by Yishai Sarid
“Hold on,” said the director. “Say that again.” He placed his cigarette in the corner of his mouth and started filming me. I felt like an actor. I assumed it was for a good cause, for the sake of memory, and that was the mission you’d tasked me with. I recited the words again while the tape was rolling. My eyes caught on his large hands, his belt, his boots, his lips as he said, “Look into the camera” and sent the assistant over to position me. What are you filming here, voices asked from beneath the ground. Why are you reciting the final words of a murdered child to this German?
The director asked if I’d served in the military. I had.
“A combat fighter?” he asked.
“In a tank unit.”
He hummed.
I didn’t like being the subject. My job is to tell the stories of other people. “Were you a soldier?” I asked.
“My biography is irrelevant,” he said.
When we got back in the car the driver played quiet classical music on the radio, a Chopin waltz followed by some Bach.
“As far as you know from all your research,” he said, “do you think Hitler knew about all this?”
I answered an unequivocal yes and quoted some sources I knew by heart. “But he never visited these camps,” the director said.
“They were waste sites,” I explained. “The Fuhrer had no reason to get his hands dirty, smell people burning, especially being a vegetarian and a clean freak.”
“Still, it’s curious that he never wanted to see it,” he insisted. “Why are you being so quiet?” he asked Liza in German.
“Because it’s sad,” she said.
“Sad is the trivial emotional response,” he said. “Look at him, even he isn’t as sad as you.”
She looked at me awkwardly. She took my hand that was near hers surreptitiously and held onto it for a moment. It felt nice and warm.
The driver got mixed up on the way to Sobibor and I gave him directions. I could tell the director was amused, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.
When we got out of the car he asked me to walk ahead toward the camp and got the camera rolling right away.
“Why is he shooting me?” I asked Liza, who was walking beside me. I had a feeling I was being tricked.
She whispered, “We’ve already been here before. This is his plan.”
“When were you here?” I asked.
“Six months ago,” she said. This is where I started to get really confused. “But don’t tell him I told you,” she added urgently. “He wants everything to be spontaneous.”
We walked by the pits the archaeologist had dug, which were now covered, toward the monument, at an even pace, not too quickly, as if he had a rifle at my back.
“Now stop. Tell me about the camp,” he yelled from behind me. I began to recite. I couldn’t say no. This is what I’d been hired to do.
Their hotel in Warsaw was on a quiet street, in an Art Nouveau building that had been beautifully restored after the war. I asked the driver to take me back to my apartment, but Liza suggested I join them for dinner at their hotel and the director agreed. “Of course,” he said. “He should eat with us.”
I was flattered. They went upstairs to change. I had no idea if they were sharing a room or not. I called Ruth. She asked how the tour was going and I said it was bizarre, but that I only had one more day left. I didn’t say anything more. She asked if they’d paid in advance, because our account was empty, and I promised to take care of it. Ido told me about a cake they were baking. He sounded happy, for a change. I kissed him over the phone.
When I hung up, the reception clerk called me over. He said the madam wanted me to know she would be a little late, and suggested I wait at the restaurant bar.
Once again my clothes were wrinkled. After this long and harrowing day I felt out of place at that restaurant, where candles burned on the tables and patrons chatted with quiet ease. I curled up at the corner of the bar and ordered a vodka. My mind was strewn with thorns. I had no money to eat or drink there, but the bartender didn’t ask me to pay right away.
When Liza arrived, wearing makeup and a short black dress, I was already feeling tipsy. The bartender nodded at her respectfully, and she asked for a cocktail and gathered me from the bar. I followed her to the table like a child. Suddenly, I realized this was my farewell to Poland meal, and I didn’t want to spoil it with any negative thoughts. I would just enjoy looking at her and talking to her for as long as she let me.
She said the director had fallen asleep and might join us a little later, unless he ended up sleeping till morning. “Order anything you want,” she said. “It’s on him.”
We laughed. She beamed at me. We drank wine and I almost forgot everything that had taken place that day, that week, the past few years, all throughout history.
She told me about her life. She was born in a village in East Germany the same year the wall fell. She told me about her parents, the years she’d spent studying art and theater in Berlin, how she met the director, and how important it was for her to work on this project, because at her parents’ home the war was still a ghost that was never discussed. She also spoke about Israelis she knew in Berlin. “You’re nothing like them,” she said. “You’re way more gentle.” Her voice was young and bold, and her eyes glittered with wine. I made myself look into them in spite of my fear. Now it was my turn to tell her about myself, but I didn’t want to. “When did you come here last?” I asked.
“Six months ago.” She repeated the same answer she’d given me earlier. “We visited all the places you’d just taken us to.”
“Then why did you come back again?”
“Because he wanted someone like you to guide us,” said Liza. Then she added, “This tour is going to be part of the film.”
Now I was going to cut straight to the bone. No more beating around the bush. “Someone like me. Do you mean someone Jewish?”
She answered in German, her fleshy lips forming the word. “Ja.”
Laughter erupted from my belly, crude, openmouthed. I brayed with laughter. Everyone at the restaurant turned to look at me. The headwaiter came over. I hoped Liza would cry, but she just sat there, tall and stunned. The headwaiter asked assertively that I leave.
“Let go of my hand,” I said when he touched me. I could have destroyed him, but I had to preserve my energy.
Liza quickly took care of the bill and followed me out to the reception area, its lights dimmed for the night. “Will you still come tomorrow?” she asked with trepidation. “I apologize, but I’m sure you can fix this. His intentions are good. You can’t bail on us now; he’ll blame me.”
“I’ll come if you tell me what the film is about,” I said.
“I don’t know. He’s got the whole thing in his head,” she said. But when I turned to leave she called me back and said, “I’ll send you all his notes; everything he told me.” She offered her cheek for a kiss goodbye, but I wanted all of her. I wasn’t about to make do with a cheek. “See you tomorrow,” she mumbled. “You’ll come tomorrow, won’t you?”
The old lady waited for me on our floor. She was demanding something I couldn’t understand. Finally, she grabbed the ends of the coat and pulled. “Give back, give back.”
“Why?” I asked. “What did I do? It’s a good, warm coat.”
She kept pulling until finally I took it off and handed it over. She grabbed her prey and fled into her apartment.
I knocked on her door. Perhaps she was angered by my ingratitude. I wanted to invite her over for some tea in spite of the late hour, but it would never happen.
I read the director’s notes Liza had sent me on my phone. She kept her promise right away, apologizing formally for the misunderstanding and asking me to confirm I would be there tomorrow. I envisioned her sitting in bed in a short nightgown, the toenails at the ends of her long legs neatly clipped, the two of them conspiring against me.
I opened the file. Half-sentences scattered over two pages. I can only remember some
of them. The unity of fate, a shared tragedy, Lenny von Riefenstahl shooting the Fuhrer’s visit to Auschwitz, Süss enlisting into the Israeli military, nature film on the way to Crematoriums 3 and 4, the woods, regretting Jesus, Heidegger, work tools, a banker loading corpses into the crematorium, home movies, archive, sexual lust, nudity, hair, we need a Jew! One who looks like a Jew!
I stayed dressed. I didn’t shower. I waited till morning. I arrived at the agreed-upon time outside the hotel and waited for them with the driver. It was springtime. We drove to Treblinka. On the way, I gave them the facts, and the director asked nothing. The assistant was sitting beside me, not touching me.
When we arrived I led them down the usual path, but the director asked that we veer off-site and go into the woods, she and I, holding hands, so he could film us from behind.
The assistant obeyed right away, walking over to me. I stood before the director and asked what this was for.
“It’s for memory,” he said. “You do what I ask, just like you hit on her at the hotel last night, do the same thing now.”
“What has this got to do with the Holocaust?” I asked.
He laughed. “Oh, it’s got plenty to do with it. If you haven’t understood that yet, you haven’t understood anything. Now, please, take her hand.”
That’s when I gave the first blow, hard, right in his face, a bone cracked, blood came gushing out of his nose, then another one, she screamed, no stopping, hard, full force. It’s what I had to do.
I haven’t heard from you since, dear Chairman. You’ve broken all contact with me. I mustn’t complain. I have betrayed the trust you’ve put in me. Worse—I have defiled the holy memory. I imagine you’ve pushed these pages aside with revulsion long ago. They are overflowing with perversion and self-hatred and emotional vomit. What does any of this turmoil have to do with you? You look into the distance beyond your window, coolly, never letting the winds of time rattle you, keeping guard over remains of memory locked in glass cases. But know this, sir—and with this I will stop pestering you—there is a monster out there. It is alive and waiting for its time to strike again. Look at me. It has bit into my flesh, and I haven’t stopped bleeding ever since.
About the Author
Yishai Sarid was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1965. He is the son of senior politician and journalist Yossi Sarid. Between 1974 and 1977, he lived with his family in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona, near the Lebanon border. Sarid was recruited to the Israeli army at 1983 and served for five years. During his service, he finished the IDF’s officer school training and served as an intelligence officer. He studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1994 to 1997, he worked for the government as an assistant district attorney in Tel Aviv, prosecuting criminal cases. Sarid has a Public Administration Master’s Degree (MPA) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1999). Nowadays he is an active lawyer and arbitrator, practicing mainly civil and administrative law. His law office is located in Tel Aviv. Alongside his legal career, Sarid writes literature, and so far he has published five novels. Sarid is married to Dr. Racheli Sion-Sarid, a critical care pediatrician, and they have three children.
About the Translator
Yardenne Greenspan is a writer and Hebrew translator. She has an MFA from Columbia University and is a regular blogger for Ploughshares. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Haaretz, Guernica, Literary Hub, Blunderbuss, Apogee, The Massachusetts Review, Asymptote, and Words Without Borders, among other publications.
Restless Books is an independent, nonprofit publisher devoted to championing essential voices from around the world whose stories speak to us across linguistic and cultural borders. We seek extraordinary international literature for adults and young readers that feeds our restlessness: our hunger for new perspectives, passion for other cultures and languages, and eagerness to explore beyond the confines of the familiar.
Through cultural programming, we aim to celebrate immigrant writing and bring literature to underserved communities. We believe that immigrant stories are a vital component of our cultural consciousness; they help to ensure awareness of our communities, build empathy for our neighbors, and strengthen our democracy.
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Copyright © 2017 Yishai Sarid
Translation copyright © 2020 Yardenne Greenspan
First published as Mifletzet Ha-Zikaron
by Am Oved, Tel Aviv, 2017
Poem by Dan Pagis translated by Stephen Mitchell, 1989
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without the prior written permission of the publisher.
First Restless Books hardcover edition September 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 9781632062710
eISBN: 9781632062727
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019957017
Cover design by Na Kim
Typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London
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