East of Time (30 page)

The architects of our inverted state had a tremendous aptitude for social geography: most of the ghettos they established were sheltered from military activities, safe and secure amid a wider populace not averse to lending a hand in the achievement of their masters' final solution.

My daring street friend Leon Ronski walked about the world with a snub nose, a straw-white mane, and eyes like an unblemished summer sky. One morning he noticed his father — the pious and respected Szachna Ronski, a giant of a man — sitting in a corner and sobbing like a child. ‘He hasn't eaten for three days,' Leon's mother told him. ‘He just can't bear it any more. I begged him to take
my
slice of bread, but he'd rather die than do that.'

As soon as dusk fell Leon rushed to the edge of the ghetto, sneaked out through the barbed wire and boarded the last tram to the outskirts of a nearby village, where the granaries were bursting at the seams and virtually every home baked its own bread. He waited until the people were sleeping soundly, took off his shoes, and was about to put his plan into motion when the faithful village dogs picked up the scent of an intruder. Within minutes the whole place was on its feet. Men, women and children ran out into the night, all in their underwear, armed with torches and pitchforks, screaming ‘
Å»
yd
,
ż
yd
,
ż
yd!
' Leon was caught soon enough, sitting in the branches of a tree he had managed to climb into. Naturally, the honour of dealing with the trespasser was given (principally) to the one who had spotted him first. Fair is fair.

Two days later, battered and bloodied all over, Leon was marched back at gunpoint to the edge of the ghetto. The guards released him and ordered him to run. Then, as he was about to scale the fence, one of them sent a bullet through his head. The Jewish police were told to notify his parents that he had been shot trying to escape from custody.

Just before the news was brought to him, Reb Szachna happened to be studying the Bible, and had reached the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis. He closed his eyes, reciting verses 20 and 21 from memory:

And Jacob made a vow, saying: ‘If God remains with me, and protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I return safe to my father's house, then the Lord shall be my God.'

Something caused Szachna to open his eyes, and his gaze fell on the open
Tanach
. He uttered a cry. The two verses that he knew so well were missing, and in their place there gaped an absence as blank as despair.

 

 
Rabbi Chaskele
 

I learnt about Rabbi Chaskele and his fate from the rabbi's nephew, Kalman, a Talmudist in his own right. While we were queuing for bread early one winter's morning, the young man, rubbing his frozen hands together and stamping his cold feet, sang an infectious old Yiddish folksong under his breath:

Yidl with his fiddle,

Arieh with his bass,

Life is but a little song,

Why then make a fuss?

I chuckled; we exchanged some words, and soon found ourselves chatting like old friends. Before long Kalman was telling me his story — which I quickly realized was merely a brief shortcut to that of his uncle. ‘I came here from a nearby shtetl,' he said, ‘where, in a cluster of white houses huddling like forlorn sheep on a piece of land that was once green pasture, lived a few thousand Jews. Their elder, their doyen, was my frail widowed uncle Chaskel the kabbalist, known as “Chaskele” because he was so incredibly tiny. In our time of
harsh and bitter realities, Chaskel could withdraw into his own dream world. He had many sayings. “Kalman,” he would tell me, “creation does not exist for its own sake, but for the sake of the shining force of the Creator.” You see, one has to be good to give new meaning to old truths, and my uncle, whom I loved like a father, really was good.'

My new friend paused, drew a deep breath. ‘A day before Purim, two men in black uniforms came to see my uncle. They demanded ten Jews for a
Spiel
, a ‘show', to be staged in the marketplace at dawn the next day. Uncle told them that he would be there; the other nine they would have to find for themselves. By way of deposit they gave him a beating, and left. I knew what to expect. All night long I begged him to run for his life but he wouldn't hear of it. Only frauds, phony leaders, ran away from their communities in times of peril, he said. I argued that there was no logic in his staying. Maybe, he agreed, but too much logic was sometimes tantamount to absurdity! Desperate, infuriated, I cried: “For God's sake, uncle, what are you trying to achieve?” My uncle nodded. “Yes, Kalman,” he answered, “precisely for God's sake have I endeavoured, all my life, to instruct men in righteous deeds, not in those that are merely speculative or convenient.” I knew he was right, but how could I let it go at that? “What you say is true,” I told him, “but it has little to do with the grim reality staring you in the face today.” For a good while my uncle, the sharp kabbalist, said nothing. I thought he was about to succumb. Instead, this frail man who fasted every Monday and Thursday pushed his face close to mine and whispered into my ear: “Kalman, my son, the song of light in its dialogue with darkness does not need to authenticate itself in accordance with existing realities.”

‘An eerie dimness hovered over the marketplace on that godforsaken dawn. The whole community, having been ordered to assemble around the gallows, watched anxiously as Rabbi
Chaskele emerged from his house. Behind him walked nine elderly Jews, who had spent the night in prayer. They walked firm and upright, their heads held high. “Look, it's a miracle, a miracle,” someone murmured. “Our Rabbi Chaskele is growing taller every moment! Look, can you see? Soon he'll reach the heavens!”

‘As a soldier placed the noose around my uncle's neck, Chaskele whispered, almost plaintively: “Perhaps you will permit me one last wish. I would like to touch the officer in charge.” The soldier laughed. “Why would you want to do that?” he sneered. “I don't mean any harm, sir,” Chaskele replied. “I just want to ascertain if this man, too, has been created in God's image.”'

 

 
Elegy for a Little House
 

It stood alone, at 12 Limanowskiego Street, a modest two-storey timber dwelling with four bashful windows, on its pitch-black roof a happy chimney wearing a smoky wig. It looked small beside the neighbouring four-storey block where I lived. Yet it housed four families, each behind a friendly open door. Upstairs was a glazier with his diminutive wife and five children; next to them, a widowed cobbler with a daughter and a son, the boy unable to speak because he was born with a split on his upper lip. The ground floor was occupied by Noah the baker, whose wife had borne him three daughters and three sons, all master bakers; and across the unlit passage lived Itche-Meier the stationer, who spent every free moment studying the Bible with his black cat Fraidl sitting in his lap, and had a son called David, a violinist.

I loved these people — the glazier with his family; the widowed cobbler visited at dusk by a string of nocturnal ladies;
fat Noah, a small mountain of flesh wobbling about on two tiny sticks, his wife who despised daylight, the three boys I played poker with, the three plump daughters who spent most of their time in my fantasies; and the stationer Itche-Meier, from whom I kept stealing ping-pong balls. Above all I adored David, and passed many pleasant after-school hours on his back step, where my ears became attuned to the autumnal sadness of his strings.

I remember the day a rowdy mob attacked the quiet defenceless panes of the little house with a hail of stones, and then with bricks. It stood its ground, and all through the bombardment, to my astonishment, David resolutely continued playing his violin.

So summer turned to autumn, and autumn was overtaken by winter — a winter which afflicted men's tongues with a new language of perfidy and violence. Amid the darkness, even the best of us found it hard to find a consoling word, yet there were those who still argued that the war was about to end. It seemed to me that ‘my' little house, which I cherished, understood better. It is not good to talk oneself into impossible fictions, so the house, like a frightened snail, receded into itself.

There was no tramstop in front of the little house, yet the afternoon came when a green Number 8 tram nevertheless halted there. Three young Germans, their guns trained, swiftly alighted. After roughing up the inhabitants of the house, they took them all away. It was to be a journey of no return.

That night I was awoken by footsteps, the squeaking and banging of doors opening and closing, and the suppressed voices of a throng of haggard men who had left their sick wives and children around unheated stoves in freezing homes. Stealthily they walked the snow-white paths, and with crowbars and axes they assailed the little house for what timber they could plunder, until nothing remained.

I would often visit this scene of devastation in my dreams, hoping for a sign of life; but to no avail. One night in spring I unexpectedly came upon a tiny green leaf of grief, wet with dew. ‘It's true,' it said, ‘there's nothing left of what once was. But listen — each night they all come back, their souls in white shrouds. I cannot see their faces, but I can hear their voices and their ghostlike steps, as soft as Fraidl's paws on the prowl. They never tarry; perhaps they still fear for their life even in death, who can tell? Last time they came I begged David to play, to play once again the story of his little house. He apologized. Ashmodai had tossed his violin into the fire. But he said the melody had escaped the flames. Next time, he promised, he would teach me the song.'

 

 
Holy Lies