Читать книгу David's War - Herbert Kastle - Страница 4

It was eight o’clock, dark and wet, and people were just beginning to emerge from shelter after the sudden rainstorm. The truck came down Fairfax Avenue, street of kosher butchers, restaurants, delicatessens; spinal column of Los Angeles’ one true Jewish neighbourhood, the California equivalent of Brooklyn’s old Pitkin Avenue and Manhattan’s Delancey Street.

It was an open flat-bed truck with waist-high wooden slat sides, and two men stood in the back, in what was now a fine drizzle, scattering leaflets into the street. It moved slowly, music blaring from somewhere under the frame – ‘God Bless America’, Kate Smith’s recording.

At first the still-sparse flow of pedestrians paid it no attention; then there were shouts and three young men burst from a doorway where they’d sought shelter. They were raging, pointing at the truck, and it was then that other people realized Fairfax Avenue was being desecrated. It was then they saw the large swastika banners hanging on the slat sides; realized the men in back were ski-masked, uniformed Nazis with swastika armbands. And when one old woman picked up a leaflet, she turned white with shock at the blatant message of hatred aimed at Fairfax and its people.

The three young men chasing the truck were also part of an organization, though their only items of uniform were black berets. One managed a gasped ‘Never again!’; then they were running too hard for slogans.

The fastest, a wiry youth, reached for the open end of the truck. Before he could grasp the edge, he was struck across the shoulders with a bat wielded by the larger of two very large masked Nazis. The way he went down, in an agonized heap, indicated there was more than wood in the end of that bat.

The other two pursuers split up, each taking a different side of the slow-moving truck, sprinting to get to the cab and the driver.

As Kate Smith’s powerful soprano sang Stand beside her, and guide her, the huge Nazi with the bat leapt to the street, running around to the left, chasing the short youth coming up on the driver. The short youth began to turn, but didn’t make it. The bat described a clean up and over arc, striking the black beret dead centre. There was a splatting sound, a melon-bursting-on-pavement sound, and the youth crumpled straight down, his legs no longer motivated by brain impulses.

Meantime, the third youth had managed to grasp the door-handle on the other side of the cab, the passenger’s side. He was a muscular, thick-bodied man and his round face lighted with savage delight as he prepared to enter the cab and get at the uniformed Nazi behind the wheel. But the truck suddenly swerved, first towards him, jamming his arm, face and shoulder against the metal door, then violently away, breaking his grip and sending him sprawling in the wet gutter.

The youth struggled to his feet, in time to face the huge Nazi coming past the receding back of the truck, bat already swinging. The youth managed to twist aside, catching only a glancing blow on the right arm. Still, he went to his knees, and the bat came up for the finishing blow.

The truck skidded to a stop, its lights and music going off. There was a shout from the cab. The huge Nazi aborted his swing, ran to the truck and leapt in beside the driver. Before he could close the door, the truck jerked forward, tyres spinning and screeching on the wet pavement. The Nazi in the back held to the slat siding with one hand and flung a bound packet of leaflets at someone on the sidewalk, shouting, ‘Jew bastards!’ An old man fell and a woman screamed, ‘Hitler leibt!’ Hitler lives! The truck was speeding now, swinging around cars. It turned off Fairfax and was gone, leaving four men prostrate. Leaving others stunned, outraged, humiliated, fearful.

Leaving one man determined to wage war.

This was the catalyst for that one man, but not quite the beginning. The beginning could be said to have taken place in 1943 . . . or just two days ago.