The Free World (8 page)

Minka edged himself away from the wall and fell into step just behind them.

—Crazy heat, Minka muttered.

—It’s hot like this in Israel, Iza said.

—All the more reason to stay out of Israel, Minka said.

—Minka’s having a hard time getting into America.

—I’m a qualified mechanic, Minka said. Specialize in diesel engines. You tell me America can’t use another mechanic. All those highways. All those trucks.

They walked into the café, where Iza ordered three beers at the bar.

—You don’t want to sit? Alec asked.

—It costs extra to sit, Iza said.

—Is that so? Alec asked.

—It’s their system. The entire country. Go figure why.

—The best is in the mornings, Minka said, when they’re all crowded like cattle around the bar, drinking their coffees, empty tables everywhere, not one single ass in a chair.

—So who are the tables for? Alec asked.

—Tourists, Iza said.

He raised his beer and toasted
l’chaim.

—Next year in Los Angeles, Minka drawled, lifting his beer in his tattooed hand.

As a boy, Alec had had a friend whose older brother, Vanya, had spent time in jail and returned home proudly displaying his prison tattoos. He seemed at the time like a heroic and exotic character, even though he was really just a petty crook who enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Later, he got into more trouble and was shipped to a prison where he was cruelly disfigured. The rumor went that his attackers held him down and nailed his tongue to the floor. But while his tongue was still intact, he’d taught Alec and the other neighborhood boys how to decipher the arcane symbols of criminal tattoos. The initiation cost a pack of cigarettes, which each boy was supposed to acquire by dishonest means. For his part, Alec stole the money from his grandmother’s purse while she napped. Scrupulous about such things, his grandmother noticed, and fretted terribly about her absentmindedness. She never thought to accuse Alec, but Samuil wasn’t so easily deceived.

In the days after his beating, Alec swaggered around, streetwise and cocky. He felt as if he had drawn nearer to the ranks of men. On buses, in streets, cafeterias, and kiosks, he read the coded biographies inked on people’s skin.
This one’s a thief. This one’s a highranking thief. This one’s a common hooligan. This one served eight years. This one’s a lackey, an errand boy, a “sixer.” This one was booked for a military crime. This one did solitary. This one’s a “waffle eater,” a cocksucker.

Judging from what he saw on Minka, the man had done his share of time. A barbed-wire tattoo on his forearm gave 1962 as the date of his first incarceration. A ring tattoo of a black diamond with a white stripe attested that he’d moved from a juvenile to an adult offender.
A grinning cat on the back of his hand identified him as a member of the brotherhood of thieves. A second ring tattoo spelled the acronym MIR: “Shooting will reform me.” Another ring tattoo, a tiger’s head at the intersection of two strands of barbed wire, meant that he’d committed a crime while in prison.

—Not as good as what we had in Riga, but not bad, Iza said, setting his bottle on the bar.

—I’d drink horse piss to get out of this heat, Minka said.

—Minka’s had enough of Rome, Iza said.

—If only the Yid sons of bitches let me, I’d get on a plane tomorrow, Minka said.

—Syomka tried and talked to someone at HIAS on Minka’s behalf, Iza said, but of course he can’t help everybody.

—Shitocracy, you know, Minka said. Put a guy behind a desk and he starts looking down his nose.

—He doesn’t mean you, Iza said.

—Naturally, Alec said.

—Iza claims you’re a good guy, Minka said and wagged a cautionary finger. Don’t let them turn you into a shitocrat, is what I’m saying. Don’t become insensitive to human beings.

—I’ll keep it in mind, Alec said.

—That’s good. You do that. Minka nodded. A man in a position to help people should help people.

—The immigration puts people under a terrible strain, Iza said. I don’t have to tell you, you’ve seen. And not everyone is equipped to handle it. Old people. Sick people. Virtuous people. They need to be protected.

—Iza, you know what my job is? Alec said. I go with a few others and we give the welcome speech and help people fill out their forms. Sometimes we suggest, “Write this; don’t write that.” Then we pass the forms to another department. From there I assume they go to the embassies. But I’ve been on the job three days. I know next to nothing. I’m still deciding if it’s for me.

—Of course, Iza said. I hope you didn’t misunderstand me. I know
what the briefing department does. This isn’t about Minka’s case. This isn’t for me or for Minka.

—No? Alec asked. Who, then?

Fleetingly, he wondered if Iza might have been gripped by some altruistic impulse.

—It’s known that the briefing department is informed in advance about the new arrivals—how many and when. But then what happens? Almost as soon as the people arrive, before they can get their bearings, the vultures descend and try to exploit them. This isn’t right, is it?

—No, Alec replied, knowing that it was completely immaterial what he said:
No, Yes, Tomato.

—Someone should protect them. But who?

—You? Alec ventured.

—Me? No, not me, Iza said. You.

—Me?

—Sure, why not? Iza said. Why couldn’t you protect them? You think it would be hard? It would be easy.

From there Iza outlined the standard scheme. It deviated in no significant way from what Oleg had described. In exchange for giving Iza advance notice of the arrivals and their location, Alec would receive a certain retainer. With advance notice, Iza and Minka could be the first to solicit the new arrivals. They would pay them fair prices for their goods, and thus protect the weak and innocent from the venal and corrupt.

—I’ll think about it, Alec said.

—What’s there to think about? Minka asked.

—If HIAS found out, it could be more than my job. It could be real trouble. Maybe a negative report to the Canadian embassy?

—For trying to help people? Minka said.

—You said yourself. Shitocrats. Not everyone is sympathetic like you.

—That’s true, said Minka with surprising delicacy, there are a lot of nasty people in the world.

It then occurred to Alec that everybody had a rough time in the emigration, including a thief like Minka. He too was vulnerable and confused. He too had been cast into alien surroundings and was now obliged to compete with thieves and hoodlums from the disparate corners of the Soviet Union. He was no longer a boy, and he would have to start from scratch to establish himself like anybody else. You’d think that a thief could prosper anywhere, but Alec saw that thieves suffered too. And if it was true that the emigration turned honest men into thieves, why not the reverse? Looking at Minka, it seemed that he was not immune; he mourned the loss of his old, familiar larcenous life.

S
amuil had not sought a friend or confidant in Josef Roidman, but Roidman was an irresistible force. Samuil discovered that when he approached Club Kadima to read his newspaper he wondered if Roidman would be there. In fact, he came to look forward to seeing him. He was a man to whom one could speak in a forthright way. Between Samuil and his family there was no longer a subject that remained unbarbed. Roidman may have suffered from an excess of Jewish irony, and he entertained some misconceptions about the Soviet Union, but at heart he was not a subversive or a reactionary. And even his operatic tribute to the terrorist Fanny Kaplan—portions of which Roidman periodically foisted upon Samuil—could be excused as little more than dilettantism and sentimentality.

(Outside the doors of Club Kadima, Josef Roidman flourished an introduction on his violin.

—Imagine: The year is 1905 and I am Mika, a young anarchist, nineteen years of age. Rakishly handsome. A recruiter and provocateur. In your mind, Samuil Leyzerovich, pretend that it is not me that you see and hear but a strong and striking tenor. Now, as for the set, picture that we are in the shtetl. Here, Mika approaches the modest
house of Chaim Roidman, a melamed, a humble Jewish teacher. This Mika lights a cigarette, and a pretty, dark-haired maiden emerges from the house. She is a girl of sixteen. She is shy as young village girls are shy. And yet, that is not the whole story. Behind this shyness lurks a keen intelligence and a bold and courageous heart. With soft, almost soundless steps, she approaches.

Here Roidman played a new theme.

Kind sir, please forgive me, but do you not know that you transgress? Today is the Sabbath. One should not kindle a light.

Roidman alternated the pitch of his voice, high and low, to assume the different roles.

Girl, do you wish that I extinguish this light?

Once you have lighted it, to extinguish it is also a sin.

Girl, do you know whereof you speak?

I speak of the Sabbath.

No, my dear, you speak of the Revolution.)

Josef had a son in Winnipeg. The son, with a wife and two children, had emigrated from Kiev two years earlier. Josef had remained behind with his late wife, who was at the time gravely ill with a female condition. The surgeons had cut out all there was to cut out. It was all very dismal. His son didn’t want to abandon his mother at such a time, but there was the danger that his visa would expire. It was only when Josef’s wife commanded him that he consented to go. The living should not arrange their lives around the dying, she had said.

—I do not need to describe for you the parting scene, Josef said. How to put it into words? I watched my son kiss his mother goodbye. It was like he buried her. Then, four months later, I buried her again. Like with all things, the second time was easier.

After his wife died, Josef applied for a visa. He traveled alone, carrying only his violin case and one other bag. He had already been in Italy for three months and there was still no telling when Canada might accept him. Letters were being sent; well-intentioned Jewish ladies were placing phone calls to Canadian ministers. As for how effective all this was, Josef had his doubts. But, if you listened to his
son, you were liable to believe that Pierre Trudeau’s greatest concerns were what to do about Quebec and what to do about Roidman.

—By the way, Josef said, did you know that the Soviet Union was financing the Quebec separatists?

—That’s nonsense, Samuil said.

—During the Montreal Olympics they held secret meetings. Members of the Soviet contingent arrived with briefcases packed with money. They also revealed classified information, of an intimate nature, about various Canadian politicians.

—Where did you hear this? Samuil asked.

—Here. From a man from Moscow. He said he had it on good authority. To be honest, I feel as if I have learned more about the Soviet Union during my three months in Italy than in my sixty-three years in the Ukraine.

—What you’re learning is capitalist slander, Samuil said.

—Also a possibility. Still, one can see how it could make sense. Strategically speaking. This Quebec could become the “Cuba of the North.”

Waiting in Italy, on the seashore, in the summer, was not exactly a tragedy. Josef was prepared to wait a while longer, a few more months—but if nothing transpired he would apply to the United States. In New York, they accepted everybody. One leg, no legs, three arms: they took you anyway. His son could come to New York in his car and then simply drive him across the border. Once he was in the country Josef doubted the Canadians would notice that they’d gained another elderly invalid.

He recommended that Samuil also prepare a contingency plan.

—Contingency plan, Samuil said. What is my contingency plan?

—America, Josef said.

—America, Samuil snorted.

—Well, where else?

—Where else? The other place.

—What other place? Israel?

—The grave.

—I understand your perspective, Samuil Leyzerovich, Josef said.
But please remember that I speak to you as a friend. It is not too soon to start making preparations. Half an hour. An hour. You fill out some forms, saying you weren’t a member of the Party, and that’s it.

—My youngest secured himself a job with HIAS. I’m acquainted with these forms.

—So, then.

—My hand would turn to stone before I wrote such a thing.

—Yes, I understand, Josef said, it’s a problem. But the Americans regard Communists the way the Canadians regard invalids.

—Stone, Samuil said.

—Samuil Leyzerovich, these are not your memoirs. In one’s memoirs—which are, so to speak, between one’s self and one’s soul—one must be truthful, but not, I would suspect, on an immigration form that is only between one’s self and the American immigration service.

—It is not a question of where one writes it, Samuil said. Apostasy is apostasy. It is always between one’s self and one’s soul.

Samuil felt that this statement possessed finality. It was as solid and imposing as a fortress. He identified himself with this fortress. His argument was himself. He felt as if aglow with moral satisfaction.

He left Club Kadima still aglow. However, before he reached home, the glow began to fade. He thought more about what Josef had said about the Party Story document. It disturbed Samuil to think of the dozens, the hundreds if not thousands of Party Stories being written by traitors and prevaricators to please the Americans. Samuil envisioned the dossier the American diplomats were compiling, full of false testimonies. In the end, it would lead to a gross distortion of the historical record. Samuil recalled life before the Communists and life after the Communists. He remembered the excesses of the bourgeoisie and the abject existence of the proletariat. He remembered hunger, cold, filth, penury, and, worst of all, the smothered hopes of gifted, honest proletarian youth. No one who had not experienced these things could legitimately judge the Communist state. Of course, he acknowledged that, at times, mistakes
had been made, that opportunistic elements had wormed their way into positions of power, but the system could not be judged on the basis of rogues and impostors. Rogues and impostors could not be allowed to qualify the essential Communist picture. In order to see this picture, a person would need to take up residence inside Samuil’s head, where the real events of proletarian struggle and triumph were housed like a breathing archive.

In the weak light, Samuil saw the smudged face of his brother and of the other bookbinders, bent over the lathes in the chill of Baruch Levitan’s miserly home workshop.

He saw himself and Reuven stepping briskly through the dark streets of the Moskovsky district, risking beatings and arrests, to collect copies of
Der emes
and
Der apikoyres
that Hirsh Kogan had smuggled in from Russia and dropped in a barrel behind Ozolinsh’s blacksmith shop.

He saw the burning and undernourished faces of the girls on the education committee, folding pamphlets into the night after twelve hours at their sewing machines. Their pale, quick hands, their frayed coat sleeves, their serious expressions: Chaverte Rivka Shapira, Chaverte Shulamis Garber, Chaverte Malka Averbukh, and the great beauty, Bluma Fabrikant. All dead.

Where were they in the record of history? None would be found in the revisionist volumes of the émigrés’ Party Stories. In their place would be complaints over congestion in communal apartments, shortages of chocolate and of denim pants, repression of Zionist-nationalist organizations, and holy outrage over an anti-Semitic taunt shouted by some drunken bus driver.