Out of Such Darkness

by Robert Ronsson

  ‘Just that it’s close to the border with Connecticut.’ He wants to offer her more. ‘It mentions another Burford resident, Willy Keel. Do you know him?’

  Prentice is bar-coding his new books against his library card and she rotates her lower jaw as if a fruit pip is caught between her teeth. ‘Willy Keel, you say?’ She shrugs. ‘No I can’t say I have.’

  There’s another customer waiting so Jay picks up the books. ‘Thanks for these, Prentice.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Jay. Have an iced A.’

  Jay visits the grocery store and picks up a Snickers bar to eat on the walk home. Another month has passed – there’s a new Burford Buzz in the dispenser.

  Burford Buzz – 08 November 2001

  Melissa Rosenberg interviews Rabbi David Stern

  of the synagogue Beth El in Burford Station.

  We met over cups of delicious hot chocolate (with marshmallows!) at Deborah’s Coffee Shop in Burford Station. The meeting came about after many readers – not only from Rabbi Stern’s congregation – contacted the Buzz to comment that last month’s interview with the rabbis about the Jefferson High production of Cabaret had been skewed in favour of reform synagogue leader Elena Zwyck.

  I started by asking Rabbi David whether he agreed that I had been biased. He declared me innocent of the charge. ‘I thought the article was fair,’ he said. ‘You gave both arguments equal prominence. I have no complaints.’

  ‘And you still feel the same about Cabaret?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing has changed. When the production starts next month, members of my congregation will go on the Thursday and Saturday evenings to picket it and try to persuade the audience not to go in.’

  ‘But many of the audience will be relatives of performers.’

  ‘And I would expect them to walk through the picket. We all have equal rights here. This is what I love about America.’

  ‘So you don’t think you’ll actually disrupt the performance.’

  He smiles and I feel encouraged to know more about him. He explains that disruption is not his intention. He merely wants to make his point forcibly and persuade the people who go in that it’s important to think about their reaction when the swastikas are on stage. ‘I would not like to think that the applause at the end of the first act is for what is happening on stage – but is rather for the players.’

  Now, let’s find out more about David, the man. How long has he been rabbi at Beth El?

  ‘Three years.’

  Does he see himself staying in our fair boro?

  ‘I’m not sure. I have a strong sense of my calling, Melissa. There’s an urge inside me to do more for my faith. God is expressing in me His will for my future.’

  So is the rabbi experiencing doubt?

  ‘No! I’ve always had a strong sense that God has a plan for me.’ He took out his wallet and showed me a photograph. It’s of a youth standing on a hilltop with what looks to be a desert landscape behind him. ‘This is me. I ran away from home not far from here when I was sixteen and went to Israel. I tried to join the army but they wouldn’t have me. When I returned to the US I went to Rabbinical School – my family has no rabbinical tradition. I’m the first. This – being a rabbi here in Burford Station – this isn’t my calling. I will make my name as a leader but it won’t be here.’

  I leaned forward, all thoughts of chocolate and marshmallow forgotten. The rabbi has a fire in his dark eyes and it’s unsettling. ‘So Burford Station is a stop on the way (no pun intended!) to bigger things.’

  ‘More momentous things, greater things. This is God’s plan. It’s not for me to know the detail – yet. But I have a strong sense that God will tell me when He wants me to go to

  our spiritual home – Zion. ’This is God’s purpose. I’m marking time here … waiting.’

  ‘Zion?’

  ‘Israel. It’s my destiny to be a leader of men in Israel. ‘Waiting for what?’

  ‘God’s sign that the time is now.’

  ‘Why not go to Israel and wait for His sign there?’ As I ask the question I begin to feel that I’m being too personal – I’m getting too close.

  ‘Because God hasn’t opened that door for me yet. The situation there is in flux. Israel is stronger – it’s expanding. Politicians here and in Europe talk glibly of “The Palestine Question” and “the two-state solution”. Jews are God’s chosen people and He chose our land for us – Zion. He does not envisage two states – only Zion. It’s not for man to obstruct His will. We must make all the people in our land accept this.’ He’s warming to his subject and I sense a caged energy in front of me.

  ‘We must subjugate so-called Palestine. I have been there; I know. There is only one solution: drive the Palestinians out. Deport them. Eliminate them. That’s the solution.’

  ‘Are you sure you want this to go on the record?’ I ask. ‘Deport them? Eliminate them?’ This is what you want me to write?’

  ‘Why not? We must do what is necessary to deliver God’s will.’

  ‘You sound very certain, Rabbi.’ I hear myself say.

  ‘I prefer to use the word clarity. You too can have clarity, Melissa, but first you have to attach yourself to God. Judaism is the true sun and you must fix your orbit to it. Then you, like me, will know God’s purpose.’

  We have finished our drinks and it’s time to pack away my notebook and digital recorder. As always, Deborah’s excellent coffee shop is full and customers are waiting for our table. I thank the rabbi for his time and his candid answers.

  ‘Now you worry me, Melissa. Perhaps I have been

  too forthright.’

  ‘It’s not for me to say, Rabbi,’ I answered.

  No, this, dear reader, is something for you to decide.

  A light sleet has started and Jay is thoughtful as he folds the Buzz and stuffs it in his raincoat pocket. Jay finds the rabbi’s sentiments disturbing. A man of the cloth shouldn’t use those words – ‘subjugate’, ‘eliminate’.

  And ‘solution’ – so misjudged in this context.

  Jay turns into Ponds Lane and spots Melissa Rosenberg ferrying hypermarket carrier bags from her car to her house. Skipping the puddles, he runs across to help. As he places the final bag on the kitchen table he asks about the interview. ‘You started out being positive but it all went downhill. Did the rabbi really say those things?’

  She purses her lips. ‘Afraid so. He kept going on about his destiny – about going to Israel.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘He wants to be part of the settlement movement – expanding territory on the West Bank.’ She’s putting the tins and jars away as she talks.

  ‘Isn’t it illegal?’

  Not as far as America ’s concerned.

  ‘It depends on where you stand. The United Nations thinks it is.’

  Melissa is stowing two jars of peanut butter with grape jelly into the cupboard. Jay shudders. He tried it once – never again. ‘What about the people who lived there before?’

  ‘The Palestinians? They try to resist but what can they do? Look I’m being very rude, Jay. Can I offer you a drink? Tea? Coffee? Soda?’

  Jay shakes his head.

  The Palestinians do fight back. The settlers surround themselves with walls and barbed wire. Make the settlements like …

  ‘Ghettos.’

  The MC laughs. You said it – literally!

  Jay swears to himself. Perhaps Melissa hadn’t heard.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I was thinking that the settlers, having to barricade themselves in, must be like living in a ghetto,’ Jay says.

  ‘I suppose it is. But if it keeps them safe …’

  It ’s not always the oppressor who builds the wall.

  Jay nods.

  ‘But if Rabbi Stern has his way the Israelis will keep encroaching further into the West Bank. I’m not sure …’ Melissa frowns and shrugs.

  And if Israel leaves only a small space for the Palestinians, on which side then is the
ghetto? On which side then is the oppressed?

  They stand, one each side of the table, shaking their heads. Jay’s wondering whether the men flying the Jumbo jets were Palestinian. The one they say masterminded it – Usama Bin Laden – is he?

  Don ’t try to work it out, Jay. It will only make your head hurt. Remember to ask Melissa about the old man – Willy Keel.

  Jay asks if Melissa has kept the details of the old man she wrote about in the Buzz who married in the White Plains senior home. She consults a Filofax, flipping through the address section and jots down the name of the care home and a telephone number on the back of one of her Buzz business cards.

  Later, when Jay phones the McDougall Lawns Senior Resort, he’s surprised that the switchboard operator offers to put him straight through to Willy’s room. A croaky voice answers and, even before Jay can finish explaining that he’s researching Cameron Mortimer and would like to meet, Willy Keel suggests the next Sunday for his visit.

  During Friday dinner, Ben talks excitedly about the show. Mr Costidy has seen off the pressure from Rabbi Stern and everything’s looking set for three evening performances from the 13th December – a little over a month away.

  Jay has noticed that ornaments and other household items are missing and asks Rachel what’s happening.

  ‘Packing has to start some time. Anything we don’t need for the next six weeks is going in a box. They’re all labelled-up in the spare room.’

  ‘And the flights?’

  ‘We need to make a final decision.’

  ‘Better wait until we have the money?’

  ‘If you say so. But the sooner the better.’

  At the end of the meal Jay retreats to the den and skim-reads the books on pre-war Berlin. He worries that he’s developing an obsession about the Nazis and what they did with power. Is he accreting more guilt because of his previous naivety about the Holocaust? As a Jew should he have cared more?

  He expects an interruption from the insistent voice in his head and there it is. Jews who suffered and survived, and the children, and the children’s children, they carry the burden of guilt. Look at you. The guilt for seventeen is too much and now you want to take it on for the whole of our tribe?

  The Sunday of Jay’s visit to the McDougall Lawns Senior Resort is exactly two months after 9/11. Willy wants him to be there at 9am and, as he makes early-morning tea, Jay watches a magazine programme that features the terrible images of that day followed by shots from live cameras at Ground Zero showing the extent of the clean-up. The twin towers are no more than twisted remnants resembling filigrees of spun sugar 20 storeys high. The presenters choke as they recount the numbers of dead and missing. The latest estimates are nearly 3000 fatalities, 17 of them employees of Straub, DuCheyne.

  Merely so much ash – spread to the four winds. Like from the smokestacks of the death camps. Just as Willy and I remember. Like we can never forget.

  A few minutes before his appointment, Jay strides along a flagged path that leads to the canopied entrance of Willy’s retirement home. It’s a converted mansion in one of the better off suburbs of White Plains originally constructed to house grand apartments. As Jay anticipates meeting the old man, the MC’s comments about death camps repeat like a catchy tune and his stomach is churning as he anticipates what Willy will have to say. He shakes this from his mind. He’s here to talk about Cameron Mortimer.

  Once Jay’s signed in, a receptionist leads him to a meeting room and a black care-assistant in a blue uniform brings in a tray bearing a pot of coffee with cups, milk and sugar. She places it on the coffee table positioned in the centre of a square of patterned carpet. Jay stays standing despite having a choice of three faux-leather easy chairs set round the table. Each chair has a high seat.

  He walks across to the unscreened window. It looks out on the gardens behind the building. The flower beds are bare earth ­– the grass is faded. Grey clouds are pressing down. He finds himself thinking that many of the inhabitants here will never see the grass regain its colour; the bulbs will push up shoots but not for their eyes. After about five minutes the same assistant who brought the coffee wheels Willy in.

  He is but a husk of a man. The only spark of life shines from his rheumy blue eyes which reflect the blue of his denim shirt. His shoulders slope and his wrists and hands are mottled with dark spots.

  This is what you have coming to you – if you’re lucky.

  Willy points to the coffee pot as soon as the door closes behind him. ‘It’s gonna be decaffeinated.’ His voice cracks with phlegm. He shrugs. ‘They gonna give t’you the strong stuff so you can pass it to me and get me hyper-ventilated or whatever? I don’t think so.’

  ‘They’ve left two cups, Mr Keel. Would you like some?’

  He waves the idea away. ‘Willy. You call me Willy.’

  Something in the way he pronounces his name, with the stress heavy on the first syllable and a soft ‘v’ sound, emphasises Willy’s caricature Jewishness. Jay checks his head for the yarmulke – nothing.

  It’s not the Sabbath – why expect it?

  ‘You wanted to see me – to ask about Cameron?’

  Jay pours a coffee. It looks strong but the aroma has a shallowness that confirms Willy’s doubt about its composition.

  As if he knows what Jay’s thinking, Willy puffs out a breath through pursed lips and says, ‘Coffee without caffeine – like a dog without mustard!’

  Why make a fuss? He will have drunk acorn coffee. Once tasted, never forgotten.

  Jay laughs. ‘That’s a good one.’ He takes a gulp, nods and smacks his lips as if the hollow taste is hitting the spot. ‘I read about Cameron in WH Auden’s autobiography.’

  ‘Ach! Auden. He was before I came to New York.’

  Jay looks round as if there are others in the room. ‘But you and Mortimer – you had a relationship.’

  ‘Before, but not after New York. I was married.’

  ‘And you married again. I saw the cutting in the Burford Buzz. It’s how I found you.’

  ‘Dead.’ He shakes his head. ‘Both of them dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. But your latest …’

  ‘Mrs Selvaggio – Mary …’

  ‘You only married a few months ago.’

  Willy folds even lower into the chair. ‘She was dying when we married.’

  ‘I see,’ Jay says. But he doesn’t. ‘Can we start at the beginning? How did you know Cameron?’

  ‘Did you know I was born in Germany?’

  ‘All I know is what I told you. You and Cameron … a relationship.’

  Willy wrings his bony hands. ‘I’m ashamed to say that I was a Nazi when I was young. I swallowed all their lies.’

  ‘But you were gay, weren’t you?’

  ‘My name then was Wolf, Wolf Köhler. Wolf was homosexual. I don’t use the “gay” word. There was nothing gay about it in those days. Cameron and me – we were together in Berlin. But the war … he went back to England.’

  ‘You were on opposite sides.’

  Willy snorts. ‘I was on the wrong side that’s for sure. I was in the army when war broke out and we were earmarked always for the first assault, the most dangerous front-line work.’

  Jay shakes his head. ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘Pfff! My comrades didn’t know whether I was a lucky charm or a curse – so many died around me but always I was the survivor. In Russia I escaped from being captured with the 6th Army at Stalingrad. I came back to Germany in the great retreat from the Eastern Front. In the end Americans took me prisoner in the Ardennes. Because I could speak English I was wearing a GI uniform. They should have shot me.’

  ‘How did you get to America?’

  ‘When it was all over I made a marriage of convenience to get out. She was a good woman. It was easier for us to travel as man and wife always with the plan to get to America and meet up with the famous writer who could give us employment.’

  ‘And in America you became Willy Keel. Ho
w did you track Cameron down?’

  You’re pushing too hard – going too fast – missing so much. Slow down.

  ‘We needed to have jobs so we could stay in the US. I thought Cameron …’

  Jay picks up his coffee cup and holds it to his lips, waiting.

  ‘Did you know Geraldine, my first wife, died in 1960?’ Willy says. ‘We only had 12 years together. Ten of them in Cameron’s house. She was cook-housekeeper, I drove and looked after the garden, jobs around the house. Then she died.’

  ‘I’m sorry. When did you come here to the home … resort?’

  ‘Resort! Pfff! Let’s see …’ He studies the ceiling with those blue eyes. ‘I was still with Cameron at the end in ’86. His so-called friends deserted him – Aids but also old age, pneumonia.’ He spreads his arms and shrugs.

  Looks like a caricature Jew.

  ‘What was he?’ Willy chuckles and coughs. ‘Oh! He was four years younger than I am now.’ He pauses as if he’s recognising this truth for the first time. ‘He was 81 or maybe 80.’

  ‘And you came here after he died?’

  ‘He left me the house, you see. There was nobody else. No cash or income. It was all in the house. So I had to sell up in 1998 and came here and met Mrs Selvaggio. She had nobody as well. So, when she knew she was going, it was either marry me or leave her money to a charity. I’ve been lucky.’

  I thought you wanted to know about Cameron and Berlin?

  ‘Tell me about Germany. How did you and Cameron meet?’

  ‘So, it’s a long story. How long you got?’

  Chapter 30

  I think my heart has never recovered from the trip back to Berlin. For the whole day I was conscious that the notebook in my suitcase contained an old envelope concealing a fake passport. Even if it was such a good forgery that it could pass as genuine, how would I explain that it was in my possession rather than my ‘brother’s’? My only story was that I had taken it out of Germany by mistake when I left to visit England and now, equally innocently, I was taking it back. But I knew my limitations. Would they believe me?