Chapter 9

The more at home he felt in boot camp, the more Shmuel allowed himself to think of the home he’d left behind. He hoped his family wouldn’t come after him, yet he wanted them to miss him even as he warned himself not to miss them. What could they be thinking? Had Dev seen him staring at the recruiting posters? She’d be hurt that he hadn’t confided in her, and envious that he, a boy, had the freedom to take off. His mother would worry herself sick and try to understand why he’d left. Rivka would want to find him and bring him back. His father wouldn’t care why he’d gone, only be furious that he had. If Avram wanted Shmuel home, it wouldn’t be out of concern for his safety.

Shmuel reassured himself that tracing him would he hard. Tens of thousands enlisted every week and he could be at any of the forty training sites from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. Still, Avram could be relentless in pursuing what he wanted, whether working his way up from pinner to presser at the dress factory, or insisting on his son becoming a rabbi.

“What if I’m not cut out for it?” Shmuel had dared to ask when he turned fifteen. He and Avram were at the kitchen table studying commentaries on the golden calf. That morning, the rabbi had given a D’var Torah on the transgression, saying the Jews had to learn how not to act like slaves after four hundred and thirty years of bondage in Egypt. His sermon had likened the biblical story to his immigrant congregation learning to live like free people after escaping the bonds of the countries they’d left behind. “But,” he warned them, “God redeemed us from slavery with an outstretched hand in order that we could freely worship Him, not that we might do as we pleased.”

“Not be a rabbi? What else would you do?” Avram had asked Shmuel, genuinely puzzled.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. Like the Jews wandering in the desert, Shmuel had no idea where he was headed.

“Has Gershon been telling you to study accounting?” Now his father sounded suspicious.

“No, I’m not interested in numbers, but I’m not a leader like Reb Stern. When he speaks, his words inspire people.” Shmuel smiled. “Dev is the word person in our family, not me.”

“Half the things she comes out with she learns from you and your friends. The rest, from the worst students at school. But you don’t have to head a congregation. A rabbi can lead the people with written words. And they outlast those that are spoken.” Avram nodded at the books arrayed before them, as if nothing more needed to be said on the subject of his son’s future.

Shmuel didn’t voice his doubts a second time. He tried telling himself he was suited to the life of a rabbi, where scholarship, not manliness, was all that mattered. If only he’d succeeded in convincing himself, he wouldn’t be here. Instead, deep into the second week of training, he was subjecting himself to intense physical conditioning: swimming in frigid waters, performing numbing calisthenics, running tortuous obstacle courses, and climbing up towering masts on swaying ropes. Shmuel suffered leg cramps and rope burns. Even the toughest boots complained.

He might have given up if his brains hadn’t rescued him again, for at the same time the men’s bodies were being put through their paces, they had to learn Navy ranks and ratings, visual signalling, and steering annotation. Although far from Avram’s intention, studying Talmud had prepared Shmuel for just such mental exercise. The others, some barely literate, sought his help and he found that he enjoyed teaching them. It was the same with knots. At night they leaned over his hammock as he demonstrated the magnus and tautline more slowly than Mikovski had. Their thick hands got tangled in the twine, while Shmuel’s slender fingers were flexible from years spent tying the tzitzit on his tallit.

“Hey, Lord. How come you’re so good at these fucking knots?”

Shmuel couldn’t tell them that compared to the ritual knots he’d grown up with, hitches, marlins, and constrictors were easier than a game of cat’s cradle. If anyone had asked if he were Jewish, he wouldn’t have denied it, but except for Ryan and Tomasio, he’d rather they not know. His fair colouring let him pass as someone other than he was, and he wanted to keep it that way.

“I worked at a newspaper plant,” he lied. Again. “Rag paper is really heavy. If you didn’t lash the bundles tight, they split open. Do it once, the boss smeared your face with ink. Twice, he fired you.” Shmuel’s fib drew sympathy. Former factory labourers and dock workers themselves, the other boots said they knew what it was like to be humiliated. They still got plenty of that in the Navy, especially from Mikovski, but they seemed grateful that Shmuel was taking the brunt of it. He in turn was grateful to belong, but he often wondered if he was paying too high a price. He’d gone to war to discover what he was made of, not to lose so many parts of himself.

Once Mikovski realized that Shmuel’s brains and hands had made him something of a leader, he found other ways to shame him, beginning with Shmuel’s underdeveloped body. The lieutenant made him do one hundred and fifty push-ups instead of a hundred, and run the obstacle course forward and in reverse. He put spikes around the metal drums, leaving Shmuel half an inch of clearance. If Mikovski decided Shmuel ran too slowly, he assigned him ship-painting duty. Others given this punishment emerged as splattered as kindergarten children, but Shmuel’s fastidious brushwork further enraged Mikovski. He hurled a can of paint on the deck and made Shmuel scrub it off. As resentful and exhausted as the extra work made Shmuel feel, he also knew it was toughening him up. Mikovski saw it too, making him drive Shmuel even harder in his anger and frustration.

For a big man, the lieutenant was unusually agile. His bulk was pure muscle. Men stood in awe as he shinnied up a mast and swooped down faster than a hawk snatching a peanut off a train platform. They copied his ascent, swaying and praying at the top, then closed their eyes coming down while grabbing a handful of rope every few inches. None attempted his smooth free fall.

“Eyes open, boys. Like this!” Mikovski scampered up again. A quarter of the way down, he slashed the outermost strand of rope with his pocketknife, tugging twice for good measure. He was too high up to hear, but it was easy to imagine the plies popping under his weight. Once he’d landed lightly back on the deck, Mikovski bowed to Shmuel. “Your turn, your lordship.” He snapped the knife closed and slipped it in his pocket.

If Shmuel refused, he’d be sent to the brig. If he accepted, he might end up with broken limbs, or worse. He decided lock-up wasn’t an option and started up the rope. Ryan and Tomasio moved to the base of the mast to break his fall with their bodies, but Mikovski told them to back off. On his way up, Shmuel passed the place where three of the seven plies had unravelled. He squeezed both hands above the frayed spot to lessen the strain as he shinnied past. Descending, his feet felt for that same weak spot, but the thick rubber soles of his regulation sneakers blocked all sensation.

Mikovski yelled up to him. “Look at me, sweetheart, not at the sky or the inside of your eyelids. I want to see your beautiful blue peepers gazing into mine every inch of the way down.”

Shmuel felt dizzy enough to throw up on the lieutenant’s head, but he didn’t dare stop or close his eyes. He stared unblinking at Mikovski, looking up only once when he slid past the shredded section. Two more strands had uncoiled, leaving just two plies intact. He quickened his pace and the rope held until he hit the deck. For once Shmuel was thankful his muscles hadn’t fully bulked up yet. Another week of boot camp, and the rope would have broken under his weight. His friends pulled him into formation and thumped him on the back. He began a silent prayer of thanks, then stifled the instinct. It wasn’t God who’d delivered him, but his own guts.

Mikovski barrelled between them and yanked at the rope like a lion tearing off the limb of its prey. The splayed end crashed down and whipped around his feet. After ordering the supply clerk to get a new rope, he dismissed the men and told them to report back at 1400 hours.

Shmuel saluted. “Permission to remain on deck and do calisthenics, sir,” he said. Tomasio stood behind him. “Request same, sir.” The others lined up too, a devoted congregation.

Mikovski glared, pivoted, and followed the clerk below deck. “One, and two, and three,” Shmuel chanted loudly after him, like a cantor giving voice to the prayers of the faithful. Unlike true believers, however, his limbs were shaking. In their eyes Shmuel had won, but he’d forever after have to inspect every rope before trusting it to hold him. Mikovski had frayed his nerves.