The Complete Works of Primo Levi

by Primo Levi

  “Yes, I get it. It’s well thought out.”

  “But wait; the example isn’t finished yet. Now I’m going to ask you a second question. These two chimney sweeps fall down the same chimney a second time, and once again one of them is dirty and the other one isn’t. Which of them goes to wash himself?”

  “I told you that I understood. The clean chimney sweep goes to wash himself.”

  “Wrong,” said Pavel, mercilessly. “While washing after his first fall, the clean man saw that the water in the basin did not become dirty, while the dirty man understood the reason that the clean man went to wash himself. Therefore, this time the dirty chimney sweep goes to wash himself.”

  Pyotr sat listening with his mouth hanging open, equally appalled and curious.

  “And now for the third question. The two men fall down the chimney a third time. Which of the two goes to wash himself?”

  “From now on, the dirty one goes to wash himself.”

  “Wrong again. Have you ever heard of two men falling down the same chimney, and one comes out clean and the other one dirty? There, that’s what the Talmud is like.”

  Pyotr sat astonished for a few seconds, then he shook himself like a dog that has just gotten out of the water, laughed shyly, and said, “You made me feel like a wet hen. Like a green recruit who has just entered the barracks. Fine, I understand what your Talmud is, but if you give me a second examination I’m going to turn right around and head back to Ulybin. It’s not my style, I prefer a frontal assault.”

  “Don’t take it personally, Russian,” said Gedale. “Pavel didn’t mean you any harm, he wasn’t trying to make fun of you.”

  Line broke in: “All he was trying to do was give you an idea of what it feels like to be a Jew; I mean, what it feels like to have your head constructed in a certain way, and to be surrounded by people whose heads are constructed in a different way. Now you’re the Jew, all alone and surrounded by goyim who are laughing at you.”

  “. . . and you’d be well advised to change your name,” said Gedale, “because your name is too Christian: instead of Pyotr Fomich use a name like Jeremiah or Habakkuk or some other name that will go unnoticed. And learn Yiddish and forget Russian; and you might even have yourself circumcised—if not, sooner or later we’ll decide to have a nice little pogrom.” Once he had spoken, Gedale yawned with gusto, blew out the candle, said good night to all, and withdrew with Bella. The two or three other candles were blown out. In the darkness a voice could be heard, hoarse with sleep, possibly the voice of one of the men from Ruzany:

  “. . . in my village there was a Jew who’d eaten a sausage made of wild boar. The rabbi scolded him, but he said that this wild boar ruminated, and so it was kosher. ‘Nonsense, wild boars don’t ruminate,’ said the rabbi. ‘They don’t ruminate in general, but this one did: it ruminated just like an ox,’ said the Jew; and since the wild boar was no longer alive, the rabbi couldn’t say a thing.”

  “In my village,” said another voice, “there was a Jew who had himself baptized fourteen times.”

  “Why? Wasn’t once enough?”

  “Certainly once was enough, but he enjoyed the ceremony.”

  Someone could be heard clearing his throat and spitting, and then a third voice said:

  “In my village there was a Jew who got drunk.”

  “Well, what’s so strange about that?” another voice replied.

  “Nothing. I never said that there was anything strange about it, but tonight it’s strange to tell stories that aren’t strange, since everyone’s telling strange stories.”

  “In my village—” Isidor began. A woman’s voice interrupted him: “Enough, now; go to sleep, it’s late.” But Isidor continued:

  “In my village there was a woman who’d seen the devil. His name was Andushas, he had the body of a unicorn, and he played music.”

  “What did he play?”

  “He played the horn.”

  “How could he do that, if the horn was on his forehead?”

  “I don’t know,” said Isidor. “I didn’t ask her.”

  A deep voice yawned from above: “Now be quiet. It’s time to sleep, we’ve walked all day. We need to get our rest. Even the Almighty took six days to create the world, and on the seventh day He rested.”

  Gedale replied: “He rested, and He said, ‘Let’s hope it works.’”

  The faint voice of Rokhele the White could still be heard in the darkness, as she murmured the evening prayer, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit,” and the blessing, “May the Merciful One break the yoke of exile from our neck and may He lead us upright to our land”; then there was silence.

  The evening downpour had given way to a gentle steady drizzle, and the wind, too, had dropped. The old mill’s framework no longer creaked, but now only crackled softly, as if hundreds of woodworms were gnawing at it, and Mendel, stretched out on the hard wooden floor, was unable to sleep. Other confused sounds came from the attic, quick light footsteps, perhaps the sound of mice or weasels, against the background of his sleeping comrades’ breathing and groaning. The air was warm, heavy with the humors of the night and the bittersweet scent of pollen, and Mendel felt a wave of desire flow through him. It was an adolescent’s desire, shapeless, soft, hot, and white: he tried to describe it to himself but couldn’t. The desire for a bed, and a woman’s body in that bed; the desire to dissolve inside a woman, to become a single flesh with her, a twofold flesh isolated in the world, secluded from roads, weapons, fears, and memories of the slaughter.

  At his side, Sissl was breathing quietly. Mendel reached out a hand in the darkness and touched her hip, covered by the roughness of the blanket. He pressed, tried to pull her to him, but Sissl resisted, frozen in sleep. Across the flickering screen of half-sleep, names and faces, present and distant, chased after one another. Sissl blond and weary. Rivke with her sad black eyes, but Mendel chased her away immediately, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t think about her. Rivke, Strelka, the mass grave: go away, Rivke, please. Go back where you came from, let me live. Mendel stubbornly tried to fall asleep, and he realized that it was precisely that effort that stung him and kept him awake. His mind was not so confused that it could be unaware that another face and another name were knocking at its door. A name without a face, the name of Rahab, the prostitute with the perverse power; yes, the bizarre report was true, it was enough for Mendel to utter that name, even only in his mind, and his flesh swelled. And a face without a name, a hollowed face, young and worn, with large distant eyes. Mendel started: that face wasn’t nameless. It had a name and that name was Line.

  He saw her the way he had seen her a few hours earlier, arguing with conviction, free of laziness and doubt, serious to the verge of the ridiculous, vibrant as a taut cable. He threw aside the blanket, took off his shoes, and groped his way toward her, stumbling over the limbs of sleeping bodies. He’d seen where she had withdrawn to sleep, and he found her easily, under the ladder that led up to the loft: in the darkness he touched her hair, and his blood surged at the contact. Next to Line slept Leonid, the two wrapped in the same blanket; the image of Leonid and the image of Sissl together weighed on Mendel’s conscience for an instant, then they moved off into the darkness, growing smaller and more transparent as they faded into the distance and, finally, disappeared, just as Rivke’s terrible face had disappeared.

  Mendel touched Line’s shoulder, then her forehead. The girl’s hand, small but strong, freed itself of the blanket, found Mendel’s arm, and crept up it, exploring. It slipped into the opening of his shirt, brushed his rough-shaven cheeks; the fingers found the scar on his forehead, and followed it, careful and sensitive, to where it vanished into his hair. The other hand emerged, and pressed the nape of Mendel’s neck, pulling his head down toward her. Mendel helped Line to get free of the blanket without awakening Leonid. Together they climbed up into the loft: the ladder creaked under their weight, but the noise was lost in the rustling of wind and rain.

  The loft was cl
uttered. Mendel recognized a grain hopper by feel, touched a cogwheel greasy with lubricant; he withdrew his hand in disgust and wiped it off on the bottom of his pant legs. He felt his way with his feet to a clear area, pulling Line behind him; she followed with docility. They lay down, and Mendel took Line’s military clothing off. The body that emerged was thin and tense, almost masculine; the belly was flat, the arms and thighs muscular and slender. The knees were square, hard, and rough like children’s knees; Mendel’s hand hungrily explored the two dimples on either side of the tendons, beneath the kneecap, then slid up her hips, but her breasts, though small, were withered, sad little sacks of empty skin beneath which he could feel her ribs. Mendel undressed, and immediately Line grabbed him tight as if they were about to wrestle. Crushed under the weight of the male body, Line twisted, a tenacious and resilient adversary, exciting him and challenging him. It was a language, and even in the red fog of desire Mendel understood it: I want you but I’m going to resist you. I resist you because I want you. I’m smaller and I lie beneath you but I don’t belong to you. I am no one’s woman, and by resisting you I bind you to me. Mendel felt she was armed even though she was naked, armed as she had been the first time he glimpsed her in the dormitory at Novoselky. She belonged to no one and to everyone, like Rahab of Jericho: Mendel sensed it and it pierced him through, just as he pulled away from her, at the last instant. The effort was so lacerating that Mendel sobbed loudly, in the mill’s dark silence.

  Once the fever had dissolved into the quiet of his satiated body, gentle as a convalescence, Mendel listened carefully: the silence was not complete, he could hear other muffled voices, hard to recognize. He slipped into sleep by Line’s side; she was already sleeping peacefully.

  He woke up a short while later, in the early dawn light, when the others were still sleeping, and he saw Gedale lying next to Bella, Pavel next to Rokhele the Black, and Rokhele the White next to Isidor. Line’s sharp pale face lay in the hollow of his arm. Why did I do it? What am I seeking in her? Love and pleasure. No, that’s not all. I’m seeking another woman in her, and this is terrible and unfair. I sought her in Sissl and I didn’t find her. I’m seeking something that no longer exists, and I’ll never find it. And now I’m bound to this one: now I’m bound by this one, bound by the ivy. Forever, or not forever, I couldn’t say: nothing is forever. And she’s not tied to me: she binds you and isn’t bound herself, you must’ve noticed this by now, Mendel, you’re not a child anymore, untie yourself while you still can, this is no time for establishing bonds. Cut yourself loose or you’ll wind up badly: you’ll wind up like Leonid. He looked around, and Leonid was nowhere to be seen. Nothing odd about that, he might just have stepped out. He went on advising himself in a brotherly manner to free himself of Line, ordering himself, demanding of himself, and he knew full well that, if someone else had spoken to him like that, he, Mendel, the mild-mannered watchmaker, would have punched him out. Half an hour later everyone was awake, and Leonid was gone; gone with him were his backpack and his weapon.

  Gedale muttered in Polish, inviting the devil to take care of Leonid; then he went on in Yiddish: “Nu, we aren’t the Red Army and I’m not Ulybin, and as a partisan he wasn’t worth much. He’s not the kind of man who’d betray us, but if he runs into the Germans that’s another matter. Let’s just hope he doesn’t cause any trouble. He can’t go far alone: in three days we’ll find him again, you’ll see.”

  “Still, he could have left us the automatic rifle,” said Jozek.

  “Yes, and that’s the problem. If he took it he plans to use it.”

  Mendel suggested going after him. Dov added that they might try using the dogs, and Gedale told them to do as they thought best, but not to waste too much time on it. Dov led a dog to sniff Leonid’s blanket, and then took the dog outside; the animal sniffed apathetically at the ground, lifted its muzzle and scented the air, then chased its tail a couple of times; finally, tail and ears drooping, it pointed its muzzle in Dov and Mendel’s direction, as if to say: “What do you want from me?”

  “It’s time to go,” said Gedale. “Get ready to leave. The idea of looking for him is out of the question. If he looks for us he’ll know how to find us.” Mendel thought: He’s gone to shoot at Germans, but maybe he really wanted to shoot at me.

  They resumed their march, with a beautiful clear sky overhead and a rain-soaked ground beneath their feet. They skirted a number of apparently deserted villages; the column, led by Jozek, proceeded slowly through patches of thick forest and fields overrun by weeds. The terrain was flat, but toward the west they could make out a backdrop of blunt hills. Mendel marched in silence, and felt less than happy about being Mendel. In a single night, he had been twice the traitor: or even three times, if you counted Sissl as well. But he didn’t have to count Sissl, there she was just a short distance ahead in the line, walking along behind Pyotr with her usual tranquil stride. Nor was it necessary to count the dead, they stay in their world of the dead, and almost never emerge from it. You can’t let them get out, it’s like an outbreak of typhus, you need to reinforce the enclosure, keep them locked up in their quarantine. The living have every right to defend themselves. But it was different with Leonid, Leonid wasn’t dead. . . . And do you know, after all, whether or not he’s dead? Whether or not you killed him, who were his brother, and who, when they asked you where he was, replied with all the insolence of Cain? For all you know, you took from him the only thing he had; you cut the towrope, and now he’s sinking, or he’s already sunk. Actually, what you did was worse: you unhooked him from the rope, and you took his place. Now you’re the one having yourself towed. Towed by her, by the hardheaded young girl with the gnawed fingernails. Take care what you do, Mendel son of Nachman!

  On the morning of the third day of the march, they found themselves on the edge of a gorge. It dropped straight down, a sheer cliff wall of nasty clay made slippery by the rains; the far wall was just as steep, and running through the bottom of the gorge, a good thirty meters down, was a muddy rushing torrent, choked between the two banks.

  “You may be good at printing counterfeit dollars, Jozek, but as a guide you’re not worth much,” said Gedale. “We can’t get through here: you took us the wrong way.”

  Jozek had plenty of good excuses. The paths were numerous, and you could hardly expect him, after so many years, to remember them all. He blamed the rain; in the dry season, and he was certain about this, you could pretty easily climb down and back up again, and the torrent dwindled to a rivulet that wouldn’t frighten anyone. In any case, there was no need to turn back. They could just head north, following the rim of the gorge; sooner or later they’d find a way across.

  They set off again, following faint trails overrun by thornbushes. It soon became clear that the torrent wasn’t running north, but rather toward a northeast that was practically an east, and Jozek’s popularity began to decline: nobody had ever heard of marching eastward in order to get to the west. Gedale pointed out that that was exactly what Christopher Columbus had done, or, rather, it was the other way around, and Bella, dead tired, told him to stop playing the fool. Jozek insisted that there must be a way through, and that it couldn’t be far; indeed, around midday, they found a well-marked path that ran along the rim of the gorge. They followed it for half an hour, and saw that Jozek must be right: the gorge was twisting toward the left, which is to say, to the west, at a sharp angle, and the increasingly well-trodden path was descending obliquely toward the bottom. In spite of the rain that had fallen a few days earlier, it was possible to make out hoofprints left by cattle: perhaps the trail led to a ford, or a bridge, or a watering hole. They hiked all the way down and saw that the trail reached the torrent right at the tip of the curve, and that beyond the curve the gorge opened out into a broad streambed; the torrent split up into an assortment of streams that flowed gently over the rocks. In the short stretch of flatland, there were the ruins of a stone hut; six men were standing outside the door, and one of them was Leoni
d. Of the others, four were armed and were wearing uniforms of the old Polish Army, tattered and faded; the sixth man, unarmed and shirtless, was off to one side, sunning himself.

  One of the armed men moved toward the Gedalists. He slid the strap of the machine gun he was carrying on one shoulder over his head; he didn’t aim the gun at the newcomers, but carried it carelessly by the muzzle, letting it dangle at his side, and spoke to them in Polish: “Halt.” Gedale, who was born and brought up in Poland, and who spoke Polish better than Russian, stopped, waved to the line behind him to halt, and spoke in Russian to Jozek:

  “Why don’t you see what the pan wants.”

  The pan, that is, the gentleman, understood (and, for that matter, Gedale had done everything he could to make sure he understood), and said with cold rage:

  “What I want is for you to go away. This is our land, and you’ve already caused trouble enough.”

  Faced with the prospect of a quarrel, Gedale assumed an expression of ecstasy, and this only further irritated the Pole. Gedale told Jozek: “Tell the gentleman that, if we have caused him any annoyance, that was certainly not our intention, or we certainly never meant to harm him personally. Asked him if he happens to be referring to what happened with the locomotive in Sarny, and if so, tell him that we will never do it again. Tell him that all we want is to leave, and we certainly don’t need his encouragement. Ask him—”

  It turned out that the gentleman spoke Russian reasonably well, because, instead of waiting for Jozek to translate, he interrupted Gedale angrily:

  “Obviously I’m talking about the locomotive. That, too, is our territory, it belongs to the National Armed Forces, and we had to deal with the German reprisal ourselves. But I’m also talking about your man”—and here he pointed at Leonid, with a contemptuous jerk of the thumb—“this reckless idiot, this deranged fool with a Red Star who’s going around all alone playing the hero without considering that—”