The Iron Tracks

by Aharon Appelfeld

  On that long journey the course of my life was composed. I learned to live at a distance from people, suspiciously. I confess, I have no faith in anyone outside the train. They repel me. Over the years, I’ve found a few friends who remain faithful and wait for me, a few women. Hotels are usually good to me, and there are a few inns whose silence I’ve learned to respect, and sometimes, a window bids me welcome.

  CHAPTER

  5

  When did I first come to Herben? It’s safe to assume I was probably tired, dizzy, and tormented by nightmares. I do remember this: I didn’t expect to find anything at that desolate, wretched station. But what a miracle, in that very place, the Lord granted me two gifts: the driver Mar-cello, who awaits my arrival each year, and the perfect bath at the inn of Upper Herben.

  When the train stops, Marcello leaves his cab and rushes toward me, grabs my valise, and seats me at his side. The encounter, which takes place once a year, on April fifth at 3:30 P.M., always moves me. This Italian in exile, in whose company I dwell for two or three hours, grants me, without knowing it, the feeling of home. It was as if I had returned to my native city. We sit in the buffet, exchange impressions, and eat sandwiches. The place isn’t elegant, the music is harsh, but the meeting is heartening, and the coffee is good and strong.

  For years he’s been struggling with his ex-wife, who is extorting alimony from him. I know the story in detail. Nothing new has happened for years. A court session, postponed once, was postponed again, or if it took place, it was interrupted because the witnesses didn’t appear. Still, it seems to me that Marcello is telling me his most precious secrets. For his part Marcello remembers everything I have ever told him. I haven’t much news either, but he’s glad for any scrap and hopes that one day I will join him so that we can establish a taxi company together.

  Later we drive to Upper Herben. There, in the modest inn, the bath awaits me. The owner of the inn, a pleasant old Frenchwoman from Alsace, tastefully dressed, announces that my room has been prepared. Let it be plainly said, the room is nothing special. But more than once the bath adjoining it has restored me to life. I’ll never forget it.

  I got to Herben a few months after Rollman’s murder. After his death I was afraid of everyone, even myself. The train carried me, but not at the desired speed. Finally, I arrived in Herben. Marcello said, “They have a bathtub you’ll be pleased with,” as if he knew my hidden needs. I thought he was fooling me. Before long I discovered he was speaking the truth: the bathtub wasn’t large or splendid. Its sides were covered with blue tile, not rounded, and the surface wasn’t smooth. But, to my astonishment, it suited the contours of my body. Flaws may abound in it, but for me it’s a shelter. When I first sank into it, my eyes brightened. Since then, every year, I renew myself in it.

  Only after the bath did I sense the presence of time in my body. It wasn’t happiness, but a kind of relief after a prolonged illness. A memory dormant in my limbs stirred, and I saw the forests of Vatra Dorna, where my mother took me when I was five. We walked and picked mushrooms beneath the tall trees. It was autumn and the sun was low. The forest was bathed in a golden light.

  In Herben that memory returned to me, and since then it hasn’t stopped flowing. I didn’t know what had been hidden within me. I was fifteen when I was separated from my father and mother. I was certain that my life in Slavic lands was over. From then on I would wander and be borne from place to place. In Italy I’d be Italian, and if I went north toward Austria, there I would be at home. My mother had imparted the German language to me with all its subtleties in poetry and prose. Her loyalty to that language was no less than her loyalty to Communism. At night, before going to sleep, she would read me poems by Heine. I doubt that I understood anything. But the sounds flowed softly into my ears. I would be cut loose from the waking world and slip into deep sleep. Even in difficult times, when she grew morose, swallowing drink after drink, she would pick up a book and read, like someone preparing for better times.

  She was killing herself day by day in her room, and I didn’t know it.

  “Why didn’t you go out and buy me some cigarettes?” she would ask.

  I would be taken aback. “You didn’t ask me to, Mother.”

  “I’m sorry. Please do me a favor and go buy me a pack,” she would say, handing me a bill. I was afraid to leave her alone.

  You must get used to living without me. I have to go somewhere else, her eyes would tell me.

  Where is that other place you’re going to? my eyes would ask again and again.

  What does it matter? her eyes would reply wearily, ending the exchange.

  In the last year we spent together she stopped reading to herself and to me. Once a week her friend Mina would come to her, and they would sit by the window. I didn’t understand their conversations, perhaps because they were often silent. Mina was her friend from childhood, and she remained loyal to my mother. Other friends had distanced themselves, because she was a Communist, and because of the rumor that she’d taken part in the murder of the chief of the secret services. She never spoke to me about that murder. Surprisingly, all of this comes back to me in Upper Herben.

  After Rollman’s death my body shrank as during the war. I went from train to train, seldom stayed in hotels, and lived off my savings. I was certain that when I used up the dollars that were sewn in the lining of my coat, my life would end.

  I only stay in Herben for one day. Once, in the past, I was exhausted when I got there, and wanted to stay over for another day. That was a mistake, though not one I will ever repeat. For hours memory flooded into my head, as if seeking to drown me. My distant childhood, lost sights, appeared before me like a melting sea of ice. Since then I no longer overstay. I spend just one day in Herben and no more.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Yesterday I turned fifty-five. I spent the day by myself on the local between Hofbaden and Salzstein. The train is always empty on that stretch. For a bribe of three schillings the waiter turned to the classical station, and I sat alone in the dining car while Brahms sonatas washed over me. Once, the years passed as though on their own. Then, on my fiftieth birthday, I felt a sudden pinch in my heart, and I knew immediately that those were the years accumulating within me. Since then I count them. I know this counting is pointless, and it would be better to refrain, but what can I do? On April thirtieth the pinch in my chest reminds me that a year has passed, and once again I stand in the place where I was. The distances that I have traveled have worked no wonders. Barring disaster, I’ll be on the same train in another year. I’m not complaining. I have learned to appreciate the small things that come my way. There are days when I leave the train drunk with visions and sights, walk into the hotel, and fall fast asleep, as if after a day of real exertion.

  In Salzstein I am a welcome guest. The owner of the buffet in the station, Gizi, a converted Jew, is glad to meet me. We have an unspoken secret that binds us. Once he whispered in my ear a word in our language. Since then we’ve been friends—soul mates, I would say.

  He prepares two sandwiches and some borscht for me and tells me a little about the goings-on of the year. Two of my enemies were in there drinking coffee. They too, it seems, have become weary. One of them has decided to emigrate to America. In the depths of my heart I hope that one day they’ll all clear out and leave me alone. True, their malice isn’t evident, and perhaps they don’t intend to harm me, but the thought that they are scurrying about the same way I do is enough to drive me mad.

  As for Gizi, he has managed to do what I will never be able to do. He has changed. He looks like an Austrian in every respect, even his hair. Apparently, it’s due to his wife, with whom he lived for several years. Now they are separated and waging a mighty battle over their property. The struggle with her has become his life. She, of course, stops at nothing, as they say. When they separated she told everyone his true identity, and since then people have been conspiring against him. But he stands firm-always giving back as good as
he gets.

  Strangely, a couple of hours in his company restore my will to live. Perhaps because of his candor. Once he told me: “I converted because I loved my wife and because she saved me during the war. For six years I went to church with her, but in the seventh year I couldn’t any more. My knees felt weak. I asked her to remove the icons from the house, but she refused. Since then I’ve been sleeping in my buffet. I have a folding cot, and I sleep on it. I left her everything, but she also wants this station, which I built with my own hands. These planks are mine, and I’ll defend them with my life.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of hooligans?”

  “They don’t frighten me,” he said with a crude gesture that shocked me.

  The short time I spend in his company leaves his features engraved in my mind. At times it’s hard for me to understand him. Once he said to me, “Then I had to convert to Christianity, but now I don’t have to do this any more. Now the time has come to love plainly and to look straight into the eyes of the living and the dead.” I was about to ask, What do you mean? But I didn’t ask. I have learned that answers clarify nothing.

  From here I continue on to Upper Salzstein, a little village nestled in the forest. There, in a small cabin hidden away, lives Comrade Stark. Right after the war he arrived here, bought the cabin for nothing, and fixed it up. Since then he hasn’t budged. But don’t worry, he’s not cut off from the world. From here he sends out his articles, pronouncements, and amplifications. He stays in contact with the comrades, and the survivors, who will rebuild the movement.

  Before the war, Stark was one of the well-known secretaries of the movement, but since then he’s been both leader and aide. He writes the letters and he mails them. Here the scattered few gather to celebrate anniversaries, commemorate the dead, and sit together over a drink. Once people spoke of sending Stark to the Soviet Union at the head of a delegation to gain recognition and funds, but for some reason, the plan was never carried out. That didn’t make him less loyal. On May Day we, the dispersed, gather here, some by train and some on foot, not more than ten. For a moment we bring to life what was and is no more.

  Stark has aged. But on May Day he swallows two or three drinks, girds his loins, and goes forth to wrestle with ghosts and melancholy. He used to speak a lot about the future, about change and conquest. Now he speaks of the glories of the past, of the leaders who sacrificed their souls for their faith.

  Several years ago in Stark’s cabin I met Jacob Kron, a childhood friend of my father’s. Together they spent more than a few years in prison. He told me that Father was once unanimously chosen by the Ruthenians to be their secretary and to lead their strikes. But at the last minute someone remembered that Father was a Jew, and pointed out that it wasn’t right for a Jew to lead Ruthenians. Father didn’t lose faith. He never returned to his origins, the Jewish quarter. Instead he remained loyal to the Ruthenians, speaking in their behalf and organizing their mass meetings. He outwitted the police and performed his service in poverty and devotion. Kron had also known my mother well. He called her a revolutionary in heart and soul, someone who did more for the revolution than any other comrade. He, of course, was referring to the famous assassination in which my mother took part.

  Two days in Stark’s company restore a whole world to me. I sink into it as if into a drugged slumber. These aren’t easy times. Stark is moody. By turns, he chides and consoles, and when faith is rekindled in him, his face changes, he stands taller, and youth blooms again in his eyes.

  Once Mina would fill the evenings with folk songs. For hours she would fan the fires of memory with her voice. In recent years she hasn’t been seen. Five years ago she married an Italian and moved to a remote village. The village, it seems, did not bring her peace. She dreamed about soil and the simple life, and she found liquor and sloth. At first she struggled against these vices, but she soon learned that the Italian village was deeply rooted in its traditions. The party headquarters was just a tavern where the men would gather for amusement at night. The lectures and discussions were of little interest, and if you couldn’t accept things as they were, in the end the village would expel you. And that is how it was with her. Since then she’s been shunted from place to place, and she avoids even her friends. At the time Stark made great efforts to bring her back. Those efforts brought nothing. She became one of the shadows that inhabit railway stations, slipping away whenever an eye lit on her. Here she is remembered fondly and her memory is evoked as if she had passed away. A year ago Stark declared, “My heart tells me that next year Mina will return to us. I miss her melodies. They are like fresh air.”

  Last year no one came to him. Even the few, the faithful, have stopped sending him money for subscriptions to the party journal. But Stark is not one to sit idle. Besides the reproachful letters he sent to his associates, he prepared a pamphlet for better days. Now he is working on his masterpiece, “The War Against Melancholy.” That book, he believes, will bring people out of hiding. “Melancholy is a thrashing serpent,” he writes. “It must be fought to the death.”

  I know what he means. I have witnessed its attack on my body. When melancholy grips me, I lose the power to move even a single meter. Once, in a small railway station, it gripped me in my sleep, and in the morning I couldn’t shake myself loose. Were it not for the owner, a kind old Italian woman, I would have remained stuck there for who knows how long. Since then I have been careful. As soon as I sense it approaching, I take out my bottle and fight back. Stark has gathered a lot of material from ancient and modern sources on this affliction, and now he’ll sit down and put them all together. I eagerly await his book.

  I spent two days with Stark. He spoke for hours and kept silent for hours. On the second day, seeing that I was packing my valise, he raised his eyes to me and asked, “Where are you going?” His gaze was full of sadness, as if he had also seen in me his lost son.

  “I have obligations,” I said, so as not to give in to my feelings.

  “Tell me,” he asked softly.

  “I’m tracking down the murderer Nachtigel,” I said in a voice not my own.

  “That’s a great mission. You must cling to it with all your might.” He spoke to me the way he once must have spoken to his subordinates.

  Thus it was, every year. But this year the parting was different.

  I handed him a fifty-dollar bill and said, “Here’s my contribution to the place.”

  “It’s too much,” he said.

  “I made money this year. I have more than enough.”

  “And what about the future?” he asked in a fatherly voice. His look shrouded me in silence for a moment. I saw how his broad shoulders had shrunk, how sorrow had made his brow pale. Why can’t we pray? I wanted to cry out, but I immediately realize how foolish that would have been. He showed me out, and I knew that this meeting was our last. If we saw one another again, it would not be in this world.

  CHAPTER

  7

  I make my way north from Salzstein on a local. In this season the fields demand a lot of work, and passengers are few. The whole train is mine, and I settle in next to the window. In the first years after the war, people would gather from all over and stay in Stark’s cabin. There were about ten of us. We would spread out blankets and sing throughout the night with Mina. Stark would rise to his feet and inspire us with his conviction. As always, of course, there were those of little faith and a few scoffers. They hadn’t the power to put out the fire.

  The thought that this modest assembly too will break up, and that I will soon pass through Salzstein as I would other anonymous stations, terrifies me. In Salzstein the gates of memory open before me, leading me back to my father and mother, and I enter, without hindrance, to the party headquarters and secretaries’ offices, but most especially the prisons, where the comrades refined their faith and learned to be wholeheartedly devoted. Now I, too, deserted Stark. He sat all alone in his cabin, launching angry letters. With his own hand he cut himself off from the few who he
ld him in esteem.

  As the train advances, I feel the searing inside my body. At first Stark’s cabin was a sanctuary, full of inner joy, but in recent years, every word wounded and every grimace stung. The pain, as always, would come later, when you didn’t expect it. After Salzstein it is hard for me to fall back to sleep. I am restless, tossing and turning. In the past I would stop in little Lenzen, have a few drinks, and go on, but Lenzen is no longer what it was. The station has gotten dingier, the buffet is like a cavern. I prefer being jostled on the train to stopping in a neglected place. Such a station dismays me, a burden my body must bear.

  If nightmares interrupt my sleep, I stop off for a day or two in Gruenfeld. That’s a little village with a dairy and an inn. The inn isn’t fancy, but surprisingly it has the power to put my nightmares to rest. My nightmares, if I am permitted to speak of them, are neither fleeting nor few. They are always abundant, and only certain places and particular foods have the power to quiet them.

  In Gruenfeld they serve me borscht, black bread, and fresh milk and cheese. These miraculously draw me out of the mud. Fresh dairy products, I have learned, are better than medicine. But the best can be found only here. The cheeses that I buy in grocery stores aren’t fresh. Cheese that’s not fresh, like stale bread, destroys my appetite. For days afterward I touch only coffee.

  I could stay on, but the people here are rude. Since they discovered that I’m a Jew, they treat me with obvious coolness. But I don’t care. Better a little scorn than a long nightmare.

  I once found an old man here who proudly told me that his paternal grandmother had been Jewish. This stain had prevented him from being accepted in the military academy. During the war he had been sent to the Eastern Front, and from there he had returned as an invalid. He spoke of his stain the way he spoke of his wound, without resentment. He worked in the courtyard of the dairy, and when he sat down on the bench sorrow flowed directly from his blue eyes. I enjoyed his company, his silence, the way he broke his bread. That stranger, who didn’t like me much, would give me confidence. Once I told him that my stay with Stark had saddened me, and it was hard for me to sleep. He didn’t answer me. He just watched me as if to say, I understand you, but what was necessary should not be condemned. I am grateful to him for that glance. A glance is sometimes stronger than a word. It can revitalize you. Three years ago he died. Since then Gruenfeld has changed for me. I don’t linger there more than a day, or I skip it entirely.