Jakob the Liar (16 page)

In a word, a piece of musical history is being written, Jacob has brought off a triumph, and Lina can’t bear to stay where she is any longer. Without a sound she gets up, all sacred words of honor forgotten, and her legs move irresistibly toward the partition. She must see this thing that sounds so much like Jacob and yet so different, that can speak with various voices, sneeze like he does, and make such strange noises. Just one look, even at the cost of the discovery of a breach of confidence; there’s no resisting her legs, which have a will of their own. Actually such great caution isn’t necessary; the racket made by that thing drowns out all else. Nevertheless she moves stealthily, as far as the narrow passage, just as the trombone is finishing a masterly solo and making way for the trumpet. Lina cautiously pokes her head around the corner, invisible to Jacob. He is not only sitting sideways, he is also keeping his eyes firmly closed, a sign of extreme physical and mental concentration, the world forgotten as he rends the air according to rules known only to himself. No, Jacob isn’t aware that for a few seconds he is sitting there totally exposed. Later, Lina’s cryptic allusions will rouse his suspicions, and only much later will she tell him to his face what actually happened down there in that basement. For the time being, a brief glance and a few seconds’ surprise are enough for her; she set out for India and has discovered America. The purpose of this expedition was to find out what the thing looked like, and now she knows: it looks exactly like Jacob. There remains only one question: one day she will ask him whether he has another radio besides this one. Presumably not; where could he keep it hidden if not here? Lina knows something that no one else knows. Quietly she returns to her place; her pleasure in listening has not been diminished, only mixed with a few thoughts that are of no concern to anyone but her.

Then the march comes to an end, but not the performance. When Jacob emerges, exhausted and relieved and with a parched mouth, Lina clamors for an encore: all good things come in threes, now especially. This proves to him that she had not become suspicious, and such was her intention. If this march went well, he thinks, nothing can go wrong now.

“But this will be the very last,” says Jacob.

He goes back to his post, the next broadcast already in mind, and flicks. Lina is in luck, Jacob soon finds the station where fairy tales are being told by a kindly uncle who says: “For all the children listening to us, your fairy-tale uncle will tell you the story of the sick princess.”

He has a voice similar to Winston Churchill’s, just as deep, only a little softer and, of course, without a foreign accent.

“Do you know that one?” Jacob asks as Jacob.

“No. But how can there be a fairy-tale uncle on the radio?”

“What do you mean, how? There is, that’s all.”

“But you said radio was forbidden for children. And fairy tales are only for children, aren’t they?”

“True. But what I meant was that it’s forbidden here in the ghetto. Where there’s no ghetto, children are allowed to listen. And there are radios everywhere. Right?”

“Right.”

The fairy-tale uncle, a bit put out by the interruption but fair enough to look for the reasons in himself, takes off his jacket and puts it under him, since the bucket is hard and sharp edged and the fairy tale one of the longer ones — provided, that is, he can remember how it all goes. My God, how long ago that was, he has to think, now of all times. Fairy tales were not his father’s responsibility but his mother’s. You used to lie in bed and wait and wait for her to be finished with her housework and come to you, and you almost always fell asleep while you were waiting. But sometimes she did sit down beside you, slip her warm hand under the cover onto your chest, and tell you stories. About Jaromir the robber with the three eyes, who always had to sleep on the cold ground because there was no bed long enough for him; about Raschka the cat that wouldn’t catch mice but only birds until one day it saw a bat; about Lake Schapun into which Dvoyre the witch made all the children cry so many tears that it rose and rose and overflowed its banks and Dvoyre drowned miserably in it; and sometimes about the sick princess.

“When’s it going to start?” Lina asks.

“The tale of the sick princess,” the fairy-tale uncle begins.

About the good old king who had a vast country and a gloriously beautiful palace and a daughter as well, the old story, and how he got a terrible scare. Because, you see, he loved her more than anything in the world, his princess. He loved her so much that, whenever she fell and tears came into her eyes, he had to cry himself. And the scare came when one morning she didn’t want to get out of bed and looked really sick. Then the most expensive doctor in all the land was summoned to make her well quickly and happy again. But the doctor tapped and listened to her from head to toe and then said in great perplexity: “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. King, I can’t find anything. Your daughter must be suffering from a disease I have never come across during my entire lifetime.”

Now the good old king was even more scared, so he went to see the princess himself and asked her what on earth was the matter. And she told him she wanted a cloud: once she had that, she would be well again immediately. “But a real one!” she said. What a shock that was, for, as anyone can imagine, it is far from easy to get hold of a real cloud, even for a king. All day long he was so worried that he couldn’t rule, and that evening he had letters sent out to all the clever men in his kingdom ordering them to drop everything and come forthwith to the royal palace.

Next morning they were all assembled, the doctors and the ministers, the stargazers and the weathermen, and the king stood up on his throne so that everyone in the hall could hear him properly and shouted: “Si—lence!” Instantly you could have heard a pin drop, and the king announced: “To the one among you wise men who brings my daughter a cloud from the sky I will give as much gold and silver as can be heaped onto the biggest wagon in all the land!” When the clever men heard that, they started then and there to study, to ponder, to scheme and to calculate. For they all wanted that heap of gold and silver, who wouldn’t? One especially smart fellow even began building a tower that was to reach up to the clouds, the idea being that, when the tower was finished, he would climb up, grab a cloud, and then cash in the reward. But before the tower was even halfway up, it fell down. And none of the others had any luck either; not one of the wise men could get the princess the cloud she so badly wanted. She grew thinner and sicker, thinner and thinner, since from sheer misery she never touched a morsel, not even matzo with butter.

One fine day the garden boy, who the princess sometimes used to play with outdoors before she got sick, looked into the palace to see whether any of the vases needed flowers. So it came about that he saw her lying in her bed, under a silken coverlet, pale as snow. All through the last few days he had been puzzling over why she never came out into the garden anymore. And that is why he asked her, “What is the matter, little princess? Why don’t you come out into the sunshine anymore?” And so she told him, too, that she was sick and wouldn’t get well again until someone brought her a cloud. The garden boy thought for a bit, then exclaimed, “But that’s quite easy, little princess!” “Is it?” the princess asked in surprise. “Is it quite easy? All the wise men in the land have been racking their brains in vain, and you claim that it’s quite easy?” “Yes,” the garden boy said, “you just have to tell me what a cloud is made of.” That would have almost made the princess laugh if she hadn’t been so weak. She replied, “What silly questions you ask! Everybody knows that clouds are made of cotton!” “I see, and will you also tell me how big a cloud is?” “You don’t even know
that?”
she said in surprise. “A cloud is as big as my pillow. You can see that for yourself if you’ll just pull the curtain aside and look up at the sky.” Whereupon the garden boy went to the window, looked up at the sky, and exclaimed, “You’re right! Just as big as your pillow!” Then he went off and soon returned, bringing the princess a piece of cotton as big as her pillow.

I needn’t bother with the rest. Everyone can easily imagine how the princess’s eyes lit up and her lips turned red and she got well again, how the good old king rejoiced, how the garden boy didn’t want the promised reward but preferred to marry the princess, and they lived happily ever after. That’s Jacob’s story.

I
t is probably the same evening, or possibly one before or one after; lovely, gentle Rosa is lying beside Mischa listening to the battle of the Rudna. Mischa is telling her in a soft voice, but he is not whispering; there is a big difference between talking softly and whispering, and you may well ask, Why isn’t he whispering? And you may ask, Why is the cupboard no longer in the middle of the room but standing quite normally against the wall, and Why is the curtain covering the window again instead of dividing the room into two halves? What has happened to the screen? you may wonder, and above all, Why is Rosa suddenly lying there naked although the light is still on, why is she no longer embarrassed? Then please be good enough to glance at the other bed, you will find it empty, and all those questions will boil down to one: Where is the deaf and dumb Isaak Fayngold of the sharp ears?

I don’t know the answer any better than Mischa does, let alone Rosa. A week ago Fayngold left early in the morning to go to work, as he did every day, and has not been heard of since. The first evening it didn’t seem too serious; Mischa thought he might have gone to visit a friend, that they got to talking and Fayngold suddenly noticed that it was past eight o’clock and too late to go home, so he had just lain down on the floor and spent the night there. “What do you mean, got to talking?” Rosa asked suspiciously. “He’s deaf and dumb, isn’t he?” “What makes you think deaf and dumb people can’t talk to each other?” Mischa answered quick as a flash. “Do you think they’re condemned to keep everything that’s going around in their heads to themselves? They can communicate every bit as well as you and I, only in sign language, that’s all.”

But the second evening Fayngold didn’t come home either, or the third, so on the fourth day Mischa went to see the only person with whom, as far as he knew, Fayngold was friendly, Hersch Praschker, who worked with Fayngold in the cleanup detail, clearing the streets of garbage and of the bodies of those who had died of starvation. But Praschker had no idea either. “I meant to go and look in at his place tomorrow,” he said, “and find out why he wasn’t turning up for work. They’re sure to come for him; they’ve already got his name down.” “When was the last time he came to work?” “Tuesday.” “And Wednesday morning he left home as usual.”

He never arrived, never returned home; perhaps he escaped or died or was in an accident or was arrested off the street. Death or accident seems unlikely since he was never found; inquiries established this. A planned escape seems unlikely; none of his things are missing from the cupboard, not even the photograph of his grandson; he would never have left that behind, he guarded it like a treasure. So all that really remains is an arrest off the street. Why, is a mystery, for Fayngold has always been a reliable and law-abiding person, but we all know the saying, where there’s a will there’s a way. And all this makes it clear why Mischa is telling the story of the battle of the Rudna in a soft voice and not whispering.

Rosa is lying beside him for the second night in a row, something that has never happened before. Old Mr. Frankfurter, who, as a man of the theater, is not known to be partial to ultrastrict morals, has uttered a word of warning: “Very well, children, you love each other, that’s understandable. But don’t go overboard right away.” Because of that and because of Rosa’s reserve, the number of nights they spend together remains within modest limits. Mischa has had to persuade her each time almost as if it were the first, with one or two exceptions. And now the very next night again. Rosa imagines it must be something like this when one is married, but, frankly, she doesn’t feel all that comfortable about it. This has nothing to do with Mischa, as if he were suddenly different from before, less inhibited, perhaps, or more demanding; Mischa’s stock has not dropped by a single point, for she regards him with no less love than on the first day. Or let’s say, the fifth. The reason for this, unaccountable though it may sound to some, is Isaak Fayngold; in some strange way she has become accustomed to him. But how can one become accustomed to a person who is only a distraction, deaf and dumb though he may be? In such a situation, in which privacy is taken for granted, how can one? One can, and one can’t; we will try to get to the bottom of this.

In the first place, it was in this room that Rosa first made love, in Fayngold’s presence; he was there from the very first instant, and keeping him in ignorance was a constant ingredient of all their caresses. In the second place, Fayngold’s bed is not just an empty bed: no, Fayngold isn’t lying in it, which makes a considerable difference. Each time she looks behind the screen, now superfluous and hence removed, she is reminded of his grim fate —- uncertain, true, but the longer she broods over it, only uncertain as to the manner of death. And in the third and final place, when Mischa told her that Fayngold had disappeared, her face showed dismay, as expected, but after a while not nearly as much dismay, and she caught herself thinking: At last. That wasn’t directed at Fayngold, she wished him only the best; it simply had to do with herself and Mischa and implied: alone at last, at last undisturbed, at last a little nook for the two of us. That’s what she caught herself thinking, and it bothered her quite a bit; she was ashamed of such thoughts, yet kept on thinking: At last. Then she thought too, Just as well Mischa doesn’t know what selfish notions are being hatched in my head. And she also thought, Regardless of what happened to Fayngold, it’s over and done with now, and the thoughts we keep to ourselves can’t have any effect on people’s lives.

But they did have an effect; it wasn’t that simple. For several days she gave Mischa reasons why she couldn’t go with him to his room, and he went off disappointed. Until yesterday, when she couldn’t or wouldn’t find any more reasons. “And why aren’t you coming today?” he asked her. “But I am!” and then he said it: “At last!” They went to his room. Mischa had already rearranged it, now that Fayngold’s absence could be regarded as permanent. The cupboard stood, as noted before, against the wall, the curtain hung in front of the window. Rosa stopped short in the middle of the room and first had to get used to it, having never seen it like this. Of course she noticed Fayngold’s neatly made bed, sensing right away that there would be a problem about that. “What’s that box there?” she asked.

“His things. In case someone comes for them,” Mischa replied. And that immediately set the mood.

At some point they lay down, but for a long time without speaking or moving and without joy. In the same way that everything else was different that evening, the light was still on. Mischa lay on his side and she on her back because the bed was too narrow for both to lie on their backs. With a glance at Fayngold’s smooth bed he asked: “What do you think, couldn’t we —?”

“Oh no, please!” she broke in nervously.

“All right then.”

He turned out the light, slid his arm under her head — that’s how it usually began — and tried to kiss her, but she turned aside. Until he asked: “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

He pondered for a while what
nothing
might mean, then said: “But you didn’t really know him at all, and even if you did, what can we do about it?”

Again he tried to kiss her, and this time she let him, but only just. He soon noticed that there was nothing doing, so he closed his eyes, tomorrow is another day, and fell asleep. That was the only thing that was as usual: he is always the first to fall asleep.

In the middle of the night she woke him up; he wasn’t annoyed, he hoped she had finally changed her mind, and one is glad to be woken up for that.

“I have to tell you something, Mischa,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

Completely misinterpreting the ensuing silence, he drew her to him, and as he brushed his lips over her face he noticed that it was wet and salty, from the eyes down. That shook him to the core because he was used to her seldom laughing and never crying; not even when her only friend had to board that train six months ago was she able to cry, although for days she didn’t utter a word. And now suddenly her face was wet, it was enough to shake anyone, but she hadn’t sobbed or moaned, it must have happened quite silently; he wouldn’t even have woken up if she hadn’t woken him. And besides, it seemed to be more or less over, to judge by her voice.

“I have a request, I’m sure you’ll find it strange.”

“Tell me.”

“I’d like the room put back the way it was before.”

“What do you mean — the way it was before?”

“I’d like the cupboard back in the middle. And the curtain.”

“But why? Fayngold isn’t there anymore.”

“I’d like it that way,” she said.

He really did find it strange — first strange, then childish, then silly, then plain ridiculous. Then he remembered having heard or read something about the unfathomable moods of women and that it is advisable to nip them in the bud. The whole change that she wanted would have taken him no more than ten minutes, but he said: “Only if you can give me a sensible reason.”

“I’d like it that way,” she said.

And that wasn’t a sensible reason, not by any standards, and he steadfastly refused. He told her that, although it was to her credit to take Fayngold’s disappearance so much to heart in spite of hardly knowing him, only his breathing and snoring, in the ghetto many people one knew just as little disappear every day, after all, and if one were to make such a fuss about every single one of those, it would be unbearable. And she accused him of being an uncouth, insensitive clot. Their first quarrel was under way and, if it hadn’t been for the eight-o’clock curfew, she would undoubtedly have got up, dressed, and said good-bye. But as it was she merely turned her back to him to make him realize how much she despised him.

The next day — today, that is — he went to meet her right outside the factory because at her home, in the presence of her parents, a reconciliation would have been much more difficult. It was difficult enough anyway, not for any lack of goodwill but because they had no experience in ending quarrels. Finally they both admitted that they hadn’t behaved all that well, a kiss in a doorway, and each could breathe more freely again. They dropped by her home to let them know where she would be spending the night. Mr. Frankfurter did not seem enthusiastic; he could not know that last night had been practically a washout. Mischa heard Mrs. Frankfurter murmuring to her husband, “Let them be.”

So on to his room. Both did all in their power to be nice to each other, showing their best sides after the quarrel, but one could sense that a little more time would have to pass before everything was back to normal.

Mischa told her about the battle of the Rudna, or rather, since we have returned to the present, Mischa tells her about the battle of the Rudna in a low voice, and finally finishes it, as heard today from Jacob, the latest news, so to speak, from the ether. Rosa melts with bliss, she knows where the Rudna flows and how much progress since Bezanika this battle represents, and she’s half-inclined to start making new plans. But Mischa isn’t interested in plans, not at the moment, they won’t run away as this second night might, and he turns out the light to devote himself to Rosa. There is to be no more talk of victories; last night was practically a washout. The Rudna and Fayngold and words spoken in anger are forgotten; the two come closer together in the old familiar way, insofar as individual volition is in control. But it does not hold unlimited sway; they catch themselves making comparisons: That’s how it is now, really no different from before. For a while they lie side by side looking at each other. And perhaps they are even conscious of there being no third person’s breathing from the other half of the room to disturb them. Let’s come right out with it: the attempt to make up for a lost night turns out rather woefully, even though they would never admit it, even though they pretend to be as content as young lovers.

We will leave them now, with some regret but in the hope that more carefree times will return; we are at liberty to hope this. Let us stop a moment to listen to Mischa, riding the wave of restored harmony, asking with a smile something he would have done better not to ask: “Do you still want me to divide the room again with the cupboard and the curtain?” He says this with a smile, not doubting for a moment that Rosa sees things differently now, that in reply she’ll say something about silly moods, that she didn’t know what got into her yesterday, and that the whole tiresome incident would best be forgotten.

And, just before we leave, let us hear Rosa say, “Yes, please.”