Jakob the Liar

by Jurek Becker

  And Kowalski stands around idly, waiting in vain for an inviting look.

  “Do you want me to go away again?” he asks after an appropriate interval, and sits down.

  Jacob remembers that he has a visitor; he abandons the ceiling and says, “Sorry, I’m not feeling too good.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “Yes and no,” says Jacob. “They’ve just taken Kirschbaum's sister away. But apart from that, I’m beginning to feel my age.”

  “Kirschbaum's sister? After all this time?”

  “Yes, just imagine.”

  Jacob gets up; his ears buzz with suspicious signals, and these are combined with giddiness and nausea. All he needs now is to become seriously ill. From quite far away he hears Kowalski saying, “Are you all right?”

  He quickly sits down at the table; fortunately he begins to feel better. He thinks of Lina and what is to become of her and that it’s preferable to stay well. And when he finally looks at Kowalski he is reminded of a little cardboard sign, a little white sign with green lettering: CLOSED TEMPORARILY DUE TO ILLNESS. He got it from Leyb Pachman when he bought the shop from him, together with a lot of other stuff in the inventory. Only once did he ever use it, during all those twenty years spent over potato pancakes, ice cream, and comparatively minor worries, only once did the little sign hang on the shop door. And it wasn’t even a proper illness, Jacob having the constitution of an ox: while trying to repair a stuck blind he had fallen off the ladder and broken a leg. The best health in the world is of no help there. That had been long before Josefa Litwin’s time; she could have been very useful as a nurse, but he was looked after by a wizened old witch from the building across the courtyard. For money, of course, since he had no one else. But as for looking after him, all she did was push the table with his meals close enough for him to feed himself, occasionally empty the ashtray and air the room, and in the mornings straighten the bed. Beyond that, all she did was say, “And if there’s anything else you need, Reb Heym, just call me. I’ll leave my window open.” Jacob took her up on this once or twice, but either she had closed her window or she was as hard of hearing as an old mule. And every second or third evening Kowalski would drop in with a small bottle and express his sympathy for Jacob having to lie there with his leg in a splint, unable to move. Would sit there until the bottle was empty, neither of them being great conversationalists. Jacob thanked God that the fracture healed without complications. A few days longer, and the boredom would have killed him. And shortly after that he threw the blameless little sign into the stove, watching with grim enjoyment as it was consumed by the flames. The threat had such a lasting effect that to this day he has never again had to be confined to bed.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to leave?” asks Kowalski, at the end of his patience and interrupting Jacob’s thoughts.

  “Don’t go,” says Jacob.

  Kowalski looks at him with raised eyebrows. He has a feeling that Jacob intends to tell him something, most likely nothing good to judge by the past few minutes and the sluggish introduction. Yet all he had in mind was a completely innocent visit, for on his way here he decided not to bother about a confirmation regarding Pry, an error being out of the question — that fellow Abraham must have been hoodwinked by a busybody. He merely wanted to drop by and say hello and talk a bit about the old days and the days to come, with whom else if not with his only old friend, if he doesn’t come to you, you come to him.

  “What do you think, Kowalski, how much can a person endure?”

  So he wants to philosophize, Kowalski must be thinking. He waits for a clarification of the question, for it to be narrowed down in one direction or another, but Jacob appears to have asked it in quite a general sense. “Well?” he says. “What do you think?”

  “If you put it like that,” Kowalski replies, “a lot. An awful lot.”

  “But there is a limit.”

  “Of course….”

  “I’m sorry,” says Jacob, “but I have now reached that limit. Perhaps someone else could have gone on longer, but I simply can’t.”

  “What can’t you?”

  “I can’t go on,” says Jacob.

  Kowalski lets him take his time. He doesn’t know that Jacob is preparing an unconditional surrender, the worst of all admissions. He sees only Jacob’s gaunt face, propped on his hands, maybe a bit paler than usual, possibly a bit more weary, but it’s still the face of that same Jacob he knows better than anyone else. He is worried, because such attacks of melancholy are completely foreign to Jacob; he can be grouchy and quarrelsome at times, but that’s different. He’s never been known to moan; moaning is what all the others do, whereas Jacob has been something of a spiritual comforter. Quite often, whether consciously or not, Kowalski went to him for his own weaknesses to be exorcised. Even before the days of the radio, actually even before the days of the ghetto. At the end of a particularly foul day, after standing from early morning to late evening behind the shop window, watching in vain for customers, or when some enormous bill arrived and he hadn’t the slightest idea out of which pocket it was to be paid: where did he go that evening? To Jacob’s shop, but not because his schnapps tasted any better. It was the same schnapps as anywhere else, besides being illegal because it was served without a license. He went there because afterward the world looked just a bit rosier, because Jacob could say something like “Chin up” or “Things are going to be all right,” with just a bit more conviction than other people. But also because among his scanty acquaintances, only Jacob made the effort to say such things. Kowalski lets him take his time.

  Now Jacob starts to speak: judging by appearances, to Kowalski, there being no one else in the room; judging by the words, to a larger audience, that is to say just thinking out loud, into the room, with a wistfulness in his low voice and that new tone of resignation, the last of an extravagant diversity of messages to everyone. That, if their vanishing strength permits it, they shouldn’t be angry with him: the fact is, he doesn’t have a radio, he has never possessed one. Furthermore, he doesn’t know where the Russians are; maybe they will come tomorrow, maybe they will never come, they are in Pry or in Tobolin or in Kiev or in Poltawa or still farther away, maybe by this time they have suffered a crushing defeat, he doesn’t even know that much. The only thing he can say with certainty is that some numbers of days ago they were fighting at Bezanika. How can he be so sure? That’s a whole separate story, no longer of interest to anyone, but at least that is the truth. And he can well imagine how devastating this confession must sound to their ears, so once again his plea for forbearance; he had only acted for the best, but his plans went awry.

  Then there is a long silence in the room as if a king had abdicated. Jacob tries in vain to discover some emotion in Kowalski’s face, but Kowalski looks straight through him and sits there like a pillar of salt. Needless to say, Jacob feels pangs of conscience the moment he comes to the end of his speech. Not because of the message itself, which is overdue and could no longer be delayed, but couldn’t he have conveyed it more gently, perhaps tucked in with a Russian retreat, instead of shifting the whole load all at once onto other shoulders, shoulders no broader than his own? Was he sure Kowalski was the right man in whose presence the curtain had to be rung down, Kowalski of all people? If he had heard it from a stranger, or from someone not that close to Jacob, he woujd undoubtedly have taken it for an error or spiteful slander. After a night filled with doubts he would have said to you, “Do you know what those idiots are telling each other? That you haven’t got a radio!” “That’s true,” the answer would then have been, which would also have hurt him but perhaps less so because during the previous night he would have at least considered the possibility. And it could somehow have been arranged like that, exactly like that; it was Kowalski’s bad luck that he turned up this very evening.

  “You’re not saying anything?” says Jacob.

  “What can I say.”

  From unfathomable depths Kowalski
brings his smile to the surface; without this smile he would not be Kowalski. He looks at Jacob again. Although his eyes smile less than his mouth, they still do not proclaim the end of all hope. They have more of a sly look, as if this time too, as always, they could see beyond appearances.

  “What can I say, Jacob? I do understand you, I understand you very well. You know, I’m what you might call the opposite of a hero, you’ve known me long enough. If I’d had a radio here, I don’t suppose a single soul would ever have heard a word. Or more likely still, fear would have simply made me throw it in the fire, I have no illusions about that. To keep an entire ghetto supplied with news! I would never have gone that far — you never know who else is listening. If I have ever in my life understood anybody, I can understand you now.”

  Jacob could not have expected such a flight of fancy; cunning old Kowalski has surpassed himself, has even made his calculations where there was nothing to calculate. How are you going to convince him that at least now you are telling the truth? All you can do is suggest that he ransack every nook and cranny in this room and the basement. But to protest with upturned palms — “When did I ever lie to you?” — that you can no longer do. And if you actually do urge him to search the place and tell him that whatever radios you find here, Kowalski, you can keep, he will give you a knowing wink and respond with something like, “Let’s not play games, Jacob. Haven’t we known each other for forty years?” He will intimate that any attempt at hide-and-seek is a waste of time. The impossible can never be proved. Jacob, alarmed, says: “You don’t believe me?”

  “Believe, disbelieve, what’s the difference?” says Kowalski in a low voice and more absently than expected, in a tone similar to Jacob’s just now in his little speech to all. That’s all he says for the time being, as his fingers drum a measured theme on the table, his head tilted back, sunk in private thoughts.

  Jacob considers further ways of justifying himself. It means a lot to him that he be judged with leniency, and for that the reasons for his actions must be known, as well as the reasons for the sudden cessation. But these are still not entirely clear to himself; and because of this, and because he realizes that not only his standing but Kowalski’s, too, is at stake in all this, he says nothing and saves his request for extenuating circumstances for some later date.

  This is followed by the sobering thought that his own standing is not at stake at all; no one in the ghetto is less important than he, without a radio. The only people who matter are his recipients, Kowalski among a great many others. And they couldn’t care less about excuses, however plausible; they have other worries, and not minor ones either — they want to know, for instance, what is going to happen now after Pry.

  Kowalski stops his drumming and brooding, gets up, and places a friendly hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, old man,” he says. “You’re safe with me. I won’t ask you anymore.”

  He goes to the door, reviving his smile. Before opening the door he turns around once more and actually winks with both eyes. “And I'm not angry with you.” And leaves.

  Next morning, after the most sleepless night for a long time, Jacob is on his way to work. Before stepping out into the street he had furtively pressed down the handle of Kirschbaum's door, for whatever reason, but the door was locked. Horowitz, his neighbor, caught him at the unrevealing keyhole and asked: “Are you looking for something in particular?”

  Of course Jacob hadn’t been looking for anything in particular, just looking, human curiosity, and with a vague explanation to Horowitz he left. Then there had been that iridescent patch in front of the building, on the road, where the small German van had stood yesterday. A few drops of oil had seeped from it and were now gleaming in thin streaks on the dwindling remains of a reservoir deposited there by Siegfried and Rafael, first by way of their rolled-up shorts, then, when their sources had dried up, with the aid of a bucket of water. They had set to work immediately after Elisa Kirschbaum's departure, for with so little motor traffic such opportunities were few and far between. Jacob had still been at the window observing them with Lina, who was disgusted at the boys’ indecency.

  But back to Jacob on his way to work: from a distance he can already see a fair-sized crowd at a street corner, right in front of the building where Kowalski lives. Jacob’s first thought is that Kowalski must be at the center of the crowd; his best friend will have come out into the street and, true to his nature, been unable to keep his mouth shut. Either, in thinking it over last night, he has come to the conclusion that he has after all been told the truth, or, as is more likely with Kowalski, he still doesn’t believe it but outwardly pretends to do so, for true friendship means sticking together. Has come out of the building and has lost no time in scaring the Jews to death with his dire news, since he must at all costs be the first; whether on the road to hell or to paradise, Kowalski always in the lead. Has thereby cut off all one’s paths of retreat — not that, after giving it much thought, one meant to take any such path, but what business was that of Kowalski’s?

  Jacob feels inclined to turn back, he tells me, and to make a short detour; it’s going to be hard enough anyway, they’ll give him a grueling time at the yard. Let Kowalski cope with this on his own, that’s his problem, this is a good opportunity to stay out of it. Now Jacob notices, while still some way off, that those people are hardly speaking, yet surely they should be agitated after the presumed revelation. As he approaches he sees that most of them are standing in shocked silence. Some are looking up at an open window that, at first sight, does not seem to have anything unusual about it, being merely empty and open. Jacob is not quite sure whether it is Kowalski’s window or the one next to it. But on closer inspection he does see what is unusual: a short piece of rope, fastened to the transom and no longer than a finger, hence unnoticed until now.

  Jacob, forcing his way through the crowd, dashes into the building. He tries to take two stairs at a time but manages only the first two; luckily Kowalski lives only one floor up. The door is open, like the window, so there is a draft. Kowalski’s three neighbors, one of whom we arbitrarily called Abraham, are not at home. Only Kowalski is at home, and two complete strangers are in the room, the first passersby to have seen him hanging. They have cut him down and laid him on the bed; now they are standing about helplessly, not knowing what to do next. One of them asks Jacob, “Did you know him?”

  “What?” Jacob asks, standing by the bed.

  “I said, did you know him?”

  “Yes,” says Jacob.

  When after a while he turns around, he is alone; they have closed the door. Jacob walks to the window and looks out into the street: nothing left of the crowd, only people walking past. He tries to shut the window, but it jams: first he has to remove the rope with its double knot from the transom. Then he draws the curtain shut; in the subdued light, Kowalski’s face seems easier to bear. He pulls up a chair, not wanting to sit on the bed, and sits down for an indefinite period. I say indefinite because later he is unable to tell me anything about how long he stayed there.

  The sight of a dead person is far from unfamiliar to Jacob; it is not uncommon to have to step over somebody, a victim of starvation, lying on the sidewalk and not yet removed by the cleanup squad. But Kowalski is not just somebody, dear God, no he isn’t. Kowalski is Kowalski. A confession has resulted in his death, a confession, moreover, that he pretended not to believe. You crazy fool, why didn’t you stay on last night? We would have had a calm discussion about everything and scraped up that little bit of courage needed to go on living. Haven’t we scraped up enough together, rightfully or wrongfully? If it works, no one asks how it was done. Why did you have to behave like a poker player on your last evening? We could have helped each other, but only you knew what was going on inside both of us, you hid from your friend Jacob Heym, you showed me a false face, yet we could have gone on living, Kowalski, we could have managed.

  By profession a barber, had some money stashed away, as we know, intending to
change his life one day but would probably have gone on being a barber; was equipped with various questionable attributes, was suspicious, quirky, awkward, garrulous, too clever for his own good, but all in all, in hindsight, suddenly endearing. Once rescued Jacob from a horrendous situation, from a German outhouse, subscribed to the Völkischer Kurier for the advertisements, could sometimes put away seven large potato pancakes at a sitting but couldn’t tolerate ice cream, would rather borrow than pay back, wanted to seem calculating but wasn’t like that at all, except once.

  As is to be expected, self-reproaches are whirling around in Jacob’s head: that he had Kowalski on his conscience, that he with his petty fatigue was to blame for Kowalski’s resorting to the rope, once you start something you have to see it through, you have to estimate your strength in advance. Here I interrupted Jacob and told him, “You’re talking nonsense. You didn’t overestimate your strength because you had no way of knowing that it would go on so long.” And I told him, “The point is not that you’re to blame for Kowalski’s death but that he has to thank you for having stayed alive up to that day.” “Yes, I know,” was Jacob’s response, “but none of that helps.”

  Finally Jacob gets up. He pulls the curtain aside again and, when he goes, leaves the door wide open so that one of the neighbors returning from work will see what has happened and do what’s necessary. It is far too late to go to the freight yard; he can hardly tell the sentry at the gate that he was delayed on the way, and there’ll definitely be no midday meal for him today. Jacob goes home, his only hope being that Kowalski kept his reasons to himself, that for once he held his tongue. For Jacob has rediscovered his radio.