Chapter Seven

The Yellow Bus

I

Where were you, ladies and gentlemen, when the Japanese struck the port of Pearl Harbor? There are hardly any Americans who do not seem to know. Down to the clothes they were wearing, and what they were thinking, and even the food on their forks. It is one of those magical moments capable of undoing thirty or forty years. Of all the stories that might be told of that unforgettable day, none is more marvelous than that of James Faulhaber—who, like many others, is no longer alive to tell it himself.

First, it was dusk, not dawn. The bald pate of the sun, peeping above the edge of the blue Pacific, had, over Poland, already gone down. In other words, the day of infamy, which on one side of the world was just getting started, on our side was practically done. The American citizen was standing at the gate to the Baluty Suburb, through which so many thousands had entered, without a single return. The streets were quite dark. No movement anywhere. Then an unusual event: two members of the Occupying Power, both in uniform, stepped forward and correctly saluted. Not only that, they actually picked up both of the Jew’s leather bags.

“That’s all right! Don’t bother! I know my way!” Faulhaber managed a smile.

The guards spoke in English. “Is better please for your protection,” one of them said.

The other added, “Safety from Jewish police.”

The two of them strode through the gate into the Ghetto. Faulhaber, favoring one foot, followed. He wondered: was the Suburb always so still? It was too early, he knew, for the curfew. But where were the rickshaws? The peddlers? The half-frozen excrement buckets were, in fact, the only sign of life. And what did they mean, thought the officer from the Hatters Young Men’s Benevolent Association, protection from Jewish police? He did not dare, however, to ask any actual question. The Men of Valor led him down Reiter Street, which was narrow and twisting, and where only a single lamp was lit.

Suddenly, into this light, a coatless and hatless figure came running. He cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Jews! A bulletin! Wait a moment!”

Then he dashed back into the doorway from which, it seemed, he had come. The pair of Blond Ones stopped and looked at each other. A window, several windows, opened over their heads. Inside some rooms the lights went on.

The man returned to his spot under the streetlamp. “Zlotys!” he shouted. He was trying to catch his breath. “Zlotys!” From five or six windows the coins came ringing down. “Bulletin! Bulletin! They just bombed an American seaport! In the paradise of Hawaii!”

Many more windows simultaneously opened. Jews hung from every one. “Who?” the Baluters demanded. “Who did it? When? What kind of bombs?”

“One moment!” The man—he was half of the same broadcasting station that had been held in the Tsarnecka Street jail—ran off into the adjacent building.