The four strange travellers went down from their train’s cabin. Aliosha stretched his hands and steered his feet in the air to and fro – to release muscles and bones. The boy was told by Natalya to tread the paved platform, “in order to cause the blood run again in your veins.”
”Your mama is righ.” said Aliosha, “You see that I am doing the same; and I’m teaching even your papa to tread his feet like I do.. You see? He has moved his foot a little bit, and waved it in the air.”
When they got out of the railway station, Aliosha asked somebody where they could find
the Harbour’s gate. He was told to walk straight still a couple of minutes, and see a plateboard.
Rabbi Aaron’s eyes were busy in surveying the harbor and the sea. Again he saw the warships, but his eyes were searching large, chimneyed commercial ships. He saw only two, all along the sea up to the horizon. It seemed to him too less. ‘A large port like this’, he reflected, ‘should have anchored tens of big trade ships. The reason isn’t that the Soviets lack sailors or sea Officers in this country. There is little amount of goods to import and export. A boycot had been announced on the communists - by some rich Western countries, and the stupid regime has dried the state’s commerce and destroyed the trade. Only the fishing boats would still prosper, and…’
Suddenly a warship’s artillery began to shell. A far warship canons’ long barrells were smoking, and a new shooting followed. The boy was scarerd, but Aliosha told him: “Relax, boy. It is the praised Red Army’s artillery training. I had been here once, seen the same view and heard the same shrapnells. You will soon get into the travellers’ ship. I guess it’s there, see? We can’t read its name. But if it’s yours, it shouild be called ‘Arthemis’. I think it’s a Greek one. it should be sailing to the port of Constatinople. That townsport has different names. Its Muslem rulers call it: Istanbul, and the christians: contstantinopolis, and the Roman Byzantium, and the Jews…I’ve forgotten…”
Aliosha was moving with his small group to the gate. There he unloaded his handbag and backbag, and emptied them before the inspecting eyes of the guards. He showed them also his secuirity certificate. He pointed on the Hittins, saying: “They’re with me”, and showed their passengers passports. Natalya also opened her bag to the inspectors, and exposed her poor personal belongings.
After that short procedure, they were all allowed to enter the secured area of the port. Not far was seen a shed, near which a plateboard was stuck, saying: “Passengers licences - and clarification for ship boarding”. When they arrived there, they saw a young, athlete built fellow, in white sailor’s uniform, having an Officer’s yellow lined ranks on his shoulders. His face and hands were sunburned, and Aliosha expressed his guess to Natalya, that the man had been waiting for them. Three porters, who were walking by, asked the uniformed sailor in a language that seemed Turkish to Natalya:
“Lieutenant Stalingun, are you going to sail with these millionaires?”
The naval Officer nodded to them. After they have passed he laughed, telling the group what they had just said. His fingers played with his nice Stalin’s moustache, while he invited them to get inside the shed. They discerned a brown bench, and soon Aliosha indicated the three of them to sit on it and wait.
“Have you all the documents with you?” Asked the Officer in a harsh Russian language. Tall Aliosha nodded, and delivered him all Hittin family’s papers. He mentioned each one by the name, beginning with the Rabbi.
“The bearded man is dumb and deaf, and so on,” he said with a wink, then pointed on the invalid boy, and then on Natalya, who stretched her handkerchief to the Rabbi’s mouth and wiped his foaming.
“For how long shall we stay here, in the port?” she asked the officer impatiently.
“Tomorrow morning we will start our sail, hopefully,” said the officer, “I’ll let you embark the ship within a few minutes. You’ll organize yourselves inside, and rest there.”
The Turkish Officer shook hands with Aliosha. The tall young man turned to Natalya, and first shook hands with her. Then he kissed the boy’s cheeks, and at last kissed Rabbi’s beard by his two cheeks, and took his trembling hands by both hands for farwell. Before he went out, he was holding a small speech to the three of them:
“Maybe we’ll meet one day. Remember Aliosha. My father fell in the civil war, for Lenin and Communism. But I’m Jew.”
He left the shed’s open small door, and they saw him running away. Natalya swore, looking at the boy, that Tall Aliosha was weeping.
The Rabbi still restrained himself from a joyful weep.
‘Maybe Aaron is right’, Natalya reflected. ‘An exaggerated caution would never bring damage’.
The Turkish Officer used the ‘field-phone’ on his small rough-wooden table. After a short talk, presumably with somebody on the ship, he said: “let’s get inside.”
He led them on the gangway, and wondered about the rein by which the boy was led, telling Natalya in his bad Russian accent:
“I am the Second Officer of the ship. Its Captain is Abdullah Erzeroom. Would you have any special request - please let me know first.”
“We can hardly eat anything,” told him Natalya, “you see that we are Jews, and we keep Kosher food.”
“I will bring you bread and vegetables. I Know they are acceptable,” said the officer, and they arrived to their cabin.
The Lieutenant laid down their bags on the floor, and looked at Natalya, who began to take out their personal belongings and put them into a small, open cornered wardrobe. The Rabbi did not move, till he saw that the man had gone out. He held his finger on his lips and whispered to his family:
“Untill we get out in Istanbul, I should not expose my disguise. Tomorrow we will surely see Russians here. Some of them will be Gepauniks or spies, who are sent to the west.”
Then the officer returned with bread, washed vegetables and a big jug of water. He explained to Natalya where the toilets were, and left them.
Natalya covered one of the beds with a newspaper, that she had read in the train- and remained in her bag. She cut tomatos, onions and cocumbers, split the bread into three pieces and pulled out a fork. She was feeding the boy, and Rabbi Aaron heard him bless the food loudly, while he still did that in a whisper. The three of them began to eat their poor dinner, sitting close to each other. Then the Rabbi and Natalya arranged the beds, two of them- one put over the other…
The boy asked Natalya to take him out, and climb with him to the deck. She was also eager to see the harbor and the sea-waves at night. She was embracing the boy very tightly, and pressed his back to her thighs. While still holding him by the reins as a precaution- she was following his slow climb upstairs. When they were over the deck, they still succeeded to gaze at the sun’s burning red ball sinking into the western sea.
After five minutes they saw the Lieutenant coming towrd them. He said angrily:
“Madam, you have left the Rabbi alone in the room. I saw you climb to the deck, but he shouild not be left alone; so are my instructions. Don’t you know that?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Natalya.
“I brought you cups for drinking, that I had forgotten before.” said the Officer..”They are now near the water jug on the floor.”
“Thank you.” said Natalya. “We did not want to bother you…”
“When all the passengers will have embarked,” he said, “you will be able to walk to our nice restaurant. We will bring there your special food. You’ll have a quite a nice society of passengers.”
At night they slept well, being very tired from their long way. In the morning they saw a deckboy bringing their breakfest to their cabin. Natalya was reading to Raphael the children book ‘tree medvedie’(three bears) by Lev Nikolay Tolstoy, and the Rabbi was wrapped with his praying cloth and ‘Thfilin’ for about an hour. Then the Rabbi whispered to Natalya:
“My dear wife. Do you remember the tale in Genesis about Noah,
the rightous man? He sent the pigeon out of the boat. What for?”
“To see if the flood’s water had dropped down!” shouted the boy.
“Don’t shout,” said Rabbi Aaron, “So you go out now, Natalya- and inquire when this ship will depart , out of that bloody country. I’m nervous.”
“You are right,” she said and dressed herself, then went toward the gangway. The time was ten o’clock in the morning, and there were seen four or five couples – with and without children, waiting down, and sailors were runing to and fro. At last Natalya saw the Lieutenant, and he told her that most of the passengers would presumably embark on board within two hours. “But I’ve received a telephone call from the authorities - to still wait. There is a small problem. We will solve it till tomorrow. ..You eat on our account. ..”
“It’s not a problem of money. It costs us – nerves’ wreck,” said Natalya.
“Sorry, I understand your impatience.”
She was a little scared, because of that mysterious delay. When she told that to the Rabbi, he said in whisper:
“Surely it is not because of me. But who knows. . .Perhaps Gepau is having here another enemy, who they will want to deal with. They may bring on board a chained prisoner, to humiliate him. They expelled also Leib Trotsky through this port. And towhere did they drive him? To the same city Istanbul - in Turkey. Ha Ha, I’m in a good society. Your beloved politician Leon Trotsky. Remember?” They both began to smile to each other, but soon calmed down, as Rabbi Aaron reminded his rule of caution. Then he said to himself: ‘Learning Talmud and Torah are the best solution for a headache. In addition to a daily reading of ten chapters from this marvelous Psalms book. Today I will have a self-lesson of Talmud. I’ll read it in a regular way, as at home. If a spy appears here, in this cabin, I will immediately turn the page, to read it upside down. It’s quite reasonable that the guy who may spy on me - will be a Jew- so he will think that I’m only playing with the pages, still maddened. . .
On the third day, at ten thirty, the ship sent out three long whistles.
Sailors disconnected its anchors and lifted them to the air, and many travellers climbed on the deck to see the ship sailing. No men or women were waiting on the platform, to wave to those departing from the land of Soviet Russia. The Black Sea’s water seemed darker than in a regular blue river, and the few bright clouds strolling on the light-blue sky were not reflected in it. Small waves were driving toward to the beach not far, and a long foamed wave escorted the vessel which was turning to leave the harbor of Oddessa and get into the open black sea. Tears were choking Aaron Hittin, who was standing beside his wife and son, looking at the fading away Soviet coast. Raphael suddenly tried to pull the reins from Natalya’s grip: “I want to run,” he called enthusiastically, “Let’s run together on the deck. A lot of place here, I am so happy!”
She held the rein tightly and let him run from one balustrade of the deck to the other, along the ship’s width. Many passengers who were looking at the starnge reined creature running and calling: ‘Gallop horse, gallop mad horse,’ shouted: ‘Bravo’. A nicely dressed woman halted Natalya, and told her she must pose for a photo with the boy, which she did. Aaron Hittin was not satisfied with that, and while they returned to their cabin - he told Natalya that it would be better to escape publicity…
At noon the boy was tired from his sail excitement, and went to sleep. Then Natalya heard from the Rabbi that he had been irritated. He saw two sailors, homosexuals, undress under a shed on the deck.
“They were kissing and behaving like animals. Some women had still been present there, at the balustrade...” he said. Then he was like-praying in Russian, so that Ntalya would understand: ”God, save us from evil doers. Like you had saved prophet Jonas from those vile sailors, who had thrown him out of their ship…Do you remember the story?” – he looked at his wife, and was satisfied she had been listening,
“You have told me about this Prophet,” she answered.
“Well, Prophet Jonas was saved by a big fish, a Leviathan. He had run out from God. For that he was punished - but at last God saved him. I, Rabbi Aaron Hittin, run out for and toward God. Isn’t that self understandable, that God will save me?”
She nodded and they kissed.
The boy was sleeping for two hours in that afternoon. Close to dusk Rabbi Aaron and Natalya climbed with him back to the deck. Many passengers were looking now on the sunset in the west. The sea was irritated and storming. The Rabbi saw in its reddened water a butchered hen, quaking before dying in the dusk. He began to murmur the evening prayer, and saw long beams sent from a high grey-pink cloud toward the horizon. In the sea water - that view was dimmly reflected. Soon a cold wind reminded the small family, as well as other passengers, that soon they will have to return to their cabins.
‘It is not like the great Russian cold, that we have witnessed in the past.’ reflected Rabbi Aaron. ‘Within a few hours we will reach our salvation port. Do you see, Natalya?- I only said a few words of optimism - and the wind has changed its direction. It has become warmer now. With God’s help - we will see our safe haven. My heart is so rejoicing, that I want to dance. A small miracle - is what happened to me. And what will be the fate of the whole bulk of our people? Let us hope, but years and years would pass, till … I know the Blosheviks, and other groups of enemies of our wanderings souls. Nobody would like to sacrifice something to let us live according to our wish. It is a cursed era, I say. Nobody knows why has God turned out the events to be as they are nowadays. I am not philosophizing, I’m just telling the truth as I see the hapennings. A great riddle, all our existence on this earth. All our knowledge is zero and annuled in comprison to Almighty’s overall power. ..
Like a blow of a victory trumpet, or a cry of jubilation - was heard from inside the ship’s restaurant. A musical sailor’s trumpet was performing there a merry melody. That made the family Hittin rejoice. They went back to their cabin. Soon Natalya washed the boy’s body with a towel, that she sank into a bucket of clean water, that she had found. Rabbi Aaron was sitting on his bed, after he had pulled out his book of Talmud from the bag. The electricity in the cabin was suddenly off. That had already happened before, and so he lit candle, that Natalya had brought in her bag from Minsk.
He began to study again the first chapter, looking at the book and cursing Gepau’s Dwarf Avrum, who had found his last hundred golden Dollars hidden in the fold of its cover. The Gepau confiscated the money, and the Rabbi’s family had a small reserve in Rubles, in Natalya’s purse. The Rabbi hoped that his sister –Gittlel, would wait for him in Istanbul, and take care of everything. That is what Tall Aliosha had promised.
Rabbi Aaron became excited, thinking about his future meeting with his sister, and about the sudden change in his disguise. Until now he could hardly think about the possibility of talking and behaving freely, without being detected. Crazy, jerky events had occurred to him. Such convulsions erupted around him, that no one could explain logically he he had been rescued. . .
Had a spectator taken his field-binoculars, looking from the harbor of Istanbul toward the approaching ship Arthemis, his tears – like Rabbi Aaron’s - would have also appeared on the glasses’ surface. Then they would drop into the black sea, and mix with its salty water.
Hittin’s family passed the passports’ checking very swiftly. At the long shed for Arrivals, the Rabbi saw his sister. They were already embracing each other and weeping, then kissing each other’s cheeks ten times or more. Also the boy and Natalya were kissed and embraced a lot, but Gittel continued to watch her brother’s face very curiously.
“I was very anxious about you, Aaron,” She said, “you had answered only my first postcard. For years I has been quite sure- that you were not any more alive.”
“I will tell you all my adventures - later on,” he said, and looked at her face with love. He remembered that she had left Russia almost as a teenager, and now she was
a grown up woman, a little obese. Instead of wearing a wide kerchief- like he had remembered her, she exposed her original hairs, wearing a queer hat.
“You are looking strangely at my womanish hat, Aaron,“ Gittel said in a smile, “maybe they lack such articles in Russia nowadays.”
“The Bolsheviks lack many personal belongings,” remarked Natalya.
“You will get used to many things,” said Gittel.
Rabbi Aaron said: ‘well’. It seemed to him that she was checking his face again and again, like she suspects him of something.
They went out of the port and walked toward Gittel’s hotel, which was said to be quite nearby. Gittel looked amazed at the poor boy, whose father was leading him now by the reins. She stepped close to him, and stopped his walk for a while.
“Raf’l, you are so sweet,” she told him, bending to him and kissing his cheeks and eyes, “Oh, how many years have passed- since I’ve left Russia... Well, I have also son, Gersh.. He is a little bit older than you. He will play with you soccer. I hope you can kick a ball without fear.”
“Somebody,” remarked Natalya, “will hold him by the rein and watch his moves. Only in that way he can safely kick a ball.”
Gittel, who first walked to the left of Rabbi Aaron – now walked behind him and located herself to walk at Natalya’s right.
“I want to chat for a while with your wife, Aaron,” she said, “something between mature women.”
Aaron murmured that he won’t mind, thinking that Gittel would ask additional questions about the invalid boy. But she asked Natalya:
“Is Reb Aaron hundred percents well? I had written to Stalin, you know….understanding that he had been found out to be mad, meshugae!”
“He had pretended madness, and really hidden the truth even from me,” said Natalya. Both began laughing, while Gittel said to her brother:
“Oh, what a brave man you are, Aaron. To trick Stalin you need to be very smat. Oh, I can’t yet believe it. Ha Ha! God! I was really thinking that you had gone out of your mind, that your brain had been paralyzed and deteriorated. Oh, what insane I was myself!” She embraced the boy again, laughing and whimping, and the Rabbi began lauging with the women.
“I understand why you are all laughing,” said the boy, and joined their fun.
When they arrived close to the hotel, Gittel remembered, that she had not apologized for her husband, Mennes-Mandy. He could not join her in receiving her released family.
“My husband had to take care of our children,” said Gittel. “and be present in his business. There is of course another reason: This travel is costly. . .But it’s O’key, we have calculated everything.”
“I really wonder,” said Aaron, “how you had come here…We had heard about the scandal, that you had raised in Geneve.”
“You know: I wasn’t afraid to walk alone, even in the dark forest near Brest. Remember?”
Natalya asked Gittel when she had started to take her travel.
“Since Stalin’s beaureu had let me know,” she answered, “that Aaron’s release is a matter of a week or two. The Russian consulat in New York had transmitted to me that message…”
“Can we find a Kosher restaurants nearby?” Natalya asked Gittel.
“Of course, we will sit there for lunch- after bringing your bags into the hotel.”
When they reached the hotel, Gittel told them her plan for the next day. They would walk to see a synagogue, if the Rabbi wants, and then stroll in the streets and visit the colorful market, just to let the time pass.
“The day after tomorrow – we will take the ship to New York,” she added.
“Wait,” said Aaron suddenly, and his eyes were flashing, “I have to see- if we can get to The Jewish Agency office here. I’m interested how to reach Palestine.”
“What? What for?” called Gittel, and Natalya’s face also expressed surprise.
“I am not talking out of craziness,” told them Rabbi Aaron.
“Aaron, I won’t go with you there!” shouted Natalya, ”everytime you fall on a new idea! I can’t bear it, dear Aaron.”
“Palestine – which they call Erets Israel,” said Gittel, “is a desert country, full of mires and sands.. .It’s not for you both, and of course not for your son. He won’t stand the hardship of climate there, and the mires and the perpetual epidemics. And you have the Arabs there. They m,aybe worse than the communists. They rebel every second year, and kill Jews in every corner. Haven’t you heard about that? The Soviets don’t tell everything, that’s the point. ”
“Sorry, we had never had a radio,” said Natalya.
“I think, Aaron – that you really need a lot of rest,” said Gittel, “be reasonable, brother.”
“I’ll go with papa,” said the boy; tears appeared in his father’s eyes.
“I may go alone also,” said Rabbi Aaron. “I had a dream, according to what our Wise men were saying in Talmud: ‘When Messiah comes - all dead Jews from all over their exile locations - will be rolled by God in underground tunnels. . .Yes, toward the land of Israel!
“Don’ty be kidding, brother. Live in reality!” shouted Gittel.
“I will try to avoid these tunnels, by heading to the holy land - right away!…”
“You fancy, Aaron,” shouted Gittel, and circled her finger behind his head, while Natalya was gazing at her like helpless. She soon turned aside, and restrained herself from sobbing, thinking about his unexpectedness. ‘This might be his real madness,’ Natalya thought.
“Messiah’s day of Resurrection is near,” said Aaron, and his eyes were looking wild, “and where will he first arrive? Of course, in our holy land.”
The women looked again at each other in astonishment. They were sure that Rabbi Aaron Hittin had really re-maddened; or at least - that his mind had become childish.
“I don’t ask anybody of you to come with me. I will walk straight to the offices of the Jewish Agency here. In our community in Minsk- we had heard about that Agency. It can make the arrangements for the three of us - emigrate to Palestine…”
He refrained from telling his sister, that it would remove her heavy responsibility to take care of a poor family like his. And he had known for long, that in America – it would be very hard and costly for the invalid boy to be cared of, and survive. In the land Israel – so he was thinking, the boy may get into a kibbutz, where people are living collectively. They are used there to take care of the weaker society. Such were the rumors before he had been asylumed…
CHAPTER 50