Stalemate

by Icchokas Meras

  She heard fragments: “My father…he’s agreed; he doesn’t argue anymore…. We’ve made an agreement with our landlady …she’ll hide you in the small room. It’s bricked up; it has two exits…. A mad dog wouldn’t find you…. I’ll come to you each evening…. The radio will play whatever you like. I’ll burn your yellow stars; you’ll forget they ever existed…. My father’s worked it out…. Your papers will be real, with all the proper seals…. In a month I’ll be sent to Italy…. We’ll live in Rome, and afterward in Venice…. You won’t have to hide in Italy…. You’ll forget everything….

  “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

  “Good,” Basia replied. “All right.”

  “You’ll be an Italian…. Your passport will be Italian…. We’ll pick out a nice Italian name for you…. You won’t have to hide in Rome, and we’ll get married.”

  “All right,” Basia said.

  He grasped both her hands and pressed them with his hot fingers, but she didn’t feel it because she was thinking about the stones.

  “I knew you’d agree,” Hans said. “I didn’t doubt it at all. Today I still have to take care of your new room. I can’t today, but tomorrow night I’ll come and take you out of the ghetto. Listen, do you hear me?”

  “I hear.”

  “Basia…”

  Now she felt that her hands were in his, and she pulled them away. She raised her head and laughed, and after that, her mocking smile on her lips, she looked him straight in the eyes. She loved to smile like that and stare at his dilated pupils, in which damp reflections glittered.

  She looked at Hans Rosing with a sharp glance. His brown uniform was straight, clean, ironed to the last seam. From his shoes, high and gleaming, tapping as he walked down the beautifully echoing sidewalk, to his tilted hat, perched in its place, not one millimeter higher or lower, the brown uniform hung so elegantly on Hans’s body that it seemed to have become a part of him, a sergeant on Rosenberg’s staff. He should have been given a podium. He needed a podium. So Rosenberg’s staff sergeant Hans Rosing could mount it, his new boots creaking as he climbed the stairs. So he could turn with a dignified air to the people gathered there, raise the arm with the red band, and shout, once again shout: “Ladies and gentlemen! Friends! Do you know what Jews are? Jews are our greatest enemies! Ladies and gentlemen! Friends!”

  She laughed again and rested her cat eyes against his dilated pupils.

  “Basia,” he said. “Basia, don’t look at me like that. When you look at me like that….”

  “I’m happy, Hans,” she said. “You know, Hans, I’m satisfied and very happy.”

  “Of course—”

  “Wait, Hans,” she said. “Do you know why I’m happy? I’m very satisfied and very happy that you are not the first man I’ve touched. Though that might have been, right? And you will never be a man that I could touch. Do you understand, Hans?”

  Hans Rosing, the sergeant, dipped his head and struck Basia across the face.

  “Whore!” he shouted. “Jew-spawn! You—you—dare…!” he shouted, and struck her again, with his other hand.

  “Get out! Get out of here!” Basia haughtily raised her head.

  She sensed that someone else, a third person, was standing nearby.

  “You whore! You, yourself, know that you’re a whore!” Hans Rosing snorted, raising his hand to hit Basia again.

  “Get out! Get out of here!” Ruva dashed forward. “You heard what she said!”

  “Are you still here? Who are you? Does she sleep with you? Yes? This beauty with cat eyes…. Yes?”

  Ruva hunched his shoulders, raised his fists, and walked toward Hans. He walked toward him and spoke softly, clearly, so Hans would understand: “Get out of here, Hans Rosing. And don’t fondle your holster, Hans Rosing. I’ll whistle for my friends, and we’ll pound you to a pulp, Sergeant.”

  Hans pulled his hand away from the holster and walked backward out of the alley. When he reached the sidewalk, he began to run. He ran as fast as he could to the large gates of the ghetto, and afterward, outside, he slowly sauntered off.

  Ruva also wanted to leave. They were too close to one another. He knew what his distance had to be—twenty steps, no more and no less.

  “Wait,” Basia said, and took him by the hand.

  His hand was still curled into a fist, and Basia was surprised that he, such a young, such a very young boy, only seventeen years old, had such a large, rough, hard fist.

  “You work with the others, right?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “I work with the others.”

  “What do you do?” she asked. “Are you an artisan?”

  “No,” he answered. “I crush stones.”

  Now she understood why his face was gray—stone dust had eaten into his skin. With both hands she caressed the large, rough, hard fist and stared at the ground beneath her feet, there where the stones were pressed against one another, stone to stone, as hard as rock. She remembered that just recently, not at all long ago, she had been thinking about stones and about the hands that cracked those stones. She thought it strange that Ruva, who was so young, cracked them and that those stones, even when cracked, would live for centuries, for a long time, as long as life itself, and that Ruva, who cracked those stones, might be grabbed tomorrow or even today, that his hands would be tied behind his back, that he would be thrown into a black truck and driven away to Paneriai. He, that seventeen-year-old, who did not yet know what a woman was and had never felt her caress.

  “Ruva,” she said. “Let’s go. Do you want to go with me?”

  He looked surprised, and his thick eyebrows rose higher on his forehead.

  “I always go with you,” he answered.

  “No.” Basia laughed. “I’m not going anywhere else tonight. I won’t go where I had to go tonight. Do you understand?”

  He was silent.

  She led Ruva by the hand. She walked first, and he, just barely behind. He did not see the street, did not know where he was going. He looked at her, and he thought that this was the first time he had seen Basia’s legs up close, moving elastically with each step, her neck, long and hot, her cat eyes, which glittered so strangely, and her deep red lips. She constantly glanced back at him, and he thought that it would be a good thing to buy her some sort of valuable, sparkling, twinkling gift and pin it to her breast in place of the usual ornament, in place of that large yellow star.

  “Let’s hurry,” Basia said. “Someone might see us.”

  “Let them see,” he replied. “What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m not afraid,” Basia laughed. “Why should I be afraid? Perhaps you don’t want to go with me? I’m already old, and you’re still so young.”

  “You’re twenty years old,” he replied.

  “No, no! I’m already thirty, and maybe even thirty-five. You didn’t know that I was so old?”

  “You’re still only twenty. It doesn’t matter. You’re still twenty.”

  She laughed again and blinked her cat eyes.

  “Do you like me?” she asked.

  “Yes. Very much,” Ruva answered.

  “We’re not far now,” Basia said. “Do you know this house?”

  “No.”

  “There, below, is a small corner. No one but me has ever been there. I sit there alone sometimes. When I want to be alone, I come here.”

  They walked down the crooked stairs and pushed open the creaking door.

  “Don’t fall down,” Basia said, “and don’t let go of my hand.”

  Ruva was silent.

  “There, in the corner, near the window, see? There, below, is a bench. My bench. Come, sit down.”

  They sat down next to each other and sat for a long time in silence.

  “Do you like to sit here?” she asked at last.

  “Very much.”
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br />   “I mean it—no one else has ever been here.”

  “I know,” he answered. “Do you think that I don’t know?”

  “You see?” she said. “So why are you sitting there like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you love me, Ruva?”

  “I love you.”

  “Touch me. Why don’t you touch me?”

  She pressed against him, and he clumsily embraced her shoulders. He felt her hot neck and was afraid to move. He carefully touched the yellow star, the ornament, and wanted to rip it off, so in its place he could pin the gift he did not have.

  She turned toward him, firmly embraced Ruva’s neck, and kissed his lips. He tasted the sweetness of her mouth and looked into her eyes, into her cat eyes.

  “Hold me tighter,” she said.

  “I don’t want to,” he replied, and drew back his arm.

  “Don’t you love me?”

  “I love you.”

  “Then why do you—?”

  “This isn’t necessary,” he answered quickly.

  “It isn’t necessary!” she cried out.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “But I can’t give you anything else. I don’t have anything else.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It still isn’t necessary.”

  Then she grasped her head with both hands, leaned over onto her knees, and began to weep.

  He sat beside her, embracing her trembling shoulders. He caressed Basia’s hair and did not try to calm her. He did not at all want to calm her.

  He was silent and only occasionally, quietly, whispered the same words: “Don’t cry, Basia. You don’t have to cry. You never have to cry.”

  The Seventeenth Move

  • 1 •

  “Faster, faster,” Schoger repeated several times, but Isaac did not budge.

  His hand moved by itself away from the piece he could not touch. Isaac pushed it back, but the hand again pulled away.

  Schoger smiled.

  “What you moved, goes,” he said.

  That’s right, Isaac thought, and gave away the piece he could not touch.

  If I make another mistake like that, I really will have to concede. I’ll stay alive because of an error. It’s funny….

  Schoger was satisfied and smiled.

  “Are you sorry?” he asked. “Don’t be. Today everything is as it should be. You, yourself, are to blame for having taught me to play chess so well. The time will come when I’ll win. That day is today. There’s nothing you can do.”

  I always think about reaching a stalemate…. I’m trying too early for a stalemate. I first have to try to win, and only then think about a stalemate. Today, too, I have to try to win, then…. I have to forget everything…. The world does not exist; these people do not exist. In front of me are only the chessboard, the chess pieces, and Schoger. And today, too, I have to try to win….

  • 2 •

  We are again coming home from work. The road is long, and it’s hard to walk.

  In the morning it’s completely different. The road’s the same, but it’s much easier to walk.

  Those in the first group try to slow their steps. They succeed often but not always. The guards hurry home and want us to hurry too. They don’t know that it’s much easier in the morning than it is at night.

  When we come home like this in the evening from work, we have to think, constantly think. Not about work, not about food, not about our brothers and sisters, but about something, something completely different. Then we forget the road, our exhaustion, and all the other unpleasant things of the world.

  I think about Esther and Janek.

  * * *

  —

  Today Rudi is bothering me. His name’s something else, but everyone calls him Rudi. He’s all red. His hair is like fire, his face like an ember, and his ears stick out and let the light through. He’s as big as a tree, two heads taller than I am. He walks in front of me and constantly glances back and looks me over from head to foot. We walk on. After a while he again turns to me and stares.

  Rudi only rarely talks to me and only occasionally jokes. He’s really funny, though. When he opens his mouth, purses his lips, puts his hands behind his protruding ears, and begins to bark, my stomach feels as if it will burst as I laugh. He’s a real dog.

  I just can’t understand what he stares at all the time.

  “Don’t bother me, Rudi,” I say to him soundlessly, moving only my lips.

  He understands, makes a wry, doglike face, and turns away.

  * * *

  —

  “Don’t be angry,” Janek said to me.

  That was yesterday.

  “Don’t be angry if I’m disturbing you and Esther. I know that you want to sit alone together in your yard. I arrive, straddle the log, and disturb you.”

  “You’re imagining it,” I said to Janek, “and it’s not at all necessary.”

  “I’m not imagining it. But ever since we buried Meika in the ghetto, I have been unable to find him in anyone else. There are lots of good men here, and you, too, are now my friend. But don’t be angry because even you cannot take Meika’s place. I miss him all the time. Esther always reminds me of Meika. They were quite alike, and the only difference is that she’s a girl and he was a man. I don’t see Esther all day long, and that’s why in the evenings I sit here straddling this log, look at her, and remember Meika.”

  “You’re not disturbing us at all. You just imagine it.”

  “I know what I’m talking about. I ask only that you not be angry. Because I will come nonetheless.”

  He didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand, but it is better for us that Janek sits with us. Then we are not at all uncomfortable with each other and can talk about whatever we like, we can wait for Janek to add his opinion.

  I didn’t know how to convince Janek.

  But could he be convinced even with difficulty, if he’d already hammered that into his head?

  “If Meika were here,” Janek said, “he would think of something. We wouldn’t sit here with folded hands staring at each other. We’d know what to do.”

  I was hurt.

  “Don’t be angry,” Janek said. “You’re a fine fellow and a good friend, but I still miss Meika.”

  * * *

  —

  I long for the day when Janek embraces me and whispers in my ear, “You’re just like Meika.”

  What would I do if that really happened?

  Tonight I’ll tell him about my friend Chaim. I’ll tell him that I, too, could do what Chaim did. Of course, I’ll lie. But Janek might believe me, and then…I don’t want to lie, but it’s hard for Janek because he can’t find Meika.

  Tonight I’ll definitely tell him about Chaim.

  Chaim is two years older than I am. He’s short and broad-shouldered, with a nose like an eagle’s beak. When I think about him, he stands before my eyes as if he were alive.

  Chaim can’t live peacefully. He has to be the first in everything: to laugh and to fight. He hammered it into his head that he had to blow up the Gestapo building. He was told that everything had to be planned out, prepared and carried out together, at the right moment. But Chaim laughed.

  “Wait?” he asked. “Thanks. I’m really grateful to you all. I do nothing but wait. I’ve been waiting all my life. I’m tired of waiting.”

  Once, when we worked in the warehouses outside the city, a train loaded with explosives arrived. Chaim slunk near the last car, bit off the seal, and crawled inside. He came out all swollen, embracing bricks of dynamite beneath his clothes. He thought no one could see him, and he wanted to replace the seal.

  But Chaim was seen, and the Germans began to surround him. He saw the Germans too late and began to run through the fields. He jumped across the tracks, across
the coal mounds, and then began to flee across the open field.

  Then the Germans began to shoot and hit him.

  They did not kill Chaim.

  He was taken alive and driven to the prison hospital. Schoger went to see Chaim every day. The best doctors tried to ensure that Chaim would get better, and he really was improving, and Schoger each day stroked his sweat-matted hair and asked to know only one thing.

  “Tell me, Chaim, where were you taking those explosives?”

  Chaim was silent.

  Schoger was a patient man and came every day.

  “Tell me, Chaim, where you were bringing them, and I’ll let you go back to the ghetto.”

  One day Chaim couldn’t stand it any longer and told him.

  “I was bringing them to you,” he said. “Are you so stupid that you can’t understand? If I went back to the ghetto, I’d bring them again. And again, for you. I want to blow you all up, Schoger…. The day will come when we knock down the ghetto’s fences and hang you between the fence posts on a cross beam.”

  We heard everything from a Lithuanian nurse. She had been in the ghetto hospital that day.

  That’s right. Tonight I’ll definitely tell Janek about Chaim. I’ll lie and say that I, too, could do what he did. Janek will have to believe me, because it’s hard for him; he has not yet been able to find his friend Meika.

  I want Janek to find his friend.

  * * *

  —

  Rudi is bothering me again. He constantly turns back and looks me over from head to foot. What he needs, that Rudi, I cannot understand. He used to talk with me only rarely, very rarely. Now he speaks to me often. Since the time we carried flowers into the ghetto. What does he want?

  I think about Esther.

  As soon as I get home, I’ll wash immediately, pull on my good blue shirt, and run to the large flat stone doorsill. When I sit on that doorsill I can hear everything, whatever goes on in the house, the smallest sound. The door will squeak, the old wooden stairs will creak, footsteps will rustle….