The Gates of Zion (37 page)

They will leave it to Haj Amin to decide where to build the last Jewish crematorium. In the meantime, it is our war until the British leave.”

“The war of the terrorist.” Kadar eyed him coldly.

“Commando,” Gerhardt corrected. “Patriot.”

“Some would say,” Kadar interrupted brusquely, “there is no Arab Palestine yet to be patriotic to. I fear that terrorism will simply turn the world against our cause and in the end defeat us.”

“And will the United Nations still support Partition when they realize that they must supply one soldier to protect every Jew in Palestine?” Gerhardt smiled cruelly. “I think not, Kadar. And when the oil of Ibn Saud becomes a threat, they will turn their backs on these Jewish vermin, as they did when the Führer took up this cause.” He appraised Kadar contemptuously. “You are too soft, Kadar. It is not neat round bullet holes, draining out Jewish blood like water from a spigot, that will provoke the cowards of the world to appease us. No. It is a blinding flash among the crowd in a sidewalk café. It is mangled women and children lying in pieces like chunks of raw meat in the butcher shop. All kosher, of course.”

Hassan flicked the ashes of his cigarette onto the marble floor and watched the confrontation. “You have a point, Gerhardt. And so do you, Kadar. But in the end, how we wage war is the Mufti’s decision. And either way, the Jews will be just as dead. The condition of the bodies does not matter, I think, Kadar.”

Kadar shrugged. “My loyalties are, of course, to Haj Amin. I will simply follow his orders.” He glanced at the walnut doors and frowned. “Whatever they may be.”

***

A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling of the basement room at Rehavia High School. It glared down at the nine men seated in hard metal chairs arranged in a semicircle facing Moshe and the detailed maps of the Old City. Behind them, giant shadows imitated their movements against the backdrop of dripping cinder-block walls.
But they are only men,
thought Moshe,
not giants. And this assignment calls for giants.

Moshe cleared his throat and concluded his instructions. “So you can see, because the synagogues are the most prominent buildings in the Quarter, we must make our outposts there.” He glanced around at the bearded faces gazing at him. “Any questions?”

Four hands shot up, their caricatures waving at him grotesquely from the wall. He pointed to a seventeen-year-old boy with a scruffy fringe of beard and piercing black eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.

“You say we are to set up posts in the synagogues? You think the rabbis are going to be happy about that? The Orthodox still believe that some mythical, ancient God will save us.”

Moshe frowned. “With that attitude, Gershon, you will offend the rabbis and no doubt jeopardize what we are trying to accomplish in the Old City. You volunteered for this assignment, but now we will have to find another place for you to serve.”

The boy stood angrily. “What do you mean? You are saying I cannot go?”

“That is what I am saying. You might want to fight, but I tell you that you will need the prayers and support of the Old City rabbis if you are to stand. Especially against the thousands of jihad warriors who flock to the Arab sectors daily.”

“You can’t do this!” The shadow raised a contorted fist. “It is all arranged.”

“It is done, Gershon. You are excused, please.” Moshe stared the boy into silence until he snatched up his coat and stalked from the room without looking back. “Anyone else have anything to say about the mythical God of the Hebrews?” Moshe asked as the basement door slammed shut and the sound of footsteps retreated up the stairs.

“You were accepted”—he searched each face—“because all of you come from an Orthodox background. If, for whatever reason, you have grown to despise that heritage, you may not defend the Old City. If you feel in your heart that you cannot any longer be sensitive to the old ways of the rabbis, we shall simply find another place for your services.”

“But are the rabbis not against us?” asked a small, frail-looking man of about twenty-five.

“There is division among them since the siege. Akiva has, until last week, carried the weight of opinion with him. He has controlled the flow of money to the public kitchens and the agency for the poor.

That is no longer true, and he is angry. His followers are dwindling.

Only a few remain among the Hasidim. The Ashkenazi Jews are sending urgent messages for food and defense.”

Heads nodded in understanding and approval. A large, rawboned young Hasidic Jew spoke quietly. “In the Warsaw Ghetto, even the rabbis came into the streets on Shabbat to help fortify our barricades and make sandbags. We needed their blessings as well. When at last the ghetto fell, they stood and bravely died with the rest. I escaped.

A few others. Very few among the thousands.”

“The scene shall not be repeated, Rashi,” Moshe said, hoping he was telling the truth. “But there you see how important it is for the sake of working together that you remember who you are and where you come from.” He glanced around the room one last time. “You each know what you are supposed to do.” Faces gazed pensively back at him. “Well then, may God go with you. You are our foundation.” He nodded, and the men silently filed out of the room, past the figure of David Ben-Gurion, who stood to the side, a late arrival at the meeting.

When the last man murmured his greetings and shook the Old Man’s hand, Ben-Gurion closed the door behind him and plopped down on a chair facing Moshe. He slapped his hands on his thighs. “So, you send them off.”

Moshe sighed, suddenly weary. “Sheep to the slaughter.”

“We hope not. We must each find our duty, no?”

Moshe frowned as he gathered the charts and maps of the Old City.

“What news have you on the bombing?”

“I thought you would never ask.” The Old Man lit up a cigarette. “It was not Jewish dynamite.”

“You are sure?” Moshe rolled a map and snapped a rubber band tightly around it. “What about the Irgun? Could they have done it?”

“They could have. Probably wish they had.” He blew out a long breath of smoke. “But I spoke with that rascal Menachem Begin, and he says it was not the doing of his men. He says he is certainly not against the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, however.”

“If it were up to the Irgun, we would all have false teeth and feel our way with canes, eh?” asked Moshe. “Well, it can only have been the work of Gerhardt.”

“And Hassan, Moshe.” The Old Man squinted at him. “There has been bad blood between Hassan and you for a long time.”

“Between Hassan and all Jews,” Moshe interrupted.

“He is a man to be stopped, is he not? Before he stops you.”

Moshe ignored the question and began to clean up, stacking metal chairs against the wall. He moved down the row until only the Old Man’s chair remained. He put his hand on the back of the chair.

“What do you want from me?”

“He was once your friend.”

“The friend of my brother.”

“Like a brother, was he not?”

“I suppose so.” Moshe took a chair from the stack where he had just placed it, opened it, and sat down across from the Old Man.

“What can you tell me about such a man as this? a man who was once the brother of a Jew, who then fled to the Nazis and trained with them in the murder of our people?”

“I thought you and Alon had that all on file.”

“Facts. Not motives. And you have never spoken of it, Moshe.

Perhaps it is time.”

Moshe folded his hands and pushed his thumbs nervously against one another. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“At the beginning.”

“We were children together. On opposite sides of the Street of the Chain. From our window above Cohens’ grocery …”

“I know it well.”

“We could see the Dome of the Mosque, and from his window no doubt he could see the Wailing Wall. On Shabbat he would come and light the candles for us. At the end of the Muslim fast, we would bring food to his family, and he would bring bread and honey at the end of ours. Ibrahim was not so much my friend as he was a friend and brother to Eli.”

“This Eli was your older brother who was killed?”

Moshe nodded.

“Hassan killed him, did he not?”

“Betrayed him,” Moshe replied.

“But why did he do such a thing, Moshe?” The Old Man’s eyes were burning with intensity now.

“He had a sister, Victoria. Eli loved her secretly. She loved him as well. Hassan knew of this but felt it was a good thing. That he and Eli would be truly brothers. But …” Moshe dug at a crack in the concrete floor with the toe of his shoe.

“But what?” The Old Man urged him on.

“We are Jews.” Moshe shrugged, remembering the night Eli had told their parents of his love for the beautiful young Arab girl… .

***

“
Do you know what your marriage to her would mean for you? for all of
us?” Eli’s father said after his anger had dissipated into weariness.

Eli nodded silently and retreated to his room, where Moshe sat
reading in an overstuffed chair. He pretended not to notice when
Eli stretched out on the bed and tears flowed silently down his
cheeks.

Finally Moshe asked his brother, “What will you do?”

Eli wiped his eyes and sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees.

“Can I tear out the beard of my father? I must not see her again.”

“
But why?” Moshe asked. “Can she not become a Jew?”

“
She will never fit in. To marry her means that I turn my back on
my faith and my family. You—” he searched Moshe’s
eyes―“could no longer call me your brother. I would be dead to
you. Dead.”

“
But you love her.”

“
Yes!” Eli cried. “But we shall not speak of it again.”

***

Moshe swallowed hard. It was a memory time had not healed. For a long moment, Moshe sat in the metal chair thinking of a thousand things.

Thinking about Ellie and what he would have done had he been Eli.

His father was dead now, and Moshe did not live according to the old ways any longer. And he loved Ellie—loved her as he had never allowed himself to love any woman before now. Was this the way that Eli had loved Victoria Hassan? Only now did Moshe understand.

The Old Man coughed loudly, pulling Moshe back to the present.

“Where are you?”

“In the past, which sometimes appears to repeat itself,” Moshe replied. He looked at the Old Man. “One day Eli and I ran into Hassan and his half brother, Ismael. They were angry and demanded to know where Victoria was. They thought Eli had hidden her away somewhere. I ran for help. While defending himself, Eli ended up knocking out Hassan and killing Ismael.”

“And then?” Ben-Gurion prompted.

“Friends helped Eli escape, but later he was accused of murdering Ismael … and raping and murdering a woman the Arabs claim was the wife of a Muslim named Ram Kadar, a member of the Mufti’s guard. But it was a setup designed to pull Eli from his place of safety. And when he came out of hiding, Eli was killed by a mob of angry Arabs, headed by Hassan. The story was told that Hassan’s sister, Victoria, took her own life after that. In the end, you know how many died. Not just Eli. When it was all finished, this eye-for-an-eye business had killed many innocents on both sides.”

“Do you ever fear Hassan’s hatred?”

“Only when it reaches out for those I love. Not for myself. I only pity him.”

“Your Ellie Warne is not a Jew,” the Old Man probed.

“I am not my brother.”

***

David leaned his head back against the seat and watched as Michael Cohen closed his eyes and bobbed with the gentle rocking of the train to Prague.

He smiled as Michael jerked his head up, then slowly relaxed until his chin once again rested on his chest. As the train rumbled over a trestle bridge, Michael jerked his head back once again, then, crossing his arms, fell back against the window with his mouth half open. With three days’ growth of beard and his hair falling in wisps across his bald dome, he resembled a skid-row bum sleeping it off.

David wished he knew how to use the big camera he had purchased in the Paris secondhand store the previous morning. For a second he was tempted to pull it out of his suitcase and attempt to figure it out.

Then he remembered that he had not bought film. He sighed and grinned, determined to remember the sight of Michael with his mouth hanging open against the faded plush velvet of their compartment.

The generals of the Third Reich prowled Europe in this very train
compartment,
David thought, glancing around him. The fabric was worn thin from the chafing of Nazi uniforms.
Just like the land.
The maintenance of luxury and necessity alike had been put on hold as men had gone about the business of blowing one another up in Europe. And now that the war had ended, all that remained was the business of rebuilding.

Rusting steel skeletons of Nazi transports lay along the railroad tracks. David stared out the window at the scarred countryside, remembering German soldiers running for cover along these very tracks as he dived at their troop train.

Now the remnants of Nazi airpower waited on the deserted airfields of Czechoslovakia to be sold to the highest bidder. He and Michael were traveling to Prague to meet with a guy named Avriel to examine a flock of ME-109 fighter planes left behind by the defeated enemy in their headlong retreat from the victorious Soviet army.

The train stopped and started, slowly lurching across the broken countryside. The gray stone villages all looked the same―weary, cold, and hungry. The fields, once rich with harvest, seemed blighted; the stubble of the first crops since before the war poked through the half-frozen mud. As the steady clacking of the wheels slowed to a stop for what seemed like the thousandth time, David fixed his gaze on a peasant man dressed in a patched brown coat and carrying a basket slung across his back. His right coat sleeve was empty and pinned up.
In which war and for what cause,
David wondered,
did the old man give his arm? And in the end, did it
matter?