No Time for Tears (60 page)

Dovid suddenly couldn’t catch his breath as he sat there. He put the list down on the desk, his mind barely able to accept what he saw. The irony … it was frightening. Sheine’s son had been rescued, and was now in the same cell with his cousin Joshua … Dovid had seen Erich—though at the time he hadn’t known who he was—when he’d wangled permission to see Joshua.

Dovid took out the photograph of Erich that Sheine had sent when he was fifteen. Obviously, after the ordeal that the boy must have been through, he had changed physically, but the eyes
were
Sheine’s. Bitter, yes, but they were Sheine’s.

Dovid immediately went to pay a call on a very special friend in the British command—one he had helped many years ago as an agent. He had a special favor coming to him, and this was the one time Dovid meant to collect…

At four o’clock in the afternoon of the following day, two British soldiers, all spit and polish, stood in front of Dudley Spencer’s desk as he squinted down at the orders for Joshua Landau to be transferred to Latrun Prison, which had greater security than the jail in Jerusalem, and for the immigrant known only as Tattoo 4319195 to be removed immediately to the Jaffa Detention Compound, whence he would be sent to Caraolos camp on Cyprus. The orders bore the official stamp of Sir Ian Henry-Grant. Spencer sighed, shrugged. Actually he could think of nothing better than to have the matter of Joshua Landau out of his jurisdiction at the moment. He would have loved to see the uppity Jew hang by his thumbs, but since the success of the
Liberty
had created more than an embarrassment for the British, he’d deal with him at a later, more appropriate time.

The Haganah had seen to it that the
Liberty
story hit the wire services and made news all over the world. This, after all, had been the first time since the British blockade that a ship of
Liberty’s
size, with so many illegal immigrants aboard, had managed to land and elude the British. The
Liberty’s
daring run had seriously compromised the British blockade.

Whitehall had let the high command in Palestine know its displeasure, and demanded an explanation…

Without hesitation Spencer had the prisoners brought from their cell. Handcuffed, they were remanded into the custody of waiting British soldiers, whom Joshua was pleased to recognize as English Jews who had joined the Haganah.

The charade was played out … Joshua was thrown into one staff car, Erich into another, and the two vehicles sped away from Jerusalem. Just before they reached the gorge of Bab el Wad, they stopped at the side of the road. Joshua and Erich were hurried into the back seat of a waiting car. At the wheel was Reuven, with Zvi beside him.

Reuven wasted no time with amenities as he instructed both his passengers to lie down on the floor, where they were covered with blankets.

Now, for the first time, Erich spoke up. “I demand to know where I am being taken …”

“Well, well,” Joshua said, “so you can actually speak … all right, damn it, lie back and keep very quiet.”

Erich froze. At this moment Auschwitz seemed very close.

They were driven high up into the hills of Haifa to an abandoned Arab village that the Haganah had scouted. The car stopped, the back door was opened, the blanket removed. Joshua got out first, Erich reluctantly following.

The door to the mud hut was opened.

Dovid was waiting.

Joshua said, “Never thought I’d be so happy to see you,
abba.
They sure trained you good in the NILI, didn’t they?”

“Good enough to get you out, young man … now, I suggest that we all sit down and talk about why you’re here.” Dovid hesitated, looked at Erich. “This will come as something of a surprise—maybe a shock—to you, but I’m your Uncle Dovid, and these are your cousins.” He hurried on as he saw Erich’s disbelieving reaction. “Joshua, you know. Reuven, you don’t, although he drove you here along with Zvi. Now, I have a feeling we all have a lot to talk about.”

Joshua, Reuven and Zvi were surprised, of course. Erich was shocked. His mother had told him nothing. Thinking back, he recalled vaguely that she had tried, but there’d been no time. But this must have been the secret she wanted to tell him …

Dovid waited, then, understanding Erich’s difficulty, said quietly, “Erich, try to believe this … the only way you can rid yourself of all the terrible hurts is to talk about them. You have a family now. We love you, and we want you, and we thank God that you’ve been able to come to us.”

Erich’s anger was like a reflex. Six years of degradation had nurtured it. “Don’t talk to me about thanking God and how much you love me. Don’t tell me to talk away six years in ten minutes. I think the world is a sewer. I hate it, it should all have been buried with Hitler in his damn bunker.”

“All right, Erich … we don’t talk about any of this today. You’re right, you need time.”

That night Erich woke up screaming from the nightmare he lived with … drenched in perspiration and thrashing about in the bed. Joshua, who was in the next bed, went to him and held him in his arms. “It’s all right. It’s all right, Erich. It will be, I promise you …”

Erich’s breathing slowed to normal as he looked at his cousin. It seemed a thousand years since anyone had treated him like anything but an animal. He lay back, wanting to say thank you, but the words wouldn’t come.

The next days helped Erich believe and accept that these people who called themselves family really were. The men kept up a lively banter about Haganah’s exploits and their roles. There were no heroes. Mishaps, errors in judgment were fully aired and even made light of … “Many were the times we were caught—sometimes literally—with our pants down,” Reuven said.

Gradually Erich found the voice inside him … “I didn’t think I’d ever talk about this. You see, I’m not the same as you. I was born a German and I grew up thinking Hitler was God and the Reich was the ultimate state. The best of possible worlds. I
believed
in the lie of the Aryan race’s superiority. I was raised, trained to give my life for it. I believed
Mein Kampf
was the Bible … Do you understand how I felt when I found out they’d lied to me? I
believed
that Jews were the cause of the world’s troubles. What was happening to them was what they deserved. Hitler said so, and Hitler could do no wrong … Until the night when I was taken away and called a Jew. My mother and I were taken to Auschwitz, and my fine Aryan father didn’t lift a finger to help us—”

Dovid interrupted. “I knew your father, Erich, and I think you’re wrong about him. He was one of the few Germans that knew the truth, but he too was helpless. I was in Germany just before the war. I spoke to him. He was convinced that nothing could hurt you because no one knew your mother was Jewish. He was wrong, yes, but what he did, he did trying to protect you—”

Erich didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t have any idea where he’s at. I don’t want to, but I wonder what he would have thought if he’d seen Auschwitz in 1941 … When we got there we saw lawns and flowerbeds around the buildings. You know what those buildings were? Gas chambers. I guess I was lucky. Because of my father’s fine
name
, Dr. Hesseman—he’d been a colleague of my father’s—knew me, decided to take pity on my Jewish soul and do me the honor of letting me work in the laboratory. I could go on for days and never have enough time to tell you what happened there. Little kids injected with cancer cells. The legs of pregnant women tied so they couldn’t give birth. Men castrated. And thanks to Dr. Hesseman’s generosity, I was allowed to see my mother. Let me tell you about my mother. They tried to teach me otherwise, but she was an angel, the only human being I’d ever felt close to. I knew that the next morning it was her turn to go to the ‘showers.’ I couldn’t accept that. She was dying from a typhus injection they’d given her. That night I went to my mother. I took hold of her hand and held onto it while she drank the sleeping potion I’d stolen. When she was asleep …I … put the pillow over her face and I kept it there until …”

He forced back the tears that he would not have believed he still was capable of. “It was very quiet, I remember. I took her out of the shed, which had been her home, and not more than ten feet away I found a shallow rut between a clump of pine trees, and there I put her down, covered her with dirt, picked up a twig and drew a Star of David in the earth. I kept telling myself that at least I saved her from being gassed to death.”

When he’d finished there was silence, except for the quiet sobbing of Erich Dieter Hausman, the first tears he’d shed in over six years….

Erich slept well that night, at least without the nightmares, and in the morning after breakfast Dovid said, “I think it’s time, Erich, that you should meet the rest of your family.”

“I’d like that, Uncle Dovid, except understand my name is
not
Erich Dieter Hausman. I am or a German. I am a Jew, so I want to be called Yehudah. And in memory of my mother … Rabinsky.”

Dovid took the boy to him and held him close. As his own.

With all that was going on in Palestine between Haganah, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the British there were few who paid attention to the Wanted posters for Joshua Landau. The
Liberty
incident was nearly forgotten in the wake of riots and retaliations. So it was considered safe for them to leave the hills of Haifa and go back to Kfar Shalom.

When they arrived, Erich was greeted with such warmth that the past was almost put in the past. Dvora could not get over him being there. For Erich, Pnina expecting her first child in a few days, his cousin Reuven being so friendly … it was hard to believe, but he was learning … Maybe, just maybe someday there might even be someone for him. For Yehudah Rabinsky …

Although Erich’s …. Yedudah’s … need for love was certainly different than Joshua’s, Simone Blum had been steadily in his thoughts ever since they’d met. Until now, though, there had just been no time to do anything about it

He called her headquarters and found she was off duty for a few days and could be reached in Jerusalem. He phoned, keeping his fingers crossed that she would be home … She wasn’t. He called every half hour until finally he heard an hello at the other end.

“Hello … I’ve been trying to get you all evening … Oh, this is Joshua … Landau.”

As though she wouldn’t recognize that voice. She’d heard it often enough on that trip across the Mediterranean. Anyone else … she might have thought it was some
chutzpah
to be calling after all this time, not in Joshua Landau’s case. She knew the repercussions when the
Liberty
landed. She’d even felt guilty that she’d been one of the lucky ones to escape and he’d been caught. So she was actually pleased that he hadn’t forgotten her. “How are you, Joshua Landau?”

“Lonely.”

“So?”

“So, come meet me.”

“Where are you?”

“At home … Kfar Shalom.”

Silence … “How would you suggest I get there … by plane?”

“I don’t mean here. How about Tiberias? They have a great kibbutz near there where we can swim, and a fine symphony orchestra. It’s a perfect place to get acquainted …”

“Well, I think that’s pretty far. Why not Jerusalem? You told me it’s your favorite place.”

“Well, I’m afraid I’m not so popular right now in Jerusalem. Please … I’ll meet you at the Hotel Ramal in Tiberias at 5:00 this afternoon … I’d pick you up, Simone, but the gendarmes might not let me get there.”

“I understand,” she said quickly. “I’ll be there.” A wanted man was entitled.

When she walked into the hotel, she was even more beautiful than Joshua’s memory of her, standing at the rail of the
Liberty.
She was dressed in a simple silk frock. Her face was radiant, and her deep blue eyes were remarkably blue.

“I am, as they say, at a loss for words,” he said with huge unoriginality. “Well, let’s get out to the kibbutz.”

She hesitated. “If you don’t mind, I’m awfully hungry, could we stay here and have dinner?”

He said they could. He’d go or stay anywhere with this lady.

They sat at a window table, looking out at the surf below. Hard to believe, they both were thinking, that there was an angry, murderous world out there. Joshua ordered a bottle of wine and they toasted their meeting. The orchestra struck up, and they danced. When the orchestra stopped it was one in the morning, and Joshua suggested that they stay the night and go to the kibbutz later on in the day.

Simone went along … until Joshua asked for only one room. “Joshua, I’m very attracted to you, but I don’t go to bed with a man the first time I spend an evening with him. I want you and I to know each other much better.”

Joshua might understand but he was hardly pleased. Grumpily, he ordered two separate rooms.

He tossed and turned and hardly slept that night, and at breakfast the next morning he was ready to tell her that they were going back. But confronting that extraordinary face … he forgot his pique. Be grateful for small favors, he told himself. After breakfast they changed into their bathing suits and swam in the marvelous soothing waters. After lunch they walked through the hills and Simone picked armfuls of wildflowers. They bought apples from a Druse vendor along the road, sat among the wildflowers and looked down at the panorama of Tiberias—blue, the fields buttercup yellow, the sky pink and white. Joshua was only human … he took Simone in his arms and kissed her. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Give me the slightest hint of encouragement and I’ll probably ask you to marry me. I’m not just impetuous, I have excellent taste and my work does tend to keep me away—”

She released herself from his arms. “Joshua, we’ve met exactly twice. What do you know about me? Almost nothing. What do I know about you? More, but not enough. I’m not even thinking about marriage now—”

Joshua got up, annoyed in spite of himself.

“Joshua, people need to get to
know
each other very well before they talk about marriage—”

“Well how do you get to
know
anyone when you have separate rooms on different floors?”

“Not too difficult, Joshua.” She allowed herself a smile. “You give one of them up.
When
you’ve gotten to know each other better.”