by Steven Uhly
TONIGHT’S PERFORMANCE
“WITH
WALKING STICK
IN
HAND”
A new play by
“Baderech” Jewish Theater Berlin-Schlachtensee
at 3 Volksschule, Tewsstrasse 23
The people entered the building, beyond the entrance was a stairwell, they climbed the few steps to the upper ground floor and arrived at the doors to the school hall. Seven rows of chairs were laid out, offering seating for one hundred and thirty people at most. The rest had to sit in the aisle and on the floor in front of the first row, many of them stood along the sides and right at the back. Three large windows let in a flood of light, they had to draw the heavy curtains once everybody had found somewhere to sit or stand. Gradually the hall went quiet. Everyone focused on the low stage, from which two narrow staircases led up to the left and right. The background had originally been painted black, but in many places this had peeled off, revealing the white undercoat.
A tall man entered the hall and stepped onto the stage. It was Peretz, who felt an urgent need to use his loudhailer. But this was an enclosed space, totally unsuited to it. He would speak much louder than he was used to, and his voice would be hoarse by the end of the evening. Peretz positioned himself at the very front of the stage in the center. He wore an elegant gray suit, with one hand in his trouser pocket while the other held a sheaf of paper.
Anna gazed at her husband standing there, in the eyes of these people a hero from Palestine. A man who saved lives and asked for nothing in return. She thought of the play that was not going to be performed that night and of the scene she had been unable to get out of her head ever since she had sat here in a similarly packed hall a few weeks earlier. The stage had become so full that at one point Anna could not distinguish the actors from the audience. Just a small space jammed with people wanting to go somewhere but not able to. On the spot where Peretz now arranged his papers, glancing every now and then at his audience, a head-high signpost had stood, arrows pointing in different directions. One of these bore the words “Eretz Yisrael” in Hebrew letters, by now Anna was able to tell these words apart from others. Men in hats and coats, women in smaller hats and bonnets, and children in little dresses and jackets had clustered around the signpost, all of them carrying suitcases, all of them lost and looking in every direction for a way forward. Where do we go from here? they wondered, and went to see the Rabbi, Rabbi, what should we do? and the Rabbi said, Don’t worry, you’ll be moving on soon, it’s just a few weeks now, look,
Berlin is in ruins,
Lying nine cubits deep in the ground
And I, a Jew, stand up and cry,
Long live Israel!
He had pointed at the signpost and all of a sudden everybody knew: That way!
Peretz cleared his throat and began.
“Just four more days.” He explained that they would set off at night to avoid drawing attention to themselves. The most difficult thing, he told the five hundred people, will be getting into the American zone. If we manage that, the rest is simple. What does the rest consist of? someone called out. I’ll tell you, Peretz said. We’ll travel south in the American zone as far as the D.P. camp for Jews. It’s only a few kilometers from the French zone. There we’ll spend the night. The head of the camp is from the International Refugee Organization, he’ll cooperate with us, he knows the score. We’ll spend one night there, you’ll get a good meal and a decent rest. The following day is a Saturday. That’s important, because the French border guards are just waiting for their shifts to finish and to go off duty for the weekend. We’ve established that they’re more generous then than on other days. So we won’t leave until the afternoon, which means we’ll cross the border in the evening.
Peretz paused. Now let’s talk about you, he said. Each one of you will get a new identity. Aaron here (Aaron Strauss, who was sitting in the front row, stood up so that everybody could see him) has five hundred new identities sent to us by H.Q. in Paris. He’ll hand them out at the end of the meeting. Peretz smiled at Aaron, he thought briefly of how taken aback they had been when they went through the list and saw it was full of French names. He had telephoned Shmaria Zamaret in Paris and asked, Rudi, where did you get these names from? Telephone books, Rudi had replied, We didn’t have any time, there are so many visas.
Peretz sighed and said, You need to know these new identities inside out by the time we leave, in case any border guards get suspicious. His eyes fell on Anna, who was sitting in the aisle with Shimon on her lap. Shimon’s eyes watched him, their gazes met, Peretz felt a strange sensation, a sort of resistance. Then he looked away and composed himself to carry on talking.
Outside in Wasgenstrasse, fifty meters beyond the bend in the road, a black Mercedes was parked with its headlights pointing toward the school. In the front seats sat two bored men in civilian clothing, casting the occasional glance at the windows of the school hall. The man in the passenger seat had contacted his superior half an hour previously, reporting in a London accent that everything was O.K., the Jews had gone to watch a theatrical performance.
The two M.I.6. agents knew the Baderech troupe’s program, they would have picked up on any irregularity at once. So they also knew that it would be a good hour before the Jews came out again and went back home to their camp.
In the meantime Peretz was explaining that each passenger would be permitted only one suitcase with a limited number of belongings, as Ernst Caro had instructed. The people were content with this. When Peretz explained that they could not keep their suitcases with them, but that for reasons of space they would have to be transported in separate lorries, nobody objected. When he told them that everyone should write their name in chalk on the lid, so they could find their case again later, a silence descended amongst the concentration camp survivors, which largely went unnoticed, for more than half of those in the Westschule hall were Polish Jews who had never been in a concentration camp. They had fled from the Germans to the Soviet Union, and after the war had found shelter from the Poles in Germany, of all places. They knew little if anything about the previous departures of their comrades, housemates and spouses, who now felt the chalk in their fingers, heard the scratching as they wrote their names on the rough surfaces, harbored their doubts, Wouldn’t the chalk simply rub off when all the luggage knocked together during the long drive on poor roads?, and perhaps a good number looked up again, letting their gaze take in all these people, involuntary companions on the journey to an uncertain destination, a throng of people on the platform, bent over suitcases or having already written their names, there must be hundreds of them, their gaze would definitely have taken in the S.S. men with their machine guns at the ready, standing everywhere like signposts with steel arrows, soon they would be pointing to the wagons waiting there, and a good number who recalled that they had never seen their luggage again now perhaps thought, What a performance!
Strange, Ruth said softly to Aaron, Everything changes apart from the methods.
That evening Peretz made no mention of the thirteen German lorries complete with drivers, which he had hired on behalf of Ephraim Frank alias Ernst Caro. He thought of his telephone call with the chief commandant of German Bricha. They had fought a hard bargain over refugees, for in truth Ephraim Frank had wanted only Peretz’s empty lorries, Too risky to transport them out of Berlin as well, he had told Peretz. Peretz had been expecting such a response, in more reasonable circumstances he would have agreed with Ephraim Frank. But he found every aspect of the external and internal situation utterly insane, which is why he replied, You’ll only have them half empty. Ephraim Frank did not scream at him, he did not discuss the matter. He said nothing, and just when Peretz was about to ask, Are you still there? Ephraim Frank said, Eight per lorry. Twenty, Peretz replied. They had agreed on fifteen, which meant they needed thirty-three lorries, thirteen more than Peretz actually had. He hesitated. No, he thought, I won’t mention the Germans until just before.
Anna followed his gaze, she saw the evening, she saw the birds, she heard the crows, she bid farewell. She had never been to the Mediterranean, she did not know what sort of light illuminated the day there, which smells hung in the air, she had no idea of the height of the sky, the reddish-brown of the earth, she knew palms only from books, she was not braced for the sea she would have to cross.
All she knew was that she would never see this country nor speak its language again. But what connections remained? Was it possible to keep pretending that none had existed until this proved true? And how long would that take? Years? Decades? No, something, some residue will always remain, she thought. She would have to be alert to take it all in, for one thing she had learned: the inner world was like the outside one, something new, unfamiliar would suddenly appear, triggering something old, something past. Think about this, she thought. It grew noisy, the children were getting impatient, Peretz checked his watch, still twenty minutes till the official end of the performance, he was hoarse from talking. Time to call it a day for now, he thought, and requested that everyone walk past Aaron Strauss in single file. While they formed a queue that snaked several times around the hall, Peretz left the stage and went over to Anna and her people. Once again his eyes met Shimon’s, and once again he sensed a reluctance. For a brief moment Peretz had the feeling that a drama was being acted out here too, in which each of them was playing a part, a deception behind which stood another, hidden reality. But which was it?
When he kissed his wife he was severed from this feeling.
The kiss led into a room, the room had a bed. Peretz had recently moved into a small apartment in Berlin-Mitte, the Joint Distribution Committee paid for it, the U.N.R.R.A. issued the papers. Peretz’s official job was to support Jewish refugees in the Berlin D.P. camps.
The apartment was in a tall, rear tenement house in Rosenthaler Strasse, it was old and run-down, the mattresses sagged, if you stripped the pillows you could see an array of brown stains on the fabric. But Peretz had gone to great trouble to prepare everything for this evening. There was even a bulbous, colorfully painted plant pot with fresh flowers on the old, thick-legged living room table, around which some equally rustic chairs were arranged. The cramped apartment was full of chunky and overly fussy 1930s furniture, beside the front door was an oak-veneer rounded sideboard, oppressively crowding the hallway. The glass cabinet was filled to the brim with spare parts, headlights, rear lights, sprocket wheels, huge nuts and finger-thick screws. Peretz’s loudhailer sat on the floor next to the sideboard.
I’m going to have to move away from here, Peretz said when he and Anna arrived at the apartment. Shimon had long been asleep, he lay in his mother’s arms, dreaming that he was lying on his back watching raindrops fall from the sky. Some of these landed on his face and tickled him.
Why? Anna asked. It’s getting more and more difficult with the Russians, Peretz said. He led Anna into the sitting room and pointed to a broad sofa with a lilac-colored flowery pattern, bulging cushions and a tall, curved backrest. Anna understood and gently laid Shimon on it. She knew what was coming, there was no way out, they were man and wife, they had to fulfill the contract, renew the pact, honor the promise. Love? Who lived here? she asked, to distract herself. Germans, Peretz said tersely as he was taking off his coat.
What happened to them?
I don’t know, why are you interested?
Just am, simple as that.
Don’t give me “simple as that.” Come here!
As simple as that?
Wait! Peretz hurried into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of claret. Suits the occasion, he said, giving her a winning smile. Anna followed him into the bedroom. A symposium was being conducted in her head on the question of how to return to one’s innocence having lost it. There were various opinions, one woman with a perfect inside view of the soul thought it impossible, but other voices suspected her of merely wanting to safeguard her own future.
Outside, in the world of tangible things, Peretz smiled and sat on the wide wooden bed, a marital bed, I bought it on the black market, you wouldn’t believe all the things you can get there! Outside in the world Anna gave Peretz a friendly smile and sat beside him, not too close and not too far away; there was a script for situations like this, both of them knew it by heart, where do you learn such things, everything always seemed to be written down somewhere and thus there were no surprises that night.
53
On October 1, 1960, a Saturday, Lisa Kramer and her grandmother met to have the conversation they had arranged. Their original plan had been to take a walk outside of town, but the weather had turned bad overnight and now they were in Herr Weiss’s apartment, pondering what to do instead.
Biting the bullet, Frau Kramer said, “Let’s go to Pöppendorf.”
Lisa stared at her grandmother in surprise, she wanted to say, What made you think of Pöppendorf? But she held her tongue and agreed.
The two women huddled together as they walked to the bus stop in Holstenstrasse. Soon they saw a pale-yellow articulated bus, which like a serpent wound from a side street and labored toward them. The bus stopped beside the two women, they got on at the front by the driver, a man in a dark-blue uniform with a peaked cap, bought two tickets and sat next to each other on one of the wooden benches. Water dripped onto the floor from the umbrella they hung from the handhold above the seat rest in front of them, forming a small puddle. It smelled of diesel and damp.
Crossing the Trave over Holstenbrücke, the bus drove through the Wall peninsula, past the Holstentor with its fat, pointed towers which always looked inflated to Lisa, as though they ought to be slimmer, in correct proportion to the actual gate opening.
The next body of water they came to was the city moat, traversed by Puppenbrücke with its allegorical statues, Lisa knew them from her history classes, but the only one she remembered was the figure of the river god, she recognized him, unmistakable in her eyes with an oar in his hands and bent forward. And all of a sudden her old question—Why does a river god need an oar?—was answered as she looked at him and thought, Because he’s only human too.
Up ahead loomed the station with its four brick towers and three large arched windows. The bus stopped, the doors opened, umbrellas were collapsed, people in wet clothes boarded, bought tickets, looked for a seat. The floor was soon wet, the doors closed, the bus set off, the windows misted up. Nobody spoke, to Lisa the people appeared mute, withdrawn and bent like the statues on Puppenbrücke, rain gods who were only human too. These are not my people, she thought, the idea was more than a teaser, it unsheathed a new certainty, Lisa thought of Rosh Hashanah a few days earlier and, as if she had overheard something from her granddaughter’s inner life, Frau Kramer said softly. “So, how was the New Year’s festival?”
Lisa looked away from the flat, north German countryside, she smiled at her grandmother and said, just as softly, “It was really lovely. The entire Jewish Community of Lübeck came.”
“That must have been a lot of people.”
“Oh no, Grandma, there were only about thirty, all of them still looking as if something terrifying was lurking in every corner.”
“Oh.”
“But it was lovely all the same. Because when we were all together no one was frightened anymore.”
“Were you frightened too?”
“Well, since I’ve been finding out more . . .”
“But hardly anybody knows that you . . .”
The two of them fell silent. After a while Lisa picked up the thread again.
<
br /> “I was standing between Mosche and Selma, his wife,” she said. “And during the ceremony they explained everything. There hasn’t been a rabbi here since the war and the rabbi in Hamburg can’t come to Lübeck for every occasion, so the oldest member takes charge.” She smiled. “It was very festive. I even drank some wine.”
“But you’re not old enough!”
“Just a sip, Grandma! It’s only a ritual.”
“So what now?”
Lisa looked quizzically at her grandmother. “What do you mean?”
Frau Kramer did not know exactly what she was asking, she did not even know why she felt so uneasy that her granddaughter was becoming the Jew she always had been. She had the impression that she was losing her granddaughter to strangers, that she no longer had a right to the bond with Lisa, she was envious of the Jewish Community of Lübeck and knew it was nonsense to feel this way, but she could not help it, I’m just a simple farmer’s wife, she thought, how could I know any better?
“What are you going to do now?” she said.
“There’s not much I can do until I turn eighteen. I’ll just wait, perhaps I’ll learn Hebrew in the meantime.” She paused, before looking at her grandmother and saying, “Why do you want to go to Pöppendorf?”
Frau Kramer had detected the undertone in her granddaughter’s voice, the mistrust, the search for another lie. It hurt, she felt stung. She wanted to tell Lisa everything here and now, she wanted to cast her inner resistance out of the window and reveal the whole truth at once, Look, I’m still the same person, you can trust me, you don’t have to distance yourself from me, please stay!
“Selma was a D.P.,” Lisa said, interrupting her thoughts. “When she met Mosche, they decided to stay here.”
“Was she in Pöppendorf, then?”
“No, but she told me about it. There was another D.P. camp, I’ve forgotten its name. That’s where she was.”
Frau Kramer looked at her granddaughter. “Am Stau, it was called,” she said, lowering her gaze.