by Mort Castle
“Bitte,” Lieutenant Hans Kraus said, “please, Jew, don’t tell me that I saw you give the boy a piece of bread. I do not want to think ill of you.”
Stefan Grinzspan thought, I am going to be killed. “Nein,” he said. But Hans Kraus did not look like a man who could or would kill anyone. There were Germans who surreptitiously found ways to lighten the misery for the prisoners, even to save temporarily a few from the gas chambers. Even in the wickedest place on Earth, not everyone was wicked.
“Good,” Lieutenant Kraus said. He crooked his finger, ordering the Gypsy boy to him. For a moment, it seemed as though the child would take flight, but then he approached the officer. “If the Jew did not give you the bread, little boy, then you must have stolen it.” Lieutenant Kraus smiled conspiratorially, and the boy shrugged with comic assent.
The officer sighed. “This is not an easy time for children or Jews or any of us.” Then he said, “Ess der brote, klein kind.” Eat the bread, little child.
In two ravenous gulps, the boy devoured it.
“Was it good?” Lieutenant Kraus asked.
The boy nodded that it was.
“I am glad,” Lieutenant Kraus said. Then he grabbed the child and held him pinned tightly against himself, as he unsnapped the flap of his holster, took out the Luger and chambered a round.
As Stefan Grinzspan watched, the SS officer whirled the child away from him, seized him by the hair, put the pistol to the center of his forehead and fired. A bloody wad of brain hit Stefan Grinzspan on the chin and a hard piece of bone struck him in the ribs.
Stefan Grinzspan survived Auschwitz. Rather, something of Stefan Grinzspan was eventually liberated to come to New York. He had some money, reparations from a Germany forced to pay a pittance to those it had not been able to kill, and so he opened a small haberdashery.
He seldom laughed, and he never cried. He walked as though he were always tired and his feet hurt. Not infrequently, he dreamed of the Gypsy boy, saw him with a crumb of bread on his lip, his head shattered, and heard him accuse, ‘You murdered me.’
The dream was true. He had killed the Gypsy child. Stefan Grinzspan, the Polish Jew, became a devout Jew, an observant Jew, one who prayed at the neighborhood storefront shul morning, afternoon and evening. Daily, he sought forgiveness, and, on Yom Kippur, Most Holy Day of Atonement, he begged God for absolution—but did not receive it.
To be forgiven, to atone, to be at one with your fellow man, with yourself, and therefore with God, you must redress your wrongs and attain pardon of the one against whom you have sinned.
The Gypsy child was dead. Stefan Grinzspan was lost. Always he would know the joyless life of an automaton, a human impostor, always carrying the ponderous immensity of his sin. That is what he believed.
But that was not how it worked. He met a woman. Her name was Sarah the way the immigration authorities spelled it, but Sora in Yiddish, in the mama-loschen, the mother tongue. Sora understood this man who lived what was, at best, a half-life, because she, too, had a blue number tattooed on her forearm. Neither of them might ever know happiness, but, at least, when the nights were black and endless, he would not be alone and she would not be alone. It was reason enough to marry.
Happy was a word neither might have used, but they did feel as though they belonged together. And there were moments that seemed to sneak up on them, take them utterly by surprise, moments neither of them trusted because they were so nice. Once was kindling Sabbath candles as the ancient, sweet, flickering light engulfed them both. Another time was when Sora spontaneously began singing a silly old Yiddish song, and he sang along, and then they each had a glass of wine, a little Mogen David, and that night they made very nice love.
They had a child, a boy. They named him David or Duvid. The eighth day after the birth, at his son’s bris, Stefan Grinzspan got tipsy on schnapps and wept and danced.
He loved the boy. He was surprised by his own ferocious love, its penetrating intensity. He was totally astounded that he could love. But, oh, he loved this gurgling, drooling, baby boy, this David. He loved him. He loved his wife. He had given over unto despair—and now, he was raised up. Now he understood that surely goodness and mercy, as God had promised, were to be his.
Then, when David was four, Sora caught cold. She got tired with a tiredness that would not go away. From diagnosis to death, her acute leukemia required three and a half months.
The child could not be comforted. He cried ceaselessly; he could not understand why his mother was gone.
But Stefan Grinzspan understood. Happiness or any thought of it was cruelly taunting illusion. It was not meant for him nor for his son while upon his head and his soul was blood sin. He was damned and damnation descended even unto the seventh generation.
Then salvation presented itself, although he did not at first realize it.
A family of Gypsies, with the Hungarian name Hovarth, moved into the store across the street from Stefan Grinzspan’s haberdashery. The storefront became ofisa, a fortune telling parlor with living quarters in the rear. Signs proclaimed that “Madame Tona Hovarth, Psychic Adviser to European Royalty and Hollywood Stars” was giving consultations. On the streets for blocks around, Hovarth children, aged six to 12, passed out handbills and panhandled.
Every day, from his store, Stefan spied on the Gypsies. At first, he tried to tell himself he hated them because they made him hate himself even more than he had thought possible.
Then one day, Stefan saw the Gypsy man lounging with a cigarette at the ofisa entrance-way. That seemed to be his sole occupation. Loafers and thieves, Stefan forced himself to think.
The Gypsy was barrel-chested and barrel-gutted, swarthy, perhaps 50; he had a gray and black walrus mustache and wore a hat, a comic, droopy brimmed Panama. He was an unremarkable enough Gypsy, not differing greatly from many you might find in numerous American cities, but on this fair, warm day the sleeves of the man’s none too clean white shirt were rolled up to the elbow, and Stefan noted the blue numbers on the man’s heavy forearm.
Stefan Grinzspan closed his store and crossed the street. He stood in front of the Gypsy. The Gypsy smoked a Lucky Strike and said nothing.
Stefan rolled up his own sleeve.
The Gypsy nodded. “Hitlari bastards,” he said. ““In your name and in mine, for all the innocent who suffered, I call down an armaya.” His tone as reverential as he pronounced the Romany curse. “May the brains of the hitlari burst and their blood pour out of their ears and their eyes, and may even their shadows know pain and cast a stink in the nostrils of good people.”
The Gypsy flicked the butt of his cigarette onto the sidewalk. “You a Jew?”
Stefan said, “Yes.”
“Jews are okay,” the Gypsy said. He pointed to Stefan’s ever present yarmulke. “Jews got sense about important things. Like us Gypsies. You know you keep your head covered to show God you got respect for Him.”
The Gypsy held out his hand. “I guess we want to be friends, okay?” Stefan Grinzspan told the Gypsy his name and learned that Big Hovarth was as good a name as any for the big man. Because, Big Hovarth said, it was what friends do, they went into the ofisa, the women hurrying to serve them brandy and then hurrying out of the way so as not to annoy the men. In the back, they sat and they talked.
Many days they talked like this. The more Stefan got to know Big Hovarth, the more sure he was that God in His mercy had granted him the opportunity of redemption. At last, he had a chance to atone, to set right the balance of his personal universe.
There was no question that Big Hovarth and the Hovarth clan were good people. There was no question that Big Hovarth loved his sons and his daughters. That was the Romany way. “We Gypsies love our kids and we honor our old people. Maybe that’s why we don’t always get along with the Gaje, heh?”
“I, too, love my son David very much,” Stefan Grinzspan said. “And I worry about him. I have to do what is right for him, you see?”
Not fully understand
ing, Big Hovarth still nodded solemnly. Doing what is right was how a Rom was obliged to live.
“I want my son to be cared for. I want him to be with people who love children, people who will be kind to him and teach him to live properly.”
“That is what all good men wish for their sons,” Big Hovarth said.
“But I must do more than wish,” Stefan said. “I must insure that this will be his fate, for you see, my friend, I will soon be dead.”
Big Hovarth stroked his mustache for a time, then said, “You are going to die soon?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“I will regret it,” Big Hovarth said. “I will light candles in memory of you.”
“I must ask more than that of you, Big Hovarth,” Stefan Grinzspan said. “I want you to take my David and raise him as your own.”
Once more, the Gypsy took a long time to respond. “Is this what you truly want?”
Stefan Grinzspan thought, My son is dearer to me than my own life. I must give him up, for his sake and mine. Atonement. “Yes,” he said. “I have money. I will give you money.”
“You have asked a favor of me. I am your friend. Whatever a friend requests is a Rom’s obligation and his honor.” Big Hovarth nodded. “Three days, the Hovarth kumpania moves on. Detroit, maybe. Chicago. Your son will be with us.”
That night, Stefan tried to explain this to David. He told the boy that, like Mama had had to go away forever, soon Papa must go as well.
Hysterical, arms around Stefan’s neck, his tears soaking his neck and cheek, the boy screamed, “No, I love you! You cannot leave me!”
“I must,” Stefan said. “You will be taken care of. My good friend, Big Hovarth, and his family will look after you. You will be a son of their family, a Gypsy boy.”
As I have taken a child from the Gypsies, now I restore one!
“You will see, David, they will love you. You will love them.”
David jerked away from his father. “I loved Mama and she left me! I love you and you are going to leave me! It hurts here and it hurts here.” He drummed his fists against his chest and belly. “It hurts too much. Too much!” He beat himself harder. “No! I won’t ever love anyone again. You hurt too much when they…”
Stefan grabbed the boy’s wrists. “Stop it! Stop it now!”
And just like that, the child did stop. Though his face stayed flushed, his black eyes grew cold and tearless. “I do not love you, Papa. Not anymore. No one ever again. Nobody will ever leave me and hurt me like this again.” The boy’s cold smile twisted Stefan’s guts.
On Friday, David silently accepted his father’s kiss, then, with nothing on his face or in his eyes, calmly took Big Hovarth’s hand and drove off in the kumpania’s modern day caravan of two Lincolns and a Cadillac.
Stefan Grinzspan, his heart a dried pit in his chest, went back to his apartment. The Sabbath began at sundown, and this time, he did not welcome the day of peace with candles and prayer. He waited until after sunset, when the tentative dark was upon the city, and then he turned on the oven. He could not light it; you were not to strike a fire on the Sabbath.
In his yarmulke, his white and blue tallis, the prayer shawl of observant Jews, draped over his shoulders, he sat at the table. After awhile, he felt somewhat dizzy, as though his soul were trying to loose itself of his body. He breathed deeply and felt himself become light, relieved of the pressing weight of sin. He arose, weightless and innocent and free. I have given my son to the Gypsies, and I am giving my soul to God.
The vows we make when we are youngest and most foolish are the very vows we most strive to keep as we grow older and more wise. The Hovarths taught David Grinzspan Romany ways and loved him like a true son. David Grinzspan learned Romany ways and did not love the Hovarths. He gave them respect. He treated each and every one of them with proper courtesy. He made it clear to them and to himself that he was with them but not one of them.
The Hovarths felt hurt.
David did not share that hurt.
David did not feel.
As a young man, David discovered photography. He found satisfaction in the way it let him clinically gaze at the world, providing clean, objective distance from what he saw.
He no longer called himself David Grinzspan. That was a Jewish name, and he was no Jew. His father had given him to the Gypsies. He did not call himself by the name Hovarth. That was a Romany name, a name for a man of tacho rat; but a Rom is a man of deep feeling, one who lives by his passions—and David had no passions.
David Greenfield was a relatively euphonious name. It signified nothing.
Nothing. No one.
It was a fitting name for the man he saw himself as, the man he had chosen to be.
All this and more, his past and his future, Pola Janichka learned from David Greenfield’s palm. “San Rom,” she said again. “You are a Gypsy. Your soul is a Gypsy soul. Your heart is a Gypsy heart, and it beats with the great heart of your people.”
David shrugged. “The curse,” he said.
“I know, I know,” Pola Janichka said. Of course, she had seen Selena in his palm, too.
“I speak for her as she is forbidden to speak to you. The curse, marhime, must be lifted. She begs this of you. She begs to learn from you once more, to be given your knowledge of draba magic and charms.”
“Mong, fuli tschai, mong!” Pola Janichka said. “Beg, you foolish girl, beg! I loved her. I gave my love freely. I gave my gifts freely. Then Selena Lazone broke my heart.”
Pola Janichka closed her eyes. Her mouth worked on the stem of her pipe. Finally, she said, “I will see her,” she said. “Bring her to me. Now.”
— | — | —
Thirty-Eight
“Thank God!” Vicki hugged him and burst into tears.
Warren perfunctorily shook his hand and took his coat. He offered a bland, vaguely appropriate greeting; beneath an obviously forced smile lurked a look of mildly amused disdain.
Shoulders quaking, Vicki sobbed, “Oh, thank God, you’re here!”
Here was the setting of the most momentous undertaking of his ministry, of his life. Here would he prove himself. Here would he encounter, combat and defeat the evil, proving himself the Lord’s true champion.
Evan Kyle Dean could feel it, standing in the foyer, a few minutes past nine, with these two people that genealogy, chance and God Almighty had brought together.
Here was the testing place of Evan Kyle Dean. All his senses were receiving intimations of the past, present, future—and of eternity.
There were secrets here. There was secret sin, crimes contemplated and crimes committed, crimes against others, crimes against self, crimes against God. Teasing flashes played on the keen receptors of Evan Kyle Dean’s awareness.
His heart raced. He was dry-mouthed and light-headed, his blood and his power burning throughout his body.
“Vicki, Warren,” he said, “let’s talk.”
The words came spilling out of Vicki as she sat at the table with Evan Kyle Dean. He did not interrupt. Nor did Warren, who had not sat down but was pacing about the kitchen, sometimes slipping within the periphery of Evan’s vision, to favor him with a tight-lipped mocking smile, sometimes moving behind him, momentarily out of sight as he circled the table and the two of them. Warren might have thought himself a phantom observer from an alien planet, curious about their discussion, able to comprehend little of it, even as he ridiculed them for not recognizing his presence.
“That’s it,” Vicki said. “That’s all of it.”
“I see,” Evan said. Suddenly, he cocked his head, caught Warren’s eye and froze him in his tracks. “I’ve not heard from you, Warren. What do you think of all this?”
Warren glared and, for an instant, Evan Kyle Dean expected his brother-in-law to leap for his throat. Then the moment of tension passed with Warren’s laughter. He leaned back against the counter, arms folded.
“I think it’s nonsens
e,” Warren said. “Bullshit.”
“Warren!”
Warren straightened up, wagging a finger at her. “Nope, Vicki, I have been patient. I’ll go along with it because it will keep you happy and it can’t do the kid any harm.”
He sighed, as though he were the most put-upon man who ever lived. “The kid needs some shrinking, so we go see the lady shrink. Turns out Ms. Freud is missing a few cards in her deck but has replaced them with moths and butterflies, and she tells us our kid has a wicked spirit, a diakka or some damn thing in her soul. So of course, we just have to get in touch with a professional exorcist. Makes all the sense in the world! And hey, no need to check the classified advertising in the National Enquirer. After all, my very own yokel brother-in-law does demons, yessir!”
“Warren!” Vicki got to her feet.
Warren ignored her. Frowning menacingly, Warren strode towards Evan Kyle Dean. “Hey, brother-in-law, will we get a family discount rate? Double demons for your dollars? And can we pay by credit card?”
Vicki brought her fist down on the table. “Warren, Evan came to help us!”
“Right, right,” Warren said. “And just because I’m such a fine guy, I’m going to tolerate his help tonight, and that is it. The End. Then the most holy reverend can take his Save Your Soul show back on the road and out of my face!”
Warren grinned theatrically at Evan Kyle Dean. “Get the message, Preach?”
“You don’t have sole say in this, Warren! Missy is our child. This is our house.”
Evan Kyle Dean’s solemn voice stilled hers. “You’re afraid, Warren,” he said. “What are you afraid of?”
Warren Barringer’s face flashed white, and for an instant his eyes rolled back as though he were going to faint.
Then he rasped, “Goddamn you…”
Evan stood up. “Are you afraid of God, Warren? Are you afraid of yourself?”
Warren lurched at him.