Legends of the Lamed-Vav
Volume 1, Number 2
THE JEWISH COSSACK
By
Lable Braun
SMASHWORDS EDITION
***
PUBLISHED BY:
Lable Braun on Smashwords
The Jewish Cossack
Copyright © 2012 by Lable Braun
To stay in touch with developments regarding The Lamed-Vav Project, and with the series of stories about the Legends of the Lamed-Vav, please visit www.thelamedvavproject.org
Though influenced by historical events, this story is a myth. You may call it a work of fiction, if you must. But we must never let the facts stand in the way of a good truth.
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***
Nissim Valeryovich Kozlovsky knew that he was a good-looking man. His “Gentleman Cadet” uniform enhanced the impression that his striking features, strong build, and golden blonde hair made on members of the fairer sex. He smiled as he noticed that the coat-check girl had scribbled her telephone number on a note she passed him along with his claim-cheque. Nissim shot her one of his legendary lop-sided smiles and he could feel the heat from where he stood as she clearly melted.
A big paw of a hand descended on his shoulder. “Still breaking hearts, I see,” the large man in the drab gray suit and wire-rimmed glasses said.
Nissim’s eyes looked downward in a show of slight embarrassment, but his smile remained firmly in place. “Yes, Papa,” he confessed. “But it’s not my fault. If anything, you and Mama need to take the blame for the looks you passed on to me.”
Valery Bogdanovich Kozlovsky guffawed good-naturedly. Ah, how his son reminded him of the brash figure he himself had cut when younger. But, of course, Valery himself had never had the opportunity to apply that brashness to the female gender in general. Raizel Shlimovitz had won his heart forever when he was only sixteen years old.
“I’m so glad you could get away to join me for lunch,” Valery said as they were seated at a table near a window where they had a fine view of the bright street. London in September of 1939 was unusually sunny, which Valery thought was ironic considering the dark state of the world.
“They do keep us quite busy at Woolwich, but when I received your message that you would be down from Oxford for the day, I called in a few favors and was able to wangle a pass for lunch.”
“I suppose the cadets at the Royal Military Academy are quite abuzz with anticipation now that the Nazis and the Soviets have invaded Poland.”
“Quite,” Nissim agreed. “Though we are afraid that it will all be over by the time we matriculate in two weeks.”
The older man’s face turned dark. “I suspect that is not an eventuality you need to be overly concerned about. I am very afraid that there will be ample time to kill and be killed.”
Valery’s concern had expressed itself too harshly. He could see that his son had taken it as a rebuff. He added, “Forgive the fears of an old man. I worry for the world … and I worry for the welfare of my only child.”
Nissim was mollified by the older man’s concern and love. He reached across the table and patted his father’s arm. “Don’t worry about me Papa. I have no intent of getting hurt.”
“If Chaim were here, he would say, ‘From your mouth to God’s ears!’” his father said, making the sign of the cross, though he knew it was wholly inappropriate when quoting the old rabbi. Still, when it came to the welfare of his son, Valerie Kozlovsky preferred to have all bases covered, as his American friends would say.
Nissim’s face lit up at the mention of the old man. “Chaim! How is he getting on?”
“Damned if I know!” his father exclaimed, a bit too loudly for the posh restaurant they were in. Several heads turned, alarmed, in their direction. Nissim was always amazed when the brash Cossack youth that he had heard so much about momentarily emerged from the persona of this demur Oxford don that his father had become.
A waiter hurried over to ensure that everything was in order. Nissim assured the waiter that everything was fine, and the two men gave him their orders.
“Why would you not know how Chaim is doing?” Nissim asked once the waiter departed. “Is he not still staying with you and Mama?”
“Neither he, nor your mother, are currently in the country,” Valery replied sourly.
“What? Where could they be at a time like this?”
“India,” his father replied.
“India? With the whole world on the brink of war? Surely, you did not condone Mama’s going to India.”
Valery sighed. “Since when have you ever known that headstrong woman to require me to condone anything she does, especially when she’s under the influence of that old rascal of a tinker?”
“But why India?” Nissim wondered.
“Chaim heard of some Albanian nun, Agnes something-or-other … or I think Teresa. Yes, she just took on the name of Teresa when she joined a convent in Calcutta. Anyway, Chaim heard of some remarkable work she is doing among the poorest of the Untouchables. He is convinced she is a Lamed-Vav. So off he and your mother ran to investigate. This Lamed-Vav project will be the death of me yet.”
Nissim was amazed. He had heard about the Lamed-Vav from his mother and from Chaim ever since he could remember. It was a legend about thirty-six hidden “righteous ones” on whom the existence of the world depended. But he had thought it was a Jewish legend.
“A nun?” he exclaimed. “I thought Lamed-Vavs had to be Jewish.”
“I raised the same point to Chaim,” his father agreed, “when I was trying to dissuade them from taking this mad adventure. The old man just laughed. He said he and your mother had long ago found gentile Lamed-Vavs. He said that Jews could certainly be arrogant at times, stiff-necked people that they are, but not arrogant enough to believe that God’s Compassion could only be found among Jews.”
Their lunch arrived. And for a while they ate in companionable silence.
“How is it, Papa, that you haven’t gotten very much involved with Mama and Chaim’s search for the Lamed-Vavs?”
Valery laid down his cutlery and stared into the street through the window. The reflective look that Nissim knew so well spread over his father’s face as he considered how to answer this. The wild Cossack boy had indeed become a very circumspect man.
“I think,” Valery said, and it occurred to his son that this too was characteristic of his father – always thinking, “that people develop in ways meant to balance what they did not have in their youth. Your mother grew up an orthodox Jewish girl in czarist Russia, a very circumscribed life in a little village. Her religion was very legalistic, with rabbis spending their entire lives arguing why a word is spelled one way in one segment of the bible and a slightly different way in another place. So, of course, she yearned for a life of adventure and mysticism, searching throughout the globe for the hidden righteous ones that God Himself had hidden.
“I, on the other hand, grew up on horseback, riding throughout the Russian empire with a wild band of rogues whose passion spilled out as liberally as the wine. To me, a life as introspective and – sedate – as the one I’ve found among my books at university was simply irresistible.”
“Truly ironic,” Nissim observed. “And how sad. It makes you and Mama seem like the proverbial two ships passing in the night.”
“No, no, no,” his father objected. “you have it all wrong. What drew your mother and myself together initially is how different we were, how we balanced each other out, and yet how similar we were once you got past all the external nonsense. Yes, each of us has changed, dramatically, but we still balance each other out. If one of us had simply become more like the other, well, how boring that would have been! Mama and I live very different, and often separate lives, but when we do get together it is – intense.”
Nissim had often wondered how two people who saw each other so rarely could be so devoted to each other. He liked his father’s explanation of the phenomenon. Nissim had spent most of his youth being raised by his sedentary father while his mother was often off on her adventures of discovery. And he knew how his father felt. He missed his mother when she was gone, but when she was there it was like the circus was in town; endlessly fascinating, endlessly entertaining. His father, in his accustomed way, had used precisely the perfect word. Mama was truly intense.
“And now,” Valery gestured towards his son’s uniform, “you will be off on your own adventures. And perhaps along the way you will find the person who will balance you as well.”
As always, his father caused Nissim to turn introspective. He doubted he would have any real adventures, not in the sense that his mother and Chaim had them – something purposeful, meaningful. He and the other cadets kept up their morale by saying that the Hun would be defeated in a matter of weeks if he dared to directly challenge England. But, more realistically, if the last Great War was any indication, Nissim was likely to spend the war in a trench, grinding down the enemy until either they were worn out or he himself was ground down by them.
As for finding a woman to balance him, he was very doubtful he would find that either, war or no war. The women he tended to be involved with were diversions, entertainments, vain attempts to ward off boredom. He had no real sense of himself, no guidance, no compass. He looked inside himself and doubted there was really anyone there to be balanced out.
“We shall see,” was all he said to his father. “In any case, I had better be getting back to Woolwhich. My commandant is a former student of yours, Cecil Hallsworthy, which is how I wangled the pass. But even that degree of dispensation has its limits given how quickly events are unfolding.”
“Yes I understand,” Valery said as he signaled the waiter for the bill. “Please do give my regards to Hallsworthy.”
As they waited for the tab to be delivered, Valery said, “It was not just by coincidence that I came down to London today.”
“Oh?”
“No, I came to give you this,” Valery said handing a small box to his son.
Nissim opened the box and saw a miniature icon of a man with a long beard, smiling face, and warm, compassionate eyes.
“It is St. Nicholas,” his father explained.
“Father Christmas?” Nissim was confused.
“No, no,” his father said in a tone that made it clear that this was in no way about a jolly, old elf. “In Ukraine, we have that tradition as well. We call him ‘Old Nicholas’, and he brings in the winter by shaking his white beard. But we also have the tradition of ‘Warm Nicholas’. St. Nicholas was a very kind man, known for his miraculous charity. His saintliness and consideration, especially towards children, was a true expression of God’s Compassion. I am sure that Chaim and Mama would have considered him a Lamed-Vav. We say in the Ukraine that Warm Nicholas makes our fields fertile and delivers us God’s bounty in the Spring.”
“That’s all very interesting,” Nissim assured his father condescendingly, “but I still don’t understand why …”
“Warm Nicholas is said to watch over our children. And among the Ukrainian Cossacks we consider him a patron saint of sea voyages. When we set out on a perilous journey across the sea, we carry his icon with us … to protect us in strange places. That icon was carried by your grandfather Bogdan when he fought in the Russo-Japanese war. There is a single strand of hair pasted on the back. The Kozlovsky family legend says it is a relic – a strand of hair from St. Nicholas himself. I … I wanted you to have it … to have it as you …” The older man’s voice caught in his throat and he could say no more.
Nissim was truly touched. His father had built himself a life based solely on the intellect. To tame his hot Cossack blood, he had focused exclusively on the rational and observable. He knew his father only whimsically tolerated the irrational mysticism of the woman he had fallen in love with. For him to give this superstitious symbol of divine mercy and protection to his son, was a clear indication of how much more he cared for his only child than he did for the principles on which he based his life.
Nissim placed the icon in the uniform pocket closest to his heart. “I’ll carry it with me always, Papa.” Valery could only nod in reply.
The cheque came, and Valery regained his voice to claim the charges over his son’s objections.
The coat-check girl winked at Nissim as she handed him his coat. “I’ll try to ring you, luv,” he whispered to her conspiratorially, “but there’s a war on you know.” In his heart he knew he never really intended to contact her. His conquest had been made as soon as she handed him the slip of paper with her telephone number on it. She had immediately lost his interest at that moment. But one must still be polite.
Father and son hugged each other outside the restaurant. Valery’s embrace expressed itself as a bear-hug. As Nissim watched his father trudge off to Victoria Station, his shoulders slightly bowed, not allowing himself to look back at his son, Nissim thought he saw the man aging right before his eyes.
Nissim was distracted, thinking about his father as he headed back to school, but suddenly he found himself focused on three men in uniform standing on the street and talking to each other in quite an engrossed fashion. One of the men was a major in the Royal army, and Nissim recognized one of the other men as wearing the uniform of a captain in the French army. What had drawn Nissim’s attention was that the third man was wearing a uniform he didn’t recognize. He thought about how put-out his instructors at Woolwich would be that he could not immediately tell which nation’s armed forces the uniform represented.
As he tried to identify the uniform, Nissim saw with horror that a lorry that had lost control while cornering an intersection was careening headlong towards the man in the strange uniform. All three of the officers were so engrossed in their conversation that they were totally unaware of the impending danger. Nissim had no time to make a decision and only moments to act. He flung himself towards the heavy-set man and knocked him to the ground. The lorry missed crushing Nissim’s legs by less than an inch as it shot past him and crashed into a lamppost.
Nissim started to get off the man, still semi-stunned and was amazed that the only thought in his head was, “Polish!” The strange uniform, he had suddenly realized, was that of a Lt. Colonel in the Polish army.
When he got to his feet, finally remembering himself, he saluted the officers and said, “Gentleman Cadet Kozlovsky, sirs.”
The officers were stunned as they took in what had happened. Finally, the British major spoke. “You are quite a hero, young man.”
“Yes sir,” was all Nissim could think to say. “Thank you, sir.”
The major stuck out his hand and said, “At ease, Gentleman Cadet.” Nissim relaxed and shook the major’s hand. “I am Major Lawrence Grand. This is Captain Henri Braquenié, and the gentleman whose life you just saved is Colonel Gwido Langer.”
“Pleased to meet all of you,” Nissim said.
The burly Pole had gotten to his feet and was dusting himself off. “Quite foolish of us,” he said in heavily-accented English, “not to be paying attention. I would have considered it quite ignominious to die here in a silly traffic accident while my countrymen are giving their lives to try to slow the invaders.”
Even as unsettled as he was by the events that had taken place just moments ago, Nissim still had the presence of mind to notice that the Polish colonel spoke only of slowing the invaders, not repelling them. Clearly, he had given up all hope. This made Nissim feel inexplicably sad.
“It was my honor to be of service to an ally,” he assured the man.
“Quite,” Major Grand agreed. “Listen, you said your name was Kozlovsky?”
“Yes.”
“And your rank is Gentelman Cadet. I take it you’re at Woolwich.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Splendid,” the major beamed. He scribbled something on the back of a card. “Please meet me at the Hotel Metropole this Wednesday at 11:00 AM. Just hand this card to the concierge.”
“I’d be glad to, sir, but Wednesday we are having field exercises,” Nissim explained.
“No matter,” the major assured him. “Shaw is in charge of cadet training, isn’t he? I’ll phone him and tell him to excuse you for Wednesday.”
General Shaw was, indeed, in charge of all cadet facilities in the country. Nissim wondered what kind of major had the authority to phone a general and “tell” him to do anything. Still, he took the card and said, “Yes, sir.”
“Capital lad!” the major exclaimed. “Well, we’d love to stay here and continue to laud your heroism, but we have an appointment we dare not miss. Wednesday then.”
“Wednesday,” Nissim agreed.
The Polish officer took his hand and shook it warmly. “My great thanks, sir. If there is any service I can ever offer in return …”
Nissim returned the warmth of the handshake. “Not necessary, sir. As I said, we are allies.”
“Yes,” Colonel Langer agreed, “We are allies.”
***
The two days until his appointment with Major Grand went swiftly as Nissim and the other cadets were kept busy with their final training. The major was as good as his word. On Tuesday afternoon Nissim was informed that he was being excused from the next day’s field exercises, and that he had orders to report to the Metropole Hotel instead. He was flabbergasted when he was also told that a car and driver had been detailed to deliver him to the hotel. He had never heard of such a thing for a lowly Gentleman Cadet.
The next day, the car deposited him at the hotel at five-of-eleven. He entered the lobby and handed Major Grand’s card to a distracted concierge. As soon as the concierge glanced at the card Nissim suddenly had the man’s full attention and he was immediately escorted to room 474. Entering the room, Nissim saw Grand seated in an easy chair across from another officer.
“Right on time,” Grand said, rising to shake Nissim’s hand. “Punctuality is a wonderful trait, is it not, J.C.?”
“Yes,” the other man agreed, rising to greet Nissim as well, “a marvelous trait. Cadet Kozlovsky, I am Major J.C. Holland.”
“Pleased to meet you sir,” Nissim said.
“Likewise,” Holland said languidly.
“J.C. and I are old chums,” Grand explained. “We were both officers in the Royal Engineers. Now our paths have sort of, ah, intersected once more. Yes. ‘Intersected’ is the correct word. Wouldn’t you say, J.C.?”
“Quite,” Holland agreed.
“Well,” Grand said, guiding Nissim to the chair he had just vacated while Holland re-took his former seat, “I’m afraid I must be off to a meeting I dare not miss. But you’re in good hands with Major Holland. I just know the two of you will hit it off famously.”
With that, Grand bolted from the room.
“Major Grand seems to have many meetings he dares not miss,” Nissim noted with a touch of irony.
“Quite,” Holland responded without even the minutest touch of humor as he pulled a manilla folder from a briefcase by the side of his chair. “Your full name is Nissim Kozlovsky, is it not?”
“Major Holland, may I ask what this is all about?”
“Did Major Grand not inform you about the topic of our conversation?”
“No, sir, he did not.”
“Larry’s a good man,” Holland said with a touch of annoyance, the first hint of emotion Nissim had seen him express, “but, dash it all, those cryptology boys have their head in the clouds, never very good at the detail work.”
Cryptology? Nissim wondered what he had gotten himself into.
“Major Grand was very impressed by your swift action the other day and thought you’d be a good candidate for a special program we have in mind. We’ve done some preliminary vetting over the last couple of days, and you’re clearly sound, but I’d like to have a go with a few questions myself before we open the kimono, in a manner of speaking. Do you mind? I promise that if I’m satisfied that you’re our man, I’ll fill you in completely, no holds barred. Is that acceptable to you, Cadet Kozlovsky?”
“I suppose so,” Nissim responded, very curious now to see where all this was heading.
“Good,” Holland said, “very good. Now, as to your name. Nissim is quite unusual. I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Nissim said smiling, “unless you were Jewish as my mother is. It means ‘miracles’ in Hebrew.”
“Ah,” Holland said. “Your mother is quite taken with miracles, is she?”
“You don’t know the half of it, sir.”
“Interesting. Looking at you, I would never have taken you for Jewish.”
“My father is not Jewish,” Nissim explained.
Holland consulted the file on his lap. “I see that at school they called you the Jewish Cossack.”
Nissim laughed. “Yes,” he said. “The two sides of my heritage. My Jewish mother and my Cossack father.”
“And which side do you tend to favor, Gentleman Cadet Kozlovsky? Are you more a Jew or a Cossack?”
Nissim thought about it for a moment and then he said, “You will notice, sir, that my eyes are blue.”
“Yes?” Holland said, confused at the non-sequitir.
“My mother’s eyes are brown. My father’s are green. Once, when I was very young, I overheard my father teasing my mother that my stubbornness clearly came from her, and my blond hair apparently came from him. But was I really a cuckoo in his nest? ‘Where did those blue eyes come from?’ he chided her. ‘Which man does Nissim belong to?’ he demanded of her. ‘He belongs to himself,’ I remember my mother replying. ‘He’s his own man.’ I think that’s still true today, Major Holland.”
“Quite,” Holland said as he made some notes in the margins of the file.
“There were many notes made in your academic record,” the major went on, “that your accomplishments, while quite acceptable, were hardly stellar. This disappointed your mentors because they felt you had great potential. They felt you didn’t apply yourself.”
“I didn’t feel I had anything to apply myself to, sir.”
“No ambitions?” the major queried. “No idealistic causes? No mountains you wished to climb?”
“I suppose I always felt over-shadowed by my mother’s accomplishments.”
“Your mother?” The major was slightly astonished. “It’s your father who is the very well respected Oxford don. I would have thought you would feel over-shadowed by him.” The major rifled through his papers once more. “We have very little about your mother in your file, and no accomplishments to note.”
“It’s not the sort of thing that would show up in your file,” Nissim explained. “Have you ever heard of the Lamed-Vav?”
“The what?”
“Precisely! They are a great secret of the universe, a Kabbalistic legend. I’ve never been completely initiated into the secret, but from what my mother and her friend Chaim have told me, the legend says that at any one time there are 36 righteous people on whom the continued existence of the world depends.”
The major seemed interested, which surprised Nissim so he went on. “If any of these people did not exist, God would no longer consider the world worth preserving. It would just disappear. Poof!”
“Well, if these people are so all-fired important,” the major objected, “then why don’t we know about them?”
“God keeps them hidden,” Nissim explained.
“What on earth for?” the major demanded.
Nissim shrugged. “Who knows? It’s apparently all part of God’s plan.”
“And your mother …”
“She hunts for these Lamed-Vavs, along with her friend Chaim.”
Major Holland seemed confused. “But if God wants these people hidden, then why does your mother and her friend hunt for them?”
“I don’t exactly have all of it,” Nissim admitted. “Something about the birth-pangs of the Messiah.”
“Birth pangs?”
“Yes, birth pangs,” Nissim repeated. “The Kabbalah says that the era immediately preceding the appearance of the Messiah will be turbulent and painful, much like a woman’s pain before giving birth. As far as I can tell, the Lamed-Vav will have to come out of hiding for the birth-process to be successful.”
“Balderdash!” the Major exclaimed dismissively.
“Perhaps,” Nissim conceded. “But mother and Chaim are quite devoted to it. And when your mother spends her life hunting for people who save the world by their very being, it’s quite difficult to feel that you measure up. I often feel that nothing short of my saving the world would be worthy of her attention.”
“I see,” the major said, suddenly interested once more. “And what if I could offer you the chance to save the world?”
“Pardon?”
“What if I could give you the opportunity to save the world, be worthy of some of mummy’s attention? Would that interest you?”
Nissim didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” he said flatly.
“Well then,” the major replied, “it’s time to open the kimono. But you have to agree that, whatever you decide, everything said in this room today must be kept in the greatest confidence.”
“You have my word, sir,” Nissim assured him.
“You quite impressed Major Grand yesterday, and he is not an easily impressionable man,” Major Holland said. “He can’t afford to be easily impressionable. He is in charge of Section D of the Secret Intelligence Service.”
“Section D?”
“Yes, the branch responsible for cryptography and undercover operations. He’s our country’s chief spy, if you will.”
Nissim was shocked. Major Grand seemed like such an ordinary man.
“As I said,” Major Holland went on, “you quite impressed him with your actions. He thought you might be quite useful in a pinch. But he sizes men up fairly quickly, has an unnatural knack for doing so, and he didn’t take you for a code-breaker or a spy.”
“He’s probably quite right, sir.”
“Yes,” Major Holland agreed. “He saw you as more a man of action. As Major Grand said, he and I are old chums. We keep each other informed on our activities. He’s aware of a group I’ve been forming up that he thinks you’d be perfect for.”
“And your group is?”
“I’ve been asked by the War Office to form an organization to be known as MI R,” Holland explained. “It is made up of men in uniform, but meant to be deployed behind enemy lines for … irregular operations. Guerilla warfare as it were.”
Nissim had to admit that his Cossack blood was stirred by the possibilities. He wanted to know more. “And how will the members of this organization save the world?” he asked.
“We intend for this unit to be quite elite and highly trained,” Holland assured him. “Each man will be an invaluable and almost irreplaceable resource. They won’t be wasted on petty operations. Each mission you will be sent on, assuming you accept our offer to join, will be one on which, quite literally, the outcome of the war could hinge. If that doesn’t satisfy your need to save the world, then I don’t know what will.”
Was this his chance to be a Lamed-Vav? Mama and Chaim always spoke of the Lamed-Vav as restoring the balance of Compassion in the world, as saving the world through their ordinary acts of kindness. But surely God required His warriors as well, and just as surely it could not be a mistake to take another route in helping the world through the extraordinary pangs of pain and suffering it was now on the brink of. He had the blood of dozens of generations of the world’s fiercest warriors pulsing through his veins. He felt he must answer the call of that blood.
“I’m your man,” Nissim said emphatically. “When do I start?”
Major Holland was somewhat taken aback by Nissim’s quick acceptance, and by the force of his enthusiasm. This boy must really have a need to impress his mum, Holland thought, and knew that he could put that need to good use for king and country.
“Immediately,” Holland replied. “You have just been matriculated early from cadet training. As of now, you are Second Lieutenant Kozlovsky. Congratulations. The driver, who you will find still parked outside the hotel, will immediately take you to a secret base where our lads are put through three months of intensive training.”
“But my gear at Woolwich …” Nissim began to object.
“You will find that we are quite an efficient organization,” Holland broke in. “Your gear will be waiting for you at your new base when you arrive.”
“And at the end of three months?” Nissim asked.
“You’ll see me again, assuming you pass the training, as I’m sure you shall. At that point I’ll brief you on your first assignment.”
Nissim stood up, came to attention, and saluted. “Sir!”
“Welcome aboard,” Holland said in his languid manner without rising. He half-heartedly returned the salute. “Dismissed.”
Nissim walked out of the room and into the suddenly vast opportunities of his future. He finally had something worth applying himself to.
***
Nissim quickly found that the MI-R training was the most demanding challenge of his life. It made Woolwich seem like a stroll in the park. His body was stretched to its limits and achieved a state of development he had never thought possible. He was indoctrinated into several fighting styles he did not even know existed.
Then there were the classes and exercises in radio communication, field strategy, explosives and demolition, sabotage, the basics of several languages, – even some classes taught by stage magicians on how to free oneself from various forms of constraints. It was all exhilarating, and exhausting.
The two dozen other lads he trained with seemed like the cream of the crop. Nissim felt like he was always the laggard, always bringing up the rear in both the physical and classroom training. He found it difficult to believe that the simple act of shoving someone out of the path of a runaway lorry had landed him in this company. He pushed himself harder than he ever had, determined to be worthy of the heroes he was training with.
While the coterie of trainees was inclined to form strong bonds, normal for a group under the pressures of such rigorous training, this was discouraged by the instructors. Any one of the lads might be caught by the Gestapo behind enemy lines, and the less he could aid in identifying other members of MI-R, the better.
Still, despite the discouragement of the staff, some bonds did form. They’d sit around the mess table and discuss the news of the outside world. The lads were very discouraged when they learned on October 10th that the last of Poland’s military had surrendered. The way things seemed to be going, they felt they could have used all the allies against the Jerries that they could get. Nissim thought of Colonel Langer, the Polish officer he had saved, and wondered if he was back in Poland, a prisoner of the Nazis. Langer had confirmed they were allies, but that alliance was with an army that no longer existed.
On that same day as the Polish military surrendered, the lads of MI-R were cheered when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declined Uncle Adolf’s offer of peace. That madman always offered peace as soon as he finished ingesting his latest victim. Time to show him England was made of sterner stuff.
Nine days later, portions of Poland were formally inducted into the German Reich. The trainees received a daily confidential update on secret intelligence from the field so that they could hit the ground running once they received their first assignment. Nissim was particularly chilled to learn that on the same day as the German’s had annexed Polish territory, they had established a Jewish ghetto in Lublin.
On the first of November, the Germans annexed their portion of Poland while the Soviet Union annexed the eastern portions they had overrun. A few days later, on the fourth, the United States declared its neutrality. Another potential ally was out of the picture. England seemed to be standing more and more alone. Thank goodness France, at least, still stood strong.
On that same day, Nissim learned, the 400,000 Jews of Warsaw were ordered into a ghetto. Three weeks later all Polish Jews were ordered to wear Star of David armbands.
Nissim expected that all wars were personal to the soldiers who fought them, but this war was now intensely personal to Nissim. He imagined what would happen to his mama in the hands of the Nazis, and he shuddered. That vision drove him on when his body wanted to flag on the obstacle course or when his brain felt too stuffed full of lessons in class.
During the second week of December, Nissim was ordered into the commandant’s office. The room was empty – except for Major Holland, sitting in one of the chairs. He gestured Nissim to the other chair.
“Congratulations, Lieutenant Kozlovsky,” Major Holland said, “on the completion of your training.”
Nissim was stunned. He hadn’t expected a graduation ceremony or a diploma, not from an organization as clandestine as MI-R. But he had also not expected that he would learn of his matriculation in this manner. There was so much more that he needed to learn. “I don’t feel nearly ready, sir,” he told the major.
“Quite,” Holland agreed in his accustomed somnolent tone, “but exigencies of war, and all that. The end of your training is defined by our need for you in the field.”
“But I seem to be the first in my group to be deployed,” Nissim observed.
“As it should be,” Major Holland responded. “After all, you are at the top of your class.”
Nissim was stunned again. “That’s impossible, sir. The others all did so much better than I did.”
“What it will take to succeed in the field under the conditions that will test you there, Kozlovsky, is not talent or skill,” Holland said with the first degree of intensity that Nissim had seen him display. “What will see you through is toughness – pure physical, mental, and emotional toughness. The others may be more gifted, but your instructors tell me that when the going got tough, no one pushed themselves as hard as you did.”
Nissim would have liked to believe that he had somehow displayed more of what it would take than his mates did, but he suspected that the truth was he was the most expendable of the lot – a sort of field trial for the training. Either way, he was being sent out, and he would do whatever was necessary.
“Your first assignment will take you to Poland,” Major Holland revealed. “A resistance movement called the ZWZ has been formed. It stands for Związek Walki Zbrojnej. I’m sure I’m mispronouncing that. In any case, it translates to The Union for Armed Struggle. They’re loyal to the Polish Government-in-Exile here in London.”
So! Perhaps the Polish ally was not completely out of the fight yet. Nissim found himself getting very excited.
“The ZWZ was founded by two members of the Polish Armed Forces a month ago. It’s already grown to 8,000 members. As it is military in its nature, it falls within our bailiwick in MI-R rather than Major Grand’s spyworks in Section D. Your ostensible mission will be to make contact with the TAP faction within the ZWZ and serve as our liaison.”
“The TAP, sir?”
“Yes, I won’t even try to pronounce what it stands for. You’ll find all that in your briefing papers, which you’ll burn after memorizing, of course. The TAP translates to The Secret Polish Army.”
Secret armies! Now Nissim was truly excited. Let his mother search for God’s hidden saints. He, instead, would find God’s secret warriors.”
“Sir,” he said, “Your exact words were that serving as liaison would be my ‘ostensible’ mission …”
“Yes,” Holland said approvingly. “Good to see that all this training has not gone for nought. Your real mission will be quite a bit more important than that. After all, I did promise you your chance to save the world.”
Nissim could not tell whether there was a slightly ironic, mocking tone in Holland’s voice, but decided he didn’t care. He just wanted to get past all the clandestine ambiguity, just get his mission straight-out so that he could go off and prove that there was more than one way to do God’s work. The Nazis were not deserving of God’s Compassion. He would be the instrument of God’s Justice instead.
“You’ll be dropped into a forested area near the village of Czerniejewo,” Major Holland went on. “I’m sure I’m mispronouncing that word as well. It’s about forty-five kilometers from the city of Posen, or, as our Polish allies would say, Poznan. Czerniejewo is an excellent cover for your activities. It’s connected directly into the German railway system, which provides lots of reason for you to be there – demolition of transports, reporting of troop movements, such-like types of activities.”
“But my real reason for being there?”
“Almost as soon as they took Posen, err … Poznan, the Jerries converted an old fort, Fort VII of the Posen city defense system, into a nasty little concentration camp. The Nazi in charge of the Posen region, Arthur Greiser, was born there when it was still part of Imperial Germany. He’s never quite gotten over losing his birthplace to Poland when it was created after the Great War. He’s quite a luminary of the Nazi Party, been a member since the earliest days. As soon as Posen was taken, Greiser couldn’t wait to set up shop and start settling scores.”
“Is my mission to terminate Greiser?” Nissim asked hopefully.
“No,” Holland responded. “Greiser is an incompetent buffoon, a party hack. We like to keep incompetent buffoons in place. Aids the war effort when the enemy appoints idiots to strategic positions. The real brains of the operation there is the sub-commander. Or at least he was the brains of the operations, Seems to have dropped out of sight. But that’s neither here nor there. No. Your mission concerns a Dr. Werther. Hans Werther. He’s another former inhabitant of Posen who is pending assignment back into that area.”
“Then am I to terminate Werther?”
“Quite the contrary! Werther is ours. He is sympathetic towards the Allies, and he has access to some of Uncle Adolf’s most secret plans, including documents proving Hitler’s ultimate intentions towards his erstwhile Soviet allies, including projected battle plans. If we can get a copy of Uncle Adolf’s Christmas wish-list and pass it on to Uncle Joe Stalin, well then …”
“Might cause quite a family squabble,” Nissim said reflectively. “Might even cause Uncle Joe to change sides.” Another ally re-gained, Nissim thought.
“Precisely!” Holland agreed. “The problem is that we’ve lost track of Werther.”
“Lost track of him?”
“Quite embarrassing really,” Holland said, nodding his head. “We were all set to make contact in Berlin where he was supposed to hand us his documents. Then he was taken by the Gestapo.”
“Arrested?”
“Ironically, no,” Holland said. “He was drafted by them. After the Luftwaffe’s critical contributions to the defeat of Poland, Goering is the man of the moment in Germany. His Gestapo gets whatever they want, and they wanted Werther. Felt he was such a keen analyst that they just had to have him on-staff. Once Werther was seconded deep within the bowels of the Gestapo, we lost all contact with him.”
“Quite a loss,” Nissim observed. “But what does all this have to do with posting me to Czerniejewo?”
“Well,” Holland replied, “I mentioned the Fort VII concentration camp in Posen, less than an hour away. Three weeks ago Fort VII was given to the Gestapo as a prison and transit camp. We’re betting that, as Werther is a native of Posen, that’s where he’ll be assigned.”
“Makes sense,” Nissim agreed. “I’m sure he must speak Polish, knows the locals, can guess who would be likely to join the resistance.”
“Quite. It’s the most logical place for them to post him. Major Grand’s Section D has some eyes in the area, waiting for any sign of Werther’s emergence. Once he’s spotted, we’ll need an operative nearby who can retrieve his documents for us.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“Why not one of Major Grand’s men, if they’re already in place?”
“His men are more skilled at surveillance than operations. Once they spot Werther, they’ll get in contact with you. It’ll be up to you to find a way to get the documents and get back here with them.”
“I’m to return with the documents?” Nissim asked.
“Of course,” Holland answered impatiently. “What did you think?”
“That I’d find a way to courier them back and stay with the resistance unit in the field.”
“Those documents are crucial for the war effort. We need one of our own ensuring they make their way back to us. Not some damned courier.”
“But,” Nissim protested, “I’ll be winning the trust of the resistance, using their time and resources to become familiar with the area. Surely they’ll expect a return on that investment.”
“In all probability,” Holland agreed, “it will be their impression that you are assigned to liaise with them for the duration. Yes.”
“And then as soon as I have the documents, I’m to betray their trust and scurry back to Merry Old England?”
“Yes. Can’t be helped. There’s a war on you know. We have invested in you, Lieutenant Kozlovsky. You are a valuable resource of His Majesty, and you will be immediately re-assigned to another world-saving mission.”
“Seems quite cynical, sir.”
“Perhaps,” the major agreed, “but if the weight of the Soviet Union is not brought to bear against the Nazis, then we will lose the war and the efforts of a few resistance fighters in the backwaters of Czerniejewo won’t amount to a hill of beans. We must maintain the broader view, Lieutenant.”
Nissim didn’t like it. But he had his orders, and that was that.
***
The next day was spent getting detailed briefings on his mission and that very night he was in a plane flying perilously over enemy territory. Nissim found that no amount of training could prepare one for the adrenaline pounding in one’s veins as you make your first sortie into the wild, dangerous places. A Cossack tune his father used to sing to him came into Nissim’s head and, to his great surprise, he found that it greatly calmed him.
Then the signal came that it was almost time to make the drop. First a crate was pushed out and then Nissim followed it to the door. He hesitated a moment before making the jump. Then he found himself saying the “Shema”, the Jewish affirmation of the oneness and provenance of God, always said in moments of danger. Again to his surprise, he found that this calmed him as well. The Shema and a Cossack tune. What a combination!
Nissim jumped into the darkness.
Nissim found that the months of training kicked-in instantly. He immediately began looking for the small light on top of the crate’s parachute. It was placed in such a position that it could only be seen from above; not betraying its presence to troops on the ground, but bright enough from above so that Nissim would be able to tell where it landed.
“Got it,” Nissim thought as he spotted the light. He saw that the crate was drifting further to the right than he was and would land in a small copse of trees. Nissim tried to angle his descent to take him closer to the trees, but still within the clearing below his feet.
Then he saw an electric torch beneath him flashing at the agreed-upon intervals. His welcoming party. Nissim kept an eye on where the crate was drifting, while at the same time now trying to angle his descent towards the signal from the TAP. He felt the shock of his feet hitting the ground, and then immediately began disengaging his chute while looking for the members of the Polish Secret Army.
A group of shadowy figures, dressed in black, heavily bundled against the freezing cold of the Polish winter, began heading towards him, their guns squarely trained on his chest. Nissim gave the password. “Redemption,” he said and he could see the figures visibly relax and lower their guns. Nissim pointed to his right and said, “Crate!” The figures immediately turned and began heading in that direction, but were stopped dead in their tracks when they heard a sharp click behind them. They turned around, startled to find Nissim’s automatic weapon pointed at them.
“There is the little matter of the counter-password,” Nissim said.
A big grin broke out on the face of the largest of the men. “I think I will like working with you,” the burly man said in heavily-accented English. “Resurrection.”
Nissim lowered his weapon as soon as the correct word was spoken. Then he pointed to his right and said “Crate!” again. The men now hesitated to turn their backs to him once more, until the burly man laughed, turned, and ran off into the woods. The men then followed their leader, with Nissim completing the gathering of his chute. Once it was safely stowed, he followed as well.
Nissim found that the group worked amazingly quickly. By the time he found the landing spot, the crate had already been dismantled and its contents parceled out for transportation to the dozen men in the team. “Come!” the leader barked to Nissim, and he followed as the team sprinted further into the woods.
After a time, they came to a small clearing with an equally small farmhouse. The men skirted past the farmhouse and into the barn. Once in the barn, a load of hay was moved and a trap-door opened. Nissim followed the team into the hidden room beneath the barn. A switch was turned and the lights came on.
Nissim’s eyes were at first stunned by the brightness. As his vision adjusted he saw a cave of sorts with accommodations for at least twenty people to live, an electrical generator, ventilation shafts, sanitary facilities – the whole works.
“Very impressive,” Nissim said to the big man who had led the group.
“This is the fourth time in Poland’s history that we’ve been invaded and partitioned among outside powers,” the man answered phlegmatically. “You learn to prepare for occupation. We built this facility more than ten years ago.”
Nissim wondered what it would be like to live in a country that was always expecting to be invaded. He was certain it would lead to a different mental make-up than his fellow Englishmen on their snug island with the greatest navy in the world protecting the narrow channel that separated them from the continent. He wondered if this era of aviation would allow his countrymen to experience the feeling of vulnerability that so many nations of the world had to deal with on a daily basis.
The big man stuck out his hand. “Jan,” he said. Nissim had been warned not to ask for a sur-name, and to even expect that the given names he heard were aliases. Secrecy would be key to the survival of the TAP. Nissim, on the other hand, was to use his real name. He was, after all, a soldier operating behind the lines, not a spy.
Nissim grasped Jan’s hand and replied, “Lieutenant Kozlovsky.”
“Ah,” Jan grinned, “your name is Polish?”
“No,” Nissim replied, looking Jan directly in the eye, “my family is from the Ukraine.” This was a moment of truth. The history between Poland and the Ukraine was long and bloody. Poles had invaded the Ukraine in the distant past, and the Ukranians had participated in the partitions of Poland that Jan had just referred to. Indeed, much of the land the Soviets had grabbed in this most recent partition had been annexed to the Ukraine. Nissim could see the instant suspicion in Jan’s eyes. He decided to leave out his Cossack heritage. That would be too much truth. Cossack warriors had been the bloodiest in the Polish/Ukranian struggles.
“But I am English now,” Nissim went on with fervent intensity, “and we are allies.”
Jan hesitated for a moment and then, making up his mind, shook the hand that had grasped his. “Yes, we are allies,” he said to Nissim. This was the second time in just a few months that a Pole had said these exact words to Nissim. He felt disheartened to his core to know that he was misleading these people and that, after he used them to accomplish his real mission he would desert them to go off to wherever His Majesty needed him next.
“I’ll introduce you to the rest of the group,” Jan said. “I’m the only one who speaks an acceptable English so you may have to communicate through me until you pick up some Polish.”
“Fine, Jan,” Nissim responded as he watched the group removing their overcoats and caps now that they were out of the freezing cold. Nissim was stunned to see that when one cap was removed, a shock of long, flowing, black hair tumbled down. Nissim had thought this was a man. Instead, he realized that he was looking at the plainest woman he had ever seen. Her features were bony and angular and she had a large, ugly mole on her cheek. Her eyes were surrounded by black rings which stood out against her sallow complexion. Her nose was too small for her face, and her lips too large. She had a stolid figure and very slight breasts – no real hint of feminity at all. Nissim guessed she was in her early twenties, but she was so non-descript that he could not be sure at all.
“This is Wanda,” Jan said to Nissim. Then he said something to Wanda in Polish which was too fast for Nissim to understand with only his brief training in the language. But he heard the word “Kozlovsky” so he could tell he was being introduced.
Wanda nodded at him curtly and said one of the few English words she knew, “Pleased.” Nissim decided that even if she had spoken when they were out in the field, he would not have known that she was a woman. Her gruff voice was even less feminine than her figure.
“The pleasure is mine,” Nissim responded.
“Wanda is one of our fiercest warriors,” Jan said, “so if I were you, I’d leave out the part about your Ukranian ancestry if you ever learn to converse with her.”
Wanda’s attention perked up and her eyes filled with fire the moment she heard the word “Ukraninan” so Nissim decided Jan’s advice was excellent. Jan again said a few words to her in Polish, and she seemed mollified. She nodded her head fiercely.
“I just said to her that we were discussing how much you hate the Ukranians,” Jan said with a smirk.
“Thank you. She certainly does seem … fierce. But I thought the TAP was made up entirely of former soldiers. She’s a woman … I think.”
Jan laughed at this heartily. “I think she’s a woman too, but there are times I am not sure. We are an occupied country, Kozlovsky. We cannot afford niceties about who shoots the few bullets that we have. Wanda’s father was a soldier, and one of the first to join the TAP. He was also one of the first to be killed in action. She came to take his place.”
And that, Nissim got the impression, was that. Jan took him around and introduced him to the rest of the group, but Nissim’s eyes, and his thoughts, kept coming back to the enigmatic woman sitting on her bunk, lovingly oiling her gun, and clearly thinking about how she would use it to kill Germans and Ukranians.
***
The next two weeks were spent organizing their operations and carrying out minor sabotage activities such as cutting telegraph lines, tearing up railroad tracks, and small targets of opportunity when German troops were away from the main body.
“Hey, Kozlovsky,” Jan called out to Nissim as the big man entered the bunker. “Good news. Teodor just heard through the grapevine that the officer whose little motorcade we ambushed last night was a pretty high-ranking SS officer. He said the Germans are squealing like stuck pigs over his loss.”