Israel (67 page)

When he returned to Degania he needed to rest and replenish himself, but now that time was over. Once again he felt strong enough to take an active role in the free world's struggle against the Nazis and in the struggle for a homeland. It was common knowledge that European Jewry was being exterminated by the Nazis. The Jews of Palestine were also convinced that the Allies were aware of this, but there the agreement between the various Jewish political factions ended. The old guard Zionist Socialists, the Haganah lot, believed that the British were sympathetic. Yol Popovich, for instance, tried to enlist in the embryonic British-sponsored Jewish brigade but was rejected because of his advanced age and sent to Cairo by the labor federation to be the Jewish soldiers' welfare officer. Jewish military units—an unofficial brigade of sorts—were doing battle against Rommel in Libya.

There was no way for Herschel Kol, a fugitive, to enlist. His Degania comrades sympathized and pointed out that he was also serving by doing agricultural work. Many able-bodied men had been kept back from soldiering in order to increase food production.

In 1942 news reached Degania of a man who might
rebuild the lrgun. Menachem Begin had come to Palestine as a private in the Free Polish Army. He had been assigned to the staff of the Polish Town Major in Jerusalem. The call was going out among the revisionists: the little the British were doing for the refugees was an outrage and could no longer be met with indifference. The truce forged by the British and the late David Raziel was over. It was clear that military force was required to secure a homeland.

Frieda Litvinoff had reminisced about listening to a young Betar commander named Begin. It was Begin who had inspired her, just as she had inspired Herschel. In Frieda's memory Herschel would put himself in the service of Menachem Begin.

His mother tried to talk him out of it. Rosie Kolesnikoff was in her late sixties. She tended her garden and the preschool-age children of the kibbutz and still painted in her spare time.

Herschel knew his mother had been physically ailing and very depressed in the days following Yol's departure. His own return brought new hope and brightness into her life. When Rosie realized her son was free and the British were not much interested in recapturing him, she grew younger, more active, more interested in the world around her. This year-long reunion with her son was one of the happiest times of her life.

“If you return to Jerusalem, the police will arrest you and you'll end up back in prison.”

“That's unlikely, Mother. First off, the police are far more concerned with the Stern gang's doings. Secondly, there are so many new arrivals in the coastal cities—Poles, refugees and so on—I doubt very much if one more will attract much attention. Third, I don't look like Herschel Kol any longer, and once I'm in Jerusalem, I'll arrange to get new papers.”

Rosie looked hard at him. “You're proud of yourself, I see. Let me tell you one thing, and then you do as you
want. This is the second war I've lived through. I've learned that despite all the flag waving and political noise, despite what the leaders trumpet, what persuades the average man to shoulder a gun and march off to battle is his home. Your father did not fight out of love of Palestine; he fought because he loved the dirt under our feet. The Arab who killed your father did that deed for the same reason. This last year you've spent with your old mother should live in your memory. When you go to Jerusalem and start to get caught up in all that dreadful, soul-killing nonsense about Socialist versus Haganah/Irgun/Stern, remember that you are not struggling to further ideology. You are all struggling to secure your home.”

On his last evening at Degania Rosie sat him down at the table and placed a packet of papers before him.

“Like your father, you are a hard worker, and like your father, you are not at all interested in finances. However, despite my expectations I probably will not live forever. Since I have no idea when we'll meet again, it's important that you understand our financial affairs. These papers should explain everything.”

Herschel spent several hours going through the documents. They were business letters and financial statements from the Glaser family's solicitors and the London bank.

He studied the long columns of pounds and dollars. The Depression had cut into the holdings, but the trustees had managed to recoup some of those losses by investing in shipping and munitions before the start of the war. The last communication from England was dated June 1939; since the war the mails to Palestine had been sporadic. That last statement put the Glaser estate on both sides of the Atlantic at twenty-five thousand pounds plus over a quarter of a million U.S. dollars.

“I issued instructions to begin shifting our holdings to America when you first got involved in your anti-British
activities,” Rosie explained. “I was afraid you'd end up on the wrong side of the law—”

“As I did, as it turned out,” Herschel grinned, still dizzy over the realization of just how wealthy he and his mother were. The irony of it—he was a fugitive and his mother was a member of a socialist kibbutz, where she could not even lay claim to her clothing or the roof over her head, and yet they were rich.

“Don't worry, Mother. When the British are gone we will bring back our thousands to Palestine and invest them where they belong, in our homeland.”

Rosie nodded. “I hope to live to see that day, Herschel.”

“You will.”

“But if I shouldn't, the money will pass to you on my death. That was arranged many years ago. If for some reason you are unable to claim it, our solicitors will continue as they have been.”

“You're worried about my ending up in prison again,” Herschel said. “Don't. When the British leave Palestine, there will be an amnesty.”

“More ifs, more uncertainties. When you resume your fight, Herschel, remember what it is all about. Not amnesty or money or ideology, but the land and who shall own it.”

In Jerusalem Herschel found the walls of the ancient city plastered over with tattered posters of Sir Harold MacMichael.
WANTED FOR MURDER: THE HIGH COMMISSIONER OF PALESTINE
. the posters read in both English and Hebrew,
FOR DROWNING
800
REFUGEES ABOARD THE S.S. STRUMA.

The fate of the blockaded refugee ships inflamed the Jewish community, but they were nevertheless sullenly resigned to the restrictions of the British white paper, while Hitler was still a menace. Within Herschel's first week in Jerusalem he had managed to obtain identification
in the name of Dov Katz. Finding and joining an active lrgun cell proved to be far more difficult.

Herschel had yet to meet Begin, but rumors had it that he was far from ready to wage an active battle against the British. Prior to his arrival in Palestine and his reunion with his wife Aliza, whom he hadn't seen for two years, Begin had been serving out a sentence as a Zionist anti-revolutionary in a Siberian labor camp. He was exhausted and needed to regain his health.

He was also a private in the Polish Army. He refused to serve the lrgun while sworn to the Polish flag, and he refused to desert for fear such an action would antagonize the Polish government, which was attempting to liberate the hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews still incarcerated in Soviet labor camps. All of this meant that the lrgun's interim leaders could only maintain the status quo while Begin rested and the lengthy negotiations to obtain his honorable release from the Polish army continued.

Toward the end of 1942 Rommel was driven back and the war's focus was moving toward Sicily and the rest of Italy. The Polish contingent, including Begin, was due to be transferred. Influential activists feverishly worked to obtain Begin's military discharge, claiming that he and others were needed for propaganda work in America to further the cause of the free Polish government in exile. In 1943 Begin was officially released. His health restored, he was ready to take command.

Herschel spent these months cautiously exploring what remained of his old network of lrgun contacts. He was living as a boarder with a family who owned a bookstore. Both the father and his son were lrgun followers and their shop functioned as a message drop. A trapdoor in the floor led to a basement printing press, one of the many that turned out lrgun propaganda. To earn his keep and help out as best he could Herschel ran the press, emerging from
the dark basement at the end of each day pale and blinking, hopeful that the call to arms had been issued.

“We've been informed that Begin himself would like to meet you,” the bookstore owner told Herschel one evening as the family sat down to supper. “He has a job for you. It's quite an honor, you should realize. My understanding is that he's been seeing nobody but his closest advisers. It must be quite some job if he feels he must offer it to you personally.”

“When?” Herschel was eager. “Where?”

“You must go to Tel Aviv.”

Becky spent most of her first year on the sixth floor typing and filing, but gradually she began to serve as Philip Cooper's personal assistant. Millie Kirby had more work than she was able to handle, so Cooper appreciated being able to lay claim to Becky's services.

At first Becky suffered an enormous crush on Cooper. How could she not swoon when he was so handsome and gentlemanly, when he had flowers delivered to her desk on her birthday? Grace Turner took delight in teasing Becky about him, but everyone knew he was happily married. Cooper's interest in her was strictly platonic.

Becky had plenty of work to do during normal working hours, so she arrived early and stayed late in order to go over the store's files on her own time. She had access to every report that crossed Millie's desk, and if she did not understand its contents, she worked at it until she did.

There was little distraction. Becky had no real friends except for Grace, who had quite a large crowd of her own to keep her occupied.

There was nothing for her at home. Her poor father—
she'd tried to keep him involved in what was happening in her life, but he only belittled her. Lately he'd latched onto her lack of a family. Never mind her accomplishments; why wasn't she married? Why didn't he have grandchildren? Danny's leaving school had embittered him. His two children had not done as he wished, so they could never do anything right. She would have moved out of Cherry Street, but she couldn't desert him no matter how awful he was.

By choice and by chance Pickman's became her world. Late at night, when she was cold, tired, discouraged, when she most felt her absolute loneliness, the dark corridors of the store seemed like a tomb and her inadequacies loomed before her, insurmountable.

She had no friends, family or lover, so she married the store. She came early and stayed late. Whenever she left the huge building, she felt diminished. On her days off she prowled the competition, taking notes, stealing ideas—a spy behind enemy lines.

She had talent and she learned fast. With Phil Cooper's blessings and encouragement she began to compile memos of her ideas and suggestions. These were circulated to Carl Pickman and always came back to Millie's desk initialed, signifying that Pickman had at least glanced at them.

Becky then had the odd chore of filing her own missives into what she had privately dubbed as the cabinet of no return.

But she knew that those nylons and refrigerators were still languishing in storage. Phil Cooper gave her the job without asking her about her idea, and Becky kept her mouth shut about it, figuring to leave well enough alone. The more she thought about it, however, the more incredible it seemed to her that such bounty should be kept away from the war-starved public and away from the profit side of the ledger.

The matter was far more complicated. She'd learned enough about the Pickman family to understand that they would rather lose profits than their reputation. The Pickmans were one of the foremost Jewish families in America. In these days of controversy concerning the nation's responsibilities to European Jews, she could understand reluctance to seem to be profiteering.

Becky believed she had the solution to the problem, but Phil Cooper made her revise her memo three times before he forwarded it to Carl Pickman. Becky was glad to have his advice. Pickman often nodded in her direction when he passed her desk, but she doubted that he thought about her at all. She'd heard his stentorian voice raging at buyers and floor managers who had somehow displeased him. Becky had no intention of being the object of such wrath.

Her memo, now a full-fledged advertising campaign proposal, went into Pickman's office bright and early on a Monday morning. The day crept along. At four o'clock Becky relaxed. Clearly Pickman had not had time to read it today.

At four-fifteen Millie's intercom buzzed and Becky thought she heard Pickman's voice mentioning her name.

“He wants to see you,” Millie said.

Becky nodded. Then she was through the glass doors and floating down the hushed, carpeted corridor.

It was her first time in his office. Her first fleeting impression was of how large and bare it was, an enormous expanse of lamp-lit space, of carpet and closed draperies.

There was Pickman's oak desk, dominating the room from a slightly raised platform. Flanking the desk was a moss-green sofa upon which a fidgety Phil Cooper was seated. More or less in front of the desk were two armchairs.

“Come sit down,” Pickman said.

He had yet to look up from his papers. As she crossed
the heathery carpet she had a chance to study his gleaming grey hair, long, thin face and broad shoulders. He was a fit-looking man, and except for his grey hair he looked far younger than his fifty-six years.

As she reached the armchairs she shot a questioning glance at Phil Cooper and jerked her head at the sofa.

Phil shook his head and indicated the chairs, so she seated herself before Pickman and waited.