by Howard Fast
“Who are they? Who’s driving you up there?”
“Dov Benash and Zvi Kober. They’re both attached to a Haganah unit up there. They’re leaving tomorrow morning.”
Waking the following day in the small room he shared with Brodsky in the rickety stucco house on Allenby Road that called itself the Hotel Shalom, Bernie had a momentary difficulty recalling where he was. The room was hot, the windows uncurtained, the sunlight pouring in, and some twist of memory flung him back to the months he had spent in North Africa. He had a moment of panic; life and time reversed itself, and for that moment all of his life with Barbara was a dream. Still not fully awake, he moaned in agony.
“Are you all right?” Brodsky called out. He was at the sink, shaving.
“Yeah, I’m all right.”
Too much had happened too quickly. It was like a dream—the airfields in Kansas and New Jersey, the airfield in Panama, the airfield in the Azores, the fat Czech, Lovazch, cheating them on the price of the guns, and then the end, so flat, so unemotional, a man called Yigal Allon, tall, slender, blond, youthfully aloof, shaking his hand in an almost noncommittal manner, “Good work, Cohen,” and then seeming indifferent, as if it were a perfectly ordinary and expected thing that a man in San Francisco called Dan Lavette should put up a hundred and ten thousand dollars to buy ten old airplanes, and that he, Bernie Cohen, should direct their flight across half the world and bring them into Palestine loaded with guns and Messerschmitts. But it fitted in with the rest of it. Where else in time or place would two million dollars packed in two suitcases be treated in such a manner, as if the suitcases held shirts and pants and coats? There was a convulsive thing of the spirit happening here, and it reached out to touch people in every corner of the earth, and for a day or a week it changed them, the way he had been changed, or perhaps regressed to adolescence and catapulted off in search of romance and all the golden dreams of youth. But now he felt used up and let down. His necessity to the adventure was of his own invention. It was true that Brodsky had pleaded with him to head up the operation, but he could have refused, and Brodsky could have carried it off just as well. What had he expected of Yigal Allon, who commanded the Palmach, the front-line striking force of this tiny, desperate nation that would soon be fighting for its very existence? That Allon would embrace him and make a speech, declaring that they had been rescued by Cohen the savior?
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Brodsky asked. “Better get your ass out of bed, because they said they’d be downstairs at seven, and it’s almost seven-thirty now.”
He dressed and shaved and packed the flight bag that contained two shirts, both of them dirty now, underwear, and socks. Brodsky saw him pause, holding the revolver that Kramer, the accountant, had given him in the Azores. Then he handed it to Brodsky.
“What’s this?”
“Kramer gave it to me. The little guy who met us in the Azores. He felt the money needed protection. I have no use for it. Out here, any weapon’s something.”
Brodsky put the gun in his pocket. They went downstairs, and while Brodsky settled their bill, Bernie went outside. The jeep was parked in front of the hotel, and Benash and Kober sat in the front seat, eating fried fish out of a greasy paper bag and breaking pieces off a loaf of bread.
“Have some,” Kober said. “Fish and chips without the chips. Not as good as London, but quite worthy. The bread is first rate.”
Bernie reached into the bag, and Benash tore off a piece of bread for him. With his first bite, he realized he was ravenously hungry. “Enough for all,” Kober said. The fish was cold but good. Brodsky came out of the hotel and joined them and accepted fish and bread. Bernie pointed to four wooden boxes in the jeep.
“Our share of the boodle,” Kober said. “Forty Mausers and two cases of ammunition. We deliver it to Haifa. We may have a bit of trouble along the road, so I suggest you both take guns and fill your pockets with ammo.” Benash had two rifles in front and a pistol in his belt. “That case is open.”
They started off, Kober driving, Bernie and Brodsky in the back seat. The Mausers were thick with grease. Bernie took a T-shirt out of his bag, and he and Brodsky wiped the guns and loaded them.
They drove north along the coastal road, turned inland at Natanya, and continued north to Hadera. So far, the day had been peaceful beyond belief. They did not even encounter a British patrol; the only signs of war were three burned-out trucks on the wayside. To the east, the hills were still hazy in the morning mist. Men and women working the fields with guns slung across their shoulders waved to them, and burnoosed Arabs tended their goats and sheep, lazily indifferent. The whole aspect of the land, so calm, so peaceful in the sunshine, filled Bernie with a sense of déjà vu, a feeling that he had never left this strange, haunting place. Once out of the stucco turbulence of Tel Aviv, it became timeless.
They stopped at Hadera for lunch, then they turned northeast on the dirt-surfaced road that led through the foothills of Carmel to Nazareth. From where they crossed the rail line it was no more than fifteen miles to Kibbutz Benyuseff, where both Brodsky and Bernie had worked in 1939, and where Brodsky had lived since then. In 1942, Brodsky had been briefly married; a month later, his wife was killed by an Arab sniper, and he had not married again. He spoke about it now for the first time. “She said once,” he told Bernie, “that she knew you like an old friend. Just from what I had told her. We talked about you a lot. She was sure she’d meet you one day. Well, that’s the way it goes. Anyway, you won’t recognize the place. Two hundred orange trees, seventy acres of wheat and barley. And cows, we got over forty cows. Nursery, school. And me, I’m the agronomist. Would you believe it—Irv Brodsky, Grand Concourse and One Hundred and Sixty-third Street in the Bronx, the agronomist? They sent me to school in Tel Aviv for six months, but mostly I get it out of books. Sit up half the night reading Weber and Batchelor.”
“Who are Weber and Batchelor?”
“Top experts on citrus growing, from your part of the world, California.”
“And what, pray, is the Grand Concourse, old chap?” Kober asked him. “Sounds like one of those debutante affairs they have in the States.”
“Just a big, ugly street in the Bronx.”
It was slow going after they crossed the railroad. The road was rutted, washed out by the spring rains. At times Kober had to put the jeep into low gear and crawl almost at a walking pace.
The countryside had changed to a region of low, rolling hills dotted here and there with Arab villages of mud and stone huts. The land had not been reclaimed here. White rocks jutted out of the stony hillsides. Goats had eaten the vegetation to the roots, and the starkness of the hillsides was relieved only by an occasional olive grove. They passed the ruins of some ancient building, a single pillar jutting from the pile of stone. When they were seen from a village, men, women, and children disappeared into their houses.
“I don’t like it,” Brodsky said. He picked up his Mauser, worked the bolt, and checked the load.
“Can’t you go any faster?” Bernie asked Kober.
“Not without wrecking this job. It’s old and venerable. Just keep your eyes peeled for snipers. We’re four of us and armed, so I don’t imagine they’ll try anything rash. How much farther?”
“Ten miles or so.”
They didn’t hear the shot. A hole with a spider web of cracked glass radiating from it appeared in their windshield. The bullet rang off the metal between Bernie and Brodsky. Kober braked to a stop.
“Why are you stopping?”
They heard the second shot. It whined past, missing the jeep entirely.
“Dead ahead,” Benash said. “Eight, nine hundred meters.” He pointed to the hole in the windshield.
“Any closer, it wouldn’t crackle,” Bernie agreed. “Rotten shooting.”
“They may get better.” He pulled the jeep off the road to the right, lurching into the sh
elter of a rocky spur of hillside. They heard at least five more shots, only one of which found its mark in the jeep. Then they were sheltered. Kober turned to face Bernie. “Well, old chap, you’re the mavin on tactics. They’re bloody poor shots, but who isn’t at eight hundred meters? That one”—he nodded at the windshield—“could have taken your head off. Mostly these beggars have old single-shot Lee-Enfields or Martinis, so I’d say there’s at least half a dozen of them, and that’s only the beginning. Every nasty within hearing will come prancing in for the kill.”
“Then I’d say we turn around and head back to that last kibbutz.”
“And how do I get home?” Brodsky demanded.
“You come to Haifa with us,” Kober told him. “I’m glad Cohen is more sensible than heroic. I detest arguments.” He turned the ignition key. Nothing happened.
Bernie leaped out of the car and raised the hood. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. A bullet had pierced the radiator and found the battery. The radiator was draining, the lead on the battery shattered.
“Can you fix it?”
“Two or three hours, maybe.”
“Can we start the damn car?”
“No way.” He looked around. On top of the rise of the hill, about a hundred yards from them, was an Arab herdsman’s shelter, a tiny hut of mud and stone, roofless, abandoned. “Up there, that’s defensible.”
“We might beat them back to the kibbutz on foot,” Brodsky speculated. “They’re on foot. It’s a long run, but we’ve still got a lead.”
“Never!” Kober snapped. “After that shooting, every beggar with a gun will be out potting at us. All it takes is a couple of gunshots. Trying to make a run for it, we’d be sitting ducks.”
“I don’t leave the guns,” Benash said. “Do what you want; I don’t give them these guns.”
“Then let’s do it,” Bernie said, “before they’re on top of us.” He slung the rifle over his shoulder and hefted one of the boxes of ammunition. It weighed at least a hundred pounds. He picked it up and started off for the hut. The others followed. Brodsky managed the second box of ammunition, but it took both Kober and Benash to carry one case of the Mausers, leaving the other case in the jeep. The moment they were out of the shelter of the hill, bullets began to kick up the dust around them. With their load, they couldn’t quicken their pace, and it was all uphill. Bernie felt that his feet were weighted. An eternity seemed to pass before he had climbed the hundred yards and dropped, panting, inside the ruined hut. The only casualty was Benash. A bullet had torn a shred of flesh from his arm. He protested that it was nothing. Bernie made a bandage of his handkerchief and stopped the flow of blood, then Benash started out of the hut.
“Where the devil are you going?”
“Twenty guns left in jeep.”
“They’re not eight hundred meters away anymore. Will you use your head and look.”
Two Arabs had rounded the fold of the hill, and as Bernie pointed, they saw the jeep and raced toward it. Benash raised his rifle and fired. One of the Arabs dropped. The second man stopped in his tracks, stared at Benash, standing in the doorway of the hut, and flung a wild shot from his gun. Benash fired a second time. The man’s head whipped back and he crumpled to the ground.
Benash said something in Hebrew, then snapped at Bernie, “I go get guns now.”
“No!”
“Fuck you, Yankee,” Benash said, and he flung himself down the hillside in wild, sure-footed leaps.
“God willing, there’s only two of them,” Kober said.
The three men crouched in the door of the hut, watching. Benash reached the jeep, loaded himself with the Mausers, and started back up the hillside. Another Arab rounded the protecting fold of the hill. Hardly thinking of what he was doing, Bernie raised his rifle and fired. The man fell. Somewhere deep in his mind, the thought raced, I’ve killed a man. God help me, I’ve killed a man. Stone chips splattered from the edge of the doorway. Kober and Brodsky dropped flat. Bernie stood there. Now there were Arabs firing from both flanks, and three of them topped the ridge behind which the jeep was sheltered. Benash was about thirty paces from the hut when he was hit. He stumbled for three or four steps, the Mausers falling from his shoulders and leaving a trail behind him; then he collapsed and fell face down. Bernie raced to him and heaved him up on his shoulder in a single convulsive movement. Leaving the shelter of the hut, picking up Benash, and getting back with him could not have taken half a minute, but to Bernie it felt like an eternity, slow, slow steps back to the hut, where Brodsky and Kober crouched in the doorway, emptying the magazines of their rifles. Bernie felt the shock of bullets against Benash’s body. Benash had been hit twice more, but the first shot, through his body from the side, would have been the fatal one. He was dead when they laid him down in the hut.
Brodsky and Kober lay flat in the doorway, maintaining a steady fire through a haze of smoke. “Dov is dead,” Bernie told them.
“Poor pigheaded bastard!”
“What the hell are you shooting at?” he demanded. “Do you see any of them?”
“No.”
“Then stop wasting ammunition.”
They stopped shooting and rolled out of the doorway into the protection of the walls.
“Plenty of ammunition, old chap,” Kober said to him. “It will outlast us, you know.”
The hut was roofless, low-walled. Standing erect, Bernie could see over the walls. There were Arabs in the distance, tiny figures. He could count at least thirty of them.
“Our own stupidity,” Kober said. “You’re an outsider, but Brodsky and I should have known better.”
“I came through here six months ago,” Brodsky remembered. “They were gentle as lambs.”
“They’re not very gentle now, are they?”
“Will they rush us?” Bernie asked him.
“In the daylight? No. Why should they? They’ll come at night and toss a few grenades. Finis.”
“They have grenades?”
“Oh, yes. Between the Mufti and the British, they’re well supplied. The curse of being Jewish, Cohen. Nobody really likes us.”
“Then we have to get out of here before it’s actually dark. I imagine they’ll wait until it’s damn good and dark.”
“I’m beginning to like you, Cohen,” Kober said. “I put you down as just another arrogant bastard. But I must say, I like your style.” He turned to Brodsky. “Cheer up, Irv. The best or the worst is yet to come. Either way, it’ll be a change. And gratefully. Notice the smell in here? Sheep dip. They gather it and use it for their fires.”
“What about poor Benash?”
“What about him? We can’t bury him and we can’t take him with us. Our own chances are so thin, we can’t even properly weep over him.”
“Do you mind if I say the Kaddish for him?” Brodsky asked bitterly.
Regarding him strangely, Kober shook his head. He took his rifle and lay down in the doorway. The Arabs were shooting again. It was late afternoon now, and the hills cast long, dark shadows. The Arabs were invisible in the cover of those shadows. There was a velvet quality to the landscape, the hills becoming softly rose where the sun struck them. Bernie closed Benash’s eyes, and Brodsky spread his handkerchief over his face. Bernie felt that they were both thinking the same thing, that the Arabs castrated the Jewish dead, disemboweled them and frequently cut off their heads. The fierce hawk had fled from Benash. His face in death was like a small boy’s. An occasional bullet struck the doorway, sending chips flying from the stone. “Irv, step back,” Bernie said gently. Brodsky moved out of the line of the doorway and began to intone the prayer for the dead, swaying slightly, the way Bernie had seen Rabbi Blum sway so many years ago. Rabbi Blum had taken Bernie out of the orphanage and raised him. Rabbi Blum had never killed a living thing, not even an insect. He was an outsider. He lived on earth as an outsider. What was it Kober had said to
him only moments before? “You’re an outsider, Cohen.” Filled with overwhelming sadness, he listened to the Kaddish. It was too late. Everything came too late.
“Say ye amen,” Brodsky said in the ancient Aramaic in which the prayer was composed.
“Amen,” Bernie whispered.
Kober was very still. The firing outside picked up, increased; it was still at least two hours to sunset.
“Show the flag,” Bernie said to Kober, his voice thick and harsh. “Lay down some fire. They’re getting bold.”
Kober didn’t move. Brodsky crawled to him, then said to Bernie, “He’s dead.” The bullet was in his forehead. He had died instantly and silently.
“They’re all around us,” Brodsky said tonelessly. “There’s no way out of here, Bernie.”
With the butt of his rifle, Bernie pounded a stone out of the back wall. “Take the back,” he said to Brodsky. “I’ll take the doorway. Keep up a constant fire. Maybe Kober was right and they won’t attack until dark. We’ll try to slip away before then.”
When Bernie’s Mauser stopped firing, Brodsky listened for it to start again. He was shooting through the loophole Bernie had made, only shooting; there was nothing to see, only smoke and the deep shadows of twilight. But Bernie’s gun remained quiet.
“Oh, my God,” Brodsky whispered. He yelled, “Bernie! Bernie! Don’t leave me alone here!”
He ran over to Bernie, who lay quietly in the doorway, and shook him. Then he rose and faced the three Arabs standing in front of the doorway. It took just an instant for the sight of them to register before they fired point-blank, and his body fell across Bernie’s.
PART THREE
Inquisition
There were those who described Lucy Sommers as an austere person. She was a dark, intense woman of forty years, the only child of Alvin Sommers, once president of the Seldon Bank and now retired at the age of seventy-nine. People have a rhythm in their lives, and some live in their early years and some in their late years. Sommers became president of the bank at sixty-five, and at seventy-nine, he was a hard, dry specimen who promised to go on forever. Lucy was tall, handsome, and possessed of a good figure. She rarely smiled, and she did nothing in the way of make-up or hairdo to enhance her looks. She was the sort of person about whom fashionable women were wont to say, “It kills me to think of what I could do for her in two hours with the proper face and the proper clothes.” But no one ever did it or even suggested it.