but it would look so much better if you told him in person.'
'Who is this Fievel Polkes, anyway?' I asked.
'A Palestinian Jew who works for the Haganah.'
'And who are they?'
Eichmann smiled wearily. He was pale and sweating profusely. I almost felt sorry for him. 'You really don't know very much about this country, do you?'
'I know enough to get a thirty-day visa,' I said, pointedly.
'Haganah is a Jewish militia group and intelligence service.'
'You mean, they're a terrorist organization.'
'If you like,' agreed Eichmann.
'All right,' I said. 'I'll see him. For courtesy's sake. But I'll need to know everything. I'm not meeting any of these murdering bastards with only half the story.'
Eichmann hesitated. I knew he didn't trust me. But either he was too hung over to care, or he now realized he had no choice but to level with me.
'The Haganah want us to supply them with guns to use against the British here in Palestine,' he said. 'If the SD continues to promote Jewish emigration from Germany, they're also proposing to supply us with information on British troop and naval movements in the eastern Mediterranean.'
'The Jews helping their own persecutors?' I laughed. 'But that's preposterous.' Eichmann wasn't laughing. 'Isn't it?'
'On the contrary,' said Eichmann. 'The SD has already financed several Zionist training camps in Germany. Places where young Jews can learn the agricultural skills they will need to farm this land. Palestinian land. A National Socialist-financed Haganah is just one possible extension of that same policy. And that's one of the reasons I came here. To get the measure of the people in command of Haganah, the Irgun, and other Jewish militia groups. Look, I know it's hard to believe, but they dislike the British even more than they seem to dislike us.'
'And where does Haj Amin fit into these plans?' I asked. 'He's an Arab, isn't he?'
'Haj Amin is the other side of the coin,' said Eichmann. 'In case our pro-Zionist policy doesn't work out. We had planned to meet the Arab High Committee and some of its members--principally, Haj Amin--here, in Palestine. But it seems that the British have ordered the dissolution of the committee and the arrest of its members. Apparently the assistant district commissioner of Galilee was murdered in Nazareth a few days ago. Haj Amin is now in hiding, in Jerusalem's old city, but he's going to try to slip out and meet us in Cairo. So, as you can see, there's just Polkes to worry about here in Jaffa.'
'Remind me never to play cards with you, Eichmann,' I said. 'Or, if I do, to make sure you take off your coat and roll up your sleeves.'
'Just tell Fievel Polkes to come to Cairo. He'll understand. But don't, for Christ's sake, mention the Grand Mufti.'
'The Grand Mufti?'
'Haj Amin,' said Eichmann. 'He's the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He's the highest official of religious law in Palestine. The British appointed him in 1921. Which makes him the most powerful Arab in the country. He's also a rabid anti-Semite who makes the Fuhrer seem like a Jew lover. Haj Amin has declared jihad on the Jews. Which is why the Haganah and the Irgun would like to see him dead. And which is why it's best Fievel Polkes doesn't know we're planning to see him. He'll suspect it's happening, of course. But that's his problem.'
'I just hope it doesn't become mine,' I said.
The day after Eichmann and Hagen left on the boat for Alexandria, Fievel Polkes turned up at the Jerusalem Hotel looking for them. Polkes was a chain-smoking Polish Jew in his mid-thirties. He wore a crumpled, tropical-weight suit and a straw hat. He needed a shave, but not as badly as the chain-smoking Russian Jew accompanying him. He was in his mid-forties, with a couple of boulders for shoulders and a weathered sort of face like something carved on a flying buttress. His name was Eliahu Golomb. Their jackets were buttoned, although it was, as usual, a baking-hot day. When a man keeps his jacket buttoned on a hot day, it usually means one thing. After I had explained the situation, Golomb swore in Russian, and in an effort to smooth things over--these men were terrorists, after all--I pointed at the bar and offered to buy them a drink.
'All right,' said Polkes, who spoke good German. 'But not in here. Let's go somewhere else. I have a car outside.'
I almost said no. It was one thing to drink with them in the hotel bar. It seemed quite another thing to go somewhere in a car with men whose buttoned-up jackets told me they were armed, and probably dangerous. Seeing my hesitation, Polkes added, 'You'll be safe enough, my friend. It's the British we're fighting, not the Germans.'
We went outside and climbed inside a two-tone Riley saloon. Golomb drove slowly away from the hotel, like a man who didn't want to attract attention to himself. We went north and east, through a German colony of smart white villas known as Little Valhalla, and then left across the railway line, onto Hashachar Herzl. Left again onto Lilien Blum, and then we stopped at a bar next to a cinema. We were, said Polkes, in the center of the garden suburb of Tel Aviv. The air smelled of orange blossoms and the sea. Everything looked neater and cleaner than Jaffa. More European, anyway. And I remarked upon it.
'Naturally you feel at home here,' said Polkes. 'Only Jews live here. If it was up to the Arabs, this whole country would be little better than a pissing place.'
We went into a glass-fronted cafe with Hebrew words painted on the window. It was called Kapulski's. The radio was playing what I would have described as Jewish music. A dwarfish woman was mopping the checkered floor. On the wall was a picture of a wild-haired old man wearing an open-necked shirt who looked like Einstein, but without the soup-straining mustache. I had no idea who he was. Beside this picture was one of a man who looked like Marx. I recognized this man as Theodor Herzl only because Eichmann had a picture of him in what he called his Jew file. The barman's eyes followed us as we passed through a beaded curtain and into a sweaty back room that was full of beer crates and chairs stacked on top of tables. Polkes took down three chairs and placed them on the floor. Meanwhile, Golomb helped himself to three beers from a crate, prized the tops off with his thumbs, and set them down on the table.
'That's a neat trick,' I observed.
'You should see him open a tin of peaches,' said Polkes.
It was hot. I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. Both Jews kept their lightweight jackets buttoned. I nodded at their bulky armpits. 'It's okay,' I told Polkes. 'I've seen a gun before. I won't get nightmares if I see yours.'
Polkes translated into Hebrew and, smiling, Golomb nodded. His teeth were big and yellow, as if he usually ate grass for dinner. Then he took off his jacket. So did Polkes. Each of them was carrying a British Webley, as big as a dog's hind leg. We all lit cigarettes, tasted our warm beers, and looked one another over. I paid more attention to Golomb since he seemed to be the one in charge. Eventually, Polkes said:
'Eliahu Golomb is on the Command Council of Haganah. He's in favor of your government's radical Jewish policy, since it is the belief of Haganah that this will only increase the strength of the Jewish population in Palestine. In time, this can only mean that Jews will outnumber Arabs, after which the country will be ours for the taking.'
I always hated warm beer. I hate drinking it from a bottle. I get mad when I have to drink it from a bottle. I'd rather not drink it at all.
'Let's get something clear,' I said. 'It's not my government. I hate the Nazis, and if you had any sense, you would, too. They're a bunch of goddamn liars and you can't believe a word they say. You believe in your cause. That's fine. But there's very little in Germany that's worth believing in. Except perhaps that a beer should always be served cold and with a decent head on it.'
Polkes translated all that I had said and when he finished, Golomb shouted something in Hebrew. But I hadn't finished my diatribe.
