War and Remembrance (6 page)

“As a boy, I did once study the Talmud,” Jastrow said in cool precise Polish, “but that was long, long ago, I fear. I’m rather busy.”

Subdued, the pair resumed their study. Soon, to Jastrow’s relief, they moved away. It might have been amusing, he thought as he resumed writing, to join the lads and astound them with memory feats. After fifty years, he remembered the very passage in dispute. The retentiveness of a boy’s mind! But a long voyage lay ahead. Keeping one’s distance in these crowded conditions, especially amid these tribally intimate Jews, was the only way.

Jastrow was starting a new book, to pass the time and make some use of his disagreeable predicament. In a deliberate echo of his big success,
A Jew’s Jesus,
he was calling it A
Jew’s Journey.
But what he had in mind was not a travel diary. As Marcus Aurelius had written classic meditations on the battlefield by candlelight, so Jastrow proposed to coin his wartime flight into luminous thoughts on faith, war, the human condition, and his own life. He guessed the idea would charm his publisher; and that if he brought it off, it might even be another book club selection. In any case, at his age, it would be a salutary reckoning of the soul. On this notion, characteristically combining the thoughtful, the imaginative, and the catchpenny, Aaron Jastrow was well into the first notebook borrowed from Rabinovitz. He knew the book could never be a success like A
Jew’s Jesus,
which had hit the book club jackpot and the best-seller lists, with its novel portrayal of Christ in his homely reality as a Talmud prodigy and itinerant Palestinian preacher; but it would be something to do.

After the yeshiva boys had moved off, the little scene struck him as worth writing down. He detailed the subtle point in
Gittin
which, so long ago, he had disputed in much the same terms with his clever young cousin, Berel Jastrow, in the noisy study hall of the Oswiecim yeshiva. He described that distant scene. He made gentle fun of his own gradual change into a cool Westernized agnostic. If Berel were still alive, he wrote, and if he had been invited into this dispute over
page 27
A of
Gittin,
he would have picked up the thread with zest, and argued rings around the yeshiva lads. Berel had remained true to the old orthodoxy. Who could now say which of them had chosen more wisely?

But what has become of Berel? Does he yet live? In my last glimpse of him, through the eyes of my venturesome and well-travelled niece, he stands amid the smoky wreckage of the Warsaw Jewish quarter in 1939 under German bombardment — erect, busy, aged but sturdy as a peasant, with the full gray beard of the orthodox, a paterfamilias, a community leader, a prosperous merchant; and beneath that conventional surface a steely survivor, an Ahasuerus of Christian legend, the indestructible Wandering Jew. Seven or eight years younger than I am, Berel served four years on the battlefronts in the First World War. He was a soldier; he was a prisoner; he escaped; he fought on several fronts, in three different armies. In all that time, through all those perils (so he once wrote me, and so I believe) not only did he emerge unharmed; not a particle of forbidden food ever passed his lips. A man who could care so much about our old God and our ancient Law puts to shame, in point of gallantry, his assimilated cousin who writes about Jesus. And yet the voice of enlightened humanism, speaking with all respect, might well ask whether living in a dream, however comforting and powerful —

“Damn it, Aaron! How long has he been uncovered like this?” Crouched over the basket, Natalie was angrily pulling the flapping blanket back over Louis, who began to cry.

“Oh, has it come undone?” Jastrow said with a start. “Sorry. He’s been quiet as a mouse.”

“Well, it’s time to feed him.” She picked up the basket, giving him an exasperated glare. “If he’s not too frozen to eat, that is.”

“What did Rabinovitz want?”

She bluntly told him.

“Really, Natalie! That much money! An illegal departure! That’s terribly upsetting. We must be careful with our money, you know. It’s our only salvation.”

“We’ve got to get out of here. That’s our salvation.”

“But perhaps Rabinovitz is just squeezing the rich Americans a bit — now Natalie, don’t scowl so! I only mean —”

“Look, if you don’t trust him, go ashore and give yourself up. I’ll split the three hundred with Rose.”

“Good heavens, why do you snap at me so? I’ll do it.”

Heavy vibration woke her. Sitting up, clutching over her nightgown the sweater in which she slept, she looked through the open porthole. Cold foggy fishy-smelling air came drifting in. The pier was sliding backward in the misty night. She could hear the slosh of the propellers. Aaron snored in the upper bunk. On the deck beside her, the baby rustled and wheezed in his basket.

She snuggled down again beneath the coarse blankets, for it was very cold. Under way! A departure was always exhilarating; this risky clandestine slip from the trap of Nazi Europe, doubly so. Her mind sleepily groped ahead to Palestine, to getting word to Byron, to making her way home. The geography of the Middle East was blurry to her. Could she perhaps find passage at Suez to Australia, and from there go on to Hawaii? To wait out the war in Palestine was impossible. At best it was a disease-ridden barren country. The Germans in North Africa were a menace. So were the Arabs.

At each change in engine sound she grew more wakeful. The rolling and pitching were bad right here in the harbor; what would they be like on the open sea? The extra oil tanks welded on the main deck clearly made the vessel very unstable. How long to reach the three-mile limit? Dawn was making a violet circle at the porthole. The captain would have to go slow in this fog, and daylight would increase the chance of being caught. What a business, what a predicament! So Natalie lay tense and worrying, braced against the unsteady bunk through a long, long half hour, while the porthole brightened to whitish-gray.

WHUMP!

On the instant she was out of her bunk, bare feet on the icy iron deck, pulling on a coarse bathrobe. Natalie had heard a lot of gunfire in Warsaw.
She knew that noise. Cold wet wind through the porthole tumbled her hair. The fog had lifted a little off the rough sea, and she saw far ahead a gray ship with a white number on its bow. From this bow came a smoky yellow flash.

WHUMP!

The engines pounded, the deck shivered and tilted, the vessel swerved. She hastily dressed, shuddering in the raw air. So small was the room that she barked elbows and knees on the cold-water basin, the bunk, and the doorknob. Aaron slept on. She would not wake him yet, she thought. He would only dither.

At the porthole an enormous white
22
appeared, blocking off the black waves and the gray sky. The gun slowly moved forward into view — not very big, painted gray, manned by boyish sailors in black short raincoats. Both vessels were slowing. The gunners were looking at the
Redeemer
and laughing. She could imagine why: the motley paint job, patches of red primer, of white coat, of old unscraped rust; the extra fuel tanks, spread along the deck like bad teeth in an old man’s jaw. Outside harsh voices bawled back and forth in Italian.

The deck trembled. The coast guard vessel fell away. Through the porthole Natalie saw the green crags of Capri and Ischia; then, swinging into view dead ahead, the hills of Naples, lined with white houses in wan sunlight. Through all this Aaron Jastrow slept. Turning back! She fell on the bunk, face down in the pillow. The trip she had been dreading now seemed a passage to lost bliss. The hunted feeling rose in her breast again.

“My goodness, what a commotion!” Aaron poked his frowsy head out of the bunk. Sunshine was streaming through the porthole, and the crewmen were cheerily shouting and cursing outside. The
Redeemer
was tying up to the same wharf, with the same potbellied policeman in green patrolling it. “Why, it’s broad daylight. You’re all dressed. What’s happening? Are we leaving?”

“We’ve left and returned. The coast guard stopped us.”

Jastrow looked grave. “Oh dear. Two hundred dollars!”

Rabinovitz came to their door, freshly shaved, in a stained dark suit, a gray shirt, a red tie. His face was set in hard angry lines, and he was holding out some American money. “I can only refund half, sorry. He wouldn’t leave the pier unless I advanced half. I had to gamble.”

“You may need the rest,” Natalie said. “Keep it.”

“If I need it, I’ll ask again.”

Jastrow spoke from the upper bunk. “We’ve never discussed paying for our passage, you know, and —”

Rabinovitz slapped the money into Natalie’s hand. “Excuse me. I’m going to bust in on that damned harbor master. We’re a neutral vessel. We
just put in here for emergency repairs. Holding us up like this is a damned outrage!”

They were having their noonday tea when Rabinovitz reappeared at their cabin door. “I was short-tempered this morning. Sorry.”

“Come in,” Natalie said amiably. “Tea?”

“Thanks. Yes. What’s the matter with your baby?” Louis was whimpering in his basket.

“He caught a chill. Is there any news?”

Rabinovitz squatted with his back to the door, holding the glass in two hands and sipping. “Dr. Jastrow, when we left Rome so suddenly, you seemed very upset about the manuscript you had to leave behind.”

“I’m still upset. Four years of my life!”

“What was the title of your book?”

“The Arch of Constantine.
Why?”

“In Rome, did you know anybody at the German embassy?”

“The German embassy? Obviously not.”

“You’re sure?”

“I had nothing to do with the German embassy.”

“You’ve never heard of a guy named Werner Beck?”

“Werner Beck?” Jastrow repeated, half to himself. “Why, yes, I did know a Werner Beck, years ago. What about him?”

“There’s a Dr. Werner Beck at the gangway. He’s one of the two Germans I saw in your hotel suite in Rome, when Rose and I went looking for you. He just drove up in a Mercedes. He says he’s from the German embassy in Rome, and he’s an old friend of yours. And he says he’s brought your manuscript of
The Arch of Constantine.
“

In sober silence, broken only by the baby’s snorts and snuffles, Natalie and her uncle looked at each other. “Describe him,” said Jastrow.

“Middle height. Sort of fat. Pale, a lot of blond hair, a high voice. Pleasant manners.”

“Glasses?”

“Thick rimless glasses.”

“It’s probably Werner Beck, though he wasn’t fat then.”

Natalie had to clear her throat to talk. “Who is he, Aaron?”

“Why, Werner was a student in my last graduate seminar at Yale. One of the good German students, a demon for work. He had language difficulties, and I helped him over some hurdles. I haven’t seen or heard from him since then.”

“He says he took the manuscript from your suite,” said Rabinovitz. “He was there, that I can assure you. He was the polite one. The other one was damned ugly.”

“How did he track me here?” Jastrow seemed dazed. “This is very ominous, isn’t it?”

“Well, I can’t say. If we deny you’re here, the OVRA will come on board to search. They do anything the Gestapo wants.”

Shakily Natalie put in, “What about the Turkish flag?”

“Up to a point, the Turkish flag is fine.”

Jastrow took a decisive tone. “There’s really no alternative, is there? Shall I go to the gangway?”

“I’ll bring him to you.”

It was some comfort to Natalie that the Palestinian was showing so little alarm. To her this was a devastating, hideous development. She was frightened to the core for her baby. Rabinovitz left. Jastrow said meditatively, “Werner Beck! Dear me. Hitler wasn’t even in power when I knew Werner.”

“Was he for Hitler?”

“Oh, no. A conservative, gentle, studious sort. Rather religious, if memory serves. From a good family. He was aiming for the Foreign Office, I remember that.”

The baby sneezed. Natalie busied herself trying to clean out his clogged tiny nose. She was too shocked to think clearly.

“Professor Jastrow, here’s Dr. Werner Beck.” Rabinovitz stepped into the cabin. A man in a gray overcoat and gray hat bowed in the doorway, lifting the hat and bringing together his heels. Under his left arm he carried a very thick yellow envelope wrapped in string.

“You do remember me, Professor Jastrow?” His voice was prim and high. He smiled in an awkward, almost apologetic way, half-shutting his eyes. “It’s been twelve and a half years.”

“Yes, Werner.” Jastrow proffered a gingerly handshake. “You’ve put on weight, that’s all.”

“Yes, far too much. Well, here is
The Arch of Constantine.
“

Jastrow set the package on the bunk beside the restless baby, undid the string with shaking fingers, and riffled through the mass of onionskin sheets. “Natalie, it’s all here!” His eyes glistened at the man in the doorway. “What can I say, Werner, but thank you?
Thank you!”

“It wasn’t easy, Professor. But I knew what it would mean to you.” Dr. Beck turned to Rabinovitz. “It was my Gestapo confrere, you see, who got it away from the OVRA. I don’t think I could have. I regret you and he had words, but you returned him some very short answers, you know.” Rabinovitz shrugged, his expression blank. Beck looked back to Jastrow, who was fondling his papers. “I took the liberty of reading the work, Professor. What an advance over
A Jew’s Jesus!
You demonstrate a very special grasp of early Byzantium, and of the eastern church. You bring that whole lost world to
life. The book will seal your popular fame, and this time the academics will praise your scholarship as well. It’s your finest achievement.”