Not Me (11 page)

They didn’t get terribly far before trouble started. The forward truck hit a land mine, throwing the men into the air. It was just a flatbed truck commandeered from a kibbutz, but the army had hastily armored it with steel plates sandwiched together with wood and concrete. Amazingly no one was hurt. Then the Arabs attacked. They were mostly villagers and not well trained, but there were a lot of them, and they were fierce. The radio girl, Malka, was hit immediately and fell into the mud. Heshel pulled her under his truck and began firing back. The men tried to use the trucks as shields, but the firing was intense, and several more people were hit. In the meantime, the soldiers of the lead truck were busy changing the tires, for in spite of the explosion, the only serious damage were blowouts on the front end. Against all odds, the “sandwiches” worked. When they were done with the tires, the men waved madly up the line. The drivers jumped in, and the trucks took off as fast as they could, the Jews clinging to the rails and firing the whole time.

They knew they could not make it to Revivim, so they turned back to Kibbutz Hatzerim. They camped there, awaiting news, or orders, whichever came first.

It was news, and it was bad. Thirty-five men trying to reach the Etzion Block with supplies were massacred. Their bodies, cut up and mutilated, were delivered to Kfar Etzion by the British in two truckloads.

The standing orders were changed. The Jewish forces would now go on the attack.

Lying in his bedroll that evening, allowing the rain slapping on the tent roof to calm his nerves, Heshel Rosenheim conjured up the lovely Fradl Moskovitz
—
strolling with her under a warm, dry summer sky, their arms locked together, her head resting on his shoulder. He watched the scene unfold, and plotted to himself how he might, in real life, win her back. Why not? Why not? He worked out scenarios. He imagined outcomes.

And then suddenly he realized that he was thinking in Hebrew. His inner voice was no longer speaking German.

In Hebrew he thought,
My God, what is happening to me?

By morning the rain had stopped, and he went out to shave. In his mirror he noticed someone staring at him, a new recruit, one of those fellows trained by the Palmach in the D.P. camps and shipped here in secret, by night, through the English blockade. Heshel lowered his mirror.

“Yes?” he said.

“Don’t I know you?” the other said in Yiddish. “Were we together somewhere? I’m Levin.”

“I am Rosenheim,” he replied.

“Rosenheim,” the man repeated, pondering. He had a thin, angry look. Heshel had seen it before. The haunted eyes. The nervous gestures. Soon to be replaced by the cool comfort of revenge. The kind that becomes a terrorist. “I knew a Rosenheim,” Levin continued, “but that one wasn’t you. You’re not a sabra, though. You’ve been in the camps, yes?”

Rosenheim nodded.

“Maybe in the camps, then?”

“Anything is possible.”

“Were you in Auschwitz?”

He had to say that he was. His sleeves were rolled up.

“Which camp? Which block?”

“Why ask me these things?” he said in Hebrew. “It’s the past. It’s over.”

The man did not understand him. Instead he continued in Yiddish. “I was one of the lucky ones. Camp Three.”

But Rosenheim said nothing.

“Well,” continued the recruit, “I was in many camps. Perhaps our paths crossed. Who knows?” He smiled in a friendly way. “I’m sure I know you.” Then he walked off toward his platoon.

The company camped at Hatzerim all that day, but Rosenheim didn’t see Levin again until they were at dinner, when he noticed him sitting with his crew at the far end of the dining hall. Levin looked up once and waved, but Rosenheim pretended he hadn’t noticed. That was unwise! he thought, so he looked up again, and waved back.

But later that night he woke up from a dream: It was 9 November. All around him, flames. He was surrounded by dark figures. Above him floated the red banners, like sails carrying him to the Land of Perfect and Absolute Truth. Drifting down from the torch-lit sky, like angels, were a thousand black-sheathed knives. He heard a voice, far away, as if through a megaphone, but he could not make out what it was saying. It echoed off the corridors of men standing like pillars, holding up their salute to the Messiah of Pure Reason. The crowd screamed its obeisance. Then his own voice.

Ich schwoere Dir Adolf Hitler!…

I swear to you, Adolf Hitler, Fuehrer and Chancellor of the German Reich, loyalty and bravery. I vow to you, and the superiors whom you will appoint, obedience unto death, so help me God….

SS-Mann!
he cried.

He jumped up, awake
—
wondering
—
did I speak aloud? In which language was I dreaming?

He looked to see that his tent-mate was still asleep. But he thought he heard someone walking just outside. He stuck his head out. There was a group of four or five gathered around a little fire, smoking cigarettes and talking. They did not seem to notice him at all. But he thought he made out the figure of the little man with the angry eyes.

Alarmed, he slipped back into his tent.

This time Moshe was awake.

“Everything okay?”

“Just needed to piss,” he said.

Moshe turned over and pulled his blanket over his head.

But it didn’t really matter if Moshe had heard him or not. Or if the little Auschwitz man was listening at the tent door. The dream was a message. Even if no one was after him, their God would trick him into giving himself away.

By now it was three or four in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. I reached for the letter from the Holocaust people. I studied the letterhead and noted the phone number: Kaufman. Holocaust Archives. Never heard of them. And what’s a memorial book? And who asked him to send this material anyway? Again it had to be that secret person—the key, the witness, the one who could unlock the truth. If I wanted the truth.

And that town, whatever it was—I’d never heard of it. Durnik. What kind of place is that?

I thought maybe a drink would help me sleep. I opened my father’s liquor cabinet. No surprises there. It was empty, except for an ancient bottle of Dry Sack. It tasted like stewed prunes.

But someone did know the truth. Someone was feeding this to me, like spooning poison in my coffee, little by little. Why? And why now? What possible good could it do, even if it were true? He was a dying man. How could justice come at this late hour?

And what exactly did this “memorial” list mean? What did it prove? I knew what it proved. But couldn’t there have been hundreds or even thousands of Heshel Rosenheims in Europe before and during the war. How many of them perished? Most of them. But some may have survived. One may have survived.

I had to call him, Kaufman. I took a bitter, dark swig of the sherry and dialed his number. I knew it was one in the morning there, I knew no one would answer, but I called anyway.

A thickly accented and ancient voice had recorded an awkward message asking me to leave my name and phone number, which I did. Immediately I wished I hadn’t.

I was feeling a little sick to my stomach by now. What I really wanted to do was call Ella. Not possible. So I looked at the letter again.

Dear Mr. Rosenheim:

I hope this letter finds you well. I have enclosed the following photocopied document at the request of your agents in this matter, which I hope you find in good order. I shall have it delivered by messenger to your father’s current place of residence, as instructed.

I shall have it delivered to your father
. My God, I cried aloud. Did I have a sibling somewhere I didn’t know about?

Right then I decided I had to stop. I could read no more. I could delve no farther. Enough! Enough! Enough!

Just as I thrust the letter from my hand, the phone rang. I looked at it with terror. Could Kaufman have been in?

“Who is this?” I demanded.

“I can’t sleep.” It was Josh.

“Jesus, Josh, it’s three in the morning.”

“I know,” he said sheepishly.

I was getting sick as a dog. The sherry was churning my stomach like a washing machine.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“I can’t sleep,” he repeated.

I sighed. “Why can’t you sleep?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, close your eyes and try.”

“I did. It didn’t work.”

“Are all the lights out?”

“Yes.”

“Then turn one on,” I said.

“I already did that.”

“Well, then, I don’t know.”

“Are you okay, Dad? You sound funny.”

“You just woke me up out of a deep sleep, Josh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did you go have some cereal? That always works for me.”

“I had a bowl of Cheerios. It didn’t work.”

“Well, no wonder! You have to use Trix!”

Hah! I thought. It wasn’t my best, but at least I could still get a laugh. And this despite the fact it was four in the morning on the day I discovered Josh’s grandfather was a Nazi war criminal.

And indeed, I could hear him trying to laugh. Though it may have sounded more like choked-off tears.

“It’s all right,” I said. “I’m not mad.”

“I just couldn’t sleep,” he said.

“What’s the matter?”

I could hear him thinking.

“School?” I asked hopefully.

“You keep on asking about school, Dad,” he said. “It’s summer, remember?”

“Right, right,” I said. “Friends?”

“No. They’re fine.”

“Did you have a fight with Mom?”

“No, Dad. Why does it have to be something? I just can’t sleep.”

By which, of course, he meant he just wanted to talk to me because I hadn’t been calling, and because when I did call I barely spoke, and because I wasn’t home, and because I wouldn’t let him come and live with me, and because I was a half-wit father who let them both leave. I guess he meant, instead of throwing that TV set at us, why didn’t you follow us and make us come home? Why didn’t you compromise and get a better house for Mom and why didn’t you get a job that let you stay in San Francisco and make a decent living and have real furniture? But how was I supposed to answer these accusations? Could a father tell a son that he just didn’t know how to do any better?

“Sleep is way overrated,” I said. “Really. I get my best laughs at four in the morning. By watching reruns of
I Love Lucy.
”

“
Dad
…”

“No, really.”

He made a funny little sound, the kind of squeak boys make when their voices are changing, and when they can’t quite get the words out. “Can I come out and help you?” he said.

“Help me?” I replied. “What makes you think I need help?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just.”

“I’m fine,” I told him. “You have to stay there and take care of Mom.”

“She doesn’t need me to take care of her.”

“And I do?”

He fell silent then. I could hear my own breathing. It was raspy, overburdened. And my heart, it seemed to be flipping strangely in my chest, tingling in a weird way. It scared me a little, actually. And I was feeling more and more nauseous from the sherry.

“I just want to see you,” he blurted.

“Me too, me too.” When I touched my hand to my chest to stop the fibrillation, I felt something cruddy and dry on my shirt. I tried to scrape it off, whatever it was. Then I remembered I’d thrown up earlier. “I was thinking,” I said, “when I get home we’ll go to a ball game or something. What do you say?”

“Which one?” he said.

“Which one what?”

“Which game?”

“I don’t know which game, Josh. Just a game, for chrissakes.”

“I just wondered which game.” He sounded beaten down again.

I started thinking about how something as ephemeral as a tone of voice, as nonlethal as a thing could ever be, had such destructive force—but only, of course, on the ones who loved you. Why would God make us this way, I wanted to know. When he was creating his world full of Nazis and Stalins and Genghis Khans—couldn’t he have just left the tone of voice you use on your kid out of it? And I thought of my own father and the unconscious put-downs and snide remarks, the wry humor that deflected my advances, the furious anger that erupted without warning, the strong, fragrant hugs for no reason at all—and I felt myself retreat further and further from Josh. Of course my father had his excuse, didn’t he? My father had his terrible secret to hide. To let me in might have exposed me to that frightful darkness, that twisted jungle of ugliness and crime. And so I held the phone receiver to my ear, and instead of Josh, I heard my father’s voice, and I shuddered—and I wondered—what secret was I hiding from Josh? What secret chained the door between me and this sweet, blond-headed boy with the curly hair and the slight, lilting gait that sometimes made him seem, to me at least, as if he were skating on air across the playground, where others tumbled and fell?

“Dad? Are you still there?”

“Huh?”

“Dad—you’re so quiet.”

“Whatever game I can get tickets for,” I said. “That’s the game we’ll go to.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “But I’m tired now. I think I’ll go to bed.”

A little later, I stuffed all the journals back in the Cheez Whiz box. I crammed the box in a corner between the TV and the sofa bed, and then I went into the guest room and fell into a deep, uneasy sleep.