teasingly.

  ‘‘Ah well, young lady, that’s where you’d lose your bet,’’ Abe said, throwing the form guide down on the kitchen table. He glided over to Irma, flung a hairy arm around her thin waist and cajoled her into a semblance of a waltz. ‘‘I’ve just won a clear hundred quid on Darby Munro’s horse,’’ he told her. ‘‘How about we go out on the town tonight, sweetheart? What about a trip on the harbour on the Showboat?’’ He waltzed Irma around until they were opposite Ruth and Jacob. ‘‘You kids can come too — you’re grown-up, so you can have a drink or two and I’ll tell you what, I’ll leave the truck at home and we’ll go by bloody taxi! How’s that?’’

  Jacob caught the subtle signal that passed between mother and daughter. Even before they spoke, he knew Abe’s high-spirited gesture was going to fail miserably. For just a moment he thought Ruth might defeat her mother but Irma was already disengag
ing herself from her husband’s arm. ‘‘I think not, Mr Abe,’’ she said, ‘‘the water makes me feel — you know…’’

  To save the moment, to cushion Abe’s obvious disappointment, Jacob spoke directly to Ruth. She too had felt Abe’s rejection; it made another bond between them, the more so because Jacob had seen so few signs of affection between Ruth and her stepfather. He looked across at Abe Lewis, now doodling dejectedly on the margins of the form-guide. Irma Lewis had gone back to the sink, patting her dress back into place as if to remove any vestige of her husband’s effusiveness.

  Jacob said, ‘‘We were talking about the war and —’’

  ‘‘Please, Jacob, not in front of Mummy, it upsets her terribly.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t mean that war, Ruth.’’

  Abe threw down his pencil. ‘‘Jake’s talkin’ about the scrap-pin’ in Palestine between the Brits and the Jews and the Arabs. Don’t you Uni students ever read the paper?’’ It wasn’t often Abe could score a point over either Ruth or her mother. He savoured the moment.

  Ruth retorted: ‘‘Oh yes, I not only read the paper Mister Abe Lewis, I go to debates at the Uni on this very subject. And while we’re on the subject, why do you talk of Jews in the third person?’’ Before Abe could answer, she added, ‘‘That means when you keep referring to Jews as ‘them’, as though you weren’t one yourself.’’

  Abe kept on scribbling on the paper but Jacob saw his grip on the pencil tighten. ‘‘Since your lot started comin’ here,’’ he answered her without looking up.

  Irma dropped a pot in the sink. ‘‘Now it starts again,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Now don’t start thinkin’ like that,’’ Abe said softly. ‘‘What I’m tryin’ to say in me own stupid way is that us Jews that are born in this country — well, we’re sorta different to the reffo Jews. But mind ya, in a argument I always stick up for ’em. I remember once …’’

  ‘‘Well, you’d better get used to us or them, whatever you prefer to call us — or them.’’ Ruth retrieved the untouched news section of the paper. She ran her eye up and down the columns. ‘‘Ah, now listen to this:

  JEWISH REFUGEES ARE AMONG EARLY ARRIVALS

  Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust, 2,000 of whom were transported to Australia by British authorities as suspected fifth columnists aboard the Dunera in 1940, have again begun arriving in Australia as the government resumes its refugee programme and is boosting immigration. The biggest contingent since the Dunera arrived in Sydney today on board the immigrant ship Johann de Witt. There were 786 passengers, the majority Jews from Poland with others from Holland, France, Austria and Germany. All are joining relatives in Australia.’’

  Ruth slid the paper over the top of the scribbled-on form-guide. ‘‘You’d better give that hundred quid you’ve won to charity, Abe. These people are going to need it.’’

  Mrs Lewis left the sink and came to the table. She took off her apron and stood by Abe’s chair. ‘‘I think maybe we do not try enough to understand Abe’s background,’’ she began in a low voice. She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘‘This is his country, just as it is for Jacob. I remember what a shock I got — I found it so hard to believe — when he wrote to me when he was in the army, that his family came to Australia in 1854. Hard to believe that a Jew could live continuously for so long in a country without restriction, without persecution. Wun-derbar! I remember saying to myself. I had only been here a year and I was working in a shirt factory at the time.’’ She laughed and ruffled Abe’s hair. ‘‘I put a note in an army shirt and what happens? The Army Comforts Fund gives that very shirt to Abe. So we begin writing to each other. But I’m talking about Abe. I listened to what you said before, Ruti — about ‘us’ and ‘them’. Even though you and me, we’re Jewish and Abe too is Jewish, we are still from different worlds. We come to Abe’s country and we expect immediately that everybody should love us.’’

  Abe put his arm around Irma’s waist. This time she did not put him aside. ‘‘Well, I love you, Irmy, an’ that’s God’s truth.’’

  She went on, perhaps encouraged by his warmth and protectiveness. ‘‘In this country, where Jews have lived in peace for over a hundred years, they have become a part of the life here. They don’t stick out from other Australians.’’ She laughed. ‘‘Not like us, with our funny clothes when we arrived and talking six different languages.’’

  With growing understanding, Jacob watched this new family alliance as it formed and reformed in front of him. So much had happened since first he had swung open the iron gate to his old home. It was becoming apparent to him that politics need not be something that merely filled the newspapers in between eulogies for Don Bradman or gushing over Christian Dior’s new hourglass fashion look.

  Politics could bond families — or set them against one another. It could unite or corrode in the one house in a suburban street in a country at the bottom of the globe. Once before he had stood in awe at the strength that could radiate from a united, loving family. He remembered the day in the Abraham Samuelson Children’s Home when Ruti’s sickly father had been held in a similar bond of love for the briefest moment before he died. And now, once again, he had a glimpse of the power it radiated.

  Irma and Abe Lewis left the kitchen together. Abe had the form guide in his hip pocket. Irma was by his side; when they reached the door together, Abe gave an exaggerated bow and waved his wife through. Ruth clapped this display of gallantry and when they had gone, she drew her chair close to Jacob’s.

  ‘‘Surprised, Jacob?’’

  ‘‘At what?’’ he stalled. He really didn’t want to go deeper into what he had just seen. It was time for him to leave, to sit by himself in the crevice of the rocks at Bondi where, so often in the past, he had worked through other problems.

  And this was a problem; more than one, he mused. He hoped he could leave without saying goodbye to Irma Lewis, to Abe who would now look upon him as a confidante, even a mate, and to Ruth, who stirred such deep feelings in him that sooner or later he would have to confront them.

  Ruth had come around behind him. Her tongue tickled his ear. ‘‘That Mutti and Abe really love each other? That I love you?’’ She put her arms around his neck.

  The turmoil in him was unbearable. His mind and his body were out of his control. He stood up; the chair fell over, a welcome diversion. He bent down and set it upright again, taking an interminable time over this simple task.

  ‘‘Would you go to Palestine with me?’’ He put his arms around her. ‘‘We could be together like it was in the days when Mrs Rothfield was a girl.’’ She did not move.

  He rushed on: ‘‘Oh Ruth, I could show you the pictures, everybody together, making things grow in the desert…’’ He searched for more images but caution stopped him describing the armed men on horseback, ever watchful for marauding Arabs jealous of the Jewish settlers cultivating land they claimed was theirs by right of inheritance.

  Ruth held him at arm’s length. ‘‘I think you mean it, Jacob, I really think you do.’’ She laughed. ‘‘It really is bloody funny, you know. Here am I, a regular member of the Zionist Youth Movement, whose goal is to settle us on kibbutzim in Palestine, and here are you, belonging to a Young Communist group and learning I don’t know what, yet you’re the one to ask me to go — and with you!’’

  She linked her arm through Jacob’s and walked him to the front door. In his mind, Jacob had already retreated to his niche in the rocks with the sun and the wind and the soaring sea birds. He hardly listened to what Ruth was saying. It really didn’t matter at this point. Alone, he would find the answers. They might or they might not include Ruth.

  SEVEN

  Out in the sunshine once again, so welcome after the coolness of the house, Jacob’s first inclination was to run all the way down the hill to Bondi beach. He paused where the road curved and he could look down on the beautiful glistening crescent of sand and surf. The waves curled and crashed without sound. Below the north headland were the
crevices in the cliff face. The one he favoured was so secluded he could lie there without his clothes while the sun licked him all over.

  He started down the hill, first at a fast walk; as he drew nearer the sea, he broke into a run until his heart was pounding both with his exertions and the momentousness of what he had proposed to Ruth. He was oblivious of the crowds heading to the beach so that for once it did not matter to him that he was alone. Ruth might not be alongside him in bathers and multi-coloured beach shirt, but she was inside his head.

  Jacob ran to an insistent beat of ‘‘Palestine, Palestine, Palestine’’. He didn’t ease up until he reached the colonnaded bathing pavilion. Its Mediterranean architecture seemed to reinforce his new direction. He crossed the promenade and on the steps took off his shoes. On the beach, the hot sand became to him the desert of southern Palestine. He threaded his way between sunbathers and reached the cool of the shore. The sandstone caves and crevices of the northern headland beckoned him on. The tide was out. Jacob rock-hopped around the shoreline until he reached these crevices under the lee of the jutting cliffs.

  The rays of the afternoon sun warmed the sandstone like a blanket. He took off his clothes and spread himself against the rock, feeling its heat and strength flow into him. These rocks were creamy, flecked with quartz. The pictures he had seen of the cliffs and caves of the Negev Desert in Palestine showed them in fiery orange colours that turned to purple as the sun sank behind the Hills of Moab. He tried to picture himself and Ruth posed against this background, like tourists at the Blue Mountains.

  Then his thoughts turned to Ruth’s parting words. While she had been attending meetings of her particular Zionist youth movement — which was politically moderate — Jacob had become a member of another group which had its basis in socialism. In the end, their aim of settlement on a kibbutz was no different; they just approached it by different paths. For many these meetings were no more than social outings where Jewish boys and girls could meet and absorb the theories of political Zionism. The Marxist principles of kibbutz life, with their emphasis on shared responsibility and no individual ownership of property certainly did not have unanimous acceptance. It was noticeable that the strongest adherents were the children of migrants. Those from established Anglo-Jewish backgrounds or who had social ambitions to join them, were fewer and less enthusiastic.