Pursuit (23 page)

At Trento the same thing occurred, a clatter over switches, staring faces from a station platform from people awaiting a local train, washlines being set out to catch the morning sun, factories interspersed with small home gardens, and then the country again, and the tilled fields and the envious children pausing in their work to travel with them vicariously, if only around the next bend. Over them as they raced, the mountains grew taller as they sunk deeper into the valley. Grossman frowned. He leaned over and shook Brodsky. The large man came awake slowly, yawning, scratching at his stubbled cheek.

“What is it?”

“We aren't stopping! We've gone through Bolzano and Trento! We may not stop even at Verona—!”

“So?”

“So we may not stop before Genoa!”

“So?”

“So, damn it, I want to get to Lago Maggiore! And I'd rather not go there from Genoa! It's a long way.”

Max looked at him a moment and then pointed to the ceiling of the truck.

“Don't complain to me,” he said. “Complain to Him.” He closed his eyes, a faint smile on his face, and in seconds was asleep again.

Chapter 11

They dropped from the string of boxcars when the train finally slowed for a stop, coming into a spur track along the Molo Vecchio in Genoa's harbor area. It was just after noon and Grossman was in a foul mood. Three times that morning he had stood balanced at the side of the boxcar, prepared to drop his knapsack and follow it to the grade when he thought the train was decelerating; and three times the engine's whistle had shrieked delightedly and the train had gathered speed, flashing past people waiting at grade crossings, rattling furiously over switch frogs, echoing loudly through tunnels, tearing through cities and back to the country, pleased with itself, its performance, its freedom. From inside the truck, the windows now rolled down and the heater off, Max Brodsky watched, smiling sardonically.

Leaving the rail yards, they walked along the Corso Quadrio, heading south, the steep hills of the old city rising abruptly on their left, the calm waters of the Bacino della Grazie on their right, the vast Mediterranean visible beyond the stone-block breakwater. Their overcoats had been folded and laid across the backpacks since neither was prepared to abandon them as yet, Grossman for the thought of the colder Lago Maggiore and Switzerland, Brodsky out of natural caution.

They stopped at several
bottegas
along the Corso Quadrio before Brodsky located a small leather shop where the proprietor, an old man with a skimpy white beard and deep-set rheumy eyes, spoke Yiddish. The old man consulted a worn street directory a moment or two, and then shook his head sadly.

“The Via Sclopis? It's in Sturla, off the Piazza Sturla. Miles and miles—” He was waving a palsied hand weakly in the general direction of the south. He looked at their heavy knapsacks. “It's also a very steep climb …”

Max's shrug indicated they had no choice. “And the Piazza Sturla?”

The hand was waved again, shaking. “Down to the end of the Corso Italia, the very end, to the Boccadesse at the Piazza Nettune. You can't miss it, stay right along the waterfront. At the Nettune you go up the hill on any cross street to the Via Caprera; it runs parallel. Then turn right to the Piazza Sturla.” He studied the thin pale faces of the two, so different from the swarthy skin of the Genovese, but was intelligent enough not to ask questions. “If you need fare for an omnibus—”

“No, no! Thank you very much.”

They marched along the Corso Guglielmo. Marconi, sweating mightily, with Grossman getting angrier and angrier every step.

“We could have taken bus fare from the old man! A few pennies wouldn't put him in the poorhouse!”

“We didn't need to take his money. He was kind enough to help us out with directions. We can walk.”

“Or you could have taken a few pennies from your own money!”

Brodsky looked at him coldly.

“The only money I have is the money you gave back to me. The rest went to Wolf for any expenses he might need when he left Felsdorf with the group. And we don't need to spend money when we can walk.”

“I know. God gave us feet,” Grossman subsided into a disgruntled silence for a moment and then exploded again. “One night! One night! I stay one night and then I'm heading north!”

“You can head north right now,” Brodsky said shortly. He was tired and in no mood for Grossman's temperamental outbursts. “Right now you're going in the wrong direction. North is the other way.”

“One night,” Grossman said direly, threateningly, and fell silent.

The Corso Italia seemed endless; the climb up the Via Felice Cavalotti from the Piazza Nettune to the Via Caprera was brutal. They paused at the top, the square they assumed to be the Piazza Sturla visible to their right, their hearts pumping, their leg muscles trembling, and caught their breath. Below them the sea stretched endlessly to a hazy horizon, a stainless-steel sheet under the glaring sun; to the southeast they could see tiny docks in the far distance, and boats of various sizes tied up at them. Nervi was in that direction, Brodsky knew from studying maps at Felsdorf; possibly the
Naomi
was there, might even be one of them. The thought put strength in his legs; he started off again, walking rapidly. God! If he had come this far only to miss the boat by a few hours! Grossman came limping after, cursing under his breath.

The Via Sclopis rose at a steep angle from the Piazza Sturla, the tall stone and stucco houses climbing one above the other as if each were attempting to brace itself against the mountainside and obtain a better view than its lower neighbor. The two men came to the address they wanted, and slipped off their knapsacks gratefully, wiping the sweat from their faces. The street was deserted, its cobbled pavement hot under the afternoon sun that reflected itself from the pastel plaster and the shaded windows of the houses. Possibly everyone was having a siesta, Brodsky thought, and drew back the bell pull set in the center of the heavy door. There was a faint tinkle, muffled by the door's bulk; then a window shade was pulled to one side enough to allow a cautious eye to examine them carefully. A moment later Morris Wolf had opened the door and was pulling them hurriedly inside. He grinned at the two men broadly, the grimace twisting his scarred face into a macabre distortion. He reached up, patting Brodsky on the back, nodding at Grossman.

“You made it!”

“And you're still here,” Brodsky said with profound relief. He hadn't realized how tense he had been. “I was afraid I'd get here too late and miss you.”

Wolf's grin disappeared abruptly. He shook his head.

“Come upstairs and we'll talk about it.”

The three men climbed the narrow steps one at a time to the next floor. A door at the end of a passage opened and the scowling face of an old woman in black, heavily mustached, glared at them a moment before the door was slammed shut. Brodsky looked at Wolf inquiringly.

“Our charming hostess,” Wolf said in explanation. “She hates our guts. Not anti-Semitic, I think, or at least not only anti-Semitic. She's just anti-people. But her husband keeps her in line, or at least has so far. He likes money. Fortunately,” he added, “the old lady doesn't know where the boat is, just that it's somewhere south of here. Well, so is Naples.”

He opened a door and ushered them into a large room with cots and sleeping bags scattered about, although at the moment the only occupant of the room was a husky man sitting at a desk in one comer, writing something. He looked up as the door opened and then came to his feet, smiling broadly, his hand outstretched.

“Max!”

“Davi!” He turned to Grossman. “Davi Ben-Levi of the Mossad. You missed him at Belsen and at Felsdorf. Ben Grossman.”

“I've heard of Ben Grossman,” Ben-Levi said, and shook hands. “So you've changed your mind?”

“No,” Grossman said shortly. “I'll be going to Switzerland tomorrow. I'm just staying for the night.”

“However,” Brodsky said quickly, “I'll be going to Palestine with you.”

Ben-Levi sat down on one of the cots. “If any of us go,” he said somberly.

“What do you mean?”

“We've got trouble,” Ben-Levi said, and then paused as if trying to calculate exactly where to start. He took a deep breath and began. “To start with, the British have patrols all over this area, foot patrols on shore, patrols out to sea. Anything that looks like a ship capable of heading for, or reaching, Palestine is checked out thoroughly. They also have all the Italian
carabiniere
—the police—checking constantly as well. The
carabiniere
are
afraid not to; a lot of them were
fascisti
and the British are capable of putting on some vicious pressure. And they also offer bounties that not only interest the police but people, too. So it isn't easy. If anyone thinks a ship looks the least bit suspicious, they search it. If they find the slightest thing that even smells of an attempt to reach Palestine, the ship is interned and the crew is given a hard time. If they aren't put in jail, they stand a good chance of being put in an internee camp if they aren't Italian. So it's been almost impossible to get Italian captains or crews; we've had to depend on our own people, and they are not experienced sailors.”

Brodsky frowned. “It's been that way for some time,” he said slowly. “We've always known the British aren't going to let us get to Palestine if they can help it.” He had put his knapsack to one side and was sitting opposite Ben-Levi.

“Yes, we've always known that. So this time we got together and figured out a way to fool them. The boat we have was originally a fishing boat, a trawler, so every day we would take it out and fish. Our captain is an Italian Jew dead set on getting to Palestine; he's had a lot of experience in ships. Unfortunately, he's about the only one. We also have two or three others who speak enough Italian to get by if we're ever hailed; I'm one of them. Sometimes we'd take the boat out in the daytime, sometimes at night, whenever the fish are running, which is the way the fishing boats do around here. And while we were trawling, we had men inside working on putting up bunks where people could sleep, building toilets, putting in a small kitchen for cooking, a small dispensary. And after our day's—or night's—fishing, we'd come back to the dock and take ashore our catch—”

“You actually fished?”

“Of course.” Ben-Levi smiled briefly. “It's been the mainstay of our food, and we've also sold quite a lot. The old man here handled it for us.” His smile faded. “We figured the British would get used to our going out and coming in at all hours, our unloading fish and stretching our nets, and eventually they'd pay no attention to us.”

“And it didn't work out?”

“It worked out fine. It worked out just the way we figured. We also thought if we tried to bring all our people from the camp and from the safe-houses at one time—most of them have been at an Allied camp outside of Rapallo like Felsdorf, except the British treated the camp as a concentration camp, not like the Americans at Felsdorf—the British would become suspicious and figure something was up. And search every boat in the area. So over three weeks ago we began bringing our people out, three or four at a time, putting them up here for a day, some in other houses, getting them on board one at a time at night—”

“Three weeks ago?”

Ben-Levi nodded somberly.

“That's right. Some people have been living on that boat for over three weeks …”

“But, how—?”

Ben-Levi took a deep breath and went on.

“We picked the strongest, of course, or those with any carpentry ability, because they were the ones who finished the bunks and the kitchen and everything else. They'd take turns coming up on deck when we were out of sight of land, or when we couldn't see any other ship. But when we got back to port they had to stay below, keeping quiet, not showing a light or making a sound …”

“Three weeks?”

“Yes. Some have been on board that long, some a few days less, some two weeks or more. And lately we've been bringing the women and children aboard. We thought we were ready to sail. The morale is getting low …”

Brodsky frowned. “How many people are on board right now?”

“About two hundred …”

“And why haven't you sailed?”

“We've been in port two days, all set,” Wolf said bitterly, cutting in. “We have trouble with our engine, and our engineer is sick in the hospital. And nobody else knows a damn thing about the engine. Jews! If we needed accountants, we could float the ship to Palestine on balance sheets!”

“And we don't dare bring in an outsider,” Ben-Levi said. “We can't get out to sea to air the place out, or to dump our waste, or even to cook a decent meal. We have no electricity—the batteries ran down. We don't even have a fan—it's like an oven in there. It's only a matter of time before the British begin to get suspicious and check out this ship that never sails, or never repairs its engine. Or until they even begin to smell us. Or,” he added bitterly, “until we have to bring some of the children out and get them into a hospital!”

“Where's your captain?”

“At the hospital with our engineer right now. He's all right at sea, but he isn't an engineer. He sees to our supplies, which keeps him busy. He comes back to the boat every night.”

Brodsky frowned at the floor for several minutes while everyone waited for his opinion. He looked over at Grossman. “Ben, do you know anything about engines? Marine engines?”

Grossman hurriedly held up a hand.

“No! No! I'm not getting involved in this! Tomorrow I'm leaving for Switzerland. You and your boats and your Palestine and Zionism have nothing to do with me!” He looked aggrieved. “I've said that often enough, you know that.”