Jerusalem Interlude

by Bodie Thoene

  The million raging voices blended into Victoria’s voice, and she thought she called the name of Eli out loud as she slept. A sudden fear took hold of her. She must not speak his name. Not in her sleep.

  “Victoria.”

  She heard Eli’s voice.

  “Victoria! Wake up. Victoria” It was not Eli but Ibrahim who called her. “Get out of the backseat. He is coming!”

  Victoria opened her eyes and fought to remember where she was. The Dead Sea. With Ibrahim. Waiting for someone.

  In the distance she could hear the soft sputtering of a motorboat engine on the water. Ibrahim flicked the headlights once. Twice. A third time. The steady thrumming of the engine replied in a slight change of course, and now it cut an unswerving path toward the automobile.

  Victoria sat up quietly and brushed her hair back as she studied the intense profile of her brother. Even in the darkness his eyes glowed with a strange light. Excitement, as if he were watching two mongrel dogs fighting to the death in the street while the men shouted wagers around him. Victoria had seen that look before on the face of Ibrahim. It had frightened her then, and it frightened her now.

  The motor thumped louder, and again Ibrahim flicked the lights. A fraction of a second was enough to illuminate a small, dilapidated boat carrying three men with faces turned toward the shoreline of Palestine. Two were Arabs, dressed as the Bedouins who camped around Amman. The third man was of fairer skin. His bald head had no covering. Victoria knew by this that the man was European. His mouth was a cruel hard line, lips pressed together in disgust.

  The bald man’s face seemed to burn into Victoria’s mind. That second of light filled her with foreboding. “Praise be to Allah,” Ibrahim whispered. “He has come at last!”

  So the man with the cruel mouth was the one they had been waiting for. Victoria shuddered as the motor of the boat coughed and died. There were words murmured at the shoreline. The guttural accent of German was plainly distinguishable. She stared forward, trying to find some movement in the darkness outside the car.

  Footsteps approached. The man was invisible in the blackness. And then hands touched the half-open glass of the window. Victoria drew back from the thick pale fingers that almost touched her face. And then the voice spoke. “I am Commander Vargen, here at the command of the Führer of the Third Reich, Heil Hitler!” Without further speech the door opened, and the man with the cruel mouth slid in beside Ibrahim.

  ***

  Freddie lifted Charles and Louis up on his shoulders as they waited in the wings of the theater for Elisa. Her box was stuffed with mimeographed sheets containing notes on the score and changes of rehearsal schedules. She tugged on the stack of papers, then groaned as they tumbled out onto the floor. Frieda Hillman looked on, amused.

  Freddie placed his young charges down on the stage and stooped to help her retrieve her papers.

  “Well, Missus . . . ,” he said, holding up an envelope and squinting as if to look through the paper, “ehat’s this now?” Frieda leaned over for a glance, then returned to adding still more papers to other boxes.

  Elisa took it from him, frowning as she recognized the neat German script of the handwriting, then the postmark. Paris. Her hands began to tremble as she passed it back to Freddie. “You open it,” she said hoarsely.

  He nodded and stood slowly to his full towering height as he slit open the envelope with a penknife. His face was a scowl of disapproval as he silently scanned the letter. He shook his head and then shook it again as if he could not comprehend the meaning of the message.

  “What is it, Freddie?” Elisa managed to ask.

  He did not answer for a long time. He opened his mouth, then closed it again as he considered what to say. “Do you know anyone named von Kleistmann, Missus?” He put a big paw beneath her arm and guided her to a bench as the boys played on a backstage platform.

  “Thomas,” she replied dully.

  “That’s the same. Now sit down, Missus. Sit before you read, will you now?”

  ***

  Rachel did not mean to listen. The door of her parents’ room was slightly ajar. Mama sat on the yellow coverlet while Papa paced at the foot of the bed. Papa’s eyes were full of pain and worry as Mama pleaded with him in a voice so desperate that Rachel scarcely recognized it.

  “I sent the documents to Father in Jerusalem. Eduard will make certain he receives them.”

  “But Etta! Why?”

  “I am a daughter of Jerusalem! My birth certificate, my old passport can be renewed. For the sake of the children, Aaron! We must be prepared!”

  “You are a citizen of Poland now, Etta! We will have to take our place at the end of the quota line like everyone else!”

  “Father will do what he can for us in Jerusalem! He is a rabbi! They will listen to him! At least we can send the children—”

  “You have been listening too much to Eduard!” Papa took off his coat and threw it onto the bed.

  “You said they were following Eduard. But look!” Mama jumped to her feet. She went to the window but did not pull back the curtain. Fear crossed her face. “You know we are also being watched, Aaron. Ever since you came back from the refugee camp, you have been followed! I cannot go to market without some horrible man trailing along behind! I am a woman, but still I have eyes to see what is happening! You bury your head in the sand, Aaron, and you may well bury us, too!”

  Rachel had never heard them argue. The sound of it, the sight of their faces, made her stomach churn.

  Papa’s face was red. “Read the newspapers, Etta! Do you think we will be safer in Palestine than we are here? In Warsaw there are no riots! We have not had a pogrom in months! Jerusalem has violence every day! I cannot leave the congregation! I will not! The police may follow us all day long, but there will never be a crime for which they can arrest us! I am a rabbi! A humanitarian, not a politician.” His own words made him falter. He fell silent suddenly and rubbed a hand across his face as Mama glared at him unhappily.

  And then Papa looked toward the door. He saw Rachel. He saw by her wide, terrified eyes that she had heard everything. His anger exploded. “What are you doing there?” He stalked to the door. “Why are you sneaking around the halls!”

  “Oh, Papa!” Rachel cried as if his anger was a physical blow. “I did not mean to—”

  “Go to your room!” He slammed the door in her face and she ran weeping up the narrow stairs to her bedroom.

  The volume of the argument dropped low. It hissed up through the floor like escaping steam. It did not stop for hours until, at last, Rachel fell into an exhausted and restless sleep.

  ***

  Three other wire services already placed the name of Leah Feldstein at the top of the list of wounded in the Jerusalem bombing. Murphy read Samuel Orde’s dispatch aloud as it clacked the full story over the TNS office wire.

  Renowned cellist Leah Feldstein suffered minor injuries Stop The involvement of foreign instigators suspected by British officials Stop

  This was an element no other reports had even mentioned. Murphy inwardly cheered Orde’s thoroughness as the story added a dozen minor details that transformed a flat tale of violence into a three-dimensional portrait.

  Comments of the royal commission of inquiry headed by Sir John Woodhead in Jerusalem have expressed concern for safety of all residents of Palestine Mandate Stop Such events have given rise to question of how an independent Jewish state would survive such onslaughts on its own without protection of British military forces Stop

  Murphy frowned at this paragraph. “In other words,” he said dryly “Ol’ Woodhead thinks maybe a Jewish homeland is not such a grand idea after all—eh, Orde?”

  The dispatch continued:

  British military sources in Jerusalem have drawn parallels between activity of foreign mercenaries in Spanish Civil War and recent events in Palestine Stop Nearly twenty thousand British troops now occupy mandate territory in attempt to keep peace Stop

  Murphy had been in Spai
n. He had seen the planes of the German Luftwaffe over Madrid and Barcelona. He had watched the weak Fascist armies of Franco become strong and brutal with Nazi men and equipment. The same thing was happening in Palestine. This time it was twenty thousand British soldiers who would be tied up away from whatever might happen in Europe. And Murphy was certain that Hitler’s “last territorial demands in Europe” were really not the last. How convenient to intimidate England into remaining tied up in Palestine while at the same time closing off further hope of a Jewish homeland!

  “Hitler really is a genius,” Murphy remarked to Harvey Terrill. “Diabolical. Evil. And brilliant.”

  “You want to edit Orde’s piece or shall I?” Harvey scanned the page.

  Murphy shook his head. “Print it word-for-word the way he wrote it. We can hope there will be a few out there who can read between the lines, Harvey.” Murphy pocketed a copy of the story. “Anyway, I’m going home. Leah Feldstein is okay. That is the only news my wife will care about. I need to tell her before somebody else calls her with only half a story and word that Leah was hurt.”

  Harvey saluted. He knew Murphy had been working for fourteen hours straight today. “You want me to call if there’s anything else, Boss?”

  Murphy nodded wearily. He needed a shave and a shower and a good night’s sleep, but there was enough implied in Samuel Orde’s story to keep him wide awake. The gates of hell were slowly swinging open in Palestine. Churchill had called the Mandate Hitler’s second front against British foreign policy. After today, Murphy believed that Palestine might well be the first front against England and certainly against the Jewish people.

  “I’m going to sleep light tonight, Harvey. Keep me posted on this one.” He frowned and stared out the dark window, where the bright headlights of a bus swept over Fleet Street like searchlights. “Something’s coming,” he muttered.

  ***

  All the lights of the Red Lion house were blazing when Murphy arrived home. Freddie Frutschy greeted him at the top of the stairs. The big man’s expression was an unhappy scowl as he wrapped his enormous hand around Murphy’s.

  “She’s heard the news, huh?” Murphy asked quietly.

  For a moment Freddie looked perplexed. “Yessir. And an unhappy way to hear such a thing, too. I stayed right here with her an’ the boys ‘til you come home.”

  She was not in the front room. Murphy stepped past Freddie. The radio in his study played Benny Goodman live from the Algonquin Hotel in New York. Murphy remembered how much Leah liked Benny Goodman.

  Elisa appeared in the doorway. Murphy could tell she had been crying. “Oh, Murphy!” she said softly.

  Murphy put his arms around Elisa and she began to weep softly. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s okay. I got the story from Jerusalem, and she’s . . .”

  Elisa stiffened. “Jerusalem? What—”

  “Leah,” he answered. “You heard about the bombing. But Leah is—”

  “Leah? Bombing?” A look of such anguish swept across her face that Murphy knew she had not heard.

  “You don’t know!” He turned to look at Freddie who stood at the door wringing his cap. “What’s happened?”

  “A letter for the Missus. From Paris again.” He frowned. “Some bad news. I thought it best I stay close until you arrived.”

  Elisa was still digesting the fact that Murphy had mentioned Leah’s name in connection with a bombing. It was almost too much. She sat down and tugged the rumpled letter from her pocket. “Leah,” she whispered.

  “She’s all right, I tell you!” Murphy sat down beside her. He raised a hand in farewell to Freddie. “Thanks, pal.” A nod of acknowledgment and the big man left them alone.

  “Was she hurt, Murphy? Was Leah—” Elisa asked.

  “Only minor injuries.” Murphy opened the letter. He scanned the words. Each phrase was like a shock of cold water.

  Thomas von Kleistmann died the silent death of a hero. Gestapo in Paris mentioned the name of Elisa Murphy in connection with the activities of von Kleistmann opposing the Nazis. Take every precaution for your safety and for the sake of those who remain in Germany whose names you know. Their lives depend on silence. Please destroy this communication. God bless you. God restore our nation. Heil Deutschland!

  Murphy lowered the letter and took Elisa’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Elisa.”

  Elisa could not speak. Tears brimmed in her eyes, and she pressed her lips together and shook her head as if to resist any more crying tonight. She leaned against Murphy, letting him cradle her in his arms. She was glad she had not heard the news about Leah in Jerusalem from anyone but him. She could trust him that her friend was all right. Somehow that also comforted her in the grief she felt for Thomas tonight. It had drawn her away from the knowledge that he was dead. Leah is alive!

  Murphy did not speak for a long time; he simply held her. “The postmark is Paris?” he finally asked.

  Elisa nodded, then sat up to search her pockets for the envelope. “I . . . must have thrown it away. Or . . . I don’t know. Bu it was Paris.”

  Murphy moved to open his rolltop desk to retrieve the first postcard. He had tucked it beneath the edge of his desk blotter. It was not there. “Did you see a postcard here?” he asked in a puzzled voice.

  She joined him to search for the postcard. “No. I never . . . what is it about?”

  Murphy looked at her thoughtfully, then explained.

  They looked in every drawer and cubbyhole in the massive desk. The postcard was not there.

  Murphy tried to think. He might have gathered it up accidentally with something else. Taken it to the office. Maybe it did not matter. He took the letter from his pocket and knelt before the glazing hearth. He touched a corner of the paper to the flame and held it there until it flared up, then yellowed and blackened. The silent death of a hero.

  ***

  Carved out from the labyrinth of stone corridors and secret tunnels that honeycombed the mount beneath the Dome of the Rock, a small square room lay hidden deep below the surface. In the room, a square table, bathed by a single shaft of light, held a black leather letter case.

  Three sets of hands ringed the fringe of light around the table, the faces shrouded in shadow. It seemed as if the light had come into the room only for the sake of the letter case; as if this leather folder were on display, and the men had come to worship it.

  “Open it,” instructed the voice of Doktor Hockman to Haj Amin. “You will find it as I promised.”

  Delicate hands and embroidered tapestry sleeves reached for the letter case, hesitated, and then opened it. “I was expecting . . . hoping for Officer Georg Wand. He trained my men.” Haj Amin Husseini was not pleased by the arrival of Commander Vargen.

  Vargen spoke up, not to defend himself, but to explain. “Wand is dead. In service to the Fatherland. But you may read for yourself my rank and experience.”

  The swastika and the eagle were emblazoned on the letterhead of the paper. The greeting was a personal one from Adolf Hitler to the Mufti. In the shadow, a hint of a smile tugged at Haj Amin’s narrow lips. “Ah,” he said at last. “You fought with the Turks against the English in the war.”

  “He aided in the disposal of the Armenians at that time, Your Excellency,” Doktor Hockman spoke up quickly. “He did not fight against the Arab armies.”

  “It would not matter if he had,” said Haj Amin lightly. “I fought with the British against the Germans and the Turks, but you see now how time has changed all that. The English are our enemies, and you are now here in Palestine—perhaps hoping to claim the territory once again for Germany?”

  “Our goal is the same as your own,” Vargen said coolly. He would not be baited. “We wish to see the end of British power here and the end of the Jewish problem. For that reason the Führer sent me as his personal representative.”

  “And what do you think of our efforts? We have claimed the roads and fields for our own after dark. The streets of Jerusalem are under my control. One w
ord, and—” Haj Amin was pleased with himself.

  “A good beginning. Small and unprofessional, but a beginning nonetheless.”

  Haj Amin ignored the jibe and scanned the papers without emotion. Lists of the names—Jews—Englishmen—Christian Arabs . . . targeted for assassination. Riots planned for Safed. Haifa. Jaffa. Galilee. And Jerusalem, of course. Routes for the rioting mobs to follow. Shops to be destroyed. Everything was clearly laid out with German precision.

  Haj Amin read and read again. He laid the sheaf of papers back in the light. “All this planned for the same day, the same hour. It is not possible.”

  Hockman cleared his throat as if the word impossible was blasphemous. “Commands are not given that are impossible to follow.”

  “I do not have men enough or army enough for such widespread actions,” Haj Amin protested.

  Vargen smiled. This little Muslim knew much but he had much to learn. “Your people will be your army! Call on them! In every city and town they will come.”

  Haj Amin shook his head slowly. “Not even the voice of the prophet could arouse them to this in one moment! They will not be moved . . . not this far!”

  “You must provide the reason.” Vargen’s voice was patronizing.

  “I have called for a holy war. Some fight for the sake of Allah because I demand it, but most—”

  Vargen leaned forward until the light illuminated his face. He was the teacher, Haj Amin the pupil. “Not alone for the sake of a god! Only fools will fight and die for the sake of a god alone. In the Reich—” he paused for effect—“our Führer has learned that the love of a god and love of a country will not turn the hearts of men to his will.” He crossed his arms and sat back again. “Ah, but when the enemy defiles a woman! Perhaps not even a woman of your house, not wife or mother, but a woman of your own race—you see? In days of old a virgin was presented as a sacrifice to the gods. There are lessons in legend, Haj Amin. Find me a woman to sacrifice to the gods, and the people will be yours!”