Authors: J David Simons
T
HE SHUDDERING WOKE
L
EV
from his dreams, almost tipped him out of his bed. He heard Madame Blum screaming: ‘We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die.’ He looked under the bed. Nothing there. Another judder. Another cry from Madame Blum: ‘Armageddon. Armageddon is here.’ Books fell out of shelves, a framed watercolour of Haifa swayed on its hook, crashed to the tiled floor. He jumped out of bed. The ground shook. Where was there to run to when the whole world was in spasms? Madame Blum again: ‘Where are my candlesticks?’ Mickey’s voice: ‘Get under the table. Under the table. It will pass.’ Lev at the doorway to his room, hands placed against the jambs for balance, under the lintel for protection, watermelons rolling around the hallway. Another tremor. Screaming coming from outside now, the smash of tiles off roofs, a glimpse through the window of palm trees swaying and bending, bunches of dates breaking, dropping to the earth with a hiss and thud. Then everything settling, rocking back into place. Lev held his breath, waited. Silence except for Madame Blum sobbing in the kitchen. An automobile horn. A generator starting up. Lev waited. Voices in the street. Mickey coming through to the hallway, saying: ‘It’s over. Don’t worry. It’s over.’
Haifa escaped relatively unscathed. Madame Blum lost some dishes, picture frames, a lamp; Mickey some watermelons, a few bottles of vodka. Elsewhere, news of damage caused by the earthquake arrived sporadically. Communication systems were down in many places, only a few telegrams and telegraphs getting through. Landslides were being reported.
The Jordan River was dammed up. Reports of many deaths in Nablus, also in Jerusalem and Trans-Jordan. Buildings collapsed everywhere. The famous Winter Palace Hotel in Jericho gone. ‘God is punishing us,’ cried Madame Blum, but for what she wouldn’t say. Mickey was more pragmatic: ‘What do you expect? The hotel was built with mud.’ Lev worried about Celia. The Jordan Valley had split in places. There had been casualties in Tiberias. But no information had seeped through about any incidents in the settlements.
The next morning, Lev went down to the beach on his way to work. There were a few topless palms, trunks snapped, bunches of dates scattered across the sand like dead bodies, armies of ants carrying off the spoils. Other than that, everything appeared as normal. Yet, he still felt shaken, unsure, disorientated. The ground for his footsteps, once so secure, could no longer be trusted. His world, once so fixed and solid, was now a fragile place. If he could not rely on this Earth, what could he rely on? Who could he rely on?
He certainly could rely on the Haifa Central Post Office. For here it was business as usual. The building could not afford to be otherwise, hosting as it did the daily sackloads of letters and parcels arriving on trains from Damascus, on boats from Egypt and England, in post-vans from Jerusalem and Jaffa, in the saddlebags of horses from outlying villages. Sammy, in particular, took advantage of this postal hub, collecting international stamps in several albums, carefully steaming them off the correspondence that arrived at the desks of PICA from all over the world. As for the domestic stamps of Palestine, the Arabs and Jews argued fiercely over their design and wording just as much as they argued over Jerusalem and everything else.
On this day, the postal halls were particularly busy. As Lev waited in line, he watched the anxious customers crowding outside the few telephone booths to check for news of loved ones. Celia’s settlement had no telephone, he didn’t even know where the nearest one might be. But he had just seen the morning’s newspapers – still no reports of any casualties in the Jordan Valley. He collected the usual healthy stack of letters for PICA, flicked through the bundle, these postmarks from far-off places still
giving him a thrill. There was even one from Australia, two or three from the United States. It wasn’t even seeing his own name that first caught his eye. But the slightly raised letter ‘v’ in the word ‘Lev’. It was a typewritten tic carried deep in his memory, the one flaw in that magnificent machine of his youth with the name ‘Kanzler’ scrolled in gold across the top. There could be only one source for this letter which he now held in his shaking hand.
He ignored it at first. Buried the letter deep in the pile which he carried back to the office. He was surprised not to find Sammy already there, waiting eagerly for the correspondence that would begin his day. Lev left the bundle on Sammy’s desk, extracted the letter addressed to him, went and sat in his own room. He took up his usual posture with his chair swung round to face the open window, his feet resting up on the sill. He looked at the envelope in his hands. ‘Ewa Kaminsky,’ he said to himself. ‘How is life treating you in America?’
New York
My dear Lev
So many years we didn’t communicate. It was a great mistake. Your father and I thought you wanted a fresh start, that it was best for you to get on with this life of yours with Sarah in Palestine without the burden of all our previous tragedies. We were wrong. It was not good for a father and son to be apart like this, but Amshel broke your father’s heart by leaving, then the death of the two boys in the war, he thought it was best to let you go. And now this. Your letter. And this change of name. From Gottleib to Sela. How would we ever have found you?
Your father is dead, Lev. He was killed more than two years ago in a stupid, stupid accident. He was run over by an automobile just outside our apartment. I heard it happen. The window was open, it was one of those hot New York summer evenings, still light outside. Your father never did get used to those automobiles. Horses and donkeys was what
he knew. I rushed outside. He died in my arms. I am so sorry I have to write to tell you this.
I want you to know we had a good life together here in America. For these few years, he was happy. We were happy. He had stopped drinking. Even if he had wanted to continue, it would have been difficult as it is forbidden to buy alcohol here. He was working in construction. There is so much building going on in this city. Bridges. Roads. Office buildings that scrape the sky they are so tall. Your father was a strong man, he worked hard. I also had work. As a secretary, of course. We had a nice apartment with electricity and an inside toilet. Outside in the streets, the sewers are buried underground in pipes. What a wonderful place this is.
New York is a good city to be a Jew. We are surrounded by Jews. I believe there are more Jews in New York than in Palestine. There are newspapers in Yiddish, theatres in Yiddish, gossip in Yiddish, barrels of pickled herrings in the street. People leave us alone. They do not call us names, they do not desecrate our tombstones. I am happy to be in America. To speak in English. I took your father to the movies. We went to hear jazz. We even went dancing. Can you imagine, Lev? Your father dancing. We also started to save some money. We had big plans for the future. And then this stupid accident happened.
What about you, Lev? What is life like in Haifa? Are you married to Sarah now? Do you have children? Your father would have been so happy to be a grandfather. You tell us nothing about yourself, only about your brother Amshel. I try to keep up with the news about Palestine. Always there seems to be some kind of trouble. Jews are going there, Jews are leaving there. I have a pushke on my sideboard for money I give to the Zionists. Every time I put my nickels and dimes in the slot, I think of you, Lev, and that summer we spent together before you went away. Tell me, how is your typing?
I am glad that Amshel has found you. I never knew him, of course, but it must be good for you to have a brother with you. To be with family is a fine thing. Unfortunately, I am not in the situation to help him. To tell you the truth, after a time of terrible loneliness, I met someone else. He is a kind man, he looks after me. But he does not want to know of my
previous life. I am a new woman for him, with no past. So I cannot help Amshel with any letter of financial support. If it were you, then maybe it would be different. But with Amshel I have no connection. I am sorry. I realize a Jew cannot just turn up in America any more without the proper papers and sponsors. Perhaps Amshel should go back to Poland? Your grandfather left some property there, the cottage in the wood – you must remember? There was land around it too. Your father tried to sort it out from here but then he died and it is not my business anymore. Amshel should attend to this – after all, he is the oldest son.
I hope you are well, Lev. I hope you have found happiness with your Sarah, and your children give you many blessings.
With warmest regards
Ewa Kaminsky
Lev put down the letter, dropped his feet from the sill, turned his back on the sea. His father was dead. Such a remote figure in his life, why should it matter to him? He remembered how Amshel used to say: ‘Look at him, Lev. Look at him.’ And here his brother put a circle of thumb and index finger in front of his eye to help him focus better on the stooped figure plodding up the street. ‘He always looks like he’s
schlepping
a piano.’
It wasn’t a piano his father was
schlepping
in America. Or crates of liquor as he used to do in Mr Borkowski’s store. But bricks and planks and girders. Building bridges and roads and office buildings. It seemed America had straightened his crouched frame so that he even went dancing. Lev tried to imagine the two of them, all dressed up in evening wear, gliding across a shiny, empty floor in each other’s arms, his father’s trousers just a little bit too long for him. Smiling. Szmul Gottleib, happy in America.
Lev went back to the post office, sent a simple telegram to Amshel, asking him to come to Haifa immediately. He then went home for lunch.
T
HE EARTH MIGHT HAVE STOPPED SHAKING
but Lev could see Madame Blum was still trembling as she served him cold
borsht
and a salad of raw vegetables at the kitchen table. She then sat down beside him. Her hair was pulled back into a headscarf, dragging up her thin eyebrows over the stretched, powdered skin of her forehead. Her eyes, usually black-lined, were devoid of any make-up.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘I can tell something is wrong.’
Lev shrugged, slurped on a spoonful of beetroot soup. That sweet, earthy taste, it was delicious.
‘You are holding something in, Lev. I see it written in the lines of your brow. It is not good. You will get indigestion.’
Lev relented. ‘I received a letter this morning. From America.’
‘From your father?’
He told her what Ewa had written.
‘For the death of your father, I wish you “long life”,’ Madame Blum said, then asked: ‘How do you feel?’
The question surprised him. Nobody had ever asked him that before. About anything. He didn’t have an answer.
‘To lose a father is never simple,’ she said. ‘Even one who was so far away.’
Lev thought about the last time he had seen him. On a station platform in Warsaw, together with Ewa Kaminsky. As his train departed. Ewa was blowing kisses, his father’s head was bowed, his hands deep in his pockets. Lev knew then he would never see him again.
Madame Blum patted the back of his hand. ‘You and Mickey, you are like my own children.’
‘I know that.’
‘My late husband and I… we couldn’t have children. We wanted, but we couldn’t have.’
It was the first time he had heard this. It was unusual for Madame Blum to say anything about her husband without cursing him. He and Mickey still wondered what had really happened to him that day he fell in front of the Haifa-Damascus train.
Madame Blum went on. ‘Yes, having you and Mickey here has been a blessing.’ She stared at her ringless fingers. ‘You are not lonely here. A woman my age knows how it feels to be lonely. But you have me. And you also have Sammy. He has been like a father to you.’
Sammy lived in the German colony. Straight rows of detached houses set in their own gardens stretching from the Abbas Effendi Garden in the hills right down to the sea. The properties tended to be two-storey, red-tiled affairs with wonderful views of the Mediterranean. They had been built by some German religious group Lev knew nothing about. But then there were so many religious groups in Palestine, it would have been hard to keep track of them all. At least this one built fine houses.
Sammy’s home stood out from the rest. It had been designed by a German architect who had worked for the Turkish administration but loved all things English. As a result, Sammy lived in a compact, one-storey cottage with exposed internal beams, all hemmed in by cedar trees and a garden overgrown with imported rose bushes. ‘A house fit for Shakespeare,’ was how Sammy described his dwelling. Lev had no idea what Shakespeare would have looked like but he imagined him to be rather short given the low height of all the cottage’s doorways.
A dead dog lay on the road close by Sammy’s gate, the second one Lev had come across on the short walk over from Madame Blum’s. Flies hovered over its skinny frame, burrowing into the ears and eyes. He gave the lifeless animal a wide berth, covered his mouth against the stench for fear of catching rabies. He pushed open the gate, glad of the dim and cool of Sammy’s garden with its shade of cedar trees, its scent of roses.
The tremors had shaken a couple of tiles off the roof into the flower-beds, pots of succulents lay broken at the entrance doorway. Other than that, no damage. Lev scraped the pot shards and loose earth into a heap with his foot, knocked on the front door. No answer. He searched for the spare key in its usual spot on top of the lintel. Nothing there. He tried to peer through a few of the windows but it was too dark or the glass was too dirty for him to see inside. Sammy must have gone away on some field trip. As he turned to walk away from the house, he saw Mickey standing at the gate, one arm resting on a two-wheeled trolley loaded up with wooden crates.
‘This is a bit of luck,’ Mickey said. ‘I could do with a hand.’
Lev grabbed one trolley handle, Mickey the other, they tipped up the crates, pushed the load forward.
‘What’s inside?’ Lev asked.
‘
Tchatchkes
.’
A typical Mickey answer. Yiddish. Vague. Trinkets. ‘Why can’t you just tell me?’
‘My business is my business.’
‘People are talking about your business.’
‘Really? What are they saying?’
‘That you’re dealing in guns.’
Mickey laughed, stopped pushing the trolley. ‘Who told you this?’
‘Rumours. In the markets. The coffee houses. The card schools.’
‘Gun smuggling is a serious accusation.’
‘I’m just telling you what people are saying.’
‘Is that what you think is in these crates? Rifles? Grenades?’
Lev shrugged. ‘As you said.
Tchatchkes
.’
Mickey pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket, set about levering the lid off one of the crates. A splinter cut into his hand, forcing him to pull back, suck at the wound. ‘I’ll show you fucking guns,’ he said.
‘Forget it, Mickey. I believe you.’
It was too late. Mickey was back attacking the crate, prying off the lid. He held up a small, green, metal container with a red cross on it. ‘See?’ he said. ‘First Aid boxes. Not hand grenades. First fucking Aid.’
They didn’t talk after that. The going was a bit tougher anyway, pushing the load uphill, Mickey reduced to one arm as he sucked away at his cut, trying to stem the flow with a piece of gauze from one of the First Aid boxes. Back at the house, Madame Blum took him away to bandage up his hand, leaving Lev to prepare some fresh orange juice in the kitchen. But Mickey was soon back in the room.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about your father?’
‘I was going to,’ he said, squeezing down hard on an orange. ‘But the contents of the crates got in the way.’ He felt himself closed up over his loss anyway. For years he had lived as if he had no father. Ewa’s letter might have upset his balance for a few hours, but now he was back to his orphan life.
‘For God’s sake, Lev. I am your friend…’
‘…The news is just terrible,’ Madame Blum exclaimed as she burst into the kitchen. ‘Terrible, terrible, terrible.’
‘What news?’ Lev asked.
‘I’ve just spoken to Ida. She says the area around Nablus is like… like Armageddon.’
‘How does she know?’
‘Her husband Max works in the mayor’s office. They have telephones there.’ Madame Blum sat down at the kitchen table, fanned the worry on her face with her fingers. ‘Ida says they are talking about over one hundred dead. Many buildings collapsed. People still buried under the rubble. Children crushed. A tragedy.’
‘Did she say anything about the north?’ Lev asked. ‘The Jordan Valley?’
‘What do I know about the north? I am talking about Nablus.’
‘Celia will be fine,’ Mickey said.
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘If Nablus is the centre of the quake, the Jordan Valley will be like here. No deaths. No casualties. No buildings damaged. Just a slight shaking.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Madame Blum said. ‘A shaking. A shaking up of everything.’