Authors: Anita Diamant
“Why do you address me formally?”
“What am I to call you?”
“No need to call me anything. Just tell me what you want,” Zorah said, exasperated
but curious.
Esther smiled. “You see? You are kind. But I’m afraid that in order to ask you this
question, I must impose a little on your patience so that you understand. You will
permit me?”
Zorah shrugged.
Esther squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, as though she were about to recite
a lesson.
“My real name is Kristina Piertowski, or it was until we got on the boat and I took
the name of Jacob’s mother.
“God has blessed me with this little boy, but I did not give birth to him. His mother
was the kindest, most cultured woman I ever met. She spoke Polish, German, and French,
as well as the Yiddish. As a girl, she had dreamed of becoming a physician, but it
was very difficult for women, and then, of course, she was a Jew. She married Mendel
Zalinsky, a good man who adored her. A furrier. She was already thirty-five when they
married. Jacob was born the next year.
“I was his baby nurse. I held him from his first day in the world and I loved him.
The other nurses in the park used to say that you could lose your job if the children
grew too attached to you, but Madame Zalinsky was not like that. She said, ‘The more
he is loved, the better he will be able to love.’ You see what I mean? A generous
woman. A wise woman.
“We were in Krakow and Mr. Zalinsky saw what was happening. He sent us to a cottage
on the outskirts of a little town in the country, not too far that he couldn’t visit
sometimes, but far enough that he thought we would be safer.” Esther stopped for a
moment. “I heard that he was shot trying to bring food to an old woman who lived down
the street from us. At least Madame never knew, God be praised.
“We were all right in that village for a little while, but there was a next door neighbor
who wanted the house for himself. So that son of a bitch, pardon me, said something
to the police, may he burn in hell.
“Madame told me that if anything were to happen, I was to take Jacob and go. She gave
me a fur coat with golden coins sewn into the lining. She told me to use the money
for us both, and not to neglect myself. Can you imagine? That she should think of
me at such a time?
“The day it happened, she kissed us both and sat down in a chair facing the door.
I can see her still, sitting so straight, with a little valise on the floor beside
her.
“I took Jacob to my grandparents’ farm close to the North Sea. We were many kilometers
from the nearest town and far from the main roads; it was a good place to hide. My
grandparents thought Jacob was my son. Grandfather called him ‘the little Jewish bastard’
when he thought I couldn’t hear. But we were all right until the Germans marched through
and took everything—the livestock, the half-grown potatoes, the grain we had stored
for the animals. After that, it was bad. I traded furniture for fish. We burned the
floorboards for heat. There were weeks we ate soup made with nothing but wild mushrooms
and onions. This is bad for a growing child, you know? I fear that Jacob will never
be even as tall as his father, who was
not a big man. But he is smart, my Jacob. You see it, don’t you? He is his mother’s
son.”
“Does he know about her?” Zorah asked.
Esther seemed startled by the question. “Yes. No. I mean, in the beginning I would
tell him bedtime stories about his mama and his papa, what they looked like, how much
they loved their little boy. We would say prayers for them, and I would make him promise
always to remember their good names.
“But then I worried what would happen if a soldier stopped us and asked about his
father. So I stopped talking about them, and when he called me Mama, I said, ‘Here
I am.’ And it is true that I love him as much as his own mother. And it is true that
I had her permission to love and be loved by her son, but …”
Esther stopped and pressed her hands together. “Someday I will tell him. I only pray
that he will forgive me and still call me Mama.”
“But what made you come to Palestine?” Zorah asked. “Did the parents speak of it?
Did the mother tell you to bring him here if she did not return?”
“They were not Zionists like some of them here,” said Esther. “They were not religious,
either, though they never ate pork. Madame said it was just their custom. They were
good people, kind people, hardworking.”
“But why didn’t you just stay in your grandparents’ house and raise Jacob there? This
was not your journey to make. The boy might have died on the way. Didn’t you know
how dangerous it would be?”
“Do you know how dangerous it is for a Jew in Poland today?” Esther said, bitterly.
“Jacob is circumcised. Someday, he would be found out, and what would become of him?
He would discover the truth of his birth, and what could he do? He
would hate me, and why not? Poland is filled with such hatred, you cannot imagine.
“Not far from where my grandparents lived, there was a Jewish family, a dairyman and
his sons. One of the boys returned to the father’s house; the only one who survived,
I think. The neighbors saw him and clubbed him to death on the road. In broad daylight
they did this. They dragged his body to a ditch and pissed on it, and then boasted
about what they had done. The men went around telling the story like it was something
to be proud of. In Poland they say, ‘Too bad they didn’t kill all of the Yids.’
“Everything there is evil, poisoned. How could I let Jacob stay there? I could not
stay there, myself. So I took the coat with the coins in the lining, which I never
touched, not even when we were eating grass soup, and the coat took us to Italy, where
we fell in with some people looking for a way to get to Palestine. I gave them some
money and they got us onto a boat and now, miss, I come to my question.”
Esther looked directly at Zorah for the first time and said, “Before we got on the
boat to come here, I walked into the sea and made myself a Jew. Like a baptism. That
is how it is done, yes?”
“Yes,” said Zorah. “That is how it is done.”
“So now I am Jewish? Like Jacob?”
“Yes,” Zorah nodded, knowing full well that her ruling would not sit well with the
rabbis; perhaps not even with most Jews. So she said, “There is no need to ask anyone
else about this matter, ever again. If someone asks you about your family background,
you look him in the eye and say, ‘I am a Jew.’”
“I am a Jew,” Esther repeated.
“Jacob is lucky to have you as his mother.” The word slipped
out of Zorah’s mouth, but she did not wish it back. Sometimes “luck” was just another
word for “creation,” which was as relentless as destruction.
Esther would love Jacob no matter what happened. Jacob would sing “
Ha Tikvah
” whether Zorah joined him or not.
“I understand why you have been so quiet,” Zorah said. “But now you must learn the
language.”
“I’m afraid it is far too difficult for someone like me.”
“Someone like you?” Zorah said. Changing from Polish to Hebrew she asked, “Are you
not the mother of Jacob Zalinsky?”
“Yes,” Esther replied slowly, in Hebrew. “Yes, I am the mother of Jacob Zalinsky.”
Shayndel was washing the tables in the mess hall after breakfast when Tirzah called
her into the kitchen. She pointed at a brick of what looked like beige cheese on the
counter. “You said you’d never tasted halvah. This comes from a place where they make
the real thing, the best. Try it.”
Shayndel was startled by the gesture. It might have been a reward for her recent assignment,
updating the schedule for every guard in Atlit, but it also felt like a friendship
offering from this unfailingly distant woman.
“Thank you,” she said, and took a big bite. The texture, somehow oily and grainy at
the same time, made her feel like she had a lump of sand in her mouth. She couldn’t
decide if it was sweet or salty, and tried not to grimace. “It’s made from sesame
seeds, right?” Shayndel asked as she poured herself a glass of water.
“It looks wonderful.” The voice came from the doorway, where Colonel Bryce stood as
if waiting for an invitation to enter.
Shayndel had never been so close to the camp commander. At this range she could see
how slender he was and the gray hair at his temples. His uniform was faded, though
pressed and well fitted. He removed his hat and tucked it under his arm.
“You may have some, if you wish,” Tirzah said. “She doesn’t seem to like it.”
He pinched off a corner between his thumb and fingers. “Lovely. Very fresh,” he said,
in Hebrew.
“Languages are a hobby of mine,” he explained in response to the shock on Shayndel’s
face. “Is that the correct word, Mrs. Friedman?” he asked Tirzah. “Hobby?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bryce took a few more crumbs of the halvah and smiled at Shayndel. “I remember the
first time I tried this stuff; I thought it tasted like dirt.”
“Never mind,” Tirzah said coldly.
“Thank you anyway, I mean, thank you so much,” said Shayndel. She realized that she
had never addressed Tirzah by name. “It was nice of you to think of me.”
Tirzah shrugged and crossed her arms while Bryce put his hat on the counter and began
tapping his finger as though he were working a telegraph. After a moment, Shayndel
realized that they were waiting for her to leave. She pulled the apron over her head.
“If you don’t mind, I think I will go see what the new physical education instructor
is up to. Good morning, Colonel.”
“Good morning,” he said.
Tirzah was rattled by Bryce’s visit to the kitchen—something he had never done before.
The whole camp was doubtless buzzing about it already. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“I have gotten word from Kibbutz Kfar Giladi,” he said. “On the Lebanese border. I
believe you have cousins there.”
They both knew she had no family that far north. “Yes?” Tirzah said.
“There was a rather large incursion of Jewish immigrants late last night; maybe sixty
or seventy Jews from Iraq and Syria. The British were there in some numbers, as I
understand it. The Palmach was also in force and things got messy. Shots were fired.”
“Casualties?” she asked.
“Two dead and two in hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It was very unfortunate,” he said. “Our patrols managed to capture most of the group
that got through, and I just received word that those detainees will be brought here,
to Atlit. At least fifty of them. They will be arriving within the next twenty-four
hours. I have orders to hold them in a separate barrack, under special guard. I thought
you might wish to inform your superiors at the Jewish Agency about this, if only to
increase the delivery of bread and such.”
Tirzah nodded, knowing as he knew that she would have found out about the incoming
refugees within the hour anyway; there would be a phone call for her or a message
delivered by a milkman or a volunteer “teacher” with a pass freshly stamped by the
Jewish Agency. “It is quite possible that my people are already well aware of this,”
she said, acknowledging their customary minuet of indirection and euphemism.
“In any case,” he said, “I wanted you to have every chance to
prepare the kitchen. And one more thing: I seem to recall that your son is due to
come for a visit.”
“Tomorrow.”
“It might be better to postpone the trip this time.”
A shiver ran up Tirzah’s back.
“There is talk of repatriating this particular group of refugees—and as quickly as
possible.”
“You can’t be serious,” she sputtered. “It hasn’t been safe for Jews in Iraq since
1940. The Baghdad pogrom—two hundred innocent men murdered. The whole Jewish community
blackmailed, terrorized. If you send back fifty avowed Zionists, they will be murdered,
and it will put every Jew in the Arab world at risk, too.”
“I doubt it would come to that,” Bryce said. “Our chaps are well in command of things
there at the moment.”
“At the moment,” Tirzah mocked.
“I understand your position,” said Bryce.
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do, in fact,” he said. “I believe that at some point, quite soon, the Yishuv
will stage a military attack against the mandatory forces on behalf of the immigrants
from Europe, in particular.”
“You think there is going to be an attack here?”
“I am not the person in this room with access to that intelligence,” Bryce said, breaking
the rules of their game for good. “But given the risk, I would keep Danny away from
here right now.”
Tirzah nodded.
“Very well,” Bryce announced crisply, and put on his hat. For a moment Tirzah thought
he might actually lift his hand to his forehead and salute, but instead he lowered
his voice and gently said, “Shalom, Mrs. Friedman.”
Tirzah watched him from the door, his shoulders back and his head high, as though
he were marching in formation. The more she thought about it, the more she agreed
with his suspicions. The story of the Iraqis’ capture was sure to be in tomorrow’s
newspapers. The Palmach would not permit this deportation and they would have to act
fast. Everything was about to change.
Tirzah folded thick brown paper around the halvah. She wondered if Danny would remember
Bryce at all: the candy he brought for him, his kind green eyes. She wondered if they
would ever touch one another again.
Shayndel left the kitchen confused. She had assumed that the relationship between
the officer and the cook was one-sided: the besotted old colonel wrapped around the
finger of a younger woman who was making a terrible sacrifice on behalf of her country.
But it seemed obvious that the feeling between them was mutual. Did that make Tirzah
a collaborator? Had she been passing information to the enemy?
The suspicion ran counter to Shayndel’s instincts. It was possible that Bryce could
be a double agent, but not Tirzah. Poor thing, thought Shayndel, not that she would
want any part of my sympathy.