Death in Twilight (34 page)

“You remember Lev Berson, don’t you? A Jewish policeman, a member of your congregation?” Aaron spread his hands in mockery. “About so tall?”

The rabbi’s frown became a scowl.

“You gave Berson a note to deliver,” Aaron said, “but, unfortunately for him, he must have opened it.”

The rabbi stared at Aaron, eyes wide and filled with malevolent intent.

“You know what?” Aaron said, rubbing his chin. “Maybe I don’t need to thumb through your notebook, after all. I’m pretty sure I know what I’d find: a ragged edge where a page was torn out. Would you like to guess where I found the rest of the page?”

Nothing.

“I saw the tear along the binding on my first visit with you, though I didn’t realize that’s what it was at the time,” Aaron said. “I couldn’t help noticing how thick and creamy the notebook paper was — you rarely see anything nice in the ghetto, anymore.

“When I thought about what I’d seen a little later, it struck me as strange that someone would rip a page out of a book like that. Still, I didn’t put the pieces together — so to speak — until much later.”

The rabbi still said nothing.

“I also suspect that if I saw your handwriting again, it would match nicely with what I saw in the note intended for Hermann Clausewitz. The one I found on Lev Berson’s body.”

“You keep talking about a note. What note? You don’t have any note,” the rabbi said, finally breaking his silence. There wasn’t much conviction in his voice.

“How would you know that for sure?” Aaron replied. “Because you’re innocent? Or because you know Clausewitz took it from me?”

The rabbi was silent, his face closing like a flower at dusk.

“Perhaps you chatted about it just now?” Aaron pressed. “I saw his car on the way here.”

More silence.

“This is excellent tea, by the way. Where do you think it’s from? Ceylon? China?” Aaron asked, staring into the caramel-colored contents of his cup. “But I’m not sure it’s so good that it’s worth betraying your own people for.”

That did it.

“How dare you! You think that what I did, I did for tea? Or chocolate? Or even for my life? What I did, I did for God and His Chosen.”

“What do you mean His Chosen? Everyone in this fucking ghetto is one of His Chosen,” Aaron snapped back.

“That is not true. You need to understand this,” the rabbi said, his voice urgent but more quiet.

He leaned in toward Aaron, and spoke in a conspiratorial tone.

“Why do you think God has caused all this to happen?”

Levinsohn spread his hands to encompass the war, the ghetto, and maybe the world as a whole.

“Because His Chosen People have failed him! Have sinned, forsaken his Commandments and gone into the world as if they were ordinary men! They no longer even look like Jews. They have discarded the tallis, payos and even the keepah, baring their heads before God.

“How many have walked away from the villages and their rabbis in the last century? Into godless towns like Miasto or Warsaw or Krakow?

“Jews thinking nothing of marrying into gentile families. Some of our men have renounced God himself, worshipping the false messiah of the Christians. How can there be any wonder at what has happened? That the Germans have come?” the rabbi said, concluding his sermon and his case.

“And you, I presume, are among the righteous?” Aaron asked.

“No! I lead the righteous!”

“Are you saying you’re the moshiach?”

“You have said it,” was the rabbi’s only reply.

“You?” Aaron said, with an unconscious laugh. “Seriously?”

“Enough!”

The rabbi slammed his desk with open palms.

A knock on the door.

“Rebbe,” Avraham’s voice asked. “Are you all right?”

“Does your little flock know what you’ve done?” Aaron asked softly.

“Avraham, stop worrying!” the rabbi shouted. “I will come to you soon.”

They heard footsteps retreat.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Aaron said.

“What they need to know is that I’ve saved them. That’s all.” The rabbi was dismissive.

“How many Jews have you betrayed?” Aaron asked.

“I have betrayed no one,” Levinsohn said. “I have only passed along God’s judgments.”

“And he judged Lev Berson and found him wanting?”

“Lev broke my trust and thereby God’s. He was told to hand the note to the German guards unopened.”

“But he opened it?” Aaron asked.

“Yes. He asked to speak to me about it. I met him and did what needed to be done.”

“You killed him yourself? With your own hands?”

“As guided by God.”

Aaron sensed no self-doubt, no regret coming from the rabbi. Was it pride instead?

“And when you handed me over to the Germans, that was according to God’s will, too?” Aaron asked.

“I can act in no other way.”

“The little girl was yours, then?”

“She worked for me, yes.”

“How did she know to follow me?” Aaron asked.

“I thought someone might show up, looking for information. People knew that Berson attended shul here,” the rabbi said with a shrug. “The girl’s job was to look out for strangers who weren’t here to attend funerals. People don’t often come here for any other reason. When you and I were walking into the shul, I signaled to her.”

“You must not have paid her very well. She tried to steal from me before you arrived,” Aaron said.

The rabbi shrugged indifferently.

“You told her to find Clausewitz on the night I was arrested?”

“Yes. It was best to be safe.”

“And my wife?”

“What wife?” the rabbi asked with blatant sincerity.

“A blond woman, Yelena Gorska? She worked from the Polish side.”

“You married outside the faith?” The rabbi was horror-struck.

“Well?”

“I have no idea. All I know is that you were arrested. I assumed you would be killed. I know nothing about your ‘wife,’” the rabbi said.

Thank God for that
, Aaron thought.

“And the little girl? What happened to her after I was arrested,” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. Maybe the Germans took her away. She wasn’t a particularly godly child, just a hungry one.”

“You’ve condemned her, too,” Aaron said in wonder.

“I’ve condemned no one. It is God who judges. My place is merely to be the instrument of his judgment on earth,” the rabbi explained. Aaron could tell the old man was trying to sound reasonable, but the ring of mania was in his voice.

“How many?” Aaron asked.

“How many?”

“Yes, how many have you saved? How many are among the righteous? How many people have the Germans allowed you to keep?”

Levinsohn sighed.

“So few have been able to keep the faith in the face of such fearsome punishment.”

The rabbi shook his head sadly.

“How many?” Aaron asked again.

“We are the minyan you have already seen. We will survive all this and will find our home in Palestine, in Jerusalem itself. And God’s scourge will make it come to pass.”

“The Nazis are taking you to Jerusalem?” Aaron asked, incredulous. “You really think that?”

“What other purpose could they serve?” the rabbi asked with a shrug. “God would never allow such evil if it didn’t directly serve his purposes. That is the role they play. And when we are in Jerusalem, their part will be done.”

Aaron understood. Levinsohn wasn’t the egomaniac he’d first assumed. He was simply mad. Whether or not he’d been destined for that fate all along, what the rabbi had seen over the last months had caused a complete psychotic break. Of course he would cooperate with the Germans, they were carrying out God’s will on earth, serving the messiah himself, though they may not have known it.

“How did you come up with this arrangement?” Aaron asked.

“I went to the Judenrat. Mordechai Zimmerman told me that Hermann Clausewitz was the person to speak to regarding my status in the ghetto.”

“That’s a terrible joke!” Aaron said. “He told you to go right to the Gestapo? You must have really annoyed him.”

Levinsohn continued, oblivious.

“While my first note didn’t reach him, a second one did. I found him a man of understanding, even if not a Jew. He understands God’s plan as I explained it to him. He is another instrument of the Lord’s justice.”

“And what exactly did you promise Clausewitz?”

“I promised him nothing! I provided him with names of those who had already been condemned by God for their resistance to his judgment on the Jews,” Levinsohn said.

“You mean people who wanted to fight back against the Germans?”

“Some ‘patriots’ approached me,” the rabbi said with a sneer. “They asked if I would help.”

Aaron wondered if any of them had been his backers, the men who had put up the treasure to buy the guns. Could it have been that by confronting the rabbi, rather than blindly carrying out his will, Lev Berson had inadvertently tried to protect Aaron and his friends — even died doing so?

He took a breath to calm himself before asking the next question.

“So why are you still here? You may have noticed, the ghetto’s empty. Shouldn’t you be on your way to Jerusalem by now?”

“Soon. There are still some here who are planning to fight the Germans. I am a figure of trust and respect among our people. They will tell me everything I need to know.”

“And you’ll just pass it along,” Aaron said. Something then occurred to him.

“What about your families? You mentioned the ten men in this building. Surely your families are coming with you.”

“Sacrifices have had to be made,” the rabbi said solemnly. “Some have been dreadful. Without certain knowledge of the Lord’s will, I don’t know if I could have made them.”

Aaron snapped. He jumped from his seat and was on the point of leaping at the rabbi when he saw a small German gun in the old man’s fist. It was a Walther PPK, used mainly by police and Nazi Party officials.

“Don’t move,” the rabbi said. “Put your hands up.”

In spite of the tension, or maybe because of it, Aaron let out a sharp bark of laughter. The old man sounded like a gangster in a movie. Was it possible the rabbi went to the movies? Aaron couldn’t quite picture him sitting in the dark, reading the subtitles of an American crime drama.

“Do you know anything about guns?” Aaron asked.

“I know where the bullets come out.”

“Did Clausewitz give it to you? Show you how to use it?”

“I don’t need lessons.”

Aaron reached over and casually grabbed the gun from the rabbi. It wasn’t that Levinsohn hadn’t pulled the trigger. The gun simply hadn’t gone off.

“You should have gotten a lesson,” Aaron said. He leaned across the desk and jammed the gun painfully into the rabbi’s neck. He pressed it a little harder with each passing second.

The rabbi gasped, his blue eyes wide. The old man was in pain, but most of all, he was scared. Scared enough to wet himself.

Aaron appreciated that.

“Want to know what just happened?”

The rabbi was too terrified to move.

“You’re a fucking rabbi. That’s what just happened. And I’m a trained fucking soldier.”

Aaron pulled the gun back into the rabbi’s line of sight and pointed to it.

“See here? This little switch is called a safety. You have to turn off a safety before the gun will fire. That’s why it’s called a safety; it keeps you safe from yourself.”

Aaron toggled the little switch.

And pulled the trigger.

Again, the gun didn’t go off.

“God damn it!” Aaron yelled, thoroughly disgusted with himself. Of course it wouldn’t fire. What kind of Gestapo officer would give a Jew a loaded weapon?

A smile began to spread across the rabbi’s face.

The butt of the gun removed it. Another blow cracked the man’s skull, but Aaron didn’t stop. It wasn’t long before the rabbi looked a lot like Berson had when Aaron first found him.

The door rattled behind Aaron. He turned and threw it open, knocking Avraham to the floor. Blood began to well from the young man’s nose, quickly covering his face.

Good
, Aaron thought,
now he looks just like the messiah
.

He laughed again. It was the kind of laugh that kept the other men in the room out of his way.

As he reached the door of the shul, he could hear a keening that made him think of all the women he’d heard holding their dead children. He cursed the men making it.

Aaron set off toward his apartment. He could think of nowhere else to go in the fading light. Catching a glimpse of his red-stained coat in a window, he stopped to casually remove it and turn it inside out. He nodded to the cadaverous man he saw in the glass, reminding himself to take extra care on the walk home in case any of the fresh blood still showed.

Epilogue

A
aron hiked in clean air, a walking stick clutched in his right hand, the haversack over his shoulders full with stolen food and clothes.

He was fat by no means, but he was a good thief and the proceeds had helped him regain some weight. That, and the help of kind strangers who had fed him well over the weeks he’d trekked across the countryside.

Many had never known that he was a Jew, supposing him to be one of the hundreds of thousands who had been displaced by the war against the Germans and the Soviets and then the Germans against the Soviets.

Others had figured it out, though he didn’t know how. He looked no more like a stereotypical Jew than he ever had. Light hair, blue eyes and a tall frame. He traveled using Stefan Kaczynski’s identity papers.

Still, people had guessed, and it seemed as if the German lust for Jewish blood had served to calm the rampant anti-Semitism in so many Polish hearts. Aaron had found sympathy and gentle questions about his family.

The answer was that Aaron couldn’t, and so didn’t, think about them. His father was gone, his mother had died long before the Germans came. There had been cousins and an aunt, but they were gone, too, as far as Aaron knew. If the war ever ended with the Nazis out of Poland, he would dig graves for them, even without their bodies. He would do the same for Stefan Kaczynski.

Kaczynski was seldom far from Aaron’s thoughts, and if one could feel gratitude toward a man you had killed with your own hands, Aaron did.