by Jurek Becker
“Will you show me your radio tomorrow?” she’d asked him the previous evening, when he came up to the attic to see her after Kowalski’s futile visit.
“No,” he said.
“And the day after tomorrow?”
“No!”
“And the day after the day after tomorrow?”
“No, I said! And that’s enough!”
Even her normally infallible look of wide-eyed entreaty had no effect; Jacob didn’t even notice it. Hence her new attempt after a resentful pause: “Are you ever going to show it to me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Will you at least tell me what it looks like?” she asked then, her plan already half-formed in her mind. But he refused to answer this either, so her half-formed plan became a whole one.
In a nutshell: Lina must look for an object of which all she knows is that Jacob keeps it hidden away, an object without color, shape, or weight, the only good thing being that Jacob can’t have that many unfamiliar objects in his room. The first one she finds and has never seen before can confidently be assumed to be called a radio.
Lina starts with the obvious hiding places: under the bed, on top of the cupboard, in the table drawer. Quite possibly a radio is too big to fit into a table drawer — perhaps anyone watching would laugh out loud to see Lina looking in there for a radio. But it’s not her fault that Jacob remains so obstinately silent, and besides, no one is watching. It’s not in the drawer; there’s nothing in it. All she finds under the bed and on top of the cupboard is dust. All that’s left is the inside of the cupboard; there’s no other hiding place. The cupboard has two doors, one at the top and one at the bottom. She can forget about the top one; behind it are the two soup plates and two flat plates, the two cups of which one lost its handle when Lina dropped it on the floor while doing the dishes, also a knife and two spoons, the ever-empty sugar jar, and behind all that the food, when there is any. Behind this door Lina is at home; she often sets the table, serves the meal, and clears it away. She can forget about that one, but her project must not fail for want of thoroughness. She looks: the four plates, two cups, sugar jar, knife and spoons, plus some bread and a small bag of dried beans, no surprises.
Now for the bottom door. Lina hesitates: her fingers are already around the key and can’t make up their mind. If what she is looking for isn’t in there, then it’s nowhere. So far she’d never had any reason to look inside. “That’s where I keep my stuff,” Jacob had said. Nothing could sound more harmless. His stuff: only now is it clear what is concealed behind two such innocent words.
There is a limit to her hesitation, and Lina finally opens up; outside in the corridor footsteps hurry by. Locking the door won’t do: if Jacob comes he won’t ask what she’s doing here, he’ll ask why she has locked herself in, and there’s no answer for that. Lina takes everything out: a pair of trousers and a shirt, a needle and thread, a saucepan — why isn’t that in the top section? — a box of nails and screws, an empty picture frame, the book about Africa. She allows herself a brief pause; the book has more to offer than the words and letters to which Jacob has recently been attaching such strange importance. The pictures do deserve a few moments’ attention, regardless. The woman with those amazingly long breasts, so flat and dried-up looking, and the ring stuck through her nose — Jacob has promised to explain the meaning of that later. The naked men who have painted their faces all over, carry long spears, and on their heads wear enormous structures of feathers, hair, and ribbons. Or the skinny children, with round, protruding stomachs, animals with horns and stripes and endless noses and even longer necks: all this can certainly cause delay, but not enough to make one forget one’s real purpose.
Lina crawls waist deep into the cupboard; a final obstacle is removed, a modest pile of underwear with a green towel on top, and then…. The path has been cleared to that as yet unseen object, a proud smile of triumph, there it stands, inconspicuously in the corner, mysterious and forbidden. She brings it out to the light, some delicate latticework, a little knob, glass, and round; she places it reverently on the table and sits down facing it. Now something will happen. His stuff, Jacob had said; while she is staring at it the minutes tick away: what will be revealed now that she didn’t know before? Does this thing speak like an ordinary person, or does it deliver up its secrets in some other way, in some miraculous way? After a prolonged, expectant silence, Lina realizes that, left to itself, it will reveal nothing, it must be made to speak; maybe she just has to ask it something. If so, then not, she hopes, by means of some prearranged formula like with Ali Baba outside the cave of Sesame.
“What is my name?” Lina starts off with the simplest words she can think of, but already this seems to be too much for the thing. Lina allows it plenty of time, in vain. Her disappointment makes way for the thought that she has to ask for something unknown, for something she doesn’t already know — after all, she does know her own name. “How much is thirty times two million?” she asks. When this evokes no reply either, she takes a new approach; she remembers the light that can be switched on and off according to one’s fancy. Perhaps this thing can be switched on in the same way, let’s try the little knob. It’s rusted, can hardly be moved; after much effort, just a tiny squeak, and already her fingers are sore. At that moment Jacob appears in the doorway and asks, as predicted: “What are you doing here?”
“I,” says Lina, “I wanted …” she says, having to recover from the shock, “I wanted to tidy up your room. Don’t you remember?”
Jacob remembers; he looks at the Sodom and Gomorrah in front of the cupboard, then back at Lina, who had wanted to tidy up; before he can open his mouth she knows it won’t be all that bad. “But I hope you haven’t finished yet?” asks Jacob.
Of course she hasn’t finished yet, she’s only just begun. She jumps up and stuffs saucepan and book and underwear back into the cupboard, so quickly that his eyes can scarcely follow her. Next, the picture frame, in her haste the nails fall out of the box, in no time they’re gathered up, then come the needle and thread, where are the needle and thread, she’ll find them next time, the cupboard door is slammed shut, and already the mess is forgotten. Only that thing remains on the table. He has seen it anyway; there stands his only secret, and he is still not giving vent to his anger.
“You’re not cross with me, are you?”
“No, no!”
Jacob takes off his jacket, then washes the dirt from the freight yard off his hands. Lina grows uneasy: the thing is standing there being ignored.
“And what did you really mean to do here?”
“Nothing. I was tidying up,” she says, knowing that it’s hopeless.
“What were you looking for?”
Now he does begin to raise his voice, but she finds the question too silly for words: he’s sitting in front of the thing, asking in pretended innocence what she has been looking for, and to that we refuse to give the obvious reply.
“What’s the lamp doing here?”
“What lamp?”
“This one. Do you see any other?”
When Lina remains silent and wide eyed, staring at the alleged lamp, and the wide eyes gradually fill with tears, Jacob draws her close and asks in a much gentler voice: “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
He pulls her onto his knee; she doesn’t often cry. Who is to know what’s going on in a little mind like that, a mind that has all day to brood alone? “Come on, tell me what’s the matter. Does it have anything to do with the lamp?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen it before?”
“No.”
“Would you like me to explain how it works?”
Lina stops her tears: after all, Jacob can’t be blamed for her mistake, and besides, tomorrow is another day, somehow she’ll find the hiding place that she overlooked today. She attends to eyes and nose with her sleeve, which is not quite adequate: Jacob’s handke
rchief hurries to her aid.
“Would you like me to explain?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then. This thing is a kerosene lamp. In the old days all the lamps were like this, before there was any electric light. This is where you pour in the kerosene, into this little bowl. This is the wick, it sucks up the kerosene, and only its tip sticks out. It can be made longer or shorter, with this knob here. You hold a match to the wick, and then the room is lighted up.”
“Could you do it for me?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any kerosene.”
Lina slips off Jacob’s knee; she picks up the lamp in both hands and looks at it from all sides: so that’s why it was no use waiting for an answer. At home, in the Nuriel family, there had been no kerosene lamp and no radio; mistakes arise from lack of experience. After one last look she puts the thing back in the cupboard. Order is completely restored, also with Lina. She even discovers a funny side to her unsuccessful voyage of discovery.
“Do you know what I thought it was?”
“Well?”
“But you won’t laugh at me?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I thought it was your radio.”
Jacob smiles; he remembers how, as a very little boy, he had believed an old woman who lived next door, a hunchback, to be a witch, a similar mistaken conclusion; but soon his smile gradually fades. Lina was looking for the radio, she admits that. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea to leave her to her belief: what difference does it make to a lamp to be taken for a radio? He would have sworn her to secrecy: Now at last you’ve found it, now you know what it looks like, now not another word about it, above all not to strangers. And for weeks there would have been peace for him, at least at home. But he had let the opportunity slip by; Lina hadn’t betrayed herself until it was too late, and he hadn’t had enough presence of mind to size up the situation in the room and the lamp on the table and the significance of her tears. Any minute now she will ask, All right, so that was a lamp, now where’s the radio? Any minute now, or in an hour, or tomorrow at the latest, she’s already itching with impatience. Telling her it’s broken won’t satisfy her, Then show me the broken one, and unfortunately he’s not one of those who can answer awkward questions with the occasional slap. There is still, of course, one way out, a very simple one: Jacob could claim to have burned it, a damaged radio, if found, being no less dangerous than an intact one.
He could say that, then he’d be happily rid of the radio, for Lina and all the world, but it so happens that the day just past at the freight yard also plays a certain role. The dead Herschel Schtamm, his brother Roman with the tormenting gaze, the unknown people locked up on the siding: they all have a right to speak before the radio is finally destroyed. And the individual Jews who arrived hopefully in the early morning with their questions and left again in dismay, without the news to which they are entitled. By this time they will already be home, relatives and friends will be knocking on their doors, what’s the latest news at the freight yard? Nothing, they’ll be told, the radio says nothing anymore, it’s broken, yesterday it was still working, and today not a sound. The relatives and friends leave, spread the latest news throughout all the buildings and streets, which soon will once again seem as wretched as they did before that night when the searchlight picked up Jacob about seven-thirty on the Kurländischer Damm. There’s a lot to be considered before making frivolous decisions, before buying the peace that is no peace.
“Will you show me the radio now?”
“I already said no yesterday. Has anything changed since then?”
“I’ll find it anyway,” says Lina.
“Then go on looking.”
“Want to bet that I’ll find it?”
She is switching to open attack, let her search rather than ask questions, Jacob is not going to talk her out of the next radio she finds. And the radio that she’ll never find will for the time being be saved from the fire, for many reasons, the first being Herschel of the earlocks: that very morning, as he lay in the rain between the railway ties, he had as good as repaired it.
Jacob goes to work with a light heart. Anyone observing his posture and his brisk walk and drawing comparisons with yesterday or the last few days is struck by the change: there goes a man of poise. With a light heart, for the hours in bed had been rich in important decisions; contact with the outer world has been restored. The radio had been on half the night, right after Lina had been shaken off it went on and stayed on until sleep came unbidden, and by that time his ear had picked up a number of reports, and not to be sneezed at either. With a light heart, for the little flame of expectation must not go out. Thus Jacob’s resolve; he had spent half the night looking for wood and kindling to keep it going. He has succeeded in achieving a substantial advance, he and the Russians; he has quietly let them win a great battle on the banks of a little river, the Rudna, which, although it doesn’t babble along right outside the front door, is gratifyingly closer than the town of Bezanika.
In reviewing the news items supplied thus far, Jacob noticed that, when looked at more closely, these had consisted only of extended trifles; except for the very first item about Bezanika, nothing substantial. He had turned every little idea into a tremendous story, often transparent and lacking in credibility. Doubts had so far not arisen merely because hope had made the people blind and stupid. But during the night before the battle of the Rudna an insight was gained: Jacob has at last discovered the source of his difficulties. In other words, hardly had he turned out the light when it came to him in a flash why his inventions had become so laborious and eventually failed him almost entirely. He was too modest, he suspected; he had always tried to keep his news items within a sphere that at some later date, after life resumed its normal course, cannot be verified. With each news item some inhibition had stood in his way, some pang of conscience; the lies had come stumbling reluctantly from his lips, as if looking for a hiding place they could crawl away to in a hurry before anyone took a closer look at them.
But this procedure was fundamentally wrong, as he came to realize last night; a liar with pangs of conscience will always remain a bungler. In this type of activity, restraint and false modesty are inappropriate; you must go the whole hog, you must exude conviction, you must act the part of a person who is already aware of what they are going to hear from you the very next moment. You must throw out figures and names and dates right and left; the battle of the Rudna is merely a modest beginning. It will never go down in history, but in our history it will be given a place of honor. And when all these tribulations are over, when anyone who is interested can look up the true events of the war in books, he will be free to come and ask: “Hey you, what kind of nonsense did you tell us back in those days? When was there ever a battle of the Rudna?” “Wasn’t there?” will be your surprised answer. “Let’s have a look at that book…. You’re right, there never was. It’s not in here. So I suppose I must have misheard at the time, I’m sorry.” They will probably forgive you, at worst they’ll shrug and walk off, and perhaps there will even be some among them who will thank you for the error.
As regards the progress of the fighting, Jacob has done some preliminary work, and for this his local knowledge has come in very handy. The battle of the Rudna and its aftermath are to suffice for the next three days; we mustn’t go overboard, for the crossing of the river isn’t altogether without its problems. We’re not going to make it that easy for the Russians: the Germans have blown up the only bridge, Jacob has thought it all out. Before the advance can be continued, a temporary pontoon bridge has to be built, and this will take three or four days. When that’s been taken care of, the Russians will march on the little town of Tobolin, which the Germans have turned into a kind of fortress. Tobolin, in turn, resists for three days; it is surrounded, softened up by the artillery, and stormed by the infantry. In a hopeless situation Major Karthäuser, a splendid name with a credible rank, signs the document of surrender: Tobolin is
liberated. Incidentally that will please Mischa — he has an aunt living there who, it is hoped, will live to see this victory. The aunt, Lea Malamut, owned a haberdashery and, when Mischa was a boy, always used to send him a little box of colored buttons and threads for his birthday. But let’s not linger in Tobolin, it’s a long way from there to the district town of Pry, the next town in our direction. Some forty miles; they have already been planned in rough outline but aren’t yet ready in every detail. That will be Jacob’s night work for a while. As far as Tobolin everything is clear, and today at the freight yard the result of the glorious battle of the Rudna will be announced.
With a light heart Jacob goes off to work, and a little added touch occurs to him that he could apply to the events at the Rudna. Might not secret German plans have fallen into Russian hands, thus revealing all the enemy’s actions on this front for weeks to come and rendering them ineffectual? That would be a few raisins in Jacob’s cake, but immediately doubts arise in terms of probability, for would secret plans be kept in such an insecure place? After all, the Germans are no fools. Neither are the Russians: even if they did capture plans of that kind, they’re not going to broadcast the fact to the world over the radio. They’ll keep it carefully to themselves and discreetly make their preparations. So we’ll dispense with the added touch. What we already have is enough to give the Jews a bit of the poise with which Jacob continues on his way to work, with a light heart.
At the corner of Tismenizer-Strasse he sees Kowalski waiting for him, nothing special about that, Kowalski often waits for him here, he lives here. As he approaches, though, it turns out that Kowalski is not alone; with him is a young man, which is somewhat unusual, especially since Jacob has never seen the young man before.