“Rabbi, when you did your service, did you put out an extra cup of wine for Elijah?”
Adolf nodded. “That’s part of the ritual. You set out an extra glass, and open the door—if you have one—for Elijah to enter. The year he finally shows up to drink the wine is supposed to foretell the coming of the messiah.” Adolf smiled fondly at the memory. “Of course, in reality, it just means an extra portion of wine, and no one ever wants to waste that. I remember the most serious discussion we had all night, was over whether to drink it ourselves or pour it out at the end of the evening.”
“Well, we didn’t have that discussion,” said Berta. “Because, near as I can tell, Elijah showed up.”
“What?”
Berta hugged herself as if for warmth. “It was at the end of the seder. I’d just filled the cups for the fourth time. Elena opened the door for Elijah, just like the book said to. Rabbi Sol stood up and read the next passage, where it talks about greeting Elijah; the messenger of the redemption of mankind.
“Then, all of the sudden, this guy walks in. He went right over to the extra cup and dipped his hand in it, and then he shook out ten drops of wine on the table. He said the name of a plague with each drop—but I know they weren’t the same plagues that hit Egypt; we’d just recited that list earlier in the meal!”
“Do you remember what they were?”
“It’s not something I’m ever likely to forget: Rats. Weakened flesh. Storms. Burning rivers. Poisoned water. Leprosy. Fevers. Boils. Bleeding guts.”
Silence fell heavily upon the room.
Berta was about to speak again, but Adolf said, “That’s nine.”
“What?”
“The plagues you just listed. You only named nine.”
Ilsa’s eyes widened in surprise, and Berta listed them again, counting. “But I was sure there were ten! Just like in Egypt.”
“You must have forgotten one,” said Adolf.
“But…” Berta shook her head violently. “No! I hung on every word.”
“Perhaps the final plague won’t be revealed until the first nine have run their course,” said Ilsa. “As I recall, God gave Pharaoh one last chance before carrying out the slaying of the first-born. But I’m surprised I didn’t catch it the first time Berta told me.”
“You were not at the Seder, I take it?” said Adolf.
“I was busy being pinned down by machine gun fire at the time. But I’ve known Berta for a long time. If she says she saw and heard this, she did.”
Adolf wished he had something more to go on than that, but he was still intrigued. “What did this guy look like?” he asked.
“He was big. I know this sounds silly, but he seemed to fill the whole room. He had on a black cloak, with a hood that covered most of his face. But I could see a beard. Not long, but dark, and turning gray.
“Anyway, he drank the wine and said that the redeemer already walked among us. There would be ten new plagues, and then the Nazi reign of terror would be over. And after that, what happened would be up to us. Then, he walked back outside. No one ever saw him again.”
“What did you do next?”
“Speaking from personal experience, I’d say some of us almost shit our pants. Oh, excuse me, Rabbi!” Berta blushed all the way to the roots of her blond hair, while around her, the room erupted with much needed laughter.
Adolf smiled. “Don’t worry, Berta. If you didn’t, I think I’d start doubting your story about now.”
After several tries, the young woman picked up the thread of her story.
“Conrad ran out to ask the guards what they saw, and to chew them out for letting an intruder get past them. Sol said the whole thing was just a joke. There were four people on guard duty; one of them must have thought it would be funny to put on a black cloak and be Elijah.”
“That does sound more reasonable,” said Adolf. “And I have heard of tricks like that being played.”
“Do you think I’d have asked you to come all this way if I thought that’s all it was? Look, I know you don’t know me, Rabbi, but I know my people! Three of those guards were illiterate, with no interest in Judaism. The fourth is a short woman, with a squeaky voice and no sense of humor! And clothing and bedding are scarce around here. If anyone had a cloak like that, someone would have known.
“Besides that, it just felt real to me. That’s what has me so shook up.”
“Did anyone besides you have that reaction?” asked Adolf.
“Conrad believes someone was there, but not Elijah. He doesn’t believe in ghosts.”
“Elijah never died.”
“What?”
“You said ghosts. Elijah never died, so, technically, he’s not a ghost.”
Berta stared at Adolf, as if to decide whether or not he was making fun of her. “Thanks, that really helps,” she said finally.
“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be funny. It’s just that…oh, I wish I’d been there!”
“I wish you’d been there too! Our rabbi is fine, but he’s not you, Adolf. If you had been there, maybe the man would have said or done more, or maybe…” Berta shook her head in frustration. “At least we’d have known if he was real.”
“I appreciate your faith in me,” said Adolf. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Berta, but I have to bring it up: you’d all had three glasses of wine already. Just what kind of wine was it?”
“Heavily watered!” she snapped. Then, more softly, “And yes, it was ordinary bottled wine from someone’s cellar, not the home brew that puts people in comas, or the opium stuff that the rich drink. And no one at that table was drunk. I’d stake my life on it.”
“You probably already have,” said Adolf. “I believe you, Berta. I just wish I could explain it.” After a heavy pause, he addressed the room. “Any thoughts, people?”
They were strangers to him, and had doubtlessly discussed the subject a great deal since Berta’s arrival. Still, they reacted with pride and enthusiasm, because it was “Rabbi Adolf” who was asking. A gaunt man, who sat perched on a bench with his one remaining leg propped up in front of him, shook his head. “There’s no end to strange occurrences these days. I say this is just one more.”
“It’s got to be a hoax,” said a familiar voice. Adolf saw Gerik, resting on a cot in the far corner of the room. The medic was still working on his shoulder, but Gerik, as always, refused to be left out of the discussion. “Although, perhaps a valuable one. If enough people start believing that the new age is at hand, they might just believe it right into existence.”
“It’s no hoax!” shouted a new voice. “Elijah has returned. If you look closely, you’ll find the signs leading up to this event are everywhere!”
Adolf turned to see a slightly built young woman—or perhaps girl, as she couldn’t be more than sixteen—addressing the room. Long dark hair spilled behind her as she moved through the crowd to stand before Adolf. Her eyes seemed unnaturally bright. “We have to make the world ready, Rabbi, and there isn’t much time! That’s why it’s up to you!”
Adolf glanced at Ilsa.
“This is Alina,” she said. “She’s been having…visions, lately.”
Adolf sighed wearily. “Yes, I’ve run into a few—“
“And more often than not,” Ilsa continued tightly, “They come true.”
As far as Adolf was concerned, that didn’t make listening to a fanatic any easier, but he was a guest here. “What have you seen, Alina?” he asked.
“I’ve seen a plague of yellow locust devouring all life on earth. I’ve seen insect-like men in black rubber suits, surviving the plague, only to die later at each other’s hands. Then lately, just after Berta came to us, my visions began to change.”
“For the better, I hope,” said Adolf.
“Yes, thank God. You see, I’ve come to understand these visions are warnings; very specific warnings. The locusts are some kind of new weapon that the Party is working on. The black suites are some kind of survival gear. It’s going to happen so
on—very soon! But now I see that we have a chance. God has sent us prophets! If we can unravel the clues He’s set before us, I believe we can avert the destruction of all life on earth!”
“Well, that would be good,” said Adolf. “What do you think Berta’s experience at Passover means?”
“First of all,” said Alina, “it means we have to start keeping kosher. Next, we have to convince the rest of the world to do the same.”
“Kosher?” said Gerik. “What’s that?”
“A set of dietary laws—“ Adolf began.
“An entire system of what you can and cannot eat, and how food has be prepared, served and stored,” said Alina. She went on to explain the kosher laws, from the prohibition against pork and shellfish, to the laws against eating meat and dairy at the same table. Her knowledge, Adolf had to admit, was impressive.
“You’re going to persuade starving people to do that?” Gerik stared at Ilsa. “Do the rest of you agree with this crazy notion?”
Adolf could tell from the expressions of those around him that there was a considerable difference of opinion regarding Alina and her prophesies. That, too, was typical of units that contained zealots.
“Actually,” said Ilsa, “I’d considered something like it myself, much earlier.” Adolf remembered a reference to that effect in one of her letters. “I saw it as more of an identity thing; a way to separate ourselves from the enemy. But now I see something that should have been obvious from the beginning.
“I didn’t notice it the first time Berta told me what she saw and heard. Even when I went back and read the book of Exodus looking for clues, I was still trying to determine if Elijah was really in the room at Berta’s seder.
“Now I see I was following a false lead. You see, in the original story, the Jews were spared the devastation of the ten plagues by putting the blood of the Passover lamb on their doorposts. That way, God recognized His own.
“I think what Berta’s visitor was trying to tell us, is that something terrible is coming—you don’t have to believe in visions to believe that—but there are ways for people to protect themselves.”
“I see what you’re getting at,” said Adolf. The others in the room apparently did not, so Adolf continued. “Look at the plagues Berta listed. Most of them are already making an appearance: rats are becoming a problem everywhere, and thousands of children have been born with immune systems too weak to fight off illness—especially among the Aryans.”
“Two rivers have already burned,” said the man with one leg. “And everyone knows how toxic the oceans are becoming.”
“Toxic enough so that few varieties of shellfish are safe anymore. And certain illnesses are on the rise: trichinosis for one, which specifically attacks pork—the mainstay of the German diet, but strictly forbidden by Jewish law. Two of the plagues Berta mentioned, fever and bleeding guts, are symptoms of trichinosis.”
“And symptoms of at least a dozen other diseases as well!” said Gerik. “Look folks, this is all very interesting, but surely you’re not suggesting that we go around telling starving people to give up their only sources of food—to avoid some kind of doomsday plague?”
“It wouldn’t be the craziest thing I’ve heard yet,” said Ilsa.
“Something else,” said Adolf. “Most of those plagues reflect what the Party is actually doing to the earth. We’re not just threatened by a totalitarian government; we’re in danger of global ecological disaster. Kosher laws happen to be among the most enlightened environmental laws ever devised.”
“They sound silly to me,” said Berta. “Why should anyone have to worry about whether they’re eating milk and meat together? And you’d have to be crazy during starving times to not eat anything you could get your hands on! Who cares whether a fish has shells or scales? And pork’s as good as veal when I’m hungry.”
“Granted, they’re not very practical to the average revolutionary with a price on his head,” said Adolf. “But in calmer, freer times, they’re very nice. Some of the great Jewish teachers were vegetarians, and many others have encouraged people to at least limit meat in their diets. Early in Genesis, God said, ‘See, I give you every seed bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has fruit; they shall be yours for food.’ Like maybe we’re not supposed to have to kill to eat.
“Even if we do have to live off the flesh of other creatures, the idea of keeping meat and milk separate was originally to avoid the cruelty of mixing the life giving element of milk with the death element of flesh.”
Alina nodded emphatically. “The idea of caring for the environment is kosher too. If you eat all the eggs, there won’t be any more birds; kill all the fish and—“
“Yes, I think we all get the point,” said Berta. “It’s just not the way starving people are going to think. Surely Elijah—or whoever he was--must know that.”
“I’m sure he does,” said Ilsa. “But whatever really happened at your base, Berta I think someone is trying to send us a message.”
“If nothing else,” said Adolf, “we’re being warned to think ahead. That one day, Nazi rule will end, and it’s up to us to take better care of the earth than they did.”
The assembled group murmured quietly to one another. They partook in the ritual of a shared meal; fish and bark soup, in this case. Afterwards, there were questions for the Rabbi, and a Torah reading, followed by more questions and discussion.
Finally, long after the sun had set behind an already dark sky, Ilsa led Adolf to her tiny, semi-private room in the back of the cabin. She normally shared the room with two other women, she said. Tonight, Adolf noticed, there was no one else here.
“It isn’t much,” she said, indicating her bedroll, a pile of clothes and a small desk with an oil lamp and a scattering of papers, and sheets of bark covered with writing. “But it’s mine. And for tonight, it’s ours.”
Adolf set his bedroll beside hers. “Let’s see if we can remember what to do with a private room,” he said.
CHAPTER 19
Much later, as they lay in each other’s arms in a tangle of blankets, Adolf and Ilsa caught up on each other’s adventures since their last exchange of letters.
“Those code schools you started will probably be remembered as the most decisive factor in winning this war,” Ilsa said.
“Let’s win it first,” said Adolf. “And leave the writing of history to whatever breed of historians we spawn. Besides, it wasn’t any stroke of genius on my part. It was all those Aryan geniuses in our grandparents generation, who made sure no one in the Party knew what Hebrew was—then left all those books for us to find.”
“Your modesty will probably be remembered as the second greatest factor.”
“You’ll have your own troubles, my dear,” Adolf said, nibbling Ilsa’s ear. “What with your feeding your troops by raiding military supply depots! You managed to feed thousands and boost morale in the movement at the same time.” He turned to look her in the eye. “I just wish you wouldn’t take so many risks.”
“You knew when you married me I wasn’t the type to stay home and bake cakes, Adolf.” Then with a shrug, she steered the conversation back to lighter topics. “I heard all about your sojourn at the polio camp, and how you were involved with finding the vaccine. But now that you’ve told me the whole story, I must meet this Varina. For some reason, her part seems to have been written out.”
“Ugh!” Adolf pulled a pillow over his head. “Ilsa, you have to promise me you’ll start spreading the real story at once! If you don’t, Varina will find me and kill me before I get to see who wins the war!”
Ilsa wrapped her arms around Adolf’s waist. “There, there, liebling, I’ll protect you from her,” she teased. Then she wound her long legs around his, and he forgot about being humorous.
“Why did you send for me?” Adolf asked later.
“Three reasons,” said Ilsa. “The first two you met this afternoon.”
Adolf nodded. “Tell me about Alina. What’s
her story?”
“Near as anyone can figure, her parents were into Judaism before any group that I’ve been able to trace. No one knows exactly why, or what their plans were, but they filled an old bunker with books, relics, food, water—whatever they had in mind, it was for the long haul. They were killed before they could go to ground there, but they managed to get Alina stashed.
“She thinks she was seven or eight at the time. All we know for sure is she spent the next five years alone, with no contact with anyone or anything—other than the books and relics. Except, if you ask her, she’ll tell you God was talking to her the entire time.”
“Not surprising,” said Adolf. “Considering what that kind of isolation does to people. But at least it explains how she got to be such an expert on Judaism. Prophet or not, I think we have to rate her as extraordinary.”
“When she was found by an underground cell, they brought her to me—Jewish Central they called us back then. She seemed harmless enough at the time, but if what she’s seen—this doomsday weapon—is real, we have to find it.”
“I hope you have a suggestion as to how. None of the places I hold sway in have the resources to investigate something like that.” He thought about what would be needed for an operation like this: a large base, secure year round, educated people—no, trained scientists—communications array, organization…”
“Finland,” whispered Adolf.
Ilsa kissed him. “Got it on the first try.”
“But aren’t they in a state of crisis right now?”
“They’re always in a state of crisis. That’s why they never accomplish anything.”
“Well, yes, I can’t argue with that,” said Adolf. “Still, it’s no small thing that they’ve gone from holding a ‘privileged spot’ in the Führer’s glorious plan, to being the most discontented hell raisers in Europe.”
From the Ashes Page 19