The Drifters by James A. Michener
Melnikoff showed me the cable and asked where he should fly to, Jaffa or Canterbury? I asked him why he didn’t stay in Detroit and wait for further information from his wife, but he snapped, ‘I didn’t make a million dollars staying in Detroit. I have one rule. When there’s trouble, fly there. It never does any good, but it impresses hell out of the boss.’ Against my judgment he flew to London, hired a Rolls-Royce, and tootled down to Canterbury, where he met the senior Cliftons, a nervous, thin-lipped pair who were appalled by his obstreperous Russian mannerisms. He was relieved, however, to find them as disturbed about their son as he was about his daughter, and when he asked, pointing at Mrs. Clifton with his teacup, ‘Frankly, what can you do about headstrong children these days?’ he won the Cliftons’ sympathy. Mr. Clifton was a precise and pettifogging lawyer; in a burst of enthusiasm he invited Melnikoff to his club, a dreadful place with dark ceilings, dark walls, dark chairs and dark drapes. Melnikoff said, ‘This is very attractive,’ and Clifton said, ‘Yes, well … mmmm, yes. It costs rather more than one would normally wish to pay for frivolity. But it is rather nice, isn’t it?’ After two inconclusive days Melnikoff flew back to Detroit, and when I tried to reopen our discussion about his investing with us, he growled, ‘Get the hell out of here. Who has time to invest money with his daughter in Jaffa?’
Two years later my phone in Minneapolis jangled and the voice of Marcus Melnikoff shouted, ‘Come down immediately. Business.’ As he drove me in to Detroit from the airport he ordered, ‘Set me up a fund—one hundred thousand dollars—favor of my grandson.’ When I asked what name, he frowned and said, ‘Now we face the problem. When we heard that Doris was pregnant, Rebecca flew to Israel and brought her home. We insisted the kid be born under the American flag—ensure him an American passport. We talked Rabbi Fineshriber into registering him as Bruce Clifton, using his father’s legal name in England. Of course, In Israel he had to be registered as Yigal Zmora.’
‘This all sounds silly,’ I said. ‘What name shall I use?’
‘Not so silly,’ Melnikoff said gravely. ‘If you had been a Jew in Russia, trying to escape—a matter not of preference but of life—you’d have appreciated it if some loving grandfather had thoughtfully arranged for you to have two names … two passports. When he grows up, let him choose. United States or Israel. In the meantime, use the name Bruce Clifton. I’m sure he’s going to be an American.’
Thus the boy grew up with two names, two personalities, two homelands. His father, now Dr. Zmora and dean at Israel’s well-regarded scientific university in Haifa, intended Yigal to be an Israeli citizen, finding his place in the national life; but Grandfather Melnikoff, his Russian enthusiasm intensifying with the years, intended Bruce to be a good American, to attend an American university, and to make his way in American society. The struggle never became overt; certainly from what I heard, it did not scar the boy. He spent most of the year with his parents in Haifa, but each summer he flew to Detroit so that he would be familiar with that home. Dr. Zmora and Grandfather Melnikoff competed for his affections in permissible ways, and although at that time I had not yet seen the boy, I was told that he was becoming an admirable young fellow.
It is strange that I never met him on my visits to Detroit, for I continued to sell funds to his grandfather. After I transferred over to World Mutual, I also spent some time in Haifa conducting feasibility studies of Israel’s oil business, in the course of which I came to know Dr. Zmora and his wife Doris rather well, since he represented the Israeli government in our discussions. Under his tutelage I became familiar with Haifa and was always gratified when, after work in areas like Sweden or Afghanistan, I once more approached this city of steps, this very ancient seaport that had known the Prophet Elijah, the armies of the Pharaohs, the chariots of King Solomon, the violence of the Crusaders. Haifa became one of my favorite cities, for in its harbor I could see Carthaginian longboats and Roman triremes bringing legions to subdue Jerusalem. With the Zmoras as guides, I went as far east as Lake Galilee, which carried connotations of a graver sort.
And all the while I was vaguely aware of a boy growing up with this weight of history bearing down upon him ten months of the year, but with the vigor and allure of industrial Michigan attracting him the other two. Once as I trekked over the Galilean hills with his parents I asked Doris if she ever regretted having chosen Israel, and she cried, ‘Oh no! For me the ordinary events of life form the adventure. Marriage, having children, seeing how the world around you develops. That’s what’s important. So I’d have been just as happy living in Detroit, but no more so. In Israel, however … well, you do get something extra.’
‘And your son?’
‘He’ll make up his own mind,’ Dr. Zmora said as he looked across the historic battleground where Saladin had driven away the Crusaders.
In the spring of 1956 World Mutual sent me to Haifa to make an actual investment in the new oil refinery, and naturally I cabled Yochanan Zmora to meet me at the airport, for I would be conducting my negotiations with him, and as I stepped out the door of the El Al plane I saw, waiting on the tarmac below, Doris Melnikoff, her husband, and a charming little boy of five wearing English-style shorts and a kova tembel, the little white beanie favored by young men in Israel; it was supposed to remind them of the improvised hats worn by freedom fighters in the 1948 War of Independence.
When his parents ran to meet me, asking what news I brought from Detroit, the child stood aloof and waited till the greetings were completed. Then he marched politely forward, extended his hand, and said, ‘At this end of the airline I am Yigal, at the other end Bruce.’ I shook hands with him and returned his bow, and thus we launched a warm acquaintance, marked by periodic letters from Haifa to Geneva. Written first in large capitals, then with constantly improving conciseness, they came from Yigal bearing requests that I bring him, on my next flight, those important little things which he could not obtain in Israel.
Later I would receive similar letters from Vwarda, but those would come from a spoiled and impulsive girl who expected any man she knew to bring her whatever she requested; it would never occur to her to enclose money to pay for things she ordered. In Yigal’s letters there was always a money order, signed by him and not by his father. I could visualize his parents telling him, ‘If you want something, save your money, go to the post office, and send the check to Mr. Fairbanks in Geneva.’
What did he order? ‘I see in a report from Berlin that the Japanese have invented a new-style radio tube. Can you please to bring me four? Don’t mail them, because then I have to pay duty.’ When he was older he asked for popular music from the Phillips catalogue in Amsterdam and a circular slide rule. At another time he wanted to know if I could find him a copy of a new atlas just published in Moscow, but first he needed to know the price. When I reported that it was an adult publication and cost more than twenty dollars, he canceled his order, but on my next trip I brought it along as my present to a fine young fellow. When I handed him the package, big and flat, he knew of course what it was and tears filled his eyes. He kept his hands at his sides and would not take it. When I tried to force it on him, he said, ‘I was unfair. I made you get it for me.’ I thought this over for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, you did put the idea in my head. But I brought it to you not for that reason but because your grandfather told me you were becoming a good geographer.’
‘Did he say that?’ Yigal asked gravely.
‘Yes. When I was in Detroit.’
‘Well,’ the boy said reflectively, ‘when we were in the hills of Mount Tabor he did get lost and I showed him the way back.’
‘So it’s a legitimate gift,’ I said, and he rubbed his fists into his reddened eyes and accepted it.
By the time he reached fourth grade in the Haifa schools, it was recognized that his IQ stood well above 150, but his teachers found in him none of that excessive shyness which often marks the boy of high intelligence. Both his English father and his American mother had no-nonsense ide
Dr. Zmora and his wife also saw to it that Yigal got knocked about by children his own age. They encouraged him to play with groups of tough young immigrants from Morocco and Iran and dismissed any complaints he might have about rough handling. They were pleased when he organized some of these immigrant boys to build radio sets in their basement, and they put up the funds when he wanted to buy a tent so that half his friends could camp out on the Galilean hills and communicate by short wave with the other half remaining in the city. They were amused when military police came to their house to report, ‘Your son is jamming our radio frequencies.’ The police were astonished when the culprit turned out to be a boy of nine.
Yigal loved Haifa. It was a city of vivid contrast: a knockabout waterfront with ships from all parts of the world, a crowded commercial area that had been the focus of merchants for thousands of years, and the magnificent highland of Mount Carmel with its famous Catholic churches and its heavy concentration of refugees from Germany. What pleased him most, however, was the historical quality of the region: a few miles away stood caves which anyone could climb into and which had been inhabited for fifteen thousand years. In the dark recesses he could see steps that the ancients might have carved. There were also lost cities, mentioned in the Bible as having been of some importance, and a marvelous subterranean burial ground with some of the coffins still in place and accumulations of dust in which you could find flasks of Egyptian glass.
The people of Haifa were just as interesting as the land. One day Dr. Zmora showed Yigal a newsstand with papers in eleven different languages; among the families who visited their home it was customary to meet people who spoke seven or eight languages; most spoke at least three. Food of all kinds was available, and among the older people national dress from many parts of the world was still worn, so that a boy growing up in this city was made aware that the earth contained many people who were unlike himself.
Yigal was not a big child; in fact, he was somewhat undersized, but he had such good coordination that he was not at a disadvantage with his playmates. In running up and down the myriad flights of stairs that characterized Haifa, he was quicker than they, a wiry little fellow with dark eyes and light complexion. He loved games that required a combination of speed and endurance, for he could move quickly and thus neutralize the larger boys who had the advantage of greater force.
It was natural, therefore, that he would like soccer and be good at it. ‘That boy could make himself into a terrific forward,’ friends of the family had said in Canterbury one summer when the Zmoras were visiting their English family. In Haifa his skill was also appreciated, and before he was ten he was playing with boys considerably older, for he contributed to team play, and while he did not have what sportswriters refer to as ‘a lust for the jugular,’ he did have a strong desire to win and ideas as to how this could be accomplished. ‘When you kick him the ball,’ a teammate told me, ‘he’s good at passing it back.’ No boy could give another higher praise, and when teams were being formed he was chosen promptly. This habit of associating with older boys would play a major role in his life.
His main interest, however, was not sport but electronics. When he was nine I brought him a Heathkit from the States, which he assembled into a first-class radio receiver, and when the components which he ordered from Europe were hooked in, he had a system of professional quality with which he talked to all parts of the world. Once when I brought him some special gear from Germany, he threw out the stuff it was replacing and within a few minutes had the new set assembled. I nodded my approval and started to leave, but he caught my arm. ‘Wait! Didn’t you guess what I had in mind?’ He adjusted the verniers on his dials and within minutes was speaking with an amateur in Detroit; this young man called Marcus Melnikoff on the phone, and soon Yigal and I were talking to him.
He became so proficient in electronics that when he was fifteen his older associates, who were now discharging their military service in the Israeli army, enlisted his aid whenever signal corps problems arose, and in a short time he was more skilled than they in using and maintaining military communications. On one of the high hills in Mount Carmel there was a barracks which Yigal frequented; there, with his friends, he tore down government radios and relay stations, reassembling them with such improvements as he judged they needed, and in the summer he accompanied some of his buddies on their maneuvers, handling their communications for them. He had, of course, taught himself Morse Code, but his major contribution came from his knowledge of what made the new developments in electronics work.
His parents were aware of both his intellectual interest in science and his personal involvement with the military, and since like all Israeli boys he faced three years of military service, they judged that it might help if he identified his field of specialty early and perfected himself in it. They were not therefore alarmed when they discovered that they had in their home a premature soldier, ‘our paratrooper,’ they called him, but the joke was so cerebral that they stopped trying to explain it to their friends. When I visited the oil project in late 1966, Doris pulled the joke on me, and I said, ‘He looks too young to jump,’ and her husband said with a grimace, ‘I told you to forget that would-be witticism,’ so in self-defense she told me the whole story of her para-military son, and I asked, ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ and she said, ‘Fear is an aspect of twentieth-century life. Aren’t you afraid?’ and when I reflected on the various things I saw around the world—famine in India, black-white revolt in America, reassessment in Vwarda—I had to admit that I was.
‘Not excessively,’ I said. ‘I still retain hope.’
‘So do we,’ Doris said, and when her wiry, confident son of fifteen joined us, I could see that he felt the same way.
So much for Yigal Zmora. What of Bruce Clifton?
In the summer of 1956 Jewish friends of Marcus Melnikoff had warned him that from what they had heard in Washington, there was bound to be war between Israel and the Arab states. ‘Better get your daughter out,’ they advised.
He had sent urgent letters to Haifa, warning Doris that she must bring her family to Detroit until the future was secure, but this she would not hear of: ‘If as you say, war does come, Yochanan will be needed in the scientific branch, and for me to desert him in order to find safety in America would be unthinkable. So put such foolishness out of your mind.’
Melnikoff had wired back insisting that the boy, at least, be flown to Detroit, to which Doris replied, ‘I know Yigal very well, and if we forced him to flee Israel in time of crisis, he might be emotionally scarred. But that’s beside the point, because I don’t think a team of horses could drag him away right now. You see, his gang is playing at soldier and they’ve laid plans as to what they must do if trouble strikes.’
When Melnikoff received this letter he showed it to me and snorted, ‘Good God, that boy’s five years old. They must be out of their minds.’ He conscripted me to drive him to the airport, and without any luggage, flew off to Israel. Two hours after his arrival he had persuaded the Zmoras to let him take Yigal to America until the crisis passed. Six hours after that he and Bruce were on their way back across the Atlantic, and I was waiting for them at the airport when they arrived.
Bruce came down the steps first, a slim, well-behaved boy of five wearing a kova tembel to proclaim his citizenship. Recognizing me, he walked gravely forward and bowed. ‘We had a splendid trip,’ he said in a clipped British tone.
In spite of his age and small size, his grandparents enrolled him in the Grosse Pointe school as a first-grader, and he a
As a matter of fact, in later years it was this problem of schooling which caused the most serious friction between the two portions of the Melnikoff family. Grandfather Melnikoff felt that since he had the money, and the entrée, Bruce ought to be educated in America, but Doris insisted that her son attend school with his peers in Haifa. When the argument was laid before the boy he solved it in a surprising manner: he told his grandfather, ‘I like America, but compared to Haifa, your schools are so very bad I’d imperil my education.’ When Melnikoff flew to Haifa to look into the matter, he found that Bruce was right; he had been lucky enough to gain entrance to the Reali School, one of the best in the world, where Israeli boys of ten got an education about equal to what boys of eighteen were getting in America. ‘Of course,’ I pointed out to Melnikoff when he discussed the comparison with me, ‘in America nearly every child goes to high school. In Israel about one out of twenty-five makes it. Reali ought to be superior. It doesn’t have to bother with the clods.’
But in 1965, when Bruce was fourteen, Grandfather Melnikoff would listen to no further argument; he insisted that Bruce attend school in the United States and enlisted my support to convince his parents. On my next trip to Haifa, I told them, ‘Marcus is right. American law demands that when a child like Yigal is born with dual citizenship …’