by Jurek Becker
“What can one offer a guest these days?” Frankfurter says to his silent wife. And then to Mischa: “What can one offer a guest apart from one’s daughter?”
He smiles, having brought off his little joke, then draws on his pipe again. Anyone can draw on an empty pipe, nothing to it, but not the way Frankfurter does. Included in his performance are the enjoyment, the pleasurable richness of the smoke. Someone not looking too closely might be tempted to wave the smoke away.
There is a thoughtful silence. Any moment now Mr. Frankfurter will tell a story, one of his anecdotes at the end of which he puts on such a display of mirth that he slaps his thigh: for instance, the one about the actor Strelezki, otherwise said to have been a divine Othello, whose false teeth fell out just as he was bending over Desdemona to strangle her. Rosa lays her fingers on Mischa’s hands, her mother goes on making the shirt smaller, Frankfurter is rubbing his knees, perhaps he’s not in the mood today, and here comes Mischa with such good news, still wondering how best to tell them, as if pondering a checkers move.
“Have you heard the latest?” Rosa asks him suddenly.
Startled, Mischa looks from one to the other; he gives up his search and is surprised that Mrs. Frankfurter doesn’t even look up from the shirt. They already know, yet he hasn’t noticed till now that they know. He is surprised to find that everything in the room looks just as it did on his last visit. He is amazed at the speed: it was only this morning that he heard it from Jacob, and now it’s already here at the Frankfurters, by way of who knows how many intermediaries. But strangest of all is that Rosa should wait till now to bring up the subject. She can’t have forgotten it and only just remembered it: impossible. Something’s wrong — maybe they have a reason not to believe it.
“You already know?”
“They were talking about it at work today,” says Rosa. “And you’re not glad?”
“Glad?” says Mr. Frankfurter. “We’re supposed to be glad? What are we supposed to be glad about, my boy, eh? Before, they could have been glad about it, gathered all the relatives together, got drunk, but today there are a few little things that have changed. In my opinion, it’s all a big calamity, my lad, almost a disaster for those people, and you’re asking why I’m not glad?”
Mischa instantly realizes that they are talking about something quite different, the only explanation for their mood. Otherwise Frankfurter has taken leave of his senses and doesn’t know what he’s saying.
“It will be hard to bring up a child,” says Mrs. Frankfurter between two stitches.
The first clue. Renewed astonishment in Mischa’s eyes: they are talking about some child, so news doesn’t travel all that quickly. Apparently two crazy people have brought a child into this world, without having heard the news — in normal ghetto times, certainly a subject for discussion. But as of yesterday the times are no longer normal, a different wind is blowing, we can tell you about things that will make you forget child and husband and wife and eating and drinking: as of yesterday, tomorrow will be another day.
Now Rosa is surprised: first she is surprised, then she smiles at Mischa’s expression.
“So you really don’t know about it yet,” she says. “But that’s what he’s like. He can’t stand it if other people know more than he does. He’s such a know-it-all, while the truth is he doesn’t know anything. A child has been born in Witebsker-Strasse. Actually there were twins, but one of them died almost at once. Last night. When all this is over they intend to have the boy registered under the name of Abraham.”
“When all this is over,” says Frankfurter. He lays his pipe on the table, gets up, and starts to pace the room, head bowed, hands behind his back. His disapproving glances are directed at Mischa — surely the boy isn’t grinning? They take everything so lightly, including Rosa; perhaps they are too young to grasp it. They speak of the future as if it were a weekend that can’t fail to arrive — the whole family goes off to the country with a picnic basket, rain or shine. “When all this is over the child will have died and the parents will have died. All of us will have died, that’s when this will be over.”
Frankfurter has finished his pacing and sits down again.
“I think David sounds nicer,” says Mrs. Frankfurter gently.
“Dovidl… Do you remember? That’s what Annette’s son was called. Abraham sounds so terribly old, not at all like a child. Yet it’s only for children that names are important. Later, by the time they’re grown up, names don’t matter so much anymore.”
Rosa tends to favor Jan or Roman; she feels it’s time to get away from the traditional names. When it’s no longer necessary to wear the yellow star, why not choose different names? Frankfurter shakes his head over such women’s talk, and suddenly Mischa wishes he had arrived at this moment instead of earlier, blurting it out the moment he arrived. For if he starts telling them now, they will feel just as he did in his error: Why did he wait till now to tell us? He can’t have forgotten it! He’s been sitting and sitting while they talk themselves ever deeper into their gloomy mood. Either he doesn’t tell them till tomorrow and then pretends that it’s the latest news, or he’ll have to think up some story to explain why he’s telling them only now and not as soon as the door was opened. He decides on today. It’ll be a little extra punch line for Frankfurter. Mischa gets up, affects reluctance, even he doesn’t know whether it’s simulated or real, looks diffidently at Frankfurter, who is already wondering about the lengthy prelude, and formally requests the hand of his daughter.
Rosa discovers something on her fingernail that claims her undivided attention, something so important that her face turns fiery red: they have never exchanged so much as a syllable about it, which, of course, is really the way it should be. Mrs. Frankfurter bends lower over the shirt, which is nowhere near small enough yet, most of the work being required by the collar because of the great importance of a perfect fit. Mischa relishes his inspiration, successful or otherwise; Frankfurter is taken aback and is about to say something. It is his turn to speak, since a polite question deserves an answer, and, no matter how out of place the question may seem at first, Frankfurter’s answer will build a bridge to the great news, and this will at the same time explain why Mischa waited until now to tell them. That is Mischa’s plan, devised in extreme haste and not so bad at that; Felix Frankfurter will build a bridge, it’s his turn, they are all waiting for his answer.
So, great astonishment on Frankfurter’s part, incredulity in his expression; he has just been drawing on his pipe and has forgotten to blow out the smoke. The father who would give his only daughter to no one but Mischa, loving him as he does like his own son, the man of hard facts who is nobody’s fool, is staggered. “He’s gone mad,” he whispers. “Suffering has confused him. It’s these cursed times when perfectly normal desires sound monstrous. Why don’t you say something?”
But Mrs. Frankfurter won’t say anything. A few tears drop soundlessly onto the shirt; she doesn’t know what to say, all important questions having invariably been decided by her husband.
Felix Frankfurter resumes his pacing, inner turmoil, and Mischa looks as hopeful as if the next words could only be “Take her and be happy.”
“We are in the ghetto, Mischa, don’t you know that? We can’t do what we want because they do what they want with us. Should I ask you what security you can offer, since she is my only daughter? Should I ask you where you intend to find a place to live? Should I tell you what kind of a dowry Rosa will receive from me? Surely that must interest you? Or should I give you some advice on how to conduct a happy marriage and then go to the rabbi and ask when it would suit him best to perform the khasene? You’d be better off racking your brain for a place to hide when they come for you.”
Mischa remains confidently silent; that still wasn’t an answer, after all.
“Just listen to that! His ship has foundered, he’s swimming in the middle of the ocean, not a soul in sight to help him. And he’s wondering whether he’d rather spend t
he evening at a concert or the opera!”
His arms sink to his sides; Frankfurter has said all that was to be said, even throwing in a little allegory at the end. No one need be clearer than that.
But Mischa is not impressed. On the contrary, everything has gone just as he hoped. No help in sight, that’s the kind of phrase Mischa has been waiting for — soon you’ll all know the real situation. It does make sense to speak of the future, Mischa isn’t an idiot after all, of course he knows where we are, of course he knows that one can’t get married until — and that’s the real issue — until the Russians arrive.
Mischa to me: “So I simply told them (that was his word: simply) that the Russians were twelve miles from Bezanika. You see, it wasn’t just a piece of news: now it was also an argument. I had imagined they would be thrilled — you don’t hear that kind of news every day. But Rosa didn’t throw her arms around my neck, far from it; she looked at her father almost in alarm, and he looked at me. For a long time he didn’t say a word, just looked at me, so that I began to get nervous. My first thought was, Maybe they need time to grasp it, judging by the way the old man was looking at me, but then I realized it wasn’t time they needed but certainty. After all, the same thing had happened to me: I too had thought that Jacob was just trying to divert my attention from the carload of potatoes, and I went on thinking this till he told me the whole truth, how he had found out. News like that without a source simply isn’t worth anything, it’s no more than a rumor. So I was about to open my mouth and dispel their doubts, but then I decided to wait. Let them ask, I thought: if you have to squeeze something out of another person, you can absorb it better than if he tells it to you on his own and all in one piece. And that’s exactly the way it happened.”
So, an endless silence, the needle paused in the middle of a stitch, Rosa’s hot breath, Frankfurter’s eyes, and Mischa standing there in the spotlight, the audience hanging on his lips.
“Do you know what you’re saying?” says Frankfurter. “That’s not something to joke about.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” says Mischa. “I heard it from Heym.”
“From Jacob Heym?”
“Yes.”
“And he? Where did he hear it?”
Mischa smiles weakly, pretends to be embarrassed, shrugs his shoulders unhappily, which they won’t accept. Somewhere there was a promise. That he is not going to keep it is another matter, but the promise was made, and he would like at least to be forced to break it, he would like to have done his utmost: in my place you wouldn’t have acted any differently.
“Where did he hear it?”
“I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone,” says Mischa, actually quite prepared to do so, but obviously not prepared enough, at least not obviously enough for Felix Frankfurter. This is not the time to note nuances in a voice; Frankfurter takes two or three quick steps and gives Mischa a slap, a cross between a stage slap and a genuine one, but more likely genuine, for it contains indignation: we’re not talking here to pass the time.
Naturally Mischa is a bit shocked — that much force wasn’t really necessary — but he can’t be offended now. The force, after all, had to assume some form or other. He can’t sit down with a stony face, arms crossed on his chest, waiting for an apology. He could wait a long time for that. He can, and he does, remove all doubts: the moment has arrived, his plan worked — no one is going to ask now why he took so long.
“Jacob Heym has a radio.”
Another short silence, a few glances exchanged, the shirt — still too big — floats unnoticed to the floor. It’s all right to believe one’s own son-in-law. At last Rosa throws her arms around his neck; he’s waited long enough for that. Over her shoulder he sees her father sitting down exhausted and covering his deeply furrowed face with his hands. There will be no discussion; there is nothing to say. Rosa pulls his ear to her mouth and whispers. He doesn’t understand, the old man still has his hands in front of his face, and Mischa looks at her inquiringly.
“Let’s go to your place,” Rosa whispers again.
A brilliant idea, she has taken the words out of Mischa’s mouth; today one inspiration follows on the heels of another. They tiptoe out of the room with exaggerated care, the door clicks shut, no one hears it. Outside, it is already getting dangerously dark.
Then Frankfurter is alone with his wife, without witnesses. All I know is how it ended. I only know the outcome, nothing in between, but I can only imagine it to have been something like this.
His wife finally gets up, at some point. She wipes away her tears, no longer those of the marriage proposal, or she doesn’t wipe them away. She goes to her husband, quietly, as if not wanting to disturb him. She stands behind him, puts her hands on his shoulders, brings her face close to his, which is still covered with his hands, and waits. Nothing happens, not even when he lowers his arms. He stares at the opposite wall, and she gives him a little nudge. She is looking for something in his eyes and cannot find it.
“Felix,” she may have said softly after a while. “Aren’t you glad? Bezanika isn’t so far away. If they’ve come that far they’ll come as far as here too.”
Or she might have said: “Just think, Felix, if it’s true! My head’s in a whirl, just think! Not much longer now, and everything will be just the way it used to be. You’ll be able to perform again, on a real stage, I’m sure they’ll reopen the theater. I’ll be waiting for you beside the bulletin board next to the porter’s lodge. Just think, Felix!”
He doesn’t answer. He gets up from under her hands and goes over to the cupboard. Perhaps he looks like a man who has come to an important decision and doesn’t want to waste any time in carrying it out.
Frankfurter opens the cupboard, takes out a cup or a little box, and finds a key in it.
“What are you going to do in the basement?” she asks.
He weighs the key in his hand, as if there were still something to be considered, possibly the matter of finding the right moment, but the sooner the better. Nothing is the same anymore. Perhaps he tells her now what he has in mind, taking her into his confidence while still in the room, but that’s unlikely since he has never been in the habit of asking for her opinion. Besides, it makes no difference when he tells her; it won’t change anything, the key is already in his pocket. So let us assume that he closes the cupboard without a word, walks to the door, turns around, and says only, “Come.” They go down into the basement.
In these houses of the poor one would formerly never have set foot: the wooden stairs are worn, they creak abominably, but he walks close to the wall and on tiptoe. She follows him uneasily, also softly, also on tiptoe — she doesn’t know why, just because he’s doing it. She has always followed him, without asking; often she has only been able to guess what was to be done, and it wasn’t always the right thing.
“Won’t you tell me now what we’re doing here?”
“Sssh!”
They walk along the narrow basement passage; no need to tiptoe here. The next-to-last cubicle on the right is theirs. Frankfurter turns the key in the padlock and opens the wire door in its iron frame, which is no good as fuel and so is still there. He goes in, she follows hesitantly, he closes the wire door behind her, and there they are.
Felix Frankfurter is a cautious man. He looks for a piece of sacking or a sack with holes that he can tear or, if there is no sack, he takes off his jacket and hangs it across the door, just in case. I imagine that for a moment he puts his finger to his lips, closing his eyes and listening, but there is not a sound. Then he goes to work on the little pile filling one corner of the space, a little pile of useless stuff, a small heap of memories.
At the time they received the notice, they spent two days with their heads together considering what they should take along — apart from the prohibited things, of course. The situation was very serious, no doubt about that; they didn’t expect it to be a paradise, but nobody had any definite knowledge. Mrs. Frankfurter thought in practical ter
ms, too practical for his liking, solely of bed linen and dishes and things to wear, but he was reluctant to part with many items that she regarded as superfluous. Such as the drum on which at a highly successful performance he had announced the arrival of the heir to the Spanish throne; or Rosa’s ballet slippers from the time when she was five years old, to this day almost unworn; or the album of carefully pasted-in reviews in which his name is mentioned and underlined in red. Give me one good reason why I should part with them: life is more than just eating and sleeping. The problem of transporting them? In great haste he bought a handcart, at an exorbitant price, for at that time prices for handcarts shot up overnight, and now the little pile fills a corner of their basement.
He lays aside one item after another, his wife watching him silently, seething with curiosity: What is he looking for? Maybe for a moment he studies the framed photograph of all his fellow actors at the theater, his portly figure over on the right, between Salzer and Strelezki, who in those days wasn’t yet so well known. But that’s not what he’s looking for; if he did study the picture, he puts it aside again and goes on reducing the pile.
“That Jacob Heym is a fool.”
“Why?”
“Why! Why! He heard some news, marvelous, but that’s his affair. Some good news, very good news in fact: then he should just be glad and not drive everyone else crazy with it.”
“I don’t understand you, Felix,” she says. “You’re not being fair to him. Surely it’s a great thing for us to know about it. Everybody should know about it.”
“Women!” Frankfurter says angrily. “Today you know about it, tomorrow the neighbors know, and the next day the whole ghetto is talking about nothing else!”
She may nod, surprised at his fury. But so far he’s given no reason at all to reproach Heym.
“And all of a sudden the gestapo knows!” he says. “They have more ears than you think.”