Long Lost Brother

by Don Kafrissen

  Over the next week, they motored steadily west, staying south of Crete and turned north into the Adriatic, skirting the coast of Yugoslavia. They spotted occasional fishing boats and twice military convoys but, beyond hailing them on the radio, no patrol boats bothered them. On a warm afternoon, they eased into the channel heading for Split, a large fishing port midway on Yugoslavia’s west coast.

  In the bay were several sunken military ships. Around them were scores of small boats removing anything of value and even two barges with men using cutting torches to dismantle all the metal showing above the waterline. The sparks flew and hissed in the dirty water, and shouts echoed back and forth between the boats.

  Captain Teo shouted to a longshoreman, “Diesel? Petrol?”

  The man waved and pointed to the damaged dock about two hundred meters to the east. Teo waved his thanks and spun the wheel.

  Isaac and Yuri stood leaning on the rail beside the mate, whose name they never learned. He pointed to a shabby building along the street bordering the harbor. A sign over the double doors was in Croatian, and they couldn’t read it. “That is where you are going, said the mate. “Ask for a woman named Ursula. She will arrange the next part of your journey.”

  He reached into a shirt pocket and produced a scrap of paper. “Take this. It is our call name on the radio and our frequency. When you have the cargo, let us know where you are, and we will come get you. Understand, you must get it to the coast somewhere.” He faced the two men and very earnestly exhorted them, “These weapons are very important. The British are stepping up their blockades, and we may be fighting them next. We will be fishing here in the Adriatic for two weeks more and will be listening for you. God be with you.”

  They thanked Captain Teo and jumped ashore as the captain dickered for petrol with a smartly dressed man on the pier. These days, small boat captains carried a variety of currencies, gold and silver coins and even some gems to buy what they wanted. All coastal ports knew local exchange rates and were open to negotiations at all hours of the day and night.

  Chapter 22

  By this time, Isaac and Yuri needed showers and food. They found their way from the dock to the street. The name of the street was very long and the only word they could read was Obala. A five-minute walk with their bags over their shoulders brought them to the tired plastered building the mate had indicated. When they entered, a bell jingled somewhere in the rear. Isaac saw a string leading through several small pulleys and over a partition separating a counter holding various mechanical parts, which he took to be for repairing marine engines. Around them were several engines, both small and large, in various stages of assembly. Blocks of wood propped them up, and two were on wheeled platforms.

  A female voice called from rear in a language they couldn’t understand. “Priĉek ajte jednu minutu.”

  A few minutes later a young woman came bustling through a curtain separating the rear from the front. She was wiping her dirty hands on a rag. Her blonde hair was tucked under a rolled cloth tied around her head. She wore men’s trousers and a greasy khaki uniform shirt, though all the insignia had been removed.

  She slowed and frowned, then babbled a string of words at them. “Sto mogu učiniti za vas?”

  Isaac just shrugged and asked, “Do you speak Hebrew?”

  She shook her head, clearly not understanding. Then he asked in German and Yiddish. She brightened and replied in Yiddish, though with a strange accent. “Yes, I speak someYiddish. My family was Jewish, though we have not spoken the language for many years. You understand, of course.”

  Isaac and Yuri both nodded. Isaac asked, “Are you Ursula?”

  She smiled at them, “Yes. And you are?”

  Isaac stuck a thumb into his chest, “I am Isaac and this quiet young fellow is Yuri.”

  She slid behind the counter and leaned on it, one hand below the top. “Prove it.”

  Isaac was at a loss as to how he could do this when Yuri laid his arm on the counter and slid back his sleeve, revealing his tattoo. He nodded to Isaac who did the same.

  Ursula nodded back, and pulled her hand out holding a small semi-automatic pistol. Isaac and Yuri both said, “Walther semi-automatic pistol, model P-38, weight 800 grams, 216mm long, magazine capacity eight rounds of 9 mm x 19mm parabellum, effective firing range of fifty meters.” This was exactly the way they had been taught by Zvi back in Tel Aviv. They both laughed, as did Ursula.

  “My, you boys are very knowledgeable about weapons,” Ursula commented. “Is that what this trip is about?”

  Isaac had been instructed to tell as few people as possible so he just shrugged and said, “All we know is that we must get back into Germany, into the east near Dresden and meet some people there.”

  Her face blanched. “Dresden?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Is the city still there? I heard that the fiery bombs killed everyone.” She groped for a stool and sat down, breathing rapidly.

  Yuri moved to her side and just put a hand on her shoulder. She reached up and placed her hand over his, smiling up at him. “Thank you. I had family there.”

  “I also,” he replied.

  To break this unhappy mood, Isaac cleared his throat, “I think we had better keep moving.” He leaned across the counter and asked, “Ursula, is there some place where we can bathe and get something to eat?”

  “Oh, how thoughtless of me.” She jumped up and beckoned them to follow. Behind the curtain was a storage room. “My brother and a friend work here on the motors and things. Please follow me.” She showed them to a steep flight of stairs in a corner.

  “I live up there. There is a bathroom with a shower nozzle over the bathtub. There are towels in the cupboard. I will be up as soon as I finish some paperwork and will cook us all supper.” She smiled shyly at Yuri. “I hope you like potato and lamb soup with fresh bread. I made it this morning. I just have to warm it up a bit.”

  Yuri smiled back, “Yes, please. Thank you. We will pay you, of course.”

  “Thank you, but no, it is no bother.” With a smile she was gone, lightly scampering down the stairs.

  Ursula appeared to be in her early twenties. She had deep blue eyes set in a soft, round face. She was nearly as tall as Yuri and seemed to walk with a hitch in her step.

  They managed to locate the bathroom. “Go ahead, lover boy,” Isaac said, lightly punching his friend on the shoulder. They grinned at each other.

  Yuri pulled two thick towels out of a narrow closet, checked the tub for a bar of yellow soap and shoved Isaac out into the small sitting room. As the water ran, Isaac collapsed onto a lumpy sofa, and looked through a stack of books piled on an adjacent table. There were some works by Neitzsche, Hermann Hesse, Ernst Cassirer, and even the American, Mark Twain. There were no books in Hebrew or by Jewish authors, probably because of the mass book burnings the Nazis and their allies had carried out before and during the war. Isaac wondered if the roundup of the Jews here in Croatia had been as bad as in central Europe.

  After Yuri came out dressed in clean clothes, Isaac took his turn in the bath. He quickly stripped off his clothes and sat in the tub, the hot water flowing from the tap. He had never become accustomed to a shower. Showers reminded him of the freezing cold showers at Buchenwald and Auschwitz. He also didn’t like to always wonder if the showers held poisoned gas. As he scrubbed himself with a rag he found neatly folded on the side of the oval tub, he remembered his mother giving him and his brother baths at least two times a week. His brother, Herschel, had been two years younger. Tears came to his eyes and, as he sat on the bottom of the tub, he realized was all alone in this world. He sobbed for his parents, his strong grandfather, his brother and his lovely sister, Miriam. He hoped that they had just gassed and cremated her, not sent her to an SS brothel. Then he covered his face and castigated himself for hoping his sister was dead instead of merely raped multiple times.

  Then his thoughts turned to the girl from the train, Deborah Eisenstein. Did she live? He had checked the scatter
ed lists of survivors that had made their way to Palestine, but he hadn’t seen her name or any of his family’s. Maybe it was best to forget those three awful yet magical days pressed up against her.

  Isaac slowly got to his feet and rubbed the soap off with the wet rag. With a sigh, he stepped out and toweled himself off. Time to eat and head north. If they could get close to their target area, he knew they could complete their mission. How, he wasn’t sure, but he would figure it out as they went along.

  Drying his hair, he slipped on a set of clean trousers and a shirt from his kit.

  Ursula had set the table and was carrying a great white porcelain bowl from the kitchen. Isaac smelled fresh bread and went to help, but Yuri was already there, a shy smile on his face.

  “Can you give me something to do?” Isaac asked. He was happy for Yuri, the former rabbinical student, now an Irgun warrior.

  Ursula pointed to a basket on a sideboard. “Please set the table for five. My brother, Petar, and his friend, Ivan, will be joining us. After you have eaten, they will drive you north, yes?”

  “Yes,” agreed Isaac. Though he felt he could drive one of the lorries, he had never driven one. He had only, once, sat on his father’s lap and steered when the family had acquired a Ford automobile.

  Just as they sat down, a door below crashed open and two sets of feet pounded on the stairs. Two young men burst into the room and looked at Isaac and Yuri. The first was a tall, lean fellow with sandy hair. He was clean-shaven except for a wide, square mustache, he had a broad forehead and bright blue eyes and, where his sleeves were rolled up, his forearms displayed tattoos. The other man was about the same age, in his upper twenties, shorter and powerfully built. A gray tweed cap covered a nest of dark curls and shadowed a broad face with a misshapen nose. A scar ran from under his left eye, across the bridge of his nose and onto a sunken cheek. A smile lit his face, as he elbowed the slimmer man aside.

  “Hello, Ursula, my love,” he exclaimed, whirling her about, then reaching a rough hand out to the two at the table. “Hello, my friends, I am Ivan the not-so-terrible, and this skinny, worthless Jewish Croat is Petar. I am sure you have heard that he is the beautiful Ursula’s brother, but that is his only saving grace. Well, that, and he saved my life a number of times.”

  Isaac could only stammer at this onslaught of words. “I, I am Isaac and my friend here is Yuri.” He started to stand, but Ivan waved him back down, slapping him on the back.

  “Hah! Ivan and Yuri! A couple of good Russians, no?” He squeezed Yuri on the shoulder.

  Petar shook his head and, with a small smile, introduced himself. “You’ll have to excuse my comrade here. Whenever there is a chance for action, he gets a little, shall we say, exuberant?”

  Ursula laughed, “That is an understatement.” She turned to the now-seated Ivan, “Since you are so excited, dish out the stew, Mister Terrible.”

  The conversation ranged back and forth, each telling some of their story. They all three, Ursula, Petar and Ivan, had fought with Josip Tito and the Partisans against the Germans during the war. Many women had also fought beside their fathers, brothers, and sons. Ursula was quite proud that she was proficient with several weapons. At one point, they had helped smuggle Jews out of Hungary to Croatia and Bosnia. That was where they relearned the Yiddish tongue, long forgotten in their family. It was on one of these expeditions where she had been shot in the leg.

  As Ivan explained, “Tito hated the Germans and thought there must be something good about the Jews if the Nazis hated them so much.” He burst into a huge laugh at his own joke. “Did you know that more than two thousand of those Jews fought with us in the mountains? It must have felt good for a Jew to kill a Nazi, no?” Again he laughed.

  “Hush, Ivan. No more talk of killing at the table, please.” Ursula admonished him.

  Soon they were finished with their meal. Ursula and Yuri stood and cleared the table. Ivan raised his eyebrows at Isaac, who merely shrugged. They both smiled knowingly.

  After a delicious custard-like cake that Ursula identified as kamobor kremsnita, they retrieved their bags and wished her goodnight, thanking her with kisses on both cheeks, Yuri’s perhaps held slightly longer than Isaac’s before he followed his friend down the stairs.

  Petar stayed behind a few minutes longer and hugged his sister.

  “Please be careful,” Ursula told him. “I won’t sleep until you are back.” She stood in the doorway at the top of the stairs until they were gone.

  Ivan had borrowed a former German Army truck, called a 6x6, with a canvas- covered cab and canvas over bows in the rear. The four crammed into the front seat. The Jewish boys were still slim, not having regained all their former weight. Petar was also slim and Ivan, though short and broad, fit easily with them in the front seat.

  “It is only about 350 kilometers to the border. That will take us most of the night. I think we should stay at the house of a cousin of mine tomorrow and continue on tomorrow night,” said Ivan over the roar of the engine.

  Isaac looked at Petar for confirmation. He nodded and said, “We will stay in a village north of Zagreb called Loka. Is good. Some Loka people help hide Jews during the war and will help now.” He stared out the windshield, a grim look on his face.

  “What happened there, Petar?” asked Isaac.

  “Bad Nazis and Croats kill many people at Loka Castle. Mass graves we found all over. Do not speak German there, yes? Only Hebrew, or better, not talk and let big mouth Ivan do all talking.”

  At this, Ivan laughed and started singing in a surprisingly strong baritone. Petar translated bits, “before morning, the fishermen wake up. The sea knows these people.” He hummed a little, then said, “...waiting for the sun.”

  Yuri gently motioned him to be quiet. He sat with his eyes closed and listened until Ivan finished. He smiled at him and said, “Very beautiful.”

  All through the night they took turn singing patriotic songs, Hebrew hymns, Serbian fighting songs, even some American songs. Just at false dawn, the truck rumbled through the streets of Zagreb. It was a Friday in the spring of 1946. Petar stopped and bought a newspaper before they motored on. He was driving now.

  On the front page was a large article about the Nuremberg trials of prominent Nazis. Ivan slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “Good, now they will hang some of those bastards! Soon we will start rounding up our Croat Nazis, only we know them as Ustasha.” He turned his head and now, eyes serious, said, “The Ustasha, under Pavelic, were worse than the SS. They didn’t like gassing. Too easy. They liked killing with hammers, axes, swords, like that.”

  Petar motored out and up into the hills before descending a winding road into the town of Loka. On a hill overlooking the small town stood an imposing castle. There were turrets at the corners Isaac could see, one round and the other with squared corners, maybe octagonal. Back in medieval times red-tiled roofs would have kept the enemies’ fiery arrows from setting them alight.

  They pulled into the yard of a farmhouse on the edge of the town and the four tumbled out, stretching and groaning. Petar ushered them inside. There was food on the table, some dry sausage, cheese and bread along with a bottle of local wine. The men ate rapidly, then Petar showed them to a room with four beds. It reminded Isaac of a barracks, each bed with a low wood chest at its foot.

  “Sleep. We leave again in late afternoon,” said Ivan.

  Isaac and Yuri needed no urging. Both fell asleep quickly. Except for the sound of the occasional car or truck passing, they slept deeply and awoke only when a hand shook their shoulders.

  Chapter 23

  The sun was low in the west when Isaac rolled out of bed. It was warm in the stone-walled farmhouse. Petar gestured them to come into the kitchen where, again, there was food on the table. This time it was some spicy ground meat with potatoes and green beans, and a freshly baked loaf of bread. They fell to and were silent as they ate.

  Finally Isaac broke the silence, “Petar, can we bathe before w
e go?”

  Ivan snorted, “You Jews, always bathing.”

  Petar leaned forward, “From here on, it will be fine for daylight travel until we get to the eastern part of Germany. The Russians are much more concerned with, um, tourists, than the Americans or British. We are farmers. We will go north through Austria and Bavaria until we get close to the Russian zone. So, to answer your question, no, we will not bathe. We must be smelly farmers.”

  “And then?” Isaac asked.

  He shrugged again, “Then we will improvise. I think we will exchange this truck for a more, um, civilian looking one, if you know what I mean.”

  Isaac nodded. “I wonder why they didn’t fly us all this way instead of driving.”

  “Didn’t they tell you? There is no such air transport allowed yet. Only military. If we tried, we might have been shot down.”

  Isaac was startled. “This long after the war? But it is over.”

  Petar laughed, “For some, maybe, but the Americans, the British and even the French want to control everything. And, of course, there’s the Russians. No, we will be able to accomplish our mission best with a farm truck.”

  “Our mission?” asked Isaac, surprised. “I thought this was my mission, mine and Yuri’s.” He frowned, “How has this become ‘our’ mission?”

  Ivan slapped Isaac on the back. “Our illustrious leader, Marshal Tito, has graciously ordered us to assist you in your mission. We have had a bit of experience stealing weapons from our enemies.” He laughed again and then looked at Isaac seriously. “Look, young fellow, we know that someday the Jews will have their own state, and it will be a strong one. Our leader wishes us to help you so that when the great state of Palestine comes into existence, it will be our friend. So, you see, we are in this together, yes?”

  Isaac nodded hesitantly and said, “It will be called Israel, not Palestine.”

  “Israel, Palestine, makes no difference to us. Just be our friends.”