9

The Lineage of the Vilna Underworld

When Mishke Napoleon was murdered, all of Vilna mourned. Mishke was the last of the dynasty and the pride of Gitke-Toybe’s Lane and part of Yatkever Street. Mishke was famous. Unlike the French Napoleon, who was short in stature, Mishke had grown very tall. But he was still a Napoleon.

When Khaymke, Zelik the Benefactor’s younger son, murdered Mishke, he wasn’t thinking about lineage. Zelik certainly had reason to be angry with Mishke. Mishke ate kishke at Zelik’s tavern on Glezer Street and then blew his money on whisky at Orke Big Bucks’, Zelik’s blood enemy. But that was just an excuse. People in Vilna didn’t slit each other’s throats over something like that. Zelik suspected that Mishke had spilled the beans about an illicit deal to Orke Big Bucks so he could look like a big shot and get free whiskey. A tavern has open eyes.

Zelik the Benefactor had treated Mishke like one of his own and even gotten him involved in a smuggling operation. Zelik took Mishke in, but he got nothing in return. Mishke’s needs were huge—he ran from one gang to the next. He had to maintain his reputation. After all, he was a Napoleon. He dressed in brand-new clothes, played billiards for high stakes, and drank whiskey with gusto.

When Zelik’s cronies mentioned that Mishke was carousing at Orke Big Bucks’, Zelik’s blood boiled, especially after an important deal was bungled because Orke had stuck his hand in. Mishke was the only outsider who’d known about the deal. Zelik decided not to let Mishke cross his threshold ever again. If Mishke showed up, he’d break his legs. But wiping him out, doing him in—that hadn’t even occurred to Zelik. After all, Zelik the Benefactor had his own reputation that he worked hard to maintain. He’d earned his position as the first trustee in the Lukishke prison synagogue fair and square.

But Khaymke, Zelik’s younger son, wasn’t willing to ignore Mishke’s behavior. He’d wanted to show Vilna who ran the city and use Mishke Napoleon to teach Orke Big Bucks’ gang a lesson. So Khaymke had lured Mishke to Pospieshk, outside Vilna, with the promise of a shot of schnapps and a shiksa for dessert. He’d slit Mishke’s throat at Oginski’s Estate, right next to the Viliye, and thrown him into the river. Khaymke had expected the current to drag Mishke downstream, past the city, and all trace of him to disappear.

But the elegant Mishke Napoleon had shown up for his rendezvous with the shiksa wearing a flowered tie. The tie reduced Khaymke’s calculations to nothing. Mishke had, indeed, floated downstream from Pospieshk, but only as far as the Green Bridge, where his tie got caught in the barbed wire on a raft in the river. The next day Mishke was found, stretched out to his full length, under the bridge that connected the city with Shnipishok.

If Mishke had floated a little further downstream and reached the brickyard, perhaps all trace of him would have disappeared in the waters of the Viliye and Khaymke could have avoided prison. But Commissar Rovinsky, who knew the Vilna underworld like the back of his hand, quickly found his way to Pospieshk and the shiksa who Khaymke gave to Mishke along with the whiskey. After only a little nudge from Rovinsky, she sang about her meeting with Mishke.

At that point, Vilna remembered Mishke Napoleon’s lineage. Mishke was the great-great-grandson of Leybe the Fence. Leybe had had an inn in Shnipishok, right next to the city gate. The real Napoleon had stayed in Leybe’s inn in 1812, when he’d fled from the burning city of Moscow. Leybe started out as a shingle carrier and laid the roofs at Count Huvald’s estate near Mayshegole, not far from Vilna. A French immigrant named Monsieur Duval, a refugee from the French Revolution, insinuated himself into Count Huvald’s estate. The strapping fellow became a big shot in the count’s palace. The servants whispered that he was sleeping with the countess.

Duval stole everything in sight, particularly silverware. He needed to market the stolen goods, so he befriended Leybe and even taught him to speak French. When there was nothing left to steal, Duval read French newspapers and magazines to the countess. After all, he was no simple peasant.

Leybe marketed the stolen goods in the city. That’s how he became a fence. All the thieves in Vilna trusted him with their loot. Over time, Leybe prospered and opened an inn. He stopped laying shingles for Count Huvald, but his friendship with Duval continued until the Frenchman closed his eyes for the last time.

Shortly before his death, Duval read Leybe an article from a French newspaper that said that during his campaign in Palestine, Napoleon had issued a manifesto stating that the Jews should be given their land back. When Leybe heard this, he grabbed the newspaper and went to see Rabbi Abraham Danzig, the author of the book Chayei adam. At that time, Danzig was a judge in the rabbinic court in Vilna.

Rabbi Danzig had arrived in Vilna after traveling the world. He knew many languages and was a learned scholar. He read the article and said quietly, “It could be. Maybe not now, but the time will definitely come when we’ll get our state back.”

Judge Danzig was very impressed that Leybe had rushed to inform him about Napoleon’s manifesto. He trusted Leybe and asked for his help whenever a crime was committed, when a widow was robbed or some other heinous act took place. People in Shnipishok began to greet Leybe the Fence with a hearty “Good morning.” His word carried weight. After all, Rabbi Abraham Danzig didn’t associate with just anyone.

But it was later, after Napoleon stayed in his inn, that Leybe’s prestige really soared. It was freezing when the defeated Napoleon retreated from Moscow. The emperor was sick: his bladder was weak, his hemorrhoids were torturing him, and he had stomach cramps from the terrible food. When he showed up at Leybe the Fence’s inn, he was frozen stiff.

Leybe recognized the emperor immediately. He’d seen him the summer before when he’d marched through Vilna with his army on his way to Moscow. Napoleon was really taken with the city, especially the Church of the Holy Anna, which rose above the Vilenke. He told his entourage that he wanted to carry the church back to Paris on his own shoulders. But after his defeat in Moscow, Napoleon wasn’t thinking about the beauty of Vilna. All he wanted was a soft bed and a hot glass of tea.

No one was supposed to know that Napoleon was in Vilna because the Cossack divisions, who were pursuing the retreating French army, had reached the city. Leybe sent the emperor’s cavalrymen to various houses nearby, but Napoleon stayed with him. Aside from a few of Leybe’s friends, no one knew that the French emperor was lying in a bedroom at Leybe’s inn with a nightcap on his head and a hot water bottle next to his belly. Leybe tried to persuade the judge, Rabbi Abraham Danzig, to remind Napoleon about his manifesto calling for a Jewish state. Danzig explained to Leybe, “That’s all yesterday’s noodles. The emperor has lost his throne and no longer has a say in the world.”

Leybe’s wife saved the emperor. She cooked him chicken soup and gave him an herbal drink for his bladder. She also brought him a salve for his hemorrhoids. Napoleon stayed at Leybe the Fence’s inn for a few days and regained his strength. When he left Vilna, he bade Leybe a friendly farewell and gave him a gold watch. He also promised Leybe that as soon as he got his throne back, he’d make him a marquis and give him an estate in southern France. Later, Leybe’s heirs argued over the gold watch until it disappeared into the deep pocket of a distant relative, some scoundrel who wasn’t from Vilna.

That’s how Leybe got the nickname Napoleon. A pale reflection from the name landed on Leybe’s great-great-grandson Mishke, who Zelik the Benefactor’s son Khaymke had finished off. Because of Mishke’s reputation, Zelik the Benefactor, the chairman of the underworld organization the Golden Flag, was furious about the murder. The other members of the Golden Flag were also angry. At Itsik the Redhead’s bar, their regular hangout, Tovshe the Angel shouted, “Vilna is not Chicago!”

The younger guys were also enraged. Mishke Napoleon had his own reputation and didn’t need to rely on his great-great-grandfather, Leybe of Shnipishok. Mishke knew how to read and write. He wrote court appeals in beautiful Polish for anyone who asked. Every Friday he could be seen at the Mefitsei Haskalah Library on Zavalne Street borrowing a book for Shabbes. Mishke played billiards like a gentleman, giving weaker opponents a few balls. He kept up appearances and was never seen with girls who were unkempt. He always conducted himself with dignity.

Everyone in the organization knew that Zelik would never approve of the murder. They remembered when Leybovitsh’s son was kidnapped by a group of gangsters for a ransom. (Leybovitsh was a wealthy Jew who owned a tannery.) Zelik the Benefactor had gotten involved and issued an order that the boy be returned without them getting a groschen. The entire business was too crass for Vilna.

In the meantime, Zelik ran to Commissar Rovinsky and asked if he could book Khaymke on a lesser charge. “Not, God forbid, without getting something in return. Could you write in the police report that the murder happened during a drunken brawl over the shiksa?” But Rovinsky was nervous. Word of the incident had already spread far and wide.

“If Pilsudski were still alive,” thought Zelik, “he would take care of everything.” But Pilsudski, the founder of the Polish Republic, had already been in the ground for two years. Zelik had been very friendly with Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. Over the years, with Pilsudski’s help, Zelik the Benefactor got off of dozens of charges that could have landed him in prison. Pilsudski simply wrote a few words to the district attorney’s office and the matter was dropped.

Everyone at Belvedere Castle, Pilsudski’s Warsaw residence, knew Zelik. He was a frequent visitor. They had plenty of problems at the castle: problems with smuggled tobacco or with the locks that had been pried open at Zalkind’s jewelry store. The police bled Pilsudski dry, so he came to Zelik for help.

Jozef Pilsudski owed Zelik the Benefactor a debt from the years before Poland became Poland. Pilsudski had wanted to organize military units to take up arms against the tsar and win back Poland’s independence. To do that, he needed money for guns, ammunition, and uniforms. Pilsudski was in contact with weapons merchants all over Europe. They were all ready to deliver the illegal merchandise immediately, as long as they were paid. But Pilsudski had no money.

Pilsudski found out that twice a week, a train traveling from Warsaw to Petersburg passed through Bezdan, a small train station near Vilna. As well as passengers, the train also carried sacks of money. Pilsudski decided to enlist his friends to help him rob the train. It had to be done during the summer, when the roads were dry and they could escape into the woods that ran beside the railway tracks. Pilsudski had been born in the area and knew it well.

The trouble was that all of Pilsudski’s helpers were students from fine intellectual families, ill-suited to robbing rail cars guarded by Russian gendarmes. Pilsudski needed someone from the underworld. In Vilna, someone pointed out Zelik the Benefactor to Pilsudski. At that time Zelik was young and strong, the leader of the Vilna gangsters. Pilsudski confided his plan about Bezdan to Zelik and suggested that he apply his capable hands to the task.

Zelik agreed to lend a hand. This wasn’t because he was mixed up with politics but because he was furious with the tsarist regime for hanging Hirshke Lekert after Lekert had tried to assassinate Von Wahl, the governor general of Vilna. Six years had passed since the assassination attempt, but the young people of Vilna were still determined to take revenge.

Whenever a charge was laid against Zelik the Benefactor, Pilsudski wrote to the judge and explained that the accused had done a great service to the Polish Republic and the Polish army. He was right. Simply put, Zelik had saved Pilsudski’s life during the raid on the Bezdan train station. Pilsudski left the railcar carrying a sack of money, but two armed gendarmes blocked his way. There was chaos in the train station. Bullets were flying in every direction. Ignoring the danger, Zelik threw an iron bar at the two gendarmes and laid them flat. Then he grabbed the heavy sack of money from Pilsudski and hollered, “Antloyf, blockhead. Get moving.” Pilsudski, who understood a little Yiddish, didn’t wait around. He immediately fled to the appointed spot, where a horse and wagon were waiting.

“If Pilsudski were still alive,” thought Zelik, “he would have taken care of everything.” But because Pilsudski’s body had already been lying in the ground for two years, Zelik couldn’t find anyone to help his son Khaymke, who’d murdered Mishke Napoleon. Khaymke was sentenced to sit in prison until the end of time. He served his sentence in the Lukishke prison in Vilna, but he wasn’t there long.

When the Germans attacked Poland in 1939, Khaymke escaped from prison and got to Bialystok in the Soviet Union. There, he worked as a skinner in a slaughterhouse and sold a few hides on the black market every once in a while. In 1941, when the Germans attacked Russia, Khaymke was mobilized into the Red Army. He was awarded the highest distinction for his service and attained the rank of captain. After the war, Khaymke left for America where he worked his way up doing respectable work, selling scrap metal for smelting and not, God forbid, by illegal means. His children became doctors and lawyers and Khaymke himself, the son of Zelik the Benefactor, raises money for the state of Israel.

Where on this wide earth is there an underworld with a lineage like the Vilna underworld? Gone are the likes of Leybe Napoleon, Zelik the Benefactor, and Orke Big Bucks. Mishke Napoleon is also gone, but to this very day he stands before my eyes.

The Vilna underworld was truly an exceptional world.