by Ruby Namdar
“I didn’t recognize any of these voices. I had never heard them before. But the names kept repeating themselves. So did the date. And then I began picturing scenes. A deep, deep green, almost black forest. A small house—a log cabin, really—with little windows. Goats. Chickens. Children. Lots of them. Mostly girls, all ages, with long braids and flowing dresses. They were talking in Yiddish. I know Yiddish from home, but this was a different dialect, in an accent I wasn’t familiar with. One of the children was me: a small, skinny boy of eleven or twelve with peyes curled around his ears, close to bar mitzvah age. Although I don’t know if I was an only son, I can’t remember having any brothers. It’s hard to explain. It was spooky, like an out-of-body experience.”
Herman took a quick, wheezing, asthmatic breath, wet his lips, and continued:
“It started early in the morning, before sunrise. We heard dogs barking. It was close by, very frightening. Suddenly, we were surrounded by dogs. Our house stood by itself, apart from the other houses in the village, almost in the forest. The Germans came with local collaborators. Our parents were already awake, but we children were still asleep. The soldiers yanked us from our beds by the legs like chickens from a coop. My little sister Rayzl was screaming with terror. She was two or three. There was a dog as tall as she was, maybe taller. No one dared run to pick her up. We were all petrified.”
Herman took a few quick gulps of air. The longer his story, the shorter of breath he was becoming. “I don’t want to tell you what I saw. I could tell you things that would keep you from sleeping at night. I saw my mother raped over and over . . . five, six, seven men, in the middle of the room, with all the children standing there. They hiked her dress above her waist. She had long, white legs. I had never, you know, seen a bare inch of a woman’s body. They—we—were very religious. My father was dragged to the yard like a bull to slaughter. They finished him off with clubs and axes. My big sister was raped, too. She was sixteen, maybe seventeen, a virgin—she had never been alone with a strange man in one room. They saved the little ones for last. A soldier grabbed me by the collar, lifted me like a puppy, and dragged me to the water barrel. There were no pipes or faucets in the house; the drinking water came from a barrel that was refilled every few days. The soldier’s big, hard hand on my neck was like a vise. It was thin and frail, my neck. He lifted me up, showing me to everyone as if I were a rabbit in a magic trick, and then lowered me into the water and kept me there until I was choking.”
Herman’s short, wheezing breaths came faster and faster, in time to his grisly story. “Each time, a second or two before I drowned, he pulled me out of the barrel, showed me to everyone as if it were a big joke, gave me a while to catch my breath, and plunged me back in. The soldiers and collaborators stood there laughing as though at a circus act. I don’t know how long it went on. It was awful. Can you imagine how terrifying it is to feel that you’re drowning, again and again and again? In the end, they grew tired of it. They told him to get it over with: they had to move on, there were other Jews to take care of. He gripped me even harder and forced me down to the bottom of the barrel. I saw myself from above, as though I were floating in air. The child’s little body kept jerking. My feet were kicking in all directions. They wet his pants. So did he, because he couldn’t control his bladder. After a while, I can’t say exactly how long, no more bubbles rose to the surface. My body stopped twitching and grew very heavy. The soldier pulled me from the water, shook me a few times, and tossed me on the ground like a fisherman sorting fish. By then I was far away. I saw it all as though I were looking through the wrong end of a telescope.”
Herman paused, leaving his story unfinished. Pleased with its impact, he regarded Andrew with a toxic, tortured, obsessive satisfaction. Andrew said nothing. He licked his dry lips, awaiting the denouement. “After all this, I went to see the Holocaust Museum in Washington. The new one—have you been there? You should go. They have an archive with computerized lists of millions of Jews. An archivist logged on for me and typed in Zuritsh. There are different ways of spelling it and it took him a long time, but in the end it turned out that there really was such a place, on the Polish-Lithuanian border, and that there was a Jewish family there that lived on the edge of a forest and was killed by a unit of German Einsatzgruppen and local collaborators on October 3, 1941. Guess how they called the young boy, who was eleven when he was killed. That’s right: Yosef Chaim. Yossil-Chaim!” Herman fell silent again, equal amounts of horror and pride in the smug, tormented eyes that were turned on Andrew.
He’s mad! The realization dawned on Andrew all at once. A mentally ill, pathological liar! All the symptoms were there: the lack of boundaries, the autistic single-mindedness, the low self-esteem of someone wanting to be someone else, the insufferable appearance of the man . . . Andrew knew that his defenses were rejecting a story that, however improbable, could not be dismissed out of hand, but his anger and loathing silenced the voice of intellectual probity. He refused—quite simply refused—to be impressed or shocked, much less feel the slightest sympathy. Herman’s neediness was more than he could bear. All he wanted was to rise from his seat, step over the fat thighs pressed against him that were barring his way, and escape—where didn’t matter. Yet a sense of lassitude, combined for some reason with a feeling of guilt, kept him glued to his place, seemingly stuck with this haranguing stranger forever.
14
Eleven twenty. The train pulled into Philadelphia. The loudspeaker system came alive, spewing a torrent of pointless information into the car. Herman extricated his fat frame from the confines of its seat and stood in the aisle, waiting like a good friend for Andrew, who took his time gathering his belongings in the hope that the man would give up and go his way. But Herman had endless patience. He descended the steps to the platform alongside Andrew and handed him his business card. “It’s been a pleasure! Do you have a card? I’d love to meet again and talk some more. Maybe I’ll even show you a poem or two, who knows?”
His smile held out the promise of a poetry reading. Andrew’s nonchalant shrug implied regret at having left his calling cards at home while falling short of being an outright lie. “Which way are you heading?” Herman asked with genial forbearance. “If it’s downtown, I’d be happy to share a cab. Where do you have to be?”
A frantic mixture of hand signals and muddled syllables somehow convinced Herman that Andrew had no idea where he had to be. He smiled again, this time indulgently at such professorial absentmindedness. He gave Andrew a hearty handshake and wished him a good day, repeating how much he had enjoyed their conversation and was looking forward to more. Andrew, watching his broad back recede, couldn’t believe he was rid of him. What made him shrink with something like dread from someone who wasn’t the least bit violent or dangerous? Quickly, he hurried toward an exit at the other end of the platform, embarrassed by the instinct to turn around and make sure he wasn’t being followed.
Herman’s business card was still clenched in his fist. It took a few minutes to feel safe again and out of the man’s field of vision. Tearing the card into pieces without bothering to read it, Andrew tossed them into a trash can behind a column while hysterically fantasizing that Herman might find them there. He felt sick. What was wrong with him? Hunger? Fatigue? Overwork? There was no hope of calming down before he found a men’s room in which to wash away the man’s revoltingly sticky handshake with soap and water. Perhaps these would also cleanse his mind of the morbid scenes Herman has planted in it, horror scenes that went on flashing mechanically on and off in it, dancing jerkily as if shot with an exasperatingly old, slow camera.
15
May 1, 2001
The 8th of Iyar, 5761
Two thirty p.m. The gym locker room was humming as usual. The metal doors of the showers opened and banged shut noisily. Men with towels wrapped around their waists stood before the large mirrors, shaving, smearing themselves with creams and lotions, and combing their wet hair with a grotesque painstakingness. The d
oor of the sauna kept opening and closing, filling the room with moist, hot steam. An elderly man with sparse gray hair and a potbelly stood stark naked on a physician’s scale, sliding its metal weights back and forth in the hope of getting them to correspond to the poundage recommended by his doctor. Andrew, leaning heavily on a granite washstand, looked wonderingly at his reflection’s thick growth of white bristles. The rash on his right cheek that had refused to go away shone through them like an exotic red flower. The dermatologist he was referred to had advised him not to shave for several weeks. “These little pustules can turn nasty. At your age, I wouldn’t take any risks. You have tenure, don’t you? Great! Now you can show up for work with a beard!”
Andrew had let this pass in silence, without even the amused smile of complicity that such quips called for. The whiteness of his beard startled him. And yet why expect it to be dark like his eyebrows rather than white like the hair of his head? It made him look old, like an old, traditional Jew. How much longer would it go on? A few more weeks, he supposed. He had to remember to apply the prescribed cream twice a day, once today after working out and showering.
The door of the sauna swung open to reveal two or three naked men no younger than himself, their far from perfect bodies bright in the steamy mist. His energy felt low. It had been low for a while. Should he take vitamins? Eat differently? Drink less coffee and forgo his regular nightcap? Resisting the temptation to give in to how he felt, rest for a few minutes in the sauna, shower, and go home, he pushed against the washstand in an effort to tear himself loose from the mirror and go to the gym on the next floor. Yes, he looked like an old Jew with a white beard and bottomless eyes. All that was missing was a large black velvet yarmulke.
A fresh billow of steam from the sauna fogged the mirror, blurring his face behind a dreamlike haze. Squinting, he studied the pearly glass. The familiar yet strange reflection looking back with a penetrating, all-knowing look had something haunted, even spiritual about it, a divine imprint as airily elusive as a wind upon the water. A long, silken, silvery white beard shimmered as if its strands were alive; long earlocks curled down the angular cheeks; a black phylactery stood out on the high, wisely wrinkled forehead, the hair above which was trimmed to make room for its artfully worked leather cube. From afar came a primal, profound, bowel-piercing lament. In the cavity at the back of his head where skull met neck, the black cube’s leather straps were tied in an intricate, hierophantic, transcendentally mysterious knot. Hanging down on either side of his neck like black snakes, they crawled out of sight at the bottom of the mirror.
Where were these visions coming from? Was he going mad? Andrew reached out apprehensively and wiped the mirror clean. The long beard disappeared, and with it the earlocks, the leather cube, and the straps. Apart from its tormented look, bloodshot eyes, and coronet of bristles, the face peering back at him from the droplets beading the glass was again recognizably his own.
What time was it? Already three o’clock. It was late. He had better start working out. Turning away from the mirror, he headed reluctantly for the locker room’s exit. The shabbily naked bodies around him were more irksome than usual. How could such neglected-looking men go around with nothing on? The old Jews taken to the gas chambers must have looked like that: naked, ugly, stripped of their clothes and their dignity. What would have happened had we remained there, in Eastern Europe? We would have been lined up naked just like them, pressed against each other skin to skin, flesh to flesh, helplessly waiting our turn to run to the edge of a mass grave in a forest, to a gas chamber, to the ovens. A sickening smell of burned flesh, a stench of singed hair and charred bones. Raucous, hate-filled voices shouting orders in a hard, savage German. Naked men run in terror, lashed by a rain of whips and clubs. They keep their heads down, trying to protect their faces from the blows, hands spasmodically pawing skinny loins. Ferocious dogs bark, a machine gun rattles mercilessly: darkest dread. Little Rayzl screams, her fear-crazed eyes fixed on the slavering jaws of a growling German shepherd. How awful to see your own daughter screaming like that and not dare do anything. To be paralyzed with fear, your hands and feet unwilling to run to her and pick her up. The girls! What would have happened to the girls? Who would we have given them to? Friends? Colleagues from work? Rachel’s first nanny who loved her so much—the always laughing, good-natured Ramola from Trinidad? And what about Angie. He would trust her blindly. But she was black and they were white—how could she pretend they were hers? How would he even approach her? “You’re the only person in the world I can count on. Please, please, take care of my little girls! Don’t let anything bad happen to them!”
Andrew’s chest froze in anguish, unable to breathe. Suppose there are informers? You had to watch out for them. There are people who will sell us to the Germans for a hundred dollars, for a few bottles of whiskey or a good meal, for nothing at all, just for the hell of it. Whole families were turned in to the Gestapo for half a pound of salt! How much was given to whoever informed on Anne Frank? It couldn’t have been much. That insolently fawning doorman of ours, he’s just the type to do it. Or our super, that Serbian (or was it Croatian?) hoodlum with his black Mercedes, his narrow eyes in which violence dozed, and the horde of square-headed, broad-shouldered cousins and nephews that he employed. He would have to be bribed all the time—and even then there was no being sure he would keep his promise and not hand us over on a moment’s whim. There would be nothing to depend on—not the law, not morality, not physical strength. Nothing! Absolute helplessness. What will we do when our money runs out? When there’s nothing left for bribes? There must have been women and girls who had to sleep with their rescuers and pay them with their bodies not to turn their families in.
Enough! Stop it! He had to put an end to these poisonous fantasies. He had to go to the next floor. Sergeant Andrew, his trainer, had been waiting for fifteen minutes.
16
Four p.m. A pair of familiar faces is on television. The twins are gratified—in fact, overjoyed. The prize they have won means a beautiful new life of pure love. And who are they going to look like? Brad Pitt! They’re going to look like Brad! There’s something oddly, disarmingly moving in their sincerity. They have the touching honesty of those with nothing to lose. In their hands they hold a color photograph of America’s handsomest man, a blond, blue-eyed dream boy such as only a genius could sculpt. Next to his radiant image, their pitiful faces look even more monstrous. One might be regarding two different species—a pair of hyenas and a graceful gazelle, or a royal peacock in the company of two misshapen dodos. And yet victoriously verbalizing their absurd fantasy has been liberating. For a brief moment, their ear-to-ear, doppelgänger grins grace their ugliness with a new optimism. For a moment, it seems to them—to us all—that their past is behind them, that they’ve been redeemed, that they’re already Brad Pitt.
Naturally, their work is cut out for them. So much needs to be changed. The nose goes without saying. It’s the most conspicuous thing. But the cheekbones, too, have to be redone, restructured at the top to give them the same fabulous, indescribable sweep that is part of Brad Pitt’s perfection. The chin must be shortened and strengthened. The teeth can’t be left as they are, either: no small investment in them is necessary. And the sooner that oily, matted hair is gotten rid of, the better! Not to mention the acne, which can hardly be allowed to remain. Plastic surgery won’t be enough. They’ll have to be completely redone. Ironically, Brad’s blue eyes are the easiest part. There are now contact lenses in every conceivable color.
Andrew wondered what Dr. Mengele would have said about that. He had worked so hard to make brown Jewish eyes blue, injecting their eyeballs with chemicals and toxins to Aryanize them. Dr. Mengele? What made him think of Mengele? Where were all these gruesome thoughts coming from? What was the matter with him today?
Four twenty. Perfectly synchronized, the large clocks hanging on the walls merged their hour and minute hands. Andrew, with a slightly dissatisfied sigh of relief, sl
owed his pace on the treadmill to a brisk walk, and then to the easy stride that would relax his strenuously exercised leg muscles. Although he had persisted for ten minutes less than usual today, who, he thought wryly, was counting? Everyone had his off days. Perhaps he should eat one of the suspicious-looking, overpriced “energy bars” sold at the gym’s cafeteria. The final results on the digital screen had left much to be desired: too few calories had been sacrificed on the altar of the Religion of Health and his average heartbeat was far from optimal. And why was he sweating so much and feeling heartburn? Should he see a cardiologist? Men his age died of heart attacks all the time. As silly as such hypochondriac anxiety was, he should call for an appointment.
He glanced again at his watch: 4:25. Lingering idly by the stilled machine had left him with little time. He would skip the usual chin-ups and arm, back, and stomach exercises and head back down to the locker room. You had to know when to cut your losses and call it quits. You can’t climb Mount Everest every day.
17
A fresh stack of white towels, still warm from the dryer, greeted Andrew at the entrance to the locker room. Their almost too immaculate whiteness soothed the sour, guilty feeling that had accompanied him as he descended, with an unearned athletic gait, to the floor below. He took a towel from the elegantly arranged stack, stopped for a quick sip of cold water, and had turned to go to his locker when something brought him to a halt. Standing on the slate floor of the locker area with his back to him was a wonderfully well-built Latino youth, a bronzed, muscular Adonis. Draped nonchalantly around his waist, his white towel played up the rich copper of his skin. The sensual gleam of his rare, dazzling beauty was almost spiritually intense. Visually, it affected Andrew like a slap. He stood without moving, mesmerized by the superb body that was unblemished from head to toe. So, suntanned and sand-warmed, must have looked the living Apollo, Ganymede, and Paris, not at all like their white, empty-eyed marble icons, the work of Greek and Roman sculptors who painted them with colors that the years washed away, leaving only a bright, abstract starkness that came to be identified with the classical ideal of beauty.