Two Princes and a Queen

by Shmuel David

  I heard contempt in Mother’s voice, and Father said art and poetry weren’t the only forms of culture in the world—sports, even soccer, were also a form of cultural activity. Mother fell silent, then told Father she’d seen Otto Miller at our house yesterday and didn’t understand what he was doing here.

  “I don’t like him. He’s too arrogant for my taste.”

  “He came here to give me his referee whistle,” said Father. “They chose me because I speak Serbo-Croatian, and we’ll be playing against the locals.”

  Father tried to explain to Mother who Otto Miller was and how important it was to have someone like him visiting us, a soccer player who, until a year ago, had played for Hakoah Vienna and who had even seen Otto Schiffling score a goal against Sweden in the World Cup five years ago.

  “That’s quite an achievement,” Father summed up Otto’s professional soccer accomplishments, and Mother finally gave up. She must have realized it was better for her to support him, now that something exciting was finally happening in his life.

  The day of the game we’d all been waiting for finally arrived. A warm sun welcomed us, just the right weather for a soccer game. The Kladovo youth team arrived carrying the flag of Serbia and the flag of Kladovo, and our team had a flag with the Star of David on it. Fredl, the trumpeter, had closed the betting list that morning and promised a winning prize sponsored by the Federation of Jewish Communities.

  Fredl’s daughter was already six months old, and he would take her for walks along the riverbank.

  “We need to let little Mimi rest from time to time, don’t we?” he said, rubbing his forehead against the baby’s.

  I stood in the middle of the large crowd of spectators, Inge by my side, her hand on my arm. I was concerned about what was coming. Inge noticed my concern and tried to calm me down.

  “It’s only a soccer game; don’t be so anxious.”

  But I wasn’t worried about the outcome of the game. I was worried about Father. I just couldn’t understand why he’d agreed to act as referee.

  There weren’t enough benches for all the spectators milling about on the green grass. To the sound of loud applause, the players of both teams came running onto the field. Then, to our surprise, Otto Miller came onto the field wearing a shirt on which appeared the number nine, a shirt he used to take pride in wearing during his first days on the boat, before he started wearing a gray overall like everyone else. Now he bowed to the sound of the crowd’s cheers, proud of his lucky shirt.

  Right after that, the Kladovo youth team came on, and the local crowd rose to its feet and began to whistle and shout encouragement. Father came up with the whistle around his neck and raised both his arms. Inge and I held hands and watched. Tense and embarrassed, I tried to read Father’s face, to see if he felt confident and wasn’t intimidated by the boos and curses of the crowd, which sounded much like the ones I’d heard at the games in Belgrade that Father used to take me to. Mother refused to come to the game after their argument the previous night, saying she thought it was an uncivilized, even barbaric event.

  Father blew his whistle and the game began. Miller’s Viennese group dominated most of the game, the locals mainly defending their goalpost.

  The atmosphere was fairly relaxed at first. About fifteen minutes into the game, after Otto Miller had scored the first goal to the sound of loud applause and happy cheers from our audience, I worriedly followed the Kladovo players’ rising frustration. I heard a few curses in Serbo-Croatian. I felt very uncomfortable watching Father arguing with two players after calling an offside in a situation that could have led to an equalizer for the locals. Gregorovich, a big player from the Kladovo team, seemed to be threatening Father with his large, strong hands. I noticed Father’s distress and was afraid he might get hurt.

  “They’re a bunch of savages,” said Inge. “It’s just a game. Look what they’re doing to him, Hanne,” she shook my shoulder when she saw Gregorovich raise his hand.

  Outwardly, Father appeared confident and in control, but I could read the distress in his face. The situation worsened during the second half, when the local team managed to defend itself against our team’s constant offense.

  When the score remained the same, and our players realized they wouldn’t be able to beat the locals, rage and frustration began to rise to the surface. The Kladovo youths initiated an offensive, but the Jewish defense player, Yehuda Stein, tripped up the Serbian player close to our goalpost, and the latter fell flat on his face.

  That moment, I prayed Father would call for a penalty kick for the locals. It seemed that the rising anger would only be appeased by a compromise. I heaved a sigh of relief when Father blew his whistle and called for a penalty kick, but then our own team players crowded around him, cursing, “He didn’t even touch him!”

  Someone standing next to me screamed as loud as he could, “What kind of a referee are you?” He whistled loudly and started to curse. “The referee’s a son of a bitch!”

  I felt the blood rush to my head and turned to him.

  “Who are you calling a son of a bitch?” I yelled at him.

  He wore a peaked cap, and an unlit cigarette dangled at the corner of his mouth. He looked a little older than me, but I didn’t care.

  “What do you care if I call him a son of a bitch? He’s not your father, is he?”

  I could no longer contain myself, felt as if I were losing control. I approached him, puffed out my chest, and looked him straight in the eye. “As a matter of fact, he is my father.”

  Inge must have sensed the risk, and she hurried in between us, spreading out her hands as if to say, why don’t you two stop acting like a couple of roosters.

  The guy took off his peaked cap with one hand and removed the unlit cigarette from his mouth with his other, tossing it on the ground. He put out his hand. “Sorry, I didn’t know the referee was your father.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, placated. “It’s only a game.”

  A whistle was heard, and the Kladovo youth team gathered behind the penalty area. Tall, broad Gregorovich was chosen to kick the penalty. He stretched and faked a kick to one corner, but everyone knew he’d actually kick to the other one. In order to increase the tension, he even ran to the ball, leaping over it at the last second without kicking. Then he resolutely stepped back, took a deep breath, looked at Ziso, our short and agile goalkeeper, and quickly ran toward the ball. He gave a mighty kick, but the ball, as if pulled by the devil’s hand, flew over the goalpost.

  Gregorovich clutched his face in both hands and ran around the field, refusing to believe that the ball had betrayed him. That miserable kick saved Father from a fresh bout of curses. Ziso, who hadn’t even touched the ball, became the hero of the day.

  The final score was 1–0 in our favor.

  Everyone spoke favorably of Father, who had bravely stood his ground while facing the raging crowd, and wasn’t intimidated by the rival team either. But Father refused to continue to serve as referee, a decision that made Mother very happy.

  ***

  This was one of my happiest days in Kladovo. As part of sports day, there was also a swimming competition, in which I represented Mizrahi as they didn’t have a suitable swimmer. I made them proud, winning second place in the two-hundred-meter-crawl race. Twenty-five swimmers participated in the race, and the whole of Mizrahi supported me, Inge as well. She received me with a huge hug when I emerged from the cold Danube water. But it was Pauli who was the star of the day, excelling in almost every field of sport.

  At the end of sports day, Teddy let us know that we’d be meeting with Mr. Kreis that afternoon. This was Kreis’s third lecture; charismatic and broad-minded, he’d been sent by the pioneering movement in Israel to tell us about the country and prepare the youth for life on a kibbutz. At his last lecture, he’d spoken about ideals and self-fulfillment. Captivated by him, I responded enthusias
tically to his words.

  That evening, Inge and I went to the schiffsreview, now the talk of the camp. Since we’d come ashore, these variety shows had moved to the parade ground in front of the camp. The performances, which began as simple skits with two actors and an accordion on the Kraljica Marija, had turned into actual operettas. They kept the name schiffsreview to illustrate the performance’s original location, while the performance itself became more sophisticated and an impromptu stage was even found.

  We came early to get seats. My parents also came, because everyone was talking about the previous show, which was highly successful. Misha, from the Gordonia group, proved to be no less talented an accordionist than Fredl; he enthusiastically played the Kladovo anthem and we all joined in, singing a new song, “Raisele” (little trip). They tried to teach us the words.

  “It’s simple,” said Misha. “It’s a chorus, and we’ll learn the words together, with ‘one, two, three’ at the end of each verse:

  So we took a little trip, zilch

  they promised us a few days on the river

  and now we’re all stuck here

  And what do they tell us—zilch

  That maybe we’ll sail off tomorrow

  Up the Donau, down the Donau

  When will we ever get to Palestine?

  One, two, three

  We took a little trip, zilch

  With a little backpack and some hope

  We’ve been to Prahovo

  and now we’re in Kladovo

  and we’re crammed in here schlepper20

  Up the Donau, down the Donau

  When will we walk the streets of Tel Aviv?

  One, two, three.”

  At the end of the show, after applause for Richart and Yossy, who as usual made everyone laugh, Inge suggested we take a walk along the camp paths. The moon was full, and many couples were walking among the tents, some hand in hand like us, some with their arms around each other, while others just walked aimlessly here and there, enjoying the soft moonlight. Inge suggested we visit the Greek boat that had arrived in port the day before. Long chains of colorful lights hung between the masts. Three layers of lights hung around the funnel, reminding me of the summer cruises we’d gone on with our parents two or three years before. When we went on board, Inge pulled me in the direction of the bridge; she remembered our first night on the Tzar Nikolai.

  “I remember how you warmed my hands,” I said. “It was so cold.”

  And she said, in her grave, sad voice, which I can’t resist, “I wanted to talk to you about something… Look, from the day I first saw you…I knew you were the one for me. I saw your sensitivity. Your great heart, and…”

  “And what?” I asked.

  “I knew right from the beginning that we were meant for each other, and you felt the same. And at first, you promised me we’d study Torah together and the weekly parashah, remember?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Ever since that shaliach Kreis arrived from Israel, the one you’re all following about,” she said reproachfully. “You’ve stepped back from the faith and started talking about self-fulfillment and liberalism and that kind of thing.”

  “But what does that have to do with us? Why should it interfere with our relationship?”

  “Because I feel that Kreis and his ideas are coming between us,” she said.

  “He might be coming between me and the Mishnah and all that wordplay, but not between us,” I tried to explain.

  “Look, Hanne, I’m a girl who believes, and we said we’d build our home on faith, on learning. I won’t insist on your going to synagogue, but there can’t be such differences between us, the kind of chasm Kreis is trying to create.”

  I tried to explain Kreis’s worldview, similar to Dr. Kaufman’s belief, which he’d often discussed with us at the movement ken in Belgrade, subjects like the prophets’ ethics, social justice, and upholding humanistic mitzvoth, and how much more important these are than the prayers and supplications to God, as the High Priests see it.

  “Rabbi Akiba is turning in his grave from the attitude to the mitzvoth in the movement that bears his name,” she responded.

  I told her the story Dr. Kaufman had told us, one usually told on the Shavuot holiday, about Rabbi Rahumi, who spent so much time studying Torah he spent less and less time at home with his wife and children. And, on the eve of Yom Kippur, he was late and his wife waited for him all day. She was so upset she wept. A tear rolled onto the roof of beit hamidrash, where Rabbi Rahumi was studying; the tear was so heavy the roof collapsed, and Rabbi Rahumi was killed on the spot.

  “A nice story,” she said. “But does that mean you don’t respect me or my faith?”

  The ornamental lights on the boat tinted her beautiful face red and green.

  “God forbid!” I hurriedly tried to appease her. “It’s just an example of the absurdity of extreme study and faith at the expense of loving others.”

  “And here I was thinking we’d build us a home with four children and we’d have a farm and…”

  “I still think so. But I don’t see myself as an observant Jew.”

  “For a few moments there, I thought I’d managed to convince you…but I’m not giving up!”

  I looked into her lovely face.

  “You look so beautiful tonight. I love you, Inge. Look at the bright sky and shining stars. Why don’t we enjoy this beauty instead of bothering with such heavy issues?” I drew her to me, felt her warm body against mine. Holding her face in my hands, my lips sought hers in a long kiss.

  “I want to run away from here. Just the two of us. Would you like that?” I asked when our lips parted.

  “How?” she asked wonderingly. “You mean leave Yokel and the group?”

  “Don’t worry, I have a plan. We’ll get on a train at Prahovo and…”

  “Hanne, have you lost your mind?” She cut me off. “Would you leave your parents, your brother Pauli, just like that?”

  “They’ll come later on, with everyone else. We can take care of ourselves.”

  “Remember the sixth commandment: Honor your father and mother.”

  “I was joking. But now I have something serious to say to you,” I said and took Petrović’s ring from my pocket, where I’d been keeping it for the right moment.

  “What’s in that pretty box?” asked Inge in surprise.

  She gasped when I opened the box and with trembling fingers took out the ring. Although simple and smooth, its silver plating reflected the sparkling starlight, as if set with diamonds. She held out a slender finger, and the ring slid on as if it had always been meant for her.

  “With this ring, I am betrothed to thee,” I said almost in a whisper. I couldn’t believe I was actually saying these words.

  “Now we really are a couple,” she said with a shy smile.

  “Yes. But it’s between us. We won’t tell anyone,” I said.

  “I don’t care about anyone else. Now nothing can part us. I love you, Hanne. I love you so much,” she said, kissing my cheek.

  I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped my arms about her, our lips met, and I felt her kiss flame on my lips. We stood there, clinging to each other for several minutes. When our lips parted, I saw bright tears in her eyes, falling to her cheeks and wetting them. Placing a finger on a stray tear, I traced it along her cheek, down to her chin, and, holding it between two fingers, I tilted her head upward to the star-strewn sky.

  “Maybe we’ll find our star,” I whispered to her.

  “There, there it is!” She pointed at a falling star. “Did you see it?”

  “Yes!” I said joyfully. “I managed to make a wish.”

  “What did you wish?” She cuddled coaxingly into me.

  “For a family in Israel and to grow corn for humans and cows for milk.”

  �
�And that things will always, always go well for us,” she added. “And that we’ll be able to bridge anything that separates us. I’ll light candles and make the blessing every Friday night, and we’ll sing together, ‘Peace be upon you, ministering angels.’”

  I linked my fingers in hers, and together, we left the bridge of the Kraljica Marija and turned back toward the camp.

  The summer of 1940 was an excited one on the banks of the Danube. A random stranger would think that the neat tents were a movement summer camp, and not the transit camp of a group of despairing, almost hopeless refugees on its way to Eretz Israel. The adults were preoccupied by one subject: how to obtain legal immigration papers. After Sime Spitzer’s announcement that the original plan of illegal immigration was no longer possible, he insisted there was no reason for concern; all the Ma’apilim (illegal immigrants) would, in the end, receive immigration permits for Israel and immigrate legally through the Balkan countries. The group, outraged by this announcement, no longer believed his promises. To relieve our fears, Mr. Spitzer assured us that he was working hard on the order of the immigration permits: youths up to the age of eighteen were the first eligible for Youth Aliyah. Then came young girls who could be included in the Wizo Hakshara groups, and then the families, including married couples without children. Finally, Hechalutz members and veterans would receive priority over newcomers.

  This hierarchical allocation caused tension among people. Everyone feared being pushed to the end of the line.

  Father again sank into depression. The evening after Spitzer’s dramatic announcement, I heard him and Mother talking. He was very angry with Spitzer. Although he knew him personally, he said, he’d lost all belief in the man. He reminded Mother how much this transport had cost him, how they’d been promised that papers were not a concern because this was an illegal immigration.

  “It suited me; the Serbs would never have given me citizenship, and it would have complicated things for us.”

  I heard him say this to Mother when we were still in Belgrade, when he came to tell her that we’d be joining the immigration group from Vienna in a few weeks’ time. They were both glad, even Mother, who wasn’t always in favor of leaving our homeland. But now Father was upset, suspecting them of using the money people had paid for the transport for foile-shtick.