The Ambassador Read online

“I thought it was supposed to be more reliable than that.” Ben-Gurion was really in a bad mood now.

  “The system is checked weekly. We’ve already fixed it. But between that and the static—”

  Ben-Gurion jabbed at the paper. “So you’ve nothing to tell me beyond this scribble that one of the commissioners threw away? Why did you get me out of bed?”

  Dan stepped back. This was Shmulik’s party.

  Shmulik took a long breath. What a showman, Dan thought. He got the Old Man into a lather, and now he’s bringing out his big trick. Shmulik removed a few typewritten pages from the pocket of his jacket, unfolded them, and smoothed them out in front of Ben-Gurion. “Despite the unsatisfactory condition of the recordings, one of our monitoring agents managed to transcribe this. It’s Warrendale speaking in closed session this morning. Prepare yourself for a surprise.”

  Ben-Gurion studied the pages. Revelation stole across his face and his fingers trembled slightly. He whispered, “He’s proposing a Jewish state.”

  Dan was back at his shoulder now. He tried to see the document, but Ben-Gurion’s hair obscured his view.

  “He wants to partition Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.” Ben-Gurion slapped his hands flat on the desk.

  “May I see?” said Dan.

  The chairman of the Jewish Agency—who was at that very moment no doubt having visions of himself as prime minister— handed him the pages. “Read it out loud. I want to make sure I’ve understood every word.”

  Dan read: “…so I shall ask you, Professor Warrendale, since you are the main author of this proposal, to sum up for us the sense of the discussion of these last few days.”

  “That’s Lord Peel asking Warrendale to speak,” interrupted Shmulik.

  Peel, the chairman of the Commission, the man whose name the report would bear.

  “I believe I am expressing the view of this Commission—”

  “This is Warrendale now,” Shmulik said.

  “—when I say that all of us—or I should qualify that, Mister Chairman, by saying, most of us—are of the feeling that British rule over Palestine has become untenable, indeed unworkable. We must get out. So what comes in our place? National assimilation between Arabs and Jews has been ruled out. The Jewish national home to which His Majesty’s Government has been committed as of 1917 cannot cease to be national. In these circumstances, to maintain that Palestinian nationality has any meaning within a Jewish national home is a mischievous pretense. The answer to whether Arab or Jew will govern all of Palestine must surely be: neither of them. But while neither race can justly rule all Palestine, we see no reason why each should not rule part of it. There is little value in maintaining the political unity of Palestine at the cost of perpetual hatred, strife, and bloodshed.”

  “Slower. Read slower,” Ben-Gurion ordered.

  Dan realized that his excitement made him rush. His mouth was dry. He tried to let his adrenaline settle down. Then he read on.

  “An irrepressible conflict has arisen within the narrow confines of this one small land. Arabs and Jews differ in religion and language. Their cultural and social life, their ways of thought and conduct, are as incompatible as their national aspirations. There is no common ground between them. Therefore, they have to separate. It is, I believe, the consensus of our group, by and large, that partition seems to offer at least a chance of ultimate peace. I think I speak for most of us when I say that I can see no such prospect in any other plan. Therefore, in the spirit of our deliberations over these last few days, I propose in the name of the Commission a scheme for partition. As you can see in this most preliminary of maps I have sketched, the Jewish state will encompass the region of Palestine with heavy Jewish settlement, meaning much of Galilee, the northern valleys of Jezreel and Hula, and the coastal plain stretching from Tel Aviv to Haifa. This area, as you see, I have marked in green.”

  “Wait,” wheezed Ben-Gurion. “What was that again? Are you sure of what you’re saying? Galilee, Tel Aviv, Haifa? That’s it? Let me see again.” He grabbed the page.

  Dan trembled. He was a student of history, but now he was part of it. He had held it in his hand, had spoken it into the ear of a statesman—a man who was about to lead the Jewish people in their own land for the first time in two thousand years. He wanted to rush home, to tell Anna.

  Ben-Gurion pored over the page.

  “Warrendale must have had a large scale map drawn from the sketch,” said Shmulik. “It must be on display and he’s pointing at it as he speaks.”

  His eyes still focused on the map, Ben-Gurion thrust the transcript back at Dan. “Go on. Go on reading. Slowly.”

  “Much of the rest of Palestine will constitute the independent Arab nation,” Dan read, “and that, as you see, I’ve marked in blue. Great Britain will retain control of several sensitive areas, notably Jerusalem and Bethlehem, due to their universal religious significance. This area I’ve marked in red.”

  “They’re taking away Jerusalem. They’re not giving us Jerusalem. Is there anything else?”

  Dan scanned the rest of the page. “An initial intelligence assessment. It says partition is likely to split the Arabs, with the Grand Mufti leading the campaign against, beginning with political assassinations of his opponents.”

  “And the Jews?”

  “The proposal is thought likely to split Jewry, with a majority against and very few in favor. American Jews will certainly be opposed. ‘The Jews are likely to leave no political stone unturned to undermine the report, but are unlikely to use force.’ That’s a direct quote.”

  Rising stiffly to his feet, Ben-Gurion leaned on his desk. “It’s not that simple. Eretz Yisrael is not ours to tinker with. It belongs to the Jewish people. It is not only the possession of we who live here. It is the historical heritage of Jews everywhere.” It seemed to Dan that the Old Man’s words cut through the quiet night air like a steel blade.

  Shmulik sifted through a wad of notes and said, “There’s something more. Here’s a snippet our stenographer managed to decipher yesterday. We think it’s Peel speaking.”

  Ben-Gurion glared at him. “They’re dismembering Eretz Yisrael and you say there is more? What more can there be?”

  Shmulik read, “With the level of Arab violence being what it is, we should endorse London’s attitude of radically reducing further Jewish immigration until a possible partition plan has been considered, so as not to provoke new Arab attacks. If the partition plan is not accepted, no more than five thousand Jews should be allowed to enter the country annually for the next five years, when the matter will be reviewed.”

  The chairman of the Jewish Agency blew out a long breath tainted with fever and frustration. “If we don’t surrender to our own self-truncation they will strangle us by choking immigration.” He turned on Dan. “Nu? Come on, let it out. You have something to say?”

  Dan had been working for Ben-Gurion only a year, but the Old Man’s antennae were already attuned to his young assistant’s thoughts. He did, indeed, have something to say. He had been dazzled by the magical words “Jewish state” used in a high-level proposal by a British government commission.

  When he answered, the intoxication was evident in his voice. “Forget the details for a moment. What’s important here is that for the first time in two thousand years, a world power, the ruler of Palestine, is talking about Jewish sovereignty—not a colony, not something vague like a national home, but a sovereign nation, a state.”

  “What they’re offering is not a country,” Ben-Gurion said. “It’s Lilliput. It’s a weak little pocket-sized state. Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Galilee. Where are we going to put people without the Negev? It’s a ghetto they’re giving us, an invitation to a pogrom. The Arabs could sweep down on us, wipe us off the map. We’ll have to turn ourselves into an armed camp under perpetual siege. Britain’s obligation is to help build and protect a Jewish national home in the whole of Palestine, and I shall hold them to that.”

  “If there is
a war following partition, which seems more than likely, then the final borders of the Jewish state will be settled in that conflict. That’s not a disaster. Unless we lose.”

  There was a long, brittle silence which was broken when Ben-Gurion mumbled, “Who could live in such an environment? A Jewish state must be a magnet to attract Jews. Who’ll want to live in a ghetto?”

  “People with no choice,” Dan said. “Which, eventually, is just about any Jew.”

  Ben-Gurion seemed to hear something harder in Dan’s voice. “The Germans?”

  “The Germans. You made a deal with the Nazis in 1933. To let any Jew who wanted to come to Palestine leave Germany without forfeiting their possessions. It isn’t getting any pleasanter over there. I don’t know where it’s going to end, but it isn’t going to end well. If we don’t accept partition, the British will clamp down on immigration, and then where will our people go when they need a refuge from that madman in Germany?”

  With a cold, pinched expression on his face, Ben-Gurion spoke in the hushed tones reserved for moments of dread. “The disaster of German Jewry is not limited to Germany alone. Nazism places the entire Jewish people in danger. Hitler’s regime cannot long survive without a war for lebensraum in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Soviet Russia. Not to mention a war of revenge against France and Great Britain. So you’re right, Dan. We have to get the Jews out. But we have to have room for them. There are nine million Jews in Europe. I can’t put them all in this cubbyhole the British Commission is talking about.”

  “I agree that Hitler intends to refight the Great War,” Dan said. “He talks about it all the time. Zionist policy should be directed toward pressuring the commissioners to improve their proposal, to expand the area of authority of the Jewish state.”

  “You’re a practical man, Dan. I like that.” Ben-Gurion smiled, but his eyes held a challenge. “Are you also enough of a dreamer?”

  “At this time of night, I like to dream.”

  “Good. Because the alternative is purest nightmare.”

  Chapter 3

  The amphitheater was a gentle, terraced incline overlooking the Judean Desert. As the sun descended it turned the hills purple, far across the Jordan Valley. In biblical times, this slope had been a refuge for rebels and zealots. Now it was to host something as close to a formal event as could be countenanced by the open-shirted Zionists who mingled there, waiting for the orchestra to play the music of a continent they had left behind. They found flat places in the dust and kicked aside rocks to set up their folding chairs.

  The one terrace that had been thoroughly swept clean and furnished with upholstered chairs was roped off for dignitaries. General Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, the British High Commissioner to Palestine, took his place behind the rope. A tall, gaunt patrician in his mid-sixties, Wauchope wore an elaborately stitched, gold-braided uniform. His campaign medals, earned as a young officer fighting the Boers and as commander of a highland battalion in Flanders and Mesopotamia during the Great War, sparkled in the indigo light of the declining sun. Beneath them hung the massive pendant crosses of the Order of the Bath and the Order of St. Michael and St. George. The High Commissioner fluttered his ostrich-feathered cocked hat to whisk away the flies. At his side his political officer, Peter Boustead, whispered advice to his superior on the guests whose presence he ought to note. Boustead had met them all and, through his network of agents, knew details of their characters which he would never have dreamed of sharing with the General. Unless he had to.

  The High Commissioner needed no murmured suggestion to greet Ben-Gurion, who arrived with Dan Lavi at his side just as the conductor wound through the musicians to his podium. He reached down for the little Polish Jew’s hand. “My dear Ben-Gurion, this damned outfit I’m wearing—it’s too hot. My social secretary told me today’s affair was to be some sort of a ceremonial inauguration requiring full regalia. The man’s an idiot.”

  “Not such an idiot.” Ben-Gurion’s voice seemed unnaturally high-pitched against the mellow drawl of the Englishman. “It is the first performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Jerusalem, the capital of our future state.”

  “A bit presumptuous, what?”

  Ben-Gurion leered. “Whatever maps your Royal Commission may draw do not represent our final borders. Jerusalem shall ultimately be ours.”

  Boustead stifled a laugh, but Wauchope flinched. Dan saw that Ben-Gurion enjoyed the High Commissioner’s discomfort. He was using his knowledge of the supposedly secret deliberations of the Royal Commission like a boxer’s jab, the mild blow a signal of the big hook that was coming soon.

  “I meant the name of the orchestra, man. There is no Israel yet,” the High Commissioner said.

  “There has always been an Israel.” Ben-Gurion turned toward the stage. “Since before you British were painting yourselves blue for war and conducting human sacrifices in sacred glades.”

  Wauchope appeared ready to assert that no ancestor of his had painted himself any color at all. Then Ben-Gurion gave him a sly, sideways smile and the High Commissioner laughed and flapped his hat at the flies.

  The conductor raised his arms and all was silent for an instant, except for the calls of the birds wheeling on the desert thermals. He led his musicians into a desultory rendering of “God Save the King.” The High Commissioner executed a whirling salute, his face reverent.

  Dan glanced at the stenciled program. The conductor was listed as “Wilhelm Gottfried, formerly of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.” This was the man whose astonishing violin he had heard on Anna’s phonograph. Last year, in Tel Aviv, the great Italian maestro Arturo Toscanini had conducted the inaugural concert of the orchestra, officially called the Palestine Orchestra, but Gottfried was surely the most prominent virtuoso to have taken up permanent residence in the country. With the British anthem out of the way, Gottfried moved on to “Hatikva.” Ben-Gurion whined out its soulful stanzas in a toneless drone.

  A bullish man with close-cropped blond hair and ruddy skin marched up to the VIP section. He wore a khaki shirt that bore the insignia of the British police force, and a black tie. At least he removed his damned swastika armband when he joined the force, Dan thought. The man shifted his weight impatiently, arguing with a British soldier who refused to let him enter. Dan shut him out, singing the last lines of the anthem with his eyes closed, imagining the day when the Jews would indeed “be a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.”

  “You must let me pass,” the blond man yelled, his German accent harsh in the quiet that followed the music.

  The High Commissioner looked along the line of chairs with a genteel contempt imparted by generations of breeding. “Dear Lord, it’s our very own bloody Nazi.”

  Boustead spoke for the first time since Ben-Gurion’s arrival. His voice was a smooth baritone. “Draxler is rather useful to us as police liaison with the German Colony, sir.”

  “Useful to us? Useful to you, you mean, Boustead.”

  “Quite so, sir. But I trust I’m useful to you in my turn.” Boustead gestured to the soldier to allow the blond man to come forward.

  “Herr Draxler, I see that some urgency has you in its grip,” the High Commissioner said.

  The blond man wiped at the sweat on his upper lip. “This performance by Gottfried is a cause for considerable dismay among the German Templer community in Jerusalem.”

  The small community of German Templers in Jerusalem descended from Messianic Christian forebears who had set up a colony during the 1870s. They were subject to the same political struggles as their compatriots in Europe. Draxler was a member of the local branch of National Socialists, despite having lived his entire life in Palestine, among Jews and Arabs. Dan wondered how deep his ideological commitment truly was.

  “A musician is cause for dismay?”

  “Gottfried is not just any musician. He is perhaps the most prominent violinist in Europe.”

  “Indeed? Never heard of him. My taste runs more to
light operetta. In any case, he’s not in Europe now, is he?”

  “He was expelled from the Reich. Some among the German community believe it’s an insult to the Führer that he should be allowed such prominence here in Palestine.”

  “Well, that’s overdoing it a bit.”

  “People will register your presence here as approval of this insult to the Führer.”

  “My good man—”

  Ben-Gurion may have been half the German’s size, but that didn’t stop him from interjecting. He waved his hand dismissively. “Save your protests for your Nazi friends in the German Colony, Draxler. We are here to sample some of the culture of Europe, the continent your Führer has embarked upon destroying.”

  Boustead rested a calming hand on the German’s sleeve. “You’ve made your point, Sergeant Draxler. I appreciate your keeping us informed. Why don’t you enjoy the performance with us? I believe the program is made up of a good deal of German music.”

  Draxler scowled and wavered a moment, then took a seat beside Boustead.

  The conductor waited for the audience to settle. The musicians quickly leafed through their scores, prepared their instruments, and awaited their cue.

  Wilhelm Gottfried turned away from them and addressed the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I escaped Germany with only one possession of any value. I smuggled it past the Gestapo agents who would have confiscated it. I did so because it is beyond all value to me.” He picked up a violin case that rested by the side of the podium. Gently he eased out his instrument, cradled it under his chin, and played a solo piece, Bach’s chaconne from Partita Number 2, with incomparable virtuosity. Then, with Paganini’s Caprice Number 1 he grew wild, his bow ricocheting across all four strings, his fingers speeding along the neck of the instrument in descending scales.

  The ovation that followed Gottfried’s final notes was thunderous, echoing across the mountains and into the desert. Dan imagined startled Bedouin out there, with their herds of goats. It did not end until Gottfried, caressing his violin as though it were a cherished child, led the orchestra into their program of Mozart and Beethoven.