by Arnold Zable
‘Then in Wolfke's the talk turned to a man called Sugihara. May he sit with full honours by God's right side! May his feet be forever massaged by angels and cherubim. He was a true tzaddik. A saint!
‘My dear Martin, of course I met him in person. First, I had to obtain a pass to Curaçao, a Dutch colony. I am sure Zalman has told you about this. He knows every little detail. He still reads books about it.
‘I took the train from Vilna to Kovno and dashed to the office of the Dutch consul, Mr Zwartendyk. I never forget a name. He was a businessman. He sold radios and lightbulbs but I was in too much of a hurry to talk and do deals. I ran straight to Sugihara's. I joined the many hundreds gathered outside his Kovno home. I hopped about as if standing on pins. I sweated and jostled along with the impatient crowd. And Sugihara welcomed us all. He was a true tzaddik! A man of pure gold! He stamped whatever we put under his nose.
‘When I left Sugihara's I was dancing in the streets. I was meshuge with relief. I kept patting my pocket, to make sure my precious papers were still there. I slept with them under my pillow. I wrapped them in a waterproof bag.
‘Every few days I would take them out and kiss them one by one. I kept them with me day and night. I had found a passageway to wonderland. The papers had cost me only the price of a return ticket from Vilna to Kovno, but they were worth far more than gold. It was a metziah! The best bargain I have ever struck in my life!
‘Months later I went to the Vilna offices of the NKVD. I was terrified. Everyone was afraid of them. But without their approval we could not leave. They worked twenty-four hours a day. They interrogated you in their cold rooms. They glared at you with hard eyes.
‘But I had mazel. I have always had good luck. The man who interviewed me was a Jewish officer. And I charmed him. I spoke to him in Yiddish, the mother tongue. I made him feel as though I was his long-lost son. My foolish child, I was desperate. And I knew what I had to do! After all, I am a Krochmalna boy.
‘A few days later a friend came running to me. He was jumping with joy. “Yossel, we are on the list,” he told me. We had found a way out of our black hole. We celebrated by drinking a bottle of vodka. Or was it two? Ah, never before had I so relished its bitter taste. Vodka is a medicine. It can cure colds, relieve boredom, and prepare an old man for the act of love.
‘By the time we swallowed the last drop we were flying. We flew to the police station by horse-drawn droshkies. We flew over the snow to the tinkling of bells. We received our exit visas in style. The NKVD officer shook my hand, and wished me a bon voyage and good luck. I have always known how to draw people to me.
‘I received the visa on a Wednesday. On the Thursday, I went to my Dvora and bought the remaining diamonds. She did not want to come with me. Vilna was her home. We said our goodbyes, and I never saw her again. My dear Martin, this is how it was.
‘On Friday I went to a yeshiva boy who made special suitcases. They contained secret compartments in which I hid diamonds, American dollars and English pounds. I packed in salami, tins of goose fat, bottles of vodka, a flagon of cognac: all the delicacies a traveller requires.
‘The next day I took the three suitcases to the train. I had purchased a ticket for a princely sum. I paid over two hundred dollars, American. But it was worth it. I had privileges. I had comfort. I travelled first-class.
‘What do I remember about the journey? My foolish child, I can still smell the food. My mouth waters at the thought of it. The best food is when one is hungry, so the saying goes. I ate cabbage soup seasoned with sour cream. I feasted on black bread and herring. I had sugar to put in my tea. I sat in a carriage with soft seats and sleeping berths. The whole world was burning and I travelled first-class.
‘I saw prisoners lying on platforms, chained, and in rags. By the tracks stood old babushkas dressed in black, begging for food. In the villages that flew by, I glimpsed skinny children, barefooted, running over dusty lanes, and bearded peasants bent over barren fields.
‘The whole of Russia was hungry. An entire empire was searching for food. Yet in Irkutsk I bought a fish freshly caught in Lake Baikal, the best fish in the world. A giant of a fish. So soft. So thick with flesh. So well cooked. Full of juice. It was a mekhaiye. A pure delight. Even now, the thought of eating that fish can make my mouth drool.
‘I was afraid, of course. Whenever anyone asked me about the suitcases, I would say they were not mine. My heart thumped whenever anyone passed them by. Again I had mazel. Every carriage had a commissar, a spy. The commissar admired my gold watch. I gave him the watch and he turned a blind eye to my luggage. When we finally reached Vladivostok he put me up in his house. He fed me well. In exchange I gave him woollen socks, warm underwear, a jar of caviar.
‘We remained in Vladivostok for two weeks. It was a dump at the ends of the earth. Very few of us believed we would get out. This is what we thought, even as we boarded the boat for Japan. The ropes were untied. We moved away from the wharf. When he realised we were truly on the way, the man standing next to me started to cry. He could not believe he was free. Or perhaps he was thinking of those he had left behind. I don't know whether he was crying from happiness or pain.
‘I gave him a pickled herring and a nip of vodka. We drank each other's health. We were on our way, and still, he was crying. But I was laughing. And singing. Farria. Farria. Farria. Farria. Far-ri-ya-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
‘Yes, I was singing. And why not? My three faithful companions, the suitcases, had made it safely aboard. I ate like a king. I had dollars. I had pounds. I had diamonds. I had gefilte fish and red-berry jam. I was out on the open seas. I was safe. And I was free. My foolish child, what more can I say? The old world was burning, and I was free!’
There are languid days in our city which obliterate memory. The seas are pale, the skies bleached white, the waves enfeebled by lack of breeze. Such days numb all thoughts. The skin drips sweat and sun. All is reduced to the body.
From the concrete walk of St Kilda pier, the inner city looms close. Beyond the breakwater, pale-silver upon the horizon, curves the bridge that links the city to the west. Like a migrating bird it swoops over a distant enclave of cranes, elongated chimneys and petrochemical works.
When standing at the end of the pier Yossel feels gloved by the bay. The rocks of the breakwater are matted with moss. Boats huddle at their moorings. Two men stripped to the waist, their upper bodies ivory-white, tend their fishing lines. Ageing sunbathers sprawl on the rocks, their skin burnt a permanent bronze. A boy wades into the shallows with a dog. A young woman promenades in a bikini and heavy boots, the fashion of the day: erotic, hard-edged, casual.
Everything is casual. And slow. Heat is the leveller, reducing us all to creatures of the moment, to bodies bleached by light and sand. Yet even on days such as this Yossel clings to the past. He is nearing ninety and still he does not give in. He makes his way back to Scheherazade with steady, determined steps. He greets Avram and Masha with a wave, and sits down at his customary place.
As I approach the table Yossel is anxious, restive, twirling an ashtray, adjusting his gold bow tie, which perches on a beige shirt. His cream safari-suit matches perfectly. His gold cuff links flash under the cafe lights. And I know in advance how he will greet me:
‘Sholem Aleichem!’
And I know what he will say next.
‘My foolish child, age does not matter. Willpower can defeat it. I can still lift fifty kilos. I have already walked fifteen kilometres today.’
And I know that he will leap up and kiss me on both cheeks, and I will feel his vigour, laced with the scent of eau de cologne. I will smell the lingering aroma of brandy on his mouth, and he will call me his old khaver, his loyal friend, though I have not known him so very long. He will embrace me and exclaim, ‘My dear Martin, sell your pants if you must, but nothing is worth more than a friend you can trust. Believe me. I know. I am a Krochmalna boy.’
And before I have time to respond, he will launch into an irrepressible tirade.<
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‘My foolish child, what do you know of the past? What do you know about such things? For many it was a tragedia, a true hell. But for me it was not so bad. It was a lottery, whether you lived or died, whether you laughed or cried. What can I say! I had mazel, and I spent my war years in Shanghai.
‘Of all the cities I have known, Shanghai was the best, the most beautiful. You cannot imagine it. My beloved Warsaw was burning. Krochmalna Street was circled by barbed walls. My loved ones were in gehennim, and in Shanghai I had a good life.
‘A Yiddish life. With Yiddish theatre. First-class. With the best actors. From Warsaw and Vilna. From Odessa and Harbin. And Yiddish clubs. Yiddish radio. Yiddish newspapers: Unzer Leben, Unzer Welt, Dos Wort and Der Yiddisher Almanach.’
And the ghetto? The internment camps? The bombings?
‘Of course, my dear Martin, after Pearl Harbor, it all changed. Of course we were squashed into Hongkew. Yes, it is true, we could be beaten up when we queued for a pass. Hundreds died of starvation. Of typhus. Of cholera. Of malaria and meshugas.
‘Of course I saw the bombings. I was in the street at the time. I saw it all. I saw the planes swooping over Hongkew, and people diving into the gutters. I heard the bombs whistling as they hurtled down. I saw the corpses lying on the road, with flies crawling over their wounds. I could smell the bloated bodies in the heat. I saw people frantically searching for their loved ones. I saw dismembered coolies slumped against their mangled rickshaws. I saw it all.
‘Yet somehow, for me, Shanghai was a beautiful life. That is how I remember it. What do you want me to say? That I am ashamed? That I should not have enjoyed myself when I had the chance? If not for Mao I would have stayed. Even at the worst of times I still loved it. I knew how to get by. During my six weeks, en route, in Kobe, I sold the diamonds I had smuggled from Vilna; and I arrived in Shanghai with cash in hand.
‘In Shanghai there were millionaires, Sephardic Jews. Their ancestors had lived for centuries in Baghdad. They sailed to Shanghai like Sinbad of the Arabian Nights. They lived in mansions. They ran shipping lines, owned cotton mills, managed banks. They took me to nightclubs and cabarets. We drank whisky. We sipped expensive liqueurs. And all this while my Warsaw was burning. All this while my family was in gehennim. It's a meshugene velt. What can I say?
‘In Shanghai there were Jews from the entire world. From Bombay. Thessaloniki, Persia and Cochin. Magnates! They owned factories, warehouses, real estate. You know why they call it ‘real estate’? Because you can touch it; because it is not a fantasy, a grandmother's tale.
‘I met the famous magnate, Sir Victor Sassoon, in the lobby of the Hotel Cathay. He was a great philanthropist. He walked with a limp, and he showered money on all who came!
‘It was such a pleasure to stroll in the carpeted foyer. I would loiter for hours in a magnificent hall that overlooked the Whangpoo. Even the elevators were like palace rooms. It was a delight to press the buttons, to wait for the lifts to arrive. I rode them up and down as if I was riding a horse on a carousel. I lifted my hat to the wealthy merchants who stepped in. I greeted them with a wink. A smile. And I made conversation.
‘Small talk leads to big talk, to contracts and deals. This is how I met the millionaire, Baruch. His grand-daughter was Esther Williams, the actress. From Hollywood. That's what he told me. Perhaps he was just boasting. Or perhaps I have got it all mixed up.
‘I met Kadourie and Hardoon. Or perhaps I heard stories about Kadourie and Hardoon. I can't remember which was which. Kadourie erected a beautiful school for refugees, where it was needed most, in that rat hole called Hongkew. He was a man with a golden heart. I am sure he sits in gan eiden, serenaded by angels on all sides!
‘Hardoon too had a heart of gold. He had a Chinese wife. He adopted children from many lands. He built a synagogue in honour of his father, and called it the Beth Aharon, the House of Aron. And when the refugees came, he gave it to them as a gift. He opened its doors to the boys of the Mir Yeshiva. Can you imagine it? A whole yeshiva, from the Polish town of Mir, a mere shtetl, made it all the way to Shanghai.
‘Yes. This is how it was! They fled from Mir to Vilna, hundreds of rabbis and yeshiva boys. They ran from Vilna to northern Lithuania where they lived secretly in villages until Chiune Sugihara helped them along. They travelled from Vilna to Vladivostok, from Kobe to Shanghai. A complete school of Talmudic studies in a caravanserai! With scholars who tugged at their side-locks, and teenage boys who scratched their itchy cheeks. They rushed about in black-brimmed hats. Their jackets flapped in the wind. Even in the summer they hurried through the streets of Hongkew in their black coats to the Beth Aharon, to study and pray.
‘I prayed there too. I can still see it before my eyes. It had an arched doorway and arched windows, high white ceilings and a white dome. It looked like the great synagogues of old.
‘The Russian Jews too were great philanthropists. They had lived in Shanghai for many years and they knew how to get by. My foolish child, to be able to give, you must be able to receive. This is a golden rule.
‘The Russians managed nightclubs, restaurants, cinemas and cabarets. I would often stroll in the Russian quarter, along Avenue Joffre, in the French concession. Little Moscow, it was called. It was crowded with people speaking in Slavic tongues. Naturally I felt at home. I sniffed the air and soon became a regular customer at the Balalaika, the Kavkas and the Renaissance. Little Moscow was a paradise of borscht and black bread, and stores that sold everything from Siberian furs to samovars!
‘The whole world was in Shanghai. Der gantzer velt. As Mendel Mandelbaum used to say:
“Die velt is ful mit veltelekh
Un men shpilt zikh in beheltelekh”
‘That's how it is. The world is full of little worlds, and we are all playing hide-and-seek. This is what Mendel Mandelbaum taught me. This is what I learnt on Krochmalna Street, and in the tenement courtyards of old Warsaw. And this is why Shanghai was so familiar to me. It brought back childhood memories of peddlers selling smoked herring and bagels; and of geese and pigs being driven to market through narrow lanes. It was a wonderful mess, a balagan. As the boat approached the busy wharves, I rubbed my hands with glee. I fell in love at first sight. I wanted to leap into the city as soon the boat pulled up to the port.
‘What can I say? In Shanghai I had a beautiful life. I lived with other single men in a dormitory, in Hongkew. Until Pearl Harbor we could roam wherever we wished. I walked the streets of the French concession, and sat in Viennese cafes. I sipped coffee with the boys from Berlin. And with the boys from Prague, Siberia and Harbin. Each group had their own cafe, their own little world. Mendel Mandelbaum was right. The whole world is full of little worlds, and we are playing hide-and-seek.
‘And wherever I met people I pencilled in their names. To prosper you must have an address book with you at all times. If you wish to make a living, you must always be prepared!’
Yossel is in full flight. His gold bow tie glitters in the late afternoon light. He orders a glass of borscht. The drink complements his tales, for he is talking of Russian philanthropists. He is singing the praises of Boris Salamonik.
‘My foolish child, to have money is the greatest thing. Even in times of danger some people knew how to give, how to be a mensch, a true human being. Boris was married to a tsigeiner. He helped everyone, the Gypsies, the Chinese, even the yeshiva boys from Mir. Salamonik gave them thousands of dollars to print the Talmud. They had no books for their studies, so Boris helped them.
‘And he helped me. He dealt in mink. He exported it to America. The best mink. I have photos. I carry them with me in my wallet. They remind me of my luck. Look. Here is a photo of me with Boris, wrapped in his winter coat. He treated me as a son. To have money is the greatest thing. With money you can help yourself. You can help others. And Boris helped me.
‘And he helped in a nice way, with honour, without making me feel like a beggar. He gave me textiles and said, “Go and deal. Go and make a livi
ng.” He did not give you charity. He gave you a chance. After I made money, I too was able to help others. My foolish child, this is how it is. This is the way the world spins and turns.’
Yossel orders his customary chicken schnitzel. He eats with relish, as if each morsel could be his last.
‘I did anything to survive,’ he says. ‘I smuggled goods, traded in diamonds, exchanged my hard-earned money on the black market. I even purchased the complete works of Karl Marx and Adam Smith from a refugee, and made a ten-fold profit by selling them for their weight! Like everything in Shanghai, paper was in demand. They had opposite views, Marx and Smith, but in weight they were worth the same!
‘But unless my life depended upon it I never traded on Shabbes. This is where I drew the line. On Friday nights I would get dressed in my best clothes, and I would stroll to the Beth Aharon synagogue to pray. I stood at the polished pews, alongside the yeshiva boys, and rocked back and forth until I found myself in the prayer houses of old.
‘After the service I would go to Goldbloom's restaurant. It was heimish. As homely as a mother's kitchen; and the food was kosher. Do you think it would be otherwise? We sang zmires, Shabbes songs. We drank kosher port, as if we were back on Krochmalna. We drank wine as if each Shabbes was a Passover feast.
‘Yes, Shanghai was a tragedia. But we made a life. A Russian life. A French life. A Chinese life. Any life you wished. We danced to gramophones in private rooms. We went to all-night dances and ran after beautiful girls. We watched American films at the Lafayette. We saw Dorothy Lamour at the Broadway, as my beloved Warsaw fell. We watched Bette Davis at the Uptown cinema, while my dear parents perished in hell.
‘Of course, the situation changed after December '41. Of course the party was over. But even then, in Hongkew, there were coffee-houses; they multiplied like flies. We had little food. We drank ersatz coffee. We ate soggy rice drowning in water. We ate red beans until we burst; but we could breathe! We sat for hours on end and shuffled cards. We played ping-pong and dribbled footballs in rubbish-strewn lots. We sat with coolies and played mahjong. What else could we do but live for the day?