by Ehud Diskin
Nelka barely resembled the haunted, frail woman I had found on the streets of Krakow, and I noticed that Max was especially attentive to her, constantly refilling her wine and plate. When she complimented him on the wine, he fetched her a pen and paper, asking her to write down her address so he could personally deliver a bottle.
By the end of the evening, we were all a little drunk, and I couldn’t stop smiling at Shoshana, who couldn’t stop laughing. It was hard to believe that the two of us, so recently and so brutally persecuted, now found ourselves surrounded by friends who loved us and wanted to be with us. After hugging and kissing everyone goodnight, we walked home together and got into bed, where we held each other without words and felt truly happy.
A few days later, at the end of our work shift, Max called Shoshana and me over to sit down with him. He poured us some wine.
“David,” he said, “I was very taken with your friend Nelka. I went to her apartment yesterday to give her two bottles of the wine she enjoyed so much at the party. I was pleased to learn that she likes me too, and I hope it’s the start of something special.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said. “Nelka is a very special woman.”
Max waved my words away, seeming a little embarrassed. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Nelka told me about all you did for her, out of the goodness of your heart.” He gave me a pointed look. “Everything you did.”
I glanced over at Shoshana, who was frowning thoughtfully, as Max hurried on, his voice gruff but gentle. “I’d like to apologize for the way I treated you. I’m usually a good judge of character, but I was very wrong about you. I went this morning to the commander you met, and I told him what Nelka had said to me. We both think you could make a valuable fighter. He asked me to approach you again and implore you to join us.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And please thank the commander for the compliment on my behalf, but I still would rather not be active in any of the underground organizations at this stage.”
“I understand. Take all the time you need,” Max said, surprising me. He surprised me even more when he bid us goodnight with a warm embrace.
“What did Max mean when he said ‘everything’?” Shoshana asked on the way home.
Briefly I told her the story of the Polish couple and how I had killed them in self-defense.
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I didn’t think it was important,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, it was simply one more terrible event in a long string of horrors. Unfortunately, I had to kill quite a few people to survive.”
Shoshana stopped walking and fixed me with a long stare. “I want to know about everything you went through—everything—even if you repeat things I’ve already heard. If Max hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have known that you helped Nelka in such a noble way. There aren’t many people who’d be willing to risk their lives to help a woman they’d never met before.”
“I couldn’t let such an injustice remain,” I said with a shrug.
She wrapped her arms around me. “You are so wonderful to me too. You’re helping me recover, and I want to reward you for everything you’ve done.” She leaned back and looked up at me with a mischievous smile on her lips. “And I believe you’re going to like your reward very much indeed.”
13
“TO DIE OR CONQUER THE MOUNTAIN”
(FROM “THE SONG OF BETAR” BY ZE’EV JABOTINSKY, 1932)
On the surface, life was good for Alec. He had a steady job. He spent Monday and Wednesday mornings with Hannah. And he and I had renewed our friendship under more peaceful circumstances. It seemed to me that he was content, and I mentioned this to him over breakfast at Café Europa.
To my surprise, I learned that not all was to his liking. He was already growing bored with the purely physical relationship he had with Hannah. He was eager to find some way to recreate the action from our partisan days, this time fighting the Brits.
“What happened to you, David?” he asked me. “You used to be so daring and efficient. Why haven’t you come up with a plan to assassinate this scum, Jeffries?”
“Surely you remember one of our most important rules as partisans?” I responded. “We need to stay objective and wait for the right moment. Especially when the target is so tempting.”
But my explanation didn’t satisfy him. I had to promise there would be a plan and that it would involve him.
I spoke to Max later and told him I wanted to arrange a meeting with the secretive commander I had met with before. That same evening, the tough guy who’d picked me up before showed up at the restaurant right before closing time. He was friendly this time, gesturing me to the car waiting outside, and we drove away with no mention of a blindfold. We soon pulled up outside the same house in Talpiot.
“Good to see you, David,” the commander said when I walked inside.
“Good to see you too, sir,” I responded, somewhat annoyed as I realized that I had yet to learn his name.
“Max told me how you helped that woman get her apartment back in Poland,” he said. “I was impressed. Can you tell me more about what happened?”
I gave him a blow-by-blow account, and he listened attentively.
“Anti-Semitism is the mother’s milk of the Poles,” he said when I came to the end of my story. “Like you, I was born in Belarus, but I spent most of my adult life in Poland. I fought against the Nazis, but when the Northern Front collapsed, I fled east and was captured by the Russians. Eventually, I was released to serve in General Anders’s army of Polish exiles. When we reached Israel, I deserted with most of the other Jewish soldiers. Anyway, here we are. Am I to understand from this meeting that you’ve decided to join us?”
“Not yet,” I said. “I am here to speak to you because I have a friend, a former partisan and skilled fighter, who I know would be willing to carry out operations as a free agent, if that’s of interest to you.”
The commander frowned. “Look, David,” he said. “We are an organization with a clear ideology, and we enlist people who identify with our ideology and share our goals. Which group do you and your friend identify with most closely?”
“I can only speak for myself, but I believe my friend feels the same. I value them all, but I feel the Irgun best fits my beliefs,” I said. “You mentioned that you reached Israel as part of General Anders’s army. I know that Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun, also arrived in Israel with General Anders, so I do believe you are a commander in the Irgun.”
He hesitated before responding. “If you or your friend are not willing to join our organization and operate within its frameworks, I cannot tell you which group I’m with, and it’s not relevant right now anyway. What’s important is that an underground organization requires just as much discipline, if not more, than a regular army. Your partisan group couldn’t have survived without you as its undisputed commander. And I can’t allow individuals to act without our oversight. If you or your friend wish to play a part in the struggle, you must join one of the resistance movements. And let me say this as clearly as possible: we are opposed to lone-wolf actions, even if they serve our cause.”
I realized I had reached a dead end. “I understand your position,” I said. “I’ll speak to my friend, and we’ll decide together what to do.”
ON TUESDAY, SHOSHANA AND I went to breakfast at Avrum and Hannah’s apartment. Without even saying hello, Avrum nodded for me to follow him into his study. “The anti-Semitism in the British police force is getting worse by the day.” He paced the room as he talked to me. “If you hadn’t convinced me to gather information for the Haganah, I would have resigned a long time ago. The top brass meets constantly to discuss ways to keep the Jews in check. They’ve even set up a new department to root out immigrants who came here with forged papers and then throw them into internment camps or deport them back to Europe. The head detective is a radical anti-Semite who practically throws a party whenever he uncovers a Jew with f
orged documents.”
I nodded, not sure where to steer the conversation.
“You don’t seem particularly interested in the matter,” Avrum complained. “I understand you’re still waiting for information on Inspector Jeffries, but I don’t have anything new on that front.”
“That’s all right, Avrum,” I said. “And I am interested. I’m sure Yaakov and the Haganah will be too. Tell me everything you know.”
A look of satisfaction appeared on Avrum’s face. “Good. I’m happy to hear that, because in my opinion, something needs to be done to put an end to the damage that anti-Semitic bastard is causing the Jewish community here. With the immigration restrictions, there’s been a lot of fraud they can go after—forged papers, authentic documents with new photographs inserted, wives and children added to passports, Jews who have remained here on visitors’ permits as athletes competing in the Maccabiah, for example. And many soldiers from the Jewish Brigade have even given their papers to Jewish refugees in Europe and then reported them lost or stolen.”
“So, what’s this detective’s name?” I asked.
“Nick Ellis. He’s thirty-six years old and holds the rank of detective inspector. He lives in Talbieh with all those wealthy Arab snobs.”
“Do you know where exactly?”
“Emir Abdullah Road in Tarsha House, which the British Government Housing Department leases from an Arab family. The building has nine apartments, mostly occupied by civil servants in the British Meteorological Service and their families, but Ellis used his connections to get one for himself.”
“What does he look like?” I asked.
“He’s tall, with a large belly,” Avrum said. “Brown eyes and thinning brown hair.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll pass the details on to Yaakov.”
Hannah kept glancing at me longingly as we ate breakfast. I ignored her and focused on Avrum and Shoshana.
“Did you notice the way Hannah was looking at you?” Shoshana asked me after we had left. “How can she behave like that in front of Avrum and me? Perhaps we should stop having breakfasts with them.”
“Hannah is a bit of a flirt,” I agreed. “And if she makes you uncomfortable, we can certainly limit our time with them.”
She nodded, and we walked the rest of the way home in silence.
AT THE RESTAURANT THAT AFTERNOON, I told Alec about Ellis and how we would target him for our next mission.
“You’ve given up on Jeffries?” he asked.
“We just don’t have enough information to go after him now,” I said. “I suggest you pay a visit to Yaakov tomorrow. Ask him to meet with us as soon as possible.”
“Do you think the Haganah will help us take out Ellis?” Alec asked.
“No,” I said, “but maybe we can get some more information from them. To avoid creating any dots that might later be connected, we must not tell Yaakov anything about what Ellis looks like or where he lives. More than that, we need to confuse the trail. I don’t want it to go directly from Avrum to us to the corpse in the morgue.”
Alec grinned. “You are something. You think of everything.”
Alec and I met up with Yaakov the following morning. Once again, we sat on the ledge across the street from the Tnuva dairy. I told Yaakov about Nick Ellis and his department but didn’t share any of the details about what he looked like or where he lived.
“I haven’t heard anything about this,” Yaakov said. “Thanks for the information. I’ll pass it on to the right people, but I don’t expect they’ll do anything to him directly—we don’t work like that, as you know, though I wish we would.”
Yaakov lit a cigarette, snapping his metal lighter shut with an angry clank. “The British have stopped nine of our ships in the past six months. That’s ten thousand immigrants, all of them rotting in the Atlit internment camp near Haifa. After all our people have been through, another camp? Makes my blood boil! Maybe the Irgun and Lehi are right; maybe we should wage an all-out war against the British.”
Alec started to agree with Yaakov, but I signaled him to remain quiet. A short time later, we parted and Yaakov returned to the dairy.
“I’m going to do some reconnaissance around Ellis’s building,” I told Alec. “Then we’ll meet to make a plan.” Alec nodded. We agreed to meet later and parted.
I walked to Talbieh to scout around Ellis’s apartment. A British soldier guarded the entrance to the building, and it didn’t look like he was going anywhere. I waited two days and then returned early in the morning, in the hope of catching a glimpse of Ellis on his way to work. I wasn’t disappointed.
He was exactly as Avrum had described—a tall, balding man with a paunch. When I saw him, he was standing by the soldiers at the entrance to the building, glancing at his watch. After a few minutes, a car pulled up, and Ellis climbed inside and was driven away.
If Alec and I tried to hit him as he left or came home from work, we’d have to contend with the guard and possibly the driver as well. Even if we managed to kill them, it likely would take us too long to escape. If we had a team, we could try to block his car somewhere and gun him down in the street, but I didn’t want to expose my work to the underground organizations yet—or cede control over the operation.
I gave up on the idea of carrying out the hit on the street and came to the conclusion that I had to find a way to get into his building. I remembered meeting a man at the YMCA boxing club who worked for the Meteorological Service. I couldn’t remember his name, but he had been talkative, boasting about knowing what the weather would be like days ahead of time. He’d seemed boring and shallow, and I had not paid attention to him.
THE NEXT DAY, I SHOWED up at the YMCA and visited my boxing coach, Yousef.
“David!” he exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you! You haven’t been here in ages.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been busy, but I’ve missed our boxing sessions.”
The meteorologist wasn’t at the club that day or the next few days that followed. Luckily, he showed up at the beginning of the next week. I recognized him immediately—tall, with glasses, and neatly combed hair parted in the middle. I pointed him out to Yousef. He told me the man’s name was Colin Swift. I approached him, extended my hand, and introduced myself.
“Hello, I’m David. Do you remember me from our training sessions a while back?”
“Yes, I do,” he said. He seemed surprised that I had approached him.
I went out of my way to be nice to him during our training session. When it was over, I suggested we share a cup of tea with Yousef at the club café. He hesitated for a moment and then consented.
Colin ordered a large cup of tea with milk, English style. I ordered plain tea, and Yousef asked for a small cup of Turkish coffee, Arabic style. I laughed at Colin’s jokes, even though I didn’t really get them—perhaps I didn’t entirely understand English idioms or appreciate his dry British humor—but he seemed to enjoy his own wit immensely.
After I got tired of pretending to laugh, I steered the conversation to the subject of the weather, marveling at his ability to offer an accurate forecast for the coming days. When I asked him to explain how he made his forecasts, Yousef gave me a confused and curious look.
But Colin was thrilled to have an attentive audience, telling me all about the weather station’s offices, which were located in the former Palace Hotel near the Mamilla cemetery.
“The British government leased the building, and it serves as the headquarters of the Land Registry, the Agricultural Department, and other official bodies,” he said. “The people in charge of the building are paranoid. They think the underground will blow up the building at any moment.” He snorted. “They’ve even wrapped barbed wire around the drains and gutters.”
“And where do you live?” I asked.
“I actually live in a very nice place,” he said. “The government leased a small apartment building in Talbieh, where I live with my wife and two children. Do you play rummy,
by chance?”
As if Baruch wasn’t enough, now I had run into a British version. But meeting Baruch had helped me with Sergeant Perry, and I was hopeful Colin would prove equally useful.
“How did you guess?” I responded. “I love it but can never find anyone to play with me.”
“It’s not a very popular game in England. Back home people prefer bridge, whist, even canasta, and I don’t have anyone to play rummy with. If you have some free time right now, perhaps you’d like to come over for a game?”
“Gladly,” I replied. Yousef politely declined Colin’s offer to join us, and after bidding him goodbye, my new friend and I went down to the locker room on the ground floor. We showered, dressed, and walked to his apartment, which was just down the street from the YMCA.
“He’s my guest,” Colin said to the guard at the entrance to the building. The guard nodded hello and held the door open for us.
Colin quickly introduced me to his wife, Jenny, who had her hands full with their two small children, a son and daughter. After introductions, we immediately sat down to a game of rummy. He turned out to be a good player, but the many hours I had spent playing with Baruch had improved my game, and I held my own against him.
After a few rounds, Jenny offered us tea and cake. I readily accepted, and she sat down to join us.
“Does everyone in the building work for the Meteorological Service?” I asked, after asking Jenny a few polite questions about her children.
“Yes, everyone does,” she said, “except for that rude policeman who lives next door to us. He’s always complaining that our children are too noisy. You’ve seen how good they are, but if they get even a little loud when they’re playing, he comes banging on the door to complain. Horrible man.”
