by Roger Herst
The next day, Chuck tapped on her study door and didn't bother to wait for an invitation to open it. He stood in the doorway, his hands open in supplication. "His Eminency, the Archbishop of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is on the phone waiting to speak with you."
"Bishop Colmanoff?" Gabby said while looking up from her paper.
"No, I meant Rabbi Olam v'Ed. He asked to speak with Ms. Gabrielle Lewyn. I asked if he meant Rabbi Lewyn and he repeated 'Ms Lewyn.' If I were you, I wouldn't accept his call until he gets your correct title."
She had to think about that for an extended moment. "I know who I am. If he doesn't acknowledge me, that's his problem. Put him through, please."
The phone rang twice before Gabby lifted the receiver and introduced herself as 'Gabrielle Lewyn.'
"You know who I am, yes?" he asked, and didn't wait for Gabby's response. "Vee 'ave a problem. Carey Sylerman hast sent me your stories about Mordecai Yoelson, which I read," he said in a musty, thick voice, inflected with a Yiddish accent. "Yoelson wast a man vit a prodigious memory fur Toirah. I want my students should have a mind like his. None do. You vrote dat he came from Ivano Frankivsk. How did you know that men from dis place studied Toirah from memory?"
"I've read histories of the area," she answered. "In my mind, Mordecai was extraordinary, but there were others. The region was renowned for students who made a practice of memorizing very long tractates. The Torah was imprinted into their brains at an early age."
He grunted aloud. "Toirah makes all students equal. Dis ist fundamental to Sh'erit ha-Pletah. My boichars glory in dee afterglow of der valor. When you are in the Neu York area, I want you should come and tell me how this story of Mordecai Yoelson came to you. Yoelson's encyclopedic knowledge kept Toirah alive in dark days, just as Rabbi Akibba sustained d'Toirah in Yavneh after d'var mit Rome."
"I'm not sure I'll take you up on that, Rabbi. I commend your dedication to Torah and your discipline in observing Jewish law, but I have no sympathy with the way your people treat women. You may stand steadfast in upholding the law, but not excluding women from it."
"Ah, but you must agree dat they are not d'same."
"I do not agree," Gabby snapped, feeling herself slipping from supporter to opponent."
"I had hopes you vould understand what we are trying to accomplish here. I ask that you cancel your invitation fur Carey Sylerman to teach in your school. Dis is not good for her. None of the vomen in Sh'erit ha-Pletah 'ave dis privilege."
"Carey can make up her own mind on the subject."
"At Sh'erit ha-Pletah a novitiate ist forbotten to make such decisions until he or she ist admitted to our society."
"Let me remind you that this is a free country. Just because Carey is a novitiate in your group, she still may exercise her own decisions."
"You help her ruination. It's better to become a Christian than to dilute Judaism as you und your cohorts do."
"We have done no more than make Judaism meaningful for Jews living in the twenty-first century," she barked, sensing that they were destined to clash horns sooner or later.
There was silence at the other end. She surmised that he was used to having his practitioners agree with his authority and that few contested his views. He eventually stuttered, "Ms Lewyn… Mssss Lewyn… then, then vee 'ave nothing to say to each other. We'll 'andle Carey here." There was no goodbye, only the crash of a phone into its receiver.
Chuck had uncharacteristically left the door ajar and was waiting for Gabby to finish talking before presenting himself. "Well, how did it go?"
She growled, "You heard a least half of the conversation. Why does Olam v'Ed think I would conspire with him to bury Carey in his cult?"
Chuck raised his eyebrows to signal one of his few attempts at profundity. "Because he believes he's right. He really believes it."
"That's just the point, Chuck-baby. The jerk is dead wrong."
Chuck always loved unearthing information. Quite often, he was asked to learn the whereabouts of a congregant no longer associated with Ohav Shalom and tacking down Susan Nebel at the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis was an easy matter. But actually making contact with her proved more difficult. Yes, she had an answering machine, but apparently didn't listen to the messages Chuck left for her. He invoked Gabby to leave a personal message, in case Susan wasn't interested to speak with a secretary from Ohav Shalom.
From St. Louis, Susan eventually returned Gabby's follow-up call with apologies for not answering sooner. She had been in southern Mexico on a field trip and had forgotten to change the outgoing message on her phone machine.
"It's been too many years," Gabby said to her. "I'm delighted you've stayed with your interest in health policy. Actually, it was Carey Sylerman who told me where I might locate you."
"How is she?" Susan asked with manifest curiosity. "We were close for many years."
"Carey's in Brooklyn studying with an Orthodox group which calls itself Sh'erit ha-Pletah."
"Wow, that's not the Carey I knew. She was wild in her earlier days. It's hard for me to imagine her in a religious environment. Give her my best, will you, Rabbi Lewyn?"
"Of course. Carey told me something I didn't know. You remember the Sefer Torah you used on your Bat Mitzvah, the one from the Holocaust?"
"Absolutely. I felt a special thrill when I studied my parasha from it."
"Did you hear it was stolen from Ohav Shalom?"
"Yes, my father told me about the incident and sent a newspaper article about what happened to you. It must have been a nightmare."
"It was. But Carey told me the Nazis catalogued their stolen Torahs with tattoos. That I didn't know. She couldn't remember the number on our scroll, but said that she thought you might. Is that true?"
There was a pause at the other end before Susan answered. "Yes and no, Rabbi. I can't actually recall the exact number but I think I know where it's written down. I once scribbled it on the pamphlet I used to learn my parasha. If I'm not mistaken, that pamphlet is packed in a box of childhood memorabilia at my parents’ home in Chevy Chase. The box should be under my old bed, which is now used as a guest room."
"Any plans to come home soon?" Gabby asked.
"Nothing immediate. But you could contact my mother and she can get the pamphlet for you. I can tell her exactly where to look. May I ask why it's so important?"
"It may help us get our Sefer Torah back. You know that the text of all Torahs is identical. But a tattooed Torah is unusual. One with an identification number is unique."
Within two days, Chuck had gone to Susan Nebel's family home and met with her mother while they retrieved Susan's parasha booklet from her childhood memorabilia. At first, Chuck couldn't locate any number that might correspond to an Einsatzgruppen identity tattoo. He called Susan in St. Louis for help in locating it. On the phone, they went from page to page until it turned up penciled inside the pamphlet's thick cover: 3325 T609.
***
Kye called Gabby almost every evening from Monterey to chat about developments with Images.com. He was generally pleased with the way the merger was forming though, as he put it, "a merger, like a marriage, is a crapshoot. You never know what you're going to get until you start living with each other." He went on reflecting on their first coincidental encounter while attending the annual conference of the Democratic National Committee. "I was in luck the day I decided to go for a jog at the Greenbrier and I found you running like a deer – right in the middle of the West Virginia deer season."
"I often think about that, too," she replied, nibbling on the earpiece of her reading glasses. "What would have happened if you hadn't decided to run or I said to myself, it's too cold or dark and I don't know the terrain, so I'll just work out in the Greenbrier exercise center. I shutter to think of how close we came to not meeting, Kye. It's one of those imponderables, isn't it?"
"Seems that just about everything is timing and luck. Any new thoughts about a baby?" he asked, his uneasiness with
the subject conveying in this voice.
"Nothing physical, if that's what you have in mind. It's much too early to feel anything. I'm exactly ten days from the onset of my period and counting. Just as God shined on you and me at the Greenbrier, He'll do it again this month."
"Don't let your hopes soar, Love. You've had more than your share of disappointments. We'll make it happen – sooner or later. I'm planning to fly home on the red-eye late Saturday evening, so I hope your schedule Sunday isn't too busy and we can spend a little time together. I've got a big surprise for you."
She loved surprises and girlishly giggled. "That's wonderful, Kye. If I can, I'll clear my schedule. What's the surprise? Tell me now, please, so I won't be held in suspense."
"Not until I get home. It will knock your socks off. Let's think about ice skating Sunday afternoon after you're finished at OH."
"Sounds good to me, but it's chaos at the shul without Cici. Sunday afternoon, we have a class on Orthodox practices. Carey Sylerman covered for me last week, but Rabbi Olam v'Ed at Sh'erit ha-Pletah had forbidden her return this Sunday. That means I won't get finished until about four. It will be too dark for skating."
"Still on the treadmill, Gabrielle," he commented sardonically.
"But it isn't a bad treadmill," she countered. "The truth is, Kye, I love to be needed by others."
At the end of the day, Chuck was prepared to say goodbye and paused in his favorite doorway, a stack of photos in his hand. Gabby was on the phone with a congregant concerning a gift to the synagogue in memory of her late husband. Generally, he found Gabby far more impatient on the phone than in person, her preference to use the instrument to conduct business and not chat. But he found her inordinately patient, explaining several times the alternatives available to the congregant regarding her gift. She signaled with her eyebrows that this might be a long conversation and he elected to return to his desk and wait.
When she finished, she called through the open door. "Did I see my pictures in your hand?"
"They arrived in the mail and I didn't open them until this afternoon," he said, returning to her study. "Some place you stayed at in Carmel. I take it all those shots were taken in the bedroom."
Normally, she would have been upset with anyone for intruding upon a private moment, but somehow Chuck was different. After so many years of working together, nothing seemed important enough to keep hidden from him. Because he was so perceptive regarding women, keeping personal matters secret from him was futile
He looked down at the top picture of the bed in Carmel. "I suppose this is where your divine act occurred. I know you’re sentimental about such things. I'd love to know where I was conceived, but my parents didn't concern themselves with such matters. Lydia and I always joked that we were both conceived in the back of a bumpy pickup truck where our X and Y genes got scrambled."
Gabby liked the fact that Chuck felt free to joke about being gay. She received the pictures from him and immediately began shuffling them one by one. The general quality was excellent, a fact she attributed more to her automatic camera than her photographic abilities. A gentle smile of satisfaction merged on her lips as she flipped the pictures a second time through. "It was perfect, Chuck. The ambience, the mood, the timing were absolutely perfect, the way it should be for moms and dads when they come together to create a new life."
"Rabbi Gabby," he softened in a manner that was not usual for him. Trials of his life had purged from him most sentimentality and he thought of himself as a rugged realist. "I've been thinking about you as a mother and concluded that your kid will be a very lucky child. Most children can't say that about their parents. Lydia and I struck out in that department."
"Thank you, Chuck, that's quite a compliment for a man who doesn't throw compliments around lightly. Time will tell, of course. If I get the chance, I'll do the best I can."
Just before leaving for the night, he stepped forward to hand Gabby a printed email from Dr. Shenna Benjamin at the Holocaust Museum.
Please join Sergeant Kyle Dormeyer and myself for lunch at the Museum on Thursday at noon. He agreed to tape an interview telling how his squad discovered the code for the Holocaust scrolls and explain the thorny question of Einsatzgruppen authority. Kyle promised to bring along WWII maps to show the regions from which our scrolls were expropriated.
To join Shenna Benjamin and Kyle Dormeyer for lunch required shuffling appointments, but Chuck was a master appointment clerk. Gabby had long since learned to defer to his expertise. The pending visit with Kyle Dormeyer inspired her to telephone contacts she had made at Congregation Beth Torah in Buffalo and Adat Israel in Greensboro, North Carolina, regarding their stolen Sefer Torahs. The associate rabbi in Buffalo, Sidney Kraus, who was closer to the theft than his senior rabbi, expressed surprise to learn that Holocaust scrolls were tattooed by the Nazi thieves. He said that he did not recall seeing any tattooed numbers on the parchment, but that he would inquire from the Cantor and Baal Korach, the designated weekly reader, if they had noticed anything. Matters were different with Rabbi Helen Katznelson in Greensboro, who believed the tattooing to be common knowledge. She not only remembered pointing it out to congregants, but had written the number on a Temple flyer produced for the celebration of Simchat Torah. She left Gabby holding on the phone while she searched a file cabinet to retrieve the flyer, but returned empty-handed. Gabby's mood cascaded, but not for long. Helen Katznelson phoned back several hours later when she found the flyer in a different file cabinet. The number was 3325 J397.
Armed with identifying numbers for two of the three stolen Torahs, Gabby felt equipped to meet with Kyle Dormeyer and Shenna Benjamin at the Holocaust Museum. The lunch Shenna had promised was arranged in a conference room adjoining the museum's research center. While sandwiches possessed only slightly more taste than eye appeal, the conference room had the advantage of a large table suitable for unfolding maps.
Kyle Dormeyer was rail thin, though over six feet in stature. Every bone in his face seemed to protrude from sun-dried skin. Gabby was struck by his humorous sarcasm. He spoke like an orchestra conductor, substituting a potato chip for a baton. "As I told Dr. Benjamin," he repeated for Gabby's benefit, "We got a tip from a German informant that the Nazi officials operated a factory in Offenbach for non-war-related materials. Our first thought was it had something to do with the development of nuclear weapons and I can tell you how disappointed I was to find in Offenbach nothing more than a common warehouse. But once we entered, we discovered the warehouse had been configured to function like a factory. There was an incinerator outside with carbon fragments of what our lab established as parchment. And inside, we found an archive of Jewish books in Yiddish, Hebrew, and a half-dozen Eastern European languages, with over three hundred scrolls. The silver breastplates and crowns one usually sees with these sacred books were already gone – perhaps melted down for the precious metal or sold to antique dealers. In one of the offices, German curators left behind the photos now on exhibit in the museum."
"It must warm your heart to see your efforts acknowledged by the Museum after all these years," Gabby added while she studied the curious lines the sun had creased in his forehead.
Kyle's eyes sparkled. "Oh yes. At the time, it didn't seem to any of my unit that this was such a big discovery. But now, I guess it is."
Shenna Benjamin passed a plastic bottle of Diet Pepsi across the table to Gabby who declined. "It was one of Rabbi Lewyn's students who drew our attention to the Nazi coding system for the Torahs."
Kye Dormeyer pointed to three rolled maps beside a thin attaché case he used when traveling. "Since we've talked, Dr. Benjamin, I found in my attic copies I made of the original Eisatzgruppen maps, showing the regional authority for each unit."
"And you can pinpoint the location of the Holocaust scrolls by the tattooed numbers?" Gabby asked rhetorically.
"You bet. The first four numbers of each code deal with the region. The second four are still a mystery. I once called somebo
dy at the Army Archives to see if they had de-coded the second sequence. They didn't even know what I was talking about, so obviously nobody tried their hand at cracking it."
As soon as they had finished eating, Kyle unfolded a map of Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, marked with black military stamps. Dark lines delineated territories numbered with Roman numerals. The key at the bottom indicated where the Einzsatgruppen units operated. In an area above Chernivtsi, just north of the Romanian border, Gabby recognized the number 3325 as the first part of 3325 J556 from the Greensboro scroll. She had more difficulty finding the 4377, the first numbers from her own Ohav Shalom document.
"Where's your guess?" Shenna asked.
Gabby had no idea, but when pressed by Kyle Dormeyer, she thought about Mordecai Yoelson and made a wild stab: "Ivano Frankovsk."
Kyle leaned far over the map and put a finger on the spot named, then drew a circle with his finger until he found what he was looking for, a small divided region around Krasna where a Nazi scribe had written in very tiny letters 4377.
"I recently wrote a story about a Jewish boy from Otinaya, not far from there. It must have been serendipity," Gabby said.
Kyle looked omniscient when he replied, "Maybe not, Rabbi Lewyn. I think the Holocaust was like a pebble cast into a pond. The ripples keep coming indefinitely. Maybe God was trying to tell you something."
She didn't want to sound disrespectful and therefore muzzled her first response, which was to say that, to her knowledge, God didn't talk to people in that manner, certainly not to her. With respect to getting pregnant, she was prepared to be more superstitious. To Shenna she said, "I suppose you have good genealogists working at the museum."
"That's an important part of our historical purpose at the Museum. Why do you ask?"
"Because I would appreciate if they would look into some family names with respect to these Holocaust Torahs. With help from both of you, I'm slowly getting to feel more comfortable dealing with my speculations."