Stalemate

by Icchokas Meras

  I asked them not to be angry. I had to do it. And they quieted, said nothing, and left me at the end of the column.

  We are already at the gates.

  My heart beats irregularly.

  Schoger is standing there.

  I’m cold.

  It seems to me that his eyes are as sharp as needles, that they penetrate my jacket and pierce the flowers. I can’t stand it, and raise my hand to my breast, protecting the flowers.

  “Well, Mr. Capablanca?”

  That’s what Schoger asks as he searches me.

  He tears open my coat and pulls my shirt out from under my belt, and the flowers fall to the ground.

  “Oh! Oh ho ho!” Schoger is surprised. “So many? Why so many?”

  I say nothing.

  “For the first offense, five will be enough,” Schoger says to the Master of the Whip.

  He kicks the flowers through the gates of the ghetto.

  And he says to me, “You understand…. You are my partner, and so on. But a rule is a rule. I don’t have the right…I can’t do anything.”

  He points me out to the guards with his finger.

  “Ah? You check him each day? Of course, of course. A rule is a rule; we are all powerless.”

  The Master of the Whip is Yashka Feler.

  He’s tall, with a red triple-chinned neck and tiny eyes floating in a face of fat. Schoger fattened that man well, and his arms are as thick as logs.

  Yashka Feler pushes the bench toward me. I lie down and say to him, “Faster.”

  He does not understand. He stares at me with his bulging tiny rat’s eyes.

  “Faster!” I say.

  How is he to know what I am thinking, that Master of the Whip? He’s used to beating others so the Germans don’t beat him. How is he to know?

  And I’m in a real hurry. I’m afraid Esther might see me. She might walk past and see me; Janek might see me and tell her; her parents might end up near the gates near which I lie as the Master counts out the five lashes.

  “Faster,” I hurry the Master.

  He works sincerely.

  He’s too self-satisfied and believes that the whip is a glorious thing.

  That’s not true!

  What is that whip? Plaited leather wrapped around a metal rod.

  Well, what is that whip? A glorious thing, just think.

  Leather and metal.

  * * *

  —

  We come home from work.

  My heart pounds.

  The day before yesterday they took away my flowers. Yesterday, too. Will they today?

  Today I march at the front of the column. The men want to see if I might slip by that way. They press forward from the street, and the gates rattle. They want to push me into the ghetto, want me to go on my way with my bouquet of flowers.

  The guard shouts. Schoger shouts too. He’s by the gates again. The men are unhappy. They do not press forward. Today they’re carrying among them two German machine guns, and it’s not clear what will happen.

  “Well?” Schoger addresses me. “You are wiser now, of course.”

  He speaks and strips me to the last stitch.

  “Fifteen!” he shouts, and throws the flowers through the gates of the ghetto.

  But he does not yet let me go.

  “You see,” Schoger says sadly, “today I wanted to play a game or two with you, but you’ve ruined everything. That’s too bad. You won’t be able to sit now, and what kind of game will it be if you stand?”

  “Hey, you!” Schoger calls the Master of the Whip, and his voice is even sadder. “Aim for his legs and back so he’ll be able to sit. Half on his legs and half on his back…. What?…It doesn’t divide evenly? All right, give him fourteen, not fifteen.

  “That’s bad, very bad,” Schoger says to me. “This never happened to Capablanca, you understand…. But a rule…. We are its slaves.”

  * * *

  —

  I lie on the bench. Today the tale’s too long. Fourteen.

  “Faster, faster!” I say to the Master of the Whip.

  He rolls up his sleeves.

  The entire column passes, without incident.

  Perhaps it’s a good thing they grabbed me? Schoger was occupied, and it was easier for the others to pass…. Perhaps it really is a good thing? Until now the men have given me nothing to carry, not even a bullet.

  …nine, ten, eleven.

  “Faster, faster!”

  The column’s already in the ghetto, but they do not disperse; they stand waiting for something.

  …thirteen, fourteen. Everything.

  If you try, it’s not all that difficult to get up.

  Schoger is nowhere to be seen; the guards are on the other side of the gates; the Master of the Whip walks away. What’s it to him? He’s done his job and is at peace until tomorrow.

  But the column, tattered, scattered, waits. I walk and the men walk with me. I stop and they stop. They take me a little farther on, behind a tall building, and surround me on all sides. They pull something from their breasts, from beneath their shirts. They pull carefully, as if they were handling butterflies and did not want to injure their wings.

  Everything sparkles before my eyes. I see the meadow, like a green tablecloth with white and yellow spots.

  “Take it,” they say. “Take it quickly. Do you think we have time to stand around here with you?”

  They give me the flowers, and I gather them into a bouquet. Each gives me only one flower, but they’re so beautiful and fresh. My bouquet is large…. I never could have gathered one like it. Never.

  I look around, but the men are gone.

  I stand alone with a large bouquet of flowers.

  * * *

  —

  I walk home. I wash myself slowly, sprinkle water on the flowers. I put on my good blue shirt. And again I walk to the other side of the ghetto, to the flat stone doorsill.

  Esther’s face is still pale, white, and blends with the camomile.

  We go to our yard.

  I am able to sit, so I sit down on the log while Esther clambers onto her wooden box. She spreads out the bouquet; she’s in the middle, and all around are flowers.

  “It wasn’t me,” I say to her. “It was all the men I work with. Each one brought a single camomile, and you can see how many flowers there are.”

  She is silent and nods her head. As she nods, her ash-colored hair billows like the waters of a flowing stream, like a field of ripened grain.

  Esther selects the largest camomile blossom, holds it in her hands, and looks at me.

  Why does she look so intently without touching the camomile’s petals?

  * * *

  —

  “Are we big already?” Esther asks.

  “Of course,” I say. “Of course.”

  “We’re almost grown-ups already, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “We’re already thirty-three and a half together….”

  “We have many years together, of course. And we can even count them out,” I add softly, balling my left hand into a fist.

  “Does it matter that I’m so pale?”

  I’m angry, but I say to her, “I’ll close my eyes, and you can do whatever you’d like.”

  I pretend to close my eyes, but I squint at her through my eyelashes.

  I see how Esther hunches over the flower she holds in her hand, and how she carefully begins to pluck its petals.

  She plucks the petals and whispers something. I can’t hear what she whispers, but I still know. And she undoubtedly knows that I know.

  Yes, no; yes, no…

  I should hope that it is not no.

  Perhaps rightfully, Esther is afraid. There aren’t many petals, and she plucks them
so slowly.

  Perhaps she…. How is she to know?

  But I’m not afraid.

  She can take not just the largest flower; she can take all the flowers, each flower in turn, and they will all tell her the same thing.

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

  Flowers can’t say anything else.

  Flowers know.

  * * *

  —

  “Isia,” someone calls me softly.

  It’s my father.

  My Abraham Lipman.

  He wouldn’t disturb me without a reason. If he calls, he must need me.

  “Coming,” I say.

  I get up heavily from my log and go, walk on alone, but my eyes remain behind, where I sat. I see Esther. She’s pale. Her head is bowed. But that doesn’t matter. She’s in the middle, and all around are flowers.

  Who said that flowers are forbidden?

  Who can forbid flowers?

  Before the Seventeenth Move

  • 1 •

  Now his voice was sharp and his eyes as piercing as needles. It seemed that they could penetrate clothing, the face, the breast, sink to the very heart.

  He understood when he unnecessarily took the pawn.

  “Do you have a girl?”

  Isaac shuddered. He had already extended his hand to make his move, and it trembled. He had to pull it back.

  “I made a mistake,” Schoger said. “No, not because of the pawn.”

  Isaac was silent.

  “If you don’t know, then I’ll tell you. My conditions were not quite complete. I have to add…. This is what I have to add: What happens to you, happens to your girl. Right?”

  Isaac shuddered again. The chessboard disappeared; the earth slipped from under his feet, and before his eyes was nothingness—black, impenetrable, and incomprehensible.

  Do you have a girl?

  “Your move,” Schoger whispered.

  Do you have a girl? Do you have a girl?

  “Your move,” Schoger whispered.

  Do you have a girl? Do you have a girl?

  “Your move,” Schoger whispered.

  Isaac stretched out his hand and touched the chess piece.

  He felt the planed wooden lines, which were so familiar, but this time they were not the same lines—it was a different piece, not the one he had originally intended to pick up.

  Still not looking at the board, he felt it and understood it all clearly, as he had earlier. It really was a different piece, surrounded on all sides, and it could not be moved under any condition.

  • 2 •

  “I begat a daughter, Basia,” said Abraham Lipman.

  • 3 •

  In the evening, when she came home from work, Basia changed her clothes and went out into the streets. She had a light red blouse with an open neck and a dark skirt, short and narrow. She changed and went out into the streets of the ghetto. Women stared at her in reproach, in anger, or in envy. Some despised and scorned her; others were fascinated by her. People always have different opinions and will always have different opinions. Basia lived as she wanted to live. And who could say whether it was right or not?

  The women of the ghetto were forbidden to paint their lips, but Basia didn’t need lipstick. Her lips were naturally red as blood.

  Basia was twenty years old.

  She walked slowly, her chin held high, carrying her girlish breasts thrust forward proudly. She laced her fingers behind her back, and her open-necked blouse opened even more, and her white skin, which seemed pure and untouched, dazzled everyone. Of course, that really was not the case at all, but Basia’s graceful, shapely legs and haunches swayed easily to the rhythm of her steps, and the yellow star on her breast seemed only an ornamental decoration.

  In the whole world, everywhere, wherever you’d like, there where men and women live, everything happens. Everything. When the twilight of the evening became the darkness of night, Basia could not be seen in the streets. She came home late, perhaps accompanied by someone, but she was happy that another real day had passed. And the next evening, when everyone came home from work she again went out into the streets, showing off her red blouse with the open neck and smiling a slightly mocking smile.

  Those same evenings, from the neighboring house came Ruva, a dark-browed seventeen-year-old boy. He walked easily, one step at a time. Between him and Basia were twenty steps, no more and no less.

  Basia knew that Ruva followed her. At first she found it strange, felt somewhat ill at ease, but then she became accustomed to it. He was young, very young, and it was his business if he liked to follow her. The distance was always the same, twenty steps, no more and no less, and Ruva did not hinder Basia at all. She lived her life as she wanted to live; she wanted each day to be a real day because she had to live all her days, as many as forty years of womanhood, in a single year, perhaps even in half a year, and perhaps in less. And when she occasionally turned around, wanting to see Ruva’s face, she saw only a shaggy head and wide thick eyebrows across his entire forehead, without a break above his nose. It was all the same to her that Ruva walked with his head bowed and his eyes lowered. Because later, when the twilight of evening became the darkness of night, when Basia no longer walked alone and felt all the more alive, Ruva slowed his steps, dropped back, and disappeared.

  Basia’s eyes were like those of a cat.

  When she came home late, she spotted someone standing near the corner of her house, but whether it was Ruva or someone else, she did not know.

  Ruva also disappeared when Sergeant Hans Rosing came into the ghetto to see Basia, when he pulled her into an alley and passionately tried to seduce her, mixing German, Lithuanian, and Yiddish words.

  Ruva disappeared, but Basia knew that he was right there, at hand, that he heard everything and waited, that all she had to do was shout and he would quickly appear at her side.

  Lately Hans had appeared more often, and his requests had become more and more insolent. He forgot that these were other times, that the ghetto was not the high school in which they had both studied, and that he was not a high school student but a sergeant serving on Alfred Rosenberg’s staff.

  And today, too, they both went out to walk on their own streets, think their own thoughts, live their own lives, Basia and Ruva. They already walked along the fourth street, the distance between them was twenty steps, no more and no less, and the twilight of evening had already thickened into the transparent darkness of a summer night.

  Basia hurried her steps. She was expected, and it was now time.

  “Wait!”

  She heard Ruva’s voice and stopped.

  She very rarely heard his voice, and she was surprised.

  “Basia,” he said, “Hans is coming. Would you like to hide? He’s looking for you, as you already know.”

  “Hans?” she asked. “I don’t want to hide at all: I am always happy to see him. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “All right. As you wish,” Ruva replied.

  He immediately disappeared.

  She turned around, did not see him, and felt as if she had just spoken with a person who did not exist.

  She saw the brown uniform and the red band on the sleeve—Sergeant Hans Rosing.

  He ran up, grabbed her by the arms, and pulled her into the alley. He breathed heavily, thickly, could not catch his breath, and fondled her round cheeks with his eyes.

  “You’re in the street again,” he said, grinding his teeth.

  “I’m in the street again,” she replied.

  “Do you do this every day?” he asked. He asked quite stupidly because he knew what she would say.

  “Every day.”

  “I asked you. I asked you so many times.” He bowed his head, and his red neck, covered with fine short hairs, strained like that of a bull prepared to attack.

  He g
rasped her left hand.

  Only then did she feel that her right hand was pressed into his fist, and she pulled both her hands free.

  “Let go,” she said quietly so Ruva would not hear.

  “All right, all that’s nothing,” he said. “That’s not why I’ve come. I’m not condemning you and will never again bring it up. You have to understand that it’s hard for me. You do this…each day…every day. And I don’t have the right to touch your hand.”

  Basia smiled her usual mocking smile and looked him straight in the eye. She loved to smile like that and stare into his dilated pupils, in which damp reflections glittered.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Hans said angrily. “When you look at me like that, I could kill you! Listen carefully to what I’ve come to say.”

  “All right—I’m listening. And I won’t look at you.”

  She lowered her eyes, looked at her feet, and saw beneath them the street’s uneven, angular, barely worn stones.

  They’ve lain like that next to each other for a long time, hard, hard as they are, hard as rock. And they will lie like that for a long, long time, decades, and maybe even hundreds of years. Their lives are as long as time, as life itself. They are walked on, scarred by the hooves of horses. And still they lie like that, pressed against one another, immovable, hard as rock. And only a man, a stone crusher, only a man with muscles of steel and a large sledgehammer, could crack them, split them, but never crumble them, just crack them, and those new halves, already split, again will lie pressed against one another and live as long as life itself; and be hard as rock.

  Basia thought about rocks. Why about them? Because they were beneath her feet? She didn’t know why she thought about rocks, and she didn’t care.

  Hans spoke, gesturing with his hands. He spoke for a long time. But Basia caught only fragments, and it was all the same to her. She didn’t care what he said or how she answered. She could respond directly to that same question, yes or no, without thinking about it at all.