Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 68 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
H-A-N-T-E-R
Binyamin’s finger etched the letters deep into the ground. After a minute, he shook himself, rubbed the letters with the palm of his hand until there was no trace of the incriminating word, and pressed the top button on the device. A long, monotonous tone came through the earpiece, and he pressed the buttons of the numbers that he remembered by heart. Then he pressed the phone to his right ear. Hashem, sefasai tiftach…
The tone became intermittent. On and off. But no one answered.
Should he try again later?
By then, the Wangels might be awake already.
***
“Is it possible that the phone in the office is ringing?” Bentzy, passing by the locked door with his tallis bag, tilted his head toward the sound.
“Maybe,” his father said. “Yes. That’s the phone.”
“Who is calling at this hour? The workday hasn’t started yet.”
“Your wife?” his father suggested with a crease in his forehead. “Do you think something could have happened to the children, chas v’shalom?”
“Chas v’shalom,” Bentzy replied automatically, rattling through the keys in his ring to find the one that opened the door.
The phone kept ringing, over and over, and Betnzy felt himself tensing. Had something really happened? Dena knew he davened at the factory with the new workers, and she also knew what time davening ended. But until now, she had never called him. Especially as she knew that most of his early morning hours were spent with his father on the production and packing floors, not in the office.
He rushed into the office and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”
“Good morning,” said a voice.
Bentzy took a deep breath. Baruch Hashem, it wasn’t Dena.
“Am…am I speaking to Hanter?”
“Yes.”
“I spoke with someone who spoke to you a while back, and he didn’t understand what you told them. I would like to clarify something.”
Bentzy sat down. “Regarding a product of ours? Are you one of our clients?”
“No, no.”
“What is this about, then?”
Binyamin breathed heavily. “If you could give me few minutes, I hope I’ll be able to explain myself. Is now a good time?”
Bentzy’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose so.”
“About two months ago, we saw the packaging of one of your products, and there was a sentence there that we did not understand.”
“A sentence? Which one?” Bentzy looked toward the door of the office as his father walked in, looking worried.
“Is everything okay?” Mr. Hanter senior whispered.
Bentzy nodded and turned his attention back to the phone. The caller’s German dialect was a bit unusual, and his accent was quite odd. “Which sentence do you mean?”
His father sat down on the other chair in the room, gazing at him curiously.
“I mean…the sentence about needing to check the products from insects. Um…aside for hygiene …um, does that mean that you have a connection with Jews?”
Bentzy looked at his father, and then activated the recording feature on the phone. It seemed that the unclear conversation that the caller was referring to was the one between the strange journalist and Dena. That woman had also asked a lot about the company’s connection to Jews. While it wasn’t clear if these were anti-Semites or just genuinely strange people, recording the conversation certainly seemed to be a sensible move.
“Sir,” he replied coldly, “we don’t conceal the fact that our company is owned by Jews.”
Owned. By. Jews.
Just like that!
“Do you mean to say that you are Jewish?”
“Of course.” Bentzy was happy this conversation was being recorded. “And let me be clear: Our products are on a standard that far supersedes all regulations. And since they meet all of our religious obligations, too,” and also since Dena had been so insistent, “we decided to add that sentence on the package. It was not meant to disturb or offend anyone.”
Binyamin, sitting at the foot of the trees, raised his eyes to the green canopy. The sun was shining through, making him squint. “I’m afraid you didn’t understand me,” he whispered. “Chas v’shalom, I have no problem with that sentence, especially since I’m also Jewish.” He was quiet. What would be the reaction on the other end?
No one fainted, neither in repulsion nor in excitement. “Nu, very good. So what’s the issue?”
“There’s no issue.” Binyamin cleared his throat. “On the contrary, I’m very happy to hear that there are more Jews in the world, especially Jews who are not afraid to openly identify themselves as Jews.”
No response. He just hoped that this was not a trap that the Wangels had set somehow on their side of the line!
Bentzy, in the factory, looked at his father, and his lower lip curled outward in puzzlement. “I think this call is connected to that other one from the crazy reporter,” he whispered, putting his hand on the mouthpiece. “He says he’s Jewish, and he’s happy to hear that there are other Jews in the world! And that we’re not afraid to admit it!”
“Tell him that you’re not sure why he is so happy,” his father urged.
“Excuse me,” Bentzy said. “I’m really happy that you are happy, of course, but I don’t really understand why that’s such a wonderful thing.”
The young man was quiet. “Isn’t discovering that the Nazis didn’t succeed in killing all the Jews in the world a happy thing?” he asked finally.
“Of course it is. My grandmother was thrilled with every living Jewish child that she met after liberation. But…I apologize if I sound a bit indifferent, but decades have passed since then.”
“Since when?”
“Since World War II was over.”
“And what happened at the end? The Nazis were defeated?”
“Are you playing games with me, sir?” Bentzy didn’t know if he should be angry or amused. “Maybe you can tell me, once and for all, who you are and which cave you’ve just emerged from? You seem to be lacking very basic details of Europe’s history and of the world in general.”
Binyamin was quiet for a long moment. “I really am lacking details, it seems,” he whispered after the pause, and then stood up. The Wangels could be waking up already. If so, he should finish this conversation quickly. But he couldn’t do that before he confirmed once again that he’d heard right! “I really am lacking details,” he repeated, “and I’d love if you could fill them in for me. Can I call tomorrow at this time to speak to you again?”
“If you tell me who you are,” Bentzy said, rubbing his finger on the glass desktop.
“We are a group of Jews who live on the estate of a few Nazis who are hiding us. There are a few Wehrmacht people on the outside who cooperate with these Nazis.”
“The Wehrmacht?” Bentzy cut him off. “That doesn’t exist anymore!”
“Yes, I understood that…but we thought until recently that it did. Do you understand?”
“Not really. Listen, it seems that you’re pulling a trick on me.”
“No, no, I’m really not.” The sun was rising on the horizon, and the pressure in Binyamin’s temples was mounting. “Of course I sound strange to you, and I’ll be happy to speak to you tomorrow to explain myself more, if you agree, but could you just confirm for me again what you said? Meaning, that there are Jews remaining in the world after the war?”
“Absolutely.”
“And they are not imprisoned in Nazi labor camps?”
“Chas v’shalom!”
“And the Nazis…” His voice began to shake, and he felt tears coming to his eyes, not only because of the sun. “They don’t control every continent in the world?”
“Not at all.”
“And the Cosmos-Fuehrer?”
“The Fuehrer? Do you mean Adolf Hitler, yemach shemo v’zichro?”
“Yes. He didn’t die last year?”
It was all a game. Someone was pulling a joke on him. Because if not, who was this person and what did he want? But something in the young man’s trembling voice persuaded Bentzy to play along. “He committed suicide at the end of the war, in 1945—I don’t remember the exact day, shortly after the war ended in Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, along with its allies.”
“Okay, thank you…”
With shaky fingers, Binyamin wrapped the phone with the piece of leather he had brought with him and buried it in the ground at the foot of the tree. He hurried to cover up any sign of the hideaway he’d created, and without looking back, strode toward the factory, making sure to walk on grass and not on bare ground, where he might leave footprints.
From afar, he noticed that the paths were almost empty, and only a few people were still hurrying to work. Good, he was better off not meeting anyone now who might wonder where he was coming from.
He bypassed the factory and doubled back to the entrance courtyard.
“I thought you’d stay here to eat your breakfast,” Leo Sherer, already standing at the door, said. He was holding his notebook in one hand and waving his pen, like a baton, in the other hand.
“It was very stuffy inside, so I preferred to eat outside,” Binyamin said. Without another word, he walked into the factory. He heard footsteps behind him, but he didn’t turn around. The familiar odor made him nauseous, and he felt like vomiting.
But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t do anything that would attract needless attention.
He did need to speak to some people, though. The question was who. The rav. Zeide. Elkovitz, of course. Uncle Yidel. With people who understood, who would help him shatter this charlatan rule they were living under.
It would not be simple, of course. The Wangels had weapons, and they had nothing.
They needed to think of cautious, logical, and risk-free ways, to the extent that it was possible. He couldn’t put the lives of so many people at risk in a few hasty minutes.
Wangel was capable of anything; he didn’t need much proof for that.
The person walking behind him continued following him down the hall, at the same pace, and his footsteps echoed in the empty space, as if he was trying forcibly to make it known that he was there.
Binyamin took a deep breath, turned around, and smiled wanly at Elkovitz.
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