by Hanna Krall
Izolda’s younger daughter travels to Poland. Together with Sławek B. they look at the wooden station building, the tracks, which are also genuine (trains are using them to this day) and a genuine goods wagon. Sławek B. wants to erect oversized matzevas with the names of the camps and a tall, broken column, which in Jewish symbolism stands for a life cut short. On the column will be the Fifth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill. Between the station and the Fifth Commandment he proposes a tunnel showing what the Jews left behind. Glasses, apartment keys, pictures and names, tens of thousands of names. Izolda’s daughter buys a notebook, in case she has to take notes. Sławek’s wife, Marysia, picks them up from the train station when they return from Łódź. The table is set for dinner, their son is slicing tomatoes for the salad. Marysia sits down to talk with Izolda’s daughter. Her son calls her into the kitchen to make a dressing for the salad. She keeps running back and forth between kitchen and table. While in the kitchen she tries some food – maybe the dressing or the meat – to check if it’s ready. She swallows too quickly and chokes. The ambulance arrives. The doctors try to revive her. Marysia dies.
Armchair
If it weren’t for the tobacco and Vienna (this thought will haunt her more and more persistently), she would have died in the basement together with her mother.
If she hadn’t escaped from Guben, she would have died of typhus together with Janka Tempelhof.
If her younger daughter hadn’t gone to Poland…
If there hadn’t been dinner…
If Marysia hadn’t checked…
If the monument hadn’t been…
If the Łódź ghetto hadn’t been…
The Sochaczewskis
Izolda’s younger daughter writes the names of the Sochaczewski family in her notebook. It was a large family and inside the tunnel they appear on several different lists. Mayer and Pesa, their daughters Tola and Golda and their grandson Itzek, only a few months old, went to Chełmno. They were followed by Ryvka with her brother Moszek, her sister Ruchla and two twin daughters, Chana and Luba. And Dawid also went with his three grandchildren, Rochna, Chaya and Dawid.
Izolda’s younger daughter doesn’t know and will never find out if one of those men was Aunt Huma’s husband. And if he was a rabbi. And if he managed to settle in a nice, quiet little town.
The Party
For her birthday Izolda’s daughters prepare an enormous banquet. Everyone is there – the daughters, granddaughters, son-in-law – only the soldier-granddaughter is missing. They didn’t grant her leave and now she’s guarding some border post. She lets Palestinians into Israel. Every Palestinian assures the granddaughter that he’s going to work, and she has to guess which one will work and which will blow himself up along with a bus, a market or a restaurant.
Izolda would like to give her granddaughter some advice, not about Palestinians, but in general. She’d also like to advise her granddaughter’s colleague, a student assigned to guard the checkpoint with a metal detector. That’s the most dangerous work in all Israel, because in case of an attack the guard at the checkpoint is the first to die. Izolda would like to give lots of good advice to everyone at the table – on how to survive. And it would be hard to find a better expert at that. No doubt about it: she is an outstanding specialist at surviving.
She sits in the place of honour.
Everyone is very warm to her, except she doesn’t see them and she doesn’t understand what they’re saying because they’re speaking Hebrew. Now and then they realize this and switch to English. She should be able to answer, after all she studied for three whole months. You don’t have to speak it perfectly, her grandson encourages her.
On the contrary, she is able to speak perfectly: High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince…
Oscar Wilde, she adds with pride. I had a wonderful English teacher (she says these words in English), but after three months…
She doesn’t know how to say ‘hanged himself’ – they didn’t cover this topic in their lessons. Maybe it’s better, after all Mrs Szwarcwald’s lodger isn’t the best subject for a birthday party. Or Mrs Szwarcwald for that matter. (Poison – how do you say that? She can’t remember that either.)
What happened after three months? the grandson asks.
Nothing, the teacher gave up teaching.
That’s too bad, says the grandson.
And so – advice. The outstanding specialist at surviving wishes to give her family some valuable pointers. All have been verified on the basis of her rich personal experience.
For instance:
dye your hair,
change your voice,
have a calm, self-assured way of looking,
don’t place your bag in a Jewish manner, or wring rags like a Jew, or say Hail Mary like a Jew,
make a deal with God,
make sure you stick exactly to your end of the bargain,
listen to the voice of your daemon,
and…
What are you laughing at, babcia? her grandson asks.
Once again they’re talking in Hebrew. Evidently about Sławek B. and whether her younger daughter should move to Poland. Sławek has asked her to, but she doesn’t want to leave her children. Incidentally Izolda’s daughter has four daughters of her own – strikingly similar to those other four.
In her thoughts and in Polish Izolda starts adding and subtracting.
Two thousand and five minus nineteen hundred and forty-two… add thirty-one… makes for how much? Ninety-four? Holy Mother of God, Hela would be that old? So Tusia would be ninety-two… And Szymuś, imagine that, a seventy-year-old Szymuś!
*
She sits at the head of the table. The way her mother always sat… Her father ought to be across from her. Let’s hope he wouldn’t go on about women’s smiles. Better he should talk about that new colour. And even better – let him explain how he could possibly have gone to them. To the Germans! Answering their call!
†
Why didn’t those people want to listen to her?
If her mother hadn’t moved out of the gatehouse…
If Halina hadn’t trusted a stranger…
If her father hadn’t gone to the Germans…
If the couple hadn’t been so loud at the stove…
If Janka Tempelhof hadn’t stayed in Guben…
*
And if your Shayek had gone to get his sisters a little sooner. Couldn’t you have prodded him more: Go to your sisters, they need to get out…
Whose voice is that? Is that Hela’s husband? He could have prodded his wife himself. His fair-haired wife… Anyway, Hela isn’t the absurd age of ninety – she’s suntanned and pretty, with a long slender neck… Her bronzed skin looks good with light-coloured hair. With hair like that and such blue eyes, couldn’t Hela have…?
Shayek asked her not to say anything against his sisters.
She doesn’t say anything against them, just asks questions.
She too is allowed to ask a few questions.
Besides, Hela doesn’t begrudge her the questions, she just wants to know…
What does that Hela want to know now?
What was it like at Pawiak? asks Hela. Did you really turn away…?
After all, Shayek’s mother doesn’t hold it against her, on the contrary, my daughter-in-law was smart, very smart, only (her mother-in-law asks) couldn’t you have… I know it would have been hard, but couldn’t you have tried to take Halina and her father to Vienna…?
I couldn’t, I didn’t have money…
Maybe I did have money, but that was for him, I had to save him…
Him… For him… He…
Remember, don’t tell him that he survived because of you…
Who is saying that? Lilusia? But Lilusia, it was because of my prayers, my thoughts, my strength, believe me, that was why he survived!
And then what? He left you… Your king of hearts wrote you a letter and moved out…
Who
…? Who’s saying that…?
After all, I carried him inside me, like you carry a child. Is it my fault? Is a pregnant woman guilty for having her belly?
*
* I wrote about the ‘author in Poland’ and Izolda R. in a piece entitled ‘A Novel for Hollywood’ – which may be regarded as a draft for this book. – HK
* How was India?
Great. That’s the best place on earth for someone who’s just finished the army. You have this physical sense of being able to do anything and that you’re allowed to do anything…
What’s with the hair? Shaving your head made you feel even freer?
I know it sounds strange, but it’s true… It’s hard for me to come back – to my hair, to studying, discipline. At night I dream about India…
† What kind of fish is that?
I’m sure it’s farmed. Everything is farm-raised these days.
Do you know how to make gefilte fish? I made it once. You have to clean the entire fish without spilling the bile… And not use too much matzoh meal.
* No, I’m not going. I’ve made up my mind and stop asking questions.
But you love him.
I said stop asking questions, please.
You could spend some time with him and some time here with us, with the girls.
I couldn’t. I have to be OK with everything. I’m asking you…
* We left a large wooden statue at the beach, dedicated to our friend (he drowned in the sea saving a child…). Then we set fire to the statue. It was evening, the sea, there was music, a fire. The burning wood started to fall apart and suddenly a man appeared. Everyone froze: a man in the flames? Of course it wasn’t a real man, just a figure made of plastic, but it made an incredible impression. Can you imagine? A man in the flames, with the sea in the background…
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About the Author and Translator
AUTHOR
Hanna Krall was born in 1935 in Poland and survived the Second World War hiding in a cupboard. She began her writing career as a prize-winning journalist. Since the early ’80s she has worked as a novelist. She has received numerous Polish and international awards, such as the underground Solidarity Prize, Polish PEN Club Prize and the German Würth Preis for European Literature 2012. Translated into seventeen languages, her work has gained widespread international recognition. In 2007 Król kier znów na wylocie (Chasing the King of Hearts) was shortlisted for the Angelus Central European Literary Award.
TRANSLATOR
Philip Boehm is the author of more than two dozen translations of novels and plays by German and Polish writers, including Nobelist Herta Müller, Christoph Hein and Bertolt Brecht. Nonfiction translations include A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous. He has received numerous awards, most recently the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize (UK), the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize (US) and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He also works as a playwright and theatre director.
NOTE ON HEBREW TEXT
Passages in Hebrew were translated from the Polish by Michał Sobelman. Philip Boehm would like to thank Riva Hocherman for her help rendering these dialogues into English.
Copyright
First published in English in 2013 by Peirene Press, 17 Cheverton Road, London, N19 3BB www.peirenepress.com
This ebook edition first published in 2014.
Originally published in under the original Polish language title Król kier znów na wylocie by Świat Książki, 2006 Copyright © 2006 by Hanna Krall
This translation © Philip Boehm, 2013 Hanna Krall asserts his moral right to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distrib
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