Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  Udam's new dialogue refers to recent ghetto rumors: Hitler has cancer, the Germans are running out of oil to fight the war, the Americans will make a surprise landing in France on Christmas Day; the sort of wishful thinking that abounds in Theresienstadt. Natalie works up puppet business to match Udam's jokes, while his daughter and Louis, to whom the words mean nothing, chortle at the red-nosed dolls.

  Rehearsal done, she hugs Louis, feeling an invigorating electricity in the embrace, and goes on to her English class.

  At the teenageboys' house lessons proceed day and night.

  Education of Jewish children is officially forbidden, but there is nothing else for them to do. The Germans do not really check, knowing what the ultimate destiny of the children is, and not caring what noises they make in the slaughter pen..

  These big-eyed scrawny boys put out a small newspaper, learn languages and instruments, work up theatricals, debate Zionism, sing Hebrew songs. On the other hand, they are for the most part cynical, accomplished scroungers and liars, believe in nothing, know their way around the ghetto like rats, and are sexually very precocious. Their greeting glances sometimes make Natalie uneasy, though in her baggy brown yellow-starred wool suit she considers herself a sexless, not to say a revolting, female object.

  But once the boys get down to the lesson they are all sharp attention. They are bright volunteers, beginners, a mere nine of them, who want to know English "to go to America after the war." Two are missing tonight, off at a rehearsal of Abduction from the Seraglio.

  This ambitious Mozart opera is being undertaken to follow up on the big hit of the ghetto, The Bartered Bride, which even the SS enjoyed.

  Natalie saw a weak performance of this favorite because the cast had just been decimated by a transport. She has even heard that Verdis Requiem is being rehearsed somewhere in a barracks cellar, though that seems fantastic. The class over, she hurries through the windy starry night to the loft where she will perform.

  The quartet is already playing at the far end of the long low slope-roofed room, which was once usable for big gatherings, but is now filling up with bunks as more and more Jews sluice into the ghetto; far faster, as yet, than they are sluicing out "to the east." The whole hope of the ghetto Jews is that the Americans and the Russians will smash Frost-Cuckoo Land in time to save those piling up in the Theresienstadt floodgate.

  The object of life meantime is to avoid being transported, and to make the days and nights bearable with culture.

  Jesselson's quartet makes excellent music: three grayheaded men and a very ugly middle-aged woman, playing on instruments smuggled into the ghetto, their shabbily dressed bodies swaying to the brilliant Haydn melodies, their faces intent and bright with inner light. The loft is packed. People hunch or lie on the bunks, squat on the floor, line the walls on their feet, beside the hundreds sitting jammed together on long wooden benches. Natalie waits for the piece to end, so as not to cause a commotion, then pushes through the crush.

  People recognize her and make way.

  The puppet stage stands ready behind the musicians' chairs. She sits by Udam on the floor in front, and lets the balm of the music-Dvorak now-flow over her soul: the sweet violins and viola, the sobbing and thundering cello, weaving a pretty arabesque of folksong.

  After that the musicians play a late Beethoven quartet. The Theresienstadt programs are long, the audiences rapt and grateful, though here and there the sick or the elderly nod off.Before the puppet show begins Udam sings a new Yiddish composition, Mi Kumt ("They're Coming"). This is another of his ingenious double-meaning political numbers. A lonely old man is singing on his birthday that everybody has forgotten him, and he is sitting sadly alone in his room in Prague.

  Suddenly his relatives begin to arrive. He turns joyful in the refrain, capering about the stage and snapping sis fingers: Oy they're coming, they're coming after an!

  Coming from the east, coming from the west, English cousins, Russian cousins, American cousins, All kinds of cousins!

  Coming in planes, coming in ships Oy what joy, oy what a day, Oy thank God, from the east, from the west, Oy thank God, they're coming!

  Instant hit! In the encore, the audience takes up the refrain, clapping in rhythm: Coming from the east, coming from the west! On this high note the puppet show commences.

  Before The King of Frost-Cuckoo Land, they do another favorite sketch. Punch is.a ghetto official, in the mood to have sex with his wife. Judy puts him off. There is no privacy, she's hungry, he hasn't bathed, the bunk is too narrow, and so forth, familiar ghetto excuses which bring roars of laughter.

  He takes her to his office. Here they are alone; she coyly submits, but as their lovemaking commences, his underlings keep interrupting with ghetto problems. Udam's amorous coos and grunts of man and wife, alternated with Punch's irascible official tones and Judy's frustrated squawking, with some ribald lines and action, add up to a very tinny business.

  Even Natalie, crouched beside Udam manipulating the dolls, keeps bursting into giggles.

  The revised Frost-Cuckoo Land draws great laughter, too; and Udam and Natalie emerge flushed from behind the curtains to take bow after bow.

  Calls arise here and there in the loft: "Udam!"

  He shakes his head and waves protesting hands.

  More calls: "Udam, Udam, Udam!" Gesturing for quiet, he asks to be excused, he is tired, he is not in the mood, he has a cold; another time.

  "No, no. Now! Udam! Udam!"

  This happens at every puppet performance. Sometimes the audience prevails, sometimes Udam does beg off. Natalie sits. He strikes a somber singer's attitude, hands clasped before him, and in a deep cantonal baritone begins a mournful chant.

  Udam... udam. udam...

  Chills creep along Natalie's spine each time he starts it.

  This is a passage of the Yom Kippur liturgy. "Udam yesoidoi may-ufar way soifoi lay-ufar.

  Man is created of the dust, and his end is in the dust. He is like a broken potsherd, a fading flower, like a floating mote, a passing shadow, and like a dream thatflies away.

  A,after every pair of images comes the refrain of the opening melody, which the audience softly chants: Udam... udam... udam.

  It means Man... man... man. The word in Hebrew for man is adam.

  Udam is a Polish-Yiddish variant of adam.

  This brokenhearted low chant from the throats of the Theresienstadt Jews-Adam, adam, adam-all in the shadow of death, all recently howling with mirth, now murmurring what may be their own dirge, stirs deeps in Natalie Henry that she never knew were there before her imprisonment. As he works into the florid cantonal passage, Udam's voice sola and swells like a cello. His eyes close. His body weaves before the little puppet stage. His hands stretch out and up.

  The agony, the reverence, the love of God and of humanity in his voice, are beyond belief in this man, who minutes before was performing the rawest ribaldry.

  "Like a floating mote, a-passing shadow Udam... udam... udam...

  He rises on tiptoe, his arms stiffen straight upward, his eyes open and glare at the audience like open furnace doors: "And like a DREAM..."

  The fiery eyes close. The hands fall, the body droops and all but crumples. The last words die to a crushed whisper "... that flies away."

  He never does an encore. He acknowledges the applause with stiff bows and a strained white face.

  This wrenching liturgical aria, words and melody alike, once seemed to Natalie a strange, almost gruesome way to close an evening of entertainment. Now she understands. It is pure Theresienstadt. She herself feels the catharsis she sees on the faces around her. The audience is spent, satisfied, ready to sleep, ready to face another day in the valley of the shadow. So is she.

  "What the devil is that?"

  A gray yellow-starred woolen suit lies across her cot.

  Beside it are lisle stockings and new shoes. A man's suit and shirts are on Aaron's cot opposite. He sits at the little table between the cots, poring over a large b
rown Talmud volume.

  He holds up a hand. "Just let me finish this."

  The protection hovering over them is most apparent here; a separate room for the two of them, though it is only a tiny space with one window, partitioned off with wallboard from a larger chamber, formerly the dining room of a prosperous Czech family's private house.

  Beyond the partition hundreds of Jews are crowded in four-tier bunks.

  Here are two cots, a dim little lamp, a table, and a cardboard wardrobe like a telephone booth, the acme of ghetto luxury. Council officials do not live better. There has never been an explanation for this kind treatment, other than that they are Prominente.

  Aaron gets his food here, but not by standing-in line. The house elder has assigned a girl to bring it to him. However, he scarcely eats. He seems to be living on air. Usually when Natalie returns there are scraps and slops left, if she cares to choke them down.

  Otherwise the people beyond the partition will devour the stuff.

  Now what is this gray suit? She holds it up against her-, excellent material, well cut; a fair fit, a bit loose. The suit exudes a faint charming rose scent. A woman of quality owned this garment.

  Alive? Dead? Transported?

  Closing the volume with a sigh, Aaron Jastrow turns to her. His hair and beard are white. His skin is like soft mica; bones and veins show through. Ever since his recovery he has-been placidly frail, yet capable of surprising endurance. From day to day he teaches, lectures, attends concerts and plays, and puts in a full day's work on the Hebrew cataloguing.

  He says, "Those things arrived at dinnertime. Quite a surprise.

  Eppstein came by later to explain."

  Eppstein is Theresienstadt's present head of the municipality, a mayor of sorts with the title of Attester. Formerly a lecturer in sociology, and the head of the "Association of Jews in Germany," he is a meek, beaten-down man, a survivor of Gestapo imprisonment. Trapped in subservience to the SS, he tries in his unnerved way to do some good, but the other Jews see him as hardly more than a puppet of the Germans. He has little choice, and little strength left to exercise what choice he has.

  "What did Eppstein say?"

  "We're to go toSS Headquarters tomorrow. But we're not in danger.

  It will be pleasant. We're due for more special privileges.

  So he swears, Natalie."

  Feeling cold in her stomach, in her very bones, she asks, "Why are we going?"

  "For an audience with Lieutenant Colonel Eichmann."

  "Eichmann!"

  The familiar SS names around Theresienstadt are those of the local officers: Roehn, Haindl, Moese, and so forth.

  Lieutenant Colonel Eichmann is a remote evil name only whispered; despite the modest rank, a figure standing not below Himmler and Hitler in the ghetto mind.

  Aaron's expression is kindly and sympathetic. He shows little fear. "Yes. Quite an honor," he says with calm irony.

  "But these clothes do bode well, don't they? Somebody at least wants us to look good. So let's do that, my dear."

  "MARK! HALEAKALA, zERo eight seven. Mark! Mauna Loa, one three two." Crouched at the alidade, Byron was calling out bearings to a quartermaster writing by a red flashlight, as the Moray scored a phosphorescent wake on the calm sea.

  The warm offshore breeze smelled to Byron-a pleasant hallucination, no doubt-like the light perfume Janice often wore. The quartermaster went below to plot the bearings, and called up the position through the voice tube. Byron telephoned Aster's cabin.

  "Captain, the moon's bright enough so I got a fix of sorts.

  We're well inside the submarine restricted area."

  "Well, good. Maybe the airedales won't bomb us at dawn.

  Set course and speed to enter the channel at 0700."

  "Aye'aye, sir."

  "Say, Mister Executive Officer, I've just been going over your patrol report. It's outstanding."

  "Well, I tried."

  "You're no dud at paperwork, Briny. Not anymore.

  Unfortunately, the clearer you put the story the lousier it comes out."

  "Captain, there'll be other patrols." Aster's irritable depression had been troubling Byron all during the return voyage. The captain had holed up in his cabin, smoking cheap cigars by the boxful, reading tattered mysteries from the ship's library, leaving the running of the sub to the exec.

  "Zero is zero, Byron."

  "They can't fault you for aggressiveness. You volunteered for the Sea of Japan."

  "I did, and I'm going back there, but next time with electric torpedoes. Otherwise the admiral can beach me. I'm through with the Mark Fourteen." Byron could hear the SLAM of the telephone into the bracket.

  Driving in a pool jeep to Janice's cottage next day, Byron was afire to crush his sister-in-law in his arms and forget the patrol.

  Loneliness, the passage of time, the disappearance of Natalie, the warmth of Janice's home, the quiet shows of affection by his brother's pretty widow-all these elements were fusing into something like an undeclared romance, mounting in sweetness each time he came back from the sea.

  The flame was feeding on an explosive mixture of intimacy and unfulfillment. Guilt tormented Byron over his flashes of thought about a life with Janice and Victor, if it should happen that Natalie never came back. He suspected Janice of harboring similar notions. Normal relationships can be wrenched out of shape or destroyed by the tensions and separations of war, and what Byron was experiencing was very commonplace just- now, all over the world. Only his conscience pangs were slightly unusual.

  Something was wrong this time. He knew when she opened the door and he saw her serious unpainted face. She 'was expecting him, for he had telephoned, but she had not changed out of a drab blue housedress, nor in any way smartened herself up; nor did she hand him the usual planter's punch in welcome. He might have interrupted her at her cooking or cleaning. She said straight off, "There's a letter from Natalie, forwarded by the Red Cross."

  "What! My God, finally?" Through the International Red Cross he had written several letters to Baden-Baden, with this return address.

  Everything about the envelope she handed him was disturbing: the flimsy gray paper; the purple block lettering of the address and of "N.

  HENRY" in a corner; the overlapping rubber stamps in different colors and languages, almost obliterating the Red Cross symbol; above all, the postmark. "Terezin? Where's that?"

  "Czechr slovakia, near Prague. I've telephoned my father about this, Byron. He's talked to the State Department. Read your letter first."

  He sank on a chair and slit the envelope with a penknife.

  The single gray sheet was block-lettered in purple.

  KURZESTRASSE, P-1

  THERESIENSTADT SEPT. 7, 1943

  DEAREST BYRON SPECIAL PRIVILEGE FOR "PROMINENTS" MONTHLY HUNDRED-WORD LETTER. LOUIS WONDERFUL. AARON ALL RIGHT. MY SPIRITS GOOD.

  YOUR LETTERS DELAYED BUT LOVELY TO HAVE. WRITE HERE. RED CROSS FOOD PACKAGES EXTREMELY DESIRABLE. DON'T WORRY.

  THERESIENSTADT SPECIAL HAVEN FOR PRIVILEGED WAR HEROES ARTISTS SCHOLARS ETC. WE HAVE GROUND-FLOOR SUNNY APARTMENT BEST HERE. AARON LIBRARIAN HEBRAIC COLLECTION. LOUIS KINDERGARTEN STAR ALSO CHIEF TROUBLEMAKER. MY WAR FACTORY WORK TAKES SKILL NOT BRAWN. LOVE YOU HEART SOUL. LIVE FOR DAY HOLD YOU IN ARMS. TELEPHONE MY MOTHER. LOVE LOVE NATALIE.

  Byron glanced at his watch. "Would your father still be at the War Department?"

  "He gave me a message for you. You're to call a Mr. Sylvester Aherne at the State Department. The number's by the telephone."

  Byron rang the operator and put in the call. Lunch on his return from a patrol had developed into a merry ritual: strong rum concoctions, a Chinese meal, a bowl of scarlet hibiscus on the table, a laughing exchange of anecdotes. But this time neither the drinks nor Janice's tasty egg loo yong and pepper steak could lift the pall of the letter. Nor could Byron talk about the failed patrol. They ate glumly, and he leaped at the telephone when it rang.

  Sylvester Aherne's way of
talking made Byron picture a little man in a pince-nez, pursing his mouth and dancing ledgers together. As Byron read the letter to him, Ahern, said, "Hell!... Hmmmm!Hmm!...

  Hmmm! Well! Quite a ray of light, that-isn't it? Reassuring" all in all. Very reassuring. Gives us something solid to work on.

  You must airmail a copy to us at once."

  "What do you know about my family, Mr. Aherne, and about Theresienstadt?"

  Speaking with slow prim care, Aherne disclosed that some months ago Natalie and Jastrow had failed to check in with the Swiss in Paris, simply dropped from sight. Persistent inquiries by the Swiss, and by the American charge in Baden-Baden, had brought no response as yet from the Germans. Now that State knew where they actually were, efforts on their behalf could be redoubled. Since hearing from Senator Lacouture, Aherne had been looking into the Theresienstadt situation. The Red Cross had no record of any releases from the model ghetto; but the Jastrow case was unique, he said, and-so he concluded with a high little giggle-he always preferred to be an optimist.