Broken Song (13 page)

But did Reuven have enough anger? Or maybe it was really a question of love. Did he have enough love to let Rachel go?

For Rachel it was a game. It was just like the good night game except it was the good-bye game. She was bundled into her new coat and her new shoes. Basia and the four children stood on the platform where they would catch the train that would take them to Vienna. There they would then catch another train to Bremen, where they would board a ship to America.

“Bye-bye.” She kept waving. “Bye-bye, Reuvie.” And then she would rush into his arms. What would happen when they all boarded the train and Rachel figured out that her brother wasn’t coming? When would this knowledge dawn on her? Reuven and Basia had discussed the departure endlessly. Reuven had thought that he should not come to the train station at all, or perhaps put them all on the train and then quickly disappear before the train pulled out. But Basia was against this.

“No,” she had said. “Rachel must see you waving good-bye on the platform. I do not believe in tricking children. She will cry, yes, but we will explain to her that you will be coming to America later on. In the meantime, you will write her letters and send her little presents.”

In the end, Reuven had agreed.

And now the train was pulling into the station. A porter had been hired to help them with their bags. Basia had it all planned out. She explained to the porter that they wanted the seats on the platform side so she could hold Rachel up to the window to wave to Reuven.

There was a great creaking and whoosh of steam as the train pulled to a halt. Basia began issuing orders like a field commander. Miri, the oldest, held the baby. Yossel was instructed to hold on to Miri’s cloak and not to let go. Basia picked up Rachel. The porter went first with their bags and secured the seats. When he came back down again, he began helping them up the steps. He took Rachel in his arms momentarily while Basia mounted and then handed her to Basia. Rachel started to lift her hand for bye-bye, but it dropped softly onto Basia’s shoulder. Quickly they were inside and Basia was holding Rachel up to the window. Basia picked up Rachel’s hand and began waving it for her.

Reuven stood on the platform waving, waving like crazy. He could not make himself smile. He tried, but each time his lips pressed together into a grimace. It seemed to Reuven there was nothing left in the world other than this train window, himself, and the confused little face behind the glass.

It was suddenly dawning on Rachel that this was no game.

She had grown stiff in Basia’s arms, stiff with rage as her hand was waved. Then her entire body began to twist and struggle. Reuven could hear her piercing furious shrieks through the glass. Rachel tried to kick the
window with her feet, but Miri came to her mother’s side and held them tightly. Rachel leaned toward the window, having freed one little fist, and began to pound on the glass. Her face was glazed with tears. Reuven watched, transfixed by the enormity of her fury.

And the words of Lovotz came back so clearly in his ear. It was as if Lovotz were standing beside him on that platform. “
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself what am I? And if not now, when
?”

FIFTEEN

“LIEUTENANT VACHEK, first munitions officer, reporting.” Reuven Bloom snapped a smart salute to the officer of the day.

“Your papers?” the officer replied.

Reuven drew out his forged orders from the inside pocket of his uniform. He was always nervous when he presented the papers but especially now. It was the first time he had used papers done by the new forger in Moscow. Of course, half of these soldiers couldn’t read anyhow—at least the ones in these units. Hardly the elite, mostly made up of ragtag hooligans who only lived for their ration of three fingers of vodka a day, as promised by the tsar. Still, Reuven never got over the fear. When one did, when one became too confident, he was killed, like Jacob Pinsk.

Jacob had been their best demolition man—their best wracker—but then something happened. He got cocky. He started taking outrageous risks. He not only blew himself up, but he also exposed the whole scheme the demolition team had used. It took them months to invent a new system, train people, and begin to implement the attacks. So far it had worked. In some ways it was superior to the previous methods. Reuven had become the key to this new system. Because his Russian
was so fluent and his hands were so nimble, they had been able to more finely target their attacks. No more blowing up innocent bystanders. Reuven had become the expert at weapons demolition. “A virtuoso!” Isaac Dorf had declared. And soon he became known as String Man, the best wracker in the demolition team. Isaac, his cousin Lovotz’s friend and owner of the music shop in Vilna, had taken over as the director of the Bund in Vilna after Lovotz had been murdered.

“Virtuoso!” Reuven muttered the word in disgust. It had been months since he had had time to pick up the rather inferior violin that Isaac was able to get for him. But who would want to take a Ceruti where he often had to go? Reuven’s life in the last three years had been lived in the shadows of espionage, violence, and narrow escapes. He had become one of the Bund’s greatest assets, not as a labor organizer but as a spy and wracker. Reuven Bloom was known for his ability to steal anything out from under the most elite guard of the tsar’s troops—everything from the finest caviar to ammunition to horses. And he had an uncanny ability to understand the mechanics of death machines—rifles, artillery, mortars, weapons of all sorts. He saw through them. He had a feel for their spring actions, the chemistry and charge of the propellants, and he possessed an almost mathematical understanding of the trajectories of the projectiles. As Reuven saw through these machines of death, they became abstract to him. He neatly analyzed them the way he had once analyzed the structure of a concerto—coolly, without passion. It was only when he played that the passion had come. But as a wracker, the
passion never came, which was the way it should be. For just as he had so coolly analyzed, so had he rationalized: he was not really killing. He was just blowing up the killing machines. If a rifle exploded in a soldier’s face, so be it. There was one less rifle and one less soldier to kill innocent people.

Never had his talents been more valued than in the past eighteen months. Alarmed by the strikes in Minsk two years before, the tsar had stepped up his efforts against all revolutionary activities. Close to five thousand people had been arrested within the last year and a half. Most of them were Jews, but many were not. Two thousand had been exiled to Siberia, and the unrelenting pogroms continued with a growing ferocity and destruction because of improved weapons. It was said that the tsar and tsarina had stopped spending money on their favorite jeweler, Fabergè, who made the fantastic porcelain eggs inlaid with jewels, and instead were spending it on guns like the new ones into which Reuven had become so skillful at slipping thermite.

He now set to work on the shells for the artillery guns. He had announced to the ordnance officer that he wanted the shells stacked by the emplacements, and he had brought along devices for measuring and weighing them.

“Many irregular shells have been issued from one factory near Kiev and we must be assured these are not among your supply. They can be very dangerous,” Reuven had said. That was his cover story. What he intended to do was to make the existing shells useless. If he removed the detonators in the middle of the shells
and replaced them with duds, the artillery missiles would launch shells that never exploded. He worked quickly. He had managed to compartmentalize his mind in situations like this. His concentration was fully on unlocking the detonators and inserting the duds. Yet another part of his mind was alert to the approach of any soldier. He always explained that what he was doing he must do by himself, as it was dangerous. Accidents could happen, and he must not be distracted by idle chatter.

He had worked this ploy twice now over a period of several months, at encampments widely spread apart so that no pattern could be detected. But he and his immediate superior at the Bund knew that this would be the last time. Such ploys had a limited lifetime, especially when they depended on impersonation and were basically done in broad daylight. There were other ploys, however, that could be played time and time again. They were more dangerous too.

Reuven felt someone approaching now. “Get back!” he yelled without turning around. “Didn’t the commanding officer tell you this is dangerous work, checking these shells?”

“Sorry, sir. I was just asked to request that you look at the newest shipment of regimental rifles.”

What luck
! Reuven thought.
Let me at those rifles
. Too bad he had not brought more bits of thermite with him. One small little slug of thermite could destroy the entire barrel of a rifle. Once a cartridge was fired, the thermite chip began to heat up to such a ferociously high temperature that the insides melted down.

When Reuven had finished with the artillery, he
was led to a shed where there was a table stacked with the new regimental rifles. Reuven opened his eyes wide. He had heard about these new guns. They were the smokeless-powder rifles. They fired jacketed lead bullets, and used not the ordinary black powder, but powder made from something called gun cotton, which was much more powerful and burned more efficiently. The bullets weighed a half ounce or less and could travel at a velocity of over six hundred meters a second. They were the deadliest of rifles. But with a chip of thermite, they would be useless forever.

When Reuven had finished his work, he was invited in to have a drink with the commanding officer. He refused, as he always did. He never liked to give anyone too much time to study his face or listen to his voice. Although he knew his Russian was perfect, he still feared that perhaps some slight tinge of a Yiddish accent might creep in, especially if he were drinking vodka. So he declined the invitation and went on his way.

His horse, which had been stolen for him a few days before, carried him in the direction of Nikolayev. He had his orders. He was to stop at a farm on the outskirts of Nikolayev. At the farm were sympathizers, non-Jews but very helpful, and he would leave his horse with them as payment for all they had done to assist the various Bund agents. He would also leave his uniform with them. They would keep it in case he needed it again, although everyone had pretty much agreed that this strategy had been exhausted. He was then to proceed into the city where at seven in the evening he would go to the cafè across from Alexandra Park. At the cafè he
was to sit in the far northwest corner. Another agent would meet him. He would come to his table and say, “Do you still take your tea black as fish eggs?” It was this agent who would tell him of his next assignment.

Reuven found the farmhouse and the farmer. They offered him a plate of pickled herring and a glass of tea. The wife gave him a big lump of sugar. He knew it was expensive. “Thank you,” he said quietly. He placed the lump of sugar in his mouth and sipped the tea so it strained through it. A shaft of sunlight fell across the wooden table. There was a vase of flowers, field flowers, delicate and pale in color. Reuven was savoring this moment. There were so few in his life like this—quiet, domestic, a lump of sweetness in his mouth, a slant of sunshine through the window. A little face peeked around the kitchen door.