Sunrise West by Jacob G.Rosenberg

months),‘and for the balance, we’ll purchase some provisions.’ Moshe and I agreed wholeheartedly to Majer’s offer and I was delegated to conclude the deal.
    So on our next stop, early in the morning, while Majer waited sheepishly in a dim corner of the carriage in his underpants, I took the merchandise and set off for the local market. After making a number of time-consuming enquiries, wandering from stall to stall, I learnt that such precious wares were handled exclusively by a man known as Pinocchio — not for the length of his nose but, as I was to discover later, because of its instinct for sniffing out a shady deal. After a thorough inspection of my garment he offered 2500 lire plus a pair of white linen shorts. It sounded auspicious, so I promptly agreed.
    In the afternoon, radiant with happy anticipation, I finally ran back to my friends to tell them of my unbelievable achievement. But I was in for a shock. The white shorts turned out to be a pair of underpants. On top of that, when we opened the packet of 100-lire bills we discovered that only the top one was genuine!

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    The days grew brighter. The Jewish Brigade, attached to the British army and made up of Jews from Palestine, took over our passage and all at once there was food, laughter, songs in Yiddish and Hebrew, even in Polish and Russian. On one of our stops we were transferred from the goods train into open trucks escorted by British motorized units. I watchedin amazement how hungrily our convoy swallowed up Mussolini’s excellent highways. What still puzzles me is that amid the songs and happy squabbling, no one spoke of the past — it was as if there had never been a past.
    From my camp experience I could perhaps venture to say, with Pascal, that the mind has a soul of its own, and the soul has a mind of its own, and they protect each other. The mind protects the soul from shutting down and the soul protects the mind from going mad. To reminisce, to long for the past when on the threshold of a new life, is a heart-wrenching and dangerous exercise — one that almost forestalled our forefathers’ biblical Exodus from reaching the promised land. Our own exodus from the jaws of hell was no different. Fate had deprived us of our youth, so instead of harking back we sang rebelliously against our lot.
    Moshe became greatly excited when we were told we would be stopping for the night in Shakespeare’s city of love and discord, the land of Montagues and Capulets. He pointed out that Verona was the home of the thirteenth-century Talmudic scholar Eliezer ben Samuel, grandfather of the philosopher and physician Hillel ben Samuel; and home also to my namesake Levi ben Gershon, who had produced the great Midrashic collection, Tanhuma . Even the poet Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome, who introduced the sonnet into Hebrew poetry, was believed to have sojourned in Verona. I was astonished by Moshe’s knowledge and his marvellous memory!
    As we pulled into that illustrious city, my friend’s face was shining. ‘Listen,’ he implored me. ‘Can you not almosthear Romeo’s lovestruck voice? Or Mercutio’s challenge to Tybalt, and then the bloody clash of swords...?’
    At daybreak, after a hefty slice of corn-bread and a mug of hot coffee, we resumed our journey towards the southeast. And although I had not been brought up in the spirit of Zion, the songs and their stirring melodies — sung by a few hundred Jews who had been miraculously saved from the gas chambers — enthused me nevertheless with hopes of a new beginning, a new life in Palestine. But no sooner had we begun to move than our escorts let us know that we were being shadowed by a motorized squad of the NKVD, the Soviet security police. Our songs froze on our lips. The leader of our transport, an officer of the Jewish Brigade, was undaunted. Placing himself at the head of our cavalcade, he ordered the drivers to stop