Mila 18 - Leon Uris [111]
“I should like Max Kleperman to stand beside me. The situation in the ghetto is degenerating. The plight of the street urchins anguishes me. Many of them are starving. Without families, they will turn into wild animals.”
“It is terrible, terrible,” Max agreed, his forefinger fishing around, up his nose. “Confidentially, Rabbi, I and my partners are bringing a few things into the ghetto to alleviate the situation. For this I ask no thanks, mind you. And my sweet wife Sonia, God love her soul, spends every day working in an Orphan and Self-Help soup kitchen.”
Rabbi Solomon’s bony hand slammed down on the desk top. “Stop this mockery, man! You have not seen your wife for two months, and in that time you have lived with eight different prostitutes.”
“So, I have a few minor weaknesses! You are supposed to tend to my spiritual needs, Rabbi. ... Only yesterday two of my men were shot at the wall of Muranowski Place trying to bring flour into the ghetto for food for babies.”
“I am certain you will arrange appropriate funerals, and when their funeral vans return to the ghetto they will be filled with black-market food which you will sell at a thousand-per-cent profit.”
“Shut up, old man!” Max raged suddenly.
“Smuggler, liar, thief!”
Max raised a bulky paperweight. His veins popped from his neck. He grew purple. He would not tolerate such talk from anyone but the Germans. No, not even from Piotr Warsinski. He had warned Warsinski that if the Jewish Militia touched any Big Seven business he would personally break his skull like an eggshell. Warsinski knew Max was not kidding. Why take these insults from this bearded old bastard! Crack his head in! What was this strange power the old man held over him? What was this fear of the beyond Max had?
He slid into his chair and wilted.
“Do you think our God is so shallow in His wisdom that. He does not detect your scheme to bribe your way into heaven through me?”
“Rabbi,” Max whined, “you don’t understand the fundamentals of business matters. Business is business.”
He avoided Rabbi Solomon’s eyes, mumbling about how misunderstood he was. Suddenly his hand turned the desk key and he withdrew an iron box and opened the lid. Sweat rolled down his face as he dipped his fat hand into the till and peeled off a large number of American dollars.
“Give this to the sick in the name of Max Kleperman!”
“You dare bribe me with this pittance?”
“Pittance! These are American dollars. Two hundred zlotys apiece!”
Rabbi Solomon stroked his beard thoughtfully as he looked at the money. Max watched him, praying that he would pick it up.
Which was the wiser of the decisions? Leave the money and leave Max to fry in hell for eternity? Or take back some of what Max stole? After all, nothing could make the man change his ways, and this could do so much for so many children.
“Is there enough here to open up an orphanage to take a hundred children off the streets and feed them?”
“An entire orphanage? My partners ... the price of the zloty ...”
Max’s cigar billowed with the fury of a locomotive.
“It would do much to alleviate some of the unpleasant talk about you and the Big Seven. An orphanage named for Max and Sonia Kleperman.”
Max had to think about that. It would look good. He would again become a benefactor of the people. Besides, his new smuggling operations were reaping a fortune. “How much would it cost?” he asked with caution.
“Two thousand dollars a month.”
Max slammed his hand on the table. “Done.”
“That is, two thousand a month, taking it for granted that the Big Seven will supply food and medicine.”
“But—but—but—”
“But what?”
“But of course.”
“Now, if you’ll be so good as to make a lease assigning one of the properties you manage, I shall make arrangements with Alexander Brandel.”
“My own property!”
“I think the house at Nowolipki 10 will be the most suitable.”
“Nowolipki 10! Rabbi, you’re a worse goniff than Dr. Koenig!”
Max Kleperman whined through all the tortures of losing one of his most formidable properties. He, personally, would have to