Stateless (15 page)

‘Not just them,' said Abram. ‘I encountered madmen and men who called themselves Christian Nazarenes. Strange people who laugh at our laws.'

‘You met Nazarenes?' asked Eli, his sudden interjection surprising Abram. The young man turned to look at Ruth's father. For the first time since he'd entered Eli's home, the father was taking an interest in what he was saying.

‘You weren't taken in by these Nazarenes and their nonsense, were you, boy? They're heretics who ignore the laws of Moses. They're thieves and madmen. I know these people. A month ago, they were scouring this part of Israel seeking out converts, telling everybody that they could drive the Romans out with love and the word of this Jesus person. Some fools of neighbours went along with their nonsense, but I drove them off my land.' And he suddenly burst out laughing. ‘Wash away sins in a river? What rubbish! That this life has no value but all will be well in the next? That's just an excuse to be lazy! Only fools and the desperate would believe such things.'

Abram felt compelled to respond and, in some way, defend himself. ‘In my village, I served the Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai . . .' The words came out of Abram's mouth as a way to prove his Jewishness and stave away the memories of the baptism by the river. And again, Eli surprised him.

‘Rabbis are little better than these Nazarenes,' he said, taking a last drink of water. He looked at Naomi and Ruth but they'd heard it all before. ‘Rabbis! What good are rabbis? Have they defended us from the Romans? Have their words eased our suffering? And what good did the temple ever do but take our money and make sacrifices of animals that we might have eaten instead of going hungry? Listen to me, boy. Don't put your trust in anything but the work of your own hands and
the family around you. Everything else is empty. God doesn't care about us. Look around; the proof is everywhere. We starve and struggle. Moses gave us a land of milk and honey, but in the time that's passed since he walked these hills, we've had nothing but war and conquest and rape and pillage.

‘Land of milk and honey. What a lie! If this is God's land and we're God's chosen people then it can only have been God who sent the Romans to crush us. That's how much he cares for us!'

‘Eli, you're scaring the boy,' hissed Naomi, but Eli ignored her and continued.

‘The Romans crush us and all we can throw against them are the Zealots. Where's our Jewish army? Where are the soldiers of Solomon and Samson, Gideon and Joshua? How can we defend our land and our people when all we have are rabbis, and now these Nazarenes are telling our people that this life has no value, and the only time they'll be happy is when they're dead?'

Abram wanted to say something but Ruth looked at him and almost imperceptibly shook her head, so he remained silent.

Ruth's mother tried to change the subject. ‘Where will you go to from here, Abram? Where are you headed?'

‘Jerusalem.'

Naomi shook her head and Ruth raised an eyebrow at him.

‘I'm going to Jerusalem,' said Abram more clearly. ‘I have something that I must do up there.'

There was a long moment of silence before Eli finally spoke.

‘You've been in the sun too long, boy.'

‘You cannot go into the city, Abram. It's forbidden,' Naomi said.

Abram was worried by the urgency of her voice. ‘I know. But there is something I must do.'

‘What could be so important you would risk death?' asked Eli, his voice now softer, more kindly – the first genuine
question he'd asked. But Abram realised that he'd said too much and took another sip of water.

‘His business is his own, Father. Perhaps he has a sacred quest he's not allowed to tell us.' Ruth's voice rose in excitement.

Abram looked at her, and was worried that the strange and beautiful young woman was reading his mind. He looked at her and she gave him a wink. But the sweet moment was broken when Eli thundered, ‘I forbid it! You will not go. Now that you've eaten in my home, I will not have your blood on my hands. I forbid you to go anywhere near the city. Do you understand me? If the Romans catch you up there, and they surely will, they will put you to death without a second thought.'

Abram and Ruth remained silent.

‘Do you understand me?' Eli said.

But still Ruth and Abram remained silent, simply lowering their eyes from his intense gaze.

Later, as Abram lay curled up on the floor in a corner of the room, he thought of Rabbi Shimon and touched the stone seal inside his shirt. The High Priest had tried to dissuade him and taken the stone from him, declaring that he should abandon his task. Abimelech and the followers of Jesus had scared him with their zeal and their desire to change who he was, telling him that his task was for nothing and what he did in this world did not matter. And now here in this house, he was being blocked again as Eli decried God himself and forbade him from entering the city. Abram felt as if he'd left his home in Peki'in and entered a world of madmen.

The youngster was confused and angry. He'd been brought
up to trust the words of those men and women older than he was, to respect them. Yet now that he was older, and people were calling him a young man, he'd found that three people whom he should, by rights, have trusted, were acting against him and his mission.

But suddenly, he heard the shuffle of somebody moving in the pitch blackness of the sleeping household. He strained to hear what it could be, and nearly cried out when a blanket was dropped, unceremoniously, on top of his body.

Over him stood Ruth. But before he could say anything she crouched beside him and lowered her mouth almost to his ear, so close he could feel her moist breath on his cheek.

‘I can get you into Jerusalem,' said the fiery young woman. ‘Trust me, it's easy . . .'

Jerusalem, Palestine

7 May 1945

A
lthough there were nearly twenty people in the room, there was a sudden silence, broken only by the static from the radio. The ceiling was blue with cigarette smoke, the table was groaning with bottles of wine and black beer, as well as piles of plates, knives and forks alongside the remnants of hastily eaten food. The young men and women, many red-eyed and exhausted from hours of duty, expeditions and danger, listened eagerly in case the clipped and very proper voice of the BBC announcer came back on. They and the rest of the world were waiting to hear what was happening in the red-brick schoolhouse that served as the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in the champagne city of Reims in France.

All of the young Jewish men and women, fighters for the guerrilla force Lehi, had temporarily put down their rifles and side arms, their grenades and explosives, and gathered in the secret meeting room near to Ben Yehuda Street, in order to listen to the broadcast. Through a tinny radio speaker they would soon hear the announcement of the end of the Second World War. For the first time since the coming to power of
Adolf Hitler in 1933,
Deutschland
would soon no longer be über alles, über alles in der Welt.

The BBC announcer was reading from hastily written notes, handed to him by his reporting staff who were on the telephone to their man in France observing the solemn proceedings. Hitler had killed himself a week earlier. His body, along with that of his new wife, Eva Braun, was burned to a cinder. Reichsmarshall Herman Göring decided to take control of the beleaguered nation, hoping that as the new Fuhrer, he'd be treated with respect by the British and the Americans; but he'd been peremptorily removed and replaced by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.

It was left to the chief of staff of what remained of the German Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodl, in France to sign the instrument of unconditional surrender and hand over power and the government of Germany to the representatives of England and America and the other allies. Soon, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel would sign a similar instrument in Berlin to the commander of the Soviet forces, General Georgi Zhukov. And then it would all be over. In Europe, at least, because Japan was too far away for the Jews of Palestine to worry about, and it was America's and Australia's problem, anyway.

Judit translated what the man from the BBC was saying. It had been four months since she had arrived by ship into Palestine and escaped from the internment camp. In that short time she had been readily absorbed into the fighting force of Lehi. She was highly valued for her ability with languages that in many ways united the linguistically disparate group.

As the radio voice excitedly reported what was happening, Judit translated the words of the announcer from English to Hebrew, and then quickly paraphrased into Russian and Polish. Many in the room loved to listen to the way she formulated the
words, all with her deep and melodic Russian accent, using the idioms of their language that were music to their ears.

The overwrought announcer said breathlessly, ‘I've just been informed by my colleagues that . . . that . . . yes, General Jodl has just signed . . . and . . . yes, the instrument is being moved across the table to the British and American representatives . . . I'm informed that they've all now signed . . . General Jodl is standing and holding out his hand to shake the British and American generals' . . . they're refusing to touch his hand . . . they won't shake . . . but now they're turning to each other and . . . yes . . . they're shaking each other's hands . . . the Americans and the British . . . Jodl is looking downcast . . . they're saying something to each other, but we can't hear what they're . . . now Jodl is being escorted out of the building . . . it's over. The war in Europe is finished. Ladies and gentlemen, it's over. It's all over . . . grounds for celebration . . . count the dead in days to come . . . rebuild our future . . . His Majesty the King will greet the crowds gathering outside Buckingham Palace, even as I speak . . .'

People in the room suddenly began laughing, slapping backs, kissing, tousling one another's hair, and drinking whatever alcoholic liquid was left in their glasses, shouting ‘Mazeltov' at the tops of their voices.

Everybody was hugging and kissing and jumping in the air.

Almost everybody.

A diminutive man sat on a stool in the corner, looking at his young charges, wondering whether or not he should bring them down to earth now, or let them have their moment of happiness. Sitting beside him was another man, also short in stature, but with a face as hard as granite. Not even the news of Germany's surrender could make him smile. The two men, Nathan Yellin-Mor, head of Lehi's political wing, and Yitzhak Shamir, head of the organisation's operational units, sat and
watched the party. They looked at each other. Wordlessly, they knew what had to be done.

‘
Chaverim v'chaverot
,' shouted Yellin-Mor, ‘brothers and sisters, calm down. Quiet. Brother Yitzhak Shamir has something to say.'

It was as though a cold blast of air had suddenly entered the room. All the exultant young men and women turned and looked at the two Lehi leaders, their faces impassive, their bodies relaxed. The reputation of these men was undeniable. Nathan Yellin-Mor had, just two years earlier, escaped from a British detention centre by digging an underground tunnel almost seventy-five metres long and taking nineteen men to freedom. Yitzhak Shamir may have been barely five feet tall but he enjoyed a fearsome legacy as a firebrand warrior within Lehi and the mind behind their strategic attacks, bombings and assassinations.

‘Mazeltov to us all. The war with the Nazis is over. Good. Meantime, they've murdered millions of our people in their death factories. This will never be forgiven. This cannot be forgotten. One of the Jews' enemies has been destroyed. Thanks to the sacrifice of the British and their recently engaged allies, the Americans, the greatest evil ever to befall the Jewish people, Adolf Hitler and his gang of thugs, has been destroyed. Excellent. Wonderful! But let us not lose sight of our goal, and that is to make Palestine into Israel so that whichever poor Jewish bastard remains alive in Europe after this Holocaust can find a place here, a home of safety and a sanctuary for the rest of his or her life. And that means that we have to persuade the British that their mission here is at an end, and that they have to pack up and go home.'

Shamir paused for effect and let the words sink in before continuing. ‘While ever they are here, in Palestine, ours is not free air to breathe. How can we create a Jewish State of Israel
while there are British in command of our cities and our people? How can there ever be an Israel while we can be stopped in the street by a British Tommy who demands our papers; while we can be arrested just for looking like a Jew?

‘When this happens to us on our land, those who perpetrate such crimes against us are our enemy. The Nazis were never the enemy we had to fight here in Palestine. The British were and continue to be our enemy, as are the Arabs who reject our presence. Remember that the Mufti of Jerusalem is Hitler's greatest ally; remember that the Mufti spent much of the war living in Berlin, being treated like some potentate.