Jacob's Oath (21 page)

“Yes, exactly,” Yonni said. “This is my last job. I want to help with the Bricha.”
The Jewish Brigade had been smuggling thousands of survivors across Europe to Italian
ports and loading them onto hired boats to break the British naval blockade of Palestine.

“That’s our future,” he said. “This is our past. We’re fighting yesterday’s war.”

“Yesterday’s war. You’re so good at phrases, but they’re empty. You’re an idiot if
you think the Nazis are done killing us,” Ari said. “And it isn’t only them. What
we’re doing here is showing the Arabs what will happen to them if they mess with us
in Palestine.”

“Oh, smart. So why are we keeping it so secret then?”

“They’ll get the message, trust me.”

“Okay, children,” Omri said. “Let’s focus on what’s here and now. What’s next. What’s
the plan, Ari?”

*   *   *

Omri and Ari hugged the walls in the darkness, their faces blackened with charcoal.
The sliver of moon faded their weak shadows into the gray street. Their steps were
slow and silent, muffled by cloth tied around their boots. No guns, just knives. In
the center of Stuttgart’s poorest neighborhood, on Karl Blucher’s home territory,
any screwup and there would be nowhere to run. They had to be fast, silent, deadly.

They didn’t like to do it this way. They were too committed, there was no way to talk
their way out if caught. But Blucher, Untersturmführer in the 5th SS Panzer Division
Wiking, was too juicy a target. Only two months earlier he was still murdering Jews
any chance he got, before he made his own run for it. His specialty was to form his
men into a gauntlet, make Jews run through their clubs and rocks, and if they made
it, beaten and bloody, bury them alive in the forest, just for the fun of it.

The Americans knew he had come home but didn’t act. So the Avengers would.

A hundred meters behind Ari and Omri, Yonni followed in the jeep, without lights and
engine off, gliding down the hill. No Allied vehicles ever entered this side of town,
so their jeep would ring immediate alarm bells. It was a gentle slope and Yonni used
the brakes to keep his distance. He saw their shadows stop moving, and stopped too.

Their plan was so simple it was barely a plan. When Blucher left his drinking club
to walk home, Ari and Omri would emerge from the shadows, subdue him, and kidnap him.
If it was easy, Yonni would glide up quietly. If there was any doubt at all, they
would knife him on the spot. If there was trouble, Yonni would switch the engine on
and roar up fast. Yonni wasn’t happy with the plan; his nightmare was always that
just when he needed it, the engine wouldn’t start.

Even though the Germans here ignored the curfew, and there were no occupation troops
to enforce it, they hoped there wouldn’t be many people around, and that those who
were would ignore the jeep. If worse came to worst, Yonni had an automatic weapon
on his lap, two pistols on the passenger seat, and two hand grenades between his legs.
If the cavalry had to come over the hill, it would blow up the mountain.

They couldn’t wait long though. Every extra moment was an added risk. One yell and
the street would be swarming with hard guys.

They’d been told Blucher would leave at eleven p.m. sharp, alone. He would be easy
to recognize, Blue, the British Intelligence officer, had told them, handing them
three photos. Blucher was exceptionally short and very broad, with a red face and
shaved head, and never wore a hat. Blue had said: “Think of an angry boiled potato.”

Ari and Omri each gripped ten-inch commando knives. When they left the doorway and
started walking, Yonni would release the jeep’s brake and glide after them, slowly
catching up.

“That’s the plan?” Yonni had said.

“That, plus God is on our side,” Ari had answered.

“He better be,” Yonni said. Nothing works every time. It’s the law of averages. “Not
so sure about this one,” he added.

And he was right.

Because Blucher did not come out at eleven. He came out at ten of, before they were
psyched up. He did not come out alone, he came out with two other men. And just as
they began to walk the thirty meters to where Omri and Ari hid in the dark, just when
Yonni was supposed to release the handbrake and let gravity do its work, another man
stopped by the jeep and looked inside. “Who are you?” he said. At least Yonni presumed
that was what he said, because he didn’t speak a word of German. Yonni was focused
on the dark shapes of Ari and Omri. They hadn’t moved. What are they going to do?
He knew it was a shitty plan. Will they wait and take all three? Or just let them
walk by? Call it off?

Yonni thought, I shouldn’t have left the flap up. But he had to in case Ari and Omri
called him for some reason. Anyway, it was too late now because the guy was leaning
forward and had put his elbow in the window and said something else in German, something
different. Yonni couldn’t risk any sound in case it warned Blucher and blew the kill.

Yonni smiled at the man and gestured that he wanted to open the door. He turned his
shoulders to hide the two pistols on the passenger seat, and as he told the story
later, it was only then, as he tried to hide the pistols, that he remembered he had
a semimachine gun on his lap. He put his index finger to his lips and took the gun
and pointed it into the man’s face. He told the man to turn around by spinning his
finger. He stepped out of the car, and it was while he was knocking the man on the
head with his gun, and catching him and lowering him quietly to the ground, that all
hell broke loose down the street, and he had to drop the guy, jump back into the jeep,
start the engine, and put his foot down, and that was why he was slow to reach his
friends.

The cavalry was late over the hill, but it did make one hell of a mess.

Ari and Omri let the three men approach, closer and closer. The odds had changed but
they nodded to each other: Let’s do it. No way Blucher would live. Ari made a stabbing
sign. Omri nodded. He understood. No time for a speech. Just do the job. Blucher was
on the inside, closest to the wall. They’d been trained for this. Both of them would
go for the kill. The other two men would be so surprised they wouldn’t be a problem.
They would either run or, if they stood and fought, they would be so shocked they’d
have no chance.

Speed and aggression.

Ten meters away. Five. One.

The two killers stepped into the light and both uppercut Blucher in the heart. Karl
Blucher was dead before he hit the ground. As the other two men froze in shock, Ari
pulled out his knife and swung around. Where was the jeep? In that moment two more
men left the club and saw a man on the ground. One of the men by Blucher shouted,
and the two men at the club shouted back and within moments a swarm of men appeared
at the club’s steps and next were in the street, lit up by a lamppost, running toward
Ari and Omri, whose knives were out and dripping red. Blucher’s blood pumped into
the gutter. His leg twitched, catching Ari in the shin. The man who had shouted first
backed away, still yelling for help. The first man from the club had a pistol in his
hand, and now he was fifteen meters away. Uncertain, he slowed to a walk.

“Yonni,” Omri yelled. They couldn’t run to Yonni, they’d get shot in the back. The
only way was forward. Attack. Omri grabbed the shoulders of the first man who was
so shocked he hadn’t moved, and ran him toward the man with the gun, using him as
a shield.

The second man ran away, leaving Ari alone by Blucher’s body, screaming for Yonni.
He heard a roar as the jeep shot forward. But Omri was alone, meters from the crowd.
There was a gunshot, and another. Ari saw Omri stagger and shouted, “Omri!” There
was a shout in Hebrew from Yonni, “Get down! Get down!” followed by an explosion,
a ball of flame, a rush of air, yells, screams, and rapid fire from an automatic weapon.
The jeep drove straight into the crowd and Omri jumped in, as Yonni sprayed the street
with gunfire and hit the brake, waiting for Ari to run up. The engine roared as Yonni
flattened the pedal and raced away with Ari hanging on to the back fender. Three hundred
meters away, Yonni jammed on the brakes and Ari fell through the door Omri had opened
from inside. Yonni turned at the next right and then right again and drove slowly,
not to draw any attention.

“Everyone okay?” Ari said.

“Yes,” said Omri.

“Yes,” said Yonni.

They continued in silence through the streets, Yonni following a map that he had memorized,
until a U.S. army foot patrol appeared from nowhere, blocking the street. Yonni braked
hard and swung to the side, coming to a halt by two doughboys on their knees aiming
their automatic rifles at them.

“Where you boys heading? Where are you coming from? Papers,” an officer said.

Ari leaned out of the window. “Good evening, sir. British army.” He handed him a sheet
of paper with their orders. “Heading to U.S. Sixth Army HQ.”

“ID.”

They handed them over. The Americans made a note of their service numbers and waved
them on. “Be careful,” the American said. “There’s been some shooting.”

At the edge of town they stopped by the side of the road.

“So, Yonni,” Ari said at last. “Where the fuck were you?”

Yonni told him. He couldn’t risk the guy making a sound.

Ari listened, his lips tight. Omri said, “That’s fair enough.”

“Of course it is,” Yonni said. “What do you think I was doing, picking my nose?”

Ari said, “That was very, very bad.”

Omri said, “Was that one or two grenades?”

“One.”

Omri sighed. “I thought I’d had it. The guy shot my guy twice. I couldn’t hold him
up. One, two more seconds, I’d have been toast.”

“We better get out of town fast,” Ari said, putting a water canteen to his lips. He
half drained it and passed it to Yonni. “They got a hand grenade, dead and wounded.
As soon as they work out it’s a British grenade, and who the target was, they’ll know
who did it. The false IDs will slow them down, but not for long.”

“Well, we got him,” Omri said. “That’s what counts. Bastard.”

“And they nearly got you. Great plan, Ari,” Yonni said, releasing the hand brake and
driving off. “Maybe you should stick to knocking old men off their bikes.”

TWENTY

Heidelberg,
May 30, 1945

A single ray of sun pierced the grayness and lit up a clump of weeds struggling through
the marble cracks on the synagogue corner of Lauerstrasse and Grosse Mantelgasse.

In her village, little Sarah had been spared the terrified screams and the pounding
of boots and the triumphant yelling of Kristallnacht, that November night in 1938
when the Nazis beat the Jews, set alight every Jewish house of prayer in Germany,
and burned their holy books. Yet before the ashes cooled every villager knew: It was
over for the Jews.

Now seven years older, she perched, legs crossed, on a pile of bricks and debris stacked
in a corner of the smashed marble synagogue floor, studying the sun-washed weeds.
She was thinking: This is all that’s left, a gap among the houses, like a missing
tooth. All that’s left of Jewish life here are these weeds. And in all the grayness,
the sun shines only upon them.

Those weeds are Jacob and me, she was thinking, not the weeds the Nazis saw, to be
torn out by the roots, but two shoots of grass growing together, seeking the sun through
the cracks. Jacob. A smile came to her lips and a tear to her eye. Hoppi. There was
nothing left of Hoppi, not even a photograph. He was gone, destroyed, like the synagogue.
One day there will be a new house of prayer. But a new Hoppi? More tears came, of
frustration, because she could hardly see him, she could not fix his face, just a
blur of shifting lines, watery eyes, a soft mouth, adrift, washing up against the
banks of her memory, and out again to sea. She had always known he was gone, as soon
as Wilhelm Gruber saw him dragged away and beaten. He would have resisted, struggled,
they would have kept beating him, she had known that he was dead for years. Yet now
she knew he had been spared the worst. Maybe that was why she accepted it so calmly?
Knowing that somewhere he was buried peacefully in the ground and had not suffered
for years in a camp after all. But it was also why her return to Heidelberg had meant
so little to her. It was as much an escape from the terror of Berlin as a return to
the emptiness of Heidelberg. She had come, with no hope, to keep a promise that offered
none. But then, where else would she go?

Not to her own village, though everything was familiar, the trees, the river, the
neighbors; but was it home? How long had they dreamed of home only to find there was
no such place.

Until … Sarah closed her eyes and was filled with warmth. She could feel a wave of
affection and love wash through her, like hot sun caressing her bare skin. For now
they had their little room. And even hot water in the bath. And their soft bed. They
were creating their own little home, together, their cocoon of love.

She smiled at Jacob’s embarrassment. He had been so sweet. So upset that he couldn’t
satisfy her. If only he could understand how much it meant just to hold him and stroke
him and to be stroked. She, who had shared not an instant of affection for three years.
And now with Jacob, who didn’t remember when he had kissed someone, or been kissed.

She had held him and stroked his face and kissed his nipples and he kissed hers, for
hours. They had fallen asleep in each other’s arms and when she awoke in the middle
of the night they were still hugging. She felt his heat and smelled his maleness and
she fell asleep again, and in the morning his arms still held her and their legs were
intertwined.

They had spent that whole day in bed and at every failure Jacob had become angry and
bitter, and Sarah had told him again and again that it didn’t matter, that she loved
him, that it would be all right, that there was no hurry, and he had cursed and hidden
his head and struck the bed, as if it should pay for his pain, as if beating the bed
would make him a man.