Birthright

by Alan Gold

  The lamplight grew brighter, spilling a yellow glow into the office until a foot appeared, followed by legs and a long gown. Abram held his breath as he saw the feet stop. He knew the desk would not fully conceal him; it was only a matter of time before the man would see some telltale sign of him, raise the alarm or a weapon, and then . . .

  Abram trembled. It was dark under the desk, but the light from the lamp would soon reveal him. The boy’s mind raced as he considered running, or staying and facing his accuser. He felt the muscles of his legs tense beneath him and his fingers bind tighter around the wood of the small box in his hands.

  The feet moved closer and then, as the light swung around, stopped.

  Abram’s heightened senses heard an intake of breath. It was all that the boy needed to act.

  His cramped legs surged upward, pushing his body as he extended his hand above his head. He heaved on the underside of the table with all his might. It was not a large table, but it was dense and heavy. Abram’s small frame barely lifted the table’s feet off the floor, but they did lift it off center and, with all the force of his legs uncoiling, heaved it over on its side. The table tipped its contents at the man with the lamp and crashed with a booming thud so close to his bare feet that he was forced to leap back or else have his toes crushed.

  The man dropped the lamp to the ground, breaking the pottery and spilling oil over the floor. The burning wick instantly caught the vapor of the oil and swished into flame.

  Abram turned toward the window and bounded across the remaining space to escape. Behind him he heard the man yelp as the flames licked at the dry, flammable parchment.

  “Fire!” screamed the old man. Abram ran but felt relief that the word had not been “thief.” He heaved himself out of the window headfirst, one arm extended to cushion the blow with the ground, the other tightly gripping the box pressed against his belly.

  Abram rolled on the ground and quickly scrambled to his feet. He allowed himself a moment to cast his eyes back to the house and saw the bright glow of flame through the window cavity and the scrambling efforts of the man to douse the flames and save the scrolls. Then Abram heard the sounds of the house waking up in panic and the high priest bellowing, demanding answers from the Almighty for what had just happened.

  He’d never intended to start a fire, but as he ran down the hill and into the enfolding darkness, he knew that it would buy him time to escape. The servants would be intent on dousing the flames and not on chasing him.

  Abram ran faster than he had ever run in his life. In Peki’in, life was never spent running, not since he was a child. People walked slowly past Roman columns, people walked cautiously. Now he was running, not because he was a thief and not because he was an arsonist but because Rabbi Shimon had entrusted him with a sacred mission, and even though he might have to break some of the Almighty’s commandments, he’d put the seal back in the tunnel in Jerusalem, whatever the cost.

  As he ran farther and farther from the high priest’s house, Abram’s mind began to clear. Reason took over from panic. He stopped when the house and the flames were no longer visible, and sat on the ground, breathing heavily. Rabbi Shimon had told him that the high priest was the only man he could trust; yet he’d taken the seal and told Abram to return home. Rabbi Shimon had told him that this seal, which had come from the hands of a man who knew King Solomon, was of great value to his people and must be returned for the sake of all.

  If he couldn’t trust the high priest, whom could he trust? He was all alone in the land of the Romans, far from his mother and father, far from Rabbi Shimon. He had nobody to ask. All he could do was rely on himself. And that frightened the youngster more than anything.

  Kibbutz Beit Yitzhak, Northern Palestine

  1941

  NOBODY ON THE kibbutz paid any attention when the truck coughed and spluttered its way up the hill and finally, like an old asthmatic straining for air, crawled through the kibbutz gates. It was so ancient, some joked that it had been used by Moses to deliver the Children of Israel over to the other side of the Red Sea to escape the Pharaoh.

  The kibbutzniks could always hear, and sometimes smell, its arrival minutes before it came into view. It was on its last legs but beloved by all.

  Young Shalman straightened his back when he saw the truck arrive. Working in the henhouse was smelly, especially in the heat of summer, but the kids on the kibbutz helped their parents in the day-to-day work, and he enjoyed ensuring there were enough eggs for breakfast. He watched as the driver jumped out. These were only short breaks, but they refreshed his mind and eased his body from the hard work that he and the other kids of the kibbutz, his brothers and sisters, had to do to stay alive.

  Dov, the driver, dropped out of the cabin onto the dusty ground. He was a short and wiry man, but there was an invisible strength in his body, and nobody messed with him. Dov, like Shalman in the henhouse, straightened his back after the long drive and looked over at the group of men and women in the fields. They were preparing the land for next season’s crop. Some of the women, wearing the traditional gray trousers, flannel shirts, and scarves, were using long-handled hoes to weed ahead as the men, in shirts and shorts and pointed blue-and-white hats, were hand-planting the seeds behind them.

  Dov had been the kibbutz’s truck driver for years. In Germany, before the war had begun, he’d been a railwayman in Berlin, which somehow qualified him to drive “Adolf the Beast,” as the truck was affectionately known. Dov had managed to escape Germany with his wife and six children just before the closure of the borders. It was an act of daring and courage that had saved his entire family from the gas chambers.

  The other thing for which Dov was renowned was being a thief. It was he who went on nighttime stealing missions. He and a few others would park their truck a long way from where the British Tommies had set up camp during maneuvers, then crawl on their hands and knees and stomachs, sometimes for a mile or more. In total silence, they would steal rifles and ammunition inadvertently left against a rock or a tree after a patrol by exhausted British soldiers prostrate in the heat of Palestine.

  Dov had managed to steal more than forty rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition from the British in the years he’d been the kibbutz’s “lifter.” An amiable fellow, he was well liked by his comrades and had friends in many other parts of Northern Palestine. He’d even befriended the inhabitants of the nearby villages such as Peki’in, where he would trade the produce of the kibbutz for supplies.

  Everyone in the kibbutz knew what Dov did, but that didn’t stop the wiry little man from scanning to see if anyone was watching before he peeled back the tarpaulin cover. However, Dov didn’t see that Shalman had crept up around the front of the truck and was visibly shocked when he heard the boy say: “What did you find, Dov?”

  “Hell, don’t go sneaking up on me like that, kid.”

  Shalman was unperturbed. “What did you find?”

  Dov smiled, looked around once more to make sure it was just him and the boy, then pulled out from the truck bed an object wrapped in an oil cloth.

  “What is it?” asked Shalman.

  “Not something your dad would want you playing with.” Dov flipped the cloth open to reveal a revolver in shiny gunmetal gray. “Know what this is?”

  “A gun,” replied Shalman.

  “It’s a pistol,” corrected Dov. “It’s an officer’s pistol. A Webley. I took it from a British officer.”

  “Did you kill him?” asked Shalman without emotion, only genuine curiosity.

  “Whoa, now, that’s a question your imma wouldn’t like you asking and certainly wouldn’t like me telling. Even if it were true . . .” Dov gave the boy a wink and Shalman smiled. “You can hold it if you want.”

  The lad held out his hand eagerly and Dov placed the pistol on his palm. The weight surprised him, but Dov deftly reached over and showed him how to do it. “Hold it tight, boy. You never know when you might need a gun like that. We’ve got Brits and Arabs on a
ll sides, Shalman. You never, ever forget that.”

  From the field where he was tilling the soil, Shalman’s father, Ari, straightened up, stretched out his back, and noticed his son talking to Dov. He saw something in Shalman’s hand and felt a moment of concern. It was probably Dov’s latest acquisition. Ari shook his head. Why was Dov always showing the guns he stole to the children of the kibbutz? Didn’t they deserve a normal childhood in this war zone of a land? Hadn’t the Jewish people learned enough about guns, now that they were being forced to fight against the British and were the victims of these Nazis in Germany?

  There was a squeal of children’s voices as a gaggle of six young ones came running toward Dov, arms outstretched, ready to embrace their father. Ari couldn’t help but smile even as he saw Dov quickly hide the pistol away in his coat and kneel down to embrace his kids. The throng of small bodies knocked Dov off his feet and sent him sprawling in a mass of tickles and giggles onto the ground.

  The peace of the moment was short-lived. Suddenly, four British army Jeeps and a large truck roared furiously through the front entrance of the kibbutz, still open from when Dov arrived. Everybody working in the field looked up in shock as the vehicles screeched to a halt, throwing up stones and clouds of dirt. Ten British soldiers jumped out and fanned in a protective line in front of their vehicles, rifles pointing at the kibbutz inhabitants.

  Shalman’s eyes turned back to Dov and saw him quickly push the children off, stand, and move sharply to his truck so he could pull the cover over the back. He then ordered the children to return to their mother.

  Last out of the vehicles was the commander of the group, a man Ari already knew; he was the senior officer who had remained sitting in the Jeep while his NCOs had intimidated the family when they were having a picnic on the beach ten years earlier. Though Ari wasn’t the kibbutz leader, he walked slowly out of the field, as though this were a daily occurrence, and meandered over to the commander, his hand outstretched in greeting.

  Reluctantly, the major took it. A nod was his only greeting before he said, “That truck”—pointing to Adolf the Beast—“who owns that?”

  Ari didn’t turn to face any of the kibbutz residents who gathered around. But he knew that Dov was standing near the truck beside Shalman.

  “This is a kibbutz, Major. We all own it,” said Ari. With a smile, hoping to remove some of the tension from the air, he added, “It’s a piece of junk. We’ll pay you to take it away.”

  The major didn’t appreciate the joke. His face remained stern. In a clipped voice, he said, “I’ll ask the question again. And don’t mess about. Understand? Now, who was driving that truck?”

  By this time more of the community had gathered around. Women pushed children behind them, but all stood and watched the soldiers. In turn the soldiers gripped their rifles more tightly. Ari sensed all this and sweat beaded his brow.

  “Can I ask what this is all about? We’ve done nothing wrong. We’re farmers.”

  “Answer my question. Who was the driver of that truck?”

  Ari turned his head to look briefly at the people gathered nearby. All knew the answer to the question, but none knew what Ari would say. Dov had retreated into the crowd, his children, frightened, gathered about him—all six holding on to a hand or a pant leg. Dov’s eyes met Ari’s, wide and still and uncertain.

  “Now! Right now! Who was driving?” commanded the major.

  One of the soldiers behind the officer nervously raised his rifle and a woman nearby let out an involuntary whimper. Dov’s eyes darted back and forth like a trapped animal’s, but he didn’t move. Then Shalman stepped from the crowd toward his father.

  “Stay back, Shalman,” said Ari, raising a hand to ward him off.

  “I won’t ask again, farmer,” the major said. There was no mistaking the menace in his voice.

  “Abba?”

  The silence weighed leaden in the air as Ari looked once more to the mass of frightened children about Dov’s legs. Dov’s six young children.

  “It was me,” Ari said softly. He heard a gasp behind him. So did the major, who continued to stare deeply into his eyes before he turned and barked an order.

  “Search it.”

  Three of the soldiers ran over to the truck, and the people nearby parted like a field of reeds. The soldiers threw back the cover while the other soldiers stayed where they were, pointing their rifles at the men and women in the field as though daring them to move.

  Ari wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say. He knew what the soldiers would find.

  “Sir!” shouted one of the privates. “Here, sir. Look at this, sir.”

  The major walked over, and one of his men handed him a rifle pulled from the truck and hidden under a blanket. He turned back to Ari with a look of disgust and incredulity. With a raised eyebrow, he said, “Once more! Just to be absolutely clear! Were you the driver of this vehicle? You understand the consequences of your answer, don’t you?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ari saw Dov begin to move forward.

  “Yes, it was me. Only me.”

  From a short distance away in the field, Devorah cried, “Ari. Don’t!”

  He turned and smiled and nodded. “I’ll be all right. I’m just going to clear up a misunderstanding. I’ll be home soon.”

  The major stepped forward and whispered to Ari, “Don’t be a fool, man. I can smell the field on you. We both know you weren’t driving. And you know the consequences if I take you away.”

  Ari looked into the eyes of the major and shrugged. Softly, he repeated, “It was me.”

  The major stepped back a pace and said to Ari, “Oh well, one Jew’s as good as another.”

  The entire group of men and women in the fields, knowing what was about to happen, began to murmur and move toward the British soldiers, who immediately raised their rifles from waist height to shoulder height, pointing them at the kibbutzniks.

  Ari feared what might follow and shouted, “Stop. Everybody. Don’t be stupid. I’ll go with these soldiers. I’ll be all right.”

  Two soldiers came forward to seize him by the arms. Ari turned to look at Shalman, who stared back up at his father. Ari went to say something to his son but turned his eyes to Dov. “Look after Shalman, will you, Dov? Treat him like you treat your other children. I’m making him your responsibility.”

  And with that, Ari was driven away in a cloud of dust. It was the last time that Devorah saw her husband and the last image that young Shalman had of his father—driven off as a prisoner between two British soldiers.

  Moscow, USSR

  1943

  FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD JUDITA TRIED to stifle her yawn but failed miserably as the elderly rabbi looked up from his Talmud just as she was putting her hand to her mouth. The rabbi looked closely at her to see whether there were any marks remaining on her face. Two weeks ago she’d appeared in his class looking like a whore with cheap makeup plastered all over her eyes and cheeks, an unsophisticated way of covering up the black eye and slaps her father had given her the night before. The rabbi sighed. Such a brilliant girl; such a beast of a father.

  And somehow it was worse when it happened in the dreadful winters of Moscow. Children couldn’t leave the house, and so the tensions caused drunken fathers to flare up, and so many wives and children were beaten. The rabbi thought of this as he pondered another problem with the winter months in Moscow. The windows of the basement where he taught the children were closed and opaque from condensation, yet the paraffin heater made the room horribly stuffy. Judita wasn’t the only one yawning, but somehow she was always the one Rabbi Ariel saw, the one he always looked at first when he glanced up from reading.

  His half-moon glasses were perched on the end of his nose, his huge gray beard permanently curled from his constant stroking when he was talking or listening, his battered hat askew on the back of his head. Reb Ariel treated Judita more strictly than any of the other students in the tiny classroom. But she knew, because he o
ften told her parents, that his discipline was harsh because of her potential; she was by far the brightest student in the small school, and he was determined that she would become a great figure in the Russian Jewish community, even though she was a girl.

  Classes were held in the basement of a public theater on Bolshaya Bronnaya near Tverskoy Boulevard. The building was once the Lyubavicheskaya Synagogue until it was appropriated by the Soviet authorities for nonreligious public entertainment. Though the students were all the same age, some were barely able to read a word of Hebrew. But Judita was able to read the Hebrew words as though they were as familiar to her as Russian. She was a natural linguist and could speak a few words of almost any language just by listening to two people speaking it. Similarly, she could speak and read fluent Yiddish and enjoyed smatterings of Polish and German.

  A young boy was reading aloud, wrestling with the words, and had already spent long minutes trying to get his tongue around the phrases. The rabbi shook his head sadly and said, “Moishe, listening to you, I’m sure that the Messiah will decide not to come to earth for another generation. Your Hebrew is terrible. Learn, child. Learn! Practice. Now, Judita Ludmilla, read the next section.”

  Without looking up, flawlessly, and in a voice that was both strong and commanding of attention, the tall, thin, handsome girl began to read the Hebrew as though reading a novel by Pushkin. “By your messengers you have defied the Lord, and have said, ‘With the multitude of my chariots, I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees; and I will enter into his—’”

  Judita abruptly stopped reading and glanced up. In the silence, the entire class looked at her, very few of them really understanding more than the odd word of Hebrew she’d just read but comprehending that she had stopped short of finishing. The rabbi also raised his head and felt doom descending. He knew that expression. Judita understood the Hebrew and was about to ask one of her philosophical questions.