Warsaw Requiem Page 8

  As though he could read Orde’s thoughts, Colonel Hallum said quietly, “There is nothing holy about this land. Always has been a bloody, violent hole. Always will be.”

  Orde pretended not to hear. He drew a deep breath, savoring the scent of the orange blossoms. “Smell that, will you? There will be marmalade in the tearooms of London, after all.”

  Silence. Hallum knew well that the survival of the settlements was due to Orde. Everyone knew it. From this office, all the way to London, no one in the government had missed the newspaper accounts of Captain Samuel Orde and his Jewish Special Night Squads. Several thousand young Jewish settlers had been trained in combat according to British standards. They had protected the water pipelines in the north regions of Galilee. They had saved the skins of a British patrol ambushed near Hanita, and captured the criminals who had kidnapped and tortured to death three British civil servants. And that was only a partial list of accomplishments. General Wavell spoke openly about the benefit of the Night Squads. He supported Orde when others did not.

  The scent of orchards in bloom, however, spoke the loudest praise. But that was not enough, it seemed. Not in a world where politics was seldom played by the rules of common sense.

  Hallum began again. “The Mufti has been in Berlin. Quite welcome at the table with Herr Hitler, they say.”

  A slight smile crossed Orde’s face. “Have they noticed in the home office that the Japanese ambassador is also at the German Chancellery quite a lot lately? Has anyone in London made the connection that whenever Hitler invites a scoundrel to dine, there is inevitably indigestion in the British Empire someplace?” Orde clasped his hands behind his back. H continued to stare at the Dome of the Rock, but he was no longer really seeing it. “And who is der Führer and Haj Amin Husseini serving as main course, I wonder?” Orde knew. He had known for some time. But still he wanted Hallum to have to say it.

  “Haj Amin Husseini is exiled from the British Mandate.” Hallum’s voice was clipped. He resented the game. “The Arab Higher Committee that rules in his place in turn is demanding that officials in our government be brought to some sort of justice.”

  “Justice.” Orde whispered the word, but it rang like a thunderclap of accusation. The very concept of justice had been carved up and devoured by Hitler and his dinner companions.

  “To save face, you see. A compromise. Distribute the blame for the violence of the last few months.” He paused. Waited for the meaning to penetrate.

  Orde understood perfectly. “A scapegoat. Roasted in proper English fashion and served with Yorkshire pudding. Traditional in all negotiations for peace.”

  “If you will.” The colonel raised his chin slightly. “A responsible individual. Someone of high profile but low rank.” He cleared his throat as if to give Orde an opportunity to challenge him.

  Orde simply bowed slightly in acknowledgment. What did he expect, after all? He had written his own press releases—all under a pseudonym, of course. He had not guessed that he was setting himself up for this moment.

  “And?”

  “And, they have decided—”

  “They?”

  “London.”

  “And Berlin?”

  Hallum ignored the jibe. “London. They have found that you were somehow involved in every battle. Every aspect of this fiasco. From the first day on the Temple Mount when Eli Sachar was butchered until now. And so the final blame . . . the only possible—”

  Orde shook his head. Not the Victoria Cross for service above the call of duty. Not even a promotion. Not even a “thank you, now please pass the orange marmalade.”

  “So what is it to be?” Orde asked.

  “Posted back to England. Some desk duty for a while until this blows over.”

  “This will not blow over.” Orde finally turned to face the uneasy colonel. “We will need those trained Jewish soldiers to hang on to this hunk of rock once the real storm breaks.”

  “That may be. But it is not the case now. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is in exile!”

  “And what is one little British captain? Is that it?”

  “Posted to England! That is all! Jews and Arabs are dead. British boys are being shipped home in boxes. And when the beginnings are traced, there you are! Captain Samuel Orde. On duty, right in the bloody thick of the fray! The Arab Council will be placated no other way.”

  “Unless I am killed?”

  “You and I both know you are lucky to be alive. Every headhunter in the territory is out for you. You are a stubborn idiot, Orde, to believe that you can go on like you have and not end up a martyr!” Hallum’s eyes narrowed slightly as he scrutinized Orde’s stony face. “Maybe that is what you had in mind—to die like some prophet in the Holy Land?” Hallum rubbed his hand across his cheek. Had he stumbled onto something, perhaps? “Well, you will be offered up on the altar of political expedience, Orde. But I, for one, will not stand by your grave in Jerusalem! Go back to England! Give yourself a rest from this obsession of yours! This is not supposed to be a war! We . . . Britain . . . are here to keep the peace! You have forgotten that goal.”

  Orde turned back to face toward the city, toward the golden onion-shaped domes of the Russian convent at the foot of Gethsemane. Victoria Sachar was still there, safe within those walls, mourning for her husband. There had been days when Orde had wished that he himself could have died that day on the Temple Mount instead of Eli Sachar. Orde knew what it was to lose someone you love and then be forced to go on living life alone. Did Victoria Sachar look back over her days without Eli and trace the beginning of her sorrows to Orde? Ah, well. Perhaps this was to be his punishment. It seemed much worse than dying—to be shuffled off to England and a desk job, there to wither away in obscurity while other men made the difference in the world. It was much easier to fall in battle; Hallum was right about that. A martyr in the Holy Land!

  Hallum broke the silence of Orde’s unwelcome reverie. “Look, old fellow.” His tone was that of a friend. “How long has it been since you have been home?”

  “Home?” Orde could not quite grasp the question. Did Hallum mean quarters, or . . . ?

  “England.”

  Orde nodded. He knew exactly how long it had been. He had left England one month to the day after Kate died. “Four years in June,” he said. He did not add that it was also four years since he had buried his wife.

  Hallum frowned slightly. “Four years. It is four years since you lost Katie, isn’t it?”

  Orde resented the fact that Hallum remembered something so personal. So very painful. “You have a keen memory.”

  “I attended the services, Orde, the day after my fortieth birthday. You bore up well. Everyone said so at the time.”

  “Why bring this up?” Orde snapped.

  “Because it has occurred to me more than once that perhaps you did not bear up as well as we all thought. I have watched you here and—”

  Orde raised his hand to interrupt. “Thank you, Colonel. But . . . this is a personal matter. That is not why you called me here. Are we quite finished?” He paused and shook his head resolutely. “In one month my commission is up. I wish to apply for early discharge, if you please.”

  Hallum regretted mentioning Katie Orde now. It was the final straw. He had pushed too hard. “Think about it.”

  Orde blinked in the bright light. “I have thought about it! Right here I have thought about it!”

  “You will not be permitted to remain in Palestine.” Hallum was suddenly stern. “This will do you no good.”

  “I am requesting early discharge.” Orde’s face flushed with emotion. What right had Hallum to link Katie to his performance here as a British officer?

  “As you wish, then.” Hallum took his seat and opened the file. “Your discharge will be effective the day you set foot in England again.” He sniffed, businesslike and unmoving. “Any questions?”

  “No. No . . . sir.” Orde snapped to attention and saluted.

  “All right, then. Dismissed
.”

  Orde strode from the building and stood in the sunlight as the British Union Jack snapped on the flagpole above him. He looked toward the Muslim Quarter of the Old City with the certainty that even in exile himself, the Mufti would be very pleased at the news of Orde’s disgrace.

  He let his breath out slowly. He had not imagined that the betrayal could be so complete. Walking slowly down the steps of the building, he forced himself to acknowledge the salutes of men of lesser rank. Now his rank meant nothing at all. He was of less significance in Jerusalem than the lowliest private in the motor pool.

  5

  Music for the World

  Three times each day Etta Lubetkin washed and changed her clothes and hurried across the square to nurse baby Yani. Always when she returned, the strain in her face was lessened. It seemed that the baby had somehow nourished her, Rachel thought.

  Rachel’s chores included going to the teeming marketplace. She looked forward to the excursions, to the noise and the bustle after hours of counting the labored breaths of Papa. She bargained cautiously, as her mother had taught her. And when she returned with cabbages or potatoes or bread or a chicken and recited the price to Etta, she was rewarded with a smile and a nod of approval.

  Daily, gifts of meals were also brought to the back doorstep by members of the congregation. Dolek, the milk peddler, brought butter and cheese with his tall gray horse. At least one hot cooked meal a day came from the community soup kitchen. But from his sickbed, the Rabbi Lubetkin had forbidden his flock to enter the house.

  Each Sabbath a regular visitor came. His face at the door had surprised Rachel so much the first time that she had stood speechless before him and had not moved to let him enter.

  “Who is there, Rachel?” Etta had called from the kitchen.

  “Father Kopecky, child,” he had prompted, smiling.

  Flustered, she stepped aside and called her reply. “Father Kopecky, Mama. The priest. The Catholic priest!” Did he want to come in? she wondered in amazement.

  He brushed his boots on the mat. Yes. He wanted in.

  “Good Shabbat,” he had said that first day, almost as if he knew something about a Jewish household.

  After that first visit, Father Kopecky came often. On Shabbat, he laughed and called himself the Lubetkin Shabbes goy! He built the fires and chopped kindling. He stacked wood and lit the lamps. He cooked—or at least he lifted the kettle onto the stove and made hot tea for everyone. All the duties Jews were forbidden to perform on the Sabbath, this strange, whistling little priest did. On other days he bathed Papa from head to foot. Papa even managed to talk sometimes when the priest came, although at first he had thought he was dreaming.

  When Father Kopecky came, Mama had rest. Rachel had time to retreat to her chair and read. And on this particular day, the Catholic priest read to Papa from the Torah; offered him precious words of discussion that mere women were unable to do. “A Shabbes goy?” Mama exclaimed in wonder. “The man talks like a son of the covenant, not some Gentile servant come to build our fire! Did he go to Torah school, I wonder?”

  Rachel still stiffened at the sight of his priest’s frock. Was he not from the other side, from the world of the Saturday people where plaster gods were prayed to and candles were burned to the dead Christ above their altar?

  Rachel had never seen these things because she had never dared to set foot in one of those places, but she had heard about the great cathedrals. She had seen the dropping dead Christ leading parades and funeral processions through the streets. She knew what it was to be accused of putting that Christ to death. Christ-killing Jew!

  These things made the presence of Father Kopecky suspect at times. But in spite of herself, she looked forward to his coming. Yet she still wondered why he came and then came back, why he read to Papa in Hebrew. Why? And then she remembered the way he had helped Mama in the street the day the Saturday people had attacked them. She remembered, and she really liked him. When he was late, she worried that he might not come. When he had to leave early, she hoped she had not offended him by a puzzled glance or a frank, curious stare.

  It should not have surprised her that Papa also looked forward to the company of this man. After all, Papa was known and sometimes disapproved of for his friendships with those outside the faith. Dr. Letzo was one such character, but at least the good doctor had been born a Jew and circumcised on the eighth day. Priests were not circumcised, Rachel knew. They were goyim, Gentiles, and so there was no ceremony for them when they were babies.

  Still, through his croaking fevered voice, Papa called the priest, “Righteous! A righteous Gentile!”

  Rachel was convinced that Father Kopecky must be the only righteous goy in Warsaw. Maybe in the whole world. She hated every other Gentile. The Saturday people had done this terrible thing to Papa. They had broken down the doors and taken him and made him sick. He was in bed because of what the Saturday people had done.

  Maybe Father Kopecky was repenting for all of them, she thought today as she watched him stroke the fire. She held her book so she could watch him secretly and then turn her eyes back to the pages quickly if he glanced her way.

  He was whistling again, sweeping up ashes from the hearth as he always did. Suddenly he turned his head to look at her sitting in the plump overstuffed chair. She glanced quickly down at the pages. She felt her face flush because he had nearly caught her staring. She could not focus her eyes, and she raised the book a bit higher to hide her cheeks.

  He stopped whistling. “Hmmmm. That is very strange.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened as she heard his footsteps move across the flowered rug toward her. He stood in front of her chair, an arm’s length away. “Indeed,” he said again. “Very peculiar. Rachel?”

  At the sound of her name, Rachel felt the color deepen. She pretended not to notice he was speaking to her.

  “Rachel? Child?” he asked again, as if requesting politely that she look at him.

  It was not very far to look up. He was a short man, shorter than Rachel herself. She raised her eyes. He was smiling at her. Amused. She quickly looked down again. “Yes, Your Honor?” she stammered.

  He reached out and took the book from her hands. He held it up and turned it sideways as if to study the words at a strange angle. Then he turned the book over. “You were holding it upside down, child.” He gave it back to her. “Is this some new way of holding a book on the Shabbat? Nothing I have heard of. Seems like work to me.”

  Her mouth opened and closed in speechless humiliation. She was caught in the act! Spying! And now he was laughing at her.

  “Pardon . . . I . . . I was . . .”

  “Watching your Shabbes goy clean the ashes?” He laughed loudly. “Perfectly all right, child. Understandable. Who would want a Shabbes goy who did not do good work on the Sabbath?”

  “I was . . . just . . . I did not mean . . .” Tears stung her eyes. She did not blink for fear that tears might actually fall.

  He saw her embarrassment and became instantly contrite for having noticed and commented that she was spying. “Think nothing of it.” His voice was fatherly. Priestly. Kind.

  “I was not.” She stared unblinking at her hands and tried to explain. “It’s just that you are so kind. And I was just . . . I do not know why you are so kind. And I was just . . . I do not know why you are so kind when the others are . . .”

  “Not?” he finished for her.

  But there was no time for him to answer her. Maybe there was no answer anyway.

  Mama came into the room and gestured toward the big clock on the opposite wall. “Aaron is hoping you might stay this evening.”

  The priest frowned at the clock face. Had he forgotten that it was time for the BBC broadcast of the symphony from London? “Ah, Rachel, we’ll miss it if we don’t hurry.” He scurried out of the room, leaving a wake of unanswered questions behind. The growl of the radio emanated from Papa’s room.

  Rachel put down the book but did not move from the chai
r.

  “We’ll miss the beginning of the concert,” Etta said, searching Rachel’s eyes. “What is it?”

  Rachel bit her lip and tried to define just what it was that troubled her about the little priest and his weekly excursions to Muranow Square. “Are there others like him, do you think?”

  Etta nodded in reply, then brushed the conversation away like ashes from the hearth. “Come along now. You know how Papa loves the concerts.”

  The whine of the BBC in faraway London slid into focus. So she had not made them late for the concert by her silly curiosity. She entered the bedroom where Father Kopecky was chatting pleasantly with Papa.

  “I heard this performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Czech National Theater in Prague two years ago,” the priest explained. “It was a different world then, was it not?”

  ***

  In honor of tonight’s BBC broadcast of Mozart’s Prague Symphony, Murphy donned his black dinner jacket and had his dress shoes polished. He endured the starched shirt with a smile as he sat in the close atmosphere of the audience in the radio studio.

  The gathering was small, just enough people on hand to give the live broadcast the added dimension of applause at appropriate moments.

  At five minutes to air time, Elisa took her place as second chair violinist for what would be her last performance until after the baby was born. She had given up playing for the large concerts at Covent Gardens some months before. BBC radio concerts were plenty. Now she could barely lean forward far enough to turn the pages of the music on her stand. She could not place the precious Guarnerius violin on her lap because she had no lap—only baby Murphy thumping around in there, threatening to kick over the music stand or punch a hole in the priceless fiddle.