Chapter 30 Chapter Twenty Nine

A Jew's Journey (from Ellen Jastrow's manuscript) Midnight, June 4, 1942. Siena I just listened to the BBC and Radio Berlin, I don't know what to expect to hear - maybe a last-minute turnaround in the battle to prove that I'm delaying my all-or-nothing decision It makes sense.There is no turning point.Through the blush of propaganda—Germans dressed like bitches, Brits dressed like dames—the face of the war remained grim: Germany and Japan had the upper hand. When I met with the archbishop today, I noticed a subtle change.His Excellency the Archbishop was something of a peasant, with a broad-jawed red face, a solid build, and an unassuming conversation.But he was well-bred and tolerant by nature.I like him and have always trusted him.This time he received me not in his cozy wainscoted study, but in the cold outside of his large office.He sat behind a luxurious old desk.He didn't stand up when I walked in, he just gestured for me to sit down.I get it.I was no longer a famous American writer who could now and then enjoy a good dinner and good wine at my villa, and engage in witty, pedantic conversations.I am a supplicant.Fate changed, and so did the Archbishop.

Then again, he asked about that.As far as the Italian authorities are concerned, there is no immediate danger threatening us.In this respect he reassured me.He had heard of no new scheme for the concentration of the Jews.Our identity as an enemy alien under house arrest is of course extremely unusual.He was told that we were designated to receive special treatment, and that we would be released to Switzerland after various issues were clarified.So perhaps there is no question of hiding. However, if the problem existed, hiding in the country might not be a feasible solution at all, he agreed.But it was not wise to hide in the outskirts of Siena.The fact that the famous American writer was trapped in a chariot had become the subject of gossip in Siena, so there would be no reliable refuge in that neighbourhood.

He had spoken cautiously on the subject to the Bishop of Volterra, an ancient walled city about fifty miles northwest, by the winding mountain roads leading down to Pisa.Many years ago I visited the Etruscan monuments of Volterra.An alabaster bowl I bought there still sits on my desk for roses.It was a small town forgotten by time.The inhabitants are dark, handsome, gloomy people.His Excellency joked that they might be Etruscans by blood but pagans at heart.Several people wanted by the fascist government were hiding in Volterra.If things got out of hand, he could put us in touch with the Bishop of Volterra, who would take care of us.But he thinks we should keep calm and wait for one day to be released.He stood up with a smile and sent me out, which greatly shortened the conversation time.

I was astonished that he should speak of us to the Bishop of Volterra.How can I know he is reliable?The Archbishop, in spite of his amiable reassurance, offered us no shelter himself; and in case of future emergencies, he only gave me a promise: from the Bishop of Volterra, from a stranger who owed me nothing. There can be caring for those who are kind.This ambiguous prospect led me to consider another approach. [The following quotation from "A Jew's Journey" is eight and a half pages of handwritten manuscript, and on the original manuscript is a series of strange symbols.Passages of this kind appear frequently in the sections of those notebooks written after the Fourth of June.The following English text clearly provides the solution to this code.

I have so far avoided mentioning this other method in these records.Once I included this material in this notebook, it became a ticking time bomb.Can't help but think of Leonardo's handwriting backwards.I decided to illustrate the dangerous things in English, but in Yiddish letters upside down, which to those who don't understand the secret look like a hen's claw marks.It was a temporary protection against prying eyes, or a surprise attack by the Italian police.The method is simple, but the short-term safety effect is reliable. When I set out to write "A Jew's Journey," how could I have imagined that I would resort to espionage!The candle of my life was about to burn out, flickering, and returning light, casting around me jumping, arresting shadows.However, I intend to record every significant event that occurs from now on.I could reduce this book to ashes in a few seconds by lighting a match that was as dry as fire in my fireplace.

Let's talk about this other way. A Sienese doctor leaked to us that he was Jewish and a secret Zionist.He planned to flee Italy with his family, hoping to reach Palestine; he believed that all European Jews were doomed.Afran, the strong Palestinian who organized the Izmir voyage.Rabinowitz has been in constant contact with the man, and his departure plans are now in place.Tomorrow he would send Rabinowitz a telegram confirming his departure.They were more than happy to include us in the escape plan.I have to inform the doctor in the morning if we want to go together. The escape route envisioned in this plan was via Piombino, Elba and Corsica to Lisbon.Its key was yet another Turkish ship, a cargo ship this time, which carried a shipment of Turkish tobacco from Istanbul to Lisbon every two months.The aromatic tobacco was so vital to the Allied war cause that the ship had British clearance.The captain stopped off the coast of Corsica in the middle of the night, accepted the gold, and made a fortune by using Jews as smuggled passengers.In Lisbon, we can part with these Zionist friends.They hoped to continue on to the Holy Land anyway, and we, of course, had only to walk into the American Consulate.

Physicians do not ignore the dangers of this scheme.Underground working groups in Italy and France were involved.Rabinowitz works with both sides.The journey by coach from Siena to the end at a marina in Lisbon was difficult.The whole scheme is hardly attractive. Yet this is our last chance for freedom; otherwise, we will have to wait helplessly in an increasingly dark atmosphere of war.If I believed that there was a real hope of being released to Switzerland, I would stay here to the end.My rule, "When in doubt, wait and see," has served me well in my past life.But I began to see that for a Jew in Europe all principles were confused.The needle of the compass kept turning in the fierce magnetic storm.I couldn't help but run away even without those horrible broadcasts coming to bother me.The archbishop dismissed and disbelieved the rumors that the Nazis were secretly killing Jews; anyway, he said, the Italian government would never hand over the Jews to the Germans, as occupied countries were doing.He thought so.He sat firmly in the mansion of the archdiocese.My safety is at stake.

As long as Allied victory is in sight, even if it's just a ray of light from below the horizon, I don't want to leave.A month ago, that was exactly what I decided to do.The Allies had plenty of raw materials, factories, and manpower, and I can't imagine Germany and Japan winning all the time.On the contrary, I believe that Tocqueville's vision is about to be realized, that the world will be divided equally between the United States and Russia; that these two great federations, aided by the valiant but declining British Empire, will march into Central Europe with great fanfare and destroy the madness. The radical Hitler tyranny not only liberated those fallen countries, but also liberated those Germans who were in darkness and were drained of blood and sweat.Once Hitler is finished, Japan's days will not be long.

But after being hit again and again, it is the example of Macedonia that is deeply imprinted in my mind now.Compared with those nomadic tribes in Asia, Alexander's troops were extremely small.But his phalanx broke down the huge empires one by one, and made the whole known world surrender to his small country.The adventurous butcher Kotes led a small group of desperadoes to plunder and destroy Montezuma's empire.Pissarro did the same thing with the great Inca civilization.War is won by will, by fearlessness, by the ability to kill, not by superiority in numbers, however great the difference.

Now that the Russian winter had halted the Germans on the outskirts of Moscow, it was hoped that it might defeat the "Teutonic frenzy" once and for all.However, this monster just leaned on the sword, took a breath, and was about to pounce on it again.Shocking photographs of the siege of Sevastopol appeared in the Italian newspapers.Cannons of monstrous size fired shells as tall as houses toward the city.The rain of artillery shells and bombs dropped by planes completely shrouded Sevastopol in smoke, like an erupting volcano.After the defeat of the Russians near Kharkov, the grinning dwarf, Dr. Goebbels, was announcing the results: the astronomical number of prisoners.On the high seas, Hitler's U-boats had almost completely cut off the American supply lines to Europe, so much so that the newspapers of the Allied Powers themselves fussed and admitted that millions of tons had been sunk.In North Africa, the British fled again under Rommel's offensive.

At the same time, Japan's image in terms of military status is getting taller and taller, like a monster emerging from a bottle and standing tall.Japan has taken almost every place Kipling wrote about: Singapore, Burma, Java, and is now threatening India!Photographs of defeated and captured Caucasians look like the end of civilization.Dispirited British captives in Singapore, squatting on the ground, stretch out as far as the camera can't focus, while rows of unshaven, ragged Americans with bowed heads line the brown-lined roads of the Philippines , escorted by glaring yellow-skinned dwarfs with guns, walked from Bataan to the prison camp. Thucydides articulated this teaching centuries before Christ.Democracy satisfies man's desire for liberty most fully; yet, through lax discipline, disorder, and love of pleasure, it yields again and again to austere, single-minded despotism. I may be becoming depressed, closed off by the scarcity of news and the gloom of the environment.The exasperating shabby hardships of life in the Italian war, the poor diet, was exhausting.I haven't tasted decent meat and wine since the American journalists left.The rationed vegetables were either green or rotting.Clay-like bread stuck in one's throat.However, I believe my train of thought is still clear.It seems to me foolish to imagine a victory for the Confederates in the near future, and not worth talking about.The tide of battle will not be reversed so easily.The immediate outcome might be just the opposite: the Soviet Union collapsed, the British were driven out of Asia, the Americans were driven out of the Pacific, forced to make peace, and the Axis powers won.Otherwise, the prospect can only be an impasse.If the war dragged on long enough for the metal, fuel, and food looted by the Axis powers to run out, the Allies might be able to win by a tortuous path.Yet Hitler's fall in 1945 or 1946 did nothing for Natalie, her doll, or me.We might not have waited so long to die; but that's not enough, with Werner.Baker would have a showdown sooner or later, and it was unlikely to be delayed for many months, let alone years. I am not afraid of the end of the world coming.German and Japanese troops would not land in New England and California.The seas are vast, and the United States is still populous and strong, but it will not exert its strength in time.Once these tyrants have swallowed up the land they conquered, they will stop and digest, and there will be a period of reluctant peace, maybe a decade or two.If the United States had adopted a Vichy-like regime, there might not have been a third war at all, but just a long-term process of these authoritarian countries gradually draining the resources of the United States.I only need to plan my life for five years or at most ten years.After I die, it doesn't matter if the flood comes.And I had to do my best to save Natalie and Louise. The decision really seems to be all in your own hands.Natalie was literally paralyzed.This naughty girl who had rushed to Warsaw to find her lover when the war broke out, and had met another lover in Lisbon during the war and married him on the spot, was already a mother.It changed her.She said she would like me to take the lead.If she was willing to take a baby on this rash trip, it was only because of the man who awed and fascinated her on the Izmir, Afran.Rabinowitz is also involved in this matter.Her submariner husband was half a world away, if he was alive at all.She may only have a fleeting fondness for an eccentric and elusive adventurer like Rabinovitz, but I'm grateful to have this bit of spiritual faith to back her up. So we're off to Lisbon.God bless us!I wish I had a closer relationship with God.But it's bad, like my relationship with that bishop of Volterra, I don't know God, and he doesn't owe me anything. If things get worse, Natalie will find out that I'm not quite a blundering idiot.Like Hamlet, I don't take an eagle for a mandarin duck when the wind blows from the south.And those diamonds.