Highlander - Donna Lettow [67]
“Take him off the gate, Tzaddik. That mine’s too important to risk. Take Glonek up there instead.”
“Glonek?” Avram started to push his way to the front of the room. “Glonek is an idiot. He doesn’t know anything about explosives. Der Alte’s the expert. He’s risking his own life to help us, Mordechai.” No one present had ever seen Tzaddik angry. The other unit commanders moved back to give him space. “The man saved Miriam’s life today, for God’s sake. What more proof do you want from him?” He stood nose to nose with Anielewicz, two young men who in happier times could be arguing the outcome of a football match, instead arguing over what could mean the life or death of thousands.
“He doesn’t belong here,” the ZOB leader countered. “What’s to keep him from selling us out to the Germans to save his own life?”
Avram wanted to smile a bit in spite of himself. He almost wished he could tell them why that wasn’t likely. Instead he said simply, “I trust him with my life.”
“Do you trust him with all our lives, Tzaddik?”
Avram couldn’t blame him. His was an incredible responsibility to bear. As solemnly and sincerely as he could, he impressed upon the young leader, “Yes, Mordechai, I do.”
There was complete silence in the room as Anielewicz weighed his faith in Avram against his distrust of MacLeod. Finally, he gave in. “Fine. But God help us all if you’re wrong.” He moved on to the next unit. “Gutman?”
By the end of the meeting, it was nearly half past one in the morning. The Germans were expected to begin their assault at four. Anielewicz gave the word to the couriers to alert all the fighters to report to their stations and all noncombatants to enter the bunkers they had so carefully prepared over the winter and stay there. Until the end.
One of the youngest commanders, a rabbinical student before God had made other plans for him and placed a rifle in his hands, led them in a brief prayer before they all started back to their units. As the commanders moved to leave, Anielewicz issued his benediction, and his challenge.
“L’shanah hahor-or Birushala-yim!”
Next year in Jerusalem.
The final words of the traditional Haggadah told every year at the Passover seder. Next year in Jerusalem. They embodied thousands of years of history, of oppression, and most importantly, of hope. They were a beacon uniting the struggle against Pharaoh, against the Romans, against the Tsars, and now the struggle against the Nazis with the day-to-day struggle for life and Jewish identity. With it was the small comfort that the God who rescued his people out of the land of Egypt might somehow deliver them from this evil as well.
As he walked through the dark, deserted streets back to his post on the other side of the Ghetto, vigilant, ready, the words haunted Avram. So many seders celebrated with friends and loved ones in so many lands. Happier times in Spain and Russia, Italy and North Africa, even America—but always the hope that next year they’d celebrate together in the Holy City. But there were so many nights like this one, waiting for the shadow of death to pass over, wondering who among his friends and those he loved would live to see the morning light.
Avram moved silently across the cobblestoned streets. It was a skill he’d learned early on, to not be noticed, to disappear. As a Jew in foreign cities, it had kept him alive more than once. He moved like a ghost through a city of ghosts. Occasionally he could detect weak signs of life—the flutter of an upstairs curtain, shadows dashing furtively between timeworn brick buildings. Mostly he was one in the dark, one with the ghosts of Warsaw. Ghosts who had once hoped they, too, would live to celebrate Pesach in a Jewish Jerusalem.
Avram himself had returned to Jerusalem only twice since the dark time when the Romans had dispersed his people to the four winds of the earth: once under the Byzantines, once under