Striking the Balance

“I don’t want to get off theNaxos,” Reuven said. “I like it here. I want to be a sailor when I grow up.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Rivka told him. “This is Palestine we’re going to, the Holy Land. Do you understand that? There haven’t been many Jews here for hundreds and hundreds of years, and now we’re going back. We may even go to Jerusalem. ‘Next year in Jerusalem,’ people say during the High Holy Days. That will really come true for us now, do you see?”

Reuven nodded, his eyes big and round. Despite their travels and travails, they were bringing him up to understand what being a Jew meant, and Jerusalem was a name to conjure with. It was a name to conjure with for Moishe, too. He’d never imagined ending up in Palestine, even if he was being brought here to help the British rather than for any religious reason.

Rivka went back to reading. Moishe walked up to the bow of theNaxos and watched Haifa draw near. The town rose up from the sea along the slopes of Mount Carmel. Even in winter, even in cold, the Mediterranean sun shed a clearer, brighter light than he was used to seeing in Warsaw or London. Many of the houses and other buildings he saw were whitewashed; in that penetrating sunlight, they sparkled as if washed with silver.

Mixed among the buildings were groves of low, spreading trees with gray-green leaves. He’d never seen their like. When Captain Mavrogordato came up for a moment, he asked him what they were. The Greek stared in amazement. “You don’t know olives?” he exclaimed.

“No olive trees in Poland,” Moishe said apologetically. “Not in England, either.”

The harbor drew near. A lot of the men on the piers wore long robes-some white, others bright with stripes-and headcloths.Arabs,

Moishe realized after a moment. The reality of being far, far away from everything he’d grown up with hit him like a club.

Other men wore work clothes of the kind with which he was more familiar: baggy pants, long-sleeved shirts, a few in overalls, cloth caps or battered fedoras taking the place of the Arabs’ kerchiefs. And off by themselves stood a knot of men in the khaki with which Moishe had grown so familiar in England: British military men.

Mavrogordato must have seen them, too, for he steered theNaxos toward the pier where they stood. The black plume of coal smoke that poured from the old freighter’s stacks shrank, then stopped as the ship nestled smoothly against the dockside. Sailors and dockworkers made theNaxos fast with lines. Others dropped the gangplank into place. With that thump, Moishe knew he could walk down to the land of Israel, the land from which his forefathers had been expelled almost two thousand years before. The hair at the back of his neck prickled up in awe.

Rivka and Reuven came out on deck. Moishe’s wife was carrying one duffel bag; a sailor had another slung over his shoulder. Moishe took it from the man, saying,“Evkharisto poly — thanks very much.” It was almost the only Greek he’d picked up on the long, nervous voyage across the Mediterranean, but a useful phrase to have.

“Parakalo,”the sailor answered with a smile: “You’re welcome.”

The uniformed Englishmen walked toward theNaxos. “May I-may we-go to them?” Moishe asked Mavrogordato.

“Go ahead,” the captain said. “I’m coming, too, to make sure I get paid.”

Moishe’s feet thudded on the gangplank. Rivka and Reuven followed closely, with Mavrogordato right behind them. Moishe took one last step. Then he was off the ship and onto the soil-well, the docks-of the Holy Land. He wanted to kneel down and kiss the dirty, creosote-stained wood.

Before he could, one of the Englishmen said, “You would be Mr. Russie? I’m Colonel Easter, your liaison here. We’ll get you in contact with your coreligionists as soon as may be. Things have been rather dicey lately, so your assistance will be most welcome. Having everyone pulling in the same direction will help the war effort, don’t you know?”

“I will do what I can,” Moishe answered in his slow, accented English. He studied Easter without much liking: the man plainly saw him as a tool, nothing more. That was how the Lizards had seen him, too. He liked the British cause better than he had that of the aliens, but he was sick of being anyone’s tool.

Off to one side, a British officer handed Panagiotis Mavrogordato several neat rolls of gold sovereigns. The Greek beamed from ear to ear. He didn’t think of Moishe as a tool: he thought of him as a meal ticket, and made no bones about it. That struck Moishe as a more honest approach than the one Easter showed.

The Englishman said, “If you’ll come with me, Mr. Russie, you and your family, we have a buggy waiting down past the end of the dock. Sorry we can’t lay on a motorcar for you, but petrol is in rather short supply these days.”