Birthright

by Alan Gold

  Minutes later, the door to the inner office slowly began to open. Judit’s heart was beating fast in a way she couldn’t explain. The presence of Anastasia should have quelled all anxiety, but in this monstrous building, it had little effect.

  They watched the door open wider and wider, and out stepped a middle-aged woman whose gray hair was fixed in a bun at the back, and whose dark blue cardigan, long black skirt, and thick wool stockings spoke of a life devoted to being a secretary.

  “You may go in now,” she said.

  Judit and Anastasia stood on shaky legs. Judit picked up her baby’s cot, and together they walked through the door. Behind a huge mahogany desk sat a short, balding, bespectacled man, writing a note on a pad of paper. As they entered his office, he looked up and beamed.

  Judit stopped in her tracks. The man stood when he saw them enter, came around his desk, his arms outstretched, and hugged each woman in turn, kissing each of them on both cheeks.

  Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, foreign secretary of the USSR and second only in importance to Stalin, said, “It is a privilege to meet you both, especially you, Judita Ludmilla, our heroine of the Soviet Union.”

  Where Beria was a name to be feared by those who knew of him and the power of the NKVD, Molotov was a huge public figure. The man was on the front pages of newspapers everywhere, one of the most famous people in the world. His avuncular smile and genial manner belied a razor-sharp intelligence, a Machiavellian way of manipulating people, and an iron will to make the Soviet Union into the greatest superpower the world had ever known. He was regularly seen with British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and with Harry S. Truman, president of the United States of America. And now he was calling Judit a heroine. Her head was swimming.

  He led them to a couch opposite the window, which looked out on the multicolored onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. But no matter how extraordinary the site within a stone’s throw of where she was sitting, she had no eyes for the view; her gaze was upon the man who sat in an armchair opposite.

  “Let me first of all apologize to you for delaying your return to Palestine by asking you to come here. I know you were on the way to the airfield at Domodedovo village, but I wanted to meet you before you returned to the vital work you are both doing for us in the Middle East.”

  At the sound of his voice, tiny Vered began to whimper in her cot. Molotov looked down and smiled. “Do you need to feed her, my dear? There’s a private office next door.”

  Judit smiled. “No, thank you, Excellency. I fed her just before I left the hotel. She will soon settle.” Judit reached down, picked up her daughter, and gently rocked her on her shoulder.

  Molotov smiled tenderly. “I have two grandchildren, you know. One of my great pleasures, something which I love and do far too infrequently, is to return to my hometown of Kukarka and cuddle my daughter’s babies.”

  Anastasia, still dumbstruck at meeting the foreign minister, sat and listened, almost shaking her head as if this moment, indeed this entire occasion, were a dream.

  “Fear not; the pilot will wait for you under my orders. I have for you a very specific instruction that comes direct from Comrade Stalin himself.”

  Anastasia was impassive, and Judit had no idea if what Molotov was about to say was known to her.

  Molotov continued, “The removal of important and influential Jews who would oppose our plan can soon be brought to an end.” He sat back in his chair, shifted his gaze, and seemed to change the topic.

  “There are many people we have been watching in Palestine over recent years. Many of them will be well known to you. David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Shamir, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin . . .

  “Shamir is currently in France after his exile in Africa, but be assured that he will return soon to Jerusalem, and we believe that when we put the proposition to him, he will support our plans. Even though he hates the Poles, he has shown a certain warmth toward Mother Russia.

  “Menachem Begin is a different matter. I have my doubts. Before the war with the Nazis, our NKVD stupidly arrested him as a British spy and sent him to the gulags. He wasn’t there long, but I think his internment may steer him away from us.” Molotov’s voice contained not a hint of sarcasm.

  “But we have many candles burning brightly now in Palestine and none more brilliantly than you, Judita. I call you all candles, as it is you who will be a beacon of Soviet glorification in that troublesome and benighted region. And as you know, with warm and fraternal relationships such as we hope to have with a new government in Israel, our fleet of ships will be offered a permanent port in the Mediterranean, and will be an everlasting deterrent to the imperialism, expansionism, and colonialist hegemony implicit in the empire building of the United States of America.”

  Judit couldn’t help but think Molotov was reciting some sort of prerehearsed speech. Surely she had not been asked here to meet with Molotov simply to be told what she already knew.

  She could not help herself and spoke up. “Mother Russia is supplying both the Jews and the Arabs with guns and armaments. Aren’t we in danger of alienating both groups by playing one side against the other?”

  Molotov smiled. He’d been told of her sharp tongue and fierce intelligence. “It is in our interests for there to be war between Arabs and Jews, both before and after the British withdrawal. There are great advantages in this for us. Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon will inevitably launch armed assaults against the Jews, though we’re assured by our man there that Lebanon will not participate other than to show Arab brethren that she’s done something. Of course, this is all predicated on the United Nations voting to create Israel.”

  “But how does that benefit us?” Judit was genuinely puzzled.

  “If there is full-scale war and Arab invasion after Israel is created, then the UN will be—how shall I put this?—encouraged . . . to ask us to place our troops between the two forces. America may be asked, but they will refuse because they’ve seen the mess that Britain made of it.

  “By having our troops in Palestine, we’ll outflank the Americans in Greece, Iran, Turkey, and control the entire eastern Mediterranean. It’s what the Americans fear most, even though neither their feeble president nor their weary people have the stomach for another war. But Russia is not so weak-willed. And in the long term, there is always the treasure beneath the sand.”

  Judit did not have to ask to know that Molotov was speaking of oil. There was no oil in Palestine, but Russian influence there could shape the pipelines from the oil-rich nations of Arabia.

  “You may wonder, Judita, why I am telling you these things now—surely things you already know.”

  Judit nodded.

  The foreign minister leaned forward in his chair. “You will bring about the moment of triumph that we require . . .” Molotov shifted in his chair, almost for dramatic pause. “The most capable army in the region that can set itself against Israel is that of Trans-Jordan. However, we know that various Jewish leaders have been in discussions with King Abdullah and there is the distinct possibility that the Jordanians may withhold from any invasion. This is not to our advantage. We need insurance that such an agreement cannot be accomplished by the Jews.”

  Judit was aware that Molotov used the words “the Jews” as if she were not one, and she remembered what Anastasia once said to her: “Leave the Jewish girl behind. Be what you must be: a daughter of Russia.”

  Molotov continued, well used to speaking at length without interruption. “King Abdullah must be put under intense pressure from his people to go to war. Blood will bring about that pressure.”

  “Who, then, is the target?” asked Judit, racing through her mental files as she thought of prominent Arab fighters who might be targeted. Quietly, she found herself relieved by the idea that she would not be asked to kill another Jew or a civilian.

  “In this case it is as much about how the target is removed as who the target is,” Molotov said. “We need you to kill a man in a particular way. And not
to be invisible but to be seen to kill.”

  Judit knew her confusion was clear on her face. “You want me to be exposed as the killer?”

  Molotov smiled and shook his head. “No, you’ll arrange everything; we want the killers to be visible and immediately known.” He stood and paced the room as he spoke. “I assume you know Immanuel Berin? Regional commander of the Irgun?”

  Judit was stunned but finally found her voice. “A Jew? But I thought you wanted an Arab target to bring the Jordanians into the coming war.”

  Molotov shook his head. “No, we want Immanuel Berin to die and the Jordanians to be blamed. We want the investigation of his death to show that it was a Jordanian army commander who did the killing. Because Lehi and the Irgun are tinderboxes, it will be the spark that will make them retaliate. They will commit an atrocity across the border, and it is this retaliation that will leave King Abdullah with no room to maneuver. He will have to go to war.”

  A field outside Paris

  August 15, 1096

  THIRTY THOUSAND FOOT soldiers, all wearing tunics with the cross of Christ emblazoned on their breasts, as well as ten thousand noblemen and chevaliers on horseback, had gathered in a vast army and now waited in fields outside the walls of Paris. They had walked there from all parts of northern France, from the lands of the Dutch, from Britain, Germany, and the cantons of Switzerland. As each group arrived, it was directed into the fields of assembly south of the River Seine. The gathering grew until the last cohort of soldiers, who came from a distant part of Bavaria, arrived.

  On the day of their departure for the great adventure, they were blessed by Pope Urban, sprinkled with holy water by dozens of priests, provisioned with food and drink. They gathered, and despite different languages, dress, and foods, there was bonhomie in the fields. Their commanders, Raymond of Normandy, Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, Stephen of Blois, Baldwin of Boulogne, Robert of Flanders, and many others, sat in their separate tents with their priests and confessors, their treasurers and advisers, and talked at length about the campaign ahead, what rewards they could expect from participation.

  Pope Urban had originally determined that the Crusade would leave for Muslim lands on August 15. It was to begin on the Feast of the Assumption, but holy madness had spread like a wildfire throughout the Christian lands, and the official Crusade of soldiers for Christ was preempted by a ragtag collection of some forty thousand men and some women, and many lesser noblemen and third sons of barons, intent on making a fortune denied to them by their birth. Inflamed with the divine mission of freeing Jerusalem, this rustic crowd of peasants, armed with pitchforks and clubs, set off in April from the city of Cologne, completely unprepared for the rigors of the journey or the reality of the armies they would face on the way. They were led by Peter the Hermit, who had whipped the mob into a religious frenzy. Anyone experienced in war believed few, if any, would return alive. Sadly, it was the cause of much laughter and joking in the fields outside Paris.

  In the early morning, when their tents had been folded and packed alongside provisions and arms onto wagons, it took the entire army over three hours to file out of the fields and onto the road that led to the southeast. First to leave were the dukes, earls, barons, and attendant squires, who rode on wagons; then chavaliers on horseback, followed by foot soldiers slipping and sliding through the increasingly muddy grass, walking two by two in a line stretching as far as the eye could see. Citizens from Paris had come out to stand beside the road and cheer on the army of heroes of the Catholic Church. Girls dressed up in pretty dresses handed flowers to the soldiers.

  In the first days of the march, while they were still close to Paris, the men would burst spontaneously into song at night. But as the weeks wore on, singing was replaced with shouting and fighting and then bronchial coughs and, at times, debilitating silence. Paris and their homes became a distant memory.

  For their part, Nimrod and Jacob were well separated from the foot soldiers, but the stench the troops generated wafted on the wind. The two Jews slept together in a tent, erected by the duke’s squires, and had comfortable straw rolls on which to rest from the exhaustion of the day’s horse ride. The ancient seal, which Nimrod always put under his pillow, remained securely around his neck. Theft and assaults were commonplace. Being away from his chambers, he wouldn’t risk some stranger creeping into his tent in the blackness of the night and stealing it. And so he went to sleep, his hand grasping the replica of Matanyahu’s seal, made in the time of the Romans by a young boy named Abram, Nimrod’s distant ancestor.

  The village of Ras Abu Yussuf, nine miles west of Jerusalem

  THE STEEL WRENCH felt like it might snap in his hand before the bolt would loosen. Lying flat on his back in the dirt underneath the old truck, Mustafa pushed with all his might, but the nut was rusted tight. Exasperated, he tossed the spanner aside and laid his head back down on the dirt. For too many years he’d been able to keep the truck running, knowing the village was too poor to buy another. But as he lay under the vehicle in the shade cast by its rusted body, he resigned himself to the idea that her engine may never splutter again.

  “Are you working under there or just hiding from your mother?”

  Mustafa could just make out a pair of sandaled feet and slid out from under the truck.

  Shamil was short and pudgy, with the scraggliest beard of any man in the village. He reached down and helped haul Mustafa to his feet.

  “I think the truck’s gone this time. Rusted through, and we don’t have the parts.”

  “Allah will provide,” said Shamil, but both men laughed at the unlikely idea that God had even noticed.

  Shamil handed Mustafa a water bottle. “From your mother,” he said grimly. Mustafa took the bottle and swigged deeply. “I’m surprised you’re around to try and fix the old truck,” Shamil added.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “So often you are out digging in the dirt with your Jew friend.”

  Mustafa shrugged. He had spent a lot of time with Shalman at the caves and had reveled in both the discovery and the learning that his friend shared with him. He also knew that the people of his village were talking, and the one thing nobody wanted to be in an Arab village was the center of gossip.

  “Where is he? The Jew? Not seen you with him for some time.”

  Mustafa shrugged again. “Who knows?”

  Shamil picked up the wrench and twirled it absently in the air. Mustafa sensed there was something unsaid and waited for Shamil to continue.

  Finally, Shamil spoke. “Don’t think the Jew is your friend, Mustafa.”

  Mustafa caught the wrench midair as Shamil tossed it up, and lowered himself to crawl under the truck once more.

  “This is Palestine. I’m happy to call anyone a friend who isn’t aiming a gun at me.”

  Shamil caught Mustafa’s shoulder with his broad hand. “What about one who points bombs, not bullets?”

  Mustafa pushed the man’s hand away in annoyance. “What are you talking about?”

  “I was there, Mustafa.” Shamil hesitated, but looked Mustafa dead in the eye. “I was there that night on the airfield. I stayed outside. The British don’t like Arab men, but they like our children. That’s why I took little Munir with me. I sent him inside while I stayed outside on the edges of the airfield. I saw everything.

  “I wasn’t sure until he came to our village and spoke to us, telling us not to be full of anger when our land is carved up. But when I saw him, I knew. I knew it was him. I remembered his face.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Mustafa.

  “Your friend the Jew . . . He was the one at the airfield. I saw him with my own eyes. He was the one who drove the truck.”

  Mustafa brushed away the half-formed accusation with a wave of his hand and pushed himself to the ground to continue his work. But Shamil stood over him, silhouetted against the sun.

  “He was the one who set off the bomb that burned my cousin alive!”

&
nbsp; “You’re mistaken. You must be,” said Mustafa angrily.

  “Ask him. Ask your friend.”

  “I did!”

  “And what did he say, Mustafa?”

  Mustafa said nothing.

  “War is coming. Our Arab brothers will be arriving soon with guns and tanks and planes, and your Jew friend and all the others will be driven out. Friends tell the truth. And Jews are liars . . . And soon they will be gone!”

  Lydda RAF Base

  December 27, 1947

  SHALMAN DROVE THE borrowed car along the dusty road heading west, down the steep and winding road away from Jerusalem toward Tel Aviv and the sea.

  He drove toward the RAF air base outside the Palestinian town of Lydda, where international airplanes had just begun to fly passengers into and out of the region. He was heading there to meet his family.

  Soon after arriving and parking the car on an open field, he was searched by British soldiers. They went over every inch of his car, made him remove his jacket, and patted down his trousers. Almost begrudgingly, they moved him on. He and a dozen other people then waited in the Customs and Excise Hall, an unused aircraft hangar, for the transport plane from Turkey to land.

  Shalman watched as the plane drew closer, transforming from a distant smudge in the brilliant blue sky to a giant metallic bird, feet outstretched, landing with a bump and a bounce. The propellers roared and spluttered as the plane wheeled in a wide arc before coming to a halt. Ground crew strode out to place large chocks under the wheels to hold the aircraft in place as the propellers slowed down.

  Judit was one of the first to appear at the top of the stairs, which had been wheeled up to the fuselage. Shalman watched as she stepped into the sun. She raised one hand to shield her eyes while her other hand held Vered close to her body. Shalman walked out onto the grass and watched his family descend. His mind was fraught with mixed emotions. Love for his child, longing for his wife, yet fear, mystery, worry, and questions, always questions.