‘These days,’ she said, ‘you’d have thought the very fact of it being in Hebrew would be enough.’
‘Ah ha,’ I replied. ‘You mustn’t underestimate tradition. It’s our lifeblood; our identity; our statute book; our flag.’
‘So shouldn’t you do the traditional thing and consult your parents?’
‘Why? So they can throw a party? By Saturday the Purser may have rationed the food. I’ll just have to brace myself to do without all the presents.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘A hundred and fifty fountain pens? I’ll try to bear it.’
‘You deserve something.’
‘When my Uncle Karl was bar mitzvah – let’s see, he was born in 1897 so it would have been 1910, my grandparents entertained a thousand people.’
‘At home?’
‘Yes. We have … had our own synagogue.’
‘That’s amazing!’
‘It’s just another room, like the ballroom or the library. Except that it’s used less.’
‘It’s a pity you can’t hold the service there … tradition and so forth.’
‘Who knows when we’ll be able to go back? By then I might be the world’s oldest bar mitzvah candidate, with one of my grandsons –’ I toyed with our but dismissed it as precipitate – ‘giving the father’s blessing. No, all in all, I could find no better setting than this ship.’
The Rabbi applauded my impulse while mistrusting my impulsiveness. Assured that I was in earnest, he took out his prayer-book and looked up the portions for Saturday. The Maftir was the Shelach Lecha: the passage from Numbers in which God orders us to put fringes on our prayer shawls, a text of particular poignancy for me given that it was only three weeks since I had cut off my grandfather’s. The Haftorah was the story of Joshua sending spies into Jericho, a timely reminder after the morning’s fiasco of the need for an effective strategy. The Rabbi guided me through both sections, praising my command of Hebrew yet insisting on a review of my progress the next morning before he would grant the request.
Curbing my disappointment, I resolved to spend the rest of the day mastering the texts and retreated to my cabin, where I saw no one except Sophie, whose tears had an overriding claim on my attention. She poured out her heart about Helmut. Not only had he refused to see her but he had sent her a note to say that it was the last note he would send. Moreover his free-and-easy scrawl had been replaced by a laboured script in which words had been repeatedly inked over and, at several points, the nib had pierced the page. Touched that she should choose to confide in me, I suggested that he was trying to protect her, but she replied that they had already worked out a foolproof plan. To prove that there must be some other reason, she took out the note and, carefully concealing everything else, pointed to the cryptic phrase: ‘Ask Karl.’ I realised, to my regret, that she hadn’t come to repair an intimacy that had grown frayed on the ship, but to gather information. I was uncertain what to say, knowing that I could reveal nothing of our assault on the bridge without compromising my fellow conspirators. Besides, I couldn’t be sure whether Helmut was referring to that or to Schiendick’s attack on my father and the fear that something similar might happen to her. So, feigning ignorance, I recommended that she write asking for an explanation. She told me that she had already done so, along with a pledge that, if she had heard nothing by morning, she would go up to the bridge to seek him out. She walked to the door and, as an afterthought, glanced back and asked what I was reading.
‘Ivanhoe,’ I replied secretively. She shook her head.
‘When will you ever grow up? The ship is packed with people in various states of despair: we’re sailing to God knows where; and you bury your head in a fantasy!’ She walked out of the cabin, leaving me to my task.
Despite having promised the Rabbi that my father would read the final portion, I had no idea whether he would even consider it after my behaviour the previous night. In fairness to myself (a formula to which I was resorting with increasing frequency), he had made no attempt to set me straight. I was at a loss to understand why. Had it been me, I would have wanted my bravery acknowledged, particularly by the person who had most reason to doubt it, whereas he had not only hidden his best side but encouraged me to believe the worst. With other people he was more circumspect. Explaining away his bruises at dinner (like me, though for different reasons, he had missed both earlier meals), he stuck to his original story, prompting the Professor’s wife to insist that he sue Hapag, since several of the stair-rods were lethal. He fixed her with an equivocal smile, wavering only when she asked whether they wanted us all to break our necks.
After dinner and a short stroll with Johanna, I returned to the cabin to continue my preparation. My father arrived soon afterwards, anxious not to disturb me and provoke another tirade. I longed to admit that I knew the truth, but that would mean revealing how I’d found it out, so I simply smiled sympathetically until I realised that it made him nervous. For all my eagerness to unveil my plan, I was loath to do so late at night for fear of obtaining an easy assent. So I studied my portion under the cover of Sir Walter Scott, and left the announcement until morning.
In spite of his own lack of faith, my father professed himself thrilled, not least by my request that he do the final reading. His excitement was quickly replaced by concern about his faltering Hebrew, so I assured him that he could take the time-honoured route of giving a blessing while someone else read on his behalf. Tears welled in his eyes and he hugged me tightly, but the moment was shattered by my mother, who rushed into the room in her dressing-gown. Her face conveyed her horror even before she spoke.
‘Helmut’s killed himself! They found him in the store room hanging from a pipe. The Purser’s just asked me to break the news to Sophie.’ Sweat broke out on my palms as I recalled restraining him the previous day.
‘Did he give any reason?’ I was afraid that she would dismiss the question as an irrelevance, but she replied with surprising softness.
‘It could be one of many things: fear of losing Sophie if she settled abroad; fear of what might happen to her if she were sent home; or even fear of what might happen to him if their relationship were reported to Berlin. The Purser suspects that he was being harassed by some of the crew.’ From my father’s grim expression I could tell that we had identified the same culprits. ‘If only I’d been more persuasive. I begged her time and again to tell him the truth.’
‘What truth?’
‘That she isn’t Jewish.’
‘Sophie?’ I had read of a woman who lied to successive doctors in order to undergo unnecessary operations but, at a time of rampant anti-Semitism, Sophie’s deception struck me as more perverse, until my mother reminded me of the law that had been passed four years earlier forbidding any Aryan woman under forty-five from working for Jews. Following her estrangement from her parents – whose Nazi sympathies suddenly made sense – we were the only family that Sophie had. Refusing to abandon us, she had taken on a Jewish identity, regardless of the consequences. Now she was unable to go back. The authorities would never believe her story and, even if they did, the mere fact of her pretence would damn her irrevocably in their eyes.
Fearing that our attack had played a part in Helmut’s death, I waited for my mother to leave the room and then told the entire story to my father. He listened quietly before responding, not with some bland attempt at reassurance, which would have had quite the opposite effect, but with the seemingly tangential revelation that the most important lesson he had learnt in life was to take responsibility for his own actions without taking on guilt for other peoples’. ‘We may never know what led Helmut to kill himself, although I very much doubt that it was your playing pirates. Instead, we must try to honour his memory by living our own lives to the full.’
His words went some way towards easing my mind – in spite of the courtesy ‘we’ – and I went to see the Rabbi, more intent than ever on becoming bar mitzvah. To my immense relief he agreed to conduct the ceremo
ny, although I suspected that he was prompted as much by a desire for a celebration as by confidence in my Hebrew.
The need to work on my portion gave me the perfect excuse to avoid seeing Sophie, but I couldn’t hide behind it forever and, at my mother’s insistence, I made the long journey to the adjoining cabin, where she sat very still, gazing out at the unruffled sea. I kissed her cheek, which was as impassive as if she were the one who had died. She turned towards me with dark-ringed eyes, as indifferent to my stuttered condolences as to a weather report on a day that she was confined to bed. When she finally spoke, she made no mention of Helmut. ‘Your mother tells me you’re going to be barmitzvahed.’
‘Bar mitzvah,’ I said, forgetting whom I was correcting, but she carried on as though she hadn’t heard.
‘Becoming a man? Wonderful! Someone who hates and bullies and kills and betrays. Is that what you want for yourself?’
I thought of the men on the ship: of my father, a man who changed; of the Captain, a man who forgave; of Helmut, a man who loved; and I realised that her view was as blinkered as Sendel’s. There were ways to be the man I wanted to be and I felt confident that I’d find them. My first concern, however, was to avoid hurting her. ‘I’m not expecting you to come,’ I said. ‘Not now.’
‘Oh I shall come,’ she replied. ‘But first, I have another service to go to. A furtive affair that’s being held at eleven o’clock at night to avoid distressing the passengers.’ The allusion was clear and I assured her that I would be attending too. ‘The hardest thing is to know that he died on account of my lie – an administrative convenience, no different from awarding myself a higher degree or adding a year or two to my age. After all, it’s common enough the other way round. There are Jews kneeling at communion rails throughout Europe.’
‘You make it sound as if you did something underhand. Far from it! You wanted to stay with the people you love.’
‘Do I?’ she asked, as if she were genuinely trying to decide. ‘I wish that I could be so sure. I’m afraid that right now, I hate you. I hate all Jews for having come between us. Illogical, I know. But then hatred is illogical – as illogical as love.’ Having nothing to say that would not sound painfully obtuse, I simply listened. ‘He wanted to take me home to meet his mother. He was her only child. Never mind about me, who’s going to tell her? How will she survive never having her son home again, not even in a coffin?’
‘Couldn’t they keep him on board until …’ I tried not to be specific.
‘Think! You remember how it was for your grandfather. Besides, who knows when the ship will return to Germany? Who knows where it’ll go? No, he’ll be lost at the bottom of the ocean. His grave forever unmarked.’
‘The Captain gave Mother a map.’
‘Please go, Karl. I’m grateful to you for coming. Right now I need to be alone.’
Helmut was buried as quickly as if he had been a Jew. Barely fifteen hours after learning of his death, we joined a handful of passengers and an equally small contingent of crew on the sports deck. I feared that Schiendick might object to our presence, but neither he nor his cronies were anywhere to be seen. I wondered whether it were his threats of retribution – so much more potent now that we were approaching Europe – that had persuaded so many of his fellows to stay away. Passengers and crew stood apart, but I was confident that this sprang from sensitivity rather than mistrust. I took my place alongside Johanna in the row behind Sophie, whose black coat borrowed from my mother was the only sign of her special status. The band, whose services we had declined at my grandfather’s funeral, played a discordant dead march on piano, saxophone, guitar and drums, as the Captain led the swastika-draped coffin to the bier. He conducted a surprisingly perfunctory service, although I have to admit that my only point of reference was the psalm, before delivering a eulogy which sounded more like a plea for a reduction in Helmut’s sentence than an offer of thanks for his life. After a hymn, which I hummed in order to swell the sound since I could not bring myself to sing the Christs, the four pallbearers moved forward and removed the flag, which they folded and handed to the First Officer, before lifting the coffin and carrying it to the rail. The Captain took a step forward and saluted while, to a particularly ragged drum roll, the coffin slid into the sea.
The congregation dispersed. My mother and Aunt Annette took Sophie back to her cabin, but I determined to stay on deck in order to clear my head and steer clear of her grief. Since Johanna was feeling cold (for which read gloomy), I strolled up to the boat deck alone. Spotting Sendel lurking in the shadows, I was at first tempted to sneak away, but the desire to assert my newfound independence made me stand firm. After a few inconsequential remarks about Helmut’s suicide, for which he appeared to feel neither guilt nor compassion, he informed me that I smelt. I was grateful for the darkness which concealed both my rage and my blushes, as I reminded him that the laundry service had been suspended, while biting my tongue to stop myself asking what was his excuse. With a seigniorial flourish he told me not to worry, ‘Alexanderplatz has come to Charlottenburg.’ Then, with an abrupt change of tone, he asked if it were true that I was about to be bar mitzvah. While surprised to find that the news had spread, I was happy to confirm it. He demanded to know what pressures had been applied to make me change my mind and I assured him that the decision was entirely my own. I was proud of both my faith and my people, having recognised a latter-day heroism that was every bit the equal of the Biblical ideal.
‘What Biblical ideal?’ he sneered. ‘All those poisonous old Patriarchs? Abraham, a man prepared to prostitute his wife, who as it happens was also his sister, and to murder his son?’
‘Sacrifice,’ I replied. ‘He was instructed by God. Something very different.’
‘Not to the victim! He could have squared up to God and told him that mankind had established a superior morality. But no, he went cravenly along with it.’ I found it odd that a man who claimed to be Cain should cite morality, but I made no comment. ‘Or what about his son, Isaac, and grandson, Jacob, both of whom were so prone to favouritism that it tore their families apart? Or his nephew Lot, who was ready to prostitute his own daughters to protect his simplistic view of the world? At least they took their revenge by sleeping with him.’
‘That’s not how the Torah puts it.’
‘The Torah glosses over a great many things. For instance, that Lot’s wife looked back at the devastated cities not out of disobedience but shame, and the salt into which she was transformed was that of her own bitter tears.’
‘How do you know?’ He took my hand and traced the scar on his forehead. I recoiled as if it were poker-hot.
‘What about Cain?’
‘What about him?’
‘Won’t you tell me the truth? Life’s hard enough without any more uncertainties.’
‘Why should you be the first person since Adam to live without uncertainty? I’ve told you who I am – as much a part of your heritage as all the other liars and lechers and hypocrites.’
‘One of the teachers at the Jewish school suggested that you – he – might not even have been a man at all or rather, only half a one: that Cain was born of the liaison between the Serpent and Eve.’
‘How long will they go on dragging up that tired old theory: a crude attempt to absolve Adam – and, by extension, God – of any responsibility for my nature? So I was conceived when the serpent gave my mother a foretaste of the forbidden fruit, was I? Rubbish! And what’s worse, rubbish that insults the intelligence! I’m familiar with all the attempts to explain away what I did. Sophistry may be a Greek word but the practice was perfected in Hebrew. How about the claim that I couldn’t really have been a murderer since no one had ever died, so I had no idea of the likely effects of my action? Forget the chicken and the egg, the real question is “which came first: the criminal or the crime?” Rest assured, when I picked up Abel’s knife – that knife which he regularly used to slaughter his sheep – I had no doubt about what would ensue. If however,
you’re serious about wanting to resolve the enigma, what you should be asking is what I told him immediately before I killed him. That’s where the Torah is at its most evasive. “And Cain talked with Abel, his brother.” So what did I say? Did I reveal the secret meaning of the universe that men have been striving to discover ever since? Did I put forward such conclusive evidence of God’s injustice that the old time-server Moses and his scribes couldn’t bear to set it down? Or,’ he asked with a cackle, ‘did I simply warn him that some of his flock had escaped?’
I heard the pain in his voice and, for all my revulsion at his madness, I was moved to pity. ‘How can you bear to live?’ I asked.
‘I can’t, but then I can’t die either, so I have no choice. People call me the first murderer, but that’s to ignore God. He was the one who killed Abel by killing all that was good in me, by rejecting my heartfelt offering and setting me at odds with the person I loved most in the world. Ever since, he’s done his utmost to ensure I survive. He’s been profligate of his prophets but protective of me. And he’ll go on punishing me till the end of time, not because of what I did but because of what I said: those words too terrible for the Torah, in which I exposed his intrinsic evil.’ He walked away, leaving me more confused than ever. While I knew, of course, that the Torah accounts of the Creation and Expulsion from Eden were myths, I could reach no such clear conclusion about Cain.
I returned to the cabin, where the sight of my father practising his few lines of Hebrew threw me into a panic. I reached for my prayer-book but he intervened, insisting that what I needed most was sleep. No sooner had he switched off the light however, than he began to speak. In a tone better suited to the bedtime stories he’d told me as a child, he likened life to the St Louis, claiming that, on a ship whose destination was uncertain, it was all the more important to care for our fellow passengers. My suspicion that he was thinking of one passenger in particular was confirmed when he mentioned my mother and how, whatever else had happened – and might still happen – on the voyage, they had been given the chance to reaffirm their love. ‘I refuse to say “revive” it because it never died. It didn’t even lie dormant but, rather, was locked away in both our hearts.’
A Sea Change Page 26