Every minute or two Lanny would look at his watch. They might be early; but no, that would be as bad as being late. “Pünktlich!” was the German word, and it was their pride. Just as the minute hand of Lanny’s watch was in the act of passing the topmost mark of the dial, a large official car would approach the center line of the bridge, where a bar was stretched across, the east side of the bar being German and the west side French. If it didn’t happen exactly so, it would be the watch that was wrong, and not deutsche ducht und Ordnung. As a boy Lanny had heard a story from old Mr. Hackabury, the soapman, about a farmer who had ordered a few watch by mail-order catalogue, and had gone out in his field with watch and almanac, announcing: “If that sun don’t get up over that hill in three minutes, she’s late!”
XI
Sure enough, here came the car! A Mercédès-Benz, with a little swastika flag over the radiator-cap, and a chauffeur in S.S. uniform, including steel helmet. They came right up to the barrier and stopped, while Lanny stood on the last foot of France, with his heart in his mouth. Two S.S. men in the back seat got out and began helping a passenger, and Lanny got one-glimpse after another; the glimpses added up to a gray-haired, elderly man, feeble and bowed, with hands that were deformed into claws, and that trembled and shook as if each of them separately had gone mad. Apparently he couldn’t walk, for they were half-carrying him, and it wasn’t certain that he could hold his head up—at any rate, it was hanging.
“Heil Hitler!” said one of the men saluting. “Herr Budd?”
“Ja,” said Lanny, in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.
“Wohin mit ihm?” It was a problem, for you couldn’t take such a package and just walk off with it. Lanny had to ask the indulgence of the French police and customs men, who let the unfortunate victim be carried into their office and laid on a seat. He couldn’t sit up, and winced when he was touched. “They have kicked my kidneys loose,” he murmured, without opening his eyes. Lanny ran and got his car, and the Frenchmen held up the traffic while he turned it around on the bridge. They helped to carry the sufferer and lay him on the back seat. Then, slowly, Lanny drove to the Hotel de la Ville-de-Paris, where they brought a stretcher and carried Freddi Robin to a room and laid him on a bed.
Apparently he hadn’t wanted to be freed; or perhaps he didn’t realize that he was free; perhaps he didn’t recognize his old friend. He didn’t seem to walk to talk, or even to look about him. Lanny waited until they were alone, and then started the kind of mental cure which he had seen his mother practice on the broken and burned Marcel Detaze. “You’re in France, Freddi, and now everything is going to be all right.”
The poor fellow’s voice behaved as if it was difficult for him to frame sounds into words. “You should have sent me poison!” That was all he could think of.
“We’re going to take you to a good hospital and have you fixed up in no time.” A cheerful “spiel,” practiced for several days.
Freddi held up his trembling claws; they waved in the air, seemingly of their own independent will. “They broken them with an iron bar,” he whispered; “one by one.”
“Rahel is coming, Freddi. She will be here in a few hours.”
“No, no, no!” They were the loudest sounds he could make. “She must not see me.” He kept that up for some time, as long as his strength lasted. He was not fit to see anybody. He wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. “Some powders!” he kept whispering.
Lanny saw that the sick man was weakening himself by trying to argue so he said, all right. He had already called for a doctor, and when the man came he whispered the story. Here on the border they knew a great deal about the Nazis, and the doctor needed no details. He gave a sleeping powder which quieted the patient for a while. The doctor wanted to examine him, but Lanny said no, he would wait until the patient’s wife had arrived to take charge. Lanny didn’t reveal that he had in mind to get an ambulance and take the victim to Paris; he could see that here was a case that called for a lot of work and he wanted it done by people whom he knew and trusted. He was sure that Rahel would agree with this.
XII
A moment not soon to be forgotten when the two travelers arrived, and Freddi’s wife came running into the hotel suite, an agony of suspense in her whole aspect; her face, gestures, voice “He’s here? He’s alive? He’s ill? Oh, God, where is he?”
“In the next room,” replied Lanny. “He’s asleep, and we’d better not disturb him.”
“How is he?”
“He needs to be gone over by a good surgeon and patched up; but we can have it done. Keep yourself together, and don’t let him see that you’re afraid or shocked.”
She had to set her eyes upon him right away; she had to steal into the room, and make it real to herself that after so many long months he was actually here, in France, not Germany. Lanny warned her: “Be quiet, don’t lose your nerve.” He went with her, and Jerry on the other side, for fear she might faint. And she nearly did so; she stood for a long while, breathing hard, staring at that gray-haired, elderly man, who, a little more than a year ago, had been young, beautiful and happy. They felt her shuddering, and when she started to sob, they led her out and softly closed the door.
To Lanny it was like living over something a second time, as happens in a dream. “Listen, Rahel,” he said: “You have to do just what my mother did with Marcel. You have to make him want to live again. You have to give him hope and courage. You must never let him see the least trace of fear or suffering on your face. You must be calm and assured, and just keep telling him that you love him, and that he is going to get well.”
“Does he know what you say to him?”
“I think he only half realizes where he is; and perhaps it’s better so. Don’t force anything on him. Just whisper love, and tell him he is needed, and must live for your sake and the child’s.”
The young wife sat there with her whole soul in her eyes. She had always been a serious, intellectual woman, but having her share of vigor and blooming. Now she was pale and thin; she had forgotten to eat most of the time; she had dined on grief and supped on fear. It was clear that she wanted only one thing in the world, to take this adored man and devote her life to nursing him and restoring him to health. She wouldn’t rebel against her fate, as Beauty Budd, the worldling, had done; she wouldn’t have to beat and drive herself to the role of Sister of Mercy. Nor would she have herself painted in that role, and exhibit herself to smart crowds; no, she would just go wherever Freddi went, try to find out what Freddi needed and give it to him, with that consecrated love which the saints feel for the Godhead.
Lanny told her what he had in mind. They would take him in an ambulance to Paris, quickly but carefully, so as not to jar him. Rahel could ride with him, and talk to him, feed him doses of courage and hope, even more necessary than physical food. Jerry and Lanny would follow, each in his own car; Jerry would stay in Paris for a while, to help her in whatever way he could. Lanny would instruct the surgeon to do everything needed, and would pay the bill. He told Jerry to go and get some sleep—his aspect showed that he needed it, for he had driven five or six hundred miles with only a few minutes’ respite at intervals.
XIII
Lanny had food and wine and milk brought to the room, and persuaded Rahel to take some; she would need her strength. She should give Freddi whatever he would take—he probably had had no decent food for more than a year. Preparing her for her long ordeal, he told more of the story of Marcel, the miracle which had been wrought by love and unfailing devotion. Lanny talked as if he were Parsifal Dingle; incidentally he said: “Parsifal will come to Paris and help you, if you wish.” Rahel sat weeping softly. With half her mind she took in Lanny’s words, while the other half was with the broken body and soul in the next room.
Presently they heard him moaning. She dried her eyes hastily, and said. “I can never thank you. I will do my best to save Freddi so that he can thank you.”
She stole into the other room, and Lanny sat alone
for a long while. Tears began to steal down his cheeks, and he leaned his arms upon the table in front of him. It was a reaction from the strain he had been under for more than a year. Tears because he hadn’t been able to accomplish more; because what he had done might be too late. Tears not only for his wrecked and tormented friend, not only for that unhappy family, but for all the Jews of Europe, and for their tormentors, just as much to be pitied. Tears for the unhappy people of Germany, who were being lured into such a deadly trap, and would pay for it with frightful sufferings. Tears for this unhappy continent on which he had been born and had lived most of his life. He had traveled here and there over its surface, and everywhere had seen men diligently plowing the soil and sowing dragon’s teeth—from which, as in the old legend, armed men would some day spring. He had raised his feeble voice, warning and pleading; he had sacrificed time and money and happiness, but all in vain. He wept, despairing, as another man of gentleness and mercy had wept, in another time of oppression and misery, crying:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Lanny Budd Novels
1
DUST TO DUST
I
Freddi himself wouldn’t have wanted an elaborate funeral or any fuss made over his broken body; but funerals are not for the dead, only for the living. Here was his devoted Jewish mother, aged not so much in years as in feelings, and a prey to terror as well as grief. The calamities which had fallen upon her family and her race could not be blind accidents, they must have a cause; somebody must have done something, and what could it be save that her people had again departed from the ways of their faith and incurred the wrath of that most jealous of Gods, who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate Him? It was Jahweh, Lord God of Sabaoth, it was El Shaddai, the Terrible One, thundering as He had done all down the centuries. Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord of Hosts.
The Lord God of Hosts had given to Leah Robin, formerly Rabinowich, a husband and two tall sons, and to them two lovely wives, and to one of these a son; all blessings beyond price. But husband and sons and daughters-in-law all five had dared to treat with contumely the Law and the Prophets, to call themselves “modern” and to prate about “Reform,” presuming to decide for themselves what was good and proper, regardless of all those commands which the Lord God of Israel had laid down in His holy books. The mother, though anxious in soul, had permitted herself to be dragged along; trying to keep her family about her and to avoid dissension, she had seen one ancient custom after another dropped and forgotten in her home.
El Shaddai the Implacable had waited, for such is His way. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers.… The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at His presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before His indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him.
Beyond anything which had confounded Job were the calamities which had fallen upon this happiest of Jewish families. The dreadful Nazis seizing first the father and then the younger son and throwing them into prison; robbing the family of everything in the world, torturing the son in unspeakable ways and finally throwing him out of their land a piteous wreck. A mother who had been taught from earliest childhood that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom could draw only one conclusion from such a chain of events; Jahweh was behaving according to His nature: the Lord God Omnipotent, who had cast out Adam and Eve and pronounced His terrible dooms, that in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and cursed is the ground for thy sake!
The inheritor of these dooms was now fleeing back to the ark of her covenant. Her son had been a poor strayed sheep, a “pink” sheep, tinged with Marxist hues, and it was too late to help him in this life, but at least she could prepare him for that resurrection to which the Orthodox look forward. He must be buried according to sacred tradition, with no concession to those fatal delusions known as “Reform.” The stricken household was in a panic; and the estate upon which they lived was thrown into turmoil; for the mother believed that a Jewish corpse was dishonored if it was left above ground more than twenty-four hours, and it might not be buried after dark.
II
Rahel Robin, the young widow, had tended and watched over her husband for a couple of months; she had heard him pleading for death and had made up her mind that that was the way of mercy for him. She had no idea whatever that this so cruelly tortured body would ever rise from the grave, whether in its present distorted shape or restored to its original perfection. But there was no restraining the hysteria of the older woman. Mama wept and wrung her hands and tore her garments; at the same time she rushed hither and thither, trying to perform those offices which decency requires for Jewish dead.
There were many of her race on the French Riviera, but they were for the most part rootless persons, parasites and pleasure-seekers, as much tainted with skepticism and exposed to the wrath of Jahweh as the Robin family. Who among the devotees of fashion would understand how the fingernails of a dead person have to be trimmed? Who among bridge-playing ladies would know how to prepare a “meal of condolence”? Who among tennis-playing gentlemen would see to it that the mourners returning to the home washed their hands and forearms in accordance with the Talmudic formula?
There was a synagogue in Cannes, but Mama would have none of it; it was “Reformed,” and the rabbi was so fashionable that he might as well have been an Episcopalian. But in the Old Town of the city there lived in direst poverty a few families from Russia and Poland, earning their bread by such labor as peddling, collecting rags, patching old clothes. They were real Jews, as Leah had once been; they had a sort of hole in the wall where they worshiped, and Leah had gone among them doing charity and had met the head of their synagogue. His name was Shlomo Kolodny, and he was no French rabbi of the Coast of Pleasure, wearing a big black armband at funerals, but a real scholar, a melamed, or teacher of the young; also he was the cantor, and the shammas, or sexton, and the shohet, or ritual butcher; in case of need he would be the undertaker according to the ancient code. After laborious days he spent his nights poring over sacred Hebrew texts and disputing in his imagination with learned ones whom he had known in Poland, concerning thousands of minute points of doctrine and practice which had been raised during twenty-five centuries of dealings between Jahweh and His Chosen People.
So now the chauffeur of Bienvenu drove in haste to the city and came back with this Shlomo of all trades, wearing a long black beard and a badly stained Prince Albert which he probably thought looked like an old-style caftan. In a Yiddish slightly mixed with French he assured the bereaved mother that he knew everything and would do it in style, and no “Reform” tricks whatever—“Pas de tout, Frau Robin, niemals, niemals will I drain the blood from a good Jew or put any poisons into him.” He rubbed his hands together and purred, for he knew all about this lady whose husband had been one of the richest men in Germany and who was still important enough to be a guest on one of the finest estates of the Cap d’Antibes.
A great consolation he was to Mama. He hastened to assure her that she need not worry because her dear one was buried so far from home; if she so desired, a little forked stick could be put in the grave, wherewith he could dig his way to Palestine when the last trumpet blew; and of course the screws in the coffin lid would be left loose for him. As for the mutila
tions which evil men had done upon his body, they would all be repaired, and a noble young Jew would arise, transformed into an angel shining like a star. His broken fingers would be mended and he could play his clarinet for the greater glory of the Most High. Meanwhile his soul was comfortable in a sort of dove-cot in Hades, with an immense number of tiny compartments for the containing of righteous souls. This wasn’t exactly accepted doctrine, but Shlomo had read it in some ancient text and Mama found it most comforting.
There are some of the old ways which are utterly impossible in modern days. The cemetery was up in the hills, and while city people have not forgotten how to walk, they have forgotten that it is possible to do so. The coffin and the mourners would have to be transported in automobiles, but the men would ride in separate cars, followed by the women, and when they came to the gates of the cemetery everybody would enter on foot. Tactfully the melamed mentioned that in his flock were a number of poor women who would make excellent mourners; they would expect to be paid only a few francs each, plus a meal, and they would weep copiously and make a truly impressive funeral. It was too much to expect that all the Jews of Cannes or even of the village of Juan-les-Pins would stop work and follow the cortege; alas, they wouldn’t even know that if they met it on the street they were in duty bound to turn and accompany it a distance of at least four cubits. Who could even tell them how much a cubit was?
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