Jakob the Liar (20 page)

H
ardtloff is dead, died of a weak heart. The news has come all the way to us here at the freight yard. It must have happened last night. When we left the yard yesterday after work, the flag was hanging limply at its normal spot on the redbrick building, but this morning when we turned up for work it was fluttering gaily at half-mast, so it happened sometime in between. Of course the flag in itself is only a vague clue, betraying merely that someone high up has passed on, without giving any name. The name was supplied by a sentry while he was talking to another sentry: at some point during the morning Roman Schtamm overheard the revealing conversation. He approached a stack of crates, with nothing reprehensible in mind, and the two sentries were standing behind it discussing Hardtloff’s death. It was a fluke. Roman took a little longer than usual over the lifting of the crate, only managing to complete the job when the two sentries changed the subject.

By this time every one of us knows for whom the flag is flying at half-mast, Roman having seen no reason to keep it to himself. It can be said that we bear the news with composure; it will scarcely mean any change for us. If there is ever to be any, it won’t be as a result of Hardtloff’s death; nevertheless, worse things can be imagined. Only Jacob regrets that it was Roman Schtamm and not he who overheard the sentries’ conversation: the Sturmbannführern misfortune would have yielded an excellent radio report. Not only because of the content: it would have been the first report that didn’t have to be accepted in good faith. Everyone would have had a chance to verify its truth, with his own eyes and without effort — the confirmation has been flying from the flagpole since early this morning. To tell them now that one had heard about Hardtloff’s death on the early morning news would be pretty senseless, what’s past is past, a radio has its pride, it doesn’t come limping in the wake of events.

When the Whistle blows punctually for soup time, Jacob finally abandons this pleasant train of thought. The little cart with the tin bowls is pulled over, and we form the customary impeccable line.

Someone behind Jacob asks softly, “Were you listening again last night?”

“Yes,” says Jacob.

“Did they say anything about Hardtloff?” 

“Don’t be daft! Do you imagine they’re concerned with such trivial stuff?”

Someone in front of Jacob asks, “What stations do you listen to?” 

“Whatever’s available,” says Jacob. “Moscow, London, Switzerland, depends on the weather too.” 

“Never any German stations?” 

“What for?”

“Do you sometimes listen to music too?”

“Not very often,” says Jacob. “Only when I’m waiting for the news. I’m not keeping the radio for entertainment, you know.”

“I’d give anything to hear some music again. Any music,” says someone in front of the man in front of Jacob.

The cauldrons of soup are a long time coming, yet the line is as straight as an arrow, word of honor. The men automatically continue to correct any irregularities, even the almost imperceptible ones, but that doesn’t bring on the cauldrons this time. Instead the window in the gable of the brick building opens, a hand commands silence, a voice calls out from above sounding like the irate Almighty in person: “Ten-minute break! No lunch today!”

The cart with its bowls is pushed away again, the hungry line loses its neatness and spreads out over the yard. Unused spoons are returned to pockets, a few oaths, curses, and angry looks, The Russians will show you bastards.

Kowalski comes up to me and asks, “No food for us because Hardtloff is dead?”

“Obviously,” I say.

“If you ask me,” says Kowalski, “it’s worth it.”

He wasn’t exactly rewarded with gales of laughter; no midday meal, that really hurts, like a blow to the stomach. But Kowalski in his kind way attempts another modest joke: “Just imagine if every time one of us kicks the bucket the Germans get nothing to eat — what a fine starvation that would be!”

No response.

As Jacob walks to the spot he has chosen for those ten minutes he is followed by a faithful little bevy of Jews. Kowalski drops back to join them before Jacob actually misses him. Jacob knows they are behind him; the meal has been canceled so a word from him will have to do instead. He goes to an empty railcar where they can all find a place to sit down, a thoughtfulness that has long become a habit. Jacob doesn’t feel quite comfortable: he had intended to rest a bit on yesterday’s laurels, on the liberation of the little town of Tobolin. With our enthusiastic approval, Major Karthäuser had set his name with a flourish to the document of surrender, the fortress had fallen; but that was yesterday. No one could have foreseen the desperate need of the following day. Jacob sits unprepared in the midst of his flock.

Suddenly, so I am told, as they are sitting there looking at him, for he is expected to start his report right away, he is struck by a wicked thought that drives out Tobolin and all other victories. Suddenly he realizes that two pieces of news have reached the freight yard today, although only one of them was immediately grasped: Hardtloff. The other, the bad one, has been ignored, although it has been in the air, clear and unmistakable: the only thing needed was the effort. “The news isn’t that good at all, I’m sorry to say,” Jacob announces gravely.

“What news do you mean?”

“That Hardtloff is dead.”

“Did you care about him?” comes a mocking voice.

“Not about him,” says Jacob, “but about Kirschbaum.”

Reluctantly they must agree, it’s not easy, a convincing correlation that most of them understand without any further explanation. The way things are, a Jewish doctor is not likely to survive his Aryan patient for long, in this particular case not at all. “Who’s Kirschbaum?” someone asks; it’s impossible to know everyone. It is explained to him: a leading light, at one time a famous heart specialist, here Jacob’s neighbor, was picked up and taken away to cure Hardtloff. Now belatedly a quiet grieving for the professor; the ten minutes pass without questions or reports of successes. Jacob could have wished for a different distraction. He feels an urge to dispense some sort of consolation, one can’t let them sit there hungry like that. The old story about the secret German plans that fell into Russian hands in the fortress of Tobolin flashes across his mind. But the Whistle preserves him from this folly by putting an end in the usual way to the midday meal that today was so singularly lacking in flavor.

Thus in spite of Hardtloff’s death the day passes dismally, and continues to do so. In the midst of work a tank wagon appears, drawn by two scrawny horses; the sight is familiar, as is the rattling that can be heard a long way off. On an average it turns up once every three months, less often in summer, somewhat more often in winter, when the ground is frozen, but always on a Monday. Its visit has to do with the little German hut with the heart in the door: for three months the hut can manage without it, but no longer than that, or it will overflow.

The wagon is driven by a farmer from somewhere in the surrounding countryside; no one knows how he came by this honor. We can’t stand him. On his first visit the Germans forbade him to talk to any of us, and he strictly obeys this rule. At first, long before Jacob’s radio, we tried to coax a word out of him, we didn’t know ourselves what kind of a word, any tiny detail from the outside. There would have been no danger, but he would sit there with compressed lips, not saying a word and squinting over at the distant sentries. He probably feared for his head or his manure. Or he is anti-Semitic, or quite simply an idiot.

He stops his wagon behind the outhouse. A German comes out of the brick building and walks in among the men, who all pretend to be terribly busy as soon as the hateful rattling is heard. The job for which four men are now to be picked is no easier than lugging crates; afterward you stink to high heaven and can’t wash till you get home.

“You, you, you, and you,” says the German.

Schmidt, Jacob, and two strangers grit their teeth as they walk behind the outhouse and begin the filthy job. They take the two shovels and the two buckets hanging from the side of the wagon, and Jacob and the lawyer lift the cover off the pit. They proceed to shovel the muck into the buckets, which the other two empty into the tank. Schmidt’s disgusted expression doesn’t help matters. It’ll take about three hours, and at halftime they switch, shovels for buckets.

“Have you ever done this before?” asks Schmidt.

“Twice.”

“I never have.”

The farmer is seated on the wagon with his back to them. He takes a little parcel out of his pocket, waxed paper, unwraps it, bread and bacon. The sun low, the world well forgotten, he enjoys his noon or evening meal, Jacob’s eyes fill with tears.

The older of the two bucket carriers begs the farmer for a mouthful, with a muttered explanation as to what happened to his lunch, just a little piece of bread, we won’t even mention bacon. The farmer seems undecided; as Jacob shovels he observes the farmer’s oafish eyes raking the yard for watchers, of whom none is interested in the proceedings behind the outhouse.

“Don’t be scared,” says our man. “You don’t have to speak to us. Just drop a piece of bread, you know, by mistake. No one can blame you for that. I’ll pick it up so no one’ll notice…. Do you hear? No one, not even you, will notice it!”

“Could you eat in this stench?” Schmidt asks.

“Yes,” says Jacob.

The farmer puts his hand in his pocket again, brings out the waxed paper, carefully wraps up what’s left of the bread and bacon, and stows it away. Either he has had enough, or he really has lost his appetite. Just an ample gulp from his canteen, and he wipes his mouth with his dirty sleeve.

“Asshole” is what he has to hear, but not even this filthy epithet makes him come alive.

Shortly before it’s time to switch, Schmidt slows down noticeably in his shoveling. Finally he stops entirely, claiming that he can’t go on, that everything is turning before his eyes, black spots. Sweating, he leans against the back wall of the outhouse.

“It’s because you haven’t had any food,” says Jacob.

That’s no help to Schmidt; big drops of sweat run down his face; he tries to throw up, but nothing comes. Jacob fills a bucket in his place, the carriers are forced to wait, not a long-term solution.

“You have to keep going,” Jacob says.

“That’s easy for you to say,” gasps Schmidt, leaning back and very pale.

“Either you keep going now, or you might as well just lie down and die,” says Jacob.

This appeals even less to Lawyer Schmidt. He picks up his shovel again and on unsteady legs starts filling the waiting bucket. He groans; it looks like a desperate effort doomed, one fears, to failure. The shovel pokes around on the surface, not going as deep as it should, so that it is pulled out of the muck only half full, more work for Jacob.

“By the way, I’ve heard something from your Mr. Churchill,” says Jacob, in an undertone so that the farmer can’t understand anything no matter how hard he tries.

“From Winston Churchill?” says Schmidt, weakly yet with audible interest.

“He has a cold.”

“Is it serious?”

“No, no, just an ordinary cold. He sneezed through half the interview.”

“A whole interview?”

“A short one.”

“And what did he say?”

Jacob indicates that this is not a suitable place for a chat: those sentries over there, at the moment they are concerned with other things, but in three hours one of them is sure to come over and check, and by that time the pit must be empty. So a report only if it can be camouflaged with work. Schmidt sees the point, his grip on the shovel grows firmer by necessity, the drops on his forehead remain the same, What did Churchill say?

Jacob tells him; the cellar conversation between the reporter and the British prime minister is still in his memory, although no longer quite so fresh. The situation on the eastern front, without naming any towns, in any case desperate for the Germans, those were his own words, a great colorful bouquet of good prospects. And Mr. Churchill can well afford an opinion, wouldn’t you say, from his vantage point? Of course, there are still some problems here and there — I ask you, in what kind of a war does everything go without a hitch?

And there are also differences between Schmidt and Lina, considerable ones, that must be taken into account. You aren’t sitting with a little girl in a dusky basement, for fun, as it were, or for love; you are standing in the sunshine with the highly educated Schmidt, every word must be weighed, in three hours the pit must be empty of muck.

O
n the morning of this day, which has been earmarked for the advance on the district town of Pry — the Russians won’t quite reach it but will come a good deal closer to it, Jacob has decided — on the morning of this promising day Mischa while on his way to work notices an agitated little group standing in the street. They point first in one direction and then another, two of them are talking excitedly, the others are listening in dismay. Mischa is not going to walk past without finding out what’s going on. Then he hears the name of a street, Franziskaner; Mischa grabs the man nearest him by the arm, pulls him out of the hubbub, and insists he tell him for heaven’s sake what’s happening in Franziskaner-Strasse. He is quickly told, A disaster has overtaken it, the people living in that street are being lined up in rows of three. A house-to-house search is under way, they have just got as far as Number 10, in a few hours there won’t be a soul left living there, off to camp or God knows where. “And the Russians are said to have already taken Tobolin,” the man says.

Mischa dashes off. The fate of Franziskaner-Strasse affects him more than in a general way, for that street is a very special one: Rosa lives in it. The man said they had just reached Number 10, which means only a few minutes ago, normally by this hour Rosa is already at the factory. Mischa blames himself for not having simply made her stay with him every night, especially last night. He will go to her factory, the sentry at the gate won’t let him in, but he can hang about close by. Until they come off work, Mischa himself will be a sentry, because Rosa must be prevented from going home. He hopes to God he won’t have to spend the entire day watching an empty factory; if Rosa left home on time, she must be in there, that’s his only hope. Mischa runs, why so fast, he doesn’t know himself, Rosa won’t be coming off work for a long time, he runs.

Outside the building, a gray brick garment factory, the world looks quite normal. Mischa stands on the opposite side of the street; no one else is about. He is prepared for a long day, but it proves to be much shorter than expected. A Jewish girl emerges from the factory, and Mischa wonders why she is coming out during working hours; she strolls aimlessly across the roadway, past him. Mischa stands there hesitating until she has almost reached the next corner, then follows her. She soon notices it, coquettishly turns her head, once, then again; a blue-eyed, broad-shouldered young man is, after all, a rarity in the ghetto, and in broad daylight at that. She slows down at once, she has no objection to being overtaken, and that finally happens too; just past the corner he is standing beside her.

“Excuse me,” says Mischa. “Do you work in that factory?”

“Yes,” she says with a smile.

“Do you happen to know whether Rosa Frankfurter is still in there?”

She considers this for a few seconds before saying: “You’re Mischa, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he replies. “Is she inside?”

“She left a few minutes ago. She was told she could go home today.”

“How many is that, a few minutes?” his voice already shrill. “How many, exactly?”

“Ten, maybe,” she answers, surprised at his sudden agitation.

Again he rushes off, feverishly calculating that he can make it if ten minutes is correct. From here to Franziskaner-Strasse would take Rosa almost half an hour, more if she’s not hurrying, and she’s not likely to be. They told her she could go home, without giving any reason, the bastards, so there’s no need to hurry. All at once Mischa turns on his heel, dashes back the same way, an oversight must be corrected, an unforgivable one. The girl is slowly coming toward him and smiles again.

“Did they send you home too?” he calls out while still some distance away.

“Yes.”

“Don’t go home! Hide somewhere!”

He hears her calling after him: “But why?”

“Because Franziskaner-Strasse is being deported!”

“But I don’t live there, I live in Sagorsker-Strasse!”

This awkward exchange costs him far too much time. So Sagorsker-Strasse too. He has told her all he knows; she can draw her own conclusions and save her life or not. If she’s smart, she’ll stand outside the factory and tell each of the women being sent home, “Don’t go home, hide somewhere, never mind where you live!” All this is going through his head long after he has started running again, to catch up with Rosa, and that Franziskaner- and Sagorsker-Strasse don’t even meet: between them is Blumenbinder-Gasse, which doesn’t have many houses, mostly open storage places that are not being used these days, except for a few. And beyond each new corner he looks for Rosa. Maybe she isn’t even taking the shortest route, maybe she’s going for a stroll in this nice weather and wants to make the most of the unexpected free day. If she is really taking her time, he can’t fail to reach Franziskaner-Strasse ahead of her, and he could occupy one end and intercept her. But only one end, Franziskaner-Strasse has two ends, which of those ends do you propose to occupy, and at this hour you won’t find anyone to help you at any price. For a moment, a new glimmer of hope flares up: Mischa is banking on Rosa’s instinct for self-preservation. Regardless of which end she appears at, she will see what’s happening to her street. Perhaps she’ll turn around then, run to his building, stay hidden in the courtyard, and wait until he arrives in the evening with the key. But Mischa doesn’t rely too heavily on that, he knows her too well, his crazy Rosa won’t be able to banish her love for her father and mother from her head, all that useless girlish stuff. The best she’ll be able to manage at that sight will be a hesitation, then she’ll burst into tears and run straight into her doom, to where her parents are, who can well do without her, and all this won’t help a soul.

All calculations come to an end when at last he sees her in a long, straight street. In Argentinische-Allee, whose linden trees have been carefully chopped down, close to the ground, resulting in a wide, clear vista. The street is virtually empty; he recognizes her rustcolored dress when it is still only a dot, then her blue headscarf, her walk — slow, as he had foreseen. What luck, Mischa thinks.

Within a short distance of her he stops running and follows her quietly for a few steps. Rosa is looking at the fine old gables in this once-prosperous merchants’ area; Rosa is out for a stroll. His last thoughts before making himself known are that his behavior must seem perfectly natural: he happens to be on his way to her home because he has heard that the factory has given her the day off. Nothing about great anxiety, not a word about the fate of Franziskaner-Strasse, that would only remind her of her love for her parents.

He intends to put his hands over her eyes from behind and in a disguised voice ask her to guess who it is; that would be a harmless enough way to begin. He notices that his hands are sticky with sweat, his face too; he wipes it dry with his sleeve and says with forced casualness, “Fancy meeting you here!”

She quickly turns around, startled at first, then smiles, the prettiest girls smile at Mischa. “What are you doing here?” she asks.

“And what are you doing here?”

“I’m on my way home,” she says. “Just imagine, I was at the factory less than an hour and I was allowed to leave!”

“Why?”

“No idea. They simply told me I could go home. A few others too, but not everyone.”

“The same thing happened to me,” Mischa says. “Have you got the day off too? The whole day?” 

“Yes.”

“Wonderful!”

She links her arm through his; a solitary passer-by looks in wonderment at young love.

“We’ll go to my room,” says Mischa.

“But how do you happen to be here of all places?”

“Because I wanted to fetch you from the factory. When they gave me the day off, I thought maybe they’d let you off today too.”

“You’re a clever one.”

“But you had just left. A girl told me so, a cute-looking girl with red hair.”

“That was Larissa,” she says.

They go to his place, in no hurry, for the direction doesn’t worry him, Franziskaner-Strasse being off to the left. Rosa tells him about Larissa, that she had sometimes spoken to Larissa about Mischa, Rosa hopes he doesn’t mind, they sew at the same table, and the day is long. Larissa is still water that runs deep, one mustn’t be deceived by her dreamy eyes. For instance, she also has a boyfriend, his name is Neidorf, Josef, she calls him Jossele, he works in a tool factory, Mischa wouldn’t know him. They live in the same building, Larissa has a mother and two grown-up brothers, and a funny thing happened with the two brothers. They once gave Josef Neidorf a beating when they caught him with their sister in the attic, doing what, do you suppose? Necking and kissing, of course, but Larissa let them have it all right. Meanwhile they’ve calmed down; they realize she is no longer a child; Jossele is sometimes even allowed to visit her at home, just for a chat of course. And abruptly, in the midst of her flow of talk, Rosa stops and asks: “Why on earth would they suddenly give us a whole day off?”

“How should I know?”

“But there must be a reason.”

He shrugs, he had hoped she wouldn’t bring up the subject. He can’t give her an answer, but she’s right, it is strange.

“I wonder if it has anything to do with the Russians,” she says.

“With the Russians?”

“I mean, if they feel that the game is up and they want to try and make themselves popular while there’s still time,” says Rosa. “Don’t you see? Thinking ahead.”

“Maybe,” says Mischa, having no better explanation to offer.

So on they stroll toward his place, Rosa chattering away as never before, out of sheer lightheartedness. Mischa lets her chatter on without interruption; she has much more to talk about than just Larissa: Klara and Annette and above all Nina are having affairs, and what affairs! Furthermore, her father is at last beginning to have some tentative thoughts about the future. Two evenings ago he placed a curious piece of paper on the table, says Rosa. On it, divided into three groups, were theatrical roles corresponding to his ideas of what he hopes one day to perform, God willing; the theater management has denied them to him long enough. Rosa doesn’t know the details, she doesn’t understand enough about the theater for that, but there were at least twenty.

At the front door an unpleasant thought strikes Mischa: no work means no midday meal today. He asks Rosa whether she happens to have her ration card with her. Sorry, she’s left it at home; wouldn’t you know it, he thinks. Should she quickly go and get it; No, she shouldn’t. He gives her the key, he’ll follow in a few minutes, and goes off with his own ration card.

In the shop Mischa is the only customer; normally after work there’s never less than a half-hour wait.

“So early?” asks Rosenek the well nourished. His scales are suspected of inaccuracy, always in the same direction, only they could have provided him with that potbelly. Although he tries to hide the little monster with an outsize overall, overall and Rosenek cannot deceive: no overall, no matter how big, can hide those pudgy cheeks.

“They’ve given us the day off,” says Mischa.

“Day off? What does that mean?”

“A day off.”

Mischa puts his food coupons down on the counter in front of Rosenek, all of them.

“It’s only Tuesday,” says Rosenek in surprise, as a reminder. 

“Never mind.” 

“Well, it’s up to you.”

From a floury drawer behind him Rosenek takes out a round loaf that doesn’t smell of bread like in the old days, puts it on the counter, groans as he cuts it in two with a serrated knife, then places one half on the famous scales, the deceitful brass weights ranged like organ pipes.

“Please weigh properly,” Mischa says. 

“What’s that supposed to mean? I always weigh properly!” Mischa is not about to engage in hairsplitting, which will lead nowhere, so he says: “Be sure to weigh properly. I have a guest.” 

“A guest? What does that mean?”

“A guest.”

Rosenek discovers his heart and gives Mischa the other half of the loaf, the alleged half, without placing it on the scales. Two pocketfuls of potatoes come next, Mischa having nothing else to carry them in, then a small bag of ground dried peas, some sausage, more so in appearance than in essence, and a little package of malt coffee.

“The coupons also say something about fat,” Mischa says. 

“So they do! Do they also say where I’m supposed to get it from?”

“Mr. Rosenek,” says Mischa.

Rosenek looks at him as if faced with the most difficult decision of his life, You’ll be the death of me yet, my boy. “Do you need the coffee?” Rosenek asks.

“Not that badly.”

Rosenek persists for a while longer in his long-suffering pose, finally picks up the little package of coffee from the counter, and goes off into an adjoining room. He returns bearing a piece of waxed paper. At first sight it appears to be nothing but a folded piece of paper, but then it is clear that there is something wrapped in it. Fat. To judge by his expression, Rosenek has cut it out of his own belly.

“Because it’s you,” says Rosenek. “But for heaven’s sake don’t tell anyone!”

“What do you take me for?”

Mischa arrives upstairs with his spoils. Rosa marvels at what he has brought; she has opened the window wide.

“Otherwise the sun will think no one’s home and will go away again, Mother says,” she says.

Mischa puts Rosenek’s largesse away in the cupboard and empties his pockets of the earth from the potatoes. Rosa calls him to the window: he doesn’t like the sound of her voice. Leaning out beside her, he sees a gray procession approaching, still too distant to make out details. So far the only sound is of the dogs barking, intermittently and unnecessarily since no one is getting out of line.

“Which street is it today?” Rosa asks.

“I don’t know.”

He pulls her away from the window and shuts it, but he can’t prevent her remaining behind the windowpane and waiting for the procession to pass by. “Let me look,” Rosa says. “Maybe there’ll be people we know.”

“Are you hungry?” he asks. “Shall we make ourselves something?”

“Not now.”

He saves himself the trouble of further offers, knowing that her answer to any suggestion from him would be “Not now.” Only force could separate her from the window — quite silly, really, because she has no idea whom she will see in the procession, but she fancies that in such situations she mustn’t hide her head in the sand. A kind of rule of the game for Rosa: that’s how she is. The simplest would be to grab her, throw her on the bed, and start kissing her as if obeying an uncontrollable impulse. Mischa takes his first step in this direction, but at the second his courage deserts him; Rosa knows him too well and would immediately see through his ruse. He has no choice but to leave her standing there until the terrible sight: there is no way she can be spared that.