A Man Lies Dreaming

by Tidhar, Lavie

  I stared out at the quiet street. Turned back and looked at Virgil. He smiled at me. His teeth were large and square like an ogre’s.

  I gave a tiny nod of assent.

  ‘Start the car, Bernie,’ Virgil said. ‘We haven’t got all night, now, have we.’

  The driver shut my door softly and went back to his seat and started the car up again.

  ‘Work for you,’ I said, ‘work for the United States of America?’

  ‘It’s the greatest country in the whole God damned world,’ Virgil said, complacently.

  * * *

  In another time and place Shomer stands naked in the snow, clutching his bleeding leg. It was all Mischek’s fault, Mischek the dirty little Russian Jew, the commissar of the latrines. He has an in with the Salonician Jews, those hardened gangsters of the camp: three years those bastards are inside and still alive, their blue tattooed numbers like badges of honour, the low numbers that shame all the others, the latecomers. But it wasn’t the Greeks’ fault, those black market traders in bread rations and spoons and gold teeth. It was Mischek’s, or it was Shomer’s own, who was digging in the hard ground, digging when he stumbled and fell and Mischek’s spade came down and an ugly bleeding gash opened in Shomer’s leg, and the overseer barked an order and work was halted, momentarily; and the others, he knew, were grateful for the respite: whether Shomer lived or died he had bought them a few moments’ rest.

  Shomer was clutching his wounded leg and biting his lip to keep from uttering curses and for a moment Yenkl’s figure, always beside him, grew faded, like clouds or ash, as if he weren’t there. And Shomer waited as the overseer studied him, assessing the severity of the wound, assessing this skeletal human shape with its loose skin and sunken eyes, receding hair, receding gums, sores on the feet and lice everywhere else. Assessing him to decide if he is worth conserving, or whether it is cheaper and easier to dispose of him now.

  ‘Go to the infirmary,’ the overseer said, at last.

  So simple, those words! And yet Shomer gets to live another day. Now he stands naked in the snow, for his old clothes are not allowed in the infirmary block, and only his feet are still crammed into the ill-fitting wooden clogs, until the very last moment he keeps them on, and the queue moves, so slowly, one by one they disappear into the lighted door. He shivers and holds his wound, triumphant. The infirmary! It is like Heaven, spoken of in hushed voices, a place of rest and heavenly comfort, like reclining on clouds. And Yenkl is beside him, how has he ever doubted his friend, Yenkl, who says, ‘You call this a wound? When I was a kid, we had wounds.’ And Yenkl is in full flight and the queue shuffles slowly and the snow starts to fall and Shomer hugs his bony naked arms around his hollow chest and shudders and so Yenkl tells him a joke.

  ‘This one time in Poland,’ Yenkl says, ‘the people of the shtetl discovered that a Christian girl had been found murdered nearby. Murdered, Shomer! How afraid they were. Oh what will we do? they said. Oh what will the goyishe Poles think? Surely soon they will come for our blood, oy but we are doomed, surely a pogrom is coming and we will all die!’

  Shomer nods and shuffles forward, staring at the square of light, the pearly gates into the infirmary of Heaven.

  ‘The Jews,’ says Yenkl, ‘have gathered as is their wont in the shtetl’s main synagogue, with much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. “What shall we do? What shall we do?” Suddenly, the president of the synagogue bursts in through the doors. “I have wonderful news!” he cries. All talk ceases. All eyes turn on him.

  “The murdered girl, she’s Jewish!” the president says.’

  Shomer laughs, dutifully. He shuffles forward and at last enters the hut, leaving his clogs behind, standing there as naked as the day God had made him, though far less fat, it must be said. Inside the queue continues, to see the doctor, but it is also warmer, and there is only one bored Polish guard, and so Shomer’s mind wanders yet again, and it is drawn inexorably to murder most foul, that hoary old staple of the pulps and of shund.

  7

  The watcher in the dark watched; only watched. He had seen the detective leave his building for the first time in days but he elected not to follow him. The detective wasn’t going anywhere. The watcher eyed the girls and it was as if his cloak of invisibility was somewhat worn for he thought they seemed more nervous now, more brightly brittle, casting their eyes into the shadows as though searching for the mystery man there. But still they could not see him; no one ever could. He eyed the half-caste, Dominique. Those long brown legs bare in the cold, that saucy smile, the eyes that promised much, the muscled arms … she was not like the other girls, she was more dominant somehow, and the men who came for her were different, more affluent and when she went with them she took a small bag of her accessories and, once, the bag had opened and the watcher saw the contents inside, though he could barely comprehend their meaning, a coiled whip and a black thick object, long and rubbery, which the watcher thought must be a godemiche, that is to say, a dildo. And there were other things there, but he had caught only a fleeting glimpse and then she had shut the case and climbed into the john’s car; and was gone. But the memory of it kept the watcher awake at night and when he slept he dreamed of a woman perfumed like a whore who lashed him with a whip, lashed him until he shuddered and came.

  In the mornings before going to work he made his father breakfast and hung the bib round the old man’s neck and fed him, and listened to the old man tell him stories of the War. The old man listened to the wireless for hours, and cursed Mosley for a weakling and a fool, and spoke of the bravery of the German soldiers he had had to fight in the Great War. After the watcher cleaned up he left the old man listening to the BBC and went to work, which was soothing to him and involved paperwork. It was only when his work was done for the day and darkness descended, and before he had to return to make supper and help the old man wash, that he went to visit the whores, and dream, and plan; and the knife was in his pocket always, and whispering to him, curses and promises, and the watcher knew that he had promises to keep.

  * * *

  ‘National Socialism,’ Virgil said, ‘is a pile of steaming bullshit on the roadside of history, friend.’

  Wolf said: ‘I beg your pardon?’ The car, German made and German engineered, drove smoothly along the poor English road. On their right the Thames expanded as it flowed onwards to the distant sea.

  Virgil laughed. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘It was a great con. A great con. Deutschland über alles! Eh, Wolf? Promise them the world and blame all their ills on the Jews. That’s like blaming it on the weather. Do you know, I was stationed in Berlin in the twenties. Naval intelligence liaison.’ He patted his stomach. ‘I was slimmer then. Berlin! It was full of whores. The clubs, the jazz, the girls – they called it the filthiest city on Earth and I can’t say that they were wrong. Killed a man for the first time in Unter den Linden. Got laid every other day. It was good to be young in Berlin.’

  ‘I don’t think you were ever young,’ Wolf said. Virgil laughed again. He laughed easily and, Wolf thought, with no more sincerity than a whore. ‘OSS,’ Wolf said, as though tasting the letters, the shape of them in his mouth. The idea of the Americans involving themselves in the affairs of Germany again was abhorrent to him. It was American intervention in the Great War in 1917 that had finally ended the conflict.

  And Wolf ended up blind, in a nerve hospital for those deemed deserters or insane …

  ‘The communist threat must be contained,’ Virgil said. ‘America cannot easily afford another war, but we cannot and will not tolerate further Russian expansion.’

  ‘So what do you want from me?’

  Virgil half turned in his seat. His eyes were bright. His voice was soft. The car was approaching the docks of Limehouse. Here lights burned in secretive little pubs and wharf-side establishments, and furtive Chinamen walked the streets. ‘You could go back to Germany,’ Virgil said, his voice as slow and treacly as honey. ‘You could lead again.’
r />   ‘Lead?’

  ‘Lead Germany. Resurrect National Socialism!’

  ‘You’re mad,’ Wolf said.

  ‘The remnants of the organisation are still there. The men retain their loyalty or, if not, are at the very least practical. Nazism has always attracted ruthless, practical men. Listen to me, Wolf. Listen to me!’ He grasped Wolf’s thigh in his meaty hand, crushing it, and Wolf winced: the American’s fingers would leave their mark. ‘You could do it. We’ll parachute you back, in due course. We have agents in place. Working for us. When everything is ready you’ll go in, you’ll claim back what was rightfully yours!’

  ‘A putsch,’ Wolf said.

  ‘An assisted regime change,’ Virgil said.

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘You bet your sweet ass we can! At least,’ Virgil amended, with a feral grin, ‘we can try.’

  ‘Get your filthy hand off me, American.’

  Virgil’s squeeze grew even stronger. Then he abruptly released Wolf. The car turned a dark corner into a quayside alley lined with looming warehouses. ‘Stop the car, Bernie.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Come, Wolf.’ Virgil did not wait for his driver but opened the door himself and clambered out, as big and ungainly as a bear. Wolf remained seated, for just a moment staring ahead. Unseeing.

  Could it be true?

  It could not possibly be true. To even imagine such a thing was to open himself to the worst agony he had ever suffered.

  The agony of defeat.

  To offer him the impossible was not a gift but a hideous curse, and he did not trust Virgil, did not trust any American.

  Wolf had never trusted anyone: it was why he was still alive.

  Wolf thought but only fleetingly of the nerve hospital in Pasewalk and what had transpired there.

  Six hundred miles by train from the front to the small hospital near the Polish border. Blind – he had been blinded! As a boy he feared the dark, in the darkness was the ogre reeking of drink, the ogre and his belt whistling through the air, as a boy he sometimes cried, but silently, sometimes like all boys he wet his bed. Then his mother would comfort him, hold him close, and he would breathe in the softness of her, the smell of fresh laundry and apfelstrudel, and all would be better once again.

  And then she was gone, and Wolf was on a train, in absolute dark, and he was terrified. Remembering the attack, the whistle of mortar, the gas – the gas! Quick, boys, and fumbling with the straps of the mask, too late, and the light thick as green honey. His comrades fell beside him. ‘My eyes! My eyes!’ he screamed. The mud welcomed him and he rolled in it but still he could not see, and the pain burned and when they came and carried him away he was still like that, screaming and sobbing and blind, blind, and he thought he would be blind for ever.

  He was stoic before the doctor, one Karl Kroner, a Jew.

  Sometimes Wolf thought of his life as having two distinct phases: the one before his blindness and the one that came after. Before, he had been a boy, an artist, a soldier. After, there came a man.

  He did not understand what the doctor said, whispering to the nurses, the sound of his pencil tap-tapping on the clipboard. ‘Hysterical,’ Wolf heard. ‘Pasewalk,’ he heard, and, ‘Dr Forster.’ Whoever he might be.

  Then his orders, which he could not see, invalided out when all he wanted to do was continue fighting, and what did the doctor mean, hysterical?

  And those long interminable hours on the slow train away from the front and the groaning of the wheels and the murmur of soldiers and the taste of hot strong tea which he never drank but was given anyway, his shaking hands all but spilling the drink, and turning his head, this way and that, helplessly: where was the window?

  In that slow procession of the train Wolf died and was reborn and died again. Could this really be the end of him? To be just another casualty of the war, another disabled soldier, blinded, lame: never to hold a brush and paint again, never to know the sun setting over a field, the colour of fire or blood, and to become – what? A beggar in the streets of Vienna or Berlin, coins rattling in a tin cup, Spare some change, spare some change for an ex-soldier?

  He put his hand against the window, feeling the cold outside. He could not see; and yet could see so clearly.

  The future lay ahead like a broken road. He would kill himself, he thought with sudden savagery. Put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger, no time for thought, a quick ending denied him by the war. No more would he be Wolf, he would be nothing, dust as all men must become dust. And was that so terrible? Was that so wrong?

  He must have dozed off, eventually. He was woken to the silence that follows the breaking of a train, the lull between stop and renewed motion. Outside, the other soldiers were gathering their kitbags, calling to each other, doors were opening and slamming, boots on snow, and Lance-Corporal Wolf roused himself to follow, into the cold and the unknown.

  Although he did not know it, the future lay ahead for him still …

  ‘Mr Wolf?’

  Wolf roused himself. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, almost spitting out the English word. That sibilant sound. He ran his tongue around his mouth. It tasted sour. He stepped out of the car. ‘Yes, what is it?’ he said testily.

  ‘Come, Mr. Wolf,’ Virgil said grandly. He nodded and, as if responding to his command, the wharf was suddenly bathed in bright electric light. Wolf was momentarily blinded. He blinked back tears. When he opened his eyes again the wharf was transformed and he took a step back unwittingly.

  The warship floating down the river was enormous. Its grey hull shone wet and above it rose an armoured citadel, topped by the rising conning tower, with gun-slits like malevolent eyes. It was a marvel of engineering, lying low in the water yet carrying enough firepower, Wolf saw at a glance, to lay waste to a small coastal town. Wolf was immediately in love.

  ‘What is she?’ he said, awed.

  ‘She’s an amphibious HST Destroyer,’ Virgil said, with obvious pride. He was like a cowboy out of one of Karl May’s Western novels, speaking of his prized cow.

  ‘High Speed Transport?’ Wolf said.

  ‘Indeed, Mr Wolf. American born and bred, our USS Valkyrie.’

  Wolf turned his head sharply, but Virgil seemed not to notice.

  ‘The Chooser of the Slain …’

  ‘Indeed, Mr Wolf. You have a knowledge of the classics.’ Virgil barked an order and the doors of the warehouses opened as one, and Wolf saw men streaming out. They wore civvies but they were military men all the same, American soldiers in civilians’ clothes. Beyond the open doors he saw the warehouses were in fact giant hangars. There were planes inside, crates of ammunition and arms, camouflage netting, an arsenal for a small and private war.

  Wolf said, ‘Does the British government … know of your presence here?’

  Virgil waved his hand dismissively. ‘We are not officially here, Mr Wolf.’

  ‘And unofficially?’

  Virgil shrugged. ‘Everyone wants to see the Red Menace removed,’ he said.

  Wolf surveyed the dock, which only moments before had appeared abandoned. The warship floated serenely in the Thames. ‘What if I say no?’ Wolf said; he spoke low; the words were loath to depart his larynx.

  Virgil seemed amused. ‘You would refuse?’ he said. ‘We would make you great again, Mr Wolf. We would put men at your service, arms at your disposal. The offer of the might of the entire United States of America behind you, Mr Wolf, is not something to refuse lightly.’

  Probabilities swam in Wolf’s mind, futures diverging like roads in a yellow wood. His mouth felt dry. He nodded his head, slowly, uncertainly. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he agreed.

  ‘Good man!’ Virgil clapped him on the back, as if all were decided, nearly sending Wolf sprawling. ‘Come. Let me show you our little base.’ He walked with great purpose, his giant hands swinging loosely by his side. He looked like a great ape then, and yet he walked as though he owned the very earth he stepped on. Wolf followed him with trepidation, a
nd yet with wonder, too. Like a sleepwalker he was dragged in Virgil’s wake through the bright unreal glare of floodlights high overhead, and when he moved his hand before his face it was as though bio-luminescence had clung to his skin and trailed a ghostly band of colour through the air. Inside the first warehouse he saw men with a military bearing and civilian clothes sitting tensely around a radio receiver; maps of Europe on the wall, dotted with coloured pins; unmarked heavy wooden crates piled in one corner; camouflage nettings in another; an upturned rubber dinghy, a mechanic working patiently with a boat engine between his knees; more crates, one open, showing Wolf the armaments inside, guns oiled until they shone. Then through to the second warehouse where two Cessna light aircraft were sitting at rest, a group of men in overalls sitting playing cards on upturned empty crates. Then last to the water where the destroyer, Valkyrie, sat in all her glory, with her silent power, and the men climbing on board her like worshippers at temple, for all that they seemed as small as ants. And more warehouses, on the other side, filled with ammo and guns, tinned food, parachutes, rockets, grenades, bayonets and handguns, an Aladdin’s Cave of lethal wonders, not to mention the explosives. Round and round in the empty space before the jetty Wolf turned and turned like a bride whose face was raised to the high sun, round and round he turned as though he’d been dancing.

  ‘All laid at your service, Mr Wolf, and in the service of your country, your Fatherland, to be liberated, made whole, replenished and resplendent once again.’

  As in a dream: ‘And if I say no?’

  ‘But you won’t, Mr Wolf. Why would you?’ A paternal chuckle, perhaps that is who Virgil reminded him of: his old man the ogre, dead and buried these many years. ‘How could you refuse?’

  And, still in that dreaming state: ‘But think it over. And Bernie will drop you off wherever you like.’