Leah's Journey

by Gloria Goldreich

  She looked at him in amazement and then saw the shadows across the sunny cobblestones of the piazza. Two men in business suits stood on the church steps and watched them. She too laughed lightly then, took the spoon from him, and playfully fed him, knowing that her heart was beating too fast and a pool of sweat had formed between her breasts. The men crossed the square and as they passed, she heard them speaking softly in English.

  “You did that very well,” he said admiringly and she blushed.

  “I’m an international intrigue film addict. You know—Ingrid Bergman, Lilli Palmer. Who were those men?”

  “Probably British intelligence agents. They’re swarming over all the Mediterranean ports trying to get a line on Bericha and Mosad people. Mosad is a kind of network intelligence operation for the Jewish community in Palestine over in Europe. They’ll ask about us, but my guess is we’ll be described as an itinerant seaman type trying to pick up a naive American tourist.”

  “I don’t think I like the ‘naive’ part,” she said and realized that she was beginning to enjoy herself.

  “All right. A pretty American tourist. You are pretty, you know.” He offered this not as a compliment but as a dry observation, a professional assessment, and she stiffened.

  “All right. What do you think I can do? I am, after all, ‘naive.’”

  He bent forward, speaking so softly that she had to strain to catch his words.

  “There are ten children hidden here in Bari. We call them the Auschwitz infants. They are the children of Jews who were gassed at Auschwitz. They survived because they were hidden in an underground tunnel in one of the women’s barracks. One of these children, Shlomo, was born in the camp, delivered by the women, hidden by them, and saved by them and the other children. The children watched, from that underground tunnel, as one by one their mothers were taken off to die. They were alone, in what the Germans thought was an empty building, for two weeks, sharing among themselves the small amount of food and water the last survivor had been able to get to them. You can imagine how they are traumatized, terrified, by the thought of another camp—whether it be a displaced persons’ camp in Europe or a detainment camp in Cyprus. They cannot again endure barbed wire and bunks and searchlights. We cannot risk putting them on an illegal ship which may be taken by the British. The British have, so far, seized every other ship which we have sent. These children are special. For them we have arranged identity papers and travel documents saying that they are Dutch orphans en route to a mission school in Nazareth. Through our good friend Father Joseph, at such a school, we have even managed to get school uniforms for them. We have arranged for their passage on the ship which you now await. But they must have an adult with them to supervise and chaperone. This is the rule of the steamship company. The Mosad agent, the girl who was to do this, has been detained at the Belgian border. We ask you to take her place.”

  Rebecca did not reply but looked out toward the rock parapet where the gulls strutted now, their heads arched upward above their slender elegant necks.

  “You know that I have an American passport,” she said at last. “It is unlikely that an American with the distinctly Jewish name of Rebecca Goldfeder will pass as the supervisor of a mission group.”

  “Yes. We thought of that. But then such a person might well be a Jew who has converted to Christianity, and I happen to have here such a certificate of baptism in the name of Rebecca Goldfeder as well as a set of credentials from the Mission of Saint Paul. This is, of course, a missionary school and missionaries convert. You are one of their successes, diligently continuing the good work. Your documents, I assure you, are exemplary. They were manufactured by the same man who produced the children’s papers with the cooperation of our good Christian friends in Nazareth. Yoselle was a master printer in Hamburg in the days when Jews were allowed to be master printers in Hamburg, before it was feared that they would contaminate the reading matter of Aryans. I assure you all his documents are impeccable.” He smiled and patted the battered portfolio which he kept close by his side.

  “I see. And if I do not agree to do this? What will happen to the children?”

  “We will discuss that after you meet these children. Please. You will come to see our Auschwitz infants?” There was a naked plea in his voice.

  “Yes,” she said, knowing that she could not say no.

  The children, he told her, were staying at the home of Dr. Rafael Sarfadi, a Jewish professor of semantics at the University of Bari. His home was an ancient villa, nestled into a low hillside that overlooked the port. Signora Sarfadi, a tall, elegant woman who wore a gold linen dress, greeted them as though they were casual guests for tea. She stood in the open doorway and thanked Yehuda for the flowers he carried and kissed him on the cheek. Rebecca wondered at this until she glanced across the street and saw the two Englishmen, in their too-proper business suits, looking out toward the ocean.

  “The more we display the less they will think we conceal,” Yehuda said softly when he followed her gaze.

  They walked after Signora Sarfadi through the archways leading to the enormous rooms of the ancient mansion. The polished tile floors were covered with Persian carpets of intricate rich design and the black mahogany furniture smelled of lemon oil. Fresh flowers stood in tall crystal vases and Rebecca thought of Leah and the garden flowers she cut each spring and summer morning. Her mother and Signora Sarfadi would understand each other. In each room through which they passed, there was a framed photo of a young man with dreamy liquid eyes. The last door led to a small utility room and Signora Sarfadi pushed aside a clumsy floor-polishing machine and pressed the corner of the wall against which it had leaned. Rebecca gasped as it slid open to reveal a narrow staircase. They descended it single-file until they reached a dimly lit basement room littered with small cots, toys, and children’s clothing. As she first entered, Rebecca thought that the room was empty. A heavy quiet hovered in the air and there was no discernible movement. But then she saw the children’s eyes.

  Ten pairs of eyes, bright with fear and speculation, focused on her. The luminous, too-wise orbs, belonging to the ten children who squatted on the floor in the middle of the room, stared at her as though they would pierce her soul. The smallest child was perhaps four and the oldest eleven or twelve. They sat absolutely still, without a flicker of movement, a rustle of sound. They were all small masters of silence and immobility, their survival credentials earned in that underground tunnel where the slightest noise, the smallest motion of one, might have meant death for all.

  “It’s all right. She is a friend,” Yehuda said softly to them in Yiddish and they breathed an almost uniform sign of relief, whispered to each other, and began to move about.

  The oldest girl, whose dark hair was caught in chubby clumps at each side of her very round head, began to straighten the room like a flustered housewife surprised by an unexpected guest. As she picked up toys and clothing, she scolded two of the smaller girls who were pulling at the same book and picked up the smallest boy who had suddenly and inexplicably begun to cry. She spoke to him softly in a language Rebecca did not recognize and Yehuda translated a sentence which she spoke to Rebecca.

  “Katia, that is the little mother of the group—she is already eleven years old—said to tell you that it is not that small Shlomo does not like you. He cries when he sees any stranger.”

  “And why not?” Rebecca thought. Small Shlomo then would be the child born in Auschwitz, his mother’s pregnancy and his birth the precious secret of the women inmates who had delivered him and shielded him, a responsibility which the children had assumed when the last adults had left them, to fall beneath the showers of gas and be incinerated in the ovens that set the skies afire night and day. Rebecca turned to Signora Sarfadi, suddenly unable to meet the children’s eyes.

  “It is wonderful that you have such a place for them to hide.”

  “It is not an accident, Signorina. Jews have hidden themselves in this room for generations. This house
was built by my husband’s ancestors in the days of the Inquisition. It was here the Jewish women came to light Sabbath candles and say their prayers. Here men performed secret circumcisions and bar mitzvahs and met in forbidden prayer quorums. We had almost forgotten this room when the agents of Bericha and the Mosad contacted us. Now we hide Jewish children here, so that the British will not know they are near the Mediterranean. Do you think that ever a time will come for our people when this room will have no use?”

  The sad defeat in her tone revealed her answer. She clearly did not think so. She might dress in gold linen and fill her tall crystal vases with fresh flowers, but she was Jewish and she was vulnerable. In the heavy gold locket that she wore around her neck there was surely a picture of the dead dreamy-eyed young man whose portrait populated the many rooms of her lovely home. Rebecca was certain that he was dead. One did not keep so many pictures of the living in polished metal frames.

  Signora Sarfadi bent to take Shlomo from Katia’s arms. The child fingered the locket until at last she loosed the chain and watched patiently as he stopped crying and searched for a way to open the gleaming oval.

  A small girl, her blonde hair combed into a single braid down her back, approached Rebecca shyly. Her name was Mindell, Rebecca saw, from the small identity disk she and all the children wore about their necks.

  “Shain. Pretty,” she said, pointing to Rebecca’s leather bag.

  Rebecca held it out to her and the girl gently stroked the soft new leather. Watching her, Rebecca thought of all the things, the natural legacy of childhood that had been denied Mindell, whose small fingers hesitantly, lovingly fondled the magic newness of the bag—the tenderness of a mother’s touch, the right to run and laugh, the strong embrace of a father’s arms, the breathless excitement of ripping the wrapping off a present and holding something crinkling with newness, bought only for sweet pleasure. Was Mindell also to be denied, then, safe passage to the one place in the world where warmth and protection awaited her—the one place in the world which these children, so long homeless, could call home? Rebecca took the bag from Mindell and reached into it, extracting a small coin case of the same soft leather. She held it out to the child.

  “A present. For you,” she said softly.

  Mindell took the purse, caressed it with her hands, and held it to her cheek.

  “Danke—thank you,” she said and tears like drops of liquid crystal stood in her blue eyes. She put her arms around Rebecca’s neck and shyly placed her mouth against Rebecca’s cheek—a hesitant, half-remembered gesture. Once, somewhere, in another life, where children played and parents laughed to see them, someone had kissed her and the memory fluttered slowly back. Confused, delighted, she darted away with her treasure to a corner of the room, where the other children clustered about her.

  Rebecca’s own eyes burned with unshed tears. She looked up to see Yehuda standing near her.

  “She needs more than a small purse,” he said dryly and she grew hot with a sudden swift rage. Who was he to judge and condemn her? He had no right, just as he had had no right to confront her with this challenge, with this absurd charge. But why assume that she would turn away from that which he undertook? She would surprise him, abrogate his arrogance. She needed no persuasive arguments from him, no idealistic injunctions, no resurrection of latent guilt. Her decision had been made when the child’s lips had touched her cheek.

  She looked coldly at him, copying the distant removed stare that was Leah’s shield against a world that had so often demanded too much of her. She felt, at that moment, her mother’s blood pulsing in her veins, her father’s tenacious spirit surging through her. Quietly, firmly, in a voice that echoed the voices of her childhood, she spoke.

  “We must make our plans. The ship leaves in three days; there is not much time. I will accompany the children, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Signora Sarfadi, and her hand rested briefly on Rebecca’s shoulder.

  Three days later, Rebecca waited with the children for the boarding call of the San Giovanni, which would stop at ports of call on Rhodes, Cyprus, and Haifa. She wore a plain white blouse, dark blazer, pleated gray skirt, and oxfords. Her luxuriant dark hair was twisted into a severe bun and her eyes were protected by gold-rimmed glasses which Signora Sarfadi had produced with a knowing smile.

  “If they look too closely at your eyes, they will never believe you to be a schoolmistress,” she had said.

  The children, neatly outfitted in their uniforms—the girls in gray serge dresses with starched white collars and the boys in suits of the same durable cheerless fabric, all bearing the insignia of the Mission of Saint Paul—stood quietly in an orderly line. Katia had combed everyone’s hair and helped Rebecca to tuck shirts in and pull socks up. The port dispatcher, who had for days seen Rebecca in her sandals and bright skirts and blouses, raised his eyes in amusement at her sudden transformation but said nothing, an eloquent wink telegraphing his sympathy and complicity. The two British agents were also at the dock and as the line moved forward, one of them called after her with harsh urgency.

  “Signorina. One moment please!”

  Her heart stopped and she clutched her hands to conceal their trembling. But when she turned to him, her glance displayed only annoyance and condescension. She was a busy woman with ten children in her charge. Why was she being distracted?

  “Excuse me, but you dropped your gloves.”

  “How very kind of you,” she said with indifferent courtesy. She took the white gloves from him and they moved on through passport control, where her passport and the children’s travel documents were duly examined and stamped. She felt nervous although Yehuda had assured her that at this point there was no need for apprehension.

  “No one gives a damn if Jews leave a country. They just don’t want them to enter,” he had said in that dry bitter tone she had come to dread.

  And then at last they were aboard the ship, watching the sunbeams skip across the waves as the children began the final lap of their very long voyage.

  When the children were asleep that night, she came on deck, feeling the need to sit alone. The sea wind licked her face while she stared up at the star-filled night. She loosened her hair and put the glasses on her lap. She realized then, as she watched the moon weave its way in and out of a gossamer net of clouds, that she had not thought once of Joe Stevenson since the moment she first saw the children in their basement fortress.

  “Are you enjoying the crossing?” a familiar voice asked and she looked up, startled and confused.

  Yehuda Arnon stood in front of her, a lit cigarette in his mouth, his eyes on the dark fierce waves.

  “I didn’t know you were going to be on board,” she said.

  “You didn’t think I would let you sail alone, did you?” he retorted but did not wait for her answer. As suddenly as he had appeared, he turned and walked down the deck. She watched until the ember of his cigarette faded into the darkness and wondered whether he had sailed with them because he was not certain he could rely on her or whether his presence was meant to reassure her. Either way, she was annoyed: annoyed that he was on board, and equally annoyed that he had walked off and left her to look at the stars alone.

  She was very busy the next day, caught between comforting small Shlomo, who suffered from a bout of seasickness, and entertaining the children during the brief stop at Rhodes. She sat on deck with them playing the games she had long ago taught her brother Michael, using motions in place of words because Katia was the only child who understood even rudimentary English. She began also to teach them the first lines of a song which long ago Lisa Frawley had taught her, laughing and encouraging them as they struggled to sing in a language not their own. Again and again they stumbled over the words.

  Jesus loves me, this I know,

  Because the Bible tells me so.

  “Zo,” they all pronounced it and struggled to attain the sibilant s.

  Yehuda, strolling past them, glanced quizzically a
t her but she ignored him and began a clapping game.

  A total exhaustion overcame her that night when she relaxed at last on her deck chair, comfortable in the knowledge that the children were all asleep at last in their berths. She did not look up at the star-encrusted skies but closed her eyes and surrendered to the rocking of the rhythmic waves.

  She sensed his presence even before he spoke, and opened her eyes.

  “A difficult day.” He leaned against the rail, the cigarette unlit between his lips. Such narrow lips, she noted, set above a strong square chin.

  “Yes.” She knew that he could not approach her during the course of the day. One British agent was a passenger and doubtless members of the crew were in the pay of the British. Here he was probably known as a Palestinian Jew and a Bericha agent. He could not jeopardize the children by approaching them and she knew it was irrational to resent him for that diligently maintained distance.

  “You were very good with little Shlomo.”

  “I have a young brother who went through a difficult time during the war when our older brother was missing in action in North Africa. Shlomo reminds me of Michael.”

  She knew with shame but without regret why she had offered this information to Yehuda Arnon. He saw her, she knew, as a spoiled American girl who had neither suffered nor endured any difficulty. She was telling him that the war had affected her too—she too had spent sleepless nights worrying over the fate of someone she loved, she too had known fear and uncertainty. And loss. She shivered suddenly and wished, in her weariness, for Joe Stevenson’s arms to embrace her, for Joshua Ellenberg to envelop her within a blanket. But they were gone and far away, absorbed in their own worlds, their own lives. She had only herself to rely on. She closed her eyes and heard Yehuda’s steps retreat down the deck. Minutes later a warm rough blanket was draped over her shoulders and she felt strong hands tuck it firmly about her body.