B002FB6BZK EBOK (77 page)

After Herr Schwabe hung up, Sam said with a calm that drove
me crazy: Afterward I left his house and waited until the police
car came. And then, after he said that, he fell asleep in his chair.
I looked at him and suddenly my headache vanished. There's
nothing like the sight of a lost person to cure a headache after
such a night of drinking and humiliation. Renate took off his
shoes and together we dragged him to the sofa, and the cleaning
woman covered him and he slept for five straight hours. And then
the evening papers came. When he woke up, we were busy reading. I wouldn't say those were especially thrilling moments. The
papers made it clear that, at long last, my real face was revealed.
The would-be rightist papers hinted at bitter things about my
past and my dubious morals, and the so-called leftist papers explained without a shadow of a doubt that in the war I played
much higher roles than had been thought. Of course, it was all
formulated so that I can't sue anybody, and if I protested the
injustice and the empty charge, I would look even more foolish.

They threatened me by phone, and friends who tried to encourage me said things like: I do understand you. Or: In your
circumstances, it's easy to understand why, and so on ... All of
them hypocrites and flatterers. I decided to appear in a television interview and at least try to refute some of the charges
against me. The producer of our television news is an old friend
of mine. We were in school together, we once traveled together
to Italy, Greece, and South America. He arranged that interview. It was an act of courage and resolution on his part.

In the television studio, I sat with Sam in the producer's office, the woman who prepared the report looked at Sam with
wicked eyes and asked embarrassing questions. When she
smiled she looked like a person who has started missing herself.
Then I was interviewed and I returned home. I could have been
interviewed in my house, but I wanted to be interviewed in the
studio to impart much more credibility to my words, as if it wasn't
only I who was talking, but the communications media. Sam
drank hot chocolate and sat in front of the turned-off television.
When the interview with me was broadcast, he turned on the
television. We sat and didn't say a word, Renate smiled once
and then averted her eyes and looked at Sam watching the program and her eyes suddenly became cold as steel.

And here are some news clippings for you.

... in his television appearance, he chose not to apologize.
Nor did he try to cover up. He told candidly, and that candor
has to be appreciated, how years ago he met a person who
performed in nightclubs and was called the Last Jew, and
about a fellow named Samuel Lipker who would lead him.
He told how he investigated that person and now that
Samuel-the American director Sam Lipp-came to our city,
he swept him up into his world of horrors and made him act
in his presence the commander who commanded both Sam
Lipp and the one he called the Last Jew. Maybe what he said
was candid, but equally unconvincing. Candor isn't necessarily a substitute for truth. Candor, like good intentions, is
sometimes the road to hell. The poetic license our praised writer permits himself this time went beyond the boundary of
good taste ... On the contrary, the amazement about the past
was even sharpened, his persistence in writing a book he can
never write and doesn't write evokes a sense of intellectual
impotence, ideological shallowness, and fear of critical readers,
for if the book is so important to him, why did he write his
other books? It is hard to accept as logical the fact of the clock
set backward, the story about the fellow whose anger justifies
disgraceful behavior in a nightclub and hectoring an old man,
imprisoned in the past, who lives on a small pension, struck
and pestered by a distinguished writer and a guest from
America. Virgil (the moderator-A.S.) asked our writer why he
had to go to a fortuneteller before his last trip to the United
States, and didn't even get a satisfactory answer. Why does a
writer try to pretend to be a beautiful person without delusions, when he secretly believes in superstitions of a clock set
backward and secretly consults a fortuneteller . . . In his articles, he attacks the ignorance of what he calls worshippers of
stars and signs. Our writer is caught here in naked hypocrisy!
... Great amazement ... As for the intellectual integrity of a
writer whose past was restored without pangs of conscience,
and along with streetwalkers, profiteers, and pimps, he presents a shameful play about the resurrection of the Reich,
when in the same week, he writes a trenchant article against
performing the Passion in Bayreuth, because as he puts it, it is
a basic and profound insult to human moral values and to the
Jewish nation.

... sometimes even hypocrisy has to be consistent, even if
it concerns shutting one's eyes and tormented candor. Along
with his friends, our writer is trying to condemn us, our society, to condemn us for what he himself calls in his articles
"Teutonic arrogance, and the lost souls of the patriarchs." For
many years he has demanded again and again that we stop
making-as he puts it-"tours of exaltation and disgrace in
the lost forests of ancient myths, and that along with the other
nations of Europe we live the noble majesty of the civil world
promised in the future, even if it is bereft of a real past" .. .

Or:

... it is to be believed that he fell victim to a dangerous
suggestion ... A person doesn't set people back by an imaginary clock ... His words were incredulous verbiage ..."

Or:

... I was convinced! Convinced that our author was an
embezzler in his past, that those great moments of truth he
experienced were wasted and he has to apologize for ...

The studio was inundated with phone calls, Henkin. Hundreds of people called in. Most of them didn't scold me for denying my past or for falling victim to it. I was asked if my wife is
indeed of Jewish origin, and when I tried to explain, I was flooded
with insulting answers in a righteous and disgusting way. I was
even asked why there are so many "last Jews" in Germany. When
I told the questioner that only thirty thousand Jews live in Germany and most of them are old retirees, I was told that that was
thirty thousand too many, I was accused of lying to the authorities of the Reich about my wife's origin, I was accused of being
related to the fortuneteller and Sam Lipp. They called me a crazy
leftist and a stinking rightist and an intellectual pig and a man of
dubious honor ... what wasn't said in those endless conversations. Even my son was conjured up. I was asked if my son was
murdered, committed suicide, or died of natural causes, and why
he had to be educated to hate his grandfather, and who taught
the boy to challenge the grandfather, for after all he was only following orders. Friedrich, said one woman in a shrill and annoying
voice, was a charming boy whose parents destroyed him, and he
had to die to atone for their sins, but she didn't identify herself
and I asked myself where were my three million readers where
were the critics and journalists who wrote such nice things about
me, and because of them and for fear of their criticism, I hadn't
yet written The Last Jew, but they were in hiding, didn't express
an opinion, were tranquil and silent. I asked myself where were
my books, The Lost Honor of Venus Daedelus? The English Lesson, The Awful Blow of the Soccer Goalie, where are my giant trumpet and the
filmgoers, where is all that, but they weren't, they offended my
son, they said: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

What I didn't know, of course, was that, after the interview
with me, a television crew was sent to the club. They filmed
the seedy ladies, the stage where they were acting that night,
the bartender, and they got unpleasant comments from them.
They also went to Lily's father's house and heard his version,
and all that was presented to the viewers, as Sam, Renate, and
I were waiting in front of the television set that Sam didn't turn
on. That was a real bond against me, a bond only I was guilty of.

The next day, I complained to my agent, who apologized and
said he had been at the sea. I told him: In the winter? In the
ice? And he muttered something and I hung up. Then I hugged
Sam and drank tea with lemon and the producer called. He
said: I heard you're angry. Sam Lipp sent us to the club and to
Herr Schwabe. He said it was your idea! Don't feel guilty and
don't get mad at us ... I told him: That's nice. I'm not guilty.
You're not. My agent's not guilty. Only Sam Lipp is guilty. If so,
how come I know that both you and I are guilty?

And then Renate said in a quiet voice that froze my blood. She
said: I want Friedrich to be buried next to Menahem Henkin.

A few days later, Sam called from Marseille. He told me he
was waiting for Lionel in Cafe Glacier. Lionel would come interrogate him about his crimes. Then he called from the hotel
and said he was calling from Lebensborn. Hotels like that
should be erased from phone books, he said. And I did complain
at city hall and in the next phone book that name won't appear
again. Sam said, I'm waiting for a ship.

Then he called me from the Rome airport. He reversed the
charges. He said: The journey has ended, Cafe Glacier isn't
what it used to be, sometimes you have to destroy. He asked
forgiveness, he asked me to ask forgiveness from Lily's father,
from Renate, from everybody. From what he said, it was clear
but not explicit, that he was in trouble, but managed to flee. I
was freed by a person named Leopold Bardossi, he said, I don't know Italian. I'm flying to Israel in an hour, he said, got to erect
a memorial to the greatest Italian poet.

As I write this letter, Sam is surely in Israel. Renate and I
will come in a week. Don't tell anybody about our coming.
Please find us a room in a hotel near you. The Israeli cleaning
woman we recently hired just told me that last night they called
about Samuel. I don't know what it is, but I'm in a hurry to send
the letter and I'll tell you in person about what's in store for us
from this episode.

Yours as always ...

Tape / -

The General Consulate of Israel. Trieste.

Consul: Adam Navon.

Dear Mr. Henkin,

I'm writing you in reference to Samuel Lipker. Among the
papers we found in his room was a letter addressed to you and
your name also appears in several of his papers.

Aside from you, he had the address of a German writer we
have tried to locate, but his Israeli cleaning woman did not
understand the issue, and then we learned that he had taken off
for Israel and on the way had stopped in Italy, but it is not
known where. I hope Samuel Lipker will get in touch with you.
If he does, please get in touch with Mrs. Hannah Aharoni, secretary of our department in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.
My deputy, who will investigate the episode of Samuel Lipker's
visit to the city, writes in his report:

Samuel Lipker was searching for a ship that was to sail for
the Land of Israel on January first, nineteen hundred [sic!].
When he did not find that ship (it is now nineteen seventythree [sic! ] ), he tried to burn down the only synagogue in the
city. He provoked people, offended passersby, sold stolen goods
at the port, and is wanted by the police. The press is going mad
to take advantage of that man's behavior to gore Israel. The
press says that Samuel was seen in the company of whores, a
hashish dealer (the evidence here is confused), etc....

It's not that these are important articles, although they do
not indicate a great deal of affection. But on the other hand,
when people are hit, gold watches are stolen from passersby who
refuse to buy, people are flogged until they bleed, and anybody
who tries to intervene-including a policeman who was badly
beaten-is punished.... Apparently we must act, since we're
the representatives of Israel here and even without all that our
work is not easy. Please, therefore, if you hear something, let
me know, and I will be grateful.

Yours, Adam Navon

Tape / -

Ebenezer and Fanya R. are walking along the seashore. Fanya is hopping, picking up snails and examining them. Ebenezer is trying to estimate
the distance between himself and the turret of the mosque in Jaffa, and
says: Jaffa is a rock. Jaffa of sundown. Jaffa of magic. Jaffa of abandoned
smells. Let go of the snails, the sea wept them, nothing will influence me
anymore. I dreamed a war will break out, I read the dream in a book that
hasn't yet been written. That's what they say! The sea will be filled with
blood. There's no iodine for blood of the sea.

In the distance a woman stands and yells at a child: Don't go in the
water, Boaz. I told you not to. Listen, if you drown, don't you dare come
back home.

Tape / -

Henkin reads Germanwriter's letter to Hasha. Germanwriter is going
to Italy and from there he'll come. Henkin says: What will we do with
Friedrich? And Hasha is silent. Henkin says: How, how, and Hasha says
Shhh, Henkin. You're disturbing the rustle of the waves.

Tape / -

Boaz Schneerson: It's not just Noga. I live in a world I wasn't prepared for.
And I'm half an orphan. Do you pity me? You're laughing! Jordana is woven
of silken death, what are you woven of? They taught you to forget where you
came from. At night, before sleep, an old nun read you sayings in Latin. You
spat green blood. What exactly happened? Did you really find your dead father? Did you write a letter to the judge? The judge wrote to me. He
wrote: In terms of morality, Noga Levin is right. So here you are, proof that
you're right! The Last Jew, not our "last Jew," let him go into that sea, when
he's thrown out. Let him throw up his hands, let him yell "I was right," and
let him drown. What does it help to be always right? I'm not always right, but
unlike you, I don't make Boazes miserable. Germanwriter is coming,
Henkin's waiting for him. Your father never waited for another daughter,
when he waited, he waited for you. The writer comes here to buy guided
missiles produced by the military industry, rifles started with clothespins,
Jewish genius, plastic tank turrets, dream-penetrating laser beams, water
from the Jordan to alleviate material exhaustion-like planes that lost their
fighting ability-sea sand to pulverize limbs, Jewish grenades to disperse
student demonstrations, a philharmonic orchestra with stainless steel spires,
the German leopards are supplied with soap made in Israel and in exchange
they send us gas masks. What battle are the lords Herod and Mendelssohn
preparing for us? The German command will buy Hebrew tents, go to
Henkin, loathe him in my name ...