Say Uncle

by Benjamin Laskin

  Fate wasn’t through with Anonymous Man. Two days later as they approached the Russian front, the German caravan he was traveling in fell under attack and a bloody fight ensued. Hennes knew that Mr. A was a sitting duck, and under the cover of confusion he freed him from his bindings. They leaped out of the truck and ran for cover moments before a grenade exploded inside. They couldn’t determine who the attackers were because they were shouting to one another in a language that was neither English nor Russian.

  The skirmish continued until all the Germans were dead. Knowing there was no way out, Mr. A waved his hanky and the two survivors gave themselves up, yelling, “American. Don’t shoot!”

  They were blindfolded and marched two hours through the woods. When someone removed the blindfolds they found themselves in a makeshift camp with about forty people standing around them looking on with curiosity. Many were little older than children. The group was filthy, their clothes in tatters, and they were all very thin. Anonymous Man soon learned that these people were partisans, Jews who had escaped from different ghettos and concentration camps, and who had banded together in resistance in the Polish woods.

  Until that day, Anonymous Man knew nothing about ghettos or concentration camps. He listened with astonishment as the leader, a tall, dark-haired and wiry figure by the name of Chaim recounted in a concoction of Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew and broken German the horrors he and his group had endured since the war had begun.

  Other than a little German, Mr. A did not speak those languages, but Hennes, scholar that he was, had some proficiency in Hebrew. When a boy, his private schooling had included Bible study and the reading of the Old Testament in Hebrew.

  Anonymous Man learned that Chaim was twenty-eight years old, the son of a rabbi, and that he had been groomed to take his father’s place as head of a small Jewish community in a small Polish town. The Jews in the town had been living simple, impoverished, but relatively contented lives for centuries.

  Then the Nazis came and the madness began. They rounded up all the Jews in the village and herded them into the synagogue. Chaim watched as the Germans cut his father’s beard off with a bayonet, and then at gunpoint forced him to pour gasoline over the Torah and Talmud and the synagogue’s prayer books. When he refused to throw the match upon the heap a man stuck a pistol in his ear and killed him. The German lit the fire and the madness grew with the flames as the Nazis forced the Jews to dance around the burning pyre.

  Soldiers plucked young women from the circle and dragged them to the corners of the synagogue. Helpless, Chaim watched as two of his sisters were brutally assaulted. A truck backed into the doorway of the synagogue. The muzzle of a machine gun emerged through canvas flaps, and in sixty, gruesome, ear-splitting seconds his entire community was mowed down in cold blood. The synagogue burned to the ground. Only Chaim and four others, including one brother, managed to survive. Seconds before the others were massacred, they escaped through a trapdoor to the cellar beneath.

  For three months they lived in hiding, rummaging at night for scraps of food thrown out by the townspeople. Eventually, however, a neighbor whom they had trusted betrayed them to the SS for a pound of sugar. They were arrested, and along with a thousand other Jews from nearby towns, they were herded like cattle onto a train, where they had to stand with their arms up in the air to make room for still more and more Jews. His brother died after the second day, but they were packed in so tightly that his body never slumped to the floor. Chaim rode for two more days with his dead brother pressed against his chest.

  The stories he told of the concentration camp were even more atrocious. On and on he went, each story more horrible than the one before. Hennes translated with tears in his eyes, shocked and sickened by what his fellow countrymen were doing. He had heard that there were work camps, but death camps were beyond his wildest imagination. And yet he knew that Chaim was telling the truth. He saw the same truth etched on the faces of all the war-wrecked souls standing around them. Each pair of eyes had witnessed similar grisly inhumanities.

  Many partisans clamored for Hennes’ German head, but Anonymous Man protested and pleaded on his behalf. He explained that Hennes had saved his life at the risk of his own, and that though he was a German, he was not a Nazi. Hennes’ scholarly knowledge of Hebrew and the fact that he was a trained medic also helped to save him.

  Mr. A and Hennes, having nowhere else to go, joined the partisans. Mr. A’s training and experience gave him much to offer. Working closely with Chaim he taught the ragtag bunch of partisans everything he could within the time and means that he had.

  After four weeks, he led them on their first raid, which brought them badly needed guns, ammunition, and food. Over the next six months, they went on many more raids. As their confidence grew so did their daring.

  Over the weeks and months a deep respect and friendship formed between Chaim and Anonymous Man. Hennes too was finally accepted as a brother. Although he refused to fire upon his own countrymen, he nonetheless showed great bravery, often risking his life to save those of the partisans, gradually erasing any doubts that the Jews had about the young German’s intentions.

  Anonymous Man marveled at the tenacious will of those around him. He listened to all of their stories and thought it a miracle that they were still alive. They had lost everything—their families, their homes, their possessions, and for many of them, their God.

  Even Chaim, son of a rabbi, who knew the Torah and much of the Talmud by heart, could no longer believe in the God of his father. His rabbinical studies were no match for the contradictions and cruelties he had experienced. He confided in Mr. A that he believed that if God existed, He was powerless in the realm of human affairs. No God, he said, worthy of the name and all it implied, could willingly choose to be indifferent to the atrocities that were being committed daily against so many innocent people. Chaim never spoke of his loss of faith to anyone but Anonymous Man, however. Many of the others, he knew, still clung desperately to their belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and it wasn’t for him to take away their last shred of hope. He knew it would have killed them as surely as a bullet between the eyes.

  Anonymous Man learned that there was one belief all the wretched souls held that seemed to keep them going—the fanciful dream that they would someday, someway, somehow, survive the war and go to Palestine where they would build their own country.

  It was the first time Anonymous Man had ever heard the word Zionism. Mr. A knew that they were kidding themselves, that it was an impossible dream. A people without an army could not return to their homeland and forge a new country after two thousand years of exile. In the annals of history no such thing had ever occurred. And besides, he figured, the world would not stand for it.

  He looked around at the emaciated, hollowed-out bags of bones around him, sighed and shook his head. Impossible.

  And yet, like Chaim, he never uttered his doubt aloud. If their foolish dream made the ground a little softer to sleep on, the one turnip or onion they were lucky to eat in a day a tad more filling, or the sight of yet another young comrade dying slightly less meaningless, then dream on children, dream on…

  A Cute Little Pepper

  At eight-thirty in the evening, after spending two hours in the worst traffic we had ever seen, the taxi dropped Doreen and I off on Khao San Road, Banglamphu. We slung our packs over our shoulders, looked at each other with big, broad grins, and went in search of a room.

  Khao San Road was about a hundred meters long and jam-packed with guesthouses, restaurants, bars, travel agencies, and sidewalk stalls. From a dozen different dealers you could buy fake student IDs and press cards, pirated CDs and DVDs, imitation designer brand clothes, jewelry, leather goods, used books, sandals, T-shirts, Thai silk and clothing, bags and backpacks, hats, electronic knockoffs, and a thousand other things at half the price you’d pay back home.

  The sidewalks teemed with travelers, backpackers like us. I heard six different languages spoken before we
had walked five minutes. I soon learned that Khao San Road was one of the world’s main backpacker crossroads; a nexus where people heading east or west, north or south could meet and exchange information about the best places and prices, what to look for and what to avoid.

  The first three guesthouses we checked were full, and the next two didn’t meet Doreen’s standards of cleanliness. Back on the street again we talked to a Norwegian guy who told us about guesthouses located on a street called Trok Rong Mai near the Chao Phraya River, and he gave us directions. Finally, we came to a decent-looking place called Chai’s House, which had a little garden patio restaurant out front. They had one room left with a ceiling fan and one king-size bed. We were hot and sweaty and hungry and didn’t think we’d find anything better for the price. We tossed our packs onto the bed, dug out a towel and some fresh clothes, and went back downstairs to shower.

  Thirty minutes later, we were outside on the patio with a cold Singha beer in our hands, and on the way was a dinner of tom yam kun (hot spicy lemon soup), fried rice with chicken, and sweet and sour vegetables. Doreen and I clinked bottles.

  “This is so cool,” I said for the hundredth time.

  “Where on Khao San are we supposed to meet this mystery man?” Doreen asked.

  “At the Hello Restaurant. We’re early, so we’ve got a couple of days to look around.”

  “Do you think he’s the same guy who wrote the journals?”

  “Who else could it be? Nobody else knows about any of this.”

  “You’re forgetting about those two creeps back in Tucson. They obviously knew something.”

  “Do you think it could be some kind of trap?” I asked.

  Doreen shrugged, confounded by our situation. “What do we know, really? All we have is a journal written by a mystery man who contacted you through a girl who we’re told is some kind of terrorist.”

  “Yeah, but why would anyone go to the trouble of flying us all the way to Thailand? If he wanted to kill us or something, he could have done that back home. Besides, you read the journal. Did he sound like a terrorist to you?”

  “Well, he was a partisan.”

  “A freedom fighter,” I corrected.

  “Guy, have you ever heard a terrorist call himself a terrorist? They all think they’re freedom fighters.”

  “Yeah, but this is different. We’re talking Nazis here. Nobody likes Nazis. Nazis are the one group you can hate out loud and no one is gonna call you on it.”

  “All I’m saying is that we should be careful. We shouldn’t trust anyone until we get some straight answers, that’s all.”

  “I thought you were the one who said we should all trust one another, for better or for worse.”

  “That was one Jim Fielding ago. And besides, we’re talking life and death here, not some lousy broken heart.”

  “Do you really think our lives are in danger?”

  “Guy, those guys had guns back there. They meant business. I was scared.”

  “Well, I think we’re okay now. I don’t see how they could find us here. And in a couple of days when we meet with Mr. Borealis, I’m sure everything will be cleared up and we can go and have a great vacation.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Doreen took another sip of her beer, smiled, and relaxed back into her chair. She giggled. “I think I’m drunk already.”

  We both were drinking on empty stomachs, and I was feeling pleasantly lightheaded myself. I relaxed too and took in the moment.

  It still hadn’t fully hit me that I was in Bangkok. Except for the waiter and the food he was bringing out, there wasn’t anything particularly Thai about the place. Even the music was American. All the customers were white and most looked to be in their twenties or thirties. I heard French spoken behind me, and behind Doreen I heard a couple speaking German. Next to them I heard another couple chatting away in Italian. Alone at a table to Doreen’s left sat a young man in his early-twenties. He sipped tea as he read a thick book. I wondered where he was from.

  I wondered where all these people were from, what they did for a living, how long they had been in Thailand, and where they were going to next. Such questions had never occurred to me back home. Back home I never cared who other people were or what they did. I just assumed that everybody’s life was as mundane as my own. But what on earth brought so many different people from so many different countries to a place called Banglamphu, Bangkok? I could tell just by looking at some of them that they had been traveling for quite some time. They had the same relaxed, carefree manner about them that I remembered Melody having.

  Our food arrived, steam swirling about the plates. The aroma of the spices rose right up into my eyeballs, pungent and sweet. Doreen and I both started with a spoonful of the tom yam soup. We swallowed and looked up at one another in amazement. It was hot and spicy, and about the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. I saw the same surprise in Doreen’s eyes. My face began to sweat, and I knew I’d need another beer. I ordered two more, and we dug in.

  “Look at this cute little pepper,” Doreen said, deftly snatching it up with her chopsticks and popping it into her mouth. “Mmm…” Two seconds later she spat it back out and gasped for air. Sweat bubbled up from every pore on her reddening face and her eyes began to leak. She tried to speak but could only hiccup. She reached desperately for her beer and gulped.

  “That won’t do any good,” said the loner at the table next to ours. He was smiling, amused. “Drinking will only spread the oils around your mouth. Eat the rice. It’ll absorb the chili oils.”

  Doreen picked up the plate of white rice and shoveled as much as she could into her mouth. It was still a good minute before her eyes stopped watering and she could find her voice.

  “Holy shit,” she said, dabbing her face with the bottom of her T-shirt. “What’s in those puppies, napalm?”

  The young man laughed and handed Doreen the napkins from his table as she had used all ours.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He smiled and went back to reading his book.

  Doreen turned to me, bounced her eyebrows, mouthed the word, “Wow,” and hiccuped.

  I pointed at my top lip and whispered, “Blow your nose.”

  Doreen smashed a fistful of napkins to her face, rolled her eyes, and shook her head in embarrassment.

  We finished the rest of our dinner in relative silence. Doreen was preoccupied with picking out hot peppers and piling them up on the side of her plate, and stealing glances at the dude at the next table. I knew she was trying to come up with an innocuous line or excuse to speak with him. He had wavy, dark brown hair and chiseled good looks. His eyes were deep, pellucid blue, gentle and contemplative; the eyes, I thought, of a young man who had witnessed more of life’s incomprehensible vagaries than most. The quietude with which he sat and read and sipped his tea impressed me. When he got up to leave I caught a glimpse at the fat book he was reading, Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. A little over six-feet, broad shouldered, and athletically built, I noticed that he limped slightly. Doreen noticed too, and looked at me quizzically.

  “You got the hots for that guy, don’t you?” I teased.

  “I do not.”

  “Do too.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do.”

  “Not. Besides, he’s obviously American.”

  “So?”

  “I didn’t come halfway around the world to have a short, meaningless fling with someone from my own country. If I were going to pick up someone, I’d set my sights on something a little more romantic, something in French or Italian maybe.”

  Her seriousness made me laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “What makes you think he was interested in you? He completely ignored you. He didn’t try to check you out once.”

  “Really?” she said, disappointed.

  “Sorry.”

  “I must be losing it,” she grumbled.

 
I could have told her how every other man in the place couldn’t keep his eyes off of her, but I didn’t. I thought a little humbling might be good for her. Still, there was something about the guy that bothered me. I had the feeling that I had seen him somewhere before.

  “Did that guy look familiar to you?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “Yeah, right. The Lone Ranger, didn’t he look like someone we know?”

  She thought for a moment. “No one I know. I’d remember those looks. Besides, I don’t know anyone with a limp, do you?”

  I didn’t know any such person, and shook my head.

  We paid the bill and went for a walk, ending back on Khao San Road. Many of the sidewalk vendors had packed up and left, but the place still bustled. Travelers filled the bars and restaurants, and inside some of them they watched pirated videos, many of them movies that had only just been released in theaters back home. In other places music blared: rap, reggae, rock, or techno. Taxis continued to drop off young backpackers fresh from the airport. And every few steps we took, Thai men driving tuk-tuks, a kind of noisy and dangerous-looking souped-up golf cart, pulled up beside us hoping we needed a lift saying, “Where you go? Where you go?”

  We had a beer at one of the pubs and found that we were pooped. Wanting to get up reasonably early to put in a full day’s sightseeing, we meandered back to Chai’s and took another shower. Even at night Bangkok was hot and sticky.

  Our room was simple: a bed, a nightstand, and four hooks on the wall that served as a closet. But what did you expect for six dollars a night? It was clean. I turned off the light and we got into bed. I didn’t bother with the sheet, as it was too warm. I lay there in my boxer shorts and a T-shirt trying to feel the breeze of the ceiling fan. Doreen fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. I envied people who could do that.

  I was too excited to sleep. The events of the past few days were still fresh in my mind, and I tried to make sense of them. I couldn’t. I knew only two things for sure: I was a college flunky and I was in Bangkok. Life was never better.