“Ah, Jesus, Saul. Miriam too?”
“Yeah, kid, and even that gonif, Sammy, if you can get him to go.”
Al shook his head. “No, not Sammy, but I think, maybe I can get Mim away. She’s getting ready to retire, and I think she needs a boost.” He pondered for a minute, “I’ll have to reschedule a few things, hand over some of the projects to my VP and talk to Mim.”
“Yeah, well don’t wait too long, huh? This guy’s already got one foot in the grave. From what I heard and what he told me, he worked for the Mossad for quite a few years.”
Al was surprised. The Mossad was Israel’s equivalent to the CIA and FBI and probably several more capital-letter groups. “No kidding, Saul? Was he an undercover agent or an assassin or something like that?”
Saul shrugged. He was getting tired again. “I can’t tell you any more. Go see him. His address is on the letter. In the envelope is his card with his phone number on it.” He sighed heavily, “Now get out of here. I’m pooped. Give me a call when you get back. I want to know how things went, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Look, “Al said, standing, “you rest and get better. I’m going to go see Mim.” He squeezed the old lawyer’s hand and, with a last look, exited the room, almost bumping into Nurse Robbins.
“Oh, excuse me,” they both said at the same time. The nurse looked up and down at Al. “Are you the guy he insisted on calling yesterday?”
Al was a bit nonplussed, “Yes, Ma’am, I suppose so. How’s he doing, really?”
She nodded several times, “He’s a tough old bird. We’ll keep him here a couple more days, then release him. Are you a relative?”
“Uh, no, he was my father’s lawyer, and I guess, friend. They were in the camps together.”
“Camps? What camps would that be? They went to camp together? My son, Jerome, went to camp once.”
Al smiled a little and shook his head, “No, they were in Nazi concentration camps. During the war, the Second World War.”
“Oh, my heavens.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Is that what that number tattooed on his arm is all about?”
Al nodded, “He was at Auschwitz, the worst camp.”
“Well, Mr…?”
Al extended a hand, “Rothberg. Al Rothberg. Look, Mrs. Robbins,” he squinted at her name tag, “whatever he needs, make sure he gets it.” Al dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. Handing it over, he said, “Anything, and if he needs me, call me collect. I’ll take the call anytime, anywhere, okay?”
She nodded, still in awe that her patient in the room was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp.
“Good, good,” Al smiled and patted her shoulder gently and then walked away, digging for his phone.
Chapter 3
After calling his sister, Miriam, Al drove to her house. He exited the Loop and wended his way through her neighborhood until he came to the modest white house with the faded green trim. The yard was tidy, and her year-old Honda was parked in front of the garage. Six months ago, when their dad had died, he, Miriam and Sammy had each received a generous bequest, more than they’d ever expected, judging from old Herschel’s modest lifestyle. Although he and Sammy had made use of their inheritance, Mim had not.
Their mother, Leah, had died more than five years before Herschel, but the pain of her passing had been renewed in the last weeks of Herschel’s hospitalization. Al had grieved but had a busy life, and he believed that life was for the living. But Miriam had been devastated. Since her divorce from French, and her daughter Joanie’s going off to Princeton, she’d been alone for the first time in years. Al could see that loneliness preyed upon her. He and his wife, Syl, had kept close tabs on Mim, inviting her over often for dinner or a movie or anything else they could think of. Still Al was afraid that his kid sister was slowly unraveling. Maybe a trip was what she needed.
He mounted the tiny porch and tapped on the glass. Mim opened the door immediately. She was shorter than he was by almost four inches. A tight cap of black hair framed an almost perfectly oval face. Her smile turned up at the corners, and her dark brown, almost black eyes were large above gaunt cheeks. He thought she looked like a glamorous movie star when all made up, but she wore no makeup today.
“Hey, sis, how’re you doing?” he asked, hugging her tightly. She smelled of lilacs and coconut. His wife, Syl, usually smelled of bleach and various cleaning solutions. She rarely wore perfume.
“Okay,” she sighed against his shirt. She gave him a squeeze and pulled back, holding him at arms’ length. “So, tell me what that old man had to say.” Mim clasped his hand and pulled him toward a brown leather loveseat. “You sit, and I’ll get us some coffee.”
Al flopped back on the couch and put a foot up on the scarred coffee table. News and fashion magazines littered the table along with a rack of ceramic coasters and a small fishbowl. The single flowing fish swam lazily around. He remembered Mim calling it a betta or something like that. Pretty, he thought. What a life, just swimming round and round.
She was back, handing him a thick white mug that had World’s Greatest Grandpop stenciled on the side. A gift for his dad from Mim’s daughter, Joanie, no doubt.
“Black, right?” she asked.
Al nodded, sipping the hot java. He blew on it and told her about his conversation with Saul. When he got to the part about their Uncle Isaac still being alive, Mim gasped and nearly dropped her cup. Al reached out a swift hand and wrapped it around hers, steadying it until she could set it down.
She was trembling and confused, “But why? Why didn’t he ever get together with Dad and Uncle Hans? How did he survive? Where..?”
“Mim! Mim, I don’t know. Saul said that Isaac wants to meet us. Maybe he’ll answer our questions.”
She frowned, “Tell us in person? Why? Is he coming to Chicago?” She was clearly agitated, and kept wringing her hands. Mim reached for her coffee, lifting the cup and then setting it back down without taking a sip.
Al shook his head, “Nope, Sis. We’re going to Israel to meet him.”
“Oh, no! Al, I can’t,” she said automatically.
Al leaned forward, elbows on his knees, “Mim, listen to me. He’s an old man. He’s our uncle. You and I are going to Tel Aviv and meet him and hear his story. I’m not going alone. Please, Mim.” Al, the older brother, always had a certain amount of sway over his younger sister.
She plopped down on an armchair facing the loveseat, defeated, and nodded. “When?” She thought a moment. “Are you going to take Syl? And what about Sammy?”
Al snorted, “Pry Syl away from the hospital? Give me a break. She won’t go, and she’ll piss and moan about me going. And forget Sammy for this trip. If there isn’t anything in it for him, he won’t go.”
Syl was an emergency room doctor at St. Joe Med. When she wasn’t working, she was sleeping. She and Al had settled into a comfortable, yet loveless co-habitation, neither leaving nor desiring to leave because they were too comfortable with the way things were. Al occasionally suspected that she’d had a fling ̶ his word ̶ with a fellow doctor and, he supposed, she probably thought the same of him. Perhaps with one of the secretaries at the firm or a client he’d met.
In truth, although he occasionally fantasized, nothing like that had actually happened. Al was a good-looking man and had been approached by various women a few times over the years. Tall, graying at the temples, he kept himself in good physical shape, a habit left over from when he’d been a Marine. He considered himself a good man, a patriot and a good husband. And maybe for those reasons he resisted.
“I’ll take care of the flight. You,” Al pointed a finger at Mim, “search hotels in Tel Aviv and book us a couple of rooms or a suite. Okay?”
“All right, Al. I’ll have to call the school and have them get a substitute for the next couple of weeks. How long do you think we’ll be gone?”
He spread his arms wide. “I don’t know. I guess we’d better figure two weeks or so. Once we meet this guy, we’
ll want to hear his story and then see some of Israel. I’ve never been before so, as long as we’re there, I intend to see the sights.”
“At least my passport is up to date. When are we going to leave?”
“A couple of days. I’ll make the plane reservations and call or email you. Our esteemed uncle is eighty-seven, Saul said, and not in very good health.” He stood. “Time is of the essence, my dear. Start packing tonight.”
“Yes sir,” she mock saluted him, finally showing some animation.
* * *
Two days later, Al called. “Hey, Sis, are you packed? Ready to go?” There was excitement in his voice.
“I am. I’ve taken a leave of absence at the school and recommended my friend Marsha as substitute. I know she can use the money. When do we leave?”
“Hang on a second. I’ll read you our itinerary.” She heard papers rustling and Al was back on the line. “Okay, we leave from O’Hare Saturday morning at ten fifteen. The first stop is Kennedy in New York. Then we hop across the pond to Frankfurt, Germany, and next to Tel Aviv. Ironic, that stopover in Germany?”
“Wow! How long are we going to be in the air?” Mim had never traveled that far before. The farthest she’d ever been from home was a cruise to the Caribbean, and then she’d felt the flight to Miami would never end.
“How did I know you’d ask that?” Al chuckled. “The flight to New York is only two and a half hours. I figured you might like a layover so I booked us rooms at a Sheraton near the airport. They have an airport shuttle, so we don’t have to get a car.”
“Sounds good. But is it expensive?” She was so used to being frugal that she’d merely put the money her dad left her into a money market account and forgot about it.
“Oh, very. I booked us first class all the way. Thousands of dollars each leg. We’ll be lucky to get home with a couple of bucks left.”
“Oh no, Al!” She was quiet for a minute, then asked hesitantly, “You are kidding, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Mim. I’ll cover it all. You’ll be responsible for our itinerary and sightseeing in Israel, all right? Oh, and I bought you a voice recorder. While we’re talking to our uncle, will you record it all so we can write it down later?”
“Sure, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll do some surfing on the net and dig up a few good places to visit in Tel Aviv and the area.”
“Great. Just remember, this isn’t just a pleasure trip. We’re going to find out, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.” Al just couldn’t fathom why his uncle had never contacted anyone in the family before now, yet stayed in touch with Saul Goldman, his father’s lawyer. Was he a criminal? Or a terrorist?
Al had been busy the last couple of days before they left, swapping meetings around, appointing people to assume his duties and responsibilities, approving some building projects and rejecting others. One in particular interested him. It was a new building in Chicago designed to house a Holocaust museum. He was one of the sponsors and a large donor. He’d also cut costs to the bone in order to get the contract. It was a good thing his corporation had nailed down a contract to build a string of new convenience stores/fast food restaurants coming to the greater Chicago area. Twenty-six of them, and it would keep several crews busy for more than two years.
Exhausted, he’d had one of his men pick up Mim and bring her to his house. He said goodbye to Sylvia, the Doctor. He was used to thinking of her this way, or as Doctor Sylvia, rather than as Al’s wife – his wife, Syl.
“Honey, I promise when I get back, we’ll take that cruise we’ve always talked about. If you make the effort to get some time off for it, then I will too. Is it a deal?”
Syl looked at him skeptically. She was shorter than her big husband by almost six inches, had short auburn hair and wore her glasses on a string around her neck, always pushing them back up her pert nose. “Sure, Al. We’ll see when you get back.” She smiled a crooked grin, “You know, I should be jealous of you taking Mim on our honeymoon.”
“Honeymoon?” He looked confused. “Didn’t we go to Niagara Falls after we got married?”
She patted him on the arm, “Sure, but don’t you remember that we talked about seeing Europe on that trip?” Syl could remember promises made and broken from years past. But suddenly she leaned up and kissed him hard on the mouth, a move that surprised yet pleased him.
“You be careful over there, you hear? No rockets from Hamas, no midnight nightclubs, and stay off the buses. I hear that they are prime terrorist targets in Israel.” She stepped back and took a good look at him. “You come back, and we’ll have a good talk, okay?”
“Sure, honey. You take care, too. Don’t get shot in that ER.” This time he kissed her cheek, letting his hand linger on her green scrubs-clad shoulder.
Outside, a horn honked. He picked up his Louis Vuitton bag and opened the front door. Syl stood, arms crossed, and gave him a small finger wave. He waved back and hurried to the Lincoln town car driven by his assistant, Jack Welker.
As Al settled in next to Miriam, he turned and gave her a kiss on the cheek too. “Well, Sis, we’re off. How does it feel?”
Mim smiled and replied, “Like a great adventure. Who knows what we’ll find in the exotic land of Israel, what adventures we’ll have along the way, what exotic foods we’ll eat?”
Al laughed and patted his kid sister on the knee, “You’re right. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” He was referring to an old radio program his father and uncle used to talk about. This phrase was usually followed by a scary laugh.
Soon they were at the airport, where a baggage handler took their luggage and gave Al the receipts. He passed them onto Mim. “You’re in charge of the logistics, lady.”
Mim tucked them in her purse and extracted the tickets and her passport. “Do you have your passport, brother?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
Al pulled his out of an inside jacket pocket and held it in front of her face. “Present and accounted for.”
She took his arm and marched inside, the first steps of what she hoped would be a life-changing adventure.
* * *
The next days were a blur. The flight to New York was uneventful except for some turbulence coming into Kennedy. Mim gripped his hand tightly, giving him a wan smile. A good night’s sleep was followed by the long flight to Frankfurt, Germany, then on to Tel Aviv. They landed late in the afternoon. Blue skies and a deep blue sea off to the west greeted them, accompanied by a warm breeze.
After passing through customs, they walked to the taxi line. Al hoped some of the drivers spoke English, as his Hebrew had gone on the back burner since his Bar Mitzvah when he was thirteen. There was a taxi dispatcher in a booth in front of the glass doors, and Al asked him if he spoke English.
The man was chubby, wore a yarmulke knitted from colorful yarn and had a small chin beard. He wore dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. “Can I help you, mister? Need a cab? To where?”
“Oh, thank God, someone who speaks English.”
Before he went on, the dispatcher laughed, “English, French, Spanish, Arabic, some Portuguese, and I understand German. Oh, and of course, Hebrew and Yiddish. So, where are you going?”
Al looked on the back of his ticket, but Miriam stepped forward and said, “The Hilton Tel Aviv, please.”
“Oh, ho, big shots, eh? Shuttle just left. Be a half-hour or so until the next one. Americans, I’ll bet. Let me get you a cab.” He pushed a button on his radio on the podium and shouted into it, “Davidalla, come on up here. I got a couple of Americans for you going to the Hilton. Big tippers, too.” He winked at Al and Mim.
A car several back pulled out of line and screeched to a halt at the curb. A skinny youth, also skull-cap clad, wearing a New York Jets jersey and khaki slacks jumped out and grinned, “Howdy, Yanks. I’m Davy. I’ll be your driver today.” He looked down at the leather duffle and Mim’s two Samsonites. “This all? Are you only sta
ying the weekend?”
Mim smiled shyly. “No, a couple of weeks. Maybe more.”
Throwing the luggage in the trunk of the Toyota sedan, Davy held the rear door for Mim, smiling and bowing as he did. “Your chariot, my lady.”
Mim giggled behind her hand, “Thank you, kind sir.”
Al grumbled that he had to get his own door. He slid in next to her and laid his head back on the headrest. Unlike the New York or Chicago cabs, this one was spotless. It even smelled new. He caught the driver’s eye in the rear-view mirror and asked, “Is this a new car?”
“Oh, no, mister. Maybe four years old. Good car, eh?”
“Yes, smells just like new. How do you do it?” Al was intrigued.
Davy held up a plastic bottle of a green liquid with a pump sprayer. “The boss likes us to spray before each fare. Smells good, no?” He passed it back to Al who sprayed a little on his hand.
“Smells better than my cologne. Maybe I should start using this instead.” He held his hand out to Miriam.
“Umm, smells delicious. Careful, brother, you use that and the girls will be all over you.” Mim, though tired from the exhausting flights, was feeling daring, happy to be on this great adventure with her big brother. Too long she’d slogged to work at the school, come home, thrown a minimal meal together and sat in front of the TV. In the mornings before she’d drive to school, she’d usually go for a run along the lake or in the nearby park. She was in good shape and meant to stay that way, especially after her ex-husband, French, had accused her of getting fat. She snorted to herself, five foot seven, and one hundred and twenty two pounds of rough, tough Jewish muscle. Bring it on. She was ready for anything.
In a few minutes the cab pulled under the portico in front of the tall, imposing hotel. Davy jumped out and open her door, then ran around and opened Al’s before he could. “See, I heard you, mister, but the ladies come first, eh?” He winked at Al and handed him a card. It was from the cab company and had a number scrawled on the reverse. “You need a cab or want to take a tour, you call me, Davy, okay?”
Long Lost Brother Page 2