Love and Treasure

by Waldman, Ayelet

  General Harry Collins was all jaw, with a deep cleft chin and a smile that, though thin-lipped, was amiable and approachable. He never bothered to affect the smoldering scowl, borrowed from Patton, that was almost universal among the brass in the ETO.

  Jack stood at attention, permitting himself to give no outward sign of how furious it made him to watch Herr General make a slow, appraising circuit of the table, taking stock of the loot.

  “Very nice,” Collins said. He picked up a crystal wineglass and held it to the light coming in through the French windows. He set it back down on the table, licked the tip of his right index finger, then whirled it slowly around the rim until it keened. He looked up and down the length of the table and frowned. “No champagne glasses?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said. “Ninety champagne glasses, as instructed.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They are here!” the cook said triumphantly, pulling a champagne glass out of a crate, trailing a shower of excelsior. She took a corner of her apron and polished the glass, but her beefy arms and plate-sized hands were better suited to boning a haunch of beef or beating a glossy meringue, and under the pressure of her fingers the crystal shattered.

  “Gottverdammt!” she muttered.

  “That’s no problem, sir,” Jack said. “I will send someone over with a replacement, pronto.”

  It seemed to him that his voice soured as he said it, and he hoped that the general would not hear or otherwise sense his disapproval of the expropriation of the train and its contents. Indeed Collins turned, his eyes narrowing as he looked Jack over with the same amiable avidity he had brought to his inspection of the looted silver, linen, and china. He pointed to the Rainbow insignia on Jack’s uniform.

  “You’re one of mine. What’s your name?”

  “Wiseman, sir. Lieutenant Jack Wiseman, Two Hundred Twenty-Second, sir.”

  “Wiseman. Wiseman. What company?”

  “H Company, sir.”

  “H Company. Wiseman, yes, Lieutenant, I’ve heard about you. Mickey Fellenz once told me he could drop H Company blindfolded and ass over elbows in the middle of the Sahara, and a week later you’d have them back at Camp Gruber without a grain of sand in their undershorts.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jack said, feeling the flush of blood in his cheeks, and just like that he felt his outrage slipping away. Was this all it took to make him forget Ilona’s father, the receipt for his stolen business burned to ash in the ovens of Auschwitz? A compliment from his commander? A word of praise, the fact that the general knew who he was, even remembered his name? Was this enough to make him forget the responsibility he’d assumed over the contents of the train, the responsibility he felt toward the vanished owners of the property? Apparently so.

  “Wiseman,” the general repeated. “Son, would you by any chance be of the Jewish persuasion?”

  Jack stiffened. “Yes, sir, as a matter of fact I am.”

  “Well, that’s just swell. Terrific!”

  “Sir?”

  “Come on into my study, son. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  Jack followed the general into a spacious room lined with empty bookshelves that had been spared the ministrations of the baron’s zealous crowbar. The room was otherwise, typically, bereft of furniture but for two matched leather armchairs, from one of which rose Rabbi Eli Bohnen, one of the Rainbow Division’s chaplains.

  General Collins said, “Rabbi, I believe this young man’s one of yours.”

  Jack knew Bohnen though he had never sought the man’s counsel or ministry. Jack was such a confirmed unbeliever that at first he had not even bothered to have himself listed as “Hebrew” in the army rolls, changing his mind only because the lack of designation subjected him to constant importuning by the chaplains of various evangelical Christian denominations, who were desperate to save his soul before he lost his life on the battlefield. But Bohnen made it his business to get to know every Jew in the unit, no matter how disaffected or irreligious, and so he and Jack had spoken a few times. He was a thoughtful man, friendly without being pushy, with a trace of Toronto in his accent. No matter Jack’s lack of interest in the practice of his putative religion, he could not help but like the rabbi.

  “Indeed he is,” Bohnen said. He had long ears and a firm chin, a small mouth that broke into a ready, easy smile. “Lieutenant Wiseman, how’ve you been?”

  “Can’t complain, Major.”

  Collins said, “The rabbi here’s been filling me in on the situation in the DP camps. It’s a terrible thing, Wiseman. A cruel thing.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said.

  “And more of the poor bastards coming west every day.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You were there with us at Dachau, weren’t you, Jack?” Bohnen said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All those emaciated, diseased, beaten, miserable shadows of human beings. I still have nightmares about it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said. He refused to allow his mind to wander back to the things he had seen when his unit had been among the first to liberate the camp.

  “Our brothers, Jack. Our poor broken brothers. I tell you, when I saw that place I felt like apologizing to my dog for being a member of the human race.”

  Jack’s throat closed around his words, and he could only nod.

  Bohnen said, “There’s nothing left for the survivors of the camps. Their families are dead. They’ve lost everything. They don’t belong in Poland and Romania anymore. And the one place they do belong won’t have them.”

  Confused, Jack said, “Where’s that, sir?”

  “Why, Palestine, Lieutenant,” Bohnen said, looking mildly offended. “Of course. Eretz Yisrael.”

  “Ah,” Jack said. “Sure.”

  “The British won’t let them immigrate to Palestine. Not legally, at any rate. So they come here, looking for our protection.”

  “It’s a tragedy, is what it is,” General Collins said. “A tragedy on top of tragedies.”

  Rabbi Bohnen said, “A righteous man can do only one thing in the face of such compounded tragedies.”

  Again, though he could see that Bohnen expected him to be following right along, Jack was clueless as to what the rabbi had in mind. It did not seem to him that, faced with the horror of Dachau, the shame and squalor of the DP camps, a righteous man would know his ass from his elbow. But he did not say as much. Instead he just tried to look politely patient, waiting for Bohnen to let him off the hook.

  “Lend a hand, however he can,” Bohnen said.

  Jack agreed that this was indeed incumbent on all righteous men. He wondered if evicting an old Ukrainian bat from her apartment and smuggling Spam and powdered lemon drink to Ilona and the Zweigs counted as lending a hand.

  The general said, “Shouldn’t you be in Vienna, Wiseman? With the rest of the Two Hundred Twenty-Second?”

  “I’ve been reassigned, sir. To the PCB of the RD and R.”

  “You due to rotate home soon, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not enough points?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  Collins said, “Given any thought to signing on for another six months?”

  “I’m considering it, sir.” Jack had, in fact—much to his surprise—given it some thought. For more than a year, his every waking moment not devoted to keeping himself and his men alive had been spent contemplating his return to New York, but now suddenly, at the ass end of it all, he was starting to dread the thought of leaving. He had stopped throwing away the memoranda encouraging him to extend the period of his service, though he’d yet to reach a final decision about signing on for another hitch. That decision, he had come to understand, was not in his hands at all, but, like his heart, was in the hands of Ilona Jakab.

  “You bet I have, sir,” he said.

  “That’s encouraging news, son,” the general said. “We need every one of you old-timers. Men who know what we’re doing here, what we fo
ught for. Too many of these young replacements have a hard time remembering who the enemy was, do you find that, son? Among your men? Do you find that they’re so green they can’t tell friend from foe?”

  Jack was so thrilled to have the general express this, Jack’s own worst frustration, that he could not keep himself from nodding in vigorous agreement. “I try to make sure they know the difference, sir.”

  “Good for you. You’re a fine officer, Lieutenant Wiseman. I’m proud that you’re a Rainbow.”

  “I’m proud to be a Rainbow, sir.” Jack knew that the distinctions between divisions were meaningless, that he would have developed the same camaraderie under fire if he’d been in the 101st Airborne or the 119th Infantry. He had known from the beginning that it was to his men that he both owed and felt loyalty, and to his fellow junior officers. Not to the brass, and not to a division, an accident of classification. Nonetheless, in his chest expanded a bubble of pride and pleasure. As idiotic as it was, he felt at that moment proud to wear the rainbow on his sleeve, proud to serve under Major General Harry Collins, proud to be recognized and valued.

  “The war may be over,” the general said, “but I’m afraid we’re in this for the long haul, and it’s men like you that we’ll be relying on to get us through.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The general dismissed him, and as Jack turned crisply on his heel, Rabbi Bohnen said, “Let me walk you out, Lieutenant Wiseman.”

  As they passed through the gracious entryway, Jack glanced at the dining room, where the cook and her assistants were still exclaiming over the bounty he’d brought. Their exuberance caught him up for a moment, and he hesitated, reminded once again of the shameful errand on which he’d come.

  When they reached his truck, the rabbi put a restraining hand on his arm.

  “Jack,” he said. “What I said inside about lending a hand. I wonder. If your hand was needed, would you lend it?”

  “Sir?”

  “If I were to call on you someday to help our poor Jewish brethren, could I count on you?”

  And though he didn’t know for what he was being asked, or even if the question was actual or rhetorical, Jack said, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

  “I knew it,” the rabbi said. “I knew you were a righteous man.”

  Jack thought of all he had done in battle, of the dozens, maybe hundreds, of men he’d killed, of the orders, rules, and regulations he followed no matter what he thought of them, followed them because they were his job and his duty. And yet, despite all that, though “righteous” was not a word he had ever used to describe himself, he realized at that moment that righteous was all he’d ever wanted to be.

  • 6 •

  MONTHS PASSED, THE WEATHER TURNED, and Jack continued to spend his evenings and rare days off with Ilona and his days as a glorified quartermaster’s clerk, processing requisition orders from U.S. generals throughout Land Salzburg, all of whom, it seemed, were in need of carpets and china, linens and tableware. He filled the orders and kept his records, periodically expressed his objections to his superior officer, and waited for someone to do something about it all. And then, finally, one day it seemed about to end. He was sitting at his makeshift desk, writing a letter of recommendation for Private Streeter, who was applying to pharmacy college in Albany in anticipation of his release, when the warehouse door creaked open, and Lieutenant Colonel Price strode through, a crowd of civilians in his wake. There were five in all, a small clutch of older men in brushed and mended suits and hats, and one younger man, taller than the others, elegantly attired, with watchful eyes. Bringing up the rear was Rabbi Bohnen.

  “Lieutenant,” Price began, “I’m going to need you to—”

  “If I might have a moment?” Rabbi Bohnen said. “I’d like to introduce Lieutenant Wiseman to our guests.”

  Not used to being interrupted by an officer of lesser rank, but nonetheless respectful of the chaplain’s role, Price pressed his lips together and nodded.

  “Lieutenant Wiseman, this is the delegation from Hungary, emissaries of the Jewish community of Budapest come to review the contents of the train.”

  Finally! Jack thought. “Jó napot,” he said.

  The Hungarians exclaimed and began speaking to him in a rush of Hungarian, but Jack had to hold up his hand. “That’s about all I know,” he said.

  “It’s more than I do,” the rabbi said. “Jack, I also want to introduce you to Gideon Rafael, a member of the political department of the Jewish Agency, from Eretz Yisrael.”

  Gideon Rafael was the first Jew from Palestine that Jack had met. He looked nothing like the sunburned orange growers, the socialist hikers in climbing shorts, who populated the Palestine depicted in the pages of his grandparents’ Yiddish newspapers. Broad across the shoulders, dressed in a crisp white shirt and an impeccable gray flannel suit, Rafael looked every inch the European diplomat.

  Price took over at this point and instructed Jack to show the Hungarians through the warehouse. Before they set off, however, he pulled Jack aside.

  “You got your wish, Wiseman. But … well. Discretion. The better part of valor and all that.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said, understanding that he was to make no mention to the visitors of the items decorating the living quarters of the brass. He didn’t care. Now that these men had arrived, it would not be long before everything would have to be returned and sent on its way, back to Hungary where it belonged.

  He led them to the first aisle. He pointed out the crates and boxes, and the Hungarians pressed forward, reading the tags and chalked markings, murmuring to one another. At one point one of them gasped and, with a shaking finger, traced a name scrawled on a leather suitcase. He was slightly younger than the rest, his bald pate covered with an ink-black velvet yarmulke. Rafael bent over the man, and they spoke together. Jack tried to grant them a modicum of privacy, but the quarters were close, and he could hear what they were saying.

  “Not my own family,” the man told Rafael. “My son-in-law’s cousin. From Debrecen.”

  Rabbi Bohnen, standing next to Jack, lifted a handkerchief to his eye and dabbed.

  “Sir,” Jack said, softly, “should I open the case?”

  Bohnen considered this for a moment. Then he asked the question of Rafael, who in turn asked the Hungarian.

  “No,” the man said. “Not this one.”

  The leader of the group of Hungarians, a small man with a neatly trimmed white beard and a pair of gold pince-nez perched in the crease above his nose, said, “But perhaps another box?”

  Jack moved a few yards down the aisle. He stopped before a section in which he’d put crates of silver religious objects, chose one, and pried it open with his knife. He removed a silver goblet from the box. The cup was tarnished, and he wiped it clean on his handkerchief before handing it to the leader of the Hungarians. The man held it reverently, his rheumy eyes filling with tears. He murmured something, and his bald colleague turned to Rafael. “Rabbi Mendlowitz asks where are the Torah scrolls.”

  Before Rafael could translate, Jack replied in German, “I’m sorry, sir. We found dozens of breastplates and silver handle covers, but no actual Torah scrolls.”

  At this news the elderly Hungarian shook his head, his wet eyes spilling over.

  Rabbi Bohnen took his hand and patted it.

  For a moment they all stood silently, honoring the elderly man’s grief. Then Rafael turned to Jack. “Where have you stored the more valuable items? Jewelry? Watches? That type of thing.”

  Jack took them to the far corner, beneath the boarded-up windows, where he’d put the crates of jewelry and gold watches. He opened a casket of each. One of the Hungarians knelt down, sorted quickly through the watches, and then turned to the jewelry. He affixed a jeweler’s loupe to his eye and began picking pieces up one at a time, holding them close to his loupe and turning them over in his fingers. After a few moments he murmured something to the leader of the delegation. An intense conversation ensued i
n Hungarian. The members of the delegation seemed upset. The small white-haired man turned to Jack.

  In German, he said, “These items are not as valuable as we expected. The watches are gold, yes, also some of the chains. But where are the gemstones?”

  Rafael asked Jack, “Are they stored in another location?”

  Jack left the men for a moment and returned with the casket of gold bullion, the briefcase of currency, and the small velvet bag of gems that Avar had turned over when first the Americans assumed control of the train. “This is what we have,” Jack said.

  “This is all?” Rafael asked, weighing the pouch in his hand.

  “Yes.”

  “Are there other crates of jewelry?”

  “Yes,” Jack said, “but most of what we have looks like it was dismantled, the stones pried out. Given how many chains and settings we’ve found, it’s clear there should be more. In fact, we found very little in the way of valuable jewelry, gold, or currency. The Hungarian in charge told us that the crates with the most valuable items were removed from the train by his superior officer Colonel Árpád Toldi during the final days of the war.”

  Price interrupted. “The gems and gold stolen by Toldi were found in the French Zone. The French are in control of those items.”

  “Yes,” the leader of the Hungarian delegation said. “Our government is in negotiations with them for the return of that property.”

  Jack wondered if the Hungarians had heard what David Ball, his OSS-officer roommate, had told him, that the French had only discovered the valuables because the Austrian peasants whom Toldi had chosen to guard the caskets of loot instead turned up at their village markets with fistfuls of diamonds with which to barter for bread, their wives festooning themselves in gem-encrusted diadems and tiaras to milk their cows and pull turnips from their fields.

  Price said, “We’ll make sure that you receive a copy of Lieutenant Wiseman’s inventory. But rest assured, everything we received when we seized the train is here in the warehouse.”

  Everything but what’s in the homes of the brass, Jack thought, but didn’t say. Moreover, there did not exist a complete inventory of the contents of the train. Yes, he had inventoried and accounted for everything requisitioned by his superior officers, but the rest? There was just so much. There were at least five hundred crates full of silver bowls, dishes, and vases alone. The kind of inventory he would have liked to make would have itemized every item in every crate. But to do so would have taken far more manpower than he’d been allotted. It was all he could do to roughly organize the property.