by Bodie Thoene
Ibrahim did not move to comfort her. “This is men’s business,” he said more harshly than he intended. “I came to warn you not to go to work tomorrow, that is all. What difference does it make if you work for them or not?”
“It makes a difference to me!” she cried. “That is the only place I am treated like a human being with a mind except for . . .”
“Except for Eli?” Ibrahim finished. She was pouting as women sometimes did. He would not yield to her display of foolishness. “I will not bring him to you until he is one of us.”
She tossed her hair in a defiant gesture. “And do you think he will ever be one of us if you and our half brothers are part of . . . whatever is going to happen tomorrow?”
“We wish only for a free Arab State.”
“Then go to Jordan! Or Syria! What does it matter? The English are good to us! Jews and Arabs! I work at the Mandate administration! I cannot hear this!” She covered her ears.
Ibrahim did not reply. He waited. She lowered her hands, and then he spoke gently. “There will be no violence.”
“So you say each time! Do you think I am blind? Or only stupid?”
“Only a demonstration of Muslim displeasure for the English Woodhead Commission. They will see—”
“That we are barbarians.”
“Not barbarians! . . . Conquerors! As the Prophet has written, as Allah has whispered, Jerusalem will belong to the faithful! To those who bow down.”
“I have heard the sermons of Haj Amin,” she said scornfully. “He promises Paradise for those who die fighting jihad! Holy War!” She moved to the window and looked toward the Dome of the Rock just beyond the housetops of the Old City. “What use is Jerusalem to us if we are dust? Can Allah mean that we are to kill those who have always lived beside us? Can you fight also against Eli because he is a Jew?”
“If Eli is not with us, then I will fight him.” There was a coldness in Ibrahim’s eyes that made Victoria shudder inside.
“But he is like a brother to you.”
“He loves you. That will make him see reason.” It was as if Ibrahim was not listening.
“Then you are also one of them,” Victoria whispered. “You believe the words Haj Amin speaks to the people.”
“He speaks the words of Mohammed. The words of Allah. He will be king over Jerusalem, and those who follow him will be exalted.”
“Haj Amin is an assassin!” Victoria drew back. She stared at the hands of her brother. Could those hands do the bidding of a leader like Haj Amin?
“It is the will of Allah—,” he began.
“That you murder the innocent tomorrow?”
“There will be no murders tomorrow.”
“But you will make certain no more Jews come to Palestine.”
Ibrahim shrugged. “A few more tires will be burned in the streets.” He attempted to lighten the darkness of her imagination. “A demonstration that will hang in the noses of these Englishmen. Burn their eyes a bit. Black clouds of burning rubber. No violence, Victoria.” He took a step nearer. “I came only to warn you that you must not go to work tomorrow.”
“Then I will lose my job.”
“So be it,” he said coolly. “Arab women do not need to work for the English unless they serve their brothers in some way.”
Now Victoria turned on him. There was no doubt what he was asking of her. “Get out, Ibrahim! You . . . I thought you were not like our half brothers! I did not think that you . . . ” She stammered in her rage against him. “I will leave this house before I consent! Spies are still hanged in Palestine! It makes no difference if they are women! Get out!” She cried too loudly now.
The voice of her stepmother called gruffly up the stairs. “What is wrong with the princess now?”
Ibrahim bowed slightly. “Salaam, Victoria.” He backed up a step into the corridor and closed the door, blocking her black look. Then, with a smile, he inserted the key to her room into the lock and turned it as she gave a desperate cry against her imprisonment.
***
From the tall minaret beside the silver dome of the el-Aqsa Mosque, the cry of the muezzin went out over the dusk of Jerusalem.
Pacing in her small, Spartan bedroom, Victoria did not stop to kneel or bow to pray as her brothers did downstairs. Could she pray to such a God? Allah? Through His prophet He demanded death and domination over all who did not believe the words, “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet!”
Throughout the city, men with faces bowed low uttered these words. These were the same men who, like the half brothers of Victoria, planned riots and rebellion and plotted for the murders of those who did not follow Haj Amin!
Victoria would not bow to this Allah! She raised her chin in defiance as she faced east toward the Dome of the Rock. Fading sunlight shone dully on the tarnished dome as her faith died.
“I will not pray to you,” she whispered. “You who have made my life a prison! Never again will I bow to you!”
And so she stood throughout the minutes when all the Muslim faithful touched their foreheads to the ground. All that she had been—everything she had been taught as a child—evaporated like an unheard prayer. Emptiness and anger replaced the words “ . . . and Mohammed is His prophet!”
Victoria lay on her bed and watched as the final rays of sunlight faded into the darkness of a moonless night. She wanted to weep but did not allow herself even that small luxury. One sigh, one tear, and her stepbrothers and their mother would gloat and laugh among themselves at the misery of the one they mocked as “the princess.”
Hours crept by. The bells of Christ Church tolled ten o’clock; then the key rattled and her door swung back. Daud held a tray of food. Behind him, shadowed in the backlighted corridor, stood his mother.
The woman’s bitter voice preceded her into the room. “Is the princess sleeping?” Then she commanded, “Set the tray down, Daud, and leave us.” She snapped on the light, and Victoria sat up, blinking against the glare.
“I am not hungry.” Victoria did not look at the tray of food. She was, indeed, very hungry, but she would not show even that to this woman.
“We did not want you telling your father that we locked you up and did not feed you.” The woman narrowed her eyes. There was no hint of kindness. This gesture of food was only to protect herself against the anger of her husband.
“If my father were here—,” Victoria began.
“He is not here. And so you answer to me.” She held up the key and smiled an unfeeling smile.
“When my father returns—” Victoria spoke carefully. She must not give in to the tears of anger that pushed at her throat. “When he returns from Teheran, then you will answer to him for this.”
The smile broadened. “It was your own brother Ibrahim who locked the door and brought me the key, remember? For your own protection, my dear girl.”
“You harbor rebellion in my father’s house! You encourage your sons and my own brother against the wishes of—”
The woman took a threatening step toward Victoria. “It is you who rebel against my authority!”
“You are not my mother!” Tears brimmed in Victoria’s eyes against her will.
This pleased the woman who stood over her. “Your tears do not move me as they do your father. The matter is settled. You will remain here. We will give you no chance to warn these Englishmen you are so fond of.”
“Warn them?” So this was the reason for her confinement. There was no thought of safety for her, after all. “You think they will not notice when I do not come to work? You think they will not ask me why and how I knew? You warn them by keeping me prisoner here.”
The reasoning of this penetrated the mind of the woman. She eyed Victoria for a moment longer and then challenged her. “If you tell them of the meeting here today, they will arrest your father.”
Victoria did not argue that, even though Amal Hassan hated the politics of his wife and sons. “Just let me go.” Victoria was once again in control.
The woman considered the request. “It means a lot to you, this job with the English?”
Victoria chose her words carefully. With this woman, to show too much pleasure for anything meant that the object of her pleasure would be somehow denied her. It had always been so since the day the woman had married Victoria’s father. She had possessed a kind of cruel beauty then, but the years had twisted the beauty into ugliness, and the cruelty had only become more harsh.
“My job with the English is just a job. They pay better than anywhere else in Jerusalem, that is all.”
The woman understood money. “Greedy little princess. Never enough for you, eh?” Her eyes narrowed as she thought what to do. “You will stay here,” she said at last. “I will send word you are ill. And when your father returns, we will speak of finding you a husband. That will quiet your rebellion!”
“Please—,” Victoria begged.
The begging pleased the woman, as had Victoria’s tears. “When your father returns we shall discuss . . . your future.” She stepped out before Victoria could reply. The key turned in the lock, and Victoria finally let herself weep.
***
Jerusalem was still asleep. The sun had not yet risen when the rattle of her doorknob awakened Victoria.
Ibrahim’s voice called gently to her. “My sister, are you awake?”
Victoria sat up in drowsy confusion and pulled the blanket around her shoulders. Why had Ibrahim awakened her before dawn?
“Ibrahim?” she questioned, forgetting last night’s fears as he unlocked the door. “What . . . ?”
She turned the knob and her brother stood before her, holding a tray with fresh fruit and a small bowl of boiled eggs. He brushed past her and placed the tray on her chest of drawers. He was not smiling.
“We have some bad news,” he said quietly.
Victoria felt herself groping for the bed. “Is it Father?” she managed to ask.
Ibrahim smiled slightly. “A messenger came from Hebron last night while you were sleeping. The sister of our mother has died.”
She put a hand to her head in relief. “Aunt Antoine?” she managed to ask.
Ibrahim nodded. “We are the only children of this branch of the family. Get dressed. We must mourn for her in Hebron today.”
Victoria blinked in understanding. Her relief that it was not her father far outweighed any sorrow she might have had for the loss of her mother’s sister.
She examined the breakfast tray and suddenly felt ashamed for her thoughts against Ibrahim last night. Only her dear brother would have thought to bring breakfast to soften the blow of bad news. In the next instant she remembered Leah. The King David Hotel. Tea at four o’clock. “My job—,” she said, unable to find a way to explain that she had an appointment with a Jewish woman this afternoon.
“I have taken care of all of that.” Ibrahim’s voice was matter-of-fact. “I sent a messenger to the home of Tasha with word that there is a death in the family.”
Well, then, that was taken care of. Victoria could only hope that Leah would think to ask the right department supervisor when Victoria missed their appointment.
A strange light filled Ibrahim’s eyes, as if he knew some wonderful joke and yet would not tell her. Yes, there was amusement on his face. “What is it?” she asked. “Why do you smile at such a moment?”
He shrugged. “I suppose I am grateful it is not Father,” Ibrahim replied curtly as he left the room, shutting the door behind him.
***
The morning sun shone through the windshield of Ibrahim’s borrowed car as he left Jerusalem. After five minutes passed, Victoria knew that they were not going to Hebron.
“Hebron is south.” She shielded her eyes from the bright glare of dawn.
“Yes,” Ibrahim replied. “We are taking a different route.”
“You are lying, Ibrahim!” Victoria shouted as they topped the rise. The narrow road led east to Jericho and then on down in a twisting rutted track to where Allenby Bridge crossed the Jordan River into the country of Trans-Jordan.
“Yes.” Ibrahim smiled again. “I am lying, my sister.”
She studied his face, illuminated by the fiery light of the desert sun. “But why?” she cried. Her hands trembled. “Why are you taking me away from Jerusalem?”
He pulled down the visor and glanced mockingly at her. “For your own protection, Victoria.”
“My protection! From what? From whom? Is it Eli? Ibrahim, are you taking me from Eli?” Tears of frustration came against her will.
Ibrahim glanced at her, a glint of power in his eyes. He was enjoying his sister’s tears. She struck his arm with her fist and he responded with a slap across her mouth. She jerked back against the car door and remained there huddled and sobbing as blood from her lip trickled down the glass windowpane. The mountains of Moab stretched out in desolate monotony before them. An hour passed, and still Victoria wept.
At last Ibrahim answered her. “There are certain . . . demonstrations planned for this afternoon. These will occur near the King David Hotel. By tonight it will be done, and we will come home.”
“Why?” she wailed miserably. “Oh, Ibrahim. Not you! Have you forgotten Eli?”
“If your heart was right you would turn the heart of Eli like a river into our camp! And you would help us fight the English!”
“I will do neither!” she warned, staying well beyond his reach. “Am I the only child of our father?”
Again Ibrahim raised his hand as if to strike her, but he thought better of it. It would not do to have her return to work tomorrow with a bruised face. It would not be wise to give anyone an opportunity to ask questions of her. Perhaps she would answer their questions; then he and his half brothers would all be hanged at the end of British ropes.
“There are only handful of us in Palestine,” he said. “And yet we send the English foxes running for their dens when the sun goes down! We control the roads. The night is ours. Think what we might do with more men and decent weapons.” He was talking for his own pleasure now. Victoria stared out toward Trans-Jordan where mountains melted into heaps of sand. A thousand questions assaulted her mind. She pictured the faces of her friends and co-workers. If Ibrahim had been frightened enough to carry her away, then what was planned? An assassination? A riot in the commercial district?
“You have done enough already,” she muttered.
“We are only beginning, my sister.” He licked his lips and squinted through the dust-covered windshield. “Tomorrow you will be grateful that I took you away today. You will thank me that you are alive.”
30
Storming the Gates of Hell
Berlin appeared far below as the plane suddenly descended through the gray vapor of clouds. Theo watched out the window with a mix of nostalgia and apprehension. This was a homecoming, to be sure, but not the kind he had dreamed of.
There were no sailboats on the lakes. The Spree River was a colorless line winding through the city. Trees in the parks and woodlands were without leaves. The central city itself seemed torn and ravaged. Heaps of masonry were everywhere mingled with earthmovers and scaffolding that climbed the facades of buildings like barren vines. Tiny automobiles crept like bugs along the roads. The face of Theo’s beloved Berlin was being changed, rebuilt to match the monumental ideals of the superrace of Aryans.
Theo smiled as the plane passed over a building that seemed like an old friend. The structure of Lindheim’s department store remained the same. Now it bore the name GERMANIA in bold neon letters across the top floor of the building. Giant swastika flags draped every side from ledge to sidewalk. But still the cornices and arches of the windows were unaltered. The broad doorways that opened to the sidewalks of four different avenues were unchanged. Lindheim’s Department Store still roosted firmly on an entire city block of Berlin. What they called it did not matter. Theo still knew the place better than anyone ever could. From the soil beneath the basement to the steel girders and stone facades, Theo had
hovered over every aspect of its creation until it had become the finest store in all Germany—one of the finest in all Europe. Today there was no other friendly face below to greet him, only the weathered stones that had once contained Theo’s dreams.
He looked beyond, toward Wilhelmstrasse. The house he and Anna had built there was gone. The stones of some new Nazi public ministry were rising up to take its place.
Theo looked back at the old Lindheim store. He would have liked to have one more look around inside, but such a thing would not be possible.
He sighed as the plane dipped lower toward the large square of turf marking Tempelhof Airfield. Not so long ago, he had left that same field with shafts of lightning splitting the air around his tiny biplane. He had almost made it across the border. Almost. The wind had broken a wing strut, and he had managed to land in a cow pasture—in the field of a Bavarian Nazi party member.
Theo flipped open his passport folder. British diplomatic pass. His face. Citizenship listed as Great Britain. But one thing Göring had insisted on when he demanded that Theo Lindheim return to the soil of the Reich was the change of name—from Theo to Jacob Stern, the name given him when he was interned at Dachau.
Jacob Stern—the sole survivor of the Dachau Herrgottseck! Like the gray stones of Lindheim’s Department Store, Theo had been renamed by his Nazi persecutors, but they had never managed to change anything else about him. The stuff that made Theo who he was remained the same.
He wondered if Hermann Göring would see that in his face when they met again after so many long and bitter years. He was almost certain that the false name on the British passport would become an excuse for the Nazis to arrest him once again. He prayed that he would at least be given the chance to present the economic plan of the governments he represented. That much alone would make this journey—and what would follow—worth the suffering.
He pressed his lips together as he studied the rooftops of the great German capital. How many thousands of people huddled fearfully beneath those roofs and prayed that someone would help them escape? Theo carried them all inside his heart. He was one of them. He, too, had loved this land that was now determined to destroy him.
