Isaac's Beacon

by David L. Robbins

  Julius said, “They’ll be back.”

  During the morning brawl, another thousand from surrounding settlements and villages had rushed to Shefayim. The thousand soldiers stopped them from entering the fray in the kibbutz. A ringleader among the Jews on a black horse galloped back and forth, urging the mob to push past the police. The soldiers answered with rifles leveled.

  A shot rang out; the rider fell. His horse galloped on into a wheat field. The stunned throng stopped pressing at the soldiers. The police may have been thrown out of Shefayim, but British soldiers would not cede their ground.

  Before the crowd could choose to stand down or dare the guns more, a volley of shots cracked. Suddenly under fire, the Jews ran. They dragged with them a dozen wounded and left behind five bodies in the road and the trampled field.

  Three hundred soldiers marched into Shefayim. Behind them, again, came the police.

  One more time, bullhorns told the people of the kibbutz to go to their homes. Every person not a resident of the settlement was to stand in the open with ID papers in hand.

  Not one Jew complied. They linked arms, sang “Hatikvah,” and chanted slogans of resistance. The British fired tear gas grenades. A Hassid rushed forward to hurl one of the fuming canisters back at the police. The crowd erupted over this; several were needed to lift the burly man off the ground and lead him away.

  Hugo wasn’t going to be a Palmach, but this he could manage. Julius must have noticed Hugo steeling himself, for he grabbed Hugo’s arm.

  “Take off your shirt. Wrap it around your face. Hold your breath.”

  Hugo did as he was told. Bare chested, with tumult on all sides, he dashed over open ground into a spewing cloud of pepper spray. He flung the canister as far as he could at the soldiers and police. Hugo dropped to his knees, almost blinded, but popped up before anyone needed to come help him. Blinking and in pain, he staggered back to the cheers of hundreds. Julius guided him to a water cistern to wipe his stinging eyes.

  “Kharda. That’s your name.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Fighters have nicknames. Battle names. You’re Kharda. Scrap iron. Come with me.”

  Together they hurried to the safe house. Yakob slumped in a kitchen chair, looking wan, his shot leg propped on the table. Julius and Hugo guided him outside; no one could be found in the safe house, and the bullet in Yakob’s calf was going to be difficult to explain.

  They set him in the schoolyard on the merry-go-round. Hugo volunteered to stay with him. When the police approached, Hugo explained that some cop had shot Yakob, and he’d wrapped the man’s leg. He and Yakob said they didn’t know each other. Hugo was asked for his name; he answered Kharda. The cops moved in to arrest Yakob; Hugo got in their way. One of the police shook a truncheon in his face.

  “You a troublemaker? You want to go with us, too?”

  Yakob brought the attention to himself by struggling. He took a crack from a baton for it, then was hauled off.

  The British left Shefayim at noon. Three hundred settlers were arrested, forty wounded, six killed. The police suffered minor injuries.

  Drawn by Yakob’s blood, the British bloodhounds found the truck. Somehow the safe house escaped notice. The Palmachniks filtered back to their homes in Shefayim and Rishpon. In the afternoon, Hugo drove Julius in a borrowed pickup back to Rehovot.

  Julius said, “You don’t have to worry about Yakob. He won’t say a word.”

  “I’m not.”

  “So, Kharda.”

  Hugo wanted to smile, but the day had been somber. Jews had been killed. A wounded comrade was being questioned.

  Julius extended an arm out the window, letting the wind lift and lower his opened hand, a childlike thing. Julius was still a young man, to have fought as long as he had.

  “You don’t want to make guns anymore. No more collecting junk in Zarnuqa.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Just so you understand. You’ve got no military background. No training. You’re not going to be Palmach.”

  “I can learn.”

  “You can’t.”

  Julius said nothing more until Hugo pulled into the drive of his small house in Rehovot. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I’ll make a call.”

  1946

  A Soldier’s Will

  A British soldier lay dying

  And on his bed he lay,

  To friends around him sighing,

  These dying words he did say.

  A Jewish boy had got me at last, lads,

  I haven’t much longer to live,

  But before I hand my checks in,

  These last words of advice I do give.

  Put a bomb in the Agency building,

  Wipe the synagogues all off the earth,

  Make every damned son of Zion,

  Regret the day of his birth.

  A popular poem among British troops in Palestine

  Chapter 25

  Hugo

  May 11

  Tel Aviv

  The basement seemed a scene from a film, though Hugo hadn’t been to a cinema in eight years. He sat in the only chair on a concrete floor, surrounded by four windowless basement walls. A bare lightbulb hung on a cord above a drain. His role in the movie would be the innocent fellow caught up in a dangerous business. Then the bulb went out.

  The knob turned, the door eased open, and someone fixed a flashlight beam in his face.

  “Kharda?”

  The man in the doorway used his nickname as a question, as if unsure he had the right room. Hugo winced into the light.

  “Perhaps he’s down the hall.”

  The flashlight stilled, considering. “A joke?”

  “An attempt.”

  The light advanced. A second chair scraped across the hard floor. The man carrying the light shut the door, then lowered into the chair he’d brought with him.

  “I have some questions.”

  Hugo raised a finger to signal an interruption. “Before we start.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can we do without the flashlight?”

  “It’s for our mutual protection.”

  “That may be. But it’s uncomfortable.”

  “Is your comfort that important?”

  “Not unduly so, no. But it will make it harder to concentrate.”

  “Perhaps that’s the point.”

  “Yes, of course. May I ask?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I wanted to get up and leave right now, would you stop me?”

  “I think not.”

  “What if I turned on the light and came back in?”

  “I see.”

  “What I’m saying is that a flashlight in my face isn’t much protection.”

  “I take your point.”

  “May we just chat, please? I waited six months for this interview. I didn’t imagine squinting through it.”

  “I was told about you, Kharda.”

  “Told what?”

  “That you are clever.”

  The flashlight slipped off Hugo and the man took it from the room; again, this plunged Hugo into darkness.

  He waited until the dangling lightbulb flicked on.

  A short man returned. He wore a vested brown suit and black tie, thick glasses; he was narrow-shouldered with a trim moustache. He smiled as he sat and crossed his legs, casual.

  “My name is Mr. Pinchus.”

  In the blank cellar with the drain between them, Hugo asked as many questions as he was asked.

  Pinchus was a Pole. He’d served in Poland’s military before the war. He’d had brushes with the Soviets as a failed communist, the Turks as a Zionist, the British as a revolutionary, and he had been impris
oned by all, including his own country as a deserter. At the start of the war with Germany, he made his way to Palestine by stowing away on a train out of Ankara.

  Hugo told of his early life in Germany, the son of teachers. Talented with his hands, he’d become a tradesman, a plumber making a fine living in old Leipzig, a city riddled with turn-of-the-century plumbing.

  “Any military training? Any familiarity with weapons beyond making them?”

  “None.”

  “What are your skills, Kharda?”

  “I can weld. Drive a truck. I can problem solve.”

  “Problem solve?”

  “The things that can stop up a pipe would amaze you.”

  “Of course. Why did you come to Palestine?”

  “I want to be able to defend myself the next time the sonsofbitches come.”

  “Do you also believe in the Scripture, that God promised the Jews this land?”

  “No. And if He did, He did it three thousand years ago. A lot has happened since. Do you believe it?”

  “I do. But there’s room for both. We all have the same goal.”

  “Good.”

  “So you are not an observant Jew.”

  “No. But Hitler didn’t make that distinction.”

  “He did not.”

  “I ended up in Treblinka. Then Buchenwald.”

  Pinchus inquired nothing more about the camps, only nodded in a way that said I know, and I do not know.

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-eight.”

  “Let me be clear. You will not be a fighter.”

  “Why do I keep hearing that? Do you have so many men that you can afford to let one slip by?”

  “The opposite. We’re so few that the loss of one is like the loss of ten. Each of our fighters is experienced and well trained. When they go into action, they defend each other like brothers. Our men will lay down their lives for Palestine and each other. But we count on them to come back alive with missions accomplished, ready to go again. There isn’t time to make you one of them.”

  “I’m younger than you.”

  “I’m not a fighter. Kharda?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to? I don’t mean me, but who I represent.”

  “The Haganah.”

  Pinchus shook his head.

  A frost of concern tingled in Hugo’s hands and feet. “Palmach?”

  Pinchus chuckled again. He tapped his fingertips together, in and out of a little steeple. “No.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m with the Irgun.”

  Hugo caught his breath. Julius never did say who he’d called, only that a meeting had been arranged.

  “You’re the bombers.”

  Pinchus nodded above his joined hands. “Correct.”

  “The terrorists.”

  “Some say. How do you feel now?”

  “Foolish.”

  “I imagine. When you asked me to turn off the flashlight, to speak to me in the open, were you aware of the risk? To yourself? I’m not here alone, you may have guessed.”

  “No.”

  “Do you wish to leave now that you know? Because, to be frank, you can’t. Not just yet.”

  “Let’s continue.”

  “Alright.”

  “Why did you turn on the light?”

  “Because I have confidence in you.” Pinchus scooted forward on his seat, leaving his hands pressed beneath his chin. “For the six months you waited, we’ve been watching. Watched you make guns, drive the Palmach to and fro, walk the Arab neighborhoods. You’re loyal, hardworking, and smart.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And you have a gift, Kharda.”

  “What is that?”

  “You are not a person anyone will remember.”

  “This is a compliment?”

  “This is how the Irgun exists. We have to live in secret. We’re not eye-catching like your Palmach friends. Look at me, for an example.”

  Pinchus was nothing conspicuous. He could be an accountant, a rabbi, a notary, a farmer in his Sabbath suit.

  “We are hunted by the British, every day. We live double lives and hide in the open from everyone but each other. We’ve even been hunted by the Haganah itself.”

  “Difficult to imagine.”

  “Not so much. The Irgun takes a different view from the Haganah of how to convince the British to leave Palestine. And how to defend it from the Arabs.”

  “How so?”

  “Let us say we are more direct.”

  “Are you still hunted?”

  “By the British, yes, of course. But by other Jews, no longer.”

  “What made them stop?”

  “The people of the Yishuv approved of us. They protested on our behalf. Rallies were held, even in America and England. The Irgun may be bombers. But we appear to be popular.”

  “Were you caught?”

  “I was not. I am either unimportant or too wily. No one will tell me which.”

  Hugo said to bespectacled, mysterious Pinchus, “I want to join.”

  “It’s not so simple as that.”

  “Alright.”

  “We are fighting the British. There will be no surrender. No retreat. Liberty or death. Are you afraid to die, Kharda?”

  “I’ve died in every way a man can and still be alive. I’m afraid only of dying for nothing.”

  “What about torture?”

  “Have you been tortured, Pinchus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you break?”

  “No.”

  “Were you afraid?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then, yes, I’m afraid of torture.”

  Pinchus piled his small hands in his lap. “We have no room for adventurers or romantics. We’re revolutionaries. Every member of Irgun has a heart made of steel for the cause and for his comrades. Is yours a heart of steel? I need to know.”

  Hugo wanted to answer quickly but Pinchus sat back to wait, signaling him to take his time.

  What kind of reply did Pinchus want? A simple yes, an explanation, some eloquent oath?

  “Scrap iron turns into steel. If you beat it enough.”

  Pinchus liked this. He leaned across the open concrete space, past the drain, to shake Hugo’s hand.

  “Let’s see if we can find where you belong in the Irgun.”

  The underground group was divided into four divisions. The first was the combat corps. Pinchus repeated that Hugo would not be among the fighters; he held up a palm to prevent Hugo from protesting.

  “The second is our planning division. You have no military background, so that isn’t the place for you, either.”

  One of the last two corps needed to be a match, or the best result Hugo could hope for would be a return to Julius’ gun shop. The worst would be up to Pinchus.

  The third corps, the propaganda wing, handled the Irgun’s publicity. They wrote, printed, and distributed flyers, posters, and messages; they pasted up pages of Herut, Irgun’s wall newspaper; they even issued quiet warnings to the Yishuv about when to avoid a particular train, office building, or restaurant.

  “I’m not much of a writer.”

  “It can be difficult,” Pinchus lifted a finger, “yet more important than any bomb. The effect of an action goes no further than the site. Words travel the world.”

  Pinchus took off his glasses, to clean the lenses with the end of his tie.

  “So, that’s not for you either.”

  “No.”

  “The last, Kharda.” Pinchus slid the glasses over his nose. His eyes did not smile with his lips. “The last, we call Delek. Gasoline.”

  Delek gathered intelligence for Irgun’s operations. The
y developed informants and infiltrators, kept a keen eye not only on British but Arab military movements, and infiltrated both in any way they could. The division was called Gasoline because intelligence was the fuel that drove all of Irgun’s decisions.

  Hugo was a plumber, a welder, a survivor. What did he know about intelligence gathering?

  “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “We can always use a trusted driver. But I suspect you’re looking for a deeper involvement.”

  Pinchus cocked his head, wondering what to do with Hugo. “There is one more thing. It may not be a help, either.”

  “What is it?”

  “Delek makes contact with local and foreign journalists.”

  Hugo spread his arms wide, as if stepping onto a stage.

  Chapter 26

  Vince

  June 8

  New York

  “You’re in my chair.”

  The reporter held up one finger to finish typing. He smacked the carriage return; Vince waited though the bell.

  Vince’s old desk looked just as he’d left it, except the mess wasn’t his. The backside in his squeaky chair wasn’t his. Everything else about the newsroom stayed the same: morning light in the east windows, dust motes and purls of cigarette smoke in the sunbeams. The Empire State Building was still king of Manhattan’s skyline. Typewriters dinged and telephones clanged in the Tribune’s reporter pool.

  All summer, the windows of the Tribune stayed open. Twenty stories above the street, the temperature in the newsroom could soar ten degrees hotter than down on the sidewalks. The vertical miles of New York’s skyscrapers sopped up the day’s heat and clutched it past sundown. In the morning, when the reporters and secretaries arrived, the Tribune was already roasting.

  “Pal.”

  “Hang on.”

  Vince plastered a hand over the page so the keys struck the back of his hand.

  “You need to pack up.”

  The reporter held his arms wide in a what-the-hell query.

  “I said you need to pack up.”

  “No, I don’t. This is my desk.”

  “How long have you been sitting here?”