Aaron swallowed hard and obeyed. Etta did not look at him. Her knuckles were white as she strained against the cords and sat halfway up in the bed as she bore down.
“Beautiful Etta! Another son!” Eduard held the slippery gray child gently as he wiped away mucous and blood. “So tiny, and yet alive!”
“The Eternal be praised!” Frau Rosen helped lower Etta to the heap of pillows and wiped Etta’s forehead with a damp cloth.
“A boy!” Etta wept happily, raising her head to look.
“Ah!” Aaron tried to speak, but the words became garbled in his throat. Etta’s face swam before his eyes.
“Sit down, Aaron,” Eduard commanded. “You will fall down.”
Suspended upside down, the four-pound infant bleated his first angry protest against the world. Then he squalled louder and spread his fingers at the end of flailing arms as his father sank to the floor at the bedside.
***
The gentle touch of Elisa’s hands pulled Murphy from his sleep. It did not matter; he had been dreaming of her anyway. He answered her urgent kisses with a slow and drowsy response, and when at last she fell asleep in his arms, he lay wide awake for an hour still dreaming of her.
Downstairs the mantel clock chimed two o’clock. She stirred and moved closer to him. Her skin smelled like a flower garden. Her breath smelled like toothpaste. Murphy had come to love those scents, come to look forward to sliding between the sheets and inhaling her. Just the thought of it made him want her again. He wished she would wake up and lift her face to him and say his name in that funny way of hers, “Murrrf . . . ” Nobody but Elisa called him that. And she only called him that when she whispered his name between kisses.
Somewhere on a distant London street a siren wailed. It seemed impossible to Murphy that anything unpleasant could be happening tonight when his own world seemed so perfect. The thought made him frown. Of course, it was his job to report the news of this terribly imperfect world. But for now, he wanted to protect Elisa from it. She seemed fragile since the Darien had sunk. She left the room when the BBC announced the latest. She did not ask him what news had flashed across the wires. It was just as well. She had done her part. Nobody deserved a rest more than Elisa, except maybe Anna and Theo.
He smiled at the irony of that. Already Anna and Theo had joined Bubbe Rosenfelt in her work with the F.A.T.E. group. Murphy had sent the story to TENS himself.
Theo Lindheim, former department store owner in Berlin, escaped Dachau to head the Fair Anglo Treatment of Emigres. The organization seeks to aid thousands of homeless as well as establish fair laws for those attempting to flee the tyranny of Hitler’s Germany. . . .
Some people never stopped. Murphy had married into just such a family. And were it not for the fact that a new little Murphy was on the way, Elisa would have also jumped right back into the thick of it.
Murphy slid his hand over her abdomen. Not even a bulge yet, but he smiled all the same. Thank you, little guy. Now maybe we can stop long enough to listen to the music.
All Murphy wanted to do was protect her, hold her, keep her safe. The doctor figured the baby would come along nine months to the day after their second wedding at the cottage in New Forest. The legal wedding. Short version. Murphy chuckled out loud in spite of himself.
“What, Murrrf?” Elisa asked dreamily.
“Just thinking about the night in New Forest. Snow White’s Cottage—remember?”
“Hmmmm?”
“What a night.”
“A good thing I made you marry me,” she said.
Murphy breathed in the scent of toothpaste. He raised up on his elbow and bent to kiss her.
She smiled through his kiss and said his name.
He pressed his cheek against hers. “You think we’ll ever sleep the whole night through again?”
“I hope not.”
He caught the flash of her smile in the darkness. He was glad she was awake. “Tell me what you want,” he asked.
She thought for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s healthy.”
The moment was perfect. Delicious.
And then the phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
Murphy had come to hate telephones. He groaned and reached across her to the night table, finally yanking the receiver off the table and pulling it toward him while Elisa muffled a giggle.
It was Harvey Terrill from the office. His voice sounded unhappy and desperate even before he managed to explain the reason for the call. Elisa moved away from Murphy. She turned over as if to cover her ears lest anything reach her. When at last Murphy replaced the receiver and switched on the light, she was looking at him with eyes filled with memory.
He shrugged and sat up. “Sorry. This is worse than being married to a doctor.” He tried to smile, but somehow he could not find the lightness even for that.
“Germany?” she asked, running her hands through her hair.
He attempted to pass it off. “Nazi demonstration. You know how that goes.”
She nodded slowly. Yes. She knew.
***
The burled-walnut grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs chimed. Etta rested peacefully with the new baby in a cradle beside her.
Aaron took two glasses and a bottle of cognac from the cupboard behind his desk. Dr. Eduard Letzno sat down heavily in the wing-backed chair across from his boyhood friend. He leaned his head against the brown leather and sighed.
Aaron glanced up as he poured. His friend was wearing suit trousers and a white shirt open at the collar. His stethoscope dangled from his neck like a tie. His thick brown hair was tousled, as it had been after a hard game of stickball when they were children. Eduard had grown up, but he had aged very little—except for his gray eyes. His eyes somehow looked ancient and weary.
“You have been working too hard, my friend.” The glasses clinked as Aaron passed one to Eduard.
“You fathers are all the same,” Eduard sipped and grimaced. “You think delivering babies is work. All we doctors do is wait and act as if the process could not happen without us.” He raised his glass in a tired toast. “But don’t tell anyone.”
“L’Chaim,” Aaron returned the toast.
“L’Chaim,” Eduard replied. “To life. A new little Lubetkin. An arrow in the quiver of Aaron and Etta Lubetkin.” He drank, and this time did not grimace.
Aaron sprawled in the chair across from Eduard. I do not look like a rabbi should look, he mused. Sitting in my study with a clean-shaven fellow who looks as much like a Gentile as any Catholic. “Thank you for coming,” he said, feeling a bit guilty that he had thought such things about Eduard. “Rachel told me you were having some sort of party.”
Eduard sniffed and stared into his cognac. “Raising money. You know. For the Zionist settlement in Palestine. Just what we must not speak of among the Jews of this neighborhood, yes? ‘There can be no homeland without Messiah,’ they will say. And then they will throw me out on my ear.”
“Well, it is just you and me, Eduard. I will not throw you out.” Aaron tried to joke. “Until you present your bill.”
“You are certainly the only one of my old friends who welcomes me. The apikoros. The apostate, the traitor Zionist who no longer believes in your Jewish God.”
The last was spoken with such bitterness that Aaron dared not reply. All of what Eduard said was true, down to the word apostate. A thousand times Aaron had asked how it happened. And why? As boys they had shared the same bench at Torah school. They had discussed the Baal Shem Tov with the same enthusiasm. But Aaron had gone to study in Jerusalem and Eduard to the University in Prague. When Aaron at last returned to Poland, Eduard had changed.
There was pain in this change, for both men.
“Perhaps one day you will find yourself again. And find the One who makes a Jew a Jew. In the meantime, you are Dr. Eduard Letzno. You deliver the children of your friend the rabbi.”
Eduard did not smile. He swirled his cognac. “And is my friend the rab
bi leaving Warsaw? Leaving Poland, as I have hoped?”
Aaron tugged his beard thoughtfully. This was a matter they had discussed with unfailing regularity. “You were at Evian. I only listened to the nations of the world as they denied us. You were there, Eduard. So tell me….” He asked the question in Yiddish: “Vi aheen zoll ich gain? Wherever shall I go?”
Eduard leaned forward. His gray eyes moldered with intensity. “Palestine! Zion! There is still time, Aaron! Take Etta and the children to her father in Jerusalem.”
Aaron smiled sadly. “We have thought much about it. Jerusalem, where the Jews of the Old City live on the charity of the Jews of Warsaw. If all of us leave for Jerusalem, then who will be left to send money to Jerusalem?”
“Have you still not seen it, Aaron? The ground is burning beneath our feet! The one thing Poland has in common with Germany is a hatred of Jews.”
“We are three million Jews here in Poland. Three million and one, as of tonight. What can they do to us? We have been here for centuries, and we will be here centuries from now. Etta and I have talked. Things will get better. People are civilized now. What can they do to us here in Poland?”
Eduard Letzno fiddled with the end of his stethoscope. “You know what they did to the Jews of Austria, and what is being done in Czechoslovakia since the Germans entered the Sudetenland.”
“This is Warsaw. The Germans are not here.”
“Yet.”
“They will not come here.” Aaron raised his chin as if he were trying to comfort a frightened child. He had been frightened himself. But now he was confident. There would be no war. Hitler said that the Sudetenland was his last territorial claim in Europe. “There are more of us here than anywhere in the world. Safety in numbers, Eduard.”
“I pray you will leave this place before it is too late.”
“How can I set any hope in Palestine when every day the Arabs are blowing up the Zionists? There is as much violence in Jerusalem as there is in Vienna. We have the letters to prove it, letters from Etta’s father. Do you think I would take my children to such a place?” Aaron exhaled loudly. It was too late for such talk. “New York, America. That is where I wanted to go. I tried! You know I did. And now they have closed those doors. Quotas filled for two years.”
“Then get your name on the list for the day after those two years are up, Aaron! Get out of Warsaw. Those two years must pass, and who knows what is ahead for us.”
“And what about you? Where are you going?”
“Palestine. Next week.”
Aaron placed his glass on the blotter. “So soon?”
“Palestine is in desperate need of doctors. I have an assignment with the Jewish Agency for work in a clinic in Jerusalem.”
“Can you not stay long enough—” Concern showed in Aaron’s eyes. “The child is so small and fragile.”
Eduard hesitated. “There is another matter.” He swirled the cognac in his glass. “I have been questioned by the police here in Warsaw.”
“Questioned?”
“It seems Poland is also listening to the broadcasts of Herr Hitler, Aaron. All Jews are subversives, he says. Bent on the overthrow of every government and the domination of the world.” There was bitter amusement in his eyes. “My Zionist connections are suspect, of course.” He frowned. “I have been . . . requested by the Poles . . . to leave.”
“But you are no threat!” Aaron argued for Eduard as if the argument would make a difference. “Not a communist.”
Eduard stood and stepped to the window. He drew back the heavy brocade drapery and scanned the Square beyond as he spoke. “Russia is at the back of Poland. The Nazis stand at the front door. Hitler raves that the Russians will overrun Poland to attack Germany. He says that the Bolshevik Jews who live within Poland are even now preparing the way for Russia. Do you think this government is not listening? Looking for subversives who might be playing out this scenario?”
“But you, Eduard! You are a humanitarian, not a politician!”
Eduard looked out the window. “Humanitarians are the enemies of politicians, Aaron. Have you not learned that here in Warsaw?” He turned from probing the dark street. There was a strange smile on his face, as though he saw Death and yet was not afraid. “Come here.”
Aaron joined him at the window. He did not want to know what Eduard knew. Did not wish to see the apparition Eduard must somehow see in the streets of the Warsaw ghetto. And yet he searched the dark Square, the empty cobbles of Muranow Square. There was no one there. “What is it?” he whispered.
“Across the Square on the corner you will see his cigarette.” Eduard answered hollowly, confident in his knowledge.
Aaron turned his eyes toward the corner of the street that led to the Umschlagplatz, the train station. The distant whistle of a train penetrated the glass. And then the small orange glow of a match flashed for an instant, illuminating a man. “You are being watched.”
Eduard let the curtain fall. He nodded. “We are all being watched, Aaron. The eyes of Darkness have turned east. Again they linger on us.” He sat down slowly while Aaron remained beside the window, stunned.
“Then you must leave for Palestine. But I am no Zionist. I am a rabbi only.”
There was silence in the room except for the ticking of the clock. Again the train whistle pierced the night. A call to leave Warsaw? Aaron wondered. A warning to those who slept peacefully through this night?
Eduard averted his eyes from the shadow that crossed Aaron’s face. He frowned and sipped his cognac thoughtfully. “Sit down, Aaron. Sit. I will stay in Warsaw until after the baby is circumcised. Perhaps by then you will be convinced—”
A sharp knock interrupted them. Eduard raised his finger as if to hold his place. The knock sounded again, this time more urgently.
“Herr Doktor Letzno,” the housekeeper’s voice penetrated the door. “A gentleman has come looking for you. The Nazis, Herr Doktor! They have deported twelve thousand Jews from the Reich!”
11
God Is an Optimist
It was two kilometers from the German border station of Neu Bentschen to the Polish crossing. Most of the twelve thousand Jews under guard at the place had not eaten since Thursday.
Lazer felt weak, as if his legs would not carry him. He was not as old as some of the deportees; he could only guess how they must feel after such a journey.
On one end of the platform a young man was being beaten by two SS officers as a group of soldiers laughed and looked on. There were many Nazi Blackshirts strutting up and down the long lines of prisoners. Lazer wondered why so many soldiers had been called to drive the Jews out of Germany.
Everyone had been searched—men, women; it made no difference that there were no female guards to search the women. These SS soldiers enjoyed their work. To humiliate a Jewess was to make their comrades roll with laughter. They would carry stories of this day back to the barracks, and they would laugh again and again.
It began to rain, a hard, ruthless downpour. Lazer removed his torn jacket in an attempt to shelter Rifka and Berta. Others who stood waiting along the tracks also tried to shield themselves from the drenching rain. There were no umbrellas. No offer of shelter was made by the Nazis. Some mothers with small children begged to be allowed to get back into the cattle cars just for a while. Permission was refused. The doors slid closed to punctuate the German hope that even very small Jews would perish from pneumonia.
“Sensible of the gods to drown these vermin,” scoffed the SS commander beneath his hooded black rain slicker.
Lazer thought how much these SS men resembled executioners in their wet-weather gear. All of them were strong and tall. They had been chosen for their physical prowess. Ah, yes, Germany was a land of beauty until a man looked into the hard, cold eyes of one of these magnificent beasts. Lips twisted in cruel enjoyment of the misery of twelve thousand. Such power there was in making these rotten Jews stand for hours in the rain!
Young Berta’s eyes were filled with a
haunting fear that added centuries to her fifteen years. She had seen such brutality before, but now it was directed at her!
Lazer wrapped his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and pulled her close against him. She was shivering with the cold and with the spectacle.
“I am thirsty, Papa,” she said.
Lazer held his hand out and caught the rain. He held the cupped hand to her lips, and she drank. She smiled.
“Better?” he asked.
“I did not want to drink water that has touched this German soil,” she said. “It is good that we have rain.”
That was Berta. Always she looked for the best. The rain had become a fountain from which she could drink. “We will arrive in Poland free from German dust,” Rifka added through chattering teeth. “A blessing, this rain. It washes us clean from the past.” Her words were brave for the sake of their daughter, but Lazer could clearly see the pain in his wife’s eyes. Where will we go? What will become of us?
A little before noon the soldiers came with the dogs. They stood beneath the roof of the platform and looked out at their conquered thousands. Black-muzzled German shepherds sat serene and proud beside their handlers. Beautiful, perfectly disciplined animals, these German dogs. Five hundred SS against twelve thousand Jews. It was more than enough.
By noon the dogs were hungry. The colonel beneath the black slicker shouted his command: “Only two kilometers across the frontier to Poland. Let’s see how fast these Jewish pigs can run!”
Suddenly, as if they understood the colonel’s words, the dogs leaped to their feet, snarling. They strained against their short leather leads, lunging again and again toward the long line of Jews.
Guards began to shout, “Run! Run! Run!”
The SS moved from beneath the shelter of the station and laid their truncheons on the backs of their quarry. Jewish blood mingled with the rain until the road was dark red.
Lazer grasped Rifka’s hand and Berta’s hand. He began to run blindly as the screaming, panicked mass pressed around them. Hands reached out toward Poland, as if the reaching could bring the border closer.