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Wandering Jews Artist, Author & Raconteur, Marvin J. Wolf, tells a chilling, surprising (and true) Passover story that you won't want to miss. |
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It was nearly midnight when Louis Roth's seder ended and we packed ourselves into my old Bug. My wife, Kyongcha, rode shotgun; Steve, my twelve-year-old brother, shared the cramped backseat with a case of matzoh and boxes of kosher-for-Passover canned goods from the chaplain's office. It was enough to supply me and the six other Jews of the 11th Signal Battalion. Just south of Frankfurt we hit scattered patches of fog, frightening seconds zooming through a white tunnel of reflected headlights before bursting into the clear. Soon we were in an impenetrable cloud. Outside cities, the autobahn admits to no speed limit; neither night nor fog deter the German driver from going as fast as his engine will propel him. There are frequent multiple-car crashes, many involving hundreds of vehicles, often with fatalities; nobody seems to care enough to slow down. On that Pesach night of 1970, the fast lane was Mercedes and Audi sedans cheek-to-jowl with sleek Porsche and boxy BMW sportsters, all running flat-out at upwards of 100 mph. We Volkswageners shared the "slow" lane with titanic trailer trucks, five feet between our bumpers, everyone charging heedlessly headlong into the fog. I was doing 85, white-knuckled, wide-eyed and scared half out of my wits, when the engine quit. The driver embracing my rear bumper flashed his lights impatiently as I coasted onto a shoulder barely wide enough to park. To my right was a low stone wall; what lay behind it was concealed by the swirling fog. My little car rocked and swayed as each big truck blasted by. "Out of the car! Hurry!" I yelled, rolling metal screaming by inches from my half-open door. I punched the emergency flashers and bailed out as Steve extricated himself from the backseat. From ten feet away we could barely see the flashers, so I moved my family back another 20 feet, then got the flashlight from the glove compartment. I gave it to my wife, told her to hug the wall well away from the car, then set out at a trot through the thick vapor: Somewhere behind us there must be a service station. In perhaps 20 minutes the big lights of a petrol stop suddenly loomed out of the moist haze. The lone attendant was about my age, a huge man at least six-six, with wide shoulders, olive skin and a fierce dark mustache. "Do you speak English?" I asked. "Nicht English. Kleine Deutsche," he returned. No English, a little German. "Ich bin ein Turskische." He was a Turk, one of many guest workers Germany imported to scrub toilets, wash dishes and work graveyard shifts. They were usually treated with the same contempt and suspicion reserved for swarthy Spanish-speakers in U.S. border towns. "Mein Volkswagen is kaput," I said, and he nodded. "Amerikanish?" he growled, and I returned the nod. "Ja," he said, dropping a screwdriver and wrench into his coveralls and grabbing a light. He followed me, a great cat effortlessly keeping pace as I trotted alongside the swooshing vehicles. Suddenly I stumbled into my VW. My family huddled inside, trying to get warm. Fearing for their safety, I got them out, noticing the Turk's odd expression as my tiny, beautiful Korean wife was illuminated by the flicker of passing headlamps. I raised the hood to expose the engine, and he played his light over the innards. Abruptly he straightened up, set the light down. A knife appeared in his hand, its long blade glittering in the passing lights. The Turk peered at me, then at Kyongcha and Steve. He held the knife to one side and low, very like the classic attack stance I had demonstrated at Fort Benning in teaching officer candidates hand-to-hand combat. The Turk swayed on his feet, menacing in the weird haze. Fear washed over me; at 5'4" tall and 150 lbs., I was no match for this long-armed giant. It flashed through my mind that our only chance to survive was to shove the Turk onto the autobahn. I would probably die as well, but at least Steve and Kyongcha would be spared. I turned to her. "Run," I said, in a low voice. "Take Steve and run." But she stood wobbling on high heels, frozen. I intended to smash his knees, to keep pushing till he went down. I pictured the chain-reaction crash that this would start, smashed cars and trucks, flaming gasoline, the screams of the maimed and dying. I smelled Kyongcha's hair as she came from the bath, felt her hot, smooth skin pressed against my own, marveled that Steve had at last begun to lose his baby fat, and had developed a taste for kimchi. Willing away emotion, I went to the place that I had discovered on my first Vietnam air assault, where duty displaces fear. My heart threatened to burst from my chest; I prepared to die. Just before I launched myself, a string of cars hurtled by in the far lane; by the light of their passage, the Turk moved to peer into my car. I crabbed sideways for an unimpeded angle to shove him onto the road. He looked at me, astonishment on his face. "Matsoh? Matsoh shel Pesach?" he said in Hebrew. I nodded, watching the knife, and he returned to the engine, dropping to his knees, beckoning to me. Still wary, I approached, and he handed me the light. I shined it where he pointed, and with his blade quickly scraped insulation from both sides of a broken wire, then twisted the ends together. Rising to his feet, he folded the knife and dropped it into a pocket. I turned the key and the engine caught immediately. Yosef Toleadano, as this Turkish Jew was known, refused money, but allowed me to stuff his pockets with jars of gefilte fish, and cans of meatballs and stuffed cabbage. I borrowed his knife to open the case of matzo, and gave him several boxes. "Lashana Habaha Birushalyim," next year in Jerusalem, he said, the Hebrew muffled as he vanished into the mist. A few miles down the road the fog lifted; as I relaxed at the wheel, finally able to think clearly, I trembled. How close I had come to making a horrible mistake! Only later, as I lay safe in my bed with Kyongcha in my arms, did I realize that on this Pesach night, as on the first, the Angel of Death had again passed over my household. # # # Copyright © 1999 Marvin J. Wolf |