by Peter Albano
“No! I became a fighter against American imperialism.”
“And Russian imperialism?”
“The Russians help the downtrodden…”
“And you have helped yourself to some very generous pay, Lieutenant Harima.” Fujita moved his eyes to the guards. “Take the lieutenant back to the brig.”
“Kill me!” the lieutenant said pulling away.
“My pleasure and at my discretion.”
“The sword.” Harima pointed hungrily at Fujita’s curved killing blade hanging from brackets on the bulkhead.
“Of course, but facing northeast.” The admiral waved impatiently at the guards.
“No! Please, the evil spirits…” The guards dragged Harima through the door.
“I thought you did not believe in that nonsense,” Fujita said under his breath.
Wearing baggy blue overalls, the third prisoner was pulled into the room. Head down, he stood trembling before the admiral. As short as Harima, he was much heavier, a dark young man with shifty black eyes, drooping mustache and hooked Semitic nose. “Salim al Hoss, Your Lordship,” he said in a bare whisper.
“Speak up! And I am not a lord.”
“Sorry, Admiral. Salim al Hoss,” he repeated in a stronger voice. “I was a gunner on the Douglas 4-motor.”
“Unit? Base?”
“Second Squadron, Fourth Bombardment Wing. We flew from Sergeyeoka.”
“How many other aircraft are based at Sereyeoka?”
“Ten more bombers and two staffels of fighters.”
“Twenty-four fighters?”
“Correct, Admiral, but the entire unit is being evacuated.”
“When?”
“It is rumored six weeks, sir.” Salim dared to look up. “Are you…are you going to kill me?”
“Are you Sabbah?”
The Arab looked around for friendly eyes. Found none. “Yes.” The answer was barely audible.
“I thought all Sabbah sought death for the glory of Khadafy.”
“Not this Sabbah, Admiral.”
“Why do you fight us?”
“Because of him.” He gestured at Bernstein. “The Jews drove us from our homes.”
“Nonsense,” Bernstein said, angrily. “You are welcome in Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs live in Israel, work there, and live well.”
“Second-class citizens! Slaves!” Salim said, suddenly emboldened.
“You’re just too lazy to work,” Bernstein said. Salim al Hoss moved his eyes back to Fujita. “You would kill me?”
“You believe in the Five Pillars of Faith?”
The Arab’s eyes widened, showing his surprise at the depth of Fujita’s knowledge and the incisiveness of the question. He spoke with new confidence, “Yes — faith, prayer, alms giving, fasting and pilgrimage, Admiral. I honor all five. And I read the Koran, face Mecca, and make my prayers five times a day.”
“The Koran is the word of your god, Allah.”
“True, Admiral. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet.”
“Then you know there is a final judgement day for all men?”
Confidence gave way to doubt. “Is this mine?”
“Yes.”
The Arab straightened for the first time. “No! Please!” He fell to his knees, clasped his hands over his head as if in prayer. “No! No! Have mercy.”
“Dying without dignity is to die a dog's death,” Fujita said, obviously revolted. “Take him out of here!” Two guards seized Salim al Hoss by the arms and dragged him on his knees through the door.
Brent could hear the man's shouts even after the door was closed. “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” (Allah is most great) And then, “Kill the Jews!” over and over as he was pulled down the passageway.
Uncharacteristically, Bernstein looked down, covered his face with open hands as if disconcerted by the attacks. In the past, the man had proved to be as resilient as Sheffield steel. In fact, Brent had seen him kill the Nazi, Captain Werner Schlieben, with relish after the German had taunted him about Judaism, the Holocaust and his missing foreskin. Even the Japanese had been awed by the savagery of the duel which was fought in the ship’s shrine — The Shrine of Infinite Salvation. “Instant circumcision!” the vengeful Bernstein had screamed, driving a wakizashi into Schlieben's genitals over and over again. But today the Israel appeared depleted, depressed.
Fujita eyed Bernstein cannily. “We have over a month to prepare the ship for operations,” the old admiral said, moving his eyes down the table. “Some of you — members of the original staff — have not had liberty; you need rest if you are to continue the fight with renewed Yamato damashii. “You are to take liberty-armed, of course, but take liberty.”
Yoshi Matsuhara rose. “Sir. The air groups, we have many new pilots…”
“I am aware of the level of training of my crew,” Fujita chided. “But I order you, Lieutenant Ross, Admiral Mark Allen, Commander Atsumi, Colonel Irving Bernstein, to port and starboard liberty. You will have liberty every other day and with your new subordinates,” he gestured at Lieutenant Daizo Saiki and Commander Tashiro Okuma, “you can be assured training will proceed. Certainly, on this regimen you can maintain your duties and still enjoy the rest and recreation you need.”
The thought of liberty brought Sarah Aranson back to Brent’s mind and a familiar warmth began to spread from his groin. Brent had the picture-perfect memory of all men who spend long months at sea — recall that could bring back ecstatic moments, yet tortured at the same time. A thirty-year-old captain in Israeli Intelligence, he had met Sarah in Bernstein’s Tokyo office before the Mediterranean operation. She had a strong yet feminine face, widely spaced brown eyes, dark hair, and a magnificent figure — a full-formed body that flowed sinuously even under her plain khaki shirt and pants. From the beginning, the attraction had been overpowering. It had been weeks since he had felt her hot, firm body writhing against his. Her groans, her sighs, and sometimes her atavistic shouts from deep in her throat when in the throes of love-making, struck him suddenly like hot irons in a torturer’s hands. He twisted in his seat, tormented by his loss: Sarah’s angry departure for Tel Aviv and the new duty she requested when Brent chose Yonaga instead of shore duty near her.
Fujita’s voice broke the reveries, “There will be a memorial service for our honored dead in the Shrine of Infinite Salvation tomorrow morning at zero-eight-hundred. I expect my staff to attend in Number One Blues, white gloves and swords.” He rose slowly, steadying himself with both hands on the desk. Stiffly, he turned toward the cherry and paulownia wood shrine and came to ramrod attention. Every man in the room came to his feet, emulating the admiral. The Japanese clapped twice. Fujita spoke reverently, “Let us remember The Way as taught by Tao and Buddha — the greater can be achieved through the lesser.” His hand found the Hagakure, “And it is the way of the samurai to set his heart right every morning and evening and live as though his body were already dead, thus gaining freedom and, in death, nirvana.” He moved his eyes to the staff “You are dismissed.”
As the officers filed through the door, Fujita spoke once more, “Colonel Bernstein, please remain for a moment.” The Israeli returned to his chair.
Never in nearly a year of service on Yonaga had Colonel Irving Bernstein been alone with Admiral Hiroshi Fujita. He wondered about the tiny old admiral sitting like a temple demigod at the end of the long oak table. Inscrutable, the old man was a mass of contradictions: polite and barbarous, honest and treacherous, bold and hesitant, sympathetic and heartless. But Bernstein knew this was The Way of the samurai — the concept that taught the more numerous the contradictions the deeper the man. Fujita had great depth. A true Buddhist, he believed in The Wheel of the Law, a movement of the human tide that went on eternally without divine design, where each man was carried along like a bubble in boundless waters to vanish with the others and where there was no birth, no death, no beginning, and no end. Buddha himself was nothing more than a blind man staring at
the sun. The ultimate pragmatist, the old admiral, as all Japanese, could face death stoically with deep appreciation of each moment of life, which could be his last.
The old sailor's opening statement jarred the Israeli. “You lived through the Holocaust.” He nodded at the numbers tattooed on Bernstein's arm.
“Yes. I was Auschwitz Jew number 400,647.”
“Those men, Kenneth Rosencrance and Salim al Hoss, opened wounds.”
The Israeli stared at the table. “Those wounds can never heal, sir.”
“You killed Schlieben.”
“Only once, Admiral. Not six million times.”
“We were trapped — locked away in Sano Wan when all this happened.”
“I know.”
“We were responsible, too.”
Wide-eyed, the colonel looked up. “You? Responsible? You were part of the Axis, true, but that doesn't make sense.”
“Very logical, Colonel. All men who have ever lived and will ever live share responsibility.”
The Israeli nodded understanding. “The Eastern philosophy, Admiral, but I just can't believe you were part of that river — that river of blood.”
“No man can escape it.”
“Perhaps, sir.”
“I have read about it. I have a small library, you know.”
Bernstein smiled at the statement. Fujita's “small library” was an awesome collection of thousands of books that filled two cabins of long dead ship's officers, overflowing into companionways, closets, and even into part of the chart room. The old man read incessantly and knew more about the Greater East Asia War than any man on board — even challenging Admiral Mark Allen on fine points. “I want to know about it — from your mouth.”
Bernstein knuckled his forehead. Sighed. “Needless to say, Admiral. It’s not a pretty story.”
“If it pains you…”
“Of course it does. But perhaps it would be good to tell it. I’ve never done that — told anyone.”
“Do you blame Hitler?”
“One man? Not really, Admiral. In a way I agree with you — the idea of the flow of humanity.”
“Germany was ready for him.”
“Of course, Admiral. Hitler gave the German people hope; something to raise them from the depths after their defeat in The Great War and the terrible suffering of the Depression. And his view of the Jew’s place in history incited passion, fed their fears.”
“They were ready to shed their blood for him.”
“Yes. Or someone like him. It could have been Hermann Goring, Rudolph Hess…”
“The story, Colonel Bernstein. The story.”
The Israeli leaned back, eyes half-closed. It was so long ago — so very long ago, yet it all came back with a rush because it had never left. Every night before he slept and after his eyes were hooded with heavy lids, the memories crashed like a storm surf through a flimsy sea wall. The ghosts poured through: his father, mother, sister, brother, Solomon LeVine, the Jew from Lwow, Leja Gepner, Katz, Szmidt, Kos. Every word, every look, every gesture, every cry of pain. Even the smell of burning and rotting flesh. His memory was his damnation. “It began in Warsaw, Admiral,” he said simply.
Irving Bernstein knew the history of his people well. The destruction of the Temple by the Romans and Babylonians, the Diaspora to the barren lands surrounding Palestine, slaughter by the Crusaders’ “swords of holy purification”, the migrations to Europe; a quarter of a million Jews settling in eastern Germany, nearly three million in Poland. It was there, in Warsaw, that the Bernsteins settled just as Europe was emerging from the Dark Ages.
Every night after dinner while Irving’s mother, Bernice, was working in the kitchen, Irving, his older brother, Isaac, and younger sister, Rachel, gathered around their physician father, David Bernstein, and listened to readings from the Torah and Talmud and accounts of the history of “The Chosen People”. David explained how the “dark ages” never ended for the Jews of Poland. They were accused of ritual sacrifices of children, witchcraft and their businesses were boycotted. There were special taxes and hundreds of laws aimed at suppressing them. By law, they were prohibited from owning land and excluded from scores of trades and crafts. Forced into ghettos, they were walled in. But they multiplied in the ghettos, studied the law of Moses, reinforcing the bonds between them. In time they formed their own governments and family ties strengthened.
Ghettoized peopled are helpless people. The Jews were ready scapegoats for any Polish disaster be it military, economic or natural. Periodically, mobs stormed the ghettos, killing, raping and looting. “Jew smashing” became an accepted pastime among Poles. The climax came in the seventeenth century when in a series of pogroms — the bloodiest was the attack of the Cossacks — over half a million Jews were murdered in a frenzy that saw thousands thrown into pits and buried alive, while other thousands were burned in their homes and synagogues.
While these tales brought horror to Isaac’s face and terror to Rachel’s, Irving could only feel anger and hate. He wondered as his father told of Jews fighting alongside Poles in wars against the German states and Russia — wars which were usually lost. By the beginning of the twentieth century, there had been enlightenment — an easing of burdens, and the ghettoes vanished. By 1939 Poland was a republic and her three and a half million Jews formed a vital part of her economic life. In fact, David Bernstein had graduated from the Kracow Medical School in 1922, the year Irving was born. Now he was a respected physician treating Jews and Gentiles alike, assisted by Bernice who was a certified nurse and sometimes aided by Irving who showed an amazing proclivity for the medical profession.
Irving loved his home. A large two-story brick building located on Nalewki Street in Warsaw’s fashionable west side, it had his father’s two examining rooms and surgery fronting on the street on the first floor with kitchen, dining room, study and sewing room in the rear. Upstairs, were four bedrooms and a combination study-library. He was born here, knew complete happiness here, grew up strong and confident in the warmth of family love. Then in July of 1939 it all ended when, with war appearing imminent, Isaac was mobilized — called up by his division, the Third Cavalry.
Irving would never forget his big, broad-shouldered brother in his brown uniform, cavalry boots and ridiculous sabre hanging at his side, holding his tearful mother with one big arm and clasping Rachel with the other. Then he shook his father’s hand, hugged Irving and walked down the stairs to the curb to a waiting lorry crowded with a score of other cavalrymen. Laughing and waving, the young men were driven down the street until the lorry disappeared around the corner of Zamenhof Street. Irving never saw his brother again.
On September 1, 1939, the German Army burst across the border. That night David gathered his family around him in the study. Irving had never seen his father look so tired. A tall man, his nose was large and hooked, his forehead broad and deep, crowned by a thinning cap of black hair shot through with silver threads that glistened in the light. He had always been thin, but this night he appeared emaciated. His white skin showed lines of fatigue curving downward from his eyes and mouth. “We must be strong,” he said. “The Germans will be here soon.”
“But the army,” Bernice protested in a faltering voice. “Isaac and the army will stop them.”
The thirty infantry and twelve cavalry divisions of the Polish army proved to be nothing more than an exercise for the Wehrmacht. Within a month, foolishly charging cavalrymen were shot from their saddles, poorly led and equipped infantrymen routed and the antique Polish Air Force destroyed. Immediately, the cruel blanket of Nazism descended on the nation.
When the Germans occupied Warsaw, David reassured his family, telling them there would be little change. “Only the leaders have changed — that’s all. You’ll see.”
But many Jews feared the worst. “See what they have done to their own Jews,” they argued. “Do you think they will spare us?” Many fled to the illusion of safety in the Soviet Union which had gobbled up the eastern ha
lf of the country. Other Zionists organized an underground railway for escape to Palestine. But most remained and waited stoically as Jews have waited for the fury of their oppressors all over the world for thousands of years. It was not long in coming.
An infamous Jew hater named Hans Frank was named Governor General of Poland and established his headquarters in Wavel Castle in Krakow. A veteran of the SA (Sturmabteilungen — Storm Troopers), he was a vintage Nazi and trusted aide to Adolph Hitler. A flood of punitive laws poured from Wavel Castle: Jews were forbidden attendance in public places including schools, to hold civil or elective offices, to travel, to accept charity, to even worship.
With the restrictive laws came a campaign to “educate” the Polish population. The campaign promoted the already prevalent idea that Jewish international bankers had started the war to fill their own coffers and the German invasion was necessary to save Poland from Jewish Bolsheviks. All of Warsaw, including the Bernsteins’ neighborhood, was plastered with posters depicting Jews violating children, nuns and helpless old people. Most despicable were caricatures of bearded, hooked-nosed Jews with the bodies of rats wearing Hasidic garb. Within days, Doctor David Bernstein lost every Gentile patient.
The roundups began. All over Poland, the German dragnet scooped up rural Jews, packed them into freight trains and shipped them off to the large cities. Some Jews tried to bribe their way into Christian homes. But inevitably, no Pole would risk harboring Jews and after extorting and stealing every groszy, they turned them in to the Germans for a reward. Then a new edict was issued ordering every Jew to wear a yellow Star of David sewn on his coat or on a white arm band. The Ghetto returned.
Early one morning in February of 1940, there was a hard knock on the door of the Bernstein home. Outside were four members of the Polish Blue Police. Each carried a cavalry carbine slung over his shoulder. “Juden, it is time to move,” a fat sergeant shouted.
Unlike most of their unfortunate friends who were allowed to take only what they could carry, the Bernsteins were provided a lorry for David’s equipment. However, David, Irving, Bernice and Rachel loaded the equipment while the “blues” sat smoking on the stairs and jeered. Most remarks were directed at a sobbing Rachel, who at seventeen was in the full bloom of her beauty; the long black hair and eyebrows thick and dark over soft blue eyes, the delicate features and textured skin of a Dresden doll, the long legs, the swelling womanly hips, the pinched-in waist, and the firm, high breasts.