Summary 

Chapter Five 

Over dinner, Kitty tells Mark she received a job offer at one of the refugee camps in Famagusta. They are overcrowded and need to be run efficiently. Kitty confesses that she is not interested, in part because of the complicated politics of the camps, and in part because she is not comfortable around Jewish people. Mark knows that a war is brewing in Palestine and his intuition tells him something is happening at the refugee camps in Cyprus, but he can’t put his finger on it.  

Chapter Six 

Mandria, a wealthy Cypriot shipping and taxi magnate, sits in his living room with David, waiting for Ari to clean himself up. Both men know that Ari’s appearance on Cyprus means that a high-level Mossad Aliyah Bet operation is in effect. The British are limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine, and the mission of the Mossad Aliyah Bet organization is to smuggle them there illegally. When the British Navy catches Mossad boats, the refugees are sent to the camps in Cyprus.  

Ari has arrived to set the stage for a massive escape from the camps. David belongs to the secret army of Jewish people in Palestine called the Palmach. He’s familiar with the camps, because months earlier he and others had infiltrated them to set up schools, hospitals, and synagogues. This was carried out under the noses of the British forces, who only passively patrol the camps from outside the walls. The Palmach mission had brought hope to the refugees who had been so close to escaping from Europe to Palestine.  

David runs through the seemingly impossible tasks that will have to be completed to pull off the escape. Though Mandria genuinely wants to help Ari by securing a boat, among other requests, he shares his opinion that escape seems all but impossible, but he pledges his support nevertheless. Sirens sound in the distance, and the three men watch a new convoy of Jewish refugees being led to the Caraolos camp from the window of Mandria’s home. The Cypriot becomes emotional and vows to help however he can before he retires to bed.  

When Ben and David are alone, the men affectionately hug and Ari updates David on the violence that pervades their home—Palestine. David is originally from Jerusalem and met Ari’s sister Jordana at university where they fell in love. David is years younger than Ari and is full of optimism and hope for Palestine beyond British rule. Ari is more of a realist and tempers David’s enthusiasm by pointing out the age of Old Testament miracles is over.   

Chapter Seven 

Sutherland sits in his office and reflects on the fact that he comes from a good family, received an ideal education, and enjoyed a spotless military career. Now he finds himself alone and unhappy and tries to trace the beginning of his problems to an affair he had in Singapore years before. He broke it off because of the demands of his wife and because it would have been a disaster for his family. Now, his wife has run off to Paris with a younger man. Their marriage was primarily one of convenience, but Sutherland is troubled by the thought of going into retirement alone.   

What Sutherland really struggles with are the haunting memories of what he saw in the concentration camps and then reliving them during his testimony at Nuremberg. Shortly after testifying, he was called to the office of General Sir Clarence Trevor-Browne who asks him to oversee the detention camps in Cyprus. The camps are full of Jewish people who the Palestinian Arabs do not want flooding into Palestine. They will be detained at the camps until the Palestinian mandate is decided. Sutherland suspects he has been chosen for the post in Cyprus because of his Jewish background. His mother, Deborah, was a Jewish actress who converted to the Church of England to marry Sutherland’s father.  

Analysis

Having grown up in Indiana, Kitty is removed from the history of the Jewish people in countries other than America. She says no to a position at detainment camps full of Jewish people in Cyprus because she holds prejudices and thinks she will be uncomfortable around them. This tendency of Kitty to paint Jewish people as “others” is illustrative of the American point of view after the war. Americans who did not witness the concentration camps only know that Jewish people have a history of being discriminated against. Mark has to explain to her that a war is about to break out in Palestine in an effort to resurrect the Israeli nation that has not existed for thousands of years, and he thinks the Jewish people will achieve their goal. The influence of America in the world is making it harder for countries to retain their power over others. Kitty’s flat refusal of the position at the camps is ironic, considering the role she will play in the coming war that Mark describes.  

Ari and David’s mission is dangerous and one that is seemingly doomed to fail. Mossad Aliyah Bet is organized and run by young people, and they are challenging the mighty British empire. However, Mossad is powered by an ancient pursuit of freedom and dignity. They are trying to thwart an unjust regime that has taken control of their homeland. In collaboration with Mossad, the Palmach, the ranks of which are also full of determined youth, ensure that even while they are in internment camps, the detainees waiting to escape to Palestine have some semblance of normalcy. The Palmach sets up schools, synagogues, and sanitary facilities, unwilling to allow their fellow Jewish people to continue living in unfit conditions after surviving the barbarism of the concentration camps. The first glimpse of Ari’s personality comes when Mandria zealously pledges his support of staging the escape from Cyprus. Ari sharply accuses Mandria of only being involved for the money he will make. He does not trust that anyone without roots in Palestine can understand the urgency of the mission. But what Ari does not see is that the actions of the Mossad and the Palmach are an inspiration to the people of Cyprus and elsewhere. The Jewish people who seek to establish a homeland in Palestine are upending the status quo and challenging the colonial history of Europe and Asia. The Jewish people of Palestine have lived in a constant state of unrest, bombings, and shootings for a generation. Now, Ari and David are preparing for the war to which Mark alluded. They will not allow a new generation of young people to grow up on land that is not secure, as they have. However, the two men have different views on how this goal will be accomplished. David is hardly naïve to the plight of his people, but he is sentimental and inspired by biblical stories of the past featuring miracles. Ari, on the other hand, knows that there will be no miracles and that this war for freedom will be a long and bloody conflict.  

Sutherland is haunted by what he has been expected to do in the name of family propriety and his dedication to the military. In his past, he gave up a woman he loved deeply to protect his family name. Now, he reluctantly commands the camps in Cyprus that are full of concentration camp survivors. Sutherland and his superior Trevor-Browne are not typical rank-and-file British soldiers in that they have Jewish sympathies. Most British soldiers support Palestinian Arabs, perhaps only because this is what is expected of them. The British support of the Arab people is rooted in the British control of many Arab countries and the bountiful Arab oil fields. Though Trevor-Browne’s instincts are to protect the Jewish people, these instincts are restrained by his military rank. He insists that orders be followed when he places a disgusted Sutherland in charge of the camps. Sutherland is troubled in particular by the broken promises made to the Jewish people by the British. He feels an aching guilt about these promises because they remind him of his own broken promise to his Jewish mother. After denying her heritage her whole life, Deborah Sutherland asks her son to bury her with her Jewish family. Sutherland assures his mother he will do so but breaks his promise because of the questions it will raise among his family members. His need to assuage this guilt will eventually bring Sutherland into the center of the Jewish quest to establish a Jewish nation state.