Jaffa Beach: Historical Fiction (24 page)

What a strange encounter! Shifra would have loved to find out more about Mrs. Schroder and her husband. Why is she so ill? It was nice of her to invite Shifra to visit, but, would she do it?
Would she tell Musa about the meeting?
She had never told him how much music meant to her, how listening to the sound of Otto Schroder’s violin soothed and caressed her soul, like the healing of a pain she didn’t know she had.

Would Samira tell Musa about their unexpected encounter? Shifra glanced at Samira’s pursed lips. Better not to ask her.

2 9

D
escending from the Tel-Aviv bus, Otto decided to walk home rather than taking Jaffa’s bus full of people sweltering from heat. He still heard the cheerful waltz of Mahler’s First Symphony, which the Palestine orchestra had just finished rehearsing. For a moment he was flooded with the memory of the KuBu orchestra’s performance in Berlin in 1938. KuBu, the Jewish Kulturbund orchestra, was designed by the Nazis to play only for Jewish audiences. No good remembering; when we left Germany, I decided once and for all that the past is dead.

Even before he turned the key, he heard Gretchen’s moans. Alarmed, Otto hurried inside. Gretchen sat near the table covered with the scattered pages of the Palestine Post. There were feverish red spots on her face and her body shook more than usual.

“Here,” she said, a trembling finger stabbing the paper, “it’s written, black on white,
sha-li-chim
, emissaries, have succeeded in smuggling people from the displaced persons camps into Palestine. How many times have I asked you,” her angry eyes locked on his, “have you looked for Ruthie? Have you inquired where my Ruthie is?” The last words died in Gretchen’s throat.

Otto looked at Nabiha, to whom he had specifically said, “Don’t show newspapers to Gretchen.”

“Gretchen, my Gretchen, mein darling, you are tired, you should rest.”

“No, no rest for me, you promised we’d find Ruthie, Ruthie, my dear child,” Gretchen sobbed.

“I told you,” Otto spoke slowly, as to a child, “there are thousands of people in the Displaced Persons Camps. We have to have patience.
Ich bitte dich
, I beg you, my love.”
Oh, how long am I going to have the strength to continue?
Otto’s head started to spin.
I should have ended my life that night, but who would have taken care of Gretchen?

Quick, get Dr. Hoffman’s syringe and morphine. When the doctor gave the kit to Otto, he had cautioned that it was to be used only for emergencies. With Nabiha’s help, Otto injected Gretchen’s limp arm.

No
shaliach
can help us, Otto thought with bitterness, waiting for Gretchen to fall asleep.
Would he ever bring himself to tell Gretchen the truth, the ugly, brutal truth?

It was Heinz, Gretchen’s little brother, who couldn’t get over the fact that his beautiful sister had married the Jewish caricature, as he called Otto. Six years younger than Gretchen, a failure in school, he drifted from job to job, unable to keep one for very long. His parents were so upset that they refused to continue to support him. Then he joined a youth organization.

Though her husband had never reconciled with his daughter, Gretchen’s mother continued to correspond with her. In a letter she wrote:

“For the first time, I have wonderful news about our Heinz: Only a year after he joined the organization he has impressed his superiors. He is now a Hitler Jugend Gruppe Kommandant. He is training young people as enthusiastic as he is about Germany’s future. Would you have believed this of our little Heinz? Your father is very proud of him.

P. S. Heinz says that he wants to visit you soon.”

When Gretchen handed the letter to Otto, his first impulse was to say, “We have to move.” Instead, he folded and returned the letter. There was no need for words.

Shortly after 1933 a dreadful law was enacted which forbade all Jewish artists, musicians, actors, composers, conductors and playwrights to perform or have their compositions or plays performed in German concert halls or German theaters. At their daily rehearsal, Heinrich Schultz, their trio partner, shared the news with them. During the four years of performing together, their trio had become famous in Germany as well as abroad.

“It’s absolutely inconceivable,” Heinrich Schultz said, holding the paper with a trembling hand. “Our best artists are Jewish. This law is ridiculous! You’ll see. German artists won’t stand for it.”

But Herr Schultz was wrong. The German musicians, actors, playwrights, composers, many of them second-class artists, enjoyed the benefits of the new law. Not long after that, Schultz, embarrassed and avoiding looking at Otto, proposed to Gretchen to continue their concerts as a duo, cello and piano. “We’ll still rehearse our trios,” he said encouragingly, “but while waiting for better days to come, we could....” He let the sentence die in the air.

Gretchen looked at Otto. “Of course, Herr Schultz is right,” Otto graciously conceded, though he felt a thorn in his heart. He had never called Schultz by his given name. “We are lucky that Gretchen kept her name, Tramer, for the stage, a true Aryan name.”

Gretchen looked distressed. “Otto, if you think that’s not a good idea.…”

“Just the opposite,
liebchen
,” Otto hurriedly assured her. “Thank you
Heinrich
, you are a good and caring friend.”

Otto was jealous, but he was able to hide his feelings. Heinrich was an old bachelor. Otto had suspected that he was a little in love with Gretchen, but who wouldn’t be? In the ensuing years, Heinrich
proved that he was a good friend to both of them, but it was only at the very end, in that
Gotterdammerung,
their twilight days in Germany, that Otto learned to trust him completely.

As the Nazi claws started to close around them, Heinrich’s advice proved to be a Godsend. First, he proposed they divorce. “For Ruthie’s sake,” Heinrich quickly explained.

“Never,” Gretchen said.

Otto believed the pain would burn him alive. Yet he understood Heinrich’s motive,

“Think of Ruthie,” Otto turned to Gretchen. “In these times we’re not supposed to think about ourselves. Ruthie has to start school soon. An Aryan last name won’t arouse suspicion.”

Soon after, Gretchen and Ruthie started wearing big gold crosses, especially after Ruthie went to the Carmelite nuns’ school. ”At least she’ll get a good education,” Gretchen sighed.

They changed apartments almost every year after 1933, always trying to find inconspicuous neighborhoods. The last little house, far from the center of Berlin, had a concrete basement where Otto could practice his violin and rehearse their trio without being noticed by the neighbors.

In her letters to her mother, Gretchen gave a Berlin postal office return address. She never told Heinrich about her brother Heinz.
Maybe if she had
.…

When Otto started playing in the KuBu orchestra, Gretchen came to listen to their concerts, but later Otto decided it was too dangerous for her. The SS people were guarding the place.

“Why would a German woman want to listen to the Jewish orchestra?” he said to her.

Heinrich agreed. “You can never be too careful.” He continued, “I think it would be better if Otto sleeps at my place after concerts. One never knows if he’s followed or not.” That was especially true after the Jews were ordered to wear the yellow star with JUDE woven into it.

Gretchen, Otto and even Heinrich, had deluded themselves about the Nazi regime
, Otto reflected with bitterness much later—too late. They failed to notice that Ruthie was developing into a young woman, with eyes like two pools of blue diamonds and rich, golden hair.

3 0

H
ow quickly time passes, Fatima reflected, while observing her grandchild hidden as always behind her window’s curtains. Samira was playing with Selim in the adjacent courtyard, and the little boy’s happy laughter had awakened her from a sleep filled with dreams in which she, Fatima, was holding him in her arms.

It seemed only yesterday that Selim was born. Fatima did not reconcile with her son, even though Musa had brought his child and asked for her blessing. In her mind, what Musa did could not be forgiven. Musa married Suha against his mother’s will.

Even now, almost two years after her family’s
nackba
, as she called it, she felt the same anger taking hold of her, like the day she returned from Deir Yassin, two weeks after Na’ima had given birth to Fatima’s first grandson.

Musa was waiting for her in the house and said, as if there was nothing unusual about it, “I want to tell you that Suha and I were married a few days ago.” She did not faint nor did she scream. Instead she raised her arm and slapped his face. Fatima saw his black eyes change from surprise to shock. The red marks left by her rings were visible. Without a word, Musa turned and left.

He had used his mother’s absence to work up his defiant plan! It wasn’t just on the spur of the moment!
How did she fail to guess what might transpire when he offered to rebuild her property next door?

“We’ll use it for a guest house,” Musa had told her when he asked her approval for the expense. Yes, it was her fault from the very beginning, from the day she let the Yahud girl enter her house. Afterward, everybody seemed to conspire against her, asking her to keep the orphan girl, when nobody knew where she came from or who she was. Even her devoted Samira, especially Samira, duped her and concocted a lie that now she, Fatima, was forced to go along with. Oh, the shame of it all!

“One day there will be a terrible punishment. Allah Ackbar sees all and knows all,” she wanted to scream at Musa, but he had already left.

That night she had a strange dream. She was walking on the street when she saw a long line of women dressed in black jelebias. As she passed by them, each one turned her back to her, one by one, the mukhtar’s wife as well as all the ladies from the Arab Woman’s League. “This is the mother whose son has betrayed her,” one of them pointed a finger in her direction. The wind blew their long skirts making them look like old crows, foreboding ill omens. Fatima woke up, drained. She dressed, her decision made: she would fire Samira.

“You leper,” she charged, “You are worth less than a wandering dog. Was this the reward for my trust in you? Miserable creature, it was your idea to teach and witness Suha’s conversion.” Fatima felt her blood boiling. “You said that seeing the love in Musa’s eyes convinced you to help him realize his dream. Have you asked yourself how I would feel? What were your duties toward me? You forgot your place! You were and never would be anything but a servant.”

She had never spoken like that and Fatima knew that those were words that could never be erased.

And Suha, “the intruder,” with that clever and cunning Jewish mind, she knew how to make herself indispensable!

Her heart was seething with rage, thinking that Musa could have married into one of the rich and honorable Palestinian families. He stole from his mother what she rightly deserved.
From whom could she ask advice now? Who would lend her a sympathetic ear?
Not her cousin Abdullah, who was probably as upset and disappointed as she was. And Allah forbid, she couldn’t share her feelings with Mahmood. She knew how much he hated Jews.

Talking to Na’ima wouldn’t be a consolation. Na’ima complained about being constantly fatigued from hard work, crying children and an irritable husband. Thank Allah she had had the good sense to ask Na’ima to keep Suha’s origin a secret.

If only Amina had stayed at home! Everything started going downhill after Amina left. She affronted her mother’s dignity by marrying a British soldier. That was the start, easing the way for Musa to follow his sister’s path.

It had been almost two years since Fatima screamed at Samira. The same day, Samira moved into Musa’s house. Now Fatima longed to be in Samira’s place, playing and laughing with Selim.

“Suha decided to call him Selim, peace,” Musa told his mother when he showed her the baby, “and we hope that he’ll bring peace into our family.”

“Never,” Fatima answered.

Now her heart ached to be the one playing with little Selim. She lost patience with her own children, who slowly began to take refuge at Musa’s house, where they competed to play with the baby.

“Musa’s house is so cheerful,” Rama told her mother. “We all sing, and you’ll not believe it, but Selim, who’s only ten months old, sings with us!”

When a letter arrived from Nur’s English teacher praising her progress, Fatima knew that Suha’s tutoring had helped Nur to achieve that result.

The last blow came from Ahmed, her baby, who said, “Everything tastes so good at Suha’s. You should ask Samira for Suha’s recipes.”

His words burned Fatima’s heart. It reminded her how much she missed Samira, their evening chats when Samira would undo her hair, brush it and braid it again. She felt lonely inside and outside, in her own home.

She never replaced Samira. She went to the souk herself to buy the meats and vegetables that for a small tip were brought to the house by a young boy. When she was shopping at the bazaar she avoided the shop of her old friend, Mr. Nathan, the Jew who helped achieve the successful “plot” against her.

Ahmed, Rama or Nur never asked her why she had not stepped even once over the threshold of her firstborn son’s house. Did they guess why? Maybe the fourteen-year-old Nur, now as beautiful and bright as Amina at her age, had guessed it, but she was busy whispering secrets with her girlfriends, giggling together and chasing Rama out of her room. Her mother’s problems were of no interest to her.

Fatima spent most of her time praying. She prayed fervently, “Oh, Allah Ackbar, in your great wisdom, give me a sign.” Many times she would address her dead husband, “Faud, you who loved me so, and entrusted me with your children, give me a sign.” And she waited.

How could she know that the cry of the newborn, Selim, would be the answer to her prayers? She knew only that her heart was pierced with pain when she heard Selim call Samira,
Jeddah
-grandmother. “It’s not right,” Fatima wanted to scream, “This is my right. I am his Jeddah.”