Jakob the Liar

by Jurek Becker

  “Who?”

  “Winston Churchill, the British prime minister.” “I have no idea what he has to say. Haven’t you heard? My radio’s on the blink.”

  “You must be joking!”

  “What do you take me for?” Jacob says seriously.

  Schmidt seems stunned and looks narrowly at Jacob, just like the others he’d had to tell that very morning, with drooping shoulders and despairing voice, the only real news of the day. Schmidt, who is a bit stuck up and whom some wit has dubbed Leonard Assimilinski, this same Schmidt seems to feel a stab to the heart like all the others; suddenly he is no different from the rest.

  “How did it happen?” he asks in a low voice.

  The answer to this question had been reworded that morning; there hadn’t been time to present it to each one as it had been handed to Kowalski, wrapped in tissue paper. Jacob had to settle for some major deletions. How did it happen? “How do you think? The way a radio like that goes on the blink, that’s how. Yesterday it was still working, and today it isn’t.”

  Reactions had been mixed; some cursed an unjust God, others prayed to Him, and some consoled themselves with the thought that radio and Russians were two entirely different things. One man had wept like a child, his tears blending with the raindrops running down his cheeks. One of them said: “Let’s hope that isn’t a bad omen.”

  Jacob couldn’t say yes and couldn’t say no; he had to leave them to their minor anguish rather than expose them to the whole truth. Neither has he any words of comfort now to whisper to the disconsolate Schmidt. His store of comfort is exhausted. At this point we should remind ourselves briefly that Jacob is just as much in need of consolation as all the other poor souls around him, just as cut off from all further supply of news, that he is tormented by the same hopes. Only a freak coincidence has turned an equal person into a special person and prevented him thus far from laying all his cards on the table. But only thus far: today I have let you glance up my sleeve, you have seen how empty it is, there is no trump card inside. Now we are all equally informed, there is no difference between us anymore, except for your belief that I was once a special person.

  “There’s nothing to be done, Mr. Schmidt. We have to carry on. Right now in fact!”

  Across the freight yard, through the rain that has abated somewhat, booms an unfamiliar voice, “Keep your hands off that!”

  Jacob and Schmidt hurry to the door to see what is happening outside. Herschel Schtamm, one of the twins, is standing on the siding beside an ordinary-looking boxcar that is still closed. Thinking no doubt that this was the next one to be loaded, he hears the unfamiliar voice that can mean only him, and he snatches his hand away from the bolt, which he was just about to raise. The only remarkable thing about the incident so far is the voice, but it is indeed very remarkable: it is the Whistle’s, hence unfamiliar. The Whistle in his railway man’s uniform advances, as quickly as his wooden leg allows, on Herschel Schtamm, who backs away in fear. The Whistle stops beside the boxcar and checks the bolt, which is still firmly closed.

  “Didn’t you hear before? This car is not to be touched, goddammit!”

  “Yessir!” says Herschel Schtamm.

  Then the Whistle turns toward all the Jews, who have paused in their work to enjoy the thrill of a totally new sound. Raising his voice, he turns toward them and shouts, “Have you all got it into your heads now, you scumbags? This car is not to be touched! Next time there will be a bullet!”

  So that’s what his voice sounds like, not a very impressive premiere I’d say, a weak baritone I’d say, the tone leaves a lot to be desired. The Whistle stalks back to the brick building, Herschel Schtamm resumes work as fast as he can so as to get out of the limelight, and we do the same. The incident, which wasn’t a genuine one, has come to its temporary conclusion.

  “What kind of a boxcar do you suppose that is?” asks Schmidt.

  “How should I know?” Jacob replies.

  “Mr. Schtamm can count himself lucky to have got away with it. Actually the sentry did order us this morning to leave that boxcar alone. You must have heard that too.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So why did he go over there?”

  “How in the world am I supposed to know!”

  Schmidt has no instinct for when a conversation has come to an end. He expresses his views on the advisability of strictly obeying orders, on the increased chances of survival resulting from such adherence, then delivers a brief lecture on the factual legal situation deriving from the present power configuration. Jacob listens with only half an ear. Frankly, he doesn’t find Schmidt particularly likable; without ever actually saying so, Schmidt considers himself superior and more intelligent and more cultured — he probably wouldn’t have had the slightest objection to the Germans’ establishing the ghetto at all if they hadn’t picked on him to be put in it. When he makes an effort to gloss over social differences, which he usually does, the impression is inescapable that he is pretending: Look how nice of me, I’m just behaving as if we were all of the same kind. The differences are there, he can’t fight them: if only in the way he looks at a person or speaks or eats or talks about the Germans or the past, but above all in the way he thinks. One can’t choose one’s fellow sufferers, and a fellow sufferer he undoubtedly is; he trembles no differently from anyone else for his portion of life — well, yes, a bit differently perhaps, in his special way, a way that our kind don’t happen to find all that pleasant.

  Soon Herschel Schtamm appears lugging a sack, wearing the soaked fur cap under which he hides his piety, and Jacob asks him, “What was all that about, Herschel?”

  “You won’t believe it, but I heard voices in that car,” Herschel says.

  “Voices?”

  “Voices,” says Herschel. “As true as I’m standing here, human voices.”

  He may be feeling a cold shiver down his spine, especially since he is always much too hot under his fur cap. He puffs out his cheeks and nods anxiously a few times: you can imagine what that must mean. Jacob can; he reacts to Herschel’s announcement by sighing despairingly, closing his eyes, and raising his eyebrows. They are carrying on an inaudible little dialogue, and Schmidt stands beside them without understanding a single syllable.

  Mischa comes up to them, sets down his bag of cement, and says quietly, “You’d better go on working, the sentry’s already looking this way.”

  Suddenly Jacob is all thumbs, the bag slips from his hands, and Schmidt says in annoyance: “Watch what you’re doing!”

  Jacob does have to watch himself. He feels, as he remembers later, like you do just after dreaming of happiness and quiet little places, and then someone comes and pulls away your warm blanket, and you lie there naked and trembling from the impact of cold reality.

  “You’re very silent,” says Schmidt after a while.

  Jacob persists in his silence; deeply distressed, he picks up the bags as they are handed to him, merely casting an occasional furtive glance at the innocuous-looking boxcar on its siding, behind whose walls human voices have been heard. Ventilation holes right up under the roof, no one is tall enough to look out, and no one is screaming, from neither inside nor outside, why isn’t anyone screaming, the bags need to be carefully stacked. Standing there reddish-brown on its siding as if forgotten, but they won’t forget it, in some ways they can be relied upon. Yesterday it wasn’t here, tomorrow it’ll be gone, just a brief stop on its way to somewhere. A car like that — loaded and unloaded and loaded by us a hundred times, crates, coal, potatoes under strict surveillance, machinery, stones, boxcars exactly like that, but this one isn’t to be touched, or they’ll shoot.

  “Do you think it’s true?” asks Schmidt.

  “Think what’s true?”

  “About those voices.”

  “Don’t ask such stupid questions. Do you think Herschel Schtamm is trying to impress us?”

  “But who can possibly be inside that car?”

  “Who do you think?”<
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  Schmidt’s mouth opens; suddenly he is seized by a dreadful suspicion. “You mean…,” he whispers.

  “Yes, I do!”

  “You mean, they’re still sending people to the camps?”

  Unfortunately that’s how it is. Schmidt is not at home in the game of hints where certain things aren’t mentioned and yet are said. He’ll never be at home; in his heart he is and always will be an outsider. He needs to be told everything in blunt, unequivocal terms.

  “No, they’re not sending anyone anymore! The war is long since over, we could all go home if we wanted to, but we don’t want to because we’re having such a good time here!” says Jacob, rolling his eyes. “Are they still sending people! Do you imagine there are none left? I’m left, you’re left, all of us here are left. Just don’t get the idea it’s as good as over!”

  Schmidt interrupts the well-deserved lecture with a quick gesture, pointing outside in alarm and exclaiming: “Look! Schtamm!”

  Herschel had never attracted much attention, except for his praying, which at the time he was convinced had led to the power failure. Now he’s making up for it: he is standing on the siding beside the boxcar. The sentries haven’t noticed him yet. Herschel is pressing his ear to the wall of the car and speaking: I can clearly see his lips moving, see him listening and then speaking again, our pious Herschel. His brother Roman happens to be standing next to me, his eyes like cartwheels: he makes a move to dash over to Herschel and bring him back before it’s too late. Two men have to restrain him by force, and one of them has to whisper: “Calm down, you idiot, you’ll only draw their attention to him!”

  I can’t hear what Herschel is saying or what the people inside are telling him, it’s much too far away, but I can imagine it, and this is not a case of vague conjectures. The longer I think about it, the surer I am of his words, even though he never confirmed them to me.

  “Hello! Can you hear me?” Herschel begins.

  “We can hear you,” a voice from inside must surely answer. “Who are you?”

  “I’m from the ghetto,” Herschel says. “You must hang on; only for a short time, you must hang on. The Russians have already advanced past Bezanika!”

  “How do you know?” they ask from inside, all quite logical and predictable.

  “You can believe me. We have a secret radio. I have to get back now!”

  The people locked up inside thank him, utterly bewildered; a little white dove has strayed into their darkness. What they say is of no consequence; maybe they wish him happiness and riches and a hundred and twenty years of life before they hear his footsteps moving away.

  Everyone is watching spellbound as Herschel starts on his way back. Crazy fools that we are, we stand there gaping instead of getting on with our work and behaving as if everything were normal. First we keep Roman from committing a stupid blunder, then we commit one ourselves. Perhaps Herschel wouldn’t have escaped them anyway, who can tell in retrospect? In any event we do nothing to distract their attention from him. Only now does he seem to have discovered fear; so far everything has gone as if of its own volition, according to the unfathomable laws obeyed by sleepwalkers. Cover is pitifully inadequate, almost nonexistent. Herschel has good reason to be afraid. A stack of crates, another empty boxcar, otherwise nothing along his path where he would need the protection of a convoy. I see him sticking his head around the corner of the boxcar, inch by inch; with his eyes he has already reached us; I can already hear him telling us about his great journey.

  So far the opposition is quiet. The sentry by the gate is standing with his back to the railway tracks; there is no sound to rouse his attention. The other two sentries have disappeared, are inside the building presumably, driven in by the rain. I see Herschel making his final preparations for the great sprint; I see him pray. Although he is still standing beside the boxcar and moving his lips, it is obvious that he is not talking to the people inside but conversing with his God. And then I turn my head toward the brick building: it has a little window in the gable. The window is open, and on the sill lies a rifle being aimed, very calmly and deliberately. I can’t make out the man behind it, it is too dark in the room; I see only two hands adjusting the aim of the barrel until they are satisfied: then they are still, as in a painting. What should I have done, I who have never been a hero, what would I have done if I were a hero — given a shout, that’s all, but what good would that have been? I don’t shout, I close my eyes, an eternity passes, Roman says to me: “Why are you closing your eyes? Look, he’s going to make it, that crazy fool!”

  I don’t know why, but at this moment I think of Hannah, executed in front of a tree whose name I don’t know. I’m still thinking of her after the shot is fired, until the men around me are all talking at the same time. A single dry shot; the two hands had, as I said, plenty of time to prepare everything all the while Herschel was praying. It is a strange sound — I have never heard a single shot before, always several at a time — like a naughty child stamping its foot in a tantrum, or a toy balloon being blown up too hard and bursting, or even, since I am already indulging in images, as if God had coughed, a cough of dismissal for Herschel.

  Those locked behind the reddish-brown walls of the boxcar may be asking: “Hey, you there, what’s happened?”

  Herschel is lying on his stomach, across the track and between two ties. His clenched right hand has fallen into a black puddle; his face, of which at first I can see only one half, has a surprised look with its open eye. We stand silently around him; they allow us this little respite. Roman bends down to him, pulls him off the track, and turns him over on his back. Then he removes the fur cap, his fingers fumbling awkwardly with the flaps under the chin. He thrusts the cap into his pocket and walks away. For the first time in this freight yard, Herschel’s earlocks are allowed to wave freely in the wind; many of us have never seen them before, have merely been told about them. So this is what Herschel Schtamm really looks like, without disguise. For the last time his face, darkly framed by wet earth and black hair; someone has closed his eyes. I won’t lie, why should I, he was no beauty, he was very pious, wanted to pass on hope, and in so doing he died.

  Unnoticed, the sentry from the gate has come up behind us; it is time to divert our thoughts, and he says: “You’ve been gawking long enough, or haven’t you ever seen a dead man before? Come on, back to work on the double!”

  At the end of the day we will take him with us and bury him; that’s permitted, without its being printed in black and white in one of the many regulations; it has simply become accepted. I look once more up to the window, which is now closed again: no rifle, no hands. And no one emerges from the building, they pay no further attention to us, for them the incident is closed.

  Life goes on; Schmidt and Jacob start moving the bags again. By this time Schmidt has understood enough to hold his tongue and not let on why Herschel insisted on dashing over to the boxcar although the railway man emphatically and specifically warned him earlier.

  In Jacob’s head, self-reproaches follow one upon the other; the part he has played in this drama is frighteningly clear. You construct some scanty consolation for yourself; you visualize a huge scale with two trays, on one you place Herschel while on the other you pile up all the hope you have been spreading among the people. Which side will go down? The problem is, you don’t know how much hope weighs, and no one is going to tell you. You must find the formula by yourself and complete the calculation alone. But you calculate in vain, the problems mount. Here’s another: who can divulge to you how much harm was prevented by your inventions? Ten disasters or twenty or only a single one? What has been prevented will remain hidden from you forever. Only the one you caused is visible: there it lies beside the tracks in the rain.

  Even later, during the lunch break, Jacob hasn’t come one bit closer to the solution of the problem with all its unknown factors. He sits apart as he swallows his soup; today everyone leaves everyone else in peace. He has avoided Roman Schtamm. Roman hasn�
�t sought him out; only beside the cart where the empty tin bowls are always deposited do they find themselves suddenly face-to-face. They look each other in the eye, especially Roman. Jacob tells me, “He looked at me as if I had shot his brother.”

  The evenings belong to Lina.

  A long time ago, Jacob stopped with her in the corridor outside his door and said: “Listen carefully, Lina, so that, if anything should happen, you’ll be able to find the key to my room” is what he said. “Here behind the doorframe is a little hole in the wall, see? I’ll put the key in here now, then wedge this stone in front of it. It’s quite easy to remove — if you stand on tiptoe you’ll be tall enough. Try.” Lina tried; she stretched up her arm, removed the stone, barely managed to grasp the key, and held it out proudly to Jacob. “Wonderful,” Jacob said. “Remember the place carefully. I don’t really know why, but maybe someday it’ll be important. And one more thing — never tell anyone about this place.”

  By now Lina no longer has to stand on tiptoe; for two years she has been tirelessly growing up toward the little hole behind the doorframe. If anything should happen, Jacob had said; today something had happened. Lina retrieves the key, unlocks the door, and stands with bated breath in the empty room. She is a bit nervous, but that will pass; if Jacob comes in unexpectedly she’ll simply tell him she’s tidying up. The motives driving her are adventurous, he would hardly approve of them, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

  In her path lie two obstacles, she is under no illusions: the first is the hiding place, still unknown; the second is that she doesn’t know what a radio looks like. Hiding places are not unlimited in this room; in a few minutes it could be turned upside down. The second obstacle seems much more difficult to her. There are all kinds of things that Jacob has explained to her. She would have no difficulty, for instance, in describing a bus, although she has never been face-to-face with one; she could talk about bananas, airplanes, teddy bears that start to growl when you lay them on their backs. During the recent power failure, Jacob even traced with her the highly mysterious path traveled by the light from the coal mine to the little bulb under the ceiling, but not a single word has he ever uttered about a radio. There are a few scanty clues: everyone is talking about it, it is forbidden to own one, it reveals things not known before, it is small enough to be easily hidden.