The Russian Passenger

by Gunter Ohnemus

  I was really thinking of Davy Crockett.

  Forget Davy Crockett, Ellen told me. As for Daniel, I suppose you were thinking of Daniel Boone? Anyway, it’s going to be a girl.

  Clever girl, said Susannah. A woman after my own heart. And she was twenty or twenty-one when she said that? Still, Jessie – or Jesse – is also –

  Jessie is Jessie, I said. It’s neither more nor less philosemitic than Anna or Maria.

  True. The ironical smile had reappeared in Susannah’s eyes. I sometimes think it will never release its hold over me, but I thought that once before.

  We’re the Germans’ bad dream, she said. Maybe even your bad dream, but I doubt it. They’re putting up one Holocaust memorial after another in Germany. Like guilt-ridden squirrels. Remember that unnecessary Gulf War? It very soon became an attack on the state of Israel by Federal Germany through the medium of Iraq. “Auschwitz in the desert” – I remember it well. That really infuriated me, but the propaganda worked. They made you cough up eighteen billion worth of war reparations and three submarines for Israel. Am I right?

  And last year, when it came to that crusade against Serbia, you couldn’t bear to stay out of it. “No more Auschwitzes” – that’s what your fusty foreign minister blithely crowed to the world at large, although he knew perfectly well you wouldn’t have been able to stay out of it in any case.

  Susannah, I said, the German–Jewish dialogue doesn’t interest me. There are too many lies lurking on both sides. Too many cries of triumph whenever someone blunders.

  It doesn’t interest me either. I only wanted to tell you why I managed to read your book. My father wanted me to break with you, but I refused. Even if he was right. There was a scene one night. Anyway, I shouted at him: You can’t prevent me from committing Rassenschande! I used the German expression – racial dishonour. We don’t have a word for it in English, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the concept.

  He went for me when I said that. He hit me. My dear, sweet daddy actually struck me! Don’t look so shocked. It didn’t hurt. He wasn’t very strong, physically. It was more of a gesture than anything else, but I never forgave him. For hitting me that one and only time in my life. And for hitting me because of you.

  You know the rest. The clever girl eventually gave way. But I’d have run away with you if you’d said a word – just one word. It’s the age-old conflict. It often happens: the past, the family, one’s nearest and dearest versus the new, which is equally near and dear to one. Next of kin versus next of skin. Yes, I’d have run away with you, even if it wouldn’t have done us any good.

  But there’s something else you don’t know. I’m old enough now to see it – and say it. Say it to you. The first time I saw you and learned where you came from, I wanted to have you because we were the most unlikely combination in the school, and because I knew how my family would react. I wanted you as a demonstration of power. You yourself were secondary. That’s how it was at first, Fritz, but not later on. I wanted to win. In school and at home. I’m just like the Kennedys in that respect: I always want to win. No, you weren’t important at first. You were already in love with me when I was using you merely to stir things up a bit. That’s the truth. And afterwards you meant everything to me.

  When you’d left here and gone back to Europe, I learned German. Frantically, because I wanted to hang on to you. That was one reason. The other was my family. Learning German was my love song and my revolution.

  She gave me a radiant smile, and her words resounded in my head: You were already in love with me when I was using you merely to stir things up a bit. That’s the truth. And afterwards you meant everything to me. And Susannah was sitting opposite me and was beautiful. Quite simply beautiful.

  You’re so beautiful, Susannah, I feel like throwing my glass of wine in your face.

  Don’t you dare!

  I didn’t dare. I kicked her shin under the table instead. It was so good when we laughed, and a dynamo started spinning in my head: You weren’t important at first … You were already in love with me when I was using you merely to stir things up a bit. I laughed with Susannah, and the dynamo kept spinning and spinning, and I felt the pain of that sixteen-year-old youth, the pain he didn’t feel because he knew nothing, but it hurt just the same – hurt terribly. All at once I felt incredibly alone in Susannah’s company. All at once I had two reasons for throwing my glass of wine in her face, but the glass was already empty. And I couldn’t free myself from her even if I’d wanted to – even though I knew that now, today and tomorrow and the day after, I would be unimportant to her once more. I looked at her and wanted to look at her for ever, wanted to write down all she said, she alone. What I say is unimportant. And, in spite of everything, that dynamo exists and goes on spinning.

  Wednesday

  For the past two weeks I’ve been going jogging with Susannah every few days. I’d sensed that I was getting a bit out of condition; it was so long since I’d taken any exercise. I feel the hills here in San Francisco. Sonia doesn’t want to come with us, so Susannah and I go jogging in Lincoln Park or Golden Gate Park. Mostly in Lincoln Park or down at Baker Beach. We arrange to meet somewhere in town, and Susannah picks me up in her dark red Volvo estate.

  It always feels strange when I’m jogging with her. We’re suddenly young again. We run side by side and talk and survey our surroundings, and I sense her skin although we’re nearly a yard apart. I sense her skin the way you sense a light, pleasant breeze. I sense the fine hairs on my arms, or is it the hairs on her arms? And I sense her voice all over my body. Her presence and her voice are like the air that pervades my body. We’re young again – fresh and innocent. I haven’t killed anyone and no one’s after me. We’re young again, that’s all. We don’t even know we’ll fall in love. We don’t know anything yet. There’s just the wind and the air and our skin, and I never want to stop running beside her and talking with her, talking about no matter what. What we talk about is quite unimportant because our voices are music, and I look at Susannah’s face and say: Gee, you’re so beautiful it’s starting to rain.

  Where does that come from? she asked.

  Some hippy poem, I told her. Death isn’t everything.

  The first time we drove to her house after jogging, I said: I shouldn’t come in. It’s risky for us to be seen together too often.

  But you’re bathed in sweat, she said. I can’t deliver you to Sonia in that state.

  After showering we sat in her living room, and she said: Okay, now we’ll do something bad for our health. Scotch or a martini? Or a margarita?

  Wednesday, Later

  Susannah handed me a letter today, after jogging.

  I wrote it, she said, because I don’t want to talk about it. And because I wanted to talk to you last night and couldn’t. After all, you weren’t there.

  I’ve only just read the letter:

  * * *

  Fritz, it’s after midnight already, and I’m sitting here at my desk. The doll I stole from the old folks’ home is sitting here, looking at me. I’m writing this because I want to talk with you, and because you aren’t here. I’m always wanting to talk with you, and wanting you always to be there. That’s one of the two reasons why I’m writing to you now.

  The second has to do with the guilt-ridden squirrels who pile one Holocaust memorial on top of another.

  I think it was unfair of me to say that. Unfair because I didn’t say all there is to be said on the subject. I’m not a professional Jewess, you know that. I’m a citizen of San Francisco first, then a Californian, and after that an American. And only then – a long way after that – am I Jewish. For my mother it was precisely the other way around, even though she was a second-generation American.

  All the same, ten or eleven years ago a woman from Cologne told me there would always be problems with the Jews and memorials. If the Germans didn’t erect any memorials, they would be accused of suppressing their crimes against the Jews. If they did erect memorials, they we
re bound to be told they were doing so only as a form of self-redemption.

  I think the woman was right. The sufferings and hatred of the Jews are irreconcilable. Permanently so. There would have been an end to the hatred – not to the sufferings and the horror – only if Germany had undergone what happened to Japan, but on a far larger scale … Two, three, many Hiroshimas. It very nearly happened, too. That, I think, is the truth no one utters because no one could live with it. There’s no end to the hatred, I know that. I looked deep into my mother’s soul a few times in my life. Very deep.

  And there’s something else that has nothing to do with hatred. Whenever the word “German” or “Germany” crops up, the first association that springs to mind is the word “Hitler”. Throughout the world. Invariably. Over fifty years after the crime. A mark of Cain is also a memorial.

  Those who did what the Germans did are bound to suppress it. They have to do good and suppress it. It’s perfectly natural – essential, too. No one can live without suppressing something. That’s one point. Moreover, total suppression is impossible. The thing suppressed is always there. But this memorial mania – this ostentatious accumulation of memorials – is sick. As sick as the crime at the root of the mania.

  But you Germans do something else as well. Something quite wonderful. I occasionally read German newspapers – not often, but often enough – and there’s hardly a supplement, hardly a weekend edition or books section, that doesn’t refer to those days, to those crimes and the war. Thinking about them is far more important than any memorial. Of course, it’s often mendacious and hypocritical. False and mealy-mouthed, like the following extract from a newspaper article: “The fact that so many citizens of the Jewish faith, to quote the words of Ignaz Bubis, are seeking to bring about a new efflorescence of Jewish life in post-war Germany is a boon we have far from deserved, an obligation laid on all non-Jews.”

  That’s political kitsch, and unctuous enough to slip on. “Citizens of the Jewish faith!” Holy Cow! I, for example, am not a citizen of the Jewish faith. That faith is as remote from me and close to me as Christianity. Or Islam. I’m simply a Jewess of no particular faith. An American Jewess. I simply had Jewish parents and grandparents and so on. Didn’t your Ignaz Bubis give any thought to people like me? To the poor, innocent, godless, well-heeled girls from San Francisco or Braunschweig? Don’t they have a right to live and flourish in post-war Germany?

  Yes, many of those articles are mendacious and unctuous and hypocritical. And many Germans flaunt the name of some chance Jewish forebear like a title of nobility. The same forebear whom, sixty years ago, they … no, forget it. All public life is inseparable from hypocrisy. All political life. The moment of truth is a very rare occurrence. What goes on in the minds of those who kneel and lay wreaths and do penance in public? Are they thinking what we’d like them to think? Or are they thinking of their lovers, their slipped disks, or the fact that they’ve just performed a great historic act? We don’t know. Only they do.

  In private life, too, the celebrated moment of truth is usually delegated to art, and art is often just a sham. Still, it’s great that such articles get written. The fact that people keep writing and thinking and shamming – that’s the memorial. It’s a shaky memorial and always will be, but it will – I hope – always be there. At least for the next fifty years.

  This has nothing to do with us – with you and me. I’ve written this only to prevent you from thinking me the kind of person who’s impossible to satisfy, with or without a memorial. That’s all.

  The doll is sitting here, watching me. A doll from Germany, that’s what I always tell myself. She’s related to you. I like her. And I’m so close to you now, I’d like to go on writing for ever.

  Your

  Norwegian Susannah

  Thursday

  The night before last I called Susannah because Sonia wanted to invite us to dinner. At the Thai restaurant in Berkeley where she’d felt so alone.

  That’s fine, said Susannah. I’ve got some news to discuss with you both. News from Washington. And another thing: it’s very brave of your Sonia to want to pay that restaurant another visit.

  * * *

  Well, said Susannah after the first course, you’ve got several possibilities. I have some good connections in Canada and Australia as well as the States. We could tuck you away someplace without the aid of any kind of government authority. Even in Australia, if you like. Australia is a proven convict island, after all. But I’d sooner keep you here in the States.

  The safest thing would be the witness protection programme. You’re witnesses against the Mafia, so to speak. I could fix that. You’d be provided with an entirely new life – a legend, as they call it. However, it would mean we could never see each other again. Worse still, you couldn’t stay together. You’d have to live in entirely different parts of the States.

  No! Sonia sprang to her feet. A few people at the neighbouring tables looked over at us. I can’t live here without Harry!

  I felt the blood shoot to my head. I want no paradise without Harry, she’d said when she told me the story of King Harold.

  The situation looks like this, Susannah said when Sonia had recovered her composure. In Washington they think it would be dangerous to provide you with a new life together, because a couple is just the combination they’re looking for. Mind you, the true reason may be political bigotry. There are people in this country who almost go mad when the Germans and the Russians get together. President Putin went to Berlin in June or July. The Germans regarded it as a perfectly normal state visit, but the New York Times devoted a long article to the event. Europe usually merits a mention only when a world war breaks out – if our newspapers can find room for it.

  So no witness protection programme for us, I said. It would wipe us out completely.

  Sonia smiled at me.

  Give me a little more time, then, said Susannah. I can try again.

  * * *

  In bed that night Sonia said: What is it with you and Susannah?

  It’s a long story, I told her.

  I know that. But what are you planning, the two of you?

  We aren’t planning anything at all, Sonia. But something has happened to us – something that happened once before. I can’t pretend I didn’t want it to happen, and I can’t pretend I’m unhappy about it. But there’s something more important: love is so often used as a pretext for the stupidest, simplest, meanest actions. I don’t play that game. The name of my game is Susannah. And Ellen, of whom you know nothing. And Jessie, of whom you also know nothing.

  What about me, Harry? Where do I fit in? Don’t I belong in your game?

  You’re fourteen years younger than me. A different generation.

  Well? What difference does that make?

  Just think: when I was twenty you were six. A child. Really a child. A little child. It’s quite impossible. But you’re very close to me, Sonia Kovalevskaya.

  Closer than one would expect of a Russian, eh?

  Stop that. I don’t know where you fit into my game, but you exist, and I like you, and you’re very close to me, and – if it’s of any interest to you – every time we made love it was like a miracle. It was like something absolute – something that swept away all resistance, and wherever we have to go I’ll go there with you. I won’t leave you on your own. I’ll stay with you for as long as you can endure my company. We’re in this together. That’s what you said once, wasn’t it? And there something else, dramatic though it may sound: we’re together on the brink of eternity because they’ll hunt us for all eternity. We may die together – you could be right – but we may also live together. For a while. For a little while.

  Friday

  A bright, luminous day. Susannah had to go to Sacramento. Sonia and I spent the whole day roaming the city hand in hand like two tourists in love. Sonia had brought a street map. After all, she said as we set out, we may live here. We bought some fruit in Chinatown and ate it sitting on a bench. So
nia tried on a lot of smart clothes in three different boutiques. In the end she bought a pair of shoes.

  We went into a church and sat down in a pew at the back. Mass was just ending. The priest was Chinese. His congregation comprised a few disabled people in wheelchairs, six or seven old folk, and a handful of those inordinately fat Americans for whom Sonia, saddened but sarcastic, had recently coined the term “jumbo citizens”. They nearly all took Communion.

  When the priest finally turned to bless those present he glanced at his watch as he spread his arms. Sonia nudged me and whispered: The representatives of eternity are in a hell of a hurry round here.

  Who knows, I whispered, perhaps he’s due at a funeral.

  When we were outside again I sat down on the church steps and smoked a cigarette.

  Some time early in the afternoon we watched a couple playing tennis in Alamo Square. They weren’t particularly good.

  A little while later we walked to the nearest bus stop because Sonia wanted to go down to the sea. She studied the timetable and compared it with the street map to try to find the most interesting route. Maps and street maps always faze me. Sonia could see that I was entirely dependent on her.

  You’re a pretty poor map-reader for a taxi driver, she said while we were waiting for the bus. I sometimes wonder how you found the way to Luxembourg.

  We laughed and went on waiting for the bus, which ought to have turned up long before. Two buses had already passed us going in the opposite direction. Having waited for nearly half an hour, we were about to walk on when our bus appeared at the end of the street. We got in at the same time as an old Chinese woman who was loaded down with shopping bags but refused our help.

  We showed the Chinese driver our Muni Passes. Sonia and I have made it our habit always to stand in the middle of the bus, near the centre door, where we have a good view of the whole of the interior. There have been a few incidents, for instance when people spoke to Sonia and I had to watch what was going on quite closely. Usually I signal to her that we’re getting off at the next stop. I always stand there like a protective wall. It was the same with me and Jessie when we went cycling together. I always rode on her left and slightly to the rear, so that I could intervene at a moment’s notice. And when we were crossing an intersection I always rode alongside so as to shield her body with mine. I had a sensation of infinite strength when I rode beside her like that – the feeling that I was proof against any car or truck.