The Settlers by Meyer Levin

Author:Meyer Levin [Levin, Meyer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625670-85-4
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2014-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

The invitation to the Germans was made not without opposition. Several of the mothers declared to each other, why tempt fate? And in every kitchen they repeated to each other the tales of Jewish girls led astray by Christians, by Czarist officers and Polish noblemen. Sometimes the wretched misled daughter returned unmarried with her baby, or left the baby on the doorstep with a note, while she herself was found days later floating in the river; here it could be either the river or the Kinnereth. Sometimes the nobleman even married the Jewish daughter, and many years later a grown son, a Christian, wandered into the town’s synagogue, led by fate alone, as he did not know his mother was a Jewess, and the wanderer would beg a sage to teach him the Torah. And sometimes after many years the daughter herself returned, usually to her father’s deathbed, to fall on her knees, her tears indistinguishable from her neck-chain of glistening diamonds, as she begged his forgiveness.

All these tales Shula heard with one ear, knowing they were intended for her, even though her own mama would only sigh and repeat to the neighbor-woman, “So is the way of life.”

A few of the mothers even declared that if the Germans were invited to the festival, they would take their daughters off to Chedera, to Haifa, to Jerusalem, and some vowed they would keep them locked indoors at home. But as the festival neared, and the street was arched over with green branches, and the children dragged wood from rotted chicken coops for their bonfires, who could stay away?

The four musicians from Yavniel came on a flower-decked wagon, the open street was filled with townsmen and guests, and then a whole caravan of military automobiles arrived. Shula saw her Gottfried at once. He jumped out and came to her directly, bowing, whisking her around to the music, his hand pressing against the small of her back.

“I must be careful not to show I want to be only with you,” he said after their second dance, and somehow Shula felt sure that Bronescu’s suggestion of hospitality to the Germans had been connected with Gottfried’s search for her. A little frightened by the young German’s determination, she also felt both pleased and frightened by an oddly adventurous thought that came to her, that for this beauty that had been bestowed on her a special fate must be destined. Was she simply, like Dvoraleh, to marry a shomer, or a chalutz, and live in a communa or a village settlement? or even in Tiberias?

Luckily Nahum had not come; it was a busy night at the Bagelmacher hostelry, for many German officers, before going out to watch the picturesque Jewish festival, were gathering for festive dinners. Some planned to drive up as far as Meron, where the long-bearded long-coated Jews were said to dance all night in mad circles around the tomb of an ancient rabbi. Others had been invited to various villages.

All over the Yishuv it was being repeated now, that after all the Germans were a cultured people.

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