Jerusalem Interlude (Zion Covenant)

by Bodie Thoene

  He slipped out and stood beneath the star-filled sky. Crickets still chirped in the tall grass on the other side of the wall. Back in home in England the crickets would all be silent this time of year. October. It would be cold at home. Here in Jerusalem Orde did not need the coat he brought along as a cushion to sit on along the walkway.

  Orde hailed each of his men as he climbed the steps. He climbed to the top of the wall, not so much to watch as to pray. The world had turned upside down. Once again prophets were being stoned because the truth was too uncomfortable to hear. “Meshugge,” the Old City Jews would say. Crazy.

  “HALT! WHO GOES THERE?”

  “Captain Orde.” Orde emerged onto the wall and stepped past the young guard who searched the rooftops for some sign of unusual movement. “Anything?” Orde asked.

  “Quiet night, Cap’n. They’ve all gone to bed with their camels.” The words were brave, but the voice trembled.

  Orde did not want to add to the nervous boy’s tension, but he knew. If ever there was a night for trouble, this was the night.

  “I’m glad. That’s fine. Two more hours and you’re off, eh?” Orde had come up to chat with the boy nearly every night since he and Palmer had been ambushed in Ramle. Palmer had not made it. Wilson had been saved by the sheer luck of a passing half-track. Guard duty on the wall seemed to be the easiest position for the lad to handle since then. No patrols. No emergency calls. Just the wall. The stars. And sleeping Jerusalem.

  Orde hoped that it would remain so tonight.

  “Sir? I read that verse you told me the other night. I memorized it, like you said,” the boy blurted out, grateful that his captain stood the watch with him again. “You want me to—”

  “Let’s hear it.” Orde crossed his arms and looked out over the blue light of the Jerusalem houses. His eyes never stopped searching.

  Wilson stood beside him. He also scanned the shadows and light for movement. “My mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help.”

  Orde nodded broadly. “Memorized the Bible so I could quote it during the watches when I was in India. Kept me from being so afraid.”

  “You? Afraid?” Wilson laughed.

  In that instant a single shot rang out from the roof of the Petra Hotel. Orde saw the flash from the corner of his eye, but it was too late. Wilson was flung forward as the bullet slammed into his back. Orde called out the warning to the other troops stationed in the citadel and along both sides of the wall. The popcorn-rattle of returning gunfire drowned out his voice as he shouted, “PETRA! PETRA HOTEL!”

  Bullets began to slam the stations from other areas of the Old City as well. Where had they come from?

  Orde dragged the wounded boy toward the steps. He called for help from Johnson as a bullet struck the stone above his head, splintering the chips across his face. The rattle of British gunfire by far overpowered the Arab attackers. Minutes passed: one, two, then three. As Orde and Johnson reached the safety of the enclosure with Wilson, the gunfire ceased altogether. Only echoes and silence and the labored breathing of the boy remained.

  Yes, Orde was afraid. Tonight he was afraid for himself, for this bleeding soldier, and for what surely must come to Jerusalem once again as the Darkness whispered in the hearts of men.

  ***

  There could be no question any longer that the German High Command would follow Hitler. The Czech-Sudetenland was secure. German tanks were poised at the very edge of the border as they awaited the next command.

  The Führer paced before his generals as he spoke. Eyes flicked from him to the large painting hanging on the wall behind him. It was a bizarre image, new to the staff room, although everyone had heard that it had been stored somewhere in the Chancellery. After his victory of will over the English prime minister, the Führer had chosen to hang the painting in the open.

  Disembodied spirits swirled with wailing demons around the likeness of Wotan, the German god of Creation and Destruction. The painting had been created by the artist Franz von Stuck in the year 1889, but the face of the glowering god was nevertheless the face of Hitler. Strangely, it was the same pose he had used on posters and handbills distributed to the German people.

  “Frightening,” Canaris whispered to Halder.

  Hitler stopped his speech about the Slavic pygmies. He stared directly at Canaris. Like a schoolmaster who has been interrupted, the Führer demanded an explanation of the whisper.

  Canaris was not intimidated. He returned the Führer’s fierce gaze with steady blue eyes. “I was just remarking how much like the god Wotan you are, mein Führer.” Although the words half gagged him, Canaris managed to smile with his flattery. Such ability had saved him more than once when dealing with Hitler.

  “Painted the year of the Führer’s birth,” the obese Field Marshal Hermann Göring remarked, as if everyone in the room did not already know of the eerie coincidence.

  Himmler, whose Gestapo rivaled Canaris’s Abwehr, smiled and inclined his head as he spoke. “Remarkable. No coincidence, mein Führer.”

  There were men in the staff room who might have privately argued that point with Himmler in an earlier day. But the power of Adolf Hitler had indeed somehow proved that his rule over the German people was indeed godlike.

  Admiral Canaris managed to maintain his look of contentment although a sense of darkness pressed around him. He thought of Thomas von Kleistmann and hoped the Abwehr would find him first. Or that Thomas would have the good sense to kill himself before the Gestapo caught up with him. They had ways of making a man beg to tell everything. And Thomas knew enough to hang half the generals in this room.

  Hitler’s voice raised and lowered in a monologue. “Of course, President Beneš has not given us everything we requested. The extradition of certain criminals, for instance.” A flicker of anger crossed his face. “The Jew Theo Lindheim is now in England with Beneš. No doubt he will continue to do all he can do for our defeat.” He raised a finger to make a point. “You see what I have been saying! How true it is! Even one Jew can ruin everything! It is no doubt that Theo Lindheim is the cause of Thomas von Kleistmann’s ruin.”

  Himmler spoke again. “We shall know soon enough. Commander Vargen has traced von Kleistmann to Holland. Amsterdam.”

  “A country of Jew-lovers,” Hitler scoffed. “We could easily rid ourselves of Lindheim, but it is best if we use legal means if possible. We must be above suspicion in the eyes of the world. We must do everything legally.” The Führer smiled, and the men laughed obligingly, as was expected. “Of course, it is possible to do anything legally.”

  More laughter. Yes. He had proven that in Czechoslovakia. There would be no stopping him now. Laws would topple to be remade for him. The German god had come to stand before them, to point the way, to laugh with them and berate them as a father might berate errant children. He would also forgive their former doubts because now they belonged to him entirely.

  “You also have Abwehr agents involved in the von Kleistmann matter, Admiral Canaris?” Hitler asked.

  “Also in Amsterdam.” Canaris did not tell Hitler that his men had orders to shoot Thomas on sight. There must be no opportunity for even a hint of the conspiracy to escape his lips.

  “Yes. On the job.” Hitler stood in silence for a moment. Behind him the face of Wotan glared in evil menace from the canvas. “We have men enough to watch them all. It is wise, however, in the case of Theo Lindheim and the daughter who was so involved with the illegal immigrants . . . We may wait until they are no longer in England, unless opportunity arises. The British have a sense of propriety about these things. They are upset by blood. The French do not mind blood as long as it is not related to them.”

  More laughter. The mighty French Army was looking smaller each day.

  “Only Germans seem to be able to tolerate the sight of blood.” Hitler turned and gestured toward the red sulfuric vapors that rose within the pain
ting. “For creation of the pure race, there must be blood spilled.” He snapped his fingers and a map lowered, covering the portrait of Wotan.

  Canaris sighed inwardly with relief.

  The map was arranged showing the new boundaries of the Reich. Just beyond the red boundaries was a second, yellow line, which encompassed all of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and part of Russia.

  “There, you see. Soon those lines will also be red.” Hitler moved his hand down toward Palestine and the oil-rich Middle East. “Watch Palestine, gentlemen. You will observe that it is also outlined in yellow. What we do in Europe will be mirrored there. My plan is very clear.” He lifted his hand in a fist, then raised his index finger and his little finger. “Two claws on the same beast. Poland and Palestine. I will work them in the same way.”

  Hitler picked up a leather-bound folder and flipped it open. Scanning the pages, he smiled. “The Polish government has issued an edict regarding Jewish passport holders who are out of the country. Within two weeks all passports must be stamped with an additional seal or they become invalid. This will make those persons stateless, which means that Poland will not have to allow their Jews back into the country.” He scanned the folder again. “This edict will leave the Reich with twelve thousand Polish-born Jews still living here within our borders. This we cannot tolerate!” He slammed his fist down on the table as though someone was arguing. “We will not keep their Polish Jews within the Reich! Such an edict is an affront to Germany and the German people!” Suddenly the voice dropped to low again. “We can use such an affront quite effectively to move us toward our goal. It seems a small thing, this matter of passports. But we will use it, and when it is finished, we will march into Warsaw just as we will soon overtake the remainder of Czechoslovakia.”

  Admiral Canaris listened wearily. Britain had proved how little it cared about the plans of Adolf Hitler. There would be no more approaches to their secret service. Thomas von Kleistmann was a doomed man because they had not listened. His old friend Theo Lindheim was doomed. Ah well. They were small matters compared to what the god Wotan now planned for Europe.

  ***

  Perched on the window seat, Elisa hugged her knees and gazed out over the dark houses of Red Lion Square in London. Murphy lay sound asleep in the huge Victorian bed he called “the Parade Ground.”

  Elisa pulled back the curtain a bit farther so the soft light from the streetlamp fell on his face. Such a wonderful face, even with his mouth open, and the shadow of a beard on his cheek. He was handsome even with his hair tousled and his arm reaching for her. From his deepest slumber he called her name and patted the empty mattress while she looked on with tender amusement.

  There was a sense of magic about this old house. Anna and Theo had found it for them while they had been in America. According to tradition, Charles Dickens had once lived here. It was a lovely place to raise two little boys like Charles and Louis, Anna had reasoned, and so the house was purchased complete with two rooms of furnishings as a belated wedding gift for Murphy and Elisa.

  They had lived in the house for only a short time, but already it felt like home. There was an old-fashioned dreaminess about Red Lion Square—stately houses and ancient trees, even a fifteenth-century church!

  The fact that Charles Dickens had once written in these rooms had awakened a sense of awe in Murphy. He touched the banisters and the doorknobs with reverence. He promised Charles and Louis that when they learned English properly, he would read them Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. At Christmas they would burn a yule log in the enormous fireplace and read A Christmas Carol together in the very house where it had been written.

  Anna had beamed when her son-in-law had stooped to kiss her cheek and told her, “You did not find us a house; you have given us England!”

  “Hard to believe this is the very heart of London,” Theo had remarked. “And only a seven-minute walk from here to Covent Garden for Elisa!”

  It was, indeed, just a short walk to Elisa’s new position with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Two minutes farther, in Bloomsbury, was the house where Theo and Anna lived with Dieter and Wilhelm. Murphy’s offices as head of Trump European News Services (TENS) were only a short commute to Fleet Street.

  Elisa could not imagine any place more perfect. At last, it seemed, through months of heartache, they had come to a place of tranquility.

  She quietly hummed a bar from the Bach piece, “What God Has Done Is Rightly Done!” At the sound of her voice Murphy stirred and patted the mattress again. She loved the fact that he looked for her in his sleep, and she was amazed at the ease with which they had settled in. Husband. Wife. The two boys who would soon be legally adopted as their own. It all seemed perfect.

  The first floor of the house had been used for storage by the former tenant. Elisa had already decided that she would convert it into a studio where she would give violin lessons when she was not playing for Sir Thomas Beecham and the Philharmonic. Her first two pupils would be Charles and Louis, who still favored the cello but agreed to try the violin and the piano since Aunt Leah had gone to Palestine.

  Lovely old Georgian paneling extended up the staircase to the rooms above. The woodwork, painted a mellow ivory, gave the house a feeling of brightness. On the second floor, a short hall led from the foyer to a large airy room with three windows facing the Square. Here, where the light of morning flooded in to warm the rich oak-planked floors, she and Murphy shared their morning coffee. He spoke of all the things he had in mind for the news service; she told him about the reported quirks of her new conductor and the dozen musicians she had known in Germany and Austria who now played for him.

  And when Murphy left for work with his briefcase tucked under his arm, she lingered over her coffee and imagined evenings of chamber music in this room with old friends and happy memories.

  Next to this room was a smaller room with low heavy rafters that reminded her of the ceilings of the Wattenbarger farmhouse. For some reason the room gave her a sense of sadness; she willingly turned it over to Murphy for a study. Three days earlier she and Anna had found a wonderful old rolltop desk for him. It had to be hoisted up through the window and now was against the wall opposite the fireplace. “Like Dickens,” she had told him as he explored the maze of cubbyholes and drawers. Too large to move twice, the desk was proof of Murphy’s determination to remain in England for a long time.

  The desk was Murphy’s toy. Charles and Louis, on the other hand, had filled their room with crates and boxes of toys that Mr. Trump had purchased for them at Macy’s in New York and then shipped to England. Train sets and ranks of tin soldiers cluttered the floor until Elisa had rolled her eyes in despair at the thought of ever sweeping the planks. The newspaper magnate had left no shelf at Macy’s untouched. Baseball gloves and bats like the one Babe Ruth used cluttered one corner. Murphy promised his chief that he would see to it the boys knew how to swing a bat American style, in spite of the fact they lived in London. Mr. Trump had also provided the funds to hire a special American tutor for Charles and Louis, and a speech therapist from Boston who happened to be doing doctoral work in London. It would not be long before Murphy would be able to make good on his pledge to read the works of Dickens to the boys.

  Up one more flight of stairs was the bedroom where Elisa and Murphy slept. It was a large room, paneled in the same Georgian style as the rest of the house. There was room enough for the four-poster “Parade Ground” and an overstuffed sofa in front of an oak-mantled fireplace. Double French doors opened onto a roof garden where the view was the entire panorama of London, including the spires of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was too cold to sit outside for very long, but Elisa could easily imagine what the world would look like when spring came again to Red Lion Square. Beautiful. Perfect. She could not let herself dwell on all the tragic reasons why they had come here. She would not let herself contemplate for long the suffering of those who had been betrayed by peaceful England. For a time, anyway, she longed to rest her heart and m
ind. She longed to pretend that everything was just as it seemed to be.

  Murphy was being merciful to her. She knew he did not tell her all the things that flooded the wire service. And she did not ask. She did not read his dispatches or open the newspaper. She kept her schedule for BBC broadcasts close at hand. Music was all she longed for. When Murphy needed to hear the news, he retreated into his study and closed the heavy walnut door behind him. There were some things her heart could not bear to know. Not now. Not yet. Not while she carried Murphy’s child within her.

  Elisa turned her eyes back out onto the dreamy old square. Her breath was a vapor on the windowpane as she whispered her thanks. “What you have done is rightly done.”

  4

  One Alone Survived

  For Shimon Feldstein, sleep brought no rest or peace. It had been the same each night. The room he shared with Leah on the luxury liner was a suite, but it made no difference that they were surrounded by soft-spoken stewards in white coats. In the daylight hours, Shimon could look around the cruise ship and reason that this was a lifetime away from the cramped, rusty freighter that had carried him from Germany. Each morning in a new, sun-washed port of call, he would look out across the waters and imagine the Darien. He would see again the bright, upturned faces of five little girls as they brought him paper lilies and told him stories from the day’s Torah-school lesson.

  When breakfast was served in the liner’s dining room, he could manage to shake off those images. Through hours of wandering the lanes of some small Greek island with Leah, he could replace those dear, lost faces with her face, her smile.