Raquela (11 page)

Then, in 1933, when Hitler came to power, she saw, long before most people were willing to accept the reality, that he was bent on extermination. Jews would be trapped and annihilated.

At seventy-five, she had gone to Hitler's Germany. “If we cannot save all the Jews,” she cried, “let us at least save the children.”

Youth Aliyah, first created by Recha Freier in Berlin, became Henrietta Szold's obsession and love. In Germany, she brought her organizational talents and skills to the Children's Migration, which would eventually bring thousands of children to Palestine. They were never called orphans, though most of their parents died in concentration camps.

Home in Palestine, rain or shine, winter or summer, Miss Szold drove from Jerusalem to Haifa. She stood on the dock to meet every ship and shake the hand of every parentless child she had rescued.

Around the world, people began calling her “the mother of ten thousand children.”

She protested. “A child has only one mother,” she said.

And sadly, she sometimes added, “I am not a mother.”

How had she done it all—medicine, the nursing school, the hospital, Hadassah, the women's Zionist Organization of America, social welfare, Youth Aliyah?

Early one morning, Raquela, arranging an armful of flowers she had cut in the garden, worked up the courage to ask. She found Miss Szold sitting on the terrace, wrapped in a robe, with a blanket around her feet. In the early light, the Old City was sharply outlined, as if someone had taken a soft crayon and defined each building, the white granite tower of the Rockefeller Museum, the synagogues, the churches, the mosques, and even the embattlement walls. The houses inside the walls cast long early-morning shadows upon one another. Even the sky seemed to frame the Old City in pale blue with tints of pink and turquoise.

“Do I disturb you, Miss Szold?” Raquela asked.

Miss Szold turned her eyes away from the morning panorama and looked at Raquela. Her brown eyes seemed to Raquela to be filled with wisdom.

How should she begin? How could one ask a woman as important as Henrietta Szold how she had achieved so much, and still kept herself so carefully groomed, her hair always shining, her hands young?

In her last letter to Carmi—somewhere on the Italian front, fighting the Nazis—Raquela had told him of Miss Szold. “Someday,” she wrote, “I'll ask her the questions that keep churning around in my brain.”

This was the day.

“Miss Szold,” she blurted out, “how did you do it?”

“Do what?” Miss Szold asked. Her soft white hair was combed in a precise center part, her well-formed lips drawn in a smile.

“Everything.” Raquela tossed her head. If Miss Szold refused to answer, she would turn and race down the stairs. The words tumbled out. “I mean, I heard you got up before dawn, and worked eighteen hours a day, and did everything, and on Shabbat had open house in your room in Pension Romm on 11 Rambam Street, right across from the second windmill, the windmill that really works, not like the one at Yemin Moshe, where my grandmother lived. I mean—how did you do it?”

Raquela put her hands to her mouth. The questions were out now—not all, not the personal ones, the love affair with the scholar in New York. Did she feel about him the way Raquela felt about Carmi? They too had fallen in love at first sight. No, she would not ask questions that invaded her privacy.

“If you don't want to answer, if you don't feel like talking, it's all right. Really.”

“I don't mind,” Miss Szold said.

Raquela stood, waiting.

“The body is a machine through which we function,” Miss Szold said. “Years and years ago, I decided I must keep the machine in good working order. A machine, like any tool, needs care every day. I knew if I didn't massage my hands every day, they would become twisted and gnarled like the hands of many women, and I would not be able to write, to keep up with my correspondence with my family and all my friends.”

Raquela nodded silently. She had seen her writing in her room, or on the terrace, hours at a time.

“And your hair?” Raquela barely breathed the words. She had often watched Miss Szold brush her white hair forward, then back, then side to side.

“I had no time to go to beauty parlors,” Miss Szold answered seriously. Perhaps the questions were not so trivial after all. “I brushed—and I still brush my hair one hundred strokes a day. I used to use a sturdy brush; now in the hospital, I use a baby brush and a fine comb. I've even stopped using soap these last months. Someone told me hair should be cared for the way you groom a horse or a dog. And I believe it.”

Raquela was relaxing; Miss Szold had put her completely at ease. “Did you have a routine—one you stuck to every day?”

“Of course.” She smiled again. “It's the only way to keep the machine well tooled. I got up at quarter to five every morning. Those first two hours of the day were mine. That's when I did my regular setting-up exercises, brushed my hair the hundred strokes, massaged my hands, took my bath, dressed and had my breakfast.” She laughed a little. “Then I was ready for a day's work to begin.”

Raquela felt a sudden impulse to bend down and kiss Miss Szold's cheek, but she didn't dare.

Some weeks later, at eleven o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, February 13, 1945, Miss Szold fell into a coma. That afternoon, she died as she had lived: quietly, with consummate dignity, and in the nursing school she had created and loved.

Months before, she had prepared her own shroud. That, too, was typical: to cause as little inconvenience as possible, she had told Emma Ehrlich where to find the shroud inside her wardrobe at home.

Cables were sent to her family in America, but the war in Europe made transportation impossible, and not one of them could come to her funeral.

Miss Szold's body, wrapped in the shroud, lay in state on the floor of the lounge. A navy-blue cloth covered her; two tall candelabra with lit tapers stood near her head. The white-cowled student nurses kept vigil, the honor guard whose leader had fallen.

Raquela's watch came at midnight. Silently she said farewell.

In the morning the heavens opened. “Even God is weeping,” Judith said, wiping the tears from her eyes.

Thousands of mourners came to Mount Scopus. Solemnly, they stood in line in the pouring rain, then entered the school and filed past her body. Above the Hadassah Hospital, the flag of Zion, with its star of David, flew at half mast.

All through the dark morning the mourners came, and on into the early afternoon. At three o'clock the cantor intoned the memorial prayer. There were no speeches. In the somber, darkened lounge, Raquela leaned against the wall, surrounded by doctors and nurses; Emma Ehrlich, weeping as if her heart would break; Hans Beyth, his eyes rimmed with sorrow; Jewish, Arab, and British political leaders, paying their last respects.

Dr. Judah Magnes, the American-born president of the Hebrew University, recited the Kaddish, the prayer in praise of God.

Now the pallbearers carried Miss Szold up the road along the ridge of Mount Scopus to the university campus. Raquela walked with the student nurses in the procession of leaders and workers, of the famous and the obscure, and of thousands of Miss Szold's beloved Youth Aliyah children.

The heavens ceased weeping. The sky was a sheet of gray.

At the university the pallbearers gave up their burden. Miss Szold's body was placed in a hearse and carried to the sacred burial place on the Mount of Olives, where for thousands of years pious Jews had buried their dead.

The long endless procession approached the grave.

Tears formed in Raquela's eyes.

SIX

MARCH 1945

R
aquela was in the labor room, mopping the forehead of her sister-in-law, Meira, Jacob's wife.

Meira's soft, pretty face was chalky, her dark hair stringy and wet. A scream exploded; her body trembled. Then she lay back, exhausted.

“I've been here all night, Raquela,” she said weakly. “What time is it?

“Eight o'clock, Meira.”

“My God, it's more than thirteen hours. How much longer, do you think?”

Raquela tried to comfort her. “It can't be too much longer. First babies are always the hardest. By the time you and Jacob have had—who knows—three, four, five, you'll be dropping them like a peasant in the fields.”

She sounded more reassuring than she felt. She was worried; the water bag had burst. The contractions had started, then stopped. Started again. Then stopped. Meira was weak with fatigue. Raquela changed the wet gown.

Meira looked at Raquela gratefully. “I'd go out of my mind if you weren't here,” she said with a sigh. “I'm so glad you could get out of your class.”

Raquela chuckled. “I had to do a real selling job with Mrs. Margolith to do it. You know, she's Mrs. Cantor's top assistant, and she doesn't believe in third-year students' missing a single class.”

Meira leaned back wearily. Raquela tried to make her laugh.

“Did I tell you what happened to me the other day with Miss Landsmann? She's the director of nursing services, an American, and she never learned Hebrew. She speaks to us in English with some Yiddish and a few Hebrew words. A few days ago she caught me, with another student, sunbathing on the terrace. She scolded us. ‘Girls, don't stand
nekket
on the balcony. Three policemen are standing over there on the
kveesh
(road)
kooking
(looking) at you.'”

Meira laughed, holding her swollen belly.

She and Jacob had been married a little more than a year, a simple wartime wedding with only a handful of relatives present. Most of the young men in the two families were at the front.

Raquela knew how Jacob adored his vivacious wife. Searching for something to divert her, Raquela felt for a letter in her apron pocket. “Would you like me to read you Carmi's last letter? It's all about Italy when the Jewish Brigade landed.”

Meira tried to make herself comfortable. “Please read. I'll try my best to listen.”

“Stop me whenever you like.” Raquela pulled the well-worn letter out of her pocket. She began reading:

     “Wherever we go in Italy—in the areas our Allied forces have just begun liberating—the people come out on the road and stare at our trucks with the blue and white star of David. They wave, they shout greetings, they throw kisses at us, toss flowers as if even the trucks were human.”
“I can almost see them,” Meira whispered.
Raquela went on.
     “We keep looking for Jewish survivors. Tragically, most of the Jews of Italy have been deported or massacred. But every now and then we meet a few who were hidden by kindly Christian neighbors. They come and put their heads on our trucks and weep. When we stop, some of them jump inside and embrace us. Jews from Palestine! They can't believe we're real.”

She looked up from the letter. Meira clutched her body with her hands, as if to ward off an unbearable pain. “Go on, Raquela. I'm listening. What an experience for our Sabras—to meet the survivors.”

Raquela nodded. “I'm sure they'll never forget that first moment—Sabras and survivors embracing. He goes on:

     “The Germans' reaction to our Jewish Brigade is incredible. We listen to the Nazis on the radio; they sound as though they've gone berserk. They say, ‘Churchill has let mad dogs loose on Europe.'”

“Any idea where he is?” Meira sat up. The pain had stopped again.

“Somewhere north of Rome, in the mountains. He describes what it's like in those hills:

     “How cold it is. The winds howl like a hungry animal and the sound is like an unfinished symphony. Only Satan himself can conduct this orchestra.
     “Whenever I leave my tent, I pull on everything I own, six layers of underwear, and then two sweaters. I can just about get my army jacket closed.
     “We're fighting on two fronts—the first front is against the Nazis, and the second front is against nature. In the dark night the wind blows us around in all directions as if we were drunk. And the mud! Sometimes I think I'll never get the mud out of my boots or my pants.”

She stopped reading. Meira lay with her eyes closed. “I'll skip this part,” Raquela said.

She read the next paragraphs to herself; she knew them almost by heart.

     I look at your picture (I always carry it in my left pocket, next to my heart; it's so comforting to have Raquela near me) and repeat to myself for the thousandth time, again and again and again. There is no question—I love the most beautiful and fantastic girl in the world.
     I am only flesh and blood. The chambers of my heart are overflowing with the emotions I feel toward you.
     Many kisses from the one who longs for you.

A white-jacketed doctor entered the room. Raquela jumped to her feet like a private confronted by the commanding general.

“And how are you this morning, Mrs. Levy?”

“Feeling better already now that I see you, Dr. Brzezinski.” Meira straightened the sheet above her abdomen.

She introduced Raquela. “This is my sister-in-law, Raquela, Jacobs sister.”

Dr. Brzezinski smiled at Raquela. “I remember you sitting in front of the window in my G-Y-and-O class. I had no idea you two were related.”

Raquela was flustered. Dr. Aron Brzezinski, deputy chief of gynecology and obstetrics, had noticed her. He was not handsome. His face was round, and he wore thick dark-rimmed glasses. He was in his middle thirties, already slightly paunched and an inch shorter than she; yet he moved in an aura of warmth and compassion. She saw Meira looking at his kindly face as if his very presence would make her labor easier.

He examined Meira. “Not yet. I don't want to induce labor unless we have to.”

Meira shut her eyes and began breathing deeply. In minutes she was asleep.

Dr. Brzezinski turned to Raquela. “Would you like to have some coffee with me? I'm going down to the cafeteria.”