Birthright

by Alan Gold

  “Be away, Jew; the duke’s hunt is to begin, and only men are required,” sneered Roux.

  Hearing the joke, the duke let out a small laugh. “Back to your books, Nimrod,” he said. “And consult with Jacob. I shall need his full account of my assets before we set off on this Crusade.”

  Jerusalem

  1947

  SHALMAN WAS ALONE.

  Judit was away with his child, traveling to Russia to visit family, and Shalman had accepted the lie with resignation. Alone, he wondered what other lies she’d told him; or what truth had ever passed between them. Suddenly, she had the money to travel by airplane back to Moscow! Did she seriously expect him to believe that? Why hadn’t she just told him the truth? He’d accept anything, provided it was the truth.

  He had a loaf of bread tucked under his arm as he walked toward his home. Where once he would have had his eyes perpetually raised to the golden dome of Islam, the crosses of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Magen Davids of the synagogues that watched over the city and the souls of its inhabitants, now his gaze was downcast. Shalman stared at his feet and heard little of the buzz of the city around him. He’d willingly agreed to her going to Moscow because he hoped it would save their marriage; but after she had left, her lies grew and grew in his mind.

  He had not been back to the dig site, had not seen Mustafa, since the disastrous village meeting. Without Judit, without Vered, he was adrift, so Shalman walked the streets of Jerusalem feeling utterly alone.

  His life had shaped his senses. Growing up under the dominating, suspicious, and armed glare of the British, he was ever alert to being watched. Years more of training under the tutelage of Dov and his indoctrination into Lehi had sharpened his awareness of people and events around him. And yet today Shalman walked with none of the muscular memory, the alertness, of the freedom fighter. He was alone and his senses were all trained inward. He did not see the man following him.

  A thickset man in dirty overalls paced some five meters behind Shalman and maintained that distance precisely. His eyes occasionally shifted from side to side, but his focus never strayed from the target.

  At a farther distance, a dark car, a British Austin 14, so dirty its black paint looked gray, trundled along the rough and pothole-riddled street. In the front seat sat the Irgun commander Immanuel Berin and, beside him, Ashira.

  “That’s him,” said Ashira in a nervous voice. Berin didn’t reply but brought the car to a slow stop. Berin didn’t normally come into contact with lower-level operatives, but in this case, because it could involve Judit, one of the stars of Lehi, he’d decided to handle it himself.

  “We’ll take it from here, Ashira. You be on your way home.”

  “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” Her voice was hard.

  “No. Of course not. We need to ask him some questions. We need the truth. And you have done well, my dear. You have done the right thing.”

  Ashira quickly stepped out of the car. Berin slid the car away from the curb again and quickly caught sight of his operative up ahead, still a precise five meters behind the unsuspecting Shalman. Berin waited for the cue.

  The man in the overalls, who went by the name of Raffe, quickened his pace and slowly drew his left hand from his deep pocket. He held no weapon but would need his hands free. The gap closed to three meters and Raffe turned his head to the right to catch the dusty Austin 14 in his peripheral vision. He then drew his right hand out of his pocket and, with it, a small red kerchief, which he then stuffed, half protruding, into his back pocket.

  Berin saw the movement and knew the signal. The car had been little more than idly rolling, but now he picked up the pace. Berin knew that Shalman was no ordinary citizen; he had been trained well and raised to fight, so he was not to be underestimated.

  In ordinary circumstances Berin simply would have summoned Shalman—sent a message to meet and fully expect that he would come. But with what Ashira had told him about Shalman’s wife, and from what he had learned himself of Shalman’s strange dealings with the Arabs, Berin did not believe his actions would be easily predicted.

  Whose side was this man on? Where did his loyalties lie? There were too many variables, too many unknowns, not least the motives of his wife and the apparent murder of a Jewish professor. For all Berin knew at that point, Shalman was just as likely to disappear as cooperate, and he was taking no chances.

  Raffe looked over his shoulder once more and then, with a small movement of his hand, flicked the kerchief from his pocket and transferred it to his trousers. This was the signal. Raffe took two quickened paces to pull up behind and to the left side of Shalman. Berin accelerated past, then reached over and flung open the door to the car while Raffe seized Shalman’s arm in a tight grip and, with his shoulder, pushed Shalman bodily into the car through the open door and into the front seat.

  So smooth and fluid were the actions that, before Shalman even knew what had happened, the car door slammed shut and the car had accelerated sharply forward. Raffe in the backseat behind him snapped a Hessian bag over Shalman’s head and thrust the barrel of a pistol at the base of his skull.

  “Don’t move and don’t make a sound and you’ll be just fine.”

  • • •

  When the bag was snatched from Shalman’s head, he thought for a moment he was staring at the sun. The room was small and dark, but a bright lamp on the table where he sat burned into his eyes.

  The violence in the air of Palestine, the killings and explosions, maiming and torture, kidnapping and murders, made all its citizens cautious. Whoever had pulled him off the street struck fear into Shalman’s heart. In the landscape of Palestine today, his kidnappers easily could have been Jewish or Arab or British.

  As his eyes adjusted, he found himself looking across the simple wooden table at Immanuel Berin. He quickly turned to see who else was in the room and any clues as to what or where the room was. There was only one door; it was behind him, and in front of it stood a thickset man in dirty overalls.

  All the obvious questions filled Shalman’s mouth: Where am I? What do you want? But his tongue felt like rubber and he said nothing.

  “Don’t be afraid, Shalman. You’ll have to forgive the means by which I brought you here. These are dangerous times, and I am an overly cautious man. You know who I am?”

  “Yes. Of course,” said Shalman. And then, finding a steadier voice: “I want no part anymore. I’ve left Lehi. My fight is over.”

  “Is it?”

  After the airport explosion, Shalman had told Dov that he wanted no more and since then he’d had no contact with any of the Jewish resistance groups. But deep down Shalman had known it was never going to be that easy or simple.

  “I have questions for you,” said Berin.

  Shalman found his strength in a rising anger. “It was the bombing I did at the airfield. I’m not coming back. I have a daughter. You could have called upon me, sent me a message. You didn’t have to snatch me off the street! I would have come.”

  Berin pondered this for a moment. “This has nothing to do with you or your past, my friend. Maybe you would have come. Maybe not. But you say you’re no longer one of us. So I have no guarantees, do I? A man in my position needs to be sure of things or else mistakes are made. And right now I am not sure of you, Shalman. You have left the fight, you consort with Arabs, and your wife—”

  At this, Shalman’s eyes flashed angrily. “What of her?”

  “Have you heard from Judit, Shalman? Do you know where she is?”

  Shalman was suddenly nervous and shook his head unconvincingly.

  “We realize how much pressure the Resistance can be on a family,” said Berin, looking sincere. “Young men with no attachments make the best soldiers. But married men with children and responsibilities—for them it is much harder. Not to mention mothers . . .” Berin leaned in closer over the table. “The loyalty of a mother can never be greater than to her child, no matter how noble the cause she fights for. Is this not true
?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Your daughter, Vered, I believe. She is with your wife?”

  Shalman nodded.

  “And where are they, Shalman?”

  “She’s in Russia to see her family. It’s where she is from. Surely you know this. Why are you asking these questions?”

  “We’re only concerned about her welfare. Have you noticed anything unusual or different about her recently? Her behavior? Where she goes? Who she sees?”

  “What’s this about?” Shalman demanded. “You don’t kidnap me off the street to ask personal questions about my wife! What’s happened?”

  “Nothing’s happened. Can you tell us a little bit about your wife and where she comes from? We know she’s Russian, but we know nothing about her family. Who did your wife associate with here in Jerusalem? Outside of Lehi, what people was she friends with?” Berin turned a small paper pad around to face Shalman and placed a pencil on the paper with his other hand. “If you can write down their names . . .”

  Shalman involuntarily picked up the pencil. “I don’t know.”

  “Really? Think hard, Shalman,” replied Immanuel Berin.

  “I don’t know!” Shalman’s voice rose in frustration and he tossed the pencil across the table. It was not a lie; Shalman didn’t know. “I never know where she goes. I assume it’s missions for Lehi, working for the Resistance. But . . . I don’t know.”

  Berin nodded as if he understood.

  “Believe me, Berin, I don’t know where she goes. I don’t know what she does. I don’t know who she sees,” said Shalman, the words tumbling out of him.

  Immanuel Berin found himself believing the young man. By all appearances, he was thoroughly decent and likable. He changed tack. “Shalman, we have great hopes for Judit’s future. She is a woman of great courage and intelligence and very valuable to our cause. She’s going to be a prominent woman in the new Israel when it is created. But in truth we know very little about her. And, well, if she is to play this important role, we need to know who she really is.”

  Shalman lifted his eyes to meet Berin’s.

  “You can help us with this. I don’t want to doubt your loyalty. I want to trust you. Can I trust you, Shalman?”

  Castle of Henri Guillaume

  Duke of Champagne, Meaux, and Blois

  November 1095

  “HE HAS TO be stopped!”

  Jacob rubbed at his forehead hard in desperation.

  “Going on this pilgrimage will ruin us all. It’s madness. And imagine the slaughter. Once roused, these armed peasants will crush everything in their path. I’ve seen it happen, Nimrod. I’ve seen marauders on a rampage!”

  Nimrod looked at the old man and rolled his eyes at the hyperbole, though deep down he believed Jacob’s words.

  Jacob continued unabated. “Mark me, Nimrod. Innocent villagers will be murdered and their crops stolen to feed this multitude. They will begin their journey full of faith and prayers, and as soon as they run low on food and drink, as soon as they’re tired and blistered, they’ll turn their aggression on the innocents. They’ll turn on us—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped Nimrod. “The only ones who should be fearful are the Saracen.”

  “Fool of a man! Muslims and Jews are the children of Abraham. Do you think that Christians will see such a fine distinction when they’re wielding swords and axes in a Crusade? And we will bleed just the same for their bloodlust. Does Jerusalem, home of our ancestors, really need an invading force of chevaliers and infantry? An army of madmen charging into the city? There is no peace at the end of such an invasion. By the bones of Moses, this is a bad idea.”

  For nearly five hundred years, Jerusalem had found a prosperity it had rarely known in the centuries before. Islam had exploded out of Arabia and conquered the northern lands of Africa, but under the rule of the Muslims, Jews, provided they paid a tax, could worship freely, as could those Christian pilgrims who could afford to do so. They had long been granted safe passage, and the walls of Jerusalem enclosed a harmony where the three faiths of the Book rested side by side.

  But now, because of the declaration of a pope, a massive force was to be unleashed, and that harmony of common but separate belief was to be sundered apart.

  Nimrod waved away the concerns of the old man. “In any case, you and I will not be going. What use are two old Jews on a campaign? No. The duke will leave us here to manage his estate, and this will be good for us.”

  “Do not be so sure!”

  Nimrod was confused for a moment and looked at Jacob.

  “The duke employs us, protects us; he finds us useful and productive for our knowledge and our skills. And our families, our children, are happy here. But don’t be mistaken, my friend. The duke does not trust us.”

  • • •

  Jacob felt that his fears were well founded when, late that afternoon, the duke returned from his hunt. With the boar that he had speared with his third arrow being prepared by the cooks, Henri Guillaume made his way through the halls of his castle, calling for Nimrod and Jacob at the top of his lungs.

  The two Jewish men quickly made their way through the stone passageways to meet their lord and found him in an energized mood.

  “I have hunted the boar and I have made my decision!” yelled the duke of Champagne, as if the two acts of hunting and decision-making were directly related, one dictating the other. He flung his gloves across the room, paying no heed to where they landed. “In the forest, with a bow and arrow in my hand, I felt a presence . . .”

  The duke was not a pious man, and such language from their lord made Nimrod and Jacob uneasy.

  “As I unleashed the arrow that slew the boar, I knew that this hand”—the duke held up his ungloved fist—“must wield a weapon against more than pigs and game.” He lowered his fist and stepped toward the two Jewish scholars, his face beaming. “For my soul and my estate, we shall go on this Crusade!”

  Nimrod made to protest but was cut short by the duke. “And you, both of you, will come with me!”

  Moscow, USSR

  Christmas Day, 1947

  AS THEIR LIMOUSINE’S heating warmed the cabin so that it was comfortable for the journey to the airfield, Judit stood close to one of the tall stone pillars in the marble lobby of the Metropol Hotel and studied the important guests as they walked toward the elevator or sat in the deep armchairs.

  It was a side of Moscow, of Russian society, that as a young girl she never thought she’d see, let alone be a part of. Often she’d stood in Red Square, in the shadow of the walls of the Kremlin, and gazed over at the Metropol Hotel, the epicenter of Moscow life, and watched as huge cars pulled up and the expensively dressed party apparatchiks and their wives emerged from the darkened maw, stood momentarily on the pavement as if they were American film stars parading to be admired, and then sauntered toward the brilliantly lit lobby as a uniformed flunky saluted and opened the doors to admit them.

  She’d always viewed such pretension with distaste, but secretly, she’d envisaged herself doing the same thing. Then she’d take the trolley bus back home and walk through the potholed and muddy streets, the air redolent with the smells of cabbage and beets boiling away in a thousand begrimed kitchens, and all thoughts of how the elite of the classless society lived their pampered lives would evaporate. Yet only a dozen years later, here she was.

  And the expensively dressed men and women who treated the lobby of one of the best hotels in Moscow as though it were their second home, draping themselves over the furniture, didn’t look at her the same way they looked at Jews in the street. When she was a girl, venturing into the center of Moscow and walking along Tverskaya Ulitsa or Varvarka or Bolshaya Nikitskaya Ulitsa, people had looked upon her with contempt. She didn’t wear a yellow star as Jews did in medieval times, or more recently in Nazi Europe, but her Semitic looks branded her as a Jew. Even though Stalin had condemned Russian anti-Semitism, it was still the most prevalent and widesp
read prejudice of the Soviet Union.

  How different things were now.

  She glanced down at Vered, fast asleep on the floor in her little traveling cot, rugged up against the fiercely evil weather of a Moscow winter. She looked so innocent, so peaceful. What sort of a life would she have? Surely not like that of Judit herself, a living contradiction, one moment part of a warm Jewish family and the very model of a modern Israeli woman; the next aiming a sniper’s rifle at some hapless Arab or Zionist or British soldier. No, Vered would grow up in a very different place.

  Just a few days ago Judit had stood and looked down at the near comatose body of her father when she visited him in the hospital. She had felt all the anger and hatred evaporate. But she had also walked away, knowing that the door was closed and that her new life was free from that concoction of anger, guilt, and regret. She saw her father before her, powerless, and knew that she would never be powerless again.

  There was a sudden movement behind her; Judit turned and saw Anastasia walking hurriedly from the elevators. Judit’s smile disappeared when she saw how serious her controller looked.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve been summoned.”

  “Summoned where?”

  Anastasia smiled wryly. “The Kremlin.”

  Judit scooped up Vered, and together she and Anastasia hurried out the front door of the Metropol Hotel into the freezing, snow-filled, Moscow air. The limousine was outside, its exhaust creating a cloud of vapor behind the car.

  Judit looked to the right, where the Bolshoi Theater stood proudly, white against the dark winter sky. They climbed into the car, and Anastasia barked an order to the driver.

  It took them under two minutes to drive from the hotel, past Red Square, through the wall in the Alexander Gardens, to the private gates of the Kremlin Palace.

  Once out of the car, they climbed the steps into the armory where they were met by an unsmiling minion dressed in a dark conservative suit. They were shown to an outer office on the second floor and instructed to sit and wait.