Danzig Passage

by Bodie Thoene

  The leaflets were ruined, covered by grease from a half-eaten sausage and ashes from a pipe.

  “Over a hundred!” Theo looked angrily at the man who crossed the square. “A very small fellow.”

  Other people had been nicer. An old woman brought Charles and Louis peanuts and handed out their papers while they ate. Some days the sun came out; more people stopped to sign and talk than on the dark days.

  This part of it was slow going, as Murphy said. But every day he wrote for the newspaper, and three times a week there were radio broadcasts that Murphy said could be heard as far away as the German Reich. He said he hoped the broadcasts gave Hitler indigestion, and Jewish people hope.

  ***

  D’ Fat Lady had a name, which Charles learned to say. “G’bye, Dell.” He felt sad the trio was leaving.

  “You remember t’ pray for ol’ Delpha Mae, honey.” She took Charles’ face in her big hands and kissed his forehead. She could see the worry in his eyes. The Nazis did not like people who were any other color than white. What would they do to these black American singers as they toured through the Reich? “You listen to yo’ daddy’s radio station every Thursday, honey, ’cause ol’ Delpha Mae gonna be sendin’ you love through the wires. Huh?” She gave Louis a kiss. She called him Louie and shook her finger at both the boys. “We gonna teach old Beet-hoven a thang or two! Gonna teach them Nazis all about bein’ hip!” At this, she threw her head back in a big laugh and hugged both boys one last time.

  There were hugs for Elisa, Murphy, Anna, and Theo while the taxi driver loaded steamer trunks and Hiram Jupiter’s silver horn for the trip to the ship.

  Philbert, the piano player, gave Anna one last word of advice. “You ’member now, you don’t need no music written down when you play! It’s different ever time, Miz Anna! By the time we gets back t’ England, I ’specs you gonna be playin’ jazz as good as Fats Waller, and that ain’t no jive!”

  “We’ll play a duet then.” Anna laughed. Then with serious eyes she took Delpha Mae’s hand. “God bless you. Be safe, ja?”

  “Don’ worry none, ’bout us!” Delpha Mae said loudly. “We is too noisy to jest diss’pear! Them Nazis would cause a war if’n our program didn’t come on the radio ever week like clockword!”

  Charles figured she meant to say clockwork. D’ Fat Lady Trio Program was broadcast every Thursday over TBS like clockwork. Ivory soap was the radio sponsor, and Charles had learned to sing the advertising jingle when he had been in New York. It was almost his favorite radio program, except for Charlie McCarthy. He liked the jazz because most of the times the lyrics were “Bippity . . . bop, bop, hey dad-dah!”

  With such words in their songs, the trio did not need to know German. They had already made a big hit in Paris. Three months of live broadcasts from France to America had put Ivory soap in the same league with French perfume. The trio had wowed sedate society in London, and now Elisa predicted that Mozart and Schubert would be dancing the jitterbug in their graves.

  As for the Führer, it was well known that he publicly disapproved of modern music, even while he privately screened American musicals. In regard to black musicians, he considered them to be a curiosity, “like performing bears,” and he looked the other way when groups toured the cabarets of Hamburg and Berlin and Vienna. Trump Broadcasting Service had specially arranged the tour of European capitals with Murphy overseeing the link-up through the BBC in London to New York. This was the only broadcast from Germany that did not require the approval of Nazi censors.

  Delpha Mae was right. The group was so popular in the States that not even the Nazi leader would dare insult them or discourage a warm reception in the Reich. Besides, he rather enjoyed this contrast of the great German culture to that of the culture of the United States. Delpha Mae had heard Hitler’s description of the corrupt and primitive music of “former slaves.” She simply shrugged it off and said that she reckoned the trio would add a little color to the entire tribe of goose-stepping prison wardens! “Ain’t that so?”

  Delpha Mae was not afraid of anybody!

  “You be listenin’, you two!” she called as the taxi pulled away. “I’ll blow you kisses from Vienna, babies!”

  ***

  Wolf rummaged through Lucy’s closet, at last pulling her most austere black dress from the rod—long sleeves, ankle-length hem, and high neck. It was the dress Lucy hated above all others.

  “I wear that to funerals,” she said angrily, “not luncheon receptions.”

  He tossed it on the bed. “This could be a funeral—your own, if you do not wear the dress.”

  “You told me he wanted to see beautiful German women. How can he tell if we are all made to wear black shrouds?” She pouted as she pulled up her stockings.

  “Haj Amin Husseini is a Muslim leader in exile, expelled by the British. He is here as a guest to the Führer. His idea of beauty does not include low-cut dresses and bare ankles and shoulders. Women are meant to be covered—veils and such.”

  “Then what’s the point? How will he be able to tell beauty? Take him on a tour of Rome and let him look at the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted some lovely nudes.”

  “Vatican City will not appeal to the leader of the Muslims in Jerusalem.” He buttoned his tunic and smoothed his hair. “He is more interested in touring prison camps for Jews than seeing great paintings, I hear.” Wolf watched her in the mirror as she dressed. “The Mufti considers women as window-dressing. You may smile, but don’t talk.”

  “Like a basket of flowers,” she said cynically. She did not like playing this role for the Mufti. She had heard he was barbarous and effeminate at the same time. Haj Amin was nothing like the sheik portrayed in the movies by Rudolph Valentino. Rumor among the secretaries in the Foreign Ministry said this Mufti fellow was actually more interested in pretty boys than women. The thought made Lucy’s skin crawl.

  This was one reception she wished Wolf had not asked her to. He explained that the Reich was courting the Arab factions in the British Mandate with the aim of acquiring Palestine as a colony of the Reich. The Jewish problem was as vital there as it was in Germany itself. And now those self-righteous Englishmen were campaigning to reopen the gates of Palestine for ten thousand Jewish waifs. British officers were leading Jews into battle! Haj Amin had come here for some reassurance that Germany would make such immigration impossible, as well as silence Jewish guns, Wolf told her. The Führer desperately wanted to drive the wedge deep between the Arabs and the British in Palestine. The Jewish issue provided an ideal wedge, as long as it did not also damage relations with Germany.

  Wolf believed that Lucy could not fully understand these lofty matters. But she understood the politics of dividing one group against another. Such tactics were used every day in friendships and marriage. Jealousy, dissatisfaction, anger—all these things could be used in getting what one wanted. Arabs and Jews had lived side by side for centuries. Now Hitler wanted Palestine; Haj Amin wanted Palestine. Together, Haj Amin and Hitler would have it—a simple matter of the eternal triangle, not to mention strange bedfellows. The Nazis and the Muslims had crawled into bed together, and together they plotted the end of the Jews.

  What is so difficult to understand about that? she asked herself later as she caught her first glimpse of Haj Amin arriving in his black Mercedes at the Hofburg. He had a light complexion and blue eyes, which no doubt made it easier for the Nazis to accept him. Whispers around the room told of the Mufti’s Crusader ancestors. He wore long robes and a fez on his head. He was small boned and indeed glided with a feminine walk into the room.

  He took Lucy’s hand as she moved through the reception line. He smiled, appreciating German beauty, no doubt. Lucy smiled back without speaking, feeling queasy at his touch. She attributed the reaction to her pregnancy and the strange excitement of coming near to someone so important. But then again, there was something about this man that reminded her instantly of the poisonous snakes she had seen in the reptile cages at the Schönbrunn
Park zoo. Nothing at all about him even vaguely resembled Rudolph Valentino.

  The afternoon was a social occasion. All the women were dressed like Quakers, and the men like peacocks. Haj Amin’s arrival had been well publicized in the state press as well as the international press.

  Haj Amin stood before the journalists of the world and said quite firmly that this drive for the immigration of ten thousand children into Palestine would have to be silenced. Otherwise those Englishmen who ruled Palestine with such tyranny would be startled at the violence they faced from the Muslim populace. There would be no peace, he warned. There would be no peace conference between Jews and Arabs and the English until this idea of ten thousand homeless Jews in Palestine was stamped out once and for all! No immigration!

  ***

  Lucy listened to the BBC at night when Wolf was not at home. Some, like Churchill, also saw the snake inside Haj Amin. Churchmen and plain people all said something must be done quickly, but it sounded to Lucy as though nothing would be done in the end. The success of Jewish fighters in Galilee was discussed at length. That, too, seemed doomed to failure.

  At times Lucy walked past the ruins of Jewish shops or the long bread lines where the Jewish women came with their children. She wondered what would happen to these people. They looked like sad-eyed mice huddling in the corner of a reptile cage. The jaw of the snake was unhinged, and through the clear glass Lucy watched them being devoured whole. Everyone watched. There was no attempt to hide anything. But what could anyone do?

  Lucy did not like asking herself that question. Why should she do anything, after all? Maybe she was one of the mice. How could she help anyone when she could not even help herself?

  ***

  The smoking truck sputtered its way through the village. The men of Hanita knew this place sheltered several Arab terrorists from across the Jordan. Only two days earlier the terrorists had sniped at another Jewish settlement, killing one man as he drove a tractor and seriously wounding the first of his friends who had run to help him.

  Orde’s Special Night Squad had tracked the attackers back to this village, but done nothing further—nothing until now, that is.

  Moshe had no trouble looking genuinely nervous as he wheeled the truck past the village in the gathering twilight. “Come on, come on,” he muttered to the complaining engine, “don’t break down here!” Missing the right front fender and headlight and sporting four unmatched tires, the ancient Dodge flatbed was used to haul seed and stock fodder around Hanita, but was seldom trusted off the settlement’s property. Its sagging springs were even now loaded with a neatly stacked load of grain sacks.

  Moshe’s shoulders hunched over the steering wheel as he urged the truck to continue running with all the strength of willpower he could muster. He threw a glance sideways as he clattered past the headman’s house. Against the doorjamb leaned a keffiyeh-crowned man with a hawklike nose and a permanent scowl because his lower lip was missing.

  Moshe thought the man looked mean enough to have bitten his lip off himself. The man narrowed his eyes as he watched Moshe drive by, then spat loudly enough to be heard over the rattling engine. The view in the cracked rearview mirror through the missing rear window showed Moshe that the terrorist had abruptly ducked inside the house.

  Relieved at having successfully passed the village, Moshe thought ironically that the villagers would probably be as pleased as the Jews of Hanita to see the last of this man.

  A scant quarter-mile beyond the Arab community, the narrow dirt track began a sudden steep grade. Midway up the climb out of the wadi lay a hairpin switchback that could only be turned by successively going forward and back a few feet at a time—a turn that would slow down any traveler.

  Moshe painfully maneuvered the complaining truck around the corner, gears clashing. The truck’s whole body shuddered like a prehistoric beast dying. Giving a last bellow that ended with a slowly spinning whine, the truck’s engine died. Only halfway around the turn, the truck stood squarely across the road.

  Moshe jumped out of the cab and hastily grabbed a rock with which to block the wheels before the truck rolled backward into the wadi. Then he backed toward the truck’s hood, all the while staring intently down along the road. He raised the hood on its lone remaining hinge and propped it open with the stick tied there for that purpose.

  He was busy for a moment, reattaching the two sparkplug wires that had become disconnected. He might have done it faster had he watched his hands instead of the road, but his hands were shaking as he wiped the grease from them onto the legs of his coveralls.

  When he straightened up, he was not surprised to see three shadowy forms in checkered keffiyehs striding toward him up the road. They came boldly, making no attempt at caution or quiet. The man with the disfigured face took the lead; the other two flanked him a few paces behind. All three carried rifles slung over their shoulders.

  Partway up the hill they stopped as they saw Moshe gazing down at them. “What’s the matter, Jew?” called the leader. “Has your machine breathed its last?” The other two men snickered into their beards.

  “Just a little trouble,” replied Moshe in carefully measured tones.

  “More than you think, dog,” said the lipless one. “You are in a puzzle. If you run like the cur you are, I will shoot you down like I did that Jew farmer the other day. And—” he paused ominously— “ff you stand still, I will cut out your heart.” He reached into the sash knotted around his waist and drew out a short gleaming knife.

  Moshe mumbled something, but in a voice too low to be heard. “What was that, Jew?” called the leader of the terrorists, stepping a few paces nearer.

  Moshe’s lips could be seen to be moving, but the three men still could not make out his words. One of the mutilated man’s companions called out mockingly, “He must be praying!” The trio advanced a few more steps.

  In a voice suddenly so loud that it made the three stop in their tracks, Moshe called out, “You are right! I am praying right now!”

  As he shouted the last two words, Moshe lunged under the front axle of the truck. On the truck bed, a tarp that had covered the top of the load of grain sacks was thrown off, Zach and Larry Havas stood up, German-made rifles in their hands. The weapons lay across the barricade of sacks pointed down the slope at the startled Arabs. Havas’ first shot dropped his man in his tracks.

  Zach Zabinski fired, missed, then worked the bolt and fired again before his mark had finished shrugging the rifle off his shoulder. The second terrorist also crumpled in a heap on the road.

  The leader of the cutthroats didn’t even try to bring his rifle to bear. Instead he threw himself forward at the first shot, screaming his anger and defiance. He brandished his dagger overhead as his charge carried him almost to the side of the truck before Havas and Zabinski each fired again, both shots striking the man. The impact of the blows spun him completely around, so that his robes twirled in the twilight like the frenzied dance of a religious fanatic.

  A moment later the hillside was quiet again, and Moshe crawled out from under the truck. “I cannot tell you,” he said, “how glad I am you fellows have been practicing.”

  When they had returned to Hanita, Orde met them at the gate. “How did it go?” he asked dryly.

  “No trouble at all,” replied Havas, grinning. “Of course, we had to defend ourselves once, but honestly, it was no trouble at all.”

  ***

  Alfie did not even bother to duck tonight when he spotted the light of the old watchman come around the corner of New Church. The watchman never looked for anyone in the tombs. He only whistled and hummed and checked all the boards on the windows and doors. He would not have been very good at playing hide-and-seek. He did not know any of the good places for hiding. He walked very slowly, shuffling his feet. This was not the other watchman who was at New Church before. Alfie did not like the new man’s face. His eyes were squinty and his mouth was turned down. He had a little mustache just like Hitler and he wore an
armband with a crooked cross. If it had not been for that, Alfie might have tried to make friends with him. But Alfie especially did not like the armband.

  Soon enough the watchman went away. Alfie was glad. He went down the stone steps into the underground room. It was all dark; Alfie did not light his candle until the watchman had come and gone each night.

  He felt along the stone bench for his matches and the candle. He had practiced, and now he could light the candle with only one match. Mama had let him have the broken candlestick for his clubhouse when he had asked her. The light made the room seem warm and he whispered thanks again to Mama with the same happy feeling he had when she gave him the candlestick so long ago. Maybe Mama had known how much he would need it. Maybe he had known it too, in a way, even though he had not thought about it then.

  The smooth stone walls shone golden in the light. On the right and the left were benches made out of stone. Alfie made his bed up neatly and smooth on the right bench. Stacks of sardine cans and cans of beans and peaches sat on the floor below the left bench. Alfie organized them in rows that looked like a town with buildings and streets, and even a park. Sometimes he stacked two cans of peaches up to make a tall building like the Opera House. With sardine cans he made the Brandenburg Gate. He put his tin soldiers on top and liked his city very much. He used the empty cans for houses where people lived. His apartment was all shiny and bright because he took the labels off the empty cans. And over there was Friedrichstrasse and the Jewish church like it used to be, and then New Church where everyone came and sang and prayed and Pastor Ibsen talked about good things like Jesus loving children no matter how smart or not smart they were.

  The Hitler-men had not liked that talk. They stood in the back of the church with angry faces when Pastor Ibsen talked about God looking inside at souls to see who was really perfect and who was deformed. Alfie played out that Sunday morning again and again, because he remembered how good he felt that Pastor stood up for Alfie and the other children who were being taken from their families and sent away out of the sight of the German people. That day a lot of other Christians came to New Church. The Hitler-men wrote down their names on lists and said they had not heard the last of this!