by Jurek Becker
Jacob lifts a crate onto the edge of the freight car. Why all the hurry? Jacob rushes back to the pile with Mischa at his heels. As of yesterday, Jacob is fortune’s darling, one of the elect. Everyone is after him, the big fellows as well as the little ones; everyone wants to work with him, with the man who has a direct line to God. Mischa was the first in line, the first to lend a hand when Jacob’s eye fell on a crate, and now he’s running after him. The fairest way would be to raffle him off, with so-and-so many blanks and one grand prize; then everyone would have the same chance at the supreme stroke of luck, at what has suddenly become so important: being close to Jacob. Only Jacob looks disgruntled: thanks a lot for that kind of luck, five or ten times today he’s already been asked — confidentially and hopefully, even by complete strangers — what the radio has been saying. Five or ten times he hasn’t known how to answer, has merely repeated what he said yesterday, “Bezanika,” or put his fingers to his lips with a conspiratorial “Sssh!” or said nothing and walked on in annoyance. And all this annoyance has been foisted on him by that stupid beanpole who is now scurrying after him, all innocence, in unwarranted joyous anticipation. Something no one could possibly have foreseen. They are behaving like kids, like people eagerly clustering around a bulletin board. Barring a miracle, it will be at best a few hours before the sentries start noticing. Jacob would have welcomed such a crowd in normal times; his shop was open every day except shabbes, all year round, and there was a radio in clear view behind the counter: people could listen to whatever they liked. But there you people mostly stayed away, each of you had to be treated like a king, otherwise you’d leave and not come back; and now you’re treating me like a king and won’t leave and keep coming back. A fellow needs a bodyguard for protection against you.
Mischa has no idea what furious thoughts are being ignited so close to him, that it is rage that makes Jacob walk so briskly. They haul a few crates, and Mischa imagines that it will go on like this until noon; he fails to notice the hostile looks directed at him from time to time, more and more often. Until the pot boils over, until Jacob stops in his tracks, in the hope that Mischa will walk on, as far away as possible. But Mischa stops too, looking puzzled: he really is totally unaware, so he might as well be told.
“Please, Mischa,” Jacob says in an agonized voice, “there are so many nice fellows here. Do you have to haul with me?”
“What’s up all of a sudden?”
“ ‘All of a sudden,’ he says! I can’t stand the sight of your face anymore!”
“My face?” Mischa smiles stupidly; so far his face hasn’t bothered anyone, Jacob least of all. At most there’s been the occasional remark about his blue eyes, when people couldn’t think of anything better to talk about, and now suddenly this little eruption, almost an insult.
“Yes, your face! With that blabbermouth!” Jacob adds, since Mischa seems so completely in the dark. And now Mischa knows which way the wind is blowing: he is the weak link in the chain of silence — Jacob is right. Although that’s no reason to make such a scene, God knows there have been worse things to endure. Mischa shrugs his shoulders: it just happened, too late to change it now. Without a word, before Jacob can get even more worked up, Mischa walks away, which is none of the sentries’ business; later or tomorrow there’s sure to be time for a conciliatory word.
So Mischa goes alone to the crates and quickly finds a new partner; after all, he hasn’t been completely downgraded yet. His powerful arms haven’t been forgotten, they are still appreciated; if you can’t haul with Jacob, at least you can with Mischa. And Jacob also comes alone to the pyramid, doesn’t even see who reaches with him for the crate: his eyes are still glued to Mischa, who eventually disappears without turning around, maybe offended, maybe not. But after a few steps Jacob notices that his new partner doesn’t hold the crate as firmly as Mischa does, not nearly, and he looks at him and sees that the new man is Kowalski, and he makes a face and knows that he has fallen from the frying pan into the fire: Kowalski won’t leave him in peace for long.
Kowalski doesn’t say a word, or rather, he is not just silent, he is restraining himself: how long can he keep this up? He hauls and hauls, which is fine with Jacob. But somehow it irritates him, Kowalski being silent; the red spots on his cheeks haven’t come from exertion. Three whole crates are moved in silence. If Kowalski thinks he can starve him out, he’s mistaken: Jacob will never bring up the subject on his own since he has nothing to tell, but it gets on his nerves all the same. I’ll outwit you, Jacob thinks suddenly. I’ll set a trap for you, a harmless conversation that could make you forget the question you’re still keeping to yourself. What should we talk about? The noon whistle will blow any minute, and then try and find me.
“Do you know of anything to keep from going bald?” Jacob asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Every morning my comb is full of hair. Isn’t there something one can do about it?”
“Nothing,” says Kowalski, clearly implying that the subject doesn’t interest him.
“Surely there’s something? I remember that at your shop you used to treat a customer with some such stuff. … I seem to remember it was green?”
“Just a racket,” says Kowalski. “I treated lots of people with that, but I might just as well have rubbed water into their scalps. Some customers insist on having something rubbed in. And it wasn’t green, it was yellow.”
“There’s nothing that’ll help?”
“You heard me.”
So far so good. They keep on hauling in silence. In Jacob the hope is growing that he is mistaken, that Kowalski has no intention of asking him, that he reached for the crate simply because he was the closest, and the red spots might actually be due to exertion or bedbug bites. Why do we often fail to think of the obvious? There’s no reason to lose faith in all integrity on account of a few bad experiences: Kowalski also has his good side, as countless memories go to show. After all, they were almost close friends. Already Jacob looks at the sweating Kowalski more kindly, a secret apology in his glance, secret because, fortunately, the reproaches have also remained secret. Each new crate that is carried wordlessly to the freight car is leading him away from the suspicion that he has apparently been directing at an innocent person.
Then suddenly, just before noon, Kowalski puts his sneaky question. Without preamble and in a humiliatingly innocent voice he says, “Well?”
That’s all. Jacob flinches; we know what is meant. Instantly all his rage returns. Jacob feels deceived; the red spots are the same old ones after all. And it wasn’t by chance that Kowalski was closest to the crate; he was lying in wait, working all day toward that infamous “Well?” He didn’t keep quiet for so long out of consideration — he doesn’t even know what that is — he kept quiet because he saw Jacob having an argument with Mischa, and he has merely been waiting for a favorable moment, cold and calculating as he is: Jacob was to be lulled into a sense of security.
Jacob flinches; the worst thing in this ghetto is that you can’t just turn your back and walk away. It isn’t advisable to repeat this ploy too often.
“Anything new?” Kowalski asks more pointedly. He is not in the mood for a prolonged exchange of stares. If you don’t understand my “Well?” then so be it.
“No,” says Jacob.
“You’re not seriously trying to tell me that in wartime a whole day passes and nothing happens? A whole day and a whole night?”
They lift the crate onto the edge of the freight car and go back to the pile. Jacob takes a deep breath, and Kowalski gives him an encouraging nod; Jacob loses his self-control and raises his voice to an undesirable pitch.
“For God’s sake, stop pestering me, can’t you? Didn’t I tell you yesterday that they’re within twelve miles of Bezanika? Isn’t that enough?”
Of course it is not enough for Kowalski if the Russians are within twelve miles of some place called Bezanika and he is here: how could that be enough for him? But he has no time for logic
al rejoinders, not at the moment. He looks around nervously, Jacob having been less than cautious. In fact a sentry is standing quite close by. They have to walk past him, and he is already looking their way. The uniform doesn’t look right on him; he is much too young for it. They have already noticed him several times. He has a loud mouth but so far hasn’t done much in the way of beating.
“What have you scumbags got to argue about?” he asks as they are about to walk by him. Obviously he hasn’t heard any details, only raised voices, which can be quickly explained.
“We’re not arguing, sir,” says Kowalski loudly. “It’s just that I’m a bit hard of hearing.”
The sentry looks them up and down and rocks on his toes, then turns around and walks away. Kowalski and Jacob pick up another crate without wasting a word over the incident.
“A whole day has gone by, Jacob. Twenty-four long hours. Surely they must have advanced at least a few measly miles!”
“Yes, two miles according to the latest reports.”
“And you act as if you don’t care? Every foot counts, I tell you, every single foot!”
“So what’s two miles?” says Jacob.
“I like that! Maybe for you it isn’t much, you hear the news every day. But two miles is two miles!”
The ordeal is over, Kowalski won’t bother him again today; he is as mute as Fayngold now that he’s found out what he wanted to know.
Jacob has to admit that it wasn’t so bad; actually the words came out quite easily, as he explained to me at length. It was an important moment for him, he told me. The first lie, which may not even have been one, such a little lie, and Kowalski is satisfied. It’s worth it: hope must not be allowed to fade away, otherwise they won’t survive. He knows for sure that the Russians are advancing, he has heard it with his own ears, and if there is a God in heaven, they must come at least this far; and if there is no God, they must come at least this far and they must find as many survivors as possible, so it’s worth it. And if we should all be dead, it was an attempt, so it’s worth it. The trouble is, he has to dream up enough bits of news, for they will go on asking questions, they will want to know details, not just how many miles; he must invent the answers. He hopes his brain will be equal to it. Not everyone is good at inventing things; so far he has invented only one other thing in his life, that was years ago, a new recipe for potato pancakes with cottage cheese and onions and caraway seeds, you can hardly compare the two.
“And besides, it’s important that they’re advancing at all,” says Kowalski reflectively. “I mean, better to advance slowly than to retreat quickly.…”
We’re late enough coming to Lina, inexcusably late, for she is of some importance to all this. It is she who rounds it out, if one can say such a thing. Jacob goes to her every day, but we have only come now.
Lina is eight years old, long black hair and brown eyes, just the way they should be, a strikingly beautiful child, most people say. She can look at you so that you feel like sharing your last mouthful with her, but only Jacob does that; sometimes he even gives her everything. That’s because he has never had children of his own.
For two years Lina has had no parents: they went away, they got on a freight train and went away, leaving behind their only child, alone. Barely two years ago Lina’s father was walking along the street; no one had pointed out to him that he was wearing the wrong jacket, the jacket without the yellow stars. It was early autumn, and he was walking along with nothing bad in mind; they would certainly have noticed on the job, but he never got there. Halfway to work he met a patrol; one sharp look was enough, but Nuriel didn’t know how to interpret it.
“Are you married?” one of the two men asked him.
“Yes,” Nuriel said, never suspecting what they wanted of him with their strange question.
“Where does your wife work?”
In such and such a place, Nuriel replied. So off they went with him to the factory and hauled her out of the building. The moment she saw him with the two men she noticed the bare places on the front and back of Nuriel’s jacket. She looked at him in horror, and Nuriel said to her, “I don’t know what’s going on either.”
“Your stars,” she whispered.
Nuriel looked down at his chest. Only then did he realize that this was the end, the end or shortly before it; a much lesser reason would have sufficed for the end, according to the rules of the ghetto. The men accompanied Nuriel and his wife to their home, telling them on the way what they would be allowed to take with them. Lina wasn’t playing in front of the building, neither was she in the hallway; her mother had given her strict instructions to leave their room as seldom as possible. But we can’t know, can we, what children get up to all day while their parents are at work: a fervent prayer that this one time she may have been disobedient. She wasn’t in the room either, so she couldn’t be surprised and ask what was the matter, why were Papa and Mama coming home so early, and the men would have known that Nuriel had more than a wife. They packed their few things, the two men standing beside them to make sure everything was being done correctly. Nuriel moved like a sleepwalker until his wife nudged him and told him to hurry up. Now he hurried too. He had caught her meaning: at any moment Lina might come into the room.
Going down the stairs he had seen through a landing window that Lina was playing in the yard (all this without witnesses, but perhaps that’s exactly how it was and not otherwise). She was balancing on the low wall between the two yards: God knows how many times he had forbidden her to do this, but that’s the way children are. A neighbor who happened to be on night shift that week met them on the stairs, and she heard Nuriel’s wife telling him that he shouldn’t keep looking out of the window but should watch his step or he’d fall. So he did that, he didn’t fall. Without incident they emerged into the street, and since then Lina has had no parents. Shortly afterward, a new family was allocated to the Nuriels’ room: at that time there was still a stream of new arrivals.
What to do with Lina became a problem: no one could take her in permanently, and not only because of insufficient space or lack of kindness. All it needed was a spot check: What is this child doing here? For weeks everyone waited for a search to be made for Lina: someone in some office somewhere, in going through some papers, could have noticed that instead of three Nuriels only two went on that transport, but nothing of the kind occurred. Eventually a few women in the building cleaned up the little attic, her bed was moved upstairs together with a chest of drawers containing her belongings — which of course were still there — and Lina lived on the top floor. Only a stove was lacking, but none could be found. During the coldest nights, when even two blankets were not enough, Jacob, who never had any children of his own, risked taking her secretly into his bed. The natural result of this was that she belongs to him more than to anyone else; she has had two years to twist him around her little finger, more than enough time.
Tonight is not a cold night, let alone the coldest; Herschel Schtamm has been sweating profusely all day. Lina will have to sleep alone. Jacob goes up to her room; he does this every evening. Lina is lying there with her eyes closed. Jacob knows quite well that she isn’t asleep, and she knows quite well that he knows, which results every evening in some new joke. He takes a paper bag from his pocket, in the bag is a carrot, which he puts down on the chest of drawers beside the bed, then he performs today’s joke. He blows up the paper bag and bursts it by clapping his hands, but Lina is already laughing while her eyes are still closed: something is about to happen. So what happens is the bang. Lina sits up, gives him the kiss he has earned, and insists that she is already feeling much better. She intends to get up tomorrow, this silly old whooping cough can’t last forever, but Jacob can’t make that decision himself. He puts his hand on her forehead.
“Do I still have a temperature?” Lina asks.
“Maybe just a little, if my thermometer is working properly.”
She picks up the carrot, asks him what that actually means, a te
mperature, and starts to eat.
“I’ll explain that some other time,” says Jacob. “Has the professor been to see you today?” No, not yet, but he said yesterday that there was some improvement, and Jacob shouldn’t always put her off with “some other time”: he still has to explain to her about gas masks, epidemics, balloons, martial law, she’s forgotten what else, and now he also owes her about temperatures.
Jacob lets her talk; she seems quite cheerful. Perhaps he thinks a bit wistfully of the three cigarettes the carrot cost him; he must get the next one more cheaply. In the end everything turns into pure conversation, of which Lina is a master; she must have been born with that gift.
“How’s work going?” she asks.
“Couldn’t be better,” replies Jacob. “Nice of you to ask.” “Was it also so hot where you were today? Here it was frightfully hot.”
“Not too bad.”
“So what did you do today? Did you ride the locomotive again?”
“What gave you that idea?”
“The other day you rode it as far as Rudpol and back again — don’t you remember?”
“Oh yes, of course. But not today, the locomotive has been out of commission for the last few days.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s lost a wheel, and there aren’t any new ones.”
“What a shame. How’s Mischa, by the way? He hasn’t been to see me for ages.”
“He’s very busy. But I’m glad you reminded me; he sends you his love.”
“Thank you,” says Lina. “Give him mine too.”
“I will.”
It could go on like this for hours, via twenty carrots. It doesn’t matter what they chat about; they keep talking until the door opens, until Kirschbaum comes in.
If I hadn’t made up my mind from the start to deal with something else, I would tell Kirschbaume story. Maybe I will someday, the temptation is great, although we only met briefly two or three times, and he never even knew my name. I really only know him from Jacob’s sparse comments; he mentioned Kirschbaum almost marginally, but he made me curious. Kirschbaum plays no major role in this particular context: the main thing is that he cured Lina. Years ago Kirschbaum was a celebrity, nothing like Rosa’s father, but a genuine, bona fide celebrity heaped with honors, head of a Kraków hospital, in great demand as a heart specialist; lectures at universities all over the world, fluent in French, Spanish, and German, said to have been in intermittent correspondence with Albert Schweitzer. Anyone wanting to be cured by him had to go to a good deal of trouble; to this day he continues to exude the dignity of an eminent personage, with no effort on his part. His suits do, too: made of the best English cloth, a little worn at elbows and knees, but they’re still beautifully cut; all of them dark in color as an effective contrast to his snow-white hair.