Jakob the Liar (18 page)

“What’s the matter with you today?” Jacob asked her. “No tea?”

Josefa didn’t turn around at once, but soon. With a forbidding expression she sat down, not beside him on the sofa but in the armchair opposite.

“Jacob Heym, I have to talk to you.”

“Go ahead,” he said, prepared for quite a lot but not for what came now.

“Do you know Avrom Minsen?”

“Should I know him?”

“Avrom Minsch is the man I came into your shop with on that very first day, if you happen to remember.”

“I remember all right. You told me at the time that he was a casual acquaintance.”

“This morning Avrom Minsch asked me to marry him.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Jacob, this is serious! It’s time you made up your mind!”

“Who, me?”

“Stop trying to be funny, Jacob. I’m now thirty-eight. I can’t go on living like this forever. He plans to join his brother in America, and he asked me whether I would go with him as his wife.”

What was Jacob supposed to answer? He didn’t care for a pistol being held to his head, even less for the fact that Avrom Minsch had been kept a secret from him until this minute. No one proposes marriage to a casual acquaintance; for this purpose one must be more than slightly acquainted with her, and for four years he had imagined that Josefa and he knew each other inside out. The fact that Josefa was now offering him first refusal, as it were, could not dispel Jacob’s disappointment, far from it. Silently he put on his shoes again, carefully avoided meeting her eyes until he reached the door, then by the open door said awkwardly, “I need some time to think about it.”

One thinks about it and thinks about it, and to this very day is still thinking about it; even two bonus hours aren’t long enough. A helpful person opens his window and calls softly across the courtyard, “Hey there!”

Jacob is startled and sees the moon coming up over the roof. He asks: “What is it?”

“You don’t live here, do you?”

“No.”

“It’s way past seven.”

“Thanks.”

Jacob pulls himself together, not stopping as he walks home, while further memory-fraught buildings are ignored: it’s already way past seven.

Lina is already in bed, and he has to explain why he is so late coming home from work: because there was much more to be loaded than usual. She chats away, not about personal worries such as fairy tales or tiresomely suspicious neighbors’ sons, and Jacob can’t very well ask. She knows how strenuous the days at the freight yard are, and now this extra work, he mustn’t stay too long, just give her a quick kiss and go down to his room, love is entirely mutual.

Jacob leaves her, with a conscience that could be clearer. On the stairs he plans to make it up to Lina, tomorrow or quite soon. At his own table, meanwhile, as he is about to start on his supper of bread and malt coffee, he is not dissatisfied with the day just past, all in all: at the freight yard the Jews had been modest in their demands, the battle of the Rudna was still having its effects; then the bonus of two nostalgic hours, a diverting little fairy tale at the attic door, a less diverting Aaron Ehrlicher, but then Josefa. Josefa still there, between the few mouthfuls, between the sips, you simply can’t get rid of the woman, what would have become of us two charmers if at Number 38 I had… ? Impossible to say, yet the question asked a thousand times over almost answers itself: a life halfway between heaven and hell, in other words, a perfectly ordinary life. How could it have turned out differently, and in what way, from those four familiar years? Years filled with variety, quarrels and misunderstandings, with moodiness, good times and some measure of contentment. And with a secret not discovered till the very last day. You simply can’t get this woman out of your head, until there’s a knock at the door.

There is a knock, and Jacob is tempted to call out immediately: “Come in, Kowalski!” That is to say, not exactly tempted, he merely assumes, but then he no longer assumes because it had been past seven over an hour ago, so it must be well past eight now, and even Kowalski isn’t that crazy. Jacob calls out: “Come in!”

Professor Kirschbaum is honoring Jacob at his supper, he trusts he’s not disturbing him, no not at all, won’t he please be seated, to what do we owe this rare pleasure?

Kirschbaum sits down, delays the start of the conversation with many and diverse looks, and succeeds in gaining Jacob’s concerned attention, except that Jacob doesn’t know for what.

“Can you not imagine why I have come to see you, Mr. Heym?”

His first thought: “Is it about Lina? Is she worse again?”

“I am not here about Lina. To come straight to the point: I am here to speak to you about your radio set.”

What a disappointment, what a shock, for a few hours the monster had been blissfully forgotten: now the battle of the Rudna will have to be dug up again. For your fellow citizens you are no longer a human being but the owner of the radio, the two being mutually exclusive, as has been clear for some time, and here it comes again. The right to the normal conversations of the old days has been forfeited. About the weather, or back pain, for which Kirschbaum would be an ideal conversation partner, or gossip about mutual acquaintances. There is no talk of important nothings when you’re around — you with your treasure are too good for that.

“You also want to hear the news,” says Jacob, more as a statement. Now he has Kirschbaum on his back too; never mind, one more or less.

“I do not wish to hear any news,” Kirschbaum says, however. “I am here to express my disapproval. I should have done so long ago.”

“Disapproval?”

“I do not know, my dear Mr. Heym, what motives led you to spread the information in question. But I find it difficult to imagine that you have given proper consideration to the danger to which you are thereby exposing us.”

Not news but disapproval, the ideas people have! No question, Kirschbaum is a very strange man. Do you, Professor, have to ruin my evening, my hard-earned free time? Do you have to make holier-than-thou speeches about matters over which my conscience was already struggling when for you my radio was an object hidden under seven seals? Do you have to tell
me?
Instead of patting me on the back and saying, Well done Mr. Heym, carry on, there is no medicine people need as much as hope. Or rather, not coming at all, for we learned long ago not to expect a pat on the back, yet here you come knocking at my door, damn you, and interfering and trying to teach me how to survive. And to top it all off I have to look interested because your concern is a thoroughly worthy one, because someday I may need you again for Lina, and I must also provide you with some good reasons for my action, although I can think of nothing that concerns you less. Just so that, after lengthy explanations, your learned lips are able to say: I see, yes of course, I understand.

“I need not tell you where we are living, my dear Mr. Heym,” says Kirschbaum.

“No, you need not,” says Jacob.

“And yet it seems to me essential. What would happen, for example, if this information were to come to the ears of the German gestapo? Have you thought of that?”

“Yes.”

“I find that impossible to believe. Otherwise you would have acted differently.”

“I see,” says Jacob. “Would I.”

Jacob gets up to take a walk, not the first one today, past table and bed and cupboard and Kirschbaum; his fury, since it cannot be put into words, has moved into his legs. But not all his fury, the room is too small for that; there remains for his voice an unmistakable residue that momentarily nettles Kirschbaum. When Jacob says, “Have you ever once seen their eyes when they beg me for news?

No? And do you know how badly they need some good news? Do you know that?”

“I can well imagine. Furthermore, I do not doubt that you are motivated by the best intentions. Nevertheless, I must —”

“Oh, you make me sick with your ‘nevertheless’! Isn’t it enough for you that we have almost nothing to eat, that in winter one in five of us freezes to death, that every day half a street gets taken away in transports? All that still isn’t enough? And when I try to make use of the very last possibility that keeps them from just lying down and dying — with words, do you understand? I try to do that with words! Because that’s all I have! — then you come and tell me it’s prohibited!”

Oddly enough it is at this moment that Jacob thinks of a cigarette, so he tells me, of an untipped Juno. What Kirschbaum is thinking of is anybody’s guess: whatever it is, he reaches into the pocket of his worn double-breasted suit and, hard though it is to believe, at this very moment pulls out a packet of cigarettes. And matches, and asks Jacob, with surprising politeness considering that barely concluded tirade: “Care for one?”

A question, that’s how civilized people behave, a tactful example perhaps, a good one, perhaps also a sign of some slight doubts arising, or neither. Silently they smoke and smooth their furrowed brows, whatever the explanation.

The greedily inhaled smoke not only creates a sense of well-being, it also tends to make a person more amenable. Let me tell you: as he smokes Jacob undergoes a change of mood, or something of the kind. Because a noble donor is sitting, intimidated, opposite him. Kirschbaum is helplessly twisting the cigarette between his thin fingers, scarcely daring to glance up, let alone open his mouth for anything but the next pull. Because uncontrolled outbursts are bound to follow: You make me sick with your “nevertheless.” Or: Isn’t that enough for you? And he had only come to have a talk with his neighbor: after all, a radio like that isn’t private property in this town, like a chair or a shirt. He has come not to accuse but to discuss an important matter in quiet debate, and now this. Then you come and tell me it’s prohibited. Kirschbaum did not leave, an indication of goodwill or excessive fear. He stayed, put his hand in his pocket like a magician, and fulfilled secret wishes, so surely he is entitled to a few neighborly words.

“Of course I’m aware that the Russians won’t arrive any more quickly,” Jacob says halfway through his cigarette. “And even if I tell people a thousand times, the Russians won’t alter their route. But I would like to draw your attention to one further detail. Since the news has been passed around in the ghetto, I haven’t heard of a single suicide. Have you?”

At that Kirschbaum looks astonished and says: “You’re right!”

“And before that there were many, nobody knows that better than you. I can remember your being called on many occasions, and usually it was too late.”

“Why didn’t I notice that?” Kirschbaum asks.

O
n one of the following days there is a sensation: a car drives through our little town, the only passenger car in our long story. A sensation, yes, but nothing to rouse hopes, not even in the most imaginative among those bold theorists: one is inclined to say, quite the contrary. It drives purposefully, unerringly; the exact route must have been studied in advance on a map of the town. The car is black; the streets empty as it proceeds. In the back sit two men in civilian clothes; behind the steering wheel, a well-pressed uniform. The only ones who are of any importance are the two in the back. That is to say, they’re not all that important either; in fact, the whole car isn’t important, in spite of its SS pennant, neither does it matter where it comes from or where it’s going or whom it is conveying. Or just a little important, shall we say, or not entirely unimportant in terms of the consequences.

The names of the two men are Preuss and Meyer. I know what they are talking about; I don’t know what they are thinking about, although that is no insoluble riddle. I can tell you their ranks, if pressed, even a rough outline of their careers, hence also their names. Later, when it comes to explaining, I shall unfortunately have to intervene clumsily and directly in the action to make sure no gap remains. The explanation will provide a stopgap, but that will come later; first the gap must be visible in its entirety.

The car stops beside Siegfried and Rafael, who, as usual, are hanging around in the street, at the curb, the only heroes far and wide who are not hiding. All the other Jews, neither blind nor crippled, are standing behind their windows or in sheltering corridors, trembling for two crazy children and for the as-yet-uncertain harm the German car can be expected to cause here. But many of those in the know will be thinking that the harm is not all that uncertain, since after all the car is not stopping at random: it is stopping outside Jacob Heym’s building.

Preuss and Meyer get out of the car, on a special mission. Preuss is rather tall, with brown hair, slim, good-looking, maybe a bit on the soft side; Meyer, as described to me, a head shorter, beefy, at first sight fiercely determined. Presumably a carefully chosen combination: what one man lacks, the other has, and vice versa, thus complementing each other nicely. They enter the building.

“Do you know which apartment?” Preuss asks.

“One floor up,” says Meyer. “The names are probably on the doors.”

One floor up, Jacob lives two floors up, yet they walk up only one floor, as far as Kirschbaum's door. After knocking politely they wait patiently outside the door, until a woman’s voice, whose tone betrays that visitors are highly unwelcome, asks, “Who is it?”

“Open up, please.”

Although this is not a very plausible reason for opening, a key is fumblingly inserted in the lock, then turned, and the door opens, first just a crack, then with no further hesitation. Quite unnecessarily, Meyer places his foot on the threshold. Facing them is Elisa

Kirschbaum, old and severe, with well-concealed fear. Her much-mended apron does not deceive: Preuss and Meyer are not being scrutinized by some nonentity; the way she holds her head is enough to tell them that they are being scrutinized by a masterful woman. The fear is well concealed, the contempt not; a cool look into the faces of two tiresome visitors, then a glance at Meyer’s foot making its crudely superfluous statement on the threshold. Meyer is doing his best to control himself. 

“Yes?”

“Good morning,” says Preuss politely; perhaps he has no choice under such scrutiny. “We wish to speak to Professor Kirschbaum.” 

“He is not in.”

“Then we’ll wait,” says Preuss firmly. He walks past her through the door, and at last Meyer can detach his unyielding foot from its position. He follows Preuss. They look around the room: What’s all this talk, they don’t seem so badly off here, sideboard with knick-knacks, sofa and two armchairs, a bit shabby, true, but still, bookcase crammed with books, like in the movies, a fancy ceiling light, almost a chandelier, these people are living in the lap of luxury here. Maybe only this fellow Kirschbaum, supposed to have been some kind of an authority, special rations and all that. They’re certainly smart, these kikes, always managing to wriggle through and making themselves at home everywhere.

Meyer flops onto the sofa, but not Preuss, because Elisa Kirschbaum is still standing by the door with the air of a person awaiting an explanation.

“Are you Professor Kirschbaum's wife?” asks Preuss.

“I am his sister.”

“You won’t mind if I have a seat.” Preuss also sits down, in an armchair, crosses his legs, plenty of time, Elisa Kirschbaum remains standing. But eventually she has to ask, “Kindly tell me what this is about.”

“None of your bloody business,” says Meyer. He can’t remain silent any longer; what’s going on here already seems weird enough to him, farce, pure farce, but he wants no part of it. In response to an insolent question he means to give more than an answer, he needs to straighten out the world a bit, or else where will it all end.

Well, Elisa Kirschbaum is hardly in a position to call the maid and tell her to show this boor the way out; her arsenal is as empty as can be. But at least she can punish Meyer by ignoring him, turning to Preuss and demanding frostily, “Would you please tell this gentleman that he is not in his own home and that I am not accustomed to such behavior?”

Meyer is ready to explode, is about to jump up, burst forth, cry out, but Preuss gives him an official look, special mission, then says, “You are absolutely right. Please accept our apologies.”

“You were going to tell me why you are here.”

“I think I would prefer to tell that to Professor Kirschbaum personally. Do you know when he will be back?”

“No. Not later than eight o’clock.”

She sits down in the vacant armchair, very upright, and places her hands in her lap. They wait. I feel safe in saying that Kirschbaum arrives after about half an hour; the time is passed with trivialities. For example, Meyer lights a cigar and throws the match on the floor; Elisa Kirschbaum picks it up, brings him an ashtray, and opens the window. Meyer is a shade disconcerted.

Or: Preuss gets up after drumming a minute or two on the table; he is interested in the bookcase. Sliding open the glass panel, he tilts his head to one side, reads the titles on the spines, then picks out a book, leafs through it, then another, leafs through that one, all this for several minutes, then puts them back in their proper places.

“They are all medical books, every one of them,” says Elisa Kirschbaum. 

“So I see.”

“We have a permit for them,” she says. And, since Preuss continues to study more titles: “Perhaps you wish to see it?” 

“No, thank you.”

He finds one that appeals to him especially, sits down, and has found something to occupy him.
Forensic Medicine
.

Or: suddenly Meyer jumps up, dashes to a door, flings it open, looks into an empty kitchen, is reassured, sits down.

“You never know,” he explains to Preuss, who goes on reading.

Or: again Meyer gets up, this time without haste, goes to the window, looks down. He sees two women dragging two children away from the car into the building opposite, sees in that building a face behind almost every windowpane; the uniform is standing beside the car, bored.

“May be a while yet,” Meyer calls, then sits down again. As I said, half an hour.

Or: Elisa Kirschbaum goes into the kitchen, where she is heard moving about, and returns with a tray. Two supper plates, two cups, knives, forks, teaspoons, two linen napkins. She sets the table. Preuss hardly looks up from his book, whereas Meyer feels things are getting out of hand. Preuss hardly looks up from his book and says: “Let her be.”

After about half an hour the professor arrives. He can be heard trying to insert his key in the lock, but there is another key in it, on the inside. Meyer stubs out his cigar, in the ashtray. Preuss puts the book down on the table, between the plates. Elisa Kirschbaum opens the door.

Alarmed, the professor pauses in the doorway, no use pretending, though he is not totally unprepared: the car down there outside the building. He would have hoped, of course, that it had something to do with Heym — that is to say, not hoped but assumed; he had merely hoped that it had nothing to do with himself. In vain. Preuss stands up.

“We have visitors,” says Elisa Kirschbaum. She picks up
Forensic Medicine
from the table, puts it back in the bookcase, slides the panel shut. With a cloth taken from her apron pocket she wipes away any possible finger marks.

“Professor Kirschbaum?” Preuss asks at last.

“Yes?”

“My name is Preuss.” Then a look toward Meyer. 

“I’m Meyer,” growls Meyer.

They abstain from shaking hands. Preuss asks, “Do you know Hardtloff?”

“You mean the head of the gestapo?”

“I mean Sturmbannführer Hardtloff. He requests your presence.”

“He requests my presence?”

Now Elisa Kirschbaum has to struggle to remain calm, as, incidentally, Meyer does too: requests his presence, the whole tone here, what a farce. Preuss says: “Yes. He had a heart attack this morning.”

The professor sits down, looks helplessly at his sister, who is now standing as stiffly as if turned to stone: Hardtloff had a heart attack this morning.

“I don’t quite understand.”

“He wishes you to examine him,” said Preuss. “Although I can imagine that you feel no particular grief at the sufferings of the Sturmbannführer. You have no cause for alarm.”

“But…”

“What do you mean, but?” Meyer asks.

More glances toward the sister: his entire life she has removed all unpleasant situations from his path; with her cool head, her clear vision, her keen mind, she has kept every annoyance from him, hence one last look in her direction.

“Dis-leur que tu n’en as plus l’habitude,” she says.

“What’s she saying?” Meyer asks Preuss and also stands up to his full height.

“Please, you must realize,” says the professor. “What you are asking of me is out of the question. Under no circumstances could I as a doctor take the responsibility, after so many years, my … After all, it’s four years since I treated a patient.”

Preuss remains admirably calm and places a soothing hand on the shoulder of the belligerent Meyer: special mission. Then he steps up to the professor, too close for comfort. His eyes express reproach, but not coldly, let alone angrily — compassionately rather, as if wishing to recall an impetuous person to his senses before it is too late. “I am almost afraid, Professor, that you have misunderstood me,” he says. “We are not here to plead with you. Please don’t make things difficult for us.”

“But I just told you…”

“Do you need to take anything with you?” Preuss asks firmly.

With that the professor finally grasps that he need not look for further excuses; these two are not motivated by any desire to test their powers of persuasion. The relative courtesy of this man Preuss is his personal mark and does not entitle one to anything. So the professor must forget all the ifs and buts and strive to emulate his sister, to be as aloof and dignified as she. At least this much, at least now, all his life he has admired her for this, admired more than feared; some people say she is rather odd. He is not going to offer two German creatures the spectacle of collapse, did he need to take anything with him was the question, he is not going to fall on his knees before them — look at the way Elisa stands there! That cannot be imitated at first shot, but normal, everyday gestures can be found, an impassive expression as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred: a dignitary has been taken ill, he has been asked to have a look at him, run-of-the-mill stuff.

“Do we understand each other correctly?” Preuss asks.

The professor gets up. Below the bookcase are doors; he opens one and looks for his brown leather doctor’s bag.

“It’s in the cupboard,” says Elisa Kirschbaum.

He takes the bag out of the cupboard, opens it, checks the contents, then holds it out to Preuss, who doesn’t bother to look inside.

“Medical equipment.”

“Good enough.”

Elisa Kirschbaum opens the cupboard again: a scarf, she holds it out to her brother.

“I won’t need it. It’s warm outside,” he says.

“You will need it,” says Elisa Kirschbaum. “You don’t know how chilly it gets after eight.”

He stuffs the scarf in his pocket, Meyer opens the door, the parting is at hand.

“Good-bye, Elisa.”

“Good-bye.”

That’s what a parting looks like.

Then, outside the building, they get into the car, no doubt according to a preplanned seating arrangement: Preuss and the professor in the back, Meyer in front beside the uniform. Elisa is standing at the window, the whole street is standing at windows, but only the one is open. The car makes a U-turn, driving over the low curb; a pale blue cloud hangs in the air for a few seconds. At the end of the street the car turns left, heading for Hardtloff.

Preuss snaps open a silver cigarette case and asks, “Care for one?”

“No, thanks,” says Kirschbaum.

Meyer shakes his head without turning around and casts a sidelong glance at the uniform to see what it thinks of this farce; the uniform merely grins while looking straight ahead. Preuss observes the two in the rearview mirror, but Kirschbaum doesn’t; he sits there as if reluctant to waste a single movement.

“Why don’t you put your bag on the floor?” Preuss asks. “We’ve still got quite a long way to go.”

“About how long?”

“Oh, about half an hour.”

Kirschbaum keeps his bag on his knees.

They reach the ghetto gate, they stop. Meyer winds down the window. A sentry sticks his helmet in and asks, “Who’s that old codger you’ve got in there?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know him!” cries Meyer. “Why, that’s the famous professor Kirschbaum!”

Preuss shows the sentry a permit and says, very formally, “Open the gate. We’re in a hurry.”

“Right away — no harm meant,” says the sentry, giving a hand signal to another sentry, who releases the barrier and pushes open the gate.