by John Gardner
Instead, the people were revealed to him through Passau’s vivid descriptive powers. In summer the wooden houses sucked in the heat so that everyone roasted and had difficulty sleeping in the air which, according to Passau, “seemed solid, like an invisible wall of sweltering warmth floating around you.” In winter, those same houses retained the cold. Rime and ice formed on the inside walls and could not be driven away, even with the heat generated from the big iron potbellied stoves.
His descriptions of the people were, in a way, enchanting. Frau Butterbusch, with skin texture like that of an orange, pitted and reddish. “She walked as though there were a thousand butterflies under her skirt, which she flapped with her hands, as if trying to drive the insects out, and her gait was a kind of skipping motion. We called her—what would it be in English? Frau Butterfly Drawers.”
The Rabbi Ephrahim had “a beard which looked as though it had been fashioned from fine wool, and when he was cross or irritated, he had this little habit of shaking his head, first from side to side, then in a nodding motion, his mouth half open, as though he were about to shout—which he never did.”
But Passau spoke mainly about his comrade cousins: Rachel, who had hair black as the starless sky. “Many, many years later I gave a performance of William Walton’s Façade, with two famous actors reading the Sitwell poems. You know them, Herb?”
“Not well, but I have heard.”
“There is a line in which Edith Sitwell describes some fantastic being with ‘hair black as nightshade, worn as a cockade. …’ That was my Rachel, hair black as nightshade, and a smooth skin, with great jet eyes which she would open wide when she was excited.”
Then, Rebecca—“long dark hair which looked almost brown when next to Rachel. She had the prettiest nose I ever saw, and she would fight like a tiger. Many times she sprang to my defense against other children.”
Of David he said, “He was my funnybone. Such a laughtermaker. Still, I remember his japes and jokes. I think of him as a small, bouncing jester. He would have us all in fits of laughter and he could imitate every grownup in the village. Herbie, if you could have known us children, in those first years of our lives, discovering the world around us, full of bright hopes, and innocent desires.”
They played traditional games, like Himmel und Hölle, Binde Kuh, and, his best game of all, Verstck—hide and seek—and also made up their own adventures, including a forbidden game where David and Little Louis would be Cossacks, and the girls villagers, ripe for plundering.
“We did not understand. How could we? But we acted our fantasies and, I suppose, rid ourselves of demons. Herb, those few years were so happy, and so full of love.”
“So when did it all change?” Kruger asked.
Passau shook his head. “I feel I should describe more to you. I cannot tell you how much we were bound together, four children, and I the youngest.” His eyes seemed to cloud over, “And the youngest finally let them down. I eventually became their end. That is the terrible thing.”
“Words cannot completely describe emotions.” Herbie circled a hand in the air. “I take it, I understand it. Your time in the village, with your beloved cousins, was the time of pure gold for you. How did it end?”
“One afternoon.” Passau paused, biting his lip. “I was, for some reason, alone. By myself outside the house. I recall it was late on a Friday. The others were inside, preparing for Sabbath. By this time the two families lived together. We had the biggest house in the village, and we shared it, just as we shared everything. I was outside, and I looked over and saw a pair of boots. Then I raised my eyes and there was this stranger standing there: dressed in dark clothes, but with a brown hat, which seemed more fitting for riding than walking. At his feet there were two big leather bags. Good, well-made bags. When he spoke, it was with a loud and cheerful voice. I thought I recognized it. He sounded like my Uncle Isaak. I remember, my mother came out and asked what he wanted. I did not know that he would end my spell of happiness.” The old man passed a hand across his forehead. “Herbie, can we eat? Take a break, maybe?”
“Okay, I’ll get some food.” Herbie sighed inwardly. He needed quick responses and he was not going to get them. He went down to the kitchen and made a couple of omelets. Upstairs he could hear Strauss, the Alpine Symphony. He guessed it was Passau’s own recording.
They ate listening to more Strauss, the Symphony Domestica which had so scandalized people because the music depicted the marital act of sexual intercourse. Passau did not speak as they ate. He cleaned his plate, but took his food in sparing little mouthfuls while his face showed a gluttony for the music. It was as though music was extra nourishment for him: something he soaked up through his senses, giving him stamina and strength.
They drank coffee. Then Herbie firmly turned off the CD player and began again. “So, Louis, there was this stranger.”
The tall man smiled down at the boy, and his mother now asked what she could do for him. “You want to see someone?”
“Ah, you must be Joseph’s wife. You must be Gerda, so this fellow will be my nephew, Louis.”
Behind them, Joseph emerged from the house. “Chaim? My God, it’s Chaim.”
The brothers embraced and, in a second, everyone was outside, looking at the big man as though he had come from another planet—which, in a way, to them, he had.
“Typical of me,” Chaim boomed. “I travel all the way from America, only to arrive back in time for Sabbath.”
“Have you returned to us for good?” It was Isaak who asked, and Chaim laughed loudly.
“I have returned in the hope that I can persuade you to join me, in America. It’s where your future lies.”
Now, in Virginia, Louis Passau looked straight at Herbie. “Those words were like a death knell for me, and from that moment things got worse.”
It began with conversations, even arguments, from which the children were barred, but Louis caught parts of the exchanges, certainly enough to realize that, while his Uncle Isaak wanted to stay in the village, his father, Joseph, was swayed by Chaim’s arguments.
“Surely, Isaak,” he heard his father say, “If Chaim is right, we can expect hard work for a couple of years, then we will have enough money to run our own business.”
“What proof has he given us? If it’s so good why has he come here to ask us to join him? Let him go back to his grand ways in New York City.”
Little Louis thought that was right. He was not sure if he liked his Uncle Chaim who talked of impossible things, huge buildings which touched the sky, wide streets, money by the bushel. Louis clung to his cousins, who reassured him. “Papa is not going, he has put aside Uncle Chaim’s offer,” Rachel said soberly. “If our Papa has said no, then Uncle Joseph will also say no.”
But Rachel did not hear the conversations Louis heard at night, as he lay awake.
“Mr. Chorat’ll pay your fares—both on the train and boat,” he heard Chaim say. “He has promised me that. There will be work for all, though Isaak seems intent on turning me down. Think of it, Joseph, good schooling for Louis. Eventually partnerships. Together, as a family, we can rule the shoe industry of America. Think of that.”
Mr. Chorat, Louis had already learned, was the man who had been so good to his Uncle Chaim. Mr. Chorat gave Chaim a great deal of money to look after his entire shoe-making business for him.
“Herbie, I thought this Chorat man must be very rich. It was the first time I ever thought about rich and poor.”
To hear Uncle Chaim talk, there were no real poor in America. Uncle Chaim traveled a great deal for Mr. Chorat, and on the railroads there was great comfort—things called club cars where you could sit at ease, eat and drink.
Even ordinary buildings sounded like palaces, and many people were now riding in the automobiles, which were rapidly taking the place of horses. “Soon, there will be no horses left in New York,” Chaim declared. Some of the automobiles were called taxicabs, and you could hire them, together with the driver. He als
o talked of the omnibuses, in which large numbers of people could travel from one end of the city to the other. But Uncle Chaim was most enthusiastic about what he called the El, which was a railroad built above the city streets, so that people traveled high in the air.
Everything confused the boy—talk about the East Side and the West Side, even a place called the Lower East Side which was, according to Chaim, totally German-Jewish. “Some of the people there do not even try to learn English. How do they expect to get on and thrive in America without learning the language?”
“Herbie, I was totally bewildered. My boundaries had been the village and a couple of trips into Passau, which I did not like. The very thought of this new strange land gave me the shits. I did not sleep, I was worried, I lost weight. It was clear that my parents were seriously thinking of taking Chaim up on his offer.”
Herbie nodded sagely, and said nothing, waiting for Passau to continue.
Chaim left one day without warning, and a few weeks later the blow fell. It was his cousin, David, who broke the news.
They were playing at the back of the house, where the ground sloped down to a small copse of fir trees—David, Rachel and Rebecca, all shrieking loudly and romping around in the trees.
Louis ambled from the house, deep in the whirling thoughts which enveloped him, faced with the arguments he had overheard, and the talk of leaving this golden place for some land where people flew on railroads high above cities, and lived on upper and lower parts of unimaginable buildings.
David spotted his cousin, detached himself from his sisters, and came running over.
“Oh, Louis,” he panted. “It is terrible news that you are to leave us.” At first it did not register, until David explained, “You are to go to America.”
Rachel had joined them, her eyes teeming with tears. “Louis, how we shall miss you. I don’t know what we shall do. But, maybe, for you it will be a great adventure.”
“I’m not going to America.” Louis held his ground. Then, unsure of himself, “When? When am I going to America, and who says so?”
“They all say so, Lou. Uncle Joseph, Aunt Gerda and you. Uncle Joseph is to work with Uncle Chaim for Mr. Chorat. We are all to stay here.”
“Herbie, I did not want the adventure. But it was to be, and a year later we left. I have no words to tell you what the parting was like. That year, still there in the village, I counted the days, watched the seasons like a condemned man. I could not believe I would not see this place again. Sure, it might sound dramatic—melodramatic—but I can honestly say that, as a little boy, it was as though part of my soul had been ripped away. There is only one other time in my life when I have felt, and been, so miserable. You must see it from a child’s viewpoint, Herbie. Everything changed so suddenly, I was physically ill and in mental torment. This is something you have to remember: that the hurt, the scar of parting with my cousins, never completely healed.”
He told Kruger that there was no point in recalling the journey. “There have been huge books written about the immigrants, and the bad parts are all true. Yet, a small piece of me became revitalized when I heard that brass band playing, just before we saw Uncle Chaim again.”
Passau had taken a long time over the telling of this comparatively small, childhood vignette, having embellished the story in his own style. Herbie found the matter compelling. Nobody had ever been told of Passau’s early life, and, being a good listener—part of the interrogator’s art—he was inclined to believe that, in Passau’s mind at least, those early years, and the trauma of being uprooted, bore heavily on what was to come: on what Herbie wanted to hear.
He went down to the kitchen, as Passau was obviously exhausted from this long session. As Herbie cooked some lamb chops and vegetables he could hear the music from above. The Maestro was playing the Verdi Requiem and, not for the first time, he made a silent prayer for Passau to last long enough for him to complete a quiet, plodding interrogation. He had never seen a man of this advanced age look as fit, and blessed with such a needle-sharp mind, though at his age, Passau could, possibly, go out like a light. It happened to very old people.
They ate together while Passau played Bernstein’s third symphony, Kaddish. The man, Herb thought, was obsessed by death and, as though tuning in to Passau’s wavelength, he took himself to bed, once the Maestro was settled, and listened on his Sony Discman to the Mahler Fifth with its constant references to funereal darkness, gloom, struggle, turmoil and strife.
He freed his mind to think of what he might have learned from the day. Certainly things that nobody else had ever penetrated. Passau had always allowed his nationality to be presented as Austrian, yet today, Big Herb had met the real man, a mingling of Russian and Polish blood.
He thought of the deep wound left in childhood by the ripping from the known safety of the village with no name, into a teeming life. He wondered what a psychiatrist would make of it all. He wondered also what the in-depth confessors at Warminster would have made of it. Passau was a natural narrator. He spoke easily, and painted his pictures as he wanted you to see them. There is always a danger in a subject who is a good narrator, a storyteller, they taught interrogators. You could so easily fall under Maestro Passau’s spell. I must not hurry him, Herbie thought, yet I must probe when we come to the crux of the matter.
THIRTY OR SO MILES AWAY, the USAir Express Dash-8 whined down onto the runway of the Charlottesville-Albermarle County Airport. Pucky Curtiss—a.k.a. Pauline Una Cummings—had telephoned ahead during her two hours’ wait at Washington, Dulles.
The Boar’s Head Inn transport awaited her and tomorrow Hertz would be delivering a car to the hotel. She was tired and barely took in the ribbon of car dealerships, malls and fast-food joints that line Route 29, Charlottesville’s main artery to Washington and the North. She was in the South now, and knew it by the friendly y’all accent of the driver. She was also in old colonial America and was amused to see they had a Colonial Nissan dealership, picked out in neon.
An hour later she was wondering what century had picked her up as she dined in the main restaurant of The Boar’s Head, served by men and women in eighteenth-century costume. She was also amazed by the charm and politeness that had surrounded her from the moment she had stepped onto the little twin-engined aircraft at Dulles.
Could she have moved back a couple of centuries? She thought not, judging by the neon of Shoney’s, Arby’s, Wendy’s and Bojangles she had seen on the way in. Tomorrow, she would enter the twentieth century with a vengeance, seeking out an old spy in the person of the legendary Naldo Railton. With luck he might just lead her to bloody Kruger and the symphony conductor.
(8)
ACCORDING TO PASSAU, UNCLE CHAIM turned out to be “A king of shits. To play with a term from the mob, I would call him the ‘Tutti crappo di crappy.’” The old man chuckled.
“You certain this is relevant?” Herbie asked. Passau was well refreshed from a good night’s rest. “Slept like a baby,” he said, “though that is a stupid analogy.”
His eyes were bright, he looked twenty years younger, appeared more spry, and ate a huge breakfast—in spite of his claim that he only took three cups of coffee. He was also impeccably turned out in gray slacks, loafers, a mega-expensive leisure shirt, and a loose woolen cardigan which must have cost eight hundred dollars. Unlike Herbie, Maestro Passau could still carry clothes. He had always been known as one of the best-dressed orchestra conductors in the world and, even now, in this hiding place, the creases in his pants looked razor-sharp, and not a hair of his great gray mane was out of place. He looked rich. He also looked formidable.
In answer to Herbie’s query he replied, “Relevant? You think it’s not relevant? All of it matters. Every major success or blow. Also none of it’s been told before. Not the real monster I became: and why I was transformed from a nice, frightened little Jewish kid, who knew from nothing, into a fucking fiend who lived for music, but also lived for what music could do for me: the power it brought. First
time, Herbie; first time I tell it all, so unwax your ears. Humor a very old man, Herb. Just listen, huh?”
Herb nodded and leaned back, ready to be transported to immigrant New York in the first decade of this torn century.
Uncle Chaim appeared out of the crowd, his dark face alight with a huge reunion grin. “I came over last night,” he said, embracing his brother, then his sister-in-law, and finally, with a pinching of cheeks, his nephew. “They said you’d be here tonight, so I went away and came back. Just in time, it seems, eh?” Then he looked at the four bulging valises and the two big parcels tied together with string which they had lugged all the way from the village. “This your luggage? Well, pick it up and let’s get going.”
Joseph became jaunty and jolly, as though Chaim’s appearance vindicated his final decision to make the nightmare trip. “Well, brother, where’s your fine automobile?”
Many times, Louis had heard his father say that Uncle Chaim would meet them with a fine automobile, and it was Louis who first detected the sudden change in Chaim’s manner. “Just for a second, he looked like a hunted man, Herb. I saw the face alter, and his eyes were the eyes of a snake. This is not hindsight. I can see him like it was yesterday. Clear and in sharp focus.”
“Chaim will have his automobile by the time we reach New York,” Joseph had told them. “Mr. Chorat is providing one for him.”
Now, at the pier, Chaim shrugged. “Not yet. Mr. Chorat says not yet. Any week now, but not yet.”
It was Gerda, who had been suspicious from the start. Now she voiced all their concerns. “You do have somewhere for us to live, Chaim? You do have the nice apartment you told us about?”