by Bodie Thoene
Father Kopecky nodded as if knew it all along. “Your mother is such a pious woman. I knew her son would also be fair. The Rabbi Lubetkin will be released then?”
“I have nothing to say about that,” said the director. Yet another finger was being pointed. “You will have to speak with the head of internal affairs. That matter is in the government’s jurisdiction, I’m afraid.”
“What?” The priest leaned forward.
“As I told you, Father, this has to do with the deportees. There are other leaders of the Polish Jews who are being detained for questioning.”
Etta was stunned. “But why? What have they to do with government affairs?”
The director sighed wearily. He did not know everything, but he offered them the explanation he had gotten. “Apparently the Jews have begun their conspiracy of assassination. We were warned . . . the government was warned by the intelligence service of another country that the next few days might be days of violence of the Jews against other races.” He nodded at the bewilderment in Etta’s eyes. “Your husband has been known to have strong connections with a leader of a Zionist group here in Warsaw. You have connections yourself.”
“Dr. Letzno?”
“Yes. That is his name. He is suspected to have contacts with the Communists in Russia. Of course, the Communists would like to take over Prague. The Jews will help them.”
“Propaganda from Hitler!” Etta proclaimed. “Nonsense!”
“All the same, you see what happened in Paris this morning. And in Palestine. The Jews have begun to assassinate public officials.” The director was adamant in his belief that the shooting of Ernst vom Rath was somehow connected to events in Poland.
“My husband is a humanitarian, not a politician. He certainly has nothing to do with any violence against public officials.”
“He has had some contact with the parents of the young killer. Grynspan. Herschel Grynspan is the boy’s name.”
Father Kopecky leaned forward. “But the shooting only happened this morning! If Rabbi Lubetkin was somehow related to such a thing, why was he detained yesterday? Before the shooting?”
The director shrugged. “Not my department. How do I know how they know these things? We have just been advised to keep an eye on the leaders of the Warsaw Jewish community because there is a wide-spread Jewish plot underway.” He shrugged. “You husband has been implicated.”
“Aaron would never harm anyone,” Etta protested. “You cannot hold him.”
“I do not hold him!” exclaimed the director. “You are talking to the wrong fellow!”
***
The junior officer at the British headquarters brought in yet another communication from the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab Council.
Orde and Eli sat with the secretary taking his dictation. They sipped steaming cups of coffee as the story of the fight in the souk unfolded.
“I was trying to pull myself up when he lunged,” Eli said wearily as if reliving the moment was too much for him. “The metal rod was above me. I grabbed it and it whipped forward. He fell on it. It was an accident.”
Orde leafed through the stack of typed Arab demands. “They have a different story, and—” Orde frowned and pulled out a contract, written in Arabic and signed by Victoria’s father and Ram Kadar, with Ibrahim as a witness. “Marriage contract,” Orde said. “Reads more like a business transaction for cattle.” He passed it to Eli, who read it and shook his head. “Well, at least I’ve got her free of all that.”
Orde was still frowning. He scratched his cheek in thought as he pulled out a second document sealed with the official seal of the Arab Higher Committee. “A marriage certificate,” Orde said. “They are claiming that her marriage to this fellow already took place.”
Eli did not need to wonder why the document had been forged. It was part of the propaganda that was only beginning. Already he had heard the claims that he had kidnapped the sister of Ismael Hassan and that the kidnapping had then led to murder. “If such tricks were not so deadly, they would be laughable.”
Orde sighed and sipped his coffee. “Deadly. Yes. I’m afraid we will have to move you out of Palestine as soon as possible. I spoke with the high commissioner, No one in the government is fooled by this.”
Once again the junior officer poked his head into the room. He had an astonished look on his face. “Captain Orde! Wait until you hear this one!” He motioned for Orde and Eli to follow to the radio room.
The frantic voice of Radio Cairo crackled over the air waves:
“The body of Victoria Hassan has been found in an alley in the Old City. The murderer Jew, Eli Sachar, is being handed over to the Arab Higher Committee for trial . . . Ram Kadar, husband of the murdered woman, vows that he will personally take revenge for the killing and rape of his wife.”
Orde looked first at the junior officer and then at the radio operator. “Propaganda.”
“That’s not all,” the radioman turned up the volume.
“In Paris, this morning, a young Polish Jew has shot a high-ranking member of the staff of the German Embassy. Hitler has proclaimed that the incidents in Palestine and now in Paris are part of a world-wide conspiracy of the Jewish Bolsheviks, and that responsible government must unite to stop such . . .”
At this point the reception whined and howled, obscuring the words that followed.
***
Victoria made her way through the stones of the cemetery on the slope of the Mount of Olives. On the crest of the hill she looked back toward the masses of people who already crowded into the Old City through St. Stephen’s Gate. There were fewer mourners moving through the south entrance of the Dung Gate. There, the sheep destined for slaughter milled in the stock pens. A few donkeys were corralled as their masters were searched by English soldiers before they passed into the Old City on their way to the funeral.
Englishmen would not dare to search a woman in a nun’s habit, she reasoned. She set off cross-country toward the Dung Gate on the south side of the Dome of the Rock.
It was an hour before she reached the entrance to the Old City. The questioning stares of the young soldiers greeted her.
“Today is not a good day to enter the Old City, Sister,” one said, tipping his cap in respect.
“I have need to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today,” she said piously. “I have a vow to fulfill.”
The soldiers exchanged worried glances. A few more Bedouin shepherds fell in line behind her, waiting to be searched. “No one is being searched at St. Stephen’s Gate,” an old Bedouin whispered behind Victoria. “There are too many people there. Too many. But they have nothing to hide from the English, anyway. It is a small inconvenience.”
“Sister, today is not a good day to enter the City. There is a funeral for a Muslim brother and sister today. Didn’t you see the crowds? From all over Palestine. The Mufti has made a regular event out of it.”
“It surely will not be started before I can walk to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That is, unless you detain me here longer.”
One of the soldiers rubbed his cheek. He would warn her one last time. “Well, you ought to stay there until this thing blows over. Maybe all night, if you have to.”
“If there is trouble I will not leave.”
He waved her through. “There will be trouble all right! Be careful, Sister.”
Victoria inclined her head slowly and crossed herself as she had seen the sisters do. She hurried past the shuttered butcher shops and picked her way around the animal droppings for which the Dung Gate was named. Except for mourners heading toward the entrance to the Haram and the Dome of the Rock, the streets were empty. There was no sign of Christian or Jew here today.
She stepped into a public restroom and removed the wimple from her head. Then she loosened the scarf that tied back her hair and draped it loosely over her head like a veil. She could only hope that the Muslim crowds would not notice that the clothes she wore were those of a Russian convent novice.
/> Victoria stepped outside into a crowd of mourners who spoke angrily among themselves about the words of the Koran in regard to vengeance in such a case. “This Jew should die a slow death. He should be made to suffer as the families of those he murdered will suffer!”
Victoria walked with her eyes downward until they passed through the Armenian Quarter to the Wailing Wall. There was not one Jewish rabbi there today.
“They are afraid,” said one old man in a fez. “And rightly so! We will cause them to suffer as well. The Koran demands it. A tooth for a tooth!” Victoria noticed he had no teeth, but he pulled out a dagger from his belt all the same. “How can this Sachar fellow pay all the penalty himself? No matter how he suffers, it will never be enough. I say all the Jews should suffer!”
“Brother and sister both killed by the same hand! She was raped and beaten, they say! We will make certain the Jew violates no one else.”
For a moment, Victoria considered revealing herself to them, but then she thought better of it. When the crowds fell silent to listen to the Mufti, then she would speak. She would pull off the scarf and run to her father. She would reveal to all of them the truth that Eli had not done what he was accused of.
“They will bring in the coffins side by side,” a tattooed old woman whispered to Victoria.
“Brother and sister,” added another old woman. “Jerusalem has never seen such a thing as this!”
Victoria looked away. She could not answer. Would even her revelation stop what was to come? These people had no concern for her brother Ismael. They did not know the family or Victoria. She walked among the people who had come to mourn and bury her, and they did not know who she was!
It was unsettling. The side street into the Street of the Chain was packed. The crowd from her street backed up as entry to the Haram slowed to a crawl.
Victoria looked up at the spikes of the minarets. The Mufti’s men stood there, rifles slung over their shoulders, looking down on the crowds. Their gazes seemed without emotion, like a cat eyeing a wounded bird and waiting. . . .
***
“But she is gone, I tell you!” The voice of Mother Superior shouted to Eli over the telephone, causing the other nuns in the office to stare at her. Had they ever seen Mother Superior so upset?
The hands of the old woman trembled as she held the note Victoria had written.
Thank you for your kindness. I will remember . . . Must return to my home and family to prove I am well . . . for the sake of my husband.
She read the words to Eli, who had also heard the Arab broadcast and telephoned so that Victoria would not worry. But the call had come too late.
“I do not know when. I stopped back by the guest cottage only a few minutes ago and found this note of farewell and a Bible left beside it for her friend, Leah. But she was gone, and no one at all saw her leave.”
***
From the upper-story windows of the Tankiziyya, the Mufti could look straight down on the crowds who moved along the Wailing Wall as they jostled toward the entrance to the Haram. The Haram itself, courtyard of the Dome of the Rock, was filling up fast. Estimates were made of twenty thousand and then thirty and now forty thousand with thousands more filling up the roads on their way to the shrine.
All this, and it was still two hours before the appointed time of the funeral. It was more than he had hoped. Allah had given bountifully to the ranks of the army of the Jihad! Today the name of Allah would be He Who Destroys! In every city and village in Palestine the muhqtars were ready to release their wrath at the same moment the spring uncoiled here in Jerusalem!
Haj Amin turned to Vargen and Hockman in his pleasure. “It will take only a word,” he said. “They have come here for this! This show of death is what they have been waiting for to enliven their spirits! Today will be a day they speak of for generations to come.”
“The second coffin adds a little something, I think,” Hockman said as he looked out a side window into the courtyard where the two coffins lay side by side. “The rape and murder of a woman. It is the stuff great explosions are made of. You have done well.”
“She was a prostitute,” Haj Amin explained. “My men disfigured her face enough so that even those who know Victoria Hassan would not be sure who it was.”
“The crowds do not care, anyway. They have come for a show. A dead woman is good enough, lying at the side of the brother who tried to save her. Now, that is splendid!”
Word had already come of the bungled attempt on the life of a German official in Paris by a young Jew. The timing was impeccable, even if the Jew’s aim had not been. Vargen had no doubt that the Führer would make good use of the incident regardless. The planned violence in the Reich would erupt at the same time as the demonstrations here in Palestine. Such events would leave the world, especially Great Britain, reeling.
“Tomorrow the Woodhead Committee makes their announcement about the immigration question,” Haj Amin muttered with pleasure. “We will make certain they are aided in their decision.”
***
Etta stood trembling in the anteroom of the office of the Minister of Internal Affairs. Beside her stood the little priest, Father Kopecky. “Courage, my child, courage,” he whispered.
The door into the minister’s private office opened and the secretary emerged. “You may go in now, Father.” The tall, thin-faced woman, with her hair pulled back severely from her face, addressed herself to the priest as if Etta were not even present.
They walked into the office together, and stood before the desk of Poland’s Minister of Internal Affairs. The man gave them no word of acknowledgment, nor any offer for them to be seated. He continued to scan the contents of a file folder that lay spread out in front of him.
At last Father Kopecky broke the silence by asking, “In the light of the evidence you undoubtedly have read, Minister, surely it’s clear that Mrs. Lubetkin’s husband should be freed.”
The minister finally looked up from the papers to scrutinize Etta and Father Kopecky from under heavy eyelids and bushy eyebrows. “I’m surprised at you, Father, getting yourself mixed up in such an affair. Do your superiors know of your involvement?” Before Father Kopecky could reply the minister continued, “Aren’t you aware of what is happening in Germany? At this moment, the Germans are taking steps to eliminate the problem of the Jewish Bolshevik conspirators in their midst. We here in Poland will do even better than that. We will not let the problem grow to the size that it has in Germany. We will take steps right now to insure that we do not have any difficulty controlling our Jews.”
Father Kopecky was almost speechless with disbelief, and into the silence that followed the minister’s remarks, Etta blurted out, “But I can pay—I can pay for my husband’s release!”
Father Kopecky looked at her with horror, and Etta stopped abruptly, but the minister only shook his head slowly and gave a single snort of disgust. “You Jews!” he said. “You think your money will save you—well, no longer. We are rounding up all Bolshevik agitators, and we’ll round up many more before we’re through. You’d do well to keep that in mind, Father.”
“Is that all?” gasped Etta. “Is there no appeal?”
“In due time, your husband’s case will be considered,” concluded the minister. “And now, I have more important business.” With a negligent wave of his hand he indicated that they should leave.
44
At the Hour of Our Death
The Bible on the mantel convinced Eli of Victoria’s real reason for leaving. She was going to the Muslim Quarter, yes, but she was not going home. As he replaced the receiver, he stared out the window to the panorama of Jerusalem beyond. The Muslim crowds, they said, were beginning to gather in the courtyard of the Dome of the Rock for the funeral of Ismael Hassan. That was where Victoria was going. She would show herself there to convince the people of the lies of Haj Amin Husseini.
In such a place, at such a time, there would be no one to help her. Even the British soldiers along the wall t
ook their posts behind the stones and peered out at the multitudes with a sensible fear.
It was easy for Eli to walk past the sentries of British military headquarters and out of the building. Dressed in the uniform of Captain Orde, the men saluted as he passed on his way to the motor pool.
“Captain Orde asked me to bring the car around,” he explained nonchalantly to the same sergeant who had parked the vehicle for them this morning. A salute and an obedient nod was followed by a set of keys placed in the palm of Eli’s hand.
Within two minutes from the time he left the building, he was driving alone toward the Old City walls.
From the Hill of Evil Counsel, Eli could plainly see the onion domes of the Russian church and the Dome of the Rock across the steep Valley of Kidron.
Fog moved like currents of water around the low spots on the road ahead. It snagged on headstones protruding from the hillside beneath the Muslim holy place.
From every side road, Eli could see shadowy forms of the Muslims who were coming to mourn and to express their outrage today. They poured onto the main road in front of the car. Keffiyeh-swathed heads turned to stare with resentment at the British armored car that forced them to move to one side as it crept past. He drove by the convent and cast one searching gaze over the pine-studded grounds. She was gone! Gone!
Eli found himself searching every woman’s face. He slowed the speed of the vehicle until it moved no faster than a walk as he looked for Victoria among the crowds. When he was certain she was not among one group, he sped ahead to the next. It occurred to him he did not even know what she was wearing. He had left her this morning in the white cotton shift. Would she have put on the uniform of a British soldier again? He scanned the mob for a helmet, but then realized that no sane Englishman would dare to come among this group.
Thousands jostled before St. Stephen’s Gate. Like grains of sand through a funnel, they poured into the Old City and onto the Via Dolorosa as they inched toward the Dome of the Rock.
