“She’ll see you in hell!” Abraham’s ragged boot banged against the German’s back. “On your feet!”
With great effort, the Nazi rose.
“We are Jews,” Abraham said, aiming the gun at his head. “ Juden! ”
General von Koenig straightened up, pulled back his shoulders, and raised his right hand at the dark sky. “ Heil Hitler! ”
Abraham shot him in the face.
The woman gasped.
“ Nekamah!” Elie’s frozen lips hurt, reciting the Hebrew word for revenge. “ Nekamah!”
She stared at the dead German a few feet away. Tears lined her cheeks.
“Whore!” Elie addressed her in German. “Where is the truck?”
She tilted her head up the hill, where they had come from.
He kicked snow in her face. “Who took it? Which bank? Tell me!”
Clawing at the snow, she edged away, leaving a dark trail of blood. The car wreck must have injured her.
“Shoot her in the leg,” Elie ordered. “Pain will make her talk.”
“She’s bleeding already,” Abraham said. “A lot.”
“Do it!”
She raised her hand to stop him, shut her eyes, and recited, “Shmah Israel, Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is one.”
Elie was shocked by the words of the ancient covenant. A Jewish woman travelling with a Nazi general? Shedding tears for the dead monster? He ignited the cigarette lighter. In the small flame, her face was shockingly beautiful, the angelic features of a woman-child, her green eyes wide and moist.
Abraham stashed the gun in his belt, dropped to his knees, and took her hand. His face was fresh, cheeks red from cold, chin marked by the shadow of a beard. His blue eyes sat large in his face, filled with compassion under the shock of blond hair. “ Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God.” He pulled out a dirty handkerchief and wiped her forehead. “But there’s no God. No Adonai. If only He existed!”
She touched Abraham’s lips, silencing him, and Elie killed the lighter.
“What’s your name?” Abraham slipped his hands under her and lifted her up effortlessly.
“Tanya.” Her eyes turned to the dead Nazi lying in the snow. “Tanya Galinski.”
Grabbing her arm, Elie said, “You grieve for him? Why?”
“Leave her alone,” Abraham said.
“Where is his ledger?” Elie pointed to the corpse. “He kept a record!”
“Enough with the questions.” Abraham turned, carrying her, and stumbled. But he regained his footing and kept going. “She needs a doctor.”
“Did he give it to you?” Elie felt up the fur coat. “Tell me!”
Tanya rested her head in the small of Abraham’s neck, and he carried her through the snow back to the road and down toward the village. It started snowing again, and the ground quivered under the distant bombardment. The Battle of the Bulge lit up the western horizon with a glowing, man-made dawn, as if the first day of 1945 was eager to begin.
Four months later…
Chapter 2
Tanya woke up warm. She felt Abraham’s breath on the back of her neck, found his hand, and guided it to her breast. The morning sun filtered through the pitched tarp they used as a makeshift tent, the light accentuating the printed swastikas that lined the edges. The forest around them was quiet after an early spring storm had left a thick, white layer that buried all sounds.
The night at the border seemed to belong in another lifetime. The tumbling Mercedes had left her with a badly slashed thigh. The bleeding would have killed her, but Abraham had brought her downhill to the village and found a doctor, who cleaned the wound and stitched it up. For several weeks, the three of them had hidden in the forest while a feverish Tanya teetered between reality and delusion. Abraham nursed her while Elie kept his distance. One day, when she was well enough to wash in a stream, two armed German deserters happened upon her, grinning at the sight of a young woman to be had. Elie cut one’s throat while Abraham broke the other’s neck. Their ruthlessness left Tanya both shaken and reassured.
Once she had recovered, Abraham and Elie resumed their daily hunting for vulnerable Germans and scraps of food. She stayed in the forest, scouring for edible plants. Her past life of Nazi upper-crust luxury had become a distant memory, replaced by a struggle for survival. The occasional longing she felt for Klaus and his calm affection grew rare while an overwhelming passion ignited between her and Abraham, who treated her growing belly as lovingly as he treated the rest of her body.
Tanya reached back, found his head, and caressed the blond hair, which had grown long enough to curl at the ends. He purred, his mouth against her nape, making her shiver. The air was cold, and she blew through rounded lips, her breath making saucers of steam.
Abraham pulled the blankets back over their heads, pressed his naked body against her back, and kissed her ear. He capped her breast with one hand while the other went down and began to pleasure her. She surrendered to the rhythm of his touch, focusing on this utter joy that filled her world, and groaned with delight as he entered her.
E lie Weiss bit his fingernail, tearing it off with a length of skin. He listened to their lovemaking with a mix of fascination and fury. After so many mornings like this, he knew their whispers, giggles, squeaky kisses, and muffled groans. It left him aroused and incensed.
But this morning, as he lay in the snow wrapped in sheets of tarp and stolen Wehrmacht blankets, within reach of their tent, he heard something different after they climaxed. It took him a moment to realize the sounds were whimpers. It was Tanya, sobbing mutedly. Was her face buried in Abraham’s bare chest, or turned away? Why was she crying after such ecstasy? Was it sadness, or overwhelming happiness?
Then Abraham began to sing, the words too soft to decipher outside the tent.
Elie crawled out of his shelter and put his ear to the tarp.
It was Hebrew, from King Solomon’s Song of Songs. Abraham chanted for Tanya the tune that had celebrated the beginning of Sabbath in the synagogue, back in the shtetl:
“Your neck is ivory, your nose the ridge of Lebanon, gazing over Damascus; I long for my beloved, passion upon me. ”
Tanya’s sobs subsided. Only Abraham’s voice filtered through the frosted tarp:
“ Let’s run in the fields, in the farms, explore the vineyards; have the vines flowered, have the poppies reddened, have the pomegranates sprouted? There I shall give myself to you, my beloved. ”
E lie and Abraham settled in a clump of boulders overlooking the narrow road. It was an unpaved stretch of muddy, brown dirt that parted the snow-covered, untended fields all the way to the eastern horizon, where the frontline was delineated with flares of explosions. The American forces would be here in a day or two, but meanwhile, this country road showed signs of recent use, most likely by cowardly German officers escaping to Potsdam and Berlin.
Elie focused the binoculars on the spot where the road meandered between low-lying hills. He smoked a Lande Mokri cigarette-the last one from a pack he had found on a warm corpse the previous week. Abraham sat against a rock, reading a Karl May western, which he had found in the wreckage of a German command truck. He was whistling the tune of the Song of Songs, which irritated Elie. General von Koenig’s handgun rested on a rock by his arm, its ivory plated handle bright in the sun, which peeked through the clouds.
A vehicle appeared. Elie adjusted the binoculars, following it. “An open staff car. A driver and three officers. Field uniform.”
Abraham cocked the handgun and stuck it in his belt. He reached for one of the Sturmgewehr 44 machine guns that leaned against the rock. “Here comes breakfast.”
Elie stubbed the cigarette carefully and placed it on the ground for later. “They’re moving fast.” He cradled his machine gun and leaned against the side of a boulder. He would be invisible to the Germans until they reached the nearest section of the road, where they would have to look up to notice him-too late for evasive maneuvers or a counter attack. “The
y got no escort. Idiots.”
Abraham took the binoculars and gazed. “Is that a white flag on the antenna?”
Elie took back the binoculars and examined the approaching vehicle. The fluttering cloth on the antenna wasn’t a unit banner. It was a white rag. What did it mean? Had the war ended? Then why were the front lines still alive with artillery shells? “Must be a trick,” he said.
“I’ll question them.” Abraham was already halfway down the hillside, running toward the road. “Cover me from above.” He reached the road when the German staff car was close enough to hear its engine. He stepped into the middle of the road, aimed his submachine gun at the approaching vehicle, and raised his hand to stop them.
Elie made sure his own Sturmgewehr 44 was set to Automatic, leaned against the boulder, and watched.
The staff car slowed down. The driver downshifted. The three officers sat straight, as immobile as mannequins. None of them reached for a weapon.
The driver came to a full stop a stone-throw away from Abraham. From above, Elie could see them clearly. The field uniform wasn’t Wehrmacht. It was SS.
The driver raised his hands.
Abraham stepped closer and yelled at them in German to get out of the vehicle.
The officers in the rear exchanged a quick word. The one in the front raised a stick with another white rag. It was then that Elie saw the driver reach down for something and instinctively pulled the trigger. The brief spray of bullets hit the driver. But Elie’s gun suddenly jammed. He tried to pull the trigger again.
Nothing.
Meanwhile, the officer in the front drew his handgun and aimed upward to the general area where Elie was hiding. His first bullet hit the boulder, and Elie ducked, struggling to pull out the magazine and reload.
There was more shooting below. Automatic weapons.
The jam released, Elie aimed downward and pulled the trigger. But the staff car was vacant, and the trail of his bullets followed the three Germans as they sprinted to the opposite side of the road. He got one of them in the back. The remaining two dropped into a ditch.
Abraham was lying in the middle of the road, his chest bloodied.
Elie made his way down the hillside, taking shelter behind boulders, waiting for the first bullet to chase him. But the SS officers were not shooting. Perhaps they didn’t have time to grab their guns, or they were out of bullets. He dropped low near the road and peeked over it, the barrel of his gun aimed forward.
Two sets of hands stuck up from the ditch. “Don’t shoot,” one of them yelled. “We surrender!”
“Come out!” He glanced at Abraham, who wasn’t moving.
The two Germans climbed out from the ditch, their hands up in the air. “It’s over,” one of them said. “The Fuhrer killed himself!”
That explained it. The war would go on for a little while, until someone else assumed power and officially surrendered. But the SS was already running for cover.
“The Fuhrer is dead,” the other German said, as if the news bore repeating.
“ Mazal Tov.” Elie pressed the trigger, perforating them. But as his gun quieted, he heard the distant staccato of shooting, and bullets shrieked over his head. Down the road, another German vehicle was approaching fast.
He ran, passing by Abraham, whose eyes were open, his lips moving, a puddle of blood spreading around him. General von Koenig’s handgun rested on the road by Abraham’s limp hand.
T anya spent most of that gray day clearing snow between trees in search of edible remnants of last summer’s vegetation. The cannon fire was getting closer. The Allies were winning. Soon, the war would end, Abraham would take her to Palestine, and the warm sun would shine over their future.
In the early afternoon, she found the shriveled stalks of chicory and worked two more hours to dig up the roots from the frozen earth. She started a fire, melted snow in a pot, and by twilight it smelled almost like soup.
Elie showed up next to her like an apparition, no sound preceding him. He had lost his wool cap and one of his gloves. He crouched by the fire, shivering, panting, not looking up at her.
She turned, searching for Abraham. He wasn’t there. Fear smacked her chest.
When his breathing returned to normal and the bluish hue of his face receded, Elie ladled a bowlful and sipped the hot liquid, spitting out bits of roots. He handed her the bowl and sat on his heels, taking apart his weapon. He held up the dismantled barrel and looked through it at the fire. “Damn thing jammed at the worst moment.”
Unable to hold back any longer, Tanya said, “Where is he?”
“They turned Abraham into a bloody sieve.”
“ No! ” Her scream echoed through the forest. “ Abraham! ”
Elie reached for her hand. “I’ll take care of you.”
She ran into the dark woods, bumping blindly into trees, and fell in the snow, shaking, crying, refusing to believe. How could he be dead? He had been so alive only hours ago, hugging her, kissing her, loving her.
A bloody sieve.
Elie came for her. He was a diminutive man, but his grip was tight. He supported her back to the fire, forced her to drink what was left of the soup, and helped her into the tent. She could tell he had searched through her few belongings. She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the contours of the small ledger through her clothes. His dark eyes followed her hand, but he said nothing.
She thought he would lie beside her, but he backed out of the tent. And why should he push it? She was now at his mercy, pregnant, without a soul in the world.
He waited for her to remove her coat, gloves, and hat, and placed them all under his head as he lay down to sleep at the foot of the tent, gripping his gun.
Curled up under the coarse blankets, Tanya shook with tremors that travelled like waves through her body. She could smell Abraham all around her, feel his presence, his love. But the words rang in her ears. A bloody sieve.
An hour passed, maybe more. Her hand reached to his side of the tent and found a shirt he had tossed aside the previous night. She pressed it to her face, inhaling his sweet smell, and sobs swelled in her chest. But she steeled herself. There would be plenty of time to cry, but only a brief window to escape.
Elie seemed asleep, but she didn’t trust him. He was clever, devious. She listened to the pace of his breathing, the slight snoring, and waited.
It started snowing again, and soon he shifted, drawing deeper into his cocoon of tarp and blankets. Yet she waited another hour before starting the tedious work of undoing the threads that bound the head of the tent. When the opening was wide enough, she inched forward until her trembling body was out.
A wolf howled far inside the forest.
Elie grunted. His gun rattled as he turned under the covers.
She waited, holding her breath.
His snoring resumed.
Reaching into the tent, Tanya slowly pulled out a blanket, which she wrapped around herself. She listened for the sounds of the front, where fighting had not paused for the night, and headed toward it through the thick woods. Under the canopies, the snow was still deep, reaching up to her thighs. She pulled one leg after the other.
The wolf howled again, closer this time. Another one joined him. And a third.
She tried to go faster. The heat from her body melted the snow, soaking her long underpants and the blanket on her back. The boots filled with snow, which turned into freezing, muddy slush. She progressed, maddeningly slow. Her teeth clattered, her muscles twitched, and a rustle of branches nearby made her shout, “Who’s there?”
More howling. From all directions. Or was it a single wolf, circling, closing in?
She wanted to lie down, to cover herself with snow, to sleep.
“ No! ”
She pulled off her boots and swung them around as weapons. She took another step, her legs as heavy as logs. Another step.
Voices nearby. Was it Elie Weiss?
No! The words were foreign! English!
“Help me
,” She yelled. “Please! Help!”
An animal ran at her, eyes like darts of light. Tanya held up her arms, and the animal rammed her. Hot, foul breath, followed by a sharp pain.
She fell backwards, crying his name, “ Abraham! ”
Twenty-one years later…
Chapter 3
Rabbi Abraham Gerster led his men up the dirt path. Behind them, West Jerusalem glowed in the reddish evening sun. At the top of the hill, he mounted a squat, massive boulder, which overlooked the Armistice border that cut Jerusalem in half. The wind suddenly lashed at him, trying to snatch away his black hat, but he held it and recited in a booming voice, “ Hear us, God! Gentiles defiled your Temple, turned Jerusalem to ruins! ”
Psalms seventy-nine, Lemmy thought as he climbed after his father onto the boulder.
“ They fed your chosen to the vultures, your faithful to the wild beasts. ” Rabbi Gerster paused as the men repeated the words.
Lemmy pressed down his hat, shading his eyes, and stepped to the edge of the boulder while chanting the next line, “ Spilled our blood like water around Jerusalem. ” He gazed at the rolls of barbed wire below, running north-south like rough stitches left by a careless surgeon. Beyond the serpentine wires, he saw the Jordanian bunkers, gun barrels sticking out of shooting slats. They occasionally fired across the border, killing or maiming a passerby on the Jewish side. But they never did it on a Friday, Islam’s holy day.
“ Pour your wrath, God, ” Rabbi Abraham Gerster continued, “ upon the Gentiles. ”
As the men repeated the words, Lemmy looked further up, beyond the border and bunkers, at the Old City. It had been in Arab hands since 1948, and he could smell the familiar mix of smoke and dust and reeking human waste. The Dome of the Rock dominated the skyline, a golden mosque built atop the ruins of the holy Temple. The Old City seemed to float in the air, on wings of holiness, as his father had once said. It was built on Mount Moriah, where God had once told the patriarch Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Lemmy imagined little Isaac following Abraham up that hill-
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