Exodus - Leon Uris [92]
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.” Dov sprang to his feet and whirled around. “I hate these goddam British. They’re no better than the Germans.”
“Dov!”
His sudden explosion ended as quickly as it had started.
Yet, it was a beginning. He had blown off steam. It was the first time in well over a year that he had spoken more than one or two words. Karen watched him shrink back into that strange dark world of his.
Dov wanted to see Karen often because she was tender and she could listen to him and understand. He would talk quietly for a while and then burst forth with an impulsive short tirade of hate and then he would withdraw into himself.
Karen began to confide in him and tell him about how she was going to meet her father again in Palestine. Since she had left the Hansens she had always worked so long and hard with the youngsters she had never really formed a close friendship. Dov seemed proud that she would tell him all these things, and it was strange but she rather enjoyed talking to him.
And one day a great thing happened. Dov Landau smiled again.
When they spoke together he wanted to talk about nice things to her. The way she spoke ... about the Hansens ... the Danes ... the children she loved ... about her hope of reunion with her father ... made him want to be able to talk like that too. But he could remember nothing nice, and before the war, 1939, was so long ago he could remember nothing about it at all.
Karen was careful with subjects that Dov did not mention. She never asked about Auschwitz or the ghetto.
After several weeks she came to him one day with a mission. “Dov, I have a favor to ask.”
Immediately Dov turned suspicious.
“The Mossad people know you were in Auschwitz and they have also found out that you are an expert counterfeiter.”
“So?”
“There is a new man here from Palestine. Joab Yarkoni tells me he wants to talk to you. His name is Ari Ben Canaan. He needs passports and documents and could use your services.”
“So that’s it! That’s why you made friends! So you could get me to work.”
“Oh, shut up, Dov. You don’t even believe that yourself.”
“Well,” Dov grumbled, “if they want me so badly they can come and ask me themselves.”
“How can anyone ask you anything when you won’t even talk to them?”
“And why should I work for them?”
“Because they’re working for you.”
“Hell they are. They’re working to save themselves.”
“All right. Take your side of it. They are no worse than the Germans, and if you could make American dollars for them you can certainly make passports for the Mossad.”
“You’re always so damned smart with the answers.”
“Dov. I’ve never asked a favor of you. What shall I tell them?”
“Tell them I might, but a lot of things have to be made clear.”
Karen took his hand and smiled. “Why don’t you make them clear? Ben Canaan is waiting for you.”
“I’ll see him here.”
Dov secretly liked Ari Ben Canaan. He was direct and to the point and let Dov know that if he didn’t work he was going to be the last Jew out of Caraolos. But more, Dov liked that quality of leadership in the man—the same quality Mundek had had. He went to work in the Palmach headquarters in one of the schoolrooms. Still, to everyone else in Caraolos but Karen, Dov Landau was incorrigible. He spoke only in anger. She was always called upon to calm his sudden eruptions.
She saw in him things that no other person saw—wonderful strength and pride. There were other things that she could not explain that made her like him very much.
Two and a half weeks after Ben Canaan’s arrival on Cyprus, David Ben Ami gave Dov a list of three hundred names of children to be fixed on documents resembling British transfer orders. The three hundred were supposed to be moved from Caraolos to the new compounds near Larnaca. Dov knew that this was the escape! Neither his name nor the name of Karen was on the list of transferees.
Dov told David that he wanted to speak to Ben Canaan, and it was then that he put his