The truck traveled along a dirt road, raising a storm of dust. When it slowed down to cross a dry stream, a dust cloud caught up, filling the back of the truck and covering his friends’ faces with a ghost-like white layer.
Chapter 33
The day after Passover, Elie Weiss boarded a Swissair flight to Zurich. The plane was packed with well-to-do Israeli families fleeing the country-a recent phenomenon that demonstrated new cracks in the idealistic spirit that had typified most Israelis until the Eshkol government began to fumble indecisively while the Arabs prepared to attack. The children were oblivious to the tension, marveling at the airplane and its accoutrements, but the adults furtively glanced at each other in a camaraderie of shame.
Elie kept on his wool cap and sunglasses. He was travelling under the name of Rupert Danzig, a junior SS officer, who in January 1945 was raping a woman at her kitchen in a village near Munich while his comrades ransacked the house. Abraham pulled Danzig off the woman and held him while Elie clipped his vocal cords with a quick stab. They prodded him out the back door and deep into the forest, where they tied him to a tree, his pants still down at his knees.
Danzig eagerly answered Elie’s questions by nodding or shaking his head while air gurgled through his perforated vocal cords. With the war about to end, Danzig had planned to don civilian clothes and avoid capture by the approaching American forces. That explained the passport and cash in his pocket. After removing his identification tags, papers, and uniform, Elie used his shoykhet blade to peel off the rest of the Nazi’s identity. When he finished, Danzig had no face, only a mask of raw flesh, bare jaws exposing a perfect set of teeth, and lidless eyes glaring downward at the puddle of blood on the soft carpet of pine needles.
Since the war, Elie had maintained bank accounts and a tiny apartment in Paris under Rupert Danzig’s identity. He travelled to Europe often to continue his private hunt for SS veterans. The years had thinned out their ranks, but had also lowered their guard. He used them as cash cows, making them pay for their past sins and current freedom, making them work hard for money he then used to finance his SOD operations in Israel and Europe. And those who refused to pay, or ran out of money, were found dead. In most cases, no one ever detected the surgical entry point under the right ear, where Elie’s blade had severed the brainstem without external bleeding.
But this trip was different. By gaining control of the fortune Tanya’s Nazi lover had stashed in Zurich, Elie would no longer have to chase the aging small fish. Rather, he would put his energy into a revolutionary reversal of the global balance of power between the Jews and their enemies.
When the plane leveled off over the Mediterranean, Elie unzipped his leather briefcase and took out a bunch of envelopes held together with a rubber band. He had arranged with the IDF postmaster to stop all mail addressed to, or from, Private Jerusalem Gerster. Checking the stamps on the envelopes, Elie opened Temimah Gerster’s first letter, dated approximately six weeks earlier:
My dearest Jerusalem,
Your father gave me the address in the Zionist army and allowed me to write to you. With God’s help, after many weeks, I am recovering from the terrible shock. What you did is still incomprehensible to me. I know that young men sometimes desire to assert their independence, to rebel against authority. But why did you have to go to such extremes? And why didn’t you speak with us first, before stripping yourself of all that distinguishes a God-fearing member of our community? You defied your father, rejected our whole way of life, and broke God’s laws. I cannot understand it. I pray that you realize your error soon. I beg of you, my son, to think of what you have done. I plead and implore you to repent. It’s not too late-as the Talmud says, ‘He who repents and corrects his ways shall be treated with compassion.’ God will show you the way when you are ready to see it. Meanwhile, make sure to eat and sleep well, and say your prayers. I ask God every day for your safe return to us. May the Master of the Universe watch over you, my son. Please write back.
Your loving mother,
Temimah Gerster.
The stamp on the second envelope was from about a week later. The letter inside was written on the same type of paper, and with the same blue pen, as the first letter:
My dearest Jerusalem,
You haven’t responded to my previous letter. Perhaps you are away on military drills. Today is Thursday, and I went out of the apartment for the first time since that terrible day, when your father, in his understandable anger, excommunicated you. Everyone was very happy to see me at the synagogue, and most of the donated clothes are gone. I asked Benjamin to take the rest to Shmattas to be exchanged, and he did it well. He also misses you very much and prays for your return. Please write a few words to let us know how you are. Your father agreed that you may come home to celebrate Passover with us, provided that you respect God’s laws while under out roof. Please, I beg you to come, even if you have to go back to the army after the holiday. Maybe you don’t understand what it means for me to think of sitting at the Passover table without you. When you have a child one day, God willing, you will understand my agony. So please come home for Passover. I pray for your safe return.
Your loving mother,
Temimah Gerster.
Elie folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. He read the next one, and the next, until he had read all six of them. With each successive letter, her tone grew more anxious, her pleas more urgent, especially with the approaching holiday. In the last letter, under his wife’s signature, Abraham had added:
Jerusalem,
Please respond to your mother, whose heart is broken. Cruelty is the gravest sin, while forgiveness is the finest virtue.
Your father,
Rabbi Abraham Gerster.
Elie wondered what would have happened if the boy had received these letters. Would Lemmy have gone home for Passover? It was a question that would never be answered. Both Abraham and his son had their separate roles to play in the historic struggle for Jewish survival, and Elie was determined to prevent any reconciliation between them. As to the mother’s grief, it was unfortunate. Collateral damage. But she would get over it soon. In the grand scheme of Jewish destiny, Elie could not afford to worry about Temimah Gerster’s spoiled Passover plans.
The pilot announced that the plane would land in Zurich in three hours. Elie lowered his seatback and closed his eyes. The constant engine noise soon put him to sleep.
T anya’s phone rang near midnight on Saturday night. It was Lemmy, calling from a payphone at the central bus station. He had won a one-day leave at a sharp-shooting contest.
She drove Elie’s small Citroen, which he had left with her yesterday before departing for Europe. Lemmy waited at the curb, carrying an Uzi and a duffel bag. She took him home, and they fell into bed without turning on the lights. He smelled of dust and sweat and grease. His embrace was forceful, and his hands on her skin felt coarse in a way she found incredibly arousing. He was tireless, his breathing not labored even as their lovemaking intensified, sending her again and again beyond the limits of her self-control.
T anya woke up with first light. She used the fast-forward feature on the recording device to scan for any UN communications that had occurred overnight, finding only a few casual exchanges. She called Brigadier General Tappuzi to tell him there was no news.
Around noon, Lemmy appeared at her side in his khaki boxer shorts. “What a setup you have here! What is it for?” He touched a knob on one of the receivers.