Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (114 page)

But the combined forces of history and fate had other plans
in store for them.

There was turmoil at home.

As they had feared, over half the territory of Palestine was
closed off to Jews, and the heavy restrictions imposed upon
the acquiring of land by the Jewish Agency was put into effect.
Jews were condemned to a minority status, and the White
Paper effectively curtailed immigration. Although it was
denounced in Britain's Parliament by Winston Churchill,
other Conservatives, and every leader of the Labour party, it
stayed in effect.

And abroad, the world was even more in turmoil.

In March 1938, Adolf Hitler had annexed Austria, and then,
six months later, Great Britain and France stepped aside and
allowed Germany to dismember Czechoslovakia as well. The
ravenous Third Reich had gobbled up two entire countries
while the rest of the world stood by and watched.

Isolated though they were, the inhabitants of Ein Shmona
followed the Nazi exploits more closely, and with greater
dread, than most people in the major capitals of the world. The people of Ein Shmona, better than most, knew that the
terror which had been unleashed upon the world could easily
destroy them all. Word trickling down from Europe was unthinkably horrifying, and their fears were very real, con
sidering the harsh experiences of the past. They were the
latter-day children of Moses and, like their forebears, had come to Palestine to escape pogroms and persecution. Now,
it seemed, the very dangers from which they fled might well
catch up with them, overwhelm them, obliterate them.

To them, Hitler was no Chaplinesque buffoon. He was
another pharaoh, another Herod—the dark Angel of Death.

'Why doesn't someone stop that madman?' Tamara cried
passionately one evening while they were all gathered around
the radio in the community hall, listening to the latest depress
ing news of Hitler's victories. 'Before we know it, the entire
world will be German!'

'Except for our people,' Schmarya corrected her grimly,
looking at each of them so resolutely that his own fears merged
with theirs, creating a great collective terror. 'We'll all be
dead. There won't be a single Jew left on the face of this earth
if Hitler gets his way.'

In 1939 Germany and Russia signed a nonaggression pact
which freed Hitler to attack Poland without fear of Russian
reprisals. France and Great Britain, having guaranteed
Poland's independence, declared war on Germany. During
the blitzkrieg of April through to June 1940, Germany con
quered Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and France—
in one fell swoop, with hardly any resistance.

Then the Battle of Britain began.

Hitler amassed his troops on the French coast, preparing to
cross the English Channel, but those few miles of open water
were to be his albatross. He was stopped in his tracks. No
matter how many bomber squadrons bombarded London, the
British hung on with ferocious tenacity and fought back dog
gedly. But the endless bombs were taking their toll on Great
Britain even though air superiority over the British eluded the
Nazis. Day after day and night after night, the relentless Nazi squadrons filled the skies and the bombs whistled down upon
British soil. Many feared that it was only a matter of time
before the British would have to surrender.

It was on July 5,1940, that Dani broke the news to her.

Over the past several days, Tamara had sensed that he was
inwardly struggling with himself over something momentous,
but she had come to know him well enough not to press him.
She knew that he would tell her when he was ready.

That night after dinner, he proposed that they take a stroll,
and from the tone of his voice she knew that he intended to
tell her what had been on his mind. They walked in silence,
but even before he said anything, she felt a rising dread begin
ning to choke her. When they reached their favourite spot, a ridge that afforded a view of the entire community, he sat on a smooth boulder and patted it. She sat next to him and took
his hand in hers.

The distant cries of the children at play in the supervised playground drifted up to them. Soon, she thought, the twins
would be old enough to join them. The white plumes of the
irrigation jets made water fountains of spray in the lush,
geometrically laid-out fields which would soon yield the third
of the four annual vegetable harvests. How tranquil every
thing looked! she couldn't help thinking. How deceptively
peaceful the world seemed! Sitting here now she could scarcely
believe that, a mere few days' journey away, Europe had
exploded into a massive battlefield of blood and death and
gore.

'I've decided to join the British forces,' Dani announced
quietly, without preamble.

She jerked as if punched by an invisible fist. She turned to
him. 'The
British
army?' she asked incredulously.

'Well, the Air Force, actually.'

She turned away and stared out into space for several min
utes, seeing and hearing nothing other than his shadowy
announcement, as if a damaged tape recorder played it over and over in her mind until it became such high-pitched, gar
bled gibberish that she thought she would go crazy and scream.

'Tamara,' he pleaded softly, 'please do not be upset with
me. Let me explain.'

He reached up and with a finger traced a gentle line from her forehead down to her lips. Usually it made her smile and
look at him with a special loving expression. 'Tamara . . .
She sat there numbly, neither moving nor looking at him. He
was leaving her to don a uniform, march off to war on some
distant battlefield where artillery shells burst, bombs whistled
down, and bullets whizzed. He would eat cold rations and
bleed and . . . and . . .

She turned slowly to him then, and stared into his face. A
sorrowful shadow had slid down over his eyes and they seemed
to have lost their tawny lustre.
'
Tamara.'

'Yes.' Her voice was dull.

'Tamara, you must try to understand.'

Her eyes flared and she slapped her thigh. 'Dani! The Brit
ish are our enemies! They've proved that time and again! Ever
since that idiotic White Paper, they've been keeping a lot of
Jews from coming here.' She gestured wildly. 'Even Jews from
Germany, whose only hope of survival is to come here! And
since they're not allowed to emigrate, you know where they're
ending up.' Her voice was thick with emotion. 'You told me
so yourself.'

'I know that,' he said gently, 'but I have no choice. I'm not
the first Palestinian Jew to join the British forces and I won't
be the last. Don't you see? For now our differences with the
British must be set aside. A far greater evil is loose in the
world.'

She gave a wild, discordant laugh. 'Hitler. Everything lately
always boils down to Adolf Hitler.'

'Yes, Hitler.' He sighed heavily and looked very tired.

For a long time she could not trust herself to speak. 'When
are you leaving?' she asked at last.

'The first of next week.'

'Four days from now.' She pressed his hand. 'So soon.'

'Yes.'

She watched the blood-red sun sliding silently behind the
dark distant cliffs. For a heart-stopping moment everything
looked blood-red—the ground, the sky, even Dani.

Her fears pressed in claustrophobically. She moved her arm
protectively around him and clung to his side. Terrifying
visions of war flickered through her mind like a speeding film, frame after frame filled with mounting horrors. Only now did
she realize how much she had taken her newfound happiness
for granted, when it was a blessing she should have given
thanks for every day.

He was looking at her so gently that she felt he had been
reading her mind. 'We all have to do our part, Tamara,' he
said softly. 'Don't you see? The only thing keeping Hitler from swallowing up more of the world is England. So far, his troops
haven't got across the channel. If they do, the Nazis are liable
to arrive on our doorstep next. And then what?' He shook
his head sorrowfully, the weight of the world slumping his
shoulders. 'We're Jews, Tamara. We wouldn't last a week.'

She stared at him as though in a trance.

We 're Jews. Jews.

And suddenly the ugliest terror of all reared its monstrous
head: What if he was wounded and fell into enemy hands and
made a prisoner of war . . . and the Germans found out he
was Jewish!

The thought made her head spin so crazily out of orbit she was certain she was going to throw up. It took every ounce of
willpower to swallow the bile and keep it down.

Dani said, 'Only if enough of us stand up and fight can we
hope to survive. You can see that, can't you?'

She fought to be brave and found the courage to give a slight
nod. He was right, of course; deep down inside, she knew that
as clearly as she knew that death followed birth, that night followed day. His mind was made up. It was in his eyes. She
could only agree with him, and hopefully strengthen his cour
age and resolve even further. It was hard enough for him to march off and do battle against Hitler's seemingly invincible
forces without her reminding him of the hazards involved.

Whatever she did, she must not undermine his confidence,
for that could prove fatal.

'Ye—' she started, then swallowed to moisten her mouth,
and with a supreme effort tried again. 'Yes, darling,' she said
simply, pressing the soft warmth of her body against him. 'You
must join the British forces. I
...
I understand.'

He stared at her speechlessly.

'I'm so proud of you,' she whispered. 'I love you so much.'

He shook his head wonderingly. 'It is I who should be
proud,' he said as he pulled her closer to kiss her. 'A lesser
woman would have tried to talk me out of it.' He smiled at
her. 'You know, you really are your father's daughter.'