No Time for Tears Page 6

  On rusting, battered, listing freighters they left Odessa. Some would embark at Trieste, or Constantinople, or Port Said, where they would change to slow cargo vessels to the promised land. The Rabinsky-Landau clan’s ancient freighter was bound for Jaffa.

  Chavala and the children found space belowdecks, where they prepared their bedding on the floor while Dovid went to make arrangements for the goat. Avrum went up on deck, took out his tallis and wrapped himself in it, then swayed back and forth with the ancient rhythm and intoned:

  Hear me, Jacob.

  Israel, whom I have called:

  I am the one.

  The beginning and the end.

  My own hand founded the earth

  and spread out the skies.

  Thus saith the Eternal One.

  Who created the heavens and

  stretched them out.

  Who made the earth and all

  that grows in it, who gives

  breath to its people and spirit

  to those who walk on it.

  The food supplies were rationed by Chavala. The baby had colic … the goat’s milk had soured. Dvora had dysentery. Raizel seemed to manage the discomforts without complaint, and Sheine became acquainted with a chevraman from Galicia whom Dovid distrusted almost as much as the Russian moujiks. So far as he was concerned, the Galicianers were selfish gonifs.

  Knowing how difficult things were for Chavala, Dovid was reluctant to mention the change in Sheine, so he assumed a fatherly role on his own … “Sheine, I want you to stay away from this chevraman. I don’t like the liberty I saw him take with you on deck last night, putting his arm around you—”

  “You’re not my father. I don’t have to listen to you.” There was anger in her eyes, when of course it was love she wanted to show. She had allowed the Galicianer to hold her for Dovid to see, to let him know how desirable she could be to a man. Chavala wasn’t the only one. If she’d had. the jewels he’d given his wife and the black silk dress with the white lace collar, well, she too could look like a queen—

  “Sheine, you’ve changed so I hardly recognize you,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Oh? You noticed I changed? Did you, Dovid … well, good. I’m a woman, I’m thirteen and—”

  “I know you’re a woman, Sheine. But at the risk of sounding like a boring pedant, I’d like to point out that being a woman doesn’t make a person a lady—”

  “You have one lady in the family already. I want to be a woman.”

  Spoken like a true thirteen-year-old, he thought.

  She turned and ran until she reached the place that led her to their dark hold below, where she lay down and cried herself into exhaustion.

  When they came into the Mediterranean people ventured on deck. There was music from a concertina, a violin, a tambourine, and the dancing lasted until dawn. Still, this night seemed impossible for Dovid. His worry about the future seemed to eat him up, and the festivities above only grated on his nerves.

  As they neared Palestine the sea became calm and the air almost stifling. Although he had never mentioned it, in spite of the tightly bound cloth Chavala had made for him his ribs were far from healed and tonight they ached badly. He watched his wife sitting with the other women as she held little Chia, and wondered why still she hadn’t conceived. A dark thought passed through his mind …his beloved Rivka seemed to have had the same nature; she had conceived late in life, and when he thought of her and her awful death he almost hoped he and Chavala would be childless. After all, there were the girls to raise, and they were like his own. Little Chia would think of him as a tateh, and—his thoughts were interrupted as a young man sat down next to him, took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead. The shock of dark hair receded, although Dovid would have guessed them to be the same age.

  “In a few days well be in Eretz Yisroel. What do you think of that?” the stranger asked.

  “What do I think? I think it’s a miracle—”

  “Ah … the miracle has just begun. Where are you from?” The stranger was short, stocky.

  “Near Odessa. And you?”

  “Plonsk. What do you do for a living?”

  “Make boots. You?”

  The stocky man laughed. “I’m a sort of builder … of dreams … some people say visions …”

  Dovid looked carefully at this man. “What’s your name?”

  “David Grien.”

  “Mine is Dovid Landau.”

  The two men shook hands, and Dovid, taken by the man, asked him about himself.

  David Grien’s mother had died when he was very young, and his father and he proceeded thereafter to have huge disagreements about their beliefs. In the end David defied his father and announced without preamble his departure to Palestine. That was as far as David wanted to go on about the saga of his life. It was as though the rest of his past were nonexistent, no longer of any consequence. “The past is prologue, as Shakespeare said, I come into this old, new world with very little, yet so much. I bring to Palestine young and healthy arms. The love of work, an eagerness for freedom to live in the land of our forefathers, and a willingness to be frugal. If we are to be redeemed, Palestine must be built with our hands. There we will create a model society, based on economic abundance. But above all, political equality.” He went on and on, like a missionary … with a passion that seemed to Dovid to be seared into his soul. One day, he said, the Jews of the world would rise up, not with arms, not with violence, but with one universal voice … “Let my people go, let them live and multiply in the land of their heritage. The land that was their portion when King David brought the Ark to Jerusalem …” No question, the man was a spellbinder, and totally convinced… and convincing…

  Now the two sat silently and looked at the midnight sky, sat with thoughts of the future…

  “Well,” Dovid said to the round-faced young man. “I have to go now and join my wife, but I wish you well. I hope we meet again.”

  “I hope so too, chevramem.”

  The two clasped hands. “If you come to Petach Tikvah, ask for David Ben-Gurion, not David Grien. I left that name behind in the ghetto of Plonsk. Now… shalom…”

  Palestine 1906

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE LEAKING VESSEL NOW stood anchored beyond Jaffa. It was early morning, a white mist obscured the distance beyond, but everyone stood at the rail. They had come home at last. As the mist lifted, the shoreline of Jaffa could be seen.

  Beauty, promise lay beyond as the pink-and-blue sky seemed to embrace the green waters of the Mediterranean. Suddenly there was a feeling beyond expression. It was as though all their lives had merged into this moment … moment of deliverance. Avrum touched the fringes of his tallis. with his lips, then swung himself into the prayer shawl. For him it was as though God’s arms encompassed him. There was joyful singing. Strangers embraced, minyans gathered, people bound one another with leather straps around the right arm. On their forehead they placed the minute black leather box that contained the Law, and they intoned the first day of creation as it was written … “Let there be light …” And now there was. Chavala held onto Dovid as they looked toward what for him was Eden, a trip for her. She looked beyond the horizon—her Eden was America—she would wait.

  Moishe could not speak, but he could see it all in his mind … the good rich earth where everything grew—oranges, melons, sweet and delicious to the taste like honey, and almonds and grapes. There would be wheat, barley, corn. They would never go hungry again.

  Sheine stood watching Chavala and Dovid, then looked directly at Motel, the boy from Galicia. He returned the look. “Will I see you again?”

  Sheine shrugged. She had only used the chalutz to make Dovid more aware of her. “Who knows? Perhaps…”

  Their conversation came abruptly to an end, as the whole assembly called out, “Look, they’ve come to get us…”

  In the near distance small boats could be seen. The chalutzim were rowing fast with deliberate strokes to tr
y and beat the Arabs, who would steal the Jews’ possessions and angrily demand, “Baksheesh, baksheesh …” They would loot anything they could lay their hands on.

  Children were running to the rail as the Turkish officers came aboard and demanded papers. Dovid uneasily offered his and a Turk grabbed them out of his hand. The Russian-speaking Turks demanded to know why they were there, and the reply was that they had come as religious pilgrims to pray at the Wailing Wall.

  Since no Jew was permitted by law to immigrate into Palestine, Dovid answered each question with caution as the rest of the family stood there, frightened.

  How long would they be staying? “Just three weeks,” Dovid said, hoping that within three weeks the Turks would be bribed and his family would disappear into the landscape as hundreds of other refugees had done before them. When the Turks’ questions seemed satisfied, the red cards issued to all pilgrims were thrust into Dovid’s hands. But his papers were confiscated. Dear God, thought Chavala, what would they do? As the red-sashed official moved on, Chavala asked, “What will happen to us without our papers?” Passengers ran helter-skelter, some diving into the water, some throwing their things overboard and jumping in after them, and Dovid said, “We don’t have time to think about that, at least we have the red tags.”

  Now the rowboat bobbed up and down at the side of the ship, and the big chatutz bellowed out, “Jump.”

  Although no one could swim it was either drown or be molested, maybe even killed by the Arabs, who were climbing a rope to the deck.

  Dovid told Chavala to tear her petticoat into strips, and without thoughts of modesty she slipped out of it. The whole family, in fact, was now involved. Soon the strips were knotted and attached to Chia’s basket, then lowered until the chalutz retrieved the basket. When Dovid saw the baby secure he told Chavala to jump.

  Her heart in her throat, she plunged down into the sea. When she bobbed up to the surface one of the three chalutzim was in the water helping her into the small boats. She shivered, dripping wet, then one after another followed until they were all huddled together in the tiny vessel.

  “Shalom.” The huge chalutz smiled his greetings. “Welcome to Eretz Yisroel.”

  “Shalom. Thank God you came out to more than welcome us,” Dovid said.

  “What will happen to our things and papers?” asked Chavala.

  “Don’t worry, with money you’ll have your things back.”

  “But we don’t have much—”

  “Who has?” the chalutz said, “but the Zion Agency will take care of it, don’t worry. One thing we can depend on as Jews is charity from our own. How else have we survived all these years?”

  When Avrum saw the sands of beach that lay just beyond he climbed over the side of the boat, waded to shore and as he reached the beach, bent down and kissed the ground, his black coat dripping, making rivulets in the sand. “This house,” he said, “is but a spark, a remnant saved by a miracle from that great fire. Kept by our fathers always upon their altars. You carried us safely to the shore…”

  Like a small armada, other boats were tying up at the wharf, and as people were being helped out by the chalutzim ashore there was a torrent of weeping and embraces with their own chaverim, their fellow Jews.

  Chavala’s tears flowed too, listening to the delighted voices and seeing the faces. They had come as strangers, they had arrived together, sharing, at least for now, a common destiny. Chavala felt most of all the presence of her own as they clustered together. For this moment, at least, she felt at one with Dovid and all the others about the new Zion. Perhaps it would not last, but in this precious piece of time she had come to terms with her desires ….America would be there when that time came, but this supreme moment belonged to those she loved… those she would gladly have died for.

  Dovid noted one of the members of the Zionist office talking to a Turkish official, and could well imagine what it was about … no Turkish official was above corruption. For a price almost anything could be overlooked, forgotten. Corruption was at the very core of the dying Ottoman Empire.

  The Yishuv member was bartering for the possessions of the Jews, to have their papers and belongings returned. The money was extorted, then word spread among the newest arrivals that they were to wait and that their belongings and papers would be returned to them soon.

  As they waited, Avrum Rabinsky said angrily, “Even here, in our own Eretz Yisroel, we’re subject to blackmail? It’s not enough, it seems, that we paid in Russia for the right to come here…”

  A bearded landsman sighed, shook his head. “The point is, we don’t have a right to be here. Not according to the Turks, anyway. And according to the world we shouldn’t exist at all. It’s a miracle when you come to think of it, but take heart, friend, they’ll never be able to kill us no matter how hard they try. We’re still here on these shores even after all the Crusaders have been ground to dust, and we’ll be here when we see the Turks in hell.”

  Right or wrong, the words seemed to make things a little easier to take as Avrum waited with his family in the broiling noonday sun. After what seemed an age they were, miracle of miracles … plus a little crossing of Turkish palms … once again in possession of their papers and other belongings, even Chavala’s goat. Picking up their bundles they started to make their way through the congested narrow alleys of Jaffa. The filth in the narrow lanes was almost too much. This was not exactly what Avrum had envisioned, he had lived his life with a dream of dignity, thinking one day he would sit under his own fig tree. Jaffa seemed worse than any shtetl in Russia, but he told himself that this, after all, was an Arab city and for thousands of years Arabs had lived in a backwash of ignorance. Things would be different when he left here and finally reached his resting place—Jerusalem.

  Whatever disappointment Dovid might have held couldn’t be read on his face. Still, Chavala knew that this was not the land of freedom, or milk and honey, of beauty and plenty that the Bilus with their messages of hope and promise spouted in the basements and attics and back rooms of Kiev, the Ukraine, and Odessa. Dovid must be affected by the contrast, Chavala thought. As for her, she had not come to Eretz Yisroel with any illusion, any desire to reclaim the land. Her dream was America, and so not expecting anything, she could not really complain.

  But poor papa, who had lived with a fantasy, the effect on him must be devastating … she could, she felt, read his thoughts. They had come unprepared for this. Where were the green hills, the wild flowers … where indeed were the roses of Sharon … the trees, the pastures where David’s sheep had once grazed? Where, in fact was a shade tree where any man could sit in peace? At least she and the rest of her family were young, life could change. Coming to Eretz Yisroel was not like a marriage that bound a man and a woman together forever, it was only a stopping-off place for her, but papa had come to end his days with dreams of inheriting the earth. After all, he was the meek, no question of that. But the land he had hoped for had been desecrated by these heathens. There was no fertile land to walk on, only sand and more sand that went on further than the eye could see. No, this was not the place Dovid had promised and papa had hoped for. It was a network of swarming humanity that existed in the narrow alleys. Garbage had to be stepped over. Dead fish lay heaped against the wall. Naked Arab children stood about with vacant faces, hollow eyes and bulging bellies. Children not as old as Dvora were already professional beggars and thieves. The women were dressed in torn rags, and their children sat in the doorways of their hovels. Eretz Yisroel was a small cluster of houses built of mud and pitted sandstone perched on uneven low mounds of sand. This place where they stood was supposed to be one of the oldest inhabited places on earth. Well … nothing had changed in two thousand years.

  Chavala looked at her father, his eyes filled with tears. Silently he asked what had they done, what had they done to desecrate God’s holy earth? His lips barely moving, he asked if they had done the same to Jerusalem, his beloved city.

  Chavala put her arm around h
im. “It’s all right, papa. Remember, this is an Arab city. Jerusalem will be as you hoped.”

  “Then please, please let’s go on to Jerusalem.”

  “We must let Dovid make the plans. Come now, papa.”

  It wasn’t until they reached the Jewish section of Jaffa that Avrum recovered some of his hope.

  The young children had not viewed the scene so unhappily. In fact they were enormously excited. Wide-eyed, they walked along the rows of stalls filled with bolts of vibrant colored Oriental silks and cottons, with beads and bangles—this was the one that Sheine especially loved. She tried on the harem rings, the bracelets, and she fastened in her lobes a pair of earrings that looked like filigreed lace and were the color of gold. The sandal shop, where Sheine was sure that harem girls shopped, intrigued her … she would have given her young life for a pair.

  Dvora’s tastes inclined to the less dramatic. Imagine cooking kasha in the earthen pots!

  And Raizel seemed just to enjoy the whole excursion.

  The children broke out in laughter when Moishe tried on a tropical helmet brought by Christian pilgrims, then a red fez with a black tassel. He wrapped an Arab scarf around his neck, a colorful sash around his middle and stuck a jeweled dagger inside the sash. Trying not to laugh, he asked, “Could I be taken for a Turk?”

  “Not likely,” Sheine said, “with your red hair.”

  Standing outside the stall Avrum said, “That’s enough, children … I’ve seen enough. We’re leaving this Gomorrah.”