Once there was Aaron
by
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There were nine of them on horseback, all drunk, waving their sabers and shooting guns in the air. "Death to the Jews. Kill. Kill. I need a dead Jew for Czar Nicholas..." Ruchel’s long, piercing, scream came from the rear of the house. She and her baby had been quickly discovered.
"Captain," one of the men called out, "look what I found? The Jew mother..." The others roared their approval at the catch, and ran toward her. He dragged the screaming and kicking Ruchel by her hair along the ground. Her heels scraped and furrowed the earth as she squirmed and twisted in his grasp. She held her hair with both hands. The baby lay crying, near the woodpile, and one of the men picked up a log and heaved it at the child. The crying stopped. "You have a good eye, Sergyi. One log, one baby." They roared with laughter again. "Mein pitsel kind...mein pitsel kind. My baby. My baby. What have you done to my baby?" Ruchel sobbed uncontrollably as the soldier dragged her to the front courtyard. "Captain, a present for you. Look." She sank to her knees and wept as he grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. Two others, holding her arms, yanked her upright and the Captain brought his face to hers. His bloodshot eyes had difficulty focusing, and he reeked of kvass. "You will dance for us..here...now. A good Russian peasant dance...a Muzhik dance...not those Jew dances." He reached to her shoulders, grabbed at her dress and shook her vigorously. As the cloth came away in his hands, he ripped it from her neck. Ruchel stood terrified and naked to the waist. "I said dance," he roared, drunkenly, and then drew back and slapped her full force with the back of his hand. One of his rings raked across her cheek and ripped it open to the jaw bone. She screamed, and started to move her body in rhythmic steps. "Faster," he yelled. Tears and blood streamed down Ruchel’s face as she moved. He grabbed her waist as she passed, and with the kinzhal, slit her belt. The remaining dress dropped to the ground. She stood shivering in the biting cold night, arms crossed, trying to cover her nakedness. The men circled her and clapped their hands rhythmically to her dance. "I said dance," he screamed again, and slapped at her body with the flat of his saber. Blood coursed down her cheek and matted the hair around her shoulders. The Captain’s blade slapped her again; a large red weal appeared on her thigh and buttock, and blood ran down her leg. "Captain, if she won’t dance standing up, maybe we can make her dance laying down with her legs spread." The men all roared their approval. "I would be happy to assist her, Captain." He removed his hat and bowed a long, low, courtier’s bow. They howled and cheered, and started clapping in unison. "Down. Down. Get her down. She’ll dance better on the ground..." Two of them threw her to the ground and each held a foot pressed to her outstretched arms while another put his foot on her bloodied hair. They were interrupted by more laughter and loud cheers. "Look, Captain, another little Jew." One of the Cossacks came into the courtyard dragging a screaming, kicking Yakov by one arm. "Get rid of him. Let’s get on with the dance. I want to see the naked whore dance, the Captain yelled. He raised a wine bottle, and took a long swallow. "No. No." Ruchel shrieked and leaped free. Yakov screamed at the sight of his mother. "Mama! Mama! Help me. He is hurting me. Mama!" The Cossack fired one shot. Yakov went limp, his head rolled about, and both arms flopped downward. The soldier threw the lifeless body to the ground. They all cheered. Ruchel went to her knees. "Derharge mir, ech. Zy mir aze good und derharge mir ech. Kill me, too," she begged, her arms raised in supplication. "Please, kill me too." Her voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper and moan.
The Captain raised his gun, closed one eye and took aim. Her body leaped at the bullet’s impact, spun around and toppled like a released marionette, arms outstretched and legs bent, atop her son. "Where’s the next house? We need more Jews." "And more kvass," another yelled, as they leaped to their horses again. "Burn it...burn it down...let’s go...let’s go..." One of the horsemen leaned over, grabbed Aaron’s lantern by its bent wire handle, and heaved it to the roof thatch. Another, took some of the burning thatch and threw it into the barn. Then, they galloped from the courtyard into the night. The horror had taken twenty minutes. They left behind the crackle of blazing thatch and hay, the sputter and snap of burning wood, and the frenzied cries of animals in their stalls in the burning barn. Shmuel had run into the woods with Yakov at his heels. In the dark they became separated and when Shmuel realized it he stopped and listened for his brother’s footsteps. He whispered aloud. "Yakov. Where are you? I’m here, Yakov. I’m over here." Shmuel circled trying to find his younger brother. He slipped stealthily from tree to tree until he could look out at the courtyard. Shmuel watched the massacre of his family before he turned and ran into the forest until he no longer heard sounds from the house. "Ich vel nit gain tzurick, Ta-te. Ich zog dir tsu." Tears streamed down Shmuel’s cheeks and he wiped them with the heel of his hand as he ran blindly into the darkness holding the candlestick by its neck as a weapon. "I won’t go back Papa. I promise."
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About the Book
From Kolchin, a small shtetll in 1880 Czarist Russia, to New York City in 1944, and from Mussolini's 1936 Rome to the deck of the American Destroyer Escort, Jethro, Bernard Binder has written a saga of three generations of the Caine and Rossini families. Their histories, one born in the horror of a Cossack pogrom and the other in the brutality of Mussolini's Fascist state, become a tale of family tradition, love, generational collision, and World War II action in the South Pacific.
As soon as Jennifer Caine and navy Lt. Mario Rossini fall in love, they are immediately separated by a continent and an ocean. In New York, Jennifer, joins her father, Isaac, owner of Belkoff's Fashions where she struggles against him to define the direction of the business as well as to understand and reconcile their different management philosophies.
After nursing the wounded Destroyer Escort, Jethro, back to Pearl Harbor, the now Lt. Comdr. Mario Rossini assumes command and takes her back into the South Pacific to the battle of Okinawa. At Alamogordo he witnesses the dawn of the atomic age and then attends the end of hostility ceremonies aboard the battlewagon Missouri as Aide to Admiral Chauncey Mellon. At war's end, Jennifer and Mario attempt to pick up the pieces of their interrupted relationship and reconstruct their fractured lives. Their warmth and tenderness toward each other has now become burdened with the responsibilities of business, family, love of country, and most importantly for each, a truer appreciation of self worth.
Here is a saga of three generations of family love born in the depths of a horror kept secret for sixty four years; interwoven with a tale of war and patriotism fought on the decks of the Jethro in the South Pacific.
About the Author
Bernard Binder was raised and educated in New Jersey. In February, 1943 he left Thomas Jefferson High School in Elizabeth and enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Three years and one month later, after service in the South Pacific, he returned home after World War II and enrolled as a freshman at Rutgers University where he received his B.A. in English and History in 1949. After an abortive attempt at law school, he left to pursue a business career.
Along the way, he married, settled in suburban New Jersey with his wife, Arline, and raised a family. After 30 plus years in the electrical supply business, he retired and now devotes his time to his wife, children and grandchildren as well as painting landscapes and writing short stories. The notes for this book were begun in the winter of 1994 during a Barbados vacation and the final draft finished in 1997.