Mendelssohn is on the Roof

by Jirí Weil

  All three of them mounted the steep steps. As before, Rabinovich had to go first. He was afraid he’d get vertigo, that his head would begin to reel. Never in his life had he done any climbing and he was mindful of the saying: Out of the depths we cry to thee, O Lord. Even tradition forbade high places, though not expressly. But he had to go up, were it the Babylonian tower itself. He had set out on this path and there was nothing he could do but continue on it. A small sin couldn’t make things worse.

  Schlesinger didn’t want to go up on the roof either. But of course with Krug there, and what was worse, the Jew, he couldn’t avoid it. All of them stood on the roof. Rabinovich’s knees were shaking and he tried not to look into the abyss. He saw the statues. He couldn’t help seeing them, for they stood on the balustrade a small distance away. Whose statues they actually were he didn’t know. Krug gave him an order: ‘Walk around balustrade, look around well, tell us which is Mendelssohn statue. Surely you know which one Mendelssohn.’

  They’re lunatics, Rabinovich said to himself, they want me to identify a statue. How can they know that Jews never carved any statues, that their religion forbids it. Only in recent times, but by then they had turned into pagans who had come to resemble the others. Of course, he knew the name Mendelssohn. Moses Mendelssohn, the founder of the Reform movement; all bad things began with him. He truly led the Jews astray with his enlightened ways, and it ended with violence, licence, and the slaughter of those whom he had led into a trap. He couldn’t understand why they should build him a memorial on a building that was dedicated to the cultivation of the arts. He wasn’t an artist, after all, but a religious reformer. He did have descendants, but they weren’t Jews. They had themselves christened and married Christians, and so nobody cared about those descendants. One of them was a composer and he had two names. Of course, he must be the one the Municipal officials were looking for. He turned respectfully to Krug, because he recognised that Krug was in charge.

  ‘Please excuse me, I cannot identify the statue because that composer you are looking for wasn’t a Jew.’

  Krug and Schlesinger looked at him. They were stunned. The nerve! What kind of nonsense was this? Krug couldn’t control himself and began to scream: ‘How dare you, you filthy Jew! If the Acting Reich Protector says it’s a Jew, then it has to be a Jew!’

  Rabinovich was sweating with fear. Maybe that other hoodlum would push him off the roof. These people were capable of anything. But he couldn’t answer any differently.

  He apologised humbly: ‘That musician Mendelssohn was christened. In fact, I just remembered he was christened as a tiny baby. And so by our laws he can’t be a Jew.’

  Rabinovich’s humility enraged Krug. He struck him so hard with his fist that Rabinovich reeled.

  ‘Shut up. Those explanations of yours don’t interest us. Just tell us: can you identify the statue or not?’

  ‘No,’ Rabinovich answered in a quaking voice.

  ‘So get out of here and crawl back to your lousy Jewish rat hole before I change my mind!’

  Rabinovich quickly disappeared through the gate, as fast as his collapsing legs would allow him. Krug and Schlesinger remained on the roof alone.

  ‘What now?’ said Krug in a cold fury. ‘It was your brilliant idea to go to the Elite Guard. Meanwhile, Giesse is about to call. What am I supposed to tell him? That I have an idiot assistant who can’t do anything properly, and when he has any ideas at all they turn out to be so colossally stupid that even a Jew can’t believe his ears. What you need is a turn of duty at the front. You’ll meet real men there and you can prove your loyalty to the Reich and the Leader by dying a hero’s death. Nobody will ask for any of your ideas there. And as an SS candidate you’ll have to apply to the Elite Guard. They’ll certainly be glad to see you there, because the way things have turned out, I’m not going to give Wancke anything. Besides which, they’ll be very favourably disposed towards you, since the Central Bureau will surely go after them about the guest appearance of their Rottenführer at the Jewish Community.’

  ‘But Herr Scharführer, I really …’

  ‘I don’t want to hear another word out of you. Return to Municipal. Get your things together, and hand the whole business over to Dr Buch …’

  Schlesinger ran quickly, as if afraid that Krug would dream up something even worse for him. He wasn’t even thinking about the front. Bad enough to think about the hell facing him at the Elite Guard – they certainly knew how to make life miserable if they put their minds to it. And they’d put their minds to it, never fear, because Wancke would get nothing from Krug, and the Chief Elder of the Community had surely sent a report to Stresovice. He should have volunteered for the army long ago and then he wouldn’t have committed that mortal sin. Now he’d never get to Rome and the Pope would never give him absolution. All his hopes were dashed. He’d die a sinner and his body would rot somewhere on Russian soil.

  Krug remained on the roof alone. Only after a few moments did he descend the stairs and return the keys to the guard. He was thinking furiously about what he should say to Giesse when he asked about the statue. There was nothing left but to ask his wife for help. Official regulations forbade him to confide official secrets even to his nearest and dearest, but not fulfilling an order was an even worse offence and he’d end up in Schlesinger’s boat. Meanwhile, his wife was a college graduate and knew a lot of people. Surely she’d come up with someone who could identify the statue. He’d go right home.

  Dr Rabinovich returned slowly to his office. It was actually a museum created at the request of the Central Bureau and also, perhaps, through efforts of certain shrewd people in the Jewish Community. The museum collected confiscated objects from the defunct synagogues, everything to do with religious ceremonies. It was to be a storehouse of trophies commemorating the Reich’s victory over its enemy. Thousands and thousands of ark curtains, prayer robes, Torah crowns and pointers had been sent from rural communities to Prague, where they were marked, catalogued, priced, dusted, repaired, restored; the most valuable were selected to be displayed in exhibits. From seven in the morning to seven in the evening, office workers, movers and hired hands worked at the museum. It was a very complicated job, and Dr Rabinovich was in charge.

  Sometimes distinguished visitors arrived from Berlin and asked for a guided tour. The museum was supposed to be a victory memorial, for the objects displayed here belonged to a race scheduled for annihilation. Nothing would remain of that race but these dead things. The visitors were fascinated: they had already read so many mysterious hints about the power of this deadly enemy that they expected to see charms, magic and mysteries of some sort. The exhibited antiquities, however, were made of perfectly ordinary fabrics, silver and wood, though in rather uncommon forms. It was therefore necessary to help things along with darkness and special lighting effects to give the exhibit a feeling of mystery. All the objects that had formerly been used for worship – the scrolls, ark curtains, mantles, crowns and pointers – lost their original purpose and now became merchandise, exhibition pieces that would never come to life again in a living faith. Rabinovich helped the desecration along. Under his supervision everything was received, uncrated, sorted and catalogued.

  The head of the Central Bureau was as proud of his museum as if it were his own creation. He even showed off his learned Jew with pride and forced him to read from the scrolls, to sing like a cantor, and to wave the palm sprig in the air before visitors. Dr Rabinovich lent himself to all this. He had to, because he wanted to save his wife and his sons. He had to endure everything because he knew. He recited a verse from the Psalms to give him strength when he was afraid: ‘Like sheep they are laid in the grave; Death shall feed on them.’

  A high minister of the Reich arrived, one of the Leader’s favourites, and the Acting Reich Protector himself took him around Prague. Behold, this golden city of a hundred towers now belongs to the Reich, these proud and ancient buildings will stay in German hands for ever, that river mirroring the
royal castle and dividing the city into two parts is now a German river. Unlike the usual thugs, this one was an educated man, an architect by profession whose head swarmed with fantastic projects. The Leader had picked him to be in charge of industry and to extract the maximum work from foreign labourers and prisoners in concentration camps. He conscientiously fulfilled his duties, but his dream was beauty – new cities, magnificent buildings, squares, parks. When the war was over he would carry out his plans. Now he was glad to be able to admire the beauties of a city he didn’t know, glad he could look at its monuments in peace and quiet because no bombs had fallen on this city yet and its architecture was intact. Like Mozart’s music, its palaces were in perfect harmony, unchanged from the day they had emerged from the workshops and foundries of the German masters. Yes, Germans had built this city and filled it with beauty. Who else could have done such a job? The Czechs had merely taken over for a time. Now their reign was finished.

  The former architect and the present Acting Reich Protector made a long tour of the city. The minister was heartened to find so knowledgeable a person in such a position – he had expected someone resembling other favourites of the Leader, narrow people who knew only about military or slave-driving trades. But Heydrich understood music. It was his strong point.

  Heydrich showed him buildings where the German composers Mozart and Beethoven had stayed when they visited Prague. He introduced him to the perfect acoustics of the Rudolfinum, a concert hall now returned to German art. He took a great deal of his own valuable time in order to personally show off the beauties of Prague. He was sorry that he couldn’t also take him for a tour of the Jewish quarter with its curious sights – the Old-New Synagogue, the old Jewish cemetery, the Jewish Town Hall and the museum the Reich was setting up, but the head of the Central Bureau was better suited for that.

  The head of the Central Bureau was deliriously happy to have so distinguished a visitor. The head was the son of a university professor and had been in Oriental studies before receiving this assignment. Now he was the absolute lord and master of all Jews in the Protectorate. His power was unlimited and no one could encroach on his territory. The minister was glad to meet so well-informed a person, an expert on Jewish monuments who knew the exact dates they were constructed. Once, the head of the Central Bureau explained, Prague had been a virtual bastion of Judaism, where Jews had lived uninterruptedly for at least a thousand years. This was because the Czechs lacked the racial sensitivities of the Germans, who had been trying to get rid of the Jews from at least the beginning of the Middle Ages; often, when the king’s power was weakened, they actually succeeded. But soon not a single Jew would remain in this golden city. Of course, the monuments would remain. The head of the Central Bureau wouldn’t allow them to be razed or burned down, as had happened in the Reich through human anger and bitterness. They were too valuable; they must be preserved. The minister was surprised to find a person engaged in such crude work who understood so well the need for preservation. He decided to mention him in Berlin.

  In the Jewish quarter, the head of the Central Bureau sent for Dr Rabinovich, his servant and slave. The contrast was striking: behind the slender, tall man with muscles hardened by sport and games, whose uniform and coat looked as if he had been poured into them, stood a twisted shadow, hunched over, looking down at the ground. In a briskly military and rather patronising fashion, the head of the Central Bureau ordered Dr Rabinovich to describe the ceremonies for the guest. The servant and slave spoke softly in good German with only a slight accent. The minister was interested in everything, even the embroidery on the ark curtains, even the variously shaped spice boxes – the little towers, fish and the locomotive. And then he saw the ram’s horn, a real ram’s horn.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked with amazement. He was surprised that such a primitive object still served a religious function. But how else to explain its presence among the exhibits here?

  ‘Explain it to the minister,’ ordered the head of the Central Bureau.

  Dr Rabinovich spoke the words he had often been obliged to repeat to various visitors: the ram’s horn was called the shofar. Formerly it had served as a military bugle, but now it was used to announce the beginning of the Day of Judgement; the Day of Atonement, the highest and most terrible of the Jewish holidays, the day when one thinks about one’s sins, repents of them, and begs for forgiveness.

  ‘I see,’ said the minister. ‘It’s a sort of musical instrument. I’d like to hear what it sounds like.’

  ‘Blow it,’ commanded the head of the Central Bureau.

  ‘But I …’ stuttered Dr Rabinovich. He was being forced into a further sin. He mustn’t commit such a blasphemous act. He’d be lost for ever and the vengeance of the Lord would afflict his issue for four generations. For these accounts are settled on earth!

  ‘Blow!’ bellowed the head of the Central Bureau in a threatening voice.

  And so he blew. His flesh was weak, he was not of the martyr’s breed, he had a wife and sons who wanted to live.

  It wasn’t a pleasant sound, not at all, rather a prolonged croak. He wasn’t a trumpeter, after all! He had never held this instrument in his hands before. Other people were meant to blow the shofar, people who knew how to produce sounds with it.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly not pleasant,’ announced the minister.

  ‘Nevertheless, it’s interesting.’

  ‘Next time blow it better,’ the head of the Central Office reproached him sharply. ‘You need practice.’

  And he left with his grand visitor.

  Rabinovich remained alone in the exhibition room. He looked around at the cases and the hanging ark curtains, feeling pangs of remorse.

  This had been a terrible day, a day of sorrow not unlike the day commemorating the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. First he’d been sent up on the roof of an unclean building to identify some statue, then he was beaten on the head. But none of that was as bad as the blowing of the shofar. He believed that blowing the shofar on a day that was not a Holy Day would provoke the Lord’s anger, which would then fall upon the innocent. Because of him people would be tortured, tormented and sent to a terrible death. For by blowing the shofar, he had allied himself with the murderers. He had become their helper. Indeed, he was even guiltier than they, because they believed they were annihilating an enemy, while he had betrayed his own people. He had desecrated his own religion and allowed himself to perform a shameful deed. For such a sin everyone must be punished.

  And still the miserable day was not over. A parade of movers marched into the exhibition hall. Strapped to their backs were heavy packages shaped like human figures, which the movers carried carefully as if they were made of valuable and fragile porcelain. They were followed by the young and cheerful designer of the exhibition. He was full of smiles, as if this had to do with some light entertainment.

  Rabinovich gave him a furious look. Yes, it’s easy for him to laugh, the faithless little wretch. He doesn’t even know what these things mean, nor has he ever set foot in a synagogue. Before this he was making scenery for a famous left-wing theatre and now they’ve made him designer of the exhibit rooms. But even Rabinovich had approved the appointment, because who else could have done the job but someone who wouldn’t really care about objects that generations of believers had worshipped with the deepest respect. Dr Rabinovich felt like cursing him under his breath, but then he realised that he was accursed himself, that he was a greater sinner than this little prig who had done nothing in the past but think up costumes for loose women and paint backdrops for lustful entertainments.

  The designer, Frantisek Schönbaum, greeted Rabinovich with a nod of his head – they did not shake hands. They disliked each other and had nothing in common apart from the fact that they were compelled to work together. Schönbaum knew he was better off here than working in a quarry or digging trenches. He knew that Rabinovich, though the director of the museum, still couldn’t throw him out. Rabinovich couldn’t ma
nage without him.

  ‘Now, fellows, unwrap them carefully and let’s see where they go,’ said Schönbaum gleefully. ‘This is going to be quite a show, at least as good as the Grevin Museum, maybe better.’

  The movers unwrapped the packages and brought out figures made of papiermâché all in sitting positions. They were dressed in the fashions of the 1840s, and one of them – an older man – wore a white vestment.

  ‘Now let’s arrange it and see how it’s going to look.’

  The movers dragged in an ancient table and chairs and positioned the various figures according to the directions of the designer. The whole scene created the impression of a feast.

  ‘Now put a book in that old one’s hand and set the table nicely. Then throw in these props.’ The movers set various papiermâché objects representing holiday food on the table.

  ‘Well, that should be it. Let’s just have a look and see whether the figures are arranged correctly. They must be in chronological order, from the oldest to the youngest. The youngest one must look foolish. Does it look all right, Dr Rabinovich?’ he asked.

  ‘I gave you instructions, but I won’t give you any more advice. That’s not my job,’ snapped Rabinovich.

  ‘Well, don’t take offence,’ said Schönbaum calmly. ‘I’ll work it out. But it turned out well, didn’t it? The figures look almost alive. And when I put it all in a darkened room and throw a little light on it from the side, people will really think there’s a feast going on here. Nobody will know that these are just dummies. The visitors will be startled, won’t they, fellows?’