Isaac's Beacon Page 9

  The train hurried along the northern floor of the snow-capped Alps, across the free face of Switzerland. Hugo asked Vince to slide the big door shut against the cold. With the icy light gone and the clatter of the wheels muted, the refugees settled down to sleep for the first time since leaving Buchenwald that morning. Vince stayed apart, while Hugo spooned with the Jews. For years, he and these people had lain like this on pallets in the camps, on the ground during forced marches, and in train cars on straw as they did tonight.

  November 20

  Onboard the Berl Katznelson

  Mediterranean Sea

  Hugo made sure the narrow hall remained clear, then tapped a knuckle lightly on the cabin door. She called him in.

  She sat on a narrow foam mattress in her tiny stateroom. She might have made the bed, neatened the sheets and tucked in the hoary blanket, but she hadn’t. She waited for him with legs crossed, casual in her green dress. The dress had become a topic of gossip on the Berl Katznelson. Sea green cotton, it was plain and a bit too big, but appealing because it showed her arms and legs, and it may have been the only dress onboard. Some said without charity that the dress had been a gift from one of the Buchenwald guards. Others wondered how she managed to land one of the ship’s five passenger staterooms divided among the thirty female passengers.

  A bright porthole framed her head, a halo. Hugo clicked the door shut and locked it. She didn’t stand to greet him.

  “Take off your boots.”

  He unlaced them and pushed them under the bed. In his socks, Hugo sat beside her.“I’m glad you decided to come.”

  “Did you think I wasn’t?”

  “You made me wait.”

  Hugo didn’t think he’d done that. He’d let her leave the deck first before following five minutes after, so no one would put them together. How long was enough to wait, how long was too much? Already he was being made to worry over what were the proper things to do.

  “Do you want to kiss me?”

  She made her face available, eyes closed, looking practiced in these things. Hugo leaned close but hovered. He touched her cheek to see if he might find some fondness for the girl. He sensed the regret in her skin and suspected the other refugees, the unkind ones, might be right about a Nazi guard. Hugo didn’t judge her for that, or for being in her locked little room with him. Maybe she’d been a wanton in the ghetto, maybe in the camp, and had survived. How was she different from Hugo?

  He took the kiss. His hand slipped into hers without willing it. Behind his closed eyes, Hugo recalled the face of a girl from Leipzig, then another, a village girl from Markkleeberg on a lake. In the next moment, with the speed of memory, both girls were dead. Hugo pulled away.

  She began to unbutton her green dress. Her bosom emerged as the cotton peeled back, revealing her prominent clavicle and sternum, then her pink nipples and ribs. Hugo became erect. In the camps, nightly in the barracks, men masturbated. After a while, this became an animalistic behavior; no one hid it, for no one was it shonda, a shame.

  He stood from the mattress and brought the girl to her feet to stand partly naked. She wasn’t pitiful or beautiful, just another version of himself, dressed and undressed. She touched Hugo’s cheek as lightly as he’d done hers. Hugo searched for a difference between them, to see them as man and woman, so he might act as if this was kindness they were sharing, but there wasn’t enough difference for affection.

  He buttoned her green dress, and she left her arms to hang. Clothed again, she lay on the narrow mattress. Hugo climbed in beside her. The bed afforded little room, framed by cabinets.

  She lay her cheek on his suspenders. Hugo squeezed her lightly. “We don’t have to be what we are.”

  She drummed fingers on his chest, close to her face, like playing a horn. Hugo pulled the blanket over them both and held her with nothing more to say. She fell asleep first in the light through the porthole, then Hugo.

  Chapter 18

  Vince

  November 23

  Sidna Ali

  Palestine

  Vince scanned the black shore through binoculars. The Jews crowded every inch of the rails and stairs, eyeing the grey beach, too, but with naked eyes.

  The Berl Katznelson floated two hundred meters offshore, outside sets of small breakers. Every few minutes, the ship’s helmsman goosed the props to hold her in place against the swelling tide. The shore was an undeveloped stretch of sand and brush; a cliff blocked it from sight of inland. Midnight surf made the only sounds.

  Gideon, the captain, had ordered a complete blackout and silence; not a cigarette lit, no light turned on. He scowled if someone coughed. Six miles south glowed Tel Aviv, but none of the city’s lights glinted on the waters off the beach of Sidna Ali.

  “I’ve enjoyed your company.” Gideon kept his voice low, barely above the susurrus of the waves. “You don’t have to do this. You’re a brave man.”

  On the ten-day sail out of Marseille, Vince had gotten to know Gideon. He and his six Haganah mates were all younger than thirty. They were sabra, native-born Palestinian Jews; the word meant cactus, prickly on the outside, sweet within. The Katznelson was their second Aliyah Bet blockade runner.

  Vince lowered the binoculars to rest his eyes from scanning only blackness. “If you get caught, you get deported to Cyprus, or jail. I’m not that kind of brave.”

  “We’ll see if we can’t find something to scare you, then.”

  The Katznelson’s engines grumbled to keep her away from shore, from Palestine. Gideon spit into the water on a night so quiet Vince heard it hit.

  Toward the bow, someone hissed. “There!” Others shushed the voice. The Katznelson’s engines shifted to idle. From the beach of Sidna Ali came a tiny wink, a white flash.

  The whispers along the rail began to mount. Gideon raised an arm; in the dark, others took up the signal, lifting their hands and shushing each other in a ripple. The immigrants quieted, and the waves breathed for them.

  Gideon blinked a flashlight twice at the shore. The pinprick of light answered with three more flashes. Gideon whispered, “Palmach.”

  One of the captain’s mates appeared beside him, a brawny sabra named Kippy.

  “Lower the boats.”

  Kippy shoved his way through the Jews. Gideon shook Vince’s hand.

  “You’ll be in the last boat.”

  The Katznelson’s gangway was lowered; two planks hinged by ropes wobbled down to the black water. The immigrants formed a hasty line while Kippy and his mates dropped three inflatable rafts overboard. Three of the crew with oars hustled down the swinging planks to man the rafts. Kippy patted the shoulder of the first man in line.

  “Zei gezunt.” Go in health.

  Vince went down the line to find Hugo. He might have walked past him in the dark had Hugo not laid a hand on his shoulder.

  Hugo said, “These people don’t know what they owe you. You made this happen.”

  “All I did was talk with some Army folks. They were glad to get rid of you.”

  “I suspect it was to get rid of you. You lifted me out of my barracks. You poured milk down my throat. You’re persistent. A very Jewish trait.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on that.”

  “I’ll see you in Palestine.”

  The Jews raised a ruckus leaving the Katznelson. Gideon and Kippy tried to keep order, but the immigrants couldn’t check their eagerness. The Palmach had brought four rowboats; their oars added to the racket in the darkness off Sidna Ali.

  Vince stayed out of the way. The offloading of two hundred and twenty refugees would take most of an hour. Vince moved to the bow to look seaward and await word from Gideon.

  He sat under a canopy of stars and grew excited to have his turn down the gangway, to a raft. Something about the firmament over Palestine hinted that the stars had shined here longer than anywhere on earth.


  From a hundred meters off the bow, a powerful spotlight switched on, blitzing the Katznelson, so bright the beam heated Vince’s face. A warship appeared out of the nothingness. She’d pulled a smugglers’ trick, steaming full speed for shore with her running lights out. Neither Vince nor the Jews had heard her coming over the hubbub of arrival at Sidna Ali.

  The destroyer’s engines revved, rushing alongside the Katznelson. Once her long girth had lumbered near enough, all her lights flicked on, a sudden dragon on the water.

  A bullhorn commanded: “Cease all operations immediately. You are an illegal ship in British Mandate waters. Prepare to be boarded.”

  The Katznelson became a frenzy. Half the Jews had disembarked, a hundred were still on the ship. Gideon threw valises overboard and yelled at the ma’apilim to hurry down to the waiting rafts. Crowd in, crowd in. Go, go.

  Vince hurried back to the bow. The destroyer loomed closer, an incredible sight, such a massive ship. The spotlight found him.

  “You there,” the loudspeaker demanded, “show your hands.”

  Vince raised both arms and had to shut his eyes until the light slid off him.

  The warship powered alongside. A squad of armed marines queued at midship. Quickly, expertly, the huge vessel narrowed the gap, a steel wall closing in. The light found Vince again, and the voice called, “Keep your hands where we can see them, mate.” This time, Vince didn’t stand still or shut his eyes.

  He dashed away from the bow. The spotlight followed him running down the rail to the two dozen Jews bunched near the gangplank, the final ones waiting for the rafts and rowboats to return. Gideon and Kippy threw luggage into the night.

  “Gideon,” Vince grabbed the young captain’s arm, “you’re running out of time.”

  Among the last Jews crammed at the rail, Hugo held out his arms to Vince. What do I do?

  Vince yelled, “Hugo, jump! Now!”

  Chapter 19

  Hugo

  Feet first, Hugo struck the black water. Others leaping off the Katznelson made him swim away from the hull.

  He wasn’t a strong swimmer; the wool pants and leather boots bogged him down. Hugo could only dogpaddle, and the beach was far. Behind him, the destroyer’s siren added to the chaos and its spotlight slashed across the Katznelson. None of the other twenty refugees in the water swam for land but waved to be picked up by the Palmach rowboats. Hugo paddled in a circle.

  Quickly, a rower found him. Powerful hands hauled Hugo over the gunnel; he came up coughing. Dripping and chilled, Hugo sputtered thanks. No one but him and the Palmachnik were in the boat. The fighter said nothing but put his back to the oars. The rest of the Jews were snatched up by other skiffs.

  Hugo’s Palmachnik was a hardy young man in grey coveralls. He sported a thin black moustache and his skin was olive, even at night. With each stroke of the oars, he grunted, holding nothing back, a determined man.

  From around the stern of the destroyer sped a pair of motor launches, coming on fast and sweeping the water with lights. One boat fired warning shots. All the Palmach rowers dug in furiously. Hugo had no way to help except to utter again, “Thank you.”

  With each surge of the oars, the beach drew closer. Hugo fixed on the murky sand ahead. He gritted his teeth in sympathy with the effort of his Palmachnik. Pull, man, pull hard.

  The Navy launches rushed closer over the dark ripples. The eight rowboats and rafts weren’t going to reach shore in time; the launches were too speedy. Hugo’s Palmachnik shouted to the rower in the boat nearest him.

  “Julius!”

  The hulls of both rowboats bumped. Julius grabbed hold to keep them close.

  The rower of Hugo’s boat said to Hugo, “Geh.” Go.

  Wasting no time, Hugo clambered overboard, into the laps of three soaked Jews. Stumbling into the bow, he nodded at the wet passengers and another strong young rower. Julius beat the water with his oars while the boat Hugo left spun around to row straight for the oncoming British. A second rowboat emptied its passengers, then joined him.

  Within moments, both Palmach skiffs were speared by spotlights. The marines slowed and shouted orders. The pair of rowers released their oars, hands high. While they surrendered, the remaining six boats dug for shore.

  Once they reached the shallows, the rowers leaped into the surf to pull them onto the sand. Twenty immigrants jumped into knee-deep water and ran for Palestine.

  The Palmachniks gathered them and gave hurried instructions in English and German.

  “There’s paths up through the cliff. Find one. Across the road at the top, there’s a kibbutz. Shefayim. Go there as fast as you can. They’re waiting.”

  Hugo asked his young rower, “Then what?”

  “You’ll blend into the Yishuv. They’ll get you papers and homes. You disappear.”

  “I don’t want to be on a kibbutz.”

  The rest of the immigrants and rowers took off. Hugo and Julius were the last on the Sidna Ali beach. Offshore, two patrol boats swooped in with searchlights.

  “Friend, what do you want to do?”

  Hugo speared a finger into the young man’s chest.

  “What you do.”

  Chapter 20

  Vince

  Eleven Jews didn’t jump. The destroyer’s searchlight turned them into ghostly figures at the rail. The destroyer eased alongside the Katznelson. The loudspeaker barked, “Stay where you are.”

  Before the boarding party could leap onboard, Vince put a hand to Gideon’s chest.

  “You’ve got to go.”

  The captain rattled his head. He pulled Kippy, his first mate, into a quick embrace. Kippy shot Vince a smiling thumbs up. “Tell it all.” The sabra bounded over the rail.

  Gideon said, “He’s a fish,” as Kippy swam away.

  “Why didn’t you jump?”

  Gideon gestured at the frightened immigrants.

  “I don’t leave until they do.”

  The British ship settled alongside to lower a gangplank. The loudspeaker declared, “You have been boarded. Do not move.” The siren quit; armed marines flooded plank onto the Katznelson.

  Vince dug out the little identification booklet he’d been given at Leipheim, for Vincenz Haas, a displaced German Jew. He tossed it overboard.

  He readied his American passport and press credentials. With Gideon and the immigrants, Vince raised both arms when told to at the end of a rifle.

  Chapter 21

  Rivkah

  Massuot Yitzhak

  The winds on the Judean plain whipped away the dust trail of the approaching car.

  The coupe stopped in front of the stone cottage Rivkah and Mrs. Pappel shared. The driver climbed out first to hold the door open for Mrs. Pappel, then both came onto the porch where Rivkah waited.

  Mrs. Pappel introduced the man as Mr. Pinchus, from Jerusalem.

  Mr. Pinchus said to Rivkah, “Hanukkah Sameakh.” Happy Hanukkah.

  Mrs. Pappel said, “He wants to speak to the kibbutz.”

  Mr. Pinchus extended a hand to Rivkah, not for a shake but to ask for something.

  “But first, young lady.” Pinchus adjusted his round, black glasses. Beneath a clipped moustache, his smile revealed a gap in his front teeth. He wore a long coat with a scarf and leather gloves. “Mrs. Pappel has sung your praises, and I should like a tour. Would you indulge me?”

  Mrs. Pappel hugged her then hurried out of the blowing chill.

  She guided him first to Mrs. Pappel’s schoolhouse. They strolled along a path lined with white-painted rocks, past one-story flat-roofed homes and workshops with more going up. On the way, Rivkah did not ask who he was; Mrs. Pappel was Haganah and the mystery of Mr. Pinchus was surely entwined with that. In the orchards he knew the genera of the sapling trees, the olives, pecans, ficus, and jacarandas. He understood the basalt-laden soil of
the Hebron hills, the need and ways to irrigate and reclaim more land for fields of tall grasses to feed the cows and the single mule of Massuot Yitzhak.

  They strolled by a dormitory and the foundations laid for a children’s rest home and a guest house. The first electric poles had been stood up to spread power from the kibbutz’s generators. In the gusty afternoon, stonemasons gouged slabs of limestone and pale dolomite from the quarry to build a settlement hard as the hills themselves. Mr. Pinchus clapped his gloves and asked if they might conclude.

  Inside their small house, Mrs. Pappel let Pinchus nap in her bed. She, too, did not explain where she’d been or why, or who this man was. Rivkah sat alone on the porch while Mr. Pinchus slept and Mrs. Pappel left to arrange the meeting of the kibbutz.

  Massuot Yitzhak had no completed space large enough to accommodate all seventy haverim. They met inside the unfinished dining hall. Carpenters nailed sheets across the windows and everyone brought their own chair for the dirt floor.

  The pioneers settled with some anxiousness. Most were young Czech or Hungarian survivors who had learned English from Mrs. Pappel, Hebrew from Ben Joseph, and work from the land. They squirmed in their seats as if they might somehow be in trouble. The wind beat against the walls and billowed the linens while Mr. Pinchus took the front without introduction.

  “I am a Pole. I will speak English, yes? You will understand me?”

  Heads bobbed. Mr. Pinchus paced as he spoke.

  “There is going to be a Jewish state, I have no hesitation to say this. It will be born in bitterness and battle. Settlements like yours, isolated in Arab territories, may prove to have the most difficult tasks, may be the most difficult to defend. However, by what I’ve seen on my short visit, I am confident Massuot Yitzhak is strong and getting stronger.”