The Woman Who Fought an Empire by Gregory J. Wallance

Author:Gregory J. Wallance [Wallance, Gregory J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027090 History / Military / World War I
ISBN: 978-1-64012-004-4
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 2018-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

On April 19 Aaron, Sarah, Yosef, and Liova arrived in Cairo. Sarah and Aaron went to the Grand Continental Hotel while Yosef and Liova checked in to the Metropole Hotel. They met in the evening, and once they were alone, Aaron erupted at Yosef for coming to Egypt and slammed a table so hard with one hand that he broke the glass on his wristwatch. Yosef appeared crushed. Sarah did not intervene because Aaron’s rages were forces of nature, violent storms that had to be waited out.

The next morning Liova Schneersohn came to the hotel with flowers for Sarah and found both Aaron and Yosef in glum spirits, unable to speak to one another. Late in the day Sarah, Yosef, and Liova went to the cinema. After this much-needed distraction, they returned to their respective hotels, as Liova wrote in his diary, “quite relieved.” Aaron, concerned about Sarah’s health, arranged for Dr. Naftali Weitz, a friend in Cairo, to examine her. Dr. Weitz told Sarah to avoid strenuous activities.12

Sarah and Yosef planned to stay in Cairo for three days and then return on the Managem while the night sky at Atlit was still moonless. Aaron thought Sarah should stay in Cairo permanently because it was too dangerous for her to return to Palestine. When brother and sister weren’t going over intelligence reports, Aaron had what he called long chats with Sarah, trying to persuade, if not pressure, her to remain in Cairo. Aaron evidently assumed that Sarah was the same young woman he had left behind in Palestine when he set out for England. Sarah had deferred to Aaron’s leadership then.

That had changed. “She insisted that she could not stay here,” Aaron wrote in his dairy. “Her duty called her to where danger existed, and I should not try and prevent her from going back. She is so simple in her greatness—and so unconscious of the nobility of her soul.”13

Aaron took Sarah to Groppi’s Tea Garden, located between the Grand Continental Hotel and the Savoy Hotel. Joining them was Peretz Pascal, an orange grower from Petah Tikva whose parents had come to Palestine with the Aaronsohns. Pascal had left at the start of the war and now resided in Egypt, although his family was still in Palestine. He was Aaron’s age and a close friend and confidant. Groppi’s Tea Garden was a favorite of British officers in Cairo. T. E. Lawrence liked to stop there for an iced coffee and chocolate. While Sarah had tea with Aaron and Pascal, British officers came in, whispered to one another, and perhaps found an excuse to wander near her table.14

Word had gotten around that Aaron’s “plucky sister,” as Maj. Wyndham Deedes called her, was at Groppi’s. Since the receipt of the first pouch of Nili intelligence reports, British officers had gone out of their way to compliment Aaron on the high quality of his sister’s espionage work. Deedes, for example, told Aaron that “we have never received such fine reports as those sent in by your organization.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.