The Settlers

by Meyer Levin

  There Gidon beheld a stream of bewildered, terrified Yehudim, the bearded long-coated ones, amidst flocks of women and children, some with hastily tied bundles, some with large valises, as though they had kept them packed and ready. A few he recognized—a watchmaker, the keeper of a little grocery—the numbers growing as Jews were hustled out of their homes, the new victims crying out to those in the street: What do they want of us? What is happening?—Is this the deportation?—Gottenu, where are they taking us!—and calling messages to Arab shopkeepers in their doorways: Tell Sosya, tell my brother, send for Dizingoff, they pillaged everything!

  Already with soldierly stoicism, Gidon held his rage. This was not the moment when anything could be done. To Frau Doktor Mintz, who had sometimes treated him as a stableboy but who was now tearfully appealing to him, he kept repeating assurance: her husband would soon be back, they were lucky he had not been at home to be seized, as this way he could be free to find help for them. The word gerush, deportation, was now echoing along the street, while everywhere the militiamen shouted “Russki, Yahud—Out! out!”

  As the procession descended toward the port, from doorways and windows sympathy and encouragement was shouted out to them in Yiddish, in Hebrew. Cables were already being sent, the world would be alerted, the American ambassador in Constantinople would at once intervene—as though he would appear at the bottom of the street to save them by the time they got there. Here and there a figure darted alongside the procession, gold was passed, someone was slipped away.

  Then as they drew up before the gates of the ancient stone structure, a fresh wailing arose—this was the Armenian monastery! As though Bahad-ad-Din in one of his vicious jests was telling them of their fate.

  The hallways were already crammed, alcoves were jealously guarded by mothers commanding their children not to move out of reach. Up and down, names echoed—anxious, desperate calls—“Yosele, where are you?” “Batya and Misha! Batya!” while rumors swept through, “It’s for ransom, Meir Dizingoff is coming with gold!” And between the airless walls, a crowd-stench was settling and making them all into one flesh.

  In the incredible way of some women—as it would have been with his own mother—there were those who had already established their family circle on the floor around a primus stove and were unknotting some large kerchief in which they had hurriedly bound up a supply of food.

  Was it only in Jaffa that this was taking place, or would the seizure reach out to Jerusalem and even to Galilee? If it was to be a death march into the wilderness, wouldn’t it be better to draw together some of the chevreh at once, and even tonight overcome a few of the guards and break out? Or perhaps he should himself try to break out in some way, catch hold of a Turk in the night in the yard and strangle him for his uniform, then make his way to Gilboa to tell what was happening, let the Shomer decide what to do? No, these were foolish imaginings, impractical. But Gidon couldn’t remain inactive, just standing here squeezed against the wall. Squirming his way through the solidly filled corridor, he found himself in the courtyard, which was filling up with those who couldn’t press their way into the building. You had to step carefully over legs and bundles. The rain at least had stopped, but the stone pavement was mud-streaked and slippery. At the rear, before the single cubby-hole of a latrine, a line waited.

  Here in the yard the shouting and wailing and the anxious calling of names was even worse. In the midst of this, Gidon heard the solid, authoritative voice of Herr Doktor Mintz, as though commanding a halt to a cattle stampede. Pushing toward it through the multitude, he found the veterinary just inside the gate, talking to the Turkish guard in that imposing manner that made everyone call him Professor. “They’re here! they’re here!” Gidon shouted, and the Turk himself opened a path for Mintz, all the way through the yard and into the hallway, to his wife and children.

  Brandishing some official-looking document, the Herr Doktor gathered them to him; Gidon saw palms meet and the Turk’s hand gliding into his ballooning trousers, as he now made a path outward for the entire Mintz family. But before Gidon, the Turk stretched out a forbidding arm; even the all-powerful Mintz could do nothing, though he cried out “My student!” Stubbornly and knowingly, the Turk repeated “Russki,” and Mrs. Mintz, Gidon saw, was becoming terrified that they would all be held back because of him.

  “I promise you, I promise you!” Mintz declared in parting. Gidon had only a moment to scribble a note to his family. “Don’t worry about me. Try to stay together and be well. Whatever awaits me, I shall try to meet it as a man. Your son and brother, Gidon.” In the last moment, as he gave Mintz the paper, he bethought himself that he should have put in a word of love.

  With the gradual sorting out of the families, of children to their parents, the shrieking had ended. Now a squad of militiamen was working through the yard and the hall, taking the Jews, a dozen, twenty at a time, into a long, high-ceilinged room. Portraits of the Christians’ Yoshke and other holy pictures hung against the stone walls. Behind a long table sat the Kaymakam himself, his reddish eyes gleaming in his scimitar face. Already a warning whisper had spread amongst the people, so that only a few coins, a few women’s baubles were placed on the table when the guards commanded, “Everything! money, jewels, everything! For safekeeping for the journey!”

  What journey? Out there in the harbor of Jonah the Prophet stood one vessel; she was neutral, flying the Spanish flag. It was a ruse, some said—the Turks would carry them all to some desolate North African coast and set them ashore to be murdered by the bandits, the Berbers. Or to perish of thirst and starvation. Others said the voyage would be in the opposite direction, to somewhere on the wild Turkish coastline, and they would be driven into the desolation where the Armenians had perished.

  In his turn, just inside the doorway, Gidon found himself in a group of long-bearded pious old men, wearing tzitzith, talking only in Yiddish, their faces in terror, but their eyes ceaselessly roving, exploring for a chink, a hole, a crack, a way out— Which one can be bribed? How much?—and whispering avidly amongst themselves. No, his father would not be like these.

  And presently Gidon stood before the Kaymakam. Money, valuables, he had none; he received a kick, a soldier’s boot like a mule’s hoof, and he was through another door into a vast swarming room, among those to be deported. Herscheleh the Newspaper caught him, steadying him from the kick, keeping him from whirling around to return the blow, and informing him authoritatively that the Kaymakam’s plan was to have them all sunk and drowned at sea by a waiting German submarine, as though accidentally.

  “Idiocies!” There stood Araleh, and not at all downcast. It was to be Alexandria, he declared with certainty. And he was trying every way he could to have Saraleh and the baby brought here. While others wanted to bribe their way out, Araleh wanted to bribe a way in for his wife and child. “It’s the best!” he cried to Gidon. “Under British protection, we’ll be safe.”

  “Alexandria?” the Newspaper scoffed. Even the Turks were not so stupid as to send hundreds of young men to the enemy side, where they could join the fight.

  “Alexandria,” Araleh insisted. “To them, as fighters Jews are nothing.”

  A burly, short man appeared, Dizingoff himself, the mayor of Tel Aviv. He came into the long chamber, warding off the clamorers that swept around him. Mounting on a bench, the mayor, in an exhausted, croaking voice, declared that all possible was being done, they need not despair. Cables had already been sent to the American ambassador in Constantinople, the noted Morgenthau had intervened before, he would intervene again. In any case, a postponement had positively been secured and the ship would not sail this night.

  A new wave of pleading arose, and the mayor managed to listen to each one, taking messages, promising to try; even Araleh spoke to him—and he promised to inform the Zuckermans. Moreover, there would be food, blankets for everyone, there was no reason to despair.

  Already, Arab vendors were squeezing through the back door with piles of warm
pittah.

  Not long afterward Araleh heard Saraleh’s call and there she was in the doorway, the baby in her arms, her father and mother behind her, carrying bedding, suitcases, bundles, even cooking pots. To Gidon it was almost as though he saw his own family arrive.

  With a thousand admonitions and lamentations they made their parting at the door, Sara’s mother unable to leave off kissing her grandchild, yet repeating “It’s better, it’s safer, Araleh is right,” the father pressing still another gold coin, even some old Russian currency on Saraleh, and Mama Zuckerman, even in the midst of the turmoil remembering to ask Gidon, could she do anything? had he sent word to his family already? Again they kissed the baby, and old Zuckerman, as the guard was pushing them away, called out to Araleh a last name of some Jew in Alexandria with whom he had done business, “Judah Musara, go to him!”

  While Araleh brought in the suitcases and the baby’s pot and a huge wurst, Gidon helped with their enormous bundles of bedding. He must stay alongside them, Saraleh insisted.

  As night fell, the encampment in the huge room had already become a kind of entity, one vast organism breathing and sighing and heaving in the dark.

  Pushed, hurled with their bundles and bags into the tenders, with the Arab boatmen, fierce as always, shouting and cursing above the wails of the women, the barks ramming and twisting together alongside the Spanish vessel, the bandit boatmen seizing blankets, pots, satchels, feather-quilts, pulling all they could lay their hands on away from the frantic refugees, shouting Baksheesh!—thus, in a madness just as wild as on that day Gidon had arrived here with the family, he was departing.

  Content that he had no baggage in this world, nothing at all to be taken away, Gidon in his turn clambered aboard. Good also that he had no one, such as a wife, from whom he might have had to be separated. In such a time as this it was best.

  And there, as Gidon looked down from the deck, there on the water, standing erect in one of the last tenders, he saw his captain. Three Turkish militiamen and an officer were in the bark, surely as a mark of the captain’s importance. Yet Trumpeldor stood as though in command, and mounted the ship’s ladder as though to take command. Adroitly catching rung above rung with his single arm, he swung cleanly on deck, in his polished boots, in his Russian uniform, wearing all his war medals.

  Already his name was being passed among the chevreh, with surprise and awe. Many of them the hero himself recognized, calling greetings to one and another, and to Gidon too, “Shalom, Gidon!” just as though he had quite expected him to be there. And looking around at the young men who were gathering toward him, Trumpeldor declared, “Good. We will go to fight.”

  Still, it was strange to have been delivered onto a ship to be carried away who knew to what fate. Already, as terrified Yidden repeated Herscheleh’s latest rumor, that the ship would nevertheless turn in another direction than Alexandria once it was out to sea, Trumpeldor said quietly to the young men around him, “We must prepare. If they try any tricks instead of heading for Alexandria, we will seize the ship.”

  The ship was moving out of the harbor. Along the sands as far as the Herzlia Gymnasia of Tel Aviv—it did not look so large from out here—one could see clusters of figures; they had hurried along the beach to prolong their farewell, to stretch the parting as far as they might. You no longer could discern if they were waving their arms. It seemed to Gidon that he could see deep into the land behind them; his gaze seemed to go as far as the Emek and beyond to the meshek itself. He worried about the good pair of mules, Oved and Hazak; would Schmulik and Tateh have sense enough to hide them somewhere before the Turks came and seized them? Would Leah at least be at home when his note arrived, so as to reassure Mameh? Ay, and little Mati. Suddenly he felt a longing in his limbs for a mock wrestle with the boy, for Mati’s supple muscles wriggling out of his grasp and the boy laughing out a good Arab curse. In a broad swing, the ship carried them away from the shore.

  Until it was out to sea, until the last desolate cries from those on the land had become like bird cries, there was tumult among the deportees, but now this too faded into a low monotonous complaint of the Yidden and their Yiddenehs. And in the movement on the great water there was a sense of being carried on the bosom of destiny.

  At the prow, the young men squatted around Trumpeldor. He had neither been picked up in the raid nor arrested, Josef related, but had come of his own choice, demanding to be placed on the deportation ship. For when the decision to Ottomanize had appeared, he had reflected on it and become convinced that it was a mistake. Already in the kvutsa he had presented his reasoning. All hope lay with the West and with the revolution which would come in Russia. But the kvutsa was divided, many following Old Gordon, the pure pacifist. So he had put on his boots and his old military jacket and come to Jaffa, intending to leave the land. The Turks were merely providing him with free passage. An army of Jewish fighters must indeed be formed, but not on the Turkish side as the party leaders proposed. They must fight on the side of Britain, France and Russia.

  If the German-Turkish alliance should win the war, Palestine would remain in the Ottoman Empire. Could it be imagined that the victors would turn over Eretz to the Jews? However, on the other side, should the French-British-Russian alliance be victorious, then the vast, rotting old Ottoman Empire would surely be broken up. New nations would arise in those huge territories, and there was at least a chance that if the Jews fought on the side of the Allies, they would be rewarded in the breakup. Indeed they must seek to fight in Palestine itself, to help drive out the Turks, and then they could claim Eretz for their own!

  It was as though Trumpeldor had given clarity to the tumultuous thoughts in Gidon’s own mind. Perhaps the roundup had been a stroke of fortune, even the hand of God, if one believed in God, saving him from fighting on the wrong side.

  Araleh had joined the group and was squatting beside him. As Araleh nodded agreement with Trumpeldor’s reasoning, Gidon felt even more strongly that this was the view that would prove correct. The one-armed one’s voice, speaking matter-of-factly as though in a field report, had already gone far into a sweeping strategy, far beyond anything Gidon could himself have imagined. Why should they remain a handful? Why shouldn’t a vast Jewish army be formed? Jews from all over the world would join them! One day soon they would debark from British battleships onto the Palestine coast and seize the land, driving out the Turk, slicing the Ottoman Empire in two! It could even be the decisive stroke of the Great War, for was it not over the empires of the East that the powers were fighting? Thus after two thousand years Eretz would be won back by Jewish soldiers themselves!

  Had it not already been shown that the homeland could not be attained the way Rothschild had tried, by money, by land-buying and bribes, nor even as Herzl had tried, by political maneuvering with the Sultan, the Kaiser, the Czar? No, the homeland must be won back by Jewish soldiers.

  “But,” Herscheleh asked the question foremost in their minds, “if we Jews fight alongside the enemy—”

  “The Allies,” Trumpeldor corrected him.

  “All right, but if we join the other side, then what of all the Jews remaining in the Yishuv? The Turks will slaughter them in revenge.”

  Therefore the attack must be a surprise, and swift, the Captain said. A vast British armada would land the Jewish army all along the shore, and there would be no time for the fleeing Turks to take revenge.

  And here before them lay that vast armada! The hours had passed, and Gidon raised his head and saw a harbor filled with ships, a tremendous vision entirely new to his eyes, of vast steel structures crowded together until they covered the sea, an expanse of high turrets bristling with cannon, like enormous lances, the entire armada forming one immeasurable engine constructed by man. What could withstand such a force!

  Standing at the prow, Trumpeldor gazed as though the armada had already been assembled to carry out his plan; within a few short hours these ships could steam up to Jaffa, it would take no longer than their
own voyage here just now. The whole Yishuv would rise to support their Jewish army, another Jewish army from Russia would come down and attack the Turks from the rear, the British and French would meanwhile seize Constantinople from the sea, the war would be quickly ended, and Jews would come streaming from all ends of the earth to build up Eretz Yisroel.

  Here were the British, clean men in khaki knee-trousers, with impatience and boredom and contempt in their voices, crying out short commands to the Egyptian port-workers, “Yallah, Imshi!” Not only from the sight of their armada, but from the first sight of the British—though he had not doubted Trumpeldor’s assessment—Gidon knew who would win the war. These people would win. Except for an officer or two, he had not yet seen the Germans. Even though everyone said they were formidable, organized, modern, strong, nevertheless these unperturbed British would win.

  Quickly enough the deported Russian Jews found themselves led to a long structure, a quarantine building in the port, formerly used, some said, for pilgrims to Mecca. Already there were Jews from Eretz in the barracks. Many had come in the last weeks, on any ship they could find. Among them were numbers of young men who had been fearful of Turkish conscription.

  At once the newcomers were fallen upon with questions about relatives at home, and there were reunions, and already various combinations were being made for the best corners in the barrack rooms, and already the newcomers were being aided by finely dressed Jewish women of Alexandria who were followed by black Arab porters in long galabiyas with red sashes, carrying baskets of food.