Stalemate

by Icchokas Meras

  We will walk into our yard.

  There, in the yard, into the large wooden box, we bring earth and water it. Esther takes a handful of the camomile flowers and sticks them into the ground. And in the box blossoms a beautiful flower with white heads and yellow center spots. Can it be that Esther believes that picked camomile will take root in that earth? I don’t say anything to her, even though I know that by tomorrow all those flowers will have withered.

  I can’t contradict Esther if she wants to grow a flower garden.

  Even then, as the camomile withers, she could still pluck the petals of its blossoms. Yes, no; yes, no; yes.

  All the flowers have to say that word.

  It can be no other way.

  * * *

  —

  Rudi stares at me.

  Now he doesn’t bother me. We’re in the ghetto; we’ve just walked through the gates. I’ll soon run home to wash up, pull on my blue shirt, hurry to the stone doorsill.

  “Isia…” Rudi calls me softly and grabs me roughly by the arm. “Let’s go,” he says.

  He speaks mysteriously, and I don’t understand what sort of important business Rudi could have with me. He’s much older than I am, and we are not at all close friends.

  We stop behind the same building where the men gave me the flowers—each a single flower. Rudi leans against the wall, stretches out his long arm, and with his finger plays with the clasp of my jacket.

  I wait.

  “I talked to your father, and now I’ll talk to you.”

  That’s what Rudi says to me, and because he’s so serious, I begin to understand what he’s going to say next.

  “Do you know that there’s a partisan organization here in the ghetto?”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know, Isia, what partisans need?”

  “I don’t know…. Weapons, probably.”

  “Weapons also. But first of all, fighters.”

  My heart flutters, and the tips of my fingers grow numb. I have been waiting for a long time for someone to talk to me like this, but I didn’t know it would be Rudi.

  “Listen, Rudi,” I say to him after taking a deep breath. “Did you really think that I didn’t understand such an obvious, simple thing?”

  I say nothing more and wait to see what will happen next.

  Rudi barely, barely smiles.

  That Rudi is really very funny. When he smiles like that, he needs only whiskers and he would look exactly like a cat. He’d only have to open his mouth and meow.

  “I thought you’d understand everything,” Rudi says. Then he adds: “We are all divided up into threes. I have to believe that there will be no fewer with you.”

  “Yes…. Yes! There are three of us. Janek, Esther, and I.”

  “You see how everything works out!” Rudi says happily. “One of you will be an elder, a leader, so to speak. Think about it. Who will be the leader?”

  I think. Perhaps I think too long, because Rudi, who is standing, leaning against the wall with his leg cocked, like a rooster, manages to change the leg he’s lifted, once, and then once again.

  I understand that it’s not allowed to think too long, so I say, “Janek will be the leader. All right?”

  “All right.”

  “So you know Janek?”

  “I know him. All right.”

  * * *

  —

  Rudi walks me home.

  “Do you know where I live?” he asks.

  “I know.”

  “All three of you come over in half an hour. We’ll begin your training.”

  Rudi walks away.

  I run to my door. Today I have to hurry even more. I’ll just wash up, pull on my good blue shirt, and run to the stone doorsill. I’ll grab Esther by the hand; we’ll call Janek. I’ll tell them about it, and they’ll shiver with happiness. Oh, how they’ll shiver!

  I won’t tell Janek about Chaim.

  Why bother? He’s not me.

  I don’t know how to lie, and Janek won’t believe me.

  Would I have acted the way Chaim did?

  I don’t know….

  I won’t tell him. Why bother?

  We’re a trio now.

  A trio!

  * * *

  —

  “Isia…Isia!” I hear a voice I don’t expect to hear.

  “Esther? Buzia? Where’d you come from?”

  We are in the corridor near the stairs.

  Esther is waiting for me.

  There isn’t much light, but I can see that her eyes are red. She leans against me and rests her head on my chest. Her ash-colored hair tickles my chin, but I’m afraid to move.

  Esther weeps and says softly, “Isia…Janek’s gone. Today they took away a lot of people, and they took Janek.”

  I freeze, and the cold, dark stairs flutter before my eyes.

  I shake Esther by the shoulders.

  I bite my lip so hard that I draw blood.

  No!

  That can’t be!

  They didn’t take Janek away….

  They could have taken me; they could have taken Esther; but not Janek! Janek couldn’t be taken away because he’s Janek. He was looking for Meika. He said that the city was a ghetto too, but without a fence. He….

  “They took him away. Janek’s gone. I’ve been standing here for a long time waiting for you.”

  “Don’t cry, Esther. They couldn’t have taken Janek.”

  That’s what I say to her, though I begin to understand that I’m talking nonsense, that they really have taken Janek away, and that I have nothing now to use to comfort her or myself.

  “You’ll see—we’ll find Janek.”

  That’s what I said later to her and to myself.

  “Really? We’ll look for him?”

  “We’ll look for him. Could it be any other way? Janek sewed on the yellow patches…. He could have stayed on the other side of the fence, but he came here to look for his friend. We can’t sit and wait….”

  We have to look for Janek.

  “We’ll go together. All right, Isia?”

  “Yes, together.”

  “We’ll walk a hundred kilometers.”

  “We will.”

  “And we’ll find him—right, Isia?”

  “We’ll find him. We have to find him.”

  “Isia…if…if they took them to Paneriai?”

  “No—Janek can’t be taken to Paneriai. He’ll run away; the men will throw him off the truck. They won’t let them take Janek to Paneriai. After all, he’s Janek!”

  * * *

  —

  “Why are there only two of you?”

  That’s what Rudi asks. He was waiting for us, and now he asks us.

  We are silent.

  “Where’s the third?” Rudi asks.

  “There are three of us. You only think there are two,” I say to him.

  Rudi blinks his eyes rapidly. His eyelashes are light, and that’s why his eyes always seem so surprised and bewildered.

  “I don’t see Janek,” Rudi says.

  Then Esther can no longer stand it.

  “They took him away today,” she says, her head bowed.

  “It’s too bad they’ve taken him.” And Rudi also bows his head. “But a trio is a trio. You need a third person, and you’ll have to find one more.”

  “No,” I hammer at Rudi. “There are three of us, and you only think there are two. Janek’s with us now, and he’ll be with us later.”

  “You still need a third.” He does not back down. “A trio is a trio….”

  “No!” Esther and I cry out. “There are three of us!”

  I add, “I said that Janek is our leader, and that’s how it’s going to be.”

 
I pierce red Rudi with angry eyes. Now, if I knew how to do it, I would put my hands behind my ears, twist my mouth, purse my lips, and bark like a dog, the way Rudi does. Not humorously, but angrily, so Rudi would get angry.

  Rudi stands thinking for a moment.

  “All right,” he says. “I only thought that there were two of you.”

  * * *

  —

  He takes us into the cellar, deeper. We slip through cracks, wrecked walls, until we come to a small room. A low table stands there, and on the wall hangs a blackboard. Rudi pulls two German machine guns out from somewhere.

  “We’ll begin,” he says slowly. “All of you—Janek, Esther, and Isia—are a fighting unit of three.”

  And I really believe that there are three of us, that Janek is with us.

  “Our goal, as necessity demands, is to defend the ghetto and get as many of our people to the forests as possible. For the time being, each unit has its own post in the ghetto. Listen and remember well—if you hear the signal ‘Beginning,’ take your post immediately. I’ll tell you later where it is. ‘Beginning,’ remember.”

  We listen, and of course, we will remember.

  Esther touches my hand but does not take her eyes off Rudi.

  “You are now a fighting unit of three.”

  That’s what Rudi says to us again. He wants us to remember what we are.

  “You are a fighting unit of three.”

  We will remember.

  Rudi names all of us, and I really believe that we are all here: Janek, Esther, and I.

  After the Seventeenth Move

  • 1 •

  “We can rest now,” Schoger said. “Let’s take a break.”

  The battle at the chessboard stopped for a moment. Isaac remained in his seat while Schoger got up and began to walk around, looking at the ground beneath his feet, his hands clenched behind his back.

  He walked with steps that were too large but were firm and military.

  The people, the many people who had surrounded the chessboard and the players from all sides, pulled back, the circle expanded, and its interior was like that of a sad circus arena in which stood an anonymous, angry magician. You had to look at him, but not for an instant could you tell or guess to which side his gleaming black wand would point. Perhaps a cawing crow would fly from it, perhaps the man would hang in midair, never touching the ground, and perhaps from his open mouth, from his quivering nostrils and ears, fire would spurt, real flames.

  Can I also relax like that? Isaac asked himself. Remember something, think about something…. I probably can’t. I’ll rest later. The game will have to end sometime, night will come, the clock will strike twelve…. I have to forget everything. The world does not exist, these people do not exist. Before me stand only the chessboard and the chess pieces. I have to win so I can force a stalemate….

  Schoger marched around with large, firm military steps.

  “Enough?” he asked later.

  Isaac was silent.

  “Shall we begin?”

  Isaac looked at the approaching Schoger and thought, His boots are rimmed with metal and painfully batter the stones of the street. If it were night, I’d probably see sparks. They’d have to be blown out…. He’s a magician with a sorcerer’s wand, and I want to be an Indian and take his scalp.

  He can’t win….

  He shouldn’t win.

  • 2 •

  “I begat a son, Kasriel,” said Abraham Lipman.

  • 3 •

  It’s now night. It’s dark. I know that winter nights are darker. Or, more likely, autumn nights, when everything all around is black. The roofs are black; the ground is black; the sky is black, flooded with ink. How does a man whose soul is black feel?

  I know how a man whose soul is black feels. He walks through the world with his eyes open, but he does not see himself and he does not see the world. He blends with the world’s dark colors. There are no differences in color. Everything’s the same. That’s why nothing can be distinguished. Not the soul, not the sky, not the black roofs. Good….

  It’s now a summer night. The darkness is as translucent as a blue-gray sheet of glass. But if I want it to be darker, I can squint my eyes. A man’s eye is a wonderful instrument. It can squint; it can open wide; it can close completely. An entire diapason from pianissimo to fortissimo. An entire diapason! Isn’t that enough?

  The moon shines brightly, and there are many stars. The moon tosses from side to side, trying to find a more comfortable position. It’s an eternal game for him: One side wanes; the other side waxes. Toss, and toss in good health, moon, without twitching your wide Asiatic nose.

  The stars above pierce my eyes like needles. They glimmer all so differently: red and green, blue and gold, and perhaps in colors we have never seen.

  I close my eyes. There! It’s all gone. No stars, no moon.

  It’s difficult to argue with me even though I never managed to finish at the university. It’s hard for me to argue with myself, trum-tara-rum!

  I close my eyes, everything disappears, and I can now say there is no such thing as the real world; everything’s an illusion. I see what I want to see. Who said that the night is black, that the moon shines? I say that the night is as white as paper and that the moon does not exist, that it’s a banal, meaningless stain in the sky. And if the black night is a white night, and if the moon is not the moon but a simple, common yellow pancake, then I am not a creature known as a man but a creature known as a superman.

  That’s right—I’m a superman.

  The ghetto is silent; everyone’s asleep; everyone rests, moaning or crying out in their dreams. They know that as tomorrow barely dawns, they’ll have to tramp down the dusty roads to the work camps. They don’t know what the day will be like tomorrow—perhaps they’ll bomb the ghetto or will want to take everyone away to Paneriai. Perhaps they’re moaning; perhaps they’re crying out; perhaps they lie clasping one another, wanting to continue their family lines. I don’t hear them; I don’t see them. They are lumps of gray dust, and I’m a superman and can do whatever I please.

  I walk slowly through the silent sleeping streets of the ghetto. I walk toward the small gates that have sprouted here in this narrow space between these two brick buildings. I’ll knock five times and then a sixth. The guard will open up for me. Then he’ll take me to see Schoger. Schoger wants to see me very much and is impatiently waiting. Like an equal to an equal, he’ll tell me to throw my coat with the yellow patches into the corner and will invite me to join him at the low round table. He’ll pat me amiably on the shoulder and will say, “Sit, Kasriel. Eat. Then we’ll talk, taking our time.”

  On the table will be French Cognac, Czech beer, and Russian vodka. In the other room will be a Polish beauty with a number burned into her thigh so she can never escape—a beauty from the small brick building with the sign: FOR GERMAN OFFICERS ONLY.

  He’ll rub his hands together, and his eyes—gray, marked with sparkling radiants—will glitter like fake, coarsely worked jewels.

  So with a lowered head, I slowly walk the sleeping streets near the small gates of the ghetto. I’m a superman because the black night is white and the moon is a tossing pancake. I—a superman—go now to the gates of the ghetto where I have to knock five times and then a sixth so they’ll open for me.

  It’s difficult to argue with me even though I never managed to finish at the university. Trum-tara-rum!

  I know more than just Nietzsche. I know Schopenhauer and Spinoza, Freud and Christ’s apostles; I’ve read the Holy Book and Karl Marx. Karl Marx said that we have nothing to lose but our chains. That’s right. When you have nothing, you can’t lose anything. I could add to Karl Marx by saying: you could lose your life. But I won’t yet. My friends, my brothers, and my sisters are preparing for an uprising; they’re preparing to be partisans; they’re preparing for so
many things. Each day as they come home from work they bring weapons and bullets into the ghetto. Schoger himself can’t catch them and can’t find their hiding places. I go now to see the impatiently waiting Schoger. I know who brings weapons into the ghetto and where those weapons are hidden.

  For me, a black night is a white night. On such a white night Schoger will gather up all the weapons from their hiding places and will shoot all those who march in lockstep with Christ’s apostles. I don’t care. I won’t see anything, and I won’t hear anything, so none of it will exist. I’ll sit at the low round table drinking Russian vodka, sipping French Cognac, washing my teeth with Czech beer, and fondling the Polish beauty with the numbers burned into her thigh.

  Schoger is a clever man. Ha! He knew whom to choose when he chose me. He read my thoughts as if he were reading an open primer. If he had chosen my father, one of my sisters, or even my young brother, Isaac, he would have seen only the finger stuck below his narrow pointed nose. He could have chopped them into tiny pieces, the way a butcher minces a carcass, and he still would have heard only silence, which even I can call by no other name.

  Schoger is a clever man. He chose me.

  I walk now through the silent sleeping streets of the ghetto, along those same streets on which I walked a week ago. The low round table had already been laden then. Schoger was quite pleasant.

  “Sit, Kasriel. Eat,” he said amiably.

  “I’m not hungry, thank you,” I replied.

  “Sit, Kasriel. Drink.”

  “Thanks, I’m not thirsty.”

  “Don’t be such a fool, Kasriel. Come closer. Put your hand on the table. That’s right, palm down. Now look at me.”

  He took a small brown pistol from his holster.

  “Don’t worry—I won’t shoot,” he said.

  He took the gun by the barrel, lifted it high, and banged the blunt handle against my thumb, on the nail. After that, he again lifted the gun and banged it against the next finger, and then another. He aimed only for my nails. He was so good at his job that he didn’t tear even a tiny flake of skin from my fingers.