Eichmann's Executioner

by Astrid Dehe

  Shot up, how?

  I don’t know, I wasn’t there, and Eichmann didn’t explain. Maybe there were just too many bodies piled on top of each other, the pressure kept building up until the blood came spurting out—

  Onto Eichmann’s Mercedes?

  Or just next to it. Eichmann felt sick, the driver wanted to stop, but couldn’t because of all the blood. They had to keep going. It was too much, I was exhausted, Eichmann said. I felt as if I had been beaten. I do not have the required robusticity of feeling.

  The what?

  Robusticity—he used words like that.

  Did he say that during the trial?

  No, to me.

  How do you know what he said? You can’t speak any German.

  He said it in Spanish.

  But you can’t speak Spanish, either.

  But he thought I could because I’m from Yemen, I’m a Sephardic Jew and the Sephardim come from Spain. That’s what he thought.

  Nagar makes it up as he goes along. I was tired when Ben took me home. Tired but filled with a strange kind of energy. Eichmann, Eichmann, Eichmann was back.

  A few days later, Ben took me back to the meeting place. Nagar wasn’t there. Ben made three mugs of tea, fetched three pears from his coat pocket. There was no sign of Nagar.

  A storm was coming. Lightning struck somewhere; then it started to pour. There were puddles and streams everywhere, including where we were sitting. Ben stood up to keep a lookout for Nagar. He didn’t catch sight of him at first, but then he saw him standing under the porch of his sheep shed where it wasn’t too wet. Ben signaled to me, grabbed the wheelchair, and started pushing me along as fast as he could.

  In some places there were huge puddles blocking our way, while in others the ground was so saturated the wheels got stuck. Ben pushed, pulled, steered this way and that. Somehow he managed to keep the speed up. The wheelchair slid and lurched all over the place, but I enjoyed the wild ride. It was the price we had to pay to get to Nagar’s safe shelter—or so it seemed to me. I held on to the armrests and egged Ben on, shouting instructions as if we were trying to win a race. Two old men behaving like children.

  We reached the shed soaked through and laughing. Nagar was just drying his hands. A bedsheet had been fastened to the wall, and a plucked chicken hung on a string in front of it.

  Ben was still charged with energy and stared at the chicken for a moment before giving it a little push that set it gently swinging to and fro, while pale red liquid dripped from its slit-open gut.

  Nagar was not amused by his antics. He didn’t approve. He grabbed the chicken and held it tight. He sounded ceremonious all of a sudden. The sound of his voice was forever changing to suit his mood. Now, he rallied it in a darker tone: A woman from the neighborhood is ill, Ben. She won’t eat or speak, no one knows what is wrong with her. The doctors can’t help. They are relying on me. I have healed people before. They say: You have the gift, Shalom. I don’t know about that. I take a chicken, wrap it in a sheet, and wave it above the head of the person who is ill. I pray, and they get well. What did I do? Not much. I prepared the chicken, no more, no less. It has to be drained of blood. That’s the main thing. The soul’s dwelling is in the blood, it needs to get away, must not be touched. The chicken has to be completely drained of blood.

  That’s what Shalom does. That’s how he heals. The words and the way they were said had the desired effect. Ben didn’t say anything; he felt ashamed. And even Nagar seemed moved by the scale and significance of what people believe he can do. They are all in awe of Nagar the healer.

  It wasn’t pouring as much as it had been, but large drops of rain still smacked the ground and pelted the iron roof of the shed. Thick, dark clouds were everywhere and there was no sign of it getting any lighter. Ben looked at the sky anyway; Nagar stood beside him, his arms folded across his chest.

  It is always raining in Germany.

  That’s not true, Shalom. What makes you say that?

  When the Romans tried to conquer Germany, they got stuck in the mud. And the Germans, what were they called in those days—

  Teutons?

  The Teutons took their chance. They charged out of the woods and defeated the Romans. Every Teuton carried a weapon, men, women, children, even the elders, everyone. The Teutons always kept their weapons within easy reach. It was a question of honor. It was all that mattered. Honor! The Germans are evil. Eichmann—

  What does this have to do with him?

  Wait. Eichmann followed orders. Always carry a weapon. The Teutonic code. Of course Eichmann obeyed. He was always armed with a gun.

  Even in bed?

  He kept one in his bedside table. And he had secret drawers in his desk where he hid loaded weapons. The thought of actually having to shoot someone disturbed him, though. So he was constantly giving his guns away. His adjutant got one, so did his driver, even visitors were urged to take a gun from him. Here, take my gun. I insist. Yes, Herr Obersturmbannführer! Jawohl! But every time he gave one away, he was given two more. And there was a gun cabinet in his Mercedes packed with anything you can imagine, pistols, hand grenades, machine guns—

  But he didn’t shoot?

  Never! He was too scared. He never shot anyone in his whole life. He couldn’t. He can’t stand the sight of blood, he can’t shoot a living thing.

  I don’t believe you. He was in the war, he must have shot people.

  He was in his office! He was responsible for transports, he ordered Jews onto trains. Trains, railway lines, timetables—that was Eichmann’s world, Ben. He didn’t have to shoot. Later on, he would moan: I was not allowed to be a soldier, I was never a commanding officer, I never got to see the front. Actually, it was what he wanted because he was scared. I still can’t understand it.

  What can’t you understand?

  How can someone who’s evil be afraid?

  You’ll have to ask Moshe, Shalom. He thinks about that kind of thing, not me.

  Nagar turned around and looked at me. He seemed to hesitate. So far he had only talked to Ben or into the space between us, as if there were another, greater audience out there somewhere. He had never spoken to me directly. Perhaps he was shy, or it could be a precaution. Ben was someone he knew. Ben fed him cues, Ben allowed him to make things up and go his own way. But who was Moshe? The man in a wheelchair who listened in silence, never showing any kind of reaction to Nagar’s stories? Nagar knew nothing about me and couldn’t tell that, in a different way, I was as close to Eichmann as he was. Or did he suspect something and that was why he ignored me? Could he sense that my thoughts were like music accompanying his stories, critical comments, corrections, detours, enhancements? Some of Nagar’s words would unlock troves of memories in my head. In his office! Did Nagar know that Eichmann’s office was nothing more than a briefcase in the beginning? Eichmann was a newsman when he started out; he collected news about Jews straight from the Jews. A newsman needs to be agile, pop up all over the place. He couldn’t line them up in front of his desk because he didn’t have one. So they met on the stairs, going up, going down, Eichmann listened, Eichmann asked the right questions, Eichmann learned, Eichmann took notes, created a position for himself as the expert on Jewish matters. He was given an office and it was as familiar to me as if I’d been in and out of it every day. As if I had walked the long diagonal from his desk to the door. It was a gargantuan desk and he liked to sit behind it, leaning back into the shadows while his desk lamp lit up the person opposite him. He wrote his transport orders at this desk, forced Jews into trains—a hundred, a thousand, hundreds of thousands—with one stroke of his pen. But one time—was it just the once?—he sent someone into a new life, set him free, didn’t shout him down; instead, he shook his hand. Called him comrade, not half-caste or a pig. That was just as evil. An angel can fall, but a devil can’t rise. There was no way back for Eichmann.

  Nagar came over to me without saying a word. He leaned forward and studied my face, as if he were searching for
traces of the words he could sense in my gestures but couldn’t hear. How can an evil man be afraid? The answer?

  I didn’t have an answer.

  Nagar turned away, winked at Ben, and shook his head in mock disappointment: Moshe’s not saying anything.

  Moshe is tired, Shalom. We’re going to go now, even though it’s raining. You should go, too. Ben pointed at the chicken still hanging in front of the white sheet. Your neighbor will be waiting.

  She has been waiting all her life, Ben. She is a lonely woman. Everyone is dead. Her husband, her sons, and still she waits. I’ll go to her.

  Nagar took the chicken down and undid the string. Hold the sheet, Ben, but be careful. Don’t let it touch the ground. It has to be clean, without any stains.

  Ben held the sheet while Nagar wrapped it around the chicken and then tied the bundle up with string.

  Let me tell you a story.

  We’re going now, Shalom. Moshe needs to get home.

  It’s raining far too hard. I’ll tell you a different story.

  Not too long?

  No, no, a short story. What do you say, Moshe? One last short story?

  I raised my hand to stop him, but either he misunderstood the gesture, or else he simply ignored it.

  In the prison in Ramla, the prisoners were supposed to clean their own cells. They were each given a cloth and bucket. Most of them never bothered. They didn’t mind the dirt. But when Eichmann arrived in Ramla, he said he would need two cloths: One to mop the floor and one to wipe it dry. And I would ask you to change the cloths once a week, he said. That’s how neat and tidy he was! He swept the cell floor from corner to corner, wall to wall, every day. You could see your reflection in the tiles. Every morning he made his bed, shook out the blankets, folded them up, and put them one on top of the other. Once a week, he beat the mattress and turned it over. Twice a week, always on the same day, he washed his clothes, his shirts first, then his socks and undershirts, and finally his underpants. He hung them up to dry on the bars of the window in the bathroom, always the same way. Before he sat down at the table to write or read, he dusted the table top and the chair with his handkerchief.

  He was pedantic.

  He is German, Ben. Germans are like that. They won’t tolerate filth. They want it gone. It has nothing to do with them, it should not be there. Away, away! Be gone! Eichmann had a project, what was it called—

  Deportation?

  No. No. Before that. Nisko! The Nisko Project. Nisko was a place somewhere, I don’t know where, an awful place in the middle of nowhere. The Jews were filth for the Germans, so they were sent to a filthy place. Eichmann collected thousands of Jews, builders, carpenters, mechanics, and transported them there. When they arrived, they had to march for miles and miles. Then he made a speech. They were to build a camp with wooden barracks. But be careful, he said. Do not use the local water. There is typhoid and cholera in this area, the water in the wells is contaminated. You will have to dig new wells. Get fresh water at all costs. Or else—and then he paused and smiled: Or else you will die. That is how evil he was. That is why he liked things to be clean. Everyone had to be clean. The Germans think they are saints. White people!

  He wasn’t really white, Shalom. He was darker than most of them.

  Yes, but he liked to have everything as white as possible. During the war he had an affair with a noble lady who only wore white dresses and white hats. After the war, he kept white chickens. Then he bred angora rabbits, each generation whiter than the last. And still it wasn’t enough. The commander showed me a photo of Eichmann in Argentina. A barren landscape, covered in stones and dust, but Mr. Eichmann is wearing a white shirt and trousers. And sitting on a white horse! And then—

  Shalom, stop!

  That was a few months ago. We still visit Nagar at the meeting place or in his shed. Ben picks me up once or twice a week. Every time he takes me home, I think: That’s it. I’ve had enough! Nagar can’t stop, we know now. As long as we go to see him he will tell us his stories. And if we don’t visit him he will tell someone else.

  Shalom Nagar is laden with tales of Adolf Eichmann—they come pouring, splashing, spouting out, never ending, never stopping. Eichmann, Eichmann, Eichmann. Nagar has lived with him for fifty years. His life revolves around him. He’s always repeating or contradicting himself, his stories are full of gaping holes. But it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. He’s trying to protect himself. Nagar needs to spill blood to wash away Eichmann’s blood, he needs to talk about Eichmann to drown out Eichmann’s curse. Blood for his blood, words for his words, it’s how he lives with what happened on May 31, 1962, the night that will never end.

  He upsets me, he fascinates me, he poses a challenge. Nagar talking about Eichmann—the way he talks about him—feels like a reproach. What did I do instead? I hid Eichmann behind a white sheet. I made myself pure, I thought I was holy! All lies. I didn’t forget Eichmann—that’s another lie. I kept him secret!

  I can’t play the violin like my father or Eichmann anymore, so I compose music. I write themes that don’t remind me of Eichmann, choose time signatures that distance me from him, and tones that sound nothing like what I heard in the courtroom during all those hours. How many hours? Hundreds, perhaps, while I watched Eichmann, saw his mouth twitch, studied his bearing when he rose to answer a question from the prosecutor or the judge.

  And then this little old man comes along, folds his hands across his chest, and starts telling his stories.

  This morning I took my file of newspaper cuttings from the shelf, wiped the dust and cobwebs off my Eichmann books. I am going to write. I am going to write about Eichmann. About Eichmann and Nagar, about the trial and everything else. The gallows, the rope, the prison director, the preacher, the president. The oven. I have no idea where this will take me. Perhaps I will begin to understand something that can’t be understood. Perhaps not. But there is something out there that I must face. It is getting closer, it’s closing in. The noise is destroying my music. I’ve run out of notes.

  Two

  A train rattles in the distance. The prisoner raises his head.

  For a moment, his heartbeat merges with the rising and falling sounds in which he gradually recognizes the familiar driving rhythm, this iron pulse he once beat himself.

  What is the cargo? he wonders. Victims? Then he needs numbers; he closes his eyes, counts the carriages, there are not enough, there were never enough. His life was too short for the fanatical art of transport.

  Reluctantly he shakes his head, opens his eyes again, and now the silence falls around him, the suffocating isolation of his cell, which has no windows, is surrounded by other rooms—occupied by guards—and empty corridors, along which they march him once each day when he is allowed to go outside. Here, too, there are only guards, no one else at all sees him, he sees no one, and whatever it is he can hear has no name. It is not a train. Do trains even run in this country?

  The prisoner, that’s Eichmann?

  Yes.

  You’re writing about Eichmann?

  About Eichmann and you, Shalom.

  Why?

  When Ben picked me up, he saw the typewriter on my table.

  Are you typing music?

  I’ve run out of notes, Ben. I’m writing.

  You’re going to be a writer?

  I’m writing.

  What are you writing?

  I told him.

  You’re writing down what Shalom says?

  I’m writing what I think about while Nagar tells us his stories.

  Can I have a look? Ben asked. I didn’t want him to. You read to us, then, he said. We’ll go to the meeting place, like we always do, and you read what you’ve written.

  No, Ben. That’s Nagar’s meeting place. It’s where he tells his stories. I write here.

  Writers need an audience, Ben said.

  But I’m not a writer, I just write.

  For yourself?

  I didn’t know the answer.
r />   You’re writing about Shalom, Ben said. He needs to know.

  Nagar needs to tell stories, Ben. He doesn’t listen. He needs to talk. About Eichmann, his Eichmann. The Eichmann at the meeting place belongs to him.

  He tells stories, you write them and read them out loud, Moshe, Ben said. Two voices, why not?

  In the end, I put the papers in my bag, the few pages I’d written, and Ben wheeled me to the compound. He made tea, as always, and cut up the pears. We drank, we ate, Nagar didn’t come. At some point the chickens grew louder; it sounded as if they were complaining. Ben stood up, kept watch. He’s coming, he said. Soon I could see him, too. He wasn’t carrying his black case today, he had a white bundle instead, but he was singing as usual as he came over. I couldn’t understand what he was singing, words in a language I’d never heard before, a happy melody, softly rising and falling. Maybe a song of praise to the day and the work done. As always, the singing turned to a hum when he reached us. He shifted the bundle onto the table, between the cups and pears, collapsed into his chair, studied his hands, rubbed them together.

  My chickens—they’ve got wet feathers.

  It rained a lot the last couple of days, Shalom.

  It’s not the rain, Ben. It’s from within; they’re restless. We’ve got to be careful. Let me tell you a story. Eichmann was given the same food every morning, two slices of bread—

  Moshe has been writing, Shalom. He wants to read to us.

  I want to tell you the story. You know I tell true stories, things that really happened.