Israel (51 page)

“I don't want to fight about it with you, Mama,” Herschel began.

“It's that girl—she's turned you into a murderer. I warned you about her, didn't I?” She stood up. “She has made you a wild man. You grew up in Galilee, learning to use weapons just as you did farm tools. I remember how you cried, your head buried in my lap, that first time you had to kill to defend our settlement.” She shook her head bitterly. “You don't cry now, though, do you, boy? Why are you here? Why don't you rut with your whore to celebrate—”

“Shut up!” Herschel shouted. “What I did was for our people! I didn't enjoy it!” His anger vanished. “How can you, Mama? How can you speak to me this way?”

Rosie's shoulders sagged. She turned away from her son. “Are you safe at least? No one is chasing you, I hope?”

“No one. Mama, let's not argue anymore. I love you.”

Rosie nodded. “I'm sorry, Herschel, but I can't forgive her for transforming my beautiful, clever son into a terrorist. You had a future, but now it's only a matter of time before the British arrest you. If not for this crime, for some other one that girl—”

“Frieda. You know her name, just as you know that she is away from Jerusalem. Don't be this way.”

“All right,” Rosie said scornfully, “Frieda.” She shook her head. “I heard ten people were killed in that blast and six more injured. Your father would not have approved.”

“That's not fair—”

“Your father would never have joined an organization like the lrgun.”

“But he would have joined the Allied Army,” Herschel snapped. “Wouldn't he have joined to fight the Turks if he could?”

Rosie stared at her son. Something in his eyes frightened her. “I don't understand,” she murmured. “Herschel?” Her fingers rose to her lips. “Herschel, what are you getting at?”

“On my way home I stopped at the Jewish Agency office. They are taking names for volunteers to join the British Army. Most Jews are having trouble getting inducted, but with my light features and my British ancestry, I should have no trouble, I was told. The agency people are anxious to get as many Jews into British uniforms as they can.” He smiled. “They think it will persuade the British to side with us against the Arabs later on. That's what Papa thought. I guess history does repeat itself. Personally, I don't care what the agency people think. I'm only joining so I can fight our enemies honorably. You see, Mama, I do care what you think and what Papa might have thought. I'm quitting the lrgun to follow in my father's footsteps.”

Rosie said nothing. What could she tell him? He wouldn't listen anyway. As her son retreated to his bedroom and shut the door behind him, Rosie thought that history did indeed repeat itself. The first war had taken her husband and this second would lay claim to her son.

The grenades' destructive power was contained by the thick walls, but the resultant panic made a shambles of the marketplace. Fleeing bystanders toppled the charcoal cooking brazier in front of a food vendor's stall; the accident went unnoticed in the confusion. The scattered coals began to smolder in their nests of straw and sawdust and soon tendrils of blinding, acrid smoke were winding through the catacombs.

A pair of bodies lay where the twin explosions had flung them. A wounded man wandered in shock; others managed to stagger outside and lay sprawled in the narrow thoroughfare, moaning and crying. The explosions caved in part of the roof. Frenetic would-be rescuers shouted contradictory orders as they tried to dig out the crumbled masonry and toppled timbers.

The rug merchant across the way was one of those who hurried to lend a hand. He was unharmed except for the ringing in his ears.

The British police soon arrived, but there was little they could do except step gingerly about the rubble. The vaults of the marketplace could not accommodate motor vehicles. The ambulances idled an eighth of a mile away.
Those too badly injured to walk would have to be loaded onto stretchers and carried up twisting passages out into the open.

“Who saw what happened?” one of the policemen bawled in Arabic. “Who has information about this mess?” He rocked on his heels, his thumbs hooked into his pistol belt. “Come on,” he shouted, “how do you expect us to catch the bloody Jews if you won't help us?”

The rug merchant timidly approached the officer. He tugged at the policeman's khaki sleeve. “He was not a Jew,” the rug merchant murmured after he'd garnered the officer's attention. “He was an Englishman.”

“What's that? English, you say?” The policeman chewed on the ends of his mustache as he thought it over. Just the other day his sergeant had lectured them on the possibility that certain British, sympathetic to the Zionists, might throw in with them. That sort of thing was certainly not unheard of. Why, Captain Orde Wingate of British Intelligence had thrown in with that Haganah lot, teaching the Yids things they had no business knowing. It was a short leap from advising the Yids to an active role in their operations.

“Perhaps you'd better tell me about it.” The officer pulled out a leather-bound notebook and a stub of pencil. “Start with a description.” He licked the point and began to write as the merchant spoke.

“Blond hair and blue eyes, handsome, very tall and well built.”

An Arab in suit, tie and fez listened as the merchant stammered his description of the attacker. He was seated on the cobblestones some yards away with his back against an overturned table. Directly in his line of vision was a severed arm in the blood-slick gutter. The hand lay palm up, the fingers curled. The Arab wished someone would take it away or at the very least cover it.

He had no need to eavesdrop on the rug merchant's
description. He quite well remembered what the attacker looked like; he'd taken a good long look at him just before entering the coffeehouse. The fellow's haunting looks had lured him to the coffeehouse window for a second glimpse, and that saved the Arab's life. His black eyes and the attacker's blue ones locked for a moment; he saw the grenades clutched in the man's hands.

The Arab did not utter one word of warning to the others in the coffeehouse; to create a panic might have blocked his escape route. He made a beeline for the side entrance, just reaching the threshold as the grenades exploded. The blasts hurled him against the opposite stone wall of the narrow alley, giving him a sound jolt. He'd fell to his knees, tearing holes in his trousers as he grazed his skull against stone. He blacked out for a moment, and when he came to, he felt dizzy. He crawled out to the street and sat down on the curb to rest against the salvaged table. He was unharmed except for a slight bump on his head. In a few minutes his dizziness would recede and he could be on his way.

Another Arab dressed in a long striped caftan and billowy trousers quietly seated himself next to the one in European garb. This newcomer's name was Assiya; he had within the folds of his garment a pistol and a knife. He was ready to use either to protect the man beside him, who was his master.

“Forgive me,” Assiya murmured. “I was in position, watching as I was instructed.” As he spoke he looked straight ahead and hardly moved his lips. If any of the British policemen glanced their way the officers would have seen two mute, shocked victims of the attack.

“I saw him,” Assiya continued, “but I never suspected him; he was English.”

“He wasn't.”

“Not English?” Assiya wondered if his master was injured worse than he seemed. “I tried to get a shot at him
as he attacked, but there were too many people blocking my aim. Afterward I considered pursuing him, but I thought my place was here with you.”

The other man nodded. “The others are all dead?”

“All dead.”

“I would have died as well if I'd not recognized the attacker.”

“You know him?” For the first time Assiya glanced in his master's direction.

The suited man smiled. I know his blond hair and blue eyes, he thought, I know his face. Oh, it's finer-featured, the nose less aquiline, the lips thinner, but of course the mother is Anglo, and that would cut the father's Slavic blood. “I killed his father,” he said. “Don't be fooled by his looks. He's a Jew, all right.”

“Jibarn Ahmed, you are incredible.” Assiya breathed, so overcome with awe that he forgot himself so far as to call one of Fawzi Kaukaji's operatives by his real name.

“Yes, he is a Jew. I want you to go over to that policeman and corroborate the rug vendor's description—it is quite accurate. Only say that the attacker was not Anglo but a Jew. Say his name is Kolesnikoff, first name—” Jibarn Ahmed searched his memory—“Herschel. Tell the British policeman he wants a Jew named Herschel Kolesnikoff.”

“The authorities will want to know how I came by this information.”

“No. They will be so relieved that it was not one of their own that they will ask no questions. Assiya, you realize that after you testify at the Jew's hearing you will be known to the British and accordingly of no further use to us.”

“I understand.”

“You know what must become of a man who leaves our services?”

“Do not worry,” Assiya assured him. “I long to
receive my hero's welcome in Paradise and take my place at Allah's side. The day I send this Jew to his death will be the day I willingly embrace my own.”

“Assiya, will it be necessary for me to send someone to escort you to Paradise?”

“No. I will take myself there.”

Jibarn Ahmed nodded, satisfied. “Allah be with you, Assiya. Now do as I've told you.”

He sat awhile longer, listening as Assiya told the British officer his piece. Oh, how exquisite it was going to be! The British would surely hang the Jew responsible for such carnage. Herschel Kolesnikoff, Jibarn thought, the only sour notes are that your attack was so successful—my best operatives are dead—and that I cannot remain in Jerusalem to see you hang.

Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, had succeeded in joining clans into the Arab High Committee. An important meeting was taking place in Beruit in just seventy-two hours' time. Nazi representatives would be there; the Mufti had promised Hitler Arab support in exchange for German arms. Jibarn Ahmed had been accorded the high honor of signing the secret alliance on behalf of Fawzi Kaukaji.

“Well, now we've got the bastard dead to rights, don't we?” the British officer chuckled as Assiya finished his story. As the policeman continued jotting down the rug merchant's and Assiya's particulars, the Arab bodyguard turned for a farewell glimpse of his master, but Eagle Owl had already vanished.

The worst argument Abe Herodetsky ever had with his son Daniel occurred several months after Daniel's thirteenth birthday, by the front counter of the Cherry Street Market. It took place during the midafternoon, so there were no customers to interrupt or slow the steadily escalating rounds of spite.

Danny was failing in school. According to his teachers he was also disrespectful and in danger of being expelled.

“Who cares?” Danny demanded. “I don't care about that crap.”

“Don't talk like you're from the gutter,” Abe scolded.

Danny shrugged. Abe, staring at his son, thought: You look like a punk, like the hooligans I chase out of here. Danny was thin and short for his age, scrawny in his dingy turtleneck sweater and shiny wool knickers.

Danny must have seen the disapproval. His lips curled into a sneer. Abe tried desperately to think of some way to persuade his son to apply himself. It wasn't that Danny was stupid, he was very clever when he put his mind to something. He knew how to fix machines, for instance.
When the cash register broke Danny had disassembled it and got it working.

The same stalemate between father and son had occurred over the boy's bar mitzvah. The teachers had warned that unless Danny applied himself he would not be ready, and he hadn't been, despite Abe's pleading not to dishonor his mother's memory. There was no bar mitzvah and what a bitter fight they'd had over it. He and his son did not speak for a week.

If only Abe knew how to reason with the boy. If only he could get across to him how his dear mother felt about education and religion.

Abe began attending synagogue soon after his wife's death, both because of his belief that it would have made Leah happy and as a response to the reprimand dealt him by Stefano de Fazio. Abe came away from that late night waterfront confrontation determined to show the Italian he could be a worthy father. To that end he struggled to control his drinking and to make annual contributions to the synagogue to honor Leah's memory. The latter was his way of making peace with God. It was especially difficult for Abe to give money during the first years of the Depression, but he managed, unable to brook the loss of the small brass plaque commemorating his wife. It brought him such pride and pleasure.

If he were willing to make the sacrifices required to be good in honor of Leah, so should his children. After all, they owed their existence to their mother. As in all things, his daughter Rebecca dutifully deferred to his wishes. That his son constantly defied him enraged Abe. Nevertheless, today he would try.

“To be a good student is what your mother wanted for you.”

“You always say something like that, Pa,” Danny countered. “It isn't fair. I gotta sit in a stuffy classroom for somebody who's dead and doesn't know the difference—”

“Somebody?”
Abe was aghast. “Is that how you talk about your mother, who died to give you life?”

“I'm sick and tired of hearing about it,” Danny stormed.

That was when Abe said the worst thing a father could say to his son. “I curse the day you were born! To think that she died to bring forth an animal like you.”