Read Online Sunrise West by Jacob G.Rosenberg - Free Book Online

could not be sustained. It is said that they are mostly simple, unlearned folk — cobblers, tailors, carpenters, dreamers — whose charity and compassion have filled out every inch of their being.’

    Our odyssey would soon be coming to a close. The last leg of the journey would bring us to our destination, a DP (displaced persons’) camp that had been established at Santa Maria di Bagno. This was a tiny coastal village on the heel of the Italian boot, and had formerly been a summer retreat for Mussolini’s Fascist elite. The countryside sped past, and I cannot recall too many details of the landscape. But what still nestles vividly in my memory is the locomotive’s surreal whistle at sunset, and earlier, the thick dusky fog that had come in from the Adriatic, reducing visibility to nil.
    We had been travelling for hours. And then suddenly — heavily, lazily — the train rumbled to a stop.
    â€˜We have run out of rail,’ the engine-driver announced, illustrating our position with vivid pointings and gesticulations. ‘If I go further I drive into the sea. They said you will be picked up here, but maybe they have forgotten you.’
    At this point something happened that could almost be described as a pantomime. Our transport leader, Aron Sokolowicz, a Yiddish-speaking Talmudist, went over to the engine-driver and, with a mixture of gestures and broken words, managed to explain that he was responsible for us and that God would never forgive him if he left us here, out in the open. The middle-aged Italian was close to tears. ‘What do you want from me?’ he pleaded, raising his heavy, soot-black palms. ‘I have a wife and a piccolo bambino . I have to go home.’
    For a few tense moments the two men stood facing one another. Aron understood the driver’s problem, and the driver understood Aron’s predicament. Then all at once, without any further discussion, the Italian jumped back into his cab and called out, ‘ Andiamo, amici! ’ and with a joyful whistle the train began to reverse, its locomotive now pushing the wagons back north instead of pulling them south.
    â€˜This could only happen in Italy,’ Zakhor told me.
    We had travelled like this for some twenty minutes when, out of the darkness beside the tracks, there appeared a cluster of lights, bobbing and weaving in an eerie formation. As we drew closer it became clear that the lights were in fact large electric torches carried by a group of men: our reception committee, obviously overlooked by thedriver on our way down. The train came to an abrupt halt. We heard warm greetings — ‘ Shalom! Shalom! ’ — from all around us. A short while later, outlined in the torchlight, two hundred silent men marched off to their new place of sojourn.

    Â 
    Â  Santa Maria  
    The house in which we lived at Santa Maria di Bagno stood in a near-semicircle of houses facing the Gulf of Taranto and its raging waters. Our only close neighbour was the fisherman Giuseppe, who could always tell precisely the time of day, and could accurately forecast the weather by glancing at the sky. ‘This sea,’ he said, pointing at the nervous white foam, ‘is eager to invade our land, but it will never ever happen, never ever. And do you know why? Because this mad treacherous sea has great respect for our holy little white church which we built on the hill. Listen on Sunday morning to its lovely bell, and you will understand.’
    All the houses had beautifully designed marble floors. From sunrise to sunset you could hear their cool polished whisper of discontent against the footsteps of the restless strangers whom fate had brought to these picturesque shores. We lived in groups, shared collective kitchens, and ate together in large halls — in general our life carried echoes of a kibbutz in Palestine, or perhaps of our ancient tribal history. Only important couples, whose men held leading