72 – Portland, Maine
The two women worked on Sarah Goldberg’s speech well into the night. Sarah met Rabbi Garfinkle two years earlier at a conference on youth aliyah to Israel. Aliyah, from the Hebrew word for ascent, referred to emigration to Israel. Rabbi Garfinkle contacted Sarah within days of first proposing the March and asked her to serve on the steering committee. Sarah acknowledged to her husband that they were trying to get speakers from all around the country and she was probably the only Jewish Mainer Rabbi Garfinkle knew, and that made one more Jew than he knew from New Hampshire or Vermont. Nonetheless, she was honored and she accepted.
Sarah had no idea what she intended to say. Her original speech recalling the civil rights struggle and Martin Luther King’s preaching of non-violence sounded wishy-washy after news of the mall bombings. In the back of her mind, too, Sarah was aware that Abram was planning some violent action of his own. She’d disassociated herself from that planning, but she felt hypocritical preaching non-violence knowing her husband did not share that philosophy.
The two women went through outline after outline, never settling on a theme. They still did not have even a glimmer of a concept at 10:30 that evening, when Abram returned from the meeting in Boston. His first words when he entered the house and saw Reuben startled her.
“What happened to Levi?” he asked. “He never showed up. Never called either.”
Reuben’s stomach had been twisted in a knot since she’d watched Levi drive away. That feeling of dread grew as she questioned Goldhersh, learning nothing. Then a thought occurred to her.
“What if he goes back to the house in Brooklin?” she said. “The FBI will find him. We have to tell him not to go there.”
“We can’t tell him anything if we don’t know where he is,” Abram barked. “The man embarrassed me in front of some very important people. I’d built him up as some big new-day Maccabee warrior and then he never shows up.” He paused, his anger evaporating in excitement.
“I got the go-ahead for my boys, anyway, so I suppose there was no harm done,” he said, “but the man let me down. I don’t forget that easily.”
“I hope he’s all right,” Reuben said quietly.
Sarah looked at her husband.
“You heard about the mall bombings, I assume?” she asked.
“Heard about it? It’s just about all we talked about in Boston,” he said excitedly. “This is how the war is going to be fought, mark my words. Not by big coordinated efforts but by small groups of fighters, each acting independently but all for the same goal.
“Sarah, I know you believe that singing the right songs and waving the cleverest signs will get those Washington noodniks to do the right thing for Israel. You’ll see, though, my way works, too. My way works. Terror works, nobody wants to admit that, but it is the truth, terror brings change. We will make life so miserable for these politicians that they will have no choice but to give in, you’ll see.”
“Is that what your secret big shots in Boston told you, Abram?” Sarah asked.
“It certainly is, and it’s what I told them. They had no idea who did those mall bombings, but they were all for them. Sarah, you know what else we talked about,” Abram asked. “We talked about the lesson Israel taught the Arabs with Damascus. They’ll think again about the price they’ll have to pay for attacking Jews. We don’t know who ordered that bombing. Maybe we’ll never know. But I’ll tell you one thing, Sarah. Whoever did that, it was one Jew with giant balls.”
He was puzzled by the knowing looks the two women exchanged. But he was too aroused to stop talking.
“Do you think for one minute the United States would be willing to pay that same price? No way, never. When it comes to a choice between paying a dollar or two more for a gallon of gasoline or losing, say, Chicago or Dallas, don’t you think that would be an easy choice for Mr. President Quaid? Bombs send a message. Enough bombs send enough of a message. We certainly sent a loud and clear message to Damascus, didn’t we?”
Abram was surprised that neither woman responded to him. He felt perhaps he’d gone too far with his talk about bombs.
“So how is the big speech coming?” he asked his wife.
“Nowhere at all is where its coming,” she said dejectedly. “Somehow preaching non-violence feels foolish, as if a sit-in at the Capital is going to get any relief supplies, or marines, to Israel. I’m not quite that naive, dearest.”
“That’s nice to hear,” Goldhersh said, smiling. “Has there been anything on the news about who did the mall bombings? My three young friends are going to be excited about the two men, Hassids I heard, who beat them to the first punch.”
Abram walked across the room and picked up the television remote, turning on the TV set in the kitchen, where they were sitting at a table. The 11 o’clock news was just beginning.
The screen filled with video obviously filmed from an airplane showing a long traffic backup.
“That’s the Hampton toll plaza,” Sarah said.
“Hush,” her husband responded. “Listen.”
“Dramatic footage taken from a traffic helicopter shows what the FBI says was a daring escape attempt by a man government sources confirmed was an Israeli military agent,” the announcer excitedly intoned. “The man was detained by the FBI on suspicion of smuggling weapons into this country for some unknown purpose.
“The New York Times reported on its web site minutes ago that undisclosed sources in the Department of Homeland Security hinted that the Israeli had smuggled weapons of mass destruction into this country, but the source did not elaborate further about the type of weapons, although the source did say that while a small amount of radioactive material was recovered in the man’s car, more of the weapons remain at large.”
The aerial camera zoomed in on a Honda Accord crushed against a tree near the toll booth.
Debra Reuben screamed.
“That’s the car Chaim was in.”
The television news reader continued.
“The terrorist, who has yet to be identified, overpowered two armed FBI agents. He was shot and killed attempting to escape.”
“No, no, no.”
Reuben’s head slumped to the table. Sarah placed an arm around her shoulder. Without removing her arm from her friend, Sarah looked up at her husband. She spoke over Reuben’s sobs.
“So much for non-violence,” Sarah said. She paused in thought. “Abram, the car, whose car was he driving? They’ll trace the car, won’t they.”
The large man did not answer. Despite his career buying and selling death-dealing devices, this was the first violent death that had visited his life, at least so closely. The reality of what he was planning to do settled into his consciousness. But only momentarily. He collected himself quickly and answered. “The car belongs to my Mr. Aleph. It doesn’t matter whether they trace it to him or not. He isn’t going home again.”
Goldhersh glanced at his watch.
“By now, they are on a road trip.”
Sarah looked up at her husband in surprise. She spoke in a flat monotone.
“Where are they going, Abram? Tell me.”
Her husband smiled at Sarah.
“The same place you are going, dear, to our nation’s capital. Just like you, they have a message to deliver. Care to guess whose message will be more persuasive?”
Sarah returned to Reuben, moaning, repeating her lover’s name. Goldhersh stood by her side, watching the two women, not knowing what to do. He felt badly about having criticized Levi, and angry at what he viewed as Levi’s murder.
After several minutes Reuben lifted her head and rubbed her eyes. She looked up at Goldhersh. Her face was resolute. She shrugged Sarah’s comforting hands from her shoulders and stood up, only to pace frenziedly back and forth, finally stopping in front of Goldhersh.
“Abram,” she said, her voice cold. Neither Sarah nor Abram realized it, but they were hearing the same voice that had ordered two pilots into their aircraft months earlier. “We can’t let them keep killing us, there, here. Jews don’t stand meekly and let the Nazis cart us away any more.”
“I’m glad one of you ladies agrees with me,” he replied cautiously, unsure about the sudden change in the woman, and the bitter coldness in her voice.
“You’re not entirely wrong,” Reuben said. She knew so few people who’d died in her sheltered life. Nobody had been gunned down in public. Levi’s death shocked her, shook her beliefs.
“Abram, you talk about needing a new Haganah.” Haganah was the underground Jewish military force that fought against the British occupation before Israel gained independence. “Maybe the first member of that Haganah was just murdered.”
Goldhersh beamed, looking at the two women.
“Abram, come with me,” Reuben said, the tears ended, permanently, she thought. “I want to show you something in your swimming pool.”