Judenstaat (30 page)

A nation must live and a nation must grow. A nation must look towards the future and not be hemmed in by the expectations of the past. A nation must accept that living things cannot stand still. And I say to you today that the people of Germany and the people of Judenstaat have at last reached the age of reason.

Tonight, as I sat between the president of the United States and the leader of the Soviet Union, I thought, as I often do, of Leopold Stein. He himself said to me, quite recently, “Helena, I'd give anything to be sitting in that room with you.” I said, “But Leo, you'll be there.” He knew what I meant, and then he made his hands into that arc, that bridge, the way he does, the gesture that we all know, and the old man began to cry. He said, “Helena, I don't want to leave them with walls. That was never our way. It's time to build more bridges.”

What could I say to that? To sit beside that man and hear his words, I felt an awesome responsibility. I say to you: we are ready to build more bridges. I say to you, we are ready to tear down walls. Tear down that wall—between East and West! Tear down that wall—between two peoples whose histories are intertwined. What is Germany? What is Judenstaat? We are one people! We live in one world! We must move on together!

And when we move on, when we cross the bridge our legacy has constructed, we leave nothing behind. We carry all of who we are into that future. And what a future it will be, where there are no closed doors, no shadows, no dark corners! The two women who made this film have shown us the way. Walk with them now, into the sunlight.

 

T
HE
B
ORDER

 

1

BAD
Muskau was two hours northeast of Dresden. Bondi had described the place in detail, a holiday camp and spa dating from well before the war, with mud and thermal treatments, formal English-style gardens, and a lovely little river that crossed the Polish border. What with its amenities, Judit was surprised she'd never heard of it before, and that was a good sign. It was unlikely to be overrun with tourists.

The date had been long set, and in the havoc of the month that followed the screening, Judit had been overwhelmed with press conferences and public interviews, and they brought up strong, unpleasant memories. As had been the case four years before, she'd sleepwalked through those days, abstracted from her circumstances. Fredericka did the talking. The woman who arranged the microphone on Judit's lapel commented on her complexion. “You barely need foundation, Mrs. Klemmer.” Judit responded with a nod that might have seemed serene, but actually was a way of shaking off exhaustion.

Her life was past impossible. There was no escape now, not even to the room in Johannstadt; with the black-hat demonstrations, meeting there was out of the question. Judit began to realize how much those afternoons with Bondi meant. They had been the only real thing in her life. Now, unmoored, she found herself in taxicabs and limousines, and her own self seeped away. By the time she came back to her mother's apartment, there was nothing left.

Yet her mother needed Judit's attention now. The night after the documentary was broadcast and Sokolov made her speech, Leonora confronted her in the kitchen and said, “Judi, I don't understand.”

“Mom, don't ask me questions. I'm just a technician,” Judit said. “That's all.”

“But does she mean it? About the border?” Leonora looked as though she hadn't been outside all day. She wasn't alone. Something had happened. It was like a dog-whistle that only people of a certain age could hear. As Leonora stood in the kitchen in her robe and slippers, she seemed to have become all eyes. She was as she had been in the photograph taken with her husband, just after the war, a lemur meant to cling, but now she only had Judit. “The wall can't just disappear,” she said. “It's the only thing keeping them out.”

“They can't be kept out,” Judit said, withholding many other things she could say, and the statement perplexed her mother to the degree that she couldn't hear it.

“I'm all for free trade. You know that. I have such admiration for the prime minister, and it was so moving when she talked about Leo Stein. Who could have known that he was still alive? Is he really alive, Judit? How can that be?” Then, “How can he agree with this? That's what I don't understand.”

“Mom, get some sleep,” Judit said.

“The Russians,” Leonora said, “the fascists, we have so many enemies, and isn't that all the more reason to secure our borders? Don't you agree?”

What Leonora wanted now was more than confirmation. She wanted real engagement. She wanted her daughter argumentative, ready to give her trouble, and the only trouble Judit had to offer was too big for that old-fashioned kitchen. It was too big for her circumstances. It was also too big for the evening purse where she still stowed it—the film. She'd shoved that purse to the back of her closet in the bedroom, and when she managed to wrench herself out of her mother's grip, she still lost sleep.

She hadn't screened it again. It ran, maybe, seven minutes. Could she get it to a sympathetic party in Germany? Probably. What were those borders now? More systematically, she wanted confirmation, to get her hands on documents that Lehmann had assured her would be public. Would that mean traveling to the Soviet Union on her own? Would it be safe? During those wild nights of speculation, on the narrow bed she'd slept on as a child, she could pretend that she was free.

She wasn't free. Her clothing never fit now. Although her nausea didn't interfere with the breakfasts that her mother dutifully prepared, Leonora did notice something. She said, “A mother knows, sweetheart. You're run ragged. Can't you take a little break? Didn't you say you were going on vacation after this was over?”

Then, Judit did remember, and she said, “That's right. I am.”

*   *   *

She waited for Bondi on a bench by the embankment, and only then did she admit how much she wanted this, to really get away. It was eleven on a Monday morning, and the Elbe was calm; swallows flew under the white suspension bridge and nested there, and warm June sunshine opened buds on ornamental bushes planted in new tubs. She hadn't seen him for so long that waiting itself felt sexual. Her trousers couldn't fasten all the way now. She wore a light blouse over them, but was still conscious of the warm few inches of skin swelling through that open zipper. A two-seat convertible pulled up, with Bondi at the wheel.

“That can't really belong to you,” Judit said. The car was navy blue, and wildly conspicuous. Bondi wore sunglasses, and his coat was thrown across the passenger seat, leaving him looking boyish and stiff in shirt-sleeves.

“You don't like it?” Bondi asked, almost shyly.

“I like it very much,” said Judit. “Maybe I just like laughing at you for a change. It feels good.”

“It's a Jaguar. I'm almost its first driver. That's what the man who leased it to me said. I like things that run well.”

The car did run well, and it moved out of Dresden onto the highway with so little effort that the highway seemed to move instead, and the very expense of that car, with its leather seats and fancy tape deck, made them both a little giddy. Judit said, “I wish you'd brought along some tapes. Do you like music?”

“Oh, you wouldn't like my music,” Bondi said.

“How do you know?”

“Well, you must like serious stuff, after all.”

“What do you like, Joseph?” Judit asked. She ran a hand across his neck, daring him to veer a little. “Not serious stuff?”

Bondi cleared his throat. “Do that again.”

She did it again, and he took her hand and moved it to his pants.

“Your fly's undone,” he said. “I could see it when I pulled up.”

“That's your fault,” Judit said.

He said, “Say that again.” Then, when they couldn't stand it anymore, they just pulled off the highway. They kept the top down. Afterwards, Judit arranged herself back in the passenger seat and asked, “What music do you like?”

“If you must know,” Bondi said, “I like Queen.”

Judit asked, “What's that?” When Bondi told her, she said, “I thought only homosexuals liked that group.”

“Apparently not,” Bondi said, and they both laughed. The road grew more mountainous and pleasant, as late morning turned to full, bright afternoon. She allowed herself the luxury of putting on his coat and smelling him, forgetting what she knew and where she was going.

*   *   *

The spa was enormous, a complex of old mansions, villas, and formal gardens, and once they had arrived, they had to navigate their way through architecture that reflected every period from prewar imperial to the Bauhaus rigor of the early '50s. The biggest structure, with an arching entrance, led to a lobby flooded with sunlight. It seemed like the sort of place that would be popular for group excursions, but it looked abandoned, maybe because it was early in the season. The tennis nets had all been taken down, and the fountains were dry. Still, it was easy enough to imagine a busload of workers from Zeitz spilling into a dining hall, and Judit couldn't stand the thought of having to see anyone but Bondi. “We're not part of some package tour, are we?” Judit asked.

“No,” Bondi said. “No package.”

“I've never been to a spa before. What do you do here?”

“Relax,” Bondi said.

“I can't imagine you relaxing,” Judit said. She tried to keep up the hectoring and teasing because once they'd actually arrived at the facility, and Bondi was in the process of checking in, the illusion began to fray. The woman behind the desk wore a gray uniform, and took out a big logbook of a register with only the first page filled. Judit looked through a second set of glass doors, and something about the hallway felt familiar. Bondi wrote down their names, and picked up both of their bags, and when he approached her, she said, “What is this place, Joseph?”

“What does it look like?” Bondi asked.

“The hallway makes me think of my old dormitory,” Judit said, just to say something.

“Then it should bring back fond memories,” said Bondi. She followed him down the hall, which was wider than the one back in her dormitory, and then she remembered: the dormitory tiles were green and white, not black and white. There was only one kind of place where she'd seen that checkered pattern. The elevator was enormous, and opened from both ends. Something about its dimensions made Judit forget what side they'd entered from. She fought vertigo, and when they reached their room, the door was open. That's when Judit asked, “Is this a hospital?”

“It's a spa,” Bondi said. “They have all kinds of treatments here. Some of them are therapeutic. I suppose it's a kind of hospital.” The statement was unnecessary. There was nothing in the room except a small press-wood cabinet, a rolling rack for blood transfusions, and a narrow bed on wheels. Bondi put down the bags and closed the door. “You wanted this.”

“I did?”

“To see him, Judit.” Now, he gave a nervous half-smile.

“So he's here?”

“Of course he's here,” Bondi said. “It's all been arranged. They're expecting us today. He's in good spirits, apparently. He's had a few visitors since that documentary premiered. I should say,” he added, “that not all of those visitors come away with a positive impression.”

“That's not surprising,” said Judit. Thus, she acknowledged, at last, the visit's purpose. It was not a holiday. It was something else altogether, planned back in another lifetime, and she wondered if she could ask Bondi to cancel the appointment. Frankly, she didn't know what she would say to Stein, and couldn't remember what she'd planned to ask him. Could she back down? Probably not. At best, she would brazen the visit out and just move on. She said to Bondi, “Afterwards, let's see if you can get us a real room.”

Bondi said, “I like this one. Lie down. Next to me. On the bed.”

“It's awfully narrow,” Judit said, but she did manage to lie next to him. He rearranged himself and unfastened the rest of her zipper, resting his cheek against her belly. “You won't hear anything, Joseph,” Judit said. “Believe me, it's too soon.”

“How do you know? I have remarkable abilities in that direction. I hear everything.”

“And what do you hear?”

“A heartbeat.”

“That's my own heart,” Judit said, “or yours.”

“I hear her say,
Momma, don't work so hard.
” Bondi spoke Yiddish.

Judit giggled. His cheek tickled, and the Yiddish couldn't help but sound a little comical. “How do you know it's a she?”

Bondi continued. “
Stop working, Momma, just for a while. Take a vacation. And throw the film away.
”

Judit sat up. Bondi was sitting too, right across from her, and he was no longer the boy in the convertible. He was a serious man who had his coat on, and he looked at her with clarity and authority. He continued in Yiddish.

“
Throw it away. Let it be. Please, Judit, it will do no good.
”

Judit said, “What film?” Almost before the words were out of her mouth, she asked, “Who told you?”

“Everyone knows,” Bondi said. The shift to German seemed to cause him effort, as though he were struggling to keep the situation at arm's length. “You aren't discreet. You can't be. It's not your nature. And the timing couldn't be worse. Please tell me you have it here.”

“I have it here,” Judit said.

“Good,” said Bondi. “Give it to me.”

“I need to think, Joseph. It's not that simple. You can't understand. I have a responsibility—”

“Yes you do,” said Bondi. “To our child.”

Judit rolled over. The room had a wide window, and the view was magnificent, a stretch of meadow leading to woodlands hazy with buds and pinks. She laid a hand on her belly, just where Bondi had placed his cheek, and did imagine she felt something, though it was far too early. “Maybe after I talk to him,” she said.