Jerusalem Interlude

by Bodie Thoene

  Haj Amin sat back in confusion. “But . . . we worship Allah. The law forbids such—”

  “You worship your own ambition,” Vargen hissed, “the god of yourself! The god of the adoration of your Muslim followers!”

  “I will not be insulted by this . . . madman!” Haj Amin stood.

  Hockman raised a hand to calm him. “Please, Your Excellency. Herr Vargen speaks . . . in a figurative sense! He is a poet who teaches you the way to achieve your goals!”

  Haj Amin did not sit. “Speak on then, poet,” he warned. “But remember I have only to raise my hand and you are the sacrifice!”

  Vargen laughed. He was unafraid of the threat. “Find me a woman, Haj Amin, and I will find a Jew who will violate her. This small act will give you an army that will roar over the English and the Jews of Palestine with a storm of revenge!”

  There was a long silence in the square stone room. Haj Amin sat down slowly in his chair. His hands flitted into the light and picked up the papers. “A simple matter of rape?” There was amusement in his voice.

  “The rape of a Muslim woman by a Jew.” Vargen grinned. “Even a prostitute will suffice. It is the subject matter that will create the explosion—a proven method in the Reich.”

  Haj Amin rarely laughed. Outside the dark corridor, his bodyguards exchanged wondering glances when the laughter of their leader reached their ears.

  “There is time to consider the characters in our play.” Haj Amin wiped away tears of mirth. “Hitler is right! Was there ever a match struck that could cause a greater fire? A rape! Indeed, this poet understands men’s passions!”

  There were other matters of business to discuss, but Haj Amin was still chuckling to himself as he made his way through the passageways to his private residence just beyond the courtyard of the Dome of the Rock.

  33

  A Chink in the Wall

  A thick fog blanketed Berlin. The British Embassy was dank and musty-smelling as the moisture permeated the walls.

  Ambassador Henderson sat at the breakfast table in a heavy wool tweed jacket. He cracked his soft-boiled egg with a nervous tapping of his spoon as he discussed the bombing in Jerusalem with Theo.

  “My dear Mr. Stern . . . Mr. Lindheim,” he said in an amazed tone, “you cannot expect the British government to turn over any portion of Palestine to the Jews after something like this! Good heavens! Why would a Jew wish to live there? They cannot protect themselves, certainly.”

  “Where else are the refugees supposed to go?”

  “Go? I ask you why that matter has fallen squarely on the shoulders of Great Britain? Why are we supposed to decide such a thing?”

  “Because Great Britain occupies Palestine. And the various commissions have whittled down the land area that was promised as a Jewish national home. Acre by acre, the area for Jewish settlement and purchase of land grows smaller.”

  The spoon smashed irritably down on the eggshell. .”But why, in heaven’s name, do the Jews wish to settle there?”

  “Chaim Weizmann has said that there are two places in the world for the Jewish people: the countries where they are not wanted, and the countries where they cannot enter. Where are they to go, then?”

  “Well, if I were a Jew, I would not choose Palestine!”

  A sad smile. “I would not choose Palestine either if there were any place else to go.”

  “Ah, well.” Henderson smiled patronizingly as he lifted the dripping spoon to his lips. “Maybe your little talk with Hermann Göring will change all that, eh? This little trade arrangement should open the doors to a few more places. The United States? Certainly with all their self-righteous prattle about our management of Palestine, they will open their own doors for immigrants if your plan is successful, eh? That is why you have come.” He raised his coffee cup as if to toast Theo’s mission. “And so, here is to your success, Mr. Lindheim. May you get the monkey of immigration off the back of Great Britain.” He slurped as he drank.

  Theo found it a waste of time and energy to argue with a man as shortsighted as Henderson. Instead he ate his breakfast and listened politely as Henderson gabbed on about what a nice fellow Hermann Göring really was, what a splendid sportsman and hunter, what a droll and witty fellow, always ready with a joke.

  Theo did not respond with the information that he knew Göring well. He knew enough to be certain that Göring’s idea of what embodied a good hunt would no doubt be found in their meeting at Karinhall.

  ***

  For two hours after breakfast, the staff artist of the Palestine British military intelligence sat beside Leah’s bed and sketched portraits according to her direction. Orde looked on silently over Harry Smith’s shoulder as eyes were widened and eyebrows altered to meet in a solid line. Lips too full were erased and made thinner.

  “Yes. Yes. That is more like it,” Leah whispered in amazement as the picture in her mind became a tangible reflection of the men she had seen on Julian’s Way. The images were not exact likenesses, but they were close, she said. And the face of the burly, unshaven driver with his gold tooth was very close indeed.

  When she was satisfied with Smith’s efforts, she looked eagerly at Orde. “Find these fellows in Jerusalem, and you will have the murderers.”

  Orde thanked her with a nod, and suddenly her strength left her. She lay back wearily on her pillow and closed her eyes. She had been working very hard, and she was tired. She did not say good-bye.

  The two soldiers left her sleeping as they hurried off to headquarters to reproduce the faces Leah had given them. They would appear on a thousand posters to be posted throughout the city.

  ***

  Lucky, Tasha and Mr. Parks had called Victoria when she returned to work in the transportation department. She was lucky she had not been there. It was terrible. The explosion was horrible. And that nice cellist who had played so beautifully and liked Victoria enough to give her tickets to the Woodhead concert was also among the injured. She was in Hadassah Hospital, they said. And Victoria was very lucky she had not been there!

  There was nothing else talked about all day. Hardly any work was done. Victoria tried not to listen, tried to forget that her own brother had known enough about what happened that he had not let her come to work!

  By the time the Mandate offices had closed, Victoria was ill from all she had heard and all she knew but did not say. The guilt of her brothers had somehow blackened her own heart. Because of her, Leah Feldstein was in a hospital! Because Victoria did not run to the Palestine police with the word that something was planned, people had died.

  At least that is the way it felt. Was there anything I could have done? she asked herself a thousand times. The answer came in the memory of a locked door. A lie with which Ibrahim had carried her away from Jerusalem. No. There had been no chance. But what about now? Should she go to someone? Tell them that Ibrahim had been worried about her because he knew about the terrible something that had happened?

  She scanned the lobby, crowded now with uniformed British soldiers. Every bag and parcel was searched as residents entered the hotel through the revolving doors. Should she tell someone now? Tell them that Ibrahim knew? But others had known something was coming. The man on the bus had been talking about it. A demonstration, everyone had thought. What could Victoria say to these English soldiers? Arrest my brothers. Imprison them. Maybe they know who bombed the bus on Julian’s Way!

  Victoria did not know what to say. Ibrahim had denied that he knew any details. He swore to her that he had heard the rumors and was frightened for her well-being. But what of the man they had picked up on the shores of the Dead Sea? Victoria was certain that Ibrahim was not innocent, but she did not dare accuse him since she could not be sure of the scope of his involvement and guilt.

  Such thoughts made her exhausted, yet, she must do one thing before she went home to bed. She caught the bus to Hadassah Hospital. Leah Feldstein was injured, and Victoria knew she would not sleep unless she saw her. After all, Leah had been c
oming to meet her, coming for tea at the hotel! Victoria felt responsible for Leah’s condition, too, and so she hurried through the glass doors of Hadassah and asked for Leah’s ward number. The Jewish staff looked at her oddly, but Victoria didn’t care. She had to see Leah—no matter what.

  ***

  It was almost noon. Dr. Eduard Letzno had not slept in thirty-one hours. Sunlight had not touched him since he had entered Hadassah twenty-six hours before. It seemed much longer ago than yesterday since he had come here. He had seen lifetimes end. He had heard the stories of the wounded, watched the tears of families fall, given hope, and taken hope away. Before he had even had a chance to see the stones of Jerusalem, he had become as much a part of the city’s history of grief and travail as the stones themselves.

  His smock flecked with blood of Jerusalem’s wounded, Eduard caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a window. Beyond this ghost-like apparition of his face was the Dome of the Rock. The city wall encircled the holy mountain, embracing houses and shrines together. Christian. Muslim. Jew. All gathered into one unyielding ring of stone. Ironically, Eduard saw the great sight for the first time with his own face superimposed upon it. He had helped to save an Arab boy while he had been helpless to do anything for a Christian child the same age. A Jewish merchant had died in his arms. Yes. Eduard was part of the stones and flesh of Jerusalem, a fragment of living history after one day in Palestine. I was there. I tended the wounded and dying.

  He ran a hand over the sandpaper skin of his unshaven cheek. In the reflection of the window he did not look like a physician, but a butcher.

  A strong hand clapped him on the back as he stared at the glass ad then beyond at his new city. “Go on, man! Go get some rest,” said the guttural voice of Dr. Johann Kleinmann. Dr. Kleinmann had once been the head of a great German hospital. Once . . . a long time ago. Much longer ago than the lifetime that was Eduard’s yesterday.

  “So, Herr Doktor.” Eduard managed a smile. “I am finished then?”

  “It was good you were here. Good for us. Maybe not so good for you on your first day here, eh?”

  Eduard did not share what he was thinking, did not tell the doctor that since yesterday Eduard considered himself a native of the city. “I made one more round. There are several among the wounded who can go home. I have taken the liberty of signing their papers for discharge. They will need follow-up care, of course.”

  “Fine. Yes. So now you go home, too. Sleep. Eat something. I will tell Nurse Cominski to make the outpatient appointments beginning tomorrow at eight o’clock for you.” Another thump on the back. “I would hate to lose you to exhaustion before you have even started officially.”

  “Yes. I need to unpack.” Eduard looked again toward the Old City. “There is an old man I must see. Father of a friend in Warsaw.”

  “Fine. Fine. But pay your calls after you sleep a few hours or you will be of no use to us here in Hadassah Hospital—unless you plan to donate your body to science. I had a few hours’ sleep last night, and now so must you. An order from the chief of staff, eh?” A finger tapped against Eduard’s chest to make the point, and then Dr. Kleinmann hurried down the corridor as his name was called over the PA system.

  Eduard’s dull fingers fumbled with the ties of his smock as he made his way down the steps to the physician’s locker room. He showered at the hospital and then put on his same clothes. He smelled mildly of his own sweat tinged with antiseptic as he made his way outside to the bus stop. He carried Etta’s precious package beneath his arm. He had intended to visit her father in the Old City immediately following the orientation tour of Hadassah. His orientation had simply taken a bit longer than he expected. He would sleep later.

  The fresh air smelled good. He filled his lungs with it as the bus rattled toward Jaffa Gate. The slanting rays of the sun trapped light and shadow on the wrinkled complexion of the wall and suddenly it did indeed seem ancient. On the ramparts, British soldiers patrolled, while pigeons waddled along the crevices without concern for whose stones these really were.

  ***

  The printed words on the yellow notepaper were comforting to Leah, better than a wish for speedy recovery or the heaping basket of fruit on the bed beside her:

  Do not worry for anything. We are feeding that husband of yours at Tipat Chalev, along with the other children, so rest and be well.

  This was written in the firm hand of Hannah Cohen as she and Shoshanna Reingolt and Ida Sachar gathered around Leah’s bed. The fruit was presented with strict instructions that Leah must eat so many of this and so much of that each day lest her bowels become sluggish while she was in the hospital. After all, sluggish bowels had killed many more Jews that Arab bombs could ever kill, nu?

  Leah happily informed them that she had been released by Dr. Letzno to return home to her own bed tomorrow. This information resulted in a long discussion between the ladies about who would prepare and bring the meals in what shift. Leah could make out something about menus and what sort of herbal teas were best in cases of miscarriage. And then the animated conversation came to a halt.

  The eyes of Ida Sachar narrowed as she watched Victoria enter the ward. Leah observed the interaction of characters like someone watching the drama of a silent movie. Victoria seemed quite nervous as she entered the ward. At the sight of Eli’s glaring mother, she paled visibly and paused, as if considering which way she might escape.

  Perhaps Leah should have let her go, but she called out Victoria’s name impulsively. The three visitors frowned at Victoria, then at Leah, as if she were a traitor.

  “Victoria is my interpreter,” Leah said cheerfully. “And my first friend in Jerusalem.” She motioned for Victoria to come forward. The ladies seemed stunned. It was obvious that they knew this was the girl who had nearly lured Eli from the fold. They did not approve. Not at all. Indeed, the Hassan family was well respected in the Old City, but the unwritten law had been violated, and Victoria had crossed the boundary. It had to be her fault. Everyone knew what a good boy Eli was, nu?

  Leah put out her hand to Victoria. She welcomed her warmly as a blizzard of cold disapproval blew across the little space.

  “Well then,” said Hannah crisply, “she does not need us here.”

  Smiling through tight lips, the three women made their farewells to Leah. They nodded acknowledgment to Victoria and then walked stiffly from the ward.

  Victoria looked ill, as if she might need to lie down. Leah patted the bed. “Sit, before you fall.”

  Victoria nodded and obeyed. Eli’s mother. Her lips formed the words. Leah did not need to hear in order to understand. She hates me.

  Leah gazed at the beautiful young woman in sympathy. Then she took a note from under her pillow. “I was praying that you would come, Victoria.” Leah handed her Eli’s note. “I was bringing this to you at the hotel when this . . . happened.”

  Victoria began to weep silently. She held the note with trembling hands and shook her head from side to side. “I am so sorry,” she said again and again. “There was nothing I could do.”

  Leah could not hear her, but she patted Victoria’s arm and tried to comfort her. Leah could not know that Victoria wept not because Eli’s mother was so hostile, but because Leah was hurt and somehow Victoria felt responsible.

  ***

  “Rebbe Lebowitz?” The red-bearded Yeshiva student eyed the rumpled European suit of Eduard Letzno. “What do you want to know?”

  Eduard held up the brown paper package as if it was proof. It, too, was rumpled from its long journey in train compartments and ships and finally an airplane. “I have brought a gift for him from his daughter, Etta, in Warsaw,” Eduard explained.

  At the mention of Etta the young man’s face brightened. He grinned broadly, showing widely spaced teeth like missing keys of a piano. “Nu! Why did you not say so? The Rabbi Lebowitz has gone to the Western Wall to pray! This is his custom each day at this time,” he said, as though he was letting Eduard in on a family secret. “And h
e prays for his daughter and son-in-law and the grandchildren there.”

  Eduard’s head pounded with exhaustion and dizziness. He felt as if he had drunk a gallon of wine. He swayed slightly.

  “The wall? You mean the Wailing Wall?”

  “The very same.” The pale blue eyes wandered up to Eduard’s hatless head. Surely Eduard was no Jew. “Would you like to wait for him?”

  Eduard shook his head in a firm no. To sit would mean not getting up until he slept. “Which way?” he asked, looking up at the weathered stone blocks and cracking plaster of Nissan Bek Synagogue. There were no English soldiers, even though the Dome of the Rock was plainly visible just beyond the thick fortress walls of the synagogue.

  Only pigeons strutted above the arched windows. The cold winter sky was a clean blue contrast to the dusty earth and the jumble of buildings of Jerusalem. Today there was no black smoke. No burning tires or explosions; as yet, the streets and alleyways of the Old City were almost deserted.

  The memory of yesterday was still a fresh wound. There were funerals to be held outside the walls of the city. Jerusalem again mourned her dead.

  Eduard focused on the clean patchwork of the sky as he trudged up the slope of a narrow street. Framed by the grimy facades of the houses and shops, the sky seemed like a clear river to Eduard’s weary mind. In spite of what he had witnessed yesterday, he had no doubts that Etta and Aaron must come home to Jerusalem.

  Dr. Letzno’s conviction brought tears to the eyes of Rabbi Shlomo Lebowitz when Eduard stood at his side along the deserted stones of the Western Wall. The gnarled hands of the old man reached out to take the package from Eduard. His frail arms embraced it as if it were a child. He thanked Eduard and then turned back to face the stones, which seemed almost the same color and complexion as he was. In a singsong voice he began to pray, holding up the package before the hovering angels and the Shekinah glory that seeped down through the crevices of God’s throne room. A slight wind stirred. The fringes of the old man’s shawl twirled and the fabric tugged against him. Ah, the wings of the angels fluttered. The photographs and birth certificates had finally arrived! Was this not some chink in the wall of British bureaucracy? And from this chink, might a door be carved for Etta and Aaron and the little ones to enter?