Two Princes and a Queen

by Shmuel David

  I gladly agreed. We could hear the shouts of the halva vendor even before we actually got to the harbor.

  “Halva! Nuts and chocolate-flavored halva! Just one dinar a packet!”

  The local children were already standing in line, and so was Bertie. That annoying boy, who always bought whatever he wanted and never shared anything with anyone, was standing just in front of us. People said that his aunt in Belgrade sent his mother letters with money in them. Everyone hates Bertie, because he doesn’t like to help or share with others, because he doesn’t uphold the important values Teddy taught us. That’s why he doesn’t have any friends.

  We were waiting in line when two older boys came up and asked Yost if he could loan them two dinars till tomorrow because their parents had no money for food. They looked like gypsies, even though they weren’t dressed like gypsies. Yost felt threatened and said he didn’t have any money to loan them. One of the boys caressed his shoulder while the other grabbed his hand, trying to force him to give up the dinar bill. Yost resisted and I jumped the thief from behind. I almost managed to bring him down, when a fist landed right in my face. It was the other boy, coming to his friend’s aid. Blood trickled down my nose, through my upper lip, and into my mouth. But I didn’t give up. Everyone around us started shouting, “Thief! Thief!”, and I hung on to the thief’s neck in spite of all the blood and pain. But he twisted loose, and in the middle of all the shouts and screams, the two boys ran off, disappearing between the harbor buildings. Someone lent me a hand and helped me to my feet. I felt a sharp, stinging pain in my upper lip. Someone else shouted, “Get him some ice!” But meanwhile, I managed to get up, brush the dirt off my clothes, and look for Yost. He was standing mortified beside me, his fist still tightly clenched around the dinar bill.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go buy some halva.” I was in so much pain that the words sounded slurry.

  Everyone made way for us to go to the front of the line.

  “Hanne, maybe we should go to the infirmary first?” said Yost. “We’ll get halva some other day.”

  “No, we’ll get it today,” I said, pressing my lips with my fingers to stop the bleeding. “Come on, I’ll buy it for you.”

  The vendor gave the halva packet to Yost, clapped my shoulder, and said, “Well done! We mustn’t give in to them.”

  At the infirmary, Inge cleaned the cut on my lip.

  “Bertie told me what happened. Hanne, you’re a real hero.”

  The cut on my lip was very painful. I didn’t answer because the words came out so slurred and also because I felt so proud that I actually had nothing to say.

  ***

  The small camp we were all so fond of remained on the hill for an entire month. We were then instructed to dismantle it because the larger, permanent tents had arrived. On July 9, the Hashomer Hatzair youth, along with the members of Hechalutz and Mizrahi, were transferred to another camp on the outskirts of the village. Huts were built for the older youths, and huge tents were erected for the younger children, one for each movement. We built a large wood foundation with tall, horizontal wooden posts and supporting beams on top. We stretched tarpaulin sheets over the wooden skeleton. At the entrance, we built a door with a nice curtain and even hung up a bell. There were wooden sleeping bunks on both side of the tent and straw mattresses covered with blankets. The Federation of Jewish Communities had sent all this equipment.

  Yokel ceremoniously announced “the most beautiful and original tent competition,” in two weeks’ time. He set up a committee to choose the winning tent. The competition brought a wave of feverish activity to the camp. Everyone tried to make special constructions and decorations. The girls were all busy decorating the inside of their tents, cleaning and arranging the furniture.

  Hashomer Hatzair ended up winning the competition, and everyone was invited to the winning tent after the ceremony. The tent included an organized changing room at the rear, separated from the main area by a colorful curtain. A bulletin board hung on the front pole of the tent. Planters were placed outside, on each side of the colorful curtain at the entrance. At the entrance to the camp, visitors were welcomed by the youth movement’s symbol made of gravel stones and grass, and the entire complex was surrounded by a low wooden fence. At the center of the yard, they’d made an area for a campfire out of two large stones with a grate over them for brewing coffee. They undoubtedly deserved the prize. Inge and I would often join their sing-alongs on evenings around the campfire, and we all sang pioneer songs about making the desert bloom.

  Inge and I have been spending a lot of time together. Sometimes we sit at the campfire into the late hours of the night, enjoying the warmth, or we take walks along the paths around the camp. We’re not the only couple to go out hand in hand for some fresh air. There are couples who even walk about with their arms around each other, simply ignoring the fact that everyone is staring at them. When we want to be alone, we take a walk to the trout bridge where we’d first kissed. We often sit talking about all kinds of subjects. Mainly about us, of course, and about the future waiting for us in Israel, but also about the situation in the camp and Europe in general, about poetry and literature. I told her my mother dreamed I’d become a writer someday.

  “Not only did she teach me to read and write German like a native, she also made sure I was familiar with Schiller, Goethe, and, of course, Heine.”

  “I remember that from our first meeting; you quoted a line from one of his poems.”

  “When I started writing poems of my own, she read some at the literary evenings she used to hold in our living room.”

  “And what was your dream?”

  “Back then, I did want to be a writer or a poet one day.”

  “And now?” she asked.

  “When I started going to Akiba, I realized there are more important things in life, like ideals and pioneering. Building something you strongly believe in.”

  I told her about my good friend’s brother in Belgrade, the one who joined the rebels in Spain and was killed while preparing explosives. I told her how much I’d idolized him. His death had seemed glorious to me, because he’d died fighting for an ideal he believed in. I told her I wanted to join the fighters struggling to liberate Israel we’d heard about in summer camp.

  “And what about me? It sounds as if you don’t have any room for me in your plans for the future.”

  “Of course there’s room for you in my future!” I protested.

  Inge was disappointed and said it didn’t fit in at all with what we’d promised each other before, about setting up a house of our own, raising children, and dealing with farming in Israel, not wars.

  “Right,” I answered. “But one thing doesn’t contradict the other. You’ll go to nursing school and become a certified nurse.”

  “But I also said we’d get married and have four children and a large house in the village where we could raise them according to the values of Judaism and love of Israel.”

  “We’re stuck here right now, and I haven’t even finished school yet… How could I possibly promise you something like that?” I told her.

  “I’ve already chosen you, Hanne,” she said. “And you say that you love me. So let’s have our own secret engagement ceremony, just for the two of us. Would you like that?”

  “This is a lot for me to consider, Inge. I’m still young, only sixteen.”

  “Promise me, Hanne. I’m not saying it has to be now or a week from now. But promise me, all right?”

  It’s late at night and I can’t fall asleep. I listen to the night sounds, hear the pigs snorting just beyond the wall. In the distance, I can hear the sad howls of a dog. Thoughts of Inge and our recent conversation are all-absorbing. I think about her a lot and want to be with her all the time. I think I love her. But I don’t know what to do with her demand for commitment. It seems strange to me. It’s hard. She’s almost eighte
en already. She was engaged once, to the man from Germany who went mad in Dachau. She can really picture the two of us living in some rural settlement with four children, but I’m still so young. I still have so much to experience. She’s my first girlfriend. Yes, I used to be infatuated with Branka Garai in Belgrade, but we were children so it doesn’t count. I’m not ready for this. I have my whole life ahead of me, and there’s a good chance we’ll all go our separate ways after the war and forget about everything that’s happened.

  I remembered Bruno, my tent mate on my last summer camp in the mountains. He told me then that he already had a girlfriend and that they were doing it. She didn’t agree at first, but he persisted until she gave him what he wanted. He said it was the only thing worth living for in this complicated life.

  I suppose Inge would have agreed long ago, if it wasn’t for that religious negiah19 thing. She explained to me about Maimonides’s interpretation of this religious rule. But when we’re alone together, I find it almost impossible to stop myself. Every time I’m overwhelmed with desire and think it’s time, she quotes more Bible verses at me. Sometimes, I think I’ll explode. Kisses are allowed, she tells me, and I feel myself getting hard down below every time our lips meet. She doesn’t say anything, but I’m sure she feels it. I want to do something before I explode. Perhaps I’ll take her to the new creek I found. We’d never be disturbed there. I imagine her naked body on the soft grass and the two of us swimming naked. I see us lying on the grass while I cover her body with kisses, all the way from her soft white neck down to her…

  In the silence of the night, after the pigs had stopped snorting, I suddenly heard a monotonous sound coming from my parents’ room. I listened to the soft sounds like muffled groans, but the thought that they were actually doing it, at that very moment, in the room next to mine, seemed far-fetched. Could they really be doing it, now, right next door to me? I couldn’t imagine Father doing it; lately, he’d been spending his days in a brooding silence, walking downcast, his shoulders bowed and unsure. But the sound of moaning intensified, and I recalled the day I’d mistakenly pulled the blanket from Anita and Shishko’s naked bodies. I kept listening until I heard another long, deep groan, and then silence.

  After feeding the pigs that morning, I went to look for old Petrović. I hadn’t seen him for two weeks and found him mending nets in his usual spot.

  He was happy to see me.

  “Want some coffee? Where have you been?”

  “I’d love some coffee,” I said. “I haven’t had any breakfast yet.”

  He filled the coffee pot with water and lit the fire, protecting it from the wind with a wooden board.

  “What’s going on with you, young man? You haven’t been here in ages. You must be very busy with your friends over there. Any news? When are you leaving?”

  “No news, really. Not since they let us know we can no longer immigrate illegally. We’re just waiting for the paperwork to arrive.”

  “What about your girlfriend, Inge?”

  “Busy at the infirmary. There’s a lot of work there.”

  “So…” he said while pouring coffee into two small glasses. “You two aren’t together anymore?” he asked, crossing two fingers.

  “Actually, we are,” I answered. “And that’s the real reason I came to see you…” I added hesitantly, “Maybe you could give me some advice.”

  “Well, now… That calls for a cigarette,” he said, fumbling in his trouser pocket for his eternal cigarette packet.

  “Want one?” he asked.

  “No… You know what? Maybe I will,” I answered, extending two fingers to take the cigarette he’d popped out of the packet. “It’s my first one,” I said. “I just want to try it once.”

  I placed the end of the cigarette between my lips and bent to the match flame dancing between Petrović’s fingers.

  “Welcome to the world of smoking men,” he said and clapped my shoulder hard enough to make me cough. “Not so bad,” he said, giving me a piercing look. “It always stings the throat a little the first time.”

  “Not bad at all,” I coughed again and felt my head spinning a little. “I actually came to talk to you a little, you know…”

  “I could tell something was troubling you as soon as I saw you coming down here. I read you like an open book, Hanne.”

  I took another drag from the cigarette and erupted in a fresh spate of coughing.

  “Excuse me for putting it out and wasting one of your cigarettes, but it’s my first time.” I threw away the half-smoked cigarette, putting it out with the tip of my shoe in what I hoped looked like a practiced movement.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “Now what did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Well, suppose you were my age, and suppose you had a girlfriend…”

  “Oh, dear God, what I wouldn’t give to go back forty years. You know what? Twenty years… Even ten!”

  “Hold on, you haven’t heard my question yet.”

  “You think I don’t already know?” he asked with a cheerful look in his eyes.

  “Yesterday, I remembered the story you told me, about the woman you once loved and ended up almost losing.”

  I told him what was going on with Inge and me, how she wants us to get married once we get to Israel and have children in the village, and how much that scares me. He listened attentively, blowing smoke rings from time to time.

  “Don’t let her go,” he declared, puffing smoke.

  “But I’m so young, I’m afraid I might ruin my life.”

  “You won’t be ruining anything. For now, your life is on hold because of this never-ending transport of yours. It’s wartime and the world has gone crazy. You need some sort of stability in your life. You love her, don’t you? So what have you got to lose?”

  “Maybe you’re right… Maybe I’m just being selfish…thinking about other opportunities, instead of…”

  “At least tell her you promise to be faithful to her. You know what? I have something to give you. Something you might…” he took a small ring from his pocket. “Just think about it for now. But if the right moment ever presents itself, give her this ring and tell her something that will make her happy.” He held the ring between his fingers. “It’s silver and very dear to me,” he ceremoniously handed me the ring.

  “Then why are you giving it to me?”

  “It can’t help me anymore. Maybe it can still help you.”

  “Where is it from?”

  “That’s the ring I gave my wife when I married her. She loved it very much… After I buried her, I took all her jewelry. She didn’t have much.”

  With the ring in my pocket, I parted from old Petrović in a pensive mood.

  Over the next few days, Inge was very busy. There was a fresh outbreak of dysentery in the camp. A few days ago, Peretz Frenkel from Hashomer Hatzair came to the infirmary suffering from severe diarrhea, fever, and exhaustion. Dr. Bezalel immediately put him in an isolation ward, suspecting it was typhus. Inge took it upon herself to remind everyone in the camp to follow Dr. Bezalel’s hygiene instructions. She hung up her handwritten instruction leaflets about cleanliness—washing hands and dishes—on all the bulletin boards. Even so, the number of patients coming to the isolation ward continued to rise. Inge was constantly busy and didn’t have time for anything else.

  Dr. Bezalel demanded that the Federation of Jewish Communities send typhus medication urgently, but by the time it arrived, Peretz’s condition had gradually deteriorated.

  One morning, when I came as usual to take Inge to Mr. Goldman’s Hebrew lesson, she opened the infirmary door with red, swollen eyes and told me Peretz’s weak body had succumbed to the disease. He was buried in a field not far from camp, next to the grave of Yehuda Weiss, who had died on board the Tzar Nikolai in February.

  ***

  Again, Father is walking r
estlessly about the house and camp. Ever since he returned from Mother’s operation, he just can’t seem to find a place for himself. He spends a lot of time sitting under the huge plane tree next to our hut. Sometimes Yehuda, who used to live with us in the officers’ room, sits and plays cards with him. They’re often joined by Carl Gottlieb and Zvi Epstein, also from the Tzar Nikolai. Much to Mother’s dismay, they can sit around playing cards for hours; she’s scolded Father more than once for this.

  “When I see you playing like that for hours on end, it drives me out of my mind,” she told him one evening, after a meager meal of cornbread with a little hard cheese.

  Father got upset and said that she at least had her work in the storage room to keep her busy, while he had nothing to do but play cards. Mother tried to hush him so we wouldn’t hear them arguing and suggested in a whisper that he find himself an occupation.

  “How about carpentry? You used to love carpentry. You have such good hands,” she told him.

  I felt sorry for Father. Pushed into a corner, he brought up the subject of the certificates and the time he spent writing letters to all sorts of indifferent officials and lofty relatives in Belgrade or Budapest. Once he realized he wasn’t going to appease her and that people were beginning to think him lazy, when he was used to being seen as a respectable, independent man in Belgrade, he suddenly said, “Well, I may surprise you in a day or two… Maybe I’ll do something that will gain us some respect.”

  “This is not about respect,” said Mother. “I just don’t want to see you depressed and melancholy all the time. Perhaps this new mood has something to do with the fact that you’re not doing anything.”

  “Well, there is something that might improve my mood. I’ve been asked to act as referee for a soccer game two days from now,” Father said with satisfaction.

  Mother was genuinely surprised and wanted to know why they’d approached him in the first place. He said that Otto Miller, the famous soccer player, had approached him after hearing he knew a lot about soccer and even knew the Red Star Belgrade players.