Levi's War

by Julie Thomas

  ‘Do you still believe in G-d?’ the rabbi asked.

  Levi hesitated a second too long.

  ‘It is hard to find G-d in the midst of all this suffering. How well do you know the Book of Job?’ the rabbi asked.

  ‘I know he suffered and kept praising G-d,’ Levi said.

  The rabbi nodded. ‘That’s right. He loses his oxen, his sheep, his camels and his children, and he reacts by saying that when G-d sends us something good we welcome it, so how can we complain when he sends us trouble?’

  ‘But he curses eventually and questions G-d,’ Levi said hesitantly.

  ‘As we all do, son, when we see such anguish and feel our own pain. Never forget that Job answers the Lord and is ashamed and repents, and G-d blesses him. I believe G-d will bless you, too, one day. The last part of your life will be blessing upon blessing, and you will live, as Job did, to a very great age.’

  The rabbi’s words haunted him. Such a future seemed so unlikely, and he doubted it was what he deserved.

  One day a group of Jews followed one of the food-gathering patrols back to the mountains.

  Peter slapped Sandro on the back. ‘I send you out for food and you bring back more people!’

  Sandro shrugged. ‘What was I supposed to do? They were huddled at the base of a tree and the snow was beginning to cover them. I told them to go down to the town, but they followed us. Every time we turned around, there they were. They don’t speak.’

  ‘Where are they from?’ Peter asked.

  Sandro shrugged again. ‘I don’t know, like I said, they won’t speak.’

  Peter motioned to Levi to join him. He pointed to the group, two men and two women, one girl and a young boy. They were watching the men and women of the camp. They wrapped their coats around themselves, but still shook with fear. The large dark eyes were wary, and yet there was a sense of determination there as well.

  ‘They followed Sandro. See if you can talk to them.’

  Levi nodded and walked over to the group. ‘Hello,’ he said in French. They shrank back and said nothing.

  ‘Hello,’ he tried in German. Understanding blossomed on all six faces. ‘Do you speak German?’ he asked.

  One of the men stepped forward. ‘We understand and speak German. We are originally from Poland, from Warsaw.’

  ‘And you have evaded capture all this time?’ Levi asked.

  The man nodded. ‘I am Marcin, and this is my wife, Maria, and our children, Freyderyk our son and Roza our daughter. This is my brother, Pawel, and his wife, Sofia. My parents were with us, but they died and so did Pawel and Sofia’s twins.’

  Levi smiled at them all and indicated the fire inside the cave. ‘My name is Wolfie and I am from Berlin. Are you Jews?’

  Marcin hesitated, then nodded.

  ‘Come and sit by the fire, you must be very cold,’ Levi said, as he guided them into the cave. The children had shawls drawn around them and were shivering. He gathered up a pile of blankets and distributed them around the group.

  ‘We don’t have much food, but there is some soup and bread,’ he said, as he dished out bowls for them from the pot.

  The names they’d given Levi were battle names. Peter was impressed by that and by their resilience, and he invited them to stay. Marcin was a shoemaker. He mended all the holes in the partisans’ boots with solid pieces of wood wrapped in wool then covered in animal fat, creating watertight footwear. Maria was a teacher, and she took over from the elderly woman who had been telling the few children stories about life before the war. Pawel was young and fast and joined the raiding parties, and Sofia had been a nurse, so she looked after the minor cuts, bruises and bumps of everyday life.

  Roza was nearly twenty, elfin with a cap of dark hair, sharp features, serious brown eyes and olive skin. She reminded Levi of his sister, Rachel, and he didn’t mind that she became his shadow. There was a fierceness about her that he liked, she wanted to be every bit as useful as the men.

  ‘Tell me about Berlin,’ she said, as he sat by the fire, cleaning his rifle.

  ‘What about Berlin?’ he asked.

  ‘Your family. How many siblings do you have?’

  ‘I have two brothers and a sister. My youngest brother and my sister are twins.’

  ‘My cousins were twins. They got sick with fever and died last winter,’ she said, and he could hear the pain in her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry. You must miss them.’

  ‘The middle brother, the one younger than you, how old would he be now?’ she asked.

  Levi hesitated. Somehow he still thought of Simon as a child but he would be twenty-two. ‘A little older than you, twenty-two.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m Wolfie Bach and he is Amadeus Bite.’

  She laughed. ‘Why such silly names?’ she asked.

  He smiled. ‘We both loved music, we both do love music. I play the piano and he plays the violin. The composers were his friends; I think he liked them better than real people — especially the Gentiles in the city where we lived! He had pictures of them on the walls of his bedroom. So it seemed natural, when we were young, to call ourselves Wolfgang and Amadeus and Bach and, so, Bite.’

  She laughed again. ‘You’re quite mad, but I like it. I haven’t laughed for so long, and to speak in German with someone other than my family, that is a treat, too.’

  ‘How long have you been away from home?’ he asked.

  The laughter trailed away. She looked down at her hands, they were rough, calloused and the nails were broken. She was a pretty girl, small and bird-like, so like Rachel.

  ‘It seems such a long time. None of the rest of our family would come, and they were all rounded up. I think they must have moved into the ghetto. Papa spent all his money on train tickets.

  ‘We were going to cross Germany to Switzerland and then to London, but we were warned that they were rounding up Jews at the next checkpoint. So when the train stopped we leaped off onto the grass and ran into the trees. Since then we have been walking and sleeping, stealing food where we could, and avoiding the Germans.’

  Levi shook his head. He felt a sense of awe at the spirit such families displayed in the face of sheer brutality. ‘You are all very brave. You father is a remarkable man. I’m glad you found your way here.’

  She looked up at him. ‘So am I. Tell me about your war, Wolfie. Why are you here?’ she asked.

  Alarm bells sounded in his head. How much could, or should, he tell her? If he told her the truth it would endanger her life. If she was taken by the Germans and interrogated, he would be at risk.

  ‘I . . . my family were turned out of their house and I think all our possessions were confiscated. I escaped and I wanted to fight. So I came here, with my friend Ludwig. He has been in a concentration camp and he hates the Nazis as much as I do. He’s not Jewish, but he has a strong sense of justice.’

  ‘So you don’t know what has happened to Amadeus?’ she asked solemnly.

  He shook his head. ‘No. But I’m sure he’ll be fine and we will meet up again after the war. You can’t kill music.’

  One miserable day, as snow fell in swirling blasts, Erik went out on a routine food-gathering mission in the forest. Levi stayed behind to help Mario to mend some broken rifles. Two gunshots rang out from the direction the mission had taken, and the guards on the rock signalled for the camp to be on alert. Levi fought against a rising tide of fear as he helped the women and children into the caves and grabbed the rifles with the other men, ready to mount a defence if the camp was breached. The need for action kept panic at bay, but he still said a silent prayer for Erik.

  Ten minutes later the group hobbled through the heavy snow at the gap in the stone entrance. Half their number were gone, and Erik was supported by two young men.

  ‘Ludwig!’ Levi ran to him and took his arm from Pawel’s shoulders. ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  ‘A patrol. They surprised us before we could take cover. He’s been hi
t in the leg,’ Pawel said.

  It was a long, deep gash, with a broken thigh bone and no exit hole. Sofia came running to examine Erik by the light of the fire in the main cave. Erik was lying on a pile of blankets, his face ashen and his eyes closed.

  ‘We need to try to set the bone, then get the bullet out or the leg will become infected,’ she said.

  ‘Can you do it?’ Levi asked anxiously.

  ‘I can try. It depends how deep it is and how close it is to the main artery. He’s lost a lot of blood and shock has set in.’

  Sofia rinsed the knives and tweezers in alcohol and held them over the fire. Levi held Erik’s shoulders from behind his head. He hadn’t regained consciousness and didn’t move at all. Peter sat on the other side of Erik, holding a lantern so she could see.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Sofia said, looking at Levi, the knife poised above Erik’s bloodied thigh.

  Levi nodded. ‘I know you will.’

  The bullet was lodged deep in the muscle and she had to move some of the splintered bone to reach it. The makeshift tourniquet above the wound stopped some of the bleeding, but it was still hard to see. Rag after blood-soaked rag was tossed aside. Then Sofia tried to realign the bones in place. When she’d finished and sewn up the wound and splintered his leg, she sat back. Her dark eyes were full of concern.

  ‘It’s up to him now, he’s lost a lot of blood,’ she said.

  Twenty hours later, Erik was wracked by fever. His lips were cracked and dry, his skin was sallow, and his eyes more sunken than when Levi had first seen him in the barn.

  ‘Come on,’ Levi murmured as he sat beside Erik and prayed. ‘You can’t leave me now. We still have too much to do.’

  He looked at the black stain spreading over the crude bandage and knew that it would take a miracle for Erik to survive. In his delirium, Erik called out Levi’s real name, tossed and turned and burned. Levi wiped him with a cold cloth.

  ‘I didn’t tell you, you were so broken by that terrible place.’ He stroked the hand that lay on top of the blanket. ‘You didn’t want to hear. Listen to me now, my love, my Erik,’ he said softly. ‘I love you.’ He leaned down and kissed the parched lips gently.

  The hours passed. Finally, Levi lay down beside the patient. Exhaustion tugged at his brain and he felt himself slipping towards sleep. Much as he longed to keep vigil, to stay awake until the fever broke, he was spent. He’d close his eyes, just for a few moments, and his renewed strength would help Erik to fight.

  ‘Wolfie.’

  It was a light, carefree voice. He could feel the sun on his face. They lay, he and Erik, side by side on a rug in a field. He could hear Erik’s laughter, such an infectious sound. It wasn’t the Erik he’d first known, misguided, arrogant, charismatic and brainwashed; no, it was the Erik he’d become. A kind, gentle man who had had the scales of prejudice peeled away and felt a fierce need for justice. Suddenly Erik kissed him on the lips and he felt a swelling of happiness and joy—

  ‘Wolfie.’

  The voice was more insistent this time. The dream broke like a shattered mirror and he opened his eyes. He was in the cave. It was daylight. He sat up.

  ‘How is he?’ he asked.

  He felt the absence before his brain registered it. The body wasn’t there anymore.

  ‘Where is he?’ he demanded.

  Sofia sat beside him. He couldn’t read her expression.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Wolfie. He died peacefully while you were asleep. Peter wants to take him down to the forest and bury him with the others, and I knew you’d want to go.’

  Dead? Erik? It was so unfair. How was he supposed to tell Karl and Elsa? He’d promised Erik that he’d go home one day. And they had a pact. They were going to grow old together. It was understood. Unspoken. They were going to find a place where they could be true to each other, in no fear of judgment. He shook his head, hoping this too was a dream.

  ‘I’m sorry, Wolfie, I know he meant a lot to you,’ Peter said.

  Levi climbed to his feet. His legs felt heavy, reluctant to follow the small party down to the stream that ran below the caves but high up on the forest line. Levi helped to carry Erik, who had been wrapped in a piece of sugar sack. He was cold and weighed far more than Levi could have believed. They’d already dug a hole and fashioned a crude cross from two sticks. Other crosses, and sticks with crude Stars of David drawn on them for the Jewish dead, commemorated members of their band who’d given their lives for the cause, sticking out of the snow like stark mute reminders that they had lived at all.

  Levi made a silent promise to bring Erik’s parents there one day, and then said his goodbye. His mind felt numb, as chilled as the air around him. There was no time for tears, and as he turned away he felt a door bang shut on this part of his heart, never to be opened again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The National Archives

  Kew, London

  September 2017

  ‘Roza.’

  The single word sat in the silence. Major Stratton froze the image on the screen and waited for someone else to speak. Finally Cindy sighed. ‘Well at least we have a name to put to her now, even if we know it wasn’t her real name,’ she said.

  Major Stratton coughed and walked to the centre of the room in front of the screen. ‘A name to who? If you don’t mind me asking,’ he said tentatively.

  David stirred. ‘I’m sorry, Major. When my Feter died and Papa was sitting Shiva for him a woman visited the house, the home he had shared with Feter Levi for so many years. She was old and very small, spoke with a faint accent, we thought perhaps Eastern European. She told Papa that if Wolfie had died and he was his brother, then he must be Amadeus Bite. She promised to return and tell us about his war. She said —’

  ‘She said I would be amazed and that I should know he had had a full life,’ Simon interrupted.

  ‘And you haven’t seen her since?’ Stratton asked.

  David shook his head. ‘No. We didn’t know her name or where she came from.’

  ‘When she saw that Levi Horowitz had died in Vermont, how did she know that he was Wolfie? When did he share his real name?’ Daniel asked

  Stratton frowned. ‘You’ll find that out later in the story, and she must have remembered all those years. There are organisations for people who fought in partisan groups and they keep records. We know she was Polish, born in Warsaw around 1924, and she shares her real name with Levi. It might be enough. I’ll see what we can find.’

  ‘We would be very grateful if you could find her. It was three years ago, she might be dead,’ David said.

  Simon looked over at him. ‘And she might not! I’m still alive,’ he said. They all laughed, and Simon gave a shrug. ‘Ancient, but still alive.’

  ‘But you’re invincible, Poppa,’ Daniel said.

  ‘They must have shared something, to make her revisit that part of her life so many years later and come to pay her respects,’ Cindy said thoughtfully. ‘Feter Levi must have meant a great deal to her. And he never said a word to us about her.’

  David Horowitz wondered how many secrets one family could hold. He was mulling over all this new information and thinking about his childhood. He’d been born in New York to a German Holocaust survivor and an American mother. But they weren’t a typical post-war nuclear family, because Feter Levi lived with them. He’d never questioned the fact that he had a dad and an uncle, and when his dad was hospitalised, which happened often because of the digestive problems the years of starvation had left him with, his uncle took over fathering him. They were very different men. His father wanted to be ‘American’ with a passion that had taken David years to understand. They’d gone to baseball games and celebrated Fourth of July barbecues. Simon insisted that his son could recite all the American presidents in order of office, and explained just how lucky they were to live in a country that was free and where the police were kind and didn’t hurt the people. He kept the pantry well stocked and gathered armfuls of wood in the win
ter to keep them warm. While no food was ever wasted, he went to great lengths to ensure his family were fed and warm. There were nightmares that frightened a little boy listening in the next room, and periods of silence, a withdrawing to a place of anger and fear, which David now realised were common to Holocaust survivors.

  But in contrast there was his artistic, gentle Feter Levi, who read to him and helped him to paint pictures. Levi was the one he copied, the one he studied. He held his head the same way and practised his uncle’s long-legged stride. From an early age he noticed how Feter Levi treated people, his genuine smile and his quiet care. David’s school friends loved his uncle because he cooked them treats and took them out on Halloween, read them stories and played them music on the piano.

  Only once had he seen a different man beneath the quiet exterior. His mother had taken him to the new amusement park on Coney Island and Feter Levi had come with them. It was a magical place of hotdogs, rollercoasters and rides. A group of men had heard Levi’s accent and accused him of being a Nazi. He’d tried to defuse the situation by walking away, putting himself between the aggressors and his sister-in-law and nephew. But the thugs had smelt fear and they’d persisted. David’s mother had scooped him up and tried to hide his face in her shoulder, but he’d seen enough of the flashing fists and feet, and the way his Feter Levi had left five fully grown men lying on the pavement, groaning and spitting blood and teeth. His mother told him never to mention it, especially to his father. Now he knew how and why his Feter had learned those skills.

  When he was in his twenties, she’d told him she had a secret to share with him. She’d planned to take it with her to her grave, but had reconsidered after viewing a television programme about people who needed bone marrow from a relative.

  ‘If that ever happens, you need to know who your closest living relative is,’ she said quietly.

  David frowned at her. ‘Don’t worry yourself about things that may never happen. We will still have Poppa, and Daniel has Cindy and me.’