Warsaw Requiem

by Bodie Thoene

  In deference to the sour mood of his second-in-command, Murphy escorted Grogan and the boys into the outer office. More laughs as Murphy swung Charles upside down until his face hung in front of the busy telephone receptionist. No one seemed surprised or concerned with Terrill’s ill-humor. Only Terrill, Orde noted, did not give it up. He stared after Grogan and snapped, “He’s in here with those kids at all hours snooping around. Doesn’t even knock.”

  Then it was back to business. Orde had only an hour left to pick up his renewed passport, which now showed him as a civilian entering Poland on a six-month-renewable work permit. Murphy and Terrill went through the sheaf of documents required by the Polish government for broadcasting from Warsaw and Danzig. Frequencies and the names of contacts were rehearsed one final time, and then Murphy invited Orde to stop in at the Red Lion House before he left.

  As Orde left the building, he caught a glimpse of Harvey Terrill’s sullen face as the night desk editor sifted through the stacks of reports on his own desk. Was he simply overworked, as Murphy said, or did the man really resent the face that Orde had taken the Warsaw assignment?

  ***

  Even though the London traffic was thick and particularly full of fumes today, Orde refused to take the underground train to the passport office. He preferred to ride behind the grumbling cab driver and see the city from above ground. Tube stations made marvelous air-raid shelters, Orde thought, but he had never enjoyed traveling like a mole tied to a Roman candle.

  The passport office was located at 1 Queen Anne’s Gate Building on Dartmouth Street. There were two doorways into the office. One had a long queue of people waiting to pass beneath the hooded arch of the entrance marked: FOREIGN NATIONALS. The line of weary-faced hopefuls stretched for an entire block. The question of every face was, Will they renew my work permit? Or will I be instructed that my stay in England is at an end?

  Orde could hear the distinct, guttural conversation of those from Germany mingled with the language of the Poles. New among the lines today were the soft, fluid accents of the Irish who had been ordered to report for questioning at various government offices since the bombing. Orde easily spotted the Irish among the others—beautiful, ruddy-cheeked people with clear, worried eyes. Orde was quite certain that whoever had been planting the bombs would not be among those who answered the government summons to report here for questioning and registration.

  Orde entered the office through the second door, labeled simply, PASSPORTS—NEW AND RENEWAL. There was no line to wait in. Perhaps no one in Great Britain was interested in traveling to the Continent of Europe these days. It was too much like hiking through a mine field.

  One couple stood at the counter in front of him. They chatted amiably about traveling to New York to attend the World’s Fair. The clerk listened patiently to the entire itinerary before bidding them farewell and wishing them a pleasant journey as if he were a travel agent.

  He greeted Orde with the same enthusiasm. It was obvious that the clerk was relieved to be on this side of the office, rather than in the midst of all the unpleasantness on the other side.

  He found the file containing Orde’s new passport. “We could have sent it to you through the post if you were not in such a hurry,” the man said apologetically. “This is not the best times to have to come in to the office, is it?” As Orde grimaced at his dreadful passport picture, the clerk glanced down at the folder once again. “Why, Mr. Orde, is your wife not traveling with you?” He peered closely at the yellowed document.

  Orde was mildly surprised at the question. So no one in the passport office had gotten word that Katie Orde had passed away over four years ago. “No,” Orde said without explaining.

  “All the same,” said the clerk hopefully, “her passport is also due to expire. Let me see . . . just three months. You might wish to take care of it now so that if she should change her mind and join you in Warsaw, it would be in order. “Without waiting for reply, he passed two renewal applications across the counter to Orde. “In case you make a mistake. Always good to have a practice sheet, I say. You would be surprised the number of people who mail these things in all scratched out, marked up. It goes much easier if you type it.” He tapped the blank sheets. “Just like yours. And if you’re not in such a hurry, mail it. Usually eight weeks is time enough for renewals. The ladies love having the new photographs made.”

  Orde smiled and listened to him babble. He accepted the applications without attempting to explain that Katie would definitely not be coming to Warsaw. No use getting into personal conversation with a chap who loved to hear himself talk.

  “Enjoy your trip to Warsaw,” he called after Orde.

  Orde winced at the words. Maybe this fellow did not know what was happening in Warsaw these days, he mused.

  ***

  Among all the little boys around Muranow Square and in the Torah school, the name of the great and magnificent Hayedid, Captain Samuel Orde, was already a legend.

  Who in the Jewish district did not know somebody—or at least know somebody who knew somebody—who had gone to Palestine? And if everyone knew of somebody even twice removed in Jerusalem, then of course the daring and stupendous deeds of Captain Orde against the Arab gangs of the Mufti had been reported back to Warsaw. Thus the letter from Rabbi Lebowitz in Jerusalem caused a stir in the community when his acquaintance with the Hayedid was reported.

  On the strength of one mention of Orde’s name in a letter, David and Samuel Lubetkin announced that the very same courageous Englishman in all the news dispatches was coming to their very house! He was coming to hand deliver a note from their grandfather, they proclaimed. He was coming to discuss the situation with their father! And he was coming for a cup of tea as well, probably.

  Such incredible news made both the Lubetkin brothers suspect among their classmates at Torah school. What they had said was something akin to claiming that Moses was coming for dinner. Not just somebody named Moses, but the very Moses who parted the Red Sea and brought other miracles to pass on behalf of the slaves in Egypt.

  Some boys believed that it was the real Hayedid who was coming, but most others looked at one another and said, “There must be someone else with the name Captain Samuel Orde. Possibly it is a common name among the English, just as Moses is a common name among us.”

  Such logic insulted and angered David Lubetkin. It simply confused his younger brother Samuel. “There is only one brave and victorious Captain Orde,” David announced outside the school. “It is the same captain who has conquered those who would curse Israel and drive the Jews into the sea!”

  “And he is coming to have tea.” Samuel’s earlocks trembled with earnest excitement.

  The doubters pushed their way to the front of the circle. A boy named Mordechai, two grades older than David, crossed his arms and glared down at him in accusation. “Why should the great Hayedid, of whom my uncle has written, come to visit you?”

  “Because, ventured a smaller child who bristled with indignation at the doubt of something so tremendous, “the Hayedid is going to see Rabbi Lubetkin. Do not great warriors always hold conversations with holy men?”

  Younger heads bobbed. Older heads, more experienced with huge rumors that never came true, raised their chins and lowered their eyelids as an expression of violent skepticism. And after a moment, the boy named Mordechai said the word. “Liars. David and Samuel are nothing but liars. Why should Captain Orde come to Warsaw for a conference when Jerusalem is jam-packed full of rabbis? I ask you—why?”

  There was little doubt as to who threw the first punch. Actually, David threw more than a punch at Mordechai.

  With a growl, David plowed into the belly of the startled boy, hurtling him backward into a wall of onlookers, who stepped back with one astonished exclamation. “A-H-H-H-H!” they said in mutual approval and enjoyment of the spectacle. Such sights, common among the other Jews who sent their children to nonreligious school, were rare among Torah school pupils. But this one here? Oy! S
uch a fight it was. Books fell everywhere. A ring of short pants and knobby knees encircled the combatants, moving with them as they pummeled and kicked and rolled down the street!

  The real reason of the argument was all but forgotten. The fists of every Torah schoolboy were doubled up to punch and jab in vicarious battle!

  It was all too wonderful for words until the cries of David’s sister were heard. She fought her way through the crowd, elbows flying; she pushed back the startled spectators. For a girl, and a pretty girl at that, Rachel Lubetkin could hit pretty hard!

  The presence of a member of the opposite sex put a different slant on the entire contest. Some of the older boys simply picked up their books and skullcaps and hurried away. The younger crowd, those who believed in the coming of Captain Orde, were left to shout, all at the same time, that it was all the fault of the great bully Mordechai!

  Rachel crossed her arms and stared down at Mordechai, who lay on his back on the cobblestones. His nose was bleeding. His right eye was already swollen. David was rumpled, and his school clothes were torn, but he seemed in better shape than his opponent.

  Rachel was red-faced, furious that anyone had laid a hand on David. She waited until Mordechai sat up slowly and held his kerchief to his nose before she launched in. “Well, Mordechai! Every time there is a fight, you are always in the middle of it!”

  The last fight had been two years ago, and Mordechai had been hit with a rock. It was not his fault, but Rachel brought it up anyway.

  “Ha!” said Mordechai behind his kerchief.

  “And now you have taken to attacking small children,” she continued. “You are twelve! David is ten! And yet here you are brawling in the street like any filthy Polish peasant!!” It was not a nice thing to say, but not dangerous right here in front of the synagogue. There were no Poles around.

  “Who is bleeding? Nu!” Mordechai shook his kerchief at Rachel and clamped it back on his nose quickly.

  “Whose clothes are torn?” Rachel put a protective arm around David’s shoulders. Dvaid shrugged her arm away. He was doing just fine before she came. Who needed an interfering sister, anyway?

  Samuel stepped up and tugged her skirt. “Rachel, Mordechai says that Grandfather is a liar.”

  Her mouth and eyes widened at the same instant. She breathed in until some boys thought her lungs might pop. “My grandfather? The great Rebbe Lebowitz who prays each day beside the Western Wall? You say he is what?”

  “I never said it,” spat Mordechai, slowly climbing to his feet. “David and Samuel are liars and you, Rachel Lubetkin, are a contentious woman that we have just studied about in Proverbs.”

  Everyone stepped back at those words. Would Rachel follow the example of her brother David and hurl herself against Mordechai?

  “I am a peacemaker!” she exclaimed haughtily. “Just because I am a woman I still can see injustice being done and put a stop to it! You think I would abandon my brother to a great bully in the street!”

  The argument had veered off the subject. The audience exchanged looks. They did not want to hear who was right and who was wrong or who was winning and who got the worst of it! There was only one great issue today—was the real and authentic British hero for the Zionist cause actually coming to tea?

  A deeper male voice called in from the back of the group.”Rachel Lubetkin!” It was Peter Wallich, the ragged, lost gypsy of Muranow Square. “Are you all right, Rachel?”

  “Fine. Here is a bully for you.” She gestured toward Mordechai, whose nose bled on. “He attacked David in the street, called my grandfather a liar, and called me a contentious woman! May his mother hang him by his earlocks!”

  “I said I did not believe it!” Mordechai defended. “I said the great and incredible hero of Zionism . . . the British Hayedid, Captain Samuel Orde . . . was not coming to their house for tea! And then David Lubetkin attacked me!”

  “So? Why shouldn’t he hit you?” Peter seemed unimpressed by Mordechai’s defense. “If you said I was lying, I might also hit you. Because they are not lying. I don’t know about coming for tea, but I just heard from the leader of Zionist Youth that Captain Orde is coming to Warsaw. Muranow Square. He will teach the pioneers survival in the wilderness. A lecture class, he said.”

  The cheers rose up in a mighty roar. The Torah schoolboys rushed in to thump David Lubetkin on his dirt-covered back. They shook his hand and fetched his yarmulke and his books. It was true! It was true! The great military leader was coming right here to take tea at the house of Rabbi Lubetkin! Oy! Such a moment! Moses comes marching into Egypt with his staff in hand!

  “And he will teach us!” the little boys cried.

  “Not you,” Peter corrected. “Only boys who have had their bar mitzvah. Thirteen and older. That is who he will instruct.”

  Smiles faded almost as suddenly as they had come, and silence fell over the group. Mordechai brushed himself off. He was almost thirteen, he told Peter. Next week was his birthday. He would very much like to attend these lectures of the great and ferocious Hayedid, Captain Samuel Orde.

  ***

  Orde arrived home in Three Kings Yard to find that all the personal belongings he had shipped from Jerusalem had finally arrived. Crates and boxes blocked the entrance to the house. With a shake of his head, Orde climbed over the heap and then began to wrestle it indoors. Just in time to say good-bye, he mused as he studied the new mound of possessions in the center of the shrouded furniture. It would remain there until he returned from Warsaw.

  Hands on hips, he gazed at it until he spotted the wooden box containing the old headstone from Gethsemane. Had it survived the trip? This one thing Orde set to work uncrating.

  With a sigh of relief, he cleared away the packing paper and patted the old granite stone.

  Orde read the inscription again with bitter amusement:

  BY DYING I CONQUER LIFE.

  “Ah, Katie,” he whispered, “if only it was just that easy. The trouble is, you see, in the meantime I have to keep living and conquering life.”

  He straightened slowly and pulled back the slipcover from Katie’s writing desk. Opening the drawer, he found her passport. Her birth certificate. Her certificate of death. He opened the passport and wished that she were here to travel with him; wished that she were one of the ladies so delighted to have a new passport picture taken. He smiled down at the gray, colorless picture. Katie had always been so full of life and color—her skin, her eyes, the sun highlighting bits of red and gold in her soft brown hair. By dying I conquer life.

  Orde thought the ancient headstone had spoken aloud. Still holding the open passport, he turned and stared at the gray lifeless granite, the symbol of someone else’s existence. There was something he was meant to understand from the inscription . . . something!

  What is it, Lord?” he prayed aloud.

  At that moment his briefcase toppled off a crate. The plain manila envelope containing the Lubetkin family immigration material spilled out on the floor.

  Without passports they are trapped in Poland. If the Nazis come, that family will be among the first singled out. Then Orde said aloud, “They are alive and cannot get passports. Katie has been dead for four years, and I can renew her papers by post!”

  Orde knelt down and fanned out the photographs of the Lubetkin family on the floor—the boys with their earlocks; the rabbi with his beard; Etta in her severe dress—each of these bore the appearance of East European Jews. But the girl . . . Rachel! Her pretty young face would do well inside the stiff new cover of a British passport! It was a simple matter of matching her with some long-dead child in an English churchyard and writing in for a birth certificate.

  “Can it be that simple?” he wondered aloud.

  He considered sending in the photograph of Etta Lubetkin with Katie’s passport renewal form. But Katie would have been much too young. The age discrepancy might be noticed. But there were other woman in England who would have been the age of Etta, had they lived! Perhaps there was a
way for the dead to conquer life—at least to help conquer the obstacles of immigration for others to remain living for a while!

  He stumbled to the telephone and dialed the number of the passport office. A clipped, officious voice answered.

  “Hullo.” Orde hoped she could not hear the excitement in his voice. He should sound irritated and unhappy, should he not? “I have lost my passport. All my identification, and I have a rather urgent trip abroad.”

  “A matter of obtaining your birth certificate and a new photo and bringing it to our office.”

  “Like a renewal then?”

  “Yes. You will need to fill out the application. Nothing to it.”

  “I’m going north tonight.”

  “We can handle the matter by post if it is easier.”

  It was easy enough, Orde thought as he hung up and began to stuff his clothes in his baggage! Why had he not seen it before? A last glance at the headstone gave him courage as he left the house. Perhaps the next time he returned, he would open the shutters and take the dusty sheets of the furniture to see the colors once again!

  ***

  Who would have guessed it would be so difficult to get married in Danzig? The tiny blue flowers woven into Lori’s French-braided hair had wilted. Jacob’s tie was loose and cocked off to the side. His collar was unbuttoned, and he carried his jacket as the party trooped into the park around the corner from city hall in search of a shady bench on which to rest for a while.

  Three churches of different Protestant denominations—three pastors, and none of them seemed to believe in holy matrimony, especially without parental permission in addition to a marriage license! When Jacob had explained that they could not obtain a license without parental permission, these men of the cloth had simply nodded and showed them the exit.

  “Maybe we should give up,” Mark said, wiping sweat from his brow.

  Lori’s eyes narrowed. “You give up! It’s not your wedding anyhow.”