B002FB6BZK EBOK (14 page)

And then the two men started talking, the two women and I were silent,
Renate sipped a small glass of sherry from time to time and the tall blue
woman gave us cookies and tiny tasty pastries and later some cold beet
borscht. The two men talked about the German's investigation of the Last
Jew, the book he wanted to write, and I, the "great" scholar of the man,
was silent. I tried to ponder the chain of events taking place before my
eyes, I thought of the stormy winter day when I came back from my daily walk on Ben-Yehuda Street, not so long ago, it was raining hard, and I was
soaked, trying with all my might to hold onto my hat so it wouldn't fly away
and then I saw Ebenezer standing in the garden and watering. It was so
surprising that I forgot it, a person watering a garden in a downpour, maybe
that was the first time I saw him and I didn't yet notice him, and then the
rumors about the Giladis, the stories about the real estate agent sniffing
around in the street, I recalled how one day in a meeting at the Shimonis,
I thought of the new garden and then Mrs. Shimoni said something about
the science of widowhood and bereavement, she talked about a curriculum
to be proposed to the Ministry of Education and to be taught according to
her by widows and orphans. She said she had discussed that with a famous psychologist and the psychologist wrote a monograph about the
Israeli theory of bereavement, how "the togetherness" of committees like
ours dulls the pain and maybe people should be taught before the disaster
happens to them to spare them the hard years we all went through until we
found a way to live with the disaster.... I thought then about the garden,
maybe even then I pondered the Last Jew, I thought she was talking about
how (like her) you grow plants against solitude, how you buy dolls jumping out of cigarette boxes (or plastic vegetables), against pain, how you
move out of your house and start talking about the deceased-as she put
it-in the present tense! And then the poem written by Menahem was
mentioned and it was said that poems and essays and letters should be
filed long before death, children should be taught not to throw away things
like poems, essays, photos their parents can use afterward, and I was terrified and shouted but they didn't pay attention to me and yet there was
some relationship to me in those things since I was the person who found
a poem by his son and they didn't know that the poem wasn't written by
Menahem and how the sex kitten of our dead looked at us then and I
thought how that dark plot was hatched to blend us, to bring here a Last
Jew who would touch what was concealed in my yearnings, I thought about
Friedrich, the Germans' son, did he die by electricity or gas, suddenly that
was really important ...

In my house, about fifty meters away from that room, two hundred
typed pages were lying on the table. Everything was ready there for me to
continue my investigation, but now I learned things I had never realized,
things the files I had examined and the tapes I had listened to hadn't taught me at all, like Menahem my son I didn't write my poem either, the German wrote it, I listen to the conversation between the two men, how close
they are to one another ... still groping, as if that was a postponed lifeor-death meeting, and in the end I was the messenger boy. I looked at
Renate's eyes. They were damp but she wasn't crying. I saw in her eyes a
spark of understanding, as if she were saying to me, Look, Henkin, how
they're playing, how they're trying to touch one another, their eagerness to
play a game considerably obscures their ability to triumph over one another, there's no need to play now, Ebenezer, said the German, I shouldn't
have given a sign, I would have found you.

I needed a sign, said Ebenezer and poured himself another glass. They
drank, and then Ebenezer smiled: The daughters! You don't remember
things, said the German, everything was internal signs, what do you remember? You remember only your knowledge, so you didn't have to make
an effort, Secret Charity is also a memory you learned from somebody else,
you don't even remember who you are!

That's right, said Ebenezer. I'm a man without qualities, that's what
they said at the institute.

The German wanted to say something but stopped himself more for us
than for Ebenezer. He drank another glass and groped for Ebenezer's hand.
I was searching for you, said the writer.

He was searching, said Renate and my wife opened her eyes wide and
looked at her with a sympathetic smile. He asked and investigated said
Renate, they didn't know, even in the Foreign Ministry they didn't know.

Ebenezer is a small person in Israel, said Ebenezer and shut his eyes to
remember who he was, ID number 454322, no papers, only the health service and an election stub. The number there like a number on the arm.
One number more, that's all.

Ebenezer was silent and looked at him, he tried to imagine his mother
Rebecca. He couldn't remember, he tried.

And the son?

Here Ebenezer woke up, an echo of personal memory struck him, he
said: Ask Henkin.

I was silent and looked at my wife. A stub of a smile hung on her lips,
but even if she was thinking of Boaz Schneerson, she didn't say a thing.

And then the German said: When was that? 'Forty-six?

And Ebenezer who had almost shut his eyes, opened them wide and
said: I don't remember, tell me, tell me why you were searching for me
today, why did I want to see you. Before, when I wanted to recite, why did
you stop me? You want to tell me something about me, about yourself, tell,
what I remember I say, but I don't have a personal memory and what I do
have is worthless anyway!

Yes, said the German, now more for us than for Ebenezer, who was listening intensely, it was in 'forty-six. I was living in Zeeland then, in a little
village, about an hour from Copenhagen, I rented a neglected old schoolhouse among estates and farms, I renovated it a little, and in the big room
next to the giant window, looking at the beautiful monochromatic landscape, I sat and wrote. In my youth I learned Scandinavian languages. My
mother was of Danish extraction, I didn't want to live in Germany then.
One day I had to go to Copenhagen to buy writing supplies and a coat for
the approaching winter. I had practically no money and I saved on the trip,
but I had no choice. I walked in the street whose name I don't remember
today and a young man came to me, about seventeen years old, and introduced himself as Samuel Lipker the impresario, as he said, he spoke German to me and was the first man who knew as soon as he saw me that I was
German. He said he was an American of Norwegian extraction who had
been imprisoned in a Jewish concentration camp. I looked at him. He had
eyes that were both awful and beautiful, enveloped by violet eyebrows,
green mixed with gold, in his look you could perceive a bold Satanism but
also some softness, he measured his words carefully, and something in the
way he stood made you uneasy. He talked as if he were telling a secret: If
you want to see a performance of a tremendous artist, a reincarnation of
the magician Houdini, who was also, as you know, a Jew, come this evening
to the Blue Lizards Club, and you won't be sorry. Then he smiled at me
pleasantly, the smile of an accomplice in crime and said, So see you, Hans.
I said to him, My name isn't Hans, and I started talking Danish to him but
he laughed and said: Hans Kramer, SS. Dening. I know you, you've all got
a fried smell of God in your pocket, and all the time he smiled at me, See
you, Hans, and went off. A lot of swindlers were hanging out in Europe at
that time, selling churches, nonexistent cities, whatnot, the boy was a broken vessel but his German made me curious, the page he gave me and that
I held in my hand said in a broken language that Ebenezer the Great is the Last Jew, scion of a family of rabbis descending from the Prophet Jeremiah
and today he is the human calculator who can't be beaten or defied. That
evening, said the mimeographed sheet, the Last Jew would perform in the
Blue Lizards Club and everybody who came would leave intoxicated.

I bought what I came to buy, it was raining again, I walked in the rain
and I thought: I'll go back to the village, the train leaves in about an hour,
I'll go back and write, every minute's a waste. But a cold wind was blowing and I went into a small restaurant, ate something, and then didn't find
a bus and I got into a cab and when I wanted to say: Take me to the railroad station, I saw a glowing sign in the distance: Jesus is the Messiah! I
said to the driver: The Blue Lizards Club, and I dozed off.

I went down a few dark steps and entered a roofed internal yard. A short
man in a suit smelling of garlic mixed with kerosene asked me for the price
of admission.

Ebenezer now got up from the chair, went to the window and looked
outside. His body was trembling. In the window the moon started setting.
A pale glow rose from the street lamps along the old enclosure of the port.
The writer took a sip of vodka, munched a few peanuts, wiped his mouth
with a paper napkin stuck in a charmingly beautiful wooden triangle, and
continued.

The dank hall was quite big and humming with people. I sat in the last
row as if I had learned their theory of safety from the Jews. Always be
close to an escape route. Two shabby musicians sat on the little stage and
played. They played Hasidic tunes and their eyes were shut, and I wasn't
sure they knew where they were, I thought at the time about what the
English had said about Wagner, that his music was probably nicer on the
ear when it wasn't heard. The tunes were shrill, not precise, without pain
or laughter. Maybe there was some point to that revolting playing. A waiter
wearing an apron came to me and even though I hadn't ordered anything,
he served me a double shot of aquavit and when I finished drinking the
aquavit two glasses of beer were brought to my table, along with a few
pickles and herring with some small onions and a pinch of cheese in a copper bowl that wasn't especially clean.

Now that fellow I had met in the street climbed onto the stage, in the
same clothes, and shouted Heil! And the people laughed and applauded
flaccidly as if they only put their hands together and their laugh was also definite but blurred. The musicians flowed to the back of the stage and fell
asleep sitting up and I felt some fraternity in the hall, as if everybody knew
each other from time immemorial and I was the only stranger there. My
being German filled me with dread. I looked behind, the doorway was
close by. The man at the entrance stood there, didn't look at the stage,
but at the ceiling, I looked at the ceiling and saw silvery cigarette packs
pasted to it. I thought about German soldiers who had spent time here and
that only increased my uneasiness, the fellow smiled, I looked back at him
when there was a hush in the hall, he said: I'm Lipker, remember? Danny
from America. Ebenezer and I are glad to return to beautiful Copenhagen.
Some of you suffer from ailurophobia, fear of cats, or androphobia, fear of
men, or optophobia, fear of opening one's eyes, or some suffer from the
typical American disease, archinutirophobia, fear of getting peanut butter
stuck on the palate, or even who suffer from phobophobia, fear of fear, all
those, said Samuel Lipker with a smile, are requested to leave now and
you'll get your money back.

He put his hand on his pocket. As if all the treasures of the globe were
in his pocket, nobody got up, he stopped smiling. If you don't laugh, said
Samuel Lipker, it means that we really have come to Copenhagen. And
that's good. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome in total silence the genius,
the man who possesses the most knowledge in the world, the memory of
all generations, on two feet, millions of words by heart, welcome the Last
Jew!

And then Ebenezer, you climbed onto the stage, you wore the clothes
in which you welcomed us tonight. You were pale, a hush was cast over the
audience, they were waiting for you, and when you appeared, Samuel said:
Birthplace-Palestine. Education-six years of grammar school. Loyal
remnant of the Third Reich, carpenter, you didn't listen, you stood there,
flooded by the spotlight shining on you, you shut your eyes, Samuel whispered a few words and only you heard, you didn't respond, didn't move,
stood as if you were praying, stooped over, you looked like a pauper, you'd
evoke pity and contempt and then Samuel said in a monotone that may
have been a signal to you: Ladies and gentlemen, set your watches three
years back, the time is seven twenty a.m., snow is falling, gray, smoke, two
cows are electrocuted on the fence, January, a train rumbles. And you were
concentrated on one point, stooped over, wretched, like an epileptic, and the audience-that amazed me-set their watches, as if you really could
set watches three years back and a few minutes later, time no longer existed, and I say minutes and maybe it was hours, a voice sounded from the
audience: Einstein's theory of relativity. I waited, it was possible to hear the
dead herring in the onion sauce, and then you recited, you recited quietly,
in a monotone, in Polish, and then in Danish, the theory of relativity. When
you spoke Polish, Samuel translated, and I knew a little Polish, my father
was in charge of propaganda in Poland for a while, and my son, you don't
know, committed suicide after the conversation with my father, a conversation my father demanded and I opposed, he demanded that the grandson know and not wonder and after that you were asked to recite other
things, the audience knew what to ask, what to request, they knew you,
they loved you, maybe they hated you, I don't know, and yet it was so
touching, I drank my two glasses of beer, I ate the herring, and you recited Jewish knowledge, Danish was also Jewish knowledge as far as you
were concerned, you recited in great detail the annals and strange deaths
of Christian saints and the annals of their authentication, you quoted with
maximum precision (I checked it later) the love affairs of the popes up to
the fourteenth century. Then you recited the annals of the Jews of Spain
and the system of counting used at the time of the Talmud, and I listened
in despair, I enjoyed and was absurd in my own eyes, excited. You entertained, it was awful, you stood at your own end and you laughed, because
you knew things that shouldn't be known, that nobody can or should know
by heart. You were an acrobat of words, annals, history, and the audience
loved you, loved the disgust and the entertainment, they were tired, it was
after the war, hunger reigned, you amused them, they drank their beer, ate
the herring and the shreds of cheese, and listened.