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

positions, were entitled to separate rooms.
    The weeks went by.
    Mendel, who by then had also arrived at Santa Maria, was a stubborn individualist, with plans that he often kept to himself. Collective life went against his very grain; he was a natural Bedouin who needed freedom and open spaces, and room to unfurl his entrepreneurial spirit. One morning after a sleepless night, as he sat across the table with folded arms and arched brows, he asked quite unexpectedly: ‘How would you like to go to Naples, see Capri, explore a bit of Italy? I hope you haven’t forgotten the Polish song about Capri that we used to sing as school-boys! — Remember Capri, the island of lovers ...’
    â€˜I haven’t, Mendel, of course not. But those were different times, times of great dreams, dreams of conquering the world. Now we are facing a new game, a new life.’
    â€˜I don’t believe that’s your reason,’ replied the ever-confident Mendel. ‘I know exactly how you must feel about leaving this tedious place. We’ve been here for nearly a month, that’s enough! Let’s get away for a while. Come on, let’s get away,’ he repeated enthusiastically. ‘We need to experience something else, something different. Santa Maria won’t run off — it will still be here in a thousand years, maybe more. I can understand why you hesitate, but be honest with yourself. Ask yourself what you feel , what you would like to do, not what you think you ought to do.’
    Mendel could be very persuasive. He had even lined up the address in Naples of a transit house for displaced persons.
    After arguing about it for three days, we set off.

    Â 
    Â  The Boy  
    There were some fears that liberation could not expel from a survivor’s psyche. Chief among them, for me, was a red windowless train.
    Mendel and I travelled by bus from Santa Maria to Bari, and then we boarded — to my relief — a passenger train with large windows. It would take us west across the country to Naples. We chose a compartment at random, but when we entered it we noticed a small thin boy with the pale face of an old man. He was curled up in the foetal position, next to the window, and appeared to be very unhappy. We said hello but he didn’t answer.
    When the inspector arrived and asked to see our tickets, we showed him a loose page I carried on me from a Hebrew prayer-book. He smiled, saluted and left. I looked across at the boy. I was curious about him, intrigued by his sadness — though I knew that the roads of Europe must be full of dejected children streaming across the countryside in search of lost parents, siblings, and homes that once had been.
    Come midday, the youngster fixed his black searching eyes on our sandwiches, so I enquired in broken Italian if he wanted one. He didn’t answer. ‘You don’t speak Italian? What about Yiddish?’
    â€˜Yes, yes, Yiddish!’ he cried.
    â€˜Where were you born, where have you come from?’ I asked him. ‘Why are you travelling all alone at a time like this?’
    He seemed willing enough, now, to open up. He told us that his name was Szlamek and he was twelve years old. Hehad lived through the war with his mother and younger sister, in the ghetto of my own city of the waterless river. ‘We were among the few hundred Jews left to clean up the ghetto,’ he said. ‘After we did what we were ordered, the Germans drove us all to the cemetery. Graves had already been dug, and we believed they were just waiting for a machine-gun unit to finish us off. But at the last minute we heard shouts and hurrahs, and there they were — the Russians had come. They surrounded the Germans, took their weapons, and led them away.’
    Szlamek, his mother and his sister had eventually been brought to Italy by the Bricha, an underground organization that smuggled Jews across the ruins of Europe to Palestine. Now they were staying