by Jurek Becker
“Oh, Felix,” she interrupts him, “do you seriously believe that the gestapo needs us to find out where the Russians are?”
“Who’s talking about that! What I mean is, all of a sudden the gestapo knows that there’s a radio in the ghetto. And what will they do? They’ll immediately turn every street upside down, house by house. They won’t give up till they’ve found the radio. And where will they find one?”
The pile has been leveled. Frankfurter lifts up a cardboard box, white or brown, in any case a cardboard box containing the reason for a just and valid death sentence. He opens the lid and shows his wife the radio.
She may give a little shriek, she may be horrified, certainly shocked; she stares at the radio and at him and is at a loss.
“You brought our radio along!” she whispers and folds her hands. “You brought our radio along! They could have shot all of us for that, and I knew nothing about it.… I knew nothing.…”
“Why should you?” he said. “Why should I have told you? I’ve trembled enough alone, and you’ve trembled enough even without a radio. There were days when I forgot it, simply forgot it, sometimes even for weeks at a time. So one happens to have an old radio in the basement and stops thinking about it. But whenever I did remember I would start trembling, and I’ve never been reminded of it as I was today. The worst part is that I never listened, not a single time, not even in the early days. Not so that you wouldn’t notice — I simply didn’t dare. Sometimes I wanted to; my curiosity would almost get the better of me. I’d pick up the key, and you remember how from time to time I’d go down to the basement. You would ask me what I wanted down there, and I told you I wanted to look at photos or read the old reviews again. But that was a lie; I wanted to listen to the radio. I would go down into the basement, hang something across the door, and didn’t dare. I would sit down, look at the photos or read the reviews, just as I’d told you, and I didn’t dare. But that’s all over now!”
“I had no idea,” she whispers to herself.
“That’s all over, once and for all!” he says. “You were right all the time, it was useless stuff, I don’t need it anymore. There’ll be nothing left, nothing to suggest a radio. Then let them come and search.”
He takes the radio apart, piece by piece, probably the only radio in the hands of any of us; without much fuss he destroys it. The tubes are trodden to dust, an indestructible piece of wire is wound as a harmless cord around a box, the wooden casing is put aside piece by piece and will have to wait a few weeks before being burned. At this time of year any smoking chimney is suspect, but that’s no great tragedy: wood is wood, after all.
“Did you also hear them say that the Russians have almost reached Bezanika?” Mrs. Frankfurter asks in a low voice.
He looks at her in astonishment.
“Didn’t I tell you I never listened?” he may have answered.
Mischa enters his room with Rosa, and that is a whole story on its own. If it is a story when somebody must be lied to in order to make her a little bit happy, that’s what happened with Rosa; if it is a story when bold ruses must be employed and fear of discovery is present, and there must on no account be any slipups, and one’s expression must remain solemn and innocent throughout; if all this yields a serviceable story, then Rosa’s going with Mischa to his room is also a story.
In the middle of the room is a curtain.
Fayngold is the name of the man sleeping in the other bed, it’s because of Isaak Fayngold that they have to go to all this trouble, even if he couldn’t care less. He’s wiped out with fatigue anyway every night, he’s over sixty and his hair is snow white; he really does have other worries, but go ahead and do what you like. At first only the wardrobe had divided the room; to Mischa this seemed enough and to Fayngold more than enough, but for Rosa it hadn’t been sufficient. She told Mischa that, even if Fayngold is deaf and dumb, he still isn’t blind, and the moon shines so brightly into the room, and in any case the wardrobe is too narrow. Mischa cheerfully removed the piece of cloth from the window and fastened it to the ceiling beside the wardrobe. Now the moon could shine in more brightly than ever, but not for Fayngold. The main thing was that Rosa was reassured.
Fayngold is no more deaf and dumb than I or Kowalski or anyone else who knows how to use his ears and tongue, but for Rosa he is as deaf and dumb as a clam. It was clear to Mischa from the start that Rosa would not set foot near his bed because there was another bed next to it with a strange man in it; the understanding landladies and the discreet little hotels with their hall porters who tactfully look the other way and ask no questions — these can be found only in some other town. He knew that under the circumstances she could only say no, she’s not that kind of girl, that’s out of the question. Neither is he that kind of fellow. But if renunciation is to be the ultimate option, there is still ample time for brooding. No one can fault him for that, and Mischa did plenty of it.
One blessed night he was lying awake in bed thinking of Rosa, with Fayngold about to fall asleep in the other bed, and Mischa began to tell him about Rosa. Who she was and how she was and what she looked like and how much he loved her and how much she loved him, and Fayngold merely sighed. That’s when Mischa confessed his burning desire to have Rosa with him for one night.
“By all means,” Fayngold answered, without going more deeply into the problem. “I don’t mind. And now, do let me go to sleep.”
Mischa didn’t let him go to sleep. He explained to Fayngold that the point was not whether Fayngold agreed but whether Rosa agreed. Also that he hadn’t mentioned Fayngold to her, he hardly dared to, and if they didn’t come up with a solution, presumably nothing would come of the whole idea. Fayngold switched on the light and stared at him for a long time.
“You’re not serious!” he said in a shocked whisper. “You can’t expect me to hang around in the street until you’re finished. Have you forgotten the regulations?”
Mischa didn’t expect any such thing, and he hadn’t forgotten the regulations either. He was simply looking for a solution, which was nowhere in sight. Fayngold switched off the light and soon fell asleep: it’s not we who must come up with something, but Mischa, all by himself.
After an hour or two Mischa woke Fayngold, patiently put up with his abuse, and then told him his idea. As Mischa has said, Rosa will never spend the night with him if she finds out that there is another man in the room, regardless of whether he’s twenty or a hundred. If Mischa doesn’t tell her, maybe she will come, then she’ll see Fayngold, so she’ll leave again and never forgive Mischa. No matter which way you look at it, the only solution is for Fayngold to remain in the room and yet be as good as not there.
“You want me to hide?” was Fayngold’s weary response. “You want me to spend night after night under my bed or in the wardrobe?”
“I’ll tell her you’re deaf and dumb,” Mischa announced.
Fayngold protested; for days he bitterly resisted the idea, but eventually Mischa managed to convince him of the urgency. At night a person can’t see much anyway, and if she is also sure that you can’t hear anything, we should be able to manage. So with distinctly mixed feelings Fayngold gave his consent: If it means so much to you. And ever since then, for Rosa he has been as deaf and dumb as a clam.
For Mischa, though, there was another worry: from a few hints dropped by Fayngold he became aware that Fayngold had once been listening. True, Rosa hadn’t noticed anything and Fayngold had kept his mouth shut, but he must have heard a thing or two not intended for his ears. After all, when two people lie in each other’s arms, quite a few words are spoken that are not meant for other ears, and it was very embarrassing for Mischa. Since then he has been studying Fayngold’s sleep, often deliberately lying awake to listen to the pitch of his breathing and snoring. No one has ever heard himself sleep; no one can imitate his own sleep. A person can imitate sleeping as such but cannot know anything about his own sleep. And Mischa knows what Fayngold’s sleep sounds like: he could swear, he
says, that he knows it in every detail. And during the rare nights when Rosa is with him, Mischa always first listens intently as he lies beside her, and only when he is quite sure that Fayngold is asleep behind the screen does he begin to caress her and kiss her, and Rosa forgets her disappointment and stops wondering why he has kept her waiting so long.
On one occasion something terrible happened: while deeply asleep, in the midst of a confused dream, Fayngold suddenly began to speak, clearly audible individual words, ignoring the fact that deaf mutes must be deaf and dumb in their sleep too. This woke Mischa, whose heart almost stopped beating; he looked anxiously at Rosa, who lay asleep in the moonlight and merely turned her head from one side to the other. He couldn’t call out, Fayngold, shut up! He could only lie there motionless and hope, and luckily Fayngold stopped his fantasizing before there was a disaster. Dreams last for only a few seconds, people say, and it never happened again.
So much for the miniature comedy. All in all, we see that some bold paths have led Rosa to this room, right beneath these covers, not merely straight down one street, then a turn to the left and a turn to the right. Mischa has found a way, Fayngold has cooperated, Rosa is happy to be here.
She is lying on her back, I know, her hands under her head, tonight as always, even though that’s a bit selfish since with a big fellow like Mischa the bed has more than enough to cope with: he has to make do with the edge. There she lies, a faraway look in her eyes; the evening, the most wonderful yet, is over. They have already whispered their sweet nothings into each other’s ears. Although Fayngold is deaf and dumb, they always whisper, as people do who lie as Rosa and Mischa do now. They would whisper even on a lonely island, if, that is, it were absolutely necessary to speak. The night is far advanced; the mute Fayngold has long since been asleep behind the screen of wardrobe and curtain. The hot weather and the news must have worn him out: tonight he was only a brief impediment. After only a few minutes Mischa was satisfied with the sounds coming from the other side and could lavish his entire attention on Rosa.
Rosa gently nudges Mischa, her foot against his foot, persisting until he is sufficiently awake to ask her what’s up.
“My parents will be living with us, won’t they?” she says.
Her parents. They had never come as far as this room. There had always been only the night when Mischa and Rosa were lying together and making love — that particular night and no other. All the following ones were yet to come, and there was no use wasting time thinking about them. But now that the parents are here, let’s look briefly at what may one day happen, let’s peek through the hole in the curtain. Her parents are here, along with an idea of what the future may hold; they can’t be thrown out, Rosa is adamant.
“They won’t be living with us,” says Mischa in the darkness.
“And why not? Do you have something against them?” Rosa raises her voice — these are not matters that demand to be whispered — raises it so rebelliously, perhaps, that Fayngold might wake up, but of course she never suspects this danger.
“Good heavens, is that so important that you have to wake me up in the middle of the night?”
“Yes,” says Rosa.
All right. He props himself on his elbows. She can pride herself on having finally chased away his sleep; he sighs, as if life wasn’t already difficult enough.
“All right. I have nothing against them, nothing whatsoever. I really like them very much indeed, they won’t be living with us, and now I want to sleep!”
He heaves himself onto his other side, a minor demonstration in the moonlight: their first tiff. Not yet a real quarrel, merely a foretaste of everyday worries. A few silent minutes pass during which Mischa notices that Fayngold has woken up.
“Mamma could look after the children,” says Rosa.
“Grandmas always spoil children,” says Mischa. “And I don’t know how to cook, either.” “There are books.”
Now she sighs, Let’s quarrel later, we’ll have all the time in the world. Rosa has to lift her head slightly because he is pushing his reconciling arm under it: now a kiss to make up, then finally back to sleep. But she can’t simply close her eyes and run away. What she sees she sees: we’ve been waiting a long time for this glimpse into the future. When they knock, when they are standing in the doorway, those Russians, good morning, here we are, now we can start, by that time it’s too late, we can’t wait till then to decide, we must know by then what has to be done first and what next. But Mischa wants to sleep, and Rosa can’t. So many things are mixed up; at least some of them should be straightened out. Important matters will somehow take care of themselves; people of consequence who’ll take care of those are sure to show up. Let’s start with our own little affairs, no one’s going to look after those for us.
From pondering, Rosa progresses to whispering. First of all there’s the question of the house, one we’d feel comfortable in, but we might also discuss something other than the house, if you can think of anything, anyway let’s begin with the house. Not too small, not too big, let’s say five rooms, that’s not asking too much. Now don’t start yelling, that much one can ask for, we’ve been modest long enough. There’d be one room for you, one for me, and two for my parents. And a children’s room, of course, where they can do what they like, stand on their heads or scribble all over the walls. We would sleep in my room, we don’t need a special bedroom, that would be giving away space that would be wasted during the day. We have to think in practical terms too. When we have guests we could sit in your room: a sofa in the middle of the room, that’s quite modern, a long, low table in front of it and three or four armchairs. Though I don’t want too many guests, just so you know right now. Not because of the upheaval, that’s no great problem, but I’d rather be alone with you. Maybe when we’re a bit older. And no one’s going to tell me how my kitchen should be. It has to be tiled, that’s always clean and attractive. Blue and white is what I like best. The Klosenbergs used to have a kitchen like that, just like that, I can’t imagine a nicer one. The floor covered with pale gray tiles, on the wall shelves for plates and jugs and ladles, and there must also be a little shelf for all those spices. Nobody knows how many spices there are — saffron, for instance. Do you have any idea what saffron is used for? That it makes cakes and noodles yellow?
The rest of it I don’t know since just about here my informant Mischa finally fell asleep, in the midst of all the spices. Perhaps Fayngold could have told me more about this particular night, perhaps he lay awake all the way from basement to attic, but I never asked him.
Then at last it is daytime again, daytime at last. We hurry this way and that in the freight yard with our crates; only a few years earlier it would have been described as cheerful, bustling activity. The sentries behave quite normally, shouting or dozing or shoving as usual; they show no alarm or don’t feel it yet. Maybe I am mistaken, but I seem to remember that day very well, although nothing unusual happened, at least not to me. As if it were today, I am standing, so I recall, on a freight car; my job is to take the crates and stack them so that as many as possible will fit into the car. There is another man with me, Herschel Schtamm, and that, come to think of it, is something unusual. For Herschel Schtamm has a brother, in fact he has a twin brother, Roman, and the two of them work together and normally are always seen together. But not today. Herschel had a little accident right after starting work. He stumbled while carrying a crate, Roman couldn’t hold the crate alone, crate and Herschel crashed to the ground. Herschel had to suffer the usual beating, but that wasn’t the worst part: in stumbling, he sprained one foot and could hardly walk, so he couldn’t go on carrying with Roman, which is why he is now standing with me on the freight car.
He is sweating buckets, I have never seen anyone sweat like that, and he won’t stop sweating until the Russians have captured this damn ghetto, not a day earlier. For Herschel Schtamm is devout. In his lifetime he was a sexton in a synagogue, we call that a shammes, as devout as the rabbi himself. And
then there are the earlocks, the pride of all Orthodox Jews: go and ask Herschel whether he is prepared to part with them. Not for all the money in the world, he’ll tell you, looking at you as if you were mad. How can you ask such a thing? But the earlocks may only be displayed within one’s own four walls, nowhere else. In the street and here at the freight yard one runs into Germans who take a dim view of them: where do we people think we’re living for some of us to be running around in a get-up like that? Cases have been known where a grab was made for the nearest pair of scissors, and to the accompaniment of secret prayers and tears of laughter, the matter was taken care of on the spot, but there have been worse cases too.
Herschel has taken the only possible way out: he hides his earlocks. He is smuggling them through these times. Summer and winter he wears a hat. Presumably one is still allowed to wear a hat: a black fur hat with earflaps that can be fastened under the chin. In the sun the hat is terribly hot, but it was the only one he could get hold of, and for his purposes it is eminently suitable. We nondevout ones, even his brother Roman, smiled and made our little jokes only during the first warm week. After that we lost interest: Herschel must know what he’s doing.
We hoist a crate onto the very top; he wipes the sweat from his face and asks me, while we are picking up the next one, what I think of that business. I know at once what he is talking about and tell him I’m already wild with joy and can think of nothing else. Everything I once owned will belong to me again, everything except Hannah, who was executed. There will be trees again; in my parents’ garden I can see myself sitting in the walnut tree, on such slender branches that my mother is almost ready to faint; right there in the tree I stuff myself with walnuts. My fingers turn so brown from the shells that it takes weeks for the stains to disappear, but Herschel doesn’t seem so enthusiastic.