Just not blond and blue-eyed.
* * *
Nine thirty came and went and Jacob stood by the door, looking up and down the deserted street. It was dark and the rooftops gleamed dark blue in the moonlight. In the houses lights were turning off one by one, as his mind began to race.
The most likely explanation was that Sarah had missed the last tram before the curfew and had to stay over in the restaurant. Probably the owners lived upstairs and they had a spare room, or she was sleeping on a sofa in their living room. There was no way to let him know. Yes, that must be it. Or could she be stuck in the street after curfew? No, it wasn’t like that anymore, it wasn’t a shooting curfew. At most they would arrest her. Could something have happened to her? Could she be in the hospital? An accident? The tram crashed?
Jacob paced in the small room. Just when he was looking forward to holding her, telling her how much he loved her and how right she had been, that all his talk of revenge and killing was all pointless, it was all vanity, that nothing mattered more than their life together. She would be so happy. He had so many plans. Where was she? He imagined every terrible possibility, while telling himself to calm down.
At eleven fifteen his heart stopped. There was a knock on the door. He looked at it. If it was Sarah, she would just come in. Who could it be? The police? What had happened?
Jacob got up from the bed, where he had been lying fully clothed. His pulse was running away, he tried to control his breathing. He collected himself and walked slowly to the door, staring at it, trying to see through it. With his hand on the handle he froze, and tried to swallow. He couldn’t. There was no point delaying this. He stepped back and swung the door open.
An old man with shaven gray stubble for hair and a white beard stood in the door-frame. His face was deeply lined and his cheeks seemed to hang from his jaw. His eyes were sunken and dark, and bloodshot. He wore a new coat that was too big and hung from his shoulders.
A shock of disappointment ran through Jacob. He managed to say, “Hello, can I help you?”
The man stared at him and his mouth moved, his teeth showed, an attempt at a smile, before a word came out: “Jacob.”
A sob came so suddenly and from so deep that Jacob had to catch his breath.
“Papa?”
“Good luck, then,” a voice said, and a policeman walked away.
The two men stared at each other, mouths open. Jacob was rooted to the spot as his father brushed past him. For a moment he continued to stare into the deserted street.
“Nice,” his father said. He walked to the bed and sat down, testing the springs. He looked up and smiled and shook his head in wonder.
Jacob’s jaw hung open. When he could, he said, “Would you like some tea?”
“Yes, please.”
Jacob could not fill the kettle. He was shaking too much.
“Let me,” his father said, “you were never much good in the kitchen. Sit down.” He took the kettle and filled it and lit a match and put it on to boil. Jacob couldn’t take his eyes off him.
Solomon Klein found the tea and put a spoonful of sugar in a cup and looked at the kettle, waiting for it to boil. He’s shrunk, Jacob thought, and he wasn’t tall to begin with. As he gave the cup to Jacob, Solomon said, as if his son were late from school, “Where is Maxie?”
Jacob took the cup and felt the tears heating his eyes. His eyes met his father’s. He shook his head and felt himself shiver.
Solomon looked away. “Do you know what happened?”
Jacob nodded.
“Were you with him?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Bergen-Belsen.”
Solomon took his cup and sat heavily on the bed. He gazed slowly around the room until he noticed Sarah’s shoes by the bed, and the pile of her clothes that Jacob had put on a chair. He glanced at Jacob and nodded in approval.
* * *
Jacob told his father all about Sarah.
He told him about Maxie.
He told him about Dr. Berger and Schmutzig and the house.
He showed him his money and told him about his plans for the future.
He never mentioned the Rat.
When he asked Solomon, his father talked a little about Gurs, less about Auschwitz, and nothing about the rest. Why burden the boy?
They held hands while they spoke and neither said the half of it. At one o’clock in the morning Jacob offered his father the bed. “Sarah will probably come in the morning,” he said.
“You sleep here too,” Solomon said.
“Yes, we were used to two in a bed, me and Maxie.”
“What? You had a bed?”
“Not exactly.”
* * *
Solomon was snoring before Jacob came back from brushing his teeth. Air escaped from his nose like exhaust from a tank. Jacob pushed him onto his side until he sounded merely like a motorbike. Is that an improvement? he wondered. He lay on his back, his head on his hands, listening to his father with a smile on his face. He could hardly believe it. As for Dr. Berger, he couldn’t wait to see his reaction when his father went home. He would take him there tomorrow. “We thought you were all dead,” indeed. His father was a tough old cookie, he had never known it as a child. He’ll have the good doctor out by the scruff of his neck in no time. His smile spread. He was thinking of Sarah, how happy she would be when she came back in the morning. His father alive, him choosing a future with her instead of that mad fantasy of revenge. The Rat would get his due eventually, he’d make sure of that. Let the Americans handle it. Or God will intervene. Maybe he’ll get run over by a bus.
Jacob breathed in deep and let the air out long and slowly, an extended sigh of satisfaction, as if his heart were smiling, and felt himself settle in the homely darkness. His eyes were heavy. He turned onto his side and, dreaming of Sarah, drifted into a quiet dark place, clammy, damp, that held him tight. It was an underwater cavern. He was suspended beneath the water, hanging in the comforting gloom, there was a shaft of light and it glowed and sparkled on the brilliant orange gills of ten thousand goldfish darting in waves and swells around him. He stretched his open fingers to reach out in the water and golden specks of light shot through them and welled around him and shifted together like dunes of golden sands in the dry desert wind. He curled into a ball and felt warm and good as he floated in the womb.
Far, far away, an engine’s quiet rumble, the snap of a carefully opening door. A gentle draft, cool on his ears. He moved as the womb wall closed in on him and he shifted to make room and the wall was soft and warm and nestled against him and put an arm around him. He was drifting and turned and her lips met his and as the misty veil rose he heard Sarah breathe into his ear, “Jacob? Darling? There’s a man on my side of the bed.”
* * *
In 1939 eleven hundred Jews were living in Heidelberg.
In July of 1945 there were eighteen.
* * *
ALSO BY MARTIN FLETCHER
The List
Walking Israel
Breaking News
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARTIN FLETCHER is one of the world’s most highly respected television news correspondents (“For decades, Martin Fletcher has been the gold standard of television war correspondents,” says Anderson Cooper). He is also rapidly gaining an equally impressive reputation as a writer. He has won many awards, including the National Jewish Book Award, a Columbia University duPont Award, several Overseas Press Club Awards, and five Emmys. Fletcher and his wife, Hagar, have raised three sons. He spent many years as the NBC News Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv and he is currently based in Israel and New York, where he is a Special Correspondent for NBC News.
Visit his Web site at www.martinfletcher.net.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint
of St. Martin’s Press.
JACOB’S OATH. Copyright © 2013 by Martin Fletcher. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Steve Snider
Cover photographs: couple © Ismo Holtto/Getty Images; city © Ullstein Bild-Kessler
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Fletcher, Martin, 1947–
Jacob’s oath: a novel / Martin Fletcher.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-250-02761-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02760-3 (e-book)
1. Holocaust survivors—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Revenge—Fiction. 4. Jewish families—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3606.L486J33 2013
813'.6—dc23
2013020532
e-ISBN 9781250027603
First Edition: October 2013
Jacob's Oath: A Novel Page 28