Zealot Read online

  “Tzaddik!” Issachar engulfed the smaller man in a bearish hug. “It’s been far too long!”

  Avram grinned and bore it. “Shmuel, this is—”

  “Duncan MacLeod!” Issachar released Avram abruptly and turned to MacLeod. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “I’m sure you have.” MacLeod found something obscene about the gangster’s pudgy hands and fatty chins in a city where starvation was the way of life.

  Issachar laughed. “A rat can’t shit in the Ghetto without me knowing about it. Isn’t that right, Tzaddik?” Without waiting for an answer, the man put a beefy arm around MacLeod’s shoulders. “So, they tell me you have connections in the French Underground …”

  “Later, Shmuel,” Avram interrupted, pulling MacLeod away from him. “First we need to talk some business.”

  “Isn’t that a coincidence, business is my middle name. Step into my office, gentlemen.” Issachar ushered them into a side room full of fine art and antique furnishings, and a desk to rival King Arthur’s round table. “Take a seat,” he said as he lowered himself into the thronelike chair behind the desk.

  MacLeod noticed two more hulking goons, like the one guarding the bunker’s entrance, placed strategically in the room. “We’ll stand, thanks,” he said.

  “Suit yourself,” the gangster said. “So, boys, what can I get you? Whiskey? Women?”

  “Guns,” Avram said with finality. He wasn’t buying into Issachar’s joviality any more than MacLeod.

  The false smile left Issachar’s face. “Guns,” he repeated. “Now, Tzaddik, my dear boy, what makes you think I can arrange for guns any better than you can?”

  “Because arranging them wasn’t the problem. We’d already done that for you. One dozen brand-new Russian rifles. That conveniently disappeared two days ago between the Aryan side and the Ghetto.” Avram sat on the edge of the enormous desk and leaned into the gangster’s face. “Face it, Izzy, I know you’ve got them. Now I want them.”

  The gangster leaned forward as well, until he was nose to nose with Avram. “Go away, kid. You’re scuffing the furniture. I never heard of your damn guns.” Issachar raised his hand, and the two goons hauled Avram off the desk.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Avram said as he squirmed from the goons’ grasp. “You don’t give us back the guns, you’ll all be dead by morning. And that includes you, big man, and your entire operation. ’Cause I’ll tell ’em all about you. Every damn German I can find. I’ll sing like a bird. By tomorrow this place’ll be crawling with Nazis, you dirty rat.” Behind him, MacLeod worked hard to keep a straight face during Avram’s Cagneyesque performance. He’d seen way too many movies.

  Issachar blanched at the notion of Avram selling him out to the Germans, but he didn’t fall for the bluff. “Get them out of here,” he told his men.

  MacLeod, who’d watched the proceedings with an air of detached interest, spoke up, shaking his head. “Oh, dear. De Gaulle isn’t going to like this, Issachar. He’ll not like this at all.”

  “What? What about de Gaulle?”

  Seeing he had the mobster’s interest, MacLeod milked the part for all it was worth. “Well, I didn’t want to tell anyone”— he looked suspiciously at Avram—“but that’s the real reason de Gaulle sent me here. To establish a supply line from the French Resistance through Warsaw to the Russians and back. You name it—arms, equipment…art…gold…”

  “Gold?” Issachar echoed.

  “And since you’ve got similar operations already in place, I thought you and your people would be perfect to recommend for the job. But if you can’t even keep track of a dozen guns”—MacLeod laughed at the notion—“then I guess I’ll just have to find someone else.” He sighed and started from the room.

  “Wait, wait,” Issachar said. “Guns. Maybe we do have some guns.” He motioned to one of his goons. “Go see if we have the boy’s guns. Go!”

  “And ammunition,” MacLeod called after the man, as the goon hurried from the room.

  Issachar smiled broadly. “Of course, ammunition. What’s the use of guns without ammunition? You’ll tell that to de Gaulle, right?”

  They left Mila 18 with a dozen rifles more than they had entered with, packed in three wooden boxes. For each rifle, Issachar had come up with twenty rounds of ammunition. Avram laughed as they reached the street.

  “What’s so funny?” MacLeod asked.

  “Izzy didn’t steal the ammunition from us. There was no ammo in that shipment. I can’t believe you actually got Shmuel Issachar to donate to the cause. You were brilliant!”

  MacLeod tried to look humble. “Well, I’ve done a bit of acting in my day. Sometimes it comes in handy. And what about you? Was that Cagney you were doing in there?”

  “Yeah, what did you think? ‘You dirty rat,’” he repeated.

  “Frankly, I think you sounded more like Peter Lorre. Maybe gangsters just aren’t your style, Avram.”

  Humph. “Well, at least we got the guns. You take that box, give two of the rifles to Gutman at his base, take the other two back to our unit. I’ll deliver these two boxes back to Anielewicz. We’ll rendezvous back on the roof.”

  “Whatever you say, Scarface,” MacLeod said, setting off for Gutman’s base across the Ghetto.

  When Avram and MacLeod met up once again on the roof of the apartment building overlooking the Gesia Street gate, it was well after sundown. Their post was meagerly supplied and sparsely furnished. A battered wooden crate, a stained and tattered blanket. A metal ammunitions box, still stenciled in German, holding a handful of grenades, a few extra rounds of ammo, and a half dozen Molotov cocktails lovingly handcrafted from old wine bottles during the lull following the January uprising. Over in one corner of the roof, a plunger detonator connected to two thin wires trailing over the side of the building, barely perceptible from the street. The wires disappeared under the sidewalk and eventually connected to a cache of explosives, dynamite mostly, in a carefully constructed cavern dug just inside the Gesia Street gate. It had taken some work, but MacLeod had managed to convince the ZOB leadership to risk most of the explosives they could scrounge on this and a similar mine beneath the Brushmakers’ gate. He knew they had to block German access to the Ghetto when the time came, to limit the number of Nazis they’d have to take on at any one time.

  “Miriam all right?” MacLeod wondered. He’d dug up a shirt from the closet of someone he knew would not be returning for it. It made him feel like a ghoul, robbing the dead this way, but sometimes it was necessary. He prayed that, somewhere, the original owner might forgive him.

  Avram carried a burlap sack with him, which he set down near the crate on which MacLeod sat. “Cohen checked her over. Good news is, no internal injury, no internal bleeding that he can detect. She should be fine. Bad news is, the Germans are still dropping by around four in the morning.” He sat down heavily on the blanket with a sigh. “I hate uninvited guests.”

  “I guess it was inevitable. Doesn’t make it any easier, though.” As MacLeod spoke, Avram untied the sack and opened it. “I’d had this—I don’t know what you’d call it—hope? Dream? That the Germans would keep putting it off until the Russians, or maybe the Americans, could get here.”

  “You don’t honestly believe it would be better with the Russians, do you? You said you’d once ridden with Cossacks. Then you know the Russians feel the same as the Germans.”

  “I know you’re right.”

  “As for your heroic Allies,” Avram went on, “it’s obvious by now they just don’t care. Shimon Mendelsohn told them. A dozen others, all with the same message. Jan Karski talked to your Roosevelt and your Churchill personally. Zygelbojm went on the BBC from London and told the whole world what was happening here, in Lodz, in Lublin.” He began to pull out a few small items from the sack, placing them on the blanket as he spoke. There was no anger in his voice, merely acceptance. He could as easily have been discussing the price of fish at the market. Avram Mordecai rarely wore his ange
r publicly. “So where are the bombing raids, he asks? Why hasn’t anyone blown Auschwitz to hell? Why haven’t the great war powers of the West even tried to destroy Treblinka? I tried, MacLeod. Me. I’m just one man, but I had to try, even though I failed. Why haven’t they? Why? You know why, MacLeod. Because we don’t matter. Because to them, the lives of half a million Jews, a million Jews, God only knows maybe ten million Jews, just don’t matter.”

  Avram pulled a dusty bottle of wine and three metal cups from his sack. “We have to face it, MacLeod. The cavalry’s not riding to the rescue. We’re one in here. All we can do is circle the wagons and try to hang on.” He set the cups up carefully on the blanket.

  “What are you doing?” MacLeod asked.

  Avram pulled out a penknife and set about opening the wine. “This is probably the last bottle of kosher wine left in Warsaw. I’ve been saving it for Pesach since I found it nearly a year ago.”

  Although the Jewish calendar had been unfamiliar to MacLeod when he first came to Warsaw, he’d caught on quickly. “Passover starts tomorrow night, not tonight. You’re a day early.”

  “By sundown tomorrow, I don’t think anyone’s going to be doing any celebrating. If God wants to damn me for starting a day early, then so be it. It would be a shame to waste this—it won’t go well with Wiener schnitzel.”

  The bottle open, Avram set it aside and picked up an old tin can. It was open, and in the bottom was a makeshift wick and a thick layer of wax once melted from burning candles. Actual candles were in short supply, and what few were left were desperately needed to light the malinas, the bunkers where the majority of Warsaw’s inhabitants would soon be hiding. He offered the can to MacLeod. “Got a light?” As MacLeod pulled out his well-used Zippo and lit the wick, Avram closed his eyes and began to sing in a clear, high tenor.

  Boruch Ator Adonoi, Elohainu Melech hor-olum, asher kid’shornu b’mitzvo-sav v’tziornu, l’hadlik nair shel yom tov.

  “That was nice,” MacLeod said when Avram opened his eyes again.

  “A little blessing for the light, such as it is.” He took the makeshift candle and set it down so that what little light it threw could not be seen beyond the Wall. Then he began to unwrap the smaller parcels he’d taken from his sack. “I’m afraid it’s not much,” he said, setting out a few pieces of unleavened bread and two hard-boiled eggs. “I gave most of it to some folks for whom starving to death is more than just unpleasant.”

  “Eggs? Where on earth did you find eggs?” MacLeod hadn’t seen an egg since entering the Ghetto.

  “Isn’t Rivka amazing? Eggs are a tradition; they represent the triumph of life over death, and she was bound and determined that if there was nothing else, there would be eggs for Pesach. Oh, that reminds me, Rivka made me solemnly promise to say hello to you. So, hello.”

  “Rivka did?”

  “She’s got it bad for you, MacLeod.” Avram cracked the egg and began to peel it.

  “Rivka?” MacLeod repeated. “She’s just a kid.”

  “So? Tell me you didn’t have a crush on someone when you were twelve.” Avram thought way back. “Mine was Naomi, the glassblower’s daughter. She couldn’t have been more than three years older than me, but I thought she was the most beautiful woman in all Jerusalem. I broke more glass that year, just so I could go to their shop … I’m surprised my father put up with it.”

  MacLeod had to smile. Sure, he remembered being in love when he was twelve, too. “I guess it’s harmless.”

  ”The poor kid’s got nothing left to dream about. She might as well have you.” The eggs peeled, Avram picked up the matzah and began to sing once again.

  Boruch Ator Adonoi, Elohainu Melech hor-olum, ha-motzi lechem min hor-oretz.

  The melody was haunting, Avram’s voice reaching toward heaven. Then he broke the pieces in half and handed MacLeod his portion. “Blessing for the bread, right?” MacLeod asked.

  “You catch on fast, for a goy.” He picked up the wine bottle and filled one of the three cups, which he placed at the head of the blanket. MacLeod reached for it, and Avram swatted his hand away. “No-no-no,” he scolded, “that one’s Elijah’s.” He filled another cup and handed it to MacLeod, who looked at him quizzically. “One cup is set out for the Prophet Elijah,” he explained. “It’s said that Elijah will come to the seder to bring redemption and rescue his people from oppression and evil.”

  “Well, if he’s coming, I think he picked the right night.” MacLeod raised the cup as if to toast, then stopped, setting the cup down. “But first, the blessing for the wine, right?”

  “I’m so proud of you,” Avram beamed and began to intone the ancient words.

  Boruch Ator Adonoi, Elohainu Melech hor-olum, borai p’ree ha-gorfen.

  When he’d finished, Avram raised his glass to MacLeod, then took a drink. Following his cue, MacLeod toasted Avram. “L’chayim.”

  “Showoff.” Avram laughed. “There’s one more. You want to try it with me?”

  “Oh, no, no,” MacLeod declined with a laugh. “I’ll leave that to you and the angels,” and he sat hack to listen as Avram made another joyful noise unto the Lord.

  Boruch Ator Adonoi, Elohainu Melech hor-olum, sh’-higee-yornu, v’kee-y’mornu, v’higee-ornu, lazman hazeh.

  “So what was that one for?” MacLeod wondered.

  Avram translated the Hebrew for him. “‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who has kept us in life, preserved us, and enabled us to reach this festive season.’ I thought it was appropriate.” He picked up a piece of the matzah and took a bite. “Go ahead, eat. Who knows when we’ll get another chance.”

  The unleavened bread was much like the soldier’s hardtack MacLeod had known in a dozen campaigns. It was certainly better than the sea rations he’d known as a ship’s pilot.

  He’d tried not to think much about food since coming to the Ghetto. As Avram had pointed out, starvation for him was a painful annoyance. For the others, it was a daily fight to stave off death. But as he bit into the egg, he realized it was possibly the most wonderful thing he had ever tasted. No sumptuous banquet in a sultan’s palace, no culinary delight in the best restaurants of Paris had ever come close to the gratification MacLeod got from this one simple chicken’s egg. It and the wine were gone much too fast. He looked over at Avram, wondering if he was having a similar reaction, and then noticed that Avram was no longer eating. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the blanket staring into his cup as he moved it around, watching the light from the nearly full moon reflect off the ripples in the wine.

  “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Avram whispered to himself after a long period of silence.

  “Avram?”

  Avram looked up at him. “Do you know what Passover is, MacLeod?”

  MacLeod laughed. “I may be goy, but I’m not stupid.” Then he saw the look on Avram’s face and realized this was not a time for joking. “It’s the night the angel of death slew the firstborn of the Egyptians but passed over the children of Israel. It commemorates God delivering His people out of slavery in the land of Egypt.”

  “When I was young,” Avram reminisced, “my father and I would go to the Great Temple at Pesach. We would sacrifice a lamb as the scriptures prescribed, and then we would keep vigil there with the other scholars, discussing Torah until the sun rose. Then the Romans destroyed the Temple. And now Pesach is celebrated in the home. In secret, in hiding.” He paused for a moment, thinking, remembering, reliving. “In the middle of the fifteenth century, my brother-in-law and I were stoned to death at Passover. The enlightened citizens of Rome said the wine we drank was the blood of young Christian boys.” He set the cup down hard and wine sloshed out onto the ground, onto the blanket, putting out the sputtering candle. “Three thousand years later, we’re still slaves, MacLeod. If it’s not Pharaoh, it’s Caesar. Or Tsar Nicholas. Or Hitler. If we’re not forced to make bricks in Egypt, we’re making bombs in Poland. When does deliverance come? Look at us, still
waiting for the angel of death. When does Elijah come to give us back the Promised Land?”

  Suddenly, MacLeod hushed him with a raised hand and a look. Noise on the stairs. Avram stood and pulled his pistol as MacLeod moved to the door. “Vo?” MacLeod called out.

  “Jan-Warsaw,” a woman’s voice answered.

  The correct password. MacLeod opened the door, and Miriam came out onto the roof. “You’re looking better,” MacLeod noted. After briefing the ZOB leadership, she’d had a chance to wash and change. But it was obvious the shirtdress she wore buttoned firmly from chin to ankle was from some earlier lifetime—the short sleeves only emphasized how reed-thin her arms had grown. She had to belt it tightly at the waist to keep it from gapping open.

  She went directly to Avram. “Anielewicz has called a unit commanders’ meeting in half an hour, Tzaddik. I’m to take your watch with Der Alte.”

  MacLeod never could get used to that nickname—the Old One. The first time he’d heard the name, at a strategy meeting not long after returning to the Ghetto and throwing his lot in with the ZOB, he’d glared at Avram accusingly, but later, after the meeting, Avram had sworn he wasn’t behind it. “Hey, I wanted schmuck, but they voted me down.” Almost everyone in the organization had a pseudonym, Avram had explained—Antek, Kazik, Green Marysia—it was a safety measure. “You get used to it.”

  “So what’s Tzaddik mean?” MacLeod had asked Avram at the time, his Yiddish getting better but still not quite that good.

  “It’s a kind of a wandering holy man with …” he had trailed off into a mumble.

  “With what? I didn’t quite hear you, ‘holy man,’” MacLeod had pressed.

  Avram had looked a little sheepish. “With, ah, mystical powers.” MacLeod raised a critical eyebrow. “I had a few close calls, they think I’m lucky, that’s all,” Avram had said defensively. He pushed a sleeve back, indicating his smoky-dark arm. “And it’s pretty obvious I’m not from around here.”