Mendelssohn is on the Roof

by Jirí Weil

  ‘Do you call this living?’ Becvar once said to Vyskocil. ‘Pulling dead bodies out of cellars and waiting for a bomb to drop on your head. I’m a pretty easy-going chap, but I’ve had enough of this. I mean it, I’ll just crack up and do something crazy. One time they sent us up on the roof to pull down a statue, and later that friend of mine Stankovsky took home the rope and said it was good for hanging, and I couldn’t figure it out because the rope was much too thick for hanging clothes. Now I know what he meant.’

  ‘There’s time enough for that, Tony. Meanwhile, you better just try to stay alive and out of a concentration camp. They’re beginning to lose the war, and if you don’t do anything stupid you might live to see the end of it. Then you can settle accounts with them.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, except I’m not the type for that sort of thing.’

  And then came the great air raid. Half the city was on fire and the bombs kept coming down. They were crouched near the entrance of a shelter, waiting for the bombing to end. But this time it seemed it would never stop. And they were scared, scared to death, even though sitting in a shelter during an air raid like that wasn’t much better than being out on the street. Still, a shelter provided a certain security, however dubious. A person imagined that the danger wasn’t so great there. But everybody knew perfectly well that they were kidding themselves, because they often dragged dead bodies out of the shelters.

  Becvar stayed close to Vyskocil. If a person had to die, it might as well be near a friend. But they couldn’t even talk to one another, the bombs were whistling and exploding all around.

  The bombs came nearer and nearer to their shelter. It was a terrible spectacle to see a house collapse before their very eyes or catch fire from the roof down. They were used to this, except the fear was worse as the bombs came closer and closer to their shelter. They couldn’t tell what the people in the shelter were doing because the terrible thundering, whistling and crashing kept them from hearing any sounds from below. But people there were surely groaning, trembling and throwing up. They had seen that many times also.

  Just then they heard the sound of a bomb falling so near to them that, by reflex, they tried to dive into the shelter. However, the commander with the revolver stood on the steps and wouldn’t let them down with the Germans. They had to stay out on the street.

  All that was left of the house across the street was a single wall. And on the top of the wall they saw the figure of a woman holding a small suitcase. Her mouth was wide open; she appeared to be shouting with all her might, but in all that noise you couldn’t make out a single word. How she got on top of that wall and how she stayed there was a complete miracle. There was no guessing how long she could hold on. The wall was bound to collapse any minute. Another strange sight was a completely undamaged statue in a niche of that very wall, looking out with a dull, complaisant gaze at the battered street. There had probably been a pharmacy in the building, because the statue was of a woman in a flowing robe with a snake twined around her. The screaming woman stood directly above the serene trademark of the pharmacist.

  Antonin Becvar was terrified. His nerves were giving out and the worst thing was that he couldn’t confide in Vyskocil; he wouldn’t have heard him even if he had screamed right into his ear. Becvar didn’t want to look at the woman, who kept opening her mouth wide. But somehow he had to keep looking at her, because if he let his eyes drop lower he would have to look at the ridiculous statue in the middle of the ruins. Her smile annoyed him. It reminded him of his unlucky adventure on the roof of the Rudolfinum. But the woman on the wall with her mouth that opened and closed yet uttered not a sound irritated him even more.

  Suddenly Becvar grabbed a folding fireman’s ladder that was standing in front of the shelter and rushed out into the street. Ruda Vyskocil screamed something that he couldn’t make out, but nobody dared go after him. Becvar found himself alone in the midst of the thundering, whistling, crashing and flames, alone with his anger. Now he had really had enough. After being forced to pull dead bodies out of bombed buildings every day, he could no longer stand living in this roaring hell and being afraid of dying. He was overcome with a senseless fury at his own powerlessness, and that forced him to do something.

  He grabbed the ladder, stood it against the wall and climbed up to the screaming woman. The people in front of the shelter watched his race against death with excitement. Either the wall would collapse before Becvar got to the woman or he’d be struck by a bomb or hit by anti-aircraft fire. Even the commander, who was standing downstairs at the entrance to the shelter, neglected his duties and went up the stairs to watch what Becvar was doing. Becvar climbed the ladder as if he didn’t see what was going on around him, as if he didn’t care about the bombs, anti-aircraft fire and flames. Now he reached the woman and he could really look at her. She was an old lady completely covered with plaster dust, all dolled up in old-fashioned clothing. She had the kind of bonnet on her head that they wore in the last century. And in her hand she clutched a suitcase, even though she could fall off any minute.

  Only now could Becvar make out what she was screaming. It was a single word repeated over and over again: ‘Hilfe! Hilfe!’ Becvar knew what it meant. The old woman didn’t weigh much. He picked her up off the wall quite easily and made his way down the ladder again. She had finally stopped screaming; only her eyes emanated terror. But she didn’t let go of the suitcase, even when Becvar tried to carry it for her. She would rather have fallen off the ladder. Becvar himself didn’t know what had got into him to undertake such a dangerous rescue. Everything was going around in his head, the stupid statue that survived the bombing all by itself and the statue at the Rudolfinum, the one that got him sent to the Reich, and that old woman opening and closing her mouth like a mechanical doll wound up with a key.

  As he descended, he slowly came to his senses. Now fear began to return and he couldn’t even get it straight in his head where he was. Yet fear impelled him to hurry, and that’s why he quickly dragged the old woman all the way to the shelter. Then he fainted. Suddenly life returned to the old woman. She didn’t even cry, but just sat there smiling placidly. They carried Becvar into the shelter and poured water on him. He regained consciousness but continued to shake all over.

  The sirens announced the end of the air raid. It grew quiet. And then the quiet was broken by a sudden rumbling, as if an earthquake were occurring and the earth were opening up. It was the wall on which the old woman had been standing a little while ago finally collapsing. The battered bricks and mortar fell right up to the entrance of the shelter.

  ‘Jesus Mary,’ Becvar began screaming. Only then did he understand what a crazy thing he had got himself into. He had to struggle to keep from throwing up.

  Suddenly the old woman appeared at his side. She was still clutching the suitcase in her hand and talking rapidly about something. Luckily Ruda Vyskocil was standing right there. He knew German, because there were a lot of Germans in Prostejov, especially in the clothing business.

  ‘What’s the old bag blabbing about?’ asked Becvar.

  ‘That’s not an old bag. She says she’s a countess, von Sarnow or Tarnow, or something of the sort, who the hell knows.’

  ‘Ask her what’s so special about that case that she wouldn’t let me hold it for her.’

  ‘She says it’s the family jewels.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ said Becvar.

  The Countess von Tarnow or Sarnow was going on and on about something else.

  ‘What does she want now?’ Becvar asked Vyskocil.

  ‘I don’t understand her too well. She talks all that Prussian double-talk. But I think she’s saying something about your being a hero and deserving a reward.’

  The commander came up to them and the countess introduced herself to him. When he heard her name, he clicked his heels with respect. Then he addressed Becvar and informed him that he would receive a decoration.

  Becvar flew into a rage. ‘To hell with his medals.’

&n
bsp; The countess paid no attention to the commander and turned to Becvar. Vyskocil translated: ‘She’s asking what you want for a reward. She says she has a lot of pull in the various bureaus here. Her son is some kind of general or marshal or something. So quick, think of something you want.’

  Becvar jumped up and shouted: ‘Home! Nach Hause! Böhmen! Prag!’

  He grabbed at all the German words he knew. Vyskocil didn’t even need to translate. The commander looked disgruntled and said something excitedly to the countess. Vyskocil was afraid to translate, net wanting to make Becvar mad again. But he translated the countess’s reply.

  ‘I give you my noble word of honour that I will see to it that you return home. Even if I have to go to the Führer personally. Your heroic deed deserves it.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Vyskocil dubiously. ‘Don’t believe that old bag one hundred per cent. But you might thank her anyhow.’

  Becvar said, ‘Danke.’

  That was also one of the German words he knew.

  Becvar arrived in Prague late at night. He guarded the document stating in black and white that he was leaving at his own request with the approval of the Office of Volunteer Work for the Reich; he guarded it like a holy relic. In addition, the document announced that he had distinguished himself during the bombardment. Becvar knew what the document said – Ruda Vyskocil had translated it for him. They parted as old friends. Becvar promised Vyskocil he’d write to him.

  A guard stopped Becvar at the station, but the document had magical powers – it bore the stamp with the sovereign seal and the signature of some big shot. He took the tram to the terminus and then trudged with his suitcase to Prosek. The road seemed endless and the suitcase grew heavier and heavier. It was three o’clock in the morning when he finally arrived at their little house. It had no doorbell, only a dummy push-button, because neither the landlord nor the tenants wanted to pay for the installation of a bell and they had to get around the regulations somehow. But even if there had been a working bell Becvar wouldn’t have used it – it would have woken up the whole house. He jumped over the gate and tapped at the window of his apartment. It took a while before Marena woke up. She looked out of the window, sleepy and alarmed. She almost cried out when she saw him standing in the courtyard, but she restrained herself. She indicated that she would come and open the door – all this quietly, without a word.

  Only when Becvar was in the kitchen did she whisper: ‘You ran away, didn’t you? But you can’t stay here – somebody would turn you in. We’ll have to figure something out. Maybe you could hide out somewhere in the country.’

  Becvar said, ‘Well, Marena, you could at least give me a kiss.’

  Marena realised that she hadn’t even greeted him in all the confusion.

  Becvar sat down on a chair. He was tired to death.

  ‘For your information I didn’t run away. Not at all. They let me go.’

  ‘Because of illness? But you don’t look bad.’

  ‘Not at all. It was because of the statue.’

  ‘Have you gone crazy? What statue?’

  ‘It’s like this: I got to the Reich because of a statue, and I got out of the Reich because of a statue. The second one, that was an idiotic statue; you know, one of those women with big curls and a snake crawling around her. I couldn’t stand looking at her. And because I couldn’t stand looking at her I had to look at the old bag who was screeching on the wall, except that I couldn’t hear her screeching in all that noise. So it drove me crazy and I saved the old bag. And the old bag fixed things up for me so I could go home. I’ve got a document, so they can all drop dead.’

  Marena was confused. ‘I don’t understand at all. What does some old bag have to do with a statue or anything?’

  ‘I’ll explain it all one of these days. But I can barely talk now, I have to lie down and go to sleep, and I’ll sleep at least all day and night, so don’t wake me up. The main thing is that I have the document, so you don’t have to worry about me.’

  Only then did Marena stop controlling herself. Tears began to fall to the ground.

  ‘When you wake up I’ll make you a roast rabbit with bacon.’

  SIXTEEN

  FRANTISEK SCHÖNBAUM SAT in his office in the fortress town. It wasn’t really an office, more like a cupboard formed by partitioning off a room. It was not much bigger than a dog-kennel. But Frantisek Schönbaum rejoiced in that cupboard because it belonged to him alone and it was warm. Outside, it was bitterly cold, colder than any of the new residents had ever experienced. He looked at the thermometer hanging behind the window – nine degrees below zero. He was drawing a blueprint. The work helped him avoid thinking, tormenting himself.

  Before the war he used to decorate the homes of rich people and design special furniture for them. The only work he had enjoyed, however, was his job at a well-known left-wing theatre. He hadn’t even minded designing exhibits at the Jewish Museum not long ago; it still gave him a feeling of doing something useful. Then he was sent by transport to the fortress town. Here, with difficulty, he just managed to keep going.

  He designed things here, too, but not furniture, of course. A practical cart to be attached to a human carthorse. A simple coffin that could be produced without much work. Work-benches that could be used for various purposes and other articles that were required in the running of a ghetto.

  He threw himself feverishly into his work. Coming to work early that morning he’d had to pass a transport of people getting ready to leave for the East. He arrived at six o’clock, but the people assigned for transport had been gathering in the courtyard of the barracks where he had his office since three o’clock or earlier. They stood there in the cruel cold; men, women and children. They wore their transport numbers around their necks. They stood in assigned groups of fifty people. They were shivering with cold and huddling together. It was still dark on that gloomy, freezing morning when an outcry was heard from the barracks courtyard. It was the troopers and ghetto guards calling together their groups in order to herd them to the railway station. Weighed down with baggage, the procession went out through the gate and began its journey. The ghetto guards and troopers darted about Schönbaum like hunting dogs. He quickly slipped into his office and threw himself into his work. At first he had to force himself to concentrate, but finally he became absorbed in it, and even began to whistle to himself.

  And so the morning proceeded. Along with everyone else he joined the queue in the barracks courtyard at noon. Holding a stub with the date in one hand, he waited for the main meal. In his other hand he held a mess tin. The queue moved slowly. As people reached the little window they argued; they whined and begged for more. It did them no good. People were distributing soup and, as the next course, three potatoes in their skins. An old man who had just received his meal slipped on the ice and his soup spilled. The potatoes scattered at the feet of the others waiting in the queue. Someone must have quickly grabbed them, because they never appeared again. The old man lay on the ground, tears falling on the freezing puddle that had been his soup just a moment before. He knew he would have to go hungry the whole day. The people in the queue after him begged the woman doling out the meals to give him another portion. But she was implacable.

  Frantisek Schönbaum was lucky to be able to take the food away with him to his office. The others had to eat in overcrowded dormitories where everyone was on top of one another. He ate slowly, having read in a book somewhere that the longer one chewed the more nutritious the meal. He ate the potatoes with their skins, having read in yet another book that there were vitamins in the skin. When he finished eating, he felt like having a brief nap, but suddenly he was stricken with fear. The transports left for the East in the dark, in the fog and frost. When would his turn come? He knew it was foolish to think that he was indispensable, that they needed him to design useful articles. That was nonsense; such people were a penny a dozen. If he went, another person would take his place. That one would sit in his office
and delight in the quiet and warmth before they chased him out into the cold to the transport, too. He forced himself to think about the East. Nobody knew what went on there. Postcards arrived from there with the words I’M FINE in block letters, and nothing else. But those words meant nothing. They were the same on every postcard. There was just one thing that everyone knew: things were bad there, worse than in the fortress town.

  He tried to talk himself into believing that even though his turn would come, it would not happen for a long time, and by then the war might be over and those who remained in the fortress town would be freed. How else could he manage to go back to work if he had no hope at all?

  At three in the afternoon an errand boy with a message burst into his office. The errand boys were always fearless youngsters who were rude to everyone. The errand boy shoved the message into Schönbaum’s hand. The boy didn’t care that the hand was holding a compass and that the motion caused one end of it to scratch the blueprint.

  Schönbaum leaped up. ‘How dare you, you little brat! You’ve ruined my drawing!’

  But the errand boy only grinned and handed him a notebook. ‘Just sign so I won’t have to waste any more time here.’ And he slammed the door behind him.

  The message was from his boss. It ordered him to come to the technical division immediately. Schönbaum tried in vain to figure out what such an urgent summons might mean. Could the boss be dissatisfied with him? No, impossible, Schönbaum sat in his office from morning until night and did the work of three. More likely the boss wanted to give his job to some other person he cared about in order to save that person from the transport. The boss could always find a fault of some sort in his work. And if he couldn’t find any, he could always pass it off as a reassignment.