by Jurek Becker
Kirschbaum has never given a thought to being a Jew; his father before him was a surgeon. What does it mean, of Jewish origin? They force you to be a Jew while you yourself have no idea what it really is.
Now he is surrounded only by Jews, for the first time in his life nothing but Jews. He has racked his brains about them, wanting to find out what it is that they all have in common, in vain. They have nothing recognizably in common, and he most certainly nothing with them.
For most of them he is something of a wizard. Kirschbaum doesn’t feel comfortable with that; he’d prefer warmth to respect. He tries to adjust but goes about it awkwardly, while everyone expects something special from him, and he is so totally lacking in the humor that might help.
He comes into the attic bringing a pot of soup for Lina, his step as springy as a thirty-year-old’s; the tennis club has kept him young.
“Good evening, everyone,” he says.
“Good evening, Professor.”
Jacob gets up from the bed, making room for Kirschbaum, who wants to listen to Lina’s chest. She is already taking off her nightgown. The soup is still too hot; she is always examined first. Jacob goes to the window, which is open, a little attic window, yet from it one can see half the town. Perhaps a sunset, the buildings gray and gold, and much peace. The Russians will march along all the streets, not omitting a single one, those damned stars will be removed from the doors and leave behind light patches, like ugly pictures that have hung too long on the wall and go to their well-deserved end on the rubbish heap. At last he has, like the others, a little time for rosy thoughts, as if it were Kowalski who had reported the miracle. Somewhere down there the future lies hidden: no more great adventures; let the younger generation plunge into those. No doubt the shop will need a new coat of paint, perhaps a few new tables as well. He might even get a license to serve schnapps, something that would have been virtually impossible for him before. A place for Lina could be fixed up in the storage room; he just hopes no distant relatives will come barging in wanting to take her away. Only her parents can have her, but who knows whether they are still alive? Next year she’ll start school: ridiculous, a young lady of nine in the lowest grade. The lowest grade will be full of overgrown children; perhaps someone will come up with an idea so they won’t have to waste too much time. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to teach her a few things in advance, at least reading and a bit of arithmetic — why hadn’t he ever thought of that before? But first she must get well.
“Well, now I can tell you,” says Kirschbaum. “Things looked rather bad for this young lady. But when young ladies do as they are told it is usually possible to achieve something. We have pretty well repaired the damage. Take a deep breath and hold it!”
In the cupboard, right at the bottom, is an old book, a travel description of Africa or America that would do quite nicely for learning to read; it even has a few illustrations. Somehow the idea must be made appealing to her, for if she doesn’t feel like it, you can talk until you’re blue in the face. As soon as it’s possible I’ll adopt her, after searching for her parents first of course, without her knowing about it. They say adoption is not so simple; there are a whole lot of formalities and authorities if someone at an advanced age comes by a child. The Germans have their share of responsibility, and the Russians have theirs; who has the greater? I’ll tell her that we’re finished now with forever telling fairy tales, that there’s more to life than princes and witches and magicians and robbers; reality looks quite different, you’re old enough now, this is an A. She is bound to ask what that means, an A, she will want to know what it’s for, she has a very practical mind, at her age questions are half of life. He can see difficult times ahead. As a child she is already eight years old, and as a father I am barely two.
Kirschbaum is holding the stethoscope to her chest and listening intently. Suddenly he registers mock surprise, looks at Lina with wide eyes, and asks: “Dear me, what have we here? Do I hear some whistling in there?”
Lina throws an amused glance at Jacob, who doesn’t stop; he didn’t realize he’d started, but now he carries on, not wanting to spoil Kirschbaum's meager joke, and Lina laughs at the silly professor who hasn’t understood that the whistling comes not from her chest but from Uncle Jacob.
Why, one wonders, did anyone say that coming events cast their shadows before them? Far and wide no shadows, a few uneventful days pass, uneventful for the historian. No new decrees, nothing visibly happening, nothing you can put your finger on, nothing that would seem to indicate change. Some say they have noticed that the Germans have become more restrained; some say that, because nothing at all is happening, it is the calm before the storm. But I say the calm before the storm is a lie, that nothing at all is a lie, the storm, or part of it, is already there: the whispering in the rooms, the fears and speculations, the hopes and prayers. The great day of the prophets has arrived. When people argue, they argue about plans: mine is better than yours. They have all packed their belongings, all are aware of the inconceivable. Anyone who is not must be a hermit. Not everyone knows the source of the report, the ghetto is too big for that, but the Russians are on everybody’s mind. Old debts raise their heads again, diffidently the debtors are reminded, daughters turn into brides, weddings are planned for the week before New Year’s, people have gone stark staring mad, suicide figures have dropped to zero.
Anyone executed now, so shortly before the end, will have suddenly lost a future. For heaven’s sake, give no cause now for Majdanek or Auschwitz (if causes can be said to have any meaning); use caution, Jews, the utmost caution, and make no thoughtless move.
Two parties soon form and divide every building — not every one is Jacob’s friend — two parties without statutes but with weighty arguments and a platform and the art of persuasion. One group is feverish for news: what happened last night, how high are the losses on each side? No report is so trivial that one conclusion or another can’t be drawn from it. And the others, Frankfurter’s party, have heard enough; for them this radio is a source of constant danger, and it would be so easy for Jacob to put their fears to rest. I hear their misgivings at the freight yard and on the way home and in the building. In your naïveté you’ll be the death of us all, they warn; the Germans are not deaf or blind. And the ghetto regulations are not merely suggestions for good behavior; it says right there in black and white what it means to listen to a radio, as well as what happens to those who know that someone is listening and who don’t report it. So calm down and wait quietly in your corner. When the Russians show up they’ll show up; no amount of talking will get them here. And above all stop talking about that wretched radio, about that potential cause of a thousand deaths; the sooner it’s destroyed the better.
That’s the situation, so not everyone is Jacob’s friend, but he is not aware of this, nor has he any way of finding out.
Those who crowd around him, those greedy for news, the hundred Kowalskis, they’ll be sure not to tell him because Jacob might have second thoughts, change his mind, and suddenly decide to say nothing; they’d rather say nothing themselves. And the admonishers would be the last to tell him. They’re not going to send any warning delegation to him, that would be far too risky. They give Jacob a wide berth: no one must be able to testify that they’d been seen in his company.
The earlocked Herschel Schtamm, for example, is one of the others, those who don’t want to hear and see anymore and don’t wish to be accessories. At the freight yard, when, our hands held to our mouths, we evaluate the latest Russian successes, fresh from Jacob’s lips, he moves a few steps away, but not too far, still within earshot I’d say. As long as it’s not a conversation in which he is seen to be involved: that’s obviously what he is worried about. Herschel’s gaze wanders aimlessly over the tracks, or lands on one of us with disapproving severity, yet it is quite possible that under the sweat-inducing fur hat he pricks up his ears like a rabbit.
The power failure that turns Jacob’s radio for days into a life-
threatening dust gatherer is, Herschel feels, his personal achievement. Not that he makes any such claim in public: Herschel is not given to boasting, but we heard about this from his twin brother Roman, who spends every evening and every morning in the same room with him and every night in the same bed. He must know, after all. When we ask Herschel how he brought off such a feat — cutting off the power in several streets for several days isn’t exactly child’s play — a benign expression spreads over his face, almost a smile as after surviving a great ordeal, but he refuses to say a word.
And then we ask, “How was it, Roman? How did he manage it?” The last few minutes before going to bed, Roman tells us, are filled with prayer, quietly in a corner, an old habit established well before the radio. Roman waits patiently in bed until their shared blanket can be drawn over their heads. He has long ceased urging Herschel to hurry up and come to bed, having been enlightened as to the incompatibility of prayer and haste. He disregards the monotonous murmuring, the chanting; to listen would be a waste of time since Roman doesn’t understand a word of Hebrew. But recently some familiar sounds have been penetrating his ear. Ever since Herschel has had concrete petitions to send up to God, no longer the usual pious stuff about protecting and making everything turn out for the best, he resorts more and more often to the vernacular. In a fragmentary way, Roman can now listen to what is preoccupying and tormenting his brother: nothing extraordinary — if he were to pray himself, he wouldn’t have anything very different to say. Night after night God is informed about hunger, about the fear of deportation or being beaten by sentries, all of which cannot possibly be happening with His approval; would He please see what could be done about this, soon, if possible, it is urgent, and could He also give a sign that one has been heard? The sign is slow to appear, a test of constancy passed with flying colors by Herschel: each succeeding day has been scanned in vain for some modifying intervention. Until at last it did appear, that longed-for sign, unheralded like all divine action and so potent that any word of doubt could not but die away on the lips of even the most hardened unbeliever.
That night Herschel’s topic was the radio, at present the most overriding of all worries. He explains to God in minute detail the incalculable consequences that will result if thoughtlessness and carelessness allow the gossips to overlook a German ear and, before you know it, it’s happened: the gossips are called to account, in line with the present law, together with their silent accessories. And it will be claimed that we are all accessories, that the news has not circumvented a single person, and actually they will be right. Besides, it need not even be a German ear that happens to be nearby; there are also camouflaged German ears, and only You know how many informers are at large among us. Or someone wants to save his own skin and betrays on his own initiative the existence of the radio. There are scoundrels everywhere, You know that too; without Your consent they would not be in this world. Don’t permit the great disaster to overwhelm us, so close to the end, seeing that all these years You have held Your sheltering hand over us and saved us from the worst. For Your own sake, don’t permit it. Don’t let the Germans find out anything about the radio; You know what they are capable of. Or better still, if I may make a suggestion, destroy that cursed radio; that would be the most satisfactory solution.
At this point the lightbulb below the ceiling suddenly begins to flicker. At first Herschel ignores it, but then he looks up with wide eyes: in a flash the significance of this is revealed to him. God has granted his request, his prayers have not been in vain; at the appropriate moment He sends His sign, the acknowledgment of receipt, truly a sign that could not be more practical: this proves He is God! Without power the radio will be doomed to shut up; the more ardently Herschel prays, the more the light flickers. “Don’t stop now!” Roman spurs him on, but there’s no need for him to say it, Herschel knows what is at stake: advice from scoffers is not asked for when bliss beckons as a reward. Fervently he exploits his contact until the crowning success: the light finally goes out, the ultimate word has been spoken. Herschel rushes to the window and scans the other side of the street: not a single curtain shows a glimmer of light, not even in Jacob Heym’s building. We have silenced you, my friend, heavenly silence will reign, take your terrible box and give it to the devil; it’s of no further use to you. And don’t imagine that the power, the loss of which you innocently assume to be a breakdown, will be restored tomorrow: short circuits instigated by the Supreme Being take their time.
Proud and moderately happy, as far as circumstances permit, Herschel, his day’s labors over, goes to bed and serenely accepts Roman’s congratulations.
Worried faces wherever Jacob looks: What’s going to happen? Here they sit, high and dry, with no idea what is going on in the outside world. These intolerable conditions are already in their third day; this is no longer a power failure, this is a natural disaster. Must we really be the victims of this catastrophe too? They had been rash enough to take the joyful reports for granted; they had become addicted to the advance of a few miles every morning, and all day long there was something to hope for and to discuss. And now this dismal silence. Our first step each morning has led us to the light switch; some of us even got up in the middle of the night. We have pressed the switch and obtained the dreaded response that for yet another day Jacob will be no wiser than we are. Only the electricity will make him all-knowing again, only the electricity that the powers of darkness have turned off, only when the lights go on again in all the rooms, only then will his light shine with a special brilliance. But when will that be?
The one person who is not affected by the new reason for anxiety is Jacob. For once, Jacob is not affected by this calamity. His connection with the outside world has not broken off; what does not exist cannot break off. The connection is as tenuous as it had ever been, only that at last he can admit this. No rhyme or reason the way Fortune chooses which pot will boil, even though it be a very modest Fortune disguised as a power failure. May it last until the first Russian faces take the sentries at the outskirts of the town by surprise. At least Jacob can breathe more freely now, can revert to being just one among many; nobody forces him to know more than all the others, but he must keep up the pretense, a constant pretense, he must feign regret where there is none, regret over the power failure — no easy task considering his relief: You have seen, my friends, that I was doing my best; as long as it was possible I supplied you with the latest and the best. There hasn’t been a day when you have been deprived of comforting reports. How I would love to go on reporting until that longed-for hour arrives, but my hands are tied, you can see for yourselves.
Next morning Kowalski has won the race again: he is hauling with Jacob, except that this time it was no longer really a race. Overnight Jacob has become just another worker, an elderly person with two undeniably weak hands that are no longer in great demand. Kowalski has paired off with Jacob more from habit, or out of friendship; in any case they are hauling together. It is a long time since things have been so quiet between them. To Jacob the crates seem a shade lighter since Kowalski and the others have stopped plying him with questions; to Kowalski no doubt heavier now that answers are no longer forthcoming. Weight, as can be seen, is not an absolute quantity. The last question was whether in Jacob’s building the light — God forbid — had also failed, to which Jacob answered simply and truthfully yes. After such a long time he was quite happy to be able to speak the unadulterated truth, and since then it has been as quiet around him as around anybody else. That’s how it will remain until the electricity is restored, and no one should be surprised at Jacob’s composure.
When the whistle blows for soup, they sit down side by side in the sunshine. Kowalski sighs and spoons and sighs; this is not due to the soup, which tastes neither better nor worse than on any other day. Recently Jacob has learned to dread Kowalski’s presence. Kowalski was the most avid among the curious, letting Jacob neither eat nor sleep and using him simply as a vehicle for his curiosity, relentlessl
y. But today his presence cannot alarm Jacob; questions would be a waste of words. The sun is shining, they are sitting side by side, peacefully and silently eating, and somewhere in the distance Stalin’s soldiers are approaching at an unknown speed.
“How long do you think this power failure can go on?” Kowalski asks.
“For twenty years, I hope,” says Jacob.
Kowalski looks up from his bowl with an injured expression: that’s no kind of answer between friends. Of course the last few days haven’t been easy for Jacob, the sole connection with the outside world that everybody wanted to take advantage of, we’ve been assaulting and peppering you, and there’s been some risk too, but can one in our situation object to that little extra effort? Who in your position would have acted otherwise? Look for him among us and you will not find him, and then in reply to our modest question we have to listen to such harsh words.
“Why are you so mean?” Kowalski asks.
“You’ll never find out,” says Jacob.