Blind Date (8 page)

“I think about my work,” answered Levanter tonelessly.

“To you I am an uneducated peasant, stupid enough to get himself wounded fighting the Nazis, while you, the intellectual, slept at home.”

Levanter looked up from his typewriter. “During the war I was too young to fight the Nazis,” he said. “The only reason I'm alive today is that I kept running away from them.”

“Running away, running away!” Barbatov shouted. “That's all you Jews did for centuries. Even when the Jews in the ghettos finally rebelled and fought the Nazis, they knew they couldn't win. They fought to bargain. You hear? Always to bargain.” Barbatov leaned down, his sweaty forehead nearly touching Levanter's face.

“Those Jews were all slaughtered, Captain,” Levanter explained patiently. He resumed his work on the papers in front of him.

“So they were. But even there in those ghettos, they traded, you hear, traded the gas chamber for a bullet, and death by a bullet was for them a better bargain. Again, the Jews got themselves a better bargain!”

Levanter raised his eyes from the lists. “I have to finish my work now, Captain,” he said.

Suddenly Barbatov smiled and said in a snide voice, “I should know better than to argue with one like you, Levanter. Forgive an ignorant peasant.” Then he went back to his quarters to sleep.

Two months after Levanter was assigned to his office, Captain Barbatov received a special regimental citation for the great improvement he had made in the performance and discipline of the correctional unit and for his precise enforcement of prescribed
regulations. Another month passed. As the training program became tougher because of Barbatov's zeal, Levanter worked harder to soften the impact on the recruits, continuing to reduce the number of students reprimanded. But he worked in total secrecy.

Many of the students, jealous of Levanter's easy life and angered by his apparent complicity with the authorities, were hostile to him. They accused him of devising arduous training exercises while he himself did not take part in any of them. They blamed him for the deaths from overexertion of two students and for the unit's inadequate medical care and lack of recreational facilities.

Barbatov knew the students resented Levanter, and as he became more and more dependent on his aide-de-camp, he too became petulant and resentful. Often, when he was drunk, he would threaten to send Levanter back to the tent. Levanter did not take Barbatov's threats seriously; it was obvious to him that the captain could not run the program alone, and that Barbatov knew it.

One morning, Levanter was jolted awake before dawn by the sound of screeching tires. Seconds later, Barbatov barged in, wearing a helmet and a camouflage coat. A submachine gun dangled from his shoulder, and two heavy antitank grenades hung from his belt. Levanter rose from his bed as Barbatov marched around drunkenly, searching the room as if for missing evidence. Suddenly his eye fell on a dirty napkin lying on the floor. With a menacing glint in his eyes, he turned to Levanter.

“What is this? A restaurant? A hotel?” he screamed, gesturing toward the napkin, his face reddening with fury. “Clean up this mess. Now!” he bellowed. Levanter jumped forward and bent down to pick up the napkin, but Barbatov shoved him aside. “Not with your hand! Push it to the wall with your circumcised prick.” His words were slurred, his voice thick with vodka. Pretending not to understand, Levanter stood at attention. “I said, clean up this garbage with your stub of a pecker!” Levanter did not move. Barbatov clenched and unclenched his hands. “Refusing to obey an order? Then I want you in full attack gear. On the double!”

Levanter dressed under Barbatov's scrutiny. There was hardly time for him to button his pants or lace his boots. He grabbed his
rifle and pack, clipped on the spade, and sprang to attention.

“To the jeep,” Barbatov commanded.

When they reached the training range, correctional-unit recruits were scattered all over the pitted terrain. Barbatov ordered all platoons to assemble along the obstacle course for a training demonstration. He shoved Levanter out of the jeep and kept him standing at attention while the troops gathered along the course. Barbatov stood up on his seat in the jeep.

“This is Private Levanter,” he shouted into a bullhorn, pointing to the solitary figure. “Like all his people, he got himself a better bargain: he is in charge of planning your exercises, but you have to do them. You see, Levanter thinks he is too smart to do them himself. And because he is so smart,” Barbatov said, drawing out the last word, his thick lips in a sneer, “Levanter will show you damn peasants how to do the exercises.” He looked down at Levanter and yelled, “Ready?”

Levanter saluted. He made his mind go blank.

“Attack!” screamed Barbatov, jumping out of the jeep. Crouching low, Levanter started to run, rifle in hand. “Machine-gun fire!” barked Barbatov. Levanter somersaulted over the parapet into the wet, freshly turned soil of the nearest trench. His pack and spade slipped off, nearly tripping him, and he barely managed to pick them up before the next command came. “Attack!” Already panting, Levanter clambered over the top of the trench. Just as he had begun to crawl forward, smelling the new grass, he heard Barbatov shout, “Hit the dirt!” and he dropped back down into the mud, which spattered into his eyes and clung to his mouth. The rough strap of his new helmet cut into his chin, and he could feel his coat ripping. Barbatov ran alongside. “Tanks. Dig in!” Levanter pulled out his spade, but the blade was locked. The students lining the course hooted raucously, shouting insulting words of advice. Levanter began scooping up the lumpy soil with his hands. Again Barbatov screamed, “Attack!” Levanter staggered to his feet. He was covered with mud and dirt and was having trouble breathing as his throat filled with phlegm and pain seared his chest. He tried to hurdle a trench but missed and fell into the crater. He scrambled
out and rolled over into the next one. His head was bleeding now, and as he plunged up against the breastwork his vision blurred. He was attempting to leap over another trench when his legs gave way and he pitched headfirst into the hole.

He came to slowly. In the distance he could hear the platoons marching away, the footsteps receding, the singing growing fainter. Filthy and aching all over, he found he was lying on Barbatov's coat. The captain knelt at his side, pouring coffee from a tin mug over his face, then wiping the mud off his forehead and cheeks with a handkerchief.

“There you are, silly boy,” he muttered, his face creased with worry. “All brains but no muscle!” He grinned and urged Levanter to his feet, steering him toward the jeep. As he drove, he kept glancing apologetically at his passenger. In the barracks, he helped Levanter remove his gear. Then he went to his quarters and returned with several bottles of his best beer.

One evening the following week, Barbatov completed the counterfeiting of a pass, winked at Levanter, and drove off to the village. At midnight, Levanter went into the captain's room. As usual, Barbatov had not taken his service revolver or his Party card, and he had also left behind the large map of the forthcoming divisional maneuvers, marked
SECRET.

Levanter rolled up the black window shade. To attract the military police, he turned on the light. In minutes, a jeep pulled up in front of the barracks, and two MPs dashed inside the quarters, calling Barbatov's name. Levanter showed them his papers and, with a straight face, explained that Captain Barbatov had gone into town for the evening. One of the MPs immediately phoned regimental headquarters and was informed that Barbatov had no authorization to leave the camp. The MPs confiscated the captain's revolver, his Party card, the divisional maneuvers map, and several blank passes they found. Then they locked and taped the door and left without another word.

The next morning Levanter was notified that Captain Barbatov was no longer in command of the correctional unit. Levanter was to assume the regular duties of a private. When he moved his gear
to a tent, the other soldiers greeted him with contempt and ridicule, snickering at him because his protector had been caught reentering camp drunk, carrying a false pass, and was to be court-martialed.

Later that same day, a sergeant entered the tent, called Levanter's name, and ordered him to collect his gear. Levanter was sure his falsification of the rosters had been discovered and he was about to be arrested. Instead, he was driven to Barbatov's barracks and ordered to report inside.

A slender man stood looking out the window. Levanter announced his presence, and the officer turned to face him. He was a middle-aged major wearing a rumpled uniform. He acknowledged Levanter's salute with a curt nod; no expression showed on his lined face.

“I can't find any correctional-unit training-program files or codes — only this cabalistic chart,” he said, gesturing toward the wall. “I am told that you worked closely with my predecessor, Captain Barbatov.”

“I did, Major,” replied Levanter. The officer waited. Levanter said no more.

“The program must go on,” the major said. “You will provide me with the same assistance that you gave Captain Barbatov. Understand?”

“Yes, sir!” Levanter responded. “I will need a specific authorization assigning me to your service.”

The major handed him a typewritten document. “I happen to have a blank transfer authorization, Private Levanter. It has already been signed by the regimental commander. You need only type your name in the empty space.”

Levanter knew he had to leave the East, but he knew also that he would need a profession that could support him in the West, a profession with a universal language. While he was finishing at the
university after his army service, Levanter enrolled in night courses at a school of photography. Before long, he had built his own darkroom and chemical laboratory.

In addition to his classes and darkroom work, he spent hours every week in the school's library examining the catalogues and magazines that described advancements in photographic art and reproduced the work of well-known photographers. Levanter soon learned that photography by its very nature depended on imitating reality in an imaginative, subjective way, but that usually a photographer's technical style could easily be reproduced.

To counteract imitations of his artistic methods, Levanter began to evolve his own techniques and a style that could not be readily copied. He used a camera adapted to his experiments, and films and papers coated with either existing emulsions that he modified or emulsions he made himself.

Less than two years after he began the course, he was invited to exhibit his work at national and international salons of photography. His photographs were reproduced in art publications, won prizes and awards, and a one-man exhibit of his photographs was organized in the capital. He received offers to work for domestic and foreign manufacturers of photographic products and was invited to exhibit his photographs and to lecture abroad by several Western art societies. Convinced that his work would be the finest form of advertising for the export of domestic photographic products, the authorities granted Levanter a short-term passport for his trip to the West.

During his last week in the Soviet Union, he walked through fields in the farthest suburb of Moscow and noticed remnants of the frail fence that had surrounded the tents of the traveling state circus. Now, in winter, the circus was gone, and the fence and field were abandoned.

It was snowing. The whirling powder had whitewashed the outlines of the railing. Between flurries, the fence looked like a good subject for a black-and-white photograph. Around him, the air was growing blustery; the winds seemed to have chosen the field as their arena, tumbling over each other, raising clouds of snow and
puffing them away. He had difficulty holding the camera steady.

A passer-by, hugging his coat, made his way along the wooden railing, which wound through the field like a frozen snake. Before the man vanished in the white squall, Levanter took the picture.

The cold and wind bit into him. Levanter thought that if he died here, his frostbitten body would not be discovered until spring came and the snows melted.

From far away came the sound of a motorcycle plowing through the drifts. Soon a burly state militia officer arrived, stopping his bike next to Levanter. The officer turned off the engine and removed his goggles.

“Your papers, please,” he said in an even voice.

“What have I done?” asked Levanter.

The officer looked from Levanter's face to his camera. “A man just reported that he saw someone taking pictures of this field. Is that you?”

Levanter nodded.

“Then your papers, please.” The officer extended his thickly gloved hand.

Without a word, Levanter took off his glove and reached under his coat. After a moment of digging through layers of sweaters, he produced his student I.D. card.

The officer glanced at the card, then silently put it in a leather bag hanging from his shoulder. He jerked his chin at Levanter's camera. “Open your camera, Comrade, and expose the film,” he said.

“But why?” asked Levanter.

“Because of what you photographed,” answered the officer patiently.

“I photographed this field,” Levanter said, “the fence that crosses it, and an old man who walked past.”

“What else?”

“What else is there, Comrade?” said Levanter. “There is nothing else. Here, take my camera. Whatever you see through the viewer is what I saw.” He held out his camera, but the officer pushed it back to him.

“You are here, on one of the coldest days of the year, in the middle of a storm, just to take pictures of an empty field, a broken fence, and some old man passing by.”

“I am!”

“That's a lie!” said the officer.

“It's the truth!” said Levanter.

“Tell the truth, or I'll arrest you!”

Levanter tried to sound patient. “I took a picture of an old man against the fence and the fence against the field. That's all.”