The Complete Works of Primo Levi

by Primo Levi

  While the storm raged outside, Pavel put on a show in the flickering light of the little flames. He feigned comic indignation:

  “What’s this? You’ve forgotten about me? Or are you pretending you don’t know? There’s no doubt, but of course, ganz bestimmt! I speak German like a German, if I want; better than Hitler, who’s Austrian. I can speak it with a Hamburg accent, or a Stuttgart accent, or a Berlin accent, as the client prefers. Or without an accent, as on the radio. I also speak Russian with a German accent, or German with a Russian accent. Tell him, tell your commander. Tell him that I was an actor and I’ve traveled the world. And that I’ve been a radio announcer, and that I’ve done comic routines on the radio, too; by the way, do you know the story of the Jew who ate herring heads?”

  He told the story, in a Russian speckled with ridiculous Yiddish inflections, then he told another and another, drawing on the vast body of Jewish self-mockery, subtle and surreal, the just counterweight to the ritual, equally subtle and surreal: perhaps the most refined product of the civilization that through the centuries has been distilled from the lunatic world of Ashkenazi Judaism. His comrades were smiling in embarrassment, the Russians were holding their bellies and exploding in thunderous laughter. They loudly slapped his strong back, and urged him to go on, but encouragement wasn’t necessary: how many years had it been since he’d had an audience?

  “. . . and the story of the yeshiva bocherim, the students from the rabbinical school who were drafted into the army, you know that one, don’t you? It was during the time of the tsars, and there were lots of rabbinical schools at the time, from Lithuania all the way to Ukraine. It took at least seven years to become a rabbi, and almost all the students were poor; but even the ones who weren’t poor were still pale and skinny, because a yeshiva bocher is supposed to eat only bread seasoned with salt, drink water, and sleep on the benches at school, and in fact we still say: ‘Nebbish, poor thing, he’s skinny as a yeshiva bocher.’ Well, then: the recruiting officers burst into a rabbinical school and all the students are conscripted into the infantry. A month goes by, and the instructors realize that all these boys have an infallible aim: they become sharpshooters. Why is that? I couldn’t tell you, the story doesn’t say. Maybe because studying the Talmud sharpens the eye. War breaks out, and the regiment of Talmudists is sent to the front, the very front lines. They’re in the trench, rifles trained, and here comes the enemy, steadily advancing. The commander shouts, ‘Fire!’ Nothing, no one shoots. The enemy comes closer and closer. Once again the commander shouts, ‘Fire!’ and, once again, no one obeys: at this point the enemy is just a stone’s throw away. ‘Fire, I said, you damned sons of bitches! Why don’t you fire?’ shouts the officer. . . .”

  Pavel broke off: Ulybin had come in and had sat down at the table, and the excited buzz of conversation among the listeners immediately ceased. Ulybin was about thirty years old, of average height, dark and muscular; he had an oval face, impassive, and always clean-shaven.

  “Well, why don’t you continue? Let’s hear how it ends,” said Ulybin. Pavel resumed, less confidently, and with less brio. “So then one of the students says, ‘Can’t you see, captain, sir? These aren’t cardboard cutouts, they’re men, just like us. If we shot at them, we might hurt them.”

  The partisans around the table ventured to laugh quietly, hesitantly, alternating glances at Pavel and Ulybin. Ulybin said: “I didn’t hear the beginning. Who were the ones who didn’t want to shoot?”

  Pavel gave a somewhat confused summary of the beginning of the joke, and then Ulybin asked in an icy voice:

  “And you, what would you all do?”

  There was a brief silence, then Mendel’s subdued voice was heard:

  “We aren’t yeshiva bocherim.”

  Ulybin said nothing, but after a short pause he asked Pavel:

  “Are you the one who speaks German?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Tomorrow you’ll come with me. Is there anyone here who knows anything about electrical work?”

  Mendel raised his hand: “Back home I used to fix radios.”

  “Fine, you’ll come, too.”

  Ulybin had Mendel and Pavel wakened at four the next morning, in the dead of night. As they were having a quick breakfast, he explained the purpose of the expedition. One of the partisans, while inspecting the forest, noticed that the Germans had run a telephone line between the village of Turov and the Zhitkovichi station: they hadn’t installed poles, they’d simply nailed the wire to the trees. The partisan had climbed a tree and cut the wire. Then he’d hurried back to the camp, proud of what he’d done, and Ulybin had told him he was a jackass: we don’t cut phone lines, we tap phone lines. At the Turov camp there was a field telephone that had never been used. Would it be possible to restore the line and patch into it so that they could hear what the Germans were talking about? Yes, Mendel said, it was possible, as long as there was a microphone. They should leave immediately, said Ulybin, before the Germans realized that the line had been cut and became suspicious.

  Four of them set off—Ulybin, Mendel, Pavel, and Fedya, the young man who had found the wire and cut it. Fedya hadn’t turned seventeen yet, was born right there in Turov, less than an hour’s walk from the camp, and had known those woods since he was a child, looking for bird’s nests. He flew along on his skis, silent and confident in the darkness, like a lynx, stopping every so often to wait for the other three. Ulybin could move pretty fast; Mendel labored, exhausted, out of condition, and impeded by the loose bindings; while Pavel had never put on a pair of skis in his life, was sweating in spite of the biting chill, and stumbled frequently, swearing under his breath. Ulybin was impatient; it would be wise to repair the line before day dawned. Luckily, according to Fedya, the place wasn’t far.

  They got there after an hour’s march. Mendel had brought a few meters’ length of wire; he took off his skis and climbed onto Pavel’s shoulders, taking only a few minutes to splice the two ends of the line that had been lying in the snow; but to do the work he’d been forced to take off his gloves, and he could feel his fingers rapidly turning numb in the cold. He had to stop and rub his hands in snow for a long time, while Ulybin peered up at the lightening sky, stamping his feet with cold and impatience. Then he hooked one of the microphone wires to the line running from tree to tree, climbed down, drove a stake into the earth, and hooked the other wire to it. Ulybin grabbed the microphone out of his hand and held it to his ear.

  “What can you hear?” asked Mendel, softly.

  “Nothing. Just a buzz.”

  “That’s fine,” whispered Mendel. “It means that the contacts are working.”

  Ulybin handed the microphone to Pavel. “You keep listening, you understand German. If you hear someone talking, signal me.” Then he asked Mendel, “If we were to talk, could they hear us?”

  “Not as long as you keep your voice down, and you cover the microphone with your glove. But if we need to, I can unhook the wire from the stake: it only takes a second.”

  “Good. We’ll wait here till daylight, then we’ll leave. We’ll come back tomorrow night. Pavel, if you’re cold, I can fill in for you.”

  In fact, all four of them took turns listening; when one of them got cold, he went off somewhere far from the microphone to pound his hands and feet. Around seven, Fedya nodded his head sharply and handed the microphone to Pavel. Ulybin pulled him aside:

  “What did you hear?”

  “I heard a German calling, ‘Turov, Turov’; but from Turov there was no answer.” Just then, Pavel waved his gloved hand and nodded his head yes more than once: someone had answered. He stood listening for a few minutes, then he said:

  “They hung up. Too bad!”

  “What were they saying?” Ulybin asked.

  “Nothing of importance, but I was amused. There was a German who was complaining that he hadn’t slept because of stomach cramps, and he was asking another German whether he had a certain medicine. The one with stomach c
ramps is called Hermann and the other one is called Sigi. Sigi didn’t have the medicine, kept yawning, and seemed annoyed. He hung up. I was about to tell them that we have some very good medicine—would they have heard me?”

  “We’re not here to play pranks,” said Ulybin. Then he added that, in spite of the risk, he’d decided that they should stay there for a few more hours: the opportunity was too tempting.

  In fact, shortly afterward they listened in on a more interesting conversation. This time, it was Sigi who was calling Hermann from the Turov outpost: he reported that he’d tried repeatedly to get in touch with the Medvedka garrison, but no one was answering from Medvedka. Hermann, still suffering, replied that the four men in Medvedka might have gone for a walk, and that Sigi shouldn’t worry about them. But Sigi was determined to find out what was going on: he’d heard talk of Banditen in the area. Hermann, who was either higher in rank or perhaps just older, gave him some advice: why didn’t he take one of his men, dress him up as a woodsman with ropes and a hatchet, and send him from Turov to Medvedka to see for himself what was going on.

  “How far away is Medvedka?” Ulybin asked Fedya.

  “It must be six or seven kilometers from here.”

  “And how far is Turov from Medvedka?”

  “Roughly twice that distance.”

  “How big is Medvedka?”

  “Medvedka isn’t a village: it’s just a collective farm. Thirty or so peasants once worked there, but now I believe it’s abandoned.”

  “You two, get going,” Ulybin said to Fedya and Mendel, “and bring me back the forester, alive. We’ll wait for you here, or not far from here.”

  Mendel and Fedya came back around noon with their prisoner, who was unharmed but terrified; they’d tied his hands behind his back with telephone wire. They found Ulybin beside himself with impatience. Sigi had called Hermann back; he was uneasy, the woodsman hadn’t returned. Hermann grumbled something about the snow and the forest, then he told Sigi to send another man, dressed as a peasant this time, and have him follow the river path. To be more convincing, he should carry a couple of chickens. Ulybin told Mendel and Fedya to head out immediately for the bend in the river and to wait for the peasant there.

  This time the wait was longer: the two men, the second prisoner, and the two chickens didn’t arrive until sunset. The two prisoners weren’t Germans, but Ukrainians from the auxiliary police, and it wasn’t hard to get them to talk. There were only seven or eight Germans in Turov; they were Territorial soldiers, no longer young, with no particular desire to leave the town and none at all to get involved in any adventures with the partisans. Matters were different in Zhitkovichi; in September someone had sabotaged the railroad tracks not far from the little town, a freight train had been derailed, damaging a bridge, and since then there had been a more substantial and warlike garrison, which kept an eye on the station and the railroad line. There was a Wehrmacht platoon with a small armory, and twenty or so Ukrainian and Lithuanian auxiliary police. There was a storeroom full of provisions and fodder for livestock, and an office of the Gestapo.

  Before heading back to camp, Ulybin decided to send the Germans a message. He gave instructions to Pavel, who replied: “Let me take care of this.” He took the microphone and called, at intervals, both Turov and Zhitkovichi until a voice replied. Then Pavel said:

  “This is Colonel Count Heinrich von Neudeck und Langenau speaking, commander of the Third Regiment of the Thirteenth Division of the Red Army, section of the Domestic Front and Occupied Zones. I wish to speak with the garrison’s highest-ranking officer.” Pavel was enthusiastically entering into the part. Knee-deep in snow, standing in a dark forest whipped by bitterly cold winds, with an absurd telephone receiver in his hand, the wires stretching up into branches heavy with snow, he’d unleashed a sonorous and authoritarian German, as martial as it was guttural, with the r’s and the ch’s resonating roundly in the back of his throat: he mentally applauded himself, bravo Pavel Yurevich, by Jove, you’re more Prussian than a Prussian!

  A frightened, baffled voice replied, demanding explanations: it came from the garrison of David-Gorodok.

  “No explanations,” Pavel thundered back, “no objections. Tomorrow we intend to attack your position with five hundred men: you have four hours to evacuate, you and your traitorous lackeys. Not one of you must be found there: we’ll hang all and any men we encounter. Over and out.” At a gesture from Ulybin, Mendel yanked the wires, and the four men with their two prisoners set off for the camp. Even the grim Ulybin, so chary of words and especially of praise, couldn’t stifle a dry crooked smile, which didn’t rise all the way to his eyes, but twisted his lips, pale with cold. Without speaking to anyone in particular, as if he were just thinking aloud, he said, “Fine. Tonight they’ll have something to talk over at the Gestapo office. They’ll phone Berlin to find out just who this deserter count might be.” Mendel asked Pavel:

  “Was the colonel your idea?”

  “No, the colonel was Ulybin’s idea, but the count was mine. And didn’t I come up with a magnificent name?”

  “Very nice. What was it, again?”

  “Eh, how am I supposed to remember? If you want, I’ll come up with another one.”

  Ulybin, indifferent to the presence of the prisoners, said:

  “We’re not going to attack David-Gorodok with five hundred men. We’re going to attack Zhitkovichi with fifty men. I don’t believe that the Germans have swallowed it, but since they can’t be sure they’ll send reinforcements from Zhitkovichi to David-Gorodok, and so we’ll encounter less resistance.”

  By now it was completely dark; Ulybin pulled a flashlight out of his backpack and tied it to the barrel of his submachine gun, but left it turned off. They set off, Fedya on skis leading the line, then the two Ukrainians, and, bringing up the rear, in order, Pavel, Mendel, Ulybin. As they crossed through a section of dense forest, the Ukrainian dressed as a forester suddenly left the track and took off to the left, scrambling through the deep snow and trying to slip away behind the trunks of the trees. Ulybin switched on the flashlight, aimed the narrow cone of light at the fugitive, and fired a single shot. The Ukrainian keeled forward, took a few more steps, then fell to his hands; in that position, on all fours like an animal, he advanced for several meters, digging a bloodstained tunnel through the snow, then he stopped. The others caught up with him: he was shot in the shin, and it looked as if the bullet had passed directly through his leg, shattering his tibia.

  Ulybin handed the rifle to Mendel, without a word.

  “You want me to . . . ?” Mendel stammered.

  “Go on, yeshiva bocher,” Ulybin said. “He can’t walk, and if they find him, he’ll talk. A spy never changes: he’s always a spy.”

  Mendel felt bitter saliva fill his mouth. He took a few steps back, aimed carefully, and fired. “Let’s go,” said Ulybin, “the foxes will take care of this one.” Then he turned to look at Mendel again, illuminating him with his flashlight: “Is this your first time? Don’t think about it: it’ll get easier.”

  5

  January–May 1944

  The attack on Zhitkovichi never took place. The night Ulybin’s little group returned, the camp radio, which for many weeks had been broadcasting only information about German movements and reports from the front, started repeatedly transmitting the code phrase that meant “stand by.” There was a heated discussion between Ulybin and Maksim, and it was Maksim’s opinion that won out. He was considered the representative of the government and the Party in the band: his view was to take no initiative, to wait, and perhaps orders would come in for some special operation.

  Ulybin withdrew into isolation. He was seen only rarely, and then only to hand out criticism and advice. The cook was told that the kasha was too salty: did he think that salt fell from the sky free of charge, as plentiful as the snow? The radio operator’s notes were illegible. Pavel ate too much and talked too much. Everyone was at fault because, in his opinion, the camp was not suf
ficiently clean and tidy. The two women, who had been relegated to the kitchen, were viewed with suspicion; whether out of shyness or contempt, he never spoke to them directly except for strictly practical reasons.

  Toward Dov, Ulybin showed the grudging respect that one accords one’s elders even when one outranks them, a respect that can easily cross the border into irritation and rudeness. Dov had not fully recovered from the exhaustion of the last march. His wounded knee caused him unremitting pain; at night it denied him the relief of sleep and by day it hindered his movements. At Novoselky, in a community huddled in a defensive position, his limited physical capability could be tolerated, outweighed as it was by his experience. In the camp at Turov, populated only by young people, Dov knew that he had become a burden and had no illusions. He tried to make himself useful in the kitchen, or helped with the cleaning, or small maintenance jobs: no one rejected his assistance, but he knew he was not needed. He had become taciturn, and since everyone knew how contagious depression and demoralization could be, few spoke to him. Pavel, who had attained a certain degree of popularity with his wiretapping exploits, addressed him with boisterous, conventional cordiality: completely understandable, with the cold and the damp, bones will ache, it even happens in Moscow, so of course, out here, in the middle of the marshes, and in these huts half buried underground and half covered with snow. But spring couldn’t be far away now, and with spring, who could say, perhaps peace would come as well: news was that the Russians had crossed the Dnieper, and that there was fighting in the area around Krivoy Rog. . . .