Not Me (9 page)

He seemed so happy, sitting there with his bag of cigars. He had told me a couple of times on the drive back that he wanted to go home, so I made the turn onto Lake Worth Avenue and headed over to The Ponds at Lakeshore. It was on the way to the nursing home anyway. I wanted to surprise him. We rounded the golf course and pulled up to Building 3. I angled the Caddy into his assigned spot.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”

I opened his door, helped him out. He stood there, looking around, taking it all in.

I guided him along the pavement to the entryway, and then helped him into the elevator. It wheezed up the side of the building and deposited us on the third floor, where we made our way along the ramp toward his apartment.

I knew, of course, that when we went in he’d see all the journals spread out on the floor—and then he’d have to come clean. We’d have to have that conversation. My heart was pounding, but I said nothing, and just watched him shuffle down the gangway.

Finally we stood at the door. The little buzzer with the number 304 imprinted under it. The little ceramic plaque with the name Rosenheim surrounded by pink roses. On the door frame to the right, the mezuzah, fashioned of green glass (in Israel, of course), waiting to be kissed.

I gave him the keys.

“Go ahead,” I said.

He looked at me, suspicion entering his eyes like a dark green light. Suddenly he dropped the keys as if they were befouling his hands.

“Where are we?” he said. “I want to go home.”

“But we are home,” I told him.

“I want to go home!” he cried. “I want to go home! I want to go home!”

I picked up the keys and put them in my pocket.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll go home.”

Later, when he was asleep back at the nursing home, I took out the journal and, feeling more miserable than ever, forced myself to read.

From this point on Rosenheim avoided Moskovitz.

He avoided the scent of her breath. He avoided the sound of her husky laughter. He avoided the sight of her ringlets leaping from the pins that held her hair during work hours. He avoided her shadow at sunset. He avoided the memory of her breast in his hand. He avoided the taste of her collarbone.

When he sensed her presence, which was almost always, he walked the other way.

But he always ran into her. Everywhere he was, she was.

In the first days after the orchard, she was not careful at all, always wanting to walk with him, rub against him, talk to him about anything, chatter of love. She was completely without guile or shame.

At first, Heshel Rosenheim merely stiffened when she slipped her hand into his. But then began the cross words, the pursed lips, the icy looks. Crestfallen, she moved away. She could have written it off as a bad mood, but when it happened over and over, and then over again, she obviously got the message. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her always staring at him
—
from across the room, or as he passed her in the milking station, or looking up at him as he sat in the watchtower smoking his cigarettes. He never looked back at her. And each time, the bright hope and anticipation that lit her face faded into confusion and shame.

More and more he wanted to escape.

He even thought of turning himself in. In some ways, it would be better than this. At least then he would know who he was.

Still, at night, he would awake sweating, knowing he had been dreaming of her. It was the sex, he told himself.

He decided to make contact with some local Arabs, but it was difficult. Hostilities were already breaking out
—
riots in Jerusalem and attacks in the North. Yet in those days many of the Jews and Arabs were still friends. He could wander off the kibbutz one afternoon and find himself in the little Arab village just to the southeast; he might be invited by the headman to have tea or coffee; he might accept, sit down upon the carpet, and offer in return some sort of aid to them. Money perhaps. Cigarettes. And then he might say he felt as strongly as they did that this land was theirs, not the Jews’. Why should the Arabs have to pay for what happened in Europe? In fact, he would say, he wanted to travel east, to Transjordan, to offer his services to the Arab Legion, and then he would tell them: I am not even a Jew. Yes! he would say to their startled ears, I am a German. A soldier. Your natural ally. Your friend. My knowledge of soldiering can help your cause. Perhaps we might work together…perhaps you might know someone who knows someone…to spirit me out of the country before any of the Jews even notice I’m gone?

It did not seem a likely plan.

Still, on a cool November evening he put on his flannel jacket and went out for a walk. The kibbutz was on high alert, and guards were walking the perimeters, their rifles at ready. A Bren gun had been set in the watchtower, on a slight rise, looking down upon the plains of Ashdod. He passed a sentry and waved. It was that Dutch Jew who had somehow survived Mauthausen. Amos, he called himself. Who knows what his real name was. Hans? Cornelius? Nys? He was not much with a gun, Heshel knew, and like all the Dutch, rather flat-footed in his conversation.

“You making a walk?” the Dutchman said. His Hebrew was not very good either.

“Yes, just down towards the village.”

“Oh!” he said. “Not such good idea.”

“I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine,” replied Heshel Rosenheim. “They’re friendly there. Remember how we helped them during the harvest? Nothing to worry about.”

He knew Amos could barely understand him anyway, so he chatted on, speaking quickly and colloquially, and when the look in the Dutchman’s eye seemed thoroughly befuddled, Heshel cried “Shalom!” and walked down onto the road toward Al Qalil. The sky was clouding over, and he could feel the first bluster of a cold front swinging in from the sea. A wind from Europe, perhaps bringing a storm. He was thinking, what wind brought me here? How could he ever get back? Maybe he should just give himself up, after all. He had heard that German prisoners of war in Egypt were already being released, and were joining the Egyptian army as mercenaries. But he reminded himself he was not an ordinary soldier. He was a war criminal. Not that he had ever actually
done
anything. What was he, after all, but a bookkeeper? Just like on the kibbutz. He had merely kept things in order. Which is not actually an action. He merely entered items into a book of accounts. That’s all.

The clouds, white against the black sky, floated in front of the moon. Same as God! he said to himself. He was thinking of the Jewish New Year and their Day of Atonement. He’s just a bookkeeper too! Even though Naor was not a religious kibbutz, they still celebrated the High Holidays, all gathering in the main hall, mouthing their absurd prayers
—On Rosh Hashanah it is written,
they sang,
on Yom Kippur it is sealed!
The Book of Life. That’s what they call it. God opens His book of life and death, and in you go, for good or ill. What else is that, but bookkeeping? And no matter what happens, does anyone blame God? Forty million die, and here they are, still praying!

He could see the lights of the village just down the hill. He was walking now on the dirt path that cut through the mostly open terrain
—
some sandy desert with patches of scrub, with few outcroppings of rock or trees, but as the road descended toward Al Qalil, a ridge jutted out of the sands to his right, where frequently on clear nights he would come to study the stars.

He began to practice what he would say when he got to the village. He knew many of the men there by sight, but not by name. He had been there only a few times, and only rarely did the Arabs come up to Naor. It was a firm rule that only kibbutz members did kibbutz work. No hired hands. Yet there were some on the kibbutz who went down often, who had close, even tender relations with them, and he had tried very casually to glean as much as he could from them
—
who got along well with the Jews, who resented them, who wanted to live in peace, who did not. He knew he had to be clever in what he said, and to whom. His worst fear was that they would betray him to the Jews.

As he descended past the ridge, the smell of hearth fires came up to greet him, and the sound of goat bells. It was peaceful and charming, and he had to say there was an irresistible quality to the landscape. Still, he would be glad when he was done with it. He could see a few people moving about in their stone houses, and the first notes of Egyptian music from someone’s radio began to reach his ears. He had some packages of American cigarettes with him which he had managed to get recently on a trip up to Tel Aviv, and he touched his breast pocket to make sure they were secure.

It was at just that moment that he thought he saw a flash, and felt something smash against him with such crushing force it thrust him down into the sand like a rag doll. Instantly he heard a loud, terrifying noise. He tried to get away but he was unable to move. It was if a boulder had landed on his chest. He was starting to go black when he realized that shooting was going on all around him.

The attack on Naor was repelled very quickly. It was just a little foray of Arab irregulars, bent on terror. The elders of the little Arab town were horrified and organized a peace mission to the kibbutz. They brought gifts of cheese and milk.

Heshel Rosenheim was the first and only casualty from either side. He received the contingent of elders in his bed in the kibbutz infirmary. He thanked them. They assured him of their desire to live side by side with their Jewish brothers. When they left, he turned over in bed and found himself weeping.

Later he drank the milk and ate the cheese. Everyone came to visit him, except Moskovitz. He grew depressed. He seemed to be languishing.

And it was from his hospital bed, some days later, that he heard all the singing and dancing out on the lawn. The U.N. had voted for partition. The dream of two thousand years had come to pass. Soon there would be a Jewish state.