Mila 18 - Leon Uris [238]
But ... the story had to be told. Was it ever to be told with greater futility? Alexander wondered. Still ... it had to be told.
A tiny bench stood at the junction of the two corridors of Mila 18. They held a pair of candlesticks Moritz Katz had managed to salvage. Substitutes took the place of the prescribed symbolic foods.
Alexander pushed his way past the jam of humanity into Rabbi Solomon’s cell.
“We are ready to begin the seder,” he said. He helped the old man to his feet. Solomon was no longer able to see except in shadowy outlines, nor was he able to read. But that did not matter. His voice was yet clear and he knew the Hagada by memory. He was led to the bench and seated upon a pillow, for the pillow symbolized the free man who relaxes while he feasts. From rooms Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Treblinka, and Sobibor, the Fighters and the children pressed to the door in bated breath to hear—Zionists plain and fancy, infants, Communists, Bundists, Orthodox, and smugglers.
One could hear gasping in the silence. The air was putrid and the heat oppressive.
The silver goblet in the center of the bench was called Elijah’s cup. When the Prophet who had foretold the second coming of Israel drank from the Passover goblet, the prophecy would be fulfilled. Solomon’s ancient hands felt over the bench for the cup. He lifted it and jiggled it. It was empty, for there was no wine.
“Perhaps,” he said, “this is a way we are being told that Israel will come again. Perhaps Elijah has come and drunk.”
Someone began to sob, but one sob was melted into another. All a shimmering mass of bodies. Another sobbed, and another.
“A learned man walks through a maze searching for rooms marked ‘truth.’ Bits of the puzzle are given us in our Torah and our Mishna and the Midrash and the Talmud. But how strange that the real clues come to us at a time when we least expect them.”
“Momma ... Momma,” a child wept.
Another began praying, and another and another.
The old man’s voice cried out again. “Why are we in this place? What is God trying to tell us? Why have I been spared when all my colleagues are gone? Is there a message for us here?”
Alexander Brandel had never heard Rabbi Solomon rant like this. Why? The weeping was becoming universal. People were remembering glistening candlesticks and tables bending beneath the weight of food. People remembered the faces with smiles of tenderness and lullabies. Sister ... brother ... lover ... they remembered. ...
“Remember the stories of our people!” cried Rabbi Solomon. “Remember Betar and Masada and Arbel and Jerusalem. Remember the Maccabees and Simon Bar Kochba and Bar Giora and Ben Eliezer! No people upon this earth have fought for their freedom harder than we have. Tonight we are on the eve of another fight. Forgive an old man who told you not to use arms, for he realizes now that the truest obedience to God is the opposition to tyranny!”
The bunker was galvanized. Yes! Yes! Alexander trembled. He has found a great key to all of life—to obey God is to fight the tyrant!
The bony hand lifted Elijah’s cup. “Elijah has drunk our wine tonight. Israel will come!” He chanted a prayer of the ages, and the bunker trembled.
And then it was silent once more.
“Let us begin the seder,” he said. “Let us begin our feast of liberation.”
The youngest Fighter in Joint Jewish Forces, an eleven-year-old runner named Benjamin, opened the Hagada to ask the questions.
He asked, “Why is this night different from all other nights of the year?”
And Rabbi Solomon answered firm and unwavering, “This night is different because we celebrate the most important moment in the history of our people. On this night we celebrate their going forth in triumph from slavery into freedom.”
The Fighters in the Franciskanska bunker were tired and dreamy. Wolf and a squad of his people had just finished planting the “kasha bowl” mine in the middle of the Brushmaker’s Gate and returned in time to conduct a symbolic seder. After the seder, the not-yet-twenty-year-old commander announced