“The Cossacks are coming, the Cossacks are coming, quickly, hide the women and the children; lock your doors and windows, the Cossacks are coming”, the young girl screamed as she ran into her small village from the edge of the forest.” It was the late nineteenth century in a turbulent, violent Russia where the Czar and his ministers unleashed the marauding bands of Cossacks who were told to cleanse Russia of the greedy Jews who had hidden hordes of gold and jewels and were responsible for all the ills of the country. As they raided the small villages and came away empty handed they murdered and raped the inhabitants and burned the villages to the ground as punishment for not yielding up their wealth. Those that survived left the destroyed villages and wandered through the countryside seeking what refuge they could find, some were lucky and were able to escape to neighboring countries where they had relatives. In one village, after the Cossacks had destroyed the village and murdered her father and two small brothers, a young couple survives the horror. With all her families meager possessions destroyed, and with nothing more than her father’s collection of holy books, the young couple travel many miles, mostly at night and finally arrive at a neighboring town where her father’s relatives live and prospered. The refuge that she finds in her relative’s home is ghastly; forced to live in a cold and tiny attic room with no furniture, no wood for the fireplace, and a small bed, they are forced to eat with the maid. Anna, soon to be known as Anna Bookman, and her new husband Jacob, who was given the lowest, dirties job in the relative’s chicken farm, yearned for the day when she could move to her own home, but with no money and being a stranger in the town, all she could do was to pray for a better day. One day, quite by accident she hears of a wonderful land where there are no Cossacks and where people can live in peace and prosper. The magical place is called America, New York and it is far away across a mighty ocean. She has no idea how she will be able to get there but that does not stop her from dreaming about it.
Several days later as she is walking in the town square she sees a small bookstore. Approaching the store she finds it locked and the owner is not responsive to her call to open the door. Her hope is that the bookstore owner may have an interest in buying some of the books she has taken from her burned home and maybe it will be enough money so that she and Jacob can go to this magical land, America, New York. What Anna is unaware of is that no one in the town has ever seen the bookstore even though it sits in the middle of the square. It is the first of many manifestations she will encounter as her future life unfolds. Hidden deep within the dark bookstore is a shapeless ephemeral form cloaked in a black drape. His name, she will later learn is Solomon, and as the story unfolds, Anna will meet him in the disguise of a small man in a brown suit and hat and by many forms of the name Solomon. He knows all about her and her dream of going to the magical land she calls America, New York. He has seen in his mind’s eye the day that she was born, her love for Jacob, the murder of her family, the destruction of her village, and the life that she is forced to live while under her relative’s roof. He has written the tenets of her destiny and will be the guiding force that enables her to follow the road that he has laid out for her. But before she is ready to leave on her journey there are things she and Jacob must learn and so, finally allowing her to meet him he sets tasks before them both, tasks that will teach them how to survive in a world they do not know or understand. He begins by having them read books, books on subjects that are never taught to the peasants, books that only the Church and the nobility have access to, books that speak of the wonders of the ages past and the hopes of the ages yet to come as well as the brutality of the wars that will shatter the peace of Europe. After they have mastered the books, Solomon instructs Jacob to build a wagon with a design as ancient as Noah’s Ark. It is a task that takes Jacob two months and when it is finished Solomon instructs him to travel through Russia. He has two missions; one to warn the Jews in the towns and villages he will pass so that they may make preparations for potential Cossack raids, and to collect Holy Torahs to save them from the Holocaust yet to come that only Solomon can foresee. As Jacob travels the lonely and forbidding back roads of Russia, he learns of the hatred that the Russian peasant has for the Jews, although no one knows what a Jew looks like except that they have horns sticking out of their heads and that they murder young Christian children and use their blood in their unholy rituals. These lies have been told to them by their priests as a way of keeping the peasants from rising in rebellion at the way they live and the harshness of the repressive Czarist regime.
After two long years Jacob finally returns and with Solomon’s blessing, Jacob gathers up Anna and his son Avigador, who was born a year before he left on his journey, and together they begin the long trek through Europe eventually winding up in France where with the help of another small man in a brown suit and hat named Solomon de la Paix, they board ship to America. As the ship slowly slips into the dark, murky cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the man named Solomon de la Paix drives the wagon away, never to be seen or used again. BOOK TWO…THE STREETS OF GOLD…Anna and Jacob begin their rise to economic power. BOOK THREE…MY NAME IS VICTOR… The Americanization of the second generation and Avigador, now known as Victor, begins life as a new American. BOOK FOUR…THE RELUCTANT SPY…Victor’s role in helping America destroy the German economy. BOOK FIVE…THIS THING OF OURS (LA COSA NOSTRA)…The evolution of a young Sicilian who rises to the top of the Mafia in New York and his involvement with the Bookman family.
|