Jakob the Liar

by Jurek Becker

  “On the other hand, I can in a way understand your misgivings,” says Preuss, taking up what seems to have been a long-lost thread of conversation.

  “I no longer have any misgivings,” Kirschbaum says.

  “Oh, but you do, I can tell from looking at you! Your situation isn’t exactly enviable, I can see that. If you succeed in saving the Sturmbannführer’s life, you won’t be very popular with your own people, I imagine. And if you don’t succeed —”

  Preuss breaks off his pithy analysis, the rest would be tactless, as well as superfluous. He has said enough for Kirschbaum to grasp the value ascribed to Hardtloff’s survival. For the first time during the drive, Meyer turns around. His expression makes it plain that he, too, knows how Preuss would have continued; above all it conveys his opinion of that continuation. With this in mind, so to speak, he turns around for a moment. Kirschbaum ignores him; he seems sufficiently preoccupied with himself. Preuss attempts one or two more trivial remarks, but Kirschbaum no longer responds.

  They arrive at the Hardtloff villa. A driveway through an overgrown park, then around a circular flower bed containing a dried-up ornamental fish pond, all somewhat neglected, but magnificently laid out, quite magnificently.

  “We’re here,” says Preuss to the still absentminded Kirschbaum, and gets out.

  Hurrying down the flight of steps comes Hardtloff’s personal physician, a bald-headed little man in shiny boots and unbuttoned tunic, looking as unkempt as the garden. His haste indicates worry or fear, presumably fear; he bears the responsibility here — for Hardtloff’s health and, as we have heard, for today’s bold experiment. While still on the higher steps he calls out: “He’s worse again! What took you so long?”

  “We had to wait; he wasn’t at home,” said Preuss.

  “Hurry, hurry!”

  There being no movement inside the car, Preuss opens the door on Kirschbaum's side and says again: “We’re here. Will you get out, please.”

  But Kirschbaum just sits there, as if still a long way from sorting out his thoughts; he doesn’t even turn his head toward Preuss. Delayed rebelliousness or a professor’s proverbial absentmindedness: the worst possible moment to have chosen, whichever it is. Impatience sets in. Meyer would have no problem deciding what should be done.

  Preuss grips the professor by the arm and says in a low voice: “Don’t be difficult now,” punctilious to the last, and pulls him out with gentle force.

  Kirschbaum's exit from the car proceeds in a surprising manner: sliding unhurriedly toward Preuss, who is too surprised to hold him up, Kirschbaum falls out of the car onto the neglected ground.

  “What’s going on?”

  Hardtloff’s doctor pushes his way between the two, bends down over the Jewish patient, and with no effort arrives at the unequivocal result of his examination.

  “The man is dead!”

  It’s not news to Preuss, not by this time. Preuss takes the leather bag out of the car. The usual brown leather doctor’s bag. “Do you need to take anything with you?”

  “Medical equipment.”

  “Good enough.” Perhaps it was he who had given Kirschbaum the idea.

  Preuss opens the bag, finds the little tube among the contents. He hands it to the doctor.

  “For heartburn,” says Preuss.

  “Idiot,” says the doctor.

  Now for the promised explanation.

  Superfluous, really, but I imagine that some people will ask suspiciously how I can account for what happened in that car. Hardly via Kirschbaum, so where was my informant sitting? And from the questioner’s point of view the question is perfectly legitimate.

  I could, of course, reply that it’s not up to me to explain, I am telling a story I don’t understand myself. I might say that I know from witnesses that Kirschbaum got into the car, that I managed to find out that by the end of the trip he was dead; the part in between can only have happened in such and such a way, anything else being inconceivable. But I would be lying, for the part in between could very well have happened differently, I would even say that it is far more likely to have happened differently. And herein, I suppose, lies the real reason for my explanation.

  So: some time after the war I made a trip to our ghetto, on my first holiday. My few friends had advised against it, the trip would merely ruin the whole of my next year, memories were one thing, living something else. I told them they were right, and went. Jacob’s room, the military office, Kurländischer Damm, Mischa’s room, the basement: I took my time looking at them all, measuring, examining, or just looking. I also went to Jacob’s shop, where a shoemaker had moved in temporarily: “Until I find something better,” he told me.

  It seemed to me that mixed with the smell of leather there was also a scorched smell, but the shoemaker didn’t think so. On the next to last day of my holiday, I wondered as I was packing whether I had forgotten anything; I would probably never return to this town, and this was the last chance for anything I had overlooked. All I could think of was Kirschbaum's journey by car, but I didn’t see how I could check on that; besides, I didn’t consider it essential to the story for whose sake I had come. Even so, I went that afternoon to the Russian kommandatura, probably out of boredom, or perhaps because I couldn’t find a restaurant open.

  The duty officer was a woman of about forty, with the rank of a lieutenant. I told her that I had lived in the ghetto, that before the war my father and Kirschbaum had been close friends and so I was interested in Kirschbaum's fate. I made a proper Red Cross action out of it. Then I explained the connection between Kirschbaum and Hardtloff: all I knew was that Kirschbaum had entered the car, beyond that nothing, which was the truth. The two men who came for him were, I thought, called Preuss and Meyer or something like that. And I went on to say that, even if she couldn’t tell me what had happened to the professor, maybe she could at least tell me something about those two men, which might provide a starting point. She made a note of the names and asked me to come back in two hours.

  Two hours later I learned that, a few days before the Red Army marched in, Meyer was killed, by partisans, during a night raid.

  “And the other man?” I asked.

  “I have his German address here,” she replied.

  Just as I was about to reach for the slip of paper, she gave me a worried look and said, “You wouldn’t be planning anything foolish, would you?”

  “No, of course not — what an idea!” I said.

  She handed me the paper. I looked at the address and said, “That’s a bit of luck. I’m also living in Berlin now.”

  “You didn’t leave Germany?” she asked in surprise. “Why was that?”

  “I don’t really know,” I answered truthfully. “It just happened that way.”

  Preuss was living in Schöneberg, which is part of West Berlin. Nice wife and two children, the wife had only one arm. I went out there on Sunday afternoon. When I rang the bell the door was opened by a tall, brown-haired, good-looking man, a bit on the soft side, scarcely older than myself.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “Are you Mr. Preuss?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “Might I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  “Come in,” he replied, then led me into the living room and sent the children out after a few complications. On the wall hung a reproduction of Dürer’s Hands and a photograph of a little girl in mourning crepe.

  He asked me to sit down.

  I began by telling him my name, which obviously caught his attention, although he couldn’t make too much of it. But he could with my question, which was whether I had been correctly informed that he had worked for Hardtloff. I could observe him turning pale before he asked in a low voice, “Why have you come?”

  “I’m here on account of a story,” I said. “To be more precise, on account of a gap in that story that you may be able to fill.”

  He got up, started rummaging in a cupboard, soon found what he was loo
king for, and placed a piece of paper on the table in front of me. It was his certificate of denazification, duly stamped and signed.

  “You don’t need to show me that,” I said.

  However, he left the paper lying in front of me until I had finished reading it; then he picked it up, folded it, and locked it away again.

  “Can I offer you something?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “A cup of tea, perhaps?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He called out, “Ingrid!” His wife came in, and it was obvious that she still wasn’t used to having only one arm. “This is my wife,” he said. I stood up, and we shook hands.

  “Would you mind running down to Sebald’s and fetching the syphon of beer? He promised me two liters for the weekend,” he told her.

  After she had left the room I said, “Do you remember a Professor Kirschbaum?”

  “Oh yes,” he replied at once. “Very well indeed.”

  “You went to pick him up, didn’t you, because he was to examine Hardtloff? You and someone called Meyer?”

  “That’s correct. Meyer caught it some time later.”

  “I know. But what happened to Kirschbaum? Was he shot, after Hardtloff died?”

  “What makes you think that? The two never met.”

  I looked at Preuss in surprise and asked: “Did he refuse to examine him?”

  “I suppose you could call it that,” he answered. “He took poison in the car. As we were driving, right before our eyes.”

  “Poison?” I asked, and he noticed that I didn’t believe him.

  “I can prove it to you,” he said. “You need only ask Letzerich, he’ll confirm every word.”

  “Who is Letzerich?”

  “He was the driver. He was there the whole time. I’m sorry I haven’t got his address; all I know is that he was from Cologne. But it should be possible somehow or other to get hold of his address.”

  I asked him to describe this drive to me in more detail; the result has been told. It took quite a while; at some point his wife brought us the beer, I drank a glass, it tasted horrible. I hardly interrupted him because he was giving me the details without prompting. He attached special importance to the fact that Kirschbaum had offered the tablets to him too. “And I really do sometimes suffer from heartburn, quite often in fact. Just imagine if I had taken one of them!”

  “It was a blatant attempt at murder,” I said.

  He continued his story, driving out of town, the last part of the trip, the last cigarette, Meyer’s meaningful looks, until they reached the villa, until Hardtloff’s doctor came, until Kirschbaum lay dead on the ground in front of him. How he suddenly grasped what had really happened, how he took the little bag out of the car, the glass tube, handing it to the doctor, how the doctor had said, “Idiot.”

  For quite some time we were silent; he must have assumed that I was profoundly shaken, but actually I was wondering what else I could ask him. He had told the story well, graphically and omitting nothing, and I felt there were enough convincing reasons for him to have remembered that drive so well.

  Finally he felt an irresistible urge to confide to me his present thoughts about those ill-fated times, to talk to a sensible person and get the whole rotten business off his chest. But I really hadn’t come to listen to that. I said I had stayed much too long anyway, I still had a few things to do, as no doubt he did too, so I got up and thanked him for his cooperation.

  “And remember the name, in case you want to double-check,” he said. “Egon Letzerich. Cologne.”

  In the corridor we met his wife, who was just taking the children to the bathroom. They were already in their pajama bottoms, naked from the waist up.

  “Come on now, what do you say?” Preuss asked them.

  Both put out their hands simultaneously, curtsied and bowed, and said: “Good night, Uncle.”

  “Good night,” I said.

  All three disappeared into the bathroom. Preuss insisted on accompanying me out of the building. In case the front door was already locked.

  The front door was still open. Preuss walked ahead of me into the street, took a deep breath, flung out his arms, and said, “May is almost here again!”

  I had the impression that he was slightly drunk; after all, he had consumed two liters of tepid beer, minus one glass.

  “Ah yes,” I said, “can you tell me anything more about his sister?”

  “Kirschbaum's sister? We never had anything to do with her. I only saw her that one time. Is there any more to tell?”

  As I was finally leaving he said, “Would you answer a question for me too?”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  He hesitated a moment before asking, “How did you find out my address?”

  “From the British secret service,” I said. Then I really did leave.

  Hardtloff is dead, died of a weak heart. The news has come all the way to us here at the freight yard. It must have happened last night. When we left the yard yesterday after work, the flag was hanging limply at its normal spot on the redbrick building, but this morning when we turned up for work it was fluttering gaily at half-mast, so it happened sometime in between. Of course the flag in itself is only a vague clue, betraying merely that someone high up has passed on, without giving any name. The name was supplied by a sentry while he was talking to another sentry: at some point during the morning Roman Schtamm overheard the revealing conversation. He approached a stack of crates, with nothing reprehensible in mind, and the two sentries were standing behind it discussing Hardtloff’s death. It was a fluke. Roman took a little longer than usual over the lifting of the crate, only managing to complete the job when the two sentries changed the subject.

  By this time every one of us knows for whom the flag is flying at half-mast, Roman having seen no reason to keep it to himself. It can be said that we bear the news with composure; it will scarcely mean any change for us. If there is ever to be any, it won’t be as a result of Hardtloff’s death; nevertheless, worse things can be imagined. Only Jacob regrets that it was Roman Schtamm and not he who overheard the sentries’ conversation: the Sturmbannführern misfortune would have yielded an excellent radio report. Not only because of the content: it would have been the first report that didn’t have to be accepted in good faith. Everyone would have had a chance to verify its truth, with his own eyes and without effort — the confirmation has been flying from the flagpole since early this morning. To tell them now that one had heard about Hardtloff’s death on the early morning news would be pretty senseless, what’s past is past, a radio has its pride, it doesn’t come limping in the wake of events.

  When the Whistle blows punctually for soup time, Jacob finally abandons this pleasant train of thought. The little cart with the tin bowls is pulled over, and we form the customary impeccable line.

  Someone behind Jacob asks softly, “Were you listening again last night?”

  “Yes,” says Jacob.

  “Did they say anything about Hardtloff?”

  “Don’t be daft! Do you imagine they’re concerned with such trivial stuff?”

  Someone in front of Jacob asks, “What stations do you listen to?”

  “Whatever’s available,” says Jacob. “Moscow, London, Switzerland, depends on the weather too.”

  “Never any German stations?”

  “What for?”

  “Do you sometimes listen to music too?”

  “Not very often,” says Jacob. “Only when I’m waiting for the news. I’m not keeping the radio for entertainment, you know.”

  “I’d give anything to hear some music again. Any music,” says someone in front of the man in front of Jacob.

  The cauldrons of soup are a long time coming, yet the line is as straight as an arrow, word of honor. The men automatically continue to correct any irregularities, even the almost imperceptible ones, but that doesn’t bring on the cauldrons this time. Instead the window in the gable of the brick building opens, a h
and commands silence, a voice calls out from above sounding like the irate Almighty in person: “Ten-minute break! No lunch today!”

  The cart with its bowls is pushed away again, the hungry line loses its neatness and spreads out over the yard. Unused spoons are returned to pockets, a few oaths, curses, and angry looks, The Russians will show you bastards.

  Kowalski comes up to me and asks, “No food for us because Hardtloff is dead?”

  “Obviously,” I say.

  “If you ask me,” says Kowalski, “it’s worth it.”

  He wasn’t exactly rewarded with gales of laughter; no midday meal, that really hurts, like a blow to the stomach. But Kowalski in his kind way attempts another modest joke: “Just imagine if every time one of us kicks the bucket the Germans get nothing to eat — what a fine starvation that would be!”

  No response.

  As Jacob walks to the spot he has chosen for those ten minutes he is followed by a faithful little bevy of Jews. Kowalski drops back to join them before Jacob actually misses him. Jacob knows they are behind him; the meal has been canceled so a word from him will have to do instead. He goes to an empty railcar where they can all find a place to sit down, a thoughtfulness that has long become a habit. Jacob doesn’t feel quite comfortable: he had intended to rest a bit on yesterday’s laurels, on the liberation of the little town of Tobolin. With our enthusiastic approval, Major Karthäuser had set his name with a flourish to the document of surrender, the fortress had fallen; but that was yesterday. No one could have foreseen the desperate need of the following day. Jacob sits unprepared in the midst of his flock.

  Suddenly, so I am told, as they are sitting there looking at him, for he is expected to start his report right away, he is struck by a wicked thought that drives out Tobolin and all other victories. Suddenly he realizes that two pieces of news have reached the freight yard today, although only one of them was immediately grasped: Hardtloff. The other, the bad one, has been ignored, although it has been in the air, clear and unmistakable: the only thing needed was the effort. “The news isn’t that good at all, I’m sorry to say,” Jacob announces gravely.