Pursuit (24 page)

“I know,” Brodsky said quietly, “but you can't get to Switzerland without money. You pretend to think you can, but we both know better. There are no free rides in Italy just by wearing a little cap with a few stripes on it. No free meals. No friendly truck drivers. The British are here in force, and you can't speak either Italian or English. How far do you think you'd get? If you could have jumped the train in Bolzano or Trento, you couldn't have made it. Make it from Genoa? Don't make me laugh!”

Grossman felt himself get hot. “I—”

“You won't get a mile out of this town without being picked up by the British or the Italians and deported back to Germany. Or put in a detainee camp. Look at you! Without me, you'd still be in Germany! You can't even beg for food; you don't know the words!”

“A truck driver gives you a lift and asks where you're going,” Wolf said, getting into the act. “You think he's offering you something to eat and you say ‘Salami.' He takes you to Bologna.”

“Ben,” Brodsky said with finality, “without money you just can't make it.” He slapped his forehead. “Why are you so stubborn?”

“I can get by,” Grossman said, but he didn't sound so confident.

“‘By' is right,” Wolf said. “You went by Switzerland once, you'll go by it again.” He personally considered Grossman a shit to want money to help the Mossad, but he knew this was not the time to mention the fact.

Grossman considered, then looked up. “How much money?”

Brodsky looked at Davi Ben-Levi.

“Fifty American dollars,” Ben-Levi said without hesitation. “And a ride out of Genoa on a truck, as far as Tortona. That will get you well on your way. You can catch a train or a bus north with that much money, and have plenty left over.”

“What if I can't fix the engine?”

Again Ben-Levi didn't hesitate. “You'll still get the fifty dollars, just for trying.”

Wolf looked irked; there was no expression at all on Brodsky's face.

“And the ride to Tortona?”

“And the ride to Tortona.”

“What have I got to lose?”

“Nothing,” Wolf said bitterly. Only my respect, he added to himself, and you lost that a long time ago!

Grossman and Brodsky changed to outfits Ben-Levi had, similar to the ones he and Wolf were wearing. They were the clothing of fishermen, worn trousers stuffed into the tops of rubber boots, heavy sweaters that itched uncomfortably in the heat, and knitted caps that were greasy and smelled of fish. All the clothes smelled of fish, for that matter. An old man, summoned from the back of the house where he could be heard in altercation with his wife, disappeared with a toothless smile to reappear a few minutes later before the house, at the wheel of an ancient Chevrolet stake-body half-ton truck. The truck also stank of fish. The truck waited while they climbed in, shaking itself from side to side with ague. If this was the truck that was to take him to Tortona, Grossman thought, he would have to rebuild it in all probability to get them out of town.

The old man put it in neutral and let the truck coast down the steep Via Sclopis, gathering speed. It shot across the Piazza Sturla, narrowly missing an omnibus, two trucks, a wagon selling
tortoni Napolitano
, and a group of schoolchildren who scattered screaming before his wheels. He steered the truck into the Via Dei Mille without any visible concern and let it continue to coast at breakneck speed to the bottom and across into the Via Cinque Maggio, swinging the wheel negligently around a slower vehicle here and there, applying the accelerator only when his speed had diminished slightly on the level oceanside road. He turned and grinned at the men in the open stake body, speaking through what had once been an isinglass window of the cab but was now open space.

“Buono, no? Combustible costoso …”

It occurred to Grossman that for a few extra dollars the old man might be willing to take him all the way to Lago Maggiore; or he might agree to the trip for a motor tune-up, something the old truck could stand. Things were looking up once more! What was Brodsky always saying about his God? Well, it seemed his God had broken down their engine to help
him
, not the Jews. The thought made him smile and he stared out at the level sea, preferring its view to watching the traffic scatter as the old man bravely wound his way through it as fast as he could, the engine coughing and sputtering. There was no sign that the vehicle had any brakes at all, or at least the old man never applied them.

The truck coasted to a stop a bit off the road at a point where the coastal highway came closest to the cliffs leading precipitously down to the Portoccilio, the small port of Nervi. The old man remained behind to guard his truck against vandals or thieves while the four men climbed down the steep flight of rickety steps that led to the narrow shingle beach and the small pier below. There was only one ship there, which Grossman had to assume was the
Naomi
. He stared in disbelief. Two hundred people on
that
? The ship was no more than sixty or seventy feet long with a beam of less than fifteen feet, an old trawler with the general air of failure, with flaking paint, an ensign drooping in disgrace, and laying so low in the water that it appeared to be sinking in place. Grossman calculated quite correctly that it was not its load that made it so precariously low, but the fact that its bilge pumps were not working, or were not capable of containing the leakage if they were. The ship carried a small deckhouse forward, with a rooftop that may have once served as a flying bridge in better days, but whose railing had long since succumbed to high waves or rolling seas. On either side of the engine well that lay between splintered coamings aft of the deckhouse, davits angled out for securing the trawls. A narrow companionway led below from the confined space between the engine well and the deckhouse. The entire ship smelled of age and disaster.

The odor struck them as they climbed the narrow gangplank and stepped on deck. Any doubts Grossman had had about the capacity of the ship were dispelled; it had to take at least two hundred people to produce that stench. He tried to hold his breath as he walked to the engine well and looked down. The hatch had been removed and now leaned against the ship's rail. He stepped down into the well; here at least the odor of diesel fuel overpowered the smell from below decks.

He bent over the engine, studying it. There was a sudden wail from below decks, brought from an open porthole, instantly muffled. He could imagine the heat below, and the discomfort; but that was no problem of his. Wolf and Brodsky had disappeared below. Above him Davi Ben-Levi waited and watched.

“Well, what do you think?”

“I don't know. Let me look a minute, will you?”

The engine was a four-stroke single-acting cross-head design, going back, he calculated, to the time of the First World War or earlier. Still, someone had given it rather decent care. The engine itself was spotless, the side rods shone, there was no puddle of lubrication oil in the well to expose either poor packing or sloppy consideration for the engine, the bearings holding the eccentrics to the crankshaft were snug and looked as if they had only recently been babbitted. He pressed the eccentrics back and forth, noting the solid feel as they refused to give. He looked up.

“Externally it seems all right. Exactly what seems to be the trouble?”

Ben-Levi shrugged. “It doesn't start.”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean. I'm telling you—you throw the lever over to start it and nothing happens. Mr. Grossman,” Ben-Levi said, “if we knew what the trouble was, we'd be halfway to Palestine by now.”

Which I doubt in this piece of junk, Grossman thought sourly, and bent back into the engine well again. He found the air line that fed the caps of the cylinders and began to trace it. It disappeared from the well, running under the deck planking in the general direction of the small cabin. He came to his feet and investigated. Inside the deck housing was an air receiver and off to one side an air compressor. The gauge on the receiver read zero. He walked to the bank of storage batteries and read the instruments, shaking his head at the ignorance of this bunch of amateurs who hoped to get to Palestine on this wreck of a ship; in his opinion they should not have been allowed to take a rowboat out on the Nekkar. He walked back to BenLevi, shaking his head.

“Without your diesel you can't generate electricity. Without electricity you can't run your air compressor. Without your air compressor, you can't start your diesel. It's that simple. Don't you have any spare air? Who designed such a stupid system?”

Ben-Levi flushed. “Our engineer checked it out. He's sick—”

“You're probably better off without him. Someone drained the air receiver, God knows why—”

“Our what?”

“The tank that stores the compressed air.”

“We had to get some air down below. Some of the children were feeling faint. We ran a hose down from the tank—”

“And drained off any chance you had of starting the diesel. And now everyone below has been a lot worse off for the past two days. God, what colossal ignorance!”

“So we were ignorant,” Ben-Levi said, his face white. “What can we do now?”

“You can send the old man off for a tank of compressed air. Or a tank of oxygen, if he can't get air. I can hook it up and get the diesel started, if there isn't anything else wrong. With the diesel you can start your generator, and you'll have electrical power, and compressed air, and fans and everything.”

“I'll go with him right now!”

“Bring back two tanks,” Grossman said, “in case some idiot decides to drain that receiver again.”

“Right!” Ben-Levi said, and ran for the steps.

Grossman walked off the boat to wait, going down the beach to avoid that overpowering smell. It was as bad as Belsen. But at Belsen he had been unable to do anything to help; here he should have the problem resolved in a short time. There was satisfaction in that, and not just for the money or the ride the following morning. He was still an engineer; he could still do a job. Why couldn't people understand that? It was the same challenge he had faced at Maidanek with the ovens and the gas chambers; he had only been resolving a problem. But they still would have tried him and hung him had they caught him. People just didn't understand …

Brodsky came up in the growing darkness.

“Where's Davi? What about the engine?”

“I think the engine is all right. Some idiot drained the air receiver just to get some air down below. Without air pressure the diesel won't start. Some start on batteries, some by compressed air; this one starts on air. Not that it would make any difference; your batteries have been drained, too, using lights and fans and God knows what without the deisel.”

“And Davi?”

“He went to get some compressed-air tanks.”

“We'll be all right after that?”

“I think so. Unless you've used all your fuel up for cooking, these past few days.”

Brodsky frowned. He hesitated a moment and then spoke slowly.

“Ben—”

“Yes?”

“We need someone to take the engineer's place.”

Grossman laughed.

“Max, Max! If I were dying to go to Palestine, which you know I'm not, and if I were ten times the Zionist you are, which you know I'm not, you couldn't get me on that boat. In fact, I wouldn't get on it now if it wasn't tied to the pier.” His smile faded. “Max, you're crazy to attempt a trip like that in that piece of junk.”

“How do you know?” Brodsky sounded bitter. “You didn't bother to even go below. All you saw was the engine.”

“I saw the ship lower in the water than it should be. Your bilges are full, your ship leaks. Oh, the pumps will help some, but the fact is that ship is not seaworthy. It's suicide to go in it.”

Brodsky shrugged. “Then I guess we'll all commit suicide.” He looked up at a shout from the top of the cliff; Davi was trying to start down the steps with one of the heavy tanks. Max dropped the conversation and hurried up the steps to help him.

They wrestled the two tanks down the cliff and aboard the ship. By the time everything was ready for Grossman to begin work it was dark and he had to do the job by the light of flashlights and the two kerosene lanterns the ship boasted. By nine o'clock he had made the necessary connections of the compressed-air tank to the cylinder heads; he held his breath as he opened the valve. There was a moment's hesitation as the air rushed in, then slowly the diesel pistons began to move. One stroke and the engine caught, beginning to run. Grossman hurried to the deckhouse, watching the instruments on the electrical panel; when he was assured the generator output was normal, he put the air compressor into operation and watched the needle on the air receiver slowly begin to climb. He threw another switch and the ship's lights came on; there was a small sound of relief from below decks, instantly checked. The fans began to circulate air again; there was the sound of a toilet being flushed as the pumps went back into action.

Grossman wiped his hands on a bit of waste. “You're all set.” As far as the diesel is concerned, he thought, but as far as this piece of junk of a ship is concerned, you're in deep trouble. He turned to Ben-Levi, who had watched every move he had made. “Never let the air pressure in the receiver go down. If you lose pressure for any reason, be sure and find out why. If it's a broken line, replace it. Then get started again using the spare tank the way I got it started. In fact, you can recharge those air tanks from the receiver, once the pressure is up. It's a simple connection.” He looked around at the faces watching him; their expressions demonstrated a combination of pleasure to have the diesel operating again together with doubt that they could keep it that way without technical help. Grossman spoke quickly to forestall any further attempt to draft him for the job of engineer. “You'll be all right. When do you plan to leave?”