Otto did not like the cellist or his big mouth. What worried him were the rumors concerning travel to Jerusalem, the terrifying fights between Arab and Jews. The concertmaster, who might have guessed Otto’s thoughts and probably others’ too, announced, “We will travel by armored car. We live through troubled times, but the show must go on. This will be a contribution to our brethren who fight to create a state for all of us.”
Otto was thinking how he would break the news to Gretchen. When they lived in Jaffa, Nabiha was with her until late at night when he returned from Jerusalem or Haifa, but what would he do now?
He didn’t realize that Lotte and Mazal were waiting for him. Lotte opened the door to her apartment and whispered, “Herr Schroder, Herr Schroder, please come in. We have to ask you a question.”
Mazal was standing next to Lotte. Where was Gretchen?
Guessing his thought Mazal quickly said, “Your wife is asleep upstairs. She drank two cups of chamomile tea, and we watched over her until she calmed down. Now she sleeps peacefully.”
“Something happened?” Otto asked alerted.
“Who is Ruthie?” Lotte asked in return.
Otto saw both women’s eyes riveted on his lips. He never told his neighbors details about their family. But he wasn’t going to lie. Otto swallowed hard, his mouth dry, “Ruthie was our daughter.”
Otto’s eyes became moist. “We don’t know if she’s still alive. I asked many people returning from the camps. No one knew about her. Neither did the Red Cross. I took great care to prepare Gretchen that Ruth might not be among the living,” Otto took out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead, “but she refused to believe it.”
“It’s horrible, so horrible,” he fell onto a chair, his hands covering his face.
Lotte put her hand on Otto’s shoulder, while Mazal, looking reproachfully at Lotte, brought him a glass of water.
Otto struggled to stand on his feet with difficulty. “I have to go.”
He stopped, “If my wife talked to you about Ruthie, why did you ask me who she was?”
Lotte turned to Mazal, “You tell him.”
“We planned to take Mrs. Schroder to the park. I was hanging laundry on the balcony when Lotte, always thinking I’m going to be late, called—”
“Oh, you always talk and talk,” Lotte interrupted her. “We were on our way when Gretchen pointed across the street and screamed, ‘Ruthie, this is Ruthie, my Ruthie,’ she was trembling, then Mazal—”
“I saw the girl,” continued Mazal, “and crossed the street like a bullet. She was blonde, her eyes the color of sapphires. I took her arm, but she slipped from my hand and was gone. It must’ve been a coincidence. Mrs. Schroder became upset.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence,” said Otto thoughtfully. The women looked at him, questions in their eyes.
“Did she have a little boy with her? Otto asked.
“No,” said Mazal
“When we lived in Jaffa,” Otto said, “a young Arab girl stopped many times to listen to me practicing. Gretchen watched her. The girl’s eyes were as blue as our Ruthie’s, she said. We didn’t see her for a long time, but when she showed up again she had a little boy with her. We got acquainted. We discovered that her son, the little boy, was a musical prodigy. Gretchen and I were fond of him.” Otto fell silent. Then he raised his head.
“Please forgive me. I have to go attend to my Gretchen.”
“What happened next?” asked Lotte, “Don’t leave us in the middle of your story!”
“That’s all. When I told her that we were moving to Tel-Aviv because the British didn’t allow Jews to travel by night, she confessed that she was Jewish, too.”
“That’s all you know?” Mazal seemed disappointed. “No name or how to get in touch with her? Maybe this girl was abducted, maybe she’s in danger.”
“You, and your romantic soul!” exclamed Lotte. “You read too many cheap five-piaster books.”
“Why do you think she might be the girl we saw?” Mazal asked Otto. “Do you know her name?”
“She said her name was Suha. Our Arab maid knew her and her family.”
“The girl we saw wasn’t dressed like an Arab,” Lotte said. “She was dressed like one of us.”
“Now I remember. Her Hebrew name was Shifra.” said Otto.
“Suha or Shifra,” Lotte suddenly turned sour, “I hope, for Gretchen’s sake, she’ll not bother us anymore.”
Otto picked up his violin and started to retreat, “I’m very sorry,” he muttered.
But Mazal had one more question, “How did she know where to find you? Do you think she asked your Arab maid? Did you leave your new address with her?”
“Perhaps you’ll think I made a mistake. After she told me she was Jewish, her Yiddish sounded so sweet, I was astounded. I scribbled our address and gave it to her. I said, if you ever need anything, here is where you’ll find us.”
Otto bowed and left. Lotte and Mazal remained standing looking at each other.
“What do you think?” Lotte asked after a long silence.
“The girl must be in trouble. Maybe we should find her,” answered Mazal. “I scared her today, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her. She’ll come back.”
“And give Gretchen a heart attack?” Lotte responded. “Are you ready for another crisis?”
“Maybe by helping this girl, we can help Gretchen, too.”
“Mazal, what’s cooking in your head full of straw?”
“If my head is full of straw,” Mazal smiled, “you’ll have to fill yours with a lot of patience, my dear lady,” Mazal curtsied, “because I’m not going to tell you.”
Mazal left laughing, her earrings tinkling. She stopped for a second in front of the Schroders’ apartment. It was quiet. Pleased, she mounted the last flight of steps to her lover’s apartment.
Panting and out of breath, Shifra finally stopped running. While her heartbeat returned to normal, she observed the crowds around her, groups of people gesticulating, laughing and slapping each other’s backs; some were eating falafel, others spitting pistachio shells, young boys barely making their way balancing tea glass trays on their heads.
Shifra walked slowly, reading the names of the streets, trying to remember the ones Avram drove his truck on earlier. People talked so loudly that Shifra could easily make out their conversation.
“It’s only through negotiations that we can succeed. Patience, only one more month until we hear what the United Nations decides,” a middle-aged man said, “Why rush into action?”
“Foolish dreamer, like the ones who went to the slaughterhouse,” his friend said. “You know that we can’t expect anything good from the goyim. Where were they in ’42, ’43?” The man rolled up his sleeve and Shifra could see the blue seal of a number. “I swore on my parents’ memory that nothing like it would ever happen to my children.”
“You are right, Hershel,” said a young man who joined them. He wore khaki shorts and a kova tembel, “It’s only Begin’s Etzel, and not Ben-Gurion’s Haganah which could solidify a Jewish state.”
Though she wanted to hear more, Shifra did not stop walking. She was afraid to attract attention to herself. She crossed the street, her mind in turmoil. What were they talking about? She understood their Hebrew, but the names she heard were unknown to her.
Shifra saw a man pointing to the newspaper in his hand. “We Jews are like a drop in a sea full of Arabs. We have to be cautious if we want to obtain statehood.”
“This country is ours! It belongs to us. We were here more than two thousand years ago,” a man wearing a skullkap answered.
With so much tension in the air, Shifra felt her head would explode. She turned onto a street lined with cypress trees. Two women, perhaps mother and daughter, sat at an improvised outdoor café. “You can’t marry him, a man without a profession. How is he going to make a living? Stealing?” the older woman screamed.
“We love each other. We’ll work,” the girl answered.
“We are young, a beautiful future awaits us. We will join a hashomer hatzair kibbutz, and raise strong, free children.”
Oh, how much she wished she had that girl’s courage, Shifra thought.
From afar, Shifra still heard the mother crying, “Do it and you’ll kill us both, your father and me!”
The smell of fried onions and garlic filled Shifra’s nostrils. Women cooked the midday meal with their kitchen windows open. In a narrow alley Shifra saw a man’s arms clasped around a young woman’s waist. “Let me go,” she said, struggling.
“Not before you kiss me.” the man nuzzled the girl’s neck.
“Here in the street? Itzik, you have no shame. What would the neighbors say?”
“Everybody knows I love you.” His mouth closed on hers.
How beautiful life can be, thought Shifra. She suddenly panicked. She had to return home! Hurriedly she passed a flower vendor. “Hey, Yafeyfia, you gorgeous one,” he called. Shifra wasn’t sure he meant her. He threw a rose in her direction “Pin it in your hair,” he winked. “Come by tomorrow and I’ll fill your arms with flowers.”
Shifra ran. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t return to change clothes in the church. It was dangerous. Yet, she had to become Suha again. She heard the noise of a creaking gate. The house behind it seemed deserted. She could hear only the wind and her heartbeats. Quickly she took out the large jelebia from her bag, wide enough to slip over her blouse and skirt. Then she knotted the hijab under her chin.
On her way to the bus station she saw the scattered pages of a Hebrew newspaper on an empty bench. She snatched it and put it in her bag underneath the watermelon. She would read it during Selim’s afternoon nap, when the house was quiet. She would better understand what was going on.
Waiting for the Jaffa bus, Shifra recalled the day’s adventure. Why hadn’t she planned what she was going to do after setting eyes on the Schroders’ flat? What were her expectations? She could still hear Gretchen Schroder’s outburst. It had caught her totally unprepared. What would Gretchen and the other two ladies think of her running away? It seemed that she could never escape making mistakes.
With a screeching noise, Jaffa’s old yellow bus stopped in front of her. An exhausted Suha mounted the two steps. It had been a draining experience.
Samira and Selim were not at home when she arrived. Shifra breathed relief, but only for a minute. Where could they be so late? Her first impulse was to hide the newspaper, but she was impatient to read it. She smoothed the wrinkled pages of DAVAR. Her eyes ran over the headlines; for the first time she was reading a newspaper written in the lushen kodesh.
LATEST NEWS ABOUT UNSCOP
At Hotel Eden in Jerusalem, the United Nations’ Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) has finished its consultations with Jewish, Arab and British representatives. The committee favors the idea of partition, two states, side by side, Jewish and Arab, with Jerusalem being an International City under UN control and presented its conclusion to the General Assembly on October 9.
In the name of the Jewish Agency, Ben-Gurion has accepted the partition, but Irgun’s spokesman, Menachem Begin, rejected it saying, “Jerusalem belongs only to Jews.” Meanwhile the Palestinian Arabs as well as all Arab countries are furious and promise to boycott and fight the Commission’s proposal.
Shifra did not fully comprehend what she read. She did not understand the meaning of the words: United Nations, General Assembly, UNSCOP. Only this afternoon on the streets of Tel-Aviv she had heard for the first time the names Ben-Gurion and Begin. Who were they? Her father had never mentioned those names. Did the Jewish Agency or Irgun represent her family also? Those questions burned her lips. Who could she ask? Not Musa, for sure. How about Mr. Nathan? It Would be easier to ask him rather than return to Tel-Aviv. She could find a reason to go to the bazaar the next day.
Her eyes jumped to another headline. NEW GARIN WILL START A KIBBUTZ NEAR NAHARYA. Shifra started to read slowly, her lips moving to the rhythm of the words.
The members of the new kibbutz, Iehi-Am, are mostly young immigrants from Hungary, Holocaust survivors and former Hashomer Hatzair members.
Shifra closed her eyes and saw the girl at the outdoor café who told her mother about joining a kibbutz with her future husband. Maybe Iehi-Am was the kibbutz where she wanted to raise strong, fearless children, strong like Aviva, Ayelet, Avram with whom she had shared the ride to Tel-Aviv. How she envied their easygoing ways.
What she read next made her blood freeze. PALMACH, OUR YOUNG ELITE FIGHTERS, ESCORT CONVOYS OF ARMORED TRUCKS BRINGING FOOD AND WATER TO JERUSALEM.
Did Jerusalem lack food? Shifra remembered going with her mother to the Mahane Yehuda souk to shop for Shabbat, where mountains of fresh fruits and vegetables waited for customers. They never had enough money for the goods spread before them. Anxiously she read:
Our Palmach young boys and girls are real heroes. Armed only with home-made guns they risk their lives guarding the convoys from the Arab terrorists attacking from the heights of the hills surrounding Jerusalem.
Those were the lovely hills changing colors from eerie pink to shadows of deep blue which she admired on her bus trip from Jerusalem to Jaffa. Oh, my God, could Mahmood be one of those attacking the trucks? He and his friends dancing the Dekba at Na’ima’s wedding, and screaming, “We’ll get rid of the Brits and the Yahudim too!” At the time she thought they were drunk.
Because of daily threats and danger, she read, the British police had divided Jerusalem into security zones, encircled by wires. People trying to bypass the curfew were arrested.
Jerusalem is under siege. Shifra’s temples throbbed. What was happening? She could not believe that her father could be barred from going to shul. Is it possible that her brothers and sisters lacked food? Were they waiting for the trucks from Tel-Aviv to deliver water as the paper says?
Her heart ached remembering how fussy her mother was about having the cleanest tablecloth and napkins, especially for Shabbat. Oh, Shabbat! Is there enough flour in the cupboards for my mother to bake challah? Her eyes filled with tears.
Musa’s rifle! Why does he keep it, and keep it hidden? What did she know about the man she had married, other than that she was in love with him? Was he prepared to kill her brethren?
The gate squeaked. Shifra quickly hid the newspaper and wiped her eyes.
”Where have you been so late?” she called even before opening the door.
“Where have you been?” retorted Samira in an angry voice.
“I dreamed of watermelons,” Shifra answered quickly, “So I went to the souk and bought one. Here it is.”
“Eumi, Eumi, look what Jedati Fatima gave me,” Selim shouted happily. He proudly displayed two small toys, Arab soldiers dressed in kafias, with rifles on their backs. “Jedati Fatima said that soon we’ll go on a big trip, where I’ll see many beautiful places.”
“What’s this?” Shifra questioned Samira, who took her time before answering, “Since you weren’t home we went to see Sit Fatima. Don’t pay attention to Selim. He didn’t understand…”
“But I did,” the child said stubbornly. “You said to her, I’m too old to travel, Sit Fatima, when Jedati said that you’ll come with us.”
“Go play now,” Samira frowned. “A child shouldn’t listen to old people’s talk.”
“Let’s cut the watermelon,” Shifra proposed while her mind was racing. She needed answers to her questions and the time seemed shorter with every day that passed.
I am growing old, Samira thought, and I can’t seem to be in step with what’s happening around me. She couldn’t understand Fatima’s overwhelming news, when after returning from the beach with Selim, and discovering that Suha wasn’t home, she entered her former mistress’ house. Her first thought was, where could Suha have gone? She had complained of a headache earlier. Then Samira remembered that she saw her wearing a pair of shoes she had not seen before. Why new shoes? For the souk, a pair of slippers would serve as well. S
he is quite secretive lately. Are those the caprices of a pregnant woman?
“In what world do you live, Samira?” Sit Fatima asked, seeing how perplexed Samira became after she was told about the war they would all soon face.” Such a war as we have never seen before.”
“What do you mean, Sit Fatima?” Samira asked, though she remembered observing, while shopping at the souk, how tense and agitated people were. Fewer people sat in front of the chaikhana smoking a nargilea, or playing shesh-besh. They were snatching the newspapers out of the vendors’ hands, without even demanding the change back.
Although now she worked for Musa, Samira felt that Fatima would always be her mistress. She could not erase thirty years of being together. Waiting for Fatima to talk, Samira saw new wrinkles on her face, wrinkles she had not seen before, and her luscious black hair streaked with white threads.
“The world nowadays is not as we knew it, Samira. We have no control over our lives, not anymore,” Fatima blurted.
She stopped and Samira was sure Fatima would speak again about about Amina marrying her Brit and leaving home, or about Na’ima’s unhappy marriage. She wouldn’t complain about Musa and Suha, with Selim playing at their feet. She knew the child understood everything.
“We’ll have to leave, Samira. We’ll have to leave the country. Cousin Abdullah says the sooner the better.”
Samira felt that her heart would stop. She cried, “What do you mean, leave the country, where do you want to go? Are you making fun of me in my old age?”
“Now the governments of other countries hold our future in their hands.” Fatima said, sadly. “They want to divide our land, the land of our fathers and grandfathers, to split Palestine between the Yahudim and us. The decision has been made, but we don’t accept it. The entire Arab world is on our side. As I said, it will be war, a terrible war. We have to protect ourselves.”
Samira was scared and she didn’t want to hear anymore, but Fatima would not stop. “Egypt and Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and our own Arab Legion fighters are getting ready. A bloodbath awaits this country, and the Arab brotherhood advises us to leave.”
Jaffa Beach: Historical Fiction Page 25