All the houses had beautifully designed marble floors. From sunrise to sunset you could hear their cool polished whisper of discontent against the footsteps of the restless strangers whom fate had brought to these picturesque shores. We lived in groups, shared collective kitchens, and ate together in large halls — in general our life carried echoes of a kibbutz in Palestine, or perhaps of our ancient tribal history. Only important couples, whose men held leading positions, were entitled to separate rooms.
The weeks went by.
Mendel, who by then had also arrived at Santa Maria, was a stubborn individualist, with plans that he often kept to himself. Collective life went against his very grain; he was a natural Bedouin who needed freedom and open spaces, and room to unfurl his entrepreneurial spirit. One morning after a sleepless night, as he sat across the table with folded arms and arched brows, he asked quite unexpectedly: ‘How would you like to go to Naples, see Capri, explore a bit of Italy? I hope you haven’t forgotten the Polish song about Capri that we used to sing as school-boys! — Remember Capri, the island of lovers...’
‘I haven’t, Mendel, of course not. But those were different times, times of great dreams, dreams of conquering the world. Now we are facing a new game, a new life.’
‘I don’t believe that’s your reason,’ replied the ever-confident Mendel. ‘I know exactly how you must feel about leaving this tedious place. We’ve been here for nearly a month, that’s enough! Let’s get away for a while. Come on, let’s get away,’ he repeated enthusiastically. ‘We need to experience something else, something different. Santa Maria won’t run off — it will still be here in a thousand years, maybe more. I can understand why you hesitate, but be honest with yourself. Ask yourself what you feel, what you would like to do, not what you think you ought to do.’
Mendel could be very persuasive. He had even lined up the address in Naples of a transit house for displaced persons.
After arguing about it for three days, we set off.
The Boy
There were some fears that liberation could not expel from a survivor’s psyche. Chief among them, for me, was a red windowless train.
Mendel and I travelled by bus from Santa Maria to Bari, and then we boarded — to my relief — a passenger train with large windows. It would take us west across the country to Naples. We chose a compartment at random, but when we entered it we noticed a small thin boy with the pale face of an old man. He was curled up in the foetal position, next to the window, and appeared to be very unhappy. We said hello but he didn’t answer.
When the inspector arrived and asked to see our tickets, we showed him a loose page I carried on me from a Hebrew prayer-book. He smiled, saluted and left. I looked across at the boy. I was curious about him, intrigued by his sadness — though I knew that the roads of Europe must be full of dejected children streaming across the countryside in search of lost parents, siblings, and homes that once had been.
Come midday, the youngster fixed his black searching eyes on our sandwiches, so I enquired in broken Italian if he wanted one. He didn’t answer. ‘You don’t speak Italian? What about Yiddish?’
‘Yes, yes, Yiddish!’ he cried.
‘Where were you born, where have you come from?’ I asked him. ‘Why are you travelling all alone at a time like this?’
He seemed willing enough, now, to open up. He told us that his name was Szlamek and he was twelve years old. He had lived through the war with his mother and younger sister, in the ghetto of my own city of the waterless river. ‘We were among the few hundred Jews left to clean up the ghetto,’ he said. ‘After we did what we were ordered, the Germans drove us all to the cemetery. Graves had already been dug, and we believed they were just waiting for a machine-gun unit to finish us off. But at the last minute we heard shouts and hurrahs, and there they were — the Russians had come. They surrounded the Germans, took their weapons, and led them away.’
Szlamek, his mother and his sister had eventually been brought to Italy by the Bricha, an underground organization that smuggled Jews across the ruins of Europe to Palestine. Now they were staying in the south of Italy — by coincidence, at Santa Maria di Leuca, not all that far from our own DP camp. ‘We heard there that my uncle, my father’s brother, survived and is living in Naples,’ Szlamek explained.
‘Naples is a big city,’ said Mendel. ‘Do you have an address for your uncle?’
The boy took a small piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to us. I shook my head as an even bigger coincidence hit home. ‘You’re in luck,’ I said. ‘That’s the displaced persons’ building — the very place we’re headed for!’
We arrived early in the morning. Naples was drizzly and not yet awake. I thought the sky looked as if dawn had been overtaken by dusk. The light rain that was falling could be seen only against the still-burning streetlamps. As the three of us climbed the staircase of the building for displaced persons, Szlamek stopped suddenly and asked us to leave him on his own; but then almost at once changed his mind.
‘No, please stay behind me — in case it’s not the right door.’
He stood in the long dark corridor for a good while, hesitating, holding his breath. Then, at last, his little fist landed with a gentle thud on the brown timber. A woman opened the door. Szlamek stepped back shyly, but then he spotted the man in the shadows behind her. Like a shot he had bolted past, crying ‘Father, Father!’
They ran into each other’s arms. The man clasped the boy to him; Szlamek hung tightly from his father’s neck. When they finally let each other go, we were invited in and Szlamek broke the good news about his mother and sister. The woman looked on in silence — she understood the situation, understood that she no longer belonged here. She had snow-white skin, and jet-black hair held in place with an ivory comb. It was heart-wrenching to watch her quietly packing up her meagre belongings, then sobbing goodbye to a man with whom she had hoped to rebuild her torn life. Before she left she managed to give the bewildered little boy a prolonged hug.
Szlamek’s father, whose name was Lev, asked Mendel and me to stay for a cup of coffee. I sensed that he wanted to explain, to justify himself. ‘I didn’t know that my wife and children were alive,’ he stuttered, burying his face in the steamy cup.
‘You’re not to blame,’ I reassured him clumsily, knowing full well that I sounded neither convincing nor convinced.
‘But Szlamek, tell me,’ Mendel mercifully interrupted. ‘What made you hide the truth from us — that you were really looking for your father, not your uncle?’
The boy shifted in his chair. ‘Mother told me that, to protect his life, our patriarch Abraham told the Philistines that his wife Sarah was his sister... And besides,’ he added, ‘we didn’t know what sort of a person she was, that lady who tried to steal my dad.’
Chameleon
My science teacher taught us that there is a microbe, known as Trwałnik (endurer), which has the ability to live through hot and cold, through boiling and freezing water; it can sleep for generations in an iceberg, or within the burning sands of the Sahara, then re-emerge when the opportunity arises. Such a trwałnik was Piotrek Królewicz, a man who had first crossed my path before the war.
There is a story that most Poles whose names end in ‘cz’ are descended from eighteenth-century Frankist Jews who converted to Christianity. (Frankists, followers of Jacob Frank, were an extreme messianic sect that grew out of the earlier Sabbatian movement led by the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi.) The majority of these converts integrated, with time, into the Catholic fold; but occasionally, individuals would appear in their midst who, like Piotrek, retained a lifelong propensity to turn with the wind.
Nobody knew where Piotrek came from. Apparently he had been born out of wedlock, somewhere in the south. He wore a perpetually downcast expression, and I pitied him. No one wanted anything to do with him; he was treated like a leper. Even the most wicked among us have their noble moments, yet Piotrek seemed not to have any. Among the Gentiles he was a dirt
y Jew; among the Jews, a nasty goy. His lot was somehow reminiscent of Hagar’s son Ishmael: his hand was against every man, and every man’s hand against him.
According to one colourful account, Piotrek had a quarrel with his wife which nearly ended in murder. He had complained that her insignificant breasts were spoiling his pleasure, so she hit back at his own diminutive organ. This enraged him, and made him suspicious that she might be tangling her roots with another man. When he caught her in bed with the interloper, and then listened to her defensive cry — ‘My little breasts are his paradise, and his cock mine!’ — Piotrek hurled an axe at them. Luckily he missed, but the incident augmented his grudge against the whole world, and he took his vengeance on anyone who innocently crossed his path.
An artist in his field, he knew how to reinvent himself, and how to create a kingdom of sordid intrigue and betrayal. ‘In a way,’ he would state softly, his voice like a spider’s footfall, ‘the innocent are partners to every crime.’ Piotrek was a professional: he stole, and then deftly resold the stolen goods to his victims. He devised a terrific system. First he would quietly infiltrate the homes of his dupes, making himself useful. I recall one case which astounded our district. A certain master tailor’s young son — who obviously hadn’t read King Lear or he would have been aware of the Fool’s wisdom (Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest) — showed Piotrek his grandfather’s gilded Sabbath goblet. Two days later it was gone. The father, Reb Berel, was heartbroken: of all his possessions this was the object he cherished most. Piotrek naturally offered his ser-vices and undertook to retrieve the stolen goods — at a cost of fifty złoty. Berel’s son accepted the deal at once, but then Piotrek politely asked ‘What about me?’ so Berel agreed to another fifty. When the thief brought back the precious goblet, he casually requested a further twenty-five złoty for cartage!
Mendel and I came across Piotrek in a little café in Naples. He wasn’t aware that we knew who he was, knew how during the war he had become a chameleon. No sooner had the Germans invaded our city than he meta-morphosed from a trusted Polish police informer into a Gestapo agent. It didn’t last long, because even then he wouldn’t give up his thieving, bribing and other machinations, and he was forced to flee overnight across the river Bug, where he made a successful bid to join the Soviet secret police.
Piotrek had the nose of a bloodhound, not dissimilar to that of the previously mentioned Pinocchio. He sniffed out straight away that we were survivors of the camps. ‘Boys,’ he said without introducing himself, ‘there’s money to be made, and I can see you’re still living outside the real world. A neighbour of mine, Wolodja, is sitting on a suitcase of gold coins, and I feel that we are morally entitled to a share of this stolen treasure. What I propose is quite simple,’ he continued calmly. ‘You guys will swear that Wolodja was a kapo in camp. The rest you can leave to me. How does that sound?’
I was speechless.
‘Before we decide,’ said Mendel, ‘let’s have another cup of coffee.’
‘Right, absolutely!’ our impresario agreed excitedly.
But almost before he had time to look about for a waiter, Mendel’s fist had landed with a loud thud in the middle of Piotrek’s face. As we walked away, my friend turned back to him and remarked: ‘At least you won’t have any more dental expenses.’
Departures
Topography shapes a river’s character. Chance is a man’s topography.
My friend Mendel Goldman was a restless individual, possibly because of the demons that pursued him. He was a stocky youth, with a ruddy face, eagle eyes and a flat nose, a legacy of his junior boxing days. He seemed unable to bridge the horrible recent past with his vacant present. He was haunted by a simmering rage, yet terrified to recall the things that nourished it — scenes that dwelt outside of any human logic.
‘I am leaving,’ he told me with a wry smile one day, a few weeks after our arrival in Naples. ‘I’ll be crossing the border below Innsbruck.’ His plan was to bring items of clothing from Austria to Italy and sell them at a profit.
‘I’ll come too,’ I said at once. We had been doing nothing in Naples, just walking the streets aimlessly.
‘No you won’t. The road is hard, and dangerous. You haven’t got the stamina. Stay where you are, I’ll be back soon — perhaps a week, ten days at most.’
‘Don’t go,’ I pleaded. ‘Surely it’s safer, especially now, to stick to a familiar place instead of wandering off to some uncertain nowhere.’
But he had made up his mind.
Ten, twenty days went by and there was no sign of Mendel, not a word. The director of the displaced persons’ house, whose name was Herman — a smallish condescending man who always wore a white shirt with a black tattered bowtie — called me into his compact office. The room reeked of nicotine. On one of the walls, which were green and painted with red flowers, hung an imposing portrait of the legendary Theodor Herzl.
Herman addressed me from behind the enormous desk that occupied almost the whole room. It was a mess of papers and documents, pencils, rubber stamps, dirty ash-trays and unwashed coffee cups. ‘Young man, this place is not a permanent abode but a transit house for wayfarers.’ His words were measured, grave, aimed straight at my conscience. ‘You must take other people into consideration, people who have been on the waiting-list for months. You’re to vacate your room not later than noon tomorrow.’
It was well known that, during those ‘months’, Herman’s lover, nephews, cousins and other distant relatives had occupied the premises.
So I returned to Santa Maria di Bagno. Soon afterwards Mendel turned up as well. He looked as if the ground had been wrenched from under his feet. He had lost everything, all the money and possessions he had carried — but not that blue resolute fire in his eyes, or the daring alertness of his flattened nose.
‘I was apprehended at the border,’ he began, almost apologetically. ‘They couldn’t find anything on me — I managed to throw away anything incriminating — but they still arrested me. I was sent to a prison for former camp guards. And you won’t believe whom I met there! One of our custodians from Wolfsburg, Unterscharführer Henk — the one who used to practise target-shooting on dying inmates. Remember how he made us walk barefoot on broken glass?
‘Well, after roll-call I beckoned him over into a corner and asked politely if he knew who I was. No, he said, definitely not. So I said, “Do you have any recollection of Häftling 141139?” He replied that he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Then let me refresh your memory,” I told him. And before Henk had time to as much as burp (which, as you’ll recall, was one of his great pleasures), I let fly with a left and then a right — creating a deep dent in his ribcage and redeco-rating his mouth. “Henk, this is just a deposit,” I told him. “I haven’t finished with you yet.” But I wasn’t given another chance — I got a week in solitary for engaging in a brawl. When I came out I heard that a delegation from the Vatican had paid a visit while I was in the cooler, and Henk had vanished. Apparently he had received a landing permit for Australia from those black-robed heavenly lieutenants.’
Perhaps because of the strong sun, bread grows stale quickly in the south of Italy. To eat it, we found that we needed to dip it in water or red wine. We preferred the wine. It was something the local populace would seldom have done, but to us young men, accustomed to drinking wine only on festive occasions, the practice made wonderful sense.
One morning, as Zakhor, Mendel and I sat around chatting vivaciously after a joyous breakfast of this kind, Mendel stood up to make an announcement: ‘My friends, I am determined to give luck one more try.’ I knew what he meant but I kept my peace. No one could have changed Mendel’s mind, and it was useless to try.
So Mendel left, never to be seen again.
Years later I learnt that my daring friend had gone to Trieste, illegally boarded a ship bound for Palestine, joined Haganah, the Jewish underground military organization, and rose to be an expert machine-gunner
. In one of the clashes with the invading Arab armies in 1948, he covered his infantry detachment’s retreat and kept the enemy at bay, until he ran out of ammunition. I was told his body was hacked to pieces.
There, amid the golden dust of the Negev, Mendel’s rebellious spirit was stilled at last.
En Route to the Republic of Hope
We had been promised fair weather but it didn’t stop drizzling. ‘The southerly winds are tearing my world apart,’ complained my new acquaintance, a fellow survivor, as we emerged for a respite from the bus that was ferrying us to Santa Maria di Bagno, after my Naples interlude. We had met in the bus and quickly struck up a conversation. ‘I took a decent dose of tablets, yet the cough still keeps hammering at the door of my rotten lungs. Is it possible,’ he continued, as if addressing himself, ‘that the weather forecasters have shares in the pharmaceutical industry? Or have the politicians usurped the job of prophesying our weather?’
‘Hope is one’s best remedy,’ I proclaimed solemnly, not believing a word.
‘A strange panacea,’ he remarked. After every cough he furtively inspected his white handkerchief.
As we travelled deeper into the heart of night, I noted the yellow moon’s grimace of indifference. And why not? Wasn’t creation intrinsically a reflection of its Creator? Didn’t painters, writers, composers, recompose themselves in their work?
The man turned out to be an intelligent, stimulating companion. ‘I believe we’re born to utter abandonment, to tragedy,’ he said, holding back an oncoming cough. ‘Something that has never happened to other nations. And why should anyone care? Soon, everything that has ever happened to us will be forgotten.’
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