Noble Rogues
Mr. Radio
Nathan is a student of Telshe Yeshiva. Telshe, or Telšiai, is a city in Lithuania. Nathan is, as Lithuanians say, a Dutchman, a kid from the Netherlands. There are half a thousand Jewish students in Telshe, not only from Europe, but also from North America and South Africa. But this is not the most important thing! Nathan is a dedicated football fan, always making league tables, writing down the results - he would like to talk to someone about football, to shout for Ajax Amsterdam, but how many Dutch people are there in Lithuania? Four or five at most - and only if you know where to look for them.
The best Lithuanian Dutchman is Mr. Radio, he is, of course, a fan of PSV Eindhoven - the team founded by Philips is closest to the heart of the local Philips representative. But Mr. Radio is far away, in Kaunas. And oh so busy. The real name of Mr. Radio is Jan Zwartendijk.
Zwartendijk often sent Nathan Dutch newspapers or at least football super league card cut-outs. But already from his first letters, Mr. Radio started talking less about football and more about this new gadget - an electric razor like the world has never seen before, Philishave - that helps you shave your beard and moustache without any soap or water and maybe even without a mirror?
But Nathan is not interested in shavers, Nathan is interested in football. And now this newbie, Aaron, is sticking to Nathan, following him everywhere like a stray kitten. “Where is the canteen?”, “Where can I buy ink?”, “Can I stay in your room for a few more days?” - Aaron and his parents just arrived in Lithuania with a new wave of Jewish refugees running from the Soviets. They came from Poland, which no longer exists.
Aaron's family is currently staying in Vilnius. Aaron reads their letters to Nathan: about his little brother Tolik, who just started school, about his sister Leah, who is now learning to sew in a crafts school together with other Jewish teenage refugees, about the Łódź ghetto which his family managed to avoid, about soulless Soviets and Nazi beasts…
“Is there no place for us in the world?” Aaron keeps asking. “Did you hear about the Saint Louis ship on which 963 German Jews sailed from Hamburg, did you hear that it was accepted neither by Cuba or the United States and had to sail back and forth like a ghost ship for more than a month before mooring in Antwerp, and that its passengers had to find a new way to leave? To nowhere?”
Nathan tries to speak to him like their Yeshiva teachers do: that suffering is not in vain. That suffering helps to unite the spiritual and earthly realms and leads to a higher relationship with God. Until one day, the teachers of the Telshe Yeshiva themselves hastily say their goodbyes and go to the United States - via Vilnius, Moscow, Vladivostok, Japan - to ask for help, to raise funds among American Jews so that the Telshe Yeshiva could continue its activities. Nathan is furious. Nathan would also like to go to America, where his family left from the Netherlands last year. Nathan stayed to study in Lithuania because it was quiet and safe here, but now this peace seems about to crack like a previously comfortable but now limp chair. At first, only Aaron used to sob for his lost Poland at night; these days Nathan joins him and cries for the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
One more month, and Aaron, trembling, shows messages announcing that Jewish intellectuals are being arrested in Vilnius one after another, newspaper offices and Jewish schools are being closed: the red Soviet flood, from which his family fled Poland, is already reaching Lithuania. Meanwhile, spring changes into summer, and doctor Zienkovičius whom he meets in the park and who once bought an X-ray machine from Mr. Radio, says Mr. Radio can no longer sell his radios because he no longer receives special lamps from the German-occupied Netherlands. “Stop calling Zwartendijk Mr. Radio, kid," the doctor tells Nathan, "now he’s Mr. Consul.”
And so Nathan rushes home to pack his shirt, a few pairs of socks and a box of teeth powder, and knocks on the door of the dormitory where his old buddy Chaim lives. Two best friends go to Kaunas, to the Dutch Consulate, and pity-eyed Aaron goes with them, because it’s not that far from Kaunas to Vilnius, and he is worried about his family.
Now the two friends, Nathan and Chaim, stand in the office of the Dutch Consulate and try to persuade the interim Consul, a former radio salesman, to issue them visas to a little piece of the Netherlands not yet reached by the Nazis: the island of Curaçao in the Caribbean. The Consul says he’s been instructed that the island of Curaçao doesn’t need a visa, however, the Governor of the island himself decides whether to grant permission to enter or not (no one has yet heard the Governor say “yes”).
And then Nathan asks the Consul to make a trick. To write only the first sentence in the passport:
“The Dutch Consulate in Kaunas states that no visa is required to enter the islands of Curaçao and Suriname.” And skip the second one: “The Governor’s permission is required to enter.”
