Thieves in the Night (32 page)

Brodetsky hopefully held out his battered ear-trumpet towards the Magistrate, with a shrug to indicate that it was useless. The Magistrate met his eyes for a second, then reverted to the papers in his file. “Tell him that will have to be dealt with later,” he said without looking up.

The barrister turned to the defendant who obediently replaced the trumpet to his ear. “
Später
,” he shouted into the trumpet.

“
Später, später
,” Brodetsky repeated to himself, shrugging.

“Ask him whether he wants to make any statement bearing on the case.”

“
Wünschen Sie etwas zu sagen?
” Weinstein shouted.

“
Sagen? Sagen? Ich will zu meinem Neffen. Was ist hier los?
” Brodetsky said nervously.

“He says that he wants to see his nephew and he keeps asking for what reason he has been brought to this room.”

The Magistrate looked at Weinstein.

“You have explained the charge to him?”

“Repeatedly,” said Weinstein.

“He was mentally examined and found in a state of nervous tension, but sane,” said Mr. Wilmot, turning over his papers.

“Yes, your Worship.” Weinstein hesitated for a second, then said in a flat monotone: “The desire on the part of a person escaping from danger of life to find refuge with the only surviving member of his family can hardly be interpreted as a sign of mental insanity.”

After a moment's silence the Magistrate said:

“The nephew referred to lives at …?”

“He is employed by the Potash Company on the Dead Sea.”

“Is he in the audience?”

“No. He is in hospital with malaria.”

“Everybody always seems to be in hospital with malaria,” Mr. Wilmot said in a mutter. He suddenly closed the file with a determined gesture and leant back in his chair.

“Well, I am listening to the Prosecution.”

The Prosecutor, a tall, well-groomed Christian Arab who
had so far taken little part in the proceedings, began to talk before he had completely risen to his feet, and had finished within two minutes. He summed up the evidence, quoted the text of the Immigration Ordinance, and demanded that the accused person be sentenced to six months' imprisonment with a recommendation to be subsequently deported. He spoke a careful English and gave the impression of repeating a daily routine performance.

After him it was Weinstein's turn. He spoke in a deliberately colourless voice. He referred to the known facts of persecution in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia which gave those who succeeded in escaping no choice but to cross as quickly as possible any frontier they could reach. However, even if they managed to evade the frontier patrols, they found no safety on the other side, as most European countries had brought in legislation against this undesirable influx, and they remained under the constant threat of arrest and expulsion. It was thus inevitable that they should try by any means to reach the shores of the country which by international agreement had been granted to them as a National Home, and which was their only remaining hope. Hunted by the Police, without passports or legal residence, it was materially impossible for them to follow the regular procedure, that is to apply for an immigration permit and wait for probably a year or two until their turn on the quota came. Under these circumstances to distinguish between “legal” and “illegal” immigrants became a mockery.

“If I have a madman at my heels,” he went on in his colourless voice, “and I see an autobus passing, I shall jump onto the platform regardless of traffic regulations. I leave it to your Worship to decide whether the bus conductor would be right in pushing me off the platform because I boarded the vehicle outside the prescribed stop.”

He paused, wound up with the plea that these aspects of the case should be taken into consideration by the Court, sat
down and swallowed two pills from a little box in his waistcoat pocket, looking iller than ever.

Brodetsky bent in great excitement over his lawyer's shoulder. “
Was ist los?
” he asked.

Weinstein cleared his throat and bent to the trumpet. “
Geduld
,” he said.

“
Was, was?
” said Brodetsky, looking questioningly to the audience.

After some more technicalities Mr. Wilmot rose, patiently waiting until Brodetsky had been persuaded to keep silent.

“As always in these cases,” he said, looking at nobody in particular, “I say again that it is my duty as a Magistrate to use the penalties which I am empowered to inflict in order to restrain, as far as may be, those who are contemplating similar offences.”

He looked at the accused man, who was now bobbing up and down on his toes in soundless excitement; then again averted his eyes.

“I am sensitive to the truth of what Mr. Weinstein said,” he went on, looking at the barrister, “that the conditions in certain countries in Europe have caused what one may call a stampede of the mass of the persecuted out of those territories, and that in these circumstances deterrent punishment can have little effect. However, it is incumbent upon me to endeavour to exercise my discretion so that, if possible, such deterrent effect may be produced.”

He made a pause, cleared his throat and went on, speaking with a marked deliberation:

“It is possible that I am wrong and that such cases should be dealt with differently. I hope this case will be taken to appeal and I should like to have a direction in this matter from a higher court.”

He had been looking at Weinstein, but now turned deliberately to the defendant, who was craning his neck with the trumpet to his ear.

“For the above reasons I sentence the accused person to three months' imprisonment from the day of arrest, and shall recommend to His Excellency the High Commissioner that he be deported.”

There was a silence, and then once more Brodetsky's voice ringing out:

“
Was ist los? Was ist los?
”

Weinstein talked to him while the Court rose, trying to persuade him to follow peacefully his escort. But Brodetsky refused to budge and shouted more and more loudly that he could not wait any longer and wished to go at once and live with his nephew. He finally was half dragged, half carried out by two Arab policemen, trying to hang on to his lawyer's sleeve and yelling in a shrill, sobbing voice:

“
Was ist los? Was ist los? Was hab' ich getan?
”

Joseph walked out of the Court. Downstairs at the gate Weinstein passed him with an unlit cigarette between his lips which was moving up and down from a nervous tic. He was absent-mindedly fumbling in his pockets for a match. Joseph gave him a light, addressing him in Hebrew.

“Thank you,” said Weinstein. His face was yellow and his hands slightly shaking.

“Are you going to appeal?” Joseph asked.

“What?” said Weinstein. “Oh yes, as usual.” His eyes, which again reminded Joseph of Simeon's, focussed on Joseph's dispatch-case.

“Are you a clerk?” he asked.

“No—I am from a Settlement.”

“Settlement,” Weinstein repeated. His cigarette was still twitching up and down. “And what are you carrying there?”

“Papers,” said Joseph.

“… Papers,” Weinstein repeated. “We are all carrying papers. Perhaps we should be carrying revolvers.”

He smiled distractedly and walked off with a slightly limping gait, clutching his dispatch-case to his side.

Luckily Joseph had so much to do that he found no time for brooding. His tasks as a communal purveyor having been finished the previous day, except for those items which he could only get in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, he now had to embark on his more tedious duties as a money-raiser, diplomatist and wangler. They included a protracted argument with the District Manager of the Workers' Sick Fund to get the people of Ezra's Tower graded into a higher health- and lower premium-category; negotiations with the Workers' Bank for the prolongation of a promissory note; and making a row at the Committee of Culture and Education about the inferior quality of the last three lecturers they had sent.

To appease Joseph, the Secretary of the Committee gave him a free ticket to the Eden Cinema. It was a rare treat, for living on the Communal purse, Joseph could not find it in his heart to go to a show, though he was entitled to do so once a fortnight. He arrived at the cinema after the performance had started, watched the entry of the German troops into Prague, followed the first stages of a young heiress' tragic struggles to become, against her parents' wish, the world ice-skating champion, and fell asleep. When he woke, the heiress had just broken an ankle and was being carried away in an ambulance, so Joseph pushed his way out and walked back to his lodging-house.

This time his room mates were already in their beds. One of them snored and a second, apparently a new arrival from Europe, kept on begging in his sleep, in a high, piping voice, that somebody should stop doing something to him: after which he counted up to ten, each number followed by a jerk and a groan. Joseph woke him and gave him a glass of water; but after a while the man again fell asleep and again started counting. Joseph resigned himself to watching the plaster flaking from the ceiling and the cockroaches creeping over the floor, in the yellow light of the shadeless electric bulb. From outside came the slow beat of the tide in the harbour where the
Assimi
rode at anchor with her two hundred and
fifty passengers on board, including eighty women and children.

At last Joseph fell asleep. He was woken again after a few hours by the wailing of the
Assimi's
siren. He was angry, for just at the moment of being woken up he had been on the point of making his voice heard and catching at last the white-wigged Speaker's eye. The room was dim; it was still very early. The snorer in the next bed snored, but the man who had counted to ten had calmed down; he lay on his stomach with one arm hanging over the side of the bed, his open mouth burrowed into the pillow. The fourth bed, which had been occupied by an old man with a beard, was empty.

The siren wailed a second time and Joseph jumped from his bed and crossed to the window. Under the window there was a shapeless crouching figure wrapped in a black-and-white praying scarf which he had drawn hood-like over his head, with the tassels hanging over his eyes. He was balancing on his heels, forward and back in the traditional rocking movement of prayer, while his fist rhythmically beat his chest. Through the window, down in the harbour, the mast-tops of the
Assimi
could be seen slowly moving past the long breakwater towards the open sea, followed by a swarm of circling seagulls; carrying its passengers towards the sunny Mediterranean and the various forms of death awaiting them. The hooded figure was mumbling and swaying on his heels; the crown of his head was littered with small black flakes: he must have burned some paper to obtain ashes as befits the occasion of the prayer for the dead.

The first intimation of the impending disaster reached the Hebrew Community on Sunday, February
26.
According to London agency reports published by the Hebrew and Arabic Press, the British Government had submitted to the delegates
of the Round Table Conference its proposals for the transformation of Palestine into an independent Arab state, and for further prohibitive measures against the immigration of Jews, who were for all time to remain a minority not exceeding one-third of the total population
.

The Round Table Conference had opened in St. James's Palace on February
2, 1939,
with an address of welcome by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The Palestine Arabs, the majority of whom belonged to the fugitive Mufti's party, refused to sit at the same table with the Hebrew delegation. The British Government, endorsing their attitude, split the conference into two parallel Anglo-Arab and Anglo-Hebrew conferences. The Hebrew delegation demanded the continuation of the British Mandate and of Jewish immigration according to the country's economic absorptive capacity. The Arab delegation demanded abrogation of the Mandate and of the Balfour Declaration, the banning of Jewish immigration and the prohibition of the purchase of land by Jews. After about a fortnight's deadlock the British Government was now reported to have issued its proposals which accepted in substance the Arab demands
.

On the same day the London newspapers also reported that the Government had endorsed the Spanish insurgents' demand for immediate recognition. Certain sections of the Press commented that the British Government trusted General Franco's generosity and his promise to avoid reprisals against the Loyalists. The same newspapers expressed the opinion that Arab generosity was to be the best guarantee for the rights of the Jewish minority
.

Coincident with these reports came the news of the erection of a concrete security wall round the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, of the murder of a popular Hebrew teacher in the vicinity of Solomon's Pool, of the explosion of yet more bombs in the Hebrew centres of Haifa and Jerusalem, and of jubilant Moslem demonstrations hailing the Mufti and Mr. Chamberlain
.

While the usual terror acts continued, the Jewish representative bodies issued their usual protests against “the planned liquidation of the National Home and its handing over to the rule of the gang leaders”; and their President, the aged and venerable Professor of Organic Chemistry, urged as usual restraint in the face of disaster. However, a considerable section of the Hebrew youth had by that time become convinced that restraint was not the proper answer to disaster. For twenty years they had practised loyalty and restraint, and were now on the point of losing everything; whereas their opponents had practised rebellion and violence, and were to be rewarded by the granting of all their demands
.

The controversy over the question of the use of violence had already some time ago led to a split in the ranks of the Hebrew defence organisation. The old organisation, “Haganah”, controlled by the Jewish official bodies and socialist in outlook, adhered to the principle of passive defence; it was tolerated by the Government to whom it had given valuable help in crushing the Arab rebellion. The new organisation, “Irgun”, was numerically smaller and organised on the conspiratorial lines of a terrorist underground movement. Its members were extreme nationalists in outlook, derided the impotence of the Jewish official bodies, were denounced as fascists by their old comrades of the “Haganah”, and hunted by the Police. They had secret wireless transmitters and printing presses, a considerable stock of arms, and sympathisers in all layers of the Hebrew population including the Police Force and Government Departments. Their leaders were two students of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, both in their twenties: “Razi”, alias David Raziel, a Bible scholar, later killed in action serving with the British Forces, at that time interned in the concentration camp of Sarafand; and “Yair”, alias Abraham Stern, a poet, later killed by the Police while trying to escape arrest
.