For some time his mother had been unable to hide from the rest of her family the fact that Lubji had become her favorite—even though she suspected that he was responsible for the disappearance of her precious brooch—and she had watched with pride as he grew into a tall, handsome youth. But she remained adamant that despite his success as a trader, from which she acknowledged the whole family had benefited, he was still destined to be a rabbi. She might have wasted her life, but she was determined that Lubji wouldn’t waste his.
For the past six years Lubji had spent each morning being tutored by her uncle in the house on the hill. He was released at midday so that he could return to the market, where he had recently purchased his own stall. A few weeks after his bar mitzvah the old rabbi had handed Lubji’s mother the letter informing him that Lubji had been awarded a scholarship to the academy in Ostrava. It was the happiest day of Zelta’s life. She knew her son was clever, perhaps exceptional, but she also realized that such an offer could only have been secured by her uncle’s reputation.
When Lubji was first told the news of his scholarship, he tried not to show his dismay. Although he was only allowed to go to the market in the afternoon, he was already making enough money to have provided every member of the family with a pair of shoes and two meals a day. He wanted to explain to his mother that there was no point in being a rabbi if all you really wanted to do was to build a shop on the vacant plot next to Mr. Lekski’s.
Mr. Lekski shut the shop and took the day off to drive the young scholar to the academy, and on the long journey to Ostrava he told him that he hoped he would take over his shop once he had completed his studies. Lubji wanted to return home immediately, and it was only after considerable persuasion that he picked up his little leather bag—the last barter he had made the previous day—and passed under the massive stone archway that led to the academy. If Mr. Lekski hadn’t added that he wouldn’t consider taking Lubji on unless he completed his five years at the academy, he would have jumped back into the car.
It wasn’t long before Lubji discovered that there were no other children at the academy who had come from such a humble background as himself. Several of his classmates made it clear, directly or indirectly, that he was not the sort of person they had expected to mix with. As the weeks passed, he also discovered that the skills he had picked up as a market trader were of little use in such an establishment—though even the most prejudiced could not deny that he had a natural flair for languages. And certainly long hours, little sleep, and rigorous discipline held no fears for the boy from Douski.
At the end of his first year at Ostrava, Lubji finished in the upper half of his class in most subjects. He was top in mathematics and third in Hungarian, which was now his second language. But even the principal of the academy could not fail to notice that the gifted child had few friends, and had become something of a loner. He was relieved at least that no one bullied the young ruffian—the only boy who ever tried had ended up in the sanatorium.
When Lubji returned to Douski, he was surprised to find how small the town was, just how impoverished his family were, and how much they had grown to depend on him.
Every morning after his father had left for the fields, Lubji would walk up the hill to the rabbi’s house and continue his studies. The old scholar marveled at the boy’s command of languages, and admitted that he was no longer able to keep up with him in mathematics. In the afternoons Lubji returned to the market, and on a good day he could bring home enough supplies to feed the entire family.
He tried to teach his brothers how to trade, so that they could run the stall in the mornings and while he was away. He quickly concluded it was a hopeless task, and wished his mother would allow him to stay at home and build up a business they could all benefit from. But Zelta showed no interest in what he got up to at the market, and only questioned him about his studies. She read his report cards again and again, and by the end of the holiday must have known them off by heart. It made Lubji even more determined that when he presented her with his next year’s reports, they would please her even more.
When his six-week break came to an end, Lubji reluctantly packed his little leather bag and was driven back to Ostrava by Mr. Lekski. “The offer to join me is still open,” he reminded the young man, “but not until you’ve completed your studies.”
During Lubji’s second year at the academy the name of Adolf Hitler came up in conversation almost as often as that of Moses. Jews were fleeing across the border every day reporting the horrors taking place in Germany, and Lubji could only wonder what the Führer might have planned next. He read every newspaper he could lay his hands on, in whatever language and however out of date.
“Hitler Looks East” read a headline on page one of The Ostrava. When Lubji turned to page seven to read the rest of the story he found it was missing, but that didn’t stop him wondering how long it would be before the Führer’s tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. He was certain of one thing: Hitler’s master race wouldn’t include the likes of him.
Later that morning he expressed these fears to his history master, but he seemed incapable of stretching his mind beyond Hannibal, and the question of whether he would make it across the Alps. Lubji closed his old history book and, without considering the consequences, marched out of the classroom and down the corridor toward the principal’s private quarters. He stopped in front of a door he had never entered, hesitated for a moment and then knocked boldly.
“Come,” said a voice.
Lubji opened the door slowly and entered the principal’s study. The godly man was garbed in full academic robes of red and gray, and a black skullcap rested on top of his long black ringlets. He looked up from his desk. “I presume this is something of vital importance, Hoch?”
“Yes, sir,” said Lubji confidently. Then he lost his nerve.
“Well?” prompted the principal, after some time had elapsed.
“We must be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice,” Lubji finally blurted out. “We have to assume that it will not be long before Hitler…”
The old man smiled up at the fifteen-year-old boy and waved a dismissive hand. “Hitler has told us a hundred times that he has no interest in occupying any other territory,” he said, as if he were correcting a minor error Lubji had made in a history exam.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you, sir,” Lubji said, realizing that however well he presented his case, he wasn’t going to persuade such an unworldly man.
But as the weeks passed, first his tutor, then his housemaster, and finally the principal, had to admit that history was being written before their eyes.
It was on a warm September evening that the principal, carrying out his rounds, began to alert the pupils that they should gather together their possessions, as they would be leaving at dawn the following day. He was not surprised to find Lubji’s room already empty.
A few minutes after midnight, a division of German tanks crossed the border and advanced unchallenged toward Ostrava. The soldiers ransacked the academy even before the breakfast bell had rung, and dragged all the students out into waiting lorries. There was only one pupil who wasn’t present to answer the final roll-call. Lubji Hoch had left the previous night. After cramming all his possessions into the little leather case, he had joined the stream of refugees heading toward the Hungarian border. He prayed that his mother had read not only the papers, but Hitler’s mind, and would somehow have escaped with the rest of the family. He had recently heard rumors about the Germans rounding up Jews and placing them in internment camps. He tried not to think of what might happen to his family if they were captured.
When Lubji slipped out of the academy gates that night he didn’t stop to watch the local people rushing from house to house searching for their relatives, while others loaded their possessions onto horse-drawn carts that would surely be overtaken by the slowest armed vehicle. This was not a night to spend fussing about personal possessions: you can’t shoot a possession, Lubji wanted to t
ell them. But no one stood still long enough to listen to the tall, powerfully built young man with long black ringlets, dressed in his academy uniform. By the time the German tanks had surrounded the academy, he had already covered several miles on the road that led south to the border.
Lubji didn’t even consider sleeping. He could already hear the roar of guns as the enemy advanced into the city from the west. On and on he strode, past those who were slowed by the burden of pushing and pulling their lives’ possessions. He overtook laden donkeys, carts that needed their wheels repaired and families with young children and aging relatives, held up by the pace of the slowest. He watched as mothers cut the locks from their sons’ hair and began to abandon anything that might identify them as Jewish. He would have stopped to remonstrate with them but didn’t want to lose any precious time. He swore that nothing would ever make him abandon his religion.
The discipline that had been instilled in him at the academy over the previous two years allowed Lubji to carry on without food or rest until daybreak. When he eventually slept, it was on the back of a cart, and then later in the front seat of a lorry. He was determined that nothing would stop his progress toward a friendly country.
Although freedom was a mere 180 kilometers away, Lubji saw the sun rise and set three times before he heard the cries from those ahead of him who had reached the sovereign state of Hungary. He came to a halt at the end of a straggling queue of would-be immigrants. Three hours later he had traveled only a few hundred yards, and the queue of people ahead of him began to settle down for the night. Anxious eyes looked back to see smoke rising high into the sky, and the sound of guns could be heard as the Germans continued their relentless advance.
Lubji waited until it was pitch dark, and then silently made his way past the sleeping families, until he could clearly see the lights of the border post ahead of him. He lay down in a ditch as inconspicuously as possible, his head resting on his little leather case. As the customs officer raised the barrier the following morning, Lubji was waiting at the front of the queue. When those behind him woke and saw the young man in his academic garb chanting a psalm under his breath, none of them considered asking him how he had got there.
The customs officer didn’t waste a lot of time searching Lubji’s little case. Once he had crossed the border, he never strayed off the road to Budapest, the only Hungarian city he had heard of. Another two days and nights of sharing food with generous families, relieved to have escaped from the wrath of the Germans, brought him to the outskirts of the capital on 23 September 1939.
Lubji couldn’t believe the sights that greeted him. Surely this must be the largest city on earth? He spent his first few hours just walking through the streets, becoming more and more intoxicated with each pace he took. He finally collapsed on the steps of a massive synagogue, and when he woke the following morning, the first thing he did was to ask for directions to the marketplace.
Lubji stood in awe as he stared at row upon row of covered stalls, stretching as far as the eye could see. Some only sold vegetables, others just fruit, while a few dealt in furniture, and one simply in pictures, some of which even had frames.
But despite the fact that he spoke their language fluently, when he offered his services to the traders their only question was, “Do you have anything to sell?” For the second time in his life, Lubji faced the problem of having nothing to barter with. He stood and watched as refugees traded priceless family heirlooms, sometimes for no more than a loaf of bread or a sack of potatoes. It quickly became clear to him that war allowed some people to amass a great fortune.
Day after day Lubji searched for work. At night he would collapse onto the pavement, hungry and exhausted, but still determined. After every trader in the market had turned him down, he was reduced to begging on street corners.
Late one afternoon, on the verge of despair, he passed an old woman in a newspaper kiosk on the corner of a quiet street, and noticed that she wore the Star of David on a thin gold chain around her neck. He gave her a smile, hoping she might take pity on him, but she ignored the filthy young immigrant and carried on with her work.
Lubji was just about to move on when a young man, only a few years older than him, strolled up to the kiosk, selected a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches, and then walked off without paying the old lady. She jumped out of the kiosk, waving her arms and shouting, “Thief! Thief!” But the young man simply shrugged his shoulders and lit one of the cigarettes. Lubji ran down the road after him and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. When he turned round, Lubji said, “You haven’t paid for the cigarettes.”
“Get lost, you bloody Slovak,” the man said, pushing him away before continuing down the street. Lubji ran after him again and this time grabbed his arm. The man turned a second time, and without warning threw a punch at his pursuer. Lubji ducked, and the clenched fist flew over his shoulder. As the man rocked forward, Lubji landed an uppercut in his solar plexus with such force that the man staggered backward and collapsed in a heap on the ground, dropping the cigarettes and matches. Lubji had discovered something else he must have inherited from his father.
Lubji had been so surprised by his own strength that he hesitated for a moment before bending down to pick up the cigarettes and matches. He left the man clutching his stomach and ran back to the kiosk.
“Thank you,” the old woman said when he handed back her goods.
“My name is Lubji Hoch,” he told her, and bowed low.
“And mine is Mrs. Cerani,” she said.
When the old lady went home that night, Lubji slept on the pavement behind the kiosk. The following morning she was surprised to find him still there, sitting on a stack of unopened newspapers.
The moment he saw her coming down the street, he began to untie the bundles. He watched as she sorted out the papers and placed them in racks to attract the early-morning workers. During the day Mrs. Cerani started to tell Lubji about the different papers, and was amazed to find how many languages he could read. It wasn’t long before she discovered that he could also converse with any refugee who came in search of news from his own country.
The next day Lubji had all the papers set out in their racks long before Mrs. Cerani arrived. He had even sold a couple of them to early customers. By the end of the week she could often be found snoozing happily in the corner of her kiosk, needing only to offer the occasional piece of advice if Lubji was unable to answer a customer’s query.
After Mrs. Cerani locked up the kiosk on the Friday evening, she beckoned Lubji to follow her. They walked in silence for some time, before stopping at a little house about a mile from the kiosk. The old lady invited him to come inside, and ushered him through to the front room to meet her husband. Mr. Cerani was shocked when he first saw the filthy young giant, but softened a little when he learned that Lubji was a Jewish refugee from Ostrava. He invited him to join them for supper. It was the first time Lubji had sat at a table since he had left the academy.
Over the meal Lubji learned that Mr. Cerani ran a paper shop that supplied the kiosk where his wife worked. He began to ask his host a series of questions about returned copies, loss leaders, margins and alternative stock. It was not long before the newsagent realized why the profits at the kiosk had shot up that week. While Lubji did the washing up, Mr. and Mrs. Cerani conferred in the corner of the kitchen. When they had finished speaking, Mrs. Cerani beckoned to Lubji, who assumed the time had come for him to leave. But instead of showing him to the door, she began to climb the stairs. She turned and beckoned again, and he followed in her wake. At the top of the stairs she opened a door that led into a tiny room. There was no carpet on the floor, and the only furniture was a single bed, a battered chest of drawers and a small table. The old lady stared at the empty bed with a sad look on her face, gestured toward it and quickly left without another word.
* * *
So many immigrants from so many lands came to converse with the young man—who seemed to have read every paper�
�about what was taking place in their own countries, that by the end of the first month Lubji had almost doubled the takings of the little kiosk. On the last day of the month Mr. Cerani presented Lubji with his first wage packet. Over supper that night he told the young man that on Monday he was to join him at the shop, in order to learn more about the trade. Mrs. Cerani looked disappointed, despite her husband’s assurance that it would only be for a week.
At the shop, the boy quickly learned the names of the regular customers, their choice of daily paper and their favorite brand of cigarettes. During the second week he became aware of a Mr. Farkas, who ran the rival shop on the other side of the road, but as neither Mr. nor Mrs. Cerani ever mentioned him by name, he didn’t raise the subject. On the Sunday evening, Mr. Cerani told his wife that Lubji would be joining him at the shop permanently. She didn’t seem surprised.
Every morning Lubji would rise at four and leave the house to go and open the shop. It was not long before he was delivering the papers to the kiosk and serving the first customers before Mr. or Mrs. Cerani had finished their breakfast. As the weeks passed, Mr. Cerani began coming into the shop later and later each day, and after he had counted up the cash in the evening, he would often slip a coin or two into Lubji’s hand.
Lubji stacked the coins on the table by the side of his bed, converting them into a little green note every time he had acquired ten. At night he would lie awake, dreaming of taking over the paper shop and kiosk when Mr. and Mrs. Cerani eventually retired. Lately they had begun treating him as if he were their own son, giving him small presents, and Mrs. Cerani even hugged him before he went to bed. It made him think of his mother.
Lubji began to believe his ambition might be realized when Mr. Cerani took a day off from the shop, and later a weekend, to find on his return that the takings had risen slightly.
* * *
One Saturday morning on his way back from synagogue, Lubji had the feeling he was being followed. He stopped and turned to see Mr. Farkas, the rival newsagent from across the road, hovering only a few paces behind him.
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