They packed their bags again and loaded them in their truck. This time Isaac and Yuri sat in the rear. There was more room and, as cover, Petar had arranged for them to have a load comprising ten large barrels full of dried fruits.
After an hour of driving, they reached the border. Petar said something to the guard, handed him some papers and a large box of chocolates and on they went, passing through Salzburg and, just before coming to the border with Germany, they stopped by the side of the road.
Ivan slapped the side of the door and Isaac and Yuri looked out. He beckoned them forward. “We are going to enter Germany in a few minutes. It is dark, so we can slip in easily. I know a back road. I think it best if we do not alert the Americans that we are coming, yes?”
Isaac nodded. “Will we need weapons?” He and Yuri were now familiar with a variety of small arms and could use them if necessary. He assumed that applied to Ivan and Petar also.
“Not on the way in, I am hoping. On the way out?” Ivan shrugged, “Maybe, but we will have plenty, no? MP-40 machine guns. You know how to use them?”
Both Isaac and Yuri nodded. “We have had training.”
Ivan and Petar looked at each other with raised eyebrows, “But have you ever killed anyone?” Petar asked.
Isaac hesitated, “Yes, but not with a gun.”
“Oh, really? How then?” Ivan was skeptical, standing with his hands on hips, eyeing the skinny Jew.
Uncomfortably, Isaac answered carefully, “One I hit with a rock many times. The second, I pinched his mouth and nose until he stopped breathing.” All was quiet for a few moments. The crickets chirped, the cicadas buzzed and the full moon shone down on the little tableau.
“Good,” said Ivan. “Let us go, my friends.”
They climbed back in, and Yuri and Isaac slumped down behind a row of barrels. The truck turned and jounced over a poor dirt road for almost an hour. Isaac tried to sleep but the ride in the truck was just too uncomfortable.
Finally, near dawn, Ivan stopped again. They all stretched and urinated. Petar said, “Welcome to Germany. I guess it will be safe for you to speak German now, Isaac.” He chuckled to himself. “Yuri, will you be all right in back there alone? I’d like Isaac up here with us since neither Ivan or I speak very good German. Just curse words, yes?”
Yuri nodded and climbed back inside the rear. Isaac sat between the two men and looked at the countryside as the day dawned. An hour later, they crossed the Danube on a floating bridge the Allies had constructed. The rubble lay a hundred meters to the north, and a work crew was already out repairing the downed span. They looked like locals, but there were two green military trucks parked nearby, and several soldiers patrolled along the banks.
One soldier waved at the similar truck, even though theirs had no markings, which had been painted out. Ivan waved back as they headed north on the graveled road paralleling the river. Once into the countryside, it was as if no war had ever happened. Farmers sat on tractors plowing their fields, fences stood sturdy and cattle grazed. All was normal, all was serene. Isaac wished that it had all just stayed as it was now. His parents would be alive, his brother and sister alive, probably married by now, and he would be an uncle to two or three chubby kinder. For some reason, he didn’t picture himself married. He again wondered what had happened to the young girl he’d met on the train, Deborah Eisenstein.
He sighed, mind heavy with thoughts of the dead. He turned his head and studied Petar. “Are you married?” he asked softly.
Petar frowned, “No. I was, but my wife was killed. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious about men like us. How about Ivan?”
“Ivan, are you married?” Petar asked loudly.
“Me? Hah! I am married to many ladies. Who can choose? I love them all!”
They all laughed and Isaac went back to studying the countryside. As they peeled away from the river, Isaac could see a large forest off in the distance. Another road skirted the tall trees, and Ivan turned onto it.
Petar consulted a map and said, “There is a town, Waldsassen, about one hour ahead. We will see if we can trade our truck off there.”
It was a bit more than an hour and they were all growing weary of the long, back-road drive. Finally, after crossing a small river, they came into the town square and stopped. Few people looked at them as the three alighted and stretched yet again. Yuri hopped out from the rear and joined them.
“What is next?” he asked in German.
“We need to swap this vehicle for a farm truck,” Isaac answered, looking about. “Have you any money, Yuri?”
“Of course,” he replied. “We have spent almost none of the money we were given.” Kneeling, he opened his bag and produced a thick sheaf of Deutschmarks. “Do you think these will be any good?”
Isaac shrugged. “Let us go find out.” After asking Ivan and Petar to stay with the truck, they walked off looking for the post office. It was on the corner of the square in an arcade-type building. As they entered, Isaac asked the matronly woman behind the chest-high counter, “Bitte, do you know where we might buy or rent a lorry for a few days?” He held out the sheaf of bills and said, “I also have some American money if that will help.”
The gray-haired dumpling of a woman looked at him suspiciously, “What do you want it for?”
Isaac considered, then leaned on the counter and counted out five hundred marks and said, “My brother and I are going into the Russian zone to bring out our parents.” The lie came easily to his lips. Did he feel remorse? No, he had a mission. He would do anything to get the weapons back to Palestine and his comrades in the Irgun. He would show them what he was made of.
The old lady nodded. “My brother died in the war. He has a lorry in his shed on the farm about three kilometers east of town. Can you clean it and get it running?”
Isaac nodded. “I have two other friends from Croatia outside. They are good mechanics. I will give you ten thousand marks for the rent of your lorry for one week, yes?” He knew that was a lot. A mortgage payment on a house for one month at this time would be only maybe twenty-five thousand marks.
She considered, shrewd woman that she was, and asked, “What will happen if the Russians catch you and I do not get the lorry back?”
Isaac pondered his next move. “I will give you an additional twenty-five thousand marks to hold for us. If we do not come back in one week, you keep the money.” He held a hand out across the counter, and, almost reluctantly, she took his. Isaac grasped her hand tightly and pulled her close. “This is a confidential agreement between us, hein?”
She nodded, mouth pursed, and pointed, “Three kilometers down this road. At the corner where the old tractor sits, go left. First farm on the left side. The lorry is in the shed behind house. You may put your lorry in the shed until you return, if you return.” She smiled a tight smile of triumph. Now she pulled Isaac close, “If you get caught, the lorry is mine also, hein?”
Isaac shrugged. Why not? He nodded and released her hand. Counting out the marks on the counter, he watched her lips move while he counted out thirty-five thousand Reichmarks. He grinned and said, “We will return in one week.”
They drove out to the farm. Though overgrown with weeds, they easily found it and the shed behind the house. There were three bays, two open with rusty farm equipment inside and one closed. Ivan swung the closed door open and saw the lorry. It was a large six-wheel Daimler diesel-powered lorry with a closed cab and an open, flat wooden bed.
Ivan opened the hood and propped it up with a stick he found leaning against the wall. Even with the shed doors open, there was barely enough light to work.
Ivan ordered Isaac to hitch a chain to their rear bumper and tow the Daimler into the light, which they did. It rolled out easily. Petar found a bucket and a piece of hose. After cleaning them, he siphoned several liters of diesel fuel out of their lorry and put them in the Daimler.
Ivan unbolted their battery and installed it in the Daimler. The engine groa
ned and turned slowly at first, then it spun faster and faster, finally coughing to life. Black smoke belched out the exhaust pipe, as the new fuel mixed with the old. In a few minutes, the engine settled into an even chug, chug, chug. Ivan looked out the cab and nodded. “Sounds good, men. Let’s push our lorry into the shed and transfer the barrels onto this one.” While Ivan and Yuri transferred the barrels from one lorry to the other, Isaac and Petar siphoned all of the petrol from the military style lorry to the old farm one.
In the dusk, the four men piled in and drove along the rutted dirt road. After three miles they turned north and drove into the thick wood. The road grew narrow but still cut through. It was not used often, but there were signs that it was kept clear: an occasional branch trimmed, a deeper rut filled. After a while, Isaac suspected they must be in the Russian sector of Germany. Had the Russians had time to consolidate their hold on everything? He hoped not.
The old farm truck, its bed filled with barrels of dried fruit, two smelly farm boys in the rear and two even smellier farm men in the cab, rolled on through the night. They came to a main road and Ivan stopped. "Which way, Petar?"
Isaac knocked on the cab window. When Ivan looked back, Isaac motioned left. They were coming into his home territory. When his father and grandfather were alive, he'd ridden with them on the train or in their auto to sell their jewelry or to purchase findings, gold chain and even small amounts of gold and silver. The next town they would come to would be Buchholz. It was a metal center. There was mining in the local mountains, mostly coal and granite, but enough veins of both gold and silver to make frequent trips here worthwhile.
Papa liked coming here. He and his friends would eat and drink in a local gasthaus, owned by a brother of one of his suppliers. Isaac was even permitted some beer. Though most of the people in attendance were fellow Jews, there were also German dealers. At the time, everyone was quite convivial. After all, business was business.
With the coming dawn creeping over the eastern mountains, Ivan drove through Buchholz and turned on to the road to Chemnitz, where they were to get the guns. Isaac's orders were to go to a grocery store on the north end of town, on a Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse, next to a church. He knew the area.
He signaled Ivan to pull over near a dirt road leading back into the hills. Isaac and Yuri hopped out. Ivan and Petar lit cigarettes, some vile smelling Turkish smokes. "Are you going to tell us now where we pick up the guns?" asked Petar.
Before he could answer, a small military vehicle with two Russian soldiers drove past. Yuri waved and one of the soldiers waved back. A few dozen meters down the road, the vehicle slowed, stopped and reversed, backing up to where they were stopped. Ivan recognized it as a Gaz67, the Russian equal to the American Jeep and the British Austin Champ.
"Uh oh, get ready," whispered Petar. "Spread out a little, men."
Isaac and Yuri moved to the rear of the truck while Ivan and Petar leaned against the truck's front fender, smoking.
The Gaz stopped, and Ivan held out the pack of cigarettes to the soldiers. The one in the passenger seat nodded and took two. Ivan waited a minute, then handed the stub of his cigarette to the soldier. He lit both cigarettes and handed one to the driver, a dark, pockmarked man with thick dark eyebrows. His nose had been broken and was twisted to one side. The passenger was younger, fairer and looked like an ideal Aryan.
The driver grunted something in Russian. Ivan frowned and raised his palms. Both the Russians had sub-machine guns. The driver motioned the younger passenger out. He told him something, clearly instructing him to examine the truck's cargo.
He motioned Yuri and Isaac aside and hopped up into the bed of their lorry. He removed the tops of two random casks and plunged his hand in a few inches. He called to his colleague.
The only word Isaac understood was strudel. He grinned and said in German, "Ya, fur strudel." The he added, "Chemnitz," and pointed.
Clutching a handful of dried apricots, the young soldier jumped down. "Gut," he smiled and handed some to his partner as he climbed back in the Gaz. He waved a hand negligently as they drove away.
"Russian pigs," muttered Petar. "What were they saying, Ivan?"
Yuri and Isaac had rejoined their comrades. "You speak Russian, Ivan?" asked Isaac.
“Yes, speak everything, mostly anything to do with money, guns and women. Hah!" He grinned and slapped Isaac on the back. He shrugged, "They say we smell like pigs, that we are just stinking farmers, and they wouldn't eat strudel made with our dried fruit."
"So why did that boy take some of our fruit?" asked Yuri.
Ivan shrugged again, "I guess it tasted good." He opened the door to the cab, "Come. Let us go to Chemnitz." He pointed at Isaac, "You had better ride up front with me, boy." Turning to Petar, he said, "You don't mind, do you, brother?"
Once again, they were on their way. Offhandedly, Isaac said, "We do smell a bit ripe, don't we?"
Ivan laughed long and hard, pounding the wheel. “Yes, my son, and our odor works in our favor!” He grinned at Isaac and lit another cigarette, forcing Isaac to roll down his window and stick his head out.
An hour later, they rolled into Chemnitz, a rather large city of once over 300,000, but since the war and the abandonment of large factories, now housed no more than 50,000 inhabitants. Despite that, it was still one of the largest cities in the Russian occupied territory in Germany. Isaac directed Ivan through the city, which had been almost totally destroyed by bombing. They made frequent detours around rubble-covered streets. Most buildings were just bombed-out shells. People rummaged through the piles for food or valuables. There were soldiers everywhere supervising work crews clearing streets. Most of this was done by hand. Occasionally they saw and heard heavy construction machinery working hard. The intact buildings seemed to house troops and government services.
Soldiers only accosted them once, and Petar satisfied them by filling up a steel helmet with dried fruit. Once they had gained a clear road through the city, they headed for Altendorf, a suburb northwest of the city. Isaac was surprised that it was relatively untouched. It was only a small village, but Isaac had visited here several times with his father or grandfather. Coming out of Chemnitz, they drove onto Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse, which was the main road into Altendorf. They passed a deserted hardware store, a dress shop and finally the grocery store beside the small church. Ivan pulled to the curb and shut the engine off.
Chapter 24
The four alighted and stretched once more. The grocery store looked as deserted as the other businesses on this street. Isaac wiped the dirt off the window in the door and knocked. When no one answered, he knocked harder. The door opened a crack, and a woman peered out. She was older, with gray hair and dull blue eyes. Her nose had a scar that ran onto her cheek making her left eye squint where the flesh had puckered.
"Ya? What do you want?" she asked.
"I am Blue Boy from Minsk," he answered as he had been instructed.
She nodded. "Go around back. Drive the lorry there also, ya?"
Isaac nodded and repeated her instructions to the others. Ivan climbed back into the cab with a groan. The last thing any on them wanted to do was climb back in the lorry. Isaac led the others down the alley between the deserted dress shop and the grocer. The buildings showed pockmarks from gunfire. Bombs had hit several buildings on the outskirts, but this area was relatively untouched. Isaac knocked on the rear door.
The same woman unlatched it and invited them in. As the men filed in, she introduced herself as Sofia.
She shook hands with each of them. "Come. I will make food, and then you can sleep."
The rear of the grocery store held a small apartment with a kitchen on the right and a sitting room to the left. A single bedroom was off the sitting room and a door that led to a bathroom stood ajar. Ivan checked all rooms and nodded to Isaac and Petar.
Sofia just watched him check the rooms and then shook her head. "Looking for hidden Nazis?" she asked with a toothless chuckle. "Come," she said
, beckoning. They followed her into the bedroom, where she opened the doors to a large wardrobe, shoved the meager clothing aside and pushed a panel back, revealing a hidden room. Petar followed her, motioning the others to stay back. Inside the tiny room, no bigger than a large closet, sat a desk with a Grundig short-wave radio and several sub-machine guns on it. She grinned at Petar. "You may want to call home, ya?"
Isaac stuck his head in and eyed the radio. "Tonight, may I call Palestine, Sofia?"
"Of course, young man. You are Isaac?"
"Yes, Frau Sofia. I came here from Palestine. We are going to establish the state of Israel."
"Mazel tov," she cackled. "I may come to join you. With my son, of course."
"You are Jewish? How did you survive?"
She laughed again, "Well, young Isaac, I must confess, I am not a very good Jew. My neighbors did not know I was a Jew, and I was not about to tell them." She shooed them out of her way. “My son will be home soon. They have him working, cleaning streets."
Sofia made her way back to the kitchen. "Now you should sleep. There are pillows and blankets beside the bed. I will wake you when supper is ready."
They spread out on Sofia's floor and were soon asleep. As the day faded into night, the only sounds were an occasional clank of a kitchen utensil or a far-off rumble of a bulldozer or loader.
Isaac dreamed of the rumble of tanks, Tigers and Panzers rolling toward some undefined front. He was creeping through a forest, his father and brother beside him. Before him stood an SS officer in full dress uniform. He wore a monocle and had a riding crop tucked under his arm. Slowly Isaac raised a rifle and pointed it at the German officer. He was only ten feet away and knew he couldn't miss. But could he do it? His finger tightened on the trigger. He looked up and the officer's face changed to his grandfather's just as he shot. The bullet was slowly traveling from the barrel of the rifle, so slowly Isaac could see it. He jumped up and tried to catch it or knock it off course, but it passed through his hand. His grandfather, now clad in a dark gray suit, had a look of total surprise on his face as the bullet pierced his chest. Isaac was now right in front his grandfather, arms outstretched. His grandfather looked so sad. He just said, "Why?" before he disappeared.
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