Stateless

by Alan Gold

  Abram pushed himself higher, one hand holding onto a shelf to help force his free hand higher. His fingers traced the edge of the shelf looking for the corner of the box.

  The sound in the hallway turned from rustling to footsteps and the glow of the lamp the person carried began to illuminate the room. Abram could now see his fingers above him and they were but a fraction away from the box. With a last effort, almost a jump, he grabbed the corner of the box, sliding it off the shelf and catching it with his other hand.

  The lamp light grew brighter and the footsteps beat on the stone floor; the person would soon turn the corner into the room. With the box in his hand Abram spun to see the window, then turned back to the doorway. The distance was too great; he wouldn’t make it to the window before the servant rounded the corner and entered the office. Between him and the window was the desk of the High Priest, covered in scrolls and with parchments heaped up around it. It was his only choice. Abram dived under the table clutching the box to his chest and lay as still and silent as he could, his eyes never leaving the doorway.

  The lamp light grew brighter, spilling a yellow glow into the office until a foot appeared, followed by legs and a long gown. Abram held his breath as he saw the feet stop. He knew the desk would not fully conceal him; it was a matter of time before the man would see some tell-tale sign of him, raise the alarm or a weapon and then . . .

  Abram trembled. It was dark under the desk but the light from the lamp held by the man would soon reveal him. The boy’s mind raced as he considered running, or staying and facing his accuser. He felt the muscles of his legs tense beneath him and his fingers bind tighter around the wood of the small box in his hands.

  The feet moved closer and then, as the light swung around, suddenly stopped.

  Abram’s heightened senses heard an intake of breath. It was all that the boy needed to act.

  His cramped legs suddenly surged upwards, pushing his body as he extended his hand above his head. He heaved on the underside of the table with all his might. It was not a large table, but it was dense and heavy. Abram’s small frame barely lifted the table’s feet off the floor but they did lift it off-centre and with all the force of his legs uncoiling, heaved it over on its side. The table tipped its contents at the man with the lamp and crashed with a booming thud so close to his bare feet that he was forced to leap back or else have his toes crushed.

  The man dropped the lamp to the ground, breaking the pottery and spilling oil over the floor. The burning wick instantly caught the vapour of the oil and swished into flame.

  Abram turned towards the window and bounded across the remaining space to escape. Behind him he heard the man yelp as the flames licked at the dry, flammable parchment.

  ‘Fire!’ screamed the old man. Abram ran, but felt relief that the word had not been ‘thief’. He heaved himself out of the window head-first, one arm extending to cushion the blow with the ground, the other gripping tightly to the box pressed against his belly.

  Abram rolled on the ground and quickly scrambled to his feet. He allowed himself a moment to cast his eyes back to the house and saw the bright glow of flame through the window cavity and the scrambling efforts of the man to douse the flames and save the scrolls. Then Abram heard the sounds of the house waking up in panic and the High Priest bellowing, demanding answers from the Almighty for what had just happened.

  He’d never intended to start a fire but as he ran down the hill and into the enfolding darkness, he knew that the good fortune would buy him time to escape. The servants would be intent on dousing the flames and not chasing him.

  Abram ran faster than he had ever run in his life. In Peki’in, life was never spent running, not since he was a child. People walked slowly past Roman columns, people walked cautiously. Now he was running, not because he was a thief, and not because he was an arsonist, but because Rabbi Shimon had entrusted him with a sacred mission, and even though he might have to break some of the Almighty’s commandments, he’d put the seal back in the tunnel in Jerusalem, whatever the cost.

  As he ran further and further from the High Priest’s house, Abram’s mind began to clear. Reason took over from panic. He stopped when the house and the flames were no longer visible, and sat on the ground, breathing heavily. Rabbi Shimon had told him that the High Priest was the only man he could trust; yet he’d taken the seal and had told him to return home. Rabbi Shimon had told him that this seal, which had come from the hands of a man who knew King Solomon, was of great value to his people, and must be returned for the sake of all.

  But if he couldn’t trust the High Priest, who could he trust? He was all alone in the land of the Romans, far from his mother and father, far from Rabbi Shimon. He had nobody to ask. So all he could do was to rely on himself. And that frightened the youngster more than anything.

  Kibbutz Beit Yitzhak, Northern Palestine

  1941

  Nobody on the kibbutz paid any attention when the truck coughed and spluttered its way up the hill and finally, like an old asthmatic straining for air, crawled its way through the kibbutz gates. It was so ancient, some joked that it had been used by Moses to deliver the Children of Israel over to the other side of the Red Sea to escape the Pharaoh.

  And the kibbutzniks could always hear, and sometimes smell, its arrival minutes before it came into view. It was on its last legs, but beloved by all.

  Young Shalman straightened his back when he saw the lorry arrive. Working in the henhouse was smelly, especially in the heat of summer, but all of the kids on the kibbutz helped their parents in the day-to-day work and he enjoyed ensuring there were enough eggs for breakfast. He watched as the driver jumped out. These were only short breaks, but they refreshed his mind and eased his body from the hard work he and the other kids of the kibbutz, his brothers and sisters, had to do to stay alive.

  Dov, the driver, dropped out of the cabin onto the dusty ground. He was a short and wiry man, but there was an invisible strength in his body, and nobody messed with him. Dov, like Shalman in the henhouse, straightened his back after the long drive, and looked over at the group of men and women in the fields. They were preparing the land for next season’s crop. Some of the women, wearing the traditional grey trousers, flannel shirts and scarves, were using long-handled hoes to weed ahead as the men, in shirts and shorts and pointed blue-and-white hats, were hand-planting the seeds behind them.

  Dov had been the kibbutz’s lorry driver for years. In Germany, before the war had begun, he’d been a railwayman in Berlin, which somehow qualified him to drive ‘Adolf the Beast’, as the lorry was affectionately known. Dov had only just managed to escape Germany with his wife and six children before the closure of the borders. It was an act of daring and courage, which had saved his entire family from the gas chambers.

  The other thing for which Dov was renowned was for being a thief. It was he who went on night-time stealing missions. He and a few others would park their lorry a long way from where the British Tommies had set up camp during manoeuvres, then crawl on their hands and knees and stomachs, sometimes for a mile or more. In total silence, they would steal rifles and ammunition inadvertently left against a rock or a tree after a patrol by exhausted British soldiers prostrate in the heat of Palestine.

  Dov had managed to steal more than forty rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition from the British in the years he’d been the kibbutz’s ‘lifter’. An amiable fellow, he was well liked by his comrades and had friends in many other parts of Northern Palestine. He’d even befriended the inhabitants of the nearby villages such as Peki’in, where he would trade the produce of the kibbutz for supplies.

  Everyone in the kibbutz knew what Dov did, but that didn’t stop the wiry little man from scanning back and forth around him to see if anyone was watching before he peeled back the tarpaulin cover. However Dov didn’t see that Shalman had crept up around the front of the truck and was visibly shocked when he heard the boy say: ‘What did you find, Dov?’

  ‘Hell, don�
��t go sneaking up on me like that, kid.’

  Shalman was unperturbed. ‘What did you find?’

  Dov smiled, looked around once more to make sure it was just him and the boy, then pulled out from the tray of the lorry an object wrapped in an oiled cloth.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Shalman.

  ‘Not something your dad would want you playing with.’ Dov flipped the cloth open to reveal a revolver in shiny gun-metal grey. ‘Know what this is?’

  ‘A gun,’ replied Shalman.

  ‘It’s a pistol,’ corrected Dov. ‘It’s an officer’s pistol. A Webley. I took it from a British officer.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’ asked Shalman without emotion, only genuine curiosity.

  ‘Whoa, now that’s a question your imma wouldn’t like you asking and certainly not like me telling. Even if it was true . . .’ Dov gave the boy a wink and Shalman smiled. ‘You can hold it if you want.’

  The lad held out his hand eagerly and Dov placed the pistol into his palm. The weight surprised him, but Dov deftly reached over and showed him how to do it. ‘Hold it tight, boy. You never know when you might need a gun like that. We’ve got Brits and Arabs on all sides, Shalman. You never ever forget that.’

  From the field where he was tilling the soil, Shalman’s father, Ari, straightened up, stretched out his back and noticed his son talking to Dov. He saw something in Shalman’s hand and he felt a moment of concern. It was probably Dov’s latest acquisition. Ari shook his head. Why was Dov always showing the guns he stole to the children of the kibbutz? Didn’t they deserve a normal childhood in this warzone of a land? Hadn’t the Jewish people learned enough about guns now they were being forced to fight against the British, and were the victims of these Nazis in Germany?

  There was a squeal of children’s voices as a gaggle of six young ones came running towards Dov, arms outstretched, ready to embrace their father. Ari couldn’t help but smile, even as he saw Dov quickly hide the pistol away in his coat and kneel down to embrace his kids. The throng of small bodies knocked Dov off his feet and sent him sprawling in a mass of tickles and giggles onto the ground.

  But the peace of the moment was short-lived. Suddenly, four British army jeeps and a large truck roared furiously through the front entrance of the kibbutz, still open from when Dov arrived. Everybody working in the field looked up in shock as the vehicles screeched to a halt, throwing up stones and clouds of dirt. Ten British soldiers jumped out and fanned out in a protective line in front of their vehicles, rifles pointing at the kibbutz inhabitants.

  Shalman’s eyes turned back to Dov and saw him quickly push his children off him, stand and move sharply to his truck so he could pull the cover back over the back. He then ordered the children to return to their mother.

  Last out of the vehicles was the commander of the group, a man Ari already knew; he was the senior officer who had remained sitting in the jeep while his NCOs had intimidated the family that day when they were having a picnic on the beach ten years earlier. Though Ari wasn’t the kibbutz leader, he walked slowly out of the field, as though this was a daily occurrence, and meandered over to the commander, his hand outstretched to shake in greeting.

  Reluctantly, the major took it. A nod of the head was his only greeting before he said, ‘That lorry . . .’ pointing to Adolf the Beast, ‘. . . who owns that?’

  Ari didn’t turn to face any of the kibbutz residents who gathered around. But he knew that Dov was standing there near the lorry beside Shalman.

  ‘This is a kibbutz, Major. We all own it,’ said Ari. With a smile, hoping to remove some of the tension from the air, he added, ‘It’s a piece a junk. We’ll pay you to take it away.’

  The major didn’t appreciate the joke. His face remained stern. In a clipped voice, he said, ‘I’ll ask the question again. And don’t mess me about. Understand? Now, who was driving that lorry?’

  By this time more of the community had gathered around. Women pushed children behind them but all stood and watched the soldiers. In turn the soldiers gripped their rifles more tightly. Ari sensed all this and sweat beaded his brow.

  ‘Can I ask what this is all about? We’ve done nothing wrong. We’re farmers.’

  ‘Answer my question. Who was the driver of that lorry?’

  Ari turned his head to look briefly at the people gathered nearby. All knew the answer to the question, but none knew what Ari would say. Dov had retreated back into the crowd, his children, frightened, gathered about him – all six holding on to a hand or leg of his trousers. Dov’s eyes met with Ari’s, wide and still and uncertain.

  ‘Now! Right now! Who was driving?’ commanded the major.

  One of the soldiers behind the officer nervously raised his rifle and a woman nearby let out an involuntary whimper. Dov’s eyes darted backwards and forwards like a trapped animal but he didn’t move. Then Shalman stepped forward from the crowd towards his father.

  ‘Stay back, Shalman,’ said Ari, raising a hand to ward him off.

  ‘I won’t ask again, farmer,’ the major said. There was no mistaking the menace in his voice.

  ‘Abba?’

  The silence weighed leaden in the air as Ari looked once more to the mass of frightened children about Dov’s legs. Dov’s six young children.

  ‘It was me,’ Ari said softly. He heard a gasp behind him. So did the major, who continued to stare deeply into his eyes before he turned and barked an order.

  ‘Search it.’

  Three of the soldiers ran over to the lorry and the people nearby parted like a field of reeds. The soldiers threw back the cover of the lorry’s tray, while the other soldiers stayed where they were, pointing their rifles at the men and women in the field as though daring them to move.

  Ari wanted to say something but there was nothing to say. He knew what the soldiers would find.

  ‘Sir!’ shouted one of the privates. ‘Here, sir. Look at this, sir.’

  The major walked over and one of his men handed him a rifle pulled from the truck and hidden under a blanket. Then he turned back to Ari with a look of both disgust and incredulity. With a raised eyebrow he said, ‘Once more! Just to be absolutely clear! Were you the driver of this vehicle? You understand the consequences of your answer, don’t you?’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ari saw Dov begin to move forward.

  ‘Yes, it was me. Only me.’

  From a short distance away in the field Devorah cried, ‘Ari. Don’t!’ He turned, and smiled and nodded. ‘I’ll be all right. I’m just going to clear up a misunderstanding. I’ll be home soon.’

  But the major stepped forward, and whispered to Ari, ‘Don’t be a fool, man. I can smell the field on you. We both know you weren’t driving. And you know the consequences if I take you away.’

  Ari looked into the eyes of the major and shrugged. Softly, he repeated, ‘It was me.’

  The major stepped back a pace and said to Ari, ‘Oh well, one Jew’s as good as another.’

  The entire group of men and women in the fields, knowing what was about to happen, began to murmur and move forward towards the British soldiers, who immediately raised their rifles from waist height to shoulder height, pointing them at the kibbutzniks.

  Ari feared what might follow and he shouted out, ‘Stop. Everybody. Don’t be stupid. I’ll go with these soldiers. I’ll be all right . . .’

  Two soldiers came forward to seize him by the arms. Ari turned to look at Shalman, who stared back up at his father. Ari went to say something to his son but instead turned his eyes to Dov. ‘Look after Shalman, will you, Dov? Treat him like you treat your other children. I’m making him your responsibility.’

  And with that, Ari was driven away in a cloud of dust. It was the last time that Devorah saw her husband and the last image that young Shalman had of his father – driven off as a prisoner between two British soldiers.

  Moscow, USSR

  1943

  Fourteen-year-old Judita tried to stifle her yawn, but failed miserably as th
e elderly rabbi looked up from his Talmud just as she was putting her hand to her mouth. The rabbi looked closely at her to see whether there were any marks remaining on her face. Two weeks ago she’d appeared in his class looking like a whore with cheap make-up plastered all over her eyes and cheeks, an unsophisticated way of covering up the black eye and slaps which her father had given her the night before. The rabbi sighed. Such a brilliant girl; such a beast of a father.

  And somehow, it was worse when it happened in the dreadful winters of Moscow. Children couldn’t leave the house and so the tensions caused drunken fathers to flare up and so many wives and children were beaten. The rabbi thought of this as he pondered another problem with the winter months in Moscow. The windows of the basement where he taught the children were closed and became opaque from condensation; yet the paraffin heater made the room horribly stuffy. Judita wasn’t the only one yawning, but somehow she was always the one Rabbi Ariel saw, the one he always looked at first when he glanced up from reading.

  His half-moon glasses were perched on the end of his nose, his huge grey beard permanently curled from his constant stroking when he was talking or listening, his battered hat askew on the back of his head. Reb Ariel treated Judita more strictly than any of the other students in the tiny classroom. But she knew, because he often told her parents, that his discipline against her was harsh because of her potential, because she was by far the brightest student in the small school, and he was determined that she would become a great figure in the Russian Jewish community, even though she was a girl.

  Classes were held in the basement of a public theatre on Bolshaya Bronnaya near Tverskoy Boulevard. The building was once the Lyubavicheskaya Synagogue until it was appropriated by the Soviet authorities for non-religious public entertainment. Though the students were all the same age, some were barely able to read a word of Hebrew. But Judita was able to read the Hebrew words as though they were as familiar as Russian. She was a natural linguist, and could speak a few words of almost any language just by listening to two people speaking it. Similarly, she could speak and read fluent Yiddish and enjoyed smatterings of Polish and German.