Israel (6 page)

Once again Abe witnessed the formation of secret groups, but this time the topic of debate was not how to acquire a Jewish homeland but how to overthrow the czar and bring about changes in education, taxation and working conditions. Now not only the tax collector and army recruiter came, but also an official backed by soldiers. Young men were rounded up and hauled off to work in Nicholas' mines and textile plants, conscripted for life. Desertion was punishable by death.

High-ranking government officials were assassinated
in the name of socialism. The authorities, horrified by this show of defiance, once again plotted to distract the Russian people by blaming the nation's misery on the Jews.

In the latter part of 1904 a wave of pogroms cut through the pale's population of Jews like a scythe through wheat. Abe and his neighbors were reduced to hiding like rabbits as the mobs swept through, destroying what they could not steal.

Other events far beyond Abe's control were coming together in ways that were to have profound effects on his life. In 1900 Russia, along with the British and Americans, sent military forces to quell the Boxer Rebellion in Peking. Once the rebellion was broken Russia stayed in China, and by the summer a massive military expedition occupied all of Manchuria, which shares a border with southeastern Russia.

The czar's action infuriated the Japanese, who formed an alliance with the British in order to force back the “imperialistic Russians.” The czar agreed to remove his army from Manchuria within eighteen months but did not.

In February 1904 the Japanese broke off diplomatic relations with Russia. Three days later they executed a devastating surprise attack on the czar's naval installations at Port Arthur, in South Liaoning Province, Manchuria.

The conflict was five thousand miles away from Abe. However, it was brought much closer to home with the arrival ahead of schedule of the army recruiter, a different man, not interested in bribes. This time he was backed by armed soldiers who saw to it that all of the remaining able-bodied males over five feet tall were assembled in the village square, which was still strewn with the wreckage of the last pogrom. The soldiers were tall, raw-boned, blue-eyed men; they stood like Satan's angels among the groaning, cowering Jews, who flapped about in their black coats like crows. The soldiers enjoyed the opportunity to conduct a pogrom, and under official sanction of the czar at that.

Terrified, Abe stood with the other men as they eyed the stem-faced soldiers in dark green uniforms and high leather boots. The soldiers formed a circle around the village men and kept herd on them like dogs rounding up sheep. One look at the Mosin-Nagant rifles in the soldiers' hands was enough to banish all thought of escape.

The recruiter never bothered to dismount. He was dressed like his men with the exception of two loops of gold lace in his collar and a gold tassel on his cap to signify his rank. He seemed to be looking somewhere beyond the assembled villagers as he began to address them. “Those of you over the age of thirty-five are exempted. The rest of you shall have the honor of serving in the czar's army—”

“This can't be,” cried one of the astounded men. “Lord, sir, you don't mean every man under thirty-five? What will become of the village if all the men are taken?”

The recruiter rolled his eyes heavenward as the women, old men and children fell into each other's arms and began to keen.

A sergeant began to shout orders. “If I don't have quiet I shall give the command to begin floggings!” the recruiter roared over the noise.

“He can't do this,” whispered a bookish young scholar standing next to Abe. “The law says only ten recruits per hundred men.” He tapped his palm with an ink-stained index finger, looking for all the world as if he were safe in the yeshiva arguing a Talmudic point. “The law is quite explicit on this question.”

“Don't risk a lashing,” Abe warned him. “Obviously he doesn't care about the law. He has a quota to fulfill.”

“But always before he has accepted our bribes.” The scholar blinked rapidly, seeming to see the soldiers' guns for the first time. “Why won't they take our gelt as they always have, and leave us in peace? What good are men like
us
in the military? What can we do in a war?”

Abe looked dour. “We can stop the enemy's bullets, and clear a path for these other fellows.” He gestured at the soldiers guarding them. “They'll do the fighting from behind the corpses of the Jews.”

“No, no.” The scholar stubbornly shook his head. “There is the law to be considered. There is the question of a bribe.” His narrow features suddenly brightened. “Ah! It is simply a matter of offering this recruiter more money.”

Abe stared at the scholar. For the first time he realized how sparse the other's long beard was, how young and helpless the scholar was in a world that had no relation to his scrolls. Normally a lowly cobbler would defer to such a learned fellow, but now Abe scolded the scholar like a child. “Don't you understand anything? This officer already has his bribe in his pocket. He's gone to the Christian villages first, and they've paid him well.”

The scholar ignored him. “Obviously a mistake has been made, but the law will protect us.”

Abe turned from him in disgust. “The law is for the goyim; don't you know that? You are not a wise man, you're an incompetent.”

“Nothing is wrong. Nothing has changed. There is no trouble. We will simply offer more money.” He began to approach the recruiter. “My lord? I have a bargain to offer.”

“Stay back,” Abe hissed. “Are you mad?”

A soldier moved to intercept the scholar, who tried to step around him. The soldier slammed the butt of his rifle into the scholar's stomach. Doubling over, the wind knocked out of him, the scholar sank to his knees before the grinning soldier. He coughed, groaning, as blood bubbled out of his mouth to bead like rubies on his whiskers. The soldier and his comrades began to laugh.

“It is the obligation of the village to pay for the outfitting of the recruits,” the officer on horseback continued
as if nothing had happened. “Now then, I ask you reasonably.” He smiled, spreading wide his hands. “Will you surrender the money?”

There was an uncomfortable silence until finally one of the older men in the group spoke up. “My lord,” he pleaded, “the village has been repeatedly ransacked. There is nothing.”

“Well then, you must find something,” the recruiter snarled. “You can't face the Japanese unarmed, with no uniforms, can you? Must I send these soldiers to search through your belongings?”

“You will do as you will. There is no money to buy even one gun here, lord.”

The recruiter fumed for a moment but then smiled. “We'll shoot that young priest there,” he mused, pointing at the scholar, who was still on his knees, his arms wrapped around his belly, his eyes squeezed shut in pain. “Surely even Jews respect their priests, do they not?” He looked away in distaste as the unfortunate scholar coughed up another mouthful of blood. “He'd be no good to us, so we'll leave him here—or we can shoot him. It is up to you people.”

“There is no money, lord,” the spokesman cried out in despair.

“Private?” the recruiter called to the soldier who had struck the scholar.

All of them silent, they could clearly hear the metallic click as the soldier worked the bolt of his rifle. He pressed the barrel against the scholar's bowed head. To his credit the young Jew did not plead for mercy. He began to rock back and forth in his kneeling position, murmuring a prayer. The soldier, winking at his comrades, used the tip of his rifle to flick off the scholar's skullcap. This time the young man did cry out.

Abe found himself reaching for the pouch around his neck. They'll take it from me anyway, he thought. At least
this way the money will buy a life as well as guns and uniforms, and perhaps it will spare the village a further search if I can convince the recruiter that I am telling him the truth.

“My lord,” he called out, holding aloft his leather pouch. “This is all the money left in the village. The rest was taken by—by—” Abe paused, afraid to lay blame upon Christians.

“The rest of your resources have been confiscated by good Russians doing the czar's work, seeing to it that Jewish revolutionaries are deprived of funds,” the recruiter agreeably finished for Abe. “But tell me, how is it that you come to hold the wealth of the entire village?”

“My lord, I am the only one here with a really good hiding place,” he said simply. “No one else knew I had this until now.”

“So you are the only one left who has money, eh?” The recruiter chuckled. “Well, bring the purse here, Jew, and I'll keep my bargain.”

He held out his riding crop. Abe came forward, looped the thong of the pouch around the tip of the crop and then scurried back to his place among the others.

The recruiter quickly thumbed through Abe's cash and darkly announced, “There's not much here, but it'll have to do. You may bring with you a few personal possessions, but understand that anything valuable may be confiscated. At this point you may consider yourselves soldiers. If you disobey an order, you will be flogged. If you attempt to desert, you will be flogged and sentenced to life at hard labor.”

The villagers joined a great mass of peasants trudging along the main road to the railway depot under the watchful eyes of the soldiers. There were a lot of Jews, but many Christians had also been unable to pay. Abe found himself stared at by some of the rougher peasants, men
with matted hair and beards and greasy animal-skin tunics who reeked of manure and cabbages.

There was no trouble between the Jews and the Christians. Everyone was immersed in his own misfortunes. No matter what their religion, they all faced twelve years of active service and then another three in the militia.

In the army they would all endure poor living conditions and meager rations, but while these miseries would be shared, the Jews had to bear the brunt of some additional injustices. A Christian recruit could at least rise in the ranks according to his ability. A Jew could not be decorated or promoted. He could not be rewarded in any way for any act of valor. It was understood that Jews, being inferior to Christians, would be bunched in the front of any charge and would be the last to receive food and shelter. If beyond all probabilities a Jew survived his stint in combat, he could at any time be murdered by any Christian soldier. This was against the law, but the officers in charge invariably looked the other way.

The new recruits went by train to Kiev. Despite his predicament Abe was awed and excited by his first glimpse of a city. Kiev, with its shops, boulevards and massive crowds, seemed spectacular to Abe and the others, most of whom had never been outside their rural villages.

At the barracks Abe was issued a dark green uniform that fastened down the front with hooks instead of buttons, matching forage cap and rather shoddy boots. They were also issued knapsacks of tanned cowhide and bayonets, but no rifles.

While the Christian soldiers drilled the rumor swept the Jewish recruits that when battle came, they would have only wooden dummy rifles. For months the Jews—and some unfortunate Christians—dug sanitation ditches, cleaned streets and built rickety temporary housing for the hundreds of thousands of peasants shanghaied to the cities to
do factory work. The population of Petrograd had doubled due to industrialization. That of Kiev had quadrupled.

The day finally came around when the soldiers were loaded onto drafty straw-littered boxcars and transported to Petrograd. From there they would journey almost five thousand miles to the Manchurian front via the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

The first part of the trip took a week. Elite squads guarded the draftees as if they were convicts planning to escape. Many did desert despite the harsh penalties if captured, and the rumor mill had it that about half of them managed to get away, at least for a little while.

Abe considered making a run for it, but he lacked the spirit. He was no Cossack to go dodging bullets and outsmarting trained manhunters. Anyway, escaping with no money would be little gain. Most likely some recruiter would stumble over him and conscript him again. Besides, Abe had another plan.

They arrived in the capital to find the single-track railway broken down. Their train would be delayed for at least three days.

For the first couple of days Abe was assigned to a ditch-digging detail. He began to despair of his chance when his luck suddenly changed and he found himself ordered to load supplies onto a train under the supervision of a young captain, a quartermaster.

Like most of the officers Abe had come across, this one had a shabby uniform. Abe noticed that the scuffed leather uppers of the officer's boots had separated from their soles. Like enlisted men, officers were required to buy their own clothes and weapons, and although most of them were nobles, they were too poor to replace or repair what wore out. Any noble with money bought himself out of the military in the first place.

The quartermaster, blond and fair-skinned, pretty enough to be a girl, was not the first officer Abe had seen
with broken-down boots, but he was the first who was permanently stationed far from fighting. Abe waited until as few as possible enlisted men could hear him and then threw himself on his knees before the imperious captain, explaining that he was a cobbler and begging for the privilege of repairing the mighty warrior's boots.

“How long will it take you?”

Abe, still prostrate, his forehead almost touching the boots in question, thought fast. His regiment was due to depart for the front tomorrow afternoon.

“Tomorrow morning?” His eyes rose to the vicinity of the captain's knees.

The officer stroked his chin thoughtfully, then nodded and sat down on a crate to allow Abe to pull off the boots. The cobbler was careful to hide any exultation as he watched the proud nobleman gingerly take his leave in his stocking feet. As Abe suspected, the captain had only one pair. How many other officers were there like him?