by Alan Gold
So smooth and fluid were the actions that, before Shalman even knew what had happened, the car door slammed shut and the car had accelerated sharply forward. Raffe in the back seat behind him snapped a hessian bag over Shalman’s head and thrust the barrel of a pistol at the base of his skull.
‘Don’t move and don’t make a sound and you’ll be just fine . . .’
When the bag was snatched from Shalman’s head he thought for a moment he was staring at the sun. The room was small and dark but a bright lamp on the table at which he sat burned into his eyes.
The violence in the air of Palestine, the killings and explosions, maiming and torture, kidnapping and murders, made all its citizens cautious. Who had pulled him off the street struck fear into Shalman’s heart. In the landscape of Palestine today, his kidnappers could have easily been Jewish or Arab or British.
As his eyes adjusted he found himself looking across the simple wooden table at Immanuel Berin. He quickly turned to see who else was in the room and any clues as to what or where the room was. There was only one door; it was behind him and in front of it stood a thick-set man in dirty overalls.
All the obvious questions filled Shalman’s mouth: where am I? What do you want? But his tongue felt like rubber and he said nothing.
‘Don’t be afraid, Shalman. You’ll have to forgive the means by which I brought you here. These are dangerous times and I am an overly cautious man. You know who I am?’
‘Yes. Of course,’ said Shalman. And then, finding a steadier voice: ‘I want no part anymore. I’ve left Lehi. My fight is over.’
‘Is it?’
After the airport explosion Shalman had told Dov that he wanted no more and since then he’d had no contact with any of the Jewish resistance groups. But deep down Shalman knew it was never going to be that easy or simple.
‘I have questions for you,’ said Berin.
Shalman found his strength in a rising anger. ‘It was the bombing I did at the airfield. I’m not coming back. I have a daughter. You could have called upon me, sent me a message. You didn’t have to snatch me off the street! I would have come.’
Berin pondered this for a moment. ‘This has nothing to do with you or your past, my friend. Maybe you would have come. Maybe not. But you say you’re no longer one of us. So I have no guarantees, do I? A man in my position needs to be sure of things or else mistakes are made. And right now I am not sure of you, Shalman. You have left the fight, you consort with Arabs and your wife . . .’
At this, Shalman’s eyes flashed angrily at Berin. ‘What of her?’
‘Have you heard from Judit, Shalman? Do you know where she is?’
Shalman was suddenly nervous and he shook his head unconvincingly.
‘We realise how much pressure the Resistance can be on a family,’ said Berin, looking sincere. ‘Young men with no attachments make the best soldiers. But married men, with children and responsibilities – for them it is much harder. Not to mention mothers . . .’ Berin leaned in closer over the table. ‘The loyalty of a mother can never be greater than to her child, no matter how noble the cause she fights for. Is this not true?’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Your daughter, Vered, I believe: she is with your wife?’
Shalman nodded.
‘And where are they, Shalman?’
‘She’s in Russia, to see her family. It’s where she is from. Surely you know this. Why are you asking these questions?’
‘We’re only concerned about her welfare. Have you noticed anything unusual or different about her recently? Her behaviour? Where she goes? Who she sees?’
‘What’s this about?’ Shalman demanded. ‘You don’t kidnap me off the street to ask personal questions about my wife! What’s happened?’
‘Nothing’s happened. Can you tell us a little bit about your wife and where she comes from? We know she’s Russian, but we know nothing about her family. Who did your wife associate with here in Jerusalem? Outside of Lehi, which people was she friends with?’
Berin turned a small paper pad around to face Shalman and placed a pencil on the paper with his other hand. ‘If you can write down their names . . .’
Shalman involuntarily picked up the pencil. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Really? Think hard, Shalman,’ replied Immanuel Berin.
‘I don’t know!’ Shalman’s voice rose in frustration and he tossed the pencil across the table. And it was not a lie; Shalman didn’t know. ‘I never know where she goes. I assume it’s missions for Lehi, working for the Resistance. But . . . I don’t know.’
Berin nodded as if he understood.
‘Believe me, Berin, I don’t know where she goes. I don’t know what she does. I don’t know who she sees . . .’ said Shalman, the words tumbling out of him.
Immanuel Berin found himself believing what the young man said. By all appearances he was a thoroughly decent and likeable young man. He changed tack. ‘Shalman, we have great hopes for Judit’s future. She is a woman of great courage and intelligence and very valuable to our cause. She’s going to be a prominent woman in the new Israel when it is created. But in truth we know very little about her. And, well, if she is to play this important role, we need to know who she really is . . .’
Shalman lifted his eyes to meet Berin’s.
‘You can help us with this. I don’t want to doubt your loyalty. I want to trust you . . . Can I trust you, Shalman?’
Castle of Henri Guillaume
Duke of Champagne, Meaux and Blois
November 1095
‘He has to be stopped!’
Jacob rubbed at his forehead hard in desperation.
‘Going on this pilgrimage will ruin us all. It’s madness. And imagine the slaughter. Once roused, these armed peasants will crush everything in their path. I’ve seen it happen, Nimrod. I’ve seen marauders on a rampage!’
Nimrod looked at the old man and rolled his eyes at the hyperbole, though deep down he believed Jacob’s words.
Jacob continued unabated. ‘Mark me, Nimrod. Innocent villagers will be murdered and their crops stolen to feed this multitude. They will begin their journey full of faith and prayers and as soon as they run low on food and drink, as soon as they’re tired and blistered, they’ll turn their aggression on the innocents. They’ll turn on us . . .’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ snapped Nimrod. ‘The only ones who should be fearful are the Saracen.’
‘Fool of a man! Muslims and Jews are the children of Abraham. Do you think that Christians will see such a fine distinction when they’re wielding swords and axes in a Crusade? And we will bleed just the same for their bloodlust. Does Jerusalem, home of our ancestors, really need an invading force of chevaliers and infantry? An army of madmen charging into the city? There is no peace at the end of such an invasion. By the bones of Moses, this is a bad idea . . .’
For nearly five hundred years, Jerusalem had found a prosperity it had rarely known in the centuries before. Islam had exploded out of Arabia and conquered the northern lands of Africa but under the rule of the Muslims, Jews, provided they paid a tax, could worship freely, as could those Christian pilgrims who could afford to do so. They had long been granted safe passage, and the walls of Jerusalem enclosed a harmony where the three faiths of the book rested side by side.
But now, because of the declaration of a pope, a massive force was to be unleashed and that harmony of common but separate belief was to be sundered apart.
Nimrod waved the concerns of the old man away.
‘In any case, you and I will not be going. What use are two old Jews on campaign? No. The duke will leave us here to manage his estate and this will be good for us.’
‘Do not be so sure!’
Nimrod was, for a moment, confused and looked at Jacob, puzzled.
‘The duke employs us, protects us; he finds us useful and productive for our knowledge and our skills. And our families, our children, are happy here. But don’t be mistaken, my friend. T
he duke does not trust us . . .’
Jacob felt that his fears were well founded when, late that afternoon, the duke returned from his hunt. With the boar that he had speared with his third arrow being prepared by the cooks, Henri Guillaume made his way through the halls of his castle, calling for Nimrod and Jacob at the top of his lungs.
The two Jewish men quickly made their way through the stone passageways to meet their lord and found him in an energised mood.
‘I have hunted the boar and I have made my decision!’ yelled the Duke of Champagne as if the two acts of hunting and decision-making were directly related, one dictating the other. He flung his gloves across the room, paying no heed to where they landed.
‘In the forest, with a bow and arrow in my hand, I felt a presence . . .’
The duke was not a pious man and such language from their lord made Nimrod and Jacob uneasy.
‘As I unleashed the arrow that slew the boar, I knew that this hand . . .’ the duke held up his now ungloved fist, ‘must wield a weapon against more than pigs and game.’
He lowered his fist and stepped towards the two Jewish scholars, his face beaming. ‘For my soul and my estate, we shall go on this Crusade!’
Nimrod made to protest, but was cut short by the duke. ‘And you, both of you, will come with me!’
Moscow, USSR
Christmas Day, 1947
As their limousine’s heating warmed the cabin’s interior so that it was comfortable for the journey to the airfield, Judit stood close to one of the tall stone pillars in the marble lobby of the Metropol Hotel and studied the important guests as they walked towards the elevator, or sat in the deep armchairs.
It was a side of Moscow, of Russian society, that as a young girl she never thought she’d even see, let alone be a part of. Often, she’d stood in Red Square, in the shadow of the walls of the Kremlin, and gazed over at the Metropol Hotel, the epicentre of Moscow life, and watched as huge cars pulled up and the expensively dressed Party apparatchiks and their wives emerged out of the darkened maw, stood momentarily on the pavement as if they were American film stars parading to be admired, and then sauntered towards the brilliantly lit lobby as a uniformed flunky saluted and opened the doors to admit them.
She’d always viewed such pretension with distaste, but secretly she’d envisaged herself doing precisely the same thing. Then she’d take the trolley bus back home, and walk through the potholed and muddy streets, the air redolent with the smells of cabbage and beets boiling away in a thousand begrimed kitchens, and all thoughts of how the elite of the classless society lived their pampered lives would evaporate. Yet only a dozen years later, here she was.
And the expensively dressed men and women who treated the lobby of one of the best hotels in Moscow as though it was their second home, draping themselves over the furniture, didn’t look at her in the same way as they looked at Jews in the street. When she was a girl, venturing into the centre of Moscow and walking along Tverskaya Ulitsa or Varvarka or Bolshaya Nikitskaya Ulitsa, people had looked down upon her with contempt. She didn’t wear a yellow star as Jews did in medieval times, or more recently in Nazi Europe, but her Semitic looks branded her as a Jew. Even though Stalin had condemned Russian anti-Semitism, it was still the most prevalent and widespread prejudice of the Soviet Union.
How different things were now, compared to then.
She glanced down at Vered, fast asleep on the floor in her little travelling cot, rugged up against the fiercely evil weather of a Moscow winter. She looked so innocent, so peaceful. What sort of a life would she have? Surely not like that of Judit herself, a living contradiction, one moment part of a warm Jewish family and the very model of a modern Israeli woman; the next aiming a sniper’s rifle at some hapless Arab or Zionist or British soldier. No, Vered would grow up in a very different place.
Just a few days ago Judit had stood and looked down at the near comatose body of her father when she visited him in the hospital. She had felt all the anger and the hatred evaporate from her in that moment. But she had also walked away, knowing that the door was now closed and that her new life was free from that concoction of anger, guilt and regret. She saw her father before her, powerless, and knew that she, herself, would never be powerless again.
Suddenly, there was a movement behind her; Judit turned and saw Anastasia walking hurriedly from the elevators. Judit’s smile disappeared when she saw how serious her controller looked.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘We’ve been summoned.’
‘Summoned where?’
Anastasia smiled wryly. ‘The Kremlin.’
Judit scooped up Vered, and together she and Anastasia hurried out of the front door of the Metropol Hotel into the freezing snow-filled Moscow air. The limousine was outside, its exhaust creating a cloud of vapour behind the car.
Judit looked towards the right, where the Bolshoi Theatre stood proudly, white against the dark winter sky. They climbed into the car, and Anastasia barked an order to the driver.
It took them under two minutes to drive from the hotel, past Red Square, through the wall in the Alexander Gardens to the private gates of the Kremlin Palace.
Once out of the car, they climbed the steps into the Armoury building, where they were met by an unsmiling minion, dressed in a dark conservative suit. They were shown to an outer office on the second floor and instructed to sit and wait.
Minutes later, the door to the inner office slowly began to open. Judit’s heart was beating fast in a way she couldn’t explain. The presence of Anastasia with her should have quelled all anxiety but in this monstrous building it had little effect.
They watched the door open, wider and wider, and out stepped a middle-aged woman whose grey hair was fixed in a bun at the back, and whose dark blue cardigan, long black skirt and thick woollen stockings spoke of a life devoted to being a secretary.
‘You may go in now,’ she said.
Judit and Anastasia stood on shaky legs. Judit picked up her baby’s cot, and together they walked through the door. Behind a huge mahogany desk sat a short, balding, bespectacled man, writing a note on a pad of paper. As they entered his office, he looked up and beamed.
Judit stopped in her tracks. The man stood when he saw them enter, came around his desk, his arms outstretched, and hugged each woman in turn, kissing each of them on both cheeks.
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Foreign Secretary of the USSR, and second only in importance to Stalin, said, ‘It is a privilege to meet you both, and especially you, Judita Ludmilla, our Heroine of the Soviet Union.’
Where Beria was a name to be feared by those that knew of him and the power of the NKVD, Molotov was a huge public figure. The man was on the front pages of newspapers everywhere, one of the most famous people in the world. His avuncular smile and genial manner belied a razor-sharp intelligence, a Machiavellian way of manipulating people, and an iron will to make the Soviet Union into the greatest superpower the world had ever known. He was regularly seen with British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and with Harry S Truman, President of the United States of America. And now he was calling Judit a heroine. Her head was swimming.
He led them to a couch opposite the window, which looked out on the multi-coloured onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral. But no matter how extraordinary was the site within a stone’s throw of where she was sitting, she had no eyes for the view; her gaze was upon the man who sat in an armchair opposite, the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Socialist Union.
‘Let me first of all apologise to you for delaying your return to Palestine by asking you to come here. I know you were on the way to the airfield at Domodedovo village, but I wanted to meet you before you returned to the vital work you are both doing for us in the Middle East.’
At the sound of his voice, tiny Vered began to whimper in her cot. Molotov looked down and smiled. ‘Do you need to feed her, my dear? There’s a private office next door.’
Judit smiled. ‘No thank you, Excellency. I fed h
er just before I left the hotel. She will soon settle.’ Judit reached down, picked up her daughter, and gently rocked her on her shoulder.
Molotov smiled tenderly. ‘I have two grandchildren, you know. One of my great pleasures, something which I love and do far too infrequently, is to return to my home town of Kukarka, and cuddle my daughter’s babies.’
Anastasia, still dumbstruck at meeting the Foreign Minister, sat and listened, almost shaking her head as if this moment, indeed this entire occasion, was a dream.
‘Fear not; the pilot will wait for you under my orders. I have for you a very specific instruction that comes direct from Comrade Stalin himself.’
Anastasia beside her was silent and impassive and Judit had no idea if what Molotov was about to say was known to her or not.
Molotov continued. ‘The removal of important and influential Jews who would oppose our plan can soon be brought to an end.’ He sat back in his chair, shifted his gaze and seemed to change topic.
‘There are many people we have been watching in Palestine over recent years. Many of them will be well known to you. David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Shamir, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin . . .
‘Shamir is currently in France, after his exile in Africa, but be assured that he will return soon to Jerusalem, and we believe that when we put the proposition to him, he will support our plans. Even though he hates the Poles, he has shown a certain warmth towards Mother Russia.
‘Menachem Begin is a different matter. I have my doubts. Before the war with the Nazis, our NKVD stupidly arrested him as a British spy and sent him to the gulags. He wasn’t there long but I think his internment may steer him away from us.’ Molotov’s voice contained not a hint of sarcasm.
‘But we have many candles burning brightly now in Palestine and none more brilliantly than you, Judita. I call you all candles as it is you who will be a beacon of Soviet glorification in that troublesome and benighted region. And as you know, with warm and fraternal relationships such as we hope to have with a new government in Israel, our fleet of ships will be offered a permanent port in the Mediterranean, and will be an everlasting deterrent to the imperialism, expansionism and colonialist hegemony implicit in the empire-building of the United States of America.’
